#and after reading the manga it was time

[amamamumumumu]

This has been a most worthwhile evening 🍽

[beanghostprincess]

Chainsaw Man has always been about power and control and a guy who has been stripped of his childhood and teenage years to then be constantly used and manipulated, forced to become hypersexual after being groomed and sexually assaulted, and losing the one bit of normalcy there's left in him.

Denji has no control over both his body and decisions and instantly becomes a vessel of what he thinks will fix him, the very same thing Asa is to Yoru, who keeps demanding war and respect and power and she knows what to do to make Denji lose his humanity.

The relationship between Denji and Asa is so genuine and human that using that against both of their wills is incredibly violating and dehumanizing. And that's why it is so good. And that's why it needs to be explicit. And that's why I am extremely surprised people are grossed out by this happening when dehumanizing and taking control of the lives of others is exactly what War would do.

[almondpiglet]

needed to draw something this year for tomes bday...really wanted to draw her highschool friends

[fuupan]

drew these for heart pirates day and uhhhh ep1115

[lonndoodles]

Me too Eda. I wouldn't be able to keep it together if Raine looked at me like that.

[quuuueto]

He wants a rematch!

And some of the process stuff as usual! Including the idea searching

[crocodilenjoyer]

he's our little brother. take care of him.

anne carson - antigone / alec benjamin - if we have each other / dan pearce - single dad laughing: the best of year one / kodaline - brother

[makiswirl]

can i just say. and this is probably a niche hill to die on. that i am so gobsmacked every time someone vaguely hints at the idea that jotaro doesn't care meaningfully for the other crusaders, usually particularly kakyoin and joseph, when those two actually tend to be the ones he reacts to being hurt the hardest

like he cares for his loved ones!!!! that literally plays into his character motives in every single part he shows up in!!! stop lying to me!!!!!!!

[vero-niche]

moodboard for when you are watching orb on the movements of the earth:

[cloud-ya]

they're on the way to buy cup noodles

another comfort characters meme

[zukkaoru]

[ID in alt]

when characters with very carefully crafted personas begin to crack and expose the truth behind the mask. nikolai, who has spent the entire time he's known fyodor plotting ways to kill him, is horrified when he actually sustains a life-threatening injury. and not only is this the first time we see him express an emotion like this, but he's also stumbling over his words - both verbally and internally - which is not something Nikolai does. he's confident. he's smug. he's a clown and the world is his circus. he's a performer and the mask stays on for everyone.

until fyodor's death is real. he never expected fyodor to be the one to die. he brought a radio with him to celebrate. he wouldn't do that for dazai. he claims he wants to kill fyodor, and he probably thinks he does, but he also didn't truly believe it was possible. he set a goal he didn't believe was achievable. except it was, it is, and it's happening right now before his eyes and--

it doesn't feel like he thought it would. it doesn't feel like freedom. it feels like a new cage you built for yourself.

[fisheito]

I started reading beastars so now HE's reading beastars .wait

THEY'RE reading beastars

[fuumiku]

Chilcille huh... ngl I was a little suspicious. like why would you do that, huh... hope youre not mischaracterizing anyone in your weird and wacky ship. a little weird. but then you said they both had flat asses and you know what? I salute you and your perfect characterization

The fact you seem to think you managed to not make this ask insulting is baffling. What the hell. Fuck off.

If you actually care to be open minded about the ship, I talk about marchil on my sideblog 24/7. Funnily enough I’m currently 4k words deep into an analysis of their character arc together in canon, but that’ll take some more days to get done. Some notable posts:

Of course without counting the analyses of Chilchuck on his own I’ve made, like my masterpost on his family situation. Or better yet you could also read my fics for them, see how weird and wacky they are here.

Wanna talk about mischaracterisation? They’re literally a comedic duo who interacts 24/7. Marchil is crazy bc ppl are like "did those shipper read with their eyes CLOSED?? They have no chemistry!" Meanwhile canon is like: "She’s obsessed with knowing everything she can about him and she reads him like a book." In her eyes he’s like that extra rare and hard and shiny unlockable dating sim character, that brooding mysterious character trope that’s thrilling to crack open and typically is at the center of the plot. The wife roleplay???? "Hey, did you know his type is blondes. Hey did you know he likes his women pretty and blonde. Hey did you know he likes her hair. Hey did you know that he teases her 24/7 and it’s one of the few things that consistently gets him grinning because he finds her reactions cute." Like a schoolyard bully pulling on the pigtails of the girl he likes.

It’s not like they have any thematic narratives or relevance. It’s not like she’ll live to 1000 and has existential dread about it while he’s logically gonna be her next friend to die at 50 and wether it’s romantic or platonic it’ll terrify her to lose him. It’s not like it’s fear of death x fear of rejection so they’re both obsessed with the thought of loss looming, past and ongoing. It’s not like it’s half-elf x half-foot and there’s an inherent journey that was and still is to dispel prejudices and truly come to see each other. It’s not like he’s painfully real and raw and flawed but still a good man, that he’s not the figure of prince charming that she’s always dreamed of while still being virtuous and worth fighting for. Or you know, her hair being golden and it being the epitome of beauty to him, and his hair turning silver and it being Marcille’s worst nightmare.

Just a weird wacky ship who means nothing but shallow things to people who have weirdo reasons for liking it. Like can you not. If you’re not imaginative enough to think of reasons why this ship may have an appealing dynamic that’s not my issue. But yes, yes, they’re both flat asses to me, thanks.

[fumifooms]

I should have touched on dark elves in my beauty standards post... Let me just slap this on here real quick. So as we went into there, beauty standards can show political dynamics and sort of reflects the politics of who get to be seen as human, who get to be seen as desirable and promoted within a society. So like, beauty is power right, in the sense that beauty standards are highly influenced by the ones in power, the ones who have the time & resources to look a certain way and the power to present that look as desirable to large groups. It’s complex and diverse but generally beauty standards are upheld by the elite, the influential.

By the former 'time & resources' thing I mean stuff like clothes, health, makeup or even cosmetic surgeries, or even simply the freedom to only go out in public when you look your best— Meanwhile the latter, the power to present that look as desirable to large groups, usually applies more to situations where it’s about a whole category of people like an ethnicity that was uplifted as the ideal. Not just in a political or economic dynamic, but discrimination on a systematic level without regard for individual appearance or action.

For example in the former, not all people who wear makeup are rich, and while makeup did historically help signal status, if you’re poor and wear nice makeup you can still touch some of that beneficial association with the beauty standards that makeup helps you attain. In the latter……. Well you get, "no, all elves are good! So the elves who do bad things must be something else!". Where, in trying to have uniform standards for a whole group, you kinda just get erased or othered if you don’t conform to expectations. The elves especially put effort into giving off this air of perfection, which they've successfully made tallmen populations believe. So, for those people, the answer that "But elves are inherently good and beautiful and perfect?" asks, isn't "well elves mustn't be inherently perfect", but instead is "there must be bad ones too, innately too." A similar phenomenon happens with the reverse too, where people will say there are "the good ones" within a group that's seen negatively.

"But Fumi, in this case the difference is purely linguistic and perceived, there’s no visual difference!" Yeah, and there being little visual distinction between two groups has never stopped people from being discriminated tbh. Different types of christians seeing each other as heathwbs for example, or the deep british vs irish hatred that has existed. A tidbit of history I find fascinating was the infamous use of "speak white" from english-speaking canadians against french-speaking canadians especially, because complicated history aside, last century as the business owners the anglophones had the power over the majoritarily francophone working class and a lot of political sway even though they were the minority in the Québec region. There’s a different cultural and ethnic identity there, and language was the most important difference between the two groups- and I suppose the most noticeable one.

The way we as social creatures and social groups categorize people and the groups they form is complex, interesting and very important to our society and the way we approach both the world and social interactions, and that's what leads to discrimination. We decide what’s important and then we decide it’s what people should be judged and distinguished by. Belonging to a group is a show of status, and can be a weaponized both ways, for and against. If you’re not worthy to be an elf, a "good" elf, then you’re not.

Interesting especially because looking at the elf portraits page there seems to be many different cultures within the elf race, so yes "good elf" vs "dark elf" is considered something like a race rather than an ethnicity or culture presumably. There's definitely a "main" elven culture since it seems pretty uniform whenever it's brought up in the adventurer's bible and the story, though, wether the differenr cultures form different communities in different places or live together as one nation. But maybe more treated like a mental illness since it’s acquired, or sometimes slang? It's not completely clear wether it's thought of as fully innate or something learned, a chosen moral failure like sin is, but with how they speak about it they do sound very essentialists, even Chilchuck seems to get a chill considering Marcille could be one. Quoting Kui's lore comic, "There are two kinds of elves, nice holy elves and evil elves bewitched by darkness". It’s just considered like an innate thing that separates them from the concept of elves... 🤔 But this sort of category being vague is often a feature and not a bug, because then they can be a boogeyman to bring up just whenever is convenient, that can fit whoever, like calling a kid a "fairy's child" for whatever behavior in the olden days, because if you don't precise a lot what a dark elf is then it can apply to whoever you see fit, and it doesn't need to be coherent or consistent. The sort of discrimination headspace that leads to the classic fascist "the enemy is both strong and weak" type rethoric.

"Dark elves" is interesting within Dunmeshi because it's about people trying to fully separate elves from the concept of bad and untrustworthy people, even though they look the same. "Elf" isn’t just a beauty standard, it is The ultimate ideal of perfection both in appearance and morality, and if something threatens that perception and reputation it has to get rationalized and compartmentalized. Those are coping mechanisms to avoid having your whole world view challenged or shattered. To tallmen who practically worship elves, it’s a huge deal!! To them that makes it make sense! Some elves are born good and some elves are born evil, simple as! No world view re-examination needed!

So for Marcille for example... It’s interesting because she has an outside view of elven society despite being elven herself. She was raised amongst tallmen, aka the people who idolize elves to this intense degree. It had to have affected her dynamics with others— not unlike the academy students, mostly gnomes and tallmen, who looked up to her as some natural-born genius, even though she did do research and study to get her skills and grades. It also had to affect her relationship with having a role model growing up (having none around except for her mother who pretty much renounced her elven culture, a novel series that sensationalizes and glamorizes elves), her dynamic with being elven itself, because even though she doesn't feel like she fully fits into it she's interested in elven culture, and she herself enforces the beauty standards around elves and acts elitist about it- as seen when tallmen actors playing Daltian Clan opera, when men are very masculine rather than very androgynous like with Laios, having long hair, having no facial or body hair. With this angle, all of this behavior of hers is very "internalized high standards that were my bible to follow growing up and so others must follow them too and these high standards must be worth upholding".

Considering everything, elves being looked up to as a role model in appearance and behavior, plus them having the reputation of being great at magic, and Marcille having grown up amongst mostly tallmen, we start understanding that there was IMMENSE pressure on Marcille to conform to that idea of an elf. She has a lot of pressure and a very high beauty & behavior compass to conform to. She also has an idealist and rigid sense of justice and morals, like how Namari is a heartless traitor for leaving instead of coming along to save Falin, and she needs people to believe she has noooo facial or body hair. She probably WAS afraid of being seen as a dark elf, aka fundamentally evil, for her dark magic research. You don't want to be a letdown, do you? You don't want to be the ugliest elf, do you? You don't want to be a dark elf, do you? You don't want to be one of the bad ones.

Shave your facial hair and deny you have any body hair. Take care of elven traditions like hair-braiding and have pride. Be the kind, smartest model student. Do magic by the book. Never do dark magic. Ah shit-

And so she hid the domain of her research, and so she hid being a half-elf.

[sskk-manifesto]

Bungou Stray Dogs: Dead Apple and how “ability users” (opposite to “normal people”) learning to accept themselves through the acceptance of their own abilities is a queer metaphor of acceptance of own's sexual orientation and gender: an essay by me

[panharmonium]

i am not usually interested in dramatically canon-divergent scenarios because the canon story is what compels me, but i've been obsessed with this moment ever since i re-heard it during my second viewing. from the perspective of someone who already finished the story once and now knows the truth - this was wild.

WHAT IF?