I thought that Twelve Twitter Stories was a very creative piece, and though I had a fun time reading each of the blurbs (especially the ones that were super out there), I was having a hard time connecting it to a deeper meaning as I was reading. There seemed to be a running theme of literature, language, and story telling in the first portion of the tweets, but that thread definitely got lost with the cooking event and the man covered in butter. Because I was curious, I did a quick google search on Toh Enjoe and found that his educational background was focused in math and physics and that he tended to use computational or physical principles in his writing, which was super interesting to me as a math major. I went back and reread the piece with that in mind, and there seemed to be a few examples where the language almost seems recursive, with the same or similar things being repeated multiple times. The clearest example was in the Japanese language passage, where the repeated words and sentences make it feel like you've looped over and over again when the passage only totals to under 50 words. I also thought that the first passage was maybe used to introduce this type of recursive structure. The visual of something looping through the same thing over and over again with the number of working tongues multiplying over time reminded me a little of how putting multiple recursive calls in a function can get generate an almost overwhelming amount of calls, even for inputs that seem small.
I Want to Kick You in the Back reminded me quite vividly of what the social structure of middle school and high school felt like and I commend Wataya on being able to convey that so clearly, though I was having a difficult time sympathizing with Hasegawa without having a clear picture of her background. I'm not sure if she's supposed to be likable or relatable, and she would be a somewhat realistic early high schooler for being a little irrational, but it bugged me that she seemed to contradict herself in some ways. She spends the whole lab thinking about how miserable she is because she doesn't have a group, but then intentionally decides to not resolve that issue later because she thinks she's better off being without a group these days. She implies that she cared about other people's opinions in middle school because she was always pleasing people by putting on a fake smile, but then later commends her middle school self by saying she cared less about people's opinions back then. To be fair, she is probably around 15 and this is fairly normal thinking for a young teen, but I just found myself repelled by her constant state of misery over things that seem fairly commonplace.
Nanamori in People Who Talk to Stuffed Animals Are Nice seemed to be on verge of multiple breakthroughs in regards to his own gender and sexuality and how different identities are perceived, but didn't quite get there by the end of the passage we read. He had some very keen insights, especially when he noted that by asking a girl out, she suddenly now wholly perceives him as the opposite sex, and I liked how his background contributed to his more nuanced thoughts on how people perceive others' genders based on actions and appearances. I found it interesting that despite how much he thought about how others perceive him, he didn't do a lot of extra thinking about how he identifies himself internally. I think perhaps it's because he doesn't quite have the words to describe these things, which is quite common among aroace people and I appreciated the representation here. In particular, Nanamori doesn't investigate why he experiences little to no romantic attraction, and instead sets his focus on acting in a way to conform (by getting a girlfriend), likely because there's no stronger feeling driving him away from what society wants. A lot of aroace-spec people, especially in more conservative areas or time period will live/have lived out their entire life without realizing they don't experience strong romantic attraction because it's very possible to do everything conventionally (go through the motions of dating, marry someone, etc.) without much friction. On a side note, I was quite concerned about Mugito while reading, and was even more concerned that Nanamori didn't seem especially alarmed about her disappearance; I'd like to know what happened with her and why she's ignoring Nanamori's messages.
Hunchback is probably my favorite of the stories we've seen so far. That was the best opening line I've ever read. I enjoyed Shaka's dark sense of humor and appreciated how honest she was with her less conventional thoughts in her narration, as it really helps you understand her character and perspective better. I've also never thought of the accessibility of books in that light until reading this, and I never realized how in all of my hatred for textbook reading, I took my ability to read physical textbooks for granted. I'd like to read the rest of the story at some point in the future.
I honestly spent most of my time The Hole was just waiting for something interesting that felt foreshadowed to be revealed—Aki cheating on Asa or getting up to some suspicious activity, Tomiko being inhuman/immortal, the child sneaking around outside taking some kind of action, or the grandpa doing something weirder. I do wish that we got to read a little more of it, because every character except for Asa and her coworker felt off, and I was waiting in suspense for everything to come to a head and begin to make sense; however, nothing related to the foreshadowing ended up getting fully confirmed in this passage except for the fact that there's odd and maybe supernatural things going on in this area. I wonder what the full deal is with Tomiko, Aki, and the grandfather.
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