@julias-cherry-garden I volunteer to give this a shot! (Although, disclaimer, I'm not actually a writing blog so this is gonna be mostly a 3 am ramble transposed to 3 pm).

Taichi Nanao + writing a love letter for his S/O

As soon as he decides to do it, he's a mess. A jumble of excitement and anxiety, nerves tangled like a ball of yarn that'd been assaulted by four consecutive kittens and one parakeet. It has to be perfect! It has to be cool! He will give his 110% effort into it and then some more!

He keeps on mentioning the letter around Mankai. Not in a braggy way, just, it's consumed his mind and he can't not blurt out about it every hour like a cuckoo clock. It takes precisely half a day for the whole company to know about it, whether they want to or not.

He asks Muku for help, because who better to ask about romantic gestures than the local shoujo manga expert? They spend hours poring over love letters in Muku's stack of manga, looking for ideas and heart-stopping one-liners to steal.

Homare advises him to let the words flow from his heart, which Taichi promises to do. (The poet also recited something florid and abstract about young love, at least until Hisoka complains about the noise.)

Citron tries to give some advice as well, mostly about the way love letters work in his country. But—written in gold ink, sealed with a drop of exotic tree gum, and sent attached to a tiger's collar?! How is Taichi gonna do any of that?! His love letter could never be as awesome as that!

Tsuzuru has to assure Taichi that no, Citron's probably just making that up. Taichi tries to ask him, as the resident writer, for tips, and after thinking for a bit Tsuzuru says: "Just don't forget to tell them how they make you feel. That's what matters."

Finally, he drags Kazunari into the stationery shop, trying to find the best snazzy paper and pens with cool colourful ink. Should he add stickers, or is that lame? Glitter, or is that too elementary school? What about scented paper, that's a thing, right? Kazu helps him pick out the good stuff without going overboard, even lends some of his personal art supplies. Puppy Pair solidarity forever, piko☆!

After the agony that is stationery comes the agony of actually writing the letter down. Taichi probably makes several test drafts before he rewrites the best one on the pretty paper, tongue sticking out and face scrunching in concentration as he tries to make his handwriting as neat as possible.

His letter is gushy. Hoo boy, is it gushy. He goes on and on about all the things he loves about his S/O, and trust me, it's a lot. He comes close to filling the entire sheet of paper, so his handwriting gets progressively smaller and more cramped the further down the page you go. He can't help it! He loves his S/O too much!

(He tries to keep all the advice he's received in mind, but in the end, once he gets started he's on a roll, and most of the advice flies out the metaphorical window.)

By the time he's done, the paper is slightly crinkled at the corner from where his arm rested against it, and some of the ink is slightly smudged. He tries to draw a cute doodle in what little space is left, in hopes of distracting his S/O from the (minuscule) flaws in the writing itself.

And there it is. His masterpiece. Not as aesthetically-pleasing as Kazunari's art, as grandiosely verbose as Homare's example, as snappily cool as Muku's manga, or as immediately impressive as Citron's story.

But he did write what his S/O makes him feel, and what he lacks in finesse he more than makes up in passion. Not a single word ends on that paper that didn't come from the sincerest depths of his heart. And that, Omi assures him as they turn off the lights to go to bed, is the most important thing.

A Final Reflection: Blogging

With the final blog checkpoint coming up, I am 99.99% sure that this will be my last post on this blog. As such I would like to take this last space to reflect on blogging for this class.

I think our professor will agree that the blogging for this class did not exactly meet the expectations she was hoping for when beginning this course. Like many other students in the class, I had a lot of trouble keeping up with blogging. One reason was that it was so easily forgettable. Part of it could be because it was being facilitated on a platform way outside of Canvas. After all, I'm not exactly thinking about Tumblr when I'm thinking about my classes. Another part could just be a personal thing. Blogging for me was so low priority compared to the work in not just this class, but in all my other classes. I didn't think about blogging at all when I have three or four simultaneous projects on my plate. It just didn't seem worth my effort for most of the week, even if I'm able to write my posts fairly quickly. While most of my blog posts I made out of genuine passion and interest, some other posts I was scrapping for anything substantial to write down and submit as part of the blogging grade. I think for me it was difficult to reflect substantially on the readings and course concepts outside of what I want to express already in class discussions or in our visual designs.

Nevertheless, I saw clear improvement over time from the blog group. I think as we eased into the term, it became easier for us to spend time thinking about and then writing a meaningful blog post. I can definitely tell that as time passed, our peers put in a greater effort into maintaining a blog and created some wonderful posts that were worthy of discussion.

I'd like to thank Professor Riddick for being so accommodating with the course this term and for giving us so many chances and so much leeway to ease us into the flow of things. Like for many others in this class, I was simply not feeling it this term for various reasons.

To be honest, I can imagine myself blogging like this again. Like I said above, most of my posts were written out of genuine interest, so I had a great time writing those posts. In order to make the connections and explore these ideas that create a significant blog post, I need a subject matter that I care about. That ended up happening in this class. I don't think anywhere else I could have dropped a link to Linus Boman's YouTube channel just because I finally saw a chance to. The man has some excellent videos on typography and I've been enjoying his content well before knowing this course would cover typography. Thank you for exposing me to this medium of expressing myself that I had not considered before.

I like to keep my posts roughly between 200 to 400 words, but this is already well over 500.

So it's time to wrap up.

I believe that Professor Riddick tried her absolute best this term, and I'd like to believe that we all also tried our hardest (or at least intended to). You all did some amazing work in this class. Good luck on finals, and bless you all. I wish everyone a winter break where we lay in bed and do nothing.

And even if things didn't work out this term, just remember...

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Image source:

Shiny gold star with “you tried” written in Comic Sans. Know Your Meme, 2012, https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/you-tried.

1. more cereal than milk 2. no 3. a broken adventure time card holder given to me from the one that got away on halloween three years ago 4. i don’t drink coffee & i take my tea with two sugars, sometimes one and a half, depending on the size of the mug 5. yes 6. no, but i’d like to 7. - 8. words 9. no 10. side 11. shipping each other with males whom they have a vague connection with (e.g. makes a teacher laugh once, sees a random boy’s name on their Snapchat contact list that we don’t know,) 12. earth 13. my brother showing me a meme 14. spiral stairs, raw brick walls, a neutral colour scheme and warm fairy lights. lots of them. these fairy lights will be stringed across the walls and have candid poleroid photos pegged to them. tables covered in newspaper clippings, sketches of plants and fairytale creatures, cutouts from magazines and used mugs. strange abstract paintings from market stalls that we thought were funny, creaky wooden flooring and shaggy rugs on top. 15. 99% of our solar system’s mass is the sun! the sun is fucking huge 16. spaghetti without the sauce 17. blonde, but people think it wouldn’t suit me. blue seems intriguing 18. i used to write these cheesy erotic short stories about my friend and some guy (see no. 11) on scrap pieces of paper for my friends to annoy the said friend. these papers are now lost, but the memories of them aren’t 19. no. i have tried, but i always forget about it after a while 20. blue, for the first girl my heart latched on to. 21. i don’t have a specific bag, but an assortment of school bags that constantly broke or were horribly bulky that i kept pushing or bashing people 22. is anyone? 23. write, but i never get the time anymore 24. yes 25. me break into someplace? ha i’m a pussy 26. what is this question? my school shoes, because i’m obliged to wear black shoes? 27. bubblegum is already a flavour 28. sunset 29. one of my friends literally lights up from about 20 to 100 if you mention something she likes. she has such pure, childlike enthusiasm 30. yes 31. socks. I despise the rise of ankle socks. you’re paying the full price for half a sock. like?!!1!? otherwise, i enjoy all socks, frilly, knee length, comical, odd. maybe not sports socks though 32. i have never been out with my friends after 3am. sad times. 33. apple pie, no doubt 34. i had a stuffed tiger toy called “Tiger” but pronounced like “Tigger”. he wasn’t the Disney one. my father bought it for my mother, and she gave it to me. my younger self called him my husband and I liked kissing him. he currently sits at the back of my wardrobe. 35. i am the stationary whore. i steal and hoard pens, pencils, rubbers, coloured paper, paper clips, etc, that i find on the floor or abandoned in classrooms when the coast is clear. 36. coldplay 37. messy 38. the sound of chewing, saliva, and those sort of things 39. i’m not sure. if i had to choose, i’d guess grey? 40. i have a gold ring with a gold bow on it in the drawer of my wardrobe. back in high school, me and my mates had this inside joke that one of my friends and I were “married”, so one April she and the others came to my house and she joke proposed to me. 41. Thanks for the Trouble, by Tommy Wallach 42. i wish i had a small, pretty corner coffee shop to tell stories about, but i just don’t drink coffee. all i got is the Starbucks and the Costa’s i grab hot chocolates from when i’m outside and alone, or when my friends feel like it 43. probably my cat 44. AS results day. we all got crappy grades, and the four of us sat in a playground and laughed 45. no 46. compasses and protractors are banned from my school because they’re considered weapons of math destruction 47. peppercorns 48. i don’t think i had a fear when i was younger, but now i fear rejection and being seen as boring 49. i’ve never owned a record and the last CD i had was given to me during primary school. everyone uses online copies now, unless they’re being aesthetic ™ 50. stationary (see no. 35). 51. Jenny, by Studio Killers 52. is Hollyweed considered a meme? 53. nope. i’m uncultured swine 54. my mother 55. pretend to forget, like faking momentary amnesia, and boy, it was the worst decision i’ve made to this day 56. nicknames, gift giving outside of holidays or birthdays, remembering little details 57. chaotic, suicidal, but nearing the end, strangely peaceful 58. i’m the vodka aunt, for i spike my own tea with it, as an “experiment”. I’m yet to find the wine mom 59. religion 60. yeah, i like it. La Belle Dame Sans Merci, by John Keats, at the moment, but i haven’t read enough to make an informed decision 61. a toy cross bow for my father. he never used it, and i don’t know why i got that; i just wanted to get him something. for me, a penguin cuddly you from a girl i hardly talked to anymore. i was sixteen or seventeen i think? i don’t mean to be rude but why? 62. i don’t have time to drink in the morning. the exception would be when i was doing that vodka-tea experiment (see no. 58) 63. my books are currently in a rainbow colour order. if they weren’t, i wouldn’t care too much 64. a pale blue, with a smudge of purple-grey clouds 65. the first friend i ever made, Tusma. she moved houses at the end of year three. i haven’t seen her in about eight years 66. depends. i’m torn between going dainty and picking yellow: buttercups, dandelions, daisies, with soft clovers and the occasional purple wildflower, like a rugged, forest fairy. or standing fierce, a red rose crown, thick with thorns, holly leaves and berries, some crushed, scarlet liquid dripping down my forehead but eyes staring straight ahead. 67. powerful, invisible, stealthy 68. cold, bitter, sometimes dry like a cough or wet and uncomfortable. it doesn’t snow anymore 69. scrabble, monopoly 70. in year nine, some kids decided they wanted to use a ouija board. i was curious, and i walked into the science room they were planning to use when the teachers were gone and the lights were off, despite my friends’ protests. it wasn’t an actual ouija board, but an imitation, scribbles on a piece of paper. i can’t remember who did it with me, but i’m pretty sure some of them were the popular kids. we felt no presence, although everyone tried their best to scare each other. we never said goodbye. no ghosts have haunted or killed me yet. 71. earl grey, or normal tea with a sprinkle of ginger 72. i feel as if i’m going to forget and can’t handle things, but i rarely note things down. i seem to cope, just 73. daydreaming, procrastinating, not being able to keep my own secrets 74. shy, quiet bean, needs to be protected at all costs, their laugh is more of a giggle, good at art, baby of the group, secretly wants to get drunk and make out with people, i suspect a little bi-curious but i can’t be sure, has technology and food kinks (but not at the same time) 75. i have a black and white cat named Wallace, after Wallace from Wallace & Gromit, because he eats cheese. he has a wonky tongue because he cut it on something but we never found out what that something was. he’s eleven years old, so he’s getting on now, and i think there’s a rising rivalry between Wallace and a mysterious black cat that keeps popping up near our garden 76. revising, duh 77. have never tried pink lemonade, so yellow 78. hateclub 79. sent me a claraxeleven edit as means to make me stay when i was thinking of running away. i thought only those deep in the doctor who fandom watched those, and it may have suggested i was rubbing off on him 80. lilac. i chose it because when i first moved into this room i was sharing it with my younger sister, so i wanted to choose a colour that she wouldn’t hate that was also not pink 81. watery brown stone (cba) 82. yeah, i was usually in the top or second top groups 83. i don’t buy albums, so i wouldn’t know where to start 84. yes. a small TARDIS at the back of my neck. maybe a ruffled feather, despite it being a little cliché, it has a literal importance to me. something related to space on one of my thighs, and perhaps something with roses, or skulls 85. unfortunately, no 86. i don’t know what those are 87. The Imitation Game, High School Musical, Edward Scissorhands, Men in Black, Shrek, Home Alone, Independence Day, The Wizard of Oz, Harry Potter, Hidden Figures, the Star Wars trilogy, Freaky Friday, Titanic, Jurassic Park, Alien, Terminator, Jaws, Jumanji 88. dancing when i’m alone, and dabbing (sorry not sorry) 89. debatable 90. it isn’t a city, but my favourite place is the Isle of Wight. i first tried tea in a big blue breakfast room at the b&b and learned to play pool at a pool table you had to put a pound in to play. i fed a lamb and my brother wet the bed and we watched a Lara Croft movie in our little room and it rained most of the time but i loved it all so 91. no where 92. barely sprinkles 93. bedhead, sometimes brushed 94. yesterday, a boy who loves me but i ran out of love months ago 95. nothing unusual 96. procrastinate 97. myer briggs? what is this? capricorn, gryffindor 98. NCS, where we all hiked across the coast of Wales, and at the end of it i thought my legs were going to fall off and my feet were all numb. beautiful views though 99. If I Lose Myself, One Republic; Give Your Heart a Break, Demi Lovato; Get Out, Casey Abrams; Oh No!, Marina and the Diamonds; Spectrum, Zedd 100. past, because i know what i’d do

Bookshelf Briefs 4/30/19

Arpeggio of Blue Steel, Vol. 14 | By Ark Performance | Seven Seas – Last time I wondered if Arpeggio of Blue Steel really was going to become a high school series, and it’s certainly trying its best, with a School Festival arc in the offing. That said, the tone of the series is still very much Tom Clancy, with much of the volume taken up by I-402’s negotiation with retired general Ryokan on behalf of the Fog. Meanwhile, we also get a flashback as to how Gunzou started all this in the first place (Iona basically forced it on him, but it doesn’t take much pushing), and start to see pieces shifting into position for the next big battle. Will that battle take place at the school? It might start there, but my guess is we’ll be back to the Navy before long. Still underrated. – Sean Gaffney

Crocodile Baron, Vol. 3 | By Takuya Okada | Kodansha Comics (digital only) – Crocodile Baron comes to an end without evolving much since volume two. Alfardo and Rabbit Boy run into the former’s bad older brother, who seemingly turns his life around after eating some ramen. Alfardo eats spicy curry with a desperate warthog and possibly saves his marriage. Rabbit Boy hates Christmas because it’s his birthday and buys a cake from a camel. A lovelorn elephant filmmaker finds his muse and eats pond smelts. They have an Okinawan adventure during which Rabbit Boy nearly drowns. Honestly, I cared about no one and found it all boring. If there had been more emphasis on the food, I might’ve felt differently, but this was a big ol’ yawn banquet. – Michelle Smith

High School Prodigies Have It Easy Even in Another World!, Vol. 3 | By Riku Misora and Kotaro Yamada | Yen Press – Again, I beg the authors for a character sheet. There are quite a number of interesting things going on in this volume, but I suspect the reader may have trouble finding them among all the bouncing boobs. The fanservice is laid on with a shovel here, and can be hard to take. That said, there’s a nice scene with Tsukasa and Lyrule where she berates him for feeling guilty over not prioritizing saving her. The bulk of the serious plot goes to Shinobu and Elch, gathering intel at a seemingly friendly village with a very dark secret. Fortunately (assuming that it’s not a double cross), she may also have come across the resistance. Too many boobs spoiling the pie, alas. – Sean Gaffney

How to Treat Magical Beasts, Vol. 3 | By Kaziya | Seven Seas – Lest we try to run on “the sweet and heartwarming adventures of a vet” for too long, this volume introduces a smiling maybe-villain-maybe-not, who helps Ziska with a cat’s injury and then takes her way out into danger to attend to a wounded Greif, because no series with apprentices and magic is quite complete without a test to see if they’ve got the right stuff. I assume Ziska does have the right stuff, but we’re caught up to Japan, so it may be a while till we find out. In more sweet news, that is one adorable gargoyle, and I’m happy it’s found a friend. Seven Seas has carved out a genre niche with these types of series, and I quite enjoy it. – Sean Gaffney

Mob Psycho 100, Vol. 2 | By ONE | Dark Horse – I keep wanting to call this MPD Psycho, but that is something very different. This is the story of an unassuming boy named Shigeo Kageyama who possesses super powers but wants to live without relying on them. This challenges the worldview of another superpowered boy named Teru, who spends two-thirds of the volume flinging his power at Kageyama in order to make him fight back. (Kageyama is resolute that he won’t use his powers against another person.) The anger meter appears again (with a fun gag about how Teru’s exorcism of Mob’s sycophantic spirit companion doesn’t actually change it at all) and only when his life is in true peril does Kageyama reach “???%.” Will he wreak havoc in the next volume? The story’s definitely getting more interesting, but I’m still not in love with the art. – Michelle Smith

My Hero Academia: Vigilantes, Vol. 4 | By Hideyuki Furuhashi and Betten Court | Viz Media – This gets better with each volume. I had not realized that the Vigilantes series takes place a few years before the main series (though the authors cheat (and say so) for the extra side story). I had suspected that Knuckleduster was somehow connected with the villains, but that connection turns out to be much closer than imagined, and leads to possibly the best fight of the series. Meanwhile, Pop Step finds her confidence and does something only she can do to help out. All this and one of the most horrific images in the manga to date (which also made me wonder if the authors had seen a certain meme about bees). This has become essential. – Sean Gaffney

My Pink Is Overflowing, Vol. 1 | By Yuki Monou | Kodansha Comics (digital only) – I bought this hoping it would be hilariously trashy, and for the most part it was. The premise has a girl who’s tired of being screwed over by pick-up artists decide she’s only going to date virgins from now on… then find out that her boss, seemingly an overly serious taskmaster, is one! They enter into a relationship so fast it boggles the mind, especially since their first kiss is interrupted by her having an orgasm as she does it. At its heart, this is a “ditzy girl/serious guy” title with a decent heart, but the girl can get very over the top at times, and the series seems to want to go as far as it can while keeping the hero a virgin. Plus there’s that title. For fans of Cosplay Animal. – Sean Gaffney

Teasing Master Takagi-san, Vol. 4 | By Soichiro Yamamoto | Yen Press – It has to be said, a lot of the teasing that’s going on here is Takagi-san being as obvious and blatant as she possibly can that she loves Nishitaka. You’d have to be a brick—or a male protagonist—not to get it, and indeed sometimes it’s so blatant he almost shows sings of figuring it out. But this is a long-running series, and resolution just isn’t in the cards right now. So we get Takagi-san visiting his room, playing poker, chasing cute cats, and getting each other’s emails so that now she can tease him whenever she wants to (and have cute photos of her on his phone). Everyone else in their class knows they’re going out. Most of what they do qualifies as a date. But… so dense. Love this series. – Sean Gaffney

Witch Hat Atelier, Vol. 1 | By Kamome Shirahama | Kodansha Comics – Even before it was licensed in English, Witch Hat Atelier was a series that had caught my attention, in large part due to Shirahama’s gorgeous, sumptuous artwork, but also because my Japanese-reading friends spoke so highly of it. At times, the exposition is a little heavy-handed in the first volume as the premise of the the world’s history and magic are introduced. (I expect this to become less of an issue as the series progresses.) However, the explanations are regularly incorporated in a way that makes sense—Coco, the story’s heroine, is also new to the basics and she’s learning right alongside the readers. Coco is a young woman who has always been fascinated by magic not realizing that she has a natural talent for it. Unfortunately, the initial budding of her magical skills ends in tragedy as she hasn’t had the training needed to fully understand or control them. – Ash Brown

Yowamushi Pedal, Vol. 11 | By Wataru Watanabe | Yen Press – No, the Inter High still hasn’t come to an end, but this is still a pretty satisfying volume, what with all the inspirational performances and teary appreciation of same! Watanabe does a good job getting readers to root for Hakone, too, and we learn why Arakita is so motivated to propel Fukutomi to the finish line, right before he runs out of speed. Yes, it’s a harsh truth that all six members of Sohoku aren’t able to ride together for long. The first-years prepare themselves to make the sacrifice for their teammates, but that isn’t how it turns out at all. I was fully expecting that Kinjou would be the one to win this, given his experience in the previous year’s competition, and was honestly surprised when he’s sidelined by injury. I suppose the next book will wrap things up but I kinda don’t even remember what this series is like when it’s not the Inter High! – Michelle Smith

Yuri Is My Job!, Vol. 2 | By miman | Kodansha Comics – Now that Hime is aware of who Mitsuki was in her past, everything is terribly awkward, and the number of times “she must really hate me” is said in this volume boggles the mind. If you guessed it’s all based on misunderstanding what the other is thinking, give yourself a gold star. For all that Hime tries to be the perfect little sister, it’s only when she’s honest with herself that things really take off in the cafe. I’m hoping that things will improve soon, but there’s also the problem of Kanoko, Hime’s best friend from school whose phone turns out to be entirely devoted to Hime. I dislike the term “yandere,” but I have a sneaking suspicion we’re going to see the tropes that lead to its overuse in the next book. – Sean Gaffney

By: Ash Brown