#I just appreciate you being here :]

[turtleblogatlast]

Something I’ve been thinking about lately is that small moment in “Air Turtle” where immediately after the Daves lose yet another game, Leo says how sorry he is and how he’s doing his best as the mascot. This moment is so short but it’s honestly jam-packed with a whole heap of characterization.

His need to apologize for things clearly not his fault - especially when it feels like he messes up the job he was given despite doing the best he can (the phrase “it’s not about you” takes a new meaning when this is one of the lessons to be learned from that - that he is not always solely responsible for things going wrong), his need to save face and make a connection with an older adult man in his life (something he consistently does throughout the series - he’s got a few daddy issues, always collecting potential father figures, it’s no wonder he jumps at the bit to keep rapport), and the way he sounds and looks and the words he chooses really pushes how he is just a kid (“Mr. the Dunk, I’m so sorry”).

Like I know it’s a one off moment that doesn’t truly mean much, but when put against the rest of the series it works really well with the rest of Leo’s established character and helps in solidifying later concepts as well.

[jhonny]

"stop talking like that boy you're ruining my tboy swag" - yami bakura, probably

or, when both bakuras are trans but only one of them has perfected the trans voice.

+ bonus thief king (as a treat)

[hyunpic]

2023 year in review with hyunjin [it’s a wrap] 🎉

[snackugaki]

one orrrr

two?

[wlw-cryptid]

[piratadelamor]

skip and loafer ch. 53

shima seems to see romantic love as a combination of different attraction factors, where liking someone as a person (for their personality) can be compensated for other things, therefore your standarts are lower when you're romantically attracted to someone. the way he sees it, the highest form of steem you can have for someone is to like them as a person, where these other factors don't matter and what you truly value is solely their personality.

i think it's interesting how mukai introduces this conversation by building a hierarchy of feelings, where romantic love stands on top of the feelings of friendship and of liking someone as a person, because that's one concept i've been personally focusing on deconstructing in my life. it's precisely by differenciating these types of feelings and putting them on a hierarchy that so many people end up in romantic relationships with people they don't really like, or why so many people drift away from their friendships when they start dating someone.

through everyone else's eyes, shima's feelings are romantic, and he doesn't feel like they are, because romance to him means something else. the lines between liking someone as a person, as a friend and as a lover are blurred. and listen, that's how they're supposed be. to love someone as a lover is supposed to mean you love them as a friend and as a person as well. a friend and a lover shouldn't be too different, and liking them as a person is supposed to be the core of both feelings.

i don't think shima is being innocent, like i've seen so many people saying on twt since the chapter came out. i think he's touching something very deep about relationships in our society that so many stories that focus on romance fail to address. in most of these stories, romance is the final goal. that's where most of them end. that's not the case here. i was already surprised when mitsumi and shima started dating, and even more surprised when they went back to being friends. that's not the usual narrative for this kind of story. because here, it doesn't seem like this hierarchy matters. and i think it's beautiful and i think it's HUGE how both shima and mitsumi value their friendship above everything else. not only them, because friendship is one of the main themes of this story. both as a dynamic and as a type of love as well.

but people have different perspectives on love and how love feels for them. it's different for mitsumi, for shima, for mika, for fumi. the way you're taught about love in your family or as a child in general has a big role on shaping that. we saw the matter of mitsumi having received lots of love in her family and childhood friends being brought up before as an explanation for her confidence. then, on the other hand, that's why we see shima acklowledging this on the next panels:

we know a few things about shima's family and their complicated relationships. shima never realized his little brother liked him because he saw his behavior as coldness or indifference, when he was actually being considerate of the distance shima was putting between them himself. he felt the need to please his mother by acting in order for her to love him, or for him to be worthy of her love, because their relationship was too anchored on exploitation. his father was having an affair, which not only made shima watch the failure of his parents marriage but also perceive romantic love as something superficial (as in "people break up and move on to the next person") and possibily as something that pushes people away. then shima's first girlfriend only liked him because of his looks, and so many others confessed to him without barely even knowing him. how could shima trust his own feelings after all of that? if he spent most of his formative years in an environment of appearences where love was tied to selfishness, interest, volatility, coldness, pain? shima learned to supress all his feelings and be a people pleaser as a survival mechanism. don't get too attached, live up to others expectations, keep your distance, smile and wave, bottle it all up. he is a kid that doesn't know a single thing about love and is scared as hell of it. love feels as if something is about to break.

that's why liking someone as a person feels more important to him. and that's not only the highest feeling he can have for someone else, i think this is the highest form of feeling he thinks someone could have for him too. it's the kind of feeling he thinks his own mother couldn't have, because acting was more important to her than who he actually was. it's the feeling he unconciously doesn't allow others to feel for him, because he never shows people who he truly is. so shima understands mitsumi's words as a love confession back in chapter 41. she didn't say "i love you", she said "that's what i love about you". and he asks her out, not only because he already knows mitsumi is different, so it seems more reasonable to give it a try, but also because he thinks this is how it's supposed to go. this is what he thinks it's expected to give her in return.

when society puts romance on the top of the relationships/feelings hierarchy, it builds an insane amount of expectations around it. i think it's crazy how friendships feel so free while romantic relationships feel so enclosured. they have too many rules. you're supposed to do this, and that, and behave in certain ways. if you start dating a friend then suddenly your friendship dynamic changes. a boyfriend or a girlfriend have responsibilities that friends don't have. it's a weight. i can't imagine a person like shima feeling any other way about a romantic relationship. for him, this is a big, big weight. that's why he puts an emphasis when he says "i thought that i could be a 'boyfriend' too". a boyfriend is a social role. when he phrases it like that, he's using the word "boyfriend" as an outside concept: he doesn't know what it means to him, he only knows what it means for everyone else. and that's not something he can do.

mukai is absolutely right when he tells shima he shouldn't be going out with anyone. shima isn't ready to be that close to anyone, not even his closest friends. i can't even describe how sad i felt when mukai said this to him:

shima is just so, so lonely...

but this doesn't mean that shima's supposed to become ready to be a "boyfriend" on those terms. i just think he's still trying to figure out what all of these things mean to him. and the good thing is that mitsumi is also trying to figure out these things too. the difference between them is that mitsumi is a few steps ahead, because she already understands what friendship love feels like. and when it comes to that, she gave us one of the most special love confessions i've ever seen.

so many people talked about this scene already, but now, in the light of chapter 53, her saying "i really like this person" has a whole new meaning. this is the most honest love shima has ever received from anyone. no romantic confession could top that. no romantic feeling could heal his wounds the way these words from mitsumi can. this is a treasure shima can't afford to lose.

we're taught that romantic love will save us. that it will make us the happiest, that it completes us. we grow up believing that we can't survive without it. what we really can't survive without are our friends... skip and loafer is putting friendship above everything else, but more than that, it is questioning how romantic love is supposed to feel. some people feel it, some people don't. i think most of us don't really know what it is. we think we do because we read enough, we saw enough movies, we listened to enough love songs. i think i felt it a few number of times in my life but everytime i felt it for someone new i asked myself, was it really love before? what is it, really? if i never read those books or saw thoses movies or listened to those songs. would i recognize it? would i know it better? would it even exist?

aren't shima's feelings for mitsumi already valuable enough? big enough, true enough? would they change if he called them romantic? mitsumi has SO much to teach him about love, about himself, about others. their encounter is so beautiful and so rich. we see how much he's changing, how many new things he's finally starting to understand about himself, how many important steps he's taken since they met. is finding romance at the end really the most important thing for their story?

[basketobread]

it's right behind me, isn't it? 😂 (tomorrow is my birthday and idk how to feel about it)

[lokisgoodgirl]

I was cleaning out some 🤖 bots and noticed that inexplicably there are over 5k fellow Loki-goners following my stupid little blog😭♥️

and we know that # followers doesn't mean much in the grand scheme of things - people come and go and whatnot - but I can't lie seeing that has made me unexpectedly warm inside. If you see this, thanks for being a pal and a fictional sister-wife, even if just for a little while, and making my little tumblr home so special ♥️ Positivity & Support & Violent Cuddles for everyone.

LGG x

* diet coke please, but caffeine free it's after 6pm.

[magnusbae]

On the rare occasions when Hob is actually mad at Dream— he refuses to sleep. Coffee, energy drinks and the God forsaken awakeness pills? All fair game. If he has to inject caffeine directly into his vein, he would. Hob doesn't often get mad, but when he does, he likes to make a point. Dream and Hob match in more than one ways, really, they do. And so it is that the Dream Lord must come out of his realm personally to sprinkle sand into his lover's eyes because he'd be damned if Hob refuses his gift for more than two nights in a row. Not speaking for 100 years? Easy. Hob refusing sleep? Unacceptable.

[chloecherrysip]

We're going to save your brother.

[xitsensunmoon]

Hi, just a curious question but when will you write/draw about how doctor y/n first met sun and moon? because in the FAQ, you said that you will show or answer the question we might ask but it has been a year and i haven't seen any spoilers or more details about the au?

I'm saying this not only to you but to everyone out there who is asking similar questions. Stop treating creators like content generators. You're not entitled to the content you're shared with for free.

Firstly - you're not being curious, you're being rude.

Secondly - if you're not monetising the creations you like, you have no word on deciding how soon they will come out. I'm the host, you're a guest, I'm not a seller, nor you're a customer, nor a consumer.

And finally - the more you ask the less motivation I will have. The best thing you can do is engage and support. This will result in the opposite outcome.

It will come out when it will come out. I am a living person with who knows what type of everyday struggles and you're in no place to say "it has been a year".

The fact that you've read the FAQ that said "no need to ask this question" and still you decided it was ok to do so just shows how entitled you think you are to my creations.

[purplink8]

Can I be real for a second? I don't think L giving a foot massage to Light was very in-character of him. Like manga!L would've totally scoffed at how pathetic anime!L appeared when he did that.

I like the rain scene bc it's really pretty (also Light MOANS bc of L? *sighs* yeah i ship lawlight) but I'm always so ?? at anime!L's behavior? The anime made L way too melancholic and y'know self-deprecating kinda guy. In contrast, manga!L (whom I love to death) is so so confident in doing what he's doing and has the time of his life during the Kira case as he's intellectually challenged (by Light) as he figures out the case little by little.

I don't get where the anime creators got the idea that L is a very sad character who cares about justice so much so that he's actually Justice itself? Manga!L enjoys solving cases. I'm not saying that L doesn't care about justice at all- just that he cares more about winning.

So, the anime creators looked at a character who cares about winning (& his own ego) than everything else and decided to... make him give a foot massage to his nemesis (surprise surprise bible symbolism featuring L as Jesus *🤮* coming up) apparently due to accepting Light's (boy's first debut as Judas) 'betrayal' how can there be betrayal when there was no trust between them in the first place and saying "It is the least I can do to atone for my sins"...

The only way I could've made a little sense of this is if L was mocking Kira with that line but the anime just had to go above & beyond to make it (L's actions) seem too genuine for that to be true. which is. so. FRUSTRATING

Manga!L wouldn't have done anything like that. Not even ironically (he'd have thought it to be below him for pretending to be accepting his defeat mockingly to Kira). Even Manga!L's not enough of a bastard to try to compare himself with Jesus (and just after knowing (god knows how) that he's going to die)- like that's too stupid omg: even for a mockery.

Does he actually think that Light would pick up on the (him as Jesus) symbolism and be like 'oh no! L is too noble like Jesus to die by my betrayal i'm such a bad judas how come i NEVER NOTICED THIS BEFORE'... and decide to spare L's life? Or embrace his inner Judas like the bad bitch he is and finish L for that godawful mockery of Jesus?

Whenever I think about Anime!Light's in-character reaction I crack up as it would be smth like 'wow this guy who graduated summa cum laude from torture university is pretending to be Jesus? lol what a real piece of work. would've expected better from you L: so pathetic lmao i hope rem kills you soon i'm so done with you rn- rip 💀'

Manga!L (if he knew he were going to die (don't know how that's possible in the anime; still we're talking about how the anime creators seem to see L as Jesus so ~anything is possible~) that is) would never go 'guess i'll die' accept his defeat offering a foot massage to his enemy and inwardly throw a pity party being all "… It'll be lonely, won't it?" GIRL you were the one going on & about how you'd EXECUTE Kira once you catch him on live tv (also saying that you'd bring Kira's head to the task force) I REALLY doubt you'd feel lonely if either one of you were to die- that (killing each other) was the point!!

Manga!L is a selfish character: he values his victory above all else so the anime making him accept defeat that easily + gracefully doesn't sit well with me.

[front-facing-pokemon]

[spacedlexi]

the way the ericson group were at the outbreak just a bunch of troubled kids who made various mistakes or committed crimes and were judged by a system that punished and abandoned them instead of giving them the support and love they needed, are then nearly a decade later put into a situation where now they must judge a troubled child for the mistakes and crimes hes committed against them. and 5 to 3 vote them out 😭

[moeblob]

So it occurs to me that I posted most of their lore on my OC blog (though a few posts on here have the story info) and honestly I think it's very important to note that the entire reason a guy from Florida is recruited to help defeat the demon lord isn't him as the hero. His younger brother (by about ten years younger) is the Chosen Hero and... not very good at it. So the goddess (Solei) who had selected the hero has to begrudgingly go back to earth and convince his older brother to help save her world.

(Also Reynold admits to Solei that "Sascha could never be a bad influence. He's the best impulse control I've ever had" and she really doesn't like to hear it. That's terrifying.)