#this is all dependent on my japanese being right so if i'm not...

[sxorpiomooon]

What does your older self wants to say to you? A pac reading<3

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Pile 1-

you need to let go, this is so funny to me given the pile that you guys have chosen has a tattoo of "amor fati" which literally means this. If you've chosen this pile you might have an anxious attachment and some of you need to go off a relationship that you are holding. A japanese song is playing in my head? Sometimes you only hold onto things very tightly because deep down you know that the moment you let go they are going to leave you. Your older self wants you to let go of such relations one particular scenario that I'm getting is of someone being in a toxic relationship being completely dependent on their significant others knowing that the other person might not choose to stay with them once they let go or once they are given the choice to do so. Stop being dependent on people and allow them and give them the space for them to leave you if they wish to do so the only way to understand how much they love is by giving them the space to leave then only you know that they truly do love you. The other people in this pile need to know that all relations require space and time for both individuals to grow individually too. Only when you have enough space and time to grow individually you can contribute something to the relation. Some of you might have ashlesha nakshatra. Also take care of yourself by yourself your older self really wants you to take care of your hair lmao I keep hearing "wash up wash up" I'm also seeing fishes for some reason those orange ones I don't know what they're called? You might love them now or definitely own them in the future. Your older self also wants you to know that the cycle ends with you. Breaking off from the generation trauma cycle seems to be a very important theme here. I see y'all are already very cool but are even cooler in the future man I'm not gonna lie I also keep hearing alt for some reason whether it's for songs or fashion but y'all are gonna be fucking cool in the future man. Be resilient I have full faith in you pile 1 do it for the super cool you. I also see this pile moving out of this house if they haven't alr I keep getting japan again and again but y'all gonna live a pretty great lifestyle also reminded of lucky from the blue sisters novel? Thankyou!!

Pile 2-

this pile might have the tendency to overreact at that exact moment when they are faced with a problem. Their emotions at times might make it hard for them to actually get a good grasp on the situation. Your older self wants you to learn to differentiate between illusion and intuition lmao. I also had a vision of someone journaling so I think the older self might want you guys to write it down before reacting or coming to a conclusion on any sort of situation. I also think that writing it down might make it easy or better for you to feel and understand your emotions better and the problem as well. This pile also needs to focus on their unconscious mind? If you are manifesting something you might have some biases already that you need to pay attention to. This pile might also easily interpret things and get confused. Your older self wants you to follow your heart I heard "it will lead you to the right path" and right after this "sometimes to run is the brave thing" played in my head from its time to go by Taylor swift. You need to act on whatever feelings you have some of you might write and be confused about whether it's good or not or some confusion related to it here's your answer- it is<3 go ahead and follow your heart pile two it will never lead you to the wrong path in the long end. I also heard "beauty and art is everywhere" this pile needs to follow their passion. Lord this is ending on such a good note. Your older self also wants you to know that you should not fear bc all your hardwork will pay off<3 all your hardwork and sacrifices will pay off and you'll get the success that you desire and want. This was also a pile that I chose and I needed to hear this<3

Pile 3-

The time or whatever you are going through will not be wasted. The journey is there to prepare you and give you the experiences that you need to get to the level that you want to achieve in your life. This pile might be going through some hard things. This pile also needs to know that you cannot force anyone to grow early or to change early or hurry up some process everything has its own time be patient a delay does not mean a no. This pile also needs to come face to face with their problems and fear only then they'll be able to move past it. "The only way out is through" "change is the only constant thing in life" "no one else can do it for you" are the things that I'm hearing. This pile knows what's needed to be done but might fear the unknown. A big transformation that is much needed is coming after that I see a wonderful new beginning for you<3

thankyou!!

[rainedragon]

Musings on the AP Cost Increases

Something came across my feed where people were talking about Angelic Pretty being low quality & over priced for polyester, and I'm not quoting it because I don't want this to be like... an attack against that person's specific personal oppinion when it's really not. It just brings up a topic I've been thinking about recently and I wanted to go into it a little deeper. I think as a community we really need to acknowledge a few things when it comes to the price increases happening with AP.

First of all, the yen is weak. [1] If AP was making everything in Japan using Japanese fibers, this wouldn't be a huge deal, but they don't. Japan doesn't grow a lot of cotton [2] so they have to buy cotton internationally. That means when the yen falls, the cost of materials goes up. AP also makes a lot of their garments in other countries. This means when then yen falls, the cost of labor goes up.

So, when we see AP releasing a fully shirred cotton JSK for ¥37,400 in 2025 [3] when a similar dress was ¥26,800 in 2020, [4], and ¥24,990 in 2012 [5], what we are seeing is inflation. It's worth noting that in countries where the currency is stronger, like the US, the cost of those 3 dresses is more flat. In USD at the time it was $262 (2025), $260 (2020) and $288 (2012) for those 3 dresses. In other words, even though the yen cost of AP's cotton pieces has increased dramatically over the price a decade ago, the price to US customers is basically the same (or even lower).

Their polyester dresses are similar in price, but, I will say, if you compare something like Decoration Ice Cream [6] to something like Happy Cakes, they are putting some more expensive design elements into some of the polyester dresses, like the belt on decoration ice cream. Cutting details on the cotton dresses can be a way to cut cost and keep from raising the price. Cutting details in general can also be a way to cut labor costs. So can switching to lower cost factories, which is going to get you lower quality sewing work.

It's also worth noting that cotton is currently trading at 66 cents per pound right now, but in April 2022, it was trading at $1.55 USD per lb. [7] That recent spike in cotton prices likely impacted Angelic Pretty (and other brands) textile selections for 2022-2023, and possibly into 2024 depending on how long it took the actual cloth prices to come back down.

The other thing to consider is that we are now about two decades out from when Angelic Pretty really started doing custom prints. So they have about two decades of experiance seeing how cotton and polyester pieces have aged, and I can say from what I have in my own closet that the polyester pieces are more colorfast. They are also generally easier to care for and take up less space, two things designers have mentioned their local Japanese customers prefer.

I also want to say that I don't think AP is overpriced. If anything I think most lolita is underpriced. As in we are under paying for the labor involved in the construction of most lolita pieces.

I do not know of any lolita brands that are significantly cheaper and equal or better quality than AP that are operating with the same costs as AP (custom textiles, custom lace, physical shop cost, etc).

I just paid Meta ¥38,000 yen for the last custom print JSK I bought from them. [8] Baby's latest print release is ¥44,880 for a JSK [9] (and totally sold out, and I'm never going to be accusing Baby of being the highest quality of all the Japanese brands.) [10] IW's Rose and strawberry cross ribbon JSK is one of their few recent custom prints and it was ¥43,890. [11] And IW closed their physical shops and their international webshop, which means they cut a LOT of overhead.

It's totally fine to not like AP and not buy AP. For some people, a lower price point garment is more in line with their budget. For some people, the things that make AP cost more just aren't value added to them, and thus aren't worth the increased costs. (For example if a person isn't super in to custom lace, a brand producing cheaper garments with commercial lace may be a better value to them). And some people have strong feelings about specific fibers, and that also is fine.

But, at the same time, if the market doesn't support higher prices, (and to be clear: I do think AP needs to raise their prices to produce higher quality garments than what they are making right now), then that product isn't going to exist. I don't know everyone's buying habbits, but historically when I've run polls [12], the international English-speaking market has focused a lot more on second hand purchasing than first hand purchasing. That doesn't push a brand like AP to produce higher cost garments because of preferences in that market while alienating their local customers who are already seeing actual cost increases due to the weak yen.

Basically, in short: lolita is expensive and it's OK to have preferences for quality and price. But I think we need to be realistic about what can and can't be produced at specific price points. If quality is the most important thing, then maybe a highly skilled indie designer who makes bespoke pieces at a higher price point is the best option. If lower price is the most important thing, there are indie brands who cut costs in various ways to get their prices lower than AP's.

But the only way to get high quality and a high level of detail at a very low cost, is with unpaid labor or other forms of theft. It's not possible.

[dimensionslip]

Dedue: I... will always be by your side... Dimitri, my liege... my one and only...

Or, a translation breakdown of this very powerful Dimidue exchange before Dedue turns into a demonic beast in Crimson Flower Chapter 17.

[EN Localization] Dedue: It is time. Your Majesty… I will avenge your father. You are the one true king…Dimitri. Grr… Grrrr! Dimitri: Dedue! I will fight by your side until the bitter end… As long as I am with you, this lance of mine will know nothing of defeat!

[JP to EN Translation] Dedue: It's time, huh. Your Majesty… You must accomplish your goals. To avenge my brethren… and the late king…! I… will always be by your side… Dimitri, my liege… my one and only… Ghh… Gghh… Guaaaaaaargh! Dimitri: …Dedue. Ahh… until the end, I will fight by your side. As long as we're together… this lance of mine will know nothing of defeat!

(The following is a copy-paste of my text from this Twitter thread. I will clean this up some more on a later date. Also thank you Mareza for bringing these lines to my attention years ago!)

While I can see how the localization arrived at certain lines, I scratch my head at why some portions were omitted to the point that it changed the vibe and meaning of the scene. To start off, the lines come off as more emotional and personal in Japanese, I feel. On both Dedue and Dimitri's ends, and is about twice as long when spoken in terms of duration thanks to it.

Dedue does not really say anything about personally avenging Dimitri's father, and actually mentions two separate things in this regard. "My brethren" (我が同胞) and "the late king" (先王陛下). Those should not be combined and should be counted as separate things here.

「我が」 (waga) can be translated as either "my" or "our", but in this context it's "my". Also, 「ください」 "kudasai" was not accounted for properly in the localization, since it's used to ask for something. Not something you use when referring to something you're about to do.

A small side note, 「我が同胞の……先王陛下の、仇を……！」 is more literally "For my brethren… for the late king, the enemy must…!" but it comes off a little clunky and not as clear, so I went for something a little less literal. There's an definitely an implied "avenge" in that text, which the localization did get. But mentions of Dedue wanting revenge for his brethren were not mentioned at all in the English localization.

Nonetheless, Dedue's last words are what absolutely carry the emotional weight of this conversation. He reassures Dimitri once last time, and then calls him "Dimitri-sama". Which I would like to draw attention to.

It was difficult translating this one. Dedue doesn't really call Dimitri anything else other than "Your Highness" or "Your Majesty" depending on the route/time we're talking about. He does call Dimitri by his name in their A support, but other than that I'm not sure where else. But 「ディミトリ様」 here is highly unusual, and I think they wanted to call attention to it. For Dedue, I think it's more personal than anything he's ever called Dimitri--in this route at least. Especially in conjunction with what he says right after that.

I think "Dimitri, my liege" is probably the best way to handle it given context. Normally I would translate "Dimitri-sama" as "Master Dimitri" or "Lord Dimitri", but that just does not feel right, and simply leaving it as "Dimitri" turns it into something else entirely.

But yeah, to further drive this very emotionally charged scene, Dimitri says all those things a few lines later. The most notable difference here is the way the last line was phrased.

Dimitri says "As long as we're together" in Japanese, which I think comes off differently compared to "As long as I am with you". The word choice puts a lot more focus on Dedue being there rather than Dimitri's presence, and I think that adds to the emotion of the scene. Not to mention, all these dramatic pauses. I was talking about this with @pluma_azurea (who helped with smoothing out some of the lines!) and we both agreed that it's the pauses here that really add to the experience.

In general though, I think the English localization handled Dimitri's lines well. And the same emotion comes off in both English and Japanese, I feel. But there's a notable difference in the way Dedue's lines are tackled, and I hope this post cleared some things up!

Ahh still… this is such an amazing set of lines. Emotionally charged and hurts in the best ways possible. It's also a lovely look into the circumstances surrouding Dedue's loyalty towards Dimitri. The intensity of it. Dimitri's sorrowful trust in him. It's also a neat nod to Dedue's hangups regarding the Tragedy of Duscur, among many other things.

[ninguitar]

୨୧　GUESS　˒˒　AU ( PT.2 )

─── ﹙🎱﹚with the label of "casual" put on yours and giselle's relationship, all you could do was continue it, which meant letting your feelings linger, or break it off completely, but fuck, was it difficult with aeri uchinaga being just so, her. INSPIRED BY GUESS BY CHARLI XCX FEAT. BILLIE EILISH.

pairing. aeri uchinaga x f!r genre. fluff & a lil angst wc. 1k+ notes. hope this ending was good enough for u guys ♡ part 2 of guess !! (MASTERLIST.)

now playing ⋆ i've seen this movie before by hyejin

AERI, AS MUCH AS SHE DIDN'T WANT TO ADMIT IT, was smitten by you; sure, you were just a hook-up at night, but during the day, you were her best friend—the one person she could depend on. you were the girl who she confided in—the one who knew everything about her, down to the brim.

so why continue a casual relationship with you? giselle didn't know either; it just felt all too perfect, like a dream, being able to find solace within the warmth of you. why ruin something perfect, aeri thought. and in giselle's head, you were the only exception to every single, little thing in her head; she never cared for sappy, sentimentalities, but your existence had completely eroded that. as mere "friends," she'd let you get matching bracelets for the two of you, and she always claimed they were childish and silly. nonetheless, she wore them always.

it was like you guys were attached to the hip surgically.

truthfully, you were everything aeri wanted—the perfect girl. and she almost poured out everything to you—keyword, almost. you may not see it, but each and every "unrequited" confession of giselle's consume her thoughts daily.

and today, the thought of you consumes her mind. it was like a mantra in her head, hearing your name in it over and over again, until aeri could come to terms with herself. against her will, the memory of your guys' argument flashed through her mind. staring at the ceiling, giselle felt tears crack down her cheeks, curling into a fetal position.

fuck was she stupid.

she squeezes her eyes before grabbing her phone, hastily dialing ningning's number. if anybody could give her an honest opinion, it was obviously ning yizhuo. her phone ringing omits through her bedroom, as aeri huffs, rubbing her temples.

"hello?" ningning's voice echoes through giselle's phone, as the japanese girl quickly sits up, leaning against her bed's headboard.

"fuckin' finally, ning. you took like years to pick up," aeri exaggerates, extending her groan.

"be grateful i'm even giving you the time of day. what do you even want anyway?"

"just… issues with a girl—one of my "situation-ships," or whatever. we had some fight about our label, and i think i ended it with her, i don't know, ning. 's just all weird and shit," aeri rants, a sigh drifting from her lips, as she bites the inside of her cheeks.

a giggle escapes ningning's breath, "shit, you want her, don't you? that's like so, unexpected given your history."

as much as giselle didn't want to admit it, she did have a lot of hook-ups that mattered nothing to her, but you were an exception, just like you were to everything else.

"shut up; she's just, well, her," aeri mutters against her phone, pulling her blanket to her chest.

"just talk to her, gi. it's not that hard; just grow some balls," a chuckle escapes ningning's throat, before she continues, "anyway, 'rina says hi."

"are you serious? you're airing this out to jimin too?" giselle huffs, embarrassed, as her cheeks flush.

"winter, too," ningning snorts before hanging up the call, leaving aeri to dwell on the chinese girl's words. maybe ningning was right, and giselle should talk it out, but how would she get you to listen to her?

your eyes open to the faint knocking against the glass doors of your balcony arch. a soft groan lingers in the air, as you get off your bed, your eyebrows furrowing. as you approach the balcony, you reluctantly pull the curtains open.

a soft gasp escapes your breath, "aeri?" you mumble under your breath, as you freeze in your position. it was like, 1 in the morning—what was she doing here, especially after your guys' fight?

"jesus, if you think i'm letting you in—" before you could continue your threat, giselle huffs audibly, despite the glass barrier separating the two of you.

"please?"

and it was like no other plea, especially when aeri uchinaga gently mumbles it, her tone dulcet, making you indulge in your temptations. you slide your glass doors open, inevitably making giselle fall into your arms, her weight resting on yours.

"so, talk," you mutter, your voice dull and monotone.

"i—" aeri begins, her tongue heavy with the weight of the words she's trying to form, "i'm sorry, okay? i just couldn't come to terms with my feelings. i fell in love with you—not from the hook-ups, but from the real you."

"gi—aeri," you correct yourself before continuing, "no- no, no—"

giselle sighs, and it's as if months of pushing and pulling her heartstrings burst all at once, "you're the one i want—not those stupid, snobby one-night-stands i have."

"don't say no just to make me go away; i know you, and you know better. only say no if you don't want me."

you're practically at a lost of words, your mind sent into oblivion, as your hands rest on aeri's chest, keeping distance between the two of you. you're so sure you've already lost your voice, a hollow breath of air lodged in your throat.

instinctively, you press giselle against the rigid glass doors of your balcony, closing the distance between the two of you. your head continues to reel, though this time, it was due to aeri's eager, tentative kisses against your lips.

pulling apart, you mumble, "i'm not settling for a situation-ship, or something casual." your hands rest around aeri's neck, while giselle's arms are snaked around your waist all tuck.

"whatever you want, 'm fine with; i just want you."

her blunt admission sends a chain of shivers through your body, as you nod, "girlfriends, that's all."

"then we're girlfriends," aeri pauses while whispering against your ear, before planting kisses trailing down your jaw. the warmth of your guys' body envelopes you guys, as giselle presses her lips against yours, deepening the kiss. her eyes, baring a glaze of tears, bore into yours with sincerity.

"I JUST WANNA BE YOURS," AERI UCHINAGA SOFTLY HUMS.

i don't wanna say too much

shouldn't have to wait for your love

taglist. ୨ৎ @yoohtonyy @yeetaberry127 @ourlovesarang @multiliker @eunzkkrua

@le3-r1n @imfearlessblog @spidrgamer @r4cjh

[danieyells]

Hello! I'm curious if you've ever written anything about how the PC refers to the ghouls in jp, since it seems like a language quirk that can't be translated into eng without it sounding awkward (different honorifics, first name vs last name). I noticed she calls Yuri 'Isami-san' and Jiro 'Jiro-kun' while rereading the second Mort chapter and now I'm super curious

Hihi! I haven't actually, but I believe @tkdb-encyclopedia is planning on one?? Or maybe I'm thinking of their first person pronoun(s in Taiga and Elias' cases. . .Taiga uses three different ones and I believe Elias uses two) and how they refer to the PC, I can't remember which Eset said they were working on.

The thing about "Isami-san" for example just being translated into his first name in English is that there's a culturel nuance there! It's considered rude and oftentimes intimate to use someone's first name(in particular without an honorific) so the appropriate neutral form of address in Japanese is "familyname-[title]" or "familyname-san" or something like "title-san"("tokutaisei-san" for "honor student" is probably one you've heard many times by now) in most cases. But in english using someone's surname is either formal or kind of rude. So that has to be changed to using given names most of the time to make speech sound more natural!

Off the top of my head the pc doesn't use the surname of:

Kaito: they're friends and Kaito probably said to call him by his name(I admit I don't remember their intro scene off the top of my head) because. Well they're friends and he wants to feel intimate and close to girls. I believe she uses 'Kaito-kun' for him.

Lucas, Romeo, Edward, Lyca: westerners, so they would prefer to be referred to by their given names but default. She uses honorifics with them all I believe--Luca-kun, Romeo-san, Ed-san, Lyca-kun

Leo: 'LEO' is his screen name and his given name so he already introduces himself as 'Leo' both on and offline. As such it's not as intimate to him. I believe she uses 'Leo-kun'. Notably Sho just uses 'Leo' without an honorific--which is very intimate, to the point that you're more likely to hear someone address their partner that way then their best friend if I remember right.

Shohei: hates being referred to by anything but 'Sho', especially 'Shohei', which she respects. I think she uses 'Sho-kun'? Leo uses 'Sho-chan'. Hyde uses 'Shohei' even when Sho tells him not to to his face.

Towa: Towa introduced himself with his given name and no surname. I don't think she even learned his surname until Ren called him 'Otonashi-senpai'. . .but 'Otonashi' literally means 'without sound.' she honestly may have just thought he was saying 'mute senpai' and not know that's his name lmao. . . . . .

Haku and Rui: I believe she uses their first names snd '-san'. They're the flirty type who'd have a girl use their given name to show intimacy, same as Kaito! -san because they're third years but also she's inspector so I don't think she uses 'senpai' for anyone off the top of my head?

Jiro: believes you should just call him whatever is most convenient. 'Jiro' is half the syllables of 'Kirisaki' so why call him by his family name when his given name is much faster? Culturo-linguistic standards? Seems inconvenient and unnecessary, so don't bother. The pc uses 'Jiro-kun' if I'm remembering right. I wonder, given mentions of having a family and the sight of Zenji's birthday made him feel ill, if he doesn't like being referred to with his family name because it makes him start to slip into another episode?

Professors/Darkwick staff: introduced with only one name and to be referred to with that name. I believe it's also against the rules to inquire about staff personal information, and calling Hyde 'Haizono-sensei' might go against that. . .nobody else uses it anyway and it would probably make Sho upset so best to just day 'Hyde.'

I think she uses everyone else's surnames and either -san or -kun depending on their grade(second and first is -kun because they're her peers or underclassmen, and third years are -san.)

Hopefully that helps!

[theobservatory]

｡⁠☆ Who Is This Diva✦

｡⁠☆Content: Izuku Midoriya BF headcanons

｡⁠☆Cw: a few uses of she/her, one singular pregnancy mention, no use of y/n, light cursing

✦ Always writing in that damn notebook, there is nothing you can say or do that won't end up there

✦ If you're creeped out by it, he will commit what you said to memory and write it down later

✦ The best gift giver. He notices everything about you. From your face to your body to your brain. All of his gifts are thoughtful

✦ Didn't know how to do his own hair until Mina showed him, however if you know how to do it he'll play dumb

"My hair... ? Y-Yeah, Mina normally helps me with it, b-but I seen you take care of your own so... Do you mind helping me instead ? Not that Mina isn't great, b-but she isn't you... Sorry, is that a weird thing to say ?"

✦ Sometimes YOU are the third wheel when Katsuki's around. Good luck with that.

✦ Nervous forever. Constantly apologizing. Trips over everything when you're around. His face is always bright red. Nervous talker for sure. Heaven forbid you compliment him, he might pass out on the spot

✦ He stays on Uraraka's phone. He needs advice before he does anything, especially if you're a girl. He used to take advice from Kaminari, and then he learned his lesson (⁠ ⁠╹⁠▽⁠╹⁠ ⁠)

"I-It's not sexist to assume she likes flowers just cause she's a girl right ?.... What ?! Of course I know that not all girls like flowers !! .... N-No way I can't just ask her. What if she thinks I'm weird" (⁠╥⁠﹏⁠╥⁠)

✦ Doodles you everywhere. Aizawa is fed up with the scribbled pictures of you in all the corners of his homework. He's debating whether or not he should take point off his papers just to get him to stop. Mic and All Might think it's cute

✦ All this to say he is the sweetest ever. He makes sure to know every single thing about you, it borders on obsession. He follows you around like a lost puppy. His receiving love language is physical touch/quality time, and his giving love language is gift giving and acts of service

✦ Izuku is selfless to a fault, but when it comes to you he can't help but be selfish. No matter how much he gives to you, he feels justified because your love, affection, time, and attention, is the ultimate prize.

☆ PROHERO ☆

✦ Interviewers are tired of hearing about you. Any questions lead right back to what you're doing, something you've said, what you think, what you look like. It doesn't matter as long as it's about you

✦ Puts your needs first which can be really nice, but definitely neglects himself in the process. Like this man has chronic pain in his hands, but will stay up until ungodly hours giving himself carpal tunnel making something that you didn't even ask for just bc he knew you'd like it

✦ If you're not a prohero (hell, even if you are), Izuku is overprotective. His worst fear is you being taken from him in any sense of the word. Losing you isn't something he would ever get over

✦ Rarely ever yells, but when he does he sounds just like Katsuki. It's annoying how much like Katsuki he sounds. Otherwise though, he prefers to concede to whatever you want, the only time serious arguments occur is if it's about something like your safety

"Shouto, I'm gonna throw myself off a cliff... No she's not hurt she's perfectly fine don't even joke about that !!! .... The problem ? Shou she's so mad at me.... Don't look at me like that, I'm serious !"

✦ A sass monster. Rarely ever to your face, most of the time it's just a mutter under his breath that you barely catch but you just know he said something smart.

✦ If your first language isn't Japanese then trust and believe he's learning whatever your native tongue is. He has the cutest accent too. If he's feeling bold he'll use your lessons as an excuse to flirt with you, and after that there's a high chance you won't get anything done

✦ NOT a morning person. Clings to you and the bed like his life depends on it. Moaning and groaning in your ears about how mean you are to him, how could you make him get up for early morning patrol ? Death for 10 thousand years have been cursed upon him.

"Hmm ? I don' care 'bour the alarm. Turn it off... Where you goin' ? Noooo don' go shh i's okay, mhmm it snoozes itself. Jus' lay back down, yeah 'xactly baby.... Hmm ? Late ? Patrol ? OHMYGOD PATROL !!"

✦ Pet name extraordinaire. It takes a while until he finds his favorite, so he spends his time cycling through all types of sweet names. Anything from baby to darling to pookiebear to beautiful. He probably doesn't stray too far into weird names, but he dips his toes in if it feels right.

✦ Won't admit it, but he loves it when you flaunt him to your friends. Makes him feel like a big strong man, especially when you feel up his arms. His face flushes bright red and he tries to wave it off but he stutters so much that his sentence is barely distinguishable, but of course that only makes you want to do it more

✦ When you get married it's honestly been inevitable, especially if you met while in highschool. If it was only up to Izuku you would've been married within the month, but lucky for you he has self restraint. If you both want kids they truly won't be far behind marriage, and if you thought he was obsessive before just imagine if you get pregnant.

First post,, how exciting !! Not sure if I'm sticking with this format, but I think I like it. My blog is almost completely set up and I have a few reblogs so... My askbox is open if you so please (⁠◕⁠ᴗ⁠◕⁠✿⁠)

Who f/w black Izuku like I do ?? 🗣️🗣️

｡⁠☆Requests open

[vashtijoy]

Hi! I was wondering if you’ve translated the “this is no small potatoes” line from 2/2, where it later got changed to “this isn’t trivial” ? I love the scene so I’m curious if there is another layer of nuance in their discussion in the Japanese version

(Wow, this post was just hanging out in my drafts, totally written. Be free, little post. yeah, it's not little)

Hi anon! I currently have no thoughts of any kind and have forgotten most of what I ever knew, but I love this small sequence so much that I'm going to try to elaborate on it.

In short: these lines are the capstone of Joker and Akechi's arc. They run right back through the third semester to the Jazz Club, and right back to his confidant. They're the emotional heart of them.

Akechi 君は変わらず、丸喜と戦う道を選べばいい。 kimi wa kawarazu, Maruki to chigau michi o erabeba ii All you have to do is stick to your guns and challenge Maruki. [lit. if you choose a different path to Maruki without wavering, it'll be fine.]

First off, here's another instance of that "choose your own path" motif, elided from the localisation. This is not just associated with Akechi in P5, but he really does hammer it home.

now freeze: the callback to conf 7

Conf 7 is probably my favourite confidant stage, and I've discussed it before at some length. Specifically, we're looking at the phone call afterwards, where Akechi sums up what they've discussed:

Akechi 僕らにはお互い譲れないものがあって、そのためにも負けられない。 bokura ni wa otagai yuzurenai mono ga atte, sono tame ni mo makerarenai Neither of us can afford to lose, because we fight in service of our principles. It's the same for both of us. Neither of us can afford to lose, because of these principles we won't concede. ⋯だからこそ、もしも君が自���を曲げたりしたら絶対に赦さないよ。 … dakara koso, moshi mo kimi ga jibun o magetari shitara zettai ni yurusanai yo And that is precisely why… I cannot allow you to change. … And that's precisely why, if you betrayed yourself that way… I couldn't allow it. だって、僕が負けたくないのは『君』なんだから。 datte, boku ga maketakunai no wa "kimi" nan da kara As you are now, as you think now… I cannot allow you to win over me.

This phone call, which likely takes place the evening after Akechi's murder phone call, summarises how Akechi sees Joker, at the start of the Sae mission—and it's a remarkably positive vision. Conf 7 highlights the similarities between Joker and Akechi, before conf 8 casts their differences into sharp relief.

In fact, in his determination to illustrate why the two of them can never be friends, Akechi reveals something he may not quite have intended: the things he most admires about Joker are his loyalty and his devotion to his friends.

Seriously. Joker's devotion to his confidants is the thing Akechi sets alongside his own obsession that has driven him to murder. I don't have space to lay the whole thing out here, but you should check the conf 7 essay out if you have time.

january in the jazz club

This image of Joker as an impenetrable fortress with indomitable will comes up again in the jazz club, and rather indirectly:

Akechi こんな異常事態でも 君がまともで助かったよ。 konna ijou jitai demo kimi ga matomo de tasukatta yo I'm glad you're still normal, even in this bizarre situation. Even in such a bizarre situation as this, you've saved your sanity. Akechi 君まで正気を失ってたら… まあ、その時は叩き起こしてただろうけど。 kimi made shouki o ushinattetara... maa, sono toki wa tatakiokoshiteta darou kedo If even you had lost it… Well, if that happened, I would have slapped you awake.

The logic of the first line has been slightly altered in translation. It's not a huge shift, but it's changed the emphasis—rather than being glad Joker hasn't lost it like the others, Akechi is observing it. He expected it. He would have expected no less of his rival. (That matomo de, by the way, is far more often seen as matomo de nai, and it means that someone is not sane.)

This follows straight on from conf 7—from the idea Akechi has that Joker is someone dependable. And more than that—if Joker should cease to be that way, Akechi views it as his duty to set him straight.

He said so in conf 7's phone call (that "I cannot allow you to change", which is actually far more like, "if you gave way, I couldn't allow it") And he's saying the same thing here: "if you lose yourself, I'll slap you awake."

This gives us a little additional context for 2/2.

back to 2/2

Here's Akechi's next line:

Akechi それとも、君はこの程度で意志を曲げるようなやつなのか? soretomo, kimi wa kono teido de ishi o mageru you na yatsu na no ka? Or, are you really so spineless that you’d fold over some bullshit, trivial threat on my life?

There is a small linguistic callback here to that conf 7 phone call—Akechi uses the same verb 曲げる mageru, meaning to bend or distort, or to give way on a point of principle. The localisation has it as "fold", which does call back to conf 7, but to the wrong part! In conf 7, mageru referred to Joker's principles yielding under pressure, giving way under influence; here, it's in the extended form ishi o mageru—literally to bend one's will, to have it give way or crumble.

This word 意志 ishi is the "will" of Will Seeds, of the will to rebellion; this is the thing Akechi is calling Joker out on sacrificing. This is the thing he believes is so much more important than his own life. This is the callback here, through the jazz club and the phone call to that November night outside Penguin Sniper, to "You're my rival."

Literally, Akechi's line here is "or are you the sort of guy whose will crumbles for as little as this?". Compared to his image of Joker, Akechi's life is nothing. Compared to his image of Joker, the whole world is probably nothing. Again, it's the ideal and the real; 2/2 is when Akechi's image of Joker runs headlong into the reality of him, of a real, breathing, living boy who hurts and cries and bleeds and dies, rather than an icon. Even 11/20 never truly brings this home, because Joker escapes—just as conf 7 suggests Akechi expected him to. It is integral to the pedestal Akechi has Joker on that he would never throw the world aside for Akechi.

This is why it's only rank 10 promise Akechi, primed for the third awakening, who shows up to Leblanc to defend that pedestal. This is why the translation I return to for this line is "Or are you telling me you'd throw away everything you believe in for nothing at all?" Akechi's life is not the point here; he barely mentions it. The point here is supposed to be what Joker is throwing away.

And it's Joker, of course, not Akechi, who refocuses the conversation to what—to who—is really being thrown away.

joker's response

Joker 『この程度』じゃない “kono teido” ja nai This isn't "trivial"! You're not "nothing"!

There are other responses, of course, but this is the big one. This is the one that used to be "This isn't small potatoes"—and I hope I've illustrated why that translation was so bad that Atlus went back in and changed it. Because as well as gutting Akechi's lines of their context, that line gutted this whole moment, the pinnacle of Joker and Akechi's story, of its emotional impact.

Joker simply was not saying that things were a little bit serious—not small potatoes. He was saying Akechi mattered. You could easily render that kono teido ja nai as, simply, "But you matter." and that really isn't small potatoes

An overlooked response here is the third one, the only one Akechi will accept:

[Joker] 意思は曲げない ishi wa magenai I won't fold. My will won't break.

Yep. This one bypasses all Akechi's complaints about mercy, about betrayal, as he cuts to the chase:

Akechi なら、もう分かってるだろ? nara, mou wakatteru daro? Then you already know what needs to be done…

Note that the Japanese is a question—"Then you already know what needs to be done, right?". And it leads directly into Akechi's final demand: "What do you intend to do?"

revision history

Click here for the latest version.

v1.0 (22nd February 2025)—first posted.

v1.1 (22nd February 2025)—correct kanji for ishi.

[hestzhyen]

Oofuri and AbeMiha in the Year of Our Lord 2025?

Help I've fallen into a time warp and my mind's back in 2007/2008 obsessing over extremely passionate baseball dorks again.

They care so much about each other, it's crazy.

And the growth both of them go through to overcome their personal shortcomings is so wholesome.

I was re-reading to catch up, and... wow...

The "guy talk" is one of the best parts about this manga.

Neither Mihashi nor Abe have had a first love yet, huh. And while Mihashi likes women in nurse uniforms, Abe doesn't have anything specific in mind- he doesn't even have fantasies he uses as "material". While they're devoting themselves to each other for the next three years to become one in mind and body. Slowly coming to understand each other while being so passionate about the other guy that they cry over him at least twice each.

Um.

Yeah, the brainworms are back in full force after laying dormant for about 17 years. AbeMiha, my beloveds... I'm rewriting a fluff one-shot I did for them back in 2007 and enjoying the nostalgia (and seeing how much I've improved since then). These silly creatures are still just as charming as I remember them being.

Enjoy this moldy out-of-context screencap from my hard drive.

I wonder if it's because Oofuri is a seinen and not a shounen, but there's a lot of skinship and typical teenage boy banter about sex too. Tajima full-on strips Mihashi at the pool in front of their teammates to show them his uncut dick, for Chrissakes. And Mihashi and Abe always get paired off together; they're explicitly told to cook breakfast for everyone alone to bond together, sleep in the same hotel room, are always trying to understand each other and communicate better...

I love them so much.

I know it's not as fruity to the Japanese, but even so, the ship was hugely popular for a while for good reason. The handholding and mutual devotion alone were kind of a big deal. I don't know where the relationship is at in canon right now (I have over 130 chapters to go to catch up, yikes) but I don't think that teased romance with Shinooka has gotten very far with either of them.

Or maybe it has, I genuinely don't know! It's hard to get a feel when the fandom is basically on life support. A series that has been around for about 20 years will naturally see people cycle out, especially when it comes to creating fan works and shipping, but I feel like I'm walking through a ghost town mostly filled with time capsules from a different era. So many dead LJ groups and broken links to shrines that fell into the abyss long ago... does a series this long need a perpetual anime to keep interest up? Or was it the long hiatus that cooled things off? Both?

Still the gayest and most wholesome battery as far as I'm concerned.

Anyway, I'll do my small part to give back by fixing up that old one-shot and see what I'm feeling like when I catch up. Maybe I'll write a "why ship this" essay like I did for HakuHiro too, who knows. Depends on how active the brainworms are and for how long. For now I'm just enjoying the good times and extremely technical matches all over again. The Nishiura boys are all so precious and AbeMiha are the most precious of all.

[atamascolily]

I found Inu Curry's commentary on the "Prologue in Heaven" shot that haunts me, and it only raised more questions. I don't know what I expected.

Here is what it says as best as I can make out with my fledgling Japanese and a bunch of online references:

逆 さまにった街と穴があいた空。 The upside-down city and the hole in the opened[?] sky.

"Upside-down city" seemingly refers to Walpurgisnacht's goal of turning Mitakihara upside-down both literally and metaphorically by ripping the buildings off their foundations and making them hover in mid-air. It's a little difficult to see in the above sketch, but the finished film version is a little brighter so you can see the buildings in the upper corners.

However, what is "upside-down" depends on our perspective. Is the city upside down because Walpurgisnacht has made it that way, or because we, the audience, are viewing an upside-down image? This is another way in which Walpurgisnacht messes with our heads and confuses our ideas of what constitutes reality.

As for the second part of the sentence, there are a couple of different past tense constructions that are pronounced "aita" (あいた), and I'm not sure which is applicable in this situation because this phrase is written in hiragana. In this context, I'm guessing 開いた ("opened", "emptied") which has considerable overlap with 空いた, with the latter using the same kanji for 空 ("sky") and therefore creating a pun.

空 is a complex character with a lot of meanings, and I think it is doing a lot of load-bearing here, but for now I'll also note the contrast with 穴, which means "hole" in the sense of "cave" or "being underground". Earth and sky might seem like total opposites but given that 空 can also mean "emptiness" or "void", they simultaneously have a lot in common, to the point where 空 even includes the 穴 radical in it.

All this is to say, it feels like there's a lot going on in this line, and I still have a lot of questions. Still, it seems like we have a distinct contrast between the inverted (solid, material) city and the (intangible) "hole in the sky", which might refer to the black circular void at the center of Walpurgisnacht's mandala, which appears to be drawing everything up towards it.

逆 さまの山の頂にワルプルギスの後光。 Walpurgisnacht's halo on the upside-down mountain's peak

Once again we have a juxtaposition between two things, one of which is inverted, but this one is a little more straightforward straightforward, in that the halo is right there and the original Walpurgisnacht celebration was said to take place on Mount Brocken in Germany. And indeed, if you flip the image upside-down, it's much easier to see the "mountain" in this image--the pyramidal shadow upon which the witch's mandala now appears to be resting.

From this perspective, it looks very much like another drawing in the production note of Madoka's witch Kriemhild Gretchen reaching up to the heavens with Walpurgisnacht hovering overhead for scale [as explained in the two boxes immediately above the drawing].

This page is also the source of the famous Inu Curry quote that Walpurgisnacht and Gretchen are like two halves of an hourglass (bottom text), another statement that makes me want to gnaw on the furniture every time I think about it. Why would you do this if there wasn't supposed to be some connection between them??! And why an hourglass, given its associations with one character (Homura) in particular?

This is why I have always interpreted this shot as Walpurgisnacht and Gretchen together in "Heaven", which raises all kinds of fascinating metatexual questions like, "Why did Inu Curry et al. decide to open with this particular image?" and "Is this a frame narrative implying that the entire story is a performance by Walpurgisnacht?" and "If so, why would Walpurgisnacht be its narrator?", etc, etc.

Of course one very obvious answer to all of these questions is "Walpurgisnacht is somehow Homura and the story she is retelling is the story of how she and Madoka came to be united as super-witches in 'heaven' and everything we take as 'real' in-universe is actually inside her labyrinth and has been a staged production from the beginning", but at this point, that's all heavily speculative at best. (It doesn't hurt that the white glare resembles a vinyl record in motion, records are a recurring motif that go round and round, hourglasses are associated with Homura, etc, etc-- but I digress.)

Another is, "Inu Curry thought it looked cool and it's something that may never be fully explained, just like the anime's ending with Homura in the desert and the black wings isn't really explained in Rebellion", which may be correct but would be disappointing in a series where every other detail means something. Also, after a close study of Rebellion, it's clear that Inu Curry doesn't generally do random details--anything that's there has a meaning, even if only to Inu Curry, even if it's not fully elaborated or expanded upon in the finished film or in the production notes. So that seems like it might have happened here as well with this scene--that it's meant to represent something that wasn't ultimately developed in the final version.

It could also be that Inu Curry believes that Homura and Walpurgisnacht are connected, but that doesn't necessarily translate to the script that Gen Urobuchi wrote and so remains ambiguous and unspoken visual subtext. Or this could be something from an earlier draft that stayed in while other things got changed, so its original meaning is no longer relevant.

However, given that in the Rebellion Production Note, Inu Curry associates Homulilly, the "Witch of the Mortal World/Near Shore" with "color" (used in a Buddhist sense to mean form/matter) and Madokami with its opposite, emptiness (which also uses the same character for sky, 空) then it's possible that Walpurgisnacht is the upside-down city and Gretchen is the hole in the sky. This is admittedly a convoluted chain of logic that only works if you assume Homura is Walpurgisnacht, but given that Inu Curry created both of these juxtapositions in the first place, I can't immediately rule it out. Symbols and motifs evolve and change over time (or could mean two different things at once) and Walpurgisnacht is certainly "upside down"; if her labyrinth does contain Mitakihara, well, that's an upside-down city right there. But like I said, this is all purely speculative at this point.

That said, Inu Curry was clearly thinking along similar lines at one point, because an early draft for Walpurgisnacht in the anime production note shows Walpurgisnacht as a "stage" with buildings on it:

(If you're wondering why it's a bubble, it's because in Inu Curry's first drafts, the labyrinths were all spheres with fixed dimensions, which did not carry over to the final version.)

In Walpurgisnacht's final design in the anime, the stage became a giant cog, while the original gears at the base were replaced by the doll body, but at one point, the witch was indeed a city, or a facsimile of one. Her labyrinth disappeared because she is ostensibly too strong to "need" one, but her official goal is to turn the entire world into a drama nonetheless--which, as I read it, means making the entire world her labyrinth and erasing the distinctions between "reality" and "fantasy" entirely.

And given that Rebellion features Homulilly, a witch whose labyrinth takes the form of a city, and that city is initially indistinguishable from the "real" thing--and ends with said labyrinth seemingly encompassing the entire universe--the stage is now set for more reality-bending revelations in Walpurgis no Kaiten from one or both entities with overlapping thematic motifs.

Of course, how much of any of this will end up carrying over to subsequent installments is an open question, but I'm definitely watching closely to see where this ends up going. Since the title and at least the first trailer for Walpurgis no Kaiten suggest that Walpurgisnacht will return and her mysteries will be revealed, I'm hoping we'll finally learn what this cryptic "shot "Prologue in Heaven" shot and its description actually mean--even though I'm also bracing myself in case it ultimately remains unexplained.

[thestalkerbunny]

I'm not caught up on kitsune lore, actually.

You have come to the right place, my friend.

All I think about is weird fox based lore.

We'll cover the 3 big ones of Japan, Korea and China.

THE FOX BREAK DOWN.

WHY THE FOX?

The fox in many cultures-in this case countries residing in the Eastern areas of the world-have been symbols of mystery, trickery, transformation and deception. This may account to the fact a fox is naturally a very fast and intelligent animal, that is rather nocturnal and has a way to always evade danger that it finds itself in. They're problem solvers. They also scream like women in distress. Or when they're happy-they scream like cars trying to rev up.

THE KITSUNE: Japanese messanger of the gods and local nuisence

The most popular of foxes in media, art and story, the Kitsune story comes from Japan. It has been the subject of movies, games, animes, mangas and even folk tales for generation. To put it simply, a Kitsune is a fox that possesses paranormal abilities. People already believed that foxes were supernatural in general-but with time and age, they'd grow smarter and wiser. A kitsune grows a new tail for every 100 years it lives-with those that have 9 tails being very powerful and with 10 tails earned, will ascend into GODHOOD.

-sound familiar to someone you might know?-

Kitsune and humans have always lived together and gotten along mostly. Fox Urine actually repels rats-so stones soaked in the urine of foxes would be placed near fields; which most likely led to people finding foxes sacred and becoming a symbol of the Japanese Deity, Inari Okami-the God of agriculture-and eventually being regarded as their messengers.

Kitsunes had the ability to shape shift-often doing so into beautiful women (and sometimes men depending on the story) and getting themselves married, but usually getting run off by their spouses' dogs (which they are afraid of) They also have a tendency to reveal themselves when they get drunk or are careless as the tails are the one part of themselves they can't hide properly (which is tricky if you got 9 of 'em.) Beautiful women with certain face structures and high cheek bones are often called 'fox faced'

Kitsune can be good or evil-some of the more wicked ones going out of their way to possesse humans and have to be exorcised to free them.

THE KUMHIO: Korea's nightmare manic pixie dream girl

The Kumhio is my personal favorite-hailing from Korean, the Kumhio (or Gumhio depending on spelling variation) is a fox similar to the Kitsune in many aspects. It's a very long lived 9 tail fox, it has supernatural powers of illusion, shapeshifting and magic. But the Kumhio is different in it's behavior. The Kumhio's favorite meal-unlike the tofu loving Kitsunes-is human livers. And they go about acquiring it in a very interesting way. They will become women (or men) and manage to get hitched up to whoever is most convenient and begin to systematically prey on everyone in the household. First the animals, then the servants, the family, and often times leaving the spouse for last. They are also known to dig up fresh graves to get the livers. They also sport something similar to the kitsune that was not mentioned-a Bead they keep inside their bodies that they can cough up. This is called a Fox Bead. Putting this bead in your mouth can give you IMMENSE knowledge of the sky land and seas. Often times this is only shared by the Kuhio via a sort of 'deep kiss' where it puts the ball in your mouth and then takes it back with it's long unnatural tongue. But most cases have been people trying to steal it/accidently swallowing it. Although humans are a Kumhio's prey-if a Kumhio abstains from killing and consuming a human for 1000 days, it too will become mortal and then can enjoy all mortal perks (getting married, sharing a life span with someone, not being a literal monster) They are sometimes in mythology (depending on who you ask and which variation of the story you read) regarded as a lesser creature, but still very very dangerous. I wouldn't wanna fuck around and find out with one of these puppies.

FAVORITE PIECE OF MEDIA INVOLVING A KUMHIO:

Laon, it's a great horror read, kinda short, but still great. I love it unironically.

THE HULI-JING: Your friendly neighborhood fox ghost

The Huli-Jing is another Fox Spirit, this time from China. Much like Japan, it has the same properties as the Kitsune; Supernaturally weird, crazy long lived, can become god, people tend to like them. Until they do fucked up stuff. One case had a huli-jing posesses an important woman in power and she and her husband while posessed basically started torturing and murdering people and starting a massive revolt against their dynasty. Unlike Kumhios who suck life essence from the mouth (and eat your liver) The Huli-Jing will go the Succubus route and.....steal semen. That's right, the foxes are turning into hot hot women and are stealing your life force via your jizz boys, keep it in your pants. But despite that, many villages in history love the Fox Spirit-a saying going as far as villages shouldn't be established without a fox spirit milling about. They're seemingly friendly provided you pay them the right respects. Many people would have in home shrined dedicated to them to make offerings right there.

TLDR: Foxes are fuckin' spooky, turnin into women, stealin' your semen, your liver and making your goddamn rice grow. fuckin' foxes doin' FOX SHIT.

[haru-dipthong]

Fansub release + translation notes for Utena ep 29!

Girl 1: でもさー　るか先輩もひどいんじゃない？ Girl 2: そう？あの子が勝手に盛り上がってただけじゃない。 Girl 1: あー　そういうとこある！ All: あるある。

Girl 1: Don't you think Ruka was kinda mean though? Girl 2: Yeah, right. I bet she was just getting hysterical over nothing. Girl 1: Oh yeah, maybe! All: Yeah.

I love translating these scenes with the faceless girls talking because the Japanese is so natural and real. Naturalistic speech is a fun challenge because there’s a lot that can’t be directly translated (like filler words and the absence of words), so you really need to consider what these people would be saying if they were speaking English instead. It’s a challenge of creative writing, recalling lived experiences, and using learned social scripts all in one!

For example, the “getting hysterical over nothing” part translates 勝手に盛り上がってた (lit. getting herself worked up) and the 勝手 part implies that Ruka is blameless. But “getting worked up” sounds a bit too animenglish for my tastes, and doesn’t communicate the intensity of the emotions involved. On top of that, I think these gossipy scenes are intended to be a commentary on how women also uphold patriarchal ideals and perpetuate misogyny. So with that in mind, I chose the word “hysterical” — it being a word often used to belittle or dismiss emotional outbursts of women. “Over nothing” was a way to communicate the “Ruka is blameless” piece in a natural sounding way. Altogether I think it’s a great example of the challenge of translating natural language while also factoring in your other aims in the translation like preservation of major themes.

Ruka: だが彼女はわがままで強引で自分勝手で、おまけに嘘つきときている。申し訳ないが、誰があんな女とだ。 Juri: 貴様！何様のつもりだ！

Ruka: But she's narcissistic, coercive, and selfish. And a liar to boot. I'm sorry, but who could put up with that bitch? Juri: Fuck you! Who do you think you are?

This scene is so intense. I’ve never used so many swear words in a single episode before, let alone a single scene! During editing, Anya asked about how I decided where to put the swear words, given that there aren’t really equivalents in Japanese. It’s a complicated question but there are a few things that I factor in.

First of all, there are kind of equivalents, sometimes. In the example above, I translated 貴様！ as “Fuck you!” Kisama is often translated as “bastard” or “jerk” or something similar because it’s a disrespectful form of address. Japanese has lots of disrespectful ways of saying “you” but no equivalent of “fuck” or even “fuck you”. I thought “fuck you” got across the anger Juri put into her 貴様！ much better than any name calling she could have done. Having done this translation now, I really lean towards “fuck you” being a standard translation of 貴様 (content rating depending).

Juri: 誰が貴様なんかと！ Ruka: 本当はフェンシング部の部長である僕の事が好きだったんだろう。 Juri: ふっざけるな！侮辱するにはほどがある！

Juri: Who the fuck would want you? Ruka: The truth is, you've always had a crush on your fencing captain, haven't you? Juri: Are you fucking kidding? I've never been so insulted!

The second factor is, unfortunately, based solely on vibes (and tone). Juri’s first line here literally translates to “who would … you (derogatory)”, with the verb omitted and implicit. But there’s that kisama again, adding an extremely spiteful and emotional tone. The fact the sentence is a rhetorical question also impacts the tone, and the lack of verb makes it feel even more like it’s being spat out at Ruka like an attack. All of this together makes me feel like it needs a swear word in here to properly convey the vibes being communicated in how Juri is talking.

And again, in her last line from the above example, the vibes are powerful and resentful. Even though it’s just a single word, ふざけるな (lit. don’t joke around/are you kidding/etc), the way she delivers it is so spiteful that translating as “are you fucking kidding” just feels right.

Juri: なんといやしいやつになりさがったんだ！

Juri: When did you become such a miserable piece of shit?

I don’t have anything to say on this line that I haven’t already above, but I liked it so much that I wanted to highlight it!

Thank you as always to my amazing editor @dontbe-lasanya! This project would be impossible without you!

Follow the blog for new episodes, and for previously released episodes, check the drive:

Rose divider taken from this post.

[tamayula-journal]

Ominis and Japanese!MC when intimate...

There are many different cultures between Japan and the West, but when I started reading and watching smut created by people from overseas when I first started participating in HL fandom, I was surprised to find a particularly big cultural difference: the way women behave during sex!

In Japan, there is a tendency to think that it is sexy for women to behave moderately shy during sex without being too aggressive. In Japanese pornographic manga and novels, it is very common for women to say "嫌/駄目（no)" while panting, with a pleasant look on their faces. (⚠This is just to say that such a tendency is more common than in the West, and not all Japanese men are looking for women who are shy in bed! It depends on the individual 🤣)

Having spent 30 years in Japan with such values, when I read porno novels in HL fandom, I was very surprised to see f!MCs(f!OC) behaving so aggressively in bed! 🙈

From what I have read, there are not many f!MCs who are overly shy or use negative words such as "no" as a moan. This is a very interesting cultural difference for me as a Japanese!👀

I didn't get used to the behaviour of these MCs at first, but now that I've read a lot of international smut, I'm very attracted to MCs who are sexually active and Seb and Omi who enjoy sex with her to the fullest 🥵💞

And when I draw smut, I try to imitate the behaviour of the MCs in those from abroad, without making them too overly shy or negative.

In the Japanese version on the right, the MC says: "No. Don't thrust deep inside me!" In terms of Japanese values, she is far-fetched: 'I feel so good when you thrust deep inside me!' in Japanese, but a direct translation as it is would probably be considered strange by Westerners, so the English version adopts a more positive language for clarity. (I'm a complete novice when it comes to translation, so I don't know if this is the correct translation 😂)

In making smut about the sexual behaviour of Westerners such as Sebastian and Ominis, I try to portray the MC's behaviour in bed as positively as possible, but I cannot erase my Japanese values, and perhaps I may be depicting MC behaviour that looks strange to Westerners at times. I hope you don't mind the details 🤣 But it's fun to think and learn about the cultural differences between countries while watching, reading and making various smut in this fandom! I'd like to draw more smut when I'm free in real life after the move 😌

On a side note, When I first read smut in this fandom, another thing that surprised me, besides the differences in MC behaviour, was that both men and women often say 'F*CK' during sex! 😮 In Japan, we are taught that F*CK is a very bad word that should never be used, so for Seb and Omi to use these words was surprise to me as a Japanese person! I have been wondering for about a year now if it is actually common in the West to use these words during sex …👀

[thirstkanaphan]

Thirst Gets Lore-Pilled (Part 1/?)

Becoming a Lore-Tiny: Notes and Observations

I decided to lock in and immerse myself in Ateez lore! Thank you to @loving-that-officey-feel for being my guide and curator (their quotes are in italics). With their permission, I'm posting our interactions as I go through the different eras.

Treasure Era

It's kind of amazing how cinematic and assured their concept is from the get-go. I don't often give Pirate King its due credit, but it's such a bold and striking debut.

Everyone was playing that song (including me) because, like, at the time I really really didn't follow kpop news so I rarely heard about groups about to debut before they actually did, but I did actually hear the hype about ATEEZ. And when Pirate King dropped we all lost our goddamn minds with the 'holy shit, these are not rookies, how is this a debut track????'

So from what I understand (Hongjoong explained it to me) Treasure takes place chronologically after Fever. In terms of their storyline, they've already made it to the other world.

Yeah, Treasure's definitely for sure after Fever (just when exactly is kind of up for debate). They hooked us on black pirate drama and then they were like 'flashback/backstory time for a whole series' :D'

Treasure Ep. 2 is one of their strongest albums.

Hala Hala really is a staggering song/performance

 So, Hala Hala is our introduction to Halateez. These are not our boys.

Who are these mysterious dudes in black that have our faces, and what do they want????

Okay, Wooyoung taking his mask off at the end of Hala Hala feels important.

Treasure Part 3: the boys have no interest in being woken up from their dream. They are fully immersed in the "Illusion." The tick-tock sound in Crescent is so ominous!

Yeah, that ticking clock really starts to get more ominous the more clock show up in Golden Hour... that's all I'm saying there

Treasure Ep. 3 is also an all-time summer album.

Illusion deserves better from me.

Treasure 3 is the anime equivalent of a beach episode before things get really dark.

OPEN YOUR EYES (Maddox!!)

anime beach episode on the surface... potential grimmdark reality (depending on what they are actually trying to wake up from.....)

They are so beautiful in Wave. Like, the platonic ideal of beautiful youth. Whoever styled Seonghwa for this album deserves a medal.

Holy crap, the Wave - Overture!! I've never seen this performance before. San is blowing up the screen.

All of them asleep during Utopia (Japanese Ver.) ... hmm

they do be needing some waking up... wonder what put them to sleep <cough>sopro<cough>

Wooyoung tangled up in chains...

I wonder what he did to cause that to happen as he's bathed in a ton of red light....

Woah, the All to Action preview is so eerie!!

Right? this is why you should never skip the teasers! They can set a whole different tone from the song they actually use in the mv, and a lot of the time the different tone is EERIE MENACE FOREBODING

End of Beginning goes so hard!

The comeback stage for Wonderland is SO CREEPY! All the naked mannequins...

Symphony No.9...an all-timer stage. So are we watching the full maturity of the pirates?

The more important lore bits from symphony no 9 are that ATEEZ are on a mission given to them by Halateez, (on Halateez's ship) after Halateez gave them the cromer. It's kind of like Illusion in that we are living our Best, Most Epic, Badass pirate life (that may be a dream within a dream within a dream...)

The silence at the end is so haunting. I know this happened during COVID so there's no live audience, but the silence also feels part of the performance.

Asnwer always felt like the Hero's Feast before the final battle.

Answer, my beloved (I am pretty damn sure) turning point for the entire lore.

Ooh, Maddox's evil laughter in the trailer...

Maddox really brings his Best Level Menace factor to the intros/outros (and being Z... if you weren't aware he's the guy who literally wears the Z outfit in any MV where Z appears)

Horizon and Precious have such menacing energy. I get why people love them, but they feel like corrupted files (perhaps by design).

THE VCR FOR THE ANSWER COMEBACK STAGE IS BONKERS!!

The stage for Ode To Joy! THIS IS MUSICAL THEATER GREATNESS!

I just recognized the classical vocalist in this performance and it's the bus driver from the Drunkteez episode who sings Phantom of the Opera 😂

Evergreen statement: Ateez are the best performers of their generation.

End of Treasure: What a ride! Right? what a hell of a way to end the Treasure series with like a billion questions and no answers (lolllllllllll) and then Fever can finally start doing some worldbuilding.

More lore tomorrow!

[muninnhuginn]

gonna have a go at a tbhx liveblog. tbh, idk if I'll keep this up or if it'll fade away, but let's have a go.

context in terms of my current knowledge of the series going in:

superheroes? something about public perception dictating how they're seen and some kind of 'trust' rating

one character takes on the role of another

yaoi in episode two(?)

crimes against women discourse

3d/2d animation - given how the other to be hero series operate I'm going to guess this is dependent on world but idk fully

I've seen 'to be hero' and 'to be heroine' so that'll also be informing some stuff here. oh! also, I'll be watching in chinese, though not sure in this case whether the japanese release gets edited down as it did for the previous series in this collection

will be using the tag '#mun watches that hero show' so as not to spam the main tag

Episode 1 thoughts below cut

unsubtle visuals my beloved. anyway, starting themes of the show are "everyone can be a hero" vs "the only path is to accept reality and work hard".

oooh okay nice episode title card. again, on the nose, but it's not like it *needs* to be subtle. also "41 years after commission", iseeisee.

"one day you'll be replaced by someone else" - okay, so. given one of the only spoilers I do know for this series, that's. well.

two seconds later. fingerguns out. wasn't expecting it *quite* that quickly, but comedic timing on point

"who you are is of no importance" - same thing as he was saying himself earlier, but context makes it come off pretty differently

"nice has been doing poorly ever since 'that incident'" taking notes taking notes. that'll definitely come back later

ah, belief system is largely how I'd thought it'd be? belief makes reality, essentially. "as long as we package you flawlessly" and they're having an ad guy do this. fitting.

this question is more fitting to be posed to an obsessive fan than a romantic partner ngl. oh nice, glasses blonde agrees with me

oof rip he actually knows the answer right down to the runtime. that's... kinda embarrassing. obsessive fan it is.

oh. right. okay, I forgot he'd been involved in making a load (all?) of these ads. he gets a pass but he's on thin ice

"she's always been my goddess". I'm taking so much damage here.

oooh the comboing 2d with 3d for the liquid and smokey effects. reminds me of arcane.

trust vs fear. another theme, methinks

so, the villains will represent a fear - in this case, being fired? makes sense. it's presented as though it's a general fear, but I expect that each fear will be relevant to lin ling in some way or another and become increasingly close to his personal fears as the show goes on....?

2d replay of 3d scene. backdrop is somewhat different now though. or rather, the lighting emphasises the poster with the shattered face and saturates out nice almost completely

not the falling imagery. I wasn't gonna make any of this about link click and I know link click doesn't have the monopoly on falling off buildings but. creator footprint.

"I hope that someday I'll be able to protect those worth protecting" noting down as more arc relevant words even if I suspect the first time around will Not go well

moon pulling lin ling out of his fear, not through any actions of her own, but through the marketable version of her he remembers

pshh the flickering between selves as he punches. jjk op vibes.

first re-emphasis of "anyone can be a hero"

interesting how he carries through the final attack still in 2d

visual contradiction. neat.

discussing nice choosing to throw himself off a building as they're heading up to the very top of another building. topical.

yeaaah. wasn't sure exactly how it'd happen but the crimes against women discourse had me thinking she'd die. I'm... not sure if it sticks or if she "comes back" then dies again? I was kinda trying to avoid spoilers but also vaguely curious. I guess I'll find out

Some misc thoughts overall:

Visually, this show seems really strong thus far. Imagery, how it combines the different art styles, how it switches between them for emphasis. Really works

Tonally... kinda all over the place. A lot of this is presented comedically with dark undertones so it's hard to know how seriously you're *meant* to be taking things

The ending (opening) sequence is incredibly focused on a guy we've not met yet, but with visual similarities to Nice. I've managed to avoid most of the promo stuff so I don't actually have a clue who this guy is, though the chess pieces make me think potential "chessmaster" archetype?

oh right. The part about the belief system that struck me the most was the way that Lin Ling's eye colour physically changed. Currently, we're getting all the mirror visuals and seeing Lin Ling's thoughts with him as "himself". I'm curious as to how far his "becoming" Nice will go and whether he'll be able to "return". There's also been a lack so far of information whatsoever about his life prior to this. Whether he has (had?) friends or family. He didn't seem to be calling anyone when he was at the top of the tower but that doesn't mean he *doesn't* have anyone.

Lin Ling's profession as an advertising guy in the context of the trust system. He tended to be on the back end of the marketing work rather than the forefront before this, sure, but it seems super relevant to me that his job was all about public perception. Also, the sheer number of advertising posters/video ads in the backdrop at all times was overwhelming but intentional. Weirdly, am being reminded of Go Go Loser Ranger with some of it

[hervygervy]

So Kid Icarus Uprising has been out for 10+ years and yet we're still reusing the same two jokes, huh... Well, recycling is a beautiful thing so why don't we talk about them today!

You guys know 'em, right? Of course you do! "Floor ice cream gives you health!" "I never learned how to read!" Ha! What knee-slappers. Now what if I told y'all that those lines were actually creative deviations from the localization team?

Let's go in order. First is the floor ice cream bit, which occurs in chapter 16 right after a hot spring:

That was probably the millionth time you had to listen to that conversation, so I hope you can forgive me. But hey, now you get to hear the Japanese version:

The punchline is entirely different. Here's how I'd translate it:

Palutena: There's a Float Ring.

Viridi: I wonder if this is also an Aurum copy.

Pit: Whether it's a hot spring or a vehicle, I'll use whatever I can! This is what it is to be an angel! This is the angel's way of life!!

Viridi: What are you getting all psyched for? Palutena, are you giving him enough pocket money?

Palutena: Ah, that's... I haven't thought about that.

Pit: I'm not crying or anything, I'm not!

Aww. Poor Pit doesn't get any allowance. That's to be expected, I think.

A couple notes: the "Float Ring" is just the Japanese name for the Aether Ring, although you probably figured that out. All the vehicles have different names, actually. The Exo Tank is called the Beetle, the Cherubot is called the Gigas, the Lightning Chariot is called the Chariot of Light, and the Great Sacred Treasure is called the True Three Sacred Treasures. So on and so forth.

Additionally, something I personally find interesting is Viridi's word choice in one of her lines. Japanese is a very grammatically complex language, and one of these complexities comes in the form of talking about giving and receiving. There are a bunch of words for "to give" that are used depending on the giver and receiver's social status. As an English speaker, it's a real headache. I guess this is what you call pragmatics. When talking about giving allowance to Pit, Viridi uses やっておる (yatteoru) which is a progressive form of やる (yaru). やる can mean a billion different things, but in this context, it means "to give." And this is the kind of "give" you say when talking about giving something to a dog or plant or the like. Make of that what you will!

Wow, I really got sidetracked. Anyway, I can't say I know the logic behind this change, because both versions evidently have the intention of being funny. But lately I've been coming to the conclusion that the English version tries to make an effort to be more blatantly funny for lack of a better word. Like, instances where there is no joke in the Japanese version will see a joke inserted in the English version, or in cases like these, they try to ham up the funny factor. The localizers pretty much had free reign over the English script per Sakurai's blessing, so I suppose such random changes are an inevitability. In future posts, I'll talk about plot changes and characterization differences so please stay tuned for those! Back to the topic at hand, personally I'd say I prefer the Japanese version of this conversation, it's funny and cute.

Moving on! Reading. You're doing it right now. Thank you for that, by the way. But poor Pit, he never learned how to read. We learn this near the end of the flight segment of chapter 17:

People seem to be really fixated on what was honestly meant to just be a totally unserious and funny line. Like there's a whole lotta fanart out there depicting Pit learning to read or whole essays on literacy headcanons. But who am I to talk, I'm also someone who would take all of this game's lines at face value.

And now, the Japanese:

And my translation:

Pit: M-my wings are getting hot!

Palutena: It's no good! We're already at the flight limit! I'll cut the miracle of flight!

Pit: Wahh!

Palutena: Pit! Pit!!

Pit: Mayday! Mayday!! All systems down! It's already come to this! Before I die, I wanted to eat until I was full!

Viridi: Is this the time to be saying such corny things? You should ride this!

Pit: N-Nachure!

Viridi: Carefully line yourself up with the floating island. If you land poorly, you understand what'll happen, right?!

Oh, right, Viridi is called Nachure in the Japanese version. As in "nature." Surprised that never came up until now. But yeah! As you can see, the Japanese version uses a more clichéd punchline. Something you'd expect in a shounen anime. Again, the localizers had free reign and they simply changed the line to be something funnier. I have to say, I think the English version wins. There is no better punchline than illiteracy. It's a terribly overdone joke at this point, but maybe for good reason. It got added into Super Smash Bros Ultimate, after all. Did you know Antony Del Rio had to rerecord that line just for that game? They didn't just reuse it!

...I can make this post longer, if you want. We can like, really dive into this literacy thing if you want. There are a couple more conversations to pick apart, in that case. Just take a gander below the cutoff if that's your fancy.

Alright, so there's this part in chapter 5 where you have to jump across a bunch of rotating floating platforms, right? One of these rings of platforms is fashioned into letters spelling "Pandora," if you remember.

A thoroughly enlightening spelling lesson. The way this conversation plays out implies that Pit couldn't read the platforms. It makes me wonder if the English script writers already had the "never learned how to read" joke locked in, thus making it a genuine piece of characterization the writers were going for, or if this is purely a coincidence and it just so happens to work out perfectly.

To be honest, this conversation is a little less interesting than I hoped it to be. I'll translate:

Palutena: Those yellow floors ahead look like letters, don't they?

Pit: Let's see...

Palutena: PA-N-DO-O-RA... is this place some kind of self-introduction?

Pit: How embarrassing.

Pandora: Hmph. What, can't manage it? This taste.

Palutena: Yeah. It's impossible. In every sense.

First of all, I like how the English version calls the platforms orange rather than yellow. Yeah girl... those are indeed orange. Second, when Palutena is spelling out the platforms, she spells it out as if it were written in Japanese. The game's subtitles use Roman letters to transcribe her spelling, but it has furigana above it for a Japanese reading. Here, I'll show you and hope Tumblr doesn't ruin the compression:

Quick Japanese lesson, writing is split into three scripts: hiragana, katakana, and kanji. Hiragana is like the foundation of it all and each character represents a single syllable of sound. Every hiragana has a katakana equivalent, and their purpose is just to transcribe foreign words into the Japanese sound system. Kanji are more logographic, considering they're derived from Chinese characters. They make up most of the "content" of the language while hiragana makes up the "function." Every kanji can be converted back to hiragana, since that's how all the sounds are written, but since there are no spaces in Japanese, it'd be a mighty pain to read if everything was hiragana. And Japanese is already hard to read. All of that word salad just to tell you that "furigana" are hiragana or katakana characters written above kanji or other characters to indicate how to read them.

Now, the Roman letters can actually be written out in katakana. Spelling "Pandora" would look like ピー・エー・エヌ・ディー・オー・アール・エー (pii, ee, enu, dii, oo, aaru, ee). But instead Palutena pronounces it and spells it out in a Japanese way, which seems odd to me. Am I making sense?

All in all, it's pretty obvious the Japanese version doesn't really contain any of the implications the English version potentially has.

There's one more conversation I want to take a look at. It's one of those elusive random conversations:

That's right, we're starting with Japanese first this time! This one's gonna be interesting to translate:

Pit: There are various gods around the world, huh?

Palutena: That's right.

Pit: Does each god come with their own respective angel, I wonder?

Palutena: No, that's not necessarily the case.

Viridi: "Angel" is written from "heaven uses," you know.

Pit: What? Isn't it "heavenly messenger?"

Viridi: I pity you. Don't you even understand that it means you're just being pushed around?

Pit: Lady Palutena, please say something!

Palutena: ...huh?

Pit: Hey, wait, Lady Palutena!

Mmm that probably didn't make much sense. Alright, so the Japanese word for "angel" is 天使 (tenshi) which is made up of 天, meaning "heaven," and 使, which means "use." So, literally "heaven's tool." I'm going to come to the conclusion that the Japanese seem to understand what an angel is better than the average westerner. Anyway, Viridi's making the argument that the word is derived from 天が使う (ten ga tsukau) which would mean "heaven uses." Pit protests that the word comes from 天の使い (ten no tsukai) which is also just... another way to say "angel." It literally means "heaven's messenger." A Japanese dictionary will define "angel" as "a messenger from God" so Pit's probably more correct here. As you probably gathered, 使 was read differently depending on how it was used. This is par for the course for kanji. Since kanji are derived from Chinese characters, and Chinese as a language has changed over time (as languages do) and different regions of China have different ways of saying things (dialects and all that), Japanese naturally picked up on all these different pronunciations. Thus, any one kanji could have a dozen different readings.

So what does this all mean? It means we've got a case for literacy, ladies and gents. You'd have to be able to read at least a little bit to understand that "shi" and "tsuka" are derived from the same morpheme.

The Japanese version of the Pandora convo doesn't really tell us anything, so to tally it up, we're at two points for illiteracy and one point for literacy. I have one more trick up my sleeve... but we're going to have to venture outside of Kid Icarus Uprising.

In Super Smash Bros for Wii U and Super Smash Bros Ultimate, if you play as Pit on the Palutena's Temple stage, mashing down taunt will trigger a special conversation between some of the Kid Icarus Uprising cast. It's like an evolution of Snake's codec calls from Brawl. Anyway, I want to direct your attention to this part of Villager's conversation. I don't have any audio so I hope some screenshots will do:

"By the way, that name has an interesting secret."

"Oh oh! What is it?"

"The truth is, this is the first name in Smash to use hiragana!"

"W-what! I didn't realize!"

I dunno, this has gotta indicate some literacy, right? Gotta have some conception of hiragana for this to mean anything, right? Can we get half a point for team literacy at least?

...I guess we really didn't get anywhere in the end. Is Pit literate? Up to you, I suppose. What a thrilling conclusion. Let's close this off with the English version of the above convo because I like it lots. It's got a stupidly rare random chance of occurring in like, chapter 11 exclusively so perhaps you haven't even heard it.

Probably one of my favorite interactions in the game. "Errand spirit." Chef's kiss. Perfect. Sublime. Perhaps westerners understand angels after all. Secretary Pit is also awesome.

The English version evidently takes the angle of playing with the definition of the word, rather than the etymology. This is fair enough because the average English speaker probably knows jack about the etymology of "angel." Oh, and the type of joke the Japanese version wishes to convey wouldn't really work in English. For fun, "angel" comes from Greek "angelos" which means "messenger." ...I guess we've come full circle.

This post has gone on for way too long. This cutoff part is probably longer than the main point of this post. Maybe I'm the one who needs a coffee.

[paper-mario-wiki]

Do you do farm stuff Scout? Or would you like to? Like owning chickens or tending an outdoor garden, that sort of thing?

From ages 7 to 19 I lived on farms, and was made to be an active participant in maintenance and usages of the facilities I don't know why the fuck I'm typing it like this, but I grew up on a farm. I was kinda in charge of everything, but slacked a lot and my brother had to cover for me. That said, I still spent a LOT of time doing chores.

At one point or another I've been responsible for most every farm chore you can really think of. All the basics like raking leaves, milking goats, collecting eggs, feeding chickens- but also the big stuff like moving tons of hay, herding flocks, caring for large animals such as llamas, alpacas, horses, and cows, as well as delivering babies, gutting and plucking fowl (only chickens and turkeys, though I've also cared for ducks and geese), dehoring, hoof cleaning, corpse transportation, crop maintenance, winter ice removal by breaking up frozen water troughs in 10 below weather (thought this was usually circumvented by anticipating the cold and setting up water heaters beforehand), constructing enclosures, slaughtering pigs, and etc etc etc etc etc all that shit. Bunnies snakes mini horses donkeys. All that shit. Farm stuff. Ya know.

Moved away when I went to college and immediately plunged into a mixed-zoning district in the Fushimi district in Kyoto. This was a really good transition from rural living to city living, because mixed zoning districts have blocks dedicated to apartment complexes and family homes right next to blocks of rice fields and ponds, which was behind the 7-Eleven I bought most of my food from.

Now I live in a SHITTY mixed zoning area in SHITTY America where we never stop hearing cars because there's a massive parking lot nearby and constant police sirens, not because the area is particularly dangerous, but because there's like 2 police stations nearby.

My ideal housing goal, which also happens to be my current goal in life, is to reach a slightly more rural version of the Kyoto living situation. The goals are very distinct:

0. I'm editing this one in after the fact to note that while I've used Kyoto as an example a few times in this post, I'm just looking for an area that feels right and would happily live in any prefecture that fits my needs.

I want to not be tied directly to a visa which would draw me away from doing whatever work I really want to do, like my student visa did later on when school started getting worse as professors were struggling to learn digital classroom mechanics. The visa I'm shooting for is dependent on a few ideas I have for businesses, but that's still kind of a long shot.

I want to be in a position of relative financial freedom so that I can spend enough time genuinely living there instead of just being tied to a computer all day, limiting me to the world I already know. This one's the big one, so I'm still workin on that. That said, recently I've been taking some pretty massive steps towards making this a more tangible circumstance. Fingers crossed.

I want to have a home that I own instead of renting, and I'd like to work with a Japanese architect to actually construct it. Again, these are big big plans, but I think a life goal is a thing worth thinking big about. And it's not like I'm trying to build a mansion, or even a family-sized house, I think I'd be content with three bedrooms, a kitchen, and common room. Of course, in keeping with the "dream big" spirit, in a world where I've got enough money to have a nicer, slightly bigger home, I can imagine as many as 5 bedrooms. It's nice to imagine in this "perfect" outcome that I've got a reason to have enough space for guests to sleep over. A local community, or an otherwise tangible, real-world web of relationships would be nice. Like, Real Adult Socializing Shit.

I want to have a significant emphasis on self-reliance on this home. As far solarpunk as I can reasonably go, without biting off more than I can chew as someone who's kinda limp-wristed. In a gay way and a feeble way. I figure this will come down to solar panels, water filtration, a well, and a garden (or at least the space to have gardening stuff like pots and soil). Some chickens would be nice too, but I don't know that I'd ever take on livestock proper.

I want to be properly submerged in trees without being more than a 5 minute bike ride from a train station. Somwhere like Yase-Hieizanguchi Station in north Kyoto is a good example of station that's on the edge of a metropolitan area and the forest. There was an apartment there I almost got, but backed out when covid hit cuz I decided moving across town would be a whack decision.

This is a BONUS goal, but I think it'd also be nice to not compromise on a single location, and instead have a home out in the inaka, while also having a small apartment rented in the city I can go between whenever I need to. In a world where I can afford a plot of land out in the country, but would still need to travel into town for business, that would be nice. Though in that scenario I'd likely need to also take on the arduous task of getting a Japanese drivers license. If I know far enough in advance that I want to take this specific route then I could bypass that last one by getting an international license before moving to Japan, but after moving to Japan you're barred from getting an international license.

I couldn't tell you in honesty that I'm a Salt of the Earth, Red Blooded American Farmer in my heart, and in fact I could not WAIT to move away from the farm. I hated that I didn't have a say in living on a farm, and was made to take care of animals. But what I DID enjoy about that life was the stillness. The opportunities of perfect silence. The stars unobstructed by light pollution. The ability to explore. Those things I was incredibly grateful for. And as such, in my perfect world, I would like to live on something like a farm again one day, just on my own terms.