#anyways idk there's not a main point here beyond blog recommendations being on point (usually)‚ im just ranting.

[kuromi-hoemie]

my blog recommendations are constantly rotating between miku furry and yuri blogs

[paulisweeabootrash]

First Impression: Skull-Face Bookseller Honda-san

Hey, remember how, among my myriad complaints about Blend-S, I wished it had taken the opportunity to make some commentary on customer service work and maybe also “face”/public persona, and that I’d like to see another show that doesn’t suck give it a try?  I might have found such a show.

And that means it’s time again for Paul Is Weeaboo Trash!

Today’s episode: Skull-Face Bookseller Honda-san (2018)

Episodes watched: 3

Skull-Face Bookseller Honda-san is a series of office-comedy-like shorts set in a bookstore.  Our main character, Honda, is… well… a skeleton, and his co-workers are fleshy humans wearing various masks and helmets.  Each episode is about 11 minutes total, and contains at least two shorts about some aspect of working in a bookstore.

It’s based on a manga (which I haven’t read), and rather than adapting to a different medium’s conventions, it seems like they just sort of… animated the manga?  The art style is something I've seen more often in manga than anime in the past, with characters who are more realistically-proportioned and faces more detailed than what most people often think of when they think of “anime” art styles.  Almost all of the characters whose faces we see are customers, while the employees, being masked, uniformly have no facial expressions, and express themselves in gestures and common media tropes found in both Japanese and American drawn media, like torrential tears and nervous sweat drops.  The emotional range is mostly along an axis from friendliness to exasperation — in other words, how retail workers behave in front of customers vs. away from them.  The masks (and Honda’s skull) lend themselves to simpler, cheaper animation choices, since it lets them avoid working on facial expressions and lip movements.  And boy is this show simple and cheap: customers have looping mouth movements with no attempt to match the dialogue, the whole show has very little movement overall of any kind, and characters’ movements are clearly made by translating or rotating a still image of the character through a field of other layered objects.

It occurred to me, though, almost immediately on seeing the masked employees that they might not just be part of the simple animation but be a way to literally portray the concept of face here.  Although there isn’t a relationship between different masks and different public persona (at least not that I noticed, and to be fair, I can be remarkably dense), it’s not a huge leap to think that the choice to have them wearing masks at all is more than just a "lol that's random" thing.  Not a huge jump from literally disguising themselves while working to figuratively doing so.  And Honda being a skeleton specifically seems like it might be symbolic, because he certainly seems more burnt-out (”dead tired”? I don’t think that idiom translates) than the others.  Or maybe I’m reading into it what I was hoping for, and the store staff’s masks are a cheap and lighthearted attempt to make the characters distinguishable without having to deal with designing an entire staff of unique characters, and/or to anonymize real people — the show and the manga are based on the author’s actual experiences at an actual bookstore, as one of the shorts in ep. 2 points out.  Anyway, back to the point about face, so far at least, everything has taken place at work, and we have not gotten to know anyone’s private persona, so the contrast between who you are in and out of work is not really fleshed out.  (Is that phrase insensitive to skeletons?)  Oh well.

But I’ll summarize what has gone on so far.  The first episode consists of two shorts about the target audience of this blog: weeaboo trash.  The store experiences an influx of foreign tourists, mostly women, looking quite enthusiastically for BL and, ahem, adult content that the store sells but which Honda is very uncomfortable providing.  As weeaboo trash, and just as people, we the viewers have probably agonized as customers about others judging our taste in things, but we see it here from the other side: the seller is embarrassed about the topic the customer has brought up, even though it’s a product close enough to “acceptable” for the store to carry it, and Honda is put on the spot completely when asked to make BL recommendations by the bold foreigners.   Viewers with a little knowledge of Japan, or even just common stereotypes of it, will probably note from the beginning the contrast of Westerners being so expressive compared to Honda’s Japanese expectations, but it goes beyond just different cultures’ ideas of acceptable expressiveness, to the more specific social status and internal practices of nerd culture there vs. here. 

The second episode consists almost entirely of a single short on issues with stocking the store.  Deliveries are late or early or incomplete, employees with theoretically separate responsibilities overlap and wonder where to sort certain products, and boxes of books are always heavier than you think, something that has brought me no small amount of annoyance every time I’ve moved.  It’s a look behind the scenes, as it were, at the parts of retail we who don’t work in it don’t really think about.  It delivers well on the kinds of real-life "oh great, now what?" work situations that almost feel like deliberate punchlines.

The third again has two longer shorts.  The first is about a visit from representatives of Kadokawa, who are of course also masked.  The Kadokawa salespeople are there to present promotional materials and find out how their titles are selling, and we see some more distinction of different employees’ personalities here as they deal differently with the salespeople’s friendly unhelpfulness, especially Honda's extreme conflict-aversion.  The second short returns to the theme of the first episode, dealing with notable and unusual customer requests for recommendations.

And that’s it so far.  Not much to dive into for notably good or bad points like I usually do.  It’s just a fun show that tells real-life stories pretty well.  Check it out it you like that kind of thing.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

—–

Revised W/A/S Scores: 5 / 1? IDK / 5

Weeb: Mainly the show is a series of personal anecdotes requiring little background besides “there are such things as bookstores”.  But the show uses very Japanese tropes to emphasize lines and depict emotion, and contains some references (constant use of slightly-censored versions of real manga titles, for example) that some viewers won’t get, so it may come off as bizarre to people not familiar with anime/manga comedy tropes.

Ass: There is some discussion of 18+ manga in the first episode, but it’s not a recurring topic and no characters are sexualized at all.  It’s just not that kind of show.

Shit (writing): I find it uncomfortable to try to critique anything about the writing, since it’s based on a series of personal anecdotes about the author’s actual life.  It’s clear and amusing, and I think the author is a good storyteller, although the explanatory asides sometimes go on too long and feel like they could’ve been better integrated into dialogue.

Shit (other): I was surprised to see something that looks like this.  The characters and backgrounds remain consistent, and the same simple animation choices are made throughout, which makes it look like just an unconventional style rather than incompetence or cheapness per se.  But it still gives off a general impression of being an above-average artist’s homemade pet project, maybe even something from the Flash era, rather than a professional production.  Indeed, it turns out the studio that made it started out working in Flash.

Content Warning: None.

—–

Stray Observations:

- Kadokawa, whose subsidiary Media Factory published the original manga, doesn’t come off looking great in here.  Maybe they just have a sense of humor about themselves, like how shows broadcast on FOX here in the US keep making fun of FOX and related companies.

[ramle17-18]

10/8-10/14

ok so sunday (the 8th) is when i finally got out of bed and felt comfortable going for a walk, so i walked to the shuk by myself, did a little bit of shopping (and bought a scale!), and then took the bus by myself for the first time. 

to be completely honest, i haven’t done anything for all of sukkot. barely left the house (although being sick for like a week was a good excuse for a lot of it lol). marleigh keeps judging me for it but like. whatever

we finally got martyrs to work the other night, and i didn’t really like it lol, and then last night i watched 2 eps of black mirror with matt because i wanted to stay up to wait for sultana to get home from the airport, which was around 11:30. she was happy to see me i guess but when marleigh came downstairs she freaked out, which, i mean it makes sense it just. yknow . whatever!

i feel bad because i feel like between here and my main blog i complain about marleigh a lot, like definitely more than anyone else, and that’s really not how i feel about her. i really do like her a lot, we’re friends, and i’m really glad i’m going to be working with her this school year over any of the other three options (all the kids would like sultana more than me, matt and i would butt heads a lot i’m sure, and rachel and i don’t have personalities that would be compatible for that kind of job). 

i think i just feel like marleigh is judging me all the time. she always makes comments about how i like don’t do very much in my free time or how i never leave the house, or i’m so critical that i’m never satisfied with anything, etc. tries to offer me advice for like..weight loss and mental illness without a) knowing what she’s talking about or b) knowing anything about me. very much one of those like ‘positive thinking and yoga will cure you! just stop being so negative!’ people and like at some point she was trying to tell me that i should be eating 2000 cal a day because that’s what’s recommended, and that 1100-1200 is way too little and i’m starving myself. but . hi i’m 4′10 and trying to LOSE weight, if i ate 2000 cal every day i would gain like a pound every week lmfao

speaking of weight loss, though, i was 140 lbs this morning :) so i’m only 12 lbs away from my lowest weight when i lost all that weight a couple years ago. although it’s been VERY difficult for me to see it in the mirror still. those green shorts might (hopefully) fit soon though, i think. which is good because i’m running out of options. not sure what i’m gonna do when it gets cold enough for long pants and i have 3 pairs of leggings and 1 pair of jeans lol. maybe go clothes shopping since i really have some cash left over from the stipend, at least this month. i’m aiming for 110 (or maybe 107.5 just so it’s an even 70 lb loss which sounds impressive lmfao) but tbh i might wanna go down to 105 or 100 depending on how i feel. definitely (probably) not below that, though. what’s annoying is that there are very few people i can talk to about my ultimate goal bc most people, like mom, would be like THAT’S TOO LOW YOU’RE GOING TO STARVE YOURSELF when in fact it’s directly in the middle of the recommended weight for my height, and since i’m not packing very much muscle i think it would actually make a lot of sense for me to hover around there. when i’m there i’ll try to start recomp because it would be nice to be a little toned, but for now i’ll settle with the goal of being able to feel comfortable being photographed lmfao. 

i did start c25k up again, though, i’ve only done 2 days so far and i probably should be doing day 3 right now instead of writing this, but i haven’t slept well the past 2 nights so i’m probably just going to do it tomorrow instead. and i also started doing a very small amount of bodyweight exercises. my fear is, of course, that it’ll slow down my weight loss, which it will, and as much as i know to trust the science of “just because you’re not losing weight doesn’t mean you’re not losing fat, muscle weighs more than fat” etc, it’ll be really discouraging not to have that marker that i can graph every day just to know where i’m at. that’s another thing, if (certain) people in the house knew i weighed myself every morning they’d probably flip their shit and think i’m neck-deep in an eating disorder, when in reality it’s so much healthier for me to see the daily fluctuations and be able to look at it as a trend line. if i only weighed myself once a week, let’s say i weigh myself after a day of exercise, or after a particularly sodium-filled day, or just a day i didn’t drink as much water as i thought i did, i would be really upset and discouraged to see a gain on the scale. but in doing it every day i’m much more okay with fluctuations and it’s helpful to see that the overall trend is still going waaay down. i mean i’ve lost almost 40 lbs. (which you’d think i would be able to see in the mirror by now lol)

hmm i feel like i’m not using this journal in a way that will make me happy i kept it. i mean, it’ll be cool to know how i was feeling about certain things, and it’s a personal journal instead of a blog, but i still feel like i’m going to look back and be like “why did you spend so much time complaining about your roommates and talking about your weight loss instead of describing your experience abroad, dumbass?” but also as i keep pointing out to literally everyone, we still haven’t started teaching yet. (two days!!) once we’re there i think i’ll have more to talk about.

the first few days of november we’re going on a 3-day trip to the negev and eilat. i’m excited for it, but also really anxious lol. we also didn’t get to pick our roommates this time like we did last time (although idk if sultana and marleigh would’ve even wanted me to room with them again, they probably would want sydney or rebecca) and i’m really hoping they don’t just stick us with some random people for 2 nights.

we were offered 4 tracks for the educational sector of the program: technology, bedouins, the gaza strip, and the black hebrew israelites. naturally i picked the bedouins lmfao i have no interest in hearing masa propaganda about how hard it is for the israelis to live in gaza (the email seriously was like “learn how these people live as they just try to keep their families safe in the settlements....ok then don’t fucking illegally settle on other peoples’ land?), etc etc. of course the gaza one was the most popular lol. but i was told aaron jaffe is anti-israel (and everyone was like “uhhh why are you even on this program” like shut up lol) and i think he’s doing the bedouin track as well, which was pretty small last time i looked, so even though we haven’t talked before maybe i can strike up a conversation about it because i haven’t been able to talk about it with anyone yet and it’s getting tough.

and then we basically have like a day of free time, during which i’m hoping to go snorkeling and/or swimming with dolphins, which will be amazing. maybe i’ll go shopping or something. but beyond that i don’t know what i’m going to do or who i’m going to hang out with, which makes me worry that i’m either gonna just be following people around like a lost puppy (as usual) or holed up in my room “relaxing” for shabbat because so many activities are optional. there’s an early morning hike on the second day but i decided not to sign up because i don’t particularly like hiking, it’ll be hot down there even though it’s november, and i probably wouldn’t enjoy myself. it just didn’t seem like the best time for a physical challenge, a 2-3 hour hike up and down mountains or whatever. but it’s fine.

oh, i totally forgot to mention that matt and i smoked together! it felt so high school, smoking out of an apple pipe and getting high off such a small amount (for him, i think for me it was pretty standard lol). it was fun though, we watched se7en and then i went to bed early. i think indica makes me too sleepy. 

he made weed butter too which i tried but didn’t find worth it, it took like 2 hours before i felt anything and then literally all i wanted to do was go to sleep. so i don’t think i’m gonna have any of that again. which is fine because i don’t want that to be a regular thing, anyway. i don’t wanna get sent home lol

[sanguinesprout]

Uhhhhh... *derp* (More stuff about indecision, some talk about doctors and some blog changes)

Lately has been well... kinda okay but mostly meh. I’ve been flip flopping between feeling somewhat content with myself and a little motivated and feeling absolutely empty inside and distraught. It’s been almost two weeks since my last post here (actually a reblog lol) and I’ve really been wanting to write a post but I’m still stuck in the habit of putting it off until I know for sure what I want to write or have the privacy to do so. Or maybe it’s just me being a big scaredy cat again :< I think from now on I’ll try to just write as if I’m writing in a diary, so more spontaneous and with less worrying about structure/keeping to just one topic or whether someone reads it or not, as I’m doing this for myself and my benefit most.

Although I was dawdling I did however sort out quite a lot of stuff to do with the blog and some good stuff irl (which I’ll get to later or in another post). One of the main things to mention is that I switched this blog from my primary one to a side one, which does make more sense and makes me feel a bit more at ease which should make it a bit easier to write and post without the restraint I was feeling before. Whether to keep them linked or not idk, I feel uneasy about it but I don’t think it should matter, I mean it is still me on both blogs and everything. I just wanted to separate the huge blocks of serious emotional text from the random cutesy and silly stuff I also wanted to post, but I think I might still post mental health related things to my main one, just in the form of images and not essays like these lol. 

Also I changed the urls from the hyphenated and maybe overly fancy termed things they were previously to more simple and cute ones. I still feel a lil iffy about them (like this blog url feels a bit ‘cold’ but looks pretty and flows well while my main one sounds more ‘warm’ but the world cuddly doesn’t flow well or look as nice lol) but whatever I’ll grow to like them or just change them again whenever, I spent way too much time agonising over them, it’s time to move on! I fixed up the about pages on both of them too, the links and tags pages are still empty for now, but I’m content enough with the way they are now to actually begin posting properly soon I hope. Oh and the current avatar/sidebar image is a really crappy drawing I made 2-3 years ago with a mouse when I was feeling down and was going to make and name this blog ‘rainysnail’ lol. I still might use that name/url someday for something though ^^

I searched for ‘extreme indecisiveness’ in google the other day because I was that frustrated with myself about well, being indecisive (and it was over the same lame url/blog stuff as before, not surprise surprise). I know there’s a lot of stigma around consulting ‘Dr.Google’ and self diagnosis being looked down on as it could prove to be more harmful in some cases and I won’t lie, I do get kinda hypochondriac-ish sometimes, but sometimes it can be very educational and helpful too. I just wanted to know if I was feeling something... something valid(?) or if I was just being an idiot. 

I came across ‘Aboulomania’ on my indecisiveness search and wow, it sounds pretty similar to AVPD and my current feelings but the way it’s written is kinda heavier? (and hella typo-ey/engrish-y lol I just chose that one because it seemed to have the most info from the few I clicked on). Idk... it doesn’t seem to be as much of a known/legit thing so there doesn’t seem to be that many sources on it or at least any reputable ones (though I didn't look particularly hard or for a long time though but once you’re past page 2 on google everything is bleh anyways lol). Also on its definition here lol it talks about ‘analysis paralysis’ and that’s something I kinda knew of and struggle with already. I feel some resonance with this finding and feel a little more assured and saddened at the same time, but I’m not about to run around screaming I have this thing or anything. Maybe I’ll look into it more another time but right now I kinda don’t have the energy to .__.

Indecision is something that appears and could be caused by all sorts of disorders, even just depression alone or a whole mix of other things and factors. Many disorders overlap (like the stuff in cluster c which I feel are most relevant to me) and trying to pinpoint exact reasons and causes for things to do with mental health is near impossible, so I don’t wanna dwell on it. I have therapy soon so having a professional help work out things is a much better idea (unless they also consult Dr.Google like some of the stories I’ve read online lol).

I did see some snippets of advice on indecision on another page and it was basically to let go of the feeling to try and always be perfect/choose the definitive ‘right’ decision and to just trust your gut feelings instead of leaving yourself to stress over it. Yeah, it’s nothing new really and I have been trying to do this but sometimes it’s just so difficult with all these automatic negative feelings weighing my rationality down and sometimes I forget because it’s so hard wired into me to get anxious and over analytical. *Sigh* ...but if I keep reminding myself I think it will stick more in the end. I have already adopted the ‘it doesn’t hurt to try’, ‘just do it, ‘yolo’, ‘no1curr’ etc. kind of mindset/mantra when I get hesitant before doing something that I usually avoid lol, sometimes it fails but the times when I have been brave and not overthought or avoided I’ve felt kinda proud of myself and there were some positive-ish outcomes too. So I just need to continue and allow myself to grow stronger in mind and spirit (and hopefully body too).

In relation to what I said before about the whole ‘Dr.Google’ thing, I thought maybe take the time now to write about my experiences with doctors in general. Many times in the past and even now when I would be explaining my problem (whether physical or mental) to a doctor, they would just shake their head and scoff to them self or even outright laugh smugly and then dismiss it straight away (especially if I mentioned I read something on the internet). The feeling of being fobbed off and even ridiculed by someone that’s supposed to be helping didn’t fare well on my confidence at all and I feel it is a reason I wasn’t proactive in sorting out a lot of the problems I’m still dealing with and obviously I am regretful, maddened and saddened as many of them could have been avoided or alleviated better if they were dealt with sooner.

I’m not saying all doctors are like this, I think it was those particular doctors that were the problem and thank goodness I don’t have to choose to see them anymore (I hope). My current doctor (who I actually came across due to those mean doctors being unavailable one time) is worlds apart in the way he handles things. He is so kind and accommodating to start with, listens well to any concerns, addresses them with great care and reassurance and is very adept at scheduling appointments for further investigations. I feel he really goes above and beyond and has both a friendly and personal but professional demeanour. I mean he isn’t 100% godly perfect as there were times I felt a bit iffy with some of the explanations and prescriptions and sometimes things were delayed, but he does try hard to help and is not against reading information from the internet and in fact encourages it and utilises it himself (eg. printing a informational page on a certain health thing from a reliable health website).

When I presented some info and concerns relating to a health problem I was having investigated already but felt was going in the wrong direction (ie. going down the typical ‘fob you off with the most common explanation so you go away’ route) he explained that it’s the typical process to go for the most common things first when investigating and agreed another route of investigation would be beneficial, more relevant and time efficient so he arranged that too. This doctor is such an awesome and good natured person and I’m so grateful, but he may only be temporary at the place I go to however and it makes me sad to think I might end up with the mean kind again someday. But the lesson is to not settle on doctors that are not helpful or any other type of awful and that there are good people out there. Something that was really very prominent and touching about going to this doctor is that my mother and sister who go with me sometimes were also stunned by how nice and helpful he’s been.

I distinctly remember one of the first times I went to see him with my mum and at that point I had been ill for so long already and she was obviously very worried about me. At the end of the appointment he announced what he would recommend me for investigation and assured that he’d help me get better soon with a smile and then he pointed to my mum next to me who I wasn’t facing at the time and I can’t remember exactly what he said but it was something about my mum crying. When I turned to look, she was indeed crying and I couldn’t stop my own eyes from watering either. I have never ever EVER seen my mum cry before, so it shocked me a lot and made me emotional too. I mean my sister told me she did cry one time recently, but that was when she was so stressed and upset over a family matter on her side of the family :c It’s not like this is something on my bucket list or anything, because I would rather her never be upset or cry for a bad reason, but this showed how much she cares and worries for me and in this case she was crying because she was happy, relieved that she would possibly not have to see me suffer as much and was moved to tears.

Unfortunately the problems have still not been resolved or fully recognised yet, and recently one of the doctors recommended to help investigate fobbed me off and it feels bleh lol... no not lol... very un-lol :< But at least the investigation is still going further in some way I guess and I’ll take his words with a grain of salt, I’ve yet to see my regular doctor to discuss what happens next. I think I’ve just backed down and passively taken whatever explanations too much in the past with negative results or progress and Idk I have a hard time accepting things some doctors say nowadays, a lot of it seems contradictory, sometimes illogical or outdated, robotic, insincere etc. 

When I’m reading what I’ve just written it keeps making me worried I’m a ass or have trust issues or something... :< I know doctors are meant to be serious and professional, but I can’t shake the feeling that some of them are not nice/unwilling to help as much as they could. I have had so many past experiences to do with being treated differently and being prejudiced against and it still happens today and not just to me but all of my family members, it’s tough and really upsetting... :c

It is true though, that you really have to push and persist if you want something done about a problem, and many times people are let go and misdiagnosed with stuff that ends up being something different or a lot more serious. I’m not saying whatever I have is ultra serious and I wouldn’t know anyways. I am clearly not dying, and I hope I’m not, but when I was without medication at the beginning I felt so bad and I was so scared of dying (even though usually idgaf thanks to depression etc.) I’m scared of being in pain and having to suffer both physically and mentally forever. I want to get better, become a stronger person. do the things that matter and well, in a nutshell live my life to the fullest.

Anyways, about the app with the normal doctor... I avoided phoning on a day I could’ve gotten a sooner appointment (my sister encouraged me to, but she was away that day and my mum said it was an inconvenient day to go, but it actually wasn’t really... I should I have pushed myself to go forward even so...) the appointment I do have is 2 weeks away from what it could’ve been. But I guess maybe someone else might have taken that appointment that needed it more urgently, or there might not have been any available that day anyways w/e. Avoidance playing up again... be more brave silly self!

I was planning to write some more happier stuff that’s been going but this post is already quite long so a separate post it is~ and I won’t keep putting it off! Tbh I’m only comfortable pulling up my blog and writing my feels whenever I am alone, so when my family are all at work, but this only occurs on random days and for such a short span of time. Or at least when I know they are all busy downstairs, I can try but I feel like I have to be extra alert and switch it away when they do come. I... ugh idk :c I don’t want to be secretive or feel guilty but I can’t help it, it’s just so hard and frustrating. I can’t even write what illnesses I was talking about earlier on (though I do hope to dedicate whole posts to writing about them later). I will improve and forgo this paranoid feeling someday though! Believe it! *cringe*