#EVEN IN THE WHOLE BLUE SCENE

[totheidiot]

i think we can put all the versions of death note and its adaptations into a spectrum based on how much light and L want to kill each other and on one side of the spectrum, it's the death note japanese musical and on the very other side, it's the death note tv drama.

[asphodeldreams]

did you really think you were the only one who's good with knives?

no joke i have been working on this piece for over a year. posting it now literally just to force myself to stop working on it

i wanna keep doing digital paintings like this but only if i can figure out how to make more than one every 3 fuckin years lmao

[stromblessed]

Mizu's spectacles, and the levels of her disguise

In drafting some more Blue Eye Samurai meta posts, I find myself writing out the comparisons between what Mizu can and cannot hide about herself, and how that affects how she moves through the world.

Like, I get the jokes about Mizu's glasses, if only color contacts had existed back then, etc. etc., and I think (hope) that most viewers don't take the glasses jokes seriously, as in "I don't care about the suspension of disbelief because BES is a cartoon." But I wanted to write these thoughts out anyway without burying them in a text post about something else.

I think the points I'm going to lay out here are viewed very differently by different people, so please feel free to add to this post, reply, or put your thoughts in the tags!

Not only do Mizu's glasses not actually help her that much, there's surely more to Mizu's mixed race appearance than just the color of her eyes.

In my view, this was pointed out in episode 1:

I'm willing to bet most of us were expecting young Taigen to say "blue eyes," not "ROUND eyes."

Obviously this is still about Mizu's eyes, but not even spectacles can hide their shape.

I don't think the show is obligated to point out everything about Mizu's face that isn't quite as Japanese as the people around her expect. Though the creators have said that they specifically designed Mizu - and her clothes - to read both as "white" and as "Japanese," as well as both male and female. I think there's more about Mizu's features that read as "white" than just her eyes.

This is where my own headcanons start entering the picture, but it's my impression that people can just tell that Mizu looks different, whether or not they can put a finger on exactly how.

There's the little girl who looks at Mizu and then hides on the way into Kyoto:

When there's more to your face you'd like to cover up than just your eyes, big hats are a big help!

By the way, most of these examples have to come from the first half of the season, since by the second half, either Mizu is too preoccupied with fighting henchmen, or everyone Mizu is facing knows who she is already, and she therefore has no reason to hide her mixed race identity.

It's worth mentioning that the mere fact that Mizu has to hide multiple aspects of her identity - her mixed race and her sex - results in her having to choose clothes that really, really cover her up, which doesn't win her any favors either:

(Zatoichi reference, anyone?)

If it were as easy as, for example, tying her glasses to her head and wa-lah, nobody would ever know she was half-white - then (1) Mizu would've just done that long ago, and (2) Mizu wouldn't be so on guard and on tenterhooks 100% of the time the way she's depicted in the show, even when her glasses are on.

Her spectacles sure don't help her in the brothel, which is full of observant women who are trying to seduce her, meaning they get good long looks at her:

Mizu never takes her glasses off, but they still send a woman to her who has light eyes, thinking that must be what will interest a blue-eyed man:

No wonder Mizu gets mad after this, lol

So Mizu never takes her spectacles off in the brothel, it's dimly lit inside, and the women can still tell that she has blue eyes. I'm getting the sense that Mizu putting on her spectacles isn't a guarantee that people suddenly can't tell that she looks different.

And yet no one spots that she's female.

Mizu can hide her breasts, can wear her hair in the right style, can hide what's between her legs, can walk and talk and behave like a man - and she's been doing it for almost her entire life, to the point that not only is she very good at it, but the threat of being found out as female is deadly, but isn't presented in the show as omnipresent.

Let me explain.

She threatens Ringo for nearly saying the word "girl" out loud, because while she's constantly ostracized for being mixed race, being a woman traveling without a chaperone, carrying a sword, and disguised as a man will get her killed or flogged or arrested or some combination of these things.

But in addition, it's been drilled into her since she was a child that if she is discovered as female, the combination of her being mixed race and female will identify her as someone extremely specific, someone known to some bad people, and she will be killed:

I think of it as Mizu thinking to herself, "Being found out as mixed race means I'm treated badly. Being found out as mixed race and a woman means I'm dead."

Mizu's hair is cut as a child. But she isn't made to wear a big hat, or cover her eyes somehow, or anything like that. Because hiding her sex is a more successful endeavor than hiding her race.

Ringo finds out she's female by accident, but once Mizu accepts the fact that he won't rat her out, she relaxes pretty early on in the season. Because the threat of being found out as female is mitigated pretty much 99.9%, since Mizu has gotten so good at being a man. And also, because most of the time, people see what they want to see. Even if Mizu's face makes her stand out as "not 100% Japanese," no one in the world of BES looks at Mizu's clothes, her bearing, her sword, hears her voice, and will ever in a million years conclude that she is a woman, because expectations around gender roles in the Edo period were so rigid and so widely enforced.

One detail that proved this to me is after the Four Fangs fight:

Ringo takes off Mizu's clothes so he can stitch her up, then leaves her clothes off even after he's done. He doesn't even throw her cloak over her as a blanket or anything. There's a little a straw (pallet?) as a divider there on the left, but anyone could just peek around it and see Mizu and her chest bindings. (I think it's mostly there as a windbreaker.)

And Taigen is right there, but he doesn't give a shit:

Opinions probably vary hugely on this, but my impression is that because the show doesn't make any kind of deal about Taigen being in the room with Mizu here, my guess is that Mizu isn't in any danger of Taigen thinking she's female. Even when I watched the show for the first time, I assumed that Taigen had seen Mizu out of her clothes here, and that he thought nothing of it.

Eat your heart out, Li Shang (Mulan 1998). I actually do think that this scene is a direct and purposeful side-eye to that movie, lol

There's obviously some nuance to how "severe" being mixed race is compared to how "severe" being a woman is for Mizu:

After all, Swordfather can't bear to listen to Mizu confess to being a woman.

So a Japanese man can go wherever he wants, whenever he wants in BES. A Japanese woman has limited options: marriage, religion, or a brothel. A mixed-race man is an eyesore in this story. A mixed-race woman is a death sentence.

May as well eliminate the female aspect, and do what you can about the mixed-race aspect. Because that's just realistic.

Meaning Mizu can avoid the strictures Edo society places on women. But she can't avoid the repercussions that come with being mixed race. And I truly don't think that it's just because "there's no brown contacts yet."

[louferrignojrofficial]

he’s so biteable

[akascow]

the jayvik ending is making me SICKKKKK (no one is surprised) i cannot stop thinking about this goddamn 5 second scene bro

because jayce is bracing for impact or pain or whatever but hes wincing and tensing up, clutching viktor. he looks scared or worried or what have you

BUT VIKTOR?? his face RELAXES, he looks SO CALM that he almost looks like hes SMILING... HES SO CONTENT WITH THIS OUTCOME UGHHHH

like it makes sense that hes fine with ending everything bc he hated knowing he hurt people BUT OHHH THE MISERY. viktor tells him to leave so he doesnt sacrifice jayce for smth he doesnt deserve, and he looks so solemn when he tells him to go... BUT JAYCE STAYS and they die TOGETHER </3 and viktor RELAXES bc hes okay with this. he knows jayce is still standing with him despite everything hes done, despite what could happen if he stays with him and destroys it. and he wont feel guilty about it because he knows jayce wholeheartedly means it when he says theyre doing it together

and i may be just delusional rn but it almost looks like he strokes jayces arm to comfort him too what the FUCKKKK yall 😭😭

ALSOOOO BTW (not AS relevant but it makes me SAD) jayce looked SO unsure about ending it but he needed and wanted to be there with viktor and finish what they started TOGETHER because their relationship is PRIORITY TO HIM OUGH. theyve always been and will always be partners and theyre both gonna finish their creation TOGETHERRRR- they started this together and theyre gonna END IT TOGETHER

also how tragically beautiful is it that they both saved each other from killing themselves (when they attempted when they felt their most alone MIGHT I ADD) only for them to die together in each other's arms UGH what the hell man

btw ik ppl are theorizing that they didnt actually die (denial)-- but like saying they got yoinked to another space timeline is less dramatic and longer to write so im not going w that route today lmfao. plus THEY didnt know that going into it so thats what IM basing their reactions on lol

[baeshijima]

the itoshi brothers through the years ...

[chiropteracupola]

A May morning.

[anna-scribbles]

regained my 12 year old swag(read an entire new percy jackson book in one sitting)

[t-u-i-t-c]

"I got what I needed. The way he swapped my tires out told me everything."

+ bonus

[sunnfish]

pg 17-18

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Masterpost

Based on this post!

[tvckerwash]

I'm gonna confess something here: I remember being more invested in dylan's implied marriage problems that were only brought up in one scene than I was in the rest of the plot of s15. fuck the blues and reds, fuck dumb grimmons drama, fuck locus redemption, I want to know if dylan's going to get divorced!

[moonlitkilljoy]

Blue Beetle (2023)

[aggressive-almond-cookie]

Random and probably meaningless but it looks like the side order trailer train scene bit happens geographically further down the tracks than the original train scene, judging by where the city is in the background.

[n3onwraith]

LESS THAN AN HKUR LEFT AND WHAF??? OH MY GOD??? HOLY SHIT, EVEN???????

[atdawn]

how did you get his eyes so blue??

they're honestly just that bright i didn't do a whole lot😭 i lightened the scene and added some small coloring changes so he wasn't all washed out but even in the original you can see how blue they are!

[mo-ok]

(very important blue + stripes research)