sometimes you gotta reread dare me and realize that addy was stringing you along the whole time, trying to portray beth as some calculated chess master when she was (for lack of a better term) a bit of a loose cannon, seeking feeling and validation from her best friend and willing to go to extremes for even a chance at that, even though she knew deep in her heart she was never going to get it. and addy knew that, knew she had that power over beth, but she downplayed it, played the reader just like she played the cops, tried to convince us she’s nothing more than a silly teenage girl with a faulty memory. but she knew - she knew she had what beth wanted, what beth needed, yearned for with her whole chest, and always kept it locked, kept a steely face and said nothing for a year. 

and addy was just following beth’s moves, biding her time, because they both knew she was going to win in the end. they just never knew when. what seemed like blind following was instead calculated waiting, a refusal to act. playing a guessing game with someone who only repeats what you say back to you, until you have to give them more - either out of frustration or a desire to continue the game. 

and you realize that all these characters she seems to care about so much are all the same - all jordy brennans, helpless against the tide of addy hanlon. she knows what they need from her and she gives them just shy of it. and it raises the question of whether coach even mattered, or whether she was just a concrete goal, finally a representation of what addy could have if she was Top Girl(tm). coach tried to play addy like a pawn but addy was just using her instead, just using her to perfect herself and to make beth jealous and to find the future she never knew she wanted until now.

and you have to wonder how she felt about beth. beth, sweet beth, that we realize now wasn’t a master manipulator but a teenage girl begging for love and attention and trying to keep up with her best friend. and you realize addy never let us see beth’s side because she knows - she knows that beth has heart, has redemption, has truth, and she needed everyone to think that of her in order for her to become top girl. 

and you have to wonder whether her admiration of beth, her hatred, was rooted in love. because there was no way beth was just a pawn. even when you’re using someone, even when you’re lying, genuine connections can’t help but form. and you begin asking yourself how much of it addy put on to trick beth and how much of it became real - because after years of lying to someone, some of it has to become real. even if it’s a twisted kind of love, a terrible kind of love, it’s still love.

addy saw coach as disposable but aspirational. addy saw you, the reader, as disposable but necessary. addy saw beth as disposable, but...what? 

MUN VS. FAVORITE MUSE/CHARACTER

tagged by: @aphroditerps

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theatre people as john mulaney quotes