#look out for tht

[jothehuman]

WOMN

[hinamie]

10 years later

[dirtflunk]

ermmm what the mandy

[astrobei]

will byers is:

a sweater thief ✅

clingy ✅

a morning person ❌

[tomatoart]

the sinless are casting stones at my #brother

[puppyeared]

i like him

[youredreamingofroo]

Genesis Wings - - An albino who paints like a toddler, wears fake elf ears, has terrible self confidence and listens to way too much Dominic Fike - -

[ scrapped render of her under the cut <3 ]

[celestie0]

haven’t drawn in forever but i’m working on a kickoff gojo wip 😨🥺🤧🧚‍♀️✨

[happyvoltz]

[cosmobrain00]

I think mike not reaching out to will is important actually. btw

[lemongogo]

what is their problem tbh

[hinamie]

unconditionally

[tomatoart]

team fortress three

[shoujo-wizard]

as someone with a large body who is tall it means a lot to me to imagine Laios as transmasc presenting with a nonbinary philosophy abt his gender I think if either had to b a cis man it'd b kabru but also I imagine kabru is so chill & secure in his gender he wears a dress from time to time because they're cute & honestly quite comfy

also I need kabru to breed laios' boy pussy

[cycle-hit]

analysis of potential negative aspects of mahiru's boyfriend

i've seen a lot of people curious about why there are of interpretations of such. so. here we go (as a disclaimer, i'm writing this under the pretense that everyone already knows the lengths of which mahiru was not great in their relationship, so that wont be talked about as much as the flaws of mahiru's boyfriend. also, please keep in mind that focusing on his flaws IS the point of this post- but still try to remember that, in the end, mahiru's boyfriend is still very much human! even if i dont appear to be the most sympathetic towards him in text, lend as much credit to him as you deem fit)

1. Lack of succinct communication

the very first lyric in this is how to be in love with you is this-

she appears to be asking her boyfriend, or at least we can assume it's her boyfriend shes speaking to, if he knows what love is- because she's never experienced it herself before. there's other cases of this!

more lyrics from the beginning of this how to be in love with you, mahiru still appears to be unsure. she's constantly asking him for validation, to confirm this is what it's supposed to be like. and from the love is (un)dead voice drama:

"I thought it was fate. He said it was, too."

we can gather from this that his response to mahiru's questions was likely always the validation mahiru was craving- if he was uncomfortable before or in the beginning of the relationship with mahiru's behavior, he neglected to communicate it with her until the validation had already had a severe impact on her- when mahiru believes, firmly, that negative behavior is "love".

from this voice drama, mahiru also says it's her first relationship, but says nothing about her boyfriend's own experience. she didn't know if the relationship was good or not, but her boyfriend, with potentially more relationship experience, tells her that it's fate. he agrees with her. he doesnt properly communicate with mahiru at this point.

communication is important in a relationship. but he's not entirely to blame for this, even if he DOES have more experience with relationships. it can be hard to communicate with someone you "love" that they're hurting you, or he could've not even processed mahiru's actions/behaviors as uncomfortable at the time. however, it's also unfair to put all the blame on mahiru here- because it's extremely likely he wasn't even telling her what was hurting him. she asks him, again and again in the form of "what do you think?" "is this love?" because she doesn't know if something is wrong or not. and if he just keeps affirming that it's fine- how is she supposed to?

however, this communication does seem to change at close to the end of the relationship in "i love you"- he finally stops validating mahiru.

we can assume at this point he finally started telling mahiru that their "love" is unhealthy, but at this point- far too late, and far too little. this is where mahiru indeed shoulders a lot of blame, but you have to remember that he kept enabling mahiru's behaviors until this point as well. they've both managed to stick themselves into something they don't know how to get out of.

"If you're that kind (!!!) to me, you could die as well." (this is how to be in love you vs love is mine)

what's interesting though is- is this what directly caused mahiru's boyfriend to commit suicide? because he felt trapped? or was there more to it? is it possible he also felt guilt/regret about his own actions in their relationship? why? let's find out! onto the next point!

2. "Matching pain"

another concept that mahiru emphasises in her song lyrics is being in pain, or being hurt, even before what happened to her in trial 2.

(this is how to be in love with you)

(i love you)

specifically, mahiru is implying that they are both in pain. that not only is her boyfriend in pain or hurt, but she is too. there's also the "they're both feeding each other the cake" symbolism- they are both in pain. it's matching. as mahiru says,

it's a claim of responsibility from both of them. we tightly bound up the happiness and suffocated it. it has always been both of them, together, at fault for what's been done.

as a less presumptuous analysis than what i'm going to say below this section- mahiru's boyfriend was likely, at minimum, at fault for enabling mahiru's love and affirming her when he shouldn't have, and failing to communicate to her that he was in pain- he takes the blame of being the one who neglected to actually make mahiru aware of what she was doing, even when she asked. to the point she become reliant on his validation. it's not just mahiru's fault that their relationship turned out the way it did.

it is also worth noting that, in this is how to be in love with you, mahiru is also stuck in the bird cage, not just her boyfriend. in "i love you", both of their clothes are tattered. they are always suffering together.

it's why mahiru repeatedly states in her songs lyrics that it was "we", "us". not just her, and not just him. if this is all what happened, both of their actions are completely understandable- it is human to make mistakes, or be flawed, or to fail to properly tell people things.

now, onto the section that a lot agree is more of a reach (and is not really a main point of this post)-

(cw for implication of physical abuse under the cut vvvv)

3. Milgram occasionally seems to imply that Mahiru's boyfriend could have physically abused her.

theres a bit of evidence to suggest that mahiru is completely under the belief that "pain", or even just suffering negative feelings, equals love. to mahiru, that IS love.

she refers to being in love as "overheating" together, which isn't particularly a comfortable state to be in. she calls love a "landmine" in her first voice drama and that it "explodes". in i love you, there's a lot more of this!

every time she speaks of love, or even "happiness", mahiru invokes violent imagery, or even death. it could just be the fact that she's seen her boyfriend hang himself that causes this- but it's definitely. interesting. why does mahiru believe that suffering is love? why did her boyfriend keep "affirming" that "yes, this is love" with the new knowledge (to us) that mahiru's believes that being hurt is love? was he just unaware? if something is repeatedly making mahiru question what love is, or if this is even love- how did she come to such a conclusion that being hurt, or to be suffering, is to be loved? well!

it's entirely possible that, beyond mahirus perceptions of him emotionally hurting her, mahiru's boyfriend was physically hurting her as well.

in this is how to be in love with you, the magazine articles before mahiru confessing are perfectly neat- afterwards, any text after day 8 begins to become visibly "disordered", day 8, coincidentally, is the day mahiru successfully confesses to him! while i dont think this is particularly telling of abuse, on day 10 we get our first interesting tidbit from mahiru-

she's disappointed that he hasn't actually noticed any of the effort that she's put into her appearance! which isnt that telling, but definitely something that makes me raise my eyebrow a bit.

day 12 is our next eyebrowing raising moment- mahiru goes to his house, but-

she doesn't remember much. the same symptoms mahiru presents with in trial 2- she can't remember kotoko beating her up. she only knows because the people around her have told her. then, we have these lyrics from her first mv!

while all of these are horrifying to think about the implications of in relation to mahiru's boyfriend maybe not being the best, the one of interest for my next point here is this one!

mahiru doesnt let people know when she's hurt. she pretends she's a "good girl", that nothing hurts her, that everything is fine (which probably wasnt helping communication issues talked about at the beginning of this post) even in trial two.

there is. many, MANY concerning things about mahiru in her trial two voice drama when you look at it under the lens of "was mahiru's boyfriend physically abusive?"

when shes being praised, she immediately tumbles- i imagine its both because of exertion and because it could remind her of her boyfriend's affirmations. furthermore- this is the power of love. to not resent anyone in this kind of situation.

because mahiru likes people who work hard, she's going to accept this horrible pain too. jesus christ. this also falls into the very interesting category of kotoko's attack and mahiru's reaction to it- first off, during the attack. why was fuuta being attacked so easily noticed, but mahiru's...wasnt? i've always interpreted it as an indicator of mahiru's tendency to hide her pain and "accept" it- maybe mahiru didn't make any noise at all.

and then, mahiru's opinions on kotoko-

(ive hit the image limit, but in love is undead mahiru says "Kotoko-chan's acts aren't a problem, either. I think she's fighting for her own cause as well. So I don't blame her. Because I also think that I...that my love isn't wrong." in her interrogation questions, she says "At least, I don't hold a grudge [against Kotoko]. It was for something non-negotiable after all.")

she dismisses what kotoko did to her so...easily. she, quite literally, would have died because of kotoko- and she just...says that it's fine. that it was for something "non-negotiable", that kotoko is "fighting for her own cause". that kotoko "thought it couldn't be helped". and apparently that's fine to mahiru. she accepts this pain just because she "likes people who work hard". because "it couldn't be helped". this theory, especially from my own perspective, is a reach- but a lot of mahiru's behaviours that i've mentioned here stand out to me enough to make me worry- there's also the fact that, when es touches her-

mahiru is so vague about what the "it" is. and while i'm aware this is just how japanese is usually written-

it makes her remember how "it" hurt.

tl:dr: mahiru and her boyfriend are both equally at fault for how their relationship went, with the most positive view of her boyfriend being that he takes some of the blame for it because of his inability to communicate with mahiru/assert his boundaries or if hes uncomfortable to her.

sources for translations: 1 2

[ectonurites]

btw doing face paint at a children’s museum as Delirium from Sandman as my fun halloween activity ‼️