"Cute aggression." What about royalty aggression, huh? What if I want to kiss someone's arm and pledge my life to them? What if I want to make them feel like they own the world and support them in reaching their goals? What then, huh?

They are not normal about each other, but I need another POV from Yotasuke now.

(AND MIDWAY IT GOT A LITTLE TOO SHIPPING, BUT I HONESTLY CAN'T SEPARATE MY THOUGHTS FROM "YOTASUKE IS THE LIVING EMBODIMENT OF ART TO YATORA'S EYES" NOW.)

Anyway, that panel made me go crazy.

And Yatora is always constantly scared that he is so normal and boring that the art world would just reject him. The thing that made everything comes to life and colors.

Yatora choose art. He wants to know if art would choose him too, even if he is too boring for it.

Art is the reason life stopped being a a game to level-up into a comfortable life. Art gave me conscious.

And Yotasuke is art, as I said. In both of their minds, one way or another. Yotasuke doesn't want to be left behind, but people can live without art. Art doesn't have a "practical purpose" —

But Yatora does feels alienated from society in his own way and he fears this alienation is his only connection with Yotasuke. Art, that is. Art let him have an "honest conversation" with his friends, art gave him a new perspective of people (and it keeps giving him new ones, again and again) +

Queer-googles on: "EVEN IF I END UP BEING ABLE TO FALL IN LOVE, WOULD YOU STILL BE MY SIDE?"

(Not with Yotasuke himself, because that would negate partly the "normal" part of the question.) >

truths that you really didn't expect to hear (read) on a random wednesday night

...and i am not a drawing person kind of artist, but as this whole thread can testify, i get it. being able to find an external source of happiness is its own blessing.

And so we go back to their room.

I love how Yotasuke can call him out like that. Yatora was ready to pretend it was just like any other day, but Yotasuke knows him better than that by now—

I LOVE THAT.

etc.,. Love is useful like that. Is a shortcut (or is used like one).

But Yatora doesn't have that. Moreover, he is someone used to shape himself for others and has problems distinguishing the forms of his own desires. Art is a path, not the north star. And what will remain in such a path?

This is speculation and not text: I think he comes back to it because usually loves is a tool that helps us see ourselves more clearly with an external sphere of influence. Meaning is the way we interact with it that creates our image. How much we give, how much we take, what we are looking for-

Meanwhile Yatora spents all day conflicted because he doesn't have a clear view of himself.

Yotasuke feels so alienated of society (probably due to neurodivergency), yet doesn't blame his friends for being "normal people".

(I wanna cry...)

AND THAT WILL COME BACK AT THE END OF THE CHAPTER.

They are HIS FRIENDS.

They are HIS MOST IMPORTANT RELATIONSHIPS.

Yet they can leave him behind. Okamoto can live without art (without him) and he has "know" (at least, still partially believes) that Yamaguchi is the same.

None of them "needs" art (him).

Is because Yotasuke is only the friend, the bystander, that his perspective matters so much. And is silent, because they are not his relationship nor his scenes, but that doesn't mean it doesn't affect his life.

He is in the background of everything. He is also being affected by it. He /fears/ the same thing that Yatora fears: being left behind. And yet Yotasuke barely is part of the equation itself. But this kind of situation doesn't affect only "the couple". +

And can we talk about Yotasuke in the background of this plot, too? BECAUSE IT IS EVERYTHING TO ME.

I do ship them, in a fannish-way —meaning I do not think nor need it in canon, but it is soooo funny to put on the shipping googles while reading. BUT IN CANON THEY ARE ALSO SO JUICY TO SEE.

* cries at a manga panel *

i will never have confirmation, but i know, in my heart of hearts...

* hugs aro!yaguchi *

(And I need to check the tag for the manga because I refuse to believe I am the only one that thinks that Ayano × Kinemi would be such a perfect couple. AYANO LOVES HER SO MUCH AND PROTECTS AND SUPPORTS HER AND ACTUALLY TRIES TO BE THERE FOR HER WITHOUT CHANGING HER. AYANO, I SUPPORT YOU.)

I love a story that doesn't threat love as this "moral absolute". Romantic love in specific— because I am tired that is viewed as such a /goal/.

HOW AWKWARD IT IS TO BE LOVED.

HOW PAINFUL IT FEELS.

HOW YOU WISH... this fear could dissapear, and still be you. (Yaguchi's expression hurts me.)

A [not-LITERAL-anymore] NIGHTMARE part II (?)

No, but you know, how I, as an aro person, hate this scenario? Yatora is a better person than me because everytime someone shows interest in me I get—...

lmao, sorry, I just remembered what comes next.

Anyway! Hate this assumptions so much. 😊 😊 😊

A LITERAL NIGHTMARE—

...which I think is the reason I love Yatora so much, oh.

I really can't think if any other character who is these people-smart CONSCIOUSLY and is KIND exactly because of it. Like usually they use this trope to make them mean and abusive and cruel, and if they are kind, they run on instinct. They don't choose to be kind, they just are.

BUT ALSO. YATORA IS SO PEOPLE SMART. SO GOOD AT READING THEM. SO SO SO GOOD.

FAKE SMILE ✨ FAKE SMILE ✨ FAKE SMILE ✨

—even if you don't feel it, or you are not as invested as the ideal should make you feel. You do it because it is what it is done and that's it.

Especially for someone as Yatora where it goes beyond romance? Yeah, that boy is so deep in the closet emotionally no wonder art is a siren's call.

ARO!YATORA FOR THE WIN. I know it can be/intersect with his natural inclination to go with the flow (see, previous panel), but there is something deeply relatable to just /thinking/ "this is probably what I should be doing" when it comes to romantic relationships—

FAKE SMILE ✨ FAKE SMILE ✨ FAKE SMILE ✨ FAKE SMILE ✨

I LOVE HIS FAKE SMILE, SORRY. MORE SPECIFICALLY, I LOVE SENSEI FOR MAKING THE PERFECT EXPRESSION WHERE YOU KNOW IS A FAKE SMILE AND YET NOT ILL INTENDED.

I LOVE HIS FAKE SMILE BECAUSE THERE IS INTIMACY IN KNOWING IS FAKE.

Everything is a spectrum and I choose to celebrate how Yatora spents all his time with Yotasuke even in poverty, which is fine with Yotasuke because he is not someone who goes out just because.

(Obsessed with how obsessed Yatora is with Yotasuke, truly.)

(... especially when it would be so funny that someone so perceptive of other people's feelings and humor would be so oblivious to his own. The -normativity is a hell of a prison glass.)