batbeato

[batbeato]

Deltarune's Snowgrave Route, and projections of heteronormativity.

Something I've been seeing a lot as I look into Deltarune fandom content is the idea of the Snowgrave / Weird Route as "two queer people forced into a heteronormative relationship".

The argument seems to be that, because 'we' (the player) force Kris into an abusive role / relationship with Noelle, one that involves Kris giving Noelle a ring, we are forcing Kris and Noelle into a heteronormative relationship. This sometimes also comes with the idea that Kris is an AMAB trans person who is being forced 'back' into masculinity.

This interpretation of Snowgrave is predicated on the idea that an abusive / dominating role is an inherently masculine one, or that an abusive relationship is an inherently heteronormative one. At no point in Snowgrave is Kris referred to with masculine terms.

Two queer people in a relationship are queer. Regardless of their gender identities, presentations, and any abuse that may occur in that relationship. The idea that one partner in a queer relationship is "the man" and the other is "the woman" has often been used as part of lesbophobia and to discredit lesbian relationships. One partner, regardless of how they present or identify, being abusive does not make a relationship heteronormative.

Heteronormativity is not when a relationship is abusive. Heteronormativity is not when a relationship involves one person with a masculine presentation and one person with a feminine presentation.

Believing that Snowgrave is about two queer people being forced into a heteronormative relationship misgenders Kris, a nonbinary character, because they are perceived to be 'masculine'. It also implies that any transfeminine person who is abusive is 'masculine' - a transmisogynistic connotation that has stood out to the transfems in my life I have discussed this interpretation of Snowgrave with.

Deltarune, as a whole, does not engage deeply with gender. Kris is a nonbinary protagonist, but characters do not express any opinion about their gender or how they express their gender. Even when Susie teases Kris about wearing ribbons, it is related more to the idea that ribbons are 'childish' than that they are 'feminine'. No one comments on Kris' pronouns or discusses their own relationship with gender or with patriarchal norms.

Snowgrave is a deconstruction of the player character's control over other party members, an exploration of a broken childhood friendship, and an extension of the story's themes of choice and pacifism vs violence. There are romantic implications to Kris and Noelle's relationship (the ring, Spamton calling Noelle Kris' "side chick", Noelle going with Kris to the festival) but these are tied into a corruption of Kris and Noelle's childhood friendship and an exploration of their abusive dynamic in Snowgrave.

[batbeato]

So I caught up on Deltarune recently and I have Thoughts about the ending of Chapter 4. (Spoilers beneath the cut.)

The tonal shift and dissonance here is incredible. You have Kris and Susie, back after an intense amount of battling and emotional turmoil, and there's Toriel, completely fine, dancing and uncaring of the fact that her child and their friend have been out in the rain for hours in the middle of the night.

Then you have the fact that Toriel is drunk. Not only is she drunk, but she's dancing with someone who is, at best, a stranger. At worst, he's someone who's said some rude/mean-spirited things to Kris, ranging from "befriending your mom" jokes to "you're an idiot baby for asking to be friends with me HAHA".

Toriel tells Susie that she can take Asriel's bed - take Asriel's place in their house. This contrasts Carol and Noelle's reverence of December's room, keeping it perfectly as it had been - but it contrasts it to such an extent that it's harmful in its own way, especially when Asriel is meant to come back for the festival (which is tomorrow). While Carol embodies a reverence of the past that fully rejects the present, here Toriel embodies a rejection of the past that fully denies Kris' difficult relationship with coming to terms with their parents' divorce and Asriel's transition to college.

It's no wonder that Susie is uncomfortable with all of this and leaves, and that Kris is distressed in the moment and while trying to sleep (the noise level aside).

Kris is left with nothing in the fridge to eat, their mother is drunk and didn't inquire about their whereabouts or worry at all, she brought a stranger into their house who she may be on a date with, and they have to deal with loud music playing late into the night. Toriel getting this drunk, when Kris isn't home, is irresponsible on its own. Kris shouldn't ever be witnessing their mother in this state, or, if they do, it should at least be with a responsible, trusted adult looking after her (and Kris).

Toriel does not know Sans well. He has only been in town for a very short period of time. Bringing him into her house is irresponsible for her own safety, but especially for the safety of her child. Beyond that, if she is having a romantic date with Sans, it should not be taking place in her house when it is a very, very new relationship. Kris should not be introduced to their mother's new-as-of-today boyfriend this early on into their relationship, and not in this by-surprise, accidental way when Toriel is drunk and it is very late at night.

Sans also seems to be sober, whereas Toriel is... definitively not.

Since Sans has Papyrus at home, it might not be possible for them to hang out at Sans' house, but it should be possible for them to find an alternative location. For example, they could have continued to hang out at Sans' grocery store. It should also have been possible for Toriel to communicate with the other choir members as well as Kris.

It was possible for Toriel to be a responsible parent while still finding time to socialize. She chose to make poor decisions that follow an already-established pattern of her not caring about Kris' whereabouts and brushing it off as 'normal for Kris'.

It's just such a small scene that says so much about Toriel's parenting and what she prioritizes over Kris, and how she actively continues to make Kris' living situation stressful and unstable. It contrasts Carol, who continues to force everything to remain the same despite the harm it causes Noelle and the cracks it seems to have caused in her relationship with Rudy. It also contrasts Asgore, who tries to forcefully set everything back to a "normal" that can never return - and, in the process, puts Kris in the middle of his conflict with Toriel, just as Toriel's efforts to move on harm Kris at the end of Chapter 4.

[batbeato]

YOU KILLED OFF IKUKO???????

ITS METAPHORICAL SHE'LL BE FINE

[batbeato]

So the actual reason I remembered tumblr existed was because I was having thoughts about the Royal Scandal series and cultural appropriation / racism and my partner told me I should tumblr about it.

This is Catherine, the one Royal Scandal character (outside of a handful of nameless background characters) that has a darker skintone.

Catherine also happens to be a vaguely antagonistic figure and is associated with (black) cats, as they represent the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland. They are also the only (afaik) RoySca character who does not have a canon gender listed, making them androgynous/ambiguous/nonbinary. Considering that the gender binary as we know it is defined by white patriarchy, and is used to degender and dehumanize people of color, Catherine being the only genderless character is echoing a long tradition of the degendering of POC.

This is Alam, who is based on Aladdin. The original Aladdin itself is a story by a French man: it originated as an Orientalist tale by someone with limited contact with, little knowledge of, and bigotry towards non-white cultures.

Alam himself is a light-skinned man intended to be Arab, a problem in itself. While Arab people may have a variety of skintones, including lighter skintones, the lack of overall skintone diversity points to colorism and light-as-default rather than a deliberate choice by the creators.

His depiction is further problematized by making his 'Jasmine' a wealthy white woman - Olivia - from a Europe-analogous country. He ends up abusing her due to being cursed by a magic ring, resulting in the neglected and abused Olivia murdering him.

As far as I am aware, Alam and his song, Magic Ring Night, which attempts to use "Oriental" musical motifs and some Arabic, were not created in consultation with anyone from any Arab and/or Middle Eastern background.

Nina is a girl from a small tropical island village who is clad in what appears to be an amalgamation of indigenous dress from a variety of cultures that remain unnamed, uncredited, and unthanked, their traditions mined and robbed for artistic inspiration by non-indigenous creators.

Much like Alam, she is light-skinned, again a decision likely not made as part of consideration of cultures she is inspired by or coded as. She, much like Alam, is a poor person from a non-white culture who falls in love with a wealthy white European. This ties into a long-standing trope of non-white people being "saved" and "civilized" by their white lovers.

Both Alam and Nina also go through a transformation where, as part of gaining power (Alam) or fitting into European society and appealing to her love interest (Nina), they discard their cultural dress in favor of European clothes.

This story of (attempted) assimilation into whiteness to gain status, wealth and love ignores the violent, forceful assimilation that indigenous peoples have endured, and still face. It rewards characters for approaching whiteness, and, in Nina's case, distinctly treats her European dress as a superior adornment to her cultural dress.

I do not believe that KANON69 and Rahwia created Royal Scandal while understanding these implications of their work, but they did not consult people of the cultures they attempt to depict, and their biases are reflected in their work.

I hope that more Royal Scandal fans can acknowledge the harm in the depictions of non-white cultures and characters in the series.

[batbeato]

will ikuko always haunt the narrative in your tohya fics. must you not give me at least a bit, a crumb is all im asking for, of healthy tohya x ikuko.

also. will there be yukari/ikuko interactions in the upcoming chapters. please. please 🙏🙏🙏🙏

Hi sorry I forgot tumblr existed

The answer to the first: I cannot promise it but maybe someday??? Though if you count the tohyasu comm I did recently, Ikuko is healthy in that even if she doesn't really show up?

The answer to the second: yes

[batbeato]

Thinking about transgender Battler AU’s (Wheel Clocking, Wanderlust of the Golden Witch, the story carries on, etc). Courtesy full spoiler warning.

Battler is a girl. She knows that she is a girl, whether she has always known or came to discover it later in her life (her six year absence from la familia Ushiromiya-), even when everyone else around her thinks and tells her that she is a boy.

And I just keep chewing and chewing on the two concepts of Battler proudly strutting her stuff (as she should) a la Koibuchi Kuranosuke if he had been raised in the 80’s -

As well as the fact that people around her (Rudolf, Kyrie, the Ushiromiya’s of 1986 if VN events occur) would react, likely in either transphobia or trying to understand but not fully getting it.

Just consider: Battler publicly comes out as a girl.

It starts in small touches to her appearance, so small that it isn’t at odds with how she normally dressed before the egg cracked.

She begins to grow her hair out, just a little longer at a time. At home, she starts wearing clothes that are probably considered a little more feminine - blouses, sometimes, in place of T-shirts. Practices padding the shape of her chest in her room.

Later still, maybe Battler starts to wear skirts in place of her jeans when she’s in private. Then, in the evenings outside…and then more and more, changing between jeans and shorts and skirts as she pleases.

And she moves on to dresses. Spinning in her room, walking around her grandparents’ house.

At some point, she starts going to school wearing the girl’s uniform.

It’s little changes at a time for her, but eventually those little changes will become noticeable, and then it’s a big change (for most of the people around her, at least).

Battler (whom they consider a boy), now claiming to be a girl.

Assuming she comes out after the school year starts, her classmates and teachers would know her before she came out - When Battler ‘was’ a boy, dressed as a boy, and had a ‘boy’s name’.

(if she chose to change her name, because Battler is such a unique name that it isn’t really gendered? Person who fights. Unless you transliterate it to soldier? Then maybe it would be considered gendered, because predominantly men were soldiers throughout history).

They still view her as a boy.

There’s something to chew on in considering how the teacher’s could react. Namely, Battler is breaking the school dress code in wearing a girl’s uniform, they may considering ‘his’ cross-dressing as a form of delinquency, the potential of deadnaming, etc.

Then there’s how her fellow classmates would react, potential harassment or the ideology that Battler’s a creep or something, which doesn’t bode well for Battler because it’s the 1980’s -

Followed by Battler’s life with her grandparents (I sit firmly in the camp that her grandparents love their beautiful fucking granddaughter. I will die on this hill), all of which would be affected by japan’s general attitude towards the concept of transgender.

Battler would most certainly deal with either harassment or outright avoidance from other people, if not both - being publicly avoided while getting harassed behind the scenes, such as her desk or locker being messed up, because she is “a boy acting and dressing like a girl” to other people.

You see it in a lot of media, where cross-dressing characters, “trap” characters, are often utilized for ‘comedic’ effect such as being called perverted or degenerates (or, in lighter medias, other characters are just mind blown by the fact that this character is actually a boy, and life moves on).

There’s also just the fact that many more people just wouldn’t talk about it. In day to day life, it simply isn’t talked about. Because it isn’t normal.

Transfem Battler could, to some subtler extent spending on where exactly she is, could deal with that same stigma and thusly - ostracization, harassment, and disdain from others.

In a slightly (barely) happier concept, Battler could have come out some point prior to Asumu’s death, and post-Asumu’s death, after moving in with her grandparents, may have moved far enough away that she needed to switch school districts, and thusly - most people don’t know Battler ‘was a boy’.

(Battler’s 12 when Asumu dies, which is just around the time he would have entered middle school. I’m assuming here that several of his elementary school classmates would have attended the same middle school, thusly the above argument of his classmates knowing her as boy unless she attended a school away from the district she originally lived in).

This isn’t touching on how the Ushiromiya’s would respond. Because oh boy would they react. Unpleasantly.

Gender Roles, Misogyny, Toxic Masculinity everywhere. It is literally everywhere.

Everywhere.

I have. Thoughts. About this.

I also actually was considering the thought of writing Battler, transgender or not, through the lens of if he (she/they) was intersex.

This was primarily because Batbeato’s reading of Sayo as intersex/intersex-analogous has permanently altered my brain chemistry, and I remembered seeing a posted image on Pinterest or google somewhere about a Phantom of the Opera Ask blog.

It consisted of someone asking something along the lines of if Christine’s perfect face was a mask and she had the same physical appearance as Erik, if he would judge her (and honestly, while Erik would judge himself for his own face pretty badly because he has Trauma, especially in Susan Kay’s edition, Christine? His Christine who he obsessed over? And attempted to murder/actually did murder several people for? Yeah, no, can’t see it happening in any universe).

A Battler who is born intersex, whether it’s merely hormonal or his body physically developed differently than the average person, is a sort of narrative parallel to Sayo, I guess.

Sayo, as she grows up, although she was raised as a girl - she doesn’t get the typical feminizing puberty many girls have. She doesn’t get her period, she doesn’t begin to grow breasts, and she doesn’t get much taller. This is largely caused by the injuries to her body as an infant, and the genital reconstructive surgery/mutilation done to both save her life and turn her from Lion, the man from 19 years ago, to Yasuda Sayo.

Part of that, her lack of a traditional feminine puberty, is what later drives her to dress as Kanon, explore a masculine gender identity, in comparison to the feminine ideal that is her identity as Shannon. And Sayo is both.

A Battler who also goes through the struggle of an ‘atypical puberty’, one that comes late or is only partially masculinizing (we know he was fairly short, the shortest in his class, until some point in his first or second year of high school), a Battler who also struggles with his/her/their gender identity, a Battler who - if his body was ‘atypical’, might have been mutilated by surgery - has his right to his body violated?

It’s an interesting, and painful similarity, especially as Umineko grapples so heavily with the expectation of social roles and how that forms certain characters viewpoints towards one another, their mindsets.

If you were to enfold that into a transbattler AU, i find that interesting how that would also effect how some characters (such as Rudolf, and perhaps Asumu) would perceive Battler’s identity as trans compared to others.

Example: People 12 years into the future might rationalize it as Rudolf’s illegitimate daughter with Kyrie he mutilated to make her into Asumu’s son. Rudolf himself, while at odds with Battler’s identity as a girl, might also rationalize this as just another fuck up on his end - his son, his daughter, his child was not born in a ‘normal’ manner by any means of the word.

Again, if there’s one family that takes traditional gender roles to an extreme serious point - it’s the Ushiromiya (adults).

Also, maybe a little bit of spite, because when I open AO3 and filter for the intersex tag, I don’t want to see smut. I want a deep dive into the mind and life of the character I’m looking at, how the way their body is considered different from others, how they’re body was treated and how it was supposed to grow vs how it doesn’t, how that effects them mentally and not just physically, the potential fluctuation of their gender identity if they are not what they have been assigned, and the inevitable grief of, even if they do consider themselves what gender they’ve been assigned - the revelation of what makes them different if, like so many, they were simply told to hush and take vitamins, and if they have scars, no they don’t or it was just a minor surgery.

Instead, I find futanari kink fics that sexualize intersex genitals as having ‘both’. Not all, but enough that it really grates on the nerves.

That’s also why I’m so terrified of discussing or writing such an AU, though. People who are intersex already have their struggles either hypersexualized or erased entirely because of how heavily stereotyped and sexualized it is.

[batbeato]

1) PLEASE TELL ME EUA IS BACK.

Bern liking Tohya Justice! :)

(Though I’m now considering the concept of a fantasy Tohya interacting with Bern, and what a mindtrip that would be for everyone around since Bern is…Bern).

2) That George fic. It hurts. Like - Eva loves George. This is a fact. But she also pushed George so hard that it didn’t really leave room for George himself - and I have thoughts on the enforced maturity of kids in the Ushiromiya family, and George is a Prime Example of this (case in point: Rosa slapping Maria and him likening it to having your parents yell at you for misbehaving) and Just -

George. And how he perceives Shannon.

10/10, and also -

Ow (it was great and I loved it and planned to comment on ao3 but kind of forgot).

laughs. a lot. you'll find out when I next update. Thank you for agreeing with my take about Tohya and Bern, them interacting in fantasy would be... interesting. To say the least.

Wide smile. Yeah. The enforced maturity and the push for George to be perfect and forcing a lot of patriarchal ideals onto him. Done out of love, to be sure, but one that was, in the end, harmful... Thanks for sharing here :)

[batbeato]

the new chapter is making me bawl my eyes out, thats not when they cry thats when i cry

Ahaha... Whoops? If it's any consolation, I teared up a bit writing...?

[batbeato]

https://yasuda-yoshiya.tumblr.com/post/156954345942/its-certainly-interesting-considering-the

Hi! What do you think about this post about Yasu? I read it and I found myself really agreeing to it

Hi!! I agree with the reblogger because the way Confession frames Sayo is....... special. So much of Sayo is present in the main VN that I cannot fathom seeing it as primarily a "sad about Battler" motivation. I'm actually someone that doesn't really enjoy EP7 too much because of how little it offers on a reread (for me at least) in comparison to other episodes, but the first read experience of EP7 and the way it generally portrays Sayo is. Chef kiss. The way it works more subtly to display Sayo's character and history through a fantasy lens is so good. And the way Confession frames Shannon as the main persona and tears the catbox apart and does so through this weird "actually Sayo wrote a special message bottle" framing is... ugh.

I also like the comparison made to Takano, because I did not think about it until then but Sayo in Confession is really just Takano, with everything about them spoonfed to you at the last stretch to make you feel bad/sympathetic. The mention of the lack of engagement is also something I wholeheartedly agree with. I feel like some newer readers who haven't had the time to really engage more deeply with Sayo's character come out of it with some skewed readings of them that I disagree with - which are enabled / created by Confession.

When so much of Umineko is about catboxes and closing them, there has to be a better way to give an answer sheet more detailed than EP7 without being Confession.

(When I read Umineko, I didn't read Confession for a decent bit after finishing the VN, which I think helped me marinate thoughts more)

[batbeato]

new virgitohya chapter :) its. been a while. a lot happened in my life and the world and there's been a lot of stress and burnout. but i'm gonna get to the finish line, chapter by chapter

https://archiveofourown.org/works/39001458/chapters/163954249

[batbeato]

I wish you have a great day! 💖

You too anon!! Thank you~

[batbeato]

I’m very curious about your interpretation of Ikuko herself, not regarding her relationship with Tohya (since I prefer to think of them as besties). Personally, I’ve always thought of her as a possibility neurodivergent queer woman(I might get stoned to death for this, but I ship her with Ange), her ‘incident’ being her getting outed or something similar.

I think she’s neat. We need more messed up women in media.

Don't worry, I've seen people ship her with Ange (and Ange with Featherine). No stoning here.

I've always thought of Ikuko as someone whose outlook on life and people was deeply shaped by a traumatic upbringing in her wealthy family - one that didn't offer her much personal connection or affection. It detached her from other people a lot and resulted in her being a really lonely person who has very high - but also very low - self-esteem.

Neurodivergency and trauma can sometimes be difficult to tell apart, but regardless of whether it's trauma or neurodivergency, her brain is Not Typical.

For me her 'incident' involved her having a relationship with someone who was "unfit" - someone who wasn't wealthy or powerful like what her parents wanted.

I think she's queer, but for me I've thought more about her being aspec than other identities (though I do think she would be fine being in a relationship with a woman). I know I was thinking about specific labels in the past, but I didn't make notes and so I've forgotten.

Ikuko is so. I have Thoughts about her in ways I'm not sure Ryukishi intended because I don't know if he really thought through some of the EP8 Tohya revelation stuff. I wish we lived in a world where Ryukishi got to refine and expand on it more (in whatever direction he wanted) because she is such Enigma. But she's fun to think about regardless.

[batbeato]

There's an essay to be written about the fandom's veneration of Beatrice as a trans woman and its correlation to how the popular fandom conception of Beatrice is as a dominant and powerful woman, often with a penis (or a phallic strap-on), who sexually dominates (and at times emasculates or forcefully feminizes) Battler and the transmisogyny of it all.

[batbeato]

I was reading my copy of the Inferno from the divine comedy, of how Virgil and those other souls born before the Christian Mysteries were introduced were raised outside of the ‘true’ faith (Christianity, in Dante’s case), and therefore consigned to hell - not out of any sin, but simply because they had not been baptized, had not known of Christianity or God.

Ignorance, a lack of knowledge, still leads to hell. Even if it is a gentle hell, where the only pain is lack of hope for betterment - it is still hell.

And that reminds me of Sayo, although in a far different way - Sayo who was in a way consigned to a hell of her own without knowing why - born of an intentional ignorance perpetuated by Genji and Kumasawa. Why she was selected to serve so young on Rokkenjima, later why her puberty hadn’t begun, up until the solving of the epitaph.

(Arguably, Sayo who was sinless as an individual suffered a great deal more than Virgil and the other souls at the first circle of hell, however. They were left without hope to enter Heaven, but Sayo was hollowed off - everything, even the semblance of humanity, in becoming ‘furniture’)

Sayo had done no sin, and yet was eventually consigned to sin and fall into hell later on the behalf of other’s actions, because she was driven to desperation.

I just have - feelings.

Hi anon sorry it took me a bit to get to this --

I have. Thoughts about ignorance especially as it relates to Sayo since Sayo and Ange are foils, where Sayo had ignorance taken from them while Ange actively seeks to remove it from herself, traumatizing herself as a result but ultimately allowing herself to face it. (Kind of like how one might need to remember a traumatic event happened, rather than forgetting about it, in order to heal from the trauma.)

Sayo actively acts as if she is ignorant, whereas Ange does the opposite, and they have very different fates as a result of the different directions they take.

Dante's Inferno is very Catholic in its perception of sin and hell - but then again, so is Sayo, so it works out. In the view of Dante, Sayo would probably be consigned due to ignorance as well as the sin of her father (incest + adultery). The actions of others pass onto the child, creating an unbreakable link of sin-bearing, wherein the adults pass their sins onto their children (similar to the EP4 idea of the chain of abuse).

However, again, we see how Ange breaks this cycle. Though everyone in her life did their best to absolve her of sin through ignorance, she sought out the truth, and as a result achieved salvation not only for herself but for her family, via remembering them as people and not as caricatures. (This ties into Purgatorio's revelation that, when one prays for the soul of the deceased when they are in Purgatory, it lessens the time they must spend atoning, assisting them on their journey to Heaven).

Ange is thus an example of how Sayo could have escaped damnation if she had taken a different path - but that path was laid out for them from the start through the horrific trauma they experienced from the moment they were reborn as "Yasuda Sayo".

[batbeato]

You ever think abt how tohya wrote in that gay little moment when introducing ronove to battler. What did he mean by that.

EP3 is so something in retrospect, actually.

Oh anon I wish I knew. I swear there's definitely some kind of bisexual repression going on with Tohya and he's way too traumatized and introverted to ever explore it.

[batbeato]

Weird question, but how accurate do you think Kinzo’s behavior on the gameboard is - considering the fact that he’s, well, dead for two years by 1986?

I figure that his outbursts in regards to Beatrice are fairly accurate at times, as I think servants previously saw him act that way - not just Sayo, but in regards to him threatening to boil people into broth for entering his study, the apocalypse - etc?

(I kind of wonder if by that point his mental state had degraded so steeply or, if when alive, that it was a way to keep people from bothering him)

Difficult to say. There's absolutely bias from both Sayo and Tohya(/Ikuko), especially with how Kinzo is used as a narrative tool by both.

Kinzo's most fantastical and occult rants are the most suspect, as they serve the narrative of the witch as well as Krauss' narrative about Kinzo locking himself in his study. Kinzo's interest in the occult is well-proven, and there are instances of him saying/doing occult things while family is around, such as Natsuhi's accounts, or Ange's memories, but it was likely somewhat exaggerated for the gameboards.

His rants about Beatrice may be somewhat similar, where he did exhibit such behavior in life, but it was exaggerated on the gameboards.

I think the "real" Kinzo still had all the behaviors of the gameboard Kinzos - including some behaviors of the Kinzo of Episode 8. Kinzo was an abusive patriarch who ranted and rambled about the occult and a Golden Witch, as well as someone who, on a whim, would play pranks or do incomprehensible things. At times those whims would be kind ones. I'm not sure if the Episode 8 Kinzo's genuine and often-expressed affection for his children and grandchildren was accurate: I think that aspect in particular, while potentially present in the 'real' Kinzo, was muted in life, and buried beneath his trauma and obsession with Beatrice (and, thus, the occult).

[batbeato]

Currently chewing on when Tohya woke up in Ikuko’s house.

When Tohya first wakes up, it’s to Ikuko and the doctor she called assessing his health. When Ikuko first enters the room and notices Tohya is awake, she asks how he is.

When he gives her a nod (indicating he’s fine for the most part - injuries and confusion aside), Ikuko - doesn’t ask him for his name or what he remembers.

Instead, she introduces herself - which is good, actually great, since Tohya knows he doesn’t recognize her, but what I find interesting then is - Ikuko doesn’t stop at offering her name, and she still doesn’t ask if he knows what happened to him.

Instead, to a very dazed young man, Ikuko starts talking (noticeably trying to be cheerful for Tohya) about her family background, as well as surprising amount of her own all things considered that this is a stranger she literally picked up on the side of the road (she was, partially disowned, mostly confined to the home she lived in, her family was rich - etc).

Tohya himself says he couldn’t very easily grasp at what she was saying to him, still very much in a daze from waking up. However, he knew she was (trying) to be cheerful, likely on account of his injuries.

However, it just - reads weirdly to me? From the audience’s viewpoint, we learn quickly enough that beyond his undisclosed physical injuries - Tohya has amnesia. He doesn’t remember his name, and presumably much of what happened to him (I keep thinking he remembers briefly being in the rain and the headlights when he first wakes up, but the memory doesn’t really set in until later).

It would make more sense to me if Ikuko brought all that stuff about herself after trying to reassure Tohya of his own lack of memory/identity - but she doesn’t, and it reads so much as overwhelming him, unintentionally or not, because he is not in a mental state to understand her words, not really - even if he feels she does so in goodwill.

It’s a clever way that allows her to glide into asking him what his name is, that self introduction, but still - the amount of information she gave was strange.

I just picture Tohya, who has just woken up from a traumatic head injury, and he’s trying to figure out what has happened - staring with glazed eyes at Ikuko who walks in, asks him how he is, and then promptly gives a minor expose on herself before asking about him.

I think it would be a clever way to ask someone who remembered who they were about their identity, especially if they were on guard, but Tohya has nothing - and we have no indication that when Ikuko entered the room, he was suspicious of her.

(He might of been, but as this is Tohya’s brief flashback of their meeting, what details we have are kind of vague)

As long as Ikuko entered the room and, with care, asked Tohya what his name was and what he remembered after giving her name - the doctor having already informed her there may be defects in his memory due to the injuries he sustained - she could have left it there.

(I briefly entertained the idea that Tohya woke up several times before, has no memory of doing so, and that Ikuko already knew he had no memory, but that feels oddly dark even if the idea plagues me)

It could also be read as Ikuko’s own lonesomeness rearing it’s head and a lack of really communicating to others on a (somewhat??) level as an equal rather than someone watching from above, because she is reaching out to put Tohya at ease, just -

Just, Tohya’s memory of meeting Ikuko and the potential implications.

To me part of it is that perhaps Ikuko is orienting Tohya's identity in her, from the moment they meet. Whether she was aware of the potential for memory loss or not, this was a very heavily injured young man who would be dependent on her for the foreseeable future, and when first waking up, would be very disoriented - and, thus, malleable. When people are not in fully-conscious states, but are dissociated, in trancelike states, etc., it can at times make people more suggestible.

Ikuko's introduction, to me, is a mix of genuine happiness and excitement at meeting him, as well as an effort to ensure that Tohya is comfortable with her. She greets him in a very friendly, enthusiastic way, immediately setting the tone of their relationship as a friendly/close one. It's not the more reserved or even clinical way someone might speak to a patient still recovering and with a dubious level of comprehension of their surroundings.