#and to take a break when u need to

[hinamie]

playing around w slightly different hair renders

[choccy-milky]

seb wants to be pet, too 😤💕 ((TYSM to @angel-fr0m-venus for asking how seb would react to clora petting all the cats around the school/hogsmeade BAHAHA. like a neglected puppy, thats how🐶))

[mrmeepsmadmind]

his horns (finials) (idk)(ears)(whatever) shaking... the jumping ??? the struggling 😭 the off center twitching ..he is PISSED. AWF !!!!!!

[foxy-kitsune]

lee donghyuck the man that you are❤️‍🔥

[applestorms]

ok, well. if last time i talked about parallels between near & light, i guess it’s only fair that this time i talk about parallels between mello & misa. yap central on this blog lately.

the main thing that stands out the most about mello & misa, and the reason why i will forever Defend them and their place in the story, is that in my mind they both function in a similar way on a narrative level: namely, both of them are incredibly active wild-card characters that keep the action going and the story moving forward when the other main characters like light, L, & near start getting too passive.

notably, while i often see this trait praised in mello, usually in the context of a comparative criticism of near for his overly-abundant passivity, i have also seen it used as a criticism of misa's character, that she breaks up the status quo of DN too significantly and thereby makes the story feel less realistic. this last point in particular is an odd argument to make imo, as if anything misa's presence only increases the realism of DN by adding some extra luck/random chance into the story in a way that is ultimately still character-motivated and thus easier for the audience to go along with-- something DN in general is very good at, often introducing elements through pure chance but keeping them grounded in characters enough that you almost don't even notice.

take light meeting naomi misora, for example: the only reason he runs across her at all is because he offers to run an errand for his mom on a bored laundry day, literally stumbling across her right at the exact moment she is divulging important insights she is literally the only person capable of making about kira. yet this moment does not stand out as particularly aggravating or out of place in the story, as ultimately the only reason why light is able to get out of that situation is his own quick thinking and ability to calm himself while under immense pressure, squeezing his way out of a potentially run-ending situation he didn't even know existed moments prior.

(not a fan of that big joel video, if you couldn't tell. lmao.)

point is, mello & misa both fulfill about the same narrative function in the story by being so aggressive in their actions, catching the others off guard even if their plans aren't as well thought out or careful as they could otherwise be. they're both incredibly passionate, dedicated characters as well, tough enough to take the hit when it inevitably comes, and in my opinion neither of them are nearly as stupid as the other MCs like to make them out to be. to some degree, i think both of them are aware of the fact that they can't win at the Mind Game Cold War Bullshit the others are inclined to get involved in, so they instead choose to carve out their own place in the story through sheer perseverance alone.

which, speaking of passion: one of the most interesting parallels i think you can make between mello & misa is the ways in which they idolize their respective heroes, misa's obviously being light while mello's is L. allow me to elaborate.

as this post points out, DN has some very interesting use of its religious imagery & theming, and in particular its use of christian/catholic gothic imagery in its story and especially its art. however, as op notes, a lot of this is quite superficial, ascribing to an aesthetic of "kitschy Catholicism," that was characteristic of a lot of early 2000s japanese goth style. yet, while i admit that a more serious consideration of religious elements in the art & story could add some interesting flavor to the story, i also think that, regardless of intention, the superficiality of DN's religious elements works really well in the context of this particular story. as i stated in my tags on that post: light is a superficial god. he is a fake, a scam, some idiot human that stumbled across the powers of a real shinigami and got his head up his ass about it. and a lot of the arcs of other characters in DN is about their reaction to light's claims-- whether they choose to follow him (e.g. misa, mikami), follow somebody else (e.g. mello), or follow nobody at all (e.g. near, also kinda soichiro?), and the implications that has for their lives and personalities.

this is all to say that while you can, on a surface level, connect misa & mello pretty easily as the two aggressive, fashionable blondes of the series, i also think that these somewhat superficial traits betray a greater connection between the two of them. if we understand the christian/catholic elements of misa & mello's fashion as a demonstration of their connection to not just a higher power but a lie, a superficial deity simply reflecting the sunlight of powers greater than himself, then i think we have great insight into another key element of both their characters.

do not forget: in the world of DN, heaven & hell do not exist. at least in the context of death itself, the realm & lore of the shinigami reign supreme, a point which the DN musical makes even more overt: "Isn't it a laugh? / Isn't it a shame? / Thinking there is someone in heaven to blame?" and "Going through the motions / as if there will be a reward / Oh, while we stay eternally bored!" (BEST SONGGG.) everyone is destined for the same fate of MU, the same void of nothingness awaits all. no reward, no punishment, no greater deity looking down upon us than the bored, slothful shinigami, lazing about in their realm and picking people off only when necessary (for the most part).

misa & mello are thus dedicating themselves to false idols, and we can see the negative effects this has on them in almost every facet of their character-- particularly for mello, who is perhaps more self-aware and has more of a mixed emotional outlook on his idol, but maybe even to a more extreme degree for misa. i keep going back to this idea of equating boredom with depression in DN, but where light/L/near are all "bored" in a very quiet, passive, stewing-in-bed late at night kinda way, misa & mello are characteristically a lot more aggressive and intense about it-- while neither of them are super overtly suicidal, necessarily, their actions still betray a distinct lack of care for their own safety or lives, expressing the same thematic sentiment as the others. even if they still don't straight up say it, through their actions they're a lot louder about not liking themselves, and seem to take the problems they see in the world more personally, shouldering the blame as a failure within themselves instead of projecting it outward like the others: e.g. light taking his unhappiness at the emptiness of his life at the start of the story & placing the blame on the world for "going to shit" & humanity's moral failings, versus misa being willing to literally & figuratively give up her life for KIRA the second he demands it, whether that be in the form of shinigami eyes or killing her own friends w/o second thought-- all because he was the only thing to bring justice to her own parents' deaths, an almost undoubtedly traumatizing/horrible experience for her considering how much value she places on KIRA/light afterwards.

to clarify, this is not to say that all of these characters are actually and literally depressed and/or suicidal, though you could certainly make that argument for some/all of them-- this is just one way that i think you could interpret their roles in the plot, and their thematic attachment to the story. even if DN isn't all that interested in considering the True Moral Answer to ethics/the justice system/human society/etc, it definitely takes at least some interest in the emotional viewpoints of characters in relation to those concepts, so i think this is a fair enough approach to take. or to say this another way, it's less about justifying the claim that "the world is shit," and more about trying to understand the emotional motivation & experience of feeling like the world is shit, if that makes sense.

that being said...speaking more on the whole "not liking themselves," thing: even if she doesn't say it aloud often, if ever, i think that misa is deeply aware of the fact that she was not supposed to live this long, that her existence at all is a pure stroke of luck that let her live on past her destined date. she dedicates herself to light so fully, not even necessarily expecting reciprocation (though she at least reserves herself the possibility of such), because being a disciple to her god at least gives her life some kind of purpose. similarly, i think mello is also aware of just how out of reach the one thing he wants is, how his desperation in and of itself is ironically the one thing keeping him from surpassing near and truly being #1. it's important to note that pre-time skip misa & post-skip mello are almost exactly the same age, around 20 years old at the time of their main arcs. they're immature, and in the case of mello especially, are lashing out at the world in whatever way they can because they know they don't quite fit into it in the way that they want to or should. regardless of the intent behind it, mello & misa both still make the conscious decision to kill with the DN-- perhaps in a way that still keeps their humanity, at least following near's logic, but it's a decision to end a human life either way.

anyways, going back to my previous point, this "worshiping of false idols," idea has some interesting implications-- for misa & mello yes, but also for L and the ways in which he contrasts again light, as under this logic mello's treatment kind of inherently gives L a similar status as a sort of false god/idol. which-- actually makes a lot of sense? or at the very least, viewing wammy's house as a kind of mystery cult a la the eleusinian mysteries is a neat approach to take. L & light's mutual alienation from humanity fits them both filling a false god status, anyway. also there's another thread of analysis you could follow here where near is instead fit into the role of the person mello is fixated on which AAAAAAAAA has interesting implications but jesus fucking christ, this post is long. some thoughts for another time, i suppose.

[shellomantic]

She’d been pushed to the brink and found there was always more brink to discover.

-The dawn of Yangchen

[acekindaneat]

redraw of Holly Warburton's work

[version with no text below cut]

[batsplat]

after 2015 until 2018 it seemed that things had calmed down a bit between valentino and marc, in the sense that they had started to be polite between them again and valentino no longer seemed to be on a war footing. then after argentina obviously the situation worsened again. in the podcast where valentino spoke in 2021 if I'm not mistaken, when he talks about marc,however, he only refers to the events of sepang and not to what happened in argentina which instead seemed to have been the final “divorce”. so my question is, during 2016 and 2017 did valentino just pretend to put up with marc? because in that podcast you can feel valentino's resentment is still a lot even after many years, so I imagine it must have been even greater in the two years immediately following sepang, even if it didn't seem if you see how he behaved

well. look. it was reflected in how valentino behaved... I think sometimes if you see isolated photos and gifsets, you can maybe be left with a bit of a mistaken impression of what that dynamic actually looked like for those two years. they got to a point post-catalunya where they were civil to each other, and maybe they'd exchange two lines in greeting, at podium celebrations, when somebody in a presser made a joke... and maybe marc at the very least was sincerely hoping they could get back to something like what they had before 2015. in reality, though, it was still very very far away. it wasn't open hostilities... at some point in 2016, valentino realised he simply couldn't go on like this. I talked about it a bit here:

you get this discrepancy in his 2016 output, actually. if you compare what he's saying that autumn for written press interviews vs what he's saying with marc right next to him... he'd clearly decided there was zero point in directly fanning the flames. at the sepang 2016 presser when marc and him are quizzed on what had happened the previous year, he just goes with marc's response and decides against reopening the controversy by adding anything from his side. but he still made it clear he hadn't changed his mind in interviews from the exact same time period! at times, he tolerates marc's tentative advances - at other times, he's almost accidentally sucked in, like he can't quite help himself from laughing at something marc has said. but there was never a period where he forgave marc for what he'd done... for various reasons he just decided he wasn't going to harp on about it too much. he did basically say as much post-argentina 2018:

but yeah, argentina 2018. it's an interesting one, isn't it? the stuff that valentino says there doesn't actually feel... quite in line with anything else he's said about marc. typically, when valentino criticises marc, it really is all about sepang 2015 - it's very focused, very specific, he's talking about being unable to forgive marc on a personal level for something marc had done to valentino... but it's not like he's really coming at marc for anything else... when other riders have gotten into spats with marc, he's stayed out of it - and generally he remains pretty neutral when he talks about everything else concerning marc. so, for example, there's a world where the moment alex rins is saying marc doesn't respect other riders in 2019, valentino immediately jumps at the opportunity to offer his hot take... but he doesn't do that. and yes, he had criticised marc's riding before, in particular in marc's moto2 days, but obviously those criticisms were considerably more restrained and sounded at times quite worried for marc's sake. (he also got close to that in silverstone 2016 when he remarked marc had 'something special' for their battles, but a) he's not wrong, except insofar as it's clearly mutual, and b) he explicitly said he didn't have a problem with that fight and considered it hard but fair). in 2017, when valentino was criticising other riders for being too aggressive... well, he wasn't doing so with marc, and he even conceded the point to marc in subsequent races after marc had obliquely criticised valentino at cota for his rhetoric not matching up to his own riding. when valentino's young riders have gotten into their own spats with marc, he's not waded in either, at most saying stuff about marc's fight with pecco that from his lips sounds almost like something akin to praise. radio silence after bez's run in with marc at the end of last year... argentina 2018 is the exception not the rule

and you know... at the end of the day, that was an emotional reaction. valentino might be wearing the habitual smile on his face during the media debrief and sound reasonably calm and composed, but he was furious. which, it's always worth remembering, isn't an entirely unreasonable reaction to that specific situation. yes, valentino doesn't have a clean track record either, but you're going to struggle to find such a... weaponised carelessness, a blatant disinterest in his fellow riders while shoving them aside, in the way marc was exhibiting that day - and indeed that whole weekend. looking back, of course argentina 2018 ended up being an isolated blot on marc's track record that he's not come close to repeating since (yes, he's made high profile errors that took out other riders, but it's different)... but we didn't know that at the time. also, I doubt valentino much appreciated being treated just like an obstacle in marc's path! the fact that valentino wasn't the only marc victim that weekend kind of has an interesting effect, because you have to doubt whether it would have helped if valentino felt like he was being targeted specifically by marc, but on the other hand... well, it's almost disrespectful, isn't it... being singled out is in a way still better than being brushed aside like any other rider

still, valentino's pushing it with his criticisms, he's out of line, and he clearly did lash out in the heat of the moment - which was of course largely a product of the resentment he'd been holding onto those past two years. calling marc's behaviour that day dangerous? sure, you'd find a lot of agreement for that. saying that marc was ruining the sport? that he was intentionally causing other riders to crash? ... well, hold on one moment. I reckon the simplest explanation is the best one here: valentino was angry and said stuff he wouldn't otherwise say, which we know because he's not done so before or since. of course, he was never going to retract what he said about marc that day - he wasn't ever going to apologise for it. not with their history, not when there was still just enough about those argentina comments that he meant... so he wasn't going to feel too much regret about the bits he wouldn't have said under any other circumstance. the problem post-2015 for valentino is that constantly signalling his fury to the world wasn't doing him much good... but pretending like everything was just fine clearly also took a bit of a toll. argentina 2018 wiped the slate clean - even though they gradually crept back towards basic civility after that. and valentino really didn't continue with that line of critique... since then he's basically completely reverted back to a sepang 2015-centric approach. maybe a few hints at it... in 2021, he said something along the lines of how he doesn't feel good when he's on-track with marc, but that's pretty generic while also crucially being personal - he's not saying marc is a problem for the series, he's saying it's them specifically that have an issue with each other

which doesn't mean he didn't believe what he said in argentina 2018 in the moment... when they reconvened in cota and had marc and valentino do separate media debriefs from the main presser, valentino said he stood by his comments - but also didn't actually repeat them or elaborate on them or anything. he's back to terse short responses to the press' questions, saying he wants to focus on the race ahead: kind of the go-to approach when it comes to marc post-sepang (with notable exceptions). he's walked his strongest comments back as much as he was probably ever going to - by simple virtue of the fact that he's left it at that. and you know, he's a complicated guy... 2016-17 was both pretending and it also wasn't. he didn't act like everything was forgotten, but he certainly was willing to let people believe that this relationship might end up being mended - which quite frankly was probably never going to happen. mostly, he was just sort of sick of the whole thing, struggling to enjoy himself in what had become such a charged, hostile environment for all the riders involved. at the same time, look - fundamentally, the interpersonal chemistry with marc was always fine. they click as people! they click as riders! marc makes valentino laugh! sometimes, that line between 'pretending' and 'letting yourself pretend' and 'actually not pretending at all' can be quite thin. when valentino talks in that time period about how much he enjoyed a battle with marc, of course he isn't lying - because he really does enjoy those fights! that's what racing is all about for him, and that's something him and marc still share! as long as marc isn't barging him aside and causing him to crash, that is. maybe it'd be easier if it were all a pretence, but it wasn't... sometimes, when you say you thought a race was hard and fair, you really do mean it and you really did have a lot of fun. sometimes, the struggle isn't actually acting nice for the cameras, it's trying to bite down the temptation to laugh alongside your sworn enemy

see also assen 2016... like, isn't this kinda wild? you've just had catalunya the race before, you've just had the mere semblance of a tentative start to a possible reconciliation - then they return to the place that was really the beginning of the end for them. they go on a few track familiarisation laps, including to check out the resurfaced final chicane (aka the scene of the crime). they race each other on said track familiarisation laps. then marc brings it up in the presser, giggling about the whole thing, and apparently valentino also finds it pretty funny - before he visibly swallows up his grin. later that weekend, marc pointedly decides to try out valentino's final chicane move himself during the warm up session. this is all obviously deranged, but it's a type of deranged where they are fundamentally on the same wavelength. it's the kind of ridiculous behaviour they're both incredibly fond of... you see it in how valentino shrugs off the towing at catalunya 2019, and thinks it speaks to marc's smarts and wiliness - unsurprising, really, because they're so similar in that regard, and valentino has never shaken his admiration for marc as a competitor

valentino can clamp down on his animosity towards a rival during his direct interactions with them... lord knows if you watch a few of the casey and valentino face-to-face interactions over the years, you really wouldn't match that up with the sheer vitriol of some of the stuff they were concurrently saying about each other in the press. that rivalry was never really personal (on valentino's end), it was never fraught in the same way (for valentino anyway) - still, it shows he's theoretically capable of separating this stuff out when he needs to... and he just about managed with marc for two years. if he had just been waiting for an excuse, surely you would have heard at least a hint of that when him and marc swapped paint in 2017. you never quite knew how he was going to answer the inevitable questions about marc's riding, but no direct criticism was forthcoming at any stage. the post-argentina 2018 rhetoric wasn't in any way premeditated from valentino's side, and personally I don't think he was just waiting for an excuse either. it was the result of a constant internal conflict between knowing that engaging in any more active beef with marc wouldn't do anyone any good, and the fact that he still hadn't forgiven marc... and then a race came along that simply pissed him off enough to push him over the edge

from 2016 onwards, valentino both very much wanted and very much did not want further conflict with marc, and neither of those impulses ever quite go away. usually, he's disciplined enough to avoid stoking the flames any further... potshots to the press outside of the paddock are essentially a free and harmless outlet in that regard, and even there you can tell he was trying to scale it back in the years where he was being forced to directly interact with marc. he was pretending and not pretending and sometimes pretending like he wasn't pretending and sometimes pretending like he was pretending. maybe it would have always just taken one major on-track confrontation for things to fall apart between them again... but you do kinda have to acknowledge the whole thing was really unfortunate. I've long thought that something like sepang 2015 was pretty inevitable as long as valentino managed to put himself in title contention once marc had joined the premier class, but I don't actually feel the same way about argentina 2018. an awful marriage of circumstance and coincidence and bad choices caused the relationship to fall apart again this badly. valentino might have had some more or less sincere misgivings about marc's riding, but at the end of the day he wasn't going to ever express them unless it got personal - because all of these people are incredibly self-centred and valentino wouldn't have felt like it was worth it. he lost his temper, he said some stuff he might partly but not fully believe, he's not inclined to bring it up again. that's that

[rogdona]

Could you draw the cinnamon ciblings? Again no pressure! I’ll keep making doodles for you but I don’t expect more drawings in return :)

HERE U GO🙌🙌🙌

[fraternum-momentum]

im trying my best im so sorry orz

[biillys]

and you— you were happy.

[hot-cherri]

“There is an ocean of silence between us… and I am drowning in it.”

~Ranata Suzuki

[cerealmonster15]

haikaveh... save me haikaveh...

i KNOW it's been talked about to death but. the haikaveh research project. it literally haunts my mind. i cannot get over the implications. alhaitham going through his school life as someone that most people dont even really know about because he keeps to himself and doesn't socialize, with kaveh being the one exception to that, finding his way into his life as his Best Friend, and then leading to alhaithams one and only time he participated in a research topic. his bio says he only ever did ONE joint project!!! one!!! the one with kaveh his best friend and i think also his only friend at the time!!!! and then it ended in not only the project falling apart but also alhaithams only friendship. kavehs best friendship. they were each others closest person. they had no family around - alhaithams parents having died when he was young and his grandmother dying before he joined the akademiya, and kaveh's dad dying when he was young and his mom having moved to fontaine. like even if you dont look at it through a romantic lens it's still undeniable how important they were [and are] to each other..........

i'm getting off track but my point is very specifically for alhaitham, the one time he got close to someone, made a friend, even agreed to join one(1) group project ever, it ended in disaster. it led him into a fight so bad that his one and only friend said he regretted that friendship!!!! it was so bad alhaitham left the project and he and kaveh didnt speak for ages until they just happened to run into each other again at the tavern!!!!! like obviously it has to be incredibly awful for both of them but i just think how this probably had alhaitham in the cynical mindset that friendships and collaborations like that might just never work out for him because the one time he let someone into his life, it blew up on him and he was all alone again. even though alhaitham never seems to care much if people dont like him, that clearly cant still apply to someone he was exceptionally close to. like if he didnt care he woudlnt have been the one to take his name off the project and mutually not speak to kaveh...... kavehs words are the ones that hit the most significantly to alhaitham.......... kaveh is said/implied to have had at least some other friends while at school / people knew who he was, but not so much alhaitham. people didnt know him and the ones that did just knew he didnt socialize/he was not easy to get along with. he only had kaveh and then, for a while, he lost him too!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[melancholyfleurs]

hey cuties in my phone. i just want you to know i love you very much and life is so fucking hard but so worth living and if it’s dark for you rn just know i am rooting for you and i hope things get easier <3.

[lokh]

bro why tf doctors don't respect ur time 💀

[opens-up-4-nobody]

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