Taylor Byas, From I Done Clicked My Heels Three Times: Poems; “The Therapist Asks Me, “What Are You

iuliastration

1. A Primer for the Small Weird Loves - Richard Siken / 2. The Crane Wife - CJ Hauser / 3. Automat - Edward Hopper / 4. Red Doc> - Anne Carson / 5. Melancholy - Edvard Munch / 6. The Village (2004) / 7. So We Must Meet Apart - Gabrielle Bates and Jennifer S. Cheng

Hunger Games didn’t really eat holes in my brain the way that it did for some other people but god the opening lines. The opening lines. Katniss wakes up in bed and immediately, instinctively reaches beside her, only to find the bed empty and cold. Before we even know her name – before we know literally anything about her or this world or her place in that world – we know that she loves someone. We know that she is reaching for where Prim should be, sleeping safe and warm beside her, but Prim is not there. She is not there, and her half of the bed is cold and empty. People talk about characters being “doomed by the narrative” when most of the time the character was literally just a well-foreshadowed death, but Prim WAS doomed by the narrative. It’s the very first thing we learned. It’s the most key, integral, important piece of information we’re given about everything that is about to happen: Every single choice Katniss makes is to protect her little sister, and it isn’t enough. In the end, Prim still dies. Prim was dead before the story even started. Katniss, reaching. Prim’s side of the bed was cold and empty. There is no version of this story where Prim could have been saved. Katniss, reaching. The very first thing she does in the series. She wakes, and she reaches, but Prim is already gone. THAT is how you do Doomed By The Narrative. Edit: Also it is key that there was literally nothing Katniss could have done differently. If she had not acted to save Prim, Prim would not have survived the Hunger Games. But by acting to save Prim, Katniss accidentally kicked off an entire rebellion and ultimately massively increased the amount of danger Prim was actually in. The key is that this is irrelevant. If Katniss had done literally anything differently, Prim still would have died. If Katniss had faltered or changed course at any point, Prim still would have died. There was never a point where Katniss could have changed Prim’s fate. There’s no version of this story where Prim lives to see the end of it. She’s dead before the story begins. That’s doomed by the narrative.

Sports bra is lingerie if you're good enough at gender

Walker Scobell, Leah Sava' Jeffries, and Aryan Simhadri for Variety (x)

every day i say things that sound pretentious even to my own ears but i don't how to say them any other way so i just have to hope there's some nugget of truth in there that'll shine through my insufferable delivery

the song of achilles — madeline miller

night shift — stephen king

euripedes — anne carson

circe — madeline miller

a conjuring of light — v.e. schwab

west wind — mary oliver

the song of achilles — madeline miller

there’s something really special about the way that, during barbie’s breakdown, gloria comforts her with (loosely paraphrased), “it kills me that someone as beautiful and smart as you feels this way”

and the point, of course, is that stereotypical barbie and stereotypical ken have both suffered under the constraints of their titles, that neither have ever had any room for self-actualisation as dolls, but barbie is surrounded by powerful women. doctors, physicists, presidents, judges. amazing women who—unlike barbie—hold massive amounts of power and influence in barbieland outside of just being barbie. stereotypical barbie goes through her arc asking questions and believing that everyone else around her is more qualified, more intelligent, more capable, more-whatever than her, despite the surface thesis of her story being that she has to confront the inequalities still faced by girls and women in the real world. even in barbieland, this utopia for women, barbie herself does not feel on par with her other aspects

because even the narrator pauses the action for a second to acknowledge that, yeah, margot robbie is fucking gorgeous, and any situation where she’s saying she isn’t pretty is objectively wrong. but the narrator doesn’t stop to say, “hey, stereotypical barbie, you don’t have to be called anything special to also be intelligent and creative and worthwhile,” because despite the utopian ideals of feminine power, stereotypical barbie is still regarded as the blonde bimbo who has to rely on others to tell her what to do, even if it’s meant kindly

but gloria, who she’s deeply connected to, whose emotions and fears barbie has taken on, who feels inadequate and small in her own life, looks at stereotypical barbie—before barbie became the doctor or president or construction worker or anything other than a pretty girl in a swimsuit—and says, “how brilliant you are, already, all on your own, without any special titles at all,” knowing that the changes that she needs to go through at the end of her story aren’t to make her smarter or more capable, but simply for her to find her own place

the kitchen has a soul that no other room in a house has