9.11
Things I’m Watching:
House of the Dragon: Not as fun as Game of Thrones, which it inspired me to start rewatching (the fun parts, that is), but like, Rhaenyra/Alicent are true love forever and I’m going to keep going “Gaslight/Gatekeep/Girldragon 👸🏼🐉” whenever Rhaenyra shows up on screen.
Game of Thrones: Like you can guess, I have many thoughts, most of which are “I love Sansa, I love Cersei, I love Catelyn” and I’ll probably write about it more at length when I finish season 3 (I’m midway through right now) but it’s very interesting just how I automatically revert to my 18-year-old self when it comes to like, fantasy TV shows.
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: I’m following @LesserFrederick’s takes on the show on Twitter, which I honestly like better than the show itself but I’ve only seen the first episode so I’m hoping it picks up with the next episode.
Industry: I described it as Skins goes Succession and I stand by that.
Partner Track: I love Arden Cho and I want to like this show more than I actually do, and it’s unlikely that I get through it but I’m including it nonetheless.
Things I’m Reading:
From the Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales and Their Tellers by Marina Warner and Spinning Straw into Gold: What Fairy Tales Reveal About the Transformations in a Woman's Life by Joan Gould: I’m on a fairy tale kick, and it shows. Here are some things I was thinking about in relation to this book:
Why don’t the princesses in fairy tales also get to be the monster?
Why is the beast of “Beauty and the Beast” always male?
What can we forgive in men that we can’t in women, and why?
“Out here the good girls die” (From “A Dustland Fairytale” by The Killers)
The Wave in the Mind: Talks and Essays on the Writer, the Reader and the Imagination by Ursula K. Le Guin: one of the greatest writers ever
The Whole Woman by Germaine Greer: Greer is one of those feminist writers I’ve been meaning to read for years and never read, and now I’m finally reading her
The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Van der Kolk: I have many thoughts on this book, and I’ll eventually expand I’m sure
Several romance novels that are so nondescript I don’t remember the titles and don’t care enough to look them up
Things I’m Thinking About:
I’ve noticed that within left-of-center circles and in interpersonal relationships, a lot of people weaponize social justice language and hurl accusations of people being bigoted in an effort to detract from their own bad behavior and it’s extremely transparent.
For better or for worse, David Benioff spoke my language when he pointed out, “It’s not paranoia if you’re right” in the Game of Thrones “Behind the Episode” of season 2, Episode 7, “A Man Without Honor.”
I’m very glad my parents raised me to be angry in a way most like, young millennial women of color weren’t taught to be. I was talking to my friend Maya and I was like, if I had to pick a negative sentiment I embody, or a 7 deadly sin, it would absolutely be wrath. I’ve completely mellowed out since I was rage-posting on Facebook as a 16-year-old, but nonetheless, my core remains the same.
Sorry to sound like it’s 2014 but Lorde going, “But I got my fingers laced together and I made a little prison/And I’m locking up everyone that ever laid a finger on me” in “Yellow Flicker Beat” really did something to my 19-year-old brain.
