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wen-kexing-apologist · 1 year

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Uea and Red

I don't have a fancy intro for this so lets just get right into it.

Uea is red. We know Uea is red. I know Uea is red. But there is just something about the red on Uea that feels wrong. That I am having trouble wrapping my mind around. Maybe it's just that the color choice doesn't match well with James, but I'm going to choose to analyze it as an intentional part of the show instead, because fuck it, we ball. Because you see, it isn't all of the reds that I have trouble believing, just one specific shade.

So what red do I have a problem with?

The bright red. Uea's main red. Unfortunately :(

There is just something about it that makes it feel...fake? to me.

But, as I said, there are plenty of moments in the show where I wholly accept, understand, and associate Uea with red.

So when do I buy into Uea Anol The Red Rascal?

In lighting like this:

In clothing like this:

(I do consider pink to be a red since it has red in it.)

(This last image is from the after-credit scene of Cutie Pie where Net and James cameo as King and Uea).

In King's sheets:

All this to say that there are times when I completely see Uea as a Red Rascal, but I needed to figure out what it was about the main red that always took me out of that mindset. What was it about the main red that made me feel like it was a lie?

And after reading @respectthepetty's commentary on a previous thread : "Uea wearing a blue shirt in the past could very much symbolize him trying to not be himself." it really got me thinking.

That red is too saturated, too vibrant, too loud for Uea. At least in my opinion. Because while RTP is also correct and Uea "has been shown to be more spontaneous, attention-getting, and dominant" that is really only true when Uea is being sexual. When it comes to sex, Uea is the more dominant person. It is Uea that initiates/asks for the first sexual encounter with King, it is Uea who sets the (truly low bar) rules, at every point of the sexual relationship he has with King, Uea is in control.

But the same can't be said for non-sexual situations. In social situations, in matters of day to day existence, external personality, etc. King is the far more outgoing person. At the office King is the one who gets all the attention, he is more openly flirty. And while Uea gets his share of attention in the office, he does not reciprocate it the way that King does. Uea is quiet, Uea is reserved, and that's doubly the case when Uea is triggered. Unless he is actively re-living the moment, he dissociates or retreats in to himself to process his own emotions. When Uea's mother asks him for tuition in Episode 1 and he starts thinking about all his other stressors, he doesn't say a word, he just returns to the karaoke room and starts drinking:

At the hospital he folds in to himself, he barely puts up a fight, the only time he really even says "No," is when King starts reaching for his own wallet:

When King sniffs his neck the way his stepfather used to, Uea retreats to a hallway to hide. At no point does he offer any explanation (and to be clear he doesn't have to, he's allowed to keep it secret)

Honestly, the only way anyone in Uea's life probably has any indication that Uea is going through so much is from physically witnessing it themselves (King seeing Uea freaking out in the dark, King seeing Uea submissive in front of his mother, Jade protecting Uea from Pock, King rescuing Uea from Pock).

So to have such a bright and vibrant red for Uea feels wrong, it feels like a lie to me. Mostly because Uea's daily personality is more passive and restrained compared to his more open and demanding personality in the bedroom. I believe Uea as a Red Rascal when his reds are darker and muddier (the red-browns) or lighter and more subtle (the pinks). Uea's bright reds make me question his color-coding far more because it is so strong a color. (To be clear here this is not me saying I don't think Uea is strong, just me saying that he is too quiet for the bright reds).

And it got me thinking more about when and where Uea wears the bright red colors and where he doesn't. And it always seems to be in moments of anxiety.

When Uea wears bright red:

At the very beginning of Episode 1 when he is introducing himself to the audience

When he goes with King to get tested for STIs

When he goes home for his birthday.

These are all anxiety inducing moments.

Uea is making a first impression on us the audience, he's trying to gets us to see what he wants us to see. He is trying to convince us that what he is telling us is true. That is ordinary. The literal first words in his opening monologue are:

"I'm just an ordinary salaryman. I'm nothing different to others, but there might be one thing different...I don't like being around people in the office,"

Three minutes later, we get the truth:

Uea may seem like an ordinary salaryman on the outside, but he has been horrifically abused and is struggling with navigating trauma that is far outside what I would call "ordinary". Guess who picks up on the issue? King.

STI testing is the same thing, Uea is worried and King says as much:

And anyone who has seen Episode 4 understands perfectly well the anxiety Uea must be feeling at the prospect of going home. Because well...

#pransdaddarktimelineedition

And we know one of Uea's coping mechanisms is sex. He can't find the words to talk about his feelings properly so he tries to push them down, and distract himself with pleasure. If we want to look at the bright red as anxiety, Uea usually has something white on as a cover. His anxiety is there but he is trying to hide it.

But at King's he takes that white sweater off, tries to fuck his feelings away, but the anxiety is fresh, he hasn't regulated his emotions enough yet to be convincingly okay, and King #greenflagextraordinaire once again notices Uea is not in an emotionally secure enough place to proceed with sex.

And sure, you can argue that Uea wears these bright reds while he's one on one with King, and there the bright red can't just be anxiety, and we could also argue that every color has positives and negatives and the same could be said for the bright red. And to that I say, sure, but the one on ones with King are as follows: King snaps Uea out of an active trigger, King and Uea discuss starting a friends with benefits situation, Uea shows up to King's apartment on short notice after having a breakdown. None of these moments are what I personally would consider stress free.

Compare that to when Uea wears more muted/subtle reds:

The first time he meets King in a bar, (this is actually the brightest red that he wears that I can actually believe for Uea, and that's because it is a darker red than the other three firetruck red shirts.)

The day after he's shared a moment of connection and trust with King in the hospital after sending his mother home.

When he has forgiven King for accidentally triggering him without King knowing and is ready to re-initiate the FWB.

In the pool with King, when King asks him if he likes the sea and Uea replies "Kind of, but I preferred the calm one,"

Even the red lighting is different, the first red light is brighter and more intense, and that's because Uea is under time pressure to make a decision about whether or not to start the FWB deal with King. In the warmer post-coitus light of the second lighting photo, Uea is incredibly relaxed, almost drowsy, and is being asked to answer honest questions about why he agreed to be FWB. He's not anxious here, he's calm, and as a result Uea and King get to bask in a richer, deeper, less harsh red light. We can interpret the same information from King's sheets, with Uea being happy and relaxed and cuddled by King.

And even when we finally get King in red:

It's still not as bright as Uea's more purely red outfits (ie not the red-browns or the pinks). And naturally because King is still hiding something we've got to trap the brand new red color with all that black.

ANYWAY all of this to say I have figured out what is off-putting to me about the bright red, what makes me feel like it's a lie. IT'S BECAUSE IT IS A LIE!! Or I guess, more accurately, it's an over-compensation. Uea is red, but his trauma and his pain has made that red less vibrant. If respectthepetty is right, and let's be honest the Parent of All Tumblr Color Theory is always right, then Uea wearing blue at home was his way of suppressing his true self.

And if that's the case, then the separation he has from home, because he is no longer living there (since he's still in communication with his mother and therefore cannot fully be separated), has allowed Uea to stop hiding his true self, and embrace the Red Rascal he is. BUT because of his trauma, because his response to trauma seems to be more on the flight and freeze side of things, he is more prone to submission in the face of environmental triggers. When he can no longer simply ignore his mother's text messages, he will try to get his Mom to take a taxi, then give her money, and then resign himself to going to the ATM rather than actually fight her. When he sees his stepfather again, he will run to the dining room rather than engage, he will try to run to the kitchen, when he is stopped he will beg, quietly so as not to make a scene, and then he will run, and run again. (I want to be clear here, Uea does not need to fight, he is doing everything right, and he's doing the best that he can.)

When Uea is faced with high anxiety situations, he needs reminders of who he is. And those reminders need to be bright, and they need to be loud, because they need to be able to break through his initial panic and ground him. So he wears the bright red to tell himself and tell others fundamentally who he is:

A Red Rascal

And funnily enough, this bright red shirt Uea wears at the end of Ep. 4 is the only bright red shirt so far that doesn't bother me. It seems to fit him better than the other bright reds do and that is probably mostly because the loudness of this shirt is mitigated by the shadows on the front darkening the overall color and back of the shirt being washed out by the light rather than intensified by it. Or possibly because the pattern breaks up the color in a way that doesn't make it even brighter. I feel like the solid white stripes, and the solid white jacket from the examples above make their reds almost neon.

Here though, Uea is drunk and being hit on by a stranger. I don't think our boy is coping very well with the realization that he might be falling for King and so the Anxiety Red comes back. But it's not as In Your Face Bright Red as the others, and that's because he's not in as high stakes of a situation here. It's just hinting to me of potential inner turmoil on Uea's end, and since I haven't read the book I have no idea if Uea is contemplated fucking up a good thing and trying to end it because he doesn't think he is deserving of good things.

---

And for a total tangent, shout out to the purple in Ep. 3 after King and Uea's first night as official FWBs. I love when red and blue combine ;)

Ok, I have nothing else to say on this matter at this time. Thanks for listening, and as always if you made it this far, please collect your invisible Participation Medal.

TL;DR: Uea is a red rascal, but only when he is wearing muted red tones, not when he's wearing actual red. Shhh, I know...but it makes sense in my head