No Ones Ever Mad At Me Unless They Tell Me So Is The Best Assumption Ive Ever Made

“no one’s ever mad at me unless they tell me so” is the best assumption i’ve ever made

Pro-tip to young trans guys:

If a stranger misgenders you, please please please do not ever utter the phrase, “I’m a man.” It sounds very unnatural and immediately sounds overly defensive.

My advice? Just look at the person like they’re an idiot and, in the deepest voice possible, say, “Uh. Alright, then.”

Just act as though they made a huge and obvious mistake, and don’t get flustered. If you’re comfortable with it, handle the situation with humor and say something like, “Man, I know I’ve got a babyface, but I didn’t think it was that bad.”

Ive said this before but swear the biggest skill to learn as an adult is how to resist high-pressure sales tactics. You do NOT have to answer questions with anything other than "Sorry I'm not interested." No matter how nice they are or no matter how many follow up questions they ask or even how agitated they get when you stand your ground. Just keep saying I'm not interested. Don't answer their questions. Don't give them an opening to try to push back on your reasons. Be a fucking brick wall of I'm not interested.

"It took me TWO years to finish this sketch book!" Well that's cuz you're not fuckin sketching. Those are fully painted pieces dawg that's a renderedbook. I've gone through four sketchbooks in my off time this year alone I just draw stupid faces and shit for fun. pussy up like the rest of us and start drawing stick figures with guns

Normally I like to be thorough but nowadays I simply do not have the time so instead of going through the entire manga I... just clicked a random chapter. (In this case we'll be seeing screenshots from chapters 43-45)

We already see a clear difference in eye treatments when it comes to Natsume's vs Taki and Tanuma's, even within the same page.

But their eyes are dark while Natsume's are light, so perhaps their eyes are drawn that way because of the style? Nope.

Even when the eyes are light or even tone-less as per the mood of the scene, we can see a clear emphasis on round pupils (if any at all).

The emphasis on making Natsume's eyes distinct from non-seeing eyes is so much more apparent in the manga, especially when he shares a panel with other characters.

And on top of that, in some panels, Midorikawa goes out of their way to bring attention to the shape of his pupils—it's pretty much cutting his eye in half!

It's so upfront, it's so obvious. Why?

To emphasize the wall between Natsume, who can see yokai, and everyone else, who can't.

For his entire life up till now, he's been unable to fit in, unable to assimilate with the people around him because of these eyes—because of the things he sees and this other world he's also a part of.

Adding these unusual, almost inhuman pupils is a smart visual choice to clue the readers in about how much he doesn't fit in. This choice was likely made in conjunction with his silver hair and silver/green eyes.

These are all conscious decisions in his character design to give him an air of the supernatural and reflect the fact that, regardless of whether or not he had a choice in this, Natsume is not an ordinary human being.

-

All this to say that tl;dr pretty sure you're on to something and it's impressive that just going through a random chapter was enough to convince me.

Oh also bonus:

Interesting that his parent's eyes are closed in this photograph huh.

eyes and character design in natsume yuujinchou 🤔

so. many of the youkai-seeing characters in this series have slit pupils.

photos, in order: natsume takashi, natsume reiko, matoba seiji, takuma yousuke, shinobu, yorishima, natori shuuichi

on a sliding scale, the natsumes, matoba, and takuma are at one end, with natori having rounder pupils at the other. yorishima and shinobu sit somewhere in the centre of this scale. here’s where the youkai-seeing outlier comes in:

nanase! has very round pupils. interesting!

but then characters who have little-to-no sight have very round pupils as well.

tanuma and taki! would include other characters but i’ve ran out of images. touko, souko, shigeru, nishimura, etc. all follow this pattern

i don't know who needs to hear this, but guilt, self-hatred and shame are not sustainable sources of growth and healing. you can't hate yourself into feeling better, or being better. you can't repeatedly punish yourself for your flawed humanity and expect wholesome results.