#a wealth of wasted ability . . . [ META & COMMENTARY ]*

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anywho alice is not immune to vought propaganda what if i said alice had a crush on queen maeve and ice princess growing up??? what if i said maeve was probably alice's sexual awakening?? what then.

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@my-lady-knight

Thanks for your awesome tag commentary!! and for actually reading that ridiculous post!

#THIS IS THE GOOD STUFF RIGHT HERE#I'm one of the ones who was Not Pleased with Grace's writing in S2 and S3#because of what I thought was wasted potential for character development#I *wanted* her to be part of the business#but because of what you wrote I have a whole new appreciation for what *is* there#and how those things about her in S2 and S3 tie into the larger story of class and violence#I still miss her because of all her potential#capable of violence and ruthlessness#horrified by it#but ultimately falling in love with a man defined by it#and choosing to marry him#also lost#like the whole thing in S1 and her obsession with getting revenge on the IRA never felt really *there*#but I think she doesn't really know who she is outside of her upbringing#and working for the Crown against the IRA#that's what her family does and did#her role and her surroundings might be unfamiliar but the context is the same#and then she left#and she fell in love with Tommy#and then she betrayed Tommy#and...she really *doesn't* know who she is outside of upper-class wealth despite her experiences in Small Heath#ooooffff the conflict and angst and feelings and inevitability of the entirety of this show#I read this all and I love it all#good meta is good#Grace Burgess#disaster human Tommy Shelby#Peaky Blinders

I totally get the feeling of wasted potential and wanting her to have been characterized differently after s1, and I totally want the AU where all that happens (I’ve read a couple but never seen one that really hit the mark for me personally) and would have loved the show had it gone in that direction.

But as you said, I think the show was trying to do something with the characterization it went with beyond just “oh, Steven Knight doesn’t know what to do with her character so he wrote her as a pod person and then killed her off” though I ... also totally respect that take (and yes she was fridged), and I’m not totally sure it’s wrong. I just think he had an intentional story he *was* choosing to tell about class and violence, one he’s been consistently telling in every season. I wish he’d more fully told that story re: Grace tbh, but I also think PB is a 6 episode season show and if this was a 13 or 22 episode season show maybe we would have gotten more in depth into these issues. Instead we sort of get the summary version.

I really like your point that maybe she doesn’t know who she is outside of her upbringing; even her motivation to be a spy was about her father’s death and not necessarily about *her.*

I also think that she severely compartmentalized the impact her betrayal had on Tommy’s ability to trust her; even in s1 she just... expects him to accept it and run away with her?!? which really seems to lend itself to the reading that Grace tends to ignore/retreat/compartmentalize things she’s unable to deal with, even in s1. She doesn’t know Tommy at all, she doesn’t understand his context, but she romantically thinks he’ll drop everything he’s worked for (because, to her, it’s just crime, maybe? or maybe she sees him as playing a role the way she was?) and leave with her because they’re in love. Where Tommy feels he has obligations, and to Tommy, survival is his family because he does not have generational wealth to fall back on. 

And as for why Tommy might not have confided much in her after they get back together: he might love her, but I don’t think he trusts her nearly the same way as before he found out she was a cop. That’s a major betrayal of trust, and her actions harmed people he loved. She might have seen it as doing her job, but you can’t just expect someone to accept that explanation and trust you the same way again.  

So that whole scene in 3.01 was this mutual disaster of factors, on both sides.

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as promised, my crappy drawing of alice's van. i did trace the actual van part but as you can tell by the lines being significantly less steady, the interiors are all me

fitting in with THIS i posted two years ago, alice's van is pretty bare bones. just a bed, some storage and her computer desk.

the blue is her bed, the orange is her desk, yellow is her computer, and green is storage.

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THINGS  YOUR  MUSE  WILL  NOTICE  ABOUT  MINE.   repost  ,  do  not  reblog.

WHAT THEY LOOK LIKE.    alice is average height (5'5"), she's got a bit of a computer user's posture, but its not too bad. she comes off as confident in herself and in her body. she wears a lot of clothing thats either loose or shows a lot of exposed skin (she gets hot easily). she has a lot of tattoos and these are very noticeable. she's stylish, but she's not regularly buying new clothes. she likes lots of mixed jewlery, rings, earrings and necklaces. in terms of shoes, she wears boots and sneakers for the most part. her hair is long, it's usually curly and worn down or half down. she tries to take care of her hair, but its not always the best cared for and either greasy or visibly dry. she wears minimal makeup, mostly eyeliner or eyeshadow and lipstick, less face makeup. her fingernails usually have chipped black nail polish and are kept short. her cuticles are kind of a nightmare.

WHAT THEY SMELL LIKE.   alice usually smells alright. it's kind of a mix of target perfume (when she remembers), weed, cigarette smoke, her shower gel/shampoo. she also has a kind of crispness to her smell, a bit like a cold wind in winter. hmm wonder why. there's a little bit of a minty-ness about her too, she really loves peppermints.

WHAT THEY TASTE LIKE.  alice tastes like mint, like nicotine, coffee or matcha (whatever she had that day)

WHAT THEY SOUND LIKE.    alice is from brooklyn, her family was middle class and her mom did come from some money so i think she has a bit of a "well bred" accent. that being said, she does sound like she's from new york. she has an accent and way of speaking influenced by the neighborhood she grew up in and the neighborhoods she spent time in as a teenager. she's got a mid range voice, not too high or too low. she used to be a singer too, alice took voice lessons for a little while. she's a soprano, but hasn't been trained in over a decade.

WHAT THEY FEEL LIKE .    alice runs cold, her body temperature is about 20-30 degrees colder than the average person. she's not freezing to the touch, but she takes some getting used to. whether or not she shaves her arms/legs ect is subject to how she feels at the time so sometimes her skin is smooth, sometimes it's a lil hairy. she's got a lot of tattoos so if you were to touch her you'd definitely feel those. she can be a little shakey, not concerningly so but she does have a bit of a quiver in her hands. she's got more than a few scars. on a more meta level, i think alice feels a bit brisk to most people. she can be warm, she can be comforting, but i don't think she comes off that way at first and it's on purpose.

tagged by: stealed it from @gingerspiice tagging: VIEWERS LIKE YOU!

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chapell roan has to exist in the boys verse because alice needs to sing casual as she's doing her silly lil chores

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one thing that's important about alice is that her powers never atrophied because of disuse because she was always subtly using them even when she didn't really mean to.

keeping ice in her cup from melting just by holding the glass, keeping the temperature in her van down ect. the thing is though, she's not exactly paying attention to the fact that she's doing it. it's like breathing to her, just another thing her body does naturally. when she's around other people she's actively paying attention and making sure she's NOT doing anything like that.

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WE'RE SO FUCKING BACK (aka i got prime to play on the beach house tv thanks hdmi cord) spoilers ahead!

cherie fans (me) stay fucking winning that line about frenchie taking in strays??? alice is canon TO ME

i'm gonna wait till later in the season to really decide where alice fits buuut

i'm thinking alice going off the god u on butcher's orders really changed things in CERTAIN intrapersonal dynamics aka took her solidly from the sane side of the team (annie, mm, frenchie & kimiko) and right in butcher's back pocket with hughie. idk why i didn't think about this before but maybe they didn't want alice to go and there was some disagreement on it but alice ended up going anyway. so now alice, like hughie is team butcher. they got intel, alice got her college experience and she got to get away for a while even if it was basically to hang out in a den of vipers.

once she gets pulled out of god u, she comes back and shit's different. frenchie's clean (ish) and got a semi legit job it seems, kimiko's in fuckin therapy, cherie's abroad and alice is...right back where she started except she's stripped naked. she doesn't know who to be when she's not hiding being a supe. she's not used to being laid bare like that with the boys and maybe part of her thinks they don't need her anymore because they've all clearly changed for the better except butcher.

i'm not even touching the colin situation rn

so yeah, i'm not really sure where alice is circa s4 rn, she honestly might be back in her van, back on her hacker shit, high out of her mind and wallowing. like genuinely i think she might be off self destructing as we speak.

more to come

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character headcanon generator. click the link to get some random headcanons for your muse.

alice is oblivous to any and all romantic interest someone may show them.

alice instinctively cleans messes in their own house as well as other peoples.

alice almost drank the lethal dosage of caffine once.

alice likes to eat straight coffee beans.

alice is tumblr famous. (if you say otherwise it'll hurt my feelings)

alice is a bottom.

tagged by : stole from @herosupe tagging : viewers like you!

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okay finale alice thoughts

alice 100% did not go undercover at god u because she knew/found out about the woods in any way. she went because they were certain vought was doing SOMETHING funky at their superhero school because why wouldn't they be. she managed to stay pretty much out of trouble until cate, sam and the kids from the woods started killing people and then alice noped the fuck out of there. she's not the heroic type so she definitely wouldn't have tried to stop them. as far as anyone at god u knows, leah dawson disappeared in the commotion. maybe she's dead, maybe she just decided she wanted nothing to do with the place after that.

alice left campus and doesn't come back as leah. whether she comes back when butcher investigates the woods has yet to be seen and will probably be plot based until s4 comes out and i can solidify that. that being said, she knows the truth about what happened and that marie, jordan, andre and emma were trying to stop cate and sam.

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btw alice (semi retired theater kid) haley is holding space for defying gravity if you even care

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clearly some of y'all aren't thinking about alice at god u having the time of her fucking life meanwhile her classmates semester is getting fucking ruined

but alice is thriving being a theater kid, sleeping in a room with walls that can't get towed

like yes blah blah its morally corrupt to sell drugs to young adults in order to get information from them but like...have you considered she was having fun?

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i just think about alice, she's such a little weirdo and she was weird before she got involved with criminals and the boys and drugs. she was a theater kid for fucks sake. she was outwardly un-normal enough to get an adhd diagnosis as a girl! when women generally go undiagnosed for longer. she likes her trinkets and she collects lighters and has a cherry tattooed on her ass. she's got issues but shes herself! she's happy because she doesn't have to be apart of the corporate or societal machine because she doesn't exist to most people for a long time! running away gave her the freedom to unabashedly be herself.

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HC + sun

alice is very sensitive to sunlight and heat.

for one, she usually sneezes when she goes from a inside to outside on super sunny days.

more generally though, she sunburns easily and because she's so much better suited for being cold, she also overheats easily. she's a sunscreen girly, and a big fan of wearing as few clothes as possible when it's hot out so she's not dripping in sweat and getting a rash.

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HC + travel

alice has never left the country. she's always wanted to, but her family couldn't afford it when she was a kid, and when she left home she was too scared to go through an airport or through the northern or southern borders and potentially being caught on camera or caught using fake documentation. she has a lot of bucket list places she wants to go including ireland, france, england, south africa, brazil and new zealand. she just doesn't know when she's going to be able to actually make those dreams come true.

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🍎  :    how stable is my muse’s mental health?  have they been diagnosed with any mental illnesses and  /  or conditions?  do they have any undiagnosed mental illnesses and  /  or conditions?  do they or should they attend therapy?  

alice was able to be diagnosed with adhd while her mom was still alive. that is her only actual diagnosis. after her mom died, she attended a few sessions with a school counselor who suspected she might have anxiety and depression but these were never officially diagnosed.

now, if she were to get diagnosed she'd be diagnosed with bipolar 2 and ptsd stemming from her father's abuse that began following her mother's death. she may be a little bit more neurodivergent than that but i really don't know how to classify it other than something is up in her brain chemistry. she gets addicted to shit easily, but she's also able to self medicate with caffeine and drugs to an extent. (i'm not saying its good for her, but it works for her)

as for her stability: it really depends on the time period. as a teenager into her early 20s her mental health was incredibly unstable because she was in an unstable unhealthy situation. once alice was able to figure out a semi stable home (her van) and self medicate she's been able to get a lot more stability in her life. she still experiences depressive and hypomanic episodes at times but she's not going to acknowledge that she's unstable because its just her life. cycling from feeling BAD to feeling normal to feeling normal but with more highs is just her life. its not like she's around particularly stable people so she really doesn't have a point of reference. up until around the end of genv alice is getting progressively more stable better able to manage her shit. AFTER genv into s4 alice has completely backslid back into her worst tendencies but now her secret is out in the open.

she needs therapy so fuckin bad but girlie is never gonna get it.

FRUITY HC PROMPTS

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🍌

🍌  :    is my muse inclined to help others,  or will they only do it when it benefits them,  if at all?  what makes them this way?  has it ever gotten them into trouble,  or inconvenienced them? 

what alice usually does can only be considered help if you're willing to look past some moral issues. making and fake ids, hacking, they're helping someone, but usually those someone's aren't exactly the upstanding citizens most people want to help. and alice does get something out of it, money or a chance to get nosey in some company's files. actually helping people she's getting a lot more practice in since she started working with butcher and his crew. but she'll do it for nothing in return. she doesn't mind and it does make her feel good to do something good.

why she's like this? she doesn't like asking for help. she doesn't like needing it. so in a way, she used to not like giving it. she likes getting paid, she likes having something to live off of. but that's not fulfilling, her life of selfish solitude only helping people when it served her interests only made her feel good for a little while.

it has absolutely gotten her in trouble. people expect other people to be good, they expect them not to call in favors. alice has no trouble calling in a favor. she's managed to avoid getting arrested in her adult life, but she was arrested a few times as a teenager.

that being said this only applies to humans over the age of 15. she will help an animal or child without a second thought as to how it benefits or doesn't benefit her.

FRUITY HC PROMPTS