I just finished reading the manga Tokyo Alien Brothers by mangaka Shinzou Keigo. (Spoilers ahead)
I randomly came across a short comic thread the mangaka posted on his Twitter and really enjoyed it and wanted to give his published series a try. Tokyo Alien Brothers is a completed series with only 18 chapters and I could find complete English fan translations so I saw it as a good intro to his work.
The story follows two alien brothers who are assessing the Earth as a new planet for their home species. The younger brother, Fuyunosuke, is cool, handsome, and popular, while older brother, Natsutarou, is awkward and struggling to understand human behavior and interactions (felt very autistic coded to me).
The premise is simple and I went into it thinking it was a story about aliens but I was wrong. It is a story about finding one's humanity and falling in love with life on earth, with friends from university, with the kids at the candy store that make fun of you for being an adult who can't ride a bike, with the stray cats and dogs that followed you home that one time, all of it. The main characters were aliens but their journey is so human.
It is also the story of two brothers understanding each other, loving each other, and rejecting but also accepting each other. When the earth invasion mission is called off, Fuyunosuke doesn't know what to do with himself and engages in harmful activities and it's his "useless" brother that's there to protect him from himself. The 'useless' brother that somehow got the hang of life on earth before he did, his 'useless' older brother that got a job and a girlfriend before Fuyunosuke did.
Fuyunosuke spends the majority of the series with his walls up. He's the cool handsome popular guy and he plays his part well. But when the girl that had a crush on him now has a crush on his oaf of a brother Fuyu feels jealousy for the first time. He doesn't know who he is or who he wants to be. He feels unwanted in his friend group and ditches his brother and navigates Tokyo as a cat. I am not exaggerating when I say I cried real tears when Fuyu returned to a disheveled Natsu who had run himself ragged looking for his younger brother showing Fuyu that he is loved and his brother sees him and appreciates him. He is loved for him, not his earth persona.
I think it's a beautiful 3 volume story and I'm glad I gave it a read.
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you don't need a stanley cup, your water bottle works fine. you don't need a sun projector, your room is fine the way it is. you don't need that new stationery set, the set you have works fine. you don't need another bag, the bags you have are fine. your dog doesn't care that the strawberry dog toy is so cute, the toys from the thrift store will suffice. a new planner won't make you more organized if you already don't use the one you have; more storage bins won't make you more organized if you don't use the ones you have & keep adding stuff to your space.
buying something will not fix you, it will not make your life better. use the things you have.
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Sorry but Kabru is so fascinating to me as a character, in a pure mechanical sense, because of what Ryoko Kui does with him. Everything about him is a red herring. He's deliberately introduced as some kind of rival for Laios, a party leader who is hopeless against monsters but absolutely brilliant with people both in and out of combat, and who has good reason to oppose him.
By the end of chapter 31, you might even think Kabru's going to end up as some sort of anti-villain, an antagonist with the best of intentions who nevertheless tries to foil our hero's plans. He wants to defeat the Mad Mage himself, he suspects Laios of being too irresponsible to be trusted with control of the dungeon, and his crew even thinks that Laios's party stole from them (and they're kind of right!). All signs point towards an inevitable showdown.
And then ... none of that happens.
Confrontation over the stolen treasure? Kabru is literally too smart to fall for the classic miscommunication trope and correctly decides it's not worth making a big deal of.
Kabru's deadly PVP skills? Aside from trying to take down Falin, he never fights another human again.
Wanting to be the one who defeats the dungeon? Turns out he was only doing that because he didn't think any other adventurer would have people's best interests at heart, and he's more than willing to play a support role in the whole affair.
Thinking Laios is up to no good? He really did just want to get to know the guy more. He has his misgivings, but ultimately ends up trusting Laios with his life.
Is Kabru going to get some sort of comeuppance for hating monsters and not appreciating their ecosystem? Well no, he has good reasons for hating monsters. He ends up wanting to learn about them through Laios's eyes, but he's never forced into any "Wow, guess I was wrong about them!" revelation.
Hell, even his implied ladykiller ways, which might lead you to think he'll end up being the stock "chivalrous lech" type of character, don't really manifest. He has a lot of opportunities to act flirtatiously around women, but doesn't. He's just a guy whose natural charisma makes him into human catnip.
And that's all hysterical to me, to pull it off. It's a fascinating way to tell a story. To introduce a character explicitly as a rival, potentially even a villain, and instead make them a deuteragonist. It's like a magician making a coin disappear, then slowing down their trick to show you the misdirection. "Did you see what I did there?" they ask with a wink. "The coin was in my other hand the entire time."
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Unmasked & unguarded
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Grian had taken her aside quietly. He'd awkwardly talked around the idea of her remembering now; apparently, he didn't know if her victory counted. She'd rubbed the back of her head and hadn't quite realized what he was talking about and said something about the games and, ah. Apparently she does remember now. Apparently the victory counts. Apparently this means he needs to say sorry.
Cleo considers not accepting the apology. Grian would get the wrong idea then. If she said: you don't need to apologize for shit, or maybe, there's nothing to apologize for, he'd take that as: you are exactly as bad as you're convinced you are. Honestly, Cleo's not sure whether that means Grian would decide he'd done nothing wrong or everything, but that's besides the point.
She'd never not remembered, is the point.
Frankly, Cleo hadn't realized people were meant to be not remembering. She's honestly a bit embarrassed not to have figured it out. Surely that can't be right. Cleo has held every single slight and every single ally and every single person she has ever connected to right in her ribcage, next to where her carved-out, unbeating, torn-up heart lies, the entire time these games have gone on. Each game, a new fact carved into the bone that makes them up.
Names ribbon around her memories. Bdubs and the Crastle and Scott and soulmates and Pearl and friend-turned-foe and Etho and survivor and Bigb and traitor and Scar and son and everything else. She wouldn't be the same at all if she didn't remember. Everything she is, it's built on top of everyone that was.
Maybe it's a zombie thing. The undead are said to be memories that can't fade as much as anything else, after all.
But she can't really explain this to Grian, of course. If nothing else, that would require explaining the place he's taken next to her heart, too, and frankly, that's way too mushy for the both of them. What ends up coming out her mouth is: "Oh. Does that really change anything?"
Grian stares at her a moment.
"You know, I guess not?" he says.
"Right then," Cleo says. "Cool. Good to know my victory means nothing then."
Grian squawks. "You can't just say it like that! That's depressing!"
Good enough.
She buries 'not-supposed-to-remember' 'not-sure-if-it-counts' 'laughing-as-scott-dies' and 'I-have-always remembered' in the same place in her ribcage, so she won't forget it, and then she does the thing that sets her apart from the common zombie:
She moves on.
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Just saw some posts about how all the recent irritating changes at tumblr were made for the purpose of chasing growth.
And all i can say is, there's something kinda beautifully ironic about the possibility of tumblr's eventual downfall being due to their endless need for Biggering driving the natural wildlife away.
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Impulse: talking about how cool it was to reach 1 mil subs
Someone in chat: Skizz is gonna overtake you soon
Impulse, no hesitation, with his entire impussy:
G O O D.
I can't wait. I can't wait! Honestly I would LOVE- I would ABSOLUTELY love to see Skizz pass me in everything. Subs, views, everything. Dude deserves it. I've been dreaming about that since I started. Him coming along and making his way up and overtaking me and me riding- I'll ride his coattails for a while, you know!
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Canon gay rep is good, really it's good but oh...it is OH SO boring....Pass the Queerbait cocaine....
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Important things I’ve learned about the new tumblr polls so far (which are NOT mentioned in the official announcement post):
Once you’ve voted you can’t change it and you can only vote once.
You can only view poll results on the dashboard or in blogview. The buttons are still displayed on custom blog layouts, but if you try to click on them it will automatically take you to blogview.
Responses are completely anonymous. Neither the poll creator nor the respondents can see who voted or what they voted for. The only visible metric is the total number of votes.
Votes don’t show up on your activity feed so you have to go find the poll on your blog if you want to see the results or know if people are even voting.
You can’t view the results of your own poll without participating (clicking on one of the answer choices yourself).
You can’t edit a poll post once you publish it, you can only delete it! I assume this lasts until the poll has timed out, which will either be in a week or a day depending on what you picked This is permanent, so you better hope you got all of your tags and answer choices correct before you publish! This also means you can’t change your poll duration later either.
UPDATE (Jan 22, 2023):
You can send individual polls to someone as a submission, which the recipient can then edit and customize before publishing, but this will NOT give that person the ability to create new polls on their own.
Polls have a maximum of 10 answer choices and each answer choice is limited to 80 characters.
Polls can’t be added to reblogs, only original posts. Additionally, only one poll is allowed per post.
You can add a poll to a previously published original post (that doesn’t have one already), but as soon as it’s published again all editing will be disabled. Also, the poll time limit starts from the original post date, so if you add a poll to a post older than your set time limit, the poll will automatically show up as completed with zero votes.
If you aren't sure if you have the ability to create polls, check this guide. As of right now, according to my current poll, only about 10-15% of users have this feature.
For more detailed info about polls and other currently known bugs and exploits, check out gotinterest’s polls masterpost.
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While I do think anon was rude, I do think it's pretty shitty to set up all this stuff you were going to add the au and then just drop it. It's disappointing. Definitely unfollowing.
Bye.
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Been feeling the 'Jaskier upset with Geralt' angst train lately if this prompt interests you
I read the word 'angst' and instantly went on board- honestly Jaskier deserves to be angry with Geralt. What always makes me go *chef's kiss* in those scenarios is that Jaskier is upset, but he doesn't want Geralt to be hurt! He always looks out for him 🥺🥺 I made Jaskier and angry-crier, because I haven't tormented my man enough. Also Jaskier being able to actually show how upset he is and Geralts self worth issues of 'distancing himself when he thinks he isn't wanted' FIGHT-
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You know I am surprise Sebek that is never jealous to anyone who is close to Yuu. It is a boys school and I can imagine some have crushes on her.
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say it with me everybody: personal health is completely immaterial to morality, including mental health. leading a mentally unhealthy lifestyle (or what you perceive as a mentally unhealthy lifestyle) does not a bad person make. no one has to socialize, exercise, have healthy coping mechanisms, or lead (what you perceive as) a fulfilling life with fulfilling hobbies in the same way that no one has to go to the doctor to get a broken bone reset. both of those types of management of personal health are likely to be beneficial to the individual, but they are in no way moral requirements or debts owed to society. they do not actually say anything about a person's principles, personality, or actions towards others. additionally, people know themselves and their own situations better than you do. maybe a person judges that the physical and financial toll of going to the doctor outweigh the benefit of getting their bone reset, maybe a person just does not have the capacity to develop healthy coping mechanisms at this point in their life, and yes, maybe a person feels like they are totally fulfilled by "media based" hobbies alone and would feel no difference in their life if they picked up a loom. just like. let people be sick without accusing them of being representative of the lazy, degenerated state of modern society.
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I love it when women hate men. I love it when women are allowed to vent to each other about how horrible and creepy men are. I love it when women form friendships with and prioritize each other over relationships with men(whether they're attracted to them or not). I love it when women put men dni in their bios and on their nude photos and on posts on their blogs. I love it when women refuse to mollycoddle and accommodate entitled male feelings with "but this doesn't mean I hate all men, I know a few men who are great, I love my father/sons/brothers/uncles/male cousins/guy friends" I love it when women complain about men WITHOUT "not all men" being a disclaimer. I love it when women avoid socializing with/refuse to be around/befriend/get close to men because they know men can't be trusted. I love it when women make "kill all men" jokes. I love it when women offer absolutely no concern or care for men's feelings and if their misandry offends men whatsoever because why should we, men are the oppressor class who have raped and killed and abused us and kept us as subjugated as second-class citizens for millennia, they regularly mistreat us and the women in their own marginalized communities still every single day and make this world so much harder and more awful for us to be in, and if we choose to hate them and not spare them any sympathy then so be it, and I don't just mean "men as a class" either, you can be a woman who doesn't want to have anything to do with any man on an individual basis and completely cuts off men from her personal life too and ykw I will love and fucking support you in that because men deserve absolutely NOTHING from us. If they're so tough and strong then they can handle it just like they can handle being lonely. If you are a woman who hates men, ESPECIALLY IF YOU ARE A LESBIAN AND/OR A TRANS WOMAN, then just know that I love you. I love you, I support you, and you are safe here.
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