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Saiki not letting his coffee jellies fall, no matter what✶

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i love these lines so so much because like. they really just sum up queerness so perfectly??

i've always felt that i'm not knowledgeable enough to speak on such matters because my experience with my sexuality has been relatively easy. figured it out early in life, came out to a couple of people, got supportive friends, etc etc.

but reading these panels, it just suddenly clicked that....none of that really matters. sure, i'm luckier than a lot of people and that privilege is not something i take lightly but. man. at the end of the day all of us are asking for the same thing.

and we're never really given that. sure, it varies. from "you'll get disowned" to "i love you, that's why i want to cure you of this illness" to "i support you but you can't talk about this stuff in front of grandma" to "i might accept you but this world never will". all it boils down to is that freedom never comes, and when it does, we're left waiting for the other shoe to drop. it's so exhausting and to see it summed up so easily makes me ache because we truly ask for so little. and yet here we are.

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AO NO FLAG (2017-2020) by kaito

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yawn

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The fact that the choices Masumi, Futaba, and Taichi make about their lives and their happiness for the future happen “off screen” is actually something that I think adds a lot of depth to Blue Flag. It means that Touma’s choices— to come out, to confess to Taichi, to apologize to yet be vulnerable with Futaba, to leave for a new life, to be free— are the only ones we’re meant to face head on and grapple with. He goes first, and is brave enough to carve out the life he wants before the rest of them even know where to go next. And Futaba says in the epilogue that she has been inspired by him (and by extension, Taichi) to choose her own future, and I think that’s meant to be true for each of them.

And in a way, of the core four I feel he’s the only one who’s emotions and thoughts are made clear to us. So often the specifics of Taichi, Masumi, and Futaba’s struggle is undefined because they don’t even understand themselves yet— that’s why the text breaking up the panels is so often broad or framed as a question when it’s meant to be theirs. But the story makes Touma’s reality feel so grounded. We would know, even without words, why he chose to leave before the year was over. The single panels of just his expressions reveal so much so plainly. We also literally see the story through his eyes more that once, even more so than we do for Taichi. Even in the chapter where we see Mami’s perspective, we don’t get those insane, big panels of her POV like we do during Touma’s conversation with his brother. We are invited to *be* Touma, not just see him interact with the world.

Obviously Taichi is the main character and he’s meant to be the audience stand-in for Jump readers. And that’s part of what makes his queerness so impactful. But it’s almost like Touma is the character that defines Blue Flag and it’s message. Like a truly free society and life is only possible with the acceptance and freedom of queer people. In the particular context of queer acceptance in Japan, the idea that more people should be like Touma and make their own choices about their happiness is an incredible one.

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Blue flag does many subtle things remarkably well, but one of my favorite is that Taichi is a pretty average looking protagonist, but every once in a while the camera/POV switches to the perspective of someone who's in love with him and suddenly he's gorgeous. Nothing about him changes- he's drawn with the exact same features as always- but it's instantly obvious why they love him. We see him through their eyes instead of through Taichi's own, and he becomes the most beautiful person in the world and he doesn't even realize it.

Taichi looks up at Touma with doe eyes and food stuck to his face and suddenly he's heart achingly cute. He gives a full body laugh and it's so rare and genuine that Futaba/we through Futaba's eyes stare in lovestruck awe.

It's just. It's so subtle and deftly conveys so, so much without uttering a single word. But it also strengthens the fact that the camera POV is tied to the characters. So when Taichi/the default POV does the same to the others, every time it oogles Touma or makes Futaba glow, that's Taichi. That's his feelings, his love, his attraction that he doesn't even realize he's feeling yet. And you reach that final reveal in the final pages of the story and then you go back to the beginning and you the reader have the fanfic oh. moment. Because it's been there all along.

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*sighhhhhhhh*... I miss ao no flag, Tails... I miss it a lot... I'll be back..

i needed to draw something cuteeeee (*^u^*)

BUT SERIOUSLY THO WE NEED A BLUE FLAG ANIME OR SOMETHING COME ONNNNNNNNN RAAAAGHHHHH😭😭😭

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touma putting the L in fag will never not be funny to me

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^^^^character dynamic i need to do more with .EVERYONE SEES YOUR WORTH EXCEPT FOR YOU💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥

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self targeted post or whatever

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me: truly a well crafted tragedy is such a bittersweet pleasure to take in and serves a purpose, not just as a sad story but as a reminder that even that which ends badly might not have happened in vain or for nothing. The love, the grief, the actions still meant something simply for having taken place and for us partaking in it.

me when said tragedy is about to actually unfold, sweating: ok but consider this. i dont want this to happen

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Oh Beom-seok and Na Baek-jin, they could never make me hate y'all.

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seongje not accepting the offer from the mob boss and stating that ‘it doesn’t sound romantic’ at end of the season, just gives that much more meaning to him sticking by baekjin’s side and being his number one from the beginning - he knew everything baekjin ever did was for baku, to be able to have him by his side again and THAt for seongje must’ve been romantic enough to even voice it when he’s tasked to check up on baku again, saying ‘i understand it’ (baekjin always chasing after baku, wanting eunjang to join the union) and I just-

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there is something so tragic about them and it can only be explained with bunch of mitski lyrics.

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oh. oh.

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what if i looked at you like you were the only thing i ever wanted

it’s very serious what a singular gifset can do to a person