I really love the girls' interactions because on one hand, we have the romance, the lovers, Emily and Alison, right? But we also have the confidants, Ali had all of Spencer's secrets on deck but she kept all of her own to herself. Spencer always challenged Ali and wasn't one to agree w everything she said. We then have Alison and Hanna, unlike Spencer, Hanna believed and followed every word Ali said, there was devotion, loyalty and yeah, a desire to be like her. Alison and Aria, their secret, Ali pushing Aria to tell her mom about her cheating dad. The complicity.
Now, the other relationships. Hanna and Emily, the very best friends, always supporting each other. Spencer and Aria have the greatest ideas and are the ones that get the other the most. Emily found warmth and someone she could talk to freely in Aria and Spencer gave her the best advice and encouraged her to do the right thing. Hanna compliments Aria's calm energy and Spencer kept all of them grounded but especially Hanna, since she's the restless one.
Pretty Little Liars wasn't the greatest show but it sure knew how to handle relationships and I love every single one of them.
The scene where the 4 liars are at the Brew right after Ali's funeral (1x2) and they are talking about how they thought Ali just ran off and was at a beach. And they talk about the lifeguard, and Hanna seemingly quotes Ali's "Save me!!". Headcanon: Ali thinking the lifeguard is hot. "I'm gonna pretend to drown so he'll give me CPR!" Emily being jealous. Spencer being annoyed and rolling her eyes. Hanna and Aria sort of being in awe, and shaking with excitement over Ali's plan.
YES, I like this. With that Alison DiLaurentis grin where she wrinkles up her nose, saying “Watch and learn girls~”
Emily awkwardly looking away and playing with a loose thread on her beach chair, though glancing back over every few seconds worried that Ali may actually drown while attempting to fake drown. Aria with a sort of nervous smile watching on, wondering if it would even work. Hanna believes in her 100% and is so giddy waiting, knowing Ali could pull it off.
But Spencer, omg, Spencer. Probably groaning in her seat with her arms crossed “Ali, that’s so stupid. He’s a lifeguard, he’ll know you’re faking. He’s trained for this.” Ali taking it as a challenge and now she’s determined to do it. There’s no backing down now and she marches out towards the water with Spencer huffing under her breath that Alison is impossible. But like Emily, she continuously glances out at her to make sure she didn’t go overboard with her acting and actually start drowning.
Does anyone have any lighthearted PLL questions for me today? Or even something they’d like to share? Cute things, silly things, random things, headcanons and the like. I’m taking a break from the serious aspect of the series as I can’t deal with the stress right now.
Something like... remember when Spencer’s mom helped her cook lasagna for her and Toby’s anniversary dinner (ignoring the heartbreak after)? Can you imagine how much Spencer was grinning the whole time? Can you imagine how much that must have meant to her?
The loving smiles between Veronica and Spencer just having a moment together like that in which they were truly bonding as mother and daughter. Veronica truly accepting Spencer’s relationship with Toby (when it was so very rocky at first) and helping her prepare for what was to be a really special night. Veronica having one on one time with Spencer when she normally seemed too busy to. She made the time to be there and help/support her.
And I’m sure that meant the world to Spencer. It’s so adorable it pains me.
Things like, Toby and Emily living so close to each other and seemed to talk some even before they became good friends in the beginning of the series. Just imagine them as little kids with their awkward grins and waving at each other across the street waiting for the bus to pick them up in the morning for school.
Imagine Emily’s love of Christmas and winter in general intensified as a child and she’s just this little ball of energy excitedly running around. Imagine Pam trying to hold her still as she’s struggling to bundle the girl up before letting her outside to play in the snow. Imagine Emily’s joy to see Toby’s already outside playing and the two of them stay out all day making snowmen, snow forts, having snowball fights and all the squealing and giggling heard echoing through the neighborhood from the two of them.
Imagine a younger Alison and Spencer memorizing all the questions and answers to every trivia game they owned to have an advantage in any game they played against someone. The other girls hating playing with them because there was no winning. If they put Spencer and Alison on the same team, they completely crushed the rest of them. If they put them on opposite teams, it got fiercely competitive and essentially became Spencer vs Alison and the rest of them were just there to, as Ali put it, “smile and look pretty while I wipe the floor with her”.
Imagine them both sprawled out in Spencer’s bed with cards all over the place and them reading the questions back and forth quizzing each other though. An occasional “card war” in which one of them playfully throws a card at the other and it gets out of hand. It ends in a storm of cards flying all over Spencer’s room and Melissa peeking in to see what all the squealing, thumping and laughing is about only to look a bit uncertain and leave. Spencer fussing that Ali should be as dedicated to studying for school as she was studying for games. Ali laughing it away and throwing more cards at her.
Remember Hanna’s unease watching a scary movie alone? How Emily likes scary movies? Imagine a younger Hanna staying the night with Emily and clinging to her side through the whole movie. Imagine Emily continuously offering to put something else on if it’d make Hanna feel better only for Hanna to stubbornly refuse. Emily liked these movies and she refused to ruin the fun! If Emily could be brave, so could she!
Imagine after the movie Emily has to hold Hanna’s hand and walk her to the bathroom because the other girl is terrified something might snatch her before she makes it there. Hanna shouting through the door “You have to stay right there! Don’t leave me!” Emily assuring her that she’s right outside the door, talking to her the whole time Hanna pees.
Imagine that Spencer was the one who put the pink streak in Aria’s hair. It was Ali’s idea, though she said it more as a joke while the three of them hung out at her house. She commented that Aria’s clothes were so dark and she needed a bit more color. She laughed and said that Aria should dye her hair bright pink. She didn’t realize just how much Aria would love the idea of it until the girl jumped up and told the other two that they should totally do it. Right now.
Alison was a little startled, though quickly recovered and laughed hysterically agreeing. Right now. The three of them should dye Aria’s hair, right now. Spencer was flabbergasted and tried to talk Aria out of it while Ali looked like an overexcited child pulling Spencer up out of her seat and saying in a rush that they needed to go to the store. She practically had to drag Spencer out the front door while Aria bounced over to Jason’s car who looked irritated to be driving his little sister and her friends to the store.
Spencer was so paranoid of something going wrong and messing up her friend’s hair that she insisted on thoroughly reading all the instructions and being the one to do it. She refused to let Ali near Aria’s head because she knew Ali would only skim the instructions and just go at it. Though Spencer was opposed at first, the look on Aria’s face and the fierce hug she received after the girl saw the end result made her change her mind. If Aria liked it, she did too. Ali immediately took a picture “I’ve gotta show the other girls...”
Yes, I want to talk about/read about things like this. Send me stuff! Questions, thoughts, fic recs, bring the happy times up in here!
To add onto what you said about the disconnect between Ali and the other liars, I feel like Ali would also be harboring some anger and bitterness towards them. Whether or not it was A's plan to get Ali arrested, the liars played a very significant role in her going to prison. They also believed Mona over Ali, which doesn't make sense, but that must feel like a stab in the back to her. Ali doesn't appear to hold any resentment but that might be BC she blames herself for everything to do with A.
Yes, exactly! She even says so to Spencer. She says that everything is her fault and that she knows Spencer thinks so too. Spencer quickly denies it and tries to comfort Alison, but she had thought so too. She had said so in the past.
Now, Spencer may not think so anymore or she may have simply said that as her guilt for blaming Alison who was also blaming herself was just too much.
It’s just this big messy ball of tumbling guilt and they’re all just falling all over themselves, unsure of how to pick the pieces up.
Why do you think there's still a disconnect between Ali and the other girls? Shouldn't Marlene be trying to mend their friendship with Ali?
There are a lot of things I think Marlene & co should be doing, but if I start that I’ll be here for days. (Sometimes I wish I could just roll up in there and snatch all the scripts away, burn them, then write them myself. Though it would certainly no longer be an abc family show as I would take it a lot darker and handle things much more realistically. It’d be like Criminal Minds up in this place.)
We’re still pretty early into the season, so it’s hard to say how they may act with Alison now. Spencer appears to be the only one really approaching her right now, though it has a lot to do with Spencer trying to solve the mysteries of “Charles DiLaurentis”.
She does seem to be trying to connect with Alison again with their talks about second chances and her trying to befriend Lorenzo. Note that she introduced herself as Alison’s friend, not Toby’s, his partner’s, girlfriend. That can be taken as two ways, supportive or protective.
There are big things that are preventing these girls from really approaching Alison though. They don’t completely trust her and there’s a lot of guilt. (Again, we’re early in and it seems like Spencer may be awkwardly trying.)
They may never fully trust her as they don’t understand her. I talked about the clear tension shown when she returned in this post here and I went on to further discuss it and the differences of her character compared to the Liars in this post here.
These things still apply to their situation, even after she risked her life for them.
Alison has far too many secrets for them to want to go to her with things unless it’s absolutely necessary, which I can only grasp at why considering their faith in Mona. This contradiction has always confused me, though I suppose I can rationalize it as the Liars have trouble letting go of the person Alison used to be because they had put all the blame on her for every bad thing done when they were friends as a way of alleviating guilt.
You’ll notice that according to the Liars, everything was always Ali’s fault. She wasn’t always all that nice and she was gone, it was easy to blame her. But now that she’s back, now that they’re faced with a girl who’s trying to own up to some of the bad things she did, it destroys that image the Liars created in their minds.
The Ali they want to remember was a terrible person. The Ali before them is messing with that. If Alison is acknowledging that she wasn’t a great person, that means the Liars have to acknowledge it as well. They don’t want to. You can’t be friends with a person like that and have been against everything they were. One of the flashbacks even depicts Aria and Alison laughing and making fun of Mona together.
All of the girls were to blame. They were just kids really.
As a way of coping, to alleviate their guilt, their minds made it so everything that ever went wrong wasn’t their fault. They made it so it was Alison’s. She was “dead”, it’s not like she could defend her name or anything. She was awful and everybody knew that. What was a few more things to add to the pile? And if it wasn’t for her, -A would never be messing with them. It’s her fault.
But now that she’s back, it’s destroying that mental image they created of her. They’re having trouble separating it from the real Alison. They’re having trouble letting go. The reality of it all is much harder to handle. It hurts much more.
In the beginning, Spencer was quick to defend Alison’s name, quick to fight for her, to find out what happened to her, to say that she loved her. You’ll notice as the series progresses, she comes to the point that she demands “Why should we care what happens to her? … Happened to her…”
Again, her mind was trying to cope with things by making everything Alison’s fault. (I always thought that was an interesting slip though.)
I believe it simply boils done to trust and guilt. Guilt for the part they played in things in the past, guilt for blaming Alison for things that weren’t entirely her fault, guilt for turning on her, guilt for being unable to really say sorry to anyone. Guilt for them still probably blaming her to a degree, especially after what happened to them in the Dollhouse.
she bullied hanna about her weight, aria about her dads cheating, emily about her sexuality, spencer about ian
She went about it all wrong, but again, she was doing what she believed to be the right thing. She was trying to be helpful. To be blunt, she just really sucks at it.
Since you’ve listed something for each of the Liars, this is going to be rather long winded. I’m just going to go ahead and insert a read more here.
Hanna was very insecure and had trouble dealing with her emotions. Hanna was upset about her weight and Alison was trying to help her lose weight. She’d remind her to be mindful of her diet, just in a way that sometimes sounded really awful. Sounded a bit condescending. “Are you really going to eat that, sweetie?”
For Hanna, her issues with weight was due to the fact that she’d over eat when she was upset. While Alison should have been trying to discuss different ways for Hanna to deal with her emotions, she didn’t really understand that was how to tackle it. She didn’t quite understand the root problem. Instead, she focused on the problem that was clearer for her to understand - junk food intake.
I would like to note that none of the other girls ever mentioned anything about her weight. They didn’t care what size Hanna was and liked her for who she was. The problem with that is that Hanna had a problem with her weight. Hanna didn’t like herself for who she was. Regardless of how the girls felt about it, it was Hanna’s feelings about it that really mattered.
For Hanna, a lot of the struggling she was having at the time stemmed from her father leaving. She felt abandoned and unwanted. She was trying to find comfort in food. Good flavors to try and combat the bad feelings, hoping that it’d overturn them.
Remember the first time she saw her father again after he had left? It was implied that she had lost weight in hopes to please him. She wanted him to be proud of her. She wanted him to come back. She wanted him to love her. She wanted to be great and beautiful and wonderful and have her father back.
In her mind, she had hoped that she could win his affections if she could be the ideal daughter. In her mind, one of her flaws was her weight. If she lost it, she’d be one step closer to him coming home.
She was struggling and drowning and Alison saw that. Alison didn’t know how to really help. She just understood that it was wrecking Hanna. She just understood that Hanna would feel better if she lost weight. She tried encouraging her, though it was in that messed up Jessica DiLaurentis style fashion. She tried comforting her, but again, it was in a way that was actually kind of damaging. She wasn’t purposely trying to hurt Hanna.
“You don’t have to feel this way. I can show you how to get rid out it.”
I always wondered why Alison’s immediate answer was to throw it back up. How she knew how to teach Hanna. Why she said, “I understand.” It made me wonder if she herself had do so before.
She does care, but when she tries to show it, it tends to be in a sort of backwards fashion. It comes out all wrong sounding, “Someday, someone will love you for exactly who you are. It might just take you longer than the rest of us, that’s all.”
It’s much like when Jessica told her, “Alison would be so proud of you for keeping the weight off.”
In their head, it sounds kind. But when it’s said, it can be taken as hurtful.
With Aria and discovering Byron’s affair, it felt as though Alison had already found out about her own mother’s affair. It felt a bit like projecting. She urged Aria to tell Ella what was going on. She told Aria that Byron would try to talk her into keeping it from her mother (which he did) and that if Aria didn’t speak up, she’d end up losing both of them.
Alison pretty much took Ella’s side as was logical. She believed Ella deserved to know her husband was cheating. She wanted Aria to take Ella’s side too and go to her. Alison was angry with Byron for Aria, for Ella, and I think for herself.
She had the same issue in her family, though she discovered it many years after the fact. It was a secret she didn’t know what to do with. Jason wasn’t her father’s biological son. He was her half brother because of an affair her mother had with Spencer’s father. He was in his twenties. Was it even really worth bringing up now? Jason didn’t know about his parentage, was it even right of her to be the one to tell him? Did Kenneth know? Again, it was so long ago…
Though, it seemed to have been resolved. Jessica and Kenneth were still married. They didn’t appear to have any problems with each other. They were still a family. Alison then applied that to Aria’s situation. Keep the family together.
She went with Aria to Byron’s office and they trashed the place, making it look like Meredith did it. They wanted Byron to think very poorly of her, wanted him to hate her, wanted to make him realize how foolish he was for ever going after someone else when he had a wonderful wife and family at home.
Not the best plan in the world, but it got the job done. Byron left Meredith and remained faithful to Ella when he realized the mistake he was making. Though it was still awful of him to make his daughter keep that secret. He still messed up and instead of stepping up and taking responsibility, he made Aria keep his secret.
Alison decided he should be further punished and proceeded to blackmail him, threatening to tell. She later tells Aria when she finds out that she wouldn’t have actually told. That wasn’t the point really. She just wanted to punish him and she needed money (and we still don’t know why). She didn’t want to ruin Aria’s family.
As I said before, when she was trying to make Aria go to Noel Kahn’s Halloween party, it was because she was trying to cheer Aria up. The main reason they were all going was because she was trying to lighten the mood and have Aria have a good time. She was a bit rude and kind of mean with how she said it and it’s because she was frustrated that Aria didn’t appreciate what she was doing for her.
I don’t think Alison was trying to be mean to Emily about her sexuality. She was trying to get her to admit it. In one of her diaries she straight up says something along those lines. She was trying to help Emily understand and accept it. She was fine with being the object of Emily’s affections, she was fine with chaste kisses, she was fine with flirting and teasing.
What she was not okay with was it becoming sexual. The moment Emily kissed her neck, she shut it down quick. She was cool with dancing around it, but she was not comfortable with it being a reality. Should we really be judging her for that? For being scared and saying no?
She snapped and was harsh, trying to assert herself. Yes, she invited Emily closer and asked her to hook her bra for her, but she did not invite Emily closer to kiss her. Yes, her tone was a bit flirtatious, but again, she was cool with flirting. She was cool with it remaining what it was. She was not okay with it being anything more.
She was uncomfortable and so very vulnerable standing there then, hardly clothed. She was okay with Emily looking, she was okay with Emily helping to dress her. She liked the attention, she liked the gentle, hesitant touches. She trusted Emily. She didn’t believe Emily would make a move like that. The moment she did, Alison told her that she didn’t want the same thing Emily did.
She later says that the kisses they shared weren’t for practice, despite what she said there in the locker room. I think the reason she reacted so badly in the locker room was, again, because she was scared. Emily wanted more than what Alison was comfortable giving. A kiss on the neck is much different then a quick kiss on the lips. It implies sexual desire. It implies that Emily was ready and willing to take things further. Alison was not.
From her line stating that it wasn’t for practice, it implies that she had genuinely liked Emily too. But again, she was 14/15 and uncomfortable with the implications of one of her best friends wanting to have sex with her. One of her best friends who was also a girl. She wasn’t ready to take things that far and lashed out. The lashing out wasn’t about Emily’s sexuality so much as it was about her own sexuality and simply not wanting to take things further with her. She was harsher than she should have been, but it’s okay to say no.
With Spencer and Ian, it was a little bit of projecting again. Ian was fooling around with her too. When she saw him kiss Spencer, she was a bit upset by it. She thought she was special to him. It then looked like he was fine kissing any girl. This branches off into two separate things.
The first being she could have been trying to get Spencer to come clean in order for Melissa to break up with Ian, meaning Ian would be angry at Spencer and not want her anymore. Then it would just be Alison left. She thought he genuinely liked her and if she was the only option, he’d date her instead.
She was also angry at him and angry at Spencer for that kiss. Spencer didn’t know why she was angry as Alison’s own relationship with Ian was a secret. It was easier to hassle Spencer because Spencer didn’t understand why. If she took her frustrations out on Ian, he’d know why and maybe leave her because of her jealousy. Alison has been shown on multiple occasions to be a bit desperate for someone’s attention and affection. She didn’t want to lose him.
I’ve also entertained the thought that it could have even been that Alison knew and understood that Ian would never be completely hers. That he wasn’t a great guy, but she was willing to take the attention he gave her anyway. That it may have been that she just wanted him to stay away from Spencer. It was too personal.
Spencer was her friend. Spencer was hers and she didn’t want him to treat Spencer the way he treated her. She didn’t want Spencer to have to keep that secret. In the bell tower, she didn’t hesitate and chose Spencer over Ian. Could it have been similar to that back then? In exposing Ian to Melissa, was it an elaborate plan to make him stay away from Spencer?
The second belief comes from her wording. It sounded a lot like the Liars in the beginning when -A sent them texts. It sounded like -A knew about Spencer and Ian’s kiss and was demanding that Alison tell. Alison was then trying to talk Spencer into telling Melissa because if she didn’t tell, “someone else” would. She was trying to get Spencer to tell the truth, even though she herself was keeping secrets.
The thing with Ian is a more complicated matter anyway as there have been so many contradictory things about it. I can only really speculate because in truth, we don’t really know what Ian and Alison’s relationship was. That’s a whole other matter that would require it’s own post really…
Now, as I’ve said many times before, Alison was often trying to help her friends. She was often trying to do right by them. I am not saying that she was a good person. I am not saying that she was a good friend. I am saying that Alison thought she was a good friend. I am saying that Alison’s intentions were good when concerning them. She just went about everything all wrong.
She was not coddled and did not coddle others. She was taught to face things head on and so she did. She was taught to lie and manipulate things in her favor and so she did. She did for her friends as well. She lied to them, manipulated them, lied to others, manipulated others, though the ultimate goal was to benefit herself and her friends.
She has put their safety before her own on a handful of occasions now, the most recent being the plan to find them and rescue them from the Dollhouse. Her interpersonal skills are greatly lacking, but that doesn’t mean she is incapable of love. I don’t know how else to put this.
Being a crappy person and a crappy friend doesn’t mean she didn’t care about them. I doesn’t mean she’s heartless. It just means she’s a crappy person and a crappy friend. She’s one of the most flawed characters on this show and it can all be boiled down to insecurity and being overly emotional.
Much like Aria, she’s highly passionate, though that doesn’t equal compassionate. She feels things very intensely and is blinded by it. She has a clever, strategic mind which makes it so she doesn’t always look at things from an emotional stand point. She goes with plans that accomplish her goals and doesn’t take how it may effect others’ emotions into account.
Yet she’s at odds with herself as her own emotions get the best of her. That plan to rescue the girls from the Dollhouse was poorly planned and very dangerous. She was taking huge risks. She wasn’t thinking clearly. She was distressed and desperate and it won out over logic. Her own emotions can cloud her judgement if they’re too overwhelming. But she doesn’t always understand the emotions of others. This is how she messes up in such awful ways. She doesn’t understand how to talk to people.
She’s trying to figure it out now, but she’s obviously going to have problems with it. It’s how she’s been her whole life. It’s how her mother was. Bottom line, Alison is much like a little Jessica DiLaurentis. Her mother wasn’t the greatest mother in the world, but she loved her regardless. And Jessica loved her. It was just… a mess.
Alison is a giant mess of a human being. And she loves her friends. She just sucks at being a good friend. The important thing is that she’s trying now. People deserve second chances when they are sincere and Alison has given me no reason to doubt her.
Caleb came into the story spying on Hanna for Jenna and I’ve forgiven him as his sincerity gives me no reason to doubt him. Mike was acting pretty shady, though once he explained himself, his sincerity gives me no reason to doubt him. Paige came into the story in a whirlwind of passion and hostility, though her growth and sincerity gives me no reason to doubt her.
I don’t doubt Alison. If you’re still having trouble seeing it as I see it, then I simply don’t know what else to tell you. Words alone cannot change the opinions of others and all I can offer are words. I appreciate you taking the time to discuss this and asking me for my view on it.
The best analogy I’ve got for ya - DiLaurentis are like onions. (They make people cry?) Onions have layers. (Not everybody likes onions.)
you always say ali thought she was helping the girls but why did she also make fun of them if that's the case?
Have you not made fun of people you care about? Perhaps not everyone agrees or does this… But I do. My best friend does. My family does. We make fun of each other, insult each other and are brutally honest with each other.
We tend to be kind of harsh, but it’s open and honest and real. It’s playful even, calling each other names and grinning at the shocked amusement when it’s delivered just right. I don’t like fake pleasantries, though I try to remember to use it often when talking online as not everyone understands this way of communicating.
Trust me, if I call you an asshole to your face, it’s because I love you.
It just always felt like Alison was like that to me. Spencer is to a degree as well. Telling Hanna, “Confucius says stop being such a drama queen” when they had fortune cookies is an example.
They’re just playing around, but not everyone understands that they’re just playing. Yes, sometimes Alison was actually being mean to the girls. But again, have you never said something hurtful when you’re frustrated or stressed out? Especially to someone you care about? For whatever reason, we tend to be harder to those we care about.
We have higher standards for them. We want more for them. We are hurt more by them. And we have the ability to hurt them more as well. When upset with someone we love, we sometimes go right for the throat.
