#Ringo bes

[yadakiti]

thank you ringo for taking care of this angry gremlin 🌊🔥 | TikTok | OG Audio

[winnie-illustrator]

The Onryo Steel

[cyberbirb-arts]

Blue Eye Samurai x Olympics 2024

(Thank you Kim Yeji for the inspiration, we all adore you.)

[everyonesfavoritejehovahwitness]

Ringo seeing Mizu naked at the ending of hammerscale:

[hauntingofhouses]

i think if they had a group chat this would be their dynamic

[dyingroses]

Some Blue Eyed Samurai + text posts and stuff

[hastyprovocateur]

My husband asked for no pickles

[kyasohot]

looks like Group therapy

Ringo's sitting there like an active participant telling his story,

Mizus there for the free stuff,

Akemi looking like she's gonna hate fuck Mizu.

(I guess Madame Kaji's the therapist )

[velosoraptor94]

I’m using quite a few reference images for some drawings…the more I look at this one the more convinced I am that it looks like they’re gonna drop the sickest album Japan has ever heard.

[menacewithawolfcut]

some memes i made for a discord server a month ago

[mytheoristavenue]

BES Mizu x Single Mother!Reader HCs

Summary: How a relationship with Mizu would work with a kid running around.

Warnings: fem!reader, fem/masc representations of your child, child is from an abusive marriage, mentions of violence, mentions of mariticide.

⭐ Surprisingly, it was actually Ringo who inducted you and your child into the party during a time when he was separated from Mizu, coming across you having trouble getting into a village without a man to validate your travel pass.

⭐ After leaving that village, he insisted you both come along with him and, by extension, Mizu on their journey. You hardly had anything to leave behind, so you thought you had nothing to lose.

⭐"Oh, absolutely not." Needless to say, Mizu was none too thrilled about now having to take on the burden of a frail woman and an even more fragile child. "Ringo, take them back to wherever you picked them up from, we don't take on stays."

⭐ They bickered about the subject for a while, until Mizu eventually relented, deciding she'd simply dump you both off at the next village.

⭐ To her surprise, you knew a few trades, and your child wasn't as useless as she anticipated. You both could cook fairly well, forage with mostly success, and even sew. More often than not, after an altercation, Mizu would find you staying up late around the campfire, mending someone's clothes (often her's).

⭐️ Your child is also incredibly well behaved, obeying nearly any order they're given, and almost never whiny, unless hungry or tired. Mizu was relieved to see she wouldn't be traveling with a spoiled brat like the kids she'd grown up with.

⭐️ Eventually, Mizu began to appreciate you both for your company and contributions, even missing you when not in your presence. She did try to deny this for as long as possible, though.

⭐️ At some point, this appreciation grew into affection and even care. Mizu would become agitated if someone upset you, or came too close. She even once called your child her own when they ran into trouble in a passed village.

⭐️ "Get your hands off my (son/daughter/child) or you'll pull back a stump."

⭐️ Your child came back from that trip glued to Mizu's side and hasn't let go since. The feeling is genuinely mutual.

⭐️ Mizu sometimes brings things back for you both when she goes into villages without you. For your child, it's usually a toy or something sweet. For you, it could be anything from a new fabric or article of clothing to a personal keepsake. She ones brought you back a gold hair stick with beads of jade, for example.

⭐ She will insist that you and the child both learn some kind of self-defense, claiming she can't always be there to protect you, but she secretly hopes to pass down her swordsmanship to your child, as well as her blade.

⭐ Your body is a marvel to her. She has such a masculine and (by her standards) unhospitable body, that seeing your plump curves and stretch marks thrills her. She thinks your body was made perfectly with childbirth in mind.

⭐ Mizu refers to you as her wife in front of strangers and becomes increadibly hostile if that notion is questioned, or if anything ill is said to or about you.

⭐ "I think you'll find steeping away from my wife in your best interest, lest you find yourself interested in becoming another notch in my blade."

⭐Your relationship never really became offical, it still came to be over time. She never officially ocnfessed or asked for you to be hers, she just kissed you one day after months of mutal pining and it became so.

⭐ She came to see you, and only you, after being presumed dead, and before shipping off to London. Very quickly, she kissed you, told you to tell (C/N) that she's otu there somewhere and will be back, and asked you to promise to marry her whens she returns.

⭐ You say yes, in return, making her to come back safely, remidnign her that she had a wife and child that need her.

[yadakiti]

a rage-filled non-binary and their ace himbo 🤲

[winnie-illustrator]

Mizu craftsman

I obsessed with Japanese craftsman pants

[parlerenfleurs]

In the notes of the previous post I've reblogged I saw a discussion about why Ringo isn't considered (by the fandom) as a romantic interest for Mizu despite treating her better than all the other men in her life, and how this is tied to fatphobia. Also the fact that the fat character is often the comic-relief and the fact that if he is indeed intended as platonic why make him the only fat (="unattractive") man among the three (others being Taigen and Mikio) that can or have been considered love interests for her?

And that's really interesting because indeed, I never considered Ringo a potential love-interest for Mizu... And so I have to wonder if it's because he's fat. But I also never saw him as a comic-relief character, and I want to expand on why first.

He is indeed funny, and brings levity. But it's not "comic-relief", it's "positivity-relief", in my eyes. I don't feel like we're supposed to take him unseriously at all. Characters take him unseriously, sure, because of his social class, his disability, his seemingly naïve and weak character (never his size, in any case).

But the story shows, and Mizu comes to know, that he's anything but weak and naïve. We know right from the start that he's endured a terrible childhood and life up until meeting Mizu. He doesn't have hands, his father is abusive both physically and psychologically. The way the flesh-trader mistreats him in the first episode isn't anything unusual to Ringo. Everyone despises him and feels free to exert force against him. Taigen in his arrogance, deigns offer him a menial job in his household with the condescension reserved for a nobody who is also a child, or mentally a child.

Ringo was forged at this cruel relentless fire and what came out is a formidable strength. It doesn't manifest itself as obviously as Mizu's but it's, in my opinion, superior, and also extremely great and loveable. Ringo is neither naïve nor stupid. He knows when he's being beaten and condescended to. He's like that because, in spite of everything, he wants to see beauty in everything, and enjoy the good things in life, and he chooses to be kind. He CHOOSES to be kind. With an unbreakable, fluid, infinitely bending strength.

I am not well-versed enough in Japanese culture to make a meaningful comment about this, probably, but my personal reading of Ringo is that he might be a Buddha figure. East of India, the Buddha is fat. The Buddha smiles serenely, even in adversity, because he's reached a state of zen. His ego isn't touched by insults and beatings. Of course Ringo prefers to be treated well, like anyone else! That's why he follows Mizu around! She's an outcast and "deformed" like him, but she's also able to hold her own against physical violence, against the tyrants of the world, and that obviously appeals to him.

He kills, he has sex, he likes good food, he's obviously not detached from the world at all. But still, like a Buddha, his sense of self cannot be shaken by outside mockery or hostility. He's incredibly persistent once he has a goal, but he doesn't bother affirming himself to others for the sake of ego. He's the polar opposite of Taigen in that respect. Taigen's background has made him desperate for outside sources of strength - admiration, prestige, money, social standing...

On the other hand Ringo is really similar to Mizu, a thing he sees immediately but she does not. Hers is an inner unbreakable strength, too. The same fluid, adaptable, water-like strength. Can't break water. It will shape itself around you and your obstacles without ever losing its nature.

But contrary to Ringo, Mizu feels all the pain, the slights, the shame, the self-hatred. Ringo is pure love, or water, not poisoned by betrayal. Perhaps, or even probably, he has been betrayed but he hasn't let it poison his love, his water nature.

Even when Mizu betrays his love (respect, admiration, regard), he's no pushover, he lets her know that he won't stand for it, but still he rescues her because... despite everything his love is still pure. His love is the agape kind. He loves life, he obviously loves himself. There is no shame or shrinking of the self in him. No shame of his body, among other things. He's the only one in the main cast who doesn't wear a mask. What you see is what you get, and it's only people's own preconceptions that blind them to his depth and merit.

On the subject of fatness, I'm not sure he's even really... considered fat, in-universe? Or not negatively so, in any case. When Akemi has to serve her first client, HE is called fat by the characters. Fat enough to crush someone, and to hinder his own libido - the fatness of being extremely rich and eating too much rich food while being extremely idle. This one has the prostitutes reluctant, and his fatness is viewed in a negative light. Ringo has a very pleasant and cordial interaction with the two prostitutes who service him, and sure we're not privy to their thoughts on the matter, but I bet they found him cute, polite, not troublesome at all to service, and I feel like his size wasn't even a question that was posed. We see him naked, running around, carrying things, and being extremely active. His is a common build, sturdy, not a hindrance to his libido, his health, his self-image, or anything. What I mean is, he's not presented to us in a negative way on account of his fatness, and isn't viewed negatively for it in-universe.

All of this to say, I might indeed be blind to his potential as a love interest to Mizu, but I'm not sure it just has to do with the fact he's fat? It might be! I don't know. The first thing I think about on why I don't ship them is they show no romantic or sexual interest in each other that I see. Except, perhaps, that it might be significant that she's the one to arrange his first sexual experience and that it's the framework he has when seeing her naked. But as his attitude remains strictly the same and he shows no change in the kind of interest he has for her, it didn't feel significant to me. I might be wrong, I don't know. But again, Taigen is the opposite: he might be bi, but let's say he isn't, or at least isn't aware of it (I would be sad if he's not but it would better serve the parallel if he's straight) - the guy shows unmistakable chemistry with, and attraction to Mizu without even knowing she's got peaches underneath it all. (I love that he feels attraction to her at the precise moment where she's her playful self again: wrestling, battling and winning, while laughing and having fun... everything that Mikio couldn't handle is the very thing Taigen feels attracted to, aaah so good.)

When I think about it, the loyal, protective role Ringo has, where he saves her physically and emotionally, cares for her, protects her secret, admires her for who she is as a whole, his place as the person who sees the most of her without rejecting a single part of it, should indeed make me feral....

But if he's the opposite to Taigen in so many ways, he might be in this too, in that he has no attraction to Mizu, and they've no such chemistry between them. It's also so lovely as a platonic relationship! For once it is! He's her apprentice, after all, and she takes on the Swordfather role for him as Swordfather did for her (she even used the same persistent-as-hell-I-will-stay-look-I'm-useful method as Ringo did on her - when I say they're so similar...). She used to make noise to signal things to Swordfather and she makes Ringo make noise so that she can keep track of him, too. It's very cute! He uses her kitchen knives and she makes him start to fight with that just like she started to forge by forging them. To me, they're firmly in this master-apprentice dynamic. And friends.

I've said repeatedly that he's not naïve but actually in some ways he is, and that's what Mizu needs more of. She needs to reconnect with that younger, less hurt version of herself. And Ringo helps her with it, because she does ask for his help, does recognise she needs it (healing!) when she asks him to write on her back. He literally has her back. He's his own character, his own person, but they mirror each other a lot, and in some ways he's her master too. A master in gentleness.

Oh. I've said that Ringo's love/water is pure, but that it HAS been touched by the poison that affects Mizu: he's a better sword, has a better strength because he let the impurity be a part of him, didn't push it away or let it consume and change him. No wonder she must learn from him/needs his help to forge her new sword.

IF the story started signaling attraction between them, I don't think it would occur to me that Ringo is fat or anything (or it wouldn't have before, now I'll pay attention to that). It didn't occur to me when he was with the prostitutes, I was only thinking about the fact he has no hands, but the prostitutes shrugged it off with grace, and it made me happy.

[sad-endings-suck]

If I had a nickel for every show I’ve seen that follows a strong spirited blue-eyed heroine who lost her mother at a young age to a fire that can be linked back to colonial violence and who seeks revenge for that but who is also strongly associated with water and the colour blue, who travels with her close companion who happens to be a a bald and childlike yet oddly wise individual with traits both physical and emotional that line up with association of air and the colour grey, who eventually fight and then travel with a stubborn fighter who has never lost a battle before encountering them and is associated with earth and the colour green, as well as a fourth character that represents fire and the colour red and who is a royal/noble trying desperately to ensure control over her own destiny for the sake of freedom and power and who very much acts as a narrative foil to the water/blue character, and one of the former two characters is obsessed with honor to the point point that they are willing to actively aid their enemy just so that they can personally be the one to bring them down and are also sporting one half of a whole haircut for reasons also associated with honour and humiliation, and all this takes place in either east asia or an east asian inspired setting with both plenty of nuance and entertainment value to be found, then I’d have two nickels… which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice, right?

[hauntingofhouses]

sassy boys

i want them to be besties sooooo bad

i s2g they have one (1) braincell and ringo hoards it

like i can see it now: them getting into stupid antics together because taigen persuades ringo into it and ringo, against his own better judgement, goes along with it cuz it seems like it'd be fun