#there is LITERALLY no excuse for it other than foreshadowing

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

“red flowers”: fae, vargas camp 2, and glorious masquerade

THERE’S SOMETHING IN VARGAS CAMP 2 THAT MADE ME DO A DOUBLE TAKE 👁️ 👄 👁️

So in 2-2, the pixies of the forest are trying to put out the campfires. The boys then talk about how there was a miner's campfire a while back that caused a forest fire, which naturally spooked the local fairies. AND THEN VIL GOES AND DROPS THIS DOOZIE OF A LINE:

EXCUSE ME, VI L SIR??????? ?? ? ???? ? ? ?? ? ? ? Did you just say RED FLOWERS? Is that not similar to the CRIMSON FLOWERS/LOTUSES that ROLLO tried to use to establish a magicless Twisted Wonderland in Glorious Masquerade?!

ADDENDUM: I learned recently (very shortly after this post went live, actually!) that the “red flowers” may also be a reference to what the animals in the live action Jungle Book call fires. I’m not personally familiar with this film, so I’ll be running with the crimson lotus/Glorious Masquerade connection for the duration of this post!!

Looking at how the phrases are written in Japanese, they use the term 赤い花 ("akai no hana"/red flower) in Vargas Camp and 紅蓮の花 ("guren no hana"/crimson lotus flower) in Glorious Masquerade. Crimson is basically a specific kind of red, and lotus is just a certain type of flower. Even more damning is that fact that in 3-8 of Glorious Masquerade, Malleus EXPLICITLY describes the spreading crimson flowers as having "a brilliance like that of fire". You can see from images of the crimson lotus that they do, indeed, seem to glow like fire.

If you look at the real life timeline of these events releasing, it also coincidentally lines up!! Like, the original release of Vargas Camp 2 (for JP server) was in mid to late SEPTEMBER 2022. Then Glorious Masquerade would come out mid to late OCTOBER 2022. Vargas Camp 2 was literally the new story event that came out RIGHT BEFORE Glorious Masquerade... WAS THIS FORESHADOWING??????????????? And even more importantly than that... What does this mean for fae??????

One could call "red flowers" just a poetic way for the pixies to label something they don't understand. But what's confusing is that there are clearly also fire pixies living in the forest; we see several of them in Vargas Camp attacking the students. It's not as though the fairies are unfamiliar with fire itself, so why not just call the campfires 'fires'?? What if... (and stick with me here) the pixies named the campfires thus because it's potentially a reference to something far deadlier (than even the forest fire) that they experienced or heard of in their history? In the time period of ~400 years ago shown to us in book 7, we learn that human invaders drove fae out of their homes and began mining their land for resources. This, more specifically, impacts the Briar Country up north, who are fighting against humans that arm themselves with iron (something which appears to repulse the fae). These humans are also known to use deceptive tactics, such as distracting the messenger team of Lilia and co. while they launch an assault on Mallenoa's castle, where she and her unborn son are. So... what's to say they wouldn't resort to other underhanded means as well? Mean such as... utilizing a flower known to suck out the magic from living beings :))) like maybe the... crimson lotus, perhaps?

In Glorious Masquerade, we learn that the crimson lotus has been extinct for a long time now. They were destroyed by humans centuries ago because of how dangerous they were to mages. We don't have an exact number of years, but "centuries" is enough to land it in the rough ballpark of the human-fae war. Malleus himself, who is canonically 178 years old, didn't even recognize the flowers at first (as very few records of them exist in modern times); this could imply that the crimson flowers were around before he was born, which further supports that they were present during the war era.

What's more, if we look at Maleficent: Mistress of Evil (ie the second live action Maleficent movie), we see a VERY strong parallel to the crimson lotus flower. In the film, we are introduced to the Tomb Bloom, a flower that just so happens to also be red and glows a little like fire.

UNCANNY RESEMBLANCE, NO? 🤡

Tomb Blooms are said to grow on the graves of fairies, and, when mixed with iron, creates "red dust". This red dust is considered deadly to fairies upon contact--and in the film, a fairy-hating queen lures a bunch of fae into a wedding venue to eliminate them en masse with the stuff. The crimson lotus flowers of TWST, meanwhile, are deadly on their own, draining the magic out of any magical being they touch (and permanently depriving them of magic once all the magic has been taken out of someone). For fae, who rely on magic for basically everything (travel, cooking etc.), it would be a miserable existence symbolically synonymous with death.

(Side note: in hindsight, this somewhat explains why Malleus is part of the Glorious Masquerade SSR trio. If the crimson lotus flowers were, in actuality, inspired by the Tomb Blooms (something which was weaponized against Maleficent and her kind), then it just makes so much sense for the antagonist of the event, Rollo, to utilize similar plants against Malleus, who is twisted from the Mistress of Evil herself.)

OKAY, now knowing all of that, here's what I propose as a possible timeline of events if we consider all of what I just said: ~400 years ago, crimson lotuses were plentiful. When the human-fae conflict escalated, the human side decided to play dirty to eliminate those pesky fae--because even the great Draconias would be susceptible to the magic-leeching properties of the flower. However, they discovered, upon repeated experimentation, that the flower could also harm their own mages, so they had to reformulate. Maybe this was when they learned that they could combine iron with the powdered lotus (increased surface area, and therefore also increased potency) to create something even more deadly to fae (like in Maleficent 2). Alternatively, this could contribute for the reasoning for the iron armor they wear in battle; iron repulses fae, but it could also protect them from the crimson lotus flowers due to how much of the skin it covers. For example, the Dawn Knight is said to wear a helmet that completely cover the face, and many Silver Owl NPCs do the same. There is little skin visible, unlike the armor of the Briar Country fae. But anyway, the point is that, some way or another, the humans abused the crimson lotus during this time. Once the war concluded (or in the period of reconstruction that followed), fae and humans came to an agreement to destroy all the lotuses as a part of their peace treaty/negotiations, agreeing that it was mutually beneficial to all magical creatures and mages. Humans were mainly responsible for this extinction, as there was a larger population of them that were magicless and could therefore handle the flowers without consequences. Because of the war engulfing an entire continent, fae in other parts of Twisted Wonderland would have heard about the events, fae migrated out of Briar Country to get away from the conflict, OR the conflict itself was a Twisted Wonderland-wide issue, not just contained within Briar Country. Any one of these could explain why eventually pixies on Sage's Island, in the Silent Woods (where the boys went camping), would know of the calamity caused by the crimson lotuses of the past. When they come across wild campfires, the pixies may be frightened by them due to their resemblance to the crimson lotuses and the trauma associated with war because it's human outsiders that are invading their home and propagating these 'fires'... the same situation as the human-fae war. There was the literal manmade forest fire that was far more recent, yes--but again, this doesn't fully explain why the pixies, who should be familiar with fire, would call it a "red flower" instead of just 'fire'. The association with "red flowers" being dangerous may be a result of what they recall from the war--that crimson flower which sapped away their strength and robbed them of their magic. Then, in modern day, we have Rollo somehow stumbling across seeds and breeding crimson lotuses of his own in secret for his own nefarious purposes. History (mayhaps???) repeating itself??????? ?? ? ????? ??? ??

DKJNsfhbvoqef32ygtr69r137fbofasib IDK, MAYBE I'M JUST TALKING OUT OF MY ASS AND EXTRAPOLATING TOO MUCH FROM LITTLE DETAILS 🤡 I just think it's kind of a fun theory, even if the whole timeline ends up being thrown out the window in the next main story update... Don't mind me, I'm still on my "Rollo will come save us all in a cruel and ironic twist of fate" copium--

#twst #twisted wonderland #Malleus Draconia #Rollo Flamme #Rollo Flamm #disney twisted wonderland #Vil Schoenheit #notes from the writing raven #twst theory #twst theories #twisted wonderland theories #twisted wonderland theory #Maleficent #Maleficent 2 #Maleficent: Mistress of Evil #spoilers #Jungle Book

[whinlatter]

sirius and ginny: a meta (part 1)

“Excuse me, but I care what happens to Sirius as much as you do!” said Ginny, her jaw set so that her resemblance to Fred and George was suddenly striking.’

are you a very brave, very reckless, very hot self-destructive rebel with a treacherous sibling and a flair for christmas decoration, harbouring complex feelings about your mother, close ties to crookshanks the cat and spend your days plagued by the memory of your worst mistakes and dark past? do you find yourself constantly being begged to stay in a state of protective confinement to save your life by a young man with a lightning scar, bad hair and crippling abandonment issues? if so, congratulations! you might be one of harry potter's chosen family members, sirius black and ginevra molly weasley! 

basically - i want to talk about sirius and ginny. these are two characters who don’t share a lot of scenes in canon but who, i think, have some clear (if overlooked) parallels: stubborn, fiercely protective of harry, self-sacrificing, admired, principled, haunted (in different ways) by traumatic pasts and betrayals, with complicated relationships with their families and entirely uncomplicated devoted relationships with someone else’s cat. their narrative arcs are successive, with ginny ascending in significance in the series during sirius’ period of decline and ultimate death. and ultimately, they’re also the two people who become, over the course of the canon series, family to a protagonist desperately seeking to build one. sirius and ginny are the two people harry in canon most worries about, wants to protect, and thinks of as someone who embodies the promise of family and home.

sirius and ginny aren’t mirror images of each other. ofc, ginny also has parallels with the only other family members harry claims in the series, lily and james (i mean, especially james - she’s literally a cocky funny flirtatious chaser with a years-long debilitating mega crush who can also catch a snitch like a champ. come on now). it’s also clear in canon that sirius means more to ginny as a hero/role model/ally against her mother than ginny ever means to sirius. nevertheless, the text puts in work to let the reader know we should think about these characters together as somehow aligned. from the beginning of ootp, there are clues and signals in the text that foreshadow ginny’s emergence as someone important to harry, and that subtly let the reader know that the baton of being harry’s ‘person’ is about to be passed from sirius to ginny, two kindred spirits, after sirius’ death. so that's what this meta is about! (consider this my 700th attempt to show that, as the popular fandom complaint/all of reddit still insist, ginny as a character, and especially the harry/ginny romance, did not ‘come out of nowhere’.)

the following meta is part one of two (and yet it's still too long! sorry about it). o in this part, i look at the period from the end of goblet of fire thru the start of half blood prince, exploring how the text sets up the sirius and ginny parallels as a way of foreshadowing ginny’s emergence as harry’s main love interest and place as a family substitute. the second part (tbc) will be what the memory of sirius does for harry’s view of his relationship with ginny, and the kind of positive - and negative - ways this shapes harry’s ideas about love and what family do for each other. i wrote this meta as a way of thinking through some characterisation choices for my current WIP, beasts. if you're following along with that fic, this meta can be seen as a companion piece especially to my thinking behind chapters ten and eleven, so hope proves helpful for some of my thinking behind the sirius and ginny friendship that appears in that project. it's also dedicated to @ashesandhackles, queen of metas, who has reminded me to post this meta precisely 9 million times because she is a long-suffering saint.

ok - sirius and ginny. let’s goooooo!

sirius and ginny before ootp

before OotP, ginny is absent from any plot connected to sirius. ginny doesn’t know the truth about sirius’ innocence, nor does she know that harry, her brother and her friend are in regular contact with sirius and that harry now as a surrogate father/big brother figure to confide in and seek comfort in.  in fact, in one of ginny’s few appearances in GoF, the narration is unusually insistent that the reader knows how little ginny knows about sirius:

“And have you heard from — ?” Ron began, but at a look from Hermione he fell silent. Harry knew Ron had been about to ask about Sirius. Ron and Hermione had been so deeply involved in helping Sirius escape from the Ministry of Magic that they were almost as concerned about Harry’s godfather as he was. However, discussing him in front of Ginny was a bad idea. Nobody but themselves and Professor Dumbledore knew about how Sirius had escaped, or believed in his innocence. “I think they’ve stopped arguing,” said Hermione, to cover the awkward moment, because Ginny was looking curiously from Ron to Harry. “Shall we go down and help your mum with dinner?” 

the only other tiny crumb of sirius and ginny we get is the news that the owl sirius bought in PoA and gifted to ron as a replacement pet for scabbers has been embraced and named by ginny. sirius gifting a tiny little spitfire of an owl that annoys ron? it's giving foreshadowing, your honour.

the reader, though, knows who sirius is to harry by GoF. throughout this book, for the first time in the series, harry has a person he can claim as something like a family: someone to worry about, someone who cares about him,who can advise, guide and mentor him, as well as offer him support and consolation in difficult times (‘someone like a parent…’) although sirius has not been able to offer harry a stable alternative home to the dursleys due to his status as a wanted man, he’s still filling a role that previously had been vacant in the series: he’s harry’s person, the surrogate parent chosen for him by james and lily. he’s close by, either by the floo or eventually living (at great personal cost) as padfoot in hogsmeade, and he’s present emotionally for harry in ways that prove incredibly meaningful to his young godson. in times of great of distress, sirius is there for harry to meet emotional needs that ron and hermione (understandably, no shade to them) can’t always meet. the floo scene early on in GoF, during harry’s row with ron, is a particularly good example of this:

“Never mind me, how are you?” said Sirius seriously. “I’m —”  For a second, Harry tried to say “fine” — but he couldn’t do it. …Before he could stop himself, he was talking more than he’d talked in days — about how no one believed he hadn’t entered the tournament of his own free will, how Rita Skeeter had lied about him in the Daily Prophet, how he couldn’t walk down a corridor without being sneered at — and about Ron, Ron not believing him, Ron’s jealousy . . . Sirius looked at him, eyes full of concern… He had let Harry talk himself into silence without interruption’.

harry derives enormous comfort from sirius’ presence in his life during GoF. he writes to sirius, he repeatedly turns to him for advice, he worries for him more than he does any other person. sirius fulfils harry’s desire to be kept abreast of important information about voldemort and death eaters, doesn’t sugarcoat news for harry, and makes him feel important, cared for and understood. (harry even shows off to sirius telling him about how much of a slay the first task was. ugh). by the time of the third task, sirius is sending harry daily owls, a constant flow of reassurance and concern (‘He reminded Harry in every letter that whatever might be going on outside the walls of Hogwarts was not Harry’s responsibility, nor was it within his power to influence it. If Voldemort is really getting stronger again, he wrote, my priority is to ensure your safety.’) when harry returns from the graveyard at the novel’s end, it’s sirius who races to his side to advocate for him and offer him both words of comfort and physical affection as he processes the traumatic series of events that constitute the climax of the book’s plot. (my personal favourite part is where harry says ‘wormtail cut me with a knife’ and the text says sirius made a ‘vehement exclamation’, which i can only assume is children’s book speak for ‘fucking hell’.) harry goes to bed: sirius stays with him, a literal guard dog as he recuperates. after the most traumatic events of the series to date, the reader is at least consoled that harry potter has a person now, someone he loves for him to worry about and to worry for him, who catches him on the other side of traumatic events and makes them that bit much more bearable.

sirius and ginny during ootp

with sirius' role in harry's life established in GoF, OotP begins with harry, cooped up and restless at privet drive, angry with ron, hermione, sirius, and dumbledore for abandoning him at privet drive and keeping him in the dark. harry arrives at grimmauld place to find an anxious ron and hermione, with whom harry is angry and frustrated for having left him out of their summer hangs and having neglected him, by his assessment, in surrey. it’s the most conflict we’ve seen in the trio in terms of harry vs ron and hermione, and sets up one of the important themes of the book, which is harry no longer being solely emotionally fulfilled by the people he is closest to, including his two surrogate parents best mates but also his godfather. when he encounters sirius for the first time after the order meeting, he finds him surly, bitter, and depressed, furious that he is confined to his childhood home, and (understandably) much less able or willing to offer harry much in the way of comfort, apology or cheering words (‘Harry, who had expected a better welcome, noted how hard and bitter Sirius’s voice sounded.’) in this sense, the book opens with harry disappointed and/or more distant from all the people on whom he most depends and is usually closest to, and that there therefore is already an absence of a certain kind of emotional support in harry’s life that the plot demands be filled.

fresh off the back of harry’s row with ron and hermione is ginny’s reintroduction to the reader. after years of being so shy in harry’s presence she was often nearly mute, the reader finds that ginny is not only now speaking, but that her presence turns out to be remarkably refreshing. from her opening scene where ginny enters harry’s bedroom at grimmauld place, the reader discovers the new ginny is confident, up to no good, in cahoots with her most troublemaking brothers trying to intercept the order meeting, enterprising in her mischief (and very happy to lie to her mother’s face about it). she’s thoroughly unfazed by harry’s great display of rage that has just startled and upset ron and hermione. (side note: in both ootp and hbp, ginny’s opening scene is her entering harry’s bedroom, which is the kind of foreshadowing i personally find delicious). everyone else is behaving pretty much as they have been up to this point, but it’s ginny who is showcasing behaviours new to the reader, a signal that she might be about to play a different role in the series than she has done up to this point.

cut to the dinner scene. sirius and ginny are in the room together for the first time. sirius is moody: though he’s still able to laugh, enjoying displays of mischief and humour (the twins and the knife), he’s more bitter than harry and the reader have seen him since PoA. it’s an important scene for lots of reasons (not least the sirius v molly beef), but it’s also one where sirius and ginny are repeatedly drawn into mental association in the reader’s mind. it’s also a great scene because the behaviour of crookshanks the cat literally serves to foreshadow the behaviour of harry james potter in ways that are frankly extremely fun.

so! the sirius and ginny hints start small. from the start of the scene, ginny is amused by mundungus the crook (a man, we will learn, so disdained by her mother):

“Some’n say m’ name?” Mundungus mumbled sleepily. “I ’gree with Sirius. . . .” He raised a very grubby hand in the air as though voting, his droopy, bloodshot eyes unfocused. Ginny giggled. “The meeting’s over, Dung,” said Sirius, as they all sat down around him at the table. “Harry’s arrived.” 

sirius and harry, sat at the end of the table, are both greeted by crookshanks, sirius’ old accomplice from PoA:

'​​Harry felt something brush against his knees and started, but it was only Crookshanks, Hermione’s bandy-legged ginger cat, who wound himself once around Harry’s legs, purring, then jumped onto Sirius’s lap and curled up. Sirius scratched him absentmindedly behind the ears as he turned, still grim-faced, to Harry…

when fred and george’s levitation goes awry, flinging a knife at sirius (now that’s how you foreshadow a death), crookshanks bolts: 

‘Harry and Sirius were both laughing… Crookshanks had given an angry hiss and shot off under the dresser, from whence his large yellow eyes glowed in the darkness…’

during the meal, ginny’s with hermione, having a laugh with tonks, a character harry has just met but whom he has already decided to both admire and like. after the meal, when harry’s cheered up a bit and had his crumble (the man loves dessert), crookshanks finally emerges from his hiding place, having been coaxed out from his sulk by - you guessed it - one g. m. weasley:

‘…Ginny, who had lured Crookshanks out from under the dresser, was sitting cross-legged on the floor, rolling butterbeer corks for him to chase.’

a grouchy character, initially drawn to sirius, but prone to lashing out and locking himself away, only to be lured back out into comfort and safety by ginny weasley? wow………. radical

after dinner, the argument between sirius and molly kicks off. sirius is arguing hard for harry’s right to know, though he makes no attempt to advocate for any of the other weasleys or for hermione. ginny’s noticeably singled out in her reaction to this scene, the text highlighting that she is particularly struck by this conflict as if it is of particular personal resonance, including someone standing up to her famously overprotective mother for once:

‘Ron, Hermione, Fred, and George’s heads turned from Sirius to Mrs. Weasley as though following a tennis rally. Ginny was kneeling amid a pile of abandoned butterbeer corks, watching the conversation with her mouth slightly open. Lupin’s eyes were fixed on Sirius.’

of course, molly loses the argument: harry gets to stay for juicy order deets (‘Sirius was right, he was not a child.’) after the row, ginny is the only person forbidden from hearing information about the order’s activities. suddenly, the roles are switched: it’s ginny who’s now furious and bitter to be kept out of the action:

‘“Fine!” shouted Mrs. Weasley. “Fine! Ginny — BED!”  Ginny did not go quietly. They could hear her raging and storming at her mother all the way up the stairs, and when she reached the hall Mrs. Black’s earsplitting shrieks were added to the din. Lupin hurried off to the portrait to restore calm. It was only after he had returned, closing the kitchen door behind him and taking his seat at the table again, that Sirius spoke. “Okay, Harry . . . what do you want to know?”’ 

it’s not just the parallels of confinement between harry, sirius and ginny that are so revealing, it’s also the dual maternal conflicts. ginny loud raging at her own mother sets off the howling relic of sirius’, serving to underline two characters who continue to grapple with maternal relationships that are complex and full of conflict, though by no means solely negative (sirius i see you sleeping in your mother’s bedroom babe. don’t think i think your relationship with walburga is just one of straight hate ok). when ginny later gets knocked down the stairs by fred and george, there’s more direct mrs weasley/walburga parallels, with the two of them literally shouting over each other during the ordeal lol. as such, the readers see that the conflicts being set up for sirius’ character in this book - frustration at confinement, conflict with a mother figure, drawn to more reckless and arguably irresponsible characters (mundungus, the twins) and courses of action - are also conflicts subtly playing out with the new ginny we’re meeting, too.

as the rest of the summer at grimmauld wears on, there are more examples of sirius and ginny foreshadowing. the scenes where the two characters interact serve to place ginny and sirius firmly in the same camp of people harry admires and has fun with, the troublemakers and the rebels. over the prefects issue, ginny not only is sat chatting with the troublemaking adults harry likes most, but actively draws sirius into conversation on the issue, likely knowing the answer will comfort harry, but also showing a curiosity and interest in sirius that suggests she admires him:

“I was never a prefect myself,” said Tonks brightly from behind Harry as everybody moved toward the table to help themselves to food. Her hair was tomato-red and waist length today; she looked like Ginny’s older sister. “My Head of House said I lacked certain necessary qualities.”  “Like what?” said Ginny, who was choosing a baked potato. “Like the ability to behave myself,” said Tonks. Ginny laughed; Hermione looked as though she did not know whether to smile or not and compromised by taking an extra large gulp of butterbeer and choking on it.  “What about you, Sirius?” Ginny asked, thumping Hermione on the back. Sirius, who was right beside Harry, let out his usual barklike laugh…’

ginny’s choice to try and draw sirius into the conversation bears fruit: sirius confirms james was never a prefect, and harry’s sour mood is suddenly lifted. (‘All at once the party seemed much more enjoyable; he loaded up his plate, feeling unusually fond of everyone in the room.’) ginny is thus beginning to provide harry with subtle comfort and reassurance, especially as sirius, struggling with his own confinement,  is taking a less active role in trying to cheer harry up. what i also like is that we have evidence of how ginny views sirius - she’s curious about him and his past, she clearly thinks he and the other new rebellious adults are cool as shit, and she’s drawn increasingly away from her mother’s cautious overprotective approach towards these resistance fighters who prioritise the fight over safety. (it is noticeable to me that ginny does not become a prefect in HBP, suggesting sirius' example proved instructive).

we see more small parallels between sirius and ginny during the cleaning scenes. the battle against grimmauld place is an important symbol of one of the important themes of OotP as a book: a battle over past traumas and their persistent and unwieldy symptoms that are seemingly never-ending. while it’s harry’s experiences that, of course, take centre stage, sirius’, too, loom omnipresent throughout the text. it’s significant, then, that ginny’s own past gets brought up for the first time in three books here, albeit briefly: 

'They found an unpleasant-looking silver instrument, something like a many-legged pair of tweezers, which scuttled up Harry’s arm like a spider when he picked it up, and attempted to puncture his skin; Sirius seized it and smashed it with a heavy book entitled Nature’s Nobility: A Wizarding Genealogy. There was a musical box that emitted a faintly sinister, tinkling tune when wound, and they all found themselves becoming curiously weak and sleepy until Ginny had the sense to slam the lid shut…'

in this moment, we see sirius and ginny singled in the larger group as quick-thinking, shrewd characters, with a good instincts and common sense (if a bit of a tendency to get scrappy). their respective dark pasts are subtly alluded to. sirius whacks a spider trying to attack harry with a book that might as well be entitled my big book of family trauma. ginny, meanwhile, steps in when everybody present starts to be enchanted by a mysterious object luring them into danger by whacking it shut (gee i wonder why!) given this is the book that will see ginny mention the events of CoS for the first time in errrrr three years, it’s significant that the text is careful to draw ginny into this broader theme that unites sirius and harry, the constant reminders of traumatic pasts at every turn. we also see here the revelation that regulus black was a death eater. coming after news of percy weasley’s betrayal, sirius’ bitter dismissal of his younger brother deliberately mirrors ginny and the other weasleys’ attitude towards percy, this sense of pureblood families split over wizarding politics, often fatally. 

while harry fears his expulsion from hogwarts prior his hearing, he continues to fantasise about coming to live with sirius at grimmauld, and about being with a family member and finding an alternative home to hogwarts. sirius, as hermione astutely observes, tries to manage harry’s expectations and not to get his own hopes up: still, when harry is exonerated, sirius is visibly depressed, showing the beginnings of an emotional dependency on harry that harry feels great guilt over.when leaving grimmauld for the start of the school year, sirius, as padfoot, accompanies harry to king’s cross: unlike in GoF, though, he is spotted, and harry begins to worry much more actively about sirius’ vulnerability to capture, about his recklessness and about his judgement. concerned for sirius, and absent ron and hermione, who are in the prefects carriage, the person who stays with harry and offers him company is ginny. she sacrifices her own train journey (presumably with her own boyfriend) to find a carriage with harry and make sure he’s not lonely, bringing him to neville and luna and sorting him out after his embarassing cho run-in. it’s not a coincidence that once again we see ginny here taking care of harry crookshanks:

'“Where’s Crookshanks?” “Ginny’s got him,” said Harry. “There she is. . . .”  Ginny had just emerged from the crowd, clutching a squirming Crookshanks. “Thanks,” said Hermione, relieving Ginny of the cat. “Come on, let’s get a carriage together before they all fill up. . . '

once harry’s back at school, having left sirius behind to languish miserably in london, we see he's more isolated and alone than ever. he’s tormented by umbridge, endlessly (though often unfairly) frustrated with ron and hermione, ghosted by dumbledore, yet absent the more stable, reassuring sirius he came to know in GoF, unable to write candidly to him and faced with a much less well sirius in the opportunities they do have to speak face-to-face. as sirius’ mental health declines as he is shut up at grimmauld, his ability to support harry and comfort him starts to falter, and he becomes a much more uneven source of advice and support, particularly during his car crash floo appearance, where he’s much ruder than he has previously been (cutting off, ignoring their pleas for him to be more cautious, the infamous ‘the risk would have made it fun for james’ moment). this new sirius, clearly struggling, is much more happy to do up guilt trip to his godson than we have seen him to up this point (‘I’ll write to tell you a time I can make it back into the fire, then, shall I? If you can stand to risk it?’ - you petty little shit, padfoot). all of this serves to increase harry’s anxiety about sirius’ wellbeing and reinforce harry’s sense of emotional isolation. even sirius’ encouragement on the DA is, as hermione points out, partly bound up in more selfish motivations (‘I think he’s really frustrated at how little he can do where he is… so I think he’s keen to kind of… egg us on.’)

ginny’s largely absent in this section of the novel. in the brief moments she does appear, it’s to inject humour (eg. her impressions at the DA meeting) and in little reminders that she now has a boyfriend, no longer harbours romantic feelings for harry, making sure the reader continues to hold her mentally apart from harry. harry, meanwhile, misguidedly tries to seek out a relationship with cho chang, who is showing clear signs of her own emotional distress and inability to meet harry’s emotional needs given her own grief. still, among this, there’s still room for some small subtle sirius/ginny parallels. once the DA plot picks up, we have another little sign that ginny weasley and sirius black think somewhat alike:

“Yeah, the D.A.’s good,” said Ginny. “Only let’s make it stand for Dumbledore’s Army because that’s the Ministry’s worst fear, isn’t it?” 

“Trained in combat?” repeated Harry incredulously. “What does he think we’re doing here, forming some sort of wizard army? “That’s exactly what he thinks you’re doing,” said Sirius, “or rather, that’s exactly what he’s afraid Dumbledore’s doing — forming his own private army, with which he will be able to take on the Ministry of Magic.” 

with harry's isolation and need for more emotional support established in this first term, christmas at grimmauld offers more opportunity to subtly develop the sirius and ginny parallels, as well as to highlight ginny’s ability to fill the gaps left by sirius’ decline. after the attack on arthur weasley, the group arrive back at grimmauld:

‘Sirius was hurrying toward them all, looking anxious. He was unshaven and still in his day clothes; there was also a slightly Mundungus-like whiff of stale drink about him. “What’s going on?” he said, stretching out a hand to help Ginny up. “Phineas Nigellus said Arthur’s been badly injured —” 

could this be sirius literally lifting ginny up into plot significance? why yes it could

ofc the weasleys then argue with sirius about their right to go see their father. despite his own frustrations at being trapped at grimmauld, sirius proves the voice of reason and rational decision making against both ginny and the twins’ hotheadedness (ginny asks to borrow cloaks to go to the hospital: sirius: ‘Hang on, you can’t go tearing off to St. Mungo’s!’) crucially, though, when sirius points out that there are bigger things at stake - the work of the order and the resistance movement - it’s ginny who listens:

“Your father knew what he was getting into, and he won’t thank you for messing things up for the Order!” said Sirius angrily in his turn. “This is how it is — this is why you’re not in the Order — you don’t understand — there are things worth dying for!”  “Easy for you to say, stuck here!” bellowed Fred. “I don’t see you risking your neck!”  The little colour remaining in Sirius’s face drained from it. He looked for a moment as though he would quite like to hit Fred, but when he spoke, it was in a voice of determined calm. “I know it’s hard, but we’ve all got to act as though we don’t know anything yet. We’ve got to stay put, at least until we hear from your mother, all right?”  Fred and George still looked mutinous. Ginny, however, took a few steps over to the nearest chair and sank into it. Harry looked at Ron, who made a funny movement somewhere between a nod and shrug, and they sat down too. The twins glared at Sirius for another minute, then took seats on either side of Ginny.  “That’s right,” said Sirius encouragingly, “come on, let’s all . . . let’s all have a drink while we’re waiting…’

there’s a lot going on here: ginny’s willingness to follow sirius’ orders, but also her willingness to accept an argument based on some idea of the greater good before any of her brothers. she and sirius are aligned here, and it’s her decision to accept sirius’ reasoning that proves the catalyst for her brothers to follow. we see here how ginny has come to see sirius: someone she looks up to and admires, an adult whose judgement she trusts and whose worldview she subscribes to. (as a character prone to hero worship - see her view of her big brother bill - i think this is noteworthy, and is behind a lot of my characterisation choices for ginny towards sirius in beasts). but we also see that ginny agrees with sirius' worldview. there are some things worth dying for, and self-sacrifice is part of that.

when harry goes to sirius for reassurance about witnessing arthur’s attack, he finds sirius unable to properly console him and convince him that he was not to blame for arthur’s attack. the reader gets the impression of sirius withholding information from harry (‘He could only see a sliver of Sirius’s face; the rest was in darkness’), and the scene ends with sirius clapping harry on the shoulder and leaving him ‘standing alone in the dark’. while sirius throws himself into christmas preparations, obviously delighted to have company, harry shrinks from the cheer and isolates himself. in the end, ofc, the only person that manages to pull harry out of his dark, brooding thoughts is ginny. the text is careful to note she’s sitting beside him on the tube back from st mungo’s, when he looks very unwell. then, in the ‘lucky you’ scene, she showcases some of the same skills harry first came to appreciate in sirius in GoF. she tells it to him straight: she’s sympathetic, but not overly gushing, and she reminds him of her own intensely frightening experience which she endured alone, something harry can relate to, even if the experience of possession is not.  it’s an important scene for lots of reasons, but it’s also, crucially, the intervention that causes harry’s mood to lift, and he gets to enjoy a christmas with his godfather, the thing he had most wanted in the run-up to christmas, and which becomes the only holiday period harry and sirius ever spend together: 

‘I’m not the weapon after all, thought Harry. His heart swelled with happiness and relief, and he felt like joining in as they heard Sirius tramping past their door toward Buckbeak’s room, singing “God Rest Ye Merry, Hippogriffs” at the top of his voice.’

of course, once christmas is over, sirius slips back into a depressed, gloomy state. harry wants a better goodbye than he gives him, merely giving him a quick one armed hug (there’s a real theme throughout harry and sirius’ relationship of very sparing physical contact on sirius’ part, which is obviously a hole in harry's life ginny will fill in - er - a big way). back at school, harry returns to umbridge’s increasingly draconian rule, maks a disastrous attempt at forging a relationship with cho, and continues to feel lonely, paranoid, and angry. unable to speak to sirius properly via letter or floo - and unwilling to open the present sirius has given him to communicate directly with him, the two-way mirror - harry is increasingly sullen, a mood that only worsens after seeing snape's worst memory.

the easter egg scene is obviously important for hinny for lots of different reasons. but here i just want to highlight how the scene serves to show ginny as both the conduit to sirius for harry, and someone whose behaviour echoes that of sirius in GoF when harry first began to open up to and seek comfort in him. harry is distressed by his now complicated feelings both towards the father he previously revered and towards sirius, who seemed to encourage james’ bullying behaviour. ginny hands harry a chocolate easter egg covered in snitches: chocolate, a canonical source of comfort against dark thoughts, and an egg that reminds him of the love of parent. the act makes him suddenly emotional, though he at first denies he’s upset. ginny presses carefully and sensitively, asking the right questions to get him to confess the source of his worry, waiting for harry to take his time to speak - all behaviours that echo sirius’ own effective listening techniques. ginny’s acquaintance with sirius, and knowledge of how significant he is to harry, is important here, too, and a subtle sign to the reader that he trusts ginny with knowledge about sirius after a long time of having her in the dark about his godfather.  the reader leaves the scene having seen ginny breakthrough to harry emotionally in a way for the second time in the novel, in a way no other character has done (‘he felt a bit more hopeful…’) 

of course, the course of action ginny has set in motion is itself risky and reckless (‘anything is possible if you’ve got enough nerve’ is very marauders as a philosophy). the decision to go ahead with the plan the twins come up with is one harry sees as a decision on whether to be more like james and sirius - a risk taker - or to abandon the hero worship for the marauders he has lived with for so long. in the end, of course, it’s a win for the reckless troublemakers: he chooses to go ahead with the plan the twins have crafted and that ginny has set in motion, and to speak to sirius.

and yet. sirius is still alive - there is not need for ginny yet. for the remainder of the book, ginny has to beg to be included in the trio's plans and to be allowed to be a part of the plot to rescue sirius. she’s is often in conflict with harry, showing a lot of sirius’ bitterness at attempts at containment and to keep her out of the fighting. she grates against harry’s insistence that she is too young and inexperienced, and having to remind the trio that she, too, has come to care about sirius and wants to see him safe: 

“I’ve got a broom!” said Ginny.  “Yeah, but you’re not coming,” said Ron angrily.  “Excuse me, but I care what happens to Sirius as much as you do!” said Ginny, her jaw set so that her resemblance to Fred and George was suddenly striking. 

of course, it all ends in tragedy: sirius, desperate to go to harry’s aid and absolutely gunning for a fight after months of confinement, is killed, leaving harry alone. there a subtle clues that something has shifted in ginny’s relationship to harry and the trio in the scenes after sirius’ death, including ginny positioned as the mirror image to harry in the hospital: 

‘Harry was sitting on the end of Ron’s bed and they were both listening to Hermione read the front page of the Sunday Prophet. Ginny, whose ankle had     been mended in a trice by Madam Pomfrey, was curled up at the foot of Hermione’s bed…’

despite this, in the immediate aftermath of sirius’ death, harry is extremely alone. he is unable to work out what he needs (‘Whenever he was in company he wanted to get away, and whenever he was alone he wanted company.’) he tries to go to hagrid’s, but regrets it (‘He was starting to wish he was alone again’), leaving after hagrid reminds him of sirius’ core traits, an inability to stay out of the fight when he believes in the cause:

“But still, Harry . . . he was never one ter sit around at home an’ let other people do the fightin’. He couldn’ have lived with himself if he hadn’ gone ter help —” 

unlike at the end of GoF, harry is isolated by his grief and the revelation of the prophecy's contents by the end of this book. he goes alone to a secluded corner of the lakeshore, ‘sheltered from the gaze of passersby behind a tangle of shrubs’, and ‘[stares] out over the gleaming water’, and cries alone. there is no sirius or other person to catch him and console him in his grief. his person has died, and there’s a gap in his life again, just waiting to be filled: 

‘Wanting to impress Cho seemed to belong to a past that was no longer quite connected with him. So much of what he had wanted before Sirius’s death felt that way these days. . . . The week that had elapsed since he had last seen Sirius seemed to have lasted much, much longer: It stretched across two universes, the one with Sirius in it, and the one without.’

ginny and sirius parallels in HBP and DH

after sirius’ death, the parallels between sirius and ginny become more important as ginny moves into the centre frame as a character. at the start of HBP, harry arrives at the burrow and discusses his grief over sirius’ death with dumbledore in the burrow broom shed, acknowledging how profoundly the loss of a family member who cares singularly about him is affecting him. ('He felt stupid for admitting it, but the fact that he had had someone outside Hogwarts who cared what happened to him, almost like a parent, had been one of the best things about discovering his godfather . . . and now the post owls would never bring him that comfort again. . . .' beasts readers: there's a reason harry clings to letters!) of course, having reminded the reader of the gap in harry’s life that now needs to be filled, harry goes to sleep, the active reflection on his grief for sirius put to one side so the novel's plot can get underway. he'll go to bed mourning sirius and wake up in a sunlit bedroom. of course, ginny will walk into this bedroom too, only now things will be different: harry potter is back to the search for a loved one, for a family, and he's about to realise ginny is the one he wants to fill it. thus the start of the plot of ginny stepping into the role vacated by sirius beginneth.

so much of who ginny is in HBP is reminiscent of sirius. she frequently leaps into battle as harry’s protector (‘You’re taking orders from something someone wrote in a book?’, ‘Give it a rest, Hermione’), she’s scrappy (RIP zacharias smith), she’s funny and laughs easily in a way that less recalls sirius in the time harry knew him than sirius as harry sees him as a young man, in photographs or memories. she's the one who commits to the insane christmas decorations, determined to cheer everyone up over the festive period as sirius did the year before. she even enjoys the widespread admiration and lust of her peers, a trait that directly recalls sirius being eyed up by his peers in snape's memory. by the novel’s end, after dumbledore’s death, it will be ginny who goes to harry’s side after the climax of the plot and catch him in his grief just as sirius did in GoF, this time over dumbledore’s death: 

‘He did not want to leave Dumbledore’s side, he did not want to move anywhere. Hagrid’s hand on his shoulder was trembling. Then another voice said, “Harry, come on.’ A much smaller and warmer hand had enclosed his and was pulling him upward. He obeyed its pressure without really thinking about it.’

their breakup has sirius all over it. taking place at the lakeshore, the place where harry wept alone over sirius a year prior, harry draws on the circumstances of sirius’ demise as a reason he must break up with ginny (‘Voldemort uses people his enemies are close to.’) the breakup does little to shift what ginny has become in harry’s mind, though, and he spends all of DH thinking of her as he once thought of sirius: the person whose safety he most craves, the person he misses, someone he claims as his, and whom he associates with (now banished) hopes of a home and a family:

“It’s not a problem,” said Harry, sickened by the pain in his head. “It’s your family, ’course you’re worried. I’d feel the same way.” He thought of Ginny. “I do feel the same way.”

of course, echoes of sirius will also come into play during open war. it’s now ginny, not sirius, who is the one left behind for her own protection: in the run-up to the battle, harry finds himself once again faced with the prospect of confining his loved one for their safety, despite their desperation to fight and do the right thing. but these are thoughts for part 2…….

#meta #sirius black #ginny weasley #it's not NOT an aged up sinevra ship agenda #hp meta #hp analysis #hinny #marauders #black family #beasts

[dollypopup]

Marina, Polin, and the False Narrative of Good Intentions

or: Fanon has Failed You

we're taking a real deep dive, babes.

bring a snorkel

Episode 1:

We are introduced to Bridgerton, Lady Whistledown first. She has the very first lines, talking about the new debutantes coming before the queen. Penelope expresses immense nervousness about this, even after Prudence faints and she writes of the blunder in her sheet, likely grateful she doesn't have to spend too much time on herself when she can highlight Prudence's fainting. In the very first mention of Marina, it's a conversation between Portia and Lady Cowper, about how Portia is taking Marina, a 'distant cousin of my husband's' in as an act of 'charity'. LC replies that she has always been quite charitable, which Portia exclaims is what Lady Whistledown should have written about, instead of 'erroneously writing that she shall only have three ladies under her care.'

That's when Penelope comes to Portia with a plea, using Marina's upcoming arrival as an excuse for her to defer.

"Unless you should like to have only 3 young ladies under your care, I should gladly sit this season out." "Penelope is nervous" "I am not nervous, Mama-" "What she is is two stone heavier than she aught to be." Phillipa: "Mmm, those blemishes on her face are quite difficult to conceal. Perhaps some lead and arsenic would help" "Should you allow me to defer but a year, just as Lady Bridgerton has done for Eloise, I may remain dedicated to my studies"

she is denied. Portia dismisses Marina to Lady Cowper, talking about how she couldn't be competition with her daughters. Marina walks in and Penelope, as though in relief, says "Oh, she's beautiful."

Because Penelope, as of this moment, only sees Marina as a tool with which to get what she wants: invisibility. We know that's what she wants based on her and Eloise's conversation in the daffodils, in which she tells her

Penelope: "No one truly notices me. I suppose that is what I like. When you are invisible, you can have all the amusement you want without any of the expectations popularity brings. It. . .frees you.” Eloise: “Do you think that is why Whistledown remains anonymous?” Penelope: “Perhaps.”

Lady Whistledown and Marina, in this moment in time, have the exact same purpose: they serve as shields. Shields that keep Penelope from being seen, from being noticed, and hopefully to give her more time. Penelope is grateful for this, LW starts taking shots at the Queen by taking shots at Daphne, saying she was falling from the grace of being named the diamond. Instead, she thrusts Marina to the forefront of the ton, declares her the true diamond, and sits relatively gratefully through Marina's flurry of attention.

Until it comes to Colin. The scene in the Featherington drawing room in which Colin comes to Penelope after calling on Marina and says it's a 'most dreadful sonnet indeed', to which she quips her famous 'Lord Byron he is not', thus making Colin laugh before he bids her good day, and she looks at him on his way out. This has often been discussed as a scene in which Penelope is starstruck that she made him laugh, but I propose something else.

This?

This is a look of concern and sadness.

What Lady Cowper had said had been foreshadowing, now Marina is literal competition for the center of Penelope's affections.

Which, let's give him some POV here

Let's talk Colin

Even in episode one, Penelope at the ball was watching Colin, a look which is mirrored later on by how Colin looks at Marina for the first time, asking who she is. He quickly joins the dance floor right next to her, clearly curious. Curiosity is a huge part of Colin's character that often gets overlooked, in fact. His wanting to travel is rooted in it. His room is FULL of Greek mythology, the first place he visits is Greece. Colin is drawn to Marina's newness, and also how pretty she is. He likes her pretty naturally. And she also clearly likes him. Even after the other suitors slough off, Colin stays.

Marina isn't pretending, here. Look at her. She finds him funny, he's turned toward her. We find out later that she's been there for about a month, at this point. As far as Marina knows, she was sent there against her will, because she doesn't WANT to be with Portia and her snooty high society attitude. Even still, Colin acts as reprieve. He comes to visit her and cheers her, she likes a lot about him, in fact, as we learn later, but let's go back to episode 1, the now.

And then we see Marina accept (and mourn) the fact that she's pregnant.

This is why she didn't come to the Vauxhall Ball, claiming illness, and Varley brings Portia the clean sheets. Portia goes to confront Marina, she'd been there for over a month and hadn't bled, accuses her of 'revolting recklessness', says she'll keep it under wraps only so her own daughters won't suffer, and when Marina informs that she doesn't want any of this, in particular her hoity superiority, Portia slaps her.

Slaps her.

As horrible as Portia and the Featheringtons are to Penelope, they have never once laid a hand on her.

Marina is made Other from the first moment she walks on screen. She is unwelcome in the Featherinton house. Even Penelope really only cares about her insofaras she's useful. In fact, episode 1 is Penelope's first taste of what her debut would be like without Marina, and in it, Colin comes to her rescue when Cressida is being mean. Penelope didn't dance at the first ball Marina was at, but she *does* when Marina's gone.

For Marina, this is a horrible night. For Penelope, it's fantastic. Simon and Daphne even became a thing, and Penelope is seen observing them. Not only did she get to dance with Colin, but she also got her gossip. This proves she doesn't necessarily need or can utilize Marina as a shield.

From Episode 1, we see the start of the divide, even before anything else, the show pits them against one another.

Which takes us to Episode 2

We open with Penelope remarking that it is 'disturbing' and Phillipa and Prudence telling on her to Portia by informing that she has questions about Marina's condition. And then

"How did it happen, Mama? Is there to be a baby?"

"Why is Miss Thompson to be kept away?" "Because her condition is catching!" [to which Penelope responds with silent astonishment]

We then have her with Eloise, walking arm in arm as Eloise complains about Daphne and Simon, talking about how being pretty and having nice hair isn't an accomplishment, and that going to university is, essentially: a lament of societal misogyny. Penelope is not only clearly disengaged with her, but even exasperated. Eloise remarks that Penelope did not listen to a word she says, which is true, and Penelope ignores that, too, except to grab her by the elbow, and tell her that she knows someone with child, and that they're not married.

This conversation is comedic, yes, but it's also interesting considering we know Colin and Marina are involved, and that Penelope's curiosity for how Marina came to be with child (outside of the obvious practical reasons for wanting to know for her own sake) doesn't stem from friendship with Marina, but rather desire and curiosity for how it affects Colin.

"She is not married" "How did she become with child if she's not married?" "I do not know. But I will find out." "You must! Otherwise, how can we make sure it never happens to us? We have accomplishments to acquire."

Penelope, even here, knows that they don't want the same accomplishments. There's a rift forming here, too. Penelope is a year ahead of Eloise, already out in society, and she's writing Lady Whistledown. As far as she's concerned, her accomplishments are to get married. Her opinion of being out in society has changed: she still wants to be invisible, but not to stay with Eloise, but instead to continue Lady Whistledown, and perhaps get married. She says so later in the series, in which she tells Eloise that people have mature problems, problems more important than some silly writer, problems like getting married.

But to who?

Three guesses.

Colin's next scene is when Eloise asks how babies are made, to which he gives his classic 'Have you ever visited a farm?' response, and cheekily teases that he and Benedict are off to take their sticks out, 'for a round of fencing!' and once again, though comedic, it's also meant to serve a second function: he becomes a suspect. That's a very dramatic way to put it, I know, but as of now, it's not revealed who the other half of Marina's bun in the oven is, and it very well *could* be Colin.

A fact Penelope likely suspects. So, she MUST know how babies are made, because she agrees with Eloise on this: she does have accomplishments to acquire. I propose to us that instead of the 'Penelope was so selfless! She would have let Colin marry Marina so long as Marina wasn't lying to him and trying to trap him' narrative, something a bit more complicated is afoot

Penelope wants Colin. She knows she can't get involved in his current romance with Marina, but she wants him all the same. The dance they shared solidifies that for her. They're friends, she's been in love with him since she met him, and now she's *able* to get married. And she wants it to be to him.

And all her actions from there are stained with that information, including the final reveal.

It's in the middle of Episode 2, well over a month that Marina's been in Mayfair, that we have our first scene of Penelope and Marina together. We open with Marina reading letters, tearstained in her hands.

She hides them immediately under the blankets and Penelope comes in saying she found some sweets and that Marina might be able to eat them when everyone else was off at the Ball. Marina, gratefully, invites her into the room so that they may share, to which Penelope is clearly pleased.

"I hear they have decided not to send you home to your papa." "I dare say he is relieved. I can only imagine how he will react to- "Your condition? Marina, may I ask- how did it happen?"

Penelope didn't come to Marina out of the goodness of her heart at all. She came to get information. Because curiosity is also an inherit part of Penelope's character, just as it is for Colin. Penelope's reasons for wanting to know are three fold: for the sake of knowing (it's good information to have, knowing how babies are made), for Whistledown if it's a good story, and for Colin.

Marina goes on a beautiful story about George, and we, at the same time as Penelope, realize Marina is still in love with her soldier boy, who she believes is in Spain, and in a moment of immense trust, passes the letters to Penelope for her to read.

But Penelope is only relieved. It settles two of the three, clears Colin from being the father and provides her good information for Whistledown, which she doesn't get publish, likely realizing that all the secrecy means it's a big deal, but she still doesn't know how one comes to be with child.

She laments this with Eloise immediately after. Snarks that Marina said it was 'Love' and Elosie informing that made no sense, to which Penelope agrees, saying her mama had 3 children and love had nothing to do with it. Eloise then asks, in a moment of empathy no one else has granted Marina,

"Well, what else did she say? Was she not frightened?" "More. . .sad, than frightened. But there may be a chance for her to have a happy ending yet, I suppose. She wants to escape to the country where she and her love may marry."

At this, Penelope is happy. She's glad that Marina will be out of the way and also that Marina will get to be with someone else. She isn't cruel, she wishes Marina well.

She just doesn't wish Marina well with Colin.

Episode 3 has Penelope running mail errands for Marina since Marina's in confinement. With no letter in hand, she delivers her the bad news, to which Marina clearly is despondent, wondering when a letter from Spain would arrive. Penelope soothes her by informing that he's on the front lines and it's difficult for letters. "If your love is as great as your previous letters state, surely he will write back to you soon. Or perhaps even better, he is already on his way back to you here, to come and take you home."

Penelope takes on her mother after she's caught with Marina and scolded, saying that Marina's been there for ages, and it isn't fair. She leaves, and Portia insists that Marina find a husband. There is no choice for denial, here, Portia makes that clear, and Penelope takes the news unhappily from the door.

Looks like she isn't out of the woods, yet.

Because even underlying Penelope's compassion, there's a second motive. Penelope is just like Portia: she wants Marina gone, too. She just has a different, very contrasting way of accomplishing that goal, but she's making strides toward it.

She writes of Marina rejoining society, that she will be at the new exhibit. When Portia tries introducing Marina to an older man, she silently pleads for Penelope to help her and she tries to come to her rescue. In the end, Marina tells him off herself, and Penelope and Marina are united against Portia. As of now, there is nothing that really contests them. Even still, Marina acts as something of a shield for Penelope, something she is sure to notice. With Marina in the house, Penelope receives less of Portia's cruelty, and even when she's scolded, Marina gets worse of it.

As of now, Marina and Colin were a brief flirtation that took place at the beginning of her coming to Mayfair. She enjoyed his company, but she's also not suffering without it, clearly uninterested in rejoining society or getting a husband who isn't George. Being pregnant has given Marina a new dream: one in which a man she loves will return from war to help her raise their family. Even if she was open to a new love at the start of the season, she clearly doesn't care or wants to find a husband who isn't George. She tells Portia as much, that she will not bow down to Portia's schemes. She has a man who loves her, and she intends to marry him.

Portia is the instigator here, even though fandom has made Marina the villain. PORTIA insists Marina go out in society. PORTIA writes the fake letter. PORTIA is who twists Marina's arm, verbally and physically abuses her, and locks her up until she can foist her onto some decrepit man and be done with her. PORTIA is who speaks aloud Marina's doubts of George not loving her back because he hasn't sent a letter to her.

Even though Penelope and Portia's goals are the same, their methods are MILES apart. Penelope *does* have compassion for Marina, wants her to have her love story with George, and she tries to help her because she recognizes it as the path of least resistance. Portia meddles far too much, which is her downfall every time.

When a 'letter from Spain' arrives, Penelope brings it to Marina and nervously asks what it says. She's excited for the confirmation that George loves Marina back and that he'll come to take her away or marry her. When Marina falls heavily to the bed, crying, Penelope asks if he'd been wounded. Marina tells her that he pretends there was nothing between them, that he desires nothing to do with "our- my situation."

Look at the expression on Penelope's face, here.

As Marina sobs, wails, Penelope picks up the letters to read them for herself and Portia congratulates her and Varley for their efforts, justifying that Marina had to learn the truth of men, eventually.

And then we're halfway through the season

Marina starts this halfway point as a new woman. When she mourned the idea of George, she mourned a failed love story, and she also mourned herself. When she said 'My situation' she accepted that the only person who would truly help her out of this is herself. She's inspected by Lord Rutledge terribly, he asks to see her teeth as Portia gives an elevator pitch, essentially making it seem that Marina was defective but, look, she has some good parts, too! Marina informs that she's had suitors calling all week (so we return to the romance situation at the beginning with a wide net) and Portia informs they'll take too long, considering so much time has passed. That she needs someone who won't ask questions when a baby comes out 3 months early, even if they married her the next day.

Obviously, Marina's in a horrible situation. This is nightmare levels of awful. She's been abused in so many ways, treated terribly. I don't think anyone could blame her for being upset. Penelope asks her if she'd like her to stay in, but Marina refuses, and Penelope doesn't push it. [Sidenote, this is also when Albion Finch comes to call on Phillipa, and we see Portia 'rewarded' (in her mind) for her efforts in keeping Marina out. She tells Mr. Finch that Marina isn't taking visitors, but he informs he's here to see Phillipa, to which Portia expresses wonder. To her, where her entire motivation is getting her daughters married, having seen Marina as an obstacle in such, she is vindicated through this]

Penelope and Eloise have another conversation, in which Penelope listens to Eloise talking about the house being abuzz w/ Daphne's prospects, to which Penelope says 'well, she *has* to marry eventually' after Eloise says she wishes Daphne would stay on the shelf forever so that Eloise doesn't have to be next in line [Eloise seeing Daphne very similarly to how Penelope saw Marina, in that way]. Eloise laments that she wants to fly, then praises Lady Whistledown as a brilliant woman of business, praise Penelope soaks up.

Penelope guides Eloise away from her attempts to rope her into schemes unmasking LW (who we now know is Penelope herself) and Eloise says she can tell her Mama she's sick and that she's caught what Marina has. Penelope informs that Marina is recovering, and that "It would be cruel of me not to be by her side when she comes back out. I shall cheer you on your endeavors, however."

The question is: has Penelope truly formed a friendship with Marina, or does she have a second reason, once again, for being beside Marina and keeping an eye on her when she re-enters once more?

Well, it surely means nothing that the next scene is Penelope and Colin having yet another moment. Surely.

Marina, being dangled about and clearly unhappy on the floor. Penelope, looking out to the ballroom. Colin comes behind her, to her delight, and talks about the host being fussy. "Do you think if he goes to bed, we all have to leave?" he asks, making Penelope laugh and clearly glad that he did so. To Colin, he likely imagines this to be the end of the correspondence, but Penelope surprises him. Like the first time, she opens up to him, shows him her wit, and they have a moment of snark, looking at each other for a beat too long after he compliments her with 'What a barb!'

Who breaks the moment? Penelope does. She doesn't continue. She doesn't take the compliment and run with it, she doesn't prolong the conversation. She looks down, and Colin changes the subject, sensing she's perhaps uncomfortable, or at least done with the moment, and says he's been trying to get in front of Marina all night, and Penelope says all Marina's interested in is a swift rescue, which inspires Colin to go after her.

This is their first moment together since her confinement, we know since he asks how she is, and from jump he gives her an out from a man who treats her like a piece of meat, and he makes a joke right away to ease her. Colin here is exactly to Marina as Colin was to Penelope when Cressida threw her drink on her: he's the knight in shining armor, and he likes it that way. Charm dialed up to ten, he and Marina re-hit it off immediately, and she's grateful to him. Tells him to spin her off and maybe she'll recover.

And Colin does. He spins her over and over again, in circles around the entire dancefloor, and Marina smiles, and Marina grins, and Marina laughs, something we haven't seen her do since she's thrown in confinement.

Can we blame her for wanting Colin? For falling for him? Very often we talk about how he was her only option, but the truth is that Marina liked Colin from the start, and she likes him here, too. She just found out that a man she'd been in love with is forsaking her, wants nothing to do with her. She's been inspected and slapped and degraded. And Colin is kind. Colin is genuine and earnest and fun. Colin brings her to life, again. She gushes about him to Penelope as soon as they're home.

And Penelope hates it.

Her problems are not that Marina is trapping Colin. She doesn't care about the logistics of the ruse. She tells Marina anyone but Colin. It isn't that Marina's pregnant, and it isn't that Marina lies.

It's that it's Colin. Penelope wants Colin and Marina wants him, too.

And that brings them back to where they started. It didn't matter what empathy and compassion they'd cultivated: Penelope is not Marina's friend. Penelope had *never* been Marina's friend. She was her ally insofar as Marina was going to live a story that left Penelope free for her own happily ever after with Colin, and as cruel as it is, it gives Penelope DEPTH. She is not just an altruistic darling willing to watch a man she loves marry her cousin. She does literally EVERYTHING she can to keep it from happening. That's her motive. He's her motive. It's Penelope's love for Colin and her hopes that they can be together that leads her to expose Marina.

In this conversation, she tries anew. Her hopes on George now dashed, and the confinement period over, Penelope tries to sway Marina by making Colin seem like a bad match. She can't think of negative qualities to counter Marina's compliment-fest (kind, funny, excellent with children), but informs that Colin is too young to marry. That she needs someone to propose soon. And Marina says he's not like other young men, that he's eager, that he saved her, that she thinks he will propose soon.

What Penelope never says is that everything Marina thinks of Colin, Penelope already knows. She knows Colin is funny, and kind, and an accomplished dancer, and excellent with children, and that he saved her, too, at Vauxhall, and that Marina opened up to her so she'll open up the same but she doesn't: she never once tells Marina that she loves him.

Because Penelope is not Marina's friend. But Marina *is* Penelope's. She says she'll be able to stay in town, gleeful that since Penelope is close to Eloise, so they will remain friends, as sisters. Marina doesn't see the secondary motives in Penelope's actions, trying to steer her away from Colin, nor does she assume anything of Penelope. How could she? Penelope has been nothing but nice to her in a house of cruelty. Penelope doesn't deride her, Penelope doesn't hit her, and Penelope helped her with George.

But Penelope doesn't want her there, same as everyone else in Featherington House. And she doesn't necessarily want Marina to be happy. She wants Marina to be out of the picture. She'd prefer if that was with her happy, but she doesn't need Marina's wellbeing. Just her absence. Or, at the very least, she's going move bitch, get out the way.

She begins thinking of how that will happen immediately after Marina leaves. She paces her room until Eloise throws rocks at her window, and this is when we get their fight.

Eloise comes with a theory about Lady Whistledown , going on and on about what she believes, and Pen cuts her off.

"Eloise I do not care! People have real problems, mature problems, problems that have nothing to do with the secret identity of some silly writer." "And you are so mature now?" "Well I am of age, I am out in society, therefore I have more important, mature things to worry about." "Like what?" "Like marriage," "You should not care about marriage.: "What if I do? I cannot expect you to understand, not everyone can be a pretty Bridgerton!"

Eloise runs off and Penelope immediately regrets it, because her fury isn't at Eloise, but rather projecting her frustrations at Marina and Colin's blossoming relationship at Eloise. When Penelope says she cares about marriage, that is only a half truth. She cares about marriage to Colin. Very specifically to Colin.

Episode 5 sees more of the same. When Colin comes to visit Marina, Penelope is displeased. She looks on as Colin brings Marina flowers, and Marina finds them beautiful. This is not a woman who would humbly have allowed Colin to marry whoever would make him happy, a selfless woman who had nothing but the best intentions toward Colin and Marina's love story.

She doesn't care if Colin would be happy with Marina. She wants him to be happy with her.

And listen to me very clearly: I like her more for it. Yeah, I said it. Oh, it would be easy if Penelope was a sweet darling, an innocent doll who tragically falls on the sword, wanting nothing more than for her dear friend to live a beautiful love story with someone who would appreciate him. No. She believes, knows Colin would be happier with her (and, ultimately, she ends up being right in that regard) and she wants him to be with her, not with Marina. This is not an excuse for Penelope. She doesn't do good things. Her intentions are not noble. What she wants is self-serving and how she goes about it is underhanded and secretive and manipulative. And I. Like. Her. For. It. Enough of the narrative that Marina was a villain, an antagonist in Penelope's love story.

Penelope was the antagonist in Marina's.

But she is also the hero in her own. From the very beginning, the narrative made it a one or the other situation. Even when they were friends, they weren't really friends. But through it all, Marina had no idea.

Because Penelope never told her.

She spoke in circles, said Colin loved to travel, encouraged him to do so in front of Marina, said Marina didn't like tomatoes when Colin joked that he'd bring her some as a surprise to break up the monotony of bouquets. Both Colin and Marina are surprised that she's saying anything in this scene, Marina moreso than him, because she thinks Penelope is her friend and would encourage this. Penelope knows how much Marina likes Colin, and how important time is with her situation. Marina gives her the 'girl, what are you doing????' face when Penelope clearly encourages Colin to travel. Colin informs that some things in London he'd want to see more than the world, and looks at Marina. They share a moment and Penelope rushes off after her mother for Plan. . .is it D, at this point? Plan D.

Penelope recognizes Marina and Colin like each other, so she goes to her mum. asks if it's a smart decision. She feigns caring for Marina. That she is ONLY worried because Colin is young and he's years off from marriage (which she doesn't really believe, or she wouldn't be saying anything) and that Marina simply doesn't have that kind of time.

It does what she wants. Portia comes to Marina, doubling down on Lord Rutledge, saying she has until Saturday to accept his proposal. Marina refuses, clearly disliking him, and Portia admonishes her.

"Is this about Mr. Bridgerton?" "He likes me! He will propose to me, I'm sure of it." "That boy is barely out of leading strings, he has two older brothers and they're still running from the yoke. You are to cut Colin Bridgerton immediately, or I will lock you in this very room until Lord Rutledge makes you his wife."

Marina's smart, she makes a deal. She recognizes how a marriage to Colin could do a world of good for Portia's daughters, and she pleads for just a few days. Before Saturday. That he would propose. And it's only now, in this moment, that Marina makes a plan that has anything to do with Colin. Only after already liking him and envisioning a second chance romance with him, and having a good life with him.

It isn't that Colin's her only other choice. Marina had several unhappy choices. But Colin is the choice she *wants* to make. She has a time limit now, hence the deception, but it's rooted in her attraction to him. "You will seduce him." is what Portia says, but for Marina, it's not as dramatic as all that. She already likes Colin. and Colin already likes her. So maybe they speed it all along, but it's not made through falsification.

But for Penelope, who listens at the door, this is now the proof that it's becoming serious, and that this plan, too, won't work.

Plan E, it is. Chuck her off to anyone new. See what sticks. She points out multiple men at the next ball they're at as prospects. This is Marina's face when Penelope described him as pleasant.

and then that another has kind eyes. To which Marina replies, honestly, rather relatably. That she doesn't know them or care about any of them, and that she's looking for Colin.

Only now. In the middle of Episode 6, just about at the 11th hour, does Penelope ask Marina not to pick him. This is the first time. That she can do this to anyone else. She attempts Plan H: a plea for morality. That she doesn't want him to be tricked and deceived. That she's known him forever. That Marina shouldn't do this to a good man, but Marina asks if Penelope would rather she marry a bad man, then.

And the truth is, Penelope would. Penelope would rather that Marina marry a bad man than marry Colin, Penelope would rather Marina do anything rather than marry Colin. Because this entire situation is all born because Penelope loves him.

This is her way of fighting for him. It's not her way of being altruistic, it's not her way of wanting to help him, it's her way of ensuring her own happily ever after. And no, that's not a 'Penelope is such a darling angel baby' take, but it IS a human one.

And the worst of it is that Marina would have backed off of Colin if Penelope just said something earlier. Think about how their friendship was. Penelope could have informed Marina that she liked Colin when Marina was gushing about George. She could have opened up. Or when Marina was getting suitors again after her re-debut in society. Marina was rife with suitors. She liked Penelope. But Penelope never spoke up. There was an entire month and a half Penelope could have talked to Marina, and then another in her confinement.

But Marina only realizes Penelope doesn't actually support her after Penelope says not to do this to a good man. That Penelope isn't happy for her in the least. She assures Penelope that she'll be a good wife to him, that he'll be good to her in return, and that, really, it isn't Penelope's business. Which it isn't except for the fact that she makes it her business. Lord Rutledge gets engaged, and Colin becomes Marina's last way out. But, let's be real: he was was also the only one she wanted to entertain.

Oh, my sweet, darling baby boy. Earnest describes him to a T. He doesn't know he's the rope in Marina and Penelope's tug of war (hell, Marina doesn't even know someone else is pulling for him), and he gets denied a narrative in so much of this. When Marina says she's feeling faint and to find someplace more private, Colin doesn't even THINK she has alternative motives. He's concerned, takes her to a different room.

Watching this scene, you see how utterly endearing he is. He leaves the door open until she encourages him to close it, which he does post haste. He smiles at her and keeps a respectable distance. He's truly been raised to be a gentleman, and he clearly respects her. When she says they shouldn't be alone together, he finally realizes what she wants from him. When she takes a step toward him, it's subtle, but he leans back. Gets nervous. Steels his face, drops his expression. When she goes in for the kiss, he makes a few minute jerks forward, for a grand total of 2 and a half seconds, and then cuts it all off.

"You are a Lady. I must maintain your honor. And mine. No matter how. . .tempting, otherwise."

Marina, after hearing this, is stupefied. Tells him he's right. That she's a lady. She's unmarried. And he is. . .a gentleman.

And she knows Penelope is right. That he's good. She just didn't know how good Colin actually is. And in this moment, she accepts her lot. She walks away. Her last chance, her last option, and upon realizing that Colin is kind and earnest and a good, honorable person, she agrees with Penelope. She doesn't want to lie to him, to trick him, she's about to let him go. But Colin offers her to marry him, and she accepts.

Because wouldn't you? Wouldn't anybody?

Hell, her exact words are "I would be delighted to marry you." and she means it. Not as a last resort, but genuinely. We don't do Colin enough justice in this romance.

He goes on about how their long engagement is romantic, that she deserves a grand celebration, and you can tell she enjoys that, but also that she knows she'll never have it. This is where she realizes how different they are, that he's a dreamer and she's a pragmatist. And that she'll have to change his mind but can't ask for it outright.

Marina has affection for Colin. Even in season 2 we can see that, when she rightfully tells him they're in the past and that he should focus on those in his life who already make him happy. How could she not have affection for him when he's genuinely so fucking good?

And speaking of, the way he defends her to Anthony still remains one of the hottest scenes Colin takes part in. When he says he's marrying Marina for love, and not because he compromised her, he means that. When he calls Anthony an ass for insisting he go to brothels and that his interest in Marina is just lust, he's genuinely offended. Anthony says that Violet is distraught and that he won't give Colin his blessing,

"Sorry to disappoint you." "You have. In so many ways."

Colin goes to see his mum immediately after. He takes her hand and, without saying it, he all but screams 'why don't you see me?' Reminds he was courting Marina all season after Violet says she was glad she knew before Whistledown. That she was too wrapped up in Daphne to notice.

Colin wants to be seen, to be taken seriously, and it really is, as of that moment, that the only people who do so outwardly are Marina and Pen. The difference between them isn't down to looks or attitude or anything like that at all: Marina pursues Colin, she makes it clear she's interested, and Penelope doesn't. It's her greatest character flaw and the crux of her story, that she never says what she wants, that she doesn't speak up for herself. Eloise even points it out about her (and you know in friend fights they cut deep). only when she learns to speak aloud what she wants does she get her love story and happiness in society.

Penelope is near in tears when Colin announces his engagement to Marina. But the thing about Penelope is that she's persistent.

As she walks in to Marina, Prudence, and Phillipa talking about how all their fortunes are about to change with the new engagement, Penelope snarks 'Especially Colin's' to which Marina replies by complimenting her, saying she looks lovely. Penelope replies not to mock her, and Marina says

"Do not mock me." "It pains me you should think every compliment a mockery." "Do not pity me either." "I do not pity you, Penelope. I respect you. You have been a true friend since I arrived here, and I rely on your continued friendship and sympathy." "My continued silence, you mean? You think so little of me I cannot bear it. I never would have made my way through this awful tangle without your kindness. Please, do not tell me you regret it." "I would never bring scandal to you or our family if that is what you ask. But I cannot condone your actions." "I want you as my friend, Pen. Can you not try to understand and be a little pleased for me?"

Marina leaves for her modiste appointment and Phillipa talks about how they'd make beautiful babies together, to which Prudence laughs and reminds that he's not the father. Penelope snaps at them, saying Marina makes a fool of Colin already, but

but

does she not do the same to him when she outs the information later on? I like Penelope, and I ship Polin. In fact, I ship Polin exclusively, in the sense that I don't actually ship Colin or Penelope with anyone else, but this entire season is proof of Penelope's fuck ups with Marina and with Colin, both, and her justification for her actions, a thing Portia also does. She goes deeper and deeper into her disregard for Marina. Marina wants Penelope as a friend but Penelope doesn't care about Marina to that extent, even from the beginning. As Portia and Marina become more entwined in their joined ruse, Penelope sets her hopes on Violet noticing that Marina is pregnant, but Violet does her best to welcome Marina to the family, wanting to do right by Colin.

So, there goes plan G. Dire straits, then. Penelope finally has a moment alone with Colin. I've talked about the scene in which she tries to 'tell him' in a different meta, and this is already so impossibly long, but long story is that Penelope still doesn't say what she really means here. There's a narrative that Colin doesn't listen to her, but all season he listens to her. And all season, she never says what she actually wants to. When she tells him that Marina loves someone else, Colin assures he would be a hypocrite if it mattered to him that she had a romance before him. (good for you, bb boi) She doesn't tell him Marina's pregnant, which she writes in LW later on, but skirts around the subject until those precious few moments are gone.

And she lies. She says Marina loves George, still, but Marina has accepted that George wants nothing to do with her. Whether she loves him or not is outside of Penelope's knowledge. She just wants to throw whatever she can at the wall and see if it sticks, see if it breaks the engagement, and still have Colin look at her with fond eyes after the fact.

When Marina discovers them in the hallway, it's hard not to sympathize with her. She's soft when she tells Penelope Portia is looking for her, and she looks so tired. Colin apologizes for Anthony being so rude at dinner, and Marina confides in him. That her own father doesn't want her. That the Featheringtons cannot wait to be rid of her. That she thought she'd find acceptance with his family, but that was a foolish thought.

And she's right. Marina is, for all intents and purposes, fully alone. She has no one in her corner save herself. And save for Colin.

"Even your mother is just being polite." "I shall be your family, now. We shall make our own family, you and me."

And Marina wants that. So deeply, she wants that. With Colin, there's acceptance. She isn't trying to manipulate him, here, she's just hurt. Penelope has her own reasons, she loves Colin, he's a dear friend, and she doesn't want to see him hurt, and she wants him to be with her, but Marina's reasons are also poignant. Colin is the only person who made her welcome in the ton and continues to do so. Once Penelope turns her back on Marina, she just has him. And in his desire to do right by her, offers to elope.

When she says "I love you" to Colin, she's not lying. She's not trying to trick him, as is so often discussed. Is it an everlasting love? No. Is it a nonproblematic love? No. But she certainly loves what he's done for her, how he makes her feel, and she has admiration for who he is as a person. That's love, too.

This is the face of a relieved woman. Not a woman who just lied and schemed reveling in her success. This is a woman looking up to heaven, thanking God for this second chance. Just LOOK at her

We come back to Penelope, then, the day after, who feigns being sick and then runs to ransack Marina's room, looking for George's letters. (so to all the people mad at Eloise for rummaging through Penelope's room, well. . .I hope that same 'it's an invasion of privacy!' applies here, as well) Instead, she finds her duffel packed and knows they're going to elope. She searches more for George's letters and finds them, realizing one is forged.

So, Penelope waits for Marina, in her room, with the falsified letters (Plan I?), to inform her that the letter that broke Marina's heart was a forgery. She has proof that her mama faked the signature. Marina informs that it doesn't matter. George never replied to her letters.

"He has abandoned me. While Colin has embraced me." "I thought you loved him. George." "I was a fool. This changes nothing."

To which Penelope is aghast, watching Marina burn the letters, and when she asks what she'll do when Colin discovers, Marina is truthful. That she will live safe in the knowledge that Colin is a good and kind man, as he has proven to be, and that he'll take care of her and her baby. Which brings us to:

"What of him? What of Colin?"

And do I think some part of this truly is Penelope caring about Colin and his ultimate happiness? Yes. She does want what's best for him, and she does care deeply for him, but the truth of the matter is that in this, she's not doing it for him. Penelope is doing it for her. And that makes it more interesting. At every turn, every single one, Colin shows that he's infatuated w/ Marina. That he loves her, even. Nothing about his actions signify any different. And maybe it's not true love, and maybe it's a bid for him to feel useful, to feel listened to, to be taken seriously, but it's still how he feels.

The only person suffering, here, is Penelope. And Marina recognizes it for what it is. When she tells Penelope that her love is an unrequited fantasy, she has no reason to think otherwise. Penelope never opened up to her, all her criticisms are now revealed as her wanting Colin from jump, and Penelope all but said aloud she and Marina aren't friends. Marina told her to get out of her relationship, and none of us can pretend that we wouldn't do the same. Penelope is acting as though Marina is a scourge on Colin, but all Colin has done is make Marina feel cared for and wanted. We don't give him enough credit, I swear, because the reality is that how Colin is with Marina is a glimpse into how he loves. If he can forgive Marina lying to him for a good reason, he can forgive Penelope lying to him for a good reason. Marina was never Colin's endgame. Not once. It was always going to be Penelope.

And it's to show that Colin is a good man who fights for his partner, who listens, who has empathy, who wants to bring cheer, who jokes, who is wide-hearted and romantic, who puts his feelings in his hands and reaches out palms first. Give him his flowers. He was a real one with Marina. Through and through and he's gonna be a real one with Penelope. A real one to the max. This is Colin's baseline and it'll only dial up with Pen when we reunite in Season 3 but for now-

Marina says she'll be the executioner of Penelope's childish fantasy of loving Colin, but it's Penelope who's the executioner. Because even though she comes running to Eloise, even though she sobs and cries and did so much to ensure what she didn't want to happen wouldn't happen, in the end, ultimately, Penelope chooses herself. She doesn't choose Colin, she doesn't choose Marina.

Penelope chooses Penelope.

And she exposes Marina's secret. And she breaks up the engagement. By force. "Perhaps she thought she had no other option. Or perhaps she knows no shame." which is what Penelope wrote of Marina, also applies to herself in this case. When she sobs with Eloise, she's hurt by what Marina says to her, yes, but she's not weeping to mourn Colin and her one day maybe love story with him. Because she doesn't believe Marina, she doesn't think it's an unrequited fantasy. Why else expose Marina?

No, she's mourning herself. Mourning the person she one thought herself to be, and how that isn't the person that she is, that she would and can use Whistledown to get what she wants, that she has power, and how she would throw her own family and even herself under the bus for just the HOPE of her love story, and that all her intentions of fairness fly out the window because Penelope is human, and she was jealous, and she was mad.

And she continues to be. Further salt in the wound in Episode 7

"Miss Marina Thompson's recent fall from grace continues to echo through every drawing room in town days after it was revealed her engagement to Colin Bridgerton was nothing more than a sham. Of course, a Lady's disgrace does not merely tarnish her own name, like the tars on the Thames, it also leaves a smear on everyone nearby. While there is no parasol in the world strong enough to shelter a ruined woman, the fallen Miss Thompson can only hope she shall find a refuge somewhere."

Y'all

This is mean. This is twisting the knife. Portia knows it's game over. Marina is even refused from a charity room without a considerable donation. She's out of options. And it narrows and narrows around her.

And for Colin, denial isn't just a river in Egypt. He claims Lady Whistledown to publish lies and says Marina must be in agony, that he doesn't understand why he can't just visit her. Anthony informs that BECAUSE of Lady Whistledown, Colin is absolved from being the father, but if he comes near her, they will presume and he'll ruin the rest of the family for it. Even still, Colin goes to refuse, but Daphne interrupts. No one listens to him in this scene, and he's left to listen to how his family will fix what they perceive as his fuck up. He says he's sooo happy it's been settled, and storms off.

Once again, no one takes Colin seriously. He's right to point it out. Not even Penelope, as she took his decision from him just as everyone else did. In a way, Colin is also alone. I think that's what really tugged his heartstrings when Marina lamented no one wanting her around.

Colin's a hopeless romantic. In a way, he fabricated his own love story around what he wanted to hear and know. He says Leander swam each night in total darkness to see his love, and Daphne, now jaded, tells him Leander also drowned. She'll arrange a rendezvous, but she doesn't believe it'll be a love story, not really, not anymore. And Colin even though Colin seemed to be hopeful that it was a lie, when Daphne says that Marina's a stranger and that Whistledown knew Marina better than Colin did, Colin clarifies that Whistledown knew Marina's secrets.

Maybe he already knows it's true, believes it to be, but he doesn't want to see it.

"You must tell me that this Whistledown woman is mistaken, what she wrote, it cannot be true." "But it is." "You are. . .with child? I do not understand. We were to be wed. You- you said you loved me." "Colin, I hold you in the greatest esteem." "Esteem? You are a cruel woman indeed to stand here and talk of friendly affection as if you have not just committed a grave sin against me." "Speak not of sin, Mr. Bridgerton. I did not come here to be shamed by you, nor anyone else. I did not know better. You may think me a villain but I did what I thought I must. No one ever truly helped me or guided me in a different direction. I had no choice. I needed to wed. And you- you were the only man who offered me even a glimpse of happiness." "So I should feel flattered, then? Consider myself lucky that you chose me, lied to me, tried to trick me into a fraud of a marriage? I shall take my leave of you for the last time, Miss Thompson. . .You wish to know the cruelest part of your deception? If you had simply come to me and told me of your situation, I would have married you without a second thought. That is how in love I believed myself to be. But I see now that was all a lie."

This is such a fascinating conversation. It reveals more of Colin than a lot of other scenes he has does. For Colin, it's not Marina being pregnant or having come to the Ton already with child that bothers him, it's that she lied to him. He calls it a fraud of a marriage, says that she told him she loved him, and that he doesn't believe it now. One lie toppled the entire house of cards for him.

Which makes it all the more paramount that Penelope tells Colin that she's Whistledown. He shouldn't have to find out on his own, and in fact, finding out on his own would cause an IMMENSE rift between them. It would shatter his trust in her worse than learning about Marina lying to him. If Penelope instead, however, comes clean, comes to him with honesty, Colin would see that in of itself as an act of love and trust. For Colin, love is being honest. Love is being earnest. Love is being upfront. And even though Marina had every reason not to do so, to hide, to reveal to him after the fact, having lied to him is what really breaks his heart.

This is an opportunity for Bton to get some payoff in a reflection of a scene like this with Colin and Penelope. Because what so many of us Polin fans don't want to face is the fact that Penelope is ALSO keeping a life ruining secret from him. And what Marina says? Can we not also hear that in Penelope's voice? If the question is how they overcome it, the first part of that answer is by Penelope taking accountability. Coming clean.

And even though Marina has more that happens to her, this is the end of her and Colin's love story. From here, they don't really intersect. Marina does say to Daphne that Colin is a sweet boy, and for what it is worth, she is sorry, but they have very little beyond this. Until Season 2 when he visits her [we'll unpack that can of worms at a different time] Eloise comes to Penelope and asks how she's faring, Penelope says their mum swears they're ruined. But Penelope then asks about Colin, if he's in pieces, and Eloise assures that Colin will be fine as most men are, but that Whistledown has gone too far with the slander the sheet did to her family. The Featheringtons are asked to leave the luncheon, and Penelope walks off with them, realizing the true impact of Whistledown and what she's done for the first time.

One of which is Marina's brush with death. Disgraced, abandoned, and rejected, Marina drinks what she hopes is an abortive tea, and Penelope finds her on the floor after she comes to talk to her, perhaps to come clean, perhaps to make amends. Now that Colin is no longer a point of contention between them, Penelope can open her heart once more, and likely feels immensely guilty. In our final episode, Penelope is clearly feeling the weight of her actions, even when Marina apologizes to her after drinking the tea and recovering, is glad she can finally go home, and says Penelope was right. That Colin is a good man with a good heart. That Penelope was good to him, and one day, Colin will see it. It's the end of the season, now. Marina is more than ready to move on.

Enter Phillip Crane. The entire Phillip situation is tragic, how he has to tell Marina that George is dead, and how Marina has his letter as proof that George loved her, and that she thought him a villain. (Marina has a moment that I think will be reflected by Penelope in Season 3: 'I was wrong.' )

The next scene Penelope and Colin share is when he's singing for his family, his voice catching when he looks at her. Likely in gratitude or appreciation, but also this is another moment in which he looks at Penelope differently, their relationship subtly shifting. He realizes she was trying to tell him. He admires how good she is. He's touched by how she cares about him, how she tried to keep him from heartache. And she did. She really, really did.

She just also tried to keep herself from it, too.

But she couldn't. Because at the end of all of this, all these twists, these turns, and all the choices she makes 'for Colin'- he has to choose himself, too. And he chooses to leave, to escape, to heal, and to embrace his passions in travel. and this hurts Penelope, too, because it wasn't that she was trying to keep him from heartache, but rather to keep him for herself. Because she was trying to tell him she loved him.

Immediately following the end of his engagement that she orchestrated, she wanted to confess. In a way, Penelope underestimated Colin, didn't see him all season, the depth of his feelings or his gentle heart. Though she tried to keep him from heartache, heartache found him regardless. She denies his request for a dance, swallows her confession, and leaves. It hurts her that he doesn't want her, but she doesn't think of his perspective in it. To Penelope, Colin is not yet a person, but an idea. This is the first fragment in that image. Which is good. It has to shatter eventually, and it does so at the end of Season 2.

Daphne, the same woman Penelope tried to pit against Marina in the diamond wars at the start of the season becomes the only real ally Marina has. Her only true friend. And the reason Phillip comes and offers Marina marriage, thus keeping her from destitution. Penelope wasn't going to, even though she was sorry at the end. She cries after Marina walks past her without so much as a glance when she walks her way, stone faced, into a carriage with a complete stranger, her dead love's brother, to live the rest of her days in a completely new place.

And Penelope? Penelope engrosses herself into Lady Whistledown, and she continues correspondence with Colin from afar, as she is more comfortable doing, and she dreams of a someday, and she feels invincible, because at the end of the day, even though what she did was objectively not good, she got away with it. She leaves us with a smirk at the end of Season 1.

Which makes her even more bold in Season 2. Which will lead us up to her having to face actual consequences for her actions in S3, because in this entire season, not once does Penelope apologize, and in fact, the two people whom she causes the most harm to, both end up apologizing to her, completely unaware that the entire time, she'd been plotting to break them up from the very beginning

I don't think Penelope is evil, but Marina certainly isn't, either. To assume that Penelope felt betrayed by Marina, to pin the blame onto her, is to twist the narrative, and it has festered so long and so deeply into Polin, that we've seemingly completely forgotten.

Like it or not, the story with Marina serves important roles: it reveals the extent and sacrifices Penelope will go to and make for Colin, for herself, for her own happy ending, and for romance, it shows what a hopeless romantic Colin is, and how dearly he cares for others, how deeply he feels, and how desperately he wants to be heard. And, more than anything, it's the story of a woman who was thrust into circumstances that were bigger than her, that left her scrambling for answers, that revealed everyone else's cruelty in their interactions with her.

And that revealed ours, as well.

sometimes fanon festers for so long that it becomes what we swear is real, even if it isn't. it becomes a rot, in fact, manifesting in so many bad takes, particularly about Marina, in the Polin tag. we've all seen them. Penelope exposed Marina because she did it for Colin. Marina didn't care for Colin and only wanted to trap him. Colin was blind to what was in front of him all along. some of them are more cruel, people stating that Colin was an absolute idiot or that Marina was a heartless bitch.

It's enough of Marina being the Big Bad in Polin's love story. She isn't. Marina got dealt a horrible hand, and she navigated it with so much more grace than I ever could have. She endured physical abuse, verbal degradation, gaslighting, manipulation, derision, fake friends, and the death of her own love story to come out the other end a pragmatic woman with a kind heart, moving forward. Her experiences in Season 1 made her believe she had no Love Story to live. She loved, she lost, she tried again and it blew up in her face.

And she deserves our fucking sympathy

Her story is over in Bridgerton, but as Polin's love story continues, it's important to get a clean look at Penelope's intentions and how morally gray she truly is, which makes her all the more interesting and complex. It makes Polin's love story and their dynamics rich and nuanced and layered. Both Colin Bridgerton and Penelope Featherington said "I'll do anything for love"

we get to see just far that stretches

#marina thompson #marina crane #polin #bridgerton #penelope featherington #colin bridgerton #this is the longest post i have ever made #and i STILL have more to say #whoops

[gorgynei]

The Tyler Split Personality Theory

AKA why Tyler Galpin is 100% innocent. And deserves a hug.

Foreword. I know that DID being represented as like an "evil mode/personality" is harmful and not accurate, but I do think its what the writers are doing with Tyler (and hydes as a whole), so heres my theory on why:

Tyler, to my understanding, has 3 modes: Regular Tyler, Evil Tyler, and the Hyde. Regular Tyler is the nice, sweet guy we spend most of the show getting to know. Evil Tyler is the manipulative and cruel side that gets shown off in episode 8. The Hyde is the literal monster (I'll be referring to Evil Tyler and the Hyde both as "the hyde" because they're the same entity, and just calling Regular Tyler "Tyler"). Thinking about Tyler and the hyde as two separate people with different morals and motivations really helps to understand the dichotomy at play with his character.

I believe that Tyler can't control what the hyde does and doesn't enjoy doing violent things, at all.

1. Tyler admits it. Sort of.

To start off, this conversation between Wednesday and Tyler is very very significant. The show lends a lot of weight and screen time to this supposed mural destruction from a year ago for, seemingly, no reason. Yes, it informs how Tyler and Xavier act around each other, but I think it represents Tyler's feelings on his destructive actions as a hyde.

The way Tyler looks off into the distance when he says "I could give you a million excuses, but... the truth is I'm still trying to figure that out" leads me to believe that the hyde had something to do with it. He isn't quite sure whether that was something he did intentionally, or if he was commanded to. If you read everything Tyler says here as him talking around being the hyde and doing violent acts against his will/knowledge, the conversation suddenly means a lot more than it did at face value, and it has a real reason to be present in the show.

In particular, Tyler mentions a "boot camp" which is presumably his torture sessions with Thornhill. He also does not call himself a normie, rather a "townie", which could be semantics, but it's worth mentioning. Tyler saying "I did a terrible thing, but I swear I'm not a terrible person" is also a great way of foreshadowing his split personality and guilt over his actions in a subtle way (assuming this theory is true).

Edit Feb 3 2023: Made a few realizations so I'm adding on.

Tyler isn't just talking around his actions as a hyde or being symbolic, he's literally talking about them, and about his mom. Tyler holds (or held) a lot of resentment towards Nevermore because his mom wasn't offered the tools to try and contain her hyde. When he says "a bitter townie that blames everyone else for the shitty hand he's been dealt", I'm pretty sure he's talking about his mom and how her death was directly caused by Nevermore's failure to help her. Thornhill releasing his hyde specifically using information about his mother feeds into this idea, it unlocked a rage inside of him once he learned that fact.

When he destroyed Xavier's mural, it was an act of anger and frustration. A way of getting back at Nevermore for his mom's death. But afterwards, he realizes that's not who he wants to be. He doesn't want to be an angry, resentful person that acts out and blames Nevermore for his mother's death. He even completely stops pranking Nevermore students, which he did often with the other normies before he "went soft". He forgives them.

Unfortunately, the hyde is an amalgamation of all of that hatred and is being wielded by an even more bitter victim of Nevermore (Thornhill), so he's forced to do terrible things in order to try and take down Nevermore.

Tyler not only refuses the hyde, he also refuses to hate Nevermore for something it did in the past. There's no possible way that he's on board with anything that Thornhill is doing.

2. Jekyll and Hyde

Obviously there's the hyde's namesake: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. If you're unfamiliar, Jekyll is a brilliant scientist that unlocks his alter ego, Hyde, using a chemical mixture. He's aware that he is Hyde and knows that Hyde is doing terrible things, but allows him to do so (at first) because he feels like needs to keep the "evil" inside of him separate from the "good" inside of him.

While it's possible that Wednesday borrowed the namesake just to allude to the well-known story and add to the "monster that transforms into average person" mystery, a INCREDIBLY crucial aspect of Jekyll and Hyde's story is that Jekyll is a good person but also can't control Hyde. While Jekyll unlocked Hyde intentionally, he quickly lost control and Hyde took over more and more until Jekyll was forced to commit suicide. I strongly believe this is also a big part of being a hyde, with the individual affected by hyde-dom taking the place of Jekyll.

Tyler had his hyde unlocked by Thornhill, not by himself, which is immediately a deviation from the old story. To me, this just means that Thornhill tortured Tyler in order to force him to let it out, weakening his ability to hold the hyde at bay, and increasing her hold over him.

3. Tyler's Therapy with Dr. Kinbott

In episode 2, Tyler mentions that he's seeing Kinbott because he has "court ordered" therapy. This is odd given that court ordered therapy is usually only given to people if they are a direct harm to themselves or others, like in Wednesday's case. It's unclear whether this is the result of his hyde getting him in trouble or if he was just ordered therapy following his mother's death because it was especially hard on him.

Near the beginning of episode 8, there's a scene where Sheriff Galpin is listening to recordings from Kinbott regarding Tyler's therapy sessions:

"When I press him on his mother or any sensitive issue, he snaps. It's like I'm talking to a different person. I'm increasingly concerned. I believe the trauma of losing his mother may have left Tyler with deeper psychological scars that I had suspected"

That scene serves zero narrative purpose outside of letting the viewer know this information about Tyler, so it has to be significant. In particular, the line about him turning into a "different person" is especially relevant. It seems like some part of Tyler (hyde or otherwise) is very defensive about his mother and has an extremely hard time even discussing her. This may be the result of Thornhill using his mother to coax the hyde out (see: "Tyler honey, make Mama happy and shut her up."), so any discussing of his mom makes the hyde come to the forefront.

4. Tyler's relationships

A lot of the things Tyler says and does could be interpreted as an extremely well thought out manipulation plot, but I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt. I genuinely believe that Tyler is a good person and that most of what he says pre-e8 can be taken at face value.

Tyler does genuinely care about Wednesday. Many of his actions with her are likely influenced by the hyde (especially their date lining up perfectly with Thing's stabbing), but he put so much care put into their dates and conversations that it's hard to believe it was all a lie. If Tyler really didn't care about Wednesday, he might not have go so far to decorate a crypt, apologize so profusely for wrecking Xavier's mural, or help her escape Jericho when he knew Thornhill needed her for her plan.

5. Episode 8

There's a lot of small but crucial things in episode 8, so I'll just mention them all here.

This tiny moment is EXTREMELY concrete evidence in my eyes. The way the music rises to an intense swell but then fades almost immediately (as if some danger has passed) and Tyler goes from smirking and being all confident to almost crying, it's just the only explanation that makes sense. Tyler was taken over by the hyde and then regained control of himself. Seeing how shaken and afraid Wednesday was overwhelmed him with guilt, so he backs off immediately.

Edit Feb 4 2023: It's also worth noting that when Tyler says "You have no idea what's coming" it is, at least partially, a warning. Wednesday even interprets it as one, later telling Xavier that "Tyler warned me that something bad was coming". I do think the hyde is almost entirely in control in this scene until the moment I described above, but some part of Tyler, some speck of his true self, wanted desperately to try and help Wednesday.

Similar to the scene in the police station, it seems like Tyler snaps himself out of the hyde's control for a moment. But this time, instead of it being at the end of an outburst, it's Wednesday mentioning his brief torture at her hands that brings him out of it.

At first, Sheriff Galpin's involvement in the Tyler vs. Enid fight seems strange and sort of pointless. He doesn't contribute much other than giving Enid the upper hand for a moment and futilely calling out for Tyler. To me, they included the Sheriff here in order to demonstrate that the hyde is not Tyler. If it were, he might have calmed for a moment or even just hesitated before rushing to attack his father, but he didn't. I believe they're using the Sheriff to represent Tyler's humanity, which the hyde has completely stripped away in this moment.

6. Master/Hyde Dynamic

A hyde becomes a "slave" to the person who unlocks it. This is a big part of the unraveling mystery of the show and it seriously calls into question Tylers agency and free will. Even if Tyler was a completely terrible person who wanted to do everything Thornhill told him to do, he would still partially be a victim because hydes by nature form a weird and dependent bond with the person who freed them, even if the hyde was freed against the individuals wishes.

Aand thats all! I'm sure theres more stuff I didn't mention, and there was even stuff I left out because I didn't want to get to bogged down in the micro-expressions, but! There it is. Can Tyler haters give him a break now?

#number 4 doesnt have as much evidence as it could but. *shrugs* im tired and i think everything else is more significant anyways #ramblings #wednesday #wednesday netflix #wednesday spoilers #tyler galpin #tyler #wednesday tyler

[inlocusmads]

[spoilers, long pissy rant ahead]

okay, i have some thoughts. Haven't finished the chapter yet, as of writing this post, but I still have some thoughts.

okay but like, I'm happy that MC was allowed to talk about their feelings but I just hate it that it's ALSO dismissed and condensed into a couple of dialogues, like EVERYONE, mc literally almost died so many times it physically hurts they didn't get more than just that one ONE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT.

I don't want to compare but think of all those times Nia, Tyril, Imtura and Mal were comforted and that too it was taken seriously with long-term payoffs at the very least or callbacks to those moments of healing and learning.

It doesn't make any sense! Where was this foreshadowing that MC was "about to break into pieces"? Where was this acknowledged in the narration, apart from a few moments of empathy extended to other characters? And yet, everyone else had "plenty of time" to confide in MC. (I know I'm being nitpicky here, but I'm so mad that the one person who attempted to patch together the group again at the start of Book 2 still got treated like shit. This reasoning doesn't make an ounce of sense at all, apart from MC wanting to spare their friends the additional guilt - if you want to take it in that context.)

MC! DID YOU NOT LEARN ANYTHING AT ALL? HOW IS IT THAT EVERYONE ELSE IN THE PARTY HAD SOME REFORMATION ARC GOING ON (albeit a swiftly written one) BUT YOU DON'T???

First off Valax? Girly she tried to steal your blood. I know there's a nice Valax/MC buddy-buddy situation going on/relationship going on but this is just extremely not okay of the writers to dismiss MC's own feelings and true thoughts. And what do you mean, "just a little blood, no scars"? "asleep for all of it"?? Like make it make sense! Either MC is referring to how Valax kidnapped her ("little blood" HA) or the fact that they walked unscathed, which is a huge understatement - like my child, you were almost fucking killed! Stop downplaying everything!

Honestly I would accept it if it were an internal characteristic of MC to go all Mal and be like 'yeah it's just a scratch' but in the other times when they're allowed to be open with their emotions and this time, they're robbed of the only opportunity to do so, I'm going FUCKING FERAL.

I dunno, I just feel like this is just a horridly rushed scene for no reason at all. They could have cut back on the Elf-recruitment scene to give MC a chance - give us a chance to talk about it, but nope. I don't know, I feel like it was STILL half-assed.

Blades, stop making fun of death and all those 'getting killed' jokes. It isn't funny anymore. It grew stale by the start of book 2 and now it's like PB can't write new humour material anymore without making it Mal's entire personality or the subject of Tyril's disappointment or Imtura's ammunition for one-liners or Nia's excuse to gape at it in horror. Stop. Please. I just feel like it's been overdone so much, we don't know if the characters are struggling or anything.

**

Angst is a good tool to use to highlight MC's motivations or be it any characters and yet IT IS KADE WHO SUPPLIES IT!

THIS HAS SO MUCH POTENTIAL TO BE A SUBJECT MATTER and yet of-fucking-course they have to paywall the social quest. fuck you pb. mental health's already expensive as it is.

The fact that MC has no intention to bring it up - bring up how much they missed their brother before Kade does is just the icing on the cake. Like come on, PB. For once, I want a non-paywalled scene that acknowledges this in writing - a proper conversation with Kade for once. Because paywalled scenes are usually up to the choice of the player to take and it is downright cruel for MC to not have any interaction with people until you shovel out gems. Without the social quests, everyone's personalities are so hollow. It actually hurts. Premium options used to be for collectibles, unlock bonus scenes, maybe even level up, etc, but to see characterisations - the very basic pillar of writing being paywalled is like reading an article on the internet only for the author to step out of your screen and beat your eyes with a bat so you can never read again.

Am I the only one in this?

MAYBE YOU CAN SHOW MORE AND TELL LESS PB, GOD. FOR ONCE, ACKNOWLEDGE MC'S EMOTIONS WITHOUT IT BEING ONE TEXT OF DIALOGUE IN THE NAME OF EVERYTHING HOLY. (I do remember an Ash Empress scene where MC gets -- possessed, for the lack of a right word, with a vision?? And that too at the last possible second for the Kade conversation to happen. Good job, PB)

The thing is PB can do this. They've acknowledged MC's part in stories before. From being able to "tell off" characters and having MC acknowledge their past traumatic instances and giving them a motivational tool to keep going forward. A recent example of this would be in Crimes Book 1, when MC suffers from PTSD and is shown to have some panic episodes-- I'm assuming? (Not showing my bias here, but I'm just pointing at it because it is within PB's reason) and yet the company shoots themselves at the leg with overstuffed stories and plot points it becomes harder and harder to be able to relate to characters.

*** I don't know. I haven't played the whole chapter and maybe this might come off as tone-deaf and I'm gonna look like an absolute clown; once it is up and maybe in a future scene, they do bring up their trauma but I'm posting this anyway because it's just -- arghhhhhhhh

#blades of light and shadow #choices book club #mads rants about stuff #tw caps

[thranduel]

i can’t stop thinking about how a mike and el breakup was foreshadowed so much in volume 1. like first of all, the fight they had. mike couldn’t say he loved her and he couldn’t even write it on paper the entire time they were away from each other. normally, when you’re afraid to lose someone and they’re crying in front of you, THAT is when you tell you love them… but he didn’t at all. the whole thing was weird and the fact that his excuse for not being able to say it is because she’s a superhero and he’s a nerd and he’s scared she won’t need him sounds so stupid and makes no sense. he couldn’t even say it when she didn’t have her powers which is weird. also, you shouldn’t need to be reassured that someone “needs” you to tell them you love them… if you love them, you love them, it’s that simple. but he couldn’t even say it.

then, mike calls her a superhero and she says she isn’t anymore. keep in mind she doesn’t want to be reduced to just a superhero because they just had an argument about how different she is and how mike will never understand her (see, they don’t feel equal in the relationship. they’re both insecure and never on the same page and they can’t understand each other’s experiences). when owens finds her and talks to her, el makes the CHOICE to leave mike and she leaves him a letter saying she’s going to be a superhero again and signs it “from, el”, not “love, el”. keep in mind that owens even said she might not ever see mike again and she still chose to go! she was certain in her decision and didn’t hesitate. she was ready to go off and be independent and do what she needs to do because she knows she’s strong without mike and he clearly wasn’t giving her the love she wanted.

there’s a scene where mike looks at the letter and will tells him that staring at it won’t change anything. mike agrees, crumples the letter and throws it in the bin and the camera focuses on it. why would they make this seem like such a big deal if it didn’t mean anything? mike also says that he couldn’t tell el “that thing” (he can’t even specify what he’s talking about and i find it really weird that they kept it so ambiguous in volume 1 and made it sound like it was leading to something other than a basic “i love you”) and he literally says maybe if he told her then she would’ve taken him with her? wait, what? this contradicts everything he says in volume 2! so he apparently regrets not saying he loves her because he thinks she would’ve taken him with him, and he KNOWS she wanted to hear it because she was literally crying and begging him to say it, but in volume 2 he says he couldn’t say it because he’s scared she wouldn’t need him anymore when it’s clearly obvious she WANTED him to say it in episode 3? IT’S SUCH A MESS. el walked away from mike in the first place because he DIDN’T say it, but in the car with will he’s worried that saying it will make her leave him????? this whole thing makes no sense. seriously how could they write this and think it sounded good? the excuse for mike not being able to say ily is ridiculous when he finally did say it, it was because of will’s monologue and painting!

also what about the scene where will talks about how it’s hard to open up to people in case they DON’T like the truth and mike is nodding and agreeing? what was the point of all this?

this isn’t even just about fighting over ships, the writing seriously doesn’t make sense and i don’t know how people don’t see it

#byler #byler analysis

[threecheersforinking]

Character Analysis: Shouya from A Silent Voice

(Spoilers for A Silent Voice/Koe no Katachi)

Shouya Ishida is one of my favorite anime/manga characters ever, and I’ve been meaning to make a post about him. In my opinion, he is the poster child for the perfect redemption arc. I want to talk about some of the reasons why his change of heart was foreshadowed/under the surface right at the beginning, and why we as an audience are rooting for him, despite the horrible things he did to Shouko.

A Silent Voice is currently one of the top anime movies of all time, and while I do really love the movie (KyoAni is amazing) I am a much bigger fan of the manga; it has more time to expand on the characters and introduces some smaller important plot lines. In this post I will be quoting some moments that were in the manga and not the anime, aka, Shouya’s internal monologue. Anyway, let’s get into it. I want to start with why I think Shouya went down the bullying path in the first place.

Environment and Role Models

One of the biggest factors that influenced Shouya’s class’s toxic environment and led him to be a bully was having an uncaring ableist teacher. In the manga, the phrases “something we just have to deal with” and “this is your responsibility”, things that the teacher said to him regarding Shouko, repeatedly echo in Shouya’s mind whenever he interacts with her. At some points, the teacher actually laughs when the other students make fun of Shouko, letting Shouya (as well as the others) believe that it’s an ok thing to do. If Shouya had an adult figure in the classroom with a stronger sense of morality, he might have changed his tune earlier.

Shouya was also highly influenced by his peers (which makes sense because he was literally 11 years old). When another teacher comes into the classroom to explain what sign language is, there’s a very small panel before anyone else says anything, where Shouya thinks “that sounds fun”. At first, he’s interested in sign language and may have been willing to give it a shot. But then, Ueno suddenly starts complaining about how it’s much easier for them to use the notebook than sign language, and Shouya absorbs this and immediately goes back to thinking about how much of an inconvenience Shouko is to him.

Another influence on Shouya’s behavior is his home environment. I do not want to shade Shouya’s mom completely because overall I think she is a loving parent, but unfortunately she was not able to fully be there for her son because she is a single mom with a full time job. Even though he was in a caring home, he was not necessarily in one that gave him enough attention, and by the time Miyako realized what her son was up to it was too late. If she had given him more guidance earlier on in his involvement with Shouko, they may have been able to avoid disaster.

But all of these reasons aren’t excuses, they’re explanations. Regardless of why, Shouya contributed to Shouko’s severe trauma and did unforgivable things. So why do I think he’s the best case for redemption in anime?

Recognition/Guilt

Shouya is repeatedly shown as having actual remorse for his past actions. This is why other bully characters like Ueno and Kawai are seen as far less likable than Shouya. Other people on here might have actual analyses about those two characters, but as for this post all I’m going to say is that I believe they are much more widely hated than Shouya because of their initial denial of having done anything wrong.

It’s also important to remember that Shouya changed his tune as soon as Shouko left. It wasn’t years after she left his school that he realized he was wrong, it was days. He as an 11 year old realized he was wrong for hurting her; he figured it out as soon as he noticed how she was protecting him from being bullied. And once he himself started to be harassed by his peers, he finally recognized the full weight of what he had done to her.

Some might criticize this moment, saying “Shouya only realized bullying was bad because he got bullied himself”, but frankly, what’s so wrong about that? Many kids who bully don’t realize the full extent of the emotional damage they’re doing until it happens to them. Through this experience Shouya was able to realize, “this is how much pain she felt from the things I did to her”. And that unfortunate shared experience is what drives him to have so much guilt and a desire to change.

Change of Behavior

After his realization of the severe damage he had done to Shouko, Shouya started actively being more kind and thoughtful to others. He learned sign language in order to properly apologize to Shouko. He started helping out strangers and not judging people who are different (Tomohiro, Yuzuru). He acknowledged the severe financial strain he put on his mother and worked hard to pay her back.

And the whole point of the ending of the story is that him feeling sorry for himself and hating himself for the rest of his life isn’t going to undo his past behavior. All he can do now is operate with a better mindset going forward and make a positive difference instead.

Obviously, no one should be forced to or feel obligated to forgive their bully/abuser. But the story isn’t about whether Shouko should forgive Shouya, it’s about whether Shouya can change into a better person. I think it’s a very harmful ideology to believe that people who were bullies as children will be the same person forever. The world isn’t divided into ‘good people’ and ‘bad people’, it’s made up entirely of people who are capable of doing both good and bad things. And I really like how the protagonist of A Silent Voice is someone who had done bad things but is now choosing to be different.

Anyway, this was super long so thank you if you read all of it. Please let me know your thoughts on Shouya or any other characters from this movie/manga.

Thanks for reading!

-threecheersforinking

#a silent voice #a silent voice analysis #anime #anime meta #shouya ishida #ishida shouya #the shape of voice #Koe no Katachi #shouko nishimiya #anime review blog #character analysis

[pinkandpurple360]

I apologize as this is not a question, but i just wanted to say that i really appreciate your takes. Usually people when they talk about Stolitz they hate Blitzø too because he was framed as taking advantage of Stolas and having to get his head out of his ass, but i honestly still liked and felt bad for him as just now the narrative seems to be pining all this on him, which in a way is kinda how i also feel like about Moxxie regarding Happy Campers. Sorry for going on a tangion but i absolutely love this blog (also because of the headcanons and BlitzFizz stuff, i love this ship)

Aww thank you anon, that is so sweet, and no worries the inbox doesn’t have to be questions 100% of the time there’s also prompts and headcanons other stuff too

It feels like only the most privileged people who have never wanted for anything could possibly think stolas deserves revenge?

I just don’t blame Blitzo at all, the same way I don’t blame parents for shoplifting food so their babies can eat, or refugees stowing away/bypassing borders as to evade conflict. These things are crimes, sure, but there’s no malice behind trying to survive by any means necessary. What? Is the shop clerk gonna sing a song about feeling trapped in a cage and cry? Do the border police have mean dads who put them in arranged marriages? Boo fuckin hoo.

He’s not even doing it selfishly, he as a child wanted to get money for his mama…literally the biggest motivator it took to convince him to steal was to help his momma. That’s the purest thing there is. And he felt guilt towards this domineering owl who was so rude aggressive, and creepy towards him right before??

Remember how Viv said Blitzø could negotiate out of the sex any time? Uh? When stolas was leading him to his bedroom like a creep, Blitz said “look I didn’t mean to crash your uh party I was just” “Don’t bother with excuses I know why you are here” So? How did that negotiation go? What do we think would have happened if Blitzø said “I’m not here for that” yeah right.

How anybody didn’t instantly want to protect him as a small baby from all of this creepy horrible situation, I don’t know. I literally laughed while he was stealing from stolas because the little spoiled brat is so rich he probably didn’t even notice. Look I know he’s not very happy either but am I supposed to root for him and his dad trafficking a ‘lesser’ child ?

And later when he’s searching for the book we don’t know at that point whether he has Loona at home. Just like when in prison the first thing he says is how he needs to get out to see his daughter. Man I wish we saw the prison break.

Oh yeah back to the ask. As for Moxie in Happy Campers it did make me sad that all his enthusiasm and initiative didn’t work out at all and basically went up in his face :( that part I have sympathy with, yknow when you try too hard at a project? Yeah. Passing it off to someone who can do it better justice than you despite less enthusiasm is…hard. I gotta be honest I’ve never watched the full song in the middle all the way through before. It was just so cringe. The teenagers were just a very strange element. And making this Barbies debut episode compared to all of Fizz’s foreshadowing and build up into the fantastic episode that was Ozzies, I’m very disappointed.

#anon #ask #helluva boss

[jaytohell]

headcanons/idk what splurge about mcd aaron & aphmau BECAUSE I SAID SO.

i need to talk about them because i just do. my thoughts on them need to be heard.

btw!!! typing this at work during my break so thoughs WILL be completely disorganized and there will be constant run on sentences!

first i’m going to talk about aaron because OH MY FUCKING GOD.

he could’ve been such a interesting character if he wasn’t reduced to aph’s love interest once again and if jess and jason could’ve shown more of his character.

i truly believe that jess was trying to do some shitty indirect characterization and flesh out his character by not outright saying it, but she done a really shitty job; the only reason why being her target audience at the time was younger and she didn’t want to expose them to more “mature themes” or some shit.

aaron is not a well written character at all and tbh all i see him as is “woah, ‘sexy’ (not really) mysterious man” who has absolutely not character depth. i wish jess could’ve delved more into him being a lord, a father and husband, and his vendetta against zane to give us more insight of his character. jess gave us little crumbs and pieces about him (like him being a broken human or some shit like that??? would’ve been cool if she incorporated some magic shit into that). he’s just so bland and boring and he needed so much more character development than he got.

time for aarmau…

SO. first off, aaron and aph’s relationship came out of fucking no where. it literally feels like jess pulled that straight out of her ass hole because of how random it was to me when i was younger. once again, i believe that the reason for it that is that jess is really bad at foreshadowing and shit, so the relationship came out of nowhere (also bc jason is really weird but we’re not going to talk about that…). it’s just so weird that jess made their relationship such like, a secret thing, in s2 but gave it so much more light on s3 like we knew everything about it?? which i guess i can kinda excuse because she didn’t even like how she was taking it, but it’s still super weird.

ok, done with that rambling…now for headcanons about aaron and aarmau :3

aaron is in his late mid to late 30s, possibly early 40s

he is BUFF. like buff buff.

and tall, super tall. like tbh i think he’d be like 6’5-6’6

SCRUFFY!!! he has a little beard that he doesn’t have time nor the energy to shave off

actually kinda shy—he’s only seems so mysterious bc he’s traumatized and also pretty shy

i don’t wanna talk about him anymore so aarmau now

they were never in love.

yes i said it.

i wholeheartedly believe that they had a fling

aph was stressed w/ lillith, garroth still being in the irene demension, laurance struggling with the calling, the phoenix alliance, and the whole weird goddess powers shit that she needed comfort in someone

aaron was the one she chose

he understood loosing everything in less than a day, he understood her feeling if loss, so she latched to him

aaron on the other hand, was reminded of his late wife by aph; they acted so similar and there was just a touch of resemblance that drew aaron to aph

all of this mixed together led to and accidental kiss and hookup in the woods that night it was “took dark to go back”

the kiss right before aaron’s sacrifice was not one of love to aph, but one final kiss to his wife that he wished he could’ve gave to her

aph struggled with his death because she didn’t love him like a lover, but because she had lost one of her closest friends while garroth and laurence were gone: the only one who she believed could truly understand what she was going through

so sorry that was a lot 😭

#aphblr #aarmau mcd #aaron mcd #aaron’s character was absolutely ruined and i stand by that #ugh #i just #jess why

[goginaporter]

rina, rini, and change

ricky and nini literally being built to fall apart

- love born out of childhood and that connection

- nini said ily, ricky couldn’t say it back bc of parent’s divorce and dealing with that change in his life

- nini goes on self discovery/growth arc, comes back different

- ricky is shocked that things cannot go back to the way they always were

- nini more confident, discovering she does not need to rely on boys

- after ricky is “friendzoned” by nini, he accepts it instead of fighting it (key first step)

- fighting with gina at hoco before apologizing (another sign of growth) and giving her a ride home and befriending her

- in same ep, pushing his dad to move forward and put himself out there, showing his acceptance of the divorce just as he’s accepted the breakup

- gina continues to represent this positive change for him and as she is ripped away, we see him regress and thus also push nini to regress as well (almost kiss in 108)

- ricky saying something is different after seeing gina bc he feels how he has slid back and her being there is a reminder of how change can be positive, something he has stopped believing in

- also exemplified by him thinking his parents are back together

- him realizing that parents are not together rattles him and I would argue drives him to confess to nini if almost to fix it, esp with his mom saying “not all couples are meant to be together (her and his dad, him and nini). sometimes people change.” (i.e. major foreshadowing lol)

- nini had gone on her whole girlboss journey but we see her accept ricky’s ily after she thinks that she got rejected from yac; her change didn’t work so it’s okay to slip back to who she used to be bc it’s predictable

- but BAM she did get accepted and even though she leaves yac, it was a place for her to continue to curate that girlboss arc even if that school wasn’t the right avenue. this comes at odds with her relationship with ricky and leads to the rose song and to their breakup. they had both been grasping onto the relationship as an excuse not to accept the people they had grown into and when they let go (as ricky sings) it is when they are able to move forward

- love did not grow and evolve with them as they changed and became different people so even though it was present their second time around, it wasn’t enough bc they had changed and the love stayed the same, rooted in childhood (exemplified by nini closing out that chapter of his childhood with the lottery ticket and staying in his past just as she was leaving him behind)

ricky and gina being built to last (despite some bumps)

- their first conversation being one shrouded in deceit on gina’s part, at least a little, but it was still enough to push ricky to stay. one talk with a girl he barely knew who believed in him, which was more than what he got from all the other people in his life

- this conversation, though it came from a place of slight deception, is reinforced with honesty as we see in their conversation in the car after homecoming. them “getting” each other because they are outsiders is beautiful bc their loneliness calls to each other and for the first time, they get a response

- this friendship (though it was always loaded with more from the beginning) allows them not only to forge new connections with each other (ricky who had barely made new friends since childhood vs gina who never stayed in one place long enough for these friendships to form) but also with the theater kids, allowing them to jump headfirst together into changing what made them outsiders in the first place

- we see this bond strengthen and grow as they tease each other throughout the photoshoot, gina all but tells ej, her former partner in crime, that she cares about ricky, and she helps calm ricky down at the prospect of miss jenn leaving + the show falling apart by asking him to play guitar. they lobby compliments between each other (showing how they had admired each other from afar even before hoco) and you feel this nervous excitement and tension that exists between crushes. ah young love

- them walking into the aforementioned rehearsal together and big red asking ricky what happened with gina and ricky replying with “I’m not sure yet.” suggesting his willingness and intention to get to know her better

- in each of these episodes we’ve seen ricky open up to gina slightly but this true mark of change and evolution for him is how he talks to her about his mom and her new bf. things that he used to only talk about with nini are now easily spilled to gina; he trusts her enough to go to this party with her and leaves when she does, showing this invisble string that exists between them. this moment almost definitely solidifies how their fates are now inextricably tied to each other now. for ricky, his mom was a huge question mark in his journey to accepting the divorce, so for gina to help him see that it’s okay to put his happiness first in this situation and not immediately solve it surprises and lightens him. even in the face of comfort from nini, his primary goal at the beginning of the season, he still rushes (presumably) after gina. him and nini were not on bad terms before the party and we only see him snap in the face of the thing that helped him accept change literally walking out of his life

- no surprise then that he that he turns back to nini and regresses, undoes all that change, when his change agent is gone. this isn’t to say that gina is responsible for the shift in ricky but she is the muse that guided him towards growth and her absence leads to his backtracking.

- her coming back (temporarily as they had believed at the time) reveals to ricky how impactful she was for him and he almost mourns what could’ve been; the flashback scene shows this to us for both of them as well as they hold each other for what they think will be the last time

- ofc fate has other plans so! the change we see ricky really grappling with all of s2a is his connection with gina and the person that has pushed him to be vs his role as nini’s bf and how that shoehorns him into a clingy, annoying version of himself that he has outgrown (though he refuses to fully accept that)

- after rini breakup, he talks about how he still hates change but is able to write let you go and move on. lily is his way of trying to find what helped him the last time he broke up with nini (which was gina) unfortunately, lily is not, and never will be, gina, and so that doesn’t work. however, ricky rolls with his punches and he finds himself right where he needed to be. at camp shallow lake with gina porter.

- no surprise that gina sings of finding her balance and then we see her reconnect and reconcile with ricky, the only person we see across seasons to know and accept and love her

- ricky singing kristoff’s lullaby and singing to gina specifically when he says that everything he knew about love, she had changed. gina believed in him, affirmed him, and helped him on his journey of growth and of becoming a better person. it’s why, as opposed to s1, even though he is aware of his feelings for her, he does not cross the boundary of her relationship with ej but instead invests in their friendship and in making her happy. she has changed him for the better to the point that his romantic love, just as his platonic love developed, shifts from selfish to selfless

- though they have grown from their s1 selves, ricky and gina are still able to connect and fall for each other. given that they’re soulmates, it’s inevitable.

- they fell for each other when they least expected it in s1 and it helped them move from this shared identity of outsiders (which will still always bond them) to people who belong somewhere. in s2, even though things are weird between them bc of rini and gina’s confession, they still have things that they only tell each other. and in s3, when gina says they are different people, we still see them falling deeper for each other over the course of the season, founded on the connection they forged in s1. with rina, the love flows and grows with them because that is how it started.

#hsmtmts #ricky x gina #gina porter #rina #ricky bowen #rina hsmtmts #gina x ricky #gina porter x ricky bowen #rina endgame #my loves #ricky and gina #i love them #not gonna tag the other ship cause it’s not super favorable to their romantic relationship #but I just was thinking of the role change plays in each of these relationships #namely in how love can grow and change and in which relationship it did and which one it didn’t #rina is very poetic in this way #so glad they found their way back to each other

[hecckyeah]

Hello there!! I'm here to ask: what were your thoughts on the Rookie season finale?

HEY FRIEND!

Oh ho ho do I have some Thoughts™ for you.

Once again I'm going to break this up into Chenford and Non-Chenford

.

Starting off with Non-Chenford!!

First off, I had a hard time seeing this as the season finale because of the whole 10 episodes thing, so wrapping my head around that is still..... Just sad. I feel like there were so many different directions they could have taken the season, but it is what it is, and I'm trying to see the good parts for what they are :)

One of the weirdest things this season was probably the whole Bailan having a child thing (or not???) and the way the finale tried to handle that was just..... weird.

I mean maybe it is because I'm biased against Bailan (I really cannot stand them) but the writers are doing too much. They were established as a specifically child-free couple, and since we already have multiple couples with kids and we're all rooting for the same thing for Chenford (also has been foreshadowed for them), I feel like this is just the same storyline over and over again. Maybe instead of trying to introduce a new kid for Nolan, maybe (and this is kind of far fetched) get back to the son he already has, and maybe add some grandkids??? idk, just seems like Bailan as grandparents instead of new parents has lots of comedic potential and it's something that hasn't been done yet.

Oh yeah, and on that same note-- the whole Oscar and Jason situation?? Totally unnecessary and odd. I like Oscar as comedy relief behind bars, but not anywhere else. The dude has caused enough mayhem from inside prison, I don't need him galavanting around anywhere. The writers seem desperate to beat that dead horse.

(man okay apparently I had more beef with this season than I thought I did. trying to dial it back a little bit now)

So, to me the whole finale just felt very . . . patchwork. That's the only way I can describe it, truly. It's like a bunch of pieces were stitched together to create some sort of ending to a very stitched-together season.

Argentina?? Love the concept of it if it was fleshed out but cannot deal with the execution. It was SO sudden. Absolutely zero warning. Why Argentina specifically?? And why is Nolan not literally in an Argentinian prison somewhere for his disobedience? Who let him get away scot-free again?

Although I will say, Monica high-tailing it into the middle of absolutely nowhere, prancing through cactuses and brush in high heels, is genuinely the funniest thing this show has done all season.

I'm feeling a whole lot of vindication toward Blair London, as I think we all are! Had a funny feeling about that one from the beginning.

UM EXCUSE ME WRITERS. WHAT IS BABY WOPEZ'S DANG NAME???????

at this point I'm 10008% sure she's just going to grow up without a name smh

Also I know I've said this about 359238 times already, but why is Celina still in long sleeves??? there's no way she's only been a rookie for less than 6 months. This timeline, you guys. I can't. Poor girl is gonna die in long sleeves. The only silver lining is that it looks like Tim will be her TO for the foreseeable future, with Nolan's injury. Maybe that will get things rolling, idk. We can hope.

I've heard other people say this so I just have to echo it real quick. I miss the old Rookie. Bring back boring days on patrol, with 6-19 different calls per day instead of these massive decked out plots that a normal LAPD officer wouldn't even be touching. I want bridal gown brawls again!!! Show me the monotony!! The character development!!!!! The little lunches out by the food trucks!!!!!!!!!!!!! Stop making everyone and their mother a detective. Make someone another TO for once, and bring another rookie into the mix!!!! (Also let someone transfer to another station and/or wash out of the program mid-year for once smh *****COUGH celina COUGH****) Seasons 1-3 were truly peak Rookie and I miss it terribly.

There really isn't anything I truly loved about the finale, sadly, aside from Chenford (see below). I watched it twice, and both times it was just . . . Not it. The addition of Monica was random and pointless, and I despise her guts. I feel like this season could have been literally just the patrol cops answering calls and then mid-wilshire family movie nights and bonding time afterwards and we would have eaten. it. up. No need for the flashy lights and the big bad plot lines. But oh well, I suppose it is what it is.

.

.

OKAYYYY now on to Chenford :) Hoooo boy.

Let me just start out by saying -- NANNY LUCY MY BELOVED she's so freakin adorable I love her to death. What a queen.

The little "good to have you" I'M DEAD.

Okay but on a serious note, the whole breakup storyline is so heartbreaking, I've kind of felt numb toward it this whole time. Maybe it's a combination of life stuff keeping me busy and distracted, and knowing that they're not going to stay apart forever (because the showrunners are smart and they know that if chenford stays apart, they lose their entire fanbase), but I haven't felt quite as devastated as I would have, say, a couple months ago. I can't get behind it and I don't quite see the reasoning, but mostly I've been skating along pretty okay. It's weird.

That being said, I am SO GLAD about the direction they're going. Tim is growing in leaps and bounds, and I would LOVE to show this season to his season 1 self.

Would I have liked a little more cohesive conversation before the finale? Of course. Tim owes Lucy that real, adult talk, but with the time they had, I'm glad we are where we are.

I think the elevator scene was really beautiful. It gently touches on a lot of points from the last 5 seasons, just regarding their very different personalities and the way Lucy has treated Tim and vice versa. I think Tim is realizing most of his mistakes and -- dare I say -- double standards in their relationship, not just as a couple, but as friends and even back to their TO/Rookie times. Lucy has always been incredibly self-aware and empathetic, and those are things that have been largely missing from his side of things. But now, he's finally willing to admit that he needs to reassess his life and attitude, and I think that's so amazing.

(Actually it's a crazy cool parallel to Isabel, but I think that's a whole post for another day hahah)

I'm also SOO happy with how open-ended they left the elevator conversation. Anything more would have felt rushed and out of place. They're committed to the slow-burn game now apparently, and as impatient as I am . . . I can respect it.

ALSO I AM INSANE ABOUT THE SAVE IN THE TRUCK. Ahem Lucy kicking everyone's butt and looking good doing it?? Yes ma'am, slay queen!!!!!!! Also those little split-second looks they shared afterward, just carve those into my tombstone already. Tim climbing out of the car looking like he just went through a wood chipper but he can't keep his eyes off his gorgeous, beat-up ex-gf who has saved his live multiple times now? DELICIOUS. The life-saving parallels???!! I need to write so many fics and analyses. They just can't stop saving each other against absolutely all odds. It's programmed into their DNA at this point. I'm so so so insane. OMG

To summarize -- I hate that they broke up in the first place but I do see the light at the end of the tunnel. I loved their small interactions this ep, almost like a bittersweet nod to what they used to be and will be again in the future.

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I have some more thoughts that are ping-ponging around my head, but I'm currently down with a fever and a cough so I haven't the energy to actually write them down lol but I plan to add to this later! Even if it's just in small random posts.

Thanks so much for the ask!! <3

#the rookie #the rookie 6x10 #the rookie spoilers #asks

[nightglider124]

Just finished new episode of Titans…

Oooooo things be getting interesting 👀

This episode seemed to pick things up a little bit more than last week. Last week defo felt very filler-ish.

Some points:

Omg the whole zombie bit was fucking hilarious 😂 Jinx’s commentary about it was funny and then Gar and Tim being all like yay when Connor decapitated Deathstroke and then being like naaaay when he got back up?? 😂😂 that whole scene was funny af.

I do not enjoy the foreshadowing of Kory having a role in all this. Like im bypassing the fact its central to Rachel and Sebastian too cos like Kory is my girl. The fairytale book and the fact her powers were not working in the zombie bit. Also, the fact MM or Gina was like ‘I don’t think the tamaranean will like her part’ like excuse the fuck me pls do not touch her thanks. I know they said like Kory gets hurt but like i am v much not looking forward to that at all. Like, how hurt we talking? Coma? I also really don’t wanna be Kory-less for half an episode of smth when she gets hurt unless the whole time Dick is gonna be foaming at the mouth in rage, ya feel me?

I do not understand Jinx’s powers at all like since when can she morph into other people?? I genuinely don’t know her abilities- i only ever knew of her character from the 2003 cartoon which was purely ‘bad luck’. But in Titans, I am assuming she’s just witch all round…

Interesting that they did flashbacks, showing us the story of Sebastian and MM and how she became the villain like she was clearly cracked anyway since she was straight into that cult w/o a second thought. It was a good choice, I think. She was a character who I didn’t mind finding out the backstory unlike the needless eps in previous seasons where we really didn’t need them.

Connor, whatcha doin there buddy?? You good?! I think i’d be a bit freaked if i puked up blood and a snake but something tells me he be getting controlled. Again interesting since in the comics, Dick is the one who ends up getting brainwashed by CoB so I am curious if they are swapping Dick for Connor in the show or if Dick will be brainwashed at some later stage or something.

Again, y’all I am v scared for Kory… like I know she doesn’t die but I also do not want her hurt like I will feel as feral as the team.

I know they gave Jinx the past romance etc but she really does scream snarky annoying lil sister vibes? 😂

I like that they’ve come full circle from s1 or at least I like the fact they have made them link. It feels less like they were making it up as they went along, even if they were.

I am extremely rolling my eyes at Dick for brushing off Kory’s visions like bitch your misses defo has a point here?? I get Dick doesn’t believe in visions and destinies etc whereas Kory wholeheartedly does but that makes it worse for when Kory gets hurt and we BEST get a scene of Dick being like fuck i shoulda listened to her about that.

I am greedy I know but I really want more romance realisation for Dick and Kory like the waiting is putting me on edge. I have a feeling Kory will get hurt in the latter part of the season. I was on insta looking back at when they were filming and when they were filming the vision of Mar’i, there was word of it being the second to last episode and we are all assuming she has the vision of them when she is hurt? I’m like I swear to God, we best not be getting dickkory in literally the last two eps (i am aware of the date scene so yay) cos at this rate, they won’t actually have any romance til s5 which is looking unlikely to be renewed for…

However, I did like the fact that Dick still spent majority of the time with Kory. She is literally always beside him as well as whenever they split or team up, Dick seems to always have Kory with him. Tis cute. I also liked when they were barricading themselves, Dick was like yeah me and kory will take the doors and its like bro was that just cos she is sick in hand to hand combat cos like you saw her powers doing fuck all so whats the thought process behind that??

I think that’s all my thoughts on the episode this week. It was good; better story wise than last week, imo. I’m excited/scared for next weeks ep since they were like yeah dickkory fans are gonna be screaming… good screaming like they get it on at a motel since we defo saw bts of a motel? Or bad screaming like Kory is gonna get messed up by CoB? WHICH IS IT??

I defo don’t think its next weeks ep that we will be seeing Kory’s vision of Mar’i and Dick tho 🤔

#titans s4 spoilers #titans spoilers #dc titans #dickkory #night notions

[new-ronantics]

I need an explanation about why mike can't write or say "i love you" (the monologue is not an excuse for me tbh) and explanation as to why he and el DIDNT talk at all after the monologue. if byeler isn't going to be canon than why still have the audience show mike and el NOT interact even after the "monologue"...... like. HELLO? i don't have the ending scenes of the last ep of vol2 memorized but. doesn't will ask about mike and el, and mike says something along the lines of "oh yeah we havent really talked since then" or some bullshit. and then the last two scenes are with him and will in the cabin (and the shoulder grab) and the field with the two of them next to each other. if milevens were truly winning (they can NOT say that about the monologue to save their asses), wouldn't they make mike and el have a deep emotional conversation after they go to hawkins? a hug? holding hands? anything??????? but what's canon is the fact they DIDNT even talk about their relationship. and mike is there with will at the end. it's not even like i'm grasping at straws here, this is what we've literally been given! as much as i adore focusing on will's side of byeler, it's deeply clear looking at mike's connection to el is dissolving in front of our faces, and how mike's behaviors shed a new light on his relationships with both el and will.

THIS!!! honestly, the timeskip at the very end of vol 2 gave me complete whiplash.

here’s the thing: if that monologue was actually supposed to fix melvin’s relationship (yeesh…), they should NOT have ended vol 2 the way they did at all. we should’ve seen a heart-to-heart between mike and el, we should’ve seen them talk everything through after the dust settled. instead we see el distancing herself from mike, yet another BYLER heart-to-heart, and then, of course, the iconic final shot that foreshadows the endgame couples.

the only (and i mean ONLY) explanation i can possibly think of if melvin is still meant to be endgame is that they plan on dragging the “mike can’t say i love you” conflict out even further, all the way to the s5 climax, which would just be ridiculous. it already felt dragged out in s4 (if you weren’t looking at it through the byler lense), and using that same conflict to create even more drama for the main couple that’s already hanging by a thread as it is is… insane to me lmao.

in conclusion, u right anon. i need explanations for these things too.

#pretty sure the explanation is byler canon B) #byler #will byers #mike wheeler #stranger things #st5 #eevie’s askbox

[legobiwan]

I was annoyed when the Clovis arc had Padme put her foot down then the plot was dropped. Therapy/help were available to Anakin but as it shows w/his scene w/Yoda he'll ignore the advice he doesn't want, at least at first. Thanks to the marriage & Palpatine he's used to getting what he wants. Maybe he'd be an ok dad but maybe not. Yes, Satine & Obi actually knew each other. They had similar believes. Anakin hides his political beliefs in AOTC & Padme ends up trusting Obi more (in the ROTS novel.)

You know the thing that really irks me about the Clovis arc (which really is an underrated set of episodes) is that yes, Padmé finally puts her foot down after Anakin goes ballistic on Clovis (which, I mean, how many red flags, right???) and then the next time we see the three of them together, Clovis literally sacrifices himself for Padmé. (And in contrast, not so long after, Anakin sacrifices Padmé for himself.)

Look, Clovis was not a saint of a person (the lady said "no," my friend, time to drop it) and Padmé was definitely conflicted through the entire set of episodes, but that is no excuse for Anakin to almost kill a man due to jealousy (although Clovis challenging him to a fight was peak hilarity).

And to come back to that last scene with the three of them, after Clovis sacrifices himself and Anakin saves Padmé, the first thing she does is throw herself into Anakin's arms and say how sorry she is. I mean, I get it, due to the traumatic nature of the situation but that is also a yikes. Because she really did, for once, put her foot down with Anakin and then it all came crashing down in a way that would careen her back to Anakin and create even more conflict (and we know Palpatine was pulling strings on this one).

And it's the guilt, isn't it? The guilt Padmé feels for allowing everything to get to this point, for her conflicted feelings about Clovis and Anakin, for Dooku forcing her to shoot that one guy (I had FORGOTTEN THAT HAPPENED and frankly, had forgotten just how hardcore Dooku went in this series of episodes, like, woah), and maybe even a little bit of guilt in feeling a little bit of relief Clovis is dead so she won't have to deal with those emotions...

So in light of all of that preceding the birth of the twins...

Yeah, we actually have no idea what Anakin would have been like as a father (because as Padmé rightfully says, their entire relationship is built on lies and deception). Even if Palpatine dropped dead from Cheeto-overload and then the Order smoked some bowls of spice and decided everything was cool with marriage, etc. I still think they both, personally, had a lot to work through before even contemplating marriage and a family.

And I think it's less Anakin hiding his beliefs in AotC (Frankly, I don't think he really had any form of developed political beliefs at that juncture although you could argue his slaughter of the Tuskens is a pretty loud foreshadowing of what his political beliefs will (de)evolve into) than Padmé just...maybe growing up a little bit and also coming down from the whole "honeymoon" phase of their relationship (even clandestine trysts lose their luster after a while). Which, mind you, would have been fine if they haven't run off and eloped and doubled-down on the whole series of bad decisions. (Not to mention Anakin's controlling nature).

The person I feel the worst for in all of this is Padmé. She's been in political training since the age of negative five and is always having to navigate her relationship with and be someone with her constituents, with the Senate, with Anakin, with Clovis...when does Padmé just get to be Padmé? Now, that's a tragedy.

#hello there #ask legobiwan #padme amidala #rush clovis #anakin skywalker

[leefkeebs]

Leopold FC980m

Custom PCB (source)

Aflion Melody and Runner switches

Deadline Studio AirR PC keycaps

Lightblue painted stock aluminium plate

Stock plate-mounted clip-in stabilizers

More under the cut.

This build took well over a year to actually get it to it's current state and it's technically not done yet, considering I still have to tune and lube the stock stabilizers.

Issue number 1 before everything else was getting the cherry mx brown switches out of the old PCB to be able to remove the plate because I didn't want to order a custom plate or go plateless. The solder used on the original PCB has a stupid melting point so not only did I have to dilute the solder with my own that melts at roughly 320°c, but my soldering iron was set to 410°c (or more for specific spots, more on that later). A good chunk of the extracted switches were simply not usable anymore afterwards from being slightly molten. The plate has a few hooks and the PCB has holes for them to hook into, one of which is a PTH (plated through hole) hole that goes to the PCB's ground and the corresponding hook lacks paint and is soldered into this hole. This cursed and damned hook was the reason for a lot of frustration as it took quite literally half an hour (maybe more) to de-solder at 435°c while constantly adding and removing solder to slowly chip away at this literal mountain of solder they used.

My next problem was simply getting the new PCB(s). Back then I was a bit tight on money from expenses out of my other hobbies and various mundane things I needed, so it took a month or two to be able to finally order them. Except JLCPCB, the service that was recommended for this PCB by this keebtalk thread, ran out of the MCUs I needed, so I researched if they had any alternatives, but by the time I read enough of the documentation of various alternatives and found one, that one ended up being out of stock as well. So another couple of months passed basically just waiting.

After ordering, an engineer of JLCPCB contacted me because some of the NPTH (non-plated through hole) holes were too close to each other and would be at risk of breaking while drilling and the best option seemed to be just making them PTH holes, because the hook holes aren't connected to anything and the plate's paint makes it non-conductive anyways so it should be fine. Right?

FORESHADOWING IS A LITERARY DEVI-

I eventually get the new PCBs and of course immediately scratch one of the 5 I ordered (it still works), tested 2 of them and went to work. Across a couple months (I was preoccupied, blah blah lazy excuses) I slowly chipped away at soldering in the MillMax sockets.

Couldn't have 4 minutes without problems though, now can we? Trying to install the switches and PCB didn't work because the MillMax sockets add roughly a millimeter of distance between PCB and plate and you can already guess that this doesn't play nice with the plate's hooks. I trimmed off the hooks but left them as little poles for aligning the PCB and so everything would be alright. Right?

I assemble the keyboard fully and plug it in to see... it not working. I assumed due to the extra millimeter from the hotswap sockets messing with the tolerances, there may be a short to the daughter board, so I took it apart again and taped any contacts and it still didn't work after reassembly. Now I was getting quite annoyed so I took off the top of the casing and tested it like that and surprisingly it worked. Kinda.

As soon as I snapped the top of the case back on, or pressed down on the plate in the bottom left corner, the keyboard would fire A bunch of keys at the same time.

Seeing this set of keys led me to the right path. I double checked this side of the PCB and saw that the hole for the PCB hook next to caps was PTH rather than NPTH and connected to one of the contacts for caps. Remember when I said one of the hooks was connected straight to ground? Or how I had to remove part of the plate hooks, thus removing the paint that prevents it from conducting electricity? Yeah. One strip of tape later and everything is fixed and works perfectly fine.

That's basically it. It was a pain, but it looks, sounds and types nicely. I'm happy with how it turned out.

#mechanical keyboard #custom keyboard #long post

[thranduel]

some people are like “even if mike turns out straight, it’s fine as long as his behaviour towards will is addressed” but honestly, no. his behaviour wouldn’t make sense at all and so many things just simply wouldn’t add up if he’s straight.

you can rewatch over and over and over again and try to come up with reasons why he was acting weird with both will AND el and it doesn’t make sense UNLESS he has internalised homophobia and feelings for will. “he’s a teenage boy!” doesn’t excuse it. “he’s in love with el but can’t say ily!” doesn’t excuse it. “he’s just insecure!” doesn’t excuse it. the way he treated will in season 3 and the start of season 4 is totally unlike mike’s character if they were supposed to be “just friends”. it doesn’t matter that he’s a teenager and got a girlfriend. mike would NEVER treat his closest friend, the one he’s always been the most protective of, like THAT. even amidst all the awkwardness, he was still soft and gentle with will and would always apologise to him if he realised he hurt his feelings. mike isn’t like this with ANY other character. his behaviour since the start of the show and the massive difference between his relationships with will and el does NOT make any sense if he’s straight. also from a writing standpoint it makes no sense to make will in love with mike and build this up since the start of the show if mike was straight. they also knew exactly what they were doing by leaving mike’s feelings ambiguous in volume 1 because there was a break before volume 2 came out and the social media accounts started hyping up byler during pride month. people were also making theories about why mike was acting weird, because what else were we supposed to think when he couldn’t hug his best friend he’s known his entire life AND couldn’t say “i love you” to his girlfriend at the same time???? what was the point in making both relationships awkward if he was just going to end up with the same person and the gay kid suffers again?

the fact that none of the writers or cast have denied the possibility of byler when they know how popular the ship is and how many people think it’ll be canon says SO much too. they’ve teased it and hyped it up, noah said it’s a possibility and the duffer brothers put them next to each other in be final scene on purpose which could be foreshadowing, brett showed his full support for them, the social media accounts are fully aware of the ship and post about them, there’s official clothing collabs where the love triangle is on a shirt (mike, will, el) and it would 100% be queerbait at this point ESPECIALLY after how they made merch of will’s painting and are profiting from it.

also even if we put all the off-screen teasing aside, mike and will canonically have the closest relationship and understand each other better than anyone else while mike and el don’t even feel like equals and can’t be themselves with each other???????? mike was literally forced and pressured into his “romantic” monologue and will is the only person who gave him strength and made him feel truly loved in the entire show??????????????? like all of this is canon, it’s in the show, we’ve seen it on our screens. how could mike possibly be stuck with el after all that and why would they do a slowburn rejection and go with the “abused and traumatised gay kid is in love with his straight best friend” trope?? why would they do that to will? what would they gain? they already got SO much backlash for what they did in volume 2 and how they used will as a plot device and broke his heart and made mike say the most corny and forced monologue, and i’m pretty sure they’re fully aware of it, so why would they ruin their own show and a beautiful friendship for no reason?

so even if they try explaining mike’s behaviour or he’s accepting towards will after he comes out, it would still be so stupid and painful and insulting and it wouldn’t make sense at all if will’s feelings aren’t requited. the closeness of their relationship also wouldn’t make sense. how is mike closer to his best friend than his own girlfriend? how does he only feel fully safe and comfortable with will but not el? why is will the only person in the entire show to actually offer emotional support to mike and comfort him and make him feel loved? there’s no way mike is straight when he’s even more queer coded than will and nothing makes sense unless byler is endgame.

#byler #mike wheeler #will byers #stranger things