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Post by mturtle7 on Sept 19, 2024 19:31:55 GMT
Man, these cookies sure are delicious and crunchy! Om nom nom nom.
To restate my point, applied to the current situation: Fairies, and Bugsy specifically, are not especially callous or stupid, at least not in the way humans understand these things. They're just very shallow, chaotic, and inattentive to anything that's not as loud and bright and glamorous as them.
All Annie said in the last page was that the students' work was "literally draining them." This was a very non-obvious and unexciting way of framing the problem, and thus went completely over Bugsy's head. I'm still not sure why people thought she understood Lavender was dead when that page came out! I mean, literally, her first response was " I don't know what you're talking about"!
In this page, Annie states very clearly, loudly, and furiously that "this girl is dead!", and furthermore, that "she will never have a name because there's nothing left of her"! And as I predicted would happen when a fairy finds out about her fellow fae dying, Bugsy flips the f*** out!
Nothing about this situation suggests that Bugsy doesn't understand what death is, or that she doesn't care! She just didn't understand what Annie was saying before, but now she does, and she's reacting quite normally and emotionally to the tragedy of this girl who died without ever getting a chance to achieve her dreams or receive the reward that she was promised for her hard work!
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Post by Hatredman on Sept 20, 2024 0:55:54 GMT
Glad to see that she's finally starting to get it. Although it is a little worrying that the thing that she's really upset about is the name. Maybe it's just mental displacement, maybe her brain can't handle the idea of one of her students literally working herself to death. (Or, like Arthur Dent's reaction to the Earth being destroyed: "McDonald's, he thought. There is no longer any such thing as a McDonald's hamburger. He passed out.") But at least she's moved from denial to anger, even if it's completely misdirected. We just need to aim that anger in the right direction. You are judging <Bugsy> by western human standards. Your ruler is not appropriate to measure fairies. Reminds me of the British Empire colonizing India to bring civilization, progress and enlightenment to a society that was already one of the most important cultures of all time. Brits just did not get them. You are not getting <Bugsy>. She's a fairy, and we have absolutely no idea how they think. Saying she's misdirected is an insult. The same as saying discovery-era native Americans were crazy and savage because they took baths regularly, in contrast to the educated and smelly Europeans who decimated them. |
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aggadahGothic
Junior Member
The foremost Zimmy fan in the world.
Posts: 63 
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Post by aggadahGothic on Sept 20, 2024 6:16:06 GMT
Glad to see that she's finally starting to get it. Although it is a little worrying that the thing that she's really upset about is the name. Maybe it's just mental displacement, maybe her brain can't handle the idea of one of her students literally working herself to death. (Or, like Arthur Dent's reaction to the Earth being destroyed: "McDonald's, he thought. There is no longer any such thing as a McDonald's hamburger. He passed out.") But at least she's moved from denial to anger, even if it's completely misdirected. We just need to aim that anger in the right direction. You are judging <Bugsy> by western human standards. Your ruler is not appropriate to measure fairies. Reminds me of the British Empire colonizing India to bring civilization, progress and enlightenment to a society that was already one of the most important cultures of all time. Brits just did not get them. You are not getting <Bugsy>. She's a fairy, and we have absolutely no idea how they think. Saying she's misdirected is an insult. The same as saying discovery-era native Americans were crazy and savage because they took baths regularly, in contrast to the educated and smelly Europeans who decimated them. I mean no antagonism, but the fairies seem to me far more like Europeans, with their hyperindividualism, constant preoccupation with work, desire to escape the wilderness, etc. They are even willingly cooperating with the Court, who are distinctly extractivist, technocratic, etc. Perhaps they very much are in need of enlightenment by Antimony. She is, after all, ultimately descended from someone of the forest. |
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Post by worldsong on Sept 20, 2024 6:35:10 GMT
Okay, so she does actually care about the name thing.
That's something.
That said, you don't just say "That sounds like a her problem" if you actually care about others, so the name thing seems more like a matter of principle than actual empathy.
Unless, of course, she said that because she wasn't taking the situation seriously and/or wasn't really thinking about what she was saying.
In which case she's an idiot, which is an improvement over being an asshole.
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Sept 20, 2024 7:09:23 GMT
Okay, so she does actually care about the name thing. That's something. That said, you don't just say "That sounds like a her problem" if you actually care about others, so the name thing seems more like a matter of principle than actual empathy. Unless, of course, she said that because she wasn't taking the situation seriously and/or wasn't really thinking about what she was saying. Fairies are jerks but it may also be that Bugsy is proudly using a human expression she picked up without fully understanding the "f*ck you" implications it carries. I'm also withholding judgement on if Bugsy is just upset about Lavender getting cheated out of her name or if the implications of Lavender's spirit having apparently ceased to exist have sunk in. I figure she's still not 100% up to speed on what's going on. I'm content for the moment that on some level and in some way Bugsy is concerned for her students. |
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Post by Per on Sept 20, 2024 10:41:34 GMT
So, is it possible to name someone posthumously? I'm now imagining (in between being bemused by the fact that 95 chapters in, so many people were apparently unaware that fairies have a different value system than humans, although Red shows she can wield the human value system as a weapon) a row of tombstones with inscriptions like, "Some jerk", "Dunno who but kinda stupid", "A jabroni" and so on. |
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Post by Gemini Jim on Sept 20, 2024 16:27:15 GMT
Glad to see that she's finally starting to get it. Although it is a little worrying that the thing that she's really upset about is the name. Maybe it's just mental displacement, maybe her brain can't handle the idea of one of her students literally working herself to death. (Or, like Arthur Dent's reaction to the Earth being destroyed: "McDonald's, he thought. There is no longer any such thing as a McDonald's hamburger. He passed out.") But at least she's moved from denial to anger, even if it's completely misdirected. We just need to aim that anger in the right direction. You are judging <Bugsy> by western human standards. Your ruler is not appropriate to measure fairies. Reminds me of the British Empire colonizing India to bring civilization, progress and enlightenment to a society that was already one of the most important cultures of all time. Brits just did not get them. You are not getting <Bugsy>. She's a fairy, and we have absolutely no idea how they think. Saying she's misdirected is an insult. The same as saying discovery-era native Americans were crazy and savage because they took baths regularly, in contrast to the educated and smelly Europeans who decimated them. You know, I can appreciate cultural relativism as much as the next person. But I didn't write the story. If we're the British Empire, Tom is Rudyard Kipling. <Bugsy> was written in these last couple of pages to be as unsympathetic as possible. A person was empirically and objectively dead. This may have been a deliberate stylistic choice on Tom's part, to show how difficult it will be (has been) for Annie to get through to the fairies. If so, he was very effective and convincing. |
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morrahadesigns
Full Member
Skinamarinky dinky-dink. Skinamarinky doo.
Posts: 223
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Post by morrahadesigns on Sept 20, 2024 18:24:27 GMT
Looks like Bugsy has her "Bison is...a bad guy?" moment.  Raul Julia played one of the absolute best screen villians in the entire history of cinema. I don't care how campy and cheesey the film was, his M. Bison was a phenomenal bad guy and I love it. |
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morrahadesigns
Full Member
Skinamarinky dinky-dink. Skinamarinky doo.
Posts: 223
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Post by morrahadesigns on Sept 20, 2024 18:28:56 GMT
Okay, so she does actually care about the name thing. That's something. That said, you don't just say "That sounds like a her problem" if you actually care about others, so the name thing seems more like a matter of principle than actual empathy. Unless, of course, she said that because she wasn't taking the situation seriously and/or wasn't really thinking about what she was saying. Fairies are jerks but it may also be that Bugsy is proudly using a human expression she picked up without fully understanding the "f*ck you" implications it carries. I'm also withholding judgement on if Bugsy is just upset about Lavender getting cheated out of her name or if the implications of Lavender's spirit having apparently ceased to exist have sunk in. I figure she's still not 100% up to speed on what's going on. I'm content for the moment that on some level and in some way Bugsy is concerned for her students. There's also the element of "fair dealing". Fae are tricksters but they do follow their own rules and violating those rules is a MAJOR TABOO. If the purple haired girl had been given a name but was still drained Bugsy likely would not have cared because that girl had been compensated according to the rules of the arrangement and whatever happened after that was the girl's issue and not any other fae's. So Bugsy's outcry of "that's not fair" is very much in keeping with general European fae ideology. A deal was struck and the court isn't upholding their end of the bargain. This is WRONG in her eyes on every level possible. Fae do not break their word. They will try to trick and entrap you into failing to meet terms, but if you meet those terms then they uphold them. |
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