sarahthecoat reblogged
Zoozve, my beloved
everything perturbs everything and it's lovely
sarahthecoat reblogged
Solar system blackwork by Michelle Via Flickr: Stitched in 2013 - taking some new photos.
Source: Flickr / pardaloteflits
sarahthecoat reblogged
“Madeleine Silarjuangat” Solar system. Hand embroidery. Unique piece. Custom order. 32 cm in diameter. Thank you very much Kirt, I was so proud to have the opportunity to embroider the solar system for your wife’s birthday! I also love the little personalization on it with the addition of “Madeleine Silarjuangat”, which means “Madeleine’s World” in Inuit, named after your wife ❤️ DMC embroidery threads, cannetille, Swarovski crystal beads, 24k gold plated beads, stone beads and glass beads on linen. Wooden frame. My Etsy store is reopened 😀 You can now complete your purchase as usual. I also take custom orders, you can contact me by private message if you are interested. https://www.etsy.com/fr/shop/OphelieTrichereau
sarahthecoat reblogged
How to See Comet NEOWISE
Observers all over the world are hoping to catch a glimpse of Comet NEOWISE before it speeds away into the depths of space, not to be seen again for another 6,800 years.
For those that are, or will be, tracking Comet NEOWISE there will be a few particularly interesting observing opportunities this week.
Over the coming days it will become increasingly visible shortly after sunset in the northwest sky.
The object is best viewed using binoculars or a small telescope, but if conditions are optimal, you may be able to see it with the naked eye. If you’re looking in the sky without the help of observation tools, Comet NEOWISE will likely look like a fuzzy star with a bit of a tail. Using binoculars will give viewers a good look at the fuzzy comet and its long, streaky tail.
Here’s what to do:
- Find a spot away from city lights with an unobstructed view of the sky
- Just after sunset, look below the Big Dipper in the northwest sky
Each night, the comet will continue rising increasingly higher above the northwestern horizon.
There will be a special bonus for viewers observing comet NEOWISE from the northeast United States near Washington, DC. For several evenings, there will be a brief conjunction as the International Space Station will appear to fly near the comet in the northeast sky. Approximate times and locations of the conjunctions are listed below (the exact time of the conjunction and viewing direction will vary slightly based on where you are in the Washington, DC area):
July 17 : ~10:56 p.m. EDT = NEOWISE elevation: ~08° Space Station elevation: ~14°
July 18 : ~10:08 p.m. EDT = NEOWISE elevation: ~13° Space Station elevation: ~18°
July 19 : ~10:57 p.m. EDT = NEOWISE elevation: ~10° Space Station elevation: ~08°
July 20 : ~10:09 p.m. EDT = NEOWISE elevation: ~17° Space Station elevation: ~07°
It will be a late waning Moon, with the New Moon on July 20, so the viewing conditions should be good as long as the weather cooperates.
Comet NEOWISE is about 3 miles across and covered in soot left over from its formation near the birth of our solar system 4.6 billion years ago - a typical comet.
Comets are frozen leftovers from the formation of the solar system composed of dust, rock and ices. They range from a few miles to tens of miles wide, but as they orbit closer to the sun, they heat up and spew gases and dust into a glowing head that can be larger than a planet. This material forms a tail that stretches millions of miles.
Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com
sarahthecoat reblogged
The Great Game + Five-Act Structure
me and @messedupsockindex did a TGG rewatch (i think we’re gonna do the whole show hell yeah hell yeah) and I did some liveblogging that turned into several metas on things i think are important in this episode, with the five-act structure being a Theme (though i went off on a real tangent RE: solar systems/framing and metaphors too). Read on if you dare.
- First of all I learned that this was the first episode of the show that was filmed? I find that very interesting, I don’t know much about how to shoot a tv series, BUT if this was the first one that was ready to shoot, i wonder if that means it was the first one finished, and if it was the first one finished, is it because it’s The One that lays out the five-act structure of the whole show?
- link to @fellshish ‘s most brilliant meta here
- another small spot of evidence for this “TGG is the layout for the whole show” theory is that lots of little shots in this episode are also in the title sequence (could be a coincidence if they did indeed film this episode first, but also maybe not)
- Throughout this episode, we are shown an ongoing conversation between Sherlock and John concerning Sherlock’s lack of basic knowledge about our solar system. It effectively frames the episode - one of the opening scenes being their “domestic” (fight), and the penultimate scene (before the pool scene) being the infamous “I won’t be in for tea” / “I’ll get milk and beans” tragedy. I want to liken this episode-long conversation to a technique I saw in a different show.
- In this show (Masters of Sex starring the brilliant Michael Sheen and the formidable Lizzy Caplan), a man and a woman are having an affair with each other, but justifying it by saying they are simply “working” and that they’re not emotionally attached to each other (they’re sex researchers, so they “collect data” whenever they meet…it’s dumb.) Anyway, there’s a beautiful episode entitled “Fight” during which they are watching a boxing match in their hotel room while engaging in elaborate sexual roleplay with each other. While the boxing match plays in the background, they riff on what their lives would be like together if they really were the husband and wife duo that they pretend to be for the hotel staff. It’s intricate, and loaded, because you never know when they are acting within the roleplay, or talking honestly to each other about their feelings and pasts. They metaphorically duck and weave like boxers around their feelings and around each other. Their conversation often talks literally about boxing, too - The Fight is a tool through which the writers explore the characters’ bond for the viewer.
- I see Moftiss using this same technique when I hear Sherlock and John going back and forth THROUGHOUT THE EPISODE about knowledge of the solar system. The first time they discuss it, you can feel John trying to understand why Sherlock comprehends things the way he does - why can something as basic as the solar system (or attraction) be allowed to slip through the cracks of his otherwise daunting intellect? And you can also feel Sherlock’s frustration with the way John perceives him - why should it MATTER if he doesn’t know the exact details of how the solar system (attraction) works - shouldn’t the fact that he knows it exists be enough, and if or when when he needs to, he can figure it out from there? They continue to explore the concept with each other as the episode goes on.
Here, John has accepted that Sherlock doesn’t (or thinks he doesn’t) care about the mechanics of something as basic as the solar system (attraction). So he asks, why comment on it? Sherlock says even if he doesn’t understand it, he still appreciates it. Telling.
In the final instance of this conversation, the penultimate scene of the episode, John tells Sherlock that maybe a little knowledge of the solar system might have come in handy after all. But Sherlock also has a point:
John’s knowledge of something so basic as attraction has been useless to him thus far.
- If we’re gonna accept food = sex, I found it funny that John was “starving” and he found a head in the fridge. John, there’s head for dinner, if you want it! Even funnier that Sherlock’s response to “I’m starving” was that he was researching saliva. (I don’t love the food=sex thing, I just don’t think it’s intentional, but I do feel like it’s a valid interpretation here that Sherlock is subtextually begging John to let him suck it)
- I’m too tired to figure out what Mycroft’s dental appointment could possibly mean but both of us were like??? My half-baked theory right now (borrowing from M theory) is that the “dental appointment” was actually Mycroft getting the shit kicked out of him by Moriarty/Mary/whoever the mastermind is, so that Mycroft would plant the missile plan crime for Sherlock?
- okay so I never really realized this but Sherlock knows Jim is gay bc he uses hair product and then season 4 John has hella hair product….huh
- Sherlock’s security outfit is queer coded but suddenly I can’t find any evidence of this I just…have it somewhere in my psyche that a police/security costume outfit like that was claimed by queer people and I can’t remember why?
- For hostage number 3, the old woman, Moriarty (or whoever is on the other end of the computer) calls her “a funny one.” @messedupsockindex told me while we were watching about the midpoint of the five-act structure being the breakthrough, the point of no return, the point at which key knowledge is gained (from John Yorke’s Into The Woods, also brilliantly discussed here). I can’t help but think of this seemingly offhand line as a tiny clue to the importance of series 3 of BBC Sherlock. (In case you didn’t know, the midpoint of the whole show, if there are indeed going to be fifteen episodes, is…you guessed it…the best man speech).
- The last Greenwich pip case that is solved, a case in which we have a hostage on the other end of a phone, is the fake painting. The solution to this case is “the Van Buren supernova” aka part of outer space, seen from our solar system. As I’ve argued above, the solar system is a metaphor/framing device used in this episode to subtextually discuss the engine of this entire show - Sherlock and John’s relationship. How very telling that Sherlock, even Sherlock, very nearly doesn’t get to this solution. But, when he does…
(me reading about the five act structure and realizing series four is fake)
- Moriarty’s last few lines - I find this whole scene to be absolutely vital to understanding the point of the whole show, but especially the last bit.
There is probably already someone who has explained/noticed this but…the exchange that Moriarty is responding to, that happened before he re-entered the room, was Sherlock and John getting the closest they ever get in the WHOLE show to discussing the sexual tension/attraction between them (I think I’m again standing on the shoulders of the legendary M theory here). John has taken a huge leap in choosing to bring up what “people” might think about Sherlock ripping his clothes off in a darkened swimming pool. Sherlock responds jokingly but not dismissively, and the logical next step would be to discuss what they themselves think about it…until of course they are interrupted by this, by literally being held at gunpoint.
Moriarty’s lines here are apparently some pretty famous lines in ACD canon. I didn’t know the canon context, so it’s a little easier to just parse the lines in context of this scene. Moriarty wants to stop this discussion that Sherlock and John are about to have, and more broadly, whatever that conversation might lead to. He would try to convince them that they can’t be allowed to continue, but everything he has to say, all the convincing he could possibly do, has already crossed Sherlock’s mind (or both of their minds - it’s actually not specified who he’s talking to here). This is true because Sherlock and/or John are afraid to “continue” - discuss their feelings for each other - because of trauma and internalized homophobia. All the reasons that they shouldn’t “continue,” reasons that Moriarty could cite out loud, have already crossed their minds, probably more than once. I think this unspoken meaning makes so much more sense than taking Moriarty’s “you can’t be allowed to continue” to mean “you can’t be allowed to continue to solve crimes,” which is what it meant in ACD canon. And it’s a fantastic rework of an ACD canon line.
So… the end, I guess. I probably should have split this up into different posts…
ok here’s a lot more coherent and detailed analysis of TGG ☝☝
(head in the fridge and saliva oh my god skjdfkjsds)
aaahhhh good one to re read!
tonight i picked up on: HOW sherlock figures out that the 4th pip painting (s4) is fake, is that the supernova depicted, hadn't happened yet, back when the painting was supposed to have been made. so given the whole solar system/astronomy theme is subtext for atttraction, that says to me that the "supernova", the explosion, the REVEAL hasn't happened YET. the star itself of course was there all along, but it wasn't so visible till it became a supernova. so the attraction is there, and has been all along, but it's not been made so visible that nobody can miss it. YET.
sarahthecoat reblogged
Here to have a chat about how John looks so miserable at the beginning of TEH precisely *because* he has decided to ask Mary to marry him. Sherlock has been "dead" so long that John has finally accepted it as the truth.
He goes to Sherlock's grave with Mary as though to ask for the detective's blessing, then goes to 221b to say goodbye and "move on."
And then of course, OF COURSE, *THAT* would be the moment when Sherlock shows up. *Precisely* when John feels it's too late to back down because now he's got a ring in his pocket, and Mary knows it.
And then Sherlock makes a *joke* about the physical manifestation of the dividing line John has drawn between his old life and the new. Ouch. That must have felt so calculated and cold to John.
Speaking of cold: that cold orb of a lamp on the table with John and Mary, there instead of a candle. Mary is "Clair De Lune"--the moon, chilly and remote. But Sherlock is the sun.
And that brings me to the wedding: John and Mary, twirling, while Sherlock looks on from behind burning candles. Literally the sun watching the moon orbit the Earth. But the Earth orbits the sun.
sarahthecoat reblogged
The Great Game + Five-Act Structure
me and @messedupsockindex did a TGG rewatch (i think we’re gonna do the whole show hell yeah hell yeah) and I did some liveblogging that turned into several metas on things i think are important in this episode, with the five-act structure being a Theme (though i went off on a real tangent RE: solar systems/framing and metaphors too). Read on if you dare.
- First of all I learned that this was the first episode of the show that was filmed? I find that very interesting, I don’t know much about how to shoot a tv series, BUT if this was the first one that was ready to shoot, i wonder if that means it was the first one finished, and if it was the first one finished, is it because it’s The One that lays out the five-act structure of the whole show?
- link to @fellshish ‘s most brilliant meta here
- another small spot of evidence for this “TGG is the layout for the whole show” theory is that lots of little shots in this episode are also in the title sequence (could be a coincidence if they did indeed film this episode first, but also maybe not)
- Throughout this episode, we are shown an ongoing conversation between Sherlock and John concerning Sherlock’s lack of basic knowledge about our solar system. It effectively frames the episode - one of the opening scenes being their “domestic” (fight), and the penultimate scene (before the pool scene) being the infamous “I won’t be in for tea” / “I’ll get milk and beans” tragedy. I want to liken this episode-long conversation to a technique I saw in a different show.
- In this show (Masters of Sex starring the brilliant Michael Sheen and the formidable Lizzy Caplan), a man and a woman are having an affair with each other, but justifying it by saying they are simply “working” and that they’re not emotionally attached to each other (they’re sex researchers, so they “collect data” whenever they meet…it’s dumb.) Anyway, there’s a beautiful episode entitled “Fight” during which they are watching a boxing match in their hotel room while engaging in elaborate sexual roleplay with each other. While the boxing match plays in the background, they riff on what their lives would be like together if they really were the husband and wife duo that they pretend to be for the hotel staff. It’s intricate, and loaded, because you never know when they are acting within the roleplay, or talking honestly to each other about their feelings and pasts. They metaphorically duck and weave like boxers around their feelings and around each other. Their conversation often talks literally about boxing, too - The Fight is a tool through which the writers explore the characters’ bond for the viewer.
- I see Moftiss using this same technique when I hear Sherlock and John going back and forth THROUGHOUT THE EPISODE about knowledge of the solar system. The first time they discuss it, you can feel John trying to understand why Sherlock comprehends things the way he does - why can something as basic as the solar system (or attraction) be allowed to slip through the cracks of his otherwise daunting intellect? And you can also feel Sherlock’s frustration with the way John perceives him - why should it MATTER if he doesn’t know the exact details of how the solar system (attraction) works - shouldn’t the fact that he knows it exists be enough, and if or when when he needs to, he can figure it out from there? They continue to explore the concept with each other as the episode goes on.
Here, John has accepted that Sherlock doesn’t (or thinks he doesn’t) care about the mechanics of something as basic as the solar system (attraction). So he asks, why comment on it? Sherlock says even if he doesn’t understand it, he still appreciates it. Telling.
In the final instance of this conversation, the penultimate scene of the episode, John tells Sherlock that maybe a little knowledge of the solar system might have come in handy after all. But Sherlock also has a point:
John’s knowledge of something so basic as attraction has been useless to him thus far.
- If we’re gonna accept food = sex, I found it funny that John was “starving” and he found a head in the fridge. John, there’s head for dinner, if you want it! Even funnier that Sherlock’s response to “I’m starving” was that he was researching saliva. (I don’t love the food=sex thing, I just don’t think it’s intentional, but I do feel like it’s a valid interpretation here that Sherlock is subtextually begging John to let him suck it)
- I’m too tired to figure out what Mycroft’s dental appointment could possibly mean but both of us were like??? My half-baked theory right now (borrowing from M theory) is that the “dental appointment” was actually Mycroft getting the shit kicked out of him by Moriarty/Mary/whoever the mastermind is, so that Mycroft would plant the missile plan crime for Sherlock?
- okay so I never really realized this but Sherlock knows Jim is gay bc he uses hair product and then season 4 John has hella hair product….huh
- Sherlock’s security outfit is queer coded but suddenly I can’t find any evidence of this I just…have it somewhere in my psyche that a police/security costume outfit like that was claimed by queer people and I can’t remember why?
- For hostage number 3, the old woman, Moriarty (or whoever is on the other end of the computer) calls her “a funny one.” @messedupsockindex told me while we were watching about the midpoint of the five-act structure being the breakthrough, the point of no return, the point at which key knowledge is gained (from John Yorke’s Into The Woods, also brilliantly discussed here). I can’t help but think of this seemingly offhand line as a tiny clue to the importance of series 3 of BBC Sherlock. (In case you didn’t know, the midpoint of the whole show, if there are indeed going to be fifteen episodes, is…you guessed it…the best man speech).
- The last Greenwich pip case that is solved, a case in which we have a hostage on the other end of a phone, is the fake painting. The solution to this case is “the Van Buren supernova” aka part of outer space, seen from our solar system. As I’ve argued above, the solar system is a metaphor/framing device used in this episode to subtextually discuss the engine of this entire show - Sherlock and John’s relationship. How very telling that Sherlock, even Sherlock, very nearly doesn’t get to this solution. But, when he does…
(me reading about the five act structure and realizing series four is fake)
- Moriarty’s last few lines - I find this whole scene to be absolutely vital to understanding the point of the whole show, but especially the last bit.
There is probably already someone who has explained/noticed this but…the exchange that Moriarty is responding to, that happened before he re-entered the room, was Sherlock and John getting the closest they ever get in the WHOLE show to discussing the sexual tension/attraction between them (I think I’m again standing on the shoulders of the legendary M theory here). John has taken a huge leap in choosing to bring up what “people” might think about Sherlock ripping his clothes off in a darkened swimming pool. Sherlock responds jokingly but not dismissively, and the logical next step would be to discuss what they themselves think about it…until of course they are interrupted by this, by literally being held at gunpoint.
Moriarty’s lines here are apparently some pretty famous lines in ACD canon. I didn’t know the canon context, so it’s a little easier to just parse the lines in context of this scene. Moriarty wants to stop this discussion that Sherlock and John are about to have, and more broadly, whatever that conversation might lead to. He would try to convince them that they can’t be allowed to continue, but everything he has to say, all the convincing he could possibly do, has already crossed Sherlock’s mind (or both of their minds - it’s actually not specified who he’s talking to here). This is true because Sherlock and/or John are afraid to “continue” - discuss their feelings for each other - because of trauma and internalized homophobia. All the reasons that they shouldn’t “continue,” reasons that Moriarty could cite out loud, have already crossed their minds, probably more than once. I think this unspoken meaning makes so much more sense than taking Moriarty’s “you can’t be allowed to continue” to mean “you can’t be allowed to continue to solve crimes,” which is what it meant in ACD canon. And it’s a fantastic rework of an ACD canon line.
So… the end, I guess. I probably should have split this up into different posts…
aahhh, brilliant! omg, i love the head in the fridge/ saliva business as a bj joke! LOL!
TGG was, iirc, the first of the 90 min episodes made, i guess while ASIP was being rewritten and TBB worked out, i think it’s in the commentary? Or creator quotes? (look in @callie-ariane ’s transcripts or @skulls-and-tea ’s creator quotes?) something about the pip cases having been originally intended as separate episodes in the 60 min format concept, but condensed and packed together into one episode instead. I agree that it emphasizes the five act structure idea. Each of the s1 episodes is a template in a way. ASIP is a classic “hero journey”, TBB is about paired codes and ciphers, and TGG is FIVES.
Also love your discussion of the whole solar system thing as a metaphor for attraction (sentiment, emotions). Yes!
Something about that missile plan case, i know loads has been written, but it’s so bogus on the surface, it HAS to be about the subtext. There is no way westie got a piece of sensitive electronic equipment out of a secure facility. (I have been told by a friend who works in cyber security. we watched s1-2 together and she twigged on that right off) So it’s about the character mirroring and the memory stick=a memory, the past, something. Then it’s tied up with “mycroft’s” “dental appointment” and m theory, which again, started out being about the surface of the criminal mastermind having something on the government fixer, but works a lot better for me anyway on the metaphorical level, where “mr sex” and everything jim represents about sherlock’s fears and inner demons and homophobia and previous adaptations, messing with the Brain and the Writers (TJLCE “what it Means”) and can they tell the story the way it should be told, get john watson on the case.
yeah, that feels like a really important multi level thing, lots to tease out.
ALSO lovelovelove your reading of the pool scene!! YES!!
tendergingergirl
This is great. The liveblogs of these shows always tend to reveal something new. I recall a meta about the missile plans being compared to Agra & Mary; something about neither being needed. The memory stick was basically useless. Maybe someone might recall who. The group has enjoyed looking at Sherlock as metaphor. It’s all too strong.
I would love you to look at my sherlocks-own-jerusalem. It has a theory of there being a sonnet embedded in the TGG. There were a couple of sonnet seekers but the one I found talks specifically about the solar system as a metaphor for love. Moriarty has been found cast as actual Janus.
I know @ebaeschnbliah also has a metaphoric meta on TGG.
Deducingbbcsherlock had an interesting theory tying Mycroft’s dieting to Sherlock’s drug abstinence.
@justanotherone16 does an awesome one on Grimms Fairytales paralleling episodes and
@221bookworm had one on Freud, Vampires & Fairytales
rb for discussion and links to follow up on!
sarahthecoat reblogged
The Great Game + Five-Act Structure
me and @messedupsockindex did a TGG rewatch (i think we’re gonna do the whole show hell yeah hell yeah) and I did some liveblogging that turned into several metas on things i think are important in this episode, with the five-act structure being a Theme (though i went off on a real tangent RE: solar systems/framing and metaphors too). Read on if you dare.
- First of all I learned that this was the first episode of the show that was filmed? I find that very interesting, I don’t know much about how to shoot a tv series, BUT if this was the first one that was ready to shoot, i wonder if that means it was the first one finished, and if it was the first one finished, is it because it’s The One that lays out the five-act structure of the whole show?
- link to @fellshish ‘s most brilliant meta here
- another small spot of evidence for this “TGG is the layout for the whole show” theory is that lots of little shots in this episode are also in the title sequence (could be a coincidence if they did indeed film this episode first, but also maybe not)
- Throughout this episode, we are shown an ongoing conversation between Sherlock and John concerning Sherlock’s lack of basic knowledge about our solar system. It effectively frames the episode - one of the opening scenes being their “domestic” (fight), and the penultimate scene (before the pool scene) being the infamous “I won’t be in for tea” / “I’ll get milk and beans” tragedy. I want to liken this episode-long conversation to a technique I saw in a different show.
- In this show (Masters of Sex starring the brilliant Michael Sheen and the formidable Lizzy Caplan), a man and a woman are having an affair with each other, but justifying it by saying they are simply “working” and that they’re not emotionally attached to each other (they’re sex researchers, so they “collect data” whenever they meet…it’s dumb.) Anyway, there’s a beautiful episode entitled “Fight” during which they are watching a boxing match in their hotel room while engaging in elaborate sexual roleplay with each other. While the boxing match plays in the background, they riff on what their lives would be like together if they really were the husband and wife duo that they pretend to be for the hotel staff. It’s intricate, and loaded, because you never know when they are acting within the roleplay, or talking honestly to each other about their feelings and pasts. They metaphorically duck and weave like boxers around their feelings and around each other. Their conversation often talks literally about boxing, too - The Fight is a tool through which the writers explore the characters’ bond for the viewer.
- I see Moftiss using this same technique when I hear Sherlock and John going back and forth THROUGHOUT THE EPISODE about knowledge of the solar system. The first time they discuss it, you can feel John trying to understand why Sherlock comprehends things the way he does - why can something as basic as the solar system (or attraction) be allowed to slip through the cracks of his otherwise daunting intellect? And you can also feel Sherlock’s frustration with the way John perceives him - why should it MATTER if he doesn’t know the exact details of how the solar system (attraction) works - shouldn’t the fact that he knows it exists be enough, and if or when when he needs to, he can figure it out from there? They continue to explore the concept with each other as the episode goes on.
Here, John has accepted that Sherlock doesn’t (or thinks he doesn’t) care about the mechanics of something as basic as the solar system (attraction). So he asks, why comment on it? Sherlock says even if he doesn’t understand it, he still appreciates it. Telling.
In the final instance of this conversation, the penultimate scene of the episode, John tells Sherlock that maybe a little knowledge of the solar system might have come in handy after all. But Sherlock also has a point:
John’s knowledge of something so basic as attraction has been useless to him thus far.
- If we’re gonna accept food = sex, I found it funny that John was “starving” and he found a head in the fridge. John, there’s head for dinner, if you want it! Even funnier that Sherlock’s response to “I’m starving” was that he was researching saliva. (I don’t love the food=sex thing, I just don’t think it’s intentional, but I do feel like it’s a valid interpretation here that Sherlock is subtextually begging John to let him suck it)
- I’m too tired to figure out what Mycroft’s dental appointment could possibly mean but both of us were like??? My half-baked theory right now (borrowing from M theory) is that the “dental appointment” was actually Mycroft getting the shit kicked out of him by Moriarty/Mary/whoever the mastermind is, so that Mycroft would plant the missile plan crime for Sherlock?
- okay so I never really realized this but Sherlock knows Jim is gay bc he uses hair product and then season 4 John has hella hair product….huh
- Sherlock’s security outfit is queer coded but suddenly I can’t find any evidence of this I just…have it somewhere in my psyche that a police/security costume outfit like that was claimed by queer people and I can’t remember why?
- For hostage number 3, the old woman, Moriarty (or whoever is on the other end of the computer) calls her “a funny one.” @messedupsockindex told me while we were watching about the midpoint of the five-act structure being the breakthrough, the point of no return, the point at which key knowledge is gained (from John Yorke’s Into The Woods, also brilliantly discussed here). I can’t help but think of this seemingly offhand line as a tiny clue to the importance of series 3 of BBC Sherlock. (In case you didn’t know, the midpoint of the whole show, if there are indeed going to be fifteen episodes, is…you guessed it…the best man speech).
- The last Greenwich pip case that is solved, a case in which we have a hostage on the other end of a phone, is the fake painting. The solution to this case is “the Van Buren supernova” aka part of outer space, seen from our solar system. As I’ve argued above, the solar system is a metaphor/framing device used in this episode to subtextually discuss the engine of this entire show - Sherlock and John’s relationship. How very telling that Sherlock, even Sherlock, very nearly doesn’t get to this solution. But, when he does…
(me reading about the five act structure and realizing series four is fake)
- Moriarty’s last few lines - I find this whole scene to be absolutely vital to understanding the point of the whole show, but especially the last bit.
There is probably already someone who has explained/noticed this but…the exchange that Moriarty is responding to, that happened before he re-entered the room, was Sherlock and John getting the closest they ever get in the WHOLE show to discussing the sexual tension/attraction between them (I think I’m again standing on the shoulders of the legendary M theory here). John has taken a huge leap in choosing to bring up what “people” might think about Sherlock ripping his clothes off in a darkened swimming pool. Sherlock responds jokingly but not dismissively, and the logical next step would be to discuss what they themselves think about it…until of course they are interrupted by this, by literally being held at gunpoint.
Moriarty’s lines here are apparently some pretty famous lines in ACD canon. I didn’t know the canon context, so it’s a little easier to just parse the lines in context of this scene. Moriarty wants to stop this discussion that Sherlock and John are about to have, and more broadly, whatever that conversation might lead to. He would try to convince them that they can’t be allowed to continue, but everything he has to say, all the convincing he could possibly do, has already crossed Sherlock’s mind (or both of their minds - it’s actually not specified who he’s talking to here). This is true because Sherlock and/or John are afraid to “continue” - discuss their feelings for each other - because of trauma and internalized homophobia. All the reasons that they shouldn’t “continue,” reasons that Moriarty could cite out loud, have already crossed their minds, probably more than once. I think this unspoken meaning makes so much more sense than taking Moriarty’s “you can’t be allowed to continue” to mean “you can’t be allowed to continue to solve crimes,” which is what it meant in ACD canon. And it’s a fantastic rework of an ACD canon line.
So… the end, I guess. I probably should have split this up into different posts…
aahhh, brilliant! omg, i love the head in the fridge/ saliva business as a bj joke! LOL!
TGG was, iirc, the first of the 90 min episodes made, i guess while ASIP was being rewritten and TBB worked out, i think it's in the commentary? Or creator quotes? (look in @callie-ariane 's transcripts or @skulls-and-tea 's creator quotes?) something about the pip cases having been originally intended as separate episodes in the 60 min format concept, but condensed and packed together into one episode instead. I agree that it emphasizes the five act structure idea. Each of the s1 episodes is a template in a way. ASIP is a classic "hero journey", TBB is about paired codes and ciphers, and TGG is FIVES.
Also love your discussion of the whole solar system thing as a metaphor for attraction (sentiment, emotions). Yes!
Something about that missile plan case, i know loads has been written, but it's so bogus on the surface, it HAS to be about the subtext. There is no way westie got a piece of sensitive electronic equipment out of a secure facility. (I have been told by a friend who works in cyber security. we watched s1-2 together and she twigged on that right off) So it's about the character mirroring and the memory stick=a memory, the past, something. Then it's tied up with "mycroft's" "dental appointment" and m theory, which again, started out being about the surface of the criminal mastermind having something on the government fixer, but works a lot better for me anyway on the metaphorical level, where "mr sex" and everything jim represents about sherlock's fears and inner demons and homophobia and previous adaptations, messing with the Brain and the Writers (TJLCE "what it Means") and can they tell the story the way it should be told, get john watson on the case.
yeah, that feels like a really important multi level thing, lots to tease out.
ALSO lovelovelove your reading of the pool scene!! YES!!
#sherlock meta#tgg#five act structure#circles = solar system = sentiment#solar system#solar system=attraction#metaphorical reading#head in fridge#saliva#food=intimacy#mycroft=brain#dentist#m theory#hair products#mirroring in sherlock#acd fina#jim=mr sex#moriarty=sherlock's fears#moriarty=homophobia#tjlce#what it means#mycroft=the writers
sarahthecoat reblogged
the use of circles in sherlock ~ emotional climaxes series 1
Circles represent feelings on Sherlock. They relate to the solar system visually, and to his lack of knowledge of basic things metaphorically.
Every plot, every climax is a metaphor for Sherlock and/or John discovering an emotional truth.
Sherlock struggles with his feelings of emotional attraction and John struggles with his feelings of sexual attraction.
ASiP
After the cabbie tells Sherlock of the good bottle/bad bottle conundrum we cut to John, who’s coming to save him from himself, with,
And cut away from him with,
This leads to Sherlock having an emotional epiphany about John, here: he’s someone strong, that you can count on and trust. John is safe,
*
TBB
John is in danger in a tunnel, because someone thinks he’s Sherlock. John denies that he needs to be in this situation but he also belongs here in this situation. He has feelings to sort out, too,
Here are the feeling that John must explore: this reaction and its suggestively acted execution plus a fire raging in the background shows us that John is, in fact, very sexually attracted to Sherlock. He’s in the sexual metaphor with Sarah but Sherlock crashes in an produces an orgasm-like effect,
And a vulnerable post-orgamic sequence, as well,
If you think I’m overreaching here, please look at this frame by frame. Nothing an excellent actor does is coincidence.
Sarah is about to be killed by a phallic symbol. The arrow is pointed at here, there’s a time release element here: it’s a done deal. They’re dating, sooner or later they’re going to bone. But… Then Sherlock comes and saves her from this. But, in the end John must, himself, divert the arrow to save Sherlock. There’s a reciprocity here. And we will see that John will never get to develop a succesful sexual relationship with Sarah. Because of Sherlock.
We see Sherlock comfort an emotionally traumatized person, here, in the form of Sarah: she’s a proxy for John. John fears Sherlock has no feelings but he is in fact a very gentle person. She is very distressed and he comforts her verbally and physically.
*
TGG
The Golem scene easily has the most circular imagery of any scene on Sherlock.
It represents Sherlock’s fear of emotional involvement and John’s lack of emotional fear. Emotional are John’s realm and he’s comfortable, Sherlock is not.
The emotional climax of this scene occurs when john saves him and the Golem hands pull away from Sherlock,
He sees having someone touch your face is safe. He is not scared but he is surprised,
reblogging TGG meta about the planetarium scene this morning.
sarahthecoat reblogged
I666 - THE NUMBER OF THE BEAST - 666I
________________________________________________________________
It'a a funny thing to persue the path of a DEVILISH BEAST to finally find a sparklig RAINBOW in the end. :))))
Not long ago I wrote abut the idea that in Sherlock BBC the City of London and England are used as metaphors for Sherlock’s body (x). The ‘red cross flag’ of Saint George, who’s the patron saint of England, provides a stunning connection between England, London, Georgia and even the old Kingdom of Jerusalem. Lions are displayed in the coat of arms of Engalnd, dragons in the coat of arms of London. Sherlock is called several times the 'dragon slayer’, which leads not only back to Saint George but also into the realm of psychoanalysis and C.G.Jung. ( @sagestreet wrote a wonderful piece of work about this here and @shawleyleres here )
The idea that London/England could represents Sherlock’s body awoke quite some time ago and was first triggered by this short piece of text in TEH (x):
Just put me back in London. I need to get to know the place again, breathe it in – feel every quiver of its beating heart.
With all the 'fiery, burning, inflammable and blazing’ ideas going round lately, a connectdion to DEVIL and HELLwasn’t that far off. What’s more, the number 666, which is two times mentioned in TST, refused stubbornly to go out of my head ever since I heard it. My first interpretation of the 'number of the beast’ is included in a post about Rosie as the 'Elephant in the room’ (x). Recently @sagestreet wrote another stunning piece of work about that topic here.
And now …. onto some new ideas and new connections. What might come to the light of day if one mingles some of the above mentioned themes into a pot, stirring it thoroughly and with passion?
SHERLOCK * LONDON * ENGLAND * FIRE&HEAT * DEVIL&HELL * 666 THE NUMBER OF THE BEAST * LITTLE ROSIE * APPLES&ROSES
Results under the cut ….
interesting!