Completely Valid And Wholeheartedly Understandable, Let’s See What Tumblr Has To Offer :3

updated! it’s so long now but the yako section is still unfinished 🥹

— the art club

because me and my petty self want to claim this headcanon :’)

mei and mitsuba haven’t been shown interacting aside a short time in picture perfect arc and it’s such a waste because their parallels are so absolutely interesting and i’m in love with the idea of sibling relationship shijimitsu

like

so

but

once, mitsuba tried to find a place to stay within the seven mysteries and kinda got rejected by most of them. however, the one he wasn’t shown interacting with was with shijima, and they get along together well enough, looking at their interactions in picture perfect...

not to mention these parallels;

they’re both 'fakes'. the second unoriginal versions of people who used to be alive, people who used to be there and talk to others and make an impact on the world.

their original selves were both artists. they drew what was important, immortalizing it in their photos and paintings and sketches and film. original mitsuba’s ghost took a picture of kou before getting turned into no. 3 by tsukasa. original mei drew her ideal self, in a tower, and created her second self. both these things were important to them.

their second selves were created because their original selves had a wish. to live on, and to have & stay with friends...

and slowly, their second selves started to grow indifferent to their original selves’ forms of expression. shijima seems to only draw for functionality instead of for her own enjoyment or curiosity or expression, but her art has so much more meaning now that they create more than just an impression of life—they make life. and mitsuba doesn’t even know anything anymore, amnesia go brrrr (ty @ocelotlesbian for pointing this out)

i have so much to say about how shijima’s art is being used more as a tool for convenience instead of how the original mei used it—even natsuhiko & tsukasa are trying to annoy her for stuff—and not to mention the things they could do with this ability if someone thought about it enough (she, tsuchigomori, yako & the clock keepers are so completely broken i can’t even—these are the mysteries, of course, but i’m so glad they’re passively watching everything unfold because if they took matters into their own hands it’d be absolute chaos look at the clock keepers arc)

and i henceforth i headcanon

these two siblings doing art together afterschool in an art room. do we normally see mitsuba in hanako’s bathroom after school? no... and he’s scared of tsukasa. absolutely traumatised. ignore the afterschool episodes, i want mitsuba to turn on his heel and walk straight to the art room, skipping the fourth step.

after he has his melancholy talks and tear-filled arguments with kou he goes over and whines to shijima and they watch a movie on a projector and eat ice cream from a minifridge.

bonus points if mei uses her sketchbook to draw tissues for them. they literally have infinite ice cream and tissues

after the aquarium trip, i don’t think he could return to kou’s house (teru) & he also loses more energy the further away he is from the school SO i’d like to say he walks over, finds shijima & just cries to her the entire time about how kou is being difficult

shijima (unbothered queen) hands him her sketchbook w a drawing of a tissue box inside and 'mhm's every few minutes

it’s such a nice dynamic i love them so much

WHAT IF THEY RELEARNED THEIR PAST SELVES’ HOBBIES TOGETHER

like mitsuba learning how to hold a camera w his hand

shijima teaches him how to sketch, they go on small trips around the school at night to look at items in the moonlight

mitsuba absolutely destroys any supernaturals in their way (i need shijima to force him to eat occasionally and he will have to listen)

no but shijima is perfectly able to handle them herself

cue shijima pulling a sword from her sketchbook and bashing supernaturals into a pulp

but what if their past versions met in some sort of afterlife and mei teaches him to sketch & mitsuba shows mei his favorite photos and anglings and they watch birds & draw them and take photos and think about their lives and-

bonus: YAKO.

yako’s stairs are said to lead up to the art room 👀

so what if...

(i’ll finish this later lmao)

i need this to be canon. sibling mei & mitsuba. pls.

thank you for reading ♡ drink some water~

— welcome to the one bed hotel!

based on my ongoing project, the one bed hotel project, where fanfic authors on ao3 band together to create a collection of fics with the trope only one bed! note that this is only an example of how the hotel could be written! any interpretation of this is wholeheartedly welcomed :) please check out this link for more details <3

A bell chimes among the bustling lobby of an averagely large hotel, glass doors sliding open to reveal the two rain-soaked main characters of this world’s story. They pass two attendants carting suitcases across the floor, garnering glances from some of the hotel-goers.

They whisper into their earpieces; “They’re here.”

warning: this is where i start rambling about random stuff

On the second floor, a large room filled with writers stews in chaos. Monitors all over the walls showcased over fifty different couples heading towards different hotels—all sharing, suspiciously, a similar aesthetic. The largest monitor, which had a list labeled ‘INCOMING SHIPS’, added another name to its table, which was steadily increasing in number. One of the assistants of the Setting division took a look at it and sweared.

“We’ve got another Soulmate AU pairing arriving at our entrance in around 2 minutes!”

Someone yelled back; “Send one of the softer demolition teams to stall them! We’ve already got Couple 28356 in the lobby!”

“On it! Explosion Unit 42, to your stations!”

While they may seem unorganized, the system cannot be without faults. The Setting division supervises a large number of ‘different’ hotels receiving a large number of couples from a large number of alternate universes—and plans out their stay, start-to-finish. This is where most authors of the One Bed trope can be found—once their ship has entered the queue, fully planned, they head to the Scene division to iron out the details.

In the Scene division, whiteboards were scribbled on, erased, upturned, and broken as assistants fretted on how to weave the best scene to meet the authors’ needs.

“Author 28356 requested a heated scene in one of the elevators, but they don’t have enough sexual tension!”

“Call the SMUT team! We’ll need some aphrodisiacs, and love potion if they can find any!”

“Give it all to the shorter person in the couple!”

“Got it!”

“How do we make a pool scene?”

“Submit a request to the Lobby! They’ll get some of the actors and Record division nobodies to pose as hotel guests when they go down to swim—if you want there to be people, that is…”

Next to the Scene division lies the Record division, with their own soundproofed sub-room. The snapping of cameras and practicing of background ambient noise is silenced within its walls, while the Record division artists outside hand-make irrelevant characters for the scenes.

“We need an asshole for Couple 28356, Scene 78!” A messy-haired assistant from the Scene Division on a flying motorbike pulled to a stop beside them, reading a paper scroll.

“WHAT?”

“No, not like that! We need a horrible but hot guy who tries to hit on Couple 28356’s protagonist!” With that, the assistant whipped out a printed transcript of the author’s ideas for the character.

“I’ll do it!” An artist at the back with dyed hair offered, sketching a person out.

“Thank you so much.” The assistant groaned, handing the artist the paper and speeding off.

“Anyone done with their nobodies?” Another artist said, adjusting her round glasses.

“Let’s go and relax.”

Once the artists are done with their daily ‘nobodies’, the background people with no name and no face, they print 3D versions of them at the Printing Station and rest. These ‘nobodies’ will soon become an integral part of a scene’s backdrops—or, on rare occasions, be forced a bottle of Personality and then put to work as an actor for a scene or two. The special effects, background music, ambiance maintenance, camera crew and scribes will handle the rest.

And now, it’s time for Couple 28356’s time at the hotel to start.

“Uh… hi.” The taller half said awkwardly, hair dripping. “Do you have any rooms available for—sorry, hold on… um—this much cash?” They offered some slightly damp notes.

The shorter half of the couple stared up at the counter worriedly. The hotel receptionist hid a smile, pretending to dial room services.

“Ah, yes… I believe room 28356 is available,” Her eyes twinkled in barely concealed delight, phone pressed to her ear. “However…”

Faint explosions and screaming could be heard in the distance. The receptionist seemed too calm. Too knowing. But this was their only option.

With a click, the phone was put down.

“… it appears there’s only one bed!”

thank you for reading! i hope you enjoyed and didn’t notice the last part was rushed lmao ♡ pls check it out if ur interested in writing any ships for this collection :)

WE MADE IT

we did it

both chapters are out

mostly just rambling. tysm for reading my pointless works <3

links below !!

tumblr is eating my links...

mermaids ch1 & 2 . reaction fic

breaking my cuteness streak to give everyone these news~

there just aren’t any girls cuter than me~ <3333

i am about to create an au SO self indulgent. the target audience is 1 person and that person is me

rb to tell prev they're being so brave right now and pat their head a little please

HOLY SHITT the lightning, the background, the artstyle, the colors?!!!?! The animation team ate with this one I fear. I was gagged I AM SO MESMERIZED. This is actually my favorite panels other than the hananene and mitsukou stargazing scenes and I am so glad they did this one so well.

Now that S2 is almost over, I wanted to finally get out that post talking about all of the insights and things I did, learned, or other fun stuff about the countdown pieces I made. I still have something in mind for the S2 finale, so maybe if you read (or skip) to the end I'll have a preview for you?

Oh god here we go One day I was coming home from work and decided to check how many days there were until the new season released and I found it was 7 days. So I did all of these in 7 days. Literally everyone was worried about me because I did nothing but draw for those 7 days.

... Except for when I went back to work. I worked I came home and then drew until I literally couldn't anymore lmao. I remember being dazed and exhausted after the Clock Keepers and my dad came up to my room literally right as I finished and asked, "Have you gone to sleep?" And I said, "NOPE! :D" I was living on energy drinks

I'm also 90% sure this started the "ren you're doing too much you need to chill the hell out" thing with me and my friends now

When I was doing these, I had only read the first ten volumes of Hanako-kun at the time, so I was stopped right in the middle of Picture Perfect. I had the second box set, but I just hadn't gotten the time to read it since I got it for Christmas. That means I didn't know Shijima's full deal, and I didn't even know Hakubo's name, so I was winging it hard.

All of the full pieces are linked by clicking their names :)

NO.7 HANAKO

You can tell from the speedpaint I was struggling hard with the pose lmao. I honestly felt like the one I chose was a cop-out and didn't feel energetic enough, but the time crunch got me. At this point, I was also really unsure about how I wanted to treat the colors, because I'd only just started dipping into seriously studying how Aida does it. So many references. And him wearing basically all black didn't help I wanted to scream. I was TRYING to keep everything as solid colors without falling back on overlay and multiply layers, but I got desperate. Still looks pretty good I think.

My favorite part was probably the hakujoudai and the detailing on his collar/shoulders! If I were to edit anything, I think I'd put more on the bottom half of the background because it feels a touch empty. kinda killed it on this pant leg and his hat tho

NO.6 HAKUBO

Like I said, I had no idea who Hakubo was. For the first half of things, I couldn't even find his name, I was just calling him "Shinigami-sama..." I wasn't going to go trampling into spoilers just for references either, so I was freaking out on what to do for the background. All I knew was that there was something to do with lotuses or bugs, and already having an idea of where I'd take Tsuchigomori, I took the lotus route. I uh also hope I didn't make his face too feminine. I don't know why but when drawing male characters who are larger or more built (even if it didn't turn out obvious in this piece) I somehow keep making them look like butches.

Shading his hair was the most fun part out of all of this, I usually never draw characters with hair as short as his, so it was a fun challenge! I'm also just a sucker for kimonos and flowy clothes. He was probably one of the most fun ones for me, even if he was so early on. I LOVE the texture I got on the skull. (even if it's technically too small.)

NO.5 TSUCHIGOMORI

Tsuchigomori onwards ALL used this sticky note full of thumbnails I drew at work for reference. Yes that is a note next to him that says + cuntier. He was also drawn on the same day that I did Hakubo, so I managed to buy myself some extra time.

I was so excited for this one because I could see it so well in my mind's eye, until I realized how many hands I'd need to draw. And then I sucked it up and locked in because I love Tsuchigomori. I'm so pleased with how I worked in more of the blues into the shading and his hair. It was at this point that I think I was understanding how I wanted to take the colors for all of these pieces! I enjoyed doing the fun trick I learned with the weave on his sweater and the spiderwebs where I drew a thick like and then erased the middle. Nearly forgot the markings on his forehead too lmao.

I wonder whose black book he's reading?

NO.4 SHIJIMA

Oh Shijima. I truly had zero real clue about her, and I managed to dodge spoilers about Mei even when I was looking up references. That's why she's painting using her paintbrush clone haha. It's still cute though, so I'm keeping it. Her hair kept giving me trouble because it's the kind of hair you draw and don't really realize just how big you're drawing it until you have to fix it. Actually, I'm having that exact issue on what I'm working on right now, and I'll fix it after I take a break.

I dug up a comment I made while I was working on it and I still stand by this.

There's also something a little odd about the positioning of her chin that I was too exhausted to fix, and I SUPER fudged the coloring on her hair. Also I really didn't know what to put in the background OTHER than the atelier, but I can't really draw buildings! So uh! The exhaustion was beginning to set in after 3 days of this. (Since Hakubo and Tsuchigomori were done on the same day. I didn't keep that time advantage for long though.)

think i fudged it okay, though.

NO.3 MITSUBA

I was struggling on Mitsuba some because that thing where you see/read something and then forget about it only for it to arise as something you think you did happened. That pose I thumbnailed on the sticky note was WAY too close to the official Hell of Mirrors standee/art. Luckily I contain extreme Mitsuba bias (shocker) and I was able to figure it out. I had a ton of problems shading his coat just like I did with Hanako. It's so hard to keep things from melding together when you've mostly got them wearing black.

It's an odd thing to be proud about, but I feel I did the best on the.. Legs of his pants, the chains and lockets, and the eyes and teeth on his jacket. That and the ribcage scarf. I'm really disappointed in myself for the background and his hair, if I'm being honest. I wanna fix his eyes. I STILL haven't figured out his hair either too. Which makes me even more surprised that my friends said, ren, your bias is showing on this one because I was like IS IT??? ARE YOU CERTAIN?

his hand turned out nice too and did i mention i had fun on the ribcage

NO.2 YAKO

I sketched the first initial draft for Yako on the same day I drew Hakubo and Tsuchigomori, but when it finally came time to sit down and draw her? I realized there would be so much empty space where I couldn't have fun with colors and it'd just be the white back of her kimono, so I turned her around and scrapped the idea of her fox form curling around her. I couldn't fit fox Yako in, and I'm STILL kind of bummed about that.

The flow of her hair was so much fun to figure out, as well as the patterns on her kimono. I'm really happy with the background, combining the aspects of the Misaki Stairs' original version and the one after she's been removed from her seat with the spider lilies. The lilies themselves are a little fudged if you look too close, so... Don't look too close? :3

loved the kimono. every bit. can't believe i had her turned around.

NO.1 AKANE/MIRAI/KAKO

MY FAVORITE PART ABOUT THIS WAS THE COGS IN THE BACKGROUND SORRY AKANE'S FACE BOTHERS ME I NEED TO FIX IT ONE DAY HE LOOKS TOO OLD I WAS LOSING MY MIND AND THE EXHAUSTION WAS KILLING ME IT BEGAN MY HATE OF DRAWING AKANE'S HAIR BECAUSE *GESTURES VAGUELY*

Uh okay some good things to say about this one... The colors were a ton of fun to figure out how to place, and I think I at least did a good job on that part. Shading gold things is always really fun! And at least Akane's ponytail was fun to make flow, I was riding the high from Yako's hair here. I think I got a lot of that fun flowy movement in here, which I'm pleased about. This was another one that my friends say turned out the best, again that I'm ??? about.

these cogs are my everything

FINAL THOUGHTS + EXTRAS

All of the kanji's colorings for their numbers were taken directly from the anime! I don't really wanna get rid of that fun reference even if in like, Tsuchigomori's case the colors are REALLY different from the main piece.

Most of the first day was spent on, Hanako of course, and then setting up the frames for everyone else to go into. I spent money to get the patterns to go on the colored part, actually. Constraining everyone to the frames helped a LOT in terms of balancing myself and made it fun to choose what elements would stick outside of them. If I pushed for entire full backgrounds, then I would have been doing even worse.

I was on the ropes at the end. I was half dead and drawing like I was possessed. And the catharsis of it being done and it all looking acceptable just. Ough. I don't know if I'll ever have a high like that again. There's an evil, evil part of me that says, ren! redraw all of them for s3 under the exact same constraints! And shit I might but I'll complain about it. I think it's more likely though that I go back and doctor them up some so I can print them as standees. Probably just for myself, but I do want to build a stock for artist alleys.

I had so, so much fun overall even if it was so much it really could have put my already bad health in more danger. I learned so much about coloring, lineart, framing things, and I really attribute my gauntlet to the explosion in my art progress. That, and my sheer adoration for this series. Am I rambling? I just love TBHK. It's only been 5 months since I first discovered it and it's done so, so much for me.

Even if you went and scrolled through all of this nonsense, which I don't blame you for, here's a little preview of what I'm trying to finish by next week for the finale.

I can't believe we're on the final episode! It's so close now, and it keeps flooring me how little time has really passed. I'll try and push to get SOMETHING else done before then, but we'll see. I've got so much I want and have to get done.

mei is the realest character ever. loves weapons and violence has a deep desire to help others wants to be a cool ghost story gets heart eyes when she nearly gets stabbed constantly sweeping cute girls off their feet just wants to get pancakes with a friend comforts others through her own fear has infinite hope and love in her heart. constantly passes the bechdel test. peak character

it appears kou and mitsuba are appearing most often <3

i find myself more like a merged version of aoi & shijima mei ! mei when we’re not being all soft voiced like this ♡

Take the quiz "My goofy brain assigns a tbhk character to you" on uQuiz at https://uquiz.com/quiz/QBmaao/my-goofy-brain-assigns-a-tbhk-character-to-you

Found this through Pinterest and got Mitsuba

I dunno how- i find myself like Nene