#tuba it

[flamingthespian]

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The Debutante Ball Car works very well as the beginning of Grace's arc of self-improvement.

Because of how quickly she brought them up with Hazel in this episode, and how much she was emotionally affected by just talking about them, and how prominent they were in her tape, we know that Grace's negative experiences with dancing are some of her most defining childhood memories. She wanted her parents to watch her recital and notice her, and they didn't. She saw her group dance class as a chance to bond with kids her own age and make friends, but they rejected her and she lashed out.

The show very clearly connects these experiences to Grace's terrible behavior, because she literally dances when she's being awful.

Once more she is putting on a show in pursuit of belonging and attention and love, but now she's performing as an infallible object of admiration and worship. Much more successful and gratifying, but still not meeting her underlying emotional needs.

In The Debutante Ball Car, Grace is reminded of her younger self by Hazel's longing to join the Apex and be with other kids, and she reminisces about her dance classes. And just when those memories and feelings are coming back, she has a positive experience with dancing.

No instructors or "learning from the best", just a fun bonding activity with three people who know her and like her. She gets to bask in the spotlight while a whole crowd gasps and murmurs about how amazing she is. It's another instance of the second chances theme of season three. Everything that went wrong with her dancing before has gone right this time.

(Sidebar: It comes up a few times that Grace's mom controlled her appearance, including this episode's mention of her making Grace straighten her hair and wear it in an uncomfortable ponytail. So Grace getting to put up her hair the way she wants and wear an outfit she likes that's in "her" colors is another way this is a do-over, and the fact that she bothered to pick multiple accessories and carefully covered the clothes underneath the dress shows how invested she was in the ball.)

It makes sense that Grace, who once was a vulnerable lonely child getting hopeful that her dance classmates could be her friends, would warm up to Hazel and Tuba very quickly after they learned the dance together. And that Grace, who remembered how much it hurt when her classmates rejected her, would have a moment of empathy and regret when she and Simon exclude Tuba from the bonding moment of Hazel joining the Apex.

And Grace being reminded of her underlying emotional needs, and meeting them in a much more positive and healthy way than "recruit kids into my cult and then we all beat people up together", seems to have recalibrated her personal goals. Grace is much more playful and sincere with Hazel going forward. When she snaps at Simon in the next episode she tells him to make his own decisions like she resents him wanting her to be the leader in that moment. And when she's apologizing to him later she admits her number is going down and she was afraid he might think less of her. Overall, she seems less interested in power and control and image, and more interested in having a good time with the group and being friends.

[mmikmmik2]

"I'll be Tuba now! I'm Tuba..."

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So, I just posted here about Simon’s toy soldiers as a metaphor for his most toxic goals and behaviors. If you look at the toy soldiers thing on a very concrete and literal level, I think it explains a lot of why he (emotionally speaking) “needed” to kill Tuba.

There are denizens Simon can tolerate. He wanted to keep Alan Dracula as a pack animal and keep the spotlight denizen as a spotlight. He makes demands of The Cat, he gets furious with her at a few different points, and he smashes her furniture in a frightening and intense scene, but he never seems to want to harm or kill her. But even when Tuba proved she was a helpful and cooperative teammate in The Color Clock Car, Mr. “You’re only as good as you are useful” got rid of her anyway. Why is Tuba different?

There’s lots of different possibilities, and there are multiple things I personally think of as contributing factors. But I think the biggest reasons are because if you look at the toy soldiers thing on a more concrete and literal level, everything it shows us Simon wanting is something he can’t have while Tuba is in the picture.

Simon wants to be POWERFUL. Tuba makes him feel WEAK.

Simon wants to be BIG. Tuba is one of the only characters who is taller than Simon, and boy is she taller than Simon. Tuba makes him feel SMALL.

Simon wants to be IN CHARGE. Tuba thinks of him as CHILDISH ENOUGH THAT SHE COULD PARENT HIM.

Simon wants to be a SUPER COOL MILITARY GUY. Tuba thinks this is SILLY.

To be absolutely clear: this isn’t about Simon feeling unsafe. Tuba overreacted and tried to seriously hurt him in The Jungle Car and it briefly scared him. (Though, it wasn’t that much of an overreaction. At that point in the story, Simon wouldn’t have physically harmed Hazel, but he and Grace both would have happily manipulated her and caused lasting emotional harm if none of their gentler tactics had worked and Hazel had kept laughing off their cult indoctrination nonsense. Tuba was right when she perceived Simon’s frustration as a threat to Hazel.) But that’s not a recurring pattern in their interactions. Grace even seems more wary of Tuba than Simon is at a few points in Debutante Ball.

Again, I would point to multiple factors behind why Simon killed Tuba. For instance, I do think he was kind of semi-subconsciously aware that Tuba and Hazel’s presence was changing something about Grace, and that the dynamic between Grace and Hazel wasn’t the normal distant leader-subordinate relationship that Grace had with the Apex kids. But I think the number one reason he wasn’t ever going to be okay with Tuba was because just by existing, she wouldn’t let him feel the way he wanted to feel. Like half of Jungle Car was emphasizing Tuba being a mysterious and powerful denizen that Grace and Simon couldn’t figure out or defeat. He needed to put himself back on top after that.

[mmikmmik2]

reasons Grace was starting to become reluctant to hurt denizens as early as the end of The Debutante Ball Car

Her bonding moment with Hazel was also a little bit of a bonding moment with Tuba

Tuba and Hazel’s sweet, loving mother/daughter relationship is the only healthy relationship Grace has seen in almost a decade and she’s starting to understand how much it would hurt Hazel to lose Tuba

A bunch of denizens stood in a circle around her and gossiped among themselves about how cool and pretty she is while she showed off. It was amazing. What if she could get the Apex kids and denizens to talk about how great she is all the time? There’s so many denizens, that would be so much positive attention

[mmikmmik2]

Hazel is six years old and traumatized and I don’t think she could have come up with her good attitude during Tuba’s funeral on her own. Probably the reason Hazel understood how to grieve Tuba in a healthy way was learning from how Tuba talked about losing her children. I think Tuba was strong enough to openly talk about difficult, painful feelings in a child-appropriate way that modeled healthy coping skills for Hazel instead of upsetting her. And the “you told me we don’t hit!” moment shows that Tuba has been teaching her how to act.

Being a good parent or guardian for a six-year-old isn’t just about having fun with them and being nice to them, it’s about teaching them to regulate their emotions and do the right thing and relate to other people, both by telling them and showing them. Infinity Train implying that Tuba was good at that stuff and was putting in that hard work makes it really painful that neither Grace nor Amelia are capable of being that for Hazel.

By the end of the series, I think Grace has developed some wholesome big sister energy. She’s in a headspace where she can be there for the younger kids in a genuinely positive way, make them feel safe, help them talk through what they’re feeling, give a little good advice now and then. But she’s not ready to be a real parent - she has a ton of her own stuff to work on. It’s not ideal that she’s the only adult around the Apex kids, for them or for her. And Grace wasn’t even that far along the last time she saw Hazel. She still wanted to lead the Apex as the head of their cult at the start of The New Apex.

Hazel needed to go with Amelia for her own safety, but in terms of childcare, Amelia is even worse than Grace. We left them with Amelia refusing to have any kind of normal adult-child relationship with Hazel. So Hazel might not even get any kind of deliberate upbringing from Amelia and instead just soak in the background radiation of Amelia’s terrible attitude about absolutely everything. It really sucks!

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randomly thinking about an Amelia season of Infinity Train that’s just like Amelia trying to make an adult friend. like she meets some random other passenger but they’re over forty and like even the slightest bit well adjusted and after five minutes in their company Amelia is chasing that taste of adult human interaction. she barely even remembers what adult friends do together but she wants to do it with them.

Amelia: do you want to uhhhh play cards The other adult: why are you such a terrible guardian to that small child Amelia: never mind

alternately, au where Tuba is alive, and Amelia is hanging out with Hazel so Hazel can learn about where she comes from and Amelia can learn about Hazel’s nature as a denizen, but every time Amelia puts one toe out of line Tuba makes a throat-slitting gesture behind Hazel’s back. they hate each other but they’re kind of friends because everyone else in the world makes them extremely tired (except Hazel for Tuba of course). not so much co-parenting as parent and extremely closely supervised scientist.

I guess I just think it would be funny for Amelia to finally get to interact with someone who isn’t a horrible child or horrible childish robot, but it’s garbage anyway just like everything else in her life

[flamingthespian]

We Are Tuba Stans First And Human Beings Second