kitty

GREGORY EDDIE & BEN WYATT

That's exactly what's supposed to happen. People wish they could be activists, but they can't because they have to work in order to survive, so they make sure their children can be the activists.

Also, you're absolutely right that this is what privilege looks like. But for the 1,000,012th time, the word "privilege" is not an insult. Having privilege doesn't automatically make you a bad person, but it does make you more likely to have opportunities to be a bad person. It's also possible to use your privilege for good.

But for Gollum biting it off with his finger, it wouldn't have been destroyed.

So Frodo's journey saved the world nonetheless.

And it broke him.

It was too much for him to bear. He could no longer live in the Shire or live in Middle-Earth. He wasn't of the world anymore. He had to go to the Undying Lands.

He took on the task that no one else would. He saved the world. Everyone got a happy ending. Aragorn became King, Sam rebuilt the Shire, Merry and Pippin became heroes. They all lived in renown.

But Frodo had the hardest task of all. No one else would do it. A simple hobbit who came by the Ring by chance. Not a King, not an immortal. Not a wizard. No power save his will and his friends. And he did it and saved everyone.

And he never got to rest. He never got to remain in peace. The task destroyed him. It was too much.

But there was no other way. Nobody but a simple hobbit could bear the ring all the way to Mount Doom and resist its power so long. Not a man, not an elf, not a wizard; they would have succumbed. Gandalf knew this, which was why he chose the hobbits in all his designs.

It's amazing that one of the precedent setting works in the fantasy genre holds up so well because it subverts what ultimately became the genre's core tropes. The hero was not the King, or a chosen one. In fact, the hero not being the King was a key point that allowed Aragorn to distract Sauron and allow the task in the first place. The hero was someone unassuming but courageous, who did the thing because no one else would, even though it was just by chance he came upon it.

But Frodo couldn't resist the Ring completely. He wasn't superior to anyone else in that way. And in the end it left him broken. The burden crushed him. No one else could do it, and in the end, he couldn't either. He wasn't so special that he was invulnerable.

Something that I've been thinking about, as I struggle with depression and anxiety and *another vague gesture at everything* is that LOTR does not criticize Frodo for being broken. It does not shame him or deny him what he needs.

The task was too much and it broke him and that's okay. His friends nonetheless take care of him and let him go with understanding. The book doesn't treat it as a bad thing.

This seems to be a theme throughout the books. The characters rest and heal. They spend time recovering in Rivendell, Fangorn, Lorien, Ithilien. It's treated as good and necessary. They don't heroically endure endless torment from the second they set out until they're done.

And in Gondor's march from Minas Tirith to Mordor, Aragorn recognizes that some of the very few men he's taking with him don't have the heart to go to battle against the Enemy. And he says that's okay. He gives them other tasks the they can do. They hold other strategic points. They aren't shamed for not going all the way, or kicked out, or told that they aren't manly or whatever. Their limitations are recognized and respected. The task was too big and it was okay that they couldn't do it.

I don't know man. I've held on through some absolutely crazy shit. White knuckled through mental health crises when my doctors were begging me to take a break, to go to the hospital before I hurt myself. My therapist has tried to slow me down and tell me that I've been going through it and it's understandable that I am feeling some kind of way. Even one of my colleagues remarked that I've had an absolutely fucking wild career and that I've seen more as a lawyer of seven years than she has as a lawyer of forty. But I've gotten it into my head that I have to be strong, I have to be independent.

Fuck me, man, I'm currently white knuckling through life and hanging on by a fucking thread. A few weeks ago I was about an hour away from checking myself in to a mental health facility until my best friends swooped in to help me. And then I went right back to work.

And then I read this book. This fucking brilliant and beautiful book written by a man who had seen the horrors of war and spilled it all over the page. And I read it for the first time as an adult with full understanding and experience of what it all means. And it hits me like a fucking truck.

And it says that you can't endure everything. That at some point you need to rest and heal. That if you take on too much you will break. And that all of that is okay.

far too many people have comfortably positioned themselves behind especially 50501 and they are going to wind up getting themselves arrested, sheepdogging themselves, their family and their friends right back into fascism or something far worse. if you go to one of these things, you need to keep an extremely low profile and keep your head on a swivel.

you need to understand that there’s a good chance they are coordinating these protests directly with the cops. including pursuing permits. that’s what these groups do. these are scheduled, non-spontaneous, carefully orchestrated publicity stunts where the organizers disappear after dark and leave people to get kettled, gassed, beaten and arrested. i have seen it happen with my own two eyes.

i don’t care if you think they’re fighting the good fight. i don’t care how many people you know in real life are in attendance or even helping logistics. this organization is almost 100% guaranteed to be compromised. it was literally started by a redditor and co-opted directly by DNC employees. they are already telling people not to bring foreign flags to protests.

i'm so happy that, thanks to one of my dear mutuals @raffaella-cerullo, i decided to re-watch it bc i realized i must have stopped watching it somewhere in the middle of S3 or i have blocked out having watched it until its series finale (possible bc from 2018 to 2020 i went through one of my many I Don't Remember ShitTM phases).

but, like, "mr. robot" really is IT in terms of character development. first of all, like someone said on here, elliott is not your blorbo, YOU are elliot's blorbo and this alone is a crazy concept to pull off so elegantly.

but also, like, this show is not afraid to Go There. And it goes there in a way that's both so fucking surreal AND so painfully real that you're left, like, woah. what did i just watch but also: yeah, OF COURSE, i knew it, this is what the story was always about and it was never a secret. except it was.

the title is so intentionally childish and the plot seems so robin-hood-esque with what would seem, at first, just a surface-level reading of world inequalities but it cuts so much deeper it goes straight to the roots and pulls, pulls, pulls. and it fucking hurts.

i can't give away what the story is about because that's one of the joys of storytelling. to know what's next. the anticipation. the thrill. but then again, don't you know? it's always about one thing over and over and over again: