hiddenbrugh:

are we all going to ignore how much Allen Leech looks like Niall from 1D

Yes.

the-assbutts-havethe-phonebox:

I’ve been thinking about this for a very long time (I’ve had slow days at work, ok?) and decided that I’m done looking past the plot holes and the snobbery of how only the high-class, pretty people, or his own pets ever get a happy ending, how utterly clueless Fellowes is to any culture that isn’t aristocratic English people. I’m done with it all and what really, truly upsets me, is how much he’s cheated as a writer. 

He’s cheated Tom and he’s cheated Edith. As a writer myself, (granted I’VE never won an Oscar for it but still…) I cringe every time I see the third season and see what’s become of Tom Branson and Edith because they were two of the best characters Julian had made and he didn’t even know it. There was the opportunity for true character development. There was the opportunity to show how a working class chauffeur CAN be better than what he was born with. How the times changed after the war and houses like Downton and the people in them were no longer on top of the food chain because that is what ACTUALLY happened. Instead he took Tom and made him a conformist. He sat him back down, gave him a baby and a dead wife and made the Crawleys make him their servant once again. That wasn’t the point of his character. He made Tom come back full circle; back to where he began only this time he is a weak and broken man with the love of his life dead and his other love, his country, a place he can never go back to. (Except in reality he could definitely go back because at this point Ireland is a free state; but of course in Julian Fellowes’ world, if it’s not convenient, we don’t talk about it.) 

Even with Sybil dead, there were ways to make Tom still have the fight and the spirit that were so special and unique about him. Instead he was used as a prop to dig Robert, the rich, important man, out of the hole Fellowes had written himself into. 

And Edith Crawley. My God, Edith! Edith had the potential to be one of the strongest, most interesting female characters I’ve seen in a long time and instead Julian uses her as his own personal punching bag. I hate how he refers to Edith as someone who will “settle for anyone” or how he seems to treat her with such unimportance. The reason the other characters on the show have such a low opinion of Edith is because Julian Fellowes himself has a low opinion of Edith and I cannot stand that. How can he create a character whose only purpose is to be abused? I love all the characters I create. They are all my babies, even the ones I can’t stand. 

Edith had the potential to embody what the modern young woman was in those times. The 1920s were such an important time for women and Edith was the perfect opportunity to show an unconventional girl (by the times’ standards) who started out wanting tradition and became someone who finally realized that getting married and running a house like her mother and older sister perhaps wasn’t what life had planned for her. 

The way she seems to be written, Edith is smitten with Sir Anthony for all the wrong reasons. When she first meets him, she wants to spite Mary, then she simply likes the attention someone is finally giving her, and at the end, she realizes that if she doesn’t marry soon she’ll be the maiden aunt. It’s never easy to watch a younger sister get married before you.

The thing is that even through all the awful writing that begs to make Edith seem pathetic, I see a very damaged and lonely girl. She wanted to be with Sir Anthony to take care of him, to make him “her life’s work” and that saddens me because it makes me think that Edith doesn’t value herself very much. She thinks that caring for a man that needs her will give her life purpose because it couldn’t possibly have any living it for herself. It upsets me that the writer and the Crawley’s have put her down so much that her biggest ambition is to marry Sir Anthony just to feel like she’s touched at least one person, changed ONE person’s life in some way. Isn’t that how her relationships have always been? 

They’ve always been about caring for someone else, and never about a man loving her for her. I hate that Fellowes doesn’t think Edith worthy of love and only gives her men that SHE can love, but none that can love her first or even as much as Edith loves them. 

The biggest problem with all of this is that Edith’s misfortunes are there for Julian to highlight how great of a person Mary is. She is his pet. Mary Crawley is absolutely flawless and can do no wrong in Julian Fellowes’ eyes. Edith is the bitch for telling on her about Pamuk, Edith deserved getting her proposal sabotaged by Mary, Edith got left at the altar because Mary was the one that needed the wedding. Even when Edith shows greater strength of character, asking Mary if they could please get along as they stand over their sister’s DEAD BODY, Mary, in her usual snobbery, rejects her and puts her down. That broke my heart even more than sobbing Tom in the background. 

So fuck you, Fellowes. Fuck you for making Tom Branson Robert’s puppet and for keeping him in a country that is not his home as a servant all over again. Fuck you for taking the most relatable female character in the show and making her into a joke, using her to dump every misfortune you can think of and having her come back even more pathetic than before when in reality, Edith Crawley would have come back stronger, (there was an attempt at it when she started writing, but then the Editor happened) she would have become a wonderfully happy, independent, intelligent, modern woman. It kills me that he can’t see that. It kills me that we are left with 5 minutes of screen time of these two wonderful characters and the rest of the show is filled with Carson’s snobbery, Bates angst, Mary angst and Robert being a complete and utter moron. I will never tire of saying it: this show should have ended in season 3. Fellowes’ characters seemed to have outgrown him. 

Did you ever know that you’re my heeeerooooo

hamburgerjack:

usetheforcelucius:

confessions-of-ice-and-fire:

“Robert doesn’t get enough hate”

- submitted by anonymous

I’M SCREAMING.
usually you see “such-and-such doesn’t get enough love” but this confession is glorious

and I agree with it.

He really was awful

queenlovett:

leighboyd:

I guess Tom could be redeemable… probably in the next season… poor guy getting into it with a Duke. Then losing his letters. 

I think I will like Mary and her little sister, I like that blond maid and Daisy, I don’t know if I like the parents, and Edith should take a knife in the bum. 

ruineshumaines:

Forming and Fragmenting by Andre Wee is a series of imagery that depict portraits that exist in an eternal state of transition. It is however, uncertain as to whether these figures are in the process of “forming” or “fragmenting” due to it existing in such an undefined state. This inability to define, ironically labels these entities as beings that embody the idea of a limbo. An experience of being of two different states at the same time and yet, not belonging to either.

repmet:

For kinghanalister who posted this as inspiration. Hope you like it! Part of my blind Tom AU.

Thanks to babageneush for the beta.

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agentgraham:

based on this post

{Indian Couture} Part IV | Satya Paul

crossedwires:

ungyo:

(x)

#so when sulu is killed in the first ten minutes of the next movie we’ll all know why

Nord belief holds that the honored dead live forever in Sovngarde.

thecakebar:

Nutella Stuffed Brown Butter & Sea Salt Chocolate Chip Cookies