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Paparazzi

[All comics in order here]

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incase anyone was wondering, this is why i’m not surprised their relationship status is still ambiguous after all this time

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magic pink girl hours (follow-up of my last art)

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Mimi’s 02 epilogue career of “culinary researcher” and what got lost in translation

Believe it or not, there’s a bit of lost-in-translation/cultural nuance that gets easily lost in describing Mimi’s epilogue career, and in this case it has to do with the fact that said career literally translates as “culinary researcher” (ryouri kenkyuuka). So what the heck is a culinary researcher, anyway?

The thing about this is that this career does exist and is recognized in the West, but this specific way of categorizing it with these specific implications not so much. (Its Wikipedia page lists off a number of Western examples of such figures, but the page itself has no alternate-language equivalent.) The idea isn’t just about Mimi cooking; it’s that she experiments with different recipes, tries out different things, and publicly puts out strong opinions about which combinations work and don’t work from gourmet, historical, or nutritional perspectives. While this probably sounds very familiar to a lot of us Westerners reading this, the reason this term has eluded translation is probably because all of our existing terms for such things don’t work well with Mimi – “food critic” implies someone who would be actively out to criticize food (when Mimi is more likely to uplift than criticize), and “gourmand” sounds too elitist for Mimi. So, chef with a TV show it is (although, as the Wikipedia page points out, you can still be a food critic without necessarily cooking yourself). You can think of this as the Japanese equivalent of Alton Brown’s Good Eats – and, interestingly enough, although there’s been concerns that cooking being associated with femininity might mean that Mimi was pigeonholed into a stereotypically feminine role, the “high cuisine” nature of the food critic/culinary researcher/whatever-you-call-it job means that it’s actually far more associated with male food critics. (Not exclusively, though; see Hannah Glasse and Julia Child.) At the very least, you can expect that Mimi will be nicer about the whole thing than Gordon Ramsay.

The point here is that, for Mimi, it’s not necessarily about the food itself, but the fact that she’s consistently portrayed as someone who is open-minded about anything and everything. One of the most standout things about Mimi from the very beginning was that, despite her normally being into very pretty and cute things, she also was completely open-minded to strange things like natto on eggs (which we later find out came from her mom cooking things like kimchi fried rice with whipped cream and strawberries). Thus, the career here ties into both her open-mindedness towards things and her family background, and also her presumed desire to promote being as open-minded to trying new things to others – and if the Character Complete File is to be believed, she’s currently trying orange syrup on hamburgers. It should also be pointed out that at no point did the epilogue say that this was the only career Mimi ever tried, and other material such as Kizuna supports the idea that Mimi would have been up to trying other things like online shopping businesses because of her “open to everything” personality (after all, this is the same girl who kept switching outfits nearly every time we saw her in 02). There’s a complete possibility that, a few years after the epilogue, she might decide even this isn’t working out and try something else, but the important part is that anything she tries should be open to possibilities and meant to spread warmth.

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Sora, the Takenouchi family, and the position of the iemoto

Sora’s character arc through Adventure, 02, and Kizuna was very closely linked to the fact that she was the daughter of a flower arrangement iemoto, and it’s probably the Adventure universe character arc that’s most linked to something so culturally Japanese. I think most people understand by this point that it has to do with succeeding her mother in a very important position, but since the series didn’t really go into particular detail about the ins and outs of an iemoto’s position on screen, I thought I should write a bit about it!

Keep reading

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Shine Bright Like a Diamond <3

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People always gloss over how mentally damaging it can be to work in retail. I fucking hate that whenever I say “I could never work in retail again” someone has to reply “You snowflake millennials can’t take a starter job because you have to INTERACT with other people” No. Fuck you. I’ve worked as a planetarium host. I’ve worked as a public speaker. I’ve worked as a tutor and as a student teacher. I can work with people. I can work with crowds. Retail was fucking different. Retail was being treated as a subhuman. Retail was being treated so poorly that you have anxiety attacks before work. Having to work retail was a factor in my last suicide attempt. If I hear you say one fucking word about retail workers playing the victim I will personally break every bone in your body. Fuck You.

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by mjurbexphotography

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inspired by @kricepudding 's nb kairi hope, doodled up a kh4-ish kairi concept based on the nb flag (and utada's current hairstyle since that's been the pattern for her)

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If Kairi’s hair is always styled after Utada’s can she come out as non binary too?

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Sunbeams

Turtle Trail Beach, FL - Jan 24

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ok

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Iceland must be the best country to just drive around in. Every road a postcard.

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