Reblogging Because It’s Just As True Today As It Was Before. 

Perhaps I’m mistaken here, but every time I watch BBC Sherlock all the way through, I feel like the dynamic of Sherlock and John changes between TRF and TEH. Sherlock is still the brilliant detective and John is still the faithful blogger and friend; but it’s their individual reactions to St Barts and the subsequent two years that have changed how they react to one another. 

Sherlock’s still an insufferable prat most of the time, and he still misses social cues 99.9% of the time, but he’s softer around the edges. The way he interacts with Archie, his reactions to James Sholto locked in his hotel room, his MANY little moments with Mary, all reflect on a man who went through hell during his two years away and rather than becoming even more closed off and alienated than normal actually found it hard to be as much of an island as before. His circle of friends is small but he finds it impossible not to be somewhat gentler to them than before Moriarty’s scheme on the rooftop. Or rather, he had come to care for John and Greg and Mrs Hudson a great deal before the rooftop, but Moriarty forced him to actively prove it and once the lid was popped open it was impossible for it to be sealed completely again.

It’s rather like the Twelfth Doctor, who starts out as oblivious to social cues and more of an anti-hero than any Doctor before, a man who is harsh and unforgiving to those who anger him and has absolutely no recognition of friendship or even the desire to hug; who by the end of his tenure and with the help of his companions, whether it be Clara or Bill or Nardole or even Missy, has softened to the point where he even initiates a hug with Bill and Nardole and clearly has no desire to break it. Of course, Sherlock and the Twelfth Doctor are both written by Moffatt, so it’s not so much of a surprise that their dynamics are so similar.

John, on the other hand, grew sharper due to St Barts and the subsequent two years. His anger with Sherlock’s necessary deception is unrelenting and viscous, and it’s clear that even if he forgave Sherlock of it in TEH we can still see its latent existence all too clearly in TLD. He’s a man who fell to pieces once again in the wake of a life-changing tragedy and when he managed to glue himself back together some of the pieces were either missing or more brittle. He has less patience for Sherlock’s actions, he actively confronts Sherlock about the latter’s drug use during TAB, and I will not even get started in on the morgue scene during TLD. (That will be addressed later in another post eventually.) Where Sherlock’s learned response to the two years-hiatus is newfound understanding, John’s is anger, which all culminates in TLD and finds a somewhat solved dynamic in TFP. 

“I like the scars because I like the stories. Bravery, stupidity, pain—none of them come free.” - Jessica Martinez, Virtuosity

via @the-book-diaries

u ever hear a drum beat that changes ur life

I’m fascinated by Tess, and I’ll be perfectly honest in saying I do still ship Alec/Tess. This fic itself isn’t shipping in terms of the show but gives a (hopefully) realistic reasoning as to how Alec and Tess may have first met, how their marriage dynamics would have been, and how their marriage ultimately dissolved.

As a shorter summary, Tess can be a possessive bitch and Alec is too “good” sometimes for his own well-being.

One of my favorite things about Broadchurch is that you always find something new that Chibnall has slipped in that’s a nod to some of the greats of British culture. Thomas Hardy not withstanding, one of my favorite moments actually came in S2, episode 1, when we see Alec being interviewed by Maggie and Ollie. At the point at which she points out the cliffs behind him and that they’re starting to crumble more and slide farther down we see him look behind him. 

We get a good look at the mess of the beach as the camera pans around his shoulder and we get a good glimpse of what it looks like to Alec himself too. What he mutters is that nod to one of England’s poets.

“Things fall apart” is just a small piece quoted from William Butler Yeats’ poem ‘, ‘The Second Coming’, the full stanza reading:

“Turning and turning in the widening gyre    The falcon cannot hear the falconer;    Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;    Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,    The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere    The ceremony of innocence is drowned;    The best lack all conviction, while the worst    Are full of passionate intensity.”

Yeats’s poem alludes to the poet’s belief that history runs in cycles of 2,000 years, and at the end of every cycle a new hierarchy would rule.

But Chibnall cleverly uses this line to show us just where his characters are following Joe’s arrest. Clearly nothing has gotten better. There’s still tension. People who have been best friends for years have had their friendships destroyed. Ellie has been estranged from her home, her town, and even her own son with the blame others have placed upon her.

And being the outsider, Alec can understand and see that perfectly. He’s still obsessed with Sandbrook and solving the case that had to have had split that town open at the seams. The irony of the situation of the cliffs starting to crumble away faster sets the tone of the story and understanding the poem from which Alec quoted is a clue as to how the story will go, I think.

“Mere anarchy” is the center of the storm and the guilty party himself: Joe Miller, and he sets up the whirlwind that threatens to flatten Broadchurch with his ‘not guilty’ plea. He fails to recognize his guilt in Danny’s death and tries to shift it onto others. In some ways he creates anarchy by refusing to stand up to what he has done wrong.

“The blood-dimmed tide” and “ceremony of innocence” can be nods to the victims of Sandbrook, Lisa Newberrie and Pippa Gillespie. Lisa dies with her blood all over the floor of the Ashworths’ home which in turn starts the Sandbrook case itself. For Ricky’s murder of Lisa, his daughter Pippa will pay the price. And of course the ceremony of innocence being “drowned” can only point to one thing:

“The best lack all conviction” can (mostly) be put towards Jocelyn Knight, who in the beginning of the story is apathetic to the trial of Joe and wants no part of the outside world. She’s lost her conviction in the light of her loss of eyesight and although she ultimately decides to take the Latimers’ case she starts it off unsure.

And of course Jocelyn’s hesitation and Mark’s secrets he keeps from the prosecution paves the way for the one who can only be labelled as the “worst with passionate intensity”:

Sharon Bishop really makes me mad. Let me say that.

At the end of the poem Yeats concludes by asking, “And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?”

The second series ends with Joe’s being found innocent and his banishment from the town but it appears that Ellie warning him away from his own sons is going to come full circle at some point soon.

What rough beast will be born from that?

My favorite ladies: Fandom edition

1) Mara Jade Skywalker. I will admit it: I LOVE Star Wars, and I’ve loved it since I was four. As an eleven year old I got into the Expanded Universe, and I immediately loved Mara. She’s brave, intelligent, independent, she kicks ass like no other, and she’s more than just a pretty face. Raised as a child by Emperor Palpatine to be one of his Hands (top assassins), she was entirely obedient to him to the point of trying to kill Luke Skywalker when he commanded her to; until, of course, she started to realize that Palpatine was nothing but a manipulative bastard, and then she ended up marrying said Skywalker later on down the road. (Luke and Mara are absolutely amazing together, and they’ve been one of my OTPs for over a decade now.)

2) Martha Jones. Seriously, though, I think the question to ask is what is there not to love about Doctor Martha Jones? She’s treated less-than-stellar by the Tenth Doctor, yes, but she adapts to this crazy life of time-travel so well (too well maybe), not to mention that she helps him out of the fire several times throughout her run. Have people really already forgotten the fact that Martha is the Woman Who Walked the Earth, stayed alive an entire year avoiding the Master’s efforts to capture her, and was the entire reason why the Doctor’s plan to end the Year That Never Was worked? (Also, she’s the only modern-day companion to have voluntarily left the Doctor, which I admire A LOT.)

3) Mary Watson. I seem to have a thing for the lesser-liked ladies in fandoms. Granted, I’m not normally a Johnlock shipper by any means, so I never had to feel like my favorite pairing was being threatened; but Mary was so much more than what she appeared on the surface. She’s multifaceted, she’s secretive, and I wouldn’t even necessarily label her as a Good Person-- but she is Good where it counts, she’s genuinely kind and caring to others, she tries her best to protect John and Rosie, and she and Sherlock have this amazing understanding of each other which I find absolutely brilliant.

4) Peggy Carter. Her name alone conveys how much of a BAMF Peggy is. ‘Nuff said.

(Seriously, though, I’ll have to do a full-depth analysis on Peggy at a later date, because usually all I can do when I think of her is incoherently flail, and I’ll need more than a paragraph to explain why I love her so much.)

5) Ellie Miller. I had a hard time deciding who I was going to put down on this list, Ellie or Beth Latimer. I decided on Ellie because I’ve made it no secret Beth is my absolute favorite character in Broadchurch, and I’ve talked about her a lot on previous posts. So here’s Ellie, the Detective Sergeant of Broadchurch who is the one who helped close three major cases, loves her sons more than chocolate, builds her life back up after it comes to pieces around her, and gives some truly amazing tellings-off when she needs to. And she threatens to piss in a cup and throw it at Hardy when he’s being particularly difficult, and if that isn’t legendary I don’t know what is. She’s all-around brilliant, and honestly one of the main reasons why the tv show works as well as it does.

These are just a few of my favorites, but this list is already a bit long, so part 2 is going to have to come later.

David Tennant as Jimmy Murphy

United (2011) 3 of 4

Who I see:

Who I think of:

It’s too late, Amazon, you’ve waited too long to release Good Omens. I’m off to the Shire to hang out with the hobbits and I don’t know when I’ll be back.

Can I just speak for a second about how much of an absolute crazy BAMF Stonewall Jackson was?

I mean, this was a guy who was raised in the mountains of Virginia (later West Virginia) who pulled through West Point because of his skills in math and sheer tenaciousness. But he LIKED the army, and even after the Mexican American War he was teaching students what it meant to be a soldier.

When the South seceded from the Union, Jackson followed his State and was recruited into the Confederacy.

“Always mystify, mislead, and surprise the enemy, if possible; and when you strike and overcome him, never let up in the pursuit so long as your men have strength to follow; for an army routed, if hotly pursued, becomes panic-stricken and can then be destroyed by half their number.” 

He earned his nickname of “Stonewall” in the Battle of First Manassas (First Bull Run as it was known in the North) when he stood in the midst of battle without retreating and thus inspired his men and the surrounding Rebels to stand their ground and chase the Union off. He became one of General Robert E. Lee’s most trusted soldiers and friends, so much so that when Jackson died Lee reportedly said, “He has lost his left arm. I have lost my right.” Jackson and Lee together won so many battles due to their combined tactical genius and tenaciousness that if Jackson hadn’t died then it’s possible that the Confederacy may have won the war.

Aside from his (near) brilliance on the field, Stonewall was well known for being eccentric. A list of habits and beliefs he had baffled contemporaries and still fascinates people today:

1) He believed that one of his arms was longer than the other and so would frequently held up the “longer” one to aide in better circulation.

2) Although debatable today, it was also said that Jackson loved chewing on whole lemons and was rarely seen without one even in the midst of battle.

3) He believed that if he had pepper in his food that it would make his left leg ache.

4) He was known by contemporaries as a “champion sleeper”, able to sleep anywhere-- even falling asleep with food in his mouth.

And that was only a few things.

And of course Jackson was a religious zealot, believing that he belonged to the “army of the Living God.” His religious views made it so that he was unafraid even in battle, believing that the Lord was utterly in control and would call him home only when it was time. He wouldn’t even mail a letter on Saturday in fear that it would be in transit on a Sunday.

But of course his respect of the Sabbath didn’t stop him from participating in battle. 

He was also oddly bloodthirsty. He was known for his need for pursuit of the enemy, and there was even once when asked how the Confederacy could stop the Union from pursuing them, Jackson replied, “Kill them! Kill them all!” 

Jackson has got to be one of the most fascinating figures of the American Civil War. I can’t say that this man was as great a hero as history will sometimes paint him but he was still someone who even today is hotly debated among historians. Some say he was a religious nut. Still others say that he was a hero of the South. 

I think he was just a man, but he was someone who history will never quite figure out. Stonewall Jackson observed the Sabbath but was unafraid to kill the enemy. He was a borderline hypochondriac but he was unafraid of death. He’s simply a contradiction to himself in a lot of ways, and I think that is what makes Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson still such a figurehead of the Civil War and, I daresay, one its most fascinating.