#little hope tabitha milton

[kindheartedgummybears]

girly never gets a break😔

FOUND THIS IN DRAFTS I FORGOT ABOUT IT (spoilers)

[108garys]

The Clarkes haunting the narrative is THE point

The following was a response to the idea that the prologue and end hold little hope back that ended up being way longer than intended, no shade on the person who said that I just realised that I didn't want to drop a whole essay on them, so without any more preamble:

Truthfully I am completely disinterested in making Little Hope more palatable to people who require the story's soul to be torn out to enjoy it because that's what the beginning and ending is. The broken heart of little hope.

That said I very much love the middle too but the Clarke family's story is the heart and soul of little hope and the whole point, otherwise why does anything in the town matter? Vince? Just some dude, the subplot of the town falling apart, being in the literal wreckage of 1970s era Little Hope? Random set dressing because a straight up three century old ruin of a town would just lack the infrastructure required to have the facade of searching for help in town… So many of the secrets are about them, you straight up spend a good chunk of the runtime passively learning about the individual family members both in private and public and even though I think some people choose the shallowest reading out of spite it is very deliberately stated that there is an element of choice in interpretation, the curator says so at the start. The more praised facets would be greatly diminished without the Clarkes, the subtextual nature of overcoming your demons gives meaning to the outright textual fighting of demonic monsters and the parallels would not be as strong between the 2020 and 1692 eras alone.

It is a common mistake that there are better or worse versions of the characters but it's simply not true as they are all different aspects and much like a triangle needs three points the cast of little hope needs all three points of reference to fully appreciate their stories. My earliest read of Little Hope centred on Anthony recontextualising his family in two divergent ways, 1692 where they are presented as victims of circumstance and 2020 where they are more deliberately flawed people who must overcome their demons because the truth is that both things are true of the Clarkes and so they are separated out into their different aspects and analysed accordingly.

Angela's characterisation doesn't work exclusively compared to Amy, her story of fighting for her agency doesn't land the same without Anne, Amy on paper is a woman who did everything right bar being too harsh to a child and was killed for it, Angela is a woman burnt by her past yet soldering on and still retains the same flaw of blaming the child, where as Anne being a snowed under house wife who struggles with keeping her family together and feels like she has zero agency in her situation and all the while fails to understand the perspectives of the very people she feels responsible for is the context between Amy the beloved wife who is wrongfully accused and uses her one bit of agency to place mistaken blame on Mary and Angela who refuses to rely on or believe in anyone or anything, the fact that she's divorced and starting over in her late forties does not work when only compared to the wholesome yet tragic Lamberts who's marriage is never depicted in the negative to justify Angela's divorce. She'd appear as a nearly fully different person for no reason without Anne to bridge the gap and make their depictions consistent, without the 1970s it just looks like she's angry at her husband for failing to save her despite his best efforts and that severely damages her character and arc.

Connected to that, J places his trust in the wrong places, delegates, blame shifts and runs from facing the bigger problem, the alcoholism is emblematic of this but the refusal to see the truth about M's innocence and place responsibility at the feet of the proper authority because he'd have to confront his misplaced faith requires all three, Joseph failing to his dying breath to understand Mary's innocence and James getting blackout drunk over the stress of problems he finds insurmountable are necessary context to John's sobriety and further arc and John being a recovering alcoholic would just be flavour text without the harsh sting of how addiction colours James.

Daylor wouldn't lose its questionable reading if they were only siblings in 50% of other eras instead of two thirds but Dennis expressing his frustration at Tanya pulling away contextualises their codependency and mutual need to be needed in a way that is incomplete, you see a couple in the early stages of dating and siblings who got killed three hundred years prior, the 70s contextualise T's need for stability and dependability and her survival instincts pushing her to flee and D's arrested development in the way he struggles to function when they aren't a unit, beyond that David and Tabitha care for Mary together in Amy's trial scene and after her death he doesn't even fight his own execution, not even to continue the task of raising his only remaining orphand sister alone, this isn't to say David doesn't love Mary as he blatantly shows care for her in not wanting her to be traumatised by his death but he simply falls apart without Tabitha and Dennis being the way he is when Tanya is pulling away from the family shows a lower stakes, longer depiction of that breaking down but she's still physically there so it isn't collapsing in grief, it's the simmering resentment of feeling like a person you care for isn't prioritising you reciprocally, these feelings aren't wrong in of themselves but they aren't pretty and Daniel's outbursts and more negative dialogue choices and David's quiet grief don't capture the way that feeling of being stabbed a million times over everything time you aren't the first choice but the other person didn't wrong you by choosing differently so there is no proper way to get that out feels. D is often mistaken as a shallow generically decent guy with a random angry iteration that doesn't fit into a boring whole but it's simply not the case, him proving he can be reliable in 2020, his fight against his various insecurities is something he needs to do for himself as much as T, the others aren't better adjusted or better people compared to Dennis, their circumstances just present entirely differently.

Furthermore Taylor feeling like an outsider doesn't work alone with Tabitha being part of a family unit, I've seen it misinterpreted as Taylor being less proactive than her counterparts but the truth is that T's behaviour is characterised by survival instinct and a need for stability, Tabitha realises something is wrong after the first death and attempts to protect Mary but counsels keeping their heads down, Taylor being vocally in favour of staying put and Tanya's quiet desperation to get away from everything are not opposite but different flavors of the same base needs, Tanya legitimately being a practising witch adds a layer between the other two versions, Tanya appears very conventional despite her secret unconventional beliefs and Taylor is the inverse being visually the most nonconforming member of the cast while her desire for a knight in shining armour is very traditional in its own way, pair this with the straight forward trial of Tabitha and you get an exploration of not going with the first assumptions that blankets the rest of the narrative.

Carver is a great antagonist all his own but without 1972 there is no broader context, and even if you still have that era but not the Clarkes it would just be "this guy's bloodline remained assholes for centuries" and not the direct parallel to Carson, there is no canonical 2020 equivalent to his character yet he haunts the narrative beyond himself, judge wyman intentionally mirrors the passing neighbour who immediately demanded to know what Anthony had done when the matchbox is revealed, the accusatory paranoid hysteria of puritan little hope and Anthony's poor treatment after the death of his family are directly connected and that's the point, Melissa is there to bring the conversation about the little girl's guilt or innocence to the forefront in a way that makes it a present plotline that goes beyond Mary and brings in the nature that the past is reflected in other eras and without Megan you lose a lot, Melissa requires her context in a way that Mary alone doesn't achieve and Abraham and Andrew's decision on the matter is in fact a question over Anthony's guilt and his internal struggle between blaming himself and blaming Megan and the further grief around this unresolved guilt to the point where he was psychologically unable to process the death of his family for nearly fifty years is the point, the whole point, of the 1692 reframing.

the Clarke family haunts every aspect of Little Hope and without the ending it would be pointless, the way their deaths hang over everything to the point where the puritan versions are doomed to die in the same way they were already depicted as dying and the way an engaged person would quickly catch on that 1972 death=1692 death and therefore 2020 character faces the same fate, it would be meaningless without the Clarke tragedy, it would simply be shock value that builds towards nothing without the ending and the ending doesn't make the game any less about the other eras because they are one and the same in every way that matters.

[delurkr]

A barely-edited ramble as I try to figure out stuff about David and other 1692 folks

Under cut because boy those paragraphs got long

I was never a fan of how David is called a farmer in the subtitles before we learn his name, because with all the other type of people it took (and takes) to make a town just calling him a farmer with ultimately no textual backing comes off as rather uncreative or uninformed, as if someone just assumed that of course he would be a farmer because it's ye olden days and nobody did anything else (not an uncommon perception but super dumb). Of course it's possible that there was more thought behind it, but still there were plenty of positions available in towns like Salem and Andover in their time; craftspeople of all kinds and storekeepers and merchants of varying scope are some basic ones (also I've seen it said that the prior increase of business and trading in the area is considered to be a contributing factor to the societal instability that fed the witch trials, not that I'm going to fact check right now or give a citation for that). He's also only 20 years old, and under normal circumstances he's not likely to be a landowner yet so calling him a farmer in his own right is less believable, but it's certainly not a given that the Miltons' circumstances are normal so that's less important.

Now thinking about the museum, there's a mannequin dressed in David's clothes and it's set up at some sort of work table or piece of machinery, and I have no clue what it is but someone on reddit once suggested that it looked a little like a potter's wheel, which seems to be as good a guess as anything. So I've always liked the idea that David was trained as a potter but never progressed in that occupation before he turned to farming for some reason.

So in the interest of filling in backstory for the 1600s characters, because I'm woefully deficient in that department and grasping at anything, an idea I'm considering is that the father of Tabitha, David, and Mary was a potter who was training David in the business, but then when the mother Martha Milton was taken in the Commencement Day Massacre in 1690, when Tabitha was 20 years old, Mr. Milton couldn't deal and left to buy milk as they say and hasn't been heard of since (not to make it all dramatic but if he up and disappeared from LH town with no news from any of surrounding town near or far it leaves an open question with a good amount of potential answers). That would have left Tabitha as the head of household she appears to be, and there might naturally be debts to settle on top of a sudden loss of income with Mr. Milton gone which might have taken the pottery business and the associated livelihood off their hands one way or another, so the Miltons hired themselves to the Lamberts in whatever arrangement best made sense and lived and worked on the Lamberts' farm by 1692.

That gives David his farmer label, and the other side of it is that the Lamberts would have needed someone like him around, because while I know Strong Farmer Joseph is an appealing idea I lean towards the doubles sharing each other's physical capabilities beyond just physical likeness, and farming takes truckloads of stamina but even adrenaline couldn't give John a whole lot of that (I mean let's be real, John is normal in that situation and the others are generally abnormal in their ability to do that much running around for an entire night with barely any effect, but that's a tangent). John also seems to have some concern about his heart, whether there's an actual medical reason behind that idk, so that may be a thing for Joseph too. So I imagine Joseph needed to take a step back from the heavy work on their property and David was needed to take that place, and of course there's plenty for Tabitha and Mary to do as well.

So yeah, that's what I'm considering to give background to the idea of the Miltons working for the Lamberts, which was the one part I'm solid on. If anybody has other ideas I'm lowkey desperate to hear them lol

[gladioluslemon]

[taylorshope]

[blubary]

Puritan.

Orange

[qusok]

Minecraft Little Hope mod when??

[best-supermassive-character]

‌Dylan Lenivy x Chainsaw

1. groovy

Tabitha Milton x Taylor

1. my mauling of a canon and symbolical concept about Tabitha following Taylor because she couldn't fully deal with her locked traits. Tabi is Taylor's ptsd or something. yea

[unhingedlesbear]

Wouldn't it be funky if I started posting my edits here? Still very much a newbie to the whole editing thing but I made this one a couple months ago and never posted it anywhere. Anyway shoutout to SMG monsters/antagonists, especially ones that are women <3

My fucking fav

[tatjana-fantasy]

Day 7: Handmade Poppet

When I wrote Day 3: Child's Toy, I realized too late that I could've written a much happier alternative – but thankfully, it was easy to write this alternative for this prompt instead :) Have fun! :D

7 – Handmade Poppet (Mary)

It was Abraham who showed her how to make poppets.

Mary had always wanted one, but neither Tabitha nor David had the money to afford it. So Mary had decided to make one herself, even if it took her many weeks and even more failed attempts. Abraham had helped her every step of the way, had comforted her when she had failed yet again and had encouraged her when she got one step closer. They didn’t even know each other that well, but everybody in Little Hope knew that Abraham was the right address for handmade poppets and friendly advice. Mary was certainly grateful for his help; she never could’ve done it without him.

When she finally held the finished poppet in her hand, Abraham smiled at it proudly. “What’s her name?” he asked. “Every poppet deserves one.”

Mary thought about it for a second. “Hope!” she decided spontaneously. “Hope Milton.”

“So she’s your younger sister?”

Mary nodded affirmatively. “I will take good care of her.”

“I know you will,” Abraham smiled. “But shouldn’t you introduce her to Tabitha and David first? They surely want to know about their newest sister.”

Mary nodded. That was a good idea. She thanked Abraham and returned back home, where Tabitha and David were already waiting for her.

“Where were you?” Tabitha asked reproachfully. “You shouldn’t go out so late at night without telling us where you’re going!”

“We were worried sick,” David added. “Please don’t scare us like this ever again, promise?”

Megan felt ashamed. She hadn’t even thought of that. “I’m sorry,” she stuttered. “I- I only wanted to finish the poppet I told you about. She’s ready now.” She took the doll out from behind her back and showed it to her siblings. “Hope Milton,” she introduced her. “I made her myself, but Abraham helped me too.”

Tabitha and David stared at the poppet for a few seconds. David was the first to overcome his surprise.

“Welcome to the family, Hope!” he cheerfully said. “I always wanted three sisters.”

Tabitha playfully rolled her eyes, but didn’t comment his answer further. “Just be careful with it, alright, Mary? Otherwise, I might need to take care of her instead.”

Mary smiled shyly. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I will.”

I promise.

[urtrickster]

[108garys]

*slides in* werewolves eh? Well seeing how you've done the Clarke family would you mind doing the Milton family? You can either make Mary a werewolf or not I don't mind, the image of the other two protecting her like guard dogs is amazing, not the mention the lore aspects it could imply. But also puppy werewolf🥹🤲 I just love the Miltons a normal amount and werewolves are my love language lol

That image of Mary being watched over by her siblings spoke to me so no werewolf pup this time, unlike the rest of the wolves I liked the idea of Tabitha(left) and David(right) mirroring each other although I did put in the effort to differentiate between them with subtle differences in fur texture and eye shape(tabi's eyes bigger and David's fur wavier)

And of course Mary(centre lol) is as cute as a button(her face is so darn tiny on my phone when I was drawing her so she needs a close up because even though she is human a lot of effort went into her appearance)

Beyond the protection angle I wanted to show the Milton siblings bound together as its one robe tethering all of them and it's also giving "parent birds see their new egg for the first time" at any rate I'm going to need you to imagine that Mary is standing on a big rock given the scale of them all

I will again say that I've gotten more werewolf asks and less time than anticipated as something came up a little after, this isn't to say people should stop sending them so much as to be mindful of the time I may take to do them 😊

[delurkr]

Tall T and short D are very close to my heart 💞

(Those times when it looks like Daniel is probably taller than Taylor are when he's definitely standing on a hill or something 😊)

[gladioluslemon]

the 1692 PURRtian

Credit for idea: @kindheartedgummybears

[taylorshope]

These are so fun to make

[blubary]

I just drew a bunch of them. HAPPY BIRTHDAY TAYLOR, TANYA, AND TABITHA