The spring before Kris goes to college, Victoriaās getting a ride home from her and watches tangerine waves of sunset ripple over Krisās face and fondness wells in her heart and in a burst of thoughtless affection she tries telling Kris how she feels.
Vic feels time slow down and frost over as Kris pulls to the side of the road and shuts her down firmly, and Vic can tell Kris is trying to be gentle and minimize damage to Vicās self-esteem but Vic is like twelve and that moment haunts her for almost the entirety of her teens. Sheāll be at a Vortex Club party or breezing through an exam and feeling on top of the world until she remembers Kris telling her youāre like the baby sister I always wanted and Vic has to stare into the void for a moment until she shakes off the urge to drown herself in the nearest water source.
Nodding sagely at the lis communityās well-written and insightful interpretations and analyses of lis characters before I return to considering which BG3 class and love interest each character would choose
If I had a nickel for every time a video game ending presented me with a choice to allow one person dear to the main character to suffer a terrible fate or a community of people the mc connects with throughout the story to die, and I chose the second option because I'm prioritizing my favorite character who was basically discarded by the narrative in the third act, I'd only have two nickels, which isn't a lot, but it might be weird that I sometimes forget that the Actual Sacrificial Character exists
[edit: correction, forgot that painted!verso doesnāt literally die, only on the inside lol]
āif you love this character then you must make him happy in your fics, right?ā wrong. the horror. suffering. internal hemorrhage. hospital. immediately
Recently started thinking about Allison Hargreeves again, hereās my ted talk on why sheās an incredibly complex, flawed character and a well-written example of a redemption arc with a character who has made irredeemable decisions.
If Allison Hargreeves has one fan, itās me.
If Allison Hargreeves has zero fans, itās because I remembered that umbrella academy seasons three and four exist lol
Allisonās immensely abusive childhood instilled in her that her value was measured by her ability to leverage her superpowers, which include warping reality and overwriting otherās autonomy. Allison carries that over into adulthood and effectively builds her life around it ā until the gravity of whatās she done hits her, and itās not the legal ramifications that give way to this heavy realization.
In S1, when sheās driving through the night in the effort to protect Viktorāif i remember correctly also the first scene we really see Allison alone with her thoughtsāsheās overwhelmed with shame, knuckles hard on the steering wheel as memory after memory of her sins hit her, one after another, non-stop, relentless, choking her with that kind of guilt that makes it hard see past your tears or even breathe.
In that scene, the last memory Allison has of using her powers lingers on her stricken expression, her words inescapable, echoing:
I heard a rumor you were in love with me.
She knows that what she has done is unforgivable.
She participated in her fatherās abuse of her sibling.
She perpetuated the cycle of abuse on her daughter.
She effectively stole much of her ex-husbandās lifeāand worse.
And yet she keeps driving.
Even when she hates herself, when she knows the people she wants to love and help either justifiably distrust or are unsafe around her in the wake of her choices, she keeps moving forward.
Thereās no guarantee that sheāll be able to save Viktor, or that heāll even believe her, or that telling him the truth wonāt cause more harm to Viktor and their already strained sibling relationship.
Thereās no guarantee that sheāll regain visitation or custody of Clair, or that her daughter will forgive her once she understands the magnitude of her mother choosing to use her powers on her.
All she can do is try.
And she works hard to do right by the people she has hurt, even if it may never be enough to change their view of her, and then to the new people that come into her life, even if they may never know the efforts Allison is making to be better than what she was.
In S2 she is thrust into a traumatic situation where her siblings are missing and she is immediately dehumanized, harassed, and narrowly escapes an attempted assault.
Trapped and without her loved ones in the 60ās US deep south, she has every reason to rewrite reality around her.
And yet she doesnāt.
If ever there was a use case for the moral use of her powers, it would be to set just an unjust world. But even when she loses faith in reuniting with her daughter, she does not alter history beyond her human means.
Because Allison knows it isnāt safe for her to use her powers, not for the people she loves, not after whatās she done, and she canāt risk being the person she used to be.
And she builds a new life, develops a healthy, loving relationship and marriage, becomes a leading voice in her community, all on her own merit.
When she does end up needing to use her power in necessary self-defense ā for her husbandās life, not her own ā sheās able to rebuild Rayās wavering trust in her, and she shares in his horror when her childhood-instilled cruelty bleeds back in. Even though the person she harmed deserves no pity, Allison was so deliberate about her imposed consequence, having the bartender recreate his previous assault on her onto himself, unable to scream ā Allison couldnāt speak either, when she first warped into the 60ās ā and she does it so easily, not concerned for witnesses or permanent injury until Ray intervenes.
When Ray questions if she has ever used her power on him, I donāt believe we hear a response from Allison, with the implication being that itās the possibility that unnerves her ā as the viewer we know that she has not, and thatās she proud of the life sheās built.
But just the concept of her powers naturally yields concerns about their potential, and that usage starts and ends with Allison. She knows that now. She doesnāt guilt or really fault Ray for considering the idea. The shame never leaves, and Ray would be justified in feeling unsafe, in leaving, whether because of her powers or knowing how she once used them.
S2 ends with Allison having to leave Ray in the past for the chance to see her daughter again.
She asks for his consent to erase his memories ā and how cruel it is for him to have all this knowledge and spend his life working hard to improve society, making a better world he may never live to see or at best will have so little time in ā and though it aches for her to leave him heartbroken and alone, she respects his decision to remember.
She couldāve stayed with Ray, with the guarantee of spending her life with a partner who loves her fiercely.
But doing right by her daughter is what Allison chose long before Ray, and she moves forward.
Thereās no guarantee that returning to the 2010ās/2020ās will reunite Allison with her daughter Clair. And even if she does find her, thereās no certainty that sheāll be redeemed or forgiven in her daughterās eyes.
I'm curious how you view the Rachel-Victoria dynamic? Rachel was generally very well liked. Victoria does not seem to be a popular student in terms of having many friends? Hayden notes that Victoria respected her but didn't always act like it. I always wondered what that looked like, and what the social landscape at Blackwell was like with Rachel in it.
Of course there's also the mysterious element of Victoria and Rachel both being connected to Nathan, thought the nature of Nathan and Rachel's relationship is unclear.
here goes: lesbianly
and my serious answer is that I think they were both able to recognize the artifice in each others respective presentations, but Victoria saw rachel's flickering identity as inauthenticity taken to an extreme, and rachel saw Victoria's false confidence coupled with her cruelty as a deep character flaw. I doubt they were never able to get along, but Victoria likes to show off in front of the people she likes and if Rachel didn't react to Victoria's cruelty, that would greatly hurt her ego. but Rachel wouldn't be disturbed by any of Victoria's performances because she can see right through her ... they're not exactly oil and water, but Victoria wants everyone to know how much better she is than them, while Rachel wants people to surround her and love her and believe she is the exact same as them. when Hayden says Victoria respected Rachel, it came from her perceiving how good Rachel was at her act, and how good Rachel could make her feel, but it would never last because she couldn't pin her down. if Rachel was nice to Victoria despite how offput Victoria was by her, and how biting Victoria was to Rachel regardless of what she's done, it was exclusively because she wanted something from Victoria (and maybe she did!)
but what must've been difficult is seeing how many of her friends liked her, and how many teachers complimented her, and how accomplished she was. and how unjustifiably not mean Rachel was to Victoria! they weren't necessarily at the same social standing because of Victoria's weird teenage machiavellianism (werk), but Rachel was not afraid of or willing to respect the barriers Victoria put up in terms of social standing. and I don't think any of the other students really cared about being the most feared and doted after like Victoria did, and this made people like Rachel more!
and with the Nathan triangle thing! Victoria and Nathan undoubtedly use together at parties, but Rachel was willing to do anything to make a strong connection, and I think Victoria saw Nathan's admiration? liking of? defense of? Rachel, and it was another tick in her chameleon (negative) box. her going missing confirmed her convictions about Rachel constantly performing while everyone else is so consumed by her act, because obviously she's in the back of an econoline drinking and laughing with the band, because she's too slimy for bad things to happen to her. by September, it's jealousy that everyone is so consumed by someone who isn't even here anymore, but it's also this sickly feeling that she should've been able to smart her way out of disappearing.
if Kris and Nathan remained in contact with their parents throughout their adulthood, I get the sense their parents would have mellowed out to some degree, even being almost personable to them.
But Sean and Caroline are absolutely the sort of parents that would tell their adult children with zero shame, "We never abused you kids."
Kris makes an excuse to leave because her ears have started ringing. She drives a few laps around Arcadia Bay until she can think clearly again. She still doesnāt come back to the manor until she can fake a smile in her carās sun visor mirror.
Nathan nods and coaches himself to stay still as their parents wax on and on about how they gave him and Kris every opportunity and advantage they could have wanted and how spoiled they were and how gentle their disciplining was and then he has to say something.
"Gentle how?"
His dad looks him in the eyes and says, "We never hit either of you."
Nathan feels his soul detach from his body because what in the blatant dishonesty are they going on about lmao
big infrastructure project iāve been leading this year is being deployed today, longest downtime iāve had to coordinate so far, and iāve been so in my head about it. so much shit i couldāve done better! shit i shouldāve already done!! shit i couldāve delegated!!!
ā¦AND iām late to work!!!!!
(still not as nerve-wracking as publishing my writing and anxiety-driven interpreting days | weeks | months | indefinitely š„² without feedback as negative reception lol)
itās going very well actually! except for the part where i mixed a high noon with a sugar-free red bull and chugged it in front of my team! but thatās because i knew it would hit me when most of the scary stuff was done!
big infrastructure project iāve been leading this year is being deployed today, longest downtime iāve had to coordinate so far, and iāve been so in my head about it. so much shit i couldāve done better! shit i shouldāve already done!! shit i couldāve delegated!!!
ā¦AND iām late to work!!!!!
(still not as nerve-wracking as publishing my writing and anxiety-driven interpreting days | weeks | months | indefinitely š„² without feedback as negative reception lol)
I implore the lis showrunners to improve the characters' hygiene:
Chloe takes off her boots before she dances on her bed
Max doesn't touch Dana's pregnancy test
Max wears flip flops in the dorm common areas like the carpeted hallway and the showers
No roaches in Two Whales. No roaches anywhere
Max stops by her dorm to take a shower after playing in the junkyard and laying down on train tracks
Max and Chloe each take a shower after the pool shenanigans and put their clothes through the wash at the earliest opportunity
Everyone at the Vortex Club party wears shoes. I don't care that it's a pool party you can tell just by looking that every surface is sticky and it stinks
