#OUR LESSON IS ON DEATH......

[noxtivagus]

philo class today oh my god

[edsbacktattoo]

I bet there’s some insane foliage.

[saltpepperbeard]

Taika and Rhys + Lie Detector Giggles

[tixdixl]

I need my 日本語を話せられない TWST friends (non-Japanese speaking) to know that my buddy who is an L2 Japanese language teacher (with an MA in East Asian Studies) and I (who is an L2 Japanese learner with an MA in Sociolinguistics) have been dying over this colloquial grammatical construction that we keep seeing in the voice lines of History/Flight and Alchemy lessons: 朝から (asa kara)

Neither of us can figure out how to properly translate this construction, and every time TWST adds a new line with it, or we come across a line we hadn't see before, we immediately message one another in our confusion and have a conniption over it. We had questioned whether or not it was an example of "anime dialect", but after finding plenty of examples of it being used on Japanese twitter, we realized that it is definitely a colloquialism that's used in everyday speech.

For discussion purposes, keep in mind 朝 (asa) means "morning" and から (kara) is the particle causing the translation issues.

The thing you have to understand is that in Japanese classrooms and in Japanese grammar books - including Japanese grammar books FOR native speakers the particle construction ____から (kara)____まで(made) functions like "from ___ until ____" in English.

Except that's not how its being used in TWST. The まで portion of the particle construction never shows up in any of the examples that I've pulled from TWST.

Examples include (but are not limited to):

Cater (History): 朝からいい感じ (asa kara ii kanji)

いい = "good"

感じ = "feeling" (like a vibe or emotion)

Official Localization: "Off to a good start today!"

Cater (History): 朝から頑張らね (asa kara ganbara ne)

頑張らね ≈ "let's do well"

Official Localization: "Early bird gets the worm, I guess."*

*Footnote: While the translation here isn't literal, this line makes me openly question if 朝から is actually a set up for an idiomatic phrase in Japanese but I will discuss more later...

Jade (History): 朝から元気でそね (asa kara genki desu ne)

元気 = "in good health" or "well"

です= formal, present tense of the closest equivalent of "to be"

ね = equivalent tag is "right?" or "yeah?"

Official Localization: "You have a lot of energy in the morning."**

**Footnote: This localization is just painfully off from the intended meaning? But we're keeping it here to prove a point.

Malleus (History): 朝から退屈だ

退屈 = Tedium or boredom

だ = informal past tense of です

Official Localization: "It's early, and I'm already bored."

(A fun side note: This exact quote was found verbatim on Japanese twitter when we were searching for language samples.)

Sebek (Alchemy): 朝から再ないこだな

再ない ≈ not again

再ないこだな ≈ its the same again /its repeating (with a declarative verb conjugation, implying that the audience already understands and agrees)***

***Footnote: I kind of get the sense that he's basically saying "It's another morning and it's the same shit again", but not literally. Because he is clearly using a negative declaration here and the implication of the repetition "from the morning, its the same again" kind of gives me the reading similar to "Not this shit again".

Official Localization: "Someone awoke in a foul mood."

Additional translator's note: Because the subject is repeatedly dropped from each example here, and the only ones that indicate any inclusion of an outside party are Cater's second example and Jade's example because of the inclusion of the pragmatic tag, I am operating under the assumption that each student is likely speaking about themselves. This creates a bit of conflict in my understanding when compared to the localizations, because the localizers keep making a referential to an outside party ("someone").

You can tell from the official localizations that they are localized in such a way that its seamless for English speakers, but the translations often aren't or can't be literal. The localizers also repeatedly use idiomatic phrases in their translations where contrastingly, the predicate of the sentence (after the time placement) don't necessarily use phrases that I recognize as being used in idiomatic contexts. This creates an issue since we can't use them as a reference for being able to figure out what から does/how it functions in the sentence as a grammatical element that also changes the meaning of the sentence. The closest thing we've been able to guess about the use of から in these lines is that it might mean "From" or "Because of", which we pulled from one of the Grammar Books that she uses to help teach. The chart can be seen here:

But if that's the case, Cater's second line doesn't exactly make sense? Nor does Sebek's line? And for that reason, I have to wonder whether or not 朝から is used as a formulaic set up and if that set up is idiomatic in nature.

Both of us for literal months have been scrounging the internet in hopes that we can find any sort of clue as to how to understand this construction and/or to identify whether or not its specifically a colloquial usage to signify an idiomatic phrase is being used. One of the big flaws though is we haven't exactly been able to find any evidence on sites like Word Reference forums of the use of から in any potentially idiomatic way, and the localizations suggest that it could either be idiomatic or literal. We also haven't found any other site that uses or references か��� without まで.

At this point, it's entirely possible I'm overthinking it? But I'm genuinely confused and want to better understand it so I can improve my overall Japanese comprehension.

I honestly just wanted to share this because it's been both a fun and also frustrating learning journey, and also because I'm hoping maybe there's another person out here who 日本語と英語を話せまそ that might also recognize or know this construction and helps us understand it better. ^^;

[mon-ster-chen]

💫😘😍

💫craft lesson 📦📏✏️✂️ with Buttons 😅

Source: Rhys -> insta

[nogoodninny]

Buttons and Izzy as whittling buddies. Izzy just silently sits and listens to Buttons babble on about this and that. Buttons lets Izzy angrily rant about everything and everyone. They both actually find each other’s company incredibly soothing. Nobody saw it coming.

Izzy actually joins him moon bathing sometimes , fully clothed of course, yet he’s surprisingly unbothered by his friend’s crazy naked antics.

[quotientpulse]

"The past makes you wanna die out of regret, and the future makes you depressed out of anxiety. So by elimination, the present is likely the happiest time." – Franky

Follow My Twitter For More Motivational Content HERE

[theclaravoyant]

currently obsessed with the fact that in S1 Stede was knocking Ed’s socks off by proxy before they had even met, before he was even conscious, and now he’s going to be actively trying to be As Impressive As Possible and will probably suck at it

[nadsdraws]

My new ofmd edizzy fic is up!

A sequel to my comic Tell me to Stop (I won't), where once again Ed makes a move on his professor Izzy in the hopes that this time he will be allowed to stay the night:3

Piano Lessons

“Ready for your piano lesson?" Izzy asks carefully. Skirts around the purpose of their meeting like it could undo his past actions.

“No,” Ed says with that self-satisfied smile.

They both know what the boy came here for. They both know Izzy's not going to say 'no'. Not today, not any time soon.

[leche-flandom]

Hey guys, if you can't stop kicking yourself about a past mistake that you regret but learned from, please remember that feeling bad won't rebuild an abdominal wall.

[ranvwoop]

one of the instructors in my classes has the worst takes about literally everything we read . mfw this kafka short story is actually saying why exclusion is good and it's important to push back against annoying people trying to take up spaces where they don't belong. surely "But how is one to make all this clear to the sixth one? Long explanations would almost amount to accepting him in our circle, so we prefer not to explain and not to accept him" means nothing. kafka was talking about invading lgbt circles and not that the differences between us are minute and refusal to engage w people outside of the in group would reveal that it's senseless to continue excluding them based on no grounds

[mikahorror]

thunder bringer lives rent free in my head then the lyrics set in & i just 😐

anyway here's a video from yesterday of me singing...which i was doing instead of finishing my book.

[oldtvandcomics]

It's going to be EXTREMELY interesting to see where Our Flag Means Death will go now with Ed and accountability. Because here is the thing: Stede is not responsible or at fault for Ed's murder and torture spree.

Like yeah, leaving him was a bit of a dick move and he will have to apologize for that, but the way Ed reacted was all him and his untreated mental illness with a bit of toxic masculinity thrown into the mix. He was already latently suicidal when we first met him, and while his time with Stede made him feel better, it was always just going to take a little thing to push him back (while of course it would be interesting to see what a long-time exposure to a healthy environment would have done to him. I can imagine that he would have been able to heal, had things just stayed the way there were at the end of episode 7). If Stede hadn't left him, then it would have been the death of a good friend, or a failure at some personal project, or, or, or.

Our Flag Means Death is just about to turn into a story about how to act around a mentally ill / suicidal loved one, and what to do when you unintentionally hurt them and they MASSIVELY over-react, and how to keep from internalizing the blame for actions that, in the end, had very little to do with you. At least I hope it is, because that would be a story we dearly need.

[mon-ster-chen]

💫craft lesson 📦📏✏️✂️with buttons😅😅

😘

[candied-cae]

Ed's newfound naiveté as a recurrent theme is so special to me actually.

Ed is smart. He's so smart. He is so incredibly intelligent that he's regarded at "History's Greatest Tactician" by Pete minutes into his on-screen appearance. He displays an almost causal competence with being able to plan and plot a course based on his working memory of moon cycles, weather patterns, ocean currents, and known sailing routes.

He is really brilliant and it's exemplified in so many different ways. He should be planning moves that branch from 5 different results in 10 different directions to make sure he can get ahead of anything. Those are the skills he's had to sharpen to survive on the water as long as he has.

But, after meeting Stede, someone without ulterior motives or plans to hurt him, he stops looking for them. He stops suspecting everyone around him is watching to catch him off-guard. And it makes every betrayal hit him harder. The passive aggression of the rich folks at the party, the intentional steps taken by Izzy, Calico Jack's scheme, and even himself disguised as Hornigold from his memories, it all surprises him.

And especially in the cases of his Mate Calico Jack and Captain Benjamin Hornigold - these are people he should know aren't coming to him earnestly. He should know they always have a card up their sleeves and they're always watching out for number 1. He should be able to remain suspicious of them, working out the usual 10 steps ahead of wherever he is to prepare for whatever he could possibly do to make sure he survives.

And yet, he was caught by surprise both times.

And it results in some ridicule. Because "Blackbeard" doesn't make these beginner mistakes. He's better than this.

But Stede turned his whole world upside down, and he's started seeming optimistic. He started believe the best in people and trusting them after a single show of effort. He started thinking maybe his dreams weren't so impossible and maybe there were less people to be scared of than he originally thought.

Even when he was scorned (leaving The Revenge to go off with Jack - being abandoned by Stede in S1) he still hasn't put up all his walls again. He's definitely tried, that's why he "became the Kraken" but he's not as closed off as he thinks he is. He thinks he's hardened himself back up, he thinks he's impenetrable because he's ready to die and "stopped believing in love," he thinks he's back to business and back to who he was before Stede Bonnet ever happened to him...

But we still haven't actually seen it go away.

He's still somewhat expecting people to be genuine and honest with him. At the very least he's expecting the people who hate him to just say so.

And that's so, so, so special to me. His life before Stede Bonnet was full of him expecting the worst and finding whatever scrappy way he had to spin it to his advantage to keep moving forward. But since meeting him... he's started messing up that formula. He's been trusting too much.

That joy and belief hasn't died yet. I'm sure as he wakes up, he's going to act like he's got it all figured out again. He's going to act like his defenses can't be breached, but I believe that he's going to keep trusting too much for his own good. And here's to hoping that trust lands back in Stede's lap soon <3

[quotientpulse]

"I don't want to live a thousand years. If I just live through today, that'll be enough." – Portgas D. Ace

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