A lot of people on twitter wanted me to explain how I draw expressions, so here you go
Unless you're drawing explicit realism, in my opinion, expressions should be exaggerated to some degree. If you aren't doing a 1:1 recreation, the point is to get the FEELING across. Try making the expression you want to draw and feeling how your face pinches and stretches.
Skin doesn't just "disappear" when your face moves it around --- that's where wrinkles come from! Pay attention to where your skin creases when you emote, and use it to your benefit. It's a fine line between overdoing it and underdoing it -- find your own balance.
Ultimately, every expression has a little bit of push and pull, unless your face is completely neutral (and even then, there are still some wrinkles...). Learning to think of expressions as actions and reactions is VERY helpful in learning to draw them without needing a reference, and in learning how to stylize and push expressions based on references as well!
I think a lot of people end up with stiff or unexpressive emotions in their art because they're just trying to recreate a picture instead of understanding WHY and HOW the face is moving --- and it's a tough thing that takes a while to really pick up and learn. Hopefully is helpful in showing a way of thinking about it that can influence your process and approach to emotions!!!
Also, bonus: even without the lines, the planes alone still show a LOT of emotion.
All right, listen. It’s pretty damn funny that two weeks ago I posted all like, “oh I don’t really comment chapter-by-chapter, I’m waiting to see what happens next,” but this one broke me.
This chapter was everything I wanted for bkdk, and it’s so much more tender than I ever dreamed it could be.
This post is not going to be like most of my posts, because I am a flood of emotion. If you’re wanting some detailed, well-researched analysis of this scene, that ain’t coming for a while.
I don’t have some kind of comparative linguistics to show you. I just have my visceral reactions as someone who speaks Japanese and has absorbed Japanese media for many years. I have shared my heart with others in Japanese, I’ve sputtered out words between sobs and felt the many kinds of comfort different people try to offer. I have comforted others who let themselves be vulnerable with me.
In all these moments, just as in English, I wondered if my words and feelings reached them. Each time, I felt the warmth of connection when they looked at me, and I decided that they knew I did my best. They accepted me, even if it wasn’t perfect.
I’m gonna tell you the truth, and I wouldn’t normally say this so directly, but it matters to me: the fan translation for this specific scene is not good. The tone is wildly off in some ways and it outright omits a number of very important words.
The official translation gets so much of it right.
But that’s not really what I want to talk about right now. I want to talk about how people are reading this scene.
I have seen a ton of, frankly, oblivious interpretations of Izuku’s side of things.
Listen to me. Izuku is not making fun of Katsuki for crying, he is not telling Katsuki that crying isn’t like him, that isn’t in the text at all. He is not rejecting Katsuki’s feelings, or belittling them, or ignoring them, or any of that.
Izuku has seen Katsuki cry in-canon a number of times, but every time it was over his own personal failures, and the frustration, anger, guilt, and grief associated with them. We see it in the aftermath of Deku vs. Kacchan 1. We see it during Deku vs. Kacchan 2.
Izuku is shocked to see Kacchan cry because this is the first time he has cried for Izuku.
When Katsuki apologized in 322, he looked Izuku in the eye and told him his feelings with conviction and poise. He was gentle and vulnerable, but strong, because he was asking Izuku to trust them and rely on them. To come back with them and believe in them, like they believe in Izuku. He bowed his head to show his remorse. He caught Izuku when he fell, and he accepted Izuku’s own apology.
He embodied dignity, sincerity, and strength of character. He was a true hero.
This?
This is the raw, honest sorrow of a young boy. It is a tender, earnest, unguarded display of how much Izuku means to him.
These are the tears you shed for someone you cherish. These are tears for when you think you are losing something you can’t live without. Because Katsuki isn’t just crying for the loss of Izuku’s dream—it’s their dream, the future they dreamt up together as kids.
Izuku is almost pathologically incapable of understanding how other people see him and feel about him, but this is unmistakable. He is stunned because there is no other explanation.
There is unmitigated heartache and longing at the core of Katsuki saying, “I just thought somehow we would be together like this, competing and chasing after each other, forever.”
And Izuku is reeling, but so, so touched, and filled with fondness. Look at how his shock shifts to this overwhelmed, affectionate smile.
He’s right—this isn’t the usual Katsuki, and that is precisely why it means so much. We as the audience have been privy to Katsuki’s feelings, but until now Izuku himself has never really grasped the depth of them. This is all the tenderness Katsuki has kept locked up inside, and he is letting Izuku see it for the first time.
To see Kacchan—strong, fierce, and absolutely unstoppable—shed these innocent, helpless tears for him and tell him through sobs that he wanted things to stay this way forever, I can’t blame him for being blown away.
I think Izuku expected Katsuki to be shocked and a little sad that he gave up OFA, both for Izuku’s sake and because it is the legacy of their hero. Before Katsuki even starts crying, Izuku has this small smile on his face, like he was ready to reassure him that he had made peace with his own choice.
But he clearly didn’t expect for Katsuki to weep openly in front of him about it or to confess to wanting him by his side. Izuku had so enjoyed just being allowed near Katsuki, allowed in his life at all—to think that Katsuki could want the same and want it this much, to the point that he worries that things would change, that Izuku would abandon him or deny him? How could that ever be?
In what world could Izuku ever stop chasing Kacchan?
Izuku is a bit of an idiot. He has always thought that Katsuki understood how much he cared for and admired him—that’s why he is so shocked during DvK2 to hear that Katsuki thought he looked down on him for years. Izuku thought Katsuki understood his feelings and simply rejected them.
The way he loves Kacchan is natural and unquestionable. Even now, he can’t understand how Katsuki doesn’t know. It’s baffling to him.
But he still accepts Katsuki’s vulnerability and responds to the intimacy.
This is such an affectionate, loving thing to say. Izuku is being so sweet. I cannot convey to you strongly enough how Izuku telling Katsuki, “C’mon, stop it, this isn’t like you!” reaffirms their closeness.
If Izuku had not said this line and instead skipped straight to this nervous, awkward little attempt at comfort here:
It would have read as so much more distant.
With his tears and his confession, Katsuki pleads with Izuku to not leave him. To be with him always.
And in response, Izuku unabashedly stakes his claim on their bond by being bold enough to affectionately scold him and even assert authority on what kind of person Katsuki is. Remember these?
Chapters 202 and 319
This is such a staple in Japanese media for showing close bonds. Your loved ones know you. They tease you. They scold you. They have that right. You gave it to them.
The people you love cheer you up by reminding you that you’re strong and brave and that even if things feel hopeless and like you can’t go on, that they know you can. Everything will be okay, and they know so because they’ll be right there with you. Of course they’ll be there.
Symbolically, throughout the series, Izuku’s response to Katsuki trying to be closer to him has always been: “Of course.”
He has always accepted Katsuki as much as he is able to, as much as he had awareness for. He is wildly lacking in self-awareness, so it’s certainly not perfect, but by god does he try.
What Izuku is really saying is a mixture of “Really? You want that, too?” and “Don’t be silly!”
One part is him being shocked and touched; the other is him being absolutely certain of his own heart, and showing it as best he can.
He does get flustered and self-conscious, though—because it’s overwhelming to see Kacchan this way, and this is kind of new territory for them. So he switches tactics to reassure Kacchan about how things are now, and make sure he doesn’t feel embarrassed about this outburst. He still has the embers, so it’s okay for now. And their bodies are weak, so of course their heads will be in a bad place too, it’s easy to get low spirits. Of course Katsuki would be feeling vulnerable. It’s normal.
He gives Katsuki so many things here. He gives him as much as he can.
Izuku doesn’t know how long he’ll have the embers for and, frankly, he doesn’t have any guarantee that he will be able to satisfy this longing of Katsuki’s after he loses them. This, too, is a staple of promises in Japanese media: “I don’t know if I can satisfy you, but I want to try. I hope you can accept me.”
Things will be different—the future is always uncertain, now more than ever for their world. But what will never change is what they feel in their hearts.
After this scene, I honestly don’t care if we get something other people see as “bkdk canon.”
What Katsuki says is as good as a confession to me. What Izuku says in return is genuine and pure. This is a messy pair of teenage boys figuring out how to reach each other with words, when they have always been so damn bad at it. This is the two of them both reaching a new point of intimacy and reaffirming everything that came before.
I was looking for something else in the comic and came across this page and it just struck me how clearly it communicates something I’ve thought about a lot of times - that Shou doesn’t just see an ally in Ritsu, he is very heavily projecting all his own problems onto him.
Shou saw this boy during the 7th Branch arc, quickly picked up on him radiating ABUSIVE FAMILY ISSUES (amplified by the fact that Ritsu was extra nervous around Mob after he found out about Ritsu’s new hobby of beating people up in dark alleyways), and just decided that this was someone like himself, maybe the only person he’s ever met who might be able to understand him, so of course he’s not going to let that go. That in itself is fine, and it’s mutual too - Ritsu later flat out tells Shou that he finds him relatable. Ritsu also needed to know that he was not alone in order to progress, but the difference between him and Shou is that Ritsu isn’t assuming anything about Shou, he knows they’re not really the same even though they have things in common. Ritsu isn’t convinced that he has any right to say how Shou should handle his family situation, he’s just supporting him in what Shou has already decided: That he needs to stop his dad.
Meanwhile this page is nothing but Shou telling Ritsu how he should think and feel about his own “abuser”, because clearly Shou has figured out the only right way to handle a situation like this. He’s assuming that Ritsu has also lived with some kind of family tyrant, that Mob must have purposely hurt Ritsu like Shou’s dad has hurt him, and that the same problem solving can be applied to stopping it. He’s assuming all kinds of things based on basically nothing but Ritsu’s anxious behavior and the fact that Mob is very powerful. His insistence that Ritsu should know he’s better than his brother? That’s likely something Shou has told himself many, many times. That’s likely what has kept him going while setting up his plan to ruin Touichirou’s world domination schemes, and what cemented his honestly pretty naive belief that he could beat his dad in a fight. The thing about feeling inferior? Probably also something Shou has had to struggle with as growing up changed his view on his dad from being someone worth looking up to, to being both an embarrassment and someone to be feared, thereby dragging Shou down because he sees it as his responsibility to keep his dad in check.
There are just so many assumptions. In Shou’s mind of course Ritsu will understand and help even though Shou just kidnapped him, because they’re practically the same! (That that particular plan actually worked is wild, but that’s a different story.) And of course Ritsu will be able to hold his own against a bunch of adult espers, because he’s tough and clever just like Shou! And it breaks my heart when Mob saves Shou from being blasted to pieces by his dad and Shou assumes it’s Ritsu, because I think he wanted so badly to believe that if he couldn’t take Touichirou down himself, then at least someone like Ritsu could do it instead. I don’t think it ever really occured to him before that anyone not exactly like himself would be willing to stand up for him in that way.
Projecting this hard onto someone is not… good. This makes it hard for me to imagine any friendship happening between Shou and Ritsu after the World Domination arc as a seamless and natural thing. Shou’s overwhelming fascination with Ritsu is just kind of worrying and never shown to be returned.
Shou has shouldered far more responsibility than a kid his age should ever have to, but his perception of the world is often childish and self-centered and involves a lot of black and white thinking. At one point Touichirou calls him a spoiled brat, and in a way I think that’s true. Shou has been used to ordering people around and thinking of himself as a leader, but giving people orders about what they should think and feel doesn’t exactly make for a good basis for establishing positive relationships with other people.
There’s no silver lining to this, it’s just me thinking, as I’ve done many times, that Shou’s gonna have a hard time adjusting to being a regular kid.
Important points for Mob Psycho 100 animators to follow, compiled 2016/05/09 & 2016/05/11. “We felt the animators wouldn’t look at it if we presented it in a normal way, so we made it as if it were a manga.” From Animestyle010 (2016/12)
[VIDEO DESCRIPTION + TRANSCRIPT: a video of will wood in dark lighting, with a question box that reads “please drop the kin list mr. wood”. he says “hair, a knife, six beetles, 17 roaches, which are different from beetles, my own eyes, and a head of lettuce that someone threw away in my trashcan. i didn’t have lettuce, someone else threw it in there.” the video cuts to a second segment and he says “i also kin popcorn ceilings, ableton live, DAW, logic pro, pro tools, final cut, premiere, and aperture—“ he cuts off as a quiet voice out of the shot laughs and says “nerd.” several other voices out of the shot laugh, and will wood also laughs. he continues, stuttering for a moment and saying “fandango”. the video cuts again and he says “lastly, i kin patricia cagliono, alfredo corleone, uh, carley rae jepsen’s ‘call me maybe’, my rat’s back legs, and the number eight.” /END DESCRIPTION]
we do need to revisit the wording of "you can't have your cake and eat it too" because i don't think it clearly enough conveys that it's more that you can't simultaneously retain a cake and also get to consume it (which would render you cakeless). for years i was like But why not....it's my cake....?
March = maaliskuu = the ground moon (“maalis” doesn’t mean anything but it comes from the word “maa”, meaning “ground” because you can usually see ground beneath the snow in March)
April = huhtikuu = the burn-beaten moon
May = toukokuu = the field moon
June = kesäkuu = the summer moon
July = heinäkuu = the hay moon
August = elokuu = the harvest moon
September = syyskuu = the fall moon
October = lokakuu = the slush moon (the kind of half-melted snow that no one likes)
November = marraskuu = the death moon (altough “marras” is a really old word that no one uses anymore, I had to actually google it because I didn’t know what it means)
December = joulukuu = the Christmas moon
It’s really cool that we have original names for months while most languages use the Latin words. And I think our words for months sound really beautiful, too.
This is a common misconception because they’re such similar environments, but you should be aware that dads are native to Home Depot, while lesbians are actually native to Lowe’s. At this point, however, both dads and lesbians have made themselves at home in both Home Depot and Lowe’s to the point that trying to separate them back into their original ranges would probably do more harm than good to the delicate ecosystem of large chain hardware stores.
A properly raised and socialized Dad will be perfectly comfortable cohabiting with Lesbians. Its not really “encroaching on another’s territory”. You wouldn’t say that about foxes in a forest that also homes bobcats, would you? No. It’s just two different species that have both evolved to live in similar/the same environment. As long as they recognize each other as equals, Dads and Lesbians are more than capable of cohabitation.
Now, if you were to release a pack of Lumberjacks into a Lowes or Home Depot, that’s where chaos will reign. Being adapted to a far harsher and more demanding environment, the Lumberjacks would simply push Dads and Lesbians both out and also consume far more than a sustainable amount of resources. It would be like releasing bears at a country club.
As a former timber-harvester… I feel this is potentially accurate in theory. But highly improbable in actuality.
Lumberjacks, like most megafauna species generally require more space than the average hardware store, even a big box store could provide. The misconception is that Lumberjacks are a social species because of how they often work and live together.
This is a matter of necessity, not preference, and a survival technique for thriving under the LogBoss.
A “pack” of Lumberjacks, if not under the environmental pressure of a LogBoss will naturally disperse until they each have a wide territory.
Lumberjacks rarely fight for territory.
One on one, a Lumberjack could drive out a Dad or Lesbian, however the latter tend to travel in social packs.
Lumberjacks will passively retreat on the presence of large numbers of people. Kind of like Sasquatch.
Getting a “pack” of Lumberjacks assembled would be hard enough unless they were forced into a Hardware Store by a LogBoss. In that case, they would already be in a heightened and potentially agitated state far above their natural behavior. This artificial scenario can be likened to a circus animal running amok. If it had been in the wild, the incident would not have occurred.
Free-roaming Lumberjacks are the cryptids of the Hardware ecosystem. They are surprisingly quiet and unobtrusive.
Please stop labeling Lumberjacks as dangerous roving social predators. They are intermediate level omnivores and remarkably peaceful unless threatened.
question where does the “art student” or “DIYer” “crafter” or “soap maker” or “miniaturist“ etc. who has ventured into the store for supplies fall into the ecosystem/what is their impact of said ecosystem?
Most of the above are native to craft and hobby stores (art students, historically, are native to museums, but having been introduced to hobby stores, have found a niche for themselves and thrived), but all can be seen in hardware stores on occasion due to territorial overlap. They are generally low-impact, as they tend to stick to specific small areas and primarily utilize different resources. While a large group of any of them can be disruptive (art students, in particular, are known to travel in packs), in general, they are more likely to have territorial disputes with one another than with the local fauna.
A point of clarity -“crafter” is a bit misleading; while it conjures a specific image, much like ‘fish’ or ‘reptile’ it actually covers a broad array of wildly disparate species, and in general, more descriptive nomenclature is preferred. Fiber artists in particular are a genus to watch out for, particularly in groups. Beware a roving pack of domesticated quilters. They fear nothing, will go anywhere, and due to their social nature, will often seek interaction from other species that thrive best in solitude. They are quite friendly, and will happily adopt members of other species; the concern is that their adoptees do not always wish to be adopted.
I can say as a former craft store worker that if you wish to see true fear, look into the eyes of a Dad who must venture into a craft store. Despite the overlap of familiar beings known to him from his native hardware store habitat, Dads are instinctively aware that craft stores are not for them; they contain unfamiliar perils and even the seemingly familiar may have strange variances and unnerving secrets. (”Why is this airbrush so small? What do you mean nails, why would you… WUT!!”)
Only experienced silverbacks or the boldest young Dads dare venture into a craft store for long without his mate or offspring to keep roving Craft Ladies at bay and guide him in this strange ecosystem. If a Dad enters with his mate and is separated from her, he will often scuttle for the seeming familiarity of Woodcrafts, Models, or Paints (the latter not to be confused with Fine Arts, unquestioned territory of art students), but he eyes Scrapbooking and Jewelry with trepidation and will usually venture into those exotic areas only in the company of females of his pack.
Lumberjacks are rarely spotted entering craft stores of their own volition, for while they do not fear it as Dads do, they know it is an environment unsuited for megafauna such as themselves.
Hardware store Lesbians generally adapt more easily to craft stores, although they may enlist another Lesbian of a subspecies more adapted to that environment to guide them until they find their niche. Lesbians have even been known to seek the aid of a Craft Lady, a native fauna that share similarities with Lesbians but are usually smaller and nimbler to suit their chosen habitat. Dads who witness this are often awed by the Lesbians’ temerity, for although larger, Dads are generally wary of the cunning and dexterous Craft Ladies and may mistake their enthusiastic pack greetings as predatory swarming.
Craft Ladies, secure in their ecological niche, have no fear of interlopers and take the presence of non-native beings in stride, although they may become territorial about scarcer resources.
The only truly invasive species that threaten craft stores are Brides-to-Be, who are mere annoyances individually, but like locusts may descend in hordes and lay waste, leaving swathes of destruction in their wake. Fortunately for the Craft Ladies, Brides-to-Be are seasonal and usually only a threat in the spring and early summer.
Is anybody going to address the newly invasive species of BuJo enthusiasts into the craft store/art supply store environment? Why aren’t we talking about the dangerous proliferation of Leuchtturm 1917s and the growing threat of Dotted Moleskins? I had to liberate a Dad from a tangle of washi tape in the art supply store the other day and it wasn’t pretty.
The natural habitat of journalers was stationary stores, which have been replaced by office supplies stores, not the same. Journalers invade the craft stores and art supplies stores to get the markers and washi tape and Sakura pens they require for survival.
Another thing to note is all of those habitats must adapt to the seasonal migration of goths. As soon as the faintest hint of spooky can be detected at those stores, goths will arrive in packs. A small pack of goths determined to forage can strip the shelves of a seasonal section bare in 30 minutes.
