I have given up on Ran and Keiko a while ago already, so Shou may troll away as much as he likes. I will certainly follow this one, but I don't think anything will happen soon.... or at all.

Yeah! I think Stretch is one of the few subtext mangas that actually seeks to educate readers in the healthcare aspect! (Y) :D Ran x keiko is getting interesting hehe

ps. after months of lurking on Dynasty scans, I've finally plucked up my courage to create an account!! (don't laugh at me, I know I'm pathetic T_T) anyway, this is my first post and i'm so looking forward to commenting on this site!! ^^

Please don't use BDSM metaphors. Just don't.

Sir, yes sir, how high do you want me to jump sir

I think there's a misunderstanding here.

The question isn't how high. You keep going until they tell you to stop.

If I could take off into the sky like Poochie that'd be great.

What colour was the dress again?

White and gold.

I'm pretty sure it was black and blue.

...bees?

What colour was the dress again?

White and gold.

I'm pretty sure it was black and blue.

...bees?

Aren't we already at the point of subtext with this?

What colour was the dress again?

White and gold.

I'm pretty sure it was black and blue.

...bees?

Black and yellow.

What colour was the dress again?

White and gold.

I'm pretty sure it was black and blue.

...bees?

Black and yellow.

(Better version) Black and yellow

Or maybe I'm dissecting why the curtain was colored blue when Shou is like "It's because I decided to make it fucking blue".

I used to joke about this a lot, too, but ever since I started writing, I was surprised how much I think about little details like that. Chances are, if a writer takes the time to emphasise something -- e.g., noting within the narrative that the curtains were blue, and even noting that there were curtains at all -- they're doing so for a reason, whether that reason is that it fits the character who was decorating, or whether it fits the atmosphere they're trying to create.

So how many chapters will this have total

Or maybe I'm dissecting why the curtain was colored blue when Shou is like "It's because I decided to make it fucking blue".

I used to joke about this a lot, too, but ever since I started writing, I was surprised how much I think about little details like that. Chances are, if a writer takes the time to emphasise something -- e.g., noting within the narrative that the curtains were blue, and even noting that there were curtains at all -- they're doing so for a reason, whether that reason is that it fits the character who was decorating, or whether it fits the atmosphere they're trying to create.

Maybe you write that way but most writers, from what I understand, don't. "The curtains were fucking blue" story apparently has its origins in a statement made by an author tired of people over analyzing his works. Granted the story is likely apocryphal but there are still several major authors who have objected to people trying to interpret the little messages in their stories as being part of some bigger picture. TVTropes has an article on it, I believe its called "What do you mean its not Didactic?".

Or maybe I'm dissecting why the curtain was colored blue when Shou is like "It's because I decided to make it fucking blue".

I used to joke about this a lot, too, but ever since I started writing, I was surprised how much I think about little details like that. Chances are, if a writer takes the time to emphasise something -- e.g., noting within the narrative that the curtains were blue, and even noting that there were curtains at all -- they're doing so for a reason, whether that reason is that it fits the character who was decorating, or whether it fits the atmosphere they're trying to create.

Maybe you write that way but most writers, from what I understand, don't. "The curtains were fucking blue" story apparently has its origins in a statement made by an author tired of people over analyzing his works. Granted the story is likely apocryphal but there are still several major authors who have objected to people trying to interpret the little messages in their stories as being part of some bigger picture. TVTropes has an article on it, I believe its called "What do you mean its not Didactic?".

And that author's name was....Albert Einstein!

Thing is, there are a lot of things in a scene to describe, and an author only has so much space to describe them. A good author will primarily specify something like the colour of drapes for one of three reasons. Because it's relevant to the plot, as a red herring (thus using it as misdirection from the eventual twist), or to reflect something about one or more of the characters. A hack will do things more or less at random of course, so that doesn't necessarily apply. But I wouldn't consider Shou a hack.

Now taking the curtains thing as literal, in comics if something is a certain colour or if there's an object in the room, it might just be the whim of the artist, and nothing relevant at all to the story. Still a limited space to work with, but the rules are slightly different.

As an aside, the Beatles were famous for putting stuff in their songs and album covers in order to mislead and generally mess with people doing minute analysis of their work. The whole "Paul is dead" thing being a great example.

As an aside, the Beatles were famous for putting stuff in their songs and album covers in order to mislead and generally mess with people doing minute analysis of their work. The whole "Paul is dead" thing being a great example.

Ah yes, the "Trolling Creator". I think we are all familiar someone like that...

Or maybe I'm dissecting why the curtain was colored blue when Shou is like "It's because I decided to make it fucking blue".

I used to joke about this a lot, too, but ever since I started writing, I was surprised how much I think about little details like that. Chances are, if a writer takes the time to emphasise something -- e.g., noting within the narrative that the curtains were blue, and even noting that there were curtains at all -- they're doing so for a reason, whether that reason is that it fits the character who was decorating, or whether it fits the atmosphere they're trying to create.

Maybe you write that way but most writers, from what I understand, don't. "The curtains were fucking blue" story apparently has its origins in a statement made by an author tired of people over analysing his works. Granted the story is likely apocryphal but there are still several major authors who have objected to people trying to interpret the little messages in their stories as being part of some bigger picture. TVTropes has an article on it, I believe its called "What do you mean its not Didactic?".

And that author's name was....Albert Einstein!

Thing is, there are a lot of things in a scene to describe, and an author only has so much space to describe them. A good author will primarily specify something like the colour of drapes for one of three reasons. Because it's relevant to the plot, as a red herring (thus using it as misdirection from the eventual twist), or to reflect something about one or more of the characters. A hack will do things more or less at random of course, so that doesn't necessarily apply. But I wouldn't consider Shou a hack.

Now taking the curtains thing as literal, in comics if something is a certain colour or if there's an object in the room, it might just be the whim of the artist, and nothing relevant at all to the story. Still a limited space to work with, but the rules are slightly different.

Actually the author I had in mind specifically was J.R.R. Tolkien, who was rather annoyed with people assuming The Lord of the Rings was an allegory for his experiences in World War I when in actuality he had merely created the fictional realm so he had an excuse to make up his own languages (Tolkien was an exceptional linguist and could speak twenty languages fluently and had decent comprehension of a dozen more. In fact, the Elven language was the first thing he ever created while crafting Middle-Earth) This is where the concept of applicability comes from; Tolkien basically said if other people wanted to use The Lord of the Rings as an allegory for World War I they were free to do so, so long as they recognized that he hadn't intended to create an allegory WWI (and so they would stop sending him letters asking about whether TLotRs was an allegory for WWI)

This "the curtains were fucking blue" argument is more or less the same; people assume the color of the curtains is important or meaningful or allegorical, when in actuality the author just felt that, for one reason or another, the room in question needed to be described to the reader and when they got to the curtains, they went with blue. Maybe blue was the author's favourite color or maybe they chose it randomly, maybe they had blue curtains themselves or maybe they were aware of the "the curtains were fucking blue" meme and decided to throw in some blue curtains to fuck with us; we will likely never know, unless you feel like pestering the author over they're choice in interior decorating.

Point is, don't over think this stuff. The simplest answer is usually the correct one and its a bad idea to make wild guesses like "the blue curtains represent the protagonists immense depression" when there is no evidence to support that idea beyond the fact that people sometimes associate the color blue with sadness.

Hell, we don't even know what shade of blue the curtains were. They could be bright baby blue for all we know, which isn't exactly the color of depression and immense sadness and grief.

Well, the meaning of the preserved roses is quite obvious. Keiko wants their relationship to last. It's not hinting at anything specifically romantic or not.

Only, Keiko needs Ran in her life right now and it's her way to tell her. Nothing more to read here. Ran's side is something else entirely. She clearly harbors romantic feelings, conscious or not, toward Keiko.

For now, it's a one-sided thing, but Keiko will maybe have an epiphany.

last edited at Aug 8, 2015 4:43AM

people are forgetting that communication is a 2 player game, aka the reader has as much of an say into the story they are perceiving as the writer

I would argue that most popular fiction only holds up thanks to the readers that notice details that happen to become timeless symbolism and a lot of meanings from the author on the other end just disappear into nothing by just having the reader mentally disagree

last edited at Aug 8, 2015 9:26AM

Actually the author I had in mind specifically was J.R.R. Tolkien, who was rather annoyed with people assuming The Lord of the Rings was an allegory for his experiences in World War I when in actuality he had merely created the fictional realm so he had an excuse to make up his own languages

Well, I mean, ascribing a motivation to the author is a bit different from examining the effects a certain word can have in-context. There's a lot of psychological evidence for word-choice being incredibly important to how a person perceives a certain situation--that's why leading questions are a thing and why Loftus and Palmer's study into how they can affect eyewitness testimony is so important--so why would that be any different from authors whose entire purpose in crafting a story is to make the reader get a certain impression?

This "the curtains were fucking blue" argument is more or less the same; people assume the color of the curtains is important or meaningful or allegorical, when in actuality the author just felt that, for one reason or another, the room in question needed to be described to the reader and when they got to the curtains, they went with blue. Maybe blue was the author's favourite color or maybe they chose it randomly, maybe they had blue curtains themselves or maybe they were aware of the "the curtains were fucking blue" meme and decided to throw in some blue curtains to fuck with us; we will likely never know, unless you feel like pestering the author over they're choice in interior decorating.

But "the curtains were fucking blue" ignores the fact that the author did make that choice to describe the room, and there was a reason for it, even if that reason isn't something monumental.

I said this already in my original post. "Whether that reason is that it fits the character who was decorating, or whether it fits the atmosphere they're trying to create."

Point is, don't over think this stuff. The simplest answer is usually the correct one and its a bad idea to make wild guesses like "the blue curtains represent the protagonists immense depression" when there is no evidence to support that idea beyond the fact that people sometimes associate the color blue with sadness.

That people think of blue as a sad colour is reason enough for a writer to choose to use it to give something an impression of sadness. Plenty of words have colloquial associations, and plenty of visual stimuli have the same.

Take the movie Inside Out. Why do you think Joy is a bright orange, and Sadness is a deep blue, whilst Anger is a strong red? Because those emotions are visually linked with those colours. The animators deliberately chose those colours for the characters because they know audiences would think it made sense. It would be wrong to ignore the colours because the colours are a fundamental part of the design.

A well-crafted description is one that doesn't waste words on describing something superfluous for pointless reasons. What a writer chooses to include and what they choose to omit does say something about what they wanted to emphasise. It doesn't have to be transcendental, but the writer took the choice for a reason.

Besides, what's wrong with looking for symbolism? I, personally, get a lot of pleasure out of seeing how certain metaphors fit within a narrative, or respecting how well a certain turn of phrase fits with the emotions evoked by the overall prose.

tl;dr You don't know that they're trying to be simplistic anymore than we know they're trying to be layered. Plenty of writers do think about this stuff, and do pay attention to what they're writing.

"The curtains were fucking blue" is a very useful argument. It's allowed one writer to get people to stop closely analyzing their work, and generations of students to avoid analyzing other people's work.

last edited at Aug 8, 2015 3:56PM

tl;dr You don't know that they're trying to be simplistic anymore than we know they're trying to be layered. Plenty of writers do think about this stuff, and do pay attention to what they're writing.

I'm not implying that there are't writers who do think about this sort of stuff, just saying I don't like making assumptions without fact. I'm not a fan of assumptions I guess would be my whole point here.
And I'm pretty sure any decent writer pays attention what they're writing. Don't imply that having hidden layers of symbolism and meaning somehow makes a story better.

I'm not implying that there are't writers who do think about this sort of stuff, just saying I don't like making assumptions without fact. I'm not a fan of assumptions I guess would be my whole point here.
And I'm pretty sure any decent writer pays attention what they're writing. Don't imply that having hidden layers of symbolism and meaning somehow makes a story better.

It's not about claiming your assumptions are fact, it's about appreciating the quality of a narrative, or having fun guessing about what might happen next. It's cool that you don't like to do that--it's not for everyone--but I also don't see the point in joining a conversation about it specifically to say "I don't like this!!!". Can't you just not reply to those posts, or skim over them?

I do think having hidden layers of depth does make your writing better, though, simply because you can say more with less words, and in better ways. It doesn't have to be elaborate symbolism, but creating vivid imagery and emotions in your writing is always going to be better than writing something one-note and bland.

Poetry especially benefits from this kind of symbolism, especially when the poets are trying for both brevity and complexity.

As an aside, the Beatles were famous for putting stuff in their songs and album covers in order to mislead and generally mess with people doing minute analysis of their work. The whole "Paul is dead" thing being a great example.

I Am the Walrus is literally 100% meant to screw with people overanalyzing their works.

Holy shit I made a half-joke about me possibly overanalyzing something and a few days later this is what happens.

people are forgetting that communication is a 2 player game, aka the reader has as much of an say into the story they are perceiving as the writer

Maus Gets a lot if it. Ultimately writing is a conversation, and whether or not the writer had original meaning in what he/she said, the reader gets to define what they think of it. Granted there are such things as wrong interpretations, but if the reader sees something special or different in an entity the writer totally didn't intend for/anticipate, it still is all the more valid.

It makes writing fun! You make your content, pick your meanings (kind of), and throw it out there and let the audience run with it.

tl;dr You don't know that they're trying to be simplistic anymore than we know they're trying to be layered. Plenty of writers do think about this stuff, and do pay attention to what they're writing.

I can see eye-to-eye with you as a writer myself, but I will say that there are often times that I don't put deeper meaning in some things I have written. You don't see anyone dissecting the color of the bedsheets in Madoka or the color of the wallpaper in Toradora, and those two shows are so overflowing with symbols and greater meaning you could write a 50-page thesis on the first 6 episodes alone, each.

In this case, Shou explicitly called to attention the words Keiko had written rather than having her say it herself, or just briefly showing them in passing. There was an allotted upper third given a hefty amount of space in a panel where nothing much else was going on. Enough reason to believe he did want us to notice some meaning in the descriptions.

What colour was the dress again?

White and gold.

I'm pretty sure it was black and blue.

...bees?

Black and yellow.

(Better version) Black and yellow

...

Aren't we already at the point of subtext with this?

I was alluding to this:

But thank you all for making it all the better

last edited at Aug 8, 2015 8:34PM

As an aside, the Beatles were famous for putting stuff in their songs and album covers in order to mislead and generally mess with people doing minute analysis of their work. The whole "Paul is dead" thing being a great example.

I Am the Walrus is literally 100% meant to screw with people overanalyzing their works.

And by I Am the Walrus you of course mean Glass Onion. I'm on to your little games.

people are forgetting that communication is a 2 player game, aka the reader has as much of an say into the story they are perceiving as the writer

Maus Gets a lot if it. Ultimately writing is a conversation, and whether or not the writer had original meaning in what he/she said, the reader gets to define what they think of it. Granted there are such things as wrong interpretations, but if the reader sees something special or different in an entity the writer totally didn't intend for/anticipate, it still is all the more valid.

This is Death Of the Author, is it not? With a dash of Intent Is Not Magic for flavour.