#alithorne

[marshmellowtea]

this is what i imagine allison is thinking when she sends thomas’s failpoetry to magazines for him

[marshmellowtea]

bbc ghosts pilot episode be like

[marshmellowtea]

like the thing that gets me the most is that thomas isn't nervous-but-excited when alison starts unbottoning her shirt there's genuine terror in his eyes

[marshmellowtea]

sidenote thomas's sexual harassment of alison is so interesting because it's such a big deal in their relationship but also it isn't, and it makes so much sense for this behavior to be stuck in this weird grey space considering their situation. i mean, most if not all of the ghosts have had moments where they're inappropriate with alison (and mike, which kind of goes overlooked cuz he can't see them, but it happens!) and the boundaries between them all in general are so unclear and undefined. it makes sense that it's not something that registers to her as threatening or serious--she's not scared of him, and she's not even particularly uncomfortable around him unless he's taking it too far or being too persistent--mostly, she just seems to find it annoying. i think the fact she knows he can't touch her helps too, but that's not the only factor.

the most interesting thing about their dynamic, at least to me, is that in spite of this it's obvious that she does genuinely love and care about him still, and he loves and cares about her in return in a real way, under all of the bullshit posturing. they have a genuine connection underneath all of his desperate flirting attempts and her frustration with him! she hangs out with him! she misses him when his attention moves away from her and onto lucy! she tells him he's family and means it! hell, in the episode where thomas is trying to "get her out of his system" (which is a whole nother can of worms lmao), fanny and alison herself both make a point to say that she just wants him to stop with the comments. not that she wants him gone. not that she wants him to leave her alone forever and forever. she just wants him to chill and talk to her like a regular person, because those are the moments with thomas she likes.

i keep touching on this in other posts but i do think she's realized that there is a part of thomas genuinely likes her outside of his superficial infatuation. she doesn't let him off the hook because of it, but his advances are not serious in a "he wants to be with her romantically and sexually and is actually trying to achieve that goal" way, and she treats it accordingly. the biggest problem is that thomas doesn't seem to understand this, and even if he did, he doesn't really know how to stop. again, it genuinely seems to be a compulsive behavior rather than a genuine courting attempt, borne out of the trauma of the circumstances around his death and probably some other trauma too i'll die on that hill. that doesn't mean that it's fine to just let it slide of course--it'd be healthier for both of them he did find some way to get this compulsion under control--but he does deserve a little grace, and alison does give him that, within reason.

i didn't mean to ramble so much but it just drives me crazy that i keep seeing people claiming that alison hates thomas and sees him as a blight on her life who she wants to just get rid of when that is so blatantly not true. she has her moments where she's understandably pissed at him, and she's not above petty revenge or making fun of him (which is not something she solely does to thomas btw most of the other ghosts get it too when they're acting out lmao), but she does still care about him. they do still love each other, just not in the way thomas claims that he wants. there is something between them, something real, and their relationship is so much more complicated and interesting than her just resenting him. there's something there and they deserve more love!

[marshmellowtea]

i was gonna edit this to say opium but i think the fact that it’s the wrong drug only makes it funnier

[marshmellowtea]

what they have is so special

[marshmellowtea]

thomas trying to connect with alison is much like him trying to write his poetry in that there are occasionally moments where they genuinely connect and get on but the minute he recognizes this he immediately tries to take advantage of it, tries too hard to be flirty or to impress her, embarrasses himself/acts too overbearing/says something creepy/all of the above, and just ends up pushing her away out of a trauma-based fixation on romantic love and some weird masochistic instinct to self sabotage that i don't think he recognizes in himself. the metaphor may have gotten away with me but you get what i mean

[marshmellowtea]

holy shit this thing got away from me warning for Long when you open the keep reading link hgalskfdj. regardless here is thomas angst i promised pls read the tags for content warnings 👍

anyway i'm thinking about francis abusing thomas's trust in him even before orchestrating his death. thomas is pretty naive in a lot of ways, after all, as well as overly sensitive and emotional, and he's not very good with people even though he clearly wants their attention and respect and tbh i think there's a really compelling argument for some of the rejection and bullying he receives from his peers being due to him being neurodivergent in a time where that was unacceptable, but that's a thought for another post. in addition to all that, i genuinely think thomas didn't have much interaction with kids his age growing up (he gives me big "my mama was my best friend when i was little to the detriment of my emotional and social growth" vibes, but that's also a thought for another time lol), and so i don't think he has a very good idea of what friendship—or any other relationship, really—is supposed to look like.

enter francis, a member of his family close in age to him, who does know what friendship is—or at least, thomas assumes that he does. he certainly has an awful lot of trust in francis in general, and he seems to think highly of him in his retelling. he's genuinely taken aback by the reveal of his betrayal, and it took him an awful long time to realize what he'd done to him, and he only realized it with the help of outside perspectives. it makes you wonder if their relationship used to be different, if francis used to be trustworthy and kind to thomas, thus leading to how shocking it is for him.

......as you can see from the first line of this post, i don't think that's the case, lmao. there's something about the callousness, the cruelty, the manipulation of the plot that feels downright sadistic. not only did he get thomas killed, but he got him killed in a way that would cause him the most emotional pain before his death. he manipulated the love of thomas's life into marrying him afterwards. this is a man willing to cross some really fucked up lines to get what he wants, and who genuinely, genuinely does not care about other people, which is a stark contrast to thomas—in spite of thomas's selfish tendencies and self centered approach to most situations, we do see him frequently show care and compassion for other people, especially people he loves. he's a sweet guy, for the most part, with a bit of an ego problem he mostly uses as a means of self protection from the humiliation he's constantly subjected to and this should also probably be explored more in its own post i just wanted to mention it because i love my baby 🥺💕. he wants to feel connected to other people. he wants to be loved and appreciated.

it makes him very vulnerable, and thomas is already vulnerable in a lot of ways. he's emotionally fragile, extremely isolated from his contemporaries, and thus very lonely, desperate for love and attention. meanwhile, francis is manipulative and willing to hurt thomas in some of the worst ways you can hurt another human being in spite of their presumed friendship and family bond for the sake of a nice house and a pretty bride. thomas is very, very trusting of him, and francis is well aware of that. maybe thomas didn't suspect him for so long not because their relationship used to be good, but because he's been accustomed to blindly trusting him and ignoring red flags for the sake of keeping their relationship. lest we forget one of francis's first lines being try not to embarrass me too much, cousin—perhaps something that should've been a red flag from the start.

maybe after the revelation, thomas starts to reexamine his relationship with francis, desperately searching for a reason or any warning signs in his memories. he thought francis had always been kind to him. he thought francis had always cared about him, in his own way.

but the cracks quickly start to show in his memories the more and more he thinks about them. a compliment that thomas assumed was genuine is obviously a disguised jab at his expense in hindsight. all the times francis "affectionately" teased him are clearly aimed to hurt. all the times he thought he heard francis laughing at him probably weren't just a fluke or him hearing things, were they? he feels stupid for it, because it's all so clear to him now. francis didn't care about him. francis had been hurting him for a while now.

it's putting his stomach into knots thinking about it, but once he's started he can't stop. francis had stolen his things, not a house fairy or his mother or a poltergeist. francis did lie to him about what to say to the girl he loved back when they were in school to get him in trouble. francis wasn't just pinching him for luck, or slapping him because he saw a fly, or roughhousing with him because he wanted to play and didn't realize he was being too rough, he knew, he knew, and thinking about the physical contact between them is where he starts spiraling the worst, because francis always assured him that it was normal and fine to play like that, for him to hit him, for him to touch him like.....like.......

thomas can't keep it in for too long, now that the floodgates have been opened. he needs answers, he needs reassurance. it's really scary to approach alison about this shameful, scary vulnerable part of his past, especially since he can tell she's already annoyed when he approaches, but he needs to know. maybe he's still just overreacting. maybe everything was fine, actually.

the annoyance quickly leaves alison's face when he starts asking about the ways francis treated him, instead replaced with a look of concern and sympathy that tells him all he needs to know before she even speaks. no thomas, you're right, that's not normal or okay. that isn't either. i'm sorry he did that to you. i'm sorry. i'm sorry.

he chokes on his voice when he comes to the big confusing scary thing, that always left him feeling weirdly frightened and embarrassed and sick afterwards. francis had always kissed his face and told him he did a good job when it was all over, so gentle with him in a way he wasn't any other time, and thomas craved affection from someone other than just mumsy so badly he didn't protest, even when he cried for days afterwards. it was worth the pit in his stomach and the jumpiness if francis loved him—something he's told himself again and again. but now he can't........he's not sure..........

he stutters, tears up, whines a little. alison watches him with a furrowed brow as he manages to get out the first part of his question—he uh, when i was...we were little, and we used to, we'd touch, um—and when he can't speak any further, he just points between his legs, feeling like a stupid child for it. the look of horror on alison's face is like ice cold water spilling over him, and he stops breathing with the shock of it (or at least, whatever the ghost equivalent of breathing is). he can't look at her anymore, and his eyes are stuck to the ground, trembling slightly as he realizes that what he just confessed is in fact just as bad as he feared. that he was right to cry and shy away from francis afterwards because he did something that hurt him.

alison's voice sounds choked with tears as she responds, her voice gentle—real gentleness, not just the facade francis had given him. thomas, she breathes, you're telling me you were......well, i guess......i guess you wouldn't know, would you.....? uh, okay. so, we, um, we call that sexual abuse now, thomas, and it's a horrible thing to do to another person, especially to a child. i-it's a traumatic experience, and you didn't deserve it.

all of that is a lot for him to take in, and most of it makes him feel worse. he takes a beat, and then a certain word strikes him, making his eyes fill with fresh tears. s-sexual...? his heart skips a beat, stomach rolling with nausea. it doesn't count, he manages, chest tightening with the idea of something as special as his first time being stolen from him. it doesn't count, right?

when he meets alison's eyes, there are tears in them, her face softening into heartbroken understanding as she realizes what he's asking. no thomas, she says softly. it doesn't count. it's not the same thing.

her words are what finally break him, and he collapses into his palms, loud sobs wracking through him. he's broken, tainted, more than he realized. his life has been sabotaged by someone he loved, someone he trusted, and he hadn't even realized, hadn't even questioned it. for so long, he assumed he was overreacting, being silly overly sensitive thomas who couldn't take a joke or a game or a special secret between cousins without tearing up. this wasn't one of his fits or bouts of melancholy, though, not this time. this time, his tears and outbursts in response to his cousin had been justified.

alison stands up, making her way over to his chair. she can't touch him, can't hug him, even though all he wants is to sink into the warmth of her arms and weep. she does the next best thing though, and stands next to him, close enough that he can feel her presence beside him, a hand resting on the back of the chair he's slumped into.

i'm sorry thomas, she says, because that's all there is to say. i'm really, really sorry.

all he can do is cry harder in response, coming apart at the seams. he feels shattered into a million pieces, just as confused and scared as when he was a child. he thinks he might be sick, if that's even possible, and he can't shake the creeping sense of dirty shame washing over his skin, making him shiver and wail in response.

but at least now, he's not alone. he doesn't have to keep this secret anymore. at least he has that.