#but the characterization kills me sometimes

[autistichalsin]

My chapter-by chapter analysis of The Hunger Games, chapter 1

Disclaimer: this and all future chapter analyses will contain spoilers for all the books.

What really strikes me about this chapter is what a masterpiece it is; a masterpiece of foreshadowing, establishing moments of characterization, worldbuilding and more, all without ever feeling like we're actually getting infodumped on. This is accomplished with Katniss's stream-of-consciousness storytelling. I've heard it criticized so much, but even aside from the very salient point that it fits her characterization as an emotionally stunted, traumatized, poorly-educated teenage girl, it still helps the story in moments like this. We feel Katniss's inner chaos, and it makes the story that much more immersive.

On to the spoilery part of the analysis:

When I wake up, the other side of the bed is cold. My fingers stretch out, seeking Prim’s warmth but finding only the rough canvas cover of the mattress.

There was a post, a while ago, that I can't find but wish I could. In it, the OP talks about how Prim is literally doomed by the narrative, not "heavily foreshadowed death," but literally doomed by the narrative, and this paragraph is the first sign, because Katniss reaches for Prim and feels emptiness instead. And re-reading this, I agree. The first thing we see Katniss do is reach for Prim, and find nothing. This time, it's temporary, but by the end of the series, it won't be. We've been warned, even if we don't realize it yet: Prim is doomed.

Scrawny kitten, belly swollen with worms, crawling with fleas. The last thing I needed was another mouth to feed. But Prim begged so hard, cried even, I had to let him stay. It turned out okay. My mother got rid of the vermin and he’s a born mouser. Even catches the occasional rat. Sometimes, when I clean a kill, I feed Buttercup the entrails. He has stopped hissing at me.

Katniss loves her sister and will do literally anything for her. Katniss also has no moral qualms about drowning kittens. With just one paragraph, we learn what a simultaneously harshly practical yet beautifully caring, loving person Katniss is. She has no room in her life for useless things like pets, and drowning strays probably helps the people of 12 in the long run by leaving vermin to be eaten by those on the verge of starvation. But her sister wants to keep Buttercup, and so she will. Katniss will sacrifice anything to keep Prim happy.

Foreshadowing. Prim is doomed.

Entrails. No hissing. This is the closest we will ever come to love.

STILL more foreshadowing, for different themes: both for one of Katniss's biggest complexes (I'll get into details about this later) and for the theme of love. Katniss doesn't truly love anyone but Prim. Her entire world, we know, is going to be shaken when she does finally feel that for someone else again. Once again, we are being introduced to the recurring themes of love vs practicality and the classic question, "how much pain is love worth?"

Katniss is going to answer this question again and again: for Prim, there is no amount of suffering too great. For others... she'll find different answers. Eventually.

My father knew and he taught me some before he was blown to bits in a mine explosion. There was nothing even to bury. I was eleven then. Five years later, I still wake up screaming for him to run.

The first hints of Katniss as a deeply traumatized girl emerge. Sometimes, when you're traumatized enough, thoughts can segue into The Event with no warning, just by proximity. And through the combination of blunted language and stream-of-consciousness leaps, we can see just how broken this has left Katniss. Unfortunately, this is only the start of Events for her.

My father could have made good money selling them, but if the officials found out he would have been publicly executed for inciting a rebellion. Most of the Peacekeepers turn a blind eye to the few of us who hunt because they’re as hungry for fresh meat as anybody is. In fact, they’re among our best customers.

A brilliant bit of worldbuilding. The Peacekeepers are working off of deeply corrupt laws, which they ignore because they too are being mistreated and systematically starved, even if they aren't as at risk as the people of 12. The system doesn't care about the very same people it safeguards to enforce its rules. This is the first hint we get that the system isn't sustainable, and it comes before we even fully understand what kind of hell this government is.

The theme of "bread and circuses" is going to be hammered down to us again and again that this is how tyrannical governments, including this one, pacify the masses. But when only the bourgeoisie are being given the bread and circuses, well.... the proletariat aren't going to take it forever.

The book hasn't shown itself to be the anti-capitalist masterpiece it is yet, but this is the first hint that we're reading a tale of class warfare.

“District Twelve. Where you can starve to death in safety,” I mutter. Then I glance quickly over my shoulder. Even here, even in the middle of nowhere, you worry someone might overhear you.

I have seen criticisms that this is an egregious case of showing and not telling, with Katniss constantly talking about the dangers of badmouthing the government while never facing them. But in truth, it's the opposite. Yes, Katniss hasn't been caught despite repeated statements that she could have, but we'll learn, here and in future chapters, that 12 has been receiving a sort of tradeoff with other districts; their more severe poverty places them below notice. No one thinks them capable of causing real trouble, and even their district specialty- coal- is later proven to be basically useless, busy-work. So they get ignored... for now. Until the oligarchs start seeing what the proletariat can actually do and crack down all the harder to ensure they keep their cheap labor.

Are you seeing the resonance with the real world yet?

Even at home, where I am less pleasant, I avoid discussing tricky topics. Like the reaping, or food shortages, or the Hunger Games. Prim might begin to repeat my words and then where would we be?

Here we see the dual themes of parentification and sacrifice. Katniss will be the adult, even though she ISN'T an adult, for her sister. She will keep quiet on things that hurt her, and upset her, to set a better example for her sister and keep her from getting hurt. Prim gets to have the normal and safe childhood Katniss never had, because Katniss has invested everything into ensuring she does.

We are taking a step up the ladder of self-sacrificial acts, here. In other words: more foreshadowing. Katniss will give everything for Prim. Prim is going to die, because Katniss is going to lose everything she cared about in the process of protecting everything she cared about.

In the woods waits the only person with whom I can be myself.

Katniss can't be a teenage girl. She has to be Prim's mom. She has to be tough. She has to be a provider. She has to be a trader. An advocate. She so rarely complains about it, too. But it shows here just how much she's given up. Only one place, and one person she can be herself with, and yet...

Gale.

Isn't this ironic. Because we are about to see, throughout the entire series, that this day is going to be the last time Gale actually lets Katniss be herself (and even here, there are strong hints that Gale wants Katniss to be something very different).*

*Disclaimer, because it seems important: my opinion on the Katniss/Gale vs Katniss/Peeta ship war is "team nobody." I think both of them were very bad for her in different ways. Any comment I make that seems like it is favoring one ship or the other... isn't.

“Hey, Catnip,” says Gale. My real name is Katniss, but when I first told him, I had barely whispered it. So he thought I’d said Catnip. Then when this crazy lynx started following me around the woods looking for handouts, it became his official nickname for me.

Maybe I'm overanalyzing, but I feel like this sums up the Katniss/Gale relationship so much. Katniss tries to speak, and Gale doesn't hear or understand her. Gale projects something onto her, and Katniss rolls with it. Sure, in this case it's a cute nickname, but it represents so much more to me.

Gale doesn't understand Katniss. Fundamentally. He understands the Katniss he wants to exist. The one who will run off with him and play house in the woods and indulge his little fantasies. He doesn't know very much about the real Katniss, at least as long as he's looking at her through a romantic lens.

“Look what I shot.” Gale holds up a loaf of bread with an arrow stuck in it, and I laugh.

Despite what I just said, I do love Gale and Katniss's friendship, and it breaks my heart that their friendship was as doomed as Prim. (Hint. Hint.) Katniss needed someone who understood the unique pain of parentification due not to abuse, but poverty- the kind where you aren't 'allowed' to feel angry at anyone within reach. Which is the worst kind of injustice. Getting mad at someone who harmed you is one thing, but getting mad at a system you can never (... yet) hope to change is different.

She must have really loved him to leave her home for the Seam.

It's said in a casual and sort of admiring way here. But Katniss is going to learn firsthand about the intersection between love and sacrifice. With the generational mirroring as a theme, especially between Katniss and Peeta, we're being given more foreshadowing that Katniss has self-sacrifice "in the blood."

I try to remember that when all I can see is the woman who sat by, blank and unreachable, while her children turned to skin and bones. I try to forgive her for my father’s sake. But to be honest, I’m not the forgiving type.

Another little glimpse into Katniss's pain and trauma. Her mom wasn't there when Katniss needed her most, and Katniss and Prim both almost died as a result. It wasn't her fault, and we see later that she regrets it deeply, but this still leaves scars. Your parents, above everyone else, are supposed to protect you. Katniss's mom didn't, Katniss nearly died, and because of that, Katniss had to sacrifice what remained of her childhood to become Prim's mom.

Katniss and Prim's relationship never goes back to just normal sisterhood after this. From the moment Mrs. Everdeen's trauma rendered her catatonic onwards, Katniss and Prim's relationship was infused with a mother-child dynamic that never left, not even when Mrs. Everdeen became well again.

It's so painful, all the more so because it's so real. I lived this with my little brother, albeit with stakes maybe 1% this high, when my mom became an alcoholic and my dad was too busy just trying to survive to really do anything. I was the one to take care of him emotionally, to show someone cared, to provoke my mom's anger so he wouldn't be hit, to make sure homework got done and he didn't skip school (I failed. Badly.) He still considers me more his parent than either of our parents. It never really goes away, even when you're both adults; that overdeveloped feeling of responsibility stays with you. Always.

And the worst part of it is when the parent who made you have to do this decides, on their own, that the time is right for them to come back. Katniss's mom is far more gracious about it than my own. She at least understood Katniss's pain, and didn't try to force the role on her; it happened only when Katniss was ready. But that too, as we'll see in a minute, was painfully real for me.

“I never want to have kids,” I say. “I might. If I didn’t live here,” says Gale. “But you do,” I say, irritated. “Forget it,” he snaps back. The conversation feels all wrong.

Once again, a hint that despite their sweet friendship and similarities, these are two tragically, fundamentally incompatible people. Katniss is in too much pain to think of ever having a family, and Gale is in too much pain to think of not ever having one. Katniss wants to survive the way she always has (which she doesn't realize isn't her destiny yet) and Gale wants to flee and survive literally any other way.

Both change in the end, but the underlying incompatibilities in their life approaches are still there.

And even if we did . . . even if we did . . . where did this stuff about having kids come from? There’s never been anything romantic between Gale and me. [...] Besides, if he wants kids, Gale won’t have any trouble finding a wife. He’s good-looking, he’s strong enough to handle the work in the mines, and he can hunt. You can tell by the way the girls whisper about him when he walks by in school that they want him. It makes me jealous but not for the reason people would think. Good hunting partners are hard to find.

A few very interesting things are happening here. One, we're getting another hint, first dropped during Katniss's thoughts about Buttercup, that Katniss has a pathological inability to believe others actually like her- romantically or otherwise. Part of it is low self-esteem, part of it is putting Prim on such a pedestal that Katniss feels she can never live up (and giving her more self-esteem issues) and feeling like anything she attributes to herself might take away from Prim, and part of it is just raw cynicism. And maybe a dash or two of the feeling of permanent othering trauma gives you. Especially when that trauma involves a realization that you're never going to be able to rely on others to meet your own needs. You're responsible for your needs and your loved ones' too.

(Katniss is one of the most complex and real characters of all time. I relate to Katniss an uncomfortable amount sometimes.)

The other interesting thing is that you're getting a sense, for the first time, of how much trouble Katniss has recognizing and processing her own emotions- a very common trait in neurodivergent people. She can sort-of-understand a feeling of jealousy, but can't quite put her finger on the reason, and fitting with her attitude of relentless practicality, she decides that it's the worry of losing a useful hunting partner. Because, after all, Prim is the only person she loves, she can't care for anyone else, there isn't room for that. To care about anyone else would be to "take away" something from Prim.

Katniss repeatedly raises the question of when self-sacrifice crosses the line into self-harm by proxy. When altruistic love becomes self-negation instead. It's sweet that she loves Prim so much, but the codependence... If this is the benchmark for love for Katniss, it's no wonder that she feels at this point that she can't feel it for anyone else. This isn't sustainable.

(Prim is doomed. We've been warned.)

I found the patch a few years ago, but Gale had the idea to string mesh nets around it to keep out the animals.

This is going to be a recurring theme; Katniss is too impulsive and lacking a sufficient cause-effect pathway to be a planner/strategist. Gale makes the plans now; later it'll be Peeta and Haymitch.

(Also, this is foreshadowing Katniss's lack of agency. She is about to become an audience member in her own life story. She found the strawberries, but she didn't decide what to do about them. Gale did. That's about to become her entire life.)

No one in the Seam would turn up their nose at a good leg of wild dog, but the Peacekeepers who come to the Hob can afford to be a little choosier.

There is a hierarchy still, where the Peacekeepers are starving, but not as starving as the people in the communities they're sent to. Everyone is hungry, but some are hungrier than others.

Hint. Hint.

“That’s not her fault,” I say. “No, it’s no one’s fault. Just the way it is,” says Gale.

"Remember who the real enemy is." Katniss gets told this repeatedly, by Haymitch and others, and eventually she learns the lesson in time to lead a successful revoltuion.

Gale does not learn this lesson. He will end up destroying everything he cares about in his pursuit of revenge against the Capitol and anyone associated with it.

Gale would normally say that there is a huge difference between Madge, the mayor's daughter who is pampered and comparatively privileged, versus the willfully malicious Peacekeepers; the middle class are still part of the proletariat, after all. But Gale, in his pain and fear, loses sight of it and lashes out. This time, it's just words. By the end of the series, when he gets actual power, it will lead to something far more catastrophic.

Prim is doomed to die, Gale and Katniss's friendship is doomed to end in the most bitter way possible, and Gale is doomed to be his own worst enemy.

Gale knows his anger at Madge is misdirected. On other days, deep in the woods, I’ve listened to him rant about how the tesserae are just another tool to cause misery in our district. A way to plant hatred between the starving workers of the Seam and those who can generally count on supper and thereby ensure we will never trust one another. “It’s to the Capitol’s advantage to have us divided among ourselves,” he might say if there were no ears to hear but mine. If it wasn’t reaping day. If a girl with a gold pin and no tesserae had not made what I’m sure she thought was a harmless comment.

Gale knows he's wrong to say things like that. But again, as said above, his pain and fear get the better of him, and cause pain to those around him. His normal philosophy is correct, but he loses sight of and discards it far too easily.

(Gale is going to lose everything because of his scorched-earth approach to anger.)

Also, a note: this is how the real world operates too. Culture wars to distract from class war. For an entire generation of readers, this was their introduction to the basic principles of socialism.

But what good is yelling about the Capitol in the middle of the woods? It doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t make things fair. It doesn’t fill our stomachs. In fact, it scares off the nearby game. I let him yell though. Better he does it in the woods than in the district.

Katniss is still hung up on practicality. When she rants about the Capitol, she is, subconsciously, crying for help. But venting for the sake of venting doesn't make so much sense to her, given her stunted emotions.

Another bit of characterization I really enjoy here is the realistic teenage behavior. Yes, they're the oldest in their families, responsible for their entire family and only able to support them by hunting, and they should "know better". But they're teenagers in a fascist government, with an already extreme list of traumas and corresponding problems with emotions. Of course they're going to act irrationally at times and scare off game because they're having a meltdown- even non-traumatized teens would do that sometimes!

They're teenagers. Incredibly well-written, realistic teenagers. They don't have fully developed frontal lobes with the corresponding gifts of planning, impulse control, cause-effect relationships, and other things yet. They're more mature than most, but they're still going to behave foolishly sometimes.

Prim is in my first reaping outfit, a skirt and ruffled blouse. It’s a bit big on her, but my mother has made it stay with pins.

This is probably a "the curtains are blue because they're blue!" moment, but this is another bit of symbolism I enjoy. Katniss, at Prim's age, was hunting and entering the Hob. Prim is being kept alive by both Katniss and Mrs. Everdeen. She has a dress that mostly fits. She has good meals now. She is protected where Katniss wasn't. The dress represents both the sacrifices Katniss made for her and the fact that now, Prim has the adoring mother Katniss didn't have. She has two loving people looking out for her, willing to do anything to keep her safe, healthy, and happy.

(Prim is doomed.)

To my surprise, my mother has laid out one of her own lovely dresses for me. A soft blue thing with matching shoes. “Are you sure?” I ask.

Katniss can't comprehend her mom doing motherly things for her. Both because of the parentification, and because Katniss still fundamentally can't believe that anyone, even her own mother, actually cares for her enough to want to do anything for her. Not after four years of Katniss carrying the entire family on her back. It's incompatible with the world she's lived in for the last four years.

Katniss is painfully relatable.

I’m trying to get past rejecting offers of help from her. For a while, I was so angry, I wouldn’t allow her to do anything for me.

Painfully. Relatable.

What Katniss is feeling in this scene, I don't think I can describe to anyone who hasn't been there. It's relief-bitterness-anger-hope-longing-mistrust.

"Oh great, look who's finally here to help now that things are okay again and I figured everything out on my own! I want you back. I want a parent back. I don't want to do this anymore. I can't stop it. I can't trust you not to make me do it again. I'd better keep doing it so I don't get my hopes up. How do I even live without doing this? How do I live as a person and not a caretaking robot for my family? Am I allowed to do that? What kind of selfish person would I be if I did, especially now that I've seen what will happen if you fail again? No, I'm not letting you do this. I'll let you pretend to the little one because they need a parent figure and they deserve to feel normal, but me? Hell no, do you think I'm stupid? I am taking care of myself, I already learned what it costs to trust other people to see to my needs and that is not a price I'll pay a second time, thankyouverymuch. Yeah, mom I love you. I'm glad you're okay now. And thanks for doing this for me, I guess."

It goes something like that.

But I digress.

In just this paragraph Katniss expresses so much of the pain of parentification, so succinctly yet vividly that it makes my chest hurt.

I just really, really love Katniss, okay?

“You look beautiful,” says Prim in a hushed voice. “And nothing like myself,” I say.

Ow. Just... ow. She says it so matter-of-factly. Like she's just accepted it into her worldview; Prim, the embodiment of everything good in the world, is beautiful. Katniss, the leftover, the thing that exists just to take care of Prim, is ugly. That simple.

I wish we could have seen Prim respond here; surely she doesn't like anyone, even her sister herself, talking about Katniss this way? Or maybe Prim is so used to these kinds of casual self-put-downs that she's stopped trying to talk Katniss out of it.

Again: painfully relatable.

I protect Prim in every way I can, but I’m powerless against the reaping. The anguish I always feel when she’s in pain wells up in my chest and threatens to register on my face.

Once more: Painfully. Relatable. You put so much into protecting 'your kiddo'. And then something comes along and reminds you that you're even more powerless than the useless adults in your life. It hurts. It feels like you failed. It's one thing for you to get hurt, you already know how to deal with it, but them?

Ugh. Dystopian fiction isn't usually where my inner abused and parentified child gets validated, but this series unlocked some things in my neural pathways.

Thank you, Suzanne Collins, for Katniss. I feel so seen in so many ways through her and her story.

Sorry. I know this is supposed to be an analysis, not a love letter, but damn if Katniss doesn't play my heartstrings like a fiddle.

“Tuck your tail in, little duck,” I say, smoothing the blouse back in place. Prim giggles and gives me a small “Quack.” “Quack yourself,” I say with a light laugh. The kind only Prim can draw out of me.

Sorry, I am going to try to not repeat myself so much, but once again it just... Prim gets to be a child, because of Katniss. She gets to be a normal-ish 12 year old who makes silly animal noises and can't tuck her dress in. Katniss was fighting for her life and trying to find food. And of course it's not Prim's fault- I love Prim. But there's something just so painful about this contrast. Katniss had her childhood stolen from her, first by the tyrannical government she lived in, then her father's death, then her mother's mental illness, and finally the needs of a child she never should have been responsible for.

It's no wonder Katniss spends so much of the series in that emotional state abused, neglected, and traumatized children know all too well. You're simultaneously precocious and childish. Too grown-up one minute and acting like a child the next. Katniss never got to experience linear growth, and her psychology sure as hell shows it.

Painfully. Relatable.

Also, yet again: Prim. Is. Doomed. She's the most important thing in Katniss's life, the rationale for every decision Katniss makes, the reason she gets out of bed in the morning. The one person who makes Katniss's life worth living. Precious, sweet Prim, who retains her innocence and kindness in a world that aggressively stomps out both, is doomed by the narrative in every possible way.

Anyway, Gale and I agree that if we have to choose between dying of hunger and a bullet in the head, the bullet would be much quicker. The space gets tighter, more claustrophobic as people arrive. [...] I stare at the paper slips in the girls’ ball. Twenty of them have Katniss Everdeen written on them in careful handwriting.

When you're a child, you can't comprehend something awful happening to your parents, because your life experience just hasn't shaped yet to show you that it's even possible. You don't understand that it can happen.

When you're an adult, you can't comprehend something awful happening to your child, because your life experience has shaped to show you exactly how it's possible. You know exactly how it can happen, so you can't believe that it can actually happen.

Katniss is at a stage of her life that would already be transitional in normal circumstances, where she'd start contemplating mortality- but she's already dealt with it for years.

Her own death doesn't scare her anymore. Her sister's scares her so much that she doesn't even think it's a possibility. After all, everything she's done for the last four years of her life has been for Prim. To keep her alive and give her the childhood Katniss lost suddenly and traumatically.

Prim is doomed.

Taking the kids from our districts, forcing them to kill one another while we watch — this is the Capitol’s way of reminding us how totally we are at their mercy.

We got hints of apathy and cruelty before, but now the curtain is, for the first time, being peeled back. This isn't a system built on simple oppression. It's a system built on raw sadism.

It's another sign that Panem isn't sustainable. People can endure a lot of cruelty when their loved ones are hostages, but there are limits. When those limits get pushed (hint), something will have to give.

To make it humiliating as well as torturous, the Capitol requires us to treat the Hunger Games as a festivity, a sporting event pitting every district against the others.

Bread and circuses. The poor give labor (food) and entertainment, and the rich receive them. The rich live sequestered lives full of privilege, yet ultimately just as much under the thumb as the tyrant as anyone else. But still supporting the system because they lack the empathy to want change when they benefit from the status quo more than they would from a new system, so they think. They are simultaneously disgusting and pitiful.

Like the comfortably wealthy Trump-supporting boomers we all know and loathe.

The last tribute alive receives a life of ease back home, and their district will be showered with prizes, largely consisting of food.

Our very first, incredibly subtle hint, that winning the games might be even worse than losing them. The first time reading, of course, you'll take this at face value. Later, though, you'll think of this and realize it was all only mockery and isolationism, a way of guaranteeing that the victors would be scapegoated by their District, ensuring they would never find companionship again even if their trauma didn't prevent it. And they can't complain, because, after all, they now have a life of comfort.

So many things are intersecting here; class warfare (Victors being an allegory for "temporarily embarrassed millionaires" and the American Dream) and the isolation of trauma and mental illness and more.

But suddenly I am thinking of Gale and his forty-two names in that big glass ball and how the odds are not in his favor. Not compared to a lot of the boys. And maybe he’s thinking the same thing about me because his face darkens and he turns away. “But there are still thousands of slips,” I wish I could whisper to him.

Katniss so rarely worries about herself, only those she cares for. Again; her own mortality is okay to her. It's those she protects she can't let this happen to. But since she can't even bear to face the possibility of Prim being chosen (Prim is doomed) yet, she focuses her feelings on Gale, not only worrying that he'll be picked, but worrying that he will be upset that she might be. She only spares thoughts for herself for a few brief seconds, in the next paragraph.

Katniss gets accused of being selfish so many times, but it's notable that those moments only happen once she volunteers to go into the arena, once her survival depends on a bit of selfishness. Before then, she's one of the least selfish people in the entire series, and I'd argue that even at her worst she doesn't count as truly selfish. She's a teenager trying to survive and return home to her family, not a toddler who won't share toys.

I’m feeling nauseous and so desperately hoping that it’s not me, that it’s not me, that it’s not me.

But, of course, even when you are theoretically okay with dying, being faced with the actual thing will still inspire terror. So for just a moment, Katniss lets herself lapse into worry about herself.

For just a moment, she thinks about herself- and just that fast, Prim is placed in danger.

(This is how Prim will die too, by the way; being put in danger the one time Katniss is focused on something other than her. Prim is doomed.)

Effie Trinket crosses back to the podium, smoothes the slip of paper, and reads out the name in a clear voice. And it’s not me. It’s Primrose Everdeen.

The unthinkable has happened, and Katniss's life has been changed forever.

And even though she can save Prim this time, it's only temporary.

Prim is doomed. Nothing in the world can prevent it now. Prim would die in the arena, but by going instead, Katniss has put herself in a position where any and all actions she does will spark a revolution that gives her a Pyrrhic victory.

There is no version of events where Prim lives.

Prim is doomed.

[ladyloveandjustice]

I heard that the 90s version of sailor moon made the villains more sympathetic do you think it was a benefit and if so which villain would you say benefits for being more sympathetic

The minibosses definitely benefit from this the most, the first one that jumped to mind was the Ayakashi sisters. They exist to kidnap the girls and be killed off in the manga, but in the 90's anime they have their own arc where the girls help them find redemption and fix their bond as sisters. It really both highlighted how compassionate the Senshi are and some nice solidarity between women. Lead Crow and Aluminum Seiren are my absolute favorite examples of minbosses who are way more sympathetic and don't exist just to kill some Senshi and then be killed. In the anime, they're hilarous, definitely in love with each other, and parallel Usagi and Rei's relationship really strongly. I'm actually still pretty pissed they gave Lead Crow the only death where she couldn't concievably be revived when Galaxia gave back the Star Seeds. In my mind she's okay though. somehow. Iron Mouse was also fantastic, not like, MUCH more sympathetic than her manga counterpart, though you definitely feel her fear of Galaxia a lot more, but soooo funny.

(And of course, there's Kunzite and Zoisite, icons. I guess you could argue the manga was equally-possibly-more sympathetic to them though, since it actually let them be unbrainwashed and redeemed, but the anime def gave them infinitely more characterization and made the relationship very tragic)

I'd say largely being sympathetic did work for the villains, yeah. It meant they were fleshed out a lot more. There were some that didn't work for me, giving Dimande a tragically redemptive death after repeated attempts at sexually assaulting a teenager was like. what. good. die. i don't feel bad. And Nephrite's whole plot was...eh.

I also kind of like the idea of Tomoe just being a horrible father who stopped caring after the death of his wife like in the manga, rather than possessed. His "villain" self isn't actually given much sympathy in the 90s anime, as they just decide the actual quirky villain was the thing possessing him and they were definitely not sympathetic to that. But Tomoe being a bad dad makes Hotaru being raised by the outers meaningful, rather than like, kidnapping.

For the "main" villains, they tend to be equivalently sympathetic in the manga, which is to say, not very much- except for Nehelenia, deffo more sympathetic in the anime thanks to the little season five arc and I liked it quite a bit. Galaxia is arguably more sympathetic in the 90's anime, but the manga showed her a decent amount of sympathy and didn't handwave her actions as "oh bad chaos magic made her do it".

I think Naoko likely had a set quota of villains she needed to create for the anime, or just an order to create "a lot", in twelve chapters, which is why many of them just show up to die. The anime has a lot more time to explore them, and sometimes clearly picks favorites. So it isn't really her fault, but largely I think the anime's version of the villains, and the focus on redemption, was better.

[luckydicekirby]

would love any director's commentary you may have on The Only True Thing if slightly older fics are on the table here bc lowkey it changed my brain chemistry forever. I read it on a whim like four years ago at 1 in the morning and ever since then I've been hooked on making all my fav pairings miserable for no reason. this sounds like sarcasm but I'm being completely sincere the schadenfreude is exquisite

okay first of all I’m SO glad to hear this because making your favs miserable is I think one of the most rewarding activities on this earth so I’m really glad I could help share that joy. thanks also to sylvain for just making it so easy. anyway, here’s some assorted thoughts, hopefully some of which are edifying!

(the only true thing for reference for anyone playing along at home.)

this fic affectionately named the darkling au due to this tweet which I feel like I should put in a hall of fame someday. anyway this entire thread showcases the origin of this fic which was me catie and lily bullying each other on twitter about sylvix, a pastime left behind in 2019 which i really miss.

the thing that really first made me Crazy Cuckoo about sylvain is his B support with Byleth--I'm obsessed with that moment where he very coldly threatens to kill you and then laughs it off, and that was pretty much the jumping off point for Sylvain's characterization in this au--what if he was like that all the time? answer: it would be bad, but also pretty sexy!

One thing I miss about writing for fe3h is the hero’s relics were sooo nice as like. shortcut symbolism. the lance of ruin comes preloaded for you! It’s familial cycles of violence! Easy! and there's a mechanic for it breaking ALSO preloaded into the game mechanics! I wrote like three versions of the ending and the lance getting busted moved around a bit--it originally happened a little earlier.

For a while when I was still femblempilled I was idly thinking about two sequels to this—a sylvain pov sequel about the war, which would have been fun but also Yikes, and then epistolary dorothea/ingrid ideological divorce fic. sorry to dorothea and ingrid who really get the short end of the stick in this universe.

oh there's a playlist. I can’t claim to have put a ton of thought into it it’s just all my fav bad ya boyfriend songs <3 actually dead girl walking reprise is like. yeah that's the fic.

ANYWAY. I feel like a lot of my commentary on this has been washed away by the sea (the passage of time) so a few extras. I apparently wrote like 400 words of sylvain POV of the training yard scene also? Last edited September 26th 2019, here you go:

Felix has always been smaller him, ever since they were kids. Still is these days, to Sylvain’s delight. He wondered about it plenty, these past two years--maybe Felix had a growth spurt. Maybe he caught up to Dimitri. Maybe Sylvain would meet him at the monastery and they’d see eye to eye. Of course they don’t. Felix is a head shorter than him, and he’ll never see things the way Sylvain does. Still. Sylvain thought about it. He’s had a lot of time to think about Felix since the last time he saw him, since Felix ran away. Still a crybaby at heart, no matter how sure he was he’d grown out of it. Not much has changed, Sylvain figures. Felix might have everyone else fooled with that delightfully sharp-edged exterior of his--a pretty decent feint, Sylvian should know--but Felix can’t hide from him. Sylvain sees him down to the bone. The two of them are a matched set: liars at heart.  Like right now. Felix is trying so hard not to cry, his back to the wall of the training yard, his grip tight around the wood of his training sword like he’s actually going to use it. Sylvain hopes he will. He hasn’t gotten to see Felix fight yet, really fight. He bets he’s gotten better. He bets he’s elegant and controlled—maybe less so with Sylvain, and wouldn’t that be nice? That’s how it goes sometimes, when Sylvain dreams about their last day together. Felix’s sword at his throat, biting and cold, ending all this before it began. It would have saved everyone a lot of trouble. Sylvain wouldn’t have had to spend such an awfully long time missing him.  He bets Felix could make him hurt. Nothing seems to do that anymore, except for thoughts of Felix, the ones he can never stop worrying at like a bruise.  Sylvain doesn’t want much these days, and maybe that’s why it’s so hard: he wants Felix in a way that aches, delirious and unstoppable. It doesn’t matter so much how. Felix is welcome to cut him open or kiss him quiet or anything in between. As long as he never stops looking at Sylvain like he is now, hateful and just on the edge of tears, so clearly focused on nothing else. As long as Sylvain can have that, the rest doesn’t matter.  That’s love, Sylvain figures; the cheerful facade he gives the girls is nothing. He forgets about a new one every week. But Felix? He’ll be dead someday, and Felix will still have a grip on his heart, as tight as he’s holding his sword and just as dangerous.

and what exists of the sylvain POV sequel I never wrote:

Felix looks like shit. Of course he’s also beautiful. He’s radiant, for all that his hair’s a mess and his face is drawn and he’s got the kind of dark circles that only come from weeks and weeks of exhaustion. He’s Felix, right? He can’t be anything else. “You look like shit,” Sylvain tells him, because honesty is what Felix thinks he wants from him. He hasn’t seen Felix in six moons, but that probably hasn’t changed. “What are you doing here?” Felix asks. His horse stamps her feet and shakes her head, moving uneasily under him. Felix has never been a good rider. It’s clear he doesn’t appreciate his mare, and she doesn’t appreciate him. Sylvain wonders how long Felix has been making his way across Faerghus like this. He wonders if he stole the horse. It’s awful not to know. “Looking for you,” Sylvain says. “They say you’re searching for the king.” Felix never could stop himself from chasing ghosts. Sylvain hates that about him. It’s just as unfair as everything else: it’s the only reason Sylvain is still here, after all.  “I am. And you should be defending Gautier territory.” “Got a message from your father,” Sylvain lies. He slides off his horse, patting her flank. Felix, clumsily, does the same. “He wants you to come home.” That part’s probably true.  Felix scoffs. “My old man can send all the messages he wants. I’m going to find the boar.” He means it. Sylvain can see that he means it, in the flinty look in his eyes, the fold of his arms, the jut of his chin as he looks up at Sylvain. It’s the saddest thing Sylvain’s ever seen, and he’s seen a lot of shit. “Felix,” he says. He reaches out. He can never help it, not when Felix is like this, not when he believes. Felix doesn’t flinch from Sylvain’s hand on his cheek anymore. “Sweetheart. You know he’s dead.” “Don’t call me that,” Felix says. But when he swings himself back in the saddle and Sylvain does the same, he doesn’t tell Sylvain not to follow. That’s more than good enough. 

[flashbastardsramblings]

I absolutely HATE the many discrepancies NOS4A2 has compared to the book. The worst thing is how out of character Vic and Manx are compared to the source material and it really bugs me.

[boxwinebaddie]

this just in: uncle nina started writing again ( please clap; i thought i was going to sustain permanent brain damage and only be able to read and write at a third grade level like rav--someone we know! <3 )

welcome to my favorite past time ( aka me writing something nonsensical that nobody asked for ) which is hotshot raven of crimson dawn displaying anxious normal stan boy mannerisms and vile kyle ( aka jersey ) experiencing human emotions about it and being both disgusted and frightened animal curious about it.

( idk where this goes? in the #hate chapter i deleted idk )

hyh and enjoy the worst part of your day <3,

no longer metal but still #hardcore uncle nina xx ;)

[bmpmp3]

vocal synths and winter designs

[moe-broey]

IT IS SO IMPORTANT. To Always Remember that Alfonse IS also Líf. That they exist on a continuum. That Líf HAD to come from Somewhere. That Alfonse is Just As Capable of being a moody broody over-dramatic self-righteous cunt AND jackass. It is SO IMPORTANT to remember this

[zukkaoru]

the disparity in kudos between a skk fic and a fic for literally any other bsd characters/ship :/

[edwinisms]

It’s so strange to me that a whole lot of people misinterpret edwin as being “socially awkward” or “uncharismatic” when he’s really quite capable in both those departments? I mean he’s the face of the agency and talks to clients like a professional, he’s quickwitted and takes notice of cues and implications in conversation, he’s quintessentially eloquent and has no issue or hesitation presenting his arguments and opinions, he was raised in an environment where being keenly aware of social cues was essential both in basic society and moreover for a boy trying to avoid being hurt all the time, etc etc etc. the moments where he comes off as awkward tend to be ones that are easily explained by the situation– like when he’s flustered, dealing with a sensitive topic or feelings he’s not used to, or when something highlights him being a bit out of touch when it comes to modern phrases, etiquette, objects, etc (understandably and inevitably– not the fault of his personality or temperament).

yeah, he absolutely has trust issues and doesn’t get close to people easily on a genuine level, and he can be cold, spiteful, and brutally honest at times (pretty much always intentionally– compare to niko, who’s blunt and sometimes causes insult without realizing it), but by default, he’s quite a charismatic, well-spoken guy with a proclivity for performance. people just tend to ignore, forget, or disregard that because the flustered skittish person he becomes when he’s faced with something out of his comfort zone or realm of understanding is quirkier and easier to fit into a common pathetic gayboy archetype.

[watery-melon-baller]

reading atla fics where zuko joins the squad in S1 and katara is the most distrusting of him even after sokka and aang trust zuko a la S3 is soooo infuriating like girl. did y'all forget the crystal caves where katara heard some of his Tragic Backstory™️ and IMMEDIATELY tried to help him out??? she only distrusts him so much in S3 so much because he went and backstabbed her after they had a fun bonding moment. you know who would be the most distrustful of zuko out of the 3? sokka. the disrespect.

[harrowscore]

................. not to rain down on anyone's parade but barely characterized 14 year old lucerys could never have the swag eleanor or henry had

[irregularbillcipher]

said this before and idk if this is a hot take, but i think that if you can just replace all the names and places in your fanfic with some other generic names and publish it as a book without any other major changes, you're... probably writing something very ooc, and not really taking advantage of the medium

idk. i've had my own fair share of silly aus and jokes between friends, but i guess i, personally, don't see the appeal of writing a fanfic that doesn't actually connect to the source material's world/characters in a meaningful way. this isn't saying you're Wrong or Bad for writing stuff like this, i just don't understand the desire to connect that sort of story to established worlds and characters if you're changing everything about those worlds and characters. at that point it might be more fulfilling to just write original characters and worlds

[righteousruin]

I genuinely love and hate that Bane went through this intensely transformative arc in Gotham Knights with meeting his father thanks to Dr. Thompkins and Bruce, and having his life saved by Batman, and it’s meaningful to the point where he’s like ‘I’m not Bane anymore actually’, and then we don’t see him again until two random panels in infinite crisis in which he is just. Out here. Fighting heroes. Zero context between points A and B, go girl give us nothing

[epitomees]

I’m to punch your writing bad vibes so get your butt ready.

To be slightly personal, your writing has been one of my inspirations for a while now. If I had to describe your style, it doesn’t dip into overly flowery purple prose that makes it difficult to tell what is going on, but it's meaty enough to put me into a character’s shoes and really give me a sense for the emotions they feel and why they feel that way. Little details like usage of punctuation, bolds, italics, caps, etc. truly sell your muses as their own person, complete with distinct voices. These little things may go unnoticed, but to me, It’s the little things like these that really show how much care and effort you put into your writing.

And generally, it really gives me motivation to sit down and write, whether it’s for a reply or something personal.

Your writing is very satisfying to read, and I know I’ve said it multiple times before, but it has truly opened my eyes to characters I would have normally been apprehensive or understood little about if not for you. There’s something about how you write P5 related content that makes me wish you were in charge of the game. You really hit all the things I enjoy about the game and seamlessly incorporate it to your writing, as well as improve its shortcomings.

(To be slightly personal again, your enthusiasm for this game, through IC content or OOC posts, is one of the reasons why I’ve been able to slowly come up with ideas on how to slap my P4 muses into P5, but more importantly, enjoy the game for what it is. Without you, I have no doubts that it would have taken me much longer to appreciate it.)

Of course, your writing achieving this effect would not be possible without your understanding of the game, its themes and its characters. Not just P5, mind you. P4, too. Despite me knowing the events of the game almost by heart, you always bring up something fresh about it that makes me view it in a new light and keep the P4 era going in my heart, and by P4 era, I mostly mean Naoto.

I know you’ll make me fall in love with P3 all over again soon, so I’m looking forward to that :^)

There is a lot more for me to say, you being a cherished friend is one of them, and also that you are a horrible little gremlin for encouraging my illness known as Naoto Disease, just to name a few things, but that’s for a later date, since I don’t want to make this ask stretch on for miles.

PS remember that I won’t stop loving you dani-lion xoxo

((You are a damn good, genuine friend, Liz. I needed to hear this.))

[animationismycomfort]

ya know for someone that doesn’t like the Smurfs I sure do make a lot of things about em…..or my favorite ones

[pizzabookbuying]

The vampire diaries books 1-4 really say “Damon is a villain!!!” And then book by book reveal that he’s actually done nothing wrong ever