Walt Whitman, Song Of Myself

Walt Whitman, Song of Myself

Margaret Atwood, from a poem titled "Tricks With Mirrors," featured in You Are Happy

IC 1795, Fish

Sora Choi by Brianna Capozzi for Victoria’s Secret

the endless list of my favorite TV episodes : Pretty Little Liars - S01E01 « Pilot » - original air date : June 8, 2010

-I was hoping you'd be happy for me. -Well, you know what they say about hope. Breeds eternal misery.

so thanks to hboMAX my pretty little liars obsession has started up again and when i watched pll the first time all the way thru (yes sadly it’s been more than once i have a life but also don’t) my favorite character was alison. as i’ve watched it more it changed (emily or spencer is prob my fav now) but going through tumblr, instagram, and even pinterest, i feel alison gets too much shit/hate from the fandom. so here i am, making a justification for her. if you really don’t want to see my side or pov then just keep scrolling because i don’t really want to see negativity in the comments (unless you’ll actually say something, a rebuttal?)

so let’s start off with alison being a small child and her household/family. we know how her parents would manipulate her and tell her lying is better than telling the truth. she’s had these really bad influences on her at such a young age (with secrets overflowing her house) and when you continue to have these influences on you as you’re mind is maturing, of course you’re going to eventually go through with them. now yes i know the other girls also had lying parents but were any of them as bad as alisons? i mean some things spencer’s parents kept and arias but they were also older at that point (middle of high school and up). i’m not saying it’s okay but they knew at that point in their life what’s wrong and right and for the most part they had been raised to not lie. alison wasn’t. eventually her lies caught up to her as well so even though she learned the hard way to tell the truth, she eventually did.

now we’re getting into the high school stage where there were MANY points as to why she would’ve ran away. if the writers wanted a better redemption arc for her i feel they would’ve shown her a little more broken in some scenes and such but anyways. freshman year isn’t absolute hell but it’s not fun either. having the mindset of making sure you’re not the one who will get hurt obviously forces you to have this wall and makes you a lot more mean than you really are. (i really feel this was a wasted potential by the writers not going more in depth about her mental pain but shit they didn’t do it with anyone tbh). her whole life kinda had build ups to her being so secretive and closed away (again if the writers went into more depth on this we would’ve seen maybe some trauma that causes her to be closed off and push everyone away. not wanting to show weaknesses) from everyone so it definitely wasn’t hard for her to find that bitchier side and let it off on everyone, not that it’s right, it just made her feel safe and protected. a main factor of this was probably being closeted. i myself am a bisexual girl so i know how it feels to question yourself the way she most likely did. it’s scary. really fucking scary. because you don’t know if there’s something wrong with you at first or if it’s just a stage and you’ll most likely pass it. it’s why i believe her relationship with emily was why she had no big deal leaving rosewood. yes we know she was being tormented by A before the girls were and she wanted to leave so she could be safe. but even with that there would need to be some other factors that kicked in to her actually leaving. A in the beginning for JUST alison was kinda like a bully right? i mean a little more extreme than that but it wasn’t as bad as it was when it started hitting with the other 4 girls. so if alison THE alison dilaurentis was being bullied by someone too scared to show who they really are, wouldn’t she just laugh some of it off? alison WANTED to leave before mona gave her the option. she was scared. and not just of A, but of who she was. and who she loves.

if we’re looking at what alison does for emily versus the other girls while they’re being tormented by A, you can tell she cares for her more. she saved emily more than anyone else. she said leaving emily was the hardest part of it all. because alison was in love with emily, just like emily was in love with her back. obviously running away and faking your death isn’t the best option for having internal panics, some people just don’t know how to manage it. especially being the bold person everyone sees and talks about. imagine seeing her walk out of some therapy session teary-eyed. she’d feel so weak in that moment, so vulnerable. isn’t that one of her biggest fears? people seeing she’s not as strong as she comes off to be and they can use that against her. her fear for being vulnerable also brings me to her being SO scared coming back to school after faking her death. ali, the queen bee, is terrified. this kinda brings to me childhood pain (personally this is why i thought of it lol rip). maybe her family thought showing emotions was weakness you know? and when you open up they kinda laugh at you and they’re like “you think you’re life is hard?? you’re a kid.” (i’m sure i’m not the only person who’s heard this mf bullshit bedore). where i’m going with that though, is it could’ve been placed in her head at a very young age (also this is so dehumanizing and traumatic damn but it makes sense) that you have to shut out all feelings and emotions. it really makes people numb and being emotionally numb as a child and teen is dangerous for brain growth and development. makes sense why it took her forever to feel safe and okay opening up to emily about her feelings and showing emotions around the girls. when you’re seen as this “bitch” who doesn’t make down from a fight, it forces you to turn emotionless.

so the way she acted out the night she went missing and her freshman year wasn’t ideal and it really wasn’t okay. but the audience never saw what she was going through mentally, hell even after that. we see it a little when she comes back and talks about the night she went missing. imagine your own mother burrying you alive. god the trauma that must STILL have on her. being under pounds of dirts, unable to move or talk. your own mother doing this to you to save someone else. i’m not trying to put it as she’s only been through things and no one else has cus of course that’s not the case. i just think people often dismiss her pain and trauma and just say “she’s a bad person and deserves the shit she’s been through.”

i’d also like to add her type of crowd she was around wasn’t the best sort of people. imagining being a freshman and hanging out with college kids who would throw some girl down a flight of stairs. i feel like that also had an impact on her mental health and what she believed was okay to an extent because i mean verbally bullying isn’t okay but at least sis never pushed someone down the stairs 😭 (worst thing she did is definitely blinding jenna. i really don’t know how to defend her actions for that one. you could say she didn’t know anyone was in there? or that she didn’t know she had- it was a firework right?)

last point i can think of: paige vs alison. of course i have to add this lol but my main point with this is both girls were mean to each other. did alison start it by calling her names and such? most definitely. do i think paige should’ve retaliated? to an extent. but she went as far as teaming up with others to have alison go to jail for a crime she didn’t commit. their revival wasn’t just one sided and again i think people often forget that. they’re continuously like going against each other at every chance they got. it was funny but also got annoying. ali would shit talk to paiges face then paige would go whine and cry about it to emily to turn emily on her side. i mean did we forget paige manipulated emily against alison? (yes ik alison was the manipulation queen when she was younger). really what i’m going with this is that they’re more alike than they’ll admit to an extent. me personally, i like alison and emison more. i never really liked paily but paige grew less annoying in later seasons. but when comparing them, i believe paige had more damage on emily than alison did. even when alison was ‘dead’ she still saved emily’s life at times (including the other 3 girls) and did things to protect them. i don’t remember paige saving emily just trying drowning her because she was a little jealous. another thing i know someone will try to bring up about them is how “alison was never happy for emily” well shit bro neither was paige 😭 i’m on season 7 right now and there were some times paige took a liking into stalking emily while she was dating that girl who worked in the cafe (sorry i can’t remember her name rn). and when emily talked about being with that girl she was kinda like 😐 k. alison is the type to speak or show her mind while paige seems to keep to herself then shit talk others behind their back. both qualities aren’t exactly the best so both ‘sides’ can go against each other for years on this. they’re just more alike than people realize.

anyways, there’s that. if you have any opinions (WHERE YOU’LL ACTUALLY ARGUE SOMETHING AND NOT JUST SHIT TALK ME!!) feel free to leave a reply. and if i left out something you want me to add in i will :) have a good day <3