T H E H O L L O W

I discovered BF first and fell in love with Ash instantly, just like how someone feels when they discover a new song from the musical genre they love. I’m a college student majoring in psychology, so I have this habit of getting interested in complex characters with issues involving trauma. Actually, I kind of want to specialize in that area. Ash Lynx and Laura Palmer were the starting point that made me seriously consider that idea. I started clinging to the things that kept me going, and that’s why they’re so important to me.

In early 2025, I was finishing Banana Fish, and the anime and manga had left a void in my heart. I decided to start reading fanfiction on AO3 to try to fill that void, and for the most part, it worked. I had access to many wonderful stories featuring Ash and Eiji, but none of them had made as big an impact as the one I found. Considering that there are thousands of stories there, this one is very famous and stands out (even though others managed to surpass it, I don’t know how). But this one was different; it was and still is special to this day. It was through this story that I began to like Banana Fish and Ash Lynx much more, eventually leading to my discovery of Twin Peaks and Laura Palmer.

I won’t go into too much detail about this story, but it’s basically a prequel to Banana Fish that recounts Aslan's past and early adolescence (when he was thirteen years old). The story is written in such a detailed and powerful way that it makes you think of it as canonical to the anime/manga. I’ve adopted the perspective that yes, everything that happened in this fanfic is part of the original work, and Ash went through all of it. In fact, this story is very disturbing as well —it contains many degrading scenes involving pedophilia, child sexual abuse, violence, sexual exploitation of minors, etc. It’s not for the faint of heart. I think that’s what made me like it so much—because it was so true to real life and didn’t romanticize his suffering. I like realistic stories that don’t gloss over the innate cruelty of human beings, and this author captured that in the best possible way. Congratulations, you deserve all the awards.

And if you’ve made it this far, I think you can tell that I still haven’t gotten over what that fanfic did to me. It tore me apart in every possible way, and this is the first time I’ve ever given anyone credit for something like this. It left me in a manic state for months, and the only thing on my mind was Aslan Jade Callenreese. And then came Laura Palmer and Twin Peaks.

I think most people know that around mid-2025 or 2026, the theme of Laura Palmer featured in the series became famous and sparked trends and videos featuring other tragic fictional characters on Tik Tok; Ash was one of them. It was from that moment on that my mind began to associate Ash and Laura as a single entity. To me, they were and are very similar; a sort of perfect and tragic combination that would be interesting to write about, and I’m speaking of this as a mental health professional. And this fantasy became even more prominent when I read “The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer” written by the daughter of one of the minds behind the series and Fire Walk With Me, Jennifer Lynch. That took me back to the time when I was reading the fanfic on AO3, and suddenly I was projecting everything: the suffering; the excitement; the urge to protect Ash; to murder the pedophiles and rapists etc.

At this point, you might think I’m a bit too crazy, and I don’t mind that—in fact, I agree with the term. Laura and Ash have grown together in a powerful way within me, and ever since I watched Fire Walk With Me and read the diary, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it or connecting the two. I swear to everyone, every time I read the diary, it was as if I were seeing things from Ash’s perspective—the abuse, the shame, his worldview, and how he thought about people. It was magical, and I’ll carry that with me for the rest of my life.

If you made it to the end, I’m so grateful you read my account of playful madness. A kiss and a hug, and see you next time.

I thought there was a very supportive community for people interested in Banana Fish, and mostly, to people finding comfort through Ash, whose character literally helps battle their own trauma by giving them some hope and some autonomy in their lives. And yeah, when they're presented with another character like Ash (that got sexually abused and it's just a broken child) they just hate or don't give the attention it deserves. Stop living in your own private little perfect world goddamnit, and accept that not only Ash suffers from PTSD and gets abused. They did with Laura Palmer and weren't very supportive when I said that the two characters are very alike.... If you're not seeing the resemblances, then these characters are not for you.

That place is not very good and people always find ways to provoke or get in your head. I thought I could find comfort and a place to share my appreciation for Banana Fish and SA survivor characters, but there was not it. What a shame.

And to end this little frustrated text, this subreddit was the one with people putting down Laura Palmer, saying that her trauma was not worse than Ash, putting levels on people's suffering and experiences. SA should not be labeled by level or “who got better or worse”.

To be honest, I thought I would never read something like this, but I was in a subreddit lashing out at the people about Ash and Laura's situation, and someone had the audacity to say that her situation was even better because the abuse she endured was happening long after Ash (at 12) and was not committed utilizing force brute/extreme violence (cause Laura was sleeping and thought it was a dream). She was raped and no details can erase that, and later got used by grown men for their pleasure; they're literally abusing a girl trough addiction and permitting her to work as a prostitute just because they want to fuck her or get money. And people insist that Laura was not trafficked and that her situation was not similar to Ash.

Stop defining abuse through levels of violence like they can be worse and better than the other; you're just taking whatever disgusting thing happened to someone like it was a mere detail without ignoring their pain. I hope I don't have to see any comments about that in the future, it was truly twisted.

Laura Palmer & Ash Lynx

“It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life.

Banana Fish & Fire Walk With Me.