Stone Monkeys and Water Lilies

Adventures of Elzee(f,25). Qi Tian Da Sheng (齐天大盛) is the official title of Sun Wukong (孙悟空), the Monkey King from the Chinese Classic Journey to the West. Personal posts here.

[chihaspomi]

Sakura: @chihaspomi , (IG, Facebook)

Photography: Alethea Spencer

Some photos of my OP1 Cardcaptor Sakura dress. I chose to make it red instead of classic coral because I’ve always adored the colors in the anime opening. We got these really nice snaps in my back yard while getting eaten alive by bugs ;A; I’m really happy with how these photos turned out, despite not debuting this dress at a con yet. I’ll most likely wear it to AUSA! 

Also, pls check out my Instagram or FB if you want to see more photos~ 

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When a cis woman says something along the lines of “suck my balls” or “suck my dick” as a way to respond to male power/dominance/foolishness, I always feel at least somewhat uncomfortable with it.

First of all, it’s equating those body parts with men/maleness/masculinity, and that’s a cissexist frame of thinking that alienates transfemme bodies.

Secondly, as a trans woman, I’m often targeted specifically for my genitals, and if I were to try and claim those sort of phrases, I would not be met with a very positive response, and at worst, I might even be met with violence because of how pervasive transmisogyny is in our society.

I understand that we all want to turn the tables on men when they’re being shitty to us. I wanna shout “suck my dick” to all the assholes who catcall me when I’m out riding my bike or when I’m walking to the corner store, but I don’t because the repercussions could be dangerous.

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Thanks for flagging this in response to quoting Beyoncé’s “sorry” on Nightly Show. Privilege makes so many things difficult to see, so the perspective is appreciated. But it still an embarrassing oversight. I hope you can accept my apology. Side note, highlighting the issue with these common phrases takes courage. Especially given how many cis women (myself included) aren’t aware of how transmisogyny seeps into our daily speech and can get defensive when called on it. These conversations are necessary, so thanks again for holding us those of us who fall short, to a higher standard. 

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koinobori outside tokyo tower for Children’s Day

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Some BTS pictures from our Cardcaptor Sakura shoot yesterday~ We took these on my camera during our off time as we fumbled around locations, avoided eye contact with regular park goers, and tried not to die as we climbed over massive hills just to find our photographer. Some notes:

(1) Special thanks to @epikish, my lovely Tomoyo-chan who made my platinum dress from scratch with only my measurements. She didn’t fit me at all until 2 hrs before the shoot! @___@

(2) One of the wings on my star wand snapped off and I didn’t bring any glue bc I’m a fool ;; @squericabasket found some gum in her purse, chewed it up, and stuck the star back on. Miraculously, it lasted til the end of the shoot!

(3) People kept staring at us as we moved from location to location. Apparently an old lady looked at us in our school uniforms and went, “that’s so weird.”  :’‘) At some point, a little girl kept staring at me, so her mom took her hand and whispered, “it’s an angel!” The only one who recognized our madness was the park employee who said, “I appreciate the majesty of the cosplay, but the park is closing in 5 minutes” while our crew tried to shower me in flying clow cards lol

(4) To save time, we decided to change costumes?? in a cove??? behind two large trees?? Except the back of the area faced the parking lot, so I accidentally flashed a small child and his family. Or, as a friend put it: “He got to see a magic girl transformation.”

(5) I rly wish I had time to reapply my make up or put on falsies lol!!! The bangs of my wig were driving me crazy and you can’t even see my eyes in half the shots bc of them. I am definitely ordering another pair of green contacts after this.

Can’t wait for the actual photos from the shoot!

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Having gelato by the sea with Mako-chan~ I also assisted Jess in photographing her “babies” by the love bell while she hid out of sight in shame, but only because she introduced me to the world of delicious black tea gelato. I should probably have been embarrassed of taking 98493 photos of makoharu by the while my camera tried to focus, but I’ve exalted past that level of humanity to a new lvl of fujoushi

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The place I wanted to see in Yokohama, second only to Cosmo World, was the Yokohama over view park where they filmed my favorite scene in Seven Days. It’s embarrassing how much I enjoyed that live action, but all thoughts of embarrassment flew out of my mind when I spotted this area where Seryou first kissed Yuzuru :’’))  Alas, even the overcast could not dampen my mood as we took selfies next to a handful of couples and the group of girls out on their picnic. Shinara and Kise came along, because this is the kind of fujoushit I’ve become now :’’)

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Dropped by the Haikyuu Store after braving Takeshita dori during spring break. We barely made it into the side street alive, and the HQ store was our oasis in a cruel, overpopulated reality. Some notes:

(1) The male cashiers all donned red Nekoma hoodies and were fairly attractive <3___<3

(2) Literally every single character in this series has yaoi hands, according to the second-floor museum. 

(3) There were a decent amount of kids in the store. They drew on the blackboards and babbled excitedly about their favorite characters. An eight year old girl stood in line before me and went up to the cashier by herself to pay for the merch. Cashier-kun was noticeably amused but tried his best to be professional, right down to counting her change. So! Cute! Alas, the true demographic of HQ fans: children and older women. 

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I’m sad I forgot to bring my acrylic chain of Akira and Tapioca, so I improved by recreating scenes from Tsuritama on Enoshima~ 

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signedcd0 replied to your photoset “Obligatory Kimono shots in Kyoto. These were… surprisingly challenging...”

your face literally looks so good in the photos from this day like holy crap

thanks lol but I beautified my face on LINE camera. My skin’s been pretty terrible lately, and I never post any selfies without beautifying it :’’)

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On our way to the beach, we stopped buy a street vendor for a fried squid. The lady kindly pointed to the sign about hawks, which we laughed over while I quickly finished my food. Ten minutes later, I witnessed two giant hawks descent out of nowhere to snatch the bread out of a foreign couple’s hands. The couple shrieked and ran away while the hawks circled overhead, doing one last victor lap before disappearing. Eat your food quickly, kids :’) 

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Went on a day trip to Enoshima with Jess to fulfill my Tsuritama fantasies, four years after the anime ended :’’) We originally planned to go to Tokyo Disney that day, but vetoed the idea after taking one look at the crowd calendar. Spring break in Japan is the worst time for amusement parks, but all we saw were elderly couples upon getting off the train at katase-enoshima. “I guess all the young people go to Disney and all the old people come to Enoshima.” DOES THAT MEAN WE’RE OLD???

Jess was kind enough to photograph me doing the Enoshima dance while I ducked through crows in shame. We didn’t realize how small the island was until we were at the top of the sea candle, yet we still spent a good day walking around the island. The beach was really cool until we spotted the barnacles and made a hasty retreat. Sadly, I was only able to enjoy one of the caves until we got separated and I was approached by an obnoxious white foreigner. I shut him down faster than a pc running on windows 8 and was infinitely glad that my irritation and lack of patience allowed me to give him the stink eye, since he probably thought I was just another Japanese girl to hit on. Still!!! This island was everything I wanted to see, right down to the overpriced Enoshima-don we ate for lunch. 

On the flight back to Chicago a few days later, I watched  陽だまりの彼女, which prominently features Enoshima. Coincidentally, Jess and I had a conversation on Enoshima about the stray cats just a few days prior. “It’s weird to imagine a cat crossing the bridge to get to the mainland,” Jess said while we shared gelato by the sea, but that’s exactly what happened in the movie. I’m still embarrassed to admit that I cried during a movie staring MatsuJun, but it’s probably the residual Enoshima magic. 

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Hanami: Take Two

We dropped by Yoyogi park during lunch on a Friday. Not photographed are the endless picnic tarps full of coworkers, friends, and couples out on hanami dates. There’s a certain feeling you get when spotting a large group of Japanese salarymen in perfectly tailored suits descending down a staircase while holding giant boxes of beer. Sadly, we didn’t bring food and opted to just walk around, taking photos before grabbing something from the street vendors. I will miss the cherry blossoms in Japan ;___;

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Vain Sakura selfie collage featuring @osomatsus and @lovebyelove

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complexconversations

If it’s any consolation… like three out of every...

oh my gosh!! Very few people follow my blog anyway so... At least I can guarantee the quality of my readers lol

cherrylet replied to your photoset“Shibuya crossing! I saw Hachiko!  Felt like adding the second selfie...”

lol I was super fatigued/jetlagged and battling major shoe regret during my japan trip too!

Jetlagged is the true evil lurking behind all vacations

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Hanami: Take One

We tried having a picnic under the cherry blossoms but failed to (1) allocate enough time to drink the day away (2) bring a plastic tarp to cover the ground and (3) understand Japanese people’s ability to idle away under the sakura trees. These elderly, Japanese photographers kept snapping photos of us from afar, so I finally posed for their camera. One of the ladies laughed, came by, and asked us for an actual photo. Apparently they found it cute that we brought food from the konbini instead of bringing home made food like everyone else :’’) A group of Japanese obaa-sans also called me “nee-san” and asked me to take a photo for them, pushing each other around and teasing me for my 100 yen daiso flower crown. I’m glad we were about to catch the beginning of cherry blossom season~ 

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Post diner vanity with @osomatsus, my favorite boney chicken wings~ 

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Obligatory Kimono shots in Kyoto. These were... surprisingly challenging to wear. The tabi shoes were flat/hard and the 3483 layers around my midsection made it hard to breath, much less slouch. I have endless respect for the girls who hike up to shrines in full kimono, because we almost died after 4 hours in them. I decided at the last minute to add a hakama ala Cardcaptor Sakura, because I’m indecisive and couldn’t choose a color scheme. Thank you to Lynna and Samy for being endlessly patient and enduring my vanity (aka taking these photos).  I sent these pictures to my parents’ wechat group, and my dad responded with “姑娘你变成日本人啦”, followed by a surprised!cat gif.