#and sad people when im sad as well

[callmekamel]

from "just look don't touch" employer to "omnhomnhomnhomnhom" employer

[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."

[gatoburr0]

This might be a bit of a dark question about the fuzzy AU but.. was Acht alone when they died? I'm assuming timeline wise that side order didn't happen pre Grizz winning (unless it did) so did they spend their last few days(?) alone in the Deepsea Metro with no idea what was happening to them or did something less heart wrenching happen?

Man that is a massive plot hole I completely forgot about and did not see coming. Honestly I think I can make it so somehow Acht already met Callie before getting fuzzed up? Because if not it wouldn’t be so interesting (and most importantly there wouldn’t be enough angsssssst).

Also yeah this post is a bit sad so just sayin’.

Acht and Callie already knew each other and went out together constantly, but they got fuzzed up when they were far from each other. Acht couldn’t get out of wherever they were in, because they were just so weak, until it was too much to handle and they died, alone, nobody knew they were struggling with it.

Callie often gets flashbacks about the time they spent together, however her memory gets blurred by her instincts and she doesn’t seem to be affected by them that much anymore. But she does remember them vividly, being probably their first true love.

She sometimes stays up at night thinking about them.

And the saddest part is that she still thinks they’re doing okay somewhere around.

(Read tags)

[opens-up-4-nobody]

Suspirium - Thom York

[todayisafridaynight]

[itissadbutitsmy-artblog]

this is an old comic i cant get the dialogue to feel right but i get feelings about finn sometimes why do he and jake reincarnate together every time to be together next to each other every time only for Life to chuck his soul across the ocean so he had to suffer to find jake

anyways glob seems like hes like. prophecies-man up on mars. so like. he knew about finn. he knew he was floating up to ooo and needed to meet his parents so he could be the golden hero. of course there were prophecies about finn. of course glob knew. and he wanted to watch

[luck-of-the-drawings]

smth smth about 'the thing that the character did that you thought was rly rly funny in the moment is actually linked to a terrible trauma that lies within said character.' or wahtever.

[sneez]

corvin

[id: two digital drawings of corvus from the video game paladins. he is a pale-skinned young man wearing a red and black caped coat with the collar pulled up over his mouth, and has brown hair with a white streak. the first image is a portrait of him from the shoulders up alongside a full-body drawing. text beside it reads 'guy who really needs to stim but isnt letting himself so hes just standing about looking intensely uncomfortable'. the second image is a full-body drawing of him holding his pistol and knife in an action pose against a background of scenery from the game. overlayed text reads 'I'M JOINING THE WAR AGAINST AUTISM ON THE SIDE OF THE AUTISM'. end id. ]

[yellowocaballero]

Been a fan of your fics for YEARS. I was just telling my friend how despite how much I read fics I never actually love them, with some of your fics (especially TMA) as the exception. Felt the need to reread some of them and saw you reblogged some ISAT fanart. So. Any thoughts on ISAT you'd like to share?

Hope you have a wonderful day!! So happy I found your fics again!!

I avoided answering this for a while because I was trying to think of a way to cohesively and coherently vocalize my thoughts on In Stars and Time. I have given up because I don't want to hold everybody here all day and I have accepted that my thoughts are just pterodactyl screeching.

I love it so much. I have so much to say on it. It drove me bonkers for like a week straight. I have AUs. It's absolute Megbait. They're just a little Snufkin and they're having the worst experience of anybody's life. Ludonarratives my fucking beloved.

I am going to talk about the prologue.

The prologue is such a fascinating experience. You crack open the game and immediately begin checking off all of the little genre boxes: mage, warrior, researcher, you're the rogue...some little kid who's there for some reason...alright, you know the score. You're in yet another indie Earthbound RPG, these are your generic characters, let's get the ball rolling.

Except then you realize that these characters are people. You feel instantly how you've entered the game at its last dungeon, at the end of the adventure. They have their own in-jokes, histories, backgrounds, adventures. They get along well and they're obviously close, but not in a twee or unrealistic way. They have so much chemistry and spirit and life. I fell in love with them so quickly.

But Sif doesn't. Sif kind of hates them, because they will not stop saying the same damn thing. They walk the same paths, do the same things, make the same jokes, expect Sif to say the same lines. They keep referencing a Sif we do not see, with jokes we never see him make and heroic personality he never shows - they reference a Sif who is dead - and Sif can't handle that, so he kills them too.

They become only an exercise in tedious frustration. Sif button mashes through their dialogue, Sif mindlessly clicks the same dialogue options, Sif skips through the tutorial, Sif blows through the puzzles. Sif turns their world into a video game. Sif is playing a generic RPG. Sif forgets their names. They are no longer people with in-jokes, histories, backgrounds, adventures. They're the mage, the warrior, the researcher, and...some random kid.

I did not understand the Kid's presence at first. I had no idea what they contributed to the game. They didn't do anything. As a party member in a video game, they're a bit useless. Why is the Kid there?

Because Sif's life isn't a video game. Because the kid isn't 'the kid'. They're Bonnie. Bonnie, who the party loves. Why is Bonnie there? Because they love them. There is no room for Bonnie in the boring RPG that Sif is playing. And then you realize that Sif is wrong, and that they've lost something extremely important, and that they'll never escape without it.

Watching the prologue before watching ISAT gave ISAT the most unique air of dread and horror, because you crack open ISAT and you see the person Sif used to be. You realize that Sif used to be a person. Sif used to be the person who made jokes, who gave real smiles, who interacted with the world as if they are a part of it. And you know you are sitting down to watch Sif lose everything that made them a person, to lose everything that made them a member of this world, and turn them into a character in a video game who doesn't understand the point of Bonnie at all.

At the climax of the game, when the others realize that something is deeply wrong and that Sif physically cannot tell them, they realize that there is nothing they can do. So Bonnie declares snacktime. And for the first time they have snacktime.

What is snacktime? Classic JRPGs don't have snacktime. There's literally no point to a snacktime - not in a video game, and not in Sif's terrible life. It's not fixing this, because nothing can fix this. But Bonnie gives Sif a cookie and Sif eats it.

It's meaningless. It's a cutscene. It didn't save Sif and it didn't change a thing. It will make no difference in the end.

But it did make the difference. It made all of the difference in the world. Bonnie is a character who you really don't understand the point of before you realize that Bonnie was the entire point.

ISAT is about comfort media. Why do we play the same video games over and over again? Why do we avoid watching the finale of our favorite shows? What is truly comforting: a story with no conflict, or a story where you always know what is about to happen? Do you want to live in a scary, uncontrollable world, or do you want to play Stardew Valley? Do you want a person or a character?

When I beat Earthbound for the first time (and if you don't know, the prologue/ISAT battle system is just Mother) and watched the ending cutscene where the characters part ways and say goodbye...I felt a little bit sad. I wanted them to be together forever. But that's something only characters could ever be.

[dukeofthomas]

I love goofy jason

there needs to be more jason talkin like a gen z and having a board w red string for his plans and photoshopping joker into various death scenarios. i need jason to have a batman plushie he tortures to cope w his rage. tim breaks into his house and opens the closet door just to discover like 100 pictures of robin with indechiperable rambles on them and random stickers everywhere.

he should have a poster of black mask with a badly drawn on moustache and top hat on his wall. do you get me??

[autismsupersoldier]

i made a cover for my gender playlist* and i think it came out pretty nice

current tracklist under cut, though i will be expanding it and welcome suggestions!

*a playlist that i think encapsulates what i want my gender to be :-)

🪩

Stayin Alive by Bee Gees

You Should Be Dancing by Bee Gees

Hot Cop by Village People

Love Machine by Wham!

Take on Me by a-ha

Down Under by Men At Work

Working for the Weekend by Loverboy

👢

Big Iron by Marty Robbins

The Devil Wears a Suit and Tie by Colter Wall

Sleeping on the Blacktop by Colter Wall

God's Gonna Cut You Down by Johnny Cash

Daddy Sang Bass by Johnny Cash

Folsom Prison Blues by Johnny Cash

Sixteen Tons by Johnny Cash

[puppyeared]

guy who only asks questions if they feel insightful enough to be worth asking and only hangs out if there is smth to do together <- deeply uncomfortable of the idea of wasting someones time

[bunnieswithknives]

sorry if idk this but what do you think about Wordgirl now in 2024 do you still like it do you still want to make art or talk about it or are you just done with all of it forever and plus i seen that you haven't made art of it since 2022 so you just done with all of it oh yeah and what about The Magnus Archives + Wordgirl ao3 fic too like is that just going to be and i know that your working on 2 au's now just wanting to know that's all

My interests tend to come in intense bursts and then fade. Unless something like, big happens like it gets a reboot its unlikely I'll be coming back to it anytime soon. As for the fic I don't have any current plans to finish it unfortunately.

[dennistakesamentalhealthday]

dennis is an angry character btw im sorry but he is full of rage but that rage is not exclusive his anger does not negate sadness and fragility and insecurities in fact they work together and dtamhd was one of the first times where his anger was not used as a joke via a surface level rage explosion from him but instead explored the fragility of his anger. the way he keeps reassuring the workers he encounters (and himself) that he's not mad. when he tells daisy he's not mad but he is a little bit upset. dennis is angry and that anger is what makes him so fragile. he was upset and it manifested as rage bc he doesnt know what to do with his own sadness

[haemosexuality]

i just heard someone on youtube (T B Skyen) say that silco loved jinx but didnt quite know how to love powder, while vi loves powder but doesnt know how to love jinx. and oooof oof ouch yeah

also it got me thinking and obviously jinx and powder arent two different people shes just going by a different name now but its also not baseless to analyze them as different "characters", or what traits of jinx are part of powder, etc. like the animators literally have a trick where they change her facial structure how they animate jinx to show when shes behaving more like powder. shes completely changed who she is, its jinx now powder fell down a well, sat on the jinx chair embraces who she is etc etc

[rotshop]

I don't know who you have drawn so far, but one happy birthday guy please!!

party noob they could never make me hate you

[ rbs much appreciated ]