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kaybreezy3000 · 2 months

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Do you think the injured girl next to Ben is Jennifer like everyone else thinks? I am kinda indecisive because it's no flashback and she's obviously with Sparrow!Ben. It would be kinda boring that he met Umbrellas!Ben Jennifer in another timeline.

Okay, hold on because this one is going to blow your minds. Jk but I am going to lay down some crazy stuff.

Writers aren't supposed to throw characters in for no reason, so if I had to say, I would say that the women in the trailer, lying next to Ben on the floor, is the 'Jennifer' person that they are all referring to with the Jennifer Incident.

I don't think it's a flashback either, but I do think it's possible that it's Ben back in time with her via the subway time travel/Televator or whatever it is. I also think it is this Ben now, meaning the Sparrow's Ben.

There is nothing in this shot other than Ben's clothes that tell me it's the now Sparrow Ben, but I think that's enough to confirm that. Then as far as where they are and when, I am just guessing that it's the past because that's when she died or that's a least what they lead us to believe. That may have been intentional though, and this could be now, in this new timeline, and Jennifer always died here, and Umbrella Ben was a part of it. 🤯 I know that sounds nuts, but I'll explain why I say this, but first, back to the picture and the person you are talking about from the trailer.

The floor in this shot is cool, but I have no idea where it is. It does look like something from the Hotel Oblivion, as in the same style of art deco flooring it had, and that is very interesting, but I am not saying it's there, only it resembles it which means it could be in one of Reginald's other buildings in this new timeline. It appears he own many.

We need to ask: Are they somewhere at the moment when this Jennifer died the first time, or maybe when the original Ben died?? Or both???

Now this Ben is there with her, taking the place of the original Ben in some kind of timeline melding anomaly?

Maybe...

The key with all this is, they never said how original Ben died, and now in the new trailer, Five is asking his siblings if any of the even remember how their brother and they all look like they have no clue.

Huge stuff with that.

Why is that though?

Did Allison come into play again and have to Rumor all of them in to forgetting per Reginald's request? Can she Rumor herself though, because she didn't remember either? Did she Rumor Reginald too? Why? Or why else don't they remember?????? If they remembered, would they do something other than what they were meant to do, as if fucking up on a grand scale over and over and suffering big time, and if they didn't do that, then the end wouldn't happen in a way that they all survive?

Holy Shit, right????!!!

If this is so, who is driving this whole thing???? 🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯 I like to think it's Five, but I am only going there a tiny bit with his part in all this in this post. 😏

I think all this stuff is big. If I had to guess, I think the first time Umbrella Ben died, something went bonkers with all time itself and ever since, it's been on the verge of failure. This also goes back to Reginald knowing this would happen, but I don't think he knew exactly how, which is why even he can't seem to prevent it or remember any of this stuff.

We know that this time, it's all going to come down to Ben. He is the one that is going to cause the end of the world in 24 hours. We know that something is wrong with him. Look, he looks like he is slowly burning from the inside-out-that or he's got one hell of a nasty rash. JK

If you look at the woman on the floor with him, she sort of looks like she's having the same problem.

As she's laying there looking back at him while on fire, she looks extremely similar to Sparrow Ben's haunting sketch that was up in his room the last season.

I didn't think much of that when I watched it in season 3 but now, I think it's just too similar to ignore. I think it's her and I think Sparrow Ben was feeling some kind of connection to her, or like a memory, or something, and he was trying to work through these horrible images that must have been creeping into his mind for years.

Sparrow Ben was in a timeline that shouldn't have existed, so I am thinking there are faults in that timeline too, sort of like little rips that let things through that shouldn't be-like a past he'd lived before, one that only he was getting tormented by because he's the one that it's all about and he has a special connection to it that they don't via the portal inside him.

Ben thinks the thing inside him is the real monster they need to fear, but I am thinking it's the portal it comes from that's the real danger.

Then, back to all these Ben's out there. There was this one in the teaser at the end of season 3...

Which fancy looking Ben is this on the train, and when? I think it's really Ben at the end of all of this and he is alive and well-I love this idea so let me have it please. 😄 I need all of them to live. 🙏

It's hard to think it's the present Sparrow Ben on the train because that poor guy seems to have gotten himself locked up and just got out, and now he isn't looking so hot in this season's trailer in any of the shots they gave us.

example: it seems that Ben is having a smelly situation here-not cool, man. That's Luther's thing. 😄

When it all comes down to it, I think all the Ben's are going to collide in a way none of the other Hargreeves could with their own other selfs. All the Ben's have this crazy monster portal in them, so I think they are all connected by it, dead or alive.

I am also going to make another big speculative leap and say Jennifer, or this woman on the floor burning, is Ben's real mom. I totally could be wrong on that, but it makes more sense to me than her being one of the other 43 superpowered children, or some random chick he happens to be tied to for a love interest type of thing.

This is where I know that I am going to go way off the rails and for sure be wrong, but I'll give you some of my thoughts on the reason for all this anyway.

I am going to say that the reason stuff is falling apart again is in part because Reginald didn't get to reset the time completely thanks to Allison chopping his head off, but as I hinted at already, that was always supposed to happen-all this was. Now we have all sorts of stuff being found that should be there like Allison's old movies and pictures and clippings of the Umbrella Academy kids.

The other big reason this is all falling to shit again is because again, it always was supposed to, just as The Handler said. 🤯🤯🤯🤯

YO! Did Five tell her that all along?

Five did maybe found the Commission....

He also may have designed the briefcases.

He may have invented the Infinite Switch Board-which can 'see' or predict inconsistencies in the timeline that may or may not drive it off course and lead to a catastrophic end!!!!!!!

Back on Five again, sorry. 🤣

Reginal knew the end was coming too. And maybe a different version of Five knows this too and that is going to be the real shocker at the end of this. He's the 'time' guy in all this, so it's highly likely he's going to come into the finale reveals in a big-time way. There are just too many plot holes with his character that these ideas help fill.

I am going to say that 'the final end to the beginning' is because she (Jennifer), having given birth to Ben, also has something very dangerous inside her. Maybe she's not as good at keeping the monster inside contained as her son was???

I am not saying all their moms have bits of their powers but...

Just think about it...

Ben is a very special little baby that was magically conceived by way of sparkling marigold dust. He has a portal to another dimension inside of him that is home to 'The Horror,' and maybe even other horrible beasties, and who knows what else. In those very short seconds his mother had him inside her, that thing was inside her too.

What if even after Reginald came and made her give Ben up, (which she didn't seem to want to do at all), the portal was left open in her, with something inside just waiting to break free?

What I am trying to lay down is, she's connected to Ben through this realm of monsters that they both hold the gate to. They are connected this way through all time and space, but something is very wrong with this and always was.

Now they are both burning, and soon, the whole world will burn again too.

The only way to fix this is to go back to Ben and this woman, Jennifer or his mom or whoever she is. The team with Reginald's help needs to save them to save the world from being taken apart by the thing inside him unleashing it's wrath??? Maybe...?

Maybe there are those out there that want this to happen? Other Aliens, from Reginald's planet or another planet? Maybe they want the thing inside Ben to destroy the world and remove all the people, so they can take it?-like they did with Reginald's planet? This would be the true bad guy that I am talking about, meaning Reginald isn't really the bad guy in this story and neither was AJ Carmichael or even The Handler. The were just cogs in the wheel that had to turn.

What if it also goes back to the Marigold---To Reginald and his planet and everything he loved being destroyed? What if the Marigold was one of his or one of his people's creations-something that was supposed to save them, but Reginald was too late and sent this ethereal dusting of power to Earth to give them all a second chance?

What if something bad tagged along and found it's chance to reign supreme again by laying wait inside of Ben Or Jennifer?

I believe the show said something like this going down with Reggie and the demise of his planet, that stuff about bad things trying to take over and him trying to stop them but not being able, or maybe I made it up in my first TUA fanfic series, (🤪) but either way it really could be the thing that is driving all this something bad out there thing.

They think their power are good and they are, but maybe it's not exactly what it seems. It's morphing in all of them, getting stronger in some and not in a good way? Mainly in Ben.

Inside of him, in this portal, a strength like no other is about to implode? Or something they never wanted to follow them to Earth, something tagged along within its magic is about to come out through Ben and or Jennifer or both?

To win, they need to figure out how to harness the possibilities inside all of them and stomp it into submission, once and for all...

There.

That's it.

Super wordy as always, full of almost no real answers for you on how exactly the Hargreeves will beat this thing, but also full of tons of my silly brain babies that usually lead to nothing. Lucky you, you asked, and you got more of ramblings. 😁

Please feel welcome to punch holes in this stuff, that's what its all about and it's fun to try to guess the end. Talk me up, or chat with others in the comments section, or even go big and let me know your thoughts via my private message option. If you do it though the ask as an anon, I don't always reply if it doesn't seem like a question. I want to chat more to those types of asks but others probably don't want to hear our musings going on and on. 😉

#ben hargreeves #the jennifer incident #the umbrella academy #tua speculation #anon ask #tua spoilers #tua s4 speculation #tua #tua season 4 #tua season four #tua fandom #tua s4 #tua s4 spoilers #tua s4 trailer #tua theories #kaybreezy-on-a03

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n7punk · 1 month

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“Slipstream” Fic Notes

Slipstream is done after growing far beyond the “simple hacker fic” concept and honestly Mara’s so cute I can’t even be mad. Fic notes below.

Playlist:

I’ve got the playlist here, but other honorable mentions I listeded to on repeat during this just because I wanted to: The Sex Was Good Until It Wasn’t album by XANA (it dropped in May and that shit is still on repeat), SUCKERPUNCH album by chloe moriondo (for chapter 6), PVRIS’s entire discography (I was going through something).

The Kicker — XANA

Good Luck, Babe! — Chappell Roan

Diet Heartbreak — chloe moriondo

TRAUMA BOND — poutyface

Albi — XANA

Rly Don’t Care — chloe moriondo

Chaos Is Love — K.Flay

Teenage Nightmare [unreleased demo]

What’s My Age Again? — Emilia Ali

Late Bloomer — Allison Ponthier

Holy Revival — Maisie Peters (ignore the verses)

Femininomenon — Chappell Roan

Mercury In Retrograde — Avril Lavigne

NIGHT IN JAIL — Rachel Bochner

my best friend’s ex — emlyn

Even If It Kills Me [unreleased demo]

Super Graphic Ultra Modern Girl — Chappell Roan

Sirens (feat. Sophie Powers) — MOTHICA

Homewrecking Era — XANA

Obsessed (feat. Ashley Sienna) — Sophie Powers

Obsessed — Astrid S

Look At Her Now — Selena Gomez

Pretty Girls — Renee Rapp

Cruel Summer — Taylor Swift

Picture You — Chappell Roan

Epilogue Life:

It takes a few months for Catra to feel like she has any handle on “parenting” or any right to even think that term about herself when she’s still a newcomer to Mara’s life, but Mara has accepted her at that point, it’s Catra and her own lack of a parental figure that is stopping her. She never would have accepted someone trying to come in and parent her after being so jaded from the first few years of her life (see her relationship with Adora’s parents in high school), so she’s expecting Mara to be a lot more hesitant and take “convincing”. She wants to give her the time she needs, but Mara had a loving parent growing up and doesn’t see adding Catra to that role as a bad thing.

Mara also has a little kid understanding of the world, so to her the instant Catra and Adora are dating she’s her stepmom, not because it’s that easy, but because obviously dating = will get married, so there is no point “fighting” something that is inevitable. Even though her parents don’t talk to each other, it doesn’t occur to her that people break up under normal circumstances. Her dad has hurt her mom and her a lot, he’s a bad guy, and Catra isn’t that, so why would she ever leave. They’re both girls and gay, they have no need to breakup. Life isn’t that simple, but it does make their relationship transition pretty smooth from Mara’s perspective.

Catra still insists on the stepdad thing and it becomes a family joke. Catra tells Mara it’s because it would be too confusing if they were both mom and Mara accepts that without question, because she is actually right. The reasons for stepdad are multi-layered, like this addition which helps Mara accept it: Mara wants someone good to replace the force of rejection and imbalance her bio dad was, so she’s more than happy to have Catra take that mantle instead. Catra wants to replace him as well, for many reasons including her own selfish hatred of him, but also her own insecurity. She knows she can be a better parent than Falcon, but she doesn’t think she can ever be equal to Adora and thus an equal mom. Adora’s parents weren’t 100% wrong when they mentioned the butch thing either because it is my headcanon Catra is a little GNC at times. Not really anything deep or strong enough for her to identify any particular way, just something that means she wouldn’t mind stepdad or “sir” even without all those other layers. Eventually a lot of those factors stop seeming like such a big deal but at that point it is just a family joke that never really dies. Occasionally once she’s in high school Mara calls her mom, but mostly Catra is “Dad” or “my stepdad” when being referred to singularly, and then when Mara is referring to both her parents she calls them “my moms”. Which does confuse people and Catra finds that funny.

When Mara is in high school and the age Adora and Falcon were when they started dating, Falcon finally tries reaching out again. That was a phone call Adora never wanted to get, but he’s not coming back to the country — he does still have those debts waiting for him, after all, and unable to pay them back, the stress would take him right back to that mental state he fled — and he’s not trying to rejoin their lives, he just kind of wants to know what happened after he left. Adora is angry and tells him he doesn’t have the right to know that after what he did — and she’s right — but later she still regrets it and, after talking to Catra (who also tells her she was right and she shouldn’t call him back and open that door back into their lives for him, but sits by her side when she’s on the phone to support her when she insists on going through with it), she calls him back. She only gives him the very high level stuff: she started dating someone right around when he disappeared, and they’re married now and happy, and she has become Mara’s new stepdad — something Falcon thinks she says as a pointed jab not knowing that’s really what Mara calls her — and Mara is doing well despite Falcon messing up her sense of trust and safety as a little kid, and definitely doesn’t need him fucking with her again by trying to contact her now. Adora makes it clear this is a courtesy she is giving him with the understanding that, now she has volunteered the information, he isn’t going to seek any more out or bother them.

That holds kind of true. He checks in with Adora around high school graduation just to make sure Mara made through it okay — he can’t help but remember around this time he was ruining both their lives — and to see if she plans to go to college, which she does, and then he calls again three years later just to see if she’s still on that track, which she is. He never calls again and Adora never knows if that’s because he moved on, or got closure, or lost their number, or died. Mara knows he called to check in on her once or twice but Adora didn’t tell her until she was an adult because she worried about reintroducing all that old uncertainty and fear back into her life, and at least now no one can force her to see Falcon if she doesn’t want to.

Catra seriously considers hunting him down after he goes dark, but she has done what she can to close the illegal chapter of her life and she knows Adora wouldn’t be happy with her reopening it — especially when she’s a little rusty — for their own closure with him. Catra didn’t exactly succeed in turning over a new leaf overnight, but she did greatly reduced her law-breaking, leaving only little slip-ups that happened every few months until she managed to stretch a gap long enough for it to become permanent, the impulse no longer second nature and her episodes of feeling untouchable either more rare or focused on something other than being unafraid of the government. She does stay in the cybersecurity sector professionally for a long time and works alongside Entrapta several times throughout the years.

I’ve kind of talked about this before and even included it in the concert scene, but Catra and Entrapta do kind of keep referring to each other as partner occasionally and honestly neither of them are really sure how they mean it. They never formally said “QPR over”, they said “no more physical affection (sex)” and they remained very close, though it felt like it did end more definitively when Catra eventually moved in with Adora. That took her longer to do than it usually does in AUs due to both her happiness/comfort with Entrapta, trying not to “upset” Mara by forcing the change on her, and Catra still needing the ability to get distance from them for the night sometimes while dealing with her own demons, but those slowly disappear as Mara lets her heal her own childhood and she sees she can be a good parental figure with experience.

Chapter 1:

⦁ “Slipstream” was once again a temporary placeholder name that became permanent. It’s a reference to the hacker Slipstream, one of the names behind the Nintendo gigaleak.

⦁ Entrapta’s daily energy drink limit is by no means her daily average, but any day drinking seven energy drinks is a bad one. She doesn’t actually drink Monster every day… Just like 95% of them. And she is a lot more likely to drink 1-3 than 5.

⦁ Okay I’m like half bullshitting the tech speak in this fic. The 20 minute decryption Waffle House thing? Yeah that’s actually optimistic. The kid who hacked the CIA did that exact thing and took 30 minutes to log on and he still eventually got caught.

⦁ Close followers of my Tumblr will already know Adora Maria is reference to some terrible “wrong” trivia answers to a question about She-ra’s names.

Chapter 2:

⦁ Steps (loosely): 1) Identify absolutely necessary files and save them, 2) Paste contents of other important word/text files into empty cloud documents she can download later (cleaning metadata), 3) Create a new encrypted email on a totally different machine (in this case, Catra’s clean laptop she had with her), 4) Forward absolutely necessary emails to new address (being very selective), 5) Delete what accounts it’s reasonable to just nuke, 6) Completely wipe computer and reset it, 7) Change first the associated email and then the password of all other accounts in a closed environment (Catra’s laptop) and turn on two-factor for absolutely everything that has the option, 8) When all information has been reset, delete old email in closed environment as insurance.

⦁ Adora’s scent changed some with pregnancy and then the rest with lifestyle changes.

⦁ Mara comes out to check on them because Adora told her an old friend from high school was coming over and she wasn’t making the happy sounds she makes with her friends. When she realized Adora was stressed she got worried, doubly so when she said it was grown-up stuff, because that grown-up stuff could be Mara-related — especially since she knows Falcon is causing problems with child support even if Adora tries to keep her from hearing about it too much — which is why Adora invited her out to see it’s really okay.

Chapter 3:

⦁ Originally when I wrote the group chat there was nothing differentiating who was speaking, but I had the idea to use emojis like profile pictures to make it more clear. The scorpio icon was originally head-in-the-clouds (high af emote), the star was originally just a sassy emote, and the dragon changed the same. I ended up changing them because a reader sent an ask letting me know that the emotes wouldn’t translate to epub format and the Scorpio and star “emote” are part of the standard unicode colored symbals, so I’m hoping they’re included, but I also don’t have any way of checking without just uploading the thing so this was my best effort. I kept the dragon even though it’s not included because I was too attached and only one person missing an icon would at least differentiate it from the others still.

⦁ Adora named Mara after her old teacher Mara because she was the only out lesbian she (knew) she had ever met. She was pretty quiet about it to not get harassed by parents, but she wasn’t about to lie about it, and she would talk about Hope when prompted. Adora admired that back in high school thinking she just Respected Her Ideals™️ and later realized it was more than that.

⦁ Catra’s conflicting feelings looking at Mara hugging Adora’s hip are actually less because she’s remembering her father and more remembering she was doing that to feel safe and she doesn’t like to think she’s making a kid feel unsafe too.

⦁ Adora’s habit of rubbing at her tattoo (versus something like the back of her neck) started when it itched a lot while healing. She has terrible tattoo discipline and really shouldn’t get another one because she couldn’t leave it alone.

⦁ You might be able to tell here, but originally Mara was intended to be older (8-ish or something) but I didn’t want them to separate that long. The timeline is already kind of screwy because even with Adora a year older Mara should actually be four with pregnancy time, but shhhhhh.

⦁ Oh my god I wish more people knew the difference between the deep web and the dark web. People act like they’re interchangable when Facebook qualifies as the deep web. Catra is a deep web miscreant, not the dark web.

Chapter 4:

⦁ Perfuma doesn’t know they’re cyber criminals but given the jokes about felonies she can guess that’s the only thing that makes sense, and then she elects not to think any more about it because they’re really important to Scorpia and she wants plausible deniability.

⦁ Obviously Catra hadn’t said Adora’s name yet, but Adora is such an Entity in her mind it feels like everybody should think about her as much as Catra does.

⦁ Perfuma would have to be totally oblivious to not pick up from the conversation that Catra had a crush on Adora in high school, and knowing what she does about Adora’s comphet she just kind of assumes it was the classic “crush on a straight girl” that went nowhere until Catra left school. She’s not about to embarrass Catra by bringing that up to Adora, but if she knew how serious it was and had a hunch how Adora felt she might interfere.

⦁ Table break lore. I wouldn’t say this is a reference so much as a shared headcanon that previously came up allllllllllll the way back in Drawn Into The Music, where Scorpia breaks a table trying to lean on it while drunk because Biceps.

⦁ Mara’s set up is basically what I had as a kid. When we were little we had the “kid computer” which belonged to someone back in the day when it was actually considered a good machine. It didn’t have internet and was just for playing games (which were all offline at that point in time). When we got old enough for the internet we had a software that only let us browse for like 30 minutes each day and I think had an automatic filter of inappropriate sites? If it did, the site list was very minimal and I never ran into any issues personally, but a software that blocks pornhub isn’t a bad thing for a five year old to have even if I’m generally against online surveillance lmao. It’s not making a list of sites she visited for spying purposes or anything, and generally Adora tries to be in the room with her when she’s online (in-game or not) because you know. Super young. She’s really busy though and sometimes has to rely on the idea that the parents of Mara’s friends are doing the same thing and monitoring them so they can keep safe. That is not always true.

⦁ Adora tousles Mara’s hair and pets her so much because that became one of the ways she knew how to express affection with Catra and now it’s just ingrained as a part of her.

⦁ Semi-related, she and Catra didn’t actually meet until middle school in this ‘verse and had about five years together before Catra’s breakdown.

⦁ Adora’s tattoo is the season one sword in a deep maroon and then the gem in the center of the hilt is the sunset ombre from the lesbian flag. Catra just thought the lines were black because she couldn’t see that shade of red.

⦁ “The breakup” here is code for “uncomfortable sex experience”.

Chapter 5:

⦁ Catra was about to say she doesn’t get on her knees unless a pretty girl asks nicely before her brain caught up with her mouth.

⦁ Adora was absolutely not going to interrupt because she was smitten watching them interact. She never in her wildest dreams thought Catra would do more than tolerate her child at best, but she forgot the factor of her kind of outweighed the factor of child.

⦁ Uhhhh. So. Alright fuck it. Catra was in a mania fit when she broke into the mall. That can come from a couple things and I’ve experienced it once I think, but yeah she really should be on mood stablizers and just refuses to see a professional about it. Once her life stabilized and she essentially had Entrapta as a safety net, knowing she wasn’t going to kick her out if her work lapsed, it made things a lot easier, but her constant vigilance against authorities could just as easily be seen as appropriate vigilance as it is paranoia (primarily socially-unacceptable anxiety).

⦁ Catra doesn’t know how to categorize her emotions outside of bad criteria so any strong emotion gets categorized as “breakdownable” or not but that’s definitely not what she’s feeling here, having emotions just feels like she’s dying.

⦁ Bella Sara supremacy !! 🗣️🗣️I don’t think it was available on the Vita lol but it was in THIS universe.

Chapter 6:

⦁ Catra was, subconsciously, still trying to delay the inevitable of Adora and Entrapta meeting by meeting with Adora and Scorpia downstairs. When they finally came home and it was time, Catra basically tried to get everyone settled in the living room and her own bedroom without “bothering” Entrapta, but she did vaguely greet them when they got home. Their first real conversation was the one in the bed, though.

⦁ Adora is the type of drunk to try to perpetuate her own existence. If you look away from drunk Adora for a second she’s doing another round of shots and trying to get herself hospitalized.

⦁ “Adora shouldn’t be worrying about this” yeah this reaction has nothing to do with cheating, Catra, that’s just all she can do with her jealousy reasonably.

⦁ The Scene (1)

⦁ Belgian Boys mini pancakes my beloved

⦁ Okay so “cheating” per se isn’t so much a thing in their relationship, but by the idea that there are rules and they have an understanding which involves not messing around with other people without notification/permission, then yes cheating is a thing. It would be shitty for Catra to do anything without letting Entrapta know she intends to, which is the entire point of the fun pass.

Chapter 7:

⦁ Catra didn’t really have a sex addiction or anything she was just really, really lonely, knew people found her hot, and needed reasons to stay at other people’s places, so it ended up as a perfect storm.

⦁ “Put the kid on and let me talk to her” from Catra “I’m just tolerating the kid” Meow Meow.

⦁ Yes I know that “bludgeoning weapon” was not at all correct. But it sounded good, and that’s what writing is sometimes.

⦁ “She tells herself Mara would miss her gifts and then immediately questions why she needs to tell herself anything at all.” Idk Catra I think Mara might miss you as a little more than a gift-giving source. She might be really broken up by you not coming around. (You would also miss her but I’m not even going to pretend you’re open to that idea)

⦁ IDK CATRA MAYBE THE KID WANTED TO BE AROUND AND TRUSTED BY YOU. IDIOT

⦁ The Scene (2)

Chapter 8:

⦁ Turnabout’s fair play and we’ve gone from Adora thinking she can’t stay over to Catra thinking it. These two lesbians just need to accept they’re equally needy.

⦁ “Hoodwinked” agenda !! In all seriousness I haven’t watched it in years so I’m not sure if it holds up, but I loved that movie as a kid and so did my mom. I watched it so many times.

⦁ “Tax-free” is in reference to the final line of the chapter, where Catra has some (minor) dues to pay for how she has lived her life, but it’s nothing more serious than what she has already done, because as awful as she often thinks herself, most of what she did was just surviving under hard circumstances.

Chapter 9:

⦁ Adora has it right with Falcon. To him, he and his girlfriend had sex bad enough for her to realize she was gay (he was not being a good partner for that because he didn’t notice she was uncomfortable, he was just thinking three years together made it about time), he suddenly has a kid at only 19, and his now-ex he was planning to marry can’t even look at him. He already had gambling tendencies and really fell on it with the stress of college and navigating the kid situation, and then everything snowballed because the debt got bad enough he couldn’t make tuition and his stress went even further through the roof when he was forced to just get a job to pay what child support he could, and then he starts getting these threats and at that point completely starting over is looking pretty attractive. Whether or not he was in the right has no effect on how his brain was able to handle it and Mara’s inception turned out mildly traumatic for everyone involved.

⦁ “The fact that Adora is right to have her suspicions is annoying.” That’s a little thing called guilt, kitten.

⦁ I don’t know what my thing with Albuquerque is but whenever I think of someone going into hiding/leaving the country I think of them doing it there. I’m sure it was used in some piece of media I consumed when I was young and that’s where it came from because to my knowledge it’s not an international flights hub.

⦁ Glimmer is one of those people who will drop in the group chat like hey who wants to see a show in two weeks and then just buy tickets for everyone. This was actually arranged months ago, hence the Star siblings not thinking about the timing and having a conflict, and it was before Perfuma and Scorpia even started dating.

⦁ Melendy Britt was a voice actress on the OG cartoon and like a third of the female characters, playing Adora amongst others. She was recently at the MOTU SDCC panel.

⦁ In most ‘verses I think Catra loves music, she just has a specific history in this AU that makes it a weird thing for her because she knows it was robbed of her but can’t try to get into it now because that’s acknowledging everything she has lost.

⦁ The brain development thing is actually a myth and it varies wildly between people, but Adora’s parents are also the kind to sincerely believe you’re only using 10% of your brain at any given time.

Chapter 10:

⦁ When I was initially figuring out what to do with Falcon, I wasn’t really sure what to do with him. I wanted to get him involved in criminal stuff Catra could uncover so he couldn’t be around Mara anymore, but I was also hesitant to do that because Adora’s life is in a precarious place without the child support. I also didn’t want to make him into this caricature of awfulness when he was once Adora’s longterm boyfriend and thus at least seemed decent. Then I remembered Catra has a tech sector paycheck and I could easily just run him off at that point.

⦁ Honestly, now is probably the time to admit that every third time I went to write Falcon’s name I almost wrote Sea Hawk just because they’re so similar, which makes sense since Falcon was invented to be Sea Hawk’s ex, but it was a struggle the whole fic lol.

⦁ Okay, but what did happen with Falcon and the money/threats? Well, Catra had it pretty right: they were sketchy people, and criminals sure, scammers definitely, but they weren’t actually going to send hitmen after him or anything. He was never in any danger. Leaving the country did actually give him a new leaf though and he was a better person with it, managing to build something even though he was still struggling with his gambling addiction. He wasn’t able to keep any kind of savings going as a result but he at least learned not to spend money he didn’t actually have and get in debt. He managed to find a small pension job and get help for his anxiety, which let him at least a small modest life.

⦁ Mrs. Bee is Sweet Bee.

⦁ I meant to have a conversation about swearing they never ended up having. Basically, Adora vaguely tries to censor herself, but things like “oh stars” come naturally to her from her parents, “fuck” just also comes naturally from everyone else in her life lol. Mara knows kind of what swear words are and that they’re “adult words” you need to be older to understand the impact of, so when Catra (or Adora) does inevitably swear in front of the kid, it’s not much of a big deal. Catra ends up making it out to be a bigger thing in her head and putting more effort into censoring herself (read: any effort) than Adora does or cares. Eventually they do talk about it when Catra takes a bit more of a parental role in Mara’s life and is trying to figure out what that entails.

⦁ There’s this tendency for people talking to kids to refer to their parents as “your mom” rather than like, their name which you would be using in any other context. Catra has had a secret rule — secret even to herself — that she’s going to keep Adora’s name and not do that “your mom” shit. Well, here she is doing that shit, and it’s because she feels a lot less like she needs to distance herself from Mara — and thus the concept of Adora having kids — than she did at first when Mara quite frankly terrified her.

⦁ “I didn’t remember your phone number-” a straight up lie, “-and I wasn’t about to go back home under any conditions to ask your parents what you were up to,” will turn out to be a lie.

Chapter 11:

⦁ “It’ll even look bad on Mara by the time of their next zoo visit.” Oh? Are you planning to be part of that visit, Catra?

⦁ (I am not personally a big fan of bucket hats but there are times when they look really cute — yes even on adults — Catra’s just a hater)

⦁ Catra’s description of how the magicat crowns work is actually how her mask works on her official doll. In the case of the magicat queens, though, the hooks were more like a fallback because the mask was made to be so perfect against their face its weight was distributed over the entire thing and the small hooks just kept it from getting out of place.

⦁ Catra’s freakout is very funny to me because kids will play with literally anyone they like but Catra has so little experience she thinks this is what fatherhood is. Not that she isn’t a Trusted Adult to Mara but most of her “signs” would be there whether or not they were dating.

⦁ “It’s also partially that she isn’t ever going to be a father to anyone, and thus using it has more joking distance that feels marginally more acceptable.” She’s a dad within six months lmao.

⦁ Being a parent doesn’t come naturally to a lot of people, and Catra is one of those, so for most of the fic you don’t really get to see her in “parent mode”, and I do worry where it leaves off some people will see her as not a good step-parent for Mara, but that’s a slow process for her to reach. The fic would have to drag out a lot longer before it could reach the point where it’s natural for her. For most of the first year she feels like she’s horribly flailing during every interaction with Mara, and that doesn’t change with this chapter, but she does internally accept that this is a role she’s going to have and wants to take up, so while she still jokes and occasionally slips up, she does love the kid and is doing her best.

Chapter 12:

⦁ I’m basically picturing the Home Alone house for Adora’s parents but I don’t remember it from the movie, I remember it from the LEGO set. So do with that what you will.

⦁ Marlena knows what she’s doing and she’s just trying to feel Catra out because she never would have pictured her becoming a parent in high school, but she also knows, both logically and from her phone calls with Adora, that Catra has grown a lot.

Original Outline:

I actually have my original idea for the fic still written down from a Discord conversation with a friend so here it is in its entirety:

vague idea is catra + entrapta are a hacker duo and they’re a thing. adora's organization is data compromised, forcing catra to get back in contact with her to help her fix it (vaguer idea is adora works for a nonprofit or something. dont hold me to that) like catra independently finds out there's a security vulnerability and is like fuck i have to be a good guy about this Maybe Catra tries to hack them to spy on adora because she misses her and then she gets way too much way too easily.

So yeah obviously a lot changed. Another idea was that Catra had to protect Adora from people trying to get her for… IDK, something Catra uncovered that Adora didn’t even know she knew (or at least didn’t realized was incriminating enough for people to want to cover it up), but I don’t really like writing action lol.

Everything changed because I had been wanting to write a single mom Adora fic too, just didn’t have anything written for it. In the initial version of Slipstream, I had no background for how they drifted apart, and the comphet backstory for the single mom Adora fic slotted nicely into Slipstream’s empty past, so I combined them so I could write both at once, especially because (as evidenced by how little was in the outline) I didn’t have any kind of ongoing plot after they reconnected that I actually wanted to write (again, action ideas are fun, but not for me to write). The new story gave me a lot more avenues to explore relationship dynamics as a big element for all the characters, and thus gave the QPR more relevance and let me portray something I think is kind of rare. Entrapta’s relationship with relationships in this fic is really personal to me and it kind of stuck out as a little out of place in the old idea, but in this version of the fic it works into the overall themes of relationships, self-denial, and accepting that what satisfies you isn’t necessarily the thing that will make you happiest and that’s worth whatever risks are associated with it.

I want back and forth on the club chapter and the following revolving around a few points: should they actually kiss in the club or just come close, should they kiss in the kitchen, and should they get evolved enough in that kiss for Adora’s hand to reach Catra’s tail. I kind of knew the latter would be too far, but ultimately decided the first two were permissible within their rules.

Meta:

Adora’s floorplan

Upcoming:

Next up will be an OotW oneshot. I’m also working on the Lightbeam sequel fic, and lowkey another AU I’ve been teasing, but I don’t think I'll have time for them before Sapphic September starts and I chip away at some of those prompts, so we'll see what’s going to shove to the forefront first, so stay tuned IG lol

#slipstream #fic notes #ficmeta

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lanawinterscigarettes · 2 months

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Random characters with a reader who plays Five Nights at Freddy's

Characters included: Allison Reynolds, Phoebe Buffay, Remy "Thirteen" Hadley, Gomez! Master/Missy

Warnings: gender neutral reader, multiple mentions of the survival horror game Five Nights at Freddy (no spoilers for any of the games though)

A/N: I was finally able to get the fnaf core collection from Walmart that I've been eyeing for like a year and while I've temporarily put aside my Nintendo switch so I won't keep getting the shit scared out of me I decided to write something with some of my favorite characters because a) I want to and b) I can. Is this a niche concept? Yes, but so are all the characters I've chosen for this (and I've only just realized they're all women but I refuse to apologize for it)

Allison Reynolds

She already knew about the game before you told her. In a modern au (which is what this is) she's definitely the weird kid that's obsessed with fnaf, nightcore, creepypasta, etc.

Owns all of the games, including several books and plushies. You're not sure whether they were gifts or if she bought them herself (or if she stole them)

Loves to watch you play, always letting out a small shriek followed by excited giggles whenever you get jumpscared. She's incredibly good, often winning even the most difficult nights on the first try

Watches lore videos and gameplays on YouTube with you while snuggled up in her bed (Matpat and Markiplier are obviously her favorites)

If she knows you have a favorite character she'll go out of her way to get something with them for you. Her favorite character is Marionette/The Puppet

Phoebe Buffay

She saw some of your fnaf stuff and innocently asked what it was from, not knowing your cute little plushies had such a dark backstory

It scares the hell out of her at first, but in a good way. She likes watching you play while cheering you on from the sidelines, occasionally asking questions or swearing at one of the characters when they jumpscare you

Eventually she ends up trying it out for herself, doing surprisingly good from all the times she watched you. Until she ran out of power, that is, and was immediately killed

Probably ends up writing a song about it and singing it at the coffee shop, much to everyone's dismay

"There was once a purple guy who watched children die, they were stuffed in a metal suit and no one knows why-"

Also her favorites are Bonnie and Monty Gator because they play the guitar like her and she automatically thinks they're really cool just because of that

Remy "Thirteen" Hadley

Another ex weird kid who played the games for sure. She's also a champ at them, and will usually give you pointers whenever she watches you play

The type to have serious discussions with you over the lore at any time or place, regardless of whether it's the right environment or not. One time you were talking about it at the hospital during lunch and Kutner overheard. Poor guy was traumatized

Her favorites are Circus Baby and Michael Afton because of how much she strangely relates to them. Springtrap is her worst enemy and she will make it known at any possible time she can bring it up. She hates him so much that whenever she plays the third game it's just her swearing at him the entire time

She also hates Balloon Boy (who doesn't) but it's less of a visceral hatred and more of a "Oh great, this guy again"

Like I said before, she's a champ at them BUT she's also incredibly competitive and will rage quit if she loses more than two times in a row

Gomez! Master/Missy

"Humans are so cute, aren't they? Actively seeking out things that scare them, then acting surprised when they get frightened" <- her exact words when she saw you playing the game for the first time and after you explained it to her

In all honesty, while she does find it cute in a slightly condescending way, she feels like that for pretty much anything humans are interested in, so I wouldn't take it personally

The lore both fascinates and delights her, and she could spend hours listening to you explain it. In fact, I'd go so far as to say she likes that more than the actual games themself

That's not to say that she doesn't enjoy watching you play, because she does. Something about the adrenaline rush and the need to last until six o'clock followed by getting jumpscared out of nowhere is thrilling to her. She might even ask to play herself if she's in a good enough mood, though she will throw a small tantrum if she loses just an FYI

Ballora is her favorite- why? I think it's because of how eery she is. Like, she's somewhat of a mother figure, but there's something off about her. Also it's just the vibes man idk

End notes: sorry for this random fnaf centric post, I just love it so much and needed to integrate it in with my writing

Likes < reblogs | comments are greatly appreciated | requests are currently open

🏷 taglist: @missmewts @ghot-girl @your-next-daydream @alexxavicry @noisy-dumb-piece-of-shit @lovelyy-moonlight @theonetruepotato87 @sessa23 @super-just-because

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chrysopoeias · 7 days

Note

Have you read A Far Wilder Magic by Allison Saft? It's very clearly a Royai fic that evolved into a standalone YA novel, but I really liked the main character (who is obviously Riza) and I'd be curious to see what you think about how they wrote her personality.

Yes I did! It was last year, so it’s not so fresh in the mind anymore. But I did enjoy reading it indeed. I have no idea if the author ever admitted it being a royai fic (or if she is allowed to), but yes it’s pretty obvious which parts came from common royai (fanon) lore, headcanons and fanfic tropes. I did like how it also got to be it’s own thing too, have some different themes and character motivations.

For royai fanfic readers a lot of it will feel familiar, but I don’t think you should get into the book and fully expect to read about roy and riza. Because this book is about maggie and wes.

And yeah with the likely origin, obviously maggie’s personality is like riza’s. But maggie is the protagonist and we get so see much more of her thoughts. Margret is also attempting to get the love and approval of a neglecting parent despite knowing deep down she will never receive that. But she made getting her mother’s love her only goal in life and has absolutely no desires or direction or dreams for herself. I think it did convey the absolute devotion, loneliness, despair and shame she goes through well. Riza would relate.

#ask #thanks!

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gothicafish · 6 days

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I wake up randomly in the middle of the night so here are some things I love about kevin can fuck himself

-obviously the switch between sitcom and drama pov. It's such a good way to show how Kevin's pov (sitcom) controls the narrative especially in front of other people and how other people don't really see the abuse bc "lighthearted" narrative he pushes that often makes Allison look bad (she's a bad driver, she's not funny/can't take a joke, etc)

-this kinda goes with the last one but how people who have interacted with Kevin treat Allison. Like Sam. When she goes to the diner the night she sneaks out Sam she says she needs to talk because she finally has something to say and as she's trying to vent to him, instead of just listening he tells her that all she wanted was someone to "sit her and nod and agree with you" Like dude obviously she wanted you to LISTEN not you're advice.

-This similar thing also happens with. Diane. When Allison steals the bellecheck hoodie and wears it to work Diane's first question after hearing Allison say it's her new favorite is "has Kevin seen this new look ? ...it's not fair to Kevin...you got lucky" [that she's letting herself go ].

-i also love how they make almost every male character suck at least just a little bit bc yeah it be like that sometimes. For Kevin it's obviously the verbal, emotional abuse/manipulation of not only Allison but everyone in his life, with Sam it's that he's cheating on his WIFE and (imo) very dismissive of Allison's abuse, with Neil it's thay he's mooching off of patty and manipulating people into thinking he's dumber than he is so people will do things for him and he generally just treats Allison like shit, and Chuck (Diane's husband) just a disgusting cheater, the man from the car shop could have gotten Allison assaulted bc she slapped him while she was high. Etc. The only redeemable man i think is Kevin's dad who went along with a lot of Kevin's dumbassery but was ultimately also a victim of Kevin's abuse and did try to remind Kevin to be good sorta.

- I also love how they are able to portray several types of abuse and the reasons why they can't leave/ are in the sitchuation to begun with.

-Allison can't leave kevin bc she has no money (he controls the finances) doesn't have a good relationship with living parents, Diane is in the same situation too. And then IMAGINE trying to divorce kevin?? NIGHTMARE. Not only bc as we've seen he'd never let her do that to begin with but also because if they pushed the divorce the most likely story is that, with Kevin's luck he'd find some kind of loophole that let's him stay with more than Allison.

-Dianes husband is cheating on her and she's able to leave for a few weeks. Bc once again she has no where to go, Chuck probably controls the finances and has sole ownership of their house, I assume has no family to turn to so she goes back and "forgives him" because there are simply no other viable options.

- niel has been using patty to provide basically everything for him and what she doesn't kevin pays for. AND I think she dodged a bullet with the boyfriend.

-even Jenn (sams wife) has been emotionally cheated on for pretty much the duration of their relationship and then fully cheated on for thr latter half.

-OH YEAH I almost forgot the whole reason I made this post. Throughout everything kevin in someway always wins. And dude if you have ever lived with someone like that THATS EXACTLY HOW IT FUCKING IS. no matter what happens to them or if you do or anyone else does something to subtly and inadvertently teach them a lesson they always fucking prevail. People like kevin are the luckiest goddamn people in the world and the only times they're NOT lucky is in situations that also/mostly affect you. It's the most infuriating thing to witness bc despite all your suffering, grievances, and through all the inconvenience and annoyance they cause you they still fucking win at your expense.

-ANOTHER THING a love about this shoe is that it also does a pretty good job of showing the nessecity of female companions as a woman. If you've ever taken a college level English class you've probably heard of this notion before (I'm sorry I can't remember the exact term they use for it rn ) but basically it's a good rule of thumb to have another woman you can talk to and share with. Allison is pretty much completely isolated except for Kevin's friends or Diane or Sam. But when Allison and patty become genuine friends imo she starts finding who she is again and who she could be without kevin. (I think I'm gonna edit this later bc I think ibexplained thay horribly.) And not only that, Tammy with all her expirence in the cj field, despite her jealousy of Allison and multiple confrontations she still believes Allison and completely sympathizes with her.

-one more thing Allison and patty 100% in love. They're literally gonna die old and alone together.

-my own personal headcanon that I think was hinted at in the flashback to when Allison met Kevin. She met patty first and I think patty liked Allison immediately buy Allison chose kevin.

- also one thing I have noticed is if you watch this show with women they clock immediately the subtleties of the abuse (ex. Kevin standing on Allison's pottery barn coffee table and breaking it) but if you watch with a man that kinda goes over most of their heads. Cause like yeah it's just a table. But it's not. It's a POTTERY BARN coffee table that she found on SALE and it's thr nicest thing they own and it's constantly being treated like shit and Allison is always being bullied for buying a cheap table.

#kevin can fuck himself

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urjustaguyonahorse · 9 months

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SCOTT AND KIRA

Listen, I love star crossed lovers bound to find each other again as much as the next girl but Allison and Scott were only ever going to be high school sweethearts. They were walking, talking, kissing, foils of each other. Both of them grew into this world at the same time on opposite sides of the fight. Scott getting comfortable in his skin meant that he wanted to reach out and take care of the people surrounding him. Allison on the way to getting comfortable with her identity turned to making certain that she would always be able to take care of herself, and putting a wall up around her.

Scott had incredible chemistry with Isaac and they obviously meant a lot to each other but nothing about their relationship every felt healthy or balanced enough for them to be in any kind of stable romantic relationship.

On sort of the same note, Kira and Malia also had chemistry and were adorable but there was a kind of power imbalance between them and they didn't meet each other at the right time in their lives for them to be able to grow compatible together romantically.

Malia and Scott were there for each other in a rough time and supported each other when there was nobody else and that's really all there was to it for them. I honestly would have rathered that Scott had been allowed to be single for a little, but it wasn't the worst relationship I've ever seen and they were good together while it lasted.

And then there was Kira. Who, while she was growing into her own powers she was always so aware of those around her and trying to take care of them. AND in a world of craziness and violence Scott and Kira were always so so so soft and loving around each other.

Kira doesn't get the love she deserves a lot of the time because she came directly after Allison, which, especially when you're first watching the series, is a HUGE blow and a lot of people see her as an Allison rip off. Which is valid because Allison is framed as the love of his life as first love often is.

But I just think that, the way they both were able to embrace change and took a selfless outlook on life, given the time, they would've grown into an inseparable power couple. They were effectively gentle parenting their entire friend group at the strongest point in their relationship and I just think that they both deserved to be in the kind of relationship filled with trust and a partner who took care of them in the way they needed it.

There's just something that is so important to me about the way their relationship was never put on full display or made into a spectacle. Scott's intensity was toned down comfortably by Kira's calm, Kira's quiet was brought out by Scott's friendly personality. They balance each other out in a really healthy way and ideally they should've come back to each other in the end. Scira my loves you deserved the world and to be together again and to be safe <3

#with a collection of some of my favorite soft scira gifs #they had a rain kiss my beloved #and also hozier plays behind their first kiss #tf you mean they weren't meant to be endgame with that kind of soundtrack #god bless the gif makers of tumblr #i just love them to pieces and would die for them also #scira #kira yukimura #scott mccall #like real people do #hozier #teen wolf

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yummynomnomyummy · 8 months

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I Know There's a Smoker Inside of Me Somewhere

I just got to 1000 words on this fic I'm writing. It's based in a hc I saw on tiktok. It's not very interesting atm but I figured I'd share it anyway.

Lawrence couldn’t stop thinking about him. His face, his voice, his name. Adam.

With how much he thought about Adam, Lawrence always figured he should know more about him, but he knew next to nothing.

The blackmail photographer had been learning about him for days before they met. So he had already known so much about the doctor, but Adam didn’t talk much about himself, at all.

The blonde wished he had, then there would be more of Adam to hang on to. More that Lawrence could carry with him through life.

After he got out of that bathroom and to a hospital to recover, he and Allison knew they needed a divorce. They didn’t want to make things harder for their daughter, Diana, who had also just survived one of Jigsaw's traps. But they mutually agreed that staying together would just damage her - and them - more.

Lawrence wished that Adam could be here with him through the divorce, he could have been such a good stepdad and supporting figure.

The doctor was driving his daughter and soon-to-be ex-wife over to the house she had found for herself, (they still only had one car though.)

“Mommy, Daddy?” Diana’s voice spoke up above the radio. Gordon turned down the volume and spoke in a sweet voice, despite his thoughts dripping with grief.

“Yes Diana? What do you need, sweetie?”

“Are you two getting a divorce because of what that man did?” They knew immediately what ‘that man’ was referring to. Jigsaw.

“No, honey.” Allison spoke up, “We knew that a divorce was necessary long before that man was a part of our lives. He just..” Allison paused not really knowing how to explain the whole thing.

Lawrence stepped in for Allison, “When that man did what he did, we figured that it was better to do this now than put it off any longer.” He left out the part that he no longer wanted to be with Allison after he had fallen for another man, even if that man was probably dead now.

Allison explained to Diana that they both still loved her very much, and that would never change.

Lawrence dropped the two of them off at their house and started driving back to his own. He looked at the gas meter and groaned as he realized he would need to fill up his gas tank.

Pulling into the gas station he got out of the car so he could walk in the building to buy the amount of gas he needed.

“Yeah. Thanks.” He muttered to the cashier after giving him the money. The doctor looked up and spotted the cigarettes on the wall behind the counter.

He chuckled to himself, using the laughter to cover up his want to cry. Adam had smoked. Lawrence never understood why anyone would smoke, it was so bad for you.

Having a medical degree, he knew how many diseases were caused by smoking. Spoiler alert: nearly all of them.

At the same time, he considered buying some. He knew Adam had smoked, and he wanted- no, needed some of Adam with him. He had barely anything to remember him by.

Lawrence had a blue flannel shirt, like the one Adam was wearing when they first met. He was saving up money for a camera, but he had no idea the kind that Adam used.

Maybe he could buy some. Not smoke them, just to kind of have.

"Hey, could I have some Marlboro Reds?" He asked the cashier. He didn't even know if that was the kind that Adam smoked. When they were in the bathroom together he just seemed happy that there were cigarettes there.

"Sure man." He turned around to grab a pack and threw them on the counter between them. "$3.75."

Lawrence pulled the money out of his wallet and handed it over before he grabbed the pack. Back in the parking lot he threw the pack in the cupholder before he filled up his car and left.

He glanced at the pack in the cup holder occasionally. He hated that he had no idea whether or not Adam smoked that kind. He hated how little he knew about this man that obviously had such a big impact on him.

It was like he was missing a piece of himself. And the knowledge he could never get was the only thing that could fill the Adam-shaped hole in his heart.

He was never going to smoke them He told himself. He just needed a little bit of Adam with him.

When he got back to his house he debated leaving the pack in the car, but ultimately decided to take them with him, maybe keep them in his nightstand.

Lawrence grabbed his cane, put the cigarettes in his pocket, and got out of his car, wincing as he accidentally put weight on the leg without a foot.

Back in the house, Lawrence sighed and took his coat off. Now that Allison no longer lived there, and Diana was at her house that week, the house seemed incredibly empty. Like it was missing something.

Lawrence knew having Adam there would make it seem so much less empty. He would greet Lawrence every time he came home, and be there to listen to his struggles with the divorce.

He would have loved to have Adam living with him. It might’ve taken some getting used to on Adams part, given that it seemed like he was used to much more run down, minimalistic living. Lawrence remembered Adam saying something about his "shithole appartment" when they were locked in the bathroom.

Lawrence walked by his daughters empty room, his cane clacking against the hardwood, and tried not to look in. When he reached his own doorway he leaned against the doorway. He still wasn't used to having a prosthetic foot.

"Stupid prosthetic." He muttered. "Stupid Jigsaw. Stupid bathroom. Supid…" He paused and sighed, "Stupid Adam."

He didn't really mean it, but he tried to convince himself he did. He wanted to forget all about the trap he was in, so he didn't have to feel the ache of missing Adam, of not fulfilling his promise.

But he felt the pack of cigarettes in his pocket and knew he would never be able to. He walked over to his bed with moderate difficulty and sat on top of the covers.

#lawrence gordon #chainshipping #light angst #saw 2004 #saw franchise #sawposting #queer

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johannestevans · 2 years

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M3gan and a lonely child

“She’ll take care of the little things, so you can spend more time doing the things that matter.”

From left to right, M3gan (Amie Donald), Gemma (Allison Williams), and Cady (Violet McGraw). Image via IMDb.

M3GAN, directed by Gerald Johnstone and written by Akela Cooper, is a great little horror film — it’s funny, it’s freaky, it’s well-paced, and obviously M3gan herself is a really great character who’s already had a lot of impact in memes and pop culture.

Cady (Violet McGraw), a quiet and self-effacing little girl, is orphaned when her parents are killed in a car accident, after which she’s sent to live with her Aunt Gemma (Allison Williams). Her aunt, a workaholic engineer at a famous toy company, pairs Cady up with the newest toy in development — M3GAN, standing for Model 3 Generative Android, a life-sized human doll that uses AI learning models to engage with, teach, care for, and otherwise be a companion to the children she’s paired with. M3GAN (played by Amie Donald, voiced by Jenna Davis) spends time with Cady while Gemma focuses for the majority of the film on her work, not realising that she’s neglecting Cady’s emotional needs or that M3gan’s learning model is more dangerous than she anticipated.

One thing I didn’t expect going into it was how much the central politics of the film would hit me and how hard — M3GAN throughout shows you a deeply unhappy, lonely little girl, and step-by-step goes through what has made her that way.

It would have been very easy for the film to basically treat M3GAN as a metaphor for the terrors of “screentime”, and how too much screentime harms a child — it stunts their growth! They become too used to screens! They become lonely and sad!

I don’t disagree that too much time using screens can be detrimental to anyone’s life and development, but it can’t be denied that screentime is frequently used as a boogeyman to distract from the real issue: that many caregivers give their children TV, computers, or their phones, because they don’t want to waste their time interacting with them. Children are stranded with screens and technology because their parents are busy, or tired, or just want them to be quiet. The technology itself is not the problem, but the desire to put this technology in your child’s hands and then walk away or mentally disengage so that you can do something else.

While there are a few moments in the film where Gemma (Allison Williams) treats M3gan with the casual disregard she might do an iPad, the core of most of the film is in that M3gan is making Cady feel cared for, which nobody else does.

Before I dig in, according to the NSPCC, these are the four main forms of child neglect:

Physical neglect. A child’s basic needs, such as food, clothing or shelter, are not met or they aren’t properly supervised or kept safe.

Educational neglect. A parent doesn’t ensure their child is given an education.

Emotional neglect. A child doesn’t get the nurture and stimulation they need. This could be through ignoring, humiliating, intimidating or isolating them.

Medical neglect. A child isn’t given proper health care. This includes dental care and refusing or ignoring medical recommendations.

Apart from medical neglect, in the course of M3gan, Cady experiences all of these forms of neglect from Gemma, and potentially from her parents as well. As well as Cady, a boy called Brandon (Cady’s bully who is killed by M3gan) also appears to be neglected by his mother, and Dewey the dog is also heavily neglected and not given appropriate care as a pet by Celia, Gemma’s neighbour.

The whole film is about desires to replace the basic responsibilities of caregiving with various alternatives, and also about avoiding the basic responsibilities of other relationships with each other and our communities.

M3gan’s not the cause of any of these, but a symptom, and a catalyst for their being shown more obviously.

Read on Patreon / / Read on Medium.

About 10k, a 38min read.

#m3gan #m3gan (2023)#movie recs

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void-botanist · 8 months

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Standing, Asalun, & Associates

An AOM &c. AU that nobody asked for, so I'm delivering!

This is me taking Mystery Incorporated, Dead End: Paranormal Park, Hilda, Mob Psycho 100, and let's be honest, the whole ghost segment of The Sword Interval that lives rent-free in my mind into one vibeful concept: Horatio and Marcus run a paranormal investigation business.

Due to all of their proposed names being terrible puns or just not catchy, they gave up and called it Standing & Asalun. They run it out of what is Horatio's Flowers in AOM, and they do extremely lackluster business. However, Celia thinks it's the most delightful fucking thing and inserted herself into the investigation so much that they essentially hired her. She still has a day job, like Marcus, and unlike Horatio MyOwnBoss Standing. Eventually Allison joined in, and even if they would hire him he doesn't actually want the job, so he's technically a contractor. Still, the addition of another regular meant that they finally felt like they had to change the name to Standing, Asalun, & Associates.

Season One

Season one is the alternate story to AOM and begins with things going poorly as usual - they're not actually that bad at their job, but they have a hard time finding people who actually need paranormal things investigated, or even stuff they can put on their video channel - until Sid blows into town, with his parents not far behind. Horatio is instantly convinced that something is Off. No one else agrees - obviously Sid is just having a bad time and is also sixteen years older than when they last saw him. Horatio is ready to acknowledge that he was just too hungry for a lead when Sid starts having dreams that are very clearly not normal weird but paranormal weird. On an island that seems to have nothing paranormal going on, there's nowhere they could possibly be coming from...unless Sid's recently arrived parents have something to do with it. But they're not even witches, let alone known to be capable of whatever this is. So why do they seem to make the dreams worse but their muddy message clearer? SAA - but especially Horatio and the newest associate, Sid - will stop at nothing to find out.

Starring

Horatio Standing

keeps the books

makes the pepe silvia boards

lives above SAA

brings the Fred Jones energy

Marcus Asalun

makes most of the money that goes into the books with his art

designs the ghost science experiments

lives elsewhere but if he could fit his studio into Horatio's place he'd probably just live there. it would cost less

brings the Velma Dinkley energy

Celia Standing

manages the morale

gives the pep talks

lives with Allison

brings the Daphne Blake energy

Allison Hughes

keeps to his own schedule

bakes the snacks

lives with Celia, but it's his house

brings the Shaggy Rogers energy (or Scooby, because wolf)

Sid Reid

keeps a log of his strange nightmares

makes all the food that's not snacks

lives with Horatio and also in fear of his parents, paranormal influence or no

brings the Mr. E energy

with additional appearances by

Avis Peynon

is not your fucking chauffeur service damn it

Sorian Shank

inherited Fred Jones's legendary trapbuilding abilities

Phil Shank

will be your chauffeur service if you don't kill her vibe

Leon Standing

has a book on that but no he doesn't know what the text means either

Edith Standing

banned from contracting with SAA because she pranked them too much

Donovan Reid

is obviously a paranormal intensifier because he's clearly the coolest guy in the world

Emma Reid

read a book about this once and yes she's sure she knows what the text means

#energy here is mostly role but there's also some personality stuff in there. you can't tell me Horatio isn't basically Fred #c: Horatio #c: Sid #c: Marcus #c: Celia #c: Allison #c: Donovan #c: Emma #c: Leon #c: Edith #c: Phil #c: Avis #c: Sorian #wip: aom #au: saa

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crunchyorochiru · 10 months

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I haven't made a list rambling introductions of my eah ocs yet, so now I'm making it everyone's problem and posting this 🤠 Also not every oc has a design yet, so some will only have text descriptions

Allison Andersen, the daughter of Hans Christian Andersen and niece of Alice, though most people don't know that last part. It doesn't help that she resembles Snow White. She doesn't have a destiny, but she’s a diligent straight-A student and knows many stories. By all means, she’s the perfect heiress to her family legacy… but this comes at a cost. Her Wonderland heritage is ignored, she has to go against her own values (like acting pro-destiny when she isn’t,) and she must hide any part of herself that would go against her image (particularly writing fanfiction, which isn’t considered real writing by people like Milton Grimm, and studying magic, because what's the point when she can't even use magic?)

Duke Von Rothbart, the son of Odile. He's Duchess's cousin fufilling the role of the next Von Rothbart sorcerer, and while he doesn't like how he and his sister will die if he follows his destiny, he still plans to follow it just to ensure Duchess doesn't get a happily ever after. He would never admit it, but he's jealous that their Grandmother truly loves Duchess, while he and his sister are stuck with their cold Grandfather who only cares about continuing the family legacy. Due to his bluntness and resting-bitch-face, he comes off as an asshole, but unlike Duchess, he doesn't intentionally look for ways to ruin other people's lives. The one thing he loves most in the world is researching magic, and while most people brush this off as part of following his destiny, he's able to happily indulge in this interest with Allison (in secret, obviously. He understands why Allison hides her interest in magic, but in light of the whole rebel movement, he thinks she should stop hiding)

Princess Von Rothbart, the daughter of Odile. She's Duke's older sister (and also Duchess's cousin) fulfilling the role of the next Odile. Compared to Duke and Duchess, she's much less aggressive and spiteful, but don't mistake that for timidness- she's equally as capable of magic as her brother, and she won't hesitate to use it. She has mixed feelings regarding her family and destiny overall: she doesn't get along with Duchess, but she acknowledges that Duchess's fate is just as bad as hers and Duke's. She's not willing to lose her brother just so he can get petty payback against Duchess. She already lost her parents, even though she can't remember them. She doesn't think it's possible, but if she could avoid her destiny, she wants to live a normal life. No fame or infamy, just a simple, normal life.

Mizuki "Kaguya," the daughter of the Bamboo Princess. Unlike her mother, she was raised on the moon, and she's only come to earth to avoid a civil war. Although her mother (and every other "Kaguya") loves earth, she’s been influenced by the rest of the moon’s high and mighty attitude regarding earth, so she looks down on the other eah students… But she’s getting over it. She's managed to befriend Glinda over a shared love for singing, after all. Also, there are no surnames on the moon, hence the half-assed, school-assigned last name, “Kaguya.”

Glinda West, the daughter of the Witch of the West. She was named after Glinda the Good as a way of emphasizing she isn't evil. She inherited her mother's green skin and magic, so in attempt to prevent her from experiencing ostracization like her mother, she was raised off the grid. Ever After High is her first experience away from home, but thankfully against her mother's expectation, she's been enjoying it. Despite her limited contact with others in her childhood, she's able to get along with just about anyone. She's using her time at EAH to try new things and meet new people, like Allison and Duke. She's not as into magic as they are, but she can appreciate the efforts they take to study it. Although the things she does anyday easily change, she consistently enjoys exploring around Ever After High and singing.

Chengguang "CG" Lang, the great-grandson of the Cowherd (and the Weaver Girl.) Most people can't (or won't bother to) say his name right, and he's tired of correcting mispronunciation, so he goes by the nickname "CG." His destiny works differently than other people: the original Weaver Girl is still alive, given how she's a goddess, so CG and the rest of his family share the role of his great-grandfather by visiting the Weaver Girl every year on the bridge of magpies. He's very energetic and spends his days playing music (singing, instruments, etc.), which is why people get surprised when they find out his best friend is Duke. One of the only times CG ever shows his power as a technical demi-god is when Duke is badmouthed in front of him.

Xingguang "XG" Lang, great-granddaughter of the Cowherd (and the Weaver Girl.) She's CG's twin, and much like CG, she uses a nickname ("XG") because seemingly no one gets her name right. She shares the role of her great-grandfather, the Cowherd, with her brother and family when they visit the Weaver Girl on the bridge of magpies. She enjoys music, but not to the extent of CG- she plays the flute in private, because she doesn't want to be compared to her brother and feels insecure in her musical skill. In general, she's easy going and down to earth.

Maliya Liwanag, the daughter of Mayari (Filipino Moon Goddess.) Her mother had caught wind of Eros sending Cupid to EAH because something major was gonna happen, and while most gods didn't think that was a big deal, Maliya's mother sent Maliya to see what major thing would happen. Maliya does not want to repeat her mother's story, because that would mean fighting a family member and losing an eye, but she's grown attached to EAH. She's made friends, made frenemies (aka Mizuki,) and started dating XG.

Feel free to send asks about my ocs!

#ever after high #eah #eah oc #ever after high oc #original characters #original character #oc #original character art #oc art

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malsiesdiary · 19 days

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So upon just waking up about 10 or so minutes ago, I see this. So I’m going to do a breakdown of why this proves that Nogitsune is the shit starter.

1) Neither of us posted drama on our blogs last night. I watched Camp Rock before going to bed last night and posted some song lyrics I liked from the movie that really hit home for me and reminded me of what I’m dealing with right now with this crazy lunatic and her friends. And after the song lyrics, I posted the dinner I made. (Which actually tasted amazing and looked amazing.) But this bitch clearly stalked our blogs again and decided she need to have shit to say because she can’t go one day without needing our attention OBVIOUSLY. She literally posted last night “if you don’t mention my name I won’t talk about you.” Yet here we are. Nobody mentioned her name or posted drama regarding her and she felt the need to have some shit to say again.

2) Imagine thinking that being 9 years older than you is a decade older. Imagine also thinking that being in your mid 20s means you’re not an adult and don’t need to grow up. Imagine having a young child and another child on the way, and clearly showing you’re not mature enough to be a mother, when you sit online and even irl cussing up a storm and acting stupid and being a horrible role model for your child. Imagine also claiming if you work for a dispensary you can’t smoke weed. Because Scott just applied for a job and he’s allowed to smoke weed, because it’s LEGAL in Mass. So imagine lying to try and get yourself out of the shit you caused for yourself when you posted that you’re smoking weed while pregnant. And girl, Age has nothing to do with bullying. When you bully someone a whole 9 years older than you, they have a right to defend themselves. And I will continue to defend myself anytime you mention my name or talk crap about me, my loved ones, and my family. And Tuesday due to all of this I am in fact getting the police involved. You point blank used Allison’s name today and told her to go kill herself. Telling someone to go kill themselves is an attempted manslaughter charge. And also threatening to kill and eat my dog is threatening and intimidation charge. You’re just mad because you’re stuck with 10 hairy ass cats and a messy ass house.

3) Imagine putting someone down, for the way they clean their house or cook their own food that THEY are eating. You know you wanna bash my house, let’s see yours! My house is clean af. And on the 17th, I’m buying new furniture and throwing out the old stuff. I just bought a new bed from Ashlee Furniture. My landlord just gave me paint to paint the living room with. And I already repainted all of my furniture outside. You talk all this shit about my house when you don’t even live in your own place. You seem to live with like 6 people and don’t even have your own room. And did you know in the state of Ma, a child is required to have their own bedroom? And didn’t you say your family sleeps in the living room? That’s what I recall you telling me over the phone before. So get over yourself. The reason you’re so concerned about me calling CPS, is because you know if I did, you would be in trouble. Just because nobody else has called yet (which is why they aren’t already involved) doesn’t mean that if someone did call they wouldn’t do anything. The mere fact you sit online wishing death on someone’s pet and telling people to go kill themselves is enough evidence in and of itself that you are and I quote “not of sound mind to have a child in your care.” I just watched a court case and that’s what the judge said to this lady who was doing the very same things you’re doing. Sitting online attacking people.

4) YOU reached out to US. We hadn’t posted anything on our blogs since August 24th. You came to my blog pissed off because Allison supposedly posted something about you on her vent blog. (When she didn’t) And the only things we have posted to our blogs, is responses to things YOU have said to or about US. Then when your bashing session of Allison didn’t work, you tried the VERY NEXT DAY, to send her anons saying you have no problems with her and tried to ass kiss her with no other reason than to try and start crap with me and her. “I can show you things Malia said about you.” Bitch we already had this talk me and Allison did. We know we bashed each other. And we also know the reason we did, was because you and your crazy friend, kept playing sides. (You even said that yourself and the screenshot is on my blog.) Coming to me about her and visa versa. I also showed her proof of you and Darach telling me not to trust her and you specifically getting mad at me and threatening not to be my friend anymore if I kept talking to her. YOU started this. Not us. We actually have better things to do with our lives than sit here and worry about you all the time. For someone who claims to have a job and all this other shit going on, you sure do have all this time to be sitting online and worrying about us all the time. Oh ps don’t lie and say you don’t work two jobs. You told me yourself you worked for a fast food place and also at a dispensary. When you called me you were taking peoples orders for FOOD. So you can stop with that lie. You’re either lying about working for a dispensary (since you say you only have one job), or you do work two jobs and you’re lying saying you don’t so you can pretend you have the perfect relationship when we all know you don’t and that’s why you would get on IMVU messing around with dudes on there.

5) You know what they say, people who say things about others is a reflection of their own insecurities. You call Allison “Wrinkles” yet you’re what? 27 and already look older than me! I thought you were in your late 30’s when I met you. But your maturity level had me confused. You say I have acne like that’s supposed to offend me. I have a medical condition that causes my acne. That’s what endometriosis and PCOS does to a person. But you know what it makes me who I am and my friends and boyfriend still adore me, even with my pizza face 🤣🖕 You call me and Allison fat, yet you’re bigger than both of us. You make fun of me not being able to have kids, but it’s only because you know I’d be a better mom than you have ever been. You say you wish my dog would die, because you wish you could have a dog that was as well trained and behaved as my dog is. Everything you say about us, is a reflection of your own problems. You say my cooking sucks, but look at yours. I mean god, your “friends” threw your kids toys away and the reason they did that was because you were probably a bitch to them. Someone at your house called your kid the B word (another thing you told me over the phone.) You are the reason all of this happens, because you start stuff with people and play the victim. If we had nothing to respond to, we wouldn’t have anything posted to our blog. You’re a fucking mother and you act more immature than your kids. And that’s honestly sad.

You say you will ignore us but you won’t, you will find other nasty things to say about us like you always do and then you’ll pretend you’re not the problem. I know you’ll respond to my post and yet again say I started it when all I did was respond to YOU bashing US yet again, after saying “if you don’t talk about me I won’t mention you.” But that lasted for less than 15 hours. We didn’t say a word about you, and you woke up and felt the need to be a cunt to us again.

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penndragyn · 1 month

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First of all, SPOILERS FOR THE UMBRELLA ACADEMY SEASON 4! Kinda. It's an attempt at an alternative "what if" ending, but still. Also language, obviously.

Now, for my version I came up with at five in the morning. If y'all want to see a more detailed version, might make one if I'm given the time. For now, have this.

... ... ...

The Cleanse. Lumbering its way towards The Umbrella Academy to consume the last traces of Marigold and merge the shattered timeline once and for all. And Five, in every one of his infinite wisdoms, only has one plan.

5: "We need to sacrifice ourselves."

Luther: "Am I the only one that doesn't like this plan?"

Klaus: "Yeah, old Klaus might've been into that kinda thing, but I don't really vibe with the whole-"

Viktor: "I'll do it."

And this is where things change. This time, Viktor takes charge. With his power, he'll take everyone's Marigold and sacrifice himself. Everyone else can take the last train with Lila and Allison's families to try and escape to the new timeline.

Allison: "Viktor, we would never leave without you-"

Viktor: "Please. I'd rather not have all of us erased from existence if there's a chance I can save you guys."

5: "I'm staying as well. If you're dead set on doing the sacrifice play, then someone has to blink the others to the station."

Viktor: "Five, but-"

5: "I've lived a long life. I've lived many long lives. And if you have hope for them, Viktor, then... Then so do I."

With The Cleanse approaching, Five blinks everyone to the subway station to buy Viktor time. There, everyone says their tearful goodbyes to Five and Viktor as they all join hands. The show gets its poignant moment, as Viktor takes the last of everyone's Marigold...

Allison: "... I'm so sorry you left Canada for this."

Viktor: "I'm not. Guess I finally get to be special, huh?"

5: "You were always special."

Until someone interrupts, taking Five's Marigold as well as Viktor's.

Lila: "Sod it."

5: "AGH-! Lila!"

Viktor: "Lila, what are you-"

Lila: "You lot said I should save my family, yeah?"

Lila mimics Viktor's power to take the Marigold for herself, making sure Viktor and Five can escape with their family.

Diego: "Lila, you're insane! Our family needs you! I need you-"

Lila: "Our family's gonna be fine. They've got you lot in it. You've got this."

With one last kiss to Diego, Lila pushes the rest of the group onto the train before it departs. Lila follows the train as long as she can to say goodbye to her family. Then she blinks away.

5: "Diego, there's nothing we can do."

Lila faces The Cleanse with a defiant shout. To this universe, to every universe, to this abomination that tried to tear away the only things she'd ever loved in life.

Lila: "FUCK YOOOOOOOOOU!!!"

The timelines collapse back into their one true form, and on the 12th hour of the 8th day of August, 2024, absolutely nothing happened.

Pogo (narrating): "You might even say it was completely ordinary."

And The Umbrella Academy, for all the times these six siblings have been starting and stopping the end of the world non-stop...

...They really needed a day like that at long last.

... ... ...

And that's how I would've ended the show. There's a lot of other parts I'm sure others have ways to fix, but I think this ending is a bit more satisfying. I kept Lila's self sacrifice, I felt that moment was too good to waste, but added some depth to Viktor and Diego's parts in that scene considering their plots in the show gave them some focus.

Hope you enjoyed, let me know what you think, looking forward to seeing the endings everyone else had in mind.

#how it should have ended #altending #alternate ending #tua season 4 #the umberella academy #viktor hargreeves #lila hargreeves #yes i kept her last line the same #how could i not #does this count as #fanfic #i dunno #maybe #umbrella academy #non canon #unfortunately #tua

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katatonicimpression · 1 month

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but what if i did just saltily rant about the umbrella academy for a bit?

i'm gonna try to keep this in the realm of more professional/technical criticism but lets be real it's gonna get petty

Overall Point 1: The Apocalypse, Timelimes and Themes

So.. what is a series where the world ends every season about? What are we supposed to take from that? They hop into different timelines, with different realities and norms and try to adjust to them, then everything goes to shit.

The theme that the show lands on, certainly in this season, is basically about ego-death. It's about accepting your true insigificance in an infinate universe, accepting your own death, non existance and oblivion. It's accepting the destruction of your life, family and relationships, because you as an individual don't matter.

This is fine. Season 3 ended with everyone aside from Allison being "let's just die I guess.", which was weaker. Having them sacrifice themselves to actually save people carries more weight, so I guess we're actually at an improvement.

But yes, this is fine. It's a true beat. We are mortal specks of dust in an infinite void. We don't matter. The self is an illusion.

Also, 8 people never existing in order to save billions from torment is completely reasonable (even if logically it should be like 40-something of them). It's fine. It's a worthy theme. We'll get back to this.

Overall Point 2: New Season, New Me

One thing that's always irked me about this show is the way that each season has always given their characters entirely new arcs and new shit to deal with. From a writing perspective, this is obviously a good decision. From a fan perspective, it's annoying.

Things from previous seasons that felt undeveloped or unresolved remain that way. If you don't like the new direction they've taken a character, you're just stuck with it. It's annoying. They did it every time and it was annoying every time. Anyway, I liked seasons 1 and 3, and not the others for this exact reason.

Individual Character Breakdowns:

Luther - I liked him fine in this. Was it weird that Sloane's evaporation from the timeline was mentioned a few times but there was no shape or arc to this? Yes. We begin with him being chipper but with a sad life, and end with him looking kind of jealous of Diego's life but then continuing to be chipper and accepting his non-existence. No arc, but at least he wasn't an annoying presence.

Diego - First thing to mention here is why were there at least 2 lines and a visual gag about him supposedly putting on weight then a shirtless scene where he has insane dehydration abs? Bizzare. Was this supposed to be a joke then the punchline got cut? Diego's arc, that we can summise from his conversation with that CIA guy, is that he's taking his family for granted. Also he's jealous and upset over Lila. This is resolved by him apologising to her (?) and seemingly forgiving her but only right before they all die. Also he loses his family.. because he no longer exists. This is not a good arc. And then there's Lila herself, who we'll get to later.

Allison - There was a slight sense in this season that the writers realised that they had turned a lot of the fandom against Allison last season. Like, it felt like they were trying to smooth that over specifically. Or maybe not. Either way the fandom villification of Allison was just racist. She's not worse than the others, she's not even as bad as most of them. May I remind you of all the murders and the sex cult? Speaking of the latter, Allison's job this season is to babysit Klaus and be concerned for him. Such arc. Much rewarding. Also, in S3 she was willing to reboot the timeline in order to preserve her daughter's existence, in S4 she's willing to cease existing and therefore have no daughter. That's a change, but not an arc.

Klaus - Klaus goes from running a sex cult in S2 to being sex-trafficked in S4. In an over-the-top, locked up in a cell, Taken-style way. Despite starting this escapade literally chained to the ceiling, he's surprised when he doesn't get paid. Urgh. Anyway, nothing Klaus did in this season mattered, I would've scrapped all of it. He has this pointless kidnapping subplot that seems to exist only as a) something to cut away to to break up the rest of it and b) a reason why the guy who spend years hanging out with ghost!ben isn't there during the reveal of how he died. Anyway, I guess Klaus' arc was that at some point after s3 he got back into drugs and became indebted to this biker guy, and then got sober and became obsessed with his own mortality, then he's forcibly given his powers back and is mad about it but then gets over it then accepts his own non-existence because literally what matters at this point? I honestly found him annoying at every point in this season, more so than s2 and I hated what they did with him in s2. What a waste of a character.

Five - Hot take, but I think that Five had the most realised arc this season. In S3, he has his moment of giving up. He's not going to try to save the world anymore, a thing he's been doing for decades. He goes back and forth a bit, but ends S3 where everyone aside from Allison does: willing to die and letting everything collapse. This time, he ends up still willing to self sacrifice, but this time it's for something. He knows it will save people. That is growth. And, yeah I'll say it, the Lila subplot makes sense for him. He goes from letting the apocalypse happen to preventing it by surrendering his own existence, and what's a better test case for that by showing him a version of the apocalypse that he could live with? He's accustomed living in a wasteland, and this time he's not alone. It's a temptation for his character, the choice he shouldn't make. It does the job of showing us what he wants, a version of him that could be content... but that content-ness comes at the expense of other people (Lila's happiness, and the population of the planet's lives respectively). And, obviously he chooses the right thing in the end, but it's a valid storytelling technique. So, fine. Yup. Arc achieved... I'll get to Lila later.

Ben - holy shit guys I'm so annoyed with this. So, for umbrella ben we get the explanation of his death and what "the jennifer incident" was and eh it's just not interesting. With sparrow ben, we get two episodes of him being fun and bitchy and then his consumed by a desire to fuse with Jennifer and become the blob. It's not just because my guy died although yes I am salty. It's that his character motivation is that his brain is taken over by external forces for most of the season. He's not acting according to his own desires, he's just driven by blob-lust: a magnetism that's portrayed as being physically inevitable.

So, the only ben arc we get is that he storms away from these fuckers in a huff at the end of s3, but apparently does stay in touch, does some financial fraud, goes to prison, sneakily takes the marigold and drugs everybody because he wants his powers back. So far this is.. fine? His actions with the marigold make sense, being a superhero was a big part of his identity, it gave him purpose and made him feel important and strong. So fine. Then he storms off in a huff again and meets Jennifer at which point none of his actions are about him, they're about the laws of sci-fi physics.

I hate this. I really thought we were gonna get a storyline where ben is inadvertantly ending the world with, like, an internal journey and character moments but no. Anyway, ben doesn't accept his own non-existence. He's dies in pain consumed by a blob. While we're here, poor Jennifer. What a thankless role that was.

Viktor - Viktor is similar to Luther to me in this season, in that he also didn't really have an arc but wasn't really doing anything objectionable either. I guess he goes from avoiding his family because they're annoying, to being happy to die together? Eh. He tried to go to this birthday party in the first episode, any hangups he had about hanging out with them, he got over on the drive down lol. He does get a moment of getting to yell at Reginald, which is satisfying even if it's technically not the same guy. Viktor mainly serves as the guy who is the most on it at the end in terms of dealing with this benjenblob situation. It doesn't work. Oh well, I guess he accepts his non-existence.

The Gaggle of Children and Extended Family - Just before we get to Lila, I feel I need to emphasise that if Diego and Lila and Allison don't exist, their kids don't exist. Even if kids that look like them exist (which doesn't make sense but hey), those children do not have them as parents, do not know them, have completely different lives and are different people. Saving the kids kind of feels like an empty meaningless gesture.... which is weird. That's weird.

Lila - So, I'm going to continue to be as charitable as I can to this five/lila romance subplot... but it is just weird and annoying, right? Right? It doesn't help that the season is so short (only 6 episodes) and 7 years of their situation is crammed into barely any screen time. We then get flashbacks in episode 6 to the events of episode 5. It's very weird-feeling.

Lila's deal this season is that she's frustrated and overwhelmed with parenthood (sidenote: the fact that there are four other adults in this household who seamlessly take over 2 days worth of childcare for Diego and Lila without even being asked kind of undermines the idea that Lila is swamped.. but ok she's emotionally overwhelmed). She first acts out by doing a bunch of spying/investigating behind his back, then by going off with five to investigate the subway station and also lying to Diego about that. Then she has her seven years with Five, during which at some point she relaxes into a routine and starts some kind of physical relationship with him, then the second she finds out there's a way back, she immediate drops everything to go home. Because of course she does, she has a family.

I think you could argue that Lila is a character for whom an ego-death storyline suits... kinda? She's introduced as this free agent who, like five, has existed outside of time for years. She did see people who weren't time travellers as npcs to some extent, and acted above it all. So, to go to this place where she's willing to sacrifice herself to save the normies, to save the planet, could have made sense for her.

BUT

That's clearly no longer the case for her character at the beginning of s4. She's got a family. Her parents are back, she has children, she has a life. She absolutely sees the normies as being as worthy of saving as herself, as real and meaningful as anyone. Because obviously. This is why she, obviously, immediately goes home when she knows how to. Because why the hell wouldnt she? So, all of this is not an arc, it's just a weird little cul-de-sac.

I guess you could say it's also her test case? A free, self-directed future to contrast with her humdrum home life? But I think it fails at that simply because it's not free or self-directed, it's more domesticity but with fewer people.

So her remaining arc is actually the same as Diego's. She's taking her family for granted and wants to do fun superhero stuff, but misses her kids and her husband. And then she accepts her own non-existence and the loss of her children.. That seems... a little confused. At least Lila got to have an actual serious emotional moment about it, every else just looked kind of bored.

So, I'll just spell it out. I don't think that arcs about taking your family for granted, about loving your children and your siblings and caring for them, are compatible with this end beat of deleting your selves and all your relationships from existence. At least, not in the way that it's played. It feels weird and empty.

Overall Point 3: Self-Actualisation and Arguing

Midnight Mass was a Netflix mini series from 2021 about vampires. It's fun. I liked it. Anyway, it ends on a really strong monologue about death acceptance. It manages to thread the needle between human lives and relationships having meaning and this existential ego-death beat. So, it is possible, but it would require more thought. I kind of suspect this show isn't really deep enough to pull this off.

Also, when it comes to unhappy happy endings, which s4 of TUA seems to be aiming for, there are other examples. Being Human (the original, not the american one) ends on this note of implying that the heroes completely failed to save the world, they just don't realise it yet. This was actually more similar to where I was expecting TUA to go, with a happy-seeming ending and then another apocalypse tease. Like "here we go again" nudge nudge wink wink roll credits. Why is this relevant?

So, the family thing is the first reason I think the ego-death thing is an odd fit, the second reason is that ego and personal identity and The Self are important to the text of this show. Self-actualisation feels like a big deal. We're introduced to these characters who are miserable and dysfuntional because of their upbringing, but are able to become more whole together. And their each constantly seeking out their own happiness, striving for it. But in this season those goals are ultimately pointless. They've achieve mediocre lives, which are crumbled by the narrative and then they decide not to exist anymore.

This makes it sound like the show is being deliberately pessimistic, like it's got a cynical view on life and progress and is just saying "nah, doesn't matter" to all of that. But no. If it was doing that, I'd respect it more because that is a strong narrative direction. No, in reality this seems unintentional. It seems like they were writing more conventional self-actualisation and caring about your family narratives and then slapped this "accept your non-existence" thing on top of it and it only really fits for one character and even then it's done messily.

This other thing that's frustrating about being in the audience for this show is how much of the conflict is derrived from characters not talking to each other. Now, let's be clear, this is the point. It's about their dysfuntion. But, it's annoying. And you, as an audience member, are really aware of it and how frustrating it is. You see five and lila casually lie to diego about the magical timetravel subway and are like "stop that. it's annoying." You see ben hide his zombie bite blob rash and think "stop that. it's annoying." You see klaus lie to allison and steal from allison and cover allison's house in bubble wrap and you think "stop that. it's annoying." And because you're a savvy audience member, you assume that this is an intentional feature of every season of this show, and that the writers are aware of it, and are going to do something with it.

One obvious way for this series to end would be having the siblings improve on their communication skills and teamwork and become able to function better as a family (i.e. "look how far we've come") and finally end the apocalypse that way. To save the world they must first save themselves etc. But no. They come together at the end right only when shits really hitting the fan the same way they have every single season. No actual progress.

(There is this minor point that coming together and working as a well-oiled machine is exactly what reginald wanted for them, and maybe there's some stuff to navigate there, but i think it's workable)

I actually think the ending should have been a mixture of this and the being human thing. Like, they solve the current problem, fix the immediate apocalypse and are dumped in a situation where there's another catastrophe and it's all "here we go again" but this time, they're a little bit better, a little bit closer to fine. And it ends with hope. Maybe they'll fail again this time too, but some day they won't.

Overall Point 4: Don't Date. Dating is the Mind-Killer.

Can we talk about how much S4 hates romantic love???

Sloane is gone, disappeared, doesn't exist anymore. Luther is kind of sad about it but not very sad. Diego and Lila go from being all over each other last season to resenting each other. Allison has lost both Claire's dad and her 60s husband and the hypothetical combination of both teased last season - just entirely avsent and iirc not even mentioned. Viktor starts the season getting dumped, with the implication that this has happened a few times since he moved to Canada.

Ben and Jennifer's love is portrayed as an illusion produced by the laws of sci fi physics. It's destructive and disgusting and kills them both.

Abigail and Reginald sort of love each other but even then she get's a bunch of jibes in at him when she's wearing Gene's face. Again, there's resentment.

Five seems to develop genuine feelings for Lila but it's not clear how much of that is just because she's there. And he manipulates and lies to her. Lila is willing to have a relationship with him but again, it seems to because he's there and it's clear he's not a priority for her. Also didn't he kill her parents?

Even Gene and Jean, who are the only couple in this season who seem genuinely in love, have trouble then end terribly.

Even the seance couple turned out to actually hate each other!

And it's not even strictly the romance, even the friendships take a hit? Viktor and Allison specifically have a "we're not friends" conversation, which i'm sorry but standing next to each other while you die is not a meaningful counterpoint to. Ben and Klaus hardly interact at all, despite everything that happened between them last season. Diego and Luther got a bonding moment, as did Lila and Allison. The rest of it felt soo flat.

This feels like such a profound contrast with the previous season, which had a wedding as the centrepiece. Did the show runner just go through a bad breakup or something? Why is romantic love portrayed as meaningless and as a bad thing in this season? I don't get it. It's weird.

Overall Point 5: Dance

We didn't get a single group dance number. A little dance with Jean and Gene and that was it. What the fuck guys.

Conclusion

I enjoyed the first episode?? I like all the crochet?

Yeah I just struggled to get behind this season at all, and the more I think about it the less the stuff I liked is able to shine through past the annoying stuff. I had managed to get myself hyped for this season. I was expecting a ben arc, which would have been great. But no. They blobified my fave and for what.

#salt #tua spoilers #also being human spoilers I guess? not really #this is long sorry #3300 words ish

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