illmamnim

[illmamnim]

I love using Grey Is for school assignments

[illmamnim]

Sunflowers staring at the sun

Happy anniversary Grey Is...!

[illmamnim]

My personality in 5 YouTubers

[illmamnim]

[looks at my ocs] maybe i need therapy

[illmamnim]

THEY REALLY JUST DID THAT

[illmamnim]

Bro if you think that saying only "ace" automatically covers for aro too... No...

[illmamnim]

Senshi would love She Loves To Cook, And She Loves To Eat

[illmamnim]

Hirano to Kagiura chapter 25 spoilers

Translation by @pinkdoozyxoxo

THIS GUY IS SO AROACE OK?!

But genuinely analysis now,

I only have my experience to reference, (and some posts online) but I can genuinely go on about how everything Hirano does absolutely lacks desire and attraction!

People who joke about romance and attraction come from a point of understanding what it means, and for people who don't, those jokes, nods, hints, are all neon lights pointing to something non existent. Or, if it does exist, fogged and shadowed by everything else.

Hirano doesn't get it. He's not naive or repressing, he doesn't overcompensate to an insecurity, he genuinely doesn't understand what any of this means. He's grateful to Kagi for allowing this relationship to be experimental, to be able to take a step back when things get too confusing, and more than anything, he appreciates this honesty that motivates him to be honest to.

People who "get it" talk in riddles, like they're all in on a secret and you can only sit and watch while they casually bring it up. It's normal for them. More than that, it's natural for them.

It doesn't come naturally to Hirano. In some ways, it's wasn't natural to Kagi either, who put romantic relationships on such a pedals that something as gravitating as a mutual attraction wasn't even cross his mind until Niibashi. Without him, how long would it have taken Kagi to actively reach that conclusion?

Romance is highly romanticise, and because it feels nice to be special, people don't question it. But you can be special without the romance. People can mean the world to you without needing some "other" and "more" of a reason.

I don't hold out hope that the manga will end with that conclusion, but the journey Hirano is going through means a lot to me. And I'll continue being a little aromantic pain who can't let people have their fluff for my own self indulgence! /j and hopefully others will feel that too, because it's always nice to be understood.

[illmamnim]

My argument to anything

[illmamnim]

Basically

[illmamnim]

About bright ideas

Some more doodles under the cut

Mom bought some of those "Walmart Copics" and I've only used markers a handful of times before, so I used Black to vibe with em

I love baby White so much T-T

I'm just getting into the winter mood

[illmamnim]

Grey Is... doodles

[illmamnim]

Pieces of media that are basically character studies save me

Character studies

Save me character studies

[illmamnim]

Hey guys, you should read Grey Is...

Spoilers for volume 10 (and previous)

A while back, I found this post about "to be loved is to be seen" with a quote by Marguerite Duras: "I don't know if love is a feeling, sometimes I think it's a matter of seeing." And this line captured me, but I wasn't sure why. There's much to say about eye content breeding intimacy, but that's not it. It's not about mutual looking, only looking. As if something only exists when you look at it, and it can so easily be gone once you look away. While love, if you can call it a singular emotion, doesn't need seeing to be felt, it demands it to be understood. It wants to shift your entire focus, if to analyze it or to involve your senses in it. So maybe "seeing" isn't entirely literal, but a matter of focus.

In Grey Is... the lighthouse is a major theme, in both text and subtext. It symbolizes many things, from loneliness to guidance to security, but I'd like to look at it as a representation of focus. Fittingly, I used to compare focus to a flashlight, where one thing is seen clearly but everything else is shaded and almost non existent. Shifting the flashlight itself is possible, but then you have to trust that you'll remember where the object was among the darkness. The lighthouse represents this thought similarly, with a lot more nuance in story.

To White, Black needs to be in his light or else he'd lose him. If White won't pay attention, if he'll lose Black in the darkness, he doesn't know if he'll be able to find him again. This is one of the points Danial analyses- watching over Black gives White purpose. But this isn't entirely true, because it's not a sense of purpose, "Black makes me feel like I exist." as he said to Lana. If love is a matter of seeing, what is existence? What are we beyond how others see us? Is being perceived not what makes and builds us? And if it is, what are the unloved? Unseen? Non existent.

To Black, with his memories obscured and unorganized, this focus is nearly impossible, and so he uses White's light to guide him. The truth is that he doesn't know how brightly he shines. If White assumes that any darkness from him would dim the whole world, Black assumes he can never be a light at all. But he's looking now. White spent chapters trying to fight his need for perfection so that things can go wrong and fix themselves. He's letting the lighthouse spotlight turn, exist in motion, and let Black sail to him on his own.

Taking a small step back from metaphors, this chapter is all about looking and love. Black's on a quest to find missing puzzle pieces of his memories and for the first time allows himself to take off the mask. A mask that protected his loved ones but obscured his view. He looks at Irina, who was there for him more than he thought. He looks at Waseem, not as a sweet kid that can do no wrong, but as someone who's aware of things around him, good and bad. He looks at Ritta and their family, the people he wanted to protect by pushing away and keeping in the dark but who want to be there for him and could only do so through White. He looks at Jad (and recognizes that he can't look back) and sees a reflection of his childhood through the eyes of someone who watched over him. Now he's looking at White, and sees him look away. He knew this already, that White looks away when things get to close, but now he refuses, he won't let him. A half moon in the sky, the way Black shines and the way White dims is so moon-like (Chapter 13: Page 34) and they're shattering this fragile happiness in favour of a solid ground.

There's much more that can be said here, honestly - Jad's blindness, the car lights, even about just this and going panel by panel to dissect it - but it's pretty late and I don't know how readable it is at this point lol

[illmamnim]

Skully you're not gonna believe this

there's a pipeline here I'm sure

[illmamnim]

Black and White's "found brothers" dynamic reawakened my Tommy and Tubbo phase from 4 years ago. My interests are a flat circle.

[illmamnim]

Allow me this kind of personal analysis relating to Grey Is...

It's awkward since it's far more direct than mainstream fandoms I hide in the shadows of, but I would love to talked about it nonetheless.

I often get attached to characters in relationships that are undefined or ever-changing. Found family is one of my favourites, and "family of two" is something I always love seeing more of. My favourite example of it has to be Good Omens, where I first actually came across aro/ace being a real experience and not a vague headcanon. I found more of those characters and dynamics over time, yet always came back to my own characters to "fill in the gaps" of things I've wanted to see and never found.

I was never quite sure what I was looking for, though. My urge to create half of my stories was a "what if" rather than "I feel", almost like I created out of spite. Which I'm not against, especially when people I show it to like or resonate with it, but it still leaves a little bittersweet result. I have recently started to use my stories to explore ideas rather than imagining the potential end-result, which is fun but exhausting. I don't have the finished products I want to see in the world, so those ideas stay in my notes for months and years. Some forever.

However, when I read Grey Is, I'm not nit-picking moments and trying to find "it" through them. The emotional journey the characters go through is not only interesting, it's every one of those "nit-picked" moments I get from other media compiled into one. It's the kind of story I would love to make, and it inspirs me to write for me. Instead of trying to fill in an experience through analysis, it's me wanting to give my own point of view on things I feel close to.

Don't get me wrong, nothing can replace making my own characters, but there will always be the self consciousness of looking at my own art that fogs the experience. I know I can write well, draw well, but having something to wait for and see complete is satisfying. Looking for "it", means wanting to see myself reflected in others, not to avoid my conscious, but to see my brain through a rose-tinted mirror.

My friend told me that Grey Is is the first time I didn't use a story as escapism but as an emotional reference point of self analysis, not hiding behind the character but reflecting in it. So Grey Is... to me is like a song, if that makes sense.