Home
星だけが知ってる and Candy made it to Texas today, and they’re still projected to arrive by Saturday evening! I’m excited. I wonder if I can finish GREEN by then; I’ve got 3 chapters left, so I’ll have to read 2 one day.
@MaraVos, @DIO-Berry, thanks for your recs! I always forget about eBay, for some reason. I’ve got them bookmarked now, and I’ll definitely be checking those when I can’t find books (or only expensively) on my usual sites.
I read 8 pages of 2.43, finishing 1-4 and putting me on pg 80! Next up is 1-5 SCOUTING, which should be the events at the end of ep 6. I skimmed a bit ahead, and it seems 1-7 is the Fukuhou-Seiin practice match, which is in ep 7, so the entirety of the first chapter isn’t shoved into one episode. Anyway, the chapter ends on pg 142, which is an average of a little over 20 pg for each of the last three subchapters, which isn’t too bad.
First, a digression. (lol not me over here getting emotional over literally everything in this series)
Reading a post on tumblr about involuntary crying and seeing in the comments how some people just can’t seem to fathom that someone crying isn’t inherently manipulative just. makes me appreciate again how Subaru handles Ochi being an easy crier. Their run-in at the hospital during first year, which was their first proper meeting, when Ochi started crying, Subaru immediately stopped. He realized that Ochi left earlier because he was upset, not because he was trying to be rude or anything, and his anger drains away. And he doesn’t acknowledge or bring attention to Ochi crying (much less tell him to stop), he continues the conversation and gets Ochi to stop by distracting him from it/what he was upset over. He just. completely dumbfounds him to the point where the only thing Ochi can do is just look at him like, “Huh?” and completely forget that he was even crying lol.
Ochi’s not trying to win sympathy or anything, he’s not crying on purpose, he doesn’t even want to be crying, and Subaru doesn’t act like he is. Instead of getting upset or angry when Ochi starts crying or seems like he might, he takes a step back and realizes that, oh, he’s said something he shouldn’t have or done something he shouldn’t have and upset his friend (or, in the previous case, that Ochi’s upset by the circumstances and it’s nothing to do with him), and they both make it right, even if it’s just Subaru doing nothing and Ochi shrugging it off. (Then I’m not sure if after the finals in the HaruKou prelims counts, but Subaru’s, like, off brooding by himself, and Ochi comes and finds him and tries to get him to cry - He needs to! This was their last chance, their three-year dream is now forever out of reach! He doesn’t need to pretend to be strong anymore, especially when it’s just the two of them! - and says that he won’t cry until Subaru does, and Subaru politely ignores that Ochi’s already bawling.) (At least I don’t think he does. idk, it’s been a while. But he’s never reacted poorly to to Ochi crying, not once.)
Anyway, as someone who’s always been an easy crier and was treated badly for it, I really appreciate it. I’d always get yelled at for crying, which of course would only make it worse, so I kinda trained myself not to cry, so then when I wouldn’t cry anymore, my mother would yell at me to quit my crying when all it was was that my eyes were watering because I had something in them, or allergies, or my nose was doing that stupid tingling thing, or what-have-you. Like, I wouldn’t even cry from reading/watching sad media that would make a normal person cry, anymore. (And then in college, probably because I spent a significant portion of the year away from my mother, I started crying again, and all my work went down the drain!) It’s probably because my mother’s one of those manipulative criers, so she apparently can’t fathom it being involuntary and not to, like, curry sympathy or get what I want, or whatever. Clearly, because she only cries with ulterior motives, then that’s the only reason anyone would ever cry. It’s definitely not an involuntary reaction for a lot of people, oh no, crying’s only ever done on purpose. -rolls eyes-
But anyway, yeah. That was really nice to see. And that Ochi remains an easy crier! He might be less so during the main timeline now that he’s a little older, but he still cries more easily than other people, and it’s not treated like a bad thing or anything. I love this series so much.
But also, the comments on that post are making me consider Ochi being neurodivergent again (and not just because I’m projecting this time!). A significant number of people who shared that they, too, are easy criers shared that they’re autistic or ADHD (or that it’s from RSD, a disorder which is highly comorbid with both but can certainly appear without either of them), or that they have anxiety or a mood disorder. Neither of the latter apply to Ochi, but the former don’t necessarily not apply. Hm, I’ll have to gather more evidence and think about it more.
Also that there’s some physiological component to it, too. People whose primary hormone is estrogen have a lower threshold for crying while people whose primary hormone is testosterone have a higher threshold, any trauma or mental thing that affects emotional regulation notwithstanding. So, and/or support for (pre-T, esp. first year; heck, when are you even allowed to start HRT, anyway? I don’t even know in the U.S., much less Japan) trans guy Ochi?
Now, on to your regularly scheduled obligatory rambling:
We learn that Nanafu-shi, where Seiin is located, is about 30 to 40 minutes away from Fukui-shi, where Fukuhou is located, by train. Despite being relatively close, though, the schools don’t really have a relationship with each other. Subaru and Ochi both know Aoki and Oda though, and vice versa; since their schools weren’t rivals until now, I wonder if we’ll learn how? Because it definitely seemed as if they actually knew each other, rather than just of each other.
Also, all the cities are named after bugs, which I love. 紋代町, where Yuni and his family live and where he and Chika go to middle school: 紋白蝶, the cabbage white butterfly. 鈴無市, where Chika and his grandparents live: 鈴虫, the bell cricket. 七符市, where Seiin is located: 七節虫, stick bug. And since Fukuhou is located in a real-life city, the school itself is named after a bug: 福蜂, the wasps of Fukui (at least, that’s how I interpret it; it’s the same 福 as in 福井, and bees just don’t seem to suit them for some reason? Can’t put my finger on why, but wasps do). I already think stuff like that is cool, and I’ve come to really like insects recently, so it’s double-cool.
I read 夜カフェ ch 3, which was 9 pages.
I read Seed 18 of GREEN. lmaooo this time Nozomi’s mother and grandmother are away on an onsen trip they’ve won.
Huh, I came across 意地悪 spelled as いぢわる. I wonder if it was done to show accent or something, since afaik 地 isn’t one that can rendaku to either じ or ぢ and is always only ever じ, and it was spoken by a character who speaks a dialect.
Some vocab of note:
搗き立て (つきたて) [noun] freshly pounded (rice cake). This appeared as 搗き立てお餅.
酔いしれる (よいしれる) [一, intransitive] to be infatuated; to be entranced; to be carried away
自慢 (じまん) [noun] pride; boast
That sucks, I hope you can find some other way to read it!
and that was clearly ridiculous 
.
I did squeeze in a few pages of クマとたぬき though.
I used a texthooker with Clannad so I should be able to manage to set it up with SP (the first time took me way too long, I didn’t realize Windows needed to be set to Japanese locale for it to work lol)
I need to learn how to cook all of it myself so I can have it. Other Japanese food than sushi need to get popular here.