#barebone siblings

• The siblings figuring things out together. All three of them. I know Chastity is dead but I’d kind of like her not to be.

•Modesty loves magical creatures. No basis for this but I imagine that she leaves bits of food near the rafters and windows for the birds you see Credence shoo away in the film. She loves birds. They are free.

•Queer Credence

• More than one of them has magic. Usually Modesty. Sometimes Chastity too but I lean towards her being nomaj/muggle.

•Chastity having been touched but not killed by the obscurus. Maybe it just barely brushed her like a thin tendril of lightening from a distance. Let it leave a mark and be part of her journey towards accepting her magical siblings of choice. Let it be part of Credence’s journey as well.

• Modesty loves making up songs and rhymes. I imagine her as a bit mischievous when out from under Mary Lou. She sings the creepy ones to unnerve people like Newt or Graves.

• Families of choice

• Chastity is boss as hell. She rallies her bother and sister together when they need to move. She finds them places to stay. She was the ‘good’ child. We saw her help Mary Lou run the church much more than Credence or Modesty. She knows how to handle the practicalities of surviving with next to nothing. She might have brought that skill with her before Mary Lou adopted her. We will never know. She may or may not like or trust magic but she loves her siblings and at that moment they come first.

• FAMILIES OF CHOICE

Obviously Modesty is the… sole survivor. She’s old enough to remember the very house she came from and her siblings and the life she had before the Barebones, which means she had to be around five years old or older when she left them (that’s when kids start to solidify their long term memory and develop the spacial awareness that would help them remember and relocate a street address). 

She and Credence have obviously bonded and given how much older Credence is and the fact that Mary Lou is not a parental figure of any kind, their relationship is probably more like parent and child than siblings. Kids between the age of five and eight are damn smart, but they can’t do everything for themselves and they still rely on adults for guidance and protection etc. 

I enjoy the idea of Credence teaching Modesty how to read and other things like that, as well as obviously protecting her enough from Mary Lou that she’s rather mischievous. I love the part where she just throws the Second Salem pamphlets up in the air! Plus, obviously, the wand and the idea that she’s taken Mary Lou’s noxious dogma and made a game of it (rhymes and hopscotch, she probably has a wand because she’s playing at being a witch with other kids who are in the church).

Another thing about kids at 8 years old is that they definitely are moral beings. Younger kids really aren’t, they can be cruel often cause they don’t fully understand consequences for actions. Also they can lack empathy unless you really work on it. But at 8 years old, a kid definitely has a sense of Right and Wrong. Modesty is doing a pretty classic thing in the scene before Credence murks Mary Lou and Chastity, which is that she’s making a morality judgment on the situation and trying to intervene! In her mind, Credence’s well-being is HER responsibility and she can’t stand to see him suffer for her sake — even though he’s totally willing to do so. (And, it’s implied, probably has done it many times before.)

And then, of course, everything goes horribly sideways for Modesty. Her protector/the person she wants to protect turns out to be a violent monster that she’s left fleeing from. And after that ??? Seriously, the film just leaves an eight-year-old girl in the Bronx. (AND ALSO NEVER ADDRESSES HOW THE OBSCURUS GETS FROM THE BRONX TO LOWER MANHATTAN BUT. WHATEVER. I just assume he destroyed EVERYTHING. Fuck Long Island, am I right, Credo?)

Anyway, Chastity! Wow, poor super dead Chastity Barebone. You’re as wide-eyed and terrified looking as Credence is shifty and slouching.

Look, violent abusers might have favorite targets, but they rarely spare one child entirely. Which means, Chastity might be a conspirator in Mary Lou’s schemes, but she was raised with the same shitty, violent treatment that Credence got. 

But why would a child side against their sibling in favor of an abuser? Oh god there’s so many reasons. Which is to say, I think Credence could be fully aware and want to kill Chastity, but that doesn’t mean that she deserved it. Just going off visual cues like the sisters having coats and Credence having none, I’d guess that it’s a simple matter of Mary Lou favoring Chastity over Credence. Like, that’s not great, but hitting children just makes children do WHATEVER they have to in order to not be hit. 

Also, abusers don’t like to feel like their victims could work together against them, so Mary Lou wouldn’t want Chastity and Credence to like each other. But she also probably added Modesty to the family because she also doesn’t want either of them to leave.

Anyway, I find Jenn Murray’s comments really interesting. Like I do think Chastity’s drinking the kool-aid when it comes to what Mary Lou says about witches and everything. (Credence obviously is NOT and jumped at the first chance he had to have power and be praised. Which. Ouch.) BUT that doesn’t mean that this is the life Chastity wants to have. Given the emphasis on children and spreading the word, she’d probably like to have a family and church of her own, if this is something she enjoys. Or who knows! Maybe she has interests that no one knows. Credence has learned to keep his inner life and curiosity and happiness on fucking lockdown and imaginably Chastity learned the same.

So likely, Credence believes Chastity is 100% in line with Mary Lou and he feels fully justified killing both of them. He’s watched her for years as she picked Mary Lou’s dogma over his well being and the well being of children, plus god knows what else. 

But I feel bad for her. Credence might get a chance! If he’s still alive after all and JKR isn’t just gonna play me. Presumably, Modesty could still have a happy life??? Maybe? That’s definitely not gonna get touched on by canon ever again (yikes). But Chastity is just dead. Which means that she was raised by a violent woman who felt morally embolden to torture children. She spent twenty odd years bending herself into whatever shape Mary Lou wanted her to be — because the alternative is to live the way Credence does. And that’s it! That’s all she got! What a sad, painful life.