A Field Trip
March 8th, 2026
It started with my bladder about to burst.
I had made the mistake of sitting down for my school’s graduation ceremony with a slight urge to pee. Me, being a teacher at this school sitting in the teacher’s section in front of all the parents and the only foreign one at that, I am quite visible. As the hour and twenty minute ceremony continued my urge to pee went from a rather casual desire to an extreme pain that was making me light headed. By the final mark (singing the school's anthem), I was committed to leaving the gymnasium as soon as I could without causing a disturbance. As we stood up to sing (keep in mind it is just the teachers and students who sing in front of the two hundred parents in-attendance), I experienced waves of tingling going down and out towards my urethra. These waves were the most prickly light pin pricks of pain. I was astounded and shocked to find out that our school anthem has four verses! Way longer than the other school I work at which only has two. As we sat back down after finishing the anthem I snuck out the door and went to the bathroom. I peed for 2-3 minutes.
As I returned to my desk, the jokester teacher at my school came up to my desk and said, “are you good to leave at 12:30?” To get a picture of this lovely teacher, he is a 60 year old bald man who goes to the onsen every morning. He always is bringing lovely gifts to the teachers he likes with no expectation of return. He also planned my drinking party when I first arrived. It is safe to say, I deeply appreciate him.
My supervisor, who is of a similar vibe to Meryl Streep’s character from the Devil Wears Prada, does not like it when there is a random thing sprung on her. In this case, I had been invited to go to a kids overnight field trip that included dinner in a nearby town. I happily agreed to the kind teacher’s invite and confirmed with him that it was after school/working hours. This was all two weeks before. So then, on the morning of the graduation ceremony, he springs it on me that we are gonna leave during work hours. Soon after, a debate between my strict supervisor and kind teacher emerged over whether I should use my allotted time off or whether this outing could be considered a work trip.
This debate is only settled later after our departure from the school on the field trip.
The prankster teacher is the driver of a stick-shift micro bus. The departure is marked by the jolt of a driver getting used to the clutch on a car they have little experience driving. As we drive along, the overcast cloud layer and rain clears and we pass by a roadside station with local goods for sale. I jokingly teased the prankster teacher by asking can we stop as we were driving by the entrance. He laughs and then 5 minutes later, on the horizon, he sees… an egg vending machine.
He pulls the car bus over, hands me a thousand yen, and tells me to buy some eggs from the vending machine. I am shocked and double check he wants me to. He gives me that smile he always gets when he is about to get up to some antics and confirms I should go get those eggs.
I am not sure if the gods were shining or frowning on me that day but all of the egg selections were sold out except for the 20 egg option. So, we soon took to the road again with me holding a carton of 20 raw eggs in my hand, driving on windy roads, up to the nearby high altitude peninsula.
The dearest prankster took us to a nearby farm that makes lots of dairy products. We delighted in the yummy soft serve to rolling clouds, light mists of intermittent rain that only come in areas near large mountains, and the feeling of freedom that comes when you break up your usual work hours with a questionably valuable trip on the boss’s dime. While we were distracted by wonderful prankster giving us soft serve, he snuck away to go buy us freshly fried churros in every single flavor they had. Again, what a darling.
After getting bored of the farm, we ran back to the bus against a strong mist laden headwind, sun shining down on us. Upon driving around a student suddenly remembered that a previous teacher of his had a camping business on a large plot of land nearby. Prankster being the lovely man he is, magically has this teacher’s contact info and calls her up. Even more remarkable, she says come on! Bring the kids to the camp!
So the mini bus drives down the dirt road, we all get out and soon are led to a trampoline in a massive field with a lovely elevated swing. This previous teacher of theirs also has a bow and arrow set up so we all take turns firing. And turns out, one of these kids lands an arrow on the target from thirty meters away. Was crazy
We drop the kids off at their hotel/ryokan onsen and then return to the school. On the drive back, alone in the microbus, I get an email from my adviser saying the vice principal says it's okay to count as a work trip. Let’s go. The gods have allowed me to have a lovely outing without having to take any of my precious overtime away.
I return now to the ryokan/hotel and wait around for the students who have club to arrive by taking a dip in the onsen. There I met this lovely man who is a potter who has had a business in this onsen town for 20 years. We talk for a while and then another old man announces that the high school kids have arrived and upset their daily routine of going to this same onsen and chatting with their old man friends. I take this as my queue to leave and I tell my new bath friend that I am running away from my students coming in. I fortunately made it out in time. No students even ended up bathing, I think they were all playing mario kart instead.
I waited for the dinner where we ate flounder and hamburger. Then we went back to the kids rooms for a massive tournament of retaking the final exams they had the week before. In classic Japanese education style, the highest score gets the prize. But, beautifully we also played a rock, paper, scissors tournament where a girl one a 2.5 kg local steak.
I left the hotel at 9:30PM feeling happy to be a teacher and appreciating these great colleagues who orchestrated this event for the students. It was a beautiful time that indeed started with my bladder about to burst.
On the eclipse no less. I realized as I stopped at a vending machine in the middle of nowhere on my drive back home for a green tea to keep me awake that a lunar eclipse was happening. I feel like this is why this day was so full of opposites: sheer pain and grateful moments.
Stay pink,
Aidia
Little Update on Some Creative (Website) Things at the Start of the Month
March 2nd, 2026
Many new things I have made are available now on this website! Please take a look and engage with whatever peaks your interest.
I have made a new playlist for the early Spring feelings in the air. The title means signs of spring. To match this vibe, lots of the music has a swelling structure to it, is rather upbeat, and has a hopeful vibe to me. It features lots of vocaloid music, J-rock, J-pop, and electronic music. If you want to discover some new music from the depths of my Spotify, check it out!
As you can see to the left are two new links/headers next to my navigation bar. One links to a new history timeline I made documenting the history of beautiful boys in Japan. This directly links to the history of BL and it is meant to be a quick little history run down. The other just links to my existing BEASTARS fan listing, but there may be a new fan listing on the horizon!
Also! Recently I got my first article published by an academic journal. It is on a queer contemporary Chinese photographer named Ren Hang. The photograph I analyze shows a human figure submerged in a lotus pond. I analyze how the pond and the human become an intertwined body with lots of cool possibilities for our understanding of living with nature amidst climate change. Click the image below or here to go to the journal’s website to download the article for free. There is a link to it in my essays area of this website and also here
I also made a guest book so you can leave comments about my blog posts or any other content if you so choose. Also, the little lion mascot is a link to my maimai scores page I mentioned in a earlier update blog post.
Stay Pink,
Aidia
My Impressions of Water
February 19th, 2026
Everyday I pass over a river.
On my walk to work I cross the Inaba River. It’s a rather normal river for Japan. It’s quite shallow with rolling shoals and is contained by concrete walls for most of its run-time in Taketa. My experiences of this river are daily and I am quite grateful for its existence. The views from the bridge I walk over everyday are nice; there are many animals that come to the river for sustenance. Looking around for wildlife every morning as I crossover it gives me something to look forward to on my daily commute
If you are in a place where you can listen to music, I implore you to listen to Seong Jin Cho playing Jeux d’eaux by Maurice Ravel. It will enhance your reading experience for the next 5 minutes. Trust <3 it also relates to what you will read soon ;3
My proximity to this river has gotten me thinking about rivers! Specifically, the experience of being around them. They are ever changing. What is a river? How do you define a river when it is always streaming along, when there are so many different plants, animals, constructions, banks, bridges, rocks, and dirt coursing throughout it at all times. As my dear friend Ivy says “The constant of life is change.” I think this lesson of change that the river teaches is what brings me such infatuation recently. I get excited to notice its changes in different types of weather, see the different animals, hear the different noises when its water level is higher or lower.
Another recent happening is that I have been enjoying Classical music more. My friend Nathaniel (check out his blog here) recently wrote at length about the angsty pondering he had about a Mozart piano sonata and its different interpretations. This made me realize something I haven’t talked much about on this blog. My adolescent life largely revolved around practicing Classical piano music. At 12 I went to a fine arts public school in Alabama and majored in Classical piano. I competed in competitions from 12-20 and got a scholarship to major in it at university. I soon burned out after majoring in it at college because of the 3-4 hour practice sessions that were becoming ever more required as I tried to increase my skills
Excuse this sob story (it may not sound very sobby but for me my relationship to the piano is one of great weight that comes with it being an intimate presence for my entire adolescent life). As you guys know, I do like Vocaloid music. It’s what I listen to most days while gaming, walking home, and cooking. But, all of a sudden, like my appreciation of the river, Impressionist Classical music has burst into my life again. Impressionist music is a type of Classical music from the early 1900s that was pioneered by French composers (Debussy or “de bussy” and Ravel) who were inspired by French artists about 20 years before them who made art called Impressionism. You may know names like Monet or Renoir from this movement. Their art and music are interested in the experience of objects, light, nature rather than descriptions of them.
A good example of this in art is comparing Academic French painting to Impressionist (which were happening at the same time). The Academic painters liked describing and replicating the aesthetic ideals of their time combined with their interpretation of ancient greek art. They wanted viewers to see their ideal vision of objects and the world around them clearly in a more naturalistic (or real looking) style. But, when we look at Monet, things get blurry. He (and other impressionists) wanted to capture how light and motion are a part of our experience of the world. When we engage a landscape we can take a photo of it in our mind. It looks like a super, hyper-realistic moment. On our phones we can take a photo of a landscape and edit it a bit and make it a bit more ideal looking by increasing the shadows or contrast right? This is basically what the academic painters did. They spent a lot of time, painstakingly rendering a clear still moment, a freeze of a beautiful thing.
This is a painting done by William Bouguereau in the 1890s. He is a major figure in academic French art
This is a painting done by Claude Monet from the same time.
The Impressionists had different aims. When we go to a landscape, let’s say a hillside, we don’t experience it as a photograph: as a still, unmoving thing. Rather, we experience it through time. We see clouds pass and the lighting change. We see wind blow the tall grass, the waves of the ocean lilt about with the currents. The Impressionists wanted to capture all of these things from one vantage point. They wanted to render not just the light and wind at one moment, but all of these moments combined in one image. What gets wrapped up in all of this is the experience of your body being in space. When we go out in the landscape and our body experiences the wind beating against it, our hair getting thrown around, squinting against the sun coming out from behind a cloud, it is quite different than looking at a photo of this same place with our bodies not in the actual location it was taken. This is another interesting distinction: the academic painters painted in studios with models to create their work whereas the Impressionists went outside to paint their subjects. They thought the experience of being all up in the landscape was important for capturing and rendering it in their painting.
So, 20 years later we get to the musicians who are called Impressionists. They wanted to capture in their music the experience of various things. Other classical music composers also wanted to capture feelings of stuff like rain or water or heroes or whatever, but they went about this quite linearly. They had keys that had a tonal center. And through this tonal center and going all around it and maybe returning to it, navigating this tension, they created a linear narrative in their music. The impressionists instead broke the idea of staying in one key or having one center in their music. They were interested in sliding all over the place with no clear beginning or end, no center and outskirts. Therefore, their music is a lot less easier to follow. Instead of a clear story of something it gives you an impression of it.
The first Impressionist art piece was Impressions: Sunrise (above). An art piece featuring water, a seascape. The first impressionist song was for piano and called Jeux D’eau or water games/playing water. Idk if this is a coincidence. As I said at the beginning of this tangent: water is always changing, if you try to capture it statically it doesn’t do justice to the river. This sort of music and art that is interested in capturing the changing qualities of their subjects of course was interested in water. Water changes, it takes many different shapes and can’t become turgid or throbbing hard/solid like Beethoven symphonies or Mona Lisa’s forehead. Those things are too clear, too narratively driven. Water changes,. So in my recent river riot of thinking too much about rivers. I have found a good soundtrack to my thoughts in Impressionist music about water. My recommendations are Ravel’s Jeux d’eau, Debussy’s Reflets dans l’eau (reflections on the water), and Ravel again with "Une barque sur l'océan" ("A Boat on the Ocean").
Another thing I have been spinning in my brain because of walking over this river is its effect on me. Clearly, enough to write this flowing soliloquy on water, I have been impacted by the river running through my town and through my commute to work. It titillates me, it acts on me with its lovely chorus of gurgles. It sustains the water I drink out my faucet and lets me look at mating ducks (who this morning looked extremely cold in a sudden little early Spring cold snap we had).
A photo of me walking over the bridge on a snowy day this winter
This got me looking for a language to describe this uncanny and powerful relationship between me and this river leading me to use that word: affect. It affects me… this river. Affect theory is a philosophical discussion centered around this very word. Really they are interested by this thorny idea of describing and explaining how bodies interact with each other. Here is a fun dare by Spinoza (a 17th century philosopher)
“No one has yet determined what a body can do.”
Just like the river’s inability to be defined and pinned down (is the river ever the same thing again?), a body is really hard to pin down (maybe excluding kabe don). Who is to say what my body might do? Will it poop green or brown today? Will I grow cancer here or there or never? The potential of our bodies (and here our brains are also our bodies) is brimming with potential. It is hard and probably impossible to define "the body" (any body) but, much more singularly, endeavoring to configure a body and its affects/affectedness, its ongoing affectual composition of a world, the this-ness of a world and a body.” (The Affect Theory Reader 2010 page 3). Will the river dry up, flood? Has a new set of ducks come? Maybe eight, maybe 800? The earthquake might make a new crack in its cement wall creating a new little world for a small river snail!
I like this thought experiment as well about affect… What is the antonym or opposite meaning of a body? Is it nobody or antibody? How about unaffected or death? The first two are quite funny but the second two kind of rock. I have a body and it will cease to be a body when it stops being affected. When it stops being affected by what I eat, the river I swim in, and the bed I sleep. Bruno Latour is the guy who found these antonyms interesting and he said “"If the opposite of being a body is dead [and] there is no life apart from the body .. . [then] to have a body is to learn to be affected, meaning 'effectuated: moved, put into motion by other entities, humans or nonhumans. If you are not engaged in this learning, you become insensitive, dumb, you drop dead" (Affect Reader Page 11).
This is what has gotten me so riled up about the river. Being alive is being affected, being moved by the world around us. Experiencing it and seeing it experience us brings a deep sense of vitality, of feeling alive. The river and listening to this music centered on impressions and experience of the world as doing, as being affected brims with possibility for me. It feels almost irresistible. My body, the river, the music, the books I read affect each other and, instead of insisting on a clear definition or clear knowing, a constant state of being known, they instead insist on the creative possibilities inherent to our existence of change–its hope, possibility, and difference.
Thanks for riding on the rolling waves of my mind river rave
Stay pink,
Aidia
New Page About MaiMai Scores
February 12th, 2026
Recently, I have been playing a wonderful game where you clack little plastic ribs against more plastic to the rhythm of stimulating elctronic Japanese pop. It is the blessing lord techno gods herself gave us in the form of music, digital, physical rapture. It is called maimai and was released in 2012 and has continued to be a common fixture, especially in Japanese arcades.
If you have ever visited a Japanese arcade you probably have had an experience where you hear disturbingly loud and fast slapping sounds emanating from a dark corner of the arcade. Usually, it is past all of the claw games and photo booths and deep in the dark corner, where these sounds emanate, is the rhythm game section of the arcade. Here, almost assuredly, there is a maimai game where a person with weird looking gloves is frantically moving their neck, hands, and hips to flashing circular impulses on screen. This rhythm game is my latest affliction.
Fortunately or unfortunately, an arcade doesn't exist in the smallish town I live and work. I instead get to cherish the weekends I trek to the big city and play this game with my dearest friend Rex. He is similarly gamerly inclined to me and has a long history playing osu. I grew up and grinded dance rhythm games like Pump it Up! and Dance Dance Revolution! whereas he grew up with the fine movement side of the rhythm game world of Osu.
We have combined our different skills: his being fine movements and mine being dance-like movements, and now we play maimai together. We groan, sweat, wrestle, and fidget our way to perfect scores. Out of my continued love and practice in this game I have made a new little gallery of all of my scores. I hope to update it regularly with my higher scores and funny moments. I might even blog about them here or my various reflections on playing the game.
Here is the link to the new page. Scores!
I hope you enjoy！
Stay pink,
Aidia
My Morning Snow Shot
February 8th, 2026
This morning I went piss. On my way back to my cozy room to get back in bed and probably hop on my phone I gasped. There was thick petals of white pouring from the sky and I could see a white embankment out my back window. I flew over to the back patio and squeeled with excitement. I grabbed my phone to record and celebrated the snow over a recorded video sent to my friends on Snapchat.
I soon got dressed to head to my morning massage appointment at the nearby onsen. I was so excited to get out in the snow, see the city I love transformed by the terrifying little white monster/monsters. OOOO!
Then as I started walking to my massage (about eighteen minutes from my apartment). I thought, omg! This is the perfect opportunity to experience the morning shot I just blogged about. I am getting morning shot by this wonderful snow, imagine consuming it amidst such a lovely winter morning! So alas, please enjoy the photos of my morning journey in the snow walking to my morning massage. I also got some photos of the bridge I walk through (boy was it windy) and the microwave shrine I have talked about before. Enjoy!
Stay pink,
Aidia
My Morning Shot
February 6th, 2026
This morning I took a sip from my Morning Shot.
I have seen this drink ever since I started studying abroad to Japan in early 2023. It amused my little adolescent, phallic-centered sense of humor and I never really decided to buy it from the vending machine. It’s packaging is not all that interesting: the red is evocative of Folger’s coffee that my mom would always buy growing up. There is a stock image of a radiant sunrise, further trying to get the viewer to associate this with their morning mood being bettered by consuming this beverage.
But today, on an overcast morning with temperatures not too cold, I looked at the vending machine I passed on on my way to work. I looked up, searching for their selection of coffee, and there it was: my morning shot. My morning shot stood confidently, looking back at me from behind its plexiglass container. I kept walking, resisting its stare, but then I gave in. I turned 180 on my feet and went to buy my dearest morning shot.
A beverage I had seen countless times and never tried. I was startled. I was startled by its cheap price, cheaper than all of the other canned coffee at a measly 100 yen. I assumed that this would mean a worse product but I have to admit it actually delivered a decent flavor. Better than the 120 yen cafe au lait, it stands right next to the perma plastic container of the vending machine.
This morning shot proved to be foreshadowing the morning shot I would receive at work when my supervisor got back from her business trip and sad “Oh, can you come to my class first period and give an entire lesson?”
Fortunately, I had prepared a lesson, but I had to cancel on another teacher who I had agreed to go to her class the day before (while my supervisor was on a business trip). Which morning shot is stronger you might ask… is it getting a random obligation sprung on you that you have no ability to dissent from, or is it the wonderful Wonda Morning Shot that has caffeine and sugar?
My supervisor is invading my consciousness. She is one of the most diligent people I have ever met. She is committed to her job with unwavering resolve. She is opinionated. I am rather charmed by this aspect of her. She will sometimes remind me after I don’t do enough hand holding in the explanations of activities in my English lessons with the students that “Aidan, they have little imagination, I mean maybe none.”
She will sometimes also call them evil. I think she believes that nearly all high school students are evil and want to unleash chaos amidst the learning environment. Who wouldn’t amidst the prison-like confines of high school life? Well, that’s what I thought at first. When I first met her I sort of scoffed at her earnestness about her job and English teaching. I have been around plenty of these kinds of people and I find their clinging to perfection futile, annoying, and not caring (as anyone who strays from their perfectionist ideal is deemed unimaginative and evil, sometimes stupid).
But, my supervisor is not like anyone else I have encountered. Day in and day out, she is driving from an hour and a half away, arriving early at 7:30AM, leaving twelve hours later to then just drive home, go to sleep, and do it all again. So far, I have not seen any clinging to this performance because of a lack of self confidence or self-love. She isn’t doing it to be called great. She doesn’t even seem to do it because she loves the students… She thinks they are evil after all. So the biggest mystery is why?
Why is she so committed, to the point of not taking time off when she had a severe lung infection, just powering through with medication? When her parent dies, why does she not take any time off?
This mystery is my morning shot four days a week as I sit right next to her. I hear her mutter to herself as she endlessly accomplishes tasks. After 5PM if I am working overtime I get to hear her munching on her favorite individually wrapped snack. I go to her classes, execute English class related tasks at her beck and call. I rigorously investigate my work to meet her standards and I never receive praise. The best I get is moving on, moving on to the next lesson, learning goal, grammar pattern. There is nothing to be praised for, it is natural to be working at a high level with her.
I think it is this perceived naturalness to her work ethic that has me so moved. What is even more remarkable is her students are all better than the ones above them in the higher grades. They use English and conjugate far better. They also don’t seem to resent her or her rigorous natural flow. Again, I stray from using the word passion to describe her relationship to her job. There is not a sense of “I love English so much!” It is a matter of fact we teach, learn, and comprehend it well, day in and day out.
Stay pink,
Aidia
A Stone and Porcelain Love Story
January 30th, 2026
Here, two figures stand erect.
One is dirty, growing stone. A stone with much smut, smoot, and smoke lathered upon it for many years.
The other is blue and white, clean and reflective, precise lines make out precise images. Its body is crisp, delicate, sensitive, and cold.
Two erect figures stand together at this shrine in Arita City in Saga Prefecture Japan. This city was the porcelain capital of Japan for several hundred years from around 1600 to now. The areas blue, red, and white porcelain wares, heavily drawing from the porcelain traditions of Korea and China (specifically Jingdezhen) are iconic around the world and can be seen in many extant collections of royalty in public museums.
This shrine is literally called “mountain-pottery” shrine. Its gate, lanterns, and statues are made up of a mix of stone (what one typically sees at shrines) and porcelain. All of the porcelain has been made since the 1650s by local potters: continuously patched and repaired as the little trembles of Kyushu ebbed and flowed throughout time.
I may talk more about the history of this place in the future. I was enchanted by the city, and the many potters and ceramic store people were welcoming and warm.
However, this shrine’s visceral combination of two very different feeling surfaces: old, worn and dirty stone combined with clean, cracked (showing its vulnerability) porcelain. I am always irresistibly drawn to these confluences of super different things. There are so many metaphors that come to mind here in these different materials.
The old, dirty stone looks at the young, fresh born, well cared for porcelain. The uncombed, unkempt haggard looks at the rich, opulent, flashy, rich opera goer clad in porcelain furs. But, when I was here the image I felt as I literally felt up these erect figures was…. You guessed it, men. Specifically, I thought of these two figures as BL protagonists. They have stood next to each other, turgid, locking eyes for years.
They rumble together. The dirty stone looks on as the porcelain gets periodically lathered up to get washed by the shrine caretakers. Like a voyeur the stone is illuminated by the sheen of the bright reflection in summer. In winter, the icy looking body of the porcelain easily lets the snow slip off his body, like shedding a light night robe before bed. No matter the season, the stone contemplates the clear, representative images of swirling clouds, a dynamic dragon passionately encircling his body. The dragon enthusiastically climbs and climbs, flying to the blue and white heavens of the sky.
The porcelain gazes at the worn mysteries of the stone’s body. His many natural patterns, built up by so many different actants. His body is worn with the wind, with the smoker, with the festival, with the dirt kicked up. Instead of being a pristine showcase of the town’s pride and joy (porcelain pottery production), the stone stands and absorbs the processes of living in the town. All of the days passing are worn as abstract tattoos of living beings; moss, lichen, and spiders easily make his body their home. A terrestrial earth world teems on his skin. The cold porcelain, with its fragility and luminosity constantly prized, maintained and cared for, dwells on the story of stone.
There they stand today, a couple feet apart. Living with their distance, and in that, appreciating each other’s different beauty.
Stay Pink,
Aidia
Yuri on Ice! Anime Pilgrimage
January 13th, 2026
Well, so I did it.
I went to ground zero of what started my love of gay anime and BL… I went to Karatsu, Japan. The place that inspired the setting of the first 4 episodes of Yuri on Ice!
I planned a little two night trip to Fukuoka and looked at my map when doing research for sight seeing in the area. Little did I notice but a weeee heart in a nearby city on the map. This weeee little heart had been on my google maps since I studied abroad to Japan all the way back in 2023. My heart leapt, doing a quadruple lutz into excitement as I realized this is my chance to go to the divine gay anime seat of the world: Karatsu Japan.
For those of you who are new to Yuri on Ice! We follow our main character Yuri who has recently had a dip in his professional ice skating career at the age of 23. He is debating on retiring when the ice skating world’s hot hunk sees a video of Yuri skating. This hunk named Victor decides to drop his whole career and move to Karatsu to coach Yuri into the next champion. Thus begins their flirt love story as Yuri attempts to become world champion of ice skating.
A beautiful story, I know. A proto-Heated Rivalry for sure, without a doubt. I watched this anime for the first time at the age of 14 and it really did make me realize that there is a world of gay media out there. Certainly, it was my first visual long form media that sought to make beautiful gay romance and coupling. Safe to say, heading to Karatsu at the age of 24 (ten years later) was a pretty surreal experience.
Coupled with this being my first anime pilgrimage, I had a lovely time. The onsen where most of the first episodes are set (where Yuri’s family runs a quaint seaside onsen and restaurant) was super adorable. The main entrance is the exact same as the show and eating the show’s famous katsudon and sitting in the restaurant filled me with joy.
More of a let down was the onsen bathing experience itself. It was spacious with lots of nice stone and cedar baths but…. All of the onsens were lukewarm! Not hot at all. I can’t complain too much because alas the whole bathing experience was taking place on hot gay anime hallowed ground.
Finally, we wrapped up the adventure buy visiting the castle shown above. It was indeed a concrete recreation of the original building that stood there, but it made for a nice tourist shot. I got to walk the bridge where Yuri actually trained.
Final thoughts: Through this pilgrimage it felt like I got in touch with a younger me. I remembered where I was when I first watched Yuri on Ice. I was starved for gay media, incredibly excited (almost too dependent on this excitement) to watch something that represented my dreams and fantasies of being with other men as beautiful. To be able to get myself to this place of visiting the setting of the anime, irl, with my boyfriend was a testament to the importance of representation. How representation can embolden the viewer to dream and have faith that their desires can be made possible in this world too.
Stay Pink,
Aidia
Happy New Year! Update on Microwave Shrine
January 1st, 2026
Happy new year everyone! Today, I did my first shrine visit for the new year to my local fushimi inari shrine. As you may remember from a previous blog post, this is the closest shrine to my house and it has some really weird things going on.
One is the oldest/biggest Japanese maple tree I have ever seen. Then two, is the random microwave up on the main shrine pedestal. I have never seen a microwave at a shrine and all of my friends have been very confused when I mentioned it. Here is a photo:
Today, I had the courage to open the microwave (actually my bf did it ), and I discovered they store all of the fire related stuff. They store candles and incense in their with lighters. Makes sense. If shit catches fire it wont spread it will just melt the old microwave. Here is the inside!
Hope everyone has a lovely new year ;3
Stay Pink,
Aidia
Year in Review: A Year End Mediation on Jamie Paige
December 24th, 2025
As the year comes to a close, I am thinking about how much has happened. This year has been an upward trajectory in terms of discernible accomplishments: restarting to take anti-depressants (vibes), writing a thesis and graduating from grad school, and moving to Japan/starting my first fully salaried job.
The soundtrack of this year has been Jamie Paige, one of my most listened to artists according to Spotify Wrapped. I wasn’t aware of her until a friend said I should dive head first into her wonderland. As I spent hours hunched at my computer staring at 70s gay erotic manga, Jamie’s album Fellow Friends complimented my world. It became and has become my fellow friend. I also find myself deeply in love with the song Clouddrop as I end this year. So Jamie has been the encompassing theme of this year so let’s dive into her work as it relates to my life.
My thesis research was mostly focussed on investigating what this 70s BL does as readers and viewers live with it by reading through its 17 volumes.
Here is a cover of one of its volumes
I wanted my research practice to be steeped in the source material itself. As I wrote the main body of the thesis, I read a single volume of the manga as I wrote. This manga (Kaze to Ki no Uta: Poem of the Wind and Trees) gripped me and is truly the most beautiful and caringly rendered creative text I have ever encountered. Takemiya Keiko lavishly covered each page in stupefying flourishes of detail to evoke affective wonderlands for readers and the characters alike.
Look at this image….
I am hoping to make an accessible version of this thesis for my webpage so I can share my love for this manga and my thoughts on it to a broader audience. We shall see… I am saying that publicly as an aspiration *pressure intensifies*
I want to return to Jamie Paige. Everytime I listen to her music I get images of this manga and the feeling of reading it takes over and invades my body. This blog post will be a deep dive into my thoughts about her as a way to parse through what this year has meant for me in terms of my interests, changes, and creative outlook.
So, the album cover already whets my appetite for a classic trope introduced to me by Porter Robinson in his album Worlds. There are two figures. One is more filled in, we can see the contours of their body in a chromatic red spectrum on the left. On the right, there is a see-through figure in a sketchy natural green style. The nice use of the complimentary colors green and red amps up the contrast of the image and alludes to the album’s use of multiple singer’s voices.
On the album, there is a voice that is deeper, a bit tomboyish, that is dominant on the first two songs (Dyad and Not Quite There). Then, a more feminine, higher pitched voice (who I later learned is Teto, the digital utau), then comes through for the subsequent four songs (some of my fav on the album “ROT FOR CLOUT, I wish that I could fall, Cadmium Colors******, Breeze Blows).
On songs like Breeze Blows, the Teto voice poses many questions to the listener or maybe the human voice that features a lot on the rest of the album. This evokes Porter Robinson’s use of pronouns to ask similar questions on Worlds songs like “Sad Machine”. The use of a synthetic voice to talk about the singer’s desire to be near a loved one is quite poignant. Check out some of these lyrics:
Do you hear me?
All through the sand and glass
Though you're not quite there
I know this love can last
I'm saying do you know me?
I want you to, next to you
As discussed in a previous blog post,a synthetic utau robot voice claiming it wants to know you and be next to you evokes a world of color. This particular relationship: of a not real entity like Teto or Hatsune Miku claiming to want to know you or desiring you brings up a lot of questions. How can you ever know this digital being? Especially, as this very song attests to, its voice is constantly being used freely by tons of composers. Is there a person, a soul, a being at the core of these statements. Is there an “I” from which to ask and speak towards a “you” like in this song?
This tension is central to the themes explored in this album and I think speaks to a more core symptom of having a relationship with a fantasy character. Relating to a fictional character constantly has this delightful give and take. I often feel so strongly that this fictional being is sending you warmth, love, or desire. This feeling takes you over as they may stare at you directly even. Take for example, Legoshi here.
He stares at you with a serious gaze. At least when I look at this I feel desire, I sense a feeling of affect/emotion coming from him. I am not only processing him, he is also processing me.
I think this is what excites me so much about this kind of music. These fictional beings are spewing so much emotion at you (the listener). They want you to feel, to feel their pain, their love, their desires. And, what is crazy, is you end up feeling it! Through their singing and the many instrumental aspects of the song (for example a Jamie Paige song), you are led to experience their emotions. This music is one of the moments where it feels like I am experiencing a fantastical being’s emotions. In this experience they no longer are fantasy in the same way, they become a real being in this world that acts on others by communicating emotion.
Not surprisingly, this is accomplished through human collaboration. There is a human composer/producer working with these vocaloids to make wondrous songs. There is a human listener to receive and be conduit for these emotions. The listener is the one who activates or presses play on the song.
What is interesting here is affect or emotion. Really the life force binding us all together (the human, vocaloid singer, and human listener) is an experiencing of emotion. Through emotion cascading and being spread from body to body (from the vocaloid’s singing voice (a disembodied body) to our eardrums and tingling brain) the unreal becomes real.
Next song!
Cadmium Colors
What a brilliant song! The lyrics are just so creative! What a great song speaking to the power of creation.
This song uses the metaphor of cadmium colors (a set of colors derived from the toxic material cadmium that tend to last for a very long time and make lucid variants of red, brown, yellow, and orange).
Cadmium colors sound cool and further alludes to how a painter or artist’s choice of one color can alter an entire world’s vibe. The song talks about how we can make so much meaning from a single stroke on a canvas, how from a single color a whole season can be evoked. Despite the need to make money for your family or the impending needs of our lives, we can still find flight and freedom in the creative act. I highly recommend this song if you need something uplifting to get you in the mood to make. It was perfect for writing a thesis and great for right now writing a blog post ;)
Clouddrop (content warning: discussion of suicide)
This song is a masterpiece. I mean lol I am really stoked on Jamie right now but this song comes in at a super long run time for contemporary music at nearly 7 minutes. Woof!
This song dives head first into the experience of suicidal ideating and then finding a desire to live and go on. Particularly interesting in this song to me are the various characters that we listen to. The different voices are GUMI and ANRI’s voice combined, Teto by herself, and at the end Jamie Paige’s vocals. To communicate this narrative of deciding not to commit suicide because there are words to hear, things to do, songs to write, Jaimie really drives the conceptual aspects of different characters to a fever pitch.
The song’s first half is a deep dive into suicidal ideation: questioning why we should exist, how satisfying it would be to die, etc. This rather matter of fact section has a more melancholy, lower pitch range to the vocals to kind of crystallize this more depressed mood. I find these lyrics to be particularly inspiring. Check em out:
Awful thoughts might break me, so I simply stare in awe
All the tensions hit a fever pitch, and then the chord resolves
On the outside of myself, a eulogy and constant pall
My companion staring down the edge and wishing she could fall (And wishing I could fall)
The narrative break of the narrator going outside of herself in the third line occurs and we are now staring at her companion. Key here is we are outside now staring not at her self but rather her companion. So the one talking the whole time/suicidal ideating was her companion. But, notice that echoing after the line “wishing she could fall” “wishing I could fall” is stated. This implies that herself and her companion kind of unite at the cliff’s edge, at the border of suicide.
At this moment of psychic cohesion on the brink of suicide between the album’s title of two different “constant companions,” a line interrupts these thoughts with an invocation “Dream together, we can—” This hopeful statement is simple and lovely, claiming that as companions, as fellow friends, we can create, we can achieve and make something.
In a joyful, ecstatic voice, right after this “Dream together we can–” lyric, we get the common refrain that plays throughout the album over and over.
Baby, do you know what you wanna hear?
'Cause you can say the word, make it all so clear
Or you can sit around, watch it disappear
So darling, do you know what you wanna say?
It only takes an instant to slip away
But if you grab ahold, let the message play
These lyrics excellently frame the quagmire of suicide–you can choose to make, create, dream worlds into being, or you can choose to sit around and let it disappear. We will all die one day, why not make art with the words that slip away moment by moment. Grab hold and let the many messages we have play out into the world so we can become friends, companions.
This is indeed a cheery message that is a bit juvenile in its hope. Depression can feel all encompassing and is rarely so trivial as just a decision to make and do. But, I still love this juvenile clinging to hope or the power of wishing.
I hope you have enjoyed me going through my thoughts on my fav tracks. In general, this album makes me happy and has made my year. I struggled at times with pretty bad mental health and some road blocks, but I was able to keep doing and making and greeting new people and therefore having more and more experiences that have been really meaningful. This album largely corroborates the free creative act that is choosing to live. I like that this album emphasizes how we really don’t live alone. We have many constant companions in the form of the owl outside your home cooing at you after work. In the form of friends. In the form of digital fantasy entities, and most importantly in the many forms of ourselves that make up us.
Stay Pink,
Aidia
Revisiting Our Lord: Mr. Pointy
December 19th, 2025
It is sad to dwell on the long absence of Mr Pointy in my life.The last time I saw him was in the 2022 at the Art Institute of Chicago… I think about his bulbous, floaty form often within my dreams, my daily fantasies, and he sometimes just rises before my eyes as I doze off.
I have written about Mr Pointy on other parts of this site Here is a photo I took of his beauty in person.
The reason I bring him up here today is I just learned the word “tulpa”. I only knew it in the genshin impact context for the little plant enemies but it actually comes from Tibetan and the idea originates from European mystical explorers coming across old Mahayana Buddhist practices. As you can imagine the word took on a life of its own and now means (according to wikipedia) a materialized thought-form typically in human shape, that is created through spiritual practice and intense concentration.
This got me thinking about Mr. Pointy because Murakami freely combined visual references from Mayan religions, the thousand armed Kannon in Japanese Buddhism, and Tibetan Buddhism. The way Mr Pointy emerges out of the glittery dark background reminds me of the process of intensely imagining something. He appears as a sort of apparition (which is the original Tibetan meaning of the word) and in my life he can sometimes appear when my mind wanders. Has he become a tulpa in my life yet, I do not know.
Relating to Neocities and the strong plural communities we have here, I learned that “tulpamancy” is a common practice among those who identify as plural. They may visualize their various identified consciousnesses within a mind space, and through this intense concentration, come closer to these beings or fully inhabit them at different points.
So now my current hypothesis on Mr Pointy is that he is a tulpa or aspect of Takashi Murakami’s plural identity. This would make sense as Takashi Murakami (as a brand rather than a real human being) has made so many different wonderful characters that live in the form of over-priced, overly commodified artworks. Being a part of this community of Takashi Murakami art fans often involves visiting these different artworks and thinking of them often. The experience of taking a pilgrimage to an art museum to be in the midst of one of these wondrous beings is a quasi-religious experience that enriches the creative side of my soul. I feel an element of my wondrous fantasies externalized in the 3D public world.
Stay Pink,
Aidia
Lording Genitals Over the World (A Comparative Analysis of Orion and Me)
December 15th, 2025
I was walking home from the station at 11PM last night. My city is quite rural and you can see the stars clearly. I looked up in the night sky and, as I often do, I looked to spot Orion.
I can always spot Orion by his belt. His belt is a series of three stars that tell me where his midsection is. We all know what is beneath that glittery belt, the darkness may obscure, but boy does that nebulous void leave a lot to be imagined if you know what I mean.
Last night as I was walking home, I could see, not only his belt, but his entire body in full detail. Every star of his constellation is visible. It made me wonder about his experience up there: “What is it like to constantly have your full body displayed to the world below?” “Does he get some sort of narcissistic masculine pleasure from lording his whole body constantly over everyone beneath?"
Maybe I am just projecting my own self-conscious narcissistic thoughts on to his experience, but after all he is incesssantly standing over the world beneath. I then began to dwell on the experience I have of going to a 19th floor public bath in the nearby big city.
I often go to this 19th floor onsen on the weekends with a friend. The price is 2000 yen (about 15 US dollars). It has two outdoor baths that overlook the entire city. One is carbonated and the other is a bit hotter (no bubbles). There are also two saunas: one dry and one steam. From the dry one there is also a window view of the city. Near the upstairs outdoor baths there is also a balcony that looks down on one of the main intersections. This intersection is next to the busy station of the city.
Several times, back when I had more recently moved to the city, I would look up (sensing a gaze from above) and see men’s naked silhouette standing on the 19th floor onsen balcony. I would look up at them, only able to make out their bare skin and general nude figure. I could not see any of the specifics of their nude form (like their penis or nipples for instance). So after that, I yearned to become one of those men. One of those men at the onsen that stands out on the balcony and looks down on the world. These men lord their naked, amorphous forms over the city. And as a cis-man who obsessively gets penis envy and jealous of other powerful men, I new I had to go join their ranks by going to this 19th floor onsen
I have, since these initial immature desires a couple months ago, been able to achieve my dream of becoming a constellation, of becoming Orion up on the 19th floor of the onsen. I now stood nude and looked down on the people walking in the busy intersection below. It’s interesting because you realize that these people below mostly don’t care about you. They don’t really look up and even when they do they can’t see much. You can barely make out where they are looking or what they are wearing from 200 feet above.
So maybe this is what Orion feels. He is mostly ignored, too far away to be understood. However, in the distance between the viewer and him, there is the ability to imagine the specifics of his unknown body, to project the fantasies of a measly egotistical mortal being from below.
Stay Pink,
Aidia
Clarifying and sharing
December 11th, 2025
I feel a bit of need to clarify my use of the word “erotic” in the last blog post. I was sitting in the car and sort of thinking about if it is an accurate description, and I think I like it. But, it does come with some very overt sexual overtones. Let’s look at how I used it.
“ when you are discovering this new realm of possibility (in the never-before-heard vocaloid performance), not only is your understanding of vocal ability changed, all of the other ideas that are related also become charged with the possibility of change, of reconception. I think this is the crux of creative eroticism. There are all new sorts of possibilities possible, not only conceptually but also bodily, in your world now that you have engaged with this art or media. You are opened up and have this feeling of excitement within you to pounce. You are brim-full of erotic possibility....
For me, when starting to date someone or start a new sexual relationship there is this intense building of intensity. It’s a combination of trepidation and excitement. I think as you bring in a new person into your life and you guys start to connect in new kinds of ways through sexual interaction but also just going on dates and the like, you get shaken up. You change. I think that is the sort of erotic creative energy I feel when words take on different meanings (as described in the quote above). I get that kind of excitement. All of these new possibilities occur in my world and how I have previously understood things. Lets go explore. Maybe this is also the crux of the erotic. To feel really good you need to first feel comfortable to be vulnerable. I think this is the same for creative exploration. You need to feel like you have a safe space of viewers who you understand enough to make your first steps into this new realm of meaning. Maybe that’s the creative eroticism I am talking about.
Well, thanks for indulging that. In other news, my friend Funmi wrote a beautiful poem about our friend group’s various moments shared. Here is an excerpt I found particularly beautiful and remarkable:
You wish you had met the photographer that night when you all gathered like dust to the seashore in a moldy apartment in London
He would be the one who keeps you grounded in memories
That you often cage in the silver linings of your mind-cloud
But he will be the fastest wind to breeze past
Like a cat that dies but lives on in earth tones.
Earth. Grass. Wind. Weed.
Here is an image of a cat plushy randomly sitting in a tree outside of the station before a day trip-drinking tour I did for the local tax office this past weekend:
We were joking on the bus about how this is proof that god exists: the fact that this random plushy was staring at us from this random tree where our bus randomly decided to park. I wonder about all the things he has seen. Maybe he is like that cat that dies and becomes Earth, maybe this is a random station attendant who loved looking at all the people. Instead of turning into earth, grass, and wind or weeds, he turned into a little plushy in a tree.
Stay Pink
Aidia
Thoughts on my website
December 4th, 2025
Here are some thoughts I wrote down thinking about what I am trying to achieve by having this specific website aesthetic and maybe future plans for it.
What I am drawn to is how in the presence of the digital it often feels at the expense of ecosystems. For example, the housing of data centers or ai processing using fuck tons of water and electricity that can devastate local water resources and human communities. Neocities as a movement tends to offset some of this as we generally advocate for not using big tech cloud usage and having things stored locally. There is also a big push for decentralizing the internet. So there are some overlaps there. But, I think I am drawn to user's (the main user of my website being myself) experiencing a sort of spiritual awe akin to being in a forest by being on a digital platform. I think of this awe in a kind of Thoreau sense where in the small details there are whole worlds growing. That seems to be the case all the time in the forest but also on a website.
You dig underneath the rock of an element and there is a world of code that uniquely interacts with the other code (or rocks) of the website. Then this is maximised by the literal overwhelming awe that can be experienced in the digital world as there are so many moving parts (just like a forest when there is a bit of wind). This also all ties back in to my current research on how anthropomorphic art encourages viewers to dispel human/nature hierarchies. Can certain media and fan activities that are chronically online somehow lead to viewers more empathetically living with their more-than-human surroundings and own bodies? I think this is what I am trying to get at with my website....
I also think this space of dispelling or questioning human/nature binaries is highly creative as lots of meaning is unsettled. Like, before hearing a vocaloid voice break the register you assumed were possible in human song (or looking at the gaze of an anthropomorphic character), you have preconceptions. But then when you are discovering this new realm of possibility (in the never-before-heard vocaloid performance), not only is your understanding of vocal ability changed, all of the other ideas that are related also become charged with the possibility of change, of reconception. I think this is the crux of creative eroticism. There are all new sorts of possibilities possible, not only conceptually but also bodily, in your world now that you have engaged with this art or media. You are opened up and have this feeling of excitement within you to pounce. You are brim-full of erotic possibility....
To conclude, I think this is what I seek in bringing together concepts that feel far apart (like nature and the digital). Because, if you do, if you successfully get someone to feel a new sort of way because they discover a previously unseen relationship between two disparate things, then you can give them this sort of creative energy to then reconceptualize their world.
Stay Pink,
Aidia
Accomplishment!
December 4th, 2025
Ahhh, to break up the monotony of the work week, I have the fortunate opportunity to come to Oita city on a Thursday night. Tomorrow is an English camp in the nearby big city of Beppu. In order to get their a bit faster and not have to make the hour and a half drive in the morning I am crashing at a friend's place tonight. We decided, after eating a fat omerice, to crush some mai mai circle (supposedly you burn 200 calories an hour according to a basic google search). After crushing mai mai for about thirty minutes... the unbelievable happened
I achieved my first full clear. I must say I was ecstatic. The screen lit up this radiant gold. Their was a new dopamine triggering animation and I unlocked the master level of the song. Not only was this a full clear but is on one of the most recent teto masterpieces by Sasuke Haraguchi. This song is titled Medicine or 医学. goated as hell. Like he really mixes the inhuman, over the top, glitchy qualities of vocaloid production to make absolute groovy bops. So you can imagine my little butt dancing as I full cleared this song, can't you?
Hope you are all having a lovely week. It has recently gotten cold here so I hope you are all cozy ;3
Stay Pink,
Aidia
Local oddities
December 1st, 2025
So yesterday I finally climbed my local shrine’s mega-long staircase. Boy, was it worth it. This place has the biggest Japanese maple tree I have ever seen in my life! The boy is so thick. It’s also quite cool. The tree makes this brilliant, lofty canopy of mult-colored fall maple leaves.
Here is a photo
Also, for some reason right next to it is this super rinky dink cute little shrine….. Which has an old microwave oven. Now, why is their a microwave over up on topo of this 300 elevation shrine with no electricity anywhere in sight? I dont know but I sure do love the mystery of someone hauling up a microwave a couple hundred stairs to enrich the local shrine.
Here is a photo of that
I have done some sleuthing around the internet and discovered that the microwave was not there four years ago… So someone within the last four years put it there… What does it mean? Maybe that will be the singular god I decide to worship when I do my little walks around the town.
The shrine is for fushimi inari (hence the little fox statues you see in the photo above). However, the shrine’s name is one thing. This reference’s how at this particular shrine they encourage you to only wish for one thing (rather than numerous). Quite a cute story.
Stay pink,
Aidia
Cold from the Warmth
November 27th, 2025
Okay, so today’s weather was splendid. It is the peak of the fall foliage. A slightly turgid wind is coming through the town. Little bouts of radiant leaves falling greeted me throughout the day. I went to the onsen after work and went to the outside bath.
Queue the sensual descriptions of wind
Boy, did this dry cold breeze, while sitting in the outdoor hot bath, feel like large slabs of ice chips gently cascading against my body. But, my body was a warm obsidian rock that gently melted the ice. Something about feeling this gentle cold from inside a warm bath outside felt so good. The dry, night, fall air really felt good entering my body and caressing it from the inside out. The juxtaposition of my moist, hot, old-prune skin-soaked body meeting and taking in the cold, dry (like a fallen fall leaf) atmosphere, mmmmmmm.
Stay pink,
Aidia
Brief reflection on vocaloid aesthetics
November 26th, 2025
In the case of vocaloid music. My friend pointed out that in typical singing when a human vocalist hits a super high note, often the aesthetic associations are transcendental. It gives us this sense of power and soaring to new height.
However, vocaloids being not real human voices means they can inhumanely accomplish crazy things with their voice. Often this can be done intentionally by the producer. Here, the stressing of the vocaloid's voice beyond human limits is no longer transcendent but reference to its synthetic difference (between the human listener and the machine singer). I think there are different moments where producers take this aesthetic difference to be more about the vocaloid not being human or "real."
In regards to this, I would highly recommend Po-uta's Humansongs. This song dwells on Po-uta's (Porter Robinson's vocaloid) experience being a machine made by a human. This machine's best friend or creator is a human (Porter Robinson) and the vocaloid wants to get closer to the experience of being human to better understand its creator (maybe even continue on the creator's desires after the creator dies) and in general what the vocaloid is trying to mimic. There are lyrics where the vocaloid is trying to learn how to cry, or merely just speak to articulate feelings of love and emotion for its creator (and listener?). However, the vocaloid doesn't only just love or want to better understand the human. The vocaloid also recognizes how it will persist long after the human who created it. It can sing forever carrying on the message of its originator, or can it? This central relationship of human and human-like machines and its related tragic, sad, poignant quality is aesthetically drummed up to really make this specific song. Highly recommend it.
Here is a link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqTq1P6y70Q
Many other vocaloid producers take this unique opportunity of the vocaloid being able to achieve crazy vocal feats to make their music reach previously unheard domains. This spawns the crazy hyper subgenres of vocaloid that are super maximalist and crazy--often quite over stimulating. Yet, there is this new composer who is all the rage right now in the vocaloid world named Sasuke Haraguchi. His music often uses this one vocaloid named Teto (who I am seeing in April, can't wait). I am super into his song Medicine right now. He uses the distinct aesthetics and fried quality of vocaloid to make some utter danceable bops that seem less concerned with the emotional quandary of difference interacting (human-machine stuff that Porter is into) and more into the new aesthetic, beautiful possibilities. Check that song out here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F38EuG2dAyM&list=RDF38EuG2dAyM&start_radio=1&pp=ygUNbWVkaWNpbmUgdGV0b6AHAQ%3D%3D
I also have the wonderful opportunity to watch the utau vocaloid singer Teto live in Tokyo. I discovered Teto about a year ago listening to the wonderful Jamie Paige. I am completely in awe of their use of Teto’s English voice bank. Further looking into Teto upon becoming very good friends with a Teto fan upon moving to Japan, I discovered how she operates differently than the vocaloid owned Hatsune Miku. Basically, Vocaloid is a third party software that costs hundreds of dollars to legally use whereas Teto belongs to the UTAU software that is free to use for all.
If you have seen my commentaries on Takashi Murakami scattered throughout this website, I tend to be anti commodity culture. Staking up the value of something through placing one’s name on it and severely controlling its copyright. Here, vocaloid is more of the Takashi Murakami and Teto and UTAU are open-access free for all to use in their music and songs. Interestingly, Teto’s likeness can be freely used in any non-commercial setting with no limits.
I think it would be cool to install this shareware and set up some audio elements to this website…
With digital love, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxzBvqY5PP0
Stay pink,
Aidia
First Chikuraku!
November 23rd, 2025
What a beautiful festival. I continually fall deeper in love with this city I call my new home: Taketa! It's a lovely place with this lovely festival called Chikuraku. It is quite simple. They put a shit ton of candles in cut bamboo on the all of the pretty spots in the city. We have a lovely hilly old city with lots of cute shrines. Here are some photos:
In one they spelled out the kanji for the festival 竹楽: meaning "easily enjoying the bamboo" or more literally "bamboo relaxation". The festival organizers definetely achieve this as there is a long walking trail of the lights with many different spots, lots of yummy food stalls, and other stores. Something that has really been making me think as I have gone to this event three nights in a row is inevitably seeing many couples in love, holding hands, smitten with each other in front of the lights. Now.... I am in a long distance relationship here and he is coming soon so maybe that's why I am feeling particularly sensitive to seeing some PDA. Like, love is just quite beautiful and sooooooo vulnerable and painful. It makes us feel so intensely and desperately. Don't you think there is an inevitable pain to love that makes it so beautiful and poignant? One day it will end, in break up, in death. The ending will almost certainly come and one will be left alone. Clinging to each other for warmth is a great thing in front of these lanterns... Do we have enough space in our hearts for all of this?
Thank you for humoring my adolescent ponderings.
Stay pink,
Aidia
Another day
November 21st, 2025
So there is this teacher at the school I work at. What a wonderful character. He has a perfect bowl cut, constantly walks around with his butt clenched and is always muttering to himself. His desk smells like old canned coffee and he has tons of postcards from Attack on Titan and other slightly edgy manga on his desk. He is always just barely in time for the morning staff meeting and I see him sprinting through the cold morning air with his clenched buttocks towards the school's entrance. All of the students hate him. He rules his English classes with an iron fist, constantly demanding silence, focus, and continued study.
Needless to say, me being the nosy, bored, desk worker who works in the same office as him, I have my theories about why he is the way he is. My first theory is that he is gay. Lol, I have noticed a trend in my life where I tend to think every man in my life is gay. My dearest friend pointed this out to me, but in this case it kind of adds up. Actually, it doesn’t. He just gives off that vibe to me (I say this as a gay man).
Maybe he has been closeted his whole life and takes out all of the stress–of holding this secret inside, out on his students and it also manifests in his frequent frenzied state. His English is also the lowest of any of the teachers and he often asks me to help him check his tests for the correct answers and even he can’t do them super well. So this is another reason he may be high strung. He seems to be teaching a subject that doesn’t bring him joy and, in fact, potentially exacerbates his complex of compensating. He always has to hide his gayness, always has to hide and cover up his difficulty speaking English…
He is such an interesting person in my life and he paints such a strong image in my everyday work life I had to share my naive thoughts.
Stay pink,
Aidia
A discovery
November 19th, 2025
As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you my god
I recently discovered this bible verse on an overpriced shirt at an American vintage store at a local mall. I am sad to announce I did not buy it because it was 4000 yen and also was a women’s small. But, I do have a photo to attest to our chance meeting
Let me introduce why I like this bible verse. It is a beautiful image. The thirsty deer, in the cold winter, where there has been little rainfall, pants–emitting bits of steam from its mouth– as it searches for some fresh water. It is interesting here that the worshipper of Christ is personified as a deer and god is the refreshing water source.
I personally love it for the physicality of the description. The idea of an animal, specifically a deer panting in thirst for a higher being is so desirous. So desirous in such a physical way. Am I crazy for reading into the sexual undertones; this base desire to be sated, to have one’s thirst quenched by the divine liquid of god?! His stream?!
Yeah, I mean I read nearly everything as rather sexual so excuse me, but it is safe to say I am the deer panting out of thirst for divine union.Typically, in my imagination this is ecstatic experiences I have ogling at attractive anime men to some sort of rhythm game music. This description checks the boxes of it being a divine ecstatic union I often associate with the language of “being saved” in the Christian context I grew up.
However, if I think about this image a bit more, specifically the deer panting for water, it is a bit more mundane. Often, the stream where I find my little water break has recently been music, a nice walk (the fall colors are gorgeous right now), or finishing a book.
Hope you are all doing well out there <3
Stay pink,
Aidia
Fall energies
November 13th, 2025
I have fully settled into my job here in Taketa City Japan. I sit at a high school everyday. I go to the same place and do a very similar routine each day. In this sameness and ritual there is so much room to observe all of the changes that occur in the world outside. I arrived here in summer and seeing the chilly descent into autumn has been quite powerful and definetely matches my mood as of late. As I have gotten more chill, as I have passed the honey moon stage of living in Japan again, it is lovely to see the world get chilly, grey, and a bit dead. But, in this death, the occasionally radiant, deathly bright scattered colors of trees saving water for the coming winter feel like my kindred companions. I am sory of picking and choosing where to put my energies. How to fit in the circumstances of my job, finances, and, therefore, the amount of freetime I have and ability to travel/see the world.
I hope to be a bit more active on neocities soon, especially in sharing some of my academic work to a decidedly less academic audience.
Stay pink,
Aidia
A little thought and slice of life
February 11th, 2025
So… I recently beat my own highscore of Silver Beat on my local Pump it up! Machine. A big deal and I know you are all screaming in delight upon reading this news. You can see my accomplishment above…
I don’t think there is anything better delight than loud music, flashing lights, and movement. This trifecta comes together in dance rhythm games but also when we go to concerts and anime convention raves (peep my Louis cosplay from this past weekend). I never can seem to get over my quest for sublime integration with media. There is a selfless love that brings people together to play Pump It Up, to go to the anime convention, and to come together in the local gay club. When we gather together and thrash our sweaty bodies around, stumble awkwardly through half-chewn phrases, and desperately make eye-contact to know we aren’t alone, we are greeted with these same actions surrounding us–born of love for anime, a good time, and a hunt for meaning.
Warmest pink tones,
Aidia
Community Fan-Art Exhibition Call for Submissions!
July 6th, 2024
So, dear Neo-Netizens I am calling in a favor: me and a friend are putting on a fanart exhibition at our local public library and need your help to make it happen!
Our goal with this exhibition is to celebrate the vibrant creations of fanartists in our community and online. This genere of works are often not shown or exhibited in public spaces due to fanart often not being considered as "serious" or "fine art" by art institutions. Fortunately, the library is a space that contains collections of graphic novels, manga, and comics and a space of community gathering where we have the opportunity to showcase amazing creations inspired by these genres of books. The library does not discriminate and encourages free engagement with information, knowledge, and creation. If you would like to have your fanart displayed for a wider audience, please consider submitting to our show. The deadline for submission is July 26th.
Above is the Call for Submissions (danmei themed). As part of the Fan-Art exhibition we wanted to include a section of fanworks from online communities to discuss how almost any fan will have both a physical presence in local/in-person communities and online. To accomplish this we humbly asking for submissions from a myriad of digital communites including Neocities :)
If you are a creator of any kind of artwork inspired by manga (or subsequent anime adaptations), comics, or graphic novels, please consider submitting any of your work. Specifically, digital drawings, fanfiction, cosplay photography, or any medium are accepted for submission. Your works will be displayed in our public library with other fanartists from Tuscaloosa Alabama in the U.S.
In many ways Neocities vibrant communities of fan-artists directly inspired our idea to celebrate local fanart in the library. If you have any questions or concerns please feel free to email me at acmilesjamison@crimson.ua.edu
Gangbang~ Pump it up!
July 1st, 2024
If you know me irl then you know I have a chronic, desperate inclination to travel to the arcade. Swiping my arcade card, I am greeted by Pump It Up's exclamation:" G A N G B A N G. "
No matter the hundreds of times I have heard this phrase eminate from the machine, I have yet to piece together what it actually says (because there is no way a random rhythm game loudly exclaims GANGBANG every time a player steps up to the pads). Yet, this phrase "gangbang" does describe in many ways the subjective experience of interracting with PIU's machine. Bright lights strobe, EDM drum and bass immediately blast from the speakers less than three feet from your head. As you tap in to start the round a scantily clad anime girl in the most reediest of voice drones ~HeLlO EvErYOone!!!~
But the most gangbangerly (pardon me) experience that achieves ultimate ecstasy for me (that keeps me coming back over and over again) is the machine's combination of music, visuals, and machine. The history of rhythm game music is vast and PIU's (short for Pump it Up) song selection does not dissapoint: with PIU having been out for 25 years, many incredible bangers and accompanying animated music videos have been licensed for the game. Principally, the one I am most obsessed with, because of its Boys Love content, is: Tatsh's Silver Beat.
See the image below to view evidence of me holding the current highscore for single 16 on my local machine.
This song's music video is basically a running check list of BL visual requirements stripped of narrative information, but supremely heightened by the experience of slamming your little toes down onto flashing arrows as Pefects! build up, meaning you are closer and closer to total synthetic convergence of machine, BL fantasy, music, and stardom (as a 9 year old's mom watches with trepidation as a sweat-soaked 20 year-old on Sunday at 1PM flails around at a public bowling alley). Here is a link to a video a friend made of me dancing so you get the picture. Here are some stills from Silver Beat's music video that will clue you in to its intense evocation of BL beautiful boy aesthetics.
Just wanted to share lil bit about this hobby of mine and my love of this song on the machine. Happy to have started a blog and hope to share more regularly around these parts. Also, if you'd like to play this song it is in the little jukebox at the bottom left under "Tatsh- Silver Beat". Maybe my next blog post will be a complete break down of every still in Silver Beat's amv... or more on subjective/affective experience of piu...