Thoughts About Brainweirdness (That Sorta Relates to Gender But Not Entirely) Inspired by PMMM Anime

so, well, i was rewatching madoka and...

this line happened:

Spoiler: Madoka Episode 7

and well, it got me thinking about how i'm just not viscerally horrified by the idea of my soul being contained somewhere other than my body, provided that my body is (or at least seems to be) working fairly normally (or even better) apart from that. like, i can intellectually see the disadvantages of the system (uncertain ownership of soul, bad things happening to the container and thus bad things happening to you, magical corruption, misuse of the turning-down-pain ability), but i don't... feel it, per se.

'cause, like, sayaka has a big issue with how she feels like it's making her inhuman, so inhuman that she can't be in a relationship with kyosuke. and yeah, i just don't get... that. after all, she does still love him and i don't see how having a soul gem would get in the way of physical intimacy. like, maybe he'd be bothered if she told him but... that depends on her telling him, for one.

and truth is, i sometimes think having a body is really inconvenient ('cause of autistic sensory stuff, for example) but necessary. like, if i could be an energy being that sometimes manifests as human (in order to do stuff like eat my fave foods, manipulate objects, have sex, look really cute, whatever), that'd be pretty cool.

this, then, gets to gender when i started thinking about how i have no sense of gender identity, like at all. like,

Spoiler: tmi???

i think my boobs are hot, i think it'd be easier to masturbate with a penis than with a vagina,

and that ramna-style instant sex switch would be awesome, but... those preferences are rather low-key, not exactly dysphoric or anything. and i was like, "does no sense of gender identity connect to how i just don't care about where my theoretical soul is? after all, both gender identity and

Spoiler: Madoka Episode 7

visceral soul gem horror

both are humans being, as kyuubey would say,

Spoiler: Madoka Episode 7

'sensitive about the kind of containers that their souls are housed in,'

aren't they?"

so yeah, just thinking about how i'm not that emotionally connected to my body.

 

wait is this not the normal feeling? everything you said is basically how i feel about gender and all that. my brother was watching madoka with me for the first time and i couldn't figure out 1. why he was freaking out so bad during that bit and 2. why they were playing the 'big dramatic reveal' music they always played at those bits.

although i thought she and madoka were more freaked out because

Spoiler: madoka ep 7

they were essentially being told that they were dead and carrying around the memories of themselves being alive in a little container. i think? that's what my brother said.

 

That bit is definitely sympathy-based horror, to be sure, and I certainly don't get it except on an intellectual level.

Really I think a lot of the horror of kyuubey being emotionless is lost on me because so much of my processing is from that practical, no-feelings angle.

 

apparently not. based on what i've read on seebs' tumblr, even cis people get gender dysphoria sometimes. not as often as trans people, for obvious reasons, but sometimes.

the existence of that moment and of fans that feel visceral horror at it, plus the concept of horcruxes in harry potter (which aren't exactly the same, more about the purposeful results of someone's evil acts than something horrible done to them, but same idea of Soul Not Go There, Soul Belong In Body and the consequences of it not being there are bad), suggest that Soul Can Go Anywhere As Long As I Function Normally Or Better is not a normal feeling, really.

memories? i wouldn't say memories. like, memories are definitely there but... it doesn't sound right put that way, like, harry potter again, you can pour your memories into a pensieve but when you do, they don't have any agency. you just leave them alone, inert, until you decide to enter one of them. they don't carry on your life, as you, thinking that they are you. memories are different. though the diary horcrux might ruin that metaphor.

also, it just seems like a strange definition of "dead" to me.

 

Spoiler: The PSP game goes into this in more detail, warning it's kinda gross:

Their bodies are dead and constant magic drain from the Soul Gem is the only thing keeping them animated. Without the soul gem they start to rot. There's a scene you can get in the PSP game where after the incident where Madoka throws Sayaka's soul gem and it gets lost, it takes a really long time to find it. Kyouko gets her soul gem back in range but is too tired to really register the situation (she's been out looking for the thing nonstop for like three days). Then Sayaka wakes up and sees her own partially-decomposed body and goes witch more or less immediately.

A friend of mine who speaks (some) Japanese told me that this was more or less the gist of the explanation in the original anime as well. I don't know if it just didn't translate well or what.

Spoiler: Why it scares me personally

It's not so much that you become a lich, but that you don't know. Your body and soul gem could be separated any time you're not careful enough and then you're unconscious in a crystal while powerless to actually do anything. Someone who knows the truth could destroy your soul gem and you wouldn't even know that you were supposed to defend it. And while this part isn't clear until you know a little more about the life cycle of a magical girl, this effect means there's a constant magic drain going on that you didn't even know about, so doing nothing will eventually lead to you going witch even if you don't consciously use magic at all.

I know that probably isn't the whole of why that situation is supposed to be freaky, but that's why I was really disturbed.

I kinda have the same sense of not really wanting to have a body except for "special occasions." I don't feel a particularly strong attachment to it. I take care of it anyway because otherwise I lose my sanity at a distinctively rapid pace, but. (Also I really, really want my pre-puberty body back.)

 

ah... now i get it
i didn't know that the bodies decomposed without their soul gems and were, like, dead
can see why that'd make romance and physical intimacy a no go
just thought they were in stasis or something, and could be full-out replaced

and yeah... i see why that'd scare you, the not knowing. wasn't something that really registered on me, though, probably 'cause when she was upset about it, she already knew about it.

it's like, there's definitely horror there. but it's not instinctively clear to me, at least the way it was presented in the anime.

 

Spoilers without spoiler tags because mobile


It's also that something major was done to their body and soul without informed consent. Plus "you" isn't a human form anymore, it's a small inanimate object that can use a human corpse as a puppet.

My own thoughts on this: can a soul gem control a body that's not the original and the potential for body swapping and gender (species too?) fuckery.

 

cI never had any emotional reaction to that reveal either. I mean, it was a complete dick move for Kyuubey to do that without their full knowledge of what was going on, but then they were acting horrified about the actual reveal rather than their lack of informed consent. It made no sense to me, but as far as I'm concerned "me" is the part that's doing the thinking, and whether that part is a squishy jellyblob piloting living flesh via electrical/chemical impulses or a shiny rock piloting a preserved corpse via some magical bullshit, it makes no difference.

Spoiler

Even the corpse thing doesn't bother me outside of that anger about concealment. Sure your corpse body might start rotting if you lose your "brain", but you'd just have to take some care about it is all. I already have to do that with my regular body (can't lose my keys, can't forget to eat, can't wander out into traffic without checking the road...), and the soul gem even has a super-convenient ring form so it's not like you have to think too hard about not losing it.
The constant magical drain I just associate with the general shittiness of the puella magi package. I mean, of course they'd make sure to build a failsafe to prevent the girls from trying to quit and live a normal life. Otherwise it'd be way too easy to game the system: ask for your wish, then just don't bother doing anything magical. Well done for your forethought, incubators!

Wait, that was supposed to be terrible? QB's actions are certainly dreadful, but the idea you're supposed to have a negative reaction to the processes he uses to decide on those actions... strikes me as really wrong on a visceral level the way I suppose the body junk might for other people, huh that is a fascinating discovery

Oh fuck that sure was a mildly uncomfortable reaction I had to that statement. Does anyone else have a gut-level "wow, no" reaction to being told that it matters where they're thinking from, or is this my own personal weirdness?

 

yep
me is only in my body right now 'cause it, according to rules of reality and technology and stuff, has to be in there
if it didn't, well... it would only matter when it came to practical stuff, i figure

and yeah... that's a really good point
having to take care of one's body is not a thing unique to puella magi, even if the way it happens with them ends up looking more horrible than the human way to most people

another good point
like hell seebs' thought processes could be said to be kyuubey-like, to a certain extent, and well... that's not something we object to (though some neurotypicals are very Hell No about it, i've observed, very invested in everyone doing the Right Things For the Right Reasons)

and while i'm not reacting viscerally to any of that, your visceral reaction does make sense
like as long as you're thinking, why does the container you're doing it in matter?[/QUOTE]

 

Oh god I hate that show. Reason number one was that they thought that reveal was somehow scary or even unpleasant. Reason number two was that Madoka made a wish in the end that was according to all other foreshadowing supposed to destroy the universe, but the writer somehow made it into a "hopeful" thing and distorted everything so that there would be a happy ending. The creation of the new universe with different rules came out of butt fuck nowhere and was not part of her wish. "No facts, only feels" -- Madoka, the stupid character who makes awful decisions that the writer then alters everything about the show to twist into good decisions.

Like, I would love a stupid character who makes bad decisions if those bad decisions were actually treated as such and not as the most pure, good, wonderful things ever.

 

was it foreshadowed to do that? like yeah, homura didn't want her to contract (though that was more out of personal feelings than "madoka is doomed to destroy the universe" motivation), her witch ended up being really destructive in some of the other timelines, she did have a lot of power but... none of that means she was supposed to destroy the universe with her wish, was it?

and anyway, it technically did, sorta, but in a way that lead to the creation of a new universe. also, i wouldn't go far enough to say out of nowhere - she was said to have a lot of power and removing witches from the world before they're born would require a radical change to the universe.

just yeah, i don't really see why it wouldn't have worked that way.

i guess, ymmv, yeah?

 

With the caveat that I have never watched Madoka (though I plan to, one day, probably in company, and have done PMMM AU rps. With someone willing to explain everything, obviously), I find it interesting that I don't know what my reaction is to that.
I don't think I have the same 'oh, well, really it wouldn't matter' reaction. Or- well, to be precise, it feels like part of my brain is saying that, and another part is trying to react with horror, but I can't get a grip on it- like I'm just automatically suppressing it.
I suspect this is another occasion where I cannot know what my reaction is unless I directly personally experience the thing. It's probably a good thing that I never will.

 

To be honest, I don't think it's entirely fair to call Madoka a stupid character for making the decision she did even if the audience was supposed to understand that it would destroy the world(which I don't really believe, either, but then again I haven't watched the show in about six moths, so.), cause there was this strong reoccurring theme of these girls not having the full picture of what was happening or even the barest knowledge of where to start asking questions about their circumstances, and it would have felt very out of place for Madoka to sit down during a very heated moment (remember that she made her contract while a witch was busy destroying her city) and think things through. Madoka did the best she could with the information she had at hand, and if she had destroyed the universe accordingly, then it would have been fitting, not because it was a stupid choice on her part, but because QB and co kept immensely powerful people ignorant for their own personal gain.
But the hopeful ending seemed appropriate as well, because it didn't make everything magically better. It didn't change much at all. People still suffer and die. Preteen girls are still drafted into a war they can't hope to cope with for reasons they don't fully understand. All that changes is that they get to die quiet deaths instead of giving in to despair.
It fits the despairing tone, yunno? Even destroying the universe and remaking it doesn't erase suffering, just eases it a bit. That seemed powerful enough to me.