cw violence, bullying // actually i'm not done. i've talked about it before, but this passage from very early in the book always hits me—richie's clear self-hatred, the way he frames his memories to blame himself for the cruelty inflicted on him, the way it escalates

part of me wonders if the old "loser gets bullied for looking weird" narrative is overplayed and less valuable now than maybe it used to be forty years ago, and that's part of why they changed it for ch2 to something more topical and slightly less explored (coming out)

but then to get super personal for a moment—for a while in elementary school my classmates called me "the cockroach" both behind my back and to my face, and i'm pretty sure that's going to travel with me forever. so i don't know that stories about bullying will ever be useless

i read that passage and other ones like it in the clown brick, and even though i never experienced physical bullying, i feel incredibly seen. but once again i don't have a point with this thread i'm just thinking aloud. maybe a perfect adaptation of It can't exist