flanneryculp

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everyone has their own opinion on the best way to plan a story, but when writing a farce or murder mystery I have to advocate for the classic notecard technique because it opens up the possibility that you will glance down while making lunch and see this

#prev #poison for breakfast

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when the objectively bad person has traumatic and honestly reasonable reasons for why theyre like that but it doesnt excuse their actions and only serves to make them more tragic as a character

#nathan prescott

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Weeping with unrestrained joy at the aquarium because I saw a fish

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Guy who fakes his death every time he gets mildly embarrassed about something he did

#lemony snicket

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one of my favorite sensations is when you can feel the ocean nearby without seeing it

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please don't touch me, 2021 by Luka Khabelashvili

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hey man can I leave him at yours for like half an hour 50 minutes max he's house trained so don't even worry about it

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crow singing along to flute music

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My cat watching the Care Bears cartoon

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the smallest artist i listen to? probably the bird outside my window

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cr. patrick mccormack

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#help me settle a debate w my friend!! :') #i am team brunette btw!!!!!

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#douglas wilde

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life has an inner side

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a deep dive into kate gordon

kate is one of the most interesting characters in tb8, and i wish more people talked about her! there’s a lot to talk about, especially considering how often she appears.

kate is the second most mentioned character, just behind natasha. their names are mentioned 334 and 357 times respectively. that’s not so big a gap! adam, the third most mentioned character, has 278 mentions, over fifty fewer than kate, and the rest of the basic eight have at least a hundred fewer. while everyone in the basic eight has meaningful arcs, kate is the only one other than natasha who is prevalent from start to finish, and her arc has a ton of similarities with flan’s.

one of the most interesting things about kate and flan’s dynamic imo is how they project onto each other. in the second half of the book, flan uses kate as a scapegoat, especially re: her body and her relationship with adam. since adam reflects the societal norms that flan (and everyone) is trying to conform to, kate is an easier target to blame.

flan resents kate for stealing adam away from her, even if kate never actually did. kate only started flirting with adam after flan was dating gabriel, and kate even asked flan if it was alright.

we don’t know how long kate liked adam, but we do know that she knew him better than flan did, and she she got together with him very quickly after flan and gabriel started dating. still, she repressed her feelings and encouraged flan to go after him for the entire first half of the book.

but it’s likely that kate asked flan to absolve herself of guilt rather than make sure things were okay with flan. flan obviously still had a crush on adam, and kate knew that! if kate really wanted to make sure things were okay with flan, she could have openly asked about it instead of dancing around her point. i think she wants to be seen as a good friend, more than actually considering how flan feels. kate still knows that flan loves adam, and she even asks again. flan responds by saying yes and immediately bursting into tears. kate is insightful enough to know that she’s not okay with it. that’s in line with how we’ve seen kate before--she deliberately creates an image and tries to play it off as effortless.

not that flan was in the right in this situation either, though. flan deflects her own guilt onto kate, especially when it comes to leading gabriel on. if flan villainizes kate, she can see her own actions as better than they are. flan makes herself believe that kate has it all, since she has adam/society’s love, even if it’s just tolerance and adam isn’t that into her. if flan is also being strung along here, she believes it’s not so bad if she does the same to gabriel. kate is an easier person to blame than adam, so kate gets the vitriol.

the resentment isn’t one-sided. kate talks about how the girl who wrote adam love letters all summer is tactless and undeserving of adam. toward the end, kate even says “somebody beat us both to him,” which reads to me like kate is more okay with adam dating flan than she would be with him dating a random girl.

kate doesn’t believe (or tries not to believe) that flan wrote the letters, even though it’s pretty obvious from the way flan changes the subject every time kate brings it up, and rachel explicitly told her. kate refuses to think badly of flan, because flan is her friend and kate wants to be loyal.

in the same scene, flan says we are better off without adam, including both of them. once they stop idolizing adam, they stop blaming each other. flan and kate relate to each other, and they both resent and understand each other for it.

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another similarity between flan and kate is how violent they can be, though in different ways. flan is the one directly poisoning carr and killing adam, but kate is thrilled to cover it up.

also, when jenn fights nancy and cheryl, kate is overjoyed.

no other character has such a consistent, positive reaction to violence. and in kate’s case, she’s never the one committing these acts, but supporting her friends. and she believes everyone is like her, in that way. like when she believes that ron piper will support them.

later she says, “we aren’t just doing this for flan anymore,” which i think kate actually believes. she wouldn’t do all this for flan, but she’d do this for the group. kate has such a strong us vs them mentality that it overrides everything else, and yet, she’s not exactly selfless.

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dinner party #1 is one of the most iconic scenes in tb8. it’s the first time we see the main cast in their element. the toasts, especially, are each character introducing themselves; douglas is cautious, flora completely misses the point, jenn is helpful, etc. (rip v___ who didn’t get to say anything) but kate’s toast is definitely the most memorable.

what’s interesting to me is the way she says it--it’s snappy and memorable, but also contrived. and that’s the basic eight’s whole deal, especially kate’s. i wonder if there are any comparisons to the school’s motto, which has a similar phrasing--just listing good traits instead of anything tangible, especially since the scene where the phrase was first introduced is a kate scene. one of the major themes is that the friend group isn’t different from the school/societal structures it tries to go against. as effortless as kate wants to appear, she’s always trying to fit in.

like the play they’re in, they’re all playing roles, to a certain extent, and kate is such a clear picture of that.

#hi bia #the basic eight #tb8 #kate gordon

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snoopy on tour by Paul Ceely on flickr (2012)

⭒ via star4gardens