HAIIIII :3

And, ofc one must ask, what's with all the flowers?

For awhile i have been pretty attached to the idea that flowers represent Lenore herself (see: Annabel's ring, Lenore tearing off the flower wallpaper, Lenore "hates flowers") but does that really fit here? Even if one interprets what happens in the hallucination as "Lenore's"/a manifestation of her desires, that doesn't cover how we got here to begin with, which was anything but..

If we take a step back, imo the whole comic seems to be about (and takes a pretty hard stance on) performance vs authenticity, broader society vs "madness", scheming vs community, conformity vs self expression, betrayal vs the power of friendship, ect. With this in mind we can interpret flowers as the oppressive expectation to conform/the performance itself.

And why not observe the cases where these two interpretations smush together? Flowers representing people's (Annabel's) expectations of/for Lenore (when Annabel wears something floral to mourn Lenore, it is because she thinks Lenore's dead. Sort of a weak example I know..)

We know Annabel is in love with a version of Lenore that does not exist, she literally says so herself, but in 147 that expectation manifests as Annabel genuinely acting against Lenore's will (and literally immobilizing her too.) Woah. Unsettling fr.

WHAT ABOUT MATCHING YOUR LITTLE SISTER