it was a cool piece of art with Shiro and Keith in Edo-esque looks and I was like COOL

and then I look down and they tagged it "ooh, a medieval au!"

cue that one reaction image of the black dude going "???"

a lot of people will think I'm just being bitchy and hypercritical about these kinds of things but it's so important to me.

I grew up surrounded by people botching my language and basically reducing it to anime stereotypes, using my language that isn't there, making me literally ashamed to speak Japanese in public

I don't have siblings, but if I did, I would have a hard time saying "oniisan" or "oneesan" because those words have been completely poisoned for me

Edo isn't "medieval", that's a European thing. And it's totally a menial thing that doesn't really matter, but that blog also reacted when asked about it like "oh, I didnt mean the European medieval, I meant

the Japanese medieval!" and I'm like yo what does that mean

.................

And not to mention that whole debacle with that non-Japanese person thinking they had a right in Shintoism despite never having even stepped foot in Japan, is selling Japanese spirits for personal profit

Lately there's just been so many people popping up in my orbit being disrespectful, whether purposefully or not, and I'm like

Dude, it's Obon, let me live

Non-Japanese people on Tumblr being like YOOO ITS OBON, FESTIVALS AND KIMONO AND YUKATA AND SHIT and I'm sitting here like

Noooooooooo.

Obon may be called a "festival" but it's more than that -- it's not Baekjung, or Zhongyuan Jie. Japan's Obon is more religious than agricultural, it's not just a festival

It's a time when we welcome my ancestors back into the home and give them respect, not party it up, wtf

It's when separated families get a break to get back together, go to our family grave, and hope our ancestors are doing well

We have summer festivals for festivities, those are different from Obon

Why does Tumblr never have any chill, smh

There are white, self-appointed Shinto priestesses/"""miko""" on Tumblr setting up kamidana, which is basically a physical thing to house a Shinto kami within your home

But they're setting it up at. Knee height.

You're never supposed to do that. Shinto kami are literally the Japanese people, we're descended from Amaterasu herself -- if you set up a kamidana at anywhere below eye level, you put all of our kami below you

This is so unrelated to the medieval thing but it's just been piling up so much lately? I'm frustrated

......................... I left my ittan momen stress toy in Tokyo, so sad

When that one person sent in a fake-ass Japanese ask telling me I had no right to police who can or can't practice Shinto (despite you know, it being Japanese culture and a closed religion), my Korean friend

Who recently found out they were 1/4th mixed Japanese, decided to try to write back a witty response.............. in Japanese

A language they're completely unfamiliar with, and only have just barely started to learn

And I'm just sitting here like "I love that you're trying to reconnect with your 1/4th Japanese but can you maybe... not pretend you know Japanese fluently enough to one-up somebody."

"That's exactly what the person who sent in the ask did in the first place."

Looks at hands...

.....for the irony that is, that's quite a discourse..

It's intense, Chuu

It's not even the only kind of discourse I've ran into

I remember one time when someone asked a question about something that was written in Japanese, and I was like "Oh! That says it's Matcha-flavoured." and they didn't believe me

But they looked at my white friend who had been practicing Japanese for about 6 years at that point, and they said "Yeah that's Matcha" and they believed HER

Like.................. why

Why are you all like this

........how even....

It's ridiculous and lame

cries into fist

Pets.....

I could literally bitch FOREVER

cries on Jade

I also thought festivals were matsuri...

There's different kinds, "matsuri" is just literally festival in Japanese

There's just no such thing as a "Obon Matsuri", there's "Natsumatsuri"/Summer Festivals that take place in roughly the same-ish time period?

But Obon itself is not a festival at all

It's... I guess you could describe it as joyous in the sense that the family is finally allowed to get together after god knows how long, getting a break from work and the like

But it's definitely no party, it's like a somber kind of happy that the whole family, both living and passed, get to get together and spend a few days in the house, know everyone's doing well

It's getting less traditional as of recent/less families go through with the whole process and stuff, but my home still does it, at least

We don't really reflect or introspect, its just like everybody gets a break, lets have some quality family time

I mean apparently my Obon means my grandma nearly runs me over with the car but this is fine

WNLGEKRGNELNG

I s2g grandma get your shit together