#terrainofheartfelt

[strideofpride]

S, beloved, do you have any Superstore fic recs? I'm having an Amy/Jonah hankerin

Happy to oblige 🙏🏻

Anything different is good

Sunny Side Up

Something complete, yet still growing

i will (not) open myself up this way again

#to be honest I don’t have much #I’ve found I’m very picky when it comes to Amy/jonah fic #I think maybe cause it’s such a specific dynamic to write #jonah x amy #superstore #jonah simms #amy sosa #fic rec #terrainofheartfelt #strideofprideanswers

[insistonyourcupofstars]

This was so long ago, but Liz, I need you to know that this song has become a vital part of my character playlist for myself 💛💛💛💛💛

It's so pretty and moody!!! the harmonies are Just, and acoustic guitar!!!! a very me song, you know me so well!

#asks #ask games #terrainofheartfelt

[vanderwoodlings]

Stuck in church for the next few hours too 😔✊

May I ask for any headcanons you have about our beloved vdw sibs? Eric & Serena while they were growing up and beyond?

Well I hope it was a spiritually filling experience for you <3 Anyway yes!!! Them!!!

- Eric and Serena are just absolute icons at playing together growing up. These kids can Pass Some Time

- They have these really elaborate games that not even Blair and Nate can understand the rules to and just leave everyone else kind of like ‘????’ but it also presents in stuff like Jenny finding out that Eric is a fucking champion at slide when they’re like 17 and he’s just like. Well yeah

- Serena and Eric learn to drive together! On his sixteenth birthday she’s just like ‘here is your real present and here is your prep for getting your learner’s permit. Mom can’t stop us both <3’ (which is something we kind of see in the early parts of s1, that Eric’s wants can get lost in the fights between Serena and his mom, but in this case he’s okay with it)

- I think Eric is always very aware that Serena is his protector, both in the very literal sense of her as his defender and in the way that she just naturally makes life easier for him and his more quiet and introverted self—she knows how to draw him in and make sure he’s included

- I also think it takes him a lot of time to realize that he anchors her, and his quiet, scheme-y self is good for her, and that he takes care of her and helps her manage herself too (and, also, exactly how much she needs that help). Like, she doesn’t just love him but that he has a value in their relationship. He also thinks about this way more actively than she does

- Serena is just like ‘Eric my baby brother who must be done right by in every way because he is pure and good’ and has that written into her fucking bones in the way that older siblings do (and also is aware that Eric is better at figuring out what’s going on in her head than she is sometimes)

- On the flip side of that is that Eric is… he’s always very self-contained, in how he manages himself, and everyone knows that if you really want him to talk about his feelings or what’s going on with him, you send Serena. (Unless, of course, your name is Humphrey and you didn’t grow up with him and therefore have less expectations.)

- And on yet a third side, I’ve always really thought that Eric is the one who Serena tried to hide her problems from. Not her feelings—you know Eric got to hear and mediate every single fight with Blair—but the part of her that was an on fire tragedy masquerading as a party girl, because she was his big sister and some part of her knew something was Wrong in a way that he should be kept safe from, even if she didn’t know how to keep it away from herself

- Anyway, Lily is one of the champion storytellers of gg—I mean, she’s up there with Blair, and always was, even as a baby, hello ‘you’re falling in love with me, aren’t you?’ in Valley Girls—and I think growing up, one of the signs that things are Good in the vdw household is that Lily takes the time to read Eric and Serena a bedtime story

- Ofc by the time Eric is like six she’s scared about reading stories that are too far below Serena’s reading level vs ones that are good for him and I am just. A little obsessed with Serena van der Woodsen, founder and president of the Shakespeare Club, and I think she gets it from her mom <3

- Serena is also the one who reads stories when things are Bad, and either way that becomes a formative experience for Eric, and it’s something he definitely does/would do as a parent

- I’ve talked before about the idea of them both ending up in California as adults, and it’s a huge state but it’s small enough that they call it close enough to visit constantly, which is something that I like a lot

- But I think that it doesn’t really matter where they end up? They make sure to make time for each other (or, really, Eric makes sure to make time and Serena is intuitive enough to know that Saturday morning means it is time to talk with Eric on the phone, and thus the structure becomes settled)

- They communicate a lot via texts of ‘oh I saw this and thought you would be into it’ too—news articles, some fashion video that showed up because the youtube algorithm is weird, literally anything that has to do with the opera because Serena just. Has no idea what the fuck is going on over there but she knows he likes it

- Also I don’t believe in either of them living in the UES as adults but lbr Serena’s wedding is the only reason Eric sets foot back there in canon in a fucking decade and that is some king shit

#serena van der woodsen #eric van der woodsen #eric and serena #the van der woodsens #lily rhodes #drugs / #child neglect / #asks #terrainofheartfelt

[staliaqueen]

hello I cannot stop thinking of "Question...?" as a jenate song and I just needed to share :)

oh I'm going insane over this

#*adds it to my jenate playlist* #no actually this is amazing i hadn't thought of it this way before #i feel a gifset coming on.... #terrainofheartfelt #janate #mal answers

[blairwld]

Eric & Jenny?

Eric

three things we have in common

gay

i would also like to not get involved in the drama

love making charts and venn diagrams :)

three things we don't have in common

i wouldn't have became friends with chip whiskers :/

i wouldn't have gone to the derena wedding. rip to eric

excluiding the previous points i'm not perfect sadly

Jenny

three things we have in common

into fashion

i love board games :)

desire to be popular and prove that you are better/worth something more because of self doubt (yikes lmao)

three things we don't have in common

better (?) at dealing with my emotions

i like to believe i wouldn't have gone to some of the extremes that she got to kdjhfkjdjshdf

i'm not that confident and headstrong

#ask #terrainofheartfelt #better is not the correct word but i tend to deal with my emotions in an internal way. while jenny is more externalif that makes sense #jenny humphrey #eric van der woodsen

[scabopolis]

ooh! questions for you:

of the adaptations you've seen, which would you call the most faithful to the original text/spirit of the work?

and of them, which had the most drastic change, but you liked it because it made the story work in a new light?

okay, so aside from Pride and Prejudice (1995), which is essentially huge portions of the book faithfully adapted, I would have to say Sense and Sensibiity, the Emma Thompson version.

As a screenplay, it is almost perfect as an adaptation, imho. It sets up all the relationships perfectly, shows us how these people matter to one another, how their lives will criss cross and impact one another, and does all of that while also setting up the stakes for our family of women. It also (unlike the BBC adaptation in the 1980s, which I have not seen) keeps family and the sisters at the heart of the novel, which I think makes both Marianne's and Elinor's respective heartbreaks even more poignant. And Emma Thompson as Elinor is love letter to that character.

(Spare me this rant, but I think ignoring that critical element [that family is often at the center of Austen's novels] is why so many Austen adaptations come across a little emotionally cold. Often when people talk about Austen's books, they highlight the central romance between the hero and the heroine. [Unless you're talking about Mansfield Park and then it's just a lot of "Really, Fanny? Edmund Bertram?"] Her stories of courtship have radically impacted every form of romance content for the past 200 years, so it makes sense to a certain degree that when adaptations make cuts to the source material, what they keep fully intact is the romance. But often what gets overlooked in the adaptations is how these are such speific romances, that speak to the specific characters, at a specific point in their lives. The romance novelist Jennifer Crusie said "I think a great book is about the most important moment in a character’s life" and Austen DOES THAT! Unfortunately so many of the adaptations remove the specficity and it removes the stakes. These women are who they are because of their families. You don't really know Anne Elliot is going to be the main character of Persuasion until 30 or so pages into the book. The entire first third of the book is her in relationship to her family. There's also some evidence to suggest that Jane Austen's preferred title for the book was The Elliots. The family is at the heart of the novel. And Anne's experience of her family is what allows her relationship to Wentworth to happen the way it does. If you take out her family, if you make her family not matter to her, it does not make sense that she removes her acceptance of his proposal. Anyway. I am drawn towards the adaptations that show the complexities of familial love, as imperfect as it might be.)

As for your second question, while I didn't adore the most recent Emma (dir. Autumn de Wilde), I think that film gets the cheeky/wry tone of the source material better than most. The intertitles throughout the film, the set design, the costumes, the music, etc., all give the film this bouyancy that sets off the satire inherent to the book. This bouyancy also helps to reinforce a critical character element of Emma - that she goes through life relatively unbothered and untouched by the troubles of life. Creating a film atmosphere that feels almost cartoonish at times helps contribute to this sense that Emma is sort of disconnected from the rest of the world as it functions. In a technicolor dream world she is the most technicolor.

(I know I should probably mention the 1999 film Mansfield Park for this second question, but that movie is so barely Mansfield it seems silly to mention.)

Bonus observation: Even the most faithful adaptions depart from Emma the book in one critical way. At the end of the book, it implies that Emma and Harriet don't really remain friends; at least they are no longer close friends. Mr. Knightley is proved right, and the friendship proves to be bad in ways for both Emma and Harriet. All four adaptations I watched found a way to reconcile Emma and Harriet at the end.

#oh man! not even sure I answered your questions! #movi: sense and sensibility #movie: emma #austen adaptations #terrainofheartfelt

[babyjapril]

Jo Wilson bingo???

I like her a lot!!

Thank you for asking<3<3

#ask #terrainofheartfelt #character bingo

[mrs-nate-humphrey]

6, 8, 22, & 25???? <3333

answered 6 & 8 already, so here's the others <3 <3 <3

22. What are your favorite fic tropes to read? uh, i love many different tropes but i think any form of "you're not who i thought you were and i love that" or "i never realised this was an option but now i can't stop thinking about it" are my favourite things to see. so the tropes that fit in here are mutual pining + thinking it's unrequited, fake dating, enemies to lovers, meet cutes which go from 0 to 100 very fast, werewolf fics, vampire fics, love triangles in which the person the love interest is dating is an asshole & their friend is silently pining (eg: blouis with pining dan)... anything like that!

i also do like whump, hurt/comfort, recovery from things that are heavy/unsettling (like the aftermath of that catherine incident for nate) and other fics that are inherently disturbing and uncomfortable, but like. that is the point! when done well, i find those really catharctic and fun.

25. What's your favorite line from a fic? can't actually think of anything right now, but then i thought about this fic my boyfriend wrote me and reread it and here you go:

Their hands brush in the brief exchange, and it’s easy to understand why his mother has been pining a decade and a half for a man who never came back. Feeling floods back into his bloodless fingers, and he wants to punch something just to fix it again.

#terrainofheartfelt #ask game #thank u jess! love youuuuuuu\ #the slash was a typo dlfhgfdlkhgkfdh

[useragarfield]

Congratulations! 💖💖💖💖💖

For the MMC: the Yeehaw Six of Bluebell or the Fab Five of Seattle Grace?

as IF there was any other option liz, mwah

#ask #answer #i speak #terrainofheartfelt #liz 2 tag #mmc

[strideofpride]

every review I’ve heard of Madame Web so far in my media bubble is essentially “I didn’t say it was good, I said that I liked it” and honestly that makes me really want to see it

and that Dakota Johnson’s nepo baby je ne sais quoi makes the whole movie

No like that’s the perfect way to describe it! People throw the word Camp around a lot lately but Madame Web is really, truly Camp. My brother described it as the opposite of this post with how in your face the 2003 setting is:

And Dakota Johnson is just…the most awkward hot person alive. She’s clearly never interacted with anyone normal maybe ever and now doesn’t know how to be normal herself and I find that really hot idk.

#i liked it SO MUCH Liz lol #I’m sad it’s bombing at the box office cause I want five more #madame web #dakota johnson #terrainofheartfelt #strideofprideanswers

[insistonyourcupofstars]

WHAT IT'S YOUR BIRTHDAY???? HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAREST <333

THANK YOU, LIZ!!!

#liz getting this from you is like wrapping my heart in a warm fuzzy blanket #my birthday #asks #terrainofheartfelt

[vanderwoodlings]

And same for the humphrey sibs? Dan, Jenny (& Vanessa & Ruby)

Yes!!! (Honestly these are,,, ideal asks i love talking siblings tysm) Also, @mrs-nate-humphrey was talking about the abrams sisters just recently, so that might be. In my brain (and yes my attribution on that post is correct. I did say that)

- I honestly think Ruby and Vanessa weren’t very close growing up. They definitely have a pretty significant age gap and I just think that as Ruby was figuring out her own messy self and stuff she just,,, found v kind of annoying

- And they do get closer as they get older and when they move into together and so on but it remains very present for Vanessa that to her, Ruby doesn’t like her very much. Like, she’s wrong and all, and if she were to ever mention it Ruby would be horrified, but she never does because that’s The Way It Is and so she just never really pushes too hard about their relationship and doing stuff together, because she doesn’t want to impose

- Ruby is the person who responded to her parents’ very loud expectations by going ‘cool. No <3’ at approximately age 15, and then found out that dyeing her hair electric blue and forming a queer punk band was actually something they thought was great and was a little horrified that her attempted rebellion failed

- As an adult they kind of have a,,, politely distant relationship, in that they have no idea Ruby has problems with them and she’s just going to live her life over here and not tell them because it would be a huge fucking hassle

- And that means moving in with Ruby is one of the first times Vanessa realizes they have issues either, and it’s a very freeing experience for her. And this repeats a lot over the period after they move in together, see: Vanessa lowkey thinks her sister hates her, and said sister has grown up enough to realize she’s cool and in need of nurturing

- Vanessa is, ofc, always invited to Ruby’s band’s performances and she kind of accidentally stumbles into being their photographer and videographer very quickly by virtue of just bringing her camera everywhere and being good with it

- The night she brings Nate for their first date is one of the first times that she doesn’t tape the show, and they get mocked mercilessly and warmly by a bunch of lesbians about it and Ruby is just like ‘hm. Oh. I kind of figured she was also gay’

- And, like, eventually she’s the person Vanessa tells when she realizes she’s bi and all is well in the world and in Ruby’s gaydar once more

- And I think there is something really important and affirming for Vanessa about having her sister just Know that she’s a lesbian and always be sharing that with her, even as it takes her a really long time to understand her own bisexuality, but it’s also something that makes her really insecure and makes it harder for her because she doesn’t just Know

- And Humphreys darling beloveds!!!

- Look, Dan is the sweetest, most anxious and quiet kid in his class. (Like, see that line about Rufus walking him to school way back in… s2?) Dan also comes home with a black eye in the third grade because some kid was picking on Jenny and that’s that

- Like, yes, Dan has anger issues and yes, Dan has mom friend anxiety override, but he also has Jenny In Trouble common sense override and it is one of his most appealing traits to… everyone but her. Jenny is a little horrified from the jump

- The Humphreys are a house of artists and they all absolutely definitely engage with each other’s forms of it! Dan and Jenny both grow up singing and playing like five instruments and competent with at least two mediums of visual art each. (Jenny most likes pencils, Dan prefers oils because he is a freak and also his mother’s son. Jenny will always find the smell of turpentine comforting.)

- But also Jenny uses Dan as a dummy a lot, before she manages to save up enough to get one of her own, and so there are a great many early Jenny Humphrey Originals that are Dan sized

- And while Vanessa is canonically Dan’s go to person for a first read and edit of his work, Jenny is the one who plays thesaurus and rhyming dictionary and sounding board for early concepts

- Living apart for the first time during s4—Jenny running away during s2 not being counted due to the sheer amount of emotional turmoil—I think that both of them just feel. So weird about that, and I think for Dan he really comes to the sense that he had failed Jenny pretty horribly

- And he tells her that, during her first visit in s4, they just stay up at night talking about it all and Jenny fucking spirals after getting back to Hudson for a variety of reasons, but pretty high up among them is her own Dan In Distress common sense override

- Somehow this post has turned sideways into [attempts to rationalize s4!Jenny] and I apologize. Anyway

- Big believer in Dan staying with Jenny while they’re both adults and she’s in London. Not permanently, or even really super long term, but in the sense of him spending a summer there or doing a semester abroad and just showing up all the time or both. It’s very reparative for them

- Of all the gg siblings, they’re the ones who have the kind of inside jokes where the joke itself has become just looking at each other at the moment when they would tell it and cracking up to everyone else’s complete confusion

- They’re also the ones who have general freaky nonverbal communication and same brain moments the most, and they are not allowed to play things like charades as a team because they fucking decimate the competition

#dan humphrey #jenny humphrey #vanessa abrams #ruby abrams #ruby and vanessa #the abrams #dan and jenny #asks #terrainofheartfelt

[terrainofheartfelt]

Liz's definitive track assignment list that nobody asked for (but I know I'm right)

"Fortnight" (featuring Post Malone) -- DAIRFAIR DAIRFAIR DAIRFAIR

"The Tortured Poets Department" -- derena breakup track. derena divorce track. take your pick. serena pov <3

"My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys" -- 🪑

"Down Bad" -- changing course because this is rwrb firstprince alex post lake house I'M RIGHT

"So Long, London" -- same for above. acd-coded

"But Daddy I Love Him" -- blair waldorfian. i'm having his baby jk lmao. unhinged.

"Fresh Out the Slammer" -- calling it another post derena divorce. pov both of them. dan floats to blair, serena gravitates to carter. and. fuck it. 🪑divorce. "I served my time" and all that shit

"Florida!!!" -- ivy/charlie. florida woman. fuck this city i'm getting fucked up in the gulf. yeah. she could have been so much more.

"Guilty as Sin?" -- BLAIRRRRRRRRRR s5ep4 if you want to get specific. reading steamy book scenes. gurl.

"Who's Afraid of Little Old Me?" -- JENNY GIRL. "I am what you trained me to be." I MEANNNNN.

"I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can)" -- 🪑

"Loml" -- dan. sad dan. sad lonely boy

"I Can Do It With a Broken Heart" -- serena. always. constantly. (though cherry & I also agree it's firstprince coded)

"The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived" -- louis divorce yeehaw

"The Alchemy" -- serenate reconciliation

"Clara Bow" -- blair & jenny and the girls that are destined to replace them.

#*** please be advised that op barely knows who these songs are written about AND SHE LIKES IT THAT WAY #i don't care about d-list celebrity men i care about my BLORBOS #checking wikipedia and lol you can tell dessner produced most of the b-side #the way 'daddy i love him' and 'slammer' want to be country tracks SO BAD but the production won't LET THEM #same for 'i can fix him' #one drink in so i feel JUST bold enough to post #but the b sides have gotta be later #album's so fucking long i've only listened to it once entirely #gossip girl #rwrb #this is terrainofheartfelt canon now

[blairwld]

3, 6, 26?

3. have you ever quit a show before it finished? why? Yes, although i usually go back and finish them anyway lol The one that first came to mind was Jane the Virgin, after they killed [REDACTED]. I watched a little bit after but i just got the feeling that the writers had lost the plot idk. I wasn't even a big fan of the character but still I couldn't enjoy the show after that

honorable mention to shows that took me longer to watch because i quit watching them at least once: ouat, glee, supernatural

6. which shows do you think are underrated and need more love? Right now I feel Severance it's very underrated and more people should be talking about it

26. favourite TV show theme song? maybe Community, i think Succession, True Blood and Friends are also good

Big Time Rush intro fucking slaps

#ask #terrainofheartfelt #thanks for the ask :)

[staliaqueen]

Does it feel like everything's just like Second best after that meteor strike? And what's that that I heard? That you're still with her? That's nice, I'm sure that's what's suitable And right, but tonight Can I ask you a question?

jenate + question...? for @terrainofheartfelt

#gossip girl #jenny humphrey #nate archibald #jenate #gifs #gossipgirledit #ggedit #jennyhumphreyedit #natearchibaldedit #jenateedit #tslyricsedit #useramys12 #teendramaedit #userotp #usergif #userthing #taylor momsen #chace crawford #this is over a year late now but oh well #flashing tw

[babyjapril]

Happy birthday!!!!!

Thank you so much!!! 🥰💞💞💞

#ask #terrainofheartfelt #💙