U Ever Hear A Drum Beat That Changes Ur Life

In Broadchurch, every shot counts. No detail is unimportant, they all can belong to the law of Chekov’s Gun (the floorboards in episode 4 a prime example). What I find most interesting about these types of shots is the flashback explanation of Alec’s finding Pippa’s body in the river. 

The opening shot of the whole second series is clearly of the morning of Alec’s walk through the woods to the river in Sandbrook. As we can see he walks through bluebells only touched by sunlight.

There’s no rain. There’s not even a raincloud in sight.

And then we arrive at the flashback scene in ep 4, when Alec finally talks about the events of that day and our first look at that is this:

It’s not just raining. It’s pouring. A torrential downpour while the sun’s still brightly shining as our attention falls on Pippa’s body.

So why is it that Alec’s memories of that day is that it was raining when it’s clearly established that it wasn’t? 

Memory plays a fickle game on the mind. Every day we remember and recall things about a particular moment that simply didn’t happen but is a reflection of what we were feeling at the time. When I was eight my dad was in an accident and had to go to the hospital and the only thing I remember is seeing his empty chair in the darkened living room even though everyone has assured me that the house was bright and loud with a lot of people in the rooms. But all I could think of was my dad’s dark empty chair.

The sun may have been shining when Alec found Pippa’s body but to him over time, maybe even built up in nightmares, it’s always raining. Rain is seen as a cleansing thing, yes, but it also brings out the smell of decay and the heady scent of dirt. Alec was probably smelling the decay of water plants and the scent of the river for days afterwards. The memory and his nightmares have bled together so that he can’t distinguish between the two. It’s like in his mind it couldn’t possibly be such a beautiful day to find a young girl’s body in a river and so his memories deliberately try to make it dreary and cold, although the reality never changes.

The sun is always shining in those memories and it mocks him, I think. A last ironic laugh in the whole horrifying experience.

My favorite ladies: Fandom edition

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I see Crowley’s ‘you idiot’ and agree it’s utterly heartbreaking...

But I raise you Aziraphale’s pleading, ‘Come with me’, is just as much.

a question of temptation

"But surely you must remember a little bit of what it was like there," Aziraphale was saying. He finished the wine in his glass as he waited for an answer, his fingers silently tapping out a rhythm on his crossed knees.

"Heaven?" Crowley scoffed, slouched very carefully in his seat. "'Course I do, angel, why do you think I wanted to divert the Apocalypse? Endless white marble and gold with singing echoing down every street? No thank you."

"No, not Heaven, dear boy," Aziraphale said patiently, but there was a familiar conniving glint to his eyes that Crowley could truly appreciate. "God's presence. Surely even you can miss Her love? Why stay with Hell when you could have that?"

Crowley sat up slowly, his eyebrows shooting upwards in delighted surprise. "Why, Aziraphale," he drawled, "are you tempting me to Unfall?"

"I might be," the angel said smoothly, unruffled.

Crowley laughed. "I'm an awful influence, then. Good." He threw back the rest of his own wine with a gusto that made Aziraphale frown, and then he was standing to fill it again. "I don't remember Her, angel. Hell does that to a demon, you know, we can't go around yearning for God and do our jobs successfully. I don't remember what Her love feels like." With his glass refilled, he bent down with a suddenness that was startling and placed a kiss on the very end of the angel's long nose. His yellow eyes gleamed with something approaching fondness as he sat back down in his chair as Aziraphale blushed a deep red. The angel was so thrown by Crowley's actions that he very nearly missed what the demon murmured into his glass: "Yours is enough for me, anyway."

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always loved Ian Holm’s portrayal of Bilbo in the LotR trilogy, but it was really Martin Freeman’s rendition of the character that really made me fall in love with him, and let me finally finish The Hobbit book. I’d read LotR at ten years old and loved it, and despite trying to read The Hobbit, I simply couldn’t do get through it. Martin brought Bilbo to life for me that breathed life into him when I read the book and allowed me to understand the full beauty and fun of the character of Bilbo Baggins as written by the Professor.

So did Mary Poppins inspire Missy, or did Missy inspire Mary Poppins?

I think perfection is ugly. I want to see scars, failure, disorder, distortion.

Yohji Yamamoto (via quotemadness)

Heart and Soul Nebulae 

Jack Sparrow is our inner bookworm

Exhibit A: When you finish a book and don’t know whether to hug it or throw it across the room. 

Exhibit B: When you spend the whole night reading a book

Exhibit C: When people ask if you can do anything other than fangirl and you say you can do this:

Exhibit D: When writers keep separating your OTP

Exhibit E: When the author is writing the next book in the series

Exhibit F: When you open the first page of the book you’ve been waiting for and you know it’s gonna kill you in the most pleasurable ways:

Exhibit G: When you see a bookstore and start “walking” toward it with your friends, family, etc running after you trying to catch you before yet again you’re lost to the land of fiction:

Exhibit H: When your favorite character dies:

And so on and on…

I loved Jodie's send-off as the Doctor. The writing has definitely been rocky the past three seasons but as dear old Nine put it, she was absolutely fantastic.

Thank you, Jodie, for bringing us such a beautiful, fun, and brilliant Doctor.