#hence why he had so little screentime in s1

[m4ndysk4nkovich]

does anybody else think that they dumbed ian and kev down a LOT as the seasons went on for comedic effect

[smhalltheurlsaretaken]

Do you have any thoughts about the clones situation? I only mostly hear about it from anti-Jedi people and how "being nice slavers doesn't change the fact that they are slavers", so I was wondering if you have anything to say or any post to recommend?

There's a perfect post by @trickytricky1 but I want to say a few more things. This thread right here is also pretty good.

The issue with the Clones is that it's pretty much impossible to examine their in-universe treatment without taking the irl writing decisions into account: namely, that most of what we know to be very, very wrong with the Clones' situation is barely acknowledged by the creative team, to the point we can pretty much assume they just don't care beyond what's convenient for a plotline. I mean, beside a few select characters Filoni is particularly fond of, the majority of the Clones are narrative props: they're here to be killed off to heighten the tension, to be comic relief, or to highlight a particular trait of the Jedi they're serving under - and of course, they're here to execute Order 66. I love them to bits and it often annoys me, but it's true. Just look at how little anybody irl seems to care about Cody, arguably the second most important clone in the franchise and the most important clone within the army: he barely got any screentime in TCW and was instantly sidelined out of the one arc where he had a chance to be the lead, he didn't appear in Rebels, and he wasn't even mentioned in TBB s1 despite his role in the squad's creation. Or consider how the Clones being overgrown children who should look only 20-ish and behave very differently from normal adults is never properly brought up - not even in Rebels where Rex is treated like a old geezer instead of the 30 year old he is, or in TBB, or with Cut whose adopted children are maybe five years younger than he is. We have to face it: the story never was and never will be about the Clones, and so the writers don't seem to think much about their condition a lot of the time.

Hence why I feel like when characters don't behave like they ought to regarding the Clones, it's often not so much that the narrative is telling us there's an issue, and more like the writers couldn't be bothered to explore that particular theme. I'm not just saying that in relation to the Jedi: Suu Lawquane marrying a 12 year old (who is supposed to look 24 but really look 50 because of the animation) is not framed as insanely wrong on all levels, for example. Also, we don't ever see Bail and Padmé speaking up for Clone rights. Realistically, given what we know of their personalities, would they have? Probably, yes! Their silence very likely has nothing to do with a moral failure that the audience is supposed to recognize, and everything to do with nobody irl thinking that would be a good storyline.

As for the Jedi's relationship with the Clones, what I always got from it is this: the Jedi were drafted along with the Clones, couldn't do a lot about the whole situation, befriended them just so Order 66 could be extra heartbreaking, and we weren't meant to dig too deep and find loopholes or what-could-have-beens or alternate ways it could have gone down, because Order 66 was pretty much written in stone. The Jedi were always going to die, as far back as ANH, before there were even Clones in the Clone Wars - and they were going to be friends with the Clones before the Clones were even fully people (think about all the nice interactions between Obi-Wan and Oddball or Obi-Wan and Cody in RotS, back when the Clones obeying Order 66 was that they really had very little will of their own). The more and more messed-up implications of the slave army came along the more the Clones got humanized for the sake of angst, but the beats of the store were already there.

I already went a bit into this tension between what we see onscreen and the issues the writers didn't feel like exploring here (on a post about Obi-Wan's behavior on the Citadel).

Now, forgetting all the irl stuff, are the Jedi actually slavers? I'd argue that they aren't. The Senate voted to have an army - it's a big plot point in AotC. The Sith paid the Kaminoans and fabricated the war. Jango sold his DNA. The Senate drafted the Jedi. ("A lot of people say, “What good is a lightsaber against a tank?” The Jedi weren’t meant to fight wars. That’s the big issue in the prequels. They got drafted into service, which is exactly what Palpatine wanted." - George Lucas)

That particular dead horse has already been beaten, but what were the Jedi supposed to do beside fight side by side with the Clones? Not fight? So Sidious could declare them traitors to the Republic ahead of schedule? Fight and petition for Clone rights (which, again, is an issue never touched upon in canon one way or another after Slick - whom I'll get to later - so we simply can't say that they never tried)? Like Sidious was ever going to let legislation hindering his plans pass? They were caught between a rock and a hard place, which was always the point of the war. Damned if you do and damned if you don't.

What's more, the majority of the Clones don't think the Jedi are slavers (see first posts linked and posts linked below), with the notable exception of Slick. The majority of the Clones we see love the Jedi, and we know it's not a case of blind hero-worship, because they are very quickly suspicious of Krell and don't hesitate to take him down.

I feel like Slick was a bit of a red herring, because he came along very, very early (s1ep16) - way before we had any indication of that the chips would be a thing. He feels a lot like a reminder that 'hey, this story is going to end badly' because the Clones will turn on the Jedi and kill them all rather than an actual exploration of the messed up slave army deal - because Slick is unequivocally characterized as a villain. He killed a lot of his own brothers, didn't deny that Ventress had offered him money, tried to frame a member of his own squad for his actions, and was perfectly ready to kill Rex and Cody for all his talk of loving his brothers. The post I linked goes into a bit more, but he's not a desperate innocent.

Finally, there's the problem that the majority of the Clones we see want to fight for the Republic. The cadets from Boba's Death Trap episode (s2ep20) are excited to meet Jedi and get to fight. 99 wants nothing more than to be a good soldier. The Domino Squad want to pass, and their episodes present them going off to the front like a victory - even when we already know they're marching to their death. Choosing to fight is Rex's whole arc in the Deserter episode (s2ep10):

CUT: Come on, Rex, admit it. You've thought about what your life could look like if you were to also leave the army, choose the life you want. REX: What if I am choosing the life I want? What if I'm staying in the army because it's meaningful to me? CUT: And how is it meaningful? REX: Because I'm part of the most pivotal moment in the history of the Republic. If we fail, then our children and their children could be forced to live under an evil I can't well imagine. CUT: If you were to have children, of course. But that would be against the rules, wouldn't it? Isn't that what somebody programmed you to believe, Captain? REX: No, Cut, it's simply what I believe. It doesn't matter if it's my children or other people's children. Does that meet with your approval?

Yes, it's incredibly karked from our perspective - you have millions of boys who were spoon fed propaganda about a Republic that doesn't care about them and that they barely know, and in the end their sacrifices amounted to very little... But - and I'm genuinely asking here - wouldn't denying them the right to find their identity in their role as protectors be demeaning too? Obviously they deserve so, so much better, but TCW still treats their choice to fight proudly as meaningful. And in the end, it wasn't entirely for nothing either: the Jedi and the Clones did save billions of people according to Hera.

What we were supposed to take away from the Jedi-Clones interactions in the Prequels imo isn't 'the Jedi were nice slavers' but really that they were the Clones' best and only friends.

Mace spends a lot of his screentime protecting them. We see most of the Council protecting or saving Clones at least once each. Really, the Jedi are constantly shown saving the Clones or caring about them: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Again, @trickytricky1 has some of the best content: this compilation vid is particularly great. I'm pretty sure Sidious gave the Jedi the Clone army (and not the droid army) because he counted on the Jedi's compassion towards the Clones and their eventual trust in them to work in his advantage (see this thread) - and heartbreakingly enough, he was right.

Imo, TCW and later Rebels - and even, to a lesser extent, RotS - always portrayed the Jedi and the Clones as close friends and the karked up circumstances don't change that. They don't have a 'nice slavers & their slaves' dynamic, they are friends.

There's a reason why the first TCW episode was about Yoda telling three Clones how unique and important they all are (see here or here). There's a reason why we see the Clones being so protective of their Generals (see Boil and Obi-Wan here). There's a reason why Obi-Wan so passionately condemned Grievous for having an army with no loyalty and no spirit (here). There's a reason we got this:

They were best friends. The entirety of Star Wars failing to address enough just how terribly the Republic treated the Clones doesn't take away from that.

That makes the whole Jedi-Clone story a whole other level of tragic, where the Jedi genuinely tried to know and care for their men because there really wasn't anything else to do, and the Clones were grateful for that, and in the end both the Order and the Clones were used and destroyed. No matter how badly some themes and plotlines might have been handled, I genuinely can't ever believe that we were meant to see the Jedi as slavers in this situation, as opposed to victims - albeit in a different way than the Clones - who were doing their best.

[lastoutpost]

sam stan ask game!!!! @stanfordsams​​ thanks for tagging me!

Sibling status (younger, middle, older, only child…) -   Only child!

How long have you been stanning for -  I started watching in 2012 and stopped watching after I finally watched s8 on boxset, around 2013/2014 sometime? (I *begged* my dad to take me to Walmart so I could buy it the day it was released) and after binging the whole thing I just... thought it sucked really bad....and started to fall out of the fandom. 2020 slingshotted me back into old obsessions though. I can have a little sam winchester to cope

Favorite Sam era -  sam is my baby in every single season BUT hence the URL, i love bitchy sanctimonious grieving psychic awakening sam from s1 SO much. baby faced coconut head bangs king <3

Favorite spn season, but if the only criteria was Sam’s hair - season 2 or 3 definitely. he has a rough patch while it’s growing out for a couple seasons and it finally looks good again in like, season 11, but peak sam is short haired sam. he looks like a lesbian and i love it for him <3

Favorite Sam-centric episode - does croatoan count??? that’s an absolute banger of an episode from start to finish....the codependency....the crying....i love everything about it. if that doesn’t count tho then born under a bad sign, jared is SO good at acting unhinged. honorable mention to playthings, the greatest episode of all time (jirt)

Any ships you may like to mention -   samruby. why? genevieve padalecki sexiest woman alive and sam drinking demon blood was his RIGHT he DESERVED a hot girl summer. one of the fundamental reasons i get obsessed with this show is the extremely fucked up character dynamics and samruby really fits the bill

Favorite song you would/have put in a Sam playlist -  numb by linkin park............this is so chaotically embarassing of me and i don’t even listen to linkin park anymore but that song is such a sam song, esp around s4/s5, that i have to believe it was written about him only

If you could steal one thing from Sam’s wardrobe, it would be - purple dog shirt!!!! i actually used to own one and outgrew it and when i finally get another stable job i am going to order another one <3 it’s my right as a lesbian and as a s1 sam stan

Complete the sentence: If Sam cishet, why... -  if sam cishet, then why unclean in the biblical sense?

Favorite unhinged Sam moment -  full on ugly crying-sobbing about having to kill werewolf gf in heart and refusing to let dean do it because she asked *him* to, and how this parallels the season arc of sam begging dean to kill him if he has to

You must have some intense headcanons you need to talk about, tell me one Sam hc that drives you insane - in the spn that lives in my head, sam is a lesbian so....that is my favorite headcanon i love to imagine lesbian sam struggling to put up with misogynistic dean and his femaleness/homosexuality heavily contributing to her feeling of being unclean and fundamentally wrong/sinful. in terms of headcanons that fit the actual show i love how multifaceted we know sam to be, even though we see so little of it on screen -- he’s smart and nerdy but into health and fitness and is kind and compassionate, likes children and animals, etc. when dean dies and sam settles down with his family, he gets & trains a therapy dog (that looks a lot like riot who he had to leave behind with amelia) and takes it to help sick kids in the hospital <3 ALSO after leaving the hunting life he becomes a nurse since he’s basically been a field medic since birth. oh and ALSO he loves to cross-stitch even though his ginormous hands make it hard <3 OK I AM DONE but i could definitely keep going. oh and btw he’s gay and his blurry wife was actually a man. dean jr is the biological son of a hunter that gets killed on a hunt. OK IM DONE FOR REAL

Tell me something about the hbo Sam that lives in your brain -  i’m gonna be honest i’ve never seen hbo in my life so i don’t really want to say anything inaccurate but i wish in a more gritty or grimdark version of spn sam’s mental illnesses and his suicidality, disordered eating, etc would have more screentime.

Oh no, the writers forgot to give Jess a personality! Now it’s up to you. Tell me, what was Jess like - I feel like jess was the epitome of an all-american girl. I bet she was raised solidly upper-middle-class with two parents who loved her and had respectable jobs. she has a sister who lives in a different state who she is close with but in a normal way. and part of what sam adores about her is she’s just so...Normal...she’s like his embodiment of his ultimate fantasy and desire to live the American dream. i feel like that’s exactly why demon brady introduces her to sam, because he knows she is sam’s perfect fantasy of an apple pie life. And despite being so Normal she’s supportive, kind, insanely witty, and sees through sam’s defenses and deflections instantly. she knows there is something Wrong About His Life and doesn’t care. even if he can’t tell her the truth about his childhood he knows she would believe and love him if he could tell her, and he loves that about her. she pushes him outside his comfort zone a little bit to make him enjoy college a little bit more and always beats him at any game they try and play. i miss jess and i hope she and sam get to reunite in heaven!!!!

)Biggest injustice Supernatural committed against Sam (be as brief or as ranty as you desire) - i’ve only watched up through the first part of s11 so i don’t know what else bullshit will happen in the course of the show, but as of right now I would say gadreel possession. sam was ready to give up his life to shut the gates of hell and dean stopped him, had gadreel take his form to trick sam into agreeing to be possessed, and then lied/gaslit/emotionally abused sam about it for weeks (months?) and gets extremely upset when sam has the gall to be mad about it. after how much he has suffered being a vessel for lucifer, for having no autonomy over his life at all, this was just so cruel of dean and i’m so mad that the show never lets him get really fucking mad about it!

And finally, just say something about him that makes you smile ♥ - he has so much faith in everything and everyone despite how hard his life has been and how much he has been punished for his faith repeatedly throughout his life. he is a good man who will give himself up for others or the greater good in an instant. and he looks like a very huggable puppy despite being extremely muscular <3 sam is my ultimate comfort character.

i tag, anyone who follows me and wants to do this but hasn’t yet! tag me in your responses so I can read them if you do it <3

[chibimyumi]

Hi I have a question I was curious what you thought about the episodes about Jack the Ripper episodes 3-6? And about the anime season 1 and 2 and the other series? Thank you for answering the question

Dear Anon,

In general I am not quite positive about any animated rendition of ‘Kuroshitsuji’, so if you’re interested in reading my mostly negative opinion, please proceed ^^

TL:DR

Season 1 - Ep. 3-6 - Personal rating: 2/10

Season 1 General - Personal rating: 3/10

Season 2 - Personal rating: N.A.

Book of Circus - Personal rating: 8/10 

Book of Murder - Personal rating: 8/10 

Book of the Atlantic - Personal rating 6.5/10

Season 1 - Episodes 3 - 6

Personal rating: 2/10

I personally despise the anime version of the Jack the Ripper arc because of multiple reasons.

1. The manga portrayal of Grell in that arc wasn’t great to begin with, but it was the anime that ultimately caused many people to believe Grell is a psychopathic gay, crossdressing man. The heavily gay-coded visuals (both manga and anime) alone of course were already pointing to Grell being a flamboyant male, but the additional gay-coded voice to her may have been what delivered the ultimate blow. Because anime is voiced, it often leaves a more lasting impression on people.

2. it’s not just for Grell’s portrayal. I also despised how the anime basically signal-boosted the corset scene that presented the sexualisation of a 12 year old as something that is part of a serious murder investigation. And when the sexual tension was later denied by showing ‘it was just a corset’, it was supposed to be ‘a comedic tease’ rather than a major sigh of relief.

Yes, it was just the faithful portrayal of canon. I am not saying the manga is less guilty; I am saying that the anime signal-boosted these two very harmful things without explicit warning.

Season 1 in General

Personal rating: 3/10

The good things:

In general the first season did have some fairly nice parts, hence the marginally higher personal rating. I quite liked the scene where anime!Sebastian shoved the visitor into the oven (+1pt) , for example. And I also liked the adaptation of the mini arc where O!Ciel was kidnapped by the mafia. (+1pt)

The finale makes little sense, but I did like the charm and atmosphere it delivered. I understood that the 24 episode series had to deviate from the canon storyline in order to tell a whole story within so few episodes.

The season finale managed to bring an ending that befits the theme of ‘Kuroshtisuji’: a suitably dark, ominous conclusion of a demon receiving the payment for his part of the contract. The choice of only showing Sebastian closing in on his prey from 1st person perspective before the screen blacking out was fantastic. It really reminded me as a viewer that in the end, I am but a helpless human; that regardless of what we may think Sebastian is, the last we’ll see of him is him being a predator to his prey. (+1pt)

The… not so good things.

Curry bread shuriken? (-1pt) The child king and prince arc? (-1pt) Pluto? (-1pt) **Angela/Ash!? (-2pt) The reaper library? (-1 pt. What was it even trying to achieve?). Ruining the most epic revelation of our protagonist’s arch enemy and spoiling the manga!?!?!?! (-1pt)

**They wanted to portray the genderlessness of angels, and so they decided to…. make this angel bi-gender in the loosest sense of the word? And then there is the EXPLICIT intention of giving Angela small breasts… because she can’t be “too much of a woman” (their actual words). PSA to women with small breasts!! Hear that!? You’re not too much of a woman!!

The rest is self explanatory.

Season 2 in General

Personal rating: N.A.

I deny its existence. If this season had existed, I would have said it took everything I hated about season 1, amplified them multi-fold, and… shoved all of those ingredients into a worse context. It ruined the significance of the S1 finale, and shoehorned ‘reasssssonsss’ to insert the new characters.

Also… apparently a contract now is as binding as a pinky swear between toddlers?

Also, I’d like to add how even both voice actors of the two demons hated it.

Ono Daisuke (Sebastian) was asked for his opinion of season 2, and he said that: “even I, Sebastian, learned of new sides of this character that I never expected to see”. Sakurai Takahiro (Claude) in turn, was asked why he thought they cast him for this role, to which he replied: “because he wears glasses, just like me. I think it’s called the glasses-casting-method.”

Book of Circus

Personal rating: 8/10

The animation itself felt quite static, but it was nice to finally see something animated almost perfectly faithfully to canon. The voice actors poured in so much more life and passion, and the cinematic record of Joker was very powerful.

Book of Murder

Personal rating: 8/10

I liked it, and the soundtrack chosen for these OVAs were great and fitted the theme perfectly. The animation, just like BoC, was quite static, but otherwise it is faithful to canon and represented the atmosphere quite well. First when Jeremy was introduced in the manga, many people really had no clue that he was Sebastian; the result of theories flying around in the fandom was quite nice.

In the anime, because Jeremy’s eyes were red, and because Ono Daisuke has a rather distinct voice, it was almost an instant giveaway to people who didn’t read the manga. But it’s fine. Ono Daisuke pulled everything out of his sleeve, and it was charming.

The French. I loved hating it. I don’t think I could have done a better job, but I loved hating it. French speakers out there, what did you think? ( ´艸｀)

Book of Atlantic

Personal rating: 6.5/10

I actually didn’t like it a lot, even though I went to the cinema for it THRICE!(σ＾罒＾)σ━━━!!

The good things:

Even though I didn’t really like the addition of the Double Charles, I did like love how they inserted a burn by Sebas at Grey’s expense. I think it was a wonderful re-introduction of Trash Demon™ being the salty prick he is, and how it tied back to the events of BoM.

The soundtrack designed for the movie was also great in my opinion, and the scene where Lizzie revealed herself was very touching. Me and many in the cinema were sobbing like babies, and the times that I went with people who don’t read the manga were also great, because they shock on their faces was ART.

Finally, I really liked how they concluded the story with everyone on the rescue ship. It really gave this very nice feeling of the survival of a big adventure.

The bad things:

The number 1 sin has to be how they trimmed Sebastian’s cinematic record, even though that is easily the biggest highlight of the Campania Arc. HOW COULD THEY!? ヽ(`Д´💢)ﾉ

The second thing is the ATROCIOUS animation. For the anime I understand why it would have limited budget, but the movie though? The movie was marketed SO big! some city buses in the city where I lived at the time wore the BotA skin! All Animates were PLASTERED with commercial for the movie… and then… this ⇊. I think EVERYONE agreed the CGI was jarring at least, and turned something so threatening into something nobody could take seriously.

This ⇊ was not necessarily bad animation, just a very dubious choice that I personally find quite tacky.

The third thing is - like I said before - the insertion of Double Charles who didn’t seem to add anything to the story. The time that went to their screentime could much better be spent on Sebas’ cinematic record.

Welp, that was all! Thank you for reading my rant!!! What did you guys think of the animated adaptations?

[annavolovodov]

ya girl saw the downton movie and has some Thoughts

if you followed me at all from 2011-2015 then you'll know i am firmly Team Downstairs and did not want this movie to happen, just so you all know what position i'm coming from here.

everything below is gonna be spoilery af. if you haven't seen it yet and want info just hmu. if you have seen it and want to talk about it please message me bc i’m always up for chatting about Downton.

okay but the title sequence with the music building and cresting as we come up over the hills and get our first shot of downton... goosebumps. tbh i don't know shit about film making but i can't fault the technical aspects (costumes, music, cinematography). the impact of the increased budget was felt from the very first second.

for the plot i’m gonna split things by character to make it easier. i’ll probably go to see it again and maybe after that i’ll have some deeper Thoughts but i missed being able to liveblog during the film so enjoy my rambling first reactions.

upstairs peeps

everything with violet was iconic. i'm glad that they didn't neglect her relationship with isobel and ofc maggie and imelda played fantastically off each other. pretty much everyone has already highlighted the scene with violet and mary at the end and it tied things up perfectly between them. violet and mary are so so similar and violet has been pushing for her to inherit since before S1. the movie showed us that mary is basically running the estate even if she doesn't get the the title and i can totally see why violet is confident in the future of downton now. that being said, i don't think violet will actually die. maggie has been talking about leaving since 2012 and fellowes obviously put this in as a get-out clause for her should she want to go, but i reckon they’ll convince her to do more. if carson's palsy can be mysteriously cured, so can violet's conveniently vague illness.

i already knew that robert and cora weren't gonna be in it much, but i wish we could've seen cora finding out what was happening with edith and helping her out. it wouldn't surprise me if there was a deleted scene there cause that whole storyline felt a little disjointed. i completely forgot that cora knew about the pregnancy and was so confused at how the queen foud out about it all. i don't think we got anything in robert and cora's bedroom, or anything with cora/baxter and robert/bates, which would've also been very welcome but i guess they can only fit in so much.

onto mary: this may be an unpopular opinion but god i miss her long hair. yeah i know it wasn't the style of the time but her wig in this one was tragic and they need to fix it. i absolutely love that t*lbot didn't exist for a solid 95% of this movie and mary got her rightful place ruling downton. i wouldn't say i’m the biggest mary fan but her arc felt like one of the more satisfying ones of the movie imo.

as someone who has been firmly #teamedith from day one i am delighted to see my girl happy and successful. literally all her outfits were A+ and not to be gay on main but those scenes of her in her nightclothes getting ready for bed gave me my rights. i’m sad that she seems like she's either given up her magazine or has less of a role in it now based on what they said outside???? she did seem unsatisfied with aspects of her position so hopefully she'll go back to doing some writing and publishing cause that was a good fit for her, and if edith and bertie are “modern” enough to travel without servants surely edith moving away from traditional grand lady duties and back to her magazine that wouldn't be an issue. 

the mention of sybil being gone seven years? yeah. thanks for the pain. tom accidentally saving the monarchy on no less than two occasions is the ultimate "congratulations you played yourself" moment but the fact he thought the army had sent someone to check up on him is the level of republican i'm trying to be on. i'm a bit ehhhh on his relationship with lucy, mainly cause i'd rather the screentime given to the newbies had went to established characters. but like sybil/tom was a wholeass epic romantic slowburn spanning several years through a war and across class divisions n shit and meanwhile lucy/tom have known each other for forty eight hours and had three conversations in a hallway so like obviously that’s just gonna pale in comparison????? like it just is???? i guess i don't hate it but it just was a bit unnecessary and the time coulda been spent on better things.

isobel didn't have all that much to do on her own but i appreciated her scenes with violet and i love that she was the one to figure out that lucy was lady whatever's daughter. penelope wilton's facial expressions during some of the exchanges with violet were great. i see lord merton has also undergone a miraculous recovery from his apparently serious anaemia but he also didn't appear much which was a big win for me!

team downstairs aka the ones i turned up to see

as a downstairs supremacist who has watched the screentime distribution in previous fifty two eps of the show, it’s fair to say i had low expectations going in. i expected a grand total of 10 minutes for the servants combined and i think that's why i was unexpectedly happy with what we got. ideally we would've ditched the subplots involving the personal lives of the royals and all the stuff w imelda staunton and her maid but oh well it could’ve been worse and i'll take any breadcrumbs i can get. anyway i'm eagerly awaiting the team downstairs cut of the film one of yall will hopefully make when the dvd comes out. the only part that was far, FAR too upstairs heavy for me was the last sequence of the film after the royals left and i think we would've benefitted from rounding things off with team downstairs after the ball.

so i guess retirement magically cured the palsy carson had, but i guess after matthew’s miraculous recovery anything can happen at downton when it comes to health. Fellowes is getting a free pass for retconning this one cause i cba with more death/loss. mary going to carson for help and him immediately coming to her aid was very sweet. kinda wish we'd find out what he was up to post-Downton (except for his gardening) tho.

i was expected zero carson/hughes content in this movie and yet !!!! and yet!!!!!! we were somewhat well-fed. like carson (incorrectly) thinking he can control the other servants and mrs hughes' "oh that went well charlie, start as you mean to go on" hdjksjs i love them. and the lil scene in their cottage ugh. also we got more of them using their first names and yeah i guess that makes sense given they've been married for a while now but as i said, i had low expectations.

mrs hughes is still like the best person ever but wbk. her vs. the royal housekeeper = iconic. i kinda felt bad for royal whatsherface in some ways because she clearly didn't know who she was up against THE elsie hughes who has vanquished much scarier foes in her time. the other servants were never gonna win that battle.

the 0.5 seconds of baby bates *chef's kiss* perfection. god i am slightly bitter it was only 0.5 seconds given the fuckin multiseason journey leading up to his birth. tbh we should've ditched everything involving the personal lives of the rando new characters and let baby bates have some of that time but fellowes loves upstairs too much to let that happen. the small interaction was adorable though and i'm glad the mention of his name was subtle enough that we can retcon it cause i truly believe anna and bates would've came up with a more creative choice than that. genuinely i'm so curious about their whole living situation and how they cope with a smol child while working full time but i doubt fellowes even considered that so y’know. what can we do. i enjoyed the breadcrumbs but i wanted more.

i did go into this film with the mindset of "something awful will probably happen to anna or bates," cause that's what usually happens in these things but plot twist!!!! we saw them smile on multiple occassions!!!! what a nice change for us all! i swear every time anna bates smiles an angel gains their wings. her scenes with mary were good and i'm happy their friendship made it into the film. you know what else i was happy to see? the EXTREMELY UNDERRATED brotp between anna and baxter. there was a couple of moments with them standing next to each other or talking to each other and it warmed my heart. like yass two of my fave people are friends. it's a big win for me. 

i'm sure i read something about brendan being involved in another project which meant he couldn't film too much (i'm curious to whether this impacted the lack of baby bates scenes?) and while it's true that bates didn't have a ton of scenes, i didn't feel like he was absent which was good.

thomas had the best storyline imo. i don't blame him for being angry that mary brought in carson and it was actually very iconic of him to go off in the library like that. i found it hilarious that while everyone else was panicking at downton he went off on gay adventures. i really wish we'd gotten this "thomas makes a gay friend then discovers the village's underground gay scene THEN gets a boyfriend" in the show cause that would've been SO MUCH BETTER than some of the other stuff that got stretched out across the last couple series (like the love quadrangle with daisy/ivy/alfred/jimmy). like, imagine thomas’ movie plot as a series-long arc. the impact. i liked the guy that was his maybe-boyfriend and i hope any continuation keeps that relationship going.

mrs p and daisy continue to be the mother-daughter duo of the century. i thought both of them were supposed to be moving to the farm post-S6 but i suppose that would've meant they wouldn't be in the film hence why it didn't come to fruition. i guess they could all move once daisy and andy get married. mrs patmore didn't get a great deal to do but i still feel like i saw her a fair amount. comrade daisy was awesome and is definitely me when i see any monarchy-related stuff. somewhere over the last few seasons she's developed into one of the most interesting characters in downton and we don't talk about that enough. andy trashing the boiler was immature af but at the same time i feel like it completely makes sense for daisy to take that as a compliment. it’s just such a daisy thing to do?????

now, there is one thing i kinda fucked up here. while i went into the film with low expectations for everyone else, i fully expected baxley to be A Thing because how could i not and boy did i come out looking like boo boo the fool. i guess baxter and molesley have continued the tradition of Agonisingly Long Downstairs Slowburns which would be okay if we were still getting one season per year but is quite frankly rude when we're on rationed content like this. the first half of the film i thought it was gonna be revealed that they were together or something but then that scene at the end implied they're dancing around each other and my god is it frustrating. i would give so much to trade tom and lucy's romantic subplot for a baxter/molesley one but once again i know that's an unrealistic dream.

definitely not enough baxter in general but that one shot of her, anna and mrs hughes standing in the same frame was worth the price of my cinema ticket. still love molesley even tho he's a monarchist.

in terms of the overall downstairs stuff, i'm euphoric at seeing all these people interact with each other again. as we all know, found family is the best trope and since the servants are literally the epitome of that every moment focussed on them is like chicken soup for my weary soul. was the revolution against the royal servants realistic? no. was it realistic for the two people who came up with most of the plot to be the ones who went to jail for doing literally nothing wrong and would therefore want to avoid stuff that could get them in trouble with an all-powerful family? also no! however, seeing downstairs all working together for a common goal is content that appeals directly to me and i am thankful.

shoutout to the last scene which is the best way the movie could've ended it for me. use of first names AND walking home together? thank u fellowes.

tldr; team downstairs fan who was strongly anti-movie, went in with low expectations, was pleasantly surprised.  there are a shit ton of things i’d change but i just really loved seeing these characters who all mean so much to me again. obviously the only reason this film happened was for financial reasons rather than a desire to continue the storyline (cause the finale tied things up perfectly imo) but i wish they'd done a two-part miniseries instead to ensure everyone gets some screentime. two ninety minute specials every few years would work much better if everyone wants to keep downton going but i guess that doesn't bring the cash in like a movie does.