what's in yuzuru's bag?
skates. skate guards. another bag. screwdrivers. a black hole teeming with an infinite number of audio listening devices. and one pooh-san to rule them all.
I cannot fucking believe how much I'm losing my mind right now over soy sauce history. I'll tell all of you about it after I finish this essay because I need to un-distract myself enough to finish it but what the fuck? What the fuck is going on? I'm losing my fucking mind.
During World War 2 there was a push to industrialize the Japanese soy sauce industry to be better for mass-production. This innovated the chemical fermentation technique and the semichemical fermentation technique utilized by Kikkoman; rather than ferment for four years in gigantic cedar barrels, kioke, instead fermentation takes place for six months or a year in stainless steel barrels which utilize electrolysis to artificially speed up fermentation processes.
During Postwar occupation by Americans, Japan was experiencing massive shortages for the raw materials needed to make soy sauce nationwide, and was forced to rely on exported materials from America to make production. A single American woman named "Ms Appleton" was given total control of apportioning all American soy bean rations to companies, how much, and to who. She had no knowledge of soy sauce, allegedly.
She apparently had so much power over Japanese soy sauce production that she could singlehandedly shape its future by threatening to not give soy beans to any company, family, or factory which did not utilize her specific requirements of semichemical fermentation (reduced from chemical fermentation, since it was that abhorrent). These days, the term soy sauce is distinct from traditional shoyu, and requires distinguishment because of such a radical difference the two products are.
Here's the problem, folks:
I can find absolutely no evidence that Ms Appleton ever existed. There are no sources about this specific period in Japanese history that I'm able to definitively confirm. All of the sources which reference Ms Appleton are referencing in circles with each other; there is no listed source for any of them. Kikkoman's official English website is a veritable goldmine of information regarding this piece of history, with an entire 4 size 13 paragraphs. It not only gives me a first name, Blanche, but also tells me she worked for General Headquarters and that her policies and decisions shaped governmental policies heading into the future.
Except any variation of searching for Ms Appleton, Ms Blanche Appleton, and so on gives me absolutely no information about her ever existing. By appending keywords such as Ms Blanche Appleton+soy sauce, or Ms Blanche Appleton+GHQ, we can find the same couple of sources that are circling each other--or, in the case of the latter, only Kikkoman.
But there is NOTHING else. I'm getting pageantry from some minnesotan town; I'm getting world war 2 veteran records and obituaries when trying to follow that route; I'm getting k-12 teachers and a Titanic survivor named Charlotte. There is no fucking evidence of a Blanche Appleton to substantiate these claims.
And this is fucking massive. Because there should be way more information on her if this was the case; she was apparently powerful and influential enough during the occupation that she could singlehandedly enforce whatever arbitrary rules she wanted on the soy sauce industry and they had to comply or else have no product at all. That level of power is fucking insane. Imagine having so much raw influence over Japan that you could order them to completely renovate and change how they produce and make SOY SAUCE, literally one of if not THE most important thing in Japanese culinary history--and yet there's absolutely zero reference to this outside of like, three specific sites, and none of them have sources, or if they do, they source those sites.
What the fuck is happening here? There shouldn't be radio silence about this woman. There should be records of her policies, there should be legal documents in America which record how she apportioned out American exportation of soy beans to Japan, there should be sources talking about this woman's ability to transform Japan's soy sauce production so heavily that today only 1% of all soy sauce is made with pre-WW2 traditional techniques.
So if she's that big a deal then why does she not exist?
I feel like I'm losing it. I can't think about this too hard because it gives me a headache trying to comprehend any possible answer. There is so many levels to how this shouldn't be happening that I can't settle on just one. I don't understand how some foreigner American could have an iron fist over soy beans so hard that she could apparently influence national policy heading into 2022 but I can only find a first name on the Kikkoman website.
I literally just sent in a Freedom of Information Act request to the national archives asking for any records of a Ms Blanche Appleton, her reports, census information, anything. I can't believe that I'm having to use FOIA to try and ask the government to prove a woman existed because she was that big of a deal in SCAP/GHQ.
This is a translated page of Kikkoman's .co.jp website, with an apparent picture of Ms Appleton.
But this says that she has an apparent good knowledge of soy sauce brewing--directly contradictory to the Kikkoman.com claim that she had "no experience". And it also claims she was in charge of GHQ, which I'm going to assume is a mistranslation, but still.
Major General Murcutt doesn't exist. Douglas MacArthur was appointed head of GHQ/SCAP during the occupation of Japan. This now just has more questions. How did this woman become so important to GHQ that she could directly speak with a Major General? Any level of power or public view she SHOULD have isn't here. You don't just get to be colleagues of a Major Damn General in Post World War 2 Japan. That isn't given to any random housewife.
I just emailed a shoyu brewer family, Yamaroku, about this. The Yamaroku brewery was established 400 years ago; if the company/family were affected during the 1950 import rations and under the thumb of the Supreme Command of the Allied Powers, they'd have records and memory of Blanche Appleton or what it was like during that period as a brewery.
I am at the point where I am genuinely considering the possibility of Blanche Appleton never having existed. There is the chance that Kikkoman invented an 'ambassador'-type person with high influence in the General Headquarters during the occupation to grant itself apparent influence/validity/power above the rest of the competition. "The woman who controls all soy materials coming into Japan visited our main factory and said she liked us :)".
It's incredibly fitting that my first act of serious investigative journalism is about soy sauce. Like, I'm a little annoyed at how on brand this is for me. Of course I'm overly invested in this weird little nitpick about soy sauce. Of course I'm making this the government's problem.
It's currently 12:14AM. I have just learned that a private individual submitted a research query to the Japanese National Diet Library in 2008 regarding any information or proof of Blanche Appleton in relation to soy sauce production.
The researchers found absolutely no reference or evidence of her that was not directly related to the Kikkoman company, even after trawling the archives of the Asahi Shimbun Newspaper since 1945.
This information was told to me by a follower of mine--who asked to be anonymous. So right now we have evidence that Japan as an entity cannot find evidence of Blanche Appleton ever existing within relation to soy sauce production. And I can't find evidence of Blanche Appleton existing in obituary records, nor any publicly available birth/deaths.
Right now there seems to be more and more evidence that Miss Blanche Appleton was a complete invention of the Kikkoman Company possibly dating back nearly a hundred years. But why?
If nothing comes back from my Freedom of Information Act request, I'm going to be contacting Kikkoman directly. I'm not going to just let this slide. People have been noticing this since at least 2008. Who is Miss Blanche Appleton? Why would she be faked by Kikkoman? What's the point of this lie, and if it's the truth, if she was real, why can't I find any proof of that?
Why is everything starting to point towards yakuza/organized crime Kikkoman origin story and why am I researching zaibatsu breakups of the GHQ and where assets from various clans got sent to.
I have an active Ancestry.com account, so I made a guess at her birth year and hit paydirt basically immediately
Ms. Blanche Appleton was born Blanche Harriet Schnitzer, October 22, 1903, in Manhattan, New York City, the only child of affluent immigrant parents who were apparently very invested in her education. I found records of at least two international trips with her parents before she turned twenty. Here's her passport photo from her original application in 1922, to compare against the above photo:
(cut for record dumps and original documents ahoy)
When I said her parents were invested in her education, I meant it. She earned a bachelor's degree from Wellesley in 1924...
...and a master's degree from Columbia University in 1925.
Blanche followed that up by pursuing a doctorate (what.) in Political Economy from Columbia U in 1926
buuuuuut her academic career was put on indefinite hold when she apparently eloped with one Charles Applebaum in December of that year.
Ten years later, they were both apparently going by the surname of Appleton, both on their international travel records and on the following census.
I couldn't find when they divorced, but by the middle of 1947 Blanche's permanent address was in Washington D.C., and she was working full time for the UNRRA, bouncing around various posts from China to California.
I can also definitively place her living in Tokyo, Japan in 1954. She apparently remarried at some point, to a Dr. Melville Day Dickinson, also of GHQ-SCAP, because she's his surviving widow on his American Foreign Service death certificate, seen here. (Note his last American address matched hers on her earlier travel papers.)
Blanche Dickinson (nee Appleton, nee Schnitzer) died September 9th, 1974, and according to the Ancestry research page put together by one of her relatives (which I think you need to be logged into Ancestry to see), her obituary was published in the Washington Post on September 17th, 1974 and featured a comprehensive overview of her long career in US foreign service, including her time as a "food analyst" at SCAP under Gen. MacArthur.
I can't access that obit, I can't find access to any archive for it online, but apparently the obit's title was "Blanche S. Dickinson, 70, AID Economic Adviser," so I'll pass that mission off to somebody else.
tl;dr, Blanch Appleton WAS a real person, and apparently she was something of a badass, but the jury's out on whether she was involved with the yakuza at all
(btw @inneskeeper if you want, I can and will download any and all documentation you want off Ancestry so you can have the primary source documents for your own reference)
Hey so! I’ve been wanting to share one of my Kurama(yu yu hakusho) headcanons for a while, but have been too lazy(and scared) to put it into words and share it w/ my followers ahah. But i’m finally gonna share it..! This is one of my headcanons that’s most crucial to how I interpret his character… and I want to preface this with saying that everyone has a different interpretation of a character, and that’s ok; u don’t have to agree. Interpretations can feel very personal sometimes…this one means a lot to me personally haha. Anyway, here goes: (BIG SPOILER WARNING!!!)
Sadistic Beauty BL Side Story - By Lee Geumsan (7/10)
Hi. Quick disclaimer. This side story is from the same author that wrote Sadistic Beauty. If you don't know yet I'm sorry but Lee Geumsan is a creep. The author is human trash. Get on a pirate ship if you want to read this. Do not support this author in any way, and don't look at their twitter unless you want to throw up.
This story takes place after the disastrous ending of Sadistic Beauty, which was universally hated by anti-fans that stuck around to watch the trashfire. The protagonist of Sadistic Beauty had multiple male partners, and she abandoned (and abused) serveral of them. We are supposed to hate Minho, even though he is a victim of extreme sexual and emotional abuse. He is a masochist, but his sadistic ex girlfriend didn't care about boundaries. If you hit a masochist in the head with a bat without permission that isn't going to be hot for them. That's not how it works. If you don't have a safeword your partner is going to be nervous, not aroused. Minho had to deal with a lot of gross neglect when he was one of her many concubines.
Minho needs money. His relationship with the old protagonist, Duna, destroyed his self esteem. He was a professor, but he fell apart. He stole from his friends. He used his father's savings to try to get his life back. His writing career tanked. Gosh. Being abused for years sure does take alot out of a person. We're supposed to hate Minho because he is a thief, but unlike the author we're normal people with empathy. Minho was born poor. He didn't understand his own sexuality. He was overworked AND his on again off again girlfriend would literally leave him alone when he started crying after sex. Extremely violent sex that involved blood.
Minho has no options. Like most victims of abuse he lashed out. He pushed his friends and family away. His friends in particular can't forgive him because he did try to steal money, and even novel manuscripts, from them. He was desperate, but I do get why he's alone. It's hard to be stable and normal when you're being abused, but he did hurt everyone who really loved him.
(his ex is in a happyish relationship with a completely devoted male slave by the way, because life isn't fair. His abuser never gets punished. Only he gets punished. The author admitted that they like to make Minho suffer on twitter.)
This is Minho's new abuser. Minho is not attracted to him. His name is Wookyung, and he did have potential before the author ruined him on purpose. This particular author has a fetish for abuse. Wookyung immediately beats Minho after he offers his body in exchange for money. He also breaks Minho's leg. He's a rich sadist...no. He's not. This is not BDSM. This author has no idea how to write BDSM and they do not care. Wookyung uses his money to string Minho along.
He fell in love with Minho when he saw him cry. He admired Minho before, but he's an asshole. He wants to lock Minho up and use his body whenever he wants in exchange for cash. Minho regrets asking Wookyung for help immediately. He wakes up with a broken ankle, and Wookyung refuses to take him to the hospital. Wookyung also threatens to cut his foot off.
I would be excited if somebody else was writing this. It's extreme. The expressions are good. Minho isn't boring. He's an extremely flawed man with depression and baggage. Wookyung may be rich, but he's not good enough for Minho. Minho is still trying to get a job. He doesn't want to be a pet. His terrible new relationship with Wookyung motives him, and he tries to earn his independence again. Wookyung tries to stop him at every turn.
My boy Minho does not lie down and take shit. He accepts the money in the beginning, but then he wants to die. The money isn't worth it. Again. Let me clarify. Minho was attracted to his evil ex. He isn't attracted to Wookyung, so he isn't blinded by any kind of love. He says he'll pay Wookyung back, even if it takes a lifetime, but Wookyung doesn't let go. Minho tries to flee and he almost murders his new abuser, who is somehow worse than the last one, with a hammer.
Damn.
That would have been a good ending.
Wookyung punishes him for being disobedient. Wookyung punishes him when he's not excited. Wookyung punishes him when he gets aroused. This author is physically incapable of writing an erotic scene that doesn't involve vomit, blood, or screaming.
On top of everything else Wookyung is manipulative. He plans to marry a woman and keep Minho in a secret apartment under watch. He rarely lets Minho outside. He's the bastard son of a very rich man, and his shitty elitist divorced mom controls his life. Wookyung is kind of pathetic. That would be interesting if I didn't know that the author will mess up the ending. It's going to happen. Guaranteed. Wookyung plays nice for a few chapters, and then this happens.
He hits Minho with a bottle FOR NO REASON. He gets angry about a COMPLETE MISUNDERSTANDING, and brutally beats Minho unconscious. He STILL doesn't take Minho to the hospital. He calls his personal doctor, and the doctor says the strike TORE HIS SCALP OPEN. Again, this was for NO REASON. Wookyung was mad because his mean mom is a meanie. He assumed that Minho ran away while he was gone, BUT HE DIDN'T. Minho is trying. My god, Minho is trying to give this abusive loser what he wants, but nothing works. Nothing can calm down this man child except sex.
The art is great. There are glimmering moments of potential, but they all get ruined by the authors fetishes. Sadistic Beauty was very popular in the beginning, but it plummeted when the author made their protagonist a complete sociopath. Sadly, they will probably keep publishing because they are a talented artist. Yandere stories don't have to be fluffy, but I hate seeing so much wasted potential.
The inherent human experience of expressing joy through music and dance across hundreds of cultures and millions of peoples lives and families and those people sharing those dances with a stranger who asked nicely demonstrating the good and beauty of humanity got to me, alright?
Still thinking about all those algorithm loving weirdos in that one tumblr discourse post going, "but surely if algorithmically curated content feeds were as bad as you say they are, and people hated them as much as you say they do, my algorithmically curated content feeds would have told me about about it.
A Yuzuru Hanyu infographic analyzing his quad jumps and triple axel success rates. (open image in new tab to view at higher-res)
No reposts/distribution offsite without permission please!
(I would never claim that this data is 100% fact-checked—for someone who likes stats, I’m quite terrible at them. But I QA’ed and checked my work to the best of my ability!)
It’s very odd attempting to summarize his entire career into a one-sheeter, but I’m simultaneously amazed. Behind every number and every dot is undoubtedly a level of effort and dedication that only Yuzu himself knows of. He has always challenged himself to never let go of his artistic ability, even when taking on new jumps of new heights. What a magnificent competitive career; can’t wait to see where he’ll go from here!
–
Changelog:
Edit 7/22: updated 4Lz attempts from 5 to 4 (in original, mistook a JNats19 3Lz attempt for a 4Lz attempt) and changed success rates accordingly.
1) you made me feel something I wasn’t prepared to feel and now I’m going to hold you responsible for it
2) i am emotionally invested in a headcanon about this piece, so I am now expecting the source material to oblige me, and will punish them if they do not
jbbartram-illu
areudirty
jacobvanloon
germansingergirl
titsay
izzy806
tangentwithtanner
discoholicmusic
