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I rewatched the pilot last night. I hadn’t seen it since it first aired, and watching it right after seeing the (amazing!) finale had quite the impact. The thing that stood out the most to me was, as always, Emily and Nolan’s relationship. Mainly, that it just does not exist there, not as it comes to. And both of them are a mess. They’re isolated and working out of the very worst of their coping strategies. Emily is all cold rage, destruction, and only allowing herself to connect with her dead father and then only through her plans to burn everyone who hurt them down.

Nolan is just… he’s relating to the world through tech to feel safe. He carries a video camera with him to a party so he can have emotional distance from the people around him. He sits alone at home. He wears those ridiculous clothes as some kind of armor. His social skills are at an all time low. Even Jack, the nicest guy on the planet, can’t stand him.

( spoilers )

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( picspam (spoilers) )

( meta (spoilers & deeply negative thoughts) )

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( high res )

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After the praying, after the hymn-singing,
After the sermon’s trenchant commentary
On the world’s ills, which make ours secondary,
After communion, after the hand wringing,
And after peace descends upon us, bringing
Our eyes up to regard the sanctuary
And how the light swords through it, and how, scary
In their sheer numbers, motes of dust ride, clinging—
There is, as doctors say about some pain,
Discomfort knowing that despite your prayers,
Your listening and rejoicing, your small part
In this communal stab at coming clean,
There is one stubborn remnant of your cares
Intact. There is still murder in your heart.

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I’m just saying: don’t pretend things are how they used to be.

( high res )

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( high res )

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just keep reaching for a world that waits for you

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Photoshopping through my tears.

( spoilery graphic )

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The short version is that I really, really loved it, though it could have been better.

( spoilers )

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In Sally, Molly, and Irene we’ve got three accomplished, highly intelligent women. They would not be where they are in the world without a lot of grit and some truly excellent minds. Yet two out of three of them end up on their knees to Sherlock, literally or metaphorically. This isn’t exactly unusual: male characters end up being his bitches, too. But when women are his bitches, it’s about their physical bodies being the source of their weakness. They desire him and desire makes them weak. The thing that really clicked for me is that Sally, the one recurring woman character who doesn’t go along with his shit, is never shown to find him attractive.

With Molly and Irene, him owning their asses is all about the fact that their weak female bodies desire his body. Molly wants him, so she lets him use her and walk all over her. Irene’s heart raced when she touched him, so he was able to put her in her place by ( 2x01 spoiler ) In both cases Sherlock ends up the one with the power, who’s free to extend some small kindness—Molly gets a single apology for one of the many times Sherlock has publicly humiliated her; Irene gets saved from ( spoiler )—if he so desires. They’re so weak, and he’s so nice to be kind to them in their weakness.

Which is why, despite his lanky body appealing to me, I cannot find him sexually attractive. Not only is he emotionally impenetrable except for when he’s drugged to the gills, but there’s literally no room allowed by the text for women to like him without being made his pathetic lackey bitches. The text is insulting every woman who dares find him attractive: sexuality is not something we own and enjoy for ourselves, it’s our Achilles’ heel! The proof of our weakness and submission.

There is something painful to me about the way they go about this. Being able to enjoy my own gaze and take ownership of my desire has been an important thing to me. And this text says that, yes, I may look. I'm allowed to desire. They even gave us Sherlock in nothing but a sheet that one time. But it's also a lesson in how desire makes me something less. And that's a lesson that grinds my ax.

There is no quarter for resistance. Even Irene’s lesbian sexuality is stripped from her. And so too is her dominance. Apparently all a lesbian needs is to find the right man. And all a dominant woman needs is to find the right toppy man to be pwned and humiliated by!

As far as these writers are concerned, to want a man is to submit to him. There’s no other option. Besides being Sally, who does not want. And does not submit. And is therefore EVOL MEANIE WOMAN.

… LOL Right.

I guess that’s why the writers hate slash so much: it’s a way for women and all manner of non-cis straight men people to take their pleasures without fitting into the heternormative box. It’s a place for women to sit back and say DANCE FOR US MEN. WE WANT TO SEE YOU FUCK EACH OTHER SILLY. PERFORM FOR US. YOU, FINGER HIM. NOW YOU, SUCK HIS COCK. NOW KISS. CUDDLE.

AND SCENE.

Of course the thought is discomforting to Moffat et al! It should be. They deserve a little discomfort. So while that’s not my thing, I cheer on everyone doing it. Go ahead, gentlefans. Hit ‘em right in the misogyny!

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"Partners in Crime" & "The Fires of Pompeii"

These two episodes make an interesting pair. We start out with strong paralleling of the Doctor and Donna in “Partners in Crime.” Their thirst for adventure is the same, as is their investigative pluck & their concern for others. Despite Cofelia’s death, the episode ends in a place of relative innocence for the two of them — not only are neither involved in her death, they’re actively trying to stop it when it happens. They wave up at the blameless adipose children, themselves blameless. People who’ve chosen adventure over ordinary life.

But there’s more to doing what the Doctor does than that. And “Fires of Pompeii” is about taking the parallels into those more painful areas. When Donna puts her hands over the Doctor’s and presses the lever down, they’re both killing 20 thousand people and—as far as they know—themselves as well. Because of a shared sense of responsibility. She’s seen the horrible parts of the bigger picture he complained she missed in Runaway Bride, and proven herself his equal in that as well. I think it’s significant that this final cementing of their equality comes after she stands up to him, says she doesn’t know what “kids” he’s been traveling with, but she won’t be told to shut up. Her maturity and grit is the foundation for everything that happens.

She's not a kid, swept up in adventures. She chose this life, with plenty of time to think and plenty evidence of how messed up life in the TARDIS can be. How messed up the Doctor can be: she doesn’t harbor many illusions about him & she’s prepared to be that person she told him he needed, someone who could “make him stop.” Not only that but she knows she’s taking her life in her hands. She knows there’s going to be difficult situations. So when they come up, she’s ready. It hurts like hell, but it’s not beyond her to not only face down her own death (and the prospect of killing tens of thousands of people) but pull them both out of the nightmare that comes after.

( cut for gifs )

I made these gifs because I was thinking about Donna's words to the Doctor. I think that she ties together all the themes of the episode when she says "Just someone. Please. Not the whole town. Just save someone." Because the whole episode is about saving someone.

First and most obviously they save a family from the titular "fires of pompeii." But there's more going on. They save each other, too. She saves him from being alone when she put her hands over his and shares that burden with him. Then with her argument that they save someone from the destruction she rescues some shred of hope inside of him, reminds him that there’s always something you can do, no matter how small. She reminds him of the smaller picture he forgets seeing the bigger one. And then he saves her right back by agreeing with her plan. He saves her from hurting the way it hurts to see everyone wiped out and know your own hands did that.

Whatever joy they find in the end of this episode is a byproduct of them saving each other, which is accomplished by how their similarities combine with their nonetheless different points of view. Donna can see how saving just one can mean something in the face of devastation and she shares that with the Doctor. The Doctor knows what it’s like to watch a civilization burn, see everything lost, and know it was your own hands that did that. He saves her from that even as she saves him from continuing to embrace his all or nothing thinking. She won’t be kept away from the hard decisions, but she won’t give into his despair either.

The real kicker is that, yes, the Doctor has to enlighten her about fixed points in time and the pain of things you cannot change. He does teach her that. But he’s not the sole fount of wisdom here. He’s not entirely right. He’s, in fact, very, very wrong to give into despair so much that he doesn’t even think to save someone. That’s what she teaches him. The way that they’re matched up like that, paralleled and each allowed to be right in their way is really fascinating and awesome to me. It's at the heart of why I love their friendship so much and why I ship them so hard in my own idiosyncratic way, negl.

Speaking of shipping. Feel free to avoid this last bit if that's not your thing, but my ~feelings~ on Runaway Bride tend more toward that direction.

( Runaway Bride gifs + meta )

And I've got some shippy ( combo fanart/fic rec stuff )

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Teasers


( more )

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kore and I watched Much Ado in real time tonight, chattering away in email. I thought my fannishness about it was waning, but our conversation sparked it off again! Below I'm expanding on some of the topics she got me thinking about. I'm writing in my own words, but the ideas are really a co-production with her & her shiny, shiny brain. <333

1: words, words, words!

One of the themes that stood out to me this time was gender and the power of words. The thing about the first wedding scene is that, along with the violence against Hero's person by the trusted men in her life, there's the fact that none of them listen to her. Her word means nothing. She means nothing. Her own father believes the slander very quickly and launches into a tirade of disgust against her -- it's like all along he's been barely restraining his hate for women and he just needed the slightest pretext to unleash it on her; considering that practically his first words in the play are about questioning her paternity and the word of her mother that doesn't seem too far-fetched. He kicks at her, tries to strike her -- one imagines only Benedick's interference prevents the scene from becoming a beating. And it's only when Benedick says no, hey, wait! I can't believe this is true that Hero's father bothers to listen. But only long enough to reply: bosh! Claudio and the princes wouldn't lie! though. Of course, they *did* lie. But his own daughter's word is worthless to him compared to the words of men, particularly men of their situation. Witness the violence inherent in the freaking system! Ugh.

But this ugliness is connected to something very positive and interesting elsewhere. And that's the fact that the turning of the whole story is based on Beatrice speaking her truth and Benedick listening to her. Her words matter to him. They are what turn him against his own friends and comrades! The same men he, in this version, tried not to offend earlier on by pretending to leave with them when they marched out of the church. He's trying to keep his rep up with his bros. But her words alone are enough to work such a change in him that he can give that up, renounce his commission, and swear to kill his friend.

WHOA

This is not without precedent either, not some recent thing brought about by the love that's been stirred up by their friends/family's deceit. Her words have always meant something to him, that's why their game of merry verbal war was such a diversion, such a pleasure.

2: our lady disdain

People focused on the humor, but I thought Catherine Tate did superb work with the drama as well, and I hate to see that diminished at all. I read an interview where she talked about approaching the role with an awareness of Beatrice's tenuous position as an orphan being maintained by her aunt and uncle. And then kore pointed out that her Beatrice has a hell of a lot of edge to her -- there's almost a desperation at times.

For instance, in the scene where she says that it would grieve a woman to "be overmastered by a bit of wayward marl," -- that didn't just feel like her exercising her wit. I got the sense from the way that the actors played it that this is one of those family conversations that happens over and over and over again throughout the years.

To quote kore "they all looked kind of bored/uncomfortable/irritated, not like she's just being funny."

Everyone's tired of it, but Beatrice most of all. She's been doubtlessly prodded on this point for years, and it pains her. Deep down inside she's angry over her uncle being all ONE DAY HONEY YOU'LL BE FITTED WITH THE MARRIAGE YOKE and never listening to her, no matter how many times and in how many beautiful, well-spoken ways she articulates her deep problems with marriage (and the entire freaking patriarchy she's trying to survive in with some dignity).

There's an undercurrent of awareness of the tenuousness of her situation, which I attribute to Tate and their awesome director Josie Rourke, who explicitly mentioned in an interview with the Guardian that she was thinking about Beatrice and Second Wave feminism. The thing is, Beatrice can't direct her anger at her uncle or aunt, the most she can do is encourage Hero to not submit entirely to their rule, so instead she directs her witty barbs at the institution of marriage itself, at men, at Benedick.

Truly, her position has such pathos in it. She's fighting for her life armed only with her wit and her words. And what Benedick represents, happily, is someone from the enemy camp choosing to become her ally when she and her dear cousin are at their most beaten. She's found someone who isn't trying to overmaster her.

Beatrice is one of my favorite female characters ever, and I am so thankful that they cast Catherine Tate to rock the role so hardcore.

((flails happily)) ALL MY LOVE

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“Later, the scene where Beatrice and Benedick confess their love for one another is funny, sweet, romantic and audibly curdles the second Beatrice says ‘Kill Claudio’. Tate gathers the air in the room to her at that point, becoming a cold, hard point that you can’t take your eyes off. It’s the hinge the play shifts around and the entire production is pushed by those two words, Catherine Tate’s delivery and the way that Tennant responds. His chilling, still, rage-filled challenge to Claudio is another highlight and the moment he dismisses himself from the Duke’s service leaves you in no doubt that this is a man going off to fight, and kill, a good friend of his. The fact that the next time we see them Benedick is unintentionally composing ‘Green Sleeves’ on a bontempi keyboard does nothing to distract from this. Benedick is a clown, certainly, but he’s a clown with a sword and that sword is entirely at Beatrice’s disposal.”
— Home From The War: The Wyndham Theatre’s 2011 Much Ado About Nothing « Alasdair Stuart’s Blog (via theredshoes)

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