#THAT FEELS SO TONE DEAF

[literaphobe]

obsessed with how they were like. due to recent events! we have found that alliances are terrible for the environment :) also they were controlling our minds! As Such, we have melted them all down to RECYCLE! yeah. and we are using the Horrible Technology Scrap Metal to build a STATUE of GABRIEL AGRESTE!! creator OF said horrible technology ^_^ hope this helps

[janitorpostman]

people who are like "oh no they ruined Caitlyn she is on the bad side now" am I the only one glad that Caitlyn's character took this turn? She was the face of the enforcers to the viewers for such a long time. She was kind, compassionate and diligent, the perfect "good cop".

But that's not a fair representation of the enforcers now, is it.

Vi and Powder were orphaned by enforcers. Kind? No.

When in order to survive, they snuck into Piltover to steal goods to sell them, it was enforcers's job to catch and punish these kids, no questions about what kinda life drove these children to do that asked. Compassionate? No.

When Vi got kidnapped arrested. She was put in prison for 6+ years, I doubt there was ever a due court process to determine whether this child was really guilty and deserved imprisonment or not. Diligent? No.

[phantomsies]

my last time speaking on this bc I’m back to my smut and stupid shit afterwards (cause yk this is my safe space 🤪😜🫶🏾👍🏾) , but I’m genuinely scared, not just for this presidency but my local leadership too. Hence why I always make such an emphasis on it. I live in a small town and it’s very much class/racially divided. The sheriff (a white woman btw but a woman nonetheless) has been actively trying to harass and run everyone from my side of town. She pretty much wrote off this area as a bunch of drug addicts and says ‘she hopes we all just kill each other’. (My family has never done, sold or even been around drugs and yet her dumbass cops are convinced bc we’re black with nice vehicles, that we must sell). She’s also pushing for the gentrification of our area so all of her rich cohorts can come and tear down our houses and build a suburbia. Just the other day, a cop made me move my vehicle from in front of a store I park at all the time bc im disabled and even the closest parking spot is far on this leg and he did it just to be an asshole. I can’t even cry abt this presidency yet bc I’m now worried that my local leaders are going to make our lives hell. Not to mention, they voted no on abortions and gender affirming care as well. I hate it here so fucking bad.

[smolstarthief]

Persona 5 Royal Crossover events stop calling Sumire, "Kasumi" challenge (Impossible). 😮‍💨😭

[acidrain39]

was lurking on mcr reddit (dont even have an account just like to check the sub occasionally), and saw this amazing interaction. truly the duality of men.

[seeingivy]

fanfiction is so powerful...instead of letting things in my academic career bother me, i can just write about how phd student eren jaeger is my lord and savior....

[hauntingofhouses]

Seeing fan discussions about Blue Eye Samurai and especially Mizu's identity is so annoying sometimes. So let me just talk about it real quick.

First off, I have to emphasise that different interpretations of the text are always important when discussing fiction. That's how the whole branch of literary studies came to be, and what literary criticism and analysis is all about: people would each have their own interpretation of what the text is saying, each person applying a different lens or theory through which to approach the text (ie. queer theory, feminist theory, reader response theory, postcolonial theory, etc) when analysing it. And while yes, you can just take everything the authors say as gospel, strictly doing so would leave little room for further analysis and subjective interpretation, and both of these are absolutely necessary when having any meaningful discussion about a piece of media.

With that being said, when discussing Blue Eye Samurai, and Mizu's character in particular, I always see people only ever interpret her through a queer lens. Because when discussing themes of identity, yes, a queer reading can definitely apply, and in Mizu's story, queer themes are definitely present. Mizu has to hide her body and do her best to pass in a cisheteronormative society; she presents as a man 99% of the time and is shown to be more comfortable in men's spaces (sword-fighting) than in female spaces (homemaking). Thus, there's nothing wrong with a queer reading at all. Hell, some queer theorists interpret Jo March from Little Women as transmasc and that's totally valid, because like all analyses, they are subjective and argumentative; you have the choice to agree with an interpretation or you can oppose it and form your own.

To that end, I know many are equally adamant that Mizu is strictly a woman, and that's also also a completely valid reading of the text, and aligns with the canon "Word of God", as the creators' intention was to make her a woman. And certainly, feminist themes in the show are undeniably present and greatly colour the narrative, and Episode 4 & 5 are the clearest demonstrations of this: Mizu's protectiveness of Madame Kaji and her girls, Mizu's trauma after killing Kinuyo, her line to Akemi about how little options women have in life, and the way her husband had scorned her for being more capable than him in battle.

I myself personally fall into the camp of Mizu leaning towards womanhood, so i tend to prefer to use she/her pronouns for her, though I don't think she's strictly a cis woman, so I do still interpret her under the non-binary umbrella. But that's besides my point.

My gripe here, and the thing that spurred me to write this post, is that rarely does this fandom even touch upon the more predominant themes of colonialism and postcolonial identities within the story. So it definitely irks me when people say that the show presenting Mizu being cishet is "boring." While it's completely fine to have your opinion and to want queer rep, a statement like that just feels dismissive of the rest of the representation that the show has to offer. And it's frustrating because I know why this is a prevalent sentiment; because fandom culture is usually very white, so of course a majority of the fandom places greater value on a queer narrative (that aligns only with Western ideas of queerness) over a postcolonial, non-Western narrative.

And that relates to how, I feel, people tend to forget, or perhaps just downplay, that the crux of Mizu's internal conflict and her struggle to survive is due to her being mixed-race.

Because while she can blend in rather seamlessly into male society by binding and dressing in men's clothing and lowering her voice and being the best goddamn swordsman there is, she cannot hide her blue eyes. Even with her glasses, you can still see the colour of her eyes from her side profile, and her glasses are constantly thrown off her face in battle. Her blue eyes are the central point to her marginalisation and Otherness within a hegemonic society. It's why everyone calls her ugly or a monster or a demon or deformed; just because she looks different. She is both white and Japanese but accepted in neither societies. Her deepest hatred of herself stems primarily from this hybridised and alienated identity. It's the whole reason why she's so intent on revenge and started learning the way of the sword in the first place; not to fit in better as a man, but to kill the white men who made her this way. These things are intrinsic to her character and to her arc.

Thus, to refuse to engage with these themes and dismiss the importance of how the representation of her racial Otherness speaks to themes of colonialism and racial oppression just feels tone-deaf to the show's message. Because even if Mizu is a cishet woman in canon, that doesn't make her story any less important, because while you as a white queer person living in the West may feel unrepresented, it is still giving a voice to the stories of people of colour, mixed-race folks, and the myriad of marginalised racial/ethnic/cultural groups in non-Western societies.

[devilsskettle]

there’s also just Something About female characters who are jealous of the men around them for getting to behave in certain ways that they just can’t. like you can just act like that? you don’t have to maintain a carefully curated and constructed image of yourself to present to the world so people don’t treat you like shit? i’m not gonna universalize but i do believe most women feel this way at least at some point in their lives, i feel it all of the time and it drives me fucking insane

[falllpoutboy]

platonic soulmates sounds so fucking boring im sorry… not with the amount of sexual tension they have 😭

[flowerakatsuka]

wip while i'm at woooork~

[featherymainffins]

Peace and love on planet Earth but if I see one more post NOT about recovery and, in fact, encouraging eating disorders in the ed recovery tag, I might just turn into a chimpanzee and tear everyone's faces off.

[placeinthisworld]

“you don’t get to tell me about sad” says the girlie completely and absolutely avoiding the fact that thousands of people are DEVASTATED bc their families, lives, and homes are being fucking destroyed, murdered and tortured. but she wont acknowledge any of that sadness….

[acecroft]

UNCHARTED 4: A THIEF'S END 2016

[verytendou]

The copium is ridiculous

[onlyfangz]

why are all of my based on your likes! posts speculating about famous lesbians not really being lesbians? i checked my likes, theres nothing in there. you all need to stop being fucking weird about lesbians tho. especially lesbians who have dated/fucked men in the past. you look like a toddler with your gold stars.

[the-casbah-way]

not to be obnoxious but like. you people are mad at those watcher guys for making you pay for a subscription service. but you were all able to look past the fact that they had an entire series where they just made jokes about actual real life true crime cases. that makes sense