#literally made me start learning japanese lol

[devotion-disorder]

Wait, you're a vtuber fan too!?😱 Do you have any fanart of Shu?🥺

i mainly watch JP vtubers but yea!! but im not really active as a creator nowadays and mostly just lurk orz….. maybe ive made shu fanart, i dont really remember but either way its too long ago so the art is probably too crusty for me to handle posting now💀💀💀💀💀💀

[dkettchen]

she would've told them unlike her canon! version who decided not to be an ally smh

[demonking-propaganda]

13 spoiler-free reasons why you should read Mairimashita! Iruma-kun

...if you haven't done so already 👀 (With "spoiler-free" I mean I'm not describing plot points or characters, but under the cut I'll discuss the overarching themes, so be warned if that's too much for you. The first 7 reasons may be enough lol)

It's both funny AND wholesome. I literally can't read it without laughing out loud, and there are a bunch of chapters that make me cry every time I read them.

It's clever! The Japanese version contains several puns based on the kanji "魔" (read "ma", = devil, demon), starting from the title, but it's a recurring pun. The English translation adapts them pretty well. Plus, there are some of the best plot twists in recorded history (IMO). And the names and characteristics of most characters are based on real-life demonology.

It's queer AF. Like, really gay. There are explicitly homoromantic relationships and several nonbinary and gender non-conforming characters. One of these is the best unashamedly nonbinary character ever written. Plus, the manga premise can be seen as an allegory of hiding in the closet. The only thing that made me uncomfortable because of cisnormativity (boys in drag as a joke) is completely fixed in later chapters, and very well so.

It's feminist, without being preachy or paternalistic. Simply put, the women/girls are three-dimensional, complex characters, as the norm should be. And there are lots of them, without it being a harem (...the harem trope is actually used as a joke).

It's spooky and adorable, imagine Halloween vibes all year round. Both main and background characters are super diverse, and if you like monsters there is stuff for you.

Most characters are neurodivergent-coded. It's basically the autistic/ADHD manga.

The art is phenomenal. It's especially good to see the improvement of the art style over the years (the first chapter was published in 2017 and the manga is ongoing). Some panels are really breathtaking.

8. The story is about personal growth - like most shounen manga, fair enough. But the protagonist, Iruma, is so far from toxic masculinity I dare say he's the antidote to it.

9. It's also about found family, the discovery of unconditional love, and trust, and healing from familial trauma.

10. It's about finding a group of friends you belong to, and transforming your weirdness into a strength, identifying and cultivating what you're good at instead of fitting into a mold.

11. It's about the beauty of learning in your own way, and the importance of education and the shaping of future generations.

12. And the reason why I opened this blog: it's about fascism and fighting against it. I mean real fascism, as in "a powerful individual/group wants society to be hierarchical and oppress certain minorities, elevating a specific subset of the population based on intrinsic characteristics which are being misleadingly treated as merits". Ethno-nationalistic stuff. More specifically, it's about being a somewhat politically illiterate person, who learns about systems of oppression beyond personal injustices. It's about questioning what is the best way to arrange society.

13. Most importantly, this manga gives you hope about the future, something I find harder and harder to have. Hopelessness is dangerous - as people without hope stop fighting. This manga makes me actively feel better. Since it's ongoing I can't ensure it will always remain that way, but I've come to trust the author enough that I expect it to.

[taffybear]

random list of my bay Leo headcanons ❤

working on Raph next! let's see how many ideas i get lol

also opening my inbox for writing (and perhaps even drawing) requests! feel free to drop me an ask <3

literally loves mitski and mac demarco. he likes very indie hopeless romantic type music, it's literally hilarious to catch him just vibing in his feels

SECRETLY HAS PINTEREST BAHAHAHAHA but just for finding poetry and looking at bonsai trees. Mikey found out (like he doesn't have pinterest too??) and they all ended up making fun of him for it to the point where Leo debated deleting the app but ended up forgetting about it.

very specific but he has this unique type of love language where he'll ask you something and without any further questions he will go get or accomplish whatever he hinted at. for example, y'all will just be hanging out, and he'll go, "are you hungry?" and if you just as much nod your head hesitantly he will run to the kitchen and make you a 3 course meal. or, he'll just ask you if you're cold, and if you say yes he brings you a heater and a blanket. he doesn't ask things like, "can i get you a water?" he'll just ask if you're thirsty and go from there.

has the most gorgeous handwriting on the planet. this beautiful cursive print that is lowkey unreadable but so aesthetically pleasing. at first you were shocked but as you got to know him it made lots of sense, literally probably his biggest hobby is just remembering some random thing and then spending weeks straight perfecting it until it's natural for him. he loves to challenge himself to be perfect at literally anything, and his hand writing is one of those instances.

HE'S LITERALLY A VIRGO GUYS HE IS THE DEFINITION OF A VIRGO OH MY GOD

speaks fluent japanese OF COURSE but his brothers don't know it as well as he does (they all know a little at least) and he'll curse them out quietly in japanese behind their backs.

Leo wouldn't say he had a favorite brother of course but he definitely prefers Don's presense over the others. they always go to each other first when they have a problem or just want to rant, and they have a bunch of inside jokes.

after Donnie, Leo's the biggest insomniac. he gets nightmares a lot unfortunately, and most times when he wakes up he physically can't go back to sleep. literally Mikey will get up for a glass of water at 5:37 in the morning and Leo is up doing flips.

very random, but Leo is AWFUL at math. he meant to learn at some point but the time passed and he missed the boat. ofc math is Don's second language and Mikey and Raph couldn't care less (but somehow Mikey always guesses the right answers without doing the correct work??) but Leo is lowkey embarrassed that he struggles with it so much. he can do basic math and most things that come up in daily life like practical equations, but anything past times tables and division he is cannot understand. if you come over and need help on your math homework he will try his HARDEST to help you but ultimately he's completely clueless.

always takes bugs outside. if the creepy crawly is creepy enough or makes you screech, he'll whip it with his katana but normally he'll take the time to scoop it up in his hands (literally no fear) and walk it outside calmly.

literally LOVES doing chores. it's like a form of self care for him. folding laundry, sweeping, mopping, washing the dishes, organizing the dojo, he'll literally put on some music and go to town. when he visits you he will literally just start straightening things up and picking things off of the floor. he hates having nothing to do so he'll just ask for something he can clean while y'all chit chat.

incredibly flexible. he can bend every which way, sit comfortably in a split for hours, can bend over IN HALF and grab the back of his legs--he's literally maxed out on flexibility. but splits training is his private time so unless you sneak you won't catch a glance. but when you do, in between of sliding dojo doors, it is... something. like excuse me sir how tf doesn't that hurt your bAWLLS

smells like lavender. dead serious his signature scent is lavender. it's not like he wears cologne or anything, he just lights a lot of lavender incense and candles to the point where if someone even steps foot in his room they walk out aroma-fied.

everyone in the fandom has their personal opinion of who's the best cook and who's the worst cook of the four, and it is finally time for my hot take of the century. i think Leo is by far the best chef, and Raph is the one who can't even make toast right. a lot of people say Mikey is the chef of the family, which i agree with, he enjoys cooking and baking very much, but this doesn't mean the food he makes is good 💀💀💀 he trusts himself over any recipe and so he just throws in whatever he feels like. Leo can't stand being in the kitchen while Mikey is cooking, his ocd can't stand it. this said, you'd think this would mean the guys prefer Leo's cooking over Mikey's but fact is Leo is such a perfectionist he will spend hours working on a meal it's past 11 by the time he's done. and he doesn't take requests, he only makes what he wants and then on top of that the healthnut version. he makes sushi a lot and goes crazy when you bring him salmon.

IS SUCH A DORK BAHAHAHA if you even so much MENTION a book or a show he likes he will blabber for HOURS about it. he knows every single fact there is to know about star trek it is insane. you amuse him not because you're interested of course but he is just so damn adorable when he's talking about something he enjoys (which he rarely gets the chance to without being made fun of LMAO)

[aihoshiino]

chapter 155 thoughts

Thanks for your patience! I had some stuff crop up IRL this week that kept getting in the way of my chapter review but we're so oshi no back

Chapters Since The 143 Kiss Happened And Went Entirely Unacknowledged And Unaddressed Count: 12

Aqua Hoshigan Status: White

i can't believe toxic yuri was the real core theme of this manga all along

With the long road to revenge seemingly conquered, Oshi no Ko eases us into a bit of a false high before the real finale comes barrelling in. As with 152, it feels like we're tying off a number of arcs that have lasted through the series, with certain characters getting what is clearly supposed to be their big emotional resolutions… and unfortunately, as with 153-4, while a lot of these beats are satisfying on paper, they suffer a lack of buildup that makes them ring a bit hollow. OnK's clumsy handling of certain characters during the Movie Arc has really come back to bite it during the finale, leaving me feeling like a lot of the emotional payoffs for them are undercut and the character work they're doing doesn't have the groundwork it needs to properly resonate. I defo didn't hate this chapter like some folks seemed to, but it has some pretty substantial issues in terms of micro and macro storytelling I am compelled to talk about. This is one of those chapter reviews I think comes across way more negative than it necessarily is lol but man did this one give me a headache…

To start things off, the thing that initially delayed this review: page fucking one!!! By total coincidence, this was the first chapter in basically forever where I didn't get a chance to look at the JP raws until like two days after it dropped and as such I was ripping my hair out trying to figure out who the narrator was on page one - the use of 'Mama' made me wonder if it was Ruby, but the visual flow of the page is much more biased in favor of Aqua and I probably don't need to tell you how fucking huge it would be for Aqua to have called Ai that for the first time!!! However, based on the speech patterns of the speaker in Japanese and the way subsequent pages flow from this intro, I'm pretty settled on it being Ruby - this chapter is a sort of closing of the book on her involvement in the revenge play or as my friend Mala put it, it's Ruby's homecoming so to speak. And like… honestly, thank god lol.

I get a lot of Ruby fans have wanted her to be more involved in this side of the story for a good while but I think the Black Hoshigan Ruby arc playing out like it did made it pretty clear that Ruby as a character is not super well suited to playing a role in the revenge half of OnK in the way that Akasaka wants it to be written. Not just that, but her actual post-BH characterization in relation to this arc has been such a wet fart that I really think it has taken away a lot more than it has added to her arc.

Not only that but… most of it didn't even happen onscreen lol! Not only did we get that absolutely baffling speech in 147 where she literally looked into the camera and Explained With Her Words the character arc she was supposedly having this whole time (just offscreen and nowhere the reader could see) but we now get Aqua going "well ruby decided to forgive him so it is what it is i guess". It feels so limp as a reason for him to have flipped on a dime like he did, especially when we still haven't fucking seen this supposedly lifechanging performance of Ruby's!!!! SO many characters have the resolutions to their Ai-adjacent arcs connected to how Ruby chose to play Ai in the movie but we're not actually seeing it. We're just sort of talking around it and having it exposited to us. I want to assume this is setup for us eventually seeing it ourselves but like… at this point, IS there any point to us revisiting the movie's content? Everything we might have learned from it has already been addressed by characters Telling Us To Our Faces How It Made Them Feel And Gave Them Therapy so it would ultimately be superfluous.

God. I hate still bitching about the Movie Arc now we're out of it, but it really is the albatross around the neck of this finale. So many of the issues littered through these last ten or so chapters are the result of the Movie Arc's fumbling and misuse of the cast and its failure to establish the emotional throughlines that should have been tied off by these chapters. I keep feeling like I'm repeating myself when I talk about XYZ Narrative Beat not being bad on paper but being less effective than it should do because of lacking underlying foundation but it really is the one central thing plaguing this arc right now.

i get what you guys are going for but. seeing aqua just let kamiki walk away when he has definitely killed people is really funny.

The twins' return to Miyako is another moment that I like in theory but honestly just feels frustrating. It's been over 25 chapters - a week short of an entire year since 125 came out where Miyako lamented her inability to reach the twins like a 'real' mother would and this thread was immediately dropped like a rock. She had zero involvement in the Movie Arc even during parts it was straight up absurd that she was not at least reacting to the events going on, didn't have any reaction to the movie or like… anything going on that could have more organically lead to this development.

I also have to say. The twins returning to Miyako performing this Snapshot of Aesthetic Motherhood (as u/DeliSoupItExplodes on the OnK sub put it) felt kind of. Weird and even a little icky to me in a way I've been struggling to articulate. Just that it felt extremely on the nose and kind of. eeeh.

that said. i won't pretend i'm not 4x critically weak to an 'okaeri' / 'tadaima' exchange at the end of a long quest or journey…

For all my complaints about the surrounding context, this scene in isolation is pretty much the one part of this chapter that just uncritically works. It's hard not to read it as a parallel to Miyako offering to adopt the kids in chapter 10 - except there, Aqua refuses to step into his new family. Here, Miyako pulls him into the embrace and the two of them finally engage not as peers but as a mother and son, as they've needed to do all this time. Her words here are so lovely and so, so sincere that it's really no wonder Aqua breaks down in tears. As much as I've bitched about the lacking work in his arc across the last major chunk of chapters, it's nevertheless been incredibly cathartic to see Aqua finally start letting down his walls, believing in his future and letting people love him. I just wish it had the buildup to really land.

also the twins just… still have not had a real conversation or interaction about literally anything lol.

Ichigo's back…! I already aired my major complaint about this scene vis-a-vis Ruby but I imagine this is the last time we're going to get a real Moment with Ichigo so I might as well get this off my chest now: it was and continues to be utterly bonkers to me that of the characters we saw having Feelings about the 15 Year Lie cast screening, Ichigo was not one of them. And it's even more bonkers that we got this whole bit waxing poetic about fucking Kaburagi and how he feels soooo bad about Ai when like… I'm sorry, but Kaburagi's feelings about Ai are so low on my list of priorities as to be functionally irrelevant. Quite frankly, he does not matter and it's INSANE that the story gave this misty-eyed moment to him and not Ichigo - you know, the agent of the industry that went on to exploit and kill her, her literal, actual dad whose guilt over what happened to her made him ghost his family for nearly twenty years? Can you imagine what an insanely powerful moment of resolution it would've been for that moment of Kaburagi addressing Ai through the 15YL poster to have gone to Ichigo instead?

I also have to note this weird ongoing thread of 'the Dome' being framed as Ai's dream that Ruby is inheriting when it, uh, patently was not! I'm sure she felt some pride in her success but all she herself said on the matter back when it came up was that she didn't get what a big deal it was but that since everyone else was happy, she'd be happy too. I initially took this to be laying the groundwork to disprove this idea and make the characters work out what Ai really wanted in her heart of hearts but now the narrative seems to just be uncritically treating this as a value neutral fact. So… who even knows lol.

Short hair Akane returns…! I don't imagine it was planned, but it's a cute coincidence that she cut her hair in the manga right around the time anime Akane grew hers out for season 2. I've always liked short hair Akane best so this was a nice surprise…

I have to say it was uh, really funny to see so many people get so shocked and mad when Akane talked about 'imitating Hoshino Ai' and screaming that this was a retcon or ruining Akane's character when like… was this really news to you guys??? Even before she grew her hair out, she flipped her bangs to go in the same direction as Ai's as soon as she started acting as her and she was popping hoshigans all over the place when she was getting her career off the ground… like, seriously, was this really a shock to people???

Anyway uh. Vindication for me from this scene!!! I've been pointing out for over a year now that we should be very cautious about taking it at face value that Hikaru killed Gorou and Yura because the story has been very delicately implying that to be the case while avoiding confirming it outright in a way that reeked of a red herring to me. That combined with his failure to even mention these two victims while 'fessing up to Aqua really raised some additional red flags for me and finally, we see Aqua confirming that no, Hikaru was not the one person behind everything, Light Yagami style and the final boss of the series seems set to be B-Komachi's former Queen of Smiles. Fuyuko Niino.

And Iiiiiiiii… feel very uneasy about this twist!

First of all; I have to acknowledge that nope, we have no fuckin clue how either Aqua or Akane figured this out but we'll probably get the exposition in that regard over and done with next chapter. Also something a lot of people caught is that Ryosuke is referred to with a different name here - Sugano vs Kaihara, which was used during the Movie Arc. I've heard this called out as a mistake/retcon and it could be, but tbh I'm inclined to think it's just that Ryosuke's name was changed for the movie, since a point is made about needing everyone's permission to include them in the movie and they, uh… can't exactly ask Ryosuke!

But… back to the real point here.

Nino has been one of my favourite OnK characters since I first read 45510 and every subsequent expansion on her character and her relationship with Ai has only made me more invested in her. But the story setting her up as the final villain here is… it leaves me feeling a little cold and very uncertain about how it'll go.

First off, the framing of Nino on these last two pages is just so overwrought that it's a little ridiculous lol. The image of her squatting in her filthy room, listening to old B-Komachi tracks and staring at a poster of the old group with all the other members but her and Ai aggressively scribbled out… it feels downright parodic to an extent that I think honestly makes Nino that much less nuanced and human by its inclusion alone.

Like… a big part of what I loved about Nino's inclusion in the story and how her relationship with Ai was framed was that it was messy and honest in a way that felt like it wasn't judging Nino herself or making her out to be a villain. Her and Ai's relationship breakdown was a two-sided failure of communication spurred on in large part by Ai's own avoidance and inability to have frank, sincere discussions with the people who cared about her. Nino's tangled up feelings of admiration and desire, envy and resentment, love and hate were not flattering but they felt so real and so human. She was a young girl put into an impossible situation and without the power to change the invisible dynamics of the systems around her, she lashed out at the person in front of her that she could see. The impression I always got was that part of what so deeply fucked up her feelings about Ai was her lack of closure - that she had never gotten to say sorry or patch things up. That she had screamed I wish you'd die at someone she loved and then she fucking died. No wonder she was a mess.

All this though… maybe I'm overreacting when we're just a page and a half into this reveal but again, the framing here really does feel so exaggerated and shallow. It feels like it's falling into the trap OnK previously fell into with the GRSR relationship where it attempts to amp up the drama by massively overexagerrating the emotions at play, blowing them up to their hugest possible extreme and letting all nuance and subtlety get lost in the noise. Ultimately, this will all come down to execution and while it's possible for AkaMengo to get us back on track with the Nino I already liked… idk. Like I said. I'm uneasy.

I also can't let it go unsaid - accidentally or otherwise, the framing of Nino here leans extremely hard into the stereotype of the 'psycho'/predatory lesbian and I don't think I need to explain why that sucks donkey nuts, especially in the midst of a manga that is so insufferably hetero at all other times.

at least she has good taste in b-komachi tracks.

[ifwebefriends]

Sonic 3 Movie thoughts (MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW FOR MOVIE AND POST-CREDITS SCENES)

I went to a fan event thing so I got a keychain, a poster, and there was a behind the scenes and trivia thing before the film started, loved it, would recommend

How does Sonic know which day he came to earth? I doubt the calendar is the same as on his home planet

I WANT MORE SHADOW LORE WHERE DID HE COME FROM?!

This film canonically takes place in 2024! This means Shadow has been in stasis since 1974

“Talk about a low-budget flight!” OH MY GOD I LOVED THAT LINE someone in my theatre cheered when that part came up!

THE MOTORCYCLE SCENE WAS SO FUCKING SICK

THE CHAO GARDEN IM FUCKING DEAD BRO

THE JAPANESE I WANT YOU BACK COVERRRRRRR PEAKKKKKK FRRRRRRRR (wasn’t on my bingo card lol)

Shadow was just peak the whole fucking time tbh loved him would die for him

Robotnik apologized for trauma dumping what

We got a couple “damn”s and a “badass” in there none by shadow though 😞

They really gave Maria a personality and I loved it!

The Maria scenes made me tear up even before her death

Maria and Shadow’s relationship was so wholesome and sweet 🥺🥺🥺

We did not see that little girl get shot chat

“The star shines even after the star is gone” brooooooooooo 🥲🥲🥲

The Beatles reference!!!!!!!

I love how Tom’s NES cartridge blowing trick fucking worked for the USB drive

THE SONIC AND SHADOW PARALLELS YESSSSSSSSSSSS THEY FUCKING GET IT

I love how Wade was in the film for literally one minute and it was to give Sonic the fucking Master Emerald

I want the sonic and shadow on the moon as my desktop wallpaper frrrr

SHADOW GETTING HIS SUPER FORM YESSSSSSSSSS

THE LIVE AND LEARN DURING THE SONIC SHADOW SPACE SUPER FORM FIGHT YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

THE SONIC SHADOW SUPER FORM POSE OMGGGGGGGGG

The whole Sonic and Shadow super form fight was actually peak frrrrrr

So knuckles and Tails used the last ring? Can they get more? Can they make more?

Nooooooooooo stobotnik turned out to be doomed yaoi (at least for now)

At least Robotnik acknowledged Stone’s appreciation of him before he went

Shadow sacrificed himself! Oh no! 😢😉

No but ROBOTNIK SACRIFICED HIMSELF?!? I guess Jim Carrey needed to retire

HOLY SHIT METAL SONIC?!?!?!?! WHO TF SENT HIM?!?!

AMY ROSE?!?!?! I DID NOT EXPECT THAT

Lowkey thought this would be the last film but it’s not I’M SO HYPED FOR THIS AHHHHHHHHHHH

SHADOW DIDN’T DIE!!!!! I kinda knew he wouldn’t die he’s too popular to die lmao

End credits were AWESOME as always

Amazing incredible movie 10/10 loved every minute

[magicxc]

Holidays

Pairings: Survey Corps - their fave holidays

Word Count: 871

Warnings: none

A/N: I considered Japanese holidays for this bit but then laziness got the best of me. Like most pieces I create with these characters a lot of how I envision them will relate to western/modern culture in some way or another. Though they probably won't celebrate half of the holidays I'm about to list, I want to reiterate that this is my idea of the traits these characters possess and also they are not real. 

Headcannons Masterlist

Eren  - Christmas

Eren is big on family, especially the family he’s made with Armin and Mikasa. It’s clear that he stands ten toes down behind them and when he gets his own family, it’ll be much the same. I actually think having kids will bring out the fluff in Eren and he’ll be that obnoxious holiday parent that's doing the most with decorations and presents. But it's honestly the atmosphere that gets him going. The holiday cheer, the kindness, the emphasis on giving - he loves it all. 

Levi - New Years

The new year signals a new beginning but also the close to another chapter. Each time Levi makes it to a new year he’s thankful but mostly shocked. From life underground to humanity's biggest threat, he never knows when disaster might strike. But, when the clock strikes 12 it's a moment of relief, one where he can sit back and relish in the thought that he’s made it to another trip around the sun. 

Erwin - Fathers Day

Lmaoo I'm not tryna make Erwin sound egotistical at all, but I was also running out of popular holidays. The day the Scouts headed to their mission to plug wall Maria was the first time we saw them get a standing ovation and it was also the first time we saw Erwin express such vocal excitement. Even though he can come off a bit aloof, I thought it was fun to see him in that way. That being said I think he’d enjoy being celebrated and can even play up the wowwwws at the macaroni necklaces and handprint construction papers lol. He would love and take care of his family obvi but it’d also make him feel good to feel that admiration in return. 

Connie - Thanksgiving 

You feed this man and he’ll love you forever. It’s his favorite holiday because it has back to back benefits. There's tons of food, a four day weekend off from work, and the opportunity to spend time with his family. He’s the type to pitch in money but over the years Connie has been more inclined to learn how to cook and has even started bringing in a dish. He’s most excited to try a Friendsgiving as he considers them family as well. 

Jean - Valentines Day

I firmly believe that Jean is a romantic. I don't think he’d be the most creative at gift giving lol but it’s certainly the thought that counts. On valentines day he goes all out - teddy bears, flowers, chocolates, etc. ya know, the usual. Although his gifts are very on the nose and sometimes he needs to be spoon fed the information, what he lacks in creativity, he'll gain in experience; learning to step his game up as the years go by. Again, sweet guy. 

Onyankopon - Easter

He more so likes the spring break aspect of it. With the flowers blooming and the sun making regular appearances, it was usually the first sign to what summer would be like. Ony enjoys traveling, meeting new people, and experiencing different cultures. So although spring break was meant to party, which he did, Ony always made the time to immerse himself in the customs of whichever country he visited. Now as an adult, he still indulged in his version of spring break as he always enjoyed the mini relaxation that it brought about; thinking of it as his summer outside of summer. 

Reiner - Independence Day

Reiner is over the whole patriotic thing, however he can't help but enjoy the events that take place because of it. There’s literally a bbq happening on every corner so he’s for sure house hopping for a plate. There's all sorts of sales and Gabi is making him put that wallet to USE hunnie. And while he doesn’t mind, he more so enjoys their time spent together. There's also the beautiful fireworks that light up the evening sky. And at the end of the day he gets to spend his remaining time with family, gathered around over good food and even better vibes. 

Armin - Mothers Day

Armin is def the type to dote on his wife. Hard day at work? He’s rubbing the stress out of your shoulders. Hungry? He’s cooking and prepping lunch for the week. Overwhelmed at work? He’s booking you a spa day. Armin literally adores his woman and enjoys any chance he has to celebrate her and Mothers Day is no exception. Expect him and the kiddies to hand make you some arts and crafts, cook you breakfast, and plan the holiday around your desired interests; with him making sure, at the end of the day, to show you why you celebrate the holiday in the first place. 

Floch - Halloween

He’s big on the spooky vibe but not to a concerning extent. Like many others he just enjoys the activities surrounding it. This is actually where Floch flourishes in creativity and fun. He’s making spooky themed treats, decorating to upstage the next door neighbor, and enjoying all the movie classics. Let's not even get started on the lengths he’ll go through to make the most life-like costumes and the parties where he shows it all off?? Top mf notch! Bonus points for getting some action at said parties.

[herlockslimbo]

summary of rui’s wl chapter cause it made me ueuueueeu (spoilers ahead)

so the first chapter opens with wxs discovering a new island in wonderland sekai. they need to find the map to "star island" and then they see a phoenix soaring above with this very map. i forget if the phoenix like. already had it or they snatched it, wxs then decide to go on a quest to find the phoenix and get the map back. to do this they must journey the island, so they set off!

(rui's chapter begins) the first place they encounter is a village of plushies, and along with them, some "zombie plushies”. we learn that the zombie plushies are outcasted from the others because they're "scary and weird", and rui immediately motions to go meet the zombies. they meet them and it turns out they greet by biting lol, but rui isn’t put off at all, and bites back. everyone introduces themselves, then asks the zombies if they knew about the phoenix. the zombies refuse to give information because they think the others might be faking kindness, and are probably scared of them like everyone else, and they don't want to help people who "hate them", so they run away. rui kind of pauses for a moment, and rin asks what's wrong, and rui says that their words resonated with him, because the plushies remind him of his old self. (pl end)

rin asks what he means and i'm just gonna spit the dialogue here bc i think it's better to just read this part

(also disclaimer i have extraordinarily limited japanese knowledge, i’ve read this whole thing through online translators, and a bit of doctoring to fix machine error)

(disclaimer two i just realized i forgot to fix this text, the “thinking about this and that” is in reference to his plan to keep wxs together, and specifically keep emu with them. i just phrased it weird. )

after this rui says that he can tell that the zombies really do want to make friends, they’ve just been rejected so many times they’ve given up, like he did. he then says he wants to make them realize their dreams and make them come true, like wxs did for him.

the gang approach the zombies and rui suggests the zombies do a play to convey their feelings. it is settled to do an altered version of “potato ghost”, the show from wonder halloween, and the zombies take the role of well. the zombies. they play around and show the plushies they’re not scary, and that actually being a zombie is fun. the others plushies see this, and start to befriend the zombies.

rui watches this unfold and he’s so happy he was able to help the zombies, and see their true desires. he pops out a tom gray quote reference about breaking down the barriers of people’s hearts and i died a bit.

the gang finds a new clue for the phoenix via the zombies. and we move on.

this is literally everything i could have asked for in his chapter i maybe cried a bit. i love you rui kamishiro.

[yuikomorii]

The day tumblr stans will stop being chronically online is the day I will finally like this fandom. Goofy aah people think their opinions matter?

Last year everyone adored Ayato on this platform but after a certain ahem cult ahem of people joined, I can sense they’re secretly having beef with Ayato and are sending mean anons to Ayato fans for some jealousy reason.

Granted he is not my personal best boy but he’s DiaLovers’ best boy for a fact and the hype he started getting is pretty much deserved. In a series of games that’s a bit dead, I’m glad he’s able to keep it relevant not only for the DiaLovers fans. Don’t mind delulus saying bad things about him, those only exist on this platform anyway and are just seeking for attention and approval from random strangers.

// Tbh, I’m disappointed but not surprised. Unfair and two-faced people are everywhere and if they truly spend their time in that manner, you can already see how miserable their lives must be.

I believe that the Ayato hate train began with Youngblood and picked up steam this year after the release of the Meow Meow vampire art. Many people made fun of Ayato's appearance and blamed him for FaVoRiTiSm , despite the fact that everyone in Japan adored him there. I don't know why, but the DL Tumblr fandom is completely out of touch with everything DL-related. They have no idea that Rejet simply creates Ayato content as a marketing ploy; in fact, Japanese fans are literally the ones who request it. In 2020, Ayato was stated as fans’ top choice and got invited as a co-star with a national idol at Nino-san, which was broadcasted on the second largest television corporation in Japan. If people hadn’t recommended him so much, he wouldn’t have ended up there… it’s not that hard to understand.

This has the same vibe as those kpop fans who always complain about how their ult group is underrated but don’t even stream their songs, instead they spend their time criticizing bigger groups for what??

I’m not forcing anyone to love Ayato but at least give me good reasons to dislike him. I understand not liking ALL Diaboys but isn’t it hilarious how some people would give you a litany of reasons why they can't stand Ayato, but when you look at their bias, he did the same (or worse) things as (than) Ayato? If you truly dislike those actions, at least pick a side, lol. I honestly don’t hate any Diaboy (though I don’t agree with their behavior all the time) but even if I did, I wouldn’t throw shade at that one character out of the blue only to piss of his stans.

And I swear, it's incredibly annoying how some people would tear Ayato down when asked about their favorite character/ship/route, etc., even though he has absolutely NOTHING to do with the question or he isn’t even the main topic of the question. Saying things like, "Yeah, I like this character because, unlike Ayato (just an example hehe)—" or "No hate towards Ayato but — *proceeds to mischaracterize and hate on him*" are examples of uncalled hate speech. Literally why use HIM most of the time as an example when talking about negative things?? At this point that’s not even a coincidence anymore, but a pattern, which is truly giving fan behavior.

Such people are really the worst. Reminds me of how some fans still think it’s okay commenting stuff like “This is great but I don’t like *inserts thing the OP obviously likes*” or “Not trying to be mean but *starts being mean*”. Respectfully, who even asked for your opinion? Mind your own business and learn basic etiquette.

[1000sunnygo]

Hey there, I love your translations and all the work you do. Did you learn Japanese or are you a native speaker? I would love some tips on how to get started for a complete beginner like me. I hope one day I can be fluent enough to read manga lol.

Ahh thank you!!

I'm not a native speaker, I just learned as much needed to read manga lol. There are some vague grammatical similarity between Japanese and my native language which might've helped a bit, but I still extensively google every time I encounter new words so it often takes really long for me to read something;;

I can provide some suggestion for beginners though, mostly my personal methods. Reminder that this is just for reading manga!

1. Enrich vocabulary

To improve listening skills: anime. Shonen anime has simple sentences so try paying attention to sentence structures, verbs and tense along with vocabulary. The manga you want to read will likely have similar words (better if the same series).

2. Learn Kana

There's one video I randomly found on my feed that made me learn kana (katakana and hiragana) alphabets. I don't think I would've learned to read if not for this video because it makes the letters easily digestible:

Learning kana alphabets is unskippable. These two steps alone would help you to read shonen manga by yourself.

I'm specifying shonen because it's aimed at younger people so each kanji has reading aid texts called "furigana". Basically, each kanji's pronunciation is written in hiragana letters beside it. They bother when you try to scan the image but helps in manual reading.

For example, you may not recognize (green text) 農場. But it has furigana (blue text) "のうえん" (no-u-e-n) written beside it, you'll recognize the word "nouen" from your vocabulary which means farm in Japanese. (page from The Promised Neverland manga, nouen is a frequently used word in the series)

3. Getting used to reading

After learning kana alphabets, as a beginner I used to work with pen and paper. I would write an entire sentence in English pronunciation first and then read the meaning. It helped me to separate each word (because JP doesn't have space between them.)

Sometimes I used to loudly read the English pronunciation for Google translate's speech recognition so it can translate the sentence for me.

Speaking of Google translate,

3. Applying Tools

Download Google translate app's old version (2020-2021 versions should be good enough) where you can scan a page, then switch off the app's auto update. It's an essential tool that (fortunately) works best for Kanji translation. If you're relying on auto translation, ignore furigana (the small texts) entirely, let it read Kanji.

Sometimes the scanning function can't distinguish vertical and horizontal texts. That's why learning to read by yourself is essential.

Now you're set, the rest is up to practice! When you start learning you'll want to read more to test yourself. And when you read, you get better. Hopefully you'll be able to read hand-written texts and recognize frequently used Kanji after practicing.

The complex/formal sentneces can easily translated via Google translator/DeepL/ChatGPT. But they need some human assistance. Without context they can't correctly interpret pronouns and sometimes you have to cut a bulk of texts into smaller parts.

A manga translation doesn't need to be 1:1. Recently I'm more flexible to suit a sentence closer to natural English than sticking to literal meaning. My English isn't the best either so I have to compensate 🤧

[otakween]

Digimon Data Squad (Savers) - Episode 9

My experience watching this was weird. My main anime site was taken down (mind you, this show is not legally streaming anywhere) so I had to scramble for alternatives. In the end I decided to just download the whole show to get the best video quality. While I waited for the sub to download in the background I watched the dub first on DVD.

Long story short, I watched the dub first this time. I'm actually glad I did because the Japanese title for the episode gives away the ending. Since I started with the dub, I was kept in suspense and enjoyed the mystery. I'll still be going back to sub first next time for a more "pure" viewing experience.

Notes:

I was glad to see them build on Tohma's boxing hobby and that the previous mention of him being a boxing champ wasn't just a one off.

This episode actually followed the same format of the previous when you think about it. Tohma and Yoshino are both disappointed by something/someone from their childhood. I feel like Tohma's episode is more telling of his character tho because in his story we learn about a childhood passion. In Yoshino's all we learned was that...she had a friend who's famous now.

It took me way too long to realize that Togemon was the culprit lol. I literally realized like a split second before he showed up.

The depiction of baby!Tohma is pretty laughable. We is he sitting in like a medieval throne to watch TV? It looks incredibly uncomfy (but that's just what rich Europeans do according to Japan)

Yoshino's got that mid-2000s swag with those pink glasses 😎

(They actually suit her pretty well)

Lol @ the extremely obvious sake bottle being called "soda" in the dub. They didn't even try to make it look more soda-like.

Masaru didn't get to do much in this episode, but he gave us some entertaining expressions:

How did that little girl cling directly to a cactus without getting stabbed? Digimon magic!

Instead of a traditional digimon fight we get a digimon boxing match lol. Pretty cheesy but sure

Low key feel like the dub was trying to emulate the Yu-Gi-Oh! dub. They've got the "d-d-data squad" in the OP and Tohma said "It's time to digivolve!" in this episode.

Weirdest part of this episode was its ending. They flipped the script in the dub in a way that made no sense. In the dub they had the boxer say he was going to quit boxing/the title match (but then they literally show him walking to his match? lolwut). Tohma pleads with him not to because he's still a good fighter. The sub is the total opposite scenario, the boxer tells Tohma he's going to go through with the fight and Tohma suggests he forfeit. IDK if I can call it censorship but it's very odd. Maybe they didn't want "Thomas" to tell someone to quit? -shrug-

[aeoneris]

for archival reasons, and because rise has officially ended, i'm coping by looking back at the past two years and thinking about the master utsushi rabbit hole. this is based on a long reply i sent to a mutual but i think it deserved to have its own post where others can read it and i can expand further on certain details. or something. i don't know. i have no idea who will read this but if you do, please enjoy...

the ballad of master utsushi.

he was there regardless.

always watching.

waiting.

i wound up getting attached to utsushi-kyokan (master/instructor utsushi), ウツハン/utsuhan (utsushi x hunter) ship, and finding his Japanese fan community late 2021, and i've been chatting with mutuals and friends i made there since. at that time, capcom had opened up pre-orders for his nui (plushie). this plush is lovingly referred to as "Unui-kun", and people love to take him around and bring him places. here's my Unui-kun in new york city lol

fans love to dress him up and make clothing and accessories for him. had i known just how attached i would become, i would not have set my Unui-kun to ship via surface mail delivery because it took about 2-3 months extra for him to arrive... ;;

but anyway, it seemed that his popularity was growing because they continued to make more merch of him. he seems to have more than any of the other characters.

many of these are limited print/pre-order only, or were from specific events like the capcom cafe features. trying to get his merchandise became crazy, because scalpers started to pick up on how badly people wanted goodies of him?!

just how popular is this guy?! what's with the character tax!!

and how did this even happen... we're playing monster hunter, not an idol game! but i think it really speaks a lot for itself how rise had such colorful characters that you could get attached to. it seems he really jives with many female and queer players, so good on capcom for that hehe. many of the japanese fans i've met are either older women, very often mothers, or gnc, which i found to be really cool. the english-speaking utsushi fans are usually the same, too. the solidarity is real...

I found out that a lot of ppl, including myself, shared a similar experience: they missed out on a majority of utsushi's flavor text in base rise bc they didn't talk to him or the other NPCs very much during village and high rank quests, and therefore didn't even think much of him until after the fact. people double-taking when going through the game again and actually catching on to his antics... I think what really got things going was when they released his DLC voice and learned about his, uh, extremely affectionate lines towards the hunter when it comes to mew mew and blowing a kiss LOL. (the "welcome back, master!" line?!?! there's so much art of him in a maid outfit... and the way he says ace/manadeshi in his sleep at the table?!?! scandalous?!?!) even for me, he got my attention only once i saw the official art of him (realizing "hey he's got a cute design actually") and eventually encountering utsushi x hunter fanart on pixiv. another thing that got me noticing him was brian david gilbert's now deleted tweet about how zac efron and utsushi are the same. thankfully, we have the internet archive to save the existence of this post and i have to make sure people experience this lost media.

once i realized how weirdly close he was to the hunter, the gears started turning

i confirmed that ppl really did notice that it was unusual for an instructor character to refer to his pupil as "manadeshi (beloved/dearest disciple)" in the manner that he does, being so close to them in a way that felt so familiar and warm. he was already popular enough that by valentine's day 2022, fans literally sent real chocolates to capcom addressed to utsushi. i knew about this for a while, but i was shook that they wound up officially addressing that this really happened during the last update video.

after they received his chocolates, they immediately got one of the (female) illustrators on board to quickly draw that really cute valentine's day art of utsushi. the japanese tweet for that artwork had even a little bit more text than the english one…

that "i'll always be watching over you" line…

(and while i'm here, i have to mention the valentine's day art we got for 2023- i made a separate post about THAT.)

we started to suspect capcom caught on to this niche community's love for utsushi, and they started to kind of... troll us??? LOL.

throughout the previews of sunbreak last year, they would start obsessively sneaking utsushi into those chibi artworks. and when npc followers were announced, people were scrambling to find out if he was going to be one of them, but there also was some weird radio silence about him for a bit...

in one of the earlier trailers that showed the elgado hub for the first time, there was a very short part of the clip where ppl could see someone standing in the distance at the corner of the screen. all the utsushi fans went nuts because they were taking a magnifying glass and zooming up at there wondering if it was really him, because everyone wanted him to be there in sunbreak LOL.

of course we'd eventually find out that would be his perch for most of the game! it was only during the final preview trailer before the release of sunbreak did they finally announce utsushi as a follower, as if they were saving the best for last. and sunbreak dropped, we got to see him in elgado and enjoy hunting with him. and it didn't end there. he wound up being featured in two of the short stories released last summer, and we would not forget this incident.

when i think about how easy it is to just play through the story and miss out on following specific out-of-the-way flavor texts, let alone know about all this outside of the game, i wonder if utsushi joining the hunter in the battle against amatsu in the penultimate battle was strange, because he has such a spotlight on him, even being the one who allows you to ride an apex which was normally impossible. if people didn't acknowledge him before, certainly people would love him now.

his final line after you defeat amatsu: it's cute and silly in english... but in japanese, his line and delivery was extremely, almost unabashedly... romantic. many people were shocked because it sounded like a fervent confession.

"I'll say it once more... You are my pride, my beloved disciple."

finally, during the last update video…

we got this line straight from the director LOL. utsushi wound up being his personal favorite character in rise, and perhaps why we wound up seeing more and more of him in sunbreak.

all in all, if you kept up with the flavor text of rise, and if you followed utsushi's dialogue throughout the base game and expansion, the emotional pay off at the end was even better! and it is a shame when this stuff is mostly optional or you have to go out of the way for it, with so much being missable with every bit of progression. but making a monhun where story and character interactions are pushed more… i think they were on to something. it's probably something that could be divisive, but personally I think they should go all in on it more in the future. Rise proved that they could make charming and memorable (not to mention, named) characters... if they lean into it more in a future entry, then i hope they do it in a way where everyone can enjoy it and not feel like they missed out. but I also hope they would make it so that people don't feel overwhelmed with flavor text... it comes down to taste, but i think i have faith that monhun can try making more character-driven stories while still keeping the core of the series in tact.

here are some more miscellaneous utsushi things that i didn't know how to fit in earlier:

he's been featured multiple times in capcom cafe entrees. here's his matcha latte dango drink:

and for the sunbreak stories: a cake based on his fight with rathalos together with the royal guard, and then a drink that represents his... uh, struggle across the ocean to chase the hunter to elgado. because they will never let him live that down. i won't either.

here's a t-shirt of utsushi and kagami you can pick up on amazon right now. kagami was a very interesting arc when he was first shown- he was introduced as a long time friend of utsushi, training together in the past, but eventually parting ways.

his seiyuu in japanese is a sentai actor who loves monster hunter, so essentially, kagami is lowkey like a self-insert for him lol. he's goofy in english because he's voiced by a certain youtuber, but in japanese he takes a different direction of silly because he has a "chuunibyou" edgelord cringe way of talking. it's such a shame that kagami wasn't really in the game itself besides being mentioned in a few mission descriptions because i would've loved to see him interact with utsushi and the hunter, and i wish the royal knights and many of the NPCs had more cutscenes or something. it makes me think, if it weren't for the pandemic, could rise's story and scenario have been something more because of the DLC voice characters like hibasa/monju/kagami? anyway, a popular headcanon is that utsushi and kagami are ex-boyfriends lol (i personally like this one and adapted it for my utsuhan fanfics). but there are even those who ship kagautsu too (although it is rare because people overseas are a little wary of shipping characters who are based on real people).

and lastly, one of my personal favorites... the diseased kyokan shirt. this is from an online capcom shop, and you can use a proxy service like fromjapan.com to order it.

if you read this all, thank you! happy hunting! with the instructor! we love that guy! the guy of all time!

[khajiit-journal]

Middas, Morning Star 01, 2025

(Wednesday, January 01, 2025)

Lots to report on today. Decided to be open about my Buddhism and Shinto practice on Tumblr that I've been doing for a while. I didn't share them before because like... I'm really just a baby in both regards, I have One(1) book on Shinto and it's as introductory as introductory gets. (The book is Shinto: The Kami Way by Sokyo Ono, it is a good read if you're interested in Shinto. It is mostly geared to explain to non-Japanese people, and I found the section on home worship the most useful to my position because I'm not lucky enough to live near a shrine). And as both are "living" religions, as in a religion that still has faith leaders and etc, I really want to follow them properly than my blasé "I can make my own rules and do whatever I want within reason" that I do for my PCP and magic. Same for things like HelPol, I don't interact with it much or do much about it on Tumblr because while it's considered a "dead" religion (keep in mind these terms are about things beyond if it's still practiced) it still has a lot of rules I don't quite fully understand. And while I have Zeus and Hera to guide me away from major mistakes and help me learn, I still don't wanna piss anybody off.

I've been seeing a lot of discourse lately, though, about how you can't be friends with the Gods, and I think there's an important caveat that there's a major difference between friendly and friends. And like. You can be friends with your elderly neighbor, without putting yourself on her societal level, as well. I firmly believe and stand by that we can be friends with the gods (if we can date/marry them, why can't we be friends or even family with them? you guys are chill with godspouses but not godfriends/godfamily? granted, some of these folks are probably anti-godspouse for the same reason which I at least appreciate the consistency) as long as we still always remember that we aren't on the same status level as them, and remember that they are Gods and we are not.

As well, I deeply trust my Gods to tell me what is and isn't okay, and I trust them to be honest with me. I put their words and their guidance above any random discourse post I see on Tumblr lol. If I step over the line, I trust that I'm gonna get told off and even bonked for it.

I'm gonna leave my thoughts there, though, I don't really want this to be a discourse blog, it's just been haunting my mind and I really needed to slap it somewhere lol. (If you have thoughts, feel free to send them to my askbox on this blog, or else it won't make sense to my other blogs, I'll answer them, but not if you're rude. I think this is a good thing to discuss.)

I did this "13 wishes" ritual thing. I wrote down 13 wishes on pieces of paper, folded them up, and put them in a bowl. Starting today, I'll take a piece out, not look at it, and rip it up (the original ritual is to burn, but I don't have many liberties to burn so ripping it up it is), to send it to my Gods and the Universe to handle, until there's one left, and that one I do read and is for me to handle and make come true.

I'm a bit worried about which one will end up in my hands - I made them all realistic and achievable, even if some rely on outside sources than my own two hands. But I still worry that the one that ends up in my hands will be one I really wanted the Gods to handle lol.

Also today, I've made a deal with Clavicus Vile for some help with a certain haunting. I wasn't requested too much in return, because, and I'm paraphrasing but saying directly, Liege Clavicus feels a bit bad for me that so many of my attempts to reach Them have failed (and thus I've been receiving next to no help despite asking for it repeatedly) and my offerings I've been leaving for Them have been stolen by the spirit haunting me.

It's an act of compassion I deeply appreciate, that I've been given a kind and pretty sweet (literally in some aspects) deal. I was requested to uptick my worship for Great Clavicus once the haunting is dealt with for a good while, and to make Him some cookies, and She "better get the first fresh ones" in Her words, which all of this is very within my means.

I plan on making hot chocolate cookies, as Their favorite is ones with tons of fillings, and I think hot chocolate cookies should count because they have marshmallows in them. (I just worry it'll be too sweet for Their tastes). It is a lot of work, but anything for the Gods helping me with the haunting. And besides, I did promise.

I'm probably gonna do more than this because I can, but I'm definitely gonna fulfill what parts we more explicitly agreed on. I just have to figure out what all to do for the increased worship... Probably make a playlist and play it every day for a while, and make moodboards and reblog more art of Them. That should do something at the least in the offering sector.

[nipahnan]

realistically , how is it like living in japan ? i am a POC so our experiences would definitely be different .. but are you fluent in the language ? how is everyday life for you ? do you have a job there or remote work overseas in the US ? sorry for all the questions !! i'm hoping to move to japan myself eventually . ♡

Aaah I’m so happy to finally get a question, I’ve been waiting to be able to ramble about myself on here thehe :) This is gonna be a long one, so I’m sorry in advance, but I want to try and be as transparent as possible!♡

I don’t live in Tokyo, yet I have a bunch of friends who live there and who talk about their experiences very openly, so I’ll also talk about things they went through and that they observed. In general people of course need to make sure not to romanticize a country. Japan is a country like any other and a lot of people forget that. I’ve been interested in Japan since I was around 11 years old and I came to Japan knowing about it’s good and bad sides because I did research about it for years. So coming here with very realistic expectations and not thinking I’m gonna live in a fairytale, I’d say it’s great so far! :)

Of course I’ve only been here for 1 year now, but it’s definitely so much better than living in Germany. It just suits my lifestyle and general personal behavior so much better. I never felt connected to people in Germany with the way they behave and so I’m having it way easier here. I definitely aim to obtain permanent residence status one day because I really believe that I want to enjoy my life here. I definitely feel like foreigners who move to Tokyo have it so much easier than people who move somewhere else in Japan, because there’s so much more English writing or people who try and speak English since it’s full of tourists too, so it’s easier to navigate without learning any Japanese. When I first landed in Japan I literally only spoke English and I was kinda shocked since I didn’t expect that at all tbh. I actually know a few people who have lived in Japan for years without learning any Japanese and it kinda baffles me sometimes lol. I definitely recommend coming here with at least some basic Japanese and then trying to gradually learn more, that’s how I did it and it’s been working very well. Im not fluent at all yet, but im able to have conversations and I’m learning every day and that’s what counts :)

I also know a lot of people who realized how fake Tokyo can be and decide to move away from it quickly because of them getting mental problems or their mental problems worsening, considering how awful mental help in Japan is. They’re feeling very lonely, overworked, and even get bullied. It definitely depends on the workplace of course. But as long as you make sure to make genuine friendships and realize that Japanese people can be extremely blunt and that their behavior is overall quite different, you’ll have no problem with them. There’s a lot of rules and there’s no way you’re always able to remember them, so I wouldn’t worry too much about it. Definitely try and act according to how they act and you will be welcomed with open arms I’d say :)

I currently don’t have a job because I got hit with a very hard illness right after 3 months of living here which resulted in me almost dying that I’m still recovering from. So I didn’t have time to work with how many times I was in the hospital, yet I’m having an interview soon and I’ll hopefully be able to start work in the next month if everything works out :)

I have a spouse visa after finally marrying my partner that I’ve been with for 4 years, so that made immigrating here way easier for me of course and I definitely realize that I was very lucky to get here that way. I only had to wait 15 minutes and immediately had my visa, meanwhile a lot of people say how long they had to wait because they had a different visa and of course because the Tokyo immigration is so much fuller than the one in Nagoya.

Everyday life is very chill, it’s very quiet so as a person who is very easily irritated and overwhelmed by loud noises it’s so much better for my mental health. yet again I don’t live in Tokyo and in a very tiny town (13.11 km² big lmao) so I have to drive to Nagoya for some of the „fun“ parts.

Now for some of the VERY annoying parts.

Stares. People stare at you ALL the time. Even tho I’m white, they love staring at me like I’m some alien because I have blonde hair and stick out like a sore thumb here in my city where there’s such a tiny amount of foreigners(basically 0 lol) I’ve noticed that people usually say that old people are kind of rude to them and how nice young people are, yet for me it’s the complete opposite at times. Old people, especially old women, love randomly talking to me and are generally very nice to me. There’s this older lady who works at my local family mart and she is sooo nice to me, always giving me compliments and everything, she is so cute♡ Meanwhile young people love staring and making fun of me because they often think I don’t understand them. I get comments like „she looks cute but she’s kinda fat.“ „do you think she even understands Japanese?“ and they giggle all the time. Sometimes they also take pictures of me in the train and it feels very rude. As someone who never stood out in her hometown and always trying her best to not get any attention, it definitely hurts to suddenly hear comments like that and basically feeling like a zoo animal at times. Yet I knew this would happen so I was prepared for it and I know I just shouldn’t care about comments like that. Now idk how bad it is in Tokyo but I can imagine it’s not as awful since it’s way more diverse? Yet you still hear stories about how this also happens very often to POC and sometimes even white foreigners who just happen to have a different type of style. So it’s definitely something to keep in mind.

Also about the topic of getting called fat. Japanese people LOVE to call you fat in your face. As soon as you’re over 50kg no matter your height they will probably consider you fat. One time I had to state my weight at the hospital for a scan and the lady literally yelled „…kg???“ and then proceeded to giggle to her male coworker. Considering that coming from the hospital staff, it was definitely shocking. Especially since I was literally about to die that day? I was so shocked and felt so bad considering I gained 10kg during that time only due to steroid medication which I literally had no control over. So I’d definitely say it’s another thing to be prepared for.

Their clothing style is also pretty different from the west, you’ll see a lot of long skirts and blouses or sweaters. Tight fitting clothes or clothes showing of a lot of skin aren’t as common here and it definitely makes you stick out. One time I was wearing a tank top under a jacket and didn’t close the jacket all the way while going to get takeout and some school boys sitting at the table loudly made a comment about how giant my boobs are and didn’t stop staring and it made me insanely uncomfortable to which I immediately just closed my jacket. Most uncomfortable encounter I’ve ever had and made me stop wearing shirts that show cleavage lol.

Also there’s of course a lot of sexual harassment here, especially in Tokyo. There’s literally guys just staring at 🌽 that you can see in the reflection of the train window (I even saw that in person one time, absolutely insane) or just straight up jerkin off. They literally have posters at my train stations telling women to pay attention to their skirts because there could be someone taking pictures of your panties. So if you intend to wear short skirts you always have to wear shorts under it if you don’t want some pervert to take a panty shot of you. At this point they even have hidden cameras in their shoes which is just insane to me…

Overall, don’t believe most things those tiktok or YouTube videos from tourists tell you. They often times don’t have any knowledge about Japan or how it is to live here, often give misinformation or are just straight up romanticizing this country to the max. All my friends and me even absolutely hate these travel vloggers at this point because of how much bs they’re saying :,)

To sum it up: if you have enough knowledge about the country and the people, prepare yourself as much as possible and realize that it’s very different from what you’re probably used to, and most of all, that it’s just another country that you’ll be living in, you’ll definitely love it here! :)

I definitely could tell even more because I had so many crazy encounters already and so many cool places to talk about, but I think I’ve been talking long enough now :D

Hope my ramble was a bit helpful for you（╹◡╹）♡

[alinktoana]

local elderly girl sells stickers at a japanese food festival

not gonna lie, the entire experience is very emotional to me and it's been a month but moon channel's vid essay about cool japan, and the release of smt5 vengeance (lol) inspired me

tldr: i made some stickers, got real existential about it, will keep making more c: if youd like to check them out, here's a link

ive always wanted to draw, i used to say i was gonna become a painter or a fashion designer when i grew up. none of that happened, but i did go to film school. my final project was a script for an animated short highly inspired by nbc hannibal, majora's mask (i know, it was 2016, it makes sense to me lol) and a huge loss in my life from which i havent fully recovered, 10 years later.

the point is, ive always been art adjacent but i never really drew, until i got inspired by_hannibal itself_, noel fielding, kylux (LOL) and a roommate who was who was really inspired by art youtubers like frannerd and drew around the house, so i picked up a pencil and started drawing hannigram fanart bc i was so insanely in love with that show lol i remember who i was before i drew. i spent my days reading and watching tv, bc i love stories and stuff, but i was a consumer. and once i got a job after college i felt so incredibly isolated and directionless. do i have a direction now, as i work as a """"designer""" for a company that sells a mental health app? no. but like demifiend was force fed a magatama and got demon powers (LMAO BEAR WITH ME I JUST BOUGHT SMT3 HD REMASTER), i caught the art demon (like steven zapata says). and i caught it bad. i spend my day to day rushing through my work and chores and everything so i can have enough time to draw in the evening, to do whatever, and sometimes the need is so immense i cant do anything bc im not good enough, my skills are fading, im worthless, what's the meaning of all this? so i took a chance and showed my work at an arts alley on a japanese food festival i was helping organize. mind you, i was juggling that with my 9/5, promoting the event, finishing drawings from years ago. and when i got there, nobody got it. people looked at the stickers and didnt recognize the characters, and went on to buy the stickers my friends had that were more current. it was all japanese fanart. we were there with the single purpose of baiting weebs like us lol

ive always dealt with clients, im used to this. but im used to business to business, bc sigh i am a corporate girly. and im a beginner in the demon arts of arting. i felt so ashamed people were preferring other people, that i had the audacity to think i was worth anything. but i stood there, standing still with my brain boucing off my skull wanting to leave but also enjoying the experience and hoping someone, anyone would get it. and some people did. to my surprise, jack frost was my best selling sticker, lol. jack frost, from the smt franchise, a franchise im so new to but i love so dearly. im 100% a poser, ive never finished a megaten game. but… it just speaks to me. and thats where my cool japan feelings come from bc, like i said, i was selling at a japanese food festival. people my age, from the country i come from, were exposed to dragon ball and cardcaptor sakura from birth. and learning about history and the atrocities of the japanese empire is just. who can you trust. but ive aways resonated with one thing from japan, and it's the way they portray sadness in their works. it's become a ritual since last year that i will listen to smtv's ost when im on my period bc it literally brings me back to life. no one but i know how many times ive drawn goro majima and taiga saejima bc their mere existance and their sorrow resonates with me so immensily and i dont wanna see them being sad, nor do i wanna see me being sad. it's. it's really difficult to be to admit that im from brazil, bc our country sells happiness as an export but for many, many years the most popular genre is butthurt country music, and it makes sense, you know? people dont wanna admit they're sad. and i can only imagine what it's like for regular japanese people, bc we (i) get to see their big exports of bittersweetness… i dont know, maybe other people get to see that from brazil too, i dont know. the arts in brazil, or specially where i live, it's just isnt in the cards for us. but ill keep trying, you know. and i know fanart is a hack. but im trying. despite everything and everyone wanting us (me) to work for mining/metal/oil companies, make the most money, have the least health, drink all the alcohol (but call an uber), consume, reproduce and die, i. i just wanna draw tiny people, you know. it's. not that big a deal. all this to say that yes im gonna keep drawing and making stickers and, who knows, you know. these are stickers that i wont ever find near me, or that im too broke to get them from artists/official stores, so if youre like me, here's some pdfs in case you wanna print them and stick them wherever c: ty if you got this far, this is a big ramble… but it's been years in the making and despite everything im happy about it c:

[northwest-cryptid]

Local amnesiac clockman in dystopian city gets hired/abducted by the 12 complete messes based on literature, the lamest badass in the setting and his funny amnesiac daughter. Gets told to give therapy to said messes by looking for branches in ruined scp facilities while occasionally incurring on the wrath of capitalism and the little prince for some reason.

Said total messes are:

Straight up the korean poet Yi Sang because his most known poem had a character named "I"

Autism filled woman who is technically the actual boss of everyone

Woman don quixote

Fucked up japanese artist except her art is violence

Autistic french man with gap moe

Sheltered chinese man with the most fucked up family ever

A brit with a bat named revenge

Fish bisexual obsessed with murdering a metaphorical whale

Mommy Russian with only food and no hindsight in her head

Closeted young man with a fuckload of trauma involving ableist cultists

Straight up fucking Odysseus but in woman

And our ptsd riddled cockroach: Greg

See on one hand I genuinely appreciate the attempt here.

On the other hand this is extremely fandomized and I can't really learn anything from it as a result, especially considering that this covered stuff I already sorta know from just having played through the first major part of the game before having issues with it but more specifically from the fact that it's on the website for the game.

I need to reiterate my first bit here, I genuinely appreciate the attempt and I do not seek to belittle or insult the sender or anyone in question for attempting to enlighten me on the game but hear me out if you will...

All the information provided can be obtained from the website for the game or the first 10 minutes of the game; however it is only partially factual.

I am interested in Limbus Company, the game; not "Limbus Company The Abridged Version As Seen by the Fandom." When people go on and on about character analysis and plot depth and why it's so cool and interesting and deep and fun I want to jump in and engage with them on the narrative and such, but I can't because I'm not: A. Financially well off to Gacha for shit. B. Good enough at the game to get very far. And as a website that talks a lot about accessibility in games I feel like if anyone is going to shoot me down with a "git gud" it'd be kinda dumb, like sir/ma'am/individual of non-specific gender identity; you are on the "games should let you experience the story even if you're bad" website, please sit down.

I was honestly kind of hopeful that I would get some serious answers; and while some people have given me more serious answers than others; a lot of what I get is either specifically the start of the game which ignores/overlooks/doesn't mention the folks Dante is having an encounter with at the start, the fact they can use their clock head powers to turn back time and revive the sinners; or even the fact that they have no idea why any of it can happen. Like no one has even mentioned the whole star thing? I think it was a star? Something like that, anyways that thing was pretty cool and no one talks about it.

What I do often hear is how cooky and ku-ray-zee the main cast of silly little guys is; which I feel massively takes away from who they actually are.

"And our ptsd riddled cockroach: Greg" Alright since I've actually played through the first bit of the game so I know just enough about Gregor's story, why do we summarize a man who literally was a child experiment; who was betrayed by the only parental figure he knew; who was made to kill and murder without understanding of it literally like drugged or some shit to think he was just cutting apples; and who's body literally mutates into a cockroach down to just "lol he's a silly little guy with ptsd" ptsd from what exactly? Oh you mean the fucking Smoke Wars? One of the if not the biggest event in the PM Universe?

Like okay I understand I said "hey maybe don't send me entire documentary style paragraphs of text because my ADHD brain will not let me read them" and that's true, but I also really don't vibe with this whole concept of "this person doesn't know the characters at all so I'm going to call one bisexual, I'm going to call one a mommy, I'm going to call one a ptsd riddled cockroach named greg lol" Like I don't know how much of this is fandom and how much of this is real anymore. I know that some characters in PM's universe ARE LGBT so the idea of one of the Sinners maybe being Bisexual isn't too far fetched, but is that completely fandom interpretation or is it real? I sure as hell don't know when characters like Gregor who have deeper meaningful stories that tie into the world as a whole are boiled down to a one line joke about, I guess his name being Greg?

Like again I have nothing against the person who sent this or anything, I'm sure you meant well and I'm glad you're excited enough about the game that you reached out to me; that's all great and such, but I can't help but need to point out that you're talking to someone who knows almost nothing, but not nothing; about this game

and you're choosing to represent it in such a way that might be factual or might be fandomized and I can't tell the difference when the things I know are fandomized are present or when it mostly consists of jokes.

"Local amnesiac clockman in dystopian city gets hired/abducted by the 12 complete messes based on literature, the lamest badass in the setting and his funny amnesiac daughter."

Kind of not really. Like I'm not even going to get into the fact that technically speaking Dante is a Clock Person not necessarily confirmed Clock Man. I AM however going to get into the fact that they come to Dante's rescue(?) during what is essentially an execution; Dante is going to die and these 12 sinners jump in to fight for them for seemingly some reason we don't get to know yet. Hired is a much better word than abducted in this sense. Don't even get me started on "the lamest badass" because like, that entirely ignores the fact you're talking about who I can only assume is Vergilius AKA The Red Gaze, which is sorta huge considering what we've seen of Color Fixers, and you know; the entirety of the Comic/Light Novel Leviathan released prior to the game. What would a color fixer be doing with the sinners? What is his connection with Dante? Even having read Leviathan these sorts of questions are interesting and they create interest as someone who wants to question and explore the setting and it's themes.

AND I'M SORRY BUT "HIS DAUGHTER"??? Has that been confirmed because I highly doubt that unless there's some dialogue somewhere in the game that shows he adopted her or something, I mean yea he clearly cares about the orphans, but like I don't recall him ever adopting her and if he did I can't tell if you're telling me a fact or a fandom here because of everything else you've stated.

Are you beginning to see the problem here?

I literally have to wave off everything you just told me as no more than "lol silly jokes man lol" and I don't mean to be some asshole about it either but this isn't really going to help anyone get into a game or a story or anything because I don't really KNOW anything about it.

Again I'm not mad, I'm not trying to be rude; I've got nothing against Alex or anything! I appreciate someone taking the time out of their day to send me this but it ultimately doesn't tell me anything I'm just as much in the dark as I was.

This is specifically why it's so hard for me to interact with a lot of larger communities, a lot of the information I want is factual, from the source material; but I'm perhaps not skilled enough at the games to obtain it myself, so I turn to the community for information since people tend to enjoy talking about the things they like, and instead of getting actual information I get in-jokes I don't yet have context for, and fandomization that isn't actually true to the source material.

I understand I may come off a little harsh here, so for that I do apologize if I've come across rude. That being said, please do try to refrain from sending people who know next to nothing about your interests, a ton of fandomized in-jokes they won't understand, it feeds into the misinformation loop. Can you imagine if I went around telling everyone that Charon was Vergil's daughter when in reality he treats her as "something of a daughter" according to the publicly editable and horrible "fandom wiki" which is the only place that I could find information about it.

This isn't the same thing as say a biological daughter, or even an adoptive one. Which could be an interesting plot dynamic. I mean do you guys remember what happened last time a Color Fixer had a kid? Or rather I should say, last time a Color Fixer WAS GOING to have a kid? That was kind of a big deal. It's not really a shocker to learn that the guy who really likes orphans would be nice to the child.

anyways sorry for the lengthy explanation of "this isn't really what I'm looking for" but I've literally spoke on this whole "fandomization of characters bothers me a lot" topic before several times for literally this exact reason.