When the Villainess Meets the Yandere - Vol. 4 Ch. 36 - To: Jolene

[MangaDex]

 

[GooseBolt]

Now, I'm not one to say that a character should play for the other team buuuuut...

 

[onedumninja]

That's right! Get her! Attack her! This means war!!

 

[NinjaGoemon]

Should clap back at Faye with the Rae special

 

[shemper]

Thank you for your work!

 

[Eukene]

Should clap back at Faye with the Rae special

Rae would also be on board with sexually harassing Faye until she gives up on being straight, though I can't say I am liking that aspect.

With Jolene and Hesta, at least Hesta started there being a physical altercation before Jolene did anything. There was also a power imbalance in favor of Hesta. With Faye, we kind of have the opposite with an established, older student and a younger, emotionally immature student who got in younger than most students due to academic talent.

The power imbalance seems against Faye in this situation, even if Faye is taking advantage of the dominant views. For me, the Faye verbal and physical harassment reads in a "That's uncomfortable" way than a hot way, despite me reading stories with more extreme power imbalances than this.

I've got nothing against anyone who feels differently, but I prefer the other character dynamics so far.

 

[KeraFury]

the problem im running into with this story is that i don't exactly understand what Faye is trying to do. i dont really understand Dana's perspective either though i suspect his prejudice might be born out of daddy issues but with Faye i don't really understand her goal in all this, i don't even understand really what she ultimately wants and ill explain. so what we can kinda glean about who Faye is as a person is that she is someone who really only does things for the purpose of conflicting with her sister, though i think a deeper exploration as to her rationality behind that needs to reinforce that. with how things have changed with hesha, dana, and jolene, faye has been put into a position where the only way she can compete with hesha is to pursue jolene which has no value from any outside perspectives. she can however pursue dana with barely any obstacles in her way (irene isn't really an obstacle unless faye's sexuality is truly fragile) but she also does not really need to support dana on his stance on same sex marriage to pursue him given he's made no remark to imply he is seeking support on this matter. i ultimately don't understand her meddling beyond simply creating conflict for the sake of conflict with literally everyone around her which doesn't really fit her character of ONLY seeking conflict with hesha. i can only speculate that maybe she thinks that if jolene is expelled or has some other reason to be compelled to leave the school that hesha will go back to how she was and start pursuing dana again to give her that competition back but faye hasn't really said or thought anything to reinforce that speculation. even then i don't really understand involving herself in dana and arnold's professional relationship by implicating arnold is a homosexual, i dont see how it relates back to my speculative assumption about her goals nor can i figure out what it has to do with any other goals she might have. at this point she just kinda seems like she's been turned into a token homophobe with no real motivation because the author needs an antagonist. im not saying homophobia is outside of her character, characters can gain new traits all the time if an author wants them to but the issue i have is that it lacks foundation especially when its seemingly unnessicary for the plot since dana clearly has enough grounding for his beliefs to act as a character in that role, though he wouldnt really work well as a meddler in the affairs' of hesha and jolene unless the 2 characters became adamant about being married (which they arnt quite at that point in the plot) so faye is really the only character who can create this particuler kind of drama in both the hesha x jolene plot and the student council at the same time. i just dont think that her being convenient to the author is enough justification if her motivations arnt clear enough.

 

[Eukene]

the problem im running into with this story is that i don't exactly understand what Faye is trying to do. i dont really understand Dana's perspective either though i suspect his prejudice might be born out of daddy issues but with Faye i don't really understand her goal in all this, i don't even understand really what she ultimately wants and ill explain. so what we can kinda glean about who Faye is as a person is that she is someone who really only does things for the purpose of conflicting with her sister, though i think a deeper exploration as to her rationality behind that needs to reinforce that. with how things have changed with hesha, dana, and jolene, faye has been put into a position where the only way she can compete with hesha is to pursue jolene which has no value from any outside perspectives. she can however pursue dana with barely any obstacles in her way (irene isn't really an obstacle unless faye's sexuality is truly fragile) but she also does not really need to support dana on his stance on same sex marriage to pursue him given he's made no remark to imply he is seeking support on this matter. i ultimately don't understand her meddling beyond simply creating conflict for the sake of conflict with literally everyone around her which doesn't really fit her character of ONLY seeking conflict with hesha. i can only speculate that maybe she thinks that if jolene is expelled or has some other reason to be compelled to leave the school that hesha will go back to how she was and start pursuing dana again to give her that competition back but faye hasn't really said or thought anything to reinforce that speculation. even then i don't really understand involving herself in dana and arnold's professional relationship by implicating arnold is a homosexual, i dont see how it relates back to my speculative assumption about her goals nor can i figure out what it has to do with any other goals she might have. at this point she just kinda seems like she's been turned into a token homophobe with no real motivation because the author needs an antagonist. im not saying homophobia is outside of her character, characters can gain new traits all the time if an author wants them to but the issue i have is that it lacks foundation especially when its seemingly unnessicary for the plot since dana clearly has enough grounding for his beliefs to act as a character in that role, though he wouldnt really work well as a meddler in the affairs' of hesha and jolene unless the 2 characters became adamant about being married (which they arnt quite at that point in the plot) so faye is really the only character who can create this particuler kind of drama in both the hesha x jolene plot and the student council at the same time. i just dont think that her being convenient to the author is enough justification if her motivations arnt clear enough.

Remember that Faye is the youngest character in this story, younger than even the other first years. Faye herself doesn't know what she's doing and is motivated more by messing with her sister than true homophobia. She wants to compete with Hesha and win so that she can establish her sense of worth to herself.

Arnold is someone who is pro-gay (and by extension pro Jolene/Hesha) who is the closest advocate to the prince. That's not counting Irene, but she is more opinionated and outgoing. Arnold is like a mild mannered future retainer who avoids voicing his opinion and tries to be useful to the prince and school. His advocacy has more weight as one of the few times he's requested something from the prince.

Faye is trying to discredit Arnold and solicit gay panic from Prince Dana so that Dana will do more anti-gay things. This is solely to create problems for Jolene/Hesha. There's no indication Faye cared about gay stuff before this, unlike the parents who clearly hate it.

This is a Chinese work where Dana is representing Marxist views of social change. Back in 30s-60s, Marxists were overwhelmingly anti-gay, seeing it as "male chauvinism". Lesbians weren't really talked about. Social change was an extension of economic change. The Soviet Union established state paid daycare early on so the women could work in factories. When WW2 happened, they had female soldiers work as snipers. In the 60s, they had a very high rate of female doctors, back when that was rare in the US.

Since then, Marxists started to change their minds about gay people. An example is that Fidel Castro, in the latter part of his life, advocated for gay people in Cuba, acknowledged personal responsibility for not stopping gay people from being put in work camps, and identified anti-gay prejudice as a form of oppression in the united states. This mirrors the change to the dominant international viewpoint among Marxists now: gay people probably aren't that bad.

Dana is anachronistically representing that further political and social changes must follow economic development beyond feudalism. This mirrors the modern Chinese view that Mao was wrong and they needed to allow capitalist style development in order to fully realize socialism, which is why they have a market economy now. The official plan to is reestablish a fully socialized economy when the time is right and then transition to communism at a later date.

Dana is like someone saying lesbians can get married once they establish communism, but for now the focus must be economic development as well as the social changes to support that. An example is that Dana sees women as his mental and social equals, something that would not be typical of his time, and wants to foster female participation in the workforce. He doesn't have a problem with gay people and is happy to have them as friends or colleagues, but he thinks it's far too soon to be openly pro-gay politically.

This is just my reading, especially the parts about Marxism, but it would explain what the author is going for. They want to say "The time to support gay people in China is now, not some yet to be determined future date."

 

[Yuri_Enjoyer_Deluxe]

Remember that Faye is the youngest character in this story, younger than even the other first years. Faye herself doesn't know what she's doing and is motivated more by messing with her sister than true homophobia. She wants to compete with Hesha and win so that she can establish her sense of worth to herself.

Arnold is someone who is pro-gay (and by extension pro Jolene/Hesha) who is the closest advocate to the prince. That's not counting Irene, but she is more opinionated and outgoing. Arnold is like a mild mannered future retainer who avoids voicing his opinion and tries to be useful to the prince and school. His advocacy has more weight as one of the few times he's requested something from the prince.

Faye is trying to discredit Arnold and solicit gay panic from Prince Dana so that Dana will do more anti-gay things. This is solely to create problems for Jolene/Hesha. There's no indication Faye cared about gay stuff before this, unlike the parents who clearly hate it.

This is a Chinese work where Dana is representing Marxist views of social change. Back in 30s-60s, Marxists were overwhelmingly anti-gay, seeing it as "male chauvinism". Lesbians weren't really talked about. Social change was an extension of economic change. The Soviet Union established state paid daycare early on so the women could work in factories. When WW2 happened, they had female soldiers work as snipers. In the 60s, they had a very high rate of female doctors, back when that was rare in the US.

Since then, Marxists started to change their minds about gay people. An example is that Fidel Castro, in the latter part of his life, advocated for gay people in Cuba, acknowledged personal responsibility for not stopping gay people from being put in work camps, and identified anti-gay prejudice as a form of oppression in the united states. This mirrors the change to the dominant international viewpoint among Marxists now: gay people probably aren't that bad.

Dana is anachronistically representing that further political and social changes must follow economic development beyond feudalism. This mirrors the modern Chinese view that Mao was wrong and they needed to allow capitalist style development in order to fully realize socialism, which is why they have a market economy now. The official plan to is reestablish a fully socialized economy when the time is right and then transition to communism at a later date.

Dana is like someone saying lesbians can get married once they establish communism, but for now the focus must be economic development as well as the social changes to support that. An example is that Dana sees women as his mental and social equals, something that would not be typical of his time, and wants to foster female participation in the workforce. He doesn't have a problem with gay people and is happy to have them as friends or colleagues, but he thinks it's far too soon to be openly pro-gay politically.

This is just my reading, especially the parts about Marxism, but it would explain what the author is going for. They want to say "The time to support gay people in China is now, not some yet to be determined future date."

What lesbianism does to a mf

 

[KeraFury]

Remember that Faye is the youngest character in this story, younger than even the other first years. Faye herself doesn't know what she's doing and is motivated more by messing with her sister than true homophobia. She wants to compete with Hesha and win so that she can establish her sense of worth to herself.

Arnold is someone who is pro-gay (and by extension pro Jolene/Hesha) who is the closest advocate to the prince. That's not counting Irene, but she is more opinionated and outgoing. Arnold is like a mild mannered future retainer who avoids voicing his opinion and tries to be useful to the prince and school. His advocacy has more weight as one of the few times he's requested something from the prince.

Faye is trying to discredit Arnold and solicit gay panic from Prince Dana so that Dana will do more anti-gay things. This is solely to create problems for Jolene/Hesha. There's no indication Faye cared about gay stuff before this, unlike the parents who clearly hate it.

This is a Chinese work where Dana is representing Marxist views of social change. Back in 30s-60s, Marxists were overwhelmingly anti-gay, seeing it as "male chauvinism". Lesbians weren't really talked about. Social change was an extension of economic change. The Soviet Union established state paid daycare early on so the women could work in factories. When WW2 happened, they had female soldiers work as snipers. In the 60s, they had a very high rate of female doctors, back when that was rare in the US.

Since then, Marxists started to change their minds about gay people. An example is that Fidel Castro, in the latter part of his life, advocated for gay people in Cuba, acknowledged personal responsibility for not stopping gay people from being put in work camps, and identified anti-gay prejudice as a form of oppression in the united states. This mirrors the change to the dominant international viewpoint among Marxists now: gay people probably aren't that bad.

Dana is anachronistically representing that further political and social changes must follow economic development beyond feudalism. This mirrors the modern Chinese view that Mao was wrong and they needed to allow capitalist style development in order to fully realize socialism, which is why they have a market economy now. The official plan to is reestablish a fully socialized economy when the time is right and then transition to communism at a later date.

Dana is like someone saying lesbians can get married once they establish communism, but for now the focus must be economic development as well as the social changes to support that. An example is that Dana sees women as his mental and social equals, something that would not be typical of his time, and wants to foster female participation in the workforce. He doesn't have a problem with gay people and is happy to have them as friends or colleagues, but he thinks it's far too soon to be openly pro-gay politically.

This is just my reading, especially the parts about Marxism, but it would explain what the author is going for. They want to say "The time to support gay people in China is now, not some yet to be determined future date."

thats nice and all and maybe true, not really here to argue one way or another about that but im more so looking for diegetic justification for characters actions rather than allegorical ones. i have nothing against the characters being representations of ideas (though i have no evidence the author intends them to be seen that way) but i would like in universe explanations. sure Dana has made statements similar to a "gay people wont have human rights until communism is established" though he hasn't given an explanation as to why he should oppose it in the mean time. i can imagine some arguments for him to do that but i dont think they've been explicitly stated other than "its impossible" which isnt an argument. my issue with faye is that i have to assume her messing with gay people is her attempt to mess with her sister, though ive also been given no explanation as to why she even cares. her personality as ive understood it so far as that of someone who wants to compete with her sister and doesn't see value in doing things other than doing that, which is why she gets upset when she thinks her sister is giving up rather than fighting her. this isint exactly the same as having a personality or motivation to harm her sister, only to compete with her which is the problem im having with her actions not to mention we havent been given a strong explanation behind why she wants to compete with her sister and even less so for her motivation to simply make her sister's life worse. i could speculate on it but id kinda like to see it in the work itself.

 

[Eukene]

thats nice and all and maybe true, not really here to argue one way or another about that but im more so looking for diegetic justification for characters actions rather than allegorical ones. i have nothing against the characters being representations of ideas (though i have no evidence the author intends them to be seen that way) but i would like in universe explanations. sure Dana has made statements similar to a "gay people wont have human rights until communism is established" though he hasn't given an explanation as to why he should oppose it in the mean time. i can imagine some arguments for him to do that but i dont think they've been explicitly stated other than "its impossible" which isnt an argument. my issue with faye is that i have to assume her messing with gay people is her attempt to mess with her sister, though ive also been given no explanation as to why she even cares. her personality as ive understood it so far as that of someone who wants to compete with her sister and doesn't see value in doing things other than doing that, which is why she gets upset when she thinks her sister is giving up rather than fighting her. this isint exactly the same as having a personality or motivation to harm her sister, only to compete with her which is the problem im having with her actions not to mention we havent been given a strong explanation behind why she wants to compete with her sister and even less so for her motivation to simply make her sister's life worse. i could speculate on it but id kinda like to see it in the work itself.

Faye is relatively recent in the story, so we will likely get more characterization. I have no idea if it will be handled well. So far, she isn't that important as a character and instead is the troublemaker who unsuccessfully challenges established characters, fomenting their growth. "I'm immature and want to compete with my sister" is enough motivation for me as far as that goes. It's admittedly not a lot of depth on its own.

Dana as the prince is the most politically grounded character. They have a feudal economy where nobles manage their domains and military forces. As the crown prince, he must carefully balance those relationships to ensure peace and prosperity in the country. It doesn't make sense to blow all his political capital on gay marriage when there are other concerns like food security, health, preventing wars and rebellions, etc. What the story is rejecting is that Dana should do nothing when he could at least influence changes in public opinion, even if he can't legalize gay marriage overnight.

The setting overall hasn't been very realistic, which seems to have confused people looking for logical consistency. I'm personally not very concerned about the specifics of the settings' feudal politics, as it's not the point of the story.

 

[Andigo]

Oh so the increasingly uncomfortable Faye-Irene interactions I read were a bit after this? It felt like a blaring warning at this point. Since Hesha and Jolene became more wholesome, someone new is being set up for coercive kink. I really hope it doesn't go far but the damage potential of Faye's choices make it slightly easier to tolerate her facing ironic injustice.

Faye is relatively recent in the story, so we will likely get more characterization. I have no idea if it will be handled well. So far, she isn't that important as a character and instead is the troublemaker who unsuccessfully challenges established characters, fomenting their growth. "I'm immature and want to compete with my sister" is enough motivation for me as far as that goes. It's admittedly not a lot of depth on its own.

Faye's ambition and superiority complex about her sister damage her credibility because everyone around her, especially Dana, is more politically savvy. Faye's arc is interesting since despite her reckless selfishness that makes her unlikeable, we can sympathize with her foolishness and unmet need for approval. I truly hope her sister is there for her in the future, as Hesha's views of responsibility and solidarity can encourage forgiveness and intervention.

Irene felt more troubling to me despite being initially set up as on the most righteous side of every political debate thus far. At first she's just overbearing to Faye, which shows Faye's lingering innocence and Irene's pride.

Spoiler: Minor vague spoilers about how beautifully spot-on you were to bring in marxist historical analysis. Great catch.

I love hating Irene. She is fascinatingly hateable as a predatory ideological vanguard who believes the ends justify her means and self-dealing. Which is evidence your use of a marxist historical framework is apt; Irene slots into the debates perfectly as we see her actions, particularly towards Faye. This then could make Faye the petit bourgeoisie who is viewed as both a potential abuser and a dehumanized tool whose fate is at the whims of the vanguard.

 

[Eukene]

Ultimately the Marxist stuff isn't important since the point is that is that Dana is a powerful liberal political reformer balancing ideals with public opinion and practical concerns. We can see this roughly analogous to Obama claiming to be against gay people being married, only to come out in support of it during Obama's second term. We can imagine Obama privately had conversations like this about what the right time to act would be, even if they weren't tied to socioeconomic theory. We have every reason to believe that Dana is right about there not being support among the nobility (powerful political insiders) or the public at large for gay people getting married, despite the ahistorical setting, because we've shown that repeatedly.

I'm really not sure what the author is going for with Irene so far. To me it comes across like they didn't think about it that much and wanted to shoehorn in more coercion now that Jolene is nicer, so they have Irene instantly sexually harassing Faye as soon as she sees Faye and no one caring. I'm willing to wait to see where they go with it though.

 

[GooseBolt]

Wow, did not think i'd see references to marxism. I must be under-read to make such connections to this story.

 

[yanderecoverl]

Alright guys let's get to shipping

 

[Eukene]

Wow, did not think i'd see references to marxism. I must be under-read to make such connections to this story.

No, I've just over read about Marxism. I don't now, but I was more interested in it when I was younger. That's why I recognized that argument and I thought it might really be a Marxist influence, given this is a heavily anachronistic Chinese work. I explained it because people in the US can't reasonably be expected to recognize the economic development debate. LGBT people in the US have also had dealt with our own "it's too soon" equivalents, though.

 

[Lowfyie]

Ive been saying Irene should discipline (both kinky and actually) Faye, Ive been waiting for this moment! Get femdommed, loser

 

[Lelouchezero]

In my opinion Faye is just so far in the closet that she's finding presents. But getting that out of the way. Irene is coming on a bit too hard towards Faye admittedly but, also have to remember Faye totally tried to murder/injure her by using her honey allergy. So neither of them are in the right on this situation.
But going further into it I believe that Faye has already had it proven by her sister that she may not be as straight as she thinks she is. She's really only going after Dana because he has money and power not because she actually likes the guy. Because she posed the question "if he didn't have his rank and wealth would that matter" and she couldn't really answer thus proving that she wasn't in love with Dana just in love with the idea of being well off. The reason she probably has that jealousy complex with her sister is because there's probably a bit of sexual repression when it comes down to it.