I'm sorry but this just pisses me off (Not Hunt obviously, but Bryce)

Bryce rant incoming which you can just ignore and I'll probably delete later

But Bryce just puts all the blame on the Asteri. And yes ultimately they are to blame in the larger sense of things. But Bryce plays a direct role in leading them down the path that results in Hunt, Ruhn and Baxian being caught. It was her need to find out Danika's secrets with no thought to the consequences, her idea to go to the Eternal City. And she takes NO personal responsibility for it at all!

Hunt is blaming himself for everything that's happened. Even when it's not his fault at all. When we're in his pov he's constantly drowning in guilt, thinking about how he should of done more, he should of tried harder, he should of been better, how it's all his fault this happened and that his friends suffered.

And then Bryce does none of that. When we're in her pov she doesn't really show any major guilt. I can't think of any times when she blames herself like Hunt does. And I'm not saying she should be wracked with guilt. But a normal person, a good person, will usually feel bad and will feel guilty and blame themselves to some degree when something bad happens and people they care about are hurt, regardless of how big or small they're involvement is, or even if they're not at fault at all, case in point Hunt being wracked with guilt even when it's not his fault.

And to make it worse she acknowledges that Hunt warned them, warned her. But that she disregarded it and would of done it no matter what.

And then she has the audicity to say she doesn't regret it. And she thought they were on the same page. ON THE SAME PAGE!!?? Hunt made it clear in hosab that he didn't want to go down this road again, that he didn't want to get involved. YOU just didn't listen Bryce. And yeah Hunt's an adult, he can make his own decisions and he could of said no and not gone. But of course, OF COURSE!! he wasn't going to let Bryce go down that road alone, because he loves her, and doesn't want anything to happen to her, and wants to protect, so of course he would never desert her. But that doesn't mean he wanted to do it!

For Bryce to be that unaware of Hunt's feelings, when he explicitly stated them. For her to be that disconnected from her mate's feelings that she's surprised that he wasn't really on board is kinda unfathomable to me. Just that complete lack of awareness really does make her look quite selfish/self centered.

Anyway sorry, this post is a mess but I just had to vent

And then when Hunt mentions the consequences he and his friends faced, Bryce makes it about her pain. She's hurt that Hunt mentioned that they suffered. And the worst part is, Hunt then regret's it, he regrets saying something that hurts Bryce, because he cares about her and feelings. And she does not consider his feelings to the same degree

It just pisses me off

Hot takes about Severus Snape are a wierdly decent glimpse into how a person with progressive values analyses things. Literally every time someone talks about Snape, it’s like this tiny window into how one-dimentionally people actually think.

Recently saw a twitter post that was a fantastic example. Here’s how it goes (paraphrasing):

Person A:“Snape is POC and Queer coded, that’s why you guy’s hate him uwu lol.”

Person B: “Actually I hate him because he was mean and abusive to children under his care uwu but go off I guess lol”

Both of these takes are designed to be dramatic and/or reactionary. They each use partial truths to paint very broad strokes. These are get-em-in-one-hit quips. This is virtue signalling, if you’ll excuse that loaded phrase. Nobody had a substantial conversation, but now everyone who sees their statement knows the high ground they took.

At least a hundred other people chimed in to add their own little quippy hot takes into play, none of which add anything significant, but clearly made everyone feel very highly of themselves.

So many layers of nuance and complex analysis is completely lost in this kind of discussion. On tumblr, you get more of this kind of bullshit, but you don’t have a word count limit, so you guys just spew endless mountains of weak overblown evidence backing up your bullshit arguments, none of which was really about engaging in a real conversation anyway.

Here’s the thing about Snape.

He is a childhood domestic abuse victim. His abuser is a muggle.

He becomes a student at a magical school that takes him away from his abuser and immediately instills in him the idea that being a part of this magical world is a badge of self-worth, empowerment, and provides safety and security - provided that he keeps in line.

There is a war is being waged in that world over his right to exist (he is a half blood).

He is a marginalized person within the context of the narrative, forced to constantly be in the same living space as the children of his own oppressors who are being groomed and recruited into a hate group militia (the pureblood slytherins). They are in turn trying to do the same to him.

He is marginalized person bullied by children who are also part of his oppressor group, but who have “more liberal” leanings and aren’t direct about why he’s being targeted (the mauraders are all purebloods, Sirius, who was the worst offender, was raised in a bigoted household, the same one that produced Bellatrix.).

He had a crush on a girl who is a muggleborn, and therefore she is considered even lesser than him and carries a stigma to those who associate with her. That girl was his only real friend. In his entire life.

For both Snape and Lily, allying themselves to a pureblood clique within their own houses would be a great way of shielding themselves from a measure of the bigotry they were probably facing. There would have been obvious pressure from those cliques to disconnect with one and other.

Every other person who associates with Snape in his adulthood carries some sort of sociopolitical or workplace (or hate cult) baggage with their association. Some of them will physically harm and/or kill him if he steps out of line. He hasn’t at any point had the right environment to heal and adjust from these childhood experiences. Even his relationship with Dumbledore is charged with constant baggage, including the purebloods who almost killed him during their bullying getting a slap on the wrist, the werewolf that almost killed him as a child being placed in an authority position over new children, etc. Dumbledore is canonically manipulative no matter his good qualities, and he has literally been manipulating Snape for years in order to cultivate a necessary asset in the war.

He is a person who is not in the stable mental state necessary to be teaching children, whom has been forced to teach children. While also playing the role of double agent against the hate group militia, the one that will literally torture you for mistakes or backtalk or just for fun. The one that will torture and kill him if he makes one wrong move.

Is the math clicking yet? From all of this, it’s not difficult to see how everything shitty about Snape was cultivated for him by his environment. Snape was not given great options. Snape made amazingly awful choices, and also some amazingly difficult, courageous ones. Snape was ultimately a human who had an extremely bad life, in which his options were incredibly grim and limited.

In fact, pretty much every point people make about how shitty Snape is as a person makes 100% logical sense as something that would emerge from how he was treated. Some if it he’s kind of right about, some of it is the inevitable reality of suffering, and some of it is part of the cycle of abuse and harm.

Even Snape’s emotional obsession with Lily makes logical sense when you have the perspective that he literally has no substantial positive experiences with other human beings that we know of, and he has an extreme, soul destroying guilt complex over her death. Calling him an Incel mysoginist nice guy projects a real-world political ideology and behavior that does not really apply to the context of what happened to him and her.

Even Snape’s specific little acts of cruelty to certain students is a reflection of his own life experiences. He identifies with Neville; more specifically, he identifies his own percieved emotional weaknesses in his childhood in Neville. There’s a very sad reason there why he feels the urge to be so harsh.

Snape very clearly hates himself, in a world where everyone else hates him, too. Imagine that, for a second. Imagine total internal and external hatred, an yearning for just a little bit of true connection. For years. Imagine then also trying to save that world, even if it’s motivated by guilt. Even if nobody ever knows you did it and you expect to die a miserable death alone.

There are more elements here to consider, including the way Rowling described his looks (there may be something in there re: ugliness and swarthy stereotyping). These are just the things that stand out the most prominently to me.

J.K. Rowling is clearly also not reliable as an imparter of moral or sociopolitical philosophies. I don’t feel that her grasp of minority experiences is a solid one, considering how she picks and chooses who is acceptable and who is a threat.

All of that said, this is a logically consistent character arc. Within the context of his narrative, Snape is a marginalized person with severe PTSD and emotional instability issues who has absolutely no room available to him for self-improvement or healing, and never really has. And yes, he’s also mean, and caustic, and verbally abusive to the students. He’s also a completey miserable, lonely person.

There are elements in his character arc that mirror real world experiences quite well. If nothing else, Rowling is enough of an emotional adult to recognise these kinds of things and portray something that feels authentic.

In my opinion, it’s not appropriate to whittle all this down by comparing him directly to the real world experiences of marginalized groups - at least if you are not a part of the group you are comparing him to. There have been many individuals who have compared his arc to their own personal experiences of marginalization, and that is valid. But generally speaking, comparing a white straight dude to people who are not that can often be pretty offensive. This is not a valuable way to discuss either subject.

Also, I believe that while it’s perfectly okay to not like Snape as a character, many of the people who act like Person B are carrying Harry’s childhood POV about Snape in their hearts well into their own adulthood. And if nothing else, Rowling was attempting to say something here about how our perspectives (should) grow and change as we emotionally mature.  She doesn’t have to be a good person herself to have expressed something true about the world in this instance, and since this story is a part of our popular culture, people have a right to feel whatever way they do about this story and it’s characters.

The complexity of this particular snapshot of fictionalized marginalization, and what it reveals about the human experience, cannot be reduced down to “he’s an abuser so he’s not worth anyone’s time/you are bad for liking him.”

And to be honest, I think that it reveals a lot about many of us in progressive spaces, particularly those of us who less marginalized but very loud about our values, that we refuse to engage with these complexities in leu of totally condemning him. Particularly because a lot of the elements I listed above are indeed reflected in real world examples of people who have experienced marginalization and thus had to deal with the resulting emotional damage, an mental illness, and behavior troubles, and bad decisions. Our inability to address the full scope of this may be a good reflection of how we are handling the complexity of real world examples.

Real people are not perfect angels in their victimhood. They are just humans who are victims, and we all have the capacity to be cruel and abusive in a world where we have been given cruelty and abuse. This is just a part of existing. If you cannot sympathise with that, or at least grasp it and aknowledge it and respect the people who are emotionally drawn to a character who refects that, then you may be telling on yourself to be honest.

To be honest, this is especially true if you hate Snape but just really, really love the Mauraduers. You have a right to those feelings, but if you are moralizing this and judging others for liking Snape, you’ve confessed to something about how you’ve mentally constructed your personal values in a way I don’t think you’ve fully grasped yet.

I have a hard time imagining a mindset where a story like Snape’s does not move one to empathy and vicarious grief, if I’m honest. I feel like some people really just cannot be bothered to imagine themselves in other people’s shoes, feeling what they feel and living like they live. I struggle to trust the social politics of people who show these kinds of colors, tbh.

But maybe that’s just me.

So while I've said before that I don't like the HP subreddit, I still frequent it because occasionally I read something insightful. This is one such case, where I read a reading of Lupin that I'd never seen before in response to a comment of mine analyzing the shrieking shack confrontation between Snape, Remus, Sirius and the golden trio, where I mentioned that Lupin was a gaslighter so I wanted to share. It was created by reddit user u/UsuallySiSometimesNo and is posted here with his permission. We had a little conversation in the comments. Read it under the cut

UsuallySiSometimesNo: That struck a cord with me, too. I didn't think about that on a conscious level before, but when I read it, it felt instantly true.

Honestly, I think the strongest examples of Lupin gaslighting are actually done to himself. The biggest, character-defining example, I think, is that after finding friendship with James, Sirius, and Peter, he becomes so desperate not to be ostracized from them (due to his issues of self-worth and his personal brand of impostor syndrome) that he deliberately and routinely feeds himself false narratives about their behavior until he can no longer tell fact from fiction, even as he's experiencing it.

Their relentless bullying of Snape? A childhood rivalry.

Their casual bullying of other students? Kids being young and stupid.

Their clear disinterest verging on contempt for Peter, someone less fortunate and vulnerable with whom they're supposed to be good friends? Just mates being mates.

Even actions taken against Lupin, himself, are revised in his memory to be 'no big deal', because he desperately needs that to be true. Let's pretend for a moment that Snape indisputably deserved to be slaughtered by a werewolf the night Sirius told him how to get past the Whomping Willow. Sirius did not send Snape to be killed by any old werewolf. What happened that night was that Sirius - one of Remus' best friends, if not his actual best friend - attempted to use Remus' curse/illness against someone (which is a big enough betrayal on it's own) without ever telling Remus that when he woke up in the morning (covered in blood and in the presence of a shredded corpse) it would be to find that he had committed the act he was most petrified he might one day commit. In setting Snape up to be killed by Lupin, Sirius, at the very least, risked Lupin's sanity, and, at the very most, risked Lupin being sentenced to death.

Now, I understand that Sirius wasn't thinking about all of that when he did what he did, and I, as a someone removed from the situation (and armed with the additional character/situational knowledge granted to a reader) can even understand why Sirius' own trauma led him to grant such a blind death sentence to Snape (which I think is related to a point you made elsewhere, u/Adventure_Time_Snail, about Sirius' "violence towards those who trigger his fundamental fear of wizard fascists" because of his abusive upbringing). But Lupin's perspective is not one of an unbiased observer. And once James found out what was happening and pulled Snape back before it was too late (which, I would think, was more to save Lupin than to save Snape) and once Remus awoke the next to day to discover everything that transpired the night before, I find it hard to believe there wasn't at least some conversation about the true gravity of the situation. And yet, even all these years later, Lupin doesn't bat an eye when Sirius not only doesn't display shame when the event is mentioned in POA, but offers something akin to regret, NOT at the fact that his actions could have gotten Lupin killed, but that that they DIDN'T get Snape killed: "It served him right...", he sneered. etc. etc.

I think the obvious question here, is 'Even disregarding what Sirius did to Snape - how can Lupin be okay with the knowledge that Sirius has no regret, at all, for what he did to him, even now that they're adults?' Well, we're not in Lupin's point of view in the books, which means we can't hear his internal monologue, but I think a satisfactory answer to the question is that he's done a substantial amount of internal gymnastics in order to get to a point where he doesn't see this as a big deal, or even as something that he has a right to be upset about.... just like a gaslighter does to their victim.

Again, because we're not in Lupin's POV, we can't point to the exact instances that such internal gaslighting took place, but, based on what we do observe from Harry's POV (and based on external knowledge of gaslighting as a true-to-life concept) I wouldn't be surprised if Lupin so desperately needs everything to be okay that he derides himself for feeling bad or betrayed, that he calls himself stupid for thinking terrible things that have happened to him are a big deal, that he wars with himself about how people who are his friends and who are so good to him and who are better friends than he thinks he deserves could possibly do something to harm him/others, and that he beats down whatever emotions and senses and gut feelings he has that tells him something his friends have done might be very wrong. What we see in the books is a man who makes excuses for his friends and harbors a warped perception of reality in much the same way victims of gaslighting do, and he seems to exploit his own insecurities in order to instill doubt in his own experiences in much the same way perpetrators of gaslighting do.

I can't help but think that, by the time Lupin tells Harry that Snape harbors a particularly strong hatred for James because James was a better Quidditch player, Lupin has become so adept at gaslighting himself that he actually believes it.

tl;dr: One of Lupin's defining characteristics is that he gaslights himself out of a desperate need to be liked by others, since he has a difficult time liking himself and seems to believe all of his relationships are incredibly fragile.

Urupotter:

This is a fascinating reading on Lupin that I've never seen. I don't read him the same way, in that I think Lupin actually does know that what he's doing is wrong, he just doesn't have the moral courage to act on his conscience. (I view him as the anti Snape, great conscience, but abysmal moral courage, while Snape had unbelievable moral courage but a shitty conscience. Their arcs are about growing their moral courage and their conscience respectively) Realizing that his negligence almost got Harry killed is what triggers his arc, concluding when he goes back to Tonks and Teddy after running away, taking responsibility for his actions for the first time.

But this reading is so interesting that I'll have to reflect on it. Do you mind if I post it on my Harry Potter tumblr blog? I'll credit you of course, I would just like to discuss it with my followers. Of course if you don't want to I won't.

UsuallySiSometimesNo:

Honestly, I think the lack of in-depth conversation about Remus Lupin (at least compared to fan favorites Sirius Black and Severus Snape) is a missed opportunity and a shame. Don't get me wrong, I can discuss Sirius and Snape until blue in the face, but Lupin's arc is just as powerful in an understated (and often underestimated) way. The muddy, oversimplified truth is, without the fatal-flaw decision making of all four Marauders throughout their lives, the series of events proceeding the first chapter of the first book don't happen, and the story we all know and love never comes to be.

And speaking of sparking a discussion about Lupin...

I think Lupin actually does know that what he's doing is wrong, he just doesn't have the moral courage to act on his conscience.

You know what? I agree. And that's what makes him so interesting, I think. He is constantly and dependably full to bursting with internal conflict. When his friends are wrong/do something wrong/say something wrong, he can and does immediately identify the situation as wrong. When he does something wrong, or when he does nothing in the face of something wrong, in that moment I believe he knows the full weight of the situation. Like you said, he has a strong conscience, as well as a deeper, perhaps more nuanced understanding of right and wrong than do, for example, James and Sirius. Now, Lupin needs his friends. They're not just people to hang out with, they're a lifeline for him. He's not going to engage in conflict with them if there is even the slightest chance that he might lose them (for a variety of reasons, he lacks, as you said, the moral courage to do so). But he's also a generally decent human being, and with a strong conscience comes the capacity for sincere guilt and remorse. So, not only will he not confront his friends, he needs it to be okay that he doesn't confront them. And it's at that point that I think the self gaslighting is triggered.

But Lupin is intelligent and nobody's fool, so the gaslighting creates only a thin layer of ice over the problem. Just enough of a cover that he can live with the things he would otherwise deeply regret. I do think he believes the alternative reality he makes for himself to be accurate as long as it isn't really challenged. Crack the ice, though, and we see him express remorse and reveal an underlying awareness of past and present truths. But then the moment is over, and the war between the uncomfortably and full weight of the truth and his need for the companionship of his friends returns, and then the gaslighting begins again, allowing him an easier return to his closest friends (and eventually his closest friend, singular, after the others have been taken from him as was his fear all along) without conflict and with minimal strain on his conscience.

Once Sirius, the last of his original chosen family is gone - truly gone, as opposed to 'located elsewhere' as he was when in prison - following OOtP, suddenly Lupin's arc takes off at a greater speed than at any point prior. He's now literally lost all of the people he'd been terrified of figuratively losing. Although there are still people and things he cares about, he isn't as dependent on any of them as he was on those foundational friendships, and the finality of their absence allows him to finally grow beyond his stifling cycle of reality shifting, confront the truths of his reality and his circumstances, and, as you said, finally take responsibility by returning to Tonks and Teddy - a decision that, ultimately, triggers his death (I don't mean to imply that it was a bad decision or that it's the sole cause of his death, but Rowling has said that being 'out of practice' contributed to his loss at the Battle of Hogwarts, which makes for a fantastic tragedy).

I don't mean to overstate the importance of this theory or imply that it's always present when he's on-stage, and, as with anyone, many other elements, of course, factor into his actions/words/motives. But I think it's a fascinating potential component of his character all the same. If you have more thoughts on this, I love to hear them - and I look forward to reading the discussion on your blog!

So what do you think? Is this a valid reading of Lupin? I'd say it is, but I'm interested in reading my followers thoughts!

I would like to address some posts I saw that talk about misogynistic double standards when it comes to Jon and Sansa regarding bullying - that Sansa gets criticized and taken to task for bullying Arya but Jon gets a pass for bullying fellow recruits at the Night’s Watch.

First of all, who is giving Jon a pass for bullying Grenn and the others? Are there like 5 page essays out there writing about POV traps and how Grenn was unfairly jealous of Jon and hence deserving of being bullied, how it’s just new recruits being new recruits and Jon did nothing wrong etc.?

Jon’s my favorite character, and I will outright state it - Jon bullied the other recruits at the NW because he was a privileged brat. He was wrong to do it. The text pretty much calls him a bully and unlike some stans, no one is twisting those words to argue otherwise.

And I have never seen anyone defend Jon’s actions there. In fact I have seen these same Sansa stans use Jon’s actions at the Wall to justify Catelyn’s emotional abuse of a child. That even though Jon is a bastard, he was better off than other NW recruits and hence should shut up and stop whining about Catelyn. That his treatment by Catelyn was okay because he had it better than most others in Westeros.

Jon’s actions at the wall are just not mentioned often because it’s accepted that he did wrong. The reason why Sansa’s bullying is often brought up is because Sansa stans write essays about how Sansa never bullied or mocked Arya, how it was just sibling being siblings, how it was because Arya was jealous and hated Sansa, how Arya’s wrong and biased POV is meant to trick readers into hating Sansa when Sansa never actually did anything wrong etc. So it’s book readers responding to this whitewashing of Sansa - because one can read the very real effects this bullying had on Arya’s self esteem and self worth.

In fact the only time Jon’s actions are brought up are when Sansa stans bring it up as whataboutism, to point fingers and accuse others of misogyny - even though no one is actually defending Jon Snow.

And you know what? Yeah, Jon was a bully. But he acknowledges that he did wrong, learned and grew from his mistakes. And I love that about Jon.

“No. They hate you because you act like you’re better than they are. They look at you and see a castle-bred bastard who thinks he’s a lordling.” The armorer leaned close. “You’re no lordling. Remember that. You’re a Snow, not a Stark. You’re a bastard and a bully.”

Donal Noye leaned forward, into Jon’s face. “Now think on this, boy. None of these others have ever had a master-at-arms until Ser Alliser. Their fathers were farmers and wagonmen and poachers, smiths and miners and oars on a trading galley. What they know of fighting they learned between decks, in the alleys of Oldtown and Lannisport, in wayside brothels and taverns on the kingsroad. They may have clacked a few sticks together before they came here, but I promise you, not one in twenty was ever rich enough to own a real sword.” His look was grim. “So how do you like the taste of your victories now, Lord Snow?”

“Don’t call me that!” Jon said sharply, but the force had gone out of his anger. Suddenly he felt ashamed and guilty. “I never... I didn’t think...” - Jon, AGoT

Jon noticed Grenn a few feet away. A thick woolen bandage was wrapped around one hand. He looked anxious and uncomfortable, not menacing at al . Jon went to him. Grenn edged backward and put up his hands. “Stay away from me now, you bastard.” Jon smiled at him. “I’m sorry about your wrist. Robb used the same move on me once, only with a wooden blade. It hurt like seven hells, but yours must be worse. Look, if you want, I can show you how to defend that.” - Jon, AGoT

Dareon gave him a look. “The stewards are fine for the likes of you and me, Sam, but not for Lord Snow.”

I never asked for this,” he said stubbornly.

“None of us are here for asking,” Sam reminded him.

And suddenly Jon Snow was ashamed.

Craven or not, Samwell Tarly had found the courage to accept his fate like a man. On the Wall, a man gets only what he earns, Benjen Stark had said the last night Jon had seen him alive. You’re no ranger, Jon, only a green boy with the smell of summer still on you. He’d heard it said that bastards grow up faster than other children; on the Wall, you grew up or you died. Jon let out a deep sigh. “You have the right of it. I was acting the boy... - Jon, AGoT

Jon Snow being hurt by words calling his mother a whore and later making Satin Flowers,a  prostitute, his steward despite opposition.

“Words won’t make your mother a whore. She was what she was, and nothing Toad says can change that. You know, we have men on the Wall whose mothers were whores.” Not my mother, Jon thought stubbornly. He knew nothing of his mother; Eddard Stark would not talk of her. Yet he dreamed of her at times, so often that he could almost see her face. In his dreams, she was beautiful, and highborn, and her eyes were kind. - Jon, AGoT

Jon is constantly getting his worldviews and his privilege challenged at the wall. He is confronted by some ugly truths about himself and he then takes that advice and changes for the better. It’s the same when he goes among the Wildlings and recognizes that they too are human beings deserving of being on the other side of the wall. We get this gem from him:

“We look up at the same stars and see such different things.”- Jon, ASoS

That’s the difference between how Jon and Sansa are treated in book one. When Jon acts bratty and selfish, other characters call him out on his actions, he acknowledges this, apologizes and makes up for it.

With Sansa, on the other hand, we don’t really see anyone taking her to task over her behavior. Quite the opposite. Catelyn and the Septa only encourage it. Ned ‘both sides’ the issue, often talking to Arya about how she should get along with Sansa and behave like sisters. We never see him giving those same talks to Sansa.

Which is weird because most parents would talk to their elder kids to bring about peace in sibling disputes. But in this case, Ned keeps reasoning with his younger daughter instead of his elder one. Probably because everyone thinks that Sansa is the good girl and Arya is the problematic, unruly one.

And because she is never reprimanded over her behavior, Sansa continues to be a spoiled and selfish brat right till Ned is executed at the end of the first book.

Sansa does become more empathetic in the later books after she becomes sadistic Joffrey’s political prisoner and she tries to help where she can. But while GRRM said this about her:

Sansa was the least sympathetic of the Starks in the first book; she has become more sympathetic, partly because she comes to accept responsibility for her part in her father's death.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/feature.html?tag=westeros-21&ie=UTF8&docId=49161

I don’t think I have actually read Sansa showing true remorse or regret for tattling Ned’s plans to Cersei. Or even feeling bad about how she treated Arya. As late as ASoS she thinks of her dead sister as being unsatisfactory compared to beautiful, graceful Margaery Tyrell. In the Vale, she pretends to be a bastard and yet never once recalls the bastard brother she looked down on.

There is a lot of self pity in Sansa’s POV chapters and she reprimands herself for being naive and stupid. But she never acknowledges the way she treated Arya, the Trident incident and Mycah, betraying her family etc. She does reflect at one point on how she wrongly trusted the Lannisters and she would never do that again.

Other than that there is very little introspection in Sansa’s POV chapters. Jon feels guilt, Arya feels guilt, Dany feels guilt, even Catelyn feels a twinge of regret and guilt about her treatment of Jon after meeting Mya Stone. But this is something I find lacking in Sansa’s POV chapters.

But when readers point this out, we are labelled misogynistic haters who just hate Sansa and want her to suffer, and how Sansa has nothing to apologize for, she did nothing wrong, she’s flawless and blameless of everything.

I am hoping we get acknowledgement, regret and apologies from Sansa when the older, wiser sisters meet again and resolve their issues. There is nothing wrong in apologizing for bad behavior. Everyone does it. It does not make one a super villain. It would go a long way towards humanizing Sansa and making her more likeable, in my opinion.

So anyways this turned into an essay, but yes, Jon Snow was a bully in AGoT when he went to the wall and beat up some new recruits. There is no defense of that behavior and I am glad that Donal Noye gave him a good talking to and set him straight about his privilege.

s2e09 Kyoru SO MANY FEELS and HOLY I just realized Kana+Hatori (Kanatori?) is a foil to Kyoru

I have waited so many years for this adaptation so here’s all the brilliant things that I’m crying about (a lot of them things that I’ve seen other people mention!) 

Also in the midst of editing this I finally realized why Kana was written so similarly to Tohru, and how Kanatori’s past tragedy is a perfect foil to Kyoru. Everyone loves how tragically romantic their story is and rightfully blames Akito for ruining their happiness, but it is much harder to see the dark messages about their relationship that is subtlely conveyed through contrast with Kyoru.

First, the resemblances:

Kind-hearted outside girl and initially withdrawn cursed boy fall in love

Girl find out about curse and accepts boy

Boy with miserable life becomes softer and happier

Akito disapproves

Deconstruction of tropes

Early on in the story, Kanatori is established as a trope that kyoru then spends the entire story deconstructing.

“love is like spring”

Kanatori : love is often compared to a blooming spring season, which Fruits Basket uses explicitly as a metaphor for Hatori’s love. Hatori calls Hana his spring, and their relationship follows a clear direction from meeting in winter, blossoming in spring, and wilting in winter. Hatori’s heart is reflected in this arc as he goes from having an untouched heart, to loving passionately, to breaking his heart and leaving it in seemingly eternal winter. Kana and Hatori’s relationship is ephemeral like the seasons, their happiness only lasting two months and knowing each other for one year. Their love follows the more common relationship trope of having the life-changing experience of falling in love dramatically.

Kyoru: In contrast, Kyo and Tohru’s relationship is a slow burn with no discernible beginning (or end). The episode begins with kyoru during autumn, followed by a more recent scene at the beach during the summer. Kyo wonders when his feelings started because he can’t place a time. By the time that he realizes that he loves Tohru, it feels as if he has always loved her from the start. Their love is all-encompassing over all seasons of the year, because it’s their daily happiness from being with each other that gradually and unknowingly turns to love. It re-enforces the idea that the most important thing that Tohru did is to just stay and live life together with Kyo. This also leads to deconstruction of the next trope...

“love heals all” 

Kanatori: Once again Hatori and Kana’s relationship serves as a foil to Kyoru. Kana shows how self-defeating and tragic love can be if the relationship is based on healing and fixing each other. Hatori lived an apathetic existence of being duty-bound to his curse. Kana "healed” Hatori with love, accepting his curse and filling him with hope of happiness that he once thought impossible. Hatori wept, feeling like he’s “forgiven and saved for the first time in his life”. It is Akito who reminds them that Kana’s love isn’t going to fix Hatori’s problems, ruining their relationship by pointing out its flawed beliefs. Akito knows that both are looking for salvation from the curse in their love, so he easily ruins their relationship by pointing out how Kana is unable to save Hatori, screaming at her “you’re not wanted / you can’t even break the curse!” Akito then goes further and scars Hatori, which is the piece that truly broke Kana and her love with Hatori irreparably. Kana believed her love is meant heal Hatori and protect him, but instead permanently hurt him. Due to the nature of their love, Kana was driven into an unforgivable position that she failed their duty to protect her loved one from harm. Hatori’s eye is not going to heal back with any amount of love, and so Hana spirals into despair until her memory is wiped. Her final words to Hatori is the core of their tragedy: “I’m sorry I failed to protect you.” Their story highlights the unrealistic ideals of healing love as a fragile relationship foundation. It is romantic and beautiful, but easily destroyed through the uncontrollable circumstances of life. If the purpose of a relationship is protecting and healing each other, it is so very easy to fail.

Kyoru: Kyo specifically says that Tohru didn’t heal him and cure all his problems - the most important thing she did was to stay by his side everyday, sharing life side by side. There’s no misplace romanticism on magically fixing your partner’s problems or taking away their pain. They experienced and shared small everyday joys. Kyoru is sweet and perfect because their love is born from their tiny daily gestures of love and happiness instead of grand dramatic events. Thanks to her parents’ relationship with each other and Tohru’s relationship with her mom, Tohru understands how central sharing lives together is to personal relationships, and it’s why she offered it to Kyo during the True Form arc. On the other hand, while Kyo doesn’t expect Tohru to heal or protect him, demands these unrealistic expectations from himself to consider himself “worthy” of being with her. Kyo is driven by the same romantic notions of protecting that Kana was for the majority of the story. His misguided self-expectation becomes the primary obstacle to their relationship.

perfect protagonist

Akito’s criticism of Tohru - that “she’s too perfect” - is partially a stand-in for the audience criticisms. Tohru is considered a boring, flawless, doormat. But that too is being slowly deconstructed... Tohru’s quirks with her mom’s photo and her dedication towards her mom’s memory are being revealed as grief coping mechanisms. In fact, many of her personality traits are revealed to be coping mechanisms for past personal tragedies.

Other points:

Tohru was so happy for Kyo and he didn’t correct her...he didn’t want to worry or trouble her...and he assuaged her worries for him at the end of the day in the same way.

the “hentai” looking ropes: represents the bonds that ties the zodiac spirits together. They look purpled and corrupted now, like how the zodiac bonds became a curse and burden over time.

the first thing Kyo thought when he was called to see Akito was that Tohru was going to be left alone. 

When she’s finally left alone, Tohru goes to the beach and makes sandcastles...  compare this to New Year’s Eve, when Tohru was left alone at the start of the night, she sat with her mom’s photo and cried.

Manga spoilers under cut:

Other bits about the episode:

“I don’t want to take anything away from her anymore”: Kyo feeling at fault for his mother’s suicide paralleling with his guilt of feeling responsible for Kyoko’s death. He’s been internally fighting the accusations that he’s the one reason for his mother’s death most of his life. Then Kyoko’s death happens and crushes him so immensely that, to go on living, he had to redirect his self-hatred into a singular goal of hating and defeating Yuki. He feels responsible for taking away Tohru’s most important person, her mother, which inadvertently leads to her involvement in the Sohma family. Shigure was really the one responsible for Tohru’s involvement, but Kyo only knows of his own involvement. From his POV, he’s unworthy of being with Tohru since he ruined her life and took away her mom. He has personally experienced the loss of his mom and wishes for many many reasons that she had not died, further intensifying the guilt he feels over Tohru’s mom. Knowing how much Tohru loves and respects her mom, if Kyoko said that she won’t forgive Kyo...no wonder he feels like he doesn’t deserve to be with Tohru. 

Akito is calling Tohru a monster because she accepts and has a close relationship with Kyo. Anyone who accepts Kyo is both treated as a saint for tolerating a monster and a monster for accepting a monster - he has already experienced this with his mother and with Kazuma. His mom was the most affected, being constantly blamed and derided for bringing a monster into existence until she committed suicide. He was raised to believe that anyone would be worse off by having a relationship with him because he is a monster, not to mention be gossiped about maliciously by others. Tohru being with him would cause others to think of her badly, for others to call her a monster...and he loves her too much to bring her down with him.

Resolution to “love heals all” trope for Kyoru:

Tohru’s way of loving Kyo, living life candidly with him, was exactly what Kyo needed (and vice versa, of course). We’ve seen Kyo reject other unhealthy forms of love: He didn’t want Kagura’s love borne of pity, and he found his mom’s blind love suffocating for both of them.

Kyo’s final character development and resolution hinges on coming to terms with a more mature understanding of how to love someone. Kyo sees himself unworthy of Tohru’s love because he fails at protecting her: he wasn’t able to find little lost Tohru, he wasn’t able to save Kyoko from the car crash, and he wasn’t there to save Tohru from a landslide. These are circumstances beyond his control, just like how Akito injuring Hatori’s eye was beyond Kana’s control. We first hear about his disappointment at failing to protect Tohru after Akito’s confrontation with Tohru at the beach house. After Akito leaves, we see that Kyo was held back from joining the confrontation by Haru, and he calls himself incompetent for being unable to protect Tohru from Akito. LIke Kana, Kyo imprisons himself into the unforgivable position that he has a duty to protect his loved one, and yet circumstances both within and without his control still occurs and hurts Tohru. He feels guiltiest for not doing more to save Kyoko, thereby feeling like he personally caused Tohru to lose her mom. Unless Kyoko comes back from the dead, Kyo has trapped himself into never being worthy of Tohru.

Fortunately for Kyo, Yuki is having none of his shit. Yuki is the one who finally literally punches through Kyo’s romantic idealism and makes Kyo realize how immature his idea of love is. Kyo wants to be Tohru’s prince in shining armor but is utterly bested by Yuki when it comes to grand heroics. Yuki is the prince archetype who finds little lost Tohru, saves Tohru from living in a tent, retrieves her belongings from a landslide, and shows up at her relatives’ to whisk her home. In Kyo’s mind, this makes Yuki more suitable and worthy of Tohru, and Yuki is the one who gets fed up with Kyo’s self-deprecating and unrealistic mindset. “Who do you think you are, a superhero? Would you only be satisfied if you could save somebody from a car crash, or save someone from a landslide? You’ve been protecting her, haven’t you? You’ve been with her daily, making her happy, isn’t that protecting her? Do you think it were the same if I were with her?” Kyo had to learn that being with someone and making them happy every day is far more significant and precious than heroics. Seemingly insignificant actions are in fact *special* things that only he can do for Tohru. Takaya-sensei’s message on healthy love is so consistently woven throughout Fruits Basket.

Why I love Dhawan Master #11: You can see his mind at work!

In no particular order, here is an illustrated list of reasons I love Sacha Dhawan’s Master, most of which boil down to the way that Sacha Dhawan so expertly embodies the Master to such a degree that we can look into this character’s mind as we never have before.

H/t  to @ventingbouto​ and the Little Things That the Master Does That I Just Love series, which inspired this.

#11: You can see his mind at work! Sacha Dhawan embodies every single twitch of the Master’s feelings and every single one of this thoughts so that we can see what’s going on in his mind as it happens.

Here’s an example with extended analysis.

The absolutely cool thing about this scene is that it looks like he’s talking to someone off the screen. However, the truth is that he’s talking to himself! He’s speaking his stream of consciousness or at least part of it [the part of it that thinks he messed up by missing an opportunity for a witticism]. In fact, he’s doing more than just speaking his thoughts. He’s even embodying them as they happen, and I LOVE THIS.

To go along with my previous comment, I think that the Spymaster can be read as having several different aspects constantly in conversation. The Little Purple Tartan Jerk is something like his inner child, an arrogant, mischievous, playful brat, the source of all his dorkiness and fun. The desire to be loved lives here in part. The Spy is the melancholy, reflective, introspective, insightful, isolated, analytical one who observes everything extremely closely and gathers data. Self-blame lives here, as does some self-conscious anxiety. The Painful One both feels and causes pain, embodying his rage, grief, impulsiveness, desire to tear the Doctor down, genocidal impulses, thoughts of wanting to die. A lot of his tears come from here, as does “Kneel! Say my name!”

With this perspective of multiple aspects, you can get a better idea of whose POV he’s speaking from, as well as who he’s speaking to. Immediately before this clip, he whipped around and zapped Ashad. That action came from the Painful One.

Immediately after that impulsive action, in this clip, he starts to slow down and think. He realizes what he did wrong, blames himself, and tries to save the best from a disappointing situation. In other words, he’s just switched to the perspective of the Spy.

It seems to me that he’s speaking largely from the POV of the Spy here [with a little bit of the Little Purple Tartan Jerk thrown in to represent sadistic fun], and he’s addressing primarily the Painful One [the motivations for lashing out in pain], but also again a bit of the Little Purple Tartan Jerk [the motivations for the instant gratification of shooting now and thinking later].

Another fun thing about this scene is that you see him go through an entire emotional arc in a very compressed period of time. He moves from rage [ZAP!] to shock [”Oh shoot!”] to regret and self-recrimination [”I should have…”] to an almost pleading self-justification [”trigger happy”] to a forcibly lighthearted salvage effort [”next time”]. You get the sense that much of his internal work is trying to make sense of the world, not because he’s stupid or mad, but because he thinks in actions and by means of several aspects. And it’s hard to live life through a series of actions followed by retrospective self-observations. It takes mental energy to shift between those aspects, and it takes physical energy to act everything out. No wonder he’s exhausted. :(

This scene also highlights one of the Master’s most interesting traits in this incarnation: the guilt, the second thoughts. He’s constantly saying things, then regretting it. In this case, he only says, “Shoot!” because this is DW, and they can’t say, “Shit!” Otherwise he’d be saying, “Shit!” In other words, he’s taking this seriously; this lack of a witticism at the right time DEEPLY bothers him. He talks out his regret – “I should have…” – with self-consciousness [looking at the implied interlocutor]. He’s also kind of ashamed; that agitated, dismissive, almost helplessly flailing hand/head shake when he says “trigger happy” indicates a moment where he’s overcome [with frustration?] so that language fails him. It’s like waving your hands around and saying, “It’s like… It’s like… It’s like…[flailing arm gestures] You know!” But he’s wincing and hunching down inside himself physically when he says that, which makes me think that his self-consciousness is now turning into guilt. He should have been better, but he wasn’t. His remark about using it next time is said in a deliberately cavalier voice with an intentionally activated smile [i.e., it’s kinda forced]. He knows he fucked up with this one, and he’s just gonna convince himself that it’ll all be all right. Okay? OKAY!

Whence the guilt, though? I think that much of it came from going back home and learning about the lies of Gallifreyan culture. He realized that his culture was, according to him, a lie. He realized that [as he projects onto the Doctor], he didn’t know his own self; there was a piece of the Doctor inside him; he didn’t know his own life. Therefore he thinks on some level that the Master, the person he has so painstakingly made himself, isn’t real, just a bad copy of the Doctor, just a lie created from the stupid “born to rule” ideology of the Time Dorks. [He says “born to rule” with such contempt. Since he has always thought he was born to rule, you can see how that contempt transfers onto him as well.] His guilt, I think, derives from his feeling that he’s now failing himself; he’s failing at being the best Master he can be. All of the information that he has learned has hit him hard, distracting him, preoccupying him with pain. He’s off his game of witty destruction. In some sense, this clip then shows his present self [the supposedly failing Master] addressing his past self [the supposedly successful Master]. He’s judging himself against the standards of his past self [who believed all that “born to rule” shit and gloried in it] with his present self, and he grieves what he has lost.

As someone who has a few aspects, who talks to myself, who self-consciously evaluates past and present, I love the Spymaster. In some ways, he’s the most transparent of Masters. We can actually see and hear how his mind works, and it’s conversational, and I LOVE IT.

sansa and dany are two sides of the same coin, or rather, are cut from the same cloth - as not to imply that they are drastically different in a sense in which they complete each other, more like they’re each other’s foil in a much more subtler way than arya and sansa are.

they are both pre-teens that are introduced in the game as pawns who gradually gained knowledge and agency just enough to make them players. daenerys was a pawn to a whole bunch of people - to varys and illyrio for the biggest part as they both seem to harbor plans for her that i would not be surprised to learn are different at their core, and to doran martell. these three are high-ranking players, and dany was a tool for them. to viserys in a lesser extent, since he thought he was a player but has been a pawn all along, and died for it.

sansa initially wasn’t part of the game. ned going to the capital and joining the game automatically included her though, and again, unlike arya, who escaped and still managed to stay an ambivalent bystander, sansa had to partake in it. she was childish and she was naive and she immediately made herself one of cersei’s pawns, and with it subscribed to littlefinger’s agenda, who is a much bigger fish in the game than cersei herself. i wager that using sansa has been on littlefinger’s mind since day one, and seeing that he smashed the tyrell engagement plan and most probably was the one to plant the idea of marrying sansa off to tyrion in tywin’s head is foreshadowing to when he formally introduces sansa to the game and tries to feed her the illusion that, by including her, he decided to make her a player - which she doesn’t buy, but becomes one nevertheless.

anyway they both start off as clueless children, sansa aged 11 and dany aged 13. they were both born in nobility, though have drastically different fates; sansa has been pampered her entire life, living in comfort and love and safety, while daenerys spent all her life on the go. from her own words, she knew what it was like to be homeless, cold and hungry. however, they’re both idealists, but while for sansa this is a result of her soft and pandering childhood, for daenerys it’s an innate trait. they were both fed tales of high valor and lies. 

viserys would tell daenerys exaggerated tales about the nobility of their deranged house, while sansa would read stories about knights and ladies. bottom point is that they both, being children, are introduced having inflicted ideals from the outside world, because they didn’t have the means to gain their own themselves (daenerys living in exile with only a delusional brother to teach her about the world, and sansa being highly sheltered). with time and with trauma sansa’s idealism weakens and she becomes more pragmatic, while dany’s idealism becomes stronger. this is where their paths, as children, divide. they mature in opposite ways, seeing that dany grows gaining her own agency and power and security, while sansa lives in perpetual abuse while being a hostage.

fast-forward to when they witness their first murder. daenerys, a child bride, sees a man being murdered at her wedding, and is genuinely horrified. sansa sees a man die during a tourney and thinks to herself how weird it is that she doesn’t care about his death at all. later on they’re both called soft, but they maintain the same attitude towards murder. none of them condone it, and neither of them are inherently cruel, and while they both pray for the death of their enemies, they’re accepting actual deaths differently. 

while marching on meeren, dany sees a trail of corpses of child slaves, and upon establishing her rule, she avenges them - which we see she feels faulty about it; even if in her case murders were justified, she is still guilt-driven. sansa is devastated at ned’s death because it took her completely unawares, but for the rest she doesn’t care - joffrey, ser dontos, lysa tully, robert arryn (implied), as long as they’re murdered for her own sake and safety, she doesn’t feel guilt or grief over them.

she’s still not cruel, though. during the battle of the blackwater we have perhaps some of the most introspective sansa povs. “do you want to be loved, sansa?”, “everyone wants to be loved”.

then sansa gets forcibly married at age 12, a year younger than dany. unlike daenerys, who learnt to cope and developed stockholm syndrome towards her husband, she was utterly miserable in her marriage. eventually she fled, never thinking about her husband again, while daenerys thinks about drogo up to her last pov. however considering littlefinger’s plans for marrying sansa to harry, that would land them both with two political marriages neither of them wanted. “who would dare to love a dragon?”, dany wonders. “nobody will marry me for love”, sansa broods. they both share a fear of not being loved.

and they both want to give that love back. “if i’m ever queen, i’ll make them love me”, thinks sansa during the battle outside her walls, a girl who has NOT grown with the idea that one day she will be a queen (unlike cersei, for example), while in one of her povs daenerys thinks, “ i want to make my kingdom beautiful, to fill it with fat men and pretty maids and laughing children. I want my people to smile when they see me ride by, the way viserys said they smiled for my father”. they both want to live in peace and prosperity, and this is where their idealistic sides show.

they both are also nothing short of dutiful. they yearn for home. “i don’t want to marry him, i want to go home”, daenerys tells her brother in her first pov. she is consumed with dreams about her house with the red door and the lemon tree under her window constantly. at the end of the day, she just wants to go somewhere where she knows she’s safe - a sentiment that sansa shares. at first she was thrilled to leave winterfell, but after everything she’s been through, she realizes that she’s the strongest within the walls of winterfell. home gives her solace, it gives her courage and a sense of safety. but alas, home is not a destiny for either of them. dany is loyal to her queenship, and always puts the needs of her people over her own desires: “it’s time to don my floppy ears”. sansa also has more tully in her than her looks alone, as she does everything required of her despite her personal wishes. they value their sense of duty over their sense of self.

they are both highly adaptable. dany had to quickly adapt to the rough dothraki lifestyle if she ever wanted to be accepted, and sansa had to adapt to the court rules of lies and conspiracies if she wanted to stay alive. they’re both quick learners who can use their head regarding their own survival. “i know that she’s strong. how not? dothraki despise weakness”, tyrion reflects about daenerys in one of his povs. but from their ability to adapt grows the sense of not belonging. daenerys never belonged anywhere she went; firstly within dothraki, then in quarth, then in meeren - she was always considered an outsider, and the house with the red door, she didn’t belong even there. sansa also doesn’t belong where she is. her position in king’s landing is forced, she thinks to herself “they made me a lannister” after being wed to tyrion, but she still didn’t belong there. and later, when she was at the eyerie, it’s brought up in the narrative: “ White towers and white snow and white statues, black shadows and black trees, the dark grey sky above. A pure world, Sansa thought. I do not belong here. Yet she stepped out all the same”.

they also both lost everyone they loved, at some point. “ If Lady was here, I would not be afraid. Lady was dead, though; Robb, Bran, Rickon, Arya, her father, her mother, even Septa Mordane. All of them are dead but me. She was alone in the world now” sansa thinks wistfully. “He’s gone, then. My father and my mother, my brothers, Ser Willem Darry, Drogo who was my sun-and-stars, his son who died inside me, and now Ser Jorah”, dany thinks upon jorah’s banishment. they are both alone in the world. the only difference is that sansa had lost lady forever - and considering that it is implied that the direwolves are literally part of the stark children, bound to them by fate - a piece of her soul with her. dany still has drogon by the end of book 5. otherwise they’re both surrendered by enemies.

i don’t watch the show and don’t care what they did to their characters in there. i’m sure they threw in more parallels and such but i don’t care about those. the only thing i’ve picked up is that they are at odds with each other, and this is what leaves me utterly baffled. they would work together fantastically, and would grow fond of each other, because they have more things in common than it should be allowed for two characters who live on opposite sides of the world.

i really wish they met in canon. i wonder how their relationship would be handled by their actual creator.

Same writing anon as before! Tysm for the long post, it was really clarifying and good to read. It's started having some stuff make sense and revealed some stuff I need to rework. Do you have any advice on writing bare-bones like, general plot lines?

Hey! I’m so glad to hear that. 💙

I’m not 100% sure what you mean—advice on making your plot lines engaging, on figuring them out period, on how and when to structure them, on how to make them original, how to make them further the scenes you want to write instead of just be there as a support column for them, etc, so sorry if I misinterpret this question. I think I’m probably overthinking this, and you just mean “advice on how to come up with them/lay them out in the first place,” so that’s what I’ll answer. Sorry if that isn’t what you meant. TuT

So, writers all have different processes, but for most of us, it is very much not plotline first. Often you’ll get a great vague idea, or a scene you don’t know the total context for, or a character you like, or a finale, or a specific crisis, etc, and start there. Similarly when writing fanfic, a lot of the time you start with a very basic concept like “I want to see these people interact” or “I want this character to get to kill the person who destroyed their life” or “I want C character to get a happy ending,” and you build from there.

Honestly, there isn’t just one way to do structuring that works. Some people like a bare bones outline before they start, some like hugely detailed outlines, and some get a vague concept for how it will end, and then just start writing. And they can all work! I will say though, if you’re writing something heavily solution-based (like your characters spend the whole story trying to escape a sinking ship in the middle of the ocean, or are trying to fix a time paradox to keep themselves from being erased), it’s highly, highly recommended you know what that solution is before you begin. I don’t know that you /can’t/ figure out on the fly, but it will be so much easier for you as a writer to work towards a solution you already have, than to fly blind. Especially because most solution-heavy plots pick up elements to their solution along the way. This isn’t always necessary—like if the problem is it’s a horror script and there is a serial killer chasing them. “How do you kill a human” has infinite answers, so you don’t really need to pick out specifically how your protag finally takes them out ahead of time if you don’t want. If it’s like, Nightmare on Elm Street though, and your monster almost can’t be killed, you really gonna want to know how to put it in the dirt before you start, though.

That said, I’d recommend doing at least a bare-bones outline, personally for anything very long! It’s totally good and recommended even to edit that outline as you go, to add or subtract or alter upcoming content, but I find it helps a lot to have a vague idea of how much is left, and what the next step will be. It’s kind of reassuring. Again though, not everyone does this. Some skip outlines altogether.

As far as plotting itself goes, I would say start, again, with what you want to write—this might seem counter-intuitive, but trust me. Do you want to write a friendship, or a romance, or a personal journey for a character that leaves them feeling whole? Okay, well, even though most of those don’t seem very plot-creating, consider two factors: what would make this thing you want to have happen happen? And why do you want to write this thing?

For example, I wrote a horror comedy feature script, and my initial idea for it was just a gimmick—the main character can hear the OST, and uses that to help her stay alive. Okay, well, what’s the plot to that? There isn’t one—yet. But why do I like horror comedy in general—why pick that genre? Because horror comedy tends to be a deconstruction/reflective of horror as a whole, and a lot of those commentaries are very meaningful to me. Okay, well, what about horror am /I/ interested in reflecting on? And there’s a lot I’m interested in reflecting on, tbh, but at the time, the big answer for me was casual dehumanization. So, I know my topic/theme, and I know I am picking a wild world for that (as in, I want to write about not dehumanizing people, but I’m setting it in a world where the MC can literally hear the soundtrack to her story), but that can help, honestly, because if you can carry your point with a disadvantage, that’s even better. So I know my gimmick, I know my core issue, and I know my main character. Now, if I want to talk about dehumanization, that means it’s got to be what my killer is doing, and to an even more extreme extent than murder in general, so they must know the victims personally. From there, I worked out who would be best to cast as antagonist and a motive for them (considering other people not as significant as them/ethics are just created by humans mentality, justifying murdering even friends in order to gain serial killer immortality fame), and went from there to okay, so how would they (the killer) do this? And there’s a lot of ways to approach that scene detail plotting. Usually, I just kind of daydream. I make a cast first, then try to figure out what scenes would work well, and once I have a couple in line with my whole plot, string together an outline that supports all of them, and from there carve out a solid start to finish storyline—like, uh, like whittling down a carving, or chipping away to make a statue, kind of. Think of the starting process as a little like solving a mystery by taking clues and working through them to the next logical deduction, I guess, haha.

You can start from a bunch of different places though, not just concept/theme. For ILM, my original thought was just, “I want the survivors to get to escape, but HOW could they do it?” And I tried to solve that problem. Once I had a solution, which was genuinely one of the first things I found, I was like, okay, but it shouldn’t just be about that, because that’s got no real meat—it’s just an ending. What else do I want to see in a story about them? And Wraith was my favorite killer by far, so I thought, “I want to see Philip get to redeem himself and befriend the survivors and be kind and happy,” and that was it. From there, I worked out first where I wanted Philip at as a person/his motivation for how he ended up where he was, which plus some research created the resets for him, and then I worked out how it would start for him, if he was going to befriend survivors. I picked out relationships I wanted to see furthered, and decided if I wanted them to get a happy ending in hell and give Wraith redemption and peace, that meant I was writing a hope punk plotline for sure, and then with a basic idea of how I got from A-Z, started writing. A lot of individual plot lines—Laurie, Quentin, Jeff and Legion, Tapp, Anna, etc, I had not worked out before I began—maybe I had a kind of vague idea what I wanted for them (Laurie to regain her will to live and be able to save her brother too/get him to save herself, Quentin to get closure, Anna to find humanity, etc), but mostly I kind of brainstormed each the character arcs when I hit their first POV chapter, and crafted their personal story arcs there, then adjusted some as ideas grew.

Which was a super different process form my feature. While my feature more or less hit “what’s the theme/core concept” right off the bat in planning, ILM was “What’s the goal” and didn’t hit theme really until partway through writing, so the process won’t even always be the same for you as a writer. But I definitely recommend, no matter what you’re starting with, to go about it by looking at what makes you want to write what you are writing. For New Dawn Fades, my initial starting point was literally just wanting to write a scene between Quentin and Joey—that was it. I had no framework, or theme, or story goal—just a scene. But I was like, okay, well, if you need a story to back this once scene and further it, not just give it an excuse to happen, what is the story? Well, the reason I wanted to write the scene was because I liked how Joey and Quentin interacted. Quentin’s a bit of a martyr and constantly overwhelmed with guilt and trauma and had to grow up way too fast, and Joey’s a decent person at heart that has let himself slip way too much into bad territory out of fear, and together, they kind of bring out the best in or for each other; Joey is like, the single most likely character in DbD to be able to remind Quentin he’s legit just a teenager actually and should cut lose and just be okay for at least like fifteen damn minutes a day, and might actually be able to get him to do it, and Quentin’s the right mix of uncompromisingly ethical and genuinely forgiving to get Joey to look at and reevaluate his choices without spiraling into hopelessness and self-hate instead of self-improvement. So the answer was I wanted them to get to help each other. From that starting place, I just kind of went step by step with “Okay, how could they logically meet in such a way they are forced to spend time together and it gives them a chance to reach some of this,” and the rest came pretty easy. A lot comes step by step too, I find, and sometimes I have a whole super solid outline before writing and sometimes I don’t know beyond the next chapter except in the most general of terms. So what I would basically always recommend with making a general plotline is consider why you want to write what you want to write, and move from there to, “Okay well how do I get it.” And that process will be wildly different from story to story, but as a basic start, it helps me a lot. I wanted to see Claudette reach out to Wraith? Okay, why would she do that, and how? How would he react—what are the consequences, both from other people, each other, and the Entity? I guess I kind of go at plotlines like a puzzle. If this happens, what are the characters’ next choices? Which would they pick? And if I know where I want them to end, how do I steer their situation towards that point? For doing this, I highly recommend listening to music and daydreaming/just watching and trying scenes out some in your head. Also, if you get stuck, watch or read similar stories and let that inspire you! I don’t mean you gotta or should like, trace over someone else’s scene or something, but all fiction is intertextual, and that’s a good thing. We write based on our existing knowledge and love or ambivalence or distaste for other stories, and in communication with them, and it can add a lot. Stuff with Laurie & Michael in ILM didn’t end up like a single Halloween film in any of the six+ damn timelines, but I /did/ draw inspiration from the H20 line, and H2, which were the closest those two ever got. Watched the end of H20 and went, okay, if they’d had a better chance sooner, what could have happened, and played with that. Watching a lot of well-made fight scenes is also great inspiration for writing action—highly recommend.

I’m not entirely sure how helpful all of this will be, because plotting techniques tend to be pretty varied from writer to writer, but I hope it helps. If it hasn’t, here’s a quick compilation of more technical-side based tips that hopefully wil:

One technique I see recommended a lot and that can help/has before, is to start with your core concept. Now, I would disagree that you must always start here, but it can be a very good place. The idea is to be able to sum up in one line what the meaning of the story is. Like, for the film Holes, it would be something like, “Evil in this world is caused by treating people inhumanly, and the only way to break that curse is to treat your fellow man with decency and value and love.” Basically every plotline in the film backs this idea—Kissing Kate, who is a kind and happy woman until the man she loves, Sam, is murdered by her town for being a black man in a relationship with her, a white woman. That inhuman act drives her to become an outlaw. You have the Yelnats, who get cursed to be followed by misfortune forever when Stanley doesn’t honor his promise to Madame Zaroni, none of which would have happened if he had listened to her in the first place & not gone after a girl based solely on her looks, or if she had cared who either suitor was as a person, and could have been avoided had Madame Zaroni been more to Stanley than a means to an end. You have a whole cast of delinquent boys being mistreated and not at all healed by a juvie system that treats them all like they’re no longer humans worth anything. You have Zero, not even treated as human by juvie standards because he doesn’t talk, isolating himself—all of which stems from growing up on the streets impoverished with a mom struggling to do her best and failing. Stanley is falsely convicted for a crime he didn’t commit and mistreated over it, and has his life ruined. Even Grace, the main antagonist, is who she is because her family has been obsessed and abusive for generations, and she grew up a tool to her father. Then in the end, almost every one of these wrongs, even the ancient wrong of Sam’s murder, is corrected by people choosing to be better and break—in two cases quite literally—the curses on them and others by just being kind and choosing to love and treat others with respect and care. Stanley chooses to befriend Zero to be nice, and Zero reciprocates. Then when Zero runs off, Stanley runs off to help him because he’s afraid he will die, and simply because he loves him as a person, fulfills his family’s ancient promise unknowingly by carrying Zero up a mountain in search of water to save his life. This gives his family and him luck again, and ends up saving everyone. Zero tells Stanley the truth about himself and stops self isolating and being just sad and alone because he had a friend who treats him with value, all the boys end up okay and semi adopted by Stanley’s family in the end and out of abuse and juvie and treated well and live up to that faith put in them, and justice being finally brought breaks Kate’s curse and lets it rain again for the first time since Sam’s death and gives Kate’s spirit peace. —and that’s the idea. To have all your arcs and themes back your one core concept. Now, sometimes people find this super helpful, sometimes they find it overwhelming, but it can be worth a lot.

Another is to just kind of try the dartboard model, which is getting an idea you like to start with (like uhhh, Dogfighting dog is injured so it is going to be put down, but it escapes it’s master and runs off into the woods. Out there, it wanders until happening on an injured human child). Okay, so the plot is about a dog that has been abused choosing to connect to a human in spite of that, and probably about how the kid survives getting out of the woods with the dog’s help. But what actually happens? Dartboard method is just come up with a bunch of potential scenarios for the two characters and play them out in your head, keep your favorites, and then see if you can find a way to string those scenes together. You like a scene where the dog fights off a mountain lion, a scene where the kid and dog huddle together for warmth in a cave during a storm and the kid gets to be the one doing the looking out because the dog is terrified of thunder, and you like a scene where the kid is walking with a branch to help them keep going, sees a road up ahead which means help finally, but passes out from exhaustion, so the panicked dog has to deal with intentionally attracting the attention of adult humans after the abuse it has suffered, in the hope it can lead them to the kid and get help? Great. Okay, what basic order do these scenes go in, what can fill the gaps between X and Z? A lot of thing, you’ll have fun scenes you end up having to reject, because they don’t fit, but it’s a pretty laid back if chaotic method.

Then of course there’s just the classic. Outline. As in, take whatever idea you have, and force yourself to pitch a complete A-Z set of steps like you’re in a writing class. IE:

Dog is introduced. — Dog is inured and going to be put down. —Owner is distracted by a fight breaking out, and dog manages to jerk leash free and escape. — dog flees to woods. — Dog is alone and skittish. There is a storm and it freaks out and holes up. — Next morning, after the storm, Dog hears human crying & is afraid, but curious. Goes to peek. Sees kid who has must have been out here in the storm because a branch snapped and has pinned them by the leg — Dog wants to help because dog instincts, but is afraid of even small human. Eventually peeks head out. — Kid is terrified too, because scary huge scarred dog and they can’t run. Dog scared because human. — Eventually, kid gets over fear and tries to call to dog, and it comes out. Kid pets it and it’s afraid to be touched, but then accepts the affection. — Dog tries to help kid out by digging their leg free. Kid, who hand not thought of that, helps, and gets free.

(Usually you do this more branching and pretty, IE: Scene 1: Dog is in a dogfighting match.

—1A: Dog loses fight and suffers a bad infury to its eye, making it no longer fight for fights.

—1B: Dog’s master angrily comes to collect them. Dog tries to get affection, but he’s mad at it for failing & mutters about putting it down.

Scene 2: Owner takes dog out back to put down.

But that would take up a ton of space on this already massively long post.). There’s also a more simplified version of this, where you just kind of go like Chapter 1: Dog is introduced, loses fight, then escapes being put down and flees. Chapter 2: Dog is terrified of a thunderstorm and from having been almost killed & forced to fight for so long. Runs out of town to the woods as the storm breaks. Hides out under bush. Chapter 3: Dog wakes up to hear human crying. Goes to investigate hesitantly. Finds human kid trapped unde fallen branch. Kid is afraid of dog, dog afraid of kid, but eventually kid coaxes dog to come over and befriends it. Dog tries to help kid and dig them out, and together they get the kid free from tree.

As you can see, that basically gets the same information across, it’s just much shorter, but also has less solidly set as far as details of how stuff happens. Again though, if you go for an outline method, please don’t feel like you have to be married to it. It’s just a resource to try to help you, not actually the story itself, and stoeiws pretty much always evolve as you go, so it’s normal and also kinda fun and good to have to adjust outlines.

Anyway, this was already a mouthful, but I hope it helps, or at least some of it does! For me personally, the best techniques have always been to daydream scenes and events, and to approach writing things I get stuck on either like a deductive puzzle of “Well if She does This, then her friend can do either X, Y, or Z, and Z makes the most sense. Now, I need to figure out a way for them to escape the building. What are th options? Window, door, roof? Technically they could bust down a wall. They’ll never make the roof in time, so that’s out. They have about two minutes before dying, and one of them is injured, so they can’t go fast. The arsonist is going to be watching the front door and the windows carefully though, just in case, so they need a diversion or—Wait—the cat door in the garage. Perfect.” —or by trying to get very into the headspace of whoever is running the scene, and just literally think through why they want and are feeling and going to do. (Though again, I personally approach writing from a very acting-heavy standpoint). Anyway! Hope this helps some, and you find what works best for you. If you want clarity on any of this ramble, or I misinterpreted the questions feel free to let me know! TuT 💙

To me the most strange thing about the Dick is a manchild take is that often the same people that say this are the same people that say that Dick's primary characterization should always be as a pillar of support for Bruce and the others. So, basically that Bruce and the others are so helpless that they should be mothered by a manchild. As a preference, I find it it kinda ???

Exactly! There’s no consistency to it, and the thing is, I feel like a lot of people tend to treat Dick as a plot device rather than an actual character in his own right. What I mean is, even in big ensemble fics that feature almost the entire family, when most everyone has their own little storylines, Dick’s sole storyline is acting as a supporting character in everyone else’s storyline. Essentially, its like rather than people going into writing a fic with a specific characterization of Dick in mind already, like they do for most characters, I feel like a lot of the stories out there start with the author figuring out what their plot is, what their preferred characters are doing….and then Dick’s characterization within their fic tends to end up being almost completely determined by what role they want him to play.

Like……as you said, a huge facet of his core characterization is that he almost always prioritizes being a pillar of support for Bruce and the others….but in fanfics, he’s just as likely to be the antagonistic foil that’s causing drama within the family by not understanding Jason or favoring Damian over Tim or whatever…..and its like he ends up that way purely because writers want some internal strife within the Batfam, but they want Tim and Jason to get along, and they want Bruce to interact with Jason as a son and Damian’s too young to cause the kinds of disruptions within the family from internal/ideological disagreements that authors are usually after….so Dick ends up shoehorned into the role of obstinate last holdout getting in the way of the whole family getting along because he just can’t get over himself or whatever.

But then go two fics down from that one and its a whole other ballgame, because in this fic now, Dick gets along with everyone, everyone loves him, but ultimately in the end his lack of contributing to family drama comes from the fact that as far as that fic is concerned, he’s too ineffectual to ever actually be a problem for the family. He’s just kinda there, solely because he was the first kid Bruce took in, but no attention is paid to the fact that he created Robin, DEFINED Robin. And instead the fact that he’s still alive at all is basically implied to be a fluke because he’s not really that bright compared to the others, not really exceptionally talented compared to the others, the only thing he has going for him is he has seniority, and he’s just too gosh-darned happy and perky and nice for anyone to stay mad at for long……so Dick ends up shoehorned here into the role of comic relief, either by cracking jokes constantly and never taking anything seriously for the sake of ‘family morale,’ or just by being the butt of the rest of the family’s constant jokes. With these fics, you get 50/50 odds of it going either way.

And then on the very next page of fics you’re likely to run into one where he’s supportive of all the others rather than antagonistic, yes, and he’s considered competent and effective at what he does, sure, but now with these fics, he’s basically relegated to the role of wallpaper, because the story’s not supposed to be about HIM and the authors don’t want him drawing focus away from their preferred characters. He’s not the character people should be hoping or expecting to see in a starring or even a major role, when reading their fics, is basically what the sentiment feels like there. 

Like, he’s there, he’s present, he’s competent and helpful, but it largely ends up feeling like all of that is because ironically, having him NOT be there and coming up with reasons and justifications for that….would draw or require more focus on him than they want to spend. So instead he’s present in the story, but that’s about it. 

He largely just….exists, within these types of stories. At best he’s there to be a glorified bodyguard to his various siblings, and be hanging around so that he can swoop in and save them from any major danger that isn’t the direct focus of the plot…..but he has little to no scenes other than ones where he’s directly acting to save, rescue, emotionally support or offer sage wisdom or a shoulder to lean on, for any of his siblings or Bruce himself. 

He has no problems of his own, as far as the fic ever mentions, no priorities or personal ambitions beyond ‘always be available for whatever his family needs, whenever his family needs it’ and everything you learn about him in the first couple chapters of that story, when establishing his place/status quo within that particular fic….like, who and what he is and cares about and prioritizes and even just talks about in the first couple chapters will basically still be the exact same things in the final chapters of the fic….because absolutely nothing throughout the fic has actually affected HIM, changed HIM, impacted HIM in any kind of meaningful way that would lead to actual character development or even just….change.

…wait, hang on, I take that back. There is one sizable exception in these types of fics, where there is focus on Dick’s POV and him being impacted by the plot and ‘changing’…..but that exception comes in one form, and one form only: Scenes Where Dick Self-Flagellates and Regrets Being the Worst Brother/Son Ever to Jason, Tim, Bruce, etc. And reflects on how massively he’s failed or let those members of his family down at one point or another in the past, when they have only ever been there for him, consistently, without fail, and thus they deserve better than his previous fuck-ups with them and he staunchly vows to Make It Right and from this day forward, Do Better and dedicate himself to being the best brother, son, blah blah blah that ever lived. 

(With the problem being - or well, my problem at least, lol - like…..rarely if ever are these things Dick is beating himself up over, like…actually his fault or things he should feel like a terrible human being for. And granted, Dick has a definite canon tendency towards self-blame and assuming the worst of his own actions and the fallout from his actions, so its not like its out of character for him to be an unreliable narrator in this regard…..BUT like….when you’re using an unreliable narrator to like, beat himself up for being just the worst ever, you kiiiiiiinda need to balance that out with the narrative or someone else in the narrative at some point contesting that unreliable narration…..and being like….what? No??? Omg enough with the Catholic guilt Dick, you’re not even Catholic, and you definitely aren’t responsible for me dying in Ethiopia at the exact same time you were light years away on an entirely different planet, dumbass.” ANYWAY).

So I mean….there are all these various roles Dick plays in different kinds of almost….I wanna say like ‘genres of Batfam fanfiction’……and IMO that’s how large parts of fandom manage to juggle all these completely contradictory views of Dick without ever finding it odd or illogical that he can be considered to be both the Batfamily’s primary source of emotional support one second, and the thorn in everyone’s side the next. Because many people, I feel, just aren’t approaching his character in terms of how his characterization, and thus his presence, would affect their plot, result in specific kinds of dynamics, interactions etc…..rather, they’re looking at it from the complete opposite direction. They do all that with the characters they’re more interested in writing, and then when they have most of it figured out, they basically just pigeon hole him into whatever gaps in the plot need filling, and go with whatever popular take on him is most convenient for what their story still needs or is lacking.

And it all kinda loops back around, I think, to make it this sort of self-perpetuating cycle…..writers aren’t as interested in writing Dick as they are the other siblings because they don’t find him all that compelling, except what they actually don’t find all that compelling is probably more accurately labeled various fanon views of him that have at most just a superficial relationship with his more developed canon characterizations. 

But regardless, they’re not that interested in him as a character, due to mostly equating him with fanon takes that prioritize his usefulness as a plot device with ready made connections to most anyone else a fic needs to bring in, rather than trying to view him, understand him and relate to him as an actual character in his own right…..so they too end up also just using him as a plot device rather than try and even just give him some more development themselves. 

And it all feeds back into itself, forming this constant feedback loop that’s ironically mostly just fueled by itself, rather than anything outside that loop of perception and perpetuation….like, y’know, his actual stories and his actual well-established dynamics with various other characters.

Its like….you know how sometimes people are like “how would you describe yourself/this person/this character in just three words, like what are the three words that best encompass them in your mind?” Like…..that’s not SUPPOSED to be an easy thing to do. That’s SUPPOSED to be a hard - and revealing  - question, because three words is a very very limited frame to try and condense entire personalities into in a way that’s in any way actually specific to them as an individual rather than just a list of generic traits that could equally apply to any number of people.

And yet….I do not think a lot of Batfam fans would consider that a hard question to answer about Dick Grayson, and therein lies my eternal frustration. Like I’m pretty sure we can all predict what a lot of those answers would be: “funny,” “angry,” “cheerful,” “supportive,” “moody,” “hopeful” and various other things related to either 1) Dick the Emotional Support Non-Entity, 2) Dick the Unattainable and Impossible to Match or Even Relate to Standard or 3) Dick the Antagonistic Foil, etc. 

But my point is……I do not think a lot of fans would find it difficult to reduce Dick down to just a short list of generic character traits….because that’s the pattern I’m talking about in fics. A huge amount of his depictions in fic could be summed up with just two or three adjectives….because whatever role he’s been designated in a particular fic……that’s it for him, most of the time. As in…..he doesn’t at any point break out of that very specific and definitive box the fic puts him in because its been slated as the role/place/designation he’s most ‘useful’ to the plot and the other characters and the story over all. So whatever he is in that fic….he’s usually JUST that one thing. His actions are usually perfectly in sync with whatever the other characters expect those actions to be, his mood is fairly consistent throughout with very little variation, and his motivations are usually fairly superficial and don’t require a lot of digging under the hood to see what’s really going on deep down beneath his surface level.

*Shrugs* Anyway, that’s my take on all that, and the various contradictions that all conversations about him are practically immersed in, all at the same time. Granted, I’m biased as hell and who can say if I’m actually on to anything there or not, but for me the most telling and pertinent question about fandom’s perception of Dick Grayson is:

When one of the few things everyone can agree on about him is that he’s a natural performer and the face he presents to people around him is often just a mask hiding his true thoughts and feelings….

Why on earth aren’t more writers interested in pulling back the mask and seeing, writing, revealing or expanding upon whatever might be underneath?

Cuz the way Dick’s primarily used in fics literally only makes sense to me if you’re prioritizing his role in fics based on what the plot or other characters require.

Looking at him purely on a character level, in terms of archetypes? “Eternal secret keeper who even (successfully) keeps secrets from the rest of a family made up entirely of people who are both adept secret keepers themselves and adept detectives”…..

Like how the hell do you tell me that archetype’s only narrative appeal lies in advancing everyone else’s plots? For all intents and purposes, Dick is essentially the trickster archetype within the Batfam, innately predisposed to constantly come into conflict with his chosen father figure, given that Bruce in contrast embodies a stern lawful judge type archetype. Thus with the two of them operating off of entirely different world views that nevertheless can overlap just often enough to make that not quite a given….given that trickster archetypes, by their very nature, have flexible alignments and can go in entirely different directions from one story to the next, all while still being true to themselves and their core archetype. 

Then you have Jason, with it being hilarious to me that people so often write Jason as being convinced Bruce will never understand him the way he does Dick, that they could never have the kind of bond Bruce and Dick had in his eyes…..with the funny part about this IMO being that Jason is one of the Batfam MOST similar to Bruce, archetype wise. Because Jason also operates almost entirely off of his own convictions, based entirely off his own moral code….WHICH IS THE EXACT SAME THING BRUCE DOES….the only part they actually disagree on is the precise specifics of their two differing moral codes. 

Jason has always had FAR more in common with Bruce than he realizes or cares to admit to, and if you look at Dick as a trickster archetype forced reluctantly into the role of arbitrator or peace-keeper purely because there’s no one else stepping up to do the job, even though its not a role he’s ideally suited for because of how it constantly forces him into shapes and actions that are contrary to his own nature and thus result in so much of Dick’s personal conflicts ultimately being with HIMSELF….

….eternally torn between trying to be true to himself and who he wants to be, while at the same time trying to be what his family needs him to be because he’s the only one of them with a track record showing he at least is willing to bend to try and accommodate all their conflicting viewpoints, whereas they all tend to try and just bulldoze each other into submission instead….which never works because they’re all equal parts Immovable Objects AND Unstoppable Forces at the same time…and each too stubborn to admit that their siblings/father/children are just as stubborn and willful as them so they could easily stalemate each other indefinitely, if they didn’t have a mediator present, who has enough flexibility to contort himself into whatever configuration is needed to find some kind of bridge or common ground between two conflicting family members who each refuse to budge even an inch….

Well anyway, my point with that little random offshoot was just that personally, I think Dick gets fed the fuck up with both Bruce and Jason at times and just wants to knock their heads together because its so frustrating to him that neither of them can see how alike they are and thus how they’re always THIS CLOSE to finding common ground, they literally just need to like….each move an inch to the right and maybe pivot like five degrees or less…..lolol.

Anyway. I kinda got carried away there with unnecessary narrative analysis and archetypes and whatnot that literally nobody asked, but umm, in response to your actual message itself….err…yes. Agreed. As a preference, I too find bwuh????? to be the most accurate response to the frigidly cold take that ‘Dick is the emotional support pillar for the Batfam but also Dick is massively dysfunctional and a disaster baby who is literally the worst of the Batfam at taking care of himself and not just dying because his favorite pizza place doesn’t deliver on a Tuesday and he doesn’t know how to get food another way so he’ll probably just starve I guess.’

Oh well.

I'm just curious can you list the losers club from your favorite to least favorite and explain why

Ohhh this is so hard and here’s why: Richie and Eddie are constantly rotating who is in the top spot depending on like... my mood, or what I’m thinking or writing about the most. I know that probably comes as a surprise given that most of my meta is so Eddie focused? But god I just love Richie so much. It’s a head vs. heart thing with them, honestly. A year ago I would’ve absolutely said Eddie first because I was constantly churning out meta about him, but RIGHT AT THIS MOMENT the order is:

1. Richie. Gonna go with my heart on this one - I have a big giant weakness for funny-charming characters/people, so Richie has always been like, the “if I was gonna marry one of the Losers” choice since I first read the book in high school. And Richie has so much depth, but you have to really read between the lines to find it, so his chapters are fun in that way, too. I love him for the same reasons Eddie does - his “sometimes enchanting, sometimes exhausting charm”, his ambition, his willingness to go with the flow, his devotion to his friends, his intelligence, his fascination with music and theatrics, and also the way he’s just sort of an enigma. And then obviously Bill Hader, a long-time celebrity crush, had to come along and fulfill my wildest dreams by taking the role and pouring his soul into it. Lastly, in terms of writing, I have the most fun writing Richie. I write Eddie’s POV a lot more (on the rare occasions I write fic) because it comes more naturally, but I actually get the most fulfillment from writing Richie.

2. Eddie. If my heart belongs to Richie, my brain belongs to Eddie. I have spent countless hours analyzing every god damn word in his chapters and I think about him nearly constantly. He’s always been the Loser I relate to the most, but not because of his home life or anything (my parents are actually a lot like Richie’s - my dad is hilarious and my mom is just great, but as a kid/teen they didn’t get me at all because I turned out way weirder and more annoying than they anticipated and it was a Struggle to communicate lmao). Anyway, I relate to Eddie’s personality a lot, and just how his brain works. I too am always stuck in my own head, emotional and overly self-critical, historically reluctant to take risks because it’s safer to be stagnant, will bend over backwards to take care of other people to the point of not doing anything for myself because of codependent tendencies, etc etc. Analyzing Eddie gives me a lot of intellectual fulfillment and also helps me reflect on myself. This is why I refuse to baby him and try to explore and examine his flaws and mistakes. He’s the most complex character in the story and inherently so Brave and Good. (sidenote: I hate saying really positive things right after saying that I relate to him because it feels arrogant and like I’m saying that about myself, too, which I’m definitely not. Does anyone else get like that? Like, you relate to a character and openly praise them, but then feel like a giant asshole because you inadvertently said something nice about yourself by loving on a character you relate to?)

3. Ben. I love reading Ben’s chapters so much, he’s such a well-developed character and I feel his chapters are almost on par with Eddie’s in terms of being a joy to read and having a very distinct tone. If Eddie’s the guiding light of the group, Ben is the engineer. He has this sort of deep and natural self-confidence that I love. He’s got his hobbies, his books, and he’s just chillin’. He’s very self conscious about his body, but he’s SO confident about his mind and his heart. I’ve always found it fascinating that Ben’s IT manifestations are so impersonal and very typical movie-monster type shit, and I think it’s because he really doesn’t fear much. He doesn’t need to. He knows what he’s capable of and he doesn’t stop to ruminate about it, he just fucking does it. IT can’t really touch that. Also, as Richie’s mirror, he automatically gets a high spot on the list - we stan wildly successful but deeply lonely guys who spent their youth pining in secret.

4. Mike. I know a lot of people find the Derry Interludes boring, but I really love being able to dive into Mike’s stream of consciousness journal keeping. He’s truly the lighthouse keeper, and that’s a rough fucking gig. His love of lore and history is so relatable, though. And I love his relationship with his parents, especially with Will, and it’s great to have a prominent example of positive parenting to combat against the likes of Sonia, Alvin, and Butch Bowers. Mike really loves his parents and the Losers, and he’s so smart and sensitive and GOOD, even in the face of near-constant racism and 27 years of exhausting and lonely detective work. My only wish for him is to fucking leave Derry and finally relax.

5. Bev. I really love Bev, but she’s lower on the list because I find her to be a pretty underdeveloped character in the novel. This is mostly because Stephen King truly sucks at writing women, but knowing that doesn’t stop me from just not feeling super engaged with her chapters. In theory, Bev is great - and she was/will be great in the movies, too. She’s Eddie’s mirror, so admittedly a lot of my affection for her stems from that and the joy I get from examining their parallels (particularly in terms of how IT targets them both with their sexuality and dirtiness/cleanliness).

6. Bill. I have never really been super invested in Bill. It’s just like... too glaringly obvious that he’s a self-insert for Stephen King, so he falls flat a lot of the time, for me. Sometimes I like to think that’s intentional, because we get so much of seeing Bill through the Losers’ eyes with all their idolization and projection, so the “real Bill” never really stood a chance of living up to that image. Other times all I see is a self-insert. But I do really love the way his guilt over Georgie’s death is explored and how that guilt leads him to be selfishly single-minded in his quest for vengeance. I just wish more time was spent on that in his adult chapters and less on that cringey hotel sex scene.

7. Stan. Stan is last but I certainly don’t dislike him. It’s just... I’m really sorry but I think Stan is a super overrated character. I love his scene with the Standpipe and the drowned kids, and I think his friendships with Eddie and Bev are not given enough attention, and I love Stanpat, but overall... I just don’t think about him all that much. I’m really only able to get invested in Stan if it’s in relation to Patty. They just wanted a baby and a happy life, Mike.

This turned into such a fucking ramble. Hopefully it’s what you were looking for! 😬

the epigraphs in Metamorphosis

Picking up where this post left off, I’m gonna ramble about my choice of Kafka quotes.

Because apparently I love to make things difficult for myself, I wanted to find quotes that would be considered ‘bad advice’ in these circumstances, to tie it back to ‘don’t listen to kafka’ - but if you ever become a notable literary figure, the sorts of quotes you’re remembered for tend to be the ones with some underlying human truth, not ones that offer bad advice. So I had that working against me. But I figured if nothing else I’d certainly find pessimistic quotes tangentially related to something in the chapter. Those would fit my concept then, because the inverse message would be ‘you don’t have to pessimistic about this.’

Time to break ‘em down!

“I usually solve problems by letting them devour me.” - Franz Kafka 

I put this one in the story summary because I think it expresses how overwhelmed Barbara and Jim are feeling about this whole mess. Also I find it very relatable on a personal level, aha, a missed deadline is resolved and there’s some relief to be found in that. It was originally going to go as a chapter epigraph later in the story, but I really liked it as a summary of the whole story because - spoiler alert for the most recent chapter - the solution to Jim’s problem, i.e. turning into a troll, is, in fact, to do nothing and let the change happen. Only once his human self is completely consumed by his troll self will he be able to regain his human body. So maybe, just this once, Jim actually could Listen To Kafka. (I thought putting an epigraph in the summary might mean I couldn’t also do a dictionary-style definition in stylistic parallel to Autoeponym, but then I just decided why not both? and rolled with it)

Chapter 1: "One advantage to keeping a diary is that you become aware with reassuring clarity of all the changes which you constantly suffer."

I picked this one for chapter one because it carries this notion of cataloguing changes, which the narrative does quite a bit at the start since there’s been a time skip since Autoeponym and we’ve got to set the stage. In fact, in the original draft Barbara was a lot more active in keeping a journal and writing everything down, but then I realized that that would be really uncomfortable for Jim, and thus the line about “dialing back Dr. Lake as much as possible, and pushing Mom to the foreground” was born. I kept the chosen epigraph, even if the diary aspect got nixed, because I think it still fits from an ‘ack, too many changes!’ angle. [Jim should not listen to Kafka because it’d be better for him to just focus on the changes he’s going through, and not frame it as something that he must suffer]

Chaper 2: "So long as you have food in your mouth, you have solved all questions for the time being." This quote is from his short story, Investigations of a Dog, told from a dog’s POV (not to be confused with Mark Twain’s A Dog’s Tale, also told from a dog’s POV). The chapter connection in this one is with food, because it is the dinner scene. [Jim is unlikely to listen to Kafka in this instance because boy does he ever have a lot of unresolved questions]

The other food-related quote I considered for this chapter was “Now I can look at you in peace; I don’t eat you anymore,” which could maybe have been commentary on Stickler’s potentially-shifting allegiances, but really just seemed to bring Aaarrrgghh’s past up completely out of the blue. (original quote context: Kafka went vegetarian)

Chapter 3:  "I am a cage, in search of a bird."

Oh man, there were so many quotes I considered for this chapter I couldn’t even remember which one I went with off the top of my head and had to look up the posted chapter. The themes I wanted to play with involved imprisonment (hence “a cage”) and the toxicity of Strickler’s manipulations. The ‘don’t listen to kafka’ aspect of this one is cautionary, warning Barbara away from Walter. 

Other quotes I toyed with: 

"You can choose to be free, but it's the last decision you'll ever make”

“I am in chains. Don’t touch my chains.”

“Kill me, or you are a murderer.”

“Start with what is right rather than what is acceptable.”

“My guiding principle is this: Guilt is never to be doubted.”

"There is an infinite amount of hope in the universe... but not for us." 

“Association with human beings lures one into self-reflection.”

Something that helps to understand why some of these were considered is knowing that in the early drafts, Strickler was going to try to manipulate Jim into letting him go by arguing that Jim should just kill him, it would be much more merciful than the death Bular would give him for failing in his mission. I had some really nice dialogue mapped out, but then I rewatched Mudslinging and reconsidered in light of Strickler’s thirst for revenge on Jim. By his own admission, Strickler seems to have made out pretty well from the failure to open Killahead, so the idea of revenge for ruining a plan that maybe wouldn’t have been his first choice if he’d had free choice... it seems a little bit of a stretch. He does mention wanting to stop Jim from releasing all the familiars from the Darklands, and he believes the only way to stop Jim from ever doing that is to... murder him brutally. 

I think the revenge Strickler seeks is really for ruined pride, rather than any material damage incurred. So given that I’m dealing with season 1 Strickler and not season 3 or fanon Strickler, the scenes I had written no longer seemed as in-character. He wasn’t quite backed up against the ropes enough for him to be throwing himself on the Trollhunter’s mercy, even if it was a ploy. He’s got other approaches he can take first to talk his way out, ones that keep his dignity more intact.

Chapter 4: "People label themselves with all sorts of adjectives. I can only pronounce myself as 'nauseatingly miserable beyond repair'."

Jim finally has a label for what he is! And he’s having a pretty crummy day, so ‘nauseatingly miserable beyond repair’ also fits. This is one of the chapters I’d considered using the ‘devoured’ quote for. Another one I considered for this chapter was “I cannot make you understand. I cannot make anyone understand what is happening inside me. I cannot even explain it to myself,” which absolutely fits Jim’s mood, but therein lies the problem: there’s not really a way to see how ‘don’t listen to Kafka' fits. Also it’s not quite as pithy as the one I went with ;P [Jim shouldn’t listen to Kafka because if he labels himself as only miserable, it will be that much harder to feel something other than miserable].

Chapter 5: “I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound or stab us.”

In my original outline, chapters 5 and 6 were combined into one chapter, and then this quote fit very well because part of the chapter would take place in Blinky’s library (full of books). I think it still fits just 5 though, and in the absence of anything better I went with it. Here, the ‘books’ are symbolic of knowledge, and its capacity to inflict plain - in this chapter, Jim learns a lot of painful truths. [Jim shouldn’t listen to Kafka because of course Jim can read fluffy stories as well if he wants to, not all books have to rip your heart out. And more symbolically, not all knowledge has to be painful; though neither can you avoid all the knowledge that is.]

And finally, as a spoiler-free sneak-peak at the next chapter, I will give you the next epigraph!

Chapter 6: “How about I sleep a bit longer and forget all this nonsense.”

I almost used this one for chapter 4, but when I realized I’d probably have to split up chapter 5 I saved it for later. It is my favorite line from Kafka’s Metamorphosis, and it is Gregor Samsa’s first reaction to waking up and discovering that he now a giant cockroach (it actually does take him a while to figure it all out - he can’t move his head so he can’t see himself all that well, and he naturally thinks that he must be dreaming still at first). Jim would very much like to just go to sleep and forget all this nonsense, please