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buffysummers · 3 years

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Oh, hello there, gentle viewers. Today, I’m finally going to discuss why the claim of “I only ship Spuffy in season seven” is, in fact, still not okay and deeply flawed.

Before I jump into this, I just want to preface this by saying that we should ALL be allowed to like what we like, EVEN if it’s garbage or toxic. We all have that One Ship™ or that One Character™ that we’d risk it all for, even if we know they’re evil/etc. There is NOTHING wrong with enjoying bleak, dark and disturbing fiction. Fiction is a great way to escape reality and explore the darker, grittier, more twisted aspects of life with no real consequences, because, you know, it isn’t real.

HOWEVER, a lot of people have a hard time drawing a line, especially when fiction often explores very real issues, such as abuse and rape. This brings me to the Buffy and Spike, “Spuffy,” problem and why we cannot just simply write off Spuffy as fiction because this dynamic explores very real issues that happen to people everyday, and when we see people excusing rape and abuse, that’s when the not-so-real fiction becomes a very real and serious issue. That’s when rape and abuse survivors start to feel uncomfortable or triggered. Or when people that (thankfully) haven’t experienced these terrible realities feel confused and also a bit appalled. Here’s a bit of juxtaposition to better elaborate on this point: a human being cannot be emotionally/romantically/etc involved with a 200+ vampire because vampires ARE NOT real. But a human being can definitely be abused and raped. That is not fantasy. It’s real life.

Ok, I’m almost about to dive in. But I also want to add that I am addressing this because I have received a lot of anons from Spuffies defending their ship and claiming that they don’t ship Buffy and Spike in season six (which is probably a lie since half of the Spuffy edit tag is gifs from season six lol) but only in season seven, where Spike “gets a soul” for Buffy. Since like 70% of the Buffy fandom is up Spike and Spuffy’s ass, I don’t really expect many people to read this. But I am just really tired and I need to get this out of my system. Plus, analyzing fiction is rewarding in so many ways.

Now I’m actually going to start, and there’s nowhere else to start but from the beginning, where Spike allegedly gets a soul for Buffy after he attempts to rape her, so that he “can be the kind of man who would never—” I use the word allegedly, because here’s some quotes from Spike right as he leaves town to “get his soul”:

It's the chip! Steel and wires and silicon. It won't let me be a monster. And I can't be a man. I'm nothing.

Get nice and comfy, Slayer. I'll be back. And when I do ... things are gonna change. [sidenote: this line and the previous line are a bit vague and open to interpretation, and COULD be referring to him getting a soul. But the manner in which the lines are delivered, with so much anger and loathing, do not indicate he is going to do something good, like say, getting your soul.]

DEMON: Something about a woman. The slayer. SPIKE: Thinks she's better than me. Ever since I got this bleeding chip in my head, things ain't been right. Everything's gone to hell.

Bitch is gonna see a change.

Got any more ruddy tests for me, you ponce? I'll take anything you can throw at me, if it'll get me what I need to take care of the Slayer. Give her what's coming to her. [sidenote: again, he says this angrily, and the script reflects this as well.]

So you'll give me what I want. Make me what I was. So Buffy can get what she deserves.

Ok, so the last line is, of course, pretty ambiguous. The writers even said that they intentionally tried to throw off the audience and make them BELIEVE that Spike was trying to get his chip removed. But they were a little too convincing, so the twist does not feel earned. It would be one thing if these lines were written and delivered in a different way. Maybe with conflict and regret. But he refers to her as a bitch multiple times, and says every line with malice. Now, say this were a courtroom and this were a murder trial. Intent matters, intent always matters. Intent often can make or break a case. The most logical way to read these lines is that Spike INTENDED to get his chip removed because the text best supports this conclusion, but the demon saw through him. So, even though the demon understood the internal conflict better than Spike clearly did, he did not go through those trials to get his soul. And that is why, to this day, fans of the show still don’t think he went to get his soul back for her.

For argument’s sake, maybe if he really DID intend to get his soul back, and we just completely sidestep all the references to his chip, he still isn’t getting his soul with good intentions (takes us back to: intent! matters!). Maybe he’s getting his soul “for her” but the way the scenes are written, with such malice and anger, coupled with the fact that Spike is STILL soulless and incapable of doing anything for purely selfless reasons, he is not getting his soul for romantic and valiant reasons.

The soul aspect is obviously very important because this is basically what causes Buffy to forgive Spike. When she first sees him in season seven, she is rightfully angry. She says things like: “Everything about you is wrong, Spike” and “You tried to rape me. I don’t have the words.” She can tell he is withholding information from her (especially because she found him crazy in the basement) and is skeptical about his intentions. But then he makes that speech to her in “Beneath You” which I’m quoting from the script:

SPIKE: Am I flesh? Am I flesh to you? Feed on flesh. My flesh. Nothing else. Not a spark. (nods) Oh, fine. Flesh then. Solid through. (starts unzipping his pants) Get it hard; service the girl.

BUFFY: This is all you get. I'm listening. Tell me what happened. SPIKE: I tried to find it, of course. BUFFY: Find what? SPIKE: The spark. The missing... the piece that fit. That would make me fit. Because you didn't want... (starts to cry) God, I can't... Not with you looking.

SPIKE: I dreamed of killing you. I think they were dreams. So weak. Did you make me weak, thinking of you, holding myself, and spilling useless buckets of salt over your... ending? Angel—he should've warned me. He makes a good show of forgetting, but it's here, in me, all the time. The spark. I wanted to give you what you deserve, and I got it. They put the spark in me and now all it does is burn.

BUFFY: You got your soul back. How? SPIKE: It's what you wanted, right? And—and now everybody's in here, talking. Everything I did...everyone I— and him... and it... the other, the thing beneath—beneath you. It's here too. Everybody. They all just tell me go... go... to hell. BUFFY: Why? Why would you do that— SPIKE: Buffy, shame on you. Why does a man do what he mustn't? For her. To be hers. To be the kind of man who would nev— to be a kind of man.

This is all very important because before Buffy found out that Spike got his soul back “for her,” she wanted nothing to do with him. In fact, only a few scenes earlier in the same episode, he makes a joke about the fact that it was their first contact since he tried to rape her.

So, while Spuffies like to prop up Spike getting his soul for Buffy as a very romantic and amazing gesture, there isn’t good evidence in the show to support that he was getting it back for her, and also, that it was used as a manipulation tactic. Now, suddenly, Buffy feels conflicted about holding Spike accountable for anything he did to her, and she feels pressured into forgiving him because he :/ got :/ his :/ SOUL :/ for her. And now he’s crazy in the basement!

Moving on from that. Now Spike has a soul and he got it for Buffy and Buffy knows that. Now the writers make Spike the victim of The First, which makes it much easier for the audience to sympathize with him, and thus forget that he literally tried to rape the show’s titular heroine. Spike is in danger, Spike doesn’t have free will, Spike is now important to Buffy’s mission because he clearly has been under the influence of The First, so therefore he is valuable to Buffy’s mission. So, now she must get close to Spike to learn more about the thing from beneath them that plans to devour them all. [for reference: 7.08]

This leads us to “Never Leave Me” where Spike victimizes himself, and shames Buffy. Here’s an exchange between Buffy and Spike:

BUFFY: How did you do it? How'd you get your soul back?

SPIKE: Saw a man about a girl. (sighs) I went to seek a legend out. Traveled to the other side of the world, made a deal with a demon.

BUFFY: Just like that?

SPIKE: No, not just like that. There was a price. There were trials, torture, pain and suffering... of sorts.

BUFFY: Of sorts?

SPIKE: Well, it's all relative, isn't it?

BUFFY: Meaning?

SPIKE: Meaning I have come to redefine the words pain and suffering since I fell in love with you.

BUFFY: (sighs) How can you say that?

SPIKE: Apparently, I just slaughtered half of Sunnydale, pet. I'm not really worried about being polite anymore.

BUFFY: (nods) So, that's what this is about. (stands, crosses arms) You feeling sorry for yourself, Spike?

SPIKE: I'm feeling honest with myself. You used me.

BUFFY: Yes.

SPIKE: You told me that, of course. I never understood it though. Not until now. You hated yourself, and you took it out on me.

I think Buffy puts it pretty nicely when she says, “You feeling sorry for yourself, Spike?” Because in this scene, he completely ignores the damage that he did to Buffy (which, YES, it’s in season six, but he is ENSOULED while doing this) and instead says that she used him. Which is kind of pointless to bring up because he also says “you told me that, of course” so therefore the only reason WHY he brings this up is to victimize himself and make her feel guilty about it. It’s important to note that Spike still has not apologized for trying to rape her, by the way.

So, this leads us to how Buffy’s character arc suffers so that the writers can instead evoke sympathy for Spike from the audience. Here are some totally, and extremely, out of character things Buffy does in season seven (and actually all of her OOC moments are because of Spike):

Buffy agrees to let Dawn stay with Spike in 6.20 immediately after he tried to rape her. This is the same Buffy that literally sacrificed her life to save Dawn, by the way. Dawn is the most important person in Buffy’s life. But yeah, she’d TOTALLY let Dawn stay with Spike so he could “protect” her. (yes, this is season six but it’s too important not to note, seeing as it’s her most OOC moment in the entire series).

Buffy doesn’t immediately dust Spike in 7.08 despite the fact that she just discovered that he’s being controlled by The First and slaughtered a dozen+ women. You can make the argument that she doesn’t dust him because he may have valuable intel, and that’s a pretty good argument. But still, it just doesn’t seem like something Buffy would do. (SIDENOTE: Just wanna add more to this point. She almost killed Anya three episodes prior because Anya slaughtered some frat guys. Anya even acknowledges and understands WHY Buffy has to kill her. Buffy later defends her choice and compares it to when she had to kill Angel, where she says verbatim, “I loved him more than I will ever love anything in this life.” You’re telling me that now she isn’t capable of killing Spike despite the fact that he’s been MURDERING girls for weeks? Yes, this is different from the situation with Anya because Spike didn’t have free will, but Buffy is often a little self-righteous, and innocent women being murdered doesn’t really seem like something she’d sweep under the rug, especially given how unstable Spike is. He is much more of a liability than an asset to her mission, at this point.)

In 7.09, Spike basically BEGS Buffy to kill him. He even asks her: have you ever really asked yourself why you can’t do it [kill him]? This frames him as the noble guy, the selfless hero, while she defends his actions and looks dumb while doing so. We’re SUPPOSED to be on Spike’s side in this scene because Buffy, despite having no real reason not to, refuses to kill him and ignores all the damage he’s done, the damage he readily admits to. He’s essentially admitting he’s done terrible things but not expecting any consequences because Buffy is being written, well, entirely out of character. She makes excuses for his actions. It’s like going to confession, you say what you’ve done, and suddenly you’re forgiven. Because, OF COURSE, Buffy would ignore the fact that he’s a liability to her, the girls, and her mission to save the world.

Buffy is more concerned about rescuing Spike from the cave in 7.11 rather than dusting the turok-han that is an immediate threat to her safety and literally the entire world, seeing as the turok-han is The First’s weapon and its mission is to destroy the Slayer line which destroys the balance between good and evil, which will then allow The First to overrun the earth.

Buffy lets Spike live in the house with all the potentials despite knowing that he has a trigger that can be activated at any time by The First. 7.12-7.17. But ESPECIALLY in 7.17 when she sees it activated in front of her very eyes and yet decides to unchain him. Giles tries to reason with Buffy that she is putting their entire cause at risk and all of their lives at risk as a result, but she simply doesn’t care. Buffy has never been stupid, but she looks pretty stupid here (hence, the OOC aspect), especially because she has no rebuttal to his argument. Dawn is also injured by Spike in this scene and instead of going upstairs with her, she stays with Spike.

Buffy says she will let Spike kill Wood because she has a mission to save the world. Now, I don’t have *as much* of an issue with this because I see Buffy’s point a little, seeing as the fate of the world is more important than vendettas and Spike, now free of his trigger, is a valuable asset to her army. But she would never just sit by and let an innocent human get murdered lol.

This leads me to the conclusion of: If you have to change almost everything about a character to make a ship make sense, it’s probably not a very good ship.

The writers also continue to isolate Buffy from the rest of the group. Enough where Buffy says in 7.19: “You sent away the one person [Spike] that’s been watching my back.” So, let’s unpack this. Here are the ways in which Spike has had Buffy’s back up until that point in the season:

He shows up last minute to help her save Cassie in 7.04

He goes on outings with her and the potentials while she trains them in 7.12

Here are some group efforts he made (meaning, he wasn’t the only one helping Buffy):

He helps get the love spell jacket with Xander in 7.06

He helps shut down the seal in 7.16 with Buffy, Wood and Andrew after the rest of the gang helped research.

A moment where Buffy could have really used his support:

In 7.15 when Buffy calls Chloe weak and everyone starts to gang up on her and call her out of line, he chooses to leave.

The Golden Rule, aka “show, don’t tell” is an important writing technique that we should all follow when writing literally anything. Here, season seven fails on this front, again. Just because Buffy SAYS Spike is the one person that’s had her back does not automatically make it ring true. In fact, there’s no evidence to support that claim by Buffy. [sidenote: he does have her back BIG time in 7.20, but again, that doesn’t undo the fact that when Buffy said that line, it literally wasn’t true at all. It just shows you how the writing isn’t there to support these claims. It’s all empty words used to manipulate the audience into thinking this relationship is more than it actually is.]

There’s more I could say, of course, but this is already so long. My main point is that the writers in season seven do not let Buffy heal, they do not let Buffy process her trauma whatsoever. Instead, they emotionally blackmail her via Spike getting a soul for her, victimize Spike, and have her make very dumb, irrational and OOC decisions to justify her feelings for him. Buffy is a very forgiving person, it’s true, but they do not let her acknowledge or address her trauma. So, seeing her coddle Spike just simply does not make sense, especially when season six is all we have to fallback on for their “relationship” which wasn’t, in fact, a relationship at all (Buffy even says to Spike in 7.20 that they were never close.) Honestly, you can’t really entirely separate season six and season seven Spuffy because their supposed connection, their history and her reluctance to kill him or let him go is entirely built on what happened between them prior to season seven.

The abuse in season seven is a lot more subtle, and it’s mostly verbal and emotional abuse, but it is STILL abuse. And it STILL shouldn’t be supported or romanticized. Like Spuffy all you want, but justifying this is just plain wrong and harmful for so many reasons. Just use your brain before you say something that could potentially trigger, offend or harm someone that has experienced this firsthand. Victim blaming is very real and happens everyday, and it happens to Buffy repeatedly throughout season seven.

#anti spuffy #anti spike #buffy thoughts #season seven #rape tw #abuse tw #btvs #buffy the vampire slayer #again this is long and this was more so for my benefit bc I have always wanted to analyze my issues with season seven #and basically the only issue i've ever had with season seven is spuffy #and the way buffy is characterized at times #all bc of him #the reason I care: buffy is my favorite show #I don't watch it BECAUSE of the relationships #If I did... well I would've quit after angel leaves #I watch it for buffy

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spockshocked · 3 years

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On “This Side of Paradise”

Watching the original Star Trek many decades after it aired, I cannot help but feel as though the conclusions I draw from certain lines, scenes, and even entire episodes must not be exactly as initially intended. Despite the caginess, both in canon and in external commentary, that Roddenberry and others employ in their discussions of the nature of Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock’s relationship, and the subtext often burgeoning on text especially to a gay viewer, Spock’s perceived gayness extends beyond his ambiguous relationship with his Captain. Many of the cues that might cause a gay viewer to feel reflected by Spock come via the quirks of his Vulcan nature.

One episode which deals particularly with Spock’s internal conflict vis a vis his mixed heritage is “This Side of Paradise,” the 24th episode of the first season. Spock falls under the influence of alien spores that cause him to break down in what appears to be immense pain, before he confesses his love to a woman named Leila Kalomi, whose love for him had been unrequited for six years. Spock spends the majority of the episode under the influence of these spores, canoodling with Kalomi and giggling while hanging from a tree branch, until Kirk roughly snaps him out of it and the stoic science officer returns to himself. The spores appear to render their hosts relaxed, blissful, and dazed, an effect which can be undone through displays of strong negative emotion.

The most striking result of his time spent under the influence is the melancholy that seems to overtake him once the effect is broken. Once he has his bearings and realizes that Kirk has intentionally riled him so that the spores lose their hold, the first thing he says is:

SPOCK: The spores. They're gone. I don't belong anymore.

In the context of the episode, “belonging” is the eerie, almost cult-like description for one under the influence of the spores. Taken at face value, Spock’s comment is merely an observation that he is no longer being affected by them; Spock often makes somewhat banal comments seemingly for the benefit of the audience’s comprehension. However, this one seems to carry a double meaning. Consider Spock’s heritage: half-human and half-Vulcan, Spock constantly finds himself torn between two clashing cultures, truly “belonging” to neither. A substance that enables his full emotionality, effectively tipping the delicately balanced scales of his identity, provides a sort of relief. With the negation of its effects comes a return to the inner turmoil he experiences every moment of every day.

Spock felt like he belonged when he was able to feel and express romantic love for a woman. A simple reading of this might be that the ability to process emotion gave Spock a sense of belonging, but there is once again another, deeper analysis to be made. The assumption that gay couples would likely be commonplace by the 23rd century aside, the fact remains that the show was produced in the 1960s and there are no canon gay couples to be found. Therefore, it is possible to work within a metric where one might have a reason to remain closeted. If we approach Spock as a closeted gay man, then the female object of his affections becomes a key element in his feeling of “belonging.”

In typical Star Trek fashion, the exact effect produced by the spores is never elucidated. The implication seems to be that it provides some lowering of inhibitions and propensity for leisure. However, the spores could also be seen as pushing their hosts to pursue their ideal lives. Doctor McCoy gets notably more Southern, his accent thickening as he walks around singing the praises of the mint julep. It seems as though, while under the influence, he pursues things that remind him of the comforts of home.

Spock, however, has no such comforts. Instead, he becomes something he could never be: able to reciprocate the feelings of a beautiful young woman who has pined after him for years. Once the effect of the spores is broken, he must then break the news to her:

LEILA: I love you. I said that six years ago, and I can't seem to stop repeating myself. On Earth, you couldn't give anything of yourself. You couldn't even put your arms around me. We couldn't have anything together there. We couldn't have anything together anyplace else. We're happy here. [crying] I can't lose you now, Mister Spock. I can't.

SPOCK: I have a responsibility to this ship, to that man on the Bridge. I am what I am, Leila, and if there are self-made purgatories, then we all have to live in them. Mine can be no worse than someone else's.

Spock’s response is cool, as we have come to expect from him, but notably more candid that most of his observations about his own experiences. He starts by claiming a responsibility to not only the Enterprise, but to Kirk himself. This could be a simple declaration of loyalty to his captain, as it would almost certainly appear to Kalomi, or an allusion to some repressed feelings that would only register to him. His next line, however, carries some serious weight. “I am what I am” refers to his Vulcan heritage, but as is often the case, it could also easily be in reference to his own homosexuality. Either way, he is explaining why he is incapable of loving Kalomi; the difference is whether he is incapable of love at all, or of love for a woman. His “self-made purgatory” is both his entrapment between his Vulcan and human halves, and his repression of his sexuality.

Spock rarely speaks about his mixed heritage and the internal conflict it causes him, just as he rarely speaks of his own emotions at all, but it takes its toll on him. Briefly finding relief from this conflict only makes the return to it that much more difficult, causing him to be even more terse than usual. Kirk even points out that Spock has been quiet about the experience:

KIRK: We haven't heard much from you about Omicron Ceti III, Mr. Spock.

SPOCK: I have little to say about it, Captain, except that for the first time in my life I was happy.

Spock has spent his entire life trying and failing to completely repress his human emotions in an attempt to become fully Vulcan. When he finally has the chance to experience them in full, he breaks down in pain at the wave of repressed emotions before he finally experiences untainted joy “for the first time.” However, that is not his authentic self either. Neither a logical Vulcan nor an emotional human, he is eternally trapped between worlds, and was only able to find joy in a brief and unattainable fantasy. He is so discontent with his own nature that he cannot be happy as he is.

To a closeted viewer, this final line of the episode, delivered as dryly as always, is heartbreaking. The first time in Spock’s life that he was happy was when he ignored an integral part of himself that brought him pain in order to live a moment of a life that he could never have. To those who have repressed their sexuality, convincing themselves that they felt attraction to those of another sex because it was what would make them belong, watching Spock find joy in this fantasy only to be crushed when he must return to reality is painfully familiar.

Analysis of Spock and Kirk’s relationship is generally sufficient to read them as a gay couple. When Spock is viewed in isolation, however, he still comes across as gay to many viewers. Spock’s innate perceived gayness relies not on his attraction to men, but on his repression of his true self and of the emotions that he cannot bring himself to face. While chalked up by the show to his half-Vulcan heritage, it still strikes a chord in a very human gay viewer.

#star trek #tos #this side of paradise #analysis #spock #gay spock #spirk #mine #yes this is a paper i wrote for fun

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ectonurites · 3 years

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Ok but like- if Tim’s not bi, this is totally queer baiting right?

I’d broaden a little bit to ‘if he’s not confirmed mlm in some way’ bc gay or bi or pan could all be confirmations here that would make it not queerbaiting, but yeah at this point I think especially considering the creators are kinda egging it on via twitter it would be.

Because that’s a big part of what is & isn’t queerbait- creator intent and creators making that intent clear. A writer can accidentally write something that comes off gay as hell (it does happen pretty regularly in superhero stuff, especially when writers are being misogynistic in their handling of female characters and thus making the m/f relationships feel more shallow/less explored than the friendships between male characters)! But the way they (and their creative team who do know where the story’s going) interact with people picking up on any subtext is really important. If the subtext was not on purpose and the creators just ignore people talking about it/say ‘that’s a cool interpretation but not what we were going for!’ that’s generally not bait. When creators are encouraging people talking about their work in such a way that implies queer content (liking their theories on it, joking about spoilers in response to it, retweeting things with theories, etc), but know the story they wrote isn’t going to do anything with it... that’s bait. ‘Tease of queer content (which gets more attention for the work) with no plans to actually do anything with it’ is like by definition what queerbaiting is.

Both the artist & writer have interacted with fans’ responses talking about Tim being Bi/not straight or the dinner with Bernard being a date, multiple times at this point now, in ways that purposefully leave things ambiguous but hint at something more to come.

For example:

[this gif or similar ones have pretty commonly been used when people ask spoiler-y questions about things]

If this were completely irrelevant and they’re doing nothing with Tim’s sexuality in the story, she should have just ignored the tweet. Stuff like this is teasing more to come in a playful way that raises people’s hopes. If this doesn’t go anywhere, then an interaction like this (along with all the likes and retweeting and stuff that has happened over the last day and even earlier before the story was released when people where theorizing) contributes to the idea of it being bait.

I really do hesitate to throw the term queerbait around because it gets misused a lot on this website and twitter especially, but again the biggest thing to emphasize is intent. Queerbait means there’s no intent to make a character actually queer, and that they’re just enjoying/benefiting from the attention a slight tease of possibility brings. This is different from there just being some subtext- something that you can read into whether it was intentionally put there or not. And this is also different from when a company is censoring someone who really does want to put the queer content in but isn’t really allowed to (this is more commonly with actual queer creators when they put hints of things they like in what they write, but can’t explicitly make it canon because that decision would need to come from higher up)

but yeah, all that in mind I personally think we’re in the ‘its queerbait if nothing comes of it’ territory

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ranboo5 · 3 years

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whats 'the clip' and knifetrick?

Augh. Under the cut for shipping discourse and p/dophilia ment (nothing graphic or specific). Gets long bc I discuss my thoughts on DSMP shipping in general. You are setting me up fr anon

Some quick vocab -

intimacy here is used to refer to. Well. Any kind of intimacy between characters, of any sort, as an umbrella term /r, /p, and /qp here are used as shorteners to denote "romantic," "platonic," and "queerplatonic," both as adjectives And as verbs ("to /r" = "to portray romantically") shipping here is used to refer to any focused examination of intimacy between characters

And some clarity that Should follow from the essay next but may not - """anti-antis"""" and RPF writers delete forever

The Clip is from one of if not the? most recent Discord stage(s) Mr Live has done (which I missed when it was live RIP) wherein he issues a hard ban on shipping him ("do not ship me, in any way, with anyone!") which would less influence c!beeduo (which has been portrayed/stated to be romantic AND nonromantic both conflictingly for a while until being confirmed unconfirmed several months ago, that being the last was heard) without its direct invocation if he hadn't also cited for the reason as being underage ("'Cause, one, it's straight up pedophilia") which is! a) immediately applicable to At Least his DSMP character, Partially and b) while not Strictly True (should b obvious that portraying a relationship within the bounds of what it is in canon and in a nonsexual way is not That, and /r-ing c!beeduo etc was possible to do Appropriately again by remaining w/in the bounds of canon) is Clearly Indicative of the fact that baggage-wise it IS associated with people being fucking creeps

This Really complicates things bc like okay the apparent solution is "lol just don't /r it" but it's really like. A Worse issue than that bc like.

Okay the reason shipping in terms of fictional characters is a Different Bar is bc it's an examination of Intimacy and certain lines exist in certain dynamics of intimacy that Isn't Shown (which is the whole Within The Bounds Of Canon thing) which is important in a medium like DSMP because of the smaller gap + more personal relationship b/w character and streamer. Examining intimacy beyond th bounds of the consent that has been established in that regard is Weird at best and Violating And Creepy more often and, As Mentioned In Ranb's Stage, Literally Evil at worst

Which is why writing abt like. QPR or platonically intimate Techno and Philza (characters) is smth that is fine because that's smth that has been shown and repeatedly stated onscreen; it's in the bounds of canon n thus within th bounds of what the streamers've consented 2 be done with their characters. But writing T3chza making out or whatever is fucked up because it's smth that's beyond those consent barriers

And the thing is right

Slapping a /p on T3chza makeout doesn't. Make it less violating

Like what you CALL romantic is not the measure or whether it's past those barriers yk? And if it's indistinguishable, if it's in extrapolative territory that is Past The Bounds, it Does Not Matter how much you /p it EVEN IF IT IS TECHNICALLY PLATONIC y feel? Like at the end of the day placing a moratorium on some/all forms of shipping is placing a moratorium on certain examinings of intimacy

And okay 2 go back to Mr Live and his character. What it implies taken in context w/ older portrayals of c!beeduo and said by invoking smth that both evokes Really fucked up baggage (that does unfortunately exist btw I'm sorry if you didn't know that but People Really Do B Fucked Up Abt Beeduo) AND applies to his character is a revocation of consent to examining deep intimacies:tm: with his character, which is gonna apply regardless of the nature of that intimacy (even if nonromantic)

Like I don't /r c!beeduo myself, do not, never have, but I talk to people who have and have consumed content where they r background /r; I also don't think it matters. Like I don't Actively /r it and I don't Actively Not /r it because imho w/ the intimacy regarding c!beeduo that is plot relevant and character important whether that intimacy is /p /qp or /r doesn't really matter. I don't consider myself Less of a c!beeduo shipper than someone who /rs them because that would be dumb as hell and while none of the content I've made* is Intrinsically or Intentionally /r it certainly can be read tht way as much as it can be read /qp or /p. It's be dumb and hypocritical of me to like, dunk on ppl for /r-ing c!beeduo when I'm also invested in these two and my tonetags r not gonna suddenly Delete the picking apart I've done of the dynamic @ hand

Which Has Been. Within Bounds Of Canon. It's been what's been shown (sometimes to my great distress. There is a reason that the :canon_beeduo: emote looks the way it does) Directly Onscreen and in general keeping with the tone n intensity/directions of what they've Done With The Characters

HOWEVER

As mentioned up there. Revocation of consent

It makes. Full sense 2 me that Mr Live wants to place a moratorium or fullon ban on shipping his characters perhaps where he wouldn't have before because of the Unfortunately Very Extant trends of people being Fucking Weird about shipping his characters AND of using them as a Thinly Veiled Excuse to ship HIM, which. I should not have to explain why shipping real people is fucking abhorrent

THIS creates a problem which is a. Bit of a vacuum in interacting with what is a facet of c!Ranboo's arc, decision making, and character. Like you CAN have c!Ranboo w/o cbeeduo but you Can't Really have his plotline without examining c!beeduo. And as I mentioned earlier: even if your examination of c!beeduo is fully platonic, the significance of it To the plotline means that any examination of it and its relevance to the plotline and characters IS gonna be an examination of intimacy, which. Regardless of it's platonic, Is Still Shipping

Unless some HARD retconning happens it leaves this like. Hole in an aspect of c!Ranboo's arc and decisionmaking and it's very. Uncertain? God. Fucking months ago I was already kind of :huh. Does he know what the fuck he's doing: irt c!beeduo and desperately wishing for things to be cleared up and now it's only That Much Stronger

NOW. KNIFETRICK, FINALLY

Knifetrick (or, as it’s actually listed, Bishop’s Knife Trick) is a fic about "Ran and Jackie from The Pit TFTSMP" in a "canon-typical ambiguously romantic relationship." As you can tell from the scare quotes, especially if you've seen me vague, both of these are, to put it politely, Doubtful. I've read the fic; I will not be sharing my opinions because that would be neither productive nor responsible (I will just say I can't recommend it and leave it at that) but I WILL say the following that Is relevant to the conversation:

Ran's and Jackie's characterizations respectively have very little to do with characterizations from The Pit, and bear a dollar-store-version resemblance to tropes and personality motifs found in ESPECIALLY fanon c!beeduo, especially later in the fic. I would not go so far as to say they are Intentionally Literally Ranboo and Tubbo but they are transparent expies and were clearly written at LEAST unintentionally w/ c!beeduo in mind (esp since. Ran and Jackie barely interacted in The Pit), and for a readerbase that, as far as I can tell, is HUGELY dominated by /r c!beeduo shippers. Like. Sorry. This is off-brand c!beeduo.

The dynamic between the two is pretty unambiguously romantic, also; despite what the fic's white knights claim, romantic tropes and implications/motifs/imagery from at LEAST chapter two, and is very much explicitly romantic by the most recent chapter.

FROM CH1:

"And now, with raised eyebrows and a pursed lip, the newly named General Jackie observes Ran in such a way that makes the enderman’s skin crawl. Ran reminds himself that this kid, as short and harmless as he may look, is trained to kill. [...] Jackie narrows his eyes and tilts his head a little, as if he’s trying to read in between every one of Ran’s imperfect scales."

FROM CH2:

"It makes Ran’s skin itch with discomfort. [...] 'That actually doesn’t explain much of anything at all,' complains Jackie, and he pops a few croutons into his mouth with one hand. 'Tell me what you’re thinking, pretty-boy.'

"Ran feels his face flush, no doubt mildly glowing green.

"Yes, that was the other thing. The unnecessary compliments to his physical appearance.

"They don’t happen very often, and don’t seem to have very much meaning or intention behind them— Jackie often speaks like an unthinking kid— but when they do happen… they’re embarrassing. [...] It’s annoying how the rug is pulled out from under his feet in these moments when he’s 'embarrassed'. Like the conversation see-saw has temporarily shifted weight in the general’s favor."

I am not going to include excerpts from Chapter 6 because it's just the entire chapter.

I WILL SAY, HOWEVER, STEPPING ON THIS SCORPION BEFORE IT STINGS: they are not written in an RPFy manner and I don't think there's any grounds, including Vibes, of accusing Knifetrick of being like. Closet truthing or whatever. Also, while I think there's certainly Some Weirdness ESPECIALLY around the reaction, the romance itself is Not written in any way I'd call weird or problematic pre-clip; it's nothing inappropriate or like Weirdly Fetishy or whatever. Knifetrick is not #problematic or anything and I don't have beef with like the concept of liking it intrinsically; if I thought it was like. Abhorrent I wouldn't be sharing excerpts lmao dhjfnhdsbvdnfjh. Hence: if anyone uses this post or anyth like it to send harassment or bad faith ANYTHING to anyone involved with Knifetrick I will hunt you down in the fucking night even if it WAS #problematic that'd be the LITERAL OPPOSITE of productive and as it stands it's Literally Not. Essentially: Knifetrick is a (questionably-written /mean) fic using Ran and Jackie from The Pit as a vessel for a large chunk of the dynamics and headcanons of fanon /r c!beeduo in particular

And again, I would not call it problematic in any way (aside from the disingenuity of the insistence that it's TOTALLY UNRELATED TO BEEDUO and TOOOTALLY WASN'T INTENDED TO BE ROMANTIC GUYS like own your shit please)... IF it weren't for the advent of The Clip, which is calling in2 question the Entirety of the problem of /r-ing any variant of c!beeduo or any of Ranboo's characters at all

I really do not have an answer for this tbh. I genuinely wanna hear from the streamer on this more specifically because I like,,, I got no clue where 2 go from here? Do I just consider an arc retconned? Was it an issue of speaking abt a troubling subject kneejerk wise and I'm reading too much in2 it?

I just. I dunno

Tl;dr (AT LONG LAST)

- The Clip is a clip of a Discord stage where Ranboo (streamer) loudly explicitly decried shipping in a way that implicitly applies to characters he plays - This would be all well and good but is rendered complicated by the plot relevance of c!beeduo, which does not stop being shipping if it's /p'd due to it still necessarily being an examination of a particular intimacy in a way that is in canon hard to distinguish the /p, /qp, or /r nature of - Bishop's Knife Trick is an AO3 fic centered around using TFTSMP characters as /r c!beeduo expies which is not a bad thing in and of itself unless it also is covered under this moratorium - Things remain unclear until and unless we get clearer word from streamer, but considering Mr Live seems to be allergic to clarifying anything abt c!beeduo this is doubtful

*very little if any of the content I personally have made 4 c!beeduo has been posted publicly, for related reasons. You May have seen it if you're in servers w/ me, depending on Which Ones

#dsmp fandom critical #kind of?#jic #ask to tag #I am technically defending Kn1fetrick on this post #I am not nice to it but I am defending it technically. If people start being rude abt it I am going to set myself on fire #this IS ludicrously long but I have tl;dr'd it as I do with all my ludicrously long posts. I think I have salient thoughts

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shihalyfie · 3 years

Text

An Adventure/02 pseudo-honorifics chart

I’ve mentioned a few times that I maintain an Adventure/02 honorifics chart for the sake of fanfic writing (it’s generally a pretty vital thing to have on hand if you intend to use honorifics in fanwork, or even in fiction at all), and I’ve even mentioned that I’d like to release it someday, but one thing that was always holding me back about it was my constant checks for accuracy -- an acquaintance was also keeping one, and when we compared them we found some minor inconsistencies that would require us to rewatch the entire series with a notepad to get the right references.

After a fashion, I realized that I was scrutinizing this way too closely. The important part is not the specific honorifics themselves but rather the pattern in which they’re used -- especially because they would often alternate in-series, partially intentionally, and partially because they would flip-flop depending on writer. On top of that, most people who would be interested in this are likely writing post-2002 fanfic, where it could be reasonable for certain honorifics to change based on certain relationships.

As such, I’ve decided to just throw out the minutiae, forget about making an organized “chart”, and simply write a general overview of how the twelve Adventure/02 kids use honorifics for each other. Hopefully this can be an interesting resource/meta for those who are considering writing fanfic with these (or even simply due to general interest).

Before we begin, a few notes:

Overall, I am mostly omitting “obvious outlier cases” where a character called someone else something different from usual, but context made it clear why that particular instance was different. (For instance, Miyako trying to butter Daisuke up by calling him “Dai-chan” in 02 episode 8; she very much would not have done this in most circumstances.) I am also not looking too deeply into one-off outlier cases that seem to wildly fall outside the pattern, and seem to merely be the result of whoever was writing that episode/piece of media not checking the chart.

The tri. anime series and tri. stage play actually contradict each other, and given that they’re supposed to take place in around the same period, you basically have to commit to one or the other here. Between the two, the anime series has a number of incursions that go against patterns in ways that make it difficult to form a consistent analysis about it, whereas the stage play is much easier to make a consistent case between 02 and Kizuna (with comparatively much fewer outliers), so in terms of providing actual analysis, I will be prioritizing the latter’s take.

Due to similarly having too many obviously contradictory incursions, 02′s first drama CD (Armor Evolution to the Unknown) is also mostly removed from consideration, with the exception of instances when it’s a factor in an already ambiguous situation.

All twelve Adventure/02 characters are consistently respectful with elders and strangers (with some exceptions; Taichi really wasn’t very amused with Gennai when they first met). The following analysis is important mainly in regards to the kids�� relationships with each other.

I’ll be marking down the first-person pronouns for Digimon partners as well, but for the sake of brevity I’ll be sticking with the “base” forms (Child for everyone except Tailmon, who’s Adult) and not the higher ones.

General overview

A quick crash course on honorifics and how they’re used!

Firstly, there’s first-person pronouns, which, in the scope of fiction, generally are used to indicate a character’s disposition. Note that “one character consistently using one first-person pronoun for nearly every situation” is very endemic to fiction in particular; in real life, one may change their pronoun depending on whom they’re talking to or the context in which they’re speaking, but Japanese fiction is generally much more consistent about using these as consistent points for characterization, even to the point of bringing out pronouns that aren’t practically in use anymore in real life.

The ones generally of importance to the Adventure kids:

ore: Masculine and assertive. Note assertive instead of aggressive; it simply implies being very self-assured, and you can still have a stoic character who uses ore. Since it’s a very casual and somewhat brash pronoun, a character who uses this might still default to something like boku depending on the surrounding circumstances (for instance, Taichi, who normally uses ore, will still use boku when speaking to adults on the phone).

boku: Masculine and deferential/polite.

watashi: Gender-neutral and somewhat deferential/polite. When used by male characters, usually it’s to imply that they’re particularly mature or polite (since otherwise you’d probably expect boku).

atashi: Feminine and casual. The “casual” connotation means that it’s often employed by aggressive or assertive girls in a sort of feminine equivalent to ore, but it can also simply mean that they’re just very girly (see: Mimi).

When referring to each other, honorifics come into play. Honorifics are generally used based on a combination of “comparative level of station” (i.e. whether someone is in a “higher societal position” than you or not -- yes, even a single school grade can matter here!) and “sense of distance” (i.e. whether you are a close friend to the person in question or not). And, of course, there’s also the question of how polite the speaker is in general. These factors do weigh against each other, so that’s why it’d still make sense for two very close friends to use honorifics on each other, if said friends are portrayed as particularly polite in general.

No honorific: Referred to as yobisute in Japanese, this is actually something that merits a category on its own, because it’s something you should only be whipping out when you’re particularly close to the person. This is especially in the case of elders; unless you really do have a close relationship to the elder in question that they can forgive it, you’re being a bit in-your-face and rude for acting like you’re on their level.

-san: The most common honorific, because it’s the one you can generally rely on to default to if you’re not sure and want to be polite. Upward-facing and polite.

-senpai: Similar to -san in that it’s upward-facing and polite, but it has a stronger connotation of “someone who has been in a certain field longer than you have”. Depending on the characters in question and the relevant situation, it and -san can be interchangeable (this happens with the 02 kids and their Adventure seniors, who are both people the 02 kids look up to as people in general and people who are in higher school grade levels and further experience in Digimon-related issues).

-kun: Downward-facing and polite. In this case “downward-facing” simply means that the person you’re addressing is either on the same “societal level” as you or lower on the social ladder; it’s not meant to be used in a condescending sense! (Well, at least, not by default, anyway.) Its use is still considered respectful, especially moreso than dropping the honorific altogether, but it simply means that you’re also not necessarily deferring to the other person being higher than you. On very rare occasions, you could theoretically use it for a senior you consider yourself particularly close with, but this kind of usage never comes into play with the twelve kids in the Adventure universe (its most notable Digimon usage is Appmon’s Haru using it for Rei, who’s one year older than him).

-chan: Endearing and somewhat casual. Often used for younger girls. Because of it having a “cute” implication, it’s the one honorific here that may be advisable to avoid if you want to avoid that implication; it’s not rude per se to be using it, but it’s definitely possible to want to avoid the implications and go for “-san” (despite that normally being upward-facing) or “-kun” (despite that being a bit more formal) instead.

On top of that, it should be noted that there is a difference between calling someone by their surname vs. their given name, mainly in terms of sense of distance -- formality usually dictates prioritizing surname first by default, someone really close with a particular friend can go as far as given name with no honorific, with the other extreme being using surname and adding an honorific. Likewise, “surname with no honorific” can imply a bit of bluntness yet mutual level of comfort in a relationship, while “given name with honorific” can imply politeness but still with a sense of tight friendship and familiarity -- basically, it’s a grey area. Fortunately, in the case of Adventure/02, this only really matters in the case of Ken (and, in one instance, Koushirou).

And finally, note that if two characters call each other a certain way long enough, honorifics can “stick” and even start taking on an “endearing nickname” sentiment -- which is why you might see a phenomenon of people still using honorifics on each other even when their closeness to each other might suggest otherwise. This is pertinent mainly in the case of certain characters who continue calling each other a certain way even after their relationship should suggest that they’ve gotten a lot closer -- the implication being that they’ve called each other that for so long that it feels weird to change now. (Yes, that even includes between dating and/or married couples.)

Incidentally, all Digimon partners (with the exception of Tentomon and Hawkmon, who use -han and -san respectively, and Wormmon, whose single-minded dedication to “Ken-chan” means he really doesn’t talk about anyone else other than a reference to “Izumi Koushirou-san on the phone” in 02 episode 26) simply refer to the humans by given name and no honorific (including humans who aren’t their partners); presumably they’re allowed this due to not being members of Japanese society per se, and therefore not being beholden to its standards.

To wrap this up, here’s a reminder of everyone’s school grade levels in relation to each other, from highest to lowest (note that we don’t actually know anyone’s specific birthdays, so we have to go by school years):

Jou

Taichi, Yamato, Sora

Koushirou, Mimi

Miyako

Takeru, Hikari, Daisuke, Ken

(empty space here)

Iori

Taichi

First-person pronoun: ore (assertive)

General honorifics pattern: Given name, no honorific for the boys (”Yamato”, “Jou”, “Daisuke”, etc.). Uses given name with “-chan” with most younger girls (”Mimi-chan”, “Miyako-chan”), the implication being that he simply treats them casually without being extra blunt or extra polite.

Parents: tou-san and kaa-san (still roughly respectful, but casual enough to drop the respectful o-).

Sora: As he’s known Sora for a while even before the events of Adventure, Taichi simply calls her “Sora” with no honorific.

Mimi: Taichi was known to call Mimi “Mimi-chan” in Adventure, which was consistent with how he called Miyako in 02, but in Kizuna it seems to be just “Mimi”. There are multiple potential interpretations, one being that something may have happened to make the two more intimately close between Adventure and Kizuna, one being that something happened to make Taichi feel that Mimi shouldn’t have a “diminutively endearing” honorific, one being that the scene in question was rather serious and he felt it wasn’t the right time...and one being that the writers simply just forgot.

Jou: Notably, Taichi’s lack of using honorifics for the boys also extends to Jou, who’s a year older than him, either because he’s fine being casual enough with Jou that he doesn’t mind violating propriety, or he made the same mistake as Yamato (see below) and initially mistook him for being in the same school year due to Jou not initially coming off as very senior-esque (unlike with Mimi, Jou wasn’t explicitly designated as the leader of the others’ camp groups).

Hikari: Hikari is Taichi’s sister, so he simply calls her “Hikari” with no honorific.

Other notes: Amusingly, while everyone calls Gennai “Gennai-san” for the most part, Taichi isn’t very patient with him at first and calls him “jiji” (old man) during Adventure, but seems to have gotten over himself and calls him “Gennai-san” in Kizuna. (Well, he’s not an old man anymore by then.) Unlike Taichi, Agumon uses boku (polite), despite the two characters otherwise being very like-minded. Agumon is a little more easygoing than Taichi in general, so it can be said that Agumon represents Taichi’s nature of not being altogether aggressive when it really comes down to it.

Yamato

First-person pronoun: ore (assertive)

General honorifics pattern: Given name, no honorific for the boys (”Taichi”, “Jou”, “Daisuke”, etc.). Like Taichi, he uses given name with “-chan” with most younger girls (“Hikari-chan”, “Miyako-chan”).

Parents: oyaji (think roughly in the sense of “my old man”) for his father, kaa-san (again, a bit more respectful but still rough enough to drop the o-) for his mother (whom he doesn’t live with).

Sora: Yamato omits the honorific for Sora, implying he considered her a close friend even during the time of Adventure.

Mimi: Notable mainly because of our lack of information about this; Yamato and Mimi never referred to each other over the course of Adventure or 02, and while Mimi’s way of referring to Yamato (”Yamato-san”) was easy to extrapolate even before Kizuna based on existing patterns, the reverse could go either way, depending on whether Yamato would see her as close enough to merit the drop. The Adventure mini dramas have him call her “Mimi-chan”, but this was in unison with everyone else, so it’s hard to tell whether it counts; the tri. stage play and the Kizuna novel has him drop the honorific.

Jou: Like Taichi, he never uses any honorific with the one-year-older Jou, the canonical explanation being that he initially mistook Jou for being in the same year (well, not like Jou was acting as the epitome of a dignified senior...).

Ken: Yamato initially refers to him as “Ichijouji-kun” when discussing Ken’s circumstances with Iori in 02 episode 35, but during 02 episode 42, when Ken is now working directly with him and has integrated himself more as everyone’s friend, Yamato simply calls him “Ichijouji”, being more willing to speak to him on a more blunt/close level (but not quite knowing him as well as the other 02 kids, whom he’s on given name basis with).

Other notes: Yamato is the one Adventure senior who gets a lot of interaction with the 02 group in Kizuna, and interestingly, the four of them all call him “Yamato-senpai”, despite him not going to their school -- given that they’re dealing with a Digimon incident, the implication is that they’re treating him as an experienced senior in that respect. Despite what his shy personality would suggest, Gabumon in fact uses ore, like Yamato. Gabumon can be said to represent Yamato’s emotional core, so it is true that he can be very assertive when it really comes down to it.

Sora

First-person pronoun: Mostly used watashi in Adventure, with fairly uncommon lapses into atashi, fully moving to atashi by 02. This is consistent with her characterization difference between Adventure and 02, the latter of which portrayed her as quite a bit more assertive about what she wanted and rather less deferential (and also a lot more willing to come off as more feminine, at that). The tri. stage play sticks with atashi. Kizuna has her go back to watashi, which can possibly be taken as her deciding to be a bit more mature in her adult years -- basically, Sora is the kind of person where going either way fits her, since she’s capable of being assertive but also likes to carry herself calmly and maturely (and her teenage years are where you could most definitely believe she’d be the most aggressive about it).

General honorifics pattern: Uses “Jou-senpai” for Jou, treating him properly like a school elder. Given the rest of her way of using honorifics, most likely she’d use “-san” or “-senpai” for most elders. Uses given name plus “-kun” for younger boys (”Koushirou-kun”, “Daisuke-kun”) and “-chan” for younger girls (”Mimi-chan”, “Miyako-chan”). In other words, generally diligent about using honorifics, dropping it only with people she’s particularly close with.

Parents: Generally respectful okaa-san and otou-san.

Taichi: Having known Taichi as a peer for quite a long time prior to the events of the series, Sora simply just calls him “Taichi” with no honorific.

Yamato: Initially Sora calls him “Yamato-kun”, and it’s reasonable to extrapolate she probably would call most boys her age with the “-kun” honorific, but early in the series, Sora starts alternating between “-kun” and simply calling him “Yamato”, which allegedly was actually intentional to indicate foreshadowing of their building relationship. This alternation continues all the way into 02, even after they start dating -- Armor Evolution to the Unknown has her calling him “Yamato-kun” even when she refers to him super-endearingly (implying it really has become a nickname of sorts), while DSB has her drop the honorific, and both firmly depict them as dating. For what it’s worth, the tri. stage play and Kizuna also depict her as dropping the honorific.

Daisuke: Sora actually drops honorific for Daisuke, possibly due to knowing him from the soccer club.

Ken: “Ichijouji-kun” in 02 episode 38. This is in the context of her observing how much he’s changed, so, much like with the other seniors, she thinks well of him, she’s just not particularly close with him to merit moving to given name basis.

Other notes: Piyomon, who’s portrayed as clingy and affectionate, uses atashi from day one.

Koushirou

First-person pronoun: boku (polite)

General honorifics pattern: -san for everyone older (”Taichi-san”, “Jou-san”). “-kun” for younger boys (”Takeru-kun”, “Daisuke-kun”).

Parents: Generally respectful okaa-san and otou-san.

Mimi: Mimi is the same age as Koushirou, but Koushirou presumably doesn’t feel comfortable using the “affectionately endearing” “-chan” and would rather use the more respectful “-san” instead.

Hikari: Hikari is an unusual case in that she’s quite a bit younger than Koushirou, but Koushirou still calls her with “-san”. Presumably, he didn’t feel comfortable going with “-chan” like everyone else did (and presumably for the same reasons he won’t use it for Mimi either). This persists even all the way into 02, but interestingly, he calls Miyako differently (see below), so it’s hard to say what his stance would be on younger girls in general, or whether Hikari got special privileges due to the circumstances of how she met the group (as the younger sister of his respected senior Taichi, and as a fellow Chosen who met everyone during some rather personal circumstances detached from school). The tri. stage play floats up the idea that he might have accepted “Hikari-chan” by 2005, but Kizuna takes the stance that he’s still using “Hikari-san” in 2010.

Miyako: Koushirou, having met Miyako during some rather impersonal circumstances and initially only having a computer club senior-junior relationship with her, calls her “Miyako-kun”. Note again the avoidance of the “-chan”; he really doesn’t seem to want to use the “cute” honorific, and would rather treat her a little more formally.

Ken: Koushirou refers to Ken as “Ichijouji-kun” in general, Ken getting the surname basis as he joined the group on the level of him somewhat of a stranger to Koushirou compared to the other 02 kids. That said, this shows up even during their heart-to-heart in 02 episode 33, so other than the surname thing, it’s clear that Koushirou using the honorific is less detachment and him simply wanting to extend the same respect he uses for everyone else.

Other notes: Koushirou is infamous for using polite language (-masu, -desu, etc.) in every circumstance, including even with the Digimon (who are generally treated as being outside societal obligations of honorifics) and younger characters. The implication is that this came from Koushirou being deferential to everyone out of sense of distance and lack of self-esteem after his revelation of being adopted made him lose sense of his place in the world. In Adventure episodes 38 and 54, it’s made apparent that Koushirou wants to learn to speak more casually with others, but has difficulty doing so, and his parents and Tentomon assure him that he doesn’t need to force himself. Koushirou continues speaking this way even into 02 and Kizuna, but the epilogue implies that he at least doesn’t do this with his daughter (and the Character Complete File that he at least broke out of this with Tentomon). Tentomon uses Kansai dialect, which is stereotyped as being associated with easygoing and less book-smart characters (in contrast to Koushirou, and also for the absurd humor of the terrifying-looking Kabuterimon speaking this way), but he also uses the polite form, so he can be said to match Koushirou in this way by simply being polite and deferential to others in general. While most Digimon don’t use honorifics for humans, Tentomon also uses “-han” (the Kansai variant of “-san”) on any human he talks to.

Mimi

First-person pronoun: atashi (casual). Mimi is normally a very polite girl, but she also likes being in-your-face cute, so her usage of the pronoun is in line with this.

General honorifics pattern: -san for any and all elders (”Taichi-san”, “Sora-san”), -kun for younger boys (”Koushirou-kun”, “Daisuke-kun”), and -chan for younger girls (”Hikari-chan”, “Miyako-chan”). Mimi is depicted as having been raised as a sort of “lady of the house” (ojou-sama) personality due to having been spoiled by her parents, so she’s basically a “spoiled sweet” sort of girl who is polite and respectful to pretty much everyone -- hence why her speech pattern is uniformly consistent across everything. Of course, since she’s also very fond of “acting cute” and proud of it, younger girls like Hikari and Miyako get the cute “-chan”. The sole exception to her pattern is “Jou-senpai” (see Jou’s section on why).

Parents: Super-affectionate “Mama” and “Papa”, in line with the over-the-top lovey-dovey-ness of the Tachikawa household. Mimi’s mom goes as far as to endearingly call her “Mimi-chan” (her father is just “Mimi”).

Ken: Referred to Ken as “Ichijouji-kun” starting in 02 episode 25. This was in a context of her wanting to get him in to help, so she clearly has no ill will with him, she just doesn’t know him all that well compared to the other 02 kids.

Other notes: Palmon, who also enjoys acting cute, uses atashi much like the like-minded Mimi.

Jou

First-person pronoun: boku (polite). There’s an incident where he famously slips into ore when trying to intercede in the argument between Taichi and Yamato during Adventure episode 8, so it can be taken that he does have it in him to be more assertive if he lets his emotions take control of him, but otherwise is deferential.

General honorifics pattern: Interestingly, Jou seems to consider himself close enough to the older boys in the Adventure group to use given name with no honorific (”Taichi”, “Yamato”, “Koushirou”), despite what his insistence on societal propriety might make you think. In other words, he can be very casual when he really wants to be. With the girls, he generally uses given name plus “-kun” (”Sora-kun”, “Mimi-kun”), the implication being that he doesn’t like using the affectionate “-chan” on them and wants to keep them at a somewhat respectful and polite distance rather than the more casual manner he treats the boys with. Likewise, boys who are a certain level of younger than Jou are on given name basis plus “-kun” (”Takeru-kun”, “Daisuke-kun”); since this includes Takeru, who was also part of the Adventure group, it seems to have more to do with closeness based on age than anything. It’s unclear what he would do with elders since he’s the oldest depicted of the twelve, but most likely he’d at least be consistent about his -san and -senpai if he’s not particularly close with them.

Parents: Jou was never depicted with his parents in the series proper, but in Armor Evolution to the Unknown he uses “tou-san” for his father and “kaa-san” for his mother (generally respectful but still somewhat casual).

Shin and Shuu: Jou is depicted as calling them “Shin-niisan” and “Shuu-niisan” respectively.

Hikari: Jou’s one major reference to Hikari in Adventure was “Hikari-chan” -- presumably, Hikari being so young that it’s okay in his book to use the endearing honorific. The tri. stage play has him use “Hikari-kun”, so you can maybe presume he now sees her as old enough to be treated with the more formal honorific. Because both cases are somewhat isolated (one showing up really only once in the series and one being from a writer who may not have caught that one time), it’s difficult to make a projection.

Other notes: Jou infamously seems to exude such a “school senior” aura that he’s occasionally called “Jou-senpai” in settings where other characters might use “-san” for others (mainly Mimi, whose initial relationship to him was being under his responsibility in their summer camp group, and the 02 kids, who jump on using “-senpai” for him much faster than they do most of their other Adventure seniors, despite not even going to the same school as him). This has led to the Japanese fanbase often latching onto calling him “Jou-senpai” affectionately. Gomamon infamously uses the first-person pronoun oira, which is basically like the assertive ore but with a more laid-back and almost country bumpkin-esque air to it. It’s much in line with his very laid-back and playful personality, the complete opposite of Jou’s.

Takeru

First-person pronoun: boku (polite). This is actually a plot point; Adventure episode 12 (which is a Takeru focus episode) also uses boku in its title, and the narration for the 02 episode 50 preview suddenly uses boku, culminating in the reveal that the narrator was Takeru the whole time.

General honorifics pattern: Consistently uses given name “-san” for all elders (”Taichi-san”, “Jou-san”, “Miyako-san”, etc.). Uses given name plus “-kun” for boys who are the same age or younger (”Daisuke-kun”, “Iori-kun”). Hikari is “Hikari-chan”, so he’s comfortable enough to use the endearing honorific (although it might just be because it’s Hikari, whom he happens to personally know very well). In general, Takeru is a fairly polite person and adheres reasonably well to honorific propriety.

Parents: Super-affectionate and somewhat childish “Mama” and “Papa” in Adventure; generally respectful “okaa-san” for his mother and ever so slightly more casual “tou-san” for his father in 02.

Yamato: In Adventure, Takeru initially calls Yamato “onii-chan”, the “o-” being respectful, and “-chan” being endearing. He carries this into 02 as well. Given that it’s unlikely for him to continue doing this much longer after 02, different media ended up going in different directions with this; DSB went with “nii-san” (still very respectful, but missing the “o-” and not as “cutesy”), the tri. stage play went with aniki (one of its few holdovers from the tri. anime; somewhat more blunt and less respectful), and Kizuna uses DSB’s “nii-san”.

Ken: Takeru starts off calling him “Ichijouji-kun” when they’re just starting to get to know each other. This does happen to persist even as their relationship gets deeper and Takeru significantly warms up to him, culminating in him still seeming to call him this by Kizuna’s drama CD, but it seems to be more out of politeness/respect (or, most likely, habit, considering how long it took for Ken to get on good terms with everyone in the group) by this point. (Ironically, this is a significant improvement over when Takeru had punched out the Kaiser in 02 episode 17, in which his references had been an extremely passive-aggressive “Ichijouji-san” and a more genuinely angry “Ichijouji” -- once everything had calmed down, Takeru presumably felt that he at least deserved proper respect.)

Other notes: Patamon uses boku, much like Takeru, which is probably meant to accentuate his “childishness” (in Adventure) and general like-mindedness with Takeru and easygoing nature (in 02).

Hikari

First-person pronoun: watashi in Adventure, atashi in 02, watashi in the tri. stage play and Kizuna (specifically the drama CD). This is likely for similar reasons to Sora in that Hikari was portrayed as rather deferential to others in Adventure but got quite a bit more assertive in 02, then, as she got older, went back to carrying herself a bit more maturely (and, if the tri. stage play is to be believed, went back to it at an earlier age, presumably since she’s more on the polite side than Sora), albeit still of course bright and assertive when she wants to be.

Parents: Generally respectful okaa-san and otou-san.

General honorifics pattern: Much like Takeru, she consistently uses given name with “-san” for all elders (”Sora-san”, “Koushirou-san”, “Miyako-san”). Uses given name plus “-kun” for boys of the same age or younger (”Takeru-kun”, “Daisuke-kun”). It’s unclear what she would do with younger girls, but she probably wouldn’t be averse to using “-chan”. All in all, much like Takeru, she’s fairly polite and adheres to honorific propriety.

Taichi: Hikari consistently calls Taichi “onii-chan”. Given Hikari’s personality as a lot more willing to come off as “cute”, this is in line with her.

Ken: Like Takeru, Hikari starts off calling him “Ichijouji-kun” and sticks with it even after the group accepts him; again, Ken took an unusually long time to get on good terms with everyone in the group, by which time the surname basis had likely become habit for her, Takeru, and Iori.

Other notes: Because Hikari is called “Hikari-chan” by so many characters, the Japanese fanbase tends to attach the honorific to her name a lot when discussing her. Tailmon’s first-person pronoun usage mirrors Hikari’s in that she uses watashi in Adventure, atashi in 02, and watashi in the tri. stage play and Kizuna drama CD -- beyond mirroring Hikari, it also exemplifies 02 being the point in time when Tailmon seemed to be keen on making use of her new life and freedom.

Daisuke

First-person pronoun: ore (assertive)

General honorifics pattern: Consistently uses “-san” (”Taichi-san”, “Koushirou-san”) and/or “-senpai” for his elders (mostly “-san”), with the exception of Miyako (see below) -- in general Daisuke is actually quite respectful of his seniors in the Adventure group. For his friends in the 02 group, he eschews honorifics entirely and generally goes to given name basis with no honorific (”Takeru”, “Iori”), with the exception of Hikari (see below), so when it comes to people he’s actually closer with on a personal level, he doesn’t really seem fond of keeping distance with honorifics (much like Taichi and Yamato).

Parents: Doesn’t directly address his parents in the series proper, but the Character Complete File supplies “tou-san” and “kaa-san” (generally respectful but casual).

Jun: Refers to her as “aneki” (blunt and in-your-face).

Taichi: Although Daisuke has used both “-san” and “-senpai” for both Yamato and Jou, Taichi is the one where the interchangeability is most clear, since Daisuke has a particular relation to him as his respected soccer club senior.

Hikari: Consistently calls her “Hikari-chan”. The implication is, of course, that he sees her as cute and endearing, although it’s also completely possible he’d use “-chan” for any other similar age or younger girl he develops a particular rapport with (he does go along with Mimi’s suggestion of “Nat-chan” in The Door to Summer).

Miyako: Omits the honorific with her and simply calls her “Miyako”, despite her being a year older. The implication is that they banter so much and are so like-minded that he feels comfortable being more abrupt with her. She personally doesn’t seem to mind, especially given that, when Daisuke momentarily gets a bit disoriented and calls her “Miyako-san” in 02 episode 30, she complains that it sounds weird (meaning that it sounds weird coming from him, given that everyone else in the group calls her this).

Ken: Initially calls him “Ichijouji” prior to 02 episode 39, having just gotten out of the fights with him as the Kaiser and not quite being on personal friendship levels with him (much less treat him at a “polite distance”), but still wanting to handle him casually in his bid to integrate him into the group and get to know him better. He first drops the idea of switching to given name basis and calling him “Ken” in 02 episode 30, and is depicted as directly switching to it on-screen and committing to it when declaring Ken to be his friend in 02 episode 39. From then on, with Ken as basically his best and most important friend, he sticks with it.

Other notes: Being the very active and playful type, V-mon uses ore, just like Daisuke.

Ken

First-person pronoun: boku (polite); that includes as the Kaiser, implying that he was trying to portray himself as “regal and dignified” during that time.

General honorifics pattern: “-san” for all elders (”Koushirou-san”, “Miyako-san”), although he also uses “Yamato-senpai” in Kizuna (implying a sort of “Digimon senior” relationship with him and potentially other seniors by that point). Given name plus “-kun” for Iori, and presumably all younger boys. Ken generally uses given name basis for everyone, including the seniors; however, because he started off using “Motomiya-kun” and “Izumi-san” for Daisuke and Koushirou respectively before eventually shifting to “Daisuke” and “Koushirou-san”, it’s implied that this wasn’t necessarily the case when he was still initially ashamed of being around everyone.

Parents: Super-affectionate “Mama” and “Papa”, and his mother calls him “Ken-chan” in return (he’s just “Ken” from his father). The history behind this is really complicated, but the point is that the family is very affectionate when it all comes down to it.

Daisuke: Initially alternated between “Motomiya-kun” and “Motomiya” (phasing out the former as the series went on), having been in an awkward position of Daisuke so prominently having opposed him before suddenly getting in his face trying to befriend him. He drops a “Daisuke” (no honorific) in his head in 02 episode 26 and once outwardly in 02 episode 39, and while he never quite commits to given name basis during 02 itself, he uses it in DSB and in most postcanonical material, including Kizuna, indicating that with their relationship having gotten so close, Ken eventually got over himself and started referring to Daisuke as such.

Hikari: Hikari is the same age as Ken, but he calls her “Hikari-san”. Since the circumstances of why Ken wouldn’t use “-chan” with her are apparent (given his relationship to the 02 group at the time, it would have been incredibly inappropriate for him to use an “endearing” honorific with her), it’s hard to tell whether he would have extended this to all other girls his age or younger, or whether his way of referring to Hikari would have changed as he got to know the 02 group better (our latest point in time is Spring 2003, where he still calls her “Hikari-san”, but past that, it’s unknown).

Takeru: Notable mainly in our lack of information about this -- other than Daisuke (see above), Takeru is the only other boy his age that we get to see, and 02 never actually has Ken use his name in the series, so there’s been dispute over whether it would be “Takeru-san” or “Takeru-kun” (with a larger camp going for the latter, since Ken’s not averse to using downward-facing honorifics, he just clearly didn’t want to use “-chan” for Hikari at the time). There have also been interpretations that Ken might have been on surname basis with Takeru for at least a while; this is also ambiguous, given that he was initially on surname basis with Daisuke but went straight to given name basis with Iori (who, at the time, hated him the most out of the 02 kids).

Other notes: Nobody in the Adventure/02 group of kids actually calls him “Ken-chan”, but Wormmon and his family calling him this stuck so much in memory that the fanbase (and, at times, even official staff) constantly defaults to endearingly calling him this. Wormmon himself uses boku, much like Ken (and also in line with his generally polite disposition).

Miyako

First-person pronoun: atashi (casual). Does occasionally use watashi (polite), but this is very, very rare.

General honorifics pattern: Uniformly given name “-san” for all elders and seniors (”Sora-san”, “Mimi-san”), with the exception of Koushirou (see below), and seems to not be averse to using “-senpai” in certain cases. Generally uses given name plus “-kun” for younger boys she’s good friends with (”Takeru-kun”, “Ken-kun”), but will eschew it if she has a particular rapport with them (see below). Uses “-chan” for Hikari, and likely other younger girls as well. In general, Miyako’s neutrally polite to others “by default”, but is a bit more willing to be in-your-face with people when she deems them to be particularly close.

Parents: Uses “kaa-san” for her mother (generally respectful but casual). She’s not seen addressing her father directly within the course of 02. The Character Complete File supplies “okaa-san” and “otou-san” (overall respectful).

Siblings: Miyako isn’t seen addressing Mantarou directly during 02, and her only direct address to her sisters is in Armor Evolution to the Unknown, during which she calls them “onee-chan-tachi”, implying that she may call them “onee-chan” (respectful, endearing) individually.

Koushirou: Having looked up to him as a computer club senior (but not really having known him personally at the time) prior to the events of 02, Miyako starts off the series calling him “Izumi-senpai”. While she is depicted as briefly calling him “Koushirou-san” in 02 episode 33, most portrayals stick with “Izumi-senpai” (even Kizuna), and given that she calls the other Adventure seniors by given name honorific, the implication is that it really has stuck too much with her, given the way she looks up to him.

Mimi: After bonding with Mimi in 02 episode 6 and fantasizing about Mimi being a sister-like figure to her, Miyako starts calling her “Mimi-oneesama” (”older sister Mimi”). While she does carry this into 02 episode 14, this only crops up when Miyako is in a particularly cheerful or playful mood; when things get serious, she goes back to using “Mimi-san” as usual.

Daisuke: Unusually, she only calls him “Daisuke”, with no honorific like she does Takeru. The implication is that, with how they bounce off and bicker with each other, she considers him enough of a peer to just go straight for the name (especially since she’s averse to Daisuke calling her with an honorific in turn; see above).

Ken: Initially called him “Ken-kun” while gushing over him in 02 episode 8 (not knowing he was the Kaiser), basically fantasizing over the idea of being close to him. Once his true nature was revealed and the fight with the Kaiser ended, Miyako initially kept him at distance as “Ichijouji-kun” when contemplating her feelings on him, but immediately started going back to using “Ken-kun” after solidifying her intent to have him on the team in 02 episode 25, committing to it fully in 02 episode 30 after the incident that led to her slapping him. She is the first person on the 02 team to use given name for him; the implication is that she deliberately decided to start calling him this because of how much she wanted to reach out to him and consider him a friend, with no illusions of standoffishness, and the fact she made this kind of conscious change so early into knowing him is likely why she didn’t end up getting habituated into surname basis like Takeru and Iori seem to have.

Iori: Miyako never uses an honorific for him, simply calling him “Iori”; the implication is that this is from her background of having known him as a neighbor and friend prior to the events of 02.

Other notes: Hawkmon uses “watashi”, which is in line with his very formal and polite attitude. He also perpetually uses polite-form Japanese, and is one of the few Digimon to use honorifics, adding “-san” to everyone’s names.

Iori

First-person pronoun: boku (polite)

General honorifics pattern: Consistently “-san” for everyone older than him (”Koushirou-san”, “Daisuke-san”), occasionally “-senpai” if the circumstance is right (very rarely). Since he’s the youngest of this group, we don’t get to see much about how he would address younger people, but it’s likely “-kun” would be in play to at least some degree. In general, he’s extremely adherent to societal propriety.

Family: Generally respectful okaa-san and otou-san in reference to his parents. His grandfather is “ojii-sama”, getting an elevated honorific due to his extra tier of formal respect from Iori.

Ken: Iori calls him “Ichijouji-san”; by the time he fully warms up to Ken (which takes him the longest of any of the 02 kids), he still calls him this, all the way up to the Kizuna drama CD. Presumably, it also got habituated.

Other notes: Like Koushirou, Iori speaks to everyone formally and politely with the -masu/-desu forms, but in Iori’s case, it’s implied to be part of his strict and formal upbringing, and something he consciously has to hold himself to -- unlike Koushirou, who had to actively force himself to try and speak casually, Iori speaks casually on-and-off with the Digimon, and actually has multiple moments of slipping into casual speech whenever he loses control of his emotions or gets sufficiently angry. Because of this, it’s hard to tell if he’d continue to speak formally with younger people, although Kizuna depicts him as at least speaking that way with his peers in school. Armadimon uses the assertive ore and speaks in Nagoya dialect, giving him an image of a very rough-around-the-edges but laid-back type.

#digimon #digimon adventure #digimon adventure 02 #digimon adventure last evolution kizuna #shihameta

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scoundrels-in-love · 3 years

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Let me preface this by saying that I love Run On. It became one of my new top three favorite dramas early on and never wavered from the position. It still hasn’t. I’ve written ten thousand or more words of meta for it. And I will continue to do so.

But... I also wish I didn’t have to?

Here’s the thing: it’s awesome when show (story in general) has layers and subtlety to it, when it can be watched more casually and at the same time it runs deep when you look at it in focus softly weaving threads of narrative that shimmer and glow in more colors as you observe. When there are Easter egg details and references that make watcher feel good when they catch them, like the writer is patting their shoulder and saying “ah, you caught it. Well done.”

And Run On definitely has all of this!

Except it sometimes overdoes the subtlety.

For a show that can be praised again and again for establishing characters deeply and strongly with one scene, giving them depth and sense of being lived, saying a lot without saying much at all... Sometimes it really didn’t say much at all, creating this need for community to come together and write meta after meta to explore the nuance and depth. This was show about communication and translating ourselves to others and them to us, among other things. Intentionally or not, it’s a show that ended up needing translators to be truly felt and experienced by the viewers. And I don’t mean the subtitles. (Although those, too, were improved by community.)

I started writing meta because I loved the show and I wanted to understand the character choices that initially made me go ‘huh’ and best way to organize my thoughts is writing them out, often. I started writing meta because it was 8 episodes and people still couldn’t understand the female leads because their hurts and traumas were implied in these disconnected ways from current actions and I wanted to defend them, once I had understood fully.

For a story so impactful with the little things, a lot of the big things were shown to us through the veil. We catch guns blazing on screen as Mi Joo sobs and finds comfort in this dimmed solitude. Blink and you will miss it, although it’s the starting moment of one of most central conversation points in the show. And that’s episode 15! Same with the envelope. We never learn how Dan Ah’s mother passed or why Seun Gyeom lived separate from his family in his youth which left a formatting mark on them both, obviously. And all of it makes me spin countless imaginary scenarios and write endless meta while I will actually never know if that’s what writer intended or I am over-reaching and creating context - or wrong context - where it wasn’t given (like that).

I understand that we met these characters in middle of their lives and when we meet someone, we don’t get to relive their past along with them, especially from the get go. We can never really be privy to what they’ve lived through, as much or as little they tell us. I understand that the show clearly told us - we will never completely understand each other, because we’re not the same person, but the places where we meet can be beautiful and filled with love if we work towards it.

I do.

I also accept that I will probably never really understand by Seun Gyeom softly insists on continuing to speak formally with Mi Joo, although he dropped it with Woo Sik. Even the things I don’t understand like all the fathers being given some kind of absolution because they’re dying or just because time has passed and he hasn’t been shown putting in any effort, I can accept. Most of these make sense within the premise, the themes that the story itself established.

And still, I feel a little like a show that could be so candid and so well told, the choice to go ambiguous on things that it clearly wanted the watchers to understand and notice, for a show that was so well told to need a band of people ‘translating’ its main characters to watchers so that they could understand and connect to them better and truly fall for the story and its beauty... It leaves some kind of feeling in me. A kind of bittersweet after taste, maybe, with how I feel there is so much to dig in this story and yet it will be lost on a lot of people because the show didn’t take just one or two more steps toward its watchers. With how people are upset and believe this or that about the show’s ending and I can’t even tell if writers actually intended it to be as ambiguous as it turned out to look to some people, regarding Dan Ah and Yeong Hwa.

I actually would like to make addendum on my point about us not being privy to character’s lives - the show itself does break this rule, showing us few, rare flashbacks and I’ve never felt like drama could’ve benefited of a few more of those than with Run On. We remember what happened last episode or 40 minutes earlier in the show. We, however, do not remember what made this character the way they are - because you aren’t telling us clearly, only alluding. Through layers and layers that aren’t even always direct and true, but a diversion instead.

I just don’t think a show needs to the sort of thing that blooms and flourishes fully only in this exclusive situation where everyone is pitching together and unraveling it layer by layer. What of watchers three years down the lane that will not find all these amazing metas written as it aired? That will drop it by ep 8 because they will think Mi Joo getting upset at Seun Gyeom is unfair and no one will give a different perspective?

Maybe that’s the thing. I love it so much I wish it could be loved a bit more easily, that it had opened to all of us just one smile more so everyone could fall in love with it the way I - we - did.

#run on #jtbc run on #kdrama #rainy watches kdrama #My head Really hurts and I think I will regret this as soon as post it #but whatever #the last paragraph itself is 'if you get it you get it thing' like the whole show in some aspects and maybe it didnt have to be

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spaceorphanssecondbreakfastclub · 3 years

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SO’s US Book Tour: Alaska

The Snow Child

By Eowyn Ivey

Next stop is Alaska - one of the six states I have yet to visit. One of the things I wanted to accomplish in doing this US Tour Challenge was to pick books that really give you a sense for the state I’m reading about. And Snow Child really gives you a sense of the open mysterious, tinged with sad wilderness that is Alaska. Written by an Alaskan native - the book is at its best when it’s describing its location. Ivey has a real knack for making you feel as if you are there - out in the expansive wilderness that is Alaska, and that feeling of being fully pulled into the atmosphere of the story is something that I did enjoy out of the story.

See - the thing I’m learning, especially dipping my toes out of works and genres that I naturally gravitate to, is that I understand when a book is objectively good even if it isn’t something I necessarily enjoy. This book, and it’s magical realistic story and setting, is one of those books. I can’t say that I liked this book. But I can say that it is very well written and if you are into magical realism, and a beautiful, descriptive work that marries nicely a real and gritty world with elements of fantasy - then you probably will like this one.

The story revolves around a middle-aged couple (the book calls them older, but they’re only in their early-50s, and to me that is not yet old) who moves to Alaska in the 1920s for the adventure and challenge of it all. Only they’re bogged down by the reality of their new life, and the grief of having lost a child sometime in the past. I did like Jack and Mabel as characters. The novel takes its time breathing life into them as characters. They are as real and fleshed out as the wilderness imagery Ivey painstakingly creates. And their character arcs - pulling themselves out of the grief they hold, learning to come back to one another, and learning how to really accept living in this new world is really where the novel excels. While I’m not overly fond of overly descriptive writing (and I’m still not after reading this), I do think Ivey paints us a beautiful and convincing story for these two.

The magical realism aspect of the novel comes in its relation to an old Russian fairy tale - where an older couple makes a young girl out of snow and she comes to life. After one snowy evening, Jack and Mabel do make that snow child - and they find a young girl running around the woods, and eventually invite her indoors. And here’s where the novel and I start to really begin to part ways. The young girl is named Faina - and it’s intentionally ambiguous whether or not she’s real or imaginary. In some ways she’s very much a child who grew up in the wilderness -- nods to her past life and past family are found. In other ways she’s very much a fantasy -- the fact that no one else ever sees her and the fact that she goes away in the summer to chase the cold.

While I don’t mind the ambiguity of her as a character -- my problem comes from the fact that the novel (to me) seems more interesting when she’s not around. I understand that she’s there to help Jack and Mabel reconnect, and make peace with their grief. And I understand she represents the wild and burly wilderness of Alaska. And that is fine. But the more real she gets, especially in the last third of the novel, she seems less like a fairy tale wonder and more like a manic pixie dream child.

There aren’t that many other characters in the book, but I do think the ones that are there work well for the story being told. Jack and Mabel have a neighboring couple whom they befriend - the wife, Esther, being possibly my favorite character in the book. She’s easily the most cheery, though bold and daring, especially for a woman in the 1920s, and works well being a contrast to Mabel - who is more reserved and slightly more cynical. The neighbors also have a son named Garrett, who also becomes important to the second half of the story. He’s fine and works for what the story needs him to do.

I also found the book sluggish to get through. Don’t get me wrong - I wouldn’t call it padded. Nor do I think it's a particularly difficult book to read technically. I think Ivey is relying on her abilities of description to fully color the world around her and does so to great effect. I just struggle with these kinds of books - because my taste veers to something more fast paced in its plotting. That said - I do wonder if a good hundred pages could have been cut out of this book to make it move on just a little faster.

I also took issue with the last hundred pages or so of the book. It became clear that Ivey was seeking out a certain type of bittersweet ending, and while most of the book took its time with the world building and character growing - the last portion felt, actually, as though it was a little bit in a rush to just get to a specific ending. I also wasn’t particularly thrilled with the ending - partly because I feel that Faina still seems ill-defined compared to all the rest of the characters, and partly because trying to merge the reality and fantasy isn’t such an easy feat - but I respect the author’s choice to get the novel to its ultimate ending point.

Ultimately, would I recommend this book? It depends on if you’re the type of person who enjoys deep character studies and lush descriptions - then I think you'll really enjoy it. If you’re someone (more like me) who wants a little more plot to their novels then maybe not. I think there are elements of the novel that are definitely worth talking about (and at times - I did feel like I was reading a book waiting to be discussed in a sophomore college literature course), but I can’t say that I had a lot of fun reading it.

#so's us book tour #novels set in alaska #the snow child

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loverspersonas · 3 years

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the most beautiful moment in life | part vii

pairing: ot7? x reader

genre: hyyh au, high school au, angst, drama, fluff, smut?

length: 5k

summary: Eight strangers with different stories happen to meet one day, by fate or some kind of cruel, exquisite happenstance, and realize that they’re not as different as they thought.

↳series masterlist

“So it was under this character?”

“Yes,” you answered.

“And it was in English?”

“Yes,” Seokjin said.

“Spelt exactly like this?”

“Yes, Taehyung, okay?” you exclaimed, exasperated. “We covered this already. We were under the bridge by the river and we saw it on the graffiti wall.”

The next day at school, the eight of you met in the library after you and Seokjin had called in a meeting. The way you spoke about it made it sound like you were some sort of breakfast club. You had met in detention, after all. Maybe you could even form a band like they did in the movies.

Taehyung gave a noncommittal shrug. “Just making sure we don’t miss anything.”

“In case you’ve forgotten,” the librarian appeared in front of your table, shooting a scalding look between all of you. “This is a library, and we don’t tolerate noise here.”

“Would you look at that,” Yoongi said dryly without looking at her. “Must’ve slipped our mind.”

He didn’t bother hiding any irritation in his voice, so the librarian opened her mouth to retort until Namjoon started with a polite smile, “We’re sorry. We’ll keep it down.”

That seemed to be reassuring enough for her, because she walked away. Leave it to Namjoon to pacify any of the teachers.

“Isn’t it kind of weird that we didn’t notice it before?” Jimin asked in a lower voice.

“We were a little distracted,” Namjoon said. “And it was dark.”

“What if it wasn’t there before?” Hoseok asked.

Jungkook frowned. “Meaning what? Someone wrote it afterwards?”

Yoongi rolled his eyes. “No, it magically appeared there overnight, Jungkook. Yes, someone put it there.”

There was something you didn’t like about his tone. Something about his mood had been off all morning. He could’ve been sarcastic to anyone else, but to you, Jungkook was a little different. You felt almost defensive about him. “You know, that attitude isn’t very helpful,” you spoke pointedly.

Yoongi’s expression was as dry as sand as he looked at you. ”Sorry, did I hurt your feelings, princess?”

It was clear since your first conversation that the two of you would have a kind of relationship where teasing and picking at each other would become a norm. But you hadn’t realized before that he would have these major mood swings. You glanced at him in slight disbelief. “I told you not to call me that.”

“And I told you I don’t care—“

“Guys, really?” Namjoon said, looking between you. “Can we get through a conversation without you two biting each other’s heads off?”

“If one of us stops acting like an ass,” you muttered under your breath.

“Or if one of us stops being such an entitled princess,” Yoongi retorted, apparently having heard your comment.

“Yoongi,” Hoseok said, his eyes holding something like a warning.

The older boy let out a sigh and grumbled, “Fine.”

“Back to the main point,” Jimin spoke slowly, like he was making sure you and Yoongi were finished. “Smeraldo. We’re assuming it’s an artist. But none of us have ever heard of him?”

“Or her,” you corrected.

He nodded at you. “Right. Or her.”

“It could be a small artist,” Taehyung said. He was rolling a coin around the table, not so concerned about the noise it was making. “You know, like a local thing. They don’t have much of an online presence normally.”

“Explains why I couldn’t find anything on google,” Namjoon added.

“Then how do we find them?” Jungkook asked.

“The old fashioned way. Look through books, magazines, shops or galleries. Maybe even more graffiti locations.”

Taehyung gave a small sigh. “I forgot how difficult life was before the internet.”

You shot him an amused glance, to which he gave you a sarcastic boxy smile. “Ever the dramatic, Tae.”

“How did the painting end up here?” Seokjin asked. “At Sky Academy of all places.”

There was a small gap as most of you pondered over it. Then Hoseok asked, “As in, what if somehow the academy is connected to the artist?”

“Maybe.”

You gazed around the table for a bit, watching your own expression being mirrored. Seokjin had a good point. What if Smeraldo was associated with the academy? It could make sense since all kinds of people and places endorsed the brand that was Sky. Did that mean that it was just a coincidence you had come across that painting? Or had it been left there intentionally?

You broke out of your thoughts as Yoongi shifted in his chair, grabbing his things as he got up. “Well, you guys have fun with your little research project.”

“Where are you going?” Jimin asked.

“History.” His eyes flicked in your direction. “Which I currently have a 90 average on, to all those who doubted me.”

You held back a scoff, shooting him a fake smile. “Who did you have to pay to change your grade?”

He looked like he wanted to make a retort equally snarky, but settled with mimicking your fake smile, though his was much colder.

Taehyung watched him leave before looking back at the rest of you. “I can really feel the love here.”

It had been a while since you last found yourself on the rooftop of the academy’s main building. Students weren’t typically allowed access to it, except for the gardening club who had done a very nice job of decorating the place with green and shades of purples and pinks and yellows. You loved breathing in the air from up here, where the floral scent fused with the breeze. It was also quiet, and so ideal for when you wanted to think or be on your own.

Which seemed to be often these days.

“Hey.”

The voice startled you a little, but your shoulders sunk in relief when it was just Jungkook walking towards you.

“How’d you know where to find me?” you asked.

“I saw you leave,” he said, sitting down next to the ledge you were occupying. “Not very stealthily, might I add.”

You were downstairs with him and a few of the others and were about to go to the cafeteria for lunch, when you found yourself abruptly wanting to come up here instead. You rolled your eyes slightly. “I’ll work on it. We seem to have thing for rooftops, huh.”

He looked around the vast space, at the plants and the glass ceiling cover with a newfound amazement. “I didn’t know we could come up here.”

You couldn’t help but find his innocent fascination a little amusing, but refreshing too. “Me either. Not until last year when Min-hyuk—“ Now, you remembered why you’d also been avoiding the roof. “We stumbled upon it trying to outrun the football team.”

Jungkook noticed the break in your sentence and your mood, but didn’t comment on it. “They’re that bad, huh?” he joked.

“You have no idea.” You glanced sideways at him. “Say… how come you’re not on any sports team? You look like you could be a jock.”

And you meant it, especially in this lighting that was doing wonders for his side profile. If he wasn’t such an introvert and recluse, he could very well fit in with the sports crowds. You don’t think you noticed it before, but Jungkook was handsome. Soft, shiny hair, a sharp nose and jawline. Not to mention, he was well on his way to being built like an athlete.

He snorted. “I thought jocks were obnoxious and dumb.”

Your mouth formed into somewhat teasing smile. “But you’d be a nice jock.”

“An oxymoron,” he said, returning it with a laugh. He cleared his throat a little as the laugh died down. “Min-hyuk was nice, wasn’t he?”

Your demeanour lost every trace of amusement. “Everyone’s nice at first. Not everyone stays nice.”

“You did.”

At first, you didn’t say anything, didn’t know what to say. Sometimes you realized it was harder to talk about yourself, especially personal things like insecurities. Was that what Min-hyuk had meant in that one argument when he’d called you unattached and indifferent?

“Can I ask you something?” you started. “When you were on the roof that night, if I hadn’t been there... what would you have done?”

He turned away from you, staring into space as he thought about it. “I don’t know. I feel like if it had been any other day, it would’ve been different. But that was the day we all met. When we found that first painting. It doesn’t make sense, but something kept telling me to hold on a little longer. And then you showed up and it was almost like a sign.”

“I have been called many things,” you mused. Somewhere underneath, maybe you were even amused or flattered. “A sign is not one of them.”

“It’s hard to explain,” he ended up saying.

“Most things are.”

You weren’t going to push him to talk about that night anymore. It was his lowest and darkest point. But you were glad he’d found something to cling to, whether it had been the words transpired between you two on the other roof, or the ambiguous hwa yang yeon hwa. That sliver of hope was like a raft in the middle of the worst kind of ocean. Staying afloat in the storm that was your mind was a struggle you knew all too well.

“Yeah.” His voice trailed off for a bit, like he was gathering courage to ask his next question. You could feel him watching you, as though expectantly. “Were you expecting someone else to come up here?”

“No.” As you turned your had to look his way, you bit back a smile, happy that nothing about it felt forced. “But I’m glad it was you.”

Slowly, his mouth curved into a similar smile, and you think you would’ve just stayed that way if you didn’t turn back to the skyline.

Jungkook released a wistful sigh. “The sky’s really nice from up here. No wonder the garden club doesn’t want to share.”

You laughed. “Right?”

“I hate this,” Jimin said for what you were almost certain was the 500th time.

“The hospital?” You left the elevator of the said memorial hospital first, stopping when you realized the boy wasn’t walking with you. “You’ve said that already.”

He only began walking down the hallway after he noticed the expectant look you were shooting him. “No, the paint on these walls. What is that, eggshell white? It’s atrocious.”

“Okay, first, I really liked your usage of atrocious. And second, relax a little, Jimin.” The tension set in his shoulders was obvious not just to you but the staff and visitors passing by. Granted, hospitals had that sort of effect, but he didn’t need to be this anxious before he even stepped foot in the doctor’s office. “This place doesn’t hate you as much as you hate it.”

He scoffed. The sleeves of his sweatshirt were long enough for him to keep pulling and tugging at. “That’s hard to believe. If the building was alive, I’m sure it would spit me out instantly. I’m like that piece of cardamom you accidentally bite on.”

“You don’t like cardamom?”

“It’s possibly the only thing more atrocious than this paint. How can you like it?”

After the sharpness in his voice and the brief silence that followed, you asked, “How’re you feeling now?”

He wouldn’t look your way, but the blush staining his cheeks was obvious. With his shoulder, he gave you a light push before speeding up. “Shut up.”

“Hey, it worked, didn’t it?” You let out a small laugh, picking up your pace to match his. If only you were blessed with legs as long as his. “I got you to loosen up a little.”

“I guess,” he mumbled. You let him speak to the receptionist on the floor as you lingered by the side, walking back and forth with your hands in your pockets. He returned to your side a few minutes later, and somehow the anxiety was now practically radiating off of him.

“So, have you always come here alone?” you decided to speak to get his nerves down.

“My parents used to come with me,” Jimin answered. “Then they got busy and… well, I didn’t feel like their presence was helping anyway.”

You raised a brow. “And mine does?”

He pursed his lips together, finally looking at you. You noticed then that he wasn’t much taller than you. Sure, you usually wore boots with platform heels, but out of all the boys, he might’ve been closest in height to you. “I’m not sure yet. I just know that when I ran into you last time… it didn’t feel so horrible to be here.”

“Park Jimin?” A nurse with a clipboard was looking around the waiting area.

Jimin released a breath before stepping forward. “That’s me.”

She nodded at him. “The doctor will see you now.”

As soon as she left, you noticed that Jimin was hesitating to follow her. You came forward to stand beside him, and touched his arm lightly. It seemed to bring him out of some kind of trance. When his gaze found yours, you tried for something like an encouraging smile. “I’ll wait out here.”

Finally, he managed to nod, slowly walking in the direction the nurse had gone in.

While you waited, you found yourself roaming the floor in your boredom. No one paid you any attention, so you didn’t think it was a problem. As you were walking, eyes moving with the patterns on the floors, there was something like an itch in the back of your mind. Like something in your memory being tugged forward.

That was when the floor, the walls, the rooms and posters you passed, all became a familiar sight. Too familiar for someone who tried to avoid the hospital in general. You swore you could even hear someone saying your name. Until you realized that someone was actually saying your name now.

There was a woman in a white coat and a long black ponytail offering you a friendly smile. “Y/N. I thought I recognized you.”

You took a moment to gather your thoughts from inside your head to acknowledge her appearance. “Dr. Kim.”

“It’s been quite a while.” Her brow furrowed. “While it is good to see you, I hoped you didn’t need to come back here.”

“I’m not here for me,” you said quickly. “I’m here for a friend. As moral support.”

“Of course.” As she stepped closer, her voice lowered a little. "Can I ask though… how are you doing? The migraines haven’t come back? If your prescription’s out, I can get you—“

“No, it’s fine,” you interrupted, hoping she understood that you didn’t want to talk about that. “I’m—I’m fine for now.”

She looked at you before sighing sympathetically. “I know you refused to see the psychologist I recommended, but I do hope you’ve been talking to someone.”

With a careless shrug, you said, “My guidance counsellor is trying, for sure.”

The way she was looking at you made it seem like she was debating whether or not to continue. “After the night they brought you in, when I actually had the chance to speak with you…” Her mouth turned into a contemplative frown. “I could just tell there was something more. I’d hoped therapy would help.”

Now, it was your turn to frown. The discomfort was like an itch on your skin, but you tried to ignore it, forcing a confused smile instead. “Help with what? I’m fine, Dr. Kim. It was just a little scratch.”

“Some wounds run deeper than you think,” she said quietly, her eyes fixed on yours until she tore them away, and her face regained some lightheartedness. “Have you visited that boy recently?”

At first, the abrupt change in topic took you aback. Then you shot her a puzzled look. “Boy?”

“I know you didn’t want anyone to know it was you leaving flowers in his room, but his family really appreciated it—“

“Y/N.” Jimin reemerged by your side, his gaze then landing on the older woman he too recognized. “Dr. Kim. I didn’t realize you two knew each other.”

Dr Kim smiled at him. “I presume that you’re the friend who needed moral support.”

He laughed, only with a tinge of uneasiness as his hand moved to the back of his neck. “That would be correct.”

“Well, I’m glad.” She looked from him to you, eyes fixating on yours with something you didn’t fully understand, or didn’t fully want to understand. “I hope you can do the same for each other.”

Jimin waited until she was out of sight before turning to you. “What did she mean by that? How do you know her?”

“She was my old family doctor,” you lied. “How did it go?”

“Oh,” he said, as though remembering why he was even there. "Better than I thought it would. It was just a checkup.”

You started to nod and then your eyes caught a glimpse of the paper he was trying to tuck into his pocket. The kind of paper you were quite used to seeing yourself. “You got a prescription. Jimin… you’re not—“

“It’s nothing serious, Y/N,” he said, lips tugging into a little smile. “Just something for my throat.”

He did that a lot, you realized. Answering with a charming smile to distract the person from the actual answer. You wouldn’t press on, even though you wanted to. A part of your mind was still stuck on some of Dr Kim’s words.

“Come on,” Jimin said, tugging your arm forward. “They’re still serving bagels.”

When you reached home, the lights were on and your mother was sitting on the sofa in the living room. And you would’ve been at least a little surprised, but you were a little distracted.

“Where have you been?” she demanded, getting to her feet. “You didn’t answer your phone.”

“My phone was dying,” you replied distantly as you removed your shoes and jacket. “I didn’t see.”

She released a sigh. “Look, you can be mad all you want, but at least text me where you are or that you’re okay.”

You finally stopped and glanced at her briefly. “I was at the hospital.”

Suddenly, your mother’s voice dropped. You couldn’t read her face, but she swallowed almost nervously. “Oh. Is everything okay?”

“A friend didn’t want to go alone.”

Her eyes widened. “Your prescription. I completely forgot.”

“It’s fine. I got it already.”

She stood there like she still wanted to say something else, but wasn’t sure how. “But is everything okay… with you?”

“I saw Dr. Kim,” you decided to say. Maybe because you wanted to make sense of what she’d said, and because there was a chance, your mother might know something. She’d been there that night in the ER with you. “She said something, and it was kind of strange…” You shook your head. “You know what, it’s probably nothing.”

You turned to leave when your mother spoke again. “I know that I haven’t talked about the night they brought you there.” You opened your mouth to tell her you didn’t want this conversation again, but she raised her hand to stop you. “It’s not that I don’t care, I just—I thought it was better that way for you. I wanted you to move on with your life.”

For the longest time, that was what you wanted too. And for a longer time, you’d really just wanted to hear from her. You tried for a smile that didn’t quite reach your eyes. “I’m starting to think that you can’t really move forward without looking back first. I’m tired. I think I’ll head to bed now.”

“Y/N.” You turned halfway, waiting for what else your mother had to say. She hesitated, unfolding her arms from her chest, and finally met your gaze. “I didn’t mean what I said the other day.”

You found that your voice wasn’t working in that moment. And maybe that was because you didn’t know what to say to her. So, you glanced at her another time before heading to your room.

The last thing you wanted that night was to leave the apartment to find yourself at a park near the Academy. What you wanted was a nice bath, to watch an episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine, maybe even a bowl of ramen. But the universe didn’t want those things for you, because as soon as you were getting ready for bed, your phone lit up with a text. And normally, you would’ve just ignored it, but you knew it would stay in the back of your mind like an itch you couldn’t get rid of.

Thankfully, it wasn’t too late that buses had stopped running, and that your mother had already retired to her room. You found yourself at the park about a half hour later, and a familiar figure by the swings.

“If you were anyone else, I would think you brought me out here to murder me.”

Yoongi turned his head at your voice. Although, it wasn’t too chilly that night, he was wearing a wool beanie. “Why do you assume I didn’t?”

You gave a small hum. “You don’t give off murderer vibes. You’re more… gothic, underground rapper.”

His hands were in the pockets of his jacket, expression maybe just slightly amused though the streetlights weren’t bright enough to be sure. “How long did you take to come up with that?”

You might’ve retorted if it was another time, but it was late and a part of you didn’t want to agree to his message, asking you if you meet, but another part did want to despite any better judgement you might’ve had. “I don’t have a lot time before my mother notices I’m not in my room. And if you don’t kill me now, she most definitely will.”

“I doubt that.”

“Well,” you said with a shrug. “You can’t always be a princess.”

He paused for a second. “I was being an ass earlier.”

Good, you thought. He caught on to your jab at him. “When? I didn’t notice.”

There was a noise of disbelief as his hands fell at his side. “You know what? Forget it.”

“Wait,” you found yourself saying. Maybe it wasn’t so tactful to respond with sarcasm when someone was trying to be serious. At least, not all the time. “You wanted to apologize, I shouldn’t have said that.”

“Who said anything about apologizing?”

You raised a brow. “So, you dragged me all the way out here this late at night because you didn’t want to apologize?”

He gave a half frustrated sigh. “I wasn’t trying to sound like a jerk. Sometimes I’m thinking about something else and it just… happens without me even realizing it.”

You started to nod in understanding. “You project.”

He frowned. “What?”

“You project your feelings on to other people. Even when they’re not who the feelings are directed at.” You shrugged at his surprised expression. “That’s what you were doing earlier, wasn’t it?”

“I wasn’t mad at any of you,” he said finally, sighing to himself. He brushed some of the hair out his eyes. “There’s just—other things I’m dealing with right now.”

You wanted to feel for him, and deep down, you probably did. But you didn’t want to let people off for being cruel just because they thought they were allowed to. You didn’t want to do that anymore. “That’s not an excuse to be mean.”

“I know.” At least, he had the decency to sound like he meant it. He didn’t meet your eyes as he went on, instead glancing at his feet. “Sorry about what I said to you.”

Suddenly, Yoongi wasn’t the only one who felt awkward with apologies. You forced something in between a scoff and a laugh. “Please, it’s not like you hurt my feelings or something.”

“I didn’t think so. But you probably wanted to hear it, didn’t you?” He narrowed his eyes, smirking a little as he saw your expression. “Don’t even deny it.”

You rolled your eyes, folding your arms over your chest. “Yes, Yoongi. Thank you for stroking my ego with a half decent apology.”

His expression actually became slightly incredulous and offended. “Half decent? I had to ask Namjoon how to do it.”

Raising your eyebrows partly from surprise and partly because that was the first time you’d heard of anyone asking for instructions on how to apologize, you said, “So, you’ve already practiced this before, possibly more than once, and yet you’re still this unrehearsed?”

“Okay, fuck off,” he scoffed. When you started to laugh, you were sure he was actually going to punch you. “I’m not good at talking to people. Sue me.”

“Well, I can’t for that,” you said with a shrug, the laughs gone but a smile still lingering. You grabbed on to one of the swings, settling into it. “It would be too hypocritical.”

“What, you?” Yoongi said with skepticism. He followed your actions, taking the empty swing beside you. “Please, you're Sky’s favourite girl. You don’t even have to try, and people will fall at your feet.”

It was funny how easily moods could go from amused to sour. “Everyone keeps saying that,” you said under your breath.

“What?”

“It’s not like that.” Shaking your head, you tucked some loose hairs from your ponytail behind your ears. “Not anymore, at least. Everyone keeps imagining this past version of me, but present me is someone else, and I—I’m so confused which one I am or I’m supposed to be.”

It had to be something in the air, you told yourself, that was making you open up this. It had to be, because you didn’t randomly just burst out with your thoughts. Or maybe it was the fact that you’d already talked to Yoongi about serious things once. Because he seemed like someone who wouldn’t make fun of you or be condescending. He seemed like someone who could try and relate.

“Well, which one do you like more?” he asked after a second.

At first, the question took you by surprise, because no one had ever asked you anything like it. But you knew the answer without having to think. “Neither.”

“Why?”

Because they’re either fake or distorted beyond recognition. “I don’t know.”

The swing continued to move without you controlling it, and could feel his hooded gaze on you, both calculating and curious. “Why were you in the middle of the highway?”

“What?”

“The night we all met at the river. What were you doing?”

“I don’t have a death wish,” you said darkly as soon as you sensed the undertones in his voice. The same undertones everyone at Sky, including people who’d been your friends, had shown to you the previous year.

Yoongi didn’t argue with you. His swing wasn’t moving anymore, so he sat there patiently, hands still folded in his pockets. “Then what were you doing? And don’t say you don’t know.”

“I was thinking,” you answered finally.

His mouth quirked up slightly. “Only for you would something so normal actually become dangerous.”

The glance you cast at him was part affronted. “What does that mean?”

With a sigh, he shook his head. “It means don’t hate yourself because you think everyone around you does.”

You glanced at him a little surprised. “How straightforward.”

But it wasn’t quite exactly that. It wasn’t that you hated yourself in a pitying way, or that made you want sympathy from other people. It just felt like there was something like poison rooted in the back of your mind, the tiniest drop that was touching every other part of you. At least then you could tell yourself that there was a reason for everything bad that had come your way, even if it meant it was your own fault.

“But true. Not everyone hates you, Y/N.”

In the back of your mind, you realized it was one of the rare times he actually said your name. “You don’t?”

“I apologized to you, didn’t I?” he said as though it answered the question.

“But you never did? Not even before?”

He shrugged, as though the answer wasn’t as important to him as it was to you. “I didn’t know you enough to hate you. And neither does anyone else.”

You didn’t say anything at first, letting the creaking of the swings’ chains fill the empty space instead. “I thought you said you didn’t care. About any of this.”

He sighed, like you were a child who had too many questions that he didn’t want to deal with. “Back to this, are we?”

As you turned your head to look at him, you narrowed your eyes a little. “You know, you’re really good at diverting, too.”

While throwing a grin at you, he said, “Thanks, I’ve had a lot of practice.”

But you knew that him trying to divert from the topic wasn’t because it was a bore to him. You’d spent a lot of time pretending to care about things yourself. Somehow, you could tell the difference even now. “You do care,” you said again. “At least a little. Or you wouldn’t have been there at the river with the rest of us.” You wouldn’t have pushed me out of the way of that car.

“Believe what you want, princess,” Yoongi said with another eye roll.

This time, you chose to ignore the nickname, and instead, you grinned at him cheekily, pushing your swing further. “You know what? I’m going to get you to admit it.”

He scoffed lightheartedly, in a way that told you this was amusing to him, and looked at you still swinging. “Don’t hurt yourself trying.”

“Some day,” you emphasized. “You’re going to admit that you care. That Min Yoongi has a heart after all, and it’s so big and capable of— wait, where are you going?"

“To find somewhere this conversation won’t follow me.”

As he got up from the swing and started walking out of the sand box, you were watching him only with the faintest incredulous expression. “You’re hilarious.”

chapter vi // chapter viii (coming soon)

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vickyvicarious · 3 years

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Ace Attorney Daemons - Prosecutors

Animal species and reasoning behind each choice under the cut, as well as links to other groups of characters!

Miles Edgeworth - Great Pyrenees. I originally started looking at big white dogs because I wanted to see if something similar to Pess would be suitable, and I think I found one. This breed is big and fluffy, which frankly I think would be needed for Miles growing up with the von Karmas. But honestly, his daemon is intelligent and powerful. Generally calm, but capable of leaping into swift action. However, it is at the same time at heart a protector (of livestock, traditionally) more than a predator. I think his daemon settling in this form when he is a teen would be a great way to illustrate his true nature, underneath all the Demon Prosecutor stuff (I expect he and she would be at odds for a while). Additional details I like are that these guys do tend to be more reserved with strangers and can be somewhat stubborn, and also they do shed a fair bit. I just enjoy the image of Miles having to constantly brush his gigantic floofball of a daemon and lintroller all her fur off his suits. A final thing, which I didn’t really intentionally plan, is that all prosecutors have bird daemons except Godot, who used to be a defense attorney, and Miles. So he stands out a little bit there, which I think works well too - he would be all the more determined to prove himself as Bratworth once his daemon settled in a form atypical for the profession.

Franziska von Karma - Harpy eagle. I put Manfred in the villains list since there’s no space for more prosecutors here, but it just seemed fitting to me that von Karmas typically settle as eagles. They are sharp-eyed predators, generally solitary, and look incredibly fierce, just in general. As for the harpy eagle in particular - they are huge, first of all; their claws are the same length as brown bears’. They are among the largest eagles in the world, and sometimes considered the most powerful. This seems only right for Franziska. They mostly eat monkeys, but can go after pretty much anything as they are at the top of their food chain. They can fly nearly straight up and turn their head upside down, and wait nearly a full day to snatch their prey. Franziska too is maneuverable and ridiculously determined. The head-feathers you can see slightly lifted in the photo are pretty cool, too; they rise up into a distinctive crest when the eagle feels threatened, and it actually looks a bit derpy. Which reminds me somehow of Franziska’s scornful “fool” name-calling and how it can often get to the level of absurdity. They are monogamous and fiercely protective parents, which I think can be a nice match to how Franziska really isn’t so heartless after all. And another detail that fits really nicely with her initial rivalry for Miles is that harpy eagles usually lay two eggs, but typically only the first-hatched survives. The other is ignored or even killed by its older sibling.

Klavier Gavin - Superb lyrebird. Female lyrebirds don’t look nearly as impressive as the males, and they don’t do the dramatic dances either. But they are still incredible vocalists, able to imitate sounds from at least 19 other species. And their songs tend to be mostly used during foraging and defending their nest, as opposed to attracting a mate. Obviously Klavier needs a songbird for his daemon, but I think the female lyrebird specifically is great because of those details. Her less exciting (though still pretty) plumage might not match his outer image, but he is one of the best prosecutors of the series, dedicated to the truth from the very beginning. He’s a lot more serious than he might come across, and his daemon reflects that. The typical songs match up with that too; he loves music and his daemon does too, but it’s not what either of them care about most, and the subject of typical female lyrebird songs show that well. Similarly, though a bird like most prosecutors, his daemon is not a bird of prey. He’s never really been in it for ‘the hunt’, after all. One last reason I like the lyrebird for him is that, contrary to most daemons being quite around people they don’t know well, I suspect his daemon would be fairly vocal and probably sing with him in his band.

Simon Blackquill - Japanese mountain hawk-eagle. Before you ask, yes. Yes I did choose his daemon from birds who look most like Taka. I mean, of course. The wiki listed three, and I looked them all up and thought the mountain hawk-eagle appeared closest. As a bonus, it has a Japanese subspecies, which is fitting for samurai man here. They tend to be quiet most of the time, though they have a distinctive cry. This seems fitting for Simon, as he is generally not super talkative. They hunt their prey from a perch, going after small mammals on the ground or other birds, so the perching on his shoulder all the time doesn’t have to change either. Another fitting detail is that females are extremely defensive of their nests and young, apparently willing to fight to death to protect them instead of getting scared away. They also watch and feed their young for a while after they could be self-sufficient. This fits so well with Simon’s willingness to be put to death to protect Athena, obviously.

Godot/Diego Armando - Asian palm civet. I took a slightly different approach for his daemon, and just googled animals that eat coffee. But I’ll get to that in a minute. First, they are nocturnal, solitary, and can just be hard to locate. This fits well with Godot’s whole ambiguous/mysterious thing he’s got going. They’re good climbers and quite nimble/speedy but still vulnerable to predators. Fitting, I think, since he was caught both as Diego and Godot. He tends to be clever to a point but then make a fatal mistake. They also are pretty adaptable, getting used to urban life quickly, which can relate to him adjusting easily to becoming a prosecutor. However, I would be lying if I said the main reason I like this daemon for him wasn’t because they eat coffee. More than just that, the coffee cherries (of which they are said to select only the best) get fermented in their guts, and when they’ve been pooped out, are used to make a very expensive coffee called “kopi luwak.” Now, granted, when I looked this up it seems that the result doesn’t taste especially good and is pretty much just famous as a novelty thing, but I think Godot’s daemon would enjoy coffee just as much as him, and I find the fact that he could, um, prepare his own if he wanted, hilarious.

Detectives, Feys, Misc. Lawyers, Villains, Witnesses, Wright Anything Agency

#ace attorney #miles edgeworth #franziska von karma #klavier gavin #simon blackquill #godot #daemons #aa daemons

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unintentionalgenius · 3 years

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ok @ongreenergrasses tagged me to do this and that's how I know we're made for each other bc tagging me in things is my love language

1. How many works do you have on AO3? 20, but 13 of those shouldn't count because they're Sherlock and I am not that person anymore

2. What’s your total AO3 word count? ok I had hopes that there was some way to do this besides doing, you know, math. but. it's 169,674

3. What are your top 5 fics by kudos? shockingly, #1 is Death and John Watson; or, Five Times John Watson Met Death and the One Time He Died at 615 kudos. If you'd asked me what was going to top this list I never in a million years would have said this one. I might have to re-read this now.

What I would have said actually comes in at #2, the (almost complete, dear g-d I'm so close) Come then, and be broken at 376 kudos.

#3 my beloved, my eldest daughter of a fic, Put Away Childish Things at 223.

#4 is astoundingly another Sherlock fic, this one creatively titled Five Times John Woke Up to Sherlock and One Time He Didn't (it's not bullying if it's past me I'm making fun of, right?).

#5 is a tie, with 60 kudos each, but they're part of the same series: A Great Man and Something Like Beginning, from my Sherlock kidfic (and incidentally how i met Hayls in the first place!).

I'm really committed to preserving my ~journey~ as a writer, but the outsized prevalence of Sherlock fic on my profile is making me question that decision. I feel like it's false advertising for who I am as a person now. 😅

4. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? I try to! It might not be in a timely fashion, and honestly sometimes I feel weird about it, but I do go through and answer a few at a time when I have a few minutes.

5. What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending? I refuse to re-read the Sherlock fic just to confirm, but I think Childish Things wins by a landslide anyway. Fic where John or Sherlock died was a dime a dozen back in the day whereas "[a genderswapped] stiles helps peter kill her best friend" is still a very particular, unique twist of the knife.

6. What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending? this is probably going to be that Sherlock kidfic verse!

7. Do you write crossovers? If so what’s the craziest one you’ve written? I absolutely do not write crossovers. No offense to anyone who does, but I simply do not understand the appeal.

8. Have you ever received hate on a fic? It was less about the fic and more about the fact that I pointed out 911 has some copaganda elements via a fic's tags, but yes.

9. Do you write smut? If so what kind? I now, as of literally the most recent chapter of the most recent work I posted, have to admit that I do technically write smut. It's super cerebral, feely smut, but you do read two people having sex, so like. guilty.

10. Have you ever had a fic stolen? I don't think I have written any fics worth stealing but if it's happened I don't know about it

11. Have you ever had a fic translated? nope!

12. Have you ever co-written a fic before? nope! I have co-written things in Real Life and I honestly don't think I have anyone that I would want to write fic with like that. HOWEVER I do have a beloved sounding board in @ragequilt

13. What’s your all time favorite ship? i literally cannot answer this, there is no way I can say decisively

14. What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will? I had this fic from when the first of the new star wars movies came out where everyone thinks poe is dead, so finn has to become a person on his own, essentially, rather than being taught/hand-held by poe which I felt like I was seeing a lot in fic. The whole thing was epistolary, a diary that finn's therapist had him start keeping, which he then started writing to Poe. That's pretty firmly abandoned at this point, but it still haunts me and I wish I had finished it.

15. What are your writing strengths? Hayls once told me I'm really good at dialogue, and I actually think that's true. I'm also pretty good at atmosphere, I think, though no one has ever said exactly that. I do think I'm good at characterization, and that for me is really tied to how I do dialogue. I would honestly accept any commentary anyone wants to offer on the subject, though

16. What are your writing weaknesses? PLOT. not like, emotional arcs or a character's journey or whatever but. the ticky little nuts and bolts of how we get from a to z, especially when it requires a tight plot of external action. I always think about myself as (to quote @ragequilt here) someone who writes hurt/comfort, not casefic, and this is why. I'm rarely interested in writing the finer details of a mystery or an extravagant plot full of courtly intrigue. I'm probably bad at other things, too, but this is the one that stands out like a glaring neon sign to me.

17. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic? I think in almost every case it's not necessary UNLESS it's being done for effect - that is, if I intentionally want the reader not to know what's said. Otherwise, I'm just going to put the switch to french/spanish/hebrew/arabic/mandarin in the narration. One exception to this for me, which is really just a sub-clause under the "only for effect" rule, is when I'm writing canonically bilingual characters who would employ words or phrases in both their languages in the same sentence. Some of this is characterization - Eddie Diaz speaks Spanish or Spanglish around his family; someone writing me wouldn't be writing me properly if they didn't write the Hebrew/Yiddish/English patois that I speak in Jewish spaces. I don't want my writing to read like the over-translated subtitles you sometimes see where loan words are translated, thereby rendering the subtitles actually less intelligible. It's a delicate balance and I wouldn't guarantee I get it write all the time, especially when it comes to not othering a character I'm writing. (also @ hayls I am one of those people who always/almost always says Hashem instead of g-d 😂 for me it's a way of making sure people don't think I'm talking about Christian God™️) You will notice, though, that I do have a tipping point implicitly delineated here - if someone is speaking another language for whole sentences, I'm just going to put that in the narration; single words or phrases will be written as spoken.

18. What was the first fandom you wrote for? Sherlock (womp womp)

19. What’s a fandom/ship you haven’t written for yet but want to? I've never written Destiel fic, and while at this point you might be wondering what on earth there is left to say via fic about that pairing, I have a lil thing bubbling around in my brain about bodily autonomy vs. trauma vs. helping someone not suffer from their trauma while violating whatever the brain equivalent is of bodily autonomy.

20. What’s your favorite fic you’ve written? whyyyy would you ask someone this, it's like asking someone to pick a favorite child. the answer will change tomorrow, but right now I think it's the still-WIP sequel to Childish Things, A Twisted Thing Cannot Be Made Straight. It's got fun witchy!Stiles, buckets of angst but also lots of fun pack shenanigans in flashbacks, lots of me working out my own feelings about childbirth and raising children, ambiguous relationships, belated grappling with trauma, and also a satisfyingly bloody climax. There are some scenes there that still give me chills to read, and I wrote them.

@ragequilt I want to see yours!

#fic #AO3 #mine #tagged

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impalementation · 4 years

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I’m doing a rewatch since btvs just got added to prime video and am just beginning s2. Watching When She Was Bad is super interesting knowing the events post-The Gift. Do you have any thoughts on how Buffy acts in relation to her trauma from being killed? I think her actions (as well as the other Scoobies responses to those actions) in s6 are completely foreshadowed in that particular episode of s2.

Man I love When She Was Bad, I’m always hyped to talk about it. I had a great exchange with @visitingthefuneralhome about it, that talks a bit about her handling of her trauma that you might be interested in. Putting the rest under a cut for length.

I agree that lot of season six is foreshadowed in that episode. Not necessarily intentionally, but definitely in the sense of establishing patterns of behavior that season six continues. I’d rope Anne and Dead Man’s Party into this too, since those are also episodes in which Buffy and the Scoobies are responding to an end-of-season trauma.

Two big things stand out to me about these three episodes. First is the fact that Buffy consistently responds to trauma by isolating herself, and has difficulty talking about her problems with her friends. In When She Was Bad she isolates herself by acting out, and not talking about how her death affected her. In this other post I made about the episode, I talk about how the episode uses imagery around gaze to show how Buffy is hiding herself from her friends. Similarly in Anne she isolates herself by literally running away, and in Dead Man’s Party she once again struggles to talk about what she’s really dealing with. Similarly to how Buffy will isolate herself in season six by not talking about heaven and spending all of her time with Spike.

The Scoobies, for their part, desperately want Buffy to be okay, and act confused that she isn’t. In When She Was Bad they wonder why Buffy’s acting like such a “bitca”, in Dead Man’s Party they’re hurt that she abandoned them and have that whole party confrontation scene, and in After Life and Flooded (and other parts of season six), they crowd around her and fret about the ways she isn’t acting like herself. In all of these cases, a lot of that Scooby response is based on not really understanding what Buffy is going through--partly because Buffy doesn’t communicate it, and partly because they didn’t experience it themselves. In When She Was Bad they don’t understand that she was traumatized by her death until the scene where she destroys the Master’s bones, in season three they don’t understand the degree to which she was traumatized by killing Angel until the end of Faith, Hope & Trick when she admits that Angel had his soul, and in season six they don’t understand that she is dealing with having been pulled from heaven until the end of Once More, With Feeling.

I mention in that post I linked on gaze in When She Was Bad that there’s an interesting similarity between the bone-smashing scene and the heaven-revelation scene in that they both have long lingering reaction shots on the faces of the Scoobies. In both scenes, Buffy is center-stage and all of them are looking at her, finally seeing her. That imagery of “everyone looking at Buffy” shows up in other places, too. I made a connection between Dead Man’s Party and Bargaining, Part 2 once, because both have shots of all of the Scoobies gazing at a returned Buffy. And I also once pointed out how that’s a repeated visual motif in early season six: Buffy standing opposite a crew of uncomprehending Scoobies. (Hope the references to past posts aren’t annoying, I get excited when I can finally link a bunch of disconnected observations together). Point is, the show makes a strong connection between trauma and isolation for Buffy, both because of Buffy’s own actions and because of how that trauma can set her apart from her friends. As Buffy will make explicit in Conversations With Dead People, her trauma is all tied up in her hero-ness and slayer-ness and leader-ness, all of which already set her apart.

BUFFY: I feel like I'm worse than anyone. Honestly, I'm beneath them. My friends, my boyfriends. I feel like I'm not worthy of their love. 'Cause even though they love me, it doesn't mean anything 'cause their opinions don't matter. They don't know. They haven't been through what I've been through. They're not the slayer. I am.

These next few paragraphs are a bit self-indulgent, BUT: to loop back to that first post I linked, the show also makes a consistent connection between trauma and agency for Buffy. The ur-source of Buffy’s problems is being the only Slayer, something she didn’t choose (instead, she is the “Chosen One”). In Prophecy Girl, this lack of choice is emphasized by the fact that Buffy feels beholden to a prophecy, to fate. Ie, something she has no choice about. And despite the fact that she survives her death, that death is still very much a symbol of her lack of agency, especially because she didn’t even choose to be brought back to life either. Similarly in season six, she is brought back to life by her friends. There was no choice there. The season six resurrection feels especially like a betrayal of Buffy’s agency because her sacrifice in The Gift was framed mostly positively in a way her sacrifice in Prophecy Girl wasn’t. In Prophecy Girl she didn’t want to die (“I don’t wanna die”), and there’s no indication that anyone besides her can fulfill the prophecy in that episode. Whereas in The Gift she willingly chooses to sacrifice herself instead of Dawn, and is shown to be at peace with that decision. (I’d actually even say that Buffy’s depression in season six isn’t about having died, the way it was in When She Was Bad--it’s about having to be alive, and carry on with all the difficult things associated with that.)

With this in mind, I tend to see a lot of Buffy’s traumatic responses as being about her trying to assert agency in whatever way she can, even if it isn’t necessarily healthy or nice. So her taunting Xander in When She Was Bad is about her exerting control over him and Angel, feeling like she has power. I think you could also see her self-isolation as being about agency, in that if she pushes her friends away she’s chosen for them to not understand. Instead having to deal with the ways that they wouldn’t understand her regardless. (That’s a bit more headcanon-y on my part though).

In this light, Buffy in season six actually has a really interestingly complicated relationship to agency. On the one hand, she struggles with having been brought back to life, and having to deal with all of these obligations that she didn’t choose. But unlike in the earlier seasons, when she chafes against duty, and asserts her right to a “normal life”, Buffy in season six kind of doesn’t want agency. So for example with Spike, on the one hand, she’s the one who instigates the house-sex in Smashed (agency), but she only does so after Spike tells her that she came back wrong, which allows her to not be responsible for that choice (not-agency). Note how in Dead Things Buffy breaks down after Tara tells her that there’s nothing wrong with her, in part because it means that all of her choices were her own all along. There’s interesting ambiguity about whether Buffy is trying to get control of something (“I just wanna feel”) with Spike, or lose control. Similar to how there’s interesting ambiguity about whether Willow wants to get or lose control via magic.

So part of my read of season six is that Buffy getting “healthy” again involves her wanting and accepting agency again. Getting back to that “I don’t wanna die” from Prophecy Girl. I like this read because of how it expands on Buffy’s earlier trauma responses, while also being distinct from them. In season six, Buffy partly responds like she’s always responded to bad things happening to her--isolating herself, being “bad”, etc--but the added layer of her abdicating agency shows how apart she really feels from herself, and how unengaged in life she really is. It’s what distinguishes Buffy being traumatized in season two from her being depressed in season six. If something bad happens once, you rebel against it. But if bad things keep happening, you rebel by just giving up. And in order for Buffy to move forward, she has to find a way to feel that not-giving-up is worth it.

#buffy #s2 #s3 #s6 #sorry this took me a while to answer!#sometimes i need to sit with some asks longer before i can form thoughts on them

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ramblings-of-a-mad-cat · 3 years

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ok so i just watched the Fantastic Beasts movie again and it seemed like Queenie’s status as a born-Legilimens wasn’t something that was widely known?

like, she threatened the guy who was supposed to Obliviate Jacob that she would tell on him and he was surprised and asked her how she knew something she wasn’t supposed to..

another thing is, i find it hard to believe that someone with her talent was employed to ‘make coffees’

anyw. it got me thinking that maybe Queenie purposely did not share that about herself 🤔 hinting at her potential malicious side, which was easy to miss in the first movie since she was the sweetest. oh this isn’t an anti post btw i’m actually curious to see how her character turned out to be.

Queenie’s fascinating.

I remember realizing that it was most likely an “entrancing” charm that she used on Jacob, like what Penny did...and since then, I’ve noticed the similarities between the two and how, when they do something wrong, it’s invariably from a position of thinking that they’re doing the right thing. Which can be easy to believe when you’re so inherently good, and everyone thinks so, and you don’t have any ambiguities or obvious flaws in your personality that would lead you or anyone else to question you being a good person. Newt is another character who is pure and caring, but he’s far more insecure and keeps to himself most of the time. Queenie is social, and she’s sure of herself. That gives her the potential to harm others while firmly believing she’s acting in everyone’s best interests.

I will say that, if I were a Legilimens, I probably wouldn’t parade it either. I mean, I doubt I would use it much at all because it would feel very creepy to do so...but on the other hand, I feel like it would change how people see me if they knew that I could, and they wouldn’t even necessarily know it if I did. That would probably create a distance between me and another person if I had that power, and they learned that I did. Even if I never planned to use it, they wouldn’t necessarily know that for sure or have any reason to believe I’d never falter. So I don’t blame Queenie for keeping it to herself, especially since we see from the second film that using her abilities isn’t always a choice. It’s not all fun and games. Crowds in particular, can be stressful.

That said, going back to Queenie’s self-confidence...I don’t think she’s necessarily the type at all to take a moral standpoint against using her powers. Sure, you could argue that the blackmailing incident was absolutely necessary to protect Jacob, and for all we know she was bluffing anyway. For all we know, she didn’t even learn that with her powers, she might have just picked up a rumor. However...we also see her openly and without a care in the world, reading Jacob’s mind the night they met. To the point where he asks her to stop. I have to assume this was a choice on her part, because if nothing else, it was a choice to comment on his memories and thoughts like they were things he had said aloud in conversation. Plus, y’know, she was hitting on him. “Most guys think what you was thinkin’, first time they see me.”

What makes it more complicated is when they enter a long term, serious relationship, and the mind reading is shown to continue. Jacob mentions it as one of the things that drove him crazy, but that he misses about her. We know Queenie can’t always control it, and in situations like their fight at the start of the movie, I give her the benefit of the doubt. Jacob didn’t verbally say she was crazy, and he shouldn’t have to explain himself for every private thought he has...but Queenie can’t always help overhearing them, and she’s only human. So she’s going to be get upset by him thinking it. But then again, the whole premise of the argument in the first place is that Queenie violated Jacob’s trust and robbed him of his autonomy...so...something tells me she wouldn’t shy away from reading his mind intentionally to prove a point or win an argument or something. And that’s not good.

I’m not Anti for Queenie either, I think she’s a cool character and I’m glad she got fleshed out in the second film. I don’t believe for one moment that she’s staying with Grindelwald forever. Sooner or later, he’ll slip around her, and show his true colors. She’ll realize what a terrible mistake she’s made...it’s only a matter of time. But she’s going to have to put a lot of work in to earning her forgiveness and earning a second chance with Jacob. I mean, I’m sure he and Tina will forgive her in a heartbeat, but narrative-wise, it can’t be that easy.

#Queenie Goldstein #Jacob Kowalski #Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them #FBAWTFT #Crimes of Grindelwald

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gatheringbones · 4 years

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hey bones I'm a femme lesbian but i feel like I'm not entirely a woman idk how to explain like i feel like a funhouse mirror version of a lady but I don't think I'm nonbinary as well bc only certain gendered terms (like queen) make me flinch from them but not others? idk what to do, do you have any recommended reading to figure this out?? i live in a v homophobic country and don't know any other lesbian irl to talk about this

I don’t necessarily want to recommend reading certain materials that would give you the definite, clear-cut, completely unambiguous example of what you’re looking for (even though Joan Nestle’s work in particular jumps out at me as having very much to say about lesbian and femme especially as their own genders) because I find myself questioning the efficacy of simply handing you a citation and saying “See? There you are in your entirety. Somebody figured it all out for you thirty years ago and it’s all in here, problem solved.” I don’t think that’s possible, frankly; I think there are still pieces of you that won’t line up exactly, especially considering the cultural differences and societal pressures you face that directly inform how you interact with gender and history and desire and presentation, and that not lining up is still going to feel lonely and uncomfortable and potentially forbidden for you.

What I would like to offer you instead, if I can scrounge the words together, is that no matter what you read, you’re going to find examples of people who had absolutely no language or theory or analysis surrounding who or what they are, and how those common those accounts are in the historical and literary record. I would point towards people from historical periods who when presented with the current definitions of what a lesbian for sure was and wasn’t, promptly said “ah, no thank you” and trailblazed into territories of gender so forbidden it barred them from taking part in wider lesbian culture as it was defined and defended at the time. People who grew up very rural, or very working class, or both, people from below the poverty line, people with different racial backgrounds; all sorts of people whose class and racial backgrounds do not remotely line up with white, upper-class, academic cis-feminism, whose language has always been inadequate at describing how much diversity of experience there is with people who choose to interact with the lesbian label. I would want to point you towards people who did it wrong, in other words, who were the thing that you feel isn’t permissible within the current language system that’s been approved for lesbianism, and who carried on being that thing despite the vocal and enthusiastic presence of a great many people who saw lesbianism as a crumbling fortress beset on all sides by tainted invaders.

Joan Nestle’s great for this, but so is Leslie Feinberg— wordlessness and ambiguity and the freedom you can find in both runs all throughout hir work, and you can find echoes of that trickster strength in all kinds of authors— Amy Fox, Audre Lorde, Sinclair Sexsmith, Tristen Taormino, Rae Spoon, Ivan Coyote. Ivan’s also who I turn to when I want to read someone who grew up in the backcountry with no theory because that’s me; I didn’t grow up in a city with visible gay people, I grew up with no electricity or running water in a shack with crazy people who were very vocal about performing violence on anyone who so much as resembled a homosexual, and I grew into a gender and sexuality shaped by my trauma and disembodiment and the kind of searing rural loneliness that only people who lived it are going to be able to empathize with. Right now I’m thinking about the story from Bushfire I read that’s set at a secret Black lesbian house party in the south where there’s so much conversation and vernacular happening and the moments of sexuality are so bewilderingly presented that you can’t tell what anybody necessarily is only that it’s wonderfully unlikely that any of this is happening at all. I’m thinking about Larry Mitchell and The Faggots and Their Friends In Between Revolutions and how much of that book has to do with intentionally fucking with categories in order to subvert patriarchal control. (“The faggots and their friends and the women who love women can keep the men off balance for a long time by subtly, but continually, changing their identities. The men who are in charge of controlling it all find it difficult always to know how many of each kind there are, and who they are. Each group can grow and shrink as the men’s changing ferociousness demands.”) I’m also thinking about Jeanne Cordova writing in anguish about having to cut the chains off of her boots because the lesbian feminist scene she was involved with said they were “male-identified” and therefore forbidden. I’m thinking about the white woman at the Womyn’s festival in Minnie Bruce Patt’s S/he who pokes one of her companions in the chest and accuses them of having “boy energy” and that they need to leave immediately, and of Leslie Feinberg turning to them and asking her to decide right then and there what gender ze is and whether or not ze should be kicked out as well. (“You turn to the angry woman and ask quietly, “What about me? Do I have male energy? Am I a woman or a man?” She pauses, taken aback, and finally says, “I don’t want to talk about each person...” You reply, “But you do want someone to decide. You want someone to judge, and us to submit to judgement. So tell me, am I a man or a woman? Tell me how you can decide? The woman falls completely silent, all of us sit silent. She does not answer. She walks away.”) I’m thinking of ambiguousness as a defense mechanism and a weapon all in one, because people do all sorts of things when presented with ambiguousness that tell you exactly who they are, and people who can co-exist with and honor ambiguousness are incredibly rare. I think that feeling like a funhouse mirror of a woman is only dangerous in spaces where ambiguity and exploration aren’t allowed, where it isn’t safe because of the presence of people who find more meaning and comfort and safety in mapped categories than they do in the lived experience of gender outlaws. I think they’re delusional and brittle and authoritarian and that Larry had them pegged exactly right. I want to invite you, if at all possible, to see your status as both incredibly common and a gift.

Will you run across something that seems to describe you word for word and fills you with joy and certainty? It’s more than possible; lesbians are a prolific bunch and the more you keep tracking down and reading the more likely you’ll come across something exactly like that. But if you don’t? if it’s a lifelong search, or more like an ongoing conversation between you and other members of your community, throughout history and person-to-person? that’s even more likely, that seems like what we’re all doing. And if you end up being your own weird thing, to the point where some For Real Lesbian points at you and shouts that you’re undermining and betraying the very concept of lesbianism? you’ve made it baby! You’re in such good company!

#book recs tag #sorry for the tangent being confused and in a state of search is good actually #rule breaking is comforting and life sustaining

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murasaki-murasame · 3 years

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Thoughts on Higurashi Gou Ep14

haha wow I love dying and being dead :’))) [and also being totally wrong about some of my theories]

Thoughts under the cut.

OK so i guess I was wrong about at least some of my theories of what went down in Tataridamashi, and Rena was actually being totally accurate about what happened, lol.

It’s still kind of ambiguous, though, and I don’t want to jump to too many conclusions about what might have happened. Like, it comes across like it was actually Ooishi who attacked Keiichi, but in that case it’d be kinda weird to have him show up at the festival first and then have Satoko show up several minutes later, when she ran out of the house during Keiichi and probably-not-Teppei’s fight scene. I wouldn’t be surprised if Ooishi had actually come from killing someone like Takano and Tomitake instead, but the fact that he was using a baseball bat is pretty specific, so I dunno.

Mostly I just don’t really know what motive Ooishi would have for killing Keiichi. At least with the festival murder spree you could argue that he just wanted to kill Rika, and everything else was just him trying to prevent anyone from getting in his way. But Keiichi got lured away from the festival on his own, so if Ooishi attacked him, he must have had a really good reason for it.

But they intentionally don’t really explain anything about what the fuck Ooishi was thinking or planning at that point, so who even knows what was going on with him. All we know is that, like with Mion in Watadamashi, he somehow became convinced that Rika was behind everything, and he also super obviously had gone full L5 by that point. The timing of it makes it seem like he got injected like what happened with Tomitake in the VNs, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d actually been going slowly L5 over the course of the arc, and something just pushed him over the edge.

In a lot of ways this makes Satoko seem even more suspicious, especially since it seems that she really did just run away from the house and go back to the festival, but I still don’t really like any theories to do with her being the new mastermind.

Anyway, it looks like we’re more or less in answer arc territory now, with the focus shifting to Rika’s POV as she begins actively trying to solve the mystery with a new set of abilities and clues at her disposal.

I still think that Gou will just be 24 episodes long, but Rika talking about giving herself a roadmap of five more loops before she gives up makes me wonder if they’re setting the stage for a second season. It’s entirely possible that she won’t actually go through five whole loops before the show ends, though, and maybe some of the next loops will only be an episode or two long. So it might not mean much.

If anything it kinda feels like we’re in a position where it’d be difficult to fill out an entire second season after this, but on the other hand it’s hard to imagine the story wrapping up with only ten more episodes. It’s possible that if we get a second season it’d only be one cour long, but I doubt it. Either way, I’m going to continue basing my theories around the assumption that we won’t get a second season, just to play it safe.

I’ve been wondering for ages how the sword is going to come up and play into the story, since it was the biggest question mark out of all the new stuff in Gou, and this episode sure laid that whole plot point out once and for all, lol. It almost felt kinda info-dump-y, but it’s still nice to finally have an idea of what the hell’s going on with it.

So basically the gist of it is that there was indeed a sword in the statue, and apparently it’s important because it has the ability to permanently end the life of someone with time travel powers. Rika needs to obtain the sword so she can somehow use it to put an end to these loops, but someone’s already stolen the sword, with a single shard of it being left behind inside the statue.

Sadly Hanyuu just peaced out before actually explaining much of anything to Rika, so it’s hard to tell exactly what her goal is meant to be here. I’m not even sure if we’re meant to think that Hanyuu was talking about the idea of there being a second looper that Rika needs to kill, or if she was just presenting it as a way for Rika to kill herself once and for all if she wants to. But in general it definitely feels like the story is setting up for the idea of there being a second looper who Rika has to discover the identity and motives of.

There’s still a lot of mysteries surrounding the sword, but this at least proves that Rika had nothing to do with it in the previous loops, and maybe didn’t even really know that it existed, or that there was anything special about it. It’s also noteworthy that in this new loop, the sword had already been stolen at the very start of the loop, which makes it more likely that it’s something that happens before the start of every loop. So I’m still going along with my theory that this implies that there’s some kind of fundamental ‘retcon’ going on with the history of the game board, where a third party has gone back and changed stuff in the past from before where Rika can loop back to.

Since this arc seems to be all from Rika’s POV now that we’re fully on her side of the story now, it just makes it increasingly more weird and suspicious that she’s continuing to do nothing about the whole Takano situation. She asked about Tomitake’s whereabouts at the festival, but that’s something she would have done in the VN before she found out about Takano being evil, so that doesn’t say much. But now that we’re fully in her POV, it’s more weird than ever to see her being completely despondent about the entire situation when she doesn’t seem to be doing anything about Takano.

I’m still not entirely convinced about it, but it really does feel like she doesn’t actually know about Takano being evil. It’s possible that she’s somehow already caught onto the idea that things are fundamentally different now and that Takano’s not the villain anymore, but I don’t think it’d actually make sense for her to reach that conclusion at this stage. That’s more of a meta thing for the audience to think about. It might still just be a bit of clunky writing where Ryukishi’s trying not to spoil or overwhelm new fans by having Rika start talking about endgame plot stuff from the VN, but at this point I think it’d just be hurting the story if that’s what’s going on.

Anyway, now that we know what the overall point of the sword is, it makes me wonder why someone other than Rika would have already stolen it. I guess it was probably just the hypothetical second looper who stole it, either to preemptively screw over Rika, or to use as a weapon against her. Though there’s still the fact that there haven’t really been any clues about the sword being used for anything in the story yet, so there’s not many clues to go off of to try and guess what happened to it.

Though it does make me wonder if maybe in Watadamashi, Takano found the shard of the sword in the statue when she went back to inspect the statue again. I don’t really know what she would have done with it, or even thought about it, though, even if she’s still evil like in the VN. Maybe she knows about the sword and it’s importance from studying Hinamizawa’s history and myths, but I dunno.

Also, at this point it almost feels like they’re fucking with us, with how blatant the Umineko tie-in stuff is getting, lol. Hanyuu chipping her horn as a result of giving Rika the extra ability to remember everything from each loop feels like a giant neon sign point toward her connection to Featherine. I also have to wonder if this new situation Rika’s stuck in is meant to be what Lambda was talking about when she referred to Rika’s master abandoning her within a logic error. That still might just refer to the VN’s version of events, but with Hanyuu chipping her horn here, it comes across like Ryukishi’s using Gou as a way to directly establish Bern’s whole backstory from Umineko, so I wouldn’t be surprised if the logic error stuff also refers to Gou’s loop, rather than the VN. And even though Hanyuu did in her own way push all the responsibility of solving the mystery to Rika in the VN, she did straight up disappear in this episode and leave Rika to solve things on her own, so there’s that.

The focus on Rika’s depression in this episode also gives me major Bernkastel vibes. Her talking about being completely alone, the crushing horror of always worrying that she’ll get dragged back into the endless hell of the loop, and saying that if she can’t solve the mystery in five more loops she’ll give up all hope, all feel like it’s in line with Bernkastel’s whole attitude in Umineko. Of course that would imply that Gou will end with Rika ‘losing’ and giving up hope, if this is really meant to set up for Umineko’s whole story, which would be really depressing, but at this point I wouldn’t be too surprised if Gou just straight up has a depressing ending like that.

With how much it feels like Gou is heading towards being a Bernkastel origin story of sorts, I still feel like it’d be really lame if this isn’t setting the stage for some kind of Umineko anime remake. People could just go back and read the Umineko VN after this, but that’d just make Gou feel kinda incomplete in and of itself. It’d make more sense if it leads into an Umineko anime remake afterward that can serve as an indirect sequel to Gou.

And since Gou also seems like it’s going to clarify the connection between Hanyuu and Featherine, with what happened in this episode, I’m still wondering if Gou will also end up getting into Lambda’s whole origin story. It’d feel kinda weird at this point not to have her be relevant to Gou, if they’re going this far to set things up with Bern and Featherine.

I still don’t know how I feel about the Satoko looper theory, but it’d make sense if we find out that Lambda has given her the blessing of certainty in this new loop, for some reason or another. I at least think the only real way to incorporate Lambda into Gou without being totally confusing and alienating to new fans would be to tie her to Satoko, one way or another.

I don’t think Gou would end up getting too deep into the witch stuff, but I’d be interested to see how it’d play out if the story really does end up revolving around Featherine, Bern, and Lambda. I still think that might be something that new fans would actually be more willing to go along with than old fans, lol. With how much it risks alienating old Higurashi fans who don’t like the idea of it getting blended too much with stuff from Umineko, it makes me hope that they’re going to go the whole nine yards with this, and that they’re setting up for a full Umineko anime remake.

Anyway, I’m really curious to see how the rest of Gou is going to play out now that it looks like we’re following Rika’s POV now. I’m really curious to see if they can actually pull off a satisfying ending in just ten more episodes, since there seem to still be so many mysteries to solve at the moment, and Gou hasn’t even really touched upon the stuff with Takano and the GHD yet.

Though I actually think that if Gou has a really depressing and potentially inconclusive ending that sets up Bernkastel’s origin story and paves the way for Umineko, that might make it a lot easier for them to get to that point in just ten more episodes. It might piss a lot of people off, but maybe it’ll just end in an intentionally unresolved manner, with Rika completely losing hope and having her Bern persona split off into it’s own being that ascends into being a witch on the meta plane.

I know a lot of people don’t like the idea of this tying heavily into Umineko stuff, but with this sort of episode in particular it really feels like that’s where things are heading, lol. But we’ll see how it goes.

Also, even though this episode mostly just focused on Rika’s POV, I’m really intrigued by the hint toward Mion having access to the keys to the part of the school where the septic tank seems to be. That feels like a big hint toward the idea that she was the one who put Rika’s body there in Watadamashi, but I guess maybe anyone could have stolen the keys from the faculty office or something. It still feels like an intentional hint about that mystery from Watadamashi, though.

This episode also didn’t have the new ED yet, even though they’ve already announced it, so I guess they’re saving it for the next episode. At this point I think they’re only changing the ED, since I don’t think they’ve announced a new OP, and the OP’s visuals clearly relate to Gou’s story as a whole, and not just the first half.

I’m also still waiting to see if the rumored subtitle change happens at some point soon. It might end up being related to a hypothetical second season, but I still think we won’t get one.

#murasaki rambles #higurashi #higurashi gou #there's some real whiplash having this air in the same season as re:zero lmao

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