Things I want to happen next on The Handmaid’s Tale: Emily going on a well-deserved vengeful murder spree, popping in to say goodbye to June, and then rejoining her wife and son in Canada.
Things that will definitely not happen next on The Handmaid’s Tale: Any of what I just wrote.
So I just watched the first three episodes of the TV series today, and while I agree with everyone that the show is very intense and disturbing, especially in light of our current political environment…can I just add that it’s also really funny at points? Mind you, the moments of humor are very much in the vein of sarcastic/gallows humor, but they’re there and I definitely appreciate them.
Yeah, this. I love me a good dystopia, but this one’s been more difficult to watch than I imagined. Not sure why I thought they wouldn’t update a book from 1985 to where the government overthrow that led to Gilead existing took place in our present, but it’s terrifying.
That said, the humor is getting me through the eps, like when Offred said “Fuck.” really flatly at the end of the ep. Reminded me of the kind of black comedy I used to love about Dead Like Me.
My favorite thing about Thomas the Tank Engine is that it canonically takes place in a train post-apocalypse where the Island of Sodor is the only safe zone in a totalitarian dystopia in which steam trains are routinely killed and their body parts are sold or cannibalized for repair
If you think I’m kidding you need to read the original books
could you please direct me to a source? i would feel much better if this was validated.
It took me so long to find this quote online but I did it because it’s so much darker than one might expect from Thomas the Tank Engine:
“…Engines on the Other Railway aren’t safe now. Their controllers are cruel. They don’t like engines any more. They put them on cold damp sidings, and then,” Percy nearly sobbed, “they…they c-c-cut them up.” -”The Bluebells of England.” Stepney the Bluebell Engine. Rev. Awdry, Wilbert. London: Egmont Publishing, 1963.
This illustration, by Gunvor and Peter Edwards, accompanied the above text in the original book, and depicts a pair of unfortunate Other Railway engines moments before being disassembled with a blowtorch.
HOLY FUCK LOOK AT THE ONE IN THE BACKGROUND THEY TOOK ITS FUCKING FACE OMG
the early thomas the tank engine books are pretty standard stuff. saccharine bubblegum type stories and illustrations. if you watched the show, it’s like that in book form.
the second half of the railway series are so fucking dark and surreal i’m convinced they were a result of reverend wilbur awdry doing copious amounts of lsd and having hallucinations of his own death.
Excuse me but the very first story in the Railway Series is about an engine who hides in a tunnel and refuses to run because he doesn’t want to get his paint job ruined in the rain, so railway management seals off the tunnel.
They eventually let him out because another engine breaks down or something, but the original plan was to just leave him in there forever.
On the show, didn’t they also hook up one engine to a generator, so he’d never move again? That was literally one of the lines, I think. It’s on some other post on here. It was chilling.
Yes! This also happened in the books, to an engine referred to only as “No. 2″, but the television series applied the same scenario to an invented character named “Smudger”, in the episode “Granpuff”.
“Smudger,” said Duke. “Was a show-off. He rode roughly and often came off the rails. I warned him to be careful, but he took no notice.” “Listen, Dukie” he snared. “Who worries about a few spills?” “We do here! I said, but Smudger just laughed.” “Hahaha!” “Until one day, Manager said he was going to make him useful at last. Smudger stopped laughing then!” “W-w-why? What did he do?!” “He turned him into a generator. He’s still there behind our shed. He’ll never move again.”
This is so fucked up
No, listen.
Okay, so we see Railway Management doing all this shit, right, but supposedly it’s so much worse in the Other Railways? I mean, sure, you might get turned into a generator or bricked into a tunnel for not doing as you’re told, but at least you’re not cut up and sold for parts, right? It’s not so bad on the island of Sodor, right?
Or maybe that’s just what Railway Management wants the engines to think.
Maybe the island of Sodor is the real totalitarian regime, and the engine citizens (slaves) are fed propaganda, illustrated in hellish grays and sulfuric yellows, about how bad it is everywhere else, at all the Other Railways.
You are lucky to be an engine of Sodor.
Railway Management cares about you.
Trust Railway Management.
Stay on Your Track.
It Could Be So Much Worse.
Wtf the fuck is this train based 1984 bullshit
The fact that I enjoyed this series as a kid probably explains…
Customer (calling from Ireland): “Yes hello, I would like to -”
Sheep in the background: *gentle baa*
Customer: “Uh, sorry, what I want to do is -”
Sheep: *slightly more insistent baa*
Customer: “No, not now! -cough- Excuse me. I have a reservation and -”
Sheep: *VERY LOUD ACCUSATORY BAA*
Customer:“Arnulf! Please be quiet, I am on the phone! … Sorry, I sincerely apologize on behalf of Arnulf.”
me: “I love and forgive him.”
Customer: “Don’t, he doesn’t deserve it. Anyway, I’m calling about -”
Arnulf: *small, very self-satisfied baa*
I once took my kids to a local farm and we found a lil goat with its horns stuck in a fence, just sitting there kinda mournfully on the grass. We tried to help it get free but it was stuck tight. We petted it for a while and fed it some grass (as it had lawnmowered a circle around itself as far as it could reach), and then went back to the ticket office to tell them it needed help, but before I’d said more than: “There’s a goat-” the guy cut me off with a weary wave and said, “Yeah, we know. Stuck in the fence. That’s Brenda. She can get herself out whenever she wants. She just likes the attention.”
I know I know there’s way too much text but there’s SO MUCH to love about this story: (1) ‘a ghost story that my daddy tells me’ wtf baby Jared; (2) ‘I should have slept for probably 12 hours’; (3) ‘just us and… plants’; (4) the fact that it’s S1 and they’re both about to pass out from sleep deprivation (look at Jensen’s wide eyes in gif 2 he’s like DO NOT SLEEP DO NOT SLEEP). Also the Texan accent but for that you’ll need to watch the video (it’s worth it).
My favorite part is that a ghost saw Jared sleeping and decicded to spoon him
True friends do not value you for what you can do for them. They simply value you.
Fuck. Fuck. I can’t stop thinking about Roy straight up fire bending from his throat bc of that thing i just reblogged I’m sweating so bad FML FML FML FML!!!!
In Roy Mustang’s defense, he’d had his gloves shredded twice
already. And for a man who relied on those gloves to keep his own head attached
to his body, twice was twice too many.
In Roy Mustang’s defense, he understood a tattoo was an
unsightly thing for a political figure to have. He’d mulled over it in silence,
usually late at night staring at the ceiling of his empty apartment. It could
be well-received, if he played it up as part of his Flame Alchemist persona.
More likely it could tank his political career. The only popular tattooed
alchemists were Solf Kimblee and Scar, and tossing himself in with their lot
was probably political suicide.
In Roy Mustang’s defense, he hadn’t been able to bring
himself to consult Riza Hawkeye on this decision. And she was the source of at
least half the level-headed logic that drove him most days. He’d personally
been the one to burn the Flame Alchemist tattoo off her back. He didn’t want to
hurt her by letting her know he intended to get his own tattooed on.
This brought Roy to a series of conclusions: He could not
continue relying solely on his gloves if he wanted to stay alive. He could not
tattoo the flame transmutation circle anywhere the public (or Riza) would notice
easily. And of course, it needed to be somewhere functional even if he were
captured and immobilized.
The tattoo artist grimaced at the request. “Your neck?”
The dentist only quirked an eyebrow. “You want flint fillings in your teeth? What, are
you trying to chew sparks?”
Most importantly though, Roy Mustang had the money for it,
and he had the unflinching, moronic resolve to follow through.
He was satisfied, after many hours of gritting his teeth and
digging his finger nails into a tattoo parlor chair, with how suavely his
uniform concealed the red transmutation circle just above his collar bone. It
took some practice, cutting his teeth against each other at just the right
angle to make the volatile fillings spark. It took even more practice to catch
that spark and transmute it into a roiling flame. It took the most practice of
all to do this without singeing the inside of his mouth to hell and back.
But stupidly enough, it worked.
And so Roy Mustang had a secret weapon.
And the real pity about secret weapons, when it comes down
to it, is that they have to remain secret. Mustang went about his days with his
tattoo concealed, and his teeth fillings hidden, and his lackluster gloves
securely on his hands. He was eager, almost, for some eighth homunculus to hop
out of the shadows and challenge him, if only so that he could know his genius
had not gone to waste. Maybe Selim Bradley would grow a few more teeth and eyes and try to get the jump on Mustang. Maybe King Bradley himself would hop on out of his grave for a rematch, as Bradley had already proven himself once or twice to be perfectly capable of bouncing back from certain death.
No such thing happened. Three weeks passed entirely without incident. This annoyed Roy
Mustang.
In the fourth week, something sort of happened.
It wasn’t an immortal monster, nor a creature aiming to
become God, nor a human turned homunculus that jumped him on his walk home. No,
it was a knobbly-kneed teen, face just a bit too shiny and oily in the
lamplight, holding a quivering gun.
“Hands up,” the boy barked. Roy complied, almost giddily.
Oops, oh no, no hands… Whatever could he do. “Money. I want your money. Your
wallet. Where is it?”
“I can’t reach it with my hands up,” Roy answered.
“Don’t be smart! Where is it!?”
“My coat pocket.” Roy motioned with his head. “Come closer,
and you can take it from my pocket. My hands are up.”
“Alright… Alright, no funny business!” the teen barked. He
edged closer, his eyes flickering between Mustang’s hands, eyes, and coat
pocket. Mustang felt like Christmas had come.
“Oh, one thing first,” Mustang said, and the teen stopped,
paralyzed, hand tight to the gun. Mustang clicked his teeth, flashed a friendly
grin, and exhaled. The entire night lit up in flame. “I’m a bit flammable this
close up.”
The teen yelped. Or shrieked perhaps. Or attempted to
vocalize some noise of utter horror and instead choked on his spit, yowling and
sputtering like some stepped-on cat. He threw himself backward, landing
butt-first on the pavement and scrambling, scooting away, turning over and
launching himself to his feet in the opposite direction.
Roy watched the boy sprint away, until he was nothing but a
pinprick in the distance. Then he bent down and picked up the gun. He smiled,
and coughed, and coughed again, and didn’t stop coughing for a good 30 seconds,
because unfortunately there was no way to breathe literal fire without feeling
like he’d swallowed at least some of it.
It was still the best idea he’d had in his entire 29 years
of living.
And god dammit it to hell that he couldn’t tell anyone…
Roy stared at the gun, emptying the chamber and stashing it
in his coat pocket along with his wallet. He chewed his tongue and thought
about it.
…Maybe he’d tell Edward.
He and Edward differed on a lot of opinions, and Edward was
loathe to admit that Mustang had ever done anything right in his life.
But Edward, more than anyone, would understand this was
absolutely cool as hell.
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