#I might have another absence tbh my month is batshit but I DO plan on getting to my mountain of asks I SWEAR

[tabithatwo]

Lowkey imagine the breaking my silence meme bc it feels real for this sentiment but I don’t want to add it here okay? Are you ready? Are you prepared for me to maybe piss you off a little idk how this will be received so just keep an open mind (or don’t I can’t control the gates of your brain I guess but at least I’ve warned you!!)

I think the fact that the two main ways of categorizing jackie taylor are, when boiled down to their simplest terms,

(1) popular mean girl who is a selfish bitch who I hate

(2) loser girl failure who isn’t actually popular or talented who I love

is ummmm sort of telling.

Like. Stay with me. I’m not hating on anyone. Actually, if you’re in group one I am hating on you a little tbh and you can clock out early and start sending me that hate anon now lmao cause this post isn’t really about you. But group two! stay with me for a minute because I get you! I really do! But I want to challenge that thinking and sort of examine it.

Why do we need to twist jackie into something else to like her? Like, if you see jackie as kind and loving and generally just a teenage girl trying to do her best, right? Why then do parts of her have to be “explained away” to a degree? She’s the striker and captain of a nationals bound team. Why does she have to not be a successful athlete to align with the sweetness that you see in her? Yes, coach martinez tells her she isn’t the best on the team, but we see how they treat allie who isn’t actually up to par. There’s nothing to indicate that jackie isn’t very good. Why does she actually have to be friendless besides shauna? Yes, it’s clear those two are codependent and mostly attached at the hip, but in the pilot we aren’t given reason to think that jackie is some friendless unliked girl. She’s socializing with different people and they seem to like her plenty. When she lines the team up yeah, there’s eye rolling, but they listen to her and they seem to mostly take her compliments fondly. She’s homecoming queen, that’s decided on by people voting you in and, generally speaking, you have to be liked and known by a lot of people for that to happen (again if you’re someone who thinks she’s an evil manipulative bitch somehow, this isn’t directed at you lmao).

Why can’t a girl be pretty and decently popular and talented at her sport and be kind and lovable? Why do we see a girl like jackie and need her to be secretly bad at that shit and not widely liked to find her palatable?

Like (1) girl is either truly pretty and popular and talented, so she’s a bitch OR (2) girl is sweet, so she can’t actually be pretty and popular and talented.

That’s the formula we’re fed constantly and I’m really tired of it cause it’s rebranded misogyny that we internalize and accidentally project onto the world tbh and I’m guilty of that in ways, like I’ve been there!!!

But idk. Yeah, Jackie is awkward at times and not good at popping deer tendons and embarrassingly earnest and a lot of other things along those lines!! But you can be all those things and still be everything else she is y’know? That’s sort of my whole point.

Anyway, let girls be good at things without that making them a bitch is what I’m getting at, I guess. Because I see a lot of people defend jackie from the “she’s a mean bitch” hate by saying “no she’s not, she’s literally got one friend and she’s not even good at soccer.”

And it’s like WELL idk about that!! And even if that was true, why is THAT the automatic defense against someone calling her a bitch?? Why are those two things so heavily equated and not even viewed as a logical leap? Why is the defense not to bring up all the kind loving things we see her do, but to chip away at the traits that she possesses that we are trained to find obnoxious or hateable in women, but aren’t fucking innately bad?

Anyway just a thought! I don’t hate anyone for making a joke about girlfailure jackie okay! Some of those are so funny and legit but it’s an overall trend I’m discussing! And like the idea that to be a girlfailure in the ways that she is, she must also be not well liked and bad at the shit she loves! Just an observation! <3 <3 <3

#I love having a long absence from tumblr and immediately saying THIS lmao but like! idk! on my mind! #I might have another absence tbh my month is batshit but I DO plan on getting to my mountain of asks I SWEAR #anyway!!! jackie taylor is very special to me!!! #jackie taylor #shauna shipman #jackie x shauna #yellowjackets