maybe the real yaoi was the friend we lost along the way
gonna be posting a bunch of progress shots for this one too. yes the refusal to do proper shading and lighting on mic and aizawa and the background was 100% an actual choice to use flat colors to highlight how young they were when shirakumo died and how terrible child soldiers are and DEFINITELY not because I got lazy...
forgive me I did 80% of this shit with my finger on my phone for the past 4 hours. anywayyy, I'm pretty proud of it!!! more erasermiccloud please. OH OH this is also inspired by the thing people have been pointing out where there's always a person shaped gap between aizawa and mic. I was aiming for shirakumos silloute but it got lost in the sauce lmao. he's also intentionally pretty featureless!! not just cuz of kurogiri but cuz it's been 15 years and they're both forgetting exactly what he looked like.
I think this piece is a bit of a commentary on how I think whenever they have arguments, and although neither want to admit it aloud, they know the argument probably wouldn't have happened if shirakumo were still a part of their relationship. how they feel less stable without him, missing a third of themselves. like a table with a missing leg, still standing. sorta. but with the knowledge that there's a piece of you missing and that if that piece were still here, you wouldn't be shaking so much all the time.
it could also just be wishful thinking on their part anyway. I think it's easy to think of shirakumo as this almost godlike person, perfect down to his bones. especially for mic and aizawa, where flaws tend to fade over time. he probably had his own fair share of issues, but it's nice to think everything would just be okay if he'd survived. but they'll never really know regardless, so it's a nice thought.
