Alison Fincher
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alisonfincher.bsky.social
Alison Fincher
@alisonfincher.bsky.social
1.5K followers 710 following 3.1K posts
public scholarship at Read Japanese Literature (@readjapaneseliterature.com) | co-editor for Japanese lit at Asian Review of Books | MSt English lit, 650-1550 | queer (historical/SFF) romance reader | ATL | genderqueer (all pronouns) | generative AI is bad
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alisonfincher.bsky.social
(All of this lead to a fruitful conversation about our culture’s obsession on anti-heroes, Strong Female Protagonists, queer romances, and Tolkien’s phenomenal refusal to sign a statement he wasn’t Jewish to get The Hobbit translated I to German.)
A copy of Tolkien’s letter. (1/2) (Source: The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien…) 25 July 1938 20 Northmoor Road Dear Sirs, Thank you for your letter. I regret that I am not clear as to what you intend by arisch. I am not of Aryan extraction: that is Indo-Iranian; as far as I am aware none of my ancestors spoke Hindustani, Persian, Gypsy, or any related dialects But if I am to understand that you are enquiring whether I am of Jewish origin, I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people. My great-great-grandfather came to England in the eighteenth century from Germany: the main part of my descent is therefore purely English, and I am an English subject—which should be sufficient. I have been accustomed, nonetheless, to regard my German name with pride, and continued to do so throughout the period of the late regrettable war, in which I served in the English army. I cannot, however, forbear to comment that if impertinent and irrelevant inquiries of this sort are to become the rule in matters of literature, then the time is not far distant when a German name will no longer be a source of pride. A copy of Tolkien’s letter. (2/2) Your enquiry is doubtless made in order to comply with the laws of your own country, but that this should be held to apply to the subjects of another state would be improper, even if it had (as it has not) any bearing whatsoever on the merits of my work or its sustainability for publication, of which you appear to have satisfied yourselves without reference to my Abstammung [descent] I trust you will find this reply satisfactory, and remain yours faithfully, J. R. R. Tolkien
August 12, 2025 at 11:28 PM
alisonfincher.bsky.social
The seal of Futurama’s Space Pope. He is a green, crocodilian figure wearing a white robe and a mitre with his hand held up in blessing. The text around the seal is partially in Latin and partially written in a fictional non-human lettering system. The Latin reads, “Crocodylus pontifex”.
July 21, 2025 at 1:30 AM
alisonfincher.bsky.social
My sister correctly identified the shape as "a snake who ate something big".

This means that she a.) has never read The Little Prince, but b.) passes the test anyway.

I have a wonderful little sister.
A Kanazawa bar (Cigar and Bar, Bottom Ress) sign is based on an illustration from The Little Prince. Supposedly, most adults mistake the shape for a top hat when it is actually a snake that has eat an elephant. White kanji are inscribed on the black snake.
July 7, 2025 at 11:32 PM
alisonfincher.bsky.social
I wanted to do language study in Japan and go back to graduate school, but I’ve found my little niche in doing public education on Japanese lit in translation.

Sometimes that means Japanese bookstores can feel a lot like secret reunions with friends. ☺️

@zackdavisson.com
@averyudagawa.bsky.social
Copies of J-Boys (translated by Avery Fischer Udgawa) and A History of Japan in Manga (translated by Zack Davisson) stacked next to the each other.
July 2, 2025 at 6:09 AM
alisonfincher.bsky.social
A sign shows a bird of prey stealing a kid’s hamburger. The text reads, “Be careful! They’re coming for your food!” Other pictured examples of steal-able food on onigiri and a soft serve ice cream cone. The background shows rice terraces off the coast of Japan’s Notto Peninsula and the Sea of Japan.
June 30, 2025 at 6:46 AM
alisonfincher.bsky.social
What actor's expression in a movie will stay with you for the rest of your life?

Probably cheating because it’s animated, but the animators NAILED Louisa’s quiet desperation. She’s holding her family together, + she doesn’t think the stress is ever going to stop.

Jessica Darrow’s voice, FWIW. 🤷
A clip from Disney’s Encanto. Louisa (the middle sister, the “strong one”) is dressed in traditional Colombian clothing. She holds up a giant boulder while her face makes a plea for help that she clearly doesn’t expect to get. Her youngest sister, Mirabel, also in traditional Colombian clothing, looks on in shock. A second clip from Disney’s Encanto. Louisa (the middle sister, the “strong one”) is dressed in traditional Colombian clothing. She holds up a giant boulder while her face makes a plea for help that she clearly doesn’t expect to get. Another view of the expression. Her youngest sister, Mirabel, also in traditional Colombian clothing, looks on in shock.
June 24, 2025 at 5:22 AM
alisonfincher.bsky.social
This, my friends, is why we don’t we don’t use generative AI software.

Behold… a teacher volunteers to teach kids to make pizza or cookies to raise funds for 10yo’s school. The school feeds the description into crappy AI software and then…
A nightmare piece of AI graphics where the generative AI interpreted “pizza and cookies” as “cookie pizza”. Not the fun giant, frosted chocolate chip slice you got at CiCi’s after ballgames, but a horrifying savory pizza pie with cheese, tomato sauce topped with terrifying little Oreo-pepperonis and what look like Easter M&Ms. Nightmare pizza is surrounded by smaller culinary Frankenstein monsters that look like pumpkin pie topped with more M&Ms and/or pizzas frosted in orange and pink with… more M&Ms. I think. It’s very hard to tell. Yum.
March 29, 2025 at 9:40 PM
alisonfincher.bsky.social
These guys are chlandi plates. They visualize sound waves as art. More or less.

The intro makes me think of Melkor breaking into Ilúvatar’s music to make something discordant, but Ilúvatar resolving it right back into something beautiful. Especially with the way the theme song progresses.
A 5x8 grid of black plates, each with a different “design” created by white sand moved into place by sound waves Via https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/90021/theory-behind-patterns-formed-on-chladni-plates
February 12, 2025 at 4:19 AM
alisonfincher.bsky.social
Welp… Downloading MapQuest wasn’t on my 2025 Bingo Card.
A screen shot from the MapQuest iOS app (“Map”) that shows the Gulf of MEXICO and the US and Mexican states that border it.
February 12, 2025 at 2:30 AM
alisonfincher.bsky.social
Has anyone read Emi Yagi's When the Museum Is Closed?

It's coming out in English translation in July. (Don't know by whom yet because... Penguin... 😑)

Sounds delightfully queer. Is it delightfully queer?

www.penguin.co.uk/books/461803...
"Rika Horiuchi’s new part-time job is to converse with a statue of the Venus de Milo – in Latin – every Monday, when the museum is closed. Initially reluctant, Rika starts to enjoy her strange new job: she and Venus talk about everything. They fall in love, and (with the help of a statue of Artemis’ hunting dog) eventually break free. This fresh and original new novel from the author of Diary of a Void confirms Emi Yagi as one of the most exciting Japanese writers published in English today."
February 6, 2025 at 12:58 AM
alisonfincher.bsky.social
Internet (notnotnutritious.com) says yes.
Picture of a fritter of some kind—maybe—with the text: For recipes that call for egg or egg white as a binder, such as these Zucchini and Green Pea Fritters (link), you can typically replace with an equal amount of aquafaba. If the recipe calls for 1 egg, then use 3 tablespoons of aquafaba. If it calls for an egg white, use 1 tablespoon of aquafaba. Aquafaba is apparently “chickpea water”.
February 4, 2025 at 9:56 PM
alisonfincher.bsky.social
Just @asolove.bsky.social asking Siri to help us find a classic flick for our Friday night movie.

Too bad Marilyn Monroe’s character didn’t have access to AI. 😅
Siri’s request when asked for the classic 1953 film “How to Marry a Millionaire”: “According to modelqualityintroductions.com, if you are young, learning how to marry a millionaire could be as easy as contacting a Millionaire matchmaker and asking for consideration in the agency’s database of men…”
January 18, 2025 at 8:27 PM
alisonfincher.bsky.social
Yes.
Image of OP’s post. Pointer is indeed, more or less, pointing at the repost icon.
November 30, 2024 at 3:04 AM
alisonfincher.bsky.social
I don’t remember what happens in the rest of the episode, but, as a parent…
Teen Girl Squad is a barely-animated faux comic strip on faux notebook paper sketched in faux pencil with stick-figure-style characters. The drawings are outline only, no color. (I had to look this up.) In Teen Girl Squad #2, a van driven by the random, reappearing balding man who speaks with Strong Bad’s voice runs down the basketball player that the teen girl named So-and-So had been “totally crushing” on. The van is labeled, “CHILDREN”, and Strong Bad’s voice narrates “Children!” as the van drives over him. So-and-so stands next to the van with flipped out, long hair, sleeveless shirt, and plaid skirt, with a look of shock and dismay in her face. The teenage boy’s basketball bounces away.
November 19, 2024 at 4:13 AM
alisonfincher.bsky.social
My cat Emmy has been condemned by the vet to ~10 days in a cone of shame. She’s struggling to drink water from her bowl…

I’m pretty sure I just heard her turn on the bath tub to get water to drink AND TURN IT OFF AGAIN?!

(She took over my bed before I made it. Don’t judge me. Please.)
A 7lb. grayish brown tabby cat looking peeved while wearing an opaque plastic “cone of shame”. She’s sitting on an unmade bed with lavender and purple sheets, covered with a (cotton—not polyester!) fleece blanket.
November 14, 2024 at 2:25 AM
alisonfincher.bsky.social
Doing a separate research project, I see G. K. Chesterton on the Wikipedia page list of Bright Young Things. I'm dying.

(Chesterton was 46 in 1920. This is a photograph of what he looked like at 36. He was also quite pompously Catholic.)
A black and white photograph of a corpulent, baby-faced man in his mid-30s. He has quite the crop of curly hair in an unfashionable cut falling over his forehead. He's also sporting a mustache and a pair of round-framed glasses with a strap attached to his jacket. He's wearing a high-collared shirt, with a tweed(?) waistcoat and jacket as well as an oddly-arranged tie.
November 12, 2024 at 1:17 AM
alisonfincher.bsky.social
Ah. They've got a list?
A list you can access via rhizome.bsky.social's profile.
November 8, 2024 at 12:24 AM
alisonfincher.bsky.social
This is all there is. Don't know how else to check.
A screenshot of rhizome.bsky.social's page. No posts or activity of any kind. 43 followers. 0 following.
November 8, 2024 at 12:23 AM
alisonfincher.bsky.social
Happy to report that I once again won Halloween.

Just returned for trick-or-treating. Bowl one has chocolate. Bowl two has allergen-free lollies. Bowl three *had* applesauce. Had to refill.

There are kids on the porch, as we speak, telling their parents that THIS house has APPLESAUCE.
A wooden bowl with a few remaining chocolate peanut butter cups A wooden bowl with some remaining allergen-free lollipops. A completely empty wooden bowl which once held applesauce packets.
November 1, 2024 at 12:17 AM
alisonfincher.bsky.social
Happy Halloween. Meep meep!
Two people of different heights in lab coats dressed as Bunson Honeydew (bald cap) and Beaker (spikey orange wig).
October 31, 2024 at 11:25 PM
alisonfincher.bsky.social
*This* is legit medieval style (but not medieval) art.

globalvoices.org/2018/07/14/w...
Warrior takes an armored cat for a walk’ (着甲武人猫散歩逍遥図) by Noguchi Tetsuya
October 30, 2024 at 6:21 PM
alisonfincher.bsky.social
Don't mind me. Just seeing what Bluesky makes of my second attempt at an episode cover. Let's see if this one passes our almighty e-censor's muster. 😑
A collage of pictures in a rough circle. This episode’s artwork comes from multiple sources. Clockwise from “1:00”: A tryst between a samurai and his wakashu in a painting on silk by Issho Miyagawa, cs. 1750. (via Wikimedia Commons) The cover of Hana Monogatari, an edition of Nobuko Yoshiya’s early stories. (via HistoryIsGayPodcast.com) A photograph self-portrait of Yukio Mishima posing as Saint Sebastian. (widely available online) A print illustration from Nanshoku Yamaji no Tsuyu of a man kissing his young, male lover—presumably a kabuki actor—by Sukenobu Nishikawa from 1715. (via Timelessmoon) “Butterfly Hunting”, an illustration by Shigeru Shudo of a Class S story from 1926. (via Wikimedia Commons) An unattributed January 1928 issue of the Japanese journal Hentai Shiryo (via Wikimedia Commons). (The same illustration appears on the cover of Mark McLelland’s Queer Japan from the Pacific War to the Internet Age.) I'm happy to provide more detail.
October 30, 2024 at 5:55 PM
alisonfincher.bsky.social
20 books that have had an impact on who you are. One book a day for 20 days. No explanations, no reviews, just book covers. #20books #20Books20Days #books #reading

12/20
The cover of Julia Alvarez’s In the Time of the Butterflies. The cover features a latch-top glass jar. There is one black, orange, and yellow butterfly trapped inside, and another resting on the top. The background is out of focus—perhaps a sunset or sunrise sky, greenery, and then a wooden table for the jar to rest on?
October 29, 2024 at 12:38 AM
alisonfincher.bsky.social
20 books that have had an impact on who you are. One book a day for 20 days. No explanations, no reviews, just book covers. #20books #20Books20Days #books #reading

11/20
The cover of The Joys of Motherhood by Buchi Emecheta.
October 26, 2024 at 1:47 PM
alisonfincher.bsky.social
Just my spouse reading the Onion to 13yo and 10yo as they sit in his lap. 😅
(Post was an exact description of the pic.)
October 24, 2024 at 9:02 PM