#i think tea culture like that is much more of a thing in east asia. ah well

[supercantaloupe]

my brain is very gone. i cannot read questions but i wanna participate. what’s your fav kind of tea? how do you take your tea?

ooh i love a lot of types of tea so i could never pick a single favorite. i'd say for a single (though often large) cup of hot tea my preference is usually for something strong and fruity. i like herbal blends with hibiscus, peaflower, rosehip etc and/or dried fruit pieces, although this year i've really been enjoying a couple of fruity white or green tea/herbal blends. i love these hot and either unsweetened or with just a drop of honey. this is also usually what i take in my thermal mug to campus bc it doesn't easily suffer from overbrewing so i can brew it in the morning at 9am and have a still-hot cup of tea to drink in rehearsal at 6pm. although occasionally i'll take something black to drink as a single cup; my preference is usually for something strong and spiced, with a bit of cream and lightly sweetened. but if i'm sitting down for an hour or two and enjoying a whole pot of tea, i'm usually drinking either one of the fruit/tea blends or i'm drinking an oolong, no sweetener. i have this WONDERFUL oolong in my cabinet right now from a regional teashop i love that's scented with grape and blackberry and it's got the most well rounded, juicy body to it -- if i had to pick a single favorite it might be that but it's expensive and small batch so i try to save it for when i can really sit down and enjoy it.

as for iced teas: love a cold fruity or hibiscus tea, barely sweet; black tea, strong and lightly sweet, especially with milk (a la boba shop milk tea or chai latte); LOVE an arnold palmer (half unsweet tea/half lemonade); and whatever the hell they put in diet snapple, i could go through cases of that shit all by myself in no time flat.

basically the only teas i don't really like are anything minty, chamomile, and plain green teas and matcha. although i'm recently becoming a convert to the joys of jasmine tea. besides it just tasting good what i love about tea is that there's just So Much out there that there's always something new to try and fall in love with

[katakaluptastrophy]

Sorry to be a bother, no pressure to read or answer I just got tea feelings

but I saw you tag something with how tea is currently popular due to imperialism and that feels strange given that the names for tea - tea/te and cha/chai stem from the regions of modern china/south east Asia they traded from. Tea is native to most global areas in many forms and that particular bit of analysis confused me because it's not necessarily just a product of imperialism.

Its a huge part of many cultures but also the types of tea that are popular are influenced by imperialism. However something about that throw away tag hit me because one of the things that's always united my cross cultural friendships has been tea. Brewing herbal tea for medicine or late night talks, milk herbs and cha at my friends house, all kinds of tea across the middle east, various tea like things. I feel like the insistence on the type of tea might be a more fitting analysis than just tea as concept.

If anything Jon's insistence on tea that Harrow doesn't like suggests more about how he experienced it as opposed to the concept of tea. I imagine that Alecto would have so much to say about interesting psychoactive plants if given the chance to be the earth and not Alecto, and that she'd view tea as a gift to people. A way to consume so many flavors, odors, and feelings in the plants she loved so much. So Jon forcing lukewarm unpleasant tea seems more like a horrible personal choice than a condemnation of "variety of hot leaf juices".

Finally, tea is always offered with options in most households, at least in my experience. It's not about forcing one tea - tea is just a time to chat and have a nice snack and beverage. That comes in so many forms and is often beautiful. Jon making it a dominance ritual fits more with the worst parts of his character than it does with the existence of tea.

Thank you for the question!

The tag was alluding to the fact that British tea culture, and by extension the tea culture of former British colonies such as Aotearoa New Zealand, is in part a consequence of the role tea played in British imperialism (Opium Wars, Indian tea plantations, Boston Harbour, etc).

I certainly don't think there's anything sinister about the social enjoyment of a cup of hot leaf juice per se! I myself am the worst sort of British stereotype who will pop the kettle on to deal with any situation ranging from Monday to death.

And I don't doubt that John's social tea drinking is, to him, part of his self-construction (and perhaps self-understanding) as a regular guy. He is, in his own rather twisted way, trying to be kind (and part of what makes John so genuinely compelling and terrifying is the fact that part of what he's doing is genuine).

But thematically, John tries to assemble a group of friends and family and creates a Freudian hellscape of coercion. John, an indigenous man from a colonised country, recreates the violence of empire on an unfathomable scale. Tea's historical role in imperial violence certainly isn't the main thrust of what Tamsyn is doing here, but it sits somewhere in the background of how tea functions thematically in the narrative.

[journeytothewest-daily]

New volume! Thanks for keeping on! I took some notes for chapter 26!

Wukong (no more Wade Giles uwu) demands that Tripitaka receive his three meals and six teas every day. That's not bad for a mendicant ascetic! I'd quite like to be guaranteed that, hahaha! There's a typo calling him the Tank Monk later in the chapter, very funny.

It's funny how reading Pinyin, which is all anyone uses now, feels unusual, while individual trees having names like Long-life grass of reverted cinnabar seems normal. You can really get used to anything.

I was quite surprised that the immortals are described as youngish-looking! We usually imagine a Greek philosopher-looking sage here, but even Plato was a virile, hairy wrestler once, I suppose! They always carry around gourds with stuff in them; I've seen the like in movies, but were they ever made of gourds, do you think? Pumpkins weren't around in Tang times, at least I think not.

Is Eight Rules and Idiot the same character? The switching between in the same paragraph seems to go against best writing advice, but I daresay I'll not write anything that will survive 500 years! Incidentally, he quotes a saying "put on the cap to increase riches." Is that a real saying or did he misunderstand something comedically?

There are several beautiful poems about specific natural sites here, and I wondered where Chinese people would learn these. Would they have to read them? Are they carved into stones near these rivers and mountains? Is poetry a part of the curriculum? Accented Cinema on youtube said poetry is a large part of Chinese culture, and I'm jealous. We all disliked it in Norwegian class :(

These supposedly rural and simple immortals have jade tea cups and wine goblets! That sounds nice! They should redistribute them to me! Hahaha! They have eternal life, after all, and isn't time worth at least as much as money?

Also, shout-out to the peach thief! Can't believe we got another peach thief here!

1. Same! I too struggle with having that many meals and teas (no money). To be a Tang Monk...

2. About the looking young thing, East Asians have a gene whose name I've forgotten that makes them mature more slowly than other ethnicities. My biologist s/o will kill me if he knew I've forgotten the name. So yeah, in my fantasy or historical despictions even of older people, they won't have many wrinkles (in others do). Remember that Taoism is about prolonging your life, so it's only normal that saints are young looking, while in the West ™ our idea of wise and saintly is Plato, Saint Patrick, etc.

3. I think that the only original to Asia gourd is the Wax Gourd, so they might have been using that.

4. Yes, Idiot and Zhu Bajie are the same and I too dislike a bit the constant change of name. I looked up the saying in English but couldn't find anything, and my chinese isn't good enough to try to translate it back into Chinese and look it up. I know that some of you are reading the OG Chinese book, could you tell us if it's a real saying?

5. Poems are very important in all cultures I'd say, and of course also in China. People who got an education in the past not only had to learn how to write poems but also to learn them from memory. For the imperial exams you were examined on your poetry. I think normal people like you and me in China would have learnt them from memory when a passing singer said them and retained. People used to work their brains more in the past, methinks. If you cared for poetry and you were a peasant, you'd try to memorize it and say it to others so you weren't a base man, but an intelligent peasant, closer to heavens because poetry comes from heaven etc.

5. It's only normal that immortals have jade things :) Maybe they lack in other commodities, but would you rather have a precious jade cup or ten IKEA mugs? I am sure they didn't even buy it, but they just sprung out of thin air in their house when they became immortals.

Thank you for your analysis :)

[volkswagonblues]

a lil guide to the Fire Nation for the ATLA fic writers out there

(aka. a no means exhaustive primer on east asia by an asian person)

This is a guide for fic writers want to write a canon-era story set in the Fire Nation, or featuring Fire Nation characters. A quick little primer on the tiny details of everyday life that you might not think about, but certainly stuff that would make me, an asian person, wince if I were to encounter it. BRUSHES, not quills. CHOPSTICKS, not forks. 

(note #1: this was partly inspired by a chat with @elilim​) 

(note: #2:  I originally intended it for zukka fic writers before realizing that other writers might find it useful. so apologies for a slight Zuko-bias for that reason)

(note #3: this is all stuff i was thinking about when writing firebender’s guide, in case anyone was wondering)

1. CLOTHING

Okay, I think the most straightforward way to describe what everyone’s wearing most of the time is “tunic”. They’re all just...tunics of different colours and varieties. Later when Zuko’s the Fire Lord he wears robes. The show provides a better visual guide than I could, here are a few notes to keep in mind:

a) Japanese people wear their collars LEFT crossed over RIGHT

I don’t think this would come up in writing as much as it would in art, but it’s considered bad luck to do it the wrong way because that’s only for dead people. Let my boy Zuko demonstrate:

b) There are no buttons

This is picky, but Wikipedia says “Functional buttons with buttonholes for fastening or closing clothes appeared first in Germany in the 13th century.[6] They soon became widespread with the rise of snug-fitting garments in 13th- and 14th-century Europe.” I kinda believe it. If you look closely, characters’ clothes are always tied together or wrapped in some way with a belt. If there are fasteners, they’re braided frog closures that go into a little loop, like the qipao-style dresses women wear in Ba Sing Se, or Zuko’s casual prince’s clothes in the topmost image. Anyways, I don’t think Zuko or Azula or the Gaang would technically button or unbutton anything when they’re changing clothes. Clothing is designed to be tied, not buttoned.

[so much more under cut]

c) This isn’t a real rule, but there’s something called koromogae, or the seasonal changing of clothing in Japan.

This is something I learned when I was writing firebender’s guide, and I just liked the fun detail about there being a strict calendar for when to wear something. I liked the idea of someone like Zuko, who actually spent most of his formative years outside of the Fire Nation, coming home and just suffering mutely through the summer heat because upper class etiquette says no changing into cooler clothes until August 15. 

From My Asakusa: 

And this website:

Generally, people change from thick, heavy, dark-coloured clothes for winter to thin, lighter, bright-coloured clothes for spring and summer. In traditional Japanese culture, particularly in formal settings such as tea ceremony, it is important to acknowledge the changes of seasons—in such circumstances, not only the patterns and colours of the kimono that are worn but also the utensils and furniture that are used are required to change. By changing their clothing, people notice and appreciate the change of seasons. [Japan Foundation]

Here are some visual guides from the official creators for clothes: (notice how it’s pretty much always left over right)

2.FOOD AND EATING

a) Traditional cuisine

It seems like the most common foods in canon are Fire Flakes and meat, to the point where poor Aang had to eat lettuce out of the garbage at some point.

HOWEVER, the Fire Nation seems to basically a big subtropical archipelago, so I would guess that seafood and rice are common. If you want to write about characters eating, a. quick google for “traditional japanese cuisine” would help you come up with a menu really quickly.

Wikipedia says:

The traditional cuisine of Japan, washoku (和食), lit. "Japanese eating" (or kappō (ja:割��)), is based on rice with miso soup and other dishes; there is an emphasis on seasonal ingredients. Side dishes often consist of fish, pickled vegetables, and vegetables cooked in broth. Seafood is common, often grilled, but also served raw as sashimi or in sushi.

But before we get too serious, at one point the Gaang eats a “smoked sea slug” (Sokka’s Master) 

Oh ATLA, never stop being you.

b) Utensils

One thing to keep in mind is chopstick etiquette. Someone like Zuko or Toph, for instance, would have completely internalized all of these.

Another thing is that there are no glasses. Cups and bowls are made of ceramic or clay. Let the Gaang show you:

And another note: characters won’t eat “bread” in the European sense, ie. a baked lump of dough. Steamed buns, yes. Fried pancakes made from batter, yes. Flatbreads, okay I’ll give it a pass. Rice or noodles should be the most common carbs of choice.

3.ETIQUETTE

“In the homeland, we bow to our elders” - angry schoolmistress in The Headband.

Japan Guide has a list of etiquette rules for visiting Japan, which is interesting but not too necessary to read. In general, based on what The Headband tells us, Fire Nation characters would have been raised with a strong nationalist curriculum that values communal contribution over individualist expression. Even someone like Zuko, who openly rebels against that, probably couldn’t help but be affected by it. In general the Fire Nation seems to have an East Asian-ish set of values. It’s patriarchal, all the positions of authority are filled by men; there seems to be a strong emphasis on patriotism; there’s a sense of diffidence and respect towards one’s elders; and finally, there’s an emphasis on “knowing” one’s place in society and fitting into what’s expected of oneself.

I don’t really know how to describe it, but in China and Japan I sometimes feel like there’s rules for everything, and even people born and raised there acknowledge it could be stifling at times. You could go down a rabbit hole researching points of etiquette (for instance, rules on who has to sit where in group dinners...), but to me the most important thing is acknowledging that Fire Nation has a rigid system of etiquette, and also, they’re an imperialist power who’s pretty prejudiced against foreigners. Poor Aang/Kuzon gets called “mannerless colony slob” just for being slow on the bowing action (!!!)

(in firebender’s guide I had a lot of fun imagining the stupid microaggressions Ambassador Sokka has to face in the Fire Nation, so obviously I’m just biased)

4.WRITING AND DESKS

Characters would probably write on paper, with a calligraphy brush. Not quills or pens -- a brush. Technically, old Japanese and Chinese texts should be written top to bottom, right to left, but the show itself doesn’t do this, so I think you’re fine. 

One fun thing about traditional calligraphy is that you don’t use bottled ink. You have something called an ink stone, and then you grind your ink yourself by rubbing the ink stone in a special little dish with a bit of water. In my (very few) encounters with this stuff in the calligraphy lessons of my youth, the ink stones can be plain or have beautiful designs on the side. It looks something like this: 

ATLA is an East Asian-ish universe, so characters are likely to be kneeling at a table, not sitting. To demonstrate, here’s my boy Sokka doing his famous rainbow at Piandao’s:

and here’s the war chamber meeting when Zuko speaks out against a general’s plans to sacrifice some soldiers:

THERE ARE EXCEPTIONS: This is Zuko’s cute little setup when he’s writing his goodbye letter to Mai. In this case he’s writing in a chair and table. It’s possible that some furniture items, like a sitting desk and a bed in a bedframe (not a bedroll or futon) are special royal palace features. Normally in a private setting we see characters sitting on the ground or on a slightly elevated platform with a low table. Maybe Caldera is just different? Or rich people are just different: the Bei Fongs also have a sit-down dining table + chair setup.

(That little rectangular box is his ink dish!!)

5.A NOTE ON GENERAL CULTURE

It’s worth talking about a few general points of East Asian culture. I can’t claim to speak for ALL of Asia, and I don’t think I should. But I do think ATLA fic writers who want to set something in the Fire Nation should take a few moments to at least skim the wiki pages for filial piety and Nihonjinron (literally, "theories/discussions about the Japanese"). There’s a certain...vibe to...asianness... that I’m not sure I can explain without like, a doctorate degree in sociology. 

It’s a bit like gender, I guess. There’s no definitive checklist to what is a woman and what is a man, and we can argue that gender is performative, that it’s a construct, but at the end of the day gender is still (tragically) real in the sense that it still shapes people and affects how we walk and talk and dress and think. Nationality is the same. Obviously, the Fire Nation is a made up place in a made up show, but out of respect to the cultures that inspired it, I do think it’s worth familiarizing yourself with some of these cultures’ codes and values.

Also, ahem, if I can direct you to war crimes in the Japan’s colonial empire. Again, worth remembering that the Fire Nation was an imperalist colonizer too.

I might do a continuation of this post and talk through my more abstract takes about Fire Nation culture - Is Zuko an example of filial piety gone right or filial piety gone wrong? Why I think Zuko’s flashbacks are like, at least part teenage melodrama bullshit (the reason is son preference), how someone like Sokka might be treated once he’s openly Water Tribe in the Fire Nation (probably with racism...), specific aspects of asian homophobia and racism, etc. We’ll see.

This is not a definitive guide. Comments and critique welcome.

If you think there’s a factual mistake, PLEASE hop in my asks and let me know. I also think there’s a huge blind spot in ATLA for South and Southeast Asian representation, so I acknowledge that I can’t speak for all Asians, and there is no such thing as a “pan-asian” identity.

If there’s something else you’re curious about, I’m not a historian or anything, but I like research. Ask me and I’ll try to answer the best I can.

And oh, one last thing, this is how I do research when I wrote firebender’s guide, in case anyone’s interested in learning more (LINK)

[revenge-of-the-shit]

Writing Chinese characters set within Western worlds

If you don’t want to read it on tumblr, go check this out on medium or go follow me on instagram at @annessarose_writes!

Alright. You know what. I’ve seen plenty of stereotypes in fiction (and in social media) that are so incredibly pervasive I’ve seen many Chinese people within the western world internalize it themselves. So here’s a rough guide on writing Chinese characters in an English-speaking Western setting, written by me, a Chinese Canadian woman.

If you’re here to say something racist fuck off. Otherwise, welcome! This is not a comprehensive guide by any means. This is merely a brief overview based on my own experiences. My experience (as someone in North America) will differ from someone living in, say, Europe or South America. I’m not representative of every Chinese person because everyone’s experience is unique. So here were are.

1. Our names

Chinese names are usually written as follows: [family name] [name]. Let’s take a Canadian historical figure as an example: 黃寬先. In Chinese, it’s pronounced “Wong Foon Sien.” On Canadian documents — which are written [First name] [Last name], he’d be called “Foon Sien Wong.” He went by “Foon Sien” for most of his life. That’s his full “first name.” Nobody would call him Foon because that’s just half of his name (unless given permission). It’d be like meeting a stranger called Alex and calling them “Al” right off the bat. Sure, they could go by Al, but you don’t know that.

For those of us living in the Western world, some of us have both a Chinese name and an English name. In these cases, our Chinese name becomes our middle name in English (e.g. a character could be called John Heen-Gwong Lee).

For some people who immigrated to the Western world but were born in China, their legal name would be their Chinese name. Some choose to keep that name. Some choose an English name as their “preferred” name but keep their Chinese name on legal documents. It varies.

2. Parents & Stereotypes

There’s two stereotypes which are so pervasive I see it being used over and over in jokes even within Chinese (and, to a larger extent, asian) communities:

The [abusive] tiger mom and the meek/absent dad

Both parents are unreasonably strict/abusive and they suck

I have yet to see any fiction stories with Chinese parents where they’re depicted as kind/loving/supportive/understanding (if you have recommendations — please do send them my way). Not all Chinese parents are tiger parents. Chinese parents — like all parents — are human. Good god. YES, they’re human! YES, they have flaws! YES, they are influenced by the culture they grew up in!

That isn’t to say there aren’t parents like those tropes. There are. I know this because I grew up in a predominantly Chinese community where I had many a friend’s parent who was like this. Parents who compare their kids to the best kid in class. Parents who force kids into private lessons and competitions that the kid despises because the parents think it’s for the best. Parents who have literally called their kid a disappointment because they didn’t get 100%.

But please, also consider: there’s parents who support their child’s goals and who listen. Not all parents force their kid into the stereotypical trifecta of lawyer/doctor/engineer — I know of a good number who support their child in choosing the path they want. There’s parents who make mistakes and learn and try their best to support their child. So please, for the love of god, if you write a Chinese character, don’t reduce their parents to stereotypes.

3. Language & Learning

When I first read The Son of Neptune by Rick Riordan, I was so excited to see a Chinese Canadian character in Frank Zhang. Finally, there was someone like me. Finally, there was representation in well-known western media.

While I do appreciate that RR added in Frank Zhang, it’s pretty obvious that he didn’t really know how to write a Chinese Canadian character. One of the most glaring examples: in The Son of Neptune, Frank reveals he can’t really read Chinese. In like, the next book (I think — it’s been a while since I read it), Frank is suddenly able to read Chinese because he “learned” it in two week’s time.

Nope. Nuh-uh. Learning Chinese is a pain, let me tell you. There’s thousands of different characters and it is something you need to devote a lot of time to learning (especially if you’re progressed past the best childhood years for learning a language). So if you’re writing about a Chinese character living in the western world, here’s what you need to know:

A character who was born and raised in the western world does not necessarily know how to read/write in Chinese.

If they were raised by their own family, the character would very likely know how to speak their own dialect. They’d be able to understand the language used in movies/TV and they sound like a native speaker, but they may not know how to use language outside of certain contexts (the term for this is heritage speaker).

They probably went to Chinese school. They probably hated it. Chinese school is usually universally hated and does not teach you jack shit other than a hatred for the place and a vague memory of learning how to read the language without actually retaining knowledge of what you learned.

Most of my friends who know how to read/write in Chinese learned from tutors, parents, or were born in China.

There’s two main types of written Chinese: Traditional (used by Cantonese speakers) and Simplified (used by Mandarin speakers).

There are MANY other dialects (which I don’t know much about). The most common ones are Mandarin (usually spoken by people from the mainland), then Cantonese (usually spoken by people from Hong Kong).

4. Fitting into the community

Usually, the story is one of two things: they’re the only Asian kid in the entire school, or they grew up in a predominantly East Asian community. Things to consider for both of these when you’re writing:

Growing up the only Asian kid

They’re “that Asian kid.” They’re different. They walk into a class and feel weird and out of place.

They bring food from home (usually ethnic cuisine) to school. Other classmates stare at it, make fun of it, demand what that strange food is.

“Where are you from?” “Here.” “No, like, where are you really from?”

“Your name is funny.”

People literally never getting the character’s name right.

And that horrible, horrible feeling: wishing that they were white so they could avoid all of this.

Growing up in a predominantly East Asian community

It’s not uncommon for Chinese cuisine to mix with other east Asian cuisines. For special occasions (or just for a casual night out), your character could very well go out to get some sushi, or go for some KBBQ, or get some Vietnamese noodles.

Screaming “AIYAA” at/with their friends unironically if they’re annoyed (I’ve done this a lot with Cantonese friends. Less so with Mandarin friends).

Slipping into Chinese for like, two words, during a mostly-English conversation to talk about food or some other topic that can’t be adequately conveyed in English.

Reading books by white authors and learning about white history and growing up thinking white names, white books, and white history is the norm and standard even though the community is surrounded by East Asian people.

When the character leaves this community, there’s a brief culture shock when they realize how sheltered they’ve been.

Things in common for both of these:

The character has grown up on ethnic cuisine. Yes, Chinese people do eat rice with many of our meals. Yes, boba (bubble) tea is extremely popular. No, rice isn’t the only thing we eat. No, not all Chinese people love boba (though as a Chinese person I admit this sounds sacrilegious to say…)

The character likely grew up watching film/TVthat originates from East Asia. It’s not uncommon to watch Studio Ghibli films. It’s not uncommon to watch Japanese or Korean shows with canto/mando dub (examples: Ultraman, Kamen Rider). If you want to see a classic Chinese film from Hong Kong that’s fucking hilarious, watch Kung Fu Hustle.

The character has felt or been told that they’re “too westernized to be Chinese, but too Chinese to fit into the western world.” They’re torn between the two.

5. General portrayal

It’s quite simple, really. We’re human. We’re regular people. We have regular hobbies like all people do. We’re good at some subjects and bad at others. We have likes and dislikes like all people do. So here’s a list of stereotypes you can avoid.

STEREOTYPES TO AVOID BECAUSE WE’RE REGULAR HUMANS AND WE DON’T FIT INTO A SINGLE COOKIE CUTTER SHAPE, DAMMIT.

The character is a maths whiz and perfect at all things STEM.

The character is a straight-A+ gifted/IB/AP student.

The character is the next coming of Mozart and is amazing at piano/violin.

The character’s free time is spent only studying.

The character is insanely good at martial arts.

The character is either meek and submissive or an explosive, dangerous force.

I’m not going to mention the other stereotypes. You know, those ones. The really obvious ones that make fun of and demonize (sometimes through multiple untruths) how we look and how we live our lives. You should know.

Of course, there are people who fit into one or more of these. That’s not the point. The point is: molding all Chinese characters to these stereotypes (which white media tends to do) is harmful and reductionist. We’re more than stereotypes.

—

6. Conclusion

We need more diversity in portrayal of Chinese characters. Reducing us into one-dimensional caricatures has done nothing but harm us — look at what’s happening now. This guide is by no means comprehensive, but I hope it has helped you by providing a quick overview.

If you want to accurately portray Chinese characters, do your research. Read Chinese fiction. Watch Chinese films/TV. Initiate a conversation with the community. Portray us accurately. Quit turning us into caricatures.

[daeva-agas]

I was just reading this pseudo Western fantasy manhwa where it’s like “Sir so and so (the male lead) doesn’t like tea” and the heroine’s comment is essentially “Yeah he’s too manly for tea”. And like. You know. Chinese people and samurai be like “you don’t like tea?? Ew, what a barbarian”. 

Luis Frois literally said “In Europe only the ladies brings fans, but here a man is not elegant if he doesn’t have a fan”. 

It’s just so funny that what constitutes as elegance and the height of sophistication in East Asia is what is (sometimes) considered girly things in Europe of the contemporary era.

Any samurai otome or shoujo manga that wasted the high culture and is just falling into the same dull trope of “MANLY TOUGH MAN” and makes use of cliche animu tropes to make it cute (e.g tsundere, childish behaviour) and "less toxic” is wasting the setting. And when you go overboard into the “gentlemanly” vibes, and turn him into a froo froo softie, that’s just overdoing it in the opposite direction (coughIkesenYoshimotocough). I still enjoy Ikesen or SLBP because it's like... technically "old fashioned" by now. The info we have now is so much better than 7 years ago. So I don't blame the older works for lack of info (I didn't really know all these either then), but newer works could've done something more interesting with the info we have. 

I think Chinese stuff these days already tap into that, at least in female-oriented works. A man is not amazing if he can just do kungfu and mow down ten thousand enemies, he has to be cultured and can recite poetry and know etiquette and pour tea and play the qin and (insert a ridiculous long list here). You end up with a Gary Stu male lead, but hot damn that’s what a true gentleman should be like (supposedly)

[tl-notes]

Kobayashi’s Maid Dragon S2 Episode 10 Notes

I’m extremely not an expert in birds, but I tried to look these up to see if they were a species native to New York (since they’re similar to the sparrows we usually see around Kobayashi’s place). Apparently there are few similar-looking species in New York? My totally uninformed guess is that they may be house sparrows.

The sun sets in Japan relatively early (probably around 6:30pm when this episode takes place), which would make it entirely plausible that if she just flew east (with a slight northward angle) she’d find herself over New York in the early morning while most of the rest of the country is still dark.

These bumpy grey pads at the pedestrian part of the intersection here are known as (among other things) tactile paving; they’re to assist people who can’t fully rely on eyesight to get around.

Interestingly (imo), they were actually invented in Japan in the 60s (by a Miyake Seiichi), where today they’re extremely ubiquitous. They even show up later this episode!

They’re often referred to in Japan as 点字ブロック, tenji (Braille) blocks, and they tend to come in two types: the “dot” design, which indicates a place to stop (or an angle change, or more generally “caution”), and the “line” design which indicates you can safely keep going. They’re generally colored yellow in Japan, ideally making them stand out more to help people with impaired vision find them, and are mandated by law in most places public transport can be found (among others).

Not really a translation note, but “deer cola” felt especially funny in the context of all the horse medicine stuff. 

I guess “[animal] [drink]” is a common branding device in-universe, given the crab beer Kobayashi’s always drinking.

Also not really a translation note, but the difference between how “hard” Kanna and Chloe are running to be at the same speed was a nice animation touch.

遊んだ遊んだ！ asonda asonda!

One feature of the Japanese language is a very heavy use of repetition. This includes “reduplication,” a linguistic term for creating words by repeating a root (e.g. a “boo-boo” in English or the dara-dara example below in Japanese), but also just like… saying the same word multiple times, as Chloe does here.

Typically this is done for emphasis or to help increase clarity: if you’ve worked in a Japanese office, you’ve likely heard someone in a phone conversation say desu desu in response to someone asking for confirmation. 

This acceptance of repetition sort of extends beyond the obvious uses like this as well: for example, personal pronouns are much less common; instead (if the subject isn’t dropped) you’ll often just use the person’s name again. You’ll notice similar trends with other types of words as well.

Not to mention the ubiquity of things like otsukare.

This often ends up being a challenge for translators, because reusing words in English (when it’s not for an obvious reason) tends to stick out rather unflatteringly, even if they aren’t that close together. 

(Like when I overuse “hence” in these notes.)

This “Christ” in the Japanese was “ったく” (short for 全く mattaku, but just used as a semi-generic exclamation). I mostly bring this up because it’s a good example of a word that doesn’t work out of its cultural context; e.g. it wouldn’t make any sense for a fantasy character to say “Christ,” but since this is an American speaker it works just fine (and helps distinguish that fact, even). 

I think I’ve mentioned this before, but English uses a lot of “explicit reference” words like this, that can break immersion if put in the mouths of characters who wouldn’t have exposure to said reference—which can be annoyingly limiting when trying to write dialogue sometimes.

As a bit of a culture shock for a lot of Americans I’ve met, most Japanese homes tend to have wall mounted air conditioning units, like this one, that are only for heating/cooling the one room they’re in. (Many also have a “Dry” setting that makes them act kind of like a dehumidifier as well.) It’s common to not have them in every room, like bedrooms, however.

This is in contrast to the central air conditioning system used by a majority of homes in the US (though type/use of AC in the US varies a lot by region; less common in the north for example)—and places like the UK where apparently residential AC units of any kind are quite rare.

You may have noticed that the doors between rooms always seem closed in Kobayashi’s apartment. That’s not just to make the backgrounds simpler, it’s also a good habit to keep if you’re going to be running the AC!

“Kobayashi, are you お休み today?” 

“Yeah, お休み.”

お休み o-yasumi, is a noun form of the 休む yasumu, to rest. The word has a variety of applications, as we see here. A day off work/school, i.e. a rest day? お休み. Want to say “good night” to someone before bed? Also お休み.

In this case, it’s not even necessarily clear it’s being said as a pun; as mentioned earlier, repetition is a common feature of the language, so despite the yawn there wouldn’t really be any reason for Kanna to think Kobayashi was about to go to nap or anything.

“Laze about” here is だらだら dara-dara, another phenomime (擬態語 gitaigo in Japanese)—one of those words that mimics the “sound” of an idea/concept/state, which don’t actually make a sound per se.

These phrases aren’t necessarily childish or anything (overuse of them can be, but you can find them even in news articles and political speeches for example). They are, however, used frequently by children, and by adults talking to children, as they’re very “easy” words: they’re expressive, they capture useful daily-life concepts, and they usually roll off the tongue. You’ll notice, for example, that Kanna uses them a lot.

Kanna has a very interesting way of talking actually, which I’ll touch on a bit more later.

Kobayashi’s “bean jam” here is あんみつ anmitsu, a traditional Japanese dessert (technically a spinoff of mitsumame). It typically is a mix of red beans (and/or red peas), agar (an algae-based gelatin equivalent), some fruit, some variety of rice flour product (shiratama in this case, similar to mochi), and a syrup (often black sugar based).

You can find it year-round, but it has a strong summer association and is even used as a summer season word. (It’s typically chilled and you can often get it with ice cream as an ingredient.)

It’s also sometimes paired with a green-tea flavored something as well (e.g. ice cream, agar, or syrup). The trinity of green tea, red beans (aka azuki), and shiratama makes what I like to think of as the “Japanese S’mores Flavor (for Adults)”. No I will not elaborate on this.

I will though point out the shaved ice flavor Kobayashi ordered later in the episode:

え？今スイカ様子あった？

A word of note here for language learners is 様子 yousu, which has a lot of definitions, but in cases like this where it’s attached to a noun or phrase means roughly “the appearance of __” or “an indication of ___” etc. In actual use, it typically means something that makes you think of whatever ___ is—or the lack of something that would make you think ___.

For example here, it’s like “Watermelon? Where’d that come from?” (since the TV was talking about a different dessert-y food entirely). 

Or an unrelated example: “I think that guy is hiding something” → “Really? I haven’t seen any yousu of that.” In other words, it can be a lot like “sign,” as in “I’ve seen no sign of ___.”

These color-bordered envelopes (originally colored based on the flag of the country of origin) used to be the standard for air mail, domestic or international, though they haven’t been required for several decades.

That said, they’re still popular for that “ooh, international mail!” feel (at least in Japan) and you can buy them at most places that sell stuff like envelopes. As here, they’re often used in media to immediately convey that a letter came from outside Japan.

Kanna (and Kobayashi) says エアメール, lit. “air mail” in English, which is used colloquially for international mail specifically, rather than “mail sent by plane.”

They’re having what’s called 冷やしそうめん hiyashi soumen, chilled/cold soumen for lunch here. (Soumen being a thin wheat noodle; udon but thinner.) As Kanna says, it’s very easy to make!

Basically you just boil it, wash it in cold water, add ice, get some sort of sauce to dip it in, and you’re done! It’s a popular quick meal in summer, and much easier than the more involved nagashi soumen setups you may have seen elsewhere, where they slide the noodles down a chute for you to try to grab and eat. (It’s basically the same meal aside from that though.)

(You can of course add more to it, but as we see here, you don’t really have to.)

The type of tea here, for the curious, is 麦茶 mugicha, barley tea. Mugi is the general name for cereals/grains including wheat (komugi), barley (oomugi), rye (kuromugi or rye mugi), and oats (enbaku or oat mugi). It’s incredibly common in Japan (and much of East Asia), where it's the household summer drink.

It has no caffeine like many other teas, and has a bunch of various nutritional benefits, so it’s considered a good way to stay hydrated as you’re sweating buckets in the muggy Japanese summer weather.

帽子した？  boushi shita? した！ shita!

I thought this was a cute way of phrasing this question/answer, and a good example of the “parent and their young child” way these two talk.

The suru (past tense shita) verb used here is the ultimate in “generic verb,” and it basically doesn’t get any simpler grammar-wise to phrase something as “noun+suru” like Kobayashi does here (even the particles are dropped). 

Kanna, for her part, doesn’t respond with a “yes” or etc, but instead just repeats back the verb itself in confirmation.

Just to note another one of those words like dara-dara: bura-bura, used for things like wandering around, doing something (or nothing) casually/aimlessly, or (with one bura) for something dangling/swinging in a more literal sense, like a spider, slack yo-yo, or wind chime.

These booklets are a common homework assignment for practicing kanji; you can see along the left side there it shows the stroke order, with the first block giving an example to trace over & showing where to start each stroke.

Each character is made up of radicals (e.g. “hot” above: 日 and 耂), which each have a standard way to write them. There’s 214 such radicals (though many are pretty niche; only about ~50 of them are needed to make most characters), and once you get a hang of them it makes learning new characters much easier (not too different from learning word spellings in English imo).

Kanna is repeating out loud the reading for the “hot” character as she writes it.

In addition to the above workbooks (which usually involve both kanji and math problems at Kanna’s grade), elementary school summer homework in Japan typically involves doing an illustrated diary (not a daily one necessarily) and some sort of research project about a subject of your choice. (Think kind of like a small science fair project).

The “research” project part is pretty expansive, and you can typically even do something more arts & craftsy for it.

Manhole covers in a lot of Japanese municipalities feature art representative of the area. For example, the city of Chofu, where the author of GeGeGe no Kitaro lived most of his life, has several with art of that series.

(Photo from https://www.gotokyo.org/jp/spot/1734/index.html)

I mentioned earlier that Kanna has an interesting way of speaking. Probably a better way to put it is that she has a pretty convincingly childish way of speaking (despite the monotone). That is, she uses simple grammar and “easy” words most of the time, but then throws out random big words and fancy idioms from time to time that make you go “...where did you learn that?”

In this case, the phrase she uses is 巷で人気 chimata de ninki. Chimata originally means like a fork (in the road), and since those are often places with lots of people passing through, it expanded to mean “the undefined place where people talk about ~stuff~.” So it’s used for “many people are saying~” or “word on the street is~” types of situations (or “talk of the town,” as here).  

It’s kind of an “adult” word though; for example the character for it isn’t included in the jouyou kanji (the 2000+ that are taught in elementary through high school). Hence Kobayashi’s reaction here.

The word she uses for “protected” here is 死守 shishu. The word is the combination of the characters for “death” and “protect,” ~meaning to protect something even at risk to one’s life (to the death, as it were).

It's a word that you learn in third grade in the Japanese education system—the same grade Kanna is in!

Both of these types of signs are common sights in residential areas like this: depending on where you live, it can feel like there’s always some sort of construction project going on, and Japan’s many family/individually-owned businesses like this tend to be closed on various extra days during the summer (and certain other times) to allow for time off.  

In this case, them being closed August 12th~16th implies they’re taking off for Obon (and probably leaving town to visit family).

The word Kobayashi uses here is 風物詩 fuubutsu-shi. Fuubutsu refers to something that makes up part of the “scenery” of a place or season, in a pretty broad sense. This shi typically means “poem.”

So fuubutsu-shi is originally a type of poem celebrating a season or a scene of natural beauty, that sort of thing. From that, it’s also now (more popularly) used to describe things that are representative of a season; the kind of stuff you say “it’s not winter until…” about, or “you know it’s summer when…” (It can also be used for places + seasons, like the ice sculptures of Hokkaido winters, or even summer Comiket in Tokyo.)

They’re very similar to the season words I’ve mentioned previously, though they’re far less strict about what counts as one. Here, Kobayashi’s could be referring to the whole package experience of “having to take cover and wait out a sudden heavy rain, despite it being mostly clear skies a few minutes ago,” which you could call fuubutsu-shi (summed up probably as like 夏の雨宿り etc.)

In contrast the relevant season word here would probably be yuudachi (or niwaka-ame), a word referring to the short, sudden bouts of rain that tend to fall (from cumulonimbus clouds, the makings of which are noticeable in the backgrounds before this) on summer evenings.

Feels like in season one she woulda eaten it. Three cheers for character growth!

The parentheticals there are just the “English” in hiragana/katakana.

Kobayashi’s comment (nihongo de ok, roughly “you can just use Japanese”) is an internet-born term people originally would use to reply to someone who said something that didn’t make any sense, had terrible grammar, or was so full of katakana loanwords it was hard to read etc.

Kanna says this line in English, and while I have no proof at all, my guess is that the specific choice of “wicked” was taken from the translation of “maji yabakune?” used in season one.

[tianshiisdead]

It’s 3:30 am and I can’t sleep so here are some thoughts keeping me up.

Warnings for rambling (and complaints) about Chinese diaspora and culture and learning, some criticism, this isn’t inviting criticism from outside the community though and this is only my own opinion as a Chinese diaspora. I am also not super well versed on the culture and I’m honestly just trying to learn. Some of this is kinda unhinged and I’m definitely far far FAARR left politically so be warned.

I was thinking about soft power cultural exports (which E. Asia definitely triumphs at) and cultural identity and the twitter complaints about those pesky Asian liberal sellouts who still write articles about stinky food and hating their name when our elders are getting attacked in the streets. And you know, I don’t think it’s 100% productive to attack EasianAms with big platforms who are just expressing their thoughts, lifting up their community in the only way they know how, but that’s not to say all criticism against them is, well, completely invalid. I think most of us have gone through that self hatred phase, or at least a lot of us, that’s why the articles are relatively well received, but they’re also quite well received by white people and non easians, for a less cool reason maybe, because they’re pretty easy to swallow aren’t they? Like most things peddled by liberals, no challenges, no change, status quo is okay.

word count: 1400

Because like, boba tea and anime, subtle asian traits on facebook, k dramas and The Untamed (which is much more niche but yk). These things are palatable for a western audience, some of it is designed to be palatable for a western audience, and a lot of them are the cultural exports of countries with histories of western imperialism or colonization that changes, however subtly, beauty standards and stuff. Other stuff is cutely packaged propaganda but let’s ignore that for a second, Marvel is also cutely packaged propaganda so yk. I think, we all go through that self hate phase, an unfortunate bonus of growing up non white in a white supremacist society, but at some point you have to confront it. You grew up hating your culture and your name and your food through no fault of your own, but at some point you have to be the one to take steps to undo it and work through it if you want to be the Voice of Chinese Americans, otherwise you’ll just continue to peddle orientalist and racist ideals in a pretty packaging of anti-racism. ‘It’s okay because I’m Chinese and I think it’s okay’ doesn’t mean much when you’ve never bothered to look into the history of Chinese Americans and how they were treated here, when you don’t know the recent history of China and how the current state came into being, into the culture that isn’t just boba and poetry and strict collectivist family dynamics etcetera. and Like, you don’t *need* to know or to learn, but if you’re going to put yourself out there to be a cultural ambassador and try and show the positive side of your culture, be the role model for little kids you never had growing up, it’s important that you’re educated on these things and willing to listen so you don’t recreate the idea of the Chinese American identity as one inherently interwoven with shame, or one brushed up and painted over and ready to be consumed. 

The other issue, of course, is that packaging anti-asian racism as stinky food and ugly names that can be easily solved, and often is presented as already pretty much solved, is easy for non asian people to swallow. Like, it’s sort of like anime or boba tea, cute and brightly coloured, soft power with no hard power behind it, culture packaged up to be consumed (and. fetishized) with enough familiarity to a global audience to bridge the culture shock. You don’t need to think too hard about it, look away from imperial J/apan apologia and propaganda, look away from the icky parts of the culture, there’s no dog eaters here. Asia is only East Asia, Asia is pretty and made up of pretty idol boys and brightly coloured technology, Asia is backwards and gross and societal issues are symbols of that, to laugh at or moan about as if it’s something that only exists there. Or maybe societal issues don’t exist there, because look at those pretty cartoons and pretty actors, and you don’t want to give up your fan account just because of a scandal, right? It’s a playground, a movie, come laugh at it or indulge in the beauty or get upset at the bad parts and then put it down once you’ve had your fill of entertainment. For us, if you distract the crowd with these little sad stories you can cover up the violent parts of the racism, if you repaint Chinese Americans as a model minority based on your own upper middle class experience you can ignore the fact that this race has one of the largest wealth gaps and that for every rich Chinese American and fuerdai there’s a ton of poor working class immigrants whose faces have become indistinguishable with the crowd of nonwhite working class, little chance at moving up in a system already hostile to the poor but even more so to the immigrants, the POC, but never included in the discussions about their own people. 

There was a tweet I read about how it’s gross that the Big Name AsAm Ambassador of Culture and Talker of Racism Topics constantly yells about the See See Pee as if all the people here don’t already know it’s eeeevil and praises America’s systems and democracy in between crying about growing up bullied for food, lectures Asian Americans on their behavior with that huge platform of mostly white people, and when the violent attacks against elderly started coming out, it was radio silence from their end aside from another post about childhood bullying or maybe a criticism of how backwards Back Home is. Like, there’s nuance to every topic, a lot of stuff is going on and AsAm communities aren’t (and shouldn’t be) exempt from criticism and calls for reform and progress, but my very personal opinion is that if you’re marketing yourself as a talker abouter of racism and current events to a platform of mostly white people, you should maybe... cover this. There’s blatant warmongering on TV and in every news outlet that covers it, and I know Chinese Americans could lose their jobs or legitimacy if they peep a single word about the entire PRC being anything other than eeevil and backwards and they constantly have to prove their allegiance, even if it means ‘china covering up covid numbers BY 17083989385949%!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!’, but the last time Asian people were separated into ‘good asians’ and ‘bad asians’ and constantly forced to prove their allegiance a lot of uh bad things happened. 

But in the end, a lot of these journalists and Big Figures who write thought pieces and talk about racism are only allowed to succeed because they are palatable. No criticism aside from don’t be mean to asian people please, no changing the status quo or mentions about systemic racism or ongoing western imperialism and occupation in the global south or sex tourism in SEA and parts of Easia or white expats taking advantage of existing colonial hierarchies there, and plenty of self flagellation and American gov propaganda thrown in to make it easy to eat. America is okay, they say, there’s just some bad eggs in there. I grew up sad, but East Asians aren’t really victims of racism, we’ve always been welcomed here probably compared to other non white groups. There’s a lot of issues in our communities as well, you know this because you think we’re backwards already but here let me tell you about it, invite you to join in on lambasting us. There’s no issue with America’s system, I won’t criticize unless it’s already an ‘established’ topic, I agree with the list of evil countries and good, free countries and I support you. We’re sad because we had stinky lunches but it’s not your fault! Your system is fine.

[loopy777]

Non-Review: Free Comic Book Day 2021 - The Legend of Korra (Also Featuring Avatar: The Last Airbender)

With all the hype around 'Suki Alone,' it looks to me like most of the fandom missed that an additional Avatar comic with a story from each cartoon's era was just released for Free Comic Book Day. You can read them for yourself on either Dark Horse Digital or Comixology where it's mislabeled as being for ages 17+ (free accounts are required for both), but I'm sure one of the reasons you all love me is because of my willingness to jump in between you and these comics like the deadly bullets they can be. Well, I'm happy to die (metaphorically) for the sake of (a little anonymous internet) love, so I'm doing a full snarky review for each ten-page story. Also, I'm bored, and it's more fun to make fun of mediocre stuff than to praise stuff I like.

It's time for me to review "Free Comic Book Day 2021 - The Legend of Korra (Also Featuring Avatar: The Last Airbender)" or more specifically "The Legend of Korra: Clearing the Air" and "Avatar: The Last Airbender: Matcha Makers."

CLEARING THE AIR

The cover makes this look like a story about Jinora and Ikki having a sibling conflict. That's a lie. The Air Sisters arguing is merely the inciting incident for Tenzin telling a story of his youth. I should note that, as inconsequential as the Air Sisters stuff is, it's actually written very well because it posits Ikki as a victim of circumstance and Jinora as a bully who terrorizes her little sister with threats of getting thrown in jail by Metalbenders for an accident, cementing the characterization from the cartoon. This is not sarcasm. I really do think Jinora is presented by LoK as a Holier Than Thou little snot who just so happened to be naturally gifted with magic spirit-powers, but for some reason the rest of the fandom doesn't agree with me.

Anyway, Tenzin comes in to find the arguing (and Meelo just running amok for the fun of it and so far these characterizations are perfect), and rather than telling Jinora to shut her stupid face, he delivers a tale of his youth about conflict resolution.

So the meat of the story is how, when Tenzin was "a few years older" than Jinora, a pair of vandals got onto Air Temple Island and burned some graffiti into the spinning-panel things that Korra will destroy out of frustration during her Airbending training. Literally, the vandals are depicted as scorching the wood with enough smoke to be seen across a plaza. Tenzin goes after the vandals and they flee across the bay back to Republic City proper (one of the vandals is a Waterbender with a surf-plank). Tenzin pursues, catches them, and attacks them hard enough to smash some dockside crates. They are all then arrested by Metalbenders and dragged before Chief Toph. She's going to let Tenzin go (yay Toph!) and throw the vandals in jail (YAY TOPH!) and makes this face, and this entire comic is worth it:

However, Aang arrives and instead arranges to forgo the jail-time in favor of an Air Nomad Conflict Resolution Ceremony. This is nice and in-character, but I'm totally with Tenzin that these vandals should have been thrown in jail. They literally burned insulting graffiti into antiques from a genocided culture. But instead, Aang demonstrates conflict resolution by having Tenzin explain why he's hurt and what needs to be done to redress the wrong. And so the vandals help Tenzin scrub the graffiti off the panels with water and rags and mops- how, I don't know, since they were literally burned.

They also do a ceremony thing where they each take turns bending their element into a central space between them to 'clear the air' (GET IT GET IT HA HA IT'S ALMOST LIKE A PUN BUT NOT), so it's a good thing they were all Benders because this is kinda racist. This fixes all the problems and everyone is friends. Yay!

In the present, though, things are not so nice, because Tenzin's kids are still screaming at and provoking each other. Korra comes in with Asami at the end to ask what's going on, and Asami says nothing, so I still think everyone is characterized with perfect consistency with the cartoon.

I made this sound silly, but (aside from the spinny-panels getting cleaned with a little water and elbow-grease, which doesn't matter because Korra will eventually blow them all up anyway), I actually like this one. It has Tenzin demonstrate how much he's always had to work to be the Perfect Air Monk that everyone expects him to be, and Aang acknowledges how this is unfair but that Tenzin will never let him down no matter what. It also has Katara come in at the end (for just one line, boo!) to acknowledge that this was an especially easy little conflict for Tenzin to practice on and he'll eventually face worse. I found it a nice adult moment in a story that's otherwise clearly aimed at 8-year-olds.

The art is good. It's simpler than the LoK cartoon, with flat colors, but it captures the story and has enough liveliness for everyone's character to come across in their look and body-language. The brief action-sequence where Tenzin attacks the vandals is well done, moving quickly but showing the full flow of the fight and every move Tenzin makes.

MATCHA MAKERS

Apparently, "Matcha is finely ground powder of specially grown and processed green tea leaves, traditionally consumed in East Asia" according to Wikipedia. I had to look that up. I'm curious how many people understood the full reference in the title, especially since these comics are aimed at kids too young to be allowed on the internet.

This is a very simple story about Iroh in his tea-shop in Ba Sing Se. He has an assistant/waitress named Feng, a new character who wears glasses, ruining the hopes and dreams of all the fanfic-writers who were so sure he'd rescue Jin from the Lower Ring. A frequent patron of the tea shop is an elegant, older lady (very clearly Upper Ring material) named Li-Mei, who cannot go a single panel without giving Iroh a HEY BIG BOY look. She is very clearly smitten. Also, I feel the need to clarify that she knows his name is Iroh, so apparently Ba Sing Se is okay with the Dragon of the West serving tea to their wealthy. I don't say that as a criticism, I'm just noting it.

That night, Iroh meets up with his friends- the Pokemon-style spirits that we saw in Legend of Korra. (I don't know if they're the actual spirits from LoK, or just new spirits in the same style. This is because I would sooner grind matcha into my eyes than rewatch Book Spirits.) He serves them his special blend of tea and talks about how he's totally into Li-Mei but isn't going to pursue it because he's feeling old and doesn't want to take a risk. At this point, I could stop describing the plot because between the title and what I've said so far, I'm sure you could figure out every single plot beat that will follow.

The next day, the spirits trip Feng so that she drops Li-Mei's tea and Iroh needs to bring a replacement, and they've drawn hearts on top of the replacement tea with foam or sugar or milk or whatever. I don't know because I've never bought tea in a place that will even put the bag in the hot water for me. Iroh gets out of the situation without starting any love-affairs and runs into the back to tell the spirits to knock it off, dudes, they're totally embarrassing him! The spirits respond by giving him a flyer for a romantic restaurant. I don't know how they got it, so I can only assume that some Upper Ringer had their mail diverted.

Iroh refuses, so when Li-Mei orders more tea and he brings it to her, the spirits hover just out of her sight and threaten to smash the furniture. I am not making that up. They literally threaten to smash Iroh's furniture unless he asks the lady out. He submits to their tyrannical threats, Li-Mei happily accepts the date, he happily accepts her acceptance, and the story comes to a close. Iroh thanks his spirits friends for opening him up to new experience, but hopes that next time (so I guess Iroh is signing up for Tinder after this?) they won't threaten his shop.

At best, I can describe this story as 'harmless.' But it's been a long week and I just got a bunch more extra work at my day job that I really don't want to do, so I'm going to go ahead and call this story 'dumb.' It's rote, leans towards humor without actually being funny at all, and turns the spirits of the setting into Pokemon. And not even the cool dragon kind.

The art is strangely stiff. The coloring is soft and nice, but the drawings seems more 'assembled' than actually drawn. I swear there are even a few panels that reminded me of 'How I Became Yours' with janky poses, horrifying expressions, and just enough resemblance to the original cartoon to make me think a screenshot was partially traced and then ruined. (I'm not accusing the artist of tracing, BTW. I wouldn't even condemn the artist for tracing if they did. I'm just describing that HIBY feeling I got.) It was so stiff that rather than hear Iroh's dialogue in Mako's rich tones, I instead imagined Greg Baldwin doing a stiff Mako-impression with no naturalism to the delivery.

This story is definitely worthy of its "Also Featuring" billing. I'd rate it below Gene Yang's Mai and Suki FCBD short stories, but above everything else he wrote for Avatar.

So there you go. Overall, this is very middle-of-the-pack for Avatar FCBD stuff. It's very much of the nature of the 'Team Avatar Tales' stuff, and I wouldn't be surprised if the Iroh story was a leftover from that project. On Free Comic Book Day, you often get what you pay for.

[nightcoremoon]

weird opinion but christians aren't religious.

ok so like, jews generally follow god's rules, muslims follow allah's rules, hindus probably follow their gods rules, so on and so forth. and overall they do it out of faith; they do it because they want to honor the deity who loves them rather than because society forces them to.

granted the zionists and the radical extremists and the zealots do exist but as loud minorities and thus are statistical outliers & don't matter.

christians are... a different breed.

"if you aren't x branch and dont obey y rules you'll go to hell so we'll fucking murder you" is pretty much the main driving force behind a significant portion of christianity in history. the catholics, the protestants, the orthodoxy, all are built on a foundation of fear, anger, and hatred. it's shaped the way society developed; in the 4 nations that did the most genocidal imperialist colonialism- England, France, Spain, and Italy- a combination of convenient coastal locations, naval prowess, military tendency, christianity, and ultranationalism lead them down a path of missionaries, holding bibles in one hand and bloodstained knives in the other. the religion is inseparable from the culture and inseparable from the horrible things done in the name of their god, and the resulting cancers of society we feel today from the campaigns of slaughter. xenophobia. capitalism. savage barbarism via sensationalized capitol punishment. misogyny. queerphobia. gender fascism. classism. racism. all of these issues in the "civilized world" stem predominantly from those four nations and the disease ridden pestilent filth some call pilgrims.

here's something interesting:

there are less than 1 million rastafari in the world.

there are less than 5 million shinto in the world.

there are less than 25 million jews in the world.

there are less than 30 million sikhs in the world.

there are roughly 100 million african cultural religious adherents in the world.

there are less than 400 million chinese cultural religious adherents in the world.

there are about 500 million buddhists in the world.

there are about 1.1 billion hindus in the world.

there are about 1.2 billion nonreligious people in the world.

there are 1.6 billion muslims in the world.

and one final statistic

there are over 2.1 billion christians in the world.

the jewish count is a highball, rounded up, and includes several different definitions of jewish including people who are only one quarter. so for every single person who is even remotely jewish, there are more than 8 christians. for every hindu, there are 4 christians. for every atheist, agnostic, or "other", 2 christians. this frightening statistic should set off warning bells for everyone who is involved in a discussion about religion. and anyone who knows BASIC world history and can correlate data at all can probably piece together what I'm putting down.

now, I may be slightly biased here considering my eclectic religious beliefs. now, I personally believe that there is some primary force of energy that may or may not manifest itself as a humanoid being, that engineered the most basic laws of physics in the universe: atomic magnetism. as can be inferred by planck's constant and its implications, our universe is digital, written in binary. an electron either moves or doesn't move. there are no other options. so I genuinely believe in some form of intelligent design; whether it's a bearded guy on a cloud, some dude with six arms and an elephant for a face, just a big swirling pool of ectoplasm, or a big ol' plate of spaghetti and meatballs, something is out there that we are physically incapable of contacting from our plane of existence, just as a drawing on a piece of paper cannot reach out to interact with the world: a gif will move on its own but it will never acknowledge our existence, even if it could think by itself. and all the different mythologies of the world- egyptian, greek, norse, shinto, whatever- very well could be the agents of that unknown "god". perhaps anubis, ra, and bastet are just angels with animal heads that all of the peoples of ancient egypt saw and were like oh I guess this must be a god. maybe zeus and loki were the same person with a magic dick who fucked a bunch of animals in both greece and the scandinavian countries and spawned all of the horrible half-animal monstrosities that, idk, made vishnu think "well I have to kill that" and caused the biblical flood or something. maybe the jewish god gifted wisdom to siddhartha for sitting under a fig tree for 6 years through the angel pomona [roman goddess of fruit, had to google that one], so buddha gets his wisdom from demeter and is in nirvana right now right a step up from hades on yggdrasil the world tree keeping an eye on his charge persephone. any theory could theoretically be true but we ants of humans will never fucking know because we can't just point a telescope at the magellanic clouds and say "look, there's amaterasu with russell's teapot, and she's having tea with... *rubs eyes* lemmy kilmister??? wow I guess gods are real after all!" it's impossible to know the secrets of our universe because of the very restrictive nature of the universe itself. is it a circle? is it a donut? WE DONT FUCKIN KNOW.

we cannot know what religion is truthful.

""anyone who says that any one religion is more or less true than any other is a fucking moron, and if they're suggesting that White Western European Colonial Imperialist Protestantism is the one true faith, they're probably a fucking racist colonizer who beats his wife/sister and burns gays at the stake. and considering how that exact demographic is typically the one that murdered people for not converting to their religion, I don't think they have the intellectual non-deranged ability to make those logical connections.

again, I'm not saying that there AREN'T a lot of people of every religion who are evil assholes who contributed to mass genocide. israelites killed palestinians. shiites killed sunnis. hutus killed tutsis. danes killed geats. turks killed armenians. the ottoman empire has as much blood on its hands as the holy roman empire. germans who called themselves aryans but weren't actually aryan killed jews. but all of these tragedies were isolated incidents rather than repeated patterns over the course of two thousand years. not like christianity was and is.

just look at the United States, Canada, Mexico, Hong Kong, South Africa, Australia, & India's British Raj. Britain, France, Spain, and Italy, by extension Protestantism and Catholicism, are the shared factor between the long and bloody history fraught with massacring indigenous populations who wouldn't convert religions. native americans, indigenous canadians, latin americans but predominantly mexicans, the eastern chinese, coastal africans, aborigine aussies, indians- coastal coastal coastal. true the western chinese and the mongols/hunnu and xinjiang muslims haven't exactly been on civil terms and the silk road has always been a battleground and the middle east was already tenuous before murrica bombed them for oil but those happened in such a spread out area among asia which is FUCKING HUGE, MIND YOU! but also that's three high traffic places with massive diversity, it's human nature to have conflict, but not nearly to the same level as all of the shit christianity has done to the world. it's impossible to separate the religion from the cultures; victorian england without protestantism is just dirty people who die at 15 from having their 3rd child. italy without the catholicism is just grass and cheese. france and spain without religion are just kingdoms that fought wars with england for forever and now just make food that's one part delicious and three parts horrifying. religion is directly responsible for a significant portion of the evils those countries committed. one religion in particular.

they don't practice religion the same way as the rest do. they aren't faithful to their god. they don't follow his rules out of love but out of fear. they execute dissenters without a second thought, heresy they cry. they execute women and little girls for being free thinking or having sickness associated with mercury poisoning in the water, witch they cry. they slaughter men women and kids alike in the name of cramming their beliefs down the natives throats, we're chasing out the snakes they cry, we're bringing god to your godless people they cry, we're just civilizing you they cry. they shit in the streets and proudly display rotting corpses and leave the impoverished disabled and starving to die alone and whip their slaves and rape teenage girls and scrap in the streets while sopping wet with spilled ale over insignificant insults and stab people to death in the night and never even fucking BATHE, and they have the nerve to say the natives were uncivilized. the nerve. because hey. they read a magic book they stole from a culture who stole from another culture who stole from another culture, mistranslating each time from hebrew to greek to italian to english, and they think they're better because their skin is white.

christians never evolved. their mentalities have stayed the same. all thatms advanced has been technology. that's it. they're still the same evil disgusting degenerate bastards they always were. they just have the money they stole to buy stained glass windows, rosary beads, giant tacky metal statues, bigass robes, leather, and printing presses. and as time passed they used the money they continued to steal to buy cars and websites and radio stations and commit felony tax evasion and secretly molest children and line the pockets of the politicians.

all of their holidays are stolen from pagans anyway.

so fuck christmas. fuck easter. fuck lent. fuck the golden calf christian holidays that the tiny minded fragile snowflake conservatives lose their collective shit over because the pandemic response common sense stipulations won't let them buy the shit they can't afford with money they shouldn't have for people they don't even LIKE, all in the name of tradition, tradition! the rituals that worship something so much worse than satan or baphomet or pan or whatever: the dollar. they buy all the new shiny shit they can, at the expense of the chinese kids that the corporate pigs outsource to, buy the pine trees and the coca cola vunderbar and the fake mint corn syrup Js and watch the same shitty cookie cutter white supremacist hallmark fash movies and stuff their kids full of enough sugar to go into a goddamn coma when the african slaves who pick the cocoa beans will never get to know what actually being a kid will ever feel like because they're gonna die from falling into a combine harvester and be eternally forgotten to history and no christian will ever give a shit because they don't fucking care about what they don't see on their safe space news or hear on their safe space radio or read on their safe space social media. they think their worst sin is eating cheeseburgers so instead they'll go eat a mcchicken or chick fil a or an arby's chicken sandwich instead but not at popeyes because "that place is sketchy" and by that they mean they don't wanna eat where black people eat, that's why cracker barrel was so popular for so many white christians for so long because it had racially segregated seating until barely 20 years ago.

they don't love jesus. they love a paper doll they shove into their back pockets until every other sunday where they go to a fucking mall with a baptism waterslide and raise their hands like a bunch of dumbass weirdos and away to adult contemporary indie schlock with the word jesus pasted into a boring-ass hetero romance song, pat themselves on the back, then go to starbucks to scream slurs and misgenderings at 14 year old starbucks baristas who give them a cappamochalattechino instead of a fucking carmamochalattechino because you mumbled under the mask you didn't even fucking cover your nose with because you don't give a shit about the virus beyond how it inconveniences you.

they are horrible people who pretend to be good. until you suggest the slightest infinitely small inconvenience to them that would alter their holiday plans even the littlest smidge. then they would kill you if not for the police. don't get me started on them because you know by now what I'd say about those fuckers. but they'll gladly wear shirts about how they'll kill you. how they'll go back 200 years. how they'll murder you and watch you slowly suffer because their primate brains shoot a million endorphins when they watch things die by their hands because they never evolved a sense of empathy, compassion, or morality beyond how wearing a cross necklace will remove any of the consequences they will face in their afterlife.

they are horrible people who pretend to be good. unless you're gay or black or trans or Not Christian™ or mexican or disagree with them about politics economics sociology science technology music or movies. assimilate or die. assimilate or die. assimilate or die.

they don't deserve special treatment for their false idols.

they aren't better than jews or muslims.

they're worse.

so much worse.

and they should be stopped.""

-Nightingale Quietioca

save as draft arch draft bookmark draft where did I put my keys contra code kontra kode I need to remember this and copy it buzzwords keywords find it later please god tumblr don't bork on me this is good stream of consciousness repackage repackage change the words this is a great character study if I do say so myself thanks 3am me you're welcome 3am me

[evilelitest2]

How did China become the way it is now? They went from dynasties to a communist dictatorship that targets Uighurs?

Well i will say, the Qing Dynasty (last dynasty of China) also did a lot of genocides against Nomadic non Han peoples on the frontier provinces (Despite being a non Han steppe dynasty themselves) , like China has a long history of that sort of thing.  But to answer your main question, this is really complicated but i’ll try to reduce it down to a few steps

Step one: The Qing Dynasty, last Imperial Dynasty of China, is chilling out being the Imperial power when the British Empire, in their endless addiction TEA basically gets a ton of the nation addicted to opium to force China to Trade with them, cementing their role as history more aggressive drug dealer.  When china is like “hey we don’t want to do discount heroin” Britain launches a series of “Opium wars” where they destroy the Qing army and force them to basically a accept these unequal treaties where Britain and the other European powers could basically run sections of most of the Chinese coastal cities, were immune to Chinese law, take Hong Kong for themselves (different story) and force China to enter unequal trade treaties. 

Step 2: In part to response to this, an unorthodox Christian sect starts a massive Revolution/Civil war called the Taiping Rebellion, which has the “FUN” distinction of being one of the most bloody war in human history...ever.  up to 30 million people die.  Remember this is happening at the same time as the American Civil War, whose highest death count only gets up to 1 million.   This does massive damage to Qing China, even though they win the war, and makes them super hostile to Christianity and western adaptations.  

Step 3:Japan, who is going through their own period of Modernization, decides the best way to reject Western Imperialism is to Imperalize Korea.  This leads to the First Sino Japanese War in 1895, who defeat China and start to take over chinese territory.  They take even more when they win the Russo Japanese War in 1905.  

Step 4:  The Qing rejection most attempts to reform the state (such as the Hundred Days reform) and instead attempt to fight all the Colonial powers...at once in the utterly disastrous 1908 Boxer Rebellion.  The Qing are semi colonized as a result and financially ruined and have lost the respect of the people. 

Step 5: Sun Yat Sen, the most prominent Republican (as in democracy) founds his resistance group to China based on the notions of China accepting westernization, modernization, a secular anti traditionalist goverment, nationalism, anti imperialism, and democracy.  The idea that for China to have a good future is to embrace a western style of nation state building.

STep 6: In 1911, a carelessly discarded cigerrete leads to an explosion which leads to a popular rebellion against the Qing.  Before anybody, including the rebel leaders themselves are ready, suddenly the Qing dynasty is gone leaving behind a massive Power Vacumm.  

Step 7: Sun, taking control of the state, founds the Chinese Nationalist Party, the Kuomintang or KMT.  They attempt to create a modern Republican Chinese Nation State but erm...

Step 8: A previous Qing General named Yuan Shikai attempts to overthrow the Republic and create a new Imperial Dynasty.  He fails and dies, but the civil war between him and the KMT leaves the KMT in control of only a few Chinese cities, and the rest of China breaks into a bunch of local petty fiefdoms with local military leaders just declaring themselves warlord and running China.  

Step 9: Sun is like “ok the democracy thing isn’t working out” and enlists the general Chiang Kai-Shek to help the KMT unify china.  Chiang starts to fight the other warlords, and when Sun dies in 1925,  Chiang turns the KMT into a military positivist dictatorship with the long term goal of unifying/modernizing China and then maybe becoming a democracy.  

Everybody Pauses for World War I

Step 10: Some Chinese intellectuals think that the new party should be founded on more left wing principles, and they found the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).  They ally with the KMT because they also want to modernize/unify China, and accept from the Soviet Union as well as other anti colonal forces

Step 11: Chiang (with the help of the CCP) does a pretty good job at defeating the Warlords and unifying China.  BUt Chiang then betrays the CCP and massacres most of them as well as left wing KMT members, and starts to adopt an anti Communist profile.  

Step 12: The CCP, now much more radical, sets up their commune and fights against both the KMT and the warlords.  But they lose and are forced to flee across the rural China as part of the “Long March”.  Most of the communists die but those who survive to arrive to the last communist hold out in safety, is the new communist leader and totally not a psychopathic murderer, Mao Zedong.  

Step 13: Chiang has mostly unified China, defeating or subduing most of the Warlords, and is slowly but surely destroying the last remnants of the Communist party, who have retreated to a few hold outs in the rural north.  The new KMT state is relatively stable but still a military dictatorship surrounded by enemies. Meanwhile Japan is going through its fascist phase and is gobbling up bits and pieces of Manchuria, but Chiang doesn’t think he has the strength to fight Japan until he has finished fighting the Communists.  

Step 14: Japans military on the Ground goes rogue and just sort of...invades Manchuria on their own.  Meanwhile Chiang is literally kidnapped and forced at gun point to declare war on Japan in 1937.  The KMT and the CCP make an alliance to fight against Japan jointly.  The Second Sino Japanese War has begun 

Step 15: Between 1937-1945, The KMT is almost entirely driven back to rural Western China by the Japanese, who spend their time committing horrific atrocities which the goverment still hasn’t apologized today (which is why the rest of East Asia hates Japan), including the absolute horrific Rape of Nanking (look it up).   meanwhile the CCP fights a few token battles but then hides in the north and slowly trains up their forces and lets the KMT and Japan fight it out 

Step 16: The US gets Japan to surrender and the CCP and KMT immediately go back to fighting each other.  However the economically ruined KMT isn’t able to defeat the far more disciplined CCP and is defeated in 1949.  The CCP declares itself a new country, the People’s Republic of China (PRC).  Meanwhile the KMT under Chiang flees to the Island of Formosa (Taiwan) and says that they still are the Republic of China.  The two Chinas then spend the the next 70 years pretending the other doesn’t exist

Step 17: Mao, now dictator of China, attempts to modernize the economy and centralize the state.  The good news is that the economy does recover.  The bad news is massive human rights violations and the massacre of a few million people.  The PRC while an ally of the Soviet Union, really is an independent communist state that actually can hold its own.  Mao gets involved in the Korea War against the US and while the PRC doesn’t win, they also don’t lose which establishes them as a world power.  

Step 18: However Mao very quickly goes off the Deep End and launches the “Great Leap Forward” possibly the worse economic policy in human history which leads to the death of up to 40 million people....whoops

Step 18: The PRC leadership puts Mao in a corner so he can think about what he did and try to restore order, but then Mao is able to launch a revolution against his own government with the students called “The Cultural Revolution” which is...the weirdest revolution ever?  Its like if a dictator lead a revolution against his own goverment...long story for another time.  The Cultural Revolution destroys mountains of traditional chinese art and culture, kills, arrests and harrassings thousands to millions of people, and just breaks the state, finally ending with Mao’s death in 1976. 

Step 19: With Mao’s death, the more moderate faction of the PRC takes over, purges the more radical members of the Party, ends the Cultural revolution and starts to semi liberalize the economy, leading to the weird communist/capitalist/mercantilism/Imperial hybrid China operates under today, including of course massive corruption.  The dictatorship because less intense and relaly less communist and they start to drift away from the Soviet Union.  Then in 1989 as the Soviet Union is collapsing, and their is a massive student protest against corruption and in favor of China becoming a more liberal democratic and socialist state.  The goverment after a few months of dithering, opens fire on the protesters and you still aren’t allowed to talk about it in China today.  Death toll varies but most non Government accounts put it at around 10,000.  

Step 20: China becomes a global super power, only behind the US and EU in power and turns their government into a major economic hub, though they keep pissing off their western allies with unfair business practices.  Recently however, the country has gone from an oligarchic autocracy to an...autocracy autocracy with the rise of their new leader, Xi Jinping, who has centralized authority and made the country a lot more oppressive and autocratic, while pushing aback against corrupt and dissident.

Step 21: Which finally brings us to the Uyghurs. Imperial China did this too, but the PRC really has a problem with the various non Han minority groups, doubly so for those who are Muslim and have separatist leanings. So the extermination of the Uyghurs really could be read as a continuation of how the PRC has treated the Tibetans, the Mongolians, and even Hong Kong over the last few decades.  This is part of their vision of China as being a centralized, modernize, secular, unified Nation State, which doesn’t really leave room for regional ethnic religions minorities, doubly so against those with a non Chinese language.  

That is the super simple version, Chinese history is super complicated.

[subbyboymax]

I want to ask you all of them 🙈🙈

So why won’t you ask all of them? Huh anon?

Jk I love you whoever you are. As requested:

1. Zodiac sign 

Taurus. I don’t really pay much attention to zodiac stuff but I’ve heard from friends that I fit the stereotypes somewhat.

2. Sexual orientation 

This is hard because I’m kinda questioning atm, but I would say I like women and identify as NB using male pronouns which I personally feel is accurate to me, but I still am unsure myself what that actually means. I am still figuring myself out.

3. Relationship status 

Single and honestly looking. I’ve had one girlfriend in high school and I’ve had romantic interests since but I have such low self confidence that I end up being too nervous to really pursue a relationship.

4. Someone you miss 

My friend Rebekah. I miss her a lot. She’s like a sister to me.

5. Person who’s arms you’d like to be in 

Hmmmmmmmmm... anyone really...

6. What you find attractive in Men/Women? 

Typically I find personality attractive and looks don’t really matter, but usually someone’s smile and eyes draw my attention the most.

7. How tall are you? 

5’7 or ~170cm but I wish I was more smol.

8. What you love about yourself? 

Already answered

9. What you’re doing tomorrow? 

I’m probably going to exercise and play games with my gaming clan.

10. What are your future plans? 

My goal is to become an electrician, but I also want to go to various Asian countries and try to improve my Asian cooking by studying the food culture all over east asia.

11. Your last night out in detail?

Oh god I don’t even remember the last time I was out at night... I guess it was last year when I had my heart broken and I went to a really nice bar and spent $200 on alcohol and was GONE. Never again. Ended up being hung over for the first time in my life.

12. Your favorite book? 

Hmm... favorite book(s) would have to be the Ranger’s Apprentice series of books. Good story, good characters.

13. All of pets you’ve ever had?

I’ve had so many pets I could make a whole post about them and may do that later.

14. Something that changed your life? 

Unfortunately too many things have happened to change my life more than I would like. I still can’t really answer this question fully.

15. Do you remember your last dream?

I was basically playing a game that turned out to be an isekai and I basically had a SMG and had to fight off a dragon. Shit was weird but very vivid. It’s weird because I don’t particularly like guns or dangerous stuff in general. 

16. What your last text message says? 

“Keep me posted! We should meet up and have a toast to it!” was sent to my friend Renè, who has been my best friend since birth pretty much. Our parents were close while they were pregnant with us and we are practically brothers. He’s getting a house near where I live and we will live in the same state for the first time since we were 8 years old. Obviously we will social distance but we still had to celebrate and see each other to mark the occasion.

17. Do you respect your government and the way your country is run? 

Absolutely not. Please vote biden if you live in the US. Even if you hate the idea of voting for biden, he’s better than trump. If hillary had won, she would have been putting her third justice on the supreme court. Biden is the only chance for our freedom and for the freedom of many people. I am terrified of 4 more years of trump.

18. Where you would like to live? 

South Florida, where I was born.

19. Your  favorite flavor of ice cream?

Depends on my mood, but typically strawberry.

20. Last thing you ate?

Pizza that was left over from last night. 

21. Which swear word do you use the most? 

Fuck. Like I use it so much it’s stupid.

22. Your plans for summer?

Heh... plans...

23. Any upcoming concerts?

Bruh if only. Like I work as an usher and as a stagehand, so if any concerts were happening at all I would JUMP for joy. And I am CHONK so jumping is not exactly the most comfortable thing to do. 

24. Something that you’re proud of?

That I am finally committing to getting therapy for my long list of traumas. 

25. Do you still talk to your first crush?

I wish I could, but she’s not part of my life anymore, sadly. She was a good friend. 

26. What language do you want to learn? 

Japanese, because I really have a strong interest in their history and culture and want to go sightseeing there someday.

27. Where have you lived before?

Ft. Lauderdale, Florida and St. Louis, Missouri.  

28. Eye color?

I think it’s green or something but it changes depending on the light because it’s sometimes more silvery idk.

29. Favorite style of clothing?

Traditional Japanese formal wear. It’s always been an interest of mine. 

30. How long does it take you to get ready in the morning?

All of one minute to throw on an outfit and get socks on. I wish I had an eye for fashion but hopefully if I ever have a partner, they will help me with my style choices a bit lol. 

31. Where did you go today?

Nowhere, because pandemic lmao. 

32. Where are you right now?

In my room wishing I could have cuddles. 

33. How many countries have you visited?

None because money is not exactly a thing we have an abundance of.

34. Something old?

What does this mean? I guess I have my great grandfather’s old stamp collection. 

35. Something new?

Hell if I know, I’ve had nothing new in months.

36. Something inherited?

My laptop.

37. Is death more scary than life? 

Hell no. Death is easy. Life is scary and overwhelming but it’s worth living the life you have. You only lose out on life by dying before your time. You gain nothing in death, despite it being less scary and uncertain than living is. Keep living to experience everything you can and have no regrets once you do pass on.

38. Experience you’ll never forget?

The time my high school crush complimented my hair in physics class. I get very few compliments and I never feel that attractive so I hardly focus on my appearance but I had brushed my hair that day and the fact she commented on it made me smile very wide.

39. What’s your favorite part about today so far?

Honestly today has sucked and I have been dealing with depression but I am trying to stay positive. Hopefully the answer to this question changes later today! 

40. Who is your hero?

My Great-Grandmother. She was part of my life until I was 17 and she taught me that kindness and compassion is the most important trait for a human to have. She was the most amazing woman I have ever met in my life. 

41. Are you happy with where you live?

I love this house, but it’s definitely not perfect and I would love to have my own place someday. 

42. Do you like your handwriting? 

Ew no it looks like alien language. It’s so bad. I can barely read my own writing.

43. What do you wear to bed?

Typically just underwear, or in the winter I will wear a T-shirt and fleecy pants.

44. Tea or coffee?

Tea

45. Chocolate or Vanilla? 

Chocolate hands down. It’s such a varied flavor imo. 

46. Are you excited for anything?

Being okay someday. 

47. How late did you stay up last night and why? 

Midnight because sleep is hard.

48. What’s your ringtone?

I’m boring and keep my phone on vibrate so no ringtone.

49. Did you have a dream last night?

Yes, I said it earlier. 

50. What keeps you going each day?

Honestly no fucking idea lmao.

51. Picture of yourself?

You’ll have to DM me for that one, friendo. Anons get no face pics!

Also for the other people who sent in asks, I saw them, but I figured I could just use this ask to consolidate and not spam posts. Thank all of you for sending in asks, you are the best <3

[mysticalmusicwhispers]

Do have any Hetalia fanfiction recommendations mainly involving the asian countries? I'm sorry that is kind of out of the blue but I really like your writing and hope that you could give me some recommendations.

Hey anon! First of all, thank you so much for sending in this ask and I’m glad you enjoy my writing! I love talking about the Asians and ughhhh the precious few platonic Asia-fam centric fics are top notch quality. Onto the recs! Note: Sorry if you wanted India included! I don’t know if there are any fics with him + all other Asians! Please take my apologies! Also, looking back, there are precious few fics with Thailand and Vietnam included, so I’m so sorry if you wanted them as well! I only found 1 with all of them...

All of these are from either ff.net or AO3 because tumblr’s tagging system isn’t the best sometimes so I didn’t look here (oop).

NON-SHIPPY PLATONIC ASIA FAMILY FIC RECOMMENDATIONS

The Asia Family: This. This is gold. It’s a series of 14 one-shots; most of them include SK, CHN, JPN, TWN (Taiwan), HK, and I think at least 2 have Thailand and Vietnam (hhh). They’re mostly casual things the Asians do together in modern day, although a handful are set when everyone except China is a child (there’s also a Human AU with China as a single parent), and the last one is a historical fic. I think the plot and fluff are very well written; looking back though, the only thing that kinda bugs me is that the author put in their accents (so Korea says da-ze, China says -aru, etc.) which is rather annoying... but if you can look over that, overall it’s pretty good.

Onii-chan means Older Brother: [On one cold late snowy evening on the way home from a late meeting, Japan finds a young boy waiting for his older brother. While accompanying young boy until his brother arrive, they talk and Japan recounts his memories spent with China. Only after seeing the brothers reunite did Japan realize what he had to do after all this time...] One-shot. CHARACTERS: CHINA AND JAPAN It’s rated as brotherly Nichu, so if that’s not your cup of tea, skip this. I’m kind of conflicted; if you ignore all modern day and historical realities, then this is a good fluffy story, and children are my weakness so it’d be pretty good. However, I just don’t really see it as a realistic scenario sometimes, so if you’re a stickler for history and portraying relationships as they are in the real world, maybe it isn’t that good? Idk. However the writing is excellent, top notch.

The Truth is a Nuisance: Detailing the ensuing uproar and controversy after the nation personifications have been revealed. 6 chapters. Ok so,,, the summary on AO3 says it’s East-Asia centric, but in my opinion it’s more of an exploration of what would happen when the nations are revealed that doesn’t focus that much on anyone in particular. However, China is the narrator and the other Asians (SK, JPN, TWN, HK, IND, and an OC Singapore) appear. This is set in modern day, so THERE ARE SLIGHTLY CONTROVERSIAL TOPICS (the nations are asked their opinions on present leaders, imperialism, WWII, etc.) I think the author does a good job of staying neutral and not polarizing anyone, but a fair warning it covers some politics, as well as the situations of nations that are not... rated favorably by modern US standards (Syria, Somalia, etc). It’s an interesting (and entertaining) read though, if you aren’t focused that much on the Asians. (Has pseudo-twitter and tumblr reaction posts by both nations and humans to this revelation, which is fun to read)

Family of Five: Summary: [Taiwan eyed the extra plate. “You know he's not coming, right?” It was always the four of them: China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Korea. Always four, when it should have been five.] One-shot. Characters: CHINA, TAIWAN, HONG KONG, KOREA, JAPAN This is a really quick read, but it’s fluffy, a little bit bitter, and the writing is high quality. I think it portrays relationships more or less accurately; the tensions between countries are less prevalent here for fluff.

Wan’an: A one-shot about small Asians at bedtime. Summary given by author: ["Li Xiao Chun, get down right now!" "Kung Fu!" "No, don't!" Bedtime is a familiar chaos at China's place. He loves the little nations, but they're even sweeter when they're actually asleep.] Characters: CHINA, TAIWAN, HONG KONG, KOREA, JAPAN Basically, another fluffy, cute story. I guess there’s some brotherly Nichu at the end? But you can also just read it as siblings being sweet. There’s a minor cultural context thing with the bed (called a kang/炕) and stoking the fire (info here) but it doesn’t affect the story a lot, just a small detail.

Note: the last two stories (Family of Five and Wan’an) are in a series: Asia Family Shenanigans. There are two more stories, but both only have China and Japan in them I believe. One of them also has historical context that’s a bit sensitive (Nanjing WWII) so... However, I think they’re both worth reading.

This isn’t really a true fic, but it’s really good! A short anon ask from @/alfredtalia about an Asia family dinner to give Yong Soo a break from running the 2018 Winter Olympics. Also has cute art!

China: this is totally not Asia-fam centric, and it’s unfinished with only two chapters, but it’s too good not to mention. It’s an interpretation of what China’s beginnings were like, however it only goes till the end of the Shang Dynasty... so read at your own risk I guess? The writing is just superb though.

I pulled the AO3 fics from here, using their tag filter system, a guide to which is here.

And that’s it! I hope I gave you enough? There aren’t a lot of family bonding fic type things for these guys, but I hope this is good so far! Tell me what you think about them, and definitely ask for more if you want! (I’m working on a fic that’s mostly HK but has Asia-fam elements to the first part, and hopefully I’ll finish it soon!)

[vigncttcs]

┊ 𝐇𝐄𝐋𝐋𝐎!  self-introductions are the bane of my existence, but please call me noa or she/her. i’m a 23 year old obsessed with hozier and i live in gmt+1. this is my boy, gabe - a photographer whose poor practical skills are only rivaled by his imaginative and passionate nature. i’m super excited and looking forward to playing with y’all. beyond the cut you’ll find some groundwork info on him (still under big time construction though ;;) and i’ll be posting his wanted connections soon, too. hmu anytime ♡

☕ . ˚ ◝ ( kim taehyung. cismale. he/him. ) gabriel "k" lee is a twenty-four year old sagittarius. the photographer’s go-to order is a mocha caramel latte. they like to listen to classical music by deceased composers while they wait for their order. the employees of the deja brew think they are spacey but swear they’re totally kind as well. maybe that’s why b&w photographs, half tucked button downs, messy hair, and holding hands when you're really excited about something remind me of them.

PERSONAL

┊ 𝐅𝐔𝐋𝐋 𝐍𝐀𝐌𝐄: gabriel lee ┊ 𝐍𝐈𝐂𝐊𝐍𝐀𝐌𝐄(𝐒): gabe, k (his professional pseudonym) ┊ 𝐆𝐄𝐍𝐃𝐄𝐑 (𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐍𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐒): cis male (he/him) ┊ 𝐁𝐈𝐑𝐓𝐇𝐃𝐀𝐘: december 20 ┊ 𝐙𝐎𝐃𝐈𝐀𝐂: sagittarius ┊ 𝐎𝐂𝐂𝐔𝐏𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍: photographer (interior/real estate & freelance) ┊ 𝐄𝐃𝐔𝐂𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍:  bfa in photography & media ┊ 𝐇𝐎𝐌𝐄 𝐓𝐎𝐖𝐍: queens, nyc ┊ 𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐈𝐃𝐄𝐍𝐂𝐄: westwood, la.  ┊ 𝐍𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐘: american ┊ 𝐄𝐓𝐇𝐍𝐈𝐂𝐈𝐓𝐘:  korean-ameriacan ┊ 𝐇𝐄𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓: 180cm ┊ 𝐇𝐀𝐈𝐑 𝐂𝐎𝐋𝐎𝐑: naturally black, but he dyes it often (currently blonde) ┊ 𝐄𝐘𝐄 𝐂𝐎𝐋𝐎𝐑: dark brown ┊ 𝐓𝐀𝐓𝐓𝐎𝐎𝐒: none ┊ 𝐏𝐈𝐄𝐑𝐂𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒: just his ears ┊ 𝐒𝐂𝐀𝐑𝐒: a tiny scar on his cheek, barely visible unless you lean in close. ┊ 𝐅𝐀𝐂𝐄 𝐂𝐋𝐀𝐈𝐌: kim taehyung

HEALTH

┊ 𝐀𝐃𝐃𝐈𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒: none. ┊ 𝐒𝐌𝐎𝐊𝐄?: no. ┊ 𝐃𝐑𝐔𝐆𝐒?: just weed. ┊ 𝐀𝐋𝐂𝐎𝐇𝐎𝐋?: sometimes.

RELATIONSHIPS

┊ 𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐒:  misun "missy" byun (mother) & kangmin lee (father) ┊ 𝐒𝐈𝐁𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒: henry lee (older brother) ┊ 𝐂𝐇𝐈𝐋𝐃𝐑𝐄𝐍: none. ┊ 𝐏𝐄𝐓𝐒: none. ┊ 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐒: single. ┊ 𝐏𝐀𝐒𝐓 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐒: girlfriends, boyfriends. no one too notable.

BIOGRAPHY

┊ 𝐒𝐍𝐀𝐏𝐒𝐇𝐎𝐓. We never truly realize how much we love someone until we're at some place wonderful and beautiful and we wish they were there. Maybe that’s why we take pictures, so that we can keep a piece and give it to them. At least, that’s why Gabriel likes taking pictures.

┊ 𝐃𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐌𝐄𝐑. Leaving the grime and bustle of New York to attend UCLA was an adventure. Gabriel moved with the mind to grow up a little bit, but most of all he wanted to go somewhere new, to start something new. Away from the clustering businesses in Queens. Away from his hawk-eyed parents.

┊ 𝐅𝐀𝐌𝐈𝐋𝐘. Hard-working people who migrated to America in search of a better life, Gabriel’s parents found themselves part of the Genesis of Asian culture in Queens. Like many immigrants, they worked shitty jobs in dangerous locations to make ends meet, guarding their entrepreneurial ambitions: by the time Gabriel was nine, they’d started their own business.

┊ 𝐂𝐇𝐈𝐋𝐃. Two traits invested in him were diligence and dedication, but he’s never been as selfless as his big brother; studying medicine to make their parents happy. Nonetheless they grew up together, their childhood defined by a small and crowded space filled with goods imported from Asia, where his mother always stood on her feet with Gabriel and his brother clinging to her sides. Time and memory might move in different directions, but the scent of tea, roots, snacks and cooking ingredients are vividly embedded in his mind.

┊ 𝐓𝐄𝐄𝐍. Despite being raised by traditionally Korean parents, in a distinctly Asian part of New York, Gabriel’s connection to his heritage waned rapidly in his early teens. Matters only got worse in sophomore year when his brother left for college and Gabriel became the sole focus of his parents’ lofty expectations.

┊ 𝐑𝐄𝐁𝐄𝐋.  He was a good student, but never as great as his parents wanted him to be. He didn’t have the sort of friends they approved of, he wasn’t as brilliant and promising as his older brother, and certainly not as successful as other people’s children. Demands that seemed unreasonable, their inflexible rules—Gabriel hated them growing up, and unlike his older brother, he always had a way of making his feelings known

┊ 𝐑𝐄𝐁𝐄𝐋 𝟐.𝟎. Gabriel lied about attending study groups to hang out with friends. He brought his camera for good measure, snapping photos of neon-lit street corners and the sunset at Rockaway. They were just kids from school who loved to run the city’s traffic-choked streets, loitering around parks and beaches and taking the subway anywhere, really anywhere, riding New York’s frenetic pulse and only stopping for $1 pizza. Kids being kids, their carefree smiles captured by the camera’s eye.

┊ 𝐑𝐄𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐂𝐔𝐒𝐒𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒. Screaming matches erupted whenever his parents caught him lying. He winces at them now, mortified at the memory of his own words: “Then why don’t you two just learn English already?” Yet the fights weren’t enough to stomp out his willful spirit. He would stage small rebellions: if his parents didn’t want him dating, and didn’t approve of his first girlfriend, they certainly weren’t going to know about the boys he kissed.

┊ 𝐃𝐀𝐌𝐀𝐆𝐄. Let’s face it, if you’re a New Yorker who hasn’t been robbed, you’re probably in Boston. Gabriel was photographing pigeons when they stole his camera, his phone and his wallet and left him with bruises on the corner of East 92nd Street and First Avenue. He filed a police report that same night. Nothing came of it, of course, besides a tiny but permanent scar on his cheek to serve as a reminder.  But worse than that is the memory of his parents bursting into the precinct with watery eyes and bone-white faces. He was 17 and he’d never seen his father cry before. 

┊ 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄. His dating history is nothing out of the ordinary. Maybe it was a little weird how he’d sneak around with his high school crushes (looking back, he realizes the thrill of getting away with something “forbidden” must have been part of the appeal; thanks mom and dad) but now that he’s older, Gabriel hates over-complicating things. He likes what he likes and pursues that. Quietly, but with heart. It starts with a spark of something—an undeniable curiosity—because people can be interesting and beautiful that way. He’s not sure if he’s ever been in love, though. Infatuated? Sure, but these days he’s much less likely to jump into relationships that he feels won’t last.

┊ 𝐓𝐋;𝐃𝐑: Sweet, relaxed yet persistent - that’s Gabriel. His parents have influenced him in every regard, for good and bad, but he had a pretty hard time relying on them for emotional support growing up. Instead, he talked to his friends, who were a source of comfort to him. Forward-thinking people with good progressive ideas appeal to his sense of idealism. Growing up, his parents tried to instill some traditional values in him, but everything that’s old-fashioned and out of date bothers him. He’d rather pursue an interesting idea, and he’s never able to completely suppress his love for excitement and adventure—the need to succumb to joyful impulses once in awhile. Granted, his inner “wild child” is more of a dork, pretty content finding interesting people to talk to and going on random trips. He’s not the type to indulge in dangerously reckless behavior… most of the time.   

WANTED CONNECTIONS

┊ 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐍𝐄𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍: tba.

┊ 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐍𝐄𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍: tba.

┊ 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐍𝐄𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍: tba.

┊ 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐍𝐄𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍: tba.

[redsamuraiii]

Why Does Everyone Love Japan?

So I came across this post on Quora where someone answered the question. Some of his points are applicable to most tourists who only sees the good side of Japan, while a handful of tourists such as myself acknowledges both the good and the bad because let’s face it, there’s no Etopia on Earth. 

So I’d like to make some comments to his original post below (in italic) with mine (in bold).

Because they have a very superficial view of what Japan is, and Japan has many very attractive features. 

This is true.

And they have very short memories. And they have forgotten history.

Forgotten is not the word. Ignorant is. They only know the general history.

It is a very clean country, “everything” works in Japan - elevators, vending machines, trains. People act very politely. They make very high quality products. A society striving for sustainability and recycling. And many more virtues. 

This is true.

But, on the other side, like all countries, they have remarkable social problems - hikimori, declining birth rate, declining marriage rates, death from overwork (Karōshi - Wikipedia). There are dozens more.

Er...citing from Wikipedia is not a good source but anyway...

Yes, Hikimori is a problem in the big cities of Japan, particularly Tokyo where the stress level is extremely high due to the high cost of living and extreme working hours in a highly rigid corporate world that demands absolute productivity. (I’ve worked in a Japanese company and experienced their terrible work culture, you can forget about work life balance or even a good sleep.) So this leads to high suicidal rates or even death from overwork which leads to social problems as people no longer have the luxury to socialize and hang out for a decent cup of tea after work because they simply do not have the time or the energy for it. They work long hours in a toxic environment so they probably hate everyone at their workplace and they get so tired of everything that they just withdraw themselves from the world by themselves hoping to find a moment of peace. (I live in a south east Asian country and I did experience this for moment after I get tired of the rat race in a city life. I can tell you it’s not just Japan, it’s happening in every developed country in Asia). So this caused a declining marriage rates and naturally, the birth rate as well. 

People romanticize Japanese history.

People romanticize European history too, which is why London, Paris and Venice are always packed with tourists.

“oh, those noble Samurai”: Centuries of civil war, treachery, betrayal, and slaughter. Militarists, fascists, misogynists. Patricides, fratricides.

People romanticize Knights as valiant too even though they were involved in several wars in the Dark Ages, Crusades, Spanish Inquisition, treachery, betrayal, slaughter, everything he mentioned. Feudal Japan is the same as Feudal Europe.

The authentic, wholistic, natural life of the farmers: Peasants dying in the periodic famines or killed instantly if they offended a samurai. A country that smelled like the human shit they used to fertilize the rice fields. The back-breaking labor of planting and harvesting rice paddies. Centuries of malnutrition - the Japan used to be famous for being short people - not so much anymore that their diets have improved. 

It’s called Feudalism which is a common system used across Europe in the Middle Ages as well where farmers and peasants gets killed or punished for offending their lords. That's why the tale of Robin Hood became famous because he fights for the common people. Game of Thrones got their idea from, England’s most bloodiest civil war called War of Roses. Europeans in the Medieval did not have the proper diet either, eating raw food and they do not have spices until the Crusades where they trade with the Arabs during peace time.

Geisha: Children sold into sexual slavery. A few rose to the top of that.

I think he’s confused with Oiran. A common misconception by the western world since the industrial age up to today. Geisha in lay man terms is a social escort who is highly trained in the arts of music and dance to entertain and accompany their clients.

The unspeakable things Imperial Japan did to China and their other neighbors in World War 2. 

Europeans colonized much of the world, ripping other countries rich resources, luxuries and spices, shipping them back to Europe while enslaving the locals as workers, bringing European troops to set up colonies. If the world got over them, if the world got over the NAZI, why can’t we get over Japan?

Japan is a great place to live as a wealthy foreigner, or to visit as a tourist. And that is the side of Japan that most people see. 

It’s pretty much the same for most countries including the one I’m living in, every tourists only sees the good in it but they did not see the bad. This is common, as the saying goes, the grass is always greener on the other side.

So you see, Japan and Europe have a lot of things in common and they both never face a shortage of tourists. The one advantage Europe has is the cost of living is not as high as Japan which is why many immigrants are flocking to Europe. They have better welfare such as the unemployed getting allowance until they get a job. We do not have that in Asia, including Japan. Even when we are unemployed, we still need to hustle some odd jobs for basic income.

The one advantage Japan has is its beautiful nature, the mountain side which provides clean mineral water and the open sea which gives fresh air to the country side, which I believe is one reason why many people love Japan. 

There’s something spiritual about it that you feel at peace and enlightened when you hike up the hill or mountain to secluded temples where the monks are chanting and the high castles which were preserved since the time of the Samurai making you feel as if you just time traveled into a different era. The mix of ancient history, traditional culture and modern technology. The brilliant architecture that is not only known for abstract designs but serves a practical purpose, there's a reason as to why they were designed in such a way or built in that manner. 

Perhaps I’ll find the time someday to write my own version of why “I” myself love Japan and elaborate more on what I’ve just said.

Been getting that question from many as well but I could not find the right words to answer them as I just do not know where to begin. Even my Japanese colleague could not understand the foreign’s fascination with his own country. I guess it’s normal as I could not understand with mine as well every time I see tourists in my country. Sometimes there is just too much of everything. I mean you can get bored staying in your own house for too long that whatever you find outside its more interesting that what you have in your house, especially if you go to places you’ve never been to before.

But after reading this post on Quora,I think I finally know what to write for my next post. Perhaps it will give some clarity to many based on my perspective.

The history, the culture, the architecture, the nature, the people, the food.

Stay tuned. 

Source : https://www.quora.com/Why-does-everyone-love-Japan

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S3 Ep20-21: Everyone's Gonna Die For Like the 3rd Time

So a few days ago I kinda tossed my phone at my bro and I was like “listen, it’s dead, don’t ask why this has happened, but I can’t get it to boot. I don’t even want to deal with it right now. I’m so over it. You fix it.” And so he fixes it by doing a factory reset and was like “so...what happened?” and I was like “I can’t say right now, it is too embarrassing.”

So, keep that story in the back of your mind as we go into this episode.

It’s a Final Threat like a Final Fantasy sort of meaning of the word Final, I see.

Anyways, a review:

Anyways, Noah has a superpower now that uses these pink balls of power. There’s only 6 of them, so it’s not quite Dragonball, unfortunately. They have some writing on them but I don’t know enough Duolingo to tell you what it is right now.

Especially since I kind of stopped using Duolingo a few months back, so now all of my limited Hiragana and few scattered kanji are gone forever. Thanks brain, glad I spent like a year trying to learn that. Domo. What I tried to go and do in order to read half my twitter feed.

YEP. THAT’S RIGHT.

Yugioh broke my freakin phone.

So anyways, I tried doing a reverse image search on my PC, which is how I got Calligraphy up there. Which I realllllly don’t think is uh...the word. Then, by using a handwriting reading website I got “to fight”, but because I have pretty BAD handwriting in English even, and because I don’t know the order of strokes for really any kanji at all, that was the only one I could find.

If y’all know Japanese, I’d be very curious as to what these are. It’s probably related to something vaguely religious as that’s been Noah’s MO this whole game.

And yes, now that my phone works again, I could just try and re download Google Translate, and give it another go, but this image might actually be cursed, as is Yugioh tradition.

(read more under the cut)

But before we do anything in this upcoming duel, Pharaoh wants to make sure to immediately tell Noah he’s a freakin weirdo as quickly as possible.

Noah is not that surprised. I mean Noah is a computer brain that’s been isolated for 6 years before going cray, he does not care if Yugi thought he were the king of England. Which Yugi was once in a spinoff game, the King of England.

We get a little explanation as to why Noah has such a God Complex (without playing a single God card, ironically) in that he likes to play this rare deck that Pegasus made that I guess Kaiba and Yugi sort of forgot about? I don’t blame them, I would also try to forget about this deck.

I like that no matter where Pegasus travels, he puts on that same Banana Republic khaki white-person uniform and just marches out there. The same outfit he wears digging in Egypt is the same outfit he wears visiting Indonesia or India or Canada wherever this is.

This is probably somewhere famous, but I don’t recall it off the top of my head, forgive me. There are a lot of massive relief sculptures in Asia.

Anyways, after that one travel through the vaguely East/South East, Pegasus had a *phase.*

Now listen, I don’t really think it’s my job as a reviewer to say if shoving vaguely religious/mythical/cultural iconography into playing cards is a good idea or a bad idea, because that’s been talked to death in a million other articles you can just go and read. Every art piece has it’s own reason to exist, and every artist is their own person with their own unique life experience. I have had to sit through so much weird ass installation art and avante garde performance art, that I have learned solely one thing about art critique. I am not art Jesus. I cannot save a piece, I cannot condemn a piece. So, I will not throw down, and I will not prop up--unless of course it is weird little shorts on your main villain matched with long black golfing socks--but I am allowed to say--

...huh?...

Remember how about ten or so episodes ago I was like, low key a little confused that it appeared like Yugioh was waltzing casually into religion territory? Remember how I was like “dude do they realize this is a reference to Lazarus? Like, they’re saying Kaiba could have been THE Lazarus?” Remember when I thought that was a big deal?

Well, Yugioh turned to itself and was like “hold my beer” and then just straight up outdid itself in so many weird ways. And don’t get me wrong, most of these cards are overall fine, nothing really all that shocking, but still like...

...OK, kid’s show. I’m sure all the children in the audience understood the references in this 100%.

Also, the fact that Noah is like “I turned to somewhat religious deities from antiquity to fight your ass” is kind of funny when you recognize he’s fighting a literal Pharaoh who has like 2000 of them of them under his belt already (counting himself). Like, nice job, Noah, you got like...12 in that deck? Congrats.

Anyway, Noah and his slightly problematic deck gets thrown by a bunch of Yugi’s cards and then Noah just plops right out of this giant dude. Or dudette. I didn’t really catch the gender on the Seraphim that is actually a fairy card. But, it was like Noah was being birthed for a second time. Well, third time, if you count when he was reborn as a robot.

So long story short, now he’s a boy again.

Noah had the foresight to put his clothes back on before he fell out of this gigantic robot god thing who’s name I’ve forgotten. A shame, it would’ve been a good gag to just see how long it takes Noah to realize he’s ass naked when he’s a robot who has no sense of touch. Or...body.

Anyways, Yugi’s friends immediately start doing what they do best, which is to trashtalk the other team so badly that it would get you tossed out of most sporting events. It backfires on them not just once but...several times, and I’m telling you, it is surprising that they never actually learned in this entire episode that all they ever had to do was shut their mouth and stop backseating.

But apparently, it’s courageous to catcall your opponent. Its a sign of undying friendship as per Yugioh law.

Anyways, we’re gonna get death 169 this episode, so stop scrolling right now and then think to yourself--who’s it gonna be. Who’s gonna be death 169?

Some of you (all of you) might know this show by heart but for those who haven’t (none of you), this’ll be our little interactive portion.

OK, here we go.

YESSSSS HE FINALLY DIED.

I knew that if I kept saying “Duke will die next” that eventually the dice fall in my favor. It took like 5 or 6 deaths before this actually happened, but can I say “called it?” Is that allowed? I’m gonna say “called it” and pretend that I called this.

Although, unfortunately, I did not call everything.

Wow, Tristan won the shipping wars! All of them! He’s death 169! So NICE!

I did not predict that at all, I honestly thought that 169 would be Duke, and Bro thought it would be Kaiba. We were both so wrong.

It makes sense though. Like he is the littlest horny monkey here. He deserves 169.

Anyway, then the sad stuff starts piling up. Just like so much sadness at once. Yugioh does not pace sadness like, at all, so you never get a chance to grieve since so many deaths are back to back in this show. And by back to back I mean, they play only one round of cards in between each death.

The writing team was so excited to kill everyone off, that it was the fastest rounds of cards I’ve ever seen this show play. We should tempt them with killing off their core cast more often.

So, seeing that half of his friends have been cursed with an eternity of being brain dead and living out their existence half alive in this weird digital universe, Pharaoh starts to doubt everything about his own abilities.

How weird is it to solve your ghost’s existential crisis when you’re trapped in some VR world he shouldn’t be able to exist in anyway?

But youknow, Pharaoh does this sometimes. Sometimes Pharaoh just gets really anxious if not enough people are telling him “It’s OK, Pharaoh, you’re basically a God. You already died once even so how could it possibly be worse? You’ll probably be OK!”

It’s the typical Yugi meltdown that accompanies every Yugi duel, except Pharaoh style, so it’s lower pitched and his hair is a little bit taller.

Noah tries to take advantage of this lapse of confidence, but Pharaoh’s melt down isn’t quite enough to make him quit a game.

Again, Noah seems constantly shocked that all of Kaiba’s friends and Kaiba himself are just incapable of putting cards down and walking away. This is like the 4th time he’s begged these kids to just stop and they just kept going.

And then, it’s time for the romance of the ages that we completely forgot existed. That’s right, shippers rejoice, YugixTea is back on the table, and it’s entirely because everyone else is dead.

Show, can you even be bothered? Like I feel so bad for y’all who shipped the canon ship because they just...forgot about y’all like...a lot.

But don’t worry, it’s still very vague, and instead of giving any sort of sentimental dialogue, Tea is just going to tear into Noah like a yummy sandwich.

Also, Tea thinks that Pharaoh has control over turning people to stone, that’s a weird thing she thinks now. 

I mean for all I know, he can totally do this. Why the hell not? Go ahead, Yugioh. Surprise me.

And then...Noah just kept her alive a little longer?

I know that he was turning people into stone every turn but did I hear that wrong or did he seriously take a turn longer to freeze Tea, just to spite her?

What is it with the Kaiba’s and Tea? I make jokes that she’s the Mom of this mess of a family, but even Noah let her live way longer than anyone else here.

He got over it, though.

And then Pharaoh decided to die.

Like he wasn’t actually dead, he was just low on lifepoints, and was like....that’s it. I’m done. Goodbye world. It was a good couple of years that I haunted the Hell out of everybody through this weird, very strange child. See you next Millennium.

And then he just kind of took a nap.

Like canonically, Pharaoh just took a nap in the middle of this duel. He is out for like...kind of a while.

Pharaoh melt-downs are kind of the worst because they do seem to involve him completely shutting down. At least in this game, he isn’t lying completely flat on his face, as I have seen him do in a duel before.

PS How does this work?

I know I’m not supposed to think about it, and I’ve held back on talking about it for 20 episodes but like...Noah uploaded the mind of Yugi. Not Pharaoh.

Pharaoh’s mind is attached to Yugi through the puzzle...but the puzzle is not attached to the computer in any way. While Yugi’s brain now has a labyrinth problem, that doesn’t mean that Pharaoh would even be here. He is a magical ghost attached to Yugi’s body which is Not Actually Here.

So like...how is this happening?

Can you seriously trap Pharaoh here in this realm? You can’t, right? Like it isn’t possible, he’s the only one who’s not ever actually here in the first place.

Like...Pharaoh should be able to just wake up in the pod, open the door, and walk right out of there, just like he did with Bakura in Season 1 when Yugi got turned into a playing card. Mind you, in Season 1, Yugi’s soul was dislodged and not his brain, but this just seems like a little bit of a retcon.

I have already thought about this more than the people who made this kid’s show, so I’ll let it go, but this is one of those things I have to try real hard not to think about because...

...if Noah has full control of all their brain functions and projects images on to their brain via hallucinations, then how can they hallucinate anything else? How can you pass out and have dreams?

Which doesn’t matter of course--this doesn’t matter to the plot really, as this is a kid’s show and so just go with it--but I have been thinking about this in the background for 20 episodes and this is where I kind of couldn’t ignore it anymore because we’re gonna dive into some hella weird territory, get ready.

So anyways, Yugi comes down like some sort of cherubic angel and it was very hammy and legit pretty funny I mean look at this.

If this were Sailor Moon, Yugi would be ass naked and have huge, beautiful fairy wings covered in holographic glitter and cherry blossoms.

I’d normally just put in a picture of the infamous last episode of Sailor Moon I’m referring to in order to make this joke complete, but knowing Tumblr I’d be flagged in like two milla-seconds because this blog gets flagged KIND OF A LOT FOR A RECAP BLOG OF A KID’S SHOW, but just google it for yourself and bear with me here cuz like,

These two?

Same energy.

I see this image and I can immediately hear that woodwind just bounce off the back of my brain. It’s like conditioned in me although I allllways skip the intro.

So in this dream/literal brain world reality that they’re walking through, despite being in a digital world, Yugi has stuffed some hand selected hallucinations that seem to have like...a personality embedded into each.

So...Yugi can just create clones in his head that act like he remembers his friends act.

Really interesting superpower there.

And yes, this does mean that Pharaoh not only has no long term memories, he flat out refuses to check on his short term data as well. He is just acting purely on a margarita mix of impulse and anxiety. He is such a freakin mess.

I can’t believe this guy went on a date once.

And like, of course this is all a metaphor for how even if your friends can’t be with you physically, their memory is enough to push you forward when you’re feeling all alone. It’s a nice moral of the story, it’s just that it’s a little spooky when it’s literal.

So yeah, Yugi has a fake Kaiba at all times just flinging insults at him from within his own mind. It’s one thing to say you got the voice of all your rivals, friends, and parents pressuring you in the back of your mind, but to literally have them always stowed there, trapped together in the back of your mind is...that’s very Yugi.

This kid needs so much help.

PS nice little frosting on the cake that that he does not store any family members in the short term memory zoo exhibit. Sorry Gramps, you were uninvited from this show in S2 when Bakura knocked you unconscious and you fell off screen and then we just...forgot to ever check up on you ever again.

I’m sure Gramps is probably fine.

DON’T THINK ABOUT IT, GUYS.

I keep thinking about it and it never comes full circle. Just--the hearts of our dead friends are in these cards, although the friends we were just talking to were absolutely fake people that Yugi has copy-pasted into his clip board in his brain hut. Also, these cards were drawn before they would have given him these cards so they didn’t...actually give him cards. They just...lodged their hearts in there real good.

Although their minds are trapped in a weird rock state and their bodies are trapped in some pods...their hearts are good to go wherever.

It doesn’t matter, in the end, Yugi played a bunch of different moves--I want to say like all six cards in the longest and most complicated Yugioh turn in the history of the Earth--in order to finally end Noah.

I can’t have nice things.

Speaking of, I forgot to mention the most tragic death of this episode.

.

.

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He may have been resurrected, but his soul was deffo disconnected with his body, or at least my PAD data (during Monster Hunter fest even) and all of my pictures and videos are gone. My auto correcting is also really effed up now, and it’s been auto correcting in kind of...really offensive ways...and I have no idea why because it’s only been rebooted for like...2 days. So it’s almost like my phone got resurrected as an evil person or something like it got Marik’d or something. Either way, I had a fun time explaining some texts at work that my dumbass phone decided were a cool idea.

The things I do for this side blog.

Anyway, if you just got here, this is a link where you can read these from the start in chrono order.