#The most important people in my stories
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crmsnmth Ā· 6 months ago
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Mannequins
This room is filled with mannequins Some dressed up as people from my past There's the girl with the ocean blue eyes Who I still love even after all this time Dressed in sunshine and forgotten dance steps
There's the violent codependent abusive With red blood painted on it's pale plastic skin I stare at it, daring it to make a move because this time I won't let them in
There's the gay man who sold me drugs sometimes for money, sometimes for love Where I learned I have no limits for depravity and that I never really knew my own sexuality
Here's the girl from California who I think of daily my best friend when I had no friends the one who listened to me cry on late and lonely nights And I'm reminded of how much I miss her
Leaning haphazardly against the wall is kid a tragic romance if there ever was one five years of each other's life we wasted before we realized we just didn't work
With missing limbs is my junkie angel And her last words to me play like a scratched vinyl "You need to get clean or your going to die" And a month later she swallowed her tongue and i skipped out on the funeral
I walk through this room of memories The most important people in my stories And I am overwhelmed with nostalgia and sadness I miss you all so much, so so much.
I see my best friend growing up we stopped talking ten years ago because he said he didn't want to watch me burn And I can't say I'd ever blame him
I love you all. I'm sorry.
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technically-human Ā· 3 months ago
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Can you draw something with Doom Patrol!Edwin and Netflix!Edwin?
Maybe something about Dp!Edwin talking about his feelings for Charles with N!Edwin?
It's just something I've been thinking of, make it a little angsty?<3
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Glad you asked
ko-fi
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poorly-drawn-mdzs Ā· 7 months ago
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Good morning, Sleepyhead.
[First]Ā PrevĀ <ā€“-> Next
#poorly drawn mdzs#mdzs#wei wuxian#lan wangji#'WWX was asleep for 4 days' is an incorrect factoid.#The average WWX sleeps for 8 hours. The PD-MDZS WWX who was asleep for 40 comics and 4 months is an outlier.#We are back to present day! I have missed drawing them!#Ah...the contrast between how the flashback ended (cold and distrustful) to how wwx wakes up (warm and watched over)...#The gap between the past and present is very important. Not just in this story but in our lives too.#The past can still hurt and it doesn't just go away with time as some say. It is the power of realizing that things have changed.#We can't get the good back. The bad memories have concluded. Those live somewhere else now.#It is hard to realize that you have to live for today and tomorrow. The past is so loud.#For WWX it is realizing that despite the mistrust in the past - He really does have faith that LWJ will be there for him.#It is the reflection of knowing that you changed and will keep changing and that change is good and kind sometimes.#But more importantly...and this I really do mean with all my heart:#It will all end up okay in the end. Even after the worst day. The most painful losses. You will get through it.#What feels like a breaking point is truthfully just another step you have to take. You'll get through it even though it feels like the end.#There are wonderful things you have yet to see. Friends you have yet to meet.#Even if it hurts so badly...one day it just aches. Someday you'll go a few weeks not remembering that it ever hurt.#Oh and because my izutsumi comic revealed many people were in need of hearing this:#You are loved. Right now. You are so loved right now. We just forget to tell each other that.#Go tell the people you love that they matter to you. I'm assigning you homework!!! You are graded on completion.
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chaosinterlude Ā· 2 years ago
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ā€œlucifer is sadistic and mean!! heā€™s so serious and scary!!ā€
meanwhile,
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heā€™s just a silly man who wishes for a domestic life with his partner and dog <3
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vaguely-concerned Ā· 1 month ago
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just had the thought 'in the end the most important thing varric taught rook was how to make a home for, with, and in other people' and then I had to go lie down on the floor and clutch at my head in unceasing agony for a few hours, as you may well imagine. hawke and the kirkwall crew........ in the end you kind of saved the world a bit in the most characteristically indirect and chaotic of ways. not by anything in particular that you did or achieved or accomplished (lmao imagine!), but just by -- having existed, and by the love that was always there, despite it all, in all its imperfections, even when no one was saved by it in the end. you're not here right now and you're not quite haunting the narrative but I hear your voices bickering and arguing and laughing from the other room. (and so, I think, does varric. all the time.)
'did you think you mattered, hawke? did you think anything you ever did mattered?' yeah actually, varric says with da2 and keeps saying through the series. you were here. and I loved you. and as it turns out that mattered more than almost anything in the world, no matter how long it lasted or how fucked up it was at the time or what else happens, because varric manages to pass that feeling, that intangible... home, that echo of you all as you were together, that love, hopefully the best parts of it, on to someone else for them to bring with them on their journey, with their family. and maybe the world will be kinder this time. you never know. merrill's line of 'Everything affects everything. We were born, a bunch of things happened, and now we're in a mess with our friends.' varric's greatest fear of becoming his parents. even through the wreck and the ruin of the world, ghosts upon ghosts upon ghosts of love -- malcolm hawke, who we never even see, but his life touched hawke's and hawke's touched varric's and varric's touched rook's and rook is passing it on to the family they're creating. the unbroken legacy of love shines through in ways that are stronger and stranger than any magic. help
#I woke up. I opened my eyes. this insight hit me over the head like the fist of god. what the fuck. what the FUCK#dragon age#dragon age: the veilguard#dragon age: the veilguard spoilers#dragon age spoilers#hawke#varric tethras#dragon age 2#dragon age meta#let me live please I've barely reached consciousness I can't deal with this#the kirkwall gang.#what if they were secretly the most important people who ever existed. just because they existed. and for the love that was there#yeah you know what? that's not the worst legacy in the world is it.#da:tv really is da2 2 in some key ways. to me. one of the most da2 lovers or all time#also extremely da2 and also varric core for varric to adopt a kid (as a full adult) completely alone with hawke possibly dead#and STILL somehow manage to make it a varrichawke lovechild on some level. not romantic not platonic but something even more insane#every day varric is unbearably intimate with hawke through the narrative in ways he simply Cannot be with anyone in real life#(in ways you perhaps Should not be in real life. also. lol)#he keeps moving on no matter what b/c that's what you do. but I think varric's real home isn't even kirkwall or a place at all#it's a time. and that time is da2. or at least the story of da2 that he tells himself.#also also what about them themes around parenthood huh. I think varric in the end at least did not become his parents. thank god#trauma gets passed down. but so do other things and you have choices about what you want to leave behind#for those who come after you.#*tears streaming down my face* guess I have to go make breakfast and pretend everything is normal then. sick and twisted
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crookedfivefingers Ā· 1 month ago
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3.13 | į“›Źœį“‡ ŹŸį“€źœ±į“› į“źœ° į“›Źœį“‡ į“›ÉŖį“į“‡ ŹŸį“Ź€į“…źœ±
link to the post I accidentally wound up prattling endlessly about in the tags šŸ’€
#doctor who#tenth doctor#martha jones#david tennant#freema agyeman#(good god. without even meaning to I went into 'psycho stream of consciousness tagging' mode. whoops)#always thinking of that one post#where OP mentions how the writing tries to make it seem like Ten looked right through Martha/etc#which is a good concept for demonstrating his grief. but also isnt what we really see throughout S3#(not saying he wasn't a grieving MESS because he was. but he's a multi-faceted character and he can grieve AND value Martha simultaneously)#but we see such fierce protective instinct+trust; a bond between them that obviously isn't some one-sided affair#+ his clear intent to impress her/be admired and respected by her (apropos the post that inspired this sentiment)#but RTD obviously isn't the most infallible of writers#*cough* [list of reasons I cut down b/c long] *cough*#He can make Martha say ā€œhe's not seeing me/he doesn't look at meā€ but then you just watch with your eyes and you get a different story#It's like the opposite of when Moffat tries to make you believe someone is super important through bold claims without showing his work#instead RTD tries to make you believe Ten is functionally blind to Martha's existence while showing numerous examples of the contrary#then bring in the novels+myspace blog+cartoon that he all signed off on. Which tie together to create a canon backdrop#basically I said all of that to say thisā€”#it's the whole reason I had to make this blog to get this sort of stuff off my chest (even if it's just for me sometimes)ā€”#Ten not only SAW Marthaā€”he trusted+respected+enjoyed+adored her. And it's a good thing#it doesn't cheapen his grief. I feel like people must think it does which is why I constantly see bad unnecessary takes about them#it just means that Martha was SO important to him and it's ok. they had a killer friendship outside the unrequited minutiae and it's ok#there's even a comic where 'someone' makes him believe she's Martha and he makes her change her appearance because ā€œit's still too rawā€#Just saying you don't say that sort of thing about someone whose existence you're all blasĆ© about#Martha already gets fucked by the narrative in enough ways without people totally missing her significance in the Doctor's life#you don't have to ship them to appreciate them on a deeper level#anyway. fuck. if you actually read all of these then I'm so sorry#creating this blog has taught me that there are only like two people who feel the same way about tenmartha matters and itā€™s fine šŸ˜‚#but if I didnā€™t give myself an outlet it would probably form a tumor SO there we are then
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aceredshirt13 Ā· 10 months ago
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Having read a fair amount of Poirot as of late (the first two novels and most of the short stories in Poirot Investigates), the thing Iā€™ve overwhelmingly come away with is that Poirot and Hastings both are and arenā€™t what pop culture would have you think that Holmes and Watson are like.
Poirot is outwardly conceited, thinking the best of his own abilities while deriding those of the people around him. Hastings especially falls victim to this, being teased for ā€œnot seeingā€ and manipulated more than once as Poirot withholds the facts, and being resentful of Poirotā€™s arrogance while also being unduly arrogant himself - nearly every single one of his own proud deductions turns out to be intensely wrong, and he is also prone to foolish or reckless acts in the name of trying to score one off Poirot. Holmes and Watson, on the other hand, certainly have their faults, but their relationship is not so tempestuous, and Holmes is kinder and Watson less foolish than is often presumed by those who have not read the canon. Holmes, while possessed of some immodesty, never flaunts his intelligence so dramatically as Poirot does, and Watson is largely faithful and amazed by Holmesā€™s deductive capacity, and though occasionally annoyed is almost never resentful.
However, what I like about Poirot and Hastings is the way in which they arenā€™t like Holmes and Watson as painted with the pop cultural brush - namely that, like the original Holmes and Watson, Poirot and Hastings are unquestionably fond of each other. Their tiffs and petty spats are always contrasted with their affection, if not shot through with it in the first place. Poirot may speak ill of Hastingsā€™s intelligence, but it is shown multiple times that he does not genuinely want to hurt his feelings, and he always asks Hastings to come with him on his cases - not because Hastings always provides any material aid, but because Hastings is his friend. Hastings may tease Poirot and think condescendingly of his mannerisms, but his laughter is always fond, and he admires him and desires his praise and respect just as much as he worries for him and wants to help him in potential times of need. Most importantly, despite their arguments and many differences (age, culture, temperament, just to name a few) they remain steadfastly together (with many year living voluntarily under the same roof!) and ultimately both wish and facilitate each otherā€™s happiness.
They are more difficult than their Doyle-penned forbears, but for that there is no less love.
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luceafarul-de-dimineata Ā· 8 months ago
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Expanding on my previous post, I think having to take care of child of the enemy would be such a wonderful deconstruction of Leviathan's character.
Leviathan's main motivation for everything he does is to protect the future of Hell, to protect the children and avange the ones that were lost in the experiments. He eliminates anything that might be dangerous for Hell because if there's even a 1% chance of someone suffering he would blame himself for it. He wants to go find the seed of the fruir of knowledge even though he knows it's a dangerous journey, just because it might save his subjects.
Also, Leviathan (as far as we know) has the most personal reason to hate angels. He's seen them at their cruelest and they've always been a traumatic force in his life. While the other kings got to have more peaceful childhoods (again, we don't know if they were abused, I'm just going off what we know) Leviathan never had that priveledge. Even before the war he was abused by them, and now, in his adulthood, he still can't move on because he sees his subjects being killed and tortured by the same people that abused him.
I think that out of all the characters, Leviathan would be the most... interesting father. Don't get me wrong, he won't be bad, but the sort of abuse that Leviathan had to go through changes you in ways you might never expect. He loves kids, the main reason he fights this war is to make sure the children in Hell get a childhood that isn't characterised primarly by war and death. But if he had to deal with a child 1 on 1 for long stretches of time...
He'll probably be extremely overprotective of them, going by the same rule of 1% change of danger = death. The way most parenting works, especially from people that were abused in their childhoods, is that of trying to protect the child from the trauma they experienced. I doupt Leviathan would even let angels look at his kid, or anyone that he percieves as dangerous for that matter.
We also see in the Orias event that Leviathan can be very nice to the people he likes, and I think that it would be the same for his kid. It would be something like
Leviathan strangling MC: I need to kill you, MC, for your life is bringing certain doom amoungst my people
Levi's kid: Dad, can you help me with my algebra?
Leviathan dropping MC to the ground: Yes, sweetheart, what is it? Do you want us to repeat your multiplications table?
Tl;dr of this post is - stop saying Leviathan would be a shit dad. He'll be overprotective of his kid, but he'll never in a million years hurt a child
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lillymakesart Ā· 7 months ago
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my new OC: cempaka!
she is based on the story/universe that my friend @haydardotjpg's OCs indra and yuwei exist in! pls go checkout haydar's art he is amazing!! his ocs can be found more easily on his ig but if you're lazy this is his oc indra (cempaka's one-sided love interest) and yuwei (indra's fated lover)
also, cempaka means "magnolia" in malay!! (she gets a flower name bc my name is lilly which is also flower c:)
bonus first iteration under the cut!
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i accidentally had "poinsettia" flower in mind when i did this iteration instead of an actual magnolia, hence the color scheme. but yeah, this is as self-insert as it gets LOL like she's literally MEEEEEE but still very different and i love her as she is <3
#my art#original character#oc#oc art#art#im in love with her actually#she has 4 brothers all named after flowers#mawar kekwa orkid and melati#not me using google translate literally on the fly i hope im not being culturally insensitive šŸ˜­#but anyway they lost their parents at a young age so she was raised by her brothers#shes the youngest by far tho by like 9 years from her next closest brother#mawar is the oldest hes like 40 a very important Leader Of People so he is not very present in her life#kekwa is a doctor and 38 and he travels often for work so he is also not very present but he visits sometimes#orkid and melati are twins theyre both 30#orkid is a scholar and on track to being a professor at a prestigious uni#melati is traveling the world doing soul searching#cempaka is 21 she is literally a baby and her brothers send her back money but shes mostly alone#so she joins a traveling dance troupe and she gets really good at dancing#she meets indra while on the road dancing and performing and she is SMITTEN#like shes just head over heels in love with this man because hes so warm and inviting and he fills a void in her life#he makes her feel so incredibly seen and not alone and the feeling is addicting she cant get enough#ok idk most of the details bc i havent read haydars full story BUT#basically to my understanding yuwei and indra are separated for a while#and cempaka knows up front that indra is in love with yuwei like hes very honest with her about this and she appreciates it#but she still wants a chance because indras the only person in the world that has ever made her feel truly seen and loved#so she tries to be with him to ease her loneliness but it breaks her heart whenever he misses yuwei openly#also AGAIN listen im trying to basically write fanfic for a story that doesnt exist LOLL#HAYDAR IF YOURE READING THIS PLS WRITE UR STORY LMFAO
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tollsoftheclockwerkbelle Ā· 3 months ago
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sega please do not save maria please do not save maria PLEASE do not save mariaaaaaaa sega PLEASE
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moeblob Ā· 5 months ago
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OC again gomen ... (her name is Yuma)
#my characters#she was (shocking to no one) a side character in a plot from forever ago and while i fleshed out her bg a LOT#she never got her own actual story ? the plot she was in had a lot of characters so her and her best friend myo were like... cameos#in other character arcs rip to she having her own#basically she had light powers and had a kind of whispy clear happy look (top)#and then the big bad guy corrupted her and she got dark powers#so myo and her start to think she is sick and then big bad shows up and tells myo that if he wants to help yuma - hed help#so he manipulates the two into working for the bad guys who id like to point out! think they're the good guys#so yuma keeps having cloudy and foggy memories and nightmares and she doesnt understand whats going on with her#and she tells myo who hasnt clued in yet and he tells her shes fine and shes too nice to do what she feels guilty for#and then after its all kinda said and done and the big bad dies the corruption disappears bc he was the one causing it#and at that point myo knows the horrible things hes kind of helped yuma do and the actual things yuma has done#and he goes to rem who a lot of people avoid since rem has mind reading and memory manipulation powers#and he asks if rem can help yuma forget everything bad#and rem - who is the unfortunate right hand of the big bad who feels so much guilt for everything he has done -#asks him if its what yuma wants cause it isnt his place to change it without her consent as well#bc rem was actually the one that yuma interacted with most outside of myo#but as far as actual plots and arcs rem was more important ? common? idk ? as a focus#so despite yuma having a lot of established background and drama she never had her own ... thing#but as the dark corruption gets to her she loses the clear stream vibes and is like an oozing oil spill#and it kinda festers into her becoming like an eldritch monster type being from the grief and guilt her conscious has#while polluted by darkness sooooo#she just kinda becomes a monster in the background of the plot its fine she gets better#and that was storytime in the tags bye
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thebluemoo Ā· 1 year ago
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I'm so tired. And Frustrated.
I'm tired of characters needing to be "in love" every time they love each other. Especially when the media goes out of the way to make it clear that they love each other without ever trying to define that as "in love". They love each other. That is just as valuable. That is Just as worthy. They can be partners without romance. They can be partners without sex.
They Can Be Partners Without Romance.
I am so Sick of not only the idea that for some god forsaken reason, Every single queer relationship needs to be labeled and categorizable to "count" as explicitly queer, but the idea that it needs to be romantic. The notion that characters and stories cannot be queer until you get to see a kiss or people are declared "boyfriends" or something else like that. We are Woefully shy of queer representation on the wholeā€” I'm not saying you can't interpret media however you like. Do what you want.
But I am so sick of characters that Clearly mirror aromantic stories or stories about queerness that just don't focus on romance be called "not good enough" or "homophobic". Not every story is about romance. Not every partnership is romantic.
That doesn't make them not queer. That doesn't make them not important. I can promise you, those of us who don't or can't center romance in our lives? We Are living a queer experience. We are antithetical to amatonormative allonormative expectations for how life "should" be lead.
We get to see ourselves in those stories you're calling "not queer enough". Queerness is complex and weird and Fucking Queer. It's not an analog of straightness or cisness. We're not playing opposite to straightness or cisness. We're not operating in the same Frameworkā€” that's what makes us so goddamn queer. We aren't easily definable, and when we try to force ourselves to find one definitive way to be queer, we leave community behind.
So yes. We need more queer stories. We need more queer stories of all kinds that are messy and weird and romantic and aromantic and trans and ace and nonbinary and all over the place because every single story about queerness is going to be different. And that's good.
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keepingmyoptionsfluid Ā· 8 months ago
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The idea that Tommy, a closeted gay man who was desperately trying to fit in in a hyper macho and discriminatory environment, isn't allowed to have any growth from when he was over compensating and was a dick to Chim really pisses me off. He literally had canonical growth to the point he was going for drinks with Chim and Hen in Bobby Begins Again and they got him a fancy leaving cake.
Why isn't he allowed to grow and be better? Because he's white? Because he "gets in the way of buddie"? Because no one is allowed to say and change at all over a decade?
Like this is a queer fandom and I'd bet a lot of money that a ton of people in this fandom said and did things they weren't proud of when they were younger, especially before they came out so they could try and hide it.
I know this is quite a young fandom too but like, it was literally only a decade ago when "gay" was an insult at school and doing anything that could be get you accused of being gay was fucking social suicide. You guys have no idea how lucky you are that people at least get called out for that shit now cause they didn't when I was a kid. I would have done almost anything to just be ignored, let alone accepted, rather than being openly bisexual.
So yeah, I think Tommy is allowed to fucking change as a person because Bobby, Chim and Hen came into his life and allowed him to stop repressing. Stop being such fucking assholes. You aren't any better than him, and frankly the way some of you behave makes the way Tommy acted when he was first in the show look like a fucking saint. Touch some grass.
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fromtheseventhhell Ā· 1 year ago
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I ignore about 95% of the conversations surrounding Arya having killed people because, outside of Arya stans, people refuse to include the context of the very violent circumstances she experiences + her trauma which influences her actions. She wasn't destined to be a killer and her being forced on the run, having to survive during a war (at times on her own), having to witness countless people being tortured and murdered, being enslaved as a prisoner of war, having to witness the deaths of her family, etc. are all hugely important factors. Not to mention the times when her life is literally on the line and she has to make tough decisions to ensure her survival. The only time her trauma is acknowledged is when people are using it to prove she's "too far gone", otherwise it's essays on how she hasn't suffered that much. It's so boring how people ignore well-developed characters just to reduce them to one or two aspects of their story. And this treatment is only for certain characters; let someone mention Sansa being part of the plot to poison Sweetrobin and all of a sudden, people can understand being forced to make questionable decisions under difficult circumstances.
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s0fter-sin Ā· 2 months ago
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i have no stake in this whatsoever since iā€™ve never even watched good omens and absolutely 100% unequivocally think itā€™s a good thing that an abuser is seeing the consequences of his actions but i donā€™t really see the point in shortening the 3rd season? rewriting it so he doesnā€™t get money from it? yes absolutely, but if thatā€™s the reason, why not delay the season and do a full six episode rewrite? or just cancel it altogether instead of an inevitable disappointing finale. heā€™ll still be receiving royalties from the first two seasons and whatever ideas they use for the episode plus whatever heā€™s already contracted to receive so making a short season feels like itā€™ll impact the cast and crew more than him; they wonā€™t be paid for a full season of work that they were expecting to have in an increasingly unstable industry
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hauntingofhouses Ā· 11 months ago
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i know I've mentioned my interpretation of mizu's gender a million times on here but i don't think i ever fully elaborated on it.
so on that note i just wanna ramble about that for a bit. basically, it's my reading of the show that mizu is nonbinary, so let me dig into that.
putting the rest under the cut because it ended up being pretty long lol. also here have a cute mizu pic of her being happy and most at ease with herself, symbolised by her letting her hair down. <3 ok let's proceed.
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thus, when i refer to mizu as nonbinary, i am interpreting mizu as a woman, but not ONLY a woman. not strictly a woman. she is also a man. she is also neither of these things, she is something in between, while at the same time she is none of these at all. i've said as much many times, but i just don't want people to think that when i say nonbinary, it inherently means a "third androgynous gender" that essentially turns the gender binary into a gender trinary. not only is that going against what the term nonbinary was crafted for (to go against rigid boxes and categorisation of gender identities), but also, not all nonbinary people fall under that category or definition, and that's definitely not the way i interpret mizu.
okay before i go deeper i'd just like to address some important things. first of all, this post is an analysis of canon, and thus everything i am arguing for is about my own interpretation of the show, and not some baseless projected headcanon i am projecting onto the character. please remember there is a difference between an interpretation (subjective; interpretations will differ from viewer to viewer, but ultimately it is firmly rooted in evidence taken from the source material) VS a headcanon (unrelated and often even contrary to what is presented in canon; opinions wildly differ and they cannot be argued for because there is no canonical evidence to back it up).
ALSO please note that nonbinary is an umbrella term. this means that it applies to a vast range of gender identities. other identities that fall under the nonbinary umbrella include agender, bigender, genderfluid, and so on. however, it's my personal preference to use the term nonbinary as it is, simply because i'm not a fan of microlabels (more power to you if you do like them and find they suit you more though!).
also, before anyone fights me on this, let me clarify further that gender means something different to everyone. it's not your biological sex or physical characteristics. but at the same time, gender is not mere presentation. you can be a trans woman and still present masculineā€”either because you're closeted and forced to, or because you just want toā€”and either way, that doesn't take away from your identity as a woman. same goes for trans men. if you're a trans man but you wear skirts and don't bind or don't get top surgery, that doesn't make you any less of a man. because gender non-conformity exists, and does not only apply to cis people! some lesbians are nonbinary and prefer using he/him pronouns while dressing masculinely, but that doesn't mean they're a man, or that they're any less of a lesbian. neither does this mean that they're a cis woman.
the thing about queer identities in general is that, like i said, they mean something different to everyone, because how you identifyā€”regardless of your biological attributes and fashion or pronounsā€”is an extremely personal experience. so a nonbinary person and a gnc cis woman's experiences might have plenty of overlap, but what distinguishes between the two is up to the individual. there's no set requirements to distinguish you as one or the other, but it's up to you to decide what you identify as, based on what you feel. either way, by simply identifying yourself as anything under the LGBTQ+ umbrella, you are already communicating to the world that you are not what a conservative, cisheteronormative society wants you to be.
which is why i find all this queer infighting on labels to be so ridiculous. because we're all fighting the same fight; the common enemy is a societal structure that divides us into set roles and expectations purely based on our biological parts. that's why biological essentialism in the queer community is a fucking disease. because by arguing that women are inherently weak and fragile and soft and gentle and must be protected from evil ugly men, while men are inherently strong and angry and violent and exploitative of women, these people are advocating for the same fucked up system that marginalises and abuses women as well as effeminate and/or gay men.
anyway. i'm going on a tangent. this was meant to be a blue eye samurai post. so yeah back to thatā€” the point i'm trying to make is that there's no singular way to identify as anything, as everyone's views on gender, especially their own, is specific and personal to the individual.
so with that being said, yes you can definitely interpret mizu as a gnc cis woman and that's a totally valid reading of the text. however, interpreting her as nonbinary or transmasc also doesn't take away from her experiences with misogyny and female oppression, because nonbinary and transmasc folks also experience these things.
me, personally, i view her as nonbinary but not necessarily or not always transmasc because i still believe femininity and womanhood is a very inherent part of who mizu is. for example, from what we've seen, she does not like binding. it does not give her gender euphoria, but is instead very uncomfortable for her both physically and mentally, and represents her suppressing her true self. which is why when she "invites the whole" of herself, she stands completely bare in front of the fire, breasts unbound and hair untied. when she is on the ship heading to a new land in the ending scene, she is no longer hiding her neck and the lack of an adam's apple. we can thus infer that mizu does not have body dysmorphia. she is, in fact, comfortable in her body, and relies on it extremely, because her body is a weapon. instead, what mizu hates about herself is her faceā€”her blue eyes. she hates herself for her hybridised racial identity, hates herself for being a racial Other. hates that she has no home in her homeland. thus it is important to note that these are not queer or feminist themes, but postcolonial ones.*
* and as a tiny aside on this subject, i really do wish more of the fandom discussion would talk about this more. it's just such an essential part to reading her character. like someone who's read homi k bhabha's location of culture and has watched this show, PLEASE talk to me so we can ramble all about how the show is all about home and alienation from community. please. okay anywayā€”
nevertheless, queer and feminist themes (which are not mutually exclusive by the way!) are still prevalent in her story, though they are not the main issue that she is struggling with. but she does struggle with it to some extent, and we see this especially during her marriage with mikio, where we see her struggle in women's domestic spaces.
on the other hand, though, she finds no trouble or discomfort in being a man or being around other menā€”even naked onesā€”and does not seem stifled by living as one, does not seem all that bothered or uncomfortable navigating through men's spaces. contrast this to something like disney's mulan (1998), where we do see mulan struggle in navigating through men's spaces, as she feels uncomfortable being around so many men, always feeling like she doesn't belong and that she's inherently different from them. mizu has no such experiences like this, as her very personality and approach to life is what can be categorised as typically "masculine". she is straightforward and blunt. her first meeting with mikio, she tells him straight to his face that he's old while frowning and raising a brow at him. she approaches problems with her muscles and fists (or swords), rather than with her words or mind. compare this with mulan, who, while well-trained by the end of the movie, still uses her sharp wits rather than brute strength. this is a typically "feminine" approach. it's also the approach akemi relies on throughout the showā€”through her intelligence and persuasive tongue, she navigates the brothel with ease. mizu, in contrast to someone like mulan and akemi, struggles with womanhood and femininity, and feels detached from it.
thus, in my opinion, mizu is not simply a man, nor is she simply a woman. she is both. man and woman. masculine and feminine. she has to accept both, rather than suppress one or the other. her name means water. fluid.
as a side note, while i do believe mizu is nonbinary, i also primarily use she/her pronouns for her, but this is a personal preference. i find it's easier to use in fanfic (singular they is confusing to write stories with, but again, that's just my feelings on it, and this is coming from someone who uses they/they pronouns). i also lean towards she/her because it's what the creators and all the official promotional copywriting of the show uses. and even though i am a "death to the author" enjoyer, i feel that when interpreting things that are left open-ended, it does help to look at the creators' take on things. also because, in general, being nonbinary simply doesn't necessitate the use of they/them pronouns. nonbinary is not just a third gender. it's about breaking the binary, in any which way, and that's exactly what mizu does, constantly.
also, i'd also like to mention that one of show's head of story even referred to her with the term "nonbinary", rather than simply "androgynous" (see pic below). and it's possible this could be a slip up on his part, in which he believes the terms are interchangeable (they're not btw), but regardless i find it a very interesting word choice, and one that supports my argument.
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so anyway yeah that's my incredibly long rambling post.
TL;DR nonbinary mizu rights šŸ‘šŸ»šŸ‘šŸ»šŸ‘šŸ» congrats if you reached the end of this btw. also ily. unless you're a TERF in which case fuck off. ok i'm done.
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