amyhit

I think I feel roughly the same way about Into Darkness as I did about Skyfall: it’s good, in my opinion, but not as good as everyone seems to think it is.

Basically, I just wish they had devoted more effort to creating a sense of emotional and psychological depth, and less effort to packing in ALL the cool stuff they could think of. In the end, I felt well entertained for a couple of hours, but I didn’t feel like I was taking much of the movie with me when I left the theater.

It was well acted, it was well directed, it was decently written.

It was fun, it was action packed, it was pretty.

But I found that when I was feeling emotionally involved, it was almost always in that one-step-removed, “gee this is emotionally involving” kind of way. There were very few moments (if any) which bridged that mind-gap of…meta-awareness? IDEK if that’s a good word for it. I just know that sometimes, when a movie has some kind of “It” quality, there’s this magical thing that happens where I don’t give a fuck that I’m watching something scripted and produced. Because I don’t feel like I’m watching a movie; I feel like I’m watching the people I want to see, doing the things they do, and I LOVE it.

The first movie of the reboot managed to get me into that headspace – not constantly, but for a fair bit of the movie. This one didn’t, much, and for the most part I attribute that to the movie’s own self-consciousness. I think the writer(s) had a (very understandable) case of we’re-writing-the-follow-up-to-a-huge-hit syndrome. So they did what so many sequel-writers do: they made the sequel more of just about everything. They made it more exciting, more dramatic, more adventurous, and more sci-fi-ish. They didn’t actually do a bad job of anything, nor did they fail to instill the story with any emotion or conceptual intrigue. But the pace and amount of action definitely made me feel I was waterskiing over the surface of emotions and ideas, without much variation in the effect the film had on me throughout.

Plus, they used a lot of what I think of as “self-acknowledgment as self-reinforcement.” A lot of humor along the lines of: “It’s funny Spock said that, because it’s such a Spock thing to say.” (Which I guess might just fall under the term “Lampshading,” come to think of it.) That stuff worked really well in the first movie, because as an audience we needed to have the essential Spock-ness of Spock emphasized—the essential qualities of all the characters emphasized—in order to re-forge a connection with the characters in their new incarnations. But Into Darkness used more of that tactic when it should have used less, and while each individual time it was used was still amusing, when added up, one instance on top of the next, it felt like cheap writing.

The whole meta-awareness thing also wasn’t aided by the fact that seeing Benedict Cumberbatch was, for me, an unavoidably meta experience (still not sure if ‘meta’ is really the right word in this instance, but whatever). My brain kept informing me that: “Psst, that’s Benedict Cumberbatch! He plays Sherlock. You’ve seen him play Sherlock a whole bunch. That thing he just did was really Sherlockesque. Also, your shipper instinct says you should be shipping him with somebody, yet there’s nobody to ship him with, because this isn’t that story and he’s not Sherlock. Still though, it’s totally Benedict Cumberbatch!” Despite my perception problems, though, from what I could tell he was very good. His acting was extremely decisive and magnetic. I’m pretty sure if I hadn’t been so hyper aware of the fact that he was Benedict Cumberbatch, I would have believed in his character with ease. I think he may even have had that magical “It” quality.

There were plenty of things I liked about Into Darkness, though, so I will list them under a spoiler cut:

( CUT FOR SPOILERS: stuff I liked about Into DarknessCollapse )

Oh, and also, DEAR SWEET JESUS, since when is Benedict Cumberbatch the very specimen of physical excellence? Personally, I have a major thing for thin, somewhat lanky physiques, so I actually find him more physically attractive in S1 of Sherlock than in Into Darkness. But I do also have a strong appreciation for finely-tuned musculature, and holy fuck did BC ever hit the gym for this role. My brain kind of can’t deal with the fact that I spent as much of Into Darkness as I did thinking “Holy crap, check out Benedict Cumberbatch’s ridiculously well-built body doing ridiculously efficient combat moves.” Which is to say that it will not surprise me in the least if BC gains even more fangirls in the next week or two. (I’m not putting this part under the spoiler cut, because I’m pretty sure that BC being buff and doing combat is a spoiler to no one who has had the internet in the last six months. But if anyone thinks it should be under the cut, please let me know, and I apologise.)

Overall Grade: B

A complete hodgepodge of stuff, today.

( Dental Saga, part IDEK-I’ve-lost-countCollapse )


I was rereading linpatootie’s Two Coffees One Black One with Sugar Please when I came across this part:

That night John has a particularly surreal dream where Sherlock is secretly an alien insect disguised as an outlandishly good-looking Londoner who has infested him with some kind of parasite, eating him up slowly from the inside, and ends up laying wide awake and paranoid beside him in the bed for a couple of hours

HAH! This is totally a reference to the mother of all horror fics, “We are salmon in the stream, after years at sea.” Also, this reference is funny because the night after I read “We are salmon” I lay awake and paranoid for several hours, just like John does in Lin’s fic. (I am not going to provide the link to said fic, because it is FUCKING HORRIFYING and I don’t want anyone to think “I’ll just have a quick look” and then be totally freaked out for several days, like I was. I also take issue with the author, who originally posted the fic with misleading tags that suggested it was a sweet, fluffy Valentine’s Day fic, and then proceeded to be an immature, insensitive jerk about it when people expressed how much the fic had surprised and upset them. It’s a powerful little fic, if horror is your thing, but I don’t feel that the author deserves positive attention for writing it, given what they then chose to do with it.)


In my Harry Potter headcanon, Gilderoy Lockhart is totally played by Simon Baker. I have no idea why they cast Kenneth Branaugh, who is a wonderful actor, but doesn’t look the part in the least. I think it may have to do with the Hollywood mentality that only good guys and charismatic villians everyone loves anyway can be good looking.


I’m rather amused that Tom Hiddleston is in Wallander, which I’ve been watching a bit more of recently. (Incidentally, Wallander is played by none other than Kenneth Branaugh; apparently it’s six-degrees-of-Kenneth-Braunagh day or something.) I’m not a Hiddleston fangirl, but I have enough of a sense of connectedness to other people’s fannish enthusiasms that when he first showed up on screen I kind of squealed a bit. And then proceeded to laugh, because—

A) He’s kind of the butt monkey of S1. Not to a really obnoxious degree, but just in the sense that you can tell he’s still the newb in the police force, and doesn’t quite have the knack for it yet, and Wallander has a tendency of regarding him with the “Magnus, for fuck’s sake, think more” attitude.

B) I swear the directors regularly use him as set dressing. I mean the dude’s like 6’2” and 140 lbs, so he’s fairly striking to look at, and I swear the director is constantly going, “Okay Tom, you only have one line but we want you in the entire scene, so just lean against the table and look lanky – yes, that’s perfect” and, “Okay Tom, all you do in this scene is listen, but we want you in the entire thing, so just kind of sit loose-limbed in this chair here and look lanky – yes, that’s excellent, very good.” Or, “Hey, let’s have Magnus answer the phone because that way we can film Tom’s hands, which are way more esthetically pleasing than anyone else’s.”

But Magnus does eventually kill a man to save Wallander’s daughter’s life, so I feel like he kind of earns his stripes at that point.

I’m contemplating posting a journal-cut to this on sherlockbbc. Should I? It’s pretty meagre where meta is concerned, and I don’t want to be wasting people’s time by calling their attention to things that don’t amount to much. I’m asking because I don’t have a very good grasp of comm etiquette, or of what the status quo is re: posting stuff like this. I’m asking for your opinion, so don’t be afraid to hurt my feelings; I’m not really that invested in a bit of casual meta I plunked out over coffee one afternoon.

( John and His Writing, part 2; plus John vs. Watson – Musing on the Function of Characters in StoriesCollapse )

( The whole ‘Lone Male Hero’ schtickCollapse )

I’m really interested in the idea of John turning out to be a good writer. I’m not sure if it’s my headcanon, per se. It’s more like the kind of thing where I think, “If I were telling this story, that’s how I’d write it.”

Surprisingly few fics characterize John’s writing as an important aspect of his character (as opposed to a hobby he merely tinkers with), and even the ones that do make it important tend to adhere to the canonical implication that John’s writing isn’t really much to take notice of. It’s good enough that people read it, but it’s not really good. The general indication seems to be that John’s writing is one part plunked out facts and one part amateur pulp adventure narrative.

I’m interested in the idea of John’s writing being quite different to that, even if it means bending or ignoring canon a little bit. I like to imagine John’s writing as being distinctly intelligent and reflective. Not as much of the patently descriptive: “Sherlock is X / Sherlock did Y / Sherlock thinks A / Sherlock never B.” Instead, both more abstract and more visceral than that. I like to think of John’s writing as containing an incipient kind of poetry – something which grows in his style over time; something almost covert between the lines, strange and important, thick as a root system beneath the surface. I like to think that John, in his way, understands more than Sherlock does about what it is they do. Not about the intricacies of fact, those belong to Sherlock, but about the implications of those facts in human terms.

I know John doesn’t really come across as a particularly articulate or reflective person in canon, but then that’s really all about how you read his character and his background, and about which episodes you take your primary characterization cues from; the John of ASiP is quite different from the John of TBB.

Once can read him as someone who is essentially uncomplicated, and who conceptualizes life in similarly uncomplicated terms. Or you can read him as someone who is very much aware of how complicated life is – how involute, how unsolvable; someone who has been on intimate terms with life’s complexity for quite a long time, and who is able to live amidst that complexity and accept it by being, himself, as straightforward and direct as possible.

Obviously, I prefer the latter reading.

Then there’s the other half of the equation, if one does characterize John as a good writer, which is the influence John’s writing has on Sherlock. How might having his life’s work written out in a way that others are intrigued by – even moved by – influence Sherlock? And might Sherlock also find himself intrigued...moved?

I like the idea that John’s writing credits Sherlock’s life with a profundity and richness which Sherlock himself is not aware of, and cannot quite understand. In John’s mind, he is simply describing the experiential truth of their lives, but to Sherlock, John is imbuing their lives with some strange and unscientific kind of meaning after the fact. John tries to tell Sherlock that he’s really not, but Sherlock doesn’t believe him; can’t believe him; wonders what it would mean if he were to believe him.

He reads everything John writes.

This post prompted, at least in part, thanks to Anisoptera by aderyn. It’s a short fic, and John’s writing is only briefly mentioned, but the way aderyn wrote John’s POV made me realize that a heartbreakingly sensitive and intelligent John characterization was possible, and that it’s what I’d choose for him myself.

“More and More” by Margaret Atwood strikes me as a very “Sherlock in Love” sort of poem. Though of course it all depends on how much of fanon you accept, and what parts.

( there is no reason for thisCollapse )

I’ve been wanting to do a post about why I characterize certain characters as subs, in BDSM fics, and other characters as doms. Really, I’d love to start some kind of a discussion post on the topic, even if it had to focus on the characters in the Sherlock fandom specifically. I’d be really interested to see people discussing which Sherlock characters they saw as doms and which they saw as subs and why. But then when I actually imagine publically posting my thoughts on something like that, the socially self-conscious parts of my brain are like, “Um, no. You really should not do that. It would be embarrassing, and could also lead to people taking offense all over the place.”

But it would be so interesting. *dithers*

Also, can I just say how much I hate that “Dom” is supposed to be capitalized but “sub” isn’t. It sucks. I know that the point of subbing is to consensually and temporarily submit to another person, but that shouldn’t have to mean the sub is inferior or less deserving of respect, and as far as I’m concerned, that’s what capitalizing Dom and not capitalizing sub implies. I know that some subs like to be degraded as part of a scene, and maybe those people would want to be referred to as “subs”–all lowercase. But what about the subs who don’t have any interest in being degraded and who just want to be controlled, in a respectful, equality-upholding manner for a little while?


I wish there were a website where music critics made lists, with short explanatory blurbs, of their top ten favorite songs by various musicians and bands, so that whenever I started to think there was a band or musician I might like, I could go to that website and start by listening to the songs that were most commonly listed as favorites. That would be great.


I bought an eyebrow brush the other day. It cost $10, and I felt thoroughly extravagant buying it, considering how utterly unnecessary it is. I don’t even do any makeup most days! It’s been three days and I’m still kind of marveling at my own crazy first-world privilege that I can buy shit like this. But wow, YES, anyone who does any sort of penciling or shading-in of their eyebrows should totally have one of these, they’re awesome. I feel like a cosmetologist every time I use it. The novelty is sure to wear off eventually, but I’m pretty sure I’m never going back to using a brow pencil.


I usually don’t put classic songs on fanmixes, because they don’t tend to lend themselves well to other people’s stories; they already have an indelible kind of identity of their own, as classics. However, I can’t help thinking of “Vienna Waits for You” as a pre-series Mrs. Hudson song, maybe set during the period of time where Sherlock was helping Mrs. Hudson ensure that her husband was…not going to be a problem ever again. Most of the song is pretty spot on, except for You can see when you’re wrong / but you can’t always see when you’re right which is definitely backwards in Sherlock’s case.

Slow down you crazy child
You’re so ambitious for a juvenile
But if you’re so smart
Tell me why are you still so afraid?
Where’s the fire, what’s the hurry about
You’d better cool it off before you burn it out
You’ve got so much to do
And only so many hours in a day

ETA: the woman sitting at the table behind me in the coffee shop right now is giving directorial instructions to a guy I'm presuming is one of the main actors in a movie. It feels very Hollywood. In all liklihood it's a really minor $5-budget production no one will ever even watch, but even so, I kind of want to turn around and be like, "You guys are great. It's people like you who make the stuff that I'm sitting here writing about. Rock on."

ETA2: Aaaaah! Okay, and I just realized that they're actually stage people, and get this: the stage production they're involved in is a Sherlock Holmes musical!


Okay, I’m just going to say it and be done: Since seeing the recent setlock pictures (and what the characters in said setlock pictures are wearing), I’ve pretty much given up all hope of feeling anything but bitter disappointment when season three airs. In fact, my current plan is to not watch S3 for a couple of months after it airs. Instead I’m just going to hang around in the fandom taking in the fan reaction, getting spoilered to death and coming to terms with it all. That way, when I finally do watch S3 I will already know what to expect and I’ll have accepted things as they are, having gotten the vast majority of my disappointment out of the way in gradual increments beforehand.

*sobs angry, disappointed, impotent tears*


( online ennuiCollapse )


Does anybody know if JET (Jesemie’s Evil Twin) is a Sherlock fan? Because there is a writer in the Sherlock fandom whose writing style is really reminiscent of JET’s writing (though I won’t say who, just in case they are the same person and they don’t want their fandom personas to be linked). Actually, this Sherlock writer’s style is a lot like JET’s style back in 1999 or so, when she first started posting X-Files fics: complexly, chaotically poetic – little fragments of chaos and profundity. Every time I read one of this person’s fics, I wonder.


( the tropes songCollapse )

Sherlock flisters, are there any “Kissing For Science” fics out there? Again, I feel like there must but, but when I try to think of them, all I can come up with are more explicit things like “Blowjobs For Science” and “Masturbation For Science” and “Anal Sex For Science” and “Voyeurism For Science” and “BDSM For Science.” Now I really want a fic that specifically involves kissing for science.

And does anyone have any recs for “Turned Into a Cat” fics?

( Life ThingsCollapse )

Fannish Things:

1. Clearly what my life has been missing is tunalock – how did I not realize this?

2. And also, heartbreaking zombie catlock fic with accompanying fanart. Because who doesn’t love having their heart broken by zombie cats?

3. The other night while contemplating shipper portmanteaus, I realized that if there are any Skinner/Krycek fics out there, the shipper name would totally be Skincek (with the c pronounced “ch” of course), which is probably the most appropriately porny shipper name ever. But I still think that "Jisbon" (Patrick Jane/Teresa Lisbon) is the most unsuitably porny shipper name ever (it's really a very tame ship all around), “Mystrade” is the least stupid sounding shipper portmanteau ever, and that “Stark Spangled Banner” (Tony Stark/Steve Rogers/Bruce Baner) is the cleverest/crackiest shipper name ever.

4. Dad and I rewatched the first several episodes of BSG the other night, and holy fuck, it was so magnificent I felt like I was holding my breath for the whole three hours. The first forty-five minutes or so were a little stiff in places, which is something I didn’t notice the last time I watched the show, but by the time the Cylons attacked, everything had really clicked into place. I also found myself blown away by BSG’s basically unprecedented level of on-screen female awesomeness. It reminded me that the last time I watched BSG I’d only been a feminist for a year or two, and barely recognized gender-equality win (or fail) when I saw it. Watching this time, I realized that I’ve literally never watched a show that has as many unique, diverse, strong, flawed, interesting, realistically excellent female characters as BSG has. Both Kara Thrace and Laura Roslin easily deserve a place on any decent list of Most Well Written and Interesting Characters on Television. And then there’s Sharon and Cally and Dualla – none of whom are given the standard “hang around and pretend to do things while the men do everything important” treatment I’m so accustomed to (and sick of) getting from popular film media. I can’t really remember if BSG manages to keep being awesome about its female characters for the duration of its run, but it sure does one hell of a job in the first several episodes, anyway.

5. I was reading a lot of Suits fic for a couple of weeks, but I seem to already be running out of reliably good stories to read. Which is confusing for someone who is used to only reading fanfic in huge fandoms, because I’ve actually only read fifty or sixty Suits fics total. In both the X-Files and Sherlock fandoms, that wouldn’t even be scratching the surface. I actually didn’t realize until just now that there are only about 1400 Suits fics on AO3 – in comparison to 29,000 Sherlock fics. And Gossamer has over 35,000 XF fics.

5b. The thing I’ve noticed most in reading Suits fanfic is that writing quality seems to drop off a lot faster in the Suits fandom than in the Sherlock fandom. Of the thirty most popular Suits fics, most of them were well written and engaging, but of the next thirty most popular, maybe half of them were either badly written or simply bland (IMO). But then I suppose that stands to reason. After all, according to Sturgeon’s Law 90% of everything is crap. By that extremely rough rule of thumb, in a fandom of 1400 stories about 140 will be good, while a fandom of 29,000 stories will have around 2900 good ones. And because of AO3s bookmark and kudos functions, the majority of those good fics are likely to end up in the upper part of the popularity pile. So it makes sense that in a small-ish fandom like Suits, by the time you get five or six pages into the AO3 search results (filtered for kudos), you’ve probably already burned through the majority of the good fic. Of course that’s nowhere near 100% reliable. Several of my favorite Sherlock fics aren’t particularly popular; popularity is a fairly good predictor of a baseline level of quality, but it doesn’t correlate that closely with excellence (unless mass appeal is a major factor in how one defines excellence).

5c. And here I feel I should say, one more time, like a skipping record, that I do not in any way feel that fandom owes me good fanfic. That would be insanely narcissistic. Fandom doesn’t owe me anything. If I express discontentment or make an unflattering comment about an aspect of fandom, that’s entirely a personal thing, and is in no way meant as an objective assessment, accusation, or judgement of fandom. I love this place dearly; part of how I express that love is by taking the place apart a little bit, in my own mind.

( Putting my X-Philedom in a boxCollapse )

( Harry Potter has happened to the amyhit&father household. Again.Collapse )


Speaking of Harry Potter. Yesterday I read two Suits fics: Vinculum Somnis, which is a crossover with Inception, in which Arthur is Harvey’s brother. And those of wit and cunning, which is a fusion with the Harry Potter universe, in which poor Mike is part Veela and it’s causing him some problems.

Oh fanfic, how are you so awesome? Seriously, where do people who don’t read fanfic get their feels? There is seriously nothing in the world I enjoy as much as I enjoy fanfic, and I’m not even embarrassed about that, because fanfic is just. that. awesome.

First of all, I’m fairly sure there will never, ever be enough Harry Potter fusions in the world. I love them beyond all measure. And making one of the protagonists part Veela is just cracked enough to be awesome. Plus, “those of wit and cunning” did a really good job of subtly but effectively addressing the anti-Slytherin prejudice which is such a pillar of the books. I love that we get to see vulnerable Ravenclaw Mike taken in by opportunistic but ultimately ethical Slytherins Harvey and Donna, and that it’s not a Slytherin but a Hufflepuff boy who calls Mike a mudblood. I also love that that same Hufflepuff boy turns around and calls Harvey a Death Eater as a slur simply because Harvey's parents were Slytherins during the Potter era. Without feeling preachy or bitter, “those of wit” expertly diffuses the pervasive textual ideology of Slytherins being the inherent rotten apples of the wizarding world. And really, who better than Harvey Specter to demonstrate that opportunism, assertiveness, and ambition do not inherently equal greed, cruelty, or malevolence? That’s just— yeah—bravo.

Meanwhile, the Inception crossover was particularly wonderful, because a really solid Inception crossover is one of the few things the Sherlock fandom doesn’t have. I’ve read a few, but none that were really fantastic. “Nothing We Could Judge” was good, but it was pre-series, and kind of painful to read. Whereas “Vinculum Somnis” was cool and sexy and involved Mike being a crazy dream-architect prodigy (which is actually believable, given his canonical hyper-intelligence), and Harvey’s subconscious security saying comforting things to Mike instead of ripping him apart like they’re supposed to. So basically all the fun, mind-fuckery adventure-type stuff an Inception crossover is begging for.

But now I want moar. *Oliver Twist face*

I’ve written a piece of meta discussing how Sally Donovan is treated – by the show, by Sherlock himself, and by the fandom. The piece isn’t particularly pro-Donovan, but it’s also not really anti-Donovan. It’s more of an examination of her character from several angles. It’s about 3500 words (maybe slightly longer), and I’m wondering if there’s anyone who would be willing to read it and tell me if I’ve said anything that could reasonably be construed as racist.

Donovan’s race is a very minor aspect of the meta, and I really don’t think I’ve said anything offensive (because obviously anything I have said regarding race was said with the intention of being positive), but I’d like to have a second opinion anyway, because I’m going to post this on sherlockbbc, where more than ten people may actually see it, and I’m super paranoid when it comes to talking about racial issues. Like, I always feel like no matter what I say it is potentially the wrong thing.

Other Stuff:

- I need more Sherlock tracks (specific to Sherlock himself) for my theoretical Sherlock fanmix. I only have three. Anybody have any song recs?

- Should I be embarrassed that there’s a word document on my computer in which I’ve been attempting to work out how my own personal version of the omegaverse would work? It would be quite different –kind of an Omegaverse 2.0. Mainly I wanted to work out a way I could keep all the hotness involving mating urges and whatnot, but cut out all the squickiness of genetically determined destiny and social prejudice. I did actually come up with something, but it ended up being so different from the current omegaverse that it wouldn’t even be fair to call it an omegaverse. Plus I couldn’t really post it as a prompt on the kink meme because the amount of explaining I’d have to do for how it would work would be major tl;dr for any potential writers. But I can still dream.

- What is it about Sherlock that makes him so easy to fetishize? It’s something I noticed almost immediately after getting into the show. If I say I don’t mean fetishize in a pervy way it’ll sound disingenuous, and honestly I do mean it in a sexual way, but also in an intellectual way. When I say ‘fetishize’ I mean something different that just ‘lust over’. There are tons of lust-worthy characters, but very few of them would I consider extremely fetishizable. Sherlock, though, is someone I find difficult not to fetishize in some way. He’s just…he’s so very striking, such a fixed quantity. Perhaps what makes someone fetishizable is the sense that you could do anything to them and it wouldn’t change them; it’s like a dare to try.