#But our Cassandra is a goddes who is having a really hard time making people belive (in) her

[maifos]

Since I heard her name I couldn't get the similarities between Galicea (fantasy high) and Galatea (Greek mythology). The myth of Galatea is basically that an incredibly skilled sculptor was incredibly repulsed by the idea that women could speak and express themselves, but he still wanted a girlfriend so he made a marble statue and named her Galatea (Roughly translate to white as milk). But he soon realized that a less comfortable body pillow wasn’t the best option for a fulfilling relationship so he asked Aphrodite for help. The goddess then transformed Galatea into a real woman who, unfortunately, could talk and have emotions and opinions so their whole thing kind of fell apart. All this to say, I think this myth of Galatea where she is only accepted when she follows a very strict set of rules laid out for her by the person who is supposed to love her, has some very intriguing parallels to Galacea the “werewolf moon” goddess, being forced into just “moon” goddess she isn’t by her followers, who only accept her as a restricted version of herself that can’t express the werewolf aspect of her divinity.

I don’t know if this was intentional on Brennan's part, but considering there have been a lot of different parallels with characters with greek myth inspired/adjacent names i wouldnt put it past him. Either way I hope we get to see more interactions between Cassandra and Galicea because I wanna know what their sibling relationship was. Were they on good terms? Was it another Abernant situation? What did Galacea think of Ankarna? How did Galicea react when her sister became the nightmare king? Did she know? I need the rest of the season to drop tomorrow. I swear to god I wanna know everything KNOW!

[professional-anti]

City of Bones: Chapter Two

Chapter Two: Secrets and Lies Clary’s drawing and experiencing some Frustration. And like…..ya girl I gotcha. I know the pain. Clary wishes she could be more like her mother which is kind of sweet but super cliché. The phone rings, and it’s Simon being That Lovable Dork™ and pretending to be one of the guys she saw carying a knife. It’s a little funny, ngl, but Simon…come on. Clary’s upset rn.

Clary’s mom was apparently upset they were home late, and we get this:

“I am the bane of her existence,” Clary said, mimicking her mother’s precise phrasing with only a slight twinge of guilt.

…That was her mother’s precise phrasing? Clary, don’t feel guilty mimicking that. Your mom called you the bane of her existence! This is just bad writing, y’all. Jocelyn Fray is set up to be this loving, kind mom…and she says something like that? It makes sense that she’s angry, like, fine, let her be angry. But Cassandra Clare has absolutely no sense of extremes. This is just a li’l too much, babe. Tone it down.

OH GODD. I forgot. Simon has a band. Of course he does, bc this can’t get any more cliché. Simon invites Clary to a poetry reading one of his bandmates is doing. So far, it seems like all of Clary’s friends are boys, which really urks me. Let girls be friends! Let girls take care of each other! A girl isn’t “cool” just bc all her friends are boys. A girl who says “I don’t get along with other girls?” Take care of her. There is some deep internalized mysoginy going on. (Don’t @ me!)

Apparently Eric is really bad at poetry, which, like, mood. They agree that even though Clary’s mom is mad at her for going out the night before, Simon’ll still pick Clary up and bring her to the poetry slam. Not so nice of Simon, but I get the appeal of dragging someone along to a terrible poetry reading. Sometimes you just need support.

There’s a picture of Clary’s dad over the mantel. Apparently he was a soldier who died crashing his car into a tree before Clary was born. Even someone who has never heard anything about these books before and is experiencing them for the first time would be able to tell that Clary has clearly been fed a pack of lies. Apparently Jocelyn never talks about him but has a box with his initials (JC, gonna come up later 100%) with his medals inside.

Clary hears someone coming and grabs a book bc “Jocelyn recognized reading as a sacred pastime and wouldn’t interrupt Clary in the middle of a book, even to yell at her.” Ummmm,,,, sounds like a bad policy, Jocie. Clary should have walked in the night before with a book glued to her face.

A guy called Luke comes in holding folded cardboard boxes, and all I can picture is this:

And that’s how we’ll be thinking of Luke from now on. There’s some dumb background info:

“Hey, Un—hey, Luke,” she said. He’d asked her to stop calling him Uncle Luke about a year ago, claiming that it made him feel old, and anyway reminded him of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Besides, he’d remind her gently, he wasn’t really her uncle, just a close friend of her mother’s who’d known her all her life.

I’M SCREAMING. This is bad writing, folks. This is bad writing. Have any of you guys braved the steaming shit pile that is Handbook for Mortals? This reminds me of that. Totally unnecessary detail that just detracts from the action. Besides being unnecessary, it’s really fucking awkward. Nobody talks like that. “Hi, Uncle Luke!” “Don’t call me that. That reminds me of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which for some reason Cassandra Clare won’t italicize. Besides, I’m not really your uncle, just a close friend of your mother’s who’s known you all your life.” Umm, Luke??? That’s what people call close friends of their parent’s. It’s a known thing that people do. Also, most people do not think of Uncle Tom’s Cabin after hearing “Uncle Luke”. So calm down, Uncle Luke.

There’s some banter. Apparently Clary’s mom is parking the truck. (Do you guys know how hard it is for me not to type Clare instead of Clary?? It keeps happening.)

Apparently the book Clary grabbed from the side-table was The Golden Bough. Now, spoiler alert: Jocelyn has had Clary’s memories of magic all wiped, which I know from the first time I read this hell book. So why would she purposely put books about mythology and magic in the house??????

Clary asks Luke if he’s ever seen something no one else could see, and he reacts totally unsuspiciously by dropping his tape gun. He spews some bullshit about hallucinating being okay bc she’s “an artist” and “sees the world in ways that other people don’t.”

Jocelyn walks in, and ofc, she’s super gorgeous blah blah blah. This happens:

People always told Clary that she looked like her mother, but she couldn’t see it herself. The only thing that was similar about them was their figures: They were both slender, with small chests and narrow hips. She knew she wasn’t beautiful like her mother was. To be beautiful you had to be willowy and tall. When you were as short as Clary was, just over five feet, you were cute. Not pretty or beautiful, but cute. Throw in carroty hair and a face full of freckles, and she was a Raggedy Ann to her mother’s Barbie doll.

#letgirlsknowthey’repretty2018!!!! Alternatively, stop being fucking cowards and let your MC not be classically beautiful. Bc I’m sorry, we all know Clary is supposed to be gorgeous. Her biggest flaw is that she’s short??? Honey, I am 4 feet 11 inches, and I’ll be that tall until the day I die (unless I do one of those old-lady shrinks). Being short isn’t actually a fucking flaw, Clare’s just pretending it is. I’m just sick of this. Girls have to be beautiful, but they can’t know they’re beautiful. And they can’t be beautiful if it’s not in a thin, white-girl way. Here’s what I want: fat girls who know they’re gorgeous. Girls of color who know they’re gorgeous. Jewish girls and Muslim girls who know they’re gorgeous. Alternatively, I want girls aren’t gorgeous and aren’t described in such a way that we’re supposed to know they’re actually gorgeous. I want girls who don’t pass judgement on themselves at all. I want girls who can just be without having to fulfill some vision of beauty.

Bc here is what we’re supposed to take away from Clary’s description: she has striking red hair and pretty freckles. She’s short and slender. She’s cute and pretty. She just doesn’t know it. Gag me.

Ughhhh. Clary’s also clumsy, her second “flaw”. This isn’t a real fucking flaw!! A flaw is something that is actually detrimental to you, okay??? When you say, “Oh, this character is clumsy,” you’re really saying, “I’m too lazy to think up some actual flaws.” And Clare’s been known to plagiarize, which is a lazy person’s sin.

Jocelyn drops the bombshell that they’re, um…going on vacation. Jocelyn, Clary, and Luke are going to a place called the “farmhouse” in upstate NY for the rest of the summer. As any well-read YA reader knows, this is code for OH FUCKING SHIT WE’RE ABOUT TO DIE THEY’RE ON TO US THROW YOUR CLOTHING INTO A SUITCASE AND GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE.

Clary flips shit bc even though she earlier said school is only a few weeks away, the rest of summer is apparently really long now. She demands to know what could happen if she stays behind. Apparently the only way Clare can show that somebody is startled is by them dropping something, so Luke drops some picture frames. Ugh, totally not worth being startled over, Uncle Luke. He says he has to go, and Clary hears him and her mom whispering about someone called Bane. From now on, this is Bane:

I promise he’s more badass than anything Cassandra Clare could come up with.

There’s some more Shady Conversation between Jocelyn and Luke that Clary is too dumb to follow, and Luke tells Jocelyn to talk to Clary. It’s really weird that after years of protecting Clary they’re just gonna argue right in front of her, but Clare does what Clare wants.

This happens:

The door flew open. Jocelyn gave a little scream. “Jesus!” Luke exclaimed. “Actually, it’s just me,” said Simon. “Although I’ve been told the resemblance is startling.” He waved at Clary from the doorway. “You ready?”

;lasdlajlkajldljl So much happening here. For one, Jocelyn screams. Why is it always the woman who screams? Why was Isabelle the one shrieking? Why is it possible for female authors to be mysoginistc? Why does the world suck?

But my main point is that I think Simon is supposed to be likable? But honestly he’s just coming over as a real douchebag, so jot that down. Anyway, Clary and Simon fuck off. It’s a little weird that Jocelyn is just letting Clary go, but as we all know, Clare does what Clare wants. Oh, and Clary’s super rude to her mom as they’re leaving. The usual.

Oh, God. Another wonderful Simonism. As they’re going down the stairs, Simon says, “Jesus, woman, don’t rip my arm off.” I love, love, love when a female character is referred to as “woman”! Hahahaha nope. Not even as a joke. I think it’s dumb and sexist and argh. Simon is just proving himself to be a real treat. 

We learn that Clary lives in a brownstone that’s been divided into apartments and she and her mom share the building with a psychic called Dorothea.

“Nice to see she’s doing a booming business,” Simon said. “It’s hard to get steady prophet work these days.” “Do you have to be sarcastic about everything?” Clary snapped.

Hate to say it, but I’m with Clary on this one. Also, once again, Clare shows that she really doesn't understand moderation. Simon making a crack once in a while? Okay. Probably funny. ALL OF SIMON’S LINES BEING THESE ANNOYING JOKES?? NOT FUNNY. KILL BILL SIRENS EACH TIME. I’M TIRED.

WAIT, THIS IS NOT A DRILL. I THINK MAGNUS JUST WALKED OUT OF DOROTHEA’S APARTMENT??? YASSSSSS, HERE WE GOOOOO. Clary does the annoying thing where she’s like “am I remembering something?” but then doesn’t remember anything at all. Anyway, that’s the end of Magnus for this chapter.

We rejoin our intrepid assholes at a Mexican restaurant where Clary is angsting about her mom and Simon is cracking jokes. Clary talks about how she knows nothing about her mom’s life before her mom had her. It’s page 31 and nothing interesting has happened yet I swear to God. Simon’s like, “Haven’t you see all those scars your mom has?” and Clary’s like “What scars?” which we all know is bc she’s been mind-whiped or something. Clary ignored a call from her mom, which is exactly the thing to do when your mom is acting erratic and scared!!

They leave the restaurant and Clary thinks she sees a doll’s wings flutter. Simon complains about being the only boy in his band without a girlfriend. Save yourself, Clary! You suck, but save yourself from the Nice Guy™ anyway!! There’s a low-key homophobic joke:

“Pretty soon the only people left without a girlfriend will be me and Wendell the school janitor. And he smells like Windex.” “At least you know he’s still available.” Simon glared. “Not funny, Fray.”

And then Clary gets even worse:

“There’s always Sheila ‘The Thong’ Barbarino,” Clary suggested. Clary had sat behind her in math class in ninth grade. Every time Sheila had dropped her pencil—which had been often—Clary had been treated to the sight of Sheila’s underwear riding above the waistband of her super-low-rise jeans.

(source: https://tenor.com/view/batman-donotwant-animated-gif-4668582)

Look. I am not a nice person. I’ve been known to commit lashon hara, which is the Jewish way of saying being a big ol’ gossip whore. But I would never slut-shame. And I expect better of my female protagonists. This book is just so filled with girl-on-girl hate. And I hate girl-on-girl hate. I want girls building each other up. I want girls loving each other. I want girls supporting other girls, not tearing them down. I don’t want girls who only make friends with boys and then slut-shame other girls with them.

Oh, it turns out Eric the poet is dating Sheila. And we’re on our way to the poetry reading. Great! I bet we’ll meet her, and it’ll be slut-shaming goodness. Clary calls Eric a sexist pig for telling Simon to “just decide which girl in school had the most rockin’ bod and ask her out on the first day of classes.” I am totally in agreeance that Eric is a sexist pig. So why, perchance, is Simon FRIENDS WITH THIS ASSHOLE? This is the CLASSIC Nice Guy™. They always have a coterie of sexist pig friends to show how Nice they are in contrast. Fuck that. Actual nice guys, who aren’t Nice Guys™? They have nice friends.

Clary ignores a call from her mom and thinks about how much she’ll miss Simon while at the farmhouse even though she’s been nothing but annoyed at him since page one. The chapter thankfully ends.