Let's Smile, Himiko Toga

Sanemi’s face was hard to draw for me oounuosdfnSMSMIM

who's opinion is he supposed to value here? fxmq? or the heavens who've never agreed with his actions in the first place?

is he supposed to dismiss the sincerity and kindness he sees infront of him (an entire city built for beings considered outlaws, shunned by the world!) or hearsay?

Lee Byunghun as Yoo Mansoo

A Bittersweet Life (2005)

Dir. Kim Jee-woon

instead of the logic of:

*a character says/does/feels something* -> I wonder why they did/say/feel that way? what is the subtext of that? what does it say about their beliefs and values? about other aspects of their personality? is this inherent or conditioned? what does it say about their past? what does it say about the world around them? how do they define/conceptualize xyz? is this the same as the rest of their world does? as we do? what happens when the boundaries of xyz are disturbed/recontextualized/troubled? how does that (re)shape their worldview?

it becomes the logic of:

*a character says/does/feels something* -> i do/say/feel that way too! and I do it that way because of my (personal and culturally specific) identification/understanding of xyz. therefore, the character does that because of the same shared identification/understanding of xyz, which is now a fixed feature, because my pleasure of the text is predicated on this identification.

which is fine, whatever, i'm not one to stay in the way of your pleasure, but it does become an issue when it turns you into a self-appointed cop on a path of righteousness to defend the character against (sometimes entirely imagined) infidels who are "disrespecting" or "misreading" them (because that means they are disrespecting and misreading you) and then turning it into some kind of overarching and targeted judgment of "well it's because fandom hates people like me," and looping the over-identification more and more into a knot. no one else understands this Character like you do! no one can touch them but you! woof-woof-woof!

but it's not about you. it's about the Character. And I'm not saying it in the sense of, "you can't hurt a character's feelings, they aren't real," because that's beside the point, but what I mean is that the character is embodied within a particular world - and I'm talking about speculative worlds specifically here - and you're completely disengaging with the fun part of unpacking that rich world because you jumped to a conclusion based on a solipsistic analysis. and yes, that includes when you bring in the undead author arguments of, well canon says-- no it doesn't. the Character says. the Author says about what the Character's perspective is. see point A.

and also, none of it negates the validity of your interpretation! but the problem is, because you didn't actually look at the thing on its own terms, you have deprived yourself of a different kind of pleasure of textual engagement, and multitudes of experiences that might also make you understand where other people are coming from.

This is how I imagine this scene when I read it haha + a little bingqiu doodle (maybe i will color it one day)