#hope you enjoyed anyway!

[the-yuri-librarian]

Bloom into You Analysis: Ch. 3

Its finally here! This time, its Bloom into You Chapter 3. This one is going to be a little shorter just because there is not as much to talk about, story progression wise. A lot of this chapter is more dedicated to progressing the student council election arc than it necessarily is progressing Yuu and Nanami’s relationship. Either way, lets get into it. My favorite panel is actually the title card:

I just think its cute! Analysis below the cut:

Yuu and Nanami are now in a brand new post-kiss world. Yet, the kiss isn’t the only thing on their minds. As I said above, a lot of this chapter deals with the student council election. The characters are putting up fliers, taking candidate photos, conducting interviews about their candidacy, etc. And, because Yuu is Nanami’s campaign manager, she is heavily involved in all of this, and is spending a lot of time around Nanami, which gives her a lot of time to reflect on the kiss. But first, Nanami pulls her aside and apologizes for what happened, insisting that she only asked Yuu to be her campaign manager so they could work together as friends. Yuu forgives her, says it is fine, and they move on. It is not until after the apology that Yuu begins to truly reflect on what happened. And, the truth is, she is frustrated. Her thoughts reveal that that was her first kiss, and she, in her words, “didn’t feel anything” (Ch. 3, pg. 8; emphasis original). While she does not seem surprised by this fact, she is definitely disappointed. But, she cannot get this moment out of her head, her thoughts circling around and around it. This comes to a head when all the candidates and their campaign managers line up together for a photograph. Yuu’s and Nanami’s hands bump together, and Yuu takes this opportunity to conduct a test. She takes Nanami by the hand behind their backs, where the camera can’t see, and she watches Nanami’s reaction. Nanami, of course, gets flustered because she didn’t expect this and she blushes, which seemingly infuriates Yuu. She glares at Nanami behind her back, literally thinking, “It’s not fair” (ch. 3, pg. 18; emphasis original). Her thoughts continue:

This moment, more than any other, the confession, the kiss, or anything else Nanami has done seems to be what confirms for Yuu that they are not the same. Which leads to the next page:

And this is where Yuu’s character arc is introduced into the story, and it is set up wonderfully in this panel through, what is effectively, the “show don’t tell” rule. Any writer or creative who partakes in storytelling has heard this rule. It boils down to this: when you are telling a story, it is, generally, better to show the audience what happens as opposed to telling them what happens. For example, if you were writing a short story and you wanted to convey that a character is scared, you wouldn’t write “Yuu was scared” because that is telling the audience she is feeling. Instead, it is generally better to write, “Yuu clenched her sweat soaked palms and took a small step back.” (This is not the best example, but its gets the point across). This shows the audience that Yuu is afraid through her actions and has the potential to produce a more visceral emotional reaction in said audience. Nakatani is likely well aware of this “rule,” and, since Bloom into You is being told through a visual medium, she is able to utilize a blend of showing and telling to depict Yuu’s complex emotional state. By doing so in this scene, Nakatani is setting up Yuu’s internal conflict, or what her story is really about, by creating a situation in which Yuu’s actions contradict her words. The above panel is an excellent example of this. Look at Yuu’s thoughts on the page. Her inner monologue is claiming that the situation is not fair, is claiming that Yuu doesn’t know know what it is like to have someone special. She thinks that she cannot feel love and therefore cannot love Nanami. Through Yuu’s thoughts in this scene, Nakatani is, in some ways, telling the audience how Yuu feels. But, look what the physical actions Yuu is taking. Nanami starts to walk away, and Yuu steps towards her, holding her hand out. She is reaching for Nanami. It almost looks like she is going to call out to her. But why would she do that unless she already has some feelings for Nanami? In an updated version of the part two analysis, which is linked in the master link document at the end, I focused on two moments in chapter two, in which Yuu repeatedly insists that Nanami can’t like her because, according to her, ““We’re both girls” (pg. 4 & 26). Yuu clings to these notions, according to my interpretation, because she is trying to protect herself from the fact that she is attracted to Nanami. This scene supports that intrepretation, while also implying that it may already be too late for Yuu; she may already like Nanami. The problem is the way Yuu feels doesn’t match up with the romanticized version of these feelings in the love songs she likes and romance manga she reads. And, because of that, she stops herself from reaching out, giving in to her own beliefs and ultimately cutting herself off from the way she feels, instead isolating herself. In this panel, the night sky in the background symbolizes how far away from Nanami Yuu feels. She’s not even on the ground, and is instead floating up with the stars. This contradiction in character — the Yuu who simultaneously has feelings for Nanami and cannot have feelings for anyone at the same time — is the main internal conflict of this story. It drives Yuu’s actions forward from chapter to chapter, as she learns, slowly, that though love may never be what you expect it to be, it will always find you, because there is plenty of love in the world. And, now that this contradiction is in place, it can begin to affect the story, which it does at the end of this chapter (lots of images below):

After the election events, Yuu and Nanami go home, and Nanami invites Yuu to a coffee shop (this shop will become important to the narrative later, but for right now its just a coffee shop). Yuu agrees, and they have this exchange. In this scene, Yuu’s actions reveal a lot about her mindset. Nanami asks if she can just stay by Yuu’s side and be in love with her, and Yuu agrees, but she doesn’t know why. Internally, she is calling Nanami unfair and acting as if Nanami is twisting her arm about the situation. But is she? Yuu is being a bit of an unreliable narrator here, and to prove it I want to talk about Can’t Defy the Lonely Girl (blog spoilers: review on this coming in a few weeks). Can’t defy the Lonely Girl is another girl’s love manga that tells the story of Ayaka and Sora. The general gist is this: Ayaka desperately wants to get into a good college, but she has bad test anxiety. As a result of this, she did not get into her first choice high school. One of her teachers is aware of this, and cuts her a deal: “Sora Honda has not come to class a single this semester; if you can get her to come to class refularly, I will write you a recommendation letter to whatever school you want.” Ayaka agrees, and goes to Sora’s house to talk to her. Sora agrees to come to class on one condition: Ayaka must agree to one “request” everyday. The first request? Sora wants to kiss her. As the story progresses, whenever Ayaka doesn’t want to do something that Sora wants her to do, Sora uses her request to get her to do it (its mostly harmless stuff). During some of these moments, Ayaka internally relents that Sora is being “not fair.” And this brings us back to Bloom into You. Compare this scene to the description of Can’t Defy the Lonely Girl above. How is Nanami being “unfair” to Yuu here? Yuu can just say no. It is not like Ayaka’s situation, where her and Sora have an agreement that she desperately needs to keep in order to achieve her goals. What is stopping Yuu from walking away? Nothing about Nanami’s mannerisms or speech imply that she would not respect Yuu’s wishes if asked to leave her alone. If Nanami is not the one pressuring her, then who else is left to pressure her but herself? This is not to say that I think Yuu loves Nanami yet; its far too early in the story for that. But, I definitely think her feelings extend beyond just platonic friendship. The question only remains: How does their relationship develop from here?

Not that these are back, I’m only going to do them twice a week, but there won't be a set upload schedule. This is probably not a good idea for blog growth, but with my current schedule, it will be better for me if I stay flexible. Please look forward to chapter four later this week. Also, if you missed chapters 1 and 2, here is the masterlist with all the links: https://hero.page/theyurilibrarian/personal. Each time a new analysis goes up, the previous analysis will be added to this list, and it will always be attached at the end.

Thanks for reading! Here’s the bonus panel for this chapter:

[squidthusiast]

“I could listen to your laugh all day”

[against-all-odds-im-back]

I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to draw @1spooky2me ‘s fantastic Bill design

[stump-not-found]

A Lifetime Served in a Little Cup

pt.1 / pt.2 / pt.3 / pt.4

---

bill, babygirl, the red flags get outta there

[plumadot]

shy confessions mmmmmmmmmm

[waywardstation]

Look for anything (or anyone) that could be familiar

For part two:

❤️ 300 likes

🔁 70 reblogs

Reblog with the hashtag:

🔼 for Ingo to find Emmet

🔽 for Emmet to find Ingo

[seafoamsol]

Gaze upon me, and witness my glory!

[the-phantom-peach]

Little Big Changes ✂️~

———

CONTEXT~~

A long forgotten short comic I did for pre-totk/post-botw domestic zelink

I love Zel’s hair symbolism especially after altering her status as a “princess”and becoming a Hateno grade school teacher. She’d most likely still maintain some insecurities but that’s what our lovely knight was made for <3

Semi-connected to my previous Signing Link headcanon, Link speaks here for the first time post-Calamity and gets super self-conscious. But of course Zelda doesn’t mind and is happy that Link growing more comfortable after the events of breath of the wild

[addamii]

If Alecto is a barbie world in a barbie girl, then Nona is living in a material girl and she is a material world

Available as a print here :)

[theoldkyokodied]

good evening bloodweave enjoyers

[caffichai]

More art for Coldshot's Called Shot by my friend @fishing-lesbian-catgirl! If you like spicy content, go give it a read!

The final piece, at least for now! Somehow I did these in reverse chronological order, but I guess it worked out in the end

Hey, if you're here, check this out!

[lilybug-02]

Pain is a great motivator…

Part 26 || First || Previous || Next

—Full Series—

Meanwhile Toriel:

(Loud noises don't wake her up usually.)

Artist note: I’m so proud of this :))) I know it’s a lot of dialogue and reading, but dialogue is grueling work for me. I’m glad with the art and for the amount of pages I made in such a relatively short time span -w- page 5 was super fun to work on. A lot of blood, sweat, and hours here... :) The backgrounds were a big bore tbh, but I finished them! Yippie!

[hailsatanacab]

Family Dinners - dpxdc

"Holy shit, you're Bruce Wayne!" Danny gaped, jabbing a finger at the man sitting at the head of the table.

The bustling dining room goes silent as everyone turns to look at him.

"Danny, who did you think was going to be here?" Tim asks, disbelief plain in his voice and Danny feels his face flush red.

"Sorry, I, uh, I guess I just never put it together. Tim Drake-Wayne. Wayne Manor. It, uh, makes sense now." He laughs sheepishly and scrubs at his neck before slumping back down into his chair.

"Well," Tim says with an indulgent sigh, "at least I know you're not just friends with me for my connections."

"Yeah, I'm really sorry, I just never thought about it, I guess."

Danny sinks lower as everyone around him laughs. Come to dinner, he said, the food is the best, he said, ignore the family, he said. Danny really wishes he'd listened to Tim and just ignored them—almost as much as he's regretting accepting the offer in the first place—but... he's having dinner with Batman.

Ancients, that's so weird!

The last time he saw Batman was in the future and, suffice it to say, it was not going well. There hadn't really been time for family dinners there.

Wait. Family dinners?

He peers around the table, openly gawking at everyone as it all clicks into place.

"Everything alright, Danny? Now realising who everyone else is?" Tim asks with a roll of his eyes.

"Uh... something like that..." Danny mumbles as everyone laughs again.

From further down the table, the smallest Wayne scoffs and clicks his tongue.

"I thought you said he was smart, Drake?"

"So, you all do it, too, then?" he asks, ignoring the jibe. Danny's only a little bit jealous as he thinks of how much easier they must have it, how much easier it'd be if his family had been on his side, too. "You all work together?"

"Nah," Dick says from across the table with a brilliant grin. "Tim's the only one that works with Bruce, we all have different jobs. I'm a police officer in Bludhaven."

"Disgusting." Danny blurts out without thinking—because seriously, what kind of self-respecting vigilante would also be a police officer?—before clapping a hand over his mouth. "Sorry."

The whole table laughs again, the loudest being the blonde girl a few spaces down from Dick. Look, Danny wasn't really paying attention to names when they were all paraded in front of him. Dick only gets remembered because his name is a joke.

Come on, Danny, recover!

"That's, uh, not what I meant, though."

"Oh?" Dick asks, cocking his head slightly to the side. Is it Danny's imagination or does his smile tense slightly?

"Yeah, I mean like, you know, in costume. It must make it so much easier to have everyone together like this."

"Costume? What do you mean?"

Yeah, Danny's not imagining it, everyone tenses up at that. It's really only now that he's realising that this probably isn't how he should bring up that he knows about their... night time activities. In fact, he probably shouldn't be bringing it up at all.

"Uuhhh..." Danny looks wildly around the table as he continues making his stupid noise. Think, think, think! There must be a way out of this!

"Danny?" Tim asks, looking concerned.

"Oh, Ancients, this isn't how I wanted it to go at all," he mutters, slipping even further into his chair. He's almost on the floor now and he so, so wishes it could just swallow him up.

His real first meeting with Batman was meant to be cool! He had planned to be Phantom, maybe save them from a tight spot, prove his worth as a mysterious and powerful ally as thanks for the help Batman gave him in the future.

"Danny, what are you talking about?" Tim starts tugging on his sleeve in an attempt to pull him back up from his pit of despair.

Eventually, Danny relents and sits up straighter, hiding his face in his hands and whining all the while.

"I'm sorry, I just didn't expect him to be here and it threw me off so now I look stupid and it's so embarrassing!" he wails, flailing his arms wide. "Why wouldn't you warn me that Batman was your adopted dad, Tim? Couldn't you have let me know?"

"I'm sorry, what? Danny are you alright? There's no way Bruce can be Batman, look at him!"

"Yeah," the blonde girl laughs from the bottom of the table, "look at him! That's a wet noodle of a man! Batman can actually do things, B is incapable of pretty much everything."

"Thank you, Stephanie," Bruce sighs, massaging his forehead.

It's... Those are the first words Danny's heard Batman say since everything went down and it's enough to knock him out of his embarrassment.

It's really good to hear his voice again. Especially now, when it's strong and healthy and full of personality—even if that personality is little more than a tired father right now—far better than how it had been, at the end.

Danny sits up, back straight, and grins. He's got this. He remembers it perfectly. Some people count sheep to fall asleep, Danny repeats his mantra to be certain that he'll never forget it.

"Gamma alpha upsilon tau iota mu epsilon, 42, 63, 28, 1 colon 65 dash 9."

Once again, the whole table falls into silence.

"Holy shit..." breathes the other D name (Duke? Danny's pretty sure he's Signal) from opposite Stephanie. "Isn't that...?"

"The time travelling code." The littlest Wayne says stiffly. "We have met in the future?"

"That's not just the time travelling code, Dami." Dick says, looking between Danny and Bruce. "That's the family time travelling code."

Danny's grin freezes in place.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"1 colon 65 dash 9." Dick explains, still flicking between him and Bruce. "It means you've been adopted into the family and we should all treat you as such, no questions asked."

"Tell you what, I'm about to ask a question." Danny says, dumbstruck. "You just told me it was a code to identify time travellers, not anything about being adopted! What the hell, B?"

Bruce looks about as shellshocked as Danny feels.

"We must have been close," he says finally, after opening and closing his mouth like a fish out of water a few times.

"No! Not that close!" Danny reels back, taking a deep breath ready to refute it all, but... "Well, I mean, you found me when I first got stuck, and you helped me get better despite being... And then we fought together against the, uh, bad guy, before he, um, he... before you couldn't."

An uncomfortable beat passes while they all pick up on what Danny tried so hard not to say.

"So, you're not from the future, then, you travelled there and came back?" Tim asks, breaking the tension and leaning forward with a glint in his eye.

"Yeah, it was a whole end of the world thing, but don't worry about it," Danny says with a hand wave, "It's all kosher now, won't ever happen."

"What did happen?"

"Seriously, don't worry about it, we cool."

"How long in the future was it?"

"About ten years? You were pretty spry for an old man, B," Danny laughs, wishing they'd get off the topic of what happened and get back to the adoption bit.

Everyone shares degrees of a cautious smile as they relax out of the shock, and Dick—whose grin is the biggest—says, "No wonder you got the family code, you're already riffing on him like one of us. How long were you there for?"

"A week, before I managed to get back to my present and stop him then."

"A week? Jeez, B, that has to set some kind of record, seriously."

"Oh!" Danny says, sitting bolt upright and blinking in surprise before pointing at Dick and bouncing in his seat. "You're Nightwing!"

"What?"

"That's exactly what Nightwing said when Batman told me the code! Makes so much more sense now."

Dick laughs and claps his hands, delighted.

"You were not formally adopted?" The grumpy small one—Dami?—asks, his face pinched.

"I didn't even know I was informally adopted."

"And your parents? Are they alive or dead?"

"Damian, stop—"

"They were dead in the future, but they're alive now." Danny says, looking down. He fiddles with the tablecloth, twisting the fabric around his fingers as he fights down the pang of sadness that he always feels when he thinks of them now. He forces a bright smile on his face and hopes it doesn’t look too strained. "I just, uh, can't talk to them much, anymore."

"Damian," Dick warns, "1 colon 65 dash 9. Treat them as family, no questions asked."

"This is Damian treating him as family, the little turd has no manners." Tim scoffs, rolling his eyes, but he gently bumps shoulders with Danny to knock him out of his funk. Danny can't help but send him a watery smile.

"I have the most exemplary manners, Drake, unlike some people." Damian spits, crossing his arms with a pout. "I was merely ascertaining his status to see how he could possibly fit into the family."

"I know this is all a bit sudden, Danny," Bruce smiles, ignoring Damian and reaching out to lay a warm hand on his arm, "for all of us. But if I felt strongly enough to give you that code after spending a week with you in the future, then you are more than welcome in this family, if you so choose it. I think I can speak for all of us when I say we'd like to get to know you a bit more."

"I know a threat when I hear it, Bruce." Danny snorts. "But, yeah, I get it. I'm sorry this is all so weird, it really wasn't how I wanted to find you again, but... I'm glad I did."

"So are we, Danny." Dick says, with a warm smile. "And formally or not, 1 colon 65 dash 9 means you're family. Welcome to the fun house! No take backs or refunds, sorry. You're stuck with us."

[little-pup-pip]

Cosy day in!!

[wuntrum]

2025 horror pin up calendar!!

print version | digital (/print it yourself) version

a labor of love, truly <3 prepare for the new year with 12 suggestive (and silly) horror characters :) featuring characters from: american psycho, bride of re-animator, the evil dead, hannibal, jason x, frankenhooker, alien, an american werewolf in london, jennifer's body, saw, the thing, and scream! to see the full specs of the calendar, check out the pages above!

[mothgenes]

Part 3

Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3