Reblogged singswan-springswan
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Lisa McGee's work is honestly so underrated. Derry Girls might be popular on Tumblr but barely anyone in my broader social circle has seen it
One of the best things about it is that women are allowed to have traits and experiences that only men have the privilege of having in most stories. How often have u seen girl groups getting to goof around and getting into shenanigans? Hell, when was the last time u even saw a female friend group that wasn't centred around relationships and male approval? They're teenage girls and they get to act like it. They're allowed to have flaws and biases that make people uncomfortable or create problems, which makes them human, which is the whole point of having flaws. Likewise the mother and aunt are allowed to be as ridiculous and immature as they want, a trait that's always given to men with women just rolling their eyes at them and constantly having to be the reasonable ones.
In the new series, i love the range of female characters and their personalities (sry I've forgotten most of the names now lol). Women being bored of the confines of their lives and roles. A writer who's sick of only having thrilling experiences in her writing, a mother who needs a break, and a closeted lesbian who could never come out and lives with that regret. I love how ordinary their lives are (well apart from the writer), they have some of their scenes in Dara's kitchen where she takes care of her mother, and Robin's house with the chaos of her children, it just felt so human and relatable. That said, I love that 3 middle aged women get to try and solve a murder mystery and have all these dangerous experiences. I love how Robin's out there doing that when her husband needs to work and take care of the kids, a role so often played by women that it's just an implicit assumption taken for granted in so many stories. I especially love Greta, who's just trying to run away from her past and constantly ends up with one murder after the other. Most stories have this 'friend group' that sticks with u against all odds no matter what, but I love that the girls admit, years later, that they always knew that there was some darkness in Greta's life and they wanted to get away, which is unfortunately much more realistic for teenagers
There are other interesting characters in the series, but I don't have time to type everything out lol. All I'm saying is that I love her work so fucking much and I wish more people recognised how good and refreshing it is
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What I really love about How to Get to Heaven From Belfast is the way the show contends with trauma.
Margot's entire hypothesis is that by rejecting a traumatic event, by forgetting it, you can "become someone new," you can move on. But the show disproves that hypothesis.
Trying to "move on," trying to "forget" actually only brings more pain, more anxiety, more despair. Life remains off kilter for all of them. At the beginning of the series all of these women are stuck, are lost, are feeling out of place in some capacity — all because they haven't actually acknowledged the shit that's fucked them up.
For Greta and Jodie their separation— largely pushed by Margot— makes it so that they never actually get to talk about the church fire and all the guilt they hold about it. When Charles Sampson brings them together again, that's the first time that they might actually begin to process it. Jodie even says, "I want to tell my story... I am still there, in that place, on that night."
It's Jodie's desire to unpack that night and Greta's refusal to (first, with Sampson, and later, at Greta's house) that leads to Jodie's death — another accident, another point of trauma caused by refusing to think about and talk about the past.
Similarly, Saoirse, Robyn, and Dara have refused to discuss the night at the cabin since it happened. They end their friendship with Greta to "put it all behind them." Saoirse says early on "it DID happen" indicating that they have basically written it out of their memories (as best as they can). But it haunts them, it creeps up, because trauma doesn't just *vanish*
What is deeply tragic about all of their stories (Greta, Jodie, Saoirse, Robyn, Dara) is that if they had just TALKED about it, if they had held each other through all the grief and fear and guilt and agony, then they might have actually healed from it.
The show ends where Greta's trauma begins (the church yard), and it also ends with S, R, and D finally finding Greta (who symbolizes all the trauma they have from that night at the cabin). It is in the returning, the acknowledgement of the dark points in their youths that actually sets them free— well, not entirely free from the trauma, because it will always be there, but free from the weight of carrying it alone. They all have acknowledged it, come to some terms with it, and THAT is what will allow them to move forward, to become someone "new."
I think that that's the message I love most about this show: don't run from your trauma, look at it. Face it, however you need to.
I think that's fuckin beautiful.
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How to get to heaven from Belfast
Okay, I finished this show today and Oh My God. The first thing I did was of course looking up edits on tiktok, only to find that a lot of people were hating on the show???? HELLO? Did we watch the same thing? I know that some people were expecting it to be exactly like Derry Girls because Lisa McGee wrote it and it's a (Northern) Ireland based show. But that's no reason to hate on it when it was clearly not a show that was pure comedy? Look it was funny and all but I continued watching because of the excitement, the murder mystery and the fact that you could not stop watching it because you would miss a clue. I've also seen a lot of people saying that they got bored and my question is how exactly did you get bored? There's so many details and while the plot flows in a way that is quite an obvious plotline it works so well. I also personally really liked the Derry Girls hints in the show and using a lot of the same actors but that's just my opinion. I really like McGee her writing so I would 100% recommend this to anyone who is still in doubt!!
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One of my favourite moments in How To Get To Heaven From Belfast was actually at the nursing home, with Dara and Robyn. It’s not a super major moment or a particularly dramatic one when compared to a lot of other bits in the series but it’s so good for Robyn’s character.
Throughout the series we get a lot of jokes about her questionable parenting (+ relationship) choices because y’know. It’s a comedy. But in the nursing home scene, Robyn, who has also been least sympathetic to Greta throughout both sees through that old woman’s bullshit immediately and gives her a piece of her mind. It’s probably her most serious moment in the show.
Idk. Good scene. Good moment. I like that this is her most disgusted moment, when she’s talking to another mother who fucked up her kid so badly it caused the whole situation. I like that despite getting into multiple car crashes, accusing her husband of having an affair and all the various other shit she does in the series we’re shown why kids might feel safe around her. Shoutout Robyn.
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PLEASE watch How To Get To Heaven From Belfast. It's a murder mystery and comedy by the creator of Derry Girls. it's got intrigue. It's got three women entering their 40s struggling with grief, guilt, anxiety, ptsd, and keeping secrets. One of these women is a neurotic tv writer, one is a repressed catholic butch lesbian, and one is a mother of three boys desperately trying to handle her anger issues while keeping her manicures looking fantastic.
All of the one-off and side characters are bizarre, disconcerting, or just plain weird and I love all of them. The murder mystery is one of the only one's I haven't been able to figure out before the last episode. It's colorful, it's suspenseful, and it's some of the best mystery writing outside Knives Out. It's so great to see women written as messy and strange and loveable and flawed as the ones in this show. I highly recommend watching it because I would love to see more shows like this out in the world.
Reblogged wizard-email
imagine if i did my work. if i sat down and Did it. and it was Done. can you even imagine such a thing
Reblogged worstwolverinesbf
tragicfaggots-deactivated202407
person w adhd experiencing symptoms of adhd: why the fuck can’t I do this thing . I wish there was some explanation for this
Reblogged mctreeleth
Maybe if I just work harder, this empty cup will pour again
Maybe the cup needs a bit of time to rest and refill?
Maybe the cup needs to lock the fuck in???
