I Know We’re Both Just Messing Around Pretending To Be Whole But Look At Me. If The Train Was Coming

So sick of dog motif what about cat motif.

I love you but we don't love the same. I can't be near you when you want me to be. Your love is smothering and your need to keep me safe is trapping me. I'm my own person but I don't know how to show you that. I lash out and hurt you even though I don't mean to. I need you to move slowly around me or I'll bolt. I love you, even though I don't say it. If you stay still I'll sit next to you, and even though we don't understand each other we can be together like that.

Jude's character also made me realize just how lazy of a main character F/eyre is. While F/eyre might initiate certain scenes, she remains utterly stagnant within them. F/eyre chooses to kill Andras, but then she doesn't do anything else, things happen to her, and she is pushed around. She makes the decision to go UTM, she does nothing after that, things happen to her. F/eyre is absolutely stagnant UTM. You know what would have been a very cool scene, if F/eyre was the one who bargained with R/hysand, if she were the one to come up with a plan when she realized that R/hys needed her. If F/eyre was learning about the politics of the Fae world, if she demanded to be let in because she's their only hope. That would make it so much more convincing that R/hys fell in love with her. If F/eyre exerted her obvious power over R/hys. If F/eyre showed that type of control over her fate...it would have been badass. That is a good main character.

Jude immediately recognizes her power in situations. When she bargains with Dain. Yes, she at a disadvantage, but she's also in a position that she can bargain with.

F/eyre is not active within the scenes, even if she initiates them. F/eyre never earns anything, things are given to her. And while Jude is not the perfect protagonist, and while I have my critiques, Jude does things, she learns, and her wants manifest with her making the decisions to act within the scenes. It's true that things happen to Jude, but what makes her different from F/eyre is that Jude also affects those actions, she learns from what others do to her.

So what does Jude want? She wants power. How does that manifest? She wants to be a knight. And the plot of the story follows around that.

In TAR, what does F/eyre want? We...don't know. She thinks of safety in the first four chapters, but her actions literally conflict this. When she kills Andras, that's out of survival, and when she goes UTM, it's a decision made mostly out of guilt. It doesn't say anything about F/eyre. The story straight-up won't commit to a core value for her. And it would be easy to characterize her like Jude. F/eyre wants power. It's the truth of her character, but SJM employs a misplaced sense of altruism and virtuosity. Nothing F/eyre does actually says anything about her because she's a lazy character. She'll start the scene, and then will do nothing after.

F/eyre wants to be High Lady of Spring, but she literally does nothing to show that she wants that. When she's introduced to Tamlin's court, she ignores them. She's completely disinterested in the most important parts of being a leader. Tamlin won't let you out? Okay, how is F/eyre going around that? Does she inquire about Tamlin through associates? Ask around, and play that role of Lady just to get more information? Maybe she learns concerning information about Tamlin through her constant inquiry. Does she talk to the nobility? Glean information when Tamlin won't tell her? Talk to Ianthe or gossip with her just to find out about court dynamics. If she asks the right questions, she could literally find out that Tamlin has a dark past while the story concurrently shows his devolving behavior.

It's okay if she fails, or if she gains nothing, but that type of characterization would literally make sense. It would make F/eyre a clever, learning, and interesting character. If she's sneaking around, doing xyz, we learn way more about F/eyre....and she grows.

So when Tamlin becomes more abusive, F/eyre is already actively seeking ways to get out, to be free. And when we get M/or coming to rescue her...it is F/eyre saving herself. Yes, she has no power, but she's not a damsel, she's a survivor. It's F/eyre exerting control (and even if she doesn't she's still a strong person for leaving, or being recused, but for what the story is arguing...having F/eyre be the one to make her own opinions on Tamlin rather than told by R/hysand is way more feminist and powerful).

Not to get emo on main but you ever think about how the troop sang about their dreams of finding “a girl worth fighting for”, and they think their girl worth fighting for is one of romance, but the song abruptly comes to a halt when they find a different girl worth fighting for.

A tiny girl that had been killed at the hands of the Huns. A child too weak, too small to have any chance of withstanding the murderous invaders. That is their girl worth fighting for.

when you tryna chill but your siblings love annoyin you

jess mariano and rory gilmore are literally the SAME people at their core, just in opposite fonts. they MIRROR each other and are each other's TWIN FLAMES. that's exactly why they understand each other better than everyone else (asp herself said so). both are raised by teen moms and have deadbeat dads. yet, one is nurtured with love and care with a mom like lorelai. and the other is abandoned & ignored by a flaky mom like liz. both develop an immense love for reading regardless of whether it became kind of a coping mechanism. both exceed normal expectations of intelligence required for their age. hence, one goes above and beyond, strives for perfection with it, and craves validation while the other could not care less what people think and says "fuck it. rules don't matter anymore for me. i know stuff". one becomes stars hollow's princess, held onto a pedestal by everyone around her. the other becomes stars hollow's pariah, hated by every person he meets. both are under intense scrutiny by people where one is held to exceptionally high standards and the other is seen as "good for nothing". both of them break out of those respective moulds as soon as they become young adults. and both play a pivotal role in helping each other break out of those moulds and still be true to their inner selfs. I COULD WRITE AN ENTIRE TEN-PAGE ESSAY ON THE PARALLELS BETWEEN THEM....I REALLY COULD!

jude duarte

Mmm the villain of the episode is an entitled white lady who called the cops on a bunch of kids, calls them monsters because of an aspect of themselves they can't change that makes them disruptive and dangerous, and hides behind a veneer of being a caring mother. And Annabeth is black. The social commentary is commentarying

Story time:

In middle school biology, we did an experiment. We were given yams, which we would sprout in cups of water. We then had to make hypotheses about how the yams would grow, based on descriptions of yam plants in our books, and make notes of our observations as they grew.

Here’s what was supposed to happen: we were supposed to see that the actual growth of the plant did not resemble our hypotheses. We were then supposed to figure out that these were, in fact, sweet potatoes.

What actually happened was that every single student in every single class lied in their notes so that their observations perfectly matched their hypotheses. See, everyone assumed the mismatch meant they had done something wrong in the process of growing the plant or that they had misunderstood the dichotomous key or the plant identification terminology. And, thanks to the wonders of a public school education, everyone assumed the wrong results would get us a failing grade. We were trying to pass. We didn’t want to get bitched out by the teacher. Curiosity, learning, science - that had nothing to do with why we were sitting in that classroom. So we all lied.

The teacher was furious. She tried to fail every student, but the administration stepped in and told her she wasn’t allowed to because a 100% fail rate is recognized as a failure of the teacher, not the class. It wasn’t even her fault, really, though her being a notorious hard-ass didn’t help. It was a failure of the entire educational system.

So whenever I see crap like Elizabeth Holmes’s blood test scam or pharmaceutical trials which are unable to be replicated or industry-funded research that reaches wildly unscientific conclusions, I just remember those fucking sweet potatoes. I remember that curiosity dies when people are just trying to give their superiors the “right” answers, so they can get the grade, get the job, get the paycheck. It’s not about truth when it’s about paying rent. There’s no scientific integrity if you can’t control for human desperation.

By @hollyisnotanartist