Duelist Lair

“I prefer dogs. They have a sense for righteousness and companionship…”

“We’ve taken quite some time to sort through setting up the rest of the café. I hope you can pardon us for the long wait.”

“Sandalphon, I assumed we were both going to relay the message through the stuffed plushes.”

Full text for the Japanese/Romaji/English lyrics for Sandalphon's second character song, ORISON, under the cut.

Note: Orison was officially confirmed to mean "prayer" in the announcement stream

Romaji and English translation by Saltprince. Japanese lyrics taken from the cd booklet.

Terms of use: You're free to link to this blog post, quote, or add these lyrics to the Wiki or other platforms for educational purposes, so long the original post or handle are being mentioned. (If you drop me a message about it, that'd be nice but not required!)

Do not use this content for lyric videos. If possible, I'll have a lyric video up on my channel later if copyright allows it.

i’ve been wanting to talk about it a little more in depth for a while now, though, so here goes

saying i was good as a classical vocalist is a bit of an understatement. my voice is naturally suited to it in a way that most people’s aren’t, even within the field. i have a frankly ridiculous range that means i can easily sing anything from a low alto to a first soprano role. none of my voice teachers were ever able to pin me down as a specific voice type because of how i was able to switch between them. one voice teacher told me that i had the best voice he’d heard in the entire time he’d been working at my university’s music department and another told me that she knew professional opera singers who would gladly cut off an arm for what i could do without even trying

i was really fucking good, and in a department where all of my classmates were cautioned to be realistic and have backup plans, the general consensus was that if i wanted to make performing my career, it was entirely within my reach

i quit music after my second suicide attempt, because i knew that if i didn’t, there would be a third and that i wouldn’t fail at it again

i was miserable. by the time i quit, i could barely even stomach listening to the radio and just the sight of my sheet music made me queasy

there was a span of about three months where i barely managed to get out of bed for more than a few minutes at a time

i self medicated with way too much alcohol, because drunken numbness was better than the ‘i don’t want this, but i’m in too deep to get out’ numbness that was weighing me down the rest of the time

i had sunk so much time and money and sweat and energy into music that for a long time i honestly couldn’t see a way out that didn’t involve killing myself. everyone was rooting for me. everyone kept telling me how good i was. everyone was going to be so disappointed if i ‘wasted’ my potential

let me tell all of you something that i wish i’d known a lot earlier:

just because you’re good at something doesn’t mean it’s good for you

i’m going to repeat that, because it’s one of the hardest lessons i’ve ever had to learn in my life

just because you’re good at something doesn’t mean it’s good for you

let people be disappointed. it’s not their life, it’s yours, and you deserve to live it in a way that makes you happy

months after i quit, i was talking with the head of the vocal department, who’d fought against me leaving, and she told me ‘i thought you were making a huge mistake, but i’ve honestly never seen you happier or enjoy music more than you do now’

sometimes things are meant to stay hobbies, even if you’re Really Good at them. sometimes things are better off as a small part of your life, instead of being the thing your life revolves around

sometimes the thing that feels like you’d be losing a limb if you lost it is diseased and you need to cut it off to save yourself

i don’t know entirely where i’m going with all of this, but i wish someone had said it to me when i was younger, so just in case someone out there needs to hear it? you are worth so much more than just one aspect of yourself. and it’s okay to not do the things other people tell you that you should be doing. it’s not a waste. it’s not a crime. and it’s okay to put up boundaries and say ‘i need this thing to only occupy this much space within me’

i experienced this myself to lesser degree re: my art. i’ve always loved drawing and been pretty good at it, “pretty good” meaning that as an entirely self taught young artist i was notably “talented.“ enough that lots of adults took me seriously when as a younger kid i said i wanted to do comics or animation or other art when i grew up.

unfortunately a lot of those adults ignored when that changed to “i want to write” around my teenage years (when i discovered writing and something about storytelling just lit that spark in me.) because i was still drawing and i was still getting better at it, i was still enthusiastic about it and liked showing my drawings and being praised.

but some of those adults in my life helped turn this thing i loved–drawing–into a thing of pressure and expectation. they didn’t listen to me communicating directly that i felt i’d hit my natural limits in art, not just in skill but in enthusiasm and dedication. that i didn’t feel seriously enough about art to push through all the things that frustrated and stymied me, to fight for the improvement that would make art a thing i could really pursue. they got annoyed at me for giving up or not trying hard enough or quitting when it got hard. they didn’t want to hear me say that i wanted my art to be fun, that it was more important to me that art be fun–even getting better at it should be fun, and that if it wasn’t fun anymore i’d rather not do it. that i’d rather enjoy it as a hobby than hate it as a calling.

it never stopped any single one of them. my mother still demanded i bring out my notebook to show guests and new friends. my godfather still demanded i pack my art for visits to florida and wanted to lecture me about why i should get better at backgrounds.

and it’s so easy to be confused in that shit, because i loved my mom being proud of me and my art at the same time as and as much as i hated feeling like a trophy, shown off and distilled to my drawings as my whole value. i loved being praised by my godfather and being treated like an artistic peer, loved him leveling with me about technique and being asked my opinion on HIS art at the same time as i hated his impatience with my insistence that i didn’t need to work harder at what was fun or his dismissal about writing being my real passion. it still warms me with both pleasure and irritation when he STILL talks about my art and asks me to collaborate with him on professional logos. just like it makes me both pleased and tired when my dad asks me to send him my “new drawings”, and that i should let him sell them at his craft fairs alongside his handcrafted wooden creations. (my art is NOT good enough to sell. it never has been.)

it has been years since i’ve drawn regularly, it’s a rare occasion now to bust out the paper and pencil and try to push an image out of my head through graphite. and i LIKE it like that, but sometimes i wonder how much of my depression was deepened in places by this art being seen as my only shining value.

sometimes i resent how much other people hung pressure and expectation and their entire knowledge of me on “she draws”, and how much that gradually wore away the fun in drawing even without me forcing it towards a career. (there are people in my life who STILL insist that drawing is what i’m really good at it and that it’s Who I Am.) (there are people in my life who have never bothered to know more about me because they decided my art was summary enough.)

so just to repeat what kristen said so concisely and eloquently, just because you’re good at something doesn’t mean it’s good for you

and you’re the only one who gets to make that determination. in a lot of cases you’re going to be the only one who will.

thank you for this addition, especially since it hits on something that i barely touched on in my original post: IT’S OKAY TO DO THINGS JUST FOR FUN

after i stopped treating music as a career that i had to spend several hours per day practicing and perfecting, do you know what happened? i started to enjoy singing again! i still enjoy it! 

and please don’t trap yourself into the idea that whatever you’re struggling with is the ‘only thing’ you’re good at! i had a 20-year-old coworker tell me a while ago that doing cakes is the ‘only thing’ she’s good at and i’m going to tell you guys exactly what i told her:

it’s the only thing you’ve found that you’re good at so far. there are an infinite number of things in this world for you to try your hands at, and you’ll never know what all you’re capable of doing–or how much you’ll enjoy doing those things–unless you’re willing to put yourself out there and try. if something sounds interesting, give it a shot! if you enjoy it, keep doing it! even if you’re never great at it, you’ll still have found something that makes your life more fulfilled and worthwhile, and hey, maybe you WILL discover something that you’re genuinely amazing at!

try new things! make mistakes! learn new skills and fail in new ways!

She was not amused. “About once a month you ask me a question like this. I’ve been ignoring it, because I was having fun, but it’s getting weird. You ask me if I’d do something extreme to save you. Would I give up an arm to save you. My leg, my big toes, my smile. You’ve asked me this question about most of the parts of my body, including those I’d need to survive, phrasing it as some cute hypothetical that I then play off and try not to act like you just asked me something deeply weird.”

He blinked. “That’s not-”

“You want to know if I’d destroy myself for you. That’s really what it’s about.” She leaned back and stared up. The trees above them shivered in the breeze. “We have this conversation over and over, in different ways, and have since we started having lunch together. You want to know if I’ll collapse myself for you, make myself smaller, destroy the things about me that make me me, and whole. The answer is the same as it’s always been.”

“I think you’re reading too much into it.” He scoffed, still holding onto being amused, as if she were a very cute puppy who’d just piddled itself, not a real adult human being with thoughts and feelings of her own. 

She doubled down. “You take me to lunch several times a week and occasionally, at some point slip into the conversation some question about what I would be willing to give up to preserve you, the way you are. And then you get upset about the answer. You try not to show it, but you do. The truth is that maybe I’d give up a few strands of hair for you. Or my fingernail, cut to the quick. A papercut, maybe, for you. To preserve you, to keep you as the man you are. And you don’t like that. Sometimes I might bend over backwards during ludicrous hypothetical conversations in order to keep your feelings from being too hurt by my actual, blunt answer.” She sighed. “No. The answer is no, Tom.” 

He laughed, but not with mirth. It was purely reactionary, a laugh of disbelief.

“I wouldn’t give up my arm, or liver, or big toes, or pinkie finger, or teeth for you. I wouldn’t give up my life for you. I might give up a patch of dead skin for you. Or maybe an unsightly mole. A few shed hairs. My right pinkie toenail, maybe. Maybe. It’s cracked anyway and I think it’s going to fall off. But I will not destroy myself for you.”

His laughter had died, and there was a look on his face. A look of anger and sadness both.

She glanced at him. “Don’t ask questions when you’re not prepared for the answer. Especially not over and over again. No, Tom. I won’t die for you. I won’t live for you, either. And I think I have better things to do with my Tuesdays than this.”

“You can walk back home, then,” he said, getting up. Perhaps he expected her to chase him. Or even react.

“It’s a nice day,” she said, “I could use a walk.” It wasn’t really all that far, all told. 

He threw a bottle of water on the ground. Ineffectively capped, it splashed water on her. 

She ignored it. She knew it was on purpose., but it was such a petty thing. Besides, water dried. 

He didn’t leave. He stared at her, stretched out and staring at the trees. “You really don’t care about me at all?” There was both anger and sadness stretched in his voice. Petulant and abandoned.

She glanced at him. He was glaring at her, impotence and shock written on his face. “If caring about you means I must be willing to destroy myself in order to preserve you, then no.” She stood, slowly. Letting him see that she was angry at him, and unafraid of the consequences of that anger. “If you believe to care about you means I must somehow value your own self more than I do my own. That you have more value than me, inherently, in how I view the world. No. If caring about you means I must manage your own feelings, to my own detriment, no. And that, I have been doing, until now. No, Tom. You ask too much, and give too little, and I am done with it.”

His nostrils flared, and he stared at her for another long moment, before storming away. 

ok. hang on. i’m shifting into noragami mode.

i’ll spare you the 10k words of meta and just try to sell the high points.

noragami is an ongoing manga written by two women who go by the singular pseudonym adachitoka. it’s still a pretty short read, at 84 chapters currently. the main character, hiyori iki, is a high school girl who, through various wacky shenanigans, winds up friends with a guy named yato who is–surprise–also a god! yato needs more people to pray to him if he wants to get his own shrine, which is his Ultimate Dream.

the other major story mechanic are “shinki,” which are souls of the dead who haven’t moved on, but can be given a name by a god to essentially become part of that god’s “family.” yato hasn’t been able to hold onto a shinki because, frankly, working for him sucks, but he at last finds a shinki for himself and names him yukine. yukine is an angsty dead 14-year-old boy, which goes for yato (his new caretaker) about as well as you can imagine.

it’s a terribly underrated series and i try to evangelize the hell out of it to anyone who asks because:

the art is….absurdly beautiful, and only improves throughout the series

there are a ton of female characters who get loving characterization and development

FOUND FAMILY FOUND FAMILY FOUND FAMILY FOUND F

the romance elements are treated really gently and with great nuance, and not just shoehorned in there like in…well. Pretty Much Every Other Shounen Ever.

the Big Bad is one of the most complicated and interesting villains i’ve ever encountered

found family

it’s…really funny? and charmingly written? but it also WILL make you cry VERY hard MANY times?

incorporates a lot of Actual Shinto Mythology, which is just straight-up awesome and fun to read about.

found family

it’s about learning self-love and recovery