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X no Sei to Shi: 3.20 Voiceless Screaming

2011-07-21T17:59:01Z

On the topic of the loss of my favorite rocker to suicide last week, I've decided to finish translating his autobiography into English. Back in my 20s (hahaha) I was big on improving my Japanese. I was also big into Japanese rock music, so the two collided when I realized that a lot of my favorite band members had released autobiographies and that I could do the rest of the world a favor by translating them into English.

I only ever finished one full book translation (Gackt's Jihaku, which can be found here) but I did a bunch of partial translations of articles and chapters of other books. Taiji's book was one of those, but I stopped doing any sort of translation around the time I moved to Boston.

But I figure, this is as good a way as any to pay tribute to an awesome musician. I'm going to try and do one chapter a week. This will help improve my Japanese again anyway, as I've slipped since I moved back to the US.

The rest of the chapters can be found here: http://seventhmoon.org/taiji/

( Chapter 3.20: Voiceless Screaming )

For those of you who have no idea who Taiji is, you might have heard of X Japan, one of the most influential Japanese metal bands of the 80s. They're still active and have long moved past their metal stage, but Taiji was their bassist from 1985-1992.

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"It's time to go..."

2011-07-19T13:53:03Z

It seems almost silly to post something like this seeing as my rock n' roll obsession days are long past, but my favorite rock star died this past weekend.

I could go on about how important X was to me when I was younger or how their songs got me through a really deep, dark place in my life. But I guess those days are past too, and all I can say now is that when I heard the news, I cried. I always said I couldn't understand fans who would cry when their favorite musician or actor passed away. They didn't know him, right? It wasn't personal...he was just some person on the television.

But I think I do understand now; for me, Taiji wasn't just someone on the television. He was an inspiration. He went through so much in his short life: alcoholism, drug addiction, homelessness, health problems, divorce, the loss of his friends also to suicide or illness - and yet he was brilliant. He was a one-of-a-kind musician, an amazingly talented bassist, someone who was the very definition of perseverance through hardship. I always looked to his story not as a story of defeat but one of hope.

Now that he's gone, I still do, because I think the thing that Taiji taught me and other X fans is that no matter how many times you fall down, as long as you get up, you will continue to be an inspiration. The fact that he just couldn't get back up quickly enough in the end doesn't negate all of that. Perhaps it was just his time.

So this is a tribute to a man who played an integral part of shaping who I am today, although he never knew me. I think he knew how much he meant to his fans, and I think his fans meant a lot to him as well. He was that kind of guy.

RIP Taiji.

Voice of faith, I'm starting to realize
Now my eyes can see
I have gone so far
I'm feeling breath of life

And I'm looking for love to reach
Someone I want to touch deep inside
Light shines on my sight of doubt
Don't be afraid
Move forward one step...

Voiceless screaming
Calling to me inside of my heart
Voiceless screaming
Now is the time I got to speak out

Voiceless screaming
Pain of the past still hurts me inside
Knocking on my soul's door
I climb the stairs that lead me to Heaven.

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Apparently

2011-07-13T01:47:34Z

I haven't posted here in forever.

So hi XDDDDDD

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pic spam

2011-04-13T21:07:56Z

Because I think this photo is freaking cute

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FFVI fic rec

2011-04-11T01:07:41Z

Those Who Favor Fire by stealth_noodle - awesome awesome AU featuring Esper Terra :DDDDDDD

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crazy evening

2011-04-10T14:13:35Z

Shane and I went to Boston College last night to watch one of his friends and their new taiko group play. We took the Green Line, which unfortunately meant that it took us an hour and a half to get there. I was feeling kind of sick, too, which didn't help.

The taiko was fun, though a bit disorganized. The group is brand new and I didn't think they had quite decided what they wanted to do and haven't meshed together as a a team yet. They do make their own drums.

My life is boring. Been working hard on stuff for Anime Boston. Other than that, I have nothing to report XD

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image spam

2011-04-07T23:17:40Z

Because I am going to try and post something every day.

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one-liner

2011-04-06T20:55:35Z

With all the stuff happening on LJ I may post here more often now. >.>

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I feel like I should post something here

2011-03-06T03:12:19Z

So here it is :D

I don't journal much. This is not because I don't like journalling, but mostly because I forget for long stretches at a time. So. But I always read and respond to other people's entries, I just forget to post my own.

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FF Friday Five

2010-09-03T19:36:56Z

I feel like posting something but I don't know what.

SO. How about this? The return of....

FINAL FANTASY FRIDAY FIVE
1. Favorite town/city/location in any Final Fantasy?
2. If you could be a job class in FF, which one would you pick?
3. What FF minigame annoys you the most? Which one's your favorite? (do you even LIKE minigames?? XDD)
4. If you could make your own version of Dissidia and have any hero face off against any villain, which would you pick and why?
5. Your favorite white magic spell!

XDD I haven't done this since 2008 I think, but I'm going to try and start again. Apologies to any of you who used to do these and for some reason remember the questions (I totally don't, but maybe some of you have like HOMG GOOD MEMORY or something)

Will answer these later after everyone else gets a chance to.

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Final Fantasy X recap

2010-09-01T03:18:27Z

Final Fantasy X was the game that I played directly after finishing Final Fantasy VI (literally like 2 days after putting down the DS I was picking up the PS2 controller - read my recap here) and it has the honor of being my first PS2 game. I played VII and VIII on the PC, and played VI after that, so I had never touched a Playstation before (we didn't have consoles when I was a kid, and after I left home I only played computer games so I never bought a console).

( Full review and thoughts about the game under here! )

I have other FF recaps that I've written after (re)playing the games:
Final Fantasy VI
Final Fantasy VII
Final Fantasy VIII

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Wow, Dreamwidth is strangely like and unlike LJ

2010-09-01T00:19:48Z

So I just spent the last hour or so configuring my DW settings and I'm not entirely happy with them but I think I shall leave them for now. I've spent a bunch of time on layouts for LiveJournal before, but I seem to be less motivated, so I picked out a premade layout that looks nice and did some font switching and stuff and uploaded an icon.

Now I am tired.

Also it is like 99 degrees (NOT KIDDING) in my house because it was stupidly hot today in Boston and we don't have air conditioning. *pant*

Hi everyone who's added me already! (SPECIAL HI TO TARI AND NAY because I feel like I haven't seen you guys in a while since you moved mostly to DW XD)

I'm sad that I joined DW late and that megaflare_ff is basically over! I don't draw too gud so alas, I can't sign up to be an artist. And now that I'm playing FFX-2, I have all these plot ideas floating around in my head. Strangely I never had the urge to write fic for FFX but X-2 seems to open up infinite possibilities!!

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Hi guys...

2010-08-31T18:28:57Z

My first post....*waves*

I shall post something of more substance later, I suppose XD I can't think of much to say on first post type things.

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