Hello, Bree. This is Scott Smajor. I came across your blog in my free time today and it pained me greatly to find a post you made recently calling flower husbands toxic and, I quote, “abusive”. I began to cry, because you are wrong. You have truly hurt an innocent 30 or 40 year old man who wants nothing more than to act and be happy. I hope you consider your actions in the future, as I am still crying because of you. Thank you, and goodbye.

oh thank god you’re here I’ve had some thoughts on your esmp1 finale I’d like to share

So I'll choose for the both of us, And you'll just go along because You've trusted me, for no good reason, Love no matter what the season

fanart of when fh won third life, something that happened and I didnt just make up. based on this hypothetical (in the tags)

the still images bc mobile HATES this gif

you know what? sure man. scott can say whatever he wants I guess

“Jimmy takes a while to break down, I was his partner for season 1. Takes a while but once you whittle him down to nothing, it works. No see I’m a master of it because—“

God this is still so funny. “montage of some of our best moments and memories that I have with him” and it’s:

moment they first met (ok)

passing by him down the stairs (ok)

ruining tango’s cow operation (fun activity they did together!!)

zoomed in footage of jimmy dying (???)

That’s it (youtube scene slide transition and cartoon sound effect)

sits down at the kitchen table with my head in my hands… long despairing sigh… The “home? home” scene. it takes place in Scott’s perfect afterlife, seeing as the world had been changed to reflect what Scott “always wanted it to look like” and whatnot. this is all well and good but have we considered this from Jimmy’s perspective. have we considered the implications of Jimmy being sent to an afterlife catered specifically to Scott

this is going to sound insane but i keep ruminating on that clip of 3l!scott telling jimmy that he’ll “always be more powerful” than him. he says it like it’s just the natural assumption to make and explains how Jimmy will always have weaker tools and armor than Scott does because Scott is the one supplying him (barely true btw but I digress) but the crazy thing is that that is Not the natural assumption to make actually. If you’re in an alliance with someone, you want them to be on the same level as you. You share resources. If your teammate is behind, you help catch them up. THAT IS WHAT YOU DOOOO YOURE NOT SUPPOSED TO ALWAYS BE MORE POWERFUL THAN HIM THATS NOT HOW THIS WORKSSS

yeah sorry I was in a weird mood (better version under cut). it’s metaphorical btw i dont think he’d actually do this

^ i like this version a lot more but the colors were unfortunately too cute to be the main version

being “in love” is difficult to define as everyone experiences the specifics differently but I suppose for this post I’m categorizing it as disney-like swooning and the typical descriptions of what crushes look like in coffee shop fanfiction. I’d specify this as “in the romantic sense” but half of this is talking about Scott and I don’t think he feels anything in the romantic sense beyond platonic feelings of affection that he mistakes for romance because he’s so in love with the idea of it. A big facet of Scott’s character is the idealization of traditional romance (hence why he’s so quick to commit at Jimmy’s love confession, with some imagination it checks all the boxes of that love-at-first-sight day 1 fairytale love story he believes he’s in) without actually getting much enjoyment from it beyond maybe one episode. He states that he and Jimmy are married, he finds a place to settle down with him, and then he shares his resources with Jimmy because that’s what married people do, all while waiting for Jimmy to get picked off by some enderman as early as episode 2 (real thing that happened btw I love 3l!Scott). After Jimmy dies, Scott once again falls in love with the idea of Jimmy as he briefly did in Episode 1, doing a complete 180 in the respect he gives Jimmy after Jimmy’s personhood has been put completely out of sight. Scott did not fall in love with Jimmy, he’s in love with cutesy hollywood romance films and every once in a while Jimmy represents that to him.

I WATCH A SCOTT POV -> I AM CHARMED BY HIS CUTE SKIN AND INTERIOR DESIGN -> HE DOES SOMETHING HORRIBLE TO THE PEOPLE HE LOVES -> I LOCK HIM IN AN ICE CHAMBER FOR A BILLION YEARS LEAVING HIM TO LIVE OFF ANTS AND SALTINE CRACKERS FOR ETERNITY AS PENANCE -> I THINK ABOUT HOW HE’S ONLY TRYING TO SURVIVE IN THE WAYS HE KNOWS HOW -> OH POOR BABY I FORGIVE YOU -> I AM CHARMED BY HIS CUTE SKINS AND INTERIOR DESIGN -> HE

Traffic scott is my specialest little guy in the whole wide world and I do want him to be happy as much as I want to see him put in a dishwasher with thousands of sawblades but man I cant kid myself for any longer. I know deep down that he learned nothing from third life. Ok he did learn something in that he knows it hurts when his partner dies so now he does everything he can possibly do to ensure they never do and make it as far as they can but that all consuming fear of losing what he loves can only spur on character growth so much. He doesn’t want to even acknowledge he was hurt because if he HAD done that he wouldn’t be fishing for affirmations from Jimmy all while being just as cruel to him as he’s always been. Its like he wants Jimmy to say that he still loves him despite everything so that he can be assured that he was always a good partner like he is now because he needs to be perfect and he needs to be good. he needs it. scott holds himself to such a high standard that it makes feeling regret ten million times more painful than it otherwise would be, and he never knows what to do with it so he does so many mental gymnastics to ensure that he never feels regret at all. But he can’t avoid the regret with Jimmy because the regret was so potent and intrinsic to the situation that he doesn’t think he can possibly make up for it so this short circuits him into trying to will it away instead. he’s mean to Jimmy and he doesnt give a shit, all while he still aches for the pardon that Jimmy doesnt even understand that he’s after. I don’t think Scott knows he’s after it either

On 3l!Jimmy and guilt and FH and various tangential things: a post that got out of hand and morphed into something completely different by the end. Enjoy?

I read a good Jimmy analysis post a while back on how important Jimmy’s pride is to him, and how he’ll back himself up when no one else will, often to his own detriment. And this is such a key part of his character, right. Jimmy doesn’t often withdraw or get all nervous and shy when bad shit happens to him, he gets louder and angry and all riled up about it. He projects his insecurities outwards and then picks battles over anything he perceives as an insult.

So it is strange how that seems to be… almost missing in third life. In that series specifically, he withdraws more often than not, he fears making independent decisions, and he makes concessions he typically would rather make a stupid hill to die on than consider:

Joel and Martyn tell Jimmy they feel lied to, and Jimmy is quick to ask how he can make it up to them, agreeing to give them cows for free. Jimmy is threatened by Grian and Scar into giving up his diamond chestplate and he folds easily, then goes home to tell Scott he just “wasn’t thinking.” Jimmy gets blown up by Grian’s tnt trap and says the walls around the flower valley need to go up, he says he’s never leaving his house again, and after it’s all settled he’s afraid to even walk home without Scott.

Honestly the only time he ever picks a fight in true Jimmy fashion is in Episode 1 with Martyn over some stupid sign placement, and then with the red army negotiations when he burned the banner— but that, notably, wasn’t a personal pride thing! It was a very Jimmy way to go about it, but he got defensive because he thought they were going to hurt Scott, and spitting in their faces was the best way he knew how to protect him (as this is how Jimmy typically protects himself).

He’s just very tame, overall. Defanged. He doesn’t stand up for himself like he usually does.

And yknow. If I had to take just. A personal guess as to why that is. I think the difference primarily stems from 3l!Jimmy’s tendency to take on personal blame for things that aren’t even his fault. A Jimmy character feeling bad about the things he’s done isn’t new, he often does do regrettable things, but what sets 3l!Jimmy apart is that he excessively self blames for what are often unsubstantiated reasons.

Grian’s tnt trap triple kill (emphasis on Grian’s) is the most dramatic example. After Jimmy accidentally activates it, he repeatedly stresses just how bad he feels about it, and apologizes to skizz directly, telling him he feels like he’s “ruined everything.” Jimmy blames himself entirely for this incident, to the point where it allows for him and Scott to team up with desert duo, who DIRECTLY SET UP the trap and OUTRIGHT TOOK CREDIT FOR the kills, in the next episode without even a mention of caution or bitterness. This is irrational; if Jimmy were to ask any given person if they genuinely think the deaths were ENTIRELY his fault, I don’t think anybody would seriously say that it was.

Except for Scott. Scott would say it is, and that’s the issue. He did say it, actually, first implying it (“Jimmy I told you that we needed to shoot it from a distance!”) but then outright telling him (“You killed two people!”)*. Scott later backpedals a bit, telling Jimmy that it was Grian and Scar who gave him the loaded gun, and it wasn’t him that brought it. While nice, that sentiment was seemingly too little too late.

* (both of these are said in the scene at about 25:33, ep4 of Scott’s pov in case anyones curious. assuming my timestamps from a year ago are correct if theyre not lmk. I also have rough timestamps for like everything else referenced in here in one big document so if anyone needs them feel free to ask)

This is all to say: I think Jimmy’s self blaming tendencies and, by extension, his unusual lack of self confidence this season are a result of his relationship with Scott. While the TNT trap incident was the catalyst for those feelings being brought so front and center, I believe that Scott created an environment which normalized Jimmy taking on personal blame for things aren’t his fault beforehand, or at the very least disproportionate amounts of it (so when he legitimately fucks up and makes a disastrous mistake, it’s the only thing he thinks to do). Primarily because Scott, himself, blames Jimmy for a lot of things, but also because Jimmy doesn’t understand the motivations behind a lot of how Scott treats him, and has to retroactively fill in the blanks with what makes sense. Full transparency: I am staking this ladder claim on both his undying admiration for Scott seen throughout the entire series that would require a thought process like this to support, and one (1) interaction between him and Martyn in episode 1. However, I’d still argue it’s a significant interaction.

MARTYN: I just seen you get slapped around, like what’s- what’s going on?

JIMMY: I just- Y’know- just. well we’re living opposite each other…

MARTYN: Are you happy living with Scott?

JIMMY: WE’RE LIVING— We’re living opposite each other! And he builds fantastic. And mine just looks like- I’m just not a builder, y’know? Just not a builder.

And. Personally. To me. Answering “What’s going on?” with “I’m just not a builder” in regards to Scott pushing him around implies that Jimmy made a connection between him being a bad builder and Scott’s reaction. In reality, Scott “slapped him around” because Jimmy showed up too early for a deal that he didn’t know about. But Jimmy doesn’t accept that as the reason, and instead traces it back to a personal fault, something he will go on to make a habit of until he dies in the desert.

After all, it becomes very easy to explain away various mishaps and misfortunes as “oh I’m just not a builder” or “oh I must not have been thinking,” when Scott’s favorite activity is implying Jimmy is incompetent and can’t be trusted to do anything on his own. (Some fun scott quotes being “why do I let you do things” “as long as we dont let jimmy do anything we’ll be fine,” and most directly, “see that’s why I said, ‘I dont trust Jimmy with anything’ because he’s incompetent”)

And it’s funny, right? Because Jimmy isn’t one to just let people put him down like that. When other people in other series tell Jimmy that his house is ugly, Jimmy will defend it with pride and stand up for it twice as much to compensate. But when Scott calls his house ugly, he tells Scott to stay put while he quickly runs to try and fix it, and then hurries back to ask if it’s better. Because he admires Scott, he never stops admiring him, he’s always expressing that (“you’re good at everything” “you’re full of good ideas, aren’t you?” “how are you such a good builder?”). And he doesn’t get defensive when Scott says these things, not in the same way— He tries to, but it comes across more desperate than anything (“say something good about me!”) because he places Scott on such a high pedestal and yearns for that approval. Scott is different.

This is how, despite all odds, it gets to him. And it changes how Jimmy perceives himself. Scott doesn’t trust Jimmy not to fuck up any given task, so Jimmy doesn’t trust himself in later episodes, especially post-Dogwarts explosion. The cake scene, while admittedly a very cute moment (so I do hate to cite this here but it’s a good example), works because Scott left a cake in Jimmy’s room without saying anything, and knew that the first thing Jimmy would do is get scared and come get him. Because that is the first thing 3l!Jimmy thinks to do when he’s scared! And it’s entirely unsurprising how it got that way! In the very first episode, Scott tells Jimmy that if it wasn’t for Scott finding him in the beginning, he would’ve been the first to die. It’s generally a joke to point to fh and go “Jimmy is like Scott’s pet lol, Jimmy is like a lost puppy without Scott” but there really is some truth in that, and I find that to be somewhat haunting considering Jimmy takes so much pride in his independence usually. Jimmy’s hesitance towards making independent decisions can also be traced back to Scott finding Jimmy’s independent decisions inherently frustrating but that’s already part of the FH dissection essay I have in my drafts and this post is long enough already. There’s also a whole other discussion to be had about how Scott’s say is the final say no matter what and Jimmy knows that which further deincentivizes independent decision making (REPEATEDLY POINTS TO “I’ll try and sweet talk him, but if he starts hitting me, what can I do?”) but that is also for the essay

I dont know where I was going with this. I think I made my point in the third paragraph but I feel lots of things about these characters and have lots to say so as I kept writing I got more and more emotional and now I think I’ve driven my little block people shaped autism car into a brick wall. I think I’m going to go throw up and then let the earth reclaim me. yeaj that sounds good

TL;DR: girl I dont even know

in celebration of me no longer being too afraid to say fuck all here’s my top 10 epic fh divorce moments compilation in an actual post

people watching the 3l!flower husbands pov for the first time and telling me about it is my favorite thing at the moment. I love seeing their reactions… either telling people “hey the blue one is a bitch, watch out” before they watch it produces a wildly different result than when people are exclusively fed fluffy fandom perception before watching it, or fh horror posting is reeling in a completely different demographic. its awesome

this scott 3l rewatch it so so strange. i was right with my original notes, their relationship does not read nearly as scary from the scott pov and im really wondering why this is. My first theory was that it was an editing style thing or a background music thing or maybe the specific scenes that are missing but now that I’m really thinking about it I Dont Know

everyone is so mean to me

this is actually the funniest thing scott has ever done in universe. Imagine having an entire arc about not recognizing jimmy’s inherit worth as a person until after it’s already too late and then dying after giving every remaining breath to apologize to him through bloody vengeance and going to an entire constructed after life tailored to your deepest desires where you’re married happily ever after to him only to wake up and say This not even four minutes into the first episode. King shit