pollyshelbysbaby

Trash for peaky blinders and other well written (probably historical) things. A lot of YA fiction too, especially Leigh Bardugo. Also Noughts and Crosses.

[medusa-was-innocent]

Resenting the male gaze but also being obsessed with how you’re perceived by others

Margaret Atwood /// Susan Sontag /// Real Men - Mitski /// Shame is an Ocean I Swim Across - Mary Lambert /// Birds of Prey (2020) /// post by jitterati /// Liquid Smooth - Mitski /// Jennifer’s Body (2009) /// Bravado - Lorde /// Diagnosis - Cynthia Cruz

[pollyshelbysbaby]

I'm rewatching the vampire diaries and honestly can't believe how in love with Damon we all (by we, I mean I) used to be. I mean, I get that it was a different time and back in the day he was the kind of guy we were all supposed to lust after buuuuut he's toxic af, ignores everyone's consent REPEATEDLY, is actually the cause of a lot (see: 97%) of the problems and generally acts like a dick.

My favourite thing about Damon is his relationship with Stefan.

Meanwhile Stefan is putting out fires all over the shop, looking after everyone, giving everyone their daily dose of vervain to protect them and generally being the only adult in the room. Every single problem so far has been solved by Stefan doing whatever needs to be done and trying to protect everyone. Not to mention he's the only one that ever realises when Katherine is pretending to be Elena. AND he's hot as fuck.

Rewatching has cemented for me the fact that this story is ACTUALLY about Stefan.

I have to give more props to Elena this time around too lol sis is constantly going THROUGH it and is always ready with an impromptu stake. I respect it.

Honorary shoutout to Matt, who is BEAUTIFUL. I feel like he didn't get enough flowers for actually just being a wholesome, kind guy who was struggling to pay his mortgage but was still there for his friends through all their vampire shit??

I'm only on season three though so maybe I'll feel different as I get further in but idk.

P.S Bonnie should be in this show 350% more.

[pollyshelbysbaby]

I've now gone through ripper Stefan and I STILL like him more than Damon.

And I would 100% watch every minute of Keeping up With The Originals if they made it.

[pollyshelbysbaby]

I'm rewatching the vampire diaries and honestly can't believe how in love with Damon we all (by we, I mean I) used to be. I mean, I get that it was a different time and back in the day he was the kind of guy we were all supposed to lust after buuuuut he's toxic af, ignores everyone's consent REPEATEDLY, is actually the cause of a lot (see: 97%) of the problems and generally acts like a dick.

My favourite thing about Damon is his relationship with Stefan.

Meanwhile Stefan is putting out fires all over the shop, looking after everyone, giving everyone their daily dose of vervain to protect them and generally being the only adult in the room. Every single problem so far has been solved by Stefan doing whatever needs to be done and trying to protect everyone. Not to mention he's the only one that ever realises when Katherine is pretending to be Elena. AND he's hot as fuck.

Rewatching has cemented for me the fact that this story is ACTUALLY about Stefan.

I have to give more props to Elena this time around too lol sis is constantly going THROUGH it and is always ready with an impromptu stake. I respect it.

Honorary shoutout to Matt, who is BEAUTIFUL. I feel like he didn't get enough flowers for actually just being a wholesome, kind guy who was struggling to pay his mortgage but was still there for his friends through all their vampire shit??

I'm only on season three though so maybe I'll feel different as I get further in but idk.

P.S Bonnie should be in this show 350% more.

[pollyshelbysbaby]

I've just read The Green Bone Saga by Fonda Lee and I need someone to scream about it with me.

Please. Jade City fans, where are you, I'm dying 😭

This series is so so good, would recommend to anyone who loves crime families and cool fantasy worlds. It has some of the best writing I've read in a while, and now I want to join a clan, cover myself in jade and pledge my loyalty to the Pillar.

[pollyshelbysbaby]

Well, Normal People was an emotional journey I was not ready for. Ready to die and come back as the chain on Connell's neck tbh. Catch me in Carricklea trying to find a football lad to have tension with for the next half a decade. Fuck. Such a damn good book made into such a damn good show.

[pollyshelbysbaby]

I rewatched some eps of Noughts and Crosses and noticed how they kind of use this song as Callum and Sephy's theme when they're together AND I ADORE IT.

Every music choice in the show has been pretty amazing but this one stands out to me tbh.

[bleulone]

noughts and crosses (2020) — 1x01

“ let me remind you of a certain truth ”

[pollyshelbysbaby]

Noughts and Crosses...just wow. What a wow.

This is the adaptation 12 year old me has been waiting for all this time. Watching it has just made my heart feel so full.

They thought of EVERYTHING. The plaster scene. Kay-lem. 'You might even get some colour'. 'You know they drink.' THE BLANKER SCENE.

And the production design is so meticulous and thoughtfully crafted. The landscapes, the statues, even the design of the McGregor house.

Jack Rowan is such an endearing Callum. Masali Baduza is not only possibly the most beautiful person I've ever seen, she plays Sephy with such strength and emotional intelligence. The casting is flawless. Special mention to Josh Dylan and Paterson Joseph for their talent and brilliance. They all made me feel so much.

I could talk about this show all day. I hope this gets a second season. I hope people watch it and learn from it. I hope, I hope, I hope...

[pollyshelbysbaby]

One thing I really like about sex education is the fact that they all wear the same jackets every day. Like, on so many American teen shows everyone wears designer clothes to school, but you just know that Otis is wearing the same jacket that he's worn for two years. Because when you're a teenager THAT'S WHAT HAPPENS. You have your coat with all your stuff in its specific pockets that you wear every day.

Just another way that this show feels like it's full of real people.

[pollyshelbysbaby]

Class, women and the peaky blinders

I've been thinking a lot about how peaky blinders is a show intimately concerned with class and its seemingly inescapable boundaries. I think one of the most interesting ways that Tommy's obsession with class - and specifically, his singular ambition to move up a class - can be analysed is through the women he has relationships with.

Let's start with Grace.

Grace actually kinda operates outside of class lines as a spy, and though Tommy doesn't know that she is one, he's drawn to the fact that he can't quite quantify her. He's constantly trying to analyse her and assess her and understand her (see: the church scene where he jumps to the conclusion that she's simply a catholic girl who ran away from home and tries to hide it) and he's never quite able to figure out where she lies. Spies don't belong to one class, they move between them depending on what their goals are. When he finds out the truth, he can't really hate her because she achieves what he wants to achieve - seamless integration into a world that is not her own. Grace is able to fit into Tommy's life, but she also fits into the upper class background she's revealed to have. Where things go wrong is when Tommy tries to live the upper class life without adapting his behaviour (I think Polly says at one point that this new life they have is too much too fast, which I take to also apply to the fact they've tried to barrel into the upper class too quickly and it is unsustainable.) Grace dies when Tommy begins to court members of the monarchy - arguably the highest of all the classes.

Then there's May Carleton. May is a member of the upper class that Tommy aspires to, but as he continually seems to be confronted with throughout the show, the upper classes will never really accept him and it's a world he can't really penetrate (he says as much to Ada in the last episode of season three). That's why his relationship with May is never truly able to take off - on a level, Tommy knows that this world is not for him, and theres something about it that makes him uncomfortable and so he doesn't really try to push their relationship into becoming anything. Sure, he goes back to her at different points and they philosophise and sleep together but that's because Tommy's ambition is to be part of her world and he has to kind of repeatedly keep checking it he's any closer to it, if *now* is finally the time he can be with someone like May. But it never is. Inevitably, his relationship with May has to fizzle out.

The duchess Tatiana hits upon his problem as soon as she meets Tommy. She tells him that he acts like (to roughly paraphrase) "a boy who broke into the house through the basement". Even though he has the money and the big house and the connections he is still uncomfortable; he doesn't see himself as a true member of this new class he's in. He sleeps with Tatiana and things implode almost immediately afterwards as she starts running around his house with a loaded gun and playing Russian roulette. This woman, this duchess, is of the highest class Tommy has ever encountered and their relationship is short lived and untenable. It is chaotic because again, Tommy does not actually feel comfortable the further up in the class scale he goes. She reads him immediately and he is RATTLED - and with that analysis she pushes him back into the class boundaries he fought to escape. He becomes again the working class birmingham man who can't go higher.

Then there's Lizzie. She started from the same class as Tommy and has arguably travelled up with him which is why she's the woman that Tommy keeps turning to for comfort. She understands what it is to struggle and be looked down upon but she also knows what it means to try and pull yourself. She went from a prostitute to an assistant to essentially an executive secretary to a the wife of an MP. She knows the sides of Tommy that are working class Small Heath but she also knows the side that aspires to more. Regardless of whether he actually loves her, it's easy for Tommy to turn to her for comfort because not only does she know him, he knows *her* and he knows that there's no class boundary that she can achieve/has achieved without him or can kick him out of, unlike May (and to an extent, Grace) and Tatiana.

To briefly mention Jessie Eden, her whole character is about getting rid of class boundaries, or at least significantly reducing them. While Tommy sympathises with socialism at first, or at least a little as he claims to want similar things, getting rid of class boundaries would actually be terrible for him. His whole character is that he is ambitious and he wants to transcend his position and he can't do that if there's no "up", if there's nowhere for him to rise. So Jessie actually presents a bit of a moral dilemma for him - his personal political conscience versus his own ambition.

The women he surrounds himself with say a lot about his state of mind and ambition at the time, which is very smart or Stephen Knight and why this is one of the best shows on tv right now.

God I love this show.

[pollyshelbysbaby]

The Tudors

Okay I just rewatched the tudors for the first time in a while and I have some thoughts (really one thought about one character lol).

Charles Brandon deserves the world (and not just because he's Henry Cavill). This guy truly loved the king. Even when it was detrimental to him or messed with his own mental health/family/values, he was there for the king without question. When Henry made someone else the head of that French duchy they captured in season 4 even though Charles did all the work I was screaming.

The scene where Henry is trying to royally 'command' Charles to get better is heartbreaking; this is Henry's last friend in the world and the only one who isn't scheming for the future, and now he - like seemingly everyone else in the King's life - is leaving him. The fact that Charles even *gets* to the palace in the midst of dying shows his dedication and undying loyalty and Henry knows he will never really have that again.

I think their relationship was my favourite in the entire show.

Also a minor point: there's a scene with Katherine Howard where Henry gives her a gift and she casually declares that she will be the "most happy" woman thanks to him. The camera is on Henry in the foreground when she says it and you see him pause and stiffen slightly before he takes his drink. Then he smiles at her and drinks anyway. "Most happy" was Anne Boleyn's motto and no doubt he's remembering her when Katherine makes this offhand comment. I really love the way that this is played, it's sort of a 'blink and you miss it' thing, and I love how we see Henry getting towards the end of his life and being reminded so often and so casually about his earlier life and exploits. The show really made Henry's last years feel not only like it was winding down but incredibly nostalgic.

Sorry for the rant, I'm new to this tumblr thing. But to sum up. Charles Brandon is bae and the end of Henry's life gave me such feels.