#we can ofc keep old plots too if we already plotted w her earlier !!!!!! just lmk

[vcnusc]

hello it’s ur gal moose again !! i’m bringing the bitch back y’all w new face. if you want to plot HMU or LIKE THIS post and i’ll come to you !! more info abt this binch under the cut & u can peep her pinterest here. 

—— wait, that’s not DOVE CAMERON! it’s VENUS CARLISLE who identifies as CISFEMALE. a TWENTY year old JUNIOR and a VICE PRESIDENT of CHI DELTA GAMMA. VENUS is MANIPULATIVE, SOCIABLE and studying PSYCHOLOGY. will SHE even have time to do anything else? 

tw: illness, death, abuse, eating disorder & drug addiction !!

ok so !! venus grew up in nyc & she comes from money. her mom comes from old money whereas her father made his own fortune by being a cutthroat and cunning entrepreneur so her family has............a lot of money

her mom & her dad have 3 kids together (but her dad has a plethora of children from previous marriages) and she’s the middle child. she’s got an older brother, michael, who’s currently 25 and her younger brother dylan was born when she was 3.

none of the carlisle children were particularly close with their parents, who always seemed to be busy doing more important things than taking care of their children, but they’ve always been very close to each other.

illness & death tw !! the baby of the family, dylan, was diagnosed with brain cancer (medulloblastoma) when he was 8 years old and.....it was rly hard for the family as u can imagine. he was in and out of the hospital constantly, going through various treatments. sometimes they would work for a little while and sometimes they would do nothing. they found the best doctors they could and put a ton of money into surgeries and treatment for dylan but all the money in the world couldn’t save him and he passed away when he was only 13 years old.

venus adored her little brother so her whole world just........came crashing down around her after he died. she was hurting but no one wanted to talk about it. her parents basically avoided the entire issue, keeping themselves busy with work to avoid coming home to see an empty seat at the dinner table and an empty bed at night.

she didn’t rly get to experience her teenage years the way she should have bc she was a bit of a shut in after her brother died. she didn’t want to talk to anyone or go out shopping or go to parties or be with her friends. she was fucking depressed and she could barely get out of bed most of the time.

to this day she still is.....not fully comfortable with the death of her brother and she doesn’t like to talk about it. her parents forced her into therapy but she didn’t want to go so the bitch just gave up eventually. she still hasn’t really had the chance to properly grieve the loss of her brother and it’s fucked her up lowkey.

she kind of fell into a shitty crowd in high school, which was quite a shock to the people that knew venus. she used to be this cute happy little girl with nothing but love to give but......she lost that p quickly when she realized how unfair life was.

drug use tw !! she was only sixteen when she started using drugs and drinking heavily. it provided an escape from the reality she found too painful and shitty to bear. she’s tried just about anything you can think of at least once, but her preferred drugs of choice are cocaine and mdma. it wasn’t long before she couldn’t go a day without getting high or itching for her next fix. she went to rehab for her coke problem for the first time when she was 17 but she started using again almost immediately as soon as she got out. she is......basically a shame to her family & they avoid talking about this issue at all costs, choosing to pretend it doesn't exist

she kind of cleaned up her act a bit in her senior year of high school. not in the sense that she drank or got high less, but she kind of ditched the skid crowd to hang out with all of her old friends again. it was all a cover though, to make it seem like she had gotten better and she was healthy and happy again when really.............she was more depressed and miserable than ever.

abuse & eating disorder tw !! it was at this time that she started dating the love of her life, jackson. she felt head over heels for him almost instantly. he was charming and handsome and kind and anything anyone could hope for in a boyfriend. but their relationship was only perfect from afar and eventually at some point during their relationship, jackson revealed that he wasn’t exactly the person she thought he was. he was controlling and manipulative. he wouldn’t let venus do or wear certain things and he’d constantly be checking her phone and social media. he was....pretty much in control of her life and because he had her utterly convinced that he was the only person who would ever love her despite how fucked up she was, she fell into the trap and let him do all that stuff. even when he hit her and started fights she still stayed, partially because she was afraid of what he would do if she left and partially because she believed everything he told her. the subtle emotional abuse was one of the factors that led to the development of an eating disorder.

they had a plan to go to college together and move in with one another but he ended up dumping her right before graduation, leaving her a wreck tbh. buT once he was gone she realized how awful he was, something she was blind to before

in her attempt to leave everything from new ny life behind, she chose to go to school in hawaii to be........far away from everyone and everything

okaY that was a lot but....here’s some more abt just her personality

she’s sad as fuck truly

definitely NOT a nice girl. doesn’t want to get close to anyone unless she has to?? and when she does get close to ppl it’s usually so she can manipulate them in some way or bc she wants to Use them

keeps “friends” around to make her feel wanted and important and make her feel better about herself

rough around the edges. no time for fuck boys but at the same time.........would probably fuck anyone because she wants to be wanted LMAO

like she is very outwardly aggressive & annoyed when ppl hit on her but then will text them at 2am to be like come over

10000% a party bitch. catch her getting fucked uP at every single party

will talk to anyone but also....still hates most ppl

some more info !!!!

she rly doesn’t need to be in school ??? like she doesn’t need a career bc she’s got money from her parents. she doesnt even give a fuck about psychology but.....she figured might as well go to college anyway

doesnt care if she does well she’s just here to fuck around and party

what she actually rly loves is music!!!!!! she has a very lovely singing voice and can play a couple of instruments. she started writing music as an outlet after her brother died & it’s just been something she’s been in love with ever since. lowkey tho

she always looks...........amazing tbH. the last thing she wants is for ppl to see how dead inside she is so she’s always dressed to the 9s. perfect makeup, flawless hair, killer outfit, sky high heels, u know. you’ll never catch her in sweatpants or with a single hair out of place

she’s on the cheer squad & she plays volleyball!!!!

loves yoga & does a lot of pilates as well. she’s fit af but......lowkey thinks her body is disgusting lmao

rly doesn’t believe she is worthy of love so she’s just.........out here trying to have a good time and pretend everything is a-okay even though she is.............................still dying inside sahfdjskfjd

wanted connections!!!

everything tbh. a REAL friend, maybe. exes, fwbs/hook ups, people she manipulates, ppl she parties with, a drug dealer, enemies, fake friends, i want it All.

[tfw-no-tennis]

ani....morphs.....

ok so picking up after the david trilogy, which hit hard as FUCK, we have book 23, which basically was a semi truck that ran over my corpse, jesus christ, they really followed up the david trilogy w/all that....

23 was so so good and also painful. its the culmination of a lot of tobias’s characterization in the series thus far and also we finally get the reveal we’ve been waiting for about elfangor....ooooh man 

and there was a lot of painful stuff in this book but the worst imo was tobias wondering if it were possible that somebody wanted him and would take care of him, only to have it all come crashing down in the worst way when it turned out aria was visser three in morph, ouch. 

that was so brutal augh. and when he figured it out and just crash landed and kept thinking about how he wanted to die and how he was stupid to think he could have a home...bro get these kids some THERAPY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

so yeah that book was absolutely brutal but also so good...and it further fleshed out the animorphs working as a near-flawless team, w/the whole setup of tobias meeting w/the lawyer being so airtight and well-planned 

also more free hork bajir!! its cool that there's stuff happening w/them offscreen, I like that 

I literally had to take a break from reading the books bc the david triology + 23 was like so much, and also bc the olympics were on and all my time got dedicated to watching those, but then I opened 24, not sure what to expect, and BAM it was the helmacrons lmaoooo

I don't even remember the helmacrons but ig a lot of people hate them? lmao so that whole reputation preceded the book and I was like oh wow time for a change in tone

which wasn't wrong but also I liked that book?? I was never bored, even tho the whole thing was patently ridiculous and also had very little bearing on the overarching story

but I think it would be a standout if it were a TV episode w/a good budget - the visuals were amazing even in text, and I can imagine all the cool shrinking/growing/cellular stuff would be WICKED cool visually (ideally 2d animation but an ant man-esque live action adaptation wouldn't be terrible if they had the budget for it)

whatever let me dream. so yeah I didn't hate the helmacron book even tho the helmacrons themselves were...sure something. lmao I think they come back? that should be interesting

next book is the arctic one, we have yet another alien of the week style adventure - I liked this one too, it felt like more plot-y stuff happened since they destroyed the base, and marco’s POV is always fun 

I do find it funny/interesting how sometimes when the animorphs do something - like in this book, destroying that base in the arctic - it doesn't really seem to impact the yeerks much/it doesn't get brought up much after that. and then other things like them destroying the ground-based kandrona get mentioned a lot (that example is understandable tho bc that WAS a big deal). its just hilarious to me how blowing up entire building complexes has become so routine that it isn’t even worth mentioning at this point

Also I adore when they meet other random people/kids and are chill w/them, like w/that kid they met in the rain forest earlier on w/the time travel 

the descriptions of the brutally cold weather were great. I hate the cold so I was like oof this is a nightmare lmao

also ig that was the first ghostwritten book and I did kinda notice it was slightly different than usual? maybe? I could be imagining it tho 

okay but book 26 tho...BOOK 26. bruh 

that was SO good and I really didn’t know what to expect - but when we finally revisited Jake’s dream w/crayak I knew it was gonna be good (but I didn’t expect it to be a chess game war epic..!)

basically I loved it. SUCH a good Jake book - I really appreciate his character now as opposed to when I was 10 and often overlooked him (sorry jake).

similarly, when I was a kid and read these I sympathized a lot w/the chee and felt bad for them towards the end of the series when they had to get more involved in the war (genuinely don’t remember what they even do but ik I felt bad) 

but now I've basically 180′d and I'm like damn those chee sure are hypocrites huh. 

like they could solve So many of the animorphs problems but their stringent adherence to nonviolence leads to them actively getting in the animorphs way sometimes? and obviously pacifism is a complicated topic, but in this case it also intersect w/the whole ‘child soldier’ thing, and as beings who are insanely old and wise, the chee probably shouldn't just leave all the dirty work to a bunch of literal middle schoolers

aaaaanyways. there’s so much I love about this book. the iskoort! they were sure something. and the ‘plot twist’ that they are actually 2 beings, the Isk and the Yoort - and the Yoort are essentially Yeerks - that slapped. the symbiosis of it all! 

I loved the part where they all realize what this means, that this is why Crayak wants the iskoort destoryed - because someday the yeerks might come across them and realize parasitism is not the only way. I love it! 

alas I don’t recall the iskoort returning in the story (but also my memory is terrible so who knows?) but still that would be cool

basically I feel like this is the book where Jake Truly comes into his own as a leader, in every sense. he outmaneuvers Crayak, and even the ellimist, who’s yanking them around in his own way

the scene where jake shoves the howler off the cliff and jumps off and morphs and acquires the howler...that was fantastic and tense. 

also the murder is definitely becoming more overt. I mean, it has been for a while, but it isn’t really pointed out as much anymore. oof

more on the chee - as Jake points out in this book, and other characters point out in other books - the chee could have saved the pemalites, but instead just stood by while their creators were slaughtered. on the other hand, jake says, what do the chee do AFTER they’ve killed the howlers - where to point them next? when is the end of their violence? 

buuuuut also standing by while atrocities occur is pretty damning, as is frequently mentioned in this series - from the very beginning, when marco initially doesn’t want to get involved in the war at all, and the other animorphs basically tell him that turning his back on the war and acting like he doesn’t even know it’s happening would be immoral and cowardly (which imo this reaction helps to push marco in the direction he ends up going, but I digress) - this topic comes up again in 19 when cassie quits the team and rachel is upset bc she sees it as cassie elevating her own feelings above the greater good (as in, as long as cassie feels good about how she acts, it doesn’t matter how much preventable evil the yeerks are committing while she turns away). etc etc. but that’s essentially what’s happening w/the chee - even tho they help w/intel, the lack of any sort of Action on their part means that they’re essentially allowing awful things to happen when they could prevent them. this is rambly but basically...animorphs deals so much in grey areas, and the chee are noticeably black and white in their actions, despite falling, in a meta sense, in an extremely grey area. its such good, thought provoking writing!

anywayssss I keep talking about the chee lmao what else was there. oh YEAH jake and cassie kissed for the first time awww that was super cute 

and ofc immediately marco teases them as asks jake if he’s gonna kiss him next, and all I can say is...marco is a bicon 

also I love the background worldbuilding w/the iskoort, how they have all these groups and guilds and stuff - its not dwelled on much, which actually works really well to give the world/species a sense of lived-in realness 

okay oh man and the reveal at the end that the howlers were just like...children who thought the whole thing was a game...AUGHH man that’s sooo fucked 

like, when jake morphs the howler and has rachel ready to knock him down in grizzly morph if he gets out of control due to the howler’s murderous instincts, and he morphs to find that the howler is...playful, like a dolphin morph. SUCH a good fucked up sense of dawning horror there 

and the fact that as far as I can tell the chee KNEW this, but wanted revenge anyways, so they let the animorphs assume that the howlers were Evil On Purpose

also I love smaller moments, like jake seeing that ax is ashamed for briefly running away during one battle w/the howlers, and then entrusts him w/an important task bc he knows that ax will see that as redemption - and when everyone thought jake was dead and were so happy when he wasn't (they all love each other so much im gonna cry about these child soldiers augh)

basically that book was so good

man one thing I absolutely love is that the longer the series goes on the more obvious it is that andalites, despite inventing morphing technology, barely use it themselves 

like, most of the andalite characters we see barely morph. its kind of a last resort to them, as they’re already plenty dangerous in their regular forms 

meanwhile for the animorphs, that’s all they have to fight with. that’s their only weapons against the yeerks, and its so fun to see them use the power in so many varied ways, and so creatively, while the andalites have barely scratched the surface of their own technology

its also interesting to contrast against the yeerks who start out w/absolutely no technology, and the andalites share some but not all of their technology w/them...its too bad that morphing technology was just starting out cause that would’ve been interesting

like imo a lot of the conflict w/the yeerks could’ve been avoided if they could just nothlit into better forms - of course, there’d still be plenty of yeerks who want to go start wars or w/e, just like pretty much any species in the series, but a lot of yeerks would probably be like ‘yeah I'm good’ and just chill out as nothlits

also people online love to talk about how humans are alienfuckers and would definitely have sex w/sentient aliens and whatnot, and while I'm not saying that's untrue, its just funny bc in animorphs the truest alienfuckers are definitely the andalites

as of the hork-bajir chronicles, we now have a second instance of an andalite morphing another species to be in an inter-species alien romance (and eventually have kids) 

speaking of, I don’t think I’ve talked abt the hork bajir chronicles yet??? even tho I read it a while ago lmao 

HBC was great...I honestly haven’t really run into an animorphs book I’ve actually disliked at this point, I’m sure it’ll come w/all the ghostwriting and whatnot, but I’ve liked at least some aspects of every book

anyways HBC was great, and it’s funny bc I remember that I read this book as a kid, and yet rereading it now I didn’t remember a single bit of it lmaooo

I really liked the framing device of the free hork bajir telling this story to tobias. I also liked how we know from the beginning that this story wont have a happy ending - we know all the hork bajir end up enslaved by the yeerks, but it’s still somehow hopeful at the end? I think this is largely due to the framing device tbh. 

also I love toby, and I love that the First free hork bajir named their kid after tobias ;_; 

and oooh mannn I LOVED the different POVs from this book. all the characters were so interesting! aldrea was fascinating - I really like the increasingly negative view of the andalites that the readers are getting, all while maintaining the sense that they aren’t like, actively evil, just that they have their issues - like aldrea’s arrogance, and the general andalite arrogance which lead to the loss of the hork bajir. also, who knew andalites had their own brand of sexism? Ls

I did like getting a female andalite tho, that was cool. and dak was really cool, he was such a good, compassionate character who was able to maintain his morals in an interesting way throughout the story

and VISSER THREE...or should I say esplin 9466, because he’s not visser 3 yet...getting his ‘origin story’ was excellent - I really like how we’re learning about visser 3 backwards - we start off the series w/him as the main villain, and he’s campy and menacing, and then we see him in the andalite chronicles as a power-hungry sub-visser trying to climb the ranks and eventually getting alloran as a host, and then back even further here, w/the start of his focus on the andalites and the beginning of his ambition. its been very cool and interesting to see

plus, the beginning of the yeerks as we know them! seerow! alloran! it’s a party and nobody is having a good time, except for some of the yeerks. 

I like how it’s pretty obvious that the andalites are well-meaning with their interactions w/the yeerks, but go about it the wrong way - they give them enough technology that the yeerks realize there’s a whole world out there to experience, and then they blockade the yeerks on their planet and tell them they can’t leave. nnnnot the best approach imo

again, as I said above, I’m interested in how things could’ve gone if the andalites had given the yeerks morphing technology early on - could a lot of the conflict have been avoided, or would it have been worse? the yeerks seem pretty evil in this book, immediately jumping to enslave anyone they can. otoh we hear from esplin that not all yeerks like having host bodies, and find it overwhelming, preferring to swim around in the yeerk pool as a slug - I assume as host bodies became more available this type of thinking was probably stamped out in yeerk society or w/e, but there are a lot of interesting what-ifs in the situation 

I loved the scene where esplin first experiences having a host, and immediately knows he can’t go back. there are a bunch of great sensory descriptions, and it’s a nice scene to pinpoint as a foundational moment for the visser three in the current story, who spent a lot of time and energy getting what he sees as the best possible host body, an andalite

I find it interesting how much visser three clearly respects the andalites, even while constantly deriding them. and you can see the origins of that here as he immediately focuses in on the andalites, working to become an expert on them in order to make himself useful enough to move thru the ranks

another thing I like is how esplin seems a lot more crafty and ambitious than the visser three from modern times - I would guess that reaching his goal (andalite host body) and being given all that power was detrimental, playing on his weaknesses instead of his strengths. basically, I don’t think it’s ooc or anything, I can see how HBC-esplin became animorphs-esplin, especially w/TAC in between

as for seerow...poor dude. you really do have to feel for him, because you get the sense he really did just want to be kind to the yeerks, but it was borne from a place of pity, and he (and the other andalites) consistently held too much power over the yeerks for the species relations to ever be truly equal and functional 

AUGH I have so many thoughts about alien space politics. omg. I need to talk about the actual story lmao

so yeah I also feel for aldrea, she had a rough time, watching her entire family die and being thrown into a hopeless war

and then the andalite council or w/e not listening to her bc she's a girl AND seerow’s daughter...oof

also, I really really liked the running theme of the andalites - specifically aldrea - looking down on the hork bajir as ‘simple’ and constantly underestimating them, especially dak

and I like how this is portrayed as a bad attitude for aldrea to have, and she still remains and interesting and sympathetic character even while having obvious flaws. it’s about being 3-dimensional baby!

and oh man I love that dak realizes that aldrea looks down on him, and his entire species, but he can see that that’s how the andalites are, and it all connects back to the beginning of the story w/the yeerks, bc the andalites looked down on the yeerks and treated them with pity and kept them pinned under their proverbial thumb ‘for their own good’ and look how that turned out 

but dak is wise and kind enough to not hate aldrea for this, even acknowledging when she’s using him, but not pushing her away because he recognizes good in her too - and she ends up changing, partially because of his faith in her

and I feel like it can all be compared to that scenario of like - a hypothetical creature that lives in a 2D world suddenly being thrust into a 3D world, and comprehending what its seeing, and understanding that there’s so much more out there outside of the flat lines of its world - and then its dropped back into 2D-land with the knowledge of all the stuff its missing out on, and no way to get back to it or explain it to anybody else

I loooove that ‘trope’ or w/e you wanna call it, and it’s done beautifully here w/the yeerks - whos the say they wouldn't have been fine in their pool swimming around; as esplin said, a lot of the yeerks were terrified of having a host, it was only from the andalites’ perspective that their lives were sad and pitiful, and the andalites showed them what the world could be like, and then said ‘no, you can’t travel the stars like we do, you have to stay here on your planet and do what we say.’

and then again, w/the hork bajir - dak talks about how, even though he drinks up the knowledge that aldrea gives him, in the end it might have been better to just have lived peacefully, not knowing what was in the sky or the Deep - as aldrea says: “It was too late for Dak: he knew that the stars were not flowers.” 

plus the hork bajir having to go from a completely peaceful species who don’t even understand the concept of violence, to a bunch of soldiers fighting a war...oof 

basically everyone in this story uses the hork bajir. the yeerks use them as hosts, the andalites use their planet as a convenient place to dump seerow and then take their sweet time coming to help, and the arn created them as means to stabilize the planet, but block them off from their society and refuse to help when the yeerks come

like, the arn modifying themselves to be un-infestable by the yeerks and then being enslaved for physical labor instead? oof guys. if they had teamed up w/the hork bajir resistance things might have gone better, but probably not 

more on aldrea - throughout the story I was always thinking ‘how am I supposed to see her? as a good person, or as a bad person?’ 

as a POV character, especially a ‘good guy’ andalite, you just start off automatically thinking of her as a good person, but as the story goes on, she starts getting lost in revenge and begins using dak and the hork bajir, and you’re left wondering if this is a story about her slide into darkness, and then towards the end of the story her character development culminates in her making the decision to stay w/the hork bajir, and the be with dak, and that’s about when I went ‘ohhh right this is animorphs so every character is pretty much gonna be grey’

I feel like that moral grey-ness was on full display w/aldrea, and I really enjoyed that. I love so much when characters who are good do bad things, for good or bad reasons, especially in media like animorphs that’s aimed at kids. it’s so compelling. 

oof, and the ending when aldrea convinces dak to mobilize the hork bajir and teach them violence...and dak asks her if she’s ever killed another andalite, and she’s horrified, and says of course she hasn’t, and he says that that’s what she’s asking him, and all the hork bajir, to do - to kill their own people, even if they are being controlled by the yeerks. biiiig oof. I love that dak can keep up w/aldrea and her andalite supremacy attitude - it seems that the non-andalite characters who get along best w/the andalites are the ones who wont take their bs 

what else happened....oh my god how could I forget about alloran, and his quantum virus. oooof. I like how we find out about alloran in parallel to visser three, in the same backwards way - in animorphs he’s the tragic host of visser three, in TAC he’s the disgraced but still semi-respected war-prince who becomes the first ever andalite controller, and here he’s the guy who decides to commit some war crimes because, hey, we haven’t tried that yet 

but yeah that was fucked up, I love it. I’ve said it before I think but I like that alloran isn’t some perfect martyr tragically taken by the yeerks - it’s a lot more compelling that he’s a very flawed person who was taken as a controller partially due to his own bloodthirstiness. 

but yeah, the part where aldrea morphs alloran and ‘sneaks’ into that room was great. aldrea’s dedication to disposing of the virus is a great indicator of her character development - it really feels like the straw that broke the camels back w/re: to the andalites not being what she thought they were, w/their tardiness coming to help the hork bajir planet and the way her father was treated being the precursors to this realization. it all culminates nicely in aldrea saying ‘fuck this actually’ and nothlit-ing into a hork bajir.

and it’s really tragic but realistic that even though aldrea and dak end up seeing eye to eye at the end and getting together, the virus ends up being released anyways (and fails in its objective to stop the yeerks from using the hork bajir - the whole thing was p much a lose-lose situation oof), and aldrea and dak still die fighting a hopeless war 

but then we have the free hork bajir on earth, including toby, who, like tobias, has andalite ancestry, but no DNA to show for it - I like that they have that connection as well as tobias being her namesake

so yeah I enjoyed that one and its many-layered themes

WOW this got long uuuuuhhh ok I think i’ll leave this one off here. at the time I’m actually finishing the writing and editing, I’m on book 35 lol so I have some backlogging to do. never fear, I have a lot to say....

[bmgmw]

a hypothetical Riverdale scenario

Heads up this is gonna be long, so more after the cut. So I rewatched all of Riverdale and here’s my current theory. I’m not swearing by any of this in the slightest, just having fun theorizing! And since this show is on the CW, why not get a little crazy with it (okay I got a lot crazy, sorry!)?

Okay let’s break it down into four components: Riverdale parents, Jason & Polly, Grundy (this theory operates under the assumption she’ll either return late this season or next season), and the Riverdale kids. I think that certain Riverdale parents are connected to plotting the murder, Grundy connected to the actual murder, Jason and Polly’s situation just incidental timing, and the Riverdale kids are going to be the ones to figure it all out (which goes with the show’s theme of ‘breaking assumptions’—as Jughead tells Betty, ‘we are not our parents’). Clearly there a lot of parallels between the parents and the kids, and the kids solving the murder and changing dynamics would be one way to break those assumptions and parallels.

Let’s start with the adults. In the Riverdale One Shot Comics (set in canon, showing what the kids did over that summer), we learn that Hiram Lodge was arrested on the evening of July 4th (I can’t remember if this is mentioned in the show as well or not). We also know he’s still basically conducting his shady business from prison. He wants to gain real estate/control of Riverdale, and he hires the Serpents to lower the value on the drive in property so he can buy it for a cheap price via Hermione.

So what does this have to do with Jason? Well, we know both the Lodges and the Coopers have antagonistic relationships with the Blossoms. But while the Coopers’ bad blood with the Blossoms stems from more personal reasons (old blood feud, Jason/Polly, Penny vs Alice catfighting), the Lodges’ beef with the Blossoms is more business related. Penelope says the Lodges have sticky fingers, Hermione says Penelope doesn’t know the difference between money and class, and then there’s noteworthy bit from Jason’s funeral:

Penelope: You think you’re so clever coming here offering your pity?                 Hermione: What are you talking about? Penelope: …So you’ve come to gloat? With the warmest regards from your husband, I’m sure….

While it hasn’t explicitly been stated, the Blossoms most likely still run the Riverdale maple industry. The town is proud of their maple. And what does the maple industry need? Maple trees, of course. With Hiram wanting to develop and take over Riverdale, I think he wanted to develop on the forest surrounding Sweetwater River. There’s certainly disdain from the Blossoms regarding Hiram (as seen in that Penelope/Hermione bit, and it can also be seen in the entire dinner conversation with how Clifford speaks to Veronica about the maple industry and then takes digs at Hiram).

What’s one way to make Sweetwater River less appealing and make it easier to get approval to build around? A murder would certainly do it. And a murder of the competition’s son in particular would definitely send a message to the Blossoms (one that Penelope seems to be aware of in that bit she has with Hermione at the funeral). So I think the murder was planned by Hiram. I think Hiram wanted to get arrested on July 4th, so he could say he has a solid alibi of being in police custody. My guess is he planned to send a Serpent, let’s say KP perhaps, to actually do the job after Hiram was safely arrested, and pay him well (this is possibly why KP says to her the money wasn’t enough).

However, this is a CW show, I highly doubt it’s as simple as “Hiram hired the Serpents and KP killed Jason, the end”. So let’s get a little crazy with this theory. So even though KP was demanding the extra money from Hermione (who I don’t think knew about Hiram planning the murder), I’m going to theorize he was doing so without having been the one to actually end up killing Jason. But since Jason ends up dead anyway and Hiram is away in prison, he figures he can take credit (to Hiram, not publicly ofc) for the murder and trick Hiram to paying him anyway (at least before Jughead gets questioned, I think FP changes his plan after that).

So who actually murdered Jason? Grundy, but not in connection to Hiram at all. So let’s back track a little first to the whole Jason & Polly situation. We know Jason and Polly dated. With Jason now dead and Polly being an unreliable narrator (as most of these people are tbh), we have to sort of piece together the reality of their relationship via context clues. Based on the fact that Jason wrote Polly’s name in the hook up book and based on the way Polly talks about Jason, I think Jason cared about her, but just not as much as she cared about him. And when Polly tells Jason about being pregnant, he’s probably freaked out to how the parents will react due to the Cooper-Blossom feud/the fact that they’re all nuts, so he proposes to Polly and tells her they’ll run away and start a new life. As confirmed by Trevor (football player that Betty goes on a date with), Jason begins selling his stuff and selling drugs to earn his own money. I think during this time he gets involved with the Serpents (re: the drugs). So now the Serpents, already hired by Hiram for the murder, now have double the reason to keep a close eye on Jason.

Jason and Polly hide the car (that Betty and Jughead later find), and Jason enlists Cheryl to help pull off his disappearance plan, but doesn’t tell her much beyond the fact that he wants to run away from their overbearing parents. They go through with the boat ride and Jason makes it to the other side of the river. He waits for Polly, who obviously never shows because Alice sends her away (how did Alice find out? Probably read her diary like she did to Betty). After waiting a while, Jason becomes worried and decides to search for Polly. But he’s too far into this plan to actually back out of it and go home. Jason gets back to the Riverdale side of the river (perhaps w/ help from Sabrina who lives on the Greendale side? Or maybe he just swims, he is captain of the water polo team after all).

So Jason is alone in the woods, a prime opportunity for KP to carry out the task: capture Jason and then kill him once Hiram has his alibi of being arrested. But before that even gets a chance of happening, Jason is taken by Grundy (I’m assuming here that her story about her ex is fake). We know Jason was getting “independent study” from Grundy before Archie (so like end of previous school year), so I’m willing to bet it was of similar nature….except unlike Archie, he rejected her advances. We know Grundy was at the river with Archie at 6 AM that morning when they heard Dilton’s gunshot, but we don’t know what happened after. We know the Blossom twins arrived at the river around a just a bit earlier (“just after dawn”, narrates Jughead). In Dilton’s flashback when he reveals he saw Grundy’s car at the river, it’s only the car shown, there’s less daylight and the campfire fit doesn’t look like it’s been used (which is different compared to the lake flashbacks of Archie/Grundy at 6 AM). So I’m guessing he saw the car earlier than 6.  I think Grundy got to lake early to wait to meet up with Archie and she saw Cheryl and Jason drive by that road near the lake edge. Archie arrives closer to 6, they have their little picnic rendezvous, and they hear Dilton’s gunshot after 6. They split up. Archie leaves to go to work or whatever boring Archie thing he does, and Grundy gets in her car and leaves, encounters Jason along the road in the woods, and offers him a ride (typical Grundy move). Desperate, he accepts. She lets him stay at her place and hide out, and once again she tries to make an advance. But he rejects her again, telling her about Polly, which sets her off. So she ties him up, keeps him hostage for a week (trying to win him over), and eventually shoots him on the 11th (we know she has a gun). She dumps the body in the river, since she knows that’s where he was last spotted and where Cheryl said he drowned (and water helps rid of some evidence). Like Betty says in her end of 1x04 monologue, “Maybe I was right about some things too. Maybe Miss Grundy was dangerous in some way”. All those references about how Jason and Archie resemble each other (plus the football similarities) make sense in this scenario. The murder target wasn’t supposed to be Archie, as some people theorize, but it certainly could have been had things gone differently. And if Grundy comes back before being found out as the murderer, well, Archie could be in trouble then possibly as her next attempted victim (especially if she sees him w/ Valerie/whatever girl he’s into at that time). The fact that in 1x04 they bring up jail as an option but agree to her volunteering to quit and leave town makes me think she won’t leave town forever….

So what about FP and Jason’s car? Well I think he followed Jughead and Betty to protect Jughead. He saw Jughead got his prints all over it, so to protect him, as well as himself (due to the drugs) connection, he torches the car. As much of a drunk that FP is, he does seem to care about his son, and he clearly did not want to see him getting in trouble with the sheriff, especially for something he didn’t do. As for Jason’s jacket, I think he kept it in order to plant it on someone else, probably Fred Andrews. Fred is a pretty good person to frame: Fred and the Blossoms seem to have some sort of drama going judging by the 1x08 promo of Fred confronting Clifford (“you’re ruining my son’s chances”), Fred is very passionate about Archie’s football and Archie taking over Jason’s spot wouldn’t help a framed Fred look good, Fred won the construction contract for constructing Hiram’s former drive in property (thus tying him to Hiram on paper) with Hiram’s wife as his bookkeeper and romantic interest. The more Fred ties himself unknowingly to the Lodges’ business, the better he becomes as the person to frame. And FP certainly has personal reasons to plant the jacket to frame Fred. And if seeing what Jughead is going through really makes FP want to try to change his ways, then focusing on framing Fred, as messed up as it is, puts the spotlight on Fred and the Lodges, not the Serpents and the Lodges. It would set up FP in a good spot. Hiram wouldn’t rat FP out because doing so would also implicate Hiram, since FP didn’t actually murder Jason he’s technically innocent, and if FP goes to work with Fred again, he wouldn’t have an apparent motive to frame Fred…..but the other Serpents would since Fred and FP would be destroying the Serpent hang out spot. So even if people started to realize Fred was framed, FP doesn’t appear to have as much motive as the rest of the Serpents. Additionally, Molly Ringwald is set to appear in episode ten as Mary Andrews (Archie’s mom). According to Variety, she “blows back into town in her family’s hour of need”. Fred being framed for murder would be a pretty compelling hour of need and reason for her to show up. (i also think everyone’s gonna air their dirty laundry out at the homecoming dance in this ep, and we’ll get more of the adults backstories of their relatonships–like how Mary, Hermione, and Alice were friends).

(And one last loose end: Hal and the murder board. I think he just wanted to protect Polly and her secrets tbh. The poor guy was crying at home videos of her.)

Anyway, if anything even close to this hypothetical craziness happens, then I reckon that Season 2′s “Big Bads” are going to be Hiram, potentially Grundy round 2 (to actually finish her story line), and probably a new person.

Of course…..I could be way off on all of this, and it was really Kevin the whole time. XD

[artlessictoan]

Also, Smoke Into The Sand w/ 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15! OoO As a side-note I haven't read this yet (SHAME ON ME BC I WANNA) and i'm SUPER interested in it!

asdfjskdjskdjfsk this is gonna get long fukc

What inspired you to write the fic this way?

my main goal with sits was to make it read like an old myth or storybook, an old tale that would be passed down for generations, the majority of the fic is written in that style exactly, but the overall story definitely is (and it does come through a bit more in how the backstory is told and some of the more important scenes)

that said, the main narrative is written much more slice-of-life-y, one of my biggest inspirations for this fic is the manga monogatari (bride’s story), it’s a really nice series that explores the daily life of people in various areas along the silk road, it has that simple, everyday life feel that i love and really wanted to write into sits! that’s where the random details about desert living and the tribe’s lifestyle come in (warning for anyone who might want to check out mono though: it does have an arranged marriage between a 20 yr old woman and a 12 yr old boy, it’s being played as a more platonic/familial relationship thus far but i can totally understand why it would put people off, so just a heads-up before anyone jumps in)

What scene did you first put down?

the first scene i actually started writing was the very first scene! but the very first scene, the one that spawned this entire fic i haven’t actually gotten to yet, it’s gonna be v near the end and i’m dying to finally reveal it because it’s gonna be Big.. but i shalln’t spoil it here, just something for my readers to look forwards to

What’s your favorite line of narration?

ok so like i said i’m shit at remembering any of what i write and it’s a bit more than just a line but fuck it:

Gaara froze, in fact, everything did. The soft whistling ofthe wind cut off into eerie silence, the constantly shifting sand stopped witha suddenness that was entirely unnatural, Naruto glanced away for a second andsaw that some grains were being held in the air, perfectly still. He turned hisgaze back to the spirit before him, his expression hadn’t changed at all, hewas still glaring, but his eyes were unfocussed, like they weren’t reallylooking at him.

Naruto was too scared to move, to speak; hecould only stare and pray that he hadn’t just sealed his own death warrant.

What’s your favorite line of dialogue?

again, not a line, but i really love this exchange between nart and ameno so effing much:

“So mature… You’re growing up too fast, how am I ever goingto keep up?” she asked, mostly to herself judging from the distant look on herface.

He slowly drew his hand back once her face wasdry and gave her a confused look. “You won’t have to; I’ll just carry you withme.

What part was hardest to write?

well i might just be saying this cause it’s the most recent struggle i faced (among many) but the chapter six reALLY killed me. trying to find the right way to describe the exhaustion and constant fear took many, many weeks and i’m still not sure i really nailed it (hopefully something i’ll be able to fix in the next chap)

What makes this fic special or different from all your other fics?

other than being the first multi-chap fic i’ve ever written, this is actually one of my oldest fic ideas ever, seriously it’s been kicking around in my head for a good five years or so now so there’s that

it also happens to contain basically All of my Special Interests; naruto, deserts, nomadic culture, boring minutia, swords.... honestly the only thing it’s missing is cats (though i’m sure i can find some way to work them in too..)

and, honestly, this is kinda my magnum opus? or at least that’s how i’ve always thought of it, i had actually planned to not start writing it until i’d already done a few other fics because i wanted to make sure my writing skill was at its best before starting such an ambitious fic.. yeah that didn’t happen, but i think that’s actually worked out alright, jumping in with a harder fic right at the start of my writing ‘career’ has been a bit of a crash-course and taught me a heck of a lot, i still think it’s gonna be one of the best things i ever write though. it just has a very special place in my heart

Where did the title come from?

well tbh i’m kinda shit at titles, so i usually just hunt through the first chap looking for any particularly poetic-sounding line that would work (though in this case it does have a nice little easter egg, since in arab folklore jinn are made of smoke!)

Did any real people or events inspire any part of it?

hmm not really? the whole thing is meant to be very fantastical and unreal (despite all the slice-of-life stuff), the only real-world insp comes from my research into bedouin lifestyle and such

What do you like best about this fic?

gaara! i mean ofc i like him in anything but this version of gaa - silent, detached, barely human, incredibly complex - is one of my faves and he’s really fun to write, we’ll be finding out more about him as the fic goes on and when we do it’ll make his actions before now both more understandable and less at the same time (he’s quite the paradox)

What do you like least about this fic?

the inconsistency. i feel like i must’ve gone through about ten different writing styles throughout the course of it and it bothers me that i haven’t quite got that storybook feel i was always aiming for, i’ll probably do a rewrite when i’ve got more experience under my belt and try to make the whole thing a bit more cohesive

What music did you listen to, if any, to get in the mood for writing this story? Or if you didn’t listen to anything, what do you think readers should listen to to accompany us while reading?

as with btc, i mostly listen to soundtracks, since songs with lyrics really distract me when writing, since i like to try and match the music i listen to to the setting/tone of what i’m writing i try to listen to classical middle-eastern music (though i’ve had a hard time finding many albums of just instrumental stuff, if anyone has any recs i’d love you forever!)

in addition to that there’s the soundtracks of Journey, Bastion, Dreamfall Chapters and the Prince of Persia games and for instrumental artists i really like Break of Reality and Tina Guo for sits insp!

Is there anything you wanted readers to learn from reading this fic?What did you learn from writing this fic?

hmm, well i’d love it if people learned a bit more about the cultures i’m writing about (and i’d like to learn more of that too tbh, i’m still finding out new things that i actually got wrong earlier on in the fic), maybe even get interested enough to go looking for more info themselves, because there’s a lot of stuff that i simply won’t be able to go into much detail about

as for myself, well ^that and also it’s just been a rEALLY good experience in so many small ways - writing longer fics, writing in general, character interaction, introspection, action, plotting, description, suspense, mystery..... i could go on but yeah, basically it’s helped me grow as an author in Every Single Way and i’m sure it’ll help ever more before it’s done!