iv. lack and language
Jun. 23rd, 2021 09:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
etautresremordsI have a hard time describing emotions, and lately I've been considering how many words I know in English for terms to explain or express violence, but how difficult of a time I have trying to get out what I want to say about how I feel. I use a lot of metaphors for both, but it sounds really pithy to be like, "my language knows more about violence than love," or something else suitably dramatic. I've previously posted on tumblr about feeling like neither English nor Kannada feel like my mothertongue, but rather that I'm a nonnative speaker for both because as a kid I didn't learn them separately, and I'm still thinking about that feeling, but have even less ability to explain it. In other news, I'm hypothetically going to try duolingo out again, because I keep looking random words up on pleco and it's kind of fun.
The meat of this post is actually about black humor vs tragicomedy. The description "[laughter/jokes/comedy] filled with glass shards" is really accurate for the type of thing I like to watch. Tragicomedy is pretty much exactly like what the portmanteau suggests, but lately I've been thinking about 'offbeat horror' which, to be honest, is a term that gives me zero context. What makes something offbeat? What makes something onbeat? If life is a song, I'm tonedeaf. Some time ago, someone in a server I'm in (if you're reading this tell me dhdhdh I can't remember who exactly said it) mentioned the idea of [daylight/sunlight] horror. I can't remember which it is, but I'm assuming daylight works better. The hot sun on bleached bones, the smell of rot as the temperature rises, the tower of bodies on the beach in that NBC Hannibal episode. I still haven't watched Midsommar, but I think it was brought up as an example. Horror but in daylight? Horror, but the fear comes from seeing something? Horrifying things that happen because of the sun? There's a few interpretations, I guess.
One of my favorite types of horror (and tragedy actually, although I get uncomfortable with comedy for this) is the sense of impending doom, or just a lot of dramatic irony. Actually, I like irony in general, but I think there's something really appealing about fitting pieces together and seeing that the sum is greater than the whole (in a bad way, of course). Straws break camels' backs, but it's not as appealing if you only see the last one. The buildup is what gets you - the slow waiting, the feeling that eventually, something will happen. Someone will come and stop this, you think. Someone will see this. Bystander effect/syndrome is not a thing (I have citations but I've decided to stop posting them every time I talk about this) but I would argue that books play on its cousin, in which you as the audience aren't able to step in and do anything for the characters, so you just watch them walk into the trap, and then you see them try to pull free, and fail, and try again, and you see them consider stopping before they think about how they just have to do! one! thing!
Anyway, I've been having a bit of a hard time finding the right type of horror that I want to read. A lot of the available subgenres don't seem to strike the right note - I want like. Tragic horror, except that implies that horror doesn't usually have a downer ending. I think there's a difference between a bad end and a tragedy! You have to work up to a tragedy in a way that you technically don't with bad endings. Of course, you need foreshadowing before the characters die, but tragedy takes it a step further because you have to know exactly what the good end could have been, or at least some of the steps for how to get there. It's not tragedy if there never was a way out - or well, it can be but everyone needs that flicker of hope. (I said flicker because I was thinking of 'flickering' but should it have been spark?)
under the cut is discussion of two novels (spoilers for 2ha/The Husky and His White Cat Shizun -- watch out for discussion (not explicit/descriptive) of revictimization, abuse (sexual and otherwise) and relationships with abusers.
I just finished Fei Pin Ying Qiang, which was... I don't know what to say about it. I want to have at least enjoyed reading it, and the translation was done pretty well, but somehow it just didn't hit the right notes. It was all there -- the boy that isn't desperate because he doesn't remember good slowly blossoming and becoming stronger, the things he fights against, the ml being kind of absolutely awful at communication, family dramas, etc -- but I really wasn't feeling it. I think maybe if there was more focus on 'what emotion should the audience feel about this' it may have gone better? I guess it was more of a situation where I knew when I should feel sad or happy or excited, but I didn't feel it. The... telling vs showing except I did it to myself somehow?
I started thinking about 2ha again (if you can't tell by how I'm mentioning it multiple days) and I actually kind of want to do a reread already? It's kind of incredible, because I wasn't that much of a rereader before, or at least not without a significant amount of time in between. 2ha is interesting because it hits a significant number of things I don't always enjoy reading about, but I really loved reading this. I guess this is also a good example of when content warnings have issues? I won't run down all of the content that comes up in the book, but So Much of it is usually very difficult for me to read, and although it was still difficult, I don't think it was difficult in the same way? That is to say, something about the author's treatment caught me.
I'll probably do a separate post about this later but I'm actually not happy with 2ha's ending now that I think about it. I think it had to happy just to satisfy an audience, and it's not like it was totally out of the blue (it was clearly foreshadowed) but it felt too much like a good ending? I mean, of course I think Chu Wanning has been through Enough and really always deserved happiness, but it felt too wrapped together. I feel like even as I write this, I'm really saying, "he deserves happiness! he should have happiness! I want Chu Wanning my darling to have a good life because he was good even before he went through All of His Life," because I really feel like one of my favorite experiences was reading about him as a man who Mo Ran was so focused on hating that he picked up how much was good about him instead, and that flashback to what he was like as a kid and how he saw Mo Ran as a kid and just so immediately wanted to help was just like? just re-emphasis and I wasn't even mad about it. They're all pretty tragic! I liked how the book was put together and how all the way through you still see that way that Chu Wanning and Mo Ran always have that thread of goodness, no matter how far they're pushed (...and they're uh. pushed pretty far).
But for all of that, I felt really caught offguard in that Mo Ran and Chu Wanning went off and built a life together planting flowers. Yes, there's the whole 'Taxian-jun for a day' thing, but I feel kind of troubled about it for a few reasons. In some ways, I feel like this ending (after Mo-zongshi wakes up from the whole world-closing thing basically) felt a bit rushed, but I also just felt like somehow, they got along too well?
Well obviously you can say, "Kit, that shows the goodness running through both of them, since they're not blackened of course you see it more!" but goodness doesn't equate comfort. I think I would have felt more fulfilled if there was more... just concern, maybe? I wanted to see the Chu Wanning with the thin face and terrible self-esteem who has the memories of two lives now, continue to reconcile them and his reactions to Mo Ran. Maybe this is projection, but I feel like Chu Wanning would of course immediately forgive Mo Ran -- anyway, Mo-zongshi has shown his ability to be warm to him multifold, and Taxian-jun as well anyway -- but he would still wrestle with it. Forget asking for sex without blowing up with embarrassment, Chu Wanning canonically is incapable of going five minutes without something becoming awkward. I don't begrudge them getting together, but I feel like it shouldn't have been so smooth, and I feel like I didn't get closure for the 0.5 timeline essentially.
Maybe if/when I reread it, I'll feel differently! I think the difficulty for me lies in the way that I have a terrible time dropping things, and so I just projected a little too much and was like, "it can't be that easy to get over All of 0.5/Taxian-jun's...Taxian-jun-ness," but I feel like there is textual evidence towards Chu Wanning as wanting to forgive things or having difficulties keeping grudges, but still remembering? Taxian-jun did So Many Things. Soooo many things. He really took the time in the 0.5 timeline to break Chu Wanning down, but it felt? Passed over?
To be fair, Chu Wanning went off together with Mo-zongshi, not Taxian-jun everyday. So it's not exactly the "merged memories but who cares about those events" that I'm making it sound like, because Mo-zongshi does do the whole apology and everything, but it's difficult because to me, Mo-zongshi isn't like. Not Taxian-jun? He's Taxian-jun after like a decade in a good world. And yes, there is the whole lotus situation that explains away a lot, but is it that easy to get over? At this point I'm not explaining what I mean by 'it' because I'm getting a little embarrassed writing and realizing I'm apparently a bit more fired up about this than I thought, so maybe I'll try again tomorrow.
Now that I write it out, I do get how and why he wouldn't continue to 'hold the experience against Mo Ran' or something - Taxian-jun's behavior is explained as a) from external influence and b) dedicated to Chu Wanning from the beginning until literally the end, and then the end again. There was the whole sacrifice thing. There's a lot for it! But I think I felt so beaten over the head with the atrocities of the 0.5 timeline (and let's be real, the way Mo Ran was when he just time-traveled back) that I expected a longer winddown probably.
The meat of this post is actually about black humor vs tragicomedy. The description "[laughter/jokes/comedy] filled with glass shards" is really accurate for the type of thing I like to watch. Tragicomedy is pretty much exactly like what the portmanteau suggests, but lately I've been thinking about 'offbeat horror' which, to be honest, is a term that gives me zero context. What makes something offbeat? What makes something onbeat? If life is a song, I'm tonedeaf. Some time ago, someone in a server I'm in (if you're reading this tell me dhdhdh I can't remember who exactly said it) mentioned the idea of [daylight/sunlight] horror. I can't remember which it is, but I'm assuming daylight works better. The hot sun on bleached bones, the smell of rot as the temperature rises, the tower of bodies on the beach in that NBC Hannibal episode. I still haven't watched Midsommar, but I think it was brought up as an example. Horror but in daylight? Horror, but the fear comes from seeing something? Horrifying things that happen because of the sun? There's a few interpretations, I guess.
One of my favorite types of horror (and tragedy actually, although I get uncomfortable with comedy for this) is the sense of impending doom, or just a lot of dramatic irony. Actually, I like irony in general, but I think there's something really appealing about fitting pieces together and seeing that the sum is greater than the whole (in a bad way, of course). Straws break camels' backs, but it's not as appealing if you only see the last one. The buildup is what gets you - the slow waiting, the feeling that eventually, something will happen. Someone will come and stop this, you think. Someone will see this. Bystander effect/syndrome is not a thing (I have citations but I've decided to stop posting them every time I talk about this) but I would argue that books play on its cousin, in which you as the audience aren't able to step in and do anything for the characters, so you just watch them walk into the trap, and then you see them try to pull free, and fail, and try again, and you see them consider stopping before they think about how they just have to do! one! thing!
Anyway, I've been having a bit of a hard time finding the right type of horror that I want to read. A lot of the available subgenres don't seem to strike the right note - I want like. Tragic horror, except that implies that horror doesn't usually have a downer ending. I think there's a difference between a bad end and a tragedy! You have to work up to a tragedy in a way that you technically don't with bad endings. Of course, you need foreshadowing before the characters die, but tragedy takes it a step further because you have to know exactly what the good end could have been, or at least some of the steps for how to get there. It's not tragedy if there never was a way out - or well, it can be but everyone needs that flicker of hope. (I said flicker because I was thinking of 'flickering' but should it have been spark?)
under the cut is discussion of two novels (spoilers for 2ha/The Husky and His White Cat Shizun -- watch out for discussion (not explicit/descriptive) of revictimization, abuse (sexual and otherwise) and relationships with abusers.
I just finished Fei Pin Ying Qiang, which was... I don't know what to say about it. I want to have at least enjoyed reading it, and the translation was done pretty well, but somehow it just didn't hit the right notes. It was all there -- the boy that isn't desperate because he doesn't remember good slowly blossoming and becoming stronger, the things he fights against, the ml being kind of absolutely awful at communication, family dramas, etc -- but I really wasn't feeling it. I think maybe if there was more focus on 'what emotion should the audience feel about this' it may have gone better? I guess it was more of a situation where I knew when I should feel sad or happy or excited, but I didn't feel it. The... telling vs showing except I did it to myself somehow?
I started thinking about 2ha again (if you can't tell by how I'm mentioning it multiple days) and I actually kind of want to do a reread already? It's kind of incredible, because I wasn't that much of a rereader before, or at least not without a significant amount of time in between. 2ha is interesting because it hits a significant number of things I don't always enjoy reading about, but I really loved reading this. I guess this is also a good example of when content warnings have issues? I won't run down all of the content that comes up in the book, but So Much of it is usually very difficult for me to read, and although it was still difficult, I don't think it was difficult in the same way? That is to say, something about the author's treatment caught me.
I'll probably do a separate post about this later but I'm actually not happy with 2ha's ending now that I think about it. I think it had to happy just to satisfy an audience, and it's not like it was totally out of the blue (it was clearly foreshadowed) but it felt too much like a good ending? I mean, of course I think Chu Wanning has been through Enough and really always deserved happiness, but it felt too wrapped together. I feel like even as I write this, I'm really saying, "he deserves happiness! he should have happiness! I want Chu Wanning my darling to have a good life because he was good even before he went through All of His Life," because I really feel like one of my favorite experiences was reading about him as a man who Mo Ran was so focused on hating that he picked up how much was good about him instead, and that flashback to what he was like as a kid and how he saw Mo Ran as a kid and just so immediately wanted to help was just like? just re-emphasis and I wasn't even mad about it. They're all pretty tragic! I liked how the book was put together and how all the way through you still see that way that Chu Wanning and Mo Ran always have that thread of goodness, no matter how far they're pushed (...and they're uh. pushed pretty far).
But for all of that, I felt really caught offguard in that Mo Ran and Chu Wanning went off and built a life together planting flowers. Yes, there's the whole 'Taxian-jun for a day' thing, but I feel kind of troubled about it for a few reasons. In some ways, I feel like this ending (after Mo-zongshi wakes up from the whole world-closing thing basically) felt a bit rushed, but I also just felt like somehow, they got along too well?
Well obviously you can say, "Kit, that shows the goodness running through both of them, since they're not blackened of course you see it more!" but goodness doesn't equate comfort. I think I would have felt more fulfilled if there was more... just concern, maybe? I wanted to see the Chu Wanning with the thin face and terrible self-esteem who has the memories of two lives now, continue to reconcile them and his reactions to Mo Ran. Maybe this is projection, but I feel like Chu Wanning would of course immediately forgive Mo Ran -- anyway, Mo-zongshi has shown his ability to be warm to him multifold, and Taxian-jun as well anyway -- but he would still wrestle with it. Forget asking for sex without blowing up with embarrassment, Chu Wanning canonically is incapable of going five minutes without something becoming awkward. I don't begrudge them getting together, but I feel like it shouldn't have been so smooth, and I feel like I didn't get closure for the 0.5 timeline essentially.
Maybe if/when I reread it, I'll feel differently! I think the difficulty for me lies in the way that I have a terrible time dropping things, and so I just projected a little too much and was like, "it can't be that easy to get over All of 0.5/Taxian-jun's...Taxian-jun-ness," but I feel like there is textual evidence towards Chu Wanning as wanting to forgive things or having difficulties keeping grudges, but still remembering? Taxian-jun did So Many Things. Soooo many things. He really took the time in the 0.5 timeline to break Chu Wanning down, but it felt? Passed over?
To be fair, Chu Wanning went off together with Mo-zongshi, not Taxian-jun everyday. So it's not exactly the "merged memories but who cares about those events" that I'm making it sound like, because Mo-zongshi does do the whole apology and everything, but it's difficult because to me, Mo-zongshi isn't like. Not Taxian-jun? He's Taxian-jun after like a decade in a good world. And yes, there is the whole lotus situation that explains away a lot, but is it that easy to get over? At this point I'm not explaining what I mean by 'it' because I'm getting a little embarrassed writing and realizing I'm apparently a bit more fired up about this than I thought, so maybe I'll try again tomorrow.
Now that I write it out, I do get how and why he wouldn't continue to 'hold the experience against Mo Ran' or something - Taxian-jun's behavior is explained as a) from external influence and b) dedicated to Chu Wanning from the beginning until literally the end, and then the end again. There was the whole sacrifice thing. There's a lot for it! But I think I felt so beaten over the head with the atrocities of the 0.5 timeline (and let's be real, the way Mo Ran was when he just time-traveled back) that I expected a longer winddown probably.
