Say it in Red | Episode 39: Butterfly Soup 2

Dear listeners, do you remember your high school years? Do you ever think back on those days, in the 9th inning of Summer as school was just waiting for you at home plate? Were you ever caught up in the rush of young love and the discovery of your sexuality, wondering if you dared try to steal second base? Have you ever wondered what would happen if you asked a podcaster who knows less than nothing about baseball to write not one, but two separate opening gags for a baseball-themed episode?

This week, Sara and Runa tackle (which i don' t think is a thing you do in baseball) the absolutely delightful Butterfly Soup 2 (2022), a sequel to the Butterfly Soup visual novel we covered in our 25th episode. We return to Oakland, California, primarily in 2008 and 2009, to follow our four young queer teens as they struggle through high school, navigate their difficult family lives, process the overwhelming world around them, and get up to a lot of baseball and baseball-adjacent shenanigans. Once again, we follow Diya, Min, Akarsha, and Noelle through their days as they play Mario Golf, film group project skits, play elaborate games of gay chicken, discover useful tips and tricks to confront their internal biases and think about gender, and think about the cataclysmic gulf between their lives and the lives of their parents and families. We left these kids last time after Diya and Min had reunited after many years apart, finally confronted their feelings for one another, started dating, and got all four of the main characters banned for life from the ice cream and snow cone shop near campus. In this direct sequel, we begin by following Akarsha's rapid descent into distraught gay turmoil as she realizes she's falling hard for Noelle, who might even be straight for all she knows! What's more, Akarsha adamantly refuses to put herself at risk and expose any vulnerability, which makes her plans to seduce Noelle... a bit obtuse. Meanwhile, Diya and Min are dating happily and spending every day together in gay joy, apart from the moments when Diya tries, and fails, to connect with her own mother in even simple ways and struggles to even conceive of a day when she might come out to her. Min, on the other hand, still struggles with the abuse of her father, fears that she might fall into similar patterns of outrage and anger, and the difficulty of confronting intracommunity racism and bigotry. Noelle takes a trip to Taiwan for her grandmother's funeral and, while there, confronts the distance between herself, her parents, the rest of her family, and a culture she struggles to grasp even when she's reaching for it with both arms. Then, to make matters worse, it seems that Akarsha has saddled her with some...unnecessary feelings. How will any of this go, and most importantly: Will they win their no stakes baseball game against another high school club!?

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Content Warnings for this Episode:
General content warnings for homophobia, parental and familial trauma, and some very rough stuff surrounding relationships with ones parents.
00:34:20 to 00:35:30 - Discussion of racism and racist harassment