#why did she get dragoned for 100000 years. what the fuck.

[metanarrates]

it's interesting to think about like conservative worldviews because they clearly don't think this role is demeaning to zelda. like if you don't believe in the feminist project and liberation and stuff it SEEMS empowering to say that zelda has to be kidnapped or depowered because she's too powerful, because she's so strong the game wouldn't happen if something didn't take her out of the plot or because ganon targets her first and ignores link because he's so weak as to be beneath his notice. this is clearly nonsense but i think that's the rationale that makes zelda function, that actually she IS powerful, just so long as it doesn't risk emasculating link

honestly i don't think empowering even enters into the equation 😭😭 its more that her power is a) in the domain of Womanly Things and b) honestly part of what makes her a desirable goal in the plot. she is a Cool Power Up and her power is an excuse to place her in the position of a contested object to be saved. like i don't actually think her character/personhood matters in the series, with a few exceptions 😭😭😭 she just really isn't thought about that much by the writers. demeanment or empowerment don't matter much when a character exists to be a plot device

[asherlockstudy]

Well, the Valonqar prophecy was fulfilled though

Poor me trying to explain all the fuckery that was Jaime’s scenes

Hear me out. But before you do, disclaimer! everything I will say here is 99% the result of shitty writing that incidentally can be read as something “more”. Believe me, I have no faith in the next episode. In fact, I am kind of...jolly because the treatment of most characters was so bad I ended up finding it entertaining. However, there are some things regarding Jaime’s scenes that I couldn’t avoid considering so I’m going to write them down even if it’s for nothing. Which it almost certainly is. 

Sooooo...the worst case scenario was the real one as it usually happens in this shitty world. Jaime Lannister bids his farewell to his character arc of 7,5 seasons and rides back to King’s Landing to die with Cersei. 

There are some curious nuances to that general assumption here, one of them being that the way Jaime essentially breaks up with Brienne in the previous episode was so ambiguous that half the viewers, even some who didn’t care for the relationship of these two, were convinced Jaime was planning to kill Cersei and didn’t want Brienne to follow.Then again, this ambiguity might have been intentional by our brilliant writers - who will Jaime choose in the end?

So let’s talk about the last encounter of the Lannister brothers. Let me tell you, A LOT of weird things happen in that scene. 

First: According to the Unsullied, Daenerys was not the one who commanded them to guard Jaime. Someone else that we never got to know gave the order and Tyrion makes the mistake to not ask their identity. When Tyrion asks “was it the Queen”, the soldier laconically answers “No” and I wonder if there’s some certain weight hiding in that withdrawn piece of information. The Unsullied could have simply said “Greyworm’s orders” or something like that. Hmmm. Then again, it could be that D&D felt they were giving Tyrion a clever line about outranking there (lol). Or, if we are very, very, very hopeful, someone that outranks Tyrion in ways we don’t yet know wanted Jaime guarded out of Tyrion’s reach. And that someone wasn’t Daenerys. 

Second: Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised by now but in the very first seconds we have another proof that Jaime is stupid™. He just decided to walk around or through Dany’s camp flashing the gold hand left and right. When Tyrion asks him why on earth he didn’t hide it, Jaime, also somewhat laconically, says it was because he was stupid. In the last season, we saw that Jaime had the common sense to hide his hand before heading for the North. So, is Jaime’s low IQ dropped even more here, reaching abysmal depths, or did he think he shouldn’t have anything to fear if he walked through Dany and Jon’s lines as Jaime Lannister? 

Third: Well, watch the scene. Jaime is actually not only fed up with the whole chaos but he’s also reluctant to help Cersei, at least in the way Tyrion instructs him to. Look at their dialogue: 

Tyrion: You’re going to her. To die with her.

Jaime: You’ve underestimated her before.  (Soooo he was going there to live with her? In the middle of that utter destruction? It seems Jaime believed Sansa’s words about Cersei’s victory more than Tyrion’s. Jaime deflects Tyrion’s observation here.)

Tyrion: She’s going to die. Unless you can convince her to change her course of action. 

 Jaime: Difficult to do from here. (Excuse)

Tyrion shows the key to his chains.

Jaime: Ooooh, when have I ever been able to convince Cersei of anything? (Is it me or is he actually fighting it?!)

Tyrion: Try. If not for yourself, if not for her, then for everyone of the million people in that city, innocent or otherwise. (Tyrion knows all the things that motivated Jaime once.)

Jaime: To be honest, I never really cared much for them. Innocent or otherwise. (There, fellows, you heard it. Jaime Lannister just said he doesn’t care for the innocents. Whom he decided to protect from a mad king 20 years ago and from 100000 zombies a few days ago. I promised to fight for the living, he said. With. one. hand. Either D&D are fucking delusional or Jaime is really fighting against his brother’s proposition to help their sister. To the point of “fuck everything”.) 

Tyrion (a little taken aback): You do care for an innocent. I know you do. So does Cersei. She has a reason now. 

Jaime (after a little consideration): The child is the reason she’ll never give an inch. All the worst things she’s ever done, she’s done for her children...... It’s not impossible that she’ll win. (LOL “fuck everything including my kids... shit I overdid it here...let’s go back to the first argument because I have nothing else to say”)

Tyrion: She won’t. 

Jaime: Her enemies’ forces have been depleted as she said they would be. Two of the three dragons are dead. She’s evened the odds - 

Tyrion: The city will fall tomorrow - 

Jaime: ...she has the Lannister army, she has the gold- (”pls let me recite all the reasons why I should not help her”)

Tyrion: I defended the city the last time it was attacked, I know it better than anyone, it will fall tomorrow!

Jaime: Then I suppose I’ll die tomorrow, if not before! (”CAN YOU JUST LET ME DIE HERE IN PEACE?”) 

Tyrion: Why?! (”WTF ‘S WRONG WITH YOU?”) Escape. The two of you together. Remember where we met, where they keep the dragon skulls beneath the Red Keep (let’s not start with the dragons out of stone again), take her down there, keep following the stairway down down as far as they’ll go, you’ll come out onto a beach at the foot of the Keep but a dinghy will be waiting for you. Sail out of the bay, if the winds are kind, you’ll make it to Pentos. Start a new life. 

Jaime (weakly but sarcastically): Sail right past the Iron Fleet and into a new life...sounds a lot less likely than Cersei winning this - (Hey, you got to give it to this man, he’s still trying)

Tyrion: There won’t be an Iron Fleet for much longer! Do it! If you don’t, you’ll never see Cersei again!

Tyrion: Swear to me!

Jaime: YOU HAVE MY WORD!!!!

Oh, for fuck’s sake. Jaime just needs to give his word to someone. 

I won’t try to sugarcoat it and claim Jaime gave zero shit for Cersei but I think the reason he eventually complied was because he saw how much Tyrion wanted it. He decided to do it for Tyrion, first and foremost. Jaime only starts considering Tyrion’s proposal when his brother suggests that if he takes his pregnant sister far away from the capital, he might have a chance at a new life with a child and a hopefully mellower Cersei. Still, he tries to refuse but then it’s honestly Tyrion who forces him to care again for Cersei and also technically demands him to remember his duty as a Knight. In a way, Tyrion creates a dreamy image of Jaime making a healthy family with a sane Cersei and Jaime uneagerly succumbs to it. Again, in a way, Tyrion takes the role of the small devil in Jaime’s mind, even though he has good intentions for his sibling. 

I have many questions here. I don’t understand why Jaime decided to return (or, rather, teleport) there. He didn’t seem to have a plan or to be seriously determined to get back to Cersei. I wonder if what some fans said is true - Jaime returned because he felt he deserved to die as much as the rest of the Lannisters, without intending to help them. Why is Jaime so reluctant to follow Tyrion’s helpful plan and save Cersei and their child, if this was supposedly the reason he left Brienne? So many things don’t add up here. We have many scenes lately where Jaime looks like he has an inner fight that none of us or the other characters can truly decipher.  However, it might be something we’ve seen before - Jaime gives up easily. The moment he was captured, he thought everything was pointless and embraced the possibility of death. Like when his hand was cut and was starving himself, willing to die until Brienne talked him out of it. The other possibility is that he didn’t trust Tyrion and thought he was probably testing his allegiances but first, if he said Cersei was going to win, Dany would be mad anyway and second, Jaime is too naive to consider that his brother might set a trap for him, which is right actually. Tyrion wouldn’t do this to Jaime. The last possibility is that Jaime had a bad premonition for this and he didn’t want to do it. Whatever the reason was, Jaime originally felt he shouldn’t do it but was essentially forced to do it out of honour, duty, love for his brother and a teensy glimpse of planted hope that he and Cersei might actually have had a chance to leave the past behind. 

But I do think he’s conflicted. 

That’s the last we see of Jaime before he truly descends into his character assassination. To me, this shot shows that he is really conflicted. He doesn’t want to do what Tyrion asked him to do. But he is going to do it all the same. I don’t know why he is so negative towards it? Is it him having different plans? Different beliefs on what his and Cersei’s fate should be? Or is it instict? Instict isn’t a satisfactory answer either because he was already prepared to die and I’m quite confident that deep inside Jaime knew Tyrion was right about Cersei losing that war and dying. 

The stupidity starts when Jaime meets Euron. Euron’s like hey let’s fight for no reason and Jaime’s like got a job to do but then Euron tells him come on kill another king or if I kill you, I’ll give your head to Cersei and you can kiss her one last time so that’s the last straw for Jaime and he engages in a one handed fight he should have lost. I think this simply is terrible ridiculous writing. The screenwriters felt they were massacring Jaime’s character which is why they had Tyrion exclaim how important Jaime was for him (I can accept that) and have him take out a bad guy before he goes for the lame suicide. Of course the last one was simply a piece of crap and felt forced and unnecessary. Cripple Jaime takes a sword in the kidneys like twice, then kills Euron and then probably ascends a staircase of like 1000 steps to reach the Red Keep and then also descends them and dies from rocks instead. LMAO at that. Was it the power of love? Was the Gold Lion that Jaime always was? Was it the shittiest writing in history of a TV show? Well. I find suspicious that Euron keeps repeating Jaime managed to kill a second king though. Here’s a guess - Jaime is supposed to take another king or queen down in the books but the screenwriters had to adjust the writing for the surprise!!!! So we got that caricature of Euron, self- proclaimed a king, to die by Jaime. They could use a little kid instead with a label reading KING on his forehead. Another weird thing: “I killed Jaime Lannister!”. I wonder if this has any meaning at all because eventually Jaime commits suicide with a rock and THAT’S what happened. A sword in the kidneys? Twice? Such superficial scratches don’t get to the mighty Jaime Lannister. And I wish this was the only fuckery in this scene:

Jaime does not have Window’s Wail. He carries a plain sword. 

Definitely not this one. The plot thickens, wouldn’t you agree? I don’t know how much I can hypothesize here but if this is Jaime Jaime (honestly, I start doubting it for real) then JAIME DID NOT TAKE HIS TWIN SWORD HE HAD WITH BRIENNE IN HIS MISSION TO SAVE CERSEI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Something is seriously weird here. We have a pointless scene between Jaime and Euron. In this pointless scene Jaime doesn’t use his own sword (which is also connected to Brienne) and Euron says “I am the man who killed Jaime Lannister” and yet Jaime is capable of walking thousands of steps up and down and then he dies because of a completely different cause. How long would he stay alive if he didn’t die from the Red Keep’s collapse? Why was this scene needed? Is it just THAT bad writing and the need to atone for what is about to follow? Did D&D feel he needed to atone for what he was about to do?

Here’s an unpopular opinion. I don’t think Jaime needs to atone for anything. Do I like the choice he made in the end? No. Do I like the way he chose to die in the end? No. However, bear with me, D&D and Nik are right when they say that ending felt real to the character, even if he didn’t deserve it. We all expected Jaime to kill Cersei for all the abuse she did to him and all the evil she was responsible for but this ending had me thinking; since when does Jaime kill people out of spite or to take revenge or to punish? Has Jaime ever shown signs of violent fury, even if it’s justified? If I remember correctly, Jaime explicitly said he wasn’t interested in taking revenge from Locke for maiming him, although even Brienne thought this would be an understandable desire. Jaime kept protecting the people, innocent or otherwise, even though they ‘ve been loathing him for decades for saving them from the Mad King. Most of the crimes he has committed were for love (healthy or not) or protectivity or by mistake. I don’t want to include the murder of his cousin here because THIS was the most out of character thing Jaime has done and I’m willing to bet D&D wanted to make his redemption arc that started shortly after more SurPriSiNg.

So it doesn’t weird me out that as he was dying he couldn’t hold anything against his toxic sister anymore. Neither does it annoy me that Cersei was terrified and most of her arrogance had left her at that Day of Reckoning. Why did this make people so mad? It’s delusional to think that Cersei was the Big Villain. She never had anything on Joffrey or Ramsey or (book) Euron or Aerys or his nice daughter. She was a horrible woman who deserved to die, that’s for sure, but this doesn’t mean she wouldn’t want a close person back to her as they were about to die or that she wouldn’t realise before the end that some things should have mattered to her more than power. 

When Jaime meets her again, there’s no fight left inside him. He’s the old Jaime again, the one who loves her unconditionally, unlike the one we saw with Tyrion. I wonder if this has an emotional or a symbolic meaning or perhaps I am thinking too deep into this. It could be explained emotionally because Jaime knows they are both going to die and it’s pointless to oppose to her at this point. She dies, the child dies, he dies. What would be the point of choking her to death when they can die as lovers or as siblings (awkward) embracing each other. Fans forget that they had found themselves in a position where previous fights and hate did not matter anymore since they would definitely die anyway. It’s a parallel with the fight between the Hound and the Mountain who pointlessly decided to kill each other although they would 99% die anyway. The Hound and Jaime follow parallel paths in this case - they could have never returned. They could have left hate and desire for vengence or the toxic love behind and they would have lived. They both get punished for being unable to leave the past behind even in an hour like that - Hound is punished by having the death he dreaded and Jaime is punished by having all his prospects buried along with himself and the love he supposedly couldn’t shake off. There is a huge difference though - the Hound is consistent throughout his whole life about wanting revenge from his brother whereas Jaime falters and fumbles, tries to resist and it is ultimately Tyrion who convinces him to return back to Cersei irreversibly. Jaime holds Cersei tenderly, delays and then leads her beneath the Red Keep. 

Why was Arya there? What was the point of having her reach King’s Landing and enter the Red Keep only to live and survive? Maybe the point was that Cersei, who always desired to survive, if not for herself then for the elephant baby she was apparently gestating for like 2 years, might have had a chance to escape. Sure, she ‘s portrayed to be lost and helpless and as the Red Keep collapses around her, she has lost her quick thinking unlike Arya. However, there was still a chance like there was a chance for the Hound and the Mountain if they hadn’t chosen to kill each other instead. There was a small possibility for Cersei to survive. Tyrion and Jaime took that chance from her. Tyrion had the idea and Jaime executed it. Both her little brothers sealed her death. 

The prophecy was fulfilled and I am sure it was going to follow a similar path in the books. GRRM has said that prophecies are not to be trusted but I think it’s obvious he wouldn’t spend so much time in them if none of it was going to be proven right. The thing is, the prophecies will come true in ways we don’t expect. We were searching for the valonqar but there were two people in Cersei’s life who could fit that role and both had a part in the fulfillment of the prophecy, a part that felt very real for each character. Tyrion, as the clever -er Lannister, is the “mastermind” behind the plan. He tries to compensate for his stupidity upon realising that he tried to fight the evil in King’s Landing by bringing an even bigger one. Filled with guilt, he tries to atone by helping the family he had turned against, even if the family was problematic. He sends Jaime to her rescue, thinking that he helps his loving brother and his innocent child and that he asks forgiveness from his sister for destroying the entire city because of their personal vendetta. (Because whatever was wrong between the two siblings, it should not fall on the people’s heads.) On the other hand, Jaime “the soldier” is the executioner who second-guesses what he’s about to do but he does it as a Knight, out of duty for his family. He outdoes himself in order to find her and lead her to the dungeons of the Red Keep, where there’s no way out.

And when your tears have drowned you, the valonqar shall wrap his hands about your pale white throat and choke the life from you.

That happened. Cersei is desperate, truly drowned in her tears, begging Jaime to save her, supposedly for the child. Jaime looks around a bit and easily embraces their fate. He holds her there in place while she cries she wants the child to live. Jaime wraps his fingers around her neck tenderly and essentially bares her from that last reason for her to survive and tells her that nothing matters but them (who supposedly have no reason or worth to stay alive but should leave this world together instead). This is confusing -  does Jaime truly throws everything else that meant something to him in the dumpster or does he want to make Cersei’s death as sweet as possible? Trying to convince her that she shouldn’t worry about all the reasons why she should live but instead think that she dies like they always said they would - with him, together. I know many people didn’t like how good Cersei’s death was but it wasn’t a good death in my opinion - better than fire but still scary and tragic as hell. Cersei keeps lamenting “Not like this, not like this, not like this” which means she hated the way she was about to die. True enough, she dies from the castle that was the symbol of the power she yearned for so much, while a young and beautiful queen takes everything she loved from her: her crown, the child, herself and, well, her brother who she did not love healthily or selflessly but, still, loved more than anyone else besides her children, I guess. Furthermore, Cersei always wanted to die on her own terms, an opportunity that was also taken from her. She’s pregnant, so she doesn’t want to die by drinking poison and leaving this world with her pride intact. Furthermore, she is not the one who handles the situation. She becomes the follower for once in her life, trusting in Jaime who would always protect her, only to be led by him to her certain and unavoidable death. Jaime himself is the one who demands of her to accept the truth and face death. 

Of couse he dies too. I guess. This ending leaves me baffled in the sense that the Lannister brothers’ fate is now too interwined. Cersei’s death reminds me of Tywin’s - Tyrion kills Tywin because Jaime allowed it to happen in a way and now Jaime kills Cersei because Tyrion convinced him to lead her down there. At this point, both the brothers have fulfilled all the criteria for the prophecies of Azor Ahai and the Valonqar, but the one is dead and the other doesn’t strike me as a fighter sent from a god. Of course, like people and leaks say 1385 times per day, the prophecies don’t matter much, especially in the show but I just...can’t unsee it. The Valonqar was definitely fulfilled. I suspect the Three Headed Dragon one rings true too in some ways, regarding Dany, Jon and the dragons. And if somehow Jaime survives this collapse, or doesn’t, it doesn’t matter, he could be resurrected by the Lord of Light like Jon was after around 30 swords in his guts, then he won’t just survive just to be a humble worn dude living peacefully (with Brienne). If Jaime survives, that makes him Azor Ahai or makes him the King of Westeros or both. So either we’ll get nothing or everything. 

Long story short, while Jaime’s storyline has unbelievably many loose threads and I don’t hate it. I’ve decided I won’t hate him even if that was the last we saw of him. Jaime didn’t reunite with Cersei as a lover either, they reunited as twin siblings. This is my very subjective perception of it but I like to think that the baby doesn’t matter to Jaime anymore because that nature of his relationship with Cersei doesn’t matter to him anymore. But she’s still family and he still had dedicated 40 years of his life to her. He was never very clever and he has always been self-destructive and, worse, he always needed someone to urge him towards a certain direction. I want to emphasize this, which is also why I always expected certain big things from Jaime; although Jaime has a good understanding of the world and what’s right, he rarely, if ever, takes the initiative to do something on his own. He’s usually pushed by others, Cersei, Brienne, Tyrion towards a direction. This is why I always thought Jaime was guided by his destiny like there’s an invisible hand pushing him without him realising it. I’ve noticed a pretty consistent pattern about Jaime - he does not respond in critical questions that start with “Why”. 

Jaime eventually tells Catelyn he pushed Bran out of the window. She asks him why and he never responds. However, he later tells her he sleeps with Cersei so this wasn’t the reason he didn’t respond. 

Brienne asks him why he saved her from Bolton’s men. He never responds. You could argue that he starts developing feelings and can’t process them yet but this actually was the equivalent of his book “I dreamt of you” explanation after the Bear Pit. So, it was like destiny was showing him the way without him realising it. 

As we saw, Tyrion asks Jaime why he finds so many excuses against following his plan to save Cersei and himself. Jaime never responds. It’s as if this goes against his destiny and he tries to avoid it but then destiny meets him anyway beneath the Red Keep. Jaime embraces his and Cersei’s death far too easily.

And since I spoke of “unbelievably many loose threads” let me make a summary of Jaime in the 8th season for the end. 

Bran sees Jaime is heading for Winterfell and waits for him throughout the cold winter night. He doesn’t seem to have a precise picture of when exactly Jaime will arrive and he prefers to stay out there than be the one to tell the truth to Jon about his heritage. In short, Bran waits for Jaime and has an assistant to do what very soon will unleash hell in the entirety of Westeros. Jaime is vindicated in his trial or, at least, tolerated. Bran watches the trial intently and then he also watches intently Jaime looking at Brienne. Jaime apologizes to Bran which Bran almost dismisses as something he did to protect his family. Jaime however says he’s not that man anymore. He asks Bran why he didn’t blame him in the trial and Bran insinuates Jaime will prove very helpful soon (supposedly in the Long Night). Jaime asks what will happen afterwards and Bran looks (for like the first time ever) intrigued and entertained at Jaime’s certainity that he will survive. Jaime spends the rest of the days fanboying over Brienne, expressing his gratitude, knighting her and asking to fight under her command. In the battle of Winterfell, both care to save each other more than to save themselves. Sam has an inexplicable moment of pause during the battle, where he sees through the fire Jaime fighting like crazy with something that looks suspiciously like a functioning right hand. Jaime and Brienne survive the battle and Tyrion coarsely helps Jaime find the moment to get closer with her. After an awkward as hell conversation on heat, fire and wood and things growing on them, they sleep together. Meanwhile, Tyrion and Davos wonder what’s become of the Lord of Light. Jaime is later seen having an inner fight. Jaime then asks from Sansa to not take part in the war (!!!) because he prefers to stay in the ugly North with Brienne. As he’s drinking with Tyrion, Bronn somehow barges in demanding a negotiation to not kill them. As Tyrion is the cleverer and most manipulative of the two, Bronn makes clear that Jaime is the best candidate for his next murder. He agrees to let them live if Daenerys wins. Bronn then literally vanishes. Soon after, Jaime is seen roaming around a little aimlessly and Brienne and Sansa inform him Cersei is winning. The same night, after he sleeps with Brienne one last time, we see Jaime stare into the fire and eventually making the decision to leave. When Brienne wakes up, he tells her he shouldn’t be there when everyone else fights. Brienne is the one who jumps immediately to the conclusion that he’ll die trying to save Cersei. Then Jaime strokes her hand and proceeds to recite all the bad things he has done for Cersei (one being a downright lie) and leaves her heartbroken by saying he’s a hateful man. Then we see Jaime suddenly a prisoner of Daenerys. It seems Jaime was walking freely through her camp without doing much to hide his identity. He’s captured and guarded according to the commands of someone we don’t know. Jaime finds numerous excuses to avoid what Tyrion asks him to do and seems to believe Cersei is going to win instead of Daenerys. Tyrion has trouble finding arguments to persuade him and Jaime says some things that don’t make sense based on his character. Tyrion begs him to swear he will do it and Jaime finally complies. They say goodbye. Jaime’s left alone in a way that shows he still doesn’t want to do it. Next thing we see Jaime’s dumbass methods to be allowed in the Red Keep, which of course all fail. He then tries to go through the beach where Euron meets him and forces him into a fight. Jaime does not carry Window’s Wail. He kills Euron and is mortally wounded, leaving Euron happy that he killed Jaime Lannister. Despite that, Jaime ‘kinda’ forgets he’s mortally wounded and walks up and down who knows how many hundreds of steps. He finds Cersei and he’s suddenly full of love and affection all over again. He leads her down to the dragon skulls where there’s no exit anymore. He tells her nothing else ever mattered but them and holds her in place as the Red Keep collapses on their heads. The end.

Make of this what you will. Is it a mix of beautiful and terrible writing? Is it only terrible writing? Is there something we’re missing? Is there going to be a fantastic plot twist that will blow our minds? What would make sense to you at this point, after everything that happens to him in S8?

[clarabosswald]

the last 24 hours or so have been strange

i’ve at long last reached the point in my life in which my national service is over (i’d talk more about it but it involves so much shit i don’t even know how to translate that i’m not gonna begin to try to) and since trying to resume my service was The Life Goal for the last few months and now it’s gone my mind suddenly got weirdly clear and i started thinking about a lot of shit and going to mental places i haven’t gone to in ages so like for instance a few days ago i stumbled upon a livejournal dedicated to being against the inheritance cycle book series and everything around it and like when i was a kid/teen i used to be fiercely obsessive about the first couple of books but when the rest of the series came out my interest for it just died and for a long time i didn’t quite understand why that happened and i just didn’t even think about the books for like... years then i accidentally found that livejournal and browsed through it out of curiosity then i realized that the writing just got really bad and that’s why i stopped being interested in it i just didn’t understand that that’s what i felt bc i naturally tend to look at things optimistically and it’s funny bc i was very much aware of critiques of the books back when they were my things but i was in different mental states back then and now (also by now i’ve also seen star wars and read lotr so i understand the plagiarism aspect much better) so this whole pointless story leads to me spending the last couple of hours thinking intensely about writing and how when i was a kid i was an avid writer and how i used to plan whole novels in my head and how what i did like about the inheritance cycle was the concept of the dragon+rider bond (the basics of it, not really how it was written eventually in the books) and how i’d really love to write about a bond like that (which is also similar to the person-daemon bond in hdm) but it just feels very... uninspired or unoriginal?  i feel like i do have original things to say about it but i feel like no one would really find it interesting or original which is a huge mental obstacle to me and also why i don’t actually write - the aspects of what’s considered successful or interesting and how people view your creations, it’s terrifying to me (much more in writing than in drawing, which i’m more comfortable with) it also brings me back to the whole “well now that national service is behind you what are you gonna do with your life” shit that is getting thrown at me the last few days (mainly from my dad) and like... when i was in high school i reached the conclusion that i’m gonna be a teacher and studying education, that was the one thing that i was passionate about enough and that i could probably make a living out of but then i talked about it with my boss at the animal shelter and she said “i don’t think you’re capable of keeping that sort of timetable, having to come to school every morning, you’re terrible at that. you should freelance.” and damn does she know VERY well EXACTLY how bad i am with mornings and keeping times. and i realized that she was 100000% correct. so it brought me back to what i’m really passionate about in life. and basically all i can think of is 1. art and 2. animals. so i could go study art? which i was kind of seriously considering to do (it was like, study art for fun, then go study education as a career). and i even looked up how much tuition costs and requirements and everything. but when i shared it with my mom she repeated something i knew very well but tried not to think about - you don’t make money with art. not really. you can try. some people do. but it’s hard and you can very easily just fail.  which kind of brings me back to my fear of my creations just not being interesting or original enough to anyone. so there’s animals - i could study training. for both dogs and cats. i’ve had a year and a half of experience in this world so far, i don’t intend to quit it anyway, i’m passionate about it. i could make it into a job. it’s certainly very freelance-y. there are a lot of dog trainers, but not many cat experts. obviously my techniques would be exclusively force free. i think i could absolutely make it work, social anxiety and all - it’s much easier for me when there are animals involved. i could even study animal behavior at uni as bonus. having that kind of credentials would make advertising myself even easier. honestly what’s mainly stopping me from proudly taking this route in life is that i feel like my parents that this kind of job is stupid and not a serious career and that i can’t live off it. and right now it’s making me hesitate. they had a similar attitude back when it seemed like i was gonna drop high school. then i finished high school. but this seems bigger. it’s my life, my job, my first job. so naturally i’m anxious as fuck. i can also mention yet again that i have this stupid passion for acting and this nagging need in the back of my head to just try it out. it’s not a case of a childhood dream of being famous. it’s me in my teens getting seriously exposed to tv shows for the first time in my life and suddenly realizing the fascinating subtleties in acting. how it’s a different kind of storytelling. mainly the part that involves portraying subtle emotions is what really fascinates and draws me. and i used to be really good at reading out loud during school, not just saying words but telling a story and conveying emotions. i can’t help but feeling super drawn to it. but it’s acting. it’s The Job that 0.1 percent of the population can even hope to succeed in. especially in a tiny country like this. especially when it’s me, a 21 year old (too old to start, maybe? it’s always about people doing this since they were kids), who can’t sing, with ever-nagging social anxiety, and above all - fat, ugly, repulsed makeup and jewelry - the antichrist of the glam world of acting. so yeah. i’ll keep dreaming about giving it a chance. and it won’t happen. also i guess i’m drawn to translating as well but that’s a world i know almost nothing about and for some reason doesn’t seem to me like a life-sustaining kind of job. like at all. which is why i never bothered even looking into it. although at this point maybe i should honestly. anyway i guess the point of this whole train of thought vent thing is that i’m at a crossroads in my life which is a point i haven’t been in in a very long time and just like last time i feel utterly fucking terrified and under a lot of fucking pressure. and i just needed to spill it out. it didn’t help much in terms of making my thoughts any clearer or anything. but there’s small relief in knowing it’s not exclusively just inside my head anymore. and yeah feeling lost is Fun