Swatch 1996

William Heath Robinson (1872–1944)

“Exceedingly Odious and Hateful to Thieves and Robbers”

illustration from ‘The Works of Mr. Francis Rabelais’, 1932

source

it’s not fucking tinnitus idiot that’s my guardian angel speaking to me

Illustration for “Delta of Venus” by Anais Nin, 1979 by Bob Carlos Clarke

Sophia Friesen by Bruno Unikowsky for Numéro Netherlands January 2025

OK correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel like the main 'yin/yang' parallel with Atsushi and Akutagawa is not something like 'this one is bad but secretly has a good side and this one is good but secretly has a bad side'.

I feel like it's more about 'who they are at their core vs who they choose to be'.

At his core Akutagawa is kind and at his core Atsushi is not. But despite this Atsushi tries every day to make the kinder choices and I love him so much for it. He has to work so hard to be good.

He wants to be a bitch SO bad I know he does but he tries his best to help people and be nice (sometimes he fails but that's OK <3)

Atsushi doesn't always WANT to help people, a lot of the time he's selfish and scared, but he does help people anyway. He keeps helping people over and over again. There's still some selfish motivation to it, and his initial motivation for helping people was because the headmaster told him that's all he was worth, but overall he does care about the people he helps and it weighs on him if he fails to save them. And of course, as the series goes on he starts helping people more because he can rather than because he feels like he needs to.

In Akutagawa's case, he's still capable of being kind but his environment led him into being someone who chooses to hurt people. But he's always been a protector at heart. In the start he was bad compared to Atsushi because he was choosing to hurt people and keep the cycle of abuse going. Just like how Atsushi developed in why he saved people, Akutagawa starts to get redeemed when he chooses to not just act on his rage. Not only does he start to spare people, but he speaks more kindly to them (apologising to Higuchi and telling Kyouka he's proud of her). It all culminates into the moment he chooses to help Atsushi and sacrifice himself for him, going back to his core value of being a protector. Even when he's finally revived, he keeps this role in his new position as Aya's Knight.

I kind of see the streaks of white in Akutagawa and the streaks of black in Atsushi not as their 'hidden sides' but as their fundamental selfs. That's who they are at their core, and their main colours (black for Akutagawa and white for Atsushi) are how they're presented to everyone else and how they try to have people see them as.

WRAPPED BOUQUET OF ROSES

CHRISTO 1969

thinking about this forever btw.

Daaamn he edgy

Daguerreotype of a tough guy missing an eye, half a pinky—and, perhaps, the subjects of the group portrait that he's holding up to show you, c. 1850s

jolts upright I've just had a realization. how much did atsushi think about when akutagawa died? how much did he replay it in his mind, go over every detail again and again? how much did he mourn it, grieve him? how many times did he recall akutagawa's last words? because for atsushi to be able to, in a split second, as he *dies* and everything around him has already gone to shit, recall what akutagawa said to him, and repeat it back? it must have been constantly.