You tried to gut me blondie

Probably my favourite sibling relationship in any form of media because it is so realistic. It is raw and bitter and yet they are the most loving siblings on the show. Spencer and Melissa are wretched mirrors of each other and they know it, and that is exactly what having a sister is like.

The whole family dynamic drives me insane. It's an incredibly dysfunctional family that forces both of them to have to curate this very particular image. The two see each other as competition, as enemies, as the only people who will ever understand what goes down under that roof. 'Protecting her before it started.'

Melissa, who had grown to hate Spencer. Spencer who had grown to hate Melissa. Abel and Cain, Romulus and Remus. Melissa genuinely believed Spencer of raising that weapon and bringing it down onto the head of the girl she considered a sister. Melissa, watching her blood, spill blood. The person she was raised to hate, raised to love inside the hell of the Hastings house, where the first priority is to protect their name.

Abel watching Cain, Cain watching Abel. Melissa watching Spencer walk away from the murder and Melissa asking herself. "Am I my brother's keeper?" The answer being yes, always yes. 'protecting her since it started.'

Melissa, never saying a word. Melissa, accepting that Spencer didn't remember. Melissa being her keeper and letting her live in ignorance. Melissa being so so angry about the thing she cannot talk about, so she is angry about other things, about the boyfriends and the barn and all these other things because she cannot say why she is angry. That she is angry because Spencer turned them into their father. Spilled blood on her hands, the same blood that is Spencer's.

And Spencer keeps looking for answers. When the answer is looking through the mirror. She keeps trying and it drives Melissa insane. 'You don't understand'

And then Spencer asks these questions, like: if you had to choose between me and someone you loved, who would you choose.

And Melissa doesn't answer. Spencer looks at her devastated. Melissa throws the question back and tries to ignore that feeling when Spencer looks unsure of herself about her own answer. 'You've never understood'

who would you choose: the words always in Melissa's head. 'Are you your brother's keeper?' and the answers are yes, always yes. How dare Spencer think anything else.

(Spencer, who has been left out in the cold all her life. Who's keeper is herself and the walls she has built. Melissa has been built in the same way, the wretched mirror will never let either of them be warm.)

girl experiencing the hardest thing she's ever had to do

@riversongsource river song appreciation week: day 6 - favorite dynamic

ANNA TORV as Olivia Dunham (Fringe)

2.01 A New Day in the Old Town

2.02 Night of Desirable Objects

2.03 Fracture

2.04 Momentum Deferred