#<- again it's not thoughts it's a full on rant

[thestrangestthlng]

Thoughts and prayers rants...

So, now that I've had almost 48 hours to marinate on this and cycled through my emotions, I am in a much better headspace to talk on the whole 9-1-1 of it all.

But this bears repeating: We fell in love with Tommy because he made Buck fall in love with Evan.

So, first and foremost, I've decided that canon stopped for me at 8x05. lol. I am going to continue with my BT train like that shit show didn't happen. And for me, for a while, I am going to let the show end there. I will go back, probably after the hiatus, but not how I was. I do love all the characters on this show (some more than others) and I still want to be able to see their journey, but I need a break from that manipulation stunt. I'm still going to share all the positive BT stuff I see and all the beautiful Lou content I see.

Secondly, now that I am over the initial hurt of the breakup, I'm just mad. We were manipulated intentionally with 8x05 for us to feel worse when the break up happened. That was unnecessary. And that was cruel. And I know that a lot of this is because it was the icing on a shit week. Emotions were already raw due to the election and it was reallllllyyyy bad timing for this, but that doesn't make the way they did it okay, just that it can explain why there was such a strong reaction for many of us, on top of the completely justified anger.

Breakups happen, and that's okay. If it was the end of Tommy's time on the show, that's okay. I am a Buck girlie and I always will be. But... the breakup was reductive, stereotypical, and just poor storytelling. I get they want to leave doors open a crack, because you never truly know, but turning him into an OOC stereotypical biphobic gay man is disgusting. You had this beautiful thing and you shat on it. I am going to do another post about my personal relationship with groundbreaking storylines next.

That was a miscommunication. That was a breakup where someone chases after you and is like wtf actually just happened. It felt like whiplash, because that is not how breakups are formulated in media. You know how else you could have written him out of the story?

At the date (and the basketball tickets are actually a really sweet touch when you think about it) Tommy could have told Buck that he got a job offer in another city or state or that his parents are ill and he has to go home to take care of them and asked Buck to go with him. At the apartment, it could have been buck telling him that as much as he could see a future with him, he can't go with him.

Would it have sucked? Yes. But it wouldn't have induced this amount of rage.

For over six months Lou and BTs have been at the receiving amount of a ton of vitriol. And that's not to say that there weren't antagonizers on this side of the fence or that BTs never did anything wrong, but this isn't a both sides bullshit piece. People can suck everywhere, but only one "side" harassed an actor and his family with death threats, he read about the "stoning" calls, used slurs on a regular basis. All of this persisted for months for it to turn out that he was the only one who seemed to give a shit about the story and it's representation. There honestly doesn't seem like there would have been anyone better for it.

You know what's ironic? It was the Buddie's hate and vitriol that pulled me into fandom and made me love Tommy and then Lou. When they would run their mouths, I would look into it and I found a man who genuinely seems like (he is still someone we don't know) a wonderfully kind, sweethearted, genuine man. He looks like a bundle of light and his smile can warm even the coldest hearts. So their vitriol made me a fan. So thanks BoBs.

Buck and Tommy wasn't just about Buck's queerness and definitely not about "wanting to see two white men kiss". It was about our love for Buck. We saw him happier and more fulfilled than he's ever been. We see his life being lived and full of love and stuff and joy.

Again:

We fell in love with Tommy because he made Buck fall in love with Evan.

And you know what, not matter how reductive and all the phobics that breakup was, they can never take that away from us.

[osakhee]

warning signals, ex!eunseok x ex!reader

! toxic relationship, mean and angry eunseok, cheating, spanking (not very proofread 😭)

eunseok doesn't know why the tears are filling his eyes while his hand roughly hit the skin of your ass. his mind is tricking him to the point he doesn't even know if he's really here. his vision gets blurry and the thoughts flow in his head over and over again. if these months never happened, he wouldn't be in this situation.

your relationship with eunseok started to worsen over the last weeks. you loved him, he was such a nice boyfriend to you, but sometimes he felt more like a bodyguard than a boyfriend. a guard dog constantly behind you and your every move. a guard dog that could smell danger all the time and need to protect you all the time.

it was bad, but you started to lie to eunseok. you were tired of having to give up on plans and friends because eunseok didn't feel like this party was a good idea, or had a bad feeling about someone. little white lies wouldn't kill him and you'll finally have the joy to be free again without a message from him every 20 minutes.

your late night parties turned into innocent sleepovers, the bars turned into restaurants. you even hid perfectly your outfits under large clothes so he wouldn't see how tight the shorts were in your thighs or how cropped the shirt is. you stopped getting ready at home and went over to your friends' place more often so eunseok would never doubt you were about to doll up your pretty face for a sleepless night.

eunseok wasn't stupid. he knew you were playing little games and he wanted to see how far you would go. for him it was not that hard, his only wish was for people to know you're completely his, and it included being careful around everyone even your friends, wearing what he wants because as your boyfriend, he knows what's best.

tonight you were going out, and you told eunseok you would be sleeping over with a friend of yours -and not obviously dance the whole day and probably drinking and probably having a better time than at home with your boyfriend-. eunseok stood up and walked to you to put his arms around you, his hands traveling under the large hoodie you wore to cover the tight crop top you had under. eunseok gave you a quick kiss, then pulled your hoodie up, and revealed your party outfit.

"what is this for?"

"it's just some clothes i like eunseok."

"are you going out like that?"

"yes. got something to say?"

eunseok furrowed his eyebrows when you pushed him away and walked to the door. he was quick to catch up on you, his hands resting on the doorknob.

"eunseok. move i'm going out."

"i'm not letting you out like that. wearing this when i'm not with you? are you getting pretty like that for someone?"

"i do what i want eunseok, move the fuck out."

everything went overboard. eunseok's low voice grew louder as he snapped at you, you screamed back at him while trying to push him away from the door. he tugged on your hoodie, you stepped back from him. you got into fights with eunseok more and more often recently but it was rarely this bad. you had enough. tears turned your vision to a blur, and eunseok got quiet after a heavy sigh.

"listen... i just want to protect you..."

"fuck you eunseok."

you took the opportunity to walk out of the apartment when eunseok sat down on the couch and tried to calm the situation. he stood up to follow you outside but the door shutting loudly stopped him. couldn't you see how much he loves you? all he wants is to protect you, you're his after all, aren't you?

you angrily ranted to your friends while walking to the club about what happened. they make some comments about how awful of a boyfriend eunseok is, and how you should do something about it. the logical option was probably to break up with him, but you wanted more. you wanted revenge, you wanted to hurt him as much he hurt you especially recently.

the club was full and you quickly forgot about eunseok once the cool drinks flowed into your system and the music filled your ears. you couldn't care less about who you were dancing with, surrounded by unknown persons, until you caught a glimpse of a familiar face.

you've seen sungchan often, he was eunseok's best friend after all. most of the time, eunseok was glued to your side possessively and you couldn't even enjoy having a talk with his tall friend. you didn't know sungchan very well, but he's handsome, and the perfect trap.

sungchan recognized you in the crowd and greeted you with a soft smile, surprised that you were not with eunseok. you didn't really want to chat, and when you put your arms around sungchan's neck to dance with him, his voice quickly died into his throat. he naturally gripped your hips and lost himself in your eyes, swinging you to the rhythm of the music.

sungchan didn't know how to react when you kissed him, your lips eagerly moving against his, almost desperate. when your hands went through his hair and dragged him closer to you, he whined into your mouth. it didn't take long for sungchan to make the next move, your hand firmly in his to get out of the club. soon you found yourself pressed against him, trapped between his body and the wall of his apartment.

you couldn't lie, you had a great time with sungchan. he was much more built than eunseok, his hands holding you with strength when he pinned your arms on the bed and crashed his hips into yours. your moans were higher than ever, your head thrown back into the sheets and your nails scratching his shoulders. eunseok was buried at the very back of your mind and you barely remembered your boyfriend when you woke up in the morning witn sungchan's arm around your waist.

but you couldn't completely forget eunseok, who blew your phone with calls and texts. he called everyone he knew, your friends, your parents, but he didn't call his best friend. why would he need to call sungchan? yet having no reply from you, eunseok found himself at the door in desperate need to complain to his beloved friend.

no matter how hard sungchan tried to hide your presence, eunseok recognized your shoes in the hall. more than just angry, eunseok felt heartbroken. why would you do that to him, him that loved you so much, that only wanted the best for you? he stormed off without a glance at sungchan. you picked your things, waved goodbye to your newly ex's best friend and headed back to your apartment. you knew it was bad, but you couldn't go back.

a few weeks after the incident, eunseok called you to set a time where he could come and pick up the few clothes he had left at your apartment. when you opened the door to him a few hours later, you didn't even greeted him. eunseok's voice spilled venom with each words when he talked to you.

"can't even say hello at least?"

"i dont want to talk to you, grab your things and get out."

"i know i haven't been the best but you owe me an apology don't you think?"

"why would i? i was tired of you. and sungchan is good in bed."

"he'll never make you feel as good as i did."

"he's soooo much better than you, he made me-"

"what the fuck did you just say?"

you have seen eunseok being angry before, but you don't remember if you've ever seen him like that. no matter how much you hated him for how he acted, he was still as hot as ever. eunseok's hand reach for your neck to drag you close to him until his lips reached yours into a kiss. a much violent kiss, his tongue down your throat leaving you no time to breathe. he gripped on your waist to press your chest against his, his voice so low in your ear when he ripped away from your lips.

"sungchan could never make you scream like i did. he could never make you cum like i did. i'm everything you need, yet you had to be a whore and act like it. i'll put you back in the right mind."

this is how eunseok ended up in this situation. his palm hits your bare ass again, the red shape of his hand glowing on your skin. he has you naked on your bed he shared with you so often, face pressed into your pillow and your hips raised for him to hit you mercilessly. each slap makes you babble a number, but you lost the count already.

eunseok is angry enough to punish you. he's also sad enough to feel his heart race at the feeling the body he craves so much under his fingers, as if it's forbidden for him to still desire you. his cock throbs each time he grinds his hips into yours, earning breathy moans from you. the thought of you being in the same position for sungchan a few weeks ago makes him insane and he just can't wait to prove you wrong.

another harsh slap echoes through your room and you cry out eunseok's name, your legs shake from the delicious pain going through your veins. eunseok himself lost the count but he loves seeing the red handprint on your ass, he wants everyone to know you're his. his hand reach your head to grab a handful of your hair, tugging on it until your back arch against his chest, his voice a low whisper in your ear.

"enough for you to remember who owns you?"

"e-eunseok please..."

"this eager to fill you up with my cock? i thought i wasn't good enough to the point you had to slut yourself your sungchan's dick?"

"only... o-only you is good e-enough for me..."

"good."

he lets go of your hair and pushes your shoulders back into the pillows, parting your legs roughly. his hand travels down your back to make it arch a little more.

eunseok grips tightly the skin of your ass, his other hand pumping his cock eagerly. he has no mercy when he pushes his tip inside of your awaiting core, reaching deep inside with a sharp thrust as you whine desperately his name. deep down, you know eunseok is right. no one could fuck you as well as he did.

brutal thrusts jolt your body forward, eunseok rougly holds your waist in his fingers, his nails dig into your skin. he loves to watch the way your red ass bounce each time he grind his hips into you. he can feel how deep he's buried inside of you, your walls tightly yet deliciously swallowing his cock whole. each thrust stretches your folds a little more, your moans growing louder when his tip roughly hit every perfect spot inside of you.

eunseok slows down his pace, giving instead some strong and precise thrusts every few seconds. he can feel the head of his cock pulse into of you when you clench around him, he rolls his hips into yours enough to push him so deep inside of you. he loves hearing your cries of pleasure, he loves seeing you fall apart of his cock that you begged for so many times in the past. he hates you so much for breaking his heart, he hates how much he still crave everything from you, every little touch, every little attentions you used to have for him. no matter how sad he feels, the memories flowing his mind only makes him angrier. his hand reaches you head again, his palm pressing your cheek into the pillow until your noises are muffled by the soft fabric.

eunseok presses his hips roughly, he speeds up his pace in desperate need for a release. he doesn't think about you, he wants to think only about him. he's only filled with the intense pleasure of your tight walls around him and the pretty noises erupting from your throat each time he hits deeply inside. eunseok's thrusts get more messy as he feels his release creeping over him, one more slap on your ass as you crying out his name loudly.

your own orgasm threaten to explode at any second, the overwhelming warmth spreading through your stomach, your head spins more and more. eunseok's low groans behind you warns you that he's just as close as you. just a little more, you feel your thighs tensing and your muscles contracting...

eunseok pulls out of you with a grunt, jerking himself off with his hand quickly until he cums on your ass and back, painting your skin with ropes of pearly fluid. he massages his tip until he empties himself fully and lets out a heavy sigh, his breath becomes more steady as he watches you win for more.

he pulls his pants and underwear back up, and the metal sound takes you out of the daze you were lost in. you lift your head up from your bed, the tears is flooding your eyes. you watch eunseok catch his breath, he pushes his messy brown hair out of his eyes without a single look at you. your legs still shake from your ruined orgasm, and you almost cry out for eunseok to come back so he can finish what he started, you want to beg him to make you cum.

eunseok grabs his clothes that he came to pick up. he turns his back to you and without even a glance at your naked state on the bed, he exists your room then you apartment, shutting the door roughly. all he hopes now is that the lost feeling of pleasure he gave you haunt you for as long as possible. he never wants to you see you again.

eunseok is mean and i want him to be mean to me... sad and hopeless lover eunseok... hope you enjoyed :3

[tunguszka20]

Guys

I beg you

For the love of everything that you find holy

WHY do we need gendered languages?

It's bad enough that you need someone's gender to talk about them in English, but like... French? Spanish? Italian? German? All the other gendered languages?? WHY MUST YOU DO THIS TO ME????

Like who decided that a table is a male and a teapot is a female or all the other shit like that?

[total-drama-brainrot]

TD World Tour AU, where Noah doesn't tell Owen that Alejandro is an eel in London... In Area 51, Noah is accidentally splashed with an alien truth potion (which wears off after a few days) and he talks to Owen... Owen asks Noah what he truly thinks about Alejandro, and Truth-Potion Affected Noah says this: "I have mixed feelings for Alejandro. He's a brilliant, interesting guy and I like him, but I don't trust him. He's like a slippery eel dipped in grease, swimming in motor oil. Basically, Heather with social skills. Wait a minute, why am I telling you this?!"... What if Alejandro secretly heard Noah call him all those conflicting things + Alejandro also learns that Noah is affected with an alien truth potion? 👽

Alright, you got me. I'm an absolute sucker for truth potion plots, especially when the character(s) effected by them are usually either pathological liars or incredibly secretive- of which Noah absolutely falls into the second category, given he shares so little personal information.

I'll gloss over why Noah declined to shit-talk Alejandro in London (though there's so many ways this change in behaviour could be justified) since the focal point of this hypothetical centred around their time in Nevada, so let's start from the beginning of the Area 51 challenge.

Area 51:

Before we start, it'll have to be established that no one was eliminated in London. Let's say that the majority vote went towards Duncan (team CIRRRRH voted him out immediately because they found his re-admission to the competition unfair, I guess. I imagine he'd also vote himself, if not as a plan to escape the competition he'd been actively skiving from, then just as an act of spite) but Chris instead claimed it was a rewards challenge- much like he does in Greece- because he doesn't want to let Duncan slip away again so soon.

I see no reason to alter the first part of the challenge- the sneaking into Area 51 portion- since team CIRRRRH's course of entry is fairly straightforward. Noah's presence doesn't make much of a difference to how it would play out; the majority of them throw their rocks and run, Owen gets lasered over the fence and Owen-napped, ect ect.

When both teams have managed to make their way into the Black Box Warehouse, Noah immediately suggests they should prioritise rescuing Owen. Tyler's quick to agree, since he's a firm believer in the "no man left behind" mentality (and he probably makes a not-so-subtle jab towards Noah for his chance of tune compared to London, where both he and Owen did leave Tyler behind) leaving Duncan and Alejandro to split from the group- Duncan in search of Gwen, and Alejandro just takes the opportunity to finally be free from his 'incompetent teammates' and prioritises finding an artifact.

Noah and Tyler come across the contraption Owen's trapped in, Tyler punches it in a futile effort to break it open, and the face hugger cube drops into Noah's hands. This is where the point of divergence comes into play; Tyler has his E.T. moment with one of the face huggers, but Noah- who's a tad bit more observant than Alejandro, and used to dodging surprise attacks from his various older siblings (and Izzy)- anticipates his own face hugger attack and promptly starts a game of cat-and-mouse with a taser alien hot on his heels.

The commotion of which attracts the rest of his team. Alejandro and Duncan arrive on the scene to see Tyler being electrocuted by an alien and Noah running in circles evading another.

Duncan attempts to rip the face hugger from Tyler's face, finding success at the cost of sending Tyler trampling into Owen's captive contraption (essentially taking Alejandro's canonical place in this scene) and inadvertently freeing Owen.

Meanwhile, Alejandro swipes up the nearest box he can find and snags the alien chasing Noah, who's still very loudly panicking as he flees, and succeeds! The alien is swiftly captured into the box, netting team CIRRRRH their artifact, and Noah promptly goes careening into the nearest tower of junk in his face hugger-fuelled hysteria. This causes another box to topple from the peak of the tower, landing directly on Noah's head and spilling its contents onto the bookworm- glass vials filled with a mysterious, luminescent cobalt blue liquid shatter into pieces drenching Noah in whatever they contained. (i.e. truth potion.)

Owen has his false-amnesia moment, characterised by his Joker makeover, and Alejandro enacts his revenge post-hypnotic suggestion after being addressed as "Al" one too many times.

Noah, understandably, swiftly objects to Owen's treatment and demands that Alejandro snap him out of it. Alejandro concedes, and Owen's brought back to himself. At least, for a moment, before the fatigue of having his mind messed with sends Owen into near-catatonia (the same as canon), meaning he has to be ferried through the Warehouse and back to the Jet by Alejandro and Duncan.

Things carry on canonically from there; Noah's just sort of there for the most part, though there'd be a minor hint to his newfound proclivity for honesty. Something along the lines of him giving an uncharacteristically honest answer to Owen as to who he's voting- Tyler, of course, since he was the one who ultimately threw the challenge for them... and also because Tyler still holds some resentment towards Noah for what happened in London, and Noah feels guilty about it every time he looks at the jock. Wait, why did he say that?

Sometime between this and the elimination scene, Noah wipes the truth-goop off of himself, but not before the effects have already started.

Tyler's voted out, yada yada yada.

The Jet:

Thus begins the start of "Picnic at Hanging Dork". Team CIRRRRH, consisting of just Alejandro, Duncan, Owen and Noah, are slumming it up in the Economy Cabin. Alejandro tries to rally his team by asking how to break apart Courtney and Heather's tentative co-operation. Owen suggests having Alejandro seduce Heather, since it worked for both Bridgette and Leshawna. Duncan makes his "Babe Olympics" comment. Noah pipes up that playing with someone's feelings is pretty scummy, even for someone competing for a million dollars.

Alejandro takes Noah's reluctance towards his methodology poorly; he hadn't spoken up before, when Alejandro had utilized the same strategy against other girls- and even Owen noticed that, so surely Noah did too- so why was he to outwardly against him using the same tricks? Duncan agrees, and offers ''his'' idea of having Alejandro flirt with Courtney to throw both her and Heather off their games (since Heather has an obvious crush on Alejandro), and things follow canon.

Then, the scene between Alejandro and Courtney happens. Noah scoffs at the display from the side lines, prompting Owen to ask him why he's so against Alejandro's plan.

"I mean, you never said anything before, when he flirted with Bridgette and Leshawna." Owen comments, light-hearted in nature but with an underlying questioning tone.

Noah's eyes flicker with a cobalt glow, easily mistaken for a trick of the light, and he speaks without even thinking.

"Yeah, because I was trying to give him the benefit of the doubt. Bridgette was happenstance, and Leshawna's whole deal could've been a coincidence, or some massive misunderstanding. But this?" Noah extends an accusing hand out towards a smug looking Alejandro, then pans it over to a flattered Courtney, "He's outright toying with Courtney's feelings after she was cheated on in front of an international audience. It's scummy."

Owen nods in understanding, momentary contemplation evident in the pouted curve of his lips, and he chimes in.

"Does that mean you don't like Al?"

"I never said that."

"Well, how do you feel about him, then?"

Again, a flash of blue light against the hickory backdrop of Noah's eyes, and he responds thoughtlessly.

"I guess I have mixed feelings about him. On the one hand, he's slippery, like an eel dipped in grease, swimming in motor oil. He's like if you took all of the worst aspects of Heather, wrapped them up in a pretty package, and gave them social skills..." He holds his hands out before him in a scale-like manner, with the left tipped downwards and tie right raised by his chin. Then, the two hands swap positions.

"And on the other hand, he's brilliant. I've never met anyone as talented as Alejandro; he's smart, he's athletic, he's funny. It's almost unfair just how perfect everything about him is- even his face is perfect. It's ridiculous! Infuriating, even. It's so hard to dislike him, even when I know he's bad news, but that doesn't mean I trust him."

Owen stands slack jawed beside his best friend, both impressed and stunned at the raw honesty of Noah's tirade. Noah, now a little more aware of himself, realises that he's said more than he intended to- more than he thinks he's ever spoken in one go throughout the entirety of Total Drama. He's not usually one for speeches, after all, let alone honest ones.

He's always been the type to play his cards close to his chest, so why...?

"I, uh, didn't mean to go off like that."

And he also didn't mean to admit it, either. What was going on?

The look Owen gives him is, in a word, vivid. The blonde has a shit-eating grin stretching across his face, a sort of elated smugness practically glowing from his features.

"Sounds like someone has a cruuuush!~"

What? No? No! Not at all, where would Owen even get that idea?!

Noah splutters to correct Owen's assumption (to disastrous results, because he does sort-of has a crush on Alejandro, so the truth potion doesn't allow him to outright deny it), and in his preoccupied state he misses how a calculating pair of sage green eyes never seems to stray from him.

Alejandro has a lot to think about in regards to a certain cynic, it seems.

[mean-scarlet-deceiver]

Wilbert's Worst

Right, so I really was open to having my mind changed on The Worst One but nobody’s argument has budged me.

I was going to write a complete, balanced essay on The Worst W. Awdry Book, but I’m a) mired in the research phase (hey if anyone knows someone with an encyclopedic knowledge of Tom and Jerry hit me up, for real) and b) right now I wanna talk about the characters and their Beloved Dynamics instead. 

So I'm just gonna get this out of the way so I can post the poll and move on to answering fun asks and watching Tom and Jerry in peace. Behold: a salty and unbalanced review.

Wilbert’s biggest failure of a children’s storybook? 

Henry the Green Engine 

Ohhh… because of the, uh, ra —?

Because of the racism, yes!

Oh. You do know that since 1972 they’ve republished it without the n-slur? 

Good for them. Two things: 

1. I know it used to be there, I’m never able to read it without knowing it was there in the first edition.

2. I consistently try, when ranking the books, to consider them in the context in which they came out. Because of this, I don’t like using “things that happened later” (like a new character never being properly used again or whatever) against the book. This helps me evaluate the author’s successes and failures against what they were trying to achieve when they wrote it vs what I would most want (blorbo content). It helps me not bring to bear the whole weight of fanon and fandom on a text that should be able to stand or fall on its own. Tl;dr I try to read the books like a guy who picked it up in 1951, or whatever. 

And yeah, if I’d bought this when it came out it would have had the slur. I’m going to judge it accordingly. 

Look, racism is bad, no argument, but does that mean the book as a whole must be condemned? 

Yeah, I think the slur and the “aaaand suddenly, blackface! heeheehee” bullshit fuck over the entire book, game over. Go directly to jail, do not collect $200. 

The Railway Series is not a work of high art or deep thorny complex literature. The books are meant for children — small children, at that. Children small enough to get bedtime stories read to them. The main goal of each book (especially this early on — you do have to manage secondary priorities like “pleasing the long-time fanbase” the longer you go, but right now we’re only 6 books into the series) is to create a happy imaginary world to enhance childhoods and family lives… to impart to other parents and kids a similar cosy happiness to that the author and his own kids enjoyed when he was workshopping/drafting the stories for them. When we say “children’s book” we really do mean little’uns — these average 1.25 full-color illustrations per page!

And these books sold in large numbers. This means it’s a certainty that somewhere in 1951 there was a Black family who owned the whole series, who went out to the shops, whose kid was like “ooh! Henry gets a book, neat…,” who like everyone else enjoyed the wild ride of Henry’s inspection and coal and wreck and rebuild… only to get verbally spat on one page from the end. 

Real mood-killer there. Epic fail, as the cool kids used to say in my youth. 

All right, fine, cool kids never said that. Anyway, statistically speaking there was certainly even more than one family that got that experience. Not to mention the non-Black families who even in 1951 were like “... wtf? i’d smack my kid if they ever said a word like that around me, geez. no.” Just a lot of people who had the light the book was kindling in them snuffed out all at once. 

You can actually be totally racist and your book not commit creative suicide on the penultimate page! Awdry flubbed his job of 'bestselling books-for-six-year-olds' here. Creative failure. Unforced error. Automatic zero. 

But times were different then, you have to consider it in the context of the time. 

1951 U.K. was not the nadir of multiracial equality or Black power, but jfc. I can assure you that over 99% of children’s books published that year in the Anglosphere managed to not use the n-slur. 

All right, all right. That was bad. But this feels off-topic. If you had never known about what used to be “Henry’s Sneeze,” would you still rank the entire book as dead last in the Wilbert Awdry corpus? 

Not dead last, but it is not a strong book. “Coal” and “The Flying Kipper” are super-interesting as material for Henry, but after that the book kind of falls off a cliff; the intrigue drops dramatically. The railway incidents chosen to make stories of are all solid choices, but it was not only “Sneeze” where Awdry’s handling of the material feels clumsy and weird. (And I’m not even talking here of the “heehee blackface — ain’t i a stinker?” gag in “Sneeze.”) 

But… “The Flying Kipper”? C’mon. It’s a superb story and no book that contains it can be the absolute worst in the series. 

“TFK” remains easily the best single TVS episode ever – but a lot of that is down to Britt and David’s artistry and judgment. 

Don’t get me wrong, a full-on railway wreck makes interesting material. But I don’t think the book does nearly as much with it as it could (and I’m trying sooooo hard here to forget about the amazing TVS adaptation, as I think it REALLY shows Awdry up. Even so, the storytelling here is surprisingly tepid and low-stakes). I get that Awdry probably wanted to lean into the comic angle and not make Henry’s condition afterwards seem too grave, in order to ensure the material wasn’t too dark for his young audience? (*mutters* again, a level of tender consideration for his readers’ youth that went right out the window when it came to small Black kids, evidently coz he couldn’t imagine that they read) Understandable, laudable — but if he outright refuses* to make the wreck too dramatic or scary then, well, then the wreck isn’t real scary or dramatic. And it can’t save the rest of the book from its flaws. 

*For all I know it could have been the publishers who insisted that the wreck be made preschooler-safe, that’s possible (although it’s also consistent with Awdry’s brand of humor and his overall low degree of emotionalism in his writing). Either way, though, the end result book is what it is and it will be judged accordingly. 

In addition to not being as exciting as many remember... @trainsupessandhuntresses asked me once if I thought some of Awdry's stories were "mean-spirited." I had to assent vigorously. And a surprisingly high proportion of those "mean" moments are in Henry the Green Engine? For some reason? It’s not just the racism. Awdry was not in the game to give Henry a deserved happy ending, he’d wanted to kill him off (the fuck?) and when his publishers prevented him (I don’t say this often, especially since I love how salty the Awdrys get about their publishers, but this in case good job, publishers!!) he wrote “TFK” with the primary motivation of giving Henry a new engine basis. Any soft or hearty emotions we get out of the deal are a side-effect — the only emotion that was fueling Awdry as he wrote this was spite, spite and a weird resentment towards his poor, long-suffering, invaluable illustrator. (I don’t blame Awdry for being frustrated that the engine illustrations were continually inaccurate or confusing, but I do think it’s weird to read all this great Henry material knowing that it was written with such poor grace.) 

So his ‘happy Henry’ stuff feels perfunctory; his Percy interlude is just brutal (why did you have to drag Percy into Henry’s book purely to give him a fuck-up, a scolding, and a messy dunce cap?); Gordon’s savaging of Henry for being too happy after recovering from a near-death experience is such an incredibly low point for Gordon that it’s hard for me to accept it as canon (there’s being proud, boastful, and self-absorbed, and then there’s being the straight-up raccoon dumpster fire Gordon is in that scene). Oh, and I think “call the police [local constabulary, doesn’t bear firearms]” woulda probably a less reckless way of dealing with the rock-throwing youths than the sneeze of hot locomotive ashes, which of course the Fat Controller doesn’t like, that shit coulda been real dangerous! Mind, there are small rays of kindness throughout that do get me (the interactions between Henry and his crew feeling to me the least perfunctory and most heartfelt), but this is overall such a mean-spirited book. God. It starts off with such a gentle story (almost a non-story, if you’re in it purely for the “railway incidents” game and not character drama), but in short order the vibes just sorta suck. At least in other RWS books, when the vibes are off, they’re usually off near the beginning and then improve by the end. This one gets worse as it goes on. Oof. Don’t like that. 

Also, the last page is sooooo lame. I suspect the publisher strong-armed Awdry into writing most of it so that at least the slur wasn’t on the last page of the book... and if Awdry had any idea of how much he’d just empowered Henry and all his fans in this book he shouldn’t have found it hard to find 50 extra words to sum things up. As it was, he’s just filling space and running out the clock, lol. Lame wrap-up. Boring. As usual when it comes to every little thing about this book, Britt and David closed this up better (mind, their closer – “He had taught Gordon and silly boys a lesson, with a whistle and a sneeze” – also sucked. But at least it was blessedly short.)

Didn’t you once list HtGE on a list of your favorite Wilbert Awdry books? 

I did list it as one of the books that “at one time or another” have been my favorite in the series. Unfortunately in the case of HtGE, that was back when I really couldn’t read a story that I knew from the TVS without mentally substituting the adaptation into my brain as I read… largely overriding the actual text. Plus, everything I knew from TVS as a kid kind of automatically got a halo effect. Plus, I was super into Henry’s arc. 

The first time I read HtGE after calming down and actually reading all the books as books... massive disappointment. There is such a gap there between what I'd thought the book said (all our incredible fanon work overanalyzing and headcanoning Henry and building this beautiful fantasy arc about disability!) vs. what it actually said (limp and careless writing, mean vibes, airbrushed n-slur, bad aftertaste). 

I do think there is some stuff about the development of Awdry’s storytelling technique here that is interesting (again, Tom and Jerry superfans reading this, please shoot me a message!) but it doesn’t counteract everything else. 

At least we’re over the racism stuff? 

Nah, I’m not over it, actually. 

[sunshiinnne]

Can i ever be content with what I've? How can i stop questioning the things? Can i stop overthinking and overanalyzing other's behaviour with me? Why do I always think it's about me or because of me? Why am I so self-conscious?

[imaginaryanon]

ohhh, da fandom, how i've not fucking missed you lmaooo the new game's release is still a month away but already i'm reminded exactly why i became convinced i'd never want anything to do with that franchise again. jesus christ. except this time im 30 and hopefully better at tailoring my online experience to not exhaust me & make me pissed and anxious (even if half of da tumblr is like. already laser-focused on making this a shit experience for everyone who stumbles upon their fuckass posts huh hfgjhjhjd)

anyway i'm listening & learning & blocking even MORE tags & not looking at SHIT until i play the game myself <3 For Real this time. "oh but surely it's just an innocent opinion and not a spoiler or anything--" that is the devil talking. all posts abt veilguard rn are full of shit, on account of The Game Isn't Fucking Out Yet How Are You Guys Already Having Novel-Length Opinions (TM)!!!! anyway i simply don't need that kind of energy in my life

i enjoy these games too much to be chased outta here by deranged drama i'm not even a part of again 😭 get fucked & god unbless

[bl-inded]

The most heartbreaking part about the MohkDay break up, is that once again Mohk is all alone. And this time, he didn't make that choice. He wanted to stay, he wanted Day to be by his side. And he was still left alone

After Rung especially, we know that our boy has severe abandonment issues. And even though we can't be certain her death was preventable by him picking up the call, he blames himself for it. The fact that Day and Mohk have only ever spoken about Rung in surface-level conversations (hell I don't think they really ever spoke about Mohk a lot at all), it hurts sooo much more that Day broke up with him after Mohk laid his heart out in front of the whole family.

I saw a bunch of people talking about how Day refuses to do any emotional labour, and I see where they're coming from. But, i gotta disagree. He did not break up with Mohk because of his trauma. He broke up with Mohk because Mohk was willfully destroying his life to stay with Day. I don't want to say his heart was in the right place, but it was in the right area code at least. I genuinely believe that the "you also pity me" was an excuse because he didn't want to hold Mohk back. I want to believe that he didn't have the time to understand the implications of what Mohk meant when he talked about Rung and he regretted it later.

(I will live in that lie till I'm told otherwise)

But Mohk has never been a fighter for himself. He'll fight in a heartbeat for what Day or Porjai need. He'll put himself in harm's way to protect those he love. But the moment he has to fight for himself, he'll back out. I don't know if this is a post-ep1 flashback thing, but that is what the show has established for us. And so as gut wrenching as his "if that's what you want" is, it's very in character for him.

But just to be clear, now that I've been a rational adult about this analysis of this show and characters. FUCK ALL OF THIS. Like straight up wtf? Who asked for an ep11 conflict huh? Who? P'Aof?? I love you, but WHYYY. My absolute green flag of a man does not deserve this nonsense after everything he's done. So FIX THIS RIGHT NOW.

[lecliss]

I'll never be able to take the theory that Vincent is Sephiroth's real father seriously cuz I cannot stress enough how important I think it is to the plot that Vincent wanted to fuck Lucrecia and did not get to.

[blubble-lake]

it's been over 2 weeks and this thing (unfortunately) still has a grip on me

[justanotherghostwriter]

.

[dungeons-and-dragon-age]

forever mad about how dirty they did aveline from act 2 onward

[trlvsn]

btw sorry for the severe lack of art and properly meaningful things to say. i'm in a state

[humblefryingpan]

I've cried 4 times today over the same thing and like every single time I am alone in a room I start sobbing

I'm tired so I put my phone down but istg the second I put it down I started thinking ab it and nearly started crying again and had to get it back on

[no1ryomafan]

hate ever since I finished giant robo yesterday my train of thought hasn’t been a critical analysis of what I consumed despite acknowledging both the show’s strengths and weaknesses and instead going back to my Imagawa Armageddon drama conspiracy board and going “okay no way in fuck he didn’t have Kei as Genki planned after the fucking family drama plot line in giant robo being similar to what we got in arma and it’s likely that the team got away with this idea after he left because they might’ve been in production for ep 4 but had to rewrite it and the show after onwards to fit the new direction”

or in simpler terms my brain activates “how do I make this about getter robo”

[marsdeathdefiances]

Do you like The song of achilles? Why or why not?

This is a complicated and lengthy answer so stick with me on this one. I have a very love-hate relationship with tsoa for several reasons, like the characterization of various characters or how it seems like x, y, z characters can never do anything wrong and it’s everyone else (that’s at least how I’m interpreting it, granted everyone has different takes and views on things) and all that. Now I might be biased because I did read the Iliad and the Odyssey and was already very thoroughly into Greek mythology before I read tsoa, but still. And also let me preface this by saying this is all just my interpretation of the book, you don’t need to have the same thoughts and feelings and opinions on it that I do. I don’t care. Like we’re not all going to have the same feelings and opinions on it and that’s okay. This isn’t me trying to sway anyone’s opinion on it. If you love it you love it, if you don’t you don’t.

Like I have serious beef with the way Patroclus is written in tsoa. Like in the Iliad he wasn’t the scrawny, flower boy, pacifist equivalent shadow of Achilles that we get in tsoa. Like tsoa does get right that he was a good healer and that a lot of people liked him and all that. But there was a lot more to him. He was very friendly and sociable and well had a life outside of Achilles (granted tsoa is about them, I’ll give it that, but still). Like in the Iliad Patroclus is referred to as ‘equal of Ares’ for a reason! He fought too, he didn’t just stick in his and Achilles’ tent and all that. So yeah, I have beef with that characterization and think we still could’ve gotten the beautiful story of their relationship even with Pat not being watered down to Achilles’ shadow.

I also have some beef with Achilles’ characterization and that’s just…I don’t like how Miller tried to justify (idk if that’s the right word here but I’ll go with that) everything Achilles did. And again this may go back to my bias from having read the Iliad and all that beforehand. Because technically all those characters are supposed to be morally grey. And I think that keeps it more interesting and compelling. So when you run behind a character trying to justify every little thing they do even if it doesn’t need to be or shouldn’t be then it just kinda…makes the character and story less interesting. Like and this is beef I have with all modern retellings of Greek mythology in some capacity because we are looking at these characters through the moral lenses of our time then clocking them into modern boxes based on our definitions of good, bad, neutral, etc. and personally I am a firm believer that the Iliad is an anti war story and all the characters in it kind of portray certain things that come with war. And to me Achilles’ character is the dangers of pride. Like he was mad that Briseis was taken from him so he withdrew from fighting and we all know what follows. So when Miller kinda runs behind him to justify things or unjustly vilify him (however you wanna view it) it kind of takes from that and I think it makes his character and his story much more interesting when you leave that morally grey/let’s not explain the reasoning for his actions kind of stuff. Again, that’s just me and my take on it.

And yes I also understand that tsoa is a YA story and again it’s about him and Patroclus and their relationship and all that but again I think we could’ve left some of that in and it still could’ve been good.

Now this is an opinion of mine that most people usually have beef with me over, and that is I hate the way Thetis, Deidamia, and Briseis are written. Hate it. And yes I’ll grant you Thetis’ characterization in tsoa makes the end (where she finally puts Pat’s name on the tomb) much more emotional and poignant, like I get that 100% but to me it seems like all the women were written to be just…in the way. And that kinda irks me a bit. Like he’s every mother wants best for their son but I fail to see where Thetis would reasonably do all she did like for a mother who was written to always want the best for her son and want him happy she sure did have a lot of unnecessary beef with Pat even when he was a child lmao. And the whole Skyros thing was to protect Achilles from getting pulled into the war but in tsoa it’s kind of also written as trying to get Achilles away from Pat which is weird and rubs me the wrong way. Like the Skyros thing is very interesting and is probably one of my favorite pre-Troy writings. Like I love it. I do. But tsoa also ignores the whole part where canonically (if you want to call it that) in some versions Achilles was ready to just reveal himself for who he was on Skyros. Like he was over it. He’d pretty much accepted what was going to happen and felt the whole thing unnecessary and weird and all that. And I think that could’ve made the story much more interesting.

I also hate the Deidamia situation. For various reasons and if you’re familiar with the original myth you’d know why. And again I recognize tsoa is a YA story and it’s about patchilles but still I have my beef with it. I hate who she’s just seen as annoying and rude and entitled and somebody that’s just in the way of our ‘main boys’. She’s actually quite a complex character herself and even in a few versions of the original myth she disguised herself as a man and follows Achilles to Troy! Or she’s the one who keeps him from revealing himself too soon! Like again we have someone that’s a good strong solid character that’s just…watered down.

And last but most certainly not least there’s Briseis. Another character that’s seen as in the way. Now this is gonna piss a lot of people ofc most likely but technically Briseis and Achilles did love each other. He even goes so far as to consider (if not call her) his wife. And I feel like that chemistry only adds to the whole decision of his to withdraw from the war when Agamemnon takes her. Otherwise in tsoa it doesn’t make much sense. Like in tsoa he had almost nothing to do with her at all. And I know it’s a pride thing but in tsoa he really didn’t care much about her and only did because Pat liked her. And (if I remember correctly it’s been a bit since I’ve read it) he kind of saw her as something of a threat. Something that was getting between him and Pat. So like…why was he mad that she was taken? Let alone mad enough to pull back from the war? It makes no real sense to me.

And I think she does just kinda miss the complexity and multifacetedness of all these characters. Like a lot of them to me seem very one dimensional and that makes for a boring story to me. Like I have never in my life read a flatter Odysseus and that’s saying something because Odysseus is an inherently complex and interesting character. Same with Agamemnon. Same with literally everyone. Like yes Pat is a wonderful healer and we know that from the Iliad but he is just as capable of taking life as he is saving it and he did both.

That’s really all I have for the beef I have with tsoa or at least the issues that I have a huge problem with (problem enough to talk about it) but otherwise I do think it’s a cute story. Y’know it’s an easy read that I can get through in like 2-3 days. I love seeing them growing up in Phthia and on Pelion like I love all the Pelion scenes and seeing their relationship go from one of friendship to a romantic one. Like I love that. I do. But it could definitely use some doctoring up in my opinion. So would I say that I hate it? Not entirely. But like when I recommend it to anyone I recommend they read the Iliad afterwards. So make of that what you will.

And again if you love it and have no issues with it, that’s great. I have no issue with that. Again we all interpret and see things differently and I’m not gonna bash anyone for enjoying it. Cause again it’s a cute story. And it’s tragic and all that. Like it still has that part down but how can you have patchilles without tragedy? Y’know? But I do just hope somewhere down the line comes maybe a better version of something like tsoa. Granted it would probably have to be for but if an older or more mature audience but still. Like I think it can be done and done well.

So, yeah. Sorry for my little tangent but I hope this answered your question and again I did say I have a complicated answer. Also tsoa and Hades are the only ‘modern retellings’ (if we wanna call Hades a modern retelling idk but like y’all know what I mean but as much as I love Hades I do have my beef with it as well but again I’m looking at it from the perspective of a Hellenic polytheist and somebody who has always been very into Greek mythology so I am definitely biased) that I am familiar with like I have read Circe or Percy Jackson or Lore Olympus or anything like that so if you wanna know my feelings on those I wouldn’t be able to give a good answer because I’m not familiar with those.

Thanks for the ask!