#which might have been based off a japanese thing

[starcurtain]

hi! totally agree with your take on the english voice over for mydei sounding overly aggressive… i play on chinese too and i feel this sort of thing actually happens to a fair few characters in hoyo games. off the top of my head i think ratio’s english dub also makes him sound irritable all the time, though my perception of ratio may have been influenced by the cn voiceover. it’s interesting how each language gives the character a slightly different feeling, which i think affects how the fandom perceives them.

The semester has finally ended, so I am really going to try to clear out some messages so I can finally reopen my inbox!!

Yes--this is something that happens kind of across the board with video games, but I think the English voice direction for Genshin and Star Rail in particular have had some... maybe the best word is "misreads" on characters. Dr. Ratio, Neuvillette, Mydei... To me, it seems there's a particular trend with male characters in the English dub to add "aggression" or "power" by making the character come across as colder, harsher, etc. The voice actors are following the instructions of the voice directors, who seem to be telling them things like "Your character in a very powerful fighter!" or "Your character is a stuck-up genius," and leading them to particular emotional tones based on that, indicating a limited awareness of the plot or role of the specific characters.

I think this might be a by-product of voice studios being used to certain trends that actually don't occur in as often in gacha games?

If a company is used to recording for other genres of video games, then yes, the male characters probably are supposed to be macho warrior-types! They probably are the type to going roaring in, guns akimbo. Outside of otome and gacha genres, a lot of video games are action/adventure with hard-core combat as their focus.

Basically, it seems to me that there's an element of "trying to anticipate the audience" when it comes to voice directing. If the character being voiced is a) male, b) tall, and c) a fighter, who is the target audience of that character? As gacha games' primary playerbases are still majority male, voice directors may be playing it safe by assuming the male character should appeal to male players through projections of "strength" and "manly dominance." Dudes must want a badass male character to project themselves on to, right?

Seems legit, let's make the men sound more aggressive.

Voice directors who have more experience specifically with the gacha genre probably "nail" their directing calls far more often, because the gacha genre is different. Men in gacha games (at least in Hoyo gacha games) aren't designed for male players--they're designed for female players, and softer and warmer men's voices fare significantly better.

I actually think that in most cases, HSR's English voiceover did this well. Jing Yuan, Welt, Boothill, and even Blade all have very pleasant and fitting English voices to listen to, for example. The voice actress voicing Yanqing has insane range; my hat goes off to her. Allegra Clark is hands down the best Acheron voice by a mile, easily beating out the original Chinese or Japanese (in my opinion). HSR's voice cast also has a disproportionately high number of queer voice actors, which I think helps to avert some of the stereotypical "grrrr I am manly video game man" and "tee hee I am cutesy video game girl" that voice casts can fall into.

It's just every once in a while that the English voice direction misses the mark, and unfortunately, Mydei is definitely one of those situations for me. Not his voice actor--Gabriel Warburton sounds great in moments where he delivers Mydei's lines in his more natural register and especially when delivering lines softly--but the voice direction that clearly pushed him to try to growl out half the lines. Sigh.

One thing I do have to say in favor of the English voiceover, though, is that I think the English casting takes a lot more "risks" than the Chinese and Japanese dubs. Chinese dub (the language I play in currently) sounds like everyone in the cast is a beautiful young lad or lady. 😂 Basically, they sound like a cast of celebrities and idols, if that makes sense lol. Even characters who have no reason to sound that way come across as young, sexy people; Chinese Gallagher I am looking at you. The voices are meant to all be appealing, and so, to a certain extent, there isn't as much variety to them. I love Japanese dubs, but they also have a tendency to book the same famous VAs over and over, so every other voice starts to sound familiar lolol; Daisuke Ono, I am looking at you.

Meanwhile, I think the English voiceover, at least for Star Rail and Genshin, puts less emphasis on the voice as a tool for marketing characters, and as such, there's a little less pressure to book the most stereotypically appealing voices for everyone. English Mr. Reca, for example, sounds quite different in comparison to other languages. The choice to give English Alhaitham a voice that isn't deep sure was a real one lol. Even if I don't think every voice actor in the English dub is great (I love, love Ben Balmaceda for Kaveh but I think he's not the right fit for Moze, for example), I really do appreciate the choice to give characters voices that have a ton of personality and dare to be outside the realm of conventionally "good sounding," sexy, or sophisticated.

Honestly, I really wish Hoyo could find a way to give us the option to pick a voice over by character. I need Phainon in English talking to a Mydei who is speaking Chinese, ASAP. 😂

[lostmar]

Magolor tries the Grimace Shake ft. Marx

[rassicas]

QUESTION, how do Inkfish have milk/milk flavoured things if there are no mammals to produce it? And if they synthesized the milk, how would they know that its nutritional? Or that it can be made into cheese/yogurt?

Even if theyre using oats or nuts to make milk substitues, i dont think those can be used to make other dairy products right? Idk im not a biologist

for this ask i thought about just linking the wikipedia pages for plant milk and vegan cheese or the video where i touch on this topic and leaving it at that, but i thought that would come off as too passive aggressive and i dont like that with how often i see this question floating around still i think its worth going into a bit more so i can just link this post in case anyone ever asks again.

“One thing we know about the world of Splatoon is that mammals are basically gone,” said Nogami, seated across from me in a small room behind Nintendo’s booth. “So they don’t eat beef or pork or the meat of mammals.” With Splatoon 2 playing on a screen, Nogami walked his Inkling over to a corner in Inkopolis square where a bright ad played for cereal. A crab chowed down on a bowl of milky carbs. “There’s no mammals, so whatever is being poured over the cereal might not be milk,” Nogami laughed. Hm. Okay. So what do Inklings eat? “Veggies, birds, fish,” said Nogami. “Some bread.” -- What do Squid Kids Eat? Splatoon’s Producer Explains

So the facts are: -Mammals are basically gone (excluding Judds/Grizz) -They drink milk that isn't real milk -There are crops cultivated in the Inkling world The obvious conclusion is that they use plant-based substitutes. there are a few questions that could spawn from this.... Q1: a bunch of stuff went extinct in the splatoon world. what kind of dairy substitutes could they use exactly? A: canonically, inklings have a variety of rice and soy-based products. a few types of nuts are confirmed to exist. they eat coconuts too. you can make milk out of all of these, as well as other dairy products like cheese and yogurt. They're not limited to plants either...

i swear everyone ive shown the left image goes like EWWW THEY EAT INK but like. squid ink is edible in real life. i dont get why this is weird?? nobody said ewww at the squiddymelon which i imagine would absorb ink to change colors like that. the concept that inklings figured out Ink-based dairy products is fucking awesome. anyways Q2: how did they figure this out? A: I think the answer can be found by looking into the history of plant milks in our world. Humans have been making and consuming plant based milks like soy and almond milk for centuries. the consumption of coconut milk goes back millennia. plant based cheeses are not as old, but still go back a hundred or so years. a lot of other dairy substitutes emerged in the past 50 years. Inklings figured out plastics, fish egg energy, and computers, surely at some point in their 2000+ year history, they figured out plant-based milks, cheeses, and yogurts. It's also possible that recipes from the human era survived. maybe they learned about dairy products that way. oh wait isn't there a sunken scroll about human era recipes?

yes There's also a non-zero chance that Judd could've taught the inklings about the human era and their food. The other question i can think of is... Q3: is there any specific mention of a plant based substitute being used instead of a mammalian product in splatoon? A: yes<3

In 2019 there was JP only splatfest, pineapple vs. no pineapple. It's about whether you put pineapple on subuta (japanese sweet and sour pork.) (i dont have strong opinions on pineapple, but the subuta at gyoza no osho. bro it will make me hurt myself and others. literally licking the fucking plate its so yummy. anyways.) Now pigs are extinct. How would pearl and marina have opinions on a pork dish?

「だな！ アタシんちの古い書庫で見つけたレシピで ロブに作ってもらったやつだろ？」 「豚という生き物が 絶滅しちゃってるから 大豆とかで代用した 「酢豚風」でしたけどね♪」 Pearl: "That's the recipe you found in the old archives at my place, and Crusty Sean made it for you, right?" Marina: "Yeah, though since those creatures called pigs are extinct, he substituted it for soy and some other things to make a "subuta-style" dish~ "

this is the only thing i have seen that confirms plant-based substitutes being used for mammal meat in splatoon's setting. i learned of this just recently and i was SO happy this was confirmed somewhere<3 I think this gives a lot of weight to the idea that they'd use soy milk and other soy-based dairy products.

[kuroshitsuji-wiki]

Trivia: Public School Arc and more!

A wiki is renownedly never done. However, after a major set-back and subsequent migrations, I have finally finished all major Season 4/Public School Arc-related edits on the wiki!!! (Unless wiki.gg suddenly bans the words "witch" and "werewolf," Season 5 edits should be done much quicker and with far less head- and heartache.)

While I was actually fixing up the final page on my list, I saw the news that the manga is coming back and hurried to report on that mid-page-revision. It was... interesting timing.

One of the things I was unable to do during the airing of Season 4 because I was just too busy with other stuff was going through all of Mr. K's and Yana's tweets, extracting all fun trivia, and adding them to the wiki. I have done that now, but also thought I could bundle them all up and share them here too!

Public School Arc trivia

Otoha wrote the opening "The Parade of Battlers" based on the entirety of Kuroshitsuji, particularly on Ciel's life, not just on the Public School Arc.

Ciel has a cookie in his mouth when he hurries to school in the first chapter/episode of the arc and not a piece of toast because Queen Elizabeth II apparently had cookies and tea first thing in the morning.

Soma's observation in Chapter 71 that Cole is "a bit like Ciel" was also meant to refer to the Chapter 129 reveal.

Mr. K said that Violet's drawing of Ciel and the Jabberwock could mean that he is hostile towards Ciel or that he wants Ciel to eradicate something sinister at school, like St. George did. (Per legend, St. George once killed a dragon that extorted tribute from villagers.)

In the fourth episode, Sebastian reads out a Latin poem (part of the Elegiae) to his class. They have a special languages expert on the anime team, and he apparently approved Daisuke Ono's Latin pronunication on his first try, to everyone's surprise.

While making the chapter, Yana had concerns that Ciel could not possibly throw the lantern far enough for it to land inside the Violet Wolf dorm. Mr. K brushed her off though, but later realised that he was wrong. They asked for Sebastian to help Ciel get the lantern to its destination in the anime.

The order in which the cricket teams enter the grand hall for the eve of the tournament party corresponds with their ranking in the previous year's tournament. (Meaning, in 1888, the ranking was: 1. Green Lion, 2. Scarlet Fox, 3. Violet Wolf, 4. Sapphire Owl.)

It was obvious, but Mr. K confirmed that yes, Vincent did not win the cricket tournament fairly, and that Francis and Tanaka know the truth behind the first Miracle of Sapphires.

Yana consulted the Japanese Cricket Association about the "Sword in the Stone" technique. They were surprised by her idea, but gave her the green light for it as it did not violate any rules then.

Mr. K said it is a "positive technique that proves that there is a way to fight even if you're not a star player = someone who cannot pull the sword out."

Yana actually said that what she did to Joanne Harcourt is terrible.

Tanaka and Francis' dance during the afterparty was Yana's personal highlight.

Because Eton College has a "Fourth of June" celebration (though it does not entail a cricket tournament), the tournament takes place on June 4th too. Eton College's festivities do include a boat parade though; it was the basis for Weston College's.

The director Kenjiro Okada added Maurice's little appearance in the penultimate episode.

They might not have been able to make the Public School Arc if they had not had the help of Rico Murakami, the historical advisor.

The covers for chapters 68, 71, 72, 73, and 83 were drawn in the style of Alfons Mucha, obviously.

Character trivia

Francis Midford is the only human character Sebastian is afraid of.

Agni is the strongest human character in the series.

Because Edward is the heir of a marquess, he could have been in Scarlet Fox too.

Mr. K noted that Edward's ability of "single-minded respect" might make him powerful in battle one day.

According to Mr. K, Soma just cannot read the air; still, he gets along with everyone (except Sebastian). He is also one of the few "purely good" characters in the series and always believes in the goodness of people.

Bluewer knows the Weston College rules by heart.

Clayton raises his hands extra high when Sebastian carries Ciel away after they won the tournament because that is how one claps in the Imperial Theatre. Mr. K noted that this might mean that he is actually a nice person.

Maaya Sakamoto was a bit worried for Ciel to have to go to school as he's such a loner and not good with people. He ended up positively surprising her though with how well he handled the situation.

The question of "can Ciel even do this?" actually came up during the first Public School Arc manga meeting. Yana and the others decided that Ciel gained enough experience during the Circus Arc and would be fine. Yana also noted that while Ciel "might not have grown much in terms of appearance or ability" since the first chapter, he is nonetheless "growing steadily and brazenly on the inside."

It was difficult finding a replacement for Tanaka's late voice actor Shunji Fujimura. For that reason, the team decided to bring back Mugihito who voiced Tanaka in the first Drama CD.

Lau talks like a Japanese mafia boss despite his cluelessness.

Yana remarked that Lau and the Viscount of Druitt have the odd tendency to always be there for important points in the story.

Because the Midfords are a family of swordfighters, Yana asked Aniplex to make them look strong.

Other trivia

New staff members could not believe that Kuroshitsuji has a cast full of prominent voice actors. For example, they were surprised that Finnian is voiced by Yuki Kaji.

The little "in-between/breather" chapters are difficult to animate because they often feature a different setting, different characters, different clothes, etc. They are just as demanding to make as a new season.

For basically the same reasons, "breather" chapters are amongst the most difficult/tedious chapters to make amongst the manga staff too. E.g. the boat parade and the afterparty were hard to make because so many characters appeared, many of which even needed new clothes for the occasion.

The Luxury Liner Arc was the most difficult arc to make, according to Yana's assistants: Back then, everything was still done manually, and they could not copy-paste the Bizarre Dolls, for example. The tilting ship also made things extra hard, and Yana had to make a little model out of a milk box as a visualisation help.

Death Scythes (especially Grelle's and Undertaker's) make Yana's assistants despair. Yana later asked a professional to make 3D models of them so that drawing them would be easier.

Mr. K (and another K-san from the Media Division) always supervise the voice recordings for episodes.

The design of the saucer on the cover of the Monthly GFantasy May 2024 issue is a nod to the Public School Arc.

Her research for the Public School Arc helped Yana make Twisted Wonderland.

The more sinful a person is, the stronger are their "future episodes".

I might have forgotten something, but that should be (almost?) all of them^^'

Hope we get a lot of information from Yana and Mr. K during Season 5 too!

[seiwas]

₊˚⊹。look my way, you’re what i crave | gojo satoru

wc: 2.6k

summary: you and gojo made a promise to yuuji.

contains: f!reader in mind but no pronouns used, food trip/taste-testing, many food descriptions, a little bit of (playful) jealousy, pouty gojo, yuuji calls reader sensei, established relationship (but no label).

a/n: a small extra scene that takes place some time between col 2.5 and col 3! not a food expert nor am i japanese, so food descriptions are just based off first-hand experience and some research i’ve managed to do! there are some switches in povs (gojo-reader-gojo) but i tried to keep it as distinct as possible! this is also my birthday gift for you, niku @stellamancer!! thank you for sharing this idea with me and for loving the col couple as much as i do!!

collection masterlist: conversations on love 2.5. and my body keeps saying (it's yours) <- you are here -> 03. so this is what it means to be in love + (extended scene) too good to be mine

‘Losing’ isn’t a word in Gojo’s vocabulary. 

If it is, it’s usually addressed to the other party. 

He’s been a winner ever since he was born, two blue eyes and an extra four hidden, holding power that manifests itself only once every few centuries. Some argue that he was born for that reason: to win, without doubt, incontestably. 

And he supposes, most of it is true—which is why he can’t believe the loss he’s feeling right now, standing in front of the Daifuku stall across from you. 

Never in his entire life did Gojo ever anticipate himself losing to anything. But with the way you’d casually nodded off, signaled so nonchalantly that you’d follow him but clearly didn’t—it has his head turning, finding you midbite a singular, shared stick of Yakitori.

He thinks he might have just experienced his first loss. 

And the victor is none other than Itadori Yuuji. 

.

You made a promise to Yuuji. 

Back when he was still up for execution by virtue of being Sukuna’s vessel, you’d laid your confidence in Gojo. 

“Sensei, do you really think it’s possible?” he asks, voice hesitant but eyes tinged with hope. You were discussing the ways his execution could go down���if it even will go down. 

Shoko’s always pointed out that the most dangerous thing about you is hope, and how you hold onto it so deeply that you pass it onto others like a disease, spreading it to seep into skin and bones.

Gojo calls it your hidden technique, the trump card you pull out when everyone’s knocked down, spirits low. It’s what sets you apart, he thinks, how you’re able to survive in a world that serves as an antithesis to the values you hold. 

“If Satoru said to leave it up to him, he’ll find a way,” you answer immediately, like you’ve known it all this time, experienced it first-hand—a memory. Then you add, an affirmation that sounds so close to fact, it reassures him, “he always does.” 

“Let’s go to Osaka and eat all the street food when everything’s done.”  

You made a promise to Yuuji, and here you are now, with Gojo, keeping it. 

The streets of Osaka are bustling, crowded pretty much any time of the year—carts of all sorts of street food lined up with restaurants hidden in every corner. Neon banners and LED signs light up overhead, a twinkling food heaven reflected in Yuuji’s eyes. 

It must be his first time here, you surmise, because he’s looking at every food stall like he’s ready to devour. You glance at Gojo, hands tucked in his pockets with his blindfold sitting snugly on his face. His presence is bright, blending in with the light, and he turns his head to you slightly, flashing you a small smile. 

You tell yourself the warmth you feel is because of the heat radiating from all the vendors’ stoves. 

“Sensei, what do you want to try first?” Yuuji interrupts your train of thought, but you’re sure he doesn’t mean to. He’s just excited, and his energy has always been infectious, spreading to both Gojo and you. 

Gojo isn’t too big a fan of savory things, so you know you’re going to end up having to choose. You take a look around you to survey each stall, before turning back to Yuuji with a plan on how exactly you’re going to eat and conquer. 

.

Gojo watches—the way you zig-zag across the street, following Yuuji as he walks up to each vendor. It’s both amusing and endearing seeing you being just as, if not more, enthralled at all the savory options in front of you. 

Between the two of you, he’s always had the sweet tooth, so it tickles something in him that even when you don’t, your food-tasting game plan still consists of alternating savory-sweet-savory food.

Yuuji’s first pick is of course, Okonomiyaki, an iconic must-have in Osaka. He orders one piece at first, but you insist on two, knowing that the boy is more than capable of finishing a single one on his own. On the frying sheet lie columns of the pancakes–a simple mixture of flour, eggs, and cabbage–fried and coated in flavors bursting of sweet, savory, and smoky. The lady vendor is generous with the toppings and sauce she pours over it, packing the two pancakes in separate plastic containers before handing one to you and the other to Yuuji.

You turn back to find Gojo a few steps behind you, so you beckon him closer.

“Let’s share,” you whisper, once he sidles up next to you. The plastic crinkles in your hand as you try to slice a piece, Yuuji’s muffled ‘whoah’ heard from the side. 

You blow on the slice, lips shaped into a small ‘o’; he doesn’t want to stare, not with Yuuji right there and neither of you having made anything official yet—

—but this is really tempting him to kiss you. 

He doesn’t know if you can tell—any hint of his desire concealed by his blindfold, but you shove the slice right to his lips. And while it isn’t graceful at all, with the sauce probably smeared all over his mouth, it’s a good distraction from how much he wants you instead of the food right now. 

The texture of the Okonomiyaki hits right every time, the crunchy and creamy combination providing a great contrast that complements how sweet and savory it is. The bite you take after his has your expression mirroring Yuuji’s, and he takes out his phone to capture this memory.

“Gowo-shunsheh! Tek a shulfeh!” Yuuji shouts, mouth still full as he lifts his fingers up into a peace sign. You grin, ear-to-ear, evidence of your happy tummy; he wants to pinch your cheeks. 

“Okay, copy!” he raises his phone up at an angle, fingers hovering over the volume button as he grips the edges, “ready! 1…2…3… say Okonomiyaki!” 

Only Yuuji shouts it, and when Gojo reviews the photo, you’re halfway through a fallen smile—face contorting into disbelief that he said something that cringey, in typical, loud, Gojo fashion too.

“Hey!” he points out, zooming into your face in the photo, “Again! You’re not smiling!” 

You shoot him a look. 

“We can try it with a .5 this time, the kids love it these days.” he suggests, flipping the phone and gathering you and Yuuji closer. 

He takes two photos: one with flash and one without, and the moment he counts down, you mumble right by his ear to please not say ‘Okonomiyaki’ when you have to smile—he chuckles. 

And he says it again. Both times. 

You expected no less, but at least you tried. 

“You should be our human tripod next time,” you tell him, letting Yuuji go ahead. 

The photos look good, with you tiptoeing as you balance a hand on Gojo’s shoulder, Yuuji at the back with his hands raised, holding the empty plastic that used to house his Okonomiyaki.

“Knew you were just using me,” he pouts, hand reaching behind to rest at your lower back. 

It’s been the subtleties with him this trip, tonight especially. 

“Yep,” you play along, smiling oh-so-sweetly, “I knew those freakishly long arms were good for something.” 

Before he can retort with something cheesy, along the lines of: ‘to hold you’ or ‘to hug you in your sleep’, you move away, catching up to Yuuji. 

Your pick, for Gojo, is Taiyaki. It’s not his favorite thing to eat, but it’s sweet, and is still a good, nostalgic dessert, you’d like to think. Batter is poured all over the fish molds before being filled with the red bean filling. Then, after a few minutes of waiting, it pops out perfectly, ready to be eaten by the three of you. You ask for two again, only because this time, you know Gojo can finish one whole. 

But when his eyes land on the Taiyaki you’re biting from and he realizes very quickly that it isn’t his, he feels a pinch. 

It's a good thing the crunchy outside and soft, full inside of the Taiyaki is enough to make him shrug off the feeling. For now.

As the food trip goes on, you end up in many more stalls—

—a Takoyaki one, where Yuuji’s ‘ooo’s’ and ‘aaa’s’ are heard every time the balls are flipped and formed. The cooking on it is perfect, the pieces of octopus sitting just right with enough bite as flavors of soy and Worcestershire come through in its glaze. Gojo only eats one from the set of six that you ordered, and he wishes he just waited, because now Yuuji is eating half of the last one you couldn't finish. 

—a Kushikatsu one, deep fried beef and vegetables coated in crispy, crunchy breadcrumbs and dipped in Tonkatsu sauce. Yuuji ends up finishing three whole sticks, while you manage to eat one. It’s an animated conversation between the two of you that Gojo can’t seem to insert himself into. A part of him feels a little pathetic now, tailing you both like a dog, but he just wants a little bit more of your attention. 

—a Soba shop (not so much a stall) that serves amazing Cold Soba he definitely isn’t missing out on. Yuuji is practically buzzing, excited for anything noodles; it’s the main reason you’d suggested Osaka in the first place. He ducks in the shop last, Yuuji first with you in the middle, and when you settle in your seat right beside him, he snickers endearingly. Gojo can see everything, you’re reminded of that everyday and in moments like this especially. Right now, it's the way you sigh as soon as you release the top button of your pants immediately.

You pout at him as you’re served an order each, the dipping sauce in small ceramic as the noodles lie in bamboo boxes. It’s refreshing and light, just the right balance of sweet and savory; the buckwheat noodles have a lovely bite to them, not at all mushy. When he glances at you, halfway through your bowl, he can tell that you’re already full. 

But just as he offers to finish yours—

“Sensei, are you going to finish that?” 

—there’s Yuuji.

You shake your head, pushing your bowl towards him; Gojo feels that pinch returning. 

A few good minutes of walking find you on the way to another stall—

—a Yakitori one that Yuuji practically skips to, as if he didn’t just finish a bowl and a half of Cold Soba, three sticks of Kushikatsu, three and a half pieces of Takoyaki, a half of one Taiyaki, and a whole order of Okonomiyaki.

Gojo decides to sit this one out, eyeing the Daifuku stand across the street. He’s gone here plenty of times before, but never with you—and if there's anything he wants you to try out here, it's fresh, special mochi, all soft and delectable, delicate in the way its decorated.

He takes off his blindfold, ruffling his hair. With Yuuji having gone ahead, it’s just the two of you. 

“I’m going to buy Daifuku, there’s a special one I want you to taste,” he whispers excitedly, wiggling his eyebrows. 

The expression on your face is the last thing he was expecting. 

Your eyes are dazed, half-lidded, almost like you’re sleepy, and you blink at him twice before you’re able to fully process what he just said. You could be having a food coma right now, just standing. 

“Oh, okay,” you hum, nodding as you smile, dopey, “I’ll follow.” 

He considers just waiting for a bit, because he wants you to go with him. But you insist and shoo him away, telling him that the Daifuku might run out by the time Yuuji reaches the front of the Yakitori line.

So he goes, and maybe it’s a little petty, and immature, and stupid-silly, but he hates how this entire food trip has felt like a battle for your attention between him and Yuuji. 

Even though he’s probably the only one who feels it.

So it’s one-sided. Definitely. 

And he’s losing. Terribly. 

Each individual piece of Daifuku looks majestic, pink mochi with red bean filling, sliced in the middle to leave room for a whole syrup-glazed strawberry. He orders two boxes to bring back home and an extra two pieces, one for the two of you to share and the other for Yuuji. 

Gojo’s mouth is watering and he really wants to take a bite already, but you aren’t anywhere near him. So when he turns around and spots you, mid-chew on the last few bites your stomach can take from that shared Yakitori stick—he feels that pinch again. Because throughout this trip, all you’d done was split savory food with Yuuji, and all he wanted was a bit more attention, sharing half-bites with you. 

When you finally meet his eyes across the street, signature blue amidst bright reds and neon greens, he’s pouting, and he hopes he’s making it very obvious that he wants (needs) you to go to him. 

Your eyes widen before crossing the street, Yuuji right on your heel. 

“Whoah, Gojo Sensei! That looks good!” Yuuji’s voice booms, earning a few looks.

Gojo holds one Daifuku on each hand, the other two boxes tucked in a plastic bag hanging by his elbow. 

“It’s their special one!” He smiles at Yuuji, handing it over. 

You look at him curiously, head tilted to the side as you watch him closely—how his smile doesn’t really reach his eyes. 

Once Yuuji moves out of earshot, his series of ‘mmm’s’ blending in with the bustle of market chatter, you face Gojo and open your mouth wide, “Aaaah,” 

Gojo doesn’t move for the first few seconds, but you meet in the middle eventually, his hand inching towards feeding you while you move your head closer. He keeps his palm open under your chin, cupping it to serve as a catch tray for any filling that might spill out. 

There’s something about the look of you, half-sleepy and asking to be fed, that makes him feel warm and fuzzy—like that pinching feeling earlier never existed. Like he’d gladly do this everyday if you asked for it. 

The soft, plush exterior of the mochi touches your lips, and you bite, the filling oozing out just enough for you to get a good portion of it. Flavors of red bean and strawberry hit your palate, and the filling doesn’t leak, but the syrup coating the strawberry catches onto your nose when you move away. 

At the tip of your nose is a shiny red spot, glistening under the busy lights. The expression on your face is pleased, content—your head doing that side-to-side sway whenever you like the taste of something. 

“Mmm,” you smile at him, “it’s yummy.” 

And he doesn’t know what it is, if it’s the look you’re giving him, or if it's something in the air tonight, but he feels warm and full and still very much like he wants to kiss you. 

So he decides, damn all the passersby.

He does one quick scan around him, making sure that Yuuji, at the very least, is away from the immediate vicinity. And when it’s all clear, he leans in. 

Gojo kisses you on the nose in the middle of a busy street food road, and his lips are soft, almost feather-light, swooping in quickly before anyone can notice. You’re stunned into silence, but the moment you come to, he’s already swiped the strawberry syrup off you. 

His cheeks are starting to turn pink, the sides of his neck already as red as the signs on the food stalls. And he can tell you feel it too, with the way your sleepiness seems to have faded into what now looks like surprise.

Still cute though.

(Always will be, in his eyes). 

So, ‘losing’ isn’t really a word in Gojo’s vocabulary. 

But if it is, he thinks he’d gladly lose to you. 

(Still not to Yuuji though. He maybe still has to keep an eye out for that one).

thank you notes: to niku for being there always!! from answering my questions, brainstorming together, and just all-around everything!! col wouldn't be what it is now without you!! i love u, i hope i gave your love for food justice, niku!

comments, tags, and reblogs are greatly appreciated ♡

[thelemoncoffee]

hey gang i'm deranged!!

i may not like the idea of kokichi being addicted to Panta, but apparently i am cause i just spent the past several hours of my life designing Panta cans and coming up with Panta lore

for context- it started cause i was watching those "redesigning snack packaging" videos, and it sparked some inspo in me to make my own attempt at knockoff snack packaging. as it turns out i can only make one really obvious knockoff snack before i get too creative and start making stuff that could unironically stand on it's own

after making Pop Pies (knockoff poptarts), Florida Icetea (Arizona knockoff), and Koffi-Kats (coffee kitkat knockoff), i remembered that Panta was a thing and went "hey so what if i redesigned Panta so it wasn't just the Fanta logo with a p?" and everything went down hill from there

i present to you: Kai's hc universe version of Panta!

okay so there's ALOT i did actually so buckle up

first off- i wanted to make it look like something Kokichi would actually pick up, and that resulted in me coming up with the idea that Panta use to be a shameless japanese Fanta knockoff when it was first made, but they decided to get their own identity and started marketing towards the alt community with a non-serious clowning/trickster/delinquent focused branding.

i imagine they ended up being niche but also having a loyal following in whatever juggalo or juggalo-adjacent scene might be in Japan, which is how Kokichi got into it

second off- as you can see i came up with four different drink lines. the idea is they have their fruity soda line with all the base flavors, and then they reuse those flavors and their names for the other three lines. their default flavor is Clownin' Concord, and along with it their og flavor set also had Chucklin’ Cherry, Mischievous Melon, Bozo Blueberry, and Loosey-Goosey Lemon-Lime, from there they added more flavors to their roster over the years and even did some limited edition flavors that come back seasonally (i do have a full list, but i'm not showing it on this post. if you shoot me an ask i'd gladly share it there)

for the actual other lines: -Slap Shtick Sour is what warhead soda should have been- an actually fucking sour soda. i imagine them to be pretty damn tart but like in a good way that you can't get enough of (Kokichi's favorite cause it's strong enough he can actually taste it) -Pie Face! is a cream soda line, plain and simple. i know Japan really likes melon soda floats and calls them cream sodas, so i went "what if Panta did that, but more, and in a can" -Manic Mischief is their energy drink line, i have no further explanation for this they're just fruity energy drinks

i haven't done sugar free cause i think with their branding style they'd take pride in how sugary and in your face they are, so a sugar-free variant would actively go against that

for packaging you may notice they're all cans and no bottles- it wasn't initially intentional but after i noticed i had only been doing cans i decided it'd be a funky gimmick if they only ever made cans, no bottles. what do they do for liter bottles then? mini keg. no i'm not kidding, they do mini kegs instead- it fits the off kilter grungy vibes everything else has so it's not too horribly out of pocket.

i also plan on designing some candy packaging cause i do have ideas for Panta flavored hard candies and soft chews, but i'm not postponing this post another several hours to make them.

finally, just as a bonus- have the logo on it's own plus their slogan i pulled out of my ass

[st-osmanthus]

Excuse me, my ZoLu brainworm has not left chapter 1136. And I wrote 1,500 words today, after a long month of unable to write anything, so I deserve to have this rant, dammit!

Ahem. Buckle in. It’s a long one. (Sorry not sorry)

Y’all, look at our precious idiot, scaring giants right out the gate with his bloodlust. Missing one eye, hair standing up like a demon, dressed to the nines like a rogue Viking, drinking some high-grade giant liquor without getting drunk — just living the outlaw life. This is the wild beast of the Straw Hat Pirates. He’s unpredictable. He’ll strike fear into your soul. He cannot be tamed.

Oh, wait, did someone say “Sun God”? Now he’s intrigued. That sounds familiar. The bloodlust is gone. He ain’t here to scare anyone. He’s just gonna sit still and listen like a good boy for the next five pages. Please. Tell him more…

Don’t mind the swordsman. He’s just drinking quietly in his corner, listening to the chatter, saying nothing for FIVE WHOLE PAGES. He’s a bit of a loner, after all. He’s too cool to participate in these antics. Too cool for school (probably never had a geography lesson in his life). Too cool to care.

Except.. did they say “Shanks”? Did Luffy hear them say “Shanks”? THE Shanks?! The man Luffy has idolized his entire life. The one name that can make Luffy’s eyes glow simply from hearing it being spoken. Shanks might have been here recently?

Oh, you bet our green-haired guard dog is sitting up and paying attention. And he’s got OPINIONS.

This page… ZoLu truthers can (and should) write entire essays on this page. These are just my immediate thoughts.

First, I gotta know. Did Zoro drag Luffy away from the party? Did they sneak away together after sharing a knowing glance? Did Luffy run off to make water and Zoro took the chance to corner him for this discussion?

Regardless of how, they’re alone now, and Zoro is doing his first mate thing, having clocked his captain’s unusual behavior, which of course has him concerned. He can’t let some random giant take advantage of his trusting and naive captain.

He’s gotta play the devil’s advocate, gotta present a different perspective on the matter even if it means popping Luffy’s bubble. What I want to know is, does the Japanese version have the exclamation marks?!? That’s three sentences in a row punctuated with exclamation marks. Stephen Paul is one of the best manga translators in the game, and he wouldn’t add them if the original text didn’t call for them. That means: Zoro is losing his cool. He knows of all people, Shanks would make the perfect lure to get Luffy on board for some crazy shit. He needs to caution Luffy against falling into a possible trap.

It worked. Luffy has a healthy dose of skepticism now: “You think Loki doesn’t even know?!” Luffy’s mad. Aww. He’s probably disappointed. ☹️

………….

And what do ya know? ZORO BACKPEDALS!!!

“I’m just basing it on his reputation… I didn’t see the guy.”

Y’all! This man sees how disappointed his captain got when he played devil’s advocate and he immediately backs off and tries to find a middle ground. “Hey, no worries, maybe Loki isn’t a liar. The fuck do I know, Luffy, I wasn’t even there!”

Absolute marshmallow pushover fake-ass tough guy.

(I adore him.)

The culmination of all this? Zoro’s gonna do everything possible to make his captain happy while keeping him safe. You see, he will get the keys to Loki’s cuffs, and then together, they will decide if Loki’s a liar or not. Zoro isn’t going to stop Luffy from finding out more info on Shanks, not if there’s even the slightest possibility Loki was telling the truth, but he is also not letting Luffy do this alone. He doesn’t trust anyone else’s judgment either. So it’ll be him and Luffy, sharing one brain cell against the world. (Until Nami caught them, which, like, thank goodness lol.)

—————

This chapter contains everything I love about ZoLu: Guard dog behavior from Zoro; complete trust in Zoro from Luffy; hot-headed captain teaming together with not-really-aloof first mate; Zoro inserting himself so that Luffy can still go on as his goofy self. I love that they didn’t say shit to the rest of their crew, that they wanted to just GO and do their own thing for a little bit.

It reminds me of their mad dash to the plateau on Dressrosa, or them standing side by side facing down Aqua Laguna, or Zoro going with Luffy to Roof Piece. These instances show again and again that out of the entire crew, Zoro is the closest to being Luffy’s equal. And every time, Luffy is grateful for the companionship. There’s really no other duo doing it like these two.

[alexa-yukiyu]

First off i love all of you one piece fics. I just recently got into the fandom again and i found you fics and they are just amazing

I wanted to request whitebeard crew x teen reader

This js kinda based of my cat, so here's the backstory, we originally had 2 cats until recently when my mom brought back a "stray", really cuddly cat and we all loved it, unfortunately later it turned out that this stray was already someone's cat so we gave it back, but while it was here one of the original cats was really jealous. Usually she hates being picked up except when it's me, but while the "stray" stayed with us she became really mean and not even I was allowed to pick her up

And I wanted to ask if you could write something similar to this, were the whitebeards maybe pick up another teen or just a new crewmate and the reader is kinda jealous/mean and scared the they might be replaced (abandonment issues) and maybe add one person they usually have a great relationship with but suddenly they completely avoid/ignore them and won't let anyone be near them.

I hope you can work with this, sorry for writing so much

Have a great day/night and know that you are amazing!! <3

First Envy (teen!Marco x winged!teen!reader)

A/N . Throwing a tantrum because I left the app to get a pic of young marco to share and tumblr deleted my progress. Anyhow something about young marco just tickles my fancy, he’s just such a goofy guy and even more lovable

Reader here is replaced by Dokucha which stands for reader in japanese for the enjoyment of both reader and oc characters both!

Dividers by @/firefly-graphics

“Come on, Dokucha! Join the party!” Vista called excitedly

“You can’t drink yet, but there are a lot of other things you can do; we have set up a lot of games since we have more kids around,” he prattled on, only to pause and wince at the glare the teen sent their way.

“Okay… I’ll leave you be then,” he muttered as he backed away from them and turned around, making a quick exit.

Dokucha sighed, watching from their place on the nest as the rest of the crew below them partied; what brought a scowl to the face, however, was the center of the celebration: their newest addition to the crew, Momonosoke.

They enviously observed as everyone fretted over him, ensuring he didn’t run anywhere dangerous or, God forbid, fall and start crying. Oh, the cries. Every time they cried, it was as if everything had to stop in order to check on him.

“If you stare any harder, Momo won’t survive-yoi!”

“Huh?” They snapped their head around at the sound only to see an empty space beside them rather than a person.

“Up Here-yoi!” Marco laughed as he called to the teen, his devil fruit activated as he used his wings to hold himself upside down in the air.

“Agh! Marco! I told you to stop doing that!” they called, scurrying back to make space between them.

“Haha! But your reactions are just the best-yoi!” he cackled, righting himself up and perching on the railings of the nest.

“What are you doing here?”

“I was lonely down there-yoi! I was missing my best mate!” he called jovially.

“Din’t seem that way, you seem to be just fine with the new people,” they sneered, taking hold of a rope and swinging themselves to an adjacent crow’s nest, their wings flapping on instinct behind them.

“You mean Momo? Well, it is refreshing to have new faces, not to mention that they are quite adorable!” he gushed, a small blush on his face as he did.

“Then, by all means, please go and spend your precious time with them.” They scoff, turning away from them, earning Marco a frown as he glided his way down, straight onto Whitebeard’s shoulder.

“Hey Pops! Something’s going on with Dokucha.”

“Hah, What do you mean?” he grumbled, looking up at his youngest

“Well, they are kind of snappy-yoi”

“They are always snappy, Marco,” he called with a roll of his eyes.

“Huh? No, they’re not. I mean, they aren’t a ray of sunshine, but they aren’t snappy, either. But now they seem to have been avoiding me. They seem to have been like this since Momo arrived,” he mused as a thought hit him.

“Are they jealous of the baby-yoi?!”

“Marco, you idiot!” he growled, bringing his fist down on the armrest of his chair, scaring Marco enough to make him jump off the older man’s shoulders.

“P-Pops?” he called as he took to hovering in front of the man.

“They’re scared!” he snapped.

“Of a baby?!” he cried.

“Listen Here, Marco, the kid has been here for a month. Do you remember where we rescued them from? How they were?! They were close to dying with their wings completely mangled! They are still trying to get used to the fact that not everyone out there is an abusive bastard that will sell them for some spare change!” Whitebeard barked

“T-They think we’re going to leave them?! But we aren’t! Can’t you talk to them, Pops?”

“That’s no good; they won’t listen to me,” he muttered as he tilted his tokkuri all the way, u,p, taking in every drop of the sake inside.

“What is that supposed to mean-yoi? Who would they listen if not you, Pops?” he asked as he flew closer to the man, his worry increasing as time went on.

“You! You Moron!” He boomed

“Me?!”

“Marco, I took them in, but they only trust you at this moment; they relate the most to you physically,” he started, gesturing to his avian features

“And you are the closest in age to them, too,” he finished. It was a small detail, seeing as the next youngest, Vista, was only 2 years older than Marco, standing at seventeen, but it seems that to the thirteen-year-old, this was a significant gap that his older sons were still unable to cross. However, he thought this to not be the defining factor, unlike the features that they both seem to share, Especially now when the teen found themselves in a stage where they had to re-learn everything that had to do with their wings as the appendages slowly grew back, as such they did the most reasonable thing and looked for the person who could guide them, Marco.

“I thought I told you to leave,” they snarled, hearing the flapping of wings behind them and the breeze of wind that came from them.

“You did-yoi.”

“You talked to the old man? He put you up to this?”

“Not really-yoi, he did made me realized you might be feeling lonely though!” he called flying In front of them, giving them no other option but to pay attention to the teen.

“You know we’re just excited for Momo to be here, right? We’re happy you’re here too,” he asked, getting excited as they hummed in response, knowing that they had caught their attention.

“You’re one of us, too,” he grinned, putting himself upside down once again.

“Besides! can’t imagine being without a flying buddy! t was starting to get on my nerves to be the only one able to do air scouting-yoi!” letting out a snicker as he noticed their bashful response at his honest words.

“I can’t really do much of that right now, though,” they muttered, glancing at their tiny stubby wings.

“You will, but you still won’t be able to beat me, so don’t get your hopes up,” he teased.

“As if! give it a few months, you will be eating those words!”

“You’re on-yoi.”

“Ha! I don’t need them to beat you now!” They smirked, taking hold of the ropes once again as they swung away, grabbing a hold of another rope as soon as their current one ran out, effectively gliding around the ship with little to no effort.

“You better not regret taking me on-yoi.” He called as he righted himself and propelled himself forward right after Dokucha.

“Ha! You show that prick, Dokucha! Someone has to put him in his place!” Fossa grinned as his crewmates joined in, cheers and whistles sounded across the Deck as the two avians traversed the ship, their own glee evident.

Look at this goofy guy

Was trying to find the one of him upside down but this will do. Also this fic just made me realized that Marco isin’t the oldest one in the crew :p I had thought he was older than the other commanders but theres like five older than him.

Taglist:

@Imaginarydreams

@amethystviolin

@h0n3y-l3m0n05

@hannahbarberra162

@epochal-oracle

[blood-and-pizza]

Notable Details from the original "Into The Pit" story (PART 1)

Upon the mill's closure, Oswald's dad works part-time at the deli counter in a store called the Snack Space (a 7-11 equivalent, basically), which requires a red vest as their uniform. Oswald is embarrassed by the fact his dad is wearing the vest as he drops him off at school. Just a neat bit of world-building.

Oswald has a best friend named Ben who moved into the next town over.

Oswald's bullies, including Dylan Cooper, call him "Oswald the Ocelot" after a cartoon character they saw as pre-schoolers, a big pink ocelot named Oswald. Again, more world-building.

Oswald is described as having freckles and a cowlick in the original story.

Oswald has no modern electronics in his home, save for one laptop he shares with his family. His phone is an outdated model he's embarrassed by.

Oswald's teacher, Mrs. Meecham, puts on a movie for her class on the last day of school, which is described as "about a farm with talking animals", "too babyish for a roomful of fifth graders". I'm guessing they might have been watching the animated adaptation of Charlotte's Web... or it could be wishful thinking on my part, since I love that movie.

Oswald has been drawing mechanical animals ("bears, bunnies, and birds") for reasons even he doesn't know, other than lack of anything better to do when he's bored.

Oswald's mom works at the hospital from 12PM to 12AM... yikes.

Oswald's dad can't cook to save his life. If it can't be boiled in water or heated in a microwave, he has to buy his meals... how relatable.

Blue-box macaroni and cheese exists in FNAF, meaning Kraft and its products likely exist, too. Just thought that was funny for some reason.

Oswald's dad squirts ketchup into his mac and cheese. I just think knowing he's the kind of dad who does that is really funny... kinda reminds me of my stepdad's love of ketchup, to be honest.

Other pizzerias that once existed in Oswald's town were Gino's Pizza and Marco's Pizza, both of which closed not long after the mill closed. Both Gino's and Marco's are described as good restaurants, while the food at Jeff's Pizza is described as "decent".

Oswald is into B-grade Japanese horror films, including kaiju movies like Zendrelix vs. Mechazendrelix. Zendrelix is apparently FNAF's answer to Godzilla, making Mechazendrelix an equivalent to Mechagodzilla. They're described like this: "... Zendrelix just looked like a giant dragon thing, but Mechazendrelix reminded him [Oswald] of the mechanical animals he drew when he stripped them of their fur." Zendrelix is also described as being portrayed by "a guy in a rubber suit", solidifying the connection between him and Godzilla.

Oswald and his dad both really love bacon. I just thought that was cute.

When Oswald visits the library, a place he finds "actually kinda fun", he shows interest in a science fiction book from a series, as well as a manga he liked. Based, IMHO.

The library Oswald visits frequently allows homeless people to use their computers and other resources. WE NEED LIBRARIES AND THIS IS EXACTLY ONE REASON WHY!

Oswald's mom, being a nurse, is a bit of a germaphobe and won't let Oswald play in places she considers dirty. A ball pit would be considered one such place.

The pizza Jeff serves comes in huge slices too big for the paper plates they're served on, and very greasy. As someone who was born in NYC and used to eat greasy New York pizza... I think I would have liked eating at Jeff's. Maybe.

Oswald reads a library book while visiting Jeff's Pizza, about "a world where kids with secret powers went to a special school to learn how to fight evil". I wonder how many books that describes...

Oswald plays an online fantasy game at the library that's free to play, but Oswald gets to a point where he can't progress without money. I wonder what game it could have been...

Oswald's dad and mom used to date in high school, often frequenting a roller rink, and are great skaters as a result. Oswald himself can't skate and needs his parents to hold him up.

Oswald's dad only ever buys vanilla ice cream.

There's a video rental service Oswald's family uses called Red Box, but I don't know if it's meant to be the same as the actual existing Redbox. Maybe it is?

Oswald's mom is very good at playing Clue... oh, and Clue exists in the FNAF universe.

Oswald's dad prefers practical effects over CGI in movies. Oswald is the exact opposite.

Oswald's dad is a fan of country music. Oswald... is not.

[kantocamping]

Kichijiro. He/Him. 40s. Experienced pokemon trainer and studying ornithologist. Currently making a living selling/trading pokemon professionally; please inquire if you're looking for a pokemon native to Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, or Sinnoh.

I don't do competitive battling anymore, but I did in the past (non-circuit) so I may speak on the subject now and again. I'm also living in an RV for work purposes (no, I don't need help, I'm not homeless, I could buy a house if I wanted) and will likely also post about that from time to time. I don't care if you find it boring.

Please ask me about ornithology and my current research projects in Kantonian farfetch'd and its possible evolution.

My current team consists of pidgeot, noctowl, psyduck, delibird, farfetch'd, and rowlet. Feel free to ask about them as well.

// ooc

hiiii <3 my name is kristopher!! he/him + 22 :] i'm an enviro science/agriculture student, avid birder, and passionate hiker + camper!! please keep in mind that i'm a white american trying to portray a japanese man as best i can; feel free to let me know if i get anything wrong or do anything insensitive!!

i also run @pikachuwanted (meowth)

the pokemon lore i go with is based on a mixture of the games, anime, and comics, alongside my own headcanons that i've come up with over the years!! i'm totally okay with people interacting who have differing and even totally contradicting hcs to my own!! it's all in good fun.

that said, generally some baseline 'rules' (and i use the word loosely) that'll likely come up often enough i go with are:

pokemon are typically more intelligent than real animals and are treated as such. they have an understanding of human concepts that real animals don't, and can even communicate now and again. however, even humanoid pokemon still have animalistic behaviors, since they're not humans.

while multiple universes do exist, kichijiro is generally unaware of and skeptical about this concept. most direct references to this will be glossed over and not taken seriously by him. i generally just don't really like storylines like this and probably won't engage in them.

legendary pokemon are provably real, but rarely seen, and never documented as being captured by trainers. i won't ignore characters that have legendaries, but this won't be referenced outside of direct interactions! pseudo-legendaries are just considered to be very rare.

team rocket (which kichi is totally not in) is generally a more realistic crime syndicate that does genuinely awful shit aside from just stealing pokemon.

please keep the following in mind when interacting with me!

content warning: this blog may at any time contain themes of smoking, drinking, alcoholism/drug use, suicidal thoughts, pokemon death/abuse, veterinary practices, organized crime, guns, and non-canon typical violence. bolded topics will always be tagged! please let me know if you want anything else to specifically be tagged.

pelipper mail is on, but please don't go crazy with it, i'll just ignore it if i don't know what to say or think it's not going to be fun for me. magic anons are off.

fallers and sentient pokemon are fine to interact, but i'd rather not interact with eebies specifically

i'm totally down to write literate threads if anyone wants! i love long-form writing and am more than happy to plot something out. all of these will either be on discord or @finefeatheredfoes

kichijiro is not a nice man! he's trying to be better, but he's a generally rude person who's done a lot of bad things in his life and has been in rough circles for over 20 years. he might be mean, but this doesn't reflect my thoughts on you/your character at all!! if this upsets you, please just let me know.

related, but if you have ANY issues with me please please PLEASE bring them up to me in dms!!! i'm always willing to talk things out, and i'll never freak out on you or whatever :]

[yuurei20]

Hello! I was wondering if you have a post for the difference of the JP and EN versions of the Fairy Gala IF event? I wasn't able to find it in the master list, thank you!

Hello hello! Thank you for this question! 🧚

I am so sure there was one before but I cannot find it either, oh no 💦 While the Fairy Gala IF event had no significant changes, something fascinating happened in Silver's Fairy Gala IF vignette!

During the event itself we have a line by Ortho that confirms the craft faeries are female: he refers to them as 彼女たち (kanojo-tachi), which is a plural form of she/her.

Ortho could have said something else (just "the fairies", for example) if the game did not want to specify gender, but they intentionally chose the plural form of "she/her," instead.

But then, in Silver's vignette, he repeatedly refers to the same faerie (or an identical sprite) as "he/him," and "he/him" was an addition to the English-language adaptation.

In Silver's original dialogue he never actually specifies any pronoun at all, gendered or otherwise!

The images above include very literal translations which are a bit awkward in English ("Something is being made" etc.) as that is something the Japanese language does that English does not.

The EN adaptation is adding pronouns to dialogue all the time because the English language needs them in order to make sense, and while usually they get it right, sometimes they do not.

More here:

So where did "he/him" come from? Possibly from two factors:

It is possible that the localizations team(s) do not have access to the game's visuals as they work. (This is not uncommon in the translation industry. For things like subtitle translation we will often just receive an excel file or .txt file with time codes from the client, and otherwise no context. If it's a continuation of an ongoing project then we can usually fill in the blanks based on previous experience, but if it's something new then there will often be a lot of late-stage corrections.)

We have received hints before that this might be the case, such as ・The EN game describing the Diasomnia armband as yellow ・The EN game rewriting Kalim's "badge" as "armband" ・The EN game adding to Jade and Floyd's dialogue to make it sound as though they are at Octavinelle when they are actually in the school's courtyard

2. The craftfairy's personal pronoun of choice is 俺 (ore), which can be associated with men, but it is not exclusive to men and actually varies by person, situation and region.

More here:

Technically the faerie could have been of any gender if we were only going off of the dialogue from Silver's vignette where nothing is ever specified, which would make EN's interpretation neither right nor wrong.

But as the game has Ortho specify "female" through his choice of word for "they," I think this was maybe an example of pronoun confusion for EN :>

And that was all for Fairy Gala IF! Thank you again for this question!

[real-fire-emblem-takes]

I’m not here to discuss Fódlan discourse, I’m here to talk about something far more based: Fódlan Theology!

In all /srs-ness, I’ve been thinking about the Church of Seiros a lot and what real world theology inspired it, it’s more than just fantasy Christianity, though it very much is still fantasy Christianity given that it tends to fall into the trope of making things worse more often than better, like fantasy Christianity tends to do…

Ahem, back on topic. So people meme about Byleth being Fire Emblem Jesus, right? Well, I’m here to say, “No, That’s Wrong!” to that statement. SEIROS is Fódlan’s Jesus, given that she’s the one who’s actually Sothis’s child. And when people pray at church in Fódlan, they’re not praying Sothis and Byleth, they’re praying to Sothis and Seiros. Heck, it’s called the Church of SEIROS, just like how CHRISTianity is named after Jesus CHRIST.

Of course that leaves the question, “what’s Byleth meant to be, then?” Well, they’re the Second Coming of Seiros of course. Obviously with creative liberties taken given that Seiros never actually died in Fódlan, people were simply lead to believe she did, and nobody’s ever really discussed or believed that a second coming of Seiros was a thing, Byleth seems to be more seen in Universe as a second coming of Sothis instead, but I think that’s just a case of creative liberties being taken.

I’d like to circle back to Seiros though, as she’s not just based off Jesus, but she and her saints are based off the 4 Heavenly Kings and their Draconic Leader from Japanese mythology.

We never see Seteth and Flayn transform, but given that there are 5 of them in total and the beast forms of Rhea, Indech, and Macuil are a Dragon, Turtle, and Bird respectively. By process of elimination we can determine that the remaining two are a Serpent and a Tiger, or rather a cat in Flayn’s case.

Now some of you might be wondering why they’d have different forms despite being parent and child? It’s because we know they’re canonically different types of Dragons, the Dragon Seals that hold the power of their Crests explain as much. Seteth is an Earth Dragon while Flayn is a Light Dragon, she likely takes after her mother. Odds are if she survived, Flayn’s mother would’ve been the Tiger, but as Flayn had to fill in, and still being a child she would be a cat, rather than a grown Tiger.

As for why I know she’s the tiger and not the serpent. A: she likes fish to an almost obsessive degree. B: she once napped for centuries and cats are known for sleeping a lot. C: she dressed as a cat in her Halloween alt. And given how bad she is about being subtle, I feel like that last one is all the proof I need.

I’m sure there’s still more to Fódlan Theology that I didn’t bring up/haven’t noticed yet, because honestly the Seiros Faith is shockingly layered, which makes sense since Intsys has been writing FE for a long time so it’s not surprising that they’re gotten good at fleshing certain things out.

.

[rassicas]

Frye is not a Vampire Squid.

It's one thing to headcanon something, but it's another to pass it around a fact, which is why i have to say: Frye is not canonically a vampire squid. This idea originated from a popular twitter thread made at the time of Splatoon 3's direct, and the evidence it's based on is...weak. And yet I still see this info passed around... Yeah I think Frye is just supposed to be a regular Inkling.

the splatoon team has shown us that inklings, like humans, can have a lot of diversity. while our player character models are limited, in-universe its a different story. these are all considered regular inklings. look at the varied eye masks, faces,...they can even have blue skin! So i think that frye is just the splatoon team showing us how more diverse inklings can be.

I made a google drive folder of Inkling hairstyles with a lot of concept art, you can see many diverse examples. To address the other specific points of evidence used:

Long fangs: All Inklings have sharp "teeth"/ beaks. Inkling beak shapes can vary. the last one appears to have a snaggletooth.

Long ears: Ear shapes can vary as well. compare ears of the squid sisters with the player character. Pearl has short ears. hell even the player inkling ears between s2 and s3 are different.

purple fingertips: prior to S3, fingertip coloration was something only seen on octolings, not on inklings. with how her and Shiver can freely change finger tip colors according to their ink, it seems like just a thing inklings and octolings can Do and we just haven't seen much of until now, like how we didn't see much varied hairstyles until s2. Perhaps with how integrated octarian culture is in the splatlands, inklings have caught onto this style as well? Her earrings, the sharp pointy bits in her design: Yes this was used as evidence for the vampire squid thing. That's all eel motifs.

Now the biggest reason she cannot be a vampire squid... vampire squids are NOT squids! They're more closely related to octopuses, but really, they're their own thing (also they're called 'bat octopuses' in japanese... the language the splatoon developers speak. nothing to do with vampires or squids)

With how splatoon's designs have been so far, other species of cephalopods are not guaranteed to look like inklings, especially if not closely related to ink-producing squids and octopuses (and vampire squids are not) Here we have a dumbo octopus (not octoling). also nautiluses. In the case of a species that would be more closely related to the playable species, what seems to be an octoling based on a blue ringed octopus.

Going off this, if the splatoon team were to make a vampire squid character, it most likely wouldn't be a subtle 'inkling/octoling but 2 inches to the left,' For such a unique species, I think they would be pretty explicit about it in the design itself. And considering that they are deepsea creatures that do not produce normal ink, a vampire squid in splatoon might look pretty odd! In conclusion...please stop claiming frye is "supposed to be" or "canonically" a vampire squid, it's a flimsy headcanon based on superficial traits at best and there is zero evidence that was the developer's intent.

(And while I'm here, Pearl is not confirmed a pygmy squid, marie is not confirmed to be a firefly squid, marina is not a webfoot octopus etc. That's fanon based on their japanese names, not canon. As far as we know, the player inklings and inkling idols are all just one species of inkling. inklings and octolings seem to take inspiration from multiple species, but it's not confirmed if they are those species.)

[olderthannetfic]

TW Suicide. I talk about suicide from a religious perspective, and religion is not kind with suicide.

I might be reaching but I think religious Asian countries might be more proship-friendly than western countries??

Let's see a few cases. Japan. I'm not sure how religious Japan is, but they have very strict values and traditions. There are so many how-tos and even the language has levels that you can only use to certain people, otherwise it's rude. They can't express queerness so freely that yaoi/yuri is the best outlet they have, and they got called rotten for it.

Japan is notorious for being very proship friendly. There was even a huge "what is proship and why should you block those with 'proship DNI' in their bios" thread over on Twitter and it was so widely shared by Japanese users. At that point, even antis took off the "proship DNI" off their bios (such cowards lol).

The people in my religious (Muslim) country and its neighbor, Malaysia and Indonesia, even the minors, are so proship-oriented that I only ever saw exactly one person with "proship DNI" in their bio. And their posts tell me they're the more "liberal" people of the country. You know, the ones that the older people are using as examples of "Look at that girl. She's been poisoned by the western values, she's showing so much skin. Don't be like her". Now I obviously will just laugh at older people who says such things but hear me out.

The people who are actually practicing religion to the point where nothing sexual is allowed, who WILL screech at sex (both vanilla and kinky) in fanworks should they ever join, won't touch fandom with a ten-foot pole. This leaves us with the absolute freaks who thinks "I'm religious, I believe in God that other people call fiction, but I can't have sex until I'm married and masturbation is haram, so smut fic is actually a great way to let off tension! No one real is having sex so it's a green area. I'm not masturbating, I'm just reading. Sometimes they excite me, most of the time not! Halal mode."

Also, murder and suicide is a sin. A huge sin. If you tell someone to kill themselves and they actually did, the religious guilt would be MASSIVE. I can't imagine an actually correctly-practicing religious sending death threats and not be haunted by the promise of a sin. A sin that involves other people is much harder to forgive (it requires forgiveness from the hurt people, and that's impossible with suicide. They can't forgive you if they're dead) than a sin that involves yourself (masturbation. All you have to do is regret and never do it again. Which is why suicide is seen as unforgiveable. You can't undo it).

So, it sometimes makes me wonder that in the west, MAGA catholic conservatives shares a lot of values with fanpols. But in religious countries, the actually rigid religious ones aren't in fandom, so the fandom is filled with people who aren't evangelical purists.

This incoherent yap might be reaching, but hey, a new perspective to US-Europeans or non-religious people. It's just kinda funny to think about. Since you are very well-spoken and critical (I think so from your replies to the asks!), what do you think?

--

Well... I think there are a lot of specifics here that are hilarious in how you've framed them. (The situation with queer people in Japan has evolved a lot over the last couple of decades. That isn't at all how I'd describe politeness levels in language, and I think your assumptions based on how politeness works in Japanese are ludicrous. Catholicism isn't the big, powerful flavor of Christianity in the US, so it's not where the majority of the nutbars ruining politics come from. Etc. Etc.)

But back in the 90s in US fandom in English, slash was the domain of freaks, and the puritywankers were openly homophobic and did not hang out in the same spaces.

Yes, I do think that part of the rise of the current flavor of antis has to do with somewhat wider acceptance of queerness combined with an overall anxiety-inducing and uncertain situation. They're not secure enough to chill the fuck out, but they wrongly believe that our battles for queer rights here are done and/or that they can be won by throwing the freakier members of the community under the bus.

[gallusrostromegalus]

I love Kenpachi "Raised By Eagles" Zaraki, and learning how this affects his behavior and worldview but how does this change Yachiru?

Kenpachi might be human-shaped but he's a bird to the core. How bird like is Yachiru as a consequence? Is her first language Eagle as well? Has she met her extended family (grandmother, aunts, perhaps cousins too) and had flying lessons?

I just love the image of Yachiru being a Chaotic Fledgling, and behind her is a grinning Kenpachi that is just as much a Buck Wild Bird, he's just better at playing at being human.

(if kenpachi is a prince, is yachiru thus a princess?)

One Small Correction: Kenpachi is a Sword Guy at his deepest core, but he still considers himself Culturally Eagle, but also that's only one of like 147 Identities he uses. Man collects personas and cultures and memes and jobs and identities like lint, but don't worry- that's just how Things Like Him live.

Kenpachi is also, technically, a Prince, and if he wasn't allergic to honorifics, he would be well within his rights to tell the Kuchiki clan to call him "Kotaishi-Denka", but he doesn't like being called a title he didn't earn. Moreover, he can only tell the nobles that little fun fact *once*, so he's keeping it in his back pocket for the most opportune moment.

Don't Worry about it :)

As for Yachiru:

It's a tough call which is her first language because Kenpachi was speaking to her in Japanese and Eagle and the language of the Northern Tribes he spent a lot of his adolescence with, and the common language of the small spirits like Kodama and Koropokkur when she was an infant and learned them all simultaneously.

Japanese is actually Zaraki's fifth language, and he's been learning how to talk shit in Spanish recently.

Eagle is definitely Yachiru's favorite language to swear in though. Nothing quite as cathartic as a good screech that blasphemes six different gods and curses the object of offense for seven generations in both directions.

Yachiru's gestures and posture are... odd. Some are distinctly Eagle, but she's a constant finger-drummer and hummer, lies and sleeps on her stomach as a matter of preference, walks as easily on her hands as her feet, and writes as easily with her toes as her fingers.

Some of that is learned Directly from her father, but a lot of it seems to be her own peculiarities that all children develop but most have harassed out of them by their parents. Kenpachi had little regard for "proper" behavior out of a child, beyond not endangering herself or getting him in undue trouble. He also has a lot of strange ways of moving that his Mother never tried to correct out of him, so they're both odd birds in that both of them are about five steps to the left of any ind of typical and don't mask a goddamn thing.

As for Yachiru's Extended Family, she occupies a unique position in the family of She Who Rules The Sky.

Yachiru is Her first grandchild.

Oh, certainly, She has laid and raised many, many generations of Eagle, but per tradition and common sense, they move far, far away from Her before having their own offspring to avoid competing with Her, and their children do the same. But Kenpachi comes to visit his Mother and sisters- a strange thing, but he's not eating the same food or trying to build a nest in the same place, so it works.

She Who Rules The Sky is DELIGHTED by Her Granddaughter, and spoils Yachiru rotten with attention and fresh kills and embarrassing stories about her father when he was young.

At least some of the way Yachiru hangs off Kenpachi's back is based on how he learned how to hang onto his Mother during Flying lessons, and how her grandmother taught her to do the same, but hanging onto Her neck, on account of how small Yachiru is.

She Who Rules The Sky and both Yachiru's Aunts are all very concerned about how small she is. Her appetite is certainly healthy enough, but she grows so slowly. Zaraki's assurances that there are Human Women he works with that are full-grown adults scarcely half again Yachiru's size does nothing to avail their fears, and makes Rukia sneeze.

Zaraki's sisters have not taken Names either, but for the sake of convenience, they allow Yachiru to call them Ane-Oba and Imuto-Oba, as Kenpachi is the middle sibling, according to order of appearance in the nest.

Eagle kinship terminology is different than human in that only the siblings from the same clutch are your brothers or sisters, and who is the older or younger is determined by the hatching order rather than laying order. Your mother's previous clutches are your aunts and uncles, and your mother's clutch-mates are also your aunts and uncles, but with a higher level of grammatical deference. "Grandparent" is an entirely novel concept to Eagles, who almost never meet theirs, and hearing how active grandmothers are in the raising of their grandchildren fascinates She Who Rules The Sky.

Consequently, Kenpachi isn't a Prince because he's an Eagle.

He's a Prince because She Who Rules The Sky is a straight-up Kami, and a big damn deal, because She has jurisdiction over EVERYTHING in the sky- Other birds, Weather, Shinigami if they go higher than the roof of the tallest building in a square mile, the fucking moon (technically), Bats (but only when they come out at night. What they do in caves is none of Her business and also She doesn't want to think about it.), and anything some idiot might try shooting at Her.

"Prince" isn't quite accurate- it's not an inherited title, but She Who Rules The Sky told Kenpachi after he became a captain to Officially Manage whatever Humans and Shinigami were doing in the sky for Her, on account of being closer and having at least one eye to keep on them.

So technically he's a Nepo Unpaid Intern, but a Nepo Unpaid Intern that could smote anybody right out of the air, so most birds and lesser Kami use the more respectful title of "Prince" instead.

He does not use this ability often, because he'd rather try to get someone to fight him, but he does not hold back with it where mosquitoes are concerned.

It's cromulent to Eagles that he should inherit the responsibility though, because it's usually the youngest clutch that inherit a nest site or hunting territory upon the demise of a parent, and while She shows no signs of dying any time soon, it's the way of Kami to train and hand off lesser responsibilities to their children as their domains expand.

Hence, Yachiru is not a Princess in the sense that she has a title to inherit, but she is one in that Kenpachi trusts everything she tells him and defers to her on things like "math" and "where the fuck are we going?" because she's better at those than he is, and in that sense, she is his Princess.

[imustbenuts]

more on that cultural copycat phenomenon thing. im gonna yap about Miniso. article by Nikkei Asia here just so i can say im not talking out of my ass (theres a paywall watch out)

miniso is a chain store originating in China that has been around for maybe a decade now. initially, they sold extremely cheap knicknacks in the style of Daiso, but had the sign of Uniqlo and the shop layout of Muji.

left image is the sign comparison. right image is the shop layout/vibe comparison. ill also note that the Japanese spelling of Miniso is a dead giveaway to it being a blatant cultural copycat; it reads Mei Sou.

i once bought screwdrivers from them which were so bad the tips fucking bent and distingerated on use back in the day.

the reason for why they might be doing this is bc historically, china made products always gave the impression of cheap, fast, and bad. japan's products gave the impression of the opposite, decently priced, fast enough, but very quality. (though in reality this just a generalization and is not fully the case for either side)

so whats happening here is a bunch of people riding on japanese culture to sell stuff. this is done knowing that if they were to try and break into the global market as a blatantly chinese company, it wouldnt work. their market demographics were international markets whose population cannot distinguish between chinese and japanese.

today though, there are enough chinese diaspora in many places that chinese first products can actually be viable. (this might be related to people trying to get out of mainland china due to reasons but ill not get into it in this post. too long). but when Miniso first appeared, that was not the case.

if you travel to Japan too, you will see Miniso being fucking non-existent bc obviously japanese people know it stinks and never let it take off.

ill also note this phenomenon is not just isolated to capitalistic chinese companies. there are always going to be fans of <culture> or diaspora or even mixed heritage people who just want to do their own spin on things.

even here in singapore i could walk into a japanese restaurant owned by a holding company based here, who has bought the license to operate an actual japanese chain, but have employees who are not japanese. and the restaurant might, in their lack of care, blast k-pop.

anyway