Marlowe

when Star tells Gene to leave, the script says “Gene fucks off. Star moves in close to Michael.” Idk why but just the literal stage direction being “gene fucks off” is absolutely killing me I love it

During Have to Have you, “Time slows for a beat as David locks eyes with Michael in the crowd” right before singing “your pulse is racing uh/it drives me crazy uh/ how can you blame me/ you’re so beautiful baby” which could mean nothing but also means EVERYTHING. What do you mean they wrote specifically “time slows down” when David and Michael first see each other???

When Michael sends Sam off to find Lucy bc he wants to be with Star, “Sam exits. Michael turns back to Star. He loves his brother.” It’s so small but yeah he does love his brother so much :(

“Star is charmed by him, damnit.” Again, fucking hilarious

“The Lost Boys and David share a look. This kid’s got balls.” In reference to when Michael doesn’t immediately give his name to David is soooo mhhhh I eat that

The specific line breakdown in “Belong to Someone” is fascinating being able to actually read it. Michael sings “I want a love/ that can slow down time/ that lasts forever/ and never dies” while reaching out to David, starts flying with the boys, then sings “someone make me feel like that” while David sings “I can make you feel like that.” That is the most goddamn romantic thing I’ve ever read or seen. Michael specifically wanting a live that can slow down time and feels like it will last forever, David saying he can make Michael feel like that, David having already DONE THAT when they first met. God damn they should’ve kissed

The notes when Micheal flies with the boys :( “David guides Michael the entire time. They touch down at various times— they are free and child-like in the air. Michael has never been happier or felt more part of something in his life.” Guys he’s such a wet puppy. “At the end of the adventure, David puts Michael to bed (like a father would after a car ride home at the end of the night) and flies away.” God I love their fucked up lil vampire family

OH BOY ONE OF MY THEORIES BASICALKY CONFIRMED!! When Michael hallucinates his dad, the notes are that “Michael hallucinates a vision/flashback of his father on the last night in Phoenix.” !!!!!! That means that the bruise/ribs literally happened the night before they left, they were already planning on leaving and then Michael got injured. I’ve seen some people speculate that the reason the Emersons left was bc their dad really roughed up Michael (bruise and ribs), and it was finally too much for them to take, but the fact that they were already leaving means there was a different inciting incident! I personally think that their dad went after Sam while Lucy was there, and that was the final straw. To me that explains why Michael is so frustrated w both Sam and Lucy, bc he’s presumably been taking hits from his dad for a while to protect them and Lucy hasn’t done anything, but the moment Sam got some Lucy reacted. This isn’t blaming Lucy or Sam either bc at the end of the day all three are victims, but family dynamics in abusive households are so so so complicated and both those ideas can exist at the same time. I’ll make a post on this later bc I have to many thoughts on the Emerson family dynamics and I find it fascinating 

Hehe vampires everywhere joke. “Sam makes his way downstairs as more and more comic book style vampires appear. They are literally EVERYWHERE.” 

“Alan and Edgar burst out laughing as kids do about sex.” God I love the Frog Brothers they are THE younger brothers  ever

HAHA THE DINNER SCENE. Just all of it. When Edgar and Alan pull out their knives, the Lucy is “weirded out,” Max is annoyed the entire time, Sam is “starring daggers.” “Lucy and Max take in the train wreck.” I love this scene so much and all the notes make it better

God the “Michael” song. I was not expecting this song to take me out when I saw it, but oof. And reading over the lyrics it hits so so hard. Specifically the “Michael if I could go back I’d change everything/ take on the burden you’re carrying/ all the years frozen in place/ the memories I tried to erase/ I stayed when we should have run/ have I lost you my beautiful son” part is so… god it hurts so good. Again, this kinda solidifies to me that Michael has been taking the beatings and protecting Sam/Lucy for years, and Lucy regrets not doing anything until it was “too late.” Again, post on Emerson family incoming bc I shake them in my brain

“The Frogs share a look. They understand his love for his brother.” Guys me when brothers and sibling relationships

“Star takes Michael’s hand. They stand resolutely in the light.” HELL YEAH THEY DO

“Michael, at his most exasperated” when dealing with Sam and the Frog Brothers while prepping the house. Shoutout to all the older siblings out there, this is one of the realest moments of the show 

When Star confronts David with the stake, owww. David says “Lay down your weapon Star. You don’t have it in you, you never did” and the notes for that scene are “He’s right. Star lowers her weapon” which oooh hurts so good. But the best part? Right after that, David and Michael have their little “I tried to make you immortal— you tried to make me a killer— you are a killer Michael” back and forth. Which like… David being right about Star not having it in her to hurt someone, even someone like David, right into David saying Michael is already a killer is just… hm I have thoughts

“Michael, with seemingly superhuman strength, pushes David backwards. He is run into by Star’s stake. David is completely taken by surprise. David looks back and forth between his two loves and begins to smoke.” OH MY GOD HIS TWO LOVES

“I can raise my kids on my own asshole” ILYSM LUCY EMERSON!!!! Also something something Lucy now feels confident enough in her ability to protect and care for her sons. Me when single moms guys yall are the best <333

“Michael, Sam, and Lucy all hug each other. A moment of forgiveness.” AHHH FAMILY LOVE THEM 

Lucy and Star bonding :( “Lucy sees that Star is outside of the group… Lucy makes her way into the kitchen to start a late-night breakfast. She connects with Star along the way.” 

OH GOD THE BEST YOUNGER BROTHERS TO EVER YOUNGER BROTHER I feel so protective over Sam and the Frog Brothers. “The Frog Brothers smile and hug Sam. This may be the first time they’ve ever sat down to breakfast.” 

Did you know that I love found family? Bc I do. So much. “Everyone makes a start to set the table. Michael looks around at this strange and wonderful family.”

“Michael looks at his newly-enlarged family. He is overcome with emotion.” ME WHEN FOUND FAMILY

God the fucking ending scene again. Re what I said last post: I eat this shit up every time. “Our newly forged family and ensemble turn and begin to walk into the blinding sunlight, leaving the burned world behind… David, Max, and the Lost Boys stay behind and watch them go. Max places his hand on David’s shoulder. David looks at him. Blackout.” AHHHHHH

Ahhh post-bows scene!!!! Love the wording here specifically: “she slowly and cautiously (and somewhat hypnotically) reaches for the chalice. She is suddenly overcome with the animalistic urge to drink. Almost possessed, she slowly raises the chalice to her lips as the curtain falls. The end— for real.” 

the scene where Sam threatens to go back to Phoenix and Michael calls him “soft.” Ooooh boy. I fucking love this scene so much. It’s a lot of blink and you miss it moments, but if you catch them it adds so much. Two big things of note here that I twist in my brain bc they are fascinating choices for the characters. First up, Michael glances at Lucy first when Sam mentions their dad— Michael immediately looks to her but she hesitates before looking back at Michael and saying “no one’s going back to Phoenix.” Just some food for thought, bc I have a lot of thoughts about Michael and Lucy’s relationship in context of the dad, and I think it’s interesting that Lucy hesitated, while Michael was instantly looking to her. Second, absolute props to LJ Benet and Benjamin Pajak bc god damn did they act the hell out of the “soft” scene.  The entire time Michael is walking over to Sam, he’s flexing his fist and shaking it out, and when he gets close to Sam during the second “no idea how bad it got” he actually raises his fist/arm up to about chest level. Sam reacts this entire scene by backing away slowly and flinching, and when Michael brought his arm up Sam brought his arms up too (super briefly) like he was going to block a hit. Absolutely devastating and so so good, but I’m like 80% sure that my memory of that scene was one of the previews, and they toned down that scene so it’s no longer as obvious which like… yeah I get but it also adds a whole lot to Michael’s fears of being like his dad and his fears about hurting Sam. Even if it’s not in the show anymore, I just need the people to know this.

Also all of LJ’s acting around the bruise is fucking amazing. I noticed in a few scenes, not just when he’s lifting the boxes, he’ll wince and grab at his side or move in a way that (theoretically) wouldn’t pull on injured ribs. There’s also a few scenes where he defaults to covering up his stomach with his arms or he fiddles with the hem of his shirt and makes sure it stays pulled down. Also the most recent time I saw it— which was like a week ago— Michael flinches away from David when David comes at him to pull up the shirt and he says in such a small voice “no please don’t-“, and then hunches in on himself once the bruise is revealed. This was different when I saw it the first week they ran (Michael didn’t say anything and didn’t look as… small I guess?) and I love this change so much bc it is such a real real reaction to abuse. Up until this point, whenever his dad is mentioned Michael always postures up, puts on a front, and gets ready to fight— notably, those times are all in front of Sam or Lucy, who Michael feels he has to protect. We also don’t see any physical injuries up until this point. But in this scene, Michael is already in a vulnerable place and doesn’t need to protect anyone, so he just lets it happen; it’s also hard to deny a very shoe shaped bruise. I also think it’s worth noting that this is the only time (as far as I can figure) that Michael flinches away from  David. Every other time he leans into his touch. Which could mean nothing.

Yknow the scene when David sniffs the bloody/sweaty rag he use to clean up Michael’s ear after putting the earring in? And how he kinda sorta mouths at it bc, y’know, blood? Hm yeah one of the shows I saw, David put that thing IN his mouth. Not just a little “oh let me lick the blood off the towel” no no no. Ali opened his mouth and put that towel in there and bit it. It was spectacular. Bc like.. yeah David wouldn’t be satisfied with just licking or sniffing the blood. No he wants it and he wants Michael. He’d 100% bite that towel. Again, can’t remember if this was in previews or what, but I just needed to point out that no he doesn’t just lick and sniff it, he bites it too.

Speaking of David, his facial expressions after Michael punches him are fucking hilarious. Idk why it got me so good, but you can see the gears turning as he mentally shifts from “oh I’m eating him” to “oh I want him” and it’s hilarious. Obvi you have the big turn around and the “I like you Michael” bit, but after that, when the boys start circling Michael who’s threatening to fight everyone, David is in such serious contemplation mode. You can see he’s using all his brain cells to figure out how he’s going to spin this. Also the boys’ reactions to him inviting Michael to the cave is amazing— Marko in particular walks up to David like “wtf,” and David pats him and moves him aside as he goes to grab Michael’s face. It’s a relatively small detail, but I think it’s funny because to me, that confirms that even after Michael raced on the bikes, they were still going to eat him. David still wasn’t fully convinced until Michael punched him and drew blood— that’s what got his attention, not necessarily the bike race and the almost falling off the cliff.

Icarus killed most of the more fem-leaning Sherbs, made it to like the final four… then proceeded to fall out of a tree and drown in a lake which is like… yeah that’s Ic 🤷

Jett, Martyr, and Midas all had explosives the entire time and used the hell out of them

Wren and Midas became besties and Midas patched Wren up several times (side note Wren spent the entire time picking flowers while Midas gathered supplies and murdered everyone)

Midas has the highest kill count (I think it was around 8)

Tartarus died of dysentery day 1 which felt very very fitting

Icarus and Sherbert questioned their sanity the most (like four times each)

Caine kept forcing people to kill each other and if they refused, he killed them. Which like… yeah that also tracks (Caine died of dysentery)

Ash made it to the final two bc they kept running away from fights and hiding in trees

Obvi it is amazing when neurodivergence is represented as something normal (bc it is), but I find a lot of times that neurodivergence in modern media is toned down to be more palatable and “socially acceptable.” There’s a very fine line between balancing the good and bad of neurodivergence and mental illness, and a lot of media depicting either falls short imo. A lot of times, in order to not push further stigma, modern media tends to focus on all the positives of neurodivergence and wind up completely ignoring the negatives, or treat the negatives as an easily overcome battle. But this only pushes the stigma more that neurodivergence is a cute quirky easily managed superpower, but it isn’t.

First Shadow treats neurodivergence like a superpower, sure, but it’s not a good one. Henry is a traumatized neurodivergent child who is not being properly accommodated or treated. He does not know what is happening and why his brain reacts the way it does (bc he’s not properly diagnosed), so he thinks there’s something inherently wrong with him. No one around him understands what he’s struggling with it since he can’t verbalize it properly, so they dismiss it and insist that he should just act normal. The doctors that are supposed to help him don’t, and in fact actively contribute to making him worse.

And I fucking love it. I love how weird and uncanny Henry comes across, even when he’s desperately trying to be normal. He makes friends, yeah, but it’s not a smooth-sailing friendship. He struggles with outbursts at home then instantly apologizes because he didn’t mean to, but his parents don’t know how to handle or help him. He wants to be better, be normal, but he has no clue how to be because he has no idea how to mask, how to accommodate for his differences. And all of this manifests and is represented by a fucking cosmic inter-dimensional horror murder monster and I love it so much.

So breakdown of thoughts:

we got those guys back!!! Yayyy! But still on people eating planet that is def going to eat people bc the worms did in fact just finish building something for people eating planet. Chekhov here is your gun please and thank u

Asri and Nerve :( they’re so codependent bonded by trauma lil guys

But no seriously I think they’re going to have a fascinating relationship and there are so so many layers to it. First off you have Evren and Asri’s pre-worm relationship, which was neutral at best and mostly for Romeo’s sake. But even then, it was negative towards the end bc “Evren” stood up Romeo for their date. Then obviously, you have Nerve and Asri’s relationship, which was a shitshow. Nerve stabbed Asri in the heart and killed Aura, and infected Asri with worm. Not great. But then you add Irsa into it which is like… oof. Because it sounds like Evren and Asri were aware the entire time (or at least most of it), they were just trapped and not in control. Which means that Evren and Asri heard and felt all of the barbs Nerve and Irsa through at each other, knows exactly how dysfunctional the worms were because of their personal issues. Asri knows about Evren’s gender identity now and also knows that the worm lowkey forcibly feminized him. Evren knows that Asri’s biggest fear is being useless and failing, and all the issues that come with being the endling. And in the literal fucking hive mind, where Nerve and Irsa knew what the other was feeling and doing and thinking pretty much 24/7, down to sharing pain, which means Evren and Asri very likely felt all that too. Now, post-deworming soup, they’re even more connected bc they just died like ten times together. Yeah others got wormed, but Asri and Evren got wormed. They’re the only two people, really, who can truly understand just how bad it was— both what they (Nerve and Irsa) did, and how it felt to not be in control of any of it. Now they’re dewormed, but in bodies that are no longer entirely theirs because they’re still all gray and wrong. 

Basically I’m so excited to see how sad these two will be bc they were so Bluetooth connected and they got violently ripped out of each other’s heads (and for good reason but still)

Which also like.. Evren and Asri know each other now. They were fully fused into a hivemind together, disowned by the boss worm, just the two of them. That’s gonna have consequences

Side bar but: Just now realizing that this felt familiar and couldn’t figure out why until… Guys. It’s literally Finn and Robin from Momboo’s Halloween one shot. Sherb and Art love playing traumatized codependent lil guys together. This is Finn and Robin but like two steps to the left and little less gay and little more evil. Even down to the god damn water issues and genderTM of it all. Possessed by creature that makes you hurt other people and prevents you from telling people about it, power of friendship saves the day, but oh no Sherb and Art’s characters are traumatized and forever changed (both in mind and body) by the possession/defeating of monster. SherbertQuake56 and ArtfulJayRenegade congrats on your new traumatized codependent lil guys you two have a type and I love it

The cure. Oh the cure /pos. Just… the beautiful connection of what the cure is, and how its pieces from everyone, but those pieces could only be given once they trusted and believed in each other. Like… me when power of friendship and love bc yeah it should work like that

The cure. Oh the cure /neg. What do you mean they were drowning in dewormer goop for five days, dying over and over and over again in an extremely painful way while the parasites were scraped out of them. Did it have to happen? Yes. Is this a whole new boatload of trauma (esp for Asri, who already had issues with drowning and dying? Who’s said before his biggest fear is dying and with it his entire planet, all his people, being gone with no record they ever existed)? Also yes.

The twins :(((

The bounty hunters (and mi-go) :((((