#walloon region

[gentlemanpixelator]

Houx. Les ruines de Poilvache.

[wgm-beautiful-world]

Château Lavaux-Sainte-Anne, BELGIUM

[travelella]

Villers Abbey,Rue de l'Abbaye, Villers-la-Ville, Walloon Brabant Province, Wallonia Region, Belgium

Thomas Bormans

[urbanrelics]

HAUT FOURNEAU 4

I adore visiting blast furnaces. They are the most spectacular sights I've ever got to witness. The intricacy of the engineering is quite simply astonishing. This particular specimen in Belgium, which has been under close surveilance since it was shut down in 2008, has been preserved in a remarkably good condition. Almost immediately after the closure, an interest group was established that wanted to preserve the blast furnace as an industrial landmark.

This blast furnace company, which is a defining feature of the city of Charleroi, was founded in 1836, during the heyday of the European steel industry. Like all other steel companies in the region, this blast furnace was also the subject of numerous takeovers and mergers. These mainly took place in the 1960s and 70s. It always remained a flourishing company, competitive on a global scale. However, the takeover by the Duferco group in 2001 heralded the beginning of the end…

The site was then operated under the name Carsid. After a fire in 2007, the furnace was temporarily shut down to carry out the necessary repairs. At the same time, capacity was increased and a number of environmental investments were made. The installation would now be operational for another ten years. Barely a year later, the blast furnace was shut down again, due to “poor prospects”. Due to the economic crisis and the declining demand for steel, the operation of the blast furnace company was no longer deemed profitable.

A “temporary” closure and the search for a buyer should bring relief. After more than three years of uncertainty and economic unemployment, the curtain finally fell for the blast furnace. Since HF4 is one of the best preserved blast furnaces in Europe, the Walloon government is striving to preserve the furnace as industrial heritage. Although a ministerial decree has been published to this effect, the demolition work on the site is progressing steadily…

Unfortunately Charleroi is one of the poorest cities in Belgium. There is no budget for the necessary sanitation and preservation works, which would run in the millions of euros. The futures is looking bleak for this beautiful piece of industrial heritage...

[sayruq]

Wallonia has issued a ban on the transit of all arms from its territory towards Israel, the region's Minister-President Elio Di Rupo (PS) confirmed to Le Soir. The decision followed an investigation by Belgium's francophone national news channel RTBF, as well as Le Soir and De Morgen, which revealed that 70 tonnes of munitions and explosives had transited via Liège airport to Israel since Hamas attack on 7 October. This was despite a commitment made in February by the Walloon government to prevent lethal weapons from passing via the region to the Jewish State. The media investigation revealed that a legal loophole had allowed arms transit to continue, with the military material sent from New York and stopping in Liège en route to Tel Aviv. Shipments were handled by Challenge Airlines, an airfreight logistics company which operates predominantly via transit hubs in Israel, Malta, and Belgium. The company's CEO, Yossi Shoukroun, is himself an Israeli national.Commenting on the details of the cargo, Wies De Graeve of Amnesty International in Flanders confirmed that the material was "military equipment from the US passing via the Israeli-American airfreight company Challenge". The airline was able to exploit a legal blind spot by transiting via Liège without transferring goods between aircraft. Until now, planes did not require a licence to make a short stop in Wallonia airports providing that cargoes were not moved from the aircraft. But on Monday, Di Rupo's office signed a ministerial decree forbidding all transit of arms towards Israel, regardless of whether the cargo leaves the aircraft or not.

[jasminewalkerauthor]

Deep dives into folklore: Belgian folklore

Belgium, nestled in the heart of Europe, boasts a cultural landscape steeped in folklore and mythology that has thrived across centuries. This exploration delves into the captivating narratives and enduring traditions that have shaped Belgian folklore, illuminating the cultural tapestry of this diverse and enchanting region.

Belgian folklore is adorned with a diverse array of mythical creatures, each adding its own hue to the cultural canvas. From the water-dwelling Nixen to the forest-dwelling Wild Huntsman, these fantastical beings embody the collective imagination of the Belgian people, woven into the fabric of their storytelling traditions.

In the southern Walloon region, folklore weaves tales of the Géants, colossal figures parading through festivals, representing both mythical and historical elements. The Géants embody a living mythology, embodying the resilience and spirit of the communities they traverse, leaving an indelible mark on the cultural identity of the Walloons.

Flemish folklore is colored by traditions that celebrate the cyclical nature of life, from the lively Kattenstoet (Cat Parade) in Ypres to the whimsical Carnaval de Binche. Amidst these festivities, the figure of the 'Huisgod,' or house spirit, stands as a guardian and symbol of domestic harmony, reflecting the importance of familial ties in Flemish culture.

Belgium's folklore is haunted by spectral entities, such as the Kludde and Lange Wapper, whose eerie tales resonate across generations. These ghostly apparitions, born from the depths of Belgian imagination, serve as cautionary figures, embodying the moral compass of a society navigating the boundaries between right and wrong.

Belgium's rich history has given rise to mythic tales surrounding ancient landmarks, such as the dolmens of the Ardennes. These megalithic structures, wrapped in the cloak of legend, connect the present to the distant past, symbolizing the enduring legacy of Belgian folklore in shaping perceptions of the land itself.

While rooted in tradition, Belgian folklore continues to adapt, finding new expression in contemporary culture. From literature to cinema, modern storytellers draw inspiration from ancient myths, breathing new life into the timeless narratives that have defined the Belgian cultural narrative.

In the realm of Belgian folklore and mythology, the tales, creatures, and traditions form an intricate web, binding communities and generations together. The colorful threads of these narratives, woven into the cultural fabric, transcend time, offering a glimpse into the collective imagination of a nation that cherishes its mythical past while embracing the ever-evolving stories that shape its cultural identity. The richness of Belgian folklore stands as a testament to the enduring power of storytelling, echoing through the ages and resonating in the hearts of those who continue to unravel its captivating threads.

[soon-palestine]

@CIJ_ICJ #genocide order in action: Walloon regional government (🇧🇪) suspends 2 arms export licences to #Israel, explicitly referring to ICJ case, and after pressure by NGOs.

👏👏 Great work by @amnestyvl , @amnestybe , @Vredesactie and @CNAPD

[thoughtlessarse]

Wallonia has issued a ban on the transit of all arms from its territory towards Israel, the region's Minister-President Elio Di Rupo (PS) confirmed to Le Soir. The decision followed an investigation by Belgium's francophone national news channel RTBF, as well as Le Soir and De Morgen, which revealed that 70 tonnes of munitions and explosives had transited via Liège airport to Israel since Hamas attack on 7 October. This was despite a commitment made in February by the Walloon government to prevent lethal weapons from passing via the region to the Jewish State. The media investigation revealed that a legal loophole had allowed arms transit to continue, with the military material sent from New York and stopping in Liège en route to Tel Aviv. Shipments were handled by Challenge Airlines, an airfreight logistics company which operates predominantly via transit hubs in Israel, Malta, and Belgium. The company's CEO, Yossi Shoukroun, is himself an Israeli national.

continue reading

[catdotjpeg]

70th day of one-person relay protest in front of the Israeli Embassy! Thank you for your hard work today at Platform C. On October 23 last year, the Belgian Transport Workers' Union issued instructions to its members to refuse to unload military supplies destined for Israel. Following this, yesterday, the Belgian Walloon regional government withheld two permits for arms exports to Israel.

-- 팔레스타인평화연대 - BDS Korea, 7 Feb 2024  

[brookstonalmanac]

Holidays 9.18

Holidays

Aging Awareness Day

Astronomy Day (Armenia)

Big Brothers Big Sisters Day (Canada)

Celebrate Your Name Day

Celebration of Talent (French Republic)

Chiropractic Founders Day

Clemente Day

Day of National Music (Azerbaijan)

Deceased Motorcyclists Remembrance Day (Ukraine)

Dieciocho (Chile)

Eleven Days of Global Unity, Day 8: Human Rights

European Heritage Days (EU)

Feast Day of the Walloon Region (Belgium)

Festival of Inner Worlds

Festival of Labour (French Republic)

Fiesta Patrias (Chile)

First Love Day

Global Company Culture Day

Hug a Greeting Card Writer Day

International Equal Pay Day (UN)

International Pitt Hopkins Awareness Day

International Read an eBook Day

Island Language Day (Okinawa, Japan)

Jeannie in a Bottle Day

Jitiya Parwa (Only Women Employees; Nepal)

Jonny Quest Day

Long Playing Record Day

Mickey Mantle Day (New York)

Mid-Autumn Festival Holiday (Taiwan)

Mountain Meadows Massacre Anniversary Day (by Mormon Church Members; Utah)

Mukden Incident Anniversary Day

National Cannabis Day (Germany)

National Ceiling Fan Day

National Colton Day

National Day of Civic Hacking

National Fitness Day (UK)

National HIV/AIDS and Aging Awareness Day

National Museum Day [also 5.18]

National Music Day (Azerbaijan)

National Play-Dough Day

National Rehabilitation Day

National Report Kickback Fraud Day

National Respect! Day

National Science Reading Day

National Tree Day (Canada)

Navy Day (Croatia)

New York Times Day

918 Day (Oklahoma)

Persian Literature and Pony Day (Iran)

PCOS Awareness Day

Scouring of the White Horse (Wantage, Berkshire, UK)

Shima-kutuba Day (Japan; Okinawa)

Top Ten List Day

U.S. Air Force Day

Victory of Uprona (Burgundy)

Vulver Awareness Day

World Bamboo Day

World Knot Tying Day

World Medical Ethics Day

World Water Monitoring Day

Food & Drink Celebrations

National Brett Day

National Cheeseburger Day

National Chocolate Day

Rice Krispies Treats Day

Independence & Related Days

Buddie Union (Declared; 2015) [unrecognized]

Chile (a.k.a. Dieciocho, 1st Gov't Junta, 1818)

Free Republic of Silbervia (Declared; 2020) [unrecognized]

3rd Wednesday in September

Banned Websites Awareness Day [3rd Wednesday]

Ember Day (Roman Catholic and Anglican Churches) [Wednesday after 9.14]

Human Resource Manager Day [3rd Wednesday]

Hump Day [Every Wednesday]

Mouth Cancer Awareness Day (Ireland) [3rd Wednesday]

National Attention Deficit Disorder Awareness Day [3rd Wednesday]

National Rehabilitation Day [3rd Wednesday]

National School Backpack Awareness Day [3rd Wednesday]

Quarter Tense (Ireland) [Wednesday after 9.14]

Wacky Wednesday [Every Wednesday]

Wandering Wednesday [3rd Wednesday of Each Month]

Website Wednesday [Every Wednesday]

Wiener Wednesday [3rd Wednesday of Each Month]

Weekly Holidays beginning September 18 (3rd Full Week of September)

Wear Cotton Week (thru 9.25)

Festivals Beginning September 18, 2024

Eurofurence (Hamburg, Germany) [thru 9.21]

Festival du Film Merveilleux et Imaginaire (Paris, France) [thru 9.20]

Lost Lands (Thornville, Ohio) [thru 9.22]

National Cattle Congress (Waterloo, Iowa) [thru 9.22]

Walnut Valley Festival (Winfield, Kansas) [thru 9.22]

Feast Days

Amoeba Assimilation Day (Pastafarian)

Anton Mauve (Artology)

Arcadius, Bishop of Novgorod (Christian; Saint)

Ariadne of Phrygia (Christian; Martyr)

Bidzin, Elizbar, and Shalva, Princes of Georgia (Christian; Martyrs)

Cassius Marcellus Coolidge (Artology)

Castor of Alexandria (Christian; Martyr)

Constantius (Theban Legion)

Ear Wig Fitting Day (Shamanism)

Edward Bouverie Pusey (Episcopal Church)

Eleusinian Mysteries begin (Ancient Rome; Starza Pagan Book of Days)

Eugene’s, Bishop of Gortyna (Christian; Saint)

Eustorgius I (Christian; Saint)

Ferreol (Christian; Saint)

Feast of Ceres (Roman Goddess of Agriculture & Grain Crops)

Festival of Labour (French Republic)

Foundation Day (Unification Church)

Hilarion of Optima (Christian; Saint)

Joe Kubert (Artology)

John Harvey Kellogg Day (Church of the SubGenius; Saint)

José de Rivera (Artology)

Joseph of Cupertino (Christian; Martyr)

Juan Macias (Christian; Saint)

Konstantin Kakanias (Artology)

Leonardo da Crunchy (Muppetism)

Lord Berners (Artology)

Lynn Abbey (Writerism)

Mark di Suvero (Artology)

Methodius of Olympus (Christian; Saint)

Plataia (Ancient Greece)

Richardis (Christian; Saint)

Rosmerta (Celtic Book of Days)

Samuel Johnson (Writerism)

Scouring the White Horse begins (Everyday Wicca)

Sophia and Irene of Egypt (Christian; Martyrs)

Third Nostril of Christ Day (Church of the SubGenius)

Thomas of Villanova (Christian; Saint)

Tzom Gedaliah (Fast of Gedalia; Judaism)

Vanaheim Day (Pagan)

Vondel (Positivist; Saint)

Zay Day (Sus God Zay) [Wear red or purple hoodies]

Lunar Calendar Holidays

Chong Chao (Macau)

Chusok (South Korea)

Lucky & Unlucky Days

Fortunate Day (Pagan) [38 of 53]

Taian (大安 Japan) [Lucky all day.]

Tycho Brahe Unlucky Day (Scandinavia) [31 of 37]

Unglückstage (Unlucky Day; Pennsylvania Dutch) [24 of 30]

Unlucky 18th (Philippines) [3 of 3]

Premieres

Abacab, by Genesis (Album; 1981)

Abou Ben Boogie (Swing Symphony Cartoon; 1944)

The Addams Family (TV Series; 1964)

Birthday, recorded by The Beatles (Song; 1967)

A Bully Frog (Terrytoons Cartoon; 1936)

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Film; 1958)

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (Animated Film; 2009)

Continental Divide (Film; 1981)

Crazytown (Noveltoons Cartoon; 1959)

The Day the Earth Stood Still (Film; 1951)

Dog Daze (WB MM Cartoon; 1937)

Enough Said (Film; 2013)

The Farm of Tomorrow (MGM Cartoon; 1954)

Fatal Attraction (Film; 1987)

Five and Dime (Oswald the Lucky Rabbit Cartoon; 1933)

The French Lieutenant’s Woman (Film; 1981)

Funny Girl (Film; 1968)

Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Ace Frehley, and Peter Criss (Albums; 1978)

Get Smart (TV Series; 1965)

Goldfinger premiered in UK (1964) [James Bond #3]

Goo Goo Goliath (WB MM Cartoon; 1954)

The Gullible Canary (Phantasies Cartoon; 1942)

Hair Today Gone Tomorrow (Noveltoons Cartoon; 1959)

Heartache Tonight, by The Eagles (Song; 1979)

I Likes Babies and Infanks (Fleischer Cartoon Popeye Cartoon; 1937)

In the Night Kitchen, by Maurice Sendak (Children’s Book; 1970)

The Japoteurs (Fleischer Cartoon; 1942) [#10]

Jennifer’s Body (Film; 2009)

Jonny Quest (Animated TV Series; 1964)

Making Money, by Terry Pratchet (Novel; 2007) [Discworld #36]

Maple Leaf Rag, by Scott Joplin (Song; 1899)

Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials (Film; 2015)

The Moffatt Translation of the Bible (Bible; 1922)

More Than a Feeling,, by Boston (Song; 1976)

New York Times (Daily Newspaper; 1851)

Old Rockin’ Chair Tom (Tom & Jerry Cartoon; 1948)

Pain Strikes Underdog, Parts 1 & 2 (Underdog Cartoon, S2, Eps. 1 & 2 1965)

Pink in the Clink (Pink Panther Cartoon; 1968)

The Road to Ruin or Mine Over Matter (Rocky & Bullwinkle Cartoon, S2, Ep. 55; 1960)

Rockin’ with Judy Jetson (Hanna-Barbera Animated TV Movie; 1988)

Rush Hour (Film; 1998)

School Daze (Terrytoons Cartoon; 1942)

The Scorch Trials, by James Dashner (Novel; 2010) [Maze Runner #2]

Serve It Forth (Art of Eating), by M.F.K. Fisher (Food Essays; 1937)

Severed Relations or How to Get a Head (Rocky & Bullwinkle Cartoon, S4, Ep. 161; 1962)

Sicario (Film; 2015)

Singles (Film; 1992)

Smiley Smile, by The Beach Boys (Album; 1967)

Strange Little Girl, by Tori Amos (Album; 2001)

A Streetcar Named Desire (Film; 1951)

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (TV Series; 2006)

Superman: Doomsday (WB Animated Film; 2007)

That’s the Way the Cookie Crumbles or Me and My Chateau (Rocky & Bullwinkle Cartoon, S4, Ep. 162; 1962)

Tired and Feathered (WB LT Cartoon; 1965)

Two Flying Ghosts or High Spirits (Rocky & Bullwinkle Cartoon, S2, Ep. 56; 1960)

Wagon Train (TV Series; 1957)

War Pigs, by Black Sabbath (Song; 1970)

Where’s Wally, by Martin Hanford (Puzzle Book; 1987)

WKRP in Cincinnati (TV Series; 1978)

Today’s Name Days

Herlinda, Josef, Lambert, Rica (Austria)

Alfonz, Irena, Jonatan, Josip, Sonja (Croatia)

Kryštof, Oskar (Czech Republic)

Titus (Denmark)

Tiido, Tiidrik, Tiidu, Tiit (Estonia)

Tytti, Tyyne, Tyyni (Finland)

Nadège, Véra (France)

Alfons, Herlinde, Lambert, Rica (Germany)

Ariadne, Ariadni, Evmenis, Kastor, Romylos (Greece)

Diána (Hungary)

Eumenio, Giuseppe, Maria, Sofia (Italy)

Alinta, Elita, Gizela, Liesma (Latvia)

Galmantė, Mingailas, Stefa, Stefanija (Lithuania)

Henriette, Henry (Norway)

Dobrowit, Irena, Irma, Józef, Ryszarda, Stefania, Tytus, Zachariasz (Poland)

Eumenie (Romania)

Elizaveta, Raisa (Russia)

Eugénia (Slovakia)

José, Sofía, Sonia (Spain)

Orvar (Sweden)

Irene (Ukraine)

Clint, Clinton, Corbin, Corwin, Corwyn, Korbin, Korvin (USA)

Today is Also…

Day of Year: Day 262 of 2024; 104 days remaining in the year

ISO: Day 3 of Week 38 of 2024

Celtic Tree Calendar: Muin (Vine) [Day 18 of 28]

Chinese: Month 8 (Guy-You), Day 16 (Yi-You)

Chinese Year of the: Dragon 4722 (until January 29, 2025) [Wu-Chen]

Hebrew: 15 Elul 5784

Islamic: 14 Rabi I 1446

J Cal: 22 Gold; Oneday [22 of 30]

Julian: 5 September 2024

Moon: 99%: Waning Gibbous

Positivist: 10 Shakespeare (10th Month) [Racine]

Runic Half Month: Ken (Illumination) [Day 12 of 15]

Season: Summer (Day 91 of 94)

Week: 3rd Full Week of September

Zodiac: Virgo (Day 28 of 32)

[beardedmrbean]

After the Flemish Prime Minister Jan Jambon (nationalist) called on farmers to lift their remaining blockades in Flanders on Thursday evening following the agreement reached between their representatives and the Flemish Government, the farmers that had been blocking access to the Port of Ghent returned home on Friday morning.

The North Sea Port, of which Ghent is a part reports that all the farmers’ blockades have been lifted. Zelzate Bridge, where a dozen tractors had been parked, preventing the bridge from being lifted to allow ships to pass has been cleared. Meanwhile, Walloon farmers are continuing their action with blockades in Liège Province.

Flemish farmers started blocking roads in East and West Flanders on Thursday morning. The so-called “filter blockades”, whereby cars and bicycles were allowed to pass, but lorries bound for the Port of Ghent were only allowed through occasionally and often after a long wait were designed to put pressure on the Flemish Government during the talks with farmers’ representatives that took place on Thursday.

The blockades not only caused disruption to shipping, but also resulted in long tailbacks on the Ghent orbital motorway. 

Early on Friday morning, the farmers that had been blocking the roundabouts near the Euro-Silo site and ArcelorMittal plant had already left. Later their colleagues at the port of Ghent also lifted their blockades. 

Farmers' blockades in Wallonia

While an agreement has been reached between the farmers and the regional government in Flanders, this is not the case in Wallonia. On Friday Walloon farmers resumed their protest action at various locations in the Liège Province. Filter blockades were set up on the E40 motorway at Loncin and near Welkenraedt.

At Ciney in Namur Province around 30 members of the Federation of Young Farmers (FJA) took action to raise awareness of their concerns outside the Ciney Cattle Auction. The protesters allowed most of the lorries carrying livestock to enter but slowed down their exit.

[doueverwonder]

My Dad Was Unfortunately Stuck In The Car With Me For 45 Min

a bullet point story of me infodumping;

My Dad and I are in the car, we have 45 min til home

he innocently asks me what I'm watching on Netflix

I tell him I'm rewatching Norsemen and am probably gonna rewatch barbarians next

he says 'we watched some of Barbarians together right? You really liked that show'

I tell him that the first season was great but the second was kinda disappointing

eventually I have to explain the battle of Teutoburg bc he doesn't know the full story

this is where it gets fun

two sentences into talking about Teutoburg I get off topic

I am now giving him a full history of the Cimbrian war

I finish that and get back to Tuetoburg

I get off topic again and am now telling him about how there were three Germania's (Superior, Inferior, Magna)

I get farther off topic and explain the origin of the word Scandinavia

I find 'danger island' is a lot funnier than he does.

I end up talking about the Geats somehow,

I follow that to talking about the Visigoths

Then the Suebi

Then the Franks

I somehow get to 'Rome's big mistake was outsourcing their army too much :\'

I Finally Get To Finishing Teutoburg

"y'know the word for Germania and therefor Germany probably came from a Celtic word that meant neighbors which is probably what the Celts called the germanic tribes. However, places like the Walloon Region and Wales got their names from a Germanic word that meant stranger or foreigner. Can you imagine being like "oh yea, that's my neighbor!" and their response is to call you a stranger? wouldn't that be weird? I mean, wasn't that kinda rude on the Germanics part?"

Talks about Belgium

Return of The Franks: The Invasion of Gaul.

the Frankish ivasion of Gaul makes me think of the Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain.

I talk about the Anglo-Saxons.

The anglo-saxons make me think of the vikings

The Return to Scandinavia.

Specifically to Sweden

We get home as I'm halfway through a ramble about the destruction of the temple at Uppsala.

[wgm-beautiful-world]

D i n a n t

[travelella]

Lillois-Witterzée, Braine-l'Alleud Municipality, Walloon Brabant Province, Wallonia Region, Belgium

Benoit Debaix

[emmashouldbewriting]

I’m the Belgian anon. I’m an immigrant (moved to Belgium while I was still a child tho) so maybe I have a different vision than other people. But Belgium is a divided country and not in the way people think the US is divided.

Belgium while small has a language border. In the north you have the Flemish who speak Dutch and in the south you have the Walloon who speak French. There’s very little holding the country together, each federal election it takes longer and longer to form a government and that’s because the north tends to vote more right wing (the northern part is also significantly richer) and the south tends to vote more left wing. Moreover the two largest parties by votes in the country are Flemish parties who favour a republic and an independent flanders. The south doesn’t really want to split but it doesn’t exactly get along with the nort. Since belgiums inception the French speaking part have oppressed the Dutch speaking (who make up the majority of the country), you didn’t have any higher education in Dutch, Flemish people were sentenced for crimes they couldn’t even understand as all judiciary was in French even if the court was situated in the Dutch speaking part. Brussels was originally Dutch speaking but over the decades it became French. There’s as a result a lot of resentment. Belgium didn’t even have the constitution in dutch until the late 70s despite the fact 60% speak dutch in the country. Since the 60’s there have been a lot of constitutional amendments (which were brought about by Flemish protest) that transformed the country from a unitary state to a federal state. Now the Royal Family is seen as Belgian when a lot of people don’t feel Belgian but identity more with their region. Also the RF speak French, queen fabiola barely spoke a word Dutch despite being the queen of a country where 60% speak that language. The current king and queen did send their kids to Dutch speaking schools which was a first (I think). But there’s not much connection with the rf.

We don’t have really a lot of pomp and ceremony (not in the way the British do, which I btw love 😂). So they aren’t really visible and yet seem to be taking a lot of money (which they totally are). We don’t have a soverings grant or anything, the government pays for the palaces and transport and the like but they also get a lump sum of money that’s considered a ‘salary’. In 2019 the king got around 13M€ of taxpayer money and the former king and queen and the siblings of the current king also receive a salary. So It’s like if Edward and Anne got salaries aside from their expenses (for representing the monarchy). The current king’s brother is also an absolute asshole. He once showed up in military uniform in a Chinese embassy party without the government approval, his salary as a result was lessend that asshole went and complained how his human rights were being violated. He actually went to European court of human rights!! And that’s not all he made several political moves with countries that were violating some serious human rights. He also was making shady deals (sounds familiar doesn’t it).

There’s also the whole mess with Albert II. He and his wife, Paola were estranged for a while. He had affairs and Delphine was born. He didn’t abandon her but playe daddy for a good number of years before his marriage rehabilitated and he completly refused to acknowledge her. She had to sue him and he wouldn’t recognise even then.

To me the royal family doesn’t do anything important for the country except leech of taxpayers. The majority in the north actually prefer to abolish the monarchy, we don’t really have a class system as in the UK so the idea of the monarchy seems just outdated. Also the king does have some influence in politics which is why I dislike it even more.

Most people are just kinda apathetic towards the monarchy. There aren’t really fervent monarchist in the way there are in the UK. Lol the people who show up at the mall every year for TTC wouldn’t happen in Belgium.

I read this when it was sent in and meant to post it yesterday but erdemgate happened, so y'know LOL

thank you so much, belgian anon! this was really interesting, and lines up with a couple of belgians i know who are quite apathetic about the royals there. i only really know princess elisabeth but that's just because she turned 18, and i doubt i'd know she existed if i wasn't here. i knew there were two languages but didn't realise there was such a divide politically, and i'm going to deep dive into this!!

i understand to an extent, wales is very divided between the north and south for political reasons (there's even two variations of welsh, but most people don't notice it) and we in the north often joke about breaking off and joining england lol

[rodeodeparis]

another rambling tachioda analysis i impulsively wrote where i compare it to folk tales and talk about story structure. whoopee

so i’ve been working with the aarne-thompson-uther index lately. the atu is like tvtropes for folktales. it has two categorizations: one is for motifs, or common themes that can be found in folk tales. (ie wicked stepmother, shoe that only fits the true love, etc.) the other is for story types, which is common ways in which these motifs can be glued together. (cinderella is wicked stepmother + shoe that fits the true love, plus a bunch of other things.) 

while browsing, this particular tale-type caught my eye:

lenore, the namesake for the type, is a ballad by german author gottfried august burger. inspired by the european renditions of this myth, it follows the tale type description to the letter. however, it includes an additional section where the human curses god for killing her lover, and is punished by the dead because of it. the deacon of myrka, an icelandic rendition, follows this as well to an extent, but keeps the human alive at the end and curses her with a haunting. in general, both involve a bare-bones 365 with different christian and local twists. 

my first thought when i saw this was “tachioda”. probably just my fixation talking, but i recognized the story. not just in tachioda, and not in the way the description put it. 

in a section below descriptions of types, it lists countries where the author found indications of this tale (with sources). i’ll save you the long list - it’s disproportionately european. despite recent efforts to internationalize it, the atu is still very euro-centric. (why go through the trouble of adding “walloon” as a distinct ethnic renderer of a story while you just put “iraq” or “morocco” to refer to those regions?) hence the “generic” description being of one of the tale’s most popular european forms. what’s more important here is the premise. so, when i saw a japanese version was listed, my suspicion was confirmed.

i think what i may have recognized was the peony lantern* (starts page 5), a famous “ghost story” in japan. i can’t find the book the atu lists as a source for the story having a japanese rendition so i don’t know this for sure.

the peony lantern is a literary adaption of a folk tale, written in 1666 by author ryoi asai. the original was a chinese story of the same name* from jiandeng xinhua ( something like ”new stories to tell after snuffing out the lamp”), a famous compilation of adapted folk tales by ming-era novelist you qu that’d come out some 300 years earlier. this makes asai’s peony lantern an adaption of an adaption of a story that’d probably been passed on and changed long before qu was born.

(*for the former - asai’s version is the first in japanese, but not the most popular - the plot summary goes from page 5-6. most of what you can find online is a translation of another, more popular japanese adaption that came after asai but added some things.

for the latter, yes, that was the only english translation i could find. they tend to be sparse for chinese literature unfortunately.)

the peony lantern - both qu’s and asai’s versions - is the same idea as 365, but with flipped genders. here’s a very very basic summary of both of them:

man finds ghost woman during festival. (lantern festival in qu’s, obon in asai’s.) she’s with her maid, who’s holding a peony lantern,

man falls in love with the woman ghost, and she tells him about her past, 

discovered by neighbor peeping into his house, who suggests he travel to the village the woman was from for help,

he does, and discovers a coffin in her old house with an inscription that confirms the ghost’s identity. he then goes to get religious help (from a taoist disciple in qu’s, buddhist priest in asai’s),

despite having gotten help, the man is drunkenly lured to his death,

qu’s man is drunk after a friend’s banquet and wanders inside the temple he was staying at. he’s lured by the ghost inside and into a coffin.

asai’s man is called by the ghost from outside of his house. he drunkenly wanders with her into the temple.

people spot the man, now as a ghost, walking around with the woman ghost,

townspeople (qu) or the man’s family (asai) go to a (taoist in qu’s, buddhist in asai’s) priest (and in qu’s only, disciple) for help,

the priest banishes the ghosts,

in qu’s version only, the townspeople go to thank the priest and disciple who helped them, but find that the priest has disappeared, and the disciple is now mute.

don’t worry about the surface-level details not matching up to lenore or to each other. for example, i’m pretty sure that the horse is a european thing. the folk tale of oisin on tir an nog and the tale of urashima taro are listed under the same type - 470b - with the circumstances of how they happened as local flair. oisin’s stepping off the horse serves the same purpose as the box urashima receives. what matters here is the themes and main events, and those track.

lenore could have very well ended in the same way as the peony lantern - the human and ghost are spotted, and a christian priest banishes them - but it doesn’t. that’s because of a very important difference in the way these stories are set up.

if you know the difference between european five-act structure and east asian four-act structure, skip to the paragraph starting with “if the peony lantern followed”.

european five-act structure goes like this: 

exposition - characters, setting, and conflict are set up.

bob needs to open the bottle of olive oil to make dinner. the cap is tight.

rising action(s) - conflict ramps up.

bob struggles to open the tight cap. he tries everything, but it doesn’t work.

climax - conflict comes to its highest point.

in frustration, he digs under the cap with a knife, and it flings open.

falling action(s) - conflict de-escelates and starts to wrap up.

bob closes the bottle and pours the olive oil in the pan.

resolution - conflict is resolved.

bob continues making dinner.

east asian four-act structure* differs by country, but the gist of it goes like this: 

introduction - characters, setting, and pretense are set up.

bob is making dinner. he’s struggling to open an olive oil bottle with a tight cap.

development - situation is developed. 

in frustration, he digs under the cap with a knife and it flings open. he pours oil in a pan.

pivot - story changes direction/introduces a new perspective.

alice comes to stand behind him. she sounds angry. 

conclusion - story ends. 

bob turns around and discovers that alice’s eye is swollen and red - the cap had flung into it. bob profusely apologizes while he cooks.

(*ctrl+f “east asian 4 act”.)

disclaimers:

4-act isn’t the only one used in east asia, and 5-act isn’t the only one used in europe

i’m not saying you can’t appreciate these if you didn’t grow up with them or something like that

these aren’t the end-all-be-all of story structures in general, but it’s easier explaining two than several. also, these ones are pretty big.

in a five-act structure, the protagonist affects the world around them. because of this, they need a problem - a conflict - to take care of. it’s probably best to think about conflict here more like “goal” or “motivation” - a character needs to want something, and that thing comes in conflict with something else. this isn’t always a character explicitly going after something or being pitted against an enemy - it can be internal as well. their goal/motivation needs to be at the center of the story.

five-act stories start with a character’s goal being solidified to the audience. after this, they can either do something about it, or something can happen to them which furthers complications. either way, they need “motivation” to keep going. if an antagonist is present, whether or not they’re out to get the protagonist doesn’t matter - the protagonist will end up confronting them since they’re in the way of their goal. in the end, a goal needs to be met or not met, antagonist defeated or not defeated. whatever won out in the end is the determiner of the theme the story’s ended on. this is why the ending is the “resolution.” 

in a four-act structure, a character is affected by the world around them. the character can have a conflict and goals, but they need causality - significant events to happen to them - to move forward. the story is driven by how events take shape and how they compare to each other in the grand scheme of things. from there, a character’s reaction (or lack of a reaction) continues the chain of events while telling us what we need to know about them.

four-act stories start by something happening to the protagonist or the protagonist doing something that makes the story-starter happen. the story continues as the protagonist keeps reacting. what keeps them going is some sort of mental/emotional relation to the events at hand. if there’s an antagonist, it’s their goals that are propelling the story, as those goals inhibit the protagonist/their world in some way. when the protagonist seeks a fight, it’s related to the sequence of events - if they’re a goody two-shoes, for example, it’s when the antagonist’s violence goes too far. events lead to an ending that, no matter what it is, reflects the theme of the story. this is why the ending is the “conclusion”.

in the five-act example, the point of the story is bob opening the cap. in the four-act example, his opening the cap was a goal of his, but the point was that he wasn’t careful and hit alice in the eye. you can change the structure of these stories around to make one fit the other, but the focuses work because they’re tailored to those structures.

there’s philosophical/cultural/historical “backstories” as to why the four and five-act structures are the way they are that i don’t feel like i can articulate very well. they’re also a lot for a post about video game men. if there’s something i’m missing or not getting, please tell me. i’ll try my best otherwise.

if the peony lantern followed a five-act structure, i think it would go something like this:

introduction: man meets woman ghost at festival. 

rising action: he falls in love with her. neighbor sees him and tells him this is dangerous. he goes to get help in her village. he discovers a tomb in her house with her name on it.

climax: he discovers a coffin in her house with her name on it.

falling action: although he got help, he’s drunkenly lured to his death.

resolution: his body is found and he’s buried. the ghost couple haunts the town. the townspeople/family ask for help, and the ghosts are banished.

feels weird, right? the peony lantern isn’t actually following a five-act structure. instead, it goes like this:

introduction: man meets woman ghost at festival. he falls in love with her. neighbor sees him and tells him this is dangerous. 

development: he goes to the town where she’s from and discovers a tomb in her house with her name on it. he then goes to get religious help. even though got help, he’s drunkenly lured to his death. 

pivot: the ghost couple haunts the town.

conclusion: the townspeople/family ask for help. the ghosts are banished.

four-act structure hinges on significant events to develop the situation, which leads to character development. we see this in two different ways - during the man’s life and after - because of the way four-act structure is set up to think about ideas: idea (thesis), opposition (antithesis), combination (synthesis). that’s why the “pivot” is the story giving him what he wants; the effect the man’s uniting with his love had on his fellow townspeople as they prowled the streets was not something he seemed to care about much. there’s no way he couldn’t have cared when he was banished. no matter how strong their love was, the story claims that there were more important things for him to consider.

compare this to lenore. if lenore followed a four-act structure, i think it’d go something like this:

introduction: human has a good relationship with her boyfriend. however, he dies. she is grief-stricken, and in mourning. her mourning is slowly escalating.

development: her mourning escalates to a point where she curses god at her loss.

pivot: later, his ghost shows up to her house, riding on a horse.

conclusion: ecstatic, she goes with him. she rides with him to the graveyard. she realizes he is really dead. she dies herself. 

feels weird, right? lenore isn’t actually following a four-act structure. instead, it goes like this:

introduction: human’s boyfriend is dead. she’s grief-stricken, and curses god.

rising action: he shows up at her house. she goes with him. he asks her if she’s afraid twice, she says no twice. third time, they’re at the graveyard.

climax: she realizes he’s really dead.

falling action: she’s pulled to her death.

resolution: she’s dead.

like how the four-act structure hinges on character development, the five-act structures hinges on goals to drive a conflict. the five-act structure ideas as thesis vs. antithesis - goal vs. opposition. one has to win at the end, and this tension culminates in the climax. in lenore, the two opposing ideas are her love for the ghost vs. how she blasphemed. first, she blasphemes. then, her ghost lover comes back to take her, and it seems like the love will win out...but she soon faces the consequences of that love when she realizes her love was actually dead. when she dies, the latter triumphed, and her love is shown as not having been worth it. 

so the peony lantern is a story which can only read as harrowing as it does because it’s told in a four-act structure. qu’s and asai’s versions differed quite a bit, though:

ghost appearing during the lantern festival (qu) vs obon (asai)

disciple and priest (qu) vs disciple’s role merged into priest (asai)

man lured to death (qu) vs leaves house on his own volition, then lured to death (asai)

village asking for help (qu) vs human’s family (asai)

taoist priest and disciple (qu) vs buddhist priest (asai)

taoist punishment big part of story (qu) vs buddhist punishment, smaller part (asai)

most of these choices look like localizations. the family instead of the townspeople was probably to make those localizations make more sense. as for the significance of the banishment and the way in which the man was lead to his death, i assume asai changed these because of the specific story he wanted to tell. 

a buddhist priest himself, much of asai’s writing focused on subverting buddhist emphasis on the importance of spiritual matters. a previous book he’d written is named for the term ukiyo (浮世), or “floating world”. this term had started picking up meaning to refer to a contemporaneous emerging culture of boisterous, red light district-prowling city life. this term is homophonous to another term pronounced ukiyo (憂き世), or “this sorrowful world”, a japanese  term for the buddhist concept of escape from earthly death and reincarnation. instead of that, why not hedonistic, earthly pleasures? this was a sentiment which fit into asai’s writing, his time’s relatively stable contemporary politics, and the ukiyo subculture. (also, yes, it’s that ukiyo.) you can read tales from a floating world translated here. 

with that, it’s easy to see the sort of story he was trying to get out of the peony lantern. “floating” suggests that most of his writing is lighthearted, and it certainly is, but much of it ultimately focused on critiquing politics/society at large. (though not always expertly.) he was a particular fan of pointing out to the readers what he felt were injustices or what was right instead. qu’s peony lantern and its warning of not faltering to love was a perfect target for a writer like asai. 

jiandeng xinhua was influential for the novel way in which qu combined folk tales, buddhist lessons, and his political context. despite this, it was banned (and later unbanned) in his home country for political reasons and was more popular in vietnam, korea, and japan. as a consequence, the peony lantern is most well-known in asai’s form, scoring adaptions from further written stories, to kabuki, to tv, to several movies. it’s one of the most popular japanese kaiban and it inspired others like it. why did it last so long?

asai’s story still operates in a the same buddhist framework as qu’s. in both stories, for lack of a better term, the man’s love with someone he shouldn’t have interacted with came back to bite him in the ass. he’s ultimately punished along with his ghost-lover for having faltered to her in the first place.

but qu’s man was coaxed into his coffin. asai’s man chose to leave his house. the buddhist prayer to banish the ghost is one sentence long, as opposed to qu’s detailed taoist banishment. i think the longevity of asai’s peony lantern is because of these changes. it draws attention to the events that got the story to this point and their ambiguity. with this, we’re left with a ghost and the man who loved her. the relationship is even more in focus than it was before. 

the basis of the religious subversion builds a framework for further explorations of the nature of the man and ghost’s relationship - the ghost’s apparent intentions, and the man’s apparent “loss” of agency. subversions never question the danger of the ghost, and don’t go great lengths to change the main course of events or introduce a conflict. they subvert by showing the love inside of that danger, what could’ve happened within, before, after, or outside of it. the change of context changes our perceptions. some adaptions even include the human and ghost being reincarnated together or the human dying with a smile on his face. 

by keeping the actions and changing the context, subversions of the peony lantern are about how much the ghost and human mean to each other. the world around the human faces the consequences of the human’s actions. the drawing, oppositional factor here is the “forbidden love” on the part of the relationship’s existence. the important question is “who are these people, and why do they love each other so much?”

lenore had a level of cultural influence in europe to jiandeng xinhua. it inspired a lot of 18th-19th century romantic and gothic literature, specifically early vampire literature; english author bram stoker mentioned it as an influence on dracula*. the plot of dracula revolves more around the group of men who kill him at the end. dracula stalks, seduces, and eventually feeds on women. when he curses the protagonist’s fiancee, the hunt ramps up, and dracula’s eventually staked through the heart. 

(*it’s a whole book rather than a short story like lenore or the peony lantern, so just read the wikipedia page if you’d like a full summary.)

the ghost in the peony lantern wasn’t this polarizing a figure because stoker wasn’t in the business of subverting in the way asai was. stoker wrote dracula in the fashion of a shitty contemporary trend. vampires have a history in europe of being portrayed through symbols associated with antisemitism against ashkenazi jews that i’d rather not get into. dracula was so evil because he was so cunning and seductive, “luring” you in, a trope which echoed that sort of anti-semitism. dracula’s allure gives the story a conflict in the same way the human cursing god in lenore did. the emphasis of the conflict just changed. 

in lenore, the ghost’s danger was as inherent as in the peony lantern, but the woman’s love - her motivation - was similarly pre-established. what stuck here is the emphasis on that conflict - the question of the human’s priorities between her safety and her love interest’s allure. making the monster appealing in some way complicates things, as it gives her a “rational” reason to be lead to her death. it’s a question of the “benefit” vs. the “cost”. thesis vs. antithesis. 

like in the peony lantern, the ghost’s danger is never questioned, but their intentions are. this is why dracula’s contemporaries in anglophone tv shows, movies, and young adult romance novels fret over their danger as much as their human love interests do. by showing that they don’t want to hurt their human, they’re given goals that “salvage” their dangerous nature. this focus on their “goals” not only paints them as worthy of sympathy, but drives the romance on both sides instead of just one. this portrays the relationship as a matter of mismatched compatibility in the way subversions of the peony lantern do, but the focus of the relationship is on how the individual sides fit together, rather than why they fit together.

by changing the focus of the conflict to highlight motivations, subversions of lenore are about how much this ghost means to the human. the world around the human warns the human about what they’re doing. the drawing, oppositional factor here is in the “forbidden love” on the part of the human’s and ghost’s motivations. the important question is “who is this ghost, and why does the human love them so much?” 

essentially, these stories teach the same lesson - engaging with ghosts is bad - in two different ways. the effects of the human’s wrongdoing culminate in his receiving the worst fate vs. the human’s wrongdoing is cemented in her receiving the worst fate. these story structures are so ingrained in us that they impact how stories are told, even today - since the stories are set up in the specific ways they are, things like “dangerous” romance can be cultivated from them differently.

(second, completely unrelated side note: i doubt a 365-type story could exist in this form in the me/na. "spirits” are thought of differently. it’d have to change a lot.)

back to tachioda. no matter whether you’re more used to the peony lantern-type stories or lenore-type ones, this motif can be recognized. isn’t someone you care for betraying you with a secret which endangers your life sort of like a realistic rendition of a ghost dragging you into your grave? isn’t tachibana sort of like the human in those stories, where his love care for oda was what inspired him to not run away from his problems anymore by “sacrificing” himself? 

oda’s something like the human, too - he did something he knew was against tachibana’s interest out of said poor judgement, which was blinded by his love. and just like both the human and the ghost were banished, oda’s judgement led to events that got tachibana killed. 

regardless of who’s who, oda carried both tachibana and himself to their deaths. but is it more similar to the peony lantern, or to lenore? 

let’s see if tachioda follows a five-act structure, for one:

introduction: oda works with tachibana. we know they’re very close, but not how. oda seems antagonistic towards kiryu for some reason. oda begrudgingly works with kiryu.

rising action: the search for the owner of the lot goes on. eventually, it’s discovered that it’s makoto, and they head to sotenbori to get her. we learn some stuff about their backstory from the video store owner. makoto and oda encounter each other, and seem to recognize one another. he’s antagonistic towards her.

climax: he eventually tries to kill her. kiryu stops him.

falling action: he spills and is left to fend for himself.

resolution: oda is dead. tachibana learns about it.

completely unrelated post-resolution occurrence: tachibana is inspired to stop running away from his problems.

in the five-act structure, the climax is the most intense moment - the moment where the main character’s goal and what it came in conflict with is at its peak. oda’s attempt to kill makoto is very intense, and where his antagonism both towards her and kiryu comes to a head. but what’s the conflict here?

if you want to find a conflict, you have two options: oda vs. makoto and oda vs. kiryu. since oda’s reveal is seen in the form of a buildup of antagonism that comes near his death, with his death serving as a resolution, there’s one conclusion here - oda is a twist villain. he dies, and makoto and kiryu won.

interpreting the story this way skews things a bit. namely, for a twist villain to work in a 5-act structure, they need to have been involved in the conflict that was driving the story all along. oda was a mole for shibusawa all along, yes, but...that’s it. it didn’t really go any further than him having given shibusawa’s men their location. in terms of a conflict of oda vs. makoto or kiryu, his death wasn’t the culmination of those things - not directly, at least. it didn’t “resolve” any arcs.

makoto’s main situation in the game is dealing with her life on the line with the empty lot in her hands and wanting to meet with her brother, not to mention grappling with everything she’s faced. within that, the identity of the person who trafficked her isn’t represented in a conflict. it’s a conflict - a question. that doesn’t mean it didn’t cause her significant trauma, and that doesn’t mean she isn’t struggling with it; it means that it was presented in a specific way. think about how she found oda - by chance when oda and kiryu came for her. after everything happened, and oda died, she had her answer. we see her reaction to it and everything else she’d faced in the rest of the game.

oda came across makoto so we would know what would happen when she saw him. makoto’s writing...could be better, to say the least, but i think this is a more harrowing presentation of what trauma can feel like. it’s not something that you overcome in a decisive conversation or battle, it’s something that sticks with you, even if you have all the pieces together. 

kiryu’s conflict with oda pre-reveal was...nothing, really. even in 5-act structure terms. oda was just an ass to him. if anything, oda had been begrudgingly helping kiryu this far. nothing much other than that going on there, really.

with tachibana, the “conflict” between them isn’t so explicit. we may have some indication that tachibana knows something is going on with oda (which i talked about in my last post from a while ago), and we learn about their past together. until he learns about oda’s death, that’s the most of it. their on-screen interaction is mostly bare-bones.

so, yes, this is a conflict, but we only really see one party propelling the events in it. oda’s also going against tachibana’s interests, but tachibana isn’t involved, and doesn’t even know until it’s too late. he has no “goal” against oda. oda’s also trying to kill makoto, but even that’s only one-sided. she’s no big fan of oda, but she has no “goal” against him. if you see oda vs. tachibana as a conflict that’s driving the story, how tachibana reacts to oda’s death seems out of place - it has nothing to do with any sort of “goal” against oda, let alone resolving any goals, so we can’t say tachibana’s reaction is a resolution to a conflict that came before it. that’s why i put it as a “completely unrelated post-resolution occurrence”. 

but oda had reason to be apprehensive - is an oda vs. himself conflict propelling the story? nope. even though it was something he chose to do under specific circumstances, oda’s already made his decision. he’s not convinced out of it until he’s caught. he’s conflicted, but his misguided perceptions motivate him to continue, so what’s driving him forward is not his internal conflict against anyone. it’s his goal. 

he’s following his goal, which comes in conflict with tachibana and makoto’s goals, which is what makes events occur, which means that in terms of the four-act structure...he’s a twist villain? not so fast.

like pretty much every yakuza subplot that lasts throughout the whole game, the tachioda subplot follows a jo-ha-kyu structure:

jo: tachibana seems eager to get close to kiryu. he relays that he’s had difficulty trusting people in the past. on the other hand, oda seems antagonistic towards kiryu for some reason, but begrudgingly works with him. the search for the owner of the lot goes on. meanwhile, from makoto and wei han lee, we learn that she was trafficked while looking for her brother. the person who trafficked her had a bat tattoo. in a later scene, it’s revealed that tachibana has the same bat tattoo. later, kiryu and oda go to sotenbori. we learn about their (mostly tachibana’s) past from the video store owner. 

ha: makoto and oda encounter each other, and seem to recognize one another. he’s antagonistic towards her, which climbs in severity as oda drives them to a “safe spot”.

kyu: oda tries to kill makoto, but he’s stopped. oda spills everything. kiryu leaves him to fend for himself. tachibana learns about his death and stops running away from his problems.

yes, that’s a new thing i didn’t talk about before. jo-ha-kyu is a japanese artistic structure extrapolated from the chinese literary concepts of fu-bi-xing. by “artistic structure” i mean that it’s a structure that’s applied to a lot of stuff. in our case, it’s a narrative structure used in movies, tv shows, and games.

progression-wise, jo-ha-kyu is similar to four-act, when you think about it. (sort of like how the five-act structure generally follows a larger pattern of “beginning-climax-resolution.) jo-ha-kyu is about a slow development of actions and context (jo), a sudden and quick dramatic heightening of the tension (ha), and an even quicker finish (kyu). the point of this is to show exactly how the “conflict” affects the story before it’s taken care of. the something it leads up to (or doesn’t) isn’t the “climax” - it’s as much of the point as the events are. like with four and five act structures, there’s a philosophy-based reason as to why this exists in the way it does but i’m not sure i could articulate it well.

what happens is that we’re presented with context and later get some indications of what’s “really” going on. then, oda and makoto see each other, and the pace heightens. as they escape from being pursued, oda’s antagonism builds until he tries to kill her. our questions are answered when he’s stopped and reveals everything, giving us context to everything we’ve seen. the conclusion is the rest - it’s not entirely linear because this plot affects both makoto and tachibana. with jo-ha-kyu, like with four-act, plots often don’t “resolve” and can lead to others.

the fun part about this is that you can incorporate a four-act sequence into a part of a larger jo-ha-kyu story to build it up even more. this manifests itself via the oda vs. makoto subplot like this:

introduction: makoto and oda encounter each other, and seem to recognize one another. he’s antagonistic towards her, and that antagonism builds.

development: oda takes them to the “safe spot”. eventually, he tries to kill her. he’s stopped.

pivot: oda spills everything.

conclusion: oda is left to his fate.

this is essentially the “ha” and “kyu” in the larger jo-ha-kyu of the tachioda subplot, and a part of the development makoto’s plot. with makoto, what happened to her was a significant part of her past, so knowing what would happen when she saw oda allows her to take matters into her own hands. (even though the writers screwed that up.) 

with tachioda, it "pivots” from oda’s devotion to tachibana (thesis) and takes us to something that seems to contradict it (antithesis) before putting this in context of the devotion established beforehand (synthesis). oda and makoto’s relationship is also the “antithesis” to the thesis of oda and tachibana’s relationship and oda’s characterization as tachibana’s right hand arm man. the synthesis is oda choosing to leave himself to his fate. this also happens so tachibana can learn about his death, and we receive another confirmation - tachibana wanted to trust him.

tachibana’s death is also not a “resolution” to anything. since tachibana is tied to the main plot, this leads to complications for kiryu and makoto both. long story short, makoto confronts the lieutenants, and kiryu later confronts shibusawa. it wouldn’t have been so direct if tachibana hadn’t died, if oda hadn’t died, if oda had better judgement, if oda and tachibana hadn’t bumped into each other in the street in sotenbori, if oda hadn’t trafficked people. but still...

is oda a twist villain here? i’ll answer this by stating what i’ve been implying the whole time: oda as a character doesn’t work in a five-act structure. he’s also not important enough to the game’s plot for a neat yes or no answer. this leads us to some semantics. since we’re speaking in english, “antagonist” implies a character who’s an opposing force to the hero/protagonist, and “villain” implies that the force is tied to nefarious motivations or morals. the two are different, but there’s always some sort of opposition, like with five-act structure. 

since we’re talking about a japanese game, japanese has these:

katakiyaku (敵役) - a character who’s role is to be against the protagonist

akuyaku (悪役) - someone who’s considered morally evil in a specific scene/incident/plot

akujin (悪人) - someone who’s very existence is evil; warumono (悪者) - a bad person

the first two japanese definitions are mutually exclusive from the third. they refer to context because they’re translations of the vaguer, european (or specifically anglo here) concept that these are intrinsic story roles. it’s not that villains or antagonists didn’t exist in japanese stories beforehand. it’s that in four-act, a villain doesn’t have to be there for “bad” to happen. see how those kabuki stock character descriptions primarily detail what characters do in a story? compare them to these commedia dell’arte stock character descriptions which primarily detail traits. a four-act villain is morally “bad” because that’s a reflection, not an explanation, of who they are in the story as a whole. that linkage serves as a counterpoint to the hero’s goodness and amplifier of their dastardly actions rather than as two inherently connected forces. 

hero vs. villain is still a conflict in jo-ha-kyu and four-act story structure. you fight shibusawa at the end of the game, don’t you? he went out of his way to do what he did, which his less than “moral” backstory gives context to. the only things oda has in that regard are a checkered past and poor judgement. oda was propelled by his goal to do things that went against tachibana and makoto...after he and tachibana saw the latter’s family in a documentary. he came across it, and he reacted to it. oda’s association with the antagonists and former sex trafficking were bad, but he’s not a “villain” like shibusawa is - it’s not his role in the story.

if anything, i’d say that oda was absolutely intended to be a twist “bad guy”, as in twist “guy who did a succession of really bad things, realized the scope of them almost by chance each time, and paid the price.” but we can’t call him a “villain” in the english/five-act way because what he did, his role as a character, and his goals are entirely separate. the last we see of him is his rebuffing shibusawa when he asks why oda “screwed up” - even without kiryu and makoto there, we’re shown that his regret is real. the best we have to describe this in english is “morally gray”.

that doesn’t mean he’s portrayed as being in the right, and it certainly doesn’t mean you’re supposed to sympathize with or even like him, though. the game doesn’t deny that oda’s actions were bad, but it’s not in the business of exploring this through oda as a “ghost” figure pit against the “humans”. like i said in my last post, if they wanted to do this, they easily could have. the main story could happen without oda - his role is to flesh out the world tachibana and makoto find themselves in. he’s a plot device. that’s it.

part of this is done through makoto’s journey. the other part is through tachibana and oda’s feelings about each other. (and also in that they’re foils but that’s another post.) they’re in a chain of events that implies animosity - betrayal - but something is different from what we expect. oda’s devotion to tachibana is the obvious thing. the scene with the car that i already talked about in my last post, a little less so.

other than that, most of what we know about how they behaved, felt, and thought until the “ha” is implied or summarized through anecdotes outside of them. the one thing underlying all of this doesn’t come out until it’s too late. oda realizes the gravity of keeping this secret and chooses to “redeem”* himself by divulging and staying behind. once tachibana reacts to that knowledge, we truly know.

(*another semantics thing - “redeem” in english has the meaning of “redemption arc”, as if it negates bad things or makes up for them. i mean “redeem” here in the “culmination of everything he’d done” way.)

we see oda first as someone who’s close to tachibana, and we only find out what he did and why as he’s dying. in turn, his death is used to confirm something about tachibana that had only been hinted at - his fear and his vulnerability. his priorities in the people he cares about and how he wants to do right by them despite those. (he lost his arm for oda.) by focusing on how tachibana and oda felt about each other within the context of what happened to them, we’re given a story about two people who were close, and one of them trying to work against the inevitable by keeping it that way. the tachioda subplot follows the same style of subversion as the peony lantern. 

regardless, oda didn’t come into the game as a “ghost”; he becomes one, both in the plot and in our perception. the focus is on their relationship within what’s happening. like in the peony lantern, what makes this so appealing is that you can connect the emotional dots yourself. both oda and tachibana’s deaths were inevitable, but whether or not they were “deserved” serves to deepen the emotional significance of their deaths on the part of the player, rather than clarified universally to drive the plot. for people like me who ship them, it’s not in spite of what oda did, but in tandem with it. 

i think part of the reason why tachioda may be so contentious with english-speaking fans is because of all of this. remember: your view of the world is, more likely than not, never going to be perfectly objective.

tldr: intentionally or not, tachioda is framed in the same way supernatural romances like twilight typically are. pretty cool!