#esp with the afterwards

[yamatonikado]

translators dropped an english translated version of okaeri, alice's final afterword. if you're not familair with the work and it's author, Okaeri Alice, or Welcome Back, Alice, is a seven volume manga written by Oshimi Shuzo. It follows three middle-school students: Yohei, Mitani, and Kei. All three were childhood friends, that grew apart due their own circumstances. The story starts really starts when they enter highschool and Kei moves back into town, only he's a bit different from before...

Okaeri Alice is one of Oshimi's more controversial works. It's one i've blogged about before, albeit briefly, but i have been following and reading each update as it's come out. I would not recommend it for the faint of heart or for people unfamiliar with shuzo's works.

One of the most talked about parts of this work in particular, are the volumes afterwords, where Oshimi talks about Okaeri Alice and how it relates to him as a person and author. They get pretty serious and pretty explicit. They're very emotionally charged afterwords, and this last one was no exception.

i originally wanted to post this in the chapter forums but i decided not to, mainly because the forums are full of all people and this has turned into an essay, not fit for forum posting. i'll post it under a read more. especially because i mainly wrote it for myself lol

i think i get whats going on here. he's upset that he's always viewed/been expected to view women a certain way as dictated by gender roles and expectations. ever since he was a young he's been viewing women as a sort of male fantasy. growing up he's seen women as society expects them to be, cute, clean, prim, proper, and most of all innocent/naive. 

however, as he's grown older, it seems like he's realized that women/girls aren't like how they're portrayed in sexual media--at all. as we can see from all his works, the women he writes about are messy, they're a bit mean, manipulative, and they're selfish. he knows that women still have desires and their own personhoods. because women are still people. just like men.

(if you struggle to understand this, look at how mitani is portrayed in the earlier chapters as yohei uses her as "material". pay attention to how she's presented in his sexual fantasy. now compare that to how she's drawn when he actually is in a relationship with her, when he tries to kiss her in the park he says "i need to move on as a man!" and she looks at him filled with disgust. she rejects him completely. especially when compared to kei-----wait now im just rereading with brainworms uhm anyways----in later chapters when she does have intercourse with him, it deviates so much from his first fantasies with her, that he's been pursuing under this notion that he needs to prove himself as a man, it throws him off and he's unable to perform).

and he struggles to wrap his head around that. a lot media, not just Japanese in origin, portray female characters as a sort of light in the darkness. a good woman will open her arms and accept her man for all he is and fix him. she will be his emotional support, follow his every command, and give unto him everything he demands of her. 

so he's struggling to understand why that is. why are girls reduced to such a sanitized image when they're human too and have the same desires, wants, and needs? and why can't men be seen or portrayed as women are--pure, clean, submissive, innocent. (in fact i don't even think many female oriented narratives portray men that same way, not unless they're being satirical). 

he wants to be loved the way a girl would love him. if he could become a girl, then he wants to be a girl that would love someone like him. but he knows a girl like that doesn't exist, because women like that often don't exist. he knows that even if he did become a girl, he could never be the sort of girl he idolizes because that sort of person doesn't exist at all, especially if they view the world in such a sexual way as he does. his sexual history would follow him, and that sexual history is less close to his ideal, and closer to the kind of person he despises and wants to be away from. 

i think he's just upset that there's no way for him to become what it is he aspires to be. im sure that there's a lot more too it, but i also think labelling it as tran-ness is oversimplifying it. he's really trying to find the answers in gender and sexuality, but it'll be hard to do that since he's trying to understand something very societal, patriarchal, personal, and above all--stigmatized. 

also to everybody saying he needs therapy where is he supposed to go for therapy? as if therapists in the united states aren't shoddy in quality as is you think he'll be able to find a therapist that'll easily agree to help him work through his issues with sexuality, masculinity, gender/dysphoria, anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation without signing him into a ward? even if he does have a therapist. that's a lot of work to get done, and it'll take more than a year to address all that.

[m4gp13]

Why did Rick do this to us?

Seriously, he went, "Yeah I'm gonna establish a history between two important characters on opposing sides of a conflict in which one of them clearly has negative feelings about the other. and then never bring it up again 🤪" BITCH COME BACK HERE!!!

There was so much that could have been going on between these two! I was talking to @nakamurastorrington about this on twt the other day.

Like, Annabeth's fatal flaw is hubris and Ethan's mother is the physical embodiment of the punishment for hubris, they are diametrically opposed! They have their shared history at camp but very different experiences with the system where Annabeth was pretty much immediately claimed and became the head councillor of her own cabin from a very young age, establishing her as a respected veteran at camp. Meanwhile, Ethan was shoved into a corner of someone else's cabin because he wasn't worth his own cabin, and so he just faded into the background. Also, Their relationship with Luke! They both had Luke as a big brother figure. Annabeth saw him as genuine family and Ethan would have looked up to him as his brother while in the Hermes cabin. Then Luke left and Annabeth still held out hope for him and refused to believe he'd ever truly passed the point of no return even while everyone constantly told her she was wrong, and Ethan, despite spending a year working for Kronos and seeing the worst of the results of Luke's actions, still believed he was in there fighting Kronos. Not to mention, THEIR MOTHERS??!?!!?!

There could have been such interesting conflict between them! Annabeth should have gotten to talk to Ethan during the parley. If anyone should have gotten to snap at Ethan about his mother, it should have been her because he would have snapped back so hard!

[isalabells]

„Es ist auch interessant beim Fußball, es ist immer noch ein Spiel. Stehste da einmal richtig, machst das Tor. Das sind genau diese Momente. Das Glück muss auf deiner Seite sein, da muss einfach so viel zusammenlaufen. [...] Es gibt auch Momente, wo ich sag, ‚Okay, wär vielleicht zu einem anderen Zeitpunkt besser gewesen.' Wenn ich ein bisschen älter gewesen wär, noch ein bisschen mehr Erfahrung. Aber im Nachgang– im Finale zu sein und zu spielen, ich mein, was gibt's Besseres für einen Fußballer?“

2014 FIFA World Cup Final | Maracanã Stadium | Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 13 July 2014

Germany 1 – 0 Argentina

Götze 113'

[kamaluhkhan]

read below the cut if you wanna know more about each option ;))

HER CANINE TEETH IN THE SIDE OF MY NECK (werewolf!vi x vampire slayer!reader)

slightly canon-divergent....basically set during pit fighter!vi arc except in this world we've got vampires! and werewolves!!!! (can you tell i've been rewatching buffy the vampire slayer and first kill???)

so reader is also a pit fighter -- they literally meet for the first time when they're competing underground. the next morning vi wakes up with a wicked hangover in some stranger's apartment and that stranger is you! and your dog! vi doesn't realize this yet but you saved her drunk ass from a vampire anyways, you invite vi to train with you and some other girls, which she denies at first but vi's eventually like,, tired of the whole lone wolf thing but still very scared to let people in after what happened with caitlyn,, so she joins somewhat reluctantly and you become friends ("whoever wins the most fights that night picks up the tab for the bar.") and vi maybe has a crush on you but she tries very hard to keep her identity a secret.....while you're also trying to keep the whole vampire slayer thing under wraps....perhaps unsuccessfully, but i don't want to spoil it hehe. i will however share this moodboard thing that i spent a bunch of time at work making

IS IT CASUAL NOW? (college fwb!vi x reader)

SO this is probably my most self-indulgent fic oops - it's kinda inspired by leighton's arc in sex lives of college girls season 1! basically, vi's on the varsity soccer team and after a series of unfortunate events (anger issues, bad breakup) is put on academic probation and has to volunteer at the women's centre or else she'd get kicked off of the team. she goes for her first shift and she's like...that president looks awfully familiar?? and reader's like, yeah, i work at that bar you keep starting fights in....so off to a great start. reader and vi don't really get along at first bc obviously vi doesn't wanna be there and reader is just not having it so there's TENSION. but then vi's like ,, oh this actually isn't so bad??? these ppl are kinda cool??? and maybe wait is reader kinda hot??? and reader's like....maybe this angry butch lesbian has a soft heart (vi is the definition of looks like she could kill you and she COULD but is also a huge cinnamon roll). eventually turns into a friends with benefits situation. (yeah, we bang on the couch.....yeah, she's knee deep in the passenger seat eating me out vibes). but then there are like moments where it's like....are we dating? like, reader will run into vi at the library where she's checking out feminist literature and reader's like...since when are you into this stuff? turns out vi is taking a gender studies elective so she can impress reader; vi starts showering at reader's place after practice bc she just really loves smelling like reader's shampoo, and reader keeps her fridge stocked with those energy drinks vi is obsessed with; reader wears vi's jersey to one of her games, meets her family, and they insist that reader join them for dinner to celebrate (i fucked you in the bathroom when we went to dinner!!! your parents at the table, you wonder why i'm bitter!!!); one night vi is worried when reader doesn't show up for her shift at work so checks in on reader and turns out she's having really bad period cramps and is like super stressed so vi stays in bed with her watching movies until she falls asleep and then cleans up her apartment (vi is such an acts of service person!!!); they both hate doing laundry so they do it together on a sunday morning after spending all of saturday night fucking. something about being happy doing laundry and taxes with someone (iykyk). spoiler alert, it'll end with the centre in dire need of funding so reader's scrambling to save it and one day reader sees vi talking to her ex and gets super jealous but then vi's like ,, babe ,, i was trying to convince caitlyn to get her family to donate and it WORKED !!! so ,, yeah ,, reader is convinced vi's the woman she'll one day make her wife (and she's more than happy to get down on her knees for her oop). the centre is saved and reader and vi confess their feelings for each other and live happily ever after <3

GLORY AND GORE (the hunger games au)

basically sapphic katniss x peeta. vi and reader are picked for the 74th annual hunger games ,, they do the whole fake relationship for the camera thing that eventually turns into them needing each other to survive in the arena...and then after they're like oh shit not only can i not survive without you, i don't wanna survive without you.

LIKE SOME MISPLACED JOAN OF ARC (spiderverse au)

vi is spider-gwen spider-woman! she's in college, plays drums in a band, has an internship at some lab and spends a lot of her time saving the city but there's the lingering guilt that she couldn't save you (canon event: losing their first love). one day she's fighting some villian and....a portal opens? and she's transported into another universe?? the only place she knows of for sure is her apartment and when she knocks on the door, her heart almost stops -- because you're the one who opens it. turns out in this universe, you're spider-woman, dealing with some demons of your own (two canon events rolled into one: losing their first love and not being able to save the life of a police captain....and your vi was an enforcer). basically you have to work together to get vi back home and maybe fall for each other along the way even though you both really really don't wanna go through losing the other and it seems like it's inevitable. but, fuck the universe, right?

[dogrocks]

thinking about how in long shadows, right before the gathering patrol discovers ashfur's body (which is in hollyleaf's pov, by the way) hollyleaf is actively suppressing that she had just murdered him

i know it's likely because his death is meant to be a murder mystery and the reader is not supposed to know who the killer is right away, but still. having this scene in hollyleaf's pov was a choice. hollyleaf had literally just killed him at this point and is trying to not think about it. she doesn't think about her next move or how long she can keep this a secret. she's literally an unreliable narrator here.

[akai-anna]

@livmadart The Bug-Saga Continues

1 | 2 | 3 | 4

[mamawasatesttube]

tim told kon about the cloning but like did cassie ever actually tell him about the cult? i don't think anyone ever told him about the cult. i need to reread 52 and refresh myself on how absolutely batshit that was but like cassie? can we talk about the cult. cassie i think you need to tell someone about the cult. does kon know about the cult? cassie i think kon should probably know about the cult

[wardensantoineandevka]

I'm not saying that Veilguard was perfectly written and could not have been written better—because there's so many places it could've been written better or more carefully or more elegantly—but some of the rewrites some of you are proposing are truly dumb as shit and often blatantly misunderstanding what the actual text is portraying or ignoring basic tenets of storytelling

[xxplastic-cubexx]

still thinking of my fave marvel rivals interaction where my jeff and i were hanging on the point after knocking out the other team and lil bro sprays the space in front of me and emotes and we both said thank you at the same time like i fear im never forgetting that ever

[frankiebirds]

anyway: last thing about the fox.

I think the order in which the team reacts to frank fielding* hurting himself is pretty interesting.

Gideon and Morgan are first, simply because they're the ones closest.

Hotch and Elle are next, with Elle a little behind...

But when it comes to actually restraining Frank, Elle, who is still new and less experienced, lingers behind. If you watch the scene carefully, she actually backs away, too.

And finally, Reid stands at the very back. He enters the room but doesn't go any further, and the camera pans down to show him rocking back and forth on his feet, like he can't decide if he wants to run into or out of the room. I think it's possible that Diana self-harmed at some point in the past (although granted, the self-harm in this scene is a different "type") and he may have been having some unpleasant memories.

*the brother of one of the victims, who goes to her house despite her husband not wanting him there, is seen by her through the window, and thinks she mouths "go away" at him when she actually mouths "help me"

[balteus]

k im gonna be honest i like hades 2 so far but like. from what i understand there are two female love interests for melinoe and both of them are terribly fucking rude to her or dismissive which. man. maybe im not far enough into the game maybe there's character development but "lol you're weak like your dead mom" the character isn't growing on me that much

[emmawintertowne]

femme wheelchair diy :)

i used these stickers (which i realised were from a dropshipper only after purchasing, thank you fatigue brain. oh well. hope they still inspire <3)

[voidcat]

Okay wait hear me out-

A fungal type kaiju that releases its spores upon death but on humans it has a sex-pollen like effect

[i-like-anything-water]

Hey, me again! I was curious: What would your thoughts be on a Chloenette AU in which both Chloe and Marinette play video games as a way to vent stress, and end up starting to date online... while totally unaware who the other is IRL? Hey, the question mark is working this time! But yeah, I kinda picture Chloe as the type of person who SAYS she doesn't like video games because they are for "nerds," but actually has a bunch of really expensive gamer gear, and Marinette is a confirmed gamer in the show.

Hello!

Oh god, this would be very hilarious and fluffy. At first Chloe really doesn't like videogames cause why would she spend her day staring at a damn screen when she can do other things? (Like staring at her phone screen while shopping lmao). But she changed her mind when Adrien started inviting her over to watch and boy, was he super ridiculous.

"Adrikins!" She cries out, snatching the controller from the boy, "You are an Agreste! You do not lose to anyone, especially commoners over a stupid game!"

She actually managed to win third place but being the competitive brat that she is, she was pissed and vowed to get first place. What started as merely watching and commenting became her and Adrien's 'training' to beat random people online.

She still insisted it was kept a secret though. She was a Bourgeois, utterly unacceptable!

I'm not good with videogames myself so I don't have a specific game in mind. But I'm thinking of some rpg or where there's roles and heroes and stuff and Chloe meets a player who's ticked her off.

Marinette was sleep deprived and just had to beat an annoying akuma and wanted to play in peace and relieve her stress when this very flashy and expensive looking player just...poked her. She poked her back. And it ended with them just running around and decided to go on one adventure. Just one, she was intrigued after all.

Chloe didn't mean to poke her. She accidentally pressed her controller and it poked this player that just gave her some sort of... something. And it poked her back! She got an invite and despite being confused about the whole thing, she accepts.

And that's where it all started.

They became friends after learning how compatible they are during missions. Chloe was still wary of people finding out about her interest in games so she kept some part of her life vague, especially her name. Marinette didn't mind, she was just happy to talk to her friend.

They open up, learn stuff about each other and one thing leads to another and bam, they're girlfriends!

This bleeds on to their personal life and since Chloe is mostly on cloud nine, she doesn't bully people like usual and everyone is surprised (and slightly worried that the apocalypse is near or there's a reality bending akuma). Everyone including Marinette.

Marinette is also ecstatic (she's told Alya and some others about her girlfriend and they were very happy for her) but she can't help but notice and be curious about her rival's sudden change of attitude. She wanted to ask but they're getting along more easily (by this, they don't try to go at each other's throat by just locking eyes) so...maybe as long as nothing major changes....

It's during the upcoming competition does certain major changes come. Marinette is with Max, Adrien and some other kid talking about signing up for the competition. Chloe overhears and being the girlfriend of an amazing gamer, she couldn't help but brag.

"Hmp, your skills are no match to my girlfriend's! She'll wipe the floor with your tears when she's done with you." Her girlfriend had mentioned last night she was thinking of signing up for their school's competition and Chloe found out it's different schools battling each other. She had been excited! Her girlfriend shared her excitement and planned to see each other and introduce themselves formally when the competition comes. Chloe wanted to support her girlfriend after all.

Max looks like he stopped working, Adrien is beaming and Marinette is shocked. Wait...

"Girlfriend?!"

"Anything wrong with that, Dupain-Cheng?!"

"What? No, no! Oh god, no! I was just..shocked." so that explains the happy moods. Max still looked shocked. Then again, this was Chloe. It wasn't even the girlfriend part. It was the, uh, someone actually wanted to date Chloe? That wasn't Adrien or some famous celebrity? And Chloe wanted them too?

"Whatever, Dupain-Cheng. My girlfriend is one of the best and she's trying out for the competition and I'll be there to support her! I feel sorry for any of you who'd be up against her."

Chloe rolled her eyes and walked away from the shocked group, muttering how they're definitely going to lose.

"Marinette." Max finally speaks.

"Hmmm?"

"There's a 89% chance you will experience sudden dizziness and faint, but didn't you just tell me you also had a gamer girlfriend who happened to be blonde and is coming to support you?"

Oh. Oh.

"She has ten seconds before she - oh wait, no, she's already fainted. Thank you for catching her, Adrien."

[vampyreteeths]

sonic prime s3 was good but was very fucked up of shadow to just disappear in a hole for the majority of the season and sonic to just barely even acknowledge his absence until he finds him again and is surprised hes even alive that was a little jarring

[coriander-candlesticks]

I've felt like I should check in with Apollo the past few days and finally managed to clear enough space on my floor to feel alright with breaking out the tarot deck again so I did! Lit his candle, said as as formal a prayer as I could muster beforehand, asked Hermes to help with communication, the whole shebang. For further context: I've been wanting to ask Aphrodite something specific (also via tarot, it's the most grounding tool I've got) but I only have the one deck at the moment and, while I've used it to ask Hermes about things in tandem with Apollo, and Aphrodite introduced herself via it (with a card that also introduced Apollo), I wasn't sure if it would be cool for me to use it to ask her specifically something not in direct tandem with Apollo. I mentioned that in the prayer but also said that that might be a question for a different session, since trying to get an answer to that (on top of the general "hey how are we doing/do you have anything you want me to learn") might muddy my ability to understand the message.

Cue twelve cards falling out of my deck/poking out while I was shuffling. I usually pull ~3 cards on top of whatever falls out, but I ended up not feeling like it was needed. Seven of them fell out face-up, too.

Despite having some concerns about whether all of the cards were "supposed" to be pulled, it was pretty coherent! And covered quite a few things I've been thinking about recently, including sorting out anxiety vs a warning/displeasure, a follow-up of a card that was the focus of my last pull, and a reminder to look at outside/intellectual sources to combat the whatever-the-fuck-my-brain's-on. There were four cards that fell out face-up together in a pile: a card I associate with Apollo at the front and one associated with Artemis (the Moon) at the back, with cards related to unity & growth in the middle. I'd had a pretty bad experience attempting an offering to Artemis last month and have stepped back and avoided asking her for anything or specifically invoking her in prayers/offerings/etc. since (except for once when it involved a pregnant friend b/c it seemed odd and tbh a little disrespectful to ask Apollo for help and not her as well) because I took it as a sign that she didn't want me to work with her. I'm also aware, though, that that bad experience could have just been a meltdown/panic attack. Regardless of whether it was either of those two things, a "hey slow down" warning, or a combination, it was nice to have some clear reassurance & an official introduction. It's also significant, I think, that part of the Moon card's message is about not letting anxiety/"self-deception" (direct from the guide) cloud your intuition. I've been wanting to burn the candle I dedicated to her for a few days now- it's possible that was a sign from her as well.

As far as the deck-use question...the first card that fell out was the Empress (face-up, reversed). My initial thought was that it was a "no", but I decided to look at the meaning in case it wasn't that which was. probably a bad idea. It freaked me out a bit because I couldn't figure out what it was referring to. I ended up using my alphabet oracle tiles for a makeshift yes/no system after finishing with all the other cards and got clear confirmation that my instinct was, in fact, correct.

All in all it was really cool?? By far the most cards I've had in one pill iirc, and a good lesson in identifying how my intuition works.