#bmm

[pabokracha]

[rlinwriteslu]

“How are we going to get in there?” Hyrule pulled out a candle on a holder and grinned. “How do you think?” He walked over to the remnants of the encampment and held the wick to a glowing coal. It burst alight in a few seconds. “I probably should have seen that coming.” Hyrule walked back to the tree. “Trees like these that cover something tend to burn readily for some reason. So this trick only really works if there really is something underneath. In case you were worried that we’re about to start a forest fire.” He held the flame to the tree, and it readily started to burn. Mask instinctively stepped back from the heat of the fire. “How dry is that tree?” Hyrule shrugged. “I think there’s some sort of oil in the bark that’s really flammable.” Mask stepped back a little more as he watched the fire rapidly grow to engulf the entire tree. “You know, for someone who really likes finding things in the outdoors, you seem really willing to burn a lot of things you come across.” “Can’t make an omelet without cracking a few eggs.” “I think you can’t make an omelet regardless of what you do.” Maybe Mask was channeling Legend a little too much there with that barb.

After nearly 10 months, Chapter 14 of The Boy with Many Masks is finally complete! It'll probably be another couple of weeks after that to get some revisions done, but it'll finally be out in a relatively reasonable timeframe.

[the-darklings]

hihihi!! just a little idea that I've been kicking my feet over. how do you think billy would react if he caught mechanic and Max like, ACTUALLY bonding? not just billy catching the tail end of the conversation? bonus points if she's letting max do some girly shit like paint her nails or practice makeup on a mildly unwilling canvas. or even just like braiding hair or smth. I'm not asking for a drabble or anything, I legit got high last night n giggled and kicked my feet over this for an hour n a half so I wanted to hear a second opinion

HIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Short answer: he would malfunction BADLY. Longer answer: it totally depends on when he actually catches them, but across the board it hits every single one of his unresolved issues like psychotic whack-a-mole.

Picture him coming down the hall and hearing two different kinds of laughter: Max’s sharper, younger one, and Mechanic’s lower, throatier, surprised one. That alone is weird, because Max doesn’t laugh like that around this house, and Mechanic doesn’t laugh like that around anybody. His hackles go up before he even knows why.

Then he hits the doorway and sees Max sitting cross-legged on the bed, tongue between her teeth, painting Mechanic’s nails or trying eyeliner on her. Mechanic is muttering under her breath about how “this is never coming off” but very obviously letting her (because Max wanted to practice after Snowball). There’s polish bottles or cheap drugstore makeup scattered everywhere, maybe a cassette playing quietly. It’s intimate, domestic, aggressively normal.

First reaction is defensive and mean, because that’s his default when something makes him feel small. He’ll lean on the doorframe, click his tongue, and say something like, “What, you two starting a beauty salon in here?” or “Didn’t know you came with a pink setting, princess.” That’s him trying to shove the whole scene back into a box he knows how to handle: teasing, control, getting a rise out of them.

Underneath that though, it is absolutely slamming him in three separate places:

Max. He’s used to Max giving him attitude, freezing him out, needing distance. Seeing her relaxed and happy with someone else—especially someone he’s in this weird, intense non-relationship with—hits the sore spot that says, “she will pick literally anyone over you.” There’s that sick sibling jealousy of, Oh. That’s what it looks like when she feels safe.

Mechanic. He keeps her in this mental category of “sharp, dangerous, impossible.” Grease under her nails, busted knuckles, welding goggles. To see her willingly letting herself be a canvas—eyes closed while Max draws on eyeliner, nails resting in Max’s small, ink-stained hands—makes his brain blue-screen a bit. It’s softness he didn’t earn, and it’s not for him, and he wants it in a way he has no language for but it lowkey makes him sick. It’s also strategically terrifying, because this is her infiltrating his territory through kindness.

The two of them together. That’s his worst fear and his best hope at the same time. If Max and Mechanic are actually bonding, that means there’s a world where “team Hargrove–Mayfield, plus this feral mechanic” is real and so close he could touch it if he just tried hard enough. It also means they can absolutely compare notes on his bullshit. That’s utterly, deliciously horrifying.

So Billy does what he does best: posture. He’ll crack a joke, maybe flick the light, maybe throw out, “You better not be putting that crap on her,” like it’s a complaint even though it’s the most big brother-adjacent thing he’s ever said. Max instantly snaps back, “I'm not your kid,” and Mechanic just raises an eyebrow and calmly goes, “Sit down, Hargrove, I’ll do yours next,” which makes Max cackle with delight, shy at first, but then stronger when she sees Billy doesn't kick off like he usually would.

He pretends to be disgusted. Scoffs at the idea of “girly shit.” Says he’s not letting them anywhere near him with a nail file. But he doesn’t leave. He leans in the doorway longer than he needs to, watching them. When Mechanic laughs and nudges Max, when Max rolls her eyes but smiles and tells Mechanic to hold still, something in his chest unclenches so fast it almost hurts.

If this is a post-truce, Christmas-era version of him, he’s even more disarmed. He’ll grouse and throw out comments, but he’s not actually trying to break it up. He’s hovering like a stray dog who’s been let into the house and refuses to admit he also wants cuddles on the couch.

Also, he is absolutely, viscerally destroyed if Max is braiding Mechanic’s hair (or generally playing with it/styling it in any capacity). That’s kid sister behaviour, that’s sleepover territory. Part of him is proud and relieved—Max trusts her enough to tug at her hair, to be that close. Part of him wants to yell because it means they’ve built a little world that doesn’t need him in it. And in some ugly, honest part of his head, he’s thinking: If she’s that good with Max, maybe I don’t have to be. Maybe she’ll do the parts I’m shit at. Which then makes him hate himself, because that’s what Neil would do. Offload the softness onto someone else so he doesn't have to do the hard bit.

So yeah. Billy reacts by being a little shit about it, by sarcasm and leaning and “don’t get polish on the sheets,” but he walks away with this wired, restless energy. Goes out to smoke, heart doing something complicated, and if anyone asked why he’s in such a mood, he’d say something about “girls and their stupid crap” instead of admitting: I just saw the two people I don’t know how to love properly actually loving each other, and I don’t know what to do with that.

Second opinion: your high little hdc spiral is absolutely correct and canon-adjacent now, actually!

[eldhuug]

its monday! repress all emotion and forget about being yourself!

[solunstell]

Taiga Hirasawa x Yuu Arima, Boy Meets Maria, 10-12-25

Commissions open at kofi and artistree

[astroke]

₊˚✧. quem sabe isso quer dizer amor

[toning-seros]

(TW: csa)

reread boy meets maria for the third time after three years. here are my ramblings.

yup, still my no. 1 all-time favorite manga of all time. I KNOW ITS CONTROVERSIAL AND THE REVIEWS ARE MIXED BUT IT MEANS A LOT TO ME NO OTHER SHONEN AI HAS AFFECTED ME THE WAY BOY MEETS MARIA HAS (well, minus Hidamari Ga Kikoeru/I hear the sunspot BUT STILL)

god taiga and arima are so painfully relatable it actually hurts.

taiga always running away from his trauma and thus learned to not think about it at all as a coping mechanism and instead view the world in delusion to feel comfort…

arima unable to feel truly himself with any label given to him and feeling like he has to conform to gender norms so that he could be socially accepted only to realize that he will never fit the standards of what society deems as masculine and feminine…

taiga trying to understand arima and finally did when he faced homophobic comments from his classmates, realizing that arima isn’t happy because the world will only assume you to be what you present yourself as instead of who you really are on the inside…

im such a taiga and arima kinnie, it used to be just taiga but gah now it’s both of them fight me I love them so much

and also I know a whole lot of people really disliked the sa scene for very valid reasons, but personally I felt like having such a horrifying scenario be drawn so vividly and terrifyingly emphasized just how serious arima’s trauma was. the way it was eerily illustrated and distorted reminds you that arima was just a kid when it happened, that it that was the way he experienced it.

it was intense, absolutely, it hurt so much to read, but I felt like having such a scary scene be put in the manga when everything up until that point (minus taiga’s backstory) was very comical sets the shift in tone of the story as well builds up the climax. but yeah I do agree that to some extent it could have also been for shock value.

anywho, as an unlabeled person who resonates with arima and his journey to self discovery and gender identity, I feel like saying he is a representation of trans and non-binary people isn’t doing him or anyone in that community justice.

arima isn’t inherently trans or enby, but he isn’t exactly cis, either. (“you don’t have to be a boy or a girl, you can just be yuu.”) his experience may be relatable to a lot of people, but in the end, he represents the idea of rejecting conformity and labels and instead learning how to be himself, learning to embrace both his feminine and masculine side but not letting that define who he is, he’s just yuu :) and GOD as an androgynous person I FELT that scene.

speaking of that scene, the only chapter that I’m most confused with is chapter 6, especially when arima re-enacts his rape experience with taiga. I’ve been trying to analyze that scene for a while now and while I feel like I understand some bits of it, I still can’t seem to understand the full thing. doesn’t help with the fact that it seems like really nobody talks about that scene.

-> here’s what I got so far, arima became jealous of taiga because he began to view him as a caricature of what a hero is in his eyes, which was exactly what he had been working so hard in his life to try to be and yet failing to because no one truly accepts him the way taiga does, no matter what he tries to conform and be accepted, everyone will always assume this and that about him and his gender.

-> arima has no one, whereas taiga had his friends and other people who supported him and his masculinity. arima resented being seen socially female and thus worked hard to be as masculine as possible, thinking that his femininity is what makes him a half-assed man (when in reality both is what makes him truly his authentic self)

-> thus, he begins to blame his trauma for making him become the way he is. had he not been raised the way he was or raped, would he be struggling as much as he did now? he wondered. That’s why when taiga came to tell arima that he wasn’t alone and that he wants to be like him and cares about him, to arima it felt invalidating because at this point he viewed taiga not as a person but an idea of social success, while he himself was far from it. how could a caricature begin to understand what he had been through when it was perfect, after all?

-> in a fit of rage, arima demonstrated to taiga his sa experience to show him what it was like for him, how his trauma completely changed him for worse. Because taiga spent all his time trying to understand him, maybe this was arima’s way of doing so all the while suffering through a breakdown and ptsd.

-> it was clear arima never wanted to hurt taiga and most likely never planned to, he even profusely apologized after taiga expressed his side of things too. god the panel where arima looks down at taiga who was crying as he said he didn’t need to be a boy or a girl was so heartbreaking, the way he sort of snaps out of his thoughts and sees how he had hurt the person he loved the most, while not exactly doing anything in the end, all the while reminded how he felt when it happened to him. Chills.

my understandings still a complete mess rip it’s so frustrating cuz I want to understand arima, he is such a beautifully complex character, but I’m not analytical enough T-T if anyone has any thoughts about it do share please

Anyway, tl;dr: I fucking love boy meets Maria, it was one of the first shonen ai I ever read and set the bar HIGH for every other shonen ai I consumed ever since.

it’s 2am Goodnight

[riplfitchecks]

Hay it's ripple ignore the cat (or don't, cats r pretty Kool) I keep getting oof'ed off tt so uhhh

IF UR EMO/ALT PLS MOOT ME AND TALK TO ME ABD STUFF. I'D ALSO BE HAPPY TO BE IN ANY GCS U HAVE PLEEEASSSSSE