#Small thing but felt like a big thing

[userautumn]

+

[buttercupshands]

I started drawing this next day after I finished Act 6

13 or so days and it's finished!

Main things are traditional and Loop's body was edited digitally after

Unedited it looks like this

I've been torn on how to do Loop's body for the entirety of lining, also

A bit sad the main lines are visible only as a wip, most of this thing is literally just a ton of sharp lines

I think it's also my first day of drawing, Loop is just a sketch here (feat. my leg)

I even finished the beans before it so they were a moral support, because if you let me things like this take a year

[starry-bi-sky]

The first time disciple Shen Yuan/Shen Qingqiu meets Liu Qingge, it is during a Bai Zhan peak raid. And what ends up happening is that Shen Qingqiu gets kicked in the jaw with such force he feels his teeth clack together unpleasantly. And frustrated with his situation, the system, and quite frankly a ton of other little things that have been building up over the course of the last few weeks, he feels something snap in the back of his mind like that of a rubber band after being stretched too far.

What ends up happening is that Shen Qingqiu turns and locks onto the very first figure he can see that is dressed in grey-and-white like a homing missile, and then with the force of a twin-tailed mountain tiger, lunges towards said figure with an equally menacing snarl.

He ends up taking the Bai Zhan peak disciple by utter surprise, and they both collide into the ground in a tangle of angry yelling and limbs. What ends up happening is that Liu Qingge gets the subsequent wind knocked out of him and pinned into the dirt by a Qing Jing peak disciple who is filled with the might and fury of a scholar having their peaceful afternoon interrupted and a once-grown-man re-experiencing puberty.

It is with that might and fury that Liu Qingge meets the wild, frenzied eyes of Shen Qingqiu, with his lips pulled back into a truly ferocious scowl. Shen Qingqiu hisses out, with such force it makes his voice rasp, as if he might as well sink his teeth into Liu Qingge's throat and rip it out; "Get the fuck off my mountain."

Liu Qingge is so shocked by -- well, quite a many things, but most importantly the fact that he has been pinned, and the way the sun is bouncing off this boy's face, -- that his brain needs five seconds to reboot. It's five seconds too long, because by the time he registers what just happened, Shen Yuan has clambered off him and disappeared. Gone and thrown himself into the closest dust cloud scuffling in order to unleash the rest of his fury on the other Bai Zhan Peak kids.

Qing Jing Peak experiences an unfortunate uptick in Bai Zhan disciple visits -- specifically of the Liu Qingge variety. Specifically Liu Qingge, actually. Who very much wants to find the boy that managed to get one over on him and demand a rematch. (Or maybe kiss him.)

[angy-grrr]

SJ's internal changes (I recall it was the editor in chief, someone really influential) happening JUST at the same time it was announced the epilogue would be 5 chapters (same week) + the ending not bringing up huge plot points (where the other villains are, why theres no actual Himiko corpse and instead we got Ochako's grief over that assumption, what happened to Dabi, what was the All Might vestige, why the bkdk handhold was off screen when its a big deal for them, who is Deku's dad, etc), letting them linger in the air while trying to make an okay ending + that strange two week break because of "schedule conflicts" + choosing to end BNHA under even more pressure even tho its one of the most important manga in SJ + Horikoshi talking about the ending days after the official release and bringing up how grateful he is for being able to work in SJ, as in past tense (like he is grateful he worked here, but isnt happening again; I say this bc I expected him to say something around the lines of "I hope im able to create something good here again soon!", considering we already know he has another manga project, if I remember correctly)

Thinking about it.

Thinking about how he could let it as it is, or try to pick it up and confirm the things that do matter to his story.

Btw, im not talking about the handhold as a shipper -it was genuinely important for them, as it symbolizes both their new mutual understanding and an acceptance as the new All Might duo thanks to their respective heroisms. It wouldn't be weird to add it in the epilogue, especially considering so many characters hold hands in non romanitc ways, so to choose not to when its arguably the most important one... Idk, it felt really weird as it was the only thing I was sure would get sooner or later.

[quietlyblooms]

alright, friends, it's time for a lil heart-to-heart.

for quite a while now, i've struggled with feeling like the rpc is an actual community. there's a few things that contribute to this feeling, but it mostly comes down to a lack of interaction and visible interest. sometimes i feel very one-sided in my interest and attachment to my mutuals bc when i see their ooc posts or headcanons, i like them or comment, yet this isn't reciprocated by everyone. i can usually guess who i'm about to see in my notifications, and to be absolutely clear, i'm very grateful for those people!! it's a handful or two of you, but it could be just one and i'd be grateful. it's not about numbers whatsoever but rather growing uncomfortable that not all of my mutuals are all that interested in my character or me.

i write on here to share the excitement of creating with other people. i write on here to create together, too, but i'm also here to share characters and ideas and lore with people i know are happy to hear me ramble. i'm just getting to the point in which i'm questioning how many of you are actually happy to listen, and that's just not a good feeling at all. i'm not a mind reader, y'all. if you don't tell or show me that you care about the things i talk about or even about interacting, there's no way for me to know. eventually, i'm going to question why you're following me if i never see or hear from you, and eventually, i'm going to softblock and move on. that's the only way forward i see right now because i just do not feel comfortable on my own blog. i feel like i'm retreating into this quiet bubble to avoid discomfort, and it really sucks. it's killing my muse.

i'm not perfect. none of us are, and we can't be online at all times to catch every little post. but if we're a community, then we should be supporting each other when we can and liking headcanons, liking/commenting on those lil ooc posts that remind us our writing partners are humans with lives outside this site, reblogging their promo posts, sending in that meme they've reblogged even if we're nervous to reach out first -- if we're a roleplaying community, then we need to act like it. " community " implies connection, and a connection doesn't really begin when you follow each other. it begins when you reach out, even if it's in some small way.

tldr: i think we can all do better to support our mutuals and to connect, and i'm going to softblock people rather than continue to feel unsure where i stand with my mutuals. i won't start until sometime next week, and i won't make one of those " like this to remain mutuals " posts. they're not helpful to me, if i'm honest. if you're worried, just reach out. i'm literally a 4'9'' gremlin who sleeps with a m.unchlax plushie -- i promise i'm not scary despite this post uvu

[oshiawaseni]

Trails of Love Hori's been paving down in the build up for the series' ending

Part II: Decoding the love story being told through other characters

Part One | II. KamiJirou | Part Three ->

.•° ✿ 5. "I̥̰̟͈̣̮͑̑͐̓̌z̴͉̙̲̋͗͌u̶̫̝̒̊̐Ocha" ೋღ

Oh look, time to defeat the raid boss of BNHA: IzuOcha. (I wrote this meta in March, and after reading it now, I didn't feel I needed to change anything, but I added a small bonus section at the end. Hope you enjoy!)

I have a lot of things to say about why Ochaco was never meant to be the one... but I'll try to stay concise and on topic with regards to this meta. Ochaco appears set up as Izuku's love interest from the get-go, but is that really what Hori wanted to do? I'll be taking a dive into their themes and in part three of this meta, I'll be explaining why the answer to that question has been a resounding: NO!

When I compared the feedback Ochaco got from Aoyama, Toga and Mina about her having a crush on Izuku for wanting to be like him, to Izuku, who didn’t get any feedback for all the times he did the exact same thing and copied Kacchan, it felt very unfair.

See what I mean? It is completely unfair. And this was such a hard topic for me to navigate and answer for the anon at that time. But then I did some thinking.

Compress, Gentle/La Brava, Kamijirou and finally Kirimina (which came as a pleasant surprise, and for me, cemented Hori's intentions with all of this)... all of these characters have been written to highlight various things about BkDk's relationship.

Then, there is Ochaco's admiration of Izuku and she always gets told it's a crush, and it's so weird of a plot to begin with. This very one-sided "crush" also felt out of place with the rest of the themes going on. I eventually realised maybe we had been looking too closely at the admiration issue all along. By attempting to explain the meaning of the tree and why it's different from this other tree, we didn't see the forest it's connected to and that there was actually something bigger going on that Hori had been crafting.

Scale it back and you’ll see: It’s not that Izuku didn’t get his own feedback about his feelings for Kacchan in the various ways he shows he wanted to be like him, but Ochaco’s conversations with Aoyama and Mina and Toga were his feedback!! It was one of the biggest AHHHHHHHHHHH SO THAT'S WHY pin drop moments I've ever had.

No one was calling him out, because they didn't need to! Calling out Ochaco for that behaviour was all Izuku's same behaviour needed!

Chapter 15 is the first time Izuku displays this behaviour of wanting to be like Kacchan. In Chapter 48 Izuku trains his movement after thinking of "Kacchan and the others". His movement mimicking Katsuki's is first noticed by Iida in Chapter 52.

We spent so much time worrying what the difference is between Izuku and Ochaco’s admiration, but we tackled the problem all wrong! In fact, we didn’t need to tackle it at all.

Because not only did Ochaco’s crush sideplot serve as a red herring to veil the real love story going on from the average reader, it was also used as another tool to highlight it.

In chapter 58, Izuku showed off his new movement style and everybody, even Katsuki, noticed it was copying the way Katsuki moves. The fact we get another Ochaco shot of her watching Izuku mimic Katsuki really does add credence to the theory that she noticed Izuku's feelings because he's also copying the person he loves. And if their logic was true for her, then why couldn't it be true for Izuku too? Izuku's mimicry being such a non-issue for 1-A was surely done on purpose for us to see this hypocrisy one day: That her mimicry gets called out as love by everyone, but everyone sleeps on Izuku's own mimicry simply because it's between two boys.

Our take away was never meant to be “what’s the difference between their admiration/love”, but simply that Izuku was both wanting to become like and inadvertently becomes like Kacchan because he loves him so much and a way to keep Kacchan close to him was incorporating both his attitude and movement style into his own.

Hori was linking the two concepts of mimicry and romance together with commentary from Mina/Aoyama/Toga while having Izuku do this EXACT THING they were talking about, with Katsuki, right in front of our damn salad!

Because what other characters noted about Ochaco's behaviour... Izuku was also expressing towards Kacchan. (Hori even brought it up again in DvK2 just to remind *everyone* that Izuku is very conscious of doing the exact same thing as Ochaco)

Even if Ochaco later reveals their logic to not be true FOR HER (which I wholeheartedly believe in. BkDk+TogaChaco end game LETS GO), we know for sure this logic has absolutely been true for Izuku. And the feedback Ochaco got also fits Hori’s framework of;

Bkdk -> are the actions

Other characters -> are the words for their feelings and actions.

Ochaco never was a raid boss to begin with... she only had the appearance of one. All to get BkDK through to the finish line.

Ochaco talking about "putting the All Might doll away" here used the same verb as "shutting her feelings away" and her scene instantly jumps to Izuku looking at his black whip - a quirk he has also "put away" behind a locked door that represents OFA. Black whip is a quirk which emerged from the feelings he has for Katsuki, that Izuku has also had to "put away" because what happened to him was so traumatic. I think Hori wanted us to see their two stories of "locking something away" were actually the same in essence, and it wasn't just black whip itself that Izuku had to lock away, but also his feelings for Katsuki... because we lost Izuku's POV towards Katsuki after the "I'm too blessed." scene. Most likely to hide the romantic love Izuku feels towards him from the reader.

I realised the same logic of the other couples also applied to Ochaco too a few months ago, while I was putting together this meta about all the ways Hori has indirectly shown readers what Izuku’s feelings for Kacchan are. Hori couldn’t say it outright because of his demographic and the current expectations society has that BL should stay in it's own category and far removed from shounen.

So Hori gave bkdk their moments without a whole lot of context and developed the idea of them simultaneously in another language, by getting other various characters to do the talking. And he used these characters to indirectly spell out bkdk’s love story in conjunction with bkdk’s own behaviour, all for the sake of his big bkdk reveal in the series' finale.

And to think he’s been doing this almost since the beginning blows my mind. (Chapter 15! Chapter 15 was the start of WWKD: What Would Kacchan Do) The man is a genius. A lot of this feels like he had needed to release his feelings about bkdk, so he left these trails of code throughout the manga... and we’ve finally cracked the damn thing.

We did it. We realised Hori’s 2nd language and roundabout method of telling one of the greatest love stories in shounen history. And I’m sure there’s even more examples of it to discover, that all our fandom's talented, keen-eyed bkdks find every day.

If Horikoshi Kohei-Sensei wrote this story because he wanted to cement his mark in jump history, he has deservedly done just that!

Part B - The real ship of dreams

(It felt too good to be true, yet I was quietly hoping...) .•° ✿ 5. TogaChako ೋღ

Circling back to the first part of this meta, "The Shape of an Eternal Bond" ... Do you remember when I talked about how BkDk couldn't imagine a world without each other, and the sense of an eternity they both exude together? Something that has always been, something that will always be. It seems more themes and feelings we get from bkdk's relationship have now been thrown into the Togachaco fight.

Ochaco gave Toga what is essentially a marriage proposal to a vampire, and then her wires made the shape of the infinity symbol. Toga expresses to her "I can't stand the thought of you not being in this world anymore." This is 1. so touching 2. bkdk as HELL, and I am certain that Katsuki and Izuku will confess their desires to be together forever before this manga ends.

I mean, this just goes to show you how us bkdks and Hori are literally on the same neural link, and we've been right about his methods of storytelling and how he's leaving trails of love inside these other couples to express concepts that are present in bkdk's own (soon to be) very romantic relationship.

It's a fun thought exercise to look at Togachaco's fight and predict what certain themes of theirs Hori will install into bkdk's talk/feelings they will express to each other... but there is a certain one, other than "forever", I feel very strongly about and will focus on here...

And that is Izuku's smile.

Something Katsuki once detested became the thing he most advocated for and longed to protect. His thumbs pointing to himself while talking about smiles... no wonder this had an air of Katsuki, himself, being the biggest reason Izuku smiles. "How could you leave me and choose this for us - a life of no smiling like that?"

At the start of the series, Katsuki couldn't stand Izuku's face or the smile he made at him. Whenever he saw it, he could only think of it as somebody laughing at him, looking down on him... but then DvK2 reframed Izuku's wide smiles at him and turned them into something pure, and genuine, and I think that's when Katsuki started to realise how much he was being loved the whole time.

And how could Katsuki possibly not reciprocate those earnest feelings from his special person who helped him find his heroic heart?

And this seems to be something Ochaco has noticed about Izuku? Ochaco, somebody who loves when people smile, noticed how big Izuku smiles when he talks about heroes... but especially the besotted faces he makes whenever he's with Katsuki... Of course she did.

On the Weekly Shounen Jump cover that featured bnha chapter 394, most of the characters on it are happy and smiling. Izuku isn't, however. That's because he's lost the ability to smile because Katsuki is still dead in the manga... Hori used this jump issue to build on this theme in the manga - that if you take Katsuki away, then away goes Izuku's smile, too.

Because Katsuki's very existence gives Izuku his happiness.

These two panels were supposed to be compared to each other - "Blood" and "Smiles" are two concepts mirroring each other in Togachaco's story. It's their different love languages. Toga felt like she couldn't ask Saito-kun for blood because he'd never accept her, Ochaco felt like she couldn't ask Izuku for his smile... because he'd also never accept her... she knew this was because Izuku already had somebody who gave him his sweetest smile... the same person who knew him more than anyone.

Chapter 395's title, 'shiawase no ue ni' was an interesting one that feels nuanced with Ochaco's feelings towards Izuku. It can be read as "Above (my) happiness..." I think this title is describing the concept of prioritising something else BEFORE one's own happiness. It's the perfect concept title for self-sacrifice, like Toga putting Ochaco's life above her own, but could ALSO be referencing Ochaco placing Izuku's happiness with Katsuki before her own feelings for him!!

Ochaco's story, at present, appears to be about putting aside unrequited love for a person she didn't quite understand, and instead placing her efforts into an attainable goal - rescuing somebody's heart from despair, and in doing so, becoming each other's important person. And then neither have to journey through life alone anymore. Ochaco knew this is something Izuku and Katsuki found in each other. In the image above, the girls are looking at Izuku and Saito, who won't turn their way, because they are both looking at a blonde boy next to them. Their "Sometimes Saturday." Katsuki.

The hidden face as Ochaco says she "came to like" Izuku Midoriya is quite suspicious. It belies what she's saying and she seems to either be hiding something negative or she’s not being truly forthcoming about her situation and feelings for Izuku. There are also themes of envy that finally showed up in Togachaco's dialogue which may be foundation Hori has laid down for the reveal of Ochaco's feelings later, as well. Envy about the attention Izuku received from others as a hero. Envy towards Izuku's innate passion for heroes, and the adoring faces he makes for Katsuki, perhaps.

So this smile that Katsuki has always misunderstood as something negative aimed towards him ended up turning into something... very lovely and important to him, as shown in Izuku's panel and how Ochaco described Toga's smile right afterwards.

And honestly... if we get little snapshots of the many smiles Izuku has made for Katsuki, while Katsuki is thinking about how adorable Izuku looks just for him when they're talking, I don't think I'll make it out of this bkdk reveal alive. Hori is going to obliterate us with whatever he's got cooking for them.

With all the major bkdk-alike couples now finished, the next post of this meta series will be: Part III, and the conclusion of this meta series ->

Back to Part One

[copepods]

i think if i could do absolutely anything and not be harmed at all i would go find a really big tornado just an absolutely fuckhuge one and get sucked into that big guy. just rotate around at ridiculously high speeds for a while. it would fix me

[nellasbookplanet]

OKAY Laudna book opinions:

Overall I really enjoyed it! It's really atmospheric and has this almost fairy tale vibe to the prose which I think suits Laudna's story really well (also Robbie does an excellent job narrating the audiobook with a similarly whimsical tone). It reads less like an adventure and more like a character study of Laudna discovering who and what she is, the psychological impact of existing in the world but outside community. I also think it does an excellent job of portraying the push and pull that is her relationship with Delilah, showing that Laudna always distrusted her and would sometimes even push her away, but also how easy it was to cling to this one loyal companion when everyone else either left or made Laudna leave. The sense of loneliness throughout was palpable.

The one thing I felt was a poor choice was an overall theme of "young woman in a world that treats women who don't fit in poorly". This is usually an interesting and prescient theme, but in a story set specifically in Exandria, which doesn't align with our gender roles and doesn't have our same misogyny, it felt like an awkward fit, and also not needed. Laudna as a character was already ostracised due to her undead nature; I would rather the story have leaned harder into that.

[daz4i]

having a bit you improvised be so well accepted that it immediately makes it into the show is like crack to me as an actor

[carcarrot]

its important to go see a low stakes concert sometimes

[girlivealwaysbean]

pata hai last kuch din i was very busy with my project kyunki final dena tha and binding karni thi etc to wo karwayi then i went to the bookfair bekaar tha then parso submit karne jaa rahi to subah accident hogaya (bhai ki bike skid hogayi and we fell down) and now i have a big ass blue bruise on my upper thigh and my parents don't even know lmao and kal ek science conference thi to i had to sit in an auditorium for 6 hours listening to accomplished people speak. that's what you missed now your turn

omg i knew everything in this except for the accident cause i stalk your blog vigorously everyday are you okay!!!!!!!!!! did you get tetanus shots!!!!!!!!!! also on your upper thigh oh no that's where future jiju is supposed to write MINE na as per our beloved song guilty as sin?

[valiant-portabella-pirkko]

alright. know what? with Secrets of the Obscure right around the corner and plenty of new Mists-related sky island settings coming with it, I'll just bite the bullet and interest-check a little something I've been turning in my head for a long, long while.

would YOU be interested in a Mists-based GW2 roleplay guild that uses a lore compliant multiverse system to allow canon, canon-adjacent, lore-breaking, and otherwise 'contradictory' muses to coexist in the same setting?

simply put: every writer's cast would be set in their own self-contained universe. as such, everyone could bring whatever muses they want with their own personal headcanons, and no one could dictate what is or isn't canon for anyone else. so long as your muses are GW2-based, you're good to go! bring your Commanders, bring your canon-divergent OCs, bring your canon muses-- and yes, even the ones that are 'supposed' to be dead. who can say what might have happened in a strange world far across the Mists, after all?

neutral hubs and in-character safety guardrails would be in place to keep all muses on a relatively even playing field regardless of their power, history, and prestige, too. play hardball if you like, but it might not end quite the way you'd hope. the main rule would be to maintain good OOC etiquette at all times: no godmodding, no metagaming, no theft, don't blend IC and OOC, and so-on.

if that sounds like something you might have interest in, please interact with this post! and if you've got questions or concerns, I'd love to hear them; feel free to send an ask or a DM, or just reply to this post!

[asshuka]

i started this to celebrate the very first rise patch (that concluded the kamura story and introduced valtrax and allmother) and now the final patch is upon us... and i finally finished it!!!!!! :'D :'D :'D

thankfully the composition remained the same despite the long delay and came out pretty cool too... i'm still like enamored with minoto's journey to derangity. not sure if it's actually subtle storytelling or me digging it that deep myself from crumbs lol it's good either way tho

[orcelito]

6.5hr in the car was rough. But I'm all bundled in my beddie bye and I have the box fan going (so glad I thought to bring it) and the view outside the cabin is beautiful and I'm going ziplining tomorrow morning

It is time to sleep bundled like a rat in its bedding and then have a wonderful day tomorrow

[astranauticus]

Do mechanites cry?

[reploidbuddy]

I'm feeling a small victory this morning