We're Gonna See Her Soon (((:

love when creatures sniff your hand and are like. ah understood

“There will come a time when you believe everything is finished; that will be the beginning. ”    ―   Louis L'Amour  

told my girlfriend that if she proposes i want a secondhand wedding ring. i explained i don't want to contribute to a vanity-based industry like diamond mining, and that it would be important to me to continue marriage traditions in a way that causes minimal environmental and personal harm. she asked me if i was just trying to roll the dice on obtaining a haunted object, and i told her i can want two things.

“We’re Therians, but don’t worry, we know we’re no ACTUAL animals…”

“We’re Otherkin, but we don’t REALLY believe we’re not human, that would be so crazy!”

Statements like these are making me cringe and sigh in annoyance. These are seeking validation from outside of the community, trying to make Otherkin folk seem “less ridiculous” to people who ridicule our identities, in order for them to like us better, a.k.a Pick-Me behaviour.

Let me tell you one, belittling yourself and your community in oder to satisfy the standard of somebody unrelated is not the way to educate them on it. It’s rather the opposite. Plus, you absolutely don’t need anyone’s validation to live your harmless identity.

I am an Angel. I DO genuinely identify as one and I am not cool with gatekeeping our community in order to seem more credible, thanks.

listen atla fandom we don’t talk enough about Iroh’s redemption arc.

i feel like we all just sort of take it for granted that he was always like that? because he was kind to Zuko, and he’s largely presented, in the context of the show, as being a kindly, wise old man who makes a lot of dumb jokes. but Iroh was a general in the Fire Nation army! he was going to become the Firelord! he laid siege to Ba Sing Se! he was a hugely powerful bender, and i’m sure that the Earth Kingdom was (rightfully) terrified of him for a while.

but then Lu Ten died, and Iroh came home. not long afterwards, his father died, and Ozai took the throne. at this point, Iroh had begun to see the horrors of the Fire Nation, the damage his family had done. and he made the conscious, active choice to be kind. he saw the cruelty that his people had inflicted, that he had inflicted, and he went and did better. He was kind to Zuko when no one else around him was, he was kind to the soldiers that had essentially been banished alongside them, he was kind to Song and her family and to Toph and to the whole Gaang and to just about every person he came across, with the (understandable) exception of those who were actively trying to kill him and/or Zuko. he saw everything that his people had done, and he decided that he wouldn’t be party to that any longer.

honestly, it reminds me of Aang, in a way. the major difference between Aang and Iroh, as far as their characterisation and their kindness, is that Aang was born and raised in gentility and kindness and peace, and Iroh very much wasn’t. He chose those things, even after everything that had happened to him, when it would have made just as much sense for him to become another Jeong Jeong, or even an Ozai. but he didn’t. he refused to. he, like Aang, chose kindness in the end, and that made all the difference.

i’m the most gender non-conforming war criminal on this space station

I don’t think anime vs western animation are as different as people claim due to the fact they have inspired and fed off each other for decades (they’re friends!!), however I do think our environmental messages to kids are… significantly and interestingly different

whereas, say Ghibli films express a deep Shinto-based respect and reverence for nature:

fighting for it as a means of both self-preservation and expression of heroism revolving around justice

and a matter of other groups of humans (the government often) going up against the stalwart youth

This is contrasted to western animation which tends to be like…. hey! look at this funny bat! And pollution is an evil spirit you can fight like physically 

that isn’t to say the west doesn’t depict environmentalism as heroic and even involving collective action, Captain Planet is a good example of this

but individualism is still very present, the struggle is stalwart youths versus an individual or individual corporation, hell, sometimes you even get a sympathetic backstory for the corporation and weirdly cool rock song

to be clear, antagonists like Lady Eboshi in Princess Mononoke are sympathetic too, but it is… different, Lady Eboshi is trying to survive due to circumstances but it is all of Irontown that represents a system of corruption

In comparison, there is this western idea of corruption coming from individuals rather than systems as well as the fact they aren’t trying to save nature because we are part of it, but because nature itself is a person and thus worthy of respect

In Fern Gully the fairy’s represent nature, the Lorax represents nature, Captain Planet is literally just nature, all things we can talk to and relate to, where in Princess Mononoke and Nausicaa the ultimate nature spirits are something you can’t talk to and are frankly terrifying, awe-inspiring, and mighty

Western epistemology is heavily rooted in Christianity which says that man has dominion over fish of the sea, fowl of the air, and creatures of the land, ect, which leads to a utilitarian and separate view of nature– what can it do for us as separate (higher) beings, and the only way to combat this view is to say “actually nature is a person and thus worthy of protection”

Whereas Japanese Shintoism has much more emphasis on the idea that we are all part of a whole with nature, nature is the ultimate divine with nothing more important than the other, and something worthy of protection not because we can understand it, but because we can’t

“It’s a mistake to think about nature from the idea of efficiency, that forests should be preserved because they are essential to human beings”– Hayao Miyazaki

this is not to completely bash western animation, it does have other strengths such as emphasizing children’s relationship to empathy, empathy toward others in “Toy Story” and empathy toward themselves in “Inside Out” 

However, our methods of conveying environmentalism could use some updating and steering away from “goofy” and “relatable” and maybe a little more terror and awe involved with fighting the good fight

Retrogression by Dazai Osamu is the #1 New Release in Japanese Literature!

"This book aims to piece together the fractured and disorderly lifestyle of one of history's greatest romantics and pairs it with a particular moment in his life; losing the Akutagawa Prize. The ensuing drama that unfolded through private letters, newspaper articles, diaries, obituaries, and fiction created a scandal that disturbed the early Showa literati with its coarse and indecent honesty. Dazai's fiction, fiction about Dazai, speculation and reality intertwined to create an explosive event that not only changed the desired trajectory of his life but also raised issues of discrimination within prominent literary circles and the treatment of mental illness in 1930s Japan." - From the Introduction by translator A. L. Raye

Retrogression also includes annotations and background information on every story, letter, diary, and eulogy, adding history and insights that are difficult to find available in other English translations so far.

You can find more information and free translations on Yobanashi Café. Retrogression is available for purchase in either paperback or eBook format on Amazon.