#esmé disillusion

[roseatebug]

"you know, darling, the latin word for 'passion' is 'passio.'

it's quite fitting, really. after all, passion is what drives the heart, what ignites the soul.

it's what sets a performer like myself apart from someone like...well, you.

passion, in its essence, means to suffer for what you love.

but for someone like me, suffering is a price worth paying for artistry.

passion is what sets us apart from the mundane, the ordinary.

it's the fire that burns within, the craving to be adored, esteemed, and loved...

all by an audience that can't get enough of our brilliance."

REBLOGS APPRECIATED!

[pollys-special-hell]

A friend of mines forced me at gunpoint to draw her. Might as well give the disillusion game a try!

[unfortunate-stranger-losers]

do quigley or duncan or their sister die? I’m on season 1 but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a clip anywhere of quigley and duncan together 😢

While the books leave it ambiguous, I do believe there is a definitive answer. Major spoilers for S3/all 13 books under the cut.

In the series!canon, Quigley reunites with his siblings on the SSHAM, and the secret code in The Incomplete History references them reuniting with the Baudelaires on Briny Beach.

In the book!canon, well... I have an unpopular opinion on this one; I believe that most, if not all of the members of the Queequeg crash survived. And this isn't just because I love the Quagmires and Fiona... I have evidence!

You see, we know that most of Snicket's knowledge of the Baudelaires' thoughts, feelings and situations were taken from their island commonplace book - A Series of Unfortunate Events- as he mentions them writing in the book. However, they could not write information they were not privy to, and all they knew about the Queequeg crash was that Kit suspected everyone was eaten by the Great Unknown. 

However, in an earlier portion of The End, when the Baudelaires are traveling to the arboretum, Snicket says that their friends (the Quagmires, Fiona probably) were "in circumstances just as dark although quite a bit damper than" theirs. "Just as dark" does not qualify death at the moment, as the Baudelaires are simply under a moral quandary and the Medusoid Mycelium has not been released yet. As well as this, they would not know if their friends were in a "damp" situation, just a "dark" one. And who would know better what situation they were in at that time than the Quagmires themselves?

As such, Snicket likely knows something we don't. As well as this, we know Kit's story doesn't always align with the truth- she claims all three Widdershins were on the Queequeg when it crashed, however Snicket stated in The Penultimate Peril that Fernald was fighting the Quagmires aboard the ship (not necessarily implicating Fernald in villainy, it's likely Duncan and Isadora just saw him and heard the kill bill sirens). 

Why would he leave their fate ambiguous? Well, considering several villains survived the Hotel Denouement, and many of them are stated to have something against the Quagmires (the Woman and Man send their eagles to sink the SSHAM home, and Esmé was in charge of their estate and helped Olaf capture them), it's likely the Quagmires want to stay as under their enemies' radar as possible. 

Adding to this, they could be trying to stay off the radar of VFD itself; VFD does not have a crystal-clear reputation, and in fact seems to have a dangerous cult-like atmosphere (best description here, but also see here, here, here). And seeing as Fernald is very disillusioned with the organization, now an enemy of both sides, he would definitely not want to be seen by them; adding to this Fiona's loyalty to him and the beginnings of her break with the organization in The Grim Grotto, she'd probably want to lay low as well. 

Duncan and Isadora also, probably, very against VFD. They found out something about it while researching, and after being captured by Olaf and the White-Faced Women, they shout to the Baudelaires that they learned about something terrible- which they immediately follow up by shouting about VFD. And considering how useless the volunteers were in rescuing them, and how they spent a lot of time with Hector, who seems to have either left the organization or be hiding from them, they almost definitely do not have a good view of it. Even though Quigley was p much successfully inducted by Jacques, he's not going to want to leave his siblings so soon after their reunion. 

All that to say, at the very least, everyone but Widdershins has good reasons to want VFD to leave them alone. So throwing out that they're alive would be dangerous for them, especially if Snicket mentioned they'd contacted him. So he likely gave some clues and left it ambiguous so as to not completely lie. 

As to how they survived? I've linked to @snicketsleuth a lot but they have a pretty good idea...

tl;dr the Queequeg and SSHAMH crews are probably alive!

[unladielike]

( okay, but what if i give 24+ year old vivian her own pastel goth ex-girlfriend?? details, though, will be placed underneath the cut because it contains mentions of physical abuse. )

Her name would be Esmé and as far as surname goes, I have no idea... but she is definitely a city girl and currently resides in Vancouver, working as a nurse. UPDATE: I’ve decided her surname is officially Bélanger, due to the fact I want her to be French Canadian.

Like Vivian, she is also 24+ years old, but compared to her, she is very femme and stands at 5′0, making her two inches shorter than her, so initially, Vivian called her a ‘little birdie’.

Esmé ended up falling in love with Vivian after she basically told a guy harassing her to go fuck off and due to this, she considers her to be her ‘prince’.

Esmé was the one who asked her out first, but her love was pretty much one-sided because Vivian never liked her romantically. Despite this, she still agreed to date her due to the fact Esmé was cute and she liked being someone’s ‘prince’. Vivian, though, later ended up regretting it, because it turns out Esmé was the type to get easily jealous and would regularly snoop through her phone. To make matters worse, she was also violent, to the point where if Vivian made her angry, Esmé would push her down the stairs or hit her, so eventually, Vivian ended up dumping her after a whole year of putting up with her bullshit.

The whole reason Vivian never told anyone about the physical abuse or really put up much of a fight against her, though, was because she knew Esmé would easily cry crocodile tears and make people easily side with her while painting her as the bad guy... plus, she didn’t want others to think of her a victim, so she will be hesitant to reveal what she did to her unless she reaches a point where she trusts a muse enough to disclose everything she had put her through. So far, though, I wanna say that in Vivian’s private verse, only @spiritpyro​’s Rokuro happens to know, if only because she felt bad for apparently not even telling him she had been planning on committing suicide, to the point where she no longer has the heart to with-hold important information from him.

To this day, Vivian has Esmé blocked, because she would get ten voice calls from her per day, begging her to take her back, that eventually, she just got sick of it.

Esmé is now the reason Vivian is very wary of pastel goths... and to top it all off, she’s partially why Vivian is disillusioned by romance/the idea of settling down in general, if only because Esmé had briefly stolen her freedom and made her miserable.

Esmé has a cutesy personality and comes off as sweet, but in actuality, she can be manipulative and spoiled. Many of the patients she tend to still simp for her, though, and have yet to see her for who she really is.

She will act like she is still in love with Vivian, but Vivian would clearly want nothing to do with her anymore.

They were both romantically and sexually involved at some point, so outside of verses/ships, Esmé was the one she lost her virginity to. Hayate is a bit of special case, though, because while Vivian did lose her virginity to him, she has no memory of it as a result of her selective amnesia in her private verse, so as far as she’s concerned, her first time has always been with Esmé

[armedantagonist]

I drew Esmé, from a game called Disillusion.

I've never played or seen disillusioned. I saw a recommendation for a Vinny video with them in the thumbnail and screenshotted it. This was done so I could draw them later in the future. That was like months ago I think?? A year maybe??? I dunno but I decided to do it this night.

[sublibrarian]

esmé and beatrice probably have more in common than either of them would like to admit, though i think beatrice genuinely has (or at some point had—she might have started to become disillusioned with herself along with everything else) unshakeable self-confidence, while esmé is just desperately vain on a surface level.

[unladielike]

Does Vivian have any triggers?

          UNPROMPTED ASKS. » always accepting!

Provided we're talking about her vanilla modern verse, I wouldn't say she has any triggers, per say, but I do think Vivian has seen enough cursed shit on rule63 to be uncomfortable by a lot of things. The main things that would make her grimace, though, is definitely eye/dental gore and she tends to avoid true crime stories if only because she's sensitive to injustice, to the point where she would end up more so angry than entertained.

But if we're talking specifically about her private verse, where the effects of her androphobia still linger, I do headcanon Vivian can no longer mentally handle being hugged by someone she is romantically interested in, especially if they happen to be masc-aligned due to Hayate pretty much traumatizing her. Like, this girl would automatically tear up and tremble in their arms without really knowing why.

When it comes to her older verse, though, Vivian has now grown so disillusioned by love thanks to her ex-girlfriend, being confessed to or even realizing someone catches feelings for her would immediately activate her panic and fear, regardless if the feeling happens to be mutual because she does not want to be in a relationship anymore. Honestly, she's more so content, onesidedly loving someone, due to the 'Oh, what if they end up hitting me too?' rationale and reasons I ended up delving more into here.

Since Esmé used to push her down them, she also is uncomfortable descending stairs and would beg someone to walk behind her or try to take an alternative route. Considering she also associates pastel goths with her, I also don't imagine she'll have the best first impression of someone who dresses like Esmé and would actively try to avoid them.

anonymous

[unladielike]

I feel like even after Vivian forgets about Hayate in her private verse, the effects of her androphobia wouldn’t completely go away. Honestly, it would still be subconsciously suppressed, to the point where she can now interact with men more normally, but her body would now just instinctively recoil when her fingers unintentionally nears his. Like, thanks to trauma, I truly believe her fear of touching Hayate first would continue to linger, but she wouldn’t think that much about it since she does intentionally avoid making physical contact with pretty much everyone, unless they somehow make it apparent they don’t mind her being touchy with them.

...Either way, she’ll pretty much not initiate the affection anymore. Like, this girl would rather patiently wait for Hayate to give her head pats, stare longingly at his hand when she thinks he isn’t looking, or playfully complain about how Bugsby is the only one to ever get forehead smooches than proactively chase him. Ironically, though, Vivian wouldn’t be able to mentally handle Hayate hugging her despite craving his touch, because after all the abuse she suffered at Esmé’s hands, an embrace feels much too gentle... much too intimate; plus, there’s also the fact that her body physically remembers how he made her feel, so she’ll find herself tearing up and trembling in his arms without really understanding why.

Of course, it’s different if it’s someone she platonically likes, but Hayate is someone she loves and has a complicated history with, so an embrace from him would emotionally devastate her, because she had been yearning for it so long, that once she finally has his warmth, she doesn’t know how to physically process it. Again, despite forgetting, it doesn’t change how his actions and words still have consequences, to the point where Vivian wouldn’t always react favourably to him.

Aside from believing relationships is a form of unhappiness, though, she’s also utterly convinced Hayate, and by proxy, other men, wouldn’t make for a very good lover, so panic and fear would immediately kick in if he either tells her he’s in love with her or it’s increasingly obvious he is catching feelings for her. Seriously, when I say Vivian would be content, onesidedly loving him, I truly do mean it, because the more older she gets, the more disillusioned she’ll get about love.