Loving El but not in a Mileven way or Hopper way or Max way or Willel way or Kali way. Loving El in a Terry Ives way. That’s her baby and she never got to know the person she would grow up to become. She tried to save her and couldn’t, because her fate was already determined by evil men and could not be rewritten.
Not to be like “only moms would understand this feeling” but…I feel like a lot of people are overlooking some facets of this and they do happen not to be moms…
The absolute sickening evil of stealing a woman's baby from her. And then when she tried to save her baby they destroyed her in a fate even worse than death—stuck reliving her worst memories in a loop for the rest of her life which her caretaker (her sister, who also clearly had to give up any of her own ambitions/passions to take care of her full-time) doesn't even realize is happening. As someone who has both a sister and a baby girl I can't help being so horrified by Terry’s story and nobody else even thinks of her most of the time.
It’s all about Hopper her adoptive father or Joyce her temporary foster mother or Will her foster brother or Mike her boyfriend or Max her best friend. People forget Terry Ives. And then they killed Jane and she couldn't even reunite with her mom on the other side because Terry is still alive…suffering forever.
The detail of all the pregnant women in the military lab was the most horrifying thing this season. Paralleling Terry being used as an incubator to steal her baby as soon as she was born. That information being the very reason Jane decided she needed to let herself die so that those things couldn't happen anymore. And nobody fucking cares. They just move on but I stay there (You’re just thinking it's a small thing that happened. The world ended when it happened to me.)
Not fun fact: the leading cause of death of pregnant women is murder. Violence against women is already so extreme but it only goes up when they're pregnant. Btw do you know how many cases there are of pregnant women being attacked/cut open for their babies to be stolen out of their bodies? People don't see pregnant women as PEOPLE anymore, they see them as incubators and objects to target with violence.
And it IS that deep and it IS that serious and idc, Terry and Jane deserved to live happily together as mother and daughter. But regardless of the canon written by the shittiest men of all time—every AU fanfic I ever read even when it's 'no lab/no upside down' based makes her El Hopper and not Jane Ives. I know that’s because that’s the parental dynamic we got to see develop on screen more, but this is an AU where NONE OF THAT HAPPENED and you still can’t give some respect to Terry. Everyone puts the importance on the man who found and adopted her and not the woman who gave birth to her and gave her life up for her.
Idc Hopper should have died with El if she was going to die. Let him break free from the soldiers and run to join her in the gate, let her not die alone, let him stop feeling like the curse by dying with his daughter this time. I don’t give a shit about him moving on and forgiving himself 18 months layer, marrying Joyce and being happy. I don’t give a fuck, he should have died with her. Terry died a long time ago for her (without even the peace and end of suffering that comes with actual death) and nobody else cares.
Does anyone else like Les Miserables? One thing that has always bothered me was this one line they changed for the movie. In the original musical, when Valjean gives Cosette his last letter, he says “It’s a story of those who always loved you. Your mother gave her life for you then gave you to my keeping.” In the movie, they change it to, “It’s the story of one who turned from hating—a man who only learned to love when you were in his keeping.” Fantine is erased from the story to make it all about the man. The story of Jane, Terry and Hopper reminds me of that….
The psychological horror in the concept of being a mother who dies before their baby can form any lasting memories of her and then being erased from history by the people who raise your child. My girl is 9 months old tomorrow and whenever I think of this I get anxiety that she won’t remember me if I randomly die in the next few years.
Anyway I’m done. If the ending is “open for interpretation” anyway than I’m gonna say Terry made a lot of progress in the years after her baby came home to her, that Jane’s presence helped her break out of her dream circle and after Jane escaped, she went back and found her and brought her to the faraway village where she settled down and they enjoy a cozy life together.