🦥

misty cannibalizing nat through her grief, not by eating her whole, but instead consuming the skin of her. grafting the masks nat wore onto herself. striping away nat's flesh and wearing it as her own, but never rendering the meat and bones underneath into an unrecognizable mush. her grief is eating at her, but she won't let her grief eat away at her understanding of who natalie was, the memory of her. she sees a reflection of nat in a mirror, rather than the ghost of her. nat's death haunts her, yes---the guilt gnaws at her, sending her into a spiral of whiskey and self-destructive behavior, paralleling nat yet again---but what remains of nat in her psyche is not a personification of her own guilt and doubt and self-hatred, but instead a vessel for self-actualization. she stands up for herself in that bar. she's combative when she thinks the two men are laughing at her, finally asserting herself in face of the bullying and shame she's been subjected to all her life. she lashes out at walter, finally asserting boundaries, finally verbalizing how much she hates the dynamic she has with him---and in tern expressing how much she hates the dynamic she has with the others, even if she isn't able to admit it yet. misty is tired of feeling used and ignored and forgotten---just as nat was and still is, even in death---and through donning nat's own armor (her leather jacket and eyeliner) and grieving her loss, misty will be able to transform into something beyond the roles she's forced herself to play for so long. misty's love for nat isn't destructive and all-consuming, but transformative and mending