#what even is folklore

[jakeperalta]

defining a "comfort album" as whatever feels right to you :)

[mamaangiwine]

"Lol Who cares if it's a closed practice? Who's gonna stop me? Who's gonna know? 🤣😝"

The gods.

The gods will know.

[demonslayedher]

Nerdy cultural details about the word "Hashira"

Some details can be hard to pick up without context or in translation. I recently went over a few details about the Hashira's names, Breaths, or symbols, but today I want to focus on the word "Hashira."

To get this out of the way, I use "Pillar" all over this blog because I thought that's what they were called. I was astounded that phrase was not translated, as it is a (somewhat rare) case of a one-to-one translation equivalent. They are the pillars that support the Demon Slayer Corp, after all. The kanji for it (柱) very literally means "pillar" in any modern day Japanese to English dictionary. But since you all know the word "Hashira," let's climb up and see where it takes us! First, the kanji itself (brought over from China and given the Japanese pronunciation "hashira," based on the existing spoken Japanese language), is composed of 木 for "tree" and 主 for "master" or "main/principal," among other semi-literal or more widely applicable possible meanings in modern kanji dictionaries. However, Prof. Owada Tetsuo, a retired university professor who published an unofficial book of his own Kimetsu no Yaiba interpretations based on Japanese demon slaying folklore, points out that 主 can also be interpreted as a still flame atop a candlestick, and that 柱 (hashira) is a tree that cannot be moved. (I'll continue to use a lot of Prof. Owada's details in this explanation, as well as details I have picked up in other research.) That makes 柱 closely associated with holy trees found in, or treated as, Shinto shrines throughout Japan. As Shinto is a nature-based belief system, trees are often something that a kami (deity) will inhabit. Keep Shinto in mind, because we're going to focus on that a lot.

Before that, let's finish up with the kanji 柱. According to the first official fanbook, there is an upper limit of nine Hashira because there are nine strokes in the 柱 kanji. (See this dictionary entry for a breakdown of those nine strokes.)

Now that the easy official tidbit is out of the way, back to the Shinto fun stuff and conjecture! We need to dive a bit more into the spoken Japanese language, from which a lot of Shinto terms derive. For starters, the Japanese language uses counter words for when you say a certain number of beings or objects. You could think of this as "a sheet of paper" or "three rolls of tape." It is an annoying part of starting out your study of the language because there are a lot to memorize based on sizes, shapes, types of animals, etc. Deities also have their own counter word: 柱 (hashira). This goes to show how the Hashira of the Demon Slayer Corp are something more than human, what with how much power they possess.

Now if we think about the pronunciation of the spoken Japanese word from long before a Chinese written character was assigned to it, the "hashi" of "hashira" is a "bridge." Clever ones among you might know that "hashi" also means "chopsticks." But even chopsticks have the same effect as a bridge! They serve as a connection, bridging the gap between you and what was another living thing, that which will become a part of you as your sustenance. "Hashira," as pillars, are likewise something that serve as a connection, in this case, a vertical one. They are that which connect us with the heavens, or in the case of the Demon Slayer Corp, they bridge the gap between the limits of human strength and the inhuman strength of demons.

As another Shinto tie, one of the connections that Prof. Owada and I both made was that there are nine pillars that support the main sanctuary in shrine architecture like that of Izumo Taisha Grand Shrine. Or rather, in the case of at least one of the historical iterations of Izumo Taisha, there were nine groups of three massive tree trunks each, resulting in a shrine over 48 meters in height (see here for photos of how big the remains of those pillars are and how exciting the archaeology is). These pillars give you a sense of awe for just how powerful pillars can be, especially when you have a spread of nine to distribute the weight. Now, there's more that Prof. Owada and I would both say about how Izumo Taisha also ties in with the "Ubuyashiki" surname or the "yakata" title by which the Hashira address him, but that's a dose of nerdery for some other time.

[cametotheshowinsd]

Who would you be sad with? And who would you deal with when they were sad? Grey skies every day for months, would you still stay?

[omnificent-orion]

A comic for a certain someone’s generosity (who was thwarted in remaining anonymous hahaha!)

Thank you.

Commission Info | Support My Work

(alt text below the Read More)

Image description: A monochrome comic set in Scala ad Caelum. It is winter.

PAGE ONE Panel 1: Young Xehanort is seen from above, his eyes closed as snow falls. His hood is up and he is wearing a loose wrap. Panel 2: Xehanort's expression changes to annoyance as the sound of Eraqus shivering interrupts the quiet. Panel 3: "You're not bothered by the cold at all, huh?" asks Eraqus. His only brace against the weather is his usual robe and a long scarf. "Being unbothered and not complaining aren't the same thing." Panel 4: Eraqus tries to warm himself by blowing on his hands. "It'll be nicer tomorrow," states Xehanort. Panel 5: "How do YOU know?" Eraqus whines. Xehanort tries to help Eraqus warm up with friction by quickly rubbing his arms with his gloved hands.

PAGE TWO Panel 1: Xehanort looks up into the snowy sky. Smoke can be seen rising from several chimneys. "Well, when smoke falls without wind, or floats west, it'll rain." Panel 2: "If it rises even in foul weather, or floats east, fair weather is on it's way," the statement is continued by Xehanort's mysterious robed mentor from his childhood on Destiny Islands. They sit in a wooden shack watching the rain pour down outside. Panel 3 & 4: "Huh? Really??" the question is asked by both Eraqus and an even younger Xehanort who is sitting beside his mentor. Panel 5 & 6: "Ha ha, don't believe me?" lilts Xehanort and his mentor in parallel.

PAGE THREE Panel 1: "Sounds like an Old Wive's Tale to me," states Eraqus, louder now that he's warmer. Panel 2: Xehanort folds his arms, tucking his hands under his wrap. "We'll see how you feel about it this time tomorrow," he smirks. Unconvinced, Eraqus retorts "Now it's going to snow even harder..." Panel 3: Xehanort and Eraqus walk side-by-side, shoulders pressed together. "If you talk about bad things happening, they will." Xehanort states with an air of undue superiority. "Oh yeah?" says Eraqus, "What other WISE words does the WISE man have to share?" Panel 4: "If you point at shooting stars," says Xehanort, "You'll die." "WHAT!?" Snow cloaks the city and smoke rises.

[sunshine-and-her-ikevil-stuff]

I haven't even read it yet and it ALREADY HURTS (even more so with context of what happened just before)

I already feel too many emotions

screaming "I DIDN'T HAVE IT IN MYSELF TO GO WITH GRACE, 'CAUSE WHEN I'D FIGHT YOU USED TO TELL ME I WAS BRAVE!"

[aifoemo]

N Ø K K E N

[supercantaloupe]

What is the antisemitism in TUC season 1? Does it have to do with Wally the golem?/gen

[ID: an ask from an anonymous tumblr user that reads "would love to hear more about the antisemitism in unsleeping city! was a while ago that i watched it and can't remember what you might be referencing but definitely want to be aware of it.]

no, it's not about willy the golem -- i actually think willy is a great addition to the season (even if i wish we got to see more of him), and an indication to me that brennan/the showrunners were definitely trying to be sincere and inclusive. i want to make it clear that i don't think anything antisemitic in tuc is there intentionally; i think it's there out of simple ignorance, which is also why i think fans don't frequently see/comment on it either. but i don't think that's an excuse, either.

my grief with tuc1 is largely centered around its portrayal of robert moses as the villain. especially by making him a greedy, power-hungry lich working en league with bloodsucking vampires. (also his mini is literally a green skinned skull man in a suit. yikes.) here's the thing; i know robert moses was a real life horrible person, who actually was racist and powerhungry etc etc. and i know that robert moses, the real actual person, was jewish. my grief with tuc1 is not that they chose to use robert moses over literally any other person (real or fictional) to be their season villain (though i'd be really curious to know what tuc1 would have looked like with a different villain), but that they chose to take a real jewish person, turn them into an antisemitic caricature, and then only barely add other portrayals of judaism to balance that out.

like, tuc isn't completely devoid of other jewish representation. as you mention, there's willy the golem -- and again, i really like willy, and i love that it's a portrayal of a golem that's faithful to jewish folklore (ie as a benevolent, guardian construct rather than a mindless destructive monster. i am not a fan of how 'golem' is so frequently misused as a generic enemy creature in other fantasy and ttrpg spaces, including other seasons of d20). but as i said earlier, i wish we see more of him in the season, because he's not around very much, and feels a little more like worldbuilding than a full character to me. also, he's not human. jews are people.

the only other human jewish character in tuc1 is...stephen sondheim. which, again, yeah, that's a real person who really was jewish. but i really wouldn't blame you if you had no idea of that when watching tuc1. maybe from the name you could guess he might be jewish, but i don't think people ought to make a habit of trying to 'clock' someone being jewish by having a 'jewish-sounding' surname. as he's portrayed in tuc1, you'd never know he's jewish, unless you happen to already be pretty knowledgeable about the man in real life. it's far more likely you'll know him as a theater legend than anything else (may his memory be a blessing).

now i'm not saying that brennan or the showrunners should have played up the jewishness of Real Person Stephen Sondheim to counterbalance the depiction of robert moses; that just feels weird to me, especially considering that sondheim was literally alive when tuc1 was filmed and released. it's a tricky thing to portray real people in fiction alongside made up characters, especially when they are contemporaries, and i don't think 'outright caricature' is the way to go about that. nor do i think that moses' jewishness should have been played up at all, because again i don't think that would have been particularly true to the person/character, and also Fucking Yikes. but, c'mon, if you hear the names 'moses' and 'sondheim' next to each other, which one do you associate more with judaism?

and as it stands, these are the only representations of judaism in tuc1. one admittedly nice but very minor nonhuman character; one human character you'd never be able to tell was jewish; and a third human character who, while never explicitly referenced as jewish, plays into some really hurtful antisemitic stereotyping. and it was a choice to not include anything else. maybe not a deliberate one, probably more likely one made out of simple ignorance than anything else, but a choice nonetheless. in a city with one of the largest and most visibly jewish populations in the country, and a culture that is inextricably influenced by that jewish population. a jewish population which has been and continues the target of rising hate crimes for years. i know that nyc means different things to different people, and everyone's nyc is their own -- but my nyc is jewish, and it sucks that that its jewishness is referenced directly in only one very minor way, which is greatly overshadowed by its, in my view, really insidious indirect references.

i don't know exactly how to go about addressing this. obviously, the show can't be changed by now. even if it could, i think the final product would be very significantly different from what it is now if the villain was something/someone else. i think including more references to jews in new york, more (human) jewish characters, hell, even mentioning hanukkah celebrations and menorahs in windows (it takes place in late december, after all; depending on the year it's not at all out of place for hanukkah to coincide with xmas!) would help. having literally any more positive jewish representation in tuc1 would, i think, help balance the bad stuff that's there. because, yeah, robert moses was real and he was terrible and he was jewish. but he's one jewish guy in a city with over a million jews, the vast majority of whom are just normal people. i don't want him to be the only vision of us that people get, in tuc1 alone or in any media. i'm not saying that jews can't or shouldn't be villains in fiction; but especially if you are a goyische creator, you should be really careful in how you're portraying us, and if there are other contrasting depictions in your work, too, in order to not (even accidentally) demonize jewish people as a whole.

[tearlessrain]

seriously can catastrophes stop happening for five minutes my brain is already fried from the ones we're already experiencing

[bookshelf-in-progress]

I've had an odd nostalgia for the Once Upon a Time series of mediocre short-novel-length fairy tale retellings. I've been wanting to read the retelling of "East of the Sun, West of the Moon" from that line.

The trouble is that there is no such book.

Which makes me want to write it.

Unfortunately, the only straightforward traditional retelling of that fairy tale I want to write doesn't fit with that style.

But thinking about it got me excited about that old idea all over again.

[ennaih]

Not Every Film I Watch In 2024

15. Summerland (2020) -- a rewatch

[dylanlila]

ahh... elena thinking that everything comes spontaneously and easily to lila in terms of how she carries herself like a sort of deity and then reading lila's notebooks and how many rewrites she has of letters and diary entries and...... cut to enzo saying he will stay with lila (meaning he will be there with her until she is ready to go) and her immediately asking "forever?" and he doesn't bother her with overanalyzing her slip-up or a vulnerable question dressed in sarcasm, whatever you call it (partially because he means it in a wider sense and partially because he sees through the facade... maybe doesn't even see through it necessarily, this is simply how lila is with enzo) and it's something about it there about how all of us exist as different people in the minds of everyone sure, but i'm particularly interested in those who love us here... and how that perspective can evolve in time. i don't think elena failed to understand lila, i think she even has a better understanding of the facade lila puts up (than enzo who sees right through it) due to falling for it from time to time in small ways. how you present yourself to the world says something about you as well and there is a special intimacy in understanding that about someone.

[olivieblake]

Hi! You are one of my favorite authors in traditional publishing and particularly in fan fiction. I reread Clean and Marked at least once every couple months for my mental health, and I recommend them to literally everyone.

I was bawling last night reading Clean and I’ll probably be crying tonight too when I read Marked. I have a playlist I made specifically for those two fan works with most of my favorite songs.

Your writing is so evocative and amazing and I love it! Just wanted to thank you for putting yourself out there and writing such awesome things! I know you don’t really do a lot of fanfics anymore because of your original work, but I wanted to express my most sincere gratitude for you and your writing. Much love!

thank you so much!! I don’t do fanfic in that arena anymore because the enjoyment of the source material has been,,, shall we say,,, tainted (I actually handsold a lot of copies of EVERY HEART A DOORWAY by Seanan McGuire at the tor booth at Comic-Con by asking “do you happen to have a complicated relationship with harry potter?”—very amusing to see the replying facial expressions) (and also I do always feel a bit odd about clean because I wish it did not have the “not like other girls” flavor I have come to resent that was very much the standard at the time) (sorry for all these caveats)

what I’m trying to say is thank you very, very much, and I’m happy those stories continue to bring you joy! that’s an honor and I do not take it lightly

[sergeantsporks]

Christians will see a bird with red plumage on it and be like "is anyone going to make up a folkloric story about how that bird tried to help Jesus during the crucifixion, staining its feathers red with his blood or...?" and then not even wait for an answer

[whiskeyswifty]

.

[z5mbiegrlz]