cereal and choccy milk

2025/00/00

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2025/03/16

for some odd reason i've been drawing at an unprecedented pace and my art backlog just keeps on growing... and i've been hard at work on the 17776 translation project too, so i haven't had much time to update my site. whoops.

the first chapter of 17776ja is nearing its release, so i've made a sort of hub that will link to the translation when it's up! i made it using Hugo (static site generator) and GitHub pages so a lot of it was uncharted territory, but i was able to figure it out eventually. it has a blog and a built-in RSS feed, so anyone can follow it and recieve updates as long as they have a feed reader.

as for other life updates, the doujinshi anthology i mentioned a few posts back released successfully (back in late january)! i'm relieved that the printing of my artwork page went well, and everyone's illustrations and short stories were so, so good.

2025/01/01

happy new year!!

2025 was a big year for me and this website. i just looked over the update history page and gosh it's long lol. it even looks like i updated in some way or another every month which i'm proud of. i also opened the Neo-Nihongo webring in may which now has 25 members! in august i also made this new portal-themed layout from scratch and gained a lot of confidence in my HTML/CSS skills. in terms of site content, i primarily worked on the Courtyard and getting a bunch of my gikabi artwork on here, along with my miscellaneous artwork gallery.

the main reason i'm focusing on the art galleries is because of the enshittification of social media. i stay on Twitter because of the large Japanese population and community of fellow gikabi artists, but every update to the platform has been a massive downgrade, especially the recent AI edit button on images. in addition, the artwork posting platform Poipiku has greatly increased their level of visual censorship on explicit content, despite allowing sexual ads to be shown on every corner of the site outside of the NSFW filtered zones. this happened just yesterday. because of all this, many people are beginning to consider making their own websites. for me, because i don't have motivation to post as much artwork outside of my private account, i want my site to be a place i can post anything without any worries, with warnings and passwords that i can set myself, but also in a way that people who like my kind of work can find me.

however, i'm also finding that learning HTML is not as easy for Japanese speakers as it is for English speakers, not just because of the language barrier in code, but also the lack of comprehensive, bare-bones, and modern guides/resources. the top search result was a guide for HTML4 and CSS2! that's why i'm currently in the process of writing my own Japanese HTML beginner's guide. i'm the kind of person that reads instruction manuals and wikipedia articles from end-to-end, so i have to find a way to make my writing more concise, not to overwhelm the reader with information they don't need.

i've also started a pretty ambitious project, a full Japanese translation of 17776: What football will look like in the future! it's one of my absolute favorite pieces of writing, but i haven't found any Japanese content about it on the internet other than like. two tweets mentioning it. and the day humans stopped dying is soon approaching, so i've decided to aim for a chapter 1 release date of april 7th, 2026. if anyone's interested, check out my info post on Tumblr and join the project management Discord server. help is greatly appreciated (technical stuff, japanese football vocabulary, and fleshing out interpretation), but hanging around just to check on progress is also welcome. :)

i hope 2026 will be just as productive as last year, if not more! i'm especially excited since i will be taking a break from college this coming semester, so i'll have a bit more extra time to work on things.

2025/11/06

hoo boy, yet another long-overdue bog. sorry for the length; there's a bunch i wanted to talk about! the first half is about Toastmasters and the second half is about gikabi/doujinshi.

today i attended a Toastmasters meeting for the first time. for my public speaking class i have to attend an in-person speech and critique it for an assignment (which i had been putting off for way too long... i don't know where to look for those kinds of events and the teacher was incredibly unhelpful). i asked my dad earlier today if he knew anywhere i could find a speech to listen to around town, and he suggested Toastmasters. coincidentally, there was a very conveniently-timed meeting scheduled a few hours later, so i decided to go and get the assignment over with since it said it's open to guests.

the people there were very welcoming! after i did a short self-introduction as an "esteemed guest," two members presented their prepared speeches, and another member led an interactive sort of group-presentation, where members were chosen at random to answer questions related to today's topic with 1-2min speeches. today's topic was "spirituality," so the topic master used tarot cards to pick members! after each member had a chance to speak, i was offered to answer one of the leftover questions. i actually enjoy public speaking somewhat, and i also liked the topic and the previous discussion, so i decided to have a go too. i also got a tarot card just for fun, and got a card from suit of cups (ten of cups i think? i can't remember...she said it represents happiness though which is nice!). after we wrapped up, two people gave feedback for the prepared speeches from the beginning of the meeting, and another person reported the number of "um" occurrences for each person's speech. some members had zero "um"-s! it's really hard to pause without vocalizing and sit with the silence....

overall it was a very enjoyable experience. it's a good sort of calm-but-kinda-nerdy, kind and encouraging space that was very comforting to me. i'm not sure about a membership just yet, but i was told that i'm welcome to join as a guest again, so i'll probably go back sometime when i have the chance.

other recent life updates...

i've been primarily focusing on the courtyard lately, in terms of webmastery. i have a huge backlog of gikabi (Kirby gijinka) art to put on there, so i'm chipping away at it. that section of my site serves as a complete archive of my gikabi work, especially since outside of this site i mostly post on my private Twitter and nowhere else. but somehow, the speed at which i draw is faster than the speed i can make new posts so my backlog keeps growing....

i'm also currently working on an illustration to contribute to a certain Twitter mutual's anthology doujinshi. it's my first time having my work be printed and sold in a doujin work, so i'm pretty nervous but also excited. i spent years watching artists i admire sell their fan-manga and attend Akaboo events, and now i get to join that in a way... i still can't believe it. i can't wait to complete my piece and see all of the tragic illustrations and manga everyone else created.

next year, i plan on attending a gikabi web doujin event in april with keychains and net-prints of new and old artwork (maybe even a short manga?). i'll also join yet another Twitter mutual's anthology doujin, again with an illustration. i'm particularly excited for the latter since there's a high chance i can attend the in-person event in June (星に願いを 2026)! i really need to work on my character reference sheets now though, eek. i've been putting them off for 2 years now, but they'll be needed for a little project so i'll have to start them as soon as i submit my current work. i can't get a break!! (←doing all of this entirely voluntarily)

2025/08/08

mini entry!

currently in the process of changing the layout. hand-made it this time! it's crazy how much my HTML/CSS skills have improved in the 3 years since i've created this site, and i also learned a lot in the week or so that i spent creating this template. the color scheme is based on Portal and Portal 2. i realized that my strawpage (for my kirby-related accounts, planning on moving it to a page on here) is also a blue-orange color scheme, so i suppose i gravitate to it, although it wasn't intentional. for the sidebar, i borrowed the code from the Foollovers templates i was/am using and arranged it to fit. it was much harder than expected but i was able to fix all the issues up and get everything working!

also, i've improved the semantics of the HTML! less divs, more articles and sections and navs and asides. it also saves up on all of the class="" attributes which keeps things nice and tidy. it's definitely not 100% (i'm not using time elements every time i write a date lol) but it should be much better than before.

as for the CSS, don't look in there. it's horrible. but at least it works.

2025/06/10

man i was sleeping all day yesterday and couldn’t update this site at all!! but now i'm back.

i was hard at work at Weebcon Indy this past weekend as an interpreter (and general helper) for one of the Japanese Culture Pavilion guests, Machikado Nowa. i translated her on-stage panel talk and conversations at the vendor booth, went on errands, and even had the opportunity to make the finishing touches of her live art performance (the small hair bows in the picture). this was my first time interpreting for someone in real time, so i was very nervous (especially on the first day) but i’m glad everything went smoothly. to those who came to visit the booth and/or watch the panel talk, thank you so much!! Nowa-san is such a sweet person; she went out of her way to take care of me, even though I’m the one assigned to help her! i appreciate it a lot. we became good friends through this event, and talked about maybe working together in the future.

i also got to know Maekawa Kazuo, the artist for the Ace Attorney manga, whose table was next to ours. we couldn't talk much during the con itself since our tables were far apart and he was quite busy with commissions, but i was able to get a quick portrait done (right after a group of Ace Attorney cosplayers came by! Franziska and Gumshoe especially looked like they popped right out from the game). we also chatted in the break room and at the afterparty and had a very fun time! he's a very friendly guy; it's such an honor to be able to get acquainted with him, especially since i don't have many opportunities like this, living in the US.

the two biggest guests in our team were Hirata Hiroaki, the voice of Sanji (One Piece) and Virgil (Devil May Cry), and Yao Kazuki, the former voice of Franky (One Piece). i sadly couldn’t see Yao-san, but i was able to slide in last-minute to meet and get an autograph from Hirata-san. i got so nervous…the person who was in the booth with me (Weebcon staff) was talking via another interpreter while i could barely speak, and Hirata-san teased me for it, saying “c’mon, you can speak Japanese!” to be completely honest, i don’t know as much as i’d like about most of the characters he’s voiced for, but i’ve been very interested in Devil May Cry for quite a while. when he asked if i like Sanji, i answered “i actually like Virgil a lot…!” and he said “ooh, you have interesting taste! you’re the second person who’s said they like Virgil.” now that i’ve said this and gotten an autograph, it’s become my responsibility to follow through and actually play DMC!! as an ULTRAKILL player, i’m sure i’ll enjoy it lol.

outside of our team, i also got to have lunch with Arnie Pantoja, the english voice of Kazuma from KonoSuba, and the singer-songwriter Shihori. we had a lot of fun talking about the voice acting industry, poetry, fashion, and stuff about Indiana and Japan. (Arnie looked like he had a broken leg; hoping for a speedy recovery!)

overall this was an amazing experience, and i hope to work for this team again in the future! i’m not sure if this team will be coming back to Weebcon Indy (or if there will be a second Weebcon Indy period) due to a bit of trouble with Weebcon and the convention center… but if i’m invited to join Nowa-san and Maekawa-san again at an event somewhere else, i’d be more than happy to fly over even if it’s out-of-state.

big thanks to everyone involved, especially our team manager and Toshiko-san (the one who reached out to ask me to become an interpreter). also Toshiko-san, thank you for the wagashi! the buckwheat cookies and umekobucha-flavored kohakutou were especially delicious. (to those interested, you can buy them on her official shop or etsy.)

(also posting this to the brain for safekeeping!) :)

2025/06/01

happy pride month!! this year has been (and probably will continue to be) rough, but we will survive this. trans rights.

i haven’t written anything in 6 whole months…whoops…. this college semester wasn’t rough at all; i mean, i’ve been cranking out so much art over in the courtyard lol. but i just…haven’t been doing anything else. the single class i was able to take (don’t get me started) was entirely Zoom-based so i had no need to go to campus, and since i can’t drive i don’t have much opportunity (or motivation) to go out aside from that. anyways, now that school’s out, i’m finally doing some more interesting stuff.

today i went to a local gay event where we just hang out at the park for a field day. it was my first time joining that group (maybe it was my first time going to any gay hangout outside of school?) and i knew literally no one there, but i was able to fit in pretty nicely thanks to the wonderful people there. and the cute dogs! we made some bracelets and charms with beads and string, creating beautiful works of art such as “CUM FART” “MUSCLE MOMMY” and “FTINKY” (i made “FACT GOT” for my friend and “MAGOLOR” for myself).

a few days ago i had the opportunity to hang out in a vc with Mikan-san, the webmaster of Neotown (not sure if you’re reading this but hello if you are! it was really fun talking with you). he asked me a few questions about trans stuff; in japanese spaces i’m often the first out trans person people encounter, so i’m used to it. honestly, i enjoy answering queer-related questions. everyone who has asked about my transness has been very respectful and genuine, and that in and of itself is affirming. although i’m publicly out of the closet on most if not all of my platforms, it’s still a bit scary to be visibly trans and queer. i feel it’s very recent that the japanese general public has started accepting queerness (going from “ew, gross” to at least “yeah, they exist”). the old stuff i used to see (and the random conservative tweets my timeline decides to still show me very occasionally) is still haunting me in a way. i’m constantly prepared for weird reactions, so it’s always jarring to be treated respectfully by my japanese internet friends and acquaintances.

so aside from the stress of news events, queer-wise, i’ve been having a joyful time.

i’ve been also thinking about queer elders lately. how there are so few old gay role models, and even fewer trans ones. it’s a nice feeling to see older queer people out in public. i want to become able to extend that same sense of comfort, showing younger queer family that we indeed exist and that it’s okay to be visibly queer, just by existing. for that, we need to survive as long as we can. trans rights.

2024/12/26

ok i remembered the thing i forgot to write about.

i baked a cake yesterday! (click to enlarge)

my mom helped me with baking the sponge, but i did the decorations myself. i think it went pretty well for basically my first try. it tasted really good! i don't really like the sweetness of american-style icing cakes, so we used our usual japanese recipe. we didn't have unsalted butter so we replaced it with a bit less of salted butter (and used a bit less sugar) and it was just right.

i may start baking a bit more, since we really should use up the cake flour that we use once a year at most.

2024/12/25

happy holidays!

dear god it's christmas again already? man... well, at least the time of prophecy is near!

REVEALED: Women will be having more sex with ROBOTS than men by 2025 https://t.co/TO87mbCAHw pic.twitter.com/qKrTIIuAFP

— The Sun (@TheSun) June 30, 2016

anyways...

i watched the Sonic movie (3) the other day!! no spoilers here, but Shadow enjoyers are really in for a treat. sometimes the jokes surrounding Eggman and Gerald got annoying (some of it was visible in the trailer) but other than that, it was really an amazing movie. i may post some spoilers in the Brain page later, if i feel like it. i did also did Shadow-themed nails, but i didn't like how they came out so i want to redo them before posting a photo.

i've been playing Inscryption and the ULTRAKILL demo lately. i could buy the full game, but my savings has been— NEVERMIND I RECIEVED IT AS A CHRISTMAS GIFT!!! it happened after i left off at the last sentence lmao.

i thought i had something else to write but i forgot. bye y'all, it's ultrakilling time.

2024/11/13

woohoo new layout!! i figured out a solution to all my problems. no moving, no PHP, just a new format and some tweaking with inline frames. this is going to be so much easier. i had avoided frames since i thought they weren't responsive, but this template works perfectly on smaller screens too which is a relief! i had to change LOTS of internal stuff which costed me several hours of time but it was worth it in the end. the HTML is much tidier too, which makes it much nicer for me to quickly edit. i'm currently in the process of transferring everything over to this new format, so it will take a bit before this post and the rest of the new site will be visible, but i hope y'all will like it.

on a completely unrelated note, i just recieved the Youtooz KinitoPET plushie a few hours ago!! he looks very polite. he's much bigger than i had expected, too... i thought "9 inches" was from head to toe, but nope, they did not include his legs!

a while back, i told my partner (they also love KinitoPET) that i'll bring Kinito to Japan when we meet up next summer.... i'm not so sure anymore lol. he's definitely too big to bring around town in my bag, and that's if i even have space in my luggage. oh well! he'll be staying home. at least i will have my small Magolor plush and also plan on getting a Pokémon Substitute doll to match with my partner.

2024/10/24

october already!?!? damn

i've been pretty busy with life and college and stuff, but i'm finally getting back on the webmastery groove.

i'm starting to consider doing an overhaul of the formatting of this site. maybe move to another host and add some easy PHP for the menus and stuff since it's cumbersome to update it on every page (that's kinda one of the reasons i haven't updated as much...). idk! just putting ideas out there. probably not gonna move, but it's just a possibility. it's probably easier to redo the overall template to something a bit friendlier (to me). i'll be brainstorming for a bit.

2024/04/01

ムムッ！？いつの間にか4ヶ月も過ぎて……！？KTRサイトを創設したり試験に追われたりカービィ三昧の日々を送ったりしてたらこんなに時が経ってしまいました。いや〜怖い怖い。

英語で考えるのが面倒くさいので本日は日本語でお届けします。英語訳は後日用意するかも。日本語といえば、いよいよ本サイトに日本語専用？のスペースを設けようと思いまして。言わないと実現しない（というか忘れる）のでここで宣言しときます。具体的に何を置くかは決めてないのですが、一応強制バトンを見てしまったのでそれは決定してます（笑）。16年以上前のものなのですが、踏んでしまったのはやるしかない！日本人ユーザーなんて多分一人もいないのでここで途絶えるのがオチですが。好きだからやる！それだけ！

KTRサイトの方にまた日記を書くのも面倒なのでここで言いますが、数年ぶりに自分のネーミングセンスの無さに頭を抱えてます。ﾁｮｷはWEB管理人としての名義であってサイト名ではないので、ちゃんとしたサイト名を考えたいのですが……。良いのが全く浮かばない。Cereal and choccy milkもある時ふと浮かんだフレーズなので、意図的に名前を決めることができないのです。過去に作ったオリキャラなども無名か、当時のHNの流用か、仮の名前かの3択だし。助けてくれ。

【24/04/07追記】 KTRサイト改名・バナー制作・日本語専用スペース完了！したけど全画像置いてたfilegardenが落ちて凹み中。

2024/01/02

happy new year!!! it's the year of the dragon!!!

i know it's only been like 4 days, but y'know. what can i say, it's the new year. for the year of the dragon, i made another origami! this pattern is from the おりがみの時間 website.

i've heard that there was a massive earthquake in/around ishikawa prefecture in japan. there was also the plane accident at haneda earlier today (someone i know witnessed it! they're alright, albeit frightened, but their flight got cancelled). all this in 2024 already... i think it's about time we change the era name and build another buddha statue. reiwa, get outta here.

seriously though, i hope for everyone's safety.

re: the november entry, i'm very happy that ゲ謎Gegege no Nazo is such a great hit in theaters (150万人突破over 1.5M people!?!?)!! especially so, since i know theater revenue is very important in the industry, and i've heard that the creators didn't expect it to do very well considering the genre/themes. but i also really really want to...y'know...actually watch it!!! at the moment i'm repeatedly watching the trailers to absorb every last ゲ謎 nutrient and browsing the plethora of fanart/manga on twitter and pixiv. just waiting for it to go on streaming, or at least dvd....

also to refresh my knowledge, i'm watching the kitaro anime. i started with the season 4 (1996); not really because i grew up with it or anything as i mentioned previously, but mainly by vibes—i just remember once looking at the lastest season (s5 at the time) and thinking “wow, this kitaro looks so...modern." but i saw some art on pixiv showcasing season 6 (2018), so i gave that a try... and then season 5 (2007)... and then season 3 (1987).... so i'm now watching seasons 3-6 in parallel lmao. i'm holding off on seasons 1 (60's) and 2 (70's), since all 6 at once is 流石に a bit too much lol.

i've written out my thoughts on each so far, so i'll put it somewhere here soon. not in the bog tho. i'll think of something. [24/01/04 edit] here it is! you can also find it through the brain page in the sidebar.

2023/12/30

happy holidays!

to start off, here's a little origami ランドセル i made a while back. (it's so hard to get a good photo of this...!!)

i hang out at the daycare-room of the japanese school i attend, and we've been doing origami lately. the directions for this one was in a physical book, so i don't have it on hand to share lol. the little books inside were made by one of the teachers. the little stars are just from the leftover paper from the straps. turned out so cute!

while visiting my relatives for christmas, my lithuanian grandma gave me some recipes. i like her pecan tassies she occasionally sends us, but all of her stuff is too sweet so we don't intend on making them. she told us that they're ours now and we're free to do whatever, so i'm putting them on this site! it'll take a bit to digitize (especially since i'm going to be on the road for a few days) but be on the lookout for the pecan tassies, cream cheese kolachki, carrot cake cookies, and eggnog cookies, if you're interested. [24/01/10 edit] it's posted! idk where to categorize this yet, so i'll just put it in the sidebar of the main pages (and linked here ofc) for now.

2023/11/30

hell yeah first blog entry!!

i've been seeing some fanart for ゲゲゲの謎Gegege no Nazo on twitter and i want to watch it so bad, but i guess it's still only in theaters so i straight up can't. diversity lose... i guess there's the anime to watch. i've loved ゲゲゲの鬼太郎Gegege no Kitarō since i was in elementary school or something, but i only read the kodansha novalization version lmao. i might have watched a few episodes of one of the anime series? maybe the 90's one? idk. i clearly remember what medama-oyaji sounds like, but i think every japanese person is able to do a medama-oyaji impression (ｵｲ️鬼太郎ｩ‼️) just by virtue of being japanese. source: trust me and also my mom

oh also, i've finally gotten a concept idea for a fursona. despite liking furry art for quite a while now, i straight up haven't drawn animals (other than sonic characters which don't count) for like 10 years so i'm starting my furryification now lmao. i really like weasels (especially that one image of the white stoat with blood on its face) and 龍long (cn), ryū/tatsu (jp), aka eastern dragons so i'm thinking of a sort of hybrid between the two. i think they will go pretty well together since they're the same general noodle shape. i did some stoat studies and i'm starting to get the hang of it, but mannn 龍 are so hard to find good references for.