#narrative framing

The framing is incredible.

Just the two of them, in a perfect little narrative box in the brightest part of the room, being lovey-dovey little freaks. There's even a line through their hearts that starts with the little window behind them and carries through to the windows on the door to the room in the background! (The place where they meet being the brightest spot in the room is a theme, actually, and yes, it does make me feel crazy).

And then we pan out, because there's someone watching (even if it is Ziyong, who is semi-quietly delighted by the whole thing) and that box around them gains a division; it adds a line between them. Because the reality is that their circumstances and the people who surround them are a real obstacle to their relationship.

Even without whatever agenda Luqing's mom has going on re: his love life, the reality is it's the early 1990s, they live in China, they have drastically different social standings, and Xiaofang is married to Luqing's sister (it doesn't matter that it's in name only).

Okayyyyy but was it Rumi and Jinu that fixed/made the new Honmoon? Naur, that was Rumi and Zoey and Mira (with the aid of Jinu’s sacrifice), because the answer to the movies conflict was Rumi opening up to Zoey and Mira

From the beginning Damon is branded the ‘bad/evil brother.’ Not just because of him being monstrous and everything, but because Stefan is positioned as the moral center and everything that Damon does is filtered through that framing. Stefan gets to be “trying to be good after committing similar, if not the same, crimes as Damon.”

Damon just gets to be “wrong.”

But Damon didn’t even choose this life.

Damon explicitly did not want to be a vampire. He wanted to die as a human, that was his choice and should have only ever have been his choice to make. But then Stefan forced him to complete the transition anyway. Damon lost his bodily autonomy the moment Stefan brought that girl to him, framed by the narrative of ‘tragic necessity’, never really treated as a trauma Damon then had to live with for hundreds of years. Stefan crossed a boundary of consent with Damon just by forcing that situation and blood towards him.

And that matters because it sets a strange pattern.

There’s people who love to condemn Damon for the harm we see on screen, while absolving Stefan for harm that is implied but not necessarily lingered on. A lot of what Damon has done, Stefan has canonically done similar (again, if not the same) things in the past, the only difference is how the much they linger on it.

The real difference between the brothers isn’t morality. It’s presentation.

Damon admits what he is, he doesn’t and never will soften it. He doesn’t hide behind the self loathing or any sort of repentance as proof of any form of goodness. On the other hand Stefan hates himself loudly, and the narrative treats that suffering as absolution.

Damon is who Stefan made him the moment he took Damon’s autonomy that night.

And Stefan’s self hatred isn’t accountability, it’s just more comfortable to watch.

This isn’t about saying Damon ‘did nothing wrong,’ because he did a lot wrong. But so did everyone else. Especially his brother.

This is not me erasing the stories of anyone harmed by him.

I can acknowledge that Damon Salvatore committed abusive acts while also still talking about how the narrative treats his trauma differently than others. They use his pain as backstory, motivation or justification, but almost never something that deserves care.

By season 8 they want him redeemed but his redemption wasn’t ever him healing.

Either way, both brothers are very morally grey. Neither are exactly on the good or bad side because, if we’re being honest, they’ve both done the same things one way or another and I do enjoy the both of them as characters. But why is harm narrated so differently depending on who commits it?

Have I ever told you about this one time, late at night, I was scrolling through my tumblr explore page when I read the most curious of posts where the subject matter was...me. How odd. Since there seems to now to be some traction on this tumblr account, I thought I would take a beat and address some of the speculation.

This account was created specifically for long-form media commentary, separate from my personal Tumblr. As a longtime Tumblr user (read: millennial who still remembers LiveJournal), I’ve always seen this platform as a space for introspective writing — a kind of digital diary. That’s the spirit Patient Reflections was created in: structured, self-contained observations, not content farming or “planting” ideas. It wasn't built for virality. I assumed it would get maybe five notes and float into the void.

The blog is anonymous by design — not to obscure identity, but simply to keep this particular line of thought separate from my main account. It wasn’t about secrecy; it was about containment. This wasn’t part of a broader campaign — just a moment of reflection I wanted to express. An idea surfaced, I wrote it down, and that was the extent of it. Sometimes it’s really that simple.

As for the conspiracy theories — I’ll say this gently: not every piece of media commentary is part of a plot. Sometimes it’s just someone with thoughts and a quiet evening. If your brain is wired to read strategy into everything, that’s your lens to manage. Not everything requires a coded map or a burner accusation.

I’m not deeply embedded in the fandom space and never claimed to be. I did a brief scroll through the explore page, read a handful of posts, and then respectfully backed out. My posts aren’t meant to challenge anyone’s belief system — just to reflect on what’s publicly visible and why the rollout landed the way it did (or didn’t). It’s one lens, not the whole prism.

Not every analysis has to account for every thought ever shared by nuanced fans to hold value. A focused critique of presentation, tone, and public response can still be valid, even if it doesn’t dive into emotional timelines or contract speculation. Narrow framing doesn’t equal agenda — sometimes it’s just perspective.

One more note, since it was raised: the blog’s comments weren’t disabled to avoid dialogue — they were simply never turned on. Tumblr doesn’t default to open comments, and when I posted, I had no expectation that these pieces would circulate. They were written as contained reflections, not entry points for a debate. That may not match how others use the platform now, but it does match how I've always used the platform.

As for the scope of the blog: yes, both posts focused on the rollout of Luke and Antonia’s relationship. That’s because that was the subject I was interested in analyzing. It wasn’t framed as a general audience blog or a fandom space — just a space for structured reflection on a specific media moment. A narrow focus doesn’t automatically signal narrative control. Sometimes it’s just… focus. In truth, I don’t have any long-term investment in the subject matter I started this blog with, if anything I've thought of providing my reflections on a variety of topics as they come to mind.

I understand the instinct to be cautious, especially in highly theorized fandom spaces. But not every structured post is part of a strategy. Sometimes it’s just writing.

Yes!

Okay so when I talk about a character or action being rewarded or punished by the narrative, what I mean is that they face positive or negative consequences within the story directly or at least clearly tied to that action.

I gave the example in my romance-as-tradwife-fantasy post of female characters being narratively punished for defying male characters' orders--this may look like them getting injured, attacked, or otherwise harmed as a direct result of them not following orders to stay inside, not get involved, etc. Within the framework of the story, defying orders was the "wrong" choice in that it was the choice that directly led to a punishment within the narrative. The implication is that they would have been safe ("rewarded") if they had simply done what the men had told them to do.

One of the really well known examples of this is the Out of the Closet, Into The Fire trope where a character is punished within the framework of the narrative (often by being severely injured or killed) immediately following their coming out or entering a relationship with somebody of the same gender.

Being narratively rewarded is just the opposite--the character faces positive outcomes from making a decision or taking an action. In my same tradwife fantasy post, I talk about male characters being narratively rewarded for crossing female characters' sexual boundaries. This often looks like the female characters explicitly liking the crossing of that boundary (i.e., enjoying that type of sex, even if they had refused to have it previously) or it even fixing relationship woes between them. Within the framework of the narrative, crossing those sexual boundaries was the "right" choice because it led to a desired/positive outcome.

There's not necessarily a clear line between narrative punishment and narrative reward. Sometimes, whether sometimes count as a reward or a punishment is based on our own perception of what's good or bad, and sometimes things are just obvious results of actions.

I wouldn't necessarily think of a character breaking their arm as a narrative punishment for falling out of a high tree branch--it's just a repercussion of something happening. But, especially in something like a kid's book, it might be presented that way--don't climb trees, kids, or you'll hurt yourself. Where you sit is where you stand and all that.

I was always skeptical of HotD even before it started but I had never expected that it would be so much worse than the source material which is, mind it, a very pro greens, biased, misogynistic spiral by some dead maester.

I don't enjoy F&B as a book and the Dance wasn't remotely my favorite part of it. Like the whole Dance of Dragons reads like a misogynistic spiral sometimes but HotD just took a biased source and dialled it to a 100.

You would think they would try to do the opposite bcoz the source is acknowledged to be biased but nope, they just had to make it worst. The Greens get to be whitewashed, they can literally not commit to any actions (Alicent committed treason by mistake, Aemond murdered a child by mistake, like wtf? Wtf are these fucking uwu passive characters and writing. Fucking commit to treason if you are gonna do it. Who half asses treason? Book Greens would gobble up Show Greens for breakfast. The Lannisters would have a laugh.) The Blacks are villainized and all the Velaryons are sidelined (which is worst with the show changing their race intentionally and then doing this).

Like the Greens have no redeeming qualities, just the narrative framing them as the good guys on their sides and I always hate how the narrative is trying to shove it down my throat. I can't stand it.

Like I don't even like Daemon but the show is stripping all the depth from him. I seriously don't like him but it's like the show can't stand anyone on the TB to have anything good or significant.

They literally showed Aegon to be a rapist onscreen and want me to root for him? Wtf are they smoking? The amount of cognitive dissonance you need to like TG is too high. Ik the show doesn't expect much from its viewers but it's like they expect the viewer to be stupid.

Show Alicent is so passive, they make me prefer the book Alicent and I hate the Evil Stepmother trope. The show acts as if Rhaenyra wasn't supposed to be the Good Mother and Good Stepmother counterpart to Alicent.

And F&B and George isn't subtle about who won the Dance. It's the Blacks. Rhaenyra might have died but her fraction won the war, her sons and descendants sat on the throne. Daenerys is her direct descendant and she brought the dragons back from death (especially given that the Dance was the main reason for their downfall and even the Targaryens' powers thanks to TG).

TG has the same fate as all the usurpers in the series- Maegor, Larys Strong, Robert Baratheon - the end of their line. Alicent 's line all dies before her eyes. The current Higtowers have nothing to do with Alicent and her line, they're not even worthy of remembrance and mention in the main series so far. Margaery is a half Hightower and despite the Tyrells' obvious efforts to make her queen and have one of their own on the throne, no one remotely mentions the only Hightower Queen ever. Imagine how embarrassing is that. You know if Alicent was a decent queen in any right, it would have been mentioned by now, the Tyrells aren't one to not use every advantage they have given that their Bannerman have more royal blood than them, which was again mentioned in the series.

Anyway, Alicent 's line dying and going to oblivion for all purposes is their ultimate defeat. I can't stand the TG stand trying to make it anything else.

And yes Rhaenicent is just queerbaiting and terribly at that. As a queer woman, I don't want them as any sort of a representation. An evil step mother aged down for a pairing where she plots treason and murder for Nyra and her sons? No, God, Daemon is a better option than that and I can't believe they made me say it.

Also, Laena was right there if they wanted to have a sapphic pairing.

When I said I wanted more morally gray female characters, I didn't mean totally irredeemable ones. There is a fine line in what characters, or crimes, you can redeem, starting a civil war out of personal greed and misogyny is not one of them. And yes, TG are all misogyny even if Alicent plays the uwu victim of patriarchy all the time. And funny how she never does anything to help any woman, not even her daughter Helena; does nothing against the man who actually harmed her and actively wants to put her rapist son on the throne instead of the rightful heir but her stans act as they or she is some kind of feminist when Alicent is no woman's friend.

And canonically, which are the books btw, not the badly written fanfictions (I am so sorry, this is an insult to fanfiction tbh) of the producers: GoT and HotD, Nyra had her mother's sigil on her flag, not Aegon the Rapist+Usurper.

(Can't believe the show tried to make some kind of gotcha moment with Alicent in that green dress. Idk why the characters even stood up. They only do that for the ruling monarch, not the consort and Alicent literally did nothing to deserve that kind of reaction. She just wore a green dress so what? Once again, the show is giving TG credit for doing nothing.)

On the last notes:

Cole is an incel.

I can't believe people ship Aemond and Luke. The former is his murderer and a war criminal while Luke was just a child. Leave my baby boi alone.

Otto is a cunt. Idk why Alicent stans don't crucify the man who arranged her marriage (and the bane of her existence) more.

Daemon is somehow better than all the men in TG which is an accomplishment especially since I dislike his character.

Once again, Aegon is a drunkard rapist.

Helena deserves better than her family.

I never liked Jaehaerys I and this is all kinda his fault. For the best king ever, he singlehandedly roped his daughters and all the Targaryen women of all their rights. Rhaena I should really have been the queen.

You invalidate all of your writing, how can you write a story about overcoming your own evil and striving for good while also advocating for moral absolutism ?