Stephanie Lauter is initially defined by her archetype as the popular girl in high school, but she must have been so lonely before Pete. Her mother is dead. Her father hates her and makes no attempt to hide it except to protect his reputation, constantly insulting, belittling and exerting authority over her when he isn’t busy with politics. She talks back to him, but doesn’t deny his descriptions of her. Miss Tessburger is the same. Her apparent friendships with the other cool kids, the kind of people who openly state the belief that looks are everything (not so different a paradigm to the one her father lives by), seem to be shallow and distant. Max rules the main popular clique with an iron fist to the point that they all stop bullying immediately and the school’s rigid social hierarchy crumbles once his influence is gone; and yet despite him having enough respect for her to try to protect her from what he believed were the undead during the prank, she was unaware of how big a problem his bullying was until she saw what he did to Pete, so she can’t have ever been that enmeshed in his circle. She dismisses her kindness to the losers as “the bare minimum” rather than lean into the potential for real friendships with them or leverage it to have power in this new group. It’s almost as if she doesn’t want to mislead them into thinking that she’s worth their time.
She’s cool because she acts like she doesn’t care about anything, and why would she? Life has never given her anything to care about. In fact, it’s punished her for caring. No matter what she does, her dad tells her that she’s worthless and stupid, so she stops trying to do well in school and starts sneaking out to parties full of alcohol and following through on flirting with the football players. She might as well make her body feel alive, as she can’t fix the fuck-up in her skull. Her phone is legitimately what she cherishes most in life. It can’t love her back or hug her or make the real world better, but at least it gives her an escape. It’s her space to control. Her pictures that she likes to look at, her music that drives her dad’s words out of her head. Her private conversations with people she chooses. At least it’s hers. (It isn’t. Her dad has been bugging it since she was twelve.)
Then Pete is nice to her, and in two weeks he becomes what she cherishes most.
Then she has to kill him. And shouldn’t she have seen this coming? Shouldn’t she have learned her lesson by now? Caring just means you have something to lose. That’s why she never wanted to love him like she does.
She pulls the trigger.
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not me listening to Next Time again and being this close to sobbing. because, like…yeah. this song really gets the constant pain of separation that so many Hatchetfield characters go through. Paul and Emma will only connect right before it’s too late for everyone, before the universe ends. Lex and Ethan will have each other, but they’ll be separated by something beyond their control, whether by death or running to protect those they love. Tom and Becky will have loved each other long ago, lose each other, and find each other again, before tragedy. Duke will fall for Holloway each time, but she knows he’ll always have to forget her. Pete and Steph will find each other, but only after they’ve lost so much that they loved before. But they all have to believe that they’ll find each other in the next timeline, get to love each other again, if only briefly.
anyways, Hatchetfield, stop breaking my heart challenge (impossible).
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Imagine Bruce starting therapy and learning about all these cool new tricks and gadgets that can help with emotional regulation and getting super invested (because I mean, c’mon, the dude’s like the king of gadget hoarding, he’s got a utility belt for goodness sake)
Then imagine the learning curve of him realizing that just because something works great for one of his kids, doesn’t mean it works for all of them, as illustrated by this memorable incident:
Jason gets really upset and starts having a minor panic attack about something
Bruce, proud owner of 14 new weighted blankets (in various styles, weights, and sizes), tries to wrap his adult son up in one to ground him
After all, Bruce himself finds them super comforting because it’s basically a socially acceptable alternative to wearing a massive Kevlar cape 24/7 like he’d do if he could
(Tim loves them too, so like, kid tested, parent approved™️)
Ends up totally backfiring when the added weight & restricted movement sends Jason into a full-blown flashback of digging out of his own grave, taking this panic attack from like a 4 to a 10
Whoops
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Rules: shuffle your 'on repeat' playlist & post the first ten tracks, then tag ten people. If you're not on spotify, just share ten songs that you have on repeat.
screech's tale - ren
prologue - ren
what was i made for - billie eillish
this river between us - big fish the musical
jenny's tale - ren
just a man - epic the musical : the troy saga
the gold -- phoebe bridgers version - manchester orcestra, phoebe bridgers
daughter of the sea ( lullaby ) - sharm
haunted ( taylor's version ) - taylor swift
the torture tango - spies are forever
Tagged by: @sleazeballtm !
Tagging: @fearstouch , @andessence , @lazaruhs , @mvndrvke , & @butnobodyhome !
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Hey CJ 👋 I hope you’re doing well in life.
I’m on the same page as you, when it comes to taking a step back from TWDG & the fandom. And, coming back to the games after sometime & seeing it in a different light. Some things that didn’t click with you back then, makes a bit more sense now.
Also, I’m curious.. what are thoughts on true colors? Steph & Ryan? 👀
Hello, my friend! 👋 Been a while! But yeah, I'm doing fine; a lot of the usual work with writing fic and blog posts in between.
Yeah it's funny to step away from a fandom you're so engrossed in for so long, like twdg was such a huge part of my life back in 2018-2020 with me running this blog, writing fic, and streaming. Now I'm just in a completely different headspace in general, and looking at the games now, they're still amazing but my reasonings are different. Also I talk about the comics a lot, which isn't something I would've guessed I'd be doing. If you go back to when they were announced, I made posts being like "yeeeeeah I dunno if I'm gonna read them :/" jokes on me. I read them multiple times, I need to make that useful haha.
As for LiS True Colors, I actually super loved it?? way more than I ever did the first LiS game?? though I think I might've loved it for the wrong reasons. I don't know, I haven't actually looked into what LiS fans thought of it compared to the other games, but for me it was a "perfect time, perfect place" game in the moment. To me the whole thing was nearly a perfect escapism game; the music is an A+, the entire town is gorgeous and covered in flowers and woods, Alex gets to live in a nice apartment for free [the true fantasy], there's a whole LARP campaign to play through, a flower festival where I've never been so conflicted on who to give a rose to, and overall just the coziest vibes. I swear, I spent most of the game just wandering around the town looking at all the flowers, it was great.
Like if Gabe didn't die and True Colors was just about Alex moving to this fantasy-like small town and working through her issues with the help of her powers, I would've been 100% on board. I didn't mind the mystery, though I totally guessed Jed would be the twist villain given the first episode immediately presents him as a hero who saved a bunch of people in the mines, I was like "Oh did he now... mmhmmm mmhmmm and he's Ryan's dad, oohhh he's gonna be this game's Jefferson-" except he was done better than Jefferson imo. He didn't turn into a cartoon character and his motivations behind the cover up were interesting. He didn't do it for the aesthetic like Jefferson did. And in the end I got everyone to side with me, except Charlotte because I told her to take the money so she wanted to speak out but couldn't, which was honestly fine with me like take their money, send Ethan to college, we'll stab Typhon just fine without your vocal support.
I liked most of the characters, except for Diane and Mac, though I reluctantly disliked Mac less by the end... Diane can suck an egg, though. I don't think I've ever wanted to throw a character out a window more than when Alex came back all bloodied with a bullet wound on her head as she exposed the truth and when she asks why no one's saying anything, Diane just goes, "We don't want to embarrass you" kjlkajdslkjalkjdl LADY DON'T PISS ME OFF
As for Ryan and Steph, I liked them both, trying to choose between them was absurdly difficult. It was like True Colors saw how easily I picked between Louis and Violet and took it as a challenge to create Ryan and Steph specifically to stump me. I mean, soft boy who loves nature, goes out of his way to be kind and helpful to those around him, has a slow build up to being emotionally available with someone he trusts, and has some daddy issues? A girl with pretty brown eyes who loves DnD and LARP, has a passion for music and will deflect with humor, who knows who she is and is eager to help those around her, and who isn't just another rehash of Chloe? They knew what they were doing; they dressed Steph up in as a witch after having Ryan act like a goof acting like enemy creatures, they were made for me.
Having done both routes, I do prefer Steph. I adore her and Alex together, but Alex and Ryan are super cute, too.
It's not a perfect game and there are issues in the writing but honestly, I don't care. I had a good time. I was engaged. I looked at every single flower and kissed a pretty girl so good that the world exploded. What a great game.
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