#also - I'm sure I've got some mutuals that have clearer thoughts on this

[shall-we-go-far-away]

just finished episodes 3 and 4 like five minutes ago so here are my thoughts right after (will probably make a new post once I've rewatched the episode to properly grasp what happened):

1. omg the tension is still sooo intense I can't

2. I would've been so thrown off if I was jihyun because why do you kiss me and then stop talking to me for the rest of the trip?? so props to him for handling it somewhat well, I really liked that jihyun's curiosity for jaewon clearly won and he approached him again instead of staying distant

3. but then again, I'm still a little confused on how they "got back together" because jaewon went from acting like they never talked before to come on, let's have a date at han river like?? what happened in between? that seemed like a really weird cut to me idk

4. staying with jihyun tho, my lovely little jihyun I love him, he's so adorable.. I love the scene when he comes into work and it literally almost looks like he's floating through the bar while mopping and smiling like an absolute fool

5. I really liked that we got a little more insight into jaewon's therapy sessions because it made things that were just assumptions before clearer to the viewer

6. Taehyung?? bro, do you not realize that your "BEST FRIEND" clearly has no interest in getting back with his ex?? he was so annoying in the first two episodes already I really hope at some point jaewon is gonna snap because damn, does he really not get it??

7. Eunji? man, I'm kinda sad Eunji is made into the jealous, mean ex-girlfriend.. maybe she's getting a redemption arc later on but right now her behavior is just not it.. hated how she was behaving in the bar, basically treating jihyun like shit I was really glad the bar owner (I love her, she's great <3) said something

8. Aeri tho, I was a little confused by her behavior at first because she was really pushy (?) but I liked that she ended up clearing things up and making sure that jihyun knew she just wants to be his friend

9. the scene in the library where jihyun was showing jaewon his drawing was sooo cute I gotta admit it must've looked weird from eunji's perspective because why is the guy that just told her to work separately now smiling like an idiot? and them enjoying their ramen at the han river? very wholesome, I have to say tho when jaewon sent jihyun to get coffee I thought he would ditch him for a second because he seemed a little off but he stayed so we're all good

10. jaewon being a little hot and cold with jihyun throughout the episodes irritated me a little at first but it made sense if we think about what he said to his therapist and it also further confirmed that most of his relationships are probably on surface level and not even his "closest friends" actually know him.. so jaewon backing off from jihyun every once in a while was probably just him being scared of letting him come too close (I think?? god, sometimes I think whatever I'm saying here goes right in the opposite direction of what's actually happening but oh well, isn't this what theories are there for?)

(idk but jaewon seems like the type of person that's like "I only hurt the people close to me, so I keep everyone at a distance") -> this really makes me curious about jaewon's and eunji's relationship and how that went because he said they dated for two years

11. I also think both of them are at a point where they know there's mutual interest between them and that they're probably gonna be more than friends considering they were about to kiss again before joon pyo came to the rooftop (I mean can we talk about jaewon's cute little smile right at the end of the episode?? the man is whipped)

[away-ward]

Hellow, i'm a newcomer!!! I love your contents, and i might watch thailand f4(?) after this because of your blogs! Anyway, I like your blogs because there just seems to be so many different kinds of people interacting with you here?? It's so obvious and you can kinda see if they like dn or its characters or not by their asks. That led to me: You know, i've never thought the DN series books to be OVERLY repetitive but when you, your anons, and your mutuals put a lot of twos and twos together about how repetitive some plots points, characteristics and sex scenes were, it became even clearer to me about how a lot of them are just so similar now. As if it's a formula at this point.

Another scene that came to mind was when alex told aydin she can fuck whoever she wanted, this scene literally transported me back to winterdamon's bathtub scene where winter was touching herself and said some cringey shit about "little sister" "not being bossed around" or damon being her daddy or something and she can do whatever she wants. And alex moaned will's name also reminded me of that scene of rika moaning trevor/kai's name when she's with michael too, and banks with kai about damon during their first intercourse (these happened right? im pretty sure they did or my mind might just be messing with me?).

And winter calling other girls easy like how rika did in corrupt? Banks rika hideaway aka alex emmy train scene in nightfall? Even the misogyny was repetitive!!!! hELP i hate it here mom 😭 this makes me feel like rika/alex/winter are literally the same type of pd's ideal characters, the mary sue but slutty type, but not much of a whore though, but also badass, only with different hair colours and societal backgrounds. Banks is only similar to emory with her colour, Thank fucking god! Because the other FMCs were LITERALLY so similar in many ways to me. And i feel like it's so unfair because we already got so little of great FMCs in this series whatnot with the opening book: corrupt was just pure shit, but why did pd had to butcher them like that? Even the horsemen had very distinct personality, EVEN IF they had similar characteristics to their friends. Even kai and damon were told to be similar, but they were very different, thats why it wasnt confusing (to me at least). What's with pd and their formulaic overly repetitive writing? Idk if im gonna read their fall away series if they're like this too. Had anybody read it? What are your thoughts on it?

---And on a side note, funny (sarcastic tone) how a lot of things alex said or did about will or emmy's personality/situation in general could have hurt emmy (as a friend), but alex did it anyway, but then alex turned around and was always seen to be not-understanding of em's situation, and sometimes she was even inconsiderate towards how emmy COULD possibly feel about alexwill's past hookups as em's friend, even laugh at her when she was jealous of them (and also for moaning will's name!! Wtf! Pd was so wrong for making will sleep in the same bed with alexemmg. I also hate that we get to see willalex's friendship and trust building even in tidbits, but we can't get the same or more for THE main couples themselves? Will can build that trust with alex to the point she knew he would come for her and be there for he, but pd couldnt make will build trust with emmy? Will grayson deseve to die the most painful death ngl)

(Idk if these alexwill asks had been made clear by your anons many times before or not, but i have only seen your recent blogs so idk, but ig my point still stands. Please do pin/post something to indicate if it has been mentioned or if you're ever tired of seeing them for newcomers like me so we can filter our asks, if this is not too much for you) Then alex was hypocritically literally going batshit crazy for all the insinuations made by will and aydin about emmyaydin??? The situation was?? It's so???? It's like when it happened to emmy, emmy was expected to be okay with it, and not show much jealousy, expected to be perfect always, not only that, even emmy herself kept on doing all the emotional work of everyone on her own, but when it comes to alex (or even will), not only they were cruel with their words and actions, they were also irrationally angry at em at the weirdest of time? As if they had no common sense or something? Like they're the only ones suffering? Funny how will said how em didnt know how will suffered or how alex said to em about how em was not the only one suffering? But alexwill were insufferable as fuck, and they were the ones who kept on being dramatic and dgaf about em's feelings or safetyl, so?? Alexwill Truly had horribe personilities, and they were always seen to be inconsiderate of em's feelings with their thinking unless em called them out for it too, but why does emmy has to tell how much they were hurting her ALL THE TIME so only then they would stop and consider how she felt? So fucking selfish. Alexwill were really so fucking annoying istg---

Just like some of your anons, nightfall ruined will's character for me, i was so disappointed in him because he was described as "being different than his friends" in other books (and maybe the povs we got were from his worse friends, so maybe thats why the bar was under the fucking ground) but then anons were right, in his book, his outward actions were shown to be LIKE THAT. But then again, if he's been best friends with those same disgusting horsemen all his life, why wouldn't he pick up the same hurtful words and behaviour from them, even a little, right? Birds from the same feather after all. When you guys said how similar will and michael were about their misogyny and how that was the main reason why that anon hated will, it became clear to me even more why i hated will in nightfall, because gooododdd i hate michael for the same reasons too!!! That anon just put my hatred better into words. Sometimes i feel like i have a different expectations of how a dark romance should be and then i came across these books and they totally were not within my expectations, they're worse, so my expectations were the one to ruin my enjoyment of reading these dark romance books in general. Maybe idk.

Anyway, if theres any anons who love will grayson, or if KO (away-ward) yourself have some long paragraphs of why you guys love will, please do share because even as a will hater myself, its a bit existing to be in this space for Will and Emmy with so many will hates lol! Maybe if you guys share your cute reasons why you love him here, MAYBE i'll like him better and change some of my opinions about him. In very much need of will grayson appreciation in this will grayson love drought (but ONLY related to emmy please, idgaf about his cute scenes with others, especially damon. I had enough in canon, im sick of them.) 😂

Hey! Welcome.

It would make my day if you decided to watch F4 Thailand. No pressure though. The story is absolutely bonkers, but it's really close to my heart. It’s nice to know someone is getting something from the f4 posts. I mean, I’m entertaining myself, so not getting any notes hasn’t been a deterrent at all, but still. At least I know not everyone hates them. If you do decide to watch, I’m using Viki. It’s free there, as are several of the hana yori dango/boys over flowers versions, if you want to dive right in. Comparing them has been a lot of fun.

Idk if these alexwill asks had been made clear by your anons many times before or not, but I have only seen your recent blogs so idk, but ig my point still stands. Please do pin/post something to indicate if it has been mentioned or if you’re ever tired of seeing them for newcomers like me so we can filter our asks, if this is not too much for you

I’ll start off here. I, for one, don’t mind rehashing the same information. Sometimes it can be a bit redundant when I feel like I have nothing to add because I’ve said everything I have to say, but I don’t want the anon to feel like I’m ignoring their point, but for the most part anon usually bring up a new point or consideration I hadn’t thought of before, so it’s not too bad. There is a “Tag System” post on the desktop that goes over how I tag my posts to find what you’re looking for. However, if you’re using only mobile, it probably won’t show up. I’ve been meaning to add it to the master list for ease.

For a quick run-down, I tag all of my answered messages with “asked and answered”, so searching that tag within my blog will bring up all the previous discussions. You can also search by a character’s full name, but that will bring up all posts concerning them, even if it’s something I rb’d and just tagged as the character. However, that doesn’t always work. I get the best results when I just click the tag I want from a post. That typically works a bit better, simply because Tumblr’s search system is pretty bad by all accounts.

If that doesn’t work, let me know, and I’ll see if I can work out another method.

Anyway, on to your thoughts!

I like your blogs because there just seems to be so many different kinds of people interacting with you here. It's so obvious and you can kinda see if they like dn or its characters or not by their asks

I certainly wasn’t expecting the blog to develop this way. My thoughts are that people just like a place where they can express their thoughts or rant about something without having to fear being judged or someone attacking them for it. There are a lot of things about the series to complain about (obviously), but when people are so deeply entrenched in fandom stuff, it can be hard to realistically critique it without backlash. But it’s all fun to me, so I don’t mind. It’s worth a laugh.

And I hope it’s a lot of different people. It seems to be, but since most are on anon, I can’t really know. It hasn’t been a problem since everyone has been respectful and nice to the other anons, so I can’t complain about that.

DN series books to be OVERLY repetitive but when you, your anons, and your mutuals put a lot of twos and twos together about how repetitive some plots points, characteristics and sex scenes were, it became even clearer to me about how a lot of them are just so similar now. As if it's a formula at this point.

It didn’t feel repetitive to me at first, either. It really was after talking about certain parts so many times that I began to realize they felt like others parts in the series. I think there’s enough different about each scene that it’s not that easy to identify. And, to go along with that, I think it’s because of something you said.

The guys are different.

It’s hard to say which is worse in the series: the horsemen or the women. Obviously, the horsemen take more heat for their misogyny and general lack of accountability wherever they go, but there’s no denying that they are much more developed characters than the girls’. Because the horsemen are the heart of the series. They were there from the start; it’s really all about them.

So what we get left with is PD’s idea of an empowered woman. Which I guess looks one of two ways? Or the idea that these four friends would only be interested in one of two types of women?

You get sexy blonde or sassy brunette. Take your pick.

But I don’t want to break the characters down that way. I’ll never back off the idea that writing is hard, much less writing something of this size. Everyone grows in skill at a different rate, and I would have been excited to see what this story would look like in the hands of a more experienced PD. It’s a shame that the community’s fighting has tarnished their love for the series in a way. But since we got it the way we did, it seems that PD liked a few dynamics or that their imagination lead them down the same path because it’s what they liked, and in the end re-used them, maybe even unconsciously.

Alex told aydin she can fuck whoever she wanted, this scene literally transported me back to winterdamon’s bathtub scene where winter was touching herself and said some cringey shit about “little sister” “not being bossed around” or damon being her daddy or something and she can do whatever she wants

I hadn’t noticed this one, but then it’s no secret I don’t remember a lot of KS haha. Hideaway and KS are my weakest in the series, so they’ll have the most holes for me.

this makes me feel like rika/alex/winter are literally the same type of pd's ideal characters, the mary sue but slutty type, but not much of a whore though, but also badass, only with different hair colours and societal backgrounds

It is a bit frustrating that at times the girls felt like copy/paste. Like it wouldn’t matter who was in the scene, it would unfold the same way. I talk a lot about Alex’s weakness as a character, but that’s mainly because she could have been a good character if she wasn’t written to be perfect in every scene. At times Rika and Winter fall into this trap too.

Not playing favorites, but it could be why I like Emory and Banks a little more; they’re allowed to be imperfect and admit it without making a big deal about it.

Emory says something mean to her friend and apologies. It’s never brought up again, but Emory doesn’t become someone who never makes that mistake again.

Banks gets irritated that she’s dragged-out shopping, but later thanks Alex for her help. It just seemed in the narrative, the other three had to be right always, and if they were angry or mean, it’s because they were right meanwhile, Banks and Em were allowed to be wrong or needless mean sometimes, as we all are.

Idk if im gonna read their fall away series if they're like this too. Had anybody read it? What are your thoughts on it?

If someone has anything to share, feel free. I can post without commentary. All I’ve read is Bully and I can definitely say it was more tame that DN, and felt more like PD was just starting out, working their imagination while DN was more like them pushing their imagination pass it’s limits. It’s not a bad thing for a writer to do that; it’s good. But as a comparison to understand the two different feels of the books to me. Bully was like the first time you go for a run while DN was like a marathon, in terms of writing and creativity.

I still don’t know if that made any sense at all. Sorry.

And on a side note, funny (sarcastic tone) how a lot of things alex said or did about will or emmy's personality/situation in general could have hurt emmy (as a friend), but alex did it anyway –

There’s a lot to say about the Alex situation. To me, it feels like PD started with one intention for NF and Willemmy, but as they let their writing group get involved, those who already had an attachment to Alex, the intent went out the window to appease them. It’s easy to get caught up in the excitement when ideas are flying, so if that is the case, I see how it could have happened. It’s just so sad that it did.

Alex should have either been Emmy’s friend or Will’s protector, but she couldn’t be both. That’s the most confusing part of the whole situation. Alex appears in NF first as someone one Emmy’s side and showing concern about Will. But as the novel progresses, she bounces around between being Will’s protector from Emmy and Aydin, to being Emmy’s friend and comforter, to hating Aydin and anyone who aligns with him – namely Emmy. She constantly rotates between these three states, and it never made any sense to me – and apparently several other readers.

I wouldn’t have minded seeing Will and Alex’s friendship developed more if it made clear why Will could never love her the way he loved Emmy, but I doubt that would have happened. I believe PD wanted us to see Will and Alex as being so close, they were basically the same person, having a deeper understanding of each other. It however, never comes to light that way in NF and instead we’re left with a shipping war that was never meant to be.

I can reason on a lot of PD’s executions, but there are a few I can’t let go. One that I’ve been thinking about lately is the fight scene at the cove?

I remember being so mad and hurt and confused that Will would leave Emmy to take on Martin while he fought Aydin. Why would he let Martin lay another finger on her? Why was Aydin more important at that moment, when we know that Aydin doesn’t want Emmy that way. He wants to hurt Will and Alex (at least as far as Will knows).

And then for Alex to be shot by Martin, and that’s what stops the fighting? And then that’s when Will finally kills him. Yes, it was for Emmy technically, and I have no doubt that Martin was trying to shoot Emory, that shooting Alex was a mistake because they were fighting.

But it’s just the narrative of it all. It really sends the message that Alex is more important to the story, to the family, to Will then Emory is.

Emory says Martin will never lay a hand on her again, and while I appreciate the overall idea of her finally fighting back, I would have loved it all the more if she had posed herself to fight him and Will refused to let her. She’d conquered her fear of him; it didn’t mean Will needed to let her fight that fight. I’m so tired of PD putting Emory in the backseat while Alex gets to right passenger in Will’s life. And it’s not fixed until Alex leaves to be in Aydin’s life. I just don’t get it.

Where’s Michael with his “I love you guys, but she is everything!” speech? I need that guy to sit Will down.

But anywho.

Funny how will said how em didn’t know how will suffered or how alex said to em about how em was not the only one suffering? But alexwill were insufferable as fuck, and they were the ones who kept on being dramatic and dgaf about em’s feelings or afety, so??

Yeah, that was pretty irritating. I just kept thinking, “do we all remember who was the one being physically abused for years? Are you talking to the girl who literally just lost her grandmother, the only person who every really cared about her? Oh, your pain is worse? Got it.” I would dare any of them to say those kinds of things to Damon and watch what happens. But no. Em’s got to suck it up.

will's character for me, i was so disappointed in him because he was described as "being different than his friends" in other books

To be honesty, I hated Will in the first three books. Except for in the past scenes. I don’t know how deeply you’ve read into the blog, but I’ve talked before about my DN reading journey, so I won’t go too in depth now, but I was really looking forward to Emory’s story and Will was so boring that I almost didn’t make it.

And then in NF, all I cared about was the past scenes. For me, that was the real Will and anything that happened after that was because he was emotionally disturbed by his heartbreak, and then stunted by his time in prison. It’s not an excuse for his behavior, but a reason I can work with.

Will is not nearly as bad alone, even in the present scenes, as he is when he’s with Alex. The WillAlex shippers really got the best of PD at some points, and it shows. Present Will is not great, but I can work with him in terms of character. Will with Alex is too much because Alex in general doesn’t make sense and is a poor character.

But then again, if he’s been best friends with those same disgusting horsemen all his life

I’m laughing because sometimes when I read sentences like this, I wonder how you as a reader made it through the series. The only reason I kept reading was for the horsemen and their friendship.

Will didn’t just pick up bad traits from them. He probably provided some of his own. It’s why the four of them work so well. I remember Damon saying that Will was the most trouble for his parents. He’s always been this way.

When you guys said how similar will and michael were about their misogyny and how that was the main reason why that anon hated will, it became clear to me even more why i hated will in nightfall, because gooododdd i hate michael for the same reasons too!!! That anon just put my hatred better into words

And this is exactly why it’s worth sharing your thoughts, even negative rant-y ones, because you never know when you’re saying exactly what someone is thinking. You’re probably not as alone as you think in your views. It’s no one wants to deal with the backlash if the wrong person reads it, so we keep silent.

Sometimes I feel like I have a different expectations of how a dark romance should be and then I came across these books and they totally were not within my expectations, they’re worse, so my expectations were the one to ruin my enjoyment of reading these dark romance books in general. Maybe idk.

I guess it depends. DN left a lot to be desired in terms of execution. I usually don’t go into with expectations other than somewhat decent writing, so it could be that you’re expecting literary worthy storytelling when the truth is you’re getting the equivalent of fast food. Maybe I’m wrong. But I think it’s worth for you to list out the things you want from a dark romance and that might help you identify what you’re looking for a little faster, so you don’t waste your time (and brain cells, if you feel that you’ve lost some just trying to process all of this).

if theres any anons who love will grayson, or if KO (away-ward) yourself have some long paragraphs of why you guys love will, please do share because even as a will hater myself, its a bit existing to be in this space for Will and Emmy with so many will hates

  I’ve come to the conclusion that there’s a Will that lives in my head that doesn’t exist in PD’s and that’s how I’m surviving. It’s a bit hard whenever I’m reminded that my Will isn’t the Real Will, but then I don’t care cause I think my Will is better.

I don’t know how to explain my Will other than he’s everything I wanted from NF and somehow he developed from the same place as Real Will.

All I can say, and I hate doing it because I feel like I’m assigning homework, is that if you want to understand how I see Will, you’ll have to read my Will grayson iii tag. Just click the one at the bottom of this post and go from there. That’s all I got.

especially damon. I had enough in canon, im sick of them

So hey, everyone! If you’ve got any other Willemmy HCs or thoughts or scenes that you just really liked that you’ve been sitting one because you weren’t sure if it was the right time to share, this is a request to send them in. Sounds like this anon needs them.

Thanks everyone! and thanks, Anon, for your message. It's nice to hear from you and hope you enjoy the other content.

*This is unedited and will have some spelling and grammar mistakes. Edits will be done within the day*

[camcorderrevival]

i still havent watched any of the mike flanagan movies but ive heard a lot of stuff about how hes doing a bad job at adapting classics... as someone who isnt familiar with the source material, what do u think is the biggest issue with his adaptations?

I've only watched his adaptation of THoHH so it's a sort of limited viewpoint.

But my big issue with that production, and others big issue from what I've seen, is that it's so far removed from the source material that there's no point in calling it an adaptation. It essentially just takes a few character names and the name of the house and then proceeds to tell a completely different story. I wouldn't even call it fanfic-adjacent because he doesn't appear to like the book enough to do it justice.

Everything that makes Hill House horror, everything that makes it a brilliant novel is stripped back and thrown away. The novel sort of hinges on the unanswered, some of the closing lines are: "In the unending, crashing second before the car hurled into the tree she thought clearly, Why am I doing this? Why am I doing this? Why don’t they stop me?" And that's where I find the horror comes from, there's no closure for the characters, Nell dies and that's it, they go home with no mention of what they saw.

The supernatural in Jackson's novel also goes unanswered. Most events are just suggested, with no clear explanation being given to them. Whether what happens is due to ghosts or something else is largely up for debate. Flanagan's adaptation just stamps in some ghosts and calls it a day. There's little to no engagement with the novel's use of the unknown.

Flanagan's adaptation shies away from so many of the novel's key aspects, so alongside ditching most of plot, he also disregards everything impactful about Jackson's writing.

Jackson's novel asks the question: what's wrong with Nell?, and then proceeds to leave it up in the air, no one knows whats wrong with Nell, whether she's a victim of torment or possession or whether she's just ill, why she's doing this, the characters don't find out. Flanagan essentially answers: ghosts. And then proceeds to give a family (that doesn't exist in the book) closure that, for me, detracts from the horror of the events they go through.

Also, on that note about the family, the weird change in dynamic does him no favours in my eyes, the book centres around a group of strangers, they build their relationships over the story's course, pushed together by the happenings within the house. Nell and Theodora particularly suffer in the sense that their relationship in the book can be read as one of mutual attraction. Again from the closing scenes of the book "I thought you weren’t going to say good-by to me,” she said. “Oh, Nellie, my Nell—be happy; please be happy. Don’t really forget me; someday things really will be all right again, and you’ll write me letters and I’ll answer and we’ll visit each other and we’ll have fun talking over the crazy things we did and saw and heard in Hill House—oh, Nellie! I thought you weren’t going to say good-by to me.”

This is a kind of messy explanation but what I'm saying is that they're not really adaptations, and framing them as such is almost insulting to the source materials. I've seen other peoples critiques that centre more on technical aspects but I don't study film so I'm sort of limited in that aspect.