slamdunkrai
Bug Catcher
- Pronouns
- she/they
- Partners
-
1.3 - Almost Natural
What struck me most about this chapter is that it vacillates the most of the three so far in its tone, which is endemic to the sort of story this is.
When the narrative acquaints the reader with Genesis at the start of this chapter, she's on her way away from home for a duration unknown to her; one of her father's men is watching out for her, and luckily this is one with whom she seems to enjoy a closer bond than with many of the other Gage subordinates, but this is only to the end that she catches a pokémon and then leaves; her prayers and her tears have at some point in the recent past been let loose into the world in response to her parents' dismay, whose form is as of the end of this chapter unknown to the reader; she has been cut out of the family finances at least temporarily; the disembodied effigy of xerneas in the sanctuary is the only entity she knows will listen to her. All of this fleshes out the initial impression the reader may form of Genesis viewing her through Rachel's eyes in the prologue, and certainly she's a teenager in distress, but still we know not the origin of the trail of shame in her wake.
Also of interest is that, though her say in what's happening appears to be limited, she's not completely devoid of agency, hence the limited choice she's granted in her partner pokémon. As is admitted by the narration, Genesis "sort of asked for this". She's not too dissatisfied with everything to plan a whole little ceremony wherein she would knight her new poliwag Sir Bubbles, for that matter. Even before the chapter zooms out its focus a little bit so as to include Kekoa and Cuicatl, the emotional affect it strikes is all over the place, which on the one hand was disorienting to read (as there's very little time to digest the full gravity of this unspoken rift which now shapes Genesis's life when so many details about it are in play and intermingled with moments coloured by mirth and lightness, e.g. the knighting of Sir Bubbles) but on the other hand does actually capture the whiplash that is felt when one's life falls apart at the age of fifteen or sixteen: that's a huge transition to have to navigate when you're not yet old enough to have developed a framework for comprehending the gravity of such a change.
Once Kekoa and Cuicatl show up, the tone evens out into that aforementioned lightness; we spend a couple thousand words or so reading the thought process of a sheltered teenager meeting and getting settled with the companions with whom she expects to be travelling for a long time indeed. This event is treated with a YA-ish lightness that doesn't feel too out of place here. I was mostly endeared by Cuicatl revealing a ferocity, in her cleaving to her opinions on dinosaurs and dragons, unexpected given the impression one forms of her character over the preceding chapters. She contains multitudes!
I don't feel very strongly about Kekoa one way or the other right now; it seems very clear later on that his gossamer-thin surly boy facade will soon be revealed to withhold a more harrowed side (this is foreshadowed in the stumble in his words when he talks about how, nowadays, he just watches whatever he likes). He's certainly knowledgeable on natural history for someone so young. His tendencies to give out diminutive and incorrect nicknames regardless of the feelings of their subjects is very in keeping with pokémon rival tradition.
What's most interesting to me, if I am reading him correctly in my understanding that he's the trans character Rachel spotted in chapter one (given also the androgynity with which Genesis, someone whom I very strongly doubt has had the life experience to develop a strong understanding of or vocabulary about transness and gender, perceives him), that he's latched onto a fairly standard teenage boy's idea of masculinity and the subsequent dimness of view of perceived girlishness. One wonders how this idea will shift, dissipate, or be scrutinised as he spends more time around Genesis and Cuicatl; though it's similar in quite a few ways, Kekoa's brand of casual misogyny is different from the sort you'd expect from the more prevalent cis-assumed snarky male sidekick/lead/rival etc. who tends to pop up in these stories in the mainline games, and historically a great number of fanworks.
Another bit of this chapter that I thought was well-done is the part when Genesis asks Cuicatl an innocuous question ("where are you from?") and then castigates herself because she thinks that Cuicatl will think that she's being racist. It's better that Genesis is at least loosely aware of the fact that she benefits from racist power structures, Cuicatl doesn't, and this fact underlies many of their interactions, than not, but her understanding of how racism functions is fairly standard for what you would expect of a white mid-teenager born into wealth. After all, she does follow that with a more intrusive question, with much greater potential ramifications, about Cuicatl's citizenship status without any hang ups whatsoever; she does also call the anger she perceives in Cuicatl during this interaction "kind of cute" despite the very personal nature of these questions.
I'm aware this is a great deal of extra-curricular thematic content that I am reading into a chapter about three teenagers starting their pokémon journeys. The chapter makes for interesting setup. Intrigued to see how these three develop.
Through this lens it makes sense that a lot of the tremendous fear and unease with which Genesis understands her current situation stem from some religious hang-up; this is interesting because in stories of this type concerned with religious guilt and trauma, you don't see children reckoning with the fact that they believe their god can smite them if they are bad, even though that's a nightmarish thing for someone so young to have to work through.
What struck me most about this chapter is that it vacillates the most of the three so far in its tone, which is endemic to the sort of story this is.
When the narrative acquaints the reader with Genesis at the start of this chapter, she's on her way away from home for a duration unknown to her; one of her father's men is watching out for her, and luckily this is one with whom she seems to enjoy a closer bond than with many of the other Gage subordinates, but this is only to the end that she catches a pokémon and then leaves; her prayers and her tears have at some point in the recent past been let loose into the world in response to her parents' dismay, whose form is as of the end of this chapter unknown to the reader; she has been cut out of the family finances at least temporarily; the disembodied effigy of xerneas in the sanctuary is the only entity she knows will listen to her. All of this fleshes out the initial impression the reader may form of Genesis viewing her through Rachel's eyes in the prologue, and certainly she's a teenager in distress, but still we know not the origin of the trail of shame in her wake.
Also of interest is that, though her say in what's happening appears to be limited, she's not completely devoid of agency, hence the limited choice she's granted in her partner pokémon. As is admitted by the narration, Genesis "sort of asked for this". She's not too dissatisfied with everything to plan a whole little ceremony wherein she would knight her new poliwag Sir Bubbles, for that matter. Even before the chapter zooms out its focus a little bit so as to include Kekoa and Cuicatl, the emotional affect it strikes is all over the place, which on the one hand was disorienting to read (as there's very little time to digest the full gravity of this unspoken rift which now shapes Genesis's life when so many details about it are in play and intermingled with moments coloured by mirth and lightness, e.g. the knighting of Sir Bubbles) but on the other hand does actually capture the whiplash that is felt when one's life falls apart at the age of fifteen or sixteen: that's a huge transition to have to navigate when you're not yet old enough to have developed a framework for comprehending the gravity of such a change.
Once Kekoa and Cuicatl show up, the tone evens out into that aforementioned lightness; we spend a couple thousand words or so reading the thought process of a sheltered teenager meeting and getting settled with the companions with whom she expects to be travelling for a long time indeed. This event is treated with a YA-ish lightness that doesn't feel too out of place here. I was mostly endeared by Cuicatl revealing a ferocity, in her cleaving to her opinions on dinosaurs and dragons, unexpected given the impression one forms of her character over the preceding chapters. She contains multitudes!
I don't feel very strongly about Kekoa one way or the other right now; it seems very clear later on that his gossamer-thin surly boy facade will soon be revealed to withhold a more harrowed side (this is foreshadowed in the stumble in his words when he talks about how, nowadays, he just watches whatever he likes). He's certainly knowledgeable on natural history for someone so young. His tendencies to give out diminutive and incorrect nicknames regardless of the feelings of their subjects is very in keeping with pokémon rival tradition.
What's most interesting to me, if I am reading him correctly in my understanding that he's the trans character Rachel spotted in chapter one (given also the androgynity with which Genesis, someone whom I very strongly doubt has had the life experience to develop a strong understanding of or vocabulary about transness and gender, perceives him), that he's latched onto a fairly standard teenage boy's idea of masculinity and the subsequent dimness of view of perceived girlishness. One wonders how this idea will shift, dissipate, or be scrutinised as he spends more time around Genesis and Cuicatl; though it's similar in quite a few ways, Kekoa's brand of casual misogyny is different from the sort you'd expect from the more prevalent cis-assumed snarky male sidekick/lead/rival etc. who tends to pop up in these stories in the mainline games, and historically a great number of fanworks.
Another bit of this chapter that I thought was well-done is the part when Genesis asks Cuicatl an innocuous question ("where are you from?") and then castigates herself because she thinks that Cuicatl will think that she's being racist. It's better that Genesis is at least loosely aware of the fact that she benefits from racist power structures, Cuicatl doesn't, and this fact underlies many of their interactions, than not, but her understanding of how racism functions is fairly standard for what you would expect of a white mid-teenager born into wealth. After all, she does follow that with a more intrusive question, with much greater potential ramifications, about Cuicatl's citizenship status without any hang ups whatsoever; she does also call the anger she perceives in Cuicatl during this interaction "kind of cute" despite the very personal nature of these questions.
I'm aware this is a great deal of extra-curricular thematic content that I am reading into a chapter about three teenagers starting their pokémon journeys. The chapter makes for interesting setup. Intrigued to see how these three develop.
This takes up such a small portion of the chapter that it's easy to gloss over, but this is a fairly uncanny scene; the closest referent that I have for this, and you will have to bear with me because this is an extreme stretch, is the bit early on in Moby-Dick wherein Ishmael goes to the church which resembles a boat's hull and listens to that great, portentous speech laden with the doom and the ecstasy that is innate to seafaring. To go into a sanctuary to pray to the lifeless head of Xerneas, beneath the rainbow lights which sprout from its antlers, that your parents understand what has happened and that you get to keep living cannot be a comfortable act, given how many contradicting and grand notions of life and death are contained in such a small space!
Through this lens it makes sense that a lot of the tremendous fear and unease with which Genesis understands her current situation stem from some religious hang-up; this is interesting because in stories of this type concerned with religious guilt and trauma, you don't see children reckoning with the fact that they believe their god can smite them if they are bad, even though that's a nightmarish thing for someone so young to have to work through.
Colour motif in these sentences is employed to an effect I quite liked.
Lot of interesting things going on here, both with how Kekoa's gender is viewed by others around him and how Genesis views boys her age -- she's clearly not keen on the company of boys and, again, has not yet had the opportunity to find the tools with which she might fully express those ideas.
Subtle and possibly the result of me reading too much into it, but I counted three separate instances wherein Genesis describes Cuicatl as being "cute" in some way, even though her cuteness is not related to the rest of the scene. This one jumped out at me because of the use of the word "dumb" alongside it; it makes the element of Genesis's infantilisation of Cuicatl more overt in what might otherwise easily be read as a regular instance of a teenage girl longing for another teenage girl.
Very specific type of disease to reach for; there's a lot in what you've written for Genesis's thought processes here that paint a very vivid picture of a young person who is clearly in the process of working through how she understands certain aspects of herself.
Again, interesting that her discomfort comes not from what she's seeing but from the idea that she might be punished for seeing it.
I don't know jack about dinosaurs, but I like that Cuicatl's clear enthusiasm and knowledge for them comes up in response to such a minor aside, and I like that from this Kekoa learns how to get an easy reaction out of her; this is a relatable depiction of two people with a shared special interest, one of whom can talk about it much more readily than the other who knows enough about the subject to push their partner's buttons. What's that bit about how this is "like Mom" doing, I wonder? That is the sort of reach a person only makes if they are thinking latently about their mother far more often than they admit. Interested to see that aspect of Genesis's background receive further elaboration!