#written by the man himself... bbc sherlock

[spacebugarts]

There are so many things wrong with this ridiculous blazed post I just saw but the bbc sherlock tag gave me whiplash

[fluffbyday-smutbynight]

~ FluffSmut's Masterlist: BBC Sherlock Fics ~

What If I'm Not? (WIP - collab with @helloliriels - rated: T) - Epistolary, Post-Canon Fix-It

'What if I'm down? What if I'm out? What if I'm someone you don't want around? I'm falling again ...'

John's letter to Sherlock after Mary's death. Maybe in confessing why he's not o.k. ... he is really pushing Sherlock out of his life for good. How could such a disclosure not?

Distractions (1k - rated: M) - Uni!Lock, p0rn with (some) feelings

“Beware of distractions.” Ironic, that Sherlock would recall Mycroft’s admonishment right now, as he finds himself completely - and more than willingly - distracted.

Love at First Bite  (2.8k - rated: M) - Vampire!Lock, Crack Fic - written for the "2022: Year of the Crack Fic" collection

"It'll be fun," Mike had said. Recently discharged John Watson has an... interesting night out.

Shared Proximity (2.3k - rated: T) - Virgin!Lock

“As ever, you see but you do not observe. Our respective lives are so enmeshed together, that such labels - like flatmates or colleagues or, yes, even friends - evidently fall short.”

The Perfect Blend (4.9k - rated: T) - 5+1, Memories

It's said that smell and taste are the most powerful senses, when it comes to triggering vivid memories. Five (plus one) spices; five (plus one) memories; five people Sherlock holds close to his heart... plus one - the one: the perfect blend.

The Conundrum Of The Tactless Detective  (1.8k - rated: T) - Humor

He should have known better, by then. It wasn’t like bloody Sherlock Holmes couldn’t read a room, and he definitely understood tact on a rational level. He just didn’t care about the eventual consequences, the git.

Wrong. Number! (2.8k - rated: E) - Alternate First Meeting, Phone Sex

“How? How did you get it?”

“Deduction, Captain Watson. I have a remarkable brain; the only downside being that it requires constant… stimulation.”

Is the stranger… flirting with him? Christ, the man hasn’t even offered him his name, but John is buzzed enough to entertain the thought.

Three Sad Thoughts, Danced (2.8k - rated: T) - Slow Dancing, UST

John is learning waltz, but Sherlock has something different on his mind... Slow dancing is a slippery slope.

****

Jump back to FluffSmut's Masterlist

[im-on-speeeeeed]

Raaaaghhh bbc Sherlock rant because I desperately need to see more people hating on it

BBC Sherlock is written terribly i can write an essay on it. All the characters were nerfed so bad. The took an expressive emotional considerate man and turned him into a cold emotionless asshole. Which would be fine as just another adaptation, but people are using the BBC version of Sherlock as the base point for what he’s like which isn’t good. In the books when Holmes made a deduction about Watsons alcoholic brother and Watson was like “hey man maybe don’t dig up my family issues like that” and Holmes was IMMEDIATELY SO APOLOGETIC. Meanwhile in the BBC show it just glossed over the obvious emotional weak point for Watson and Sherlock didn’t even apologize. The BBC show is also just poorly written. It gives Holmes information that isn’t available to the audience, and makes it impossible for viewers to solve the mysteries. Which is literally half the fun of mysteries in the first place. It’s like Moffat is more focused on making himself look clever and outsmarting the viewer than actually writing a good fucking plot and mystery. Another character who was nerfed so badly (but let’s face it, they all were) is Watson. For most of the show it treats him as practically Sherlocks pet dog, inconsequential to the story. While in other adaptations, and the original books, he’s an instrumental part of the story and investigations. He’s more than just Sherlocks tag along, he’s Sherlock’s partner. Fucking treat him like it. The female characters are also incredibly poorly written. It reduced Irene Adler’s character to just “the baddie who’s in love with Sherlock.” Which again would be fine if it were just treated as just another Sherlock Holmes adaptation, but people use the show as a base point of Sherlock and Irene’s relationship as well. Which, in the books, it makes it very clear that Holmes is NOT in love with Irene, and Irene is NOT in love with Holmes. The only female character in the show who is actually a person and not a cardboard cutout is Mrs. Hudson. And don’t even get me started on the scientist (doctor?) lady who is so fucking boring and unimportant I can’t even remember her name. Her only purpose for 90% of the show is just being the silly girl who’s in love with Sherlock. The shows writing is so stupid and so ridiculous. Which would be fine, if the show weren’t also trying to be serious. Having this terrible of writing would be alright is it were supposed to be satirical, but it’s not. Moffat wants me to take his shit show seriously, and I can’t. If you’re going to have this stupid of writing, at least be aware that the writing is shitty so it’s somewhat redeemable. A Holmes adaptation that actually does a good job of this is House MD. It’s ridiculous and it knows it’s ridiculous and it’s not trying to be something it isn’t. The BBC show IS trying to be something it isn’t. It’s trying to be this serious and intriguing mystery when in reality it’s just a bunch of shitty writing and even shittier mischaracterization mushed together and thrown onto TV screens. The only parts of the show that I liked was the camera shots and the acting. The show has its pros and I can and will acknowledge them, but the cons outweigh them tenfold.

[inevitably-johnlocked]

I just came accross your replies to my book Irene rant. Yes as we both agree book Irene was great. As an individual character. I don't see ship there and in BBC? There's no ship but cruelty. Irene is cruel and BBC Sherlock was visibly uncomfortable with her thoughts and messages. And Sherlock being human, in TBB did people notice how he comforted Sarah? He's always human. Irene Adler in BBC just used it. Worst depiction of empowering woman. As a woman it's a disgrace.

(referencing this post)

Hey Nonny!

Yeah, Sherlock most definitely was not enjoying himself in ASiB, and I'm always boggled when people think it was "hot". I dunno, it's not my jam, honestly.

I think in her own way, BBC Irene was a good character, but they just... kind of "fetishized" her, for a lack of a better word (it's not what I mean, but it's more like Mofftiss have this weird "hurting Sherlock" kink and it's just kind of off??). All the women in the show inevitably get washed away somehow, or written out of character to how they were initially written (and this is only including "main" recurring characters):

Molly => Reduced back to S1E1 Molly, simpering over Sherlock after they established her to be a character who grew out of her crush on Sherlock

Donovan => In trying to make her a "strong character" they instead reduced her to stereotypes and then inevitably she just... was never seen again.

Anthea => Just disappeared, no mention of her character, if she was even still Myc's assistant

Sarah => Literally disappeared from the show, never to see her again

Mrs Hudson => WTF was her characterization in S4?? The car thing was so bloody weird, like out of nowhere

Irene => Reduced to a sex joke

Mary => Was going to be a badass villain and instead had the shittiest "redemption arc" that all the characters essentially idolized her for some godawful reason

Hopkins => I put her on here because she was LITERALLY HEAVILY PROMOTED as a new main character in S4 before it aired... and then she was only a one-note side joke with three lines of dialogue in one episode. Never showed up again after T6T.

Euros => Don't.... even get me started on her. Was some weird X-Man supervillain, who's entire arc was... needing a hug from Sherlock.

And I was also gonna add Baby Watson here too, but she's more an issue of "introducing a baby into a show and have it disappear when it's inconvenient" kind of trope.

Bleh, and I know this is ALL nitpicking and all my opinion, so it's fine if y'all disagree. I love this show a lot, and it's frustrating that it has HUGE gaping flaws in it, LOL. Anyway.

I think all the characters on the show ARE great characters, they just suffer from Moffat's inevitable decline in writing the longer something goes on when he's in charge, LOL.

[autismmydearwatson]

Reasons why I should write BBC Sherlock:

No Benedict Cumberbatch. Never again

Moriarty pov episode

We should have had Sherlock reveal himself as an addict just by stopping in the middle of an explanation to snort a line of coke. It's ten times funnier and can you imagine the look on Watsons face

I would have treated Irene better. Let her be a proper lesbian, don't let her thirst over Holmes of all people

This is not to say lesbians can't like men, just. Not Holmes. Not in a million years. Also SHE dupes HIM, not the other way around. Reread the books, Moffat 🙄

Also button your shirt properly you dumb slut

Moriarty does come back but like properly this time

Not replacing Scott as Moriarty. He served tbh

Mary is written as a human person

Watson does not cheat on her. He would not fucking do that

Don't know if I can fix Abominable Bride tbh. Flawless episode in my humble opinion

Instead of jumpscaring Watsons date, Sherlock reveals he's alive just by showing up at the apartment at midnight like in the book

The missing Holmes sibling is a proper plot point and not a last minute twist

Hear me out,

The missing Holmes sister is Moriartys right hand man Sebastian Moran

But the Holmes Brothers never suspect

Because Moran is transmasc and they only remember having a sister.

[meetinginsamarra]

My fave Sherlock BBC AUs - Artists

Around mid-month I’ll do a fic rec list with my fave AU genres or tropes. Summaries are taken from OP on AO3.

ACTORS

“Performance in a Leading Role” (-series, +7 sequels) by Mad_Lori @madlori

Sherlock Holmes is an Oscar winner in the midst of a career slump. John Watson is an Everyman actor trapped in the rom-com ghetto. When they are cast as a gay couple in a new independent drama, will they surprise each other? Will their on-screen romance make its way into the real world?

“Lifetime Achievement” (part 9 of Performance-sereis) by Mad_Lori

John Watson has just won an Oscar and gotten engaged in the same day. Now what? (Sequel to "Performance in a Leading Role")

“To the Sticking Place” by blueink3 @blueink3

Renowned Shakespearean actor Sherlock Holmes has finally burned all of his bridges in the theatre industry save for his constant director, Greg Lestrade. John Watson has made a name for himself in the musical theatre circuit, but age and injury are working against him. Can they reinvent themselves for an all-male Macbeth without killing one another?

“Much Ado about a Whole Bloody Lot” (sequel to Sticking Place) by blueink3

"What do you mean John has to kiss her?"  "Sherlock, that's generally what happens when one is starring in a romantic comedy." Or, Sherlock goes to see John in his first role post-Macbeth and he's really not all that happy about it.

“Floating through a dark blue sky” by Lediona

Of course, I’d seen his films and always thought he was, well, brilliant -- but, you know, a million miles from the world I live in. Or, when John is the owner of a travel book shop and the famous Sherlock Holmes stops in one day.

“Fading Stars and Black Holes” by lurikko

Sherlock Holmes, known from movies A Scandal in Belgravia and Don’t Make Me Choose, comes back to acting after two years. He’s starring in a romantic comedy about two men who move in together for practical reasons and stumble into a surprising friendship. The only problem is that his co-star is John Watson, a man whom he hasn’t seen since he left their shared flat two years ago, leaving John only a note. During the time they have been apart, John Watson has gotten to himself a wife, a child, and a divorce.

“The Short and Tragic Death of John Watson” by Calais_Reno @calaisreno

Thirteen years ago, Sherlock starred in a television series about an alien boy stranded on Earth. Now Molly has written a reunion episode and he's expected to join his old costars and recreate the role of Alex Tribble, now an adult returning to rescue his old friends from an alien threat. Having had some success since playing a teenage alien, Sherlock is reluctant to reprise the role. And there's another problem no one wants to discuss: John Watson, who played his best friend, is dead.

Warning: Nobody dies. John isn't dead. If you came here for angst and MCD, you won't find it. If you came here to find a cheesy, self-indulgent story with a ridiculous, contrived happy ending that I had way too much fun writing, here you go.

“Take Two” by Raina_at @raina-at

Six years ago, Sherlock Holmes, then a promising young actor, broke John Watson's heart. When the production John is working on needs a new lead actor two weeks before press night, they turn to Sherlock to save the production. Working together after six years won't be a problem. After all, both of them are professionals. And both of them have moved on. Or at least they think they have.

WRITERS

“How Novel-series” (14 fics) by StarlicghtAndFireflies

starting with A Novel Meeting

“Who should I sign it to?” The familiar question rolls off his lips easily, but somehow it feels more meaningful this time. He’s never met a fan quite so dedicated, quite so willing to lug an entire armful of books to get them all signed, quite so handsome even when he blushes. “Er… Sherlock,” the man replies. AU in which John is an author, and Sherlock is a fan who comes to his book signing.

“Poetry and Prose” by Jberry

John is a crime series writer. Sherlock writes serious poetry. Sherlock takes time on his writing blog to give John Watson a hard time about his writing, though he's secretly read all his books and in love with the author. Mistaken identity, new love, a little angst, fluff that progresses into... Well. You'll just have to read it, now won't you?

“Writer’s Block” by lookupkate

John has been writing detective novels for years, shitty, romance filled detective novels. That is until his last. Now he can't write a single chapter. When Greg seats him next to an asshole genius he doesn't have the slightest idea that it is exactly what he needs.

“Fortune Favours” by simplyclockwork @simplyclockwork​

On military leave, John Watson discovers that his sister has signed him up for a blind date book event. The set-up is simple: one person brings a book and ends up on a blind date with whoever chooses their contribution. To say that John is reluctant to attend is an understatement. Luckily, sparks fly between him and a stunning new author when he makes an unorthodox selection from the book choices.

PAINTERS

“Oxidation” by abbykate

as oil paintings dry, the process is not evaporation as there is no water in the paint to disappear; instead, the oils in the paint are oxidised causing them to harden over years in a process that never really stops.

“Bloody Brushes” and by jawbonesandjumpers

Sherlock Holmes is a world-renowned art critic and collector who rarely finishes any of his own work. He is brutal and ends more artists’ careers than starts them, and he abhors the state of the art world today. John Watson is a recluse who was invalided out of the army and paints the horrifying scenes of his nightmares. When Sherlock stumbles across one of his works, he becomes obsessed with his paintings and wants nothing more than to meet the man behind the canvas.

“Pastel Paints” by jawbonesandjumpers

Sherlock finds his muse and John paints an angel.

“Art of the Reasoner” by Tellytubby101

A world in which Sherlock is an artist, not a detective. Though that doesn’t mean he can’t help solve crimes. AU.

[denimbex1986]

'Andrew Scott’s success did not arrive overnight. His has been a slow and steady ascent from supporting player to leading man. But his status is now assured: at 47, the Irishman is among the most talented and prominent actors of his generation, on stage and screen.

Dublin-born and raised, Scott first took drama classes at the suggestion of his mother, an art teacher, to try to overcome a childhood lisp. At 17 he won his first part in a film, Korea (1995), about an Irish boy who finds himself fighting in the Korean War. By 21, he was winning awards for his performance in Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night, for director Karel Reisz, no less, at The Gate. He arrived in London, where he continues to live, at the end of the 1990s, and worked regularly, with smaller parts in bigger TV shows (Band of Brothers, Longitude) and bigger parts in smaller plays (A Girl in a Car With a Man, Dying City). By the mid-2000s he was well established, especially in the theatre. In 2006, on Broadway, he was Julianne Moore’s lover, and Bill Nighy’s son, in David Hare’s Iraq War drama, The Vertical Hour, directed by Sam Mendes. In 2009, he was Ben Whishaw’s betrayed boyfriend in Mike Bartlett’s Cock, at the Royal Court. He won excellent notices for these and other performances, but he was not yet a star. If you knew, you knew. If you didn’t know, you didn’t know. Most of us didn’t know; not yet.

That changed in 2010 when, at the age of 33, he played Jim Moriarty, arch nemesis of Benedict Cumberbatch’s egocentric detective, in the BBC’s smash hit Sherlock. The appearance many remember best is his incendiary debut, in an episode called “The Great Game”. When first we meet him, Moriarty is disguised as a creepy IT geek, a human flinch with an ingratiating smile. It’s an act so convincing that even Sherlock doesn’t catch on. Next time we see him, he’s a dapper psychotic in a Westwood suit, with an uncannily pitched singsong delivery and an air of casual menace that flips, suddenly, into rage so consuming he’s close to tears. Such was the relish with which Scott played the villain — he won a Bafta for it — that he risked the black hat becoming stuck to his head. In Spectre (2015), the fourth of Daniel Craig’s Bond movies, and the second directed by Sam Mendes, Scott played Max Denbigh, or C, a smug Whitehall mandarin who wants to merge MI5 and MI6, sacrilegiously replacing the 00 agents with drones. (If only.)

There were other decent roles in movies and TV series, as well as substantial achievements on stage, and he might have carried on in this way for who knows how long, even for his whole career, as a fêted stage performer who never quite breaks through as a leading man on screen.

But Scott had more to offer than flashy baddies and scene-stealing cameos. His Hamlet, at The Almeida in London, in 2017, was rapturously received. I’ve seen it only on YouTube, but even watching on that degraded format, you can appreciate the fuss. Scott is magnetic: funny, compelling, and so adept with the language that, while you never forget he’s speaking some of the most profound and beautiful verse ever written, it feels as conversational as pub chat.

Another banner year was 2019: a memorable cameo in 1917 (Mendes again) as a laconic English lieutenant; an Emmy nomination for his performance in an episode of Black Mirror; and the matinée idol in Noel Coward’s Present Laughter at London’s Old Vic, for which he won the Olivier for Best Actor, the most prestigious award in British theatre.

The second series of Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s phenomenal Fleabag, also in 2019, proved to a wider public what theatregoers already knew: Scott could play the mainstream romantic lead, and then some. His character was unnamed. The credits read, simply, “The Priest”. But social media and the newspapers interpolated an adjective and Scott became The Hot Priest, Fleabag’s unlucky-in-love interest, a heavy-drinking heartbreaker in a winningly spiffy cassock, and an internet sensation.

Fleabag began as a spiky dramedy about a traumatised young woman. Scott’s storyline saw it develop into a bittersweet rom-com, brimming with compassion for its two clever, funny, horny, lonely, awkward, baggage-carrying heroes, lovers who can’t get together because, for all the snogging in the confessional, one of them is already taken, in this case by God.

It was the best and brightest British comedy of the 2010s, and Scott’s fizzing chemistry with Waller-Bridge had much to do with that. The ending, when she confesses her feelings at a bus stop, is already a classic. “I love you,” she tells him. “It’ll pass,” he says.

Over the past 12 months, in particular, Scott has piled triumph on top of victory, and his star has risen still further. At the National, last year, he executed a coup de théâtre in Vanya, for which he was again nominated for an Olivier. (He lost out to an old Sherlock sparring partner, Mark Gatiss, for his superb turn in The Motive and the Cue, about the making of an earlier Hamlet.) For Simon Stephens’s reworking of Chekhov’s play, Scott was the only actor on stage. On a sparsely furnished set, in modern dress — actually his own clothes: a turquoise short sleeve shirt, pleated chinos, Reebok Classics and a thin gold chain — and with only very slight modulations of his voice and movements, he successfully embodied eight separate people including an ageing professor and his glamorous young wife; an alcoholic doctor and the woman who loves him; and Vanya himself, the hangdog estate manager. He argued with himself, flirted with himself and even, in one indelible moment, had it off with himself.

It’s the kind of thing that could have been indulgent showboating, a drama-school exercise taken too far, more fun for the performer than the audience. But Scott carried it off with brio. In the simplest terms, he can play two people wrestling over a bottle of vodka in the middle of the night — and make you forget that there’s only one of him, and he’s an Irish actor, not a provincial Russian(s). An astonishing feat.

For his next trick: All of Us Strangers, among the very best films released in 2023. Writer-director Andrew Haigh’s ghost story is about Adam (Scott), a lonely writer, isolated in a Ballardian west-London high-rise, who returns to his suburban childhood home to find that his parents — killed in a car crash when he was 11 — are still living there, apparently unaltered since 1987. Meanwhile, Adam begins a tentative romance with a neighbour, Henry (Paul Mescal), a younger man, also lonely, also vulnerable, also cut off from family and friends.

Tender, lyrical, sentimental, sad, strange, and ultimately quite devastating, All of Us Strangers was another potential artistic banana skin. At one point, Scott’s character climbs into bed with his parents and lies between them, as a child might, seeking comfort. In less accomplished hands, this sort of thing could have been exasperating and embarrassing. But Scott’s performance grounds the film. He is exceptionally moving in it. He was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Actor, losing to his fellow Irishman, Cillian Murphy, for Oppenheimer. Earlier this year, he made history as the first person to receive Critics Circle awards in the same year for Best Actor in a film (All of Us Strangers) and a play (Vanya).

Finally, last month, the title role in Ripley, a new spin on the lurid Patricia Highsmith novels. That show, which unspools over eight episodes on Netflix, was a long time coming. Announced in 2019, it was filmed during the pandemic, at locations across Italy and in New York. Scott is in almost every scene and delivers an immensely subtle and nuanced portrayal of Highsmith’s identity thief, a character previously played by actors including Alain Delon, Dennis Hopper, and Matt Damon in the famous Anthony Minghella film The Talented Mr Ripley, from 1999.

The fragile almost-charm that makes Tom Ripley such an enduring antihero is there in Scott’s portrayal, but so is the creepiness, the isolation, the fear and desperation. His Ripley can turn on a smile, but it quickly curdles. Filmed in high-contrast black and white, Ripley is a sombre, chilly work by design, but doggedly compelling, and not without a mordant wit. Again, critics swooned.

So the actor is on a hot streak. Later this year he’ll appear in Back in Action, a Hollywood spy caper, alongside Cameron Diaz and Jamie Foxx, above-the-title stars with dazzling, wide-screen smiles. But could they play Chekhov single-handed? They’ll need to be on their toes.

Before our shoot and subsequent interview, in April, I had met Scott briefly on two previous occasions, both times at fancy dinners for fashion brands. Compact, stylish, dynamic, he is impishly witty and charismatic: good in a room. Also, obliging: the second time I met him, he took my phone and spoke into it in his most diabolical Moriarty voice for a wickedly funny voice message to my son, a Sherlock fan.

At the Esquire shoot, on an overcast day in south London, Scott again demonstrated his good sportiness: dancing in the drizzle in a Gucci suit; generously sharing his moment in the spotlight with an unexpected co-star, a local cat who sauntered on to the set and decided to stick around for the close-ups; and entertaining the crew — and hangers-on, including me — with rude jokes. At one point, while for some reason discussing the contents of our respective fridges, I asked him where he kept his tomatoes. “Easy, Tiger,” he said.

At lunch the following day, upstairs at Quo Vadis, the restaurant and members’ club in Soho (my suggestion), the actor arrived promptly, settled himself on a banquette, and we got straight to business. It’s standard practice now for interviews published in the Q&A format to include a disclaimer, in the American style: “This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.” (Well, duh.) In this case, we talked for close to three hours. Inevitably, paper costs being what they are, and Esquire readers having busy lives, some of that verbiage has ended up on the cutting-room floor. But not much! I’ve tried to let it flow as much as possible, and to keep the spirit of the thing, in which we toggled, like all good performances, between light and dark, comedy and tragedy.

In early March, a month before this interview took place, Scott and his family suffered a terrible and unexpected loss: his mother, Nora, suddenly died. He went home to Dublin to be with his dad, Jim, his sisters, Sarah and Hannah, and their family and friends.

As an interviewee and, I suspect, as a person, Scott is thoughtful, convivial and solicitous: he doesn’t just answer questions, he also asks them. He is not above the occasional forearm squeeze when he wants to emphasise a point. He seems to possess a sharp emotional intelligence. Perhaps one should expect empathy in a great actor, but in him it seems particularly marked.

Before we began talking, there was some studying of the menu. Scott wondered, since I eat often at Quo Vadis, if I had any recommendations. I told him I had my eye on the pie: chicken, ham and leek. “Why would you not have the pie?” wondered Scott. A good question.

So, how was your morning? Where have you come from?

This morning I’ve been at the gym, Alex.

Are you working out for a specific reason or are you just a healthy man?

Just trying to keep it going. Exercise is so helpful to me. I don’t know if you know, but my mum died four weeks ago.

I did know, and I’m so sorry.

Thank you. So, yeah. Just trying to keep it going. They say your body feels it as much as your mind.

The grief?

Yeah, the grief. My friend said a brilliant thing last night. She’s been through grief. She said, if you think of it like weights, the weight of it doesn’t decrease, but your ability to lift the weights does. So, if you go to the gym and you’re completely unpractised you won’t be able to lift the weight. But the more you get used to it, the more you can lift. There’s a slight analogy to grief. I’m just learning about it.

Have you been through grief before?

Not really. A little bit, but not to this extent. And it’s a strange thing because, obviously, I’m in the middle of having to talk a lot [promoting Ripley] and making that decision of whether to talk about it or whether not to talk about it. I’m finding myself talking about it, because it’s what’s going on, and without giving away too much of it she was such an important figure. It feels right. It’s such a natural thing.

Is it helpful to talk about it?

I think it has to be. I feel very lucky with my job, in the sense that, all those more complex, difficult feelings, that’s what you have to do in a rehearsal room; you have to explore these things. So strange: a lot of the recent work that I’ve done has been exploring grief. With Vanya, and All of Us Strangers. So it’s odd to be experiencing it this time for real.

I wasn’t planning on making that the focal point of this piece, so it’s up to you how much you feel comfortable talking about it.

I appreciate that.

Was it unexpected? Did it happen out of the blue?

Yes. She was very alive four weeks ago. She just deteriorated very quickly. She got pneumonia and she just… it was all over within 24 hours.

What sort of person was she?

She was the most enormously fun person that you could possibly imagine. Insanely fun and very, very creative. She’s the person who sort of introduced me to acting and art. She taught me to draw and paint when I was really young —that’s another big passion of mine, drawing and painting. She was amazing with all of us. My sister Sarah is very talented in sport, she’s now a sports coach. And my sister Hannah was very artistic and she’s an actor now. So, she was really good at supporting us throughout all our different interests. What I say is that we’ve been left a huge fortune by her. Not financially, but an emotional fortune, if you know what I mean? I feel that really strongly. And once this horrible shock is over, I just have to figure out how I’m going to spend it. Because I think when someone else is alive and they’ve got amazing attributes, they look after those attributes. And then when they die, particularly if they are your parent, you feel like you want to inhabit them, these incredible enthusiasts for life. She just made connections with people very easily. I feel enormously grateful to have had her. Have you had much grief in your life?

My mother died, during Covid. She had been ill for a long time, so it was a very different experience to yours. But I think they are all different experiences, for each of us. I don’t know if that loss would be in any way analogous to yours. But like you, I love art and books and music, and that’s all from her. Last night, I watched a rom-com with my daughter, who is 14. And I don’t know if I would like rom-coms so much, if it wasn’t for my mum.

Love a rom-com! What did you watch?

Annie Hall.

Did she like it, your daughter?

She absolutely loved it. She was properly laughing.

Oh, that’s great!

And she’s a tough one to impress. But she loved it, and my mum loved Woody Allen. My mum can’t recommend Woody Allen to my daughter now, but I can, and that’s come down from her. So it goes on.

That’s what I mean. Your spirit doesn’t die. And I’m sure you went to bed going, “Yes!”

I did! It was a lovely evening, it really was. Tonight we’ll watch something else.

Are you going to watch another Woody Allen? Which one are you going to watch?

I thought maybe we’d watch Manhattan? More Diane Keaton.

Or Hannah and Her Sisters? That’s a good one. Insanely good. Yeah, it’s amazing that legacy, what you’re left with. My mum was so good at connecting with people. She was not very good at small talk. She was quite socially bold. She would say things to people. If she thought you looked well, she’d tell you. She’d always come home with some story about some pot thrower she met at some sort of craft fair. Being socially bold, there’s a sort of kindness in it. When someone says something surprising, it’s completely delightful. My mother sent me something when I was going through a bad time in my twenties. It was just a little card. It said, “The greatest failure is not to delight.” What a beautiful quote. And she was just delighted by so many things, and she was also delightful. And like her, I really love people. I really get a kick out of people.

I can tell.

But there’s a kind of thing, if you become recognisable, people become the enemy? And it’s something I have to try and weigh up a little bit. Because people are my favourite thing about the world. I think it’s part of my nature. My dad is pretty sociable too. And so it’s weighing that up, how you keep that going. Because certain parts of that are out of your control: people treat you slightly differently. But this phase, the past four weeks, it still feels so new. Just thinking about legacy and kindness and love and the finite-ness of life. All that stuff.

Big stuff.

Yeah, it’s big stuff. And it’s very interesting, talking about grief. Because it’s not all just low-energy sadness. There’s something galvanising about it as well. I don’t know if you found that, too?

One of the things about someone else dying is it makes you feel alive.

Yes, exactly. Even though we have no choice, it does that. It’s that amazing thing, the year of magical thinking.

[Waiter approaches. Are we ready to order?]

We are.

I think so. Are we two pie guys?

We’re two pie guys!

We’re pretty fly for pie guys.

Are we salad guys? Tomato, fennel and cucumber salad?

Yeah.

And chips, maybe?

Listen, you only live once.

So, the year of magical thinking…

You know, when you’re walking along, are you allowed to have a surge of joy? Or are you allowed to just stay home and… It’s extraordinary when it gets you.

Like a wave of emotion?

I had one on the rowing machine today. I’m glad of it, though.

That was sadness.

Just loss, yeah. Just loss.

So, there’s two ways to do this. You can choose. We can do the usual interview where we start at the beginning with your childhood and go all the way through to now. That’s totally fine. Or, I can throw more random questions at you, and see where that takes us?

Random!

Shall we random it?

Let’s random it.

OK. That means I might sometimes read questions off this piece of paper.

Reading takes just slightly away from the randomness of it, Alex…

That is a very good point. You are quite right. But I don’t read them out in order! They’re just prompts.

[Sardonically] Oh, I see!

Talk me through what you’re wearing.

Oh, this is so old. What does it say?

[I peer at the label on the inside of his shirt collar. It says Hartford.]

What colour would you call that?

I’d call it a bit of a duck egg, Alex, would you?

I’d go with that. And it’s like a…

Like a Henley?

And these [pointing to trousers]?

Mr P trousers. And a pair of old Nikes.

And sports socks.

When I am off duty, I think I dress slightly like an 11-year-old. You know, when you’re just plodding the streets, I wear, like, a hoodie and trainers.

And you have a chain round your neck.

This is a chain that I bought in New York. No, maybe I bought it in Italy. It was a replacement chain. I’ve worn a chain for years. Sometimes I like to have it as a reminder that I’m not working. When you’re in character, you take it off. Because when you’re in a show or a play, they sort of own you. They own your hair.

They own your hair!

Or sometimes you have to walk around with, like, a stupid moustache. Or, worse, chops. Actors fucking hate that. Like, nobody suits that, I don’t think. Right? I’m trying to think of someone who suits that.

Daniel Day Lewis, maybe? He can carry it off.

He’s got the chops for chops!

What’s something about you that you think is typically Irish?

It goes back to that people thing. When I go home to Ireland, I’m aware that people talk to each other a lot more. And I think there’s a sense of humour that Irish people have that I love. And I suppose a softness, too, that I love. Those are the positive things. And then the guilt and the shame is the negative stuff.

Catholic guilt?

Catholic guilt. I feel very strongly, though, that I’ve worked to emancipate myself from it. There’s a certain unthinking-ness to guilt. Your first thought, always: “What have I done wrong? It’s gotta be me.” That doesn’t benefit anyone. And with shame, I don’t feel shame anymore. I think I probably did before. But in a way, it’s an irrelevant thing for me to talk about now. The thing I prefer to talk about is how great it is not to have that anymore. Rather than how horrible it was. The thing I feel enthusiastic about is how there are so many beautiful and different ways to live a life that aren’t centred on the very strict, Catholic, cultural idea of what a good life might be. Namely, 2.4 children and certain ideas and a very specific life.

Are there positives to be taken away from a Catholic education?

The rituals around grief, I think, are really beautiful, having gone through what I’ve just been going through. And the community that you get in Catholicism. Because that’s what Catholicism is about, in some ways: devotion to your community. The amount of love and support you get is to be admired. It’s the organisation that has been the problem, not the values. Random question number 16!

When’s the last time you were horrifically drunk?

Good question! I was in New York doing press recently for Ripley. And I met Paul Mescal. He had a negroni waiting for me. Love a negroni. And then we went dancing.

Are you a good dancer?

I’m pretty good, freestyle. Slow on choreography but once I get it, I’m OK. I love dancing.

I love dancing.

Do you really? Do you do, like, choreographed dancing as well?

No! But I’m a good dancer.

Do you have moves?

Oh, I have moves.

Ha! I love that!

It’s so freeing, so liberating.

It totally is.

And it’s sexy and fun.

Exactly! It’ll get you a kiss at the end of the night.

It’s sort of showing off, too, isn’t it?

But it’s also completely communal. It connects you with people. Also, you can learn so much about someone by watching how they connect with people on a dance floor. How much of communication do they say is non-verbal? An enormous amount.

If you didn’t live in London, where would you most like to live?

I suppose Dublin. I do live a wee bit in Dublin. But one of the things I feel really grateful for is that I have sort of been able to live all over the place. I lived in Italy for a year, during the pandemic.

You were making Ripley?

Yeah, we were all over. Rome, Venice, Capri, Naples… A bit of New York. I’d love to spend more time in New York. I was very lucky recently to have my picture taken by Annie Leibovitz. We were outside the Chelsea Hotel, and this woman came up. [Thick Noo Yawk accent, shouting]: “Hey, Annie! Why don’t you take a picture of this dumpster? It’s been outside my block for two months! Take a picture of that!” There’s something about that New York-iness that I love. It still has such romance for me.

How old do you feel?

Really young. I don’t have an exact age for you. Thirties?

Some people feel in touch with their childhood selves, or almost unchanged from adolescence. Others seem to have been born an adult.

That’s really true. I think of playgrounds for children: you’re actively encouraged to play, as a kid. “Go out and play!” And I hate that at some point, maybe in your mid-twenties, someone goes, “Now, don’t play! Now, know everything. Now, turn on the television, acquire a mortgage and tell people what you know.” I have to play for a living. It’s so important, not just in your job, but in life. It’s a great pleasure of life, if you can hold on to that. Talking about my mum again, she had an amazing sense of fun.

She was a funny person? She made people laugh?

Absolutely.

That’s important, isn’t it?

It’s really important. I think having a sense of humour is one of the most important things in life. It’s such a tool. And you can develop it. My family were all funny. Laughter was a currency in our family. Humour is a magic weapon. It separates us from the other species. Like, I love my dog. I think dogs are amazing. And he can have fun, but he’s not able to go, “This is fucking ridiculous.” He’s not able to do that! So it’s a real signifier of your humanity, in some ways.

Also, being a funny person, or someone who can connect with people through humour, that’s how we make friends.

I think actors make really good friends. Because you’re in the empathy game. And because you’re making the decision to go into an industry that is really tough, you need to have your priorities straight: “I know this is tough, I know the chances of me succeeding in it are slim, but I’m going to go in anyway.” It shows a sort of self-possession that I think is a wonderful thing to have in a friend. Also, actors are just funny. And a lot of them are sexy!

Funny and sexy: good combination.

I know! Not that you want all your friends to be sexy, that’s not how you should choose your friends.

Oh, I don’t know. It’s not the worst idea.

It’s not. But I think it’s something to do with empathy. And it’s a troupe mentality as well. You’re good in groups.

It’s a gang.

I love a gang. Do you like a gang?

I do. Magazines are like that. A good magazine is a team, a great magazine is a gang. And the thing we produce is only part of it: you put it out there and people make of it what they will. The process of making it is the thing, for me.

Oh, my God. That’s something I feel more and more. Process is as important as product. I really believe that. You can have an extraordinary product, but if it was an absolute nightmare to make then, ultimately, that’s what you’re going to remember about it. You make good things that are successful that everybody loves? That’s lovely. But also, you make stuff that people don’t respond to. So, if you have a good time in the process, and the attempt is a valiant one, and there’s a good atmosphere, if it’s kind and fun, that’s the stuff you hold on to. One of the reasons I love the theatre is you don’t have to see the product. You just do it, and then it’s done. It’s an art form that is ephemeral. There’s a big liberation, too, in discovering you don’t have to watch any of your films if you don’t want to.

Have you watched Ripley?

I watched Ripley once.

And?

It’s a lot of me in it! Jesus!

Is that a problem?

I find it hard to watch myself. I do. There’s something quite stressful about looking at yourself. Have you ever heard yourself on someone’s answering machine? Horrific! You’re like, “Oh, my God, that can’t be me. How do they let me out in the day?” It’s like that, and then it’s your big, stupid face as well. Mostly, I have a feeling of overwhelming embarrassment.

On a cinema screen, I can’t even imagine. Your face the size of a house!

The size of a house, and there’s 400 people watching you.

Nature did not intend humans to ever experience this.

That is so true. It’s not natural.

I mean, even mirrors are to be avoided.

Maybe looking in the sea is the only natural way?

Well, Narcissus!

Yeah, true. That didn’t turn out well. I’d love for that to be a tagline for a movie, though: “Nature did not intend humans to ever experience this…”

But equally, nature didn’t intend the rest of us to gaze upon you in quite that way. We sit in the dark, staring up worshipfully at this giant image of you projected on a screen for hours. Is that healthy?

Without talking about the purity of theatre again, when you’re in the theatre, you, as the audience, see someone walking on the stage, and technically you could go up there, too. There’s not that remove. It’s live. There’s a real intimacy. That’s why I feel it’s the real actor’s medium. Your job is to create an atmosphere. I always find it insanely moving, even still, that adults go into the dark and say, “I know this is fake, but I don’t care: tell me a story.” And they gasp, and they cry, or they’re rolling around the aisles laughing. It’s so extraordinary, so wonderful that it exists. I really do believe in the arts as a human need. I believe in it so deeply. During the pandemic, our first question to each other was, “What are you watching? What book are you reading?” Just to get through it, to survive. It’s not just some sort of frivolous thing. It’s a necessity. As human beings, we tell stories. Expert storytellers are really vital. No, it’s not brain surgery. But, “Hearts starve as well as bodies. Give us bread, but give us roses.” I love that quote.

Tell me about playing Hamlet. Was it what you expected it would be?

It’s extraordinary. Loads of different reasons why. From an acting point of view, there’s no part of you that isn’t being used. So you have to, first of all, have enormous physical stamina, because it’s nearly four hours long. Our version was three hours, 50 minutes. And you have to be a comedian, you have to be a soldier, you have to be a prince, you have to be the romantic hero, you have to be the sorrowful son, you have to understand the rhythm of the language, you have to be able to hit the back of the auditorium — there are just so many things about it that require all those muscles to be exercised. You know, it’s so funny that we’re talking about this today. Because at the beginning of Hamlet, it’s two months since his dad died. His mother has already remarried, to his uncle! What are they doing? I mean the idea that next month my dad might marry someone else is so extraordinary! So, Hamlet’s not mad. Of course he would wear black clothes and be a bit moody. The more interesting question [than whether or not Hamlet is mad] is, who was he before? I think he’s incredibly funny. It’s a really funny play, Hamlet. And it’s a funny play that deals in life and death: the undiscovered country from which no traveller returns. It’s about what it is to be human. And what it’s like to be human is funny, and sad. The language is so incredibly beautiful and it’s also incredibly actable. And it’s also a thriller.

And a ghost story. It’s supernatural.

It’s a supernatural ghost story. And because the character is so well-rounded, I always think of it like a vessel into which you can pour any actor or actress. So, your version, the bits you would respond to if you were playing Hamlet, would be completely different to mine or anyone else’s. It can embrace so many kinds of actors. So Richard Burton can play it or Ben Whishaw can play it or Ruth Negga can play it or I can play it, and it’s going to bring out completely different sides. Did you do much Shakespeare at school?

I did. I studied Hamlet.

I remember Mark Rylance said…

[The waiter arrives with our pies and we both take a moment to admire them before breaking the crusts… The following passages are occasionally hard to make out due to enthusiastic chewing.]

You were about to say something about Mark Rylance. I saw his Hamlet in… must have been 1989, when I was doing my A-levels. He did it in his pyjamas.

I’ve heard. He came to see [my] Hamlet. He said, you feel like you’re on a level with it, and then in week four, you plummet through the layers of the floor and you’re on a deeper level. He was exactly right. Something happens. It’s just got depth.

Does it change you? Do you learn something new about yourself, as an actor?

I think because it’s such a tall order for an actor, it’s sort of like you feel you can do anything after that. Like, at least this is not as hard as Hamlet. You know you have those muscles now. We transferred it from The Almeida on to the West End. So, we did it loads of times. That’s a big achievement.

How many times did you play him?

One hundred and fifty. Twice on a Wednesday, twice on a Saturday. Eight hours [on those days]. Even just for your voice, it’s a lot.

We keep coming back to theatre. Is that because you prefer it?

It goes directly into your veins. It’s pure. You start at the beginning of the story and you go through to the end. When you’re making a movie, it’s a different process. Your imagination is constantly interrupted. You do something for two minutes and then someone comes in and goes, “OK, now we’re going to do Alex’s close-up, so you go back to your trailer and we’re going to set up all the lights and make sure that window across the street is properly lit.” And that’s another 20 minutes, and then you try to get back into the conversation we’ve just been having… And so the impetus is a different one.

The Hot Priest…

What’s that?

Ha! I watched Fleabag again, last week. It’s so good. But The Hot Priest, he’s a coward. He gets a chance at happiness with the love of his life and he doesn’t take it.

Well, not to judge my character, but I suppose there’s an argument that he does choose love. He chooses God. That’s the great love of his life. Whatever his spirituality has given him, he has to choose that. Is there a way that they could have made that [relationship] work? Of course there is. We’re seeing it from Fleabag’s point of view, literally, so of course it feels awful [that Fleabag and the Priest can’t be together]. But I think we understand it, the thing that is not often represented on screen but which an awful lot of people have, which is the experience of having a massive connection with somebody, a real love, that doesn’t last forever. I think somebody watching that can think, “I have my version of that. And I know that I loved that person, but I also know why we couldn’t be together.” And that doesn’t mean those relationships are any less significant. It just means that they are impossible to make work on a practical level. Not all love stories end the same way.

Annie Hall.

There you go! La La Land. Love that movie.

The Hot Priest is damaged. There’s a darkness there. Journalists interviewing actors look at the body of work and try to find through lines that we can use to create a narrative. It’s often a false narrative, I know that. However, that’s what we’re here for! Let’s take Hamlet, and the Priest, and Adam from All of Us Strangers, and, I guess, Vanya himself, even Moriarty. These are not happy-go-lucky guys. Ripley! These men seem lost, lonely, sad. Is it ridiculous to suggest that there’s something in you that draws you to these characters — or is it a coincidence?

That’s a really good question. I think it can’t be a coincidence. Like, even when you said “happy-go-lucky”, right? My immediate instinct is to say, “Show me this happy-go-lucky person.” With a different prism on this person, there would be a part of him that’s not happy-go-lucky, because that’s the way human beings are. If we could think now of a part that’s the opposite of the kind of part [he typically plays], a happy-go-lucky character…

How about the kinds of roles that Hugh Grant plays in those rom-coms? Yeah, the character might be a little bit repressed, a bit awkward at first, but basically everything’s cool, then he meets a beautiful woman, it doesn’t work out for about five minutes, and then it does. The end.

[Chuckles] OK, yeah. I’d love to have a go at that.

Wouldn’t you like to do that?

I would! I really would.

Why haven’t you?

I don’t know! It’s weird. That is something I would really love to do. Because I love those films. There’s a joy to them. It’s something I would love to embrace now. When I was growing up, as a young actor, I did want to play the darkness. With Moriarty, I was like, “I’ve got this in me and I’d like to express it.” And, conversely, now I think the opposite. I know that’s a little bit ironic, given I’ve just played Tom Ripley. Ha! But I have just played it, and I have spent a lot of time in characters that are isolated. And I was in a play [Vanya] that was one person. I don’t feel sad doing those things. It’s cathartic. But I would love the idea of doing something different.

Also, you don’t strike me as a person who is especially morose.

No! No, no, no. I’m not. But again, we all contain multitudes. My mother’s legacy was so joyful. Not that she didn’t have her soulful moments, because of course she did. I mean this as the opposite of morbidity, but it doesn’t end well for any of us, it really doesn’t. So bathing in the murkier waters, it’s wonderful to be able to explore that side of you, but also the opposite is true, the idea of joy and fun and lightness is something I’m definitely interested in. Like a musical! I’d love to be in a musical. I’ve just done a cameo in a comedy that I can’t talk about yet. It was just a day, with someone I really love, and it just lifted me up. But of course, there’s the stuff that people associate you with, and that’s what brings you to the table.

You played a baddie really well, so you get more baddies.

Yeah. You have to be quite ferocious about that. You have to go, “Oh, wow, that really is a great film-maker, that’s a lovely opportunity…” But how much time do you have left and what do you want to put out to the world? I feel like I want to be able to manifest what I have within me now. That’s a wonderful thing to be able to do. It’s such a privilege. And I feel so grateful for the opportunities I’ve been given. But why not get out of the hay barn and play in the hay?

Ripley has been well received. Do you read reviews?

I read some of them.

Why?

I’m interested in the audience. You know when people say, “You should never care about what other people think?” Of course I care what people think.

Ripley is excellent, but it’s quite gruelling to watch. Was it gruelling to make?

Yeah.

Because you have to inhabit this deeply unhappy person?

Maybe not unhappy. But very isolated, I think that’s key. It was hard. There was a huge amount of actual acting. Doing 12-hour days for almost a year. I’m not necessarily convinced you should act that much.

Ripley is himself an actor. He puts on other people’s identities because he doesn’t like his own. He doesn’t like himself. Some people think actors are people who don’t like themselves so you pretend to be other people, assume other identities. Or maybe it’s that actors are hollow shells. When you’re not acting, there’s no one there. No you. Sorry to be rude.

No, it’s not rude at all. I totally understand it. But I find it to be completely the opposite of what I’ve learnt. The essence of acting, for me, the great catharsis of it, is that you’re not pretending to be somebody else, you’re exploring different sides of yourself. You’re going, who would I be in these circumstances? Some of the darkest, most unhappy people I know are the people who say, “I don’t have an angry bone in my body.” Then why do I feel so tense around you? People who have no anger… I remember I used to have it with some religious people when I was growing up. People proclaiming that they’re happy or good or kind, that does not necessarily mean that they are happy or good or kind. That’s the brand they’re selling. I’ve always liked that expression: “fame is the mask that eats into the face.” How do you keep a healthy life when you’re pretending to be other people? You do it by going, “I’m going to admit I have a dark side.” It’s much healthier to shout at a fictional character in a swimming pool [as Moriarty does in Sherlock] than it is to be rude to a waiter in a restaurant, in real life.

You find that therapeutic?

Yes, you’re still expressing that anger. I think it is therapeutic.

So playing Tom Ripley every day for a year, were you able to exorcise something, or work through something?

Well, that’s why I found Tom Ripley quite difficult. He’s hard to know, and a harder character to love. If you think of Adam in All of Us Strangers, you go, “OK, I understand what your pain is.” What I understand with Tom, the essence of that character, is that he’s somebody who has a big chasm that is unknowable, perhaps even to himself. We’re all a little bit like that, we’re all sometimes mysterious to ourselves — “I don’t know why I did that…” — but to have empathy for someone like that is difficult. You know the boy in your class who gets bullied, and it’s awful, and you try and understand it but he doesn’t make it easier for himself? That’s the way I feel about Tom Ripley. It’s a thorny relationship. Your first job as an actor is to advocate for the character. That’s why I hate him being described as a psychopath. Everyone else can say what they like about him, but I have to be like, ‘Maybe he’s just… hangry?’ So you have to try and empathise, try and understand. When we call people who do terrible things monsters — “This evil monster!” — I think that’s a way of absenting yourself from that darkness. Because it’s not a monster. It’s a human being that did this. You can’t look away from the fact that human beings, sometimes for completely unknowable reasons, do terrible things. And that’s why it’s interesting when people talk about Tom Ripley. They say, “Have you ever met a Tom Ripley type?” The reason the character is so enduring is because there’s Tom Ripley in all of us. That’s why we kind of want him to get away with it. That’s [Highsmith’s] singular achievement, I think.

I find reading the Ripley books quite unpleasant. It’s a world I really don’t want to spend any time in. I read two of them preparing for this. She’s a great writer, but they’re horrible characters; it’s a depressing world.

I agree. That’s what I found most challenging. Where is the beating heart here? How much time do I want to spend here? And when you do, well, it took its toll. It did make me question how much time I want to spend with that character, absolutely. That’s the truth.

The way you play him, he’s very controlled. You didn’t play him big.

I think it’s important to offer up difference facets of the character to the director and he chooses the ones he feels marry to his vision. And those are the ones [Steven Zaillian] chose. And he executed those expertly.

Are you a member of any clubs?

Yeah, I’m a member of the Mile High Club. No, no…

That’ll do nicely.

OK, that’s my answer.

What’s your earliest memory?

Do they still have, I think it’s called a play pen?

Sort of like tiny little jails for toddlers? What a good idea they were!

I remember being massively happy in it. My mother used to say she just used to fling me in that thing and give me random kitchen utensils. I don’t know, like a spoon. I’ve always been quite good in my own company. I really remember being left to my own imagination and being very happy.

Do you live alone now?

Yeah.

Is that not lonely?

Of course I’ve experienced that but, ultimately, no. I don’t know if that’s the way I’m going to be for the rest of my life. But I certainly don’t feel lonely. I’ve got so much love in my life.

Would it be OK if you lived alone for the rest of your life?

Yeah. It would be OK. One of my great heroes is Esther Perel.

I don’t know who that is.

Esther Perel. She’s a sort of love and relationships expert, a therapist, and she’s a writer. A real hero, I think you’d really dig her. She talks about relationships and the mythology around them. The difference between safety and freedom. She talks with real compassion about both men and women; she talks about this idea of what we think we want, and what we really want. And how there’s only one prototype for a successful life, really, or a successful relationship. Which is: you meet somebody, da-da-da, you fall in love, da-da-da, you have kids, da-da-da. And that prototype just can’t suit every person in the world. There are some people who live in the world who might see their partner every second Tuesday and that suits them. And to be able to understand and communicate your own preference at any given time is really the aim. To be able to say, “At the moment I’m happy in the way I am, but maybe at some point…” I’ve lived with people before, and maybe I will again, but at the moment it feels right to sort of keep it fluid.

The difficulty, of course, with relationships, is there’s another person with their own preferences. Maybe you’re OK with every second Tuesday, but they need Thursdays and Fridays, too…

But isn’t that the beauty of love? That you construct something, like a blanket. You stitch all these things together. One of the things about being gay and having a life that ultimately is slightly different from the majority of people’s, is you learn that you can create your own way of living, that is different and wonderful. A homosexual relationship doesn’t necessarily have to ape what a heterosexual relationship is. That’s a very important thing to acknowledge. I mean, of course, if you want to do that, that’s brilliant. But you don’t have to. To me, the worst thing is to be dishonest or uncommunicative or unhappy or joyless in a relationship. It’s much more important to be able to have a difficult conversation or a brave conversation about how you feel or what you want. So many of my gay friends, I feel very proud of them, really admiring of the fact we have these conversations. It seems very adult and very loving to be able to acknowledge that the difference between safety and freedom can be real torture for some people. How do I love somebody, and still keep my own sense of autonomy and adventure? That’s a real problem. That’s what Esther Perel says. It’s one of the biggest causes of the demise of a relationship. That people coast along, they can’t have that conversation, and then the whole bottom falls out of the boat.

I wasn’t necessarily going to ask you about being gay. One tries to avoid labelling you as “gay actor Andrew Scott” instead of “actor Andrew Scott, who happens to be gay”. But since we’re talking about it already: because you’re famous, you become a de facto spokesperson for gay people. People look to you for the “gay opinion.” Are you OK with that?

I’ll tell you my thoughts on that. If I talk about it in every interview, it sounds like I want to talk about it in every interview. And, of course, I’m asked about it in most interviews, so I’m going to answer it because I’m not ashamed of it. But sometimes I think the more progressive thing to do is what you’re saying: to not talk about it and hopefully for people to realise that if you had to go into work every single day and they said, “Hey, Alex! Still straight? How’s that going?”… I mean, being gay is not even particularly interesting, any more than being straight is. But I understand, and I’m happy to talk about it. I suppose it depends on the scenario. I just don’t want to ever give the impression that it isn’t a source of huge joy in my life. And at this stage in my life, rather than talk about how painful it might have been or the shame, or not getting cast in things [because of it], actually, I’m so proud of the fact that I’m able to play all these different parts and, hopefully, in some ways it demystifies it and makes people — not just gay people, but all people — go, “Oh, yeah, that’s great that it’s represented in the world, but being gay is not your number-one attribute.” The problem is it becomes your schtick. Frankly, I feel like I’ve got just a bit more to offer than that.

Two reasons I think you get asked about being gay. One is just prurience — you’re famous and we want to know who you’re shagging — and the other is that identity politics is such an obsession, and so polarising, and we hope you’ll say something controversial.

I think that’s right, I think that’s what it is. But sometimes people think there’s just one answer, in 15 characters or less. That’s something I resist, slightly.

All of Us Strangers is about loads of things, about grief, love, loneliness, but it’s also very specifically about being gay. To me, anyway.

Yes, it is.

I thought, in particular, that the scene with Claire Foy, where your character comes out to his mother, was incredibly moving.

Isn’t it extraordinary, though, that you, who is not a gay person, could find that so moving? There’s no way you’d find that moving if it was only about being gay. I always say that coming out has nothing to do with sex. When you’re talking to your parent, you’re not thinking, “Oh, this is making me feel a bit frisky.” Anyone can understand that this is about somebody who has something within them — in this case, it’s about sexuality — that he hopes is not going to be the reason that his parents don’t speak to him anymore. And I think we all have that: “I hope you still love me.” And the great pleasure about All of Us Strangers is that it’s reached not just a particular type of audience, but all types of people. And I love they’re able to market it to everyone. Usually they do this weird thing where they pretend the film’s not gay…

Right. There would be a picture of a woman on the poster.

Exactly. Someone who’s playing the neighbour! But now you’re able to market a film with Paul [Mescal] and I, and the fact is that that’s going to sell tickets. I know there’s a long way to go, but that is progression. Before, that wasn’t the case. This time, no one gave a fuck. Nothing bad happened. The world didn’t explode. Family didn’t collapse.

Identity politics question: there’s an opinion now frequently expressed that gay people ought to be played by gay actors, and so on. What are your thoughts on that?

The way I look at it, if somebody was to make a film about my life — it’d be quite a weird film — would I want only gay actors to be auditioned to play me? I would say that I’m more than my sexuality. But there might be another gay person who feels that’s incredibly important to who they are and how they would like to be represented on film. How do we balance that? I don’t know. I don’t have an easy answer on that. I think it’s a case-by-case thing.

You’ve played straight people and gay people. You’re Irish but you’ve played English people and American people. I would hope you would be able to continue doing that.

The question I suppose is opportunity, and who gets it. It was very frustrating to me, when I was growing up, that there were no gay actors.

Well, there were lots of gay actors…

But not “out” gay actors. Now there are more. Representation is so important. So I think it’s complicated, and nuanced. And talking about it in a general way rather than a specific way is not always helpful. It depends which film we are talking about. Which actor.

You were spared the curse of instant mega-fame, aged 22. Would you have handled that well?

No. I think all that scrutiny and opinion, it’s a lot. Now I’m able to look at a bad review or somebody saying something really horrible about the way I look, or even someone saying really nice things about that, and go [shrugs]. Before, when that happened, it was devastating. But I survived and it was fine, and I got another job and I was able to kiss someone at a disco, so… Whereas if you’re 22 and you don’t have that experience behind you, you go, “Oh, my God. This is horrible, what do I do?” And also, there’s much more scrutiny now, so much more. I think that must be really hard. Social media is a crazy thing, isn’t it?

I think it’s a horrible thing, on the whole.

That thing you were saying about cinema, about how it’s not natural to see yourself, or other people like that… The amount of information that we’re supposed to absorb and process? Wow. You wake up in the morning and you’re already looking at it.

They used to say that the fame of TV actors was of a different order because they are in your home. People felt they knew the stars of Coronation Street in a much more intimate way, while movie stars, Cary Grant or whoever, these were much more remote, almost mythical creatures. People who are famous on Instagram or TikTok are in the palm of your hand talking to you all day.

And it’s so interesting what people on social media choose to tell you about their lives, even when nobody’s asking them any questions. Like, is that person insane? It’s a very dangerous thing. I find it troubling.

Do you think things are getting better or are they getting worse?

That’s such a good question. I have to believe they’re getting better. I don’t know what that says about me.

It says you’re an optimist.

I think I am an optimist.

What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever put in your mouth?

Fucking hell. Do you know what I don’t like? Any food that you don’t have to put any effort into eating.

Give me an example.

Custard.

Yes!

I don’t mind ice cream, because it’s got a bit of texture. But I don’t like mashed potato. I don’t like creamed potatoes, or creamed anything.

Risotto?

Absolutely borderline. So if it’s got a little bite to it, it’s OK. But baby food. Ugh! Makes me feel a bit sick.

What’s your favourite of your own body parts?

Ahahah! What do I like? What have we got? I don’t mind my nose? My eyes are OK. Like, my eyes are definitely expressive, God knows. Fucking hell. I remember I was in rehearsal once, and the director said, “Andrew, I just don’t know what you’re thinking.” And the whole company started to laugh. They were like “You don’t? What the fuck is wrong with you?” Because I think I’ve got quite a readable face.

Which is a tool for an actor, right?

It can be a tool for an actor. But you have to learn what your face does, as an actor. On film, your thoughts really are picked up.

What’s your favourite body part that belongs to someone else?

I like hands. And I like teeth. Someone with a nice smile.

Are you similar to your dad?

Yeah, I am. He’s pretty soft-natured, which I think I am, to a degree. He likes fun, too. And he likes people. He’s good at talking to people. He’s kind of sensitive, emotional. He’s a lovely man, a very dutiful dad to us, very loyal.

Would you miss the attention if your fame disappeared overnight?

I definitely think I would miss an audience, if that’s what you mean. The ability to tell a story in front of an audience, I’d miss that. Not to have that outlet.

Before you got famous, you were having a pretty decent career, working with good people, getting interesting parts. Would it have been OK to just carry on being that guy, under the radar?

Oh, my God, yes. Absolutely.

Would you have preferred that to the fame?

The thing is, what it affords you is the opportunity to be cast in really good stuff. You get better roles, particularly on screen. And I’m quite lucky. I have a manageable amount of fame, for the most part.

Some people are born for fame. They love it. They’re flowers to the sun. Others should never have become famous. They can’t handle it. You’ve found you’re OK with it.

Do you know what I feel? I feel, if I was in something I didn’t like, if I was getting lots of attention for something I didn’t feel was representative of me, I think I’d feel quite differently. I feel very relaxed, doing this interview with you today. I feel like, whatever you’re going to ask me, I would feel self-possessed enough to say, “Alex, do you mind if we don’t talk about that?”

Shall we leave it there, then?

Thank you. That was lovely.'

[rey-jake-therapist]

MY FANFICTIONS

IT'S SO COLD

BBC SHERLOCK FANFIC

SUMMARY

Picture yourself as Molly Hooper, head over heels for a man who barely notices you and when he does, it's generally to demean you. And yet you're a brilliant pathologist, a kickass woman who's carved her space in a male-dominated world. You're also the woman who helped said man fake his own death and kept his secret for two years straight. You're the woman who got engaged to a man who looked like him because no other man could ever compete. You're the woman who knows him better than he knows himself. You, Molly Hooper, are the woman Sherlock respects and loves in his own way, he just does a shitty job at showing it.

Written as a contribution to Sherlock Challenge November 2023. Prompt: 'cold'.

RATING: general audiences

PAIRINGS: Sherlock Holmes/Molly Hooper

STATUS: complete

LINK AO3 ⬇️

DREAM A LITTLE DREAM OF US (DAY 18: CHANGE)

THE SANDMAN FANFIC

SUMMARY

In the wake of Morpheus’ death, Johanna Constantine, Hob Gadling meet in a dream at the Green Dragon Tavern, where Nuala the Fairy works. They discuss the influence that Morpheus had on their lives and the love they had for him, as well as their remorses. Despite being unable to change himself, he changed them, mostly for the best.

Written as a contribution to Sandtober2023.

RATING: general audiences

PAIRINGS: references to past Morphanna, Dreamling, Sandflower and beginning of... Nualanna? (Johanna/Nuala)

TW: several mentions of a major character's death (Morpheus)

STATUS: complete

LINK AO3

BITTER SWEET LULLABY (DAY 4: FAE)

THE SANDMAN FANFIC

SUMMARY

Once upon a time, eons before Titiana became queen of Faery, Dream of the Endless -called Lord Shaper by the Fair Folk-, fell in love with a princess fae named Eleanora. While Dream has just learned that Fiddler's Green, the heart of the Dreaming, fled for the Waking World, he finds comfort in his memory of a happy moment he shared one day with the fae in the fields of Fiddler's Green, as well as the lullaby she sang to her.

Written as a contribution to Sandtober2023.

RATING: general audiences

TW: none

STATUS: complete

LINK AO3

RISE AND SHINE

THE SANDMAN/SWEETBITTER CROSSOVER

SUMMARY

It's just a short, sad but also sweet story where Jake is lost in a nightmare where he's haunted by old ghosts of his, memories of his past he needs to leave behind to finally move on. Morpheus, Dream of the Endless, is here to guide him through the darkness into the light so he can rise, and shine.

RATING: general audience

TW: references to suicide, abuse and grooming

STATUS: complete

Link AO3

LOST SOULS

A SWEETBITTER FANFICTION

SUMMARY

On Valentine's Day, Mina arrived to New York City from Los Angeles with a bag full of trauma and a half empty suitcase for only baggage. She flew to the Big Apple to see a friend and take a break from a toxic relationship, and hoped to leave a painful past that kept haunting her behind her.

Nothing went as planned, but as Mina began to think that going so far away from home was a mistake, she met a handsome stranger in a nightclub. Jake was nice, fun, incredibly sexy and apparently available. What could possibly go wrong?

RATING: explicit

PAIRING: Jake x OC

TW: references to suicide, rape, abuse, grooming and cheating

STATUS: work in progress

AO3 link

SOUNDTRACK ON SPOTIFY

THE SANDMAN META

Overture: is Dream the only one to remember?

Am I an idiot or... (Dream and food)

Could Jessamy be the first Vortex?

Hob Gadling's forgotten wives and girlfriends

Fandom and misogyny (Endless Nights spoilers)

BBC SHERLOCK META

The lying detective: self-hatred and acceptance of abuse

[mediawhorefics]

hiii can you please recommend me some gay novels ? thank you in advance :)

hell ! yeah !

you didn't really specify what genre you're interested in beyond gay so i'm just gonna rec my favs and go wild with it. apologies, i've prob. recced these books before but *shrug*

edit: i added books that aren't novels cos i couldn't resist. ooops?

edit 2: i've taken gay to mean gay ~umbrella term~ and not gay mlm, hope that's alright x

under a read more cos i got carried away !

the raven cycle | maggie stiefvater | completed series | ya | fantasy | follows blue sargent, the daughter of a skilled psychic who augments her family's abilities, but has no psychic power of her own. she becomes friends with four boys from the local boarding school -- gansey, adam, ronan and noah -- when she meets gansey's ghost and learns the upcoming date of his death. gansey is obsessed with finding the sleeping welsh king, glendower. In his pursuit of the legend, he and his friends encounter all kinds of mysticism and danger in henrietta, virginia.

the dreamer trilogy | maggie stiefvater | completed trilogy | ya | fantasy | raven cycle sequel focusing on ronan's character.

the disasters | mk england | ya | sci fi | star trek vibes | found family | a band of space academy rejects are the only witness to a terrible crime/galaxy-wide conspiracy & are the only ones who can save the day. 

emry merlin series | robin schneider | incomplete trilogy | ya | fantasy | arthuriana | a knight's tale meets bbc merlin | years after her father’s, legendary court wizard merlin, disappearance, emry takes her far less talented twin brother’s place when he is summoned to camelot to train and become prince arthur’s right hand wizard. studying magic properly is everything she hoped for, but posing as her brother isn’t as easy as it seems. not to mention those sparks that are flying between her and arthur.

cemetery boys | aiden thomas | standalone -> a sequel is planned | ya | fantasy | trans rep | yadriel wants to prove himself as a brujo (and a man) to his family so, in secret, he performs the ritual meant to unlock his powers that his family has denied him access to. only problem, he’s accidentally summoned a ghost he didn’t mean to and the guy won’t leave. also his cousin vanished and his spirit is nowhere to be found.

the last binding series | freya marske | incomplete trilogy -> the third one is coming out in november | historical fantasy | alternative edwardian england | romance | each book focuses on a new queer pairing while following an overarching mystery | when an administrative mistake names robin blyth as a civil service liaison to a hidden magical society, he discovers what’s been operating beneath the unextraordinary reality he’s always known. a dangerous deadly curse awaits him as he navigates the magical bureaucracy with his standoffish counterpart edwin courcey.

the kingdoms | natasha pulley | standalone | historical fantasy | time travel | alternate history | 19th c. | 18th c. | joe tournier has amnesia. he remembers nothing prior to stepping off a train in londres, england, a french colony. his only clue, a century-old postcard of a lighthouse in scotland, illegally written in english rather than french and signed m.

the watchmaker of filigree street series | natasha pulley | completed duology | historial fantasy | 19th c. | sherlock holmes vibes | telegraphist thaniel receives a mysterious watch on his birthday whose pre-set alarm saves him from a terrorist bombing on scotland yard. since the bomb was made with clockwork parts and only the bomber could have known when to set the alarm, thaniel is sent by a detective investigating the bombing to live with the suspected watchmaker to figure out what’s going on.

the bedlam stacks | natasha pulley | standalone -> twofs references/characters but not part of the main storyline | historical fantasy | 19th c. | magical realism | merrick tremayne is called upon by the india office to go on a dangerous expedition deep in peru to fetch quinine (essential for the treatment of malaria) despite the debilitating injury that almost cost him a leg. every expedition before his has yielded no results apart from dead bodies, but merrick has family history deep in the country so he goes against his better judgement. there, he meets raphael, a priest surrounded by strange stories of disappearances, cursed woods and living stones, and who might hold the key to his family’s past.

the binding | bridget collins | standalone | historical fantasy | 19th c. | romance | in a world where books are dangerous objects containing people’s painful memories they want to get rid of, emmet farmer is sent to become an apprentice to the local bookbinder after he had some sort of mental collapse.

captive prince series | cs pacat | completed trilogy + some short stories | historical fantasy | romance | no magical elements | dark themes | major trigger warnings apply | prince damianos of akielos is sent as a pleasure slave to laurent of vere, prince of an enemy neighbouring kingdom, by his treacherous half-brother who wants the throne for himself. the court of vere is a pit of deception and lies and both princes must reluctantly ally with each other to gain rightful control of their respective kingdoms. only problem, damen killed laurent's older brother auguste in battle and must keep his true identity secret to protect himself from laurent's hatred of his brother's killer. which is only complicated by the growing feelings between them.

a taste of gold and iron | alexandra rowland | standalone | historical fantasy | romance | kadou, the shy prince of arasht, has no intention of wrestling for imperial control with his sister, the queen. yet he remains at odds with one of the most powerful ambassadors at court - the father of the queen's new child. when a hunting party goes terribly awry and he finds himself under suspicion of attempted murder, kadou teams up with his new bodyguard, the coldly handsome evemer, to investigate a break-in at one of their guilds to salvage his reputation. but what appears to be a straightforward crime spirals into a complex counterfeiting operation, with a powerful enemy at its heart.

the house in the cerulean sea | tj klune | standalone | fantasy | romance | found family | 40 yo caseworker linus baker is given a special secret assignment to check out an orphanage of supposedly particularly dangerous magical children. linus has been a rule follower and someone who doesn’t want to rock the boat his whole life, but the children and their caretaker make him reconsider previously held beliefs.

under the whispering door | tj klune | standalone | fantasy | romance | found family | an unpleasant and selfish man in life, wallace price meets his reaper at his near-empty funeral and gets taken to a whimsical tea shop where he meets hugo, the ferryman whose job it is to help him move on and crossover into the afterlife. a task that becomes complicated as wallace starts developing feelings for hugo.

peter darling | austin chant | standalone | historical fantasy | romance | trans rep | peter pan retelling | ten years ago, peter pan left neverland to grow up, leaving behind his adolescent dreams of boyhood and resigning himself to life as wendy darling. growing up, however, has only made him realize how inescapable his identity as a man is.but when he returns to neverland, everything has changed: the lost boys have become men, and the war games they once played are now real and deadly. even more shocking is the attraction peter never knew he could feel for his old rival, captain hook—and the realization that he no longer knows which of them is the real villain.

the song of achilles | madeline miller | standalone | historical fantasy | mythology retelling | greek mythology | a classic ! | achilles' story, great love, and tragedy...

salt magic skin magic | lee welch | standalone | historical fantasy | 19th c | lord thornby has been trapped on his father’s estate by a strange curse for a year and when industrial magician john blake shows up, they must team up to investigate the mystery.

the secret lives of country gentlemen | kj charles | first in a series | historical romance | regency era | a shabby london clerk who inherits a grand house on the remote romney marsh is unexpectedly reunited with an old lover and gets unexpectedly thrown in the world of smugglers.

the will darling adventures | kj charles | completed trilogy | historical romance | 1920s | it’s the 1920s and tensions are rising along with hemlines. soldier-turned-bookseller will darling finds himself tangled up in spies and secret formulas, clubs and conspiracies, bbolsheviks, blackmail, and bright young things. and dubious aristocrat lord arthur ‘kim’ secretan is right in the middle of it all:  enigmatic, unreliable, and utterly irresistible.

the gentleman’s guide to vice and virtue | mackenzie lee | ya | historical romance | 18th c. | bisexual disaster nobility youth goes on his grand tour on europe with the best friend he has a crush on and his sister. nothing could possibly go wrong.

the seven husbands of evelyn hugo | taylor jenkins reid | historical romance | old hollywood | 1950s | 1960s | 1970s | aging and reclusive hollywood movie icon evelyn hugo is finally ready to tell the truth about her glamorous and scandalous life. but when she chooses unknown magazine reporter monique grant for the job, no one is more astounded than monique herself. why her? why now?

the charm offensive | alison cochrun | standalone | contemporary romance | reality dating show producer dev has always believed in romance/fairy tales and he works tirelessly to ensure magical happy endings happen on his show, even though his own love life is a disaster. but when disgraced tech wunderkin charlie is cast as the lead of their next season, dev has his work cut out for him to transform charlie into a man the ladies on the show might want and the viewers might like. charlie is far from a prince charming but as they get closer and closer, dev starts realising he might want him for himself. uh oh.

i kissed shara wheeler | casey mcquiston | standalone | ya | contemporary romance | a month before graduation, chloe green’s academic rival shara kisses her before disappearing. now, chloe is on a hunt for answers alongside unlikely allies.

one last stop | casey mcquiston | standalon | contemporary romance | time travel | a 23-year-old realises her subway crush is displaced from 1970's brooklyn, and she must do everything in her power to help her - and try not to fall in love with the girl lost in time - before it's too late.

red, white, and royal blue | casey mcquiston | contemporary romance | new adult | alex, son of the us president, and british prince henry have to fake a pr friendship after a scandal at a royal wedding puts us-british relations at risk. only problem? they despise each other.

check please | ngozi ukazu | graphic novel | new adult | contemporary romance | coming of age | bitty, a southern ex-figure skater armed with a love of baking and a vlog joins his college’s hockey team and falls for his captain, the prodigal son of a famous nhl player whose own draft was derailed by an overdose of anxiety medication.

angels in america | tony kushner | theatre | aids | angels in america is the story of a gay man, prior alter, a 30-year-old New Yorker, whose lover, louis, abandons him when he falls ill with aids. transcendent forces—visions and angels—help transform Prior from a man dying of aids to a man living with aids. along the way, several romantic and platonic couples come apart, and the final social configuration of the play comprises a loose band of multi-generational, multiracial, queer friends.

the normal heart | larry kramer | theatre | aids | focuses on the rise of the hiv/aids epidemic in nyc between 1981 and 1984, as seen through the eyes of writer/activist ned weeks, the gay founder of a prominent HIV advocacy group.

love song to lavender menace | james ley | theatre | in 1982, two friends bob and sigrid opened their new radical lesbian, gay and feminist bookshop, 'lavender menace' on edinburgh's forth street. on the eve of the shop's 5th birthday, sales assistants paul and david take a look back at its origins, in this funny, moving play.

this is how you lose the time war | amal el-mohtar & max gladstone | sci fi | literary fiction | epistolary novel | time travel | an epistolary story told by two future beings, operatives on opposing sides of the "time war" tasked with ensuring that past events happen in ways that are amenable to their goals.

on earth we're briefly gorgeous | ocean vuong | literary fiction | epistolary novel | a letter from a vietnamese american son to his illiterate mother.

night sky and exit wounds | ocean vuong | poetry

time is a mother | ocean vuong | poetry

crush | richard siken | poetry

brokeback mountain | annie proulx | short story | two ranch hands, come together when they're working as sheepherder and camp tender one summer on a range above the tree line. at first, sharing an isolated tent, the attraction is casual, inevitable, but something deeper catches them that summer.

fighting proud: the untold story of the gay men who served in two world wars | stephen bourne | non-fiction | history | wwi | wwii

coming out under fire: the history of gay men and women in world war two | allan bérubé | non-fiction | history | wwii

fabulosa!: the story of polari, britain’s secret gay language | paul baker | non-fiction | history | linguistics | 19th c. | 20th c.

[england-would-fall]

A Year in Review: Lines that made us proud in 2023!

Thank you to the brilliant and inimitable @anincompletelist for setting this up and tagging me!

This year was an emotional rollercoaster, and I didn’t manage a quarter of the writing I would have liked. I’m looking forward to a new year full of far more words written, read, and shared! Until then, please accept my offer of a few of my favorites from this year’s AO3 posts:

When Stars Align

(Good Omens, Aziraphale/Crowley, Rated G)

Crowley kept his gaze on Aziraphale's shoulder, white shirt more visible for the stars. Perhaps it was the angel himself he feared crossing–or rather, the line he had drawn between them all those decades ago. Snakes don't cry, he told himself, clenching his jaw tighter than the pain in his chest. And demons don't—

Wove in Red for Every Deed

(Good Omens, Aziraphale/Crowley, Rated G)

“Oh, really now. I don’t think it’s all that bad,” Aziraphale chimed, taking the final steps with a miraculously level tea tray in hand. “Perhaps it’s not to your usual style, and a bit of a tuck in the fabric here and there might improve the fit, but truthfully,” he said in much too high a pitch, “I do think nightmare is rather a harsh word.”

“Give you a harsh word,” Crowley grumbled, dropping heavily into an armchair and threatening his empty teacup with a raised eyebrow.

A Man Awake [WIP, Not abandoned]

(BBC Sherlock, Mycroft/Greg, Rated E)

Greg slung his coat over the back of his own chair and sat. They were close enough in height that it fit around him the same way, now that he wasn’t slouched over the table. It was surprisingly comfortable and—

'Matches your tie.' Oh shit. 'I’m so sorry, that was… what I mean to say, well, didn’t mean to say…' He sighed. Fuck it. 'I said the quiet part out loud.'

'I believe you have, yes. And, incidentally, you are correct. They are exactly the same shade of carmine. I see the detective in you is turned on this morning.'

Greg spluttered, tea dripping onto the front of his shirt.

'This is why I always wear a tie.' Mycroft raised a single eyebrow, and Greg could have sworn that was almost a smile hiding behind the fancy china. 'Perhaps you should consider it?'

'Nah,' Greg shrugged, dabbing at the spot on his shirt with a linen napkin. 'Can’t stand the things. Luckily it’s rare I need to look–' he paused. Mycroft Holmes was staring directly into his eyes. Greg felt his mouth open the slightest bit, letting in air that was far heavier than his lungs were used to. If his thoughts were being read, it was only by one of them. One, two, three, four. This must be what a toaster feels like when it’s dropped in the bath. Five, six, seven. Hold.

Yours, As a Magnolia

(Red, White & Royal Blue, Alex/Henry, Rated E)

“Alex?” Henry’s palm still pressed against his jaw, one fingertip rubbing lightly behind his ear.

“Henry.” He hated the break in his voice, which was definitely not caused by creeping insecurity. “Why me?”

“Why you,” Henry echoed, pupils dilating impossibly further in the dim light. “When I bury my hand in your hair,” he began, fingers threading their way up into Alex’s curls, “it grounds me in my humanity. When I look into your eyes,” he said, shifting his body back over Alex’s, his knees grazing the inside of Alex’s thighs, “I see the life I’ve longed to live unfolding endlessly before me. When I kiss your mouth,” he whispered, lowering his lips to brush against Alex’s with every word, “the jagged edges of my defenses are smoothed by your tongue.”

Beneath the Frost, Lay Bare

(Red, White & Royal Blue, Alex/Henry, Rated M)

“I dreamt of you.” The back of Alex’s hand brushed Henry’s cheek, sending his eyelids fluttering closed against an onslaught of emotion. How could his chest compress beneath the weight of calm Alex instilled in him while simultaneously setting every ounce of blood in his veins aflame with desire? How could one man feel so deeply? How could another drive such feeling? It didn’t make sense, and so Henry turned to the one act always able to anchor his runaway mind: he looked Alex in the eye and swallowed him down.

Secret Swiftie

Alex’s eyes widened as he tugged and kicked his pants off. The way he reacted to Henry’s do-as-I-fucking-say voice was too hot to be allowed, and Henry made a mental note to check the Geneva Convention for potential violations.

Sneak Peek: Burning Ground

(Good Omens, Aziraphale/Crowley, Rating TBD)

‘The…the…kiwis. Which one was first, the little bird running around all cheep cheep cheep or the fruit with the fuzz and the seeds?’

‘Gooseberries,’ Aziraphale said definitively, heading back toward whatever it was he had been doing. Which was likely nothing, really. Crowley had the sneaking suspicion he’d been studying the same leatherbound book for at least some of the rather more than seven days since the thing hadn’t…thinged, and he wasn’t altogether sure he was even reading the words at this point.

‘Wot gooseberries? Wha’d’you talking about “gooseberries”? No one even likes those. Do they? No, they don’t. They must if people sell them? Aw, people’ll sell anything if they’ve got it. Buy anything too, s’long as it’s less than five pound and they can put it in one of those little reusable bags. Maybe I should get one of those little reusable bags. What would I even put in one of those little bags? Oh, yeah! Hey, angel! Which came first, the kiwi the bird or the kiwi the fruit?’

Find me on AO3 @/englandwouldfalljohn

[swissmissficrecs]

I got a bingo!

Just for fun, I decided to see if I could get a bingo with fics I've written, so here you go, Column 1:

AU: Obsidian Anniversary (BBC, 3K, E, Johnlock) Sherlock gives John a little something to commemorate the day they became mates. (Stone Age AU)

Fluff: The Ties That Bind (BBC, 1K, E, Johnlock) Sherlock and John enjoy a few moments together before their wedding.

Kink: The Inferno Club (ACD, 20K, E, Johnlock) The real story behind The Adventure of the Illustrious Client.

Parenthood: Tristram Holmes AU (BBC, 182K, T-M, Johnlock) Spinoff of the Getting Better series by nox_candida.

Unrequited: Running Round Leaving Scars (BBC, 2K, T, Gen) While Sherlock was dead, John saves a man who was about to kill himself. When Sherlock comes back, he thanks John for saving his life.

[letthewhumpbegin]

The Perks of a Broken Mind Palace

Fandom: Sherlock (BBC) Characters: Sherlock Holmes, Greg Lestrade Prompt: this was written for the prompt "Panic Attack" for @whumpril Day 1. Word count: 1103 Warnings: descriptions of panic / anxiety attack.

He opened every door of his Mind Palace and walked down every corridor of it, searching every inch, every nook and cranny, but kept coming back empty-handed.

Sherlock stood in the middle of Lestrade's office, pressing his fingertips hard against his temples. He closed his eyes and willed himself to think harder. Lestrade needed his help in this murder case, and Sherlock knew he had recently read something important about the victim. But what was it again? If only he could find it in his Mind Palace!

Sherlock growled softly in frustration. "Sherlock?" Lestrade sounded slightly worried. Even for Sherlock this current behavior was off. "Shut up," Sherlock snapped back. He could feel everyone in the room staring at him. Lestrade, Anderson, Donovan…

Again, Sherlock willed himself to go down deep into his Mind Palace. Again, he searched every inch of it, and again, he came back with nothing. This had never happened to him before. He had always been able to rely on his Mind Palace, but now it let him down. And that scared him beyond anything...

Sherlock felt his mind get foggy, and his breathing was getting faster. The trembling which had started in his fingertips rapidly spread to the rest of his body. Sherlock already knew what was coming. He was cruelly, vividly aware of it, but could do nothing to stop it anymore.

He quickly lost awareness of his surroundings now, as all he felt was the anxiety coursing through him. His breath caught high in his chest, making him feel short of breath, and his heart was nearly hammering itself out of his chest.

Lestrade watched the consulting detective visibly spiral out of control in front of him. He had no idea how to handle this, but what he did know was that they did not need an audience right now.

"Get out." Lestrade ordered Anderson and Donovan. They, too, had been staring at Sherlock in horror. "Why?!" Anderson immediately retorted. "Because this does not concern you!" Lestrade barked back, ushering his colleagues out of the office.

As soon as Anderson and Donovan had grudgingly retreated to the hallway, and the door had fallen shut behind them, Lestrade shifted his attention back to Sherlock. He had only once before seen the consulting detective have a panic attack, and that had ended with him crashing to the floor and knocked out for a short while. Lestrade would do everything in his power to prevent that from happening again today.

"Sherlock." Lestrade kept his voice as calm as possible in their current situation. "Sherlock, calm down." The consulting detective did not respond. He still stood in the middle of the office, with his eyes tightly shut, and his hands pressed firmly to his temples. He was shaking all over, and breathing as if he had just run a marathon.

"Sherlock." Lestrade tried again, taking a few tentative steps closer, and carefully reaching a hand out for the consulting detective's shoulder. "It's okay, calm down. I need you to look at me." Sherlock reacted as if he'd been burned. He staggered backwards, fleeing from Lestrade's well-meant hand on his shoulder, until his back hit the wall on the opposite side of the office.

"Don't..." Sherlock whimpered softly, sliding down the wall to the ground. He never opened his eyes and never took his hands from his temples. Sitting in a heap on the floor, Sherlock's wheezing, panicked breaths filled the office.

Lestrade stared helplessly at the dark-haired man. How the hell did one handle this? Where was John Watson when you needed him?! Because John would surely know what to do.

All Lestrade could think of was to distract Sherlock and hope that that would be enough to bring him back to his senses. He knelt down in front of Sherlock, and gently wrapped his hands around the consulting detective's wrists. He could feel the clamminess of Sherlock's skin and the pulse racing beneath his fingers. Sherlock sat like a child afraid of the monster under his bed: knees drawn up to his chest, head bowed low and eyes squeezed shut. His panic attack was still running high, and no matter what Lestrade did, he could not get through to him.

Lestrade began to realize it was time for more drastic measures. What he had in mind could go both ways, but the situation couldn't get much worse than this, so he would give it a try.

Lestrade tightened his grip around Sherlock's wrists, and yanked the consulting detective's hands away from his temples in one confident motion. Sherlock gasped softly at the sudden action, and slowly opened his eyes. "John?" He muttered wearily. "No, it's Greg," Lestrade answered, "or Graham, or Gill, or whatever you want to call me today." Sherlock chuckled softly, and Lestrade gladly realized he was finally getting through.

Sherlock's breathing slowly regained a more healthy rhythm, and his hands were no longer trembling. Still, Lestrade stayed where he was, kneeling down in front of the dark-haired man and making sure he truly was alright. Sherlock gently freed his wrists from Lestrade's grip and passed both hands over his face. "Take deep breaths," Lestrade spoke softly, "it will help you calm down." Sherlock only nodded wordlessly in reply, but did follow up on the advice.

"I'm sorry," Sherlock mumbled after a few more minutes of sitting on the ground. "I cannot seem to find the information you need." Lestrade waved the apology away. "Don't worry. Don't torture yourself about it." Sherlock shot him a glaring look in reply. "Okay, just saying..." Lestrade mumbled in defense, before standing up and moving over to sit on his desk chair. This surely looked like the usual Sherlock again.

Sherlock remained seated on the ground, gradually regaining the last bit of control over himself. It had been a while since he had last had a panic attack like this, and it had drained him of quite some energy. He needed a moment to recollect himself and get his thoughts straight again.

After about ten minutes Sherlock slowly rose to his feet, buttoned up his coat and put up his collar. Lestrade watched him silently, but closely. "I'll still find it," Sherlock announced determinedly. The detective inspector simply nodded in reply at that. Without another word, Sherlock turned around and left the office.

Lestrade watched as Sherlock exited and stared at the door long after the consulting detective had left. It was clarifying to him that Sherlock, too, could lose control like that. And that somewhere beneath all his flaws and peculiarities, Sherlock Holmes still was a human being…

Make a request from my prompts list Useful Links Section | Writing masterlist

[terramythos]

TAYLOR READS 2023: A STUDY IN SCARLET BY SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE

Title: A Study in Scarlet (1887)

Author: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Genre/Tags: Fiction, Mystery, Murder Mystery, Western, First-Person, Third-Person

Rating: 6/10

Date Began: 01/28/2023

Date Finished: 03/04/2023

Returning from war in the Middle East, Dr. Watson finds himself in search of a roommate in London. He makes the acquaintance of a man named Sherlock Holmes, an eccentric private detective with a bold new approach to investigating crime. The duo soon find themselves at the center of a bizarre murder; a corpse with no visible wounds in an abandoned house, and the word “RACHE” written on the wall in someone else’s blood. Through his keen deductive reasoning, Holmes begins to unravel the mystery surrounding the murder— but not before a second body is found, and the culprit’s complicated past takes center stage.

There is no satisfaction in vengeance unless the offender has time to realize who it is that strikes him, and why retribution has come upon him.

For live reading notes, check the reblogs (warning for spoilers of... a book published in 1887).

Content warnings and review (spoiler-free and spoiler versions) under the cut.

Content Warnings: Depicted — Self-harm, drug use, death, murder, animal death, stalking/harassment, terrorism, misogyny, racism, forced marriage, terminal illness. Mentioned — Warfare, traumatic injury, colonialism, sexual harassment, sexual slavery/kidnapping, suicide.

**SPOILER FREE REVIEW**

Some disclaimers before I jump into the review. This is the first Sherlock Holmes story I’ve read, and my exposure to it in pop culture boils down to (1) about a season of Elementary and (2) the Guy Ritchie movies, of all things. Thankfully I avoided the terrible BBC show during its peak hype, so it didn’t sour me on the whole concept. While I know some of the unavoidable tropes, the stories themselves are mostly unknown to me. Second, A Study in Scarlet is actually the first Sherlock Holmes story ever published. This was a coincidence; I have a couple books I picked up at a second-hand store and grabbed this one at random. Part of me wishes I’d started with a later book, but oh well.

The first half of A Study in Scarlet, which is the bulk of the murder mystery, is an entertaining read. I genuinely enjoyed thinking over the evidence and trying to piece together the mystery, a central appeal to Sherlock Holmes. There’s a revenge narrative toward the end, and while it’s no Count of Monte Cristo, I did enjoy the themes and observations about human nature this introduced to the story. Doyle’s prose is serviceable, and there’s several lines and descriptions that really stuck out to me. A Study in Scarlet is an early work, so I’m interested to see how he develops as a writer in the later stories.

Characterization is hit or miss. Holmes is solid. Much of A Study in Scarlet is told from Watson’s perspective, and he meets Holmes for the first time in this story. As a result, both characters feel multidimensional; we get Watson’s honest impressions of Holmes (good and bad), and as a result learn about Watson’s own personality and opinions. The culprit, when revealed, is well-developed for Spoiler Reasons. Beyond that, I found the rest of the cast forgettable. Not every character needs to be deep and nuanced, but some really needed more development, or even a noteworthy trait. I didn’t get that from most.

There are some small details that made me laugh, like Holmes saying he wants his name to be famous. Mission accomplished, buddy. He creates what’s basically luminol in his introductory scene, in a book published decades before it was invented. As someone who mostly reads speculative fiction, I see this kind of thing in scifi, but to see it in a murder mystery is a fun surprise.

Obviously being written in 1887, there’s some aspects of the story that didn’t age well.  Mostly this shows in racism, colonialism, and related terminology. This isn’t a huge surprise coming from a British author in the late 19th century. For what it’s worth, there’s one footnote in this entire story, which Doyle uses to make a snarky comment about sexism. So I guess he gets a brownie point there?

Overall, the book is okay, but not amazing. I have some major criticisms of the story, but they mostly fall into the spoiler section of the review.

**SPOILER REVIEW**

So, the mystery. I was under the impression, before reading this, that Sherlock Holmes stories are fair mysteries, aka it’s possible for the reader to figure everything out on their own based on the clues provided in the story. Unfortunately A Study in Scarlet is only partially fair; you can glean the means of the crime, but not the perpetrator or their motive. During the grand reveal at the end of the story, we learn Holmes had access to information that the reader did not, and that’s how he figured out who committed the two murders. This honestly soured the whole thing for me. It might seem like a small thing, but the problem-solving aspect is what I was looking forward to most with these stories, so knowing I never had a chance makes it feel a little pointless.

My second major issue with A Study in Scarlet is its structure. The story is split into two parts. The first half is pretty much what one would expect— Holmes and Watson meet in London for the first time, we learn a little about their characters, a mysterious murder happens, and we follow the cast around as more clues present themselves. This was by far the strongest part of the story for me. So it was a little jarring when Holmes apprehends the murderer at the end of Part One, with an entire half of the novel to go.

The story then jumps back in time by around thirty years, in the United States, following a new set of characters. From here the story switches from a murder mystery to what I can only describe as a thriller Western. I guess Doyle really wanted to write a Western? Or maybe dunk on Mormonism for a while (fair enough)? To be clear, I love narrative shifts, genre muddling, and time jumps, the more experimental the better, but they have to be done well. This one is not; it feels out of place with Part One, and what it accomplishes narratively could have been done better in other ways.

It’s pretty clear from the start that Part Two exists to establish back-story for Jefferson Hope (the culprit) and why he killed Drebber and Stangerson. But Doyle spends way too long on two characters— Hope’s love interest Lucy and her adoptive father Ferrier— who only exist to get killed off. Despite them being the “focus” for several chapters, their development and personality are lacking, mostly told to the reader instead of demonstrated. “Show, don’t tell” is obviously not a hard rule, but it was much needed in this case. It takes a long time for Hope to enter this part of the story, which is a problem if he’s the protagonist. I admit it’s pretty wild to have actual real Mormons be the antagonists of a freaking Sherlock Holmes story, but other than the novelty and historical context, I didn’t find them to be compelling villains.

Maybe this leap into the past would work better if integrated into the main mystery story, or if it was pared down substantially, or even if the whole thing was told from Hope’s perspective. When Hope describes how he committed the murders toward the end, we do get his perspective… and it’s great! It made me wish all of Part Two had been told in this matter; it’s way more fascinating than what we got.

In all, A Study in Scarlet wasn’t bad, just mediocre. Had it not been attached to the most iconic character in Western canon, I doubt it would still be published and read today. But I’m sure future entries refine and improve upon the formula; I can cut a lot of slack considering this was Doyle’s first attempt at a Holmes story, and they’ve withstood the test of time for a reason. I plan to read a few later stories in the series to see how they compare to this first entry.

[shakibone]

I thought of the funniest shit the Sherlock showrunners could have done when that show finished and now I'm obsessed

SO

Sherlock's ended, last episode broadcast, fandom left disappointed and reeling, clawing at scraps of evidence that a secret final episode is in the works. Radio silence from all involved aside from the usual platitudes about being proud of the work they've done on such an iconic show and so on. But then, a week later at the time an episode would have aired, Sherlock's social media platforms tweet, blog, and post out a single sentence:

"The Greatest Detective in the World."

And a time and date, next week at the usual Sherlock timeslot. The fandom goes wild, putting pieces together and decyphering anagrams written in thin air, just absolutely peak feral Sherlock fandom.

Another week passes.

And then, a trailer is broadcast. It plays on the BBC at Sherlock's usual timeslot, and the social medias all post it out. The trailer depicts...

A well appointed apartment, police tape everywhere, evidently the site of a murder . Benedict Cumberbatch's voice is heard:

"I must admit, I thought myself fully versed in the methods of analytical detectiving... But this is something else."

His voice is different than we're accustombed to. Higher, softer, with none of Sherlock's usual clipped tones. He sounds downright friendly.

"I mean, the way you're able to piece it all together from mere fragments of evidence is truly remarkable!"

We see Cumberbatch finally. He looks nothing like we've seen him before: His natural hair colour is on display, cut short. He's wearing a rather plain suit, and he carries himself in a completely casual manner. We see him speak, still in a manner utterly at odds with his portrayal of Sherlock Homes.

"Good Lord! You're practically superhuman!"

He is addressing someone else at the well appointed crime scene. Someone dressed in very fine clothes with his back to us and kneeling over some evidence. The camera dollies towards the kneeling man and pans around him as he stands up and turns to face us.

It's Martin Freeman, also utterly unlike how we've seen him before. His presentation is fastidious, his poise careful, his tone polite and warm, and his accent...

"You flatter me, my Dear Hastings! And I am not one to refuse flattery, but I assure you that it is nothing more than the application of my little grey cells!"

HERCULE Coming Soon!

It would have been a Tumblr massacre.

[ofaflower]

𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐘 𝐌𝐎𝐑𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐍: 𝐁𝐁𝐂 𝐂𝐎𝐌𝐏𝐋𝐈𝐀𝐍𝐓

Reposted from an old blog. This canon is compliant to BBC's Sherlock, in terms of Mary being a secret operative. However, there are canon divergencies detailed below. This is written with a base understanding of the events of the series.

Mary's past is a little unclear; however, it is known that she was born Rosamund Mary and that she used to be a trained assassin who went rogue and changed her identity in order to hide from her past. Her accent is English, but she was not born British. However, after so many years of hiding her American accent, she’s lost it almost entirely and has to focus when she wants to use it now. 

Approximately five years before meeting John Watson, she chose the name "Mary Elizabeth Morstan" from the gravestone of a stillborn child, in order to hide her true identity.  Claiming to be an orphan in order to cover for the fact that she had no family. They met when she took a job as a nurse, (having the required medical training and falsified documents) at the clinic John worked at. It didn’t take her long to figure out whom he was, and that the stories in the news involved him. She did not seek him out, but she felt for him all the same --- and surprised herself when she realised that she’d grown feelings for him that were reciprocated.

John planned to ask Mary to marry him, a bit over a year after they had begun dating - shortly before Sherlock's return. He took her for a meal out and brought a ring, however the meal was interrupted by Sherlock just as John was about to ask her. When John finally saw that Sherlock was alive the horror on Mary's face was obvious, as she knew just what Sherlock's "death" put him through. Despite being together for less than two years, Mary was more of a serious girlfriend than the other girlfriends John had and he proposed to her soon after the interrupted meal.

The arrival of Sherlock into their lives was a tricky one --- the spy in her wanted to view him as a potential threat, but she couldn’t help but like him. However, it took everything in her to watch every step she made --- the wrong word or move would send him sniffing after her past. Fortunately, he seemed to like her and blinded himself to those bits about her (or maybe, he noticed but said nothing as a friend).

Mary did eventually marry John at St, Mary's Church in Sutton Mallet, Somerset. The wedding was attended by among others, Greg Lestrade, Molly Hooper, Tom, Mrs Hudson, General Sholto and Sherlock who was John's best man. Her wedding was tumultuous and she received a possibly threatening telegram from CAM  (that set her on edge, but she played it off as nothing --- she had people who sent her little reminders to toe the line in her new life every so often; she was used to it) . Her first dance with John as a married couple was a waltz written by Sherlock. She was revealed to be pregnant that night, after Sherlock informed them from signs he had noticed from Mary..

The truth about her past was revealed to some extent during Sherlock and John's investigation of Charles Augustus Magnussen. Under a threat from Magnussen, she went to his office intending to kill him, however she was discovered by Sherlock whilst he and John were breaking into the place. Knowing that if she killed both men, John would be a suspect, and she could no longer kill Magnussen without Sherlock witnessing, she shot Sherlock just below his chest where the wound would not surely kill him. She then hit Magnussen over the head and phoned an ambulance for Sherlock and left the building. When he was in the hospital, she told Sherlock not to tell John about any of it.  

After Sherlock ran away from the hospital Mary found him after he fed her a series of clues. He projected a picture of her face onto an empty house – saying that it mimicked her personality, a façade. Inside the house, they discussed how she could easily have killed him yet chose not to. Mary said that she would do anything not to have John leave her. However, John was present while she confessed to being an assassin. They returned to Baker Street, where Sherlock told him as much as he knew about her. Mary produced a USB drive that she claimed had everything about who she used to be on it. She begged John not to read it in front of her, because she did not want to watch him stop loving her.

Six months later at Christmas, after a period of separation between Mary and John, John told her that he did not think her past was his business but that her future was his privilege. Mary, now known to be pregnant with a girl, was incredibly relieved. John admitted he was still angry at her, but the two remained together. After Sherlock kills Magnussen, Mary and John see him off in an emotional farewell when he is being exiled and sent on a dangerous mission as part of his punishment. However Sherlock ends up being flown back in when images of the deceased Jim Moriarty start appearing around London, indicating the late master criminal may still be alive.  

Mary later gave birth to a healthy baby girl, named Rosamund Mary Watson, after herself. Sherlock, Molly, Mrs Hudson, and possibly D.I. Greg Lestrade, were named as Godparents. Alas, Mary was tracked down by a member of the assassin team she was part of and is forced to leave John and Rosamund behind whilst she takes random trips around the world, a new country, a new identity. Eventually, she is tracked down by Sherlock and John, but also Ajay, the fellow assassin she was running from. The three escape.

Mary meets Sherlock in an alcove to show him her past. She knocks him out using some sort of drug and leaves after he has seen the real Mary Watson, also known as Rosamund Watson. Her real maiden name is still unknown. We later find out, in an aquarium, that a government secretary, Vivian, gave the order in a fateful mission in Georgia that cost the lives of half of A.G.R.A., Mary's former assassin team. Vivian moved to shoot Sherlock, and Mary watched in horror as he stood frozen in shock. Moving to pull him out of the way, she was hit in the shoulder. The action was stupid and she berated herself for it, but it proved non-fatal.

Still, the action was a close call --- and with everything that had happened, along with Rosie to be considered. The Watson’s needed to reconsider how they engaged with Sherlock and his world. Prompting a period of distance, as they also had their own issues to work out. However, Sherlock’s challenging of Culverton Smith --- and his extreme backslide prompts them back into the fray once more.

Mary is still shot in the aquarium, but she is shot trying to pull Sherlock to the ground. The shot is not fatal, and both survive the incident. Instead it hits her shoulder, and while she recovers from the injury, and her arm is never fully the same again afterwards.

I don't have a full canon for how The Lying Detective works, but I feel like even though she's fine --- Mary getting shot would likely still cause some tensions with their newborn child and make them evaluate some things. Which could lead to distance. Which isn't to say they don't want to go on these adventures, or 'ruin' the fun --- but they have a small person to look after and getting shot at by choice is not a good way to do that and this dynamic is just going through a re-calibration period. I'll likely plot this with partners specifically to make it work for our threads, but this is my  default.

Because of how fast paced and unexpected it is, Mary is with them when Eurus' drone attacks Baker Street and is with the three of them there. She also was a part of the trick played on Mycroft by Sherlock and John to push him to confess to Eurus' existence --- but she also voices during the scene that she thought the whole thing was a tad bit dramatic, but when are things ever not. "Also, the costume fit and it was a little funny."

[gender-snatched]

Alright! I wasn’t going to explain myself but then someone added these tags so now I am going to. And guess what! These tags are wrong.

(Please do not harass the person who added them, I’m only using them to make a point)

First, Neil Gaiman doesn’t have to do anything. Neil is already the most patient and giving author I’ve ever seen. This man has seen the most inane questions and seventeen thousand versions of “but maybe you can read fic like this?” He indulges us and it’s wonderful, but he’s done more than enough just with the amount of queerness he’s added to the show versions of both Good Omens and The Sandman.

Second, Neil doesn’t have full control of GO. Neither does Amazon. The book was cowritten with Sir Terry Pratchett (GNU), and given that Terry is dead, I really don’t think major changes like “they’re in a relationship” are fair to the man. Even seasons 2 and 3 (if we get 3) are based in conversations Neil had with Terry and he has said he is only doing things he thinks Terry would be fine with.

Third, Aziraphale and Crowley not being romantic is (shockingly /s) important to some people. For example, aromantic people really identify with them as a platonic relationship. Confirming them as exclusively romantic would really hurt to these people, who get barely any representation in television.

Fourth, making it “explicit” that “they are a couple or have romantic feelings for one another” would honestly tone down some aspects of it, wouldn’t it? They’re an angel and a demon. Why on Earth, Heaven, and Hell would two holy beings be doing a very human concept like that in the same way as humans? They’re in love. We know they’re in love. Like you said, Neil has confirmed they’re in love (however I would like to point out that I don’t think he ever said romantic love). They don’t need to be human kissing or especially fucking to mean that’s true.

Now, to confirm what I meant with this post. I’ve seen a lot of people pointing out that Aziraphale and Crowley are already in love and that’s not why it’s queerbaiting. And I’m going to be really honest: that’s not what I meant.

Queerbaiting has two major parts:

Trying to specifically gather queer fans (who will watch in hopes of payoff, due to what seems like rather obvious queer coding)

Without ever confirming characters are queer (thereby maintaining a straight audience without losing the queer audience)

I hate to say it, but Johnlock (BBC Sherlock) is a really good example. Often this also leads to gay people being the butt of the joke -- for a second, you think it’s real, but then it’s “so funny, imagine our characters being gay” (again, Johnlock).

Neil Gaiman subverts both parts of this. First, GO wasn’t written for queers, as far as I know. It was picked up by queers, and enjoyed by queers, but it wasn’t written for queers.

But most importantly, the characters are queer. Canonically.

I think we often forget that Neil is adapting a book from the 1990s. Neil has an incredible track record of writing queer characters, considering that at the time, gay people didn’t have the same age of consent as straight people and the rights of queer people were still quite repressed. Also, this was during the AIDS crisis, when being gay was illegal.

And guess what! Crowley and Aziraphale are both canonically queer! Angels and demons are described as “sexless”. Neil later confirmed this meant neither male nor female. He’s also described himself as thinking Crowley is genderfluid. Aziraphale frequented “gentleman’s clubs” (clearly gay clubs), and dances the gavotte (in which you kiss your partner, if it wasn’t clear these were gay clubs). Aziraphale calls himself a “pansy” in the show, and Crowley wears women’s clothing (notably not a joke).

These are queer characters. It does not make them less queer because they aren’t in what you see as a relationship. They are clearly shown as queer. This was always going to be different from human sexuality!

Also, again, painting queer characters as “not really queer” if they aren’t in relationships hurts aspec queers, single queers, closeted queers, queers with sexual/romantic trauma, etc etc.

Good Omens also contains other queer characters. Pollution is nonbinary. All the angels and demons are gender nonconforming. Beelzebub doesn’t use pronouns, is called masculine terms of address, and has a female actress. (Neil also said ze might use ze/zir pronouns, which is more neopronoun representation then any other non-queer and famous author I’ve seen).

Good Omens is not queerbaiting. Good Omens doesn’t owe you shit, and neither does Neil. Good Omens is a queer show, and just because they don’t kiss doesn’t make it less so.

I understand wanting explicit Ineffable Husbands. Hell, I had “ineffable” as my phone password for a while (and now never can again). But you can read fic like the rest of us and not get upset about a show that does not have to give you anything.