#like he looked almost 3d??? like I could see the gloss on his lips in HD and everything lmfao

[crybaby-bkg]

I forgot to say something earlier bc I had work to do but I had a dream last night that Shigaraki was stalking me and tryna kill me but then gojo came out of nowhere to save me and like. good lordt. that dream felt so REAL but ONLY when it came to gojo???? like it felt more like a memory than a dream and he looked and felt so realistic and I woke up so sad omg I miss him </3

[downtonabbeyrevisited]

Series One - Episode Four

The fair has arrived at Downton and with it another 47 minutes and 58 sections of madness. This was always going to be a tough episode, given that it follows the finest hour that British broadcasting has ever produced, but it does give us a real idea of what Downton Abbey viewing is going to be like from hereon in. Every plot point gets four lines or five minutes of total screen time (whichever comes first); the hint that Mrs Patmore is going blind gets a single line and there is a fleeting glimpse of Carson counting some wine. But there are some lovey arty shots of Downton and it’s grounds and it all goes a bit Ang Lee’s ‘figures in the landscape’. 

The poster for the Downton Village Fair advertises such delights as “Find the lady” and a “helter skelter” but it’s the “and other various other amusements” in fine print at the bottom that intrigues me: what’s the betting it’s a Laser Quest? Thomas takes this as an opportunity to further string Daisy along and take shots at William along the way whilst the latter rolls out his mediocre piano playing again. Mrs Patmore tries and fails to drop the hint to Daisy that Thomas is on another bus but this falls on deaf ears. Daisy later goes on to proclaim that Thomas has “lovely teeth” and I’d never noticed it before Daisy, but he does. Throughout the episode Thomas descends to bullying William and in doing so introduces Dark!Daisy (a tag I’m heartbroken to see has not yet made it’s way onto AO3) and solidifies Mr Bates’ role as emotional supporter/defender as he rams Thomas up against a wall, bringing the ‘Body Slam’ count to two in five episodes which seems like an awfully high ratio for a show based on a very much glossed over view of the past. 

Matthew, presumably taking a break from being Downton’s answer to Sarah Beeny, has also come to the fair and delights us all with a rather ineffectual tossing of balls at coconuts. Mary joins him and it turns out that they both have appalling aim. It’s a metaphor for everything and they are clearly made for each other. Later in the episode they will enjoy the world’s longest and most deliberately framed handshake but Mary’s mind is elsewhere. Kamal has remained very firmly with me for nine years having only seen a 2D rendering of his 3D form, so I can only imagine the sorts of things running around Mary’s head. But the guilt trip continues and I’m already at the stage of willing everybody just to chill. out. Given that all involved actually held it together on the night in question, the meltdowns now seem a bit late. Mary’s cry of “I’m a lost soul to you!” is a tad dramatic and I think we (Cora, the viewers, my dog that ran into the room thinking someone was being attacked) could live without it to be honest. There are plenty of fish in the sea Mary, and you’ve just go to choose one that doesn’t mind your dabbling with the vestiges of the Ottoman Empire and can adequately drive a car, in what can only be described as perfect motoring conditions, without crashing it.  

Also at the fair is Mrs Hughes and her alter ego Elsie. When asked if he was going to the fair, Carson’s eyebrows shot up in horror at the thought but maybe if he knew that smooth talking man of the people Joe Burns was around, he might have had a slightly different reaction. As it is, Carson doesn’t go and Elise goes to a pub to learn just how very 100% totally available Joe Burns is. Elsie receives a rather roundabout proposal before Joe demonstrates that he is yet another Downton character with appalling hand/eye co-ordination. However he perseveres and his victory at the ring toss is declared in a truly weird voice by an out of shot character (Seriously, watch it back: it’s haunting). Upon her return to life as Mrs Hughes, Thomas remarks that she was looking “sparkly eyed” and within seconds, Bates is there to admonish him. That man can move fast when he needs to. Later in the butler’s pantry, Mrs Hughes and Carson have a heart-to-heart with Carson looking steadily more uncomfortable whilst Mrs Hughes fondles a scarecrow. As the only montage that I can remember in Downton’s history shows, Mrs Hughes turned down Joe and Chelsie fans everywhere breath a sigh of relief. 

Whilst Matthew may be making his mark in the Abbey, his mother is not one to be outdone. Molseley’s hands have done something bizarre and in the twentieth century version of googling an innocuous cough to find that you have cancer, Cousin Isobel almost immediately hands him the diagnosis of erysipelas that requires some convoluted treatment that Molseley neither wants, or as it turns out, needs. Violet quickly brings the medical scores to a draw with Isobel as she makes up for the early dropsy debacle by correctly diagnosing Molseley with a Rue allergy. Clarkson, you can tell, is holding back the urge to do a little dance. 

The arrival of Branson and the entire geopolitical and cultural struggles of the Irish people creates a stir both upstairs and down. On day one he’s got his eye on the Earl’s library (although I can’t imagine that Robert has all three volumes of Das Kapital) and by day two, he’s eating in the wrong place and taking digs at the charitable efforts of the Abbey. But little does anyone know that King Julian has big plans for Branson and the smile that he gives as Sybil talks about women’s rights is very much the thin end of the wedge. Branson says that he is “quite political” before handing Sybil some pamphlets that he has collected about the vote. I do love Branson but he is the sort of person that I can totally see mansplaining things on Twitter. By the end of the episode it’s already escalated to Branson looking slightly creepily through a window as Sybil cosplays as Jasmine whilst the upper echelons of society look on mystified. 

Romantic declaration of the moment 

I’m giving this section over to Anna and her cold. Mr Bates appearing with a tray was rather lovely but does pose some questions: 

How did he go up all those stairs balancing both the tray, his presumably still quite mangled leg, the cane and the rest of his person? 

Did he go out in the dark with a pair of secateurs and cut those flowers? 

My only answer to those two questions is that fellow romantic Branson must have helped him: headcannon accepted. 

Expressive eyebrow of the week 

This award goes to the Earl this week for his reaction to Carson declaring that he would rather be put to death than work in a tea shop. The typically repressed English upper class “quite so” that escapes Robert’s lips is followed by a look of bemused alarm. If he were Fleabag, this is when he would have broken the fourth wall. 

Runners up prize goes to everyone’s face at The Trousers™  and Violet v. The Swivel Chair. 

Wait, what? 

“One can’t go to pieces at the death of every foreigner, we’d all be in a state of collapse whenever we opened a newspaper” Yet more evidence that Violet is the love child of Nigel Farage and Ann Widdecombe. 

“I have to go cap in hand to Mary Queen of Scots!” Lesley Nicol is having far too much fun playing Beryl. 

“It seems unlikely, a revolutionary chauffeur” Is Sybil aware of what period drama she is in?

“If you don’t change, you die” Or you do change, Matthew, and you die anyway.

“I won’t always be a chauffeur” is stated with some confidence which seems odd given the fact that when Branson stops being a chauffeur, he hates it and will indicate at any given moment this to the nearest available character.

”I took a lover with no thought of marriage. A Turk! Think of that!” I do Mary. Quite regularly.

I’m doing this rewatch on quite a fancy TV and as such I’m being afforded all sorts of visual delights that the resolution on my 2010 screen failed to yield. Perhaps the most troubling of these is that Thomas is going slightly grey at the sideburns. I would insert some pun about using ‘Just for Men’ here but I’ll leave you all to make up one yourselves. 

“If she’s got a boyfriend, I’m a giraffe” This seems like an analogy lost somewhere in translation. It has smacks of Gino D'Acampo’s grandmother.