#infinity train b2

[jesse-cosay]

This might be obvious, but I feel like it's often misunderstood about Jesse's character.

When confronting the Apex and running away with Lake, his number does not change. They don't get his exit right away, it doesn't appear after this dramatic moment of him standing up for himself and his friend.

"But Yellow! It's about the pacing! It's about the drama of them running away!"

Wrong!

For one, Jesse's problem isn't that he can't stand up for himself. Because he can! And he shows us this!

"It looks like your punching wasn't doing much good either."

"I was yelling! It's still my turn to yell!"

He talks back after Lake mocks his approach. He puts his foot down and defends himself.

"Pft. You would."

He antagonizes Lake after the flecs outted them as a criminal. He doesn't bend to Lake's whims like someone who's spineless.

"You better not tell mom!"

He doesn't grovel for Nate not to tell their parents. Doesn't promise to make it up to him later, doesn't try to lighten this blow at all. The way someone would if they always played both sides.

Defending himself is not his problem, not really. It's not even just people-pleasing.

"Don't tell me what to do!"

"I'm not gonna be a part of anything like this. On or off the train!"

If it was? This would have been the scene Jesse got his exit. There's enough build up for it, we don't need the chase scene before it, we could still have the flex show up after Jesse's exit closed with Lake on the other side.

But it isn't.

"I've got you. We're getting out of here."

It's only after he reassures Lake that his number changes. After he promises to stay with them, to side with them.

Jesse's issues were about standing up for others. For defending other people, even when it wasn't convenient. Not about him.

(Shout out to @elibethqueen for this post, love you bb)

[elibethqueen]

I re-colored this thing like 5 times and I thought I would never finish it 💀

But at last I bring you choo choo squad at the arcade 👾👾👾

Tulip really wants that Kirby 🤭💕

[againwiththeturtles]

why is it that if you say that min-gi and ryan are gay for each other and ugh why didn't they make it canon, everyone is like "yes!!!! ugh!!" and if you say that lake is clearly trans and ugh why didn't they make it canon suddenly your inbox is full of "well i don't think that's the only interpretation :/ she could be cis" and "sometimes it's better for things to be metaphorical" like cmon ppl

[againwiththeturtles]

besides being a silly scene and some fun character building, this scene is one of the more direct parallels to being trans imo... like, we have lake, who is widely headcanoned as trans, being asked specific, kind of intrusive (yes, they’re friends, but lake’s clearly annoyed at being asked) questions about their body and how it works. and they don’t know! like, that’s just the way it is. and yes, for jesse, a passenger who is not from the mirror world, it sounds strange and surprisingly, but for lake, that’s just how it is! and i like that they turn it back to jesse, who clearly doesn’t know everything about his own body and why it’s the way that it is, so they both kinda shrug and drop it.

we, as a society, need to discuss this amazing exchange and the acknowledgement that neither of these two have a brain cell between the two of them.

[paperkoifish]

Doodles and art I'm working on

[lakesbian]

some parts of this are rougher than others but like. i have GOT to finish this this is good

[lakesbian]

I hope you don’t mind, but I wanted to chime onto this with my own analysis, because I actually disagree! I’m going to quote a twitter thread by show writer Justin Michael here:

Mace is often interpreted as more directly villainous or malicious in surface readings because he’s constantly aggressive and violent in a very direct, upfront way. But that’s a result of, as Justin Michael says, “his unyielding and fundamentalist values.” He’s a terrible person, obviously. But what you see is what you get with him. What he’s doing is terrible, but he still earnestly believes that he’s doing the right thing. He tells you what his rules and expectations are, and you know exactly what he’ll try to do if you break them. He’s the one trying to do what he thinks is the right thing, not Sieve!

Sieve is different. Again, as Justin Michael says, he’s in it for the power. He doesn’t even have Mace’s moral conviction. He’s a lot more insidious. He’s doing terrible things, not because he believes they’re morally necessary, but because he wants the societal power they give him. He’s the cop who acts like the only helpful guy in the department when you’ve been unjustifiably arrested while all along he’s trying to coax something damning out of you so he can send you off to jail and collect his salary. He’s fucking slimy. He lies to and attempts manipulating Jesse in The Toad Car. His initial upholding of protocol isn’t an indicator that he’s slightly better than Mace, it’s an indicator that he’s good at playing the game to fuck everyone else over on his way up. And like all shitty cops, the second his feelings get involved (when Mace dies), he throws protocol out the window and goes for self-satisfying brutality.

And you know what’s really fun? He’s good at it. He’s good at making you think he’s the good cop, the nicer guy, the one who’s just a little less terrible. He’s good at seeming like he’s trying to do the right thing. He’s a good liar. He even convinces the viewers. He convinced you and the 65ish other people giving this post notes.

That’s how you know he’s awful.

Both Mace and Sieve were shitty people, and neither got much better or worse over the course of their arcs. They’re unyielding personifications of the societal forces oppressing Lake. The difference between them is that Mace is unyielding because he thinks he’s got morals, and Sieve is unyielding because he wants power.

Everyone gives Simon all the credit for having a negative character arc, but Agent Sieve did it first. He goes from "Do we really need the sanders for this? That seems like overkill." to "Screw protocol, I'm going to outright murder you and anyone who stands in my way!"

Don't get me wrong, Simon did it better, but Sieve didn't start out as a bloodthirsty murder-cop. He was trying to do what he saw as the right thing, but trying to impress Mace led him down a dark path. He probably would have found that path anyways, but his partner didn't help much.

[wooohyperfixations]

Ok fuck you Jesse from Infinity Train wears cottagecore dresses and skirts and flowercrowns and his partner Lake wears suits and is a angry demiromantic bi they/them dressed as a punk lesbian

he goes to school after the train holding hands with a metal punk kid flips off his ex-friends and does his best to be good brother passive aggressively because fuck those guys who only showed up for one episode

no I don't take criticism this canon

[jesse-cosay]

Look at how quickly Lake switches from skeptical to warm. They not only accept Alan Dracula as harmless, but immediately try to give him something they know he likes, almost like an olive branch.

And they almost seem sad when he doesn't respond to them? They have the tinest frown before they decide to carry the conversation entirely by themselves.

And they've never had to deal with physical affection before, and they panic in the face of a touch that isn't meant to harm them. Their face goes from surprise to concern before they realize it's... it's just okay to pet him.

[et-ceterart]

someone found some of my year old art and i just had to redraw it. broke: jesse carrying lake. woke: lake who can lift her friends without breaking a sweat

[againwiththeturtles]

whoa so i was watching the wasteland episode of infinity train in spanish, specifically when lake kills mace and they cut the gory part! when mace starts leaking all of his chrome fluids. we just heard him yell and watched his hat fly away

[psiibajablast]

Scribbly Doodles :)

[againwiththeturtles]

[id: Several black and white drawings of Lake and Jesse from Infinity Train as if in a sketchbook. In the first image, Jesse is smiling and pointing at something, and Lake has one arm around his shoulders, and one on her hip, looking on skeptically.

In the next panel, there are 2 drawings of them from the shoulders up. In one, Lake grabs Jesse's ear and he complains. In the other, Jesse waves excitedly and Lake glares at him.

The next two panels show Lake biting into Jesse's burger (although she has her own as well) while he protests, and then she spits the onion out while Jesse smiles widely.

The final panel shows Jesse's profile with a sad expression, Lake and Jesse hugging and smiling, and Jesse pointing at something while Lake smiles and looks at him. end id]

thinking about them again

i like to think that Jesse hits a growth spurt and gets super tall within a year of them meeting. mostly because i think it’d piss lake off

[lakesbian]

Opinion about Lake's actions? I saw a tiny few people hating them for what they did and that's an instant red flag lol

when she kills those cops, shoves that dude out of his pod, & tries to take that girl's spot in the number line, it's all very clear allegory for the fact that marginalized people quite often can't achieve basic recognition of humanity in a system which oppresses them without inconveniencing, displacing, or even having no option but to inflict harm upon those who oppress them or are directly benefited by their oppression. sometimes you have to crack a few eggs (skulls) to make an omelet (achieve liberation). and this isn't immoral or deserving of hatred because 1. the oppressive system is also Regularly Enacting Extreme Violence, just in a sanctioned, invisibilized, and socially acceptable/ignored way and 2. it's the direct result of oppressed people being coerced and suppressed into a situation where they have no route to survive/escape that violence but to utilize violence as a tool themselves. so it's just very silly when people act like ms. 13yo girl manhunted by cops yelling about how they want to kill her is Ethically Problematique for not simply laying down and dying quietly or spending a million years trying to find a way to escape the train that didn't involve displacing any of the people it was prioritizing over her. sound of point going Whooosh as it soars over heads. blame the train forcing the kid to do that to survive not the kid. i reiterate shes 13 have you all seen how small 13yos are theyre like pretty fuckin small

[jesse-cosay]

I love how expressive Lake is. They're always using unnecessarily big gestures and waving their hands around.

At first I thought it was just ironic because it doesn't suit the way they look at all. Lake looks like they should be reserved. Like they're a closed-off person who doesn't express their emotions. And maybe Lake would've been if they had been raised like a normal kid!

But Lake hasn't had a choice their entire life. It was them always mimicking Tulip and doing what Tulip wanted to do. They're learning what it's like to move when they talk, to express themselves the way they want to! Learning to express themselves at all because Lake has never known how to express themselves. Just that they wanted to.

I feel like being a reflection is so integral to how Lake carries themselves. I really love aus and alternate stories, but nothing explains Lake and all their quirks quite like canon does.

[againwiththeturtles]

[id: A screencap of Lake from Infinity Train. They are lifting one eyebrow, looking to the side, and drawing quotations in the air with their fingers. They say, "Technically I am a 'criminal.'" End Id]

Me after “committing” “crimes”