#Delicate and dangerous

[yeetus-feetus]

how come all the other ships get fae lord/prince x runaway human prince AUs!?

Where is the over 5k fic about Fae Ra's al Ghul and human prince Timmy???

Timmy who's kingdom has fallen apart, who has runaway to find a way to bring back the dead king and restore peace and order to his home. Timmy who determined to complete this quest in spite of all others doubts, who would rather die in unknown lands than give up and be proven wrong. He must do this; for his people, for his brothers, for himself.

Ra's, a powerful Fae lord who finds a young human that has stumbled into his domain. Centuries old, ethereal, mysterious, draped in the finest of fabrics. Ra's offers a deal, a typical Fae kind of bargain. The Fae play tricks, twists words, play games; but this human boy is smart. This human boy he finds himself holding great respect for.

Dealing with Fae, what trade do they agree upon, is it a delicious mistake?

[stromblessed]

Mizu, femininity, and fallen sparrows

In my last post about Mizu and Akemi, I feel like I came across as overly critical of Mizu given that Mizu is a woman who - in her own words - has to live as a man in order to go down the path of revenge.

If she is ever discovered to be female by the wrong person, she will not only be unable to complete her quest, but there's a good chance that she'll be arrested or killed.

So it makes complete sense for Mizu to distance herself as much as possible from any behavior that she feels like would make someone question her sex.

I felt so indignant toward Mizu on my first couple watchthroughs for this moment. Why couldn't Mizu bribe the woman and her child's way into the city too? If Mizu is presenting as a man, couldn't she claim to be the woman's escort?

However, this moment makes things pretty clear. Mizu knows all too well the plight of women in her society. She knows it so well that she cannot risk ever finding herself back in their position again. She helps in what little way she can - without drawing attention to herself.

Mizu is not a hero and she is not one to make of herself a martyr - she will not set herself on fire to keep others warm. There's room to argue that Mizu shouldn't prioritize her quest over people's lives, but given the collateral damage Mizu can live with in almost every episode of season 1, Mizu is simply not operating under that kind of morality at this point. ("You don't know what I've done to reach you," Mizu tells Fowler.)

And while I still feel like Mizu has an obvious and established blind spot when it comes to Akemi because of their differences in station, such that Mizu's judgment of Akemi and actions in episode 5 are the result of prejudice rather than the result of Mizu's caution, I also want to establish that Mizu is just as caged as Akemi is, despite her technically having more freedom while living as a man.

Mizu can hide her mixed race identity some of the time, and she can hide her sex almost all of the time, but being able to operate outside of her society's strict rules for women does not mean she cannot see their plight.

It does not mean she doesn't hurt for them.

Back to Mizu and collateral damage, remember that sparrow?

While Mizu is breaking into Boss Hamata's manse, she gets startled by a bird and kills it on reflex. She then cradles it in her hands - much more tenderly than we've seen Mizu treat almost anything up to this point in the season:

She then puts it in its nest, with its unhatched eggs. Almost like she's trying to make the death look natural. Or like an accident.

You see where I'm going with this.

When Mizu kills Kinuyo, Mizu lingers in the moment, holding the body tenderly:

And btw a lot of stuff about this show hit me hard, but this remains the biggest gut punch of them all for me, Mizu holding that poor girl's body close, GOD

When Mizu arranges the "scene of the crime," Kinuyo's body is delicate, birdlike. And Mizu is so shaken afterward that she gets sloppy. She's horrified at this kill to the point that she can't bring herself to take another innocent life - the boy who rats her out.

MIZU'S ONE MOMENT OF SOFTNESS AND MERCY, COMING ON THE HEELS OF HER NEEDING TO KILL A GIRL TO SPARE HER THE WORST FATE THAT THIS RIGID SOCIETY HAS TO OFFER WOMEN, AND TO SPARE A BROTHEL FULL OF INNOCENT WOMEN WHO ARE THE CASTOFFS OF SOCIETY, NEARLY RESULTS IN ALL OF THEIR DEATHS

No wonder Mizu is as stoic and cold as she is.

And no wonder Mizu has no patience for Akemi whatsoever right before the terrible reveal and the fight breaks out:

Speaking of Akemi - guess who else is compared to a bird!

The plumage is more colorful, a bit flashier. But a bird is a bird.

And, uh

Yeah.

I like to think that Mizu killing the sparrow is not only foreshadowing for what she must do to Kinuyo, but is also a representation of the choice she makes on Akemi's behalf. She decides to cage the bird because she believes the bird is "better off." Better off caged than... dead.

But because Mizu doesn't know Akemi or her situation, she of course doesn't realize that the bird is fated to die if it is caged and sent back home.

Mizu is clearly not happy, or pleased, or satisfied by allowing Akemi to be dragged back to her father:

But softness and mercy haven't gotten Mizu anywhere good, recently.

There is so much tragedy layered into Mizu's character, and it includes the things she has to witness and the choices she makes - or believes she has to make - involving women, when she herself can skirt around a lot of what her society throws at women. Although, I do believe that it comes at the cost of a part of Mizu's soul.

After all, I'm gonna be haunted for the rest of this show by Mizu's very first prayer in episode 1:

"LET" her die. Because as Ringo points out, she doesn't "know how" to die.

Kind of like another bird in this show:

[domwitch]

Thinking about a story where a prince is betrothed to a werewolf queen as part of a peace treaty. The prince is taken away to live in the werewolf queen's forest, where dangerous creatures lurk in every corner. Basically the prince is kind of a brat who refuses to adjust to the brutal lifestyle the queen lives while the queen stubbornly keeps him by her side because he's just sooo cute. Just... big scary woman covered in scars baring her fangs at a cute stubborn prince who goes "hmph! >:(" but secretly loves her attention.

[unlimitedbutchworks]

holy shit monogamy is seriously strangling some of your guyses brains to exhausted little bits, what we even talking about anymore if your partners approval doesn’t matter and it’s always sorta cheating. you’re not beating the “i view my partner and my ‘access’ to them on some level as inherently belonging to me” allegations

[isame-allen]

Guys new sibling au info dropped

This time is on the Jacksons, since I’ve hc them to be Chinese here’s their Chinese names :D

• Victoria - 江之华 Jiang Zhihua (beautiful as flower)

• Cross - 姜震烨 Jiang Zhenye (brilliant, have a great future)

• Slash - 蔣嫵坤 Jiang Wukun (charming and feminine)

• Chris - 姜惠和 Jiang Huihe (benevolence and harmony, a smart and kind person

Jiang is their surnames so all of their full names would be

Victoria ‘Crow’ Zhihua Jackson

Cross Zhenye Jackson

Slash Wukun Jackson

And Christopher Huihe Jackson

[abombihoney]

What's the deal with Leif in the Venom AU? Is he a modern bug or did he get time travelled some other way?

(also what color is he)

He's a modern bug! He was raised by his grandparents which is why he talks like he's a hundred million years old.

He's married to muse and is a researcher! He studies languages and knows quite a few! He actually knows quite a bit of roach, while not fluent, he is the foremost expert in bugaria.

When Kabbu and Vi go to snakemouth den, instead of getting trapped, they get chased out by the spider. Kabbu knows Leif, and that he's interested in roach stuff and mentioned what they discovered. Leif of course, like any sane person with a special interest, immediately demands that he come on their next incredibly dangerous excursion.

Which of course, is how he gets venomed lol. And yeah, he's red btw. If i made him blue then I'd have to make all of team snakemouth blue.

[qualityrain]

holding your hand very gently and telling you you do not want a roleswap/genderbent hny. you would not like a narrative of a man trying to find the meaning of life and existence beyond romance and family expectations while the woman is dependent on the man. you just want badass assassin satoko and thats ok. you can just say that.

[soleminisanction]

Have I ranted before about how the Devil's Square makes no fucking sense?

So I'm trying to write the next part of Batgirl, Repentant, and more fool me, that means I need to go back and re-read parts of Batgirl (2009) for research. And like what always happens when I do that, I noticed yet another detail that stops working when you stop to think about it for even a moment.

Because see, on the second page of the third issue, we get these two moments in rapid succession.

Scarecrow's hideout is in "Gotham's Western Quadrant, the Devil's Square," established in the previous issue as a bad neighborhood, quote, "Otherwise known as 'Thunderdome.'" This place is treated like it's a Big Stinkin' Deal for the first two arcs (maybe the first year? I don't remember clearly and I don't want to go any further down this rabbit hole than I have) of this series, but nothing about it makes sense.

We are never ever given a clear reason why this neighborhood is supposedly such a uniquely terrible place, but it's supposedly so bad that it's worth making a whole terrible philosophy lecture out of why criminals would choose to stay there.

But the closest thing we get is that, at one point, Professor Exposition describes it as "a demilitarized zone."

Which does not make any goddamn sense because that would require Gotham City as a whole to be the location of an ongoing military conflict. Y'know, like the one between the Koreas.

I can only assume, given Brian Miller et al's tendency to do zero research on even the most basic of plot elements (see also: labeling all of Stephanie's obviously freshman-level college classes with 400-level designations intended for seniors or grad students) that what he actually meant here was autonomous zone. Like the CHAZ, as imagined by your Republican uncle. The implication being that this is an area of town that's been completely abandoned by police and emergency services, reducing it to a lawless wasteland where criminals roam free. (A no man's land, you might say. 🙄)

EXCEPT. APPARENTLY. LITERALLY ONE ISSUE LATER. We get the panels I started this post off with, where Steph arrives at Scarecrow's hide-out in the Devil's Square and we get EXPLICIT confirmation that the police will be there in five minutes.

That's all to say nothing of the fact that it being "Gotham's Western Quadrant" that's been cut off makes zero sense on its face. Besides implying that's an entire QUARTER of the city that's just been completely abandoned, Steph at one point describes it as being "on the west bank of the Gotham River."

There is no west bank of the Gotham River. Gotham is on a series of islands off the coast of New Jersey. The west bank of the Gotham River is the MAINLAND where Bristol and the suburbs are.

Gotham's geography is super fluid and can change from book to book, but it being on an island connected only by a series of bridges was a big deal in this era and the only reason the No Man's Land concept even worked. If you're gonna rip that plot off, Miller, you gotta use an eastern neighborhood. Or a northern one. Or even a southern tip. Anything but west. That's like saying there's an east side of Chicago.

[anonymusbosch]

acquaintance in the very large group chat has reached the unfortunate foreseeable-and-foreseen outcome (loss of visa?) of "multiple levels of shitty life situation" compounded by "a seemingly steadfast resolution to make poor choices in every possible avenue of life". and it's. i wish her the best in dealing with the fallout, and i hope at some point she is able to make choices which improve her situation.

[0bsequi0us]

tfw everyone characterizes your blorbo wrong and you can't tell if this is just a case of fandom being dumb or you're actually the problem and you've been the one interpreting the character wrong all along

[dichromaticdyke]

this is gross

“An assembly of people displaying signs changes a reading room from a place for individual learning and reflection to a forum for public statements […] If our library spaces become a space for protest and demonstration – quiet or otherwise, and no matter the message – they will be diverted from their vital role as places for learning and research.”

i genuinely don’t know how to put it delicately, but i’m an academic librarian too, and the university library has always meant to be a generally social place, not just a place of research. they’re places for students to play games, meet up. the entire library isn’t silent, there are floors where you can be noisy. there’s a goddamn starbucks there!

and also. this is the means of protest:

During last week’s protest, students, many wearing keffiyeh scarves, studied quietly in the library’s reading room with papers taped to their laptops displaying messages like “FREE PALESTINE” and “HARVARD DIVEST FROM DEATH,” according to the group.

they’re literally doing what the library is for, reading and researching! having personal notes and stickers that you keep on your own person and property is disruptive now? would it also be disruptive for the library bulletin board to feature posters for campus clubs that aren’t academic in nature? advertisements for local events or businesses? because last i checked (this afternoon at my job) those are all allowed.

students and faculty are exercising their right to read in the space designated for it, and simply carrying messages that happen to be visible on their own personal property. i genuinely don’t understand how that’s different from any other sticker or t-shirt slogan. the only difference is it’s criticism of the school for being complicit in genocide.

this is deeply worrying to me. most attention on libraries have come from the book bans and loss of funding for public and school libraries, but academic libraries are also vastly important too, and it’s disheartening to see university and library administrators working to silence their own patrons. who, again, are using library spaces as intended and quietly while simply having a political note visible on their own property.

this is just disgusting to me, i’m very angry. i know they didn’t lose all access to the library, but even not allowing them inside for a couple weeks sends the message that your right to information can be taken away from you for your political stance. that’s not fucking okay.

[randomjreader]

Ok but about napdaopimfah...on one hand, I wanna see it, because viewjune and sapphics. But on the other hand...the power imbalance is a bit questionable...like it's not about the age because Napdao is probably only like, 2-3 years their senior but it's the fact that she's their TEACHER, even if she's just a trainee that makes it all abit, uk

[lususnatura]

🎤

a song that i associate with my muse meme!

hiii, holly! thank you for the ask :D so, this one is going to include a song in it that i'm not really sure is very popular, BUT eff it we ball as they say LMAO (as explanation as to why i chose this song will be in the tags):

timbre timbre - grifting.

[hauntingmiser]

Damn what kind of bitches did I attract ???

[koushirouizumi]

M E: If I ever get an Ukkomon plush someday. Its getting chucked at the wall too. I WILL NOT TAKE NO for an Answer (DigiBeanies+Plush Get Chucked) {/Affectionately}

[cl0ckworkpuppet]

i think people who say trans men don't experience dangerous levels of bigotry (or bigotry "as bad" as other trans people) should really start talking to some trans men of colour (especially black trans men) and should also maybe shut up and stop turning oppression into a contest. just maybe a thought perchance? maybe??