#but then i thought about Callie and Marie and Marina and realized.......they are all adult inkfish. and they are fairly baby-faced.

[bumbleberrybee]

been experimenting with how to stylize the inkfish from Splatoon :O

[ficdirectory]

The Fosters: My Thoughts on Episode 4x12: “Dream a Little Dream”

Is Anyone Here?  Jesus’s dream is so unnerving, but so intriguing and well done!  It works that everything is dark and shadowy (foreboding) and that there is some kind of alarm going off, because it seems that his subconscious knows something is not right with his body.  He’s all alone, just trying to find somebody.

The presence of the skateboard strikes me as so powerful and symbolic: it’s also abandoned.  And Jesus is really hesitant to get on it.  I love the WAY he skates.  How we can see he’s not really sure of anything.  He can see an exit up ahead, but the moment his attention is drawn away from it and he looks back?  It’s just more hallway :(

The shadowy figure chasing him down the hallway is terrifying.  I can’t help but wonder if that’s supposed to be death and he is keeping it back?  He escapes through a door, and, thank goodness, he’s in his house...

They Left Me...Behind?  This is one of the most telling aspects of Jesus’s dream.  That deep fear of being abandoned, of not being loved, of being “too much” to take care of.  It reminds me of Vigil when Callie tells Brandon that he doesn’t know what it’s like not to have enough.  How now that Jesus is unconscious, all his insecurities are coming to the surface.  We see this one a lot with Mariana, but we have rarely seen it explored with Jesus.  It is so telling (and so real) that they are still struggling with this.  They’ve been adopted for eight years at this point, and both are still this afraid that they won’t be loved.

Mariana?/This Way:  I LOVE how, even though the woman in Jesus’s dream tells him to leave because he doesn’t live here anymore, Little Mariana actually leads him further INTO the house.  That she exists there and is the first familiar person Jesus sees feels so true.  (And can we talk about how brilliantly Little Mariana was cast here?  If you just listen to her voice, you can tell what her part is - she speaks so similarly to Mariana!)

No!  Not That One!  Don’t Let Him Get You!  I can’t say enough about how well done this dream sequence is!  If you have never dreamed about the home you felt the safest in as bare and abandoned, with only the faintest traces of the life YOU KNOW was lived there, then you know just how devastating and unnerving this dream is for Jesus.  And apparently the Shadow Person is still after him.  How terrifying.  :(  But I’m loving how Little Mariana is trying to protect him. <3 

We’re Right Here.  We Love You:  I’m so glad Lena and Stef are right there for him, and that they keep talking to him and reassuring them.  And I love the details that we see: that they have yet to change clothes, because they have yet to leave his side <3 

We Can’t Charge Her:  I wish this guy had held his ground.  Callie NEEDS a parent there.

What If He’s Already Here?/That’s Not Funny: Jude, listen to Brandon.  It’s really not funny to be suggesting that Nick could be hiding in the house, especially after what happened to Mariana and Jesus.  You need to dial it back a little (or a lot.)  But I do like this aspect, actually.  Not all siblings react in the way you think they might during a trauma.

When Are You Coming Home/Soon:  I wish you were, Callie :(

Would You Say This Was Your Fault?  Getting in His Car?/Yeah, That Was My Fault:  No, Callie!  Seriously, you need Stef there with you!  I do love how they showed Callie and Troy being questioned back to back so you could see the inconsistencies and all the ways Troy was lying.

What Are You Doing Here?  Well, that’s not creepy at ALL, is it Mat?  You creepering around in their garage in the dark.  Also I am super glad to see that Mariana put Jesus’s pills back. <3 

Foster?  You Got a Minute?  Mike!  Hurry and help Callie!

Can I Talk to Her?/No:  Ugh!  Mike’s TRYING.  Darn that Detective Gray, saying how bad Callie looks on paper vs. how good Troy looks on paper and that the other cop should make a decision before Stef arrives.

Brandon/He’s Gonna Have to Apply for Student Loans:  That’s not what Lena means, Stef.

Is He Okay?  All the monitors are so terrible.  The beeping.  Watching this scene I’m pretty sure the moms are gonna have some trauma around this experience for sure :(

I’m Scared of Him.  He Kept Telling Me He Was Going to Kill Himself.  I Didn’t Know What Else to Do:  I like that Mariana’s able to articulate this finally.  I wish she were able to share it with Moms or a therapist, but Mat’s a good start.  Keep talking, love.  What happened to you isn’t your fault.  

I Didn’t Want to Lose You Again.  Do You Still Love Me?  Twins.  Both feeling this, practically at the same time.  And as much as I love seeing Mariana and Mat close, and LOVE the way Mat checks for consent and how clear hers is, I’m cringing.  Losing yourself with Mat isn’t gonna help you anymore than losing yourself with pills, Mari.  You need to deal with this.  And the deeper issues under this.

Soon As You Sign It, We’re All Done Here: NO, CALLIE!  DON’T SIGN ANYTHING! :(

I’m Here:  OMG, Jesus can hear Mama!  This is amazing!  Skateboarding through the hospital quickly transforms into Anchor Beach when he realizes it IS Mama.  So fascinating.  And he can see her but she doesn’t slow down or stop for him.  

You’re Too Dumb For Me:  More of Jesus’s insecurities :(

Let Me In, Please!  It’s Mariana!  Mariana Foster!  Jesus, thinking about Mariana being trapped during the lockdown, and seeing all the backpacks in the hall, even though he was nowhere near her at the time.  It’s super interesting to see how every aspect of Jesus’s dream so far is another iteration of him feeling powerless.  He’s powerless to stop his family from leaving him.  To keep Emma from leaving him and to keep Mariana safe during the lockdown.

Code Blue/Deck The Halls With Boughs of Holly: So intriguing the bits of things he is actually hearing and how they filter into his dream.

Don’t Let Him Get You:  Little Mariana’s back, cautioning Jesus to not let Nick get him.  (Because of the Christmas music, Nick is Santa with a bell - which turns into Santa with a gun.)  Jesus listens to little Mariana and dodges the bullet to save himself but Mariana gets hit (wearing the same top she was wearing that day.)  He’s screaming and feeling submerged (because his line is being flushed.  Yikes.  What a scary feeling.  Seriously, though, as a twin?  The WORST dreams are that something happens to your twin and you can’t stop it, or you can’t help them.  

Play Music...Jesus Loves Christmas:  I loved this aspect and really related to it.  My sis also had a brain injury when we were 16 and was all about Christmas music.

What Happened to That Nice Kid That Came to Live With Us?  I Miss Him:  Brandon!  I love it when you’re all about big-brothering!  Thank you for not letting Jude slip through the cracks.  I love that he comes to talk to him and gets the truth about what was going on at the marina.  And that he can find a way to get past all of Jude’s defensiveness.  And when he leaves?  We realize that his whole time Jude’s not been cleaning his own side of the room, but Jesus’s.  He even turns the covers down a bit after he makes the bed - an expectation that Jesus will be back. <3 That nice kid is clearly still in there <3 

It’s Okay.  I’m Gonna Get You:  My sis and I were talking just this morning about how telling it is...the way Stef chooses to reassure Callie in this moment.  She’s all about reassuring Callie that she WILL come for her (knowing her history and her fear of having her adoption reversed.)  So well done, Stef.

No Sleep for Mariana:  One of the hardest aspects of my sis’s situation was the fact that for weeks, I had to face sleeping alone.  We have shared a room our entire lives, so sleeping in a room where she wasn’t was beyond hard, and lonely.  It wasn’t just being in the room alone it was being alone and her not being there, and her being in danger.

I love how they’re depicting Mariana filling this void with Mat.  (I did it with various family members.)  And I love how we see that even though she’s not taking pills anymore, her trauma is still so strong she can’t sleep.  That first night, I was up every hour (and only slept about 6 hours total.)  

Here, we can see that Mariana’s trauma relating to Nick is so intense that she can’t even focus on Jesus right now because she feels so unsafe.  This is probably even more compounded by the fact that Jesus is hospitalized because as we know, Jesus was always Mariana’s protector.  I felt a similar level of vulnerability with my sis in the hospital (being the one who was usually protected.)  Needless to say, I LOVE seeing these subtleties depicted here.

May I Sit With You?  And this also.  I love seeing the strange and awkward connections you make in these situations <3 Knowing that these types of injuries don’t discriminate.  You do end up sharing space with people you never thought you would.

Not Your First Time:  Wow, Callie being processed in for juvie is intense.  I hate that she’s already been through it twice before.  So violating.

They Have No Impulse Control: TRUE.  And there’s an interview somewhere with one of the writers on The Fosters or something where they talk about teenagers having to make the same mistake over and over again.  We see that  A LOT with Callie but also with Jesus, acting before he takes time to think things through.  Makes sense with both kids, IMO, given their backgrounds.

I Have Another Daughter.  She’s a Monster.  But Melanie, She Has the Biggest Heart:  What do we think about this?  The notion that brain injuries and disability only happens to people who don’t deserve it?

Kind Kids Turn Into Kind Adults:  Truth!

You Can Handle Anything in the Moment.  It’s Our Fear of What Might Happen That Undoes Us:  This is so good and SO TRUE!

Hey.  Come On:  Well, THAT’S super terrifying.  Fake that sleep, Callie.  I don’t even wanna know what that juvie guard is doing with that poor girl in the middle of the night - especially after Callie was just told NOT to get up unless she had to use the bathroom.

Did Mariana Already Do The Dishes/No.  I Did Them:  Jude!  Hooray!  I love Brandon updating Jude on how Jesus is now off the vent (hooray!) and has the bolt out of his head (thank goodness!)

Callie’s In Juvie:  Anyone else feeling a big case of deja vu right about now?

He’s Breathing on His Own:  Having been on the receiving end of almost these exact same words, I can tell you just how relieved Moms are!  I’m sad Jesus is running a fever though, because his autonomic system is all out of whack from the damage.  No wonder Stef is so upset, and thinks they’re guessing, when the truth is, every brain injury is different :(

What’s Happening With Callie?  I love all the little things about this scene:  how Brandon hands Mom a hideous bag with clothes in it so she and Lena can change.  How Stef is the one to go and update the kids, but Lena is not with her (because one of them is almost ALWAYS with Jesus <3 )  And I love how Stef can reassure Jude about Callie as much as possible.  He needs that.

What Was She Doing in That Guy’s Car to Begin With?/She Was Looking for You, Love:  Oh, no.... :(

It’s All Your Fault/We Wish It Were You: OMG :(  This is awful.  But it’s SO interesting how we can see that he’s cold in his dream, so he’s aware, somewhere, that he’s actually cold.  And I believe that BEING cold when you’re sleeping actually does make your nightmares worse, so this is amazingly well done.  Jesus wakes up on the floor of this almost empty church in just a hospital gown.  He can see his breath.  He sees moms but they’re so mad at him.  Then he turns around and sees Mariana in a casket.  Once I said it, I’ll say it again: the most devastating dreams you have as a twin are that your twin is in danger, or dies.  You don’t forget that.  He’s dealing with so much here.  I hope he wakes up soon so Moms can reassure him that Mari is alive and okay :(

You Were Supposed to Save Me/I Tried.  I Always Tried:  And here is the part that makes me feel all the feelings.  Jesus and Little Mariana are in some kind of drained swimming pool and it’s dark and echoey, vast and cavernous.  Jesus checks with Little Mariana to see if she died or not.  Her response is that he was supposed to save her, and he says, he always tried.

Then, he looks over and sees himself and Mari as tiny little babies.  Baby Jesus and Baby Mariana are just in diapers, alone in a crib with no Moms, no Ana, no one anywhere around.  They’re both crying, but Baby Jesus toddles over to Baby Mari and tries to comfort her and take her hand.  To see little babies like this - seriously they don’t look like they’re more than a year old - having to comfort each other because there are no adults there to care for them is heartbreaking.

My sis and I were saying that given this look into Jesus and Mariana’s past (which we really have never gotten from Jesus’s perspective) it’s amazing they can bond at all.  But my sis suggested that perhaps the fact that they did have each other was a help to them in that regard, because even if they could not trust adults (which we have seen - again, in Vigil, where Mariana hesitates to take the sucker from Stef until Jesus takes it and gives it to her, acting as the intermediary) they could always trust each other.  It’s just staggering, the level of their neglect.  I feel like they must have had enough care here and there, though, or that Stef and Lena worked really hard on building trust and bonding when they came to live with them, because it’s not a foregone conclusion that these two would just get adopted and live happily ever after.  In fact, it really informs BOTH of their deepest fears: that they’ll be left and no longer loved because of their earliest years, when they really only had each other for comfort.

Don’t Let Him Get You/You Didn’t Save Her: And Jesus comes face to face with himself and his own self-blame.  You don’t need to blame yourself, buddy.  It’s not your fault.

I’m Still Really Messed Up: Mariana, love.  It’s not your fault.  I’m glad Emma’s there for you, but you need Moms.  You need Jesus to wake up, and more than that, you all need some professional help right about now.

Some People Say They Can Hear You:  Yes!  He can hear you!  Talk to him, Moms!

I Made a Mistake...My Spot’s Been Taken:  That’s putting it lightly, Brandon - OF COURSE your spot’s been taken.  And dude, when I saw Emma buying this pregnancy test I was like no way.  Emma had better not be pregnant!

Jesus.  Wake Up, Baby/We Don’t Have to Hurt Anymore.  We Can Leave This World.  This Way:  Ohhh how devastating.  That they have gone through so much pain in their young lives that Little Mariana would be talking about leaving the world so they don’t have to hurt anymore.  Jesus is so unsure.  Little Mariana’s telling him they can leave, but he can HEAR Moms talking to him.  Jesus!  Moms and Mariana are all in the same place.  They’re ALL in this world.  Listen to Moms! <3 

Take My Hand/We Love You, Jesus:  You guysss.  Jesus has his hand out for Little Mariana, but he takes it down and starts waking up when Mom says they LOVE HIM <3  I know they’re just stating what is true, but it is so powerful for adopted kiddos to hear that they are loved, especially given the scary and traumatic nature of all of Jesus’s dreams lately.  Knowing he is loved is JUST what he needs to hear <3 

Don’t Be Scared.  You’re Safe: And Lena is on point, responding to all of Jesus’s nonverbal communication here.  She can see how freaked out he looks and she speaks to that.  I also love how we can see Jesus understands Mom when she says “I’m here,” in the way he rolls his head toward her and against her hand. <3  

No More Talking.  Just Relax:  Loving that Jesus did not just wake up with zero deficits.  Aphasia is a real thing.  (Also, this makes me remember Jesus several episodes ago, when he faked speech difficulties after his nail surgery.  Then it was a funny mix of Spanish and English words, now it’s fragments with common sounds.  The disparity is real and really unnerving.)  It seems like it might register partway through Jesus talking to Moms that what’s coming out of his mouth does not match what he is trying to say.  I like Stef is encouraging him to relax, because he really needs rest, and if it IS registering that his speech isn’t working as it should (always presume competence) then he needs to know everything is okay.

Being a twin myself, I feel really strongly that Jesus must be asking after Mariana here, given the content of his dreams.  Moms have reassured him that HE is okay, but as a twin, he would need to know that Mariana is, too.   When my sis woke up the very first thing she asked was if I was okay.  (As she said last night, “I knew if it were you, I’d be freaking out.”)  So true <3

Here You Go/Thanks:  Okay, it’s no better that that pregnancy test is for Mariana...

Is Your Mother-in-Law Still Here?/Melanie’s Mother Passed Away a Few Years Ago:  OMG, Lena was taking comfort from a ghosty MIL <3 I kind of love, though, that her spirit was there with her daughter, just sitting by her bed and touching her...and then talking Lena through a really tough night.  So amazing <3 

What’s a Fitness Hearing?/It Means They Wanna Try You As An Adult:  No....Callie :(

For more: Fosters Recaps