Alicent loves her children the most please stop

I know this discourse is old and tired but I just scrolled past a very bad take and I can’t help myself. 

Alicent Hightower does not hate her children! She does not love her children less than Rhaenyra! It is not “misogynistic” (I need people to stop using this word, for the love of god) to recognize that Alicent loves her children!!

Alicent wasn’t upset with Rhaenyra because of what she did with Daemon at a brothel. She was upset because: 

Rhaenyra betrayed her trust and played her. 

Rhaenyra lied over her mother’s grave. We know Alicent misses her mother. Her tie to religion isn’t to “repent” (for you know, being manipulated into attacking the woman who blamed her 10 year old son after he was mutilated, who called for him to be tortured, who stood there and goaded Viserys into yelling at Aegon, to snap at Alicent, to publicly humiliate and threaten them? Sure, okay, writers 😒.) She prays at the Sept because she feels closer to her mother there, because she’s from Oldtown, home to the Citadel. Because she needs a higher power to lean on and gain strength from. Because she’s a lady, product of her society and no, religion isn’t always a chain for women.

We’ve seen Alicent defend Rhaenyra’s claim - in front of the ladies during the hunt, in front of Viserys when he doubted her, and to Otto. Only for Rhaenyra to throw caution to the wind and put her reputation as a princess and heir in question. Alicent now looks stupid, especially if you consider that Alicent had confessed to Rhaenyra that she feels lonely before she lied to her. 

If Rhaenyra can lie over her mother’s grave, lie to her face repeatedly, disregard her feelings, her loneliness, what else is she capable of? 

That’s why Alicent “turns” on Rhaenyra. No shade to the shippers, but sometimes y’all go to far. Not that it’s entirely on the audience, the writers and yes, even the actors feed into this. What’s actually “misogynistic” is how the narrative punishes the child bride for her own abuse.

Alicent isn’t just a character made up of her relationships. She can have a rich interior that doesn’t revolve around Rhaenyra.

Ep 5: Callie and Shauna

Hello! This is about up to Episode 5 of Yellowjackets, and ONLY episode 5 of Yellowjackets. I have not seen beyond the fifth episode, at all, and know NOTHING about this show. Please do not spoil it for me.  Things that are spoilery in nature, for me, include: saying things like  “Just wait!!” confirming or denying anything I put forward, outside information about the cast interviews or creator statements, leading questions like “Do you think “blank moment” means anything?” etc. Remember  that Y’ALL HAVE SEEN THE SHOW AND I HAVE NOT. This informs the way you  talk about things relating to the show. Just be really careful is all  I’m asking. Also: If there is LITERALLY any stance I  could take on this show or character that would make you upset, please  just fucking block the tag

If you WOULD like to discuss the show and my takes on it, the Discord is right here! I don’t go there, so it’s a great place to get every emotion out.

Please thank @sailorsunspot and @moonlight-frittata for backing this odd way of doing a liveblog, and remember my tip jar is always open

Callie is the sort of thing that happens when you let your daughter run roughshod over you your entire life because you have no idea how to be a parent, and every time you see her you think of Jackie and all the things that might have been, and that makes your husband too indulgent of her and makes you resent her. 

But, Callie is a fucking asshole. Shauna is not wrong when she says that. And she’s so used to getting everything she wants because Jeff is a powderpuff and Shauna is checked out, 

Seeing Callie in Jackie’s uniform is just more of the ways in which we can see that Callie is Jackie’s ghost but here’s the thing: She’s also Shauna’s ghost, (I absolutely adored the very clever touch of having her show up in Jackie’s uniform, to the lyric “It ain’t me, but it’s wearing my skin”)a girl she could have been but never was. It’s not for nothing that we see them show up at the same Halloween party, Shauna trying to recapture a teenagehood she feels was stolen from her. (Going back to the belief question, I very much think that Shauna believes Jackie is haunting her. Maybe she always has been) 

They are both astonishingly immature, I would go so far as to call them bratty, particularly when dealing with each other. I can say that while still thinking that Callie is horrible and the idea that you would take something out of your mother’s closet, that you know is tied into shit that is so dark, and so painful, astounds me even knowing how teenagers can be. When she tells her mom she had no idea what her mother had been through, everything was so awful, I don’t really believe her. Callie also has the internet. Maybe she’s just being vulnerable because she’s on molly, but it feels like an act to me and I don’t trust it. 

But even as I say that, and I do think Callie is cruel, she is completely correct that Adam knows about her being a Yellowjacket. There’s no way he doesn’t know. Everything about her is about being a Yellowjacket, and for Shauna, that ties so directly into Jackie that it feels like she has to share even Adam, even her daughter, with Jackie. Everything should have been Jackie’s, right? 

But I digress, Callie is horrible, and Shauna is also immature, but I absolutely love the way she rends Callie apart at the end of the episode. She has it coming. Callie will not call her bluff here, because Shauna is not wrong, and Callie may be terrible, but she isn’t stupid. Callie is outplayed on every level here.

Ep 6: Shauna

Hello! This is about up to Episode 6 of Yellowjackets, and ONLY episode 6 of Yellowjackets. I have not seen beyond the sixth episode, at all, and know NOTHING about this show. Please do not spoil it for me.  Things that are spoilery in nature, for me, include: saying things like  “Just wait!!” confirming or denying anything I put forward, outside information about the cast interviews or creator statements, leading questions like “Do you think “blank moment” means anything?” etc. Remember  that Y’ALL HAVE SEEN THE SHOW AND I HAVE NOT. This informs the way you  talk about things relating to the show. Just be really careful is all  I’m asking. Also: If there is LITERALLY any stance I  could take on this show or character that would make you upset, please  just fucking block the tag

If you WOULD like to discuss the show and my takes on it, the Discord is right here! I don’t go there, so it’s a great place to get every emotion out.

Please thank @sailorsunspot and @moonlight-frittata for backing this odd way of doing a liveblog, and remember my tip jar is always open

Let’s hear it for Jeff. I love that we are intentionally complicating the situation, this episode may as well be called, “Intentionally complicating the situation” because at the beginning we are sold this disaffected husband who might be cheating on her (I know I already said I’m not sure I think he is, and I know am hard into the idea that he is not.) and poor Shauna is seeking something in not at all suspicious Adam. 

But now. 

Jeff is a decent guy, who loves his wife, and who stands up for her when she isn’t even capable of standing up for herself because she feels so guilty about the fact that she lived and Jackie did not that she is willing to let herself be flogged every single year on Jackie’s birthday to prove that Shauna did everything she could for Jackie. But Jeff stands up. Now Shauna doesn’t get to be the poor, understandable victim, now she is a woman who is failing as a wife to someone who is trying, and who cares about her, and who already has failed as a mother, raising a daughter who, I don’tr even give a shit about liking her, doesn’t even respect her. 

The show looks at Shauna, looks at us, and goes, “Wow, isn’t this just a little pathetic?” I am AFLAME. 

Speaking of things I have rapidly reversed course on, last episode when she said that it was Jackie’s uniform, given by her parents, I said, “Oh that is very sad and sweet and totally misguided and so unintentionally cruel” and I loved it then, but I sport of love it more now as an almost, maybe not quite, intentional act of violence. Holy shit, her parents are so angry that Shauna lived, and they are going to make her pay for it, every single year, and remind Shauna of how the one who didn’t deserve to live, did, I don’t even know that I think they KNOW that’s what they are doing, and I am SUCKING IT DOWN LIKE A HUMMINGBIRD AT THE FEEDER. 

It’s not even as if I don’t understand how this can happen. I’ve written before about how often, those who die young are canonized, and everything they would have done would have been perfect, and they were so wonderful, and they would have been like this, or remembered that. It is so easy to be wonderful when you’re dead. So much more when it was your child. But there has to come a point where you search inside yourself, and look hard, and see what you’re doing. You don’t even have to be NICE to Shauna, just say you can’t see her anymore, and that is INFINITELY kinder. 

The reason all of this works is that Shauna hates and blames herself, too. I love the scene with Jackie, and ‘Jackie’s ghost’ but Jackie’s ghost is just Shauna. The call is coming from inside the house. Which I love so much about all of this, is so much of it can be taken as, “is this happening? Yes, and also no.” (Though I do think the show is going to making a strong pitch to “actually supernatural” which manages to both delight and frustrate me at the same time. Shauna does not believe that it’s not her fault, and that is why Jackie calls her on it, and tells her she thinks it’s her fault. I like the “Why are you here?” response from Jackie. Does Shauna know? Does she know how much she hates herself, and Jackie, and how she, too, cannot let Jackie go? 

In turn, Shauna is going to take it out on Callie, by refusing her the college fund. I would, again, say that Shauna doesn’t even realize what she’s doing. Would I let someone fucking insult me like this, repeatedly, so Midge could have a free college education? I like to think so, but I don’t actually know the answer to that. I have trouble shutting up. But Shauna--It’s important to point that right before she turns down the college fund, she says, “I don’t even like my daughter” because that’s the key, and she’s talking to herself. Why is she putting up with it for someone that she doesn’t like, who treats her like shit? 

We are getting to indulge in Shauna’s selfishness here, of all the ways that she feels guilty for surviving, but instead of living a life Jackie could be proud of, she is instead submitting herself to life as the sacrificial lamb, and has herself convinced of her own martyrdom and victimhood, I think, and wow do I love it.