all of the panels with Dazai with a cold from the BSD Anthology 🥰 him being perfectly normal with a 39.8°C fever is so very Dazai of him...
OK SO CAN WE TALK ABOUT THE WHOLE EYES BEING IMPORTANT TO THE CHARACTERS THING. because this chapter had a whole lot of that. ohhh boy it had a lot!!!!! it did!!!!!
FIRSTLY. akutagawa. for a while, his eyes have been pitch-black. last chapter, they regained their light, as he remembered atsushi. and then they're pitch-black again in this chapter-- as the person who brought light to them, to akutagawa himself, is gone.
SECONDLY. dazai. as he tells akutagawa he can "certainly" give him a reason to live, at the same time, he himself looks like he has no reason to live, as if he's not living at all. his eyes are dark and dead. pitch-blacm just as akutagawa's were at the start of the manga, and this chapter, but with none of the determination or bite akutagawa has. just emptiness.
THIRDLY. (child) akutagawa. his eyes aren't empty, nor pitch-black at first. they're dark, with light within. he has not been shown light, nor has he been pushed into the shadows. they become purely fully of light when dazai claims he can give akutagawa a reason to live.
his eyes turn his signature pitch-black with his time in the mafia. he was not given a reason to live. he was given fear, pain, emptiness, and desensitivity to brutality. the chance of light and goodness in his eyes from when he was a child is erased by the port mafia-- by dazai.
his eyes become like dazai's dark, lifeless ones as dazai trains him. any chance at light, or goodness, or happiness, or true life is sapped from him and replaced with violence, abuse, the mafia, dazai, dazai, dazai!
atsushi is what brings akutagawa that light. and when atsushi is gone, the light is gone.
"the light in somebody's eyes" is a phrase meant to refer to someone's spark of life. their reason to live. akutagawa says that killing atsushi "became [his] sole motivation." but when atsushi dies, that takes the light out of his eyes. his reason to live vanishes along with atsushi.
atsushi is akutagawa's reason to live, isn't he?
Seems like only last year
You were teaching
Life can fill you with fear
But it ain't just suffering
And now irony would have it
That I teach it back to you
finished playing Snufkin: Melody of Moominvalley recently, have some fanart 💖
Just my idea of how Snufkin got his harmonica!
[Previous comic]
[initial concept comic]
In time travel movies, when the time traveler asks 'What year is this?!?' they're always treated like they're being weird for asking.
When in reality, if you go 'What year is this?!?' people will just say '2024. Crazy huh.' and you go 'Wtf where has my youth gone.'
And if you ask 'And what month??' people won't judge you, they'll just go like 'SEPTEMBER!!! Can you believe it?!?!' and you go 'WHAT?!? Last time I checked we were in May?!?'
LUFFY WEEK HAS BEGUN. ☀️🌞
Luffy Week Day 1: Smile!
snufkin: melody of moominvalley moments that have made me bark out an ugly laugh (so far)
You have a lot of thoughts about Sanji and how the Germa modification may come back to bite him later in terms of his own free will (& I agree that it will eventually come up)—but do you have any thoughts about Luffy having a mythical Zoan and whether Nika might be bleeding over into him? Zoan fruits supposedly have a will of their own especially after awakening, and I’m guessing mythical humanoid ones might take that a step further.
I remember being super unsettled by Gear 5 up until Luffy officially reiterated that he’s Luffy, going to be the pirate king, etc. There was something really eerie about it to me, like I was legit concerned that we were looking at something that wasn’t Luffy anymore.
What does it mean for Luffy, who ultimately is a personification of freedom and free will to be potentially a reincarnation of Joyboy/some sort of prophesied person with a destiny? Does it run kind of counter to his whole character? Is it fine so far because Luffy and Nika/Joyboy are so similar, and could that change?
Interested if you have any thoughts about it! Love your character analysis videos.
I've said this on twitter ages ago BUT somehow I don't think joyboy is gonna be a reincarnation or anything. I feel it's just the gum gum fruit itself has a will that it couldn't carry out 800 years ago with its previous user, and it's now found Luffy who can help carry out its will with Luffy's own. Ie, Luffy has not been forced on a path as the chosen one, he's simply so strong of mind and soul that the fruit has found someone to help it reach its peak form and power.
People like Luffy are a rarity, in terms of their pure determination and guts. Luffy makes his own path, and now he's yanked into the soul of his devil fruit, and has forced it to awaken for his own gain. But, since one piece is about continuing wills, it also makes perfect sense that either joyboy or the fruit itself has a will that Luffy is picking up. This is by no means fate, and is instead Luffy tearing the world apart due to who he is.
I also do think there's a possibility of devil fruits overtaking someone's mind and soul, but I don't know! Haven't seen that happen yet I think, so I'm keen to find out!
Also thank youuuu! 🫶
[bsd ch 113 spoilers]
Same as ever
It started as me wanting to just sketch the pose, then the adhd won and i was several hours deep into inking at 5:30 am.... but i sure did it! And i think i get watercolors a little better now!
I didnt think about it until i was already working on the second piece, but i think what this is is the feeling i got while reading Crime and Punishment where they described people doing things and i realized that they were doing things we think of as exclusively modern behaviors but really, humans are just the same as we always were.
My gender : The noncommittal noise Snufkin canonly makes so he doesn’t have to answer people.
This entire chapter was a fever dream