#will probably edit them to be yesterday when I finish them for clarity's sake

[after-nine-at-the-oasis]

I promise I will eventually finish my liveblogs but I gotta say: and people wonder why I prefer Lone Star xd

Lone Star isn't perfect, not by a long shot! But they have done well by their characters. Even when Owen pulls focus, or characters do something we don't think they would.

I'm mad Grace isn't in the last season. But they continue to mention her, show Judd texting and calling her. Maybe they could do a bit more, but they're doing pretty darn well.

9-1-1 (the OG) feels a lot more flexible and review driven (maybe not literal professional reviews, but I mean to say: what people are saying about it). Maybe that's the price it pays for being more popular than 9-1-1 Lone Star, I don't know. But in my time in the 9-1-1 fandom, it certainly feels like things are uncertain. Like the fandom has perhaps a bigger influence than it should, whether this is proven or not.

Every Lone Star actor cares about the integrity of their character. Not to say the OG's actors don't, but with Lone Star it feels a lot more personal. I don't know how to describe it, it just feels different.

Lone Star does crazy and out of left field things. Why is Carlos married all of the sudden? Why did Tommy and Trevor have to break up? But ultimately, even though I disliked the events, I was able to move on. I don't have to get through the show by pretending they aren't real. And I'm pretty sure at least a fair part of me is going to have to do that for 9-1-1, probably for quite a little while.

I'm not going to stop watching. Especially since it'll be all I have when Lone Star ends. But the two shows have completely different vibes, even if I love them both. And right now, I especially prefer Lone Star.

[alangdorf]

Welp, the ref lineup still isn’t done cause I haven’t drawn Shion yet, and the belated valentines I’ve been working on are gonna be like at least a month late cause I just planned three more, but what I did do these past couple weeks is start writing a fanfic and then immediately abandon it to go draw a bunch of only tangentially-related suzutsubas (except for that first pic; that’s a scene from it, albeit one I haven’t written yet), only half of which are fit for public posting (one of ‘em I could make a few edits and feel ok about posting sometime; it’s not that out there, it’s just, y’know. Hamal Cine Bad End Hyperbolic Torture Chamber. I’m usually very “whatever happens happens” about my art but if I don’t show some restraint I know I’ll end up stuck in there forever), but hey, since I’ve been teasing them for ages and finally have some finished stuff with them, take a couple Suzumii! Also gonna ramble abt headcanons under the cut (and it will be LONG)

To begin, a note abt my Len’en gender/pronoun headcanons: as a they/them preferrer myself, I’m thrilled that most people just stick with those for everyone, but I’ve developed some more detailed headcanons as I go through working on designs and I’ll generally be using those. Don’t worry though, most of them are still nonbinary and basically all of them are trans/gq. Relevant ones for this post are Tsubakura: they/them nonbinary (transmasc to some degree) and Suzumi: cis female, question mark?? (to be elaborated on); for clarity’s sake I usually use she/her for Arde and Hamal Cine individually and plural they for the system collectively (also I don’t usually use their nicknames, dunno why), but singular they for Benet (the wiki says Benny is probably short for Benetnasch so I’m assuming that’s their actual name) for reasons which will also be elaborated on (sort of).

Aaalso this clearly isn’t autobiographical or anything but I think I’m subconsciously putting a lot of myself into Suzumi because 1) we do look pretty similar (brown wavy bob + blue eyes) and 2) given their current status as both the main antagonist and the most well-known plural Len’en character (I get the impression that Hooaka also being plural isn’t super common knowledge; I mean it took me several read-throughs of their wiki page and their dialogue with BPoHC Secret Team to get what they were getting at lol) I am probably way too anxious about doing a bad stereotype. Just an observation and also probably partially why I’ve even ended up with so much headcanon for them in the first place

And before I get into the thick of it, notes on derivations from canon: I’m running with the assumption that Suzumi being a system is a relatively recent development tied to whatever incident it was that caused the falling-out, since Tsubakura is like the only person who seems at all familiar with Hamal (including Mitori/Chouki/Fumikado, but they’re more easily explained away as just having met with one of the other alters the few times they’ve interacted) even though she’s supposedly usually the one fronting. They don’t seem to know the mechanics of it though, judging by their confusion when Arde implied that she and Hamal are different people. So basically, I’ll be referring to pre-incident Suzumi as a different character from any of the other three. (Ngl I am very influenced by Dissociation Constant on that and just in general [when will my wife The One and Only Suzutsuba Fic return from the war…..]) I was also debating whether to have Suzumi have any history with the gang before starting to work at the lab/whether stuff would happen around high school or college age, cause they keep referring to everything happening “a long time ago” and I know I, a 24-year-old, feel like stuff that happened five years ago was like yesterday, but I do have the pandemic and not really doing much of anything for most of that time to reckon with so like, eh. College age makes more sense in my head and so does the dynamic of like, Suzumi was only introduced into the friend group (she was acquainted w Hoojiro and Yabu already though bc lab) because she was dating Tsubakura and since that ended, and badly (understatement of the century), they have extremely little reason to be civil with each other and also interacting at all is really awkward.

Ok now on with it! Either end of high school or beginning of college, Suzumi ends up interning at Tsubakura’s lab for college credit (Tsuba’s already practically a department head despite being like 17 or something because. Idk. Who even knows what’s up with them) and she’s like. Only wears t-shirts and jeans (bought a bunch of khakis for this job though), [reading] glasses from the men’s section, hates leaving her hair down (it’s lab safety anyways). Repressed queer in denial, you know the type. Starts interacting a lot with Mx. Tsubakura “wears short shorts that everybody thinks are actually a skirt and also uses ore and omae almost exclusively” Enraku who seems to have everything all figured out and is immediately starstruck (GIRL WHY?? they are such a mess). Lots of “do I want to date them or do I want to be them” confusion (this will be relevant later); eventually evolves into the “am I trans or just a lesbian” question (not that they would need to be attracted to women to be into Tsubakura but you get the picture), which never quite gets answered.

In any case, they do eventually start dating (Tsubakura thinks she’s cute and smart so they reciprocate), and they’re not like super great together cause Tsubakura is emotionally constipated at the best of times (Suzumi’s into that though) and neither of them are the most mentally/emotionally healthy people even back then and also Tsubakura is more or less Suzumi’s boss which is weird, but they’re kind of ok??? Tsubakura’s mom dies at some point, also they move in together (college housing is expensive), the rest of the crew at the very least tolerate Suzumi, etcetera.

And then…! [insert catastrophic event here]!! I don’t have a shot to call on this yet cause I have no idea what it could’ve been (and I’m sure it’ll get revealed at some point anyways); I’m just banking on it being something extremely not mundane and something where you could reasonably set the blame on either (or neither) party cause they sure both seem convinced the other is way worse, huh! In Tsubakura’s case at least, blaming Suzumi is partially a defense mechanism so their self-loathing doesn’t get the better of them over it (guess what the fic was supposed to be about, lol).

The worst part of all this business though is that they DON’T break up over it immediately and it just makes everything orders of magnitude worse for everyone involved. Tsubakura and Arde have hate sex MORE THAN ONCE………… they would both really rather forget about it. Hamal thinks it’s hilarious, ofc, but the less said about her, the better. And Benet… exists??? The only idea that I’m running off of for them atm is the observation that I think they’re the only character with flat black eyes other than Tsubakura/Tsurubami and the subsequent idle thought, “hey if someone malded so hard about a breakup that they ended up with an introject of their ex would that be messed up or what?” So make of that what you will. (Oh and it may have been obvious that this is what I was going for but Hamal is femme and Arde is butch and they’re constantly squabbling abt aesthetic presentation. Having Arde be straight-up male would’ve been too straightforward of an interpretation and I think it’s funnier this way)

The canonically mentioned murder attempts start taking place and I’m leaning towards Tsubakura eventually being convinced to move out even though it was originally their apartment, albeit mostly just because the wikipedia page for house sparrows mentions that they’re known to take over swallows’ nests, usually after they’ve been abandoned, but they will sometimes drive away or kill the current occupants, and that was a very fun fact to come across when specifically doing research for Len’en but idk how else to incorporate it lol. And so on and so forth up until the present time.

Uhhh is that all I have atm? I think so! Anyway, I think I finally shook out all my suzutsuba doodles (and rambling, though I do still have that fic to work on. idk whether I’ll be able to finish it though; I started strong with an extended metaphor in the middle but Iiiii’m not sure if I can successfully write my way up to it while making it make sense. Also I may draw pretty slow but I write even slower!! Eh I’m sure I’ll post some of it sometime) for the time being so I should theoretically be able to finish up my bigger projects now. Maybe I’ll have the valentines ready in time for white day? We’ll see!

[tl-notes]

Gabriel Dropout Episode 4 Notes

These guidebooks (しおり shiori) are primarily associated with school trips, such as field trips (at all ages) or those overnight trips middle and high school students do. However, they’re sometimes made for personal (or work) group vacations as well, often by whoever’s in charge of organizing the event. It will generally contain a schedule and various other bits of useful/relevant information about the trip, basically a glorified pamphlet or printout. It’s also common to give them a title, as seen here, to kind of represent the trip.

All that said, you gotta be pretty fired up about the trip to actually go out of your way to make these things yourself, so there’s definitely an element of “aww, she’s so excited” intended here.

The 思ひ出 (omoide, memories) in the title is usually written 思い出; in modern Japanese ひ is the hiragana for hi, and い is for i, but in classical Japanese it wasn’t quite so clear-cut. In “normal” usage nowadays it would pretty much always be い, but you can use the ひ for stuff like this to make it more emotional/old-fashioned. For example, it’s used in the Japanese title for the Studio Ghibli film Only Yesterday (おもひでぽろぽろ).

The phrase she uses in the Japanese is “charisma demon” (well, akuma 悪魔). “Charisma” as a loan word when paired with a noun like that basically means charismatic + star power; someone who’s so good at being whatever [noun] is they’ve gotten some level of acclaim for it. An example would be a “charisma beautician,” someone who’s highly skilled and has some fame for working on celebrities or something.

It’s not very commonly used with professions that would generally require charisma and lead to stardom by default, like an actor or something.

When using it to refer to yourself, it’s like proclaiming yourself a star; not exactly the best of manners even when true.

It’s not shown in the typeset subs, but she actually misspells the word (i.e. writes the wrong kanji, 行 instead of 業; both can be pronounced gyou) and has to cross it out and rewrite.

The original line here is “do bananas count as snacks?” (バナナはおやつに含まれますか？). This is in reference to a rule on school field trips that you can only bring (usually) 300 yen worth of snacks. Schools typically enforce this rule to keep kids from bringing a bunch of junk food or whatever and spoiling their lunch by eating it on the bus/train, and also to maintain a sense of equality among students with different home environments.

The banana question is an oyakusoku question somebody always asks when the teacher is explaining the trip. Nowadays, it’s generally a thing asked as a joke about trying to find a way around the snack cap. However, back in the 50s/60s it was a serious question.

Prior to that, bananas were fairly hard to come by in Japan and largely considered a bit of a luxury food, but by the 60s they were becoming somewhat more accessible to the average person (but still maintained their status as a fancy treat). Since school trips are kind of a rare and special event, it wasn’t uncommon for parents to want to send something special (i.e. a banana) for the kid to eat on it. So you’d always have at least one kid who would ask whether that banana would be included as part of their snack limit, or part of their lunch (which generally you’d bring from home).

That might make more sense if you consider that Japanese lunch boxes tend to be pretty thin and tightly packed to begin with. Even if the parent intended the banana to be part of the lunch as sort of a dessert (as fruits tend to be thought of), it wouldn’t fit in the lunch box and would have to be carried separately—like the snacks.

Vignette, of course, anticipated the question coming up and included it in the guide booklet.

She doesn’t actually use baby-talk here, but she does use the –ageru grammar point. Ageru means (several things but in this case) to give something. By attaching it to the end of another verb it becomes you doing that verb for somebody, with a nuance of doing it as a favor for them—which, depending on context, can be pretty condescending.

Satania uses that sort of language a lot when in Future-Ruler-of-Hell mode.

Specifically she says playing in the sand, not a general “out of the water.” Doesn’t really matter, but it foreshadows how serious she is about building that sandcastle later.

Here she says “umi no ie” (海の家), which literally is like “ocean house,” but actually refers to small scale restaurants on the beach that are generally only open seasonally. If you’ve seen a beach episode of an anime you’ve almost certainly seen one before.

As mentioned in an earlier episode note, the mai (舞) here is used for a verb that basically means descend with grace (舞い降りる), a la an angel descending from heaven or big fluffy snowflakes falling (it also means dance or float/hover). Ten (天) represents heaven.

西区 (Nishi-ku) is basically “western district,” which is appropriate enough, considering.

“Arara” is something people say when something bad/disappointing happens (usually when they are watching it happen to other people). “Machi” is just “town,” a common part of many place names.

Another example of oyakusoku. As soon as somebody is shown to have worn their swimsuit under their clothes, you know there will be some forgotten underwear joke coming up.

This looks like the torii at Miyajima, though there’s no bridge like that there.

Edit: It turns out this is Bentenjima, another fairly touristy place with a torii that is partially underwater during high tide.

As you can, the "-tenjima" part of the name is the same, the just swapped out the Ben for Mai. Benten, by the way, is an important goddess in Japan, and one of the seven lucky gods.

Guess what she says here?

Oyakusoku.

The little shrine on the left there is a common sight on the roadsides of Japan. The statues are generally of Jizou (or Ojizou-san/-sama as they are often called), the Japanese incarnation of a major bodhisattva. He’s a pretty cool guy who basically considers all life his responsibility and is mega kind and watches over everybody, and in Japan, especially children. There’s probably some connection between his shrines/statues being on all the roads and the fact that most kids in Japan walk to school unattended.

The red hat and bib are offerings put on them in prayer that one’s own children will grow up healthy and safe.

There’s also a famous folk tale regarding the hat. A kind old man travelled to town to try to sell five straw hats he and his wife had made, so he could buy some rice cakes for them to eat on New Year’s. Unfortunately nobody was buying though, so he left to return home. As he made his way back, he saw six Jizou statues being covered by the falling snow. Feeling bad for them, he wiped off the snow and gave the straw hats to five of the six, and his own cloth cap to the sixth. Later that night, the Jizou came to life and visited the old couple’s home, bringing with them a huge supply of rice as a gift.

There are several different versions, and this is a pretty summarized take on it, but that’s the gist.

You may be familiar with the “tadaima/okaeri“ tradition of greetings for when someone returns home. This is basically a similar deal except for when it’s a guest arriving, instead of someone who lives there: you say irasshai, they say ojama shimasu (though there are of course variant options for each).  In practice they’re just ritualized greetings, like “come on in” and “thanks for having me,” but in literal terms ojama shimasu basically means “I’m going to get in the way/cause you trouble.”

So Gabs is basically saying “I’m being a pain” repeatedly.

I saw a lot of people a little confused about this exchange, so just for clarity’s sake.

It basically boils down to:

Gaben: “Come on, surely you saw this coming.”

Vine: “Yeah, I guess I did.”

Garb: “Right? Now settle down and let me see your homework like a good girl.”

Viggo: “Wait, why are you acting like I’m the one being a child here!?”

The actual line here is “sasuga Vigne.” Sasuga is a super common word in conversational Japanese, that basically means “as expected [of someone/something].” Often it’s used as a compliment along the lines of “that’s our boy/girl!”, kind of a combination “wow you did it!” and “but we knew you would because you’re great!”

It doesn’t have to be complimentary though, it can be used in a sort of “there they go again…” way as well, or anything in between. Here, it’s basically like “I knew you wouldn’t let me down.”

Ironically, of all the places to squeeze an idiom or joke into the translation, this is one where it would have actually matched the Japanese.

The word she (doesn’t) use here is “naruhodo“, which is basically just “oh, I see/understand/get it.” It’s also Phoenix Wright’s Japanese name, eyy Naruhodo-kun.

What Gub says here instead is “naru~,” like she’s too lazy to finish saying the word.

This is a common(ish) way to compliment a girl’s looks, especially from one woman to another. Particularly someone who leans toward “cute” and who keeps their appearance neat (as in like, hair not wild, etc.).

Not everyone particularly enjoys it though, you can find people online asking “why do people say I look like a doll, are they calling me emotionless?” In theory though it’s purely a compliment.

The saying she uses here is “困った時はお互い様 (komatta toki wa otagai-sama).” It’s used when you’re helping out somebody in trouble and they thank you/apologize for being a burden, and basically means like “oh, you’d do the same for me” or “don’t worry about it, people gotta help each other out” (but not so informal-sounding).

A friend in need is a friend indeed, by my understanding of the phrase, is a little different. The “friend in need” part of it means a friend who is still your friend in your time of need, with the idea being “if somebody sticks with you through the hard times they must be a real friend.” So for Gabu to be using it when she’s helping out Vigneto kind of implies “yeah I’m your real friend,” which is not quite the original intent.