#another reason why i made this is so i can more easily indicate which ones are the personal faves

[ushiromiya]

(madoka magica / rebellion spoilers below. TW: suicide and controlling behavior)

I don't know the direction in which walpurgisnacht rising will take homura's character but I can say with confidence that from at least where rebellion left off that I truly believe that homura made the decision that she felt was the most correct one even if it meant she had to become a monster in the eyes of every person that loved her. she felt that if things were left in the way the law of the cycle was currently running things that it was inevitable that kyubey would eventually capture madoka in her goddess form, study her, and use her to as a source for mass amounts of energy at the suffering of herself, the others within the law of the cycle, and magical girls at large again. this is something he explains very clearly when talking to homura before her transformation into homulilly.

I get so exhausted when I see people try characterize homura as an actually evil person with completely selfish desires and no regard for others. all of her actions, while not explicitly explained outright, when looked at closely always indicate that she does things out of her care for the other girls but feels like she bears the burden of having to do it alone because she believes she's the only one who doesn't let her emotions get in the way of protecting madoka and the others from kyubey and sometimes each other.

I will always use the scenes of her interactions with mami and sayaka in rebellion as huge examples of this. she has no reason not to kill them if she's a completely selfish and unemphatic person that only cares about madoka and no one else when given many opportunities to do so. I also don't personally think she keeps them around JUST because of madoka's happiness either. she very easily could have suppressed their roles in madoka's life with the world rewrite and clearly choose not to. I believe her mocking sayaka and acting in a clearly "evil" manner is deliberate acting on her part to frame herself as a villain. she might believe this would her actions more palatable and will create distance between herself and everyone else to protect them as well as allow her to assert more control in this situation. it is further emphasized how she truly feels with imagery displayed in homura's new world around herself (shoes abandoned on the side of a building to potentially indicate suicidal ideation, a half moon alluding to homura feeling unfulfilled and unhappy with this decision, her dancing around happily before stopping and slowly falling off the cliff side with a similar implication as the shoes).

homura's relationship with the others is incredibly complicated but she cares for them deeply too as they are also people she considers friends, she just had a particularly strong attachment to madoka. we don't get to see as many instances of her interacting with them as we do them interacting with each other as we are unfortunately only really privy to homura's life after she began looping for the most part but we can see it in the way she has expresses concern and distress for them in moments where she believes they are in real, tangible danger of being hurt (she's winces and tries to turn away when aiming for mami's leg and screams out when she believes mami is about to be truly harmed after their gun fight, which neither ever had the real intention of hitting one another with any of those bullets in the first place). her entire witch's labyrinth is one where everyone is happy and gets the lives they desire. why would her labyrinth, which is meant to reflect in-part her inner feelings and desires, appear that way if she didn't truly want that for everyone?

rebellion is so compelling to me for all of this and so much more!! (I could write a whole other post on the way it presents it's freedom with danger vs control with safety question at the end of the film) she is a girl who has repeatedly suffered incredibly traumatizing events and longs for a world where the person she loves and the friends she considers dear are safe. homura is not really the devil, but she wants to appear to be because being the devil would be easier than being a human being in these circumstances.

[lilyrizzy]

silly little something about max & daniel watching 'how to build a sex room'. day 6 of the 12 days of maxiel advent calendar for @catofthecanals289

"I think this lady thinks she is much more kinky than actually she is."

It's winter break, which means they are in the middle of the rare collection of lazy weeks, that feel both endless and never quite enough. During this time they can be normal people, can spend days getting tanned- or sun burnt, in Max’s case- and evenings lounging on sofas, cuddled close despite Australia's scorching summer, can drink a beer and watch crappy TV.

Like, 'how to build a sex room.'

Max's head lifts from where it was resting on Daniel's chest to give his scathing review of Melanie, the British host who is strangely obsessed with floggers. The rest of his body stays tucked securely underneath Daniel's arm, where it belongs.

"I don't know baby," Daniel says, shrugging only one shoulder so as not to jostle Max around. His fingertips trace patterns across the top of Max’s pale arms, imaginary tattoos Daniel would like the idea of putting there, if the idea of defacing Max’s skin wasn’t worse. "There are like, different levels of kink I guess."

Max snorts, apparently unimpressed by Daniel's reasonings.

"This, of course, I know," he says petulantly, "but why is she always pulling out her metal butt plug like it is the wildest thing ever. I know even people who are not gay use those. Martin does."

Daniel laughs at Max’s idea of not kinky being his world famous DJ friend, who must have a shag in every major city. The sound bounces around the ranch’s living room, the entire house having become an echo chamber of happiness recently, their giggles never too far away.

"Well, not everyone can be as wild as you, Max Verstappen," he says easily, watching Melanie reveal another sex dungeon that must have a few too many clichés for Max’s liking, if the way he wrinkles his nose up at it is any indication. "Not everyone can be as lucky as me, I guess."

This seems to please Max. Enough to have a pink flush spread across the top of his cheekbones, and for him to watch the remainder of the show with significantly fewer critiques. It gives Daniel time to ponder.

Butt plugs, spanking and handcuffs were all things he didn't try until his late twenties. Until Max, really, until he had someone in his bed enough nights in a row that it felt safe to bring up ideas of what he might want or like, outside of head and a good fuck. Things he’d been worried would be too strange, would say something about him to strangers he wasn’t quite ready to say to himself.

Max, on the other hand, had been shameless. Since the very first time Daniel had braved a conversation starting with, ‘don’t you think it could be fun to try,’ he had been willing and ready for any of Daniel’s wants, but he’d also wanted in return. Had opened his eyes to a whole new collection of Max’s desires only for them to become Daniel’s too.

It is one of the thing Daniel loves so much about him. Not his kinkiness, but how he is never ashamed of being anything other than wholly himself.

"I still do not understand why there is the room," Max half mumbles, his voice bringing Daniel back to the TV. His lips catch on Daniel's nipple as he speaks. Its too hot for t-shirts. "Can these people not just be kinky in their bed?"

Daniel hums, considering. Then, thinking back to comments both their sisters have made-

"Maybe it's hard," he suggests, "like if they have kids and stuff."

Then again, because he's feeling brave-

"Maybe we'll be commissioning Melanie to build us a whole sex house, you know, when we have little terrors."

Max's breathing catches; Daniel sees the way it stops and then shudders out from his chest in one long exhale. When he rolls his head back to look up at Daniel again, his cheeks are pinker, but his smile softest one he knows how to curve his mouth into, reserved usually for their nieces and nephews.

"Okay," is all he says, like it really is that easy. Daniel still remembers realising years ago and with a shock, that for them maybe it could be. "A sex house, for when we have babies. I'm holding you to that promise."

“Deal,” Daniel says, holding this his hand up for Max to shake. The awkward angle of it while cuddled together makes them both laugh again, and Daniel can’t resist letting the laughter linger by tickling Max’s side.

There are no more serious questions to ask about their future that they don’t already know the answer too, deep down. Some things in life have been a given to him since Max Verstappen joined Red Bull Racing; he was going to be a world champion, Daniel was not, and they were going to spend their lives loving each other in spite of that. Whatever each of them wanted that life to look like, the other would be on board.

There are some things Daniel doesn’t know though. Some things he has to ask. Like-

“Can it be cowboy themed?”

[sincerely-sofie]

Tried drawing the cast of The Present is a Gift in a more updated way. I’m proud of how these came out!

Notes on the designs (along with some fun trivia for the AU) below:

Kip has a lot of pins on his messenger bag that indicate rank and training after he signs up at a new guild. They're his pride and joy, and he spends a lot of time polishing them! Kip also didn't struggle to evolve like Twig did, and in fact almost had a double evolution where he turned into a swampert immediately after evolving into a marshtomp! You can see he's got a lot of features from his next evolution, one of the most obvious being his coloring.

Darkrai is... well, there's not much to say about his design, as I didn't take too many liberties, but here's a fun fact about him in my AU: when he was first created, he was terrified of the dark. His opinion of it has greatly changed once he got a handle on his abilities, but he once trapped himself for several days in a dark abyss he accidentally created, and he had to be fished out by Cresselia, which really didn't help his initial opinion.

Twig has only a few scattered scales on her body! Charmeleons are covered in scales, but charmanders don't have any--- so as a result of her incomplete evolution, she's only got a few scattered patches here and there. She also wears a little shawl with a lunar feather sewn onto the hem most of the time because she gets cold easily. She's very upset about that fact--- she's a fire-type, dang it--- but she also didn't grow up from infancy learning how to manage her inner temperature and the flames she can summon. This is also the reason she prefers to fight using her fists and the occasional stick--- she doesn't like fire, and she can't control hers well at all. As a result of her difficulty regulating her flame, it changes colors regularly, almost like a mood ring.

Celebi is pretty much the same as her standard design, minus the eyelashes and the little keyhole window in her "shirt", so here's another bit of trivia: She cannot whistle, and is really bitter about this. Do you know how many times she could wolf-whistle sarcastically to make the Funniest Jokes ever but the universe has deigned to make her incapable of it? It's a lot. It's a lot. She pretends to not be angry about this but it's extremely obvious. The future trio have a ban on whistling in their household so as to keep the peace and prevent Celebi from flipping tables.

Grovyle has this ratty old scarf he's always wearing... it's covered in patches and holes and has had to be stitched back together on numerous occasions after it fell apart at the seams. Twig has repeatedly asked him why he keeps the old thing when he could just get a new one, and he always dodges the question. Turns out she made that thing by hand and wore it with pride as a kid, and that Grovyle started wearing it himself after they were separated in the passage of time. It's always on him, even if he's not wearing it.

Dusknoir has a lot of scars! More than you'd expect for someone so capable in a fight. The reason for this is that he'd encourage the sableye to go all out when training with him--- and would get upset if they held anything back. The Dark Future wasn't a place for hesitation, and he needed to erase any hint of it in their minds if they were to survive there. The end result is a number of scars he got from training those six up that he wears with pride. The man is essentially a fridge with his kids' crayon art on it in his eyes. One of them nearly took off one of the frills on his collar and he just about wept with how proud he was. The sableye in question thought he was in so much pain he was crying and freaked out.

[vermutandherring]

One of my friends asked me by what criteria I choose games. I said there should be a pretty male character. He continued: "Of course, but what else besides a handsome man can you be captivated by the game?" No, my friend, you don't understand. A handsome character is often the only reason I pick up a game. I'm not saying that this is the only thing that defines for me such a complex work as a video game. But it is futile to deny the fact that we are living beings who like beautiful things and especially attractive bodies. Yoji Shinkawa understands this too. As well as the fact that the player spends most of his time looking at the protagonist's back. So why not make that back as attractive as possible?

At around the age of 19, Yoji Shinkawa entered Seika University in Kyoto. It is a private university known for its manga and anime departments, often taught by mangakas. Young Shinkawa's passion for art blossomed as he got acquainted with the books of his compatriots, illustrators Hikozo Ito (1904 - 2004) and Kashō Takabatake (1888 - 1966). Both graphics, the theme of a warrior is present in the works of both. As a technique, Shinkawa first chose gel pens. According to him, the reason he started using his brush pens was because of the influence of Yoshikazu Yasuhiko. In junior high school Shinkawa read a book on how to draw manga and tried using a dip pen, which turned out to be a failed attempt.

Kakubei Jishi (written by Jiro Osaragi). Illustration for a Shonen Club serialized novel. Hikozo Ito, 1927

His desire can be understood. Drawing with a dip pen allows to create things of incredible sophistication and detail. Just look at drawings of another Shinkawa's inspirator Hikozo Ito. How detailed his works are, how accurately he conveys the mood and characters of the heroes on his works. No wonder they made an impression on Shinkawa. In further practice, he began to use a brush pen, which brought the future designer closer to the technique of his teachers Yoshitaka Amano and already mentioned Yasuhiko, who drew with brushes. Already at a young age, Shinkawa began creating his own illustrations for anime magazines.

After graduating from university in 1994, Shinkawa began working at Konami, one of the leading video game developers and publishers. Here he meets the game designer Hideo Kojima, whose brilliant star has yet to shine on the gaming industry. Maybe it wouldn't shine so brightly if it weren't for Shinkawa. The person who gave birth to a brilliant idea met the person who breathed life into this idea with his brush. One of the first projects that Shinkawa worked on was the game Policenauts, created by Kojima. In this work, one feels that he is still on the way to developing his style - his drawing is similar to anime and manga and lacks any personalized features.

At the same time, in 1995, under the direction of Kojima, Shinkawa began working on his Metal Gear Solid project. Significant changes in Shinkava's style are felt in the work on this project. Almost not a trace remains of the bright anime drawing from Policenauts. The design feels more grim, the characters themselves look more "western" than most Japanese games of the time. As Shinkawa himself noted, Kojima has provided complete creative freedom. The designer only described the intended characters to him in general terms, often indicating only the gender itself. This approach took more time to develop, but at the same time, freed Shinkawa's hands both as an artist and as a designer.

Design, no matter how many beautiful things it creates, is a utilitarian thing. It is not enough to draw 'pretty'. Your work should have practical significance. In the case of video games, character design is about creating an image that is easily remembered in the player's imagination and makes the hero unique. This uniqueness comes from the features of the character itself: his occupation, character, role in the game, relationships with other characters, etc. With space for imagination, Shinkawa tells their story directly on paper, conveying it in poses, clothes, facial expressions and the way their bodies are composed. In the world of Metal Gear, the player is constantly on the battlefield. The main activity of the characters is focused on their confrontation, so they must be in good physical shape. And Shinkawa emphasizes this in every possible way.

The figure of young Solid Snake, the protagonist of Metal Gear Solid, is very stable and tense, but not without flexibility. Shinkawa's line breaks like waves, drawing the relief of the body under the baggy suit. By adding colors on the computer, Shinkawa creates three-dimensional shapes that convey the roundness of muscles. Snake's entire body is covered. But even under the folds of a tight suit, you can see a well-built body.

Notice that Snake's figure is heavily shaded: you cannot see his face. In the first works, Shinkawa did not draw faces and eyes in detail, because the graphics power of the PlayStation did not allow to reproduce the textures in detail. Shinkawa smooths out the facial features, but you can definitely understand Snake's emotion and character.

Much more interesting and artistically opposite to Snake is the figure of Gray Fox. Shinkawa's vision of a character goes beyond just a form designed to perform a certain function. For Shinkawa, the body is another way to tell a character's story, to reveal his essence before the player discovers more information about the character. This is how the means of artistic expression in art work. Looking at a picture, you subconsciously note the things that the creator put into it. You can't always explain exactly what you see, but you always accurately identify the emotion that excites your mind in the very first second of contemplation.

Shinkawa plays with the player's imagination. Gray Fox is a cyborg, but in his image there is not the slightest hint of the artificial nature of his body. It is sculpted by the muscles that transmit the plastic to its exoskeleton. It seems to be pieced together from scraps and feels lighter and more flexible compared to Snake's living body. The designer goes deeper than just trying to convey the image of a ninja literally. He depicts a slender solid silhouette - only a shadow of a mercenary, in which the embedded image of a ninja can be clearly read. A victim of horrific experiments, he hides his mutilated flesh behind a cold cyborg body made in the colors of steel and human flesh. The gaze of the eyes disappears behind the mask with an eerie glint of a red sensor that resembles an eye. Shinkawa does not resort to excessive or even any careful detailing. The designer moves away from unambiguous and finished images. All superfluous and unnecessary details are cut out, leaving the content embodied in a fragile, fleeting form.

As Shinkawa noted, one of his inspirations is the French artist and author of comics Jean Giraud, better known as Moebius. Giraud is closely related to cinematography. He worked with Ridley Scott on the films Alien (1979) and Blade Runner (1982), created costume design for the cyberpunk film Tron (1982), was involved in the creation of The Fifth Element and many other projects. Although this fact may seem insignificant, it is still quite symbolic in Shinkawa's work. Kojima, with whom the artist created images for games, opened another means of artistic expression for the game industry, including elements of cinematic art in the game, namely cutscenes. Prior to this, narrative was part of the gameplay, presented in the form of long notes or short notes. Cutscenes made it possible to directly connect the gameplay with the story, making the work a single whole.

Illustration to Gordon R. Dickson's work Pour quelle guerre. Jean Giraud, 1972.

The large number of cutscenes typical of Kojima's games deliberately create an opportunity to examine the characters from every possible angle, revealing Shinkawa's genius. For the designer, this is a kind of art camera, where his creations are presented in various poses and lit up like curiosities, playing with the player's imagination. When I started playing Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance again recently, this became more apparent than I thought. Alongside cinematic scenes, there are plenty of close-ups with unexpected angles. The characters are not just pleasant to watch. You want to interact with them.

My favorite work of Shinkawa. Stylistically, it is very similar to the works of Yoshitaka Amano: a smooth silhouette that practically melts on the plane of the sheet. The composition is minimalistic, but very meaningful. With one sketch, Shinkawa conveys the character's name (in Japanese mythology, Raiden is the god of lightning), the plasticity of his young body, and the killer's concentrated gaze.

Raiden's design is probably my favorite. He appeared in the franchise with the release of Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty in 2001, via a fan letter to Hideo Kojima. Its author complained about the old characters constantly repeating themselves in Metal Gear. In creating the image of Raiden, Shinkawa moved away from the image of a strong, stereotypical male figure, inspired by the popular heroes of the 90s and the American superhero comics from which he took inspiration. The designer resorted to a more Japanese view of male beauty, which was used by the same Kashō Takabatake in his works.

Kashō Takabatake's work on exposition in Takabatake Kasho Taisho Roman Museum. Compare Takabatake's warrior with Hikozo Ito's one. Takabatake created advertisements and illustrated magazines in which the influence of modern is noted. The faces of his soldiers are very gentle and graceful. It was his unique illustrations of beautiful boys (bishōnen) and beautiful girls (bishōjo) that took the world by storm, bringing fame to the artist.

The concept of Bishōnen, or literally from Japanese "beautiful youth (boy)" characterizes not just a man with good looks. In the Japanese view, this is an aesthetic principle that transcends gender and sexual orientation. The roots of this concept stretch back to ancient Chinese literature, the homosocial and homoerotic ideals of the medieval Chinese imperial court, which are found since the Middle Tang Dynasty (~700s). Gradually, this concept penetrated into Japanese and other Asian cultures, and we can observe its examples in the realities of today.

The introduction of such a character did not cause much excitement among fans of the series. Overly refined and too androgynous, Raiden with his silly backstory looked out of place against the muscular Snakes with complicated pasts. However, analyzing Shinkawa's subsequent works for Metal Gear and the gradual change in Raiden's design in particular, it can be assumed that Raiden's image to some extent helped Shinkawa develop more deeply the idea of glorifying physical beauty, born in the image of Gray Fox. On the character concepts for MGS 2, it is noticeable how the designer focuses on anatomy. Raiden's suit fits his body tightly, revealing his supple muscles. Shinkawa leads the line very carefully, it feels taut and elastic, revealing a sculpted form to the viewer. The volume is complemented by the play of light and shadow, which slides along the curves of the figure. To enhance the impression, Shinkawa lengthens the katana, making it more curved to enhance the sense of tension in the composition.

Although we mostly know Raiden today as a cyborg ninja, in the sketches for MGS 2, Shinkawa makes his suit look like samurai armor by adding shoulder and chest plates.

In the work on Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance (2013), Shinkawa continues the chosen path. During this period, the experience and acquisition of one's own style allow the designer to create incredible things according to his artistic solution, twisting the concept of aesthetics to the maximum. The image of Raiden evolves from a fragile young man to a brutal cyborg endowed with superpowers.

The flexibility of his human body is replaced by the monolithic heaviness of the exoskeleton. Shinkawa abandons the streamlined design used in the image of Gray Fox, which conveyed the ease of movement inherent in a ninja. He appeals to the "pure form", stripping the hero of even his skin as something unnecessary, and turning Raiden into practically a living Écorché (an educational figure showing the muscles of the body without skin). In his desire to get rid of the excess, Shinkawa goes even further. He does not depict a beautiful body, but what makes it beautiful - a skeleton and muscles - the initial form on which everything else is superimposed.

Ecorché. Jean-Antoine Houdon, 1776

Here I should explain what I mean by "pure form". Depicting a simple sketch of a character or creating a complex composition, Shinkawa draws as simply as possible. At the same time, it is important for him to depict not only the design of the character. In the figures of the heroes, attention is drawn not so much to their appearance as to their inner state expressed on their faces. Shinkawa did not specify the details. Characters in rough drawings are perceived as very conventional. Their images are personalized, but conditional.

Eva, Naked Snake, & The Boss. Art to the Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater

Shinkawa avoids unnecessary trifles, preferring empty space. The artist's brush moves almost chaotically, revealing the smallest nuances of the image. With each subsequent game, his technique acquires clear features of traditional Japanese painting. In unfinished, at first glance, ink spills, Japanese artists sought to convey not the appearance of things, but to capture their spirit, to imprint their state or their own impression on the canvas. The artist lays down a minimum of lines and tones sufficient to recognize the form, texture and effects to be felt. Ink spills change in all possible shades of black, the vague outlines of the image make you feel the changeability and fleetingness of the moment.

Screen with pines and bamboo. Tohaku Hasegawa, Nanao Museum of Art, Ishikawa, 17th century

This approach to the image has advantages that could turn into disadvantages for the designer. Since the main point of Japanese painting is not the realistic accuracy of the surrounding world, its reproduction does not require a thorough knowledge of the anatomy or structure of objects. But there is one more thing that I deliberately did not mention before this. Despite the fact that Shinkawa appears as a graphic artist in his design works, he studied oil painting at Seika University. Painting, unlike graphics, is not characterized by vagueness and sketchiness. Shinkawa does not completely get rid of the influence of the acquired equipment. The volume of his figures protrudes beyond the surface of the sheet, creating the illusion of depth. But Sinkawa's best pictorial past can still be felt in his appeal to anatomy as the basis of the physical embodiment of the hero, the transmission of the story behind him. At the same time, Shinkawa's works are almost painterly, with a lot of color strokes, even if he uses only one color. This is a characteristic feature of Japanese painting, the flatness of which the artist transforms to his own needs. Thus, using the ideas of Japanese painting and removing the excess, Shinkawa exposes a pure form. And his experience in oil painting allows him to depict it accurately.

Raiden collectible figure Écorchéchisel. Paulus Pontius,

~1640. Engraving by Rubens

In the concept art for Rising, Shinkawa focused on finding the perfect representation of anatomy that would emphasize the athleticism of the character. From athleticism, in turn, comes sexuality, which Shinkawa instills in robots and cyborgs. Raiden is a killer machine. Even if his blade is an instrument of justice, he himself admits that in order to protect the weak, he kills the strong. His desire for battle, thirst for blood, and pleasure in pain - all find expression in his appearance.

Much more can be said about the work of Yoji Shinkawa. Maybe I would like to do a review on his metal gears themselves, where it's also possible to discover a lot of interesting things. Or about his concepts for Death Stranding and the game itself in general when I finally get through it. In this part, I wanted to share my thoughts on what most touches me in the designer's work.

So yes, it was review on Raiden's butt

Credits:

Metal Gear Solid galleries

The Art of Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater Art

Metal Gear Rising Revengeance Artbook

In the shadow of Kojima: Yoji Shinkawa, designer of Metal Gear Solid and Death Stranding

Gif used for cover image by Erica Anderson

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Tell me, do you think Amelie shows any of the signs of a woman who was mistreated by her husband, or at least do you think she did before season 5?

That is really, really, really not something you can tell just from a few casual encounters with a person, especially since we didn't meet her until after Colt was dead and we never saw her in another romantic relationship. Every victim will act differently and have different triggers. I have no doubt I could find Amelie's perfect match among real victims because there is no set pattern of behavior they're required to follow to be real victims.

All that being said, I think this ask may just be poorly phrased, so I'm gonna talk about the general way the abuse was handled by the story, which was not great.

As I talk about this more, please remember that we are discussing characters in a story and not real people. I would never be this critical of a real person because a real person is not a piece in an ongoing narrative. A friend revealing that they were abused without any prior indication of this fact is perfectly normal as victims are often very good at masking their symptoms. A character doing the same is often bad writing as stories allow you to get inside people's heads, to see people in private moments, or even just when no one else is looking at them. If the writers never take a moment to use those kinds of tricks to set up a big reveal like an abusive parent, then the reveal comes off like something the writers made up at the last minute, which is bad writing.

So, if you're asking if the show set up the reveal well, then no, I don't think it did as nothing we see in the show would make you guess that something was off about Colt. Like you could argue that it makes Amelie's overprotective and indulgent nature make sense, but lots of people spoil their kids without going through abuse, so that behavior didn't need to be explained. It was perfectly logical as-is.

You could also argue that the abuse explains why Felix is a bully, but plenty of people are awful to others without ever going through some sort of trauma. Felix being a bully could have just as easily have been the result of a pampered upbringing where he was given everything he wanted.

Colt's reveal can be argued to recontextualizes Amelie and Felix's behavior, but that's about it. It doesn't take questionable behavior and make it suddenly make sense. Like I'm still baffled as to why Felix did all the crap he did in his titular episode because he was never cruel just to be cruel again, so what was going on there? Why the dramatic character shift in season four and five?

For the show to have actually set up the reveal of Colt's abuse, it would have needed a really blatant example of Amelie or Felix being triggered OR some sort of line that established that something was off about Colt or even just a line to establish that Felix changed after Colt's abuse started since it's implied that it only showed up after he realized he was sick/dying.

For a trigger, just look at how Marinette was written in Derision. That actually was a good example of PTSD (or at least, my second hand understanding of it). The reason why I'm so critical of that episode is because PTSD doesn't magically turn on and off like that. It's not the kind of thing that shows up for a single episode and then disappears. Marinette should have been having moments like that long before Derision AND long after it, especially since the show has written in a lot of moments that would have made for good times to trigger her and establish that something was off. She's been to that pool with Adrien before. She had Kim ask for her opinion on a present he's giving to another girl. She saw an image of Kim down on his knees with a gift.

Any or all of those should have drawn out some kind of negative, trauma-based reaction from her if the writers wanted us to believe that this fictional character who they have full control over has ongoing trauma. Unless the writers are really saying that all those questionable jokes were her being triggered and then just.... I hope I don't have to explain how utterly disgusting that is.

For an example of a line, they could have done something like having Adrien apologize for missing Colt's funeral only for Felix to say something about Colt not deserving to be mourned or really anything to indicate that he wasn't exactly sad that his father was gone. They could have also had Adrien comment on how much Felix had changed since they were kids and how he could never imagine his cousin being so cruel.

To be fair, they kinda do that one with Adrien initially dismissing Felix's behavior as being the result of his father's recent passing, but it's hard to tell if that means that Felix used to be kind or what. That's especially true because Adrien's been show to tolerate a lot of bad behavior and Felix is canonically made from jealous (Yes, I'm serious, this was a line in the play: His jealousy came to life). So Felix has probably always been jealous of Adrien and will probably always be a jealous person because I guess that's just what he was made to be?

Moving on!

I wanted to highlight that the writers do know how to do this kind of discussion-based setup, as we saw back in Frightningale:

Mayor Bourgeois: But sweetie, there's no way we can cancel the shoot now. Chloé: (pulling out her phone) I'm going to call Mom and tell her how all my dreams have been crushed! (feigns sorrow) Mayor Bourgeois: (stammers anxiously, then grabs Chloé's phone and starts punching in a phone number) Let's not disturb our beloved Queen for such a little matter; right, my little Princess?

Even if this line is kinda weird since Audrey probably wouldn't have even answered the phone.

Any time the writers actually commit to a plot point, they set it up in a way that a little kid could pick up on because of course they do! This is a show for little kids. I think the writers do genuinely want it to be entertaining for the intended audience.

This is why the Colt thing is so weird to me. It's a pretty freaking serious thing to add to your show out of nowhere and I have a sneaking suspicion that it's never going to be mentioned again, which is less than stellar writing. It very much feels like something the writers added to hand waved away Felix's bad behavior, but I'd argue that this is actually a terrible lesson to teach kids.

Being kind to those who have gone through trauma is always a good lesson to teach, but Felix has attempted to assault Ladybug, tried to malign his cousin's good name by impersonating him, and betrayed the entire world by empowering a terrorist even though he could - and should - have immediately gone to Ladybug and told her who the terrorist was. These are not minor faux pas and trauma is not an excuse to traumatize others, otherwise we'd end up with a world full of traumatized people doing whatever they wanted because trauma!

There is a lot of nuance to this topic, but at the very least, Felix needed to do some serious apologizing to make his redemption feel earned. We should not be teaching kids that a sob story is all it takes to justify the kind of shit Felix pulled as that would mean that Gabriel and Chloe's actions were also fully justified because trauma! Might as well lump Lila in there, too, because I'm pretty sure that she's an orphan? Whatever is going on with her backstory is nothing good and we really need to be seeing some clearer messaging around who gets redeemed and why. It's why I've reblogged so many posts about Felix and Chloe being near identical in their actions. The issues is not that Chloe needs to be redeemed. The issue is that there is no reason why she wasn't and Felix was. There is nothing a child can point to in order to understand who you should give a second chance to and who you should run away from for your own mental health.

[goldeneyedgirl]

TwiFicMas23 Day 1: lead & follow (Jessamine/Mary-Alice)

Another year, another round of Ficmas!

We'll open this year with a fic that I started for Pride and just couldn't get right - I think the end section will be reworked before it's archived on AO3.

So this was kind of a thought experiment about how STL would have gone for Jessamine and Alice; how things went differently, how different choices were made, and what that looked like.

I hope you enjoy it!

lead & follow.

Open my chest and colour my spine I'm giving you all Swallow my breath And take what is mine

(Of Monsters & Men)

---

Like everything that has ever happened to one Miss Jessamine Whitlock, formerly of San Antonio, everything changes because of one small detail. One details that is so easily dismissed and forgotten, never something that seems like it’s meant to become something bigger or even slightly important in the long run.

And that's how it begins.

Jessamine finds her in a swampy clearing somewhere in Mississippi - it’s not important where, and Jessamine doesn’t care. She’s just standing there, staring off into space; with bright red eyes, and the kind of glow to her that only newborns have, half-covered in mud. 

Experience has told her that no good comes from a solitary newborn - and there are no others around them, not that Jessamine can sense. 

So she goes to take the newborn’s head off. 

At least, that’s the plan. 

Instead, the first blow has the newborn cowering, not even trying to fight back; her terrified face bisected by a crack, her thin hands holding it together as it heals. When Jessamine gets closer, the newborn lets out a whine and shuffles backward to nestle at the foot of a tree, surrounded by bushes and undergrowth. 

(Her eyes are so big, it almost looks like they take up her entire face. The kind of eyes someone could drown in. Her black hair, uneven and wild, is pasted down to her face with a mixture of dried blood - her own - and mud. She is astoundingly pretty - if uncomfortably thin - which is probably the reason she was turned… if her change was intentional.)

She doesn’t look like much more than a child. But Jessamine’s known Immortal Children, and their aggression, their lure, is something that this girl doesn’t have. She’s small, but she’s above the legal age. 

So she decides to take one Mary-Alice (the name scrawled on the back of her garment, the surname blurred out and indecipherable) back to Maria. 

If she’s a spy, she’ll be tortured for information and destroyed. If she’s a foundling, she’s another body on the battlefield. Either way, Maria gets something out of Jessamine bringing her back to Monterrey. 

So she does. 

—

Forks is turning out to be memorable. 

That sounds stupid. Vampire memories are good enough that, by definition, all places are memorable. Except after decades of moving every five years from one large, remote house in a small town to another large, remote house in a small town, it all blurs together. Carlisle works in a hospital, Esme does charity work, and the rest of them go to school - dented lockers, the old-soup smell of the cafeteria, and computers that only work fifty percent of the time. 

The more things change, the more they stay the same. It was like statis, in some ways, because it was always the same. Hell, in some of those underfunded shithole public schools, they were even the same textbooks a decade apart. 

That’s why they were allowed to stay in Alaska for the full decade - after a round in Juneau playing the part. They had to earn their retreat into the lodge outside of the Denali National Park. 

(Well, the screaming argument that she had with Rosalie might have indicated to Carlisle and Esme that they were all burnt out with keeping up the act. It hadn’t been one of her finest moments, but Rosalie had insisted on using her actual full name at their last three schools and Jess had put her foot down in Juneau. They were inviting trouble with the internet becoming more and more accessible. She’d won that argument, which was rare enough that it was notable, and they’d attended school as Rose and Jess Platt. It was more than fifteen years ago, and she wasn’t entirely certain Rosalie had forgiven her yet.)

It had been nice. Nice to exist as who she was, and not have to remember all the details that went along with their cover story; not to have to second guess everything she said or did or wore because she was supposed to be an ordinary teenage girl. Nice to be able to venture into the woods for days on end and not have to be anywhere. Nice to run bare foot through the snow, because that was a feeling she still savoured as a novelty more than sixty years later. 

And then Carlisle had taken them to Forks, and pushed them back onto centre stage; the maladjusted Cullens (and Hales, again. She is fighting a losing battle over that.)  

(She’s getting too old for this.)

She wasn’t expecting Forks to be anything. Just another black pin on the map in her study of all the places they’ve found themselves in - there’s a red pin in Monterrey for obvious reasons. There’s a silver one in Nebraska, the place where the Cullens found her (not her most dignified moment, honestly.) 

There’s a silver one in Mississippi too. One that she worries at, takes out and puts back in, because she hates that she’s so damn obvious. That she’s giving away her secrets - especially the secrets that she refuses to confess to herself half of the time. But she’s on a new kick, a new lifestyle of being honest with herself and with others. That rewriting history does no one any favours, so it’s better just to be straight forward and tell the truth. 

(Eventually she’ll feel at home as this new person, this honest girl who owns her failures and her weaknesses. It’s been sixty years, it’ll stick soon.)

She digresses.

Forks… well, Edward and Bella certainly made it distinctive.

She wasn’t going to lie and say that it didn’t feel good to fight again, to destroy. That James went down realising he made a terrible mistake and picked the wrong fight on the wrong day, and that she was very thorough, and took great pride in her work. That Jessamine Whitlock had a reputation to uphold. She likens it to stretching out muscles that have been in recline too long - a runner getting back into training after sitting out of the race. 

(She might have been too enthusiastic, because Emmett was kind of slack jawed when James was finally ash. But it’s good to know that she’s still got it - that sixty years of domesticity hasn’t dulled her too much.)

Jess has zero idea of where Edward and Bella are going to end up - probably with Bella dead, if she’s honest. (If Esme hadn’t intervened, she and Rose would have already dealt with Bella and probably Chief Swan at the same time. But she just cannot go against Esme’s politely-worded requests. No one is murdering the Chief of Police and his daughter. She just made it sound so reasonable.) With all the moving parts, with Edward and his hang-ups, and Bella’s impressive ability to attract trouble, she cannot see this having a happy ending. And really, however this pans out, Bella is going to lose her life. 

But she keeps her thoughts to herself.

Victoria is still in the wind and, despite Carlisle’s faith in the goodness of people, Jess knows that without sufficient motivation - like having a debilitating gift that cripples you emotionally to the point of physical pain if you hunt humans - there is no meaningful chance that Laurent will remain a vegetarian with the Denali clan. They’re living on borrowed time. 

But for all her bitching, at least Bella and Edward had made this more interesting than another mediocre high school eduction. 

Speaking of which, her current class is coming to an end, and she has the overwhelming urge to stretch. The others don’t get that urge like she does, and Carlisle blames it on their human lifestyle. That Jess had the opportunity to run and fight and move on a scale none of the Cullens have really ever had. The others find it odd that she paces, stretches, twists and turns when they are content simply sitting or standing. 

Some days she just runs loops up to Canada and back down to Forks, to burn the energy and the itch. Edward might join her for a couple, Emmett too, but no one likes to run as much as she does. No one else feels like instinct to move like Jess. 

The bell rings, and she’s quick to sweep her books into her bag. Maybe she’ll ask Rose to do her homework for her, and go running tonight. Go running and hunting, and tell Carlisle she’s keeping an eye for Victoria so no one looks at her like she’s going feral again. Maybe even wear shoes and one of those fancy outdoor jackets that Esme buys her, to help her look the part even when she’s running faster than the human eye in the depths of the wilderness, with blood on her face. 

“Jess?”

She jerks to the side - not surprised, really, but having anyone address her is unexpected. She and Rose are not known for their warm personalities.

But Angela Weber is one of the few classmates that she tolerates. Mostly because Angela is polite, respects boundaries, and doesn’t ask stupid questions. Jessica Stanley, who is hovering nearby, is lower on Jess’s list of ‘people she should tolerate’, mostly because of the sheer amount of questions Jessica likes to ask.

Which is possibly why she’s keeping her distance. 

(She blames Rose, honestly, that they’re approaching her at all - she’d been practicing braids in Jess’s hair that morning and she’d left them in for school. Apparently it made her look friendly enough to talk to.)

“Hmm?”

“It’s about Rosalie’s car…”

Angela has her full attention immediately; nothing causes a Rosalie Hale meltdown quite like the great-unwashed interfering with one of her cars. There had been an incident about a month after they started at Forks High, and whilst Rosalie had been contained quickly, it wasn’t forgotten by the student body. 

“There's some junkie girl sitting on it,” Jessica announces and Angela winces at her friend’s bluntness.  

Jess groans, and shoulders her bag, pushing past both girls without acknowledging them. This was going to be bad, and she was sure Angela would overlook her rudeness if it meant beating Rosalie out to the parking lot and removing whatever poor soul had a death wish by touching the BMW. 

Fuck, fuck, fuck. 

—

Mary-Alice is an enigma. 

Maria is equal parts exasperated and fascinated by her.

She claims to have no memories before waking up in the woods. 

She doesn’t know her maker. She doesn’t remember being human or how old she is or where she is from. The only reason she knows her name is because it was written on her garment and Jessamine gave it back to her. She tells them all of that the second they get back to camp. 

Maria doesn’t believe her. Not that it matters, because whatever her answer was, Maria has a very specific process for foundlings brought to her in Monterrey. 

Maybe Jessamine should have warned the poor girl. 

She’s mostly confused by the torture; it’s light, for Maria - the cracking and removal of a limb or two has the girl telling them everything. She sobs enough that venom gathers under her eyes and clings to her eyelashes. When Maria finally decides to release her, Mary-Alice doesn’t lash out like others before her have; instead, she goes over to the corner of the room to reattach her arm, to realign the joints in her legs, and shakes like a leaf when Jessamine approaches her, flinching away. 

But Jessamine has to put her away, and nothing stops her from hauling Mary-Alice to her feet, her hand clamped around her good arm so she doesn’t try to run. She wouldn’t be the first.  

The rolling horror of her emotions twists Jessamine’s stomach and makes her tighten her grip out of resentment as she escorts her to the barn with the rest of the newborns. She almost pities the little creature, still healing - her ankle is still knitting back to her leg, her limp like a little skip - and being thrown into the barn. But what goes on in there after dawn is a law unto itself, and something that Maria has never gotten involved in. 

(Mary-Alice isn’t the first to be fed into the maw of the south, and she won’t be the last.)

Which is why it’s so fucking annoying that Jessamine can’t get the memory of her wide, venom-streaked eyes out of her head, even once she and Maria have retired to the house. 

The next evening, Mary-Alice is quiet. She feels distant - that will become her trademark. That her emotions are as slight and ephemeral as her build. That for a long time, Jessamine will have to touch her to get a decent read on what she feels. 

And after a while, even that yields nothing. 

It doesn’t matter, though, because she settles well into training. Maria had named her as canon fodder - someone they’d lose early on, since she was evidently prone to hysterics and seemed too confused and innocent to really grasp what she was now a part of. 

But… she’s fast and she’s a quick learner; a talented fighter. She catches on faster than Jessamine’s seen before; absolutely ruthless and precise. Her size is an asset, and does not reflect her strength. It’s been a while since Jessamine has been surprised by a newborn in training; she and Maria can measure up a soldier well enough by now. Mary-Alice, however, surprises both of them. 

She’ll do nicely. 

And she lives. One battle, two, six, twelve. She comes back from them all with insignificant injuries and nothing to report. Another success story for the Lady of Monterrey, and her unbeatable army. 

Jessamine just tries to not to notice how haunted those big eyes have become, so quickly. How quiet and small she makes herself. 

It's just how things are in the south. 

She’d best get used to it. 

—

With the imminent arrival of another patented Rosalie meltdown, Jess is cursing a lot of things - of course her class today is in H block at the back of the school. Of course today is the day the goddamn middle schoolers are using the library, and one of the sports teams is packing for a game. There are too many people crammed into the hallway, and Rosalie’s temper is the only thing distracting Jess from how good everyone smells. 

She manages to intercept Edward, helping Bella navigate the corridors in that unwieldy cast, to warn him of their predicament and to hopefully distract Rose long enough for Jess to intervene and banish whomever thought it was a good idea to touch Rosalie Hale’s car. Edward looks irritated - mostly at Rose, but that’s just an ordinary Wednesday - and agrees that this needs to be handled fast and efficiently. Leave Emmett to be the one to manage Rose. 

But of course, as they push through the crowds, her bag - the beat-up army-surplus messenger bag that Emmett gave her back in the 90s as a punchline to a joke, dotted with anti-war patches Emmett hunts for on eBay - decides to break, the buckle snapping up to hit her in the head and sending her shit tumbling to the floor. 

She’s going to murder someone, but at least Carlisle will be pleased it wasn’t because she was thirsty, but because she was continually inconvenienced. Waving Edward and Bella on, she stops to scoop up her detritus - pens and pencils, her notes, her phone, all scattered along the floor - as other students ignore her and keep moving forward. 

“You think they’ll call the cops?”

“She’s definitely a junkie. Mom says there’s a real problem out at the Res, and that Swan won’t do anything about it because he’s all buddy-buddy with a bunch of them.”

“She’s pretty obviously white, Ashley.”

“They’re probably selling shit to her.”

“Don’t be such a fucking racist."

“Banner went out to talk to her, and she says she’s waiting for someone. Said she knows the Cullens.”

“She looks like a middle-schooler.”

The gossip around her, as she shovels papers and books and pens back into her bag - fixable, but irritating - seems to prick at her, and she sets it aside long enough to tie the broken strap together. She’s probably lost her chance at beating Ro…

Said she knows the Cullens.

She looks like a middle-schooler.

That makes her pause. It shouldn’t, but it does. 

Immortal Children don’t live very long, with the Laws. And most people won’t change anyone who isn’t definitively and absolutely old enough. No one wants to be the one that creates an ambiguously young newborn in case it all goes to shit. 

Maybe there’s always been a little shard of hope tucked behind her heart.

There’s only been one girl she’s known, of all the newborns and nomads and friends of Carlisle’s over the years, that could pass for being a ‘junkie middle-schooler.’ 

One girl who made her a promise a long time ago. 

(It might have been sixty years, but she never stopped having faith in those parting words.)

—

Time passes, newborns fall in battle, or they live to see the year pass by until summer comes and the pyres are built. And slowly but steadily, Jessamine feeds each piece and part of those newborns into the fire whether they are body parts left behind on the battlefield, or Jessamine takes off their heads herself. 

Mary-Alice isn’t amongst that number. No, she survives each battle, and is lucky and fast enough that Maria shrugs and leaves it up to Jessamine whether Mary-Alice gets to live or die. 

So, she lives. 

Jessamine tells herself that it’s because no one expects much from her on the battlefield, so she’s the perfect cuckoo in the nest. The skinny kid with the big eyes that can take down men three times her size before they even realise they’ve lost. 

She convinces herself of that for a long time. That her interest in Mary-Alice is merely academic, strategic, and nothing more. Even when she’s unceremoniously ejected from Maria’s bed - a long time coming, and not something she’s that unhappy about - she’s still convinced Mary-Alice is just another warm body for the army. One of the few that gets to live past their newborn year - like Dante and Lily and Javier. She has a purpose. Jessamine Whitlock is not one for sentiment, and not one for indulgences. If Mary-Alice wasn’t useful, she wouldn’t have been given a stay of execution. 

And for a while, that’s how they stay. A soldier and a major. Training and hunting and recruiting. Mary-Alice proves useful at map-drawing and recruiting, even if she is entirely illiterate and far too sympathetic to potential recruits. Her answers to Jessamine are always short, deeply respectful, and unemotional - she’s never told a lie, even fumbled the details, in the entire time that Jessamine’s known her. 

Maria likes that Mary-Alice has no human memories; thinks it makes her more efficient and effective. She wonders about ways to wipe memories of the newborns as a blanket policy; sever them from their humanity entirely. Peter and Jessamine manage to talk her out of that; there’s already a roughly thirty percent chance of a newborn changing wrong and having to be destroyed on the spot. It’s just making their jobs harder, to try and find that sweet spot between utility and amnesia every single time. It leaves them weak, without a full army, if it all goes wrong at the same time. 

(And maybe Jessamine sees the confused, sad look on Mary-Alice's face when she’s listening to a conversation the most recent batch of newborns have - about weddings and families and birthdays and all those little things that make up humans and newborns often want to hold tight to, at least for a little while. But all it tells her is that Mary-Alice might be useful the way she is, but she’s hardly content with her lot in life.) 

It takes over a decade for Jessamine to admit to herself that Mary-Alice isn’t there just for utility - that she wants more. Those big red eyes that feel like they see too much; the odd little spells she has where she stares off into space. The very few but almost charmingly unexpected questions. The shape and movement of her thin body underneath oversized clothes…

She wants more. She wants Mary-Alice. 

(It’s been a while. There were a couple of newborns after Maria, easily caught and easily forgotten - Peter’s fine with being the one that ends Jessamine’s lovers during the summer, because it’s too much for her to deal with and they learned that the hard way. She kept to herself after that, bored and irritable with the last few batches.) 

The realisation is one that feels like she’s always known it but also like she’s been struck by lightning. It’s no easier to admit to herself in the privacy of her own mind than it is to put the words into the world, but it’s always been there, simmering: that Mary-Alice was something, a moment of potential that she just had to be ready to take. 

Jessamine has never been patient when she makes a decision; and it’s not like Mary-Alice is going anywhere. 

It’s as simple as cornering her in the house before dawn; of a hand on Mary-Alice’s cheek and a kiss that is taken more than offered. An understanding that is exchanged in a glance. 

The room Maria gave Jessamine is narrow, with an ancient, rotting day bed and a hay mattress. The mattress is sunken in the middle, and she snapped the legs off the bed years ago, to make it more useable. There’s a desk that barely stands, piled with her books and ragged maps and a few bits of discarded clothing. 

It’s not a room she’s spent a lot of time in - a space used for killing time more than as a sanctuary. 

Mary-Alice pauses to consider the room for a second; that’s all Jessamine gives her before there is another kiss, deep and lingering, and she can taste Mary-Alice’s venom - a lemon-sugar tang that makes her groan. 

(Jessamine makes it clear what she wants from Mary-Alice that first night. Both of them stripped and on that daybed; Mary-Alice has less scars, just a dusting.  She’s still young. She’s just as tiny as Jessamine envisaged, her ribs leaving shadows on her skin, the soft swell of her breasts, the jutting bones of her hips… Jessamine doesn’t want to admit that she’s a daydream, a doll wrought just for her, because that makes this a complete disaster. She’s already ragged with emotion in this place, the last thing she needs to do is add in her own goddamn feelings.)

Mary-Alice has always been a good learner, a quick one, and Jessamine would be pleased with how willing she is if life didn’t feel like she was being hollowed out and left to rot most days. But there is some satisfaction in what they have, in being able to sink into each other. She knows every scar and freckle on Mary-Alice’s body, knows exactly how she moves, how she’s put together. It’s a feast and some days she wonders if those days lying sprawled naked on the hay mattress  are what truly sustains her. 

(Maria catches them together one afternoon and lets out a bark of laughter. “You really are trying to destroy that girl,” she informs Jessamine, clearly entertained by what she’s found. That comment, what Maria saw in them that day, eats away at Jessamine slowly but surely. She does nothing with it, but it just sits in her mind to rot and it makes her worse. It makes everything worse.)

But somehow, she keeps her. Mary-Alice doesn’t leave, Jessamine doesn’t send her away, and they both ignore the rot. 

And maybe Jessamine feels safe enough to talk to Mary-Alice - to Alice. Really talk, like she hasn’t been able to in… a very long time. She whispers little things in her ear, asks her what she thinks, tells her things she’d rather never speak aloud. 

Alice is a good listener, but not much of a talker. She makes reassuring sounds, plays with Jessamine’s hair, and never really has a definitive opinion about complicated things. She doesn’t confide in Jessamine the same; there are no whispered confessions, no hushed fears or worries. It hurts because Jessamine is cracking herself wide open for Alice, and getting nothing in return. 

(It hurts because Jessamine knows she doesn’t deserve any part of what she expects, and Alice is right not to tell her a damn thing.)

“It must be nice not to have secrets,” Jessamine says pointedly to her one day, lying together; fucking came before dealing with the bites and wounds from the last battle and Alice’s mouth is on the bite around her bony arm, licking away foreign venom so it will knit again. She lets out a garbled noise when Jessamine says that. 

“What makes you think that?” Alice asks, looking curious. Blank, curious, pissed off - those were the sole emotions Alice was capable of demonstrating. Her physical emotions were no more telling, and sometimes Jessamine wondered if that’s just who Miss Mary-Alice was, or if that’s what the South had done to her. 

“You never have anything to tell me,” Jessamine replied, almost sulkily. Alice shrugs and lies straight, looking at her frankly. 

“I’ve never known anything but you and life here,” Alice says in that even, flat voice she always uses. “That’s all I have; any hopes or dreams or beliefs or regrets I ever had, I left behind when I was changed. I think you really need those things to have secrets, Jessamine.”

She’s not wrong, but Jessamine is admittedly jealous that Alice won’t entrust some kind of something to her; to tuck a secret into Jessamine’s greedy palms. But it also must be nice not to feel like you’re on the edge of a knife, about to fall into the abyss. Most of the time, Jessamine feels like she’s about to implode from everything. That she’s stretched taunt, and something has to give. 

And Alice is just there, steady as she goes. 

It must be nice. 

(It’ll be much, much later - too late - when Jessamine finally realises how grotesque and nightmarish Alice’s life was. Is. How she had handed Jessamine what she truly wanted, that intimacy of her truth - completely hopeless, with no expectation or knowledge of anything better than what she had. And Jessamine had missed it entirely.) 

—

“I don’t care who the fuck she is, I’m going to kill her,” Rosalie announces through clenched teeth, sending a few horrified freshman skittering out of her way like rabbits as Jess finally finds her family. She’d given up beating Rosalie to the car park thanks to the fucking ridiculous layout of this stupid school and opted to just try and diffuse the situation at the source. 

“How did she find us here?” Emmett wonders, looking downright confused. “Why not go straight to the house? Esme would love having someone show up to visit.”

“Scent, probably. No other way to track us down if they were coming from the South-East,” Edward says under his breath, so no passersby can hear anything odd. “Do we have any idea of who it is?”

“Jessica was saying she had dark hair,” Bella says meekly, withering under Rose’s scornful glance. 

“That doesn’t narrow it much,” Emmett has his arm over Rosalie’s shoulders, probably holding her in place. Even with Jess’s gift, Rose’s rage is hot and wild, and Emmett is probably the only thing keeping her in check. “Mary, maybe?”

“Mary hasn’t left California in forty years; and she’s taller than Jess,” Edward corrects. “Everyone’s focusing on how small this girl is.”

“At least it isn’t Jane,” Emmett shrugs. “We’d have known about that pretty fast.”

It’s been decades since they met with the Volturi as ‘honored guests’ of Aro, and none of them held that visit fondly. Esme had quietly admitted later that the visit to Volterra had taken the shine off Italy entirely. 

Jess nods along, trying to focus on muting Rosalie’s anger, and not to think too much. She feels oddly sick at the possibilities in front of them. She feels stupid for putting the pieces together in her mind in a very-certain way. (She promised.) She’s… hopeful, but sick with the possibility she’s wrong and she’s got her hopes up for nothing. 

“It’s not Maria, Jess.” Edward sounds like he’s trying very hard to be reassuring. “You know Maria, and she wouldn’t be this brazen.”

It’s both reassuring and embarrassing that Edward would jump to that conclusion: that Maria’s sudden appearance would be at the front of Jess’s mind when it didn’t even occur to her that Maria might be the sitting pretty on Rose’s BMW (fuck, she really does have a type). 

(Also, Maria would not be sitting on the BMW looking homeless. The last time Charlotte and Peter ran into Maria, she was apparently wearing Versace and driving a Lexus - a stolen Lexus, without any kind of license, but the woman had very particular taste.)

Jess can’t think of other possibilities at that moment. She doesn’t want Edward to know because… whatever the outcome is, she doesn’t want Edward to look at her in sympathy. She might be trying out this whole ‘honest and transparent’ lifestyle but there are some things that are too raw, too much of a condemnation of her, to think about. 

So she just nods, hands tight on the strap of her bag and wondering what she���s really hoping for. 

(It’s been more than sixty fucking years. Hope is a dead thing that’s rotted back into the ground, brittle bones ground to dust. Some promises are made to be broken, and it’s about time that she made peace with that.)

—

In the end, she goes with Peter.

Or rather, Peter shows up and grabs her arm and tells her to fucking run. 

(The long story is that for a very long time, she hates Peter. More than she hates Charlotte, even. She hates him for leaving her to the never-ending abyss of the wars, for taking away the steadiest and kindest thing she ever had. She doesn’t want to kill him so much as she wants to beat the shit out of him and scream at him for letting her down. She tells Alice that once, her voice shaking, and Alice had stroked her cheek. “I think Peter will surprise you. And I think when he does, you should take what he offers.” Jessamine scoffed because she doesn’t expect to see him again - he’s already probably dead, Charlotte too.)

So she turns and runs. She doesn’t even look behind her, doesn’t think about the stuff she’s leaving behind, doesn’t think about how he’s still alive, where Charlotte is, or even where they are going. 

They just run. It’s a blur of dust and haze and terror trapped inside her that they will be caught and she’ll get the one person she’s always trusted, always relied upon to fix things, killed. 

At the Arizona border, they slow down and maybe Jess grabs Peter and hugs him so tight she probably cracks something and she sobs so hard she’s wheezing. Her great escape from the Southern Wars and from Maria of Monterrey ends not with a celebration, of laughter and joy, but with both of them sitting in the dirt, Jess shaking and crying, with Peter trying to soothe her, his arms tight around her. 

That’s how Charlotte finds them, and later Jess is embarrassed and humbled by Charlotte’s compassion, her acceptance, and her keen relief that they both made it out in one piece. Charlotte’s a better person than Jessamine, but they already knew that. 

For a while, she feels like spun glass - impossibly fragile and distant from all that goes on around her. Time lacks meaning, and she’s not sure how many days pass after Arizona. Peter and Charlotte are gentle with her, and Charlotte is quick to remind her that it takes all of them a while to realize that there is something outside of that ugly bubble of the Wars; that what they lived through is just the smallest view of the world. 

Jess just needs to take a breathe and let time work its magic, Charlotte promises. It will be okay.

Except, it’s six states and two months later that she feels enough like herself again that her brain starts working, that she starts having thoughts beyond the moment, and she immediately thinks of Alice. 

Alice. Alice whom she left behind and never thought of. Alice who probably waited for Jess in her room - their room - in the mansion, and Jess never showed up.  

Alice, who is still in Monterrey with Maria alone to pay the price of Jess’s abandonment. That’s the realization that makes her vomit up the meal she ate only a few hours earlier. Alice alone, paying for Jessamine’s sins and selfishness. 

(Maria was right. She really did want to destroy Alice.)

Peter is kind but unflinching when he deciphers her distress. If Jessamine was that close to Alice, Maria probably tortured the shit out of her for answers, and then destroyed her. If going back was a possibility - and it really, really isn’t - she wouldn’t be alive to save. 

It says a lot about the place they’ve all come from that the idea Alice is dead and gone is immensely reassuring, that Alice is somewhere soft and quiet now, where nothing can get her. 

Except… 

The last night, the last battle, lingers in her head and she remembers giving Alice and the others their orders and Alice meeting her gaze and replying, “I’ll follow where you lead.” 

Those words are probably meaningless; Alice always followed orders and acknowledged them to set a standard for the newborns. Her confidence and certainty in Jessamine and Maria’s leadership set a tone that made the newborns fall into line with relative ease. 

Except they aren’t; they’re ominous and heavy and loaded… maybe even something to hold tight to, something to tuck away and hope for. 

Alice is fast and she’s a quick learner; a talented fighter. She catches on faster than Jessamine’s seen before; absolutely ruthless and precise. Her size is an asset and does not reflect her strength. She’s been a reliable fighter for Maria for decades, and she’s never told a lie. Without Jessamine, Maria’s ability to wield a newborn army is crippled; it would be foolish to destroy one of her longest-serving soldiers when she’s already lost Jessamine. And Maria is no fool… 

…Maybe.

(A little bit of hope is a powerful thing.)

—

The journey to the parking lot feels like the path to execution, and Jess is intimately aware of the fact that either way, her family is probably going to know more than she wants them to. 

There are students clustered around the parking lot, talking and whispering, and enjoying the Cullens being a spectacle again. Perhaps even hoping for a Rosalie smack-down because in small towns, the good gossip is treasured. 

(Emmett might look like he’s casually walking with Rosalie, but she’s clamped at his side, and he’s whispering sweet nothings in her ear to diffuse the situation. Cars can be fixed and some people are stupid, babe. Don’t let anyone know they got to you.) 

And then they are there, staring at Rose’s pristine car, and it takes Jess a moment to realise what she’s seeing.  

She sits on the top of the SUV cross-legged, and she probably looks bored to everyone else. Just waiting for the Cullens to show up. 

(Hope is a wild thing in her chest, somehow a million times more alive and wild now that Jess is faced with what she was secretly holding on for, that tiny flickering flame that she’s protected but never acknowledged since the day Peter declared her most likely dead finally burning free.)  

To Jess, she looks exhausted. Wrung out and brittle, like she’s waiting for her execution. 

But she’s here. And she’s alive.

Her hair is pulled into two very small pigtails on the top of her head with plastic clips, and somewhere she’s gotten ahold of glitter eyeshadow that is smeared liberally over both her eyelids. She’s wearing a frankly rancid cat-ear hoodie that looks like it was once a child’s, and some ragged capris, with a beat-up messenger bag beside her. Both of her skinny wrists are layered with beaded bracelets that definitely once belonged to a child. 

The effect is jarring - childish and garish - but it is also somehow the most Alice. That this is exactly who she is - worn out, beaten-up, but still very  much herself. It feels like the first time Jess has actually seen her for herself and it’s exactly how Jess always assumed Alice looked. 

“Jess?” Edward’s looking at her with a confused expression, but she’s not listening anymore. It’s like sixty years of trauma all knotted and tangled up inside of her has come loose and she can finally relax. That she’s finally putting everything together and maybe it will be okay now. 

She strides over to the car, past the whispering students wondering how the Cullens know this weird barefoot girl and what Jess Hale is going to do, and right up to the SUV. For a second, they stare at each other before Jess drops her bag to the ground and climbs up onto the roof, their gazes never breaking. 

Alice stares back at her, her expression not changing at all; her eyes just tracking her movement. There’s nothing there, no emotion or reaction. Just the flat gaze of someone used to being hunted. 

And Jess kisses her. 

She clasps Alice’s face in her hands and kisses her for the first time in more than sixty years, an apology and a celebration that Alice is here and she’s alive and they found each other.  

Jess knows that behind her, the population of Forks High is gaping and whispering and judging - she can hear a few wolf-whistles, she’s sure that admin is already calling Carlisle and Esme to come in for a meeting with the guidance counselor, and that there will be a slur written on the front of her locker in the morning.

Small towns are all the same. 

She knows that the penny finally dropped for Emmett and Rose (though she suspects that Emmett already guessed, after that weird speech he gave her back in ’79 about how it’s cool that he likes bears and she likes bears too and that everyone can like what they like, and it doesn’t have to be a big deal. She originally assumed it was because Carlisle and Esme were paying closer attention to the local wildlife and sustainability, but apparently it was really about her being gay. Metaphor was never his strong suit.)

Rosalie will be rolling her eyes that Jess had to be so dramatic and couldn’t do this privately. 

She knows that Edward is going to have another spiritual crisis that involves too many dirges on the piano, a lot of whining at Carlisle, and somehow making the fact that Jess is gay all about his perpetual teenage-boy pain and hypocritical beliefs.

She doesn’t care that everyone is going to talk about her right up until the Cullens move away; that she’s going to be the ‘gay Cullen girl’ now, and made a whole lot of trouble for the family. She doesn’t care that Esme’s probably going to give her a sweet but awkward speech about how loved and accepted she is, and how she could have told them at any time. 

It’s honestly going to suck for a few weeks, after this stunt. 

But she doesn’t regret it. She doesn’t regret it because Alice is there and the familiar lemon-sugar tang of her venom hasn’t changed, and Alice doesn’t shove her away. And that’s halfway to everything being perfect. 

When Jess pulls back, Alice squeezes her eyes shut. “I-I didn’t have anywhere else to go,” are the first words Alice speaks to her, quiet and nervous, and Jess hates so much that Alice seems so resigned, so small and tired.  

Their good times might have been brief, a little flash in their fucked up, messy history, but that’s how Jess remembers her the clearest. That’s when Alice was the brightest. 

Not this girl who seemed as substantial as mist, halfway dead and mostly lost; this girl that Jess feels is slipping away from her faster than she can save her. This is the version of Alice that terrifies the fuck out of Jess, frankly. A blank slate of emotion, no way to determine what she’s thinking or feeling, but she can see that all joy and hope has drained from her. The walking dead, in every way that matters. 

And the idea that Alice would go anywhere else before coming to Jess, that Alice assumes Jess would not want her here makes Jess feel vaguely sick. That Alice is waiting for a reprimand, retribution, and punishment for coming to find her. 

(What happened to her? This isn’t the steady girl that she left behind. This version of her is so very shattered. Of all the ways Jess had imagined Alice after she left, this one was never even a shadow of a possibility.) 

“This is the only place you need to be,” Jess says in a low voice, reaching out to cradle Alice’s cheek. “I am so … fucking happy to see you. I missed you so much.” There are a million other questions she has - Are you okay? How did you get away? What do you need? - but she saves them, tucks them away for later when they are cloistered in a corner of the Cullens’ enormous house, and there is time for mess and raw pain and the opportunity to breathe. 

Alice bites her lip and nods, and that’s when Jess’s siblings gather around the car, obviously having walked slowly to give Jess and Alice a moment alone. Or as alone as they could be with several hundred high school students watching and commentating.  

“We need to take this back to the house,” Rose says stiffly; she’s not happy at the spectacle in front of the school, but she’s not particularly upset with Jess or Alice; Jess wonders how long Rose’s tolerance will last. “Edward’s taking Bella home.”

Somehow, reality is separate from whatever is happening right now, like she and Alice are in some kind of bubble, away from Forks and humans and all the day to day monotony. Right now, she’s just intensely aware of Alice’s body so close to hers; to that sweet lemon-sunshine scent that Alice has always had. Of the new scars on Alice’s hands and face that Jess doesn’t know; and the way she holds her right arm closer to her body. She is so intensely aware of the way Alice’s eyelashes brush her cheeks as she blinks, perfectly still and perfectly unhappy. 

None of it feels real, not even with Alice’s hand in hers. 

“Let’s go,” she manages to tell Alice, who nods. She always follows orders.  

Jess slides off the roof of the car to land next to it, reaching out a hand to help Alice down. 

“I’ve got you,” she says, brushing some of Alice’s hair off of her face. 

Alice stares at her for a moment, those big dark eyes that Jess has been in love with for longer than she can remember. 

“You always have,” Is all she says, as they climb into the car, but she doesn’t take her hand out of Jess’s. 

I’ve got you. 

—

alice.

The Cullen house smells clean and like the woods at the back of the garden. It’s full of light, it’s dry, it’s a hundred different things that Monterrey never was and could never aspire to be. Like so many things she’s known lately, it feels like something she’s allowed to see, but it’s not for her to keep. A stolen glimpse before she keeps moving. 

Her feet stick to the wooden floors, and she’s intensely aware that the lake bath she had before she got to Forks is not enough for these people. They wear shoes and jewelry, and they’ve got their clothing in the right order. They aren’t like her. 

Right now, everything feels very far away, like she’s watching herself from a great distance. 

She knows that Jessamine is waiting for her to speak, to say something small. To offer her a truth, a reason, for why she came to her. To finally share that cursed secret Jessamine demanded all those years ago, when keeping it was the only thing that kept them both alive. 

Maybe the thing she wants more than anything is to scream and scream until it all spills out of her. That she’s all knotted up inside, that aren’t so much secrets as the whole, messy truth. 

The truth is that she was raised back up with no memory of love or affection or family, just a vague promise of it that was ruined before she even began, and she’s not really sure how love is supposed to feel anymore. 

So she’s spent eighty years clinging to a half-glimpsed possibility of her and Jessamine meeting in a human establishment, of that soft and perfect promise because she had nothing else, and now she’s not who she was when Jessamine left her, and she’s never going to be who she was supposed to be, not for herself or for Jessamine or for both of them.  

She knows if she could sleep, there would be nothing but nightmares and horrors. Of all the things she’s seen and done, all the things that have been done to her. That just to survive, to save them both, she had to let herself be swallowed up, bite by bite, by the wars and the propaganda and so many lies. 

And now she doesn’t know if there’s anything left of her to salvage, let alone piece back together. 

Jessamine’s hand is in hers, and it isn’t letting go.

That’s something. 

All the words that are being spoken, they sound like they are muffled, underwater somehow. They look at her, waiting, and the words still don’t come. 

The urge to scream is fading. Jessamine’s hand is still in hers; maybe she’s holding on too tight. She feels like if she lets go, everything will disappear. 

So she holds on tighter and steadies herself and even manages to walk further into the house. Maybe she finds just enough words to explain that it’s all new and fresh and when she ran, it was like the flat of a knife against a human throat - a flash of a chance, more likely death than freedom, but somehow she made it work. 

That the idea of hunting turns her stomach, and the whole world seemed so big and bright that the only place to go was to Jessamine.

“I’ve never known anything but you and life here.”

(Later, cloistered in Jessamine’s study wearing borrowed clothing, she’ll start to weep and she won’t be able to stop. Jessamine will hold her and stroke her hair and try to reassure her of things that Alice has never confided in her. They won’t be the last tearless tears she will cry, but they will be the rawest and the truest. She still doesn’t know what love or hope or dreams feel like, but whatever this is, it’s more than she’s ever had before.) 

--

AN:

Yeah, this version of Mary-Alice somehow got the worst welcome to Monterrey; a vision of her True Love interrupted by said True Love deciding to attack her; taken back to Maria to be tortured for information for a couple of nights before being tossed into the barn with a bunch of fresh and vicious newborns who don’t recognise her as One of Them. She really opted to get all flavors of trauma packed into that very first week of life. 

Mary-Alice never told Jessamine or Maria about her gift at all. According to them, she was giftless, just skilled. That first week really fucked with her head. 

This version has Mary-Alice leave the South and head straight to Forks. There’s about a week between Mary-Alice fleeing Maria and turning up on the Cullens’ car, so there’s a lot of fresh hurt and a lot of terror at being in a brave new world where she doesn’t know the rules. So, she’s been with Maria from 1919 right up until the 2000s. 

Jess, to me, has always had a more hair-trigger temper and spontaneous personality compared to Jasper. This is because of the period-typical emotional repression that men aspired to during the Civil War; Jessamine is a little freer with expressing herself because, frankly, it would take balls to run away and pose as a boy to join the army, and even more to achieve the rank of Major. Jessamine is definitely a wildcard. 

I spit on Life and Death’s version of Jessamine being kidnapped into the wars.  

It was intentional that Jess only shortened her name after she met the Cullens, and that whilst she calls Mary-Alice ‘Alice’, Mary-Alice never calls her ‘Jess’. How this is significant is up to you. 

Yes, the relationship between Jess and Alice feels darker than in OG STL, but this is Jessamine's side of the story. She's always painted all of her choices and actions before the Cullens with the same brush - that she was toxic and monstrous.

[scarfacemarston]

don't know if you have been asked this before, and if you have then pls forgive me! (also english is not my first language so I may use incorrect grammar, so I do apologise for that in advance as well) but I wanted to know what is your opinion on the popular "theory" (?) or maybe even a "canon thingy" believed by most of the people in the fandom, that Arthur and Abigail were together during the time John left or that they had romantic feelings for eachother?, or that Arthur had some intense romantic feelings for Abigail but she did not reciprocate? some even say that Arthur's 'greet' lines such as "sometimes, i think about the good old days" to Abigail are about the time they were together, however i feel confused about all this because I doubt that Abigail would just switch to Arthur as soon as John disappeared and then snapback to being in love with John as soon as he came back, it just doesn't make sense to me considering her character, however, I could be wrong. So I wanted to know your opinion about this and what you believed happened, if anything at all did in John's disappearance or even if Arthur and Abigail were ever involved romantically at any point of time in the past, because you are one of the writers on here that truly gets Abigail in my personal opinion.

Thank you so much for the sweet message! Your English is better than mine. Trust me. Arthur and Abigail were never involved. Full stop. People keep spreading this idea and I can see why, but it's just not accurate. There were the lightest of rumors that Abigail would be in a love triangle, but I heard that was scrapped immediately. It would have ruined John, Arthur and Abigail's characters and would have given the fandom yet ANOTHER reason to hate Abigail. I'm thankful for it because I think adding a love triangle there would be lazy. You don't need to "brothers" to be fighting over a woman to insert some drama in the story. People constantly bring up Arthur's journal entry about marriage, but again, there is ZERO proof he meant that romantically. He is partially doing it for Abigail because he thinks it's the right and proper thing to do. It's what he wasn't able to do for Eliza and Isaac. He feels sorry for Jack and wants to give him a better life that is more secure. Now, he does get bitter towards Abigail at times when it comes to Jack such as him sarcastically asking if it's his turn to be nursemaid again. That points to him potentially feeling used which is another issue in itself. Arthur also antagonizes Abigail in low honor mode. He talks only about John. Constantly. He says a lot of nasty comments about how he thinks she's desperate for John and needs to get over herself. I have his low honor comments. They reveal a completely different side to their relationship and it's all based on JOHN. Low honor Arthur also reaches for low hanging fruit like making fun of her days as a sex worker. If he is able to go that low, then he would have easily made comments about their past. Easily. I mean, he goes as low as making fun of Hosea for dying. At that point, it would be very easy to bring something like that up, but he doesn't. I have every single audio file including deleted ones. I've posted every Abigail conversation including deleted ones. There is not a SINGLE thing indicating they actually had a relationship or even romantic interest. As for as the old days go. Abigail overall is NOT happy talking about it. She will occasionally say something neutral or something along the lines of "Yep." but I have audio of her saying "I don't want to talk about the old days." It's also not in Abigail's character to get into such a thing. She would know more than anyone that getting tangled up in a mess like that would be a bad idea. She worked in brothels, she would have seen romantic love triangles and other drama. I don't think she ever loved Arthur or thought of him as anything more than a friend. At all. If Arthur fell for her, then that's possible. It's possible that he hoped he could have something like a family and do the right thing that John couldn't. However, I think that is very unlikely because he was ALWAYS hung up on Mary. I don't know when he quit seeing her because there are characters that know her that technically shouldn't. But any relationship is just out of the question to me. I hate that they left those hints in because it all turns sexist to Abigail and the idea of her "trapping" people which the fandom loves to use as an excuse to hate her. TLDR: We have nothing more than a flimsy rumor that is rarely even talked about as "proof" of their involvement. There is nothing in the audio files including the deleted ones I have that indicate this either. Arthur is hung up on Mary, Abigail is hung up on John. The journal entry was about making Abigail a proper woman and Jack not a bastard. Low Honor Arthur has most of the answers.

[kujo1597]

Hey remember how I said I was writing a few verses for a song in Unbreakable? Yeah I changed my mind. Nothing’s coming to my mind so instead of delaying the update for a couple months I’m just going to describe the song and let the readers imagine their own version. Sometimes the best thing you can do as a writer is know when to cut things out.

Anyway, time for another episode of Jem!

When we last left off the TV set was on fire and Jem was caught in the middle of the blaze.

I’m glad Pizzazz slapping Lindsey was part of the episode recap.

Jem manages to dodge all the flying equipment and Rio rides on a... camera thing and picks Jem up and brings her to safety. But Jem is shaken up, as anyone would be, and Lindsey tells Rio to take Jem to Lindsey’s dressing room. (You’d think all the femslash I write would make me better at being clear which girl’s is the “she” in the sentence.)

Lindsey tell the Holograms to get up on stage with her to finish the interview. I wonder how Jem suddenly being missing got explained. Did Lindsey tell the viewers that Pizzazz started a fire on the set? If she didn’t I’m sure Kimber did.

And this is when we get our episode’s title.

Frame Up

We see Jem delirious in the dressing room mumbling about The Misfits and Rio’s being attentive, telling Jem that she’s in no shape to get up.

We get a spinning pan of both Jem, and Rio before they start to kiss.

And Aja and Shana come into the room in the middle of it and sees. Rio immediately gets up and runs out. Then Aja has a bit of a chuckle about how Rio’s going to be steamed when he finds out that Jem is actually Jerrica.

And then Jem says, “It isn’t funny. Rio’s very proud. How can I tell him the truth without him feeling like I made a fool out of him?”

Shana holds Jem’s shoulders and tells her that she’s dealing with a very delicate situation.

And now to talk about Rio and how Jerrica is nervous about hurting his pride. The “Rio’s very proud” line is a pretty clear indication of why Jerrica doesn’t tell him. We see later in the series that Rio’s “pride” can get bruised easily and that leads to yelling and kicking things over. We don’t see this side of Rio yet but they have sown the seeds of future problems in this relationship.

But let’s deal with that later. Mrs. Bailey tells Jerrica that she’s worries about Ashley who’s barely been at home lately. Time to see what Ashley is up to.

She’s in her room imagining how she’ll look in a Misfits t-shirt at their next concert.

I forgot to talk about this last time when I was talking about why Ashley’s behaviour is understandable. One of the biggest reasons why she’s hanging out with The Misfits a lot is because they made her feel welcome. Pizzazz scares her a little with how loud and pushy she is. But overall Ashley doesn’t feel like she has to live up to an impossible standard to earn their approval. They immediately invited her into the bar, showed her the ropes, and started hanging out with her. What has Lela done to make Ashley feel welcome? Not much. Maybe in moments we don’t see Lela has been a lot nicer to Ashley but even if that is the case those moments where Lela’s making Ashley feel like she’s not good enough probably stand out far more in Ashley’s mind than those moments where Lela’s being nice.

Like it’s no wonder Ashley has been spending so much time with the Misfits.

I appreciate Jerrica’s respect for Ashley’s privacy, she knocks on the door and waits to be invited in. Jerrica mentions to Ashley that she’s heard that she’s been away from home a lot and Ashley immediately gets defensive. But before Jerrica can talk to Ashley some more Kimber catches up to Jerrica to tell her that an a concert promoter from Vegas has arrived. So Jerrica tells Ashley that they’ll finish their conversation later.

But Ashley won’t be around. She takes the t-shirt and runs off.

Now we cut to the promoter, Dirk Hayes and he asks where Jem is during the contract signing. Jerrica explains it by saying that she handles all of Jem’s business. And Hayes accepts that answer pretty quickly. No fussing from him. Kimber asks who the opening act is and Hayes says that it’s The Misfits. All of the women in the room get worked up about that because the Misfits hate them.

Hayes laughs and says that he knows they hate each other, he just likes to watch sparks fly. With a chuckle he walks out of the room.

While everybody else is still steamed Shana points out a bright side. Being Jem’s warm-up act with drive Pizzazz berserk.

Everybody has a laugh at that one.

As Pizzazz is signing the contract Stormer asks who the main act is and Hayes tells her it’s Jem and The Holograms. Which gets exactly the reaction you’d expect. Roxy even pulls a framed poster off the wall and charges toward Hayes with it. But he laughs and leaves the room before Roxy can hit him over the head with it.

After Hayes leaves Pizzazz declares that she’s the brains of the operation and hatches a scheme to make Jem unable to perform. And to do that she’s going to need some help from Ashley.

And right on cue Ashley sneaks into the building and knocks on the door to whatever room the Misfits are in.

Pizzazz uses her “sweet voice” and asks Ashley if she’d like to come to Vegas with them. And Ashley is touched by this, she asks Pizzazz if she means it and is reassured that yeah, they’ll be taking Ashley with them. And Ashley says that the Misfits are the best friends she’s ever had.

In the background Roxy and Stormer are laughing. Menacing music is playing during this scene.

We’ll find out the plan later. Now it’s time to catch up with Jem and The Holograms in Las Vegas. They rented a jeep I guess. I do like that they aren’t driving around in the Rockin’ Roadster.

While in a casino Shana is sitting at a table with Jem and asks if she’s decided what she’s gonna do about the Rio situation. Jem says, “I’d like to tell him but…” and Shana finishes the sentence with a slightly disapproving sounding, “You don’t know what he’ll do if he knows the truth.” and then she walks away.

And finally our first song of the episode.

I like Deception a lot. I like the song, I like the music video quite a bit. Give it a listen some time.

The song is about how Jerrica feels torn. She didn’t intend for things to turn out like this, and she truly didn’t, and now that this love triangle has started to take shape she doesn’t know what’ll happen if she comes clean. What would happen if she tells Rio that is was kind of a game for her at first but it went too far. She’s afraid that their relationship will go up in flames. And all of this is true. Jerrica is very in love with Rio and as we saw in previous episodes they do start off as a pretty darn cute and functional couple. However, Rio’s pride and anger issues didn’t suddenly become a thing. This is just when they start becoming a problem in the relationship. Or at least have the potential to. None of Jerrica’s fears have been realized yet. But she still has these fears.

I can’t wait to really dig into this relationship becoming as dysfunctional as it does. I’m just going to say that I am a big Jerrica defender but she’s definitely not blameless. But let’s move onto the next scene. Me breaking down this relationship will be a continuing thing throughout these recaps.

The Misfits are talking to Ashley in their dressing room in Las Vegas and filling her in on the scheme. Ashley’s hesitant, Stormer assures her that it’s just a joke, but Roxy gets Ashley onboard by egging her on. Something tells me that Roxy wasn’t much different from Ashley when she was a young teen.

The plan is simple, Ashley lures one of the Holograms, ends up being Aja, into the luggage compartment on a bus. Aja is surprised to see Ashley in the casino and chases after her. And my god, what a breakdown in communication. How did Ashley get here without anybody knowing? Did she just tell Mrs. Bailey that Jerrica invited her? But even if she did, Mrs. Bailey probably would have checked with Jerrica. *does a quick Google* Well I suppose it is only an hour long flight and Ashley has already been missing for much of the day anyway.

Anyway, Aja follows Ashley into the compartment and Roxy closes the doors after Ashley climbs out. Then we learn that this bus is on its way to New York. Hey fun fact, I have to specify that I want a labelled map of the US when I Google it. If I don’t specify I get unlabelled ones which are less than useful to me. There’s 50 States! FIFTY! Anyway, I looked up a map because fuck if I know where Las Vegas is compared to New York and wow that is on the other side of the country. Look man, I’m Canadian. I can barely label my own map.

Where was I?

Oh yeah, Ashley being in school currently and growing up in the US does know how far away New York is and is feeling really guilty about this scheme.

We cut to Pizzazz telling Hayes that one of the Holograms just ran off and tells him that The Misfits are ready to perform. And Hayes says that if Aja doesn’t show up in time then the Misfits will be the opening act. Jem tries to assure Hayes that Aja would never abandon a commitment.

Then we see Aja in the compartment banging on the door and shouting “help” over and over again as the bus is driving away to New York.

A couple passengers hear the banging but not the yelling and the husband figures it’s a flat tire. The wife tells the driver that she thinks he has a flat. The bus driver gets out to check the tires and hears Aja banging on the door. He opens it up and Aja just bolts. The driver’s reaction is so well acted. I love it.

Back to Jem and the remaining Holograms, they decide to split up and search for Aja.

We go back to Aja who asks a couple guys for directions and they get into an argument so Aja tries to find somebody else. She’s then picked up by a guy in a cowboy hat riding a motorcycle. I thought Texas was where the cowboys live, Hayes wears a cowboy hat too. Anyway, the cowboy gets stuck in traffic but he’s only a block away from the casino and point Aja to where she needs to go.

We keep moving locations. Rio asks if she can look in the Misfits’ dressing room. Roxy immediately opposes to it but Pizzazz lets Rio in. And then she flirts with him and promises Rio the world. But Rio tells Pizzazz that she isn’t fit to breathe the same air as Jem.

And then pushes Pizzazz. Yeah she’s not a great person but wow, what a shove. She went flying.

Welp, Aja is still missing and Hayes is sick of waiting. He tells Jem that it’s too late and that there’s a penalty clause for failing to perform.

But wait! Aja calls out that they always perform and runs up to her family and gets a hug from Jem. She says she’ll explain what happened later.

Hayes tells the Misfits to go up and warm up the audience. Pizzazz is mad and says that she wouldn’t even warm up leftovers for Jem. But they do still walk towards the stage. And I assume perform. But we don’t see them play anything because it’s time for the next music video.

Too Close for Comfort, I like this song. Britta Phillips has such a nice singing voice. Man. She’s great. The editing in the music video is a little strange. But eh.

Let’s see what Pizzazz is doing. Oh, complaining. She’s blaming Ashley for Aja getting back to the casino and Stormer points out that Ashley did exactly what she was told to. Ashley was about to come into the room but overhears Pizzazz and ducks out. Stormer also leaves.

Then Eric phones and tells Pizzazz that there’s going to be a commotion in the casino. And that the police are going to search it. Pizzazz’s job is to make sure they look in Jem’s room.

We cut to Ashley hiding behind a standee, she’s scared. Stormer spots Ashley who is terrified and Stormer assure her that she’d never hurt her. And joins Ashley behind the standee. Ashley says that Pizzazz and Roxy scare her sometimes, and Stormer confesses that they scare her a little too. Stormer has her sweet side and I wish we found out why she’s even in this band. How did she get involved with them?

While hiding behind the standee Stormer and Ashley witness Zipper and a couple of his goons stealing money from the casino. Then they hide the sack of cash in Jem’s dressing room.

Stormer asks Ashley what they should do. And Ashley being like, thirteen tells Stormer, “You tell me.” Because yeah, there’s one adult in this situation and it’s definitely not Ashley.

Meanwhile Jem and The Holograms are done their performance and apparently they gave three encores. Hayes is very pleased with them.

But not for long! Hayes is informed that the concert money has been stolen. Pizzazz immediately tells the cops to look in Jem’s dressing room.

And we get our first moment of Kimber wanting to throw hands! :D That’s my girl! I always forget about this one because it goes so fast. You can tell this is a semi-regular occurrence because Jem already has her arm blocking Kimber off. She didn’t even have to look.

I should make a “Kimber About to Throw Hands” folder to go with my crying folder.

One of the cops tells the detective that he found money in Jem’s room. And the detective promptly handcuffs Jem without hearing her out.

After the commercial break we see Pizzazz being bitter about Rio turning her down so she tells the detective to arrest him as well. Jem keeps arguing and makes a good point, she was on stage, how could she have possibly stolen the money.

The detective says that the thieves were men (How did he know this? The smell of cologne?) and that Jem is only suspected of being an accomplice.

Then Ashley shouts from off the screen that Jem didn’t do it. Pizzazz and Roxy try to stop her but fail. And Pizzazz tells the detective that Ashley is friends with Jem. And Jem being Jerrica and therefore being a mom stands up for Ashley saying that she would never lie about such a thing.

The detective says that what he thinks doesn’t matter. And then gasp! A raspy new voice enters the conversation! Who could it be? Definitely not anybody voiced by Sue Blu.

Nope, definitely not.

Well, the mysterious woman tells the detective that she also saw the crime and that she can prove that Jem didn’t commit it. The detective invites the mystery lady and Ashley into Jem’s dressing room to get their account of what happened.

What I wanna know is, what proof did Stormer have?

Outside of the dressing room Jem’s trying to figure out why Pizzazz wanted to get Rio arrested too. He laughs and says that Pizzazz doesn’t take rejection well.

Not too long after that the detective comes out and announces that Jem is free to go. Everybody who likes Jem cheers while Pizzazz tells Roxy that they need to find Stormer.

Who of course was the mystery lady. She promises Ashley that they’re going to keep this moment a secret.

I love Stormer so much. You have no idea.

With that all resolved we have a time skip. Pizzazz is in Eric’s office complaining to him that Jem’s more popular than ever. And Eric says that they need to take another approach to the problem. He figures that Jem is a stage name and that maybe if he can find out her real name he could blackmail her or something. So Eric hired a private detective named Malone to find out who Jem is. (I always want to spell it Malogne for some reason.)

And then to help our transition to the next scene Eric tells Pizzazz that Jem is at a fashion show being hosted by our good friend Danielle.

Why yes I am trying to avoid having to look up how to spell her title.

Naturally the Misfits are here to sabotage things. Stormer questions the wisdom of this. And she really should be.

Danielle announces Jem and The Holograms and how they’re wearing her designs. And we get our last music video of the episode.

Oh! This is when Truly Outrageous plays! It’s a nifty song.

Heeeey. Kimber’s been wearing that outfit in the last two episodes. Danielle met her in that jacket! In fact all these outfits are repeats!

After the song we see Roxy point out the lights shining onto the stage and Pizzazz knows exactly what she’s thinking. They shine the light onto the sprinkler because those things do get darn hot and the sprinklers go off soaking everybody. By the way, Jem and The Holograms did a quick outfit change and now they’re all in new clothes. I forgot a couple of them debuted here. They become wardrobe staples. (I ran out of screenshot room. I could have deleted Kimber wanting to throw hands but no. I will always include those moments.)

None of the Holograms would be surprised to find out that the Misfits were behind the sprinklering. But Jem points out that there’d be no way to prove it was their fault. While they’re driving we see Malone following behind them in his car.

He turns off at the drive-in theatre where Synergy is located and hides his car. He watches the rest on foot and see the Rockin’ Roadster go through a wall.

Inside the base everybody changes while talking about the fact that the battle of the bands was in only two days.

They all leave and Malone follows soon afterwards.

Synergy’s security system is shouting “intruder” over and over again. It’s not very effective.

Malone takes a picture of this weird yelling machine. And then he gets annoyed and smashes Synergy with a chair.

She explodes.

And that’s it for Jem. It’s too bad we won’t see her performing in the battle of the bands. Unless Jerrica decides to wear a pink wig.

[scentedsstuff]

I saw that you read ‘We Hunt the Flame’ which is a series I really enjoyed, and I just wanted to know your favourite things about the duology

The real question is what didn't I love about it? The duology overall is easily a 5/5⭐️ duology as it ticked off so many boxes for me. When I first read the synopsis I was already hooked.

1) First of all, it was the dual POV, I looooovvvvee dual POV in a fantasy book because you get to see exactly what another character is thinking/feeling/seeing in any given circumstance without having to infer or interpret things seen from the main character's POV alone.

2) Then there's the fact that the 2 main characters we follow start out as enemies by circumstance, it's not due to anything personal, just by chance. Any enemies to lovers variation, be that enemies to friends to lovers or enemies to allies to lovers that I get, I appreciate A LOT.

3) Then there's the mystery behind it, by that I mean the fact that they both knew each other by reputation and not much else. Nasir only knew of the Hunter and Zafira of the Prince/Assassin of death. It made following the story so much more interesting, personally speaking, and especially in Zafira's case I was always so excited when it was revealed to others that the Hunter was actually the Huntress.

The theme of mystery follows into the plot itself, with why can Zafira alone always find her way out of the Arz? What happened to the 6 sisters? Who is the silver witch and what part does she have to play in all of this? What really happened to all the magic in the land? There was so much to keep you thinking besides just the main characters themselves.

4) The integration of the language into the book. This is easily one of my favorite aspects of the book. Arabic is such a beautiful language, and I loved the way it was introduced and woven into the story so seamlessly. Some fantasy books can have this almost dictionary-like way of introducing new words to readers but I felt in the duology it was done quite well. An example I can think of is;

This is a favorite example of mine, it's quick, it's funny and it tells me that Habibi = beloved / is a term of endearment.

Continuing on from that, so much of the culture was introduced to the reader in a way that made you feel less like you were looking from behind a glass in and more like you were being brought along into this new world and culture without feeling like you were being talked down to.

5) The found family! The Zumra was a part of the book that I did not expect to love as much as I did. I've read books where characters are given one book to form a group/found family and sometimes it works and other times it feels forced and/or falls flat. In this case however, it worked out well. It felt genuine and not at all rushed, they came together as naturally as any band of strangers stuck on a mysterious and dangerous island together would. There was bickering, fighting, a lot of suspicion (naturally) but along the way they found comfort in each other, and not in any loud or obvious ways but small yet kind. Not in displays of affections such as hugs, or any physical contact but in choosing to sit with one another whether it was for dinner or for a chat, choosing to share a meal and eventually parts of their lives with each other.

6) Altair. Yes, he gets to be a reason all on his own. I was so scared he would only ever serve as the comedic relief and not much else, how glad I was when he wasn't. His sense of humor is top tier in my opinion, I loved his addition to the Zumra and his relationship with Nasir over the course of the duology was one of my favorite things to watch develop.

7) The platonic love. It was also nice to read about friendships where they were just that......Friends and there was no need to read into it more than that. I loved how it showed that you can just love your friends so fiercely without it having to indicate any sort of romantic feelings such as with Zafira and Yasmine, Altair and Kifah, Zafira and Altair, Altair and Benjamin, Nasir and literally anyone from the Zumra (besides Zafira) bcoz he finally has friends now😅etc

8) Nasir and his whole arc of letting people into his life. Throughout the books, it was this gradual journey of him allowing himself to grow closer to others. Not just that, but seeing that he was worthy of these relationships, that he was wanted. For me, I especially loved this dynamic with Zafira because he was the one that sought her out, even when they were merely allies by circumstance. You could see it in the way he would approach her first and almost try and justify his actions at times, even questioning why he felt the need to do this (but I feel it's clear why). It's similar to why he keeps Altair around despite all the bickering and threatening words, because they don't speak to him or cower away from him as if he were some monster, they merely see him, just as he is.

9) Let's continue looking at this dynamic in the romance aswell because the romance was 👌🏾💗💯! For me, I read their relationship as one where they both chose the other. Now what I mean by that is, previously Nasir had been pursued by someone and the same goes for Zafira. In this instance however, they both choose the other (what i'm trying to say is that he wanted her first and vice versa for her, it was not that scenario of them realizing someone had feelings for them and then reciprocating after finding out).

This can be seen when Zafira breaks down (in WHTF) and in his quick need to comfort her one of his first thoughts is to be affectionate and to kiss her but immediately he is taken aback, saying to himself 'When had he ever wished to kiss anyone?' showing how in the past he was the one pursued and did not initiate, so to him, this feeling of wanting to be affectionate and taking the initiative to simply be with someone was new to him yet part of him still clearly wanted to try (with her). In Zafira's case, it was finally reciprocating feelings which she herself harbored. It was all very sweet but ofcourse filled with a lot of angst and TENSION.

10) Zafira💗. That's all the point I needed to make on her. Just her is enough.

That's just to name a few things I liked/loved. I'm really glad you enjoyed the series anon and thank you for giving me the chance to talk about it some more! Take care!

[adropofhumanity]

Why Islamic community, Quran, Hadeeth always describe women as weak? I mean men nowadays will scream and jumps when there's cockroaches, bugs, whines if there's no food on table, complaints due sweats and heat or a bit hungry, using ayahs and hadeeth wrongly to boost their ego and forceful autonomy, and guilt tripping their wife so they can get second and more wives to make cheating acceptable etc. I wonder does it means even when men have weak imaan like that + easily got swayed by demon temptations, it means women are weaker? I see so much strong imaan, physical, economy and won't cheat on their spouse.

As a women, it feels like we are on lower class. This is actually the main reason I was a disbeliever.

alright my sister, before i answer i will advise you to understand that you will have to bear my answer with open mindedness. May Allāh reward you for your question and for your earnestness in understanding your religion.

islam never described women as "weak". the community, if it does, is at fault then.

"O humanity! Indeed, We created you from a male and a female, and made you into peoples and tribes so that you may ˹get to˺ know one another. Surely the most noble of you in the sight of Allah is the most righteous among you. Allah is truly All-Knowing, All-Aware" ( 49:13 )

men and women are both human beings first and foremost. to Allāh, gender does not matter as much as it matters to man. to Him, only the "most righteous" matter.

God created man and woman just like He created, let's say for the sake of providing an example, fruits and vegetables. they are same but different. same in the way that homosapiens are, different in the manner that each has varied properties and benefits, like a man and a woman. just because one was created as a fruit does not make it any superior than its vegetable counterpart and vice versa.

what we do not realise, due to being blinded by corrupt ethics in our society, is that both genders are HONOURED by Allāh. if Allāh truly favoured a man over a woman, would He have chosen to honour both the genders? He would have clearly mentioned that men are the "preferred" ones and women are perhaps, for the sake of argument, "untouchables" to Him, which He did not.

men have specific characteristics. women too do. Allāh says in The Qur'ān, "— the male is not like the female—" ( 03:36 )

men are known for their physical strength. women are known for their emotional strength as well as their gentleness and their soft nature. just because our natures are soft does not imply that we are "weak".

women go through menstrual cycles, pregnancy, delivery, motherhood and breastfeeding. alongside, she takes care of her duties as a wife while healing from the changes in her body. we are stronger here than men. if Allāh would have found man to be stronger, He would have assigned him the responsibility of motherhood. did He? no. because a man is weak in this field. just like a woman is weak in the aspect of physical strength.

so our question then; do they both have strengths? yes. do they both have weaknesses? yes. can we then say that a man is more "stronger" than a woman? no, of course not, he has plenty of weaknesses too. why do i say this?

because Allāh mentioned clearly in His book, "— man was created weak." ( 04:26 ) which indicates that ALL PEOPLE WERE CREATED WEAK.

The Qur'ān and Ahadeeth have never described women as "weak". infact, on the contrary, they have described women to be strong and more than capable. i shall share with you links for the same so that you may know and realise how wonderfully powerful a woman can be and how we have stories in The Qur'ān and in the ahadeeth that prove that to us.

what we are facing today, by the way, has nothing to do with the fact that women are physically weak. it has to do with our ethics. our ethical and moral standards have grown weak. read this well. our ethical and moral standards have become weak. that is why perhaps some men have become cheap like that. islam gave women rights in an age when people used to bury their girl infants alive. islam would have not stopped that if its purpose was to ultimately breed men or side with them only.

i hope my answer has cleared your misconceptions. if not, you are free to bother me anytime.

[writerfromtheshore]

An Interesting and different 08

Found this when perusing a reddit forum, and I have been fascinated about the possibilities of it all day. Reposting below for easy readability: 

What if The Toa Nuva and Hagah switched places and we got the Hagah vs Makuta instead? I often think that if they made this switch fit the story, with the Nuva somehow being able to wake up Mata Nui anyways and fulfill their destiny so that we can focus on the Hagah on Karda Nui it would have been a lot more cathartic and somehow benefit the sets' design.

The Hagah were reduced to Rahaga which were established in BIONICLE 3 as a team of flyers (apparently it was later retconned, but let's pretend it wasn't), so it makes more sense that once they're restored to their Toa status they can easily become a fully airborne team.

Also, the Rahaga from 2005 being released as Toa Hagah 3 years later in 2008 is a nice parallel with the Turaga appearing in 2001 and then being reintroduced as Toa in 2004.

Too much metal in the Mistika? Masks that don't look like they belong to the Nuva? No problem. The Hagah have mostly unknown mask shapes (only Iruini and Norik were released in 2005 and Norik's mask was a different shape than his actual Kanohi, so 5 out of 6) and they were an elite Toa team with lots of metallic armor plates to indicate their elite rank, so we can just turn the Phantoka's dark grey parts metallic silver, or even better other metallic recolors such as gold, dark gold, copper, gunmetal grey and whatnot, and it makes sense lore-wise while adding more prestige to the sets. Also, with a few more parts you can solve the problem of some Toa only having a blaster by giving giant spears, which always look cool and don't require necessarily new molds.

Now, I said at the beginning it would have felt a lot more cathartic, but why? Well turns out the Hagah aren't just an elite Toa team but they used to have the roles of bodyguards of the Makuta, with Norik's team being assigned to Teridax himself. So having a formerly disgraced team of elite Toa, each one with far more experience than any previous group of Toa we ever collected since they predate the Metru and might as well have predated the Mangai, being restored to their former glory to have a final battle with the very species they once swore to protect... I dunno but when I think about it, it feels like the Hagahs battling the Makuta would have been a lot more personal. Also, they are the reason why Takanuva exists too since they secured the Avokii or something if I'm not mistaken, so having a titan Takanuva fighting beside them would have been pretty cool too.

Most people, including myself, like the idea of the original Toa team being brought back in 2008 for what was considered the final battle at the time. However, I often think that a different team should have deserved the spotlight. A team that doesn't require much introduction, since we already knew them in 2005, and that feels a lot more skilled and battle-hardened than even the Nuva. What better team to fight a threat such as the Makuta themselves?

The thought of the Toa Hagah being the ones to go to Karda Nui and battle the former ones they were supposed to be bodyguards for... the story potential is fascinating. I think while it may have robbed us from the reveals we got of the Toa Nuva and the closure to their story, which could have still happened in 09 if we stayed another year in the MU, it would have been a great closure to the Brotherhood of Makuta and the Toa Hagah. 

Really interested to hear your thoughts, Tumblr

[archive2394934]

About to share some more of my cringe with you all in regard to two different “discussions” I’ve had with folks on my writing blog about Henry / Vecna, etc because he gave me mental illness. This post is going to be messy, again because I’m too lazy to reformat it but I’ll try my best to make sure its readable. Another dumb rambly post for the Henry Creel fandom only tbh.  

First, an analysis of Henry’s actions surrounding Eleven leading up to the lab massacre, prompted by an anon I got who was discussing the fan-theory of Henry possibly being Eleven’s father and said anon saying they think Henry’s more of a “gr*omer”. 

I guess it really comes down to whether or not you believe Henry was just trying to manipulate her. I personally don’t believe he was and I think it makes more sense that he wasn’t- or at least his moments of manipulation were not as self serving as people think. I think there's a lot of evidence for this but particularly here are some key moments for me: When we see Henry is “punished” for stepping in and trying to help Eleven, Henry’s reaction to the punishment of Two, Henry’s reaction to Eleven offering to help him in return and the scene with Eleven and Brenner in “papa.” 

Like, for me, there had to be a trigger for Henry suddenly escalating in his efforts to help Eleven. If you think about it he’s been there for twenty years, he’s presumably had casual contact with Eleven for about nine of them and while he might have always felt a sense of kinship with her he only started going out of his way to help her at a specific point in time. Like, why? Henry claims the trigger was that he over-heard Brenner and his associates planning to “allow” the other children to attack Eleven and potentially kill her.  [ And I want to point out that it seems suggested to us that Brenner was doing this because he wanted to test if Eleven was a worthwhile subject or a dud. Eleven seemed to show a lot of potential in her one-on-ones with Brenner, but when she was in group settings around others she was unremarkable. We can gather this from the way the other children isolate and mock Eleven. This is kind of also an indication of neurodivergence for me with Eleven.] 

We see this did actually happen. So Henry can’t have been lying about that. Its noted the cameras were mysteriously turned off during the time Eleven was being attacked. I also think the camera’s being off had to do with Henry’s own assault. He was taken into one of the test rooms and had the hell beat out of him while Brenner watched. Why? What where they doing that for, it couldn’t have been ethical or something you want to record for everyone to see. What did Henry say or do that made Brenner decide he needed a pummeling? Obviously he interfered in a way Brenner didn’t like. He might have even spoke against Brenner’s plan to let the other subjects ambush her. They may have been beating him so he couldn’t intervene. Because, like, while Henry was going through this Eleven suddenly gets jumped by the other test subjects who were let out of their rooms for some reason at the same time. Henry can’t be lying because once again his version of events is shown outside of his own POV. Eleven didn’t fight back and survived the initial attack, and Brenner “punished” two further exasperating Two’s hate for and competition with Eleven which could easily escalate things further. Henry mentions Brenner was manipulating the other subjects so its likely Two was receiving signals to encourage him to hurt Eleven outside of just being shown up by her and I completely believe Eleven was at risk of being attacked again and possibly killed. I also think the way Two acts in the scene leading up to his punishment kind of suggests he thought he was doing the right thing. The way his demeanor instantly changes from kind of proud to fearful and confused the minute Brenner reprimanded him was interesting to me. 

As far as Henry goes the canon seems to show that Henry tried to guide Eleven toward success because he empathized with her as a lonely child who was mocked and isolated from others which we saw. He straight up tells her she reminds him of himself. We know Eleven is mostly on her own. Shes shy and she lacks confidence. The other children make fun of her. We saw all that.  Henry empathized with this and wanted to help her with her powers but he realized this was a mistake because Brenner saw the test subjects as lab-rats first and humans never. No one was exempt to this, no matter how talented they were. Showing talent didn’t mean safety and Brenner makes a point of emphasizing this in the scene where he “punishes” Two. You can see Henry’s reaction to this is one of fear, discomfort and concern. This resonates badly with Henry, probably for a lot of reasons but we def get to see that reaction out of him for a reason. It backs up a lot of things, particularly what he said about wanting to help Eleven but only making it worse. In the test scenes previous to this we DID see Henry helping Eleven and if you pay attention to Brenner whenever he is in the room with Henry, Brenner is noticing Henry’s “friendship” with Eleven as well and as a result he starts taking a greater interest in Eleven himself. ( I took pics of the scenes here for y’all to see what I mean ) 

So to me this means Brenner saw the potential in Eleven thanks to Henry’s attempts to help her show this in a way without having to hurt her. Brenner’s approach however was to force more out of her so he could study it further. This doesn’t seem off to me with all of Brenner’s other behaviors and the characters general MO. And as a side note I think its interesting that in the scene where the children are undergoing testing Brenner gives conflicting advice to what Henry gives when it comes to harnessing their powers. Henry tells Eleven to use emotion, Brenner advises against it but off tangent a little, I plan to kinda go over that bc I think it links a little to my theory about the mind-flayer but for now I think it empathizes how Brenner’s approach to guiding the children with their powers was very clinical- meaning he’d see nothing wrong with creating a stressful/high pressure environment to force a subject to react in a way that might draw those power’s out further for his own goals. He was a psychiatrist and a scientist after all. That was ahead of everything else. I also think it shows that while Brenner wanted to see “power” from the subjects, he also didn’t want them to be too powerful and he surely didn’t want them to know how powerful they could actually be. By putting Eleven in a situation where her survival instincts are forced to take over, Brenner can force a lot out of her without Eleven having a completely concisions knowing of how and what gave her that power boost. Therefore Brenner gets what he wants, but keeps his test subjects in the dark of their own power and the way to access it, thus keeps them manageable. Henry on the other hand worked out exactly how to channel his powers, formed his own sense of self, and thus he is the only one who has been implanted with soteria and deemed a “failure” to Brenner despite Henry remaining the one subject with the most power and potential. 

But anyway, Henry literally risked his life and wellbeing to help Eleven. He escalated from just reassuring her and giving her tips and standing up for her, to full-blown trying to break her out of the facility. Which are the other key parts in figuring out whether Henry was always just manipulating her or he was genuinely trying to save her like he says.

I mean aside from Henry’s own reaction of hurt and confusion when Eleven accuses him of tricking her which I think is also something to consider and that seems to be overlooked to me. Like why did he react with such hurt/confusion if he’s an emotionless monster who planned all of that? Wouldn’t his reaction to this accusation be more of a “lol u got me” instead if that were the case?  Henry literally takes Eleven to a place she could escape and sends her on her way. He doesn’t try to stop her, he reassures her that she would be okay and not to be afraid. If Eleven never offered to help him return what would he have done? Stopped her and told her not to go? Literally all Eleven had to do was say “thanks” and crawl into the tunnel as Henry instructed. That seems to be a huge gamble to take if this was all a super carefully planned manipulation and all he planned to do was use her to facilitate his own escape.

Eleven has a good heart and she assumed Henry had to leave with her because he was in extreme danger himself which is the other thing. Henry had no way to know Eleven saw him being tortured which is what ultimately swayed her decision to help him back. He doesn’t make it about him though, he makes it about helping her, its Eleven’s idea based on what she saw to help him in return, something Henry didn’t know about until he had already put HER escape plan in motion. 

And of course he takes her offer to help him because why wouldn’t he? Theres no reason he wouldn’t jump at the offer when given to him but theres no way he would know how she would react. Like I said all she had to do was say thanks and crawl into the tunnel. Its an insane gamble to take if it was all just for his own means imo and therefore doesn’t add up.  Further, his reaction to the offer came off to me as one of surprise but also an extreme giddy sense of elation to finally be presented with a way out of that nightmare for himself. Something I really think he had probably given up hope of until that moment. For me almost every single thing Henry said to Eleven rings true. From his monologue about how she was nothing but a animal to Brenner and that he had saved her by doing what he did, to him telling her he was glad she was born and that he believes in her. It really seems to me that everything Henry did he did to help her just like he said. Any manipulations in Henry’s actions seems quite minor and well meaning in the grand scheme of things. 

Honestly, in a lot of ways Henry parallels Brenner. They are extremely similar in their behaviors but I think Henry becomes an inverted parallel of Brenner as a twist here due to his intentions being much more genuine and benevolent than Brenner's actually were. And I think the scenes in the ep “Papa” emphasize this. Initially, Eleven believes Henry is the monster. She was so young and at the time of their confrontation, Brenner and the other test subjects were the only family she knew. She rejected the truth Henry told her about Brenner not really caring about her but with every experience she’s had since then she starts to realize maybe this was true even if she doesn’t want to at first. In the episode she initially accuses Henry of being the monster, she’s even angry and confused as to why Brenner would allow someone like Henry to be around the children in the first place but throughout the ep this thought process breaks down and she begins to see through all Brenner’s gaslighting and  lies and excuses, and starts to believe that no, Henry wasn’t “the monster,” at all, Brenner was. 

Henry was ultimately right about everything like it or not. And Eleven tells Henry that he isn't the monster in the piggyback episode. The big tragedy is this realization and validation has come far too late to reach Henry now because overall Henry’s now a supernatural terror who on an absolute mission and Eleven’s still a confused child who has stepped up from being a lab-rat to a super-hero and it turns out that's not the upgrade everyone wants to think it is.

Next I was asked about what I think the clocks have to do with Henry/Vecna by another anon saying they didn’t understand what they had to do with anything basically. 

My interpretation of the clocks is BASCIALLY that Henry is very much not a fan of social constructs. Keeping in mind that Henry’s time of living was 50s-80s. If you think the world is an oppressive shit hole now boy do I have news for you; it was a thousand times worse in Henry’s time. Its largely due to social constructs that Henry suffered as he did, as someone who was an outcast to social norms and was unable to completely conform to societies ridged view of right and normal because ists and phobes are still a thing now, they were a lot worse then. “Time” represents humanities greatest social construct of all and clocks symbolize time. Moreover, Henry would practice his psionic abilities on the grandfather clock that existed in his childhood home. He would use his mind to wind the hands back and forth as he wanted. This was a big moment for Henry in my HC because it was the first time he was able to consciously and purposely manipulate a “physical” thing with his powers and also it came with the realization that he could essentially check out of societies expectations of him because he had powers unlike anything else in society.  GOING DEEPER AGAIN, I view the clocks as also symbolic of Henry’s imprisonment. He was trapped the Hawkins Lab for 20 years. He spent 20 years of his life just waiting for that nightmare to end. He didn’t know how the end would come, he didn’t know if he would grow old and die or if he would be killed, or if something miraculous would happen and he would be freed somehow. MY personal interpretation that I’ve got going on until canon tells me something different says Henry was trapped in a place where clocks and lights were a conduit to reality, to the real world, the world outside of the lab. In that lab, time was all Henry had. Both things have become symbolic to Henry as a result.

The same remains true of his time as Vecna in the upside down. He spent yeas wandering the Upside Down alone before he was GIVEN a way to get back to Hawkins.  Merging Hawkins with the upside down kind of represents a sort of a “propaganda of the deed,” but in a way that seems true to the horror genre with the aesthetic kind of being that's he’s become an agent of doom, he’s heralding in the “end” of the world (as it currently is) in which an “end” is considered the furthest part to the flow of time and therefore can also be represented by a clock. Each victim brings him closer, each victim is symbolized by the chiming of the clock. Four being the magic number might also be symbolic of the four points of time/day: Morning, afternoon, evening and night. I mentioned before, in my POV, a lot of Henry’s manifestations as Vecna are symbolic to him on a very personal level. He’s walking psychological horror, and he very much represents PSTD, depression and trauma, abuse, suicidal tendencies, etc and these were intentional themes outside of canon and most of them are things Henry suffered himself in canon. Things that had an emotional/mental/physical impact on Henry as a human are repeated and projected outwardly through Vecna and Vecna’s “curse” in a supernatural way.  Like you said the spiders are obvious but THIS is how the clocks factor into him in my opinion. Like the spiders they mean something to him on a personal level as well but everything that meant something to or impacted on Henry has  become symbolic to him and turned very twisted and ominous as Vecna.

ANYWAY I hope that made sense! I’m not saying its COMPLETELY canon but its what I’ve been reading from canon so far. In conclusion imo: Henry/Vecna is not just a senseless monster: he’s the radical leftist activist that turns to terrorism to make the centric protagonists look good: Horror genre edition. Literally he’s the horror genre’s version of M*gneto or Erik Killm*nger. Its a hill I guess I’m gonna have to die on.

[sixcostumerefs]

what is up with the uk tour?

just a general ask because over the run of their production there have just been so many weird decisions and coincidences - two original principals leaving, the inexplicable shift for Nat Pilk to S/P instead of swing and the absence of a second swing after that, needing replacement principal costumes for Alana and Jen (and a wig for the latter) only 2/3rds of the way through the contract - plus two sets of production photos and their being sent to Korea instead of the Australian cast who are much closer and would not have other tour obligations to worry about. is there any evidence or idea about what was going on during the initial casting & fitting processes, or is it all just dumb luck that so much went off-kilter for them?

- Two original principals leaving were both cited as personal reasons. I don’t know their life, so I don’t really care to speculate more than that.

- With Natalie Pilkington, my guess is they had someone else lined up for one role who had to drop out at the last minute when they couldn’t easily recast. May have been that it was an S/P and they had Natalie Pilkington take over (S/P alt and one swing is logistically more preferable than no alt and two swings). Or it could have been that she have wanted to move on from being a swing to an alt (alts get to perform more with more guaranteed dates and primarily playing two tracks is lower stress) so that was the plan anyway, *and* someone else was planned as swing but has to drop. Someone needing to drop out could have been for any number of reasons - something personal with family or health or getting another contract that they chose to do instead are all fairly common reasons for someone to drop out of a contract between accepting it and starting it.

- Sometimes there might be seemingly unnecessary costume replacements and in that case, yes, sometimes it’s a show preparing for an actor to stick around for another contract and just replacing in advance to minimize wear. But there are so many very normal and mundane reasons for costumes to change beyond that and we see it a fair bit for a wide number of those reasons: Lauren Drew stopped wearing her original Aragon costume about two months into her contract and got an entirely new one. Samantha Pauly got a new skirt over the summer about 2/3 of the way through her 2021-2022 contract, Claudia Kariuki got a new corset almost 2/3 of the way through her 2021-2022 contract, etc. In the case of all the UKT changes, the replacements/alterations were very needed, so they were going to happen irregardless of whether or not people are going to stick around long term. I don’t want to dive too much into why because I want to respect what the actors themselves have said or not said, but (content warning for some discussion of body insecurity) you can read this post from Jen that indicates some of why she needed a new costume, and (content warning for weight loss before/after photos) this one from Chloe explaining the alterations to her costumes. I also posted this and this which give some context for some of why the changes might have happened as well.

I will say that I don’t feel like most of this is particularly out of the ordinary, for Six or for theatre more broadly! Again, actors have to drop out between being cast and the show starting all the time for any number of familial/health/personal/scheduling reasons. We’ve even seen this referenced as happening with other Six casts QUITE a few times. It’s a big part of why they wait until they’re significantly into rehearsals to announce cast to be as sure as they can that nothing will change. New costumes and alterations are made quite a bit, so this isn’t anything significantly out of the norm and again it was out of legitimate necessity. It all reads as totally normal and/or personal reasons rather than issues with the costumes themselves.

Re: South Korea. It’s mostly about longevity. Both Australia and the UK and Ireland Tour have been touring for quite a while. They’ve both gone to basically every venue in their respective countr(y/ies). At a certain point, demand starts to go down because many of the people who will want to see it will have gotten a chance to (same thing happens with every other touring show!).

Australia is wrapping up. They’ve done all the largest Australian cities, sometimes several times over. They only had scheduled tour stops through mid February. Contracts are up and several of the actors are moving on to other shows. If they were to do South Korea they’d basically have their final Aus show, a month off (which would mean they’re not working but would also be a barrier to them moving on to find other shows too), go back to do SK for a few weeks, and then be done. As much as I’d love for it to happen, there’s just not all that much incentive for Six to do that.

UK and Ireland Tour demand has lessened as well, but there’s still definitely enough for them to justify continuing the tour. But they’ve done a lot of the UK stops several times over, so to try to keep the tour sustained and worth the while (aka working most of the time), we’re going to see the UKT start branching out and being scheduled for other, newer stops and locations and/or places they haven’t visited as much (like Holland and Belfast/Dublin, respectively).

So. Aus yes is closer and yes they did initially suggest that Aus might do some shows, but Aus doesn’t really have an argument to continue for another contract especially just for one or maybe two stops. Meanwhile it’s super beneficial for UKT to do it from a business perspective. So….UKT it is.

[science-lings]

Intro to my Phoenix!Phoenix AU

One thing I love about 'Phoenix being an actual Phoenix' AU's is that everyone can kind of put their own spin on it, maybe he has feathers and can talk to birds or is immune to fire, but because making a humanoid character into a mythical reincarnating bird is already deviating from every type of lore out there, you can just do whatever you want with it, which is my favorite thing to do.

The most important part of my particular Phoenix AU is his blood. In this au, his blood is what bursts into flames when he dies or is jumpstarted by an outside source of fire. It glows like molten metal to heal wounds and can even be transferred to another host to give them a bit of a magical healing boost in extreme situations.

continue on if you want to see the full informative essay lmao

He can set his blood on fire to jumpstart his own rebirth to skip the whole 'dying' thing, but that comes with its own consequences. It leaves him extremely weak and feverish for days afterward. In this AU he did take Dahlia's poison pills, and he ate the necklace, though because he almost died too recently, he still gets scars from the glass and the subsequent surgeries, he just wasn't strong enough to heal completely. It's why he gets away from eagle river with just a cold, he caught some of the debris of the flaming bridge and that ultimately saved him during the impact. Or at least kept him from having to fully die.

The fire fueled by phoenix blood is an unnatural blue and gets so hot that it melts metal and sets things around it aflame really easily. It extinguishes itself once Phoenix is healed but leaves behind scorch marks (both anywhere it touched and on Phoenix's body) and the normal fire that spawns from it needs to be dealt with more normally. Being reborn won't completely burn his suit off, but will leave ashy black marks in the places he was injured. idk how to logic that one out, I just think he deserves the mercy of not having to wake up from dying to be naked on top of everything else.

Phoenix can change forms, but as he wants to keep his mythical status a bit of a secret, he rarely does so and isn't good enough at transforming to do it during more urgent situations. His fear of heights also makes him less inclined to go birdmode. It's only after his disbarment that he becomes more comfortable testing out his own abilities and even joins Trucy in her magic shows as a flaming bird assistant. When he wants to watch his junior partners' trials, he occasionally attends in birdmode and hangs out in the courthouse windows. Sometimes he will swoop down to defend his kids from Taka as he has a bit of a grudge against the bird. He appears like Mia in times when hope is lost to scream a little, because he is a bird. (Trucy and her bird dad art)

Physical indicators of his true nature can mostly be hidden by his clothes, he has patches of small iridescent black/blue/indigo feathers like soft scales on his forearms, shoulders, back, hips, and lower legs. His hair is not quite made up of feathers but kind of supplemented by more featherlike bits of hair that only become obvious when touching it. He still has plausible deniability about his weird hair. His nails are naturally matte black and his eyelashes are long and dark enough to be noticeable but not too unusual.

Pre-Trucy he's trying his best to hide this part of himself but he gets more relaxed about it during his disbarment. when before he would refuse to roll his sleeves up even on the hottest of days, he gets more open about it with her. By the time he gets reinstated, his secret is kind of out so he sees no reason to try so hard to hide it.

One thing I'm still mulling over is how his immortality works. Either he can be good at being able to revive himself before he fully dies which causes him to reincarnate/regenerate into a new baby form with no/few memories of his life before or he could die, but only fully reincarnate every hundred or so years. This is all to say that I want his previous form to be Ryuunosuke. There are just core pieces of his personality that continue on, like being gay for his best friend and becoming a lawyer for him, and also his weird hair and big puppy eyes.

Also with all the talk about blood, I think a spinoff AU with Edgeworth being a vampire would just be fun. But I don't know how phoenix blood would affect a vampire... like would it reverse the vampirism? Would it partially reverse it? would it reverse the undead part but keep some of the silly vampire features? I haven't decided yet but it sounds funky to consider.

now to figure out what to call it... maybe Blood of the Phoenix (BotP AU), idk I'm taking suggestions now lmao

[bethanydelleman]

Satirising Love and Marriage in Mansfield Park

Despite being her most serious novel, Jane Austen is still hard at work satirising ideas about love in Mansfield Park.

First we have this great line, which seems to refute the idea that one good marriage will throw sisters in the way of another: “But there certainly are not so many men of large fortune in the world as there are pretty women to deserve them.”

Then we have Mrs. Norris’s marriage being intimately connected with money, there is no indication of love at all: “Mr. and Mrs. Norris began their career of conjugal felicity with very little less than a thousand a year.”

The Ward sisters’ marriages all are flawed, we are not told exactly why Sir Thomas was “captivated” by Lady Bertram, but given that we are told later about her “prosperous beauty”, lust seems like the most reasonable explanation. Sir Thomas treats Lady Bertram well, but she does not fulfil her duties as a wife and mother. Mrs. Norris married for financial security only and Mrs. Price married without any regard for money, a carelessness that will cost her. 

Mr. Rushworth and Maria’s marriage was a bad idea from the start, “Mr. Rushworth was from the first struck with the beauty of Miss Bertram, and, being inclined to marry, soon fancied himself in love.” which is a textbook description of lust. Maria is motivated by income and freedom alone, “as a marriage with Mr. Rushworth would give her the enjoyment of a larger income than her father’s, as well as ensure her the house in town, which was now a prime object, it became, by the same rule of moral obligation, her evident duty to marry Mr. Rushworth if she could.” Attaining wealth is a moral to her, lovely.

Their “courtship” is described sarcastically, “After dancing with each other at a proper number of balls, the young people justified these opinions, and an engagement, with a due reference to the absent Sir Thomas, was entered into, much to the satisfaction of their respective families, and of the general lookers-on of the neighbourhood, who had, for many weeks past, felt the expediency of Mr. Rushworth’s marrying Miss Bertram.”

“To be fond of dancing was a certain step towards falling in love” (P&P), but Rushworth and Maria were never in love. They play out a proper attachment for their neighbours but no love actually exists between them. And people can tell, Henry and Mary easily discern that Maria has no real affection for her intended.

Henry’s arrival at Mansfield Parsonage seems to harken back to the second line of P&P, “However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered as the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters.” Mansfield Park: “Miss Bertram’s engagement made him in equity the property of Julia, of which Julia was fully aware; and before he had been at Mansfield a week, she was quite ready to be fallen in love with.” Henry Crawford, however, is no Charles Bingley, he has no intention of “being in danger”.

Then we have Mary, who in true mercenary form, feels that her emotions will follow her greed, “indeed, his being the eldest was another strong claim. She had felt an early presentiment that she should like the eldest best. She knew it was her way.” When she accidentally falls for Edmund, it is “very vexatious, and she was heartily sorry for it”. Turns out love isn’t as easy to control as either Mary or Henry believe it is.

Henry doesn’t understand love at all, he thinks the infatuation that he creates in a few days is love and thinks that Fanny will accept him in no time (it’s only a week or so between proposal and his leaving for London). He thinks women’s love is either fake or fleeting, and says of Maria “for I am not such a coxcomb as to suppose her feelings more lasting than other women’s, though I was the object of them.” He is wrong. Real love can’t be manufactured and Maria is very much in love with him, which comes back at him in the end.

Edmund has some wild ideas about love, from thinking that, “it often happens that a man, before he has quite made up his own mind, will distinguish the sister or intimate friend of the woman he is really thinking of more than the woman herself.” which is just crazy and we know well where this might lead (Emma and Harriet!). He also seems to think that now that Henry has proposed to Fanny, she will easily create some love towards him. She then delivers an amazing speech on how ridiculous this is:

“I should have thought,” said Fanny, after a pause of recollection and exertion, “that every woman must have felt the possibility of a man’s not being approved, not being loved by some one of her sex at least, let him be ever so generally agreeable. Let him have all the perfections in the world, I think it ought not to be set down as certain that a man must be acceptable to every woman he may happen to like himself. But, even supposing it is so, allowing Mr. Crawford to have all the claims which his sisters think he has, how was I to be prepared to meet him with any feeling answerable to his own? He took me wholly by surprise. I had not an idea that his behaviour to me before had any meaning; and surely I was not to be teaching myself to like him only because he was taking what seemed very idle notice of me. In my situation, it would have been the extreme of vanity to be forming expectations on Mr. Crawford. I am sure his sisters, rating him as they do, must have thought it so, supposing he had meant nothing. How, then, was I to be—to be in love with him the moment he said he was with me? How was I to have an attachment at his service, as soon as it was asked for? His sisters should consider me as well as him. The higher his deserts, the more improper for me ever to have thought of him. And, and—we think very differently of the nature of women, if they can imagine a woman so very soon capable of returning an affection as this seems to imply.”

Fanny’s real modesty has made it impossible for her to be attached to Henry, along with her knowledge of his behaviour (and her prior love of Edmund). Only a woman who was expecting a proposal can produce feelings at command, because she has already formed them. Mary and Mrs. Grant have never seen real modesty and they can’t understand it.

Lastly, Sir Thomas, “though infinitely above scheming or contriving for any the most advantageous matrimonial establishment that could be among the apparent possibilities of any one most dear to him, and disdaining even as a littleness the being quick-sighted on such points, he could not avoid perceiving, in a grand and careless way, that Mr. Crawford was somewhat distinguishing his niece—nor perhaps refrain (though unconsciously) from giving a more willing assent to invitations on that account.”. Despite this description, Sir Thomas morphs into a scheming Mrs. Bennet from the time he recognizes that Henry likes Fanny, and does everything he can to promote the match. No one is above matchmaking.

[jmagnabo92]

CBS Ghosts - Pilot - How Best to Haunt Scene - Part 1

I love this scene for many reasons, but I’m most excited for the indications of the various relationships amongst the ghosts. 

Split in 2 ‘cause Tumblr wouldn’t save it.

Gifs and discussion Below:

This first look into the scene tells us already so much - first, Isaac despite being the 3rd oldest ghost takes the lead because he’s the commander.  We see this a lot throughout the show - he thinks of himself as a leader and the rest of the ghosts allow it (sometimes - other times, they don’t allow it, which is interesting), but I think most times they do because they know how much it means to Isaac to be a leader.

Also, interesting is that no one seems to think or care about Crash wondering around headless - poor Crash.  It’s like they only partially care for him.

He immediately directs them to Thor, which is interesting because Thor’s power, while something, isn’t as useful or powerful as Thor suggests given that it’s an old house and easily dismissed.  

It’s interesting that Thor struggles so much with his power - he’s had it for ages, but he struggles the same way that Trevor stuggles in this scene - and he continues to struggle for ages later, yet, Trevor gains massively control over his power within months with a lot less straining.  

I do enjoy everyone cheering though.  It shows a lot of respect for Thor, who we know is the oldest ghost.  Although I do wonder if they’re cheering him on because A) he’s first, B) they’re a tiny bit afraid of him, and C) he’s got a power when they don’t.

Thor is very much a boaster, for sure.

It’s interesting that Hetty is the one to bring up Isaac’s power.  

Why?  Because A) it would involve Isaac being walked through - something they ALL hate and B) because of Isaac’s response below.  As his BFF, she should know that he dislikes his power and therefore should’ve let someone else bring it up.  

Now, interestingly, I don’t think she realized that she was upsetting Isaac because A) Isaac used to use his power to mess with the livings, and B) she thinks having a power is more important and better than nothing.  

I also think that she probably doesn’t realize that it could be embarrassing - even as they tease him about his power rather than praise it the way they do with Thor’s.  

It’s interesting to me that Isaac reacts this way.  He has the ability to affect the land of the living, something half of the ghosts can’t do - and sure, it stinks, but you’d think - like Nigel mentions in Halloween 2 - that he’d be proud that he CAN still affect things.  

Knowing what we know about how he USED to use his power to affect the livings for fun, it makes me wonder WHEN he decided to no longer reference it or want to even discuss it.  

Okay, so - the first time I watched this scene, I thought that it was definitely Trevor that is the reason that his power is treated as a joke and everyone teases Isaac, BUT on rewatch, I think it’s far more likely that ALBERTA is the one to have started treating Isaac’s power as a joke and gets everyone to tease him.

I think this for two reasons - 

A) Isaac and Alberta aren’t often on the same page (we see it in Viking’s Funeral which is only episode 3), the two of them don’t mesh well and honestly, I think Alberta doesn’t like that Isaac often takes the lead - which is fair.  Who made him the leader?  

And B) Isaac (and Hetty) often consider themselves ABOVE the others.  He even says it in Episode 3, “I wasn’t the type the commoners liked to have an ale with - those dirty stinking filthy commoners” - if this is how he speaks to Alberta AFTER he considers her an “inspiration”, imagine how he spoke to her before that.  It paints an interesting dynamic between them, one that, I believe, puts them at odds with one another and would explain why Alberta might be the one to get everyone to mock Isaac’s power.

Plus, the bonus, is that Alberta gets a power, too.  So, I am sure that given they are at odds with each other that when Alberta got her power (arguably the second best power we see), that he tried to downplay her power out of potential jealousy.  I could see jealousy about their powers playing into the dynamic well.

It’s very interesting to me that despite Isaac being the ‘commander’ and leader of the ghosts, that all of the ghosts have no problem laughing at/teasing him.  They’re heckling him is hilarious and happens here and in episode 2 and 3 when he tries to be a leader and they’re just like - why are you doing this?  I could definitely see Alberta and Sass teaming up to heckle him once Alberta dies (since they play off each other well in the teasing).

Not going to lie - it’s funny that even Pete says something against the power.  Like yeah, they all have an issue with it.  Kind of bites for Isaac.

LOL at this move from Trevor - I love how Trevor’s just standing over there like “Yes, I entertained us for five minutes”.  Which also makes me wonder if he and/or Alberta bring up the power thing often just to make some jokes and gain entertainment.

Although I do feel bad for Isaac here.  Poor guy gets stuck with a lame power because he couldn’t figure out hand-washing (oh wait, he knows, he just rejects it as “silly”).  LOL, Isaac, sucks for you.

Aw, Alberta looks so proud here :). I would be proud, too.  I bet she excitedly shows off this power to everyone!

It’s interesting to me that Super Loyal Pete appears to already have an interest in Alberta.  It doesn’t appear to be as obvious in the pilot as it does in several of the season one episodes (like in Flower’s Article when he says his dating strategy is the ‘getting in the friendzone’ and later, “I’m in” at the end of that episode when Alberta says he’s a good friend for talking about how Alberta helped with the article - ignoring Isaac’s help). 

But he immediately brings up Alberta’s power, and seems very impressed by it, which he does in later episodes as well.  

Aw, Sass is so sad when he says this, but it does make me wonder about Pete’s lectures - does he talk about movies or does he leave that to the other ghosts?

 Totally love this gif with Trevor - he’s got a GREAT pose (That man is working that half suit) - but also, Trevor thinks being stuck with ghosts that he can’t talk to about movies and parties is hell - just wait, Trev, there’s a real hell out there, and good news - your hell is about to get better.

Anyway, just paused ‘cause damn he looks good.

I split the scene here because Tumblr is dumb and wouldn’t save too many :(. However, I wanted to end Part 1 of this scene on Trevor and his amazingness in this gif.  

Part 2 coming soon!