I'm having a tough time today.
I knew I was sad this morning, and it helped to talk to talk to my girlfriend just about life and art. I think art can challenge people to face feelings that they find difficult to face in regular conversation or with other people.
On the walk to work, some guys were catcalling a girl who was half way down the block. It pissed me off, but I rarely know what to say. I kept walking, and another block up I saw this guy who looked super checked out, and this other guy yelling at him, so I tried to to intervene, I was like "hey is this guy bothering you?"
The yelling guy got super pissed at me, and the checked-out guy had to talk him down and walk me away from the situation. I felt bad cuz I wanted to help someone in need, but instead I made the situation worse, and the person I was trying to help had to fix it.
Ugh, I've never liked making mistakes.
Anyway, in my depression slump I've been reading all of Takako Shimura's Even Though We're Adults. It's a manga about how people cheat on each other, and life goes on. It talks a lot about the institution of marriage and the process of divorce, it talks about how people gossip. It talks about how this kind of dynamic gets mirrored in all kinds of ways across age groups. It talks about the strange shapes that reconciliation takes. It's really, really good.
I played the entirety of Mouthwashing, which had too many jumpscares for my blood, but was still really good. It talked about a guy who, challenged by the drudgery of his life, externalizes all of his problems while trying to make himself the hero. It's a story centered around the phrase "Take Responsibility". The game ends, and the closest he can come to accepting responsibility for his actions is to commit suicide. I feel like it's kind of a story about toxic masculinity - hero complex, which feels really appropriate as a guidepost for my own feelings of making things worse by trying to make them better. I liked it, it was really good.
I caught up on Marriagetoxin the other day (a shounen action-romance), and I'm still trying to predict how it will go. I want the main characters to be gay, but it's very will-they, won't-they. I feel like that sort of thing is still a little prickly for Shounen Jump, but I guess we'll see. Hikaru and Mei keep getting pushed into romantic situations, and then Mei is like "Don't fall for me! That's not our deal!", and sends Hikaru on more dates. The first round of arcs, it felt like the pattern was Villain & Girlfriend of the Week. Now, we're circling back for another round of Girlfriends, but there's been a supporting guy character each time, which makes me think that the comic might be setting up to pair all tlhe girlfriends off with the other guys. My friend Talen recommended it to me, and I've been clawing my face about it ever since. Will they or won't they???? Is Joumyaku brave enough????? Will he reveal that Mei has actually been a cis girl the whole time and Hikaru is just dumb??? Only time will tell.