formerly sploon-fic-fan

Kiki’s Delivery Service: takes place in the regular world— albeit at some nebulous point in time— but also magic is real and witches are a thing. Witches exist in this world because it’s fun and we like them. It’s fantasy elements in a familiar setting— essentially urban or modern fantasy.

Porco Rosso: takes place in an extremely specific place and time and contains exactly one fantastical element— Marco’s pig head— which is never given an explanation and is never questioned as a biological impossibility. It’s clearly a metaphor and commentary on a real world issue but it’s also very much literal. This dude 100% has a pig head. No other mentions of magic are made. This is magical realism.

me: yeah i know, they’re all primary colors, it’s perfect

When you go for an MLS (Master’s of Library Science, which is a thing, and which is usually required for “professional-level” library work [which is also a weird and contentious concept that I won’t go into here]), one of the things you study is the organization of information. This deals with how to determine what a book or other material is “about"—a concept we tongue-in-cheek call “aboutness"—and how to convey that to a potential user of the item and make it easy for them to find. Things like keywords and subject headings, do I put this book about how often wild birds attack aerial drones in with books about birds or with books about technology, if its a fictional novel do I put fantasy in it’s own section or mix it in with all of the other fiction, so on and so on.

OP is organizing books by how they would look for them. OP’s partner is thinking in terms of aboutness. This is a system that works for OP because it’s their personal library: they know basically what books they own and they only own books that are relevant to them, and if they know what the book looks like, that can be a quick way to find it.

In a library that assumes the public (or people who do not own that particular collection of books) are using the collection, that doesn’t work. Books are often re-issued in multiple covers, or re-bound in new covers when they get worn out, and if the user doesn’t know what the book looks like or is expecting a different cover, they’re lost. That’s why non-personal libraries used standardized cataloging systems like the Dewey Decimal System or Library of Congress System to organize a book by what it’s “about”, and then put books about the same or similar topics together, marked with labels and signage so a person unfamiliar with the book or collection can find their way to it.

Basically, OP’s system works for their own personal library, because it’s best suited to how the primary user—OP themselves—looks for books. OP’s librarian partner is coming from a background of thinking in terms of a public-facing collection, where aboutness is the key criteria and communicating it to a user unfamiliar with the collection is the priority.

it starts with them watching a movie, maybe the devil wears prada, and a little way through the movie rocky asks why miranda has two names. is it because she's more important?

grace, already anticipating a long conversation, says no, all humans have two names. everyone's just scared of miranda because her two names are really well known.

"grace have another name and not tell rocky?!" rocky asks, incensed. "what names mean, question? why two?"

"well," grace explains, "your first name is the name your parents give you at birth. usually people call you by your first name, especially if you're close. except in... some situations, i guess," he says, remembering stratt's vat. nobody had called him ryland there, but he still felt pretty close to all of them.

"and second name?" rocky prompts.

"right - last names correlate to your family. when you're born, you take your family name so that people know who you're related to. it also helps differentiate between two people with the same first name."

"so what grace last name, question?" rocky asks. grace blanches a little.

"uhh... grace is my last name, rock," he says, sheepishly.

"what?!" rocky yells. grace winces. "grace not tell rocky grace first name? grace not close with rocky? grace hate rocky?"

"no!" grace protests. "of course i don't hate you! don't say that!" maybe it's stupid, but grace does actually feel a little hurt by the insinuation.

"then why not tell rocky?!"

grace sighs. "i don't know, rock. i mean - when i met you i barely knew up from down, much less what my name meant to me. and i kept getting these memories and everyone kept calling me grace, and i just, i haven't been called ryland in so long it doesn't really feel like my name anymore."

rocky ruminates on this for a moment. then: "...ryland is grace first name, question?"

"yeah."

"rocky like grace better." grace deflates with relief. "yeah, me too, buddy."

"but," rocky says, "rocky want last name too now."

huh. okay, then.

"i guess i could figure that out," grace agrees. "we could give you movie rocky's last name? you wanna be rocky balboa?"

"mm, no," rocky says.

"okay, well we could go region based, i guess. where'd you grow up? i can make up something fitting, or i can look something up on my computer, i'm sure there's places on earth that are similar to places on erid -"

"no," rocky interrupts. "want grace."

"...huh?"

"rocky want grace last name."

grace is suddenly feeling very, very flushed. "you what??"

"last name is family name, question?"

"well, yeah, but -"

"and rocky grace family now. so rocky want grace family name!"

...well, when he says it like THAT, it's so much more innocent. grace... well, he agrees, because what else is he gonna say? that rocky should know that that that's as good as a marriage proposal?

no, that takes too much cultural context, and a longer conversation than he wants to have right now. easier to just let rocky have it. it's not like there'll be any consequences to bite him in the ass, right?

and-

and nobody-