#abi in japan

[lewanarta]

Super duos <3 [Zao, 25.01.2025]

[3nhas]

̵ᰯ̵̵ུ ᭢༘۠ 좀 더 깊이 취해가지 all night long, oh

just the two of us,

깊어져 가는 moonstruck

𓂃 ੭୧

taereungz. navy blue. music. melancholy. poetry. citrus. pinterest. sad girl - ldr. enhypen. wavetoearth. brunette. hugs. sunsets.

oh you make me go crazy over you. .

you, baby

[pea-green]

All 5 Kyoto Pokelids!

[gabbyp09]

[transmutationisms]

i think you do a really impressive job balancing comprehensive/concise while referencing a lot of complex frameworks(contexts? schools of thought? lol idk what to call that. big brain ideas) but if you have any readings specifically on the institution of psychiatry topic that you would recommend/think are relevant, I'd be interested. it's absolutely not a conversation that's being had enough and I want to be able to articulate myself around it

yes i have readings >:)

first of all, the anti-psychiatry bibliography and resource guide is a great place to start getting oriented in this literature. it's split by sub-topic, and there are paragraphs interspersed throughout that give summaries of major thinkers' positions and short intros to key texts.

it's from 1979, though, so here are some recs from the last 4 decades:

overview critiques

mind fixers: psychiatry's troubled search for the biology of mental illness, by anne harrington

psychiatric hegemony: a marxist theory of mental illness, by bruce m z cohen

desperate remedies: psychiatry's turbulent quest to cure mental illness, by andrew scull

psychiatry and its discontents, by andrew scull

madness is civilization: when the diagnosis was social, 1948–1980, by michael e staub

contesting psychiatry: social movements in mental health, by nick crossley

the dsm & pharmacy

dsm: a history of psychiatry's bible, by allan v horwitz

the dsm-5 in perspective: philosophical reflections on the psychiatric babel, by steeves demazeux & patrick singy

pharmageddon, by david healy

pillaged: psychiatric medications and suicide risk, by ronald w maris

the making of dsm-iii: a diagnostic manual's conquest of american psychiatry, by hannah s decker

the myth of the chemical cure: a critique of psychiatric drug treatment, by joanna moncrieff

the book of woe: the dsm and the unmaking of psychiatry, by gary greenberg

prozac on the couch: prescribing gender in the era of wonder drugs, by jonathan metzl

the creation of psychopharmacology, by david healy

the bitterest pills: the troubling story of antipsychotic drugs, by joanna moncrieff

psychiatry & race

the protest psychosis: how schizophrenia became a black disease, by jonathan metzl

administrations of lunacy: racism and the haunting of american psychiatry at the milledgeville asylum, by mab segrest

the peculiar institution and the making of modern psychiatry, 1840–1880, by wendy gonaver

what's wrong with the poor? psychiatry, race, and the war on poverty, by mical raz

national and cross-national contexts

mad by the millions: mental disorders and the early years of the world health organization, by harry yi-jui wu

psychiatry and empire, by sloan mahone & megan vaughan

ʿaṣfūriyyeh: a history of madness, modernity, and war in the middle east, by joelle m abi-rached

surfacing up: psychiatry and social order in colonial zimbabwe, 1908–1968, by lynette jackson

the british anti-psychiatrists: from institutional psychiatry to the counter-culture, 1960–1971, by oisín wall

crime, madness, and politics in modern france: the medical concept of national decline, by robert a nye

reasoning against madness: psychiatry and the state in rio de janeiro, 1830–1944, by manuella meyer

colonial madness: psychiatry in french north africa, by richard keller

madhouse: psychiatry and politics in cuban history, by jennifer lynn lambe

depression in japan: psychiatric cures for a society in distress, by junko kitanaka

inheriting madness: professionalization and psychiatric knowledge in 19th century france, by ian r dowbiggin

mad in america: bad science, bad medicine, and the enduring mistreatment of the mentally ill, by robert whitaker

[tomodachimeter]

HELLO.

It's been a very long time (I have no excuses and I'm sure no one is interested) and I've been far more active on Twitter, and I'm late to the game either way, but I just had to announce Wazawa-sensei's newest manga, Adashino Kishokan! Someone's already started translating it, so I'm hoping to direct fellow Mononokean fans over if they're interested!

I made a short Twitter thread but I'll just reiterate my points here (probably faster to read at the link above though):

Adashino Kishokan (Paranormal Inspector Adashino)

Content warning: horror, animal harm

Setting:

Stars a red-haired protagonist named Adashino Abi (last, first name), a 15-year-old paranormal inspector working for the Paranormal Bureau and goes around solving paranormal incidents.

Set in Japan a bit in the past (Late Meiji to Taisho era if I had to guess) where paranormal incidents regularly occur

Being serialized in Monthly Shonen Gangan magazine, releasing a chapter every month!

You can buy the digital version of the magazine for about 680JPY on any supporting platform. This one's Am*zon's: https://amazon.co.jp/%E6%9C%88%E5%88%8A%E5%B0%91%E5%B9%B4%E3%82%AC%E3%83%B3%E3%82%AC%E3%83%B3-2024%E5%B9%B48%E6%9C%88%E5%8F%B7-%E9%9B%91%E8%AA%8C-%E3%82%B9%E3%82%AF%E3%82%A6%E3%82%A7%E3%82%A2%E3%83%BB%E3%82%A8%E3%83%8B%E3%83%83%E3%82%AF%E3%82%B9-ebook/dp/B0D49KNVP9…

Trivia:

Abi's name (both first and last anyway) also start with "A", just like "Ashiya" and "Abeno."

Japanese title and hashtag for manga is: #/あだしの奇象官

Official Twitter account is: @go_mononokean (rebranded to official author account from Mononokean)

Personal thoughts so far:

I'm so happy to see a new work from Wazawa-sensei!!!

Abi is very cute

Art is beautiful like Mononokean's, looks like a more shonen story with horror (hinted from Mononokean) and I still love their style of Japanese paranormal stuff!

Other stuff regarding Mononokean and this blog if you're interested under the cut:

I'm behind (understatement) on a lot of Mononokean content I promised to translate, put up, etc and Wazawa-sensei out with a new manga has given me some motivation. I don't promise anything fast but I'm hoping to be a little active here again. Thanks to anyone who's stuck around!

[things-about-cars-in-posts]

OMG I'm such a dumbass I knew you did one on the GR Yaris before too, and I love her ALSO, but I actually meant the GR Supra 😳🫣 (slip of the tongue)

Gotcha.

Since I managed to take some two weeks to answer this (got distracted both by real life obligations and other posts that were meant to be very quick to make. Meant to.) y'all may have forgotten, but our dear friend of the blog had asked for opinions on the GR Yaris, hinting to its controversial status. Turns out the GR Supra is what that request, and thus that hint, was actually about - so let's talk about the car and the controversy that engulfs it.

In 1993, Toyota launched the fourth generation of its rear wheel drive sportscar (well, arguably a bit of a Grand Tourer, i.e. something more oriented to cruising than a sportscar) the Supra - which was born a quarter century earlier as a more upmarket, six cylinder version of the Celica, graduating from Celica Supra to its own dignified name with the third generation I talked about that one time I forgot to check what blog I was reblogging with.

But this time, things would be different. Most notably because the inline six the Mk4 Supra came out with was an absolute MONSTER.

Remember how I talked about the GT-R's RB26 engine being one of the greatest, most coveted production engines to ever come out of Japan? Well, the 2JZ-GTE is the other.

It was larger at 3 liters, no less powerful, and to reduce turbocharger lag it used two of them sequentially: first air goes in the smaller, more responsive turbo, then gradually some of it gets sent to the bigger turbo to make it start spinning, then when it gets going the two are finally used in conjunction. (Imagine the big turbo as a hung husband that takes a while to get it up and the small turbo as an eager stepson ready to take over until the hung one can join in for a spitroast. Or something. I don't watch porn with real people, but from what I gather the plots seem to resemble how sequential turbos work.) It even at one point got Variable Valve Timing, i.e. the ability to vary the time in which the valves open depending on engine speed, which allows to optimize tuning for performance and efficiency! (Cool thing to go over in detail if y'all want me to.) And also, the kind of things that engine is able to take make me wish I hadn't used up my porn analogy quota.

See, to chop off eons of nuance, an engine is just a big block of metal with a lot of bits attached, and the two main measures of an engine's potential are the slope of the line in the Bits Fiddled With / Power Output graph and how far up (It's up, right? The second axis you specify is the vertical one, right?) you can take it before the block becomes the weakest link - with another important point being when you need to start messing with internals, i.e. the components inside the engine, e.g. pistons (the things the boom pushes down), camshaft (the thing the pistons spin) and connecting rods (you can guess).

So for instance, just to make the point that an engine can be beloved without having much overall tuning potential, in one of Toyota's most beloved engines, the 4A-GE four cylinder illustrated above (yes, the one from that white and black car in all the eurobeat videos), some pin the block's limit as low as 250hp. The 2JZ, tho? It can take 800hp without even messing with the internals, and once you get your grubby hands on those you can keep pushing the line to some 2000hp. That is two Bugattis. That is 40 times my car. That is well above the power level where "tires that will at any point grip" and "tires that are in any way road legal" stop intersecting.

I am not in the slightest exaggerating when I say that this and the Skyline GT-R are widely regarded as the top of Japan's 20th century automotive production. The Messi & Ronaldo of the Japanese Domestic Market. It is absolutely no coincidence this was the hero car in The Fast And The Furious.

And then in 2002, as all things, its production ended, and given the abysmal sales and catastrophic recession, Toyota decided that would be that.

And then, years later, The Teasening began.

I want to stress, almost half of my conscious life (I choose to believe the stretch from birth to kindergarten is just run-up) the world was in some state of getting teased with talk of a new Supra. The trademark on the name was renewed in 2010. In 2014 they dropped the FT-1 concept, and of course that became speculation about what the production version would look like.

Because come the fuck on, it's not gonna look like that.

Or was it?

Only five entire years and much more teasing later would we officially get an answer, when after seventeen years, the Toyota GR Supra (and for those wondering what GR means, y'all should've clicked the Yaris link >:C) hit the streets.

You know what, good enough.

Good enough to earn itself a sea of words of praise, Jason Cammisa's "The most punch-above-its-weight sportscar ever made" just some among them.

It did have its share of problems at the start, like its power being 335hp and not 382, a lack of manual transmission, and the inability to spec it with a less powerful 4 cylinder engine - well, I don't know who considered that last one a problem, but Toyota's updates solved that one too.

The Supra has a much bigger problem than those though, one no little update can solve. That red car in the background.

See, the new Supra is actually a joint venture with BMW, who made a new model of its Z4 roadster out of the platform. And unlike with the other joint-venture sportscar Toyota sells, people are big mad about that. Why?

See, the interior is engulfed in BMW switchgear and the drivetrain is all BMW (the manual gearbox took until this year to come out because BMW did not have one for that engine so Toyota had to modify another BMW transmission to fit), giving people the impression that this was less of a joint venture and more of a BMW project that Toyota tacked its design on top of, which is a problem whether true or not.

See, a range-topping sportscar is supposed to represent what the brand is capable of - having it done by someone else (or so the criticism goes) is a bit like performing Hallelujah in playback.

Actually, a better musical analogy: You know "I'm back bitch" singles? When a humongous artist drops a new record with a humongous lead single about absolutely nothing but reaffirming they're the biggest fucking deal in the universe? Without Me, Bad, Gimme More, so on. Well, think of SexyBack - one of the most monumental phenomenons of its decade, most incontrovertibly proving Justin Timberlake sat atop the goddamn world. Now, imagine if, after all the years that went by between that record and the next, when he finally came out with Suit And Tie all the verses were Jay-Z. Going from a humongous statement about having the power to reach the top of the game and stay there to having to get absolutely carried by what in this logic is essentially a competitor. Basically, that's the critics' complaint: the supra went from 2JZ to too much Jay-Z.

And therein lies the other problem of the Supra: the Supra.

See, any time you evaluate something, you do so relative to its context - and when you give it a nameplate, you make that context include where else that nameplate has been. An undeserved name may not just be stupid, but even outright kill the car in some's eyes, see the case of the Dodge Dart, or get me to talk about the Ford Capri prototype recently spotted if you want to find out what I'm like when I lose my cool. (I'd liken this phenomenon to undeserved Grammies but I already used my music analogy quota too.) So the Toyota Supra does not just need to be good, it needs to deserve the name. And some argue it doesn't. But why? This thing is no less powerful, no slower, hell it's not even any bigger or heavier and we've gone over how rare that is these days! So is it the lack of backseats and a targa version? No, no one gives a crap about those. It's something deeper.

Sometimes, the problem with a revival is people base their expectation not on what the original was like in the context of its time but what it's like in the context of today (for example, I've heard people call the latest GT-R "too computerized, too assisted, far from the pure driving experience of its predecessors", when its predecessors had some of the most technologically advanced driving assists of their time and could only be called "pure" and "analog" by comparison with cars decades newer). But of course, that'll only be some people - so if what the original car looks like to modern eyes and what the original car represented at its time are two different enough concepts, any revival will receive some criticism for not being one of the two.

But for the Supra, this compounds with another problem: the original Supra (as in the previous generation, since no one gives a crap about the first three), to modern eyes, looks like a thousand-horsepower flame-spitting beast, because that's what all Supras have been turned into, and that's why you know of Supras in the first place (it sure isn't because people bought it!), and that, consciously or not, exacerbates the problem of misplaced expectations to a level akin to hearing an NBA player is about to have a brother and expecting the baby to be a 6'4" three-shooter.

But I wasn't asked about the controversies, I was asked about my take. And my take is: no realistic expectation of what a Supra would look like today was disappointed - at least not by where the car stands today. Well, unless the expectation involved backseats.

"But it was made by BMW" and so? This is a new Supra, and a good one - what does it matter how it got here? Especially when this is an upgrade over the Z4 in every way - looks way better, drives better, and now has a manual that the Z4 doesn't.

Okay, almost every way: the Supra's roof won't get out of the way. If only though, if only. Could you imagine a Toyota product that looks this good, sounds this good, goes this fast, and has a drop top? ...and maybe backseats?

Well, I can.

Yes, the badge and core concept may have some people consider it from midlife crisis mobile to old man's car. (though we know it's not a car bought by old men because if that was the case someone would be buying these). But just try to imagine sitting in this thing.

Take a couple of seconds to take in that picture and truly immerse yourself. You're in a Lexus LC500 Convertible, with a V8 at your right foot's command, its spectacular sound ready to battle the perfect sound system serenading you with your fanciest CD, because of course Lexuses still come with CD players.

Are you immersed? Okay: Someone just called your Lexus a midlife crisis car. See? You don't give a shit either, do ya.

Automatic only though. The pain. Oh, and it kind of costs as much as two Supras. But, you know, neither of those Supras will be convertibles!

Links in blue are posts of mine about the topic in question - if you liked this post, you might like those!

[megafaunatic]

hi lore ^__^ i just picked up the dear prudence collection after seeing you talk about it in a tag and it interesting me, and i’m really enjoying it so far. i was curious if you have any other book reccs, or favorite books you have read this year? it can be any and unrelated to this one. thanks and hope you’re well!

HI ABIBI I LOVE U !!!!!!!!

THANK YOU FOR ASKING I HAVE LOTS OF BOOK RECS

for readers at home abi is referring to dear prudence by daniel lavery in which lavery goes on a lengthy aside about how "love languages" are bullshit. daniel lavery is hysterical and correct as always

some other books i've read and enjoyed in the last year or so (excluding older books like discworld and jeeves+wooster stories, both of which i have been tearing through and really enjoying; also excluding the super popular (gideon the ninth) (you should read gideon the ninth)):

OBVIOUSLY, WHEN THE ANGELS LEFT THE OLD COUNTRY BY SACHA LAMB. READ WHEN THE ANGELS LEFT THE OLD COUNTRY BY SACHA LAMB. see further lore yelling about this book here [literary ya fantasy]

our wives under the sea by julia armfield for a deeply sad lesbian eldritch horror take on submarine disasters. this book will ruin your day (honorific) [literary horror]

the singing hills cycle by nghi vo for a series of novellas you can read in any order! all about storytelling and what storytelling is and does and does to the teller and the listener. also has a super cool jianghu badass side character [fantasy]

y/n by esther yi for an absurdist story about how kpop fandom makes you insane and worse and grad school also makes you insane and worse and GOD FORBID you combine the two [absurdist literature]

witch king by martha wells for book 1 of what has GOT to be I KNOW IT'S A DUOLOGY i KNOW it is the sequel has just not been officially announced yet. but i think she said something at a con about how there's one in the works. THERE MUST BE. anyway really fun and interesting worldbuilding here [fantasy]

beyond ridiculous by kenneth elliot for a look into the world of DIY gay theater in NYC at the height of the aids crisis. REALLY artistically inspiring and also super fascinating just as a history of a scene and a friend group [nonfiction/theater history]

ok this one's both backlist and was very popular when it came out but probably most 25 year old tumblr users have not read it. well they should read the hare with amber eyes by edmund de waal for a deep DEEP dive into the complicated world of rich jewish art collectors + socialites in odesa, vienna, and paris in the 1800s through the early 1900s by tracing the object history of a collection of netsuke from the opening of japan through the changing landscape of central + western europe and then back to japan [nonfiction/art history]

currently i'm reading cancipin by priest which is a space opera danmei that seeks to answer the questions "could it ever be ethical to do genetic engineering" "how do you build a just society" "is it ever worth it to give up your freedom in exchange for safety and convenience" "how do you keep going after the destruction of your entire planet" "what if data star trek were a beautiful young man and part time robot arm who was best friends with the worst gay people in the entire world" [sci fi/romance]

[putrikaguya]

Come back to Japan! PART 1.

Finally yeaaayy

Setelah 8th berlalu, akhirnya bisa menginjakkan kaki lagi di Jepang (walau rasanya masih seperti mimpi) . Aku mulai ceritanya berawal dari 2th lalu beli HP baru terus pingin ganti foto pas kondisi HP terkunci, aku taro foto bunga sakura karna ingetin aku waktu cherry blossom 2016 lalu.

Disusul dengan mertua info kalau nanti ada rezeki, kita liburan yuk, kemana enaknya? Singapore? Jepang? Lalu aku jawab "Kalau Jepang aku ikut ma." Terus Agustus tahun kemarin mertua info yaudah kita ke Jepang Oktober ya, tapi waktunya kayak terlalu mepet apalagi suami jatah cutinya udah abis yaudah jadi mundur ke musim sakura, yang mana aku kayak ini beneran nih bisa liat sakura lagi???

Singkat cerita setelah urusan e-paspor dan visa beres, H-1 sempet ada drama karna kita lupa info ke airlines nomer epaspor baru, masih pake paspor yang lama wkwk. Tapi aku jempolin banget buat CS China Airlines Bali yg bantu kita satset, thankyou so much Pak Ngurah for helping us ngelebin travel yang kita pake. Kita take off jam 1.40 pagi, jam 2an dibangunin makan, padahal sebelumnya kita udah makan jam 11 jadi aku bangun makan, tidur lagi eh udah transit.

Ini pengalaman baru juga transit di Taiwan. Banyak tempat seru buat main games, wifinya super kenceng, jadi ga terlalu berasa transit 4 jam. Sampai Jepang jam 5 sore, sempet bermasalah sama imigrasi elektronik karna yang ribet beberapa staf imigrasi Jepang terbatas bahasa inggrisnya jadi diarahin ke yg bisa bahasa Inggris. Cuma mereka bilang "Ini hanya masalah kecil, harusnya ga sulit kok jadi tenang aja ya." Yang ternyata masalahnya memang karna suami salah masukin tanggal kedatangan jadi gagal terus ketika di scan hahaha.

Urusan imigrasi kelar, dari Narita kita nginep di Asakusabashi, sekitar 55 menit dari airport. Kita naik kereta. Pas naik ada 1 bangku kosong jadi aku duduk di situ, eh ternyata depannya juga ada kosong jadi aku suru suami duduk di situ. Setelah beberapa stasiun, orang yg duduk di sampingnya samping aku turun, tapi depannya ada yang berdiri. Eh bapak samping aku pindah ke situ terus pake bahasa isyarat nyuru suamiku pindah ke samping aku biar kita bisa duduk sebelahan. Tapi karna ada orang yg masih berdiri kita ga enak suru suami pindah ke samping aku. Jadinya kita suru yang berdiri duduk di bangku suami dan suami pindah ke samping aku. Eh orang yang berdiri tetep ga mau duduk yaudah hahaha. Pas bapaknya turun beliau ngebungkuk ke kita kasi salam, kita juga ikut say thankyou. Sungguh hal hal begini sih yang bikin seneng ke Jepang.

Pas turun kereta auto kaget sama cuacanya yang ternyata dingin banget. Yowes aku langsung ke hotel dan besok paginya kita jalan jalan, lanjut di PART 2 yaa :)

[lamyaasfaraini]

Sefruit Tips running dari Kuch bestie!

Abangkuuu, si bestie since 2007 alias sobi semasa kuliah yg asalnya kami bergeng tapi udah beda cerita alias mencar2. Tapi kami selalu keep in touch bertiga, 1 lg sedang hijrah ke Jepang ikut suaminya study S2.

Bestie ku ini runner since 2015 kalogasalah, aslinya org Batak masih single krn org Batak harus nikah sama Batak lg yg marganya jg harus di tentukan (rumit bukan! Hiks). Kampungnya di Lampung tapi kerja di Jkt dan kantornya ituuu di senayan dkt GBK, singkat crt join lah dia komunitas lari. Bestie ku ini sulit bergaul alias introvert, nyari teman jg kesulitan. But look at him now.. Sejak ikut komunitas runner pergaulannya semakin luas, dapet "keluarga" disana, enjoy "pertemanan sehat". Bahkan ikut marathon sampe luar negeri. Singapore dan Japan Marathon Finisher. Terakhir kulihat storynya abis ikut yg di Bali. So prouddddd!

Ternyata skrg selain sibuk kerja, punya side job jd asisten coach sampe udah punya sertifnya. Mantap kuch! Katanya coaching buat korporat jadi dapet uang lah pasti.. Dan ini menyita wkt dan tenaga dan pikirannya, jadi kaya sibuk dan cape bgt tp dia enjoy sih..

Karena aku lg menyenangi lari langsung ku japri aja yakan.. Minta tips2nya, selalu enakeun kalo menjelaskan secara teoritis itu, si pintar memang. Alhamdulillah dapet insight baru jadinya.. Terimakasih kuccchhh Rikho!

Biarpun dia ngga ngerti bahasa sunda paling dikit bahasa casual karena kan tinggal di bdg selama kuliah. Ya gitu jadi manggilnya urang-maneh atau uang aing wkwk

Dicurhatkeun aja progress ku yg beginner ini. Capture-an ini hanya sebagian aja, sisanya dibawah msh banyak pertanyaan2. Dan aku blg tunggu pertanyaan2 berikutnya nanti hahaha.

Siap laksanakan kuchhh, tinggal di eksekusi nih.. Bentar kapan lari yaa? Hari ini kita ST dulu InsyaAllah kalo ngga ujan haha @sagarmatha13

[lewanarta]

Gate misadventures + reactions [Zao, 20.01.2024]

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 12.8 (before 1960)

395 – Later Yan is defeated by its former vassal Northern Wei at the Battle of Canhe Slope. 757 – The poet Du Fu returns to Chang'an as a member of Emperor Xuanzong's court, after having escaped the city during the An Lushan Rebellion. 877 – Louis the Stammerer (son of Charles the Bald) is crowned king of the West Frankish Kingdom at Compiègne. 1504 – Ahmad ibn Abi Jum'ah writes his Oran fatwa, arguing for the relaxation of Islamic law requirements for the forcibly converted Muslims in Spain. 1660 – A woman (either Margaret Hughes or Anne Marshall) appears on an English public stage for the first time, in the role of Desdemona in a production of Shakespeare's play Othello. 1851 – Conservative Santiago-based government troops defeat rebels at the Battle of Loncomilla, signaling the end of the 1851 Chilean Revolution. 1854 – In his Apostolic constitution Ineffabilis Deus, Pope Pius IX proclaims the dogmatic definition of Immaculate Conception, which holds that the Blessed Virgin Mary was conceived free of Original Sin. 1864 – Pope Pius IX promulgates the encyclical Quanta cura and its appendix, the Syllabus of Errors, outlining the authority of the Catholic Church and condemning various liberal ideas. 1907 – King Gustaf V of Sweden accedes to the Swedish throne. 1912 – Leaders of the German Empire hold an Imperial War Council to discuss the possibility that war might break out. 1914 – World War I: A squadron of Britain's Royal Navy defeats the Imperial German East Asia Squadron in the Battle of the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic. 1922 – Two days after coming into existence, the Irish Free State executes four leaders of the Irish Republican Army. 1941 – World War II: U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt declares December 7 to be "a date which will live in infamy", after which the U.S. declares war on Japan. 1941 – World War II: Japanese forces simultaneously invade Shanghai International Settlement, Malaya, Thailand, Hong Kong, the Philippines, and the Dutch East Indies. (See December 7 for the concurrent attack on Pearl Harbor in the Western Hemisphere.) 1943 – World War II: The German 117th Jäger Division destroys the monastery of Mega Spilaio in Greece and executes 22 monks and visitors as part of reprisals that culminated a few days later with the Massacre of Kalavryta. 1953 – U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower delivers his "Atoms for Peace" speech, which leads to an American program to supply equipment and information on nuclear power to schools, hospitals, and research institutions around the world. 1955 – The Flag of Europe is adopted by Council of Europe.

[byneddiedingo]

Connie Nielsen in Demonlover (Olivier Assayas, 2002)

Cast: Connie Nielsen, Charles Berling, Chloë Sevigny, Dominique Reymond, Jean-Baptiste Malartre, Gina Gershon, Edwin Gerard, Thomas M. Pollard, Abi Sakamoto, Naoko Yamazake, Nao Omori. Screenplay: Olivier Assayas. Cinematography: Denis Lenoir. Production design: François-Renaud Labarthe. Film editing: Luc Barnier. Music: Jim O'Rourke, Sonic Youth. 

Demonlover is a kind of message movie, and we all know the Hollywood truism about those: "If you want to send a message, call Western Union." But Olivier Assayas is not a Hollywood director, and his message comes through loud and clear. It's a familiar one: In the hands of globalized corporate capitalism, the internet has the potential to become a corrupting and alienating force. The film opens with a bunch of corporate capitalists luxuriating in business class on a flight to Japan to negotiate the rights to pornographic anime produced by a studio there. On the flight, Diane (Connie Nielsen) slips a drug into the Evian water being drunk by her superior at the Volf Corporation, Karen (Dominique Reymond), who collapses when they land in Tokyo. Diane then takes her place in the negotiations. It soon becomes clear that Diane will stop at nothing to seal a deal, but also that she's a double agent working for Volf's competitor, Mangatronics. Once Diane and her partner, Hervé (Charles Berling), land the rights, they begin negotiations with Demonlover, an internet company represented by Elaine Si Gibril (Gina Gershon), which also runs a site called The Hellfire Club on the dark web that specializes in torture porn and perhaps even snuff films. Diane's aim is to acquire Demonlover for Mangatronics instead of Volf, and she'll stop at nothing to do so. Unfortunately for Diane, her assistant, Elise (Chloë Sevigny), is also a corporate spy, and the spy vs. spy plot takes a bloody turn. Assayas isn't content to tell this story in conventional thriller fashion, so what we get involves a lot of disorienting camerawork and editing, and the movie makes its point with a somewhat disjointed ending. It was a critical and commercial flop, but the awareness that its message was prophetic has caused it to be reevaluated. 

[forffax]

📓!!

HAI nox!!! Hmm ouh how abt. manhattans...

mostly focused on my American detco ocs! Abigail and Emily Reeves, sisters who are very different and a tad distant but care for each other more than anything... Abi is a private detective who's heard rumors of a shady organization and soon realizes she's gotten herself into some Deep Shit... Emily is a therapist specializing in kids/young teens! She's supportive of Abi's detective endeavors but DOES wish her sister would get stabbed less sbfjdjs.

Unbeknownst to Abi, whose work w/the org earned her the codename Manhattan, Emily has been disguising as her and doing some of the more. Unsavory work in her place in order to keep Abi safe. There's def some tension w/like. Hey even if u have good intentions the law isn't gonna see u as anything but a normal agent who turned whistle-blower... even if ur crimes are few compared to those working within the law who are going to be ignored in favor of shutting this whole case down quietly and efficiently...

This converges w/my normal Hiro's Fine au around when Hiro is preparing 2 move back to Japan, and he + zero + akai are trying to shut down at least this open leg of the org that has been cut off from hearing that the main body fell nearly a month ago (both from distance and mayb some wanting to try and revive the org with what little members and influence they still had in the states.... can u tell I think abt this a Lot)

[blczin-gunwicldcr]

Headcanon Time: When You're Meeting Abi for the First Time ( while she's still getting used to living in Japan by herself )

Abigail doesn't fully understand the difference of money amounts from her hometown ( Brazil ) to Japan just yet. She would either give way too much or way too little when purchasing necessaries and such without noticing the error half the time.

While Abigail can understand some social norms that are very important ( like not using a phone on trains, properly addressing Teachers, Proper Dress Codes, etc ) there are still Plenty of social norms that Abigail has a hard time adjusting to, like how Holidays works much differently in Japan than Brazil or how the Majority of Japan Don't Speak Portuguese.

Because she is still getting use to living and being completely on her own as well as just having a heart of gold in general, she's a bit naive and innocently too friendly / helpful when meeting oddly sketchy people ( especially if they're deadly villians in disguise )

[aaronymous999]

Ideas I’d like to see in AITSF 3 ( if they’re making one )

-A story unconnected to Date, Mizuki and the Gang, I love them but I’d also love to see something new with new characters! Either something that takes place in the past, present ( this would have some of the same character’s like Boss but it would involve a new psyncer who isn’t really involved with the others ), future, or an alternate history

-A psyncer with two Ai-Balls, aka one in each eye. I just think a three way dynamic that none of the other characters even know is happening would be cool

-Tbh would love something a little more action packed

-Use of more dream logic, some people have fuzzier or more vivid dreams, translate this to somnium and have some characters with less vivid dreams have a more fuzzy somnium than other characters, kind of like they did with Mayumi in AI1 except with more characters which could increase the mystery, like maybe some somniums have people without faces or people who are combinations of two people in the person’s life, I think that would be interesting…

-More BANGER character designs

-This would be the game you would say is zero spoilers tbh i wish AINI relied on spoilers and a future unconnected game didn’t :(

-New setting perhaps… what if another country has an ABIS division… I’d personally love to see a cypberpunk detective london ( shut shut up Rain Code doesn’t exist it can’t hurt me ) but also that would be funny because funny brit ish accents. Otherwise I think a smaller relatively crimeless country that has had a serious of horrible crimes that sends a shock throughout, maybe this country is allied with Japan so they send one of their best Psyncer’s to sort it out??? Or maybe just another place in Japan besides Tokyo, like HQ sends out the Psyncer to that location to solve the crime.

-Less Sci-Fi… Uchikoshi I loved the Sci-Fi and I love it in general but in AINI it felt like a lil too much I’m ngl I love that game overall but it has so many issues

-STICK WITH AINI’S SOMNIUM GAMEPLAY BUT MAKE SMALL IMPROVEMENTS BECAUSE OMG DONT GO BACK TO AI1’S SOMNIUMS IM BEGGING YOU

-More worldbuilding, it felt as if in the first two games there was only ABIS, the weapons and holographic police tape that really implied this was in the future, I want more. We don’t need flying cars or anything but like… just small things that show that this takes place in the future would be nice

-Don’t pull a ZTD…