kiri 🍀

Desire Me If You Can is approaching, and I think there are a few things the fandom should remember about #GraysonMiller. As someone who has followed this universe for years, one thing has always stood out to me: we never truly knew Grayson through Grayson's own eyes. During #KissMeLiar, we mostly saw him through #Yeonwoo's perspective. In #KissMeIfYouCan, we evaluated him largely through the perspectives of #Chase and #Josh. This is an important detail because when you constantly view a character through the eyes of people who have strong emotions about them, it becomes difficult to objectively assess who that character really is. Chase is perhaps the clearest example of this. A significant portion of the fandom's dislike toward Grayson was shaped through Chase's experiences. And that is completely understandable. Chase's pain was real. The consequences of Grayson's decisions were often devastating. However, there is one point I have defended for years: Grayson's decisions and Grayson's intentions are not the same thing. Many people looked at the outcomes and assumed Grayson was acting out of selfishness or malice. Yet when you go back to the text and examine it carefully, his motivation is almost always the same: he is trying to help. The problem is that he often does not fully understand what kind of help people actually need. That is why I have never interpreted Grayson's character arc as "a bad man becoming a good man." On the contrary, I believe Grayson was fundamentally well-intentioned from the very beginning. But good intentions and healthy methods are not the same thing. A person can care deeply about others and still hurt them. A person can genuinely want to help and still make terrible decisions. To me, that is the central tragedy of Grayson's character. He is someone who can analyze situations and predict outcomes, but he is not always capable of understanding people's emotional needs. He observes people, but he does not always understand them. He wants to protect people, but he does not always know how to do so. And that is where #Dane becomes so important. Dane does not give Grayson a conscience. Dane does not teach Grayson compassion. Those qualities were already there. What Dane does is help Grayson express those qualities in healthier, more human, and more effective ways. The pheromone party incident in #KissMeLiar is, in my opinion, one of the strongest examples of this. Because it reveals several crucial aspects of Grayson's character. First of all, Grayson knows exactly what kind of party it is. He knows who attends those parties. He knows what happens there. More importantly, he believes that the vast majority of people who attend are there by their own choice. I think this is something the fandom sometimes overlooks. Consent is at the very core of Grayson's worldview. In fact, I would argue that he is almost obsessed with the concept of consent. He strongly believes in people's right to make their own choices. Because of that, under normal circumstances, he would have no reason to interfere with a party like this. From his perspective, everyone attending knows what they are walking into and has made that decision for themselves. But something changes when it comes to Yeonwoo. Because Grayson knows Yeonwoo. He knows what kind of person Yeonwoo is. He knows how naive Yeonwoo can be. As a result, he does not make the same assumption about Yeonwoo that he makes about everyone else. To me, this is the most fascinating part of the entire situation. Grayson does not possess any magical information that allows him to predict the future. Nobody tells him, "Yeonwoo is going to be in danger." He simply paid attention to Yeonwoo. He observed him. He understood him. And through that understanding, he realized that Yeonwoo might not fully grasp the true nature of the party. That is an incredibly subtle character observation. Because at that point Grayson is not merely analyzing an event — he is analyzing a person. That is why, before the party even begins, he specifically asks whether Yeonwoo has his medication with him. Later he warns him that he may see things he does not want to see. Then, when they meet at the party, he openly says that he warned both Yeonwoo and Keith about it. Looking back now, those scenes carry far more weight than they did on a first reading. Grayson sees the approaching disaster. Keith does not. Yeonwoo does not. The reader does not. But Grayson does. Even so, he does not try to dictate Yeonwoo's decisions, because that would go against his own principles. His tendency not to interfere in other people's choices remains consistent. Yet he also does not remain silent. He does what he can within the boundaries of his own character and tries to warn him. This is why I have never agreed with the interpretation that Grayson was fundamentally a bad person. I think Zig has been showing us this for a very long time. The issue is not that Grayson changed. The issue is that we spent years viewing him through Chase's anger, Josh's opinions, and Yeonwoo's confusion. One of the reasons I am so excited for #DesireMeIfYouCan is that, for the first time, we will be able to view Grayson from a much closer perspective rather than from the outside. And honestly, I think many people will eventually reach the same conclusion. Grayson Miller's problem was never a lack of empathy. His problem was that he did not know how to make his good intentions truly reach the people he cared about. Dane's role in the story begins exactly there. Because Dane is the person who will show Grayson that caring about people is only the beginning, and that loving, listening to, and protecting people in the right way are skills that can be learned. That is why I see #DesireMeIfYouCan not as the story of a man becoming good, but as the story of the qualities that were already inside Grayson Miller finally becoming visible.