My Strong Objections To Game Of Thrones’ Jaime Choices

**This post contains spoilers for the entire Song of Ice and Fire series, and for the TV series up to S04e03**

I don’t have a problem with the continuous references, threats and instances of rape in A Song of Ice and Fire. It isn’t pleasant, and sometimes it’s incessant, but you look at wartorn or fraying countries past and present, and you’ll see infinite instances of rape used as a constant weapon against an entire female population. Rape in A Song of Ice and Fire has context. The victims of rape have context. Rape has consequences; the threat of it has consequences. Those consequences vary because the victims are also people, with their own context and character, and we see as many permutations and consequences as you would expect, just as we see so many permutations and consequences of murder. Rape is not there to ‘pretty up’ the novels. It is sometimes there to tell us things about men, or about women, or about the landscape. It is sometimes there because that is the horror of it all, that it would be there, that that is just how that world is. It’s not glossy, it’s not exciting, it isn’t sanitised and it isn’t fun to read, and there’s a lot of it. I don’t have a problem with that.

I have an increasing problem with the TV version of things, because it takes an unpleasant world and pretties it up. For starters, there’s the incessant naked women during plot points, never mind the sexualised violence against women where it either isn’t in the books, or is off-screen in the books. And then there’s the key relationships – Khal Drogo/Daenerys and Jaime/Cersei, most talked about – where the show has chosen to take away both content and context until all you have left are sequences that look like rape, sound like rape, are rape, where rapes do not occur in the books. The Khal Drogo/Daenerys one is cloudier, certainly difficult to discuss, and, presumably, to film, because in the book, Daenerys is a child and the consent of minors is not even the slightest consideration in that world, which, thankfully, it is in ours. I think that’s a lot harder to discuss, and I also have a lot less to say about it, save that, it bothers me intensely that they made what becomes a strong and powerful love story start out with the out-and-out rape of a crying girl.

But I have a lot to say about what on earth they’re doing with Jaime Lannister. I love Jaime. Is it because he’s blond? Probably. Except he isn’t, in the TV show. When I started watching, I’d assumed that might be the most of my problems, but, it transpires, I’ve almost forgotten that he isn’t blond, because the awesome parts of Jaime are all present, and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau is perfectly hot, perfectly witty and gloriously good at eye-rolling, and I am, after all, susceptible to the aesthetic appreciation of other things.

I love that scene in the book. I love Jaime and Cersei’s ridiculously twisted relationship – and then lack of it – in the books. Jaime’s utter adoration of Cersei prior to his return to King’s Landing, his unswaying belief that she is everything he could ever need, is beautiful and unusual and pretty interesting. The assumption that Cersei feels the same, until you get those Cersei chapters and discover that, no, the relationship for her is something different, is so subtle and clever, I was virtually applauding as I read. I have little squick for sibling incest, probably because I’m an only child with an utter inability to imagine having a sibling at all, so that might explain why I find it so easy to have such love for a relationship that’s fundamentally flawed. But even if you can’t get past that vital factor of their relations, I think it’s fairly hard to deny that the layers and depth of it are compelling and fascinating, and watching it all unravel is brilliant.

There’s very little of the context of their relationship in the TV series. Obviously, you lose all the POV stuff, obviously, but they managed to make Jaime and Brienne’s Excellent Adventure pretty damn good, so you know they can do it if they feel like it. And any relationship that’s first presented as a vehicle for throwing a small boy to his assumed death is going to be incredibly flawed.

There was some of this when Jaime’s escape from Catelyn was so unpleasantly twisted to have him murder an innocent person, simply to further his own ends. I hated that. Hated it. But I wondered if it might be to replace some other something elsewhere in the book and generate something…be a shortcut for the Lannisters having grudges against them elsewhere…it was a stupid change, to my mind, but I figured there might be a reason for it.

There is no reason for the Jaime/Cersei sequence in Joffrey’s tomb to be that different, though. The director had his say about it, and it’s just wrong. “Everything, ultimately, is a turn-on for them…” No, no it isn’t. And no part of that sequence is about having good sex. It’s about need and humanity and grief and relief and trauma and love and who they are together and separately, and you lose every single shred of that when you write that sequence as the most basic Rape 101 in the book.

My major concern is that that scene intentionally and directly plants the language and actions of rape into those characters’ mouths. It isn’t moderated, it has no context, it has no sense, it is explicit rape for no story purpose, it has no character purpose, it develops nothing, indeed, sets back all manner of things, and downright breaks still more things. There is no possible justification for it.

Some of the articles and posts I’ve read about this week’s episode have been excellent, all demonstrating not only anger, disappointment and sadness for the show’s decisions, but also a sense of exhausted confusion about why we’re seeing rape storylines everywhere, everywhere, everywhere, where they serve little purpose, and need not be used. It’s true that Lara Croft’s Tomb Raider prequel, which featured sexual violence as a character-creating point, generated some fantastic dialogue about the female role in video games, but it’s a shame that it took the retrofitting of one of the only leading female characters to get that going. It feels by this point as though TV has gone so far past that that it’s just ‘not another rape scene…’ now, and a proportion of the TV audience feels let down and confused by the decisions and simply switches off.

However, Game of Thrones is so vast, so epic, and has so much incredible stuff going for it, people aren’t going to switch off. There isn’t going to be a massive exodus from the show if it deviates from the books (because so much of the audience couldn’t care less about the books/hasn’t got time to read them, and there’s absolutely nothing at all wrong with that) and I get that there have to be changes to make the sprawling story work for TV. 

But they didn’t need to change that.

Am I upset because the fictional character I have a thing for was turned into a rapist? Yes. I don’t have to apologise, or be ashamed of this. I am upset by it. I’m angry about it. That’s okay. I am angry about the larger issues I’ve lightly mentioned like, y’know, the continued existence of rape as a weapon in this world, and the continued use of it in virtually every major show as a convenient storyline to get a female character from A to B. I have continuous issues with the devaluing of many of the female characters in the show, and I could equally have written a post about this from the angle that Cersei as a character deserves far, far better, and that the choices with this sequence vastly damage her character in the most ridiculous way. But that’s another blog, and there are plenty of other blogs being written from brilliant angles about this, so let me do this one.

Here’s the deal: I won’t try and lie and seem like a more worldly, clever commentator than I am: I’m pissed off because I derive considerable pleasure from being attracted to Jaime and the show made him something he isn’t for no reason, then tried to gloss over it and say it wasn’t what it is, then virtually tried to go down the line of “Oh well he’s really fucked up and so is she so it might look like rape to you but they’re superspecial and it’s different for them.” I’m pissed off because this show ought to be better than that, ought to be able to pick up on something that is so much more interesting than that, and should know better, and should just be able, from the incredible source material, to see something so much more interesting that they could have shown. What, having incestuous parents fucking next to their boy-king son’s corpse WASN’T SHOCKING ENOUGH? I don’t know how you work any more, television, I really don’t know what you’re after.

Part of Jaime’s point and story is that he is a) all misunderstood and stuff and b) going through a redemption process, largely to make up for (I think) not the Kingslaying thing, because that has unravelling to do as well, but, actually, for chucking Bran out of the window and paralysing half of him. The decision to not just ‘hamper’ his journey to potential redemption but to render it impossible is just plain character assassination. I don’t deserve that, as someone who enjoys the show. And you can’t take Jaime Lannister away from my appreciations like that. But you can really, really colour yourselves, your attitudes, your complete lack of understanding of a considerable percentage of your audience, and my enjoyment of the show as a whole. Believe it or not, I’d actually rather have spent this ranting time on Tumblr rewatching my favourite bits in .gif form. I don’t want to be angry with things that shouldn’t be there. And I’m sick of seeing rape used against female characters as an illustrative device as common as dramatic music or clever camera trickery.

HIS NAME IS NOT ‘THE DOCTOR’.

 

Christmas TV was the WORST. I hate to start New Year with a rant, but it’s bubbling up in me and I fear it’s starting to spoil 2014 TV so I figured, hey, maybe I should get it out.

The first and, perhaps, saddest offender was the Christmas Top of the Pops. I have always, always insisted on the watching of this in my house, regardless of my feelings on the Top 40 or the State of UK Music. I’ve just always watched it. With TOTP no longer existing, Christmas TOTP is my only chance to have some Christmas continuity, and a bit of a retrospective and a moan/laugh/listen to whatever I’d forgotten was out in January. But this year, it was the WORST. There was a lot of fantastic music this year, most of which, thanks to the download chart being a rather more reasonable reflection of what people are truly listening to than it reflecting whatever 12-year-olds lined up to buy in HMV. Precisely none of this was shown on Top of the Pops. Every single act was something a record company had pestered the BBC to feature. “Oh, this mediocre piece of crap ought to offend no-one and appeal to the sort of people who buy things because if they hear something on Strictly, BBC Breakfast, and Radio 2 they’ll forget that it’s tripe and buy it out of robotic familiarity…” I don’t want to be specifically offended on Christmas Day, don’t mistake me. But I do want to see Miley Cyrus and Katy Perry and any number of those spangly, indistinguishable, ageless beardy blokes who’ve made singalongapophit this year for more than a split second where you ’round up’ everything you should’ve had on the show but didn’t. If you’re not going to make something that actually involves the TOP of the POPS, then don’t bloody bother at all. It’s the saddest let down of all. And on Christmas Day, at that.

And that’s the thing. I accept mediocre most days, but not on Christmas Day. Not on the day you should’ve been making the biggest effort of all to delight.

Which brings me to Doctor Who. I differ from a great swathe of people I know in that I adored the latest series. Truly, there was a lot to love in the sense that it gave me simple, episodic, near-capery, with a touch of lore that reminded you that it was made by people who had seen the show before, but not enough of it to make my mind start wondering and wandering into when the last time I watched the Douglas Adams episodes was (way, way too long ago, incidentally). I’ve stuck up for Matt Smith from the first moment he appeared, which surprised me, and he’s continued to surprise and delight me throughout. There’s a darkness and a fear he gives me that, as someone who grew up terrified of Eight, I find very fitting. I’ve enjoyed Clara, as the sort of companion that reminds me of how I viewed Doctor Who when I was little – capable, confident, curious, and like there was more to know about her. I liked that it was proper, uncomplicated, Saturday teatime viewing. Good effort. Good enough. A light TV meal. Excellent.

I liked the last special well enough. I thought it was a bit daft, but it reminded me that it was, actually, quite nice to see Tennant back again. But I didn’t think it was all that and a box of chocolates, as some people seemed to. I did love John Hurt. But when has anyone ever not loved John Hurt? I loved seeing Billie Piper again as well. It was definitely worth watching. But it wasn’t…quite…everything.

There was a point somewhere around those episodes where Amy and Rory had epic feelings, and where the Doctor seemed completely lost, and where the world – or another world, or time and the universe itself – seemed truly in jeopardy, where I’d never seen TV so thrilling and complete as the Matt Smith episodes. But, as time passes, I haven’t rewatched them all that much.

And back to Christmas Day…Matt Smith, evolved from a good theatre/TV actor-type into someone with all the acting potential in the universe leaking out of him, seemed to regenerate before the Doctor did, seemed bigger than the show, seemed trapped, to me, in wonky lines and poor, near-slapstick humour that jarred from scene to scene, with the story much like the last batch of biscuits, when you get all your shreds of pastry together and mush them up and cut out whatever fits and shove it on the tray any old how. Only, unlike the last batch of biscuits, this was not a surprisingly tasty dish. Bad metaphor, I realise. Whatever. I’m not writing a Christmas Day TV show here, so it can stay. For me, the Christmas episode was a terrible waste of costume, villainry, talent, and belief. For the first twenty minutes, I went with it. I was excited. I don’t mind a voiceover. I don’t mind a bit of nonsense. I don’t mind skipping time and being rushed through something.

But I do mind if it comes to nothing. I really mind if my suspension of logic and belief is for nothing. (And keep all this rant in mind for when I get to Sherlock, later…) I mind even more if a Doctor I’ve invested in, been so grateful for, goes out in a shower of rubbish. “His name is Doctor…” NO IT BLOODY ISN’T AND EVEN IF IT IS JUST DON’T IF YOU CAN’T THINK OF A DECENT PAYOFF (keep this in mind for Sherlock…). The moment with Amy should’ve been a delight, and as it happened, it was, but it disappeared in seconds, as people randomly came in and out of the TARDIS for no real reason, as the plot abandoned itself in a series of purest stupidity. The magic ffffffffd out of it like an old, wrinkly, sticky balloon. By the time Capaldi rocked up I was sad with how bad it was, and his appearance didn’t help.

Far be it from me to complain about something which hasn’t happened yet, and may my fears be ungrounded and wrong, but I have no interest in Capaldi as the Doctor. I don’t know why everyone is flailing and raving about him. I don’t like The Thick of It, which might be part of it, because everyone I know seems to think it’s super hyper clever and funny, and I think it’s a bunch of nonsense made by people who could do so much better, but hey. I don’t want another terrifying Doctor. I want the warmth back, I think. The heart. Two hearts. Whatever. I don’t see where the show can go that I’ll feel for it, about it, inside it. Where I’ll want to feel anything about it. That Christmas episode felt like a soggy kick in the shins, an over-glossed attempt at something where everyone I could see knew how bad it was, and everyone I couldn’t see didn’t care how bad it was.

You don’t earn the right to drop the ball. I’m not going to start on anything about how Moffat treats female characters or anything like that, because goodness knows a) the internet’s got that covered and b) I’ve loved plenty of shows with terrible female characters, no female characters at all, or those that perpetuate the very worst stereotypes about women, and I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t, over the years, before the internet drilled it into me to watch TV differently. I don’t need to start on that, though. That episode, that end to a Doctor I’ve loved, that entire sagging mess of a show is bad in many ways, but most importantly, in its smugness, in its “We’ve made this, so it must be wonderful, it cost a lot of money and took ages and here it is now be grateful.” I’m not grateful; I’m angry.

But, I do really want to watch Waters of Mars again, which, I have been reminded, in my quest to feel something, anything, or, rather, everything, whilst watching Doctor Who, is the best episode of the entire rebooteded series. And that wasn’t even Matt Smith. I’m excited for that. And I’m going to take my massively, massively disappointed self and go back instead, to that, and then back before that to the Douglas Adams, and probably back before that too to watch the first seasons, to catch up on the Doctors I never knew well, because I deserve that, and I don’t want the misery of where the show is right now to percolate into the entire thing. And I do want to pick it up again when it comes back, and to try. I want, as another show that had its dramatic ups and downs in quality put it so well, to believe…

Believing was much less important to me when it came to Downton Abbey. I don’t need to believe. I’m not vastly invested in anyone in the show because there’s not much point in massively investing in anyone in Downton in case they decide they don’t want to be in Downton any more, but I do want to enjoy myself. I do want to thoroughly enjoy myself, as well, not like last year’s Christmas special where, for all the cricket and jollity, there was a bloody miserable crashing death-based end to things ON CHRISTMAS DAY in a slot which is probably, for most people, the last thing you watch on Christmas Day. So that was awful. At least this didn’t happen this year.

But then…did anything at all happen in this year’s? Oh yes, yes. Mary and Mrs. Hughes behaved in the most completely inconsistent OOC ways ever, and Edith got all upset about things that all happened off screen whilst we weren’t looking, and there was a lot of faffing about absolutely nothing and Thomas was reduced to a glowering toady little presence in the corner who made absolutely bugger all contribution to anything and lost any semblance of character growth he’d ever had.

Maggie Smith was glorious, as Maggie Smith always is, but a cutting put-down and wry observation interspersed with genuine touches of heart and humanity is curious, as if one character spouted only gold dust whilst everyone else choked on their porridge.

The greatest show of how nothing it was was that even my mother abandoned concentrating purely on it for wondering about something else entirely on her laptop, which I’ve never ever seen her do before, and she had really been looking forward to it. The whole thing was a strain, a bore, and a confusing mess, and I sort of wish I’d stopped watching altogether somewhere around series two.

So that was Christmas Day on telly, and it was, as you can see, the WORST. For me, anyway. And it’s especially bad that I found it the worst because I’m your ultimate devil’s advocate in most cases. I like to make excuses for things I like. But, crucially, I also like to like the things I like. I really want to love the things I like, though. And to be greeted with a rising hatred for all the things you like, and on Christmas bloody Day at that, is utterly, absolutely lamentable. Hear my cries.

And so to New Year’s Day. Welcome, 2014. Time for Sherlock to return! Sherlock! Beloved Sherlock! Benedict Cumberbatch in all his levelled-up Khan/Smaug muscle-having glory! I’m very fond of Cumberbatch. I have been since he was but a voice on Radio 4, reading me detective things and, indeed, Sherlock Holmes stories, and, of course, in Cabin Pressure (it was the strangest thing when everyone fell for Cabin Pressure, almost as confusing when Hut 33, which I thought I was the only person to listen to ever turned up as a reasonably popular Yuletide request one year). Anyway. Do I fancy Benedict Cumberbatch? That’s probably a whole other blog. I’ll stick that in my list of blogs-I-mean-to-write post. I meant to do that one yesterday, but I’ll have to do it tomorrow instead. I’m not wholly sure why I’m wondering that here – it’s not really that relevant. I definitely didn’t when I first saw Sherlock, and my, was that first episode one of the very greatest pieces of television I’ve ever had the privilege of watching. What a masterful piece of storytelling that was.

And the subsequent episodes. I thought the Hound of the Baskervilles version, however they so-titled it, was a bit off in places, and there were definitely points that were very silly in other places, but I never minded, because the story, always the story, and this wonderful character dynamic that was so tight, so neat, so clever. And genuinely clever, not smug or self-gratified, the sort of thing that made you smile with appreciation. I’m thinking things like the scene from that first episode, the double-hander with the taxi driver character. The scene in the swimming pool with Moriarty. The I am Sherlocked, or, as I like to call it, the all-time greatest ever TV facepalm moment. So many wonderful moments, and comments, and so much fun.

So why am I adding the latest episode to my rant? Because it made me really bloody annoyed. And I wasn’t expecting that. And, really, I am so, so confused by the way that a good 80% of people on my Twitter feed and so on seem to have loved it, or at least rather liked it.

I don’t understand.

It was silly.

Sherlock is not silly. I don’t care if he’s spent his last two years in sodding circus school, he’s not a clown. He’s not got that sense of humour, and don’t tell me he’s trying to imitate that sense of humour and that actually that’s all pathos and sweetness because that is the sort of thing that happens in Sherlock fanfic and I don’t want this to become, like far too many shows of old have, something where the fandom is better at the show than the actual writers of it.

Moriarty warranted comedic use of pop music and buffoonery because he was BONKERS. Brilliantly, terrifyingly bonkers. Sherlock might be those things, but not with an upbeat soundtrack. And whilst I’m at it, what the hell with the entire, lengthy and bizarre music video-style montage segments? I’m not railing against the progressive nature of TV here. It’s not that I was pushed out of my comfort zone by speshul nu trix that are too challenging for my ageing self. It’s that real wit and plot were replaced by set pieces and slapstick.

It’s that Cumberbatch, capable of acting his socks off in anything, seemed to be, as I was complaining about Matt Smith being, completely constrained by the weight of the gloss on the show. Where his own body and pacing would have been more than enough, there seemed constant over/under-focusing, slowing, over-enhancing. And Martin Freeman, always so effortless and brilliant and capable of thoroughly inhabiting even the smallest moment to make it defining and enlightening, was perpetually written into emotional, literal and metaphorical corners, flattened and muted by odd script and plot choices, constantly stripped from fulfilling the very role that the episode seemed to want to claim he defined.

And don’t get me started on the complete inability to resolve the plot. HIS NAME IS NOT THE DOCTOR. Same bloody thing. Don’t give a cliffhanger and then mock people’s desire to resolve it. Sure, mock it a bit. Sure, that was a cracking and most amusing opening, which I greatly enjoyed, especially Derren Brown. Sure, I liked the fanfic version (I’m sure I’ve read that one, and I’d be quite happy to read it again, preferably in place of rewatching last night’s). But it became as if the writers themselves were displaying how unresolvably ridiculous their cliffhanger was, and if you set yourself up that way, then, no, sorry, you have to cop it when you don’t finish what you started.

I’ll take it back gladly if it comes later, next episode, final episode. Gladly. Because this is a series, and it’s okay to have arcs. But that needs to be resolved by the third part, and if it isn’t, then oh my, that’s just incompetent smugness, to think that you can do whatever you like and not actually need to abide by the rules of plausibility. When you’re writing about humans and grounding them as human and keeping their powers strictly to deductiveness, then you do, actually, have to keep them grounded constantly. It isn’t impressive if no-one knows the answer, and all I got from last night’s episode is the sense that the makers it would be a really great way to keep the buzz going until they could get the next episode out on telly.

Mary was fine, sure, I’m not sure why she had to be Watson’s secretary, or why that whole sequence had to be flogged to boredom, just as, whilst I’m at it, so many of the scenes which were rammed together to constitute the episode had to be verbally or visually done to death. The fighting in multiple eating establishments (really? REALLY?). The “There’s always an off switch!” “I can’t believe there was an off switch!” “I’ve turned it off with the off switch!” which in isolation is okay if you haven’t already abandoned one potentially solvable situation by mocking the attempt to solve it and substituted plot with a drawn-out, suddenly faux-emotional, exceptionally unfunny “This was never all that stressful after all!” scenario.

Honestly, I’m surprised by how unsatisfying I found that. How something that has delighted and awed me so much suddenly infuriated me, and, really, I felt, let me down.

Is it just that Christmas TV left me in a bad way, letting me only see the grim in all? Is it just me? Because the desperate fail of festive TV, no fewer than four things I like very much and was really looking forward to, is just a bit too much for me.

I hope things pick up. I’m still excited for Sherlock on Sunday. Of course I am. Of course, of course I am. And I don’t deny I found things to laugh and and to enjoy in that episode. But the sum of its parts was far, far less than it ought to have been. Too many things didn’t add up, and, worse, so much worse, the makers either couldn’t see or didn’t care that they didn’t add up. It felt like at least Sherlock and Doctor Who needed a good, hard edit, all the darlings had to be killed and all the layers of colour and saturation stripped right back so that the bones of the show – plot, continuity, character and heart – could be seen and felt.

I need an antidote to all the bad TV. I need not to be let down any more. Perhaps I’ll catch up with Elementary, now…

This Week’s Distraction: In Praise Of NBC’s Dracula

It’s only taken three episodes (although, to be perfectly honest, I was captivated within the five seconds of the first episode), but I am quite clearly and officially in love with NBC/Sky Living’s reimagining of Dracula.

There are three reasons that this isn’t surprising.

1) When I was 15, I fell utterly in love with a young Jonathan Rhys Meyers when he got in the way of my Liam Neeson infatuation by featuring in Michael Collins. He may well remain the only actor who has never let me down in terms of acting choices, although, sadly, I will never get back the two hours and ten minutes I spent watching Mortal Instruments last night (I genuinely expected to enjoy that, but really did not…that’s another post, though).

2) When I was 12, I fell utterly in love with Bram Stoker’s Dracula, first in novel form, and then, shortly afterwards, in Gary Oldman form. Dracula may well remain the only character who has never let me down in any incarnation, be it musical, theatrical, Buffy or Supernatural. I loved Bram Stoker’s Dracula so much that I managed to pass my English Language A-Level almost entirely on the basis of my 100%-scoring Dracula pastiche coursework, which my tutor claimed was so good, he couldn’t tell it from the actual book. (NB: I’m not claiming any inherent writing quality here, more that I’m a good copycat and you can’t get better starting material than Dracula).

3) When I fall in love with things, I fall hard. I have always been completely happy to devote all my waking hours to whatever is currently making me happiest, particularly if that’s aesthetically happy. There are aspects to this that people find bothersome, or childish, or plain peculiar, but I’ve made it to 31 without actively caring about that and have had a jolly good time of things along the way, so I’m not going to start worrying about that now. I don’t regret any of the days in 2002 I spent watching Fight Club on repeat, nor the amount of times I saw Jonas Malmsjö performing Hamlet in Swedish to the sounds of CocoRosie (probably my most random, but glorious obsession).

So, all that given, you can see why the 2013 version of Dracula wasn’t going to have to do much to make me happy. The presence of Jonathan Rhys Meyers was a good start (a very, very good start), and the addition of her-from-Merlin, the best Renfield I’ve ever seen, Patrick-from-Coupling and a man I’m going to refer to only as “will never be Jack Davenport” were welcome bonuses all, and that’s before you get to the ace ninja lady and gay Victoriana (bonus bonus points for having men kissing before showing women kissing).

Still, there were some things that would’ve put me off. A complete irreverence for the book would’ve done it, as would any total disinterest in the history, or a failure to embrace the sense of humour one requires when making a TV series this pretty and lavishly costumed. Fortunately, it’s quickly clear that a) the writers know their source material b) decisions to depart from history/mythology have been made with history/mythology in mind and c) it’s not so up its own arse that you can’t have a laugh with it occasionally. Also d) it’s made an effort to bring something new to the whole vampires/Victoriana thing, and that isn’t easy to do. Oh and e) Van Helsing gets the sort of edge I always wanted him to have. And – I could go on, but I shan’t. I’m hoping Tumblr’s doing that. Tumblr is my next stop after this post.

On a Tumblr note, like many a modern show, there’s an effort to appeal to the internet’s interest in pretty people being gif-able and shippable, and I like that very much. The best gift you can give an audience is scope and permission to imagine outside the script, especially when you’re stretching an established canon yourself. Shows like Merlin and Supernatural got marvellously long shelf lives out of knowing what they were (are – sometimes I forget Supernatural is still going, and may it never end) and who’s watching. I’m guessing that Dracula is aiming itself at a slightly different, wider audience than those, but, at the same time, knowing who to get on side to get the buzz going, and that’s all very commendable. More, please.

So, it’s only been a couple of episodes and it might all go wrong later, but I don’t care, I don’t care, it’s a great start and it’s made me want to read the book again, watch Gary Oldman again, watch Nosferatu again, and watch all three episodes repeatedly until there are four episodes to watch repeatedly, my taste for aesthetics, entertainment and character thoroughly and wholeheartedly catered for.

My Coffee Judges You

Let’s see, what was this post for? Housekeeping and attempting to stocktake my brain, I think. Lots of loose ends around, and some writerly tribulations.

First up, wtf is with the so-many-views from Mumsnet?! I can’t even see how or what or…strange, super strange. But hi!

Second up, I see now why people who don’t work from home and have the luxury of structuring their day however they would like to fall behind on their TV-watching. I am particularly doing so as I have literally no time or space to myself, and won’t have until I can move into somewhere, which won’t happen until my new (delightful, joyous, cakecentric) job actually yields an income, a time I’m very much looking forward to. I realise now what a luxury a spontaneous 45-minute bath with The Good Wife actually was. Sigh. But in order to move forwards, one must, y’know, move, and that is happening. Hopefully on Thursday I can mainline everything I’ve been missing. And have that bath…

Third…it’s nearly November. And that, obviously, means NANOTIME (my username there is ‘antelope’ – come add me, if you haven’t XD). As ever, I will be doing this, and I will be winning it. I’m tempted to go for two projects again – one memoirish thing, one novel – but I haven’t quite decided. I do definitely want to get cracking on the sequel to because, actually, if I’m honest, because I miss Aiden. I really do. So it’d be pleasurably indulgent to crack on with that in November…

…but at the same time, I have to, really have to, wrap up this other, potentially saleable novel I’ve been wrestling for the last couple of years. It’s missing some really essential bits, as well as the removal of an entire timetravel segment (my silly brain wants to keep it in, but my logical, would-like-to-be-a-real-printed-author self has other opinions) to get to the truthful ‘first draft complete!’ phase, even. I mean, I’ve done a beginning, middle and an end, but there’s certainly a few letters of the alphabet missing, here and there.

Fourth, I suppose, is the lament that I’ve not written anything like as much as I’ve wanted to. I’ve slipped back into that “can’t start until I’m in just the right place” thing a bit, and I’ve been so frustrated and displaced with the living situation that I’ve not got at all comfortable enough to simply write. Obviously NaNo is the perfect remedy for this, and I’ve no qualms at all about completing that, but the stuff that can’t be NaNo-ed and must actually be paid attention to, that’s nagging at me rather a lot just at the moment. After all, one of the greatest lessons I learnt over the last year was that books can be decent, written, edited, finished and published even without having your own mahogany desk and a cat.

Fifth, working out. My body is really not dealing well with work, and being on my feet all day. I’ve not had back pain in years but I spent half of last night flat on my back on the floor coaxing muscles into various stretches and wincing every time I needed to get up. I know it’s because I haven’t grounded myself in weights enough of late, and I know I need to go back and get on with that before I have to start all over again, but, again, I actually have somewhere to be and things to do these days, so I can’t go and run myself into the ground knowing that I’ve got a whole day to recover in precisely the way I want to. Makes me realise how I’ve been training, and how there’s a new sort of balance I have to find. Shorter sets, fewer reps, gently, gently…it’s never really been my style…but then, much of all this upheaval and starting again is precisely because I sorely needed a new style. It only makes sense that something as crucial to me as my workouts changes too.

Sixth…I miss the internet. I’ve only just kept myself up to scratch with the latest on Miley Cyrus (which, I’ve realised, is my internet priority, shortly after the football scores and whether or not my friends have cut their hair). Everything past that, including, as above, all the latest in the world of TV, is all out the window. I’ve barely communicated with anyone, which is rather distressing. I hope you’re all well, etc, and you should probably email me if I’ve missed anything interesting about you because I care, I just, kinda suck. But you knew that, and have put up with it thus far, so, yeah. Email XD

Crikey, this is like an LJ entry or something, isn’t it? Anyway! Onwards…