a mausoleum of hope and desire

anatomy of a pang

i said earlier it’s a kind of misunderstanding + hurt/comfort setup; i think that’s a good way to sum it up. angst is in there, some form of isolation (whether literal or something the character feels internally) is in there, a crucial reveal is in there, and, most importantly, the hurt part of hurt/comfort is emotional and specific to the pangy character.

when i say specific, i mean that it doesn’t just happen to a specific character, but that it is a kind of hurt that digs into that character’s history/situation/personality in a specific way. “pangy” simply indicates the presence of something—it’s not a qualitative measure on how good or angsty a story or trope is. there’s plenty of (excellent) angst and hurt/comfort out there that isn’t necessarily pangy; a MCD story about grief could be deliciously angsty but not very pangy, and a sickfic could deliver great hurt/comfort without a pang in sight. that said, a sickfic could also be a fantastic premise for pangs—it just depends on the approach.

to contrast, two different sickfic scenarios:

we’re in a [throws dart at a board] sci fi story about a crew on a spaceship. one crewmember (for consistency with the next section we’ll call them crewmember B) is new to the ship and doesn’t know everyone very well yet. they’re also a workaholic, trying to prove themself, and eventually they get sick and try to push through. the other crewmembers notice and intervene, forcing crewmember B to take a break and allow the crew help them. sickness ensues, comfort ensues, bonding ensues. this is a sickfic with full throttle hurt/comfort, but very little pangs.

previous scenario, pang edition:

character B is new to the ship, and the other crew members deliberately keep their distance—maybe they think crewmember B is off-putting, or stuck up, or connected to the organization that appointed them to the ship and therefore reporting back on the crew’s activities/merit. meanwhile, crewmember B—who is painfully aware that they’re an outsider and that they come off as stuck up when focusing, but hasn’t been successful at fixing it—is running themself ragged. they know that if the project they specifically were sent to implement fails, the whole crew will likely be dismissed. when they fall sick and try to keep working anyway, the rest of the crew finds out why and it shifts their understanding of crewmember B and crewmember B’s motives/actions. the others help crewmember B rest and also pitch in to do their work, and when crewmember B recovers they have tentative new friendships on board.

both are sickfic and hurt/comfort; scenario 2 just goes the direction of pangs, because the angst and the shift in behavior from other characters is rooted in a misunderstanding (and subsequent reveal) related to character B’s hurt.

life cycle of a pang

there are plenty of ways to achieve a pang—and plenty i’m still discovering! one of my little joys in life!—but in general when i see them or try to conceive of them, they follow a similar broad pattern:

character A fundamentally misunderstands circumstances/history of character B ➡️

A views B’s actions through the lens of that misunderstanding ➡️

A does or says something hurtful (intentional or not) fueled by their perception of B’s actions (almost always the “something hurtful” ends up hitting one of B’s deepest insecurities) ➡️

B (not knowing about the misunderstanding) internalizes this and is hurt by it. ideally the hurt and misunderstanding lasts long enough for us to really unpack it before a resolution; how long this is depends on the kind of story. ➡️

pang aftermath/resolution necessarily involves A later learning—ideally in some horrible way for both of them—the real circumstances/context for B, and we get to see them reorient their understanding of B’s character. and then, hopefully, fixing the relationship.

off-the-cuff example:

a story set in the early days of young justice, where the team feel judged/called out by robin’s constant critique/feedback/controlling tendencies. without much context for robin (or tim) they interpret this as robin thinking he’s better than them and not trusting them. they react accordingly, and at least once they snap at robin or, perhaps, complain about him where robin overhears. like: “god, robin is so annoying. can’t he leave us alone for one day?” “i still can’t believe he handed out actual printed reports on all of our weaknesses. no wonder none of us want to be his friend.”

meanwhile, yes, tim IS annoying (❤️) but it’s how he shows he cares—it’s out of genuine concern/commitment to his team, and he deeply wants to be their friend. he hears (or overhears) these reactions from his team, and internalizes it as: they don’t like me. i continue to be unlikable. i will stop trying to be their friend but i will continue to try to keep them alive in the field. he changes his behavior to being totally professional with them and not hanging out after training/missions, which they start to notice. eventually a mission goes sideways, they’re bailed out by the justice league, and then…nothing happens? they’re allowed to carry on, just with a few extra safety lectures? and then cassie and anita somehow find out that robin—despite his broken arm from the mission—faced down batman and the league by himself to defend everyone on the team. that it was his plan, so he takes the blame. and he also reported: they’re professional. they’re good. they don’t even like me, and they made sure i got out. and, well, hearing it put that way…they all start viewing robin in a bit of a different light, which leads to them becoming actual friends.

character B doesn’t need to be a perfect, innocent victim of circumstance to be pangy—in fact, rooting their insecurities to their flaws or quirks can make it way more compelling. pangs are great when they draw from and also feed back into other things characters struggle with, both with themselves and with other people. character B can lash out or change behavior due to their hurt in a way that hurts others and furthers the misunderstanding, and the pangs will still land.

also, character A and character B can both be pangy in the same story! there can be concurrent pang threads woven together. character B can misunderstand character A right back; their insecurities and communication styles can contrast delightfully (for me, at least) to achieve multidirectional pangs.

bonus points/subgenres/embellishments:

beyond the basic structure, here are some of my fav flavors of pang:

they cared the whole time: character B desperately likes/looks up to A (especially if it’s from the beginning), and A is unaware of this. for romantic relationships, this would lend itself to “B fell first, A fell harder” stories, and one-sided enemies-to-lovers plots. similar setups work for platonic relationships to achieve equally potent pangs.

example: almost any story in which early robin!tim is struggling to find his place, and bruce holds him at a distance—and tim is painfully aware of that distance, and internalizes it as him failing to measure up in some way.

loneliness my beloved: character B is very isolated with no support system (or does not think there is a support system available to them); likely A/others assume B does have a support system that isn’t there.

example: building on the previous example, at some point in those early robin days tim is getting bullied at school—pretty badly—and doing everything he can to avoid it escalating to his parents, because they’re on a trip. again. and in trying to handle it himself, tim finds out something about one of the bullies that connects their family to a shady business deal that, whoops, involves tim’s parents’ company too. bruce catches tim looking into this at the batcomputer, and to bruce it looks like tim is digging up dirt on his peers. when tim tries to explain the shady deal, bruce hears that tim is using his access to bat resources to, like, work for his parents’ benefit. he reprimands tim—bat resources are Not for personal matters—because to bruce, this reinforces his fears that he’s making a mistake taking on another robin, that things will only get messy and muddled and hurt more people. and obviously to tim, this reinforces his fear that he’s overstepping and fucking things up. so tim immediately drops it and goes off to try to deal with the whole thing on his own, and ends up getting even more hurt—at which point bruce does notice, and eventually gets the full story and intervenes on tim’s behalf, leading to real tentative trust between them.

gotta stay worthy: character B does think they are wanted, but only for a specific utility (a skill, a connection, sex, etc) and that it has strict limits/an expiration date.

example: in a timeline where kon is “on his own” (tied up with media/various entities using him for their own benefit) for a few more years (therefore also probably a timeline where superman stays dead or out of the picture longer—not forever! just longer), kon doesn’t start teaming up with robin until they’re older. the two also start to hook up, and kon—based on past experience—knows what people tend to want from him and how they’re never interested in anything but the persona he puts on. and sex. basically he knows people want to have sex with superboy, not have a relationship with kon. kon acts accordingly, keeping things “cool” and “casual” even if he really wants more, and takes any indication that robin is frustrated or upset with him as further proof that kon won’t get to keep what little of this he has if he doesn’t stay cool and fun and, well, available at all times. (meanwhile tim is battling an extremely inconvenient crush and trying to figure out why superboy can’t seem to take anything seriously. eventually tim learns more about kon’s past “relationships” and what kon expected tim to expect from him.)

the lesser evil: character B is somehow under control/under the thumb of someone and has to act a certain way in order to achieve their goals/ensure someone’s safety; A does not know this.

example: a concept where tim is undercover in an enemy court/company and encounters kon, a science experiment/captive (whatever the au genre calls for). tim can’t just break them out and run, and so for his and kon’s safety has to play along for a while, and kon sees him as another enemy at first. (this concept is a great setup for kon pangs too.)

back to the beginning, but worse now: at some point in the plot, character B is temporarily happy/has gotten what they want only for the misunderstanding/insecurity to be reintroduced/reinforced and the temporary happiness ruined (likely in a way that’s humiliating for character B).

example: the end of bbts chapter 4 😎

all of these pang flavors can coexist/feed into each other, too, depending on the plot.

the environment of a pang

like with any fic/au/concept, it’s not as simple as taking characters and dropping them into random tropes/plots. the best pangs unfold naturally from the characters themselves—their specific insecurities, their flaws and preconceptions that would lend to the kind of shifting understanding of both themselves and other characters that come from the misconception ➡️ misunderstanding ➡️ understanding arc. tim is a great character for a lot of these pangs because he does struggle with self-worth and high expectations, he has been shown to isolate/take on too much before seeking help for himself (and also has shown to lead teams and build support systems for others, so we can map an arc that ends with him doing that for himself), he cares deeply about others without always expecting the same in return, he’ll put himself in danger to achieve his goals/pull self-sacrificial gambits, and so on. any pang setup would build out from traits already inherent in whatever character you’re writing.

the same goes for the other character(s)—they should have a good reason for misunderstanding/disliking/dismissing character B at first, something that is natural to their history/personality and to the story plot. if it’s early in tim’s robin days, you could draw on bruce’s grief if you want him to be distant/dismissive of tim. if it’s a setup where tim meets the bats early, you could very conceivably have jason dislike tim off the bat (ha) because jason assumes tim will judge his background and jason therefore overcompensates in his defensiveness. any early meeting of tim and kon could easily lean into kon’s pride and the (understandable but giant) chip on his shoulder to make him chafe at tim’s intensity. (that script can be easily flipped for kon pangs, with tim fully misunderstanding kon’s brash confidence and assuming a lack of care.) all this to say, a good setup considers all characters involved for maximum pangtential.

the purpose of a pang

a good pang achieves a few things: a dissection of a character’s vulnerabilities, some excellent and character-driven angst, and direct catharsis from the resolution of that angst. (and to be clear, there can be pangs without catharsis—i just love the fully realized potential of ones that do come with a resolution.) there seem to be endless wells of pangs for my favorite characters—which i recognize is probably not a coincidence—and while i haven’t always been able to articulate what it is i like about these characters being put in Situations where they suffer so specifically, it is something that consistently brings me joy. and i know i’m not at all alone in this, and it’s very likely someone has already articulated this concept way better than i have. i hope this attempt made some amount of sense. and mostly, i hope everyone who also likes pangs keeps finding and creating them as much as they want.