#it just doesnt track to me sorry

[cowb0ycrime]

in the penultimate episode when chuck becomes human makes absolutely no sense to me. he's still chuck shirley at the very least. man wrote a published book series and could even continue to do so. I understand they left him alive as like, symbolism and all that but what is to stop him using his royalties to buy a glock and just shoot them.

[sonknuxadow]

collection

[puppyeared]

ive made myself more wet and pathetic

[yo9urt]

jpmd update post #6! for some reason i thought we were further than 6 by now

EVEN LONGER THAN USUAL!!!!!!! also today's post is ENTIRELY about the bidoof special episode because that is all i did today!

as always, cool observations and thoughts first:

PRONOUN TRACKER:

bidoof's mama calls him お前, he calls her 母ちゃん, his little brother calls him 兄ちゃん（あんちゃん）; bidoof's mama calls herself 私 and お母ちゃん

the camerupt npc called him あんた, marowak called him おめえ, the slakoth/slowpoke team called him きみ

jirachi (!) calls himself 僕 and calls bidoof きみ before properly waking up and learning his name (after that i believe he only calls him bidoof-さん)

not a pronoun but doesn't fit anywhere else; as mentioned in previous posts, bidoof uses あっし and でゲス which are both words i've never heard anywhere else, and he has a relatively unique voice/accent in english, so i was on the lookout for more unusual language, but...there wasn't too much...he did say "兆枚" which jisho tells me is a rare term, and when talking to the kecleons he also said "こんちは" and "すまない," the 2nd of which is essentially the same as すみません but i'd never heard it before (i think) so it was cool

ALSO not a pronoun but doesn't fit anywhere else - this was probably happening in past sessions but today in particular i noticed how many npcs use かい to ask questions (teddiursa, kangaskhan, corphish) which was kind of reassuring because the only other time i've EVER seen かい is in one singular song on my entire japanese playlist and i was almost doubting that it was a real thing lol

FUN AND SILLY DIALOGUE NOTES

the slakoth/slowpoke npc team has some funny dialogue early in the episode where they go "aren't you the guy who screws up all the time?" (textbox ends, new box starts) "yeah...us too"

marowak dojo is "ガラガラ dojo" - ガラガラ meaning (among many things) "rattle/clatter," "rough (personality/speech)," AND "almost empty/uninhabited/etc." which is kind of perfect - the clatter of bones, the rough personality of marowak, and the emptiness of the dojo...i understand why the localization team didn't bother with a stylized translation and just called it "marowak dojo" in english lol how could you capture all of those things the same way in english?

also, one thing i didn't know - if you visit marowak in this episode, he goes on a very long ramble about how the dojo has failed and it's kind of funny you showed up on the last day before he closes it, and then he gives you a reviver seed (!). also in that speech, he lengthens practically all of his vowels and says "ぜーーったい にーーーーーーー" and "だよーーーーーー！！！" a lot and sounds like an anime character lol

bidoof ends a LOT of his sentences with かね which gives him a really...like it makes him sound really unsure of himself lol poor guy

at the end, when he made his wish, he said he wanted "かわいい こうはいs" - i don't remember what he says in english here but i remember when he meets the protag team he gets teary eyed and refers to them as "juniors" and "rookies," and of course at the end of the special episode you watch your team chatting happily with each other while bidoof watches, teary-eyed again, from the side, and it was...very endearing...i do think this is something that might have gotten lost in translation because once i read かわいいこうはい i went "oh!" and knew exactly what he meant, it gives him more of a big brotherly feeling in relation to the protags, which is pretty cute when you remember he's the big bro of 2 siblings back home...almost like he missed being in that せんぱい sort of position :') it really recontextualized his relationship to the protags for me, very endearing

SPECIAL SECTION JUST FOR SNOVER/GLIGAR/BAGON

this group was FAAASCINATING to watch. they were NASTY. but of course, snover puts on a front at first, and i'll say i think the fact that japanese has specific and more strongly marked registers for (im)politeness made the big reveal much starker than in english

PRONOUNS: bagon said "俺たち" implying 俺 for himself, called bidoof お前, called snover きさま (!) before the reveal and お前 afterwards, pre-reveal he also called snover "そこのお前" lit. "you there" which made me giggle because that's what street fight NPCs say in yakuza games lol

PRONOUNS PART 2: bidoof called bagon/gligar "お前たち" in the reveal and called snover "きみ" before it; pre-reveal, snover used "僕" and lots of "でしょう"/"ません," post-reveal he switched to "俺さま"/"snover-さま" (omfg), he also started calling bidoof お前 (see above - super formal language vs. super...not...)

OTHER BITS: snover used assertive sentence ender さ, gligar used ぜ (very masculine and a bit rough/forceful/sneaky), snover used "ねえ" instead of ない which adds even more colloquiality, all 3 of them interchangingly used "な" and "ろ" command forms, both of which can be (and in this case, were) impolite. (this was very well timed because i JUST studied command forms this morning!)

BONUS OTHER BITS: gligar taught me a couple new words: "やがる," which is attached to a verb to show that the speaker has disdain/contempt/hatred for what someone else is doing, and "このやろう," which is rude to the point of being listed as "you bastard/son of a bitch" in jisho. also, ALL THREE OF THEM used くそ, and interestingly, くそ was always written in hiragana and always followed by a small つ pause, which was in katakana. weird!

i was genuinely surprised by how nasty their language was, even worse (way worse) than team skull (at least so far). but it was pretty effective writing! nasty fellas!

general notes: this was easily the best play session ive had so far, like, bar none. maybe its because i studied a lot yesterday and i had some residual smartness or maybe ive just made a lot of real progress but today i felt like i was FLYING through most of the sentences, and concepts/constructs i was mildly-to-moderately familiar with suddenly became so much easier to get!!! and the best part is that i've only played sky once, so unlike the rest of the game, i DON'T have hard-coded memories of the special episodes and their associated dialogue; all i had to go on here was what i remember from playing the game like 3ish years ago + the synopsis on bulbapedia (i was checking to see how long it is because i was getting tired lol). so, i'm REALLY PROUD OF MYSELF for basically wading into (young) native-level material that i'm only kinda familiar with and understanding it so well!!!!!! today was great!!!! i've never felt so 日本語上手!!!!!!!!! ^_^

GOOD SENTENCES (realistically i should put like 75% of the episode here, but i can't, so just some of the best instead)

(all translations are freehanded by me since i don't remember the real english dialogue lol)

90+% of the conversation between chatot and bidoof at the beginning of the episode. seriously i barely looked at the dictionary at all during this part and i could tell what they were saying and what the feeling was WHEEEE i'm so happy

"プクリンのギルドをそつぎょうできりゃあんたりっぱなたんけんかになれるよ" (said by camerupt to bidoof) = "if you can graduate from wigglytuff's guild, you can become a magnificent explorer" (lit. "wigglytuff's guild OBJ graduation DO-POTENTIAL-CONDITIONAL you magnificent exploration TARGET become-POTENTIAL-NONPAST NEW"

"じつはあっしってなにをやるにしても。。。どうもどんくさいようで。。。いつもギルドでしっぱいばかりしてるんでゲス" (said by bidoof to himself at the shop) = "really, no matter what i try/do, i always seem stupid/clumsy...at the guild, i do nothing but fail..." (lit. "reality TOPIC i QUOTE what OBJ do TARGET do-EVEN-IF...awfully stupid/clumsy likeness COPULA-CONN...always guild LOC failure nothing-but do-EXIST-IN-STATE EXPLANATORY (COPULA)")

^ proud of myself for understanding the sentence structure here, i think my particle-understanding and structure recognition are both improving by leaps and bounds

"いつかこんなひがくるかとおもってね。。。まえからすこしずつためてたんだよ。なにかこまったことがあったらつかっておくれ" (said by bidoof mom to him when giving him $) = "i figured this day would come eventually...i've been saving up money bit by bit for a long time. if you get into trouble, use it, okay?" (lit. "someday (when QUESTION) this-kind-of day SBJ come-NONPAST QUESTION QUOTE think-CONN SHARED...before since a-little-bit piece-by-piece save-up-EXIST-IN-STATE-PAST EXPLANATORY (COPULA) NEW. something (what QUESTION) trouble (troubled thing) SUBJECT exist-CONDITIONAL use-CONN-???)

^ i thought the "おくれ" on the end was from regular old "おく" but...maybe it's not...? maybe it's an irregular conjugation? i don't know...

"あっしはきがよわいからああいうやからとはあまりかかわりたくないでゲスよ。。" (said by bidoof to himself watching bagon/gligar pretend to harass snover) = "since i'm so timid, i really don't want to get involved with that group..." (lit. "i TOPIC ki SUBJECT weak since (distant)that-kind-of say-NONPAST group QUOTE TOPIC excess get-involved-with-WANT-NEGATIVE COPULA NEW...")

^ i'm endlessly fascinated by all the collocations of 気. i know it's usually translated as spirit, energy, mind, etc. but lately i've been experimenting with thinking of it as just the original chinese qi/chi concept (at least i assume that's what it is.....erm) and taking the collocations literally and it works surprisingly well - in this case "since my qi is weak..."

"いちりゅうのたんけんかになるというあっしのゆめもかなえてくれるかもしれないんでゲス！" (said by bidoof to himself while chatot tells him about star cave) = "maybe even my dream of becoming a first-rate explorer can be granted!" (lit. "first-rate CLASS exploration QUESTION TARGET become-NONPAST QUOTE say-NONPAST i POSSESSIVE dream EVEN grant-CONN-give-down-NONPAST QUESTION EVEN(?) know-POTENTIAL-NEG EXPLANATORY (COPULA)!"

^ how many particles do we need man???????

"ただ。。。あのばでちからまかせにうばうとさわぎになる。" (said by snover to bidoof in the cave) = "but...if we went full power and took it by force out there...there would've been an uproar." (lit. "but...that place LOC using-all-one's-strength ADV take-by-force-NONPAST CONDITIONAL uproar TARGET become-NONPAST")

^ i think i'm getting better at recognizing what と is doing in any given sentence, which is great because i hate how many functions it has, and my grasp of conditionals is getting stronger too! i kind of appreciate how japanese does it similarly to english (vs. spanish) - but that's a topic for another post

[rarepairnation]

i've gotten so mad about the tomato scene to such an irrational level that i've actually come all the way around the other side and decided that in a vacuum removed completely from the rest of the film denethor portrayal, that i can make it good. now i know i sound crazy but i promise i haven't been replaced with a pod person just hear me out for a moment. i just think that it COULD be the image of a father who cannot bear to think about the fact that he has lost one son already and must now send the other back out onto the field because there is no other captain who could even halfway hold the line. it isn't, but it could be. i think what i really mean is that i think adding a scene in that specific location in the narrative, structured around some of the same motifs, could add a lot to the denethor despair arc (that doesn't even exist in the film, but that is neither here nor there).

think of it as a precursor to "i have sent my son out unthanked unblessed onto the field of battle and now here he lies with poison in his veins." like it acts kind of as a midpoint between point A, them parting with harsh words/"then faramir's restraint gave way"/faramir forcing denethor into ordering him to his very possible doom and denethor not having any other choice but to do it, and point C, when faramir returns wounded/dying and he completely crumbles. where he is perhaps regretting the harshness of his words, regretting the things he has done, but in this moment he cannot allow himself to feel any of that regret at all because he has done what he needed to and that was the only choice he possible could have made, as the steward, and he has ever been only the steward with his sons. he sits here with his bread and cheese (and, fine, tomatoes) and eats because it is what he is meant to do. he is the lord of gondor; he is the one person who is indispensable to gondor (and his son(s), no matter how harsh it is, are not) and it is his duty to go on while they fight and so what else can he do but. have the afternoon meal.

and pippin is here, too, and he asks him for a song. please make it so that i do not need to think about the thing i have just done. and pippin sings edge of night, because pippin loves denethor, too, and he wants him to realize that faramir also loves him, and would not do this if he didn't love him, at least as gondor, if not as his father. he doesn't let him not think about it, but perhaps it is a plea for him to recognize the sacrifice faramir is making, and to reconcile with him, if he still can. and it could also be an honouring of his despair. that he wishes things could be different, but if they are not, at least pippin will sing of it, so that it can be remembered. he understood poor denethor a bit better or something.

and as he sings it's interspersed with scenes, rather than faramir riding towards certain doom and sacrifice, of him fighting, and winning, until he no longer can. home is behind, the world ahead - him at the rearguard of the retreating company, minas tirith so far away, fighting like hell to see at least some of his men all the way home. and there are many paths to tread - denethor, eating, but we can tell the food is the very last thing on his mind, we can tell all his mind is bent towards the retreat, that if he could carry faramir through this himself he could. through shadow, to the edge of night, until the stars are all alight - faramir turning his horse to ride back towards the nazgul even as we see the rest of the company scatter, until he faces at last a foe he cannot surmount. mist and shadow, cloud and shade - and we see that maybe denethor knows somewhere in himself what his son faces; it is the fortitude of his mind, after all, and his mastery of his horse, and the blood of numenor, that let him even think of challenging the nazgul. all shall fade - and the black breath takes him at last. all shall fade.

i think i want it to be able to be read as a condemnation of leading from the rear/sacrificing your own son for a battle you would not fight/even of just being unwilling to confront the reality of the consequences of your decisions. the very real consequences of valuing duty over love. to act as a setup for when he himself has that realization, and the way in which it breaks him. without being a complete villainization of the choices he made. this all is under the assumption of literally everything else going along with book canon denethor and faramir and inserting this into all of that. What If It Were In Character.

[phagodyke]

kind of annoys me sometimes how I can happily listen to my roommate explain the entire plot of whatever she's currently into but when it comes to my interests she can only listen for a few mins before wordlessly walking out of the room

[rearranging-deck-chairs]

noooo you can let me describe the doctors body trust me i totally wont be weird about it this time

[halloweendeity]

.

[koqabear]

i finally- finally- emptied out inbox and. holy shit. if you're an anon and you suddenly get a notification that i answered your ask from like. forever ago.... im sososososososo sorry omg 😭😭😭

[trentcrimminallybeautiful]

your superhero AU has broken my heart 💔💔💔 protective Ted is so important to me

thank you!! ive been enjoying playing with it. and yeah!! like. i just. protective, pining ted and trent's like i am NOT a damsel!! (<- in this instance, is, in fact, a damsel. he will make an exception for one (1) person)

and like more seriously just. the trust it's about the trust!!! trent doesn't rely on anyone and he gets himself out of bad situations and he's lowkey terrified of this hero who's got him cornered and he's been in this horrible situation for so long but then it's ted and he immediately relaxes. and ted--you know ted realized they had trent and immediately panicked and was ready to just bust in there and it was only beard holding him back and making him be practical about it that didnt have him just bursting through the walls ten minutes after realizing. and him realizing trent trusts him.... holding him and being like oh. i can protect him this way and i can comfort him this way and it's working... augh

anyway im glad you like it 😩

[whatimdoing-here]

M's day was supposed to be done at 1:30 on campus, takes 35-50 min to get home, sounded like he needed to stop by the store. I've actually been busy at work today and the kids are off school and just been a lot but was making it through. 3:50 I texted to make sure everything was okay.

"yeah just working on stuff in my office"

MY DUDE

[fishtank32]

I am asking you about your Ninjago Volleyball AU, go ham, tell me everything 👀🍿

AlKDHSJAB OKAY SO

here's a link to a Google doc I made explaining a bunch of it. But to summarize it'd essentially be an extreme performance sport that'd utilize the characters elemental powers/abilities. This mostly came about vcs I thought "hm. Morro would kick ass at volleyball" and the rest of it came from there😭

[horce-divorce]

In a category with "I understand how inflation works, make things cheaper or ill steal them"; I understand the bigger picture of why food pantries are the way they are. Yes i would still rather have means testing, barrier having, church run food pantries than none at all, but still, reduce the fucking access barriers, or I will decry them. Why is that controversial

[phagodyke]

for such a supposedly major fan of the national I sure mishear a lot of their lyrics 💀

[the-smiling-doodler]

slams my head violently against the wall /neg

[miss-interpretations]

hey. hey what are we doing.