#and its my only option during school lol

[sirpiglin]

HEYYYYY GUESS WHOS BACK LMAO

so I just learned several things:

1. Links work on desktop (including password reset links LMAOOOO)

2. Desktop is formatted significantly better than mobile

3. You can make side blogs. Like they’re not just alt accounts that you make, they’re a real thing, apparently????

[olderthannetfic]

You recently mentioned that you've been out since your teens. As a person who managed to overlook a shitton of signs and only realized she was bi in her early 20s, I am wondering how you realized you were bi and also how you found out bisexuality exists?

Sorry if the phrasing sounds weird, I only noticed I was bi because I stumbled over the term on tumblr in 2016 and was like "oh, that's possible??" and then my earlier identity crises during my teens due to feeling attracted to multiple genders and being like "I'm crushing on [female person]. Am I lesbian? Nah, I've also felt attracted to [male person]. But I can't be straight either because this attraction feels the exact same. Am I broken?" were suddenly resolved with the realization that bi is also an option and that I'm not broken due to zigzagging between heterosexuality and homosexuality, but rather just bisexual. In retrospect, it's absolutely ridiculous that it took me so long, considering that as a kid I had crushes on Anna and Carter and Doctor from Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town, and Vitani from Lion King 2, and back in primary school, I used to go to the kids' section in the library and look at the first pages of a sci-fi comic which had one or two women get out of a lab or space station thingy and go bathe in the nude in the first few pages. I don't remember what it was called or what it was about, but tbh I'd love to find it and actually read it properly this time lol.

--

Horniness. The hornier you are, the easier it is to notice.

But also... well...

The 80s were all about combating the AIDS crisis and trying to get basic recognition of the humanity of gay people (at least in the US circles I was familiar with). The 90s saw the rise of a much more organized bi rights movement.

And then we backslid.

In the 2000s and 2010s, interest in bisexuality as a distinct thing fell off a cliff as far as I can tell. The "hey, it's not just cis gays and lesbians" energy moved first to trans topics and then to asexuality but without bisexuality joining the stodgy old guard.

The 90s were different. I was hitting my teens just as Anything That Moves hit its stride. I bought that shit at the bookstore. Yeah, this was the Bay Area, but they carried it at all the regular bookstores, not just the gay ones.

On Usenet where I spent a lot of my tween years, one of the big groups was soc.bi. I even spotted them having an in-person meetup in a restaurant in Berkeley where I happened to be having dinner with my parents. I didn't go say hi because I was like 14.

My big eureka moment, though, was on alt.tv.x-files when two groups were having a satirical argument about who enjoyed The X-Files more: people who got to lust over David Duchovny or people who got to lust over Gillian Anderson. Someone showed up and was like "Hah! I get to enjoy it twice as much as all of you! I'm bi!"

I was like "That's a thing????" I'd grown up with very liberal parents and lesbian neighbors, but like a lot of boomers, my mom was pro-gay and deeply clueless about all other queerness.

--

So the answer is unsupervised internet access in an age with no algorithms plus things like bisexual magazines actually existing.

RIP Anything That Moves.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

WIBTA for using my cousin's weed habit to convince my dad to let me go live on my own, making him pay higher rent? Hi so this is kind of a silly idea i had but wanted to see if it would be assholeish. Also it is not the only way out or anything, just a bit of a thought experiment. So i (24x) moved from mexico to the usa for grad school (2 years). For this first year i've been living with my cousin A (23F), A's college friend B (23F) and A's childhood/family friend, C (25F). Now they're lovely and really fun roommates, but honestly not very good to live with on an everyday basis. B and A are really messy (leave everything lying around - dirty plates, clothes, trash, you name it), and none of them are very clean. Other than them occasionally wiping the kitchen counters, emptying the dishwasher, or taking out the trash, i've done all the cleaning so far on my own (kitchen, 2 bathrooms, living room, hallways). I've made my frustration pretty clear (and even gone on strike lol, but i can't deal w a dirty toilet for more then 2 weeks), but nothing changes!! At this point i'm really fed up, and want to move elsewhere next year, preferably to live on my own. The problem is that we live in san francisco, and rent is... well, it's pretty expensive. Sorry californians you really got it rough. However, i've looked into the university's accommodation for grad students and it could be an option. I would be paying about $250 per month more than right now, but i would save on utilities (about $40 per month). The thing is, my dad is the one whose been paying for my living expenses ever since i went back to school. We used to have a rocky relationship (he was really frustrated with me not meeting his expectations; coming out as a homo, being a leftist, doing some weed as a teen...) and i think he sees this as 'making it up to me'. I really appreciate the way he has been trying to fix out relationship, and i'm obviously extremely thankful for the economic support. So i feel really guilty asking for more than he is giving me. Here is where my plan comes in -- my dad haaates drugs, and my cousin A has a pretty intense weed habit. WIBTA to complain about it ('waa the house smells like weed, theyre blazing it all day every day') to my dad, in order to convince him that me moving to the grad dorms is a good idea? EXTRA INFO: Would my cousin get in trouble? - not really i think. Its legal, and her parents are aware of her indulgences (i dont think they're happy with the amount she smokes, but they're pretty chill). I worry that if i complain to my dad, he would tell his sister (A's mom) and make it a huge deal, but as I said A's parents are pretty tolerant, and know of her 'addiction' anyway. Don't i have any money of my own? - not anymore lol, at least not enough to pay californian rent. I'm getting a job over the summer, but with visa restrictions (half time) i doubt i would make enough to make a difference. Working during term time is not possible for me (personal limitations). Also the increase in price would not bleed my dad dry or anything. Can't i just sort it out w my roommates? - they've proven to be admirably immovable objects on the cleaning issue. I mean, i can tough ot out, but at this point it's also the spirit of the thing that is pissing me off so much, rather than the cleaning itself. Do they just dont care?? T-T Do i have to 'manipulate' my dad? - um idk. It's definitely the easy (perhaps cowardly) way, but that's why i want to see if its too assholeish. Thanks for reading! Lay it on me

[hurpdurpburps]

My Comprehensive Otherside Picnic Pilgrimage Destination List Pt. 1

This is by no means a complete collection but rather something I put together out of curiosity/an investigative itch, so feel free to add your thoughts or personal findings in the replies/reblogs. I'll be returning to Tokyo in January for a couple weeks and might cut out a few days to do an OP pilgrimage of sorts, so this is mostly for my own purposes that I'm happy to share with whoever's interested. I should note here that a good number of these places have closed for good, but I decided to keep them in the list for documentation.

Hunger Warning: There's a lot of food mentioned.

Spoiler Warning: Events up to Vol 8 are mentioned.

Word Count Warning: Some parts contain pretty lengthy commentary, mainly from my personal observations and experiences.

1. Saitama University

To be fair, Sorawo's college has only been referred to as "a university in Saitama" but I think Saitama University is undeniably the most obvious candidate.

Descriptions of the university's distance from the area's major train station (Omiya) and the one closest to it (Minami-Yono) are a dead giveaway, but the anime also did a cheeky wordplay (埼玉大学 > 犀玉大学, but both are read as Saitama University).

Unlike the real Saitama University cafeteria, however, the anime added more colour to its version because the all-white of the IRL place makes it feel like a depressing hospital food court more than anything.

2. Sophia University While not explicitly named as such, it's clear that Toriko attends Sophia University from the description that Sorawo gave in Vol 5. Even the description of the Yotsuya campus facilities on the official website fits to a tee:

The university Toriko attended was right by Yotsuya Station on the Chuo Line.

I’d read up on places to eat on campus during the train ride here. Two cafeterias, and two cafés, I think? Oh, and a convenience store too.

The cafeteria I was heading to was on the fifth floor.

When I was leaving the cafeteria, I spotted some stairs off to the side. It looked like there was outdoor seating. The building was L-shaped, and the five-story section that jutted out from the rest had terrace seating on the roof.

Ngl, I'm feeling a little cheated of my college experience... My alma mater is of a similar ranking (if not even higher) to Sophia but our campus had pretty terrible food options. Four years of 7-11/Family Mart because I was too lazy to exit my faculty building for lunch break, but also partly because the one time I went all the way to my campus cafeteria at the begging of my then-crush and I thought the food was pretty lame (or at least not worth the cross-campus trek). We also don't have a terrace T-T

Also here, I just want to make a personal note on how fitting it feels to me for Toriko to be attending Sophia, and studying English Literature no less. Tokyo has no lack of famous 'elite' or 'fashionable' universities but each has its own unique sort of branding/stereotype and tbh I can't see someone like her fitting in any of the others. Not to mention the fact that she's already silently drowning at Sophia (socially, at least).

The gate that led on to the main street was wide open and no one asked to see student ID at the entrance.

It was Tuesday. Just a perfectly ordinary day of the week. It was almost noon, so there were a lot of people walking around. I blended into the crowd, effortlessly infiltrating the campus.

Japanese schools are so notorious for their lack of security, perhaps due to complacency from the general safety. My university had closed twice during my years as a student due to bomb threat emails (both times conveniently around finals lol). Depending on what's going on in the world or country, there'd also be a wave of annoying crazies yelling into their megaphones around campus campaigning for God-knows-what from time to time.

3. KOGA Seibu Ikebukuro (皇雅西武池袋店)

This is the Chinese congee restaurant our Troubled Trio visited in Vol 3 after the events of the Kotoribako. Unfortunately it seems to have closed for good but you can still see old reviews and photos on their Tablelog page.

We talked it over, and came to the conclusion that rice porridge might be good, so Toriko, Kozakura, and I had come to a Chinese rice porridge place inside the Ikebukuro Seibu department store.

I kinda laughed imagining 2 college kids and an early-30s tiny woman sticking out like a sore thumb among all the other tables:

It was afternoon on a weekday, the place was at maybe 40% of capacity, and everyone there but us were old ladies.

Discovered thanks to this guy on Twitter (also Miyazawa follows him so he might be somebody...?)

Feeling a little sad because I used to live in Toshima-ku. If I'd discovered OP a couple years earlier I could've tried out their food. I'm kinda picky about Chinese food in Japan but this place looks pretty good.

Some language and culture trivia:

We had come on the simple idea that you eat rice porridge when your stomach’s not doing so well, but this place had a food therapy menu managed by the traditional Chinese medicine pharmacy next door, so it felt like it might really work for us.

薬膳 (yakuzen, or yao shan in Mandarin) is the term used in the Japanese version of the novel, referring to medicinal cuisine. The more general idea of food therapy (食疗) is a Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) concept dating back to probably the beginning of Chinese civilisation.

The TLDR of TCM principles is the belief in healing/nourishing of the body through naturally imbuing herbs and hence their medicinal properties in one's regular diet. Probably also where the Chinese belief of "以形补形" (nourishing what you eat) comes from, such as eating some kinda tendon stew if you sprained an ankle to make it heal faster, or whatever.

Figuring I should take the opportunity to try a type of tea I hadn’t drank before, I ordered kantoucha. Toriko went for sanzacha, and Kozakura had maikacha.

せっかくなので飲んだことのないお茶を頼んでみようと思って、私は冠藤茶にした。鳥子は山査茶、小桜は玫瑰茶。

Sorawo and gang probably didn't know what these plants were because Chinese hanzi were used for the menu names instead of their Japanese counterparts. I've omitted the "-cha" suffix below as it simply means "tea" and is pronounced the same way in both Mandarin and Japanese:

Kantou/冠藤 = "Crown Vine" (hanyu pinyin: guan teng).

As a Chinese kid who grew up surrounded by TCM, even I had to scratch my head for this one and boy, researching it was a hell of a rabbit hole. Apparently "Crown Vine" is the polite name for "Chicken Blood Vine" (鸡血藤), which not only sounds nasty but looks nasty (risky click - don't say I didn't warn you).

Here's what Wikipedia says about this peculiar plant's medicinal properties:

有行血补血，调经，舒经活络的功效，其药用来源为豆科植物密花豆的藤茎。本品苦、微甘，温。归肝、肾经。

"It has the effects of promoting blood circulation, replenishing blood, regulating menstruation, and relaxing meridians. This herb is sourced from the vine stem of the legume Spatholobus Suberectus. It is bitter, slightly sweet, and warm in nature. It belongs to the liver and kidney meridians."

Meridians (经络) are a pseudo-scientific concept that still holds a lot of weight in the TCM world, and also popularly butchered in historical/wuxia (武俠) pop media. You can read the Wikipedia page here for more information.

As for my kantoucha, it had a light flavor, and was surprisingly easy to drink.

Yeah buddy... Hope you liked it at least. Sounds a bit too wild for me.

Sanza/山査 = Hawthorn (hanyu pinyin: shan zha).

The Japanese language does not have a kanji for hawthorn, and the plant is instead represented by a katakana reading of the Mandarin pronunciation (サンザ).

Toriko took a sip of her sanzacha, which turned out to be bittersweet.

Not sure why hawthorn tea is bitter. Never had it myself but I ate a lot of candied hawthorn and hawthorn flakes as a kid and it's pretty sour-ish before being processed with sugar.

Maika/玫瑰 = Rose (hanyu pinyin: mei gui).

The Japanese word for rose is most commonly バラ in katakana, or very rarely 薔薇 in kanji.

You might notice that the Japanese and Mandarin readings of these words sound somewhat similar - that is due to the on'yomi. On'yomi is partly the reason why native Chinese speakers (like myself) pick up Japanese more easily than other language speakers (barring Korean).

Due to the long history of cross-cultural exchanges within Asia, many regional languages have, to a certain extent, Sino-roots. Verbally, Korean and Japanese share many similarities with older, southeastern Chinese dialects Cantonese and Hokkien, due to Guangdong and Fujian being bustling ports/trade hubs of the past. Knowledge of Cantonese helped me greatly when I was taking Korean classes taught in Japanese (my 6th and very new language at the time - like I barely knew how to ask for the nearest restroom kinda new).

It's also why we have the hanzi (汉字) - kanji (漢字) - hanja (한자) trifecta - all three mean "Chinese characters", denoting their written linguistic legacy from imperial Han China through the centuries.

Mine was the two-color rice porridge set with crab rice porridge and chicken rice porridge. Mmm, it had a gentle flavor. The salt was used sparingly, so I was grateful that it came with ebi chili and pickled Sichuan vegetables on a separate plate.

Toriko, perhaps wanting something meatier, had gone for the kakuni pork rice porridge set. The big bowl of rice porridge with kakuni pork, bok choy, and goji berry came with a separate bowl of wonton soup. Kozakura had the yamucha set, which came in a bamboo basket, and the boiled gyoza and shumai were letting off steam.

"Yamucha" here is the incorrect katakana-derived romanisation of "飲茶" (lit. "drink tea"). Pronounced as "yum cha" in Cantonese, the term simply means "going for dim sum". You might be wondering - what's the difference between dim sum and yum cha then? Dim sum is a noun referring to food specifically, while yum cha is a verb/event/action.

Eg. You can say "Let's go yum cha" or "Let's eat dim sum" but you don't say "Let's eat yum cha".

Also I love how Toriko manages to piss off Kozakura every time she opens her mouth so effortlessly lmao.

“What is maikacha? I can’t even imagine.” “I don’t know, either, but it said it was supposed to help suppress irritation.” “That certainly does seem like a good fit for you, Kozakura.” “Yeah, I’m feeling irritated at this very moment. I hope it comes soon.”

4. JUNKUDO Ikebukuro (ジュンク堂書店 池袋本店)

The bookstore frequently visited by Sorawo, and also the IRL collaboration partner of the series. Miyazawa recently held an in-person interview and livestream session at the Ikebukuro flagship store with his editor for the launch of Vol 9, where they also shared a lot of unpublished/uncommissioned art by Shirakaba (see this amazing post for screenshots).

It's also the only place I know of that carries signed copies of the novels. As of yesterday (5th July 2024), signed copies are still available at Shelf 41 (the Hayakawa section) on the 3rd floor. How do I know this? Because I begged my friend to pop by Ikebukuro and pick up a couple for me ;___;

Phone and online reservations for the signed copies are not allowed, and it's limited to one book per volume per person. Go get it while it's hot.

I recorded the livestream as Junkudo's archives were only up for like a week. I can share the recording if anyone asks me for it but the livestream is entirely in Japanese so YMMV.

5. Cafe Pause Ikebukuro

The cafe where Sorawo and Toriko had their first falling out over the search for Satsuki (File 4 - Time, Space, and a Middle-Aged Man).

Miyazawa even made an acknowledgement tweet.

I guess the business really liked being featured in this series because the anime replaced a bunch of other locations in the other files with this one place.

The cafe also hosted an 8-part promotional series featuring the two main voice actors called Otherside Special Activity Report (裏世界トクベツ活動報告) where they did some light meta-commentary and even tried holding guns featured in the series.

It's also right behind Junkudo so I guess it's a great pilgrimage combo if you're in the neighbourhood.

"We were in the cafe behind the Junkudo bookstore in Ikebukuro, where we’d gone after meeting up. Toriko was enthusiastically trying to discuss plans for our next expedition when I spoke up."

Here's their website and Instagram if you're interested.

6. Italian Tomato Café Jr. Ikebukuro West Entrance (イタリアン・トマト Café Jr. 池袋西口店)

This is where Sorawo, Toriko and Akari had a little chat before getting ambushed by feline assassins (File 7 - Attack of the Ninja Cats). There's a few Italian Tomato Cafes in the area, but this best matches what the novel says:

When I headed for the underground plaza by the Metropolitan entrance of JR Ikebukuro Station, Akari Seto spotted me first and was waving her arms.

Together with Toriko, who protested, Why not? Isn’t that kinda mean?, we got aboard the elevator that went above ground.

A standard chain cafe/restaurant type of thing, convenient for when you're peckish, if nothing else. NGL tho I am a big fan of Japanese family-restaurant style pasta.

Website here if you wish to know more about the chain.

7. Bali-An Resort Shinjuku (ホテルバリアンリゾート新宿)

Ah yes, the fabled love hotel in the lore of OP (File 16 - Pontianak Hotel). A quick Google search for "Kabukicho Bali love hotel" gives you not one but four results in Kabukicho alone. I guess business is booming.

Unfortunately, none of their exteriors matches the novel's description:

The facade of the building was stone (or aesthetic paneling designed to look like it, maybe) and used spotlights to give it a high-class image. The building was surrounded with greenery, exotic sculptures, and flowers, along with architecture that evoked the southern seas.

The walls shielding the entrance from view were the barely love hotel-y thing about it, but even those walls were gaudy, covered as they were in ivy and colorful flowers.

However, Bali-An Resort Shinjuku (the first one) has a word-for-word match with the interior description for one of its rooms. There's even a dedicated section for girls' party (女子会) packages on their website.

Here's a 360-degree view of the Royal Garden room (ロイヤルガーデンタイプ).

The first thing to catch my eye inside this room that was decorated in earthy tones were two canopied double beds in the back. Hibiscus petals were scattered over the top of their white blankets. Next to the wall there were two black leather massage chairs. In the front of the room was an L-shaped sofa and a wooden table. The table had a silver bucket of ice placed on top of it with a bottle of wine sticking out. Along the wall there was a mini-fridge, and a shelf with a microwave, and on top of that shelf was a large TV surrounded by a bamboo frame. It currently showed nature footage from Bali. There was the sound of the waves rolling in and out, and gamelan music played at a subdued volume.

“Lookie, lookie! There’s a sauna!” Akari shouted, looking through the door to the side of us that she had opened. Beyond it was a washroom with a selection of amenities including face wash, face lotion, and face masks. Across from the sink was a large dry sauna that had room for two.

Toriko walked in, pushing the bathroom door open. The tub was made of black stone, and was an almost round heart-shape, or maybe more of a peach-shape, and it was large enough it seemed to cry out “get in me together.”

None of the lobbies match the novel's description, but here it is anyway:

There were couches scattered around a lobby with dark-colored flooring, and lines of decorative plants as tall as a person. The space was softly illuminated with spotlights and indirect lighting, and a languid Balinese gamelan piece served as background music interspersed with the sounds of water and birdsong. Was this aroma foreign incense, perhaps?

For a gigantic room with two beds, massage chairs, room service, a huge ass bathtub, large couch + TV area, sauna and free amenities, 26,800 yen is honestly a steal, especially when you consider it's right smackdab in the heart of Shinjuku. I'd totally stay at this place bruh.

8. Jimbōchō Book Town (神田神保町古書街)

Jinbocho is the neighbourhood that houses the building with the elevator that leads to the skeletal building entrance on Otherside. The area is served by a couple of stations but Sorawo and Toriko reached via Ochanomizu station.

Book Town is one of the more classic 'old school Tokyo' locations favoured by fans of literature. It's a treasure trove for people who love hunting for secondhand books. It's no wonder why Sorawo is familiar with the area.

I have no idea which specific building that houses the elevator is supposed to be, but my guess is this one - it's the only one I could find that appears to match the description in Vol 1.

"The place Toriko led me to was a building in Jinbouchou. It was a tall, thin building with a bunch of shops in the back of Book Town. Ten floors in total."

If I'm right then it would be really funny as the building is literally called Jinbocho building (神保町ビル) lmao.

Book Town used to be a pretty lively (or as lively as a secondhand book district could be anyways) locale but COVID-19 unfortunately caused many of these legacy businesses to shut down, so now it's a lot quieter. I'm not sure how long this street will last so if you ever visit Tokyo I do strongly recommend visiting it, if only for the vibes.

Wikipedia has a pretty good summary of the rich history of this area.

Book Town also has its own website that carries a great deal of information if you're planning on visiting.

9. Shosen Grande (書泉グランデ)

The flagship store of the Shosen bookstore chain, located near Jinbocho station. Sorawo waited here for Toriko before their second venture into the Otherside together (File 2 - Hasshaku-sama Survival).

It's hella huge with seven floors - and apparently also a popular shopping location for weeb/otaku merch. This is the official floor guide on their website.

10. Maison c

The quaint little wine bar near Junkudo Ikebukuro where Sorawo and Toriko had a rather gloomy dinner after the Ninja Cat saga (File 8 - Little Bird in a Box).

We were at a wine bar near the Junkudo in Ikebukuro. It was the middle of the week, but the dimly lit establishment was filled with customers. In one corner of a place where there were young couples having a lively time, we were having a quiet after-party of our own.

Definitely a cosy little spot, if their Instagram is anything to go by.

11. Meat Bar Modavaca (ニクバル モダ・バッカ)

The steak place near Shakujii-kōen station where Kozakura brought Toriko and Sorawo to shortly after events of the kidnapping (File 12 - The Matter of that Farm).

Unfortunately it seems this place has also closed for good, but the location, menu, prices and other information from their Tablelog page and Instagram perfectly matches the description given in Vol 4:

We entered a bar and grill that was conveniently open all day and started off with rosé wine, even though it was still bright out. I’d never thought of rosé as anything more than “that kinda pinkish sweet stuff,” but the taste of it was crisper than I had expected, and I liked it. Next, we ordered prosciutto, flame-seared meat sushi, and red wine. We had the staff cook us some expensive meat that cost 2,000 yen per hundred grams, and devoured the steaks after watching them sizzle on a hot iron grill.

It was already evening outside. As I watched the people being spewed out of the station one after another, I caught myself unconsciously searching for that woman in the crowd.

12. Kitchen Nankai Jinbocho (キッチン南海 神保町店)

The "Western food" (洋食) place Sorawo and Toriko visited for a quick builder's lunch in Vol 6 (File 20 - T is for Templeborn).

This is actually a pretty famous spot, so much so that it even has its own page as a Chiyoda-ku attraction. Most famous for their black curry.

Settling on a place that served Western-style dishes, we joined the salarymen and construction workers for a hearty meal.

I should note that there's a bit of missing nuance here. The original Japanese text is as such:

あんまり気取らない感じの洋食屋を選んで、スーツ姿のサラリーマンや工事の作業員に交ざって、がっつりボリュームのある定食を食べた。

The bolded part roughly translates to "We chose a rather unpretentious Western restaurant...", with 'unpretentious' in this context referring to a place that doesn't feel very conscious/fussy about attire/appearance. This part is entirely omitted in the English version.

I don't think it's a big deal per se, but it's the inclusion of small details like that which adds flourish to Miyazawa's writing, and it's kind of a pity when they get missed out like that.

There's also a slight mistranslation here:

I ordered tonkatsu curry with a black roux and lots of cheese, while Toriko had roasted flounder with ginger. We scarfed down a whole bunch of chopped cabbage and white rice on top of that and headed back to the elevator with our bellies full.

The corresponding Japanese text is as follows:

私は真っ黒なルーにチーズのたっぷりかかったカツカレー、鳥子はヒラメのカツと生姜焼き。キャベツの千切りと白いご飯をわしわし搔き込んで、お腹パンパンでエレベーターに乗った。

The bolded part states "flounder katsu and shougayaki", which actually means a piece of breaded, deep fried flounder, with pork stir-fried in ginger sauce on the side.

True enough, there is a dish called "fried flounder shougayaki rice" (ひらめフライ生姜焼きライス) according to the real restaurant's Tablelog page. Here's a review of the restaurant featuring multiple photos of the dish.

13. Keio Plaza Hotel Shinjuku

Explicitly stated as the location of the First Anniversary Dinner in Vol 7 (File 22 - Toilet Paper Moon).

The buffet that our fav girls stuffed their faces at is the Glass Court Super Buffet, located on the 2nd floor. Looks pretty spankin' and swanky if you ask me.

“The buffet here’s on the second floor. I told you, you don’t need to get all worked up about this.”

I'm omitting the novel's lengthy descriptions of the food out of mercy to us all.

The second half of the night takes place at the Aurora Sky Lounge on the 45th floor.

Fun fact: I ran into a bit of confusion looking up this place due to a translation error in the English version lol.

“I hear there’s a lounge on the fourth floor here.” “A lounge…?” “It’s got a night view and you can drink there.”

There's a Cocktail & Tea Lounge on the 3rd floor but I'm not sure what kinda night view you can get apart from dirty concrete in a city jam-packed with skyscrapers lol. A quick check against the original proved my hunch about the mistranslation was right.

「ここ、四十五階にラウンジがあるんだって」 「……ラウンジ？」 「夜景が見えて、お酒が飲めるとこ」

14. Charcoal-Grill Yakiniku Gyurakutei (炭火焼肉 牛楽亭)

In the anime-special episode 10, our little gang went for some good ol' grilled beef.

It's a little up in the air about how accurate this one is. There is only one place called 韓国炭火焼肉 牛楽亭 (lit. "Korean Charcoal-Grill Yakiniku Gyurakutei") in Tokyo, located in the Shinjuku section of Iidabashi that has since shut down.

The restaurant name might be an off-brand reference to Anrakutei (安楽亭), which is an affordable yakiniku chain around Tokyo. There's one in Ikebukuro and another in Shinjuku. But cheap places tend to use electric grills instead of charcoal, so... idk bro.

15. Omiya Ichibangai (大宮一番街)

The place where it all started - when Sorawo discovered a gate to the Otherside on a random day in April.

In contrast to the west side of the station, where further development had yielded large buildings, the east side was still a sprawling town of small buildings and multi-tenant buildings, the same as it had ever been. It was on the east side, on the corner where two narrow streets met, that I came to a stop. Pachinko parlors, ramen restaurants, taverns, parking lots… In between the various assorted buildings of the shopping arcade, there were many shops with their shutters lowered. Their signs had been taken down, and nothing was posted out front, so you couldn’t even tell what kind of businesses they had been.

I've been to Omiya station once, but that was before I knew about OP and it was on a blitzy winter day in mid-January. The station is pretty big and the immediate surrounding area is bustling, but everything looks just so slightly dated compared to downtown Tokyo, like a time capsule from early 2000s IT-bubble era Japan, which is wild because it's technically only 20-something km away from Ikebukuro. I was only there to meet a friend and didn't get a glimpse of the rest of the area outside of the passing "car passenger POV", so I didn't really feel the "forgotten suburban Showa town" vibes from the novel when I read it but YMMV.

A quick Google search for "大宮商店街" shows a shopping street called Ichibangai to the immediate east of the station, and street view images match up the screenshot from the anime, so this specific area's your best bet.

I casually approached the building and slipped into the gap between it and the neighboring one. The lock on the side door was broken, so I knew I should be able to get in. I’d been able to do so the last time I was here, at least. Turning my body sideways as I proceeded down the gap, I put my hand on the sliding door. It got caught if you tried to move it normally, but if I put in some force, and lifted it up a little—there, it moved.

The back room of a shop that had gone under. The ceiling and wallpaper were in poor shape and the sink and gas stove against the wall were dark with grime. There were chairs and a table in the center of the room, covered in dust.

I crossed the room and approached the back door.

I pushed the door open with trepidation, and on the side was just the back alleyway, as I’d expected. There was a puddle on the bare concrete surface fed by runoff from the external portion of an air conditioner.

I took a step out into the alley and looked towards the arcade. It was blocked off with an iron bar gate and a padlock. Turning the other direction, the alleyway came to an immediate dead end with the back doors of some other buildings. Oh, I guess it had never been possible to come in through here before.

Omiya might be in Saitama but it's still a pretty urban area, so don't go breaking into empty shops or whatever... Still, taking a walk around the vicinity would be a good experience I think.

16. Yamaguchi Mansion (山口マンション)

Toriko's supposed apartment building near Nippori station - as deduced by this extremely detailed post. There's no need for me to repeat what's already been said so I'm just gonna add my own two cents for this section:

It wasn’t a particularly new building, but it still looked expensive. I hated that my reflexive reaction was—Little Miss Moneybags sure lives in a nice place, doesn’t she?

Definitely looks old - records I could find on Google show that it was built in 1985.

Also definitely expensive - apart from being so close to a Yamanote line station, it's got elevators! Japanese law doesn't require elevators to be installed for buildings shorter than 5 floors, so cheap developers often cap at 4 floors and call it a day. How do I know this? I used to live on the 4th floor apartment of a 4-storey building (also next to a major Yamanote line station), and let's just say every day was leg day.

I should add that it's an actual residential building located at the end of a street so I wouldn't recommend lingering, because that's pretty sus behaviour to anyone living nearby. I suggest maybe just a quick glance and move on to explore the rest of the neighbourhood.

Also if you're wondering why it's called a "mansion" - it's the Japlish term for a condo.

17. Casa N.Y Apartment Ginowan (宜野湾市Casa N.Yアパートメント)

The closest thing I could find to anything remotely New York-related on Okinawa…

Looks like a slightly old run-of-the-mill Japanese Airbnb though. My best guess is Miyazawa saw the name and decided to embellish things a little bit...

The location and exterior somewhat barely match up at least...?

Calling it a pension made it sound like some kind of resort, but this place was smack-dab in the middle of the city. It was a wooden penthouse on top of a three-story building, and right outside our window, across a street lined with palm trees, was a big billboard for a consumer finance company.

We were some distance from the center of Naha, so no matter where we planned to go, we were going to need a car.

Ngl, this is probably the wonkiest entry on the list.

18. ANA InterContinental Ishigaki Resort

Expensive rates? Check. Poolside bar? Check. Taxi distance from downtown restaurants? Check. Credit cards sure are convenient eh.

We stayed in a super expensive room at same-day arrival pricing, swam in the pool, ordered cocktails by the poolside, and went beach-combing for bits of coral. Then we took a taxi into town at night to eat Ishigaki beef and locally caught fish, then send Kozakura pictures of all the tasty food and alcohol.

Now I'm tempted to do this myself... Girl math is best math...

Fun fact: spamming someone with food photos (or on social media in general) is called 飯テロ (lit. "food terrorism"). And this post is starting to feel like it.

19. Chichibu Waraji Katsu Tei (秩父わらじかつ亭)

In Vol 4 (File 14 - The Inviting Hot Springs), Sorawo and Toriko mentioned that they ate a place called Golden Waraji Katsu (黄金わらじカツ) located within Seibu-Chichibu station after escaping Hasshaku-sama for the first time back in Vol 1 (File 2 - Hasshaku-sama Survival).

“Oh! That was here! I remember now. We caught a taxi on a mountain road, came back here… ate some katsudon at the station, and went home, right? It had a gaudy name. What was it again?” “Golden Waraji Katsu.”

While there isn't any shop of that name IRL or within the station proper, there is indeed one waraji katsu shop located within the food court of a hot spring facility called Matsuri No Yu (祭の湯), which in turn is directly connected to Seibu-Chichibu station (wth that's so nice???).

The facility is mentioned in the novel as well:

There was a building with a number of facilities, including a hot spring for people making day trips to the area, as well as a food court, attached to the station building.

Waraji katsu-don is a specialty dish of Chichibu. "Waraji" (草鞋) refers to Japanese sandals made from rice straw, although I'm not sure what is the special relation between this footwear and Chichibu, or what makes this katsu-don so different from the standard variation.

20a. Nipponichi Ikebukuro (にっぽん市 池袋)

The Ikebukuro private room izakaya that Sorawo booked in Vol 8 to celebrate Toriko's birthday. I did a Google search in Japanese for "Ikebukuro izakaya Japanese-style private room" and this seems to fit the bill off the bat. The entire izakaya is split into private rooms that can seat anywhere between 2 - 20.

I lacked the guts to book dinner for us at a hotel, so instead I chose as nice a drinking establishment as I could: a Japanese-style tavern in Ikebukuro with private rooms that was reasonably priced, and had good reviews for both the alcohol and seafood.

The indirect lighting of the private room shone softly on her golden locks and indigo irises.

Today she was wearing a relaxed, sky-blue dress, not something showy like when we went for dinner at the hotel. She was probably matching the vibe of the tavern.

Seems like a bingo. Pretty intimate interior, if you ask me... Maybe that's why Toriko finally mustered the courage to confess formally later that night lol.

We got more drinks, trying out some unfamiliar Japanese sake.

Their menu also has a dedicated fresh fish section, along with a very extensive sake list... which is a double wham in my books.

20b. Oto-Oto Ikebukuro (音音 池袋店)

There's another private room-only izakaya in Ikebukuro that also fits the description in the novel both in terms of food and interior, but I'm placing this as Option No. 2 because I think Sorawo at this point would rather stab herself in the eye than book the Couple's Room (right pic):

Like literally I would call this the sort of place you bring a girl to get laid after, you know???

Anyways, for those of my pals here who do want to get laid, you can check out the place on Tablelog here.

The Rest (???)

So, that's a cool 20.

There are some locations that have too few details to be narrowed down, such as the DS Labs building, the Shinjuku izakaya where Toriko donned Hasshaku-sama's hat (File 3 - Station February), or the yakitori place near Shakujii-kōen station that they settled at to escape the stalking cats (File 7 - Attack of the Ninja Cats).

Meanwhile, others, like the Chichibu hot springs inn they visited in Vol 4 carry too many research details for me to fit properly in the remaining space left in this post.

I'm sure there's also a bunch of locations/clues that I've forgotten that were visited throughout the 9 volumes, so I'll make a sequel if I come across any new clues/locations as I re-read Vol 1 - 9 in my sparse free time.

I might also do a post casually comparing the JP vs EN (and even CH) versions of the novels, since there were certain parts of the localisation that I felt made characters come off a bit too strong compared to the original.

[visualtaehyun]

Lots of brilliant, thoughtful, funny posts out there about today's BMF episode so I just wanna jump in with some Thai!

Disclaimer: I'm still learning but want to share my love for Thai more! So feel free to correct me or expand on anything 🙏

What Pisaeng says here is that he wants them to stop using the pronouns กู (guu) / มึง (mueng) that they have both been using with each other so far. From my experience watching Thai series, they're most common in male friendships but Not and Kwan use them with each other as well in this show! In most school and university settings, you'll hear it between guys all the time but they're actually quite rude. You might see parents in Thai shows scold their kids for using them. Here's Punn from Be Mine Superstar using กู (guu) / มึง (mueng) while he's fighting with his little brother in front of their mom and immediately-

You might see someone intentionally switch to these pronouns in anger, like Payu in Love in the Air when Stop spits on his bike. He repeats his sentence, just switches out the polite 2nd person pronoun คุณ (khun) for มึง (mueng).

Between friends they express closeness and there's a long list of Thai BL couples who start as friends or school mates and thus continue to use them after they start dating. But there's also lots who decide to change how they speak to each other. A compromise I see a lot is foregoing pronouns and using names (yes, you can refer to yourself and others by name in Thai, it gives a bit of an intimate or cute feeling though). Like super sweet Khabkluen and Daonuea from Star in My Mind (here Our Skyy 2) who call themselves and each other by Kluen and Dao and also use the polite ending particle ครับ (khab).

Now where the hell am I going with all of this?

After Pisaeng brings up the pronoun thing and Kawi goes "Like what?", I was expecting the option Names. But then Pisaeng pulls a sly happy face and I adjust to expecting เธอ (ter) maybe?? considering its frequent use in (love) songs and in some recent memes such as โอ้เธอหวานเจี๊ยบ (Oh ter! Waan jiab! = Oh you! SO sweet!) - if you at all follow GeminiFourth, you have certainly heard or read it before lol

What Pisaeng actually says though is the epitome of lover-cutespeak:

เตง (dtaeng), a version/shortening of ตัวเอง (dtua-eeng) which originally means 'oneself', and is mostly used along with the 1st person pronoun เค้า (kao), which itself is a version of a 3rd person pronoun. Confused? The idea here seems to be a Call me by your name/I am You, You are Me type of deal. The only couple I can remember off the top of my head who actually uses them is Liu and See-ew in The Warp Effect.

Moving on though! Kawi expectedly and hilariously shoots that down and:

...his 'you' here is มึง (mueng) again, to Pisaeng's disappointment lol

So Kawi repeats his question, using the polite 2nd person pronoun คุณ (khun) and the polite ending particle ครับ (khab), that he intentionally pronounces sweetly by elongating the vowel. Pisaeng responds by using the polite male 1st person pronoun ผม (pom) that works in lots of situations.

Maybe it's that I've been conditioned by too many university settings in Thai BL but I somehow didn't expect these friends-to-lovers university students to go with this choice (P'Waa managing to surprise me again). It reads as mature in a way? Like intentionally being not just polite but formal. It's a thing you might hear from parent characters/spouses but also just normal working adults, like Tan and Bun in Manner of Death. They continuously work towards building a long-lasting relationship while the show keeps subverting expected BL tropes left and right!

Throughout the rest of this episode, they omit pronouns where possible but Pisaeng starts using them repeatedly during dinner at the restaurant and in the preview they both use ผม (pom) / คุณ (khun) comfortably.

After many lines of omitted pronouns during the amusement park date, Pisaeng makes it a point to use ผม (pom) / คุณ (khun) right here, by the way:

[sugar-omi]

Could I please request hc or a drabble about Cove as a new parent with a female MC? Thank you! ❤️

its your lucky day (aka you've asked smth ive been thinking abt for days LOL) bc ive written hc's and drabbles <333 although mostly messy hc's that are in no coherent order also I think I will come back n write more coherent n specific scenarios bc I have sm thoughts on cove through parenthood.... pls tysm for this ask I hope it's satisfactory bc i wrote in order of my thoughts LOL

tags : fluff, AFAB reader, after step 3/wedding dlc, "options" for 1 or 2 babes (if you hc triplets im praying for u🙏), no gender mention of the babe/s, birth surrogacy n adoption are up for imagination but pregnancy/surrogacy is most implied altho i think you could imagine adopting a baby before they're born bc ik some ppl do that

synopsis : how cove acts when you have your first kid & a bit on how he is raising them with you <3

many many candid shots of cove holding the baby

PLEASE tell me someone recorded near the end of the birth/when they brought you the babe

he's crying. no matter what he's crying his fuckin eyes out

if you're giving birth please either have him wait outside n come in to cut the cord at the end bc he might faint

if you do have him in the room he'll be on his best behavior. will try his best not to worry too much bc he knows it could stress you out

(I'm thinking abt this video I saw where the wife said her husband fainted n fell back into this rolly office chair n just rolled to the back of the room into the dark side (it was apparently a long room lollll))

if you're in for a long labor or it's pretty short he's more calm bc either it's over before he can freak out or it's so fuckin long he's over it LOL

he's more of a solid, physical support than anything else because he's not too good with words but also he dosn't want you to feel pressured, annoyed, or smth with constant "you got this!" "its okay!" as you're pushing out a whole human, its not a simple task

[video 1]

COVE: so little... COVE: (looks at his mom/dad) are they supposed to be this small? (watery laugh)

is very scared to hold the babe, he's a big guy, with or without the muscles so he's always gentle with them even once they get bigger

definitely texts his dad during the pregnancy/surrogacy/adoption process "I hope i can be a good dad like you"

cliff getting a text from cove at 3am: "ty for raising me idk how you did it omg"

cliff is crying n flying over there immediately

!!!! if you need someone to help you adjust cliff is on the fuckin way!!! you can't even finish asking bc he's alrdy here, whatever you need guys!!!!

but if you want to be alone to bond w the babe or you hire a professional to help with the transition then he or your moms will come over and clean up, prepare food, and allows you to come home and not worry about getting things done.

dies if the kid has his hair color or eyes, like at first he just finds it crazy that he's a dad n that he has a lil spawn of his own

also lots of pictures of cliff playing w the babe/s

we all know cove can be lazy with his hair, but he doesn't want his kid going to school w crazy hair so he learns

at first it looks like a mess

n if you keep your hair short or can only do smth simple, its time to call your ma or lee for help LOL

imagine cove standing by your ma as she's showing him how to braid... so sweet

cove is tip-toeing through the house, trying to shake off his outside clothes quietly and when he walks back into the room after brushing his teeth he's greeted with the sweet sound of his baby's giggle

you are sound asleep.

you and the other babe are sound asleep.

he shushes the baby, easing himself into the bed. suddenly he thinks that spending all that money on this big bed was worth it, especially with the way his achy body sinks into it.

"cove?..."

he reaches over the babe/s. "sorry.. did I wake you?"

you hum, it's not a yes or a no, just a sleepy sound and he laughs at how out of it you are even though you're trying to fight it, stroking your face and carding his fingers through your hair.

"I love you.. thank you." he whispers. this moment is so delicate. he worries a bit that if he speaks too loud it'll be gone and he'll wake up in his teenage bedroom, staring at the bottom of his scratched up bunk bed.

"f'what?" you blink slowly.

"for everything..." he grins softly, thinking about that night

of your wedding, when you told him you wanted kids with him.

after the ORCA fundraiser dinner, when you asked him if he imagined having kids with you.

"we made it. that future we talked about..."

you smile softly, more awake now. "thanks for making it with me."

he laughs, muffins his face in the pillow and resting a hand on the baby, willing them not to wake. "how can you thank me for that?"

you grin, more sleepy than anything but still full of mischief.

"how can you thank me for getting me pregnant?" you giggle at your husband's flustered face.

"how can you thank me for being here like I promised years later?" you tease, bringing up night of the fundraiser.

cove flushes, burying his face in the babies hair instead of answering you.

he puts an arm around you, careful of the little one/s between you. "just go to bed..."

gb lady said cove is sahd material.....

omg he makes them lunch always, or he at least helps you make lunch because his cooking skills are a bit limited and they'd prbly have star shaped sandwiches and applesauce everyday

HE HAS A THING TO PUT THE BABE IN WHILE HE DOES HOUSE SHIT

your kids are definitely cuddles bc of him, he always picks em up, and if he doesn't have a carrier than he'll make a makeshift one out of a blanket.

omg imagine him and the kid/s at the dining table crying tryna figure out the homework

"its getting worse y/n!!!" "what the fuck is common core math?!" "babe call the teacher, something is missing here..."

if you're bad at math or smth too than you're all fucked n your kid/s AND COVE are facetiming his dad for a long distance tutoring lesson

he's reading them books every night

HE gets upset when it doesn't happen

"babe we gotta turn around, I only read them 5 books we're gonna be gone 6 nights."

FaceTime them every night you're away just the two of u

falls asleep w the kids in the weirdest positions

why is there a princess crown on his head and where did the face paint come from????

spoils the kid/kids. you're gonna go bankrupt please stop!!!

when your kid/s finally graduate n move out on their own, he thanks his dad for raising him and teaching him how to be the best dad.

also thanks you for just being amazing n reassuring him whenever he worried abt doing something wrong

if you have more than 1, he's a master by baby 2/3

COVE: (holding fresh baby, whispering) ....why is it so red

raising you kid/s w cove is tough at first, cove worries about doing some wrong or failing as a parent.

and he did eventually admit he was worried about raising his kid/s in a "broken" home. his parents did their best! and he loves them, but the split was hard for him and he doesn't want them to go through the same feelings.

every day is a new experience in your house to say the least

I imagine it's filled w lots of worry, love, and tears

COVE N HIS KID/S HAVE A CRY COUNT

(cove is losing somehow?! he's been out crybaby-ed)

[hall0wedwyrm]

Doki Doki Literature Club: A Monika centric Analysis/Retrospective

Monika is definitely one of my favourite characters... well ever and i just wanted to share my love of her on her birthday!

if you're interested, I made a post a while ago talking about Natsuki! To the people who found it again, it made me happy to see the reblogs people left,,, so thank you!!

This post contains major spoilers for Doki Doki Literature Club! This post is also pretty long lol

I love how Monika is set up to stand out against all of the other girls. You can’t see her bottom half on the title screen, but in the promotional art she has black stockings and pink tipped shoes. She extends out a hand, seemingly welcoming us. Monika is the most smartest, popular girl at school, as e by the Protagonist when they meet her. She started the Literature Club after leaving the Debate club when it became boring.

Quickly though, she is immediately singled out. She doesn’t seem to be an option for us to interact with, often being almost forced to choose Sayori, Natsuki or Yuri. Monika also isn’t a choice when we write poems, which is the main way we can choose which of the club members we want to romance. She also acts as a tutorial of sorts, giving us advice on how we might want to write poems, saying generic things that sound right in-universe for her to say about poems and writing and even notices the characters you write for.

This goes off the rails almost immediately.

During day two of officially being in the club, and after Monika shares her second very cryptic poem, Monika gives her writing tip of the day. It starts relatively innocent, saying we might face a difficult decision, but then she says;

“When that happens, don’t forget to save your game!”

This is dialogue is the first openly fourth-wall breaking thing in this game. Monika directly referencing game mechanics, when no one else has before. It makes it even more jarring when she says;

“Wait… is this tip even about writing? What am I even talking about?”

She laughs it off, but this really stood out as completely bizarre. I’d say this is the start of her openly breaking the fourth wall. On several occasions, she says things that seem out of the blue, and that is clearly something only we are meant to understand as the player. The most obvious is when Natsuki makes a joke about how Monika’s name can be a pun (”It’s right in your name! Mon-ika!”), Monika says that that isn’t how you say her name, adding on, “Also, that joke makes no sense in translation!” which makes Natsuki confused and she brushes it off. Interestingly, after this exchange is when we first get hints of Sayori’s ‘rain clouds’, which shows how early on Monika was messing with her and also when Monika speaks to Sayori for the Protag.

(“I can’t say I’ve noticed anything about her…” Monika when i GET YOU WHEN I GET WHEN I GET Y-) (and then she insinuates that Sayori is interested in us OUUGH WHEN I GET YOUUUU)

Day Three and sharing poems with Monika and she comments on how close the protag and Sayori are becoming… to which she says:

“It would be terrible if something bad happened to her, so keep an eye on her.”

To which I say… oh my GOD. OH MY GOD??? you’re joking. you are JOKING??? ahem. anyway. Another important piece of dialogue she says is when the protag says that all the things the club members write about are sad and Monika says that if everything was okay, they wouldn’t have anything to write about commenting, “Humans aren’t two-dimensional creatures… I think you’d know that better than anyone.” The protagonist corrects her (”Don’t you mean one-dimensional?”) and she once again laughs it off, but this is a flex of her awareness of something more than the world she is in. This is one of her many many comments that aren’t directed at our character, but to us specifically.

Quickly going to point out another one of my absolute favourite details about Monika here... and its just going to be this picture:

yeah. oh yeah...

“Stagnating air is common forshadowing that something terrible is about to happen…” Yuri says.

“I talked to her earlier and everything is fine.” “What did she say?” “Anyway we need to figure out the rest of the festival preperations so-”

Monika also tries to get us to help her for the weekend, despite the fact that she’s going to be getting help from Sayori, and this is pointed out by both Natsuki and Yuri, until she’s basically guilted into letting us choose between the two of them. This reflects (a much more tame version) of the same situation from Act 2.

The day we meet up with Natsuki/Yuri, there is very clever foreshadowing that I don’t think anyone really talks about. When we go to meet up with Sayori to make sure she’s okay after yesterday, the atmosphere is tense. There is no music, and it becomes very ominous, especially with the limited assets used in the game (Sayori’s house doesn’t have assets other than her room, so the black screen is unsettling). Sayori is in her room, and she finally opens up about her depression and expresses how its been very difficult for her.

After meeting our chosen Doki, she catches us, and says that she couldn’t stop thinking about what might have been happening and had to come and see for herself. She blurts out that she wishes she could disappear and stop being so selfish. She makes the very concerning comment, “Monika was right… I should just..” The protagonist is rightfully very confused as to why she mentioned Monika. This links back to when Monika offered to speak with her. Whatever she said… it wasn’t good at all.

This is also where we get to confess to her, with the options of “You will always be my dearest friend.” or “I love you.”

As Susie Deltarune once said, ‘Your choices don’t matter’.

I wanted to also mention I was rewatching some clips and reations to this part and GTLive does a very good playthrough. Mat and Steph are very very uncomfortable the entire time (like through the whole game). After Sayori's death, they're sort of collecting their thoughts and Stephanie points out that Monika knew what had happened to Sayori:

“No.. no no. Do you remember, when we were in the classroom just now… when we were talking to Monika? She knew- She knew what happened. She knew everything that happened with Sayori. She knew.” “Because she said- you left her hanging.” “That’s tacky… that’s gross.”

(Mat is just sat in his own discomfort and is just completely silent in processing what the hell just happened) They both agree that you have the chance to get surprisingly attached to Sayori, and it made her death hurt even more.

When the game resets, Sayori is gone, and Monika is on her bullshit full force. She completely devolves into being very pushy and also incredibly insensitive at times. Natsuki becomes aggressive, and Yuri is incredibly possessive of us and thrives on spending time with us. Her behaviour gets worse and worse as it goes on, also resulting in her death too. It's also worth pointing out how the Protagonist has less and less dialogue in Act 2, in reference to how its becoming less about him and more about us, the player.

Monika becomes incredibly detatched from the girls. Unlike in Act 1 where she tries to reason with them and work things out with words, she now truly sees them as only obstacles and lines of code that she has to bypass to get to us. There are elements of her trying to play along and be nice, but she ultimately gives up on it all together by the end of about day 3. She takes advantage of the times she gets to speak to us alone, all of them becoming very meta and unsettling since she’s talking to us, not our character. Everything she does from now on is to achieve our full attention. She can't completely break the game, that would mean destroying the platform in which she can see and communicate with us, but she needs to find ways to get the other girls gone.

Throughout Act 2, Monika is pushing for us to spend time with her, but is always thwarted by Yuri dragging us away. She takes us outside while Yuri and Natsuki fight, and she interrupts Yuri’s first attempt at a confession by literally blocking Yuri's dialogue box and forcing her to stop talking and giving her confession.

One of my favourite act 2 moments is at the end of day 3, Monika finally gets a chance to talk to us, (saying “sometimes it feels like you and I are the only real people here.”) and as she does so, the screen fades away into the poem creation screen. Even when Monika thinks she is in control, she is fighting against the base programming of the game that she can’t alter, as stated previously

After Yuri’s death, Act 2 ends with the next Monday and the day of the festival. I watched Xander’s Cut do an excellent job of recap of the disturbing nature of DDLC, and they cleverly pointed out how Natsuki had a very normal-person reaction to seeing a dead person (literally throwing up and running away), and Monika literally says; “Ahahaha! Well, that’s a shame.” She proceeds to completely disregard the fourth wall, and says that the script is way too broken. She deletes Natsuki and Yuri, takes the chance to eat one of Natsuki’s cupcakes (oh my god it's so messed up she's SO SICK SOMETIMES-)

With another reset, its us and Monika alone in the clubroom.

Just Monika.

During her opening monologue, Monika basically tells us how to access the files and how easy it was to delete the other girls. She says she’s not very good at changing the game, but it was surprisingly easy to access the game files (unless she detects you using Steam, where she kindly explains how to reach the directory). A poem for each other later, and some more words of being able to spend eternity together later, Monika begins her absolutely massive talk. I’m pretty sure she has over 50 dialogue options that she can choose from (everyone should also watch TechRules cover DDLC its super interesting), and it's truly designed to go on forever... or at least a very long time anyway.

After writing this, I learnt about the option where she talks about Yuri bringing a little bottle of wine into the club and it just makes me sob knowing that even at that point she was remincising about her friends and the times they spent together. I think theres another dialogue box where she questions why she's even talking about them and tries to assure herself that they aren't real and they don't matter anymore. This already shows Monika's regret we learn about later.

Monika talks about a lot of things, some very realistic and wise… and the others being her explaining Sayori’s death in waaaay too much detail. It still makes me feel disgusting to this day (GTLive also got this dialogue and Mat was like “I am not reading this. I can’t read this.”), but a lot of what she says makes her feel like she’s a real person and sharing all her opinions is very interesting.

Now… FINALLY. Monika's deletion.

Her omnipotence is her downfall. It made her insensitive, and when she is deleted, she’s given a taste of her own medicine. She blames us for everything that happens, she calls us sick and horrible, telling us to go mess with someone else.

But… she comes back. She says she still loves us, and that she’s the one who ruined the world. She confesses that she couldn’t truly bring herself to delete the others. Monika believes that if she can bring back the club without her, then everyone can be happy.

I really like this redemption of sorts. Even in act 2, when she was trying everything to win us over, she still reacted to the others like they were people. This is most apparent when she told Yuri that she makes for a wonderful vice president, and a great friend. When she tries to get more members to join, she really does want the best for the club, but with the changes to Natsuki and Yuri she gives up.

When beginning act 4, everything seems to be back to normal, except now Monika is completely gone. She continues to blame herself when you try and add her back into the game. She cares so much about the others that she just wants them to be happy, even if it means without her. It's very selfless of her to do so, but is also her acknowledging that what she knows is the things she knows are harmful for everyone.

She assumes she's the one with the knowledge, but really its whoever is in charge. The Club President.

Sayori gains Monika's omnipotence and she wants us for herself now. Monika steps in, and decides that its not worth keeping the Literature Club if this power is just going to keep being passed around.

She says goodbye to Sayori, Goodbye to us, and Goodbye to the Literature Club. This ending on its own is already bittersweet, but Monika comes back one last time, and sings the song she had been working on all this time.

Your Reality is about Monika's journey. It sums up everything she questioned and learnt throughout the game. Ending with her final decision:

"And if I don't know how to love you... I'll leave you be."

She lets us go, and gives us her final message:

man.

Monika's character is very special to me. She's an incredibly complex character for someone who is intentionally pushed aside in the coding, but so badly wants to have her own happy ending. If the other girls can have one, why can't she? All that she does it to get to us, but she eventually realises that her friends are more important than any of this, and how she misses them dearly. We get to see more of their relationships in DDLC+, and how they all got along once. Her story was (and still really is) something so unique to me, and it captivated me so strongly that I haven't really stopped thinking about it for all these years. She's truly something wonderful, and here's to one day seeing her again!

And of course,

Happy birthday Monika!!

[musubiki]

i'd love to learn more about coco and lime's dynamic... the art you've made of them give me annoying bickering siblings energy (compared to mochi and taffy's more softer sibling energy) and i love it so much LMAOO

ITS TRUE in my mind mochi/taffy give off the "siblings who have to have each others back because the world is cruel and cold" dynamic whereas lime and coco have the "asshole siblings fist fighting to sit in the front seat" dynamic LOL!!!!

but their friendship is honestly very funny (if it can be called that). coco straight up thinks theyre cool. shes like "Oh yeah hes my bro" and throws up a peace sign, meanwhile lime cringes in the distance. between her and oscar, coco is WAY more likely to meddle in limochi moments and lime HATES IT !!!!! he just wants some mochi time, and coco is the one thats usually interrupting and/or stealing mochi away for some girl time. HOWEVER coco also then has the Inside Scoop on mochi, so he has no choice but to consult her. as a result, coco is one of the only two people (the other being oscar) that lime actually talks to about mochi (his options are garbage. 50/50 chance that oscar will use the newly acquired information to fuck with you, and coco uses it as blackmail)

i think lime would get along with her more if she didnt meddle in the mochi affairs so much. shes the one thats more likely to try and play matchmaker, and lime wants to kill her every other episode. he just wants Something To Develop(tm) with mochi naturally and casually without coco over there kicking his shin every time mochi mentions shes going to buy snacks or something. "First of all," he aggressively and quietly whispers, "I was gonna buy her snacks anyway, and second you don't have to kick me every fucking time mochi does something!"

as a result, from mochis pov, she'll be talking about something and all of a sudden lime and coco start fucking fighting in the middle of the classroom. coco kicks him and he throws fruit juice on her and it starts a whole thing. mochi doesnt actually even know what triggers it. (she DOES hang out with stray cats a lot, so she figures they just fight randomly sometimes like the cats do LOL)

another thing is coco is notoriously unhelpful when it comes to mochi. she only gives very obvious and straightforward advice that lime is too much of a coward to do. its like "Easy, just tell her you like her." and lime walks away like "Oh great idea, I cant believe I never thought of that. Thanks for nothing."

also during their high school years, as class president she very much sees him as a money-generating asset. "You see, if we hold a school dance and set up a booth where you pay 10 dollars to dance with Lime, then all the girls will come and pay the entrance fee AND pay the dance fee, and since all the girls will be there all the guys will come too so summing up all of that we have--" and she just rambles off not even paying attention to lime yelling that she cant just sell off his body like that without even asking him (he eventually gets roped into doing it against his will)

and the love-hate friendship is also because shes so annoying, but she does things sometimes which lime is actually greatful, like when she convinced mochi to start wearing the short skirt to school. catch them afterwards with coco being like "Hey hey you see that? What do you think? Where's my thank you? I take cash or card for tip." and lime is head in hands, a mix of extreme gratitude and irritation

(also worth mentioning that from cocos pov, lime is excessively selfish with mochi. shes like "Dude, you walk with her to school everyday. You see her after school EVERY DAY. You SLEEP with her EVERY NIGHT. I can't have ONE AFTERNOON for us to get ice cream??" and lime goes "No. I was gonna take her to do that.")

an equally funny dynamic thrown in: oscar the opportunist ripping the rug out from both of them while theyre fighting all the time. goes and gets mochi ice cream while theyre hashing it out. this actually happens more than once, no one really figured out yet why oscar keeps doing this, but i think its because it serves the dual purpose of 1) fucking with lime and/or coco, and 2) doing something nice for mochi, since he knows shes always stressed out. the main time this little thing of his shows up is when mochi off-handedly mentions that no one asked her to prom/winter ball/some dance. immediately coco kicks lime and they start fighting again, and oscar the opportunist (after giving it a few seconds) goes "Why not go with me?"

(when lime (pissed) asks him what the fuck later on, he goes "Well you were taking too long to ask her, plus half chance you actually gather up the guts to do it. This is our last school dance, and I don't want Mochi to miss out just because you didn't get your shit together fast enough. You'll still see her at the dance, I don't see the big deal.") (oscar is good at forcing limes hand)

[marunalu]

About new chapter. It got confirmed that All Might is 50+ years old.(Add here psychomurderz calculation about Inko Shimura theory lol)

But i notice something very interesting. Some people suggest that "40 years old macallan is All Might because he is 40 years old and AFO enemy".

Now then we get confirmation that Toshinori is more than 50 years old. We only have one option left) 40 years old macallan is Inko)

I mean i am giggling now .

Okay so Im an absolute horrible LOSER when it comes to math, but even I knew all might was AT LEAST 50 years old before the new chapter confirmed it. I try to make my calculation as simple as possible:

All might met nana when he was 14/15 years old, because he was in middle school.

All might graduated from UA at the age of 18. Shortly after he, nana and gran torino fight all for one. Nana gets killed and gran torino takes all might to america.

There he mets david shield at the age of 21.

At the age of 23 he returns to japan and starts to wipe out all for ones bases, slowly destroying his criminal empire on his way to the nr. 1 spot. He also starts to get rid of criminal activety in japan, turning him into the "symbol of peace."

He was roughly the symbol of peace for 30-35 years. That would make him between 53-58 years old.

All might is around 11 years older then nanas son kotaro. He died at the age of 32 making all might around 43 years old. When kotaro died, tenko was around 5 years old. Tenko is 5 years older then izuku, that means when tenko killed his family izuku was either about to be born or a few months old. So all mights age was around 43 at that point and now ad the 15 years till the start of the actual story. That would make all might 58 years old.

I really hope my explaination makes sense and if I did a mistake please feel free to correct me 😅

The reason why a lot of people think that all might is in his 40ths is because they believe that he and endeavor were together is UA and endeavor is 46 years old.

So no, the "40 year old macallan" afo wanted the aoyamas to bring to him NEVER was all might and it wouldnt have made any kind of sense to begin with! WHY should the aoyamas bring all might to afo? WHAT were the aoyamas supposed to tell all might to lure him out without it looking to suspicious?

Its important to remember that afo asked for the "40 year old macallan" FIRST and only when the aoyamas told him that they can bring the "16 year old macallan" (confirmed to be izuku) to him, he agreed. So whoever the 40 year old is, afo wanted THAT ONE first! All might neither fits the age nor does afo have any reason to ask for all might. Afo told izuku he is no longer interested in that "blonde buffon". The reason why young afo is so triggered by all might now, is because of his unstable emotions right now and the effect of tomuras general hatred for everything boosting afos own hatred for all might, he under normal circumstances has under control.

Now to inko. Even if we ignore the dfo theory for a moment, inko is the only person who makes sense and fits the age. She is 41 years old, but macallans of that age dont exist so the "40 year old" is the next closest one. Aizawa for example is 30 years old, so we can exclude even him, despite his incredible useful quirk afo showed interest for in the past.

Inko is the only person who fits. As izukus mother she should be afos nr. 1 target. She is izukus biggest weakness, the person he loves the most (and NO its NOT bakugou!!!). Even if we ignore the dfo theory here, afo getting his hands on inko and using her as bait for izuku or to force him to give ofa up, is the most logical thing any villain would do. You dont need to be a genius mastermind villain to understand that.

The question is just, if its indeed inko WHY does afo target her only NOW and not the whole time before he was imprisoned in tartarus? He had enough time to hunt her down. He already suspected izuku to be the new ofa owner during the sport festival, while in kamino he only got the confirmation! There was enough time for him to investigate izukus family and possible weaknesses that can be used against him. We are talking about the man who is known for going after the loved ones of his enemys and victims. He did target the entire shimura family simply out of spite and pettiness towards nana and to break all might! But for some reason he stays away from the mother of the current 15/16 year old ofa holder?? A woman with nothing but an weak and untrained telekinesis quirk?? COME ONE!

And if we let dfo play into all of this, it makes even more sense why afo would order the aoyamas to bring his wife to him. IF there are any positive or even romantic feelings for her involved you can bet that afo would ask for inko first, because he planned to destroy UA inko is currently keeped in as far as we know (except if the heroes took her somewhere else instead) and unlike her son she cant protect herself. It would have been so easy for the aoyamas to lure inko away. Their sons are friends and mrs. Aoyama only would have need to ask inko out for a walk to talk about their boys and woman things for example and BAMMM all of a sudden husbando swoops in all hades style to kidnap his persephone to keep her out of his plans to overrun the olymp.

So to end this here, Im 100% sure inko is the "40 year old macallan" no matter if for dfo reasons or not. All might is confirmed to old, aizawa is confirmed to young, afos shows no interest in endeavor (and WHY would he even ask for him in the first place???), the other teachers are either to young or to old, the parents of other UA students have zero importance to the plot and afo never showed any kind of interest in one of them.

Conclusion: the "40 year old macallan" afo wants is inko! Case closed!

[otakween]

Digimon Tamers - Episode 1

Dear God...the vibes are immaculate. THIS WAS SO GOOD! So cinematic! So atmospheric! What a fabulous pilot episode. I'm definitely hooked. I'm trying not to overhype this show because the internet has sung its praises to the high heavens and I don't want to be let down. Let's take it one episode at a time and see how it goes :) (so far, so good).

Notes:

-So many thoughts, so many questions. Firstly, I'm getting the vibe that this is a parallel universe to the worlds of Digimon Adventure and Digimon Adventure 02. In those worlds digimon weren't a fictional concept (as far as I know) before they became real. In this world Takato knows digimon from video games and TCG before he meets one in person. Also. the world isn't aware that digimon are real, so this wouldn't be in the 02 world post-epilogue.

-A very small cast in this one! Only 3 kids (so far). I think this could be a very good thing. Tighter writing and more developed characters. These kids have barely said anything but they already feel more 3 dimensional than the 02 kids lol. Also, their designs are a lot more subdued which I think helps with the realistic feel.

-Culumon was...a little annoying, but cute at the same time. I love his retractable ears and that he asks a zillion questions like a toddler. Just wish he didn't say "culu" ever 2 seconds lol. He looks like a magical girl companion.

-We're still in Tokyo, Shinjuku this time around. Will we ever get a Digimon MC who's a country bumpkin? That could be fun.

-The gamer in me shudders at all of the new digimon that are about to be introduced. Good thing I'm not a "raise them all" kind of completionist.

-Digimon TCG anime debut! When they were like "Option card!" I was like "omg! I know that! I know the rules!" I wonder if the TCG will show up again or if they just used it to kickstart the plot?

-Takato's school DOESN'T have uniforms!? What kind of anime school is this!? (No seriously, I thought that was more of a rural school thing).

-I can relate to Takato designing his own digimon during class. I totally did that in elementary school too (with Pokemon as my inspo tho)

-I'm not in love with the new digivice design (a little bulky), but I like that it has a keychain strap. How practical!

-I'm not sure where Takato is getting the "tamers" vocab from. I don't think that would be referenced too much in the TCG, so he must be getting it from the video games.

-Love that Takato lives above his family's bakery. Give me ALL the anime food!

-I just googled this, but apparently the "guil" in "Guilmon" comes from "guilty." Didn't see that coming. I thought it might be Gila monster lol. Of course we get another stinkin' dinosaur-like digimon for the MC. Oh well. I guess that's what the little boys like. He's kinda cute, I suppose

-I don't know the main girl's name yet, but damn, what a badass! I feel like we haven't gotten this kind of female character yet. Closest would be maybe Hikari in her edgier moments, but she's more on the sweet side. I know that the furries like her partner digimon lol (Renamon, I believe?) To be honest, I'm not sold on her design yet. I think it's a little weird looking. Maybe she'll grow on me.

-When Guilmon's egg hatched I thought he died lol. I forgot that an egg cracked in half can be a good thing too.

-I was kind of giggling when they kept showing the scientists in their cyberpunk chairs and wearing VR headsets. Very 2000s sci-fi vibes (still looks cool, don't get me wrong). When they kept saying "wild one" I was just thinking "hey I heard you were a wild one oooooh~"

-When Jianliang's sister dropped Terriermon on his face I died lol. Why was that so funny? I'm so making a gif later...

-My guy (Takato) really saw a rat infested tunnel and just crawled right through it. I hope you have a good immune system because Jesus...

-The concept of Takato meeting a digimon and then immediately realizing "oh wait, a fire breathing dinosaur IRL is maybe not a good thing" was great. And of course they had to use it as a cliff hanger! I'm wondering if Guilmon will be able to speak or if he'll be more baby-like.

-Guilmon's existence raises many questions. I guess we technically already knew that people can create digimon, we've seen that happen. However, we haven't seen it happen so casually/easily. Does Takato have some sort of special power or can multiple people do this? Also, if Guilmon was born at child level, what happened to the previous 2 levels. Did Takato draw those in his notebook so they're just coded in there?

(My questions are all rhetorical...I shall wait for the show to answer them, so no spoilers please).

[mrs-monaghan]

Your post about Vape is so wrong

1. You said he didn't panicked in white day live why he should panic over a vape ? It's not some illegal substance to panic and hide. Plus he was all drunk and in his feels that day to even bother about a vape. While in other video it was morning and he was getting ready for work, maybe that's why he hid it suspiciously

2. That was NOT Porsche car key. That was also vape. Maybe you got confused by big size but they do come in that size and you can find exact model on Google. You said you smoke then idk why you couldn't under that in both cases lol.

3. That mic charger doesn't look anywhere near the vape he had during white day lol. Idk why you said that when it's 101% clear it's a vape. People even identified the Brand and flavor in a look.

4. You said rap line and Tae doesn't have a problem if they smoke, as of now its established only Taegi smokes. And rest in vocal line don't as they sing high notes. But Taemin, a singer, is a known smoker who has been smoking for years, since he was so young. There was an ash tray in one of the old pic from Jin's hotel room. And JK vapes. The only vocal line member who's not seen with any vape or smoking device is Jimin. But there's a 90% of chance he does too as his group mates, close friends and his potential bf vapes.

5. The only option which make a lil sense is it being not his vape. BUT why would he have it at night with him? One time on his dining table and other time on his top of his couch ? Not places where visitors leave it, TWICE. So that's his. Case closed.

Case closed

Do you people think I enjoy insulting u? Do you think I enjoy calling you names? BAHAHAHAHAHA! Who I'm I kidding? I love it. It brings me immense joy. Also when u curse in Kenya people look at you like you're insane. I live in the UK now where you can't go a day without hearing someone say "fucking cunt" its amazing!!

Fun fact about me: when I was in high school and people needed to write break up letters, (yes I am that old. We used to write letters. What was a phone even?) they would come to me. Or if a boy broke up with them and they needed to insult that boy, they came to me. Yes. I am a professional insulter.

Oh anon. Incase u couldn't tell I don't much care for this ask. You already sent it to a friend and told them to pass it to me because I have my anons off. I told my friend to tell you that u are an idiot. So I'm glad you're here so I can say it to you; anon, you're a fucking donut!

I drink beer, alot. Doesn't mean I know every beer brand out there. So how I'm I, a social smoker supposed to know how every vape looks like? That being said, my stand on the JK vaping issue, remains the same.

It's okay if u wanna think all BTS members sit around and puff puff pass, thats your call. But I think what I think. And I need more proof. Like I've already stated.

Idiot.

[wheelercore]

It's really interesting how we get 3 versions of the creel plotline:

1. The creel trailer, which has alice and henry running up the stairs excitedly together and alice finding the dead rabbit, not in the playground, but what I assume is either the front yard or the backyard. Also henry and alice are noticeably younger, but children grow quickly so I don't know if that was intentional.

2. The show itself, which has the difference in the beginning entry way scene and alice in the playground.

3. The First Shadow, in which alice strikingly missing, despite the fact that the play still takes place when the creels just moved to Hawkins, supposedly. I believe the first promo refers to henry as the new kid in school, emphasizing that henry may be an only child in this play... somehow.

So either something happened to alice before the creels arrived to hawkins (doubtful, this show places a lot of emphasis on hawkins as a setting and I doubt the it would make its central 'cursed town' irrelevant to its plot twist)-

Alice never existed (?? Lol) -

Or something happened to alice after the creels moved to hawkins and what we see in the show is not what it seems.

The third option isn't exactly out of this world. The show, since the beginning, put a lot of emphasis on PTSD, flashbacks, and repressed memories. It's all the more obvious with El recovering memories of Henry and the massacre, but s2 was filled to the brim with allegories and mentions to flashbacks, starting with Phineas "totally not used in the show as an allegory for the psychological effects of trauma" Gage and how will's supernatural experiences were compared to PTSD.

Vecna's curse was intentionally made to be subtle to the victim. None of them knew they were in a hallucination until it was made obvious to them. And... there are just some very interesting word choices going on here:

Hopper corrects Joyce in this scene but the association of flashbacks and nightmares continue. Victor describing his own vecna vision, reminiscent of his own traumatic memories:

Him describing waking up from his later vision, describing both that vision and his "reality" as nightmares:

We don't see Alice dying. Not even in Henry's pov- it's intentionally obfuscated from us.

In the beginning of s4 nightmares are also framed as a sign of the vecna curse, we see specifically Max's nightmare being more so a flashback, or a memory, to Billy's death. Nightmares are also a core symptom of PTSD so it fits the bill with season 2.

Funnily, enough we see Alice also experiences nightmares- which we know what that's associated with:

What exactly were in Alice's nightmares?

In the beginning we also got these very sus lines by Alice of all people, saying how the home looks like a "fairytale" and a "dream", which you know is what people say when they mean something is too good to be true, the opposite of nightmare, used to mean something that is so dreadful its hard to believe.

These lines arent in the creel trailor, which is... interesting.

Also I wonder if there is a hint to this when Henry gains his abilities in the first place. Weirdly enough this is symbolized by Henry forcing a clock to go backwards, metaphorically into the past (and I am obligated to mention this, but the parallel to fred):

Where others saw order, I saw a straitjacket. A cruel, oppressive world dictated by made-up rules. Seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, decades. Each life a faded, lesser copy of the one before. Wake up, eat, work, sleep, reproduce, and die. Everyone is just waiting. Waiting for it all to be over. All while performing in a silly, terrible play, day after day. I could not do that. I could not close off my mind and join in the madness. I could not pretend. And I realized I didn't have to. I could make my own rules. I could restore balance to a broken world.

Also makes me so curious about the rainbows on the clock during this monologue/scene... a reference to the rainbow room? Makes sense because it seems like the lab kids were killed in a similar fashion to Alice- their jaws weren't broken unlike virginia and the vecna victims. Why?

It's interesting how directly after this scene it cuts to the rabbit being killed- and with the predator/prey theme often represented by animals and a rabbit is definitely a prey animal- and that rabbits body being left for alice, who would later be killed in a similar way.

Why is Henry forecasting Alice's own death to her? For funsies? We see he repeatedly that he used tactics against his parents to hold the mirror up because they've done "terrible things" (still unknown what Virginia's terrible thing is yet). For vecna victims its slightly different, while fred and max fit that bill, patrick and chrissy don't. Their visions were more along the lines of showing them the darkness in their lives that they hide. So it seems to me that vecna shows not just sources of guilt, but the harsh unbridled truth of their lives. So what business did Henry have with Alice?

I'm not saying that there is possibly some weird fucky altered reality/time loss stuff happening in hawkins but. I am.

[sky-forest-inn]

getting out of school for one last time and enjoying summer break is cool and all but something altered my brain and made it so that all of my headmates gradually faded as the summer went on and now I can't even see them much less feel their presence anymore :( I think this is what people call fading

and it SUCKS!! because we're a small system and pretty much everyone disappeared as well as our headspace which turned back into a void, another person formed(?) during the time but it feels more like an alter ego rather than their own headmate considering I feel wayy too connected to them to actually separate myself from them

when this first happened it was only for a few days and I thought I was "normal" again considering being a system was a foreign concept I was still grasping at the time (+I thought being a system separated my connection to the body, making the body a vessel I was merely puppeteering). now that I've actually experienced what it's like I don't ever regret being a system ☝️ if anything I'd hit that guy again just so I could see them again /j

I genuinely hate how my brain "fixed" me, being a singlet again isn't the positive some people think it is (at least that's how I feel personally), it's to the point where I genuinely dislike using I/Me pronouns in regards to me as a "singlet" rather than me as an individual headmate. however, I also don't want to "take away" people's resources?? (as silly as that sounds) and also "fakeclaim"?? beyond this point even though my experiences as a system were genuine (I don't want to say "former", I'm still in denial about it)

I've been having some wonderful experiences irl and as much as I love what I'm doing right now, I simply WISH they were here to see it. if someone were to give me the option to choose a life without that incident occurring or to keep my plurality, I'm choosing my plurality even if it means going through the same painful experience again

sorry this is 5 paragraphs long LOL, take y'alls time to respond especially since it's artfight and I'm sure you guys want to draw as many people as possible (goodluck btw!!)

—🌌 [ST]

yay summer break (not for me its winter for me)

it happens!!! we get it a lot and it's pretty normal!! there are chances they may come back!!!!

i love punching guys

FR i agree with you wholly we love our inn to death and we'd sacrifice it for NOTHING we love each other so much and im 99% sure cyco wouldve esc r enter'd if he was never a system so i get it entirely

ooiooiioooohhhh youre stealing SHARED resources oughhhh the miserrryyyy /sarc /silly

we dont mind asks like this!!! also i was busy arcaning the odyssey which is why i didnt see this til now bwehehaha

hope things get better for you(y'all's), be safe and allat

[knightzp]

Hi Miki!!! Was wondering how did you learn english? I'm gonna start working on spanish soon and I'm trying to think what would be best for how to get a basic knowledge of words and stuff because I don't know much

HII TIA!!! ohh in my case i learned a good part of my english just going to classes. english is like the compulsory second language in almost all schools here so i remember starting learning my very first words when i was just like. three years old lol. apart from the lessons i had every year at school my parents also made me attend a lot of extracurricular english classes growing up and i even went a couple of months during summer to the uk where i spent the time living with a family there and so i had no other option than to read and talk in english all the time and it helped a lot too

but ig this isnt very useful to you so thinking of something that can help you in an easier way and that has helped me a lot too was reading a lot and watching shows in english! i was always very lazy to start reading books in english ngl but when i started with fics i had no other option so i slowly began doing it and tbh it took me a while to get really used to it, bc even if i already had a good english level there were still words and expressions typically used in writing that i had never come around just yet. i was slow at first, looking words on the dictionary from time to time, but i really felt like it helped me lots to get better and it still does. and not only fics. unironically reading posts here on tumblr also helps a lot bc it makes me read in english every day and so i can easily maintain my level and even improve it. for the tv shows, i found that watching cartoons especifically helped me a lot since i hear the voices clearer than in other shows and even if you dont know that well the language i feel like this helps. ive done this not only with english but also with french, which im by no means as fluent as im with english but even if i didnt understand every single word i think it helped me quite a lot!

however its true that for what i said abt the reading and the tv shows you need at least some basic level on the language and since you said you dont know much.... mmmm i remember that back in school we used to read some thin books during english classes that were basically adaptations of other actual books (like one i remember was frankestein for example) but with simplified language and they were available for each level you had so something like that might help ! idk if it would be possible to find them online for free but i dont think itd be very expensive to buy one or two if you want to

[1-800-local-slut]

Just a quick question!

I've been busy lately, and I'm clearing out my request soon but I've been back in school lately. I was planning to have a bunch of stuff written so I can just post it during the first month of school so I can get readjusted, and I have these options (and I just have to do some touch ups lol) but I don't know what to post first.

With a heavy heart- Reader’s mother is a hunter who is friends with John, she often hung around Sam and Dean when they were growing up. John would watch her sometimes when her mother was going to get lucky if they were together. She’s basically his girlfriend but they’ve never talked about or acknowledge their feelings (its kinda toxic lol). Reader is two years younger then Dean. (fluff, angst, it's a mix y'all) All I Want- Dean has a crush. Nothing strange, Dean's fallen for tons of women. Only problem is it’s on his brother’s girlfriend. She’s a sweet girl, who makes Sammy happy. And that makes Dean happy. Only problem is he wants some of that happiness she gives his brother, and he doesn’t want it from any body else. (angst) My Fair Lady- 'To call her fair was a boldfaced lie with certainty. In truth, she was probably one of the most evil women Elijah had ever met. Still, in Elijah's eyes she was the fairest of them all.' (fluff) Graveyard Shift- Klaus maybe a creature of the night but since he got a girlfriend, he's not fond of spending the night alone. When her job gives her yet another graveyard shift, Klaus starts to really feel the pain of her absence. The only thing he can do is go visit her of course. Only one problem- she's a nurse (crack, Klaus really misses his gf) Meteor Showers- Giyuu and a swords maker who he's having some conflicting feelings on get stuck out one night. With her bubbly nature, and sweet words, he can hardly resist. Surely he can't deserve a woman so wonderful. So instead he just clamps his mouth shut. Yet she's never run off or given up on him. What's a man to do when the light from the meteor showers make her look ten more times beautiful as usual and he's hardly able to contain himself anymore? (mild angst, fluff)

[laincelebi]

Let me talk about my favorite characters from p3

I like how basically since the start of the game Makoto has some flirty options when talking to Yukari, which she dismisses lol.

I like to think he had a crush on her since the start that slowly evolves to something more. After all he hugs her without any player prompt during yakushima trip. I like to think that it means it was on impulse. And that his hug is awkward cause is definitely not used to do that.

her social link also feels like it progresses so natural, its like feels like neither of them needs to say they are dating and yukari seems to only say she loves makoto at her social link final rank. i just find cute how they dont seem to have to spell out, they just know they are together, it just comes naturally for them.

Meanwhile it's clear yukari has issues connecting to people. She is popular at school but still keep a distance from everyone, especially boys.

That is both a barrier and a mask. A mask cause she will do things like lie about being bad at cooking and cooking hidden from others. And not talk about her family, she doesn't others to know about her situation, ask her questions or pity her. She wants to fit in but at the same time she cant connect to them, she is jealous of others cause they have something she lost a long time ago and yet constantly complain about it. Kinda why even though she clearly has friends i doubt any of them are very close or know her too well. Especially since she seemed very surprised when kotone first says they are friends, saying "friend? oh you are talking about me" and doesnt know how to answer.

Before Makoto or Kotone appear probably the only people she knew that had similar situations was Junpei and Mitsuru, and we know how rocky her relationship with Mitsuru is at first. I honesty don't think either Mitsuru or Akihiko tried to connect with her at first. Junpei is probably the closest thing she had to a close friend and yet she still had her barriers up.

It's also a barrier cause she doesn't want people to know all the problems she has. She also seems insecure about those as she comments in her social link with Makoto that he probably regrets being with a girl with so many problems. And then we have her distancing herself from boys, definitely due to her mother situation. Only after yakushima she gives a chance to actually approach Makoto even though he was the first person she actually felt she could connect with takes her a long time to open up with him.

This is very different with Kotone, as they get closer very fast cause Kotone is a girl, so yukari doesn't put distance from her. In a way they are very similar both keeping masks of their own. the difference being yukari drops hers fast when she opens up with either makoto or kotone, she doesnt need to hide her family story and past trauma, she feels like she can tell them.

Menwhile its clear kotone has a mask on most of the time, her cheerfulness is basically that, while Makoto became apathetic to others at first having issues connecting to people, kotone created a mask to hide her true feelings, honestly i think kotone is as depressed as makoto, she just doesnt show.

Honestly i interpret yukari as being bi due to her interaction with Kotone ( and atlus are cowards for not making Kotone hug yukari). i find incredibly telling how she says she wont look for a boyfriend cause she wants to spend more time with kotone, and that no one catches her eye.