Vulcan teen on Vulcan [tiktok] saying "I have just lost track of my father in the grocery store." The camera turns to show the viewers the grocery store in which almost every single older middle-aged man has a bowlcut and long robes. Camera turns back to show the teen's face which is expressionless and yet communicates all it needs to.
It would have been so fun to have had Tamora Monroe be a friend of Laura Hale. She comes to Beacon Hills because Laura's death never sat right with her.
Laura had always said she'd never go back to that place. She'd once confessed that even before her family had died, her plan had been to leave. "We called it 'Beacon Hells.' That place buries you if you stay."
Her whole family had been killed by arson, the mystery never solved. Laura was distracted and worried before she left. Now she’s dead. Something's not adding up.
Tamora has a bad habit of blowing up her life. A year after Laura dies, she takes off for Beacon Hills.
The move brings more questions than answers. Laura's brother is curt and suspiciously incurious. "It was an animal attack."
That's what everyone says--about everything. So many deaths, she discovers, all "animal attacks." Silence follows the phrase. The dark woods ringing the town are suffocatingly quiet. Murderer after murderer seems centered on this one high school. Tamora takes the guidance counselor job Marin Morrell left.
Soon after, she gets a meeting request from a student named Scott McCall. Sweet kid, surprisingly down to earth for the captain of a champion lacrosse team in a town that's inexplicably obsessed with the game. He wants to talk about taking AP Bio next year despite the fact that his grades should bar him from it.
His father, Tamora has discovered, is an FBI Director. Scott recently helped him bring down some of the assassins--professional assassins--that had for some reason targeted a small public high school in the middle of nowhere. Rafael McCall is impossible to get a hold of, but maybe Scott heard something from him.
Tamora makes a bit of small talk, noting Scott's eagerness to make a good impression, and then asks carefully, "Any idea what those assassins wanted?"
"Uh..." Scott scratches his head. "Money, right?"
"But whose money? Why would anyone be paying them to come out here? Who in Beacon Hills could possibly be worth that much dead?"
Scott gives her a classic teenage boy shrug. "Beats me."
His indifference irritates her. "No one has theories?"
"Nope."
"Not even..." This crosses the line, but Tamora has to know, "the FBI?"
Scott looks uncomfortable. "I haven't really asked."
Tamora's violating a thousand professional boundaries here but she just can't understand why no one cares. Children have died. "Why not?"
Scott shrinks in his seat. "Honestly, I'm just trying to make it through high school."
He looks abashed, almost guilty. Underneath is something shadowed--grief. A close friend, her records indicate, had died last semester, another of Beacon Hills' freak accidents.
Tamora knows what that's like. "Right. Of course."
Interrogating him had been stupid. Tamora struggles with going overboard, crossing lines. She's lost jobs over it, friends. Only Laura had never really seemed to mind. She said it reminded her of her family. Tamora had liked that. She doesn't have much contact with her own.
She smiles. "Let's see what we're working with."
The issue with Scott's grades stem from attendance. He wouldn't be the first student to miss class after the death of a friend. Scott's a bright kid, dreams of veterinary science at UC Davis and already has a job with the local vet. AP Bio stands between him and the applications for the scholarships that would allow him to even think about going, and Mrs. Finch, the biology teacher, won't even think about letting him take the class without a note from the guidance counselor.
It's an easy note to write. This class might be Scott's ticket out. She doesn't want the grave of Beacon Hills to bury anyone else.
Scott takes the note like it's a golden ticket. "Thank you. Seriously, Ms. Monroe, you're a lifesaver."
"It's nothing."
Scott stands to leave, but at the door, he pauses. Hesitates. Turns back. "Ms. Monroe, um... is it true you knew Laura Hale?"
Tamora freezes, totally unprepared for the question. How would Scott know that? Tamora asked a few people about Laura when she first came to town, but only a few, and all adults. Why would this random teenager know about it? "Who told you that?"
Scott tugs nervously on his backpack straps. "I know her brother."
The brother Tamora still half-suspects of being behind Laura's death. Wouldn't bite marks be easy enough to fake? Definitely enough to fool small-town police. The only knot in her theory is that whatever this is, it's clearly bigger than Laura. She's one victim of many. Would Derek Hale kill all these people?
Laura had loved her brother. Why would her own family kill her? Had Derek been responsible for the fire too?
Is he a serial killer? she struggles not to blurt out. The effort to check it paralyzes her. She has so many questions no one will answer.
"I was the one who found her body," Scott admits into the silence.
Tamora can't stop herself. "Do you really think it was an animal attack?"
It's crazy, she knows that, but doesn't anyone else wonder? The woods are so silent, dark in the day, no sign of life except for the howls in the distance. Tamora can't make sense of them. There are no wolves in California.
Scott fidgets with his backpack. "There were bite marks on the body, right?"
"Those could be faked." Can't anyone see that? Do they not care? Is the sheriff too stupid to realize? Is he behind it? Was he bought off by Derek Hale? The Hales are rich enough to buy this whole town ten times over.
"Looked pretty real to me." Scott won't meet her eyes.
Did Derek get to him too? Scott would be easy to buy, a poor kid desperate for a scholarship.
A kid, it hits Tamora abruptly. He doesn't know anything. He's seventeen years old. He saw a dead body in the woods.
Oh god, Laura's body. Tamora hasn't been able to make herself think about it. Laura--sarcastic, sulky, bright-eyed Laura--was torn apart by something's teeth.
Tamora can feel her eyes go hot. She wipes them, sniffling pathetically, and by the time she looks up, Scott has politely disappeared, quiet as a deer.
That should be the end of it. Her best friend, her only friend, was torn apart by an animal in the woods. Nothing more insidious, nothing less awful. Her brother buried her mutilated remains next to his burned out home, but that doesn't make him a murderer. Don't people do crazy things when they see death? Tamora did. Beacon Hills is just like a million other towns in America, a fucked up place where people die. Laura had tried to warn her. Tamora had blown up her life rather than accept it. She's always struggled with ugly truths.
If there's something going on in Beacon Hills, it's an ugly truth. Drugs, most likely. This is meth country, after all. Maybe the Hales dealt something. Maybe their murder was about that, maybe there's been an on-going power struggle since.
Maybe it's something weirder than meth. The psychiatric facility on the edge of town is riddled with horrible rumors.
There Tamora goes again, inventing wild theories. She tries to be done with it, tries to let the truth sink into her body and settle there. Her friend is dead. She wanted to solve the mystery of her family's murder, and a mountain lion tore her in half before she ever got any answers. That's life. Tamora needs to face it.
Except, wouldn't finding answers help her do that? Laura wanted answers. Tamora can find them for her. It's for Laura.
Besides, it's not like she has a life to go back to anyway, or a job market she's eager to re-enter. Beacon Hills High School is strapped for staff, willing to overlook a few bumps in the road of her resume. Tamora doesn't need to blow this life up too.
She spends her nights searching. Local files aren't that hard to get a hold of, as if the town compensates for its tight grip on some secrets with a loose one on others. Tamora dives deep.
One name keeps coming up: Scott McCall.
He found Laura's body not once but twice.
He's been present for a remarkable number of deaths, in fact. Animal deaths.
A friend of his died under mysterious circumstances. Another spent time in that psychiatric facility. His co-captain on the lacrosse team filed a restraining order against him before leaving the country. The teacher that disciplined him the most often was murdered.
His father is an FBI agent, with all of their access. He’s killed four people on record. History of domestic violence.
Scott's mother is a nurse--access to the morgue, to drugs, to the files of all the people who died in the hospital under mysterious circumstances. Last semester, the files claim, an animal snuck into the hospital and tore apart a dozen people. That's life.
Scott's close friends with the son of the sheriff, a bumbling man who claims nothing's wrong with the town. He sings Scott's praises. "Most trustworthy kid I know."
What does the sheriff know? All these deaths on his watch. There was even an investigation into his failure to close cases.
It was run by Scott's father. It was abruptly shut down.
To protect Scott?
Scott works at the veterinary clinic. He must have seen animal bites. He knows what they look like. He knows how to handle bodies.
Those assassins went to his school. They were in his locker room.
Trying to kill him?
He snuck out of her office so silently. Like an animal.
Tamora is being crazy. It's impossible. Scott's a teenage jock.
It's just that everywhere Tamora digs, every rock she turns up, there's Scott underneath it. The connection is always him. It's like his face is the mask over whatever's really going on.
And there is something going on. Tamora's sure of it. It's like a bone bruise, the kind that pains you before the blood ever rises to the skin. It's like a fault line waiting to erupt. Tamora doesn't want blood or earthquakes. She just wants to know what's underneath the surface of this town. For Laura.
It's all she thinks about. The job is so boring. Beacon Hills is a town where everything happens but nothing changes. The students are exhausting. Tamora has never worked this much with kids.
Her only consolation is that it's the same high school Laura went to. Tamora can practically picture her in the halls. Would they have been friends if they'd been here together? Tamora's whole life might have been different. They would have hated this place together, dug out of its grave together.
That's what she's thinking about, the night the animal attacks.
Tamora lies in the pile of bodies, paralyzed by terror, suffocating under the weight of these corpses, the only shield between her and death. It buries you.
What is it? She saw a shadow, like the night itself had killed all these people, like the dark had leapt out of the forest.
She looks around, and that's when she sees him. It's Scott but not Scott, a monster wearing his face. Teeth, claws, demonic red eyes. There are wolves in California and they're demons. Beacon Hells. He's the animal, the blood, the earthquake.
That's life, she thinks hysterically, that's life.
She's numb by the time the sheriff drags her out of the pile, gun holstered and excuses loaded.
"It was a bear," he says.
Tamora feels far from her body.
That had been death she'd seen, staring out into the darkness with those glowing eyes, seeing its secrets. Silent as the grave.
That was what got Laura.
Tamora washes the blood off, but she can't scrub off the smell of the corpses. It's like it's in her now. Death got her. She and Laura are finally here together. She lets that sink into her body.
For Laura, Tamora thinks, as she aims a gun at a demon wearing a child's face. This is for Laura.
It's an ugly truth, but she makes herself face it. And for me.
the best death note joke format will forever be L asking light a simple question in which logical answer A might increase the likelihood of light being kira and logical answer B similarly might increase the likelihood of light being kira and after a short internal struggle light comes up with answer Y, which no human being has ever thought of as being a normal response in all of living history
Rhaella abusing Viserys, Elia being a-okay with her humiliation and teaming up with Rhaegar to groom a teenager, Lyanna somehow being more prophecy obsessed than Rhaegar, elishara only being confirmed to whitewash Rhaegar’s actions, the Dornish being an orientalist mess, every single woman in this play being turned into a hysterical loco or being villainized in in order to uplift the men specifically absolving Rhaegar of any blame and sanitizing Aerys………turn this shit the fuck off
Elia Martell trying to get the people around her to be rational political actors but everyone's too busy being grief stricken or obsessed with prophecy or crazy and racist or transporting a minor across state lines
GUYS elia is Not a Victim. elia is a Girlboss Lesbian that's why she was totally Okay with almost Dying in painful childbirth Twice to birth her man's prophecy babies and still being humiliated in front of the world because she is Girlboss and Gay and Dornish she is Politically Savvy and Not a Helpless Victim so that's why she encourages her white husband to go have a white bastard with a white woman although she wants power for house martell and knows that westeros is very anti dornish & that the last time a half dornish dude sat the throne his claim was challenged by his white half-brother but guys she does not care about All That because she is Girlboss and Gay and Dornish and did i mention that she is Not an Eternal Victim? yeah very important she is Not an Eternal Victim We Wonnnn yayyyyy #feminism yayyy #girlpower yayyy #gaypocrep 🥳
friend whos always planning everything: hey guys lets do something this week!! when are you all available?
friend whos always available: i can do whenever
friend whos constantly busy: im sorry i have work and then school and then the labyrinth and then more work :( i can do tuesday at 3:00 am for five minutes tho
friend with the randomly generated sleep schedule: (no response)
friend who went missing in the woods behind their house 12 years ago and hasn't been heard from since: (no response)
friend whos really into genshin impact: does anyone want to play genshin impact
Alicent saying Ormund acts fatherly to Daeron and then we cut to Ormund in fact acting how Alicent perceives fathers to act towards Daeron was also so awesome
Sending your last son away to oldtown as a babe in a desperate hope that he will avoid the fate of his Targaryen siblings only to have him get groomed into a dynastic tool for seizing the throne by his nefarious father figure like a Hightower AND get groomed into a tool of (re)conquest carrying divine magical purpose by a nefarious ethnic supremacist uncle figure like a Targaryen.
this line kills me for various reasons, but one I think about all the time is that they're both struggling to label their Very Interesting relationship, and are using the terms most familiar to them as place holders!! both think the label the other has chosen is undeserving for what their relationship actually is, but neither want to take the step and be honest about what they mean to each other!!
bear with me (haha)
i think to understand what i'm saying you have to understand the trajectory of sydney and carmy's arcs over the seasons. what are their motives? what do they struggle with? what do they prioritize in their life? what relationships do they prioritize? (this might not be something the character consciously wants, but something they need in order to complete their character arc)
let's start with carmy. carmy doesn't have many friends when we meet him. or any, actually. he has competition. he has enemies, he has fellow chefs, but friends? he doesn't have time for that. he hasn't had the opportunity to slow down since mickey died (and before that really), so he's subconsciously ignored the desire to have any social connection for his own benefit. over the course of the show we're watching him attempt to let go of his past and confront his trauma, and through that, open up to other, healthier relationships. any person who gives him the space to forge that connection is special to him.
now what about sydney? sydney is struggling. lets assume she has a better social life than carmy (one because... look at her, and two i think a rock could have a better social than carm) but we do know she's struggling financially. she craves stability, independence, equality in her worklife. we know this because she feels guilty in relying on her dad, is pretty quick to jump into a new restaurant where she would be on equal footing with carmy, and prioritizes collaboration and communication over anything else. over the course of the show we watch her gain respect, notoriety, and standing in the culinary world. any person who gives her the space to collaborate and understand her, take the risk and be her partner (and through that title acknowledge her greatness), is special to her.
now lets flip it! what do they NOT prioritize? what is shallow for them? what isn't AS special?
sydney has friends. she has lots and lots of friends. she's liked and people want to be around her. she is in an abundance of friends.
carmy has been is bureaucratic hell for months. he's worked in professional kitchens for most of his adult life. he's been acknowledged. he has nothing left to prove to the culinary world.
imagine if your best friend in the whole wide world, the person you notice even the most imperceptible things about, who appreciates you (outside of your culinary expertise), who comes back (out of her own volition) to be there for you, who knows you write in the margins, called your relationship a business partnership? something so devoid of feeling, the one thing you've been trying chase?
imagine if your partner, the person you'd idolized for so long, who didn't just give you a chance but saw you as an equal, bought you a thom browne chef jacket, stared at you like you were the most amazing thing to grace this earth, practically HANDED you his dead brother's restaurant on a silver platter, called you just a "friend"? something he calls neil fucking fak, something you already have plenty of, none of which helped bring your credit score up?
wouldn't you be confused? wouldn't you think its fucked up, how dare they reduce your special, amazing, rise-above-it-all relationship to something so meaningless?
respectfully, they both made up definitions for their given words based on prior significance to them. in what world does a business partner apologize for giving attention to his girlfriend over you? in what world does a friend gush about you to your estranged mom?
but they both know that. its just a lot easier to pretend they're living in that world.
"you're my partner" said mournfully
"i'm your friend" said angrily
"well you're not fucking acting like it"
so what are you acting like?
(the answer is lovers)
tiktok comment i wrote a couple months ago that randomly appeared in my brain and made me go "i should talk about this more"
areudirty
turnnoffyourmind
jimmyeatworldofficial
romaincrisis
2087
prguitarman
amandla
pixelskylines
kianamaiart
