Comment on Defence in Depth

  1. grommile on Chapter 14 Thu 21 May 2020 12:23AM UTC

    A rendition of the Clawed Girl from They Bleed Pixels, in a style almost entirely derivative of Rich Burlew's. My own work.

    I'm perfectly happy for people to not like the way it looks because (a) looking good wasn't the point in the first place (b) the only haircut it's feasible to do a really good job of by yourself (without lots of practice) is a buzzcut or a shaved head.

    What does or doesn't read as queer in Japan isn't particularly important to the conversation between Rei and Asuka (because Rei doesn't know any kind of visual language of queerness, and Asuka knows the superficial elements of a Western-style one). What matters is the impedance mismatch resulting in the escalation to "You say that like you aren't one."

    (Also the explicit disclosure that Rei is ace might be seen as important. Certainly it's important to me, because while I'm quite fond of A/S/R, this isn't the story for it.)

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    1. MarqFJA87 on Chapter 14 Thu 21 May 2020 12:52AM UTC

      Kane from the Command & Conquer series

      It's not that it "doesn't look good", but rather it "doesn't fit Rei". At least, in my opinion. Others obviously may think otherwise; God knows someone thought that a mohawk (and I'm referring to the most common variation, i.e. the rest of the head is shaved off) would be a fitting hairstyle for a Shinji that was raised for 10 years by Rohan Kishibe (from JJBA Part 4).

      Also, you could've just said that the rest of the class is utterly clueless due to unfamiliarity with Western visual language of queerness, and it's only Asuka that knows enough of it to have the reaction she did.

      And to be honest, I wasn't actually expecting an A/S/R development despite being a fan of it (then again, I'm a polyamory fan who ships Shinji with most of the female cast). Even though some other authors tend to not give a story tags that would "spoil" a future development of a relationship that isn't really hinted at in the first few chapters, they tend to add a custom tag to the effect of "some relationships will emerge later on and will not be tagged", so I simply operate on the assumption that if an author doesn't give even that kind of tag, then it's safe to assume that no major relationships other than the ones clearly indicate will develop.

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      1. grommile on Chapter 14 Thu 21 May 2020 02:11AM UTC

        A rendition of the Clawed Girl from They Bleed Pixels, in a style almost entirely derivative of Rich Burlew's. My own work.

        It's an A/S story where Rei opens up to them socially, and it's posted to Sufficient Velocity.

        Jossing the possibility of an Israfel Special is just good sense.

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        1. MarqFJA87 on Chapter 14 Thu 21 May 2020 02:13AM UTC

          Kane from the Command & Conquer series

          Good point. Maybe you should add a "No Israfel Special" tag just to make sure.

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