One Of My Favorite Things About Broadchurch Is That You Always Find Something New That Chibnall Has Slipped

My sister, my niece, and I are watching LotR. Conversation between my sister and niece:

Niece: What’s his name?

Sister: Elrond.

Niece: What’s his name?

Sister: Elrond.

Niece: But what’s his name?

Sister: Elrond.

Niece: What’s his name?

Sister: Call him Ellie!

Tim Hawkins' "hedge of protection"

Tim: Do you really think a hedge is going to scare the devil away?

Devil: WHAT IS THIS GREENERY?!

Devil: I can't get through that!

Devil: Move that bush!

Devil: My greatest weakness is landscaping, how did they know?!

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.

But why fanfiction?

I got asked again recently why I write fanfiction and not ‘proper books’ (I’m pretty open about my fic writing, I’m not ashamed). I told them what I’ve told everyone else - I’ve done both and this is so much better. 

I self-published a YA novel a few years back, the plot of which I was super proud of, and I even have ideas for two sequels, but they’ll never see the light of day. I just have no motivation to write them, and world building is hard and that amount of effort just doesn’t seem worth it.

See, everyone I knew wanted to read my novel, but no one wanted to buy it. Probably about 40 people read it but I only sold 16 copies, and for the effort to format text into a publishable format, the cost of ordering proof copies only to find it was wrong and to do it all again, and the stress of the whole process was just so not worth those few dollars that I made. But I knew going into it that I wasn’t going to be one of those fairy tale stories of an unknown author suddenly becoming a sensation overnight. The story was too obscure, set in Western Australia and wasn’t an ‘outback romance’ which is the only ones that seem to be popular in this setting. I’m more than okay with that because I have fanfiction now.

The difference? I have thousands of people reading my stories, and not just reading them, but I get feedback from some of them (never enough, we authors are fickle creatures who always want more comments, more interacton, more discussion). The thing is though, fanfiction gives me an audience that I will never have from my YA novel. That audience already exists, it’s out there, and they’re hungry for the story to continue. Not all fanfiction is successful - the people who read it aren’t a mindless mass; they have expectations, standards, itches that need scratching. Quality matters, but not just the quality of the writing but of the idea. It’s not just formulaic bullshit that a ghost writer can churn out, change the names but the plot is the same and then throw a big name author on the cover and it’s instantly a bestseller. We’re forgiving of small mistakes if the plot makes us want to keep reading until dawn lights the horizon, we’ll salute the authors who write in English when it’s not their native language and will gladly offer help with those phrases that they’re not sure of, and best of all, we stick together to protect and support each other from annon hate so those ideas have a safe place to grow. We’re a community, a family.

Fanfiction has also given me a platform to improve my writing. Looking back at the standard of my work at the very beginning (and even in my novel) I cringe now at how terrible it was. I’ve written over 1,200,000 words of fanfiction and I’m forever improving. I know how to properly punctuate dialogue tags now, my vocabulary has expanded, I’m not afraid to use adverbs just because some twat said ‘show, not tell’ is better. If an adverb makes the story flow better than three extra waffly sentences then I’ll damned well use it and be proud of it. I’m more confident in my writing and that shows in the quality. I would never have gained that confidence by selling fifty thousand books to ‘silent readers’. It’s the interaction, the feedback, the community that fanfic has that has made me a better writer.

So that’s why I prefer to write fanfic over ‘proper books’ and I will fight anyone who says that we’re not real writers. At the end of the day, people read fiction to be entertained and if I can honestly say that thousands of people from all over the world have been entertained by my fanfiction, that makes me a real bloody writer. 

Watching/reading Shakespeare's Richard II:

Them: Isn't he a bit overdramatic?

Me: Well, yeah, he's supposed to be an overdramatic shit.

Experimenting with colors and photo editing. I have to say, Richard looks utterly gorgeous in blue and gold.

Also, I wasn’t sure if it was ‘earthy’, or ‘earthly’ pit. I’ve seen both used.

im asking luke lovers on here this and i'd love to hear your thoughts on it: what rian did to luke in tlj was a character assassination, but what do you think realistic character development from luke would look like. how would he have handled what went down with kylo, and where do you think he would have been when the events of tlj took place? would he even have exiled himself? would he have stopped using the force?

Okay first of all, I am honored you considered me for this!!

Honestly?? I don’t think it would’ve gone anything like what the ST mapped out for him. Despite my love for TFA, I was always kinda squicked out by the fact that Luke just…ran away. So, here’s my take:

Keep reading

How many times is this tv show going to make me cry, damn it?!?!?!

Favorite Alec keels over moment is in the church with Paul in “November Fog”, mainly because I still love your Alec and Paul dynamic and their conversations. That, and/or the moment when Alec finds out Daisy has a boyfriend and he passes out because of the shock because I find it honestly amusing..

A Game...

Okay, so this proves without a doubt one should not give me a laptop while I’m sick. But I’m using my feverish, addled brain as an excuse to finally go through with this little game that I’ve been joking about with several people… and also because I’ve reached 250 followers and people do stuff when that happens (I sometimes feel like I’m the tumblr socially awkward version of Alec Hardy when it comes to these things).

As some of you may know, I have an unhealthy propensity for having poor Alec Hardy pass out in all kinds of circumstances… now this is your opportunity to vote for your favorite “Alec Hardy Keels Over” scene in any of my fics (see I don’t have the kissing thing going on so I can’t do that). I know this is a slightly morbid game, but I have to admit I do wonder sometimes. And when I did this with a few people, I actually was surprised (and I realize I might not even remember all the times it happens - erm… *blushes with embarrassment*).

Anyway, is there a prize? Well, it’s not really a competition, but if you can come up with a scene that I sort of forgot about, I’ll take a prompt (and if not you can leave prompts as well). I’ll start you off with a three of my favorite ones and then you can either add or pick the same (you have two votes) (warning this may contain SPOILERS)

Keep reading

The Princess Bride (1987) dir. Rob Reiner