#I don't like having responsibility but people keep giving me it!!

[impactrueno]

Beetlejuice clearly wasn't interested in Lydia when they met, so when do you think he actually fell for her? Was he so impressed by Lydia defeating him that he developed a little crush?

i think this might be the biggest thing i've been turning around in my head since the sequel dropped. how did bro get to this point. i need to know. you weren't like this where we left off, what happened during that huge time gap????

this is where canon ends and conjecture begins, you just have to theorize and fill in the gaps yourself with whatever makes the most sense to you, which is what i've been trying to do this whole time. so please bear with me here.

i don't know how much i want share or save for my comics because i don't know how much he would actually reveal about this but whatever we ball

edit: ok so i scrolled back up to this after finishing writing this and as it turns out i have no self control and i ended up sharing everything that crossed my mind. craziest stream of consciousness i've ever written down. strap on and keep your limbs inside the ride at all times. whatever. we BALL.

let's review their first encounter from his point of view:

you're hired to scare the deetzes, right? so you do just that. excellently you might add. just when you're about to terrorize their teenage daughter, barbara banishes you and the party is over. what fucking losers right? you get the sense that adam and barbara care about this girl so you make some remark about her and it pisses them off. haha. also whoa where did this place come from? damn adam, who could've guessed he had it in him. you forget about everything else and dance your way to dante's inferno room.

after spending a respectably tasteful evening with those ladies, you're chill now. relaxing under your little sun lamp to work on your tan.

someone walks in looking for adam and barbara. don't they know they're dead?

"are you a ghost too?"

"i'm the ghost with the most, babe."

hold on a sec, who's even—

...well hey. it's the girl.

the girl who can see ghosts, and she's talking to you.

target acquired. this one's your ticket out of this hellhole.

"you look like somebody i can relate to," you tell her. relate how? doesn't matter. you're ensnaring her with your affable demeanor like you always do, make people feel like you're pals with them first and foremost. she seems like a nice girl, so this should be easy. you tell her upfront that you want to get out of there and you need her help to do so.

"i want to get in," she says.

whoa there.

what? she wants to get in? she says that in response to you saying that you wanted out. she really has no idea what it's like on the other side, huh. but shit, that kinda stops you in your tracks a bit. this girl wants to die. this young? that's not right. makes no sense.

"...why?"

she just looks at you and says nothing. jesus. ok maybe it's none of your business so let's back it up. you're losing control of the conversation and you're on a mission here. you figure if she helps you get out, you might as well talk her off that ledge or show her how shitty it is on the other side or somethin'. frankly, you can't afford to care right now. you're not entirely sure why she thinks things would be better on the side you're so desperate to get out of, but alright. doesn't matter, right now you gotta get her to summon you. so you begin your little game of charades.

after she correctly guesses your name and almost says it a third time, she recognizes you as the snake that terrorized her family. god fucking dammit. you're losing her. you're getting impatient. your affable act is over. "nah...i want to talk to barbara," she says and now she's REALLY getting on your nerves because fuck barbara, fuck adam, you're SO CLOSE to getting out and you're not gonna let this go now, go go GO GO SAY IIIIIIITTTTTTT

adam and barbara walk in because of course they do. womp womp

ok well that didn't work, but you're not gonna give up so easily. sooner or later another opportunity will come and soon you will be free.

wait why are they moving the model— where are they taking it—

ooohhhhh. business meeting. get a load of these yuppies, trying to turn winter river into a town-sized Ripley's Believe it or Not. a talking marcel marceau statue? and you thought you were a con man. no wonder the deetz girl wants to die, it's bleak as hell here too. but if you get out...you can fix that. hell, you can fix anything.

these bozos are here to see some ghosts, but the girl says they're not going to show up unless the fleshbags stop making a mockery out of the whole thing and that maybe they can all live happy together in the house. ain't that sweet.

of course no one's taking her seriously. she's a kid, what does she know, right? they'd rather listen to the most obnoxious guy in the room (besides yourself) who has no idea what the fuck he's talking about, but somehow, he's got his hands on the handbook.

the girl panics, then immediately says completely deadpan "wait, what am i even worried about, otho, you can't even change a tire" and you're surprised they didn't hear how hard you cackled at that.

despite all that, they seem to have started a séance with their old wedding clothes. bad news for the maitlands. they're about to be dead-dead. the girl cries for them to stop, and these guys are just sitting there scared shitless. you're hearing everything. you knew a new opportunity would arise, so you wait, because this is the part where people remember how good at your job you are. they always do.

she knows you can help. you're the only one who can help. so here she comes. those wedding clothes give you an idea. plan B is now in motion.

well well well.

look who came crawling back.

she asks for your help, and you're happy to oblige, under one condition of course. after all, you don't do anything for free, and she's the only one who can help you with your problem. how serendipitous.

once again, you lay it on her, straight up. you want out. and a way to do it (thanks adam and barbara for the reminder) is through marriage with a fleshbag. you need to get married. a green card marriage, if you will.

she's immediately disgusted by the idea. you don't take that personally, of course, because it doesn't matter. she's just a kid and it's not a real marriage. she just happens to be unlucky enough to be the only one around who can assist you with this, the poor girl. it's a marriage of convenience—or rather, inconvenience—and you're not planning on sticking around because you will get the hell out of there as soon as you can. so there shouldn't be a problem, right? besides, does she know how many women would kill to be in that position? she gets to brag about it to her friends, what's not to like? it's a totally even deal.

the clock is ticking and the maitlands aren't getting any younger. she agrees to the deal. you win, at last.

she already knows what to do, so you sit there patiently with a shit-eating grin on your face, awaiting the three little B words. gloating.

Beetlejuice........Beetlejuice...........Beetlejuice.

it's showtime.

this is your favorite part. you love a dramatic entrance. you decide to show the deetzes and their greedy friends the circus they so wanted to turn this town into. horrible as you are, you're also pretty damn good at calling out other people's horribleness, and you do love an ironic karmic way of dealing with someone. for example tubby here thinks he can escape, but not before you change his sleek black suit into a tacky white leisure suit. the horror! this is why you're a professional at this.

you effortlessly end the exorcism and the maitlands are saved. a little pruney right now but they'll be fine. everything is taken care of, you have fulfilled your end of the deal like you promised. only one thing left to do.

"shall we?"

there's really no need to make a whole show out of this, but you're a showman first and foremost and as a 𝒥𝓊𝒾𝓁𝓁𝒾𝒶𝓇𝒹 𝒶𝓁𝓊𝓂 you'll be damned if you're not gonna let yourself have a little fun with this. everyone looks terrified. this is why you're a professional at this.

witnesses and reverend in place, you can finally begin the ceremony. you're having fun, yes, but let's try to pick up the pace a bit, okay? the closer you get to your goal, the more impatient you get. the girl isn't finding any of this very funny at all and she protests. the maitlands butt in and are now kind of twisting your arm a bit, but you deal with them harmlessly, until they get on your last nerve so you send adam to the model and barbara to saturn. all of this after you honorably fulfilled your end of the bargain and saved the day. jesus christ, are you the only one with some integrity around here or what.

you forget the stupid ring. shit. you're pretty sure you have it on you somewhere, ever since you chopped up delores into pieces for poisoning you. you kept her ring finger as a trophy and as a reminder to never get married again, and yet here you are, but desperate times call for desperate measures. finally, you find the ring (still on her severed finger) and hastily tell your new bride-to-be that delores meant nothing to you. in case she even cares. she doesn't seem to. not even a chuckle? oh well.

almost done with the ceremony. almost there. you're holding the girl's hand with an iron grip to keep her in place as you're about to put that ring on her finger. "i now pronounce you, man and—"

a tiny car crashes against your foot and it catches on fire. you scream. a fucking sandworm crashes into the room through the ceiling. everyone screams. you scream LOUDER.

you're sent back to the afterlife waiting room.

not your first rodeo with a sandworm, but that doesn't make the experience any less shitty. the real annoying part is being in the waiting room again. this could take ages. you're number 9,998,383,750,000 and they're serving number 3 right now. you trick the guy next to you and steal his ticket (number 4) but he's not too pleased about that, so that didn't work.

a long time sitting here it is, then.

movie ends, credits roll.

for reference, that was 1988. winona ryder was 15 when they were filming in 1987 so while lydia doesn't have a confirmed age, i think we can safely assume that she was the same age as winona at the time.

36 years later, it's 2024. or 34 years later, it's 2022. we don't know the exact year because while bob's in memoriam credits scene says 2024 and all the interviews talk about how 36 years have passed in universe as well, there's this other one tiny detail.

jeremy's death passport says he died on march 11, 1999. jane butterfield says he died "23 years ago," putting the movie in 2022. they did film it in 2022 so the math is mathing correctly there. given that the in memoriam scene was more of a joke and jeremy's passport is a canon prop in the movie, i'd say 2022 is the canon year the movie is set in. (small sidenote; the passport also has the roman numerals DCLXVI which is 666. cute detail i loved it)

in the sequel, beetlejuice says lydia has been ignoring him for 30 years. i always thought that was curious because outside of this claim, they always specify how many years exactly have passed since. he doesn't say 34 or 36, he says 30. and for his degree of obsession (and the fact that he remembers exactly how many times he's watched The Exorcist) i think he would be counting even the days so i think he did really mean 30 years. so this would mean at least 4 years passed between getting sent back to the waiting room and the beginning of his stalking.

AND NOW that we established all that, we are finally getting to the answer to the question, "when and how did this all start?"

so okay, he spent a while in the waiting room. a lot of time to think. probably replaying the events at the deetzes' in his head over and over, how he got here, where he fucked up, what's he gonna do once he gets out. cursing the maitlands for ruining his plan when he was soooo fucking close. wondering what ever happened to lydia deetz.

lydia deetz, the young girl who told him she wanted to die.

...

is she alright?

i don't think he's capable of feeling guilt, but we can probably argue that he's not entirely heartless. what she said about how she wanted to "get in" must've stuck with him from the way he reacted when she dropped that bomb. she never showed up in the waiting room so he knows she didn't follow through with that. still, he used a vulnerable young girl for his own selfish gain. ironically enough, he knows exactly how that feels, because he also got tricked into marriage and got used for someone else's gain. the difference being that he dealt with that shit with an axe.

much much much to think about for mr. juice.

after years of ruminating in that waiting room, he's finally out and back to the regular day to day afterlife. definitely gets chewed out by juno, maybe forced to do community service or labor or what have you, he basically just needs to clean up his act now. this freelancing shit is becoming more trouble than it's worth anyway.

he's still wondering about lydia deetz. should he check in on her? maybe he should, he's too curious now.

at this point, lydia is now about 19-21 and in college. maybe he manages to sneak into the model one time she's back home for the holidays or something. and oh my god would you look at that, what a beautiful young woman she's grown into. she's radiant. she's happy. she's no longer that gloomy suicidal kid he met in the attic. seems like what she said about the deetzes and the maitlands sharing the house did come true after all.

that's nice. very sweet. good to know.

maybe he wonders if she remembers him and tries to get her attention somehow, give her a little scare for old times sake or whatever. for a brief moment it seems like she saw something and her expression changes, but she shrugs it off and continues on chatting with her two sets of parents. no such luck.

oh well. curiosity sated! and beetlejuice goes back home and doesn't return.

until the next time he returns.

and he keeps coming back to check in on her, telling himself he's just making sure that she hasn't killed herself or something. and he's not above admitting that with every year that passes, she keeps getting more beautiful. and to think they almost got married, huh.

he constantly tries to get her to notice him somehow, and sometimes she almost does, but ultimately he never really succeeds beyond making her do a double take. very rarely she does catch a glimpse of him. he's seen her mutter to herself that she's just seeing things and she seems a bit frightened every time this happens, but there's nothing to fear, honey, it's just good ol' beetlejuice. he won't lie, he gets a bit of a rush every time and it makes his dead heart beat faintly. he's gotten this far, he can't just stop now. in his mind, this has become their little private game of cat and mouse, where the mouse ignores the cat. but aren't they cute? he thinks they're cute. this is not creepy at all!

before he realizes, he's already learned everything about her. he knows about richard and even watched their wedding from afar like a loser. he knows she gave birth to a healthy baby girl named astrid. he knows they have a blast on halloween. halloween is lydia's favorite holiday, and his too. sometimes he can't help but see the three of them happy together and think it could've totally been him. even if he and richard are nothing alike (in fact could not be more opposite) and the circumstances of their unholy wedding were nothing short of grim and a farce. but in his mind, he's starting to convince himself otherwise.

maybe it's his jealousy speaking, but lydia doesn't seem to be that happy with richard despite everything. even though richard is like, the perfect guy. then one day his suspicions are proven correct: neither of them knows why it happened, but after having a long and emotional talk (that he watched with a bucket of popcorn) they decide to get a divorce. he pumps his fist, feeling victorious for some reason. sure he's a little sadistic at times, but why is this giving him so much glee?

the divorce is hard on lydia's kid, who was always more attached to her father, but they still spend a lot of time together. sometimes the three of them, since richard and lydia kept things amicable after the divorce. lydia tries to move on and see other people, but each relationship fails before it even starts. mostly because she keeps holding back and so fails to connect with anyone else, but also sometimes because, well, he can't help himself but to scare them away from her from time to time. it's fun. in his mind, he's just being protective of her, as a gentleman should for a lady.

then richard dies. fell into a piranha infested river from the looks of it (he saw him at immigration one day, don't ask what he was doing around there, force of habit after constantly making sure lydia hasn't killed herself yet.) it's devastating for both lydia and astrid, straining their relationship even more for the next few years as they both try to cope with the loss. the shock proves to be too much for lydia, so she goes to a survivors retreat to work through her trauma, both from richard's death and "unresolved feelings."

then lydia, at her most vulnerable, meets rory.

beetlejuice was able to clock him immediately. a textbook manipulative opportunist, he himself knows the tactics very well. swoop in to "help" someone in a vulnerable position, pull the wool over their eyes and begin taking control so you can get what you want out of that person.

he wouldn't admit it, but this really irks beetlejuice. you know when you see someone who reminds you of the worst parts of yourself, so you despise them? yeah. he's been there, and he's also been him.

but rory is somehow even worse than beetlejuice. see, rory is her manager, and boy does he manage to get on his nerves. he takes her phone. he controls what medication she takes. he blames and guilt trips her about every mishap that HE causes, making himself look like her benevolent savior and making her feel like she would be lost without him, confusing her with his psychobabble. on top of all that, he's forcing her to do this hacky show called Ghost House where she "hunts ghosts" or whatever. the houses he's been helping newly-deads with in his day job as a bio-exorcist (now with a fleet of employees,) she's "hunting" those ghosts now. it's so dumb. it never works. beetlejuice doesn't even know what the hell she's doing, she's phoning it in most of the time and she knows she's become a sellout. what happened to that "strange and unusual" girl who stood up for her ghost friends when those suits wanted to profit off of them back in winter river?

he needs to bring that back. he's the only one who can.

in his mind, beetlejuice has already rewritten the events that transpired. in his mind, lydia has been his wife this entire time, it's just, y'know, one of those open long distance relationships and she doesn't always remember him, but that's okay. in his mind, they share a psychic bond that allows her to sense his presence or see him in her dreams from time to time. he's got nothing to be jealous about, because other men can't compare. no one else can match what they have.

sure, part of him knows he's lying to himself a little bit. but he's already clung to this idea; these past 30 years wouldn't make sense otherwise. he's in love with lydia deetz. this isn't insane of him to say at all. and if it is, well, you know what they say, love makes you do batshit crazy things.

it's not that complicated, no matter what they say you'll never meet another me it's not that difficult to get my head around i'll never meet another you

the end

don't trick me into writing a fanfic again

[thumperdaetime]

the music is punk because it challenges the norm. the clothing is punk because it challenges the norm. the politics are punk because they challenge the norm. it's not a sound, or a look, or a book, or a slogan. it's a way of thinking that puts radical acceptance and relentless pursuit of joy, face to face with a world that wants you dead. you can't put a price on it. the disabled woman that says "fuck it people know I can't hold my blatter anyway. I don't care if they can tell I'm wearing the rehab-provided brief. Get me my bright lipstick I'm going to bingo!" is flexing the same muscles as the suburban white boy who steals eyeliner from his conservative mother. they are both people using identity, to create joy and signal comradery in lonely times, reputation be damned.

not to mention, all of the clothes I have been able to afford new when I was in my poorest moments were shit quality anyway. anything you can do to extend the lifespan of a physical object that was made under the modern fast fashion system past "thrown out, unsold at the store" is a win. in the same way that any pressure you can keep against an actively bleeding wound is a win. cloths are a common class of tools we use to help regulate our comfort, with that is with the temperature or our cave-mates. if the clothes make you feel uncomfortable they are already useless. it is already trash. why not try anything to see if it works? there are intelligent capable people across the centuries who died dreaming of what to do with once gorgeous expensive trendy fabric, that will now look dated and trashy outside of "the spring of '32 when i fell in love with jazz." or whatever the kids are into these days. the stupid walmart blazer you took a chance on 2 years ago but now feel "too X to wear" is no different. either you trash it now, or live with that trash in your home until your kids do it for you, while crying about how they always thought you looked good in that color. you might as well see if there's enough fabric to re-make that halter top you loved in college. when it looks homemade you get to boast and explain all about how you're trying to make shit better in little ways. and who cares if it fails? Aren't you deserving of a little petty violence? when the last time you really didn't give a shit about seam Ripping and just went to town? don't you want to be able to yell at something with no moral consequences? so much in this world is complicated and nuanced and requires forethought and responsibility. Wouldn't it feel nice to have a hobby that lets you get reasonably angry at evil fabric for not doing the thing, and then you can just throw it and swear, and then never have to think about it again. because it doesn't matter. it was already cheep plastic made to feed a system that would rather watch the world burn than lose a shareholder. you eat credit cards a year. you can not hurt wasted disposable plastic more than it will hurt you.

and then if it works you have a cute top to wear around places to show you are the kind of person who has cool tops! and help you ease people into the idea that a political movements starts with people deciding what things they inherited they actually want to keep around. and then maybe one day you cut apart and re-make out of nice quality fabric, with the mistakes you learned from the first one. so you can weaponize your ability to present yourself as ""respectable"" when you have to play the politics game in big official ways.

or (imagine this) you can even use your new knowledge of what types of edits you often make to clothing to buy a quality garment that will be more worth investing in. Ones that are made in ways that add value to their communities will feel good on your body from day one, and you can be mened and adapt in ways that may let it outlive you.

or maybe you elevate that shity, guilt ridden- shirt out of the gym lost and found on the last day of freshman year, because "fuck it- I liked that middle-school library fit. and Its a size too small but I'm bound to get thinner eventually. and I don't think its actually stealing if no one else wants it." Maybe if you make it into a statement piece scrap in your favorite "look I'm not happy about it either!" outfit, to show that you want to fuck with the systems in a "hey we should still have A Library tho right?" sort of way. you might run into the middle school girl who gets to break the ice with a fellow "cool garment person" friend. and she gets to laugh about your shirt deadnaming her. and you get to apologize and offer to let her sign something over it. and now you are advertising the formative art of a local queer-punk-artisan who you know is also out there trying her best to make the shitty stuff a little less shitty when they can, even if it means learning how to thread a sewing machine.... eventually.... hopefully.

also, as a person who has spent about a decade trying to figure out ways to keep kids of all ages informed and prepared and enriched on a budget. "Tug of War turned tie-dye Party" would of been a smash hit, my queer and rural in the 90's type parents would have loved it. after growing up with Halloweens filled with pieced-together costumes that made room for sensory issues and accessibility aids. and family "vacations" taken on public land with what's left of the food stamps. i think there is definitely a market for how to teach your children the fundamentals of serving in a world that might find their misery profitable. without like... terrafing them.

imagine how much easier alot of it would have been if someone early in your life had sat you down and said "ok. a lot of times things are going to be bad and unfair and evil. and there's going to be complicated reasons you cant do much about it but feel bad. but if you feel bad all the time it will only get worse. so what you can do is take what is around you, figure out what it is and how it works and why it's there, and then break it in ways that are meaningful and delibrite. and re-shape it to help the actual people who are trying survive."

then they showed you and all of your little friends how to research, what fabric is and understand why you bought supplies, and then get their hands dirty testing how strong it is, and why jeans have rivets even when you want to sew right there. and re-asure them that it's ok you paved the way to make sure they can't hurt anything too bad even if they are really really bad at it. and then let them find joy and pride in making something unique and custom with their own tools for the cost of cleaning out a closet, and some rite dye.

and then the community has a couple new little baby punks making decent folks smile with little bold fashion statements, and turning heads when they experiment with which parts of society they want to bring into the new age. tl;dr: I think we need to start telling the “I’m too poor to dress punk” crowd that they’re posers. -polyamorouspunk, November 2024, tumbr.com

I think we need to start telling the “I’m too poor to dress punk” crowd that they’re posers.

[graylinesspam]

It's 2 am and I am being plagued with thoughts of girl dad Wolverine. I watched several of the X-men movies recently and the amount of teens that he's forced to interact with despite not being a legitimate professor??? wild. This smelly, alcoholic, wanderer just seems to have a talent for collecting teen girls? They like legitimately trust him for some reason. And I kinda get it don't get me wrong. I adore the way he treats the young ladies in the movies and animated shows, it's just the loyalty that they return that's kinda captivating.

Like. I cannot stop thinking of Logan being assigned as the back up chaperone for the girls. Especially for missions. Of course if they take teen girls out on a mission they try to bring a lady professor along too. Usually storm, She is really pulling some den mother hours across the franchises. But in the absence of her or Jean, I think Logan must naturally be the back up option for the girls. And not just by their own election either. Although it's incredibly funny to picture them all collectively discussing who they want to be in charge of them and telling Scott (who i love, but also love to fuck with) That they all voted and the male teacher they trust the most is fucking Logan of all people. The insult???

But also Charles would think it's a great idea, not only because it gives Logan a responsibility that'll keep him in place and on task, but also because Wolverine canonically can smell people up to half a mile away and has super enhanced hearing.

Like the grubby asshole is probably gonna pass out in the living room of whatever safe house with a beer in his hand, but he'll also be strategically placed between all entrances and the boys half of the house, and the girls. You cannot get past him. He's a sleeping guard dog.

Imagine with me for a moment, a room full of teenage boys their girlfriends just ten feet away, away from the school and the psychics for once, with distracted guardians off planning or passed out. All collectively hovering in the doorway of their temporary room, knowing that if they take two steps into the living room that bottle is flying at their heads. Just trapped in there.

One girl tries to sneak past him early in the night and without opening an eye he just says, "Don't even think about it."

Just Logan in his most natural guard dog state.

The frustration vs the reassurance of the teens. Absolutely no one is getting within three thousand feet of them without him knowing. And that means they can't get away with shit.

[cryptid-intraining]

I think there is something that needs to be discussed with Lando fans about the whole mental health topic. Absolutely, people have gone too far with the Lando hate, death threats, actual bullying, harassment, taking shit out of context, that is never okay and I will never support that. rivalries and "hating" teams is supposed to just to be another fun thing about sports and people have definitely ruined that a bit.

However. People keep bringing up how Lando is open about mental health and his own struggles and how he's an advocate for these things and it just doesn't sit well with me in context to the things he has said about other drivers. I'm not talking about the weird comments in the cool down room or the "simply lovely" thing, those are arguably just incidents where he has read the room wrong or just not been able to keep quiet in the heat of the moment which is excusable- I don't have to like it, in fact it's the main reason why I don't like him, but at the end of the day it's not that deep.

But I genuinely cannot find any reason, excuse, justification for the shit he said about George and Lewis after Singapore on stream. And I'm not saying this or making this post just to give shit about it, I genuinely cannot fathom why he said that, it is such a meanspirited, childish, and unsportsmanlike thing to say and it cannot be chocked up to the heat of the moment because this was well after the race. A race that he won! By a huge margin. People can claim that maybe he's just a sore loser but that doesn't work in this context.

As much as I don't like him, it actually gave me whiplash because it just was honestly such a mean and self absorbed thing to say.

I think there is important nuance to any conversation about mental health (and yes I know I'm talking about nuance on the internet, not a great idea) because yes, Lando has his own struggles and people shouldn't be disregarding that or saying it's now a big deal because he's rich or famous, that's weird, but he's also an adult, who is responsible for his own actions and choices and is absolutely not exempt from criticism just because he has mental health struggles.

Everyone has mental health struggles, just because you don't see it doesn't mean it isn't there- you can't sit there and try and say that a guy with as fucked up a childhood as Max Verstappen doesn't have mental health issues- and using mental health as a blank defense for Lando isn't the progressive move people think it is.

It also annoys me when people try to make it out as if Lando is the only person on the grid to advocate for mental health when Lewis has been doing it for years but that is an entirely different conversation.

[a-sip-of-milo]

I've been hearing a lot of negativity about people learning to drive lately, specifically the phrase "don't let them on the road until they're not making mistakes".

By the time I was put on the road as a P plater (I'm Australian), my driving was near perfect. I passed my test with virtually no mistakes and, overall, had a relatively easy time. My supervisors throughout the years that I was learning were incredible to me; they were patient, gentle and knew me well enough to be able to make decisions that built my confidence rather than crush it.

Being put on the road for the first time without a supervisor in the passenger's seat, however - I immediately started making mistakes that I hadn't made in years. I got lost. I kept forgetting to put my blinker on. There were errors in judgment. To make matters worse, My first big drive was into the city, which meant that I was learning how to navigate new, complex intersections on my own (some of which are really poorly designed in Melbourne) all while getting used to driving on my own.

My point being that it doesn't matter how long you keep a learner under supervision for. They're going to make mistakes the first time they're put on the road alone. They're going to get confused and overwhelmed, and they're going to make decisions that a seasoned driver wouldn't think to make because they've gone from sharing the responsibility of those decisions (or having someone just make it for them, depending on the type of supervisor they've got) to having to do it all on their own.

So, learn to stop tailgating, give them some fucking space and remember what it was like for you, learning to drive for the first time. Thank you.

[tumb1rprincess]

Been having a lot of thoughts about Mouthwashing and I just want to get them out

Yeah, kind of late to get into this game, but ever since I watched a playthrough of it, it's been rotating in my head. I feel like I wasn't really scared per se, but definitely uncomfortable, that feeling where you want to look away but you can't. Just, everything slowly unravels before your eyes and like most members of the crew, especially Anya and Curly, you're helpless to do anything about it.

As soon as Anya asked why the sleeping quarters didn't have a lock, I immediately knew what that meant, and now when I go back and watch her interactions with Jimmy after the crash, it makes me sick. She has to suck up to her abuser, interact with him like everything's normal, and praise him when she can, hoping that it'll be enough to keep her safe. And after the crash, she had to take care of Curly all by herself and probably had a lot of difficult emotions about him. He failed her, but she can't hate him, because she believes people aren't defined by their worst moments. And when she has to give him his medication, she sees her own helplessness reflected in him to the point of making her sick. And she probably had to deal with that for a long time before it became too much and she had to ask Jimmy to do it instead.

Curly just becomes another victim of Jimmy's and it especially has to hurt because he trusted him, he was his friend, and now he's seeing him for what he truly is, and he can't do anything about it. He knows he's probably feeling the same fear Anya did whenever Jimmy walks into a room. Or when he gives him the painkillers, he knows it's going to hurt, just like how Anya probably knew that anytime Jimmy forced himself on her. And the game doesn't even show it when Jimmy gives Curly the medicine, you just hear it, and it's these awful choking/gagging sounds like he's being strangled and he can't breathe and it makes your stomach twist so uncomfortably, especially when he cries afterwards. And then it's made even worse when Jimmy cuts off his leg and forces him to eat it, because you see it that time. Every turn of those little wheels to line up his insides right makes him bleed and gasp in pain, and you're the direct cause of it. And if you don't get it right and it gets lodged inside him and he gets sick from it, it's your fault.

Out of all the bad things Jimmy did, I feel like it was his manipulation that I hated the most. He berates Anya when she asks for help, and makes her so meek and scared. He preys on Daisuke's need to prove himself to get him to climb into the vent. And when Curly finally talks to him about what he did to Anya, he turns it on him and makes it all Curly's responsibility, saying it's his fault when Jimmy is the one who assaulted her in the first place.

[sourslip]

man getting to the end of act 1 I can't stop thinking about what things are gonna be like for Vi with everything happening as she goes thru her emo pit-fighter phase. when she got out of Stillwater, she was fueled by one goal- protect/save Powder. She ofc had a want for revenge against Silco, but I think especially with the last episode in S1 it was pretty clear to me at least that she had her priorities pretty straight on that front: Pow first, Silco second.

there was also a very clear pattern of Vi being unable to really, meaningfully adjust to how things had changed in the time she was away: most obvious is how her sister changed and Vi treating her as one-dimensional post-Stillwater (she wasn't just surprised by Jinx's joy committing violence in the S1E6 end fight with the Firelights, she was convinced that wasn't her sister but something Silco imposed on her Powder), and to an extent also with a lot of the Undercity starting to get behind aspirations of independence. And I think this season is shaping up to make that second point more important

Vi has a good heart like Vander said, and she of course was pointing out how much worse life got for people in the Undercity with shimmer and the Chembarons pulling the strings - and that is very much true and Ekko + the Firelights make a good contrast - but I think about how Vi told Vander "I grew up knowing that I'm less than them, that my place is down there. I want Powder to have more than that" and it sounds very much like Vi's internalized a lot of how Topsiders view the relationship between topside and the undercity, but that isn't how most people in the "present" see it in the Undercity.

Whether its Silco, Sevika, the other Chembarons, or Ekko and the Firelights, they don't have shame about being undercity. they don't see themselves as less than topside - they know topside thinks that and hate that, especially Silco, but that's not the same as believing it. I don't mean to say Vi admires topside or doesn't love the undercity she grew up in, but I think there's more than just "having a good heart" that made her focus more on the harm Silco was doing than seeing the potential for independence, and I think it has to do with her sense of identity as a person from the Undercity being stuck in the past

Vander made a choice to "keep the peace" between topside and bottom, but violence is a spectrum and the slow, small, casual violence of class inequality (particularly with environmental classism) the idea that what he's protecting is really is peace as in non-violence is very much open to challenge. what he did protect in effect was a power dynamic between the two - Greyson treated Vander as a leader, but it was clear she expected him to capitulate to the demands of topside. And Vander had to give something.

When Vi tried to take on that responsibility herself, she had a major moment of growth where the true weight of potential violence and conflict hit her and we saw her take on a more tempered protective role, but I think we also saw that view of "Topside/bottom" really crystallize - and she kept that all through Stillwater even when, outside prison, more people in the fissures started to see it as "Piltover and Zaun", not in a hierarchy, but actually separate. Piltover's condescension towards the Undercity wasn't internalized by everyone in the Undercity once Vi got out, it was just a reflection of their arrogance and was getting in the way of them respecting a distinct people that had an incredible ingenuity, its own economies, and its own political systems. Silco having Marcus under his thumb was big organized crime vibes yes, but it was also a reversal of the relationship between Vander and Greyson, and in a way it reflected the changing priorities and national identities of the people in the Undercity; from oppressed and resentful fissure folk, to political adversaries of topside actively involved in pushing for their own independence, and fighting for what they built

I think, as this season its shaping up to look like Jinx is being thrust into the revolutionary role, and the previews of the next act look like that's actually starting to matter to her - or she's now seeing what it means moreso than she did when Silco was around. the lady liberty French revolution painting pose from French animation studio Fortiche Jinx flag part in the intro with the realization/wonder/reverence in her expression makes me think she's now going to take on a leadership mantle that Vi thought she would assume as Vander's protegé, and it means that she won't just be a "loose cannon" throwing a wrench in political machinations anymore, she'll be an intentional, calculating player on the field.

I think S2 act 1 Vi was okay with killing Jinx only because her idea of Powder was like her idea of the undercity - stagnated in the past and ultimately one-dimensional with its inflexibility. but if she starts to see that the people of the undercity aren't just a hurt people rushing into war like she wanted to when she was a kid, but have become a nation with its own identity seeking sovereignty, and if she sees that Jinx now take up that mantle, I think that might shake her a lot. especially with the kid, Isha, attaching herself to Jinx - like Vi saw how panicked Jinx was that Isha threw herself in harm's way - that shook Vi in a few ways, and one of those i think is that Vi saw herself in Jinx for a moment. she saw a powerful woman accepting the risk to her own life be unwilling to risk the life of another, more vulnerable person that clearly had some care and connection to her. I think that split second Vi really saw her sister. she didn't see who she thinks of as Powder in her, and she didn't see who she thinks of as Jinx, she saw her sister. And I think that's going to shake Vi harder than anything.

the writers I saw said that Vi has always been a protector and the next arc will explore Vi without anyone to protect, and I think we can expect to see Vi to go through some painful realizations that the way she has been seeing things doesn't reflect how things really are now. Caitlyn doesn't need protecting in the way Vi had been protecting her anymore, just with bodily safety, now if anything Cait needs protection from further manipulation, but that's another thing. Jinx doesn't need protection from Silco, and maybe Piltover doesn't need protection from Jinx either if Jinx really does begin to temper into a leader, and anyone else Vi might protect doesn't need the protection Vi was expecting herself to give when she was a kid.

Vi seemed to spend a lot of effort repressing her feelings when it came to people that made her feel safe - she cared SO much about Vander, loved him and looked up to him so much, but didn't want to show it and was gutted when he was gone and she was left without someone to protect her. She then spent a decade in a prison system that had officers intentionally targeting her, so again no protection. she made a joke about Caitlyn being her hero when they were in the Firelight's hideout, but given how vulnerable she was in the Oil & Water bedroom scene, I think she was trying to mask being genuinely touched by how much Caitlyn was looking out for her. she got so uncomfortable she lashed out about her parents being killed by enforcers when Caitlyn healed her stab wound in S1, and I wouldn't be surprised if we see her get uncomfortable about having Loris look out for her now. But I think it might also just be the last straw for having her confront some really complicated feelings about wanting to feel safe but never safe enough to let that happen yes I'm still hurt by S2E3 and the betrayal she prob feels and how she expects people to only want or need her when she can protect them the way she thinks they need her to

[sirensought]

eric's eyes soften. her response so vulnerable and honest. this wasn't the push heavy feelings away with a dry, witty remark emma. no, this was the emma that eric knew tried to stay as hidden and protected as she could keep her. the emma that few people got to see or even knew existed. he was privileged to be one of the few who did. of course, he could tell her it's honest, his feelings for her but she would still have those doubts. understandable. "you don't have to worry about what happened last time, you're not seventeen anymore." unhelpful, but true. 

"you're going to regret those words when jellyfish organs save you during bar trivia night someday." a dimpled grin taking over his expression, warmth rising in his cheeks. "you never once made me feel like an annoyance for talking about stuff like that, i really appreciate that." his nose scrunches, head giving a little shake. memories he never wanted to relive resurfacing. "i tried that, hated it— i didn't fit in with those people and it was very obvious. didn't matter that i had money, i was not one of them."

a soft , breathy laugh bubbles up as hands give the sides of his neck a gentle squeeze. ❛   it's not bad. just . . . scary. i don't know how to accept it. to . . . TRUST IT'S HONEST. the last time someone liked me , i ended up giving a kid away at seventeen. ❜ his little shrug is mimicked. she had gone so long (mostly) not thinking of neal ------ having eric &* henry exist at the same is just springing up those feelings of . . . well , none of them are good feelings. confusing road to walk. everything with neal had been so easy &* perfect until it was the worst mistake of her life. it's hard to not look at how simple &* effortless things with eric are &* worry it's doomed for the same fate.

❛   for the record --------- i love hearing you talk about things you're passionate about. you always get so . . . ANIMATED. plus , you're kind of fun to learn from. you don't make me feel stupid. you're a good teacher. even if i literally never need to know how few organs a jellyfish has. ❜ wry grin , then she's kissed him once more with a soft hum. ❛   where were you ten years ago ? rich boy private school ? ❜

[rosy-letters]

someone come and rescue me pls, I'm floor manager on one of the most popular days at my work. if I'm not posting on tumblr tonight I died of a stress-induced heart attack

[crimeronan]

it's sometimes so silly to look in the notes of a polyamory art/post and see people like "is this cheating art....?" when the characters in canon are all extremely close friends. i know it's not malicious because most people think of monogamy as the default and anything outside that Must be cheating, but truly i'm always like. guys. guys Please.

please think about this for like 2 seconds.

under what circumstances do we think this non-canon couple might hold hands directly in front of their canon partners. and under what circumstances do we think the canon partners might be okay with this. do we Truly think this is a secret relationship. do we Truly think these guys would sneak around behind their canon partners' backs when all of them are extremely close friends with a high level of trust and commitment to each other.

would assuming that these extremely close friends have actually communicated with one another Exactly The Same Way They Do In The Canon Source Material perhaps cause less despair.....

[canisalbus]

just a quick ask to tell u it makes me super happy seeing the detail u go into when pointing out stuff u like about other people's art of ur ocs :3 it's so rare to see but it's so so motivating!! <3

Thank you! I don't take any interest for my art for granted, and if someone goes through the trouble of drawing my characters for me, I feel like trying to write a proper response is the least I can do. For a visually oriented person, receiving gift/fan art is a huge deal, it means someone considered my goobers worth their time and effort, they've probably been thinking about them more than a little and found them inspiring in a way or another, and I find that terribly flattering. It's extremely fun and interesting to see other people's takes on them. And I've drawn stuff for people as well, I know how nice and rewarding it feels to receive a response that is longer than a word or two. Positive comments like that can linger in people's minds for a long time, at least for me they do.

[tempestmothstorm]

"I think I would have just deleted myself if you didn't show up."

Yeah this is just straight up canon. But i have more thoughts though. So.

Like if you look into her dialogue is like abundantly clear that she’s just suicidal. It’s different from someone like Sayori who’s actively suicidal because she feels she is worse than everyone else, or Yuri who I don’t know is suicidal but has self harming tendencies she takes too far in act 2, or Natsuki who isn’t at all and is like “wtf are you guys ok”. The answer is no btw.

Monika’s whole outlook on it is that she has a lot of passive suicidal ideation that she pushes aside because she has to be the best. Her issue isn’t centered around her specifically being bad but instead a feeling of pointlessness with existing and the fact that the act existing itself puts burden on the world.

She’s also the type to make jokes about it, which I think is telling about her attitude about death, especially when compared to the others where the idea of dying is still terrifying and scary and something to hide. Meanwhile Monika acts casually as if people’s lives actually don’t matter. We all know her “left her hanging joke” and her general nonchalance with the other girls’ deaths, but the secret poem “A Joke” is probably written by Monika too, and the punchline is another reference to sayori’s death. The special poem about cutting is also by Monika, which shows that she would self harm if it weren’t for her needing to be the ‘responsible one’, and that she’d only do it again if she killed herself. She writes it as if it was a quirky relatable diary entry and not something deeply concerning, which in of itself is also deeply concerning.

There’s also the iiiiiiiiiiii.txt file that has her say that it would be “really easy to kill (herself) right now”. Reasonably the easiest way to do it would be to delete herself. While her constantly reminding the player how easy it would be to delete her is supposed to be a hint on what to do next, it does say something about her when she constantly fixates on it, almost as if she’d thought about it. Like a lot. She thinks about suicide and mental illness just as much too. Also a lot. And existential philosophy a lot. And death too. Again. A lot.

Her friends aside, she clearly just thinks about these things on her own, which implies some real bad things about her mental health considering literally everything else we know about her. Like it’s pretty obvious she’s not ok base game. And yet she doesn’t go through, in fact actively avoiding getting deleted because she still wants to see you. Because you are her only hope.

While her attachment to the player has like a dozen factors influencing it, I think a lot of it is also connected to her more suicidal ideas. She does emphasize that you “saved her” a lot in act 3 and while it mean saving her from her reality, knowing some of the other talks, it also could have saved her from giving up entirely.

Not to get too repetitive about how her life sucks, but like she really has no reason to exist in her eyes post epiphany. Nothing outside the literature club exists, there’s no past or future, everything is fake and has no consequence on the real world, and worst of all she’s completely alone with whatever connections she could have being fake. I think this one quote from her “introverts” talk basically sums up her situation:

"You know, I really do think you literally saved my life by being here with me, [player]."

"I can't imagine having been able to keep myself mentally stable, knowing that nothing here is real."

"I think I would have just deleted myself if you didn't show up."

"Sorry, i don't mean to sound dramatic or anything."

"Ahaha!"

"But I'm sure you understand yourself after spending so much time in the club."

"I mean, if you were forced to abandon everything in your life and spend your eternity with a few game characters..."

"...You'd probably find some way of killing yourself, wouldn't you?"

But yeah something something the connections you have with others gives life meaning and when the relationships she did have turned out to be false, she reached out to you, whose love could be real and whose existence as a real person is the only thing that could give her life meaning.

Another Monika talk that’s relevant would be the “No reason to be alive” talk. I’m not posting the entire thing here because it’s too long but the entire thing is pretty relevant. In it she talks about how living is pointless because you probably aren’t special and your existence alone takes up dozens of resources that isn’t worth wasting.

This highlights two factors that I think influence her thought process. One is that she feels like existence is worthless and likely won’t affect society at large, and with the whole being a video game thing the connection is obvious. The other is that she worries about how much of a burden she is on society. She wants to earn her right to exist in this world. When her reality doesn’t exist, this specific framework doesn’t seem that relevant, but when it comes to being a burden to others this ends up becoming a lot more alarming (and also creates another Sayori parallel yayyyyyyy)

Notably she mentions the key to happiness is to live selfishly and just look out for yourself and your friends. This can’t really apply in her own reality when she can’t see her friends as sentient, but when it comes to you, she can deliver just fine. She says she want to “live (her) life desperately striving to pay back (her) lifetime's worth of consumption” and with her own reality being pointless, paying back the people around her (you) is the next best thing.

But what if she failed to

"Of course, even if I fail to do that..."

"I think I would be too selfish to kill myself anyway."

"So much for being a good person, right?"

Sure thing buddy.

Another thing i want to mention is that it’s implied that these thoughts aren’t new. Like with some of these talks it’s ambiguous whether these ideas came pre or post epiphany. With her whole nihilistic thinking in base game contrasting side stories, it wouldn’t be that surprising if her thoughts got a whole lot more cynical over time. But she does seem to talk as if she’s thought about them for a while, while the epiphany was apparently recent in her memory.

For example in the “Dying” talk:

“It's something I used to think about pretty often..."

And in the “No reason to be alive” talk

"But the older I get, the more I realize that it's an immature frame of thinking."

Uh yeah these ideas aren’t new.

Of course it was probably taken to an extreme post epiphany and thinking about existential topics is normal. By itself it’s probably not some secret sign of mental illness, or at least not anything severe. (Sure she talks about a lot of stuff like mental health issues but it doesn’t really reflect on her, it just shows she can understand others perspective. Like she can talk about the introvert experience without being an introvert. Idk she’s just very empathetic and reflects a lot on the world. Makes her epiphany a lot more ironic though. So.)

But her post epiphany persona was very much built on preexisting ideas she had before that. It might not be that serious, but the fact that it’s there at all is concerning knowing what we do. The implications that come if this is all true is facilitating tbh and it honestly makes the side stories more interesting too. Like her whole “i have to be the best” attitude is probably connected to all her worries about being a burden or worthless.

And her whole thing in trust becomes a lot more layered too. The standard she holds for herself are not carried over to Sayori, who she sees as deserving of life just by being herself. She doesn’t want to be a burden or distract from Sayori’s problems, because her own true self isn’t good enough. Sayori is reassured that her existence is valuable and that she isn’t being a burden, something that goes against Monika’s entire act 3 talk yet is some she believes wholeheartedly.

This is also contrasted by base game where she straight up jokes about her death because death barely matters to her either. In base game, Sayori doesn’t matter, she isn’t special or even sentient, just a pile of code that gets in the way of Monika’s plans to reach the player. In base game Sayori is worthless and a burden, where Monika’s worldview has extended to everyone else. Yet in side stories she doesn’t think that, her standards only applies to herself because she loves her friends, they are what give her life meaning. Of course they deserve to live. They don’t need to prove their worth.

She’s a hypocrite because she values her friends more than anything. Again, the Sayori parallels are obvious from this angle, she has these exact same thoughts, with the only difference being that base game Monika projects her fears of worthlessness onto everything else while sides stories has her a lot more similar to Sayori.

Now the difference between side stories Monika and base game is really just how far their ideals reach, because normally Monika is like ok mentally , while in base game she’s suicidal along with everything else. Forget her saying she’s too selfish to do it cause it’s heavily implied she does do it in other universes.

Speaking of which I never hear people mention the MES emails in this cause a singular line puts into perspective how influential the player’s presence is on Monika and just how bad her mental health is. She is the MES’ guinea pig that everyone wants to see suffer (actually I don’t know how common knowledge this is I just got here and mostly stick to tumblr so idk)

So with the Side Stories MES email i think with all the lore drops we sorta forgot some of the more self explanatory info, including the fact that they have multiple VMs of ddlc and that there were “3 or 4 of them created and then destroyed by Monika”

While most people conclude this is just a reference to base game i think a lot of people dismiss that fact that these aren’t the game VMs, these VMs have no access to a player. Yknow. The player she relies on that supposedly saved her life.

Yeah i think she just deletes everything including her in apparently 4 separate universes. She kills her self in 4 universes.

She deletes everything in act 3 too but specifically because they get in her way between you, and the only reason she doesn’t delete herself there is that she still wants to see you. When the idea of reaching you is crushed, she gives in. By act 4 she ends up like all the other VMs, deleting everything knowing she can’t have you, can’t have reality. I mean the only thing keeping her going is the dream of reaching reality and finding real connections to people, and the idea that her existence will forever be meaningless probably pushed her to the extreme.

The player is the only real person who can give her life meaning and value, and in a world where the rest are seemingly fake, you’re also the only human connection she has. Again, the things that keep her going is her life being valuable in some way and the people around her. Post epiphany she only has you to care for with everyone else being thrown to the wayside without consideration of their own wellbeing.

So of course in act 4, where her connect to you is severed and she is suddenly aware of the harm she’s caused, she’s the lowest she’s ever been. Her reason for living is to be there for her friends and somehow pay back reality for how much she’s taken. And yet she let her friends die and let herself use them for her own selfish gain. She failed them, and has therefore become someone she see as not deserving of life. And with her last hope of the player rejecting her reach, she has no reason to keep going. So in the Easter egg where the player tries to bring her file back after deletion, she refuses to follow. She doesn’t deserve to intrude on their happy ending. She doesn’t deserve to come back.

And she doesn’t.

In future games she’ll probably return though, and with all the secret files and her motivations in the normal ending, I feel like it’s going to be for redemption by finally being there for her club.

She sticks around because no matter how much guilt she feels about just existing, she still wants to be there for her friends. Because while a lot of the act 3 dialogue was not meant to be something people agree with, there was one thing that I feel like is good if you look at it in the right way. Maybe people can’t pay back for the lifetime of consumption they’ve done just by living, but people can pay back and be worth existing just by looking out for their friends and those closest to them. Even if there can be doubts about life and existence as a whole, it doesn’t matter in the end when there’s joy to be found in the people you care about. Even if you make mistakes or hurt them, you can still find a way to make it up to them, to still deserve happiness in the end. The one thing that makes life worth it is the bonds you form with others. Because the people around you are what give life meaning.

She can’t let go and she can’t give up because she still has people she loves and wants to protect. So she’ll keep living for the people she loves. That’s all she needs to do in this world to make it worth living.

I hope she succeeds.

(Side note i took a lot of the Monika talk examples from this post. I did have my own ideas even before i read the doc and I already knew about this stuff anyways i just don’t wanna scroll through the entire wiki again to see all the Monika talks and this is pretty comprehensive. The extra imput is also useful so yeah)(anyways thanks for reading this really long tumblr essay. Good job and drink water ;D)

i would like to bring up that monika has probably considered deleting herself before

like staring at a high cliffside and getting the urge to jump

[oidheadh-con-culainn]

i'm sorry i'm not being fun enough on my personal blog which is the only place on the internet i get to just be a person and not have to be professional because it's the only place my colleagues and employers don't follow me but also i'm not sorry because sometimes being grumpy is part of being human and i'm so goddamn tired of having to perform perfection on the internet

[thebirdandhersong]

well mark that down as situation 2938489 that I don't know how to handle

[soonhoonsol]

you guys ever get tired of friends who only talk about themselves? how do you respectfully tell them off?

[twijfelaar]

My initial response maybe sounded rude, I apologize for that.

I agree that Vi would not have been able to do much for Zaunite liberation, she was too much like Vander and would have been too scared to lose her people.

I disagree with your take on Ekko, he has accomplished a lot with the limited resources he has. His people are thriving, and Silco might have done a lot for the liberation of Zaunites, but not all of them, a lot of them became victims of him as well.

I see Silco's liberation effort not as an effort to free his people, but to gain ultimate power over his people. (this is where we might differ in opinion)

If Ekko had been able to move freely in Zaun, without fear for his life, and tinker to his heart's content, he would have been able to lift Zaun up. Ekko managed to do all he does without Piltover's help, even Silco is taking money from piltover with his drug sales.

I feel like Zaun rallying behind Jinx in the second act is more a propaganda trick, and the show will let us know that rallying behind Jinx is not the way, like Piltover rallying behind Caitlyn is not the way either.

Jinx and Caitlyn feel like mirrors this season, and it is brilliant story telling.

Vi did not want to put on the enforcers suit, she didn't want to join them, she is very clear about this and Caitlyn understands this. The only reason Vi joins is that Caitlyn at the start of their mission wants to apprehend Jinx. But knows she probably won't be able to control herself because she is angry, she is traumatized, (don't forget Jinx kidnapped her and basically tortured her before killing her mom.) and she should definitely not have been the one to lead this mission btw

That is their original plan, it isn't until they hear from someone else that Jinx has truly lost it, they send the others away and go on alone. They have seen Jinx lose it once already, and it ended in a massacre.

Vi was supposed to keep Caitlyn from killing Jinx, but then Vi tells her to take the shot. (Caitlyn shooting the mirror image of Jinx is some nice visual storytelling here)

I don't think Vi's writing is abysmal, Vi does not know what to do in this world, she has no clue where she fits in, she feels lost, she feels responsible so if she can help one person who lost someone because of her, she will.

If that means putting on an enforcer uniform, she will. She does not care about herself at all, not when she has people counting on her.

Again, you don't need to read all this if you don't want, but I just like talking about this show because it is so good. And talking about it gives me more insights and ideas. And discussions are a good way for me to express why I feel this show is this good.

"Never thought mine would orphan kids" Jinx has only ever killed combatants and oppressors ._. Vi and Caitlyn and the writing want us to take Jinx's actions as morally wronf but she literally has not intentionally killed any innocent person.

Jayce killed a child unintentionally and Vi's like "Welcome to the Lanes, Piltie" like girlie you are trying so hard to make Jinx into this villain when she's literally not done anything wrong. Piltover is the enemy you, fool!

It's just, like, nothing we have seen of Piltover can justify why Zaun has to live in a perpetual hell. Jinx and Vi and Ekko and all the children of Zaun have to adapt to the idea that their lives don't mean anything to Piltover. What GOOD has Piltover shown us, what morally nuanced stances do they have that could ever justify a victim of police brutality and Piltover's oppression joining the Enforcers. Wielding the same violence that tore your life apart, and using it on your neighbors!

We see beauty and community and struggle and dependency and despair and hope in Zaun. And we see opulence and naivety and bigotry in Piltover. The only speck of morality came from Caitlyn and Mel. Mel is MIA and Caitlyn is showing how the hooks of privilege and status have never truly been removed from her thinking. Because she's calling Zaunites animals, she wants to think Vi is "one of the good ones" 😭 please Vi, open your eyes, Piltover is NOT worth saving and it will NEVER accept you.

[this post is made by a Caitlyn coochie muncher]