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starberry-skies · 1 year

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Hello! Sorry to bother you, but you are the only blog I know who makes IDs outside of their own stuff so I figured you were the best person to ask. Do you have by any chance ressources to learn how to make and practice them? I want to start using them but I'm not a native speaker and I'm kinda struggling ^^'

Thank you and have a nice day!

oh ofc!! if u want, i have some good posts in the #image descriptions tag on my blog, but i'll link some stuff here too :D

Why and how, basics

Quick tips and tricks

Describing comics

Describing videos

Image Description Guidelines

and a couple of my own tips !!

a great rule of thumb is, "the more time someone would look at an image, the longer + more detailed the description should be". This means, if it's a little doodle or a meme, u don't have to spend hoursss describing every little thing (ie, the clothes ppl are wearing, the lighting, that typa thing -- unlessss it's like,, part of the joke/meme. does that make sense ?) this post by mothfishing [hyperlinked] explains it SO much better than i ever could

on that note, a short/""bad"" id is always better than none at all!! don't worry too much abt the quality, or else you'll get stuck in a loop of fixing and editing and the description will never be published (or is that just me lol)

an absolute lifesaver for me was using a text-to-speech/screen reader to read my descriptions back to me ! especially if it were a longer piece, i would write an id, turn on the screenreader + close my eyes, then see if i missed anything important + if i needed to rephrase anything.

for practicing:

if you see an image w/ a description, try to write one yourself for that image. then just check between those ! it's bound to be different, but how? try to figure out which fits the image better, then adapt !

whenever i'm bored/have nothing to do, i try to describe things in the room. this is mostly just a fun little game to keep my brain busy, but it's also helpful in building skills !

if i can, i like to read out my description to a friend/family member if they're around. i ask them to imagine what i describe, then i show them the image to see if it matches. getting other people's input is always v v helpful... and speaking of....

the people's accessibility discord server!!!!!! i cannot emphasize enough how cool and nice everyone is there !!!!! u can ask for help describing something, ask ppl to double check ur work, or just send an image for ppl to describe!! literally everyone there is just so wonderful and helpful :3 here's an invite link!

little things that i learned:

the screenreader on my phone reads quotes without pause. so it would read "a sentence just like this" as if the quotes weren't there. so i picked up the habit of putting a comma before the quote to break the sentence up. so saying "this" sounds much more different then saying, "this".

(desktop only i think) it's much better for a screen reader to read line breaks (holding shift and enter) than just paragraph breaks (just enter). with paragraph breaks, the person using the screen reader would have to tap on each new paragraph to read it, which can be a hassle. with line breaks, the screen reader just reads the next bit automatically, but the ID is still visually broken up.

save stuff to ur drafts to look over later !

for text-heavy images, use a OCR/image-to-text extractor. just put the image in and copy the text it spits out, maybe looking over it to make sure there aren't any mistakes. this definitely removes a lot of the burden of copying text painstakingly by hand yk

i'm sure there must be more i'm forgetting, so if any of my followers want to leave any more tips in the notes i'd greatly appreciate it :D

#image descriptions #ask #just-an-octopus #fantasticcc url btw !! i used smth similar a while back ^__^

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maelyca · 3 years

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I am super excited for today! It’s supposed to be a beautiful day with a high of 66° ☀️ — which is great compared to the snow we had a couple days ago ❄️😵 I’ve got errands to run and am meeting a friend for brunch a little later. I woke up way too early, so I’m watching Bridesmaids (one of the funniest movies ever) while drinking a cotton candy Bang energy drink. Exciting life, I know 🥱

I really want to start journaling again to get stuff off my chest (and sometimes just to ramble, I suppose), but since writing tends to hurt my hand, I’d like to try blogging. My only fear is that I’ll come off as complain-y if I’m venting. I definitely don’t want that to happen. After the recent situations at work I’m hesitant to open up to a lot of people there. Plus, more coworkers are annoying me these days, and I have no idea who I can trust anymore. I am honestly not sure I can trust even some of the people I thought I could. I hope I learn some lessons from this — watch what you say on social media (so this blogging stuff should be really entertaining since no one knows it’s me…yet), don’t add coworkers to your social media, and don’t open up to coworkers like I tend to do. Coworkers are not friends. I totally broke my rule on that when I started my current job 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️

I’m also hesitant to open up to my boyfriend because he can be a total dick sometimes. He has very strong opinions on almost everything, and he likes to let you know what they are. I don’t feel I can talk to him about my current job because he worked for the same company for a couple months and it did not end well so he doesn’t have a high opinion of the company as a whole. I just want to come home sometimes, vent about my day a little bit and move on. He likes to focus on the subject, rip it apart, put it back together his way then tell me why it’ll work better. It’s no wonder I’m having more anxiety and depression lately 🥺 But I digress. I’ll save that for another post when I come up with a new name so no one knows it’s me 😉

I miss typing, too. Since I left the call center almost three years ago, I barely have a need to type anything more than my ID number and password at work. I’m typing on my iPad right now, and it’s not as easy as I thought it’d be lol My fingers are already cramping up. I may have to get one of those fancy keyboards that attaches. Or maybe just get a frickin laptop and save myself the trouble 🙄🙄

Writing again feels good. Getting my thoughts out feels amazing. Idk if anyone will ever even read this or if it will get sucked into the black hole of the interwebs, but it feels like such a release of pressure in my mind. Hopefully, this will help me become a bit of a better writer. I’m still a little dusty on my punctuation, but I’ll make it work. Honestly, I don’t even know what’s acceptable these days - one space or two after the end of a sentence?!?! I’ll probably do both because I’ll go on tangents and not pay any attention whatsoever 🤷‍♀️ Do people even use commas anymore?! I have a small grammar book somewhere. I may have to dig that bad boy up lol

Writing my thoughts will most likely help, too, instead of doing video rants. Here, I can proofread and stop myself from sounding like an idiot or an asshole (I hope!), where as in videos I talk to fast and get confused, or just plain forget what I was talking about. Here, I can backspace and delete before a thought gets put out there; videos don’t let me do that.

I’m going to end this, so I can get back to my movie before brunch. Today is going to be a good day 😎

Do good. Be good. Pay it forward.

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chewiewrites · 5 years

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@bluesrgcnts sent: 📱 + mainik / eric&kc

SEND 📱 TO FIND OUT ABOUT MY MUSE’S PHONE.

w/ MAINIK

What ringtone my muse has set for yours: Hang on to your uwus for this one. I think her ringtone for Nik changes… not constantly but as their relationship grows and changes. Her autonomic ringtone for everyone is definitely the Pokemon theme song. During their time as friends, I can definitely see her having Total Eclipse of the Heart because she really loves the song? Probably sings it too often, #prayfornik’sears. And later she changes it to Something About The Way You Look Tonight; and her final ringtone for him is definitely Can’t Help Falling In Love. Oh, did I mention that all of her ringtones for him are the violin version of the original song? Because that’s canon.

What contact photo my muse has set for yours: Full disclaimer, Mai changes Nik’s contact photo SO often, it’s ridiculous.

What my muse thinks of the way yours texts: Mailan.. finds it amusing that Nikita texts almost the same way he speaks? She could hear him saying what he sends her and it’s funny yet intimidating at times? Especially considering the way she texts? She sends so many emojis and a sentence at a time whereas I can see Nik sending her one block or line as a response and that’s it? No emojis or uwus or any of that sort of thing. And while at times Mai thinks it sucks, since she has NO idea how to take some things he says, she also loves it. The way he texts is just so him she couldn’t imagine it any other way? Because of how stoic-y he texts, Mai usually asks him questions such as “what do you mean by that?” and such. She feels bad doing so and sometimes avoids asking questions but other times she’s too scared of the meaning of what he says to keep quiet. That being said, I feel like she just grows used to it? To his stoic responses and such? I feel like at one point in their relationship, she no longer needs to ask questions and just feels much more calmer in regards to understanding him and such. Growth™️, I guess.

How quickly my muse responds to your texts: Is it a surprise to anyone that she responds to him almost immediately? The minute she gets a notification and sees the bunny emoji, she’s unlocking her phone to answer him. Mailan often waits for his response in suspense or simply out of excitement. The only time she doesn't reply to him immediately is if she’s actually busy, think of work, schoolwork, showers, cooking, gardening, and sleep. And even so, there’s been instances were the notification from his text wakes her up and she responds and falls back to sleep (I can’t guarantee that those messages make any sense, some may have been in Vietnamese).

How often our muses text: Often, like I’d say daily. Mai definitely enjoys texting him every day, I can see her sending him good morning and goodnight texts every day without missing a beat. Even if he doesn’t reply to her, she still sends him so many messages? It’s almost a monologue and I’m embarrassed. But she means well with her texts and I’m sure Nik gets used to getting spam almost every day.

How often our muses call: Depends? I’d say that if they are close to each other, think of school, camp, or wherever—I don’t know what other universes they may meet on, but if they are close and can see each other often or almost every day then the phone calls rarely happen. However, if they are in their perspective homes? The phone calls happen weekly if not more often. I’d like to think Nik is a busy boy considering his career of choice, so that’s why I don’t say daily.. Although if it were up to Mai’s clingy self.. that’s how it would be. But yeah, they probably schedule calls to have weekly. It’s funny to think of these fools as organized but again, Nik is a busy boy. And I’d imagine that when Mai is on break or home she’s doing a million things at once? Getting transfiguration classes plus violin classes. I somehow feel like she would also help her mother with her job?

Does my muse purposefully miss calls from yours: Knowing Mai, no. She doesn’t have it in her to purposefully miss his calls UNLESS they’ve had a misunderstanding or she’s crying over something. I think Mai purposefully not answering his calls is so RARE, like.. I would be shocked when it happens. But I can imagine them having disagreements and she just kind of needs time? So she doesn’t answer his phone call—sometimes she lets him know, like “hey, I don’t think we should talk right now. Can you give me an hour or so?” Once they become.. a couple and have a some bumpy ass experiences she becomes so much more vocal about when she doesn’t understand what he means, or whether she does or doesn’t stand with it, etc? But them as friends? Mai just doesn’t answer his calls and then gives such a Lame excuse about it? Think of “sorry I was feeding my cat” even though Nik called her like five hours ago.. Additionally, Mai would purposefully miss his calls if she’s having a hard time and is crying, she sometimes texts him saying she’s struggling or other times she doesn’t.

Last text(s) sent from my muse to yours:

( ✉️ – con thỏ tai to ) that moment when your day is completely ruined!! ( ✉️ – con thỏ tai to ) i was just about to eat my breakfast right?? as i do everyday ( ✉️ – con thỏ tai to ) and when i go to get peach juice?? there is none left?? like WHO TOUCHED MY PEACH JUICE ( ✉️ – con thỏ tai to ) ..no one did. i had the last of it yesterday, i’m so upset.. it’s not a complete breakfast without peach juice ( ✉️ – con thỏ tai to ) anyways, i hope your morning is going better… morning or day.. or night. what are time zones drafted! ( ✉️ – con thỏ tai to ) i miss you so much

w/ ERIC & KC

What ringtone my muse has set for yours: I’m so sorry to disappoint everyone but Eric doesn’t bother with ringtones? Like at all. This boy lets his ringtone be the basic af iPhone ringtone.. He doesn’t even change them to the other options it’s the one the phone comes with.

What contact photo my muse has set for yours: You best believe KC took this photo and added it himself.. because otherwise, he would have no contact picture. Eric doesn’t bother with that either. This demon doesn’t bother with ANYTHING and I hate him for it.

What my muse thinks of the way yours texts: Eric.. has seen people text worse than KC. It’s not that KC texts in a weird way.. it’s just A Lot™️ for Eric? Like he can just cringe at what KC sends him? I don’t know why but I feel like KC is an uwu sort of guy so he would use that and lots of periods or commas, maybe even a lot of line breaks? So that and the memes? And keysmaches? It just feels like a lot to Eric but he can.. see KC’s personality come through? He doesn’t know whether he hates it or is amused by it. Maybe he simultaneously hates it and finds it amusing. (The only bright side of KC texting habits is that it keeps Eric up to date with the memes).

How quickly my muse responds to your texts: This dumb demon child takes his TIME getting back to KC! Unless it’s about business or it’s leading up to it in which he would reply sooner.. He still doesn’t reply instantly. At the beginning of Eric trying to charm KC, he definitely took a specific amount of time before replying to KC, like yes this demon calculated it. He wanted KC to wait, learn to at least. His goal? For KC to anticipate his response. To see whether KC would send more text messages instead of waiting. But Eric can take days or weeks to get back to KC.. good thing they live in Camp so they can at least see each other and talk then.. yikes.

How often our muses text: As said previously, Eric is a slow ass texter but they probably have.. somewhat decent conversations. I’d imagine Eric would also text KC, it can’t all be one-sided because it might discourage him and Eric needs KC to still cave into his dumb demonic methods and ways.

How often our muses call: Not.. that.. often? I feel like there’s different answers to this. When Eric’s manipulation was at its Peak™️ they probably had phone calls often, usually during the night. I can imagine Eric playing Fortnite (because.. he would) and having an hour conversation with KC, leading him on. He probably grows quiet when the match gets hard but.. I kind of works on his favor? You know that whole “let’s fall asleep on the phone” thing? Eric accomplishes it accidentally because he gets quiet id he’s really focused and KC eventually falls asleep. But after Eric calls them off? It’s just.. not a Thing anymore? KC can still call him.. but Eric doesn’t make the effort to have an hour conversation with KC. I imagine Eric and his dumb self calls KC when he’s highly intoxicated though, so good luck with that.

Does my muse purposefully miss calls from yours: Yes, all the time. Though Eric sometimes doesn’t pay attention to his phone? He’s the type to not charge his phone for days because socializing is too much and seeing so many idiots face to face daily is Bad Enough for him. But Eric.. purposefully misses everyone’s calls, he can’t be bothered. If KC is insistent enough he’ll answer I guess or send one of those automatic(?) messages like “I’m busy, call later.”

Last text sent from my muse to yours:

( ✉️ – kc ) if you’re awake you should meet me near the entrance of camp in 5. i’m going to get legit chinese food from the city.

#( answered. )#bluesrgcnts #it's so long i just divided it up bc in ONE post it would be so... bAD YIKES AT ME but pls yell at me once u read ths #( otp. mailan & nikita )#( notp. eric & kc )#( ch. mailan pham )#( ch. eric liu )

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recentanimenews · 5 years

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Off the Shelf: Cautiously Optimistic

MELINDA: Well, hello, Michelle! Can you believe we’re back again in just two weeks? I hope you’ve had time to come up with a new joke.

MICHELLE: That last one I made was so very bad, I’m starting to feel remorse for inflicting terrible dad jokes on people at the start of these columns. So, you get a reprieve, everybody!

MELINDA: I dunno, I think you may be disappointing more people than you know!

MICHELLE: If you actually miss the terrible jokes, leave a comment and I’ll do better next time. How about that?

MELINDA: Fair enough! Well, if we’re not telling dad jokes, I suppose we’d better talk about some manga. What have you been reading this week, Michelle?

MICHELLE: I finally took the plunge and read the first two volumes of Fruits Basket Another, the three-volume Fruits Basket sequel by Natsuki Takaya. I was wary about this one, but though it has some significant flaws, I liked it more than I expected to.

In volume one, we’re introduced to Sawa Mitoma, an exceptionally meek girl who spends so much time thinking things like “Why do I always irritate others without even realizing it?” and being perhaps the most passive protagonist I’ve ever seen that she actually becomes irritating to the reader. She has just started her first year at Kaibara High School, and soon encounters “an incredibly sparkly boy” when she drops her student ID. This boy looks a lot like Yuki Sohma and, surprise, it’s his and Machi’s son, Mutsuki. Be prepared for a bunch of this sort of thing, because in short order we learn that Hanajima’s little brother is Sawa’s homeroom teacher and that Makoto Takei (remember that overzealous student council guy?) is a teacher whose obsession with Yuki has now transferred to Mutsuki. (He’s really creepy about it, too, and desperately needs to be fired.)

Sawa next meets Hajime, the son of Kyo and Tohru, who is serving as student council president. Mutsuki is the vice-president, and soon Sawa’s been drafted to be the first-year member. Over time, she meets more Sohmas, including Riku and Sora, the twin children of Hatsuharu and Rin. She gains confidence by being useful to the council and Riku helps her realize that by always keeping her head down, she’s missing opportunities available to her, like the nice girls in class who want to ask her to have lunch with them.

By the end of the second volume, Sawa has become a much more sympathetic character. Not just because she finally starts taking the initiative and actually engaging with life, but because readers can finally see what Takaya-sensei was doing. It turns out that all of Sawa’s issues stem from her abusive mother, who doesn’t come home for long periods of time, and when she does deign to appear, demands gratitude and apologies from the daughter she viciously belittles. No wonder Sawa got warped into thinking everything she does is wrong and that she’s a useless lump who causes trouble for others!

In the end, the not-very-subtle premise of the series seems to be “this generation of the Sohmas all love their parents very much, so this time they’re going to be the ones to save and accept a girl cursed with a shitty home life.” The execution is rather clumsy, however, as the Sohma offspring talk about their parents way too much for normal teenagers. I did like that Ayame’s son, Chizuru, struggles because he’s the normal one in his eccentric family, and that Mutsuki’s love for his parents is partly due to realizing not everyone has it so good. There’s one worrisome panel that suggests young Mutsuki witnessed Akito protecting her and Shigure’s son, Shiki, from Ren wielding a butcher knife! I hope that’s explained in the third and final volume, as well as whether Shiki was responsible for getting Mutsuki to help out Sawa in the first place.

In any case, I liked it enough to finish out the story, and that’s more than I expected.

MELINDA: Okay, so I’ll admit that the parade of Sohma children just reminds me how irritated I was by the neat pairing-off of everyone that happened at the end of the original series (Ayame, seriously??) so it’s probably getting off on the wrong foot with me from the start. But more than that, I’m struck with your description of the kids talking soooo much about their parents… like, some kind of weird collision of “let’s make more money off of Fruits Basket” and “let’s assume that nobody actually read Fruits Basket and we have so much explaining to do!” Or maybe it’s just “let’s make more money off of Fruits Basket, but in only a few volumes, so DUMP THAT INFO.”

Honestly, the only thing that gives me hope is that butcher knife. Akito with a butcher knife is keeping me alive here. I might read it just for that.

Do we have to have the creepy teacher-student obsession, though? I let that stuff go with older manga, but seriously. It’s 2019.

Or wait. Is it Ren with the butcher knife? I think I added a comma in my mind to draw my attention. Without the comma, I’m suddenly less interested.

MICHELLE: Yeah, it was Ren with the knife. She didn’t go away just ‘cos the curse was lifted, so she’s still around being horrible, apparently.

And yes, after everyone paired off neatly at the end of the main series, all of the couples seem to have stayed together for the next twenty years, judging from the age of Hatori’s daughter. At least Hanajima didn’t marry Kazuma! The parent talk isn’t as bad as recapping the events of the original series, at least, but there is a little bit of explanation when introducing new Sohmas to Sawa. Like, no one says Momiji’s name or what particular business he’s doing, but we know he’s extremely successful at it, which is kind of nice.

It’s more like someone saying, “I want to be like them,” which is still more than teenagers generally say, in my experience.

MELINDA: So, okay, you’re enjoying this more than you expected and you’ll likely read to the end. Should I be following your lead, or should I just reread Fruits Basket? I do suddenly have an urge to reread, especially since I recently lent out the first few volumes to one of my teen students!

MICHELLE: I honestly don’t know. I think it might bug you somewhat more than it did me. Maybe wait until volume three comes out and I can give a definitive answer as to whether this series adds anything to the Fruits Basket experience.

What have you been reading this week?

MELINDA: This week, I dug into the debut volume of For the Kid I Saw in my Dreams, a new series from the creator of Erased, Kei Sanbe. Like Erased, it was originally serialized in Kadokawa Shoten’s Young Ace and is being published in English by Yen Press.

Senri Nakajou had a twin brother, Kazuto, with whom his connection was so strong, they experienced shared vision and literally felt each other’s pain when one was beaten by their abusive, alcoholic father. As the older of the twins, Kazuto was intensely protective of Senri, and would manipulate his way into taking the beating for both of them, to spare them “double the pain.” He’d also insert himself between their parents when they were fighting, to spare their mother from the father’s abuse. On those nights, Senri, hidden in the cupboard under the stairs, would experience Kazuto’s pain as he took their mother’s beating on himself, until one night, when the beating never came. Instead, Senri emerged from his cupboard to find both his parents murdered and his twin missing. Based on the two brief visions he shared with his twin afterwards, Senri is certain that his brother was kidnapped and murdered as well. Now, Senri is a high school delinquent, still searching for the man who murdered his brother.

It takes a chapter or two for Sanbe-sensei to introduce Senri’s twin into the story—a choice that pays off, I suppose, by denying us full insight into Senri’s state of mind, which makes his morally-gray existence hit a bit harder in the beginning. The first things we find out about him are that he was discovered sitting in a pool of his parents’ blood as a child and that he now helps run an ongoing con in which his partners steal someone’s money and then Senri gets paid to pretend to recover it for the victim. He’s so cold and remorseless, we’d wonder if he might have murdered his parents himself if we weren’t also looking at his terrifying childhood drawings in which he repeatedly depicts the murderer (whose head he eventually lops off with a pair of scissors). Then the twin revelation transforms him from typical anti-hero into a scarier but more sympathetic anti-hero, which works much better, for me anyway.

While Senri and Kazuto’s extreme twin connection doesn’t so far reach the supernatural heights of the protagonist’s time-traveling in Erased, there is a bit of a similar feel in this series that I admit I’m hoping might pan out into something just as fantastical, because an average tale of vengeance isn’t all that interesting to me. That said, there’s a lot going on here, and I am not at all sure where it’s leading. There is quite a bit of mystery introduced in this volume, beyond the identity of the murderer, and there are some supporting characters I’m already very fond of, including Senri’s grandparents, who raised him after he was orphaned, and his childhood friend, Enan, whose backstory is nearly as tragic as his own.

MICHELLE: Aside from an aborted attempt to read volume one, I haven’t read any of Erased, which I’m hoping to rectify this year. And this certainly sounds a worthy successor! I’m a little concerned I’ll have trouble getting into it, as I generally don’t love narratives that focus on remorseless anti-heroes, but it seems like the mystery of what happened to his parents will compel me forward. I confess that, even with this brief synopsis, I’m already expecting kind of a Loveless outcome with the older brother.

MELINDA: Well, maybe I’m overstating the antihero-ness? He’s got a lot of compassion in him (he’s the one who reached out to Enan when they were young and accepted her when nobody else would). He’s just very much intent on being the one to kill his brother’s murderer and it’s what drives his whole narrative at this point. He also tends to inflict physical pain on himself a lot, and I don’t know whether it’s an attempt to recreate the shared pain he no longer can with his brother or a survivor’s guilt thing, but he’s definitely a sympathetic character.

You’re not the only one thinking Loveless here, though. I’m also absolutely expecting that the brother is alive.

MICHELLE: Alive and potentially culpable! This really does sound pretty neat, though. I do like a good mystery.

MELINDA: I’m certainly intrigued! So would you like to talk a bit about our mutual read this week?

MICHELLE: Sure!

Ran and the Gray World is a seven-volume seinen series by Aki Irie. In this first volume, we’re introduced to Ran, a headstrong fourth-grader, who lives with her father and older brother, Jin. Ran and Jin’s mother, Shizuka, doesn’t live with them because her presence is required elsewhere to keep a pair of mysterious giant doors from opening. She’s a Grand Sorceress and it soon becomes apparent that Ran, at least, has inherited her mother’s abilities (and impulsivity). I’m assuming Shizuka also gave her the sneakers, currently far too large, which allow her to transform into a teenage version of herself. For his part, Jin has a magic coat that allows him to transform into a wolf, perfect for tracking Ran when she goes off on ill-advised adventures.

Insisting she’s already grown-up, Ran dons the shoes and hitches a ride with strangers to go visit her mother and, inspired by a special lesson from her kindly science teacher, attempts to fly from the school roof. She has some success at the latter and winds up in the garden of a rich guy named Otaro, who doesn’t endear himself to me when he returns to his apartment building naked, exposing himself to a couple of kids in the lobby in the process. Jin rightly pegs him as fishy, and it’s clear by the end of the volume that he’s become obsessed with Ran. Despite declaring he’d never touch a kid—she’s in teenage form for the entirety of their acquaintance—he soon suggests they become more than friends. He’s a creep, and I’m so glad Ran whisks herself off when he embraces her (“I’m outta here!”) but I do worry about what lies ahead.

MELINDA: I love a lot of things about the premise, and the art is freaking gorgeous, which is what drew me to the book in the first place. I’m also pretty into what’s going on with Ran’s family dynamic, MAGIC (always a winner), and wow, her mom and brother are both absolutely fascinating characters with so much going on. But I am super creeped out by Otaro and worried about what’s going to happen there. It’s funny as someone from the Big generation, I suppose, that I’m so disturbed by a story in which a young girl is inhabiting a much older body. But at least in Big (and I suppose also in something like 13 Going On 30), the young character is at least at an age where they are already experiencing sexual attraction and an interest in romance, so it somehow didn’t feel quite so incredibly wrong as this does. So I’m worried about where this story is going to take Ran in that regard, but trying to be optimistic, I guess?

MICHELLE: Yeah. At the very least, she’s able to extricate herself from these kinds of situations when they arise, but I can’t say I have any faith that she’s going to get any more savvy any time soon.

Jin is hands-down my favorite character in the series. He’s like a Doumeki type or something. Knows that magic exists, but sensible. Looks dour, but actually kind. And so, I side with him where Shizuka is concerned, finding her to be profligate with her magic when she comes to their house. I mean, it looked like people genuinely had car accidents when she rained giant desserts down upon the town!

MELINDA: You have hit the nail on the head with Jin as the Doumeki type! And that explains why I like him so much, too. I always identify with the Watanuki characters, but I adore and crave a Doumeki for reasons that are probably obvious. Kind of ironic, isn’t it, that the loose canon character here shares her name with him. Shizuka is a terrifying mess and her power lets her get away with it, so I feel that we can count on her to provide plenty of conflict here. We don’t need the creepy dude!

MICHELLE: Definitely not. Perhaps she’ll do us all a favor and turn him into a turnip.

MELINDA: I could get behind that!

Despite my reservations about Otaro and where that storyline might lead, I am probably more excited and intrigued about this series than anything else we’ve discussed here today. It’s whimsical, original, filled with mysterious potential (what’s behind those doors??), and I can’t overstate how beautifully drawn it is. With the artwork alone, I’m besotted.

MICHELLE: I failed to say this the first time you mentioned the art, but I absolutely agree. There’s a certain retro, Moto Hagio-ish quality to it that’s very appealing.

MELINDA: Yes, it’s sort of Heart of Thomas meets Bride of the Water God, art wise—detailed and ornate, but also flowing, always in motion, like Ran’s personality. I’m definitely looking forward to more!

By: Melinda Beasi

#Anime #News #Manga Bookshelf

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