#i like it more than the first impact and wa da da

[monozip]

Kep1er: the wrong agency, the wrong time but the right people.

Despite all of that, Kep1er is truly a lovely group.

Kep1er a 9 membered group formed in a relatively new survival show: gp999 had always been criticized and feasted on by vultures, getting picked on one by one without any room for sympathy. But the main criticism mainly centers their popularity: moreso how it does not live up or matches the popularity of other alumni's of mnet's survival show pipeline. And simply put, most of the blame could be partially placed on the company— the marketing team, the creative director directing their career's and all the inbetweens.

The company had done little actions to even prevent harm and malicious intent towards the girls. One of the members was massively dogpilled on mere minutes-hours after the show ended, and the malicious comments and intentions spread to the whole group, and the company still remains silent on this matter.

The line-up is amazing: it has great-amazing dancers, solid vocalists, amazing performers, entertaining and charming members. But even if it was the contrary, as long as they had solid and competent team behind them: they can far— farther than what their current team are letting them.

Marketing and promotions is truly a need, but another aspect that comes to mind is the whole's career trajectory/creative direction. In this era of kpop where graphic design, fashion and alike have a more noticeable stake in a group's popularity— the cohesion between design and music is important. Although as design goes, the team behind kep1er perhaps need to up their game but ultimately decent, but for music? I think their fine, amazing even. The catalog of music they have is amazing, they have a good assortment of genres and beats.

In my opinion there are two ways groups these days create a 'hit', three even. The group either already have a solid fanbase, the group had a vision, a solid, innovative concept/direction in a concept that caters to the groups overall concept. Or both. Well what do I mean by the second way? I felt like the team was doing well during wa da da and up! era, although distinctly different, you could still see the semblance of fun galatic girls with the insestance of space related motifs. Although we fresh, in my opinion, was good as well and I do think it was one of their best in terms of graphic and design— the frontier: the title track was not received warmly by the public, and frankly that was like the 9th circle of kep1ian hell. Giddy was a reboot and altough the space motifs that they had started with are not that noticeable or prominent it was a good era either way, design-wise.

With the group's name deriving from a known astronomer, i had hoped in the beginning before they've made their first impact that the team managing kep1er would've thought to keep the space motifs as the main focal point of the group's concept up until the end of their contract.

A group branching out from their usual concept is in my own a good thing! It's lovely to see a group try something new, show growth and flexibility, although theirs nothing wrong with sticking with the same old. But i do think the team behind kep1er just didn't it do it with grace, leaving the group to plummet harshly.

All of these things matters, simply because it affects these girl's career in the long shot. Of course rebuilding one's career is possible but with how the company holds them back, we won't see it right now or in the near future.

It's quite saddening how the company would not invest in the group, but would for their orher groups— I do think that they are managed by different teams. But its frustrating: barely having any promotion for them. They've definitely book more gigs for them, open up opportunities for the group members like have them post vocal or dance covers (which they did!!! but

...abandoned), cater content that alligns with the member's skills that fans may be curious of (perhaps baking content with recipes from the member like Bahiyyih which expressed her interest in cooking). So many possibilities, an amazing group with amazing members, but the cogs are not spinning. And i hope the girls know they are worth more than what the company is offering them.

[ma-lemons]

Doublast is so cute

[fallinfl0wers]

You are a melody: lyric-based prompts (Event) (CLOSED)

"If you were to look back Would you remember it too? The hit song which was always playing In those days." -Kimi wa Melody, AKB48

Hello! I'm Mel, or Melody, and I'm a new writing blog! I put my playlists on shuffle and took some lyrics from the songs I got to make this prompt list event!

How will this event work?

Simple! Send in an ask with the prompt number + a character of any of the fandoms I write for (+ any small extra details if you want)! (for example: number 4 + xiao + gn reader + romantic + fluff)

Fandoms I write for: Genshin Impact, Ensemble Stars, Idolish7, Diabolik Lovers.

A single character per ask! You can request multiple times, but please do it in different asks!

I'll write small scenarios based on the prompts!

This event will probably be open until july 9! Might extend it for a bit or finish it a bit before, it all depends on how many requests for it I get!

**Please read the rules for requesting on my pinned post!!!

Here are the prompts!!

"Long for love even if it hurts every time." Lovesick Girls - BLACKPINK

"You pity me, but I pity you more for pitying me." Lovesick Girls - BLACKPINK

"Who will listen to the sound from the bottom of my heart after the end of the world?" 那幕 (Falling Down) - THE8

"The lonely moments just get lonelier the longer you're in love." House of Memories - Panic! at the disco

"Look, the crescent moon is beautiful." Unbalance Shadow - ZOOL

"In this fleeting moment, even if it goes against my fate, today again I pray for you." Unbalance Shadow - ZOOL

"Even if we're far apart, I'll keep singing for you with all my love." Unbalance Shadow - ZOOL

"I wish you happiness." Unbalance Shadow - ZOOL

"Just be yourself, what are you so worried about?" HOME;RUN - SEVENTEEN

"There may be no end to our journey of dreams, so let's take a break for today." HOME;RUN - SEVENTEEN

"Happiness has a tiny sorrow to it, wherein we always realize for the first time that it was happiness once we part with it." Happily Ever After - Shoko Nakagawa

"You're like a continuous, honey-like damage to me." Good to Me - SEVENTEEN

"If a second life that's different from now came to me, would I be by your side? Would you be by my side?" Second Life - SEVENTEEN

"I hope we remember each other even in our next life." Second Life - SEVENTEEN

"Being forgotten is a common thing. Why are those common occurrences rather difficult for me?" Second Life - SEVENTEEN

"It feels like time stopped. Oh, that would be my first death I've been always afraid of." Black Swan - BTS

"Every little moment becomes an eternity." Black Swan - BTS

"I still can't believe I took it all for granted." Crossroads - GFRIEND

"No matter what road I take, they will always lead back to you." Crossroads - GFRIEND

"You've always stayed by my side, didn't you?" Hitorijanai - SEVENTEEN

"There's no need for tears, because you're not alone." Hitorijanai - SEVENTEEN

"What does it mean to be 'yourself'?" Kado wo magaru - Hirate Yurina

"Open up the time where only the two of us can exist." Lilili Yabbay - SEVENTEEN

"If we could see each other with sincerity instead of with eyes, then us meeting on the 13th month will come true." Lilili Yabbay - SEVENTEEN

"Don't apologize, don't worry, don't be afraid, now, stop crying." Hug - SEVENTEEN

"To you, who had a hard day today, I'll tell you: I'm here. You've done well. I love you. Let me hug you." Hug - SEVENTEEN

"Every reason and path is beautiful because of you." Us, again - SEVENTEEN

"If we pass the turning point at the end of the road, I will protect you so you won't be worn out anymore." Us, again - SEVENTEEN

"Whatever happens to us, let's meet again." Us, again - SEVENTEEN

"A shiny light will come in to light up the darkness." Us, again - SEVENTEEN

"By sharing the warmth, we can find the way again. No need to be afraid." Us, again - SEVENTEEN

"The warmth and warm smiles at the end of the road will protect us from the time quickly passing by us." Us, again - SEVENTEEN

"I despise being ashamed of feeling inferior." 乌鸦 (Crow) - JUN

"The most sorrowful things is that encounters are regarded as a waste." 乌鸦 (Crow) - JUN

"All the crows in the world are black, but they are not heartless." 乌鸦 (Crow) - JUN

"Love is neither inferior or superior, crows can fly bravely for love too." 乌鸦 (Crow) - JUN

"The happiest thing is no more than a word of comfort." 乌鸦 (Crow) - JUN

"Giving up, but I'm still willing to keep company." 乌鸦 (Crow) - JUN

"Fate becomes a burden, sacrificng myself for your safety." ��鸦 (Crow) - JUN

"Love is poignant, once destroyed, it will hurt." 乌鸦 (Crow) - JUN

"Sprinting towards the fire for you, absolutely in love, yet really exhausting." 乌鸦 (Crow) - JUN

"Give yourself a chance, to prove that you're actually really beautiful as well." 乌鸦 (Crow) - JUN

"You should have some good news to share, but you haven’t said very much. It makes me feel like I’m to blame for not stopping you back then." 11gatsu no anklet - AKB48

"Someday I planned to sweep my memories under the rug. But now I’m seeing you off to your boyfriend’s house." 11gatsu no anklet - AKB48

"As long as the new guy you found is someone kinder than me, there’s nothing I can do. I guess I’ll have to give up." 11gatsu no anklet - AKB48

"Times with you, Just going down the drain. Now I know, they're never coming back." Koigokoro (English Version) - Da-ICE

"I never said I love you, keeping that pain in my heart." Kimi wa melody - AKB48

"I wonder if you’re humming it, that melody from days long past." Kimi wa melody - AKB48

"I've never been in love before, so you gotta go easy on me." Count on You - Big Time Rush

"I'm glad I've met you. I love you." When the first love ends - Ryo (supercell) ft. Hatsune Miku

[neopals]

My ranking for Queendom round 1🤭

1. Hyolyn came, served pussy, and left. She rly gave us tropical paradise with everything from the tacky backgrounds, the props, and the outfits. First place because of the vocals, the dancers pretending to play sax, and the fact that she had to buy and make the props herself. We love a coachella stage on a budget!

2. Loona fucking slayed. To get my one critique out of the way: their vocals weren't giving. I know they're recovering from covid and ptt is a rly dance heavy song. But to talk about the positives... the way they remixed the entire song, how everything was cohesive and on theme, the way they used every part of the stage, olivia's dance break, the extended final chorus, the theatricality of it all!! I hope they can show some vocals and prove themselves to be more than a performance group later on.

3. WJSN had an amazing performance. Top three were rly close imo. The formations were beautiful, the song was good, the dance break was great. I had no idea the hourglass thing wasn't intentional lmao. Idk why they stopped dancing at the end tho...

4. Brave Girls said we're hags and you're gonna like it! Minyoung said you will be hearing my loud ass voice! I didn't think the songs fit the vibe of the type of performance they were trying to give, but they looked like they were having so much fun i forgot about it. i cackled at the cheap ass blanket transition to rollin'. they would have done better if they had some military men in the audience!

5. Viviz had a pretty performance and I love rough. It was enjoyable and had some great moments, but I thought they lacked impact compared to the top 4. i was definitely missing their main vocal during this stage... honestly think they ranked a little too high this round lmao

6. Kepler......... i had high hopes after their intro stage but this wasn't it. they're amazing dancers but it felt like a standard wa da da stage that went on way too long. don't think i missed my slayers xiaoting and hikaru tho!

[jinseibluetooth]

i’ve been thinking a lot recently about the styles of lyric writing of aki-p, tsunku and hyadain. well, not recently, because i’ve been thinking about it since at least the last time one of my twitter mutuals commented on their pet peeve of people thinking aki-p actually writes songs lol. 

and most of my thoughts are still just partially formed, and probably not accurate since i haven’t bothered to read up into it, but they go sorta like this:

i like a lot akb48 lyrics. despite the actual music quality ebbing and flowing throughout the years, i think the lyrics are the second most constant aspect to it (the first one is i think, the vocal direction and mixing lol). out of the three, aki-p is the one that isn’t a musician, and his only contribution to 48g music is the lyrics. 

of course, there are some questionable pieces (tonari no banana anyone?), but he usually nails the tone of the song, from fresh and summery to nostalgic and sorrowful, even managing some incredibly poignant lyrics, like mokugekisha, or silent majority (keyakizaka46), bokutachi wa tatakawanai and the legendary keibetsu shiteita aijou. this is the kind of lyrics i like the best from him, because i think he does social commentary particularly well. my favorite is rock da yo, jinsei wa..., which is a very cynical song about violence and japan’s politics wrapped in the bubblegummiest of songs. 

after more than a decade as an idol fan, i can say with confidence that i am not a fan of akimoto yasushi. however i do recognize that he’s skilled at what he does, to the point where when a couple of years ago he was set to write a song for bts, i was sorely disappointed when fans complained about him so much that he gave up the project. it would have been good, and i’m curious about the direction he’d have gone with it. 

on the other hand, both tsunku and hyadain are musicians, and both of them frequently compose and write the lyrics to the songs they produce (hyadain even arranges them, often!), so it is definitely more of a personal feeling. 

compared to aki-p, tsunku is a much more weaker writer. i am not saying he is bad, and i do love a lot of his lyrics (i wish is probably one of my favorite songs ever, lyrics-wise, and toki wo koe sora wo koe deserves the praise it gets), but his writing is very simple and a lot more direct. i say this having the wall of reading lyrics through translations, but tsunku’s lyrics often go right to the point without beating around the bush. 

because he is an Artist, i find that he cares a lot about how the song sounds, and he will not doubt to add nonsense words to make the beat go smoother (tiki bun? what the fuck was that again?). despite that, so many of his songs are earnest, full of heart, and show so much love for humanity (souda! we’re alive quickly comes to mind), and i think it compensates perfectly for maybe lacking writing skills. 

hyadain also cares immensely about how the song sounds, but i think he might be better at words than tsunku is. i still find impressive how he built a pacifist message calling for a ceasefire within the silly rivalry between fans of two types of candy (kinoko takenoko daisenki), or how he made a song about the importance of forgiving based on a falling out with momoclo’s manager (buryoutogen nakayoshi monogatari). sure, he has written stuff like dot jp japan, which, i don’t think can be made sense of, but for the same group he wrote a beautiful anthem about diversity and coming out. so many of his songs are about the members of the groups he writes for, and he is very good at picking out details that will resonate with them. there’s the anecdote about how deeply both wwd and wwd ii impacted dempagumi members, even leading moga minami to not graduate just yet. recently, and also with dempagumi, i find that princess dempa power! shine on is a beautiful piece, with a simple metaphor that develops both in the instrumental and in the lyrics of the song, about idols and princesses and ultimately, about putting in hard work to make dreams come true. 

this has maybe not a lot to do with lyric writing, but i am incredibly curious about hyadain’s worldview, because even maybe more than tsunku, i think he often approaches humanity with a lot of hope and joy, and it is admirable, because from what i’ve gleaned, he struggled a lot with bullying and loneliness when he was younger, and it must have taken a lot of strength to still come out of it wanting to find the good in people.

[loonafrogg]

Kep1er- First Impact

KEP1ER DEBUT DAY FINALLY! THIS GROUP IS ACTUALLY MUAH! I was unsure of the line up and name at first but I literally slept on it and woke up to going yeah this works. I’m listening to the album now as I write this and wow, it’s better than I hoped. See the Light- Intro song. Glad they added lyrics. I think intro songs can be just music but I don’t think it would have worked as well with this album unless it was really short and siren sounding if that makes sense??

Wa Da Da- PERFECT. The teasers had me well excited and it is exactly what I expected and wanted from the teasers. They are giving us what 2022 needs

MVSK- This is such a good bside. Sounds purple if that makes sense?? 

Shine (Kep1er version)- BEST SONG TO COME OUT OF GIRLS PLANET 999! I stand by this the dance, the song?? it was iconic and still is. This version is better than the shows audio recording but I don’t know if they will be able to beat the live version because of how it was a finale song you know? and the atmosphere. However, most of the time when I listen to songs I listen to studio versions so I’m glad we have a good version of it. I don’t the other recorded one seems flat?? maybe it’s just the other one has to compare to the live version where this can be separate to a degree??? anyway best song

Another Dream (Kep1er version)- Another banger from GP999. I’m not a big ballad fan but I do like the chorus of this one. It’s a good ballad song. Again I think the gp999 recorded one is flat compared to this one and the live version. Funny enough I think this lives up to the live one. I think it feels like a love letter to all the other trainees?? Just like how Another Dream was sung from the last trainees to those who were eliminated this is sung from those who got to debut to those who didn’t you know?

O.O.O (Kep1er version)- Baro naya! This song is such a good survival show song. This song was designed to be sung by like 100 people so obviously it has a different vibe sung by only 9 but I think it works. The original is like I’m hopeful I will be able to debut. This one feels more final, they’ve already debuted. They don’t have that hope anymore in the same way. Feels more hopeful for the future.

This album already had 3 songs I loved before it even came out but I have to say I love all 6, and I’m glad that they chose to give a kep1er version of all 3 songs. Anyway I love this album. Kind of went on a bit of a ramble and forgot what I was writing lol

[baconpal]

talkin bout fuckig manga

hey it’s me, haven’t had internet for over a week and i’ve been sick and uni and blah blah blah time for a rant about manga

this time its about  "Soredemo Machi wa Mawatteiru", tl;dr, good manga read it idk

lots of bullshit below the cut

Before anything I say gets too confusing or I go off on an insane tangent, just know my recommendation is that you read "Soredemo Machi wa Mawatteiru". It's not very easy to find online since it has an official English release (which my recommendation extends far enough to suggest I might pick up in the future, just to have it, but I am very stingy), but there's an alright torrent of all the volumes on your local anime torrenting website, and is at the very least worth the trouble of reading as such. There is also an anime that gets better as it goes, but the manga is my primary recommendation. Beyond this point I'm not gonna give much regard to what I write, so get ready for anything, read the manga and see if you agree with me, or don't and see if I care:

BOUT THE ANIME: The SoreMachi anime is one of those rare comedy anime you find where the animation and overall production is just really extra the entire time. Hopefully you know what I mean because I won't really be able to explain it any other way, it's simply one of those shows where the jokes are decent and it's a fun time for the most part. Unfortunately, the anime makes a couple of critical missteps that kept me from getting far into it when I first tried watching it about a year ago, and in retrospect seem even less reasonable.

Starting with the good, as an adaptation it does a good job with most chapters it covers, it properly sources where each chapter comes from incase you intend to read the manga and skip around to catch up, and the anime adapts some sections to have additional jokes that fit very naturally in to the story. It also covers up some of those problems only manga can have like having a concert segment without any actual music involved, until they invent mp3-paper it's just something we'll have to live with. Translation work was pretty good (I watched the [WhyNot] release for those who care), which is extra important for something as difficult to translate as jokes from another language. The set of episodes they chose to end on was very good, and was expanded to be a lot more impactful in the anime. If it wasn't for the last episode being as strong as it was I may have given up on finding the manga when I saw it wasn't super easy to read online.

As for what the anime fails in, some episodes feature some really blatant over-acting that doesn't really help make characters believable, and there's this obnoxious gag that continues the whole where through where most scenes have a few seconds long line from what is essentially a forced mascot character, which usually mean nothing and only serve to harm the pacing of many episodes (there isn't even any sort of equivalent bit in the manga so I really don't know why they did it, most of the anime original jokes are pretty good so I just really don't get it). The biggest issue the anime faces is that the source material is about 140 chapters, while the anime is only able to cover 24 chapters. This comes with a LOT of problems, the first being what I'd call the "required reading". SoreMachi is not a 1-note simple comedy where you can skip to any chapter and be completely okay; There are many small but meaningful subplots lying beneath, and characters have a fair bit of development throughout. What this means for the anime is that the first 3-4 episodes are just the first few chapters of the manga, which are a bit rough and not as good as the majority of the work, which is true of a lot of comics (god fuck I promise there will be more than a first chapter of my comic I promise it'll get better fuck). In terms of the anime by itself, I'd say episode 1 is decent, 2 is middling, and by 3/4 their still taking a while to introduce members of the cast, and I didn't immediately want to finish it. I put the show down for a long time until my internet started dying and I wanted to watch something fun. Slapping it back on at episode 5 I immediately had a great time and watched the rest of the show pretty soon after. While I understand the reasoning behind doing this, the anime does not pay off this structure, as beyond the first few episodes, the chapters start being presented out of release order and out of chronological order, kind of destroying any consistent throughline. This decision in and of itself isn't the worst, since the comic isn't always chronological, and the volume ordering is a bit different from the release ordering, but the inconsistency makes the first few episodes feel lessened without reason. The other large failure that comes with only animating about 1/7th of the entire work is that many themes and concepts that are core to the manga are not represented in the anime well at all. One of the biggest is the rare but unnerving supernatural chapters, of which only one is animated, and not a particularly good one. In order to talk about these themes I'll have to transition into talking about the manga itself, since they aren't part of the anime.

DA MANGA: So one last recommendation that you read the manga, the whole damn thing. Cus we're gettin into themes and character moments that take a long time to pay off, and obviously is all part of my interpretations, so if that stuff means anything to you don't let me ruin it for ya.

The title of the manga is, in essence, the entire manga's "punchline" in that every chapter could meaningfully end with simply the text "And yet the town still turns..." (My translation of the title, fuck "And yet, the town revolves" or "But the town moves"); by this I mean most chapters end in an anti-climax where a mystery is left unsolved, or a mystery is solved and undercut by the realization that life simply keeps on going without much change. This is used to essentially force your eyes open to all possibilities when reading, as the main character spends her time acting like a detective, and these mysteries end up as either misunderstandings, secrets, riddles, and sometimes something out of the ordinary happens that makes you unable to pin anything down firmly. Similarly, these endings aren't always read-and-forget scenarios. Several chapters come back in the form of a continued joke, a continued mystery, or contribute to some greater purpose later. Readers are properly rewarded for keeping everything they can in mind, while also tormenting such people with loose ends.

I enjoy Hotori as a protagonist due to her character being defined not in flaws and strengths, but in mindedness. Hotori seems like a simple "haha she's dumb" character to start, but consistently throughout she proves that her strengths are in memory, observation, and deduction, while lacking in some more common sense and abilities. Her brain works in strange ways that some people may or may not understand, such as her need to think through even the most trivial fictional scenarios, which I relate to deeply.

The art and paneling throughout are wonderful. Ishiguro Masakazu is one of those artists who draws very simple characters, but knows how to use details and depth to breath so much life into the artwork. He also clearly uses the occasional supernatural happenings as an excuse to draw what he loved, as all sorts of artistic depictions of the supernatural come out that simply look satisfying. These parts obviously meant a lot to him since he's been working on a primarily mystery-action manga that has a lot more of that stuff in it. (Also, as hindsight is 20/20, if you've read any of his new work you'll notice that the main character of it is eerily similar to a character who shows up very late in SoreMachi that the author obviously fell in love with, cus she just keeps coming back and even ends up with a really unsettling end to her character arc despite only being introduced as a component in a harmless mystery. Feel free to call me out for the same shit 30 years from now when I'll probably do the same shit)

I'd like to get into some of the major themes of this work, as a lot of them hit very close to my mind (which I guess is true of any theme you recognize for yourself, you wouldn't really "get it" if it didn't mean something to you...).

The simplest theme, again, comes from the title. The main character, Hotori, expresses a desire that the town she lives in continues going on, unchanged forever. This is obviously a fear of change, which ya know, same, but also an exploration of what it means to fear change. Hotori actively tries to keep businesses from closing down, keep friends from leaving, and keep relationships from changing, while simultaneously making all sorts of new relationships and solving mysteries. Hotori even comes to realize that simply learning the truth about something changes the world through your own perspective, and that such changes can't be undone. In spite of this, Hotori mostly gets her wish, any time she fears that a large change will impact the town, its resolved about the same as any other issue. Whether its a message that even time can't keep you from your loved ones and that change isn't worth fearing, or a concession that large changes to the setting would be a bad idea in terms of humor, I can't really decide. This theme reaches it's conclusion in what is one in a series of "ending" kinda chapters at the end of the series. Hotori is faced with a supernatural ethical situation, save her town from destruction at the cost of her existence, or live through the disaster, knowing her town and the people in it will forever be changed. While the actual result is that nobody disappears and nothing is lost, and the event may have simply been a strange dream, Hotori confidently decides that sparing the people in her town from a life altering event is worth giving up her memories with them. A kind of bold spit-in-the-face to the idea that change is okay, where we find that Hotori didn't fear change for herself, but rather for the people around her.

There's another major idea in this manga, which takes a very long time to pay off, and completes its arc at the very very very actual end of the series, the idea of "leading someone to be something". A character that rides that line between main and side character, Shizuka, is a writer of detective novels, who feels the best person to judge her works would be a version of herself without the bias of being the author. She tries to achieve this by leading Hotori to be interested in detective works (including her own) and generally be just like her, starting from a young age. The end result is a young girl dead set on being a detective herself (or at least another novelist), while Shizuka keeps her identity as an author secret. She then uses Hotori as a scapegoat for herself, attempting to see how she would solve various mysteries and use that as inspiration, and this is depicted as though Shizuka were some sort of villain, which she may feel like she is. The end result of it all, though, is that Hotori was likely already a detective-minded person, and that even if Shizuka pushed her down that path, it was Hotori's decision to continue down it, and the very end of the manga is a scene revealing that Hotori figured out Shizuka's secret at some point, and even still respected Shizuka and aspired to reach her, and the two accept each other for who they are. I enjoy this ending a lot, since as an artist I've worried that some of my love or aspirations for and from other artists came with an ulterior motive of wanting a better community for art to exist in, but people are people and will make their own decisions, and some day everyone may be able to become equals in a truly meaningful sense, where everyone is inspired by and guiding each other together.

So that probably didn't mean shit to nobody and I didn't even really talk about anything in the comic like most of the main characters or any of the shit goin on but ya know fuck you go read it, and thanks for reading this.

[pulaasul]

Digimon Adventure Tri – Daisuke and the others? Who are they?

A Digimon Adventure Tri review.

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This review may be a bit late, but I didn’t watch the fifth movie because I was spoiled by a certain plotpoint and tropes and I really detest tropes of that plotpoint. Considering that I opted not to watch the fifth movie, I didn’t watch the sixth movie as well, I may get confused at the chronology of the events.

I had watched Last Evolution Kizuna, the review of which is linked here, thankfully the producers of Kizuna opted to have an original story as opposed to continuing from the plot threads that Tri left hanging over the course of six movies.

With the reason for this review’s lateness out of the way, let’s continue on with the Tri’s review.

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Despite the lateness, I am reviewing  [デジモンアドベンチャーtri - Dejimon Adobenchā] Digimon Adventure Tri

As with some of the movies I had reviewed on my blog, I have an alternative title for Digimon Adventure Tri as a whole.

 デジモンアドベンチャーtri 大輔たちわだれだ？or Dejimon Adobenchā Daisuke-tachi wa dare da?

Digimon Adventure Tri – Daisuke and the others? Who are they?

TL:DR

Tri was an enjoyable watch. If you want more characterization of the OG chosen 8 and their respective Digimon, it’s a definite watch.

If you’re a big fan of the 02 kids, they do acknowledge them, but better not to expect anything on that front to avoid disappointment.

For me, Digimon Adventure Tri as a whole is a 6.8/10 for me.

I love the many things they did here, but both my bias for the 02 kids and the many things happening just left a bad taste in my mouth.

If that doesn’t hint my love for the 02 kids, this is your confirmation XD.

-----------

I’ll start with the movie series’ art style. I still maintain my stance that I do not like the art style they chose for Tri. I will, however, expand on my reasons from the other review.

Tri’s art style is better suited for still images rather than animated. The best suited comparison I can make, and I’m sure a lot of people will protest, but it’s like the Pokemon’s Sun and Moon anime art style.

From what I heard, the new Pokemon art style focuses more on animation detail and flow. Tri’s animation and art style, while a major improvement from the fights seen in Adventure and 02, still come short seeing the ‘derpy faces’ and awkward poses found in the movie.

(Yamato has bulging pecs and it looked like both Taichi and Yamato skipped leg day)

The new art style does make the ENTIRE CAST absurdly attractive from Taichi to Himekawa even down to the background characters who have something unique in their designs despite just being one off characters.

The new art style does lessens the “cartoonish” vibes we got from the first two Adventure seasons of Digimon, so no extra-large heads, hands and/or feet. You could definitely feel that this was an updated version of the previous art style, although taken to extremes.

Although… Jiggle physics are seen on the Digimon.

------------

PLOTWISE...

Having watched the entire movie series, I can definitely understand why the 02 kids were given that treatment. However, there were plenty of instances to incorporate them into the plot organically than what we were shown.  

The overall plot was heart wrenching, it delves into the themes of sacrifice and unchecked grief.

SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT! BE WARNED!!!

We’ll backtrack a bit, I stated above about how the 02 cast could’ve been incorporated into the plot organically than what we were shown.

There were many instances where they could’ve been mentioned by anyone of the cast: the appearance of the Digimon Emperor, Hikari and Takeru checking up on Ken after the Emperor’s appearance, even the instances where they welcome Meiko into the group by encouraging her in times of distress; among other things.

A simple muttering of “where are they?” or “how are they doing?” from anyone, especially from Hikari and Takeru who were a part of the 02 team, would’ve made their exclusion from the main events a bit bearable and understandable.

Them not acknowledging their absence is a very out of character: for Takeru and Hikari, as they were teammates; from Taichi and Yamato as they mentored Daisuke, the former passing the goggle-torch unto him; Mimi and Sora for Miyako; Joe and Koushiro who has commented how reliable Iori was and how his thirst for knowledge was an admirable trait.

all my cons bullet points are my salt towards the 02 kids’ absence lol

In other matters, another thing worthy of criticism, this is for the franchise as a whole, is the fact that there’s a Leomon death inserted in every iteration of Digimon. (01&02 have the original Leomon, Tamers had Juri’s Leomon, Frontier both had Ice Leomon and KaiserLeomon in Kouichi Kimura, Savers had BanchoLeomon.)

Leomon’s death this time around fails to have an impact considering it has become a meme nowadays. Anyone vaguely aware of the franchise would even joke about the Leomon’s screentime before he dies, which was the case in the Tri movies.

There are two events in the Tri movies that didn’t really needed to be there, which really hampered my score for the movie series. First one is how the Mysterious Person, using Young Gennai’s form, to lick Sora’s face.

Another event that didn’t need to happen was how the same Mysterious Person choked Meiko to the point of her losing consciousness, those events IN THE SAME MOVIE really put me in an uncomfortable state, as did a lot of people.

This may be my bias speaking, but I really don’t like how Daigo died in the movie series. I am sure his death potentially served to raise the stakes of the plot, but not really.

The stakes of the plot was already at an all-time high with showing the “deaths” of the 02 kids in the first few minutes of the first movie. It’d raise the stakes even higher HAD THE OG 8 CHOSEN CHILDREN ACKNOWLEDGED THE ABSENCE OF THE 02 KIDS.

Daigo’s death was unnecessary for the stakes were already planted, but they failed to sow those particular seeds hence his death was needed. That and I really love Daigo Nishijima.

Tri could’ve been a rescue movie on top of stopping the apocalypse movie, Meicoomon shenanigans included.

I will admit that learning of Taichi’s supposed death in the tri movies, turned me off from watching the movie series to its completion, back when this was first released. Learning that Daigo, my favorite character, dies in the next one really turned me off from the franchise. Watching it now, I still maintain my stance that he didn’t need to die.

Devimon’s appearance really felt tacked on, he would’ve been a great plot point for Takeru to overcome in the movie, instead we got a few seconds of appearance then nothing. Not even delving into Takeru’s psyche about Devimon’s appearance.

The entire last movie was needlessly dark and that’s says a lot.

-------------

Considering this is a review, no review is complete until you state all the positive things you can say about the movie.

As with the debut season of the franchise, Character interactions are at the forefront of the movie series. In here we learned things about them, including Hikari’s teasing remarks towards Takeru or how Yamato is actually scared of ghost stories.

We also learned that the Teenaged Wolves broke up, due to musical differences as Yamato claimed and formed two new bands. “Knife of Day” and “World of the Knife”. The fact that the characters saying the band names have a Might Guy teeth shine effect on them was incredibly hilarious.

Koushiro being a blushing mess when it comes to Mimi was also great.

The viewers can really see the entire group’s dynamic with each other.

The digimon themselves aren’t just one-note characters. They may act as a foil to their human partners, it doesn’t change the fact that they weren’t one-note compared to what we’ve seen in both Adventure and 02.

Interactions aside, each human character having breakdowns and developing in the movie series was another thing I liked about Tri, tying them to digivolving to ultimate/mega level was a pretty neat idea.

It means that Taichi and Yamato aren’t the sole stars of the Adventure saga now.

Speaking of characters, the new characters in this movie-series [Daigo Nishijima, Maki Himekawa, Meiko Mochizuki] were introduced organically and were pretty great in their roles. The twist that the former two were Chosen Children before Taichi and the others was neat as well.

The three of them performed their roles pretty well: Daigo being a shady mentor, who’s loyalty is divided between his student and his work; Meiko being the new kid on the block really helped establish how out of place she really is, it does help that Mimi was incredibly welcoming towards her; Maki’s unchecked grief led her to taking drastic steps just to be reunited with her partner digimon, kickstarting the whole plot of Tri.

[I have a theory that Daisuke and the others were reporting to Maki, once she learned that they were aware of Yggdrasil’s plans, she led them to a trap that was when they were one-shotted by Alphamon.]

We go back to Leomon. It was nice to see a familiar face. Even his scenes were hilarious and awesome. Him being able to stave off the infection from various points in the movie he was in was also great. It makes sense in character as he does have incredible will power, going back to the Adventure days when he was possessed by Devimon’s black gears.

I also appreciate that the boys and girls had equal opportunities at being the eye candy. The boys were the eye candies during their time in the hot springs, while Mimi and Meiko had their chance as eye candies during the school festival.

Last and certainly not the least, were the new arrangements of the Original Sound Track of the Digimon Adventure themes from Butter-fly to Brave Heart’s orchestral version. They’re simply that good to listen in a loop.

-------------

As for suggestions, I have a few. This is constructive criticism after all.

Acknowledge the absence of the 02 cast.

Explain why they were absent in the first place, or at least what the characters think why they were absent.

From vacation abroad

On Yacht

Even visiting people out of Tokyo would also work

Both Leomon and Daigo didn’t need to die. Mortally wounded characters are fine, makes us think they’re dead for a few minutes to delve into character development, as was the case for Taichi and Hikari.

Make the 02 kids’ lives as stakes in the plot.

Cut back on the flashback images.

Exposition is also good, even Taichi voicing out his hesitance would’ve made for a great character moment, instead of just glaring at the enemy.

D.R Gennai shouldn’t have licked Sora. That event really didn’t need to happen.

D.R Gennai should’ve just let Meiko bleed to the point of unconsciousness instead of choking her as he taunts Meicoomon to fear and give in to her infections.

Devimon should’ve been an earlier opponent that was later reused in the ending movie to show how much Takeru has grown add in digivolving to Seraphimon.

A video file of Daisuke’s and the others’ defeat at the hands of Alphamon should’ve been viewed after the reboot happened, that would’ve raised the stakes higher.

Daisuke and the others should’ve joined the last fight in the last movie. Escaping from the hospital through their Digimon before collapsing at the very end.

I have no problem with Daigo’s partner becoming Baihumon. I think it’d been better had it been Azulongmon, considering he was the goggle head during his time and thus the leader of his group.

We know that Azulongmon is the leader of the Four Digimon Soverigns.

I think it’d come full circle had Daigo been partnered with Azulongmon.

I think the movie would then end with everyone visiting Daisuke and the others, Meiko included, introducing her to them.

Overall, I give the movie series a 6.8 out of 10 rating. It was a good watch, but the plot fell once they delved into darker themes and darker events for the sake of being dark and without substance. There were a couple of events that didn’t need to happen but happened for the sake of being dark.

Daigo’s death was certainly one of those events. The stakes could’ve been raised higher had the 02 kids were integrated into the plot and not just relegated into glorified silhouette cameos.

These suggestions would still run the course of the plot we got in Tri, but it would’ve flowed the plot organically and didn’t go dark for the sake of being dark.

I wanted to be generous with my rating, but it just won’t do. Even my bullet points review had more Cons than Pros. Factor in my bias for the 02 kids, and you get a 6.8 rating.

[errgative]

Japanese Pitch Accent: Explained

Hi guys! Today I’m going to talk about a topic that is often intimidating to beginners: the Japanese pitch-accent system. No linguistics or Japanese knowledge is needed to understand this post, and by the end, hopefully you will see that the basics of pitch-accent are not so confusing after all! I’ve also included other resources at the bottom of the post if you’re interested :).

What is pitch-accent? 

In English, words are accented by stressing a certain syllable. For example, the words dessert and desert are pronounced almost the same way, but one is DEsert and the other is dessERT. This type of accent appears in other European languages as well (for example, Spanish “esta” vs. “está”).

Japanese also has an accent system, but rather than being a stress-accent system, like in English, it has a pitch-accent. This means that rather than being stressed or unstressed, mora (you can think of these like syllables) have a high or low pitch. 

Examples (high mora bolded): 

gakusei (student)

getsuyoubi (monday)

tenisu (tennis)

Once a word has gone from a high mora to a low mora, it cannot go back up. The final high mora before it goes up is the accented mora or the downstep - hence the term “pitch-accent,” which signifies an accent denoted by pitch.

Why is it important?

To realize why it’s important to pay some attention to pitch-accent, think about the analogous system in English (or your native language if it has an accent system). If you went to a restaurant with someone and they said “I want to order DEssert” you’d probably understand from context that they meant a sweet food eaten after a meal, not a hot, sandy plain, but it would sound strange. If they did something similar with many words, you could understand them, but they’d have a definite non-native accent. 

Similarly, if you learn Japanese without knowing anything about pitch-accent, it will be difficult to develop a native-like accent. Obviously if your goals don’t include accent, then pitch-accent doesn’t matter. However, I think most people would like to at least have a good accent, if not a completely native one. The degree to which you care about sounding “native” will impact how much you study pitch accent. Personally, I make sure to learn the pitch pattern of new vocab when I study them and make an effort to use the correct pitch when speaking, but since pronunciation isn’t my main focus, I don’t worry too much if I mess up.

The main pitch accent patterns and some helpful tips

Japanese has four main pitch-accent patterns. Before we start, you should know that for words that take a particle, the pitch of the particle matters to the pitch-pattern of the word. Also, in dictionaries, words are glossed with the pitch-pattern as a number, like 0, 2, or 4. The number represents the downstep syllable. If this doesn’t make sense yet, don’t worry - you’ll be more comfortable with it once we learn the patterns and go through some examples.

1. Heiban (平板)

This is the most common pitch-accent pattern. Heiban words follow an LH...(H) pattern - the first mora is low, and all subsequent mora, including a particle if there is one, are high. Example: gakusei ga. Since all heiban words have no downstep, they are marked with a 0.

2. Atamadaka (頭高)

Atamadaka words follow the pattern HL...(L) - the first mora is higher than all the rest, including the particle if there is one. Example: umi. Since the downstep of an atamadaka word is always on the first mora, they are marked with a 1. 

3. Nakadaka (中高)

Nakadaka words have the pattern LH...L...(L). They start low, go high on the second mora, and come back down at some point within the word. Any particles following are low. Examples: atsui, kudamono, daigakusei, getsuyoubi. In this case, since the downstep mora varies from word to word, words are simply marked with the number of their downstep syllable. So atsui would be 2 and getsuyoubi would be 3. 

Note: When reading the above examples, you might have wondered: why does daigakusei, which is clearly a compound of gakusei, have a different pitch pattern? The answer is that compounds often (but not always) follow the nakadaka pattern, with the downstep being the first mora of the last element of the compound. So daigakusei = dai+gakusei has its downstep on “ga.”

4. Odaka (尾高)

Odaka words have the pattern LH...(L). They start low, go high on the second mora, and stay high until the particle, where they drop again. This pattern is the reason why you need to pay attention to the pitch of particles: it is the only thing that distinguishes odaka from heiban. Odaka words, since the downstep is on the last syllable, are marked with the number of the last syllable. Examples: hana (2) wa, otoko (3) ga.

Resources for further study

If you just want to find the pitch-accent pattern of a sentence, OJAD’s Suzuki-Ku is the way to go. However, finding in-depth guides to pitch-accent is difficult.

Dogen has a great series on Japanese phonetics that includes a lot on pitch-accent, but you do need to be a $10 patreon subscriber to unlock it. The first video is here and is available publicly.

Other resources include:

Imabi (also a great resource for in-depth grammar of any kind)

Japanese Accent Study Website

Anki Pitch Add-On

Tofugu includes a little information in their pronunciation guide

Entirely In Japanese (I can’t read this LOL)

JapanesePod101 (only available to subscribers :((( )

Forvo (hear things pronounced by native speakers - works for any lang)

Wanikani “Pitch-Accent Awareness Corner”

And that’s it!! Good job for making it to the end of this loooong post, and feel free to reblog with your favorite pitch-accent resources and study tips!!

[nageki-yuki-blog]

TsukiPara Drama - Chapter 9 Translation

[This chapter is about Procella and Gravi deciding what to do for their joint live.  Read more under the cut~]

9章 – Chapter 9

合同LIVE決定です！

A joint live has been decided!

1話 – Part 1

月城さんから大事な話があると言われたんたが

Tsukishiro-san said that there’s something important we need to talk about but.

Hajime:  …...Tsukishiro-san said that there’s something important we need to talk about but.

 Haru:  I wonder what it is?

 Aoi:  …...Oh!

 Kai:  Hey! Good work you guys!

 Shun:  Yo, Hajime. And everyone in Six Gravity.

 Kakeru:  It’s the appearance of team Procella.

 Hajime:  …...Which means, you’re gathering here because Kurotsuki-san told you he needed to talk about “something important” too?

 Shun:  That’s right ♪  It seems that something will be happening with the combination of Procella and Gravi, right?

 Kai:  I wonder what it is~.  First of all, this has certainly made things more lively.

 Haru:  There is no doubt about that.

 Yoru:  If it involves the union of us, it must be something like a large-scale plan or an event. Hmm, I wonder what…...

 You:  I don’t really understand what’s going on but, for the time being we can’t lose to Gravi.

 Yoru:  It’s as expected that even in unknown circumstances, you still hate losing.

 Yoru:  In the first place, we don’t even know if it will be a contest you know?

 Koi:  We won’t lose either~!?  …...I don’t know what will happen though.

 Haru:  Yeah yeah, it’s great that you are feeling motivated.

 Kai:  That’s for sure~

 Rui:  …...In the end, the managers are in charge.

 Iku:  That’s right! I wonder what it is.  It’s exciting isn’t it, Rui.

 Rui:  Yeah.

 Kurotsuki:  Hey! You guys are all properly gathered here!

 Kakeru:  Kurotsuki-san!  Tsukishiro-san!

 Tsukishiro:  Everyone, thank you for taking time out of your busy schedules to gather here.

 You:  That’s completely fine with us.  So? So?  Kanade-chan, Dai-chan.  What is the “important matter”?

 You:  If you don’t tell us quickly, Yoru will start spinning in circles from thinking about bad stuff again.

 Yoru:  Wa-Wait a sec!  You! To go that far…...well I might actually do that but.

 Koi:  So you’re going to do that.

 Kurotsuki:  Hahaha! He’s in trouble!  Well, you don’t have to worry.  I didn’t come here to deliver any bad news.

 Arata:  So it’s not bad news…….  That means, it’s good news?  Tsukishiro-san.

 Tsukishiro:  That’s right. The truth is…...

 Aoi:  The truth is……?

 (To be Continued)

2話 – Part 2

確かにそれはグッドニュース

That is certainly good news.

Tsukishiro:  This time, a joint live with Six Gravity and Procellarum has been decided.

 Haru:  So it’s a joint live!

 Arata:  Oh, that is certainly good news.  Yay-.  I love lives~ ♪

 Rui:  I love them too.  There are so many songs, it’s wonderful.  Ikkun, let’s do our best?

 Iku:  Yeah, let’s do our best!

 Tsukishiro:  Furthermore, the venue is the “Tsukino Super Arena”.

 Kakeru:  Tsukino Super Arena!?  Wow! That’s awesome!

 Koi:  That’s a really big stage isn’t it~!

 Shun:  This is certainly our “big moment”.  And it will be starring both Procella and Gravi.  Hehehe, I am thrilled.

 Hajime:  That’s right. But, why did they decide to do it now? We don’t even have any time to produce a new record.

 Kai:  Oh, I guess you’re right.

 Tsukishiro:  Hehehe, we are talking about an app.  Everyone, have you been playing “Tsukino Paradise”?

 Kai:  Ye-s. We all downloaded it together, and have been playing it.

 Iku:  I’ve also been playing it, even though it has just been in the free time I have between work and school!

 Rui:  I’ve also been silently* playing it.

[*meaning without talking]

 Iku:  I think it’s something that you normally play silently, you know?

 Koi:  Music games, are really fun~.  I got really into it as a normal user ♪  See!

 Aoi:  Woah! Koi, you’re already getting those kinds of scores?  You’ve really been playing it…...

 Hajime:  Koi…… Getting into it is fine but, if you skip studying for your tests this time…...

 Koi:  Ahahahahaha, that wouldn’t be good, Hajime-san, it’s fine.  It’s completely fine!

 You:  I sense that it’s not going to be fine.

 Yoru:  Yeah, I sense that.

 Haru:  It would be great if Koi could use his ability to concentrate and skill that he has when he is playing games for his studying too though?

 Koi:  I personally, believe that is true from the bottom of my heart.

 Iku:  So you think so too!

 Kurotsuki:  Hahaha! Well, everyone.  Let’s leave it at that.  Since it seems like Koi isn’t the only one that has gotten absorbed in the game.

 Haru:  …...And, who would that be?

 Tsukishiro:  It is a great privilege to say this but, it seems that “Tsukipara” has a lot of users who enjoy it.

 Tsukishiro:  Of course our fans from the beginning would enjoy it, but there are also fans who are hearing Tsukipro’s music for the first time in this game.

 Tsukishiro:  The voices of the fans who have fun playing the game have reached the company office.

 Kai:  Oh!  We did it!  Whatever way the fans tell us, as long as people are interested in us, then I’m happy.

 Yoru:  Yes, that’s right!

 Tsukishiro:  By the way, these kinds of voices are being delivered to us…… Take a look.

 (To be Continued)

3話 – Part 3

ツキパラLIVEフェスティバル！！

Tsukipara Live Festival!!

Arata:  Oooh~. There are various kinds of messages. Let me see what we have here? Arata-kun, you are cool. Arata-kun, I love you.  This is embarrassing~

 Aoi:  That’s not written.  That’s not written anywhere.

 Rui:  I’m glad that people are having fun with the game.

 Yoru:  Hehehe…… Definitely.

 Kurotsuki:  That is why, this joint live, will not be just an ordinary live.

 Kurotsuki:  We want to do this event for the fans of Procella and Gravi as usual, but also for the fans of “Tsukipara”.

 Tsukishiro:  It’s a plan that the Tsukino company president thought of.  We are calling it...

 Kurotsuki & Tsukishiro:  Tsukipara Live Festival!!

 Kakeru & Koi:  Tsukipara Live Festival…!

 Iku:  Oh~!

 Aoi:  Sounds like fun.

 Arata:  The name is a little difficult to say.

 You:  Yeah it is.

 Yoru:  Come on you guys.

 Shun:  Hehehe, they are excited.  However……, Dai?

 Shun:  Since we’re going through the effort of presenting this to the “Tsukipara” fans…… That must mean that, this isn’t going to be just a normal live right?

 Kurotsuki:  Well, that’s right!

 Rui:  What do you mean?

 Kurotsuki:  The president says he wants to organize it to be coordinated with “Tsukipara”.

 Hajime:  I see… So we’ll organize it to be coordinated along with the game, huh.

 Kai:  Both a game and a live huh~.  This sounds really interesting!

 Arata:  I guess it’s okay if we try to do something different from the usual lives?

 Kakeru:  I wonder what will happen~!

 Tsukishiro:  By the way, a definite plan is still not certain so we’re in the middle of coming up with good ideas.

 (To be Continued)

4話 – Part 4

「三人寄れば文殊の知恵」って言うだろう？

Isn’t the saying “two heads are better than one”?

Rui:  …...Are you sure it’s okay if we decide what happens?

 Tsukishiro:  Whether we use it or not depends on what the idea is though.

 Tsukishiro:  I think we should borrow everyone’s wisdom, so we can create a new form of live.

 Aoi:  I see…… So that’s why, you had us all gather here together like this.

 Kurotsuki:  Yeah. Isn’t the saying “two heads are better than one”?  With 12 people gathered, I was thinking we should have quadruple the amount of ideas!

 You:  Dai-chan, don’t put it so simply~

 Yoru:  Although, thinking of new ideas together sounds like fun.  Let’s do our best and try to think of some?

 You:  Okay, understo-od.

 Shun:  Well then…… Does anyone have any ideas?

 Koi:  Hmm~, since we’re going through all the trouble to do a collaboration with the game, I want it to be fun and have a really flashy feel!

 Hajime:  To come up with an idea, is very abstract.

 Haru:  I can understand the feeling though?

 Arata:  Something like trying to act like we are in the game when we appear?

 Koi:  Yeah yeah, something like that!

 Kakeru:  Ah, if that’s the case, why don’t we make the entire arena appear as if it’s in the game?

 Rui:  Hmm-mmm. So when we are on stage, we will also be inside the game?

 Kakeru:  Yeah! And then…...

 Shun:  Hmm, that sounds good, Kai.  Seeing the image of us becoming harmonious with our beloved children, would be very calming don’t you think?

 Kai:  Yeah yeah. I agree that it would be calming but, you guys should try to think of something too.

 Shun:  Okay.

 Haru:  Making the entire venue, look like the inside of the game…….  Hehehe, that certainly sounds interesting.

 Hajime:  Other than singing, dancing, and the talk parts, I want to add something else.

 Yoru:  That’s true…….  By the way, what are we going to sing in the live?  Is the music already decided?

 Tsukishiro:  If at all possible, I think we should include what you guys want in the music setlist.

 Koi:  Oh! Okay oka-y!  Then I want to do, “Datte Mada Mada Avant Title”!

 Kakeru:  That song is really exciting isn’t it~

 You:  Hey Yoru, if Koi and him are doing a duet song we should do something too?

 Yoru:  That’s true. If you want something exciting, I guess we should sing “DA✩KAI”?

 You:  Instead of just being exciting, we could also show our adult charm with “Awai Hana”.

 Haru:  Rather than that, how about we sing all of the duet songs in a medley?

 (To be Continued)

5話 – Part 5

歌もダンスも気合を入れて練習していくぞ

Let’s give it our all for our songs and dances.

Kai:  Oh, that would be great!  That somehow seems like it would be a huge bargain.

 Hajime:  If we’re going to heat up the venue with the various duet songs, then I want to do “GRAVITIC-LOVE”.

 Aoi:  With the unit songs, our charm will increase just as much as the amount of people there right?

 Arata:  Dancing all together feels good too, and it also looks cool.  Alright, Aoi, let’s work hard at our practice~

 Aoi:  Okay!

 Tsukishiro:  Understood. So we will be doing a duet song medley and… we will add “GRAVITIC-LOVE” to the setlist.

 Shun:  Then Procella will charm the venue with “LOLV -Lots of Love-”.

 Kai:  Oh yeah! That’s great-, we’ll be able to show our true worth!

 Rui:  I love that song because it has a lot of impact, and it is cool.

 Kurotsuki:  Alright! Let’s give a great performance of “LOLV -Lots of Love-”!

 You:  You can leave it to us, Dai-chan ♪

 Hajime:  Since our goal for the live has been decided, let’s give it our all for our songs and dances.

 Iku:  Yes!  I will work even harder than I usually do!

 Rui:  …...Yeah! Me too!

 Shun:  Hehehe……. Seeing Ikkun and Rui do their best, gives me such a pleasant feeling.

 Koi:  After that, if we can make it look like we are linked to the game, it would be an even better plan!

 Kakeru:  I wonder what would be good~?

 Everyone:  ………...

 Everyone:  ………...

 Everyone:  ………...

 Rui:  This is quite…...difficult.

 Shun:  Well then, I have an idea- ✩

 Hajime:  Shun, have you thought of something?

 Shun:  Yes. Although it is something quite simple~?

 Kai:  Oh?

 Shun:  First, I will display a magic square on the screen!

 Everyone:  Rejected.

 Shun:  I haven’t even said everything yet, you rejected it so fast-.

 Kai:  We don’t have to listen to the whole thing!  As soon as you said the words magic square it was rejected!  Rejected!

 Shun:  Huh. Even though, I could do something amazing, if I tried?

 You:  We don’t need anything else appearing!  We already have enough crazy things in the dorm!

 Rui:  Like the mysterious living box Diablo, who makes the world explode* if opened.

[*I’m not sure about this translation.  Rui says the world will go “pa-n” but I can’t figure out exactly what the sound means.]

 Kurotsuki:  I didn’t hear anything-.  I didn’t hear anything-.

 Haru:  A-Ahahaha.   …… It’s just like Shun to come up with that idea though?

 Tsukishiro:  It’s okay. There’s no need to get so seriously worried.

 Kurotsuki:  That’s right. It’s certainly true that the most important thing at a live is for the audience to enjoy themselves but…...

 Kurotsuki:  To the same extent, it is also important that you guys enjoy yourselves!

 Tsukishiro:  What Kurotsuki says is right.  If you guys are having fun, then that feeling will definitely be passed onto everyone else.

 Tsukishiro:  It’s not that we want you to decide anything immediately right here right now.  There is still time, so take your time and think of some more ideas.

 Kurotsuki:  Me and Tsukishiro, we’ll help with anything we can!  Feel free to ask us for anything.

 Hajime:  Yes. We will.

 Haru:  Well then, why don’t we split up for now, and then discuss this again another day?

 Kakeru:  Oka-y!

 Iku:  Understood!

 Shun:  …...Well, if we just can’t decide on anything, it will be best if we used my fantastic, unrivaled idea ✩

 Kai:  Okay, everyone, really!  Seriously! Let’s think of something-!

 Everyone:  Okay-!!!

 ~END~

[I now have more time for translating again since Halloween is over~ I had to sew Halloween costumes for myself and someone else so my free time had been used up by that for a while. XD]

[I still have to catch up on a lot of schoolwork but I’m going to try to rush and get some more chapters done.  I hope to at least finish all the Tsukiuta dramas and start working on the other unit dramas while Proani is still airing.]

[ryodan]

Sasuke and SASUSAKU.

Okay, I just saw this and I’ll humor you. I’ll even make a whole post for you.

@homez18

1)      Whether  Kishimoto said he was good or bad at writing romance is pretty irrelevant here as sasusaku related material made it into 44 of his 72 volumes. And actually, he never said he is bad at writing romance, he said he felt uncomfortable seeing characters he ‘grew’ kiss (Hinata and Naruto) and that he does not understand the hearts of women so he had to consult his editor and wife to write certain SS scenes, which in itself is effort spent. He never said ‘Idk how they got together’ he said he wrote the story with them in the back of his mind wondering how he would make them end up together and just decided to go with the flow.  This is coming from the man who also said in the second board meeting with the Naruto staff that they were end game since their conception as character #5 and #6 respectively, a rival and a heroine added to the story and he thought of making a love triangle thing happen but was like no I probably could not pull that off. So, there goes that argument.

2)      I will mention part 2 ss if you want me to, friend. But, saying SS does not make sense to the character (who I am assuming is sasuke?) and trying to erase part 1 is pretty???? Because a lot of part 2 was focused on getting the Sasuke they loved in part 1 back..a happier more emotionally stable one though.

3)      Part 1 SS is very important because it is the time during the run of the series that featured the most  positive emotional growth and development for sasuke, and a huge part of it was linked to sakura. We start off with this irritable, socially reclusive boy who’s first thought in the series is ‘more people will just drag me down’, and we later learn the reason of this behavior is trauma and survivors guilt which often leads to isolation, repression and irritability. This is not me trying to add psychology to his character arc, all of this is out right shown multiple times on spaced out occasions which reinforces that these are reoccurring thoughts. His fixation on his ‘revenge plot’ was aided by the fact that he was an introverted shy boy (this does not equal wants to be left alone considering he regularly sought acknowledgment) pre massacre and a full blown out isolated mess afterwards. Being alone only allowed him to obsess over revenge further, which no matter how you look at it is not healthy and it was never shown in the series to be healthy.

But anyways, I digress. A lot of him growing positively linked to Sakura. Some of his biggest part 1 moments include fighting orochimaru, awakening his seal and suppressing it (the cursed seal is arguably one  of  the biggest progressions of his character in part 1 as it leads to him being manipulated into leaving the village) and his fight with gara (again, arguably the moment he showed how much he grew as a character with team 7)

4)      Don’t forget. The Curse of Hatred (憎しみの呪い, Nikushimi no Noroi) was an ideal common to the Uchiha Clan, the Uchiha are people greatly devoted to love and friendship, yet they tend to conceal their more affectionate traits. When the object of their affection is lost, an Uchiha’s love can instantaneously turn into hatred, leaving them more inclined to do anything and everything in their power to achieve their goals and show their own superiority, regardless of the consequences and repercussions of their actions. The despair of these experiences cause a manifestation of unique chakra within an Uchiha’s brain, impacting the optic nerves and creating the sharingan. This also requires extremely painful experiences, which cause the user to delve into darkness that utterly consumes them.

I won’t bring this up

                        Because this also happens

What I am trying to say is early part one gave a very good set up for who sasuke really is as a person, genuinely pretty empathetic and pure hearted which is easily backed up by the fact that when he was a kid (kishi regularly uses childhood to explain a psyche of a character) despite his inferiority complex growing due to his brother, he was still more concerned with the relationship between his dad and his brother going sour than his own feelings of neglect.

Even so, it was still obvious that he needed to go through some positive development.

The first time we are introduced to Sasuke’s stance in the entire series as an avenger is through his first interactions with sakura, which were literally given romantic context from volume 1 and mentioned again over the entire series and highlighted nearing the finale in volume 70, so yeah pretty relevant.

His isolation and irritability generally made him seem off standoffish but even with that, he took his time out to explain his stance in the story which is a pretty fuckin big deal considering this opening up is something suigetsu complains about in part 2 and jugo struggles to understand him because of. Naruto has to physically pull it out of him, kakashi got it when sasuke was in a very emotionally volatile state and sakura got it with a hug.

Cut to the first mission and his ties with naruto and sakura are established , the rival friend and the girl with the crush he feels some sort of protective affection for.

Moments like these (that make grown ass men cry but get antis panties in a knot) are funny bc when you say that he is comfortable with her touch already someone has to say he just woke up, but homeboy had a bunch of senbon sticking into him like a hedgehog and he still took a moment to call naruto a moron and say he did not want to die before accomplishing revenge.

 So, until this day the person he is most physically comfortable with sakura and we all know how he feels about physical touch haha

After said mission, a very sweet and important scene happens and it highlights a shift in character for sasuke. It’s also the scene my avid sasuke hater friend says ‘the only time that dick did anything nice’. Where after he has a lil salty moment with a naruto who was acting particularly bratty that day gives Sakura the ‘instead of minding me why don’t you practice a jutsu? To be frank with you, your abilities are even less than naruto’s.’ which if after the guy readily jumped in front an attack to protect her you think he is going out of his way to be a dick then that is a pretty faulty assumption. He was being frank, it is what it is. Was it needed to make sakura realize her ass needs to grow up? Yes. Could it have been worded better? Also, yes. Which is why the next scene happens where Sasuke grows more in tune with her and is able to tell she is feeling down. Him being aware of and caring about her personal feelings is a huge step forward  for his character and is pretty much the only time this type of behavior exists from him.

He is being nice, says a huge compliment and look at his little smile, he is satisfied that she is happy. A huge step forward from ‘I don’t care for bonds bc I have revenge!!11!!’

The fight vs rock lee happens and sasuke grows a little more and team 7 has a scene furthering their bonds (added romantic context on sakuras part ofc)

During the chuunin exams ofc they face orochimaru and sasuke over comes something shown right in the beginning of the land of the waves arc : an intense paralyzing fear of strong  opponents with an intense blood lust dating back to the day of the massacre.

 He sees Sakura shaking and his sharingan activates, showing he is worried about her and as they are about to get attacked he forces himself to move (ugoke!) and stabs himself to go get her. Cute moment showing he cares. A lot.

And yet again a huge character moment, when she calls him out on being a coward and for his hypocrisy towards naruto, insulting him frequently yet in the same position naruto was once in and in his mind he immediately flashes  back to the reason he always believed he needed to live : his ‘moral burden’ of killing itachi and for the first time refuses to live tied by the ‘rules’ itachi made for him and over comes that fear and fights. She talk no jutsued sasuke lol

And ofc he gets bitten and seeks physical comfort from her. he initiated that contact with her meaning her presence is comforting to him, a big deal in a moment of such intense agony.

And then the iconic hug scene, where his survivor guilt is shown in his nightmares and his intense feelings of hating himself for not being able to protect him family causing his curse mark to act up and when he wakes up to see sakura hurt, the mark and by extension sasuke under it’s influence heating him up go out of control. (but even then when she expresses worry over him he takes time out to explain his major stance in the entire story yet again, even if I abandon myself to evil on my path I must obtain power)

‘Sakura, iie! omae o kizutsuke ta no wa doidsu da?’

‘Sakura, tell me! Which of them hurt you?’ chosen in the databook by kishi and readers as one of the best scenes because it shows ‘she is now a person he wants to protect and how angry he would get at himself if he could not do it’

Again quoting the databook, Sakuras heart thinking of sasuke devours the wicked power.

And even after this is over homeboy watches over her getting her hair cut, is like ?? at Naruto when he asks about her hair instead of her beat up face. After this, they really became much closer and more in sync, even working together and show casing that they can strategize together.

His resolve of avenging his families death doesn’t magically disappear however and he is still focused on getting stronger hence the little conversation they have, where sakura is worried about him in pain and starts crying, sasuke sees this and is disturbed so he yet again explains his stance in the story to her but funnily enough singles her out (ikura omae demo) as a very special person and says he won’t forgive even her if she takes that away from him. Inside the fight he is sustained by his wet dream (joke)  and the cheer he got from the annoying orange and is able to suppress the curse once again thinking about (his crying fetish) her tears.

And then god damn, they are on a roll here bc the fight with gara happens and sakura jumps in to protect him from a lethal blow and if what happened previously wasn’t enough of an emphasized thing, the love in sakuras eyes #triggers  gara.

And Sasuke gives his little speech telling naruto to save her and essentially that he is about to go off on a suicide mission and knows it’ll probably end here but he is ready to do it because he is not willing to see another precious person to him die right in front of him again. Mind you, this is after he shows again the intensity of his survivor guilt straight up saying the only reason he was ‘allowed to live’ was to carry the moral burden of avenging his clan but at this moment in time the pain of losing someone that precious to him is enough to make him consciously decide he is willing to die and leave all of that behind. This is the biggest difference between this and those scenes in the land of waves arc. Back then, it was show casing his empathy and kindness, my body moves on it’s own and even though I could die and not accomplish my goals which I really want to I cant just let a comrade die in front of me, where as now it’s I know I probably won’t come out of this but then pain of dying and not accomplishing my goals seem less than seeing another person I care so much about die right in front me. Seeing this, naruto realizes the importance of caring and fighting for the people you love and fights gara, teaching him the same values. Important scene overall to the story.

After seeing  naruto go up to par with gara and ‘realizing how helpless’ he was in that fight he was pretty jealous due to feelings of inferiority to naruto, and that jealousy was  partly fueled and thrown in our face twice by seeing sakura smile gently at naruto. Romantic or not, he is jealous of her smiling at naruto, that is undeniable.

And then itachi happens, and that reawakens his intense resolve. It doesn’t help the fact that orochimaru sought him out while extremely emotionally vulnerable. Ofc his petty ass attitude in the hospital scenes was fueled by his feelings of inferiority thrown in his face by the one person he really did not want that from, the same person who made him feel inferior as a child. And again to add heat to the burn, he remembers the smile and the plate thing happens.I see a lot of anti sasuke people talking about his scene pretending that when i say inferiority complex while talking about sasuke i mean something stemming from lack of acknowledgment from his dad, from being weaker than itachi and not able to protect his family, for having itachi be like i am here for naruto idc about you after everything. Not, oh man naruto seems better than me :/ gotta start shit :/

Oh right the hug when he wakes up. Again, people claim he was tired and traumatized, which he was, But the look he gave her for caring about him so much was very tender and it did not go unnoticed to nardo.

He ofc gets manipulated by the sound 4 and we are shown how emotionally attached he is to team 7

And the confession scene happens where sakura just desperately gives him promise after promise of making him happy and it isn’t just because she wants him there but also she doesn’t want to see her loved one torment and hurt himself over revenge, but it is more than revenge to sasuke it’s a moral burden, (he has a right to want to avenge his family from their murderer from a moral stand point) and that is what he kept trying to communicate to both her and kakashi. He doesn’t allow her to come because just as we saw with team taka, he isn’t willing to let anyone shoulder what he believes to be his personal pain and burden, specially not someone so special. And when she cries over him leaving and the fact that she believed for a second that he doesn’t care and forgot all of their meaningful interactions he turns around and says annoying, but with a smile this time.

That thank you meant a lot, man. It was not just a thank you for saying I love you.

Sasuke fights naruto to obtain the mangekyo by killing his best friend but then realizes last moment that he being manipulated by his brother and snaps out of it, refusing to kill such a close person.

Sasuke’s encounter with team 7 early part was pretty significant in developing naruto and sakuras friendship as 2 comrades who share the pain of their dear friend gone from their lives, but it also explains sasukes psychological point of view. After having his resolved awakened to a point of obsession again and realizing that there was a time in his life where he cared about other people to the point of giving up that goal, he decides to cut off his bonds with them.

The ‘attack’ on naruto was again for the mangekyo, and sakuras ass would have come out unscathed if she didn’t go all ‘gotta stop this hoe he out here hurting my pals’  but he was hurting her pals and stabbing people ofc she wouldn’t be like yas baby go. He pulls out his sword in defense but yamato ends up getting stabbed, my poor wood boy.

Sasuke takes down orochimaru because in  his constructed moral everything that relates to itachi is bad and senseless killing and torturing( at that time) registered in his head as an itachi thing, which only made his already strong moral code tingle with a strong feeling of ‘im going to take you down you sick son of a bitch, and ill make a bible reference while I am at it’

The lil hawk takes flight and assembles Taka, showing again, a strong moral sense when he says he isn’t going to take anyone by force and he even sets orochimarus captives free. Sasuke is shown to care for Takas safety on multiple occasions but it’s the biggest insult his character receives when people look at him with fan goggles to monopolize him as if he is a cold hearted sadist who only cares for a few people when he is a very selfless, empathetic person. On a personal level though, he did not know their last names, nor did he ask about their history as captives (except for jugo..for obv reasons) so I would not exactly call that emotional investment. But I do think something was there, like they were a hella good team in combat. However,they noticed him going ‘dark’ and never tried to help or stop him so I cant call it a friendship, but I can’t deny it was a team.

After the fight with itachi he is again very emotionally vulnerable and obito hops on his dick to manipulate him, and it works significantly well because sasuke ends up seeing the ENTIRE leaf village as responsible for killing his family after they discriminated against them, and while that might be a wrong train of thought since most people in Konoha are innocent (ten tens worst crime is how little screen time that cutie has), in his now much more jaded, cynical mind it makes a whole lot of sense since it now seems like konoha killed them for their personal benefit and are dancing on their uchiha graves by pretending it never happened and that they never placed the burden of an entire world war on his brothers shoulders.  Everyone is guilty. Everyone is laughing at their deaths. I am a little unstable. I am also a victim. Not to say he isn’t held accountable for his actions because he is a victim but a lot of his character arc and decisions make sense and tie in with his suffering …people going ‘bad’ because of their victimhood is not a new concept you see it with bullies all the time and that is why its important to grasp the situation by the balls and end the circumstance that creates such victims. He also awakens his mangekyo sharingan, meaning he is slowly stepping further into the curse of hatred.

They go to retrieve bee and its shown that he has yet to lose all logical moral reasoning because he still cares for takas safety even though he has declared to crush the leaf, meaning he hates only the leaf atm..all of his concentrated itachi hatred redirected. But he falls a little morally when he captures innocent ass bee and attacks the cloud. That shit was uncalled for, but he was trying to further his plans. I mean suna attacked konoha and its all good in the hood so we could chill. But it wasn’t right.

Ofc however during the bee arc sasuke uses his power that is obtainable through an emotionally driven doujutsu by having an image of team 7 on his mind as he was made to remember when he sees people showing genuine care about him. No matter how far he slipped, seven was always there. Right there, in part 2. The only time sasuke remembers team  7 in a positive light (otherwise he just wants to kill naruto because he stands in the way of his plans) includes sakura and kakashi. You cant argue he doesn’t care cause???

In the 5 kage summit arc a new falling rapidly into the curse of hatred sasuke makes the leap in logic that if his brother who he saw as a good person now, and Konoha which he previously thought to be good could kill on multiple occasions then killing is no longer an off the table option anymore and he warns those samurai before doing the doodly do. He is a bit out of character here, but his change in mind set made him 180. Its an interesting shift in character for a kid whos empathy and moral high ground kept him on the fence of killing in a series where a teacher tells 12 year old kids to come at him with the intent if killing. He seeks out danzo and this is where his motives and pain come into full display  ‘sono migiude teni ireru tameni nanin no uchiha o teni kaketa?’ ‘how many uchihas did you take down in order to get that right arm’

His driving force for his emotions and suffering are lost bonds and a moral burden he still sees himself accountable for.

Ofc this fight features his full descend into the darknes when he stabs Karin and generally looks beyond mentally unstable, this is where his character even though distorted before, goes through a gross distortion where he seems maniacal and just not there. This is bc as an uchiha, the more emotional pain he feels the more hatred he feels ,and the more he uses magic eye level 2.0, the more he loses himself.

Sakura somewhere out there doesn’t know the truth about itachi so sasuke is just acting like a dick wad and attacking innocent villages to her, and to avoid anyone getting hurt, physically or emotionally she burdens herself with killing him in order to save him from going darker. ‘oh but she gave up on him!!111!!!’ like, kakashi did the same thing for obito and at this point her logical order isn’t flawed. Sasuke was by definition an S ranked internationally wanted criminal attacking villages and peace meetings, falling rapidly into a darkness that his past self wouldn’t approve of  and he was getting hunted by every hoe in every country who wanted his ass dead. At least sakura (who again, did not know his reasons and you cant blame her for not knowing) did it to protect the empathetic boy who wouldn’t do something as senseless as attack an innocent man and aid a terrorist organization and to protect naruto emotionally and physically from akatsuki as well as ensure no one gets hurt from him as he is strong. In no way is it her way of being selfish, considering the language she used insinuated she was willing to die right there and then with him. The mission was a complete failure from the start bc hoe can’t kill him and if you truly think she could, I pray for you to find the light.

She shows up ofc and homeboy is suspicious right away, like I know u well enough what u plotting yo?? He knows from the get go shes out here for murder and he goes behind her and almost chidoris her. The factors that go into play here are 1) curse of hatred. 2) she is out for murder, he knows it and turns the table. It’s a low moment for him but that’s the whole purpose behind the scene. The fact that he went behind in the first attack of The Day ™ even though he probably knew he could take her down if he wanted to showed that he still isn’t able to attack face first. That’s not me romanticizing that scene bc ew, but it’s the truth. The look on his face is also not that of the most stable person. Second attack is purely in self defense and he has fallen to the point where he could do it from the front. Naruto shows up and his face shows he knows he done fucked up.

Naruto declares that you are my friend ™ (aaah ano hi no yume..) after sasuke yet again shows how far hes fallen due to the curse, pain and obitos brain washing by some good ol’ evil laughter, shouting he will turn peoples laughter into ‘screams and moans’ (how..awful sounding..to have sasuke make you scream and moan..jokejoke) and sasuke is like fuck u shit how dare u CARE about me ? Stop. And again naruto declares he will stop him and help him to which sasuke pulls an I-listen-to-my chemical romance and bring me the horizon- you don’t understand me!! And although affected by naruto still calling him a friend after all of this, he ends up getting also annoyed by Naruto trying to stop him and leaves thinking give me magic eye level 3.0 I want to kill Missy Elliot in her orange jump suit bc she thinks she will stop me by being my friend. How do I feel about what Naruto said to him that day? Personally, I think he missed the moral perspective of sasuke going crazy (he knew the truth) but he was coming from the right place. They all were. They just wanted him to stop suffering, all of them willed to die with him.

And thus begins their cute chase. Will Naruto fight sasuke first and save him? OR will sasuke kill him first so his ninja jesus light doesn’t stop his plans? Are they going to die together? So much to think about.

Sasuke gets his much deserved confrontation with itachi during the war and this is the healthiest time for them. Itachi no longer sheltered sasuke in a way that was poisonous for the both of them and sasuke asked the questions he deserved answers for. He got them, and an I love you all wrapped with a bow of existential crisis because after the fight with Kabuto, he sees his brother still doing his best for the leaf, still believing kabuto -an evil hoe- could change for the better. And he asks why such a ‘perfect’ person as itachi would still associate with shit like this and itachi is like dude I think you missed the part where I killed your family, tortured and manipulated you. I am not perfect, and neither is the dark world we live in but let me tell you some solid advice  that correlates with the star hax of the arc, the beautiful jutsu that makes no sense : Izanami. The past may be shitty, and we could either run around in an infinite loop suffering because of it, or we could chose to break free, accept what happened and change the future instead of doting on the past. Sasuke is like k cool man I get u but what next? ur jesus talk no jutsu ability is impressive but now I am questioning everything. What do I change? What is right and wrong? What is a village? What is a shinobi? I may not know now, but when I become supreme lord of everything, ill know then haha.

To answer these questions he goes to the One Who Knoweth All, the master of snakes-voldermort with a nose, and revives the kage who basically tell him yeah dude listen our history was fucked, apparently now is fucked, conflict always arises in every age and time its like madara said- you can never look into someones gut.But like maybe the new young generation can deal with it?? deal with ur own fucked up economy, suzan. He also finds out more about why the uchiha were so feared (madara, sharingan, tobirama the little shit, a sticky messy situation kishimoto why are u like this)and Donald trump (tobirama) tells him ur bad bc u love too much tf is wrong with u and sasuke was like fix ur fucking face tattoo u discriminatory bitch. Sasuke comes to the conclusion that he is now a renewed konoha fanboy ‘I wont let this village or my brother go to waste!11!’ because he realizes yeah man history is fucked and I want to change that so no other kid ends up in a situation like mine, full of pain, anger and blind hate.

Shows up on the battlefield, (Sakura, ka? ) and engages in some eye sex with sakura while ignoring others and declares yoyo idc bout what u think of me losers, imma be president. And naruto was like um imma let u finish but im gonna be the greatest hokage of ALL TIME (about that…anyways) . and ensues some team 7 and some naruto and sasuke being the iconic duo they are. It is important remember however, sasuke was at the moment in process of truly cutting all bonds, ensuring he is hated and fully immersing himself into the shadows. Although he is the first to react when sakura is attacked, warns her and kakashi multiple times so they don’t get hurt, saves them from infinite tsukiyomi and double checks on them in the Kaguya dimension, he pretends that like uh idc whatever I don’t care u guys cant even do much, I saved naruto because without him the world would end and u were just there so I saved you

to which naruto calls bullshit and sasuke is like ‘ur ruining my reputation as a heartless bitch’ ah brings back memories..of sasuke pretending to be a heartless bitch.

But like, he could not let her hit the floor so I am sure her hitting lava was a no-no. That moment happens, it was nice. Thank u, for that, kishimoto. And he even says ‘okagede todoita’ ‘thanks to you, I reached’ , nice moment.

After kaguya is over, they even exchange smiles. But nah, sakura, still in tune with sasuke as ever was right not to trust him 100% bc he pulls a IM GOING TO BE SUPREME WORLD LEADER, START A REVOLUTION, KILL THE 5 KAGES AND CAST THE WORLD INTO A NEW FUTURE. I fully support sasuke wanting to change the world that caused people like him, itachi, naruto, nagato, madara, obito, neji etc etc so much pain. I fully support revolution. I don’t want him to kill the 5 kages, but they really aren’t innocent so I understand where he is coming from. Him wanting to put the entire weight of hatred on himself is pretty selfless. It pains me (and naruto) seeing him say he is alone and willing and ready to bear hatred. All of that is valid but see :

dictator

noun

1.    a ruler with total power over a country, typically one who has obtained control by force.

Synonyms:

Autocrat, monocrat, absolute ruler

How a dictatorship works : Dictatorship is a form of government  where a country or a group of countries is ruled by one person or political entity, and exercised through various mechanisms to ensure that the entity’s power remains strong

A dictatorship is a type of Authoritarianism, in which politicians regulate nearly every aspect of the public and private behavior of citizens. Dictatorship and totalitarianism societies generally employ political propaganda to decrease the influence of proponents of alternative governing systems.

Examples of dictators :

·         Adolf Hitler ,dictator of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and Benito Mussolini ,dictator of Italy from 1922 to 1943.

·         Julius Caesar, dictator of Rome.

·         Joseph Stalin, dictator of the Soviet Union from 1929 to 1953.

Sasukes plans :

So, while I do support him wanting change, I don’t think his method was right. Not for the world and not for him and the only person who could communicate that to a boy who is at his core is just lonely, is a boy who was equally lonely but learned the value of comradeship, unity and love. He saw it’s ability to bring about great, good change and he believed he wanted that to continue and not sasukes self destructive autocratic plans.

Anyways, sakura begs him not to slip any further, says that she knows he is in pain but she doesn’t want him suffering any longer but she cant fight him physically like naruto, neither can she convince him to stay even though she loves him so much, however she tries one last time again, hoping maybe his hoe ass will agree that unity is better than separation and sasuke is affected as hell. He shakes, showing once again he is the boy who cares about the people he loves too much.

Gave her a look that would have looked like this without the rinnegan, because he does not want to be alone and anyone who says that is a jackass

She is an annoyance because for a faltering second, she can still after all this time, in part 2 weaken his resolve.

He shows her the genjutsu of him killing her to seal the deal and ensure she hates him, but I doubt he would have ever been able to physically harm her after his head cleared up a bit. A bit.

Kakashi scolds him saying she doesn’t deserve this when all she did was try to help you. literal Japanese translation, Sasuke says ‘ are you suggesting I enjoy ‘renai’’ quite literally ‘romantic love’ in Japanese. He acknowledged the romantic context of their relationship himself. Then he goes on, and I translate literally again ‘I have no reason to love her and she has no reason to love me’, and kakashi calls bullshit by basically stating sasuke, love is not something you have to look for a reason for. The thing you do need excuses and reasons to fill your life with though, is hatred. She is not trying to make you ‘her thing’, she wants to help you no matter how much bad you’ve done her because she loves you so much it makes her suffer. AND IMMEDIATELY he flashes back to the purest love he knows, the love that he never sat down and tried to reason with, the love that caused him suffering. His love for his family. ‘perhaps those are ties to a failed past’..and goes on to kill Naruto bc he is the last friend who will stand in his way.

Hagoromo basically confirms ss will happen when it shots to sakuras face saying ‘love turned to hate’ then kakashi asks ‘so like sasuke is a lost cause?’ hagoromo says ‘not at all I hope naruto and sasuke break the cycle of hate’ then it pans to sasuke saying ‘I hope  hate turns to love’ and since this is a shonen, ofc it did.

Naruto and sasukes fight communicates all of their feelings and experiences and no matter how stubbornly sasuke insists on being alone, naruto is like no bitch I know what that’s like and I refuse to let my brother (from another mother) go through that eternally. And boom bada bim, it took an arm but he got free from the curse of hatred, and they broke the cycle. Sasuke then goes on to say how he always admired naruto to a point where it gave him an inferiority complex, just like itachi. He had a strong will and a power source unknown to sasuke. But one thing he finally fucking learned, is wait yeah man when we were on the same time and you became my comrade I felt your pain too. I saw you guys as my family- fuck right shit the sharing of pain and enduring it together until it comes to pass. That is what I learned from team 7, that is where your source of power comes from and you know what I accept that you learned it a lot earlier than I did. It’s my loss. Naruto is like if ur hoe ass don’t stop with this emo shit ill beat u up again bc YOURE MY FRIEND AAAH and sasuke finally god damn gets what naruto meant by that and the realization that the love he starved for all his life was right there waiting for him to accept it was so earth shattering to him that he cried. Blood connected, pain shared, bond reformed and sasuke wanted to start over. Which is why when he realizes what was meant by sakura loves you so much that seeing you suffer makes her suffer was she loves you unconditionally he fucking asked for that beautiful bond again. After all this mess, there is a reason he apologized only to her. She couldn’t do much for him because she isn’t as strong as he is, but her love was pure and selfless and all she ever wanted for him was happiness and he apologizes for not getting that earlier, for his mistreatment in the war, for the land of iron, for ‘everything up until now’.

We don’t know what happened in the blank period, but all we know is they spent some time together. And he is about to go on a redemption journey, again his own moral

burden but this time it’s to start fresh and check some kaguya traces that worry him. Sakura is all like k but can I come, and he tells her frankly girl no ur too pure for what I did, lemme deal with this first. ‘Mata condo na’ is different from itachis ‘mata condo da’, theyre both delaying something, but the difference with na is that is is definite promise of something inevitable. The forehead poke means the world to sasuke, both the negatives and the positives that came with it and he let it’s legacy carry on but in a positive light. This is a promise of a better tomorrow together, where I am ready and think I am in a position where I completely understand the world without being manipulated or full of hate.(he was so easily manipulated when because he was always kept away from the truth so he had no footing to base thing off) that happens, I’ll be back for you, and that is inevitable. I want this, but on amicable, better terms. And fuck, that happens. Sasuke learned the answer to his question by the end of the series and the final blow of logic was thanks to naruto- a ninja is one who endures until things come to pass. The sharing of pain can be applied to greater things.

He would have to endure a little longer before his redemption comes to pass.By shinden sasuke walks around the best human being, helping people, doing a talk no jutsu, worrying about Konoha but he isn’t sure if he shows up there it would be completely safe from people after him or if everyone is ready to welcome him back and at the end of the novel he receives a letter from naruto that’s like sup yo come back homie I miss ur emo ass also sakura was like ooh hes protecting the village from the outside like a police officer!!11! And sasuke flashes back to his dreams when he was younger and says ‘I guess I should head home’, basically this bitch came back for sakura, and sakuras hiden concludes with him showing up home after he took down the people on the outside of root to come save her (lol but his wife is not a weak woman) and seeing her saying ‘I am home, Sakura.’ ‘Welcome home, Sasuke-kun.’

They travel together probably fucking under stars and shit, got married, had a baby and raised her until Naruto became hokage and sasuke took up a mission only he could do bc he has rinnegan. Obviously this fucking hurt him and he was miserable about it considering he finally gets a family and hes walking his baby girl with his wife one day and the next fate is like ok but if the world ends in 2 minutes and they both like die along with the rest of planet earth haha sasuke I like to shit on ur life. But as he and sakura said it he took up the mission for the future to remain bright and because sakura and sarada are very precious to him. Sakura wasn’t allowed to give out any potentially dangerous information as this mission was top secret so she would avoid questions but still gave her daughter the basic run down ‘vv important he loves u k that’s all I can say’ and she was in general a great mother, shown to be caring, reveal what she could and take care of her sick baby. Sasukes mistake was even though he was doing it for his family, he failed to realize that his daughter still wanted him there. That is why he apologized and told sakura that this mess is not on her.The baby mama drama happens and sakura is like leave it to the child of the man who wanted to be ninja hitler to think she has a different mom bc she wears glasses and jump to 30 conclusions about her dad and I’s relationship, which I’d like to mention gaiden has no ss marriage issues. Sakura and Sasukes bond lives, their feelings are connected, their thoughts and feelings reach each other, they both greatly love and respect each other.. gaiden was about saradas adventure in whys my dad such a jerk and holy shit is this woman my mom land. As it goes on she sees her parents interact, sees the love and respect, the depth of the bond between them and is shown smiling, touched by that. She gets her verification of love and the importance of the mission and why it was done by the end of gaiden, and she even gets a forehead poke (try and make it negative but it gave her tears of joy) and a hug. + a cute ass family photo that she stares at and thinks how her family shares a true link of love. He tries his best to spend time with his family despite such an important mission waiting for him and he promises more if he can. I will defend papa-suke until I fuckin die bc from what we are shown he is a deeply caring dad who actually makes sure his child is happy. And if you are pressed about him leaving without kissing her sakura herself says an expression that means he Is teasing me by making me wait, and like sasuke is a reserved ass boy who grew up very traditionally Japanese, he isn’t about to make out with her on public. He does leave however with a smirk on his face (lil shit is happy he saw his wife and teased her) and a bento (not just a boxed lunch..its made with love by someone very special to you –sarada my bb) in his hand. By boruto he comes in time for the chuunin exams and the light novel literally says sakura has been gleaming and glossing since he came back, a Japanese expression for having lots of sex so the wait was worth it. Boruto defeats Momoshiki in 2 minutes like the op bitch he is and hallelujah sasuke is back with his family and everyone is smiling and happy and loved up. Sasuke looks over his child and student with a gentle smile that he only shows sakura (light novel written by kishi), they stand with each other just watching over their baby girl how cute.

Sasukes character is complex but if you sit down and try to understand him before running your mouth, he is easy to understand. Kishimoto does not owe you shit, he worked hard, he put his work forward and that is it. criticize his work or the dude but don’t pretend to understand a character you misinterpreted better than the author. Sakura was always relevant. This is a little SS input into the character of sasuke. If you need anything else i own most of the series (even tho i got lazy to keep taking pictures lol) and i am pretty fluent in japanese, so come to me if you need anything else. Bye.

[authorsdenbyorihime-may]

How I Write Baybayin (Handwriting and Straight-cut Nib Calligraphy) Subtitle: This is a freaking long-ass post so be warned now

You can read the entirety of this post as is, or you can go straight to the calligraphy portion. It’s at the end of the post (sorry dunno how to link that portion here).

Writer’s Note: First and foremost, I will advise everyone who reads this somewhat master post that I am not an authority when it comes to how baybayin is written, as what you shall be reading is just based mostly on my own experiences on how the characters are written and comparing them with other writing systems that are based on syllables rather than individual letters, like the Japanese Kana and the Korean Hangul, among others. This is because baybayin are not technically letters (individualized, can’t stand alone, only comes either as vowel or consonant but not both, you get the picture), but rather are syllables (i.e. the consonants have free vowels with them lol) that form words.

Also, as far as I know regarding how the baybayin texts are originally written pre-Hispanic colonization era, some of the written texts in the Philippines (or at least, those that survived, or I remember seeing in old history books) were written from right to left, top to bottom. This also coincides with other writing methods in some parts of Asia that also read from right to left. The technique of writing and reading from left to right may be a Western invention, in my opinion so I just did some of the strokes in the baybayin characters go from right to left, except for the straight-cut nib section. Again, I am no authority so I’m just doing what I think makes sense to me, as there is no existing ANCIENT written rules on the stroke order of the baybayin. Other people may disagree with my stroke orders here due to various reasons, but if you’re into what I did then feel free to learn from them, for free. *heart*

This author’s other notes: I won’t be elaborating the history of baybayin here because that would take around (counts how many years I spent in school) 5ever as it basically intertwines with the “current” history of the Filipino people. I put quotes on “current” because every decade or so, some written histories get re-written based on some evidences or what, and I totally respect that. It’s like in scientific papers: legit today, debunked tomorrow. And it’s completely OK, because THE MORE YOU KNOW~

Also this author’s note: I keep calling baybayin alibata, because that’s what they were called when I was a kid and how it was taught by history teachers before the process called “being politically-correct” became the norm. It’s because alibata was supposedly an incorrect term which signifies that the characters were letters based on Arabic, but apparently it wasn’t so.. Yeah. I’m just saying, so the kiddies would know. And if you’re like me who also refers to baybayin as alibata, let’s get a high-five! (Cause you’re also old, but gold =D) Some biased history FTW lol ok let’s get started.

Handwriting Alibata Baybayin Strokes with a Bamboo pen (or Ballpen, or Pencil, w/e floats your boat)

OK, before I start I would be first putting here the somewhat traditional ordering of the baybayin, which is:

A BA KA DA E GA HA I LA MA NA NGA O PA RA SA TA U WA YA

As well as the borrowed/loan syllables (which correspond to C, F, J, Ñ, Q, V, X, and Z were apparently added some 6-7 years ago, in which I didn’t get the memo x__x)

CA FA JA ÑA QA VA XA ZA

OK, now that’s out of the way, it’s time for the actual stuff. For ease of practice and recall, I’m grouping the letters based on how I write them and in turn, their forms. This would make sense as the pictures move along, don’t worry. The forms are built sequentially, I tried making that a bit obvious in the diagrams, but there are red arrows in case I wasn’t that clear. For those that only have one picture or arrows in the sequence, I would be implying that the form is built on a single stroke.

Group 1: A, MA, PA, YA, FA, JA, VA

OK, let’s start with A:

Then MA:

PA:

YA:

FA:

JA:

VA:

Group 2:  E/I (more on that later), KA, DA, HA, RA, CA, QA, XA

I’ll start with HA because it’s a foundational stroke:

E:

I looks structurally like E, but only with a vertical stroke on its hat.

It’s because originally, E and I were the same character and whether it should be read as a syllable from the E or I line depends on how the reader would read it and the dialect used in writing the words, like it’s a fill-in-the-blanks kind of thing.  It’s also the same with O and U, so if you see that part yeah they look alike. This is also the reason why revisions on writing the E-I and O-U consonants were made, but that would be for a later part. Just be patient for now. =D

Ok, moving on, we’ll go to KA:

DA:

RA:

A short note on DA and RA: In olden times, these two were only one character, and are used interchangeably based on word usage, thus for words such as doon/roon, which both mean way over there one is used for passive and one is used directly (sorry not a speech comm person). This is also the case for marami and ang dami (both meaning “there are many/there is much” but one is active and one is passive. Madami is, IMHO grammatically incorrect. But then again, I’m not a speech comm person so sorry if these are wrong. I’m just saying).

CA:

QA:

XA:

Group 3: O/U, GA, SA, ZA

Just like in E/I, O and U are also structurally similar. To make an O:

To make it a U, just put a vertical line on the right side:

GA:

SA:

ZA:

Group 4: LA, NA, TA, ÑA

I grouped this bunch based on having a downward stroke in the middle of the form. The initial strokes are written as a single stroke from left to right, like in the first group.

LA:

NA:

TA:

ÑA:

Group 5: I have no idea where to put BA, NGA, and WA so I just made a miscellaneous group lol but they deserve just as much love OK?

BA:

NGA:

WA:

How the E, I, O and U lines are written:

In writing E, I, O and U (as in the case for the example below, which is GE, GI, GO, and GU), the original positions of the additional marks (such as the vertical lines for I and U) were kept but in order to differentiate E from I and O from U, the marks were made to be further distinct. For instance, GE is basically GA which has a horizontal line above it, while GI has a dot above it. As for GO, it has a dot below and GU has a horizontal line. 

GI and GO can have either a hollowed dot like in the sample, or can also be filled like the samples below. It’s based on personal preference. Also I used G for the samples because it looks nice, fun to write, and most other examples of alibata on the internet use BA as their examples for this portion. Whoops, I meant, baybayin. XD

Vowel Killers: Invented by People who Needed It

I’m not entirely sure why vowel killer was the term used but it does tell it exactly what it does: it silences the vowels in the characters (because baybayin is composed of syllables) in order to make separate letters. It was invented by some Spanish friar who couldn’t properly write the native words because words that have consonants at the end were written incompletely. I.E. the word DOON (over there) was written as DO-O in baybayin. It was such a drag that he decided to introduce the Spanish/Latin alphabet by making baybayin characters that acted as alphabets, which is essentially killing all the vowels and leaving the consonant behind. So instead of using dots, the friar made a cross underneath the symbol which they called a kudlit (for obviously non-secular reasons), so that the words with consonant ends can be written and read as they were. As per the revision that was instated a few years ago, in order to make the baybayin a bit more secular, more forms of the vowel killers were made, which in my opinion look better than the original kudlit, because they look more organic with the forms.

As you can see in the pic of the letter G above, the first on the left is the original kudlit, which is shaped like a cross. The next one has an X, or sinawali (it’s literally based on the patterns of hard, woven rattan walls called sawali which look like X’s), the next one is called a kawil (sorry dunno where that came from) and the right-most one has a pamudpod (which may have come from the word “pudpod/pudpud” literally meaning grinding or repeatedly striking something on a hard surface or on a whetting stone till it disappears or becomes flat/dull, so pamudpod is the surface that makes the item pudpod like a used pencil or eraser. Do I even make sense anymore? Oh well, YOLO).

Stringing them All Together

My personal preference is using a kawil on horizontal writing (left to right) and using a pamudpod when writing vertically. I think the overall impact is better. But then again, it’s just my personal idea. Using any of the vowel killers are, like the filled or hollow dots on I and O are personal preferences, as long as there is consistency in usage.

If you can read the above and understand where the reference came from, you probably also call baybayin as alibata, and we should totally get some tea together. XDD It pretty much means “What is there, yonder?” smth idk but yeah, it sounds like that. Old and formal Filipino/Tagalog.

Langit -  sky or heaven, Lupa - ground or earth, Araw - sun, and Buwan (or Bulan in Ilokano) - moon

Soliman - A variant of the name Sulaiman/Solomon 

Amihan - the northeast monsoon, the nice wind that brings in cool, dry air around November-March. Or if you watched the old and new Encantadia, she’s the protag. XD

The third sampler is a phrase (I ran out of space it was supposed to be a sentence), and vertical double bars are used to end the sentence. I just made them into diagonal slashes to make them look cool. Also I ran out of space. x__x It’s transliterated as a wailing mom looking for her child: Ai anaku (bunga) - Ah, my child (fruit). No space for fruit so it ain’t there.

Author’s extra rant note: Of course, some early Filipinos didn’t wanna use the kudlit due to being comfy with whatever they had at that time, but eventually they gave in. Fast forward to a century later and the baybayin was pretty much dead, as it was for the next 4 centuries or so. Romaji became the norm (except for some of the native tribes that have their own awesome writing systems), but then again some Filipinos didn’t forget it entire time, as many of the revolutionaries’ battle flags had the syllable KA, which is the first syllable of Katipunan, their group which can also be transliterated as “the entire group of the people who meet and come together”. I can’t say more because this is a long-ass post and it’s not about Philippine history. But we can talk about that if you want. Just hit me up with an ask. Warning though: I might just say “thanks for asking but please ask something else” lol j/k XDD

Writing Baybayin using a Straight-cut Calligraphy Pen/ Dip pens with Straight/Oblique Nibs

For this portion of the post, aside from posting pictures of the baybayin in black and white ink I would be pointing out that the techniques I used here are based on Western traditional calligraphy techniques used by scribes of the past, so some of the stroke patterns would be a lot different from the handwritten strokes above. But then again, if you clicked the link to get here straight away instead of reading the previous portions, well you won’t be having that much problems then. Also I will assume you already learned how to write baybayin so I’ll leave you at that. For the black baybayin, I used a calligraphy fountain pen with a 2mm straight-cut nib from the Visual Deck Set – Calligraphy box, not sure where you can buy it online but I bought mine at the National Bookstore because nobody wants to buy it. (Should’ve also bought the other calligraphy set while they’re on sale. LOL Just saying XDD). The surface is just the back of old calendars because I was just testing the strokes. For the white baybayin, I used a Speedball™  C-2 oblique-cut nib and for the ink, it’s glittery silver poster paint from Reeves™ (diluted with dH2O), and the surface is some random paper with nice surface and sizing which my father got from the office. (Apparently you can’t print anything on it so it aged well there until my father disturbed the papers’ sleep and brought them home. Now I ran out of both the calendar and the weird red paper so business is halted for a bit. XDD) Again, these are all based on how I write stuff so it’s pretty much a personal opinion, it’s not absolute but it certainly works for me so here you go.

Group 1

A:

MA:

PA:

YA:

FA:

JA:

VA:

Group 2:

E/I: I’m just putting I here because E and I basically have the same strokes. To make E, just omit the final vertical stroke.

DA:

HA:

RA:

CA:

QA:

XA:

Group 3

O/U: Same with E/I, I just placed U here because O is practically the same, minus the vertical stroke on the right.

GA:

SA:

ZA:

Group 4

LA:

NA:

TA:

ÑA:

Group 5

BA:

NGA:

WA:

E, I, O, U Lines

Vowel Killers

I didn’t make any full sentences or words because I ran out of nice papers, so maybe I’ll post some next time. Sorry. ._.

Author’s final note on writing using baybayin: I’m still on the fence in using the loan letters C, F, J, Ñ, Q, V, X, and Z because in my opinion apart from having redundancies with some other letters, they were just invented to spell out proper nouns that are foreign in origin. I wouldn’t even spell my full name using baybayin, except my nickname and would just rather use the Romaji/Latin Alphabet for ease. As for using baybayin to write foreign words, well, that can be as tricky as using kana to write foreign words. Both methods boil down to localizing a foreign word into how it would be pronounced based on the original language that the writing system belongs to. For instance, the Japanese waifu (as in “My waifu”) is the Japanized form of the English word “wife”, but because their spelling system is a bit different they had to estimate which kana would be suited to approximate how the word would be pronounced and in turn, be spelled. It is also the same case for some Filipino loan words that got Filipinized (and bastardized because long words are hard lol not kidding tho) such as the word istambay which originally came from “standby” and is now shortened to “tambay” which means “just loitering and doing nothing” or in how the young ones use it now: to hang out with friends (and probably just loiter and do nothing lol don’t kill me ok?). Thus, the usage of baybayin (or kana, or hangul, or Arabic because I think their writing is very lovely or whatever writing system you like that works as syllables more than letters) in writing words from another language would take extra steps such as following the rules of the written language or localizing the word first before writing them in whatever letters or syllables that you want. It’s like using what you have then making do with it/winging it out.

The End!!!! No just kidding. But it’s the last part.

To be honest there are a lot of stuff in the internet about baybayin so I’m not that entirely sure if what I have here is pretty much redundant or not. There are a lot of sites so just use your Googling skills to find what you need, although it may be a bit difficult for readers/users who simply try writing and not understanding the entire language so just use with caution. It’s hard to end up with THAT tough guy who has a kanji tattoo that actually spells “poop” instead of whatever it was supposed to be. I actually saw a guy sporting a tattoo that reads FUUBEN in Japanese, which translates to inconvenience. I lol deep inside but the guy seems happy with that so I just let him be.

Well, I hope this long-ass post helped you a lot, or at the very least the stuff made sense to you and it was worth your time reading. Please leave an ask if you have other questions, I’ll try to answer them if and when I can. Have a great day and may the force be with you. =D

[vcg73]

Kadam Fic: Twu Wuv

Combo Prompt: #3 - Dental Misery & #4 - A stupid or embarrassing injury

~*~*~*~*~*~

Kurt Hummel was a firm believer in good dental hygiene. Brush at least twice a day, thoroughly. Use dental floss and mouthwash on the regular. See the dentist twice a year for a checkup and cleaning; even when doing so took a good chunk out of your meager savings because your insurance is rubbish.

 It’s a personality quirk that Adam has learned to, if not love, then at least tolerate with genuine affection. Even though he isn’t sure that Kurt isn’t putting him on with some of his dental-oriented horror stories. Particularly the one where his school guidance counselor had married a dentist who somehow prompted Britney Spears hallucinations in half the glee club by using bad nitrous oxide. Or the time Kurt had kissed a girl who rinsed her teeth with soda pop, so religiously that he’d actually thought she was using root beer flavored lip balm. ‘She thought Dr Pepper was a dentist, Adam! And I touched that mouth with my mouth!’

 Not that Adam didn’t take care of his own teeth. He was conscientious about brushing, and avoiding too much processed sugar, but he only visited the dentist annually. He’d had good luck up until today. Only one cavity in his whole life, which admittedly had been a doozy that required root canal surgery and a porcelain crown; but that had luckily occurred back home, and while he was still young enough for his dad to be paying the resultant bill.

 Kurt had suffered through impacted wisdom teeth, braces, and a retainer, in addition to the odd glee club related woes. He took no chances with his teeth, and he refused to allow Adam to take any either.

 Which is why now, Adam was extremely reluctant (for probably the first time in their personal history) to speak to his boyfriend. But he needed to let him know that their planned evening of dinner and a trip to sing karaoke at a favorite local hang-out was off the books. Calling was out of the question, and a text seemed cold, so here he was. Standing on Kurt’s doorstep, not knocking.

 But then it was too late for second thoughts. Kurt was already opening the door, as if he had sensed his boyfriend hemming and hawing outside his apartment, and had grown impatient waiting for him to make his entrance.

 “Adam!” Kurt said in surprise, apparently not having psychically divined his presence after all. He laughed a little, trying to hide the kitchen sack he had clearly been about to carry out to the bin. He brushed a hand self-consciously over his chest, drawing attention to the ragged sweatshirt and plain black yoga pants he was attired in. “What are you doing here so early? Our date isn’t until 7 o’clock.”

 “Ah . . .’urt. I, erm . . . I’m vewy sowwy, bu’ I ‘ave to ‘ancel.”

 Kurt frowned, clearly having a little trouble deciphering the words. “Cancel? Why? What’s happened? You sound really odd.”

 He attempted a sheepish smile, only to wince instead when the motion aggravated his sore mouth. “Ow.”

 “Oh, Adam, are you hurt? Why didn’t you tell me!” Kurt drew him into the light and gasped. “Oh my gosh! Your face is all swollen. Did someone hit you? Come inside, sit down!”

 Before Adam knew what was happening, he found himself ushered into Kurt’s flat and settled into his favorite corner of the big comfy sofa, an afghan over his legs in spite of the rather warm day, and Kurt concernedly checking his forehead for fever and muttering about thermometers and compresses, and phoning for a doctor, or perhaps the police.

 “’Urt!” Adam blurted when Kurt seemed poised to start dialing for the National Guard next. “I’m no’ inj’ed! Nobo’y hi’ me. I jus’ bwoke a toof’.”

 Kurt stopped his fussing, looking surprised. “You broke a tooth? How? Adam, were you trying to teach the Apples to play cricket again?”

 It was a fair question. The Apples were lovable and talented people, but athletics did not rank high on the team’s skill-set. Adam’s previous attempts to instruct them had resulted in more than one bruised and bloodied mate.

 “No,” he said with a careful shake of his head. “I, uh . . .”

 “What?”

 He blushed. Now would come the explosion. “Well, I wa’ twyin’ a new wecipe. It cawed fo’ vaniwwa so I got out a new bott’l.  Da cap wa’ 'tuck.”

 Kurt got it immediately. He winced. “It was stuck, so you tried to pry the cap off with your teeth.” Adam nodded. “And I take it the bottle won the fight?”

 He nodded again, hanging his head as he confessed, “Bwoke my po’celain cwown, and cwacked the toof above. I spen’ all afte’noo at th’ den’ist.”

 “And now your mouth is sore and your face is still half numb,” Kurt filled in, smiling a little. “Which explains why you sound like Elmer Fudd with a burned tongue. Poor baby. You stay right there and I’ll fix you some soup and a nice bowl of pudding to eat as soon as the anesthetic wears off a bit. Do you need an ice pack? I have some frozen veggies.”

 Adam could not really feel his lower lip, but he was reasonably certain that he was gaping like a fool at this unexpected sympathy. “You’ no mad at me?”

 “Mad at you?” Kurt clarified, then frowned. “Of course not, why would I be? I mean, trying to chew the cap off a bottle wasn’t the wisest move you could have made, especially when I know you own a perfectly good tool kit, but it’s not like you intended to hurt yourself.”

 Properly chagrined at the reminder that Kurt had given him a very well stocked kit at Christmas, which included a set of pliers that would have done the job handily now that he thought about it, Adam sighed. “I fee’ wike an arse.”

 Kurt squeezed his shoulder. “Don’t. We’ve all done things like that. I once walked out of high school, heading toward the student parking lot while still talking to my best friend over my shoulder, and tumbled right down the north wing staircase. I’d gone down those steps a hundred times, but I completely misjudged my distance because I wasn’t watching where I was going. Wrenched my ankle and skinned up my knee and both palms trying to catch myself. It could have been a lot worse. Somehow I’d managed to do it at a time when none of the goon squad was outside to witness my moment of shame.” He laughed a little. “Though I was less concerned with my reputation or bodily harm than by the fact that I’d ripped the brand new designer jeans I’d only had for two days.”

 Adam huffed a quiet laugh too. That sounded like Kurt all right. “You a’ways warn me to take goo’ care o’ my teef.” He shrugged again with one shoulder, half apologizing.

 “Aww, honey,” Kurt said, giving him a careful kiss on his slightly swollen lips. Adam couldn’t exactly feel it, but he appreciated the gesture anyway. “I wasn’t trying to make you feel guilty. I know you hate to go to the dentist, and I always worry about the people I love, so maybe I got a little control freakish about that. I’m sorry. I clearly had nothing to worry about, because you didn’t hesitate to make an emergency appointment when you needed one.”

 For the first time all day, Adam relaxed a bit. It was true, after all. Kurt only fussed and bothered with those he truly cared about. Being on the receiving end of that tendency was comforting, even when it got a trifle annoying, because it reassured him of how much Kurt really did care. “Gonna be so’ fo’ a bit, but a new cwown is on o’der. Be wight as wain soon.”

 Kurt smiled and ruffled his hair fondly. “Well, until you are, you’ll just have to stick around and let me fuss over you.”

 Content to do so, Adam nodded. He accepted the bag of frozen corn Kurt fetched him from the kitchen freezer, placing it carefully against his swollen jaw. “I wuv you, Urt.”

 “I wuv you too. Now . . . cream of mushroom or cream of potato?”

 The End

[eyedelater]

post About chapter 97.13

let’s start with translation notes

uhh first of all, i’m only noticing long after the fact (just now) that mrs. kageyama’s “you should eat more than that” line is probably more like “you should at least eat a little something” (followed by “if you want to get better.” that part of the sentence i got right.) like, mob probably isn’t, you know, eating any amount of food as she’s saying that. ahh do i care enough to go back and fix it...? not really...???

the chapter title for all of chapter 97 has been “ekubo wa,” which i had translated as “dimple is.” but now that that sentence is finally being completed, it turns out that the title should have been “dimple was,” as in, the last sentence of the chapter. because although the “wa” particle is the approximate equivalent of “is” in english, it isn’t the part that changes when you change tense-- in this case, what changes is the copula at the end of the sentence. so the “ekuba wa” was translated with the assumption that the sentence would end with the present tense copula “desu” or “da” (well, probably “da”), but it turned out to be the past tense copula “datta.” SO NOW IT’S KIND OF IMPOSSIBLE TO TRANSLATE THE FACT THAT THE “DIMPLE IS” TITLE OF THE CHAPTER IS THE BEGINNING OF THE SENTENCE “DIMPLE WAS A FRIEND.” like, there was no way i or anyone could have predicted that the sentence would be past tense, because you only learn the tense of the verb at the end of the sentence. thanks a lot, SOV word order

mob does not verbatim sniffle or sob in the last panel of the chapter; he’s just crying in a way that, upon direct transliteration, would probably not be clearly interpreted by english language readers as crying. (he’s going “hugu-... u-... uuu~...”). so i wanted to make it clear that he’s crying... so i went with a counterfeit sniffle... feels cheesy, but i hope it got the point across...

reigen’s line in the omake is like, an order of magnitude more complex than i made it, and even now i’m not 100% sure exactly what he was saying, but i got at least the gist of it

the only time i feel compelled to typeset translations of the sound effects is when they’re kind of necessary to understand what’s going on and you can’t guess what they are by context. so i was kind of thinking i should do something about the 4 pages of nothing but sound effects in this chapter. BUT I DIDN’T. because mostly they’re just uninterpretable battle/impact sounds, as you might expect. if you don’t know kana and are up for (what i think would be) kind of a fun puzzle, use a kana chart to figure out what the sound effects in this chapter say. you’ll be like “...doba?” (oh and it looks like all the sfx in this chapter are conveniently katakana :0 usually it’s an unpredictable mix of both)

in this chapter i replaced a couple of ritsu’s utterances of “nii-san” with “you” because he was using it as second-person pronoun to address his brother and the only way to directly translate that would be to have ritsu talking about his brother in the third person right in front of him (”nii-san, look at the news, it’s incredible!! nii-san isn’t doing this, right?!”) and that just doesn’t sound natural in english. but rest assured that ritsu is always saying nii-san nii-san

and now some not-translation notes

we got a callback to ritsu’s tv-watching “that wasn’t my brother” line with this chapter’s frantically relieved “that’s not my brother! definitely not this time, because he’s right here, haha!!” scene. the kageyama brothers have come a long way

mob’s brainwashed goodbye to dimple was truly heart-wrenching, as was the end of the chapter. HOWEVER. i always stick to my policy that “a character isn’t dead until you see their dead-ass dead body in canon.” of course, that doesn’t apply to a ghost, but it’s the principle that counts-- don’t just accept apparent character death at face value. here’s why dimple isn’t necessarily gone forever:

the floating of the broccoli. would a broccoli float itself? i doubt it! plus we saw that avatar of psycho helmet disintegrate. doesn’t it seem like dimple defeated the broccoli’s psyche and is now off to sink the broccoli in the ocean, according to the plan mob told him? even if that Fully exhausts the last of his Divine Power, it’s not the same as exorcism, so he wouldn’t disappear at the end of it. he’d just have to regain enough power to make the trip back to mob.

(if dimple is sinking the broccoli into the ocean, i hope he does it slowly. don’t make a tidal wave, ok?)

if dimple is gone as of now, wouldn’t people have already regained their erased memories...? 

mob asked dimple to wait a week before coming back to his house, and dimple didn’t say no. at least give him a week before you start jumping to conclusions

ritsu brings up an idea re: dimple that i guess i hadn’t quite thought about before: dimple as a source of knowledge. dammit, why hasn’t there been more asking dimple about this and that?! i bet ritsu has asked him about lots of stuff behind the scenes... only mob would be close friends with a literal ghost and never once ask him things like “know any cool ghost secrets?” “how’s that afterlife?” “were you alive once or what?” “what’s the nature of psychic power?” “where’s your ears?” etc. dimple is kind of a chatterbox, he’d totally answer!

when psycho helmet ate dimple and then imploded i was like “so dimple was red and green for the sake of aposematic coloration to signify that he’s distasteful to predators...” but then it’s like wait, a) green isn’t a good color for aposematic coloration because that’s the color of plants, b) even the red on his cheeks is only reminiscent of edible things like fruit since it’s on a background of green, and c) broccoli isn’t a predator

ritsu’s turtleneck

i saw someone on twitter saying “this would be the perfect moment for ritsu to offer up a [if there’s anything bothering you, you can talk to me, nii-san], but he didn’t!” and i sort of almost agree, but i think it’s more like ritsu noticed that he was the one doing all the talking and mob just wanted to sleep, so he retreated.

[epchapman89]

Build-Outs Of Summer: Third Culture Coffee In Bellevue, WA

2017 feels like a banner year for coffee projects in Washington State located beyond the urban hegemony of the city of Seattle. That city—where this website was first plotted and launched—has become an at-times unrecognizable techno-future parody of itself, with rents up 300% and vast swaths of the city transformed into sprawling CondoLands. Seattle is still a beautiful and delicious place but running a small business there is, as the kids say, “problematic AF RN.”

So it makes sense that all this cool stuff would be popping up in places like Everett, and Tacoma, and now Bellevue, home to today’s featured Build-out. Third Culture Coffee is a multi-cultural, international new cafe concept from founder/partners Radhika Kapur and Varun Das, fusing Indian cafe culture with cutting edge third wave coffee sensibilities from around the world. It opens this week in Old Bellevue, just across the I-90 bridge—and a world away—from Seattle.

As told to Sprudge by Radhika Kapur.

For those who aren’t familiar, will you tell us about your company?

The story of Third Culture is a love story. It’s a story about connecting with people, reliving cherished memories, getting excited about discovering the world and about exploring different cultures all through medium of coffee and tea. We believe that love and care are the most important ingredients in a recipe and that these ingredients hold the power to impact flavors, create memories and truly make a difference.

All through our life, we (my husband and myself) have experienced different cultures across the world from India, Asia, to Australia, to Europe and now Americas. Third Culture is a culmination of all those experiences coming a full circle, of us giving in to our passion to provide an experience to our guests, a moment that our guests can cherish, with freshly roasted flavorful coffee or with delectable single origin teas, a moment when they can indulge in luxury.

Can you tell us a bit about the new space?

The flagship store is located in Park 88 building in Old Bellevue, just off the Main Street, right next to Bellevue’s Downtown Park. Old Bellevue is a beautiful place that hosts world class independent shops, restaurants and cafes that add charm to the rapidly expanding Bellevue downtown. The shop is located right next to some of the most popular restaurants in Bellevue and is also a skip and a hop away from the revived Bellevue Downtown Park–a newly expanded park that now includes a world class innovative playground for kids of all ages and abilities to explore and enjoy.

The shop itself is around 1,700 square feet, with floor-to-ceiling windows at the front and a large bar. We have shelves at the back of the bar that are topped off with a Blackboard menu. Since we represent a global view on coffee, we have chosen furnishings to represent that vision. We will have a traditional Kerala wooden copper swing, Parisian cafe chairs, comfy sink in leather armchairs and a long community table which encourages interaction between guests. We will also have a play area dedicated to our little guests featuring toys, books, a blackboard and kids activity table.

What’s your approach to coffee?

Our vision is to showcase different cultures of coffee that are prevalent across different countries , all under one roof, while being respectful to the authentic traditional recipe and amazing high quality ingredients. We want to highlight the flavors that different drink styles and brew methods can bring to a cup.

We let the coffee shine through thoughtful and precise execution. We feature single origin coffees, along with our house blend on our espresso machine and pour overs. We work very closely with True North Roasters to bring exceptional coffee to our guests, that has been expertly roasted to highlight the flavors of the coffee. All of our offerings change seasonally to keep things fresh and exciting.

We want to bring the story of coffee to the forefront and go on a journey with our guests around the world. We will be exploring flavor variations of the same bean, different brewing methods, or different beans, same execution through cold and hot flight offerings. We are also venturing in the exciting space of coffee and spirits, offering some traditional and some innovative spiked coffee beverages that allow us to explore coffee flavors in another dimension.

Any machines, coffees, special equipment lined up?

As per our vision to bring our menu to life we will be using a mix of traditional brewing equipment like the traditional Indian Meter Coffee brewing vessel, Vietnamese phin, etc. For single origin pour-over we will be using Saint Anthony Industries Phoenix and Filibuster. We are obsessive about consistency and quality so will be venturing into the world of distribution tools and high precision scales like the Acaia. For espresso, we are going with our first love, the La Marzocco Linea PB with scales. For grinders we have chosen to go with a Mazzer Robur and Kony and a Mahlkönig EK-43. For crockery we are going with the NotNeutral cups for espresso based drinks, for the ease and execution of latte art and effortless cup hold for our guests. For cold brews, we will be using the Bodum double walled glasses, keeping the guest comfort and execution in mind.

What’s your hopeful target opening date/month?

July 2017.

Are you working with craftspeople, architects, and/or creatives that you’d like to mention?

Third Culture Coffee was a dream which is being brought to life by a group of extremely talented people. My husband Varun Das, our partner and friend Adarsh Nair, and I have worked on the vision for more than year now, from identifying the perfect menu, to dialing in the recipes to the look and feel of the place. Dustin Chapin from Clark & Chapin Architects got us started on the vision of the space and the build out. Stephen Brakebill of Brakebill Construction, our longtime friend and general contractor, stepped into commercial retail build outs with this as his first project. His team of Jim, Josh, Tom, Lauren are all superstars without whom this would not be turning into a reality Shahzad Qadri from Wong & Fleming, entrepreneurial lawyer, who got us in shape for turning this dream into a reality. Megan Ruhlach for getting us started on our logo journey and Eric Fisher for his amazing design aesthetic and turning us into a brand that was a true representation of us.

Thank you!

Thank You so much for setting up this kind of a program. It is absolutely fantastic!

Third Culture Coffee is located at 80 102nd Avenue NE in Bellevue. Check out their official website and find them on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

The Build-Outs Of Summer is an annual series on Sprudge. Live the thrill of the build all summer long in our Build-Outs feature hub. Got a Build-Out of your own? Get in touch.

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