late to every party I've been to, including this one now with a sideblog for whatever music is stuck in my head (whether I want it there or not): pxe-333-jukebox
It's a really stupid question so feel free to ignore it, but I do need to try: there's that point at the end of light novel 4 where Jinshi notices a mark on Maomao's neck, right? Now, he asks if it will leave a scar, and I was like: "What the hell?"
Because it is, you know, a bruise. Not a cut. So where the hell is the scar coming from.
So I kinda need to know if it's a case of Kevin TomfooleryTM, or if Jinshi just thinks that bruises scar (which in retrospect would be hilarious because his future girlfriend is Ancient China Doctor House) ?
Sorry for bothering and good night!
Nothing stupid about it. I have found this to be the truest thing when it comes to the English translation; Every time you feel like a line or a word is off, it's because something was lost in translation and it meant a LOT MORE in Japanese.
This is a USDA Grade A opportunity for me to demonstrate the EXACT thing I talked about with Sore Silver. In a nutshell, the word Jinshi is using in Japanese is closer to how we use "damage" in English. It's 傷, kizu.
(I'm gonna put it in big text too so you can see the details of the kanji better)
傷
傷 is a stain, a chip, a deformity, a scar, etc, that's been acquired through action. It refers to hurt feelings and emotional damage too. In English, we wouldn't call a chipped cup a "scarred cup," nor would you call the permanent bend in some chump's schnoz from a long-healed punch a "scarred nose," but both noses and cups (can) 傷付ける, kizutsukeru, "can get a kizu." (It's literally like "Kizu-can-get.")
(And then, one of the things that makes Japanese difficult to learn for English speakers is how many ways there are to modify a verb. There's like 12, and also a polite and plain version for most of those, AND a positive or negative form for both of those. Kizu"tsukeru" is potential, plain, positive.)
What Jinshi is saying in Japanese (Chapter 22, LN4) is,
「傷は残らないんだろうな」 / “Kizu wa nokoranai ndarou na”
"A kizu remain'nt I very hope."
(road work ahead voice: kizu remain? I sure hope it don't)
The sentiment here that Jinshi is trying to express is that he hopes the damage doesn't linger, that she isn't permanently harmed by the way she was attacked. Both physically and emotionally.
However, true to their ongoing problems with miscommunication, she interprets these words in the more physical sense and responds with;
「これくらいすぐ引きます」 / “Kore kurai sugu hikimasu’
"This (should be/about/relatively) soon recede"
(kurai is a word I find hard to directly translate to one equivalent word. It's an adverb here on suru, making the pace of the receding more of a rough estimate. It's like, "This thing should be gone soon" or "It won't last long.")
What I read from these two particular lines of dialogue is basically this,
"I hope this doesn't leave a mark..."
(I hope this wound doesn't linger. As in, emotionally too.)
"It should be gone soon."
(I'll get over it before long because i dont let myself be bothered by anything. Stop being worried about me, emotional vulnerability is CRINGE)
This conversation in the cart, with the Shi Clan kids still knocked out in the background, is multi-layered. Jinshi is expressing concern and probing into Maomao emotionally, while Maomao is interpreting most of his words literally and deflecting what she doesn't.
All the extra context also makes the sudden "frog's return" actually hilarious to me tbh, because when she says, "You could use a few more scars," what the masochist is hearing is "A pretty boy like you could use a few more beatings" lmaoooo
being black in any art community is such a strange feeling cause you’ll see just blatant racism being expressed in others art and you have to just casually ignore it, for your sake if anything, colorism being something that’s just fundamentally there in every artist and you deal with it cause it’s not worth it in the end to even think of it too hard let alone even mentioning it, it’s definitely something
Hello nonblack reader of this post, I think you ought to share this one so that you and your peers can actively remind yourselves 1) of how your Black peers feel when you tolerate antiblack racism in your art spaces for entertainment and 2) that we notice it, but don't believe it is secure around enough of you to bring it up 🙏🏾
My mom is a psychologist. A phenomena that is very well documented is "silence as consent". If you do not ever speak up about something, people are neurologically programmed to understand you approve of it. So this is not "oh why are you assuming I didn't notice it's problematic" or "wow why aren't you giving me the benefit of the doubt?" This is the brain's pattern recognition. "Oh it's not that serious" it very much demonstrably, provably is.
So instead of becoming defensive or wanting black people to shut off a basic part of their brains, you can solve this by not tolerating antiblack racism.
OK FUN FACT i also thought this picture was hilarious when i encountered it a few months ago, so i was curious how it ended up on wikipedia
it turns out the uploader is in fact the woman in the photo (she's uploaded a few other pictures of herself to other articles) and she ran an extremely web 1.0 site on the topic of bondage
this was apparently a long-standing fantasy of hers and she in fact did an entire video plus accompanying photoshoot about it, which was run in a bondage magazine in the 90s and did in fact take place on an abandoned train track. they committed to the bit hard enough that there's even a shot of the sinister villain looming over her with a big document labeled DEED and a pen
the best part is that according to this page, there were two "villains" involved (the woman's two partners, apparently), and the other one was dressed as a gorilla. sadly there are no images of the gorilla kidnapper because that sounds like. even funnier.
anyway i thought this whole thing was kinda cute, lol
Danny is flying through the Ghost Zone, minding his own business, when he's tackled from above. Usually he would have better reflexes than that, but his ghost sense hadn't gone off in time. Which means he is helpless against the small arms wrapping around his waist as they plummet toward the floating island below.
His echoing scream is nearly drowned out by the blowing wind, and when he lands stomach first on the ground, the boom is only heard by the person holding him. Danny's breath is knocked out of him so badly that his ghost form is dissolved around him. The bright rings of light do nothing to help the dizziness that fills his head as blood oozes out of his nose.
Danny is momentarily so disoriented that he can't fight when someone turns him onto his back, and he comes face to face with a beaming ghost. She's dressed in a big, puffy purple dress with more ruffles than necessary, covered in star-themed accessories, and her hair is pulled back into pigtails. Dangling from the pigtails are the stars on chains. Her gloves are up to her elbows with purple ribbons.
She's also sparkling with glitter, and she would have almost looked like a normal middle-schooler were it not for the blue of her skin and ghost glow to her body. And the wide, really crazed grin on her face.
Something was deeply wrong with this ghost's mental state.
"I knew it!" She gasps, leaning in close to Danny's face. "I knew that there was no such thing as a Halfa! You're a Magic Guardian!"
Danny tries to reply, but his vision is overtaken by black spots, and all he can manage is a slurred mutter of questions. The girl doesn't seem to mind, running her hands along his body as if searching for something. "Where do you keep it? The magic item? I'm ready to go back to the field. I'll do better this time!"
Her hands slip under his shirt as Phantom's healing factor clears the fog, and he can lift his legs. The new position causes her to lose balance on top of him, which gives Danny the needed opening he needs to get out of her pin and push her off. She tried to turn the push into a spinning kick, but Danny's now-human body made him untouchable to her.
Her leg goes through his head as he springs up on his hands and flips away from her. She stumbles in place, dress flaring in her sudden halt. She holds out a hand, shaking it aggressively. "Sorry! Sorry! It was a reflex."
"Who are you?" Danny holds up his fists. "What do you want?"
"I just need a second chance." She folds her hands in front of her, a desperate hitch bleeding into her voice. "I was careless last time, but now I know what to do. Please, just give me the magic item."
"I don't have a magic item-"
"LIAR!" She suddenly screeched, the force of her voice turning into a wail like those of a few banshees Danny had fought. "I KNOW YOU HAVE ONE. THIS WOULDN'T HAVE LIGHTENED UP OTHERWISE!"
She reaches up to her neck, where a glowing black chain is wrapped around. Years of listening to Sam preen about her gothic style let him know it's a lariat slip choker chain, and he almost admires the dangling moon, were it not for the girl's eyes starting to glow with the same dark purple sheen as the jewelry charm.
"I CAN DO IT." The girl yells. Almost feverish, as if her desperation to prove herself was burning her up inside. "I'M ONE OF THE CHOOSEN."
"Chosen lunatics, more likely," Danny replies, taking a step back.
"NO! I CAN DO IT-"
Her words are cut off as the necklace detaches from her neck. At once, her entire form changes. Gone is her dress and star accessories; even her hair goes from pigtails close to her head to long, flowing hair reaching her ankles. She is now dressed in plain jeans and a black shirt. Her eyes even shift back to normal pupils, though they are wide with horror.
"No." She falls to her knees. "No, please. I gave everything for that. I gave my life. My life....."
Danny opens his mouth to ask what she means when the necklace suddenly flies at him at an impossible-to-dodge speed. He's knocked off his feet, pushed back once more, but this time by the neck.
His breath is once more knocked out of him, and the girl's mutters break into devastated sobs. His world tilts as Danny falls, and despite the ground beneath his feet, he falls far longer and far farther than he should.
A portal had ripped open under him.
He watches the Zone slowly recede as he free-falls into the mortal world, able to recognize the change in lighting despite not being Amity Park's familiar clear blue skies.
Grey overtakes his eyesight. Grey clouds, grey buildings, grey ground, and even the air feels grey somehow. Danny's back hits the pavement, once again sees black spots. This time, he isn't strong enough to shake them off as the world slowly vanishes behind him.
He lies there on the ground, feeling rain drench his body as a group of people surrounds his fallen form. He sees their lips moving but makes nothing of it; he can even muster the strength to move his outstretched arms.
The necklace wraps itself around his neck, humming with power. It's the only warm thing on his body.
As everything goes dark, a voice whispers in his mind.
Danny Fenton, you have been chosen to fight the forces of darkness.
This is the beginning of Fallen Star, Gotham's most tragic magic boy, ripped from his home and forced into soldiering for a necklace that promised fame and heroism with the power of friendship.
But all it does is steal the lives of children. Were it not for Danny's previous experience as Phantom, he likely would have ended up like that poor girl wandering the Ghost Zone, waiting for the necklace's intoxicating call with each fight it forced him into.
Being a hero means stepping up to fight when no one else will. Being called to fight when there is no chance of refusal means making a sacrifice.
Tim Drake, one of the people who found Fallen Star and witnessed the first forced transformation. He had seen the boy trapped inside his own body as he showed up to fights as an adorable prince, created of stars, associates, ruffles, and an overly preppy tone that belied the screaming teen fighting to regain control of his body.
Okay, so. Star Wars has all these concepts that weirdo New Left boomer George Lucas tosses in there but because of storyteller limitations it would kill the plot to fully explain them all, so later writers have to come in for the spin-off materials and bat clean-up to fully explain all this crazy crap. And I would like to talk about something that made me actively angry at first, but which I now adore. And that is the Naboo.
So much about Naboo culture is infuriating from a logical standpoint. They have a queen, okay. A constitutionally elected queen? Weird, okay. Don't know why they'd do that but... She's FOURTEEN? Excuse me? Is it a ceremonial thing or, oh no it's not? Legit head of state? Why does she dress like that? Why does she talk like that? I'm so tired.
Here's the explainer. Let me go cook.
There's this joke in Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy where the last living human goes back in time and finds out humans aren't actually from Earth, but an alien culture that tricked all the middle managers, pedantic weirdos, and other infuriating folk into getting in a space arc which they gave the wrong evacuation coordinates to simply get rid of them. The Naboo are like this but they're all artists and poets and hippies, but like classy ones. They fled their home planet during a war and crash landed on Naboo, then did a colonism to the Gungans because, hey, they were fleeing a war and it was do or die. This spiritual rot in their creation story is later rectified by Padmé. But it's super important to their cultural psychology. They're hippies, but will subjugate if needed. They are "peaceful" but I guarantee you every single one of them has a tiny extremely shiny pistol up their sleeve and they will draw down on you if backed against a wall.
The scene that I think says it all is at the end of Phantom Menace when Padmé is surrounded by Nute Gunray and his droids, they've got her dead to rights, but Sabé her double creates a distraction so the queen can make it to her throne. This one piece of furniture is the Naboo in a nutshell. It's richly carved with artistic details, it has two seats to the side so the queen's handmaidens can read the lips of people in the back of the room and use hand signals to communicate with the queen while she can remain focused mostly on who is speaking to her. It is hundreds of years old. And it has a secret compartment in the armrest that is FULL OF GUNS. Layers of artistic opulence hiding their true intentions.
The Naboo were created to be backwards compatible with Princess Leia. They're compassionate pacifists, but they will shot you if needed.
Why do they elect teenage royalty? It's a little creepy. It's giving "age of consent is emotional maturity". It makes no sense.
The explanation they give outsiders is they want youthful idealism untainted by cynicism. What they don't tell you is that they take kids with stated interest in politics and put them in an advanced highly competitive Leadership Academy which is like Model UN mixed with Battle Royale. Well, they don't kill each other but it's intense. It's like what the clones went though just all diplomacy training and tea ceremonies all the time. Which is crazy but so Naboo.
Oh, and all the delegates for the royalty election run using pseudonyms for security. Imagine voting for the head of state but you can't run a background check. It's so crazy.
Why does Padmé dress like that? Well, fashion is one of Naboo's major industries so it's like she's wearing the entire Fall line catalog at once. To advertise not only the talent of her people, but to show how much they favor her. BUT that dress has multiple layers of padding and resin armor. And aforementioned spots for those little silver blasters. And it breaks up her silhouette making her harder to shoot. And it's so elaborate you pay more attention to the crazy dress and not if the person wearing it is really the queen or a decoy. Everything about Naboo is like this.
Queen Amidala has that weird accent while Padmé does not. Because all her handmaidens helped create the accent together so they all can imitate it. It's like if you gave girls at a rowdy sleepover the job of federal counterintelligence. That's what they came up with.
The handmaidens wear colorful identical clothes so you can't tell them apart, hoods to partially conceal their identity, and they don't wear the queen's fancy makeup. So one of them can be the queen and spy on people in the audience. Because the Naboo don't trust shit for shit.
Their public face is so silly to hide all the truly weird shit they do behind the scenes.
They use their reputation as artist hippies to conceal multiple layers of subterfuge and disguise their methods of self defense and assuage their paranoia due to wartime trauma and their disturbing colonial past. All of them are completely off their rocker even by Star Wars standards. And I love them so much. They put on a show so everyone thinks they have them figured out but what they have going on is far more weirder and more sinister than meets the eye. You know how catty, neurotic, and competitive art school students stereotypically are? Yeah, planet art student. Love them!
honestly this goes further than anything else to explain why padme heard this bonkers greasy teenage anakin confess to her that he wiped out the entire village of native people who killed his mother, and padme (ostensibly our conscience) (actually a valedictorian of the naboo political school of move fast break things and look gorgeous doing it) was just like '👍'
also Darth Sidious is from there, too, so you can interpret him as to some extent the intersection point of everything weird about the Naboo and, uh, everything about the Sith.
like...a planet destroying laser is pretty Sith Lord, and having a Galactic Empire is classically Sith, but faking your way into being Emperor via elaborate indirect election fraud and a whole faked-up proxy war, and mounting your hyperspace-capable space laser on a deeply gratuitous whole-ass artificial moon? there's distinct traces of Naboo aesthetic sensibility showing through there.
also he hates his home planet, which we may assume is why after becoming emperor and having no more reason to please anybody but himself, he wore nothing but an ankle-length hoodie for twenty-five years.
to be clear you are fifteen thousand generations removed from the invention of stone tools. not from the end of stone tools. modern humans are still using stone tools.
Did I just employ the "Treat Them Like You are A Kindergarten Teacher Again" method with my insurance company today? I surely did. Did it work? Probably better than intended because I made an actual doctor feel contrite.
So, my insurance has been trying to not cover my SNRI because it is new on the market and no generic available yet, so pricey.
I apply for a refill and the request gets locked for review. Again. For the 3rd time.
This time I call and immediately ask to speak to the actual doctor making these clinical decisions. Very politely. Must be a slow day because they allow it.
ME: [Teacher voice] I'm calling in regards to the SNRI you have placed a lock on. Why was this decision made?
DOC: Well, there are dozens of other medications on the market in that tier, and far cheaper for you and [insurer]. We have sent a request to your doctor to consider alternatives.
ME: I am aware of that. So, can you do me a HUGE favor and look up my prescription history really quickly and tell me how many SSRIs and SNRIs were only filled once in 2022 for me, showing they were poorly tolerated?
DOC: It looks like eight.
ME: Great job! Now, can you please look at my genetic test for psychiatric drug tolerance and tell me how many medications are listed in the safe category?
DOC: Two.
ME: Awesome! Now, can you tell me what type that other drug is that I'm not taking?
DOC: Yeah, totally, it's an MAOI.
ME: That's correct, you're really knowledgeable! Should I be taking something as dangerous as an MAOI with my other medications, or even just in general?
DOC: It's contraindicated for sure.
ME: It is! So true! So, last question since you've been incredibly smart and helpful. Is it less expensive for [insurer] to pay out for the medication knowing they already get a huge manufacturer discount anyway, or is it more expensive for them to pay for me to need potentially long-term inpatient psychiatric care?
DOC: I'll clear the code, ma'am and flag it as medically necessary. I'm sorry about this.
ME: I appreciate you SO MUCH. You have a great day now.
WALGREENS PHARMACY TECH WITH 5 NOSE RINGS AND PURPLE HAIR STARING AT ME: ........... OKAY! It'll be ready in five minutes. You wanna come work here?
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