anna says reading is resistance, and she’s right. i’ve been reading a lot so far this year. i haven’t read more than 5 pages at a time in the last week.

the computer tried to capitalize the beginning of this sentence and i resented it so much that i went into the settings to figure out how to change it. we have progressed past the need for capital letters.

i write my little songs, a process much akin to slicing pieces of my skin off and arranging them on a piece of paper until i like the shape my skin has made better than the shape of me. until the blood stains the shape of a portal. until the portal leads somewhere better than here. 

but writing full sentences, letting them sit in silence - it's somehow much more painful. it does not feel as though i have to remove something from myself, but rather find something in myself, something i’m not sure is there. 

i overanalyze every single word that comes out of my godforsaken mouth or mind, and still i eat my shoes regularly. still, i say the wrong thing. still, still, still. 

i regularly have thoughts that i don’t agree with. what is that? does having the thought in itself mean i do agree? or is the presence of thoughts merely a side effect of being a social, mimetic creature? to absorb is not necessarily to agree, even inside your own head. 

Have you ever experienced something awful, or been having a horrible day or week or whatever, and as a result been a bitch to everyone around you? Because I have. Not for very long, and and it didn’t turn me into a bloodthirsty murderer, but here’s the thing! I’ve also never been stranded in the wilderness for 19 months, lost my best friend who I was in love with and had deeply betrayed and essentially been responsible for her death, eaten her to survive, then given birth and lost my baby. Oh yeah, she also had to butcher Javi.

We’ve also already seen Shauna react to pain with violence. Remember when she lost her baby and almost killed Lottie with her rage?

Also, let’s remember that we missed months in the woods, and based on Shauna’s journaling those months consisted of the girls building a narrative that framed both Jackie and Shauna’s baby’s deaths as necessary sacrifices that are Good Actually because they survived.

Put all that together and I totally believe season 3 Shauna. I totally buy that she has built a brick fucking wall between herself and her humanity. In those months we missed I totally buy she just descended further and further into resentment and anger for the rest of the girls. I’ve seen people being like “where are the moments of doubt and grief and softness?” but I think that fundamentally misses the point of where Shauna’s at. She can’t let herself be soft or feel her grief for even a *second* because as soon as she does she would collapse under the weight of it. The only thing keeping her going is her fury. And I also do think we’ve seen little moments. When she covers Ben’s face for Nat? It’s in the middle of doing something awful to Nat, but do not argue to me that that scene was completely cold and uncomplicated from Shauna. When Travis brings up Jackie in the finale you can tell Shauna is affected for a split second, but it is so deeply painful that she has to stop those emotions immediately.

Shauna has also been shown to be capable of completely bonkers levels of compartmentalization. She spent 20+ years married to Jeff living as a housewife! I feel like that is a very similar emotional process to the way we see teen Shauna behaving in season 3, it’s just 2 sides of the same coin. Whether she’s diving headfirst into suburban normalcy or ruthless bloodlust, it’s got the same emotional contours and reasons: to protect herself from her pain and guilt.

Idk man like you can hate Shauna that is your prerogative she is an awful miserable person who hates herself and doesn’t know what to do with that, and I think maybe she could’ve grown up to face herself and grown into a better person, but instead she went through all this shit which fucked her up forever, left her frozen in adolescence, and allowed her to lean into her darkest impulses, which because she already hates herself made her feel free. If you already hate yourself and think you’re awful, it makes sense to me that you would feel most free when you’re allowing yourself to turn into the awful thing you already thought you were. Melissa fucking clocked it when she said she seethes and she makes her pain everyone else’s problem. It just all really tracks for me and at this point I don’t even know if we’re watching the same show if you think Shauna is one dimensional.

This is not a defense of the character but perhaps a defense of the writing of the character. Lots of other things to hate the writers for, I just don’t think this is the hill to die on that some of y’all think it is.

BUT

the idea that the Pit Girl scene has - since the very beginning - symbolized to the audience the brutality and the darkness that the girls would descend into. it is presented as like the most extreme version of their violence and savagery in the wilderness, but THEN we find out that the WHOLE HUNT is actually a PLAN to distract Shauna and the others long enough to get to rescue???? That no, this is not the group’s further spiral into madness, this is their desperate attempt for relief. They all have darkness in them, but they do not all want to live in that darkness forever. I just think that whole subversion is truly incredible.

It also really clarified a lot of things from season 1 like why Misty and Nat are Like That and why Tai said “we wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for her” about Nat and oh god my roommate said something about the whole pit girl hunt as like a manifestation of the layers and levels of pretending and manipulation required to survive as a woman. Van and Tai have stacked the deck, Shauna clocks that and switches the order, throughout the hunt the girls who are in on the plan are manipulating those who aren’t, the whole hunt in itself is a manipulation!!!! And Mari is in on it and sacrifices herself to save them!!!!!! If that’s not what it’s like to be a girl idk what is!!!!!!!

it’s the fact that adult Melissa has the thing teen Tai is worried about not having and she is still compelled to call that old life back to her. it’s the fact that adult Tai had that with Simone (whom the show did dirty and while i love YJ i do not forgive them for that pls bring her back my love) and some part of her (?? Unclear about how much Other Tai is Tai’s sublimated self or more of an alter but go with me here) or It wouldn’t let her keep that version of it. it’s the fact that Lottie DID go home and what happened to her? Forced shock therapy and institutionalization. Nat, so desperate to go home, spends her life in the throes of addiction and trauma, only to die right as she’s beginning to heal and accept herself.

idk idk idk but i loved what this episode was and what the show is teasing out about what society asks of women and whether a normal, suburban, capitalistic life is even worth fighting for and what that means for each character and oooo idk i have no formed thoughts but it’s delicious