#ANYWAYS when will they bring back the dw christmas specials!!!!
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#mine#doctor who#dwedit#david tennant#MERRY DECEMBER EVERYONE#haven't giffed this christmas ident in a very long time#and i saw someone post it in their story on instagram and i was like :O!!!#i wore a christmas sweater to work today!!! IT BEGINS#oh and since i didn't give you a tag update yesterday... it was not a snow day yesterday :'(#ANYWAYS when will they bring back the dw christmas specials!!!!
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Interrupting my usual broadcast of DW fic to bring you another British gay mess: Please enjoy my first attempt at Caroline/Gillian! And as if I haven't got enough WIPs on, this is gonna be four parts, as it turns out! I don't know why I'm like this :D Anyway here we are due to popular demand!
Gillian takes Caroline up on her offer of moving in together and pooling their resources. A month has gone by and Caroline is surprised at how easy and comfortable life on the farm has become. The arrangement works for both of them: Gillian's financial struggles are a thing of the past and while it isn’t exactly the traditional family set-up Caroline would have wanted, Gillian turned out to be exactly what she needed in a partner to help raise her daughter. Adding romance to the otherwise perfect set-up is a pipe-dream on the headteacher's part, but the more time she spends with the sheep farmer, the more drawn she is to her. Rating: M (language & sexual themes)
Home Is Not A Place - Part 1: The Dinner
“For goodness sake,“ Caroline groaned, as she stepped out of her SUV and right into a puddle. Resigned to her changed situation, she decided from now on she would have to switch shoes after work, from her favourite heels, to a lesser loved pair. There was no two ways about it. But at least then there would be absolutely no danger of ruining a two-hundred pound pair of Jimmy Choos, upon her arrival at Greenwood farm. Of course she wouldn’t mention this to Gillian, God no, otherwise her Christmas present to her might end up a new pair of wellingtons.
In the open court yard of the farm, the wind was biting cold and encouraged the headteacher to hurry up the stairs to the relative safety and comfort of the house. Caroline cursed under her breath as the wind wreaked havoc with her hair, and the cold crept up her legs, underneath her woefully-inappropriate-for-farm-life pencil skirt. The British weather was really giving its all this year to live up to its reputation. Well in the grip of Winter already, it only took Caroline to stay late at work by an hour - like today - and night had already fallen. Preparations for this year’s Nativity were gathering steam and - being the hands-on headmistress she was - there was no way Caroline would allow the theatre department to shoulder the burden all on their own. Working late would usually have required a lot of planning for a single parent such as herself, but things had gotten a lot easier, recently.
“Hiya Caz,“ Gillian called from the lounge, when Caroline closed the front door of the farm house behind her and smiled at the chipper greeting.
“Hiya!“ She called back and pushed her soaked shoes into a corner. With any luck, Gillian wouldn’t spot them and she could deal with them later. The sheep farmer would only get suspicious if she lingered in the hallway for too long. “Evening,“ Caroline smiled as she stepped into the living room. Flora and Calamity were sitting on the sofa in front of the tv, dressed in pyjamas. She walked over to them, pressing a kiss to her daughter’s head and then, for good measure, repeated the gesture on Calamity. The girls were the closest of friends and since Caroline and Flora had moved in at the farm, they had become closer still - almost like real siblings - and Caroline had found herself treating them as such with increasing frequency.
“Wet out, is it?“ Gillian smirked, observing Caroline’s dishevelled head of hair, drawing her attention. The sheep farmer was leaning against the kitchen counter, mug in hand, assessing her over the rim of it.
“What’s this?“ Caroline raised her eyebrows, as she spotted two - and only two! - places set at the kitchen table, complete with wine glasses.
“Girls have eaten. Just having a bit of telly before bed,“ Gillian explained, nodding towards the pre-schoolers that were engrossed in their cartoons. “Lasagne is in oven, thought you might be hungry, with your long day n’all.“
“You made lasagne?“ Caroline asked, though it sounded more bewildered than she had intended. It wasn’t uncommon that Gillian would cook for all of them. She was the one at home, her work was here, it made sense. Caroline was a woman of science, of hard facts, so she liked things to make sense. But for some reason, coming home to Gillian Greenwood - who had cooked for her and looked after her daughter - was still something of curiosity, despite empirical evidence to the contrary. Caroline was still not quite used to it, no matter how much sense it made.
Caroline had managed to convince Gillian of the sense behind them pooling their resources not long after she had floated the idea for the first time. Her and Flora moved in at the farm a month ago, and much to everyone’s surprise - and her mother’s dismay - it worked surprisingly well. This was not the first time she had come home to a cooked meal, it was becoming a regular occurrence, so Caroline was at a loss as to why this time, it felt different. Perhaps it was the absence of Raff and Ellie who - as Caroline now remembered - had been invited to Ellie’s mother’s to parade around the little one. Perhaps it was because there were only two places set at the table. Or perhaps it was the warmth of Gillian’s chuckled as she replied:
“Well, had to make something.“
“You really didn’t have to, I don’t… expect to come home to a home cooked meal every day,“ Caroline felt obliged to state, just for the record, though she knew that Gillian would do whatever the bloody hell she wanted anyway. It wasn’t like Caroline - or anyone else for that matter - had any bearing on what this infuriatingly independent and bull-headed woman did or didn’t do.
“Nice though, innit,“ the sheep farmer shot back with surprising enthusiasm. “Guess that was part of the deal. Least I can do, mind the kids and cook you some tea.“ She gave a shrug like it was nothing; when to Caroline, it was a huge deal. This wasn’t something she would have admitted to, of course; just as she wouldn’t have admitted that there was something very appealing about coming home to Gillian.
“I’m not expecting you to pretend to be my stay-at-home housewife or something, Gillian,“ Caroline tried to brush it off with a joke.
“You better not. Cause that’s not me,“ Gillian retorted with good-natured humour, and it struck Caroline that she was a far cry from the tense, short-fused woman she’d met seven years ago. It was moments such as these, that the headteacher realised how much she had changed. Healing would be too strong a word for it; Caroline couldn’t imagine how anyone could possibly heal from what Gillian had been through, but she seemed to be doing, better. She seemed more comfortable in her own skin, and more comfortable with her life. Secretly, Caroline hoped she had contributed to her wellbeing in some small way; even if it was just by giving her the security that she wouldn’t have to give up the farm.
“Don’t I know it,“ Caroline chuckled. “Wine, too, is it?“ She picked up the bottle on the table and checked the label. It was one of her favourites and for a moment, she wasn’t sure whether Gillian had remembered, or if they’d still had that bottle lying round somewhere. “Is there a special occasion? One month since we moved in?“ It wasn’t like she had been counting…well, she had. But only to be able to lord it over her mother about how long they had managed to stay under the same roof, without tearing each other’s heads off…or each other’s clothes…she added as an after thought. But only for her own amusement, not for public consumption.
“I guess I just…wanted to say thank you…for agreeing to this,“ Gillian huffed, suddenly appearing self-conscious, as if she wondered whether she had made a mistake. Caroline felt guilty immediately. For someone with self-esteem as fragile as Gillian, doubts came quickly, and cut deep.
“It was my idea! It’s to both of our advantage. I couldn’t have carried on the way it was, particularly now that our parents aren’t…able…to help as much as before…“ Caroline was quick to assure her. It had made a lot of sense, and she was glad she had managed to persuade Gillian of the proposal’s merit. Even once their parents had volunteered the money to pay for the work on the roof, it didn’t change the fact that Gillian was barely breaking even financially. Certainly not with the sheep that had escaped a few months ago, and once Raff and Ellie moved out - which was only a matter of time - they wouldn’t be contributing anymore, either. Gillian needed someone with her, and Caroline was more than happy to be that person, for numerous reasons. Some of them she cared to discuss, like the practicalities of it, some she would keep to herself, thank you very much.
“Just wanted to say, I do appreciate it, Caz,“ Gillian interrupted and held her hands up, as if she just had to get that out there - and would shut up now that it was said. “And I hope you’re not gonna regret it.“
“Gillian, we’ve known each other seven years now,“ Caroline couldn’t help but point out, as she set the bottle of wine back down on the table. “Yes, we’ve had our ups and downs, but all things considered, I think we’re about as steady as our parents, don’t you think?“ She gave her a soft smile. They really had come an incredibly far way since they first laid eyes on each other. To this day, Caroline was still embarrassed about her behaviour on the day they’s met, and was beyond relieved that with time, Gillian had come to see the funny side of the whole thing.
“Suppose so. Just without the sex,“ Gillian snickered and took a sip of her tea, hiding her grin in her mug as she seemed to relax again.
“I don’t want to think about our parents having sex, thank you very much!“ Caroline exclaimed, mortified, and quickly turned to check the girls hadn’t accidentally overheard. To her relief, she found them still very much engrossed in their tv show.
“God no. I don’t know if they still can, I mean, at their age…“ Gillian huffed, matter-of-factly. “And with his heart too, better mind his blood pressure hadn’t he… Mind you, probably wouldn’t be worst way t’go. Right in throes of…“
“Yes, right. That’s it, change of subject please!“ Caroline shook her head vehemently and Gillian laughed.
“Go and get changed, didn’t mean to ambush you, it’ll keep.“ She gestured to the oven. “I’ll get little ones in bed.“
“If you’re sure.“ Caroline glanced at the clock. She hadn’t realised how late it was. “How about bath time?“
“All this fun stuff you miss out on when you work late. It’s done and dusted. Go on. You don’t wanna be throwing lasagne down that fancy blouse o’ yours,“ Gillian observed, nodding towards her cream blouse.
“Right.“ Caroline gave a soft smile and watched the sheep farmer gulp down the rest of her tea, before sitting it down in the sink.
“You want me to make you a cuppa first?“ Gillian asked, seemingly confused as to why Caroline hadn’t taken her up on the offer yet, instead lingering in the kitchen.
“No, no, it’s fine, I’ll have wine if that’s going,“ Caroline answered quickly, snapping out of her moment of marvelling at how bloody perfect life was right about now to retrieve the corkscrew.
“Well, you know where everything is by now, don’t you. It’s your home too,“ Gillian observed, with an ease that astounded Caroline, that Gillian didn’t seem to think anything of. She just headed to the sofa where she put an arm around each of the girls from behind. “Right you two monsters, show’s over, off to bed wi’ you,“ she announced, leaving Caroline to forget all about the wine. She just watched the display of perfect family life in awe.
——
“Is it bad that I’m sort of looking forward to Raff and Ellie moving out?“ Caroline mused, watching Gillian’s reaction over the rim of her wine glass. “With the baby and everything, the walls aren’t exactly thick.“
“You knew that before moving in,“ Gillian pointed out. She wasn’t unkind about it, she was amused if nothing else.
“Yes, and I’m not complaining. I just didn’t think I’d be doing this still, at gone fifty, I mean…I’m just glad Flora is through the worst of it now.“ Even now, there were still times where Caroline wondered whether she was too old for all this. She had two grown up sons, starting again with Flora and doing it all on her own had been tough. Thankfully, finally, she wasn’t alone anymore. It wasn’t exactly the traditional family set-up she would have longed for, but she knew Gillian would be everything Flora needed in a second parent. She could also be everything Caroline needed in a partner, but that was just wishful thinking on the headteacher’s part. She would content herself with the way things were, as it was shaping up to be everything she wanted, just sadly minus the romance.
“Nowt saying William or Lawrence couldn’t have started early,“ Gillian retorted and Caroline laughed:
“William? Please!“ They were on their third glass of red and Caroline was feeling warm and relaxed. Her reactions had lost the restraint and reservedness she usually maintained with people, even the ones closest to her. “And Lawrence needs to seriously work out whatever he is doing with his life. And with Angus!“ She had often wondered about his relationship with his best friend. At this point, things could go either way.
“Fair. Not much of a chance of getting knocked up there,“ Gillian chuckled.
“Raff’s done alright though, hasn’t he. Becoming a dad so young and still seeing through his education and getting a good job at the end of it, it’s quite the accomplishment,“ Caroline smiled and delighted in the way Gillian’s face brightened with pride.
“He’s a good boy, our Raff,“ she commented, and Caroline was determined to push the matter over the finish line:
“That’s a credit to you. He couldn’t have done it without your support,“ she added kindly, as she put her cutlery down. Dinner had been a delight, but then by this point, Gillian could have probably fed her anything and she would have thanked her with a dreamy eyed smile. Caroline felt the warmth radiating from her cheeks; a combination of wine, the fire going in the adjoining room, and her own conflicted feelings towards her step sister. For the sake of her own sanity, she refused to refer to her as that whenever possible, particularly in her own head.
“More like in spite of me,“ Gillian huffed, her mood swinging like a pendulum. She had been much more steady in recent years, but that wasn’t to say she was free of the crippling self-doubt that always chose the most inopportune moments to rear its ugly head. “Never would’ve happened wi’ someone else. Not like your boys went and knocked up their girlfriend, is it.“
“Don’t be ridiculous,“ Caroline cut in quickly, but Gillian just downed the rest of her wine and carried on:
“You know it’s true, ‘as bad as his mother’ is what they were saying, and if they weren’t, they were thinking it.“ She gave a bitter laugh that stood in stark contrast to the carefree atmosphere they had enjoyed.
“You have many flaws, Gillian, it’s part of your charm, but being a bad mother? That’s certainly not one of them.“ Caroline was quick and decisive, in intervening. There had been times where she had been quite happy to shoot a snide comment her way herself, but not anymore.
“Hm.“ Gillian’s response was minimal, which indicated to Caroline that she hadn’t listened or taken in what she’d said.
“It’s not!“ She insisted firmly.
“Alright!“ Gillian exclaimed, exasperated.
“Do you think I’d have come here, to live with you, having you help look after my daughter, if I didn’t think you were a good mother and a good person?“ Caroline leaned forward onto her elbows, regarding the farmer with a stern look that she had perfected in many years of teaching.
“’suppose not.“ Gillian folded, just as one of Caroline’s six-formers would have done.
“Well then.“ The headteacher straightened herself up again and proceeded to divide the rest of the bottle in between their two glasses.
“Their faces. When you told them.“ Gillian suddenly burst out laughing and Caroline grinned, recalling the conversation in vivid detail. The pendulum that was Gillian’s emotional well-being, had swung back around.
“Of all the stupid, stupid videos Lawrence has done… that would have been the moment to capture,“ she shook her head to herself, remembering how comical and surreal the whole thing had been.
“It was your Mum more than me Dad, that face she pulled!“ Gillian couldn’t stop laughing; it was infectious and prompted Caroline to launch into a scarily accurate imitation of her mother:
“Caroline, you can’t really be considering moving to a farm, and HER farm of all places. Is that any way for Flora to grow up? What if she…catches something or…“ Caroline could hardly breathe for laughing. “Honestly Mum, what is she gonna catch? Fresh air?“
“Touch of the common farmer, more like,“ Gillian grimaced, but she didn’t seem to care, not really.
“Like she’s never stayed here herself.“ Caroline rolled her eyes at the hypocrisy.
“I think she was more concerned with me, than the farm,“ Gillian pointed out, taking a deep breath to calm herself down - but her face continued cracking up and gave her away.
“Well obviously.“ Caroline just waved it off. They were both used to her mother’s strong opinions, and readily chose to ignore them.
“What will you be doing with Gillian around all the time?“ Gillian tried herself at Celia’s accent which caused Caroline to launch into another laughing fit.
“I don’t know, Mum, maybe we will have a wild sapphic love affair,“ she reprised her witty response with tears of laughter in her eyes.
“You nearly gave her a heart attack an’all,“ Gillian snickered.
“Well, it’s none of her business.“ Caroline took a deep breath, regaining some small measure of self control. “And really, she only has herself to blame. If she hadn’t been on at your Dad about lending you that money, and then telling me they wouldn’t be picking up Flora anymore, none of this would have happened.“
“So really, we should be thanking her, shouldn’t we.“ Gillian grinned after brief contemplation. “To your mother.“ She raised her glass and Caroline toasted her:
“I’ll drink to that.“
The evening wore on, and just as they contemplated opening a third bottle, Raff and Ellie returned with the baby, who was sleeping soundly in his car seat. Thank God for small favours, Caroline thought. They had cleared up from dinner and were lounging on the sofa with the telly on.
“Mum. Caz. Alright?“ Raff greeted them.
“Had a good evening?“ Gillian asked, looking around.
“Yeah great thanks,“ Ellie smiled in response and made her way up the stairs with the little one.
“You watching University Challenge, Mum?“ Raff asked, bemused, as he noticed the program they were watching.
“Through no fault of my own!“ Gillian was quick to point out. She shot Caroline a look who was sitting to the other end of the sofa.
Caroline considered it a safe distance, but not as safe as the other sofa would have been. It was one small thing she allowed herself. It was innocent enough, and Gillian didn’t seem to think twice when their legs intertwined on the two-seater.
The sheep farmer carried on explaining their television agreement to her son: “We compromise, see, she gets to watch something she wants and then I get to watch something I want.“
“Trust her to chose the most obnoxious thing she can possibly find, just to wind me up,“ Caroline interjected but without averting her eyes from the screen. She mumbled the answer to yet another obscure question under her breath.
“Sounds about right,“ Raff chuckled and Gillian leaned over the back of the sofa to slap her son’s arm.
“Remember, it’s a school night,“ she pointed her finger at him.
“Bit rich coming from you.“ He eyed their empty wine glasses. “I feel like the alcohol consume in this house has sky rocketed in the past month.“
“Yeah, well, got to knock ourselves out somehow between the baby crying and you two going at it,“ Gillian quipped, and returned her attention to the television as well.
“You’re just jealous cause you haven’t go a fella right now,“ Raff teased.
“Yeah well, I’m over that for the time being,“ Gillian gave a dismissive wave of her hand.
“Think you’ve finally gone through all the eligible bachelors in West Yorkshire?“ Caroline saw an opportunity to jump in and tried her best to keep the smallest twang of jealousy from her voice.
“And some of the ineligible ones too,“ Raff added, with a smirk.
“OI!“ Gillian exclaimed, shooting him a glare and kicked Caroline’s leg for siding with him.
“I’d better see if Ellie needs some help…“ Raff was quick to make his escape.
“Yeah, you’d better,“ his mother shouted after him.
“I have to say, you have come a long way since we met. From having three blokes you’re shagging staying over in this place,“ Caroline couldn’t help but comment, recalling the fateful night their parents had gone missing and they had stayed at the farm with Gillian’s three merry men - Paul, John and Robbie - all crammed onto these sofas.
“Bet you wouldn’t have come to stay then, would’ya,“ Gillian hummed, her voice surprisingly neutral.
“Could have joined that exclusive club,“ Caroline smirked, the alcohol loosening her tongue enough to make a joke, one too close to the truth for comfort. She forced herself not to think about what else she could be doing with her tongue right about now.
“Caz!“ Gillian exclaimed, and the headteacher couldn’t quite tell whether she was offended, self-conscious or flattered.
“It really is easy to tease you,“ Caroline back-peddled to safer waters.
“Yeah well, you’re living with Yorkshire’s greatest slapper so jokes on you,“ Gillian huffed. “Watch your f-bloody University Challenge.“
“Hm, yes, what will people think,“ Caroline chuckled and did as she was told.
#last tango in halifax#gillian x caroline#gillian greenwood#caroline mckenzie dawson#domestic fluff#useless lesbians#nicola walker#sarah lancashire#femslash#friends to lovers
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Doctor Who Rankings: Moffat's Era: Eleven Doctor
The ranking of the season is: Season 6, Season 5, Season 7.
Season 5
The Time of Angels / Flesh and Stone. Weeping Angels are my all time favorite villains, them and the Daleks. This story is the best story with the Angels, after Blink. I like when they talk through the dead soldier. It's scary and creepy and it hurts. To know that a young scared boy just died and an Angel is using him to talk with the Doctor. To scare the Doctor and the others. To gloat about its victory. I love how slow the Doctor is to figure out that all he statues are angles. How he speaks about the aliens on that planet having two heads until he finally figures it out. And it's too late cause they're too far into the maze and they can't go back. Amy having an Angel in her brain gives a nice spike of adrenaline here and there. We know she won't die, but not knowing how she'll be saved kept my attention and my worry high. Definitely the best episode of the season.
The Pandora Opens / The Big Bang I love this season finale. Probably my favorite of Smith's run. The way Rory's presence should have been a red flag, but the Doctor was just so relieved seeing him that he didn't really stop to think why he was there. River as Cleopatra is hilarious. All the enemies of the Doctor united against him is frankly terrifying. Again I knew everything was going to be okay in the end, but still terrifying. I love how they solved things in The Big Bang. Eleven zapping around his own timeline was fun to watch, River killing the Daleks was refreshing. I like how she isn't the typical DW companion. Companions are usually the merciful part of the Doctor, the ones that remind them how to be kind and human and compassionate. River is strong is vengeful and she is shown being merciless. I love her. The moment when Rory kills Amy is heartbreaking. They are the best romance in NewWho hands down. Amy bringing back the Doctor only remembering him is maybe a bit of an easy way out. But I've seen worse.
Victory of the Daleks. Have I mentioned how much I love the Daleks? Cause I do. Love them. So much. And see them serving tea to Winston Churchill was beyond hilarious. Seeing how everyone ignored Eleven's warnings cause winning the war was the only thing that matter and screw any potential danger. Using this powerful weapon was more important than listening to the bright person screaming danger in your face. I found the Dalek's robot really cute. How they used the memories of his first crush to keep him human, how ultimately the feelings are what make you human and not biology. And I love that they let him live. I imagine him happy with his love.
The Eleventh Hour As far are first episodes for a regeneration go this is probably the best. I honestly liked it more than The Christmas Invasion. I like how energetic Eleven was even if he just came out of a regeneration. I like how he is with little Amelia. And I think it's hilarious how easy it is for Amy to fool the Doctor into thinking she is a real cop. When I saw Number One from the Umbrella Academy being busted while he was looking porn I laughed. And I love how the Doctor actually called the aliens back and scared them away even if he could have simply let them go.
Vincent and the Doctor I admit the biggest reason I like this episode is because of Vincent Van Gogh. The story is pretty boring, incredibly sad when the creature dies scared, but ultimately boring and predictable. But Vincent is such a good character that the rules the whole episode. The end was heartbreaking. Both the moment with Vincent in the museum realising that he was going to be appreciated and Amy running in it thinking she would find more paintings only to discover that in the end he had killed himself anyway.
The Lodger It's probably one of the silliest episodes of the NewWho. The story is nothing special, maybe a bit boring. But I really like James Corden and Craig's dynamic with the Doctor is hilarious. And him and Sophie are so cute. It's like Boom Town in season one. Episodes that aren't special but I just like them so they have an higher spot than they probably deserve
The Hungry Earth / Cold Blood The story was interesting. Exploring how humanity would act toward their prisoner and everything. But I just lost interest in it by the end of the first episode, maybe before. The only thing I really remember about it is Rory's death and the Doctor's reaction, his desperate try to keep Rory alive in Amy's memory. Seeing Rory die and then be erased from time was just so hard and heartbreaking.
The Beast Below Not a bad episode, but just really forgettable for me. Seeing people chose to forget cause they want to keep living was interesting. I don't know what I would have done but in the end probably our will to survive is more important and more pronounced that our morality. In the end it's sad how humans just assumed that they had to torture the wale to make it help, when in truth it was offering and it would have helped anyway.
Amy's Choice This episode is so useless that while writing this list I completely forgot it existed, you have to thank Wikipedia if it made the list. It's not as bad as Vampire of Venice, but close enough.
Vampires of Venice Sorry but this episode goes together with Love and Monsters for me. Two episodes that should just be forgotten. I
#doctor who#eleventh doctor#amy pond#rory williams#river song#steven moffat#matt smith#karen gillan#arthur darvill#the eleventh hour#vampire in Venice#the pandorica opens
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Chapter 6 – So Long, and Thanks For All the Fish [TST 1/2]
The chapter title comes from the wonderful Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy book series – drop this meta and read them immediately.
No, no he [Moriarty] would never be that disappointing. He’s planned something, something long-term. Something that would take effect if he never made it off that rooftop alive. Posthumous revenge – no, better than that. Posthumous game.
This is what Sherlock says about Moriarty in the very first scene of TST, and on rewatch the application to Mofftiss is startling. Trust the writers – a short-term disappointment for a long-term excitement, if you will. The reference to the rooftop is a way of pointing out just how far back this has been planned – in other words, the seeming randomness of the series is not in fact random. But let’s see how that plays out in TST.
This episode opens, as so many have pointed out, with doctored footage, as though deliberately showing us how stories can be rewritten. However, we only get glimpses of the footage at the start of the episode – the extensive old footage is not security camera footage, but recap footage from s3, and specifically the end of HLV. The idea that there is something classified, hidden, that we don’t have the full story, is meant to be associated with the actual show Sherlock, not just the camera footage – it would have been very easy to give us most of the same footage in security camera style, but they deliberately reused shots from the show to make us doubt their own authenticity. So far, so good.
The first thing that I (and most of my friends) noticed about this scene, however, is that it’s not good. The writing is questionable, to say the least. The serious resolution to the problem of Magnussen’s murder is interrupted by Sherlock tweeting, brotherly bickering, hyperactive and possibly high Sherlock being played for comedy (complete with mock opera). And then, perhaps the worst lines of the show so far:
SHERLOCK: I always know when the game is on. Do you know why?
SMALLWOOD: Why?
SHERLOCK: Because I love it.
Like a lot of this show, think about those lines for more than a nanosecond and they really don’t make sense. You’ve got to think about them for a lot longer before they start to again. This, I think, is where BBC Sherlock’s self-parody really starts. TAB focuses on parodying, critiquing and rewriting historical adaptations, but it’s easy to see the merging of all of the undeniably Sherlock elements into one parodically awful scene. The quick quips that are supposed to be clever and that are so common in Moffat’s dialogue are seen in that moment of dialogue – but the quip isn’t clever anymore, it’s empty. The same catchphrase of ‘the game is on’ comes back, and the quintessential use of technology is referenced in Sherlock’s Twitter account, where again his #OhWhatABeautifulMorning is unfathomably glib. Our Sherlock is also better known than previous adaptations for his drug abuse, and this also gets referenced, but here it gets played for comedy, which is incongruous with the rest of the show – in fact, THoB, HLV and TAB all take it pretty seriously, so to see it played off as a joke is tonally questionable. In other words, here we have Sherlock caricatured as a programme, in one scene – and it’s horrible.
(We should also notice that the use of Twitter is important – it underlies a lot of the glib comedy in this episode, with Sherlock later Tweeting #221BringIt (which is so unbelievably queer?). In Sherlock, Moffat use Twitter rather than Tumblr to comment on fan reaction to Sherlock, probably because their older audience will have no idea what Tumblr is, but also because Twitter is much more mainstream in its appreciation. Twitter takes centre stage in TEH, with #SherlockLives and the scene with the support group. The joke there is about the sheer level of how-did-he-do-it mania that gripped the public – so when we see Twitter again, we should be thinking about an extratextual as well as a textual response to Sherlock, and how Sherlock’s behaviour on Twitter in this episode might caricature the way that he is seen from the outside.)
I don’t truly buy that (in this scene, at least) Mofftiss are critiquing their own show in a straightforward sense, because they have dealt with technology better than this (words on screen, technology as useful within mysteries), drugs better than this (John’s, Mycroft’s and Molly’s reactions to Sherlock’s behaviour as well as Sherlock’s own difficulties) and clever quips far better (pick any episode). But in deconstructing this show to its instantly recognisable elements, and making them worse to hyperbolise the point, that scene strips the show of its heart. Interestingly, it’s also stripped of John, who will be the metaphorical heart of Sherlock through the EMP, but is also the part of the show that is missing when it is caricatured as the Benedict-Cumberbatch-being-clever show. This is also a critique of most people’s perception of Sherlock Holmes as a character through history in the sense of the reductive cleverness – Mofftiss are showing us that this is completely empty.
What does this mean for Sherlock himself, bearing in mind that this is taking place in his Mind Palace? The answer is pretty grim – remember that Sherlock is metatextually grappling with his own identity at this point; he needs to discover the man he is, rather than is portrayed as, in order to get out of this alive. In a psychological sense, then, the opening of TST sees Sherlock deconstruct himself as seen from the outside, and as his psyche has traditionally perceived himself, and realise that that version of himself is hollow. This scene, then, is a rejection of the Sherlock of the public eye, as well as Sherlock’s own eyes.
There is a non-explanation for how the Secret Service doctored the footage of Sherlock shooting Magnussen, the response simply being that they have the tech. If the answer is going to be that vague, there is little reason to bring up the question – except to raise it in the viewers’ minds. Making the audience question their belief in the s4 universe is something that happens very frequently, and this is the start of it. A later chapter goes into the parallels that Sherlock and Doctor Who have, but there’s an important bit from Last Christmas (DW Christmas Special 2014) that is relevant here – the main characters, all dreaming, whenever they are asked any questions that can’t be explained in the dream universe, simply reply ‘it’s a long story’. This is a ‘long story’ moment – where no explanation is given, so questions about reality are raised and unanswered.
Another similar moment comes when Sherlock says he knows exactly what Moriarty is going to do next – how? And, more to the point, it becomes hugely obvious that he doesn’t. Yet, for the first time in history, he feels happy to sit back and wait on Moriarty, because he knows that what will come will come. This insistence that the future will take its course as it needs to might draw our minds ahead to the frankly ridiculous reliance on predictions that we see in TLD – however, it should also draw our minds across to Doctor Who, and to Amy’s Choice, a series five episode I’m going to delve deeper into later, but where because it’s a dream, the Doctor is able to predict every word the monsters say.
Notice that ‘glad to be alive’ is followed by Vivian saying her name – we’ll come back to this later.
Cue opening credits!
Before going anywhere else with TST, required reading is this meta by LSiT (X). I can’t make these points better than she has, nor can I take credit for them. I’m particularly invested in her description of the aquarium and the Samarra story, as well as the client cases that appear and aren’t updated on John’s blog. Our reading will diverge later on – I think this series is a lot more metaphorical than it is hypothesis-testing, although the latter is a notable feature of ACD canon (see the original THotB) that definitely does happen here as well. I’m going to leave the Samarra story, the aquarium and the cases for LSiT to explain, however, and move on.
When we move into 221B, the fuckiness is instantly apparent from the mirror. You can go here (X) to navigate the whole inside of 221B, and I suggest you do; it’s a fantastic resource. The mirror showing the green wall is simply wrong – the angle that this is shot from suggests that we should see the black and white wallpaper, complete with skull etc. Instead, we see the green wall – and the door. We can tell this is wrong because in the ‘wrong thumb’ case about thirty seconds later, the right wallpaper is reflected in the mirror. Another note of fuckiness that we should spot is that Sherlock seems to be taking his cases from letters, in the mail he has knifed into the mantelpiece – this show has been really keen on emphasising that he uses email for the last three series, so the implication that people are sending him letters is even odder than it would be in a modern show anyway.
(Everybody in the world has commented on the ‘it’s never twins’ line – but to reiterate its importance. Firstly, it’s almost identical to the line in TAB, just with ‘it’s’ instead of ‘it is’. TAB repeats lots of things though, because it’s a dream – well yes, but dreams can’t tell the future. So material from TAB being recycled doesn’t point to TAB being a dream, it points to TST being a continuation of the dream in TAB. The fact that they saw fit to reiterate this line in a series about secret siblings also puts paid to the theory that s4 was plotted in a rush and not in line with previous series – there is a theme here, and they’re pushing it.)
And so we move to Sherlock relentlessly texting through the birth, through the christening – horrible, ooc behaviour for him if we think back to how emotional he was at the wedding. Importantly, this behaviour is all tied up with his obsessive Tweeting, which in turn links in to how the outside world (i.e. us) perceive Sherlock – is this the Sherlock that people want to see on screen? Doesn’t he feel wrong? Sure, there’s an element of self-critique in there from Mofftiss, but the incorporation of the phone obsession leaves the blame squarely with the audience. In case we couldn’t already feel that Sherlock’s character is way off, we have his Siri loudly say that she can’t understand him.
We remember from TAB that Sherlock sees himself as cleverer through John’s eyes, and the reasonably sympathetic portrayal we get in TAB we can probably put down to this attempt at understanding himself from the outside. The water in TST is showing us that we’re going in, and the sad thing is that this is almost definitely how Sherlock has come to perceive himself, but just like Siri he doesn’t truly recognise it. It’s also worth noting here the emphasis placed on God in godfather and later the deliberate mentions of Christianity at the Christening – there is also a tuning out of a culture he can’t really align himself with here, which is more important when we think about the fact that this character has been around since the 19th century.
Water tells us we’re sinking deep into Sherlock’s mind, as discussed in a previous chapter. Water imagery is going to be hugely prevalent in TST, but I want to talk quickly about the subtle hints at water even when we’re not in a giant fuck-off aquarium. Take a look at the rattle scene (which always sparks joy). When we get a side angle that shows both Sherlock and Rosie, there’s a black chest of some description behind Rosie – the top is glowing slightly blue, for reasons I can’t fathom. Then we’re going to cut to a shot of Rosie – despite seeing only a second before that there is nothing on her head, there is a glow of blue on it that looks almost like a skullcap. Cut back to Sherlock getting a rattle in the face, and the mirror is glowing the same blue colour behind him. This is all fucky, and it’s a fuckiness which is aesthetically tied to the waters of Sherlock’s mind perfectly. It suggests that Rosie isn’t real, but more important is the mirror. Earlier on I pointed out how the mirror was showing the wrong reflection; here, the mirror is glowing blue, linking it thematically to Sherlock’s subconsciousness. Visually, we’re being hinted at the process of self-reflection that’s going on in Sherlock’s brain – and the opening of TST is showing him getting it terribly wrong. Note that when the mirror jolted right earlier, Sherlock was proclaiming that it had been the wrong thumb – god knows what thumbs have to do with this, but there’s a question of shifting perception on his person, like he’s trying to locate himself.
The glowing blue light sticks around, and seems particularly associated with Rosie, like she’s the focus of much of Sherlock’s thought at the moment. LSiT’s meta linked above has already picked up on the many dangers in Rosie’s cradle decoration, from the Moriarty linked images to the killer whale mobile. Due purely to a lucky pause, I caught the killer whale’s eyes glowing blue, just like the blue from the rattle scene. He’s thinking about her in terms of the key villains of the show as well as the villains in his mind.
I’m not going to comment on the bus scene because I have a chapter dedicated to Eurus moments before TFP – jumping straight ahead.
We then find our first Thatcher case – others have been pretty quick to point out the significance of the blue power ranger in gay tv history (X), and infer that Charlie is queer coded – much like David Yost, who played the blue power ranger, he is not able to come out without being treated badly. This is undoubtedly important, as is the fact that this is the second time in 12 minutes of this show that they’ve shown us how easily film footage can be faked, and someone can be lied to – you don’t need to have Mycroft Holmes levels of clearance, just a Zoom background. This is important too. But the other thing I want to focus on is that he says he’s in Tibet.
Sherlock comes pretty high on my list of top TV shows, but currently Twin Peaks holds the top spot – it’s an unashamedly cryptic show all about solving mysteries through dreams, so no wonder I like it. It’s made by David Lynch, and in the TAB chapter I talk about how TAB takes a lot of structural inspiration from his most famous film, Mulholland Drive, which has similar themes. I don’t think this is anything particularly interesting beyond an attempt to reference the defining work in the field of it-was-all-a-dream film and tv – David Lynch and Mofftiss and Victor Fleming are the only people I can think of who can actually make that plot look good. But this Tibet moment, particularly as we’re going to be hit by another reference to Tibet later, underlining its importance, I think is a reference to this scene (X) where the protagonist, Cooper, outlines a dream in which the Dalai Lama spoke to him and gave him the power to use magic to solve mysteries. Fans of Twin Peaks will know that the magic doesn’t last long – it’s pretty much an introductory way in, and most of the rest of his important deductions will all be made in dreams. This is one of the most famous scenes in the whole programme, because it introduced the world to the weirdness of what had been set up as a straightforward cop show, and despite Cooper rarely (possibly never?) mentioning Tibet again, it’s still highly quoted and recognisable. As a watershed moment in bringing dream worlds into normal detective dramas (something highly frowned upon according to any theory of storytelling!) this is a gamechanging moment, and I don’t think it’s a stretch to point to Sherlock’s several references to Tibet as a link back to this moment.
We then cut back to Sherlock thinking whilst Lestrade tells him more about the case – what is bizarre here, is that John and Lestrade are clearly visible through what can only be described as a rearview mirror attached to the side of Sherlock’s head. If anyone can tell me what that is, I would love to know. I’m going to assume it’s a fucky mirror, because it’s in keeping with the other fucky mirrors so far. The visibility of John and Lestrade in the mirror is even more odd because it doesn’t match the colour palette of 221B at all. Sherlock is lit largely in warm, brown colours, as is Charlie’s father in the previous scene we’re transitioning from – Lestrade and John are lit in dark blue, to the point where they’re barely visible. This looks like a rearview mirror, but not like the one on the power ranger car – it’s a much older car, out of a different time, like so much in this dream world. The only colour palette they seem to match is the one from the s4 promotion photos – you know, when Baker Street is completely underwater.
Drowning in the Mind Palace. Here we are, back where we started. Sherlock might be thinking about the case of Charlie, but he’s actually reflecting on that world we saw in the promo photos, where he’s struggling to stay alive in his brain. Notice that this isn’t just a split shot, it’s specifically a mirror, so we’re meant to focus on this episode as an act of reflection. There are great parallels between Sherlock and the Charlie case which you can find here (X) – essentially, Charlie and Carl Powers from TGG are mirrors for one another both in their names and in the manner they die (a fit in a tight place, basically). Carl Powers is already a mirror for Sherlock – obsessively targeted by Jim for being the best at what he does. Charlie mirrors Sherlock through their shared trip to Tibet (dreamscape alert) and, we think, through the metatextual link of the blue power ranger. In case you hadn’t spotted it, Powers links back to that too – probably coincidence, but a nice one nevertheless. Carl Powers’s death is by drowning, which we shouldn’t ignore in an episode as loaded with ideas about drowning in the mind palace. The fact that the mirror reflects drowning Baker Street aesthetics should make us think that Charlie is asking us to reflect on Carl Powers’s death, but also on Sherlock’s own – already fatally injured (by a fit or by Mary), he is going to die smothered, unable to cry for help (in a swimming pool/carseat costume (?!)/mind palace). The idea that none of these people could cry for help is particularly poignant because so much of series 4 is about Sherlock being unable to voice his own identity, and as we’ll see once he’s able to do that, that may give him the impetus to escape his death. Think of ‘John Watson is definitely in danger’ back in HLV.
Now. Why is Sherlock so keen for Lestrade to take the credit? It’s another reason to bring up the fact that John’s blog is constantly updating – it’s dropped in a lot in this series as opposed to others – and to make us think about why nothing is happening in real life. But, given that this episode is about Sherlock trying to find who he is, is it a rejection of the persona that goes along with being Sherlock Holmes? Possibly, but he’s going to have to go to a lot more effort than that. John’s blog is the real problem here, making not just Sherlock but Lestrade out to be like they’re not. John’s blog is a stand in for the original stories, which were supposed to be written by John Watson, but TAB has already (drawing on TPLoSH) laid the groundwork for the idea that John’s blog/those stories really do not tell the whole story. So this is coming back with a vengeance here, even though for the first time Sherlock is properly moving against the persona in there, not just bitching about John’s writing style, which is a theme more common to Sherlock Holmes across the ages. John then says that it’s obvious, and when pressed just laughs and says that it’s normally what Sherlock says at this point – so again, when Sherlock stops filling the intense caricature of arrogance and bravado, John the storyteller steps in to put him back in line, even though that means pulling him back to being a much more unpleasant character.
A note here: most of the time in EMP theory, I think John represents Sherlock’s heart, and I try to refer to John as heart!John as much as possible when that’s the case. There are a few cases which are different, but most notable are when the blog comes up – then John becomes John the blogger, and our symbolism shifts over to the repressive features of the original stories and how that’s playing out in the modern world. Although a pain to analyse sometimes, I find it incredibly neat that the two of them are bound up in John as source of both love and pain, which fits our story beautifully.
John as blogger continues in the baby joke that he and Lestrade have going down the stairs – they continue with their caricature of Sherlock, but he doesn’t recognise himself in it. Or rather, there’s a moment when he seems to, but he can’t quite grasp onto it. This is typical of the way he recognises himself in the programme. It’s also worth noting that the image of John as a father is particularly tied into ACD, as the creator of Sherlock Holmes, so tying together blogger and father in this scene cements our theme.
Going into the Welsborough house, we get a slip of the tongue from Sherlock which is fantastic. He tells them that he is really sorry about their daughter, which at an earlier point in the show might just be a classic Sherlock slip-up. But mixing up genders is actually something which happens quite a lot in this show, and it’s something drawn attention to as significant in TAB.
Sherlock asks John “How did he survive?” of Emelia Ricoletti, when of course he’s thinking about Moriarty, and John corrects him quickly, much like here. A coincidental callback? Maybe not. What’s the first mistake that Sherlock ever makes? Thinking that Harry Watson is a man. What’s the big trick they pull at the end of S4? Sherlock has a secret sister – and Eurus points out that her gender is the surprise at the end of TLD. Eurus is also an opposite-sex mirror for John and for Sherlock at various points and this allows Sherlock to approach their relations from a heterosexual standpoint and thus interrogate them – more on that later. So gender-swapping is a theme that runs through the show a lot. But the similarity to TAB in particular is important here, because in TAB that was our first obvious declaration that this wasn’t just a mirror to be analysed by the tumblr crowd, this was a mirror on the superficial level that had to be broken through. This callback to TAB is a callback to the mirrored dreamscape. Don’t believe me? Look at what happens next. The second Sherlock sees Thatcher the whole room not only goes underwater, but actually starts to shake – another throwback to recognising that Emelia was Moriarty, when the whole room shakes and the elephant in the room smashes. So, again, we’re being told that this isn’t about this case – it’s about something else, and that something is the elephant in the room. Just like the shaking smashes the elephant in the room, the shaking is what tells us about the smashed bust of Margaret Thatcher. Margaret Thatcher, whose laws on “promoting homosexuality” were infamous. Smashing the elephant in the room and Thatcher simultaneously between 2015, the 1980s and 1895 is hitting the history of British homophobia for the last hundred years summed up as quickly as possible, and tearing it down through Sherlock’s self-exploration. This is a good fucking show.
You’ll also notice that Sherlock is alone in the room, just for a second, when he has his Thatcher revelation – everybody else vanishes. Again, we’re seeing that the rest of the case is an illusion, providing just enough storytime to keep the audience believing in the dream, and possibly Sherlock too.
[There’s a fantastic framing of Sherlock here between two portraits, a man and a woman, seemingly ancestral – I would love to know more about these, because if I know Arwel they’re significant, and the way they hang over Sherlock is really metaphorically suggestive. If anyone has any info on that, it looks like a really good avenue to explore.]
Blue. Blue is the colour of Sherlock’s mind palace, but this scene ties it firmly to the Conservative party. The dark blue of Sherlock’s scarf nearly matches Welsborough’s jumper, which is in fact a better match for the mind palace aesthetic generally. Thatcher unsurprisingly wears blue as well. If blue is the water that Sherlock is drowning in, how interesting that it’s being tied to the most homophobic prime minister of the last 50 years. There was absolutely no need to make this guy a cabinet minister, dress him in blue, even make Thatcher replace Napoleon – I would actually argue that Churchill is a figure who matches Napoleon’s distance and stature much better for our time. Thatcher is an odd choice, and therefore significant. To tie this to the mind palace further, we then get a shot of Sherlock reflected in the picture of Thatcher as he analyses it – a reflection of him reflecting. In case we forgot what this was actually about.
Sherlock not knowing who Thatcher is – perfectly feasible and actually quite important, although something that I’m not going to resolve until my meta on TFP, because that’s where it comes together for me. But Sherlock playing for time with his further jokes about being oblivious (‘female?’) – that, again, is Sherlock actively playing a caricature of himself. He’s not doing it for fun – he’s doing it to cover up his concern about the smashed elephant in the room Thatcher bust.
The weird thing about the reveal of how Charlie died is that we see what should have happened, if everything had gone right, before we see how he died. I can’t recall this happening in another episode of Sherlock, although I could be wrong. It’s marked by the really noticeable scene transition of crackling television static, as though the signal is cutting out. This is possibly a bit of a reach, but there’s one obvious place where we’ve seen a lot of static before.
Moriarty coming back isn’t what’s supposed to happen. It doesn’t happen in the books. We’re telling the wrong story here. (Bear in mind, from previous chapters, that Jim represents Sherlock’s fear that John’s life is in danger.) Just like Jim returning isn’t the right story, but it’s the one that happened, Charlie’s story isn’t the right story but it’s the one that happened – and indeed, Sherlock needing to save John from a dangerous marriage + suicide is not what is supposed to happen – John and Mary are supposed to be married for good (until she dies) in canon. A whole load of false endings – new stories superseding old ones. Mofftiss has an idea that there’s a new story that’s going to be told, and our strongest canon divergence is the end of s3, when we get into the EMP – and from thereon in to TAB it’s off the deep end, and the same is seen here. That TV static is talking about a new medium for a new age and their refusal to deal with established canon norms. Just in case we didn’t remember, outside in the porch we even get a visual reminder of the TV static with a second’s flashback to ‘Miss Me?’ Bad news is, that means Sherlock Holmes rejecting the norms he’s been given (feasibly represented by the hyperbolic nuclear family here) and instead… dying in his mind palace. Less fun. Carl Powers died too. Sherlock still hasn’t got there quite yet – let’s hope he doesn’t.
The next scene is, I think, very important. We come across Mycroft in a dark room with a tiny bit of light – this is really odd, as the obvious place to put Mycroft would be the Diogenes Club. Yet, although clearly more modern, this reminds me most of all of the room we meet Mycroft in in TAB.
The colour palette is the same as the top photo, and the similar chunks of light falling through suggest that we’re in the same place. I’ve brought in a photo from the aeroplane in TAB to show how the light is designed to mirror that of the Diogenes Club in TAB as well – there is a unity in all these Mycroft’s that we shouldn’t miss. Here I can’t imagine I’m the first one to notice that the light in Mycroft’s office is designed to look like a chessboard, which was an important motif in the promotional pictures for s4. Chess is associated with Sherlock’s brain through Mycroft, most notably in THE where it is contrasted with Operation which represents their emotional (in)capacities. So here we are – Mycroft is the brain, if we didn’t already know, and Sherlock has gone to speak to his brain alone much like he did in TAB. Mycroft has already been associated with the queen a lot; they meet in Buckingham Palace in ASiB, where there is a jibe about Mycroft being the queen of England – we can see here in Sherlock’s head that the brain’s power is vastly reduced by comparing these two episodes. The first time we see Mycroft in connection to the Queen we go to the most famous building in the UK. The second time, Sherlock says he’s going to the Mall, which is the street that Buckingham Palace is on, so we are led to expect a reprisal – and instead come here. There is still a picture of the queen on the wall, but apart from that we are in the darkest room of the show so far, whose grating makes it look under siege. Mycroft’s power in Sherlock’s head is vastly reduced, and indeed the brain’s influence (represented by the queen) over Sherlock’s character is waning as Sherlock struggles to come to terms with his emotional identity.
[Crack/tenuous theory: when Sherlock asks John if he is the king of England in s3, in the drunk knee grope scene, this shows that his brain’s control over his emotions have slipped; references to the queen in relation to Mycroft before have shown that Sherlock does know about the royal family, so this has to metaphorically refer to his own psyche and letting go of his brain’s anti-emotion side. Like I say, crack. But I believe it.]
Again, if we weren’t sure about Mycroft representing the brain without the heart, his rejection of the baby photos is sending out a clear message of juxtaposition with John, who represents the heart. We also shouldn’t fail to notice the water coming over Sherlock’s face again as he struggles to recognise what is important about this. This comes as he is trying to recognise what is important about the Thatchers case. I’m going to try to lay it out as best I can here.
We’ve been through what Thatcher represents to queer people of Sherlock’s age, so there’s already a strong metaphor for homophobia being smashed there. However, let’s look at the AGRA memory stick being uncovered. We know (X) that Sherlock deduced his feelings for John as he was marrying Mary, and so having the smashing of the Thatcher bust at the AGRA memory stick reveal is pretty devastating metaphorically. Why does Sherlock constantly think Moriarty is involved? Well, HLV tells us that the Jim in Sherlock’s mind is his darkest fear – and he’s originally tied up in Sherlock’s mind when he’s first shot, but he pretty quickly gets loose. That darkest fear is exactly what Jim says in that episode: ‘John Watson is definitely in danger’. The reason we bring Jim in to represent this is part of deconstructing the myth of Sherlock Holmes. The whole concept of an arch enemy is made fun of in the show, and rightly so; Moriarty himself tells the Sir Boastalot story which lines Sherlock up with that ridiculous heroic tradition that he’s set himself into, which isn’t what Sherlock Holmes is really about at all. Holmes has never really been particularly invested in individual criminals (although there are exceptions – Irene Adler, for example) – the time he gets most het up is The Three Garridebs, as we all know, when he thinks Watson is dying. It’s his greatest fear, and it’s also what Jim threatens, so Jim has become a proxy for that – and to understand that Sherlock Holmes is not the great Sherlock Holmes of the last hundred years, we have to get under and beyond Jim. Hence what we’re about to see. It’s not Jim, it’s Mary – and this is in very real terms, because Mary’s assassination attempt on Sherlock has left John in danger – but Sherlock won’t put the pieces together until the end of this episode, as we will see.
We should also pause over Mycroft asking Sherlock whether he’s having a premonition – Mycroft is laughing at the concept of Sherlock being able to envisage the future here, which we should remember when it comes to the frankly ludicrous plot of the next episode. Much like the much commented upon “it’s not like it is in the movies” which is there to undermine TST, this line is here to undermine TLD and point out the fact that it can’t possibly be real.
Sherlock describes predestination as like a spider’s web and like mathematics – both of these are to do with Moriarty. In the original stories, Moriarty is a mathematician, and one of the most famous lines from both the stories and the show describes Moriarty as a spider. This predestined future is one that Sherlock doesn’t like – Mycroft points out that predestination ends in death, which is what Sherlock is trying to avoid in this episode, and although Moriarty is never mentioned explicitly, his inflection here suggests that Sherlock is thinking about John subconsciously, without even understanding it. The Samarra discussion brings us back to the question of Sherlock’s death, and links it in with the deep waters of the mind he’s currently drowning in – the pirate imagery becomes really important here, because a pirate is someone who stays alive on the high seas and fights against them. The merchant of Samarra becoming a pirate is not merely a joke about a little boy, it’s a point about fighting for survival – and how will Sherlock later fight for survival? We’ll see him battle Eurus (his trauma, more on that later) head on, literally describing himself as a pirate. Fantastic stuff.
The scene transition where all of the glass breaks and then we cut to a background of what looks like blue water is a motif that runs through this entire episode – we’re smashing down walls in Sherlock’s mind, most particularly the Thatcher wall of 1980s homophobia, and indeed the first picture we see is that of the smashed bust.
Moving on – before we go back to Baker Street, there’s a shot of the outside – that features a mirror, reflecting back on 221B in a distorted, twisted way. Another mirror that is wrong – we’re reflecting in an alternate reality. These images keep popping up. It’s echoed in Sherlock’s deduction a few seconds later – by the side of his chair is what looks like either a car mirror or a magnifying glass, possibly the one from the Charlie scene, distorting his arm. It’s placed to look like a magnifying glass, whether it is or not, which ties in with the classic image of Holmes – but that image is distorted, remember.
Others have pointed out that when Sherlock falsely deduces that the client’s wife is a spy working for Moriarty, he should really be talking to John – and, in fact, this is another proof that this isn’t really, because otherwise this is pretty touchy stuff to be making light of in front of John. Instead, let’s remember this is Sherlock’s Mind Palace – John isn’t John here. What Sherlock does a lot in s4 – and nowhere more than the finale of TST – is displace a lot of his real world problems onto other people because he cannot handle the emotional impact of them, and that’s what he’s doing here. He’s trying to come to terms with the danger that Mary poses, but he can’t do it with John – hence why this scene has a John substitute, because that’s what the client is.
Note that the red balloon is over the Union Jack cushion, reminding us that this scene is about John in danger (see this post X). However, what’s important here is that Sherlock has got it wrong. He’s currently trying to work out why what has just happened with Mary poses so much danger, and he’s imagining Mary as the worst threat he possibly could – in a word, this Mary is a supervillain. But Mary is not a supervillain; he’s got this all wrong, and even as he says it, it’s completely ridiculous. This is not the danger Mary poses – and so out the door the client goes, and we’re back to square one, trying to work out exactly why John is in so much danger.
I’m not going to pause over the next moment of importance for too long because many have covered it – let’s just notice that Sherlock’s face is overlaid with a smashed Thatcher bust, and remind ourselves that these are the walls of homophobia in Sherlock’s brain. Also note that this matches the half-face overlay of the water in the previous scene, linking the two (although the scene with Ajay later will cement that anyway).
Next up: Craig and his dog. Nothing can be said about dogs that hasn’t be said in these wonderful metas by @sagestreet (X). Nevertheless, let’s note that this dog is coloured the same as Redbeard, and Mary (a Sherlock mirror in this episode, and in this scene – their clothing matches, and their joining of skillsets to exclude John is the link that has always united them as mirrors) compares John to the dog. We know from the metas linked above that dogs are linked to queerness in the show, but let’s remember that John here is not John – John represents Sherlock’s own heart. It’s going to take longer than this for Sherlock to acknowledge John’s queerness. I don’t think Toby the dog is that important – instead, this is foreshadowing for the more significant dog to come in TFP. The dog also allows for another bit of self-parody in the show – the close-up on the dog running through chemical symbols and the map link directly back to the chase scene in ASiP, but this time everything is different. We have no clue really what Toby is chasing or what the crime that has been committed is – they’re not even running, they’re walking! All we have are cool, if ridiculous, graphics – and, brought down to style without substance, it’s nothing but comic parody. This is important because the opening of TST is so parodic – we’re back to questioning whether the things that people associate with Sherlock and think they like about Sherlock are the right things. The fact that Toby reaches a dead end here is important – he’s a weird loose end to have hanging through the episode. When things in Sherlock normally tie together so nicely, this is a section which has absolutely no bearing on the rest of the plot other than to look a bit silly. But fundamentally, we’re talking about the superfluity of style and image here; we’ve been talking about it for a long time in relation to previous adaptations, but TST brings it in in relation to Sherlock itself.
Skipping past more bust breakages, the next scene is John and Mary in bed together – and the first thing we see is them, once again, in a mirror. There’s nothing wrong with this mirror (as far as I can tell) – everything seems to be in order! But it doesn’t break the theme of mirrors misreflecting, because this is the scene that introduces unreliable narration on a big level – this is the scene which deliberately excludes John’s texts to E. John and Eurus are gone into in another chapter so we’ll move on again.
Craig’s quote about people being weird for missing the olden days is, of course, crucial to this reading of Sherlock. It’s pretty on the nose for a show whose protagonist is idealised in the Victorian age – and sums up Mofftiss’s feelings towards the Vincent Starrett 221B poem that I elaborated on in the TAB chapter of this meta: essentially, that it always being 1895 is a very bad thing! Craig’s mockery of this nostalgia puts it into more comprehensible modern terms for us, but it also links Thatcher and 1895 again as pasts to be broken with. It’s also important that Craig says that Thatcher is like Napoleon now – although the titles of most episodes are taken from ACD stories, it’s rare that an explicit reference is made to the link between the titles (nobody mentions scarlet vs. pink in ASiP, for example). This is the first time that I can find that Sherlock shows self-awareness from within the narrative that there are extranarrative stories being played out. I’ve said before that I don’t think Thatcher and Napoleon are a good comparison; whether it is or not, Craig’s reference is actively pulling a metatextual part of Sherlock’s history into his story and forcing him to reckon with it. This is important, because he develops expectations of how this story is going to play out (black pearl of the Borgias) which are wrong – because they’re based on what he has learned to expect of himself as fictional character. We could only have such a reference within the Mind Palace.
For the sake of splitting this meta up to make it readable, I’m going to call time on this half of TST, and we’ll pick it up tomorrow at Jack Sandiford’s house. (Also I don’t know how much text tumblr allows and this is a long document.) Until then!
#emp#tst#tjlc#meta#bbc sherlock#my meta#mine#thewatsonbeekeepers#chapter six: so long and thanks for all the fish#tjlc is real#emp theory#the six thatchers#johnlock
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Yeah I agree, the storylines Amy and Rory got weren't great. But honestly, I think the cast helped bring life to the characters which is why I like them so much anyway 😊 And yes to Martha! She's so awesome, I actually rewatched her seasons a few months back and found I loved them more than I remembered? I don't really watch current DW now (fell off following it not long after the 50th), but I still like revising the old episodes from time to time. They make me smile 😊 - CC 🦊
We'll find some way to watch tgcf, worry not! If the Funimation route doesn't work I'll see if I can ask around and find something else. I'm so used to looking to sites like Crunchyroll when it comes to non-western animation that I forget the site doesn't list a lot of stuff that isn't just anime 😂CC reveal is in a few days so I'll send you the Funi link for the first episode then and you can see if it works for you too 😊- CC 🦊
Aww, I'm glad you had a good Christmas though ❤️ Where I live decorations aren't too overboard either. A lot of people either put lights outside or on outdoor trees, and a few houses might do a window display. I have seen some videos on YouTube this year though of streets that are purposely decorated extravagantly for people to go and visit, but it's mostly America I've seen those. They look so pretty and a ton of fun though! - CC 🦊
I love your Christmas gift ideas for some of the characters. And lol, omg, you made me laugh with 'wwx not being allowed to give lwj a massage it'll just turn nsfw' because yeah ... yeah it would with them 🤣Matching hair pieces for them though that act like an engagement ring is such a cute idea 🥺I think I'd give jc a puppy, but only if he promises to not upset his brother's phobia with it! He just needs a good pup - - CC 🦊
I'd give lwj a lotus root soup recipe so he could make it for wwx, or if jy is able prod her into the idea of doing so if she hadn't already. wwx can have some new black robes - i'm sure lwj is spoiling him with more luxurious ones, but the boy needs a bigger wardrobe! sizhui and the boys can have an expenses paid meal at their favourite restaurant, with plenty of chicken for jingyi 🤣- CC 🦊
I think this might be my last question time for you before reveal! I'll try and make it a special one 😊 Do you have any favourite memories from this past year? Can be related to something that's happened in fandom or through mdzs, or can just be something that's made you happy or smile. I know 2020 hasn't been the easiest year, but there's been pockets of sunshine between all the crazy! ☀️ - CC 🦊
Talking to you about dw really made me want to rewatch some of the old episodes. I also fell off pretty soon after the 50th, though I did return to watch all of 12′s episodes and I would watch the new ones as well but they’re simply not easily available to me atm 😩
Aaaaahh I can’t wait to start our lil tgcf buddy watch!! It’s gonna be great cause if we love it we can scream abt it together and if we don’t like it we can roast it together 😂 (but I think we’re gonna love it)
Oh yeah, I’ve also seen some crazy american christmas decorations on youtube where the entire street is lit up. I would love to see that irl some day!
I thought abt giving jc a puppy, too but... wwx... 😅 though maybe wwx should get therapy sessions for christmas so he can work through his trauma and then maybe one day not be afraid of dogs anymore or at least not of jc’s dog 😅and aaaahhhh yes!! jyl introducing lwj to her cooking and especially the lotus root and ribs soup and lwj would be so diligent in learning how to do it perfectly bc he loves wwx so much!!! 🥺yes more robes for wwx!!! and maybe also some colourful ones (like not bright colours but maybe jewel toned?? like a really dark blue or red? 👀 he’d look like a snacc)
and that’s such a sweet question! i’m not going to lie i had to think abt it for a moment cause as you said, 2020 really wasn’t the best of years for any of us, but i have a few:
buying my first car!!! whooo a bitch is free to go wherever she wants whenever she wants!! (if covid would let me 😩)
finding an apartment and looking forward to living by myself (i CANNOT wait to decorate my apartment he way i want it to look!!)
the realisation that i’m fully and truly over my ex and that i’m actually quite content with being single (do i still want love? yeah sure but i’m not desperately craving it anymore and it feels so liberating)
the new lady gaga album giving me life
discovering the untamed and and just LOVING something so much and wholeheartedly again. i’ve missed being so wrapped up in one piece of media cause i haven’t had that in quite some time and it feels so nice!
joining the mdzs fandom who have been the nicest and most welcoming ppl ever! i’ve been on this website for almost a decade and never have i felt like i belong somewhere or like i had mutuals who are my friends until now. i have met so many amazing ppl in the past few months since i joined the fandom and it makes me so happy!! i love all of you, including you, dear CC! you all have made me life so much brighter! ❤️(also going along with that: returning to gifmaking and just having a creative outlet again is SO MUCH FUN)
this is related to the previous point but it stuck with me: one night when i went to bed, i was smiling so much and i felt so indescribably happy simply because ppl on here were being nice to me and my gifsets were doing well and we were all having a laugh at something fandom-related and i just... it sounds so stupid but i went to sleep with a smile on my face and i don’t remember the last time that happened
getting passionate about learning a new language which is chinese! i don’t know for how long that will last but atm i’m enjoying it so much and i hope i’ll get to at least a semi-fluent level! it’s a language that’s completely different from the other languages i’ve learned so far and i loooove the characters!! also it makes me feel productive during these boring times.
asakdjfgjdfdkgf so many of these are related to mdzs but i truly feel like it saved me from spiralling into a dark seasonal depression. maybe not the healthiest way to cope but better than nothing... 🤷🏻♀️
Dear CC, I want to thank you for keeping me company and asking me so many fun questions this past month! 💕 I can’t wait to find out who you are and start watching tgcf with you. I hope you had just as much fun with your personal CC as I had with you. See you on NYE! 😘
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I was trying my best, and another friend who always took pictures of us (we took pics of him as well dw) documented all of those moments, i even used a not-permanent spray color hair for that day just so the pictures could be special. I didn't particularly like myself, I never did ,but I was too busy to think about it. When i went out, i felt decent at least. Binder, thick under-eye red/black liner, just the perfect e-boy look i wanted. I felt that, as a pre-hrt person, I was looking as masc as I could while doing the style that makes me comfortable and I want to achieve. I was doing my best everytime we went out to look presentable in the pictures, and I did well 9/10 times. At some point, there was a light festival as well. I went with one friends and my cousin and we had fun. My friend and I took pictures, my cousin didn't want hers taken but we still interacted a lot and had fun, I loved the pics of that day. I never got to post them, because my downfall came soon after. At that point in time, I was finally living the dream. I posted frequently on ig (bc i went out frequently) and even though i wasn't anyone big, no partnerships or anything, not even 1k followers, I was growing, and having been intoxicated by fame at age 12, it was just what I needed. My posts started getting 70 likes on average and 7-10 comments, i only had 500 followers but they were growing at an average of 20 followers/month. A lil tween reached out to me and told me he thought I was really cool and was my fan. Bro, that was awesome. Things were moving forward, and altough i felt afraid of the future, I was working on it all. I was making progress in other aspects as well,having come out formally recently and with help from my psychologist, we were going to start looking into hrt, and i just couldn't believe it. I only have read fast and short info. I never really wanted to inform myself more because deep within me I was just afraid I'd never be able to get it and get my hopes up for nothing. We appointed a session to talk about that. This was march, and at my house, we watched a Japanese channel (because we are all interested in Japanese culture and such) So I knew the coronavirus was coming. They started talking about it since the start, in december, obviously, because they are way closer to where the virus started so it spread faster there. I remember it was on a cruise first. I knew it would eventually arrive here, so through all summer i told my mother "it's only a matter of time." I knew it'd come. March was here, and the last time i went out with my friends came along. Inside my head, I felt like I knew that was the last time. I had thoughts about "I wonder if i'll ever get to see a sight like this again". I managed to take some pictures, because,inside me, I knew that was the last time. I wanted to preserve the memory of it. I didn't want to forget. At the time, with a friend, who took the same metro line as me but lives further away, since it was just us two, when saying goodbye we'd always say "see you in five minutes" (like in endgame, because i told her the whole movie and told her when they said that and then black widow died) and she LAUGHED so hard and it became an ongoing joke between us (we are both kinda suicidal ngl but we just laugh abt it.) We said it that day as well, but we actually never saw each other again lmao
At that point, in the country, there were about 4 covid cases. Only 1 in the capital, so it had started, but was only just the start. When I got home, i kind of knew that was the last. My classes started, and for two weeks, it was hell on earth. Online,obviously. I got paired up with the guy I hated the most in the entire generation (I only knew half of them, and liked even fewer, but this guy. fuck. i would have killed him. he was awful.) Anyways. Yeah. But at the end, classes got postponed until further notice. So I was now a Neet! For a while, even though coronavirus was getting worse and worse here as everywhere, I was doing good. I was living the introvert dream, and since I have a decent/good relationship with my parents and grandma, life was just great. All around me I saw everyone struggle with quarantine. I was having a blast. Playing sims, watching anime, anything went. Shit was great. Got Gta V for free when epic released it, and had a blast. Got obsessed with obey me for a while. It was all fun.... Met via discord with my friends. Almost daily with certain friends, once in a while with others, but the whole group would be together at least once. It was good, for me. I felt good. I would ocassionally wake up and tell my mother that I was happy, and hug her. I don't think i'd ever done that. I was at peak, and I knew it. Drew a lot, played a lot. Did a lot of things and projects. Everything felt ok...My dysphoria wasn't great during these times (since now i stay in pajamas all day except when I use camara to meet with friends, and obviously I dont wear my binder with my pajamas) But i had so much free time, that I could just ignore it. (I'm good at avoiding things. at running away.)
Classes started June 1st. First day, I had a breakdown. I don't remember why, but I couldn't connect to class. I felt overwhelmed. I don't know and don't like asking for help because i feel useless when I do. So I didn't. Apparently I seemed more upset than I thought, because my dad noticed. When comforted or confronted, I always cry. I can't talk about my feelings without crying. I feel weak for expressing them. Even writing this, i feel the knot in my neck. My dad saw and ended up helping and comforting. I cried a lot. I went to class, but spent the whole 3 hours of class crying. Things were unstable for a while, but I was keeping afloat, I guess. I started feeling like shit, I wasn't happy daily anymore. Online learning felt so distant and so difficult and so different. I don't like change. At least not without expecting it beforehand. So yeah, that ended up taking a toll on my mental health. The downfall started. I was quite busy, but still tried to meet with friends via discord whenever we could. We had some online birthdays, and season 3 of osomatsu san had already been announced. I was looking forward to it so much. I was in pain, but that thought was keeping me going. I started getting worse, mentally. I started isolating myself ocasionally. I have quite long gaps from this period. I can't really recall much of what happened or what it was like. At some point around August-September I was watching 6teen, because my uni decided that starting a semester and compressing it into a trimester was a good idea, and finals were in september, i think. At the time of finals, i was watching 6teen. I didn't wanna finish it, so I started total drama after. I had a week of vacation in September as well, and I think I was OK for the week.
I won't lie. I don't remember october. I only know Osomatsu-san started here bc I waited for it all year long. I regained closer contact with a friend who lives in japan. Halloween also had an online meeting. I cosplayed, and felt good with myself for the night, for the first time in months. But I ended up having a breakdown later that night. A friend who didn't come and had said he'd come ended up arriving very late (2-3AM ish, meeting was at 10PM) He was very drunk. I don't mind. He says he just came to say sorry he didn't come bc he ended up meeting with irls. We tell him it's ok. He disconnects. He reconnects not long after, but we are confused, since that's not his voice. It was his friend who took his phone, a classic party prank. Doesn't matter, it was fun for a bit. This guy is also mad drunk, so talking to him is weird and funny. But shit gets bad for me in a bit. I was using a voice changer, as I usually do online, because Im ashamed of my high pitched voice. But this guy misgenders me, more than once, and also my friend who lives in japan. He doesn't seem to care, and I act like I don't, but it hurts so bad. My other friend who was there at that time corrects him, more than once. I felt thankful to her. I never thanked her afterwards because I didn't know how to bring out that topic without crying. This guy is very drunk though, and altough i doubt he had vile intentions because of the way he phrased it, he insists, that those are womans voices. They talk about it a bit, verbal comebacks. I wanted them to stop. At some point, my friend who lives in Japan leaves bc its lunch time for him. I felt like shit. I just told this other guy "I'm 10" and he dropped the subject, he believed me and the explanation. My friend laughed her ass out, because she thought I said it as a joke. Truth is, that was just a desperate answer to get him to drop the topic. I dont really care if he believed I was 10 or not though. I just wanted it to stop. He jokes with my friend for a bit more. I didn't talk much after, because I felt ashamed. I didn't want to talk ever again. Even now, even with the voice changer, I don't have the confidence I had when I started using it. I have lowered the pitch twice, just in case. My friend left the call a bit later. When she left, I left as well. I was thankful to her though. I don't remember if i cried or not, but it caused me a massive breakdown for about two weeks. I didn't talk online with anyone until my birthday, I think. I didn't tell anyone but my psychologist this.
I don't remember November much either. I know it's my birthday, and I know I came back to tumblr in november. Yall know when. Canon destiel and shit. Tumblr hadn't felt so alive in years. It felt like home. I remember I was having a bad breakdown during that time. I think it was career related. I can't really remember much. The shitshow happening on tumblr Destiel Election actually helped me get better. I remember this only because of a conversation I had with a friend. I started working on christmas decorations as well. December came along, I worked hard on christmas decorations. I played a bit as well, because on some of my classes I just didn't have anything to do lol. Decorations were finished two weeks in advance for christmas. For the first time ever! I was happy. During these times,Nov-Dec lockdowns started easing up a bit. I still can't go out at all though, because I live with my grandmother, so we're supposed to minimize risks. My parents only go out for shopping essentials that can't be bought online. So it's fair and I understand it, but it started becoming hard on mental health. Not because I can't go out, but because my friends start going out. They know I can't go, they don't exclude me, but they know I can't and I also know I can't. I guess in a form, its jealousy. It becomes hard because there's no one to blame. It's no one's fault. I'm not excluded on purpose, but the truth is, I don't want to hear them talk about what they do when they have fun. I've always been insecure. Even when all evidence points otherwise, I still believe, deep inside,they hate me. They wish I weren't in the group and would be better off without me. It gets hard sometimes.
Even though in general December was quite good, it also came with a major breakdown. One of my best friend's bday is in December. Up until then, Me, her, and another friend had been playing league of legends nearly daily. It was toxic sometimes (the game/community, not my friends) but we had fun. I just liked playing together. But that would come to an end as well. My friend celebrated her birthday, and did invite me, but obviously I couldn't go,and she knew this beforehand, so she didn't get mad or anything. She handled the situation very well, wrote on the gc once, and then did a special gc for birthday attendants to talk about details there and such, and reminded friends who asked in the gc to talk in the birthday gc. (this is how i knew, but i think it was well done tbh, i wish they'd just asked in the bday gc instead so i wouldn't have seen it and felt bad about how i couldn't go) My friend also offered to have me as an online guest, like, being in videocall in the computer on the table. like Karen from spongebob ig. the idea was cool, but honestly i felt bad. She celebrates her bday with her gf bc their dates are near, and I just didn't really want to inconvenience them? I mean, her gf is cool and she used to hang out with our group ocassionaly and she was cool and fit in, and it never felt awkward talking to her irl or anything but it's not like she's my friend and honestly I didn't wanna inconvenience her party, and even though I'm sure my friend wouldn't have minded, I didn't want to be an extra inconvenience for her too. I just wanted her to have fun, honestly. But feeling like a burden ended up weighing on my mind. This caused a bad bad breakdown, beforehand I had started to become better,little by little, but these two weeks waiting for that event to happen felt like a nightmare to me. I didn't tell anyone. I think i wrote it about here once. Around this time, an account on instagram called "matsunoadvice" got reccomended to me, and Oh boy Have I gone to them for advice. Of course, I sent them a message at the time, desperate for someone to talk to, because I couldn't tell anyone about this, because all my other friends know each other kinda and i didn't wanna inconvenience everyone. I didn't want anyone to know i felt like shit. I felt thankful to my friend, because she did try her best to include me, I just didn't really wanna inconvenience anyone. I guess I'd rather suffer alone myself than being a pain in the ass for someone else. After all, I've accepted that I'm alone long ago, and since now there's nothing I can do to maintain my social relationships now,I may as well just accept that theyre ending now. I kind of isolated myself for those two weeks, sometimes i would still connect on discord, but it always felt kind of distant. I stopped playing league of legends around this time.
I still hadn't confirmed to my friend if i was virtually going or not. Truth is, i kind of knew I probably wouldn't want to go in the end, bc im Like That™ But i told her in advance that i'd let her know the date of the event early in the day because of how unstable I am and I wouldn't actually be sure until the day (which was true when I told her) So the day of the event i told her that I was thankful but I wouldn't be assisting virtually and told her to have a great day! She replied okay in a nice way as she always did. I don't think she seemed weirded out by my answer. I hope she didn't feel bad, because she's very empathetic so I hope she didn't think about me at all that day. I hope she never reads this, and even if she does, she didn't really do anything wrong and handed the situation the best she could, the pain was unevitable for me due to the situation. beforehand i had also had a similar breakdown though, because 3 friends who i was/am? still very close to started meeting each other to skate together. I don't know how to skate/have never skated and obviously can't go either way, and sometimes they'd talk about it in the vc. I remained calm always until the call ended,but I did cry about it late at night. It's selfish, of course, but when no one saw anyone, it was easier. we were all the same. But now it felt like they were all moving on without me. In a way, it's what I always wanted, but I always wished to die first. I know it's not sane, but i'd imagined situations like that in my head, where I die and then everyone moved on and it made me feel calmer. But seeing that unfold before my eyes, when i'm still breathing here, i'm still here. It felt lonely. I'm glad they're having fun. I'm just upset I can't do it as well? And it makes me feel like inevitably my relationships with them will break and fall apart and dissapear and they're all still gonna be a interwined network, even though I did everything I could to maintain it because it's all I've ever had outside of my direct family? I didn't make any friends at uni or have a different group of friends so it just...hurt? It still hurts, i'm just more used to it. Also after the bday i did try to connect in vc but it just made me worse, like a friend said like "noo it got too wild honestly u didnt miss anything" and i was like lmao ok but i felt like kinda sad anyways but if i was there i wouldve probably slept through it anyways
...after i felt awful bc i have another friend who is just kinda blunt and kinda dumb when it comes to how others feel, and he was like ohh yeah but after the bday [friend] took us and some of [friends gf's friends] to our houses and since it was early we went to a mcdonalds and it was so fun !! and it was just so uncomfortable bc obviously im glad you have fun but like i dont wanna know??? bc it hurts a fuckin lot???? and my other friend who was also in vc (he was the one w the car) he was like "haha yeaaa it was fun" but he seemed quite uncomfortable talking abt it he could probably tell i didnt wanna hear and ik my other friend only did it bc he's naive not bc he had bad intentions but yeah it sucked i was like haha thats great heh.....like what ya want me to say babe
Christmas arrived and it ended up helping me a lot. Christmas is my favorite holiday and I decorated a month in advance, baked cookies for the first time (with my mom) and we just did a lot of things this year. It made me happy and kept me occupied through the pain (I know i described a lot of pain here but I only paid attention to it at night, which is why it still hurts now probably bc i've had it all repressed) And of course the gifts, honestly I didn't know what to expect because this year I didn't really know what to ask for and just asked for a surprise (because i love receiving things! anything) And my dad definetely outdid himself with all the gifts, I loved them and they're all useful too! I was amazed and i told my friends abt it and it ended up in me talking more in the vc again, and i also started playing genshin impact in late december as well. We also held a secrer santa in the group but not everyone participated (mostly bc of money) but the 4 of us that did was fun! i knew everyone's secret santa bc 2/4 asked to me for help and they were mutual </3 so i knew me and my other friend were mutual too lol but it was cool. I kinda was a bitch a bit though bc he delievered my gift to my home and was going to come a random day and I just wasn't prepared bc I was afraid of seeing him honestly I didn't want to see him and I hoped he wouldn't come? He didn't come that day but he did come some days after, I truly wasn't ready at that point anyway and my mom said we could let him inside if he sanitized, but he came with his mother and didn't get out of the car, we just exchanged the gifts, and honestly I was glad, i was polite and just said hi to both and thanks and all! Obviously i love him a lot bc we're close but idk why i didnt want him to come into my house i just feel like im so boring now and I dont know what we couldve talked abt and honestly ive always been shy but now i just forgot how to socialize and i was terrified so when he didnt get out i was just glad.....well, also
I feel like all of these incidents separated me and my friend who had her birthday on december. Now she wouldn't join the vc or gc often (or say she couldn't, which she usually did before) so I just assumed she hated me, but i didn't really have the guts to ask? She still liked my memes on the gc sometimes but not as she used to, she always used to like every single meme (or nearly all) and she never talked over me (I always get talked over except when I'm drunk bc i become a bit less shy therefore more violent) and would even call others out for me when talked over and always respected everything i told her abt me (Through the years, i've told her some of my deepest shits bc i just trust her like that i dont mind if she knows) but it just felt distant? Also a bit before that, at the start of december we started streaming on twitch, and that week i was very bad I told her i wouldn't play much bc i wasnt doing well but I was up for streaming bc i rly wanted to be professional abt it even if we dont pursue it as a career, but in the end we didnt stream, and fell out of streaming a bit after that. I was kind of afraid to ask her if she wanted to stream again, but we'd talked once and she said she'd finally gotten the cat earphones for the streams (she mentioned she wanted them beforehand) yeah anyways i dont think she actually hates hates me but idk the idea still lingers in my mind
uh yeah also i felt like shit for a bit bc i thought she definetely hated me bc we hadnt talked in a bit and she didnt like my memes anymore so i just assumed the worst, i even listened to break up music (which is what i do when a friendship ends bc altough ive never rly had strong romantic feelings for anyone that kind of song helps me move on after friend breakups too bc no one warns you abt how painful these are) and i cried obviously, but again i never mentioned it to anyone (i made a few vague textposts here though) and just got my shit together even if it hurt? lol, well a bit of time passes and everything seems to go back to normal, i dont remember how she told us but she said she had a job now which is why she didnt connect much and slept earlier and i felt relief lol bc i legit thought she hated me and i felt like shit abt it lol i mean the idea they kinda hate me lingers in my mind all the time but at that point in life i was like. SURE she hated me until that point. now we ocasionally play genshin together but i cant really talk at that time and that also makes me upset bc i do wake up late and im trying to fix my schedule a bit by waking up at 2pm instead of 5 pm but it doesnt even matter bc i play board games with my grandma daily (bc its good for her and its fun i do enjoy it) i just wish we could do it earlier bc lately she gets up at like 9pm and i end up finishing playing at 11/12/1 and its just kinda late to meet w my friends bc i always have smth to do/finish after and i just cant make it in time even if i wake up earlier? lol but i cant change her schedule so theres nothing i can do but cry about it
oh also ik matsunoadvice gave me advice on this but like there's this friend who i love obviously but sometimes he just talks abt his meetings w other friends and like it only makes me angry as fuck and i cant ask him to not bc im too shy but i wish he could stop. and also when he complains abt skate related stuff it makes me unexplainably angry but like i have no reason or right to im just angry bc i cant do that and probably never will bc i doubt ill ever be able to go out again ?? lol. and he even offered like "when we go out again u should come and ill lend u my skate and if u like it u can get one" and honestly its all super nice and i appreciate it and ive thanked him and told him yes but it just makes me feel angry inside bc i dont see an ending with all the mutations and shit and my voice cracks when i tell him haha yeah if we ever meet again bc honestly my youth is already over and i just spent it like a social recluse and i read a post here when i was younger that said like lgbt people spend their teens closeted and ashamed and live their teens in their twenties but now im gonna miss my twenties to the pandemic and then ill be too fucking old and itll be too fucking late and ill have to die and i just never lived bc i still havent even transitioned yet and i doubt ill ever be able to (this also causes me a lot of pain but i will ignore it) and the other day he said like i hope i can see u this year bc i miss u and i just said that honestly ive lost all hope of ever seeing anyone again and my voice cracked and my other friend said something related but not so related and im just glad he talked in bc i didnt rly care i just wanted to change the topic bc i know ill never see them again and eventually probably lose contact and see them all have fun together without me just as if i was dead but just didnt pass away and its difficult but i have to accept it and it hurts a lot now but in 7 years itll be fine, just like i accepted im unlovable and will never have a s/o and when i was 12 that hurt a lot but now it doesnt so someday i will be alone but i hope it doesnt hurt anymore.
this is all a mess and the format is everywhere and theres no timeline i hope no one reads it. if u do read it im sorry. i just honestly been carrying all of this for a while now and i want it out of my system honestly bc i dont know what to do with it and i was on the verge of a breakdown for a minimal thing hours ago i just want all this info out of my brain.....also obv these are only the bad things that have happened/good things that took me out of the hole but a lot of good things happened too lol and i skipped a lot of imp points like i changed careers and shit and also i met a lot of cool mutuals since i got back to tumblr and ososan been carrying my mental health every monday but yeah i just wanted the negatives out of the system. the frustrations and the anger. i hope no one reads this fr its so messy
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Lights of Many Colors
Pairing: Ten x Rose (a smidge of Six x Rose)
Rating: General
written for @doctorroseprompts 31 Days of Ficmas (day 9 - lights); as well as @timepetalsprompts TPP Bingo: DW Characters (Six’s Fashion Disaster)
N.B. This was inspired by Short Trips: A Christmas Treasury (A Christmas Special). A Christmas story featuring the Sixth Doctor.
AO3 TS
Rose and the Doctor were pressed against the wall of a block of flats and peeking around the corner at the TARDIS.
“I can’t believe we’re doing this. You should drink ginger beer more often.”
“What? Do you like drunk me better?”
Rose rolled her eyes and craned her head back at him. “Don’t be ridiculous. ‘S just…it’s not often you suggest we do silly things just to do silly things.”
“We do silly things all the time. I love silly things. I am–”
“Usually if we do silly things, it’s an accident.”
“You do like drunk me better!”
Rose arched her brow. “Less and less with each passing minute.”
The Doctor opened his mouth to say something when he spotted their mark. He pressed himself more firmly against Rose’s back and whispered in her ear. “There he is.”
Rose peered out a little further. “Oh. My. God!”
“Shhhh. Rose, he’s gonna hear you.” The Doctor dragged Rose back and spun her up against the wall.
Rose covered her mouth with her hands to quiet the uncontrollable giggles spewing forth at the sight of THAT outfit. It wasn’t working and so the Doctor added one of his as well.
“Shhh! It’s not that funny.”
Rose pulled back. “God, Doctor. How could you not have warned me about that fashion disaster?”
The Doctor pouted. “It wasn’t that bad.”
His put upon expression and the fact that he seemed to not appreciated the atrocity of that jacket with those trousers had Rose bent double in laughter. “Oh, my…I can’t believe you…I can’t…I can’t breathe.”
The Doctor crossed his arms. “Maybe we should just go home, if you can’t stop laughing at me.”
“I’m sorry.” Rose wiped the tears from her eyes and took a steadying breath. She glanced at the Doctor and snickered.
“Rose!”
“Sorry, sorry…I’m good now.” He glared at her. “Really.”
He sighed and glanced over his shoulder. “Okay. Operation Decoration commences now.”
Rose stole a glance at the TARDIS belonging to the younger Doctor again. “An’ you’re sure he won’t catch us? An’ like cause a paradox or anything, right? Don’t fancy reapers for Christmas.”
“It’ll be fine as long as you keep quiet and stop laughing.”
“Doctor…”
“I never found out who bought me the TV, and I never told anyone I wanted it, so I had to have been the one to give it to myself. We basically need to do this to prevent a paradox, so don’t worry that we’ll be causing one. Anyway, I remember getting the TV and falling asleep. We have…” The Doctor pressed his tongue to the back of his teeth while thinking it over. “…an hour and a half or thereabouts.”
Rose’s jaw dropped.
“What?”
“You…you don’t know down to the millisecond?”
“Well it was a long time ago and I’m currently under the effects of ginger, so I’m sorry I can’t be more accurate.”
Rose bit her lip. “Maybe this isn’t such a good idea.”
“Nonsense. He brings the TV in, watches it for a bit, and then falls asleep. We just have to be quiet.” He held his hand out to her. “Trust me?”
Rose smiled. “Always. Okay. Let’s go.”
Rose and the Doctor hefted a large old television set and carried over to the TARDIS. The placed it in front of the door, knocked, and ran giggling away.
They watched from their lookout spot as the younger, curly-haired Doctor opened the door of his TARDIS and stared at the television. He looked up and around in confusion. Not seeing anyone about, he shrugged and carried the gift back into the TARDIS with him.
“Alright, we have a little under 90 minutes until he chucks it back out.”
“You never said, why didn’t you keep it?”
The Doctor blushed. “Eh, just didn’t like it is all. Not as good as the one we have from Teleos XII.”
Rose fluttered her eyelashes at him and leaned in close. “Mmmhmmm. Now tell me the truth.”
The Doctor’s eyes widened. “Wh- Whaddya mean, I er…”
Rose ran her hands up his lapels. “You can tell me. I won’t make fun.”
He sighed. “I, er, dreamed they turned my life into a TV show, but, erm, the network cancelled it for no reason. And after a very concentrated letter writing campaign by devoted fans, the BBC brought it back. But did they put it on its regular night? No! They put it opposite Coronation Street! Coronation Street. Can you believe it?”
Rose gawked at him for a long moment before she started laughing. “Cor…Coro…Coronation Street!”
“Rose! You promised not to laugh!”
Holding her stomach and leaning against the wall, she said, “I agreed not to take the mick, I never agreed not to laugh. You really tossed the TV because of that?”
His lower lip wobbled. “Was ruinin’ my Christmas.”
Rose stopped laughing and grasped his arm. “Aww. My poor, Doctor. ‘M sorry I laughed. Let’s go brighten your Christmas, yeah?”
The Doctor beamed at Rose and nodded. Rose picked up a box that they had brought with decorating supplies. She glanced in the box and then over at the Doctor. “You know, now all the ribbons make sense.”
“What?”
“The ribbons to decorate the wreath.”
“What about them?”
“Well, it’s all the same fabric as that majestic technicolor dreamcoat.”
“No, it’s…” The Doctor rummaged through the box. “Oh…”
Rose gave him her tongue touched smile. “It’s perfect.”
An hour and a quarter later, Rose and the Doctor stood back and inspected their work. They’d covered the TARDIS in blinking fairy lights of green, red, yellow, purple and pink. Rose had decorated and hung a wreath with bows made from tweed, plaid, paisley, checkered and striped ribbons. Finally, they’d attached a Santa hat to the light at the top of the box. Rose was afraid they’d gone overboard, but one look at the Doctor’s delighted expression had her reconsidering.
“Now we wait.”
The two of them went back to their hiding place and waited.
About ten minutes later the TARDIS door opened and the TV set came flying out. The younger Doctor was about to slam the door, when he noticed the wreath. He walked out and around the whole of the TARDIS gaping.
Rose turned to her Doctor. “Be right back.”
“What? Where…? Rose!”
Rose ran up to the younger Doctor shouting, “Happy Christmas, Doctor!” She then threw her arms around him in a hug and kissed his cheek before running back to her Doctor.
“Great Gallifrey!” The Doctor brought his hand to his face where Rose had kissed it.
When Rose got back to her Doctor, he was scowling. “Rose–”
“Oh, I’ve got one for you too.” She pulled him down by his collar and snogged him senseless. “Happy Christmas, Doctor.”
#ten x rose#six x rose#doctorroseprompts#timepetalsprompts#31 days of ficmas#lights#tpp bingo: sixth doctor's fashion#decorating the tardis#circular paradox#snogging
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Bill Potts and other things DW
Ok so I've only just finished Doctor Who series 10 because here in Germany it was my first chance to stream it for free... and I'm bummed out. I managed to keep spoiler free (except for Jodie Whitaker) and maybe this was a mistake? Cos I've only just realised that they are not going to bring Bill back? Wtf... Is there a rule that states that the companion has to go with the showrunner? It already bothered me in series 5. It's just such a gap when you get both a new doctor AND new companions at the same time.
Plus, I really really liked Bill and feel like we only just met her and there's so much left to explore with her. And yes, I'll admit it, I was really looking forward to seeing her interactions with a young, female doctor. Didn't she literally ask for this? But well, they kind of ruined her character in the finale anyway. Not by turning her into a cyberman, but by having her spend ten years of her life in a hell hole with creeps for company, who deserves this? (And why would the Master ever pretend to be some... gentle janitor for ten fricking years?!? Oh well, to surprise the audience I guess). Don't let me get started on this whole Missy mess either. That was no way for them to go, not without the Doctor at least taking note of their final efforts to be better. I thought having John Simm reappear as the Master was really neat, especially to show Missy's character development, but then they sorta screwed it up. And yes, I know the character might not be dead ultimately, but still.
If not for all this, the finale would have been quite alright. The special was rather boring, though I thought seeing David Bradley again as the first Doctor was cool and I liked that it was less christmas-y than usual. I wasn't feeling very sad to see Capaldi go, even though he had felt 100% like the Doctor for me since series 9 (I loved series 9).
Also, three companions is too many??? I think even two are a crowd in the Tardis if it goes on for too long. And we already had Nardole for this whole, weird series 10.
I guess you can count me among those who are glad that Moffat's finally gone.
#doctor who#doctor who rant#dw#bill potts#pearl mackie#peter capaldi#twelve#thirteen#jodie whittaker#dw series 10#dw series 11#dw rant#steven moffat#world enough and time#the doctor falls#twice upon a time#david bradley#dw series 9#bill x thirteen#missy#the master#gomez!master#simm!master#michelle gomez#john simm#dw finale#dw christmas special#twissy
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It’s official, I love the Doctor Again
So, I’ve finished Season 11, and I’m ready to eat crow. I was wrong. It WAS a good season. I should have given it a chance. Anyway, here is a recap of my DW rewatch:
Season 1:
Why did I enjoy this season so much more now than when I first watched it when it first aired? I will admit that I’ve never included it in my past rewatches, because Ten overshadowed Nine for me, but let me tell you Nine is awesome! Maybe, I appreciate this face of the doctor more now that I’m older and have more life experience, but Eccleston’s portrayal of the wounded, damaged doctor trying to recover from his War Doctor phase is so subtle and perfect. His transformation from damaged and prickly to allowing Rose to love him and caring for her in return was something to see when seen all at once. Nine was the doctor that first pulled me in, and I will never skip season 1 again.
Season 2:
I know, I know, this is a weak season. It is. But, it’s also the season we meet my favorite doctor: Ten. It starts off strong with the Christmas Invasion and we see what sort of man this doctor is going to be (”no second chances.”). Tennant’s portrayal of the cheerful doctor who is still very, very angry is so perfect. I know many people hate the Ten/Rose storyline, but even my cynical heart can’t say no to these two.
Season 3:
Already said, but I will continue to skip this season b/c of Martha’s crush on the doctor. The season would have been stronger if they never made her have feelings for him. They wasted a very strong female character, imo. I will probably never re-watch this season.
Season 4:
I will always rewatch this season. My favorite companion. My favorite doctor/companion combo. Ten/Donna are the “best-friends who tell it like it is” team to beat. I’ve yet to meet a companion who I liked more with the doctor.
Season 4 Specials:
Not all of the specials are equally strong, but saying goodbye to Ten will always be painful (”I don't want to go”).
Season 5:
Eleventh Hour was interesting and I’m glad the hinted at Eleven/Amy storyline never went anywhere. This season is enjoyable, but not the strongest. Love Eleven’s theme though.
Season 6:
Eleven/The Ponds is one of my favorite TARDIS teams. I love watching them play off each other. I also enjoyed the Eleven/River romance. This season as a whole is enjoyable to me.
Season 7:
Part 1 is about saying goodbye to The Ponds. Part 2 introduces us to the mystery of Clara Oswald. Overall, I enjoyed this season. Matt Smith’s final season is, I think, mostly a strong one. The Eleven/Clara romance is not that important to me, but it sets up a lot of interesting stuff for the Twelve/Clara romance. Also, Vastra/Jenny. :)
Season 8:
Season 8 starts off strong with an episode that has support from my two favs Vastra/Jenny. We set up the dynamic of the doctor trying to figure out who he is now and Clara’s confusion about where she stands with this new face of the doctor. I’ll be honest, I skip most of this season because of Danny Pink, who brings down the show for me. I like Twelve’s theme.
Season 9:
Now things are interesting. The Master is back. The doctor has worked out who he is. He’s not Eleven who tried to run from his past as fast as possible. This face is older and accepts it. He revels in it. He also understands what he and Clara are to each other: It’s complicated. It’s obsession. It’s exhilarating. And, finally, dangerous for them both. I appreciated the way this season explored the darker side of the doctor/companion dynamic. I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. The special made me love the Twelve/River relationship. Twelve is the doctor that I think River needs. Ten was completely confused by her. Eleven understood, but ran every chance he got. Twelve is solid. He has had time to come to grips with their relationship and its ultimate end. Twelve, imo, is her real match.
Season 10:
Bill and Nardole are competent enough companions. I enjoyed the stories. I appreciated that we got to say good by to them. I was not ready to say goodbye to Capaldi. I never thought I would like this older doctor, but honestly, I did not want to see him go. He is second only to Tennant for me now. And, that goodbye speech when he regenerates into Thirteen...damn.
Season 11:
So, yes, now we come to season 11 after I talked so much shit. I first started watching the season as it was airing and quickly lost interest. I loved Whitaker, but I was losing interest in the stories. I assumed the stories were boring in comparison to Moffat’s reign. I kept looking for signs of my past doctors and finding only a stranger. I stopped watching, petulantly. Watching it now as part of a binge rewatch, I can now say that I was wrong. Chibnall made season 11 similar to season 1. We are introduced to Thirteen the way we were to Nine, no real preamble, no real back story needed to jump into the action. It’s perfect for new viewers to get into the Who-universe.
But, there is something there for those of us who are not newer fans, too. The little nods to the past doctors is subtle. Something, I was not used to after Moffat’s seasons where everything was big and loud. And, I enjoyed every minute. BUT, I enjoyed this quieter season too. This face of the doctor is also trying to find herself, much like Twelve was in Season 8, but Thirteen is even older. Has even MORE experience. She has accepted the loss of her past loved ones, seemingly forgiven herself for her past actions, and is more at peace with herself. She isn’t mourning like Nine, angry but hiding it under cheerfulness like Ten, running from pain but ultimately vengeful, like Eleven, or, dealing with loss by isolating himself like Twelve. She is, in fact, all of them.
I enjoyed her nod to Eleven when she put on the fez, the old white haired scotsman reference to Twelve, the using the TARDIS to pull a planet back in orbit and regressing a slitheen back to an egg reference to Ten. She doesn’t threaten, but you can see the the steel in her eyes when she tells the Dalek the earth is protected. Speaking off, I enjoyed the new version of the Daleks in Resolution.
The start of the season is not as strong as the end, for me. But, I think that is because the Doctor is still becoming who she is meant to be. I think she has found her footing by the end. Looking forward to the next season, with hopefully more (even if they are subtle) references to past doctors, companions, and storylines.
NuWho Favorite Doctors:
1) Ten
2) Twelve
3) Thirteen
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I was tagged by the lovely @unwillingadventurer, thank you both! <3
The Rules are simple - answer the questions, then tag other Whovians to get to know each other better/find new people to follow, message, etc. If there are any questions you don’t have an answer for, feel free to skip it!
Doctor you started with: Time to admit the shame: at first, I skipped Nine. My sister and I already knew David Tennant from Harry Potter so we decided to start at The Christmas Invasion. We watched most of series 2 until we knew we were about to lose Rose and then we went back for series 1 to have more of her and better understand her history with the Doctor. Of course, fell equally in love with Nine as we did Ten, so that was kind of crushing to only have him for one series. But anyway, yeah, my first Doctor was Ten.
Favourite Doctor: Such a difficult question, because I always love the Doctor equally the same every single time, just in different ways. Choosing a favorite Doctor is always going to be out of the question. I suppose if I were forced to pin down a “my Doctor”, I have to say William Hartnell and/or Peter Capaldi. One is near and dear to my heart, he’s so lovely and he undergoes some of the most beautiful character development, and I think he very much embodies who the Doctor is at his core. Twelve feels like such a perfect amalgamation of every one of his past selves, and Peter brings such life and love to the character. He’s very much one of my comfort Doctors.
Favourite Companion: Alas I can't choose between companions either, but I do tend to have periods of loving certain ones especially. Aside from the 60s era companions, because they're all on my mind constantly and I love them all so much that putting them on a list feels almost unfair, a couple of favorites at the moment are Nyssa and Bill. And Sarah Jane, of course, is Sarah Jane, I love her.
Favourite Episode: To be fair, I haven't seen the entirety of the classic series yet, so my favorite episodes are very 60s-biased, and probably always will be lol. There are many that I love a lot, so I'm going to say The Romans as a tiebreaker (but to name a few, Marco Polo, The Chase, The Gunfighters, The Enemy of the World and The Mind Robber come very close). From the modern series, my favorite always has been and always will be The Impossible Planet / The Satan Pit.
DW OTP: Ian and Barbara, for sure. I have some other ships that I really really like but these two are always gonna win.
Favourite line/quote: “It all started out as a mild curiosity in a junkyard... now it's become quite a, quite a great spirit of adventure, don't you think?” Perfectly sums up the show. That night in the junkyard began it all, and it's come so far since then.
Favourite Character that isn’t the doctor or a companion: Though I personally tend to call her a companion, at least honorarily, I know she's technically not one, so my answer is Jackie Tyler. I always loved her.
BrOTP: Everybody?? I don't know. I really love friendships and Doctor Who has a long history with an abundance of them, each lovely. Just to have an answer, though, I'm going to say Steven and Dodo.
Favourite DW fic (if you have one): I don't actually read much fic. I love anything that @unwillingadventurer and @lissy-strata write. I used to read a lot of Ten and Rose stories but I can't really recall them.
Favourite DW fanart/blog (if you have one): There’s so much great fan art that I love, but I generally don't know who it's from lol. I’ll go ahead and say @lissy-strata again. :P
If you could pick anyone to be the next Doctor, who would it be? (Why, if you feel like explaining): I’m generally pleased with whoever they choose, since they always bring their own specialness to the role. If I had to pick someone it'd be Andrew-Lee Potts or Alexander Siddig. On the note of fancasting though, whenever they next introduce a new incarnation of the Master, I really want it to be Paul Darrow.
If you could pick anyone to be the next companion who would it be? (Why?): No preference in actors, really (though I have a secret dream of them casting me...). Character-wise I'd love seeing a companion from another time again. I’d love to see more alien companions too, but we presently have Nardole filling that particular role so I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't do another alien for a while. I’m still hopeful for a companion from the past or future though. I miss that dynamic.
Favourite fan theory: Well, most fan theorizing is rooted in the modern era, and I typically try to stay away from that part of the fandom because it's pretty messy, so I'm not very well versed in the fan theories. The ones that come to the top of my head are 1) Nine travelled without Rose when she turned him down and that's where all of the pictures of him are coming from, since he seemed to be somewhat newly regenerated when he first meets her and reacts to his own reflection for the first time, and he was lonely and came back to make the offer again. It makes sense and I kinda like it. The other one I've seen, which makes me laugh every single time, is 2) Rory is secretly the Master. I’m pretty sure this theory got dumped a long time ago but sometimes I still find the remnants of it and it cracks me up.
Tagging @afirewiel, @hanchewie, @marauders-on-gallifrey, @missys, and anyone else who just wants to
#there is so much classic bias here lol i promise i love the modern series a lot too#doctor who#classic who#tag meme
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Hello, it’s your CS Secret Santa! I hope you’ve been having a pleasant few weeks and that all this Tumblr uproar hasn’t been too depressing! Don’t worry, you’ll still be getting your Secret Santa fic from me, even if I have to snail mail it to you! :D I’m with you on favorite types of fanfiction: it really depends on my mood. I also enjoy unplanned pregnancy fics! 1/7
I think it’s seeing Killian and Emma interact in the situation and the way that Killian always is able to break down her walls and convince her that he will be there for her and the baby that just makes me melt inside! I think my favorites are multi-chapter canon divergence AUs. I like seeing how all the different writers in the fandom think things could have gone differently based on one or two small changes to canon. I love writing AUs too! 2/7
I still haven’t really hit my stride with consistently writing fanfic, but I keep hoping that practice makes perfect. What other fandoms are you a part of ? I’m going to have to go read all your fics now! 😉 Are there any other tropes that you would prefer I steer clear of? Or any tropes that you just absolutely love and I should try to include? I will tell you upfront that I’m not personally comfortable writing smut, so I’m sorry but I’ll probably leave that part to your imagination. 😉 3/7
My family has always had a tradition of putting up the Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving, so that kind of marks the beginning of Christmas music and movies and general festivities for us! And it is nice to get a whole month of Christmas joyfulness to help with the greyness of winter. Ick! Unless you like winter, which in that case, more power to ya! You’ll have to tell me more about your family traditions after all the secrecy is over! 4/7
My husband is third generation Czech so his family also does some traditional recipes around the holidays (mainly desserts!) and I’ve always been envious of families who have held onto their special roots like that! I love cooking and baking too, so I’d love to eventually hear what kinds of food you usually make! Does your family usually do big parties/get-togethers for the holidays? Or do you tend to be more laid back and kind of low-key?I would love including some Aladdin and Jasmine! 5/7
They were honestly one of the only good parts of season six in my mind! I just wasn’t a big fan of the overall writing by the point. Which was sad, but what can you do… Did you watch the whole show or was there a point where you stopped? I stopped watching live after the first half of season 5 and then just watched on Netflix. And I never watched season 7. Did you have a favorite season and least favorite season? Haha, I know exactly what you mean about Snow and Charming. 6/7
Actually, I still consider them two of my favorite characters, but their actions and characterization in the back half of the show is just… yeesh. You also perfectly put into words exactly what I’ve felt about their idealistic look on relationships! I’ve never been able to express that very well before, but just yes to all of what you said!I hope you got all those asks and Tumblr didn’t screw it all up!!! But either way, talk to you again soon! 7/7
Hello Santa! I’ve missed you! I’ve been having an alright week, nothing terribly exciting going on. I’m not too worried about the tumblr nonsense. I mean, I don’t like it and I don’t agree with it by any means, but I understand what they’re trying to do, and how difficult it can be to execute. I know there will be mistakes and it will be a bother, and I totally understand people wanting to leave, but I’m sticking around, at least for a while. But I’ve been on ao3 and ff.net for a while, so I’ll be keeping those up, and I’ll probably explore some additional accounts at some point. We’ll see.
Ugh, I’m totally with you! Killian convincing Emma that he wants to be around and be there for both of them is just too cute! It makes me all mushy. Also, I love seeing all the different names people come up with for their kids - names totally fascinate me in like a super nerdy way. Especially middle names. I think I’m very much in the minority of the fandom though with not liking Hope. Also, I see so much in fandom about their kids always being blonde and looking like Emma and just like… statistically speaking its not likely, and as a statistics person, that always bugs me. Like it’s fine if its just one kid, goodness knows that happens (both my parents have darker hair and I was white blonde as a baby and then blonde until I was an adult #towheadsunite). But when its like four kids and they’re all blonde the stats person in me gets very ruffled. I’m not sure I’ve read any mc canon divergence fics, but I always find them interesting. Mostly because I just find it’s not really a type of writing that I’m good at. The fun thing about AUs for me is that you get to world build, taking snippets from canon and snippets from the AU you’re fitting it into and make it this whole new thing. Say you’re writing a Pride & Prejudice AU, you get to pick parts of the plot that you like and twist them so it’s slightly different, and maybe you throw in some magic and see how that changes it. You get to choose what parts of Elizabeth Bennet’s personality Emma has, and what traits she brings over from canon Emma. And that’s just so much fun to me, to be able to create that way, and fit things just how you like them. But I find that when I’ve tried to write canon divergence I get too bogged down in the details - canonically, who was there and what had already happened and who knew what, and what magical abilities are there - and the story somehow gets lost in my brain. But I admire people who can write it, I think it shows phenomenal creativity to take a story and then run away with it and see how if you just change something small it can ripple out into the whole story. What are some of your favourite canon divergence stories?
I’m not consistent either. I try to at least write a little bit every day, but it always depends on what’s going on and how inspired I feel. I do have this excel thing where I keep track of how much I write for each of my WIPs each day, which I like. It helps me visually see the progress I’m making, and I’m definitely a visual person. The only other fandom I really write for is Harry Potter, but I like Doctor Who, West Wing, Downton Abbey. I think DW is really the only fandom of those. Honestly I watch way more shows than it ought to. I can’t think of any other specific tropes right now, either to include or avoid. Sorry, I know that’s not very helpful. I don’t mind not having any smut, I’m also not very comfortable writing it, and only selectively comfortable reading it.
Oooh, that’s a nice tradition! We always put our tree up kind of whenever we feel like it. I don’t know if my mom’s done hers yet, and my dad insists on waiting until the 12th so it’s the twelve days of christmas, no matter how many times I tell him that that’s not what that means. My roommate and I put our tree up last weekend though, so it’s all decorated now. We’re actually going to do a little “family photo” with the two of us and our pets tomorrow, which should be a riot. Haha, I do like winter! I love the cold bite in the air and the fairy lights everywhere and bundling up. And I especially love snow. It’s my favourite. But I’m also a January birthday, so I dont think I had much choice in liking winter.Oh my goodness, we do huge get togethers. Mostly just because our family is big. My mom has 8 siblings, and all but 2 are married, and then I have somewhere around 15 cousins, plus partners, so a normal holiday dinner for us is usually over 30 people. Thanksgiving is usually the biggest holiday for us, because somehow it’s worked out that that’s what most people can make it for. Christmas is still big, but less people travel for that, and I think it’ll probably continue to dwindle as cousins get married and stuff. This year will actually [probably] be the first year that I haven’t spent Christmas with my family, so it’s going to be a little weird for me. Boxing Day we typically go to my dad’s brother’s house, and I see his side of the family because they’re English. It’s always fun, and its usually the only time all year that I get to see them, but it’s also strange because I’m the only girl. It’s a more low-key day though, so generally if I need some quiet time I just grab a book and find a cozy spot. Last year was really nice though and two of my cousins and I stayed up super late and told stories and bonded. What kind of food is traditional for Czech christmases? I wonder if it’s similar to Polish food…
I definitely stopped watching live at some point in grad school, but I couldn’t tell you exactly when. It wasn’t really a conscious choice so much as just having a ton going on and not always being around to watch. I never watched s7 though. Once Emma and Killian were gone… well, I gave it a try, but I only got like 3 episodes in or something before I decided it wasn’t for me. Maybe one day I’ll go back and watch it, but I haven’t done a OUAT rewatch for a few years.I know that’s their fairytale story and everything and that’s kind of the point of them to some degree, to be that “ideal true love” but idk. I guess it just seems a bit garrish in the way that the other relationships really have to work for their happy ending. And snowing hits their bumps too, but… they kind of iron themselves out? One of the things that I liked about OUAT was that it was still fairytales, it was still fantastical, but it was realistic when it came to characters. They were broken, complicated, imperfect. The people themselves weren’t fairytale versions of anything. Except snowing. And from the perspective of being that fairytale ideal, they’re done well, of course, and I think that’s why people like them. But it’s so different from everyone else on the show.Anyway, that was a lot, but it was so wonderful talking to you! I hope we get to chat again soon! (Also sorry for not really asking any questions, but it’s nearly 1am now and WAY past my bedtime so I’m going to get some shut eye and then post this when I wake up.) Cheers!
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