evil of my evil

(Sorry this is a word vom and it's going to be a little disorganized and sloppy but I have to talk about Thaisha a little, because in terms of how Thaisha relates to motherhood and power its almost the complete opposite of Katie's which I think is very interesting. Thaisha is like...a good person? She wants to do good! She wants to make the world better! She didn't abandon her kids, she left because she thought she could make a better world for everyone, including them! It's not leaving to go get the milk and never coming back, it's leaving to do an important job. It's meaningful work that doesn't take away the love she feels for her children. Like yeah she'll get drunk at a funeral, but ultimately Thaisha is driven by the desire to use her power to do good and protect her family. She can be a little messy while still ultimately being a kind and compassionate person, even towards those she dislikes.)

Anyway back to Katie, who's version of motherhood and power would make Thaisha want to fight her in the back of a deli's.

To start with before her Embrace and divorce, Katie's power and identity came from being a wife and mother. It's a status symbol to be married and have kids and a white-picket fence and all that. Katie was able to climb up the social ladder after marriage. She was a wolf.

...But she also might have fucking hated it? Or at the very least she got bored with it. She was a wolf, but she was trapped in a zoo. Her life was domesticated, so stable it turned stagnant, and in the end she was the one who destabilized it herself. But because her life's been defined by being a wife and mother for so long she can't untangle herself from those identities. She still loves her girls, she still (kind of?) loves her ex. And now she's no longer a wolf, but a low-fat vampire who doesn't even have fangs. So what does she do? She reforms the family dynamic with the coterie. She can't escape the idea of family, and family was what gave her power. It's repeating the cycle. She forms family, which gives stability, and then she destabilizes it because she can't stand remaining still.

In the beginning of the season we don't notice this immediately. Katie's motherly instincts gave her the appearance of being calm, soothing, and rational. It's her abilities as a mother that gave Jade the encouragement to move forward after her blunder. She also had Naomi, her younger sister to bounce off of when she wants to be a little snarky and gossipy without causing too much trouble. And in a coterie with only adults, she and Eddie managed to act as the "real" adults of the group, and are able to work together in tandem to keep "the family" together.

But even from episode 1 this visage of maturity and motherhood isn't perfect. As kind as she is to Jade she clearly demeans and infantilizes her, having her watch children's cartoons to belittle her. When she and Jade go back to the warehouse her text with Naomi basically said either they'll get rid of the problem or they'll get rid of Jade (before mother mode fully kicked in that is.) And what excited Katie most was Jade's ability to handle a gun. Anybody else would be disturbed at the fact that Jade can use a gun but can't read (Mayanna's "what the fuck" was my same exact reaction) but not Katie. Katie was grinning ear-to-ear seeing Jade's potential to do violence.

Then, just like with Eddie, it's when we learn her feeding style that we see what kind of monster she truly is. In episode 1 she told Eddie that motherhood is about sacrifice, and in episode 3 we learn that she's taking from her daughters as much as she gives. Her first choice of feeding is her daughters, her girls, who she loves and sees everywhere. They're also the source of ingredients for the few times she does alchemy.

"Easier to clean up. Easier to cover up. Keep it in the family."

It it absolutely fair to be mortified and disturbed by this, and I applaud Aabria for being willing to go this far. It would have been so easy to just limit it to Katie's ex, but no. Cleavers main source of blood is with family, and for Katie that means the whole family.

She justifies feeding on her girls and Corey because it's easier to clean, but I don't think it's that simple. As pointed out by Alex, feeding on her daughters makes her able to connect with them better. Something real interesting about Katie is that despite being the most lifelike in appearance and most connected to her family she is the least connected with humanity. She looks the most alive yet no longer sees herself as a person. So now she can't relate to her girls simply because they are still alive, still people. Feeding off them gives her a reason to stay close and understand them a bit more. Even if the side-effect is feeling teenage angst sometimes. There's also the resentment of giving so much of herself to motherhood, this sense that she is owed something for the sacrifices she made for them.

It's disturbing, and she doesn't enjoy it, but like how Gable uses dance in his alchemy and feeding, Katie using her daughters for her alchemy and food shows how important to her they are. But while Gable is aware of the harm he could cause and tries to avoid it Katie is in denial of how much she's hurting the ones she loves. They're kids! They'll rebound from the anemia and the amnesiac episodes they have after Katie wipes their memory! It'll be fiiiiiiine...

This guilt and denial doesn't spread to when she feeds on Corey. Not anymore at least. By the time we see her feed on Corey she got tired of shedding tears and going on guilt trips for him. It definitely feels better to feed on him, especially after she manages to remind him of the love they had. It might be true that she's sorry and still loves him at the moment she says it, but ultimately it's all for the sake of making the feed more satisfying. And based off season one she only went to Corey when she doesn't want to bother her girls while she's too hungry. He's just not at the same level of priority as her daughters, both in how she feeds and how she cares about them.

Still, like with motherhood, its hard to let go of Corey. They were married for almost two decades after all. Regardless of whether her love for him was real or just a means to climb the social ladder doesn't make him any less an integral part of Katie's identity.

In her prologue (daily reminder to join Project Ghostlight's patreon pspspspsps) Katie said this about the idea of still loving Corey: "Do I love him? I don't know what it's like to be a person without him so...I guess? In the way you love your limbs and your lungs. Cuz you can't imagine not having them."

It's such a powerful line to say for someone who's about to become a Kindred: a thing that doesn't need to breathe. And yet!!! Even after turning breathing becomes an important feature of how she continues. One her most important merits is to be lifelike, someone who still appears human. She doesn't need her lungs, but for the sake of maintaining her previous life and staying in her her girls' lives she keeps using them anyway.

Katie imploded her relationship with Corey because she got tired of the same routines, yet after her Embrace she still goes through the motions, pumping air into her dead organs. Nothings changed, it's just another routine to be infuriated at.

"How dare you make even our unlife a fucking routine?" This was directed at Corey before the beast interjected. He bores her and makes her repeat the nauseous cycles that already ruined her life once.

But as the beast told her, this was her choice. Nobody made her go down this path, no matter how much she feels like its necessary. She can stop breathing whenever she wants, she's choosing to do so anyway.

Then there's the whole "I'm going to eat a Kindred" thing she's got going on ever since she learned of diablerie. If Corey was her route to climb the ladder and become a wolf in human society, eating a Kindred is her route to being a wolf in Kindred society. Not just a domesticated wolf in a nice little zoo like before, a real wolf. A beast that's powerful and wild and free. No more shitty jobs, no more stagnation, no more of the same old routine.

...no more human life, no more Corey, no more of her girls. She's be free of the expectations of motherhood, but she'd never get them back. Because the only reason she's able to go to Corey and her daughters in the house she made and furnished was because she's able to travel in daylight. After diablerie she'd have to travel at night, and the Baron of her hometown forbade her from entering. Maybe it's because she's a Thinblood, maybe it's because the Baron discovered she's a Cleaver and wanted to keep her the fuck away because that style of feeding can be considered a Masquerade breach and also, like...bad. Either way it would be a lot harder to go there, not to mention she'd no longer be lifelike which was how she's been able to fool most humans. At that point it'd be easier to disappear from their life entirely. She liked hiking, maybe one day she had an accident and they tragically never recovered her body. A final bookend to her old life.

Aside from diablerie the other thing that could break her routine with Corey and her girls is the coterie, the new kind of family she formed. It's far less stable and more toxic and unhealthy than her old one (mainly because of her) but they're also more suited for the unlife she's leading now and the one she wants to pursue. I'm talking specifically about Eddie and Jade.

I've already talked about Eddie and the tango he started with Katie in his word vom, so this is continuation that's more from her perspective. As stated before Katie dislikes stability, and Eddie's made it his role to keep the coterie stable. But while she tries to pick at this stability she finds a lot about Eddie that surprises her, which is both flustering and exciting.

For one, he's a real puzzle. Katie's known Corey for decades and has long solved him, but Eddie is much more elusive behind his beautiful face. She needs time and effort to put the pieces together, which is frustrating...but also kind of fun. She likes a little mystery.

He's also a lot like her. They both want to be wolves and are excited hunting together in a pack. Oftentimes their reasons will differ, but usually they'll both end up at the same destination. When they look at the stars, they both see endless potential.

And while Eddie puts a lot of emphasis on stability and moving with caution he never denies Katie's ambition and venom. Sometimes if it threatens other coterie members he'll try to mediate, but other times he'll flat-out enable her poison. When she tasted Hanks blood Eddie joined in on the taste-testing instead of stopping her. He knows the danger she brings to him and the coterie, and accepts her all the same.

In fact rather than dissuading her from making "bad" decisions like attempting to compel him, it's her pretending to be apologetic that angered him. Her pretending to be human. She's so used to lying to Corey easily, but with Eddie she can't pull that shit. Not only that, she doesn't have to. She can be cruel, she can be demanding, she can be unapologetic, she can be angry. She doesn't need to lie about what she is to Eddie like she does with Corey. When Katie admitted to what she did while cleaning the pretty face she herself ruined, he didn't bat an eye.

Eddie claimed Katie doesn't like being in control because she lets others drive her car. Part of this could be true in that Katie needs people to contest her and fight back. Katie's reaction to Eddie pushing back at her fake apology wasn't anger. She kind of...liked it?

Until this point the most pushback she got was from her sister Naomi and Gable...but for differing reasons neither are really equipped to go toe-to-toe with her like Eddie can.

Naomi initially fought back because she wanted to get Katie's attention and question her, but she just doesn't know how to be a monster the way Katie is. Naomi's a decade younger than Katie, and even in unlife she feels like Katie is too far ahead of her. She doesn't have the same bite and ambition that her older sister carries. In the end she tried to behave, which left Katie with no pushback when she crosses lines, and then she left altogether.

As for Gable, he's also younger than Katie, and add to that he also has his own issues with motherhood. His mom all but removed his existence from her life, and while he loves his chosen family and they love him in turn they can never fully understand what he is now. Katie on the other hand is able to understand him and act as a mother figure. Despite their differences in morality he loves hanging out with her, gossiping with her, and seeking her approval. He has the same spikes as Katie, but he's not nearly as poisonous. He'll get upset when Katie says and does hurtful things, but he can't fully bring himself to fight back. Because for every hurtful thing Katie says she'll also give him the comfort and support he never got from his birth mother. So for all their disagreements there's a way higher chance of Gable being influenced by Katie than the other way around. I don't think Gable would pull off what he did to Manny if he didn't have Katie around, both as an influence and enabler.

But back to Eddie! Unlike the other members of the coterie Eddie has a much firmer grasp on who he is, what he is, and what he wants, and because of that he's able to fully go toe-to-toe with Katie in ways they can't. He doesn't need her approval, he wants them to be monsters equally. And because of this pushback Katie has permission to not hide her fangs around him, knowing he won't give in easily like others.

There's also the fact that once Eddie's flirting ramps up Katie isn't prepared for it at all. She's been a mother and a good wife for so long until she cheated one time, but how long has it been since she experience this kind of attention at this level of intensity? Like everyone else, she is not immune to Eddie's beauty. It leaves her flustered and even makes her act a little childish, like kicking his car seat.

Now obviously this relationship could easily spiral out of control in a lot of ways. Once Katie "solves" Eddie she could get bored again. There's also the one secret she's still keeping about who she feeds on. Will Eddie accept that too? If Katie's love for her girls leads to that, Eddie's love for his son leads him to the complete opposite direction. His love is attempting to stay out of his son's life entirely, no matter how much he wants to meet him again. Because unlike Katie he doesn't deny that his kid is better off without monsters involved.

Speaking of kids, lets talk about Jade. I think with the tango between her and Eddie at play her relationship with Jade is often overlooked, but it's just as important. If Eddie is the Kindred foil for Corey, Jade is the Kindred foil for her girls. Jade's lack of socializing and literary skills makes the already youngest member of the coterie more childlike, and she's only a year older than Katie's oldest. She gives off "needs a mother" vibes instinctively and Katie knew resisting being a mother around her was a losing battle. She can't help acting a mother around her and even when she's trying to respect Jade as an adult she often ends up infantilizing her. It's not that she wants to be a mother for Jade, it's just a default mode she's used to running on her system after keeping it on for so long.

It's when Jade is shown to be competent, trustworthy and caring that Katie truly likes Jade. Her not having a phone and having a local librarian help her read email might be the saddest shit she's ever heard, but she sure knows how to handle a gun. Even without reading comprehension she can memorize a license plate. And Jade was honest about the security footage, which was the only reason Katie was open to helping her.

Then came the scene in the alleyway, after Katie murdered a man. At that moment it was Katie who felt so small and powerless and didn't know what to do, and Jade was the one who gently called out to her and gave her the direction and support she needed. At that moment Katie didn't need to be a mother and was cared for instead.

Katie and Naomi's parents were too busy to look out for them. Naomi was a child when she left. When was the last time someone looked out for her like this?

Unlike her girls Jade gives her this unconditional love and support without needing to take it. There's no guilt or subterfuge. Like with Eddie, Katie can be honest with Jade and often will actively strive to be honest with her.

And unlike Katie, Jade thrives in the silence of death. She's happy at the fact that they don't have to breath. Even as she's treated as a child Katie is terrified of this part of her. Here she is acting alive and reminiscing on those old sensations, and here's this little girl from the woods saying she loves the complete silence. And yet in that alleyway when Jade reminded her she didn't need to breathe, it was what she needed to hear the most.

Katie doesn't stop acting like a mother around Jade after this, but instead of this mode being instinctual there's a genuine tenderness to it. Jade proved to have her back and she trusts her to do so. Katie is still motherly, but by the end of season 1 it's layered with respect and trust and treating Jade as a young woman instead of just a kid from the woods.

...But like with Eddie, this relationship isn't going to lead to anything good, at least when it comes to humanity. Loving Jade like a daughter and being supported by her might make her nights more tolerable, but it won't make Katie a better person, and already we're seeing Jade learn the wrong lessons from her. Katie was already a mother who loves her girls, and we've seen how that turns out. Family is not a positive. Motherhood is not inherently good. The choices Katie made in her life that disrupted her family can still be made to disrupt her new one.

It also led to her threatening Mandible. Even while awknowleding her being an adult who she trusts and respect, Jade is one of her girls, and if a boy hurts one of her girls they will feel her wrath. She wanted to let Jade take the lead, and wanted to make sure she knew that it wasn't her who broke Manny's arm, but she's still the one who held the arm, and she's still the one who made him being good to Jade a threat instead of a want. It's hard to say how she felt about doing that afterwards. Maybe not guilty for what she did, just tired.

There's also the interesting fact that most Thinbloods do not blood bond, and if she learns this and sees Jade as family...

All this to say these relationships are a better fit for Katie as a Kindred, where she doesn't need her lungs to breathe, but they won't bring her any closer to humanity.

Okay, this is all I got for this part, definitely forgot things because this is Katie and she's a onion full of rotten layers, but let's move on to SPCs and her beastie.

Katie-Focused SPCs

Her Daughters Carly, Danica and Ava

Boy, hearing her tell Eddie, “I see my girls in everyone. I love them,” changes after episode 3. I've already said most of what I wanted to say about them in regards to how Katie both loves and takes from them, but here's other stuff we know.

Danica is her oldest and is getting ready for college. In episode 3 she's frustrated and angry about something, but she's not talking to anyone about it. Maybe it's the sudden anemia and bouts of amnesia she gets every time she hangs out with her mom Katherine!

Her middle child Ava seems like a real sports junkie, she does both swim and soccer in one day!? What a trooper! And she's already so tired and then Katie takes advantage of that to feed, ugh! At least she only slakes one hunger from them, the bar is in hell!!!

We haven't heard anything about her youngest yet, and honestly as much as I looooooove a problematic queen feeding on her children like an AITA mom stealing money from her kids, I'd rather not have a scene where she's forced to feed on her youngest that could be in like elementary school still. She needs that blood to grow big and strong, leave her be!!! I would like to see what her youngest is like though. Is she also into the sports?

Corey

Again, a lot of what I had to say about this dude was already discussed earlier, but who is Corey really? What kind of husband was he? Is he an asshole as Katie told Naomi? Was he a great guy too perfect for Katie?

From what we see of Corey in Epidoe 9 Corey is.....just a regular-ass dude. That's it. He's just normal. He struggles a little with raising girls, but he seems like he's trying to do his best. He might have been angrier at Katie for cheating (he was the one who started the divorce) but now he's relaxed to having a friendly, if incredibly awkward, relationship with her. That is, until Katie starts her routine, causing his old feelings for her to stir up in his blood to make it sweeter.

He mentions literally not remembering Katie apologize, which unbeknownst to him is because every time she does its to take a bite of him and wipe his memory. He notices the gaps in his memory, but he doesn't explore it any further. This might change in the future if he starts putting together the pieces...maybe. Not sure about Corey's detective skills.

That being said, it's obvious that Corey still holds a flame for Katie, despite everything that happened. Despite him initially avoiding her gaze it doesn't take a lot for him to want to reach out to her.

Does he want her back? Perhaps, but Corey's probably very aware of how bad an idea that'd be. She's already hurt him once, he seems sensible enough to understand getting back together wouldn't fix their family or their relationship. But what matters here is that I think if Katie stopped taking back her apologies by wiping his memory, she could easily push past Corey's common sense and get back together with him. They could remarry, she could have her house and her girls all in one place...but she never goes that far. She'll always take the apology back along with the feed, because she doesn't want to get back together with him. She feels something for Corey, but it's not whatever love they might've had at the beginning. It's all mechanical, just pushing enough buttons to sweeten him up. She loves the taste, but not necessarily the man. Corey bored her.

And her beast seems bored of him too, given it's attitude of interrupting Katie's frustration with him and wanting to get the feeding over with.

Katie's Beast

Like with Eddie, the events in episode 8 caused her to have one of the most direct conversations with her beast. And unfortunately her beast seemed the most pleased with Katie after what she did to that random dude. Even as it was chiding her for trying to blame others for her choices and was yelled at by Katie, it continued smiling contently. Although it got hungry again as Katie did after she had to heal, it still seems as satisfied as a big cat after a kill, fur still caked in blood as it smiles almost sweetly.

The beast isn't in any rush to push Katie to do anything at the moment. It told Katie exactly what it wants, which is to be fed until completely full and thus completely exsanguinate someone, but it doesn't make any moves to push Katie to do it again. It doesn't push Katie to do anything. It simply tells her what it is and answers her questions without any garnishes. It even said plainly what would happen if she gave all of herself over to it, which is to disappear.

Yet even after being told that Katie isn't repulsed or even angered by the notion. Her response was to say "not yet," to which the beast responds with "not yet."

The beast can say it doesn't have any grand plans because its simply an instinct, a desire, but another interpretation as to why it's so serene and relaxed about not pushing Katie...is because it knows Katie's going to do what it wants. It can explain what'll happen when she eats a Kindred and the consequences, but that doesn't stop Katie. It doesn't push because it doesn't need to. It can be just wait for Katie to fully tire of her routine. Katie's beast simply lets her make her own choices, and it will eventually be full.