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prettyboysdontlookatexplosions · 3 years

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@dressrosaa and anyone else unfamiliar with pretty little liars, a postmodern tone poem about girlhood and violence, an experiment in storytelling divorced from linear time about how all cops are bastards and dads are even worse, one of the most bafflingly homophobic pieces of media i have ever seen despite the fact that the showrunner for all seven seasons is literally a lesbian like GIRL are you OKAY blink twice for I NEED THERAPY:

pretty little liars tells the story of four friends: spencer hastings (deranged genius/former and future speed addict, perfect); hanna marin (blonde shoplifter/recovering bulimic, an angel we don’t deserve); emily fields (gay swimmer, has no personality but it’s hard to tell if that’s because pll is homophobic or because shay mitchell CANNOT act but is almost hot enough to make up for it); and aria montgomerry (the fucking goddamn worst i know it’s wrong to hold this much hate in my heart for a sixteen year old who spends the ENTIRE show being sexually preyed upon but in my defense it is fiction and frankly barely even that; truly the relationship between pretty little liars and our normal human understanding of narrative is tenuous at best; the point is if aria were real she would be deserving of infinite compassion but she is not so she just sucks). a year after their queen bee alison disappears, her body is found, at which point they all start getting texts from the mysterious “A,” who knows their secrets with NSA-bugging-a-therapist’s-office precision and seems to have nothing to do in life other than to torture them into constantly endangering themselves or betraying each other or doing other horrible things that will then hang over their heads for 800 years.

PLL is sort of like what if a classic dead blonde whodunit has a nightmare octopus baby with jj abrams “mystery box” storytelling spliced together with a sense of pacing even more deranged than the magicians at its most unhinged; the reason i make so many jokes about its lack of interest in physical spacetime is because it’s technically canon that two and a half entire seasons, during which among other things spencer has a nervous breakdown and an addiction relapse and goes to rehab and then gets out of rehab T W I C E, takes place between the first week of school and thanksgiving break. it is not by any means a “good” show and it’s pretty clear that any “ideas” in it were there by accident, but watching 6 seasons in a month was one of the most enthralling television experiences of my life, and it really does love to remind you that no men on earth are good (*except for hanna’s street rat hacker boyfriend caleb played by tyler blackwell whose face makes me feel extremely safe who is the most perfect dreamboat in the history of televisual dreamboats). part of its unhinged M. O. is of course keeping you constantly guessing about who “A” is, taking you through like 7000 red herring reveals (along with some real reveals later retconned as beta-A’s working for the real A - i’m telling you this shit is fucking nuts) in which we spend a couple episodes thinking (if we have never watched a television show before) that so and so must be A, only to have their nefarious behavior explained away by some other mechanism.

i’m giving this context because i am taking your inquiry about the throwaway reference i made as a chance to explain my favorite of the A fake-outs, which centers on ezra fitz. who is ezra fitz? he is a demon in human disguise. he beats out craig manning on degrassi for worst fictional boyfriend in the history of teen melodrama. he is a dude who macks on a fifteen-year-old aria montgomery at a bar the weekend before school starts and then turns out to be, surprise! HER ENGLISH TEACHER. because the show, despite being incredible and amazing and iconic, is also very bad, their relationship, which goes on and off the entire seven seasons and winds up endgame, is sold as like a torrid and angsty secret affair, and not the creepiest thing that has ever happened. despite the fact that ezra is the closest the show has to a male lead and played by the second hottest dude on it, in season 4 they were running out of A candidates and started giving us shady clues to ezra’s shadiness, discovered and mostly put together by spencer, who simultaneously was coping with the stress of trying to get into an ivy league college while also saving herself and her friends, all of whom take turns sharing one brain cell leaving her to do all the thinking, from the constant assault of a blackmailing emotional terrorist who at this point has also tried to kill them several times. one time aria winds up in a box on a train next to a dead body and also it’s halloween and adam lambert is performing on the train, god when riverdale season 1 was good i thought riverdale was like what if pretty little liars but on purpose but with the benefit of hindsight clearly PLL had what riverdale fucking WISHES it could.

in order to deal, spencer has fallen on her old pill-popping ways (for, just to reiterate, the second time after leaving a mental institution in the span of like 10 weeks), and JUST as she is on the verge of really PROVING that their english teacher is A, she suffers a stimulant-induced psychotic break i.e. gives the show their framing device for doing a Theme Episode around the theme of Film Noir, where everything is in black and white and everyone talks funny. you can watch a clip here to get the flavor. sidebar at this point alison has appeared to every single character i think and it’s like still fully a mystery whether they all individually hallucinated her at times of stress or if she’s secretly alive. once again this show owns.

anyway her friends totally freak on spencer when she tells them her theory, because she is literally the only person in town with a brain, but then we get this amazing episode where aria (a child) is at her english teacher’s cabin for the weekend and he’s acting exactly like a serial killer the entire time and she starts to have doubts and has a very tense ski lift ride with him and THEN! THEN what’s amazing is that ezra is NOT A, but in explaining why he has been acting so shady despite not being A they manage to somehow make him not ONLY worse than an english teacher who was fucking his high school student but ALSO make him POSSIBLY WORSE THAN AN ACTUAL MURDERER IMO, because it turns out that he met alison briefly before she died/fake died and then got obsessed with her death and SO he came to town and got a job at the school AND MADE OUT WITH THIS DEAD TEENAGE GIRL’S EQUALLY TEENAGE FRIEND IN THE BAR THAT DAY AND PURSUED A SEXUAL RELATIONSHIP WITH HER AS HER ENGLISH TEACHER.............................................. IN ORDER TO DO RESEARCH FOR A TRUE CRIME BOOK. LITERALLY the most incredible thing i have ever witnessed on television. it’s SO incredible and PLL is SO far from being what you could call a “normal” “story” that my love for it is not even diminished by the fact that aria eventually takes him back because this show is evil and she is stupid (again i would NOT say that of an ACTUAL child victimized by an english teacher/pathetic truman capote wannabe, but aria is made up and not around to hear about how bad she sucks and i hate her) (my god she’s so bad guys like you simply cannot watch the show and retain empathy for her it WILL break you). it does help that in between those things ezra gets his dumb ass shot. yeah for “love” or whatever but like he deserved it i’m not gonna complain.

anyway i hope that helps clarify matters. just to stress the important part, this is not in the top 10 most deranged things that happened on this show. one time A snuck into a dentist’s office and knocked hanna out with laughing glass and implanted a tiny strip of paper in her gums which when the liars extracted it later read DEAD GIRLS DON’T SMILE. another time for a fashion show they were getting dressed up and one of them realized she was wearing a corset made of human finger-bones. they all go to jail because they have been framed but then on the way to jail they get kidnapped in an underground bunker styled to look like their childhood bedroom where A makes them milgram experiment each other for three weeks. watching this show will literally change the structures of your brain. i heard it’s finally legal in oregon now.

#pll

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ben-the-hyena · 3 years

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Okay so after YEARS of inactivity in the HM fandom, it is time to make some changes to some headcanons I had that aged badly (feel free to ask me for more details about stuff I will not talk about here because I didn't change them)

I had a Mary-Sue OC named Sally Meaker who was supposed to be the first wife and victim of Mr Meaker (an unused concept character I reused as a semi OC, he was an inspiration to both Ghost Host and Constance since he is a black widow who hung himself after he accidentally killed his beloved cat in one of his murders) who forever felt betrayed and sad as sweet as she was and she had a chatse crush on Ezra. Lmao bullshit. I'm keeping the origin story aspect but I think I am going to make her bitter and weary about everyone so that she won't have be "boohoohoo sweet" anymore as well as considering having her and @papabirdurskeks' Oswald have a relationship or at least feelings. The thing with Ezra : to the trash ! I see Ezra as a playboy so having him want to comit himself felt so off and they would have clashed too much in personalities, so to the bin with it. Also made her full name Salomea

Finally gave Mr Meaker a first name too, Beauregard

As I recently said, the Phantom Manor changes and the Disney Parade that goes with it now has me think Henry Ravenswood/the Phantom lusts over his own daughter hence his obsession in killing all men around her. As a mortal and as long as his wife Martha was around, he kept it bottled up oggling at their daughter in secret, but when he returned as a ghost and saw Martha had not returned, that was free real estate, nobody could judge him again and he was all powerful and unstoppable. He now wants to keep her "pure" until she would finally give in to him and stop being a waiting bride. Give her time, she will give up and he would finally be able to take her, he thinks. Wouldn't be surprised if in his folly he would want to marry her too since now it can't be a deadly sin anymore since they already are dead (I FEEL SO DIRTY WRITING THAT...). Plus reminder I HC he can shapeshift and is Mélanie in the end of both old and new ride

I don't remember if I ever wanted to do anything with Mélanie's heart necklace since it was given by her fiancé and according to a Disney parade beats like a real heart (and who knows maybe it was what beats in her tombstone) but now what if the whole time her fiancé's soul was locked in there by her fathee and she has no idea that all this her love was there with her because the Phantom knew she would no idea to look in there ? The heart beats when she has strong emotions as a result of her love and loneliness reacting to his presence inside without her to know what it means

Changed the meetcute between Emily and the Hatbox Ghost. It used to take place on a stormy night after he had to find shelter in the first building he would see aka the Gracey Mansion and bang at the door (since I HC she is a Gracey, daughter of Master Gracey who died young when she was a baby), and it would be a love at first sight and courting for some months or years I wasn't sure until proposal. Now, I go with her uncle and her aunt (the Ghost Host and Constance, siblings of the mate Master Gracey in my HC) being worried that at 21 she still had no suitpr and fearing she would end up as a spinster, so one day when a rich hat seller and hatter would come to bargain, they would find the occasion to push him to her hoping she would say yes with time (they didn't hate him yet, reminder for those who forgot my HCs they would hate him when they would find out he took her before marriage and the only reason they wouldn't have killed him was because they already were engaged at that point lol) Hattie/Randall Pace was very confused and awkward like that was not planned at all and he didn't want to force that stranger albeit beautiful woman and Emily was MAD because back then she and Little Leota (childhood friend) were fawning over some young and handsome but poor lumberjack who was interested in return, so she was grumpy and stubborn around Mr Pace. To the point of seeing the lumberjack in secret as superficial as he was like a sort of Gaston minus the evil, even speaking of eloping some day because the world so uuuunfaaair. After some weeks, Emily being a good person would apologize for being so rude to Randall telling her that she just is not interested and felt forced, Randall reassuring he doesn't plan to marry her either abd they could just start all over as good friends, pretending to be courting when her aunt and uncle are around but nothing concrete. And yet it would be after months of being friends and seeing they had a perfect chemistry and a lot in common or complementary they would actually fall in love no matter how ugly he was and even if that was technically arranged, hesitating (the time she realized what these feelings were) in eloping with the lumberjack or not and ending up refusing him at the very last moment when the departure was planned. Of course being superficial and just seeing her as pretty and having any pretty girl he wanted, he went "HMF. Frigid bitch bye" and left. So now she and Randall would truly court each other until he would propose 2 years later. If you remember my old posts you know how it ends up for them : wedding, murderered on their wedding night in the train that was leaving for their honeymoon by Mr Meaker who needed their wagon to hide after he had just killed his recent wife and needed to pass it not as his doing but a serial killer's (stabbed his bride and beheaded and hid his head a buttler with whom he switched clothes so that people would think it was him so he could run away from that state, stabbed Emily and beheaded Hattie whose head he hid in his hatbox), return as ghosts etc

Yeah I never decide myself on Emily's age lol now I see her as 23 when she dies

As for the Hatbox Ghost I used to imagine there was a big age gap like 40 and 50 and that he needed a cane making him look like an old man because he had ruined his back falling from a ladder one day he was carelessly organizing his hat shelves in his shop but I scrapped that. Now he is 30 only but just looks old and ugly. Hunchbacked ? He was boen with a hunch. Shrunken with age ? He is just short, the hunch gives an illusion of age shrink. The need for a cane ? He limps because he was birn with a leg longer than the other, not very visible to the eye but he sure feels it when he walks or stands (see how he slightly leans to a side). Balding ? The poor guy had no luck, RIGHT before his wedding the barber didn't ger his request right and shaved the top of his head which he horrifically hid with his hat reassuring it would grow back anyway but he died hours later and so is forever a bald ghost

Emily is au naturel for her wedding and as a ghost, used to HC because she wanted to but now I think it would make a cute and fun parralel she and Hattie would laugh off if she too had gotten unlucky right before the ceremony and her boudoir and all the products on and in it collapsed under the weight of a big crate Little Leota carelessly put on it "of course you need all these jewels" *bam* *CRASH* "..."

Always drew a face to Emily despite being in my HC the faceless Bright Eyes bride using the excuse the animatronic did have traits in the light of day. But I am actually starting to get very attached to her truly be faceless and considering it, tell me what I should do (and how kisses and eating would work)

Used to imagine Little Leota died by climbing a tree branch to see Emily's train departure better and falling down a river and drowning. Now I see her going up the attic and leaning too much over the window, slipping, falling and dying. Nobody would notice since all would be partying inside the house, only Madame Leota would realize right before dying herself overwhelmed by ghostly energies (all these tragic deaths coinciding in that small aera caused a sort of of paranormal short circuit in her magic ball that snatched her life away too, like in my old HC, but now in my old HC I leave it ambiguous if that truly was what killed her or the grieving shocking knowledge through her divination gift her daughter had died like all these deaths that same night and that caused the short circuit)

Also I read on TV Tropes Madame Pandora actually CAN materialize outside of her ball fullbody and all but just chooses to be inside it most of the time because it is her comfort zone. That's funny and cute and I did always see her super introverted especially with everything that happened to her so I accept it

Madame Leota and her daughter Little Leota randomly lived in the mansion in my old HC because she offered frequent divinations in exchange for being accomodated she and her baby daughter now she was freshly widowed and homeless. Now in my new HC inspired by a bit of one of the canon lores (again there are so many no wonder fans give up and just take pieces here and there to build their own fanon lol) she and her baby daughter had to run away from place to place for being "witches" until Master Gracey the Ghost Host/Vincent Gracey took pity and allowed them in against Constance's wish, and so it is a thanks Madame Leota offers divinations and helped the family that was starting to get low on money redo their wealth. Also stopped that weird idea I had of the Ghost Host being a creep on a grown Little Leota ew wtf was my younger self on

Used to imagine Emily's mother who died in childbirth would be named Elizabeth Henshaw like the bride in the movie but given how they had no common point married to a Gracey aside (and this time not even out of love at all but just arranged) and are not even of the same race, I scrapped it. I need to find her a name now

Used to imagine May and Victor were related to Phineas and that before himself died he was grieving his daughter and grandson who died in the swamp. That went nowhere so now I just see them as unrelated. Keeping him as the doctor of the town who already knew the Graceys before death though

I know Ezra is balding but using the excuse that his newest animatronic has more hair than before I will go with the "Dick Dastardly the 3rd" logic and have him have more hair he combs a bad way making him look like he's balding when he's not. Also enhances his attractiveness since I keep the HC he was a handsome lady's man in his lifetime

I used to imagine like a lot Master Gracey was the Master of the House, and thus despite being the middle child in my HC because I stupidly had their father prefer him over his own brother the Ghost Host. But not only was that forced family drama, I learnt "master" was just a title young upper men too young to be called sir since it does fit with I imagine him he was 18 when he died. So now the Ghost Host truly is the Master of the House from birthright after all, and not just because his brother died early

Speaking of Master Gracey, used to have him HC his ghost only looks like his final looks in his changing portrait without taking account of the middle looks. So now HC he actually shapeshifts too like the Phantom, or rather like Mélanie since it's only altering his OWN age and looks (young, old, corpse and skeleton) ; for indeed now Mélanie can do the same : young, old, corpse, skeleton. Maybe more age ranges too

Also hesitating in making him gay or bi

As you guys know I love to HC there are several Beating Heart Brides because I think every unique design is cool and reflects different personalities and that having to choose one would be a waste for me, and that Emily is the faceless Bright Eyes bride because she was one of the earliest if not THE earliest to some people who count that picture with an undetermined date as if it were a first or a concept and also because she's the one bride shown standing next to Hattie on the one piece of merchandise he is with a bride (COME ON SHE IS CANONICALLY HIS BRIDE ACCORDING TO A 1969 AUDIO WHY HAS THERE BEEN ONLY ONE FUCKING PIN SINCE 1969 THEN !?!). However I used not to count the Tokyo Bride and consider she looked too much like the middle Baby Face blue bride and that she just was her with her veil down. SUMIMASEN NANI THE FUCK How did I ever think they ever looked alike and could be one and only person !? Baby Face as her name says looks the youngest of the brides and innocent where the Tokyo Bride not only doesn't have the same face structure and hair at all she has a very mischievous smirk making her look everything but innocent. Given how the imagineers originally wanted the bride as evil until the following years made her tragical and sympathetic until Constance came along, I now officially adopt the Tokyo Bride as her own person in my fanon cast and make her a black widow just like Constance. Let us say she just arrived to the Haunted Mansion later like 1983, and that her name is Priscilla Emily Boogeyman Voodoo Gore Cavanaugh De Claire Meaker born Vampire, who lived inna similar lifestyle as the Addams Family (reminder I HC it's the same universe), 5 husbands she killed and one who actually killed because he was Mr Meaker (she was the one he killed before he ran away to that one train and killed Hattie and Emily in the process) which actually did break her heart since for the first time she was marrying out of love and willing to put her greed and murderous needs aside. But as betrayed as she was and resulting in her to travel to Tokyo to be depressed and alone there (being half Japanese she wanted to stay in the family home forever to be sad there far from America ; plus since it was a sort of Addams Family place they were okay with seeing her again as a ghost "aw sweetie look what happened to you you should have waited for them all to die out instead of offering them their ggist shapes so early as kind of you it was-" "shut up you mix up everythting"), she got better and decided to start anew by travelling back to that town back to her mischievous self and found shelter in that Haunted Mansion with other Beating Heart Brides like her. After all she, is evil only if you marry her and are a walking wallet to her eyes, she is not the friendliest and is creepy and sadistic in her humor and morals but she is an okay buddy, it's just she was raised into knowing murder and death are alright since well extreme goth aesthetic. When Emily's aunt Constance would have to move in with them in 2006 because her own house got destroyed to build a hotel, they both were cold at first to have to "live" with another black widow because it is THEIR gig, but they got better with time. And in faaaaaact I am tempted to ship them lol

Hesitating in making Constance a closetted lesbian hence why she could never ever get attached to any man and just see them as walking wallets whose access was unlocked through murder

If you guys remember my headcanon for the Spinster Bride, I had her be enthusiastic over finally getting married and she was killed by Mr Meaker on their wedding night because she was a rich cabaret owner and she was the one he killed before killing Emily and Hattie. Nope now in my new version of the story she never met Mr Meaker, and on the contrary she was a voluntary spinster because she always rejected her suitors her mother brought her because they were a rich family abd she only wanted to do sssssCANdalous business with her cabaret, therefore bringing shame to the family by getting old and not getting married and doing an unholy job ! So when she was in her late 40's someone, Mr Roberts, finally accepted to marry her again after years of suitor silence, her old mother grew hopeful again and seeing how old her mother was getting the Spinster Bride (reminder I also call her Victoria Ramsley or (H)Auntie Vicky) sighed and accepted. However her will for freedom during the ceremony took over and she said "I don't". That was the LAST straw for her mother who couldn't take any more rebellion and humiliation and grabbed a big candelabra and stabbed her here and there on the altar in a fit of madness

Also decided to rename the Corpse bride and the Baby Face bride I used to respectively call Emilia Cavanaugh and Alice Cavanaugh. Now I call them respectively Emily Sarah "Sal/Sally" (she never liked her first name and that helps since now she haunts with an Emily) Little and Emilia Alice "Millie" (that way I use her 2 fan names) Little. I give Sal's (new nickname she used to differentiate herself from Sally Meaker) boyfriend and fiancé the name John O'Hannon and her and Millie's cruel heartless father (reminder he didn't five a fuck about them, engaged Sal or back then "Emilia" to an old man but she eloped to marry her fiancé, upon finding out the father just decided he would marry Millie or back then "Alice" instead ; Millie commited suicide stabbing herself before the ceremony and meanwhile the old fiancé was mad the first girl would cheat him so he followed her to her secret ceremony shot her an arrow during it) Caleb Little, and the old fiancé and murderer Mr Gorelieu

Used to HC the changing portraits were ghosts of people who would look like a gorgon, a panther etc but nah now it's just the portraits changing out of alteration. Pluuus maybe instead of being ghosts they could be monsters, I hesitate in putting monsters and zombies (like the claustrophobic coffin man) on top or the 999 happy haunts since now I see it as the same universe as Petit Vampire and Addams Family where all these creatures exist

Used to headcanon there was Heaven and Hell. Now I leave it ambiguous, there just is an afterlife. Also had that it was just out of pure fate that some didn't join but remained in Earth as ghosts. Now since I make it fit the Petit Vampire movie continuity I apply its same lore that you become undead if you had gone through pain in all meanings of the term. And it does fit the HM ghosts too

Will see what I can do more but if you guys want more details, ask me !

#haunted mansion #moi #ocs #name #age #phantom manor

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