#and so I want my fiction to be an escape yk? which it can’t really be (at least not that kind of escape) if it gets my emotions up

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homestuck is getting SAD and i don’t WANT THIS i want to read about shitty children lovingly bullying each other i don’t want to watch them sobbing over each other’s corpses :/

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i might be reading wayyy too much into this but yk that one scene in 3x09 when ruth is auditioning for sam & justine and she says the lines "i got pregnant.. and then i got divorced" and she kinda visibly falters a bit.. like she was thinking abt debbie right? and just last ep while she was w/ sheila reading her lines it just SCREAMED debbie to me. whats w/ the universe trying to make ruth have her gay epiphany

Nah dude you’re not reading too much into it at all. At least based on my understanding of the show. 

Gonna talk broadly about how fiction functions within GLOW for a bit and say that GLOW often has characters use fiction to deal with and understand their own reality. I mean the show is primarily about Ruth and Debbie using the fiction of wrestling as a catharsis to rebuild their relationship. Fiction allows them to rebuild trust, to release that hate and resentment in a safe way. 

Fiction shows up all the time for the characters and in moments like totally fictional audition scenes in 1x01 and 3x09, the writers could choose ANY words in the world when they include totally made up stories within the fictional world. Why those specific ones? In that scene w Sheila in 3x08, why did the writers choose that scene out of any in the world? Those words are there for a reason. 

To really underline bold highlight this, our introduction to the show, the first lines of the series are a random audition scene, it’s not real Ruth we meet first, but acting!Ruth, and we don’t even realize this at first (which is the point, that line between fiction and reality is muddy just like it is in wrestling…Ruth and Debbie trust each other in wrestling, so they learn to in reality etc), and the specific line that opens the series actually say a lot about the series as a whole. “In this world there are good guys and there are bad guys. And we are the good guys. You see that name on my door? It’s my father’s name, son of a bitch. But this isn’t about him. This is about justice. This is about holding on to what’s ours. This is about my company and my name. And I will not be bullied into submission.” First of all, her saying she won’t be bullied into submission turns into a nice contrast for Ruth at the end of the ep (who is bullied into submission by Debbie = last shot in episode vs looking all empowered saying she won’t be bullied into submission in very first shot). The good guys and bad guys thing says a lot about GLOW as a whole, about Ruth as someone who wants to be seen as a good guy and who grows to accept darker parts of herself by playing Zoya, good guys and bad guys deals directly with those roles they have in wrestling, the “holding onto what’s ours” thing plays into what GLOW eventually means for Ruth and especially since she says this is the sort of role she wants we understand her better by it, etc…I mean there’s even more to that line probably but you get the point, which is fiction is so key to understanding the reality of the characters for GLOW that they start the series with it.

Plus, there’s this idea they come back to about roles and costumes, like in 1x04 with Sheila “It’s not a costume, it’s me.” But she lets go of that she-wolf to become more of herself and there’s this thing where characters believe in stories about their lives but they’re not necessarily true (like Debbie trying to tell a story that she’s happy with Mark and loved giving up working when she def hated it, Ruth believing she needs to be a real actress while destructing any real acting opportunity etc) and have to contend with that…anyway.

Other examples of fiction: In 1x09, Ruth has the attention of this room (including Debbie), and she uses fiction to carefully broach and apologize for her own fucked up behavior, to try and understand it, so she uses the fiction of drug addict-wrestler to help not only save GLOW but also understand herself since it’s a lot to own up to and apologize. Fiction provides the safety to tell/deal with truths she can’t in real life.

In 3x05, Debbie isn’t just asking Ruth to play Liberty Belle but also to step into her “costume” and understand her and connect further. When Debbie talks about loving wrestling in 1x09, it’s clear that this form of fiction allows her to form a new, more empowered relationship with her own body that reality never allowed her. When Debbie says in 2x02 that Liberty Belle already beat Zoya and they have no reason to fight any more, Ruth as Zoya counters in 2x04 by taking Liberty Belle’s kid and saying “We have unfinished business.” She’s not giving up on them in fiction which is her way of fighting for Ruth and Debbie in reality. You see a totally zoned out Debbie in 1x02 consuming Paradise Cove, watching a blonde in a wheelchair just like she says she was a blonde in a wheelchair in 1x01 on the show…the replaceability Debbie felt about her own body is found everywhere, even in the fiction she chose to consume / live vicariously through..not exactly empowering. The fictional escapism of Paradise Cove in 1x02 turns to fictional escapism of GLOW as Sam suggests what GLOW could provide for Debbie and sells a proxy Debbie (Melrose) humiliating Ruth. This fiction slowly allows her to find her own story and catharsis in fiction as 1x02 progresses, as the series progresses, and her own power as she actually starts to use her body in later eps. Fiction isn’t just a random thing in GLOW, it totally defines the story. 

So, now that I’ve pointed to some of the ways that fiction functions within GLOW, I’d say it’s about time we look at these specific scenes you asked about. I’d say again the line in 3x09 audition goes back to Ruth and Debbie stepping into each other’s skins more in season 3 especially in 3x05, understanding each other in this really deep way. I think that line totally relates to Debbie, to stepping inside her point of view for a second. She does falter, and I could even see her using Debbie’s point of view as a weird form of substitution even though it wasn’t Ruth’s divorce or whatever. Because they’re that entwined. Just like I think the bit before about finding the one thing that keeps driving you no matter what relates to Ruth too as she starts to question the role acting has in her life.

Okay, and the 3x08 scene with Sheila totally relates to Ruth and Debbie. Of course Ruth wants to read that scene with Debbie I mean….that scene screams a lot for them and again relates to stepping into each other’s skin. “Besides, I always wondered what it would be like to be you.” I mean….plus the line about blondes being after Ruth. And a certain blonde certainly is. And they stop the scene right at the blonde line and draw attention to it, like come on. She’s so uncomfortable…and yet says she wants to perform the scene with Debbie later soo #gayepiphany

Yeah so basically, the fiction within the fiction functions in a ton of ways, like helping Ruth and Debbie reach a greater understanding of each other (it’s deeper than understanding though….it’s literally stepping into each other’s skin) and just fiction functions in so many cool ways in the series to help characters heal and grow and escape and express things they can’t in reality. I think it’s not reading too much into it to look at that but rather pretty vital to understanding the show as a whole. 

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and sunrise!

There are times when the mind is dealt such a blow it hides itself in insanity. While this may not seem beneficial, it is. There are times when reality is nothing but pain, and to escape that pain the mind must leave reality behind. sunrise: pick a quote and describe what it means to you personally.i love this question!!! except i am completely sure i can’t pick one quote. like i am constantly wanting to talk about so many quotes i love, so yk i am just going to go do that (i’ll try not to be too excessive)

under a read more bc let’s be real, i talk too much and this got kind of long (can you believe i already cut it down bc first it was even longer…)

I thought that if I ever told anybody, I’d never be able to look at them ever again.

okay so this is a quote about csa, and just … i felt this way for so long. i just thought that the shame would be too much. and in some ways it is. the shame is absolutely overwhelming, but whenever you tell someone and life goes on, it feels like the world is a better place. i feel more comfortable with every person i tell. but this is a quote from higher ground, and back when i watched it for the first few times, nobody knew. i had never even written it down, or told someone online anonymously or whatever. i had never said it in any way, and i just really felt this.

“i thought you were ‘a futurist’!”“i am. to my core. that means i respect the future. i believe in the future. i worship at its feet” I’m a futurist, it’s how my mind works.

the reply is said by tony stark and tbh i feel the same. idk i just v strongly feel this and believe in the future so much. it is why i am still here. i believe in the world and the future so much. i mean i also hate the world, but i believe in it so strongly.

Once we start calling people monsters, we start sacrificing our sense of curiosity, our obligation to ask how they became that way, and why they did what they did: life, and certainly fiction writing, is about being endlessly fascinated by the human condition–naming someone a monster is lazy; it allows you to stop thinking and questioning. ❞

— Hanya Yanagihara

i know this is partially about writing, but i definitely feel this v strongly about the world in general. nothing is black and white, which is not to say people don’t make the decision to hurt others and do horrible things, or meant to excuse that. but calling them monsters and dehumanising them, doesn’t solve anything, and just puts all the blame on them and makes it seem like an isolated thing, and almost nothing in the world is an isolated thing, everything is connected. and acting like someone isn’t human because of something they did doesn’t solve anything. calling someone a monster is the easy way out.

“For darkness restores what light cannot repair”

I had this as my blog title for a really long time. i don’t really care about the actual context i think? (i can’t really remember it tbh), but to me it means that light stuff can’t fix everything. healthy coping mechanisms, doing things that appear normal and okay, sometimes you need really messed up stuff in order to get through stuff. and even just any type of coping, even the healthy methods seem dark when it comes to coping with things like my childhood. and idk it is about feeling like it is okay if i don’t feel better when i think about good things, but i feel better when i surround by sad and awful things (this is mostly regarding media i engaged with i guess)

I’m in a different place now. I… I, I don’t know how else to explain it to you, but I got out of that cell and it’s like someone painted the world in different colors. And I look at you and I want to tear your eyes out just for looking at me. I just want to hurt someone and it might as well be you. So you should probably go before that happens.

this is a quote from battlestar galactica, and it is just so important to me. it is one of those lines that i really use to identify a specific feeling. i just really feel this and think about it a lot

There are times when the mind is dealt such a blow it hides itself in insanity. While this may not seem beneficial, it is. There are times when reality is nothing but pain, and to escape that pain the mind must leave reality behind.

i actually really like the full quote this is from which can be found here. but this part especially. it is just what i had to do at some point in my life because there was nothing. everything was horrible and there was nothing else i could do.

Mornings. Quiet, but I can feel it coming, that fear. Sometimes it’s like all I have is that fear. Who am I anyway? Am I that totally scared girl, waiting in her bed? Am I that runaway, the junkie, that whore? Am I that girl that climbs mountains? Maybe I’m nothing. Maybe I’m nothing but fear.

I never had anything in my life that was good enough to miss. When I ran away, I didn’t miss home, and I never missed the streets, but I miss the mountains. I miss that smell of the trees And the wet ground. I miss everyone. I miss you. It’s better to forget, maybe, because all it does is hurt.

this is a quote from shelby merrick (from higher ground), it just means the world to me. especially the beginning. i also feel like maybe i am nothing but fear. and i really relate to suddenly missing things when you finally find things that are worth missing, or realising that there were things that you needed and didn’t have. you don’t really miss things, when you have never experienced them.

this is just one of the most important things ever. shelby is so important to me

anyway i will stop talking now, and i think i have covered the most important ones, and this already got way too long. but yeah these are the important ones tbh.