little-candle

Thank you, have a good day.

Hi there, thank you for the ask.

Your difficulty is quite understandable. Kurt's longest letters are taken from Orpheus and Alice, who suffer from different forms of internalized ableism. Orpheus projects his trauma and ableism by seeing Kurt through the lens of an irrational dreamer and wholly flawed, while Alice projects her trauma through the idea that there's normal reactions to trauma and abnormal reactions like Kurt's. Combined with the Game Nine crews own unreliabilities and we see how Kurt's flaws can cover his complexity.

Neither of them are looking at Kurt the person, but trying to apply Kurt to a preconceived notion. The pompous dreamer, the madman whose sanity drains by the day. But those are stereotypes, not Kurt.

Looking at a character from an objective perspective is difficult. Orpheus and Alice feel human because they're unreliable and do the above. Unlike Orpheus and Alice, though, we can acknowledge our biases and try to overcome them.

I really recommend looking at the Diaries one can play through while. There are a few records of them, so I will link Kurt's here. Each one of them takes place from the perspective of their diary writers and the behavior of the characters slightly differs with each character. Servais and Naib portray Kurt as more hostile, William's more nuanced, and Kurt, from his own perspective, is most sympathetic.

As you watch it, I really suggest thinking about context. This is the best way of learning to examine a character objectively. We see, from his own perspective, Kurt's conclusions were from understandable evidence. Part of why Kurt was so suspicious of Servais was because he learned from William what had happened and the two, without the full picture, assumed Servais was a dangerous murderer. This is not to say Kurt didn't project on the others, but that he made inferences from context. So, to understand Kurt, we must understand why he acts.

We see from Kurt's experiences in the military (as detailed in his Seventh Letter) that he initially had reached a, for lack of a better term, stability with his delusions, with many of his fellow soldiers being understanding towards him. We know something happened to Kurt that caused him to become more defensive and, as a result, discharged from the military. Considering his parents' lack of support, this was what lead to Kurt's delusions intensifying. Remember, while Kurt doesn't have total control over his delusions, we know from his Sixth Letter that he was aware of them to some capacity and chose to lean on them as support. So, one of Kurt's flaws is his defensiveness over his delusions, as seen in Game Nine. But why did he reach the point of such defensiveness?

Kurt is defensive, Kurt is naive, Kurt is open-minded, Kurt is insightful. But all these traits were forged by Kurt's life experiences.

If we want to look at Kurt objectively, we have to think of each of these traits as we read his Letters, his Diaries, how other characters think of him, and think about why he behaves the way he does. What were the personal circumstances, the societal circumstances? Why do some characters like him and others dislike him? Why does he dislike some characters and not others? Try to avoid putting him into a box (the Dreamer by Orpheus, the Madman by Alice) and think about the why. In IDV, even the most flawed characters have "Why's" that drive them.

slimeknight

have fun

write whatever is interesting to you, even if it won’t be interesting to anyone else

appreciate kudos when they come, but don’t expect them

appreciate comments when they come, but don’t expect them

if you wish you could just write that one scene you have in your head, do that. you don’t need to create a 30K backstory for it first.

embrace one shots

embrace drabbles

embrace writing your story out of order

rough drafts are meant to be rough. if you can’t think of a word, put in a placeholder for it and keep going. 

try not to get stuck on the little things

it’s okay if your readers can’t see the picture inside of your head

some people work well when they have a posting schedule. some people work well when they don’t. it’s okay if you don’t know which kind of person you are, and it’s okay if the type of person you are changes over time.

if a rule you created for yourself isn’t working for you, get rid of that rule.

make fandom friends. even if they don’t read your fic, they’ll cheer you on while you write it.

cheer on other writers you know. you’ll be cheering yourself at the same time.

no trope or genre is better or worse than another one. they all just appeal to different audiences.

quality and popularity are not the same thing, although they do sometimes overlap

numbers and statistics will never tell you whether or not you’re a good writer. they will never tell you how valuable you are as a person. 

you belong in fandom if you want to be there

you’re a writer as soon as you start writing things

writing and posting are two different things. your story is still worth writing, even if you never plan to share it

you don’t need to apologize for what you write or what you post. 

don’t worry about taking up too much space. the internet doesn’t have a maximum size. 

keep your readers in mind when you’re tagging your content. how could they search for your fic? if you use a tag, will be a reader who loves that tag be satisfied with how much it appears in your story?

if you have a relationship in your fic that plays a minor role, tag it in the Additional Tags section instead of the Relationship section so that people who love that ship don’t get their hopes up

be cautious when looking at bookmarks on your fic. they aren’t “extra comments.” that’s a space where readers make notes for themselves and each other, not for authors. 

you don’t need to know everything about canon before you start writing fic

you don’t need to read fic in the same fandoms you write for

you don’t need to read fic at all in order to write it

love your work because sometimes you’re the only one who will - and that’s okay

if your hobby starts feeling like a job, you might need to take a break before you get burnt out

if you get stuck on a story, you can always start a new one

if you fall out of love with a story, you can always stop writing it. if you’re worried about your readers, you can always give them a bullet point summary of where you were planning to go with thing. for a lot of people, that’s satisfying and provides closure

if you get hate, report it

use the tools at your disposal to block hate before it can come in (limiting or turning off comments, limiting or turning off asks, blocking users, etc)

try replying to comments sometimes. it can be a lovely way to make fandom friends

don’t be afraid to reblog your own writing posts.

if you get stuck on your summary, just write 1) who the story is about 2) what they are doing and 3) what problem gets in their way

notice when your writing makes you smile. that moment is a gift. enjoy it.

notice when your writing makes you cry. that moment is a gift, too.

even if you’re disappointed in how your story turned out, there’s something in there that’s fantastic. find that thing and focus on it and feel proud.

some ideas are ones you want to write. some are ones you want to read. if you ever have too many ideas to deal with at once, give some of the latter ones away to someone else. 

sometimes the things you write will be really personal. be careful about putting them where other people can comment. they won’t know how personal it is for you, and you need to remember that comments aren’t about you, they’re about the story.

remember that you can write series as well as stories. if the story is done but you still have passion or ideas, start a new one in the same universe.

enjoy the satisfaction of finishing a story. savour it. bask in it a little while.

don’t feel guilty about abandoning a story. not every story gets finished, and that’s okay

you can have separate accounts for different fandoms. you can have one account with a million fandoms in it. do whatever works for you.

sometimes writing is more important than sleep - but only sometimes

it doesn’t matter if that story has been written before by someone else. it doesn’t matter if it was written by you. write it again.

Artist : kurokuma824 (Twitter)

Explorer (Kurt Frank) Background Story Video