( ꩜ ‸ ꩜;) 

Don't mind me getting stuck on some irrelevant little details again, but. Almost forgot about him doing this ( and it makes me feel kind of unwell, now that I remembered it) </3

His body language and kinesics throughout the novel are very fun and interesting to me in general but. Something about this, as well as that one scene where he was trying to protect his sandwich from the rain is so oddly ( and kind of painfully) endearing to me. Even though I'm struggling a but to actually put the reason into words.

Maybe it's because something about those mannerisms that just feels particularly " young" to me in a way in a way ( in a slightly different one than the sandwich one though. Because there's a certain vulnerabilty in that one which...isn't really the case here). But still.

It's also quite funny ( in a rather bittersweet sort of way) that there are some passages of the book during which he seems like such an "old soul", that he tends to seem older than he actually is.

But there are a couple of instances, in terms of both, his behaviour/ mannerism and general aspects of his character which appear so obviously young, and I think it's pretty interesting. ( most of those instances come through towards the end of the walk, when his consition begins to deteriorate overall. Which...makes sense, since that i s when his facade finally begins to fade, but. It also makes it all the more painful, imo. Even his death scene is one of the biggest examples of this </3 but there are also a couple of smaller ones even before all of that, and. They're so dear to me)

barkovitch (usually spelled barkovich in the real world) is a jewish surname. barkovitch is described to have a large nose, deep olive skin, and dark hair, which are often caricature features used in antisemitic drawings of jewish people. barkovitch mentions having to defend himself with a switchblade he was forced to carry with him. the boys hated barkovitch MUCH BEFORE he said the n word to ewing. garraty mentions germany's air blitz in the air, which references world war ii and re-contextualizes the america the long walk is set in. every single marker for a jewish character experiencing antisemitism is shown in the book and people entirely bypass it.

barkovitch was the victim of systemic and societal antisemitism. barkovitch weaponized racism as a means to fit into his all white peers. this obviously doesn't make what barkovitch said okay by any means, but only baker actually gave a fuck about barkovitch's slur usage because he had personal experience with being the offender when it comes to racism. nobody gave a fuck about that. barkovitch said the n word to appease a racist crowd, and it still backfired. that was the entire point; barkovitch couldn't weaponize racism when he is already on the end of his own.

I know that Ray describes the guys looks with varying levels of attractiveness, even that one soldier. But, it still shocks me a bit that Ray and Art aren't more of a ship because of these descriptions.