#Vivian Darkbloom

[dark-fics-4-you]

Vivian Darkbloom for Halloween tonight!

[nocturnalhoney]

[beautifulandempty]

aren’t you?

[covington-shenanigans]

hey, some of us antiques still reread "From Hair to Eternity" regularly because it makes us cackle. I still cannot hear the name Stash Maleski (not that I hear it very much, but you understand) without breaking into giggles. a masterpiece, 10/10 would recommend. truly you and @thelnjames produced a beautiful fic love child, and we are all the better for it. P.S. Paolo is my boyfriend, have him call me

@hand-of-glory Aw heck, madame. <3 Thank you so much, this makes me very happy to hear!

@theunimpairedcondition o my GOD, I can't believe you remember that story! @thelnjames

@dermondistaufgegangen Did gunslinger Greenwood, aka the Halifax Kid, have a passing acquaintance with Miss Joanie Stubbs? Questions, questions.

[bl00dysk1es]

changing my name and pulling an ali d sounds fantastic rn

[lenin-it-to-win-it]

my name is vivian darkbloom dementia raven nabokov and i have dark eyes like black goffik roses (thats how i got my name) and a lot of people tell me i look like alexander pushkin (AN: if u dont know who he is, get da hell out of here!). im not related to vladimir nabokov but i wish i was bc hes a major fucking hottie 🖤🖤🖤

[irohsteaa]

still obsessed with the fact that Vivian Darkbloom is an anagram of Vladimir Nabokov and that he used it to self-instert.

a total win on the name lottery or sth.

[doloresdisparue]

if you wanna talk problematic handling of black woman characters this play also apparently omitted vivian darkbloom but i haven’t heard a peep about that from any reviewer

do we think these reviewers ever revisit the book and get really really embarrassed when they realise they got mad at something in an adaptation that was taken 100% from the text. her name is louise and she is mentioned 14 times in the book.

[noisytenant]

Vivian Darkbloom could easily be a Vtuber name

[di1aurentis]

okay so basic rundown of my quarry verse for ali

alis a camper at hacketts quarry, an absolute nightmare that everyone finds very difficult to deal with. probably blackmailing some adults

the night she disappears is at camp. her mom is working camp too. she sneaks out after dark to meet up with an absurd amount of people so that there are a thousand suspects in her murder

her mom watches her get hit over the head with a rock and in a panic buries her in the woods to protect charlotte? or whoever did it i cant remember

ali is still alive and wakes up and claws her way out of the grave, serious head trauma struggles greatly. someone probably helps her out but idk who in this scenario (ur muse mayhaps???)

ali has been getting the threatening messages from A for a while including at camp and decides its better to stay dead because she'd be safe from A

is attacked by a werewolf in the woods, transforms a few hours later

wakes up in the morning alone and afraid and without clothes, soon finds something to wear and continues to make her way to the nearest town. her disappearance has been noted, everyone at camp is trying to find her (and is annoyed ab it bc they think shes just being Annoying)

after a while of searching they start to realize its serious, chris calls travis and they start a wider search party. the hacketts are looking for a body, believing that she was killed by silas or another werewolf.

somewhere somehow that other girls body ends up in the grave wearing the same outfit ali was. Idk im not fixing the pll plot holes just bringing them in

ali is off in some other town w a brunette wig and a dream, goes by vivian darkbloom and starts trying to discover who A is

eventually discovers that shes blacking out on full moons and waking up naked in the woods, starts trying harder to lock herself up and work out whats happening

around a year after she disappeared the other girls body is found and thanks to the outfit she was in shes presumed to be alison, ali is officially marked dead and her missing persons case closed. the camp faces some backlash but remains open

another two years later is the events of the game. alison thinks shes ready to come out of hiding and goes to the hacketts quarry police station. she wasn't paying attention and realized its a full moon as she gets there. she watches travis drag an unconcious laura and max into the prison and decides not to reveal herself yet

a couple more months of thought and planning happens, then on the night of the game whatever she was doing to lock herself away fails. cue werewolf ali running around camp

she wakes up outside the lodge, the counselors that are still alive all freak out because shes supposed to be dead and they found a body. she doesnt know how to explain anything, but they all seem to get the werewolf thing

alison panics and doesnt want to face any consequences for her actions, so she fabricates a story about travis kidnapping her using what she saw with max and laura as a base for her story whether or not this is successful depends on if travis lives and also on threads and plotting and stuff

she doesnt know who A is lmao. Knew ab mona but mona was sorted out before she returned, so she doesn't know who the new A is

[jaggedwolf]

pll rewatch 2x23

The one where Aria flies a plane. Other things happen too, but you know, it’s the episode where Aria flies a plane.

Aria decides to pursue the Duncan lead, over the other’s objections that she doesn’t have to and that any of them could’ve put on that red coat

Jenna emerges from a car with a bandaged eye, Toby leading her out, and all the liars are perturbed, especially Spencer

Thus kickstarting an episode of it being very unclear whether the liars think that Toby is....dating Jenna....or is...committing an unfathomable sin against them by accompanying his blind step-sister around...

But back to Aria for a second. In wearing the red coat, Aria becomes the third liar to “become” Alison. If not to us, then at least to another character. Hanna evokes a visual comparison, given their separate terms as The Popular Blonde Girl of the school, and a drunk Emily compares her to Ali when A blackmails Hanna into dancing with Lucas. Spencer evokes a comparison on the basis of intensity, of needing to win and dominate, and inhabits the Ali-as-top-dog role to the greatest degree when the liars are pretending to fight with Emily. 

You can make a strong case for Flashback!Hanna and Flashback!Spencer wanting to be Ali, but I don’t think that’s an as accurate description of Flashback!Aria. It’s fitting that it’s only once we’re in the realm of Vivian Darkbloom that it’s Aria’s turn to try out being Ali, a realm in which Ali was desperately trying to not be herself. It’s almost like that’s what it takes for the idea of being Ali to have an appeal to Aria.  

And I just remembered, Jonah the phone repair guy concludes Aria is “Vivian’s friend Alison” when she meets with him. 

Emily has yet to “become” Alison this way. I’d argue she never does. That simply isn’t how she orients herself around Alison – she had and has and will have all sorts of feelings about Ali, but envy isn’t one of those feelings.

Ashley and Hanna argue in the house about Hanna wanting a new phone after trashing her own and Emily is so damn uncomfortable to be witnessing this argument.

Chin up, Emily. Could be worse. You could’ve experienced the horrors of the Montgomery marriage or the Hastings taking turns to visit and be mysteriously terrible to Spencer

Emily gets a text from an unknown number, the message saying it’s Maya...

Toby and Spencer argue in school about him hanging out with Jenna, with Hanna lingering around a corner to eavesdrop. I guess Hanna’s here for her stuff with Jenna

Both of them are being confusing, but we’ll focus on Spencer - my dude, you had Emily break up with him saying you were ditching him for Wren, why are you surprised that he’s not running into your arms.

Duncan says “You’re the one who kept the journals. The writer.” and I wonder how Ali described all the girls to him, and whether it differs from later descriptions of Ali’s we’ll learn about

Duncan claims Ali spent a lot of time with him that summer. I know I’ve talked about Labor Day scheduling before, but do remember that Ali’s schedule that summer grows more packed as the seasons go on. Who didn’t she spend time with that summer.

Hanna’s new phone doesn’t appear to get the next A message

I really enjoy every Jenna-Toby scene we get this episode, because it makes you go what the fuck is going on here every time.

Emily finds Spencer lurking in the school courtyard. This courtyard has very convenient little alcoves for brooding, a key design feature. They commiserate over Toby hanging out with Jenna, Wayne going to Afghanistan, and Maya’s runaway status. 

Please note Emily’s non-involvement in whatever is happening with Toby, custody once transferred is final. An individual friendship outside of Spoby, hahahaha no.

Ella pretends to do some parenting by visiting, saying she is not an ally of this adult/minor relationship when she 100% is, and when Ezra says yeah there might’ve been someone who’d want to hurt Aria because of Ezra but not anymore, Ella does not ask any further questions! She simply walks away! Ella! 

Mona and Hanna do a little tricksy trick to get Toby to talk to Hanna, and honestly Hanna is quite annoying here. 

Like yeah, Toby hanging out with his step-sister who raped him and continues to be creepy to him isn’t the best life choice ever, but Hanna isn’t yelling about it because she’s concerned for him, but because it makes Spencer sad + the liars are worried he’ll spill about the Jenna thing

To be clear, Toby’s eventual explanation for what’s happening here is very stupid and makes zero sense, but he does get to hang out with whoever he wants to without getting accosted by his ex’s friends lmao

Veronica has a whisper-argument with Spencer about Jason while Emily is five feet away. Do you think after experiencing Marin drama this morning Emily saw the look on Veronica’s face and decided to pop out to the backyard so she wouldn’t have to deal with the second-hand embarrassment again? That would be completely understandable. 

Aria gets in a plane with a guy. To be clear, she meets the guy at an airfield. She could’ve googled the address, but no, that would not jibe with the way she’s following her whims. She gets in a plane when he asks, without even texting the other liars what she’s doing!

In the words of my friend, “Aria is so easy to kidnap”. 

Who is the hardest liar to kidnap? Emily is also very easy to kidnap, given that she facilitated her own carbon monoxide poisoning. 

Duncan claims that Ali figured something out the day he flew her back to the Philly area from Georgia, and makes Aria fly the plane to interrogate/stress the fuck out of her

Byron and Ezra have a little dick-measuring contest and I wish they were both in Jason’s house when it exploded and we’d never have to see them again. They don’t even mention Aria.

Who, by the way, is flying a plane somewhere above Philly!

Emily gets a long email from Maya. Or does she?

My memory of timeline here is quite vague, in that I don’t know what Maya is up to at this point, but it is weird that we hear Shay Mitchell’s voice reading the email and not Bianca Lawson’s.

But taking it to be Maya, she says to Emily “You know how to be still. In the middle of everything, at a swim meet with all the craziness and pressure, I look at you and you're still.” 

A great characterization note for Emily, and an interesting one for Emily/Maya...perhaps Emily’s big three love interests of the show are united by this idealization of Emily as someone who has it figured out, who is worthy of emulation. (Though for different portions of the relationship for each love interest, I’d say.)

Veronica reveals to Spencer that the PI investigating Ali’s disappearance was her idea, even if Peter paid for it. Sometimes I swear the Hastings doing their shady shit communicate more than the Montgomerys attempting to do normal parenting.

Spencer figures out the newspaper wrapping is one of Ali’s things and contains clues, thanks to Hanna recognizing Michelle Obama’s outfit from 2009 <3

Jenna gets caught in a fire at Jason’s house, Hanna pulls her out before the first floor goes kaboom, Spencer helps Hanna support Jenna’s weight but offscreen goes back for the bag and gets a cut on her hand for her troubles

Y’all, I have no memory of who tried to blow her up here. Was it A? Was it Jason? Was it Jenna herself playing 4-D chess? Did Toby try to get rid of her once and for all? Maybe Melissa was tired of having to share the role of shadowy female side-character? Who the fuck knows, not me. 

At the hospital, Emily calls Maya’s parents to let them know Maya reached out. Spencer sees her mother sit next to Jason to have a cordial conversation, and yeah, I don’t think Veronica would’ve done that if Spencer hadn’t argued with her earlier this episode. 

Oh man, I love this Jenna hospital room scene. She is so distraught, the liars are so uncomfortable, when Jenna asks a question Hanna nods before she remembers to say “yes” out loud. Classic terrorized terror moment.

Meanwhile, A plants a police badge in the wreckage of the explosion...not a great moment to be a certain officer right now....

[llycaons]

He also makes cameo appearances in some of his novels, such as the character Vivian Darkbloom (an anagram of "Vladimir Nabokov"), who appears in both Lolita and Ada, or Ardor, and the character Blavdak Vinomori (another anagram of Nabokov's name) in King, Queen, Knave

can I say something. this is kind of nerdy

[brettsgoldstein]

that vivian darkbloom wig is HORRENDOUS

[talesofpassingtime]

"For the benefit of old-fashioned readers who wish to follow the destinies of the “real” people beyond the “true” story, a few details may be given as received from Mr. “Windmuller,” of “Ramsdale,” who desires his identity suppressed so that “the long shadow of this sorry and sordid business” should not reach the community to which he is proud to belong. His daughter, “Louise,” is by now a college sophomore. “Mona Dahl” is a student in Paris. “Rita” has recently married the proprietor of a hotel in Florida. Mrs. “Richard F. Schiller” died in childbed, giving birth to a stillborn girl, on Christmas Day 1952, in Gray Star, a settlement in the remotest Northwest. “Vivian Darkbloom” has written a biography, “My Cue,” to be published shortly, and critics who have perused the manuscript call it her best book. The caretakers of the various cemeteries involved report that no ghosts walk."

— Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita 

[majikuriboh]

Vivian darkbloom is Ali's secret identity or something

[lenin-it-to-win-it]

I was looking through the groupchat to see if i had already made the joke that vivian darkbloom was nabokov's drag name (I hadn't) which led to me spending like 2 hours looking at all of the 167 times nabokov had been mentioned so heres just a little taste of the creamy neck kinkshaming and general hater behavior i have engaged in over the years