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darklingichor · 4 years

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Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell Ramble Fest Part 5. *Spoilers*

Day 5: finished it. Okay, lots of things. Rowell's writing is absolutely addictive, I would have finished it faster if it weren't for my job and bills and stuff. Stupid responsiblites keeping me from reading.

I think I'll take each plot thread and follow it to the end.

With Levi, I sort of expected him to be Reagan’s brother, possibly twin (just by the way she reacted to the identical twin thing). Anyway, what college class allows you to read and test on The Outsiders? Can I borrow anyone’s time machine and go take it? I literally (and I actually mean literally) read that book twenty times in a row when I was fifteen. I wrung every bit of context, subtext, and not-even-in-the-text out of it. I felt like I knew Johnny and Ponyboy better than I knew some of my own family members. My best friend and I also took turns reading it out loud to each other (we did this with a lot of books, actually). I could have taken that test in about five minutes and would have been the easiest A I ever got!

Anyway, can I just say that I love the fact that Cath sees audio books as reading? Some people don’t and it annoys me to no end.

So I do like the Cath/Levi pairing, but what is it about romance in fiction? One half of the pairing doesn’t answer texts so the other half makes out with someone else? Does this happen in real life? I’m aro ace, this is completely foreign to me. I mean, I understand the concept of demiromantic and demisexual. Someone you feel connected with makes you want to do the romance or physical thing with them. But then you wouldn’t just kiss someone else because you didn’t hear from the special someone for a couple of hours, right? How does that connection happen in the brain? Not judging just wondering about something that makes no sense to me, personally.

It was sort of interesting how the relationship progressed. I get why she was so reluctant to really go there. Cath is the embodiment of fool me once, you will not get a twice.

I like that Levi really is a nice guy. Not a guy who plays nice and then expects something because of it. He legitimately felt horrible for the kiss with the other girl.

Also often, in the stuff I watched growing up, the love interest had to "look past" the geeky stuff that the main character liked. It is cool that Levi likes Cath for everything that she is, including the stuff that Wren tries to downplay. Same goes for Cath liking Levi. Niether one of them change to make themselves "better" for the other. That seems more real to me.

I like the slight struggle they had with Reagan being Levi's ex and how they all moved passed it. The only thing I can't figure out of I like is how once the relationship solidified, Cath's anxiety seems to have, if not disappeared, then greatly reduced.

I can't figure out if that's because she had more in the way of support in the form of Wren, Levi, and Reagan, more confidence because of the reactions she got to both forms of her writting, less stress because her dad had more support from her grandmother, and all of the other things that came together for her... Or the "Got boy now, what is mental illness?" Trope.

I would say it's the former because it would make sense, but we spend so much time in Cath's head and see her struggle and overcome, in the little daily battles that are always there even with changes made in the form of healthy coping mechinisms, medication or counseling. And suddenly it just drops away... I don't know, that bugged me.

Speaking of struggles

Arthur’s episode was handled really well, and I’m completely on Cath’s side. Family comes first. I don’t care if they are uncouncious, I wouldn’t be able to consentrate on a final if a close family member were in the hospital and I wasn’t there.

The part of my brain ruled by the anxiety goblin completely agrees with Cath wanting to leave the school. The part of me that is closer related to the turtle than it should be. “This is scary, uncomfortable, painful, ect. Time to hide.”

The more reasonable part sort of agrees with her when she said she didn’t choose the school, Wren did. Why stay at a school that you didn’t want to attend in the first place? I also understand the logic behind wanting to stay home to take care of her dad. Is ot the eighteen year old kid's job to take care of the parent? Not really, but what do you do when someone you love needs help?

The more rational part also says: You have a scholarship? Stay put, kid, loans blow!

During this whole thing? Wren is still a dick. The You and dad are crazy because you let yourselves be crazy argument...

"Got a broken leg? Walk it of wussy!"

Now, is that to say that Cath's way of letting her anxiety cope with her rather than the other way around is right?

No.

But it's a lot more complicated than "Just don't let it bother you." Bitch, if she could do that she wouldn't have anxiety now would she?

I don't know a lot about bipolar but I know enough to say with confidence, that just willing the chemicals in your brain to behave is not going to cut it.

So Wren's alcohol poisoning. Can I say that I loved how it was handled? The writing got around every tired thing that can happen coming out 0f a plot element like that.

Wren and Cath did reconcile, but Cath didn't cut her a lot of slack and was matter of fact about how stupid Wren's behavior had been. Her dad didn't do the whole "I'm just glad you're okay" thing, he laid down the law. One of my favorite lines from Arthur was when he told Wren that she had to go to AA meetings.

"I'm not an alcoholic."

"Good. It's not contagious. You're going to meetings.”

I honestly wouldn't mind a story from Wren's perective over the course of this year. It would be interesting to see her partying, her relationship with her boyfriend and her thought process while she let some of her personality blaze through while hiding others.

After she and Cath make up it becomes clear that she thought that she couldn't go to parties, make new friends, have new experiences and be close with her sister and still openly love nerdy things.

Professor Piper, writing, Laura, and Simon Snow.

I get the feeling that Professor Piper is suppose to be subverting the Mary Sue stereotype. When Cath first starts the class she is in awe of this teacher. Piper is wise, talented and compassionate. She's perfect. So when she first talks down fan ficton, I thought, well if the story were to follow the Mary Sue, Cath would "realize" her folly and abandon Carry On, Simon. I knew that wasn't going to happen.

The more she bad mouths fan fiction, the more she just... Acts like nothing touches her, I thought: She's the Mary Sue... But she's almost the villain (and almost is important here because she doesn't continue down that path). I mean, she can do whatever she wants with her students' grades? What university is this? Professors have to get their grades submitted by a deadline. She couldn't hold Cath's grade just cause she felt like it. She'd have to submit an incomplete and I'm pretty sure that it would have to be made up long before it actually was.

She calls fan fic "Stillborn" as if the only ultimate reason to write is to make a living off of it, that was bitchy. She likely would have been surprised that a good number of her students probably dabble in it, because I haven't met many people who write (post Harry Potter) who didn't read some fanfic, if not write it, and that's just one fandom Yes, it is a wonderful thing to make your living doing something you love, However, Cath is also right, you can write like some people knit or scrapbook. You can do something you love simply for the love of it.

Further more and most importantly, no writting is "stillborn" you put effort into it, it lives, if only for you.

Now, Cath is trying to not write her final project because she's scared, she's afraid that she doesn't have it in her to do with her own characters what she does so well with Baz and Simon. That doean't mean her reasoning isn't sound, it's just not sound for her.

Nick... I don't have a lot to say about Nick. I knew he was going to end up being a tool, and he was.

Same goes for the Laura thing. I agree with Cath, you don't get to walk out of being a parent and walk back in to be a fair weather friend.

Simon Snow. As a framing device first the "original" books and then Carry On, Simon was very effective. I had a hard time listening to many of them though because of the narration. Don't know why they had the narrator switch when we were in Cath's story.

Having read Carry On before Fangirl, it was interesting to see the differences between the stories. And it simaltiously gave and took away hope for the Anyway the Wind Blows.

That fantastic part where Wren tells Cath that she can't kill off Baz, that she'd always said that Baz deserved a happy ending because of everything canon and all the fics they'd written and read, had put him through.

I thought: That bodes well for Baz in the next one.

But Wren also says that Cath has to give him a happy ending because Gemma T. Leslie never will.

Then I thought: Well shit, that doesn't, does it?

And all of this means nothing, really. Carry On and Wayward Son exist outside both this book and the fictional series...

Gah! This universe is like a Russian nesting doll crossed with a rublix cube!

The little bits we get of Cath's final project were lovely, and yes, painful. Writing something personal is painful but, but cathartic a lot of the time.

I had a lot of emotions reading this book and while I like Carry On more, I think Fangirl is fantasic. Just from the two books I've read, Rainbow Rowell's speciality is to take expectations and expertly either defy them or bring them to fuition in a way that is more satisfying than what the reader might be expecting. This means I might break from my escapist reading trend a bit more often.

#book #books #fangirl #rainbow rowell #spoilers #eight #book blogging 2020

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eyecicles · 5 years

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Thoughts on canon vs fandom treatment of female characters? Like the source material not having much in the way of female characters in general (at least relatively in the sense that I can count significant/developed female characters on one hand compared to the much larger number of important male characters) and how that translates into fandom treatment of female characters (misa and kiyomi being treated like shit in fanfics, ect). Sorry this is vague I just like your spicy opinions lmao

That’s a very interesting question! …Also a topic I’m very careful with but I do have some thoughts I would like to share nonetheless.

I completely agree that it’s quite obvious that Ohba cares more about the development of his male characters, about making them more unique in their motivations. Large parts of Death Note are about Light manipulating people (not about being accidentally successful and smart because of his ~magical powers~, that’s such an annoying take, honestly). And when you look at how he treats female characters, starting with Yuri, later Naomi, then Misa, Rem and Kiyomi, it becomes pretty clear that both he and Ohba always use the same tactic. Yes, because while writing a sexist character doesn’t make you or your story sexist per se, it’s just the sad truth that Ohba wrote it that way for a reason. (From what I’ve heard about his other works, DN is comparatively mild in the sexism department though)

If you compare that to the much more complex ways Light manipulates male characters, you can see very easily how they’re more developed by default. Not only has Light a much harder time with them, he evades characters like L and Near or even Aizawa, who isn’t a certified genius, by, well, not getting caught until the end.

Actually, I think it’s pretty interesting how characters deal with the fact that Light is Kira. The only female character who figures out his identity on her own is Misa, and she mostly manages that due to her special powers (the Shinigami eyes). Of course Misa is never praised for that and she’s routinely portrayed as dumb, while most of her character is about her obsession with Light… which only poses a problem for a few chapters.

Very popular fanon but fanon nonetheless: Naomi figuring out Light is Kira. She didn’t; Light told her himself and she’s in fact more than a little shocked by it, and of course, already doomed when she finds out the truth.

Kiyomi is told as well, and she’s a Kira supporter anyway, in love with Light, and relatively easy to manipulate - even though we see her struggling with being ordered to kill people. What’s apparently more of a problem is her questioning Light about Misa, but really, he’s mostly just annoyed and her jealously is something the narrative actively makes fun of (confirmed by Ohba himself).

And I agree that that’s mostly why the fandom finds it so easy to reduce especially Misa and Kiyomi to romance- or sex-obsessed dumbasses who are basically only there to be annoying. I wouldn’t defend that kind of treatment ever, but yes, it’s obvious where it comes from.

It’s more mild with Naomi, and Rem might be the only female character whose motivation is her love for another female character, but most of the main female characters have one thing in common: their character arcs being about love. Compare that to main male characters, and you can tell that the narrative treats love and romance as a “woman thing”. (Even Matsuda, who does show interest in romance, gets a surprisingly interesting and even touching arc. His character is mostly about being painfully average (painfully is the keyword here: the narrative shows much less pity for our average women, actually; they aren’t necessarily average, just not as much as smart as Light which is treated as given), about seeking recognition, about being bitterly disappointed by the person he trusted (Light) and his final moments with Light are ridiculously intense and well-written.)

(Soichiro isn’t motivated by personal love per se, but his “blindness” for who Light really is treated as something tragic and relatable. Soichiro dies, yes, but he’s seen almost as a hero for his strong morals and love for his son. Not comparable to Misa and Kiyomi at all.)

I indeed can’t count the fics where female characters only made an appearance to show the reader how much dumber, or even more evil, they are compared to Light’s love interest (which is usually L or a female OC). And while I don’t see Misa as just a victim of Light, it’s disgusting how people take what those characters are mainly about and make it (+ their personalities) worse than they were in canon. Instead of, you know, giving them more agency. It’s fanfiction, guys, they don’t have to be an obstacle for your ships if you don’t want to. Considering that Light shows no real interest in them either way, I find it even more arbitrary to write them that way.

Even though I’m used to see that kind of treatment, since I’ve been in fandoms for almost 15 years, it still shocks me how nasty and spiteful people can be about characters like Misa and Kiyomi. I rarely see male characters treated like that in fanfics, even when the general fandom opinion about them is a negative one. (The exceptions are unlikeable, ugly, comic relief kind of antagonists like Demegawa)

The fandom can be wildly different depending on where you look; on websites like YouTube or Reddit, it’s definitely more difficult to find people who like them, or people who at least try to see past that one trope the fandom likes to reduce them to. I’ve seen people making fun of their deaths or writing their own gruesome deaths for them, I’ve seen people praising Light to no end while hating Misa for being a serial killer.

While on tumblr, I often see the exact opposite of that. I wouldn’t say it’s just as bad, obviously not, but it’s still worth discussing, I think. It makes a lot of sense to try and make characters like Misa, Kiyomi, Naomi, Sayu, or Rem more intriguing and complex. I absolutely love what “Those” did to Kiyomi for example; it shows very clearly what we could have had with a better (or at least less sexist) writer than Ohba.

But if I’m being completely honest, what I’m not a fan of, is people completely taking everything about a character to make them something they’re 100% not. It’s one thing to make someone more complex, but something quite different to make Misa a feminist and mere victim who only pretended to like Light. I guess that’s partly a personal preference, but something about making a female character just a victim, when they’re canonically not, is a bit… icky to me. I think we can treat Misa with more compassion than Ohba did without making her a mere victim.

And some goes for Naomi; her indeed being tricked by Light, her being naive, yes, even in “Another Note”, doesn’t make her less sympathetic or cool. It often feels like we want to put female characters on a pedestal just so we can allow ourselves to stan them just as much as the male main characters.

I can’t see why Light is allowed to be a complex serial killer you can love or hate, while Misa isn’t. It’s telling how even people who like Misa often seem to feel the need to make her an angel, while Light fans often find it more easy to accept that he’s a bastard indeed. (There are Light apologists as well, but they at least rarely try to reduce him to nothing more than a puppet who got screwed over big time)

Even when female characters are very well-written and developed, like Discworld characters, the fandom often scrutinises them way more harshly than the male ones. But yeah, having a distinct difference in the writing of male vs female characters in a story… definitely makes the fandom react in more extreme ways.

I would actually love to read more Misa, Naomi and Kiyomi centric stories where they’re allowed to keep their flaws while getting the development Ohba never gave them. And your ask reminded me that I can, want and should write stories like that too, haha.

#answered #anon #death note #misa amane #kiyomi takada #naomi misora #rem #meta

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