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Reblog the Princess ™ for future happiness and mental stability. Let her cuteness cleanse you.

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The irony of this particular ad under this particular tag follow... Not to mention, the "Fruit Loop/Froot Loop" ME never had much resonance with me until this ad. Until now, I have always seen the box with the Loops as the O's in "Froot". Seeing it in word format? Definitely not sitting right.

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How has it been 4 years already? That sucks.

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Mandela effect

What if the reason that we experience déjà vu is because of the Mandela effect. That we are jumping time lines and when we jump we have these flashes of déjà vu because we have experienced that already happening before just on a different time line.

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In response to this Berenst*in Bears thing...

(tw: stop reading if you dissociate or get creeped out easily)

I actually have my own Mandela effect story. Up until I was about 10 or 11, I distinctly remember all the “yield” road signs being yellow and black, not red and white. Every single one of them. One day, I was on a road trip with my family, and I saw a red yield sign. I asked my parents “Why is that yield sign red? Did someone paint over it or something?” My parents were really confused. They said, “What do you mean? All yield signs are red.” But up until that day, I had NEVER seen a red yield sign. Every single one was always yellow and black. Ever since that day, I haven’t seen any yellow yield signs.

After I found out about the Mandela effect yesterday, I did a bit of research on the topic, and I found out that the United States stopped making yellow yield signs in 1971, over 20 years before I was born. The vast majority of yield signs nowadays are red. So why did I always remember them being yellow?

In an effort to get to the bottom of this, I asked my other family members if they remember yield signs being yellow. When I asked my stepsister, she said, “Wait, yield signs are red? I’ve only ever seen yellow ones.” My stepdad also told me that they’ve always been yellow, but my mom insists that she’s never seen a yellow yield sign in her life. Do any of you guys remember yield signs always being yellow? Reblog or like this post or send me an ask if you have any stories like mine.

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For later

Imagine This Scenario...

I’ve always wondered what PLL would be like if it was on a different network. Maybe a more adult network? What would it have been like if it didn’t turn all about romance? If MK & Co didn’t listen/believe Twitter was the voice of the entire fandom and write to please them? What if there weren’t as many restrictions? What if they had different, more focused writers who were intent on making A a true villain that would scare fans for years to come? What if motives were serious and everything made sense? With all those “What if’s”, I came up with a scenario how I would write an interaction scene between A and the liars just to demonstrate how sick and twisted A really is with no pushback from a subpar network….

This would take place in the Dollhouse aka the arc that had SO much potential but ended up being only an episode long. (Use your imagination with this one, it’ll make it much more real)

Keep reading

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I thought about that when originally writing this up, though I doubt Melissa would have buried “Ali” based on clothing and hair if she knew “Spencer” was dressed the same way.   I think this is the best explanation for what would have happenned- Melissa buries who she believes to be “Ali”, then not much later she sees Cece dressed the same way as Ali was.  She asks her why and Cece said that Ali gave her the clothes and asked her to dress that way.  Melissa starts to freak out, wondering if Ali asked anyone to dress that way as well, as maybe she buried someone besides Ali.   She relaxes a bit when Alison goes missing, though starts freaking out again in the police station with Peter when she hears Alison is alive.  That means the girl in the grave isn’t Ali.  That is what she whispers in Peter’s ear- “I think Spencer killed the girl in the grave, thinking it was Ali, and I buried her to protect Spencer.”  She doesn’t realize that she buried Alex, who is of course alive, and that Alex is the one who killed and buried the girl in the grave.

How The AD Reveal Should Have Gone (Alex's Backstory)

When Alex left her adopted home, she begged/borrowed/stealed/etc enough money to get to the states in order to find her real parents. During this time, she met Wren, and he became infatuated with her. This was 2 years before Ali disappeared. 

Alex, at first, thought Jessica was Mary. She visited the DiLaurentis household and explained who she was and the horrible life she had endured. Jessica played the part of Mary, internally freaking out about the amount of chaos Alex’s reveal would undoubtedly cause.  She put Alex up in a hotel room while she asked her to be patient as she got up the nerve to explain to her family about Alex’s existence.   At this point, Alex was not aware that she was a twin, let alone that her twin lived next door to her “Mom”. Jessica immediately went to Peter, and the two of them devised a plan. Jessica would use her authority on the board at Radley to commit Alex as someone with multiple personality.  Peter, being genetically related, signed Alex in as “Bethany Young”.  They used Alex’s true back story (one which Alex originally had no problem agreeing to) as proof that she had a mental break, complete with accent.   Once Alex/Bethany was in Radley, Jessica kept tabs on her, and after the mind numbing drugs kicked in, would occasionally take Alex/Bethany on outtings. This is when she would insist Alex call her “Aunt Jessica”.  This was also why Jessica had told Ali you can “never turn your back on a Hastings”, because she was well aware that she could never share her knowledge of Alex’s existence, and if Ali had ever seen Alex, she would think she was Spencer.

There were a few times that Alex/Bethany was able to escape.  

(photo credit to PLL Theories)

The first time was Ian’s Halloween party.  While there, she overheard Noel talk about his and Ali’s plan to scare the girls.  At this point, she hadn’t yet seen Spencer.  Alex had fuly intended to severely hurt/kill Ali in that abandoned house, though Ali was stronger that she thought.  Once the girls were freed from the locked room, Alex finally saw Spencer and she seethed with rage. She realized the true reason behind Jessica betraying her, and instead of leaving town, as she had originally planned, she opted to go back to Radley and devise a new plan. Before she did, she befriended Ian, who was a member of the NAT club.  At that point, she both flirted with Ian, as well as paid him with money provided by Wren, and convinced him to film Alison and her friends. He didn’t understand why “Spencer” wanted to be filmed, though Alex incorporated it as part of her flirting, telling Ian she wanted to see how Ian saw her in his eyes.   Alex’s first priority, however, was still hurting Ali.  Alex/Bethany would never forgive Jessica for having her wrongly commited.  She starts writing to Ali, although when Ali visits Radley to see her, Alex has her roommate(Kimberly Brown) pretend to be “Bethany”.  Ali, being the mean girl she was at the time, enjoys playing with her new toy.  

When Ali begins to get “A” messages (from Mona), she begins to wonder if it isn’t Bethany sending them.  She antagonizes Alex/Bethany through letters and “visits”, making things even worse than the already are.  At the same time, Ali isn’t completely certain that “Bethany” is behind the threats, so after receiving the lipstick note on the mirror, she devies a plan to either expose Bethany or have her take her place.   Ali drops of an exact duplicate of her outfit at Radley, with a note for Bethany to escape and come meet her so they can finally work things out.  Ali figures she and Bethany can either hash things out for good, or that if someone is trying to kill her, having Bethany run around dressed as she is hedges her bets a little bit in case it is someone else threatening her.  

At this point, Alison believes that the other Liars are innocent, and not the ones leaving messages.  That said, she can not have them in her way for all that is about to go down that night.  So, she drugs them. Meanwhile, Jessica receives a phone call that Alex/Bethany has escaped.  She freaks out, and forbids Alison from leaving the house at all.  

Spencer and Ali argue.  Ali walks back towards her house and Spencer walks towards the woods/house.  Melissa hears heard the argument between Ali and Spencer, as do the girls (Aria, Hanna, and Emily), in a drug induced haze. The girls arrive in the bushes in time to see someone dressed like Ali, hit Alison. Mrs. D also sees Alex hit Ali from the window.  Mrs. D rushes from the house as Alex runs away.  The girls, again drugged, begin to chase Ali’s assailant.    Mrs. D, believing Ali dead, buries her.  Mrs. Grunwald pulls Ali from the grave. The girls, chasing Alex through the woods, finally lap back around to the gazebo area and attack Alex.  As they begin to attack her, they start to hallucinate that it is Alison, and finally stop.  They leave Alex’s lifelss body in the gazebo area, and Melissa stumbles across it.  Seeing only the clothes and hair, Melissa thinks Spencer killed Ali, and buries her to hide the evidence.

At this point, Alex’s roommate, Kimberly Brown, who had escaped from Radley with Alex, leaves their meeting spot and comes looking for Alex to figure out what is taking so long.  She sees Melissa burying Alex, and as soon as Melissa leaves, she digs out the grave and saves Alex.

As it turns out, this was the worst mistake Kimberly could have made.  Alex, now set on burning down everything to do with Spencer, and the other liars, kills Kimberly Brown on the spot, switches clothes with her, and buries Kimberly in the grave.  That way, when her body is found, no one will expect she is alive and able to exact revenge.   At this point, Alex still believes she has killed Alison.

Mona sees Ali walking along the road, sends her out of town.  Ali knows for sure that someone is out to kill her, and that her Mom buried her without hesitation.  There is no reason to stay.

Alex then spends the next year devising a plan to get revenge on the liars for trying to kill her.  She enlists Wren to start dating Melissa, to get his way into the Hastings trust, and to learn more about Spencer.  As it turns out, Wren starts falling for Spencer, which only makes Alex hate Spencer more.

She starts communicating (electronically) with Mona, Lucas, and Jenna, who she learned from the NAT tapes had hated Ali as much as she did, as was also picked on by the liars.   When Aria returns to Rosewood, Alex gently nudges Mona to start sending A messages to the girls again.  She tells Mona that she will be an outcast agin, now that the Liars will be together again. In essence, she sets Mona free on the girls to torture them, knowing at some point she will escalate the game to her own level. 

When she notices the DiLaurentis house is sold, and that workers start to dig around the gazebo area, she knows she will need to get ahold of that body to switch around medical records.  “Bethany Young” has to remain dead, or Jessica and/or Peter might start searching for her.   She pays off some cops and people in the morgue and is able to alter paperwork, and steal the body.  

She noticed Jessica and Charlotte together, and eventually figures out how Charlotte fits in to the story.   When she first approahces Charlotte, Charlotte does not believe her.  She thinks it is Spencer trying to figure out where Ali is, if Ali is alive, and that she still wants to find her and hurt her.  Once Alex gains Charlotte’s trust, and Charlotte realizes how awful Ali was to Alex, Charlotte becomes a double agent, though doesn’t immediately tell Alex that Ali is still alive.  (Alex is still wondering what happened to Ali’s body)

Alex tries to burn the girls to death in the lodge fire, and that is the night she realizes Ali is still alive.  However Ali goes immediately back into hiding.  Alex then spends Season 4 trying to find Ali, and using the Liars to do so.   It is Alex that kills Mrs. D, and Mary takes the fall for her (as she did for Spencer with Eliot)  Once Alex heard thought Mona (via Shana) that the girls found Ali, Alex knew that Mrs. D that had to die, because Alex couldn’t have Mrs. D spilling the secret that Spencer had a twin.  

Alex has also realized that Charlotte had been lying to her about Ali, and that is why Charlotte agrees to “take the fall” as Big A- to protect Alex.  Season 5 up to Charlotte’s reveal is about laying the groundwork to have Charlotte take the fall with everything wrong done towards the girls.  At this point, Alex is mostly done with revenge, and just wants to live her life out with Wren, Mary, and eventually Charlotte (once she is released). Then Charlotte is killed, and Alex is denied her family.  She thinks one of the Liars did it, though doesn’t know which one.  She enlists the help of Mary, Eliot (Charlotte’s true love), and Wren to help figure out who killed Charlotte.   Then… Alex starts to fall for Toby.  While Alex had never really been jeaous of Spencer’s life before (I mean, who would with Peter as a father?), she did start to covet Toby.  There were two problems here- Yvonne and Wren.  Alex believed she could deal with Wren, though Yvonne would have to go.  Therefore, she set up the car accident, and while Toby was knocked out (and before help arrived) further injured Yvonne so that her injuries were mortal.

Next, she had to convince Wren that she would kill Spencer, and take over her life, allowing her to be with Toby.  This met with more resistance than she expected, and she eventually killed Wren, worried that he would tip Spencer off.   Alex knows she is playing the long game with this, and uses Aria and Ezra’s wedding (with Toby’s return) as her in to fully take over as Spencer and work toward getting Toby back.  As for Mary, it could go either way as to whether she knew Alex’s ultimate plan to take over as Spencer until the very end.  I am going to say that until Spencer was kidnapped, Mary did not know, and by then, it was too late.

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Ashley, Ella, and Pam: looking for Veronica in a crowd

Ashley yells: “Jessica DiLaurentis always had the prettiest flower garden in Rosewood.”

Veronica: “Fuck that bitch, she stole my husband, she is not stealing the Best Garden in Rosewood award from me, too!”

Ashley: “Found her!”

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A lot of this could have been avoided by calling the Hastings and saying, "Hey, are you interested in a 2 for 1 deal on your baby?”

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This Right Here

Ok, so beyond obvious reasons, I have been trying to figure out why I was so let down/pissed off by this final reveal, and still by the Charlotte reveal.  Now, please correct me if I am wrong, though wasn’t this an actual promo poster (ie not fandom made) for the “Summer of Answers”?

(not my screen grab)

If this is truly a studio promo, how are both Red Coat and Black Veil there, given they are the same person?! Even if that poster was fan made, you can look back on other season promos, where they constantly photographed the girls as “dirt covered”, with a shovel, etc.  (again not my screen grabs)

^^^^^^ Those kind of things is why I thought it would all eventually tie back in to “that night”.  I do believe that this is why I am so upset by these weak reveals, and then being made to feel as though it is --> me <-- who is being unreasonable in my expectations for the story and reveal.

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I read your theory and it's really well thought-out and makes sense, but I do have a question: in this theory; you said that Alex intended to kill Ali during Ian's Halloween party in the abandoned house. Why would Alex want to kill Ali if she doesn't know much about her already? (Or am I misunderstanding something?)

Thank you! As for your question, I would say that Alex initially noticed photos of Ali when she originally visited Jessica, thinking she was Mary.It wouldn't have been hard for Alex to hear about Jessica's daughter from patients and staff at Radley. My guess would also be that once Jessica had Alex in Radley, and she was starting to take her on outings, she opened up a little bit about her life. Alex felt that hurting Alison would hurt Jessica the most.

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Marlene having so much trouble writing, she trying to recycle an entire TV series.

chanel vs walmart

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Trying again…

That first bit, about Ian trying to kill Alex in the bell tower is not mine, I read it on here from someone else.

Now, what Ian doesn’t realize is that it is Spencer with him in the bell tower, not Alex. It is actually Alex that saves Spencer and pushes Ian, because Alex wants to end the game on her own terms. She enlists Wren to help stage Ian’s suicide.

That night, Melissa starts to suspect something seriously wrong with Spencer. It is only after Ian reveals to Melissa before his death the knowledge of Alex being alive, that it starts to make sense for Melissa.

Melissa shares this with Garrett, which is why he starts treating Spencer as shady- he isn’t sure who he is talking to.

Melissa, Wilden, and Garrett learn Alex will be on the Halloween train, returning the body. They decide to kill Alex that night. Wilden mistakenly attacks Spencer, thinking she is Alex. Thankfully, Paige saves the day, though Alex sees this and realizes what is going on.

She kills Garrett, shoves him in the pine box, and takes his phone. Then she lightly drugs Aria, shuts the pine box, and uses Garrett’s phone to text Wilden and Melissa that Garrett has captured Alex and sealed her in the box, though needs help pushing her off the train.

That is what Melissa and Wilden are arguing over- waiting on Garrett to push the box off the train. They hear Aria scream, though think it is Alex.

After that, Melissa is always shady around Spencer because she is never 100% sure of it is Spencer or Alex.

How The AD Reveal Should Have Gone (Alex's Backstory)

When Alex left her adopted home, she begged/borrowed/stealed/etc enough money to get to the states in order to find her real parents. During this time, she met Wren, and he became infatuated with her. This was 2 years before Ali disappeared. 

Alex, at first, thought Jessica was Mary. She visited the DiLaurentis household and explained who she was and the horrible life she had endured. Jessica played the part of Mary, internally freaking out about the amount of chaos Alex’s reveal would undoubtedly cause.  She put Alex up in a hotel room while she asked her to be patient as she got up the nerve to explain to her family about Alex’s existence.   At this point, Alex was not aware that she was a twin, let alone that her twin lived next door to her “Mom”. Jessica immediately went to Peter, and the two of them devised a plan. Jessica would use her authority on the board at Radley to commit Alex as someone with multiple personality.  Peter, being genetically related, signed Alex in as “Bethany Young”.  They used Alex’s true back story (one which Alex originally had no problem agreeing to) as proof that she had a mental break, complete with accent.   Once Alex/Bethany was in Radley, Jessica kept tabs on her, and after the mind numbing drugs kicked in, would occasionally take Alex/Bethany on outtings. This is when she would insist Alex call her “Aunt Jessica”.  This was also why Jessica had told Ali you can “never turn your back on a Hastings”, because she was well aware that she could never share her knowledge of Alex’s existence, and if Ali had ever seen Alex, she would think she was Spencer.

There were a few times that Alex/Bethany was able to escape.  

(photo credit to PLL Theories)

The first time was Ian’s Halloween party.  While there, she overheard Noel talk about his and Ali’s plan to scare the girls.  At this point, she hadn’t yet seen Spencer.  Alex had fuly intended to severely hurt/kill Ali in that abandoned house, though Ali was stronger that she thought.  Once the girls were freed from the locked room, Alex finally saw Spencer and she seethed with rage. She realized the true reason behind Jessica betraying her, and instead of leaving town, as she had originally planned, she opted to go back to Radley and devise a new plan. Before she did, she befriended Ian, who was a member of the NAT club.  At that point, she both flirted with Ian, as well as paid him with money provided by Wren, and convinced him to film Alison and her friends. He didn’t understand why “Spencer” wanted to be filmed, though Alex incorporated it as part of her flirting, telling Ian she wanted to see how Ian saw her in his eyes.   Alex’s first priority, however, was still hurting Ali.  Alex/Bethany would never forgive Jessica for having her wrongly commited.  She starts writing to Ali, although when Ali visits Radley to see her, Alex has her roommate(Kimberly Brown) pretend to be “Bethany”.  Ali, being the mean girl she was at the time, enjoys playing with her new toy.  

When Ali begins to get “A” messages (from Mona), she begins to wonder if it isn’t Bethany sending them.  She antagonizes Alex/Bethany through letters and “visits”, making things even worse than the already are.  At the same time, Ali isn’t completely certain that “Bethany” is behind the threats, so after receiving the lipstick note on the mirror, she devies a plan to either expose Bethany or have her take her place.   Ali drops of an exact duplicate of her outfit at Radley, with a note for Bethany to escape and come meet her so they can finally work things out.  Ali figures she and Bethany can either hash things out for good, or that if someone is trying to kill her, having Bethany run around dressed as she is hedges her bets a little bit in case it is someone else threatening her.  

At this point, Alison believes that the other Liars are innocent, and not the ones leaving messages.  That said, she can not have them in her way for all that is about to go down that night.  So, she drugs them. Meanwhile, Jessica receives a phone call that Alex/Bethany has escaped.  She freaks out, and forbids Alison from leaving the house at all.  

Spencer and Ali argue.  Ali walks back towards her house and Spencer walks towards the woods/house.  Melissa hears heard the argument between Ali and Spencer, as do the girls (Aria, Hanna, and Emily), in a drug induced haze. The girls arrive in the bushes in time to see someone dressed like Ali, hit Alison. Mrs. D also sees Alex hit Ali from the window.  Mrs. D rushes from the house as Alex runs away.  The girls, again drugged, begin to chase Ali’s assailant.    Mrs. D, believing Ali dead, buries her.  Mrs. Grunwald pulls Ali from the grave. The girls, chasing Alex through the woods, finally lap back around to the gazebo area and attack Alex.  As they begin to attack her, they start to hallucinate that it is Alison, and finally stop.  They leave Alex’s lifelss body in the gazebo area, and Melissa stumbles across it.  Seeing only the clothes and hair, Melissa thinks Spencer killed Ali, and buries her to hide the evidence.

At this point, Alex’s roommate, Kimberly Brown, who had escaped from Radley with Alex, leaves their meeting spot and comes looking for Alex to figure out what is taking so long.  She sees Melissa burying Alex, and as soon as Melissa leaves, she digs out the grave and saves Alex.

As it turns out, this was the worst mistake Kimberly could have made.  Alex, now set on burning down everything to do with Spencer, and the other liars, kills Kimberly Brown on the spot, switches clothes with her, and buries Kimberly in the grave.  That way, when her body is found, no one will expect she is alive and able to exact revenge.   At this point, Alex still believes she has killed Alison.

Mona sees Ali walking along the road, sends her out of town.  Ali knows for sure that someone is out to kill her, and that her Mom buried her without hesitation.  There is no reason to stay.

Alex then spends the next year devising a plan to get revenge on the liars for trying to kill her.  She enlists Wren to start dating Melissa, to get his way into the Hastings trust, and to learn more about Spencer.  As it turns out, Wren starts falling for Spencer, which only makes Alex hate Spencer more.

She starts communicating (electronically) with Mona, Lucas, and Jenna, who she learned from the NAT tapes had hated Ali as much as she did, as was also picked on by the liars.   When Aria returns to Rosewood, Alex gently nudges Mona to start sending A messages to the girls again.  She tells Mona that she will be an outcast agin, now that the Liars will be together again. In essence, she sets Mona free on the girls to torture them, knowing at some point she will escalate the game to her own level. 

When she notices the DiLaurentis house is sold, and that workers start to dig around the gazebo area, she knows she will need to get ahold of that body to switch around medical records.  “Bethany Young” has to remain dead, or Jessica and/or Peter might start searching for her.   She pays off some cops and people in the morgue and is able to alter paperwork, and steal the body.  

She noticed Jessica and Charlotte together, and eventually figures out how Charlotte fits in to the story.   When she first approahces Charlotte, Charlotte does not believe her.  She thinks it is Spencer trying to figure out where Ali is, if Ali is alive, and that she still wants to find her and hurt her.  Once Alex gains Charlotte’s trust, and Charlotte realizes how awful Ali was to Alex, Charlotte becomes a double agent, though doesn’t immediately tell Alex that Ali is still alive.  (Alex is still wondering what happened to Ali’s body)

Alex tries to burn the girls to death in the lodge fire, and that is the night she realizes Ali is still alive.  However Ali goes immediately back into hiding.  Alex then spends Season 4 trying to find Ali, and using the Liars to do so.   It is Alex that kills Mrs. D, and Mary takes the fall for her (as she did for Spencer with Eliot)  Once Alex heard thought Mona (via Shana) that the girls found Ali, Alex knew that Mrs. D that had to die, because Alex couldn’t have Mrs. D spilling the secret that Spencer had a twin.  

Alex has also realized that Charlotte had been lying to her about Ali, and that is why Charlotte agrees to “take the fall” as Big A- to protect Alex.  Season 5 up to Charlotte’s reveal is about laying the groundwork to have Charlotte take the fall with everything wrong done towards the girls.  At this point, Alex is mostly done with revenge, and just wants to live her life out with Wren, Mary, and eventually Charlotte (once she is released). Then Charlotte is killed, and Alex is denied her family.  She thinks one of the Liars did it, though doesn’t know which one.  She enlists the help of Mary, Eliot (Charlotte’s true love), and Wren to help figure out who killed Charlotte.   Then… Alex starts to fall for Toby.  While Alex had never really been jeaous of Spencer’s life before (I mean, who would with Peter as a father?), she did start to covet Toby.  There were two problems here- Yvonne and Wren.  Alex believed she could deal with Wren, though Yvonne would have to go.  Therefore, she set up the car accident, and while Toby was knocked out (and before help arrived) further injured Yvonne so that her injuries were mortal.

Next, she had to convince Wren that she would kill Spencer, and take over her life, allowing her to be with Toby.  This met with more resistance than she expected, and she eventually killed Wren, worried that he would tip Spencer off.   Alex knows she is playing the long game with this, and uses Aria and Ezra’s wedding (with Toby’s return) as her in to fully take over as Spencer and work toward getting Toby back.  As for Mary, it could go either way as to whether she knew Alex’s ultimate plan to take over as Spencer until the very end.  I am going to say that until Spencer was kidnapped, Mary did not know, and by then, it was too late.

[prettylittlesmartass]

Adding- This would also explain a few other things. One, that Ian eventually figured out that Alex was Spencer's evil twin and tried to kill her to protect the Hastings family.

How The AD Reveal Should Have Gone (Alex's Backstory)

When Alex left her adopted home, she begged/borrowed/stealed/etc enough money to get to the states in order to find her real parents. During this time, she met Wren, and he became infatuated with her. This was 2 years before Ali disappeared. 

Alex, at first, thought Jessica was Mary. She visited the DiLaurentis household and explained who she was and the horrible life she had endured. Jessica played the part of Mary, internally freaking out about the amount of chaos Alex’s reveal would undoubtedly cause.  She put Alex up in a hotel room while she asked her to be patient as she got up the nerve to explain to her family about Alex’s existence.   At this point, Alex was not aware that she was a twin, let alone that her twin lived next door to her “Mom”. Jessica immediately went to Peter, and the two of them devised a plan. Jessica would use her authority on the board at Radley to commit Alex as someone with multiple personality.  Peter, being genetically related, signed Alex in as “Bethany Young”.  They used Alex’s true back story (one which Alex originally had no problem agreeing to) as proof that she had a mental break, complete with accent.   Once Alex/Bethany was in Radley, Jessica kept tabs on her, and after the mind numbing drugs kicked in, would occasionally take Alex/Bethany on outtings. This is when she would insist Alex call her “Aunt Jessica”.  This was also why Jessica had told Ali you can “never turn your back on a Hastings”, because she was well aware that she could never share her knowledge of Alex’s existence, and if Ali had ever seen Alex, she would think she was Spencer.

There were a few times that Alex/Bethany was able to escape.  

(photo credit to PLL Theories)

The first time was Ian’s Halloween party.  While there, she overheard Noel talk about his and Ali’s plan to scare the girls.  At this point, she hadn’t yet seen Spencer.  Alex had fuly intended to severely hurt/kill Ali in that abandoned house, though Ali was stronger that she thought.  Once the girls were freed from the locked room, Alex finally saw Spencer and she seethed with rage. She realized the true reason behind Jessica betraying her, and instead of leaving town, as she had originally planned, she opted to go back to Radley and devise a new plan. Before she did, she befriended Ian, who was a member of the NAT club.  At that point, she both flirted with Ian, as well as paid him with money provided by Wren, and convinced him to film Alison and her friends. He didn’t understand why “Spencer” wanted to be filmed, though Alex incorporated it as part of her flirting, telling Ian she wanted to see how Ian saw her in his eyes.   Alex’s first priority, however, was still hurting Ali.  Alex/Bethany would never forgive Jessica for having her wrongly commited.  She starts writing to Ali, although when Ali visits Radley to see her, Alex has her roommate(Kimberly Brown) pretend to be “Bethany”.  Ali, being the mean girl she was at the time, enjoys playing with her new toy.  

When Ali begins to get “A” messages (from Mona), she begins to wonder if it isn’t Bethany sending them.  She antagonizes Alex/Bethany through letters and “visits”, making things even worse than the already are.  At the same time, Ali isn’t completely certain that “Bethany” is behind the threats, so after receiving the lipstick note on the mirror, she devies a plan to either expose Bethany or have her take her place.   Ali drops of an exact duplicate of her outfit at Radley, with a note for Bethany to escape and come meet her so they can finally work things out.  Ali figures she and Bethany can either hash things out for good, or that if someone is trying to kill her, having Bethany run around dressed as she is hedges her bets a little bit in case it is someone else threatening her.  

At this point, Alison believes that the other Liars are innocent, and not the ones leaving messages.  That said, she can not have them in her way for all that is about to go down that night.  So, she drugs them. Meanwhile, Jessica receives a phone call that Alex/Bethany has escaped.  She freaks out, and forbids Alison from leaving the house at all.  

Spencer and Ali argue.  Ali walks back towards her house and Spencer walks towards the woods/house.  Melissa hears heard the argument between Ali and Spencer, as do the girls (Aria, Hanna, and Emily), in a drug induced haze. The girls arrive in the bushes in time to see someone dressed like Ali, hit Alison. Mrs. D also sees Alex hit Ali from the window.  Mrs. D rushes from the house as Alex runs away.  The girls, again drugged, begin to chase Ali’s assailant.    Mrs. D, believing Ali dead, buries her.  Mrs. Grunwald pulls Ali from the grave. The girls, chasing Alex through the woods, finally lap back around to the gazebo area and attack Alex.  As they begin to attack her, they start to hallucinate that it is Alison, and finally stop.  They leave Alex’s lifelss body in the gazebo area, and Melissa stumbles across it.  Seeing only the clothes and hair, Melissa thinks Spencer killed Ali, and buries her to hide the evidence.

At this point, Alex’s roommate, Kimberly Brown, who had escaped from Radley with Alex, leaves their meeting spot and comes looking for Alex to figure out what is taking so long.  She sees Melissa burying Alex, and as soon as Melissa leaves, she digs out the grave and saves Alex.

As it turns out, this was the worst mistake Kimberly could have made.  Alex, now set on burning down everything to do with Spencer, and the other liars, kills Kimberly Brown on the spot, switches clothes with her, and buries Kimberly in the grave.  That way, when her body is found, no one will expect she is alive and able to exact revenge.   At this point, Alex still believes she has killed Alison.

Mona sees Ali walking along the road, sends her out of town.  Ali knows for sure that someone is out to kill her, and that her Mom buried her without hesitation.  There is no reason to stay.

Alex then spends the next year devising a plan to get revenge on the liars for trying to kill her.  She enlists Wren to start dating Melissa, to get his way into the Hastings trust, and to learn more about Spencer.  As it turns out, Wren starts falling for Spencer, which only makes Alex hate Spencer more.

She starts communicating (electronically) with Mona, Lucas, and Jenna, who she learned from the NAT tapes had hated Ali as much as she did, as was also picked on by the liars.   When Aria returns to Rosewood, Alex gently nudges Mona to start sending A messages to the girls again.  She tells Mona that she will be an outcast agin, now that the Liars will be together again. In essence, she sets Mona free on the girls to torture them, knowing at some point she will escalate the game to her own level. 

When she notices the DiLaurentis house is sold, and that workers start to dig around the gazebo area, she knows she will need to get ahold of that body to switch around medical records.  “Bethany Young” has to remain dead, or Jessica and/or Peter might start searching for her.   She pays off some cops and people in the morgue and is able to alter paperwork, and steal the body.  

She noticed Jessica and Charlotte together, and eventually figures out how Charlotte fits in to the story.   When she first approahces Charlotte, Charlotte does not believe her.  She thinks it is Spencer trying to figure out where Ali is, if Ali is alive, and that she still wants to find her and hurt her.  Once Alex gains Charlotte’s trust, and Charlotte realizes how awful Ali was to Alex, Charlotte becomes a double agent, though doesn’t immediately tell Alex that Ali is still alive.  (Alex is still wondering what happened to Ali’s body)

Alex tries to burn the girls to death in the lodge fire, and that is the night she realizes Ali is still alive.  However Ali goes immediately back into hiding.  Alex then spends Season 4 trying to find Ali, and using the Liars to do so.   It is Alex that kills Mrs. D, and Mary takes the fall for her (as she did for Spencer with Eliot)  Once Alex heard thought Mona (via Shana) that the girls found Ali, Alex knew that Mrs. D that had to die, because Alex couldn’t have Mrs. D spilling the secret that Spencer had a twin.  

Alex has also realized that Charlotte had been lying to her about Ali, and that is why Charlotte agrees to “take the fall” as Big A- to protect Alex.  Season 5 up to Charlotte’s reveal is about laying the groundwork to have Charlotte take the fall with everything wrong done towards the girls.  At this point, Alex is mostly done with revenge, and just wants to live her life out with Wren, Mary, and eventually Charlotte (once she is released). Then Charlotte is killed, and Alex is denied her family.  She thinks one of the Liars did it, though doesn’t know which one.  She enlists the help of Mary, Eliot (Charlotte’s true love), and Wren to help figure out who killed Charlotte.   Then… Alex starts to fall for Toby.  While Alex had never really been jeaous of Spencer’s life before (I mean, who would with Peter as a father?), she did start to covet Toby.  There were two problems here- Yvonne and Wren.  Alex believed she could deal with Wren, though Yvonne would have to go.  Therefore, she set up the car accident, and while Toby was knocked out (and before help arrived) further injured Yvonne so that her injuries were mortal.

Next, she had to convince Wren that she would kill Spencer, and take over her life, allowing her to be with Toby.  This met with more resistance than she expected, and she eventually killed Wren, worried that he would tip Spencer off.   Alex knows she is playing the long game with this, and uses Aria and Ezra’s wedding (with Toby’s return) as her in to fully take over as Spencer and work toward getting Toby back.  As for Mary, it could go either way as to whether she knew Alex’s ultimate plan to take over as Spencer until the very end.  I am going to say that until Spencer was kidnapped, Mary did not know, and by then, it was too late.

[prettylittlesmartass]

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!!!  All things, yes! I did just write an alternate reveal, if you feel like reading. 

my two cents

I’m really disappointed that there seems to be a general consensus (mostly by journalists and the cast/crew) that we’re not ‘allowed’ to be unimpressed with the finale. And I am speaking mostly to Troian’s quotes here. I love the woman but I think that’s an unfortunately really narrow way to look at fandom and the array of different emotions we all have. And we’re all upset for different reasons and to lump it all in with the same people who were sending her death threats about SpaIeb is really shitty. 

I can be upset by a result and not send death threats. The majority of us can. 

First, not everybody was in it for the same things. A lot of us were in it for the mystery. We were there to look at every single clue. We were there when they all said “everything is a clue in Rosewood” and took it to heart and wasted spent seven years theorizing, there were even Twincer theories that linked back to the earlier seasons! A lot of us were in it for the friendships and for the feminist undertones or the wlw rep which in the end left a lot to be desired. A lot of us were in it for the ships and romance. A lot of us were in it for more than one of those things, but a lot of us also weren’t and that’s not a bad thing.

The idea she’s pushing is that if you didn’t like the mystery, then look at the ships because yay endgame! But what happens when the mystery was unsatisfying, and you don’t care about the ships? What happens when the girls spent most of the time not together in the finale?

I don’t think it’s her fault for saying these things, I don’t think you can possibly understand fandom unless you’re in fandom and it’s very clear that’s never been something she’s been interested in and that’s fine. 

But this idea that we all wanted the same things is really just a sad view of fandom. I agree, not everybody was going to be happy. That’s going to happen in any show no matter what. But this whole narrative about how we should only care about the work that they put in and the time they invested is hypocritical at best. Like, sure, I concede the writers did probably try to make us as happy as possible, but when you’re only listening to a select few people on twitter who kiss your ass 24 hours a day, that’s not really fair and is really just the beginning of a deeper fan-service fandom issue.

And to that, I also say, what about the time fans invested? For years, we were told that “that night” was important, and we held on to that, only to have it mean nothing.  There were so many things that kept us holding on to the end because we thought we were going to get a a seven year reveal. Something that, after seven years, would knock us on our asses. Something that connected back to “that night”, to Alison, to the barn, to any of the original lore of the show. They kept that going because that was the only way to keep people holding on after Charlotte, and that does become a manipulation at some point. 

The complete lack of acknowledgment for a huge part of this fandom is really disheartening. I mean, take the classroom scene. They hyped that scene up for two years. People literally spent two years theorizing about something that in the end meant nothing, that they had no idea what they were going to do with. Somewhere along the way, the ships were the only thing that mattered. They sacrificed everything else for the ships, not realizing that some of us didn’t care about them. Having ships is fine, loving them is fine, but it took over the show, and I think, in many ways, the ships are what sunk the show. 

As fans, we’ve also invested a lot of time into this. A lot of us invested money into it. And without us, this show wouldn’t have gotten 7 seasons, so I think it’s kind of sucky that as fans, we’re being told that we’re not allowed to be upset if we were unsatisfied by the finale. 

[prettylittlesmartass]

How The AD Reveal Should Have Gone (Alex's Backstory)

When Alex left her adopted home, she begged/borrowed/stealed/etc enough money to get to the states in order to find her real parents. During this time, she met Wren, and he became infatuated with her. This was 2 years before Ali disappeared. 

Alex, at first, thought Jessica was Mary. She visited the DiLaurentis household and explained who she was and the horrible life she had endured. Jessica played the part of Mary, internally freaking out about the amount of chaos Alex’s reveal would undoubtedly cause.  She put Alex up in a hotel room while she asked her to be patient as she got up the nerve to explain to her family about Alex’s existence.   At this point, Alex was not aware that she was a twin, let alone that her twin lived next door to her “Mom”. Jessica immediately went to Peter, and the two of them devised a plan. Jessica would use her authority on the board at Radley to commit Alex as someone with multiple personality.  Peter, being genetically related, signed Alex in as “Bethany Young”.  They used Alex’s true back story (one which Alex originally had no problem agreeing to) as proof that she had a mental break, complete with accent.   Once Alex/Bethany was in Radley, Jessica kept tabs on her, and after the mind numbing drugs kicked in, would occasionally take Alex/Bethany on outtings. This is when she would insist Alex call her “Aunt Jessica”.  This was also why Jessica had told Ali you can “never turn your back on a Hastings”, because she was well aware that she could never share her knowledge of Alex’s existence, and if Ali had ever seen Alex, she would think she was Spencer.

There were a few times that Alex/Bethany was able to escape.  

(photo credit to PLL Theories)

The first time was Ian’s Halloween party.  While there, she overheard Noel talk about his and Ali’s plan to scare the girls.  At this point, she hadn’t yet seen Spencer.  Alex had fuly intended to severely hurt/kill Ali in that abandoned house, though Ali was stronger that she thought.  Once the girls were freed from the locked room, Alex finally saw Spencer and she seethed with rage. She realized the true reason behind Jessica betraying her, and instead of leaving town, as she had originally planned, she opted to go back to Radley and devise a new plan. Before she did, she befriended Ian, who was a member of the NAT club.  At that point, she both flirted with Ian, as well as paid him with money provided by Wren, and convinced him to film Alison and her friends. He didn’t understand why “Spencer” wanted to be filmed, though Alex incorporated it as part of her flirting, telling Ian she wanted to see how Ian saw her in his eyes.   Alex’s first priority, however, was still hurting Ali.  Alex/Bethany would never forgive Jessica for having her wrongly commited.  She starts writing to Ali, although when Ali visits Radley to see her, Alex has her roommate(Kimberly Brown) pretend to be “Bethany”.  Ali, being the mean girl she was at the time, enjoys playing with her new toy.  

When Ali begins to get “A” messages (from Mona), she begins to wonder if it isn’t Bethany sending them.  She antagonizes Alex/Bethany through letters and “visits”, making things even worse than the already are.  At the same time, Ali isn’t completely certain that “Bethany” is behind the threats, so after receiving the lipstick note on the mirror, she devies a plan to either expose Bethany or have her take her place.   Ali drops of an exact duplicate of her outfit at Radley, with a note for Bethany to escape and come meet her so they can finally work things out.  Ali figures she and Bethany can either hash things out for good, or that if someone is trying to kill her, having Bethany run around dressed as she is hedges her bets a little bit in case it is someone else threatening her.  

At this point, Alison believes that the other Liars are innocent, and not the ones leaving messages.  That said, she can not have them in her way for all that is about to go down that night.  So, she drugs them. Meanwhile, Jessica receives a phone call that Alex/Bethany has escaped.  She freaks out, and forbids Alison from leaving the house at all.  

Spencer and Ali argue.  Ali walks back towards her house and Spencer walks towards the woods/house.  Melissa hears heard the argument between Ali and Spencer, as do the girls (Aria, Hanna, and Emily), in a drug induced haze. The girls arrive in the bushes in time to see someone dressed like Ali, hit Alison. Mrs. D also sees Alex hit Ali from the window.  Mrs. D rushes from the house as Alex runs away.  The girls, again drugged, begin to chase Ali’s assailant.    Mrs. D, believing Ali dead, buries her.  Mrs. Grunwald pulls Ali from the grave. The girls, chasing Alex through the woods, finally lap back around to the gazebo area and attack Alex.  As they begin to attack her, they start to hallucinate that it is Alison, and finally stop.  They leave Alex’s lifelss body in the gazebo area, and Melissa stumbles across it.  Seeing only the clothes and hair, Melissa thinks Spencer killed Ali, and buries her to hide the evidence.

At this point, Alex’s roommate, Kimberly Brown, who had escaped from Radley with Alex, leaves their meeting spot and comes looking for Alex to figure out what is taking so long.  She sees Melissa burying Alex, and as soon as Melissa leaves, she digs out the grave and saves Alex.

As it turns out, this was the worst mistake Kimberly could have made.  Alex, now set on burning down everything to do with Spencer, and the other liars, kills Kimberly Brown on the spot, switches clothes with her, and buries Kimberly in the grave.  That way, when her body is found, no one will expect she is alive and able to exact revenge.   At this point, Alex still believes she has killed Alison.

Mona sees Ali walking along the road, sends her out of town.  Ali knows for sure that someone is out to kill her, and that her Mom buried her without hesitation.  There is no reason to stay.

Alex then spends the next year devising a plan to get revenge on the liars for trying to kill her.  She enlists Wren to start dating Melissa, to get his way into the Hastings trust, and to learn more about Spencer.  As it turns out, Wren starts falling for Spencer, which only makes Alex hate Spencer more.

She starts communicating (electronically) with Mona, Lucas, and Jenna, who she learned from the NAT tapes had hated Ali as much as she did, as was also picked on by the liars.   When Aria returns to Rosewood, Alex gently nudges Mona to start sending A messages to the girls again.  She tells Mona that she will be an outcast agin, now that the Liars will be together again. In essence, she sets Mona free on the girls to torture them, knowing at some point she will escalate the game to her own level. 

When she notices the DiLaurentis house is sold, and that workers start to dig around the gazebo area, she knows she will need to get ahold of that body to switch around medical records.  “Bethany Young” has to remain dead, or Jessica and/or Peter might start searching for her.   She pays off some cops and people in the morgue and is able to alter paperwork, and steal the body.  

She noticed Jessica and Charlotte together, and eventually figures out how Charlotte fits in to the story.   When she first approahces Charlotte, Charlotte does not believe her.  She thinks it is Spencer trying to figure out where Ali is, if Ali is alive, and that she still wants to find her and hurt her.  Once Alex gains Charlotte’s trust, and Charlotte realizes how awful Ali was to Alex, Charlotte becomes a double agent, though doesn’t immediately tell Alex that Ali is still alive.  (Alex is still wondering what happened to Ali’s body)

Alex tries to burn the girls to death in the lodge fire, and that is the night she realizes Ali is still alive.  However Ali goes immediately back into hiding.  Alex then spends Season 4 trying to find Ali, and using the Liars to do so.   It is Alex that kills Mrs. D, and Mary takes the fall for her (as she did for Spencer with Eliot)  Once Alex heard thought Mona (via Shana) that the girls found Ali, Alex knew that Mrs. D that had to die, because Alex couldn’t have Mrs. D spilling the secret that Spencer had a twin.  

Alex has also realized that Charlotte had been lying to her about Ali, and that is why Charlotte agrees to “take the fall” as Big A- to protect Alex.  Season 5 up to Charlotte’s reveal is about laying the groundwork to have Charlotte take the fall with everything wrong done towards the girls.  At this point, Alex is mostly done with revenge, and just wants to live her life out with Wren, Mary, and eventually Charlotte (once she is released). Then Charlotte is killed, and Alex is denied her family.  She thinks one of the Liars did it, though doesn’t know which one.  She enlists the help of Mary, Eliot (Charlotte’s true love), and Wren to help figure out who killed Charlotte.   Then... Alex starts to fall for Toby.  While Alex had never really been jeaous of Spencer’s life before (I mean, who would with Peter as a father?), she did start to covet Toby.  There were two problems here- Yvonne and Wren.  Alex believed she could deal with Wren, though Yvonne would have to go.  Therefore, she set up the car accident, and while Toby was knocked out (and before help arrived) further injured Yvonne so that her injuries were mortal.

Next, she had to convince Wren that she would kill Spencer, and take over her life, allowing her to be with Toby.  This met with more resistance than she expected, and she eventually killed Wren, worried that he would tip Spencer off.   Alex knows she is playing the long game with this, and uses Aria and Ezra’s wedding (with Toby’s return) as her in to fully take over as Spencer and work toward getting Toby back.  As for Mary, it could go either way as to whether she knew Alex’s ultimate plan to take over as Spencer until the very end.  I am going to say that until Spencer was kidnapped, Mary did not know, and by then, it was too late.