after the credits roll for look back1, a special interview segment plays. the director and main voice actors point out their specific intentions with certain scenes (they kept the sketch lines in for certain shots as a nod to the artistic process in creating an animated film). people start filing out of the audience. I think about what a great metaphor it would be if I were the only one left in the audience (this doesn’t happen). I think fujimoto is talking to me directly the same way I think god talks to me directly, sometimes. if I’m the only one hearing the message, maybe it doesn’t matter if it wasn’t intended for me. I watch the way the movie inspires artists to pick up their pens and pencils. I watch the way people stay after the credits2 to hear how the director meticulously pieced together each part of the movie — soundtrack, actors, background art — and I think my writing has become an ouroboros. I think I am devouring myself, I am writing so I have something to read, I want someone to hold this love I have, but there are no other hands than my own.
my friend tells me to read omniscient reader’s viewpoint because it is a love letter to writing. I am halfway through the manhwa3 when they tell me their favorite dynamic is between three characters, two of which I’ve already met. they are shocked when I immediately guess who the third is — a love letter between the reader and (novel) character is not complete without an author4. in our three-person group chat5, we have our profile pictures set to the main triad of the manhwa. we make jokes on whether I am the reader or writer, but I think maybe just the argument serves as proof that one cannot exist without the other. the metaphor fell apart because the theater refused to empty. I am glad the metaphor fell apart because it means there’s someone sitting in the theater besides me; when I am looking through the screen, there is someone looking back. I think of how in the manhwa, the reader is the writer’s only reader and I think you are the only one I am talking to, sometimes. why do you draw, fujino? why do you write, han sooyoung? the words are becoming blended, but the answer remains the same. I think I am being devoured, everything I consume will consume me back, I want to hold your love in my hands, but I fear my hands are no longer in the theater.
I should mention that I am sobbing my eyes out at this point. Fujimoto… the genius that you are.
I am mostly thinking about how the people that are subscribed here and my main Substack are the people who stay in the theater.
Or, at least the chapters that had been released at this point.
Honestly, it’s my friend’s fault for thinking I of all people wouldn’t immediately catch this. Books are basically half my personality.
I could probably write another love letter to three-person group chats.
oMG YOU KNOW TAtsuki Fujimoto???
its like bakuman but not actually like bakuman