#lit analysis

[going2hell4everythingbutbeingbi]

people when the teenage character acts like a teenager: *horrified screeching*

[icemankazansky]

@pscentral event 13: tropes

[vampiresuns]

ngl, I am yet to read The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, and watch the adaptation, but one thing that's popping out to me is the amount of people I've seen who assuming that, because Katniss knows the Hanging Tree song, she must be related to Lucy Gray, almost entirely forgetting the source material and its author.

because there are no chosen ones in The Huger Games. Never have been. There are a lot of elements that border on magical realism/the supernatural in the novels, from the character perspectives, but there is no predestination: it is all choice. Katniss isn't special because she's related to someone, she's special because of what she chooses and what that means in the context she's in.

if Suzanne Collins did one thing is write a web of social constellations and memory in constant conversation with the present. It doesn't matter if Katniss is or not related to anyone in TBOSAS. what matters is oral tradition and folk culture of the districts, specially D12 and within that district, The Seam, cannot be controlled. that it exists regardless of Capitol control. that it will always exist regardless of Capitol control. it is in direct conversation with the irl experiences of BIPOC in Appalachia and the working class in Appalachia (and in many places of the world by similarity of irl circumstances due to colonisation and class struggle alone) who have rich oral traditions that constitute an important part of USAmerican Folk, but exist on its own right.

you could interpret it as them being related, sure. nothing stops you: it could be just a hc, it could be analysis with more or less textual evidence, that's up to you. but as people in fandom or who engage with the world of THG we shouldn't ignore this reading bc it's so, so blatant. it is right there. in the end, one of the greatest tools these characters had to overthrow, cheat and avoid the Capitol was the existence of a second history, a local, working class, brown kind of history that in real life and for the characters is taken as non-existent and not valuable for the people in power.

and because it is not of importance, because those people think the people they oppress are barely human and therefore incapable of "actual" culture, it creates a massive blind-spot. these people have the audacity to keep existing. believe me the reason why Katniss knows those songs is because the Seam had the audacity to keep singing — not because it was capital P political, or capital R Resisting. but simply because they existed, against all odds. they lived, against all attempts to exterminate them.

there will still be singing, in the dark times. Suzanne Collins knows that.

[jonsnowunemploymentera]

The similarities between Julius Caesar’s assassination and the Ides of Marsh are well documented in fandom. It’s also generally agreed that the fall of the Night’s Watch will mirror the fall of the Roman Republic, which was quite ironically brought on by Caesar’s death. But I never see it acknowledged that Julius Caesar, some time after the establishment of Octavian’s Augustus’ rule, became deified (meaning that he was worshipped as a god or to put it bluntly, Julius Caesar ascended to godhood).

What does this have to do with Jon Snow? Well, apotheosis (1, 2) is one of the most important stages that comes towards the end of a hero’s journey. Here, the hero reaches some higher level of understanding or personhood, and this allows them to complete the hardest trials still to come in their journey. We see mental changes, but these could also be accompanied by physical changes. A good example of this in high fantasy is Gandalf’s death and return as Gandalf the White. In other myths and stories, we can point to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. In ASOIAF, we have mini versions of this with Bran Stark and Jojen Reed, two children who experience life or death situations but came back with heightened magical power (Bran especially).

Jon Snow is currently at his “journey to the underworld”/“belly of the whale” moment, where he is to (presumably) face his greatest trials. Apotheosis usually comes after this stage (and is often preceded by other stages such as the “meeting of the goddess” and “atonement with the father”, both of which could very well appear in Jon’s journey as he learns of his true identity and purpose).

But what would apotheosis mean for Jon? That’s the key question. He is sure to experience profound mental changes and trauma, but these are sure to be accompanied by great magical changes that manifest physically. In the same way that Bran came out of his coma and started his journey as the last greenseer (well, once Bloodraven kicks the bucket), Jon is sure to come out of his death experience a far more powerful being. The thing is that Jon needs to change into the hero Westeros needs and the magical act of dying and coming back to life should play a role in that.

However, it won’t all be fine and dandy for him. GRRM has criticized Gandalf’s return where he seemingly came back to life better than ever with no great effects. In the same way that Jon is literally experiencing a descent into the underworld (a step that is sometimes figurative for many modern heroes), we can also ascertain that he will experience a very literal ascension into godhood (or the closest thing we have to that in ASOIAF). But magic always comes with a price. And whatever sort of “god” Jon turns into post-resurrection, he won’t be a very pretty one.

[amplexadversary]

Right. This has been a vampire thing since *Dracula* Dracula. For some reason that's so easy to forget.

[porcelana-r0ta]

“He is family. That is kind of what family does-” she stopped short and shifted to lean back more firmly into the wall “well… what family should do.”

Zuko gave her a puzzled look but did not push. That made sense in a way. Not much, but some. If he thought about it then his uncle came to mind but that burned his heart so he snuffed out the thought and looked elsewhere.

Excerpt from Boiling Friendship by Lynnrose on Ao3.

I read this passage from Boiling Friendship and was stricken with sadness.

Zuko, thinking of his dear uncle when Mai talks about what family should do for each other. Zuko, who must look away when he thinks of a parent's kindness. Iroh, who had to look away when faced with a parent's cruelty.

[ladyvictoriadiana]

I do have to say that I have been really enjoying doing some light lit analysis now that my masters officially finished. There is something so nice about just thinking/saying something about books and knowing that no one will ask you to provide a citation for the fact that it exists

[wolf-tools]

Werewolf Book Club: Nightbitch

Happy (slightly belated) Wolf Moon! What better time for me to press a thick stack of vaguely incomprehensible thoughts into your hands (or paws) (or whatever appendage you choose to receive them with). Onward!

Back in October, the preview for Nightbitch starring Amy Adams showed up across my Instagram dashboard and I was enthralled.

I haven’t yet seen the movie (and will talk about it at length once I do)— but let’s get into the book, what it holds, and how it explores wolf tools.

Spoilers below—I don’t reveal the whole story, but I certainly touch on some things. I also do a pretty terrible job with a plot summary, so everything below the cut will make a whole lot more sense if you’ve read the book (or at least a summary). Good luck, have fun, read on:

1. What the Hell is Nightbitch about, actually?

Nightbitch is the story of a mother who finds herself turning into a dog. It’s the story of a neurotic, hypochondriac mother with a difficult child and a largely absent father, struggling to get by. It’s the story of a mother, struggling with her female identity, with leaving her career, with finding a meaningful connection to another woman. It’s a story with monster women, dogs that smell of strawberries, multi-level-marketing schemes, and a Lot of dead rabbits.

Does that make any sense? No? Wonderful. Now you understand Nightbitch.

Nightbitch is not a perfect book, and it is certainly not a book for everyone. It’s a bizarre piece of literary fiction, that can lean cerebral and overwhelming, but it is damn good at what it’s doing. And it’s a werewolf book that’s well worth our time to discuss.

[additional disclaimer: I did listen to Nightbitch as an audiobook. I wish I had scribed down lines, to provide you with some reciepts for everything I talk about below. Learning for next time.]

2. Nightbitch as a werewolf novel

Before we get to deep into the details, I want to establish that Nightbitch is a novel that does not explain itself. It takes deliberate strides to its own imprecision. Things happen, and our main character changes and grows and experiences her metamorphosis, but none of it—not what happens to her, or why, or How—ever gets explained.

I also want to establish that Yes, Nightbitch turns itno a dog. Yes, it is still a werewolf story. It is anything but a stereotypical werewolf story, but it still follows the narrative and can still be analyzed with Wolf Tools. (and what is a dog but a domestic wolf; what is a mother if not domestic?)

What you’ll see below is a description of how Nightbitch approaches each of the wolf tools, and a little commentary on the approach: what's effective, where we've seen this before, all that jazz.

the Moon:

Nighbitch’s transformation is by far my favorite piece of Yoder’s take on the werewolf. Especially in the beginning, Nightbitch (the mother) undergoes a slow, uncanny transformation, with symptoms that walk the line between medical nightmare and supernatural. Thick hair grows on the back of her neck, a cist full of hair appears at the small of her back (a tail?), her teeth sharpen strangely, she grows six sets of nipples. These early aspects of transformation are strange and terrifying and would absolutely be the sort of thing to send an exhausted hypochondriac into a state of hysteria. And they last weeks.

I've found it common enough for werewolf stories (especially modern literature and films) to more thoroughly explore the middle-stages of a transformation, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen one at such a timescale.

But when she actually transforms fully into a dog— all that literary detail disappears. Nightbitch is nothing more than a sensory lens of the world around her. The transformation is lightning quick, dream-like, unelaborated upon and unexplained.

It’s a clever move on Yoder’s part, the drawn-out focus on every sign and symptom, followed by the absolute absence of detail to follow. In embracing the transformation, Nightbitch abandons fear and embraces instinct. Her incessant internal monologue shuts up, and we, the readers, listen to that Glorious Quiet alongside her.

What drives this transformation, and those that follow? Yoder never explicitly tells us. There are distinct emotional notes, a need to release, but the exact cause is entirely speculative.

The Beast:

When the entended metamorphosis ends and she embraces the change, she turns into a dog. At first glance, Nightbitch’s Beast seems simple enough.

But the book doesn’t stop there.

No, post first-transformation, Nightbitch begins to explore what means to be a Dog—not just in Body, but in spirit. It affects how she orders food, how she treats her baby, and ultimately shapes her final artistic moment of self-actualization as woman and dog, a powerful, wild thing.

While it’s not common, it isn’t unheard of for a Beast to reflect in behavior and thought more than in physical manifestation (we see this idea first manifest around the turn of the 20th century, and the dawn of Freudian psychology).

The Bite:

Once again, we don’t ever get a real answer for this. Neither does Nightbitch, so we’re all in the same boat.

Our best answer comes from “A Field Guide to Magical Women”, by one Wanda White (a professor from a long-defunct university with no trackable identity). This field guide covers a whole smorgasbord of different magical women (including but not limited to the delightful bird women of Peru).

For certain magical women, assuming their magical selves is something of a second puberty or a menopause, a natural transition stage into a second, unexplored life. There’s no rhyme or reason to it beyond that.

We meet Nightbitch in a difficult, stagnant position of life, and her transformation and assumption of the Dog as a piece of herself catalyzes and forces her from that stagnancy. But is it the stagnancy that invites the first transformation? That’s up to speculation. If I were to make my own assumption, I think the onset of the dog is a sort of epiphany, or magical psychotic break. The stress of an unsupported motherhood and her social isolation drives Nightbitch’s body to act on its own accord to get her to Move and Break the Pattern.

The Bane

Nightbitch doesn’t have a Bane, at least not in a meaningful way.

However, the narrative Yoder has crafted doesn’t need one.

Banes are useful in stories where the werewolf needs to be fought and defeated. They’re a literary McGuffin that finds use in horror, fantasy, thriller, stories where the monster’s death is necessary.

Nightbitch is a literature piece about a mother finding agency through the wild thing within. Her (Nightbitch’s) arc isn’t one of defeat and of death; it’s an arc of victory and growth.

Besides, our protagonist does enough to be her own worst enemy. There’s nothing a silver bullet could do that she couldn’t talk and obsess and Google herself into.

The World

Nightbitch exists in a (widely) Wolf-Unknowning, wolf-neutral world, meaning:

Most people don’t have the slightest clue that some women may turn into dogs upon reaching middle age

As such, there’s not much of a public opinion on such women

There is an implied knowledge by a niche few (Wanda White), who views magical women with academic respect and wonder.

At the end of Nightbitch, The Nightbitch brings her monsterhood into the world through a trippy, MLM(?) drug-induced act of performative art, thereby bringing the werewolf (dog woman) into the public sphere. Still, even then, there’s a public uncertainty to the nature of the monster. It’s difficult to draw the line between art and reality, between strange woman in a costume and genuine magic.

It’s a line that the entire book tows, one that it never resolves, and expanding that unknowing out of the narrator’s own mind and Into the wider public sphere almost illustrates Nightbitch’s own resolution into her own magic, which she, mastering her mystery, can now externalize.

This is also a Light building world, meaning that the world looks very much like it does for most people, wolf or no wolf (dog or no dog). The exterior world has not been tailored specifically for (or against) the existence of werewolves. (If you’re looking for a good example of a heavy-built world for contrast, see Mongrels by Steven Graham Jones—where everything, from French fries to pants, has a direct impact on the lives of werewolves)

In short, no one knows what the hell Nightbitch is, not even Nightbitch (but she still rocks it).

Tools Summary:

Yoder places a lot of narrative empasis on the Moon, more than any other Wolf Tool. The rest of the tools have their place (except Bane), but Yoder engages the Moon with a level of detail and focus that truly stands out.

Relative to other werewolf stories, it isn't that Yoder's Moon is That Much Stronger*, but more significantly, it's that the other Tools are dampened and blurred (but not simplified--no no, Yoder does not fall onto classic tropes). Blurring the other tools heightens the impact of Nightbitch's transformation, and it brings the reader much closer into Nightbitch's POV. She has no clue what's happening to her, or why, or what any of this means, but she can look at the changes in her body, and feel the shift in her mannerisms... and we, the readers, are stuck in the same, tiny, baby-vomit scented rowboat as her.

*what I mean by "not much stronger": it's super duper common in horror, especially horror films, to place emphasis on the physical aspects of transformation. The gory, bone-snapping, fur-sprouting special effects lend the werewolf most of its horror, and it's repulsion. It's also really easy to emphasize visual horror in visual media (film) (see: An American Werewolf in London's loooong transformation sequence)

Nightbitch, in placing its emphasis on that same lengthy transformation in the beginning, heightens the already present horror in motherhood (and more generally, womanhood). In suburban midwest america for a decently well-off mother, there's little scarier than the weird growth on your arm.

(or there's plenty scarier-- is your spouse having an affair? is your kid going to die if you look away for too long? are you ever going to regain the sense of freedom you had in youth? Will the other PTA moms accept you as one of their kith and kin? A weird growth is a much easier thing to be afraid of).

BUT!

(but!)

Once Nightbitch transforms, the script is flipped. She gains this feral ease, a strength and acceptance in her wildness, a faith in herself that she did not previously have... and would you guess? the lengthy, horror-style descriptions of her transformations disappear entirely.

Nightbitch becomes a Werewolf Protagonist, not just a Werewolf Victim. She takes her monsterhood--and her life into her own hands. When she transforms in this latter section of the book, it is described in action and motion - how she moves around the park, how she kills rabbits and sniffs around the homeless camp at night. There's very little in the way of sprouting claws and jutting jaws, very little of that material of fear, because Nightbitch Is No Longer Afraid.*

*she does have her lapses (see the dead cat).

All this rambling to say:

When Yoder emphasizes the details of the transformation, the book reads as horror, and you feel the horror.

When Yoder cuts the transformation details, the book steps out of horror and enters Nightbitch's mom literature arc of personal growth.

The Moon (or lack of clear moon) is not the only narrative element contributing to this, but this use of the Moon is a clever way to emphasize tone (and tonal shifts) in narrative.

Questions to mull on:

In what other ways could you manipulate or change the level of focus on the Moon mid-narrative to affect tone?

how might focus on Moon change with different POV?

What if Yoder had continued to emphasize a more visceral, gory transformation through the rest of the book? How would that change Nightbitch's character, and the overall tone of the story?

anyways, if you made it this far, thanks for reading! I hope you found it interesting.

[cookiecrumbconundrum]

i'm better at textual analysis than you (flirtatious)

i'm better at textual analysis than you (derogatory)

i'm better at textual analysis than you (hubristic)

[imaginesandbandfiction]

if someone asks what my writing means after it’s already published, i’m going to start answering with “i am not at liberty to say” because i am no longer the person who wrote it. when i get ideas it’s like im possessed, that bitch was crazy and i have no idea what she really meant.

it’s up to you to figure out what it means to you. Maybe it’s just a cool story or maybe it’s a really shitty story, idk. i just wrote some words down.

[koalas-koalas-everywhere]

Show vs. Tell in The Darkest Hour

The thing about Lancelot's sacrifice in The Darkest Hour is that his motivations are all over the place. I welcome a debate over this, but I find it very difficult to see it as a sacrifice for Gwen, or even Arthur, even though that's clearly what the show was going for.

On the one hand, you have the influence of Arthurian legend, which ties Lancelot's story firmly to Arthur's and Guinevere's. We see this reflected in their close bonds in the show; more with Gwen, but Arthur also was shown to think highly of him in previous episodes (they didn't have many interactions in this two-parter, and none that weren't about Merlin).

We also have his spoken motives: he and other characters bring up his duty as a knight (his conversation with Merlin in Part One where Lancelot tries to convince him to go back to Camelot). Additionally, there's the promise he made to Gwen. So you've got both his affection for her and his sense of duty pushing him to protect Arthur (he says this himself during his conversation with Merlin in that cabin TDH2, that he'll go on with the quest that it's because of the vow he made). At the end of the episode, Gwen also says this (to Arthur, during the pyre scene.

In terms of composition and design, everything points to these being Lancelot's motivations.

And yet. None of this fits with his actual actions during the episodes.

We can overlook him talking almost exclusively with and/or about Merlin, because creating a relationship with the main character is a fast and easy way to endearing him to the audience, in addition to giving him more screen time, which would serve the same purpose.

But, if looking after Arthur's his first priority, how come he immediately tries to get his sworn protector to leave? Sure, Merlin's not a warrior, but it's not like combat skills are of any use against the Dorocha. Also, of the three episodes they'd met before this one, twice Merlin's proven to have privileged information about the threat they were facing. Even just as an extra hand to do chores, look for firewood so no one's ever alone could be useful. Lancelot ought to have known that having Merlin around could only make Arthur safer, yet he insisted that he should leave.

But, okay, let's say that, as a knight, he doesn't feel comfortable with anyone who doesn't know how to fight or who didn't swear an oath endangering themselves; especially if they're his friend, like Merlin is.

How does he justify leaving the quest to take Merlin to Camelot? Any other knight might have volunteered if he'd kept quiet for a bit longer and he could've advised them to go through the Valley. By being the one to take him, he's pretty much abandoning Arthur to his luck and breaking his promise to Gwen. Sure, all the knights are sworn to protect Arthur, but he and Merlin are the ones most devoted to him, for their own reasons. Or they should be. Instead of protecting him with his life, as he promised, Lancelot chooses to take Merlin back to Camelot, despite Merlin's own protests! You know, the guy who always seems to know more than anyone else what's going on and who wants above all else to protect Arthur? (Then again, Lancelot may not have heard said protests, being in such a hurry to ride off that he interrupted his goodbye to Arthur lmao. Sorry, that scene's kinda funny to me, like, Merlin begging Arthur to let him stay and Lancelot in the background, tapping his watch.)

So he rides off with Merlin, leaving Arthur to finish the quest alone, except that they run into the Vilia and they heal Merlin. What does he say to their statement that Arthur needs them both? No can do, I need to get Merlin to Camelot. It's okay, they'll heal him! As he sees for himself the next morning! This should make him change his mind about going to Camelot, right? Except no, it does not. Even after seeing him running around, spearfishing, after trying to smack him with a stick, when Merlin wants to get back to Arthur, Lancelot immediately shuts him down. Even once he agrees, it's only after Merlin makes it clear that he'll go with or without him.

(Then you have that convo in the cabin where he's like "I have to go because I promised Gwen that I'd protect Arthur" like babe you left him. 0/0 would not ask for a promise again.

The funniest thing is that having them go on their own also serves a literary purpose. It gives him and Merlin the opportunity to talk in privacy, giving the audience their due exposition, when around others they'd have to censor themselves to keep their secrets, Merlin's magic and Lancelot's love for Gwen.)

Then skip to the confrontation with the Cailleach. He already knew that Merlin was planning to sacrifice himself instead of Arthur. Arthur himself was unconscious. The only thing he had to do to protect him is stand there and look pretty. For all his penchant for self-sacrifice, we already knew he feared death, because he said himself that it was difficult to imagine knowingly giving his own life. But he still walked through the Veil.

Let's be clear. The person he saved by doing that was Merlin.

Not to say that there was no way of seeing that as protecting Arthur. He'd just been told by two magical sources (the Vilia and Kilgharrah) that Merlin had a huge destiny. It's likely that Merlin had told him the same thing before, as he was pretty loose with his declarations of how he was meant to protect Arthur. So, it's not impossible that he thought that the best way to protect Arthur, not just that once but in the future, was to save Merlin. You can definitely say that. Just like you can definitely get from Spain to India by sailing west without ever stopping on land. You will have to doge a whole ass continent that spans two hemispheres, though. And have fun in the Pole!

Anyway, this isn't meant to be a shipping manifesto. And while I love those two, and enjoy screaming about them to the void, it isn't even about them either. I most definitely don't mean to undermine Lancelot’s love for Gwen. I just wanted to point out this discrepancy between what the show says (Lancelot sacrificed himself for Gwen, Arthur and Camelot, in that order) and what it does (Lancelot sacrificed himself for Merlin).

[onequeertorulethemall]

Re-reading IT and thinking about how stories of kids given responsibilities that are way too big for them and they didn't ask for but there's nobody else who understands, nobody else who can do it, no adults who are safe to share the burden with, have always been some of my favorites.

Avatar: The Last Airbender

Animorphs

Even Harry Potter, before it got completely poisoned for me. I'm definitely not a fan of HP anymore, and I would literally celebrate with cake and fireworks if JKR died, to be clear. That out of the way - the fifth book was always my favorite because the structure that Harry had had some sort of trust in collapsed around him, and for the most part the adults were powerless to do anything. But it's generally a thread that runs throughout the whole series. Save for the end of the fifth book, it's always Harry that's right and the responsibility falls to him/Hermione/Ron.

There's not really a point to this, I'm just rambling. The first two are stories that still stick with me, and IT has stuck with me since I first read it as an adult a few years ago.

It's also very stark to me how much younger the kids in IT seem than the Animorphs even though they're only two years younger. Is 11 really that much different from 13, or is this representative of the difference in the authors' views of childhood? The first Animorphs only came out ten years after IT was published, so I doubt there was time for the adult philosophies about childhood to change too much.

[mindpalaceofmyown]

Androgyny in Hesse's Work

Spoilers (a little bit) for Steppenwolf and Demian.

So we all know that Hesse was deeply influenced by his travel to India and Hinduism/Buddhism in general? But here is another recurring theme in his work: androgyny among the "guiding" characters for the protagonist.

Now, in Hinduism there are multiple accounts of deities changing gender, manifesting as different genders at different times, or combining to form androgynous or hermaphroditic beings (have to cite Wikipedia here sorry for the sourcing T-T).

These same traits are described for Hermine/Herman in Steppenwolf and Max Demian in, well, Demian. Both of these characters help the protagonist grow in some way, eg. have a profound influence on their life. I really wanted to connect this to Hindu deities because of the apparent androgynous component as well as the "divine" help that is provided by these characters. In a way, this connection can also help infer something about the overall meanings of the works, but that is a separate topic.

Anyway, the Hinduism themes in Hesse's work are like Pokemon to me, I have to find them all.

[medievalfantasist]

Hi!

I wrote a book. (Another one, technically.) The audiobook is available today (Sept. 26, 2023), and the paperback drops tomorrow.

Here is the absolutely gorgeous paperback cover.

And the just-as-gorgeous audiobook cover.

It's a deep dive into the ways that medieval literature, myth, and epic have sort of trickled down and bubbled up into modern literature, and how that specifically has informed and influenced Neil Gaiman's work. I cover Sandman, The Books of Magic, Stardust, Beowulf, and several others.

These are available wherever you get books, but here's some links in case you need them: University of Iowa Press | Tantor Media

Anyway thanks for reading.

[iluvuiloumi]

Kafka's Metamorphosis: My Ramblings

Hello world (Luna)! Since I got this account like...2 days ago, I'm just gonna post whatever insane ramblings I have in my brain into here, and that's all that is necessary for me.

I finished Metamorphosis this morning, and knowing not only how he saw himself, but also how he saw his father:

"You never hanged me, but I always felt the rope around my neck"

In all honesty, I saw this quote attributed to Kafka's writing, but I cannot find the quote itself so please take this with a grain of salt. However, the quote still applies to the book itself.

Ramblings:

Turned into a bug, Samsa's first thought when he transforms is not about him. In fact, never — not for more than 2 or 3 instances for which he is almost instantly punished — does he think about himself. Rather, his every thought, his life, and his existence seem to be consumed by his family.

He lives for his family. He breathes for them. But in his essence, what is he, if not for his family? Now, he must know. He must know because he has no family any longer. He's a vermin hiding inside a house that was no longer his the second he was not the perfect son, although he paid for it.

Even as a bug, he thinks of his family. Completely starved for any kind of human treatment for himself, he still hides underneath a blanket for his sister's comfort.

And yet, he hopes, silently, that she would move it and look upon him with the adoration she used to have for her brother. But she doesn't.

She treats him like he is dead, and feels guilty about it. That is why she empties his room like one would a missing or gone relative. She believes her life is ruined by his transformation, more than his. She is who matters because she retains her human form. In fact, that is why she doesn't let the mother clean the room.

She doesn't want to treat his room or him as something that should be cared for because she knows she does not care for him. When her mother tries to, it proves the neglect that she has been showing him. She cannot be confronted, just like her father couldn't, with the truth that their beloved.

Samsa is almost immediately resigned to his fate. He aches and longs for communication with the only ones he loves. He aches for belonging, so much so that he is willing to live with the torture of the room as long as he can see that it is his own. He aches for communication.

But he cannot bother his family. He cannot do it. So he screams silently.

They clear his room, and he only asks for a single painting to remain.

They leave him scraps that he returns untouched, only hoping that they notice his starvation

They leave the door slightly ajar while refusing to engage in conversation with him, and he stays in the shadows to not horrify them with his appearance.

His father tries to kill him, and he stays on the floor to not scare him further.

He hides in silence under a blanket to prevent his sister from witnessing what she considers disgusting.

His sister's music plays and is not fully appreciated his only thought is to protect her and play for who would truly appreciate her — him — but only through her free will.

He wakes up as a cockroach and though he describes the pain as debilitating, he still tries to force himself to work for his family.

However, his family only thinks of their own. No longer human, Samsa was no longer their concern. If he could not be a part of the family as a human, he could no longer be a part of the family at all. But they cannot admit to themselves the cruelty of their actions in their pursuit of freedom.

Samsa did not have the privilege of a job he enjoyed for his family.

Samsa observed the world with the innocent eyes of an observer.

"Was he an animal if the music could captivate him so?"

No, Gregor Samsa. You were the one with the most humanity of them all.

[paperstarwriters]

(you don't have to publish the ask but make sure it's anonymous) please please please don't worry about the anon I think it might be the same person who made a harrass discord group...of course it's good to acknowledge wrongdoings of creators but it doesn't make anyone obligated to stay away from fandom. If you don't support the racist mess that happened it's totally fine if you stay in arcana fandom. Don't worry.

of course, of course. I'm not feeling pressured to leave the fandom right now don't worry about that. I know seeing it can cause a bit of anxiety, and for a little while it did make me feel anxious, I recalled why I wanted to write a lot of the fanfics I make in the first place, I didn't like how they wrote Muriel's ending, and I didn't like how they represented him a lot, so I wanted to make something that fit the image I had of him instead.

Anyways, I was much more curious about the note they made about the problems with Julian being a bird or the various bird motifs and that being antisemitic. I was wondering how or why that was the case, as when I tried searching it up I wasn't really able to find any definite explanations, so I was wondering if they could point me to a resource or something on the topic. I've heard that a merge between an owl and a human can often be antisemitic especially when that owl is presented as an almost demon-like entity with feathers forming horns like that of a great horned owl, and their beak being presented as a large hooked nose. That much, I do understand, but I'm unclear if it applies to the wider range of birds as well, or not.

In my initial search I found a story called Jewbird written by Bernard Malamud, an American-jewish author, and while it serves as the allegory of antisemitism not only coming from outside but inside as well, the nature of the intelligent bird being representative of an older more traditional Jewish individual (according to another source who were likely more able to draw the parallel than I was), presents him as a human-merged with bird individual and the whole point of the text seems to present it as the pure opposite of being antisemitic.

Of course, I can see the possibility of it, that he was presented as a bird in order to subvert the initial expectations and stereotypes, in the same way that Maus by Art Spiegelman does, but I would still like to be better able to understand the bird-antisemitism connection. Does it apply to specific birds? What kind of bird-like representation causes issue? Would the image of birds flying freely over the sky be considered problematic imagery? Why and how? is it the caged bird that is problematic? Why and how? Is there any possible way that this birdlike imagery can spread into other spaces and cause issue? Should Julian never be given feathered wings, regardless if you're creating a bird image or not? is his bird familiar problematic as well??? this is like telling someone unfamiliar with racism against African-american individuals that cotton is not good to them without telling them about the whole history about slavery and cotton picking, leading them to believe that they just take issue with the material of shirts or something.

I know I probably sound kinda nit-pickey, but I am genuinely curious and would love to avoid making any antisemitic mistakes when including Julian and Portia in my works. I wish to avoid this all the time, of course, but most especially now, as discussion on Palestine has spurred a lot of antisemitism due to the cultural genocide from Israel. And while it's clear that what Israel is doing, it's also clear that not all Jewish individuals support that, even though some news groups or people talking about it frame it as if it is.

Of course I'm open and eager for discussion on the other LIs as well and the intricacies of their problematic representation and how that must be handled corrected or re-framed, especially since in the early more.... hostile days of this fandom, I tended to stick to Muriel's route since I hadn't played the other routes in a while/all the way through so I'm a little unaware of all the other characters' misrepresentations (so if you're mentioning Muriel I probably have heard about and considered that one before—this man does not leave my brain lmao)

I can see the possible issues on Nadia being constantly represented as domineering failing to recognize softness in her (which I belive, though correct me if I'm wroing, is about dark skinned women being seen as violent and tough instead of soft or kind), and Asra being represented through Orientalism (mystic, but lesser other with messy foreign traditionalistic magic that must be corrected through the western logic and science—this partly originated in ancient greece so not entirely western as in America)

But yeah, I'm just really curious about it, cause my initial search only brought up news articles about people apologizing for being antisemitic, or the history of antisemitism. Rather than some of the various possible forms of antisemitism or it's possible relation to birds.