So, it’s been three years…
Hello to anyone out there who checks this blog and possibly wanted an update. I’ve been busy with graduate school and working at a daycare. My job was slowly killing me and I had to quit to save what little of my sanity I have left. I graduated, too!~ :D
This little rambling I’m about to share is super informal so forgive me. I’ve been thinking about the connection of the body and the self for ages now. Watching and reading horror about being queer/lgbtq+ and loving or becoming a monster has me in a chokehold.
xxx
There’s an obvious connection between horror (and all its sub-genres or sibling genres???) and being marginalized. I’m not sure if it’s connected because of general Otherness (TM) or like… that combined with being free to explore things in that space? like I’m at a loss for words. It’s not as easy to talk about the trauma of being a combination of different marginalized identities when you’re basing the story in normal literary prose or whatever vanilla medium you choose. A lot of times the pain of growing up in the closet AND experiencing racism and sexism cannot be explained in plain terms. The Otherness of the paranormal or fantastical science fiction helps explain it the way it feels. I think that’s part of why I came up with Moonshine and why I like The Summer Hikaru Died and begrudgingly enjoyed most of the visual novel Echo. I’m writing this all down because a lot of this is connected and it’s not just my brain acting crazy like usual. There is a common thread here. I can even include Dorohedoro because there is some queer allegory there. Hell not even allegory, Turkey legit transitions halfway through the series and Risu and Aikawa ain’t exactly partners in the het/platonic sense. And let’s not forget Chota even though he’s used more as a joke than anything. There’s so much to unpack with all of these stories and how being the Other is painful and grimy and scary but also beautiful. As corny as that sounds.
Aside from the queer parallels and like straight up characters being gay or bisexual (Gabriel, Risu, Aikawa, Yoshiki, ‘Hikaru’, etc.) There’s also that question I’m always thinking about… can you really be you without your body? Some people say the body is a vessel for the soul and whatever, but I don’t think you can exist without it… like obviously dying is a universal concept but if someone else were to jump in there and walk around… you are not you anymore. And they aren’t their old self either. I hate body swapping for this reason. It feels like a violation. I guess I can’t get too mad about a corpse being reanimated versus two people switching bodies. I never really got up in arms about the reanimated corpse thing. Clearly since I love Foo Fighters from Stone Ocean and ‘Hikaru’ from The Summer Hikaru Died. But like both of these people are not the same as the one that vacated the body. And they aren’t exactly the same as they were beforehand. Foo became an ally and formed relationships with Jolyne and Hermes and I guess the guys too but idgaf about them. And then there’s ‘Hikaru’ becoming attached to Yoshiki… that wouldn’t have happened if he stayed as an abstract presence on the mountain. Foo would have evaporated into the ether sooner if they didn’t take over that random prisoner’s body. The sensory feedback of the body and its consequential sparks inside the mind and across the nervous system inform our personality and the choices we make. If we couldn’t feel pain or associate certain sounds and sensations with pleasant memories and feelings, we wouldn’t create habits and routines around the people and things in our lives.
https://rucore.libraries.rutgers.edu/rutgers-lib/24091/PDF/1/play/
this dissertation by Tara Lynn Broccoli (???) talks about the body and the self but it goes into like some health related thing and that’s obviously valid but I’m more interested in the philosophical aspect of identity and living in a world that wants you dead LMAO
Also there’s this but my brain is not equipped for reading academic writing…
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-39959-w
Okay this is like the intro to a collection of reports on the body and the self. Physical activity has a direct correlation to improved introspection… “introceptive accuracy” or something.
