#and that japan by no means has a monopoly on that

[leclerc-s]

track six - i can still make the whole place shimmer

series masterlist

JAPAN 2023

QATAR 2023

ines_alonso and charles_leclerc posted to close friends

so proud of you oscarpiastri, sucks that i can't be there with you the only way to celebrate a third championship and a maiden sprint win. this can only go wrong from here monopoly has been cancelled after someone nearly broke the table when he got beat

CHARLES' BIRTHDAY

ines_alonso and oscarpiastri posted new stories

he actually liked this cake, don't listen to whatever oscar has to say birthday boy 🥳🩷 an artist at work...i actually don't know what's she's trying to make

oscarpiastri and ines_alonso posted new stories

inés said we were on a time crunch, now i've lost her inside a flower shop and she's not answering her phone. send help. sos. birthday boy seems to have something devious planned second birthday cake was a success!!!

liked by charles_leclerc, isahernaez, pedri and others

ines_alonso feliz cumpleaños amorcito!! here's to spending more by your side (with osc of course) for many more years 🩷🎉

tagged: charles_leclerc

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charles_leclerc oh mon soleil, i might start crying again. please don't do this to me.

oscarpiastri you'll cry regardless charlie charles_leclerc stop being mean to me, it's my birthday oscarpiastri i got you a cake, that's enough user01 their love language is bullying each other

user02 had to sneak oscar in there somehow

user03 inés loves both her boys. i'm convinced she will never shut up about them user02 i fear you may be right bestie

oscarpiastri happy birthday booger 🧡

charles_leclerc thank you stinker ❤️ pedri i will never understand how this dynamic works arthur_leclerc mate it's been years and i still don't understand it. half the time i'm convinced they hate each other. oscarpiastri it's our love language arthur, leave us alone.

isahernaez feliz cumple charlie 🎉

charles_leclerc gracias isa 😊 user04 brother lost even his ex-girlfriend in the divorce to charles user05 not only is he not winning races but he's also not winning life, shit must suck for him. user06 he just became the only non redbull winner of the entire season, put some respect on his name louieee bitch won the race at the sacrifice of his own teammate, we'll put respect on his name when he fucking earns it. user07 besides this post is about charles, not his fucking whiny ass teammate

user08 i want to know what the product of that picture charles was taking in slide 2

user09 he's the embodiment of that proud boyfriend meme user10 he's just a silly little goofy guy

fernandoalo_oficial feliz cumpleaños to that french guy or whatever

charles_leclerc you sent me an entire paragraph telling me happy birthday this morning you're not fooling anyone fernandoalo_oficial that was supposed to be a secret tonto charles_leclerc oops

jensonbutton HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHARLES!! 🎉🎉 YOU'RE SO OLD NOW!!

charles_leclerc THANK YOU OLD MAN!! user11 the difference between fernando and jenson's comments is so fucking funny to me

maxverstappen1 drinks are on the birthday boy this weekend

charles_leclerc you people are animals when you drink. i should be getting free drinks not the other way around alex_albon well for my birthday i was forced to pay, so you should have to pay this weekend charles_leclerc this a hate crime against me

user12 i can't believe charles is 26, it feels like just yesterday he was starting out as a rookie at sauber

user13 STOP! YOU'RE MAKING ME FEEL OLD!! user12 your bio says you're 16? how the fuck does that make you feel old?? user13 IT JUST DOES OKAY?! DON'T QUESTION ME!

patriciooward FELIZ CUMPLE CABRON!!

charles_leclerc GRACIAS PATITO!! user14 i've seen enough scuderriaferrari get this guy into your car as carlos' replacement. he speaks spanish too user15 and charles actually likes this one

ximena.gomez feliz cumpleaños charlie!!

charles_leclerc gracias ximena! inés said to ask you about the thing ximena.gomez the answer is still no charles_leclerc one chance, just one chance that's all she asks

TEXAS 2023

liked by charles_leclerc, oscarpiastri, francesca.cgomes and others

ines_alonso there's no weekend like austin gp weekend (this message was paid for by daniel ricciardo) (p.s. please wear your fucking boots right. the jeans go on the outside not tucked inside the boots)

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francesca.cgomes you know what they say, save horse ride a cowgirl

ines_alonso yeehaw!! charles_leclerc please stop flirting with her oscarpiastri you're never beating the allegations ines_alonso WHAT ALLEGATIONS?? francesca.cgomes that the boys are a cover up for our super secret romance. ines_alonso oh that, no, that is true pierregasly STOP THIS MADNESS!!

user16 how i love women

charles_leclerc i feel like this is directed towards me...

ines_alonso that outfit is atrocious and i never want to be in your presence when you wear it. justice for andrea. charles_leclerc OSCAR SAID IT LOOKED GOOD! ines_alsonso OSCAR WEARS T-SHIRTS AND SHORTS AND CALLS IT A DAY, NEVER LISTEN TO HIM maxverstappen1 mate, i'm afraid oscar lied to you oscarpiastri i live to see him make an embarrassment of himself in public. charles_leclerc you're sleeping on the couch when we get home alex_albon that's an upgrade from when your drunk ass made him sleep on a piece of turf on your balcony last year landonorris why the fuck am i never invited to anything? first it was the group bowling and now this party? danielricciardo he-who-shall-not-be-named is your friend louieee because you're a snitch bitch that's why asshole logansargeant in their defense the party was before bowling and no one wants to party with peter pettigrew or lord voldemort user17 the harry potter references i'm dying

user18 so are we supposed to act like you didn't embarrass yourself in front of patrick dempsey?

ines_alonso if we could do that, that would be great thanks user18 oh girl, that's going to haunt you for the rest of your life.

danielricciardo thank you inés i'll be venmoing you $150 later today

ines_alonso pleasure doing business with you mr.ricciardo logansargeant he's actually paying you?? he told me i would get a shoutout on his .jpg account ines_alonso i'm his favorite logan, you should know this logansargeant doesn't mean i should like it

jensonbutton i had a blast this weekend, i enjoyed watching you lose your shit on danica patrick this weekend.

ines_alonso you're ass is such a shitstirrer, i'm telling my dad! jensonbutton he sent me an audio of him cackling for a straight 3 minutes. his ass enjoyed that too user18 this is my favorite daughter and step-father duo user19 jenson button is not a step father but the father that stepped UP

lilymhe the cutest cowgirl ever

ines_alonso oh stop it, i'm actually blushing oscarpiastri unfortunately she is actually blushing. charles is glaring at her from across the room lilymhe damn charles_leclerc i took your girl charles_leclerc fight me lily alex_albon come get your girlfriend she's being irrational again alex_albon mate, we are not having this debate ever again. they're in love, let them be. charles_leclerc you're literally no fucking help

user20 love how inés, kika, and lily flirt with each other to piss off the boys

user21 alex is just resigned to the fact that they do this, charles and pierre absolutely lose it every time, meanwhile oscar just lets them have fun to see charles lose it everytime. user22 inés and oscar live for tormenting charles and i love that user20 it's the difference between gen z's born in the 00's to the 90's is so noticeable between the three of them.

MEXICO 2023

BRAZIL 2023

liked by lilymhe, kellypiquet, patriciooward and others

ines_alonso a little photo dump for the girlies as we head into the final race of the triple header

tagged: charles_leclerc, fernandoalo_oficial, oscarpiastri, lewishamilton, maxverstappen1, danielricciardo, alex_albon, lilymhe

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patriciooward nano and honey make a reappearance!!

louieee she's kept them hidden from us for too long ines_alonoso they're camera shy

alex_albon i've missed my godchild nano!!

maxverstappen1 that's my godchild albon! ines_alonso ladies, please, you're both nano's god father alex_albon um, i'm more qualified to take nano if a 'tragic' accident were to happen to any of you maxverstappen1 i have two cats alex, you have a fucking farm, we are not doing this. ines_alonso i've made a horrible mistake

charles_leclerc where's the picture of my mexico podium??

oscarpiastri maybe win a race then she'll post you charles_leclerc you won a sprint! not an actual race! oscarpiastri I STILL WON!

arthur_leclerc i see there's no mention of me taking that 6th picture?? where is my credit alonso??

ines_alonso we bought you dinner and yet you still found a way to complain about taking one picture arthur_leclerc you try fourth-wheeling you, dumb, and dumber louieee it's dumb, dumber, and dumbest maxverstappen1 wait but who's who? oscarpiastri charles is clearly dumbest charles_leclerc this is why people think you hate me oscarpiastri haven't you heard, we're the second coming of seb and mark. multi-21 2.0 incoming alex_albon it was very clearly multi-21 (lovers edition) oscar user23 mark is probably shitting himself seeing this comment oscarpiastri i can confirm that

user24 just a pretty girl with her pretty boyfriends

user25 how to get inés alonso to blush 101 ines_alonso wrong! it's how to get three idiots to blush

kellypiquet i see the picture of the broken table didn't make it to the photo dump

ines_alonso we're never playing monopoly again maxverstappen1 if someone hadn't cheated the table would've never broke! georgerussell63 I DIDN'T CHEAT, YOU JUST SUCK! alex_albon YEAH, TELL HIM GEORGE! user26 i feel like we're missing some important lore here pierregasly post championship and sprint win monopoly is great, until someone (max) breaks the table patriciooward don't forget to specify that it's drunk monopoly alex_albon i feel like i would remember if you were there? patriciooward oh, i wasn't there in person but i was there via facetime. all of you were so fucked up that you don't even remember it

user27 i don't know what's more surprising max breaking a table, george cheating (allegedly) at monopoly, or all of them ending up so drunk they don't remember anything besides a broken table??

user28 definitely the broken table. user29 yeah, the drunkenness is expected from them so is george facing cheating allegations in monopoly.

fernandoalo_oficial i did not give my consent to having that picture posted

ines_alonso too bad old man. you snooze, you lose. user30 the world may be calm (not really) but you can count on inés and fernando always being their chaotic selves

logansargeant this is logan sargeant erasure

ines_alonso oh sorry, the whole world must know i bought you a single shot after your point in austin logansargeant well now i feel bad because it came at the expense of lewis... charles_leclerc what about me?! i'm the reason you got the point! logansargeant you said you wouldn't watch hamilton with me again... charles_leclerc fine, we can watch hamilton again logansargeant 😄😄 user31 a duo i didn't know i needed

danielricciardo is that the picture max and i took when you fell asleep?

ines_alonso yes, i'm never leaving my phone unattended with you two maxverstappen1 that's a consequence that comes with flying airmax, deal with it baby alonso louieee BABY ALONSO!!! ines_alonso oh no, that's going to stick isn't it?? estebanocon they've been calling you baby alonso behind your back for years. jensonbutton we've been calling you baby alonso since 2015 ines_alonso oh my god

lilymhe thank you for beautifully capturing my relationship with alex

ines_alonso you're welcome my love 🩷 alex_albon i'm right here lilymhe shhh alex, it's okay, you're my one and only (sometimes) alex_albon WHAT THE HELL DOES THAT MEAN?! ines_alonso it means that whenever you piss her off she runs to me and kika francesca.cgomes it's true, we kick oscar and charles out of the apartment and force them to spend the night with pierre alex_albon STOP MAKING ME SEEM LIKE A BAD BOYFRIEND! ines_alonso you're a good boyfriend alex, we're just teasing. (got to get ahead of the media)

VEGAS 2023

liked by sabrinacarpenter, louieee, alex_albon and others

ines_alonso a week spent in los angeles and las vegas. met some new friends and hung out with some old friends

tagged: charles_leclerc, oscarpiastri, sabrinacarpenter, schecoperez, logansargeant, alex_albon, lilymhe, jensonbutton, joris__trouche

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maxverstappen1 where the fuck am i?

ines_alonso bitch, you won every race this season, let other people have a chance maxverstappen1 YOU HAVE CHECO ON HERE!! schecoperez me odias o qué? maxverstappen1 no, do not put words in my mouth checo!

user32 ariana (sabrina) what are you doing here?

user33 talk about an unexpected crossover user34 the most unexpected friendship to come out of the 2023 season

louieee ooh, we look so cute

ines_alonso yeah we do!! louieee 🩷🎀

charles_leclerc i'm still mad at you...

oscarpiastri maybe you shouldn't go around telling us to call you charles leclerc-verstappen maxverstappen1 well now i'm max leclerc-verstappen redbullracing max, we can't do this again, the rumors just stopped oscarpiastri i know where you live scuderiaferrari here we go again (the rumors never stopped) mclaren oscar, please refrain from threatening fellow drivers user35 they're just so tired of having to pr train oscar user36 we're talking about the kid who willingly admitted he pushed inés off the track when they were karting because they had a bet going on and he didn't want to lose

sabrinacarpenter it was a delight to meet you and sharles

ines_alonso enough to get a nonsense outro?? sabrinacarpenter woah, take me out on a date first ines_alonso name a time and place baby 😏 charles_leclerc i can fight... oscarpiastri i can laugh as you take charles down... sabrinacarpenter oscar's my favorite now charles_leclerc of course he is

jensonbutton WHERE DID YOU GET THAT PICTURE??

ines_alonso it's a screenshot from the sky sports broadcast. it's the face i make whenever i'm forced to work with that woman jensonbutton oh my god ines_alonso it's my favorite f1 meme now

charles_leclerc now that i'm no longer upset, you look beautiful ma belle 🩷

ines_alonso thank you bebe ❤️ user37 he's trying to get back in her good graces guys oscarpiastri ass kisser charles_leclerc YOU WON'T LET ME GET A DOG alex_albon jeez oscar, let the guy get a dog oscarpiastri HE'S THE ONE WHO SAID NO MORE PETS AFTER HONEY!

logansargeant LET'S GO!! I'M OUT OF THE TRENCHES!!

patriciooward FROM THE TRENCHES WE RISE!! user38 now this, this is my favorite duo inés alonso has given us

lilymhe i look great and alex is there

francesca.cgomes she's everything and he's just ken ines_alonso the realest comment here sabrinacarpenter girls who are everything and boyfriends who are just ken pierregasly our job is just car

joris__trouche he did not want to let go of mimi

ines_alonso he genuinely cried when we left charles_leclerc STOP EXPOSING ME!! oscarpiastri you called me sobbing because you were leaving mimi behind maxverstappen1 just get him a dog oscar oscarpiastri he dug his own grave max

user39 the random jenson meme is sending me

user40 the fact that both of them have pulled the same face while working with d*nica user41 they're further proving the buttlonso lovechild allegations because i feel like fernando has also pulled the same face. user39 oh my god you're so right

francesca.cgomes just a pretty girl living her best life

ines_alonso i'm blushing oscarpiastri can confirm she is blushing charles_leclerc i'm so done. user42 free my guy user42 not from the relationship but from his partners (inés) flirting with the girls (kika, lily, sabrina) user43 nah, my guy brought this onto himself by flirting with max verstappen at every single fucking opportunity liked by ines_alonso and oscarpiastri

¡taglist!

@minmira95 // @lesliiieeeee // @vroomvroommuppett // @prongsvault // @justtprachisblog // @scuderiadevils // @cataf1 // @chezmardybum // @formulaal // @lilsiz // @norstappenvibes // @ironspdy // @nikfigueiredo @hinamesgigantica // @niniluvsainz // @matchaverse // @fakeikeastore // @theseus-jpg // @six-call // @81folklore // @emppusofi // @luvsforme // @nichmeddar // @loloekie // @luvpedro // @donttouchthegnote // @nothaqks // @inferiusreggie // @mochimommy2002 // @rach3164 // @clove08 // @clove0 // @lillysbigwilly // @jenxjar // @blupblupfish // @thereadinggremlin05 // @meowiarty // @magical-spit // @camdensreg // @laneyspaulding19 // @ocyeanicc // @yelenasloverrrrr // @percervall // @blushmimi // @spilled-coffee-cup // @greantii // @ietss // @yeanoskrrt // @brakingboundaries

¡not taggable!

@ashlovestoread1411 // @books-thingys-andstuff // @ale-522 // @aandreea_2005 // @Katness1 // @mgmoore // @Scott-McCall-could-lift-mjolnir // @xxx-betty // @ririyulife // @landonorizzz // @moldyshorts1997 // @itstimeforutogo // @yar16 // @em-andemm // @killjoycra // @◇Heart- Trees◇ //@michelleyw81

¡leclerc-s speaks!

unfortunately with the current state of the us, this is my only escape. i don't know why it became so unhinged but i remember people joking about max and charles getting married and this is a fanfic so i thought, why the fuck not?? IT'S ALL JOKES PEOPLE!!

¡disclaimer!

this is in no way making assumptions about the people involved in this story, this is all fake. it is a fanfiction please don't take any of what is said seriously. this is all for entertainment purposes and as a creative outlet for me. enjoy!

[tokiro07]

Ichi the Witch ch.11 thoughts

[WitchCon 2024]

(Topics: praise - comedy, narrative progression, world building, thematic analysis - freedom vs. order, predictions)

Make 'Em Laugh

Y'know, for a chapter that was like...90% political dialogue and exposition, this still managed to end up being one of the funnier chapters so far: Desscaras' report being a comic book that makes her look like the hero and Shirabedonna just throwing it away, Ichi straight up leaving the Zoom call to get food, Togeice goofing up her dramatic entrance; and that's not even every funny bit from this chapter

Handled wrong, this could have come off as a super dry and meandering chapter, but for the sake of setting up the conflict of revealing Ichi's existence to the world, I think an in-depth analysis of both sides of the argument was necessary

Better to Ask Permission than Forgiveness

While I agree with Togeice that Shirabedonna's conclusions are being made on too few datapoints (one grateful village and three unusually quick hunts in only two weeks), I'm also inclined to agree with Shirabedonna that this is a tricky situation to maintain

The longer Mantinel tries to hide Ichi, the more contradictions and public distrust are bound to pile up. Coming up with excuses later to explain every little detail will just make discussing it more difficult, and Mantinel will only look more suspicious. On the other hand, coming clean now less than a month in should be fairly understandable given the implications of Ichi being a male Witch that acquired Uroro - some people will be mad, sure, but most people would probably be forgiving of the caution exercised

More than that, though, Mantinel's acquisition of the first male Witch would do wonders for their reputation, as that's a historic discovery. Even if he ends up being dangerous, the narrative wouldn't be too hard to spin in Mantinel's favor, as no one could have predicted how a male Witch would behave

The fun thing about this argument to me, though, is the acknowledgment of other Witch organizations

Frog in the Well

We haven't been shown a world map or anything yet, so we don't really have any sense of scale to this world, but I wouldn't have been too surprised either way if either Mantinel had a monopoly on Witch administration or if they were just one of many such organizations

The acknowledgment of an equivalent of Japan last week was a good clue that there was more to this world than...whatever this one country is called, but we still know nothing about this fantasy-Japan's society other than that they still have sashimi

Do they have their own Witches Association? Do they even have Magiks there in the first place, or are they endemic to the current focus country?

Black Clover kept expanding to reveal that other nations had different relationships with magic, while JJK revealed that Curses pretty much only exist in Japan for...some reason. I would imagine that this is more like the former, but the realization that one nation is hoarding the concept of magic would be pretty wild, wouldn't it?

Then there's the fact that ch.1 told us that there's only a 0.001% chance of a man being able to acquire magic even if he did have the capacity to pass a trial and physically handle casting spells. That seems like a low number, but...it's one in a thousand

For every thousand men, one of them has the capacity to acquire magic. Presumably this number is compounded by the ability to use it, since the narration said there were so many other factors that had to line up perfectly first, but that just means that the chances of finding another man with the potential to overcome those factors aren't actually all that slim

EDIT: It's been brought to my attention that I goofed the math and this is one in a hundred thousand, but my point stands! I thought it was going to be like one in a million or even a billion, and it ended up being a lot more generous than I anticipated! In our world, that would still be 40,000 men with the capacity for magic!

In other words, it's only a matter of time until another male Witch is found

From there, the method for cultivating male Witches will likely start to become more widespread, and eventually the proportion of female to male Witches should approach an equilibrium

That's probably looking too far ahead, though. That's the kind of thing that would probably take several generations to pass, so while we may have like...a dozen male Witches by the end, they probably won't be a normal part of Witch society until a far-flung epilogue

For now, I'd like to focus on the worldbuilding that we actually received this chapter: that Ichi's acquisition rate is ridiculous

Gotta Go Fast

Ichi has three Magiks under his belt in less than two weeks, and Shirabedonna tells us that one week is on the fast end for a hunt. That seems especially strange to me, since one of the first trials we're ever told of was only set for an hour, but I suppose that figure is based on the number of attempts and the prep-time? It's easy to assume "oh, they got it one," but this statement gives the impression that almost no one acquires a Magik on their first try

I do think it kind of skews our perceptions to tell us the upper and lower limits of one week and ten years without also giving us an average or at least a mean. All she says is "some take X amount of time," like that means anything statistically...

It also doesn't help that the first hunt we actually saw would have been over almost immediately had it not been for the circumstances: Desscaras immediately stabbed Uroro's heart, and only failed to pierce it because she was a woman. Now, Desscaras is likely an outlier herself because she's ostensibly the strongest living Witch, but sub-10 minutes is nowhere near a full week!

Again, it's entirely possible that the hunt for Uroro was on a constant timer since Mantinel first started trying, so that would be an extreme circumstance no matter what. I suppose in a sense that would mean Ichi has the record for clearing both the shortest and longest hunts?

But just being fast or lucky doesn't make Ichi an expert, and it's only a matter of time until he hits a wall where his unique perspective fails to compensate for his lack of experience in the field he's so suddenly found himself in

Rising to the Level of Your Incompetence

Togeice is being presented as morally incorrect here, with her talk of reforming Ichi into a "proper Witch" being accompanied by a vision of all of Ichi's best qualities being sanded down to a bland scholarly appearance, but that doesn't mean that she doesn't have a point

Ichi's lack of experience makes him something akin to an outsider artist, which is what allows him to discover unconventional methods within the field, but it also means that he's not familiar with the pitfalls of the profession. Ichi took Hisame's challenge in a different direction than what was intended by the rules; it worked out, but if Hisame hadn't been impressed with this loophole, then that gamble would've gotten everyone present killed. Since she expressed that she wanted to attack another village as a palette cleanser, it's entirely possible that she could have taken this approach as an insult and gone on an even worse rampage after the fact

In fact, Ichi going straight for attacking Hisame could have resulted in her not even bothering to issue her trial, which would have effectively made her invincible in the resulting combat encounter. Perhaps Magiks don't work that way and they have to share their trial in order to maintain their power, but there's no precedent for that yet, so Ichi's ignorant and rash behavior could have sabotaged the entire mission

There's also the possibility that Ichi will continue to acquire stronger and stronger spells that he's less and less equipped to control and will cause some kind of huge disaster. He already used Parthion to create an entire new ecosystem on Druid Mountain, which could well have untold consequences on the local wildlife and nearby settlements, so what's to stop him from naively trying to save a desert village with Poltata and just washing them all away?

Togeice's desire to force her vision of order onto Ichi is obviously wrong and potentially detrimental to Ichi's value, but she is right that he's not capable of wielding his powers effectively or responsibly. Even if Ichi is a perfectly moral and upstanding Witch, if his trump card will only result in him being rendered unconscious for three days, then he's only going to be a liability when the time comes to use it against a major threat

The goal then should be to cultivate Ichi's sense of freedom and experience using magic while also giving him a clear sense of the responsibility that he carries. Fortunately, he's already demonstrated the capacity for that with his strict adherence to Death for Death, but unless he can prove to Togeice that he already has the discipline she's looking for, she won't be able to trust such an unknown with her back

Fortunately, the upcoming challenge provides the perfect opportunity for Togeice to get to know Ichi

Just a Little Guy

It was pointed out to me by @wickedsick that because the mushroom Magik isn't a human-hater, it likely doesn't hold any ill intent towards humans and doesn't go out of his way to hurt them, and therefore shouldn't trigger Death for Death. This would likely prevent Ichi from harming it, and in turn give Togeice the opportunity to take the win

The way I see it, there's five ways that this could go

Ichi loses because the mushroom isn't hurting anyone and he can't bring himself to hunt it -> school arc, Ichi learns valuable lessons, though he doesn't fundamentally change the way that Togeice wants him to

Ichi is just hopelessly outclassed and decides he has plenty to learn from Togeice and Mantinel -> same outcome as above

The circumstances of Ichi's refusal to hunt the mushroom somehow prove to Togeice that he's already plenty disciplined -> she wins, but still lets him go free because she doesn't believe she has anything to teach him after all

The nature of the trial doesn't necessitate Death for Death, and Ichi wins solely through his specific skillset -> Togeice realizes that she was not equipped for this specific scenario and different approaches will always be necessary for different circumstances, so she drops her objection

Togeice accidentally goads the mushroom into triggering Death for Death and realizes that it was her irresponsibility that endangered people, not Ichi's -> same outcome as above

For sure, there are more nuanced outcomes available, but those seem like the most likely either for developing the themes of the story or driving the plot in a specific direction. I'm definitely open to whichever route Nishi chooses to take, as I think that the two broadest outcomes of Ichi going or not going to school both provide interesting opportunities for the story going forward. Whichever she chooses, I have faith in Nishi that it'll be a fun time

Until next time, let's enjoy life!

[sevault-canyon]

ms appleton was nowhere close to having total control over soy sauce: perspectives on food and postwar japan

there's a popular post going around this month by @inneskeeper about how a single person changed japanese soy sauce forever. i've made my own post showing why this the story is incomplete and based on some factual inaccuracies, but i will be honest in saying that i would not be so engaged in responding to this post if it were not wrapped in a shockingly reductive narrative. i'll use this quote from op as a summary of the general idea they're trying to convey:

[...] I think that it is incredibly important that more people in the world are aware that leading into the Cold War, Japan was forcibly coerced into giving total power over a significant cultural touchstone/ingredient/way of life to a single foreigner who had a complete lack of respect for what shoyu is, even going so far as to say "I want to change Japan's taste preferences". I cannot imagine a more direct and blunt parallel to settler-colonialism mindset. I truly cannot. [link]

i will attempt give a larger view of that era and convey why this singular view is at best oversimplifying and at worst an incorrect projection of other trends upon what is an almost unique event in history.

note: i am not an academic historian; i will do my best to provide sources, but they will mostly be secondary.

i will use the three i's presented by prof. ian shapiro of yale, interests, institutions, and ideals, as lenses through which i will provide a more holistic view of the events at hand:

tl;dr:

the united states did not have uniform interests entering the cold war and the occupiers had a varying set of visions for japanese society and economy.

both the japanese public, the american occupation, and the japanese civil government had a more important goal: preventing hunger. japan was not coerced into handing over a tradition; it was suffering the consequences of its own colonial empire-building.

both countries were interested in building a healthy consumer economy, and ultimately the tastes of the public held most sway.

the idea of "a guy" being in charge of things has been a common theme in american foreign policy, but the idea that "the guy" was singularly responsible for massive change belies american perspectives and biases that often misrepresent the truth abroad.

i - ideals

i think this lens is maybe the most sympathetic to @inneskeeper's narrative: it makes sense that a settler-colonial nation with a deep root of anglo-protestant self-righteousness and evangelical tendencies would want to impose its vision of society upon a defeated foe. that said, it is not the only ideology at play in this situation, from both japan and the usa.

let's talk about main value the united states likes to impose upon foreign societies: democracy capitalism. i think what is interesting here is that this single word can have multiple interpretations in practice, and we can use this soy sauce story to look at the diversity in opinion of what capitalism means.

first, a capitalism tied to liberal ideals: a free and open market without monopolies as a promoter of egalitarianism. this concept was brought to japan by many of the administrators in the american occupation that have previously observed or enacted roosevelt's new deal in the aftermath of the great depression. [1, p.57-58; 2, p.98] we see a focus on trust-busting and a strong aversion to any significantly concentrated capital. pre-war japan was dominated by structures known as 財閥 zaibatsu, vertically integrated groups that are helmed by a family-controlled holding company owning a set of subsidiaries in banking and industry with interlocking stock ownership and directorship. the zaibatsu structures, emerging since the late edo and early meiji periods, have become inextricably linked to building the japanese imperial war machine (though somewhat forcibly). [3] on the american side, as a result, certain american elements viewed trust-busting as a way to democratize japan through the economy. [2, p.34; 4, p.19; 5, IV-2b] this included maj. gen. marquat, ms. appleton's boss at the ghq/scap economic and scientific section (ess). [4, p.31] japan's first postwar prime minister, shigeru yoshida, and his ministry of foreign affairs, seemed to agree with the deconcentration of capital. [4, p.20] this is not to say that the americans were particularly sympathetic, as gen. macarthur and others were quite convinced of the japanese population's inability to shed its feudal tendencies; rather, the americans found an opportunity to build a new liberal, democratic society to their liking. and yes, there was some punitive intent; the united states and allies did just finish fighting an 8-year-long war against an expanding empire. [4, p.30]

opposite the liberal view is the conservative, if not pragmatic, ideal of capitalism: as a bulwark against communism. japan was an industrialized nation with a developed economy, and as far as the looming cold war is involved, the united states wants both a healthy consumer economy and one that is integrated in the new world economy (i.e. one with american interests as stakeholders). [4, p.31-32, 44] if "deconcentration" of capital, as it was called by the occupiers, were to run its course, some americans (and lobbyists linked to japanese industry) feared that japanese society would be thrown into chaos, or worse, the rapprochement with the soviets under a socialist economy. [4, p.22, 32] the victors did initially break up many of the tightly-woven zaibatsu, but the overall health of the economy was eventually prioritized as a bulwark against communism, thus the number of zaibatsu slated for dismantling was reduced, and the main deconcentration proposal (FEC-230) was disavowed. [4, p. 32]

all this debate within the american occupation, plus some interjections from the japanese business community, about the nature of the rebuilding japanese market and economy was held from 1946 to 1948. this culminated in the "reverse course," in which cold war objectives won out in occupation policy, though the free market as a liberalizing principle was not discarded. [4, p.44-46] in the same space, there existed both a punitive drive to disperse the old japanese economic engine and a desire to build a new, genuinely local, consumer society as a protection against communism.

“Nothing will serve better to win the Japanese people over to a peaceful, democratic way of life than the discovery that it brings rewards in the way of better living and increasing economic security.” - col. r.m. cheseldine, u.s. war department [4, p.44]

it is important to distinguish this from the colonialist drive, which is to capture markets and resources for the sole benefit of the homeland.

in the context of soy sauce, the release by ghq/scap of american soybeans to japan was announced in 1948, after the reverse course has taken hold. [6, p.157] in addition, kikkoman was not even a zaibatsu, it was a company with roots in family ownership, vertically-integrated structures, and eventually found to engage in monopolistic practices, but was not of a large enough scale or diversification to qualify. [7, ch.3] the list of zaibatsu is actually quite limited. [wiki] all this meant that the anti-trust case brought against noda shōyu k.k. (kikkoman's predecessor) in 1954 in the tokyo high court is an entirely domestic affair (scap handed over power in 1949 and the position was abolished in 1952). [8, p.53] that said, the 1957 ruling against noda in noda shōyu k.k. v. japan fair trade commission (jftc) was the result of an aberrant and unfavourable reading of the act on prohibition of private monopolization and maintenance of fair trade, article 3; the act was passed in 1947, when scap was in power. [8, p.53] since article 3 is quite short ("an enterprise must not effect private monopolization or unreasonable restraint of trade."), it was open to wide interpretation, leading to the argument by the jftc that price-fixing as a leading player in an industry constituted monopolistic behaviour. [9] in that sense, we can see echoes of the debate around monopolies from the occupation era.

through the lens of ideals, we can see that in the periphery of this story, there is a friction between competing visions of capitalism in practice. in that sense, while it agrees that the usa had some desire to reshape a foreign country to its own ideals, it also shows how @inneskeeper's narrative unduly reduces the american occupation to a singular actor with singular motives, and one that is akin to colonial empires in other parts of history.

research questions:

did american attitudes towards monopolies affect the free distribution of semichemical fermentation methods? [6, p.160]

what direct links can we make between occupation-era attitudes towards monopolization and japanese governance regarding the food industry?

ii - institutions

from the point of view of institutions (i use the term loosely), it's a lot more apparent how the situation has a lot more factors flowing in many directions. i will largely focus on three structures: the japanese food industry, the allied victors, and the japanese civil government.

when discussing the food industry, it's important to note that this is what sustains the inhabitants of a place; while condiments are a trivial part of sustenance, the way it is made and its ebbs and flows and shed a lot of light onto the needs of people. japan, since the early 20th century, had been a country that could not sustain itself off the resources of its home islands. as a colonial empire, it relied on food imports from korea and taiwan, and in the 20s and 30s pursued the low-lying plains of manchuria (northeastern china). this reflects in its soybean consumption as well: japan consumed about 1 million tons of soy each year in the 1930s, and at least two-thirds of it was imported from the colonies or manchukuo (the puppet régime ruling machuria). [10] within what we now call the "home islands" of japan, hokkaido, the one remaining settler-colony of japan to this day, produces the most out of all regions. [11, p.4]

(time for some math: [10] states that about 949 000 tons of soy sauce was consumed in japan per year in the mid-1930s. a quick look at soy sauce recipes reveals that 1kg of soy produces about 4 litres (and assuming about 4kg due to density of water) of sauce. with the 4:1 ratio, we can therefore estimate that about 237 000 tons of soy was used per year to make sauce immediately before the war.)

the end of the japanese empire meant losing direct access to those production areas: manchuria was returned to china, and korea and taiwan were placed under various allied (usa, china, ussr) administrations. with japan needing to supply its troops over an ever-growing front line, caloric intake by the average japanese already dropped well below necessary levels for an adult by 1944. [12] by 1946, the defeated nation was at the brink of starvation. american analysis towards the end of wwii determined that soybean production in the home islands could not rise beyond its pre-war levels without sacrificing other land use. [11, p.5] in order to survive, the soy industry needed to replace about 70% of its sources in short order without encroaching upon other agricultural sectors necessary to sustain life. there was immense pressure.

regarding the allies: the japanese empire was largely carved up by three victors, china, the ussr, and the usa. the ussr, having been the least active in the defeat of japan, with its most important contribution being the verbal threat of invasion, was not actively threatening aside from the spectre of spreading communism (as mentioned in part i). china, on the other hand, regained the lands that produced much of the food japan was consuming. while the republic of china (ruled by the kmt) was still in power, it was able to continue supplying food to neighbouring nations. [14] however, civil war broke out between the kmt government and the communists almost immediately after the end of wwii. [13] 1948 saw active fighting in northern china, thus hampering any exports of food; the kmt régime collapsed and fled to taiwan in 1949, and the communist government stopped all trade with the western bloc at the outbreak of the korean war in 1950. [14] with china being unable to supply japan, there is only one remaining option for food imports: the usa. soybean imports in the usa was generally coordinated by the garioa program and through private trade. american exports of soybean to japan skyrocketed from 6000 tons in 1946 and 34600 tons in 1947 to 119500 tons (about 12% of pre-war consumption) in 1948, 152500 tons in 1949 (almost all imports to japan that year), and 305000 tons in 1950. [15, p.67, 69] japan itself likely produced between 300 000 and 450 000 tons of soybeans each year, which meant that in 1947-48 japan was consuming definitively less than two-thirds of its pre-war consumption. the soy industry as a whole, and certainly the soy sauce industry, was in a desperate state.

unlike the collapsed german and italian régimes, the japanese government retained a functioning structure after the rapid end to hostilities in the pacific theatre. [16, p.194] this meant that instead of being tasked with the groundwork of running a country, the allied powers had an existing civil government to administer directives and policies; the u.s. eighth army served as an enforcement and reporting arm of scap. [16, p.195-197] during the war, from 1939 to 1942, the imperial government instituted various food control laws that collected and distributed food from producers under a quota system. [17, p.221] such quotas, as as well as rationing, persisted in the immediate months after allied victory. however, with the surrender of japan, public confidence in the government plummeted, significantly hampering its ability to administer food. the average caloric value of rations in tokyo could only fulfill about a third of an adult's needs; hungry city-dwellers increasingly opted to buy on the black market (which had poached imperial military stock) or physically go to the countryside to acquire food directly from farmers outside of government rationing. [18, p.30-31; 19, p.835, 843] scap policy directed the japanese government to "reinstate" agricultural quotas, and in 1946, it issued the emergency imperial food ordinance which empowered government expropriation of food for the production quota and enforcement of such policies; the u.s. eighth army participated in enforcing the policy within the civil administration. [17; 18] the yoshida government,the first democratically elected administration in the new state of japan, was keenly aware of the necessity of food in rehabilitating japan, as well as the importance of competing against the black market in order to once again establish the rule of law. [18] as such, the tight government control of domestic food production lasted much longer than in other industries, causing pressure for "non-essential" segments like the seasoning industry.

(as an aside, in line with certain ideas discussed in part i, scap directed land reform which redistributed much of the arable land in japan, increasing productivity of land and eliminating the interest of large landowners thought to be threatening to democracy. [18])

as discussed in my previous post, chemical alternatives to fermented soy sauce have been developed since the early 20th century. [6] during the war, substitute methods (especially amino acid-based ones, e.g. hvp or mixed hvp-honjozo) replaced fermented honjozo* methods as resources became more scarce. [20]

*honjōzō (本醸造) means "genuinely fermented".

in early 1948, it was announced that 20 000 tons of soybean meal would be made available by the eroa fund for the purpose of making seasonings, to be allocated by ms appleton at ghq/scap. [14; 6, p.159] this amount is only about 10% of the soybean consumption of soy sauce manufacturers before the war. on the surface, for an industry marginalized by the need to stave off starvation and maintain social stability, securing the imported soybean meal can be seen as a life-or-death situation. however, given the wartime state of sauce production, the struggle to acquire the soybean meal is more akin to an attempt to return to fully soy-based fermentation methods. the invention of the semichemical #2 method which increased soy usage productivity and secured most of the soybean meal for the soy sauce industry can be seen as a faster intermediate step to return to traditional fermented methods used before the war. it's also important to note that over 80% of soy sauce in japan has returned to traditional honjozo production, and that large companies such as kikkoman and yamasa have attempted to return to honjozo methods as early as the late 1950s. [20]

from this point of view, it does not seem particularly apparent that a single administrator had the power to change an industry, but rather her decisions were the impetus for developments to happen within the domestic industry. ultimately, japan's soy sauce industry was suffering the consequences of its industrialization and the failure of its colonial experiment. in a wider view, we can see this as a detail in the friction between two imperial projects. (consider this: out of the major parties involved, japan, china, usa, ussr, and other minor players in the pacific war, gb, netherlands, france, all of them entered the 20th century with imperial projects.)

research questions:

are there japanese sources that can verify production and imports during the 1940s?

there was a soy sauce control corporation formed by the imperial government in 1942 (全国醤油統制株式会社) that dictated resource allocation and quotas for the soy sauce industry. it seemed to have only been dissolved in 1948. what was its role after the war and what relationship did it have with scap?

iii - interests

as for interests, i will limit its scope to answering "who materially benefits." the groups at play are generally the same as the previous part, so i will be brief in elaboration.

the most obvious interest is that of the japanese public: their main material benefit in the late 1940s is to be nourished enough to stay alive (see part ii). while soy sauce is an important part of japanese cuisine, as a condiment, it is a nutritionally trivial part of its diet. it is then understandable, that japanese society and scap would be willing to temporarily sacrifice an immediate return to traditional production in favour of methods that would leave more food for direct consumption.

the next interest to discuss is that of the soy sauce industry, and its desire to return to honjozo (traditionally fermented) production after a period of scarcity during and after the war. it is important to note that regarding the 20 000 tons of soybean meal to be allocated by scap in 1948, the competitor to the soy sauce industry for those resources is the amino acid industry (msg, etc.). [6, p.159] with soybeans hard to come by, the soy sauce industry would have been under immense pressure to aquire the soybean meal distributed as aid. with kikkoman's development of semichemical #2 method, the scap decisionmakers reconsidered an earlier uneven distribution of soybean meal in favour of the amino acid producers. [6, p.160] what resulted next was talk between representatives of the two competing industries, facilitated by the americans. [6, p.160] it is important that taste trials were conducted, with wide support for the new semi-chemical method by the polled public. [6, p.160] at every step of the decision-making process, japanese interests were consulted by scap.

it is also important to mention the "japan lobby" in washington a set of interest groups and lobbyists representing japanese business as to illustrate the bidirectionality of influence in postwar japan. [21] this group arose from the aftermath of the first zaibatsu dissolutions. some key achievements of their advocacy activities include the disavowal of the fec-230 policy proposal from the allied powers (against gen. macarthur's wishes!), and adding revisions to scap's economic deconcentration program. it is plausible that this lobbying set had influence with scap and washington regarding soy sauce, given the tight-knit nature of the japanese business class. that said, the direct link between the japan lobby and soy sauce, should it exist, necessitates further research.

i think it is necessary to analyze from the lens of interests @inneskeeper's claim of the united states occupation forcibly seizing and making changes to a traditional food industry. it is known that the united states seeks to build a strong consumer economy that is open to american investment and imports of american products. [18, p.40] given that the soybean meal managed by scap in 1948 was aid, it would've been in the american interest to support either industry, since they would both eventually rely on american imports once the period of scarcity ends (china would soon cease ot be a reliable exporter of food). there is nothing related to soy sauce that would've been against american interests, business or political, whereas food scarcity has been a real problem facing the japanese and allied administration. in this case, the chief american interest is to stabilize japan as a society against two perceived social enemies: communism on the left and a renewed militarism borne of resentment on the right. with the task of placating a hungry and defeated populace, producing large amounts of soy sauce that is palatable to the public using minimal aid material would be an interest in and of itself for the americans. i think it could be argued whether comments made by americans about how easily japanese tastes can be swayed are insensitive and out of line, but it is also true that the public had much more pressing needs than condiment purity.

@inneskeeper also mentioned the yakuza in some of their posts as a possible interest group involved. the informal economy grew to encompass all strata near the end of the war and immediately afterwards; most urbanites were forced to use the black market to stave off hunger. [19] the yakuza, mafia-like organizations that would operate somewhat openly in the decades before the war, entered the fray as groups that managed informal vendors. [22, p.632] racketeering became rampant in the years immediately after japanese surrender due to shortages and irregular flows of necessities such as food, but as the economy recovered entering the 1950s, the yakuza moved to more conventional underworld enterprises such as as gambling, prostitution, and nightlife. [22, 23] it also moved towards the underbelly of political life, becoming an actor in anti-left politics. [22] we know that the changes to soy sauce production happened in the small window between the end of the war and the earnest start of economic recovery, so it is possible that parties involved would have to deal with the yakuza as a necessary source of material. however, since their sights are set on the industries traditionally associated with the underworld, it would be a stretch to say that they had any real say in the proceedings of this development beyond being one additional obstacle to the soy sauce industry in acquiring ingredients. that said, using a singular product can be very useful as a window into how the yakuza may have coerced informal food distribution channels.

research questions:

what specific outcomes were agreed upon at the "shoda-ouchi conference" between the soy sauce and amino acid manufacturing industries? [6, p.160]

how did the japan lobby affect or facilitate changes in the soy sauce industry?

how did the yakuza affect the informal food economy?

iv - individuals

one thing that made the original story by @inneskeeper so appealing to the tumblr public is the proposition that a single person may have changed japanese soy sauce forever.

it bears repeating that major industrial changes (and i would challenge the categorization of this soy sauce happening as "major" in comparison to the general state of japan in the 1940s) are often the culmination of many small decisions from a wide set of actors. what is interesting about the idea of a singular "manipulator" is that it mirrors a common trope in american foreign policy: the idea of "our guy" (e.g. "our guy in afghanistan" [24, p.277], "our guy in panama" [25], etc.), that is, a singular handler for american interests in a foreign theatre of operations. in this case, since the country at hand is managed by an american occupation, "our guy" in the japanese soy sauce industry is an american, ms. blanche appleton. while american policy sometimes prefers to use this paradigm, it does not necessarily mean it works, not is the wishful american imagination correct when it comes to situations on the ground (see citations above). this trope may also possibly be borne of the oft-cited concept of "american individualism," a value that is as much a contradiction (how can a single person be free to change the world as they see fit, while also live in a world free from the will of others?) as it is a real part of american culture.

in the faulty narrative of ms. appleton, we also see a similar contradiction: how can a foreign woman who is allegedly willingly unfamiliar (as it turns out, probably not true [6, p.160]) with the native culture be in total control of an entire element of its cuisine? what is the meaning of "total power": did she personally decide taste profile of the condiment to her tastes, coerce various native parties to the will of the americans (what will?), or facilitate the solution to a complex resource distribution problem? in any case (except the fancifully implausible first case), what is the singular role of ms appleton? did power flow from her, or through her? perhaps a more interesting way to look at this problem is to ask what would have happened if someone else were in ms. appleton's place. would their personal influence be significant enough as to change the outcome? if so, what would have been the extent of the changes? (we can maybe look at the facilitation of the "shoda-ouchi conference" as one point. [6, p.160]) conversely, what would have remained the same as the various parties involved influenced the situation?

a more helpful view is to see the balance between the ideas, institutions, and interests behind each decision that would paint a more complete picture of this historical era. perhaps it is not as flashy to break down a chapter in culinary history as the convergence of multiple influences, but it is the one that does history most justice.

discussion questions

this is for the test

how significant was the dearth of food in late 1940s japan to this situation, and what similar adaptations of food cultures occurred in other post-wwii nations?

what factors from imperial japan, whether before the sino-japanese war or during the war, influenced this situation?

is there any part of this development that forshadows the economic rehabilitation and subsequent growth of japan in the latter half of the 20th century? if so, how?

what american attitudes were at play in this situation, and what japanese attitudes (if you're familiar) were involved as well?

what influence did china, as the originator of soy sauce, a major source of food in east asia, and a significant allied power, have on postwar japan and how did it influence the development of the japanese variants of soy sauce?

what was the influence of the japanese public's tastes?

bibliography:

apologies for the weird mix of ieee inline and mla bibliography formats, ieee works best with hypertext but doesnt make much sense for non-stem subjects.

Allinson, G. D. Japan's postwar history, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004. [link]

Moore, R. A., & D. L. Robinson. Partners for Democracy : Crafting the New Japanese State under MacArthur, Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, Incorporated, 2002. [avail. at libraries]

Okazaki, T. “The Japanese Firm Under the Wartime Planned Economy,” in The Japanese Firm: Sources of Competitive Strength, edited by M. Aoki and R. Dore, Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1994. [link, requires academic access]

Sugita, Y. Pitfall or panacea : the irony of US power in occupied Japan 1945-1952, New York: Routledge, 2003. [avail. at libraries]

State-War-Navy Coordinating Committee. United States Initial Post-Surrender Policy for Japan (SWNCC150/4), 1945. [link]

Oguri, T. "醤油製造技術の系統化調査 Development of Soy sauce Manufacturing Technologies" in 国立科学博物館技術の系統化調査報告, Tokyo: National Museum of Nature and Science, 2008. [link; translation of excerpts in an earlier post]

Fruin, W. M. The Japanese Enterprise System: Competitive Strategies and Cooperative Structures, Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1994. [link]

Haley, J. O. "Marketing and Antitrust in Japan" in Hastings Int'l & Comp.L. Rev. 51 Vol. 2 No. 1, San Francisco: UC Hastings Law, 1979. [link]

Japan, National Diet. Act on Prohibition of Private Monopolization and Maintenance of Fair Trade (Act No. 54 of April 14, 1947), Tokyo: National Diet, 14 Apr. 1947 [link]

Nakamura, H. "The Japanese Soybean Market" in Illinois Agricultural Economics Vol. 1, No. 2, Milwaukee, WI: Agricultural & Applied Economics Association, 1961. [link]

United States of America, Tariff Commission. Japanese trade studies : special industry analysis no. 13, Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1944-45. [link]

United States of America, Strategic Bombing Survey. Summary Report (Pacific War), Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1946. [link]

Crisis, Time, 1944. [link]

Hirano, M. "Using American Soybeans in the Japanese Economy" in The Soybean Digest Vol. 12 Iss. 11, Cleveland, OH: Penton, 1952. [link]

United States of America, Department of Agriculture, Foreign Agricultural Service. United States Farm Products In Foreign Trade, Statistical Bulletin No. 112, Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Agriculture, 1953. [link]

General Staff of Gen. D. MacArthur. Reports of General MacArthur - MacArthur in Japan: The Occupation: Military Phase Volume I Supplement, Washington, DC: Center for Military History, 1966, reprinted 1994. [link]

Smith, H.F. (Chief, Food Branch, Price and Distribution Division, ESS, SCAP) "Food Controls in Occupied Japan" in Agricultural History Vol. 23, No. 3, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1949 [link]

Fuchs, S. J. "Feeding the Japanese: Food policy, land reform, and Japan’s economic recovery" in Democracy in Occupied Japan: The U.S. Occupation and Japanese Politics and Society, edited by M. E. Caprio and Y. Sugita, New York: Routledge, 2007. [link]

Griffiths, O. "Need, Greed, and Protest in Japan's Black Market, 1938-1949" in Journal of Social History Vol. 35, No. 4, Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 2002. [link]

Oya, Y. "みそ製造業の構造変化とその要因" in 食品経済研究 第30号 (Bulletin of the Department of Food Economics, Nihon University), Tokyo: Nihon University, 2002. [link]

Schonberger, H. "The Japan Lobby in American Diplomacy, 1947-1952" in Pacific Historical Review Vol. 46, No. 3, Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 1977. [link]

Siniawer, E. M. "Befitting Bedfellows: Yakuza and the State in Modern Japan" in Journal of Social History Vol. 45, No. 3, The Hidden History of Crime, Corruption, and States, Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 2012. [link]

Hill, P. B. E. The Japanese Mafia: Yakuza, Law, and the State, Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 2003. [link]

Blaxland, J., M. Fielding, and T. Gellerfy, Niche Wars: Australia in Afghanistan and Iraq, 2001–2014, Canberra: ANU Press, 2020. [link]

Kornheiser, T. "Noriega Our Bountiful Nation" The Washington Post, Dec. 22, 1989. [link]

[racefortheironthrone]

Why do economists need to shut up about mercantilism, as you alluded to in your post about Louis XIV's chief ministers?

In part due to their supposed intellectual descent from Adam Smith and the other classical economists, contemporary economists are pretty uniformly hostile to mercantilism, seeing it as a wrong-headed political economy that held back human progress until it was replaced by that best of all ideas: capitalism.

As a student of economic history and the history of political economy, I find that economists generally have a pretty poor understanding of what mercantilists actually believed and what economic policies they actually supported. In reality, a lot of the things that economists see as key advances in the creation of capitalism - the invention of the joint-stock company, the creation of financial markets, etc. - were all accomplishments of mercantiism.

Rather than the crude stereotype of mercantilists as a bunch of monetary weirdos who thought the secret to prosperity was the hoarding of precious metals, mercantilists were actually lazer-focused on economic development. The whole business about trying to achieve a positive balance of trade and financial liquidity and restraining wages was all a means to an end of economic development. Trade surpluses could be invested in manufacturing and shipping, gold reserves played an important role in deepening capital pools and thus increasing levels of investment at lower interest rates that could support larger-scale and more capital intensive enterprises, and so forth.

Indeed, the arch-sin of mercantilism in the eyes of classical and contemporary economists, their interference in free trade through tariffs, monopolies, and other interventions, was all directed at the overriding economic goal of climbing the value-added ladder.

Thus, England (and later Britain) put a tariff on foreign textiles and an export tax on raw wool and forbade the emigration of skilled workers (while supporting the immigration of skilled workers to England) and other mercantilist policies to move up from being exporters of raw wool (which meant that most of the profits from the higher value-added part of the industry went to Burgundy) to being exporters of cheap wool cloth to being exporters of more advanced textiles. Hell, even Adam Smith saw the logic of the Navigation Acts!

And this is what brings me to the most devastating critique of the standard economist narrative about mercantilism: the majority of the countries that successfully industrialized did so using mercantilist principles rather than laissez-faire principles:

When England became the first industrial economy, it did so under strict protectionist policies and only converted to free trade once it had gained enough of a technological and economic advantage over its competitors that it didn't need protectionism any more.

When the United States industrialized in the 19th century and transformed itself into the largest economy in the world, it did so from behind high tariff walls.

When Germany made itself the leading industrial power on the Continent, it did so by rejecting English free trade economics and having the state invest heavily in coal, steel, and railroads. Free trade was only for within the Zollverein, not with the outside world.

And as Dani Rodrik, Ha-Joon Chang, and others have pointed out, you see the same thing with Japan, South Korea, China...everywhere you look, you see protectionism as the means of achieving economic development, and then free trade only working for already-developed economies.

[jmdbjk]

2023 Festa, the 10th Anniversary

I think I can speak for a lot of Army: we are relieved to see an official Festa map!

For new Army:

Festa is the annual celebration that happens on June 13 and celebrates the debut of BTS (June 13, 2013). Festa typically includes a pre-recorded video of the members discussing and answering pre-planned talking points and eating and sometimes drinking. We call it Festa dinner.

I'm sure you've heard that last year's was particularly heartbreaking in that they announced their hiatus to focus on solo projects and their inevitable enlistment to fulfill their military obligation. Festa also includes a lot of other content leading up to the actual anniversary day.

Older Army probably can shed more light on what transpired during previous Festas.

After last year, we really didn't know what to expect this year. But finally, we see they will have a full slate of content for us. The schedule on the map goes from May 31 through June 17.

Also in conjunction with Festa: the city of Seoul will commemorate BTS' 10th Anniversary by holding events throughout the city and lighting up major landmarks within the city with purple lights.

Looking at the Festa schedule "gameboard" it is laid out very similar to a Monopoly game board.

What could the pictorial icons on the spaces mean? 5/31: a ? and an Army flag. I think the flags represent playing pieces. 6/2: Video billboards on buildings? 6/3: Computer, popcorn, mic... Suga/Agust D online concert from Japan? and/or DANCE PRACTICE VIDEOS! 6/4 only has a gift box...6/5 has three-dimensional gift boxes... not sure if any of that will be actual content or just breather days. 6/7: A mic and a guitar... someone is going to sing, or perform or we get a song or ? 6/8: digital photos 6/9: another ? and Army flag. 6/10: Drinking and what looks like a calendar... not sure. 6/11: more digital pictures 6/12: we're getting a song. 6/13: The actual big day... another question mark... but with Seoul Tower on that space as well... hmmm. Also the flag is now a BTS flag. 6/14: more pictures 6/16: a trumpet and a mic... Trumpet makes me thing Taehyung... 6/17: a radio ... a radio show? Fireworks, Seoul Tower... a live broadcast? maybe they will turn the Seoul Tower purple... with fireworks.

I GUESS WE'LL FIND OUT! I CAN'T WAIT!!!

[noodleblade]

Miscellaneous Tag Game (stolen title <3)

thank you bestie:3 @searchingfortheuniverse I'll be working on this while im on and off phone calls~

A band you don’t like that many others do: UM idk...my music taste is all over the place and I really only know the bands i think?? oh- maybe Mother Mother, only because I have not bothered to listen to their music past Junkrat hype videos and that's probably tainted my view a little. For better or for worse.

A childhood memory that you remember vividly: during a summer in greece, idk how, but I got roped into selling watermelons off the side of the road. I couldn't have been more than 6 or 7, but I remember I would put the watermelon in a plastic bag and the farmers thought it was really funny because that's such a...united states thing...to bag 1 whole watermelon in plastic. Anyways, they paid me in cucumber slices with salt.

Least favorite animal and why: HUH LEAST. I'm not a huge fan of like reptiles? Specifically those smaller than a bread box. Too fast, too squirm. Im worried I'll crush them in my hands. (im thinking of specifically florida geckos...idk they are cute but i freak out trying to hold them).

Hot fandom take: just because something is popular and fandom-wide accepted doesn't mean it is good. and not agreeing with it/wanting to engage in it doesn't mean you or your own opinions are bad. the monopoly on accepted 1 true canon is boring.

Do you wear any jewelry, if so, what’s your favorite piece: I try an rotate my jewelry around but I'm usually wearing a few rings, a necklace and a pair of earrings. My favorites are the rings. They are my mom's old ones and I typically wear the same two every day. One is a gold key of greece and the other is a thin black bar but the sides have really small thin heart cut outs.

A movie others liked but you didn’t: HMMMMM probably the new star wars trilogy. felt unnecessary and i just didn't like it? big shruggies

Three things you love about yourself: my writing- its something that I enjoy the most in the world and something that I can claim as mine. I also think I'm pretty funny in a sillay way which is poggers. I like my openness to trying things. Think that's helped make me more well-rounded. I hope so at least.

A place you hope to visit in the future and why: HMMMMM. I want to visit Japan again. For a new place, I want to go to South America. Peru maybe??? Mexico would also be nice. So that's what I'm gearing up towards next.

An actor that gets on your nerves and why: Uh Matt Smith? No reason behind this. but I see his block head and kind of just look away.

Things you’re excited for in the nearby future? I have a lot of little house projects I finally feel like tackling which is exciting. Ive lived in my house for almost 2.5 years and still havent felt like parts of it are complete yet.

Least favorite ship in a fandom you’re in: oof I lowkey kind of hate saying things I don't like on here. bad experiences in the past when people were upset I didn't like a thing they did and got mad at me. But uhhh not the biggest fan of most rodimus ships? but I think mega/rod is my least favorite of them. sorry!

What’s the most toxic fandom you’ve been in? hahaahahahhahahah can you believe Game of Thrones wasn't the most toxic???? it was jjba. I got put on a ban list which was kind of funny. I also got kind of show-ponyed in a toxic discord server for a while which has completely ruined me in the ability to act normal on discord outside of my irl friends. that account is deleted but the ao3 is still circling around.

List three things you find beautiful about life: Friends and family- sometimes I want to kill but I really do love them so so much. I like creating things and creating things with people. I also really like my area as far as nature goes. the beach to swamp ratio sings to me.

Any dreams for the future? I want to go on a really long hike. Maybe like a 2 day one? (< says the person that has gone on a max 2 hour hike before). Also just working on my original fiction again. I miss those fellas.

How are you really feeling today? Motivated!!!! Im a little groggy still, but I've been really excited about life and betterment lately so its overcoming my sleepy brain.

Tags: feel free to do or not: @honkytonka, @elmonstro, @huanted-dennys, @feral-birb-husband, @solarstormstuff @anyone else who wants to!! I'd be happy to read them:3

[skullzanta]

(Not Professionally Researched, Correct if Wrong) Copyright Law needs to be fought.

Okay, so: I have NO research on this, so bare in mind that I want to get out frustration and spread word of Copyright Law's Issues.

Firstly,

the Internet Archive is dying to Copyright. The burning of The Library of Alexandria is what a lot of people are calling it. I dont know for SURE that its unwinnable or winnable, but I do know that this is exclusively from companies abusing the laws they groomed into creation using lobbying. And supposedly, The US Government removed 1984 from The Internet Archive as well ages ago.

Secondly,

the advance of piracy sites, wether or not you agree to them or not, is a sign. Piracy is a situation of stealing media and granting it to others illegally. However, It is also true that legitimate means of observing things are infact, literally requiring piracy at times due to them being otherwise Lost Media, aka "Gone and unable to ever be experienced again"... This is a VERRRY big topic, bigger than one thread could discuss without being almost exclusively it, however I will summarize some of the issues Piracy has, both the issues it solves and the issues it causes.

1: It harms legitimate Sources of this stuff. While true that it is infact doing this, it is also true that people generally prefer a better platform, and consistently Piracy Platforms are only worse in ads, and that is slowly changing to be that the main sites are worse.

2: It inherently is illegal and should be avoided, however If official Companies are going to take advantage of monopolies and antagonize their audience, Piracy is a valid alternative. And, I'd vastly prefer legitimate sites, and most people would. But, name a site that hasn't gone to hell(not good like this hellsite) that is official.

3: Piracy brings people to danger by them risking doing something illegal to provide for others, Companies LOOVE to ruin the lives of piracy providers. This however is something people will fight for anyway despite the inevitability.

4: Companies are destroying their media because they want you to buy new things, and intentionally incorporate Planned Obsolescence, a very complicated and evil thing where to sum it up, companies make products DESIGNED to break after a short time, and prevent you from repairing it so you're forced to buy a whole new copy of that item. Food is an exception usually, but it is not untouched. Piracy helps with preserving this media and preventing these scummy tactics, because a copy not in control of a company is a copy that can be worked on, maintained, and repaired. This is better to have rights rather than pirate, but we don't have ANY rights that cover making that act doable by anyone without a lot of money and resources.

5: Fundamentally, Piracy is providing a better service in terms of usability and ease of access, which feeds into point 1 but on its own is also worth discussing, because without Piracy the only way for us to access anime in the US is VERY expensive shipping, going to japan directly, Crunchyroll/MAL, or piracy. And this applies to a LOT more media than you realize.

6: Piracy, while it should absolutely NOT be encouraged to be treated this way, provides competition for these Companies. You should NOT have pirates even as a competitor, but the fact they are is a bad sign. Companies currently are *Very* monopolized. They may seem to have competition, but the vast majority of companies are owned by other companies, which are owned by bigger companies, and usually down the chain, you realize all soda is made by 1 megacorporation and the competition is purely a facade for making loyalty to the brands.

And yes, This is a SUMMARY of this, it can go on for a LOOOT longer, each of these is packed with enough information to make a big post on its own, But... moving along.

Thirdly,

Copyright Law Supposedly was made the way it was purely due to lobbying. I do not believe lobbying should exist- Now- There SHOULD be an equivelant, but NOT a thing that allows companies to PAY for LEGAL CHANGES. It should be proven in court there is precedented need for the change and have jury decide in a randomized state to prevent sabotoge of jury. Maybe Im wrong and my suggestion is bad, or that there should be 0 equivelant, however I do know for a fact Lobbying is inherently bad in how it is designed currently. And it needs to be addressed.

Fourthly,

There is a movement that Youtuber "Ross Scott" is working alongside others to change EU Law. I know, I know, seems stupid to bring it up, but listen here: They are fighting to change precedent so as to bully companies in america to stop being predatory in their practices. This movement carries a LOT of risk, but if you are wanting to do ANYTHING about copyright, this is Step 1 of 12. You need only to look into the movement's efforts and see if you agree or disagree. If you want to help them? Do so, but if you do not, understand that them failing to remove any possibility of non-piracy means of preserving Games, just as removing the Internet Archive is removing means of preserving lost media of its own and preserving Historical Record.

Fithly and Lastly,

There is a fundamental truth that many of us ignore because its too big and distant to focus on, but as detailed in a previous post... There is a VERY Dangerous issue with how people functionally operate to create change: It is a proven fact that nomatter how abused, tortured, restricted, restrained, or maligned someone is, People will vastly prefer to maintain mundanity. And, this isn't just me saying "oh boo hoo people are lazy because they wanna live life"-No. I am saying DIRECTLY that if there isn't something explicitly In the Way of mundane life, people will NEVER EVER Fight for change or to even look into the possibility that it could. Thing is, if you don't inform people of how it will affect their lives, people will see "Oh no, Companies are evil Again", maybe they get mad, but almost never will they actually put time to researching it. They will just assume its another bad thing and move on, even if they get mad for a bit, the moment ANY tiny inch of progress is made, they relieved the stress "knowing" that the issue will be solved. That leads to every step being backstepped.

And, people doomscroll, but why? Its normalized for things to be bad right now, and it hurts them heavily, but they scroll because it gives them feelings and a sense of the world, it is NOT research, this is a warping view that corrupts your very idea of the world. This often makes them feel hopeless, helpless. This is a bad thing and it is incorrect. You are NOT helpless, You are NOT hopeless, nor is the world too fucked up to fix.

The world seems to be declining but it is not something unable to be stopped, nor do you need to become some kind of monster or lose the mundanity in your life to change things: All you need to do, is spread the word and do what I fail to do due to severe miseducation: Research this so that you can better explain to others what this will do, why it will hurt them, and what they can do. And I think we can do something, after all the US is supposedly a Democracy(Its actually A Republic) and if we make a big enough stink about it, like sending words of our support to the right places(Like the courts, presidency, our vote on that stuff, and companies) we can START change. We cannot let up however after we start to see it, we have to hold them to promises by actually continuing our support, they will ALWAYS start with a small but significant change, but not enough of one that will fix it, So we have to pressure them. You need not hold up protests or risk your life, merely consider... trying to spread this information and correcting incorrections, while also trying to simply write to the correct people. We have much to work on, but out of everything: this is where we need to start, because soon... we almost guarenteed will lose the very media we have to communicate with, and I hope to Gods that we are never forced into violence over it.

I do not know if this will ever spread, but if you want to spread this using a unified Tag, I'd say #CopyrightIsCarnage and #ResistCopyright would work well. And remember: Companies are NOT people, except legally, which they shouldn't be.

[nekropsii]

I WANT TO KNOW ABOUT CANADIA AND NEO JAPAN

You're in luck!! I'd quite like to talk about Canadia and Neo Japan!! Thank you very much for asking about that!!

I really cant think of a smooth transition into talking about this, so we're just going to dive right in...

Content Warning: Long, Discussions of Late Stage Capitalism and Orientalism.

CANADIA:

Canadia is, put bluntly, an icy cyberpunk hellscape. It's known for being just about the only country in the world to very strictly follow Capitalism... And it's not in a very good state because of it. It's in an extreme form of the Late Stages, to the point of it being beyond parody. Corporations run the country, monopolies are rampant and unchecked, you can't even look up at the sky without being advertised to. It's miserable there, whether you live in a major city or not. Surveillance is rampant. Everything is a commodity. God forbid you want to go to a doctor for something. It's the perfect breeding grounds for either extreme paranoia or complete desensitization.

None of this is to say everyone's subservient in it. Not everyone's been broken into allowing themselves to be cogs of the machine- there are fighters out there who want to take the system down, one battle at a time. Maybe their revolution will work one day...

This is where Mituna is from. It explains a lot.

It's largely populated by Trolls. A startling amount of the population has started to partake in a political movement called Alternian Traditionalism as a means to cope with their oppressive environment. This isn't a healthy or effective way dealing with the problem, though, because it actually doesn't address any of the real issues, and wouldn't solve a damn thing. If the Alternian Traditionalists have their way, the country will get much, much worse...

NEO JAPAN:

Neo Japan is... Incredibly normal. In fact, one could even say that it's literally just regular Japan, except everyone acts like it's this strange, mystical place 25 years ahead of the technological curve, yet 2,500 years behind the cultural curve. Many people who aren't from Neo Japan practically worship the place blindly, not realizing that what they're praising is a heavily fictionalized version of a real place that real people live in. To many, it's a pure spectacle. An exotic experience to be had. A tourist location, full of fake people with perfect lives. It's as if the entire nation is defined by what can be put in advertisements and postcards. So... Again, one could even say that it's literally just regular Japan.

This is where Retris is from. Specifically Old Capital, which you may know as Kyoto. He lives in Kyoto City. This has given him an immense disdain for tourists/foreigners. He doesn't mind if you're respectful, though. He's just had his home treated as a circus enough times to get weary and wary. Damara, meanwhile, is from New Capital, which you may know as Tokyo. Though she has the same experience as Retris does regarding people treating her home as a circus, she hasn't had nearly as long of an exposure to that behavior, so she doesn't hold much opinion of it all. She ran away into the woods too soon to start really caring about it.

It's largely populated by Carapacians. I'd say the only "strange" thing they partake in is Traditional Battleground LARPing, which are entirely normal, save for the fact that a good majority of them involve real weapons, real battles, and real life-or-death stakes. Some of them are "Death-Free", though that's usually a fact that is remarked upon... Meaning, it's not the average set up. It's a cultural difference. Some people find it barbaric, but their attitude towards death just is not the same as it is in other societies. And that's fine.

[demonslayedher]

okay, I give up, I need help to know which animals are related to the moon in Japanese mythology. Yes, I know that the rabbit is one of them, but it seems that it is the only one! I searched and searched and nothing except a mention of the dragon and the tiger (yin and yan) but it did not say which one represented the moon. Also a story about how a monkey tried to catch the reflection of the moon. Please help, which animals are related to the moon or the god of the moon

You want more than the rabbit? The rabbit, king among all moon associations in Japan? The rabbit, which can even be used in poetic names and references for the moon?

Well, when it comes to references any general Japanese person would know, you're not going to find any association more common than rabbits, whether we're talking animals or not. But here's a few I found from some a handful of people's opinions posted online, though the connections are tenuous and just happen to be what floated to these peoples' heads: --Turtle As opposed to mythology, this is due to the saying, "tsuki to suppon," which means "like comparing the moon and a soft-shelled turtle." Sure, at first glance they're both round, but the moon in the sky is nothing like the turtle in the mud. There's also some theories that Tsukuyomi, the god of the moon, was tied to early turtle shell reading divination traditions, but the connections are tenuous. Also, Tsukuyomi is just not as present in Shinto mythology as his siblings Amaterasu and Susano'o, so there's just not many legends to work with and hunt for animals in the first place. --Jellyfish Because the kanji for jellyfish, 海月 or 水月, is "ocean/water moon." Probably because of the physical resemblance, but the moon/Tsukuyomi has associations with longevity/immortality too, so hmm. Not exactly mythology here, though.

--Cats Because yellow eyes on a black cat resemble the moon. Granted, this was on a blog about cats, so take it with the grain of salt. --Bulls Because the horn is shaped like a crescent moon. Granted, this was also according to the cat blog.

--Crabs Like seeing the shape of the rabbit in the moon, supposedly you can also see a Tumblr dashboard.

--Wolves Because of werewolves, but this seems to be a Western import

--Women Because yin.

On that note, surprise! Both the dragon and the tiger are yang. They are usually used to represent two equally valiant forces in either in opposition to one another or being similar to one another, as opposed to representing total opposites. That brings us to the monkey, as there is indeed is a motif for trying to catch the reflection of the moon--but drowning due to his avarice! This is a story with Indian origins that came to Japan by way of Chinese Buddhism, and now "monkey and the moon" is like a proverb warning about how you can lose yourself in your greed and ambitions. Not a very positive association...

So to tie this back into KnY for a KnY blog, here's an Ask I got before about the motif of coldness among the Upper Moons, in opposition to the sun. I went one to expand on the moon motif, as well as bringing in the rabbit motif (because you really can't separate rabbits and the moon here, rabbits have a monopoly over this big space rock). If nothing else, you should check it out for the doodle of bunny!Kokushibo.

[soul-dwelling]

Best place to read the English translation of Soul Eater online? I’ve been warned that online translations are incomplete, out of order, or generally bad…

Short version before I rant:

If you're reading online, buy the Yen Press translations; if you have the money and want more accuracy and are fine not reading online and instead with a hard copy, I guess you have to buy the Square Enix "Perfect Edition" (although fuck Square for not having an ebook version); I'm not going to link to scanlations here.

Now, the long rant:

I'm not up for sharing scanlation sites and unofficial translations, even as I think they are necessary in manga distribution and discourse.

Nothing against scanlators, who do and have done important work, especially for works that never get licensed in other languages. But I tend to have more confidence in the translations coming from Square Enix working with Yen Press or other North American distributors, rather than fans who are not in communication with the original creators to make sure intended meaning is retained as closely as possible across different languages.

A scanlation gets you by in between the leak of a chapter in Japan and the official translation that comes out within a few days or at worst months; a scanlation is not a good substitute for an official translation.

(And that's not ignoring that some scanlations can get it more accurate than the official source, or that a scanlation works as an alternate translation that may bring out additional meaning that the official translation failed to.)

2. Get the Yen Press versions if you are reading online.

The best place for reading online is from the publishers themselves, such as the Yen Press translation that you can get from Yen Press as an ebook or on the Manga Up app.

(Granted, Manga Up does the stupid black censor bars: look, I rant against the shitty fanservice in Soul Eater, but blacking it out and acting like it's not there is also stupid.)

The problem is that the Yen Press translation feels outdated, not only due to the more recent translation by Square Enix (more on that in a moment), but because the Square Enix translation updates Crona's pronouns.

3. What the fuck is wrong with Square Enix?

And that leads to my rant:

I have not picked up the Square Enix "Perfect Edition." And I appreciate that they have updated art, updated translation, etc. But there is such an accessibility / price barrier there: it's probably going to be more than $300 to read the updated translation because it's only a hardcover edition, no ebook version available.

What kind of bullshit is this? I know buying the Yen Press versions as ebooks is also an investment, but at least I can have those as ebooks and not pay more than $300. With the "Perfect Edition," I now have to clear bookshelf space. I get it, it's a better print, it has the color artwork--that's all fine. But what if I don't want another physical book taking up space?

Maybe Square Enix will eventually release these in ebook format, or maybe I just haven't seen that announcement yet. But it is galling that the only way you can get the updated translation is by purchasing the hardcovers only.

Hey, Square Enix? People wouldn't be asking about online translations if you actually made the newly translated books available online and affordable (or even free temporarily on Manga Up--with the updated Crona pronouns and no stupid black bars) instead of charging an Elric limb for them. Viz may have too much of a monopoly on publishing, but they aren't charging this much. Yen Press has managed to make some simul-published chapters affordable as ebooks. Why is an updated translation of Soul Eater priced so high?

[bottlepiecemuses]

real world history ( stuff japan did during ww2

Here's a section of an article about Unit 731 that relates to MarutaUnit 731 started out as a research unit, investigating the effects of disease and injury on the fighting ability of an armed force. One element of the unit, called "Maruta," took this research a little further than the usual bounds of medical ethics by observing injuries and the course of disease on living patients.At first, these patients were volunteers from the ranks of the army, but as the experiments reached the limits of what could be non-invasively observed, and as the supply of volunteers dried up, the unit turned to the study of Chinese POWs and civilian prisoners.And as the concept of consent went out the window, so did the restraint of the researchers. It was around this time that Unit 731 began referring to confined research subjects as "logs," or "Maruta" in Japanese.Study methods in these experiments were barbaric.Vivisection, for example, is the practice of mutilating human bodies, without anesthesia, to study the operations of living systems. Thousands of men and women, mostly Chinese communist prisoners as well as children and elderly farmers, were infected with diseases such as cholera and the plague, then had their organs removed for examination before they died in order to study the effects of the disease without the decomposition that occurs after death.Subjects had limbs amputated and reattached to the other side of the body, while others had their limbs crushed or frozen, or had the circulation cut off to observe the progress of gangrene.Finally, when a prisoner's body was all used up, they would typically be shot or killed by lethal injection, though some may have been buried alive. None of the Chinese, Mongolian, Korean, or Russian prisoners assigned to Unit 731 survived their confinement.https://allthatsinteresting.com/unit-731

For those wondering about the Nanjing Massacre Museum:

You enter through a giant room with a reflection pool in the middle. The number 300,000 is reflected in the water which causes you to look up where it is illuminated on the ceiling. Often times numbers, when used in statistics and don't capture the true tragedy. You notice the stone walls are 15 feet high and covered from top to bottom with Chinese characters, 6 inch by 2 inch blocks, each a name of a victim. There are so many names that the average Chinese person can find someone with their name who died in Nanjing. I myself have a Chinese name （夏文轩) given to me by my teacher, very obscure, yet I found someone with it, further personalizing each victim to everyone who learns of this atrocity.  

You're led into a room full of binders, again stacked on shelves towering over you. Each binder contains pictures, registries, certificates, and anything else relating to the people that perished. Only a few are open for observation, but It might as well be a library with the sheer amount of records.

After this, one is able to proceed into a series of exhibits and has the freedom to move to different ones. One learns the true meaning of "Rape" in the "Rape of Nanjing", where women (and children) were kept in hospitals as sex slaves for the Japanese army. Accounts from comfort women being raped 40-50 times per day were common. Records detailing how Japanese soldiers would eventually lose interest because the women were "not tight" enough or not "pleasurable enough" due to the repeated violence. One soldier even noted how he became disgusted when it turned out a woman's vagina had festered due to disease and neglect.

One particular exhibit showed a board game soldiers would play to pass the time. It was marked with different spaces, each relating to an aspect of the conquest of Nanjing. Dice, cards, and pieces all moved around the game based on kills or prisoners taken. A dark monopoly if you will… just a game

Another exhibit showed a photo of a few Japanese soldiers holding a banner and a trophy next to a few dead bodies. It was an award ceremony to a soldier who killed the most civilians in one day, with just over 170 confirmed deaths. Samurai swords were used in place of rifles since it was a more "sporting" way to play this contest… just a game…

This is only some of what is shown in the museum, and only some of the history that took place and claimed the lives and spirits of some 300,000 people in Nanjing - in just six weeks.

[silverslipstream]

Happy WBW! What's the harshest part of your world? Be it a place, a law, something character-created or otherwise, what is just HARSH?

Happy Worldbuilding Wednesday Tori, thanks for the ask!

There a lot of things that are pretty harsh in White Sky. I mean, our solar system as a setting is pretty rough. The Moon is a borderline-police state stuffed with wealth disparity and an ongoing brushfire conflict between ELTO and various fringe groups, and that's just the domes. The helium-3 mining industry is a cutthroat corporate war between corporations, countries and the odd criminal syndicate, all in an environment that will kill an unprepared human in a couple of minutes flat. Mars is a sparsely populated, heavily controlled hellhole where the slightest inefficiency or failure is punishable by imprisonment or death, as well as the planet being freezing cold, inhospitable and covered in toxic soil. Even Earth is pretty rough: things may be gradually improving now, but there are still major wars, corporations rival governments and a lot of the world is ecologically devastated after a tumultuous mid-21st century.

ELTO themselves are pretty harsh as an organisation. They were originally formed as a sort of 'space United Nations' after a space-based war between the US and the former Soviet Union in the late 1990s/early 2000s. Initially, they were democratic and benevolent; however, more and more money started to be made in space development, and ELTO became a de facto 'first-world' club. Many developing nations are discouraged or outright restricted from space travel, while ELTO focuses their efforts on first-world nations like Japan, the EU and the United States. They've turned a blind eye to the imperialism of first-world nations (for example, the US/Mexico's current campaign to annex much of Central America, Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador in order to claim more arable land and equatorial launch sites, or the lunar disputed territory between Japan and India) while exploiting favourable third-world countries for their own gain. Since they hold a monopoly on space defense, travel and assets in the signatory nations', there's not many countries who can stand against them. As the crew of the Caroline soon discover, ELTO's near-limitless reach has plenty of downsides...

[lindsaywesker]

Good morning! I hope you slept well and feel rested? Currently sitting at my desk, in my study, attired only in my blue towelling robe, enjoying my first cuppa of the day. Welcome to Too Much Information Tuesday.

You can't say "happiness" without saying "penis".

There's only one company that makes Monopoly.

The world’s most common disease is tooth decay.

13 Americans have died as a result of laxative overdose.

The most searched-for tutorial video on YouTube is ‘How To Kiss’.

The acnestis is the part of the back that is impossible to scratch.

A boar produces 200 ml of semen each time it ejaculates, compared to a human’s 3 ml.

Quantophrenia is an obsessive reliance on statistics. Only 14% of people know this.

At least one person a week in the UK changes their middle name to ‘Danger’.

Baby elephants will suck on their trunks for comfort just like human babies suck on their thumbs.

Homosexual behaviour has been found in over 1,500 species. Homophobia is found in only one.

People who read regularly are two and a half times less likely to be diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.

The word ambisinistrous is the opposite of ambidextrous; it means ‘no good with either hand’. (That’s not me!)

If you come across a person who believes there are no English words with more syllables than vowels, they might not accept criticism.

The Maruyama Zoo in Japan spent four years trying to get two hyenas to mate before realising they were both male.

Older sexually active women are more likely to be sexually satisfied than their younger counterparts.

Only 31% of men and 65% of women wash their hands after using the toilet.

A ‘riot’ in England and Wales must legally involve a minimum of 12 people. Under US federal law, it’s only three people and, in Nevada, only two!

Mozart once composed a song entitled, ‘Leck Mir Den Arsch Fein Recht Schon Sauber’. Which means, "Lick my arse right, well and clean".

Karen alert! In 2015, an Ohio woman unhappy with her Chinese food order called 911 to complain. Instead of getting her money back, she got arrested.

In 1987, a Chicago man placed an advert in a local newspaper asking 2.8 million people to send him a penny each to pay for his college education. It worked.

In the novel that the film Pinocchio was based on, Jiminy Cricket was brutally murdered and Pinocchio had his feet burned off and was hanged by villagers.

There are two rhymes in English for purple: curple, a strap passing under a horse’s tail, and hirple, to walk along dragging one leg behind the other. (Do you feel a song coming on?)

According to a study conducted in 2012, people who complain actually live longer by about two years. This is because by complaining they release their tension which increases their immunity and boosts their health.

A 2013 study determined that Viagra is an extremely effective treatment for painful menstruation. However, the review panel determined that cramps were not a public health priority and refused further funding.

In 2016, Live Nation acknowledged for the first time that two-thirds of tickets for the Tragically Hip's final tour were purchased and resold by bots and brokers, leaving less than one-third available for fans to buy at face value.

The new mayor of Cockington in Devon has been banned from his local pub where he was a regular, known for drinking Guinness. The new mayor of Cockington is also a four-year-old Shetland pony called Patrick.

In the US, Google searches for: "Why is my poop green?" peak between 5.00 a.m. and 6.00 a.m., "How to roll a joint" peak between 1.00 a.m. and 2.00 a.m., searches for adult videos peak at 1.30 a.m. and searches for "lonely" peak at 2.30 a.m.

There were over 600 attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro by the U.S. government. Plots included: poisoned cigars, infected scuba equipment and pens rigged with poison. Castro once joked, "If surviving assassination attempts were an Olympic event, I'd win Gold."

Madonna once leaked a fake version of her album to music pirates where each song was a loop of her saying, "What the f*ck do you think you're doing?" In response, a hacker leaked the real album to her own site with the message, "This is what the f*ck I think I'm doing."

BTS can officially be crowned the most popular group in the world after smashing the record for most streamed male group on Spotify for a second time. Their music has been streamed a massive 31,960,000,000 times as of March 3rd, 2023, a number that is nearly double the 16.3 billion streams when they last set the record in April 2021.

Okay, that’s enough information for one day. Have a tremendous and tumultuous Tuesday! I love you all.

[ygofandomcalendar]

This week in Yu-Gi-Oh! (23 January 2023)

Our pinned post contains links to the TeamUp calendars for further details on any of the non-tumblr events below, and a tutorial video on how to use the calendars.

@respectfulshipweek2023 (Revolver/Spectre) begins on 24 January.

25 January is AkaSere Day, a day dedicated to Akaba Reiji/Serena (prodigyshipping).

@joukaiweek (Jounouchi/Joey and Seto Kaiba) ends on 25 January.

An interest check has opened for @thieveszine. This is a closed zine, meaning all participants were invited beforehand.

Nominations have opened for Seasons of Drabbles exchange.

Nominations have opened for A Woman's Place [...is in the Resistance] Vid Exchange.

Sign-ups continue for @americankestrelprojects‘ 2023 Pride Zine.

Interest check continues for @aygozineproduction‘s Dragons Den - A YGO Fanzine.

@wipbigbang are hosting a challenge to finish WIPs under 7,500 words by International Fanworks Day (February 15).

Work continues on YGO Rare Pairs Mini-Bang.

Various multifandom prompt challenges continue, including Fandom Empire Monopoly, Gen Prompt Bingo, Comment Bingo, Ladies Bingo, Snowflake Challenge, Whumpuary, None English Fest, Three Sentence Ficathon, and Year of the OTP.

23 January is the anniversary of the release of Bonds Beyond Time in Japan.

25 January is Katsuya Jounouchi / Joey Wheeler’s birthday.

Plus five additional events marked as 18+ only.

Is your event missing? Drop us a message with a link!

[kuiperblog]

Reviewing four small Knizia card games

I love Reiner Knizia’s small, simple board game designs that are “easy to learn, hard to master.”  And I love the fact that many of the games he’s designed have Japanese editions which are made by companies that 1) care more about component quality than their western counterparts, and 2) are made for customers in tiny Tokyo apartments, where shelf space is at a premium.

They’re the perfect games to stuff into a backpack (or suitcase) and bring out to share with people who “enjoy playing games, but aren’t into the board game hobby.”  They’re something for the people who don’t want to play a 1+ hour long euro engine builder, but would like to be treated to something of a higher class than Uno or Monopoly.

Thus it came to be that when visiting my family for Christmas this (er, last) year, I took four Reiner Knizia card games with me. They were such a big hit that the family won’t let me take them back with me. (Okay, actually, leaving the games behind was my suggestion after they expressed interest in acquiring copies for themselves; given the economics of importing items from Japan, it makes more sense for me to just order replacement copies of the games for myself the next time I place an order from Amazon JP, which is something I now do fairly often since learning that they will let you pay in USD with a US credit card and ship directly to the US.)  The following list is assorted roughly in descending order of how much I liked them:

High Society (3-5 players, 15-30 minutes)

This was immediately my favorite, and a poll of the family revealed it to be a unanimous favorite (excluding the non-vote from my sister, who refused to pick a favorite). It also happens to be the one game in the pile that wasn’t a Japanese import. (There is a Japanese version; I just like the art from the 2018 US version published by Osprey better.)

I love this game. It’s an incredibly mean game consisting entirely of auctions to win cards that are worth points (and “reverse auctions” where you bid money to not receive the cards that are worth negative points), with the stipulation that whoever has the least money at the end of the game loses.

Furthermore, you are bidding with fixed denominations of money: you have a single card of each denomination of $1, $2, $4, $6, $8, $10, $12, $15, $20, or $25 (Actually, the “currency” in the game is francs, and you’re bidding thousands of francs, but denoting them with a dollar sign is easier.)  Critically, you can only increase your bid by adding a card to your previous bid; the auction house does not make change. What you very quickly realize is that lower denominations are a precious commodity: you’d much rather spend a single $10 card than a $4 + a $6.  If you spend all of your “low” cards early, you quickly lose the ability to incrementally increase bids.

This is an auction game that is mean, where you frequently use your money to bully other people at the table into paying more for cards that you had no intention of buying (but that they desperately need), or by baiting them into bidding wars that bait out their low cards, removing their ability to strategically bid later in the game. There are all sort of subtle asymmetries that crop up in ways that affect the bidding in interesting ways: for example, one of the negative cards (which triggers a reverse auction where you bid not to take it) causes you to lose one of your point cards. If you’re sitting across the table from someone whose only card is a 9 or a 10, they’ll be desperate to avoid that card, whereas you might be more willing to take it if you’re just going to be losing a 2-point card. That gives you leverage. Ditto for situations when you’re in the final turns of the game, sitting across from someone who has a handful of money but with a point total that is nowhere near winning -- or the reverse, when you’ve got a handful of money, and are staring at someone who is at risk of being sent to the poorhouse and has precious little money to spend when a negative point card comes up.

It’s incredibly simple and takes about 2 minutes to teach the rules, but it’s highly interactive, and extremely cutthroat. It’s the opposite of what you get from most modern “euro” board games (which are often made to feel like “multiplayer solitaire”), and everything you want from a Knizia game.

Kariba (2-4 players, 15 minutes)

(The above photo is of the Japanese version of the game, which has slightly different art from the latest US release; as you can surmise, there’s no language component.)

Kariba game with simple rules and simple artwork/theming that you could play with a child, but as with most Knizia games, it hides a certain amount of depth behind its simple decision-making. (It also has an optional “expert” mode, where you draft cards from a market rather than drawing blindly off the top of the deck, which is highly recommended once everyone at the table understands how to play.)

The rules are simple: all the animals want to visit the watering hole, and so every turn you play a card from your hand in one of the eight slots around the board. Animals are allowed to bring friends of the same species: you may play multiples of a matching card. And when three (or more) animals of the same species are present at the watering hole, they chase away the next-smallest animal: three rhinos (7) will chase away any number of leopards (6), allowing the player who played the rhino(s) to add the leopards to their scoring pile.  And if there are no leopards presents, the rhinos will instead scare away the ostriches (5), and if that slot is also empty they’ll chase away the giraffes (4)... The elephants (8) of course are big enough to chase anyone away.

The mice (1) are too small to chase away any of the other animals -- except for the fact that, as everyone knows, elephants are afraid of mice, so a group of mice can chase away any number of elephants -- but only elephants.

The game often begins in a sort of “cold war,” with everyone playing conservatively, trying to sculpt their hand without adding too much scoring materiel to the board, until more and more points have been deployed, and finally someone is forced to act -- which creates a bigger stack for someone else to either grow, or to take for themselves. It gives the game a wonderful sense of tempo: there’s a slow build-up, followed by a series of high-scoring turns where you try to cash in as much as possible while hoping that you won’t be the first player at the board to “fizzle out.”  And if you do fizzle out, then you get to play “defense,” creating small stacks to create buffers and “play defense” and limit the scoring opportunities for other players.

Circus Flohcati (2-5 players, 15-20 minutes)

Rethemed in Japan as  なつのたからもの (Treasures of Summer), featuring the many beautiful cards shown above which depict the various joys of summer, including fireworks, eating watermelon, visiting the beach, and so on.  (The English versions of Circus Flohcati are themed around a flea circus, and the various versions range from annoyingly cartoonish, to the debatably offputting illustrations of the 2016 English 2nd edition where all the members of the flea circus have human bodies and insect heads, like something out of a Cronenberg movie.)  Also, the Japanese cards have much better quality/texture.

Circus Flohcati is a game that is much more fun in practice than I would have expected from reading the rulebook before my first playthrough.  Technically speaking, there’s not much in the way of interaction, which is often how you get games with a “multiplayer solitaire” feel, where people feel at liberty to get up from the table and get a drink (or otherwise not pay attention to the game) when it’s not their turn. However, in practice, that rarely happens in Flohcati.  Part of it comes from the fact that you need to pay attention to what cards other people are picking up -- at the end of the game, you only score the highest card for each suit, and seeing someone else pick up a white 6 might clue you in as to how likely they might be willing to pass on a white 5.  There’s also 9 cards in the 89 card deck that allow for direct interaction, allowing you to do things like force another player to give you a card of their choosing or at random, so if you see someone take a card that you wanted, you should (and will) remember that fact for later.  (This is the only form of direct player interaction.)  Players also can get points for completing sets, so you want to be aware of what other people are taking.  (If you see someone else going after all the 3′s, maybe you don’t want to veer into their lane and compete with them for 3′s. Or maybe, if you’re seated to their right, you do want to compete with them and deny them the last one that they need to complete their set.)

But, more fundamentally, everyone pays attention during each other player’s turn because each turn feels exciting, because it’s a press-your-luck game: you can pick a face-up card from the table, but if you don’t like what you can see, you can flip over a new card -- with the stipulation that if you flip over a new card that matches a suit that’s already on the board, you “bust” and forfeit your turn.  There are 10 suits, so flipping over a new card when there’s 2 suits visible gives you a ~20% chance of busting (fairly safe), but the danger quickly increases...each card flip feels tense, and it’s fun to watch as other people at the table get greedy and either get rewarded or punished for their greed.

When reading the rulebook for the first time, the level of decision-making in this game didn’t strike me as something that would be all that interesting, but when playing, it strikes a good balance: the decisions are simple, but they’re fast and often quickly lead to other decisions as you ratchet up the risk and tension. As Knizia titles go, it’s not the deepest game, but every turn (including your opponents’) feels exciting and engaging.

Trendy (2-5 players, 20 minutes)

If you want to get your hands on a copy of this game, the 2021 Japanese version might actually be the easiest to find, as the only other versions are the original 2000 German release, and the 2004 version which was released in English.

The rules are simple: on your turn, you play out a numbered card face up. Once the table has collectively assembled a “complete set,” everyone who played cards as part of that set gets to score them, and all other cards that don’t match the trend get discarded. (A “complete set” requires a number of cards equal to the face value of the cards: three 3′s is a complete set, as is four 4′s, five 5′s, six 6′s, or seven 7′s.) Each card scores equal to its face value, so making higher numbers trend is harder, but more rewarding if you can pull it off.  Mixing things up are a few cards that count as two cards, and a few “out” cards that will discard all cards of a specific number from play.

Out of all of the games, it’s the one I feel the least compelled to go back and replay, as it lends itself to somewhat repetitive play patterns. And yet, as game designer, I kind of love this game for achieving what few games do, and that is perfectly communicating its theme through its gameplay.

In Trendy, you are often left in a quandary like this one: the table has just been cleared, and the player to your right has just played a 7. You also have a 7 -- so maybe you want to hop on that trend so that when the 7′s score, you won’t be left out. On the other hand, the person who played the first 7 probably has multiple 7′s in hand. If you play your own 7, you’ll be scoring 7 points for yourself, but you might be helping that opponent score 14 or even 21 points! Better to go under them with a low card like a 3 or a 4 -- you’ll score fewer points, but you’ll punish the player who played a 7.

So you play the 3. And then you watch in horror as the next two players also play 7′s, followed by the original player, playing a fourth 7. Now, 7′s are very close to trending -- will you stubbornly try to undercut them with a 3 and try to make 3′s trend first?  Or will you accept the inevitable, hop on the bandwagon, and add your 7 to the pile so you can at least walk away with 7 points (knowing that your opponents will probably be walking away with more)? But what if the table doesn’t collectively have seven 7′s -- what if your opponents don’t have that final 7, and by hopping on the trend, you’re actually helping them score cards that might have otherwise been dead in their hand?

That, in a nutshell, is Trendy -- like the name (and artwork/theme suggests), it is a game about watching as trends catch on, and being left in the tension of getting peer pressured into hopping on a trend out of fear of getting left behind, versus the decision to break from the crowd and try to start a new trend that catches on faster. And, of course, with each person who hops on the bandwagon, the trend only grows stronger and harder to buck. You don’t want to be left out, but the later you join a trend, the less cred you get for being part of the “in” group. The person who starts the trend often collects bigger rewards than all of the followers, so it’s better to be the king of the 3′s than the fourth person to jump on the 6 train. And because higher numbers are worth more points, the more unlikely a trend is, the more you get rewarded for starting it. The gameplay is such a perfect encapsulation of the game’s theme that I’m kind of left in awe.

And yet, there’s only so many times you can watch those stories play out before you start to get a “been there, done that” feel. Having played over a dozen hands of this game, I’ve enjoyed the time I’ve spent playing Trendy, and I’m happy to recommend of for the reasons above, but I’m not sure it’s a game that I’m sad to see leave my collection. (On the other hand, my sister loves this game and will probably be introducing many more people to it.) It’s a great game to introduce to new people who can play it for 15-60 minutes, then get to say goodbye to the game before they have a chance to grow tired of it -- and in a way, isn’t that exactly what you want out of a “gateway” game?

[suckitsurveys]

New tats in your near future? I just got one last month but I’m always planning more. I really want a Bob’s Burgers tattoo.

How about piercings or re-piercings? I’d get more ear holes.

Are there any rooms in your house that you don’t go into every day? The walk in closet in the hallway if that counts lol.

Who else do you know who has the same favorite color as you do? Yeah, I know a couple other people who love purple.

Have you ever had a tattoo covered up or added to? No.

Have you ever kissed someone who has previously kissed someone you hated? Uh, maybe?

Do you have any relatives with red hair? Uhhhhhh.

What is tomorrow’s weather forecasted to be like? 78F and rainy.

Have you ever known anyone who committed suicide? A friend of a friend.

What’s some of the worst pain you’ve ever felt? Losing my mom.

What’s your favorite kind of pasta? Gnocchi, or spaghetti with my the sauce my dad makes.

Would you rather a friend come over to your house or you go over there? I like doing either.

Have you ever had rabies? Nope.

Do you know anyone who ever had to get a rabies shot? I don’t think so.

Ever eaten deer? Duck? Squirrel? How about lamb? I’ve had all but squirrel.

What is your favorite parody movie? Wet Hot American Summer is considered a parody.

What is your least favorite ice cream flavor? Pistachio. I’m also not a huge fan of fruit-flavored ice cream.

Does your car have heated seats? Nope.

Have you ever been tempted to steal? Yes.

Would you rather travel to Ireland or Japan? Ireland.

Does tickling turn you on? ...it does.

If you could go over to someone’s house right now, whose and why? I mean, I’m content where I am right now, but I’d go see Sarah or Ellen if I could.

What is the age gap between you and your parents? My mom was 37 and my dad was 39 when they had me.

How many bathrooms does your house have? Is this enough? One and yes.

Have you ever video-chatted with someone you met online? Oh yes, tons of people.

Do you collect anything, or have you ever? I have an accidental Monopoly collection.

When was the last time you used Facebook? I’m currently talking to Mark on FB messenger.

How many siblings does your best friend have? Sarah and Ellen both have one older brother, Mark has a younger sister and an older brother, and Randal has a younger brother.

Have you ever dated someone who was emotionally or mentally unstable? Uh huh.

Be honest: are you clingy? I can be.

Have you ever had bronchitis? Yes.

Have you ever had a reptile for a pet? No.

Are you afraid of the dentist? I don’t like it.

Did you attend Sunday School as a child? Nope.

Who was the last person you cuddled with? My husband.

How would you feel if your significant other (or possible partner) told you they dislike having sex, but do so with you to make you happy, even though they personally think it’s a chore? I don’t know honestly.

Your boyfriend/girlfriend isn’t around but their phone is. Do you look through it? No.

Do you think you will be in a relationship 3 months from now? Yes.

Have you ever liked anyone that was in a relationship with someone else? Uh huh.

Do people ever compliment your eyes? Yes.

Have any of your exes ever given you roses? Yeah.

Do you think your last ex ever thinks about you? I really don’t care.

Would you rather have salad or french fries for a side dish? Fries.

Which one of your relationships was the shortest? Uhhhhh I don’t recall the lengths of time but I never made it to a year until Mark.

Which was the longest? 12 years and counting

Have any of your exes told you they regret breaking up with you? Nah.

Would you feel hurt if your last ex is in a relationship? No.

Are you going to be getting any new pets soon? I don’t think so.

Do you like BBQ sauce? Sure.

What do you like to do when you’re home alone? Listen to music and dance around the house honestly.

Should the guy always pay for the date? No.

What kind of music calms you down? Depends on my mood.

Do you know anyone who has autism? I do.

What is your favorite way to eat eggs? Hard boiled or deviled or in an omelet.

Do you like Frozen? I do.

Who is one of your heroes? Eh.

Do you enjoy hot chocolate? Yes.

Do you use Instagram often? Everyday.

If you got a kitten, what would you name it? I’d have to see it first.

Do you have a Pinterest account? I do but I don’t use it a lot.

Do you prefer a quiet or noisy environment? It would have to be the right level of noise. I can handle like, people talking or a concert or something but if there are too many different noises its a sensory overload and I lose my shit.

What is one question you don’t like being asked? I don’t like being asked about having children.

Who is someone you know who is talkative? A lot of people.

When was the last time you saw one of your uncles? I don’t have any living uncles.

Do you know anyone who plays the violin? I don’t think so.

Do your parents enjoy any of the things that you enjoy? Do you bond over these things? Yeah, my dad and I like similar music and movies and sports. We also have the same sense of humor.

Out of all your usernames for websites, which one is your favorite? Do you use it for more than one site? Almost all my handles are some form of suckitnerds.

Have you ever spent the whole day (or multiple days) just looking up one thing on the internet (e.g., videos of your favorite band, how-to videos, quizzes, etc.)? Yeah.

If someone told you that we live in a society that hates women, how would you respond? I mena, we do live in a society that hates women, so.

Can you remember the last thing you thought and subsequently thought, “wow, I really shouldn’t be thinking that”? Heheheheheheheheheheheheheeh.