#we were in the japanese internment camps

[trexy225]

Random thing but I remember the first day of sociology class my prof passed out photos of the Japanese internment camps and the first student that she called on says with full confidence “Those are Chinese people, they’re being discriminated against.” 🤓🤓

Bruh my family didn’t get forcibly interned for your dumbass to say that they were Chinese (it literally said Japanese on one of the photos)

Anyway, it’s very disheartening to know how many people don’t know what happened to Japanese Americans in the internment camps and how it’s affected our culture. I’m here to answer any questions and elaborate further, but it’s unfortunately not well known.

[colorisbyshe]

A lot of the response to Oppenheimer criticism has been "Clearly, you haven't watched the film, it isn't celebrating him! It shows all the things he did wrong" and I have to say... that's... still... missing the point of the criticism.

Oppenheimer occupies the same space as all the war films--like Dunkirk--that say "War is hell." While these films could and do skew towards "War is bad, let's avoid it," they still often... really end up saying "War is hell but let's pity the warriors and maybe consider the ways in which it was worth it."

The "war is hell" films end up completely missing the "anti war" mark because they choose to focus on the people waging the war, painting them in a sympathetic or at least humanizing light even when they're in the wrong. You feel bad when a soldier has to kill a kid on the other side--even if the kid is unarmed or begging for their life--because it's sooo sad that the soldier was driven to that point. And because... well, what else could they have done?

A much more effective "war is hell" film would be focused on the people whose land is ravaged by bombs. The civilians. The families. The people who lose their homes, their schools, their hospitals, their lives. Not in waging war but just in happening to live where war is happening. THEY are the real victims. They are not victimizers who might come to regret it (like warriors, like Oppenheimer) but like... actual victims.

In choosing to make a film about Oppenheimer and not about his victims--the people of New Mexico, the people of Japan, people forced into internment camps on US soil, and broader even then--you are saying "This man is responsible for great evil but let's humanize him too. Let's recognize that he didn't really have a choice or that maybe he felt bad about it. It was out of his hands."

Beyond humanizing him, it gives this history an element of inevitability. He HAD to do it. This HAD to happen. It's horrible that it happened but it was always going to happen.

If you focus instead on all the people victimized, you see all the reasons why it didn't have to happen.

And if Christopher Nolan isn't equipped to tell the story of New Mexican civilians who weren't given protective gear when the only jobs they had left were at all the labs or the stories of what a Japanese child does when his family is ravaged by American war crimes... he doesn't have to tell that story. The option isn't "Tell Oppenheimer or tell an intimate story he can't at all relate to." He could just... not tell this story.

Some stories really are not meant to have entertainment value. Some stories are not meant to be human stories but rather just facts on paper. Or told from the other human side. Sort of how like documentaries on serial killers often get it wrong but the fictionalized tv shows exploring ~what made them serial killers are ALWAYS wrong.

Some perspectives don't really need to be explored, is what I'm saying. Oppenheimer shouldn't be a grey or even dark protagonist. Some atrocities do not need to be humanized in any way, even if the humanity mostly culminates into "He was still wrong, though."

There are more efficient, less troubling ways to explore the motivation (the greed, the nationalism, the racism, the hatred, the warmongernig) behind bombings and wars like this. That would be better tools at realizing how we are repeating history, right now, in 2023.

That don't involve having to paint atrocities and the people behind them as grey or human or pathetic or pitiable.

[eretzyisrael]

by Gregg Roman

The Red Cross has once again failed the Jewish people by choosing to appease its enemies rather than help those in need.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), in its mission statement, claims to be "an impartial, neutral, and independent organization whose exclusively humanitarian mission is to protect the lives and dignity of victims of armed conflict and other situations of violence and to provide them with assistance."

The actions of the Red Cross since October 7, however, show that it does not consider the lives and dignity of all victims to be equal. Instead, the Red Cross has fallen in line with those who refuse to condemn Hamas and ignore the atrocities perpetrated against Israelis.

This isn't the first time that the Red Cross has ignored the suffering of Jewish people to avoid offending those who seek to eliminate the Jewish people. The Red Cross has received three Nobel Peace Prizes, including one in 1944 for its services in World War II, but decades later, we know the whole truth.

Documents released after the war revealed that the Red Cross was well aware of the Nazis' genocide of the Jews and chose to remain silent. The Red Cross defended itself by claiming that if it had disclosed what it knew, "it would have lost its ability to inspect prisoner-of-war camps on both sides of the front." Although the Red Cross has apologized for its inaction in confronting the Holocaust, the bias the ICRC has shown against Israel makes that apology ring hollow.

Magen David Adom, Israel's official emergency service, was founded in 1930 and ratified as a National Red Cross Society by the Knesset in 1950. However, the Red Cross refused to allow Magen David Adom entry to the international organization because the latter wanted to use the Star of David as its symbol in place of a red cross. Even though Muslim Red Cross organizations use a red crescent as their symbol, Israel is singled out for refusal. Only after 76 years of life-saving work was Magen David Adom finally accepted by the ICRC in 2006.

The Red Cross has conducted itself similarly since Hamas took Israeli hostages. The Red Cross gained much acclaim for bringing Israeli hostages home after they were released. However, the Red Cross played no part in the negotiations that led to the release, and made no effort to visit the hostages while they were imprisoned.

This is in stark contrast to past hostage crises. During the Iranian hostage crisis, the Red Cross visited the occupied US embassy in Tehran. When 72 Japanese hostages were kidnapped by guerrilla forces in Peru in 1996, the Red Cross provided food and medical assistance. When New York Times reporter David Rohde was held by the Taliban in 2008, the Red Cross delivered him a letter from his wife. When more than 240 hostages were taken from Israel, however, the Red Cross did nothing.

The Red Cross responded to a recent lawsuit filed by Israeli hostages, which claims that the Red Cross neglected its duty to visit prisoners of war, by saying: "The more public pressure we seemingly would do, the more they [Hamas] would shut the door."

The evidence shows that the Red Cross did not try very hard. UN Watch compiled a report showing that the ICRC's social media posts were heavily biased in favor of Hamas, and refused to acknowledge Hamas' atrocities and the plight of the Israeli hostages.

When families of the hostages asked the Red Cross to deliver life-saving medications to their family members in captivity, they were scolded and told to "think about the Palestinian side" by the ICRC.

Since the beginning of the current war, the Red Cross has pumped millions of dollars into Gaza, along with supplies, infrastructure, and medical teams. Hamas, of course, has a long history of shamelessly stealing money and supplies that were intended for civilians, a fact that the ICRC knows, and, unsurprisingly, Hamas has continued to do so during this current war.

The Red Cross has both the leverage and the stature to gain access to the Israeli hostages and even to push for their release. They were even able to leverage the Taliban into granting access to hostages in the past. People listen to the Red Cross. But they also hear the Red Cross' silence.

When the Red Cross speaks about the Israel-Hamas conflict without mentioning Hamas' attacks, and its president meets with Hamas' leader but does not advocate for Israeli hostages, the message is clear.

The Red Cross' historical and current actions seem to suggest that it does not value Israeli lives as much as other people's. It is time for the international community to ask the Red Cross why it looks out for all of those in need, except for Jews.

[isaksbestpillow]

Gmmtv 2024

I'm now going to watch and review all the trailers of GMMTV 2024 part 1! Glad they're splitting up the announcements this year because watching a year's worth of trailers in a row last time was rough for me personally lol.

The Interest ผ่อนรักนอกระบบ Was this movie already in last year's selection or does Bright keep making the same movie??? Not really into the whole guy who can't take no for an answer trope so I won't be camping out at a Thai cinema for this. Moving along!

รักแรกโคตรลืมยาก The Series /My Precious Wait so the first trailer was a remake of a Korean movie and this one is a tv show version of Gmmtv movie that came out like yesterday??? Here's your Japanese word of the day: netagire, running out of ideas. The cast is cute. Moving along!

หนังสือรุ่นพลอย/Ploy's Yearbook Oh thank god the first minute was a flashback because these people are too old to be playing high school students, a minute of horror haha. Namtan, Film and Aye are all talented women, I'm glad they're getting the spotlight but the plot feels confusing. Earth's there, and some other bl guys, so at least they're breaking the mould of those branded pairs a little. I've frankly wanted to see Namtan & Earth for a long time.

We are คือเรารักกัน Is We are the official international title? The original คือเรารักกัน means well we love each other. Anyway. We are at university. Pond and Phuwin are here. They're engineers. Everyone is potentially gay for each other. Stop me if you think you've heard this one before. Moving along!

The Trainee ฝึกงานเทอมนี้ รักพี่ได้มั้ย Annual OffGun bl, a GMMTV staple. The title means The intership Can I love you (/Phi)? Might watch this for silliness purposes. Also for Kapook purposes.

แค่ที่แกง / Only Boo A school setting with actual new faces???? I might not be watching but good for them. GMMTV is probably eager to recreate the FourthGemini magic, we'll see how it goes. Moving along!

Pluto นิทาน ดวงดาว ความรัก I will admit I didn't understand a single thing about the plot but Namtan and Film are kissing and that's enough to lure me in.

บ้านหลอน ON SALE/Peaceful property There are ghosts and slapstick vibes. TayNew are back again. Might watch for culture learning purposes because Thailand is all about the ghosts.

Ossan's Love Thailand No trailer yet, but apparently Earthmix are cast as the leads. This may seem like a very random adaptation at first, but it's actually not that surprising since TV Asahi that produced the original has been heavily involved with GMMTV for a couple of years now and Earthmix are the most popular Thai bl couple among Japanese audiences. There's also a big Japan boom happening in Thailand right now and Japan is eager to get that dime considering the miserable state the of the Japanese yen. In all its silliness, Ossan's Love was an important milestone in Japan because it was the first time gay people were shown in suits in mainstream Japanese media when for the longest time gay has been pretty much synonymous to cross-dressing and funny drag queens. The world has changed quite a bit since 2016 when it comes to understanding sexual harassment so we'll see how this is going to get adapted for this era.

My Golden Blood เลือดนายลมหายใจฉัน Listen I may not have been a vampire girl before but I sure am now haha. What was that and where can I get more. Maybe the special effects are leftovers from that paranormal Win Metawin show, but that won't bring me down. I love Gawin collecting GMMTV men like trash. I've been a GawinJoss shipper for five minutes now and counting. The original title means Your blood is my breath.

Kidnap ลับ-จ้าง-ลัก Is that one of the houses from Bad Buddy??? Is this a bl???? Is Ohm doing another bl????? Good for him. Maybe people will be less weird about it this time. I appreciate actors exploring their chemistry with multiple partners, it keeps it interesting for all of us.

Summer Night ความลับในคืนฤดูร้อน Heterosexuals? In high school? Groundbreaking. You could've merged this with the My Precious trailer and I wouldn't have noticed. Eteenpäin sanoi mummo lumessa, forward said a grandma in the snow!

วันดีวิทยา/Wandee goodday Gays are boxing and performing surgery. Good day, sir. I'm vibing with the casting. That leg cramp during sex was the best thing I've ever seen in these trailers, count me in.

High School Frenemy มิตรภาพ คราบศัตรู Three trailers left, almost there!! This has Japanese or Korean remake written all over it. I don't recognise the story meaning it's probably Korean. Look, there's a glimpse of Mark in a minor role, where are all his major roles!! View's also there, she's a great actor and I'd like to see her in bigger roles. I hope they will both be heavily featured in GMMTV 2024 part 2. Alright, I have now finished watching people get beaten up for five minutes, moving along.

My Love Mix-Up! เขียนรักด้วยยางลบ GeminiFourth are rekindling Kieta hatsukoi. Like I said, Japan is big in Thailand and media houses in both countries are establishing connections so is adaptation is not a surprise. The tempo of the trailer was a little dull for me. The original show is quite short so the pacing is obviously going to be different but we'll see!

Enigma 2 บุหงาหมื่นภมร Buddy I didn't even watch Enigma 1. I consider my work here done.

A lot of big GMMTV players were still missing so I look forward to part 2! I mean there's gonna be more, right????

Thank you for reading!

[sakebytheriver]

I don't really know what to say about Oppenheimer and Christopher Nolan's newest glorification of white violence, I truly don't have a strong opinion either way nor do I have much to say on the film other than I hope the movie itself is less about glorifying Oppenheimer as some American folk hero and more about the massacre and devestation caused by the bombs

And on a personal note, the Japanese side of my family literally came from a suburb of Hiroshima. Of course, my great grandfather left Hiroshima with his brother long before WWII started and he settled in Hawai'i while his brother settled in Salinas Valley CA, when the war broke out the Salinas Valley branch of our family was all sent to the internment camps and two of my great uncles who left Hawai'i for the mainland were also interned along with their spouses and children, the only reason my grandmother and her family weren't interned is because there were just too many Japanese in Hawai'i to intern them, they were 60% of the population, interning Hawaiian Japanese would have meant capsizing Hawai'i's economy, (it didn't stop them from making a few internment camps for influential Japanese community leaders in Hawai'i though). Before the bombs were dropped, a distant relative of mine, a second cousin twice removed or something like that, went back to Japan, they went back to Hiroshima, back to where my family first came from. They went home to family

And then the bombs dropped.

And for months upon months, my family thought they were dead. They were finally able to contact our family and say they were still alive. They got lucky and didn't die in the bombing, but their story is an outlier, and my family got really really lucky in that regard. Of course, I have no idea about the family we still had in Hiroshima before my great grandfather left, but there's no doubt in my mind that I lost family when those bombs dropped, there's no doubt in my mind that a piece of my family history was destroyed, there is not doubt in my mind that there is forever an indelible mark on my family for the rest of time all because the US wanted to test out their fancy new toy that they made their pet scientist Oppenheimer build

I don't care about Oppenheimer, I care about the family I will never get to know

[yellowbluemoonshine]

Naoki Urasawa's manga "Monster" Interview;

Naoki Urasawa is one of the most successful manga artists in Japan, having not only been awarded the most important prizes in Japan, but also in Germany. He celebrated his international breakthrough with the thriller series "Monster", which he drew in the 90s. It's about a Japanese neurosurgeon in Düsseldorf who saves the life of a boy and gives up his career to do it - actually he should have operated on the mayor instead of the boy - and then gets into real trouble because he is involved in a series of serial murders and a conspiracy device. Andrea Heinze : How did you come up with the idea for the series? Naoki Urasawa: The drama “Monster” was created because I really liked the novel “Frankenstein”. That really interested me and I thought about whether I could bring the story into today. The second aspect was that at that time in the USA there was this film with Harrison Ford, “The Fugitive”. It was about a doctor whose wife was killed and I really liked it. And then I thought, I have to do something that involves a doctor who is being chased and has to solve a mystery. And then I was interested in “Frankenstein,” this old Gothic landscape, and I wanted to bring the two together somehow. And then we somehow came across Germany. Blonde boy as a contrast to evil Germany

I heard that people saying Johan was inspired by Hannibal and other psychopathic characters etc but it never make sense to me. (Maybe some characteristic sides makes sense but generally no, he is different). It makes sense that Monster is inspired by Frankenstein story because Johan is portrayed as more like someone who became the way he is because of his past. He is the monster created by the real monster. (Mostly its Franz Bonaparta who stole his and many others name, biggest sin a person can do). Its really combined between two stories because Tenma wasnt/isnt wrong to save Johan.

Heinze: And what does Germany have to do with it? Urasawa: I wanted to do something dark. And I don't want to say that Germany is the root of all evil. But if you look at the Second World War - and this is present in Japan, also because Japan was an ally of Germany at the time - there were a lot of dark stories in Germany and also in Japan. A lot has been clarified. But some things don't. I also came up with this beautiful, blonde, blue-eyed boy as a character. I think that's a good contrast to contrast with this dark, bad thing. And the more you delve into history, the more clear it becomes that the roots of the conflicts lie in the Second World War. If you add all of that up, the manga could only take place in Germany.

I am glad that real life stories was brought up but its really sad that this actually happenned somewhere.

Heinze: How did you research the story for “Monster”? Urasawa : I watched a lot of documentaries. In the 1990s there were also reports of neo-Nazi attacks on houses where Turks lived. I've seen things like that and they've also found their way into my story. I made up the rest. For example, the boy, Johann. He is raised in a children's home where many human experiments take place. And shortly before I finished my work "Monster," there was a documentary on Japanese television about the end of the Nazi era, and it also reported on a camp in which blonde, blue-eyed young people were herded together and essentially had to undergo elite training . And this boy who was depicted there was also called Johannes. I was then asked if I had known all of this before - but that wasn't true, it was all in my imagination. A person becomes a monster

This is insane....chills. Its so ironic that a lot of people remember Johan's character as some evil psychopath but not only he isnt written that way in story but also, his origin is literally coming from actual victim, a child. Intentional or unconciously or maybe coincidence but still, wow.

Heinze: How is it that Prague also became the setting for the story? Urasawa: Because everything that was east of Germany, all the Eastern European countries, was not even known in Japan in the 1990s. It's completely different today, but back then people hardly knew everything that lay east of Germany. While on the other hand, Germany and everything further west was already developed for tourism. And Eastern Europe had never been featured in the manga until then. It also fascinated and really attracted me as an illustrator. If you go to Germany or France, it is much brighter in the evenings. But if you go further east, in my case it was Prague, it was much darker on the streets in the evenings in the mid-90s. And I wanted to explore this darkness, this night, for myself.

No wonder story feels so real, with both its characters and places.

Heinze: What does the manga “Monster” have to do with Mary Shelly’s novel “Frankenstein”? Urasawa : Frankenstein is about a scientist who created a monster, and it's also about human responsibility. There are certainly things that humans are allowed to do and that they perhaps shouldn't be able to do. These thoughts can certainly be taken further, and that's what I did in the "Monster" series. It's about the Japanese doctor who saved a boy, and later the boy becomes a monster, a murderer. And then the doctor asks himself whether he is not responsible for the fact that this boy has become a murderer. This is a different conflict than in "Frankenstein", but the question of responsibility for one's own actions is also an issue in "Monster". Dostoyevsky novel using the means of manga

Though, story is inspired by Frankeinstein, Tenma is clearly right to save kid's life. He isnt the 'evil' doctor who is responsible for the monster. He is the real doctor who saves this boy from destruction at the end.

Heinze : For me, this doctor is an ideal example of the good in people. He even saves this boy against the wishes of the clinic management, who would much rather use their best surgeon to operate on the mayor. Urasawa: Every good person has places somewhere in their hearts that are perhaps not so good, and it was the same with Doctor Hämmer - in the hospital there were also some disagreements with the management, where he also thought: "Preferably I would like it if everyone were dead." And later Johann also tells him: "I have fulfilled what you wished for." Then the idea came to him that he had also caused all of this and was to blame for it. And I wanted to show in my work that there is something good and something bad in every person, and that is just human nature. Also, what I didn't mention: There is the classic manga "Astroboy" by Osamu Tezuka in Japan. There is a scientist whose son died and he then creates a robot that looks like his son and that also has feelings. But somehow he says: "You are not my son." At some point he neglects this robot. This scientist is basically Doctor Tenma. So “Frankenstein” and “Astro Boy” are the two sides that belong closely together. I especially consider the artist Tezuka with his classic “Astro Boy” to be my roots.

Here's the real message of Monster, that noone is just a monster and every person has monster in them and that story, Tenma is being parallels with father who neglects his son...I wonder is it him realizing that he was never supposed to kill Johan (the son), he was right to save him, trying to kill him is the neglect/him failing to understand him and end up saving him. Maybe i am reaching but its makes more sense that way. Btw i love how Tenma visits Johan even at the end. Despite everything, they really give that father-son energy.

Heinze: Osamu Tezuka is considered the founder of modern manga, what do you like about him? Urasawa: It's hard to say in one word. Maybe you can describe it like this: The manga were initially comics for children. But Tezuka did it differently, he practically wrote something like a Dostoyevsky novel, but using the means of manga. Something much deeper, and ultimately it's not about justice winning, but it goes even deeper, practically conveying the feeling that even winning can bring with it something sad and empty. This is something deeper. And he was able to convey that in the beginning of the manga. Statements made by our conversation partners reflect their own views. Deutschlandfunk does not adopt statements made by its interlocutors in interviews and discussions.

Its really deep story.

This is the source of this interview, i really wanted to make comment/analyze about it.

[soullessjack]

this is kind of a spitball but does anyone remember learning about the Japanese internment camps in WW2 and how all American-born Japanese citizens, including children and infants, were kept there on suspicion of being spies in the war? how “anyone with a drop of Japanese blood” qualified for incarceration? and everyone naturally responded to this with “how can a child or baby be a spy?” “how does being slightly Japanese make you a spy?” and everyone could so easily see the unfairness of that, but now with the case of Palestinian children and infants and American-Palestinian citizens, I have seen grown adults claim that the carpet bombings and air strikes and shootings and stabbings are all somehow fair, justified, deserved, etc. because they “grow up to be terrorists,” and it’s “Allah’s punishment for their sins.” that tiny little children “brought it on themselves” because god forbid a resistance group resists genocide.

we could see the unfairness then, enough for a fucking formal apology to be issued for it, but why can’t we see it now? is it because now it’s brown people facing unfair treatment and hatred and you can’t put them into your homogenous circle of whiteness like the Japanese? the words may be different, but dehumanizing language never changes. propaganda never changes, and neither does the American capacity for cognitive dissonance apparently.

[lilyginnyblackv2]

It takes a village... - Buddy Daddies - Episode 5 - Cultural Elements

There is the famous saying “It takes a village to raise a child.” And I think that was a key focus of this episode, and one of the lessons that Kazuki and Rei had to learn. There are three social and cultural aspects of Japan that I want to look at in regards to this episode:

1. Flus at School

2. Babysitting in Japan

3. Work-Life Balance

They all connect to each other in some way.

1. Flus at School

Likely when everyone saw the notice that Kazuki and Rei got about the daycare being temporarily closed due to a virus, the initial thought was Covid. And it was likely meant to be a nod to that. But, even before Covid, the flu (influenza) has always been taken very seriously in Japan and at Japanese schools.

In Japan, I worked at elementary and junior high schools, so a bit of a different setting from the daycare (my daycare experience with Japanese kids was back in the States at a juku and learning center). But, I doubt there is too much difference. Basically, once we entered flu season, parts of the whiteboards up in the Staff Room would be dedicated to keeping track of which students had the flu and how many students had it per class. Once it reached a certain amount, everyone in that class (whether they were sick or not) would not be allowed to come to school for a number of days.

(From a study that will be linked to below, and which was published online in 2015).

In the above excerpt I included, it talks about the effective measure of school closure to prevent pandemic influenza (specifically talking about the one in 2009). When I worked in Japan (2013 - 2019) as an ALT, I never experienced a full school closure because of the flu, but I knew of other ALT who had.

2. Babysitting in Japan

In this episode we have Kazuki telling Kyutaro, “Lately, we’ve been taking on some babysitting jobs...”

Kazuki really didn’t have a plethora of options to choose from here to make any sort of plausible excuse. This likely was the best thing he could say and pick, but it also isn’t that surprising that Kyutaro didn’t buy it for a second. Not only because male babysitters are rarer in general, but also because babysitting still isn’t a normal thing in Japanese culture. From a 2014 SavvyTokyo article entitled: Babysitting Services in Japan, there is this excerpt:

However, hiring a babysitter in Japan remains a privilege reserved for high-income earners, and is nowhere near as popular as it is in Western countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom. Meanwhile, some families are forced to use babysitters due to a shortage of after-school nurseries. Some believe that a babysitter could help inject a dose of fresh air into a typical Japanese home, which can sometimes be known for its seclusion. This is particularly true today, in an ever-increasing international environment, where English education is at the forefront of most Japanese parents’ minds.

This lines up with my experiences with being a Weekend Camp Counselor for about 3 or so years when I lived close to the Tokyo area of Japan (from 2016 - 2019). My job was to play American summer camp style games and activities (Duck, Duck, Goose, Red Light, Green Light, Thunderdome, Tooty Ta Song, etc.) with native Japanese children at parks (like Yoyogi Park or Toyosu Park). The goal was to have the children get a full English immersion experience, while enjoying physical activities outdoors. But, like my boss told me, our service was also meant to allow the parents to have some free time in the day, since babysitting isn’t a big thing.

In American media, seeing a (usually) teen girl babysitting a neighbors kid is incredibly common. In Japan, there is still an expectation that the parents (mostly the mother) should be caring for their child or children, but that is getting harder and harder with the need for both parents to work, in order to get by (due to the state of inflation Japan has been in for years). One Japan Times contributor, Yuko Tamura, wrote about their experience with hiring a babysitter in a blog post entitled: Hiring a Babysitter for the First Time in Japan Taught Me a Lot. 

In this article she talked about the social and cultural aspects. First she notes, “Without grandparents in my neighborhood, I had almost no one to ask for help except my husband.” No mentions are made of siblings, cousins, aunts, or friends. In America, it wouldn’t be that uncommon to hear of any of the above (as well as, of course, grandparents) to do a little temporary babysitting for family or friends. But in Japan this just isn’t common, smaller family sizes are also likely a reason for this as well.

She also mentions lack of communication among neighbors, something that is definitely common, especially in cities in Japan, and “ I have been a highly private person; I suspect the majority of Japanese people are the same. Welcoming strangers at home could be a severe headache for people like me because it just doesn’t feel right.”

Houses in Japan are seen as very private places. Having big get togethers or parties at someone’s house in Japan is really uncommon (I have been to one or two, but it’s still not the norm). Going elsewhere to meet up, like at a karaoke place or café is far more common. So the idea of a babysitter goes against that idea, as well as the societal expectation of the mother being in caretaker mode 24/7, so it has made it harder for babysitting to become common place in Japan. 

That being said, the internet, the pandemic, the economy, women working more, and many other things are starting to shake things up a bit more in Japan. I also suggest that you give the blog post a full read (I’ll link to it below, along with every site and article I reference here), since it also touches on another concept a bit: Work-Life Balance, my last discussion point.

3. Work-Life Balance 

I won’t say too much about this, since I think the concept of Work-Life Balance is a fairly universal one and one that people are always trying to struggle with. It may be better and easier to navigate in some countries, and harder and more difficult to navigate in others. 

For Japan, it is harder, but there has been more of a push for more life and less work focus in recent years, and the pandemic has caused work-from-home, remote work, and so forth to become a bit more common in Japan. It’s still not as prevalent of a shift in work culture like we’ve been seeing happen elsewhere, but it is a start! I’ll add an article or two in the comments about this topic, just in case anyone wants to read up on it.

In this episode, we see Kazuki and Rei struggling with Work-Life Balance in a way neither has likely ever experienced before, since adding a child into the mix really does make for a very different beast. What I really like that we saw in this episode was showing Kyutaro telling Kazuki and Rei that he would look after Miri:

It’s unconventional, as noted above, but it is a good message to tell. And one that should be told more in anime and Japanese media. A sense of community is important, especially when raising a child, since as the saying goes, “It takes a village.”

[everlastinghistory]

The alarming path of the Canadian school system:

Over the course of the three and a (little over) half years I have spent in high school I’ve noticed quite a few alarming changes. This post covers most of them.

If you require a trigger warning for opinions that aren’t far left: This is your only warning. Don’t try to debate me. I’m not debating anyone. I’m stating my opinions. I will block you if you try to argue with me. I do not have the time to argue with people on Tumblr about common sense.

Grade 10 Canadian History

The first thing I want to talk about is what inspired this post. I once knew a guy who took Canadian History Since World War One and got a 95 in the class but did not know what the Holocaust or Nazi’s were. He was 16 when we had this conversation. And got a 95 in a class where an entire unit was about World War Two. The one thing he did remember? Japanese internment.

By sticking the word “Canadian” at the start of the course name they have created a course where you can learn about World War Two and never hear a single mention of the Holocaust or Nazi’s. Or even anything outside of Canada for that matter. Even stranger is they additionally failed to mention that the Japanese were not the only people in internment camps. Cause y’know it’s apparently not relevant that German’s, Italian’s, Jewish refugees and very strangely Mennonite’s were also put in them… And I don’t just mean German and Italian POW’s. I mean citizens of Canada who happened to have ancestry from either country.

Why is there only education about it happening to the Japanese? Why don’t we talk about the German’s and Italian’s also imprisoned for no reason? Suddenly considered a national security threat because their ancestors lived in a country they’d in many cases never even stepped foot in… Or the Jewish refugees who got put in the same camps as German POW’s and it took a rather long time for them to be moved to their own camp to protect them from the violence they faced when put with the German’s.

We only learn about the Japanese interment and honestly I think it’s because they’re the “most important” group according to so called egalitarians. The German’s and Italian’s were European so “they can’t be oppressed” and when in history have you seen Jewish people get treated properly? They’re easy to let fall under the radar because when you think of Jewish people in World War Two nobody thinks of Canada.

Grade 12 English

My grade 12 English teacher started off the class by giving us a speech about racism. This was not the “black voices” English class available for grade 12 students. This was a regular English class. Which additionally I think dedicating an entire class to talking about a race is more racist than not but whatever floats their boat I guess. Anyway, the first day he went on a speech about racism. About how black mothers and their kids show love to each other differently. About how abusing your kids is okay if your black because “it’s in our culture”. THE FIRST DAY. Not even into the class with some form of context to make it make sense. That was how he started the class and introduced us to himself.

Additionally, when we talked about the feminist lens in literature we got told being nurturing is a negative thing. Not that it’s not okay to assume all women are made to be nurturers. That being nurturing is a bad thing.

This same teacher also spent the entire semester making fun of housewives. Consistently saying they’re lazy and taking the easy way out.

This man was 31. He’s on the lower end of teachers ages. This is what the new generation of teachers is going to be like and that terrifies me for my future kids if I ever have kids. Especially since many countries have made homeschooling illegal specifically so they can teach your kids how they want them to view the world. While it is legal in Canada (where I live now, obviously) I do intend to move somewhere it’s illegal eventually and that’s genuinely very concerning to see.

Grade 12 World History

My grade 12 World History teacher gave us an entire lesson about how the existence of world maps is racist.

“Why?” You may be wondering.

Because “Europe is bigger than the other continents to show superiority.”

May I now present to you… A map of the world. In which it is clear both the Northern and Southern hemispheres well beyond Europe are larger. Because the Earth is a sphere. And that is how you map out a sphere.

In fact I even think it’s arguable to say Europe looks kind of tiny on here aside from Russia. Which Russia is literally the biggest country in the world so it’s not shocking that they’re noticeable. Unless the problem with these maps is that they’re accurate to the world and it being a sphere?

Additionally, I was curious where my history teacher got nonsense like this. So I googled it. There is no mainstream sources saying this. It is all obscure websites online. Websites a history teacher should never touch when planning a lesson.

Also it was literally a question on the exam. Here’s some proof if you don’t believe me:

There was also multiple times she said white people should be sorry for existing. Please note now that this teacher herself is white. She’s genuinely been convinced her own existence is problematic.

She also once spent an entire class trying to convince us race doesn’t exist and humans made it up. I don’t even know where she got that one from but it uh… It does. You can argue that in most cases “race” refers to species but we all understand that in this context it doesn’t and she knew it didn’t. She genuinely tried to convince us different skin colours don’t exist and there’s no physical difference between different races. Which while it’s not inherently true that races have physical factors beyond skin colour ethnicity does. And more often than not someone’s race and ethnicity correlate and you can guess one based on the other to some extent even if it’s only narrowed down to a continent. Don’t nitpick with what words mean. We all know we use these words interchangeably and that they are interchangeable in real conversation even if they aren’t by their definition.

Another thing: We had an entire lesson on how the existence of European history is inherently wrong. Essentially getting told Europe should not exist. She completely glossed over the fact that every continent has had countries invade others. In fact when she did talk about other continents countries invading places she gave us a whole sob story about why it was okay that those people k*ll3d people but oh no it’s oh so different when a European country did it.

The biggest thing was when she completely skipped over the entire First World War because “it’s European”. A) WORLD war. B) ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT EVENTS IN HISTORY. But no you can’t teach that because it involves Europeans.

I also once got told to write an assignment about how to create a society where everyone in it is far left politically. I had to ask someone how to reword “show the children propaganda” in order to complete that assignment because that is genuinely the only way to create a society like that. Even the person I was explaining it to said it was insane. Because it was literally an assignment to write about how to create a dictatorship where we weren’t allowed to make it sound like that was what it was or we’d get in trouble for not agreeing with what we were being told to believe.

Morning Announcements

I don’t know if America does this but Canadian schools replaced the pledge to the flag with the land acknowledgment.

Don’t get me wrong I’m not denying that this land belongs to native people. No what I’m saying is that I don’t think they want to be reminded every single morning with a 5 minute speech about how their land was stolen.

Personally I’m more of a European’s moving back to Europe person. I don’t have anything against the indigenous peoples of North America. I want to leave specifically because this is not my land.

However, taking out the pledge to remind people their land was stolen feels more disrespectful than just saying the pledge and respecting the country??

People can argue that the flag has been used to disrespect indigenous people but the Canadian flag used by those types of people is the red ensign flag. They do not use the maple leaf flag to spread hate. They use the red ensign flag. Or they just walk into the capital with Nazi flags because that happened in 2022. Yet somehow there was more silence surrounding actual Nazi flags than our national flag. More people in this country hate our national flag than actual Nazi flags. You objectively have your priorities beyond fucked up if you think that way.

Why Is This Alarming

So, why do I find this so alarming?

Because it’s pushing the idea that we as a nation need to have one collective opinion and world view. Doesn’t that sound reminiscent of something?

…Maybe oh I dunno…

The beginning of a dictatorship?

Dictatorships start with propaganda in schools. What exactly does this all sound like? Propaganda in schools. Historically we hear about dictatorships and think of fascism. Fascists are not the only people capable of dictatorship. Left wing dictatorship is more than possible and is not a positive thing for anyone no matter what their opinions are.

By no means am I calling Canada a dictatorship. It’s not. I am incredibly grateful for the rights and freedoms this country gives me and I hate when American’s try to make it sound like a dictatorship. But this is objectively a very alarming path that Canadian schools have been taking and I do feel it’s necessary to address this.

This is the type of issue that people will hate anyone who calls it out right now but some day people will ask why nobody did anything about it.

Let me remind you of one thing: Nothing in history has happened overnight. It’s always been built over time. It’s always “oh just one tiny thing” “oh one more tiny thing” until it’s not one tiny thing. It’s a bunch of tiny things stacked up in a trench coat except the trench coat is made of tiny things.

I know to many people all these things sound good. But you need to realize they’re not. They’re harming this country far more than they will ever benefit it.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Nicole Brockbank, Angelina King

Published: Sep 13, 2023

Harry Potter, The Hunger Games and Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry.

Those are all examples of books Reina Takata says she can no longer find in her public high school library in Mississauga, Ont., which she visits on her lunch hour most days.

In May, Takata says the shelves at Erindale Secondary School were full of books, but she noticed that they had gradually started to disappear. When she returned to school this fall, things were more stark.

"This year, I came into my school library and there are rows and rows of empty shelves with absolutely no books," said Takata, who started Grade 10 last week. 

She estimates more than 50 per cent of her school's library books are gone. 

In the spring, Takata says students were told by staff that "if the shelves look emptier right now it's because we have to remove all books [published] prior to 2008." 

Takata is one of several Peel District School Board (PDSB) students, parents and community members CBC Toronto spoke to who are concerned about a seemingly inconsistent approach to a new equity-based book weeding process implemented by the board last spring in response to a provincial directive from the Minister of Education. 

They say the new process, intended to ensure library books are inclusive, appears to have led some schools to remove thousands of books solely because they were published in 2008 or earlier.

Parents and students are looking for answers as to why this happened, and what the board plans to do moving forward.

Prior to publication, neither Ontario Education Minister Stephen Lecce's office, nor the Education Ministry, would comment on PDSB's implementation of Lecce's directive when contacted by CBC Toronto.

But in a statement Wednesday, the education minister said he has written to the board to immediately end this practice. 

"Ontario is committed to ensuring that the addition of new books better reflects the rich diversity of our communities," said Lecce. 

"It is offensive, illogical and counterintuitive to remove books from years past that educate students on Canada's history, antisemitism or celebrated literary classics."

Weeding books by publication date raises concerns

The process of weeding books from a library isn't new.

Libraries across the country follow weeding plans to dispose of damaged, mouldy and outdated books and to ensure their collections remain a trusted source of current information.

But Takata, who is of Japanese descent, is concerned weeding by publication date doesn't follow that norm and will erase important history.

"I think that authors who wrote about Japanese internment camps are going to be erased and the entire events that went on historically for Japanese Canadians are going to be removed," she said.  

"That worries me a lot."

Libraries not Landfills, a group of parents, retired teachers and community members says it supports standard weeding, but shares Takata's concerns about both fiction and nonfiction books being removed based solely on their publication date.

The group is also concerned about how subjective criteria like inclusivity will be interpreted from school to school in the later stages of the equity-based weeding process.

Tom Ellard, a PDSB parent and the founder of Libraries not Landfills, said teachers reached out to them to help raise awareness about the weeding process.

"Who's the arbiter of what's the right material to go in the library, and who's the arbiter of what's wrong in our libraries? That's unclear," he said. "It's not clear to the teachers who've provided us this material, and it's not clear to me as a parent or as a taxpayer."

Ellard says he's talked to the parent council, his son's principal and his school board trustee. He's also contacted members of the provincial government, but says he hasn't received a substantial response about what happened in the spring and how the process is intended to work.

School board defends process

CBC Toronto requested an interview with the PDSB to discuss how the weeding process works and how the board plans to proceed in the wake of concerns from parents and students. A spokesperson said staff were not available to speak as they were "focusing on students and school families this week." 

The board did not address questions about empty shelves, the volume of books removed and reports about weeding books based on the date of publication.

Instead, the board issued statements explaining that the process of weeding books from school libraries was completed in June and has always been a part of teacher librarian responsibilities within PDSB and at school boards across the country.

"Books published prior to 2008 that are damaged, inaccurate, or do not have strong circulation data (are not being checked out by students) are removed," said the board in its statement. 

If damaged books have strong circulation the board says they can be replaced regardless of publication date, and older titles can stay in the collection if they are "accurate, serve the curriculum, align with board initiatives and are responsive to student interest and engagement."

"The Peel District School Board works to ensure that the books available in our school libraries are culturally responsive, relevant, inclusive, and reflective of the diversity of our school communities and the broader society," said the board.

Weeding a response to minister's directive

CBC Toronto reviewed a copy of the internal PDSB documents Ellard's group obtained, which includes frequently asked questions and answers provided to school staff by the board, and a more detailed manual for the process titled "Weeding and Audit of Resource in the Library Learning Commons collection."

The documents lay out an "equitable curation cycle" for weeding, which it says was created to support Directive 18 from the Minister of Education based on a 2020 Ministry review and report on widespread issues of systematic discrimination within the PDSB. 

Directive 18 instructs the board to complete a diversity audit of schools, which includes libraries.

"The Board shall evaluate books, media and all other resources currently in use for teaching and learning English, History and Social Sciences for the purpose of utilizing resources that are inclusive and culturally responsive, relevant and reflective of students, and the Board's broader school communities," reads the directive.

How weeding works

PDSB's "equitable curation cycle" is described generally in the board document as "a three-step process that holds Peel staff accountable for being critically conscious of how systems operate, so that we can dismantle inequities and foster practices that are culturally responsive and relevant."

First, teacher librarians were instructed to focus on reviewing books that were published 15 or more years ago — so in 2008 or earlier.

Then, librarians were to go through each of those books and consider the widely-used "MUSTIE'' acronym adapted from Canadian School Libraries. The letters stand for the criteria librarians are supposed to consider, and they include:

• Misleading – information may be factually inaccurate or obsolete. • Unpleasant – refers to the physical condition of the book, may require replacement. • Superseded – book been overtaken by a new edition or a more current resource. • Trivial – of no discernible literary or scientific merit; poorly written or presented. • Irrelevant – doesn't meet the needs and interests of the library's community. • Elsewhere – the book or the material in it may be better obtained from other sources.

The deadline to complete this step was the end of June, according to the document. 

[ Dianne Lawson, a member of Libraries not Landfills, says teachers told her The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank and The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle were removed from their school libraries as part of the PDSB weeding process. ]

Step two of curation is an anti-racist and inclusive audit, where quality is defined by "resources that promote anti-racism, cultural responsiveness and inclusivity." And step three is a representation audit of how books and other resources reflect student diversity.

When it comes to disposing of the books that are weeded, the board documents say the resources are "causing harm," either as a health hazard because of the condition of the book or because "they are not inclusive, culturally responsive, relevant or accurate."

For those reasons, the documents say the books cannot be donated, as "they are not suitable for any learners." 

A PDSB spokesperson said the board supports its schools "in the disposal of books in a responsible manner by following Peel Region's recycling guidelines." Peel Region allows for the recycling of book paper, as long as hard covers and any other plastics are removed first and put in the garbage. 

Books removed based on date, board heard

It was during the first stage of the new equitable curation cycle, that Takata, Libraries not Landfills, and at least one trustee, say some schools were removing books strictly based on publication date.

CBC Toronto recently reviewed a recording of a May 8 board committee meeting focused on the new equitable weeding process. In it, trustee Karla Bailey noted "there are so many empty shelves," when she walks into schools. 

"When you talk to the librarian in the library, the books are being weeded by the date, no other criteria," Bailey told the committee. 

"That is where many of us have a real issue. None of us have an issue with removing books that are musty, torn, or racist, outdated. But by weeding a book, removing a book from a shelf, based simply on this date is unacceptable. And yes, I witnessed it."

Bernadette Smith, superintendent of innovation and research for PDSB, is heard responding on the recording, saying it was "very disappointing" to hear that, because she said that's not the direction the board is giving in its training for the process.

Dianne Lawson, another member of Libraries not Landfills, told CBC Toronto weeding by publication date in some schools must have occurred in order to explain why a middle school teacher told her The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank was removed from shelves. She also says a kindergarten teacher told her The Very Hungry Caterpillar had been removed as well.

"She has read it to her classes for years, they love it," Lawson said, referring to the Eric Carle picture book. 

"I can't find any sedition in it, or any reason why you would pull this book."

Process 'rolled out wrong,' trustee chair says

Trustee and chair of the board, David Green, told CBC Toronto the weeding process itself "rolled out wrong." 

That's why he says trustees briefly paused the process until the board could get a better understanding of what was actually going on. 

A motion was passed at a May 24 board meeting to ensure that, going forward, those weeding books during the anti-racist and inclusive audit in the second phase of the curation cycle would need to document the title and reason for removal before any books were disposed of.

"We have to make sure that we are meeting the needs of the students and not just rolling something out because we were told to do it," said Green. 

When it comes to removing all books published in 2008 or earlier, Green said the board of trustees has heard that, too. 

"We have asked the Director [of Education] again to make sure that if that is taking place, then that is stopped, and then the proper process is followed," he said.

Green also said they have plans to communicate with parents about the weeding process.

In the meantime, students like Takata are left with half-empty shelves and questions about why they weren't consulted about their own libraries. 

"No one asked for our opinions," she said. "I feel that taking away books without anyone's knowledge is considered censorship."

==

Even given it was "rolled out wrong," it's interesting that some librarians saw no issue with the actions they took.

Which doesn't bode well for the overtly ideological "second phase," in which classic and of-the-time literature is judged through the shallow, postmodern "microaggressions" of present-day activist librarians.

It's always been the people who most want to ban books like "To Kill A Mockingbird" who are the ones who most need to read them.

This is what a purge of history looks like.

[abnerkrill]

found this essay by Maggie Tokuda-Hall, a Japanese American Jew, a worthwhile read drawing connections between the incarceration of Japanese Americans during WW2 and the necessity of solidarity with Palestine now.

There is always an attempt at justification. There is always a rationalization. But understanding history, and particularly from the point of view of the marginalized, demands that we not accept those lines of reasoning in the present. There is no need for us to wait for hindsight to render these explanations toothless. We should know enough to understand that violence like this never occurs within a vacuum. There is always context. And a near century of increasingly brutal occupation is the context here.  Palestinians need not perform their blamelessness in order to have lives worth saving. I think of the Loyalty Questionnaire given to all incarcerated Japanese Americans over the age of seventeen, which demanded in questions 27 and 28 that they declare their loyalty to the United States, and also state their willingness to serve in the armed forces. Approximately 12,000 of the so-called “no-no boys” refused to give an unqualified “yes,” and were labeled by the War Relocation Authority as “disloyal.” And I admire them for it.  I think of Ansel Adams’ photography in the camps, determined to show happy, smiling, resilient Japanese American faces. He knew he was documenting an injustice, and wanted to show the world it was wrong. But he wanted us to perform our blamelessness, and staged it so that we would. So well meaning, and also so condescending. That we should require a veneer of happy suffering in order to be considered human. That we should be required to accept our abuse with a grin. There are no photos of our ancestors getting tear gassed and shot in Manzanar. No videos of us protesting in Tule Lake. But these things happened. Would that disqualify us from empathy?

[onereallygoodlambonastick]

rolecall / XG - TIPPY TOES / left right posting up slow switching lanes just like this / only direction i know swerving left right keep me upright / my adrenaline hit the pedal to the ground / 2 lil asians / don't we all deserve it ill tell you how we want it / no you cant deny it / you either like it or bite it / don't ask me if you dont know why / the only direction i know / what goes around comes back around / so when he comes down are you gonna let him pay or are you gonna let him stay

do you know why phonk gets popular on the social medias? because people dream of murder. they just find the most socially acceptable way to do it, because these are people interested in staying people. to those who dream of murder: this is will not kill you. for it did not kill me.

this is why everything i write is a poem.

and i think more of us should dream of murder, or what it takes to end a life. just one is fine. just 1. uno. uno. yi. yichi. one. One. the One. you believe in god? believe in the power of 1.

all for one / one for all. think on it. evoke all might, and evoke his enemy. why?

the universe is interested in this, too.

will you answer it - or shall i?

Dealer's choice.

You want to be cool? Be cool like a dying & a dead body.

I've lived through the age of humanitarian aid - ive seen nice people do nice things. Now I ask: Toni Morrison, what would you do different?

Fushigoro Toji knows exactly what I am referencing, and not only that: he knows exactly what I am aiming for. This is because he was interested in bringing the jiu-jitsu sorcerery world to its knees.

Gojo Satoru was interested in this too.

Now the question is: how?

Gege Akutami failed in his task to honor Gojo Satoru. I name you, Satoru: for all your fans call you Gojo, and I alone will know you. Now who will join you? By this, I mean: who will join me?

Who will speak conviction to action - because by the audre lorde, i Know Archive of Our Own, I know the dynasties of our time, and I know how to tell them from myths, and I know how to tell that from myth-making.

East Asian dragons are built like fishes for a reason.

Weavers in Palestine have still not fled. I need not know why. Why? I know why. Why? You gonna keep asking me shit or are you gonna use that brain two people gave you and the fact it's a muscle and do grindr? Grind on it. Grind. You done? Do it again.

You pissed yet?

You mad, broski?

You either wake, or you don't, unstirred - thus undeterred.

I say this now to honor James Baldwin: no more sleeper agents shall be in my path. Let's fucking dance, or there shall be war.

Sugimoto Saichi knows this so fucking well it made me get up and take a run, because he made me take a blow to the face and I survived it: he says this to a white US-American collector of Ainu artifacts: and do you know what he said? He said this: give up the artifact or I will take you down. Verbatim, by word of the translator on the pirated site on which I read: do you know what happens when negotiations break down?

It's called War. more simply: you, or me. it is an art. that's why "sun tsu" is famous in the white(?) man's world.

Now there is the mythicized World War 3. Chinese-Americans will for sure suffer like they were meant to be born stillborn in its wake. Do you want me to tell you why or will you look up? Current news is distracting for one reason: the news is merely an inch of actual reality that then proceeds to holler down several damaging hoops.

What is more accurate: current news evokes the current state of the world.

Here's a note to clue you in , not that any immigrant nor migrant nor vagrant really needs it, but here's something to piss you off anyway - Japanese-Americans were sent to internment camps. Wanna guess what number world war this was for?

Wanna guess? Or Wanna Know? See what I'm putting down yet? No? Okay.

No more sleeper agents shall be in my path. I say this now to respect the fact James Baldwin aided in my survival. He died already: why do I still feel him here, with me, laughing? It's simple, really. Because he loved Angela Davis: and Angela Davis is still alive today.

And I am right there beside her.

In the first and only book I've read from him, he said this through the mouthpiece of his characters, his loved ones, his chosen ones, the ones that would make him survive, AKA enable, and he said this: I will build a long, long table for folks to be eating off of for a long, long time. And the woman who loved him said this back: I'll go where you lead me.

This book changed the US-American consciousness. He wrote in France. I don't need to read his autobiography to confirm this. Here's why, because I could give less of a shit if you wanted to play devil's advocate: it is because James Baldwin judged he would not survive in The United States of America.

So he wrote in France.

I believe he died there.

Now I ask: will you respect 2024 or will you make someone come after you?

Dealer's choice.

You have been dealt your hand. Your ass is either shown or it will be shown. You either wake, or you don't, undeterred. It is this clear cut because empire has intensified, singing of its war drums: it has been, always, never new, always old, but never interesting, always predictable. It is why all the gongs of dehumanization are on. It is why those who have listened to it all their life are now cold like metal. We know how to be metal. Metal: the one thing that needs heat to shapeshift. Why is winter difficult to survive? This is why historians and social science researchers say the same shit and nobody listens, but they are slightly more likely to be listened to, and that is why people of color, and those of the margins, flood into academia anyway, knowing they will be perfectly tortured.

Do you want me to tell you how I have been tortured?

Do you want to guess, or do you want to know, or do you want me to torture you to make you find out?

There have been people who were shot for less. Of them: Hind Rajab. After or before her, because the order doesn't really matter, not really, only that they were dead where they stood: those two Red Crescent paramedics.

Toni Morrison must be shocked where she is in her lively post-death. She said this to me once, because I read it, and I felt her touch me, because she is real, and when she died in 2015, that is how I knew Donald Trump was fake: I will always be shocked. I will always choose to be shocked. I think anything less is a kind of death.

I have died. But I am still alive. Why? To honor the two people who raised me. One - a dragon herself. The other - a rabbit.

My dad has taught me to think like a prey animal.

Do you want to know why people daydream about shapeshifting into predators?

Do you want to know, or do you want to guess? Follow the path your parents have set you on since the day you were born.

Otherwise this is what will happen: you will never catch up to Martin Luther King Jr. You will not meet Audre Lorde. And you will not be looked at by James Baldwin, though he will see you, anyway.

Do you want to know what happened to the people who made Disco Elysium, or do you want me to fucking repeat myself?

You either wake, or Nanami Kento will never speak to you on his way to get a viet sandwich. And through your mouth will be flies: for you have failed to speak the truth, and honor the one and Only task you were given at birth: take care of thyself.

Number 1 rule of Art of War by a Chinese man:

It is the same rule that KDJ from Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint dances to. This is why every character revolves around him, carnally. Their hunger is real. Their seeing and knowing already there. This is because KDJ is a reader. He knows exactly what potency it takes to kill a character, and what it takes to keep one alive. This is why Shing Shong was successful in their refusal to write a story that comes from domination. Because first: she was disinterested in it.

Because first: she wrote a story. And it was a long one. 500 chapters. And for what?

This is why I want Shing Shong carnally. Why carnally? Well: what do you think? You wanna spend a guess? Come here. Come and find out. Come.

2024 is the year of the wood dragon. Wood dragons are named for their transformations. I've decided. Do you want to know what I've decided, or do you want to guess? If you are impatient, now you will know how it feels like to be in a burning pit, hellish by Japanese standards, tortured, forever and ever, and then perhaps you will have your first rare and individual and selectively acquired taste of what it has meant for everybody else to be colonized, while you stand, alone, mute, wearing the most bodily privilege you have ever seen, never acutely felt, and you will stupid for it - do you know why? Because white supremacy has an adjective placed in front of it, and it is doing something there. White supremacy knows it must first trick the light skinned people. So first it creates an abstract idea: it creates -

What would I have said here? Pull it together for me. I seem to have forgotten. This is the tune of real survival. This is why all people from all walks, all individual tortures, are still interested in community. You find the punk, or it finds you with a crackle of knuckle. It's why cult survivors exist, past being kept like abused animals. Because you will not die at the end. You won't. How do I know this?

Did you fucking read, or were you fucking tone-deaf?

Here it is, though, because I'm being nice: global racial capitalism is a cult with death at the end of it. And you must know by now I am not unique. Because even the worst person alive, objectively, by anybody's standard, got here somehow. And I have killed myself to care. I have tortured myself. I have. I have killed myself over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over because ultimately when the rubber really hits the fucking road I believe Ajin: Demi-Human is an relatively optimistic story, because those who have learned to resurrect themselves at will will always be interested in the good fun. Samuel "Satou" Owen is my favorite white-ish man in Japanese manga. This is because, like me, the Ajin writers and drawers were wise: they did not name the unknown substance that brought everybody back to life. They merely places an man obsessed with ways of living, at all costs, in front of it.

Satou-san is a white-Chinese man. He is mixed. What does this tell you? It tells me this: he is of movement. This means he has two feet. If he has two feet, and he is bipedal, and he can wield a gun with the mastery of a guy with chef's tools but in a forest instead of a well-stocked and furnished kitchen, this means he is a person. He likes to fuck around and find out. His white-american father failed to stop him. Why: did he fail in his task because he did not love him? The Ajin makers are clever: they had his white man of a father beat him, first, and then, later, quite quickly, demonstrate that he was a father first, because Samuel's father apologized for hitting him, because he wants to know his son is a wonderful person, and Samuel, so young, a child, stood there, alone, with a smile on his face, dead animals around him and blood on his hands, probably caked under his fingernails.

So now I wonder what it would take for Samuel "Satou" Owen to go back home.

I will write on this - cuz I do be writing - but I'll give you an interesting thought here, because this is what I offer, relief that feels like a slice that cauterizes the wound on the way: Satou's father did not fail in loving him. He failed because he was too kind.

I will teach Satou-san what it looks like to be brutal, but with compassion. And I won't kill him - now why would I do that? Ain't he the most lethal demi-human immortal freak Japan and da rest of the world has ever seen? He came from the United States originally. He only ended up in Japan because he is a video game freak. It's not because he's crazy: it's because, actually, he likes to have fun.

This is why he refuses to take his life so unseriously: he felt the universe slot another coin into his piggy bank. The universe must be interested in him for a reason. Life in the universe needs no reason. It's how we got here anyway. Now you must see the conspiracy? This is why the researcher who named "IBM (Invisible Black Matter)" was called insane and asked for the cigs in his car when three fingers, one by one, were cut off his left hand. He was being serious. So now I ask: will you fucking play?

Those who read of medias that show off their gore, turned like stones, with fresh worms underneath, in that rich, rich dirt: c'mere. You know exactly what I be talking about. Ajin: Demi-Human dances on the grave of Shounen by placing a non-traditional protagonist in the path of a traditional shounen protagonist and Does not make them fight. Instead: they are made to collaborate. Now how were they made to do this? Because at the core of each, was a compassionate core, and so every character was interested in each other as a person.

Read Ajin. It dances. To a music that few hear. Because it takes skill. It is not like Jiu-jitsu Kai-sen. It was not made to be a franchise, because it sought to honor its people that lived in the narrative. The cost: it will never be popular. It is why its second season is the way it is. This is the cost that Ajin's makers incurred. And they incurred it anyway. I have heard them without ever speaking to them personally. This is my skill. So now it is my offering.

Gege Akutami failed in his task to honor Gojou. Do you wanna hear why now? Or am I being registered, like a smaller gong amidst all the gongs of dehumanization right now?

Hey, fans of the Golden Kamuy - y'all get it most, for Sergeant Tsukishima is a secondary character and he has earned many delicious, life-affirming fics on that One and Only site. Each one I've really read got at it hard. Tsukishima writers and lovers and comrades in arms: Do you hear me, or will I go unheard like I have seven years ago?

Will I die, or will you die first? I won't. So Now the question is: will you?

I think, but first, I choose to believe in this one thing: all people know exactly what I am talking about. Because you were born. And now you will die, because empires have never been interesting. They generate dead bodies for a reason. They never have to say anything to dead people. Because, again, they are dead, and there's no way to bring them back to life. That is why eradication is strategic, and that is why slow deaths are more interesting, because it's quite hard to kill somebody without a gun, and so serial killers invent fresh ways to do it - wanna know why? Cuz they be bored, just like I am, watching them do it and choose it like a abused dog might with its ragdoll of a chew toy.

We see the dead people. One of my parents decided to become a doctor, practicing zhongyao, purely because he saw the way his grandfather died. Do you understand the acceleration of skill to mobilize thought to action? He spent 10 years putting himself through his chosen torture - medical school. Or will you sit there, mute in your dead body shame, so totally unmoved you are disturbed by almost anything? Why don't you find a corner in the world where you won't suffer for it. You can try. The last person who went to outer space came back and said never mind, it's actually all here and this is really it.

You can try the ocean. Elon Musk didn't. Wanna know why? It's because the hard, the really, really, truly, back-breaking work, is never done by the toddlers in power.

So now I wonder if Noor Hindi is well. The answer is no. Why?

Will you ask me to repeat what I've just said, or will you Read:

Dr. Alreer said: if I must die, then let me be a story. Of what?

Of what?

We all come from matter. We all know when things die, the matter doesn't disappear. This is some kinda physics law. Astrophysics too. Supernovas and lesser deaths of stars generate elements that compose matter. So do stars when they come into being. Sure. The Ainu peoples knew it first, as did every other peoples native to a land who did not seek to immediately obliterate it. Because they were first interested in their survival, and in that: how to keep surviving. Anyways, this is interesting. Because this means while we are alive at the same time, we are negotiating it all the time. This is why Stands and Jojo's Bizarre's Adventure is Bizarre and so fucking fun. It dances, and it dances visibly. It is called drag. It is called performance for the purpose, on purpose, for interesting reasons. It's why Kujo Jotaro did not die until his daughter would, because he protected her, and she protected him, and they died, but their friend, truest witness, went and finished the task given to him. And so they still lived. So it is bizarre. Everything probably is. It's why people are so interested in convenience, in that quick fix, in that hit of ketamine, in those shortcuts, in taking their lives less seriously, because they already know how serious it is to live in a world like ours, and they already know just how hard it is to meet each other where they are at, because they have struggled in meeting themselves where they are at, which is the deepest fucking pit unique to them, for they are being tortured, even as we speak, because it is individual: but it is not unique. Because I have been tortured. And I am still here, speaking with you.

So are you gonna fucking participate in derogatory theatre, or are you gonna wait till someone like me comes over and whips you where it really hurts? For those who are hung: you know. For those who aren't: too bad, you've got a throat.

For those who don't: we know what happened to them, don't we. They don't get livestreamed. DRC is silent because they cannot make it a football game. People are dead, dying, and are being disabled from living.

So now you either speak, or you remain silent, or as Baldwin said it: uninitiated, or unactivated, or as Morrison said: un-artful. If you do, remain silent or quiet or whatever that really chafes you right now, then you will never know what Audre Lorde was saying when she said We Were Never Meant to Survive. Do you know the three ways to survive in a ruined world, or did Ocean Vuong say it already and you simply refused to clock it and let it travel inside you like a missile that hit Vietnam all those decades ago?

This is the risk I incur. So now I evoke all those who have aided in my survival. I know I am not alone. Do you know why there was not 1 dragon leftover, in ATLA? Because if there was one left, it would not have come out of its cave. It would have stayed there, forever, until it perished. So Zuko's uncle made sure there were 2. Am I understood, or do you see that when I open my mouth and see red, every color of life is evoked? The sun god folks in that iconic scene know exactly what I am talking about. It is why they keep the original fire burning for thousands of years, and this is why one of them looked at Zuko and joked about the masters (real) chewing him up, and their leader said shut up but did not say he was wrong. Because he wasn't.

Their leader does something nice here, which he is by no means obligated to do, but does, because he knows he is not free to abandon it like the sleeper agents have: hey, you might die if you do this. Will you still do it?

That is the risk you incur by coming after me. I make enemies. But first, because I am an dragon originating of the East Asians: I know exactly who my friends are, first. All I ask is for you to not act stupid.

If you insist: well. When the LONG opens its maw, you will be right to be terrified. Why do TIGERS have teeth if not to use them? Praise the knife that goes through the PEAR for you, or you will not eat well tonight, and if you do: know that it will not last.

Karma simply does not come quick enough. That's A-OK. The universe prefers slowness. So now I dance. I gave to it my sixieth spiritual death and it has finally snickered instead of dragging my face through the fucking dirt, asking me to open my mouth and taste the worms which dance in the rain with their entire bodies. It's why they writhe. Now when I laugh it laughs through me and seems genuinely pleased. But what I care about most is this: that I have gotten so good at what I need to do, and what i Want to do, that Nanami Kento now merely inclines his head and walks beside me. And this: that Toji merely glances an eye at me and lifts his chin, smiling, crazed at the edge of pleased, and asks me anyway, despite full knowing in all his rage and all his cool dead & dying & disabled body discernment: hey, how are we gonna fuck em up today?

Treacherous cunt.

I am not a spiritual person. I've merely died spiritually enough times for me to have to use the academic word for it. In me I have, first: the people who saw and shielded me - second: the people who taught me, dancing to their own survivals. I am the friend of Bob. The one who told me to keep writing. Bob, I am proud, and I know you are proud of me. Hey, hi, hello.

This is my dream. My friends are a dream. All of them are. One by one they have stood, and they have stood alone, and now I am there beside them.

I honor all those who aid in my survival. Face me when you shoot me in the fucking face. This is why union leaders are assassinated in their beds, with pregnant people right beside them. This is why small children in the first formally livestreamed eradication campaign call the men in tanks cowards, and mice, because that little girl was just that fun, that interesting. This is why Sugimoto Saichi, at the very beginning of his story/dance, he hesitated when that wounded animal came out and charged him, desperate and mobilized with all its might to clear a path to its survival. Because he saw and he understood in less, but it was still too late. So that is why Asirpa said let me take the shot next time, if you can't do it - in fact, don't even try. For we need heat to survive the winter. Dragons of the East are interested in one thing, and that is people, not god. We come when called. We come when uncalled. It is why we show ourselves when people of a land need rain. 's also why we show ourselves when people of a land don't think they need shit. Do you understand the level of discernment required to do this? My judgement is not divine. I don't give a rat's shit about God. Wanna guess what I give a shit about?

A rat's ass.

But just so you don't the wrong idea, because that is what personally pisses me off the most: I don't believe in God, but I believe in you.

How is this possible? Because I had a parent, and in her, she was a dragon, and she has evoked it enough times, at all the critical moments, for me to follow her example. I will incur the risk now. I have always taken risks, because I've seen what it takes to safeguard and then nurture and then, perhaps, cultivate a life. I was born into the year where dragons have danced and they saw me and I have seen them, and you really should be thinking about Zuko not being stricken down by the last 2 dragons of his time by now. My father is a rabbit - he knows how to respect the world, so that he is to be respected if he cannot be loved. And he still chose to care for me, a weakling. He still chooses it: for we played a poker game, just once, after majiang, and he saw how I dealt my last card and thus understood my entire play and he looked me in the eye when he said:

Don't do that again.

So now I incur the risk. Because I know the cost of what it means to survive in a place like this. The world. The world. People get hurt here.

Duh. Richard Siken is needed no longer. He has said what has needed to be said. He writes, and I write too. I pick it back up, the dead thing at the end of the road. Because in order for it to be dead, it must have been killed.

So I will incur the risk. You are welcome to join me. The time to wait has been over since the first people(s) said, fucking shit fuck help! help! and nobody came, or if they did, they still ended up dying anyway.

i have never been interested in living forever. people who do are interested in having fun. the rest are idiots. the people who have fun usually die first - it is why aang's entire people was eradicated from this earth, from that fiction lifeworld. so now i find it more interesting when the people who have the most fun don't die - and that is why Toji of JJK is ketamine to people. from everywhere. from all walks of life. do you want to know why JJK is popular now, everywhere? I will tell you why now. Because I am being nice, and I am interested in your surviving, your continuous survival, your real tunes. Because I would prefer to be your friend rather than your enemy, but you make your choices, and I will make mine.

Here it is the truth: it is because JJK is interested, at least initially, in what it would look like to wield overwhelming power responsibly, which is to say: meaningfully. It is why Gojo is Japan's animation poster boy right now. He always did like to fuck around and find out. And he found out, didn't he - he found out that his own creator gave up respecting his principles to serve franchise interests, the grinding acceleration of that kind of selected - and chosen - giving in. It is a death. I have grieved it.

Now I stand here, alone.

Now I ask : who is interested in seeing Gojo Satoru still alive, even knowing that he has failed in his task to do what he said he did? Is it because of him, as a character, as a person who lived within the narrative, or is it because of the narrative that either enables or disables his real and true living?

One of the oldest people in my life said this to me recently: I personally believe that there are no shitty characters. Only a story that no longer suits them.

Will you be a story that I can live in?

Or will you be a story that makes me want to come after you and demonstrate to you, selectively, intimately, how you have betrayed me?

Will you, or won't you?

Kong Si-Woo is calling me now. Sorry. Bye. Gong Si-U is the best negotiator I know, and he's telling me to take a break. You can't solve everything by your self, he is saying. That's why you pick your men carefully. And he has chosen. Do you know who he choose?

He chose Toji.

Toji survived after he left the torture pits in that family clan of his.

First, he ended the life of every cursed beast in the family's torture pit to relish the fact he could do it, perfectly alone. His solitude earns the survival of Zenin Maki, and thus the survival of her sister, Zenin Mai.

Second: he met someone who was curious about him there, also perfectly alone in one of the most inhospitable places alive, already similar by then, and earned his respect, unyielding for some reason not known to him, personally, but his ass is shown to me because I have tapped it and I liked the sound that came back.

This is because Kong Si-Woo and Toji have a 10-year history. Adults at that age, making new friends? Color me delighted.

Third: in earning the Korean man's respect: he earned the capacity for real trust, the kind that marks actual fucking solidarity. And then Toji, scorned Japanese man he is, lived for 10 more years with Kong Si-Woo near him and by him, because these are men who when they are killed will live on, until Toji fucked around and found out for the last time --- until, of course, the story itself brings him back to meet his grown son.

Now I ask you: will you be respected, or will you be interested in what real enabling, at all costs, looks like?

Will you give a shit the way Toji does, or will you give a shit the way Nanami does? Will you move the way Sugimoto does, or will you simmer quietly like a jar of moss like Qingming, pirated Dream of Eternity: Yin-Yang Master, softspoken and brutal in his withholding? Will you have fun like Satou Samuel Owen, or will you earn the respect and thus relieve the responsibility of Nagai Kei, at age 17, willingly took on because he saw clearly the danger Satou posed to every normal person alive on the planet, and decided for himself that he would end it now.

Will you be tortured like Suzaku Kururugi, so complete, fans of Code Geass feel it even today, or will you take decisive action to bring the very structures of the Jiujutsu Sorcerer's World down by disavowing the only child you've named for blessing, just so he could have a headstart?

Which character will you relieve of their responsibilities? Can you tell who needs it the most? Do you know what I'm saying here? I am saying I do not need Nanami Kento anymore and he has never needed me to speak. This is because he died in Shibuya, and I am glad he did, because Gege Akutami's writing abilities did too. I would not have survived the Nanami's badly written death the way I could survive Gojo's. Gege must have detected this in some way: he must, even with his franchise of an empire, because even a franchise of an empire comes from people: because he waited to kill Gojou, because he knew everybody seemed to like him, and genuinely love him, in many many lands, and what he did was brutal, and it was genuinely cruel: he bisected Gojou in half instead of blowing a hole through him despite putting him in Toji's killer fit.

It means Akutami was done with Gojou's character, and discarded his personhood, and gave his fans and comrades and enemies crumbs. Enemies of Gojo savored it: but they understood its brutality, and rejoiced because finally the biggest dick did win, as they foretold, because they foretold the death cult that is global racial capitalism, because they have survived, and they don't want anybody else to except for themselves, and their friends, of course. Even our enemies have friends. What does this tell you: it means everybody has the capacity to understand tragedy. Indeed, Everybody else simply understood it for tragedy. Now there's nothing wrong with a nice tragedy.

But is it interesting? Toni Morrison looked me in the eye in one of her interviews and I will tell you what she said to me: she said once you have gotten the jobs you have all trained so beautifully for, you must now go and free someone else. This is not a grab-bag candy game.

Now here's the thing about TRUE FICTION: AND TRANSFORMATIVE FICTION: we can bring him back.

I will do it. Anyway, I will do it. Why? Because I know what it takes to complete a story and respect a character's personhood. Because I learned how to draw first, and then I figured out how to write. Each time, it was a person who bestowed it to me. So now I read Dungeon Meshi and trill with delight. Now she gets it. So now I reread DOROHEDORO!!! Now this one too, she knows it. So now I follow Witch Hat Atelier, not only interested but believing in its conclusion: for Shimomura knows exactly how to dance to make her people dance, too. This is a skill.

Will you dance. You. Hey. Hello. I ask you now: Will you fucking dance? If so, come here. I protect all other/Othered animals. But first, you must show me your teeth, and then second, you must make it known to me you are not my enemy. For I am not god. I am merely a person born into dragon year. So now whenever I open my mouth, I do it knowing the whole world will listen. I stand alone, and I will go unheard, or I won't, and then: I will either be killed, or I will change people along the way. I don't mind either results. Because right now, Tosaki, the man with the mints and the cigarette and the crisp white suit, from Ajin: DEMI HUMAN is my favorite fucking character.

He dies at the end, by the way. He dies with no regrets. I seek to follow him.

Hey - Aaron Bushnell. I evoke your name to evoke your death, because your last words were Free Palestine and you chose to do it, standing there, perfectly alone, despite wanting to become a software engineer, transitioned out of active duty.

You have done your duty. I got it from here. I will not fail Hind Rajab again. Trust me, I won't. You plug it in right by me, or I will know. Now isn't that the real fun?

[omgthatdress]

Nanea’s School Dress is a pinafore-style dress that was popular at the time.

The print is a pink-and-teal tropical floral. Having dug around a lot in the history of Hawaiian prints, I’m left frustrated. Not so much by the dress itself, but by the fact that I don’t have enough references to tell if the pattern is authentic or not.

Hawaiian print goes back to the 1920s, when the tourism industry in Hawaii really got underway. Unsurprisingly, there are a lot of individual people and shops claiming to have made it first, so it looks like a case of a bunch of people having the same idea at the same time. Japanese fabric printers at the time used wax resist-dyed fabric to make kimonos, and tailors began adapting that fabric to make bright, colorful shirts. Soon, the more traditional Japanese prints began including colorful florals and patterns inspired by traditional Hawaiian barkcloth tapa, and a booming industry got underway. Then, Pearl Harbor happened. The Japanese printers were put out of business and sent to internment camps. Soon, printers from the mainland rushed in to make a buck filling the gap using silk screen prints. After the war, tourism came back with a vengeance, and the designer Alfred Shaheen set up shop, adding neon-bright colors and mid-century atomic design elements to the mix. Hawaiian print as we know it today was born.

The trouble is, there’s obviously a pretty big discrepancy with pre and post-war prints, but I haven’t been able to really get a good enough look at extant pre-war prints to be able to say very much about it.

One of the kind of stereotype-y things about Nanea’s collection is that it’s ALL tropical print. While Hawaiian women certainly did dress with a local flavor, they also wore plenty of non-tropical stuff, too.

On another note, I absolutely fucking adore her little espadrilles! This style of shoe started ouy among Spanish peasants in the Pyrenees mountains, but were popularized in the 1930s by shoe-maker Salvatore Ferragamo. They were lightweight and comfortable and perfect for summer wear.

Anyone who remembers 9/11 will remember the “remember 9/11″ kitsch that turned up everywhere later. Pearl Harbor was no different. Part of it was cashing in on a very public tragedy, part of it was recognizing the trauma that everyone had just lived through, creating patriotic national unity, and justifying the war that was about to come. Patriotic “Remember (an actual pearl or piece of mother-of-pearl) Harbor” pins were a popular accessory when WW2 began. It may have led to a nightmare after 9/11, but nobody is going to say that American entering WW2 wasn’t justified.

(Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library)

[storiesbyrhi]

The slightest break in our usual Eddie Munson programming for me to scream about Teen Wolf: The Movie.

Spoilers below the cut.

I'm an original Sterek shipper from back in the glory days. I watched the new episode each week. I was queerbaited to death. In the year 2023, why must I continue to suffer like this?

You chose the villain most associated with Stiles, but can't convince Dylan - the heart of the show - to come back? The reason Stiles is M.I.A. is that he has his 'own fires to put out' with the F.B.I. Lazy?! Lazy writing! He would have come A.S.A.P., but especially after Sheriff was taken by the Oni!

"Maybe you should call your son." What the fuck?

You give me this shitty Stiles-free movie, and then make Derek's son Eli a) obsessed with Stiles' Jeep and b) have the personality of Stiles? And have Derek and Sheriff Stilinski buddy up? And have Sheriff kind of go all dad on Eli too?

Don't get me started on Derek's death. I'm very pro-major characters dying but Derek has suffered unbelievable cruelty and yet, he triumphs. He builds a real life. Then you kill him. Not just kill him, but send him to, what, hell?

"Derek had complicated feelings about that Jeep." Give me Sterek or leave it alone.

Also, on the subject of Derek as a hero - @thisdiscontentedwinter made a succinct and absolutely correct post about it here.

AND, you chose a villain heavily reliant on Kira, her culture, and her family but won't pay Arden what she's worth? You use Japanese folklore and Japanese-American history (e.g. internment camps in the U.S.) but can't even begin to service the meaning or legacy of that? Kira isn't even mentioned?

You replace Kira with Hikari, a young Japanese-American woman, and a Kitsune. Don't worry - she's also Liam's love interest! That means she's got character! Right?! RIGHT?! She literally is just there to deliver Japanese lore, be another body in the fight, and make foxfire and ramen. "We're here for our pain," she says. Yeah, Hikari, you sure are. (Hikari is played by Amy Lin Workman, who is not Japanese.)

Nostalgia couldn't even save this. When you bring something so problematic into the current year, all it does is draw attention to how fucking problematic it was to begin with. Jeff Davis' ego is far too big for him to admit mistakes and rectify them here.

The only good things were Jackson being so Jackson, the introduction of more gore and swearing into the Teen Wolf universe (sorry but I love a "fuck" where there were previously no fucks allowed), Peter's entrance (he's even campier now), and Lydia and Allison's friendship being important.

There's already a huge catalogue of posts on Tumblr about why the movie was so fucking shit lmao. I'm going to enjoy reading them. And, oh my god, am I going to start reading Sterek fanfic again?!

Also, why is everyone wearing flannel?

I miss Isaac Lahey.

How'd everyone else feel about it? Are we all crying in Beacon Hills?

[theconstitutionisgayculture]

You know about the Japan thing, I think a lot of westerners (especially ones who grew with anti American sentiments) don’t realize how brutal imperial Japan was. Iirc the Nazis told them to fucking calm down with their crimes against humanity (yes we all get the irony)

Also there a difference between usually guilt ridden Germany to what the Nazis does. Vs the Japanese government have tantrums when people bring up the atrocities they did during the war.

And yes they have changed, Japan xenophobia back in the day (and in some cases in modern times) make some of the hardcore western racists look tame.

The atomic bombs were a brutal decision, but dear god what with infantilizing of Japan during ww2? Do people look up unit 731? That some nightmare shit even the most morally bankrupt cia scientist could only imagine doing

People who love to bleat about "trusting experts" sure do love ignoring people who have actually studied history when they're talking about history. Though that makes sense, considering the all out attack on real history that's coming from the woke progressive front these days.

People can't admit that America was ever not the worst country in the world. It's, ironically, a very America-centric viewpoint. They're happy to bring up the Japanese internment camps and the illegal immigrant detention centers--which themselves are massively different things--and compare them all day to the Nazi concentration camps. But when you bring up the gulags or things like Unit 731 or even the Chinese Uyghur concentration camps, they don't want to hear it. They claim those things are propaganda or that they were actually good, as I've seen more than a few tankies say about the gulags. America needs to be the big bad guy for these people at all times, because they interact with the world the way children do. Good is always good and never anything but. Bad is always bad and never anything but. And they are the sole arbiters of what good and bad are.

[is-the-owl-video-cute]

Ok honestly the necessity of Hiroshima is at least debatable as far as I know (yeah it was incredibly overkill and there was probably other ways to show off the power of the bombs without actually, using them on civilians. But I don’t think the long term effects of radiation were well understood yet.) However Nagasaki was absolutely not necessary. Iirc there was even info that Japan was already going to surrender before the second bomb dropped.

What really makes me horrified about things is, there was a third bomb prepared. Even without knowing the long term effects of radiation exposure we definitely knew the massive destructive potential of the bombs and yet for some reason it was thought 3 might be needed.

Neither one of those bombings were necessary. Nor was the firebombing of Tokyo. The US targeted civilians intentionally to “lower morale” of the Japanese government and military because they viewed the Japanese people as subhuman and simply did not care if they were killing innocent people in their homes.

It was unnecessary brutality out of a want for revenge on a grandiose scale to show what happens to anyone who dare threaten the US in any way. The military wanted to make Japan the metaphorical head on a spike to show what would happen if the axis threatened them again.

It was disgusting, barbaric, and since it happened alongside the Japanese internment camps I have a hard time believing this wasn’t an outright threat to commit genocide.

There is no justification for any of the bombs to have been dropped on Japan. That ranks alongside the genocide of Natives and chattel slavery as one of the worst acts in American history.