Fake Charity Nerd Girl

https://archiveofourown.org/works/41148822

Worth the Gossip - infinite_librarian - Gossip Girl (TV 2007) [Archive of Our Own]

ok at first I was kinda ehh on the Bethel rape plotline, because it felt so after-school-special. Rape Is Not Okay, Men Can Be Raped Too, everyone reacting in 100% appropriate ways and Believing the Victim and being maximally considerate and understanding.

then over time I became more sympathetic to it. well yeah, it wasn’t okay! Bethel is a shitty person! and yeah people should be considerate and Joon shouldn’t have to keep interacting and working with his rapist no matter how valuable her talents are, and you don’t need a reason beyond “because fuck that.”

so anyway I’m now fully on board with the plotline because the initial treatment just made the ultimate Bethel forgiveness arc hit harder

“being a good person means forgiving your rapist, and fighting for them when someone tries to hurt them because they’re a person with feelings and that’s all that really matters” is such a classic fucked up Worth the Candle moral but like it’s true

I wanna be annoyed about Valencia having a baby and thereby becoming lame because it feels like some Problem of Susan bullshit

but I guess Amaryllis also had a baby and it was not at all lame

owned by Alexander Wales and his diverse cast of female characters with different experiences etc :/

thinking about the shared universe of Worth the Candle and Hamilton, where women exist as narrative devices; as NPCs; as sidekicks and love interests; as keepers of the narrative, all of these always in stories about men

• “let me be a part of the narrative, in the story they will write someday”
  
• “I was never going to be one of your knights of the Square Table. Even if I put my heart and soul into training, I was never going to be able to match the people you would pick up along the way. I’d at best be a wallet for you, or a love interest if I –”
  
• Eliza spending fifty years continuing Hamilton’s work after he dies
• twelve-year-old Raven devoting her life to Uther’s work
• and searching for him when he’s gone, and becoming the Infinite Librarian to look for a story where he comes back
• “I’m known for being Uther’s knight,” said Raven.
  
• Amaryllis, stuck in a doomed timeline, growing old alone, writing a book for Juniper every year
• “I’m burning the letters that might have redeemed you”
  
• removing yourself from the narrative as the only and final option you have