#idk for the american ones the human stories are so… BAD… like i just close my ears whenevr i hear them talk

[pillowenvelopchair]

AAAAAAAA MINUS ONE IN ON NETFILX?????????? OH MY GOD!?,,(?:&@/₱:)(!(@:/2////—

[rotomartsblog]

I’ve been thinking about my version/rewrite whatever of Ever After High so I’m just gonna list a few lore tidbits about the world and some of the characters

So first things first I want to say that my version of the EAH school is more based on European secondary education than American (since I’ve decided that EAH should logically take place in Europe). Mostly N. Ireland’s secondary school system since that’s what I’m most familiar with. Anyway- EAH students go through seven years of school from around age 11 to age 18 (give or take a bit). EAH officially has two stages of education; the Freedom stage and the Legacy stage. The Freedom stage is the first three years of school and the Legacy stage is the remaining four years. The Legacy stage itself is split into two sub-stages, Pre-Signing and Post-Signing. The story begins in the second year of the Pre-Signing Legacy stage, where Legacy Day will take place at the end of the year. Students also can only room with people from their year.

I wanted to actually establish what the Curse on Wonderland actually is since that never actually gets explained in canon. Basically, the Curse takes the form of an erupting black fountain in the centre of Wonderland that leads up to the sky, “polluting” the atmosphere. It has both a physical and mental effect on the people of Wonderland, making them physically weaker while also “corrupting” their minds I guess? While the people of Wonderland have developed medicine and treatment for the curse, it’s more effective against the physical symptoms than the mental ones and it isn’t widely distributed.

Speaking of Wonderland, the Alice of the story is the only “character” that follows the Legacy system, because the rest of the characters are from Wonderland and don’t follow the same rules as Ever Afterlings. This doesn’t mean that the characters don’t have family legacies and traditions but they operate separately from Ever After’s.

Speaking of Alice, Alistair has been trapped in Wonderland since he was 10 years old. He isn’t as fond of Wonderland as his canon counterpart. Also his last name isn’t Wonderland it’s Adventures. I know that’s sounds equally stupid but it’s makes more sense to me based on the lore I’ve established.

Card people have the ability to go “flat” like a card. Also, they’re made of the same material of a playing card (specifically card stock), and they feel like such whether they’re flat or not.

Card people are limited to only two colours in their designs; white and the second colour depending on what suit they’re from (Clubs are green, Diamonds are blue, Hearts are red, and Spades are purple), except their eyes, which can be any colour. The exception to this is royal cards, which have three colours; white, black, and their suit colours (also their eye colours of course, which in Lizzie’s case is green). The outlier to this entirely is the Joker cards, which have no set rules for how they’re coloured.

There’s never a set number of Jokers for each generation of card people. In the previous generation, the parents generation, there were two: the red joker and the black joker, but in the current generation Courtly is the only Joker card.

Chess people are living chess pieces so they are made of wood.

Card and Chess people aren’t ‘born’, they’re literally made.

Lizzie, Kitty, and Maddie are the first Wonderlandians to attend Ever After High.

When the Evil Queen was imprisoned, all known entrances to Wonderland were closed off. However, new ones can be made either on purpose or accidentally. This is how Darling ends up in Wonderland.

When Ever Afterlings go to Wonderland their colour palette changes because idk I think it looks neat.

Also the Evil Queen cursing Wonderland and being imprisoned would’ve taken place like right before Raven started EAH.

Okay done talking about Wonderland onto something else. King Charming is a piece of shit human being. He’s a bad dad and an unfaithful husband who has a whole lot of illegitimate kids. Blondie is one of them.

Raven ended up rooming with Maddie in their first year at EAH because over half of the students in their year requested to specifically not be roomed with Raven.

Briar’s mum was asleep for 100 years because I don’t want to work out how it’d make sense if she was from the previous generation. Rosabella’s mum is Briar’s mum’s great-niece. Briar and Rosabella call each other cousin because it’s simpler.

Rosabella, despite what is believed, is actually the Beast in the story. The reason it’s believed she’s the Beauty is because the society of EAH is #sexist and #homophobic so the idea of the Beast in BATB being a girl or a boy being the Beauty is unbelievable. Rosabella suspects she’s the Beast because when she was younger she grew horns, though she’s forbidden from telling people this.

Briar and Rosabella’s parents are not on speaking terms because of a situation revolving around Rosabella’s horns. When they grew in, Briar’s parents had offered to babysit Rosabella while her parents were busy. Briar’s dad then dehorned Rosabella (and he wasn’t trained for it so it wasn’t a pleasant experience for Rosabella). Rosabella’s parents were obviously upset about this so they cut ties with Briar’s parents.

By the time the story begins Ashlynn’s mum is dead so she’s kind of going through it. Her dad hasn’t remarried yet.

I’ve messed around with the ages of some characters so while most of the main cast is the second year of the Pre-Signing Legacy stage, some are in different years. I haven’t worked out everyone but the important ones right now are that Dexter and Darling are in the first year of the Pre-Signing Legacy stage and Ramona is in the first year of the Post-Signing Legacy stage (and Justine I guess since they’re roommates).

Also most roommates will probably be the same as in canon since I can’t be bothered to change those.

Despite Legacy Day being when you pledge to follow your destiny, there are expectations on people whose stories typically happen when they’re young (case in point: Alistair being in Wonderland when he’s 10). Cedar often deals with people prodding and asking questions since she’s still a puppet as a teenager, though her dad also started his story late so it isn’t unique to her.

Raven doesn’t listen to Tailor Quick in my version. Sorry to swifties but sometimes you write a character and realise some things don’t work with their personality. Raven listens to goth music and dad rock. Dexter still listens to Tailor Quick though.

Speaking of music tastes, Poppy listens to Ska punk and Holly hates it so much.

Cupid was told to hide her monstrous features when going to EAH, so she’s masquerading as a Cherub. Also for a majority of her first year at EAH she’s faking her personality.

EAH’s school is specifically for European stories and there are different school in other regions for their stories.

Idk how yet but I’m planning on including references to other fairy tale authors and collectors like Andrew Lang.

I’ve planned a few arcs and mini stories for my version, some of them replace canon arcs. A few of these are a story based on A Wonderlandiful World, a rewrite of Way to Wonderland, a rewrite of Dragon Games that features two of the mention regional schools, a story I can only describe as “Cedar gets psychologically tormented by an arm puppet”, the Blood Knight story, and a story that replaces Epic Winter.

While EAH is typically only open for people with legacies to follow, there is a course available for people without legacies. However, it’s incredibly expensive and the course is kept entirely separated from the main course. Non-legacy students aren’t even allowed to be roommates with legacy students and there’s few opportunities for the two courses to interact. Poppy was originally in this course before Holly managed to get Headmaster Grimm to transfer her to the main course and the Charming family have a deal with the school so that none of their children go to the non-legacy course.

That’s all for now I think.

[allbluemin]

Results and responses from the survey on the divergent opinions regarding the human/ape ship of the Planet of the Apes franchise.

🔍How old are you?

🔍Do you consume monster/human content?

🔍Fiction is a term that designates imaginary and unreal narratives, which is why many people tend to defend their works using this term. They state that everything is nothing more than fiction, so, as in the case in question, the ape/human relationship should not be problematized as it should not be compared to the real world. Do you agree with this statement?

🔍Leave a comment delving deeper into your previous answer.

🍎It should not be compared to the real world because anthropomorphized apes that talk and have human intelligence and characteristics are not real. We created them. A lot of fandom's arguments against a human/ape romance use real life morality, but they forget these are fictional humanized apes in a scifi/fantasy story. A story whose narrative and overall themes will inevitably force us to ask hard questions and explore weird ideas. And yes, that includes asking: "What would it mean for a human and ape in this story to get together?"🍎

🌼In general, I agree with the statement above, however, I think that any problem in literature can be considered as a possible problem in real life. Perhaps metaphorical or something else. So. I agree that it can be compared to real life, but I am against giving too much meaning to fictional reality. Literature is a way to speculate “what if?”, limiting this is stupid and harmful. It also indicates some problem or set of problems in real life and society.🌼

🌻Fiction shouldn't be trated with the same moral or ethical compass as reality. With this I don't mean fiction doesn't impact reality, but just that we can't treat them equally. Ficition impacts reality, but at the end of the day, apes like the ones in the movie aren't real, so there's not really a morally good or morally bad thing to want to fuck them (or not fuck them), and same with a ship involving apes.🌻

🍓Statement about that instance, yes but we can clearly see how fiction is affected by who its made of and how it in turn affects us. Women (characters) barely having roles in the past or having to fit into a certain mold and still doing so for example. Fiction does not exist in a vaccum.🍓

🍒I believe that while the kind of fiction that does affect reality, things such as racism and stereotypes, are a problem. Many works of fiction are simply fiction and do not affect reality in the way many assume it does.🍒

🍑Fiction is a great way to explore themes, metaphors, What Ifs, and a whole slew of situations. It doesn’t need to be good and pure—in fact, the really interesting stuff happens beyond that. Also, it’s just fun.🍑

🌷Literally nothing even close to resembling this ship could ever or will ever happen in real life. They’re literally not real. They don’t look like, talk like, think like real apes. How is it even problematic??🌷

🍁I don’t think that the statement “is just fiction” is legit everytime. But in this case i don’t see anythib wrong with that ship.🍁

🌾The apes aren't just regular apes like at a zoo, they have achieved sentience and have a whole society.🌾

🥑There are human ape kisses in the classic movies and nobody cared idk why people care now🥑

🥀Depends how unrealistic the ape is, too real ape is icky, king kong? perfectly fine🥀

🍇Apes are not fictional🍇

🔍Do you think the ape/human ship is different from a monster/human ship?

🔍Could you elaborate on an answer to the previous question?

🌼I think that the ape/human ship is xenophilia. I don't think the apes in the film can fit into the term "monster", so I refuse to consider this pairing as a monster/human. However, I come from a different cultural background than the typical American/English person, so I apologize if my opinion sounds offensive. In my circle, “xenophilia” refers to any craving for something unknown and alien, the term covers relationships with a wide variety of fictional intelligent beings (the spectrum is extremely wide) and is even sometimes (extremely rarely) used in the context of relationships between two people from very different cultures (for example a modern person or a person from a world with magic). Although it is still believed that one partner must NOT be a person in the classical sense.🌼

🍒The kind of apes, in both the old planet of the apes and the reboot, are in fact not like everyday apes. They've created cultures and languages and are closer to homo sapiens than those of apes now. Even their appearances are also changing. Some shapes to their faces, the way they stand, and even their eyes. They are fictional/mythical creatures that while having similarities to actual creatures the same could say about centaurs, etc.🍒

🥑The apes in the POTA franchise are evolved physically and mentally enough to be functionally alien. They’re not only sentient, they’re sapient. They’re capable of communication, love, care, connection. There’s nothing weird about it, just like there’s nothing weird about a story about a human romancing a big monster or a slimy alien. It’s all fair game. The original 1968 movie pitches the apes like they’re aliens anyway.🥑

🍑It’s a human with a “non-human sentient Other” and comes with similar baggage as your typical monster pairings (the differences, the fear, the awkwardness, the unexpected similarities). Just because the uncanny valley isn’t that deep (as it would be with, I don’t know, The Predator alien or an Uruk Hai) doesn’t mean it’s not a monster. Like, human/vampire counts, and that can be presented as barely nonhuman.🍑

🌻Apes like the ones in the movies are the same as monsters bc they are a different species and have special characteristics that makes them "monstruous" enough. An ape can be a monster as long as you consider "monsters" like vampires to be that.🌻

🌾They aren't just apes, they've been genetically modified. But they aren't full monsters either. It'd be like fucking Scooby-Doo, he's a dog but he's a sentient dog that isn't really a dog anymore. But is still a recognizable animal.🌾

🍓The apes in this universe are monsters. While I'm not one who indulges in this type of shipping, I don't think the apes are animals in this fiction verse so they fit in the category of monsters.🍓

🌷I guess you could call it that, but the monster fiction trope has developed into its own sub genre that I don’t think Noa and Mae fall into. It’s the two lead characters in a blockbuster movie.🌷

🍉In the context of the POTA films, I don't.🍉

🍇An animal is not a monster.🍇

🥀Again, depends on the ape🥀

🔍If you want to comment on something other than the previous questions and/or add more arguments to your opinion, feel free...

🌾Things written in fiction don't have to be morally okay in real life. That's one of the reasons we write fiction. You aren't a bad person for shipping an ape and a human as long as you can fully realize that a real life ape would never be a consenting safe partner for anyone but another ape. The idea that everything written should be morally okay is harmful for a lot of people. Fantasy has its place and should never be held up to reality's standards of ethics. That path leads to shame and repression that could seriously impact the mental health of generations.🌾

🍑I have been in this fandom on and off for literal decades and human/ape pairings have always been a thing. They have even been suggested in canon (kisses in both Tim Burton’s remake and in two of the original films: the first one and in Escape From…). This isn’t new, and it used to be embraced as part of the fandom. The vitriol and hatred in the current fandom is an unexpected switch for me, but sadly, the way fandom in general has been trending (“purity culture” where only morally good things are allowed), I can’t say I am too surprised.🍑

🌼I think the term "monsterfucking" is pretty fun and I have nothing against it, but I think for the sake of convenience a new, more inclusive term should be popularized. That is, is it possible to consider, for example, aliens as monsters and read pairings with them as a monster/human? What about a human/vampire? And so on and so forth. To my surprise, I see such discussions relatively often. Although perhaps I am biased and that is the only reason I see this as a problem.🌼

🍓I would like to add that the shipping here is fiction, yes, so I agree with that part of it but I also do not think fiction in general exists in a vacum. Sorry for any mistakes, English is not my first language either.🍓

🌷Free yourself from the thought police. Thinking is not a crime. Nothing about shipping two characters is a crime.🌷

🌻Almost anything fictional can be considered a monster if you think about it long enough.🌻

The results of the poll at the moment.

(I didn't know I wouldn't have access to the answers so I had to vote, sorry😭)

Thanks to everyone who participated! 🥰

[vinxwatches]

watching good omen season 1

ep 1 pilot

haven't seen a lot of it, mostly that people like it, that it's made by people people really like and that it's gay (or at least people make it gay) so you know, good pick for me. and i just watched to animations/animatics on youtube with bad endings and bad endings fuck me up, so hopefully this is happier. intro is a fucking banger. also god has a fem voice? nice. accurate skin colour for the earliest humans. not surprised, but appreciated. making fun of theology and great banter? i love it.

ominous picnic basket. oh... actually quite biblically fitting it seems. i REALLY hope they don't expect me to remember these names too well. many of the characters seem fun though.

of course the american politician says bs like "a regular y chromosome son". which i'm sure has not been tested as you 1: don't know the gender yet. 2: phenotype does not denote genotype.

i wonder who and how they'll figure out who has the wrong baby. "i don't recall what horror of history we had a lunch over, but i do recall what we had." the BEST dynamic.

will they even figure out they got the wrong one? ok, i know that working with an actual 5 year old would be a nightmare... but that kid is like 12.

well done making both heaven and hell look like shit. do you want grime overpopulating or empty, liminal, office spaces?

brilliant end of episode 1.

ep 2 the book

damn the forces of hell are so bloody rude and evil. and so many quick jokes.

question: what are the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse supposed to be in christianity? both biblically and in modern belief? they are separate from devils and angels.

i love a witch that also uses an ipad in her rituals.

"sorry, right number" seriously the humour in this show is so brilliant. i really hope the story is able to match it.

ep 3 hard times

a black knight shrugging is way too funny. i love these two. just two old friends helping each other out, it's just that that's diametrically opposing one another. the angel doing some tempting, the demon some miracles. and upper management doesn't care.

awh, they are just so cute together.

excuse me you are playing intro now? 28 minutes in? that's not an intro. that's a bloody intermission!

they really succeed at making heaving seem so extremely bad. extremely wide shot or extreme close-up. it's so incredibly uncomfortable.

the prime minister has a nice flat chested fucker in his bed.... good for him if he's not cheating.

"mend it all"/"end it all" whispers. really neat.

ep 4 saturday morning funtime

of course he was condemned for nothing more then asking questions.

ah, they got rid of pestilence to replace them with pollution. it's a good change, but feels pretty pre 2020.

oh no, i find his death so sad. he had a love, why kill him? i know the apocalypse is coming but still.

i still really hope that the presidents son turns out to be trans to just break the things he said at the start. then again it wouldn't really work as it's not the kids he said it about. idk, i guess i hope of screen son turns out to be trans to spite the person that'll never know... yea i'm holding out hope for something that doesn't matter.

azi being send to heaving is SO bad. his bookshop possibly burning down is emotionally worse. it was going to be the last episode of the day. but i started watching because i couldn't deal with bad endings, so i guess i'll have to watch one more.

ep 5 the doomsday option

Azi going full rogue (finally).

man that's the most obvious cold reading ever.

the guard reads a neil gaymen book. cute.

sir... your car is... more then a little on fire.

ep 6 the very last day of the rest of their lives

are we doing a flash back episode for the last episode of the season?

oh, please let him rebuild the car just like i want the bookshop rebuild?

the way to defeat the end of the world is to believe and stand (and i hope work) for a world that wouldn't end. a bit on the nose but very nice.

and of course with Terry Pratched being involved death is not to be defeated, just not hastened along.

a kid not doing the one thing they were supposed to do.... there's a trans/gay message in there. also That's Just What Kids Do! you wanted an 11 year old to do what they were told? that's the first part of the problem.

for a TV series that's a pretty good satan. oh that is SO clever. kind of time fucking, but not really so long as you never introduce time travel so it's only true from now on. oh, is it a nicer ending then i though? YES IT IS! \o/

it "ends" as it starts: with a garden and an apple. ok, make it more explicit why don't you.

oh, you subtle bastards. i love it. other scene's now make more sense too, oh how i love it.

ok, yea it makes sense people go wild over this as it's really bloody great.

[thepictureofsdr]

6, 12, 15 & 18 for the tsc ask game!

already did 6 so i’ll add…. 30 idk bottom to top for duplicates…??? 😭

30 - have you made close friends in the fandom?

i don’t want to be presumptuous and say i matter very much to the people i consider friends but i ADORE the people ive met i love them all so much on tumblr AND twitter, loves of my life

12 - do you prefer modern or historical tsc

HISTORICAL FOR THE WIN im just such a sucker for 1800s/1900s american and european aesthetics, the fashion, the dances and balls in the earlier eras, and the tension from social etiquette culture… it sucked so bad irl but for fantasy i just. ITS SO GOOD

15 - favourite downworlder

it has to be magnus, hes just. its so hard to describe him he can’t be held down by human language but we all know what i mean. hes oscar wilde w magic like what else do i need to say.

18 - fave platonic pairing

ummmm. a few years ago i wouldve said will and jem but i think id get jumped for saying they’re platonic 😭 (fun story actually once i said i usually saw parabatai as platonic and someone subtweeted me 5 minutes later)

ACTUALLY I NEED TO PUSH THE ALEC CLARY AGENDA WE DONT TALK ABOUT THEM ENOUGH theyre so good together i adore them, the way they’ve grown up and grown as people together, came to love and rely on the other… they’re just so GOOD i love them so much, like sneaking out for tacos during one of simons sets… darlings…

[5-7-9]

saw the poll about least liked Batfam but decided to make my own post.

Dick Grayson was the first robin. After learning more about him the less I know why he exists. He’s childish and funny. Probably so Batman wasn’t lonely but couldn’t influence Batman in any way. But then he stopped being that so idk. Batman copycat? But slightly likable but only because his friends make him better.

Jason Todd was hated on for being a kid so he got all these “unlikable” qualities (poverty, drug addiction) and became an unlikable person. He’s alright.

Tim Drake was made to be relatable to a certain audience and it shows.He only perpetuates the Batman industry that should’ve ended years ago.

Damian was created to perpetuate the bloodline to cater to nepotism. But i think they chose Talia so Batman could take him away from her. But it backfired. If we focus on caring about Talia we can expand the conversation about a non white woman again.

Barbara Gordon was created to be a FUCKING love interest. Then to cater to feminists but (mostly) the only the way sexists know how to. But after getting fridged; A wonderful writer made her into an advocate for disabled (handicap). Intersectionality got more supporters to care about her, which is deserved. (Sidenote: Babs reminds me of my very cool competent older sister. So she also unerves me but like in a good way if I wasn’t a younger sib)

Duke Thomas is pretty relatable for a black teen; and he also joined a movement for children taking back their rights (self defense). And introduced the WAR characters which is nice to focus on minority stories again.

Cass is THE asian american diaspora. And her rewritten stereotypes is such a cool way to humanize caricatures AMAZING.

Stephanie Brown was a love interest. Taken down to boost up Tim. Too impulsive to be Robin and left out of stories. Those are the bad stuff. The good stuff is that she’s like Jason ( positive). Stands up against her abusive father. Still sorta close with her mother. Cass’s friend. Okay i lied. There’s one more bad thing about Steph. She’s also like Jason (negative). (And it makes me scared to talk about it because i think there’s some kind of internet thingy about r*df*ms which I don’t agree with because of it’s white superiority centric stuff 😓).

So it’s between Dick, Tim, Steph, and Jason. Downsizing to Tim, Steph and Jason because Dick and the Teen Titans are great. Downsizing to Steph and Jason because Tim came out as bisexual which is ironic but also serves the same reason why Kate was retconned to be lesbian, because it’s a fuck you to the homophobes from the Batman controversies of the past :)

I genuinely believe Steph and Jason could be better, but it’s tough. It’s really tough. I’m downsizing to just Steph because Jason’s relationship with Bizzaro was sweet, and he could have friends like with Rose and Artemis (is she allowed to use that name? Lol) and sorta is already.

Steph isn’t really- i mean, idk. She doesn’t pull in new characters or dynamics, she doesn’t have a narrative relating to Gotham besides her resolved daddy issues which were resolved. The issue could be solved if she joined her own team? Like why is she so lonely bro. She could easily be a good character.

Coming back around to say Dick becoming the new Batman copycat or just whatever self insert writers wanna say, it’s a huge issue. Honestly, the amount of vagueness he is, is annoying. Genuinely goes back to the root core issue, Batman. Dick is barely his own person. All the changes isn’t even because of him anymore. He was taken away from his own backstory just to be for Batman. How dehumanizing is that? He’s just your spokes person supporter cheerleader for whatever you wanna say, and the DC writers sure had a lot of shit to say.

It’s tough. In conclusion, I gotta stop interacting with Batman man. I only joined because of the rouges honestly, but I get it with child rights so of course I’d get to know the batfam, but everything about the batfam fandom has really irritated me. No one here seems to care about children which is ironic

I guess it’s a tie between Dick Tim Jason Steph. Or Dick Tim. They’re boring.

[many-gay-magpies]

Little treat for the Wednesday crowd… I started writing this like the day after I finished watching the show and idk if I’ll finish it, but I figured that if I DON’T there would still be some people interested. So here’s an unfinished piece exploring Wednesday’s mindset, general aspec-ness (because she is aspec and you can fight me on this /lh) and neurodivergence, and unconventional ideas about romance and relationships. Enjoy ❤️

(@fushigojos)

—

Emotions had always been strange friends to Wednesday. It was, in part, what she had told Dr. Kinbott during one of their earlier sessions, prior to the therapist’s violent and untimely murder: emotions were a gateway trait to feelings, and feelings triggered tears, which she had sworn off of after spilling her first and only tears onto Nero’s grave as a small child. They were a liability she could not afford.

This lead many people to mistakenly believe she did not have feelings—which was good, as she quite preferred it when she was perceived to be as cold and unfeeling as the arctic desert. It nipped any ideas about potentially befriending her at the bud and left her in complete solitude, just the way she liked (or, it had until Enid, but that was a story for another day).

Anyway, despite the misconception extending to everyone besides her family (and later, her fellow Nevermore students), Wednesday did in fact feel things. She even enjoyed it sometimes.

She felt content in the center of a thunderstorm; vindicated as she struck the strings of her cello in time with the fire consuming Crackstone’s monument; anticipatory at the appearance of a new mystery, just waiting to be unraveled; thrilled at the promise of torture, whether it was figurative or literal, hers or someone else’s. Still, the common opinion seemed to be that because she didn’t laugh or smile or do “normal” things like get crushes or go to dances, she was an emotionless monster. Thankfully, she didn’t mind being a monster, nor did her parents mind having one for a daughter. The majority of the world being stupidly close-minded and short-sighted was not Wednesday’s problem.

Wednesday knew that she was different. Her being different was never a bad thing; in fact, it was something to be proud of. This was a fact her father and mother both had impressed upon her from a young age.

Some feelings she felt the same as everybody else, others as dark mirrors of their origins, like an angel looking across to the other shoulder and seeing it’s macabre counterpart. Others still she felt completely detached her from the rest of humanity, even from her family—feelings that had never been felt by anyone else before. Feelings reserved for Wednesday and Wednesday alone. They were refreshing, and exhilarating, and incredibly irritating in a million ways she couldn’t name, as well as a million more she could.

The fact that Wednesday didn’t feel things, didn’t see things like the rest of world never mattered, because the rest of the world didn’t matter. She could torture boys in bathrooms and set piranhas loose in swimming pools and it would mean nothing at the end of the day—only another expulsion, another school, another bully to test her patience, wash, rinse, repeat until time freed her from the torturous cycle of the American education system.

None of it mattered, until Nevermore.

Wednesday was used to being the Ghost Orchid in any garden she was planted in, sinking roots into the harsh ground and corrupting everything around her. She took pleasure in it, even: watching the mind of the common teenager whirl, struggle, and eventually cave in in her presence, unable to handle the full dissolution of their narrow worldview.

What she was not used to was caring about the plants whose habitats she upturned.

Wednesday Adams preferred to be alone, until Enid Sinclair stormed out of the room and (at least it felt like) out of her life, taking the rainbow of colors that had plagued Wednesday’s life for the past two months with her.

Enid Sinclair was insufferably bubbly, nauseatingly colorful, and alarmingly affectionate. By every fact of herself she knew to be true and every principle they clashed at the precipice of, Wednesday should have hated her. Instead, she was curled up on the floor at the very center of the line that split their relationship in two, a knife of mourning wrenching itself in her chest with a pain that rivaled that of Nero’s death. When had she grown to tolerate her roomate’s vivacity? When had that tolerance turned into attachment, enough so to feel such palpable loss at her absence?

It felt impossible, that she should look at the side of the room still bursting with color bright enough to give her a migraine and think that anything at all was missing, but she did anyway.

Enid’s words smacked around in Wednesday’s head as sickeningly as the opening to the movie Tyler had shown her in Crackstone’s crypt all those nights ago: because that’s what’s friends do. They don’t have to be asked. The fact that you don’t know that says everything.

How was I meant to know? thought Wednesday bitterly, for the first time opening a valve in a dam of feelings she’d been firmly repressing since she was a child experiencing loss’s first vicious sting. Who was there to teach me? I have never had anyone who stayed simply because they wished to rather than because they had to. I have never had anyone choose me. You were the first, and now I’ve lost you.

Wednesday was a raven, a ghost orchid, a carrion bird. As Xavier would later tell her, anger ripening his words red, she ruined everything she touched. She walked in death’s shadow, feeding on the sinew and marrow of the beasts it took when it was done with them. She hunted death—or perhaps death hunted her, knowing that wherever she circled, it would soon find prey. They walked side by side, neither ahead of the other, closer friends and allies than any Wednesday could hope to find in the living.

She hunted death, so there was little place in her heart for anything else.

—

There were, as previously established, many things Wednesday did not understand. One of them was love. Romantic love, specifically.

It was easy enough to recognize that Enid had a crush on Ajax, register vaguely in her mental catalogue of social repertoire what that meant, and act on it, but Wednesday’s familiarity with the subject started and ended there. She had never felt anything akin to the romance that her parents spoke of so ravishingly, nor did she plan to. Indeed, the closest thing she’d ever gotten to it was probably the sick glee she’d felt at seeing the pool water fill with blood after her swift, brutal enactment of Pugsley’s revenge.

To Wednesday, romantic love seemed an unbearably gushy burden that would only serve to weigh her down in the face of her more practical pursuits, like writing novels and solving murders. Still, she could admit that she wondered from time to time—the same way a carcinologist wonders about the worldview of a shrimp with 16 color receptors—what it felt like.

Maybe that was why she let Tyler kiss her.

Kissing was a strange sensation. Wednesday could not be sure, however, whether the strangeness came from the act itself or from quirks unique to her partner. Truthfully, to form a more generalized opinion on the matter, she would have had to collect data from a much larger study pool than just one person—i.e, a variety of kissing partners in a variety of different settings—but that thought was neither feasible nor especially pleasant.

Tyler’s touch was hot and firm, almost possessive, the slide of his lips slick against Wednesday’s. Equally slick was the curl of some nauseous creature in Wednesday’s gut, something not quite identical to (but perhaps a close cousin of) the curl of dread felt at witnessing a disembowelment.

It was vaguely uncomfortable, but not sour enough to be truly thrilling. Wednesday leaned in again after the first kiss, then again after that, each time waiting for the small twinge of discomfort to unfurl into a beast of dark distaste to be fed by her movements, but it never did. The feeling stayed—disappointingly, underwhelmingly—small.

Wednesday had a moment of wondering if this was just how romance was meant to feel—wrong, not in the way of cosmic horror, but in the restrained dread of waiting for a rollercoaster drop that would never come—before realizing that her parents could not possibly spend so much of their torrid lives obsessing over it if that were the case.

Perhaps it was just her, then: twisting good feelings into sick, perverse mirrors of themselves the way she always did. Her experiences were already so far removed from the societally-established norm; was it really that far of a stretch to say she could not feel pleasure as the rest of the world could?

Then a feeling like touching live where ran all the way up Wednesday’s spinal chord and she was seeing him, not him now but past-him, naked and covered in blood over the mauled body of Dr. Kinbott, and every thought of kissing and romance was wiped from her brain in the face of the pure, unequivocal truth.

[shihalyfie]

@sage-striaton replied to your post:

Idk how people can say Frontier has characters that lack depth. Imo it’s a very psychological season. The whole adventure thing is aimed to making them grown in their behaviours and feelings, it’s a big metaphor of their development

I’m sorry for hijacking your response to my post to segue this into another rant of mine, but I want to emphasize that one of my goals with this blog (if I can be said to have any) is that I really, really, really want people to re-examine whether they actually believe in the rhetoric that’s been dominating this fanbase for two decades, or whether there’s more to it. This is especially in regards to the fact that we’re talking a series deliberately written in such a way that it’ll change meaning and nuance as you get older, so it can “grow up” with you in a sense, and yet it seems like -- especially in regards to Adventure through Frontier, due to their position as the oldest series that the majority of the fanbase was elementary or preteen age during -- people are still regurgitating the same rehashed twenty-year-old ideas like they’re undeniable law. It’s one thing if they’re saying it because the series didn’t sit well with them the first time and they don’t want to watch it again, but we’re reaching a recurring problem where it’s sort of “brainwashing” even people who don’t actually believe it but feel compelled to go along with it, or wouldn’t feel that way if it weren’t for peer pressure. Obviously, there are dissenting opinions, and ones that are even very loud about that, but that pressure remains.

The mainstream opinion in the fanbase is that Adventure is untouchable and impervious to any criticism, 02 is its inferior sequel with half-baked characters, Tamers is an auteur work that’s the “deepest” of the original tetralogy due to being dark, and Frontier is devoid of much substance at all. Even those who don’t really believe in this will still be pressured to go alongside it, those who like 02 or Frontier will be pressured to consider it a “guilty pleasure”, and it’s only very recently when certain events revealed that the idea of 02 actually having quite its own fervent and passionate fanbase that likes it on its own merits became properly recognized. (I have actually noticed a huge uptick in 02 fans, especially casual ones, being more shameless in talking about liking it in the last two years; you’re still going to get the obnoxious person “reminding” you how bad it apparently is if you bring it up, but it’s not nearly as prevalent as it used to be.) I’m not talking about whether something is a “good” or “bad” series -- that concept doesn’t really exist to me as much as whether it’s “to one’s tastes” or not, and I think one of the joys of this franchise is that it has things that cater to people with vastly different preferences -- as much as a lot of potential for analysis and intimate thought about these very fascinating series. Even if 02 and Frontier were as shallow or half-baked as they were accused of, I wouldn’t think it’d be shameful to like them for one’s own reasons anyway, but what frustrates me is that I just don’t think that’s true in the first place!!

Not helping is that there’s still a refusal among the fanbase to admit that there were substantial differences in American English dubbing (especially in regards to Adventure and 02), which I don’t mean as a bad thing in the sense that some people prefer to stick only with that dub and consider that version what they want to work with, but in the sense that the treatment of them as “the same thing” has been horribly detrimental when two people, one coming from that dub and one coming from the Japanese version (or a dub more closely based on it), will end up often having an argument doomed to go nowhere because they were never talking about the same thing to begin with. Recently, a friend admitted to me that although they’d switched to the Japanese version a long time ago, they still couldn’t get the image of Daisuke and Takeru having an inherently hostile relationship (they don’t) out of their head due to the influence of that dub, and although they consciously knew better -- at least enough to admit this to me -- it wasn’t helped by the fact that the fanbase itself continues to reinforce this image because of how normalized it is to treat the dub version and the Japanese version as “virtually the same” and for Western fanbase discourse to assume you should be projecting those takes into the Japanese version. If you’re hanging out in English-speaking circles but are working from the Japanese version or a dub directly based off of it, you do actually have to filter out a lot of takes you’re hearing because they won’t actually apply to the version you’re watching, but not a lot of people realize this.

All four of Adventure through Frontier share tons of key staff, especially Seki, known for her focus on wanting the kids in the audience to be able to empathize with and relate to the characters on screen. All four share some of the best character work I’ve seen not only in this franchise, but also in kids’ media in general, and I also stress that a lot of this has a ton of nuance that isn’t always apparent unless you read between the lines. I do understand that a lot of this probably went over our heads as kids, and I won’t say that the choice to execute it this way should be impervious to criticism, but nevertheless, I think it’s important to call attention to the fact it is there, and much of it becomes recognizable once you see it that way; for instance, so much of "it's contradictory character writing!" comes from the fact that the series tries to represent humans in their inconsistent, messy ways, and while it'll feel "messy" from a writing trope perspective, when you think about it as "since this person has this mentality, does it make sense to approach this with this mindset?", suddenly it becomes very consistent. The supposedly “shallow” 02 and Frontier characters will act in ways that match existing psychological profiles meant for actual humans to terrifying degrees, in ways that you might actually recognize even better once you’ve hit adulthood and start intimately understanding things like depression or anxiety in ways you might not have before. Shockingly, “having heart, important themes, and kindness towards the human condition” are completely valid reasons to uplift a creative work in ways distinct from technical writing or cerebrality or how many tropes they subvert or whatever.

On the flip side, people praise Adventure and Tamers for being the naturally “superior” works with better writing, but when it comes to talking about why the writing is supposedly better, a good chunk of the reasons stated don’t actually explain anything substantial, or go back to actually being passive-aggressive dunks on the other series in some form -- it’s because 02 and Frontier’s character writing sucks that badly, or because Adventure had the “best plot” (which may be true if by “best” you mean “easiest to understand”, but that doesn’t mean much to someone who might not be very happy about how its story progression is just a boss rush), or because Tamers is the “deepest” when by “deep” they actually mean “cerebral, dark, and unsubtle about it” without any further meaning (as if Adventure and 02 were idealistic series that never went into anything nuanced and not, say, the fact they went very viciously deep into societal issues between parents and children, psychological horror, and intimate takes on the human condition). I’m personally saying this as someone who does think Adventure and Tamers have a lot to praise in terms of their approaches to realism and the unique aspects each bring to the table, and I feel that people like this are doing them more of a disservice by not bothering to uplift them for any reason that isn’t actually just inherently condescending. I mean, even taking this outside of the original tetralogy for a bit, when I was plugging Appmon earlier, there’s a reason I focused more on its theme and character writing and the use of “dark” writing to convey its sheer range, rather than trying to boil it down to a shallow “it looks cheery but gets really messed up later!”, which is unfortunately an argument I’ve been seeing about it lately.

In the end, when I write my meta, I write it "making a case" for my point of view, and I welcome others to disagree, but if you disagree, I really hope it'll be because you personally disagree, and not because the entire fanbase has been saying otherwise for twenty years and I sound like a radical. I’m not saying that everyone’s consensus takes are completely unfounded, but frankly speaking, this fanbase has some really bad takes, and in the past few years I’ve found it freeing to not only “say what you feel without worrying what others think”, but actually go out of my way to outright try and purge all the preconceived notions and pick only the ones I agree with because I actually agree with them. I encourage you to do it too! And if you do, you might find things about something you like that you didn’t realize before.

[this-is-a-name-dont-worry]

god young me was blind to the uncanny valley of the smurfs in the movie

why is the cook italian. this smurf should be french not italian have you seen the food he cooks.

why is there a scottish smurf. is it a us thing because they think funny accents are always needed in kid comedy.

gargamel is fun.

neil patrick harris??

his character is called patrick

i dont like the french voice of his wife why does she sound like she's a little girl

smurf with glasses vf is nice though

no but really why is there a scottish smurf his personality looks similar to the one of the strong smurf, who is already one of the regular character in the comics

oh yeah also i get more drama like that, but gargamel does not want to get smurfs for unlimited power, he just wants them to make gold, which is already evil enough because he's ready to kill an innocent creature for greed. like why does he want unlimited power. To get control of kingdoms i suppose? but if such a recipe existed, then all wizards would want smurfs. meanwhile only gargamel really wants them, because he wants gold and it's one of the ways to get gold and he lives close to a village so it's the easiest one. idk it's just annoying the movie changed gargamel's goal with the smurfs. but then i guess an american movie might prefer vague unrealistic goal like "infinte power" to "gets really rich". or really anything than "the bad guy is bad because he wants to become extremely rich to the detriment of others". i mean that one must not feel like high stake enough.

gotta admit it's fun that the smurfs exist as characters of fiction in that universe

patrick, read up on your smurf lore, their name is given when they show a certain aspect of their personality. it can even change following what they decide to do

"pale giant"... why does the scottish smurf acts as if he never saw a human before.

the smurfette feels too. fleur bleue. like yeah she's ~a girl~ in the comics, but she's too much like an innocent shy little girl in that movie

ok so the scene where she taunts gargamel at the toy store was already more in line with what i expect of a smurfette

girl they didn't really chose you, they fell in a dude's bag who turned out to be your husband's

oh no this movie cant have just made me want to imagine a characters react to their story with the smurfs

oh ok there is both the italian chef and the cook it seems. why.

the narrator smurf is a great idea. he's canon in the comics to me. he and the poet are having fun writing session every Tuesday

blue is a weird name

also why the hateful relationship between gargamel and azazel that cat is supposed to be the only thing other than himself that gargamel cares about

you know that film was way more enjoyable as a child who was just happy with smurf content

[paraphernaliawagon]

I highly recommend the “Innsmouth Legacy” series by Ruthanna Emrys. Emrys is a Jewish lesbian author and serious Lovecraft nerd who basically made her own version of the mythos universe that’s more SF adventure than cosmic horror. I mean, there is horror, but it’s mostly caused by people. She got the idea from a throwaway line in “The Shadow Over Innsmouth” that said the US government imprisoned the Innsmouth residents in camps after their raid on the town. Some of the Lovecraft bros who sent her hate mail (because that is of course what the gatekeepers of this fandom do, sent hate mail to women and minority authors, and anyone who dares refuse to fall in line with their cult of personality that considers anything other than endless imitation and apologism for Lovecraft himself an insult and a betrayal) actually had the gall to accuse her of making that up, because actually reading the source material closely and taking what it says seriously is actually NOT what they want, apparently.

The story takes place in 1949 and is from the point of view of one of the few survivors of the Deep One community on land. So it’s about the Deep Ones as a hated, dehumanized religious minority that’s survived attempted genocide justified by lies about them practicing human sacrifice. And one of the other main characters is Jewish.

It’s a heavy read because of the literal concentration camps (scenes that take place there are only in flashbacks.) It has its flaws—for one thing, she also attempts to tackle the subject of the internment of Japanese-Americans in WWII, and doesn’t do a great job of it. (Nearly every time Neko Koto, who is the most prominent Japanese-American character and is basically the heroine Aphra’s teen sidekick, spoke in “Deep Roots,” I was like “wtf no real person talks like this.” There is no way she would call the Deep One elder S’vlk “S’vlk-sama.” Nobody else present speaks Japanese. I think she would call her by her title Khur S’vlk, or just S’vlk because that is what everyone else calls her. Also, yeah, her name is literally Neko. It’s a nickname that she prefers to her given name, Nancy.) And the story is kind of disjointed, especially in the second book, because it’s trying to do too many things with too many characters at the same time. IDK if it’s among the very best modern Mythos literature, but it’s definitely interesting, original, bold, and heartfelt, with a large and diverse cast of interesting characters. And also extremely gay. Worth checking out if the words “gratuitous lesbian fishwoman kiss” make you excited. (there’s one of those in the second book, “Deep Roots”). Basically it’s about marginalized people finding community together in the face of a hostile, frightening and uncaring world. And it’s for people who read the ending of “The Shadow Over Innsmouth” where the narrator talks about swimming out to Y’hanthlei to live forever with his Deep One kin and worship Cthulhu, Dagon and Mother Hydra and thought “i wish i could do that.” (although there’s also that cult in the first book who thought exactly that and tried to do it despite not understanding anything about what they were doing and literally drowned themselves because of cultural appropriation. “cults are bad” is also a major theme here)

I’ve been meaning to talk about these books for some time, but @minerfromtarn ‘s post about Jewish lovecraft protagonists reminded me of them again

[wickedpact]

You can't just drop that "I read Forces Multiplied" bomb on us and not give a ten page written reaction.

[cracks knuckles] if u insist

nicky cant drive hc: destroyed. rip. also i loved how andy and nile stole those sports cars and were being badass and driving off the bridge & meanwhile joe and nicky were just absolutely vibing in the van

'heres the thing about power: people who have it think they deserve it' [shot of police car] i see u greg

5 whole panels being dedicated to booker not being able to unlock his door. booker not even seeing noriko sitting RIGHT THERE in the window at first. incredible

noriko being 24/7 horny was surprising. like wow all of the stuff i saw she did out of context was 100% equally horny in context as it was out of context. love that for her

i didnt think the 'andy + slavery' thing was handled as badly as everyone made it out to be when telling me about it. tho from the way it was talked about i had kind of figured the conflict between andy and nile re: slavery would be really racially charged (esp considering nile is a black american and would obvs have Thoughts on the subject in that regard) but like,, done in a cringey 'a-white-guy-obviously-wrote-it' kind of way? but it wasnt that. i mean. it makes sense that andy would be implicit in slavery through the years

i mean, like she says, is that not what people just did to each other in the aftermath of battles for thousands of years? and i really like how its pointed out that it was what she was raised with (in the beginning when you see her put shackles on that guy after the battle) but she also accepts responsibility for it and acknowledges that it was wrong and not just 'what people did'.

i like how from her expressions you can kind of tell baby andy knew it was off but she sets those feelings aside bc she felt angry. it explains how she felt but didnt make her out to be blameless in it. plus i mean. i dont know, the fact that andy was involved in a lot of morally shady stuff for 7000 years is not that wild for me. if you live that long youre just Going to be involved in some shit, and she didnt even have other immortals with her as positive community influences, she literally just did whatever the fuck she wanted for thousands of years

'i was worshipped as a god once' i mean, yeah no shit she wouldve been involved in some seriously fucked up stuff, gods were fucking scary back in the day

tldr it could use some polish but it wasnt that bad

tho everything people said about moose being boring was unfortunately a little true. sorry king i tried to be interested in you

joe and nicky writing verbal fanfiction about nile and moose was iconic. 'you seeing that?' 'i am definitely seeing that'

it was also extremely funny bc that was like 60% of their contribution to the whole comic, besides kidnapping copley. they came, they wrote some fanfic, they left. kings. at least in tog1 they had an excuse to be useless bc they got kidnapped

joe just found out his old friend who he thought was dead is alive (and also probably wants to murder them) and instead of investigating with andy he stopped to help nile up. champ.

nicky shooting noriko through andy was cool. rip to the concept since it wont happen in tog2

wanna see mr ejiofor deliver this line

on that note imo copley was. weirdly enough, more interesting in fm than in tog1. to me at least. the fact that andy let him live and he was so haunted by what had happened that he came back and sought them out despite knowing they would likely kill him for it bc he wanted to not only make up for what hed done but also to tell them what theyd done for the world was admittedly more interesting than andy just kind of drafting him to the cause and him going 'okie'

i like how nicky was drawn in this one. in opening fire he looks like a blob man but in fm he looks more like a very nice grampa with a very good dye job

'theres no pain like a broken heart' andy 🥺

noriko implying andy's never drowned. .. .idk about that one, she musta drowned sometime

joe and nicky came, they waxed poetic about nile's love life, they waxed poetic about grog, and then they left.

sports bras being a reason humanity is good. i mean..... okay, yeah.

i mean. wild but you cant exactly tell her shes wrong

i liked how noriko telling andy that their purpose is to make people suffer coincides with joe and nicky finding out that they actually did good all those years

joenicky in opening fire: jail for booker jail for booker for 100 years

joenicky when copley tells them he knows where booker is: WE'LL KILL YOU WHERE IS HE

joenicky when copley comes back: if your vibes come off as even remotely rancid we Will destroy you

joenicky 2 minutes later when copley helped them find booker: he made up some ground :)))) <3 lov you j cops

theyre forgiving af

moose: how old are you?? a hundred??? a thousand???

nile [vine voice]: I M 2 7 ?

alright andy you got me there

joe texts like my aunt

i dont know why noriko drowning andy in that car tickled me. Bad And Naughty Andromaches Get Put In The Pear Wiggler To Atone For Their Crimes.

the drowning sequence was cool

copley trying to talk to andy while she was like o_o at him was great

ive hit the picture limit but id seen that panel where nicky goes 'forgive me' as he kills a guy out of context and it was HILARIOUSLY anticlimactic for me to discover that there was literally no context to it. nicky just apologizes to random people he kills. i thought that guy was someone he knew or something. nope its just Some Guy that nicky didnt know from adam

nile's complaint that andy was especially brutal to the guys on the boat... i mean. . , how exactly does one kill a man with an axe and not be brutal about it?

it was funny how noriko kissed andy and the only people who seemed surprised by that were nile and also andy

nicky and joe's complete non-reaction to finding out noriko is alive And Evil Now is endlesly funny. they just left her on that boat and neither cared. i get book and nile not caring but joe and nicky knew her, and they just have 0 input on the subject of what to do with her

pinstripe suit guy!

joe and nicky and booker packing up and leaving with nile

andy blowing up at nile was A Moment tho

i dont know, i get why people didnt like the ending but its. .. . it makes more sense in the comicverse. bc the squad doesnt really. .. interact outside of jobs? i mean, think of the moon landing story in ttt. that was booker and joe and nicky doing a job and andy only showed up a for a couple minutes after it was done. or the brunch in the first issue of opening fire. the squad arent as tight in the comic, and andy often seems to do her own thing outside of work, so andy saying 'i dont want to do work anymore' and the squad being like 'alright bye then' makes more sense in this universe than the movie one

also i feel like greg was Trying to set up a thing where nile becomes the Leader of The Squad after andy dies but like. its not very well done since. . . i mean, nile hasnt spoken to booker since opening fire, (and she only knew him A Day). and shes known joe and nicky all that time, but there isnt really anything that indicates that they have any relationship at all, much less one that's grown. in all the comicverse the only time nile and nicky speak is in FM, and in that scene nicky tells nile about noriko. nile goes from someone who needs to be set aside to have background knowledge explained to her to being the Leader of the group with nothing in between. it kind of... comes out of nowhere.

on the other hand tho... i felt really bad for andy thru the whole thing. well, i always felt bad for andy, but in this one she seemed so miserable, especially since it really felt like none of the others actually.... cared about her. when noriko came back no one asked andy how she was doing (big question ik, but it wouldve showed they cared at least), nobody ever expressed any concern for her, no one even really seemed to want to be around her. in opening fire everyone was more distant than in the movie of course, but there were little moments where she would joke with joe, or nicky would try and comfort her, or stuff like that, but in FM it really felt like they just didnt really care about her. & in opening fire it felt a lot like andy's relationship with nile breathed some new life into her, but in FM it felt like all they did was argue. i get theyre not *as* close in the comics but it really felt like the only person who cared about andy at all was noriko (which was probably also how andy felt) but it just seemed to come out of nowhere. honestly i was reading and i was honestly agreeing with andy that she might just be better off if she did just die. opening fire, on the other hand, never make me feel that way

tho everyone made it sound like when the squad split up it was one of those cursed 'the found family leaves each other at the end of the journey' tropes. but guys i mean,,, this is the second installment out of three. that isnt the End. theyll come back in the third one and Dramatically Reunite to fight some baddies (probably those 'others' noriko mentioned). im guessing yitzhak fits into that too somehow.

anyways it wasnt That Bad but it made me kind of sad and the only Sweet Found Family vibes in it were when they saved booker. also they shouldve beefed up that nilemoose romance, it underwhelmed me. 6.5/10

i also ABSOLUTELY understand all of greg's comments about how you couldnt make FM directly into a movie, he always said that it had no plot and. i get it now. it really didnt have a plot sdfghjkl

[weirdfishy]

My Name kdrama thoughts all in one go bc if not i’ll lose them.

damn you can fit a lot in almost 8 hours

fr i thought taejun was boytoy. right when he wasn’t wearing a suit in the first ep, standing next to mujin looking out on the water, i was like, ‘yeah, they fuck’. and honestly they could have.

also the way that love is stored in the chamomile tea— right after pildo gave some to her i abt had it bc jiwoo cared to give mujin tea and then so did pildo for jiwoo, and he didn’t even want her as a partner in the first place 😭

(oh this goes on and on)

very briefly i thought that gangjae was gonna be like bestie as she went through the organization, but then…yeah i couldn’t watch that scene but i liked how those two assholes were used later. plus his route made sense. they both had conviction but for different reasons.

she got the bisexual haircut…or is it just the ‘asian female becomes deadly so she must have an above shoulder bob with fashionable bangs’ ? is that just an american thing?

like the clear ups and downs with mujin and his trust in people and his care for them and his hurt and emotions and— his character was so good

ohgod when mujin called jiwoo to come to the temple after the monk asked him if he trusted anybody— don’t talk to me bc i cried when he was talking to her at the shrine; one bc his speech was like good good, really hitting the feels and two bc i realized that even though he totally thought of her as some sort of daughter/penance at the core of it was him deceiving her and using her

once he excused no telling her with ‘conviction is needed’ and ‘i wanted you to find out for yourself’ i called bullshit bc it fucking is, he just wanted a pawn and she was so ready to become one…if it were someone else, say, a random kid pushed into him and suddenly on their knees, pledging allegiance, what then— she was penance, sure, but she was a deeper revenge bc donghoon’s betrayal was so close- bc they were so close

i wish there was a single english word for seonbae, but istg i heard it before she said thank you to pildo and pulled a fast one on mujin

pildo and jiwoo’s romantic subplot was pretty good i think, but lemme think for a bit

oh them when jiwoo was tirelessly trying to get gangjae, pildo suspicious and she wasn’t really too subtle before pildo knew, that man was a lil whipped i think. then getting out of the car crusher- oof. bc of mujin, driving a car into the machine, all bloody also from gangjae’s interference? ouch. (oh don’t make me think about how mujin sent the owner away on some odd task to get her out of there before he started fighting)

idk if it’s just me thinking abt this but mujin owed donghoon a life debt for that time and then - ignoring the whole he killed donghoon thing other than donghoon now wasn’t around to claim that debt - said life debt is paid thru saving jiwoo from being crushed (tho it could be argued that he saved her life just accepting the plea for revenge and freeing her bc she was on her way to get trafficked with being so desperate and naive). but then she saves him, killing gangjae- he owes her or she’s free of debt. although i admit it is a concept that could’ve been utilized, it would have had no point, with the way the story was written. it’s just me lol

the stuff w her dad— game changer ohmygod the world came down and people were tested and istg i wish it was within mujin’s characterization for him to just deadpan ‘oh fuck’ when he realized that jiwoo only let him go to kill him herself alsjaksk

idk if yk but i live for the things that humanize the bad guy, like the phantom troupe arc is my gd mf favorite bc of the bond all of them are shown to have; that stuff hits hard, and the emotion mujin is shown to have in the whole series? good soup

idk abt anatomy but idk, when she slashed both of taejun’s calves shouldn’t that have reduced his mobility like significantly? same thing with when the top of her thighs got sliced? idk. love the fiction part of fiction

i was delighted to see the butterfly tattoo lady again, that jiwoo helping her would help later

pildo opening jiwoo’s blinds,,, talking to her and trying to open her up,,,, him leaving and her closing the blinds,,,,, sad

then him getting so gd mad at her for betraying them (and *not* stabbing the captain) when he caught her after she- *sobs* she put her father’s ashes in the family grave, even though she’d been holding onto them this whole time- and then pildo being mad at her at the station and in the hospital parking lot. then him giving her the baton *sob* while handcuffed to her (mm the way they dealt with them so well together) after yelling at her, only trying to change her gd mind bc holy shit he understands now. (his voice over at his trust in her and eval of her past actions in relation to the new info,,, *sob* it’s like the only va we get) after masterfully losing their tail taking jiwoo to the fucking beach,,,, gdi pildo you’re whipped, you latched onto the one thing she shared that was hella personal and you followed through when she was a gd fugitive XD

literally he was talking her through being there for her as she made the decision to go the police way, going outside of mujin’s expectations, and then- and then,,, god the slow motion was emotionally brutal, and so was the way her hand shook and moved out from under his cooling hands, immediately leaving 😭 her anger and grief when she confronted mujin bc he took the ppl she loved from her, the one who understood her and the one she had to learn to understand after he passed. don’t talk to me jiwoo and her father and their relationship is so much

i love how i didn’t get it until it was explicitly shown that mujin was the killer 🙄

jiwoo’s nightmares were so visually and audibly well thought out and *chef’s kiss* — sometimes i mourn the effectiveness of some tools in media bc i would love those kinds of freaking out and flipping through images- the things the masterful transitions convey but in writing. but one,i’m not experienced enough to do it enough justice and two, it really just works so much better when it’s heavily visually based.

WHY THE FUCK ARE PPL SHIPPING MUJIN AND JIWOO WHATTHEFUCK ARE YALL BLIND GO FIND A KDRAMA W THAT ACTUALLY HAS THAT BOSS AND DESPERATE NAIVE TURN BADASS ROMANCE DYNAMIC IF YOU WANT IT BC ITS NOT IN MY NAME

hate to see the lack of females in this :)

[strawberry1212]

“IU - Celebrity” Analysis

THE QUEEN HAS RETURNED!!!

I know it’s unhealthy to simp for celebrities...but IU is an exception. I have been rewatching her new comeback an unhealthy amount of times so I thought I’d share some things/details/background info :))

1) Background

So IU wrote about the lyric writing process this time and OMG I have to copy and paste her whole statement bc it’s so beautiful:

"I have a friend who has often been treated as an eccentric person due to her eye-catching outfit, her unique taste, dynamic talents, defensive mechanisms stemming from shyness, and a personality that clearly knows her preferences. I loved her even more because of these unique characteristics of hers, but for the same reasons, she has been living under more scrutiny and hateful eyes. These are the words I wanted to tell my 'unusual friend' that turned into the lyrics to this song but as I worked on the song, I realized that this is also my story as well. After completing the song, I thought that anyone can be the main character to this song. I'm sure everyone has felt left out at least once in their lives because they dont' meet the standards others have made. I want to tell everyone, including my friend, who were born rough around the edges but special. You are not a person from the star (common saying in Korea to mean someone weird/different) but are like a star."

OK THIS IS SO CUTE!! Because like first of all it’s so poetic...the play on words with you are not from the star, but a star yourself. And the fact that we are getting yet another song from IU that is not another romantic song. One of my long standing frustrations with the music industry (American, Korean, and Japanese), is songs tend to always center around romance, and IU tends to break those stereotypes (Bbibbi, Palette, 23, I-Land, 8, just to name her title tracks), and not only that but the fact that this is about her friend is just so beautiful T_T. Also did anyone else think of Sulli when they read this? Sulli was known for her eccentricity, different style, and being misunderstood, but the translation writes “I have a friend” in the present tense...so idk. 

And just her wanting her fans/listeners to feel like the main character (ಥ﹏ಥ) (I’m not crying you are). This is especially such an important message for Korean and Asian fans in general. I only have my experience in Japan to speak to, but Asian collectivist cultures really punish those who stray from the norm, which not only ends up discouraging those from being unique and themselves, but also impedes social progress (feminism, environmentalism, social justice, animal rights, etc.). 

And I also think it’s key where she wrote “as I worked on the song, I realized that this is also my story as well,”--more on that theme later when I break down the music video.

2) Music Video Analysis

The star motif

So she sort of does a play on words by putting a lot of star stuff in, star being another word for celebrity. And as the lyrics “You're a star painted with a left hand,” she’s talking about how this person isn’t the perfect/usual star, but perhaps a crooked/left-handed one...like the one shown to dot the “i” in the first image of the music video:

The star motif also features later around 1:09 in her dance, she draws a star with her finger.

The music video story

So basically it seems IU is playing two people--one is herself, a celebrity type figure dressed in glam clothes, and the other is the unique, “star” character (a stand in for her friend that she wrote the lyrics about). IU sings about the “star,” “A troubled outsider The walk, the style Through the earphones The music is all minor You have no idea Above your lowered head What the bright lights are Shining towards.”

The music video shows IU in glamorous clothes:

While this “star” character is in her unique/non-glam clothing, walking through the crowd.

We can also sense IU’s isolation, she’s dressed like a princess in this glamorous pastel pink room, but she is alone, and the lights flash almost ominously outside, like the constant threat of paparazzi/people always surrounding her wanting to look in on her life:

Or how the clothing racks gradually disappear, revealing her standing alone worriedly:

The next we see IU standing off to to the side (I believe it’s IU bc she’s in an undercover outfit, but it’s clearly very glamorous), as she hides from fans chasing her:

When the crowd passes, she looks around and catches sight of “star” IU, and is seemingly very taken by her unique beauty:

IU chases the “star,” but loses sight of her, and is once again alone:

The irony here is that a) despite being adored and chased by many, the celebrity IU feels alone, and that b) despite being this glamorous celebrity, celebrity IU adores this unique “star,” that is just living her life, and not universally adored like celebrity IU. Celebrity IU almost seems envious of her freedom and unique style. But as the lyrics say, she also is upset at the way society treats the unique “star:”

“Your weary face looks like/ Someone powered you off/ The heartbeat went too quiet/ The glow you have/ The imagination, identity/ Are on a diet” “

These lyrics I had the most trouble with...I think it means the “star”’s imagination and unique identity are being starved/mistreated by society, like they are being forced to put on a diet. 

Next we have:

“You have no idea/ Still not fully bloomed/ Written for you/ A bygone love poem” as celebrity IU works, it seems, on a love poem for the “star.”

Here the star motif features pretty literally, as she is surrounded by her poem writing as the stars fall across the sky. The “written for you, a bygone love poem” could also be a reference to IU’s other song, Love Poem? Also going back to how this could reference Sulli, I could help but be reminded of how IU wrote the song “Peach” about Sulli’s beauty and how much she adored her friend. 

Next we see IU in front of this huge tapestry of celebrity IU, but this time she is wearing a dress studded with stars, and looking further up. She passes through the tapestry, and this could be like a sign of her growth? Like moving past her huge blown up celebrity image of herself to find her true self in a star studded dress?

She then enters into a dark vacuum where she is surrounded by people dancing with lights (another continuation of the star motif):

I think this is the turning point to the music video. Because now it is celebrity IU surrounded by stars. The next scene shows the people (all the people that once chased her) simply walking past her on the steps, perhaps alluding to how fame is ephemeral. She looks unsure and insecure here.

The next scene is most steeped in symbolism; she is in the same room that she was in alone before looking out at the city, but now the curtains are drawn (symbolizing privacy?) and IU reaches out towards an identical version of herself. Now the line between celebrity IU and “star” IU becomes blurred:

It seems that the left is “star” IU, and the right is celebrity IU, who continues to pine and look up to an almost indifferent “star” IU. “Star” IU gets up to leave, and morphs back into her “star” outfit from the beginning of the video, re-affirming that this is in fact “star” IU.

When celebrity IU notices she’s gone, she rushes up to find her (again paralleling her chase at the beginning of the music video), but when she goes to where “star” IU disappears, she is simply confronted with a mirror: she was the unique star all along!

In a sense, the message here could be that our own unique beauty may seem obvious to everyone else (the viewer knew that “star” IU was the same person (IU) as celebrity IU all along, but it took celebrity IU the whole music video to figure it out.

Almost as if this whole sequence has been inside celebrity IU’s head, she seems to come to this realization on a red carpet surrounded by flashing cameras:

Here she breaks the fourth wall, looking directly at the camera, as if to now realize: “I have been my own unique “star” all along.” She looks at the camera as the music sings, “you are my celebrity,” perhaps to mean that the viewer is her celebrity, or that she herself is her own celebrity, and runs off, away from the cameras (as if running away from her fame for a moment), in her beautiful red dress, free and confident at last. In the past she has always been running to chase “star” IU, but now she seems to be running simply for herself:

Messages/themes:

I think there are a couple of final messages here, and it is truly to IU’s credit that she was able to pack so many themes/messages into one music video. I think the dynamic I’m most interested in is how it runs the age old theme of the harms of celebrity fame, but it puts a very unique twist on it. While it shows the isolating aspects of fame, it also has a positive spin, that the love and affection bestowed upon celebrities isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but rather that we should redistribute that love and affection towards those closest to us, and see each other the way IU saw her friend. It also shows that fame and adoration don’t matter when you are insecure in yourself, given the irony of celebrity IU chasing after “star” IU.

This message that what matters most is cherishing and being cherished by those closest to you is interesting, because it can apply to both celebrities and non-celebrities. Celebrities may be adored, but it can be superficial, so they need the genuine love of close friends. Conversely, non-celebrities may feel super connected to their celebrities, but ultimately they need real life close friends. I think the message serves to both humanize celebrities in this way, while also saying that non-celebrities, and even weird/eccentric people, are deserving of the love and adoration we usually only reserve for picture-perfect celebrities.

I think perhaps the most poignant part, is the message of self-love: how at the end she realized that perhaps despite being pigeon-holed in certain ways as a public figure, she can reclaim her unique, beautiful parts. How we can be envious of others who seem set on their unique path and unafraid, but that we are unique and different too.

Also can we talk about how she served LOOKS!!! All of those outfits were GOLD. Anyways, I hope her music and its message reverberate with people who feel undeserving as “outsiders” and being eccentric. Being different is amazing. And as IU suggests, even though we may not be pop stars, we are all “celebrities” to someone. As the saying goes, “to the world you may just be one person, but to one person you may be the world.”

[siren-virus]

LuckyBoy!AU question (btw, I like this au a lot and love how the dynamics change with everyone here, just saying), Now that we know how Ben operates as a vigilante with his stickers, transformation, sass, uses mana and runes, bickers with criminals and all that jazz; how would he do against the plumbers in general? Against the normal run of the mill plumber? And against a Magistrate if he ever encounters one? How is his relationship with the Plumbers actually? Considering he pranks them a lot apparently and they have some propaganda against him

Also, how does the public react to him? Would they know about his vigilante persona almost as if he was a celebrity of some kind? Would he be an almost unknown vigilante that only the most hardcore of fans, investigators and the like would know of? Would he be considered a cryptid even among the criminals and the common plumbers considering that apparently he's only ever seen by the criminals, Gwen 10, Kevin and Rook on ocassion?

Also also, What would he do with his life (outside the vigilante stuff) while knowing of all the alien stuff his family is always tangled with? Would he get a part-time job in something related to them, or would he act like Ken, trying his best to not be doing anything that relates to them at all?

Finally, I'm also not an american, so idk if they do casual jobs either XD

oh my, I'm glad you like it. If not for social situations being my kryptonite I'd chat your ears off about it. (curse my social awkwardness and my shitty english- is speach dyslexia a thing? cause I think I got that-)

Going up against the plumbers, ok so, we've seen how they function in Omniverse and that is... they don't function well. Maybe when it comes to small crimes, but big ones (like a Vilgax attack) they'll flunk out. The plumbers at their current state aren't equipped to deal with much, just because their stationing is still pretty new and their leadership- apart from Max's- is iffy.

So Ben would run circles around them and take great joy in it too. Most plumbers fear Ben- like I said, there's a lot of propaganda against him. Rather than being the vigilante hero that lurks the street at night, he's like a bad bedtime story to keep kids- or the plumbers in this case- on the "correct" side.

Some of the older veteran plumbers however, think differently of Ben- they don't see him as harmless- Ben will defend himself if he's shot at (and won't attack unprovoked) - But they do take some humour in his antics.

Magistrata are a little more difficult to deal with and less fun to mess with. These guys know their shit. They have some good tech too that works against mana/magic users. Ben has almost been captured by them several times. If he can, he avoids them like the plague. Because if they're around, things are more likely to get done.

I also wanna involve the plumbers kids - Alan, Manny, and Helen, maybe Cooper sometimes, but I like to think Cooper is more in the tech ward with the Galvins.- All of them still consider Ben to be the bad guy. However Alan is slowly being persuaded otherwise- they both have similar humour and Alan really wants to believe that Ben is like them. Wanting to do good for the planet. Manny and Helen, being almost like protective elder siblings, try their best to convince Alan otherwise. But they have seen Ben in action many times, so their perceptions are being warped bit by bit.

He's well known in the media- I mean, he's a human glow stick, so people are very well aware of his existence. Similar to the plumbers, the humans fear him- Will Harangue is responsible for that- The humans Ben has been involved with, however think otherwise, they see him as a hero, akin to Gwen. In most circumstances though, the people will rally together and get their pitch forks and torches. Ben is a witch and must be burned at the stake!

On the underside! The aliens see Ben as a hero, Ben mostly hangs in Undertown and keeps the people safe from actual villains... And Gwen.

Love the cryptid idea, so I wanna try for a running gag. Out of everyone, Cooper has never seen Ben. Anything he's heard has been from other plumbers. Even during times he goes out on missions, he's always MIA when Ben appears - the plumbers are a bit suspicious of that-

Outside of the vigilante life, Ben has a fair amount of involvement with aliens. He works at a cafe (cue coffee shop AU that I'm incredibly soft for ;;; ) this cafe in particular hosts both human and alien guests, one of the very few implemented on earth. Through this coffee shop Ben is able to get on good terms with a few plumbers who will indulge in their daily activities. (it's close by to the plumbers base and just on the outskirts of Undertown.)

Suprisingly the pay is good, but that's because this cafe is under plumber management and they care about their workers and pay a decent wage. -also because not many people want to work there because of the whole alien thing-

The cafe doesn't get in the way of his viglante life, (except maybe he comes to work super tired more often than not.) he takes the day shifts 3-4 days a week sometimes 5 or 6 if a coworker calls in sick. Does the vigilante thing at nighttime. It's when he can be the most bedazzling.

Woo, hopefully that answers your questions.

Also sorry for the long post, but you'll have to bare with it.

[starkey]

[Spoilers for The Haunting of Bly Manor!]

I know everyone is super loving Bly Manor cause ~80′s gays~!!! but some stuff about it sat really bad for me so I’m gonna try to verbalise it. Obviously if you loved it and aren't vibing with a critical analysis I'm not offended if you don't read lol. Also I’m not trying to say that there’s anything wrong with liking it! I just...didn’t, and I want to think about why, for a sec. (Sorry this got a bit long)

I think part of my problem is that I count Hill House as one of my favourite shows ever and I had ridiculously high hopes for Bly Manor, which probably couldn't ever have been fully realised. And there was actually a lot about it that I liked, especially at the begining. I thought the kids were great, and I loved the core group of Mrs Grose, Owen, Dani and Jamie. I liked the fact that the Henry Wingrave element was expanded upon, and I liked the complexity of Rebecca and Peter, and the room it gave them to be fully realised human beings. I quite enjoyed that they kept to the Hill House ghost mythology - that ghosts are lost in time but fixed in place, and that they jump from memory to memory, and haunt the people that they care about without knowing. But there were lots of things I wasn't so keen on...

Until the last episode my issues were mainly that it felt a bit...lazy? I can't stress it enough but the british accents were really really bad. Old!Jamie’s accent was deeply unbelievable and jarring, as was Henry Wingrave's, and although Peter’s accent was passable (I assume because the actor is English and not American like the others) it still didn’t match his mothers, or his ‘background’ - i.e. it sounded like a private school Edinburgh accent, not a Glasgow kid dragged up through poverty in the scheme - and yes there is a significant difference in those accents. I appreciate there’s a degree of privilege at play here - I’m used to the BBC producing high quality television where these details aren’t messed about with, and the production of Bly Manor was thoroughly American, but to put it in perspective, it would be like... if a character had a deep south dirt-poor Louisiana upbringing and spoke like somebody from a private school in Virginia. Other details also felt off - Rebecca’s costumes all seemed weirdly 2020-adjacent, none of the fashion or ancillary details seemed to match the UK in the 80s (which has a distinct feel), and the house that Peter returned to on his ‘memory bumps’ looked much more like an LA condo than a Scottish council house. Really, they should have just set it in America, because it felt more American than British, and they clearly didn't have any British people involved in the production.

I really didn't enjoy the narrative framing device of 'someone telling a story to a group of people at a party'. It makes sense in the Turn of the Screw, because the narrator is reading from a document written at the time of the events, so the narration becomes a first person one where the degree of detail is logically accounted for. In this take, the story alternated from being one which made sense - us just watching the characters move around normally - to one in which 'Jamie' (who’d apparently had a complete personality transplant that had turned her from a feisty northern lesbian into a coy, mysterious victorian englishwoman with a severe accent problem) adopted a falsely old-fashioned manner and told the wedding guests a ten hour long story about a haunted house.  And somehow neither Flora nor Miles recognised any part of this story in the least, in spite of what must have been overwhelming similarities? It was very jarring.  

I also kept waiting for a twist on a level with Hill House, but never got one. The big twist about Mrs Grose was, I thought, obvious from almost the first episode. I mean the woman didn’t eat or drink anything and spent most of her time confused about where she was, I thought it was fairly clear that she was a ghost. And yeah, I suppose because I’ve read the book I was never in any doubt that Peter was already dead. The ghosts in the background were much less spooky than in Hill House. They stood around in broad daylight while the characters talked and joked and it kind of felt like the ghosts had wandered in by accident and felt too awkward to leave. I really liked how spooky Hill House was - even apart from the jump scares I thought the psychological elements and the open discussion of death and grief was really affecting. I didn’t feel that at all in Bly Manor, and by the time we found out the details of Mrs Grose’s death, I’d already come to terms with it.  But all of this would have been fine, if it hadn’t been for the last episode.

I really really didn’t enjoy the bury your gays ending. And I’m not even usually against this in principle! I think in a dark/horror context, where there’s implied to be an ever-present threat of character death, it’s unreasonable to expect that no characters will die or experience tragedy - and in cases where there’s abundant LGBT rep some of those characters will by necessity not be cis/straight. So I don’t have a problem with gay characters meeting tragic or dark ends, as a general rule, particularly when it serves a narrative purpose and isn’t gratuitous. My problem here was in the manner and necessity of that death.

There were ways in which Dani could have died in this story that I would have felt were narratively meaningful and cathartic, but the manner in which she did die failed to hit those beats for me. This is a story in which two women in the 80's fall in love and are doomed by the world around them (we're already in Meryl Streep 'groundbreaking' territory here, in terms of metaphor). They know death is coming for them, that it will likely destroy them both, that they won't have an opportunity to grow old together, that eventually one day it will catch them and everything will be over - they're on borrowed time, and they spend a lot of that time looking over their shoulders waiting for shit to break bad. In the end, they're destroyed by a force in Dani's body/mind that she can't fight, that she can't win against, and the spectre of which haunts her through the years. Like... the obvious parallel here is mental health, and suicide - they even go out of their way to feature that classic heartsink moment with the overflowing bath. And to me, any story that has a message of 'no matter how strong you are, no matter how much love you have and give, or how beautiful the life you've built is, eventually the dark forces in your mind will Get You and it'll probably be before you make it to middle age' is... really shitty. The other echo that struck me was the HIV/AIDS crisis - obviously wlw were relatively spared from this, in comparison to mlm, but it still carries a cultural legacy of pain and trauma, and I really didn't need this show to grind down on that for me.

And the thing is... in the original story, the governess doesn't even die! Miles does, so maybe there's an argument here that Dani sacrificed herself in exchange for Miles's life in this retelling, but I'm still struck by this element of, like... they added this in! They chose to do this! Only one character dies in the course of this show (with Mrs Grose dying before the show starts) and it's the gay woman?? Why?? What did it show?? Why was it necessary?

Not to mention, the 'epilogue' scene paints Jamie as being very lonely and isolated. I'm not sure why the children didn't recognise ANY elements of this story from their past - even assuming they forgot the ghostly elements of their childhood, they should be able to see the similarities in the characters, but the scene also seems to imply that Jamie really isn't very close to Miles and Flora, and that she doesn't even really get to have a relationship with them as adults, in spite of losing everything to protect them, and not having any family of her own.

Almost everybody else gets a happy ending, but Jamie ends the night of the epilogue standing alone at a table, with the love of her life dead in a cursed lake, doomed to spend eternity watching over a crumbling house, and idk to me? that kind of sucked.

[im-not-looking-for-forgiveness]

Hi! I saw you said your requests were open? If they are I was wondering if you can maybe write a future!reader X Tommy Shelby story? Idk like maybe she gets stuck before the war? And she becomes close to the shelby family? Then they go off to war and when they come back Tommy’s not the same and then everything with grace and the reader is heart broken? They were never together but there was always something there. When Tommy chooses grace reader leaves?

Time to be Alive - Thomas Shelby x Reader - Peaky Blinders AU

Full request: "Hi! I saw you said your requests were open? If they are I was wondering if you can maybe write a future!reader X Tommy Shelby story? Idk like maybe she gets stuck before the war? And she becomes close to the shelby family? Then they go off to war and when they come back Tommy's not the same and then everything with grace and the reader is heart broken? They were never together but there was always something there. When Tommy chooses grace reader leaves? Continuation of my last lol So reader maybe ends up back in her time? When Tommy and the shelby's finally realize there all heart broken? Maybe she eventually comes back? Idk just a thought."

A/N: I absolutely love this request! I'm making it into a series, instead of just doing one long part. I think it'll be better that way, since it's such a rich idea! Also, this is really fun to write because of pre-war Tommy!!!! From what I gathered and from how I imagine him, I see Tommy as happier and more carefree.

Taglist: @tranquility-or-chaos @captivatedbycillianmurphy @hxnky-cat @imagine-richards @sweetiekokkiri

*****

“Fuck!” you bit out, cursing both your ability to travel through space-time and your inability to remember to check if your phone had been in your pocket.

You used your power to get away from a man stalking you because you didn't have your phone, and now you couldn’t find your way back the present day. Jumping, as you named it, was like being on a very long leash and then running through a maze. You could see that there was a way back, but you had to untangle all the rope in order to do so. On top of that, you needed to replenish the energy you lost by running through the figurative maze. It had been a fun trick when you were younger, but it was too inconsistent. You could get stuck, like you were now, while waiting for your energy to come back. Your longest stint on one of these trips had been a little over a year, and that had been bad enough. You had a feeling that this one was going to be very, very long.

First things first, you had to figure out where you were and when. Then, it was clothing and housing that you had to get to next. Those were always the trickiest parts since you had a bad habit of seeming extraordinarily out of place. Being from the year 2020 could do that to a person. You tried to study world history in order to prepare, but you never really ended up in the era or the place that you’d been studying. Some superpower this was, right?

You emerged from the alley, and immediately the pungent scent of the city hit your nose. This was some sort of industrial era for sure, but you needed a newspaper to double-check.

Folding your arms around your chest in an attempt to hide your modern looking black top and trousers, you went down the muddy street to find a newspaper stand. Surely they must have one, if the early Ford cars were anything to go by. Perhaps you were in the early 1900s?

"Please be the twenties." you muttered to yourself. It was your favorite era to learn about in school, and you had been to that time period once before. Though, you hadn't gotten stuck there and it was after the war.

Spotting a newsstand, you hurried over to it. You just needed to see the date, and then you could be on your way. The muddy ground sucked at your boots uncomfortably, threatening to pull them off.

"Hello, dear. Paper?" a man asked, his accent strong but hard to pinpoint. It seemed to be a blend of English and Irish.

"Thanks, but I just want to see the headline. I don't need the whole thing." you gave a smile, and quickly sought out the date. If he noticed your American accent, he didn't comment.

May 3rd, 1914.

You scanned the paper quickly, and then walked away. You didn't want him to get annoyed with you, especially since you were suddenly close to tears. You'd gone back to Birmingham, England before the start of the first World War. This was bad, very bad indeed. Fuck.

"At least you don't have family to worry about." you muttered bitterly to yourself, eyes stinging. You should have just tried to fight your stalker off instead of using your power. You wish you'd never used it in the first place.

Lost in a torrent of anger and regret, you kept walking until you found yourself inside a horse stable. You couldn't get anything done with you being in such a state, so you figured you might as well stay until you could figure out what to do. It was warm and dry here, and it was unlikely anyone was going to ride one of these animals until the morning. Or so you hoped.

You nestled into the corner, and borrowed a horse blanket to cover yourself. Cold and exhausted from the day's events, you tumbled into an uneasy sleep.

"Hey! Wake up, you're not supposed to be in here." a man's voice startled you awake. It felt like only moments since you'd shut your eyes, but the early morning sun pouring in told you it had been hours.

"Sorry. I have nowhere else to go." you mumbled an apology, finding the eyes of the man above you. They were a startling shade of blue and held such weight that you could almost believe he had some sort of power of his own.

"It's alright, just get up. Arthur is the one you have to look out for. What's your name?" he answered. You couldn't help but notice how smooth his voice was. He could probably talk anyone into anything if he wanted.

"Y/N. Uh, what's yours?" you asked him tentatively in return, getting up and brushing off bits of straw and dirt. Oh shit, your clothes! Your clothes were definitely not a trend for women these days, nor had the style even been thought of yet. Had he noticed?

"Thomas Shelby, but you can call me Tommy." the man said, taking the blanket from your hands. His gaze skimmed down your body, and you immediately knew he had caught on. Shit!

Tommy questioned immediately, "Where are you from?"

"The year 2020, almost 100 years in the future." you got out, feeling inexplicably like you could trust him with your secret.

He snorted with amusement, "Alright, and I'm God."

You felt desperate to convince him, "I'm serious. I'm not from this year. Look, see my wristwatch? You don't have this kind of technology yet."

Thomas' eyes were transfixed on the metal around your wrist. The digital face read out the time in bright green numbers: 7:09a.m.

While showing your (missing) phone would have been a bigger shock, you knew better than to show him too much. It wasn't so much that you were afraid he would try to replicate it, but that showing him something from the future would cause too much havoc in the current day. You never wanted to find out what directly messing with the timeline of events did if you could help it.

"What are you doing here?" he demanded, taking a step forward. With you already in the corner, you had no choice to put your back against the wall. You wondered again if he had some sort of power.

"I have the ability to travel through time. I don't know why or how it works, and it's very unreliable. I was trying to ditch a man that was following me, and I ended up stranded here. I can't leave until my powers are working again. That's the only explanation I can give." you told him helplessly, gaze caught in his.

Tommy stared at you a while, not even blinking. You hoped he wouldn't find a way to lock you up, or send you to an asylum. You'd already been through that before, too, and had to wait two weeks until you were able to jump out of there. The one unwavering conclusion that you'd learned from your using your power was that humanity always feared what it didn't understand.

"Alright. I believe you." Thomas acknowledged, taking a step back once more.

"You do?" you sighed in relief.

"Yes. You'd either have to be mad or honest, and my bet is on the latter. It's too insane a story to make up just for being caught sleeping here." he gave you a small smile, which made your breath catch in your throat. It was such a dazzling display that it caught you off guard. He was breathtaking.

"Wow. Alright, then. Most people don't believe me that quickly." you gave a nervous chuckle.

"I'm not most people. Come on, we've got to find you a job and a place to stay if you're going to be here a while. Oh, and take this. Your clothes will attract attention." he said, beginning to head out of the stables. He paused on the way to shrug off his coat and give it to you.

"Thank you, Tommy." you said, mouth enjoying the way his name felt. You took the offer and slid into his warm coat. It smelled of hay and some sort of soap, a comforting smell.

For the first time since arriving in 1914, you weren't thinking of how to get back to 2020.

To be continued...