77

| she/her | always spreading Meronia propaganda | Big Mello fan and hater

[yaolmao]

eat the goddamn apple eve

[nedlittle]

so frustrating when you go to see if anyone has written about homoerotic subtext in dostoevsky's work and you get maybe one academic article and the rest is substacks summarizing the book in question and one (1) person on reddit earnestly trying to engage in discussion before being immediately shot down. i'm not saying the man was an #ally or anything but there's a throughline particularly in his later works that at the very fucking least implies that a) he was aware that people can be gay b) he utilized this in some of his Great Works to explore human psychology. like can we please talk about netochka nezvanova being thrown out onto the street after she and katya are found kissing. or nastasya psychologically manipulating aglaya by writing her love letters in the idiot. or trusotsky goading velchaninov into kissing him on the mouth and confessing his love, which velchaninov calls "shameful and unnatural and immoderate" in the eternal husband. or stavrogin using his charisma to radicalize young men into heavily eroticized violence in demons. can we please talk about it. i feel like i'm in an echo chamber.

[nedlittle]

dostoevsky employed a rather putin-esque rhetoric towards homosexuality, considering it a western vice that would destabilize russia, as shown from this quote by his colleague varvara v timofeevna (c. 1873, trans by irene zohrab)

so it wasn't as though he was writing it in by accident. in fact, it's extremely easy to read this passage and understand some of the examples i gave above as being purposeful. in idiot, rogozhin and nastasya both use queerness to manipulate myshkin and aglaya respectively. both characters are "damaged goods" both mentally and in terms of sexual development, leading to perversion. in the cases of trusotsky and stavrogin, both characters are explicitly villainous and their villainy comes in part from their willingness to corrupt other men by any means possible, including sexually.

i can't think of any god-fearing excuse for whatever the hell happens in netochka nezvanova. the state tried to execute him because they knew that if he wrote a complete novel with a lesbian protagonist he would be too powerful. sad!

obviously this isn't woke or anything, and there were authors writing in the same period and similar circumstances who wrote much more liberal viewpoints into their works. however dostoevsky was a conservative & intensely religious man, so this isn't exactly surprising. i just wish that people could talk about this subtext without being shot down or ignored. these toxic relationships are among the most interesting parts of dostoevsky's novels to me as a gay person and i'm sick of people pretending that dostoevsky couldn't have been a) an incredible writer b) a conservative christian c) purposefully engaging with a spectre of queerness.

anyway. here are some articles i've found that do discuss the topic. i haven't had a chance to read through all of them, but they at least look interesting (all free and available for download)

dostoevsky and the (missing) marriage plot by anna a. berman (2021)

dostoevsky's comley boy: homoerotic desire and aesthetic strategies in a raw youth by susanne fusso (2000)

+ fusso has a whole book called "discovering sexuality in dostoevsky"

a falliable narrator and an inscrutable object: desire as structure in dostoevsky's the eternal husband by james phillips (2024)

"mann-mannliche" love in dostoevsky's fiction (an approach to the possessed) by irene zohrab (2002)

dostoevsky in europe: "the life of a great sinner" as source material for "the possessed" and "the adolescent", and ulrichs's confessional 'third sex' theory and some court cases in germany by irene zohrab (2001)

dostoyevsky: epilepsy, mysticism, and homosexuality by j.r. maze (1981)

myshkin's queer failure: (mis)reading masculinity in dostoevskii's the idiot by connor doak (2019)

[open-funeral]

bringing out this mellonear artifact

[riverr4n]

i've always headcanoned mello having an unstable mother in his early childhood. maybe a mother with delusion disorder, or severely prone to psychosis. my main theory is that postpartum psychosis was a huge event in her life, causing severe delusions around the safety of mihael, and even further causing severe behaviors around him. the psychosis was a huge precursor to her developing delusion disorder, with most of her delusions operating around mihael.

the reason i've always thought this is that mello seems to have a very comfortable relationship with femininity. he doesn't have thoughts around it being emasculating or a direct challenge to his manhood, and i feel you see this mostly in men who have had severe and close bonds with a feminine figure in their life, whether healthy or not.

i add delusion disorder to kinda explain why mello so deeply believes in things. having such an extreme representation of delusion in your developmental years will surely influence the way you think and believe in things, especially if you add the religious aspect of wammy's into the mix.

i also understand all of this behavior could have easily been made by wammy's but i think that's a little boring lol

[riverr4n]

i think there's a point to be made about how near makes himself a lamb to every person in his life to disguise how cunning he actually is. it's mostly with mello, every time mello eventually explodes rightfully on near, near is somehow turned the victim. specifically with the gun scene, it's almost like near has somehow manipulated every single person around him to see him as the victim, and not the perpetrator who keeps up this cycle of mello's anger. he's just flat out manipulative and uses who he's characterised as by others to his advantage.

[deehlia]

It’s really too bad that Matt and Mello didn’t survive because I would have really loved to see Mello have to have an intervention for Matt after he goes full Her (2013) and marries an anime girl AI chatbot

[polithicc]

At a concert where the singer said “when you’re listening to music you’re not thinking about anything else” and tbh I get the sentiment but I be thinking about The Character

[theoldworldsrunnerup]

Death Note was good but nobody beat the shit out of Mello onscreen so it only gets a 1/10

[thisiisjune]

Quote out of the “LA BB Murder Cases”, so full credit to that

I imagine Matt is calling Mello emo as he’s writing this.

I truly hope you enjoy as I plan to illustrate more of the book! Sadly I think these few pages are a bit too busy, but still.

[kiyomitakada]

[ID: Death Note art of Mello at several moments in his life. 1. He stares up a staircase at Near with words on the steps reading "I am the old world's runner up," 2. He slings on a jacket with an explosion of fire behind him and the words "the best dressed" written along his sleeve 3. He's slumped over, skin going blue, a blue-gray dog behind him along whose back are the words "that died like a dog," 4. He turns to look into a bright light with the name "Mihael Keehl" floating over his head in red, while reaching behind him to take the photo of himself in one gloved hand. 5. A textless shot of the photo in Mello's hand. 6. The words "I once called myself" next to the photo turned to show the words "Dear Mello," with the word "Mello" highlighted in orange. 7. A hand holding a cigarette, burning the photo, with the text "but that was a long time ago." His full face isn't visible in any of the drawings.]

[usal-kusai]

@1nateriver have stolen my art, changed it, and posted as theirs on Pinterest and tiktok. Their tiktok username is @melloandnears. I’m not mad or offended, I just want to inform.

the first is the original and the second is the changed version:

Ты и сама хорошо рисуешь, насколько я понял. Необязательно воровать.

[asphalt-xd]

My headcannon as to why I think Mello is rocking a bob!!

Hello guys!! These are some headcannons of mine about Mello's childhood :D this is an idea I had for a while, let me know what you guys think about it X)

I dont know about you guys, but when i grew up in Eastern Europe, children had to choose between two options;

Eather get a buzz cut or a bowl cut.

This is because it's a simple haircut, and it's easy to maintain

Now, I can totally see Mello being the type of person whos very proud of his hair!

He was not very found of the idea of having to cut it, therefore he chose to get a bowl cut.

And as time passed, he grew his hair out, occasionally trimming strands that got in his eyes, which resulted in–you guessed it–

His bob!! Yeah, I think that Mello's bob is an overgrown bowl cut lol

I think this length was most ideal for him because it showed off his beautiful hair without annoying him too much

And even though he got criticised by everyone around him for his choice,

He stood his ground! He really likes his hair this way and he didn't care what others had to comment about it!

He probably also kept it due to his stubbornness and need to prove others wrong lol

And as a bonus, a doodle of Mello as a small child!

I think that he was 100% a troublemaker X) beating up kids around the village that pissed him off, eating all the chocolate biscuits in secret and leaving none for his siblings, showing his middle finger and swearing at his parents, stuff like that haha

But he had a genuine passion for learning, and would spend most of his time alone reading books that were far too advanced for someone his age.

All he dreamed of was getting out of this boring small village away from his big obnoxious family and starting over...

[near--and--dear]

I love Rem's honesty in death note. She was like I Fucking Hate Him

[near--and--dear]

Update: Was reading the Death Note: How To Read today when I see:

SHE REALLY DOES HATE HIM WITH ALL SHES GOT

[near--and--dear]

This makes me laugh everytime I see it like?? Light. Liiiiight. You ALWAYS do this, man. You kill someone and then you fuckingng want them back. First L, now Rem... like omg make up your goddamn Mind shawty

[near--and--dear]

[currentlycryingaboutlancelot]

LMAO??

[biscuit-o]

Meronia is such a versatile ship, you can make them go on cute dates in Coney Island where Mello can finally show off his gun skills on those carnival shooting games and win Near a cool toy or you can make them fall into the void of their never-ending race that goes beyond the successor's program that will continue after their deaths because their souls are intertwined and they have been and always will be soulmates in every life and they kinda have to come in terms with it before getting freaky

[biscuit-o]

*suddenly feeling a bit envious* wow this is so mello-core

[ganymedian]

nobody suffers like someone who yearns for a historical figure who died before photographs and audio recordings existed