moonwise | Oh no, not again

Oh no, not again

Or, the Cranky Rant about Canonical Sex.

So.

fadingembers introduced me to Amalgam, which is a Samurai Champloo fansite. It's a well-done site, with interesting bits of history, character profiles, episode guides, all that good stuff.

Whilst reading the character profile for Jin, the webmistress has this to say about his liaison with Shino: "He has no spontaneous responses; he doesn't trust words; when anyone touches him he locks down; even when Shino kisses him we don't see him so much as blink. (And say what you like, I don't think it's at all clear what happens that night.)

And my first thought after reading that was: "Aw fuck, here we go again."

Consider. In my beloved Trigun fandom, there has been a considerable amount of nonsense over whether Milly and Wolfwood actually slept together, despite that 1. she's sleeping in his bed and 2. Wolfwood stands by the window half-naked and smoking a cigarette. Kids, I don't care what you tell me, with that kind of an aftermath, they weren't playing Uno all night, okay? But still, there's a fair number of fangirls in denial. What difference does it make? Having Wolfwood and Milly engage in what amounts to a comfort fuck hardly gets in the way of any other pairing with Wolfwood.

But I digress.

OK, SC friends, listen very closely: Jin and Shino had sex. I do not think there is a whole lot of question about that. Jin has no spontaneous responses? ...Except for swiping Mugen's money, getting laid, smacking her husband around, and ditching his companions to help her run away? Um, hello? Jin looks down when anyone touches him? Okay, let's not even consider that the Japanese consider touching someone else to be a bigger deal than we touchy-feely Americans do, and let's conveniently forget about Shino patting him on the face and Jin letting Fuu lean on him when she's sad.

It's not clear what happens that night? Clear as day to me. Let's review. Jin pays a whopping sum to spend the evening with Shino, tells her she doesn't have to screw him if she doesn't want to. Shino obviously wants to, or she wouldn't have kissed him (a kiss was considered to be highly erotic b/c it was a novel concept in Japan.) Jin doesn't bat en eyelash? How do you figure there? The animation doesn't even show up big enough to tell! What would be preferable, full-on snogging up close and personal?

Next shot we see is of ButtNekkid!Jin lying on her futon, glasses off. So, unless Jin and Shino were playing Strip Uno, and he was really bad at it, it's quite reasonable to assume that there was a good reason to be getting naked. Shino's hair is down, which means either Jin is an amateur hairdresser or (gasp!) he pulled it loose during sex. While Shino is sitting at her mirror combing her hair, Jin comes over, still undressed, and it appears to me that he's about to kiss her on the back of the neck (again, an erotic spot,) which says to me that he's angling for seconds before she tells him to stop. How can one suggest with a straight face that they didn't have sex?

(Never mind how many times the boys seem to end up in the red-light district. Mugen gets Yatsuha, but Mugen also wins the toss.)

Is the denial concerning canonical hetsex a matter of it interfering with slash? Doesn't appear to have bothered the V/W writers much. Certainly as a samurai Jin is probably not unacquainted with the m/m relationships common to the samurai of the era, so he's still slashable. (Though probably not with Mugen - the boy probably has "Exit Only" tattooed on his ass.)

I don't buy the characterization of Jin as cold. I do buy that he's repressed. I do think he's lonely, even if he doesn't know he's lonely. One of the best parts about Jin is watching that exterior crack from time to time, to show that he's as human as everyone else (trying to catch a fish, reading one of Mugen's porny books, throwing his back out, getting mad over being called a "dork with glasses" among other funny moments.) His exterior cracks bigtime for Shino - who could forget the sweet smile he gives her? Is it so hard to believe that they slept together?

I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir here, but I had to get that out of my system. -_-;

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Ack, I know exactly how you feel. Every time some stupid bint on the trigun_yaoi mailing list trots out that old bollocks about how we don't really know if Wolfwood and Milly had sex, I feel like beating them over the head.

From where comes this idea that denial of canon relationships and bashing of female characters somehow adds validity to slash? That certainly is the motivation for some of it. But not all of it comes from slashers, I've seen it in gen fans too. Sometimes I wonder if another reason might be that canon het interferes with their personal Mary Sue fantasies. The degree of immaturity involved certainly resides at about that level.

I would like to know how the bashing validates anything as well. As you say, it reeks of insecurity from both sides of the pairing camp, and shows a basic lack of understanding of how a healthy relationship works. Love isn't stealing someone from someone else just because you want to have them to show off. Maybe it makes for a movie, but rarely works out IRL.

It kind of makes me think of Fuu and how she's forever trying to get a rise out of the boys by playing off their emotions (or lack thereof) for her. Their message to her is simple: GROW UP. The bashers could take a lesson, perhaps.

Every time some stupid bint on the trigun_yaoi mailing list trots out that old bollocks about how we don't really know if Wolfwood and Milly had sex, I feel like beating them over the head.
Often we do. XD

I think a lot of it is just immaturity. People can't have sex with anyone beyond their One True Love, omigod!

People can't have sex with anyone beyond their One True Love, omigod!

And doesn't that just explain a whole lot about fandom, way beyond the current subject of discussion....

Not to mention that most of them are (a) virgins and (b) never heard of bisexuals and (c) closet phobes anyway half the time. Every survey of gay men show that most of them have had at least one sexual encounter with the opposite sex in their lives, and any number of gay men are actually married with children - while still self-identifying as *gay*, not even bisexual (which strikes me as being a tad in denial but what would I know).

Wolfwood has sex with Milly. Wolfwood has sex with Milly. WOLFWOOD has SEX with MILLY. They need to get over it. The *sex* is important in this because MIlly cuddles any number of people - she has sex with exactly one. And in anime canon, she's the only one Wolfwood can allow to see him so vulnerable - but only because he knows he's about to get himself killed. Taking the sex out of that encounter reduces the significance, and really denying it means you want Milly to be a child. The *point* of this is that she's childlike - but no child. I'm sure she was a virgin - I'm sure Wolfwood knew that. I'm also sure he gave her the most tender, beautiful night as a final gift to her, and to all the innocents he's tried to save. It is a last expression of the desire to live by a dyning man - and he knows it. So does she.

As for the Jin/Shino thing - oy vey. The whole *point* about him having sex is that it *is* such a big deal in his lonely repressed existence, and pretty much splits it wide open (and breaks his heart while doing it). I thought it was a perfect bit of showing just enough detail to make it erotic and romantic, withouth getting into the bump and grind stuff. SC is very largely about Jin finally learning to be in touch with real existence and human emotions - and love and sex are part of that. All he can learn from Mugen is more of what he already *knows*. Shino exposes him to a whole new worlds of pain and pleasure.

[/rant] :)

Can I just say a great big 'Yay' to all of the above, and to your lovely way of expressing the meaning of it all.

well, thank you :)

They teach this stuff at University, don'tcha know ;p

Oh, if only, given how many of the stupid bints I know claim to have been educated....

I'm echoing Tiggy's yay. Milly and Wolfwood's liaison mostly about him looking for some kind of salvation, some kind of justification for his life and his action. Milly comes to him, with all the sweetness and love in her personality, and says "you are still a person worth loving even though you have made some bad decisions in your life." In an odd way, it's a parallel to Meryl saving Vash at the end of Live Through, in that both men find some kind of reconciliation. Wolfwood's is incomplete - he dies regretting - but he realizes, at the last, that there is another way.

Jin and Shino's encounter has to be one of the most gently handled love scenes I've seen... period. It was absolutely unnecessary to get into the humpa-humpa stuff - there is more than enough evidence in the aftermath to suggest that a good time was had by all. It was also yet another example of how SC consistently took the viewer's expectation and turned it on its ear. Who would have thought Jin to be the one to fall hard (or, in my case, to be interested in women? Given 1. that he's a samurai and 2. that he's quite pretty, I was NOT expecting that.)

Certainly, as you say, SC is about Jin learning to get in touch with real existence, and I'd definitely extend that to all three of them. They never drop character to do it, either. We don't suddenly have Mugen bursting into tears at the revelation that he doesn't want to kill Jin any more. It's a show that has a lot of the reality of the human heart woven into it, presented in a realistic manner despite all the silliness.

As I do my best to keep a safe distance from RepressedYaoiFangurlz(tm), I'm a little curious about point (c). Not that I'm trying to refute what you're saying, but these people are often homophobic? *head spins around*

On second thought, maybe this does make a bit of sense. After all, the sterotypical homophobic male still digs girl-on-girl action, if only because he can imagine himself in the scene and suddenly there are two former lesbians. There are also studies that suggest a guy will be less upset if his girlfriend or wife cheats on him with another woman than if she cheats with another guy. So if we swap genders in the above observations, hmmm....

Regarding Jin/Shino (and this probably applies to Wolfwood/Milly also, though I've seen only one episode of Trigun and that wasn't it): I can understand why a virginal RepressedYaoiFangurl might believe that they was no bump and grind, simply because she's never experienced (maybe not even seen) the act herself. Male/Male doujinshi doesn't count. Of course, the rest of us know what really went on, squeak squeak ;). This isn't even the point--Jin gave himself to a woman, so the physical details aren't important. I don't think the fangurlz would be any happier if you claimed they did 69 or some other sexual act. Those of us who have done the deed know by now that penetration shouldn't be considered the dividing line anyway, but I guess we can thank (at least) the Catholic Church for that.

I'm not a repressed fangirl, to be sure, but if my husband cheated on me with anyone, male or female, I would beat the living shit out of him.

There's probably some truth in the virginity argument, esp for the teenies who are interested in sex but are somewhat afraid of it. Two men getting involved are hot without her having to worry about being a part of it.

Of course, the rest of us know what really went on, squeak squeak ;)

Or thump thump, considering the tatami mats.

Happily, the yaoi fans on my list here have considered their preference beyond "lolz! omg teh ghei is my otp!!!" Being secure in your preferences and understanding why they are that way means that you don't feel threatened when someone else presents an alternative point of view.

Yes, yes it does. XD

Now I'm feeling a desire to rewatch that episode. What was the number again?

Hm... I read the character profiles on that site. I don't really think I agree with her characterization of Jin as internally frail and "sio horribly damaged." I'm sure my opinion now is altered by the last 9 episodes, but even before then I didn't look at him that way. If anything, I had thought Mugen might be hiding a bigger amount inner trauma and always compensating for it. Of course, I wouldn't say THAT now either, given what we know through the end of the series. Both Jin and Mugen have forceful personalities and are the classic "survivor" type... they started the series that way and finished it that way, not something
"damaged" or "delicate". I think the fact that we got so little of their backstories for so long speaks to the fact that, while both were to varrying degrees angry/unhappy about their pasts, both were also readily dealing with it or had convinced themselves it was done and delt with. Jin's cool reaction to his former fellow student speaks to that. I think the characterization of Jin as she has it on the website smacks of that "I must take care of my woobie angsty male character"/"his angst is so tragic!" mothering. And while I'm down with the woobie love... I actually don't consider either Jin or Mugen woobies. Not like Vash is a woobie or Edward Elric is a woobie.

I do think Jin was cold in the beginning of the series. I define "very, very reserved" as one of the main acceptable definitions of a cold personality. Obviously, though all three loosened up around each other over the course of the series. Jin got-- how to say it... not less formal, but more comfortable and less rigid. And Mugen got a little less guarded and constantly expected/inviting of attack.

Word to that - neither of the boys are woobies. They've had angst in their lives, and they push on in spite of it and don't spend monologues wibbling about their angst. It's more "shit happens" than "woe is me!"

Still, the concept of having a friend is novel to both Mugen and Jin. When they do decide that having a friend is a good thing, they might have realize that they were hurting all that time, but I don't see it as a "zomg must angst about this" reaction, but a "shit, that sucked!
happier now!" thing.

"Damaged and delicate?" Tell Mugen that and he'll pick his nose. Tell Jin that and he'll lift an eyebrow and give you his best "wtf." And, no one does wtf like Jin. :D

Still, the concept of having a friend is novel to both Mugen and Jin. When they do decide that having a friend is a good thing, they might have realize that they were hurting all that time, but I don't see it as a "zomg must angst about this" reaction, but a "shit, that sucked! happier now!" thing

Exactly. I agree.

And, no one does wtf like Jin.

He can manage that special WTF face, that "I'm superior to whatever the fuck it is you're on about, WTF that may be because, dude, WTF" face.

>^..^

That's awesome. I'm gonna use that.

interesting... that has to be a gif file, but my comp just wants to save it as a bmp file. So I could load it onto my icon cue, but I can't save it.

That's a known IE problem. I forget what the solution is, something with cookies or settings or whatnot. My personal solution is Firefox.

*giggle* I lurve.

Yeah, word to the entire post.

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I remember watching that scene in like 10th grade and being all shocked that two characters on the show had sex. Not because there was sex being had in anime (I'd already seen Neon Genesis Evangelion), but the fact that this show would have two characters sleep together, and to see it presented in such a tasteful but obvious manner.

It's such a cliche to smoke after sex, too. XD Instead of seeing the scene for what it is - Wolfwood looking for comfort and validation - the ignorant say "Wolfie only has an otp with Vashuuuuuu/Mary Sue! It didn't really happen!" So a touching moment gets lost entirely because of selfishness.

I think some people would probably just say he smokes all the time anyway...but come on, be realistic.

remind me not to read any more musings about SC until I've seen the rest of it because I just read a spoiler. *tries to forget* ><;;;

at least I think i read a spoiler.. 0-o;;;

Well, yeah. ^_^;; Hence, cuts. Sorry you got spoiled.

well I dont even know who that character is and I'm trying to forget her name or that I read this so hopefully, I'll finish watching it asap hehe. its ok- wasnt like you said how the series ends or anything lol.

I don't think I sent you anything past ep 14 - lmk when you need more. :)

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Well, as a good deal of the folks on my list know, there's a lot of leeway for interpretation of a character. *grin* Some interpretations are better than others, and certainly we've all been guilty of seeing a character as we want to see them from time to time. My only fear is that your acquaintance's doubt about the Jin/Shino thing won't be limited to her, and we'll get into another denial situation. Given that those two are even more clear-cut than Milly and Wolfwood, I highly doubt it.

Even if a chara has canonical hetsex, it doesn't mean they can't be slashed! Certainly Akio from Utena is the first to come to mind - no one is safe. XD I think that if you have a character who has hetsex AND never shows interest in same-sex relationships, you might have to do some fancy footwork to explain it, but a good writer can do that. Unfortunately, there are a lot of bad writers out there.

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what I've seen is so vague as far as romance goes - all UST and unrequited love, and hints too subtle to even get on first viewing.

::coughs:: Can I point you in the direction of say, 'Yami no Matsuei'? Not to mention 'Fruits Basket', 'Kyou Kara Maou', and 'Fujimi no Orchestra'? Even in a so-called' straight' anime like 'Bleach' the anime plays the 'yaoi/yuri' factor for all its worth. Girls pashing on each other, and boys declaring crushes, is almost routine now.

Boy, are you in for some fun!

*snort* Never mind that in Fruits Basket, the cursed Sohmas are gonna be getting it somewhere, and since they can embrace each other freely... You get the impression that there were some interesting evenings with Shigure, Aya, and Hatori.

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My only caution about the "Rinoa who?" argument is that it's easy to go from there to "how DARE you suggest X chara is gay/straight/indifferent?" Squall seems devoted to Rinoa by the end of FFVIII, but if someone suggested to me that he and Seifer had had some kind of a fling pre-game, I would be able to see where the suggestion was coming from. I might not agree that it happened, mind you, but the two of them do have a very contentious relationship. What bothers me more is when two people are put together because they look pretty, and not because they have any chemistry whatsoever.

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Oh no, not again

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