The mother of all RP horror stories, Part XIII
Previous Parts: Day 1: I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X
Day 2: XI, XII
Well, I must admit that I'm feeling better now that I've gotten all that rage from the last part out of my system. However, I'm afraid there's nothing left now but the log itself; it's very fitting that we're starting it on Unlucky #13.
I'm sure we all remember the arrogance and elitism this person has demonstrated in both her personal skill level as a writer and in the simple fact that she plays OCs only. Her character is totally developed and layered and more than his stereotype even if all signs from the actual conversation point to the opposite. YOU HAVEN'T SEEN HOW SHE PLAYS HIM YET SO YOU CAN'T JUDGE.
Well all right. Let's fix that little problem of lacking a sample.
[redacted]: The office was fairly standard for its type; light cream walls, a potted plant or two, a desk, and two plush chairs in front of it. The single window overlooked the ocean, but the blinds were drawn and only slivers of the view were visible, showing that the hour was just after sunset.
Sitting stiffly in one of the plush chairs, Yuna kept his face expressionless as he stared at a point just over the left shoulder of Mr. Hitachi, his boss and, technically, his owner. The man in question was speaking, but Yuna wasn't paying attention at the moment. Yuna wore a very simple, yet elegant yukata in a deep blue color, highlighted with lavender, and his black hair was casually pinned up in a deliberately haphazard fashion. His face had only the barest hint of cosmetics in the form of smudged eyeliner and glossy lips, with no effort made to conceal the grayish blue bruise covering the right side of his face.
It wasn't until Mr. Hitachi smacked his hand loudly on his desk that Yuna jumped slightly and blinked, finally focusing fully on the slightly balding, middle-aged man.
"You weren't listening, were you," Mr. Hitachi said flatly, frowning.
"No. Was it important?" Yuna replied, his tone flippant, though his expression remained unchanged.
Mr. Hitachi sighed and shook his head, glancing down to the papers on his desk for a moment. Pressing a button on the intercom, he spoke, "Show Mr. Itsuki in."
...Ow.
Okay, you know what, there is so much wrong in here that I don't even know if I can hit it all. I'll do my best, but if anyone sees something I missed, please bring it up in the comments.
Let's start with the nitpicks. She was just bitching about the inferior writing of other people... and is now using a semicolon where a colon should be. They are not interchangeable punctuation marks. I also see no fewer than three comma splices.
On the same note of inferior writing, check out how in the second paragraph she starts with what sounds like a lead-in to some introspection and insight about Yuna's thoughts or feelings, but instead goes into what he's wearing and how his hair is styled. This decision alone results in such a vast set of problems it requires its own list.
1) It's jarring. When you promise one thing and deliver another in your writing, you disrupt the flow and throw off your reader-- and not in the good way. Don't set up a paragraph to get into a character's head and then do something completely different.
2) It's amateurish. The most famous and basic rule of writing is "Show, don't tell." This description might as well belong in a police report. There's no effort at all to incorporate the physical features into the prose naturally. It's expository diarrhea: the info dump that couldn't wait.
3) It's pointless. This description of how Yuna looks isn't even useful information. Who cares what kind of make-up he's wearing? Physical description should never be delivered like this unless every detail is critical for either defining the character or calling attention to a significant feature (like a tattoo) that may be relevant later.
4) It's thoughtless. This description didn't have to be unnecessary. It would still have been ill-placed, but it could have been helpful. The bruise, for example, would have been a valuable mark to know about. However, calling attention to it by saying he made no effort to cover it is just bizarre. Yuna IS wearing some form of make-up, but he isn't using it to cover the bruise. The whole point of make-up is to cover up blemishes-- or at least to enhance appearance. When did a giant bruise on the face go from an unsightly, disturbing blemish to a beauty mark?
5) It's nonsensical. The decision not to try to cover the bruise also makes a statement about Yuna's character. Because he is wearing make-up-- but isn't wearing it to hide the fact he's been beaten-- the implication is that Yuna wants the bruise to be seen. Humoring the idea that no, really, this isn't the author's desire AT ALL, this decision from a character standpoint is a problem on two levels: Firstly, the character has been described before as hating feminization. Secondly, the character has also been described as independent and hating a lack of control. Given those two facts, I would very much like to know why it is that he DOES want to make himself look girly with smudged eyeliner and lip gloss, but he DOES NOT want to conceal a sign of victimization and weakness!
6) It's stupid. Presuming that my reasoning is correct and giant facial bruises haven't secretly become a beauty mark in this universe, why does Yuna care enough about his looks to go to the trouble of doing his hair so carefully and applying that make-up yet made no attempt to cover the bruise? Especially when part of his job is to look pretty? Setting aside the obvious "because no one can feel sorry for him if they can't see the abuse" nonreason, that is. With the blatant ineptitude for graciousness around strangers that he demonstrates on top of his specially special exempt status from the prostitute element of this position, being pretty is all that Yuna has going for him. Except now that's been compromised, too. But he's still awesomely valuable there and totally needs to be kept in it? NO.
7) It's inapposite. If you are going to go into what a character chooses to wear, it should, ideally, reflect who the character is. A yukata suggests Yuna is either traditional and casual or, in the context of all the sex kitten stuff accompanying the outfit here, at least classy in spite of his role. Blue and lavender colors advertise a demeanor that is relaxed, cool, and soft-- romantic even. None of this could be further from the truth. All of these adjectives fail to accurately describe Yuna at any point through the entire log-- and that's in spite of the fact Yuna's personality changes so often and so quickly that he might as well be a tv in the hands of an obsessive-compulsive channel surfer.
8) It's imperious. The word choices for this desciription don't just try to explain what Yuna looks like. They're biased words that also try to dictate how Rasu and/or the reader should react to that appearance. Elegant. Highlighted with lavender. The flippant condescension in Yuna's attitude that simply screams you are not worthy. This is not a neutral, unimposing description by any stretch; it's very plain what the author thinks of her character and, further, that she wants everyone else to think the exact same thing.
9) It's gratuitous. This careful, lovingly detailed rundown of everything about his appearance from the clothes he's wearing to the types of make-up he's got on to the apparent need for FIVE different modifiers just for his hair is classic Suethorism. It's not about defining the character; it's about trying to convince the reader YOU SHOULD FIND HIM BEAUTIFUL. And doing it lazily at that.
10) It's damning. This authorial decision to describe looks instead of thoughts sends a message that, as suspected, there isn't any thought or depth going on with this character. Nor does she seem terribly concerned with starting to build it pronto. Yuna's looks are of far greater importance to her than are his thoughts or feelings.
11) It's inaccurate. This description either goes against her earlier rambling about Yuna's character or shows continued failure to know the first damn thing about Japanese culture. In the case of the latter: Geisha wear proper kimonos. A yukata may be technically classifiable as a kimono, but it's a light garment worn at a summer festival or a ryokan. Geisha also paint their entire faces with make-up and wear wigs, and their hair is certainly not styled for that deliberately messy look. It doesn't matter that she didn't originally picture this as set in Japan because she DID choose for the club to have a geisha theme. Which OUGHT to mean the hosts actually look like geisha!
So let's give her the benefit of the doubt and say Yuna hasn't just finished his "shift." This still fails. Yuna's actual favored fashion style according to the chat is supposed to be punky goth. Blue and lavender yukata? Not even close. (It's really, really sad when your RP buddy knows more about your original character than you do, isn't it?)
12) It's inexcusable. Someone who was simply desperate to play Devil's Advocate in defense of this girl might try to argue the yukata and girly make-up and everything else about this appearance is just a product of Hitachi's orders. After all, just because Yuna isn't working the club right this minute doesn't change that Hitachi "owns" him, right? Sorry, but given the way that Yuna acts around his boss and the fact he can get away with not being forced to have sex with customers, you'll have to forgive me if I don't buy that he's being forced to look this way off the clock. Yuna is clearly the one in charge here. Which means he hates being girly but is making himself look as feminine as possible because SHUT UP HE JUST IS NOW FIND IT HOT, DAMMIT.
13) It's contradictory. Oh, how it is contradictory. Author: Yuna either cares about his appearance or he doesn't. YOU HAVE TO PICK ONE. Just as you can't have a character who is both oppressed and relentlessly disdainful with no threat of punishment (oh wait), you also cannot have hair that is both casually and deliberately pinned up a certain way, because if you've taken the time and energy to fuss it into a deliberately haphazard look, it is no longer a casual pin-up. If a kimono is elegant with highlights, it is not simple. If you can't be assed to spend two minutes trying to mask a giant bruise, you definitely can't be assed to spend twenty minutes teasing your hair. And eyeliner and glossy lips do NOT only a "barest hint of cosmetics" make! That is not subtle-- especially not on a guy. More to the point, it's decidedly feminine. If this was a look that was going for androgynous, it overshot by a mile.
14) It's Just Plain Ugly. The biggest irony of all is that in this desperate effort to make Yuna look beautiful, the author has actually done the opposite. He's trying to be both traditional-classy, as suggested from the cool-colored yukata, and edgy-cool as suggested from the eyeliner and messy punk-style 'do. They just don't go together, even setting aside the mismatch that comes from pairing an outfit that takes a very long time to get into with a hairstyle meant to look like it was just thrown together. He's got the giant bruise on his face that he hasn't even bothered to try to cover, his eyeliner is smudged-- which makes it sound like he's been rubbing his eyes-- and just in case all of that wasn't enough to turn you off, the author is failing to remember one of the most critical rules of all for beauty:
Most of it comes from within.
I don't mean that as a cheap cliché either. I mean that inner beauty translates to outer beauty. People who are happy and positive convey that in their glow and facial expression. They show it in the way they hold themselves and, most importantly of all, in the way they interact with the people and the world around them. You can have the most awesome hairstyle and make-up and clothing in the world, but if you're wearing it all with a sour expression, spewing vitriol and demonstrating utter disdain for everyone around you, it doesn't help that much. Beauty is as much psychological as it is physical. It's the concept that certain things attract and other things repel. And an attitude like this? Definitely repels. No one will remember that lovingly composed paragraph about how HAWT the character is in looks against pages of proof he's repulsive in action.
The combined result of all of these problems is that the mun's self-indulgence is blatantly obvious. This is not meant to be a deep, thought-out character. It's exactly what she described her characters as being: a shell through which she writes whatever the heck she wants in response to any given post. The character has no discernible personality, no coherency in the flow of their reactions, and no consistency between their proclaimed psychology and their actual behavior.
Next point of contention? For all the resentment he's supposed to harbor towards Hitachi, Yuna is stunningly blasé towards his owner. Instead, you'll find in later posts that all of his bitterness gets directed at Rasu. Now, if Yuna were simply projecting that hatred onto Rasu because he knows better than to show anger at his owner, that'd be one thing. But the snotty apathy Yuna's showing the owner instead is no less offensive. He isn't feigning respect or fondness as a common sense survival tactic. He's simply, utterly dismissive of the man. Yuna considers Hitachi so insignificant that not only is it not worth listening to him, it's not worth trying to hide that he doesn't find him worth listening to. Yuna's wholly unapologetic for treating his boss's talking like background noise.
As long as we're on the subject of Yuna's attitude, something about the way the mun writes him portrays the character as painfully teenage girl. I'm not seeing a young 20s male at all in this character. I'm not even seeing the uke stereotype she claims to hate but feels totally entitled to play. No matter how hard I look, I see a kid with an emory board sitting with the legs crossed and filing down a fingernail. The choice of reply, the vacancy of thought, the supreme vanity that's implied from that appearance-based info dump. All of the mannerisms personify your stereotypical idiot preppy girl in history class who can't be bothered to learn about the Holy Roman Empire because she's too busy wondering if she'll have time for that manicure and whether Jeremy is going to ask her to the dance.
I would also like to make a note that "his boss and, technically, his owner" is a phrase to remember for later.
Finally? Damn, maybe the innocuous connotations from a name like "Bob" weren't so off after all. This guy is a tired, henpecked husband, not a mob boss. To quote my dear friend sevendials: by all rights, this man should be powerful, ruthless and demanding of complete obedience. So why is he acting like an assistant section chief trying to reason with a snotty secretary that he has no power over because her daddy's on the board of directors? Not even a NORMAL JOB supervisor would tolerate this kind of attitude.
And she's right. Still less would an essential slaveowner, and even less a slaveowner who is also an organized crime leader. What kind of gangster kingpin tolerates this kind of behavior from his indebted slave? How does he manage a personal army of criminals and delinquents if he can't even command the respect of a frail brat like Yuna? Why isn't Yuna wearing cement shoes at the bottom of the ocean? Seriously, Hitachi is a total wuss.
And the author knows it, which makes it all the more infuriating. Hitachi gets a physical description that paints him as just as unthreatening as Yuna's attitude would have us believe. He's middle-aged and balding-- unattractive and doubly emphasizing his meekness while in the company of the beautiful Yuna-god. He has no sense of presence.
This isn't just about her imperious writing style and word choices, however. It's Yuna's attitude ICly. This upside-down power dynamic is a two-way street. Yuna is haughty and dismissive and everything about him just reeks of vanity, narcissism and a superiority complex so grand and overstated it makes Donald Trump look modest. How else can you explain that kind of attitude even towards the person who OWNS you? Especially when that person also holds so much power in organized crime and in wealth? Yuna gets away with it because Hitachi is not written as an actual embodiment of his identity but that is not an excuse for Yuna being such a self-important snot in the first place.
Another thing I don't like about this attitude is the comment it's making that either Hitachi and other less attractive people like him are incapable of landing any hot person through a means other than force (because otherwise why not chuck out Yuna and pay for someone equally pretty and far more willing to at least pretend to be good company?) OR Yuna is so hottingly hot that there ISN'T anyone else who could be more desireable-- no matter how pleasant they are on top of being pretty.
Okay that "finally" four paragraphs ago was clearly a lie.
Just for the sake of saying it, I do hope all the writers (RPers especially) out there are taking this hypercritical dissection-- and all the future ones in the log-- with a grain of salt. I get that it's RP. Posts are meant to be done quickly and usually aren't checked for more than typos. Imperfect execution happens all the time, including with truly talented writers. And perhaps it's unfair of me to slam her for those types of mistakes as a result. In actual play, these kinds of technical errors don't even register for me.
...But the fact remains this is a rant and calling out every piece of stupid and fail that I can find is the whole point. So let's just acknowledge that I'm being a bitch and move on.
Well, we'll move on next time. I do believe I've ranted quite enough for now.
Part XIV
Day 2: XI, XII
Well, I must admit that I'm feeling better now that I've gotten all that rage from the last part out of my system. However, I'm afraid there's nothing left now but the log itself; it's very fitting that we're starting it on Unlucky #13.
I'm sure we all remember the arrogance and elitism this person has demonstrated in both her personal skill level as a writer and in the simple fact that she plays OCs only. Her character is totally developed and layered and more than his stereotype even if all signs from the actual conversation point to the opposite. YOU HAVEN'T SEEN HOW SHE PLAYS HIM YET SO YOU CAN'T JUDGE.
Well all right. Let's fix that little problem of lacking a sample.
[redacted]: The office was fairly standard for its type; light cream walls, a potted plant or two, a desk, and two plush chairs in front of it. The single window overlooked the ocean, but the blinds were drawn and only slivers of the view were visible, showing that the hour was just after sunset.
Sitting stiffly in one of the plush chairs, Yuna kept his face expressionless as he stared at a point just over the left shoulder of Mr. Hitachi, his boss and, technically, his owner. The man in question was speaking, but Yuna wasn't paying attention at the moment. Yuna wore a very simple, yet elegant yukata in a deep blue color, highlighted with lavender, and his black hair was casually pinned up in a deliberately haphazard fashion. His face had only the barest hint of cosmetics in the form of smudged eyeliner and glossy lips, with no effort made to conceal the grayish blue bruise covering the right side of his face.
It wasn't until Mr. Hitachi smacked his hand loudly on his desk that Yuna jumped slightly and blinked, finally focusing fully on the slightly balding, middle-aged man.
"You weren't listening, were you," Mr. Hitachi said flatly, frowning.
"No. Was it important?" Yuna replied, his tone flippant, though his expression remained unchanged.
Mr. Hitachi sighed and shook his head, glancing down to the papers on his desk for a moment. Pressing a button on the intercom, he spoke, "Show Mr. Itsuki in."
...Ow.
Okay, you know what, there is so much wrong in here that I don't even know if I can hit it all. I'll do my best, but if anyone sees something I missed, please bring it up in the comments.
Let's start with the nitpicks. She was just bitching about the inferior writing of other people... and is now using a semicolon where a colon should be. They are not interchangeable punctuation marks. I also see no fewer than three comma splices.
On the same note of inferior writing, check out how in the second paragraph she starts with what sounds like a lead-in to some introspection and insight about Yuna's thoughts or feelings, but instead goes into what he's wearing and how his hair is styled. This decision alone results in such a vast set of problems it requires its own list.
1) It's jarring. When you promise one thing and deliver another in your writing, you disrupt the flow and throw off your reader-- and not in the good way. Don't set up a paragraph to get into a character's head and then do something completely different.
2) It's amateurish. The most famous and basic rule of writing is "Show, don't tell." This description might as well belong in a police report. There's no effort at all to incorporate the physical features into the prose naturally. It's expository diarrhea: the info dump that couldn't wait.
3) It's pointless. This description of how Yuna looks isn't even useful information. Who cares what kind of make-up he's wearing? Physical description should never be delivered like this unless every detail is critical for either defining the character or calling attention to a significant feature (like a tattoo) that may be relevant later.
4) It's thoughtless. This description didn't have to be unnecessary. It would still have been ill-placed, but it could have been helpful. The bruise, for example, would have been a valuable mark to know about. However, calling attention to it by saying he made no effort to cover it is just bizarre. Yuna IS wearing some form of make-up, but he isn't using it to cover the bruise. The whole point of make-up is to cover up blemishes-- or at least to enhance appearance. When did a giant bruise on the face go from an unsightly, disturbing blemish to a beauty mark?
5) It's nonsensical. The decision not to try to cover the bruise also makes a statement about Yuna's character. Because he is wearing make-up-- but isn't wearing it to hide the fact he's been beaten-- the implication is that Yuna wants the bruise to be seen. Humoring the idea that no, really, this isn't the author's desire AT ALL, this decision from a character standpoint is a problem on two levels: Firstly, the character has been described before as hating feminization. Secondly, the character has also been described as independent and hating a lack of control. Given those two facts, I would very much like to know why it is that he DOES want to make himself look girly with smudged eyeliner and lip gloss, but he DOES NOT want to conceal a sign of victimization and weakness!
6) It's stupid. Presuming that my reasoning is correct and giant facial bruises haven't secretly become a beauty mark in this universe, why does Yuna care enough about his looks to go to the trouble of doing his hair so carefully and applying that make-up yet made no attempt to cover the bruise? Especially when part of his job is to look pretty? Setting aside the obvious "because no one can feel sorry for him if they can't see the abuse" nonreason, that is. With the blatant ineptitude for graciousness around strangers that he demonstrates on top of his specially special exempt status from the prostitute element of this position, being pretty is all that Yuna has going for him. Except now that's been compromised, too. But he's still awesomely valuable there and totally needs to be kept in it? NO.
7) It's inapposite. If you are going to go into what a character chooses to wear, it should, ideally, reflect who the character is. A yukata suggests Yuna is either traditional and casual or, in the context of all the sex kitten stuff accompanying the outfit here, at least classy in spite of his role. Blue and lavender colors advertise a demeanor that is relaxed, cool, and soft-- romantic even. None of this could be further from the truth. All of these adjectives fail to accurately describe Yuna at any point through the entire log-- and that's in spite of the fact Yuna's personality changes so often and so quickly that he might as well be a tv in the hands of an obsessive-compulsive channel surfer.
8) It's imperious. The word choices for this desciription don't just try to explain what Yuna looks like. They're biased words that also try to dictate how Rasu and/or the reader should react to that appearance. Elegant. Highlighted with lavender. The flippant condescension in Yuna's attitude that simply screams you are not worthy. This is not a neutral, unimposing description by any stretch; it's very plain what the author thinks of her character and, further, that she wants everyone else to think the exact same thing.
9) It's gratuitous. This careful, lovingly detailed rundown of everything about his appearance from the clothes he's wearing to the types of make-up he's got on to the apparent need for FIVE different modifiers just for his hair is classic Suethorism. It's not about defining the character; it's about trying to convince the reader YOU SHOULD FIND HIM BEAUTIFUL. And doing it lazily at that.
10) It's damning. This authorial decision to describe looks instead of thoughts sends a message that, as suspected, there isn't any thought or depth going on with this character. Nor does she seem terribly concerned with starting to build it pronto. Yuna's looks are of far greater importance to her than are his thoughts or feelings.
11) It's inaccurate. This description either goes against her earlier rambling about Yuna's character or shows continued failure to know the first damn thing about Japanese culture. In the case of the latter: Geisha wear proper kimonos. A yukata may be technically classifiable as a kimono, but it's a light garment worn at a summer festival or a ryokan. Geisha also paint their entire faces with make-up and wear wigs, and their hair is certainly not styled for that deliberately messy look. It doesn't matter that she didn't originally picture this as set in Japan because she DID choose for the club to have a geisha theme. Which OUGHT to mean the hosts actually look like geisha!
So let's give her the benefit of the doubt and say Yuna hasn't just finished his "shift." This still fails. Yuna's actual favored fashion style according to the chat is supposed to be punky goth. Blue and lavender yukata? Not even close. (It's really, really sad when your RP buddy knows more about your original character than you do, isn't it?)
12) It's inexcusable. Someone who was simply desperate to play Devil's Advocate in defense of this girl might try to argue the yukata and girly make-up and everything else about this appearance is just a product of Hitachi's orders. After all, just because Yuna isn't working the club right this minute doesn't change that Hitachi "owns" him, right? Sorry, but given the way that Yuna acts around his boss and the fact he can get away with not being forced to have sex with customers, you'll have to forgive me if I don't buy that he's being forced to look this way off the clock. Yuna is clearly the one in charge here. Which means he hates being girly but is making himself look as feminine as possible because SHUT UP HE JUST IS NOW FIND IT HOT, DAMMIT.
13) It's contradictory. Oh, how it is contradictory. Author: Yuna either cares about his appearance or he doesn't. YOU HAVE TO PICK ONE. Just as you can't have a character who is both oppressed and relentlessly disdainful with no threat of punishment (oh wait), you also cannot have hair that is both casually and deliberately pinned up a certain way, because if you've taken the time and energy to fuss it into a deliberately haphazard look, it is no longer a casual pin-up. If a kimono is elegant with highlights, it is not simple. If you can't be assed to spend two minutes trying to mask a giant bruise, you definitely can't be assed to spend twenty minutes teasing your hair. And eyeliner and glossy lips do NOT only a "barest hint of cosmetics" make! That is not subtle-- especially not on a guy. More to the point, it's decidedly feminine. If this was a look that was going for androgynous, it overshot by a mile.
14) It's Just Plain Ugly. The biggest irony of all is that in this desperate effort to make Yuna look beautiful, the author has actually done the opposite. He's trying to be both traditional-classy, as suggested from the cool-colored yukata, and edgy-cool as suggested from the eyeliner and messy punk-style 'do. They just don't go together, even setting aside the mismatch that comes from pairing an outfit that takes a very long time to get into with a hairstyle meant to look like it was just thrown together. He's got the giant bruise on his face that he hasn't even bothered to try to cover, his eyeliner is smudged-- which makes it sound like he's been rubbing his eyes-- and just in case all of that wasn't enough to turn you off, the author is failing to remember one of the most critical rules of all for beauty:
Most of it comes from within.
I don't mean that as a cheap cliché either. I mean that inner beauty translates to outer beauty. People who are happy and positive convey that in their glow and facial expression. They show it in the way they hold themselves and, most importantly of all, in the way they interact with the people and the world around them. You can have the most awesome hairstyle and make-up and clothing in the world, but if you're wearing it all with a sour expression, spewing vitriol and demonstrating utter disdain for everyone around you, it doesn't help that much. Beauty is as much psychological as it is physical. It's the concept that certain things attract and other things repel. And an attitude like this? Definitely repels. No one will remember that lovingly composed paragraph about how HAWT the character is in looks against pages of proof he's repulsive in action.
The combined result of all of these problems is that the mun's self-indulgence is blatantly obvious. This is not meant to be a deep, thought-out character. It's exactly what she described her characters as being: a shell through which she writes whatever the heck she wants in response to any given post. The character has no discernible personality, no coherency in the flow of their reactions, and no consistency between their proclaimed psychology and their actual behavior.
Next point of contention? For all the resentment he's supposed to harbor towards Hitachi, Yuna is stunningly blasé towards his owner. Instead, you'll find in later posts that all of his bitterness gets directed at Rasu. Now, if Yuna were simply projecting that hatred onto Rasu because he knows better than to show anger at his owner, that'd be one thing. But the snotty apathy Yuna's showing the owner instead is no less offensive. He isn't feigning respect or fondness as a common sense survival tactic. He's simply, utterly dismissive of the man. Yuna considers Hitachi so insignificant that not only is it not worth listening to him, it's not worth trying to hide that he doesn't find him worth listening to. Yuna's wholly unapologetic for treating his boss's talking like background noise.
As long as we're on the subject of Yuna's attitude, something about the way the mun writes him portrays the character as painfully teenage girl. I'm not seeing a young 20s male at all in this character. I'm not even seeing the uke stereotype she claims to hate but feels totally entitled to play. No matter how hard I look, I see a kid with an emory board sitting with the legs crossed and filing down a fingernail. The choice of reply, the vacancy of thought, the supreme vanity that's implied from that appearance-based info dump. All of the mannerisms personify your stereotypical idiot preppy girl in history class who can't be bothered to learn about the Holy Roman Empire because she's too busy wondering if she'll have time for that manicure and whether Jeremy is going to ask her to the dance.
I would also like to make a note that "his boss and, technically, his owner" is a phrase to remember for later.
Finally? Damn, maybe the innocuous connotations from a name like "Bob" weren't so off after all. This guy is a tired, henpecked husband, not a mob boss. To quote my dear friend sevendials: by all rights, this man should be powerful, ruthless and demanding of complete obedience. So why is he acting like an assistant section chief trying to reason with a snotty secretary that he has no power over because her daddy's on the board of directors? Not even a NORMAL JOB supervisor would tolerate this kind of attitude.
And she's right. Still less would an essential slaveowner, and even less a slaveowner who is also an organized crime leader. What kind of gangster kingpin tolerates this kind of behavior from his indebted slave? How does he manage a personal army of criminals and delinquents if he can't even command the respect of a frail brat like Yuna? Why isn't Yuna wearing cement shoes at the bottom of the ocean? Seriously, Hitachi is a total wuss.
And the author knows it, which makes it all the more infuriating. Hitachi gets a physical description that paints him as just as unthreatening as Yuna's attitude would have us believe. He's middle-aged and balding-- unattractive and doubly emphasizing his meekness while in the company of the beautiful Yuna-god. He has no sense of presence.
This isn't just about her imperious writing style and word choices, however. It's Yuna's attitude ICly. This upside-down power dynamic is a two-way street. Yuna is haughty and dismissive and everything about him just reeks of vanity, narcissism and a superiority complex so grand and overstated it makes Donald Trump look modest. How else can you explain that kind of attitude even towards the person who OWNS you? Especially when that person also holds so much power in organized crime and in wealth? Yuna gets away with it because Hitachi is not written as an actual embodiment of his identity but that is not an excuse for Yuna being such a self-important snot in the first place.
Another thing I don't like about this attitude is the comment it's making that either Hitachi and other less attractive people like him are incapable of landing any hot person through a means other than force (because otherwise why not chuck out Yuna and pay for someone equally pretty and far more willing to at least pretend to be good company?) OR Yuna is so hottingly hot that there ISN'T anyone else who could be more desireable-- no matter how pleasant they are on top of being pretty.
Okay that "finally" four paragraphs ago was clearly a lie.
Just for the sake of saying it, I do hope all the writers (RPers especially) out there are taking this hypercritical dissection-- and all the future ones in the log-- with a grain of salt. I get that it's RP. Posts are meant to be done quickly and usually aren't checked for more than typos. Imperfect execution happens all the time, including with truly talented writers. And perhaps it's unfair of me to slam her for those types of mistakes as a result. In actual play, these kinds of technical errors don't even register for me.
...But the fact remains this is a rant and calling out every piece of stupid and fail that I can find is the whole point. So let's just acknowledge that I'm being a bitch and move on.
Well, we'll move on next time. I do believe I've ranted quite enough for now.
Part XIV