FNAF Movie Theory...

I'm pretty sure there's still one major plot twist in the universe of the movie that's been set up for a sequel but hasn't actually happened yet. Heavy spoilers under the cut:

After watching the movie in theaters and then revisiting a few scenes on Peacock, I'm still kind of convinced that Mike Schmidt is Michael Afton.

Here's my reasoning. A lot of the characters spend time acting like they know something the audience/other characters don't, and those things are...mostly resolved. But some of them just...kind of aren't.

The main thing that sticks out to me is William's whole storyline. Starting with the scene where he offers Mike the job, his behavior is almost explained by the movie's logic. He sees Mike's name, seems...kind of deeply upset, looks at him very closely, stands to get coffee, and has a moment of visible internal conflict. Then he instantly offers him the Freddy's job. The way the movie frames this, it seems to be saying that he recognized the name of one of his victims, realized this was the kid's brother, and decided to kill him right then and there. Which is passable as an explanation, but it has a lot of holes, if you look deeper.

Why would William so instantly recognize a fairly common last name as the brother of some kid he killed that wasn't even anywhere near Freddy's? Why did he kidnap/kill Garrett in the first place, in some random forest in Nebraska? Why did he see the name on the file, then immediately stop and examine Mike's face so closely, when Mike's memories/dreams pretty clearly show that they never saw each others' faces when Garrett was taken? Why did he send Vanessa to "keep Mike in the dark" if he purposely gave him the job to get him killed? Why not have the animatronics kill him right away? He didn't know that Mike was searching for the man who took his brother, and while he could have maybe guessed he was still actively haunted by what happened based on Mike beating up a guy that he thought was kidnapping someone, it still feels like a weird choice to go and hire him, then just have him do the job with no issue for a few days.

As for Vanessa, we see that she's been cleaning up William's messes for years. Why is Mike the one she changes her mind and stands up to her father for? There's no implied romance between the two and no particularly meaningful connection beyond them both having family issues. I guess she cares about Abby because she's a kid, but kids getting hurt clearly never stopped her from helping her father before.

And, on a more meta level, this is Scott and his storytelling style we're talking about. The man puts plot twists inside of plot twists and everything always ties back into the Aftons, somehow.

So, here's my theory: I think that Mike is William's kid, but Mike's mom left Afton when he was young and remarried the man that Mike thinks is his father.

It seems convoluted and maybe cliche, but if it's true, then suddenly there's an answer to all of those questions. "Michael Schmidt" isn't exactly an eye-catching name, unless you had a kid named Michael and your ex-wife married a guy with the last name Schmidt. Garrett's kidnapping, then, becomes an act of intentional, petty revenge rather than an extremely random coincidence. Giving Mike the job and sending in Vanessa suddenly becomes about piecing together how much he knows and figuring out if he's worth trying to reconnect with or is just a threat that needs to be killed. (It feels worth noting that William is as far as I can remember the only person to call him Michael in the whole film. He also very pointedly never says "Schmidt" until he's decided to kill Mike and suddenly announces his full name out loud. If he went by Michael as a little kid, that is what William would default to calling him, but if he took the new husband's last name, that would be like like salt in the wound that he wouldn't want to voice. By finally saying it out loud, it feels like he's making the decision to fully separate himself from Mike.)

As for Vanessa, if Mike is her brother, it makes sense that he would be the person she'd turn against William to save. It would be weird for her not to tell him, but she could also be trying to protect him, in some way. There's never any mention of her mother, and it seems like it's just been her and William for a long time. Also, ending the movie with her in a coma feels like a strange narrative choice, but it makes sense if she knows information that's purposely being kept hidden for the sequel.

Of course, it could just be that the movie has kind of messy writing and I'm trying to fix it because I want there to be a deeper reason for it. Maybe there is no Michael Afton in the movies, or maybe he's off chilling and doing his own thing somewhere and we'll see him in the sequel. Only time will tell.

I’m not really in agreement as to why people keep saying “it’s so out of character for Ashtray to try and shoot his way out of that situation because he’s usually so calm and calculated!! that was shitty writing!!” because like okay. Yes. We can all agree that S*m Lev*nson is not a good guy nor is he a fantastic writer. Plot is the show’s main weakness, and it’s a big mess a lot of the time. But of all the plot critiques that you could make about Euphoria (how they tossed Kat and Jules aside and paid them dust, the unnecessary nudity, the 54-second prelude in episode 7, Elliot’s existence, etc.) I really don’t think Ashtray being ooc in the finale is one of them and I’ll explain why under the cut.

First off, Ashtray is smart but in no way does that make him calculating. You can be intelligent and still not be very good at playing the long game. He’s impulsive. We see this in 2x01 when he kills Mouse because even though Fez and Ash are obviously intimidated by Mouse (and rightly so; he’s a scary guy), Fez’s life wasn’t really in any imminent danger when Ash killed him. Fez explains it to Laurie as “we didn’t like the way he did business”. There was no need to say it was self-defence because it wasn’t self-defence. This behaviour makes Ashtray’s decision to kill Custer in episode 8 make a lot more sense, because he’d done something like it before and when you’re as young as he is, it’s hard not to feel a little invincible to the point where you think you could probably do it again with no consequences. On top of that, Ashtray only knew something was off with Custer. He did not see Faye gesturing at Fez to keep quiet, therefore his context clues were more limited. He knew only that there was someone in his house posing a threat to him. In no way should he have been expected to know that there were cops outside or a recording device anywhere. Only Fez could have pieced that together. And when Ashtray does kill him, and Fez is keeping Custer quiet as he passes away, he signals to Ash to keep quiet. This is probably the first time Ashtray even clued in that they were being listened to by cops. He has great intuition, so he acted as soon as he felt something was off, but he didn’t play the long game. He didn’t think of what Custer’s behaviour meant for them, what it could have done in the long run, the impact of his decision to stab him. He didn’t think about the future. So no, he’s no ordinary child. He was born into a life where he had to be tough, violent at times, ruthless, loyal, intelligent. But in spite of that intelligence, his tragic flaw (since his story does follow the conventions of tragedy perfectly) was impulsivity.

Second of all, I don’t care how smart or calculating he may or may not have been, because as much as Fez was trying to take care of him and protect him, Ashtray was literally AND metaphorically backed into a corner. Even if Ash had let him take the fall, he would have been placed into foster care, separated from Fez, left to fend for himself while Fez went to prison. If he himself went to prison, something similar also would have happened. Smart option, dumb option, it didn’t matter. Either way, the only family he’s ever known would have been taken from him. This, in my eyes, prohibits it from simply being that Ashtray was dumb and impulsive and thought he can get away with shooting up an entire SWAT team. This equates to him refusing to accept the possibility that he and Fez would be separated. It’s stubborn, sure, but it’s not him being tough or ambitious in any way. Any normal adult would have rather died than willingly give up their life, their home, their family. But he wasn’t even normal nor was he an adult. Make no mistake, he wasn’t mature or calculated in the end because he never was. He was a thirteen year old child.

Anyway, I’m definitely not trying to attack anyone with this post so I hope it didn’t come across that way, but I really just wanted to put out some observations I’d made about the situation and my own personal analysis of Ashtray and his decisions. If you’re still reading, let me know what you think!

🖊 please introduce us to Erato, I know they're in a masks campaign but I have no idea what else

Oh, gosh, I feel like I talk about them too much as is but I can’t say I’m not glad to have the excuse. This is gonna be really long cause tbh I’m just gonna dump like, a bunch of their lore lmao.

Erato is my Masks: A New Generation character in a campaign being played alongside @twerkyvulture (As Amanda ‘Megafauna’ Ghorbani, The Transformed) @draayder (as Josephine ‘Rattlesnake’ Short, The Reformed) @spitblaze (as Les ‘Void’ Hawking, The Doomed) @heedra (as Enid ‘Frag Beetle’ Day, The Scion) and @skarchomp (as Parker ‘Cobalt’ Andrews, The Legacy) with @dykeceratops as our GM. The current arc features @mechanicalriddle as Zoe, The Nova as a guest member. Here’s a group shot done by @tredlocity. Clockwise from the top left: Cobalt in blue, Erato in the track suit, Les in the cloak, Zoe with the mismatched eyes, Enid’s the big robot, Amanda’s got the scales and claws, and Josephine’s got the mask and tonfa.

To get back to Erato specifically though they’re an Anti Metahuman/Metahuman Suppression Weapon created by the in universe tech group Wright Industries, founded by Ingrid Day, Enid’s mom. They’re generally stronger, faster, and more durable than humans and can copy the superpowers of others for 5-10 minutes by touching them thanks to what is basically a meta-stem cell transplant interacting with other parts of their systems. (Also, I 100% swear to god that I did not consider ‘Robot Hero Who Copies The Powers Of Others’ is literally fucking Mega Man despite loving Mega Man a ton until after I had hashed out the concept with my GM’s assistance. Only once Abby said ‘oh like mega man’ I was like ‘wait, shit’.) I’ll tell you some about them as a person before unloading their history onto you, lol. Being an android built for combat and kept in an underground research lab, kept on a rigid schedule, constantly taking tests, physical, mental, written, oral, ethical, etc. etc. etc. and under constant supervision Erato lacked for real interactive experience before the campaign started only really ever getting to takl with authority figures and their sisters. They were very passive and observational, owing in part to their power set requiring a lot of adaptation to make the most of. They’re naive and very bad at exercising discretion in decision making, sometimes they overstep boundaries when talking with people without meaning to, and they’re really emotional! They have trouble dealing with strong emotions cause they haven’t managed to discover coping mechanisms that work well for them, they tend to get angry kind of easily and need time to blow off steam. But they’re also very genuine, honest, and well meaning. They are almost never mean, rude, or snippy, they do their best to do well by others, and have a strong sense of justice paired with a deep distrust and dislike of the current legal system in universe. This is in part due to the conditions of their creation (and in part because the intent behind it was kind of right!) and in part due to Enid’s life being threatened by a representative of the state while they and their teammates were in jail after being arrested following a huge brawl with an anti-methuman terrorist group. They’re also very willing to put forth the effort to improve as a person and to mend relationship wounds, almost always apologizing first to Enid when they fight and genuinely trying to work in advice and feedback they get from others, which they often get from Les and Parker. They’re also relatively educated, from the tests of their creators, from home and public schooling, from personal research, but that doesn’t undo their naivety. They also just straight up lack some very basic and/or common sense knowledge. Like, they don’t know what a bear is. Why would you teach a battle android working in a densely populated, extremely built up city about wild animals? All in all they’re kind of inexperienced and immature and make mistakes a lot but they’re (usually) very willing to admit their mistakes and to try and improve and get better. They genuinely and truly want what’s best for others and are learning to value them self as much as their teammates. They’ve also taken it upon them self to start doing humanitarian work in their free time over the summer. In a fight Erato is adaptive and quick witted but tends to put themself in more danger than is necessary. They also sometimes use more extreme force than the others believe is called for, but after the first time they did they and Parker had a real heart to heart about it, Les helped Erato learn and practice some coping, centering, behaviors they could do even under pressure and Erato did their best to adapt. That said they Fucking Hate The Keeper So God Damned Much Because Of How Much Suffering He’s Caused Their Friends And How Much Danger He Presents And Would Kill Him With No Remorse. So they don’t intend to apologize for ripping his arms off whatsoever. They and their sisters, collectively known as The Muse Units, were made to work as a group and as a proof of concept that atomized units could replace traditional police for use against metahuman criminals and to slowly phase out The Registry, the legal department which handles general metahuman based laws. If successful the units could be mass produced and improved upon, rapidly replacing current, error prone, law enforcement. At the time of their development, between late 1999 for blueprint drafting and until mid 2002 when the project was shut down, they were the cutting edge for AI development aided in no small part by Ingrid’s technokinetic powers allowing her to make advancements few others could. (As a note Erato’s body was finished being built in early 2001 but their unique personhood didn’t really come to fruition until February 18th, 2002, so that’s what I consider their ‘birthday’.) Ultimately, however, while a few of the Muses excelled some did not perform to expectations, the project fell behind schedule, investors lost interest, and a minor scandal involving a casualty happened, resulting in the project being shut down. The Muses were placed in indefinite storage, the data gained from their short existence used on other projects such and some of the tech advancements used to inform future decisions by the company. And it would have stayed that way, if not for the fact that in 2018 Ingrid Day was revealed to be The Locust in a conflict where Enid tried to defend her against a militia group who had been hired to take her down, being shot and presumably killed in the process. As The Locust she had been terrorizing Boston for over a decade trying to take it over and being involved in the deaths of over 70 people. (Which irl btw would make her like, the 8th most prolific confirmed serial killer of all time, Yikes!) Wright Industries, desperately needing to prove their hard stance against metahuman criminals and needing a PR stunt to deflect from their connection to their former CEO re-awakened Erato. They weren’t the most powerful or best performing of the Muses, but they were above average, obedient, and had an easy enough to monitor and control power set with little risk for property damage to boot, the perfect choice. Erato then took to the streets of Boston acting basically as a vigilante, following orders, stopping minor crimes, and sometimes working alongside the police. They attracted the attention of The Viceroy, a semi-retired 56 year old hero who never registered in spite of it being compulsory legally. They both have the ability to copy the powers of others, though he can just by sight, and he has body elasticity too. These make him durable and extremely adaptable, add to that his detective skills and he’s something of a local Boston legend. He took them in as his Protégé. Though they remained distant for quite some time with Erato still coming and going between his place and Wright Industries, having promised not to reveal his assistance to the doctors who Erato reported their work to. It was this way for about a year and a half before the campaign started and Erato began living with Viceroy full time, no longer wanting to go back to Wright Industries as they began to think more independently and consider what they wanted for them self more. During this time Erato had chance encounters with each of the other characters a few times as they also did minor vigilante work, peaking with a villain who is a member of Superhuman, an extremist pro-metahuman group, attacked the school that Josephine, Les, and Amanda all attend. After that incident Erato was prompted by Viceroy to contact each of these other young potential heroes to form a team, The Upstarts. Additionally during this time Viceroy took in Enid who had been abandoned by her biological father and had been getting bounced around foster care. Over time the three of them have become kind of a weird family, living in a warehouse full of cats with a couple of bedrooms grafted on and an ultra secret basement lair underneath full of advanced stuff Viceroy makes. Though Erato and Enid have definitely had their ups and down, more recently in the story (and we’ve been doing this campaign for well over a year now) they’ve been putting in serious effort to better their relationship and be good adoptive siblings to one another. I love their relationship a lot, they’re good kids.

That gets us up to the start of the campaign but hoo boy, I’ve been writing for like, an hour now. Since then Erato’s helped take down a nazi-aligned terrorist organization, they’ve got a boyfriend in their teammate, Les, and they’ve made friends outside of their core group of teammates. They’ve also enrolled in school doing well on some classes and poorly in others, namely learning how to Code and Woodworking. Currently they’re at a sleep away summer camp for superpowered kids called Camp Justice, about 10 miles outside of Boston. They really, really hate it there. Constant supervision, being made to do tests, things scheduled out against their will, inability to leave the area? Yeah that certainly reminds them of something. The difference between it and school, which does share these features, is they wanted to go to school. They very much Did Not want to go to camp. As a result they’re finally going to have to start facing the trauma they’ve got from their origin and also actually tell the others other than Les and Amanda about their sisters. Whiiiiich...Enid saw one of them disassembled and showed off in parts at a school science fair display set up by Wright Industries to gauge interest in students. And she hasn’t mentioned this to Erato...for 4 months Uh Oh! Lastly, here’s my tag I use mostly for art I make of them, it includes some texts posts and picrew dumps too though, lol. Feel free to look!

Hauntings, Messages, and the Mansion — Thoughts on: Message in a Haunted Mansion (MHM)

Previous Metas: SCK/SCK2, STFD

Hello and welcome to a Nancy Drew meta series! 30 metas, 30 Nancy Drew Games that I’m comfortable with doing meta about. Hot takes, cold takes, and just Takes will abound, but one thing’s for sure: they’ll all be longer than I mean them to be.

Each meta will have different distinct sections: an Introduction, an exploration of the Title, an explanation of the Mystery, a run-through of the Suspects. Then, I’ll tackle some of my favorite and least favorite things about the game, and finish it off with ideas on how to improve it.

If any game requires an extra section or two, they’ll be listed in the paragraph above, along with links to previous metas.

These metas are not spoiler free, though I’ll list any games/media that they might spoil here: MHM, TRN, SAW, non-spoiler quote from CAP, non-spoiler mention of GTH.

The Intro:

Message in a Haunted Mansion is the first “real” Nancy Drew game in that it a) isn’t hard to run on a new computer, unlike the first two, and b) it introduces things that would become staples of the Nancy Drew games: a historical plot/characters foiling and echoing the real life events (or at least giving context to them), a cast of characters who are there for more than just reciting their motives, important phone friends, hauntings both real and fake…the gang’s all here, folks.

We’re finally home.

Along with all of those wonderful things, MHM has a frankly incredible atmosphere that scared me back when I first played alongside my sister and scares me to this day, 18 years later when I play it with my friends.

It’s also the first game that establishes one Perennial Truth in the Nancy Drew world: there are supernatural forces at work, and they are real. Sure, most of the hauntings can be explained away easily — but not all of them can be, and this is reinforced by game after game (most pointedly in TRN and in GTH, but in other haunting games as well).

In the Nancy Drew Universe, ghosts are real. Sometimes people fake their specific ghosts, some use the rumors for their own benefit, and some ghosts “don’t have to be real to haunt to haunt you” — but there are ghosts, and they can haunt you.

MHM is an incredibly solid game, and is widely held as a fandom classic for good reason. Nostalgia might make this game a bit better for a lot of us, but that’s not what makes it good.

If you’re starting the series for the first time — or starting a friend or partner on it for the first time — MHM is the best starting point, bar none. It works on most computers, its sound card doesn’t have issues playing the audio, and it’s not SCKR. It’s the quintessential classic Nancy Drew game — maybe not intuitive, modern, or overly difficult, but it’s the one that all other games are based off of.

The Title:

It’s a very effective title…that unfortunately doesn’t describe the plot at all. The titular “message” is a note warning Nancy to “leave the mansion NOW”, but it doesn’t really affect Nancy, nor is it an important part of the game.

The central piece of the game is actually a poem hanging in Nancy’s room, but “Poem in a Haunted Mansion” just doesn’t have that alliterative appeal, nor does it sound like a very spooky game. Her Interactive wanted to sell this game as the spooky little masterpiece that it is, not evoke visions of Lord Byron plopping down next to Nancy and reading Don Juan aloud.

If I had been naming it back at the Turn of the Century, I probably would have gone with “Terror in a Haunted Mansion”…but the audience for Nancy Drew games was significantly younger back then, and “terror” might have spooked some parents into avoiding it.

Plus, the acronym would have been THM versus MHM, and MHM looks so much better that it’s hard to argue with it. Mythos in a Haunted Mansion? Meandering in a Haunted Mansion? Money in a Haunted Mansion?

Those are horrible, wow. “Message” it is. 

I guess if you really stretch, the poem could be a “message’….or the “message” from Valdez…or maybe “gum bo fu”? Lots of messages, one mansion, a few hauntings, here we go.

The Mystery:

Hannah’s friend Rose has sunk her entire life’s savings into an old Victorian mansion in San Francisco and is trying to renovate it into a Bed and Breakfast.

Unfortunately, strange incidents keep happening to delay progress and raise costs, so Hannah sends Nancy down to ostensibly help with renovations, but also to snoop around and figure out what’s going on.

Nancy does a bit of reno work, but mostly spends her time poking around and asking intrusive questions (not to mention sneaking into people’s rooms while they’re elsewhere and invading their privacy), and seeing the various “hauntings” that the house has to offer.

The secondary mystery (we’re now advanced and confident enough to handle two plot threads! Huzzah!) is discovering the secret of the house and its treasure, which requires Nancy to do a bit of historical digging into the original owner of the house, Elizabeth “Lizzie” Applegate, a famed actress, business owner — and the suspected lover of El Diablo, a notorious outlaw who pulled off a heist on Christmas Day of hundreds of gold coins.

As Nancy digs deeper into the mystery of who’s haunting the mansion, she finds out more and more about El Diablo (whose real name is Diego) and Lizzie’s romance and the treasure they hide together, leaving behind the vital clues to the treasure in a poem hanging in the Chinese room in the mansion.

In the end, in a bit of a “twist” for the Nancy Drew games (perhaps even a retroactive twist, since this is only the third game), it’s the B plot that solves the A plot, as Nancy loses total interest in the main mystery to focus on the historical treasure. Finding that treasure exposes the person behind the “accidents”, who has been causing the accidents in order to find the treasure.

Yes, this does confirm that the only person focused on the B&B is, in fact, Rose. Poor Rose.

The Suspects:

Rose Green is the first suspect you meet, as she’s Hannah’s old friend and the one in charge at the Golden Gardenia. She’s poured an obscene amount of money into the old mansion and likes to make comments that make it seem like she’s Super Guilty.

We’re at the stage in Nancy Drew games where subtlety isn’t a right, it’s a privilege.

Rose is one of our two main suspects, and keeps to herself and her spot in the dining room, ensuring that Nancy can never snoop through her stuff. She also has a mile-long to-do list and never does anything on it over the course of the 3+ days that Nancy’s there, so we have that to be skeptical about as well.

Ultimately, Rose isn’t evil — she’s actually the only one not doing anything suspicious — but I have to think that she’s not a very good businesswoman. As a character, Rose is barely 2D, a trait she shares with Louis. It’s no wonder they’re the two most suspicious characters — we’re not given any help in understanding them.

Abby Sideris is Rose’s second-in-command and helped her afford the mansion in the first place. She’s also the one who insists that it’s haunted by ghosts unable to Move On who cause the clattering and sobbing and moaning in the night. It is, of course, Abby who’s causing the more ghostly hauntings, but she insists the mansion is haunted anyway, and she’s simply helping it along.

She’s the only the only character with business sense, knowing that they have to drum up business for this bed and breakfast, not wait for people to come to then. No wonder Rose needed Abby’s money — she obviously comes by it with a heap of common sense.

Her sizing-up of Nancy shows she has talent as a cold reader, as does her distrust of Charlie, who really is being suspicious, albeit for different reasons than she thinks. She’s got the business smarts and the people smarts…wait, what does Rose bring to this partnership?

Speaking of Rose and Partnerships, there’s a fan theory — and it’s got some evidence in canon — that Abby and Rose are romantically involved.

Nancy asks Hannah about Rose and Louis, and Hannah laughs it off, which is a point in favor of this theory — how would Hannah know that Rose isn’t interested in this specific man who just came into Rose’s life? An easy explanation is that Hannah knows Rose isn’t interested in this man because she knows Rose isn’t interested in men.

Abby also invests her whole life into this bed and breakfast, moving out with Rose to California from Illinois at the drop of a hat. It’s a choice that would make sense if she was just as passionate about the bed and breakfast…but none of her dialogue nor her role in the game shows us that passion. Thus, the other thing that would make sense is that she moves with her partner to help support her.

As far as fan theories go, this is a fairly solid one — it’s not contradicted by canon, which is always a plus. It serves to deepen Abby’s character, giving us multiple motivations and heightens the stakes for the bed and breakfast to succeed…but it doesn’t do anything for Rose.

Charlie Murphy is Rose’s (or Abby’s? He says he works for Abby, she says he works for Rose) handyman, helping to fix up the mansion for rock-bottom pay.

He’s also secretly living in the mansion’s basement through a secret door and using the mansion to write his term paper, and thus doesn’t get much done handyman-ing-wise. 

There’s a point very early on in the game where he won’t talk to you if you haven’t talked to Louis. Louis can sometimes be difficult to make appear/catch, and is really easy to miss, so this is a frustrating facet for Charlie’s character.

Charlie’s a bit shifty for a character who’s literally doing one (1) thing wrong (slumming it in the basement without asking), but he’s also super rude to Nancy. Nancy doesn’t even deserve it this time, so it’s a bit odd that they chose him to be the “innocent but mean to Nancy” character when Abby the Spiritualist is the logical choice.

He’s also voiced by Scott Carty, the perennial voice of Ned Nickerson, so it’s a bit weird to hear him telling Nancy to piss off when Scott-as-Ned worships the ground she walks on and makes any problem between them his fault. 

The variety’s nice, but the variety’s weird as well.

Other than his shifty and sort of mean notes, Charlie has no character. He’s not a bad character, he’s not a good character — he just has no character at all. It’s like the developers had no interest in him other than “fourth suspect to make it an even number and harder to tell who the culprit is”. He’s 3D, but just barely.

Finally, Louis Chandleris a man specializing in antiques and history, who is helping Rose to sort through the hundreds of vintage items left behind in the mansion.

He’s actually mentioned as someone who showed up on the doorstep wanting to help and, well…I know 2000 was a different time, but I knew enough in 2000 to distrust someone like that, and I was a kid. Rose is a grown adult, and has no excuse for accepting this weird man.

Louis is a know-it-all, lying little son of a gun, and is there to run Rose et. al. off the premises so that he can search for the gold in peace and quiet. He, instead, stumbles upon Nancy with the gold coins, and decides to knock her out and steal them, not taking the basic precaution of tying her up or anything.

He’s easily foiled by a chandelier to the face — though, in his defense, I’m pretty sure that would foil anyone.

There isn’t a lot of meat to Louis’ character, but more than the rest of the cast because he has a slightly bigger role in the game. And even though Abby’s the one responsible for most of the spooky noises and the things that go bump in the night, it’s Louis who delivers one of the creepiest moments in the game.

It’s that moment where you’re on the phone asking Emily about gum bo fu, and the door opens for a bit, then shuts again behind you. It’s implied that Louis is checking in to see what you know, and it’s honestly terrifying the first (and second, and third…) time you play the game. It’s a rare moment where you may actually be in for bodily harm, and there’s nothing you can do about it — not even look around for the threat.

So kudos to Louis about that, but the rest of him doesn’t deserve much praise at all. Except maybe his line if you fail to stop him: “So long. Losers!”

How very turn-of-the-century of him. Heh.

The Favorites:

There’s quite a lot to love about MHM, as it’s obvious how much time and effort and heart was put into it to make it a really great game.

Even though there’s not a ton of the historical story, it’s very well done, and gives you just enough characterization of Lizzie and Diego to really care about them and to be…well, charmed by their love for each other. As a story, it feels really earnest, and while it’s not the Ultimate Best Historical Love Story that Her Interactive will ever do in its 30-odd Nancy Drew Games (that honor rests on a future game), it’s good enough to rank in at least the top 5.

Most of the puzzles are fun and engaging, whether it’s discovering hanzi that lines up with the Poem, chipping away old wallpaper to reveal a hidden attic, or solving a puzzle that took Abby and Rose two hour to place two pieces in under five minutes.

My favorite “puzzle” is definitely the hanzi, but figuring out the secret room in the library or the secret room in the basement or the secret attic (the Victorians loved their secret rooms) are definitely up there too.

One of the biggest pluses of MHM is the Haunting part. Abby’s responsible for a lot of them — the odd sounds, the projection of the woman in both the séance and in the mirror outside her room, and the incredibly creepy “I see you~” that can play while you’re in the hallway upstairs.

There are a few that you don’t discover as being her, but that could reasonably be chalked up to Abby’s attempt to market the mansion as haunted: the inflating/deflating cushion (which could be remote-controlled), the shadows at the doors/windows (projections or cardboard cutouts), and even the painting who blinks could theoretically be Abby (though that one’s a little harder to conceptualize).

However, the wooden phoenix/swan/winged creature in the parlor is wooden, and thus can’t move the way it does through human power. There’s also no evidence of Abby ever messing with it — no speakers, no motion sensors, no nothing — which makes it stand out even more.

Above, I mention the fact that in the Nancy Drew Universe, ghosts exist. This isn’t a debatable point; it is fact. The phoenix is just one of the many proofs that the series gives us. What makes Nancy special as a skeptic (which Abby calls her out for) isn’t that she’s a skeptic; it’s that she’s a skeptic in a world where ghosts exist.

As a character who has to be right for the game to end, this is a fascinating trait to have, and I love the relationship it gives Nancy with her world — an almost antagonistic relationship, versus what you expect: a Nancy who “bring[s] order to a scattered world”, to borrow a phrase from CAP.

My other favorite thing is the mansion itself; in quite a few Nancy Drew games, the location itself is almost a character, and MHM is one of the best examples of this. The mansion almost seems like it doesn’t want to divulge its secrets, like it wants to protect Lizzie and Diego, and will only let the worthy discover them and their treasure.

You’ll feel slightly unsettled throughout the whole game, picking one or two “safe spots” (usually your room) that you can run to when things get a bit too creepy, and that’s one of my favorite things as well. This unsettled feeling is independent of Abby’s hauntings, and really reinforces the house as a character unto itself.

The Un-Favorites:

There are a few things that do bug me in this game, though none are really game-breaking.

Once again, the culprit is obvious from the 1/3 point on, even though all of the characters say things that are supposed to incriminate them (Rose honestly says that the mansion might be worth more “burned to the ground”, which is a Bit Yikes and Very Incriminating).

You can write off Abby right away, as she’s obviously causing a lot of the hauntings, but she’s also the secondary investor and isn’t (per her and Rose’s conversation about the fire clause in the insurance claim) the beneficiary of the insurance agreement on the house. Once you know that — and it happens early in the game — she’s off the list.

Charlie’s the other suspect that’s cleared basically right away. It’s set up so that he has absolutely no reason for wanting the mansion destroyed or destitute — it’s providing him money and housing – and Abby mentions that, though she suspects him, it’s due to his straight-up incompetence, rather than any malicious intent.

So you’re left with Rose and Louis almost immediately — a character who never leaves her post, and a character whose stuff you can snoop around in and has a password-locked computer. 

Yeah, no prizes for figuring that out.

My least favorite puzzles are the slider puzzles (though that’s true in any game) and honestly the staircase “Diego” puzzle, as it bothers me enough to just pull up the walkthrough rather than trying my hand at it. I wouldn’t say these puzzles are bad puzzles, just that they’re the type that I hate (and that I suck at majorly, which doesn’t help).

The Fix:

MHM isn’t a game where a lot of fixes are needed, honestly. Updated graphics/other QoL improvements, widening the screen, etc. might be nice, but they’re not necessary at all to enjoy the game. The only thing I can think of interface-wise that would be nice is a journal/notepad that you carry around with you, rather than the one in your suitcase that is No Help At All if/when you get stuck.

Emily — a phone friend who Nancy apparently once solved a case for, as per the little booklet that comes with the game — is another spot that could be tightened up. While she gives you info that you desperately need in order to progress, her relationship to Nancy is never mentioned in the game, giving most players no clue who she is or what kind of information she can provide

Charlie is a character who just wasn’t done with any care, honestly. He’s a college student, putting him roughly at Nancy’s own age in a house full of people decades older than both of them, and yet no mention nor reference to this fact is ever made! She’s not the closest to Charlie; she doesn’t speak to him any differently — in short, even though he’s the one she should feel the strongest kinship to in a house of a suspicious antiques dealer, a psychic medium, and, well, Rose, Nancy has nothing unique to her dealings with Charlie.

This is especially egregious as you look at Nancy’s relationships with other suspects her age/who are the youngest in the game as the series goes on; she’s noticeably more playful and warmer towards them, or agrees to help them/let them help her in situations where she’d suspect an older person.  Charlie’s somewhere between about 18 and 25 (probably closer to 18 than 25), and not only does Nancy not treat him differently, but Charlie doesn’t seem to notice her age either.

Charlie’s age would have been a great way to tie him to Nancy, to give him an actual character (or at least an actual characteristic), and possibly to give a reason why he’s snappier with Nancy than anyone else — he’s worried this girl his age will see what those who are older overlook, or possibly that she’ll out-do him and Rose will find out that he’s not really a great handyman and has been spending him time researching rather than fixing things.

These fixes aren’t necessary to make a good game, or to make it ‘more playable’ — they’re just “fixes” to make the game a slightly different experience with a stronger focus on characters. 

Luckily, as time went on, Nancy Drew characters became deeper and more complex, and so MHM’s characters come across as full of potential and ripe for fandom headcanons, rather than seeming flat like SCK’s or STFD’s characters.

read today an interesting meta/post: emmyisgreyDOTtumblrDOTcom/post/182457635784/bellamy-that-was-different-blake And one of the points, summarizing, was that leaving B to die in 5x09 was harsh but to be fair to C, B has left C as well, though not as harsh. I see it but I don’t agree, I feel C was TOO way out of line and I can't seem to get past that one too many betrayal. i understand if you ignore this, because those are the writer thoughts, but was curious what you think.

I 100% agree with @emmyisgrey 

I agree with the perspective she has on Bellarke and Clarke and Bellamy’s individual development, and I can’t tell from that post completely, but I think I agree with her about the place that Bellarke has within the larger story. 

I disagree with the common fandom interpretation of trying to decide who is good and who is bad and who is worthy of their love and who has betrayed their faves worse and who they think is evil. 

Fandom wants to say THIS character is GOOD and THAT character is BAD, and then know who to root for. 

And I think if you watch this story through that good/bad lens then you will not understand the show. 

If the question is, “Is Clarke GOOD or BAD,” the answer is:

YES

Yes. Clarke is both good and bad. Bellamy is both good and bad. Lxa is both good and bad. Echo is both good and bad. Jaha, Abby, Kane, Octavia, Raven, Murphy, Emori, Dante, Pike… all of them.

Even someone like Cage has the possibility to be good, you can see it in them and you can see them having the chance to make the GOOD choice that would serve everyone and be the right thing to do. 

And I think that’s the thing. This story is not about characters being good and bad, this story is about characters trying to DEAL with making bad choices when there are no good choices. They are people who WANT to be good, but everything they do, in this harsh and unrelenting world, ends up being bad. So they end up picking who’s side they are on and sacrificing the Others, so their people can receive the good.

If you want to say, No More. Clarke is no longer good. That’s your choie, but I think you’ll miss the meaning of the story, and you’ll also miss Clarke’s journey, which is ABOUT how far down that dark road she’ll go in order to SAVE her people. And if you think it’s okay for her leave Octavia, Raven, Monty, Harper, Kane, Indra, Echo, and the rest of humanity outside the bunker while she stole it for her people, but not okay to leave Bellamy in order to protect Madi, then you are showing your own bias and preference. You think BELLAMY is more worthy and important than the rest of humanity. So for you, he’s the Good. And that’s where you draw your line.

And sure. If your story that you’re following here is Bellarke, that makes sense, because Clarke and Bellamy is the point. So the only truly over the line sin is for Clarke to turn on Bellamy or vice versa. (Which might be why people hate B/E so much. Because it’s a REAL, lasting relationship, and that is turning on Bellarke.)

BUT, I think that if THAT is the story, then you are missing a MORE IMPORTANT story. The one that is about Clarke and Bellamy growing, separately, into whole, good people, who choose to do right. To be the good guys. Because they DO have both good and bad within them. And they have to make the conscious choice to do good, even when it is hard and painful.

And watching Clarke come to this point where she is so far from s1 Clarke who believed in the good of humanity that she’d sacrifice the person who has been her touchstone for 6 years is IMPORTANT. The question of the show is HOW FAR WILL YOU GO TO SAVE YOUR PEOPLE. And until the point where Bellamy, who she thought was all that was left of good in the world, BETRAYED HER, 

At that point, she didn’t make that decision because it was the “right” thing to do. She left him because her heart was broken, she felt betrayed, ALL THAT WAS GOOD IN THE WORLD WAS GONE, and Bellamy had abandoned her AGAIN. She was reeling in reaction to the pain and fear and loss and trauma of her life, because she BELIEVED in BELLAMY, for 6 years. And it was all false. The world was nothing but kill or be killed. He was her last hope. And he was gone. 

If you are keeping a score card of who betrayed who and who is more good than who and who is now bad, then you are missing the most important story and character development. WHY they are making the choices.

Hey, Kane even said, when Bellamy turned in Pike, he said that he was doing it to protect his sister, not because it was the right thing to do, and if that was so, then he was still lost. Octavia repeated that. 

Bellamy did poison Octavia to save Clarke’s life, and he gave Madi the flame to save her too, but he ALSO did it because it was the RIGHT thing to do. That was how they saved Clarke, saved his family, saved wonkru and saved Eden, even at the risk of losing Octavia. 

The reason why painting Clarke as BAD now, saying she “went too far” is the wrong way to interpret this show is because the point of the show is THE STRUGGLE. It’s the choices. It’s the journey Clarke and Bellamy and all the rest are on, to find a way to be ethical, good people, in this nightmare of the apocalypse.

It IS about redemption. It is about the redemption of humanity. And we follow the harsh struggle of Clarke and Bellamy to SEE them make this journey. And the people around them ALSO are on this journey. And we see them die as martyrs, or fall to weakness, we see them choose evil, we see them break, we see them try to avoid decisions or follow other people.

Clarke and Bellamy are the heroes. They need to be together to succeed on this journey, because they balance each other and center each other and call each other back from the darkness when they go too far and keep each other sane and remind each other who they are and give each other hope when it is lost. Because they are together is the reason why they can SUCCEED in this journey to be the good guys and save and REDEEM humanity. In order to DO that, we have to see that they, too, fall to the darkness. We have to SEE how hard and painful those choices are so we understand how serious and difficult it is to be the hero.

When Bellamy betrayed Clarke, Clarke LOST her light and her hope and her center. She was TRULY ALONE, more than she ever was when she was the only person on the earth. 

She was WRONG, but she was not BAD. And it was not too late to fix her mistake. 

Clarke saved them. Saved Bellamy and Echo and Raven and wonkru and then Bellamy saved humanity. They could only do it together. 

We ended season 5 with Clarke and Bellamy saving humanity. I think book 2 might very well be about REDEEMING humanity. Hmm. I wonder. If Clarke, Wanheda, is the savior, is Bellamy the redeemer?

All I know is they are each other’s light in the darkness, and as long as they can hold onto each other they still have hope. Bad and good are irrelevant judgments when it comes to people. Or at least this show seems to say so.

I had fun with 6x02. It was angsty “why can’t our kids just get along” fun, but still fun!

The Big Things I’d be down to discuss:

1 - We got tiny little crumbs about Alpha/Sanctum itself, the people who live there, and how/why they’ve lived on this moon for the past century or so. The backstory with the very obvious Bellarke stand-in (that had to either be the best or worst little nod ever for shippers), including the sudden and unexpectedly violent death of Sanctum Clarke (I know she has a name I just forgot), shows us that the people of this world have been dealing with the eclipse psychosis for a long time, which definitely explains the kids’ books and general “this is a thing that happens sometimes” attitude of the people we’ve met. The mother, father, and daughter of that group are the Lightbournes (no idea how to spell that yet), who are seemingly worshiped in this world. How did that happen, when Daddy Lightbourne went nuts and murdered his wife and daughter? Jumping to the present, one of the lines between the older hijacker woman and her dying daughter - “the bodies, you have to make sure -” “I’ll take care of it” - definitely makes me think that there’s something about death/corpses on this planet that we don’t know yet. (Which makes me think of poor Shaw, quickly buried in that grave by that random field.) Both women seemed very concerned with recovering the bodies of their husbands, beyond the usual “respecting our dead” worries. And finally, that ending. The little girl, Rose, seemed to be dressed a bit more “royally” for lack of a better word, than the other children. Maybe it was just a design choice to make her stand out - if she’s got a name, she’s gonna be important. She had those “wise young leader” vibes though. The most interesting thing - her asking Clarke if they’re there to “take them home” and Clarke responding “isn’t this your home?” Sanctum believes they’re going to be rescued, I think we can safely guess that this is a big part of what makes them culty. So what are they going to do now that they know a rescue is impossible, because Earth is dead? Why do they still want to go home - to reconnect with a world an indeterminate number of lightyears away, where none of them were born? Why? Is it something about Sanctum that makes them long to return - something more than just the Eclipse Psychosis?

2. My favorite interactions were between Murphy and Clarke. I think something significant happened between them when Murphy finds Clarke holding that knife to her own throat. I think Murphy has a moment of realizing, “oh, maybe Clarke hasn’t let go of her baggage, maybe she carries more guilt and self-loathing than she shows us.” He gentles a lot as he talks her down, tells her that the radio she’s hearing all of those terrible things from isn’t even on. I do think they have a better understanding of each other now, and will probably snipe at each other less. Probably. Maybe. I appreciated Murphy telling Clarke that her taking some responsibility for being “the bad guy” was “a good start.” I do think Clarke needs to make serious strides towards apologizing properly, and she came closer than she had before to doing that in the argument she and Murphy had while they were locked up in the school. She was passive aggressive, but I think part of that is her frustration that anyone would think she doesn’t regret the things she’s done. She’s lost so many people who are important to her, and, given what Delusion!Abby said, Clarke also clearly blames herself for all of it. I think part of why she can’t apologize to anyone is because it’s hard for her to live with herself without justifying the why of those lives lost. She has to remember what she did it for, who she did it for, or she’ll lose it completely and surrender to her darkest, self-destructive impulses. This episode helped me with Clarke a bit, I’ll admit it. I hope this isn’t the only thing we’ll get, but I’m not holding my breath.

3. The different reactions everyone has to the psychosis is worth a hundred metas and at least twenty crack posts. I wanted to make a “tag yourself” meme about what everyone does (Echo “nopes” herself right out; Emori flips and attacks her “it’s complicated” lover; Bellamy becomes an Angry Rage Dad; Jackson and Miller try to protect each other to death; Clarke just hates herself (I don’t even have a good joke for it, it was honestly pretty sad); and Murphy would just be “????”; a bonus would be Octavia, who managed to behave as if she was under the Eclipse Psychosis, but it turns out our girl is just Losing It For Real Now, No But Like For REAL For Real - but I’m not good at the image-making thing, so anyone who sees this is free to steal the idea and adapt it to their own interpretations (just lmk ‘cause I wanna see it)!

4. Was Murphy affected? By the time Emori, Jackson, Miller, and Echo are all down for the count, Murphy becomes the voice of reason for Clarke and Bellamy. He has to protect himself, and them, from themselves and each other, and he does so in a very level-headed way. He isn’t shaking off the delusions like Clarke does when Murphy and Bellamy are fighting. He isn’t raging and ranting like Bellamy is. His craziest moments come from believing that he’s the only sane one left. Yet he shoots at Bellamy and Clarke, and clearly seems paranoid that they’re out to get him at certain moments. So what gives? Which parts were potentially Eclipse Psychosis, and which parts were just Murphy? I’m inclined to believe his needling of Clarke is 100% Him - given how he stomps off from their little fireside chat in 6x01 (that smile was sarcastic af y’all, not him really being like “you win”, he was pissed), I don’t think he’s able to hold himself back from speaking his mind to Clarke about her decisions, once they’re both tied up and stuck in the same room together. So when he shoots at Clarke and Bellamy, do we think he’s trying to protect them from themselves, or does he genuinely want to hurt them? So much to analyze. 

5. Speaking of Octavia, I am both elated and devastated to see that Niylah is pretty much her only friend right now - it makes my Niytavia heart happy, but it’s rough to see Octavia struggling so much, and being so alone in it. It’s clear Niylah is so scared for Octavia, and might be the only one who really sees how much she’s hurting. She’s the only one who recognizes that Octavia is egging everyone on, trying to get them to fight her, probably even kill her. Octavia is lashing out so much right now, and it’s definitely not a good look. I think it’s the only thing that makes sense for her character right now. She lost everything - all of the honor and respect and (yes) power she had, all of the hope she had for finding redemption in Eden, all of her closest friends and supporters (with the exception of Niylah - also, side note, I hope we see Indra and Gaia soon), and her brother. She’s never been good at actually reflecting on her mistakes. Now that she feels she has pretty much nothing to lose, of course she’s going to lash out and act like an angry kid throwing a tantrum, baiting people into punishing her. She wanted to die in that gorge - she believes she deserves it. Now, in her own words, “none of it makes sense”. I don’t know how much darker and angrier she’ll have to go before she finally confronts Blodreina, and all of the reasons she had to become her. She has to accept what she did, and forgive herself, before anyone else will.

6. What will the fallout from the Bellamy/Murphy fight be? Everyone was throwing out some sharp barbs, but Bellamy’s comment about Murphy being a court jester, and how that was “barely” better than useless was a low blow. It’s also a long way from the premiere last year, with Bellamy pinning Murphy and refuses to let him up until Murphy says he isn’t worthless. Will they brush by it as Eclipse Angst, or is this indicative of bigger problems between Murphy and Bellamy down the line this season? Bellamy definitely wakes up looking hella guilty about how close he came to killing both Clarke and Murphy. Does he really feel that way about Murphy, does he see him as an equivalent threat compared to Clarke? Why, and how?? Not to beat a dead horse, but Clarke has been pretty traitorous lately and has been much more dangerous to trust than Murphy has, for Bellamy for sure. Clarke’s own self-destructive thoughts seemed to be the genuine truth, what she believed about herself. Who’s to say we can’t assume Bellamy was being equally genuine about Murphy?

7. What’s going on with Murphy at the end there? Before he went into the water, he was mostly okay. After he comes out and passes out for a while, he’s suddenly near-death, with crazy black shit visibly running through his veins? I’ll admit I’m a little scared for him! I’m sure he’ll probably be fine, but the source is what unsettles me - the biggest difference between the three of them by that ...pond? puddle?... is that Murphy went under and inhaled a lot of water. Is even the water toxic when the eclipse is going on? That’s going to mean that the Sanctum people, who clearly have some safe place to go to during the eclipses, will have a lot of power over the safety of everyone on the planet, even more than we originally suspected. So our traumatized heroes are going to have to adapt and assimilate to this new society, and we really have no idea what that’s going to look like yet. We’ve already gotten some hints that it’s weird and culty though, and culty things have never boded well for our characters. Has it been mentioned how often these eclipses are? I don’t think so. We know they last two days, but not how often they happen. We also don’t know much else about the dangers in the world, and what life is like for other parts of the moon’s surface.

8. The parallels between Clarke and Octavia so far this season are delightful and frustrating. They both have so much in common, and it’s interesting to see the different and similar ways they’re reacting to the terrible things they were forced (and chose, at times) to do as young, inexperienced leaders. They both don’t think they deserve to be alive. They both have tried to hurt or kill themselves because of that. What frustrates me a bit about 6x02 is that it feels like a reversal from the way we saw Octavia at the end of 5x13. Octavia seemed ready to accept responsibility in that gorge “Wonkru is dead. I broke it.” and Clarke seemed more willing to stand by her convictions as a Mama Bear. Now Clarke is slowly starting to accept some accountability, and Octavia is calling out everyone for their “sins”. But I think on some level, they’re both motivated by the same self-destructive self-loathing. Both Clarke and Octavia attempted to sacrifice themselves (Clarke at the end of s4, Octavia at the end of s5) for the sake of their people, and also in an attempt to make up for how fall they’d each fallen from their own moral centers - they both wanted redemption and absolution for the terrible things they’d do to other people for the sake of survival. Both of them were robbed of this opportunity when they survived their attempts at martyrdom, yet their attempts do save the people they love. They’re both pretty much in the same place at the beginning of s6 - on the edges of their groups (although Clarke has been treated far more warmly by ReconKru than Octavia has been on the Eligius ship), feeling alone except for one special girl (Madi and Niylah respectively, although also Bellamy was being pretty nice to Clarke before the Psychosis thing happened), and they both have so much blood on their hands. Both have lashed out to an extent, but both have also directed their anger and guilt inward, and against themselves physically. I don’t know what the intention is behind these parallels yet - both women need a lot of peace and time to heal from what they’ve been through. Will they both actually be allowed that, on this show? I doubt it. That scares me, because as much as I complain about Clarke, I’ve never wanted a tragic ending for her. But if it comes down to a choice, I think y’all know what my bias would be. And right now, Octavia looks more likely to meet that dark end than Clarke.

This is long enough, so that’s it for now! Let me know your own thoughts!!

You know, the conversation between Jay and Voight in last night’s episode was so loaded and packed with all this amazing stuff to analyze but one thing in particular sticks out to me. It’s the “We always pay the cost for you” line. There’s a quote from The 100 that I’m reminded of when I think about that. And The 100 did a lot of things wrong with the show but one of the things they did write was having their female lead and fearless leader Clarke Griffin repeat one line: “I bear it so they don’t have to.” To me, that’s a beautiful line to represent the purpose of a leader— or at least ONE of the purposes. This relates to Chicago PD in a really interesting way though, because I think Voight’s been operating on his “tell me the truth so I can lie for you” philosophy because he genuinely believes it’ll protect the people in Chicago AND the people in his unit. But Jay telling Voight flat out, to his face, that his actions are good for the city yet HURT the unit (and have been hurting the unit for a while now) was a real wake-up call. Not only that, but we see Jay leave Hailey out of the loop to protect her and not burden her with the weight of North’s ultimatum. We see him handling it his own way because who else will? As much as he thinks Voight is good for the city, he knows Voight’s ways are what got them into this spot so therefore they aren’t able to get them out of it. Then, at the end, we see Jay promising to Voight that things between them are going to be different, and that he’s going to be saving Voight from himself. That’s a big job considering how much Voight has been unable to escape himself up until now. But yet again, Jay is taking on a responsibility for the good of Intelligence. He keeps the secret, handles North, takes the burden of it off of Hailey, takes the burden of Voight’s habits off of Voight himself.

He bears it so they don’t have to. And in that sense, I think it’s really fascinating to see Jay Halstead rising into the role of unofficial leader.

HEAR ME OUT: Abby’s Not Dying, She’s Pregnant

Listen.

Consider this.

I KNOW THE FANDOM IS DIVIDED ON ABBY BABY THEORY BUT STICK WITH ME.

@brittanias and I have been hashing this out and here are some thoughts.  All the symptoms we have seen Abby show so far - sleeplessness, tremors, anxiety, hallucination - could actually be symptoms of something completely different.  Such as, for example, pregnancy. When Abby’s on the radio with Kane, what we see of her does not actually appear to present as a seizure; it presents much more like an anxiety attack.  She’s restless, pacing, her jaw is clenching, her hands are shaking, and then when she hears Marcus she calms down.  What we have NOT seen yet: weakness, collapsing, fainting, sweating, bleeding from the nose or mouth, foaming, rage/mania, or a scan of Abby’s brain.

THEORY: The reminder about Abby also getting fried with the EMP, just like Raven was, and the link of Abby’s symptoms with Raven’s symptoms are a narrative misdirect (perhaps its purpose is to give a reason why Abby’s contraception chip was fried and she didn’t know it); otherwise all the attention paid to the idea that this brain thing could present very differently in different people wouldn’t actually matter, unless it was so they could show us symptoms of something that was not a brain tumor and convince us to believe it was a brain tumor.  So we see Raven hallucinate and then have a seizure, we have Abby explain why, we have Jackson say “but the same thing happened to you, I should check you,” and then we have Abby being stubborn and insisting she’s fine and refusing to let him check her.  So it’s possible that the reason we see Abby’s first symptom - the hallucination (of her child, btw) in the same episode as Raven’s is to make sure we, the audience, are going “oh shit” and immediately assuming they are the exact same kind of hallucination.  Even though hallucinations are a very common symptom of extreme sleeplessness and sleeplessness is a common symptom of a whole huge range of things.

[Edited to add, per Brittany’s suggestion just now: we don’t even know that it was a hallucination. She was alone in the lab; she straight-up could have been dreaming.  (In that fancy bed.)  Just a regular ol’ extremely vivid dream - another common pregnancy symptom.]

Another, slightly more extra, possible indicator that pregnancy is a possibility: the editing of the sex scene.  We didn’t see leadup/cut to black/afterglow like the show usually does; we saw Kane finish.  It’s possible the writers and directors are just plain old Kabby trash like we are, but it’s also possible it’s plot-relevant in some way that we have concrete proof that Kane came inside her.

So this is my prediction.  I don’t think either of them are going to die.  I think for Raven, the narrative purpose of the “oh no you have a brain thing” is not the possibility of death, it’s the seizures.  It’s to put Raven in a situation where we know there is a danger she could completely lose control of her physical body, with all of humanity on the line.  They made a big point of Raven having to switch the rocket to manual, which now means only Raven can fly it.  They made a big point of how they needed all those barrels of hydrazine for the rocket and now they’re down one; what if they can coast on only the remaining fuel as long as the rocket is only carrying the weight of one passenger and they strip out all the unnecessary internal workings to make it lighter?  Then Raven is in space, alone, with all the Nightblood, with brain that could go into seizure at any moment when she’s over-stressed.  We also have Luna’s ability to soothe Raven with her words, and we have Murphy being in the room for every one of Raven’s failed flight simulator drills (playing with a toy car whose controls are very similar to the rocket). I don’t think it’s outside the bounds of possibility that they’re setting us up for Raven to have a seizure as the rocket is landing and even though it’s in manual, Murphy has to figure out how to land it himself while Raven’s incapacitated and Luna is trying over the headset to soothe her out of her seizure.

As far as Abby, I think the narrative purpose of “oh no you also have the brain thing” could very plausibly be to set us up in the only conceivable situation where Abby would have to consent to let Jackson give her a full medical scan. If there wasn’t a chance she was seriously sick, she’d never allow it.  There’d be no point.  But if she got pregnant in Polis, then she’s less than 2 months along, which means she might not be showing and most of her symptoms might easily look like something else, especially if she already thought there was a chance she did have something else.  So my guess is that she’s going to end up pushing herself and pushing herself until she has some kind of a meltdown or collapses from exhaustion or something happens where she finally has to face the thing she’s been trying not to have to face, her fear that she might also have what Raven has.  But she’d never say “sure go ahead give me a full physical” unless she had a very good reason and Jackson had reached a point of no longer being willing to be talked out of it.  Exhaustion, anxiety/tremors, and lack of sleep could all very easily be a combination of stress, overwork and pregnancy; hallucinations or lucid dreams sometimes are as well.  Especially given that the content of the dream was her child, in danger.

In terms of the narrative purpose to be served by Abby possibly being pregnant, there are a couple possibilities.  One important thing to remember, which I had forgotten until an anon just reminded me of it, is that all the Sky People are universal blood donors, while the Grounders are not.  It’s possible that the “disappointing setback” the episode description for 408 mentions with regard to the experiment on the Grounder redshirt is because maybe a Grounder can’t take another Grounder’s blood if they aren’t type-compatible.  So that means they can’t go to space to manufacture Nightblood synthetically, and they can’t use Luna’s bone marrow to save all the Grounders; they could save all the Sky People, and they could save Grounders compatible with Luna’s blood type, but that’s all.  But if they had, oh, let’s say, Nightblood embryonic stem cells from a baby of two Skaikru universal-donor parents, then by the magic of television science (I DON’T THINK ANY OF THIS IS REAL, I JUST MEAN BY THE RULES OF HOW THIS SHOW WORKS), that could crack the code for a vaccine that could save everyone, as Clarke always intended – not just the Sky People.  

Another factor is that a number of people have tossed around the idea of long-term cryosleep and the theories about a five-year time jump in the finale being connected; that is, maybe one of the “lifeboats” they come up with to save some portion of the group is related to putting people in long-term stasis.  @knowlesian has a fantastic theory I’ll be making her elucidate when she guest-hosts Meta Station next week about how it’s possible that Cadogan’s secret “thirteenth level” was not merely a fancier bunker, but pods for long-term space travel in cryosleep similar to the ones we learned about in that story about the asteroid miners for whom Becca invented Nightblood in the first place. It was to protect them from solar radiation while in cryosleep for long space journeys.  (One factor to consider here is the constant reiteration that Raven’s brain could heal itself if she just took it easy, which of course she never fuckin’ does; however, a five-year nap in cryostasis is probably enough time for her to wake up rested and ready for the writers not have to keep writing seizures into her storyline for Season 5.)  Again, using the magic of Television Science, something something handwave handwave the Nightblood in the placenta keeps the fetus safely in stasis while Abby goes under so they don’t have to deal with the fact that she’ll still only be 2 months along when the death wave comes.  This also makes room for the most crackpot of my crackpot Pregnant Abby theories, the idea that the season’s continued thematic parallels of Abby with Bellamy (up to and including very literal moments like Abby napping on the couch and dreaming of the 100 vs. Bellamy napping on the couch while Clarke drafts the list of the new 100) are actually clues as well.  There were 100 spots on the dropship but 101 passengers, because Bellamy stowed away.  If Cadogan left 100 cryosleep pods, there would be 101 passengers if Abby’s pregnant.

On a thematic level, of course, a baby symbolizes hope and possibility and the future; it’s a nice narrative device to tie the theme of hope which has always been primarily centered on Kane and Abby’s relationship over the course of the show and make it literal.  The first Skaikru baby being born to the Chancellors feels right, and it ramps up the emotional stakes for both of them to stratospheric levels because everything is more risky for a pregnant woman. It’s also a nice way to set up a long-term possibility for Season 5 where we get to see Skaikru emerging from the wreckage, trying to rebuild a home, and a radiation-immune Nightblood baby as a sign that the human race will continue is a nice sort of thematic illustration of that sense of possibility.  

I KNOW IT SOUNDS CRAZY AND I COULD BE LAUGHABLY WRONG

BUT IF IT TURNS OUT ABBY IS NOT DYING, SHE’S PREGNANT, I’M GOING TO BE SO RELIEVED

h/t again to @brittanias and @knowlesian, as well as to @reblogginhood who occasionally feeds my tin hat conspiracy theories with things like “Vesta was a fertility goddess I’M JUST SAYING”

Femme Friendship

Published in The Journal of Lesbian Studies

Abstract

This autoethnographic study of femme friendship explores the connection and relationship between two femme lesbians – my femme friend Amber and myself. The shared experience of invisibility and the related perils and privileges that come with passing as straight enact a bond unlike either of us have previously experienced. Meeting within the context of a polyamorous relationship adds a layer of complexity to our friendship that deepens the relationship. The story of our friendship showcases a specific sort of friendship, one grounded in theories of gender performance, sexuality, invisibility, and language.

Keywords:     Femme, Fem(me)ininity, Lesbian, Invisibility, Friendship,

Autoethnography, Polyamory

Amber and I have been friends for less than a year, but for all of the experiences we share in common as femme lesbians, time is irrelevant. We know what it’s like to cut our hair short and wear baggy clothes in hopes of being recognized, only to realize that we are uncomfortable and unhappy without makeup and without curves. We know what it’s like to be told we’re too pretty to be gay. We know what it is like to be the prettiest girl in the room and then feel immense insecurity and jealousy when suddenly we are not. We know what it’s like to try and catch the eye of a woman we find attractive, only to have her think we are staring at her and disapproving of her masculinity. We know what it’s like to have our sexuality questioned because we love masculinity. We know what it’s like to admire the pretty painted finger nails on the hands we use for fucking, and we also know what it’s like to feel a stone butch melt from our touch. We know what it’s like to strap on and feel powerful, and we also know what it’s like to have our identities dismissed as easy, as privileged, and as not really gay. We know what it is like to exist in a world where normative presentations of femininity are rewarded and also degraded and belittled. We know what it’s like to have a plumber, or roofer, or an electrician come to the house and speak only to our wives or ask where our husbands are. We know what it’s like to be unwillingly touched and harassed because we are women. And we know what it’s like to want to be seen and to be recognized for who we are when we continue to remain simply invisible.

Many of our experiences are experiences most, if not all, women share. Unwanted looks, unconsenting touches, competition, and beauty standards are not specific to lesbians. They are specific to misogyny and they are byproducts of living in a patriarchal culture. What doesmake our experiences exceptional is the consciousness that arises from living within multiple cultures, what Phalen (1993) names the perils and privileges of “passing.” Amber and I are femmes. To be clear, by femme[1]I specifically mean lesbians who perform and succeed at normative standards of feminine beauty and also date butch women. I am not referring to lipstick lesbian couples – two feminine women who date each other – nor am I discussing androgyny of any sort or feminine lesbians who date women whose gender performances cross the spectrum. I speak only of women who “pass” as straight and who partner with women masculine of center.

Femme invisibility has been discussed in academia for well over 60 years, yet there has been nothing in those discussions that can teach me how to be seen and recognized as queer in my daily, lived experience. Suggestions to “rhetorically reconstruct” (Galewski, 2005) myself are fine in theory but not in practice. That I may be a queer body in a subversive form of fem(me)inine drag (Maltry & Tucker, 2008) or that I am in fact fem(me)inine (not feminine), both of which are inherently queer performances of identity (Douglas, 2004; Duggen & McHugh, 1996), are fascinating concepts, ones I like very much, yet not helpful strategies for recognition. The knowledge that my identity, like a heterosexual woman’s identity, is constructed in relation to my masculine counterpart and works to limit alternative performances of gender by reiterating binary scripts (Halberstam, 1998; Kennedy, 1997; Gibson & Meem, 2002; Rubin, 2011) does not help me to be seen for who I am or by the women I want to attract. None of this helps me to understand how I can be recognized as a lesbian. And neither does the claim that I should believe I look queer simply because I am queer (Lizz, 2011).

Whatever the answer may be to femme invisibility, I do not have it. But, like many others, I know that by claiming it only as a privilege and not recognizing how it is also a peril, a space of invisibility, we negate ourselves a chance for productive dialogue and as such, we advocate conformity as a means to acceptance. So I create scholarship on the popular practices of femme identity as a means of dismantling the patriarchal, heteronormative binary within which I am invisible. My contribution is the femme friendship. The femme friendship is a friendship between two femme lesbians – two women who as individuals have experienced all that it is to be femme and whose friendship helps them better negotiate and understand their identity as femme.

Like all femme women, Amber and I know what it’s like to come out and identify ourselves as gay on a regular basis. We know that the dismissal of our identity unwillingly shoves us back into the closet over and over again and that queer visibility is a double edged sword, that sometimes the enemy you know is better than the enemy you don’t know, and that coming out is scary because we are forced to wonder whether the person treating us with courtesy would treat us with contempt if he or she knew we were married to a woman. We also know that by being femme, we are safer than our butch counterparts. We do not fear public bathrooms nor do we get mistaken for the wrong gender. We do not get stared at by people who cannot easily read our gender. We are not socially punished in any way for our gender performance; in fact, just the opposite. Everyday that we perform our gender correctly, we are rewarded (Butler, 1990) by our larger society and, at the same time, we become invisible within our queer community.

I experience this invisibility in the world. I share this experience of invisibility with Amber. And through my friendship with Amber, I’ve learned how empowering this shared experience can be. Amber and I speak the same language of invisibility and of identity, and having shared language with which to speak, one I have never been able to speak before, legitimates my experience. The rich feeling of legitimacy, provided by finding a person with whom I share a similar voice, is the impetus for this work. This essay tells the story of my friendship with Amber. Having my first femme friend at thirty-eight years old has been a life changing experience.  Our year of friendship has taught me more about who I am than years of friendships with straight women ever has. Amber helps me to understand who I am and who I have been. She helps me understand my coming out process, my dating experiences, and my current relationship. She helps me understand how and where I do and can fit amongst other lesbians, and how and where I do and can fit within the larger world. She does this for me as much as I do this for her. Being invisible together is quite different than being invisible alone. Together, we begin to name that invisibility. Together we speak a common language of invisibility. Together we create a meaningful bond of friendship.

***

I’d met Amber a few times over the years at events and parties, yet we only grew to become friends when my wife – Abby – began dating Amber’s friend Joan. Joan was Abby’s first girlfriend after we opened our marriage. It was towards the end of Abby and Joan’s relationship that Amber became my confidant. When the relationship between Abby and Joan dissolved, Abby and I began dating Amber and her wife Helen. My relationship with Helen lasted only half the time of Abby and Amber’s relationship. During that additional time, Abby and Amber grew to love with each other. Also during that time I grew to love Amber and she me. Our friendship and the relationship of sharing a partner became a deep and powerful form of connection.

Metamour is the term used within the poly community to describe the person with whom your primary partner is having a relationship. Poly books, websites, and blogs all insist that metamours do not need to be friends; Abby and Helen never created a friendship nor did Joan and I – although we all tried. Metamour comes from the blending of Greek and Latin: meta meaning “with” and amor meaning love. Oddly though, the idea of meta being a term regarding that which is self-referential is not part of the poly lexicon, when perhaps it should be. If Amber and I are connected through Abby, then in some ways do we not both reference her through ourselves? And are Amber and I not connected to each other through our references to Abby? When Abby and Amber’s relationship grows and changes, does it not impact my relationship with Abby? And when my relationship with Amber deepens, doesn’t that effect the relationship between Abby and Amber?

Before Amber was in my life, when Abby was dating Joan, I incessantly compared myself to Joan. Years of social conditioning made me see Joan as the enemy, as my competition. Yet I was also pulled towards Joan. I wanted to be friends with my metamour. I wanted to be better than jealousy. I wanted to work through the jealousy and be her friend. I had never had a femme friend and I longed for one. I was also new to poly and part of poly is working through jealousy.  

For a brief time, Joan and I bonded over our experiences of being femme. We went shopping together and got our nails done together, and we laughed with each other when the women doing our nails insisted keeping them short was ugly and we should let them grow longer. We shared clothes and got ready together for parties we were attending. Our friendship reminded me of when I first came out and started dating women; these were dates that led into nights, nights that turned into weekends, and then days would go by without being apart. I fell hard and fast in those early relationships and the stereotypical (and somewhat embarrassing) “U-Haul” scenario emerged. Those first few weeks with Joan were like sleepovers with friends as a child – the feeling of never wanting it to end because we were having too much fun. And now, as an adult, it didn’t have to end. When Joan started spending time at our house, we were having all the fun; we were going out, kissing each other, kissing Abby, and exploring our new relationship.

Whatever the reason, as much as Joan and I tried, we never truly connected as friends. When I insisted Abby end the relationship due to problems occurring in our marriage, Joan blamed me. Maybe I was simply jealous of Joan for catching the eye of my wife, an eye that had only seen me for years. Maybe because we acted on our mutual crush and had sex with each other and Abby, the lines of friendship were crossed in a way that we couldn’t move back from. Maybe the jealousy of sharing the same woman was too much for us. Or maybe we are simply incompatible as friends. But there’s something about the meta in metamour that leaves me doubting a simple incompatibility.

In the weeks leading up to the end of Abby and Joan’s relationship, I reignited my friendship with Amber. She became my go-to person for all things Abby and Joan – my jealousy, my insecurity, my doubts, my fears, and my growing lack of trust. She assured me that I was not acting irrational and even provided information about Joan’s behavior that confirmed deceptions I thought to be true. When Amber fell ill, I spent hours in the hospital with her and she consoled me over the mounting distrust I had for Abby and Joan’s relationship. She gave me the support and reassurance I needed to ask Abby to end her relationship with Joan and I brought her cool towels for her head. She gave me the strength I needed to stand up for what was right and I brought her flowers and magazines. When I insisted Abby end her relationship with Joan, Joan lashed out at me and Abby fluctuated between understanding and anger; Amber offered me support.

A few months after Abby and Joan’s relationship ended, Abby and I began dating Amber and Helen. Similar to Joan, Amber and I bonded over being femmes and our friendship was hard and fast. We texted each other daily and unabashedly told each other the stories of our lives. We talked about dating each other’s wives and in doing so we both saw parts of our wives we hadn’t seen in a while. Seeing my wife through a new woman’s eyes is powerful and being able to share that experience with a woman I trust is exceptional. The four of us experienced our own U-Haul-like period of time; Abby and I were at their house or Helen and Amber were at our house constantly. It was fun and easy, until it wasn’t. Like most relationships, once the novelty wears off something deeper must emerge. Helen and I lacked that deep connection and by the time we all went on vacation together, my relationship with Helen was basically over.

Without the ease of a foursome, familiar feelings of jealously returned. But this time it was different. Amber and I had built a friendship and through our friendship we were able to negotiate the envious feelings we had towards each other. For the most part, jealousy emerged with regard to sex, attraction, and emotions. Does Abby like sex better with Amber than with me? Is Amber prettier/skinnier/sexier than I am? Is Amber more fun than I am?

Whereas the same sorts of questions emerged with Joan, unlike Joan, Amber and I could discuss how these questions made us both feel, because she too wondered these questions about me. We had long, deep, brutally honest conversations, conversations in which we discussed us both dating and having sex with the same women. Initially, those conversations were silly and lighthearted. We tiptoed around what was okay to say and what wasn’t about us each having sex with each other’s wives. We moved from peripheral topics like what types of men’s or women’s clothes Abby and Helen would or wouldn’t wear, to challenging conversations about whether or not Helen and Amber should talk to Helen’s thirteen year old daughter about the relationship among the four of us – a decision they decided against. As the conversations deepened, Amber and I grew closer.

There is no doubt the initial equality of a foursome rather than a triad helped our situation, but I know it was more than equality, it was equity that made our relationship work. Heather and I gave each other what we needed to feel safe.  For example, I needed to come home to a clean house after Amber had spent the night and so Amber ensured Abby did the dishes. When my relationship with Helen ended – in part because I lost interest and in part because I saw the way she was hurting Amber through her lack of attentiveness – Abby and Amber’s relationship did not.  In fact it continued to grow stronger. Amber and I were able to learn to talk to each other about a woman I love deeply and have committed my life to and a woman Amber was falling in love with. This type of conversation does not come easily. There are no scripts to follow, no models or guides to learn from; we did this on our own, we created our own language. We crossed every line about what may or may not be okay to discuss, and then we came back and crossed them again. And when language failed us, we often found we didn’t need to speak – that our shared experiences and understandings spoke for themselves.

We reached out to the other, to spend time together, and stayedfriends when it felt easier to walk away. When I was jealous, and as a result angry or fearful, it felt normal to direct those feelings at Amber and to hate her. Instead, I texted her and I emailed her and I told her how I was feeling. And like a good Director of Human Resources, she responded to each of my concerns line by line. An excerptfrom one of our emails:

Me: Right now I am very upset - with Abby primarily but also as a result of, and individually with, you. It's hard for me to determine where my anger is coming from and how much of it is shit about Abby that I want to blame on you. I don't want to blame it on you, I don't want to be mad at you, but I am and so I am hoping maybe an email communicating some issues will help me express my feelings, hear what you have to say in response and then we can move forward.

Amber: First, I am sorry you are so upset. It kills me to hear you are upset with me, but I am so glad you told me so we can talk about it.  I don't want you to be mad at me either, but if you are, we are going to face it head on and work it out.  The fact that you care enough to tell me how you are honestly feeling shows me that you value our friendship, and that means everything to me.

This was not our most eloquent writing but it represents our honest communications that allowed us to move forward. Being friends with Amber forced me to be honest with myself in ways I never have been before. She forced me to answer the questions that had long been brewing in my mind.

The jealousy of sex? Did I notice Amber’s beautifully large hands and her love of fucking women? Yes I did. I also noticed when Abby accidentally used our joint Amazon Prime account to buy a harness and a dildo. But more than anything, I understand that both Amber and Abby have histories of violent sexual abuse and their sex offered them a space to heal, a space I cannot provide because I don’t share that experience. It was in that difficult understanding, that Amber offered Abby something I never could, that I moved from accepting Amber as my wife’s girlfriend to appreciating her as my wife’s girlfriend. Abby and Amber’s relationship healed my wife in places and in ways she had long since forgotten needed to be healed. I watched Abby grow stronger in who she is by revisiting parts of her abuse. Our marriage grew stronger and my understanding of who Abby is deepened further. This shift in my marriage is because of Amber, and my friendship with Amber only deepened as a result.

The jealousy that emerged from looks? The competition of being the prettiest girl in the room? Well not only is that competition, in Andre Shakti’s words, “a victory lap for patriarchy” (2016) but more so, I’ll take second place in that beauty pageant any day if a gorgeous woman and I can sit down together and share our experiences of femme identity. I love spending time with beautiful women, and our chances of finding cute butch girls to buy us drinks and flirt with us only get better when there are two of us. Abby couldn’t even imagine saying no to us when we worked together to get what we wanted.

And the jealousy of emotions? In some ways, that jealousy felt familiar. I don’t know a single lesbian who hasn’t stayed friends with an ex, dated a friend’s ex, or learned to accept a partner’s ex in her life. In fact, most lesbian friendship groups emerge as people sleep their way into the community. Amber and I know this, we’ve been through this, and jealousy is not worth losing people over. Instead, we worked hard to get over our jealousy. And in this experience, jealousy strengthened our friendship.

***

When Abby and Amber ended their relationship, it was because of me. However, it was not because of any jealousy I had towards Amber but a realization about myself. At this point in my life, poly is not for me. I do not want my wife to love another woman. For many of the reasons that Abby loved Amber, I love her too. I value what she brought to Abby’s life and, as a result, to mine. Our relationship was truly one of metamour. Because of us both being with and loving Abby, we learned to love each other. But more importantly, on our own, we developed a strong friendship. We created a friendship built on admiration and respect for each other’s strengths and differences and for all the experiences we have in common. It hasn’t been easy and, like any relationship, it takes work. The work has been extremely rewarding.

When Abby and Amber ended their relationship, they did it because they love me. Amber and I talked through the pain and hurt of their breakup and the pain their relationship caused me. Amber offered me new perspective on Abby’s behavior and my responses to it, she validated some of the feelings Abby disagreed with, and she assured me that throughout their relationship, I had always been number one. I offered her assurance that Abby did love her and was deeply saddened.

***

A recent New York Timesopinion piece by lesbian blogger Krista Burton (2016) claims any attempt at differentiating between today’s trends and queer lady culture is impossible because “Lesbians invented hipsters” (para 8). Burton lists organic communal farming, undercuts, messenger bags and androgynous clothing to highlight a few markers of hipster identity that have historically been iconic of lesbian culture. In her piece, Burton laments over the increased difficulty of recognizing lesbians as a result of popular fashion styles, while at the same time also being proud of living in a word with less “ballerina flats and Michael Kors handbags” (para 24). But what about the lesbians who like ballerina flats and Michael Kors handbags? Or, let me say knee-high boots and Marc Jacobs cross-bodies? Because I, like Burton, would happily see the aforementioned accessories disappear. But you get the point. Her happiness about the loss of feminine symbols coupled with her resentment over the loss of lesbian signifiers reiterates the fact that the two are not the same. Underlying her question about this brave new world that welcomes androgyny and her assumptions about queer identity is the belief all lesbians look the same and were once recognizable.

As I’ve mentioned, I have never been recognizable as a lesbian. And while I may agree that bikes as transportation and people getting angry over pesticides (and less ballerina flats) will do the world good, I resent her assumptions and her reiteration of what it means to look like a lesbian.

Burton concludes by stating, “I’m sorry. But mostly for myself. Because it’s harder to tell who’s queer now” (para 23). As someone who has a hard time being seen as queer, I am not sorry. Instead, I am thankful for my femme friend.

My femme friend Amber empowers me as a femme and as a lesbian. As fem(me)inine women we occupy similar spaces in the world and as friends we reflect our experiences to each other. Without popular culture representations, or any other representations that mirror who we are back to ourselves, we do that for each other. Amber and I understand each other as femme lesbians; we exist in a space of femininity as well as femme identity. We speak the same language of identity and share experiences that legitimate who we are as people. We nod to each other with common understandings and shared experiences. We are burdened by all that it means to be a feminine woman in the larger world and a femme woman in the gay world. We are the other within an already othered group. And like everyone else who has ever been an other of an other, we have found strength in the margins and in creating community – even if for now, for us, it’s a community of just two.

References

Burton, K. (2016). Hipsters Broke my Gaydar. The New York Times. December 31

Butler, J. (1990). Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity. New York: Routledge.

Douglas, E. (2004). Femme Fem(me)ininities: A Performative Queering. Thesis. Miami University

Duggan, L. & McHugh, K. (1996). A fe(me)inist Menifesto. Women & Performance, 8(2). 153-169

Galewski, E. (2005). Figuring the Feminist Femme. Women’s Studies in Communication. 28(2). 183-206

Gibson, M. & Meem, D. (2002). Femme/Butch: New Considerations of the Way We Want to Go. (Eds.). New York: Routledge

Halberstam J. (1998). Female Masculinity. Durham: Duke UP

Kennedy, E. L. (1997) The Hidden Voice: Fems in the 1940s and 1950s. in Femme: Feminists, Lesbians, and Bad Girls. Edited by L. Harris and E. Crocker. New York: Routledge

Lizz (2011). You Need Help: Being the Visible Femme. Autostraddle. November 4. https://www.autostraddle.com/you-need-help-so-youre-femme-and-no-one-knows-youre-gay-120512/

Maltry, M. & Tucker, K. (2008) Female fem(me)ininities. Journal of Lesbian Studies. 6(2). 89-102

Phalen, P. (1993). Unmarked: the politics of performance. Routledge

Rubin, G. (2011). Deviations: A Gayle Rubin Reader. Durham: Duke UP

Shakti, A. (2016). How to Confront Femme Competition Within Polyamorous Relationships. Harlot Media. March 29. http://harlot.media/articles/664/how-to-confront-femme-competition-within-polyamorous-relationships

[1]I recognize that many LGBTQ people’s identities go unseen and that invisibility is not specific to femme identity. Many LGBTQ people perform gender in ways that do not call attention to their sexuality or gender performance; many LGBTQ do this, on purpose, for a variety of reasons (safety, family, profession) and some do it simply because it is who they are. Gender performances are as diverse as the reasons why they are performed; this paper focuses only on femme identity and femme invisibility.

So anyone who follows me knows by now that @sylviesunshine and I both adore the Matt and Gallo father/son duo. But I realized this the other day and couldn’t not share it with everyone (especially you, Sky) because OK. I know a lot of people are under the impression that Matt was drawn so much to Gallo in the beginning because Gallo reminded him of a younger version of himself. Only no. I don’t think that’s it. Gallo doesn’t remind Matt of himself, he reminds Matt of a young Andy Darden. Think about that for five seconds and tell me that doesn’t want to make you C R Y.

In 9x06 we saw Matt flip out over Gallo’s decision on that call. Granted, Sylvie was part of the reason his reaction was so severe but he explained himself to Gallo afterwards and it made so much sense. He made that comment about how losing a member of your crew is the worst thing to happen to an officer but it didn’t only apply to Otis, it applied to Andy too. And what was Matt Casey’s first line in the pilot? The line he spoke to Andy? “As usual, like the class clown”. And sure, Otis was the guy Gallo came to replace, but who does a slightly reckless goofball remind you of? GALLO. He shares more similarities with Andy than with Otis and I think that even though it’s what drew Matt to Gallo in the first place, it also scared him a little.

Anyway that was super random but I can’t stop thinking about it and just. Yeah. Ouchie!

This is probably very evident but I’m finally trying to articulate my thoughts about the Brettsey scenes (specifically, the sexy time scene) in 9x16 so here’s my small analysis on it:

First off, let me just say that I seriously cannot sing this scene’s praises enough. Everything about it was SO GREAT. Jesse and Kara’s acting was spot on without even saying a line, the intimacy was there, the natural flow of the scene. Given their journey, it was exactly the kind of sex scene I’d pictured for them. But I also want to talk about it’s symbolism and compare it to Dawsey’s first time because the difference is stark.

Gabby and Matt’s first time was very spur of the moment. Everything about it was impulsive but passionate and intense, just like most of their relationship. Their wedding was a heat of the moment thing, getting Louie wasn’t planned, they randomly hooked up towards the end of season 3 which is how Gabby got pregnant. It’s only fitting that their first time be something completely unplanned and heated.

But this post is about Brettsey. Their first time is much different. The reason I mention Dawsey’s first time though it because both scenes are so different yet so embodying of each individual relationship. So yes, Dawsey’s first time was a heat of the moment thing, because their love was all very intense and impulsive. I like to joke that Dawsey’s relationship was like a fire which is why they marketed their relationship for so long but it truly isn’t a joke. A fire is intense, passionate, flaming and uncontrollable. And for a while, from a distance, it’s something almost beautiful, until the smoke comes in your lungs and things start turning to ash and it’s not exactly something you want to be in or near anymore. That was Dawsey— lively and passionate but in the end, never something truly sustainable.

The Brettsey scene is different though. It symbolizes their whole relationship: slowburning, soft, tender. Everything about it is deliberate and controllably heated. It’s all very explorative: they take the time slowly peeling off layers, there are a variety of gentle touches. It’s something that feels so personal to them, so purposeful. Because they’ve taken the time to make sure their feelings are as strong as can be. They know they’re in love. This is it for them. No takebacks, no others, no swerving roller coaster of breakups and makeups. They’re it for each other, which means they can do everything at their own pace without rushing. It’s so intentionally slow yet so passionate, because they’ve both matured a lot as characters and as people, and they’ve been patient enough to take the time to recognize their feelings, their need for stability, etc. So even though the Dawsey scene was still muy caliente, it’s not as rewarding because it has that subtext of “stop resisting our urges now, ask questions later” that often breeds uncertainty whereas Brettsey have already figured out their urges, placed a name to the feeling, let their love grow, and then have sex once they’re on the exact same page. It may have taken nearly a whole damn season, but they did in nonetheless. It makes the payoff so much better.

Unpopular opinion but I’m sorry but how is jay better than the world they operate in??? In like the second episode this season it was revealed he covered up literal war crimes

Oh yeah, the war crimes thing has definitely NOT been forgotten. But I think there’s a bit of ambiguity around the wording of Agent North’s words so I’m going to try to explain how I interpretated that line:

“Better than the world we operate in” is SUCH a loaded sentence to be honest. First, we take a look at this “world” he’s referring to. We automatically think “society” or the world in general, but I think in this context, it’s a reasonable assumption to say North meant the policing world. Intelligence, FBI, CPD in general. That whole “world” that they’ve built inside their profession, the one they navigate as cops.

So now we’ve narrowed down the meaning of arguably the most ambiguous term in that sentence, but now we can apply it to what we know about Jay.

Yes, Jay helped cover up a literal war crime and that makes him a pretty morally compromised dude in the grand scheme of things and a lesser hero in the eyes of general society. Yes, he’s no saint. What he did during the war was a messed up thing to do. I think even Jay recognizes that; recognizes that he played an active role in something terrible and feels a lot of shame surrounding that (as he should). He even laughed dryly when he heard that his friend called it a “mistake” too, knowing full well what he did— what they did— was intentional in nature.

But here’s the thing: North only knows Jay as a cop. You can read someone’s file, sure, but that’s not knowing a person. His war crime secret was DEFINITELY NOT in any FBI file. No way. North only knows Jay’s character through the context of policing. So, taking a look at Jay through that lens only and comparing him to other people in the unit— Voight who’s been to prison and has a history of corruption and burying bodies, Antonio who got hooked on pills and left the unit, Adam who took the fall and went to jail for it for a while even— you’d think Jay was a pretty standup guy too if you were North. Because all the guy has is a bunch of files, and what he reads on paper is very different from what we know as fans. This is not to say Adam’s more corrupt than Jay or Voight is or Antonio or whatever, I’m not trying to play the game of “Who’s more morally reprehensible?” This is just to say that North recognizes the abundance of corruption in policing.

So is his statement about Jay being better than the world they operate in true in the grand scheme of things? I don’t know. Probably not. But in North’s context, I think he might be yes. Because all North knows is what he’s read about them which probably doesn’t translate great on paper for some. And his remark wasn’t saying Kim isn’t also better than the world they operate in, or that Kevin wasn’t or Adam wasn’t. Hailey maybe, Voight definitely, but the others? No. It was only really saying that Jay is better than the corruption that is seen everywhere in policing now and that is a truth we can all agree with I think. Because Jay’s not relatively crooked (operative word being relative because this is comparing him to the others). He was just dragged into a situation that he didn’t want to be a part of but was lulled in because of the emotional component. If it were anyone else, he’d have no hesitation in telling the upper level cops what happened. But it’s Hailey, so his emotions are clouding his judgement. A human error but hey, if that’s corruption than we’re all guilty of it.

Anyway, THAT’S what I think Agent North really meant by his comment there. I don’t know if this got too convoluted or long but I hope it makes sense :)

I'm glad that you think my shoving theory makes sense and also yes! Jay REALLY strikes me too as a shoving guy too rather than a punching one!!!!

Omg hi Reese! I missed you lol, hope you’re well <3

Yes, your theory totally makes sense! And I’ve been trying to think of WHY Jay strikes me (well, us now) as a shoving guy instead of punching and all I can come up with is just the intention behind each one. Punching is very concentrated; very targeted. People focus their angle into a single fist that’s directed intentionally at one person. But a shove, however, represents a lot more. It’s more of a defensive manoeuvre rather than an offensive one. It distances the other person from you and honestly, I could get why Jay would want to distance himself from Voight in that moment should it happen. A shove would be really symbolic too: he’s quite literally rejecting the idea of what Voight’s telling him and pushing it (the source) away which would make sense if he’s in denial or shock about the whole thing at first.

From Song to Storyline: Comparing Lorde’s “Melodrama” Album to Hailey Upton’s Upcoming Journey

Ok I couldn’t resist, I made a comment about how Hailey Upton is in her Melodrama era (because yes, I’m an absolute Lorde fanatic) and my loving soulmate @sylviebrettsey mentioned Taylor Swift’s Reputation too, but ALSO how she was unfamiliar with Melodrama so you can thank her for this analysis of why I picked Melodrama as Hailey’s season 9 mood! It’s going to be VERY long so I’ll put everything under the cut but I hope you guys like it! (And Sky, I hope you find this Lorde knowledge to be helpful lol. This is going to be very long but I hope it’s worth it and convinces someone out there to give the album a listen)

Reputation is an album that feels inherently vengeful in all the best ways. Songs like “Getaway Car” and “Don’t Blame Me” fit Hailey’s predicament at the end of season 8 very well, especially in relation to Jay. Those two songs as well as the album in general make for a very intense musical journey and Hailey’s been through a lot of intense things so naturally, it seems like they’d fit together. But based on what we’ve seen in interviews, I picked Melodrama for Hailey Upton’s season 9 era because that whole album plays with the idea of what happens after.

Lorde mostly talks about the crash that happens after a party when referencing this “after” but it acts a metaphor for being on a high note (a relationship, life, careers, etc.) and then crashing down. It’s a gritty, heart-wrenching album that holds so many similarities to what Hailey’s feeling. Coming into season 9, we know she isn’t sleeping, she can’t eat, there’s guilt eating away at her over what she’s done and over having to be around Kim constantly while keeping her secret. We know she’s clinging onto Jay with this proposal, know she’s going to have this internal torment because she can’t tell any of them what happened but Jay’s starting to notice something’s wrong with her and catching on to what happened. So, without further ado, lemme just give you snippets of lyrics from various songs on Lorde’s Melodrama album that fit with different parts of Hailey’s journey— as well as the unit’s journey— going into the new season!

1. “Sober”

In Sober, Lorde writes and sings about her experience of getting a panic attack at a party (Hence, the “Oh God, I’m clean out of air // In my lungs, it’s all gone” line) but then having to act normal because of social expectations and adds the “Played it nonchalant” line. In relation to Hailey, this represents her covering her ruse even though it’s killing her inside. Then, when we move further down these lyrics, it talks about being alone with the truth and dancing with the truth— again, Hailey struggling with the truth of what she did. Then, at the end of this first verse it could almost be seen from Jay’s perspective. “I’m acting like I don’t see // Every ribbon you used to tie yourself to me” is SO similar to what Jesse Lee Soffer’s been saying in interviews about Jay not knowing if Hailey’s proposal was genuine, and also what he and Tracy have said about Hailey’s proposal being genuine but also a product of her clinging on to the one good thing in her life.

2. “Liability”

Ah, yes, finally! The best song on the Melodrama album and arguably one of Lorde’s best songs ever! She wrote this in the back of a cab about the struggle of trying to love herself and worrying she’s too much for her friends. If that’s not a Hailey Upton sentiment going into this season, I don’t know what is! Not only is this applicable to Hailey with the Roy situation but it could also be applied to 8x11 when she was scared that her baggage and trauma around being abused by her father meant she couldn’t be with Jay. Also, now that she’s done this huge, massive thing that she has to live with, it’ll make it even harder for her to love herself— and for her to consider the fact that maybe, if she was truthful about that night, her friends would still love her anyway.

3. “Homemade Dynamite”

Homemade Dynamite, according to Lorde, describes “the moment when you meet someone at a party and an explosive night follows”. Again, right off the bat you see motifs of lies vs. truth when she’s saying let’s let things come out of the woodworks. It also technically talks about being blind to rules and dreams which is perfect for the finale: Hailey was blind to her dream (because let’s be real, thinking she could stop Voight was a fantasy), and Voight was blind to the rules. And just like the song says, it’s all bound to blow up on Hailey sooner or later, like homemade dynamite.

4. “Sober ll”

I feel like I don’t even need to explain my thought process behind this one. Trauma, melodrama, gun fights, terror, horror. ALL OF THESE are key words for what Hailey’s been through and will CONTINUE to go through. “They’ll talk about us, and discover // How we kissed and killed each other” is also applicable to the synopsis about how the FBI is potentially getting involved in discerning what happened to Roy. If they do, it could launch an investigation into the entire unit which could uncover a lot— “kisses each other” being the relationship drama that happens within the unit and “killed each other” being what happened with Roy and Voight’s general track record of murdering criminals and covering it up.

5. “Writer In The Dark”

Ok this first line is pretty much the entire reason I put this section of the song into this post. “I am my mother’s child, I’ll love you ‘til my breathing stops” is very strongly representative of Hailey’s past. She was raised in a household where her mother loved an abusive man and continued to love him even through the abuse of her and her children. It’s traumatizing, sure, but it also explains why Hailey’s reaction to shooting Roy was to go home and propose to Jay. She gets that loyalty from her mother, to the point where she could even stay in situations that hurt her (like refusing to leave Voight in the warehouse). But Jay doesn’t hurt her, he loves her unconditionally too which is why Hailey would love him until her breathing stops— or until, as it proceeds to say, “‘til you call the cops on me”, which is applicable in a much more literal sense.

6. “Supercut”

Supercut is probably my personal favourite of Lorde’s songs. The buildup is beautiful and the come-down is slow and gradual. It’s the epitome of pop in my opinion. But Hailey most definitely plays that moment over in her head and in her head, she would have done the right thing that night. And maybe she’s hoping the unit (Jay especially) will forgive her for shooting Roy instead of letting it cause a fight. This whole song is about replaying moments of a relationship in your head and changing the scenario so that it plays out as if you did everything right. You won’t always do everything right though, because we’re human and make mistakes, but it’s more than plausible that Hailey’s trying to capture that feeling.

7. Liability (Reprise)

Last but not least, we’ve got the reprise for Liability! This one’s a little more generic because it’s just the general vibe of the song that fits Hailey and this PD angst so well but honestly “And all of the shit that we harbour // Make all the kids in the choir sing, “Woo-hoo” is very applicable to Hailey because she’s got a lot of baggage going into this new season. “And maybe all this is the party // Maybe we just do it violently” is another line that fits her situation so well. In addition, since Liability is one of the last songs on this album the outro of the song is almost like the absolute rock bottom reached in the journey the album tells. It could easily be compared to if/when Jay finds out about what Hailey did. (Seriously, just imagine Jay saying “you’re not what you thought you were” to Hailey and tell me that wouldn’t make you cry! In a good way OR a bad way!)

Anyway, IN CONCLUSION: Melodrama is a twisted, heartbreaking album that fits into Hailey Upton’s upcoming journey in season 9 with the Roy storyline PERFECTLY! If you have time to listen to the album— or at least the songs I mentioned— then please do because it’s SO worth it. But until then, we’re going to be in for quite the angsty ride this season when it comes to Chicago PD and personally, I can’t wait to see what they do with it!

Chicago PD's Characters and the Role of Reform: an Analysis (???)

Hi everyone! The finales of One Chicago aired a couple of weeks ago by now but I've been preparing this post in my head ever since PD's finale aired. I wanted to talk/write about each character's (and maybe even the writers') interpretation of police reform and how it affects the plot. This will also talk about police reform in general. Before I start, I'd just like to state that this will be a bit long and probably biased since a lot of it is influenced by my own views on reform. I'm not interested in debating people on the internet, just putting out interesting perspective on an interesting TV show. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this and feel free to add thoughts of your own— as long as they’re respectful!

Chicago PD's handling of reform in this season was far from perfect but I did enjoy a few things they did with it. We had Kevin, a POC, stand up and fight back when even the people closest to him tried to shut him down. I did have some issue with the way they reduced Kevin's entire set of beliefs/morals to something so trivial and disrespectful as a "woke card" but I think the writers chose to do that on purpose to show how blinded white people can be sometimes. It's more the characters using that term, not the writers, which I thought was a good move since in both situations— Kevin v. Voight in 8x02 and Kevin v. Adam in 8x16– they made sure it's clear that Kevin is in the right. Voight may have been frustrated and Adam may have been spiraling over losing Kim (love me some #Burzek), but Kevin was still in the right. If only we could have some more varied representation on this show! That way, Kevin wouldn’t have to be used as the emotional punching bag all the time for these white characters and their misplaced frustrations with the system (added onto their personal frustrations which fluctuate on a episode-to-episode basis).

Now, onto the view on reform because this is where it gets interesting. I'm going to go ahead and say something that might be controversial: I think the majority of conflicts in this season have come from a gross misinterpretation of the concept of reform. This is especially highlighted in the finale when we see Adam saying he should be able to change/bend/break the rules to save someone he loves. It's also shown in the case with Miller's son Darrell and how they need to break the rules to save him, the case in 8x11 that Hailey considers breaking the rules for. It could even be loosely applies to 8x06 when Jay feels the need to break the rules only slightly in order to serve proper justice for their victim's father. Proper justice, in this case for Jay, being mercy towards the father and doing what's right in Jay's mind. Notice a common theme? These characters who are against reform (I know Voight was so good most of the season but he still falls into that category because of the first and last two episodes) all have one thing in common: the way they view reform. Voight, Hailey, and Adam, somewhere along the line (in my opinion), have all come to think of reform as a social push to get police officers to adhere to the proper guidelines when in reality, that's only a small fraction of an otherwise complex concept. Reform isn't all about getting police to follow the rules-- reform in and of itself is recognizing that the rules that are set into place aren't always effective. There are rules that are discriminatory, rules that are bureaucratic nonsense, rules that disproportionately affect specific groups of people, and rules that create roadblocks to solving real problems. Hell, the original police systems in North America especially were created to persecute minorities and maintain military power over citizens. The need for reform is referencing a larger systemic issue and getting police officers to follow the most basic procedures is just the tip of the iceberg. I don't want to get too much into the principles behind reform here because I am no expert. I recognize that because I am white I benefit from these rules/systems put into place so my voice shouldn't matter in the grand scheme of things, but I do think the majority of the tensions in this season of Chicago PD stem from the extreme oversimplification of reform. It surprised me too when I thought about it because they've managed to explore the grey areas/more complex aspects of it, but I think the writers are intentionally making that decision which makes it really interesting.

Throughout the season, I couldn’t help but feel that these characters considered reform as the push from the public to adhere to guidelines-- as they should, obviously-- but while ignoring the more nuanced principles of reform such as asking themselves questions like: is what I'm doing truly helping the communities we've sworn to serve and protect? Are the solutions us cops in Intelligence are offering permanent solutions? Should we be rethinking our principles of justice to be less retributive and more procedural-- or even more restorative?

This is all in reference to the characters, of course, not the writers. We have Voight, Hailey, and Adam resisting reform because they don’t see value in following the rules. But reform, in its purest form, is recognizing that the rules need changing, which is why it’s so interesting to see the “opposing side” against it even though they also believe the rules aren’t helping them. So I think it's really good and interesting how the writers have written these characters as having very complex and layered discussions/arguments about reform and about justice while still doing that. Because their contempt for the rules comes from a place of wanting to carry out justice, just like Kevin and all the others who push for reform, but they’re motivated by ideals closer to retributive justice and using their position of power to exact a more personal form of justice. Because of Hailey, Adam, and Voight’s more personal and intimate views of justice, their solutions always feel short-term. For example, Voight murdering suspects, bashing in cars, etc. This is all stuff that creates a temporary fix but their passion towards justice makes them care more about the personal, emotional release that kind of justice brings than the actual, long-term change. This is especially shown in that one scene where Hailey tells Jay the story about how a clerical error made an offender walk, which she sort of views as a reason why breaking the rules should be allowed whereas Kevin would view that as a reason why the rules need changing. Again, short-term vs. long-term.

This is not to say that Hailey, Voight, and Adam are evil, obviously. They're complicated, but they're far from evil. (Well, the jury’s still out on Voight. Haha!) What this show is portraying, however, is how the ideas of reform can be fleeting and temporary and all-around fickle in the minds of these characters when they reach a certain breaking point. They're able to throw this aside because they're all white, so it doesn't affect them personally. But right off the bat in season 8 we've seen it affect Kevin professionally AND personally in every single way. Others are almost viewing it as a social trend or a push to be a rule-follower though which is why both Adam and Voight, when put under emotional distress, are so easily able to downplay Kevin's push for doing things the right way. (Even though, really, he's asking for the bare minimum here of following the rules and not killing people.) Kevin, ever the conscience of the group, doesn’t put up with it and keeps people in check which can be extremely aggravating when you’re in a very emotional state and want to let your emotions lead you on a rampage. Hence, this is the root cause of the majority of tensions between the unit— in season 8 especially.

Anyway, this is all to say that I think this season of Chicago PD has done quite a lot in terms of portraying reform and the need for systemic change while still staying true to their characters and delving into how their privelege has led to them misinterpreting reform. Which leads to the portraying of some fairly corrupt policing, but never condoning it. At the very least, they show how it's less important for these characters since they all have a breaking point where reform becomes moot whereas for a black man like Kevin, it's more firmly ingrained into him. That’s a concept that is all too common in the real world, and one I appreciated that they represented even though some things weren’t so great.

Might I also comment on how absolutely terrifying/difficult that must have been for Matt to open up about his head injury?? He’s been worrying about his career— and his life— since 9x09. It’s clearly something that makes him very scared and anxious which makes the fact that he told Sylvie of all people about it even better. He put his walls up with everyone, even the ones who caught on about it. He said he was fine to Boden, Severide, Stella. He lied and told Gallo that he got his head checked out even after he found out about it. But Sylvie showed up for him, pushed him to take it seriously and expressed her concern. She showed him there was no hiding with her; it just wasn’t an option. As predicted, Matt opened up to her about it and he gets more than he had even expected. He tells her about his fears and insecurities surrounding his head injury, of what it could mean for him, and she’s just... there for him. No questions asked. So not only is that support he was missing in his other relationships finally being returned to him, but he’s also finding a safe space in Sylvie, a person he can be vulnerable with. Sylvie’s the only person Matt’s been truly vulnerable around this season, and the way they highlighted that this episode was amazing. 💛