#and isn't necessarily what the average japanese person would think

[buffintruder]

Okay someone asked for an explanation so here is Japanese casual first person pronouns 101 as explained by someone who only mostly knows what they're talking about:

Post title: When you speak Japanese with your friends, which pronoun do you usually use?

私: "watashi". This is the default first person pronoun, like if you pick up a textbook to learn Japanese, this is what you will be taught. In reality, men (especially younger men) generally don't use this casually so it comes off feminine if you're talking to peers, though even women often will use a different pronoun

あたし: "atashi" this i think is one of the more common ways for women to refer to themselves in casual speech, based off of 'watashi'.

僕: "boku" this is a more masculine pronoun, a little bit boyish. Like masculine but in a gentle and friendly way, i feel like i associate it more with people who are outside of the like maybe 13-30 age range but i'm not sure of that

俺: "ore" which is much more masculine in a rougher way. i think this tends to be used more by "the youth" while boys are talking to other boys so i rarely hear this in real life (since most of the Japanese people i know are middle aged women)

うち: "uchi" i don't know much about this one, it's a more feminine and younger pronoun generally. but i hear it's also a regional dialect thing. in real life, i mostly hear it across genders/ages when talking about family like "my children" "my siblings" etc

自分: "jibun" literally it means 'self' and is used as a reflexive pronoun by everyone and as a second person pronoun in some regional dialects and as a first person pronoun by others. basically a super versatile pronoun, i think it's a bit more masculine but i also see it be used as like "the gender neutral pronoun". apparently it's also used by soldiers

自分の名前: your own name (literally "self's name", see the 'jibun' here again). this is more childish and feminine, i definitely used my name instead of a pronoun growing up

他の: something else

1以上: more than one

Note: a lot of these pronouns are "more masculine" or "more feminine" but these are not absolutes. people can and do use pronouns that are not aligned with the gender they're perceived at, for trans and non-trans reasons, both for one-offs and more frequently. I honestly don't know enough about all the ins and outs to be able to say a whole lot more on that, but these are more about vibes than anything concrete

also there's huge amounts of dialect variation that i'm only barely touching the surface of here, and there's a lot of more older pronouns i also didn't include because polls only have so many options and i figured there are not many like 70+ japanese people on tumblr

タッグでなんでこの代名詞を使うか言ってください！

[linkspooky]

Kusakabe the Last Man Standing

Is Kusakabe going to defeat Sukuna all by himself?

Probably not. I fully expect Maki and Yuji to get back up and join the fight. However, Kusakabe is a character that has been slept on for awhile and with him being reluctantly shoved into the spotlight I think it's time to write a meta analyzing him. Especially since the revelation that Kusakabe is the strongest first grade fighter didn't come out of nowhere, in fact Gege has been building up Kusakabe in the background for quite some time which I'll explore under the cut.

So Okay, He's Average

I want to begin this analysis by saying that Kusakabe represents a type of character that Jujutsu Kaisen is desperately in need of. He's just a normal guy. He's our only example of an everyman character. Usually in manga the protagonist serves as the everyman character, especially ones like Yuji who come from a normal life and are being introduced to a fantastical world for the first time, but Yuji ain't normal. Someone who willingly eats a finger that may kill him just so he can be useful and save a stranger isn't normal. Gojo has Yuji pegged as one of the crazy ones within the first few chapters.

Gojo says that sorcerers have to be crazy, that the best Jujutsu Sorcerers need to be broken in the head otherwise they can't get over their fear of curses and risk their lives fighting them on a daily basis. The cast is full of eccentrics, Gojo the strongest of all isn't even able to relate to other human beings, Sukuna is termed a calamity, Yuta kisses cockroaches without hesitation there's not a normal one in the whole bunch.

The ones that are normal, like Miwa who acts like an average high school girl, has no technique, and Mai who desperately craves to be a normal girl and doesn't want to be a jujutsu sorcerer, either are minor characters or they die.

You could say Ijichi provides the point of view as a normal character, but he's a minor character at best and uninvolved in the plot. Then there's Nanami, who represents the typical japanese salaryman. However, Nanami is extraordinary in that he is far more moral than all of his coworkers, such as returning to be a sorcerer because the work helps people instead of keeping his cushy job, and prioritizing the lives of children over himself.

Us mediocre and average people are in desperate need for representation. Cue, Kusakabe.

His introduction clearly demonstrates his attitude is different from most sorcerers, rather than running straight into danger, Kusakabe is trying to search for an excuse to stay out of danger where it's safe. While it's cowardly, it's also what a normal person would do in this situation. We are so used to sorcerers who either risk life and limb without a thought for the sake of other people like Nanami or Yuji, or sorcerers who enjoy the fight like Gojo that Kusakabe stands out.

Miwa who is basically the example of the normal girl among the teenagers shares several parallels with Kusakabe, they're both simple domain masters without cursed techniques, they're both self serving, and also Kusakabe is her teacher and probably the one who recruited her considering he shows up to save her at the end of Shibuya.

Kusakabe is meant to represent what a normal person with common sense would do in the world of Jujutsu, but that doesn't mean he's weak. As I stated above Gege has actually been building up Kusakabe's strength in the background for quite awhile.

When training with Yuji, Gojo first brings up that some sorcerers rely on their techniques too much and that Yuji doesn't necessarily need a fancy technique to win, he can overcome them by learning to control his cursed energy and then using it to strengthen his already amazing martial arts skills and physical prowess.

The Big Three clans like tend to overvalue inherited techniques too, the downfall of the Zen'in is that they didn't recognize the strength of people like Maki and Toji with no cursed energy because they believed their cursed techniques to be inherently superior.

In Mechamaru's fight against Mahito, Gege makes a big deal spending an entire page explaining the history and mechanics of simple domains. There's obviously no need to put this much attention into detail to explain simple domains unless they're going to come into play later, and while Miwa uses them as stated above she's a minor character.

A technique called the "Domain for the Weak" what better technique for a normal guy like Kusabe, who is stuck in a cast of super-human characters. When fighting with Yuji, Mei Mei compares Yuji to Kuskabe.

"You're on par with a grade-1 sorcerer at this point. To be this good without a cursed technique... I think you're the only one since Kusakabe."

To further compare him to Mei Mei, Mei Mei monologues about how because her cursed technique of controlling birds is weak she tried to strengthen her body. However, eventually she hit a brick wall and couldn't get any stronger and reach Grade-1 on her efforts alone. Which is when she decided to start using Ui Ui as a tool to make herself stronger by making binding vows between him and herself to strengthen her, in addition to inventing her suicide crow technique.

However, Kusakabe is even stronger than Mei Mei and he managed to reach that level by himself without needing to groom and manipulate a child.

Kusakabe also spends all of Shibuya avoiding getting in a fight with a special grade cursed spirit, and yet at the end of Shibuya he ends up tanking an Uzumaki Maximum from Kenjaku at point blank. Kenjaku even praises him.

This is the same Kenjaku who can use Suguru Geto's cursed technique even better than Geto can, and who wiped the floor with Choso while bragging that a cursed spirit that's ranked Grade-1 like Choso could never go one on one with a special grade. We never saw Kusakabe directly fight Kenjaku (he would probably run in the opposite direction if given the chance) but the fact that he can use a simple domain to cancel out one of Geto's strongest techniques point blank is really telling.

All the while having relatable thoughts like this one. In a lot of ways, Kusakabe reminds me of Todo, someone who Gojo mentioned as being one of the next up and coming star students alongside Hakari, and Yuta. Todo has a cursed technique that's simple but effective, but he also fights similiar to Yuji by his expert control of cursed energy. Todo fights mainly with his fists and martial arts and his impressive knowledge of how cursed energy moves though the body, his cursed technique gives him an added bonus.

Up until this point in the manga though Todo is the most knowledgable about cursed energy, he teaches it Yuji very easily and explains it in ways Yuji can understand. Fighting alongside Todo also brings out Yuji's full potential as a sorcerer. Todo is all muscle, but he fights with his head and is the smartest student in Kyoto.

All of this to say, Kusakabe's strength without a cursed technique can be explained by relating him to Todo. In the Gojo vs. Sukuna fights who is the main voice explaining to both the other students at Jujutsu High and the audience just how the battle is going down.

Kusakabe is not in there in the field, he's watching it on TV, and yet somehow he can disect and explain to the others how both Sukuna and Gojo are using high level Jujutsu Techniques. This is Sukuna and Gojo we're talking about, two geniuses who are the height of jujutsu and can often improvise and make up new techniques on the fly and yet Kusakabe is able to keep up with what's going on.

Kusakabe gives the play by play, he somehow knows what falling blossom emotion is even though he's not from one of the three big families. He explains to Hakari and Higuruma who are natural geniuses who don't quite understand how their powers work, how Gojo can change the conditions of his barrier and how exactly he made the barrier smaller.

Remember Kusakabe is also a teacher at Jujutsu High. Unlike Gojo who doesn't try to explain basic concepts to Yuji because he's such a genius, Kusakabe is also educating all of the students here and phrasing these high level techniques in ways they can understand. You can't really do that unless you yourself have an intimate understanding of the subject matter.

What I mean to say is by putting Kusakabe in charge of the discussion, Gege is demonstrating that Kusakabe is a character who understands the mechanics of cursed energy and domains on practically the same level as Todo who as we said is considered a prodigy. This is also some clever foreshadowing, because Kusakabe here seems like he's still a background character because all he's doing is essentially expositing to the audience and yet... how impressive must he be if he understands all of these advanced domain techniques when he's just a guy with a sword and no cursed techniques that uses simple domains.

Kusakabe also understands Higuruma's legal talk in about ten seconds, and can explain the mechanics of Higuruma's domain and why their plan to put Sukuna on trial might not work. He is much smarter than he seems at first glance, Miwa even makes a joke about it. He even analyzes Sukuna's techniques after facing them head on once - and he's the only one who notices how odd it is that Sukuna's not using his fire technique like in Shibuya.

Sukuna mentions that Kusakabe along with everyone else's cursed energy reinforcement techniques must be on another level if they're able to stand up to his slashes (even if they're in a weakened state right now). After all, Ishigori who was not only one of the strongest fighters of his era but was also hyped up for his massive pool of cursed energy that rivaled Yuta's was torn to pieces by Sukuna's slashes.

Kusakabe also seems to be the one in charge of the strategy for the fight (though it was Angel's idea to let Takaba handle Kenjaku, maybe they're both coordinating but Kusakabe is definitely leading them in the field).

My point being, as much as he's accused of handling his large cast Gege is often able to give a lot of characterization in a limited screentime. Kusakabe is more than he appears to be, and it's clever how Gege built up his importance without anybody noticing, because Higuruma himself likes to avoid conflict, hide in the background and is constantly downplaying his own talents. Ino even made another joke about it last chapter.

The commonly held view is that the sorcerers who reject their humanity and only care about refining their technique are the ones who become the strongest sorcerers. However, Kusakabe was able to climb to the top of the Grade One sorcerers despite lacking that attitude.

In my opinion, Jujutsu Kaisen is fundamentally about balance, so while there's a definite trend of Sorcerers who resemble Sukuna are the ones who become stronger - it's not presented as the only way to be strong. Yuji only defeated Mahito by cooperating with Todo. On top of that, Sukuna while finding Yuji boring admits that Yuji a mostly selfless person still demonstrates an indomitable will that Sukuna can't break no matter how hard he tries.

If Sukuna represents the thesis that the only way to become strong is to throw away all your humanity and become wildly selfish, then Kusakabe represents the antithesis as a mostly normal person (if a bit cowardly and self interest) who somehow climbed the ranks over people like Mei Mei who represent the kind of selfish monster Sukuna is.

This is actually the pattern for most of the Sukuna fights this arc too. Gojo and Hajime both represent the desire to be understood, and Sukuna rejects both love and says he doesn't need people to understand him because he understands himself.

Yuji is a human who is mostly selfless, and has inherited the curse of his fellow comrades as sorcerers, specifically carrying on the torch for Nanami who is also content to be a cog in the machine if it means he can help his fellow sorcerers out. Sukuna is a selfish monster, who is an individualist and sees other people as toys to amuse himself with.

Higuruma is a genius on the level of Gojo Satoru, but when challenged by Sukuna he ends up sacrificing himself instead in a direct parallel to Nanami in order to pass the torch onto Yuji.

Yuta's domain is literally called "authentic and mutual love" and Sukuna said to Hajime that he understands exactly what love is and he still rejects it. Sukuna's entire philosophy revolves around rejecting the love and friendship, while Yuta only fights for the sake of his friends, and can't believe that his life is worth living without people in his life who love him.

Sukuna gives a whole speech on how by rejecting cursed energy, and using a heavenly restriction to push her body to the peak of physical strength a human can achieve, she's forcing a role on Sukuna to compete with her as the peak of sorcery to determine which one is better.

Now it's Kusakabe turn to have a role in this fight too. While Maki has no cursed energy, she doesn't really represent humans because she's you know, a she-hulk. Kusakabe might be the most human character present that's willing to face down Sukuna. Kusakabe is the most human character someone who climbed this high without being born with any technique, Sukuna is the most inhuman monster in the series, a calamity that Yuji refers to as a true curse.

Gege even threw in these callbacks to Gojo panels.

That in itself might be foreshadowing that maybe Kusakabe stands a better chance against Sukuna then anyone in the audience thinks. As the number #1 Kusakabe stan, I'm definitely willing to bet on those odds!

[accessibleaesthetics]

Do you know how screen readers deal with multiple languages, especially ones with different writing systems?

I just IDed an image that was mostly text, and had a relevant section in Chinese, which I can speak (though not fluently); so in the description, I typed the characters directly in Chinese, then said what it meant in English. Since I posted it, though, I've been worried it might break the screen reader, or just read as something like [symbol].

It depends a lot on the screen reader! VoiceOver, for example, will generally read anything with a unique script fairly accurately as long as it's mainstream enough. Things like Chinese, Japanese, Russian...VoiceOver seems to switch between that and English just fine, even mid-sentence. However, if the language is one that uses a roman alphabet just like English does, it's going to read it using English rules (since my screen reader's default is set to English, I assume) unless someone codes in a language property to the page.

In any case, I think what you did was the most accessible option. If I came across that, my screen reader would probably read it perfectly, even if I did not personally understand it.

Oh, and just for the record, this isn't necessarily just a roman alphabet thing. If it's something like Abjad, I think there is a good chance your average screen reader is going to assume it's supposed to be Arabic even if it's actually Farsi or something.

And of course, there are likely some screen readers that are not equipped to read any symbols except those of the roman alphabet, but I think it's important to preserve the language where possible.

[midnightactual]

Its funny, Yoruichi x Ichigo is the fandoms favorite crack ship for Ichigo particularly lol. What's your thoughts on this? Why do you think people like this ship and do you think it could happen if Ichigo became close to her like everyone likes to think?

I'd dispute that and say that fandom's favorite crackship for Ichigo is GrimmIchi, but I'll admit it really depends on what segment of fandom we're talking about, because GrimmIchi is the purview of transformative yaoi fangirls, while YoruIchi is the purview of curative horny hetmen who now mostly use AI to make porn of her while generally giving him a harem. (IchiBambi is also weirdly popular for some reason despite them never meeting.)

Why do the curative horny hetmen create YoruIchi porn? Well, that's an onion of a question.

The first and most important reason is because Ichigo is the main character, so he is automatically the main focus and fixation of the bulk of the curative audience. Now while Ichigo definitely does have a personality, it gets deemphasized enough over the course of the series that he can reliably function as a self-insert for the average guy, who is both the main creator and consumer of porn of Yoruichi. (As an aside, this is also a primary driver of UraYoru porn, which mainly revolves around Kisuke being perceived as "cool" and "a baller" despite being a nerd, rather than any kind of misapprehension of romance between them.) So, Ichigo is settled on first and foremost because he's the most obvious male to include in M/F porn. Obviously, Yoruichi is the real main focus.

The second reason is because "hot for teacher" is an extremely common trope and fantasy all by itself, and Yoruichi's canonical "teasing" of Ichigo forms a convenient onboarding point for imagining she might have some kind of interest in him, even though that's absolutely not what it actually signified. Picking Ichigo specifically caters to this better than any other male character would.

The third reason is because only slightly less common as a fantasy is the idea of taking a powerful woman and "putting her in place" through sexual prowess. YoruIchi porn usually has an air of "putting that uppity bitch in her proper place" rather than being tender or affectionate or whatever else. It's almost always explicitly sexual rather than sensual. Considering Yoruichi effortlessly disabled Ichigo during SS Arc, and in TYBW endlessly berates him, picking him imbues works with this element of powerplay and one-upmanship.

The fourth reason is because most of this art, coming from the West, has weird racial tensions behind it, given Yoruichi's ambiguously "exotic" appearance. Light-skinned anime characters are generally treated by Western audiences as white, even if they are known to be Japanese, rather than as Asian. Dark-skinned anime characters are generally treated by Western audiences as black, even if they are more accurately described as ambiguously brown. It isn't really hard to see that the "BWC" phenomenon is generally being appealed to, and for what audience.

[Future me editing in here: another reason is the Bleach equivalent of when Asuka or Rei is discussed, and someone answers Misato. Yoruichi is the most plausible stand-in for Misato, to Rukia and Orihime's Asuka and Rei, not that any of them actually fit those archetypes well. She's the "cultured" choice.]

So, basically, YoruIchi porn is thinly-veiled self-insert wish-fulfillment. (And so is most UraYoru porn.)

Now, at about this point, you're probably thinking, "Okay, but what about stuff that isn't porn?" and it is true that there is some art and fic of them that doesn't necessarily revolve around sexual conquest and/or titillation, and which exists for reasons other than the above, although it isn't that common.

Most of that work is also wish-fulfillment, just of a different nature. It tends to fixate more upon the idea of Yoruichi as a "mature" woman (as opposed to Rukia, Orihime, Riruka, and to some extent Nelliel) while also not carrying the pseudo-incestuous undertones of Ikumi, who overtly presented herself as like Ichigo's big sister he never had, and who nonetheless comes across as motherly toward him because she's actually a mom. Yoruichi doesn't have that same issue and is therefore a less "weird" older woman for Ichigo to be attracted to, yet one he actually kind of interacted with substantively unlike, say, Rangiku. Rangiku also lacks the "hot for teacher" element, as would Retsu, Kūkaku would actually be incestuous, and so on. (Ostensibly people like the idea of Ichigo with Bambietta and/or Candice as an enemies-to-lovers kind of thing? And because it's a mostly blank slate, they can do whatever they want.)

So, basically, Yoruichi is the "cleanest" option for putting Ichigo with an older woman he actually has some known interaction with. It's simply expediency by process of elimination.

In both cases, pretty much none of this ever has anything to do with what Yoruichi would think was attractive, appealing, supportive, sexy, and so on, and is almost always and forever to do with what the creator thinks would be aesthetically appealing. This is generally true of almost all Yoruichi ships, but I'll come back to that later.

So, is there some way it could it work out between them?

Not in canon. There is no possible canonical or pseudo-canonical telling of events where Yoruichi would have any interest in Ichigo. I'm phrasing it as an absolute because in my understanding there is no way Yoruichi would ever show any actual attraction toward Ichigo. He's too young, he's too naive, he's too foolish, and he generally just gets on her nerves... exactly like Yūshirō. In fact, she derisively makes the comparison herself in chapter 629:

If she sees him as anything in canon besides as a project to be babysat, she sees him as an annoying younger brother. I don't really think I need to explain that no matter how much "closer" they became platonically, she would never have any interest in him romantically.

So, to reemphasize: anything with YoruIchi within or near canon is ridiculous and out of character and is purely for the sake of the creator or audience.

Now, do there exist alternate universes where Yoruichi could find some (older) version of Ichigo appealing, say if they were much closer in age? Like, a human verse where she's 27 and he's 23 or 24? Yeah, sure, that's possible. I can readily imagine a version of Ichigo that could appeal to a version of Yoruichi, under other circumstances. That Ichigo would probably have to be a mixture of Ichigo at his most mature (circa FKT) and at his most confident (early Bleach) in terms of personality in order to get her attention.

Here's the problem though: Kūkaku exists, and she already is that without all the extra baggage.

To return to my point on Yoruichi ships in general, they generally exist to service the creator/audience, or their actual fave. As I have laid out here, YoruIchi mostly exists to facilitate fantasies which Ichigo is standing-in to enable. UraYoru generally treats Yoruichi as Kisuke's prize and accessory that he regularly gets to fuck as a reward for being so awesome. YoruSoi broadly treats Yoruichi as Soifon's prize for showing such "piety" and "faith" toward her "idol", which she "deserves" because "she loves Yoruichi so much" (in an ironic reprise of how most IchiHime that I have seen, regards Ichigo as Orihime's prize for "loving him so much").

Because you've happened to catch me on a day where I've taken my meds and I am very actively and continually choosing violence (I'm listening to "Set The World Afire" by Megadeth on loop as I write this), I'm going to go over the other two a little more before proceeding onto my final argument.

The entire "Yoruichi and Kisuke are childhood friends (to lovers)" construct is a misunderstanding that comes from a failure to understand the nuances of Japanese-to-English translation, to appreciate that Shinigami do not experience time and growth as humans do, and to appreciate that characters are often vague and imprecise in their speech, if not outright lying.

When Kubo answered in Klub Outside recently that Aizen was aware of Kisuke even before Kisuke and Yoruichi met, the correct solution to that was not to assume that Aizen met Kisuke in the Muppet Babies playpen, it was to realize that "very young" for a Shinigami can extend out to their 100th to 150th birthday, or even more. Shinigami appear to categorize periods of their life by relevance to their current existence, not strictly by chronology, and this is likely a function of their nonlinear aging. Time in the strictest sense is less important than the major events in their lives, and takes on a relative nature, which has a long history in Japan anyway. You might consider this as like the "11 lives" concept. Yoruichi met Kisuke a few "lifetimes" ago, a time which she now considers "very young" in her life. That's all.

With the childhood friends angle thrown out, we come to the idea that Kisuke and Yoruichi are in fact good friends, which I dispute. As I think much of this blog serves as testament to, people are generally not particularly interested in figuring out who Yoruichi is, why, and why she does what she does, let alone what she may have been up to. They're not interested in analyzing what is known, because if they were, I would not be discovering and presenting a lot of these things for the first time—they would be well known already. So, when people fill in Yoruichi for UraYoru, they fill her in in such a way as to accommodate and coddle Kisuke, their actual blorbo.

I find that disrespectful to her in the extreme.

I will also tell you that YoruSoi is the exact same thing, simply lesbian as opposed to het. The actual blorbo is Soifon, and she is "awarded" Yoruichi for her troubles in the exact same way.

I actually personally find YoruSoi even more absurd, to be honest. First, because the misunderstandings that created UraYoru are simpler to understand, second because YoruSoi overwhelmingly only exists in the anime, but third and foremost because YoruSoi is presented as this great triumph of sapphism in response to the icky heteronormativity of UraYoru, and yet it somehow exists in the face of the now well-known LGTBQIA+ meme, "historians will say they were just very good friends".

That is exactly how people treat Yoruichi and Kūkaku, without a single hint of irony or self-awareness, even as they proclaim how "obviously" gay Yoruichi and Soifon are for one another.

Now, people are free to ship what they like, but I want to be fully clear that I am immovably of the opinion that both those two ships exist exclusively to benefit Kisuke and Soifon, and always twist Yoruichi to suit what they think would accommodate those two most. They do not exist, and have never existed, for even a measure of Yoruichi's sake. She is an object within them.

She is also an object within YoruIchi, as already documented, and we come to the sixth and final reason why it exists: because people can correctly surmise that she belongs with a Shiba, but they do not have the courage or honesty to admit which one and accept that that equation doesn't include a penis.

Wrong Shiba.

(Much like Renji is clearly far more fascinated with Kuchiki Byakuya than he is Kuchiki Rukia. Wrong Kuchiki.)

As I have previously written:

But this is the truth: we have an incredibly sensual, sexual love poem by an incredibly sensual, sexy, powerful (brown) woman, which is clearly directed at her “best friend”, who is also an incredibly sensual, sexy, powerful woman. And that really brings us back to this post. WLW content from Japan is about cute fluffy innocence, not the intense female “When you’re both TOPS” energy that Yoruichi and Kūkaku radiate together (which I will again note was also present in CFYOW). Japan still isn’t ready for that today. It sure as hell wasn’t ready for it in 2005. And yet there it is nonetheless.

The world is simply not ready to accept YoruKū. This is especially hilarious in a world where CaitVi is currently running wild to rave acclaim.

(To be super clear here for the sake of nuance that nobody cares about: it is not "if you don't ship what I ship, you are wrong and bad", it is "if you ship these things I feel that you lack respect for Yoruichi and thus your ship is invalid and illegitimate in my eyes", and yes, there is a distinction.)

Basically, as far I'm concerned, only cowards ship YoruIchi. I'll be waiting at the adult table for them when they grow up and develop a taste for more than chicken nuggets and hotdogs with ketchup on them.

[burinazar]

this is the opposite of how things are usually done but i've sort of wondered if, the way ppl commission folks to translate japanese fanwork into english for them (usually individual doujin pages), i could ever commission native-speaker-level people to translate some of my fic into japanese

i really, really want more of the interested parties in the world to be able to read my fanwork, but most of the ones that still actively love the same charas aren't english speakers and probably only read fic in jp. (there are a scattering of people in other places as well, but mostly japanese people.) i won't be able to write in their language in a way that meets my standards for a very long time, most likely never, and certainly not within a timespan where i believe people will still be interested in reading it (hell, maybe my own interest/fixation will wane in coming years). i'm not being defeatist when i say that -- it's more that i have very high standards for prose.

it is highly likely that -- even realistic to assume that -- even when i become pretty happy with my ability to read and speak japanese, in maybe five to ten years, i realistically will literally never approach the level with writing prose that i consider acceptable/aim for in english. like, to be an immodest asshole about it, it's not just that i'm a fluent english speaker... it's that i am, i think, someone with an above-average grasp of english vocabulary and above-average skill in prosecrafting and other craft aspects of writing in english, built over a lifetime of lots reading and writing, and i just can't really see myself approaching what i have in english in japanese (or even hindi which i'm way better at understanding and is technically one of my mother tongues). it'd take another entire lifetime. i'd much rather pay someone good at writing in japanese to do it lmao.

since the author would be involved and is also a person who thinks about language a lot the translator would also receive a lot of hopefully-helpful notes about what i hoped would be kept in, what i was trying to imply in certain parts, and some of my thoughts and research on any parts i'd tried to look up translation for myself, so that we could create something that hopefully still Hit and kept in some of my sneaky writing tricks and craft bullshit, rather than just being comprehensible. but it'd need to be someone really confident with the language (which i wouldn't even really be able to assess myself. i have no damn idea how to tell if someone is a good prosesmith in japanese. 良い言葉センス。。。).

one thing they DON'T necessarily need to be is actually that good at english (just enough to understand the work and me, and even then, if there's a gap being filled with translation tools so they can comprehend some of my english, that's fine as long as their *output* is well written in jp). and the absolute ideal would be someone else interested in the same fandom but to be honest as long as i'm able to explain my vision of characters and events to them this isn't really necessary. but i don't know that such a person exists or how the hell i'd find them and determine they were up to the job. also given my entire mindset regarding the Point of fanwork this may go without saying but i wouldn't want to hire a career translator or company/professional service of some kind but rather find someone taking individual work thru the fandom/indie creative community

in the future though maybe i'll seriously look into this, or see if any of my friends on that side of the fandom know about anyone who might be interested in working with me on this...

[colorisbyshe]

"it is IMPERATIVE that you listen to weird niche music of some kind." And what weird niche music do you listen to hmmmmmmm

Oh, you got my ass!

To be upfront, I mostly listen to... the poppiest, most accessible versions of Weird Niche Music and I have been open about that! So, I might be posting more friendly songs from more experimental artists. Or I might be posting Really Popular Artists from more niche spheres--like "The Silver Cord" by King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizards, which lots of people know of by now but the average person might not.

And I'm also rly open about also just... very sincerely loving vapid, formulaic pop music as well. So! Enjoy those caveats, enjoy this list

"Juxtaposition" Silica Gel is the middle point between cerebral and abrasive Korean rock. They just released an album, check out the entire thing.

"Dancing When You're Dead" STAP Sigh Boys. Kinda funky, weird vocals, but also just a nice, retro sound with modern trappings.

"American Psycho" .grouptherapy. Alternative hip hop with guitar on this track but they're great at tackling and morphing many genres (see their collab track "Disco Pantz" vs "FUNKFEST" vs "Thatsmycheck")

"Aladdin" Wednesday Campanella. I suppose if you've been into Japanese EDM, even via anime and video games, this sound isn't that niche but it's still fun. Found via my dashboard.

"The Mad Stone" Everything Everything. Their entire discography, actually but this song is the most... out there in recent times. Starts off with a twee, folksy sound that actually kinda pisses me off btu then really pushes boundaries and transforms into something new.

"Captain" redveil. The entire EP this is from is a lightly experimental landscape. He was featured on a JPEGMAFIA track if that clarifies the playground he's in.

"Calla" Rubio. Actually, a kinda convention sound in that it fits the kinda slow, sweeping synth sound that you'd associate with a time past. I just wanted to highlight Rubio because he's Chilean and it's more difficult to find info on him (in American) than it should be!

Or like, I could recommend "Mephisto" by Queen Bee, which is Japanese Rock, but has near operatic elements but... was an ED for an extremely popular anime.

But that invokes a question, doesn't it? What is NICHE and weird music? I feel like the more you explore and open up your mind to music that isn't just fed to you via Tiktok or Similar Interest Algorithms (where you're confined to 1.5 genres), the harder it is to confidently say your music is niche.

Is something niche if it's popular in a different country/culture than you? Is it just niche if your friends don't know their name but their sound is the same as/nearly adjacent to what's on the radio? Is it still niche if, yes, it's part of a more narrow subculture BUT it's like... baby's first artist in said subculture/subgenre?

Like... before Kpop got bigger in the west, if someone told me Shinee was niche, I'd still be like ??? SHINEE?? But to someone who has never ventured into kpop or even "foreign" music before, yeah, I could see the argument.

I listen to "Sezon Pomidorowy" by Franek Warzywa & Młody Budda and hte sound is definitely weird (Polish musicians bringing an almost hyperpop sensibility to a song structure that is a lot more... acoustic than that?) but I found them via a big music critic and I think they have had big songs on tiktok. (I would not know but google mentioned something about tiktok, so idk.)

The point about encouraging people to listen to more niche music isn't necessarily to have people prove Their Music is Truly Weird (I don't think any of the music on this list is that weird) but more to encourage people to try out music outside of what is fed directly to them.

In part, because I think people have a looot of music that they would LOVE but just do not naturally encounter via following trends, and it would benefit both them and the musicians if they discovered said music.

But, on a selfish note, also because I think it makes it harder for people to hype up truly rote music as Revolutionary because, well, you'll encounter more experimental music that has Already Done the Thing.

I've said before, there is no bad taste in music (outside of VERY rare exceptions) but there is underdeveloped taste in music. And I think not exploring different sounds, musicians, genres, national outputs means not being equipped to truly judge music.

So like I could list dozens of songs I don't think any of my followers would know by musicians they've never even heard of but that kinda... misses the point.

That post isn't a DPS Check for Rare Music but rather a place to say... hey, have you tried new music recently? Clicked a music rec from a mutual that sounds almost scary to you? Have you been scared off a song because it's not in a language you speak? Listen anyways. Does a genre sound startling? Try a song in it anyways.

Maybe you don't like it. That's fine! But you fucking tried it!!! And that counts for something.

[agallimaufryofoddments]

Do you think Eve became immortal?

No. Nothing in the text indicates she did, not even that notorious 2002 line in Volume 4's Epilogue...

"Well, we’ve gotten real generous donations from the acting head of the Genoard family for generations."

...or rather, the notorious fan translation version: "Ah, while Mr. Genoard was alive he would frequently donate money," which spawned an enduring fandom mythconeption that Dallas lived to have a change of heart (and took over from Eve as head?). The original Japanese does not indicate gender, as the official translation shows, but the 'acting heads' are probably successive (e.g. child, grandchild) than one constant person like Eve.

Do I think it is especially likely that Eve would become (a complete) immortal? No, neither by choice or by accident—though the former isn't necessarily made obvious or guaranteed by her Christian faith, while the latter isn't necessarily the more believable scenario since it and the other depend on someone creating more Grand Panacea.

That’s my answer done and sorted, no need to peek BELOW THE CUT, where I make things unnecessarily difficult for myself by asking “but, like, would she though?” (Spoiler: I still err on the side of “probably not.”)

Let us suppose she is given that choice. I think the vast majority of Christians across denominations and degree of religious education (of which Eve possesses none), would consider the question a spiritual one. However, I think your average Christian layperson on the streets of '20s-era New Jersey, if asked whether they would drink an immortality elixir that made them biologically immortal, would have no idea how to answer; they would have not conceived of immortality in this fashion. Immortality was (and is) intrinsically understood to mean life after death and rarely needed a qualifying prefix when mentioned.

Suffice it to say, Eve knows so little of her faith beyond God, angels, and an afterlife that, while I do think the choice would be spiritual in nature for her, it's not one she's theologically equipped for—let alone most people. Still: one cannot assume all Christians today would choose to reject an immortality elixir. It’s simply not true.

Eve would have to answer for herself whether if she would be "moving outside God's grace" by accepting the GP's immortality, or whether she is 'cheating' God in doing so (personally I suspect it is much harder to leave God's grace or cheat God than you'll hear some people say). If she at all believes in a soul innately tied to one's individuality, and that soul and consciousness are interlinked, would she feel trepidation over what it might mean if and other immortal devours her, her 'soul', her consciousness?

(If it is that one's soul and consciousness are detached concepts, what would happen to her soul when an immortal eats her  'consciousness'? How can one's soul know to seek God, life after death, without conscious direction? Now we are getting into the theological weeds I tried to avoid.)

Although Baccano! has more self-declared atheists or irreligious persons in its cast, problems of the self, of personal identity, of life after death, and even ‘the soul’ resurface throughout the series. Are the memories, skills, and knowledge of Immortal A, as devoured by Immortal B, constituent parts of a ‘soul’? A ‘self? Renee, who wonders where one’s bodily matter goes when devoured, believes she is the sum of her memories and thus in a form of her continuation after death (potentially comparable to the ideas of Descartes and later philosophers). Claire does not believe in God but is nonetheless preoccupied with life after inconceivable death. Do homunculi have ‘souls’? Christopher agonizes over this. Melvi challenges Ennis directly on whether she has the same personality—”’soul’, for lack of a better word” after devouring the alchemist.

Elmer, in concluding the non-existence of God, has committed to pursuing happiness on Earth in God’s absence.

Anon, I admit that Eve would be an interesting Grand Panacea candidate by dint of her overt religiousness. Unlike most of the alchemists, Eve would be choosing between two immortalities (terrestrial and spiritual), rather than immortality vs. mortality—and it is reasonable to assume that a Christian would say “terrestrial immortality is not immortality,” therefore Eve rejects the former.

Essentially, one asks, “Why would Eve, a Christian, choose to drink the Grand Panacea and delay ‘true’ eternal life?” (Or worse, depending on one’s perception of God). What reason could compel her to stay? There is one reason I could entertain, as based entirely off her characterization in Volume 4: altruistic Elmer-moding. The longer Eve is on Earth, the more Christian good she can do—can’t she? She could choose to dedicate her prolonged life on Earth in service to the Lord and in self-sacrifice to others. It is in Volume 4 that Eve achieves clarity of understanding: prayer is not enough; prayer must be followed by action, she the prayer must become a player (forgive me).

However... One can realize immortality through legacy, especially if one has a fortune—which Eve will once Nader restores hers in 1935. If she is mortal, she has succeeded in instilling the virtues of philanthropy in her successors (and tight restrictions on her estate), c.f. the philanthropic donations the Genoards have made to the New Jersey Hospital. She has ensured that her money and her descendants (?) will continue doing good in her absence, which, in a way, is most high-minded outcome of all.

Ensuring that good deeds will continue without your presence being necessary is indisputably altruistic. Eve has the fortune to achieve that where Elmer does not—hell, Elmer sort of entirely dropped pursuing universal happiness-through-wealth distribution because of Huey—so it makes a sort of sense for her to “sow the charity seeds now, reap the spiritual rewards later,” and Elmer to instead be the “secular monk wandering Earth for eternity in pursuit of terrestrial rewards.” Y’know. One takes the Johnny Appleseed legend to heart (plant seeds today for tomorrow’s orchards so that you may will over them a long shadow), the other decides to be Johnny Appleseed, but, like, forever planting individual seeds and never sticking around long enough to witness or ensure it they bear fruit and multiply.

Edit: Note that this is still toeing the line of broad religious-based speculation and character-based speculation. Unless the text goes into more specifics about Eve’s personal religious beliefs and knowledge, I am somewhat left to fall back on generalized expectations and suppositions... Though I fully admit I am likely forgetting a lot of Eve-related details that are mentioned in the books. End edit.

Edit x2: Wow, I completely forgot to entertain the idea of Eve becoming immortal for love. Right. Whoopsie. I know that there are fans who like the idea of Luck/Eve (I’m...blanking on any other common pairings for her; I’ve already given an opinion on that fan pairing in some older post), so if you or anyone else had that in mind... Would Eve become immortal for love?

I have to take the generic “general supposition” perspective here, again, because the novels shed as little insight into Eve’s desires and thoughts on romance as they do her faith. Quite possibly less. It just hasn’t come into play. With this in mind... Christians are to put God first, and so do they love and worship God above all else; to love God ‘totally’ is Christian life’s first principle. 

As a Dr. Phil Brown put it, “To love God is to self sacrificially commit oneself to delight in Him, to rejoice in serving Him, to desire continually to please Him, to seek one’s happiness in Him, and to thirst day and night for a fuller enjoyment of Him.”

I could guess that Eve would be spiritually conflicted; I could guess that she might view “delaying death” on Earth for the love of a spouse as putting God second to him. She would have to ask herself if she desires the earthly pleasures in one’s spouse more than the timely eternal joy of the Father, the Son... Could she truly choose a spouse over God? Who could or would?

...Well, one can acknowledge the unique position she would be in if she married an immortal. By dying as a mortal, she would be signing up for long afterlife without the spouse who remains on Earth—and, if we are to believe she would marry a morally questionable person like Luck in the first place, which I find difficult to, Eve (with her rudimentary understanding of heaven and hell) would have no guarantee they would find each other again later. (Even Ronny has no guarantee on an afterlife, so there’s really no guarantee for her that immortals would, all the paragraphs up to now aside).

If she could manage to continue serving God in her fullest capacity while living a terrestrial immortal life on earth with an immortal spouse... Well, if she could, bully for her, but that does bring us back what was earlier said about immortal legacy beyond self. I’m already paving my own unending eternal circle here, so never mind that.

I think it would be emotionally and spiritually safer for Eve to remain mortal in this specific regard, and for her to marry another Christian? If only because when she dies she has the comfort in certainty of knowing her spouse will join her in xyz years (same in reverse).

Edit x3: You know what though, anon, this all assumes in the first place that someone manages to explain to or convince Eve that Ronny is not The Devil or any sort of demon to be associated with evil. I imagine that association would be somewhat hard to shake, even for a girl who took Isaac and Miria to be actual angels from heaven.

Back to the last two paragraphs...

Well, this got away from me. Happily, the paragraphs above the cut did actually answer the question in short order. It’s like I’m fundamentally incapable of leaving most asks “at that” or something; I didn’t...need...to expand beyond the fairly straightforward scope of the original question.

By the by, I recommend looking through the Ingersoll Lectures on Immortality as printed in the 1920s if you want some interesting (short) contemporary multi-disciplinary think-pieces on “Immortality and the Modern Mind,” “Immortality and the Present Mood,” “Selfhood and Faith in Immortality,” and the like.

[suckishima]

Kim!! I have a gripe disguised as a question! The season 4 English dub is out, and the Miya twins don't have even a twinge of a southern/country boy accent. I am more than a little disappointed. I understand Japanese dialects cannot be mapped one-to-one to American ones, but given that class and privilege discrepancy is a major theme in Haikyuu, I would think that giving the twins an accent that USAmericans tend to view as "lazy" (since from what I've read that's how Kansai dialect is viewed) would have been a great move. What are your thoughts, if any?

Hi Moth!! I haven't watched any of the s4 dub, but I am actually a little surprised too that there isn't any accent change for the twins (and I'm assuming Inarizaki in general too), especially when I've watched a few interviews of the Japanese voice cast talking about how important it was to them to get the Kansai dialect right, and how both the sub and manga translation make a good effort to try and portray the difference in written English.

The subtlety of the class/privilege discrepancy is one of my favorite things about Haikyuu, and about the Karasuno vs. Inarizaki match as a whole, because I feel like it really does add a lot of depth and atmosphere and just, realism to the series and the hard work we see Karasuno put in. Like, the matches against Shiratorizawa and Inarizaki always had a fundamentally different feel to me, despite the fact that both teams are portrayed as behemoths of skill. But they way they're portrayed gives off a different impression of each of them, with us being told that Shiratorizawa is the ultimate powerhouse of stability while we also get a grand tour of their academy with its horses and multiple gyms and dedicated volleyball club buses, but then the way Inarizaki's level of class is shown to the audience is much more subtle (partly, imo, because their level of privilege is closer to Karasuno's and since they're our primary POV, there aren't as many differences to point out to our lead characters). Despite Inarizaki's skills as a team being told to us as being relatively on par with Shiratorizawa (they've got one of the top 5 aces in the country with Aran, and Ukai even compares him directly to Ushijima a few times I believe), they feel much scrappier—they aren't an academy, but just a regular high school, and they get identifiers like "the ultimate challengers" (again, something Karasuno is also called), and unlike Shiratorizawa, they don't seem to have a signature "time-tested" playstyle to maintain. And for me (even though I personally can't actually hear the difference when listening to the anime), the emphasis of their dialect in the text of the manga/subs adds to this portrayal. Of course, accents and dialects don't actually have any bearing or indication on work ethic, intelligence, or necessarily even class, but based on my (albeit very limited) understanding of Japanese culture, the average Japanese viewer would hear the Kansai dialect and it would add to that portrayal as well.

So I am a little bummed that viewers that only watch the English dub will be missing out on that aspect of their portrayal, especially because the class discrepancies in Haikyuu are already so subtle. I personally consider it a fairly major theme that drives and shapes a lot of the course of the narrative, but it is pretty subtle—the audience is never once directly told anything about Karasuno, or any of the other schools, being less well-off than others (the closest thing I can think of are the quick scenes of Yachi overhearing Takeda needing more funding so the team can get a bus), so my best guess as for why the dub wouldn't bother to give the Inarizaki players a different accent is because of that subtleness. That, and also probably because of what you mentioned about accents/dialects not being one-to-one translations/comparisons and it's probably just easier for the studio to avoid any potential negativity and leave out the differences entirely.

[flagellant]

I think it actually has, and I'd even go as far to say that in some contexts, the way that kimono culture has escaped the death-spiral of formalism has been by being embraced by punk fashion and other fashion countercultures in Japan!

Cuz here's the thing--kimono was actually starting to get bogged down with the idea of formalwear a little bit. Japan has always been (and, in some ways, though speaking as an outsider with a special interest, I hope it always will be somewhere that its rich tradition and history is kept as something important to itself and its people) perhaps more...I guess a way to say it might be that "daily formality" is more culturally the norm? Think of it another way, it would be out of the norm to see a woman in an average American mid-sized city wearing an outfit which looks about something like this, or a pretty dedicated modern form of it:

But that's not really necessarily the case in Japan (and especially not in specific places, like say Kyoto Prefecture?) because it's not often considered unmodern or even oldfashioned (though this can be considered changing depending who you ask) (sorry I know I keep giving asides. its the ADHD) (and the fact that i'm trying to work with about 1200 years of history here on a selfie post with no prep give me a small breather pls.) (if anyone who is japanese or knows more than me spots any minor mistakes pls forgive me i'm just trying to not actually keep people here for six hours like i want to)

Anyway. Sorry. So what I'm saying is that kimono, despite how old they are, are rarely themselves considered overly eyebrow raising to be worn as dailywear on their own. That's because specific forms of kimono are inherently formalwear and are incredibly easy to distinguish as such, and are made with much more ceremony, upkeep, and ritual, and passed down in the family with the same gravity as you would a house. Dailywear kimono can be pretty much as casually worn these days as "I want to be a more flashy than usual than if I just wore a shirt and shorts", especially as like, a photoshoot thing or if you're trying to get spotted as a model/idol/other cultural stuff I don't have time to get into ANYWAY.

The point I've been trying to make for those that don't have the background is that the kimono isn't necessarily this super formal religious hypertraditional thing you might thing, so it's really easy to have fun with it in ways you might not expect, with leads me to the FUN PART WHICH I WANTED TO SAY ALL ALONG WHICH IS FUCKING HARAJUKU BABYYYYY

(To the people who use screenreaders, I apologize but I have no idea how to describe these images in a way which would be useful and concise; if I see someone reblog this post with good descriptions I will edit this out and reblog it again with the descriptions. I'm personally colorblind and know Harajuku fashion is extremely colorful, so I trust others to do this better than I can for you.)

As you can see, kimono fashion is CLEARLY not being killed by formalism! You've got vinyl disc patterns! You've got studs! You've got wigs! You've got corset obi! You've got explorations of how to take Westernization and make it YOURS! The world has come to Japan, and Japan's next generations have all gone "Fucking BET this is gonna be sick" and they have been right.

Anyway everyone go burn a copy of Memoirs of a Geisha, thank you for coming to my TED Talk, this was the weirdest selfie I've ever posted whoops.

This person walks up to you and starts talking about the Japanese history of kimono embellishment styles grew and adapted and changed to fit both cultural beauty standards and political demands of their times. It includes way more mud than you think it should. They talk for 6 hours and you don't think they've blinked yet wyd