#as if anyone would disagree with that

[holyjost]

Follow Celebrini, Smith in their FIRST NHL Game | NHL Mic Drop

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Unsolved Mysteries.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[hauntingofhouses]

Very interesting to me that a certain subset of the BES fandom's favourite iterations of Mizu and Akemi are seemingly rooted in the facades they have projected towards the world, and are not accurate representations of their true selves.

And I see this is especially the case with Mizu, where fanon likes to paint her as this dominant, hyper-masculine, smirking Cool GuyTM who's going to give you her strap. And this idea of Mizu is often based on the image of her wearing her glasses, and optionally, with her cloak and big, wide-brimmed kasa.

And what's interesting about this, to me, is that fanon is seemingly falling for her deliberate disguise. Because the glasses (with the optional combination of cloak and hat) represent Mizu's suppression of her true self. She is playing a role.

Take this scene of Mizu in the brothel in Episode 4 for example. Here, not only is Mizu wearing her glasses to symbolise the mask she is wearing, but she is purposely acting like some suave and cocky gentleman, intimidating, calm, in control. Her voice is even deeper than usual, like what we hear in her first scene while facing off with Hachiman the Flesh-Trader in Episode 1.

This act that Mizu puts on is an embodiment of masculine showboating, which is highly effective against weak and insecure men like Hachi, but also against women like those who tried to seduce her at the Shindo House.

And that brings me to how Mizu's mask is actually a direct parallel to Akemi's mask in this very same scene.

Here, Akemi is also putting up an act, playing up her naivety and demure girlishness, using her high-pitched lilted voice, complimenting Mizu and trying to make small talk, all so she can seduce and lure Mizu in to drink the drugged cup of sake.

So what I find so interesting and funny about this scene, characters within it, and the subsequent fandom interpretations of both, is that everyone seems to literally be falling for the mask that Mizu and Akemi are putting up to conceal their identities, guard themselves from the world, and get what they want.

It's also a little frustrating because the fanon seems to twist what actually makes Mizu and Akemi's dynamic so interesting by flattening it completely. Because both here and throughout the story, Mizu and Akemi's entire relationship and treatment of each other is solely built off of masks, assumptions, and misconceptions.

Akemi believes Mizu is a selfish, cocky male samurai who destroyed her ex-fiance's career and life, and who abandoned her to let her get dragged away by her father's guards and forcibly married off to a man she didn't know. on the other hand, Mizu believes Akemi is bratty, naive princess who constantly needs saving and who can't make her own decisions.

These misconceptions are even evident in the framing of their first impressions of each other, both of which unfold in these slow-motion POV shots.

Mizu's first impression of Akemi is that of a beautiful, untouchable princess in a cage. Swirling string music in the background.

Akemi's first impression of Mizu is of a mysterious, stoic "demon" samurai who stole her fiance's scarf. Tense music and the sound of ocean waves in the background.

And then, going back to that scene of them together in Episode 4, both Mizu and Akemi continue to fool each other and hold these assumptions of each other, and they both feed into it, as both are purposely acting within the suppressive roles society binds them to in order to achieve their goals within the means they are allowed (Akemi playing the part of a subservient woman; Mizu playing the part of a dominant man).

But then, for once in both their lives, neither of their usual tactics work.

Akemi is trying to use flattery and seduction on Mizu, but Mizu sees right through it, knowing that Akemi is just trying to manipulate and harm her. Rather than give in to Akemi's tactics, Mizu plays with Akemi's emotions by alluding to Taigen's death, before pinning her down, and then when she starts crying, Mizu just rolls her eyes and tells her to shut up.

On the opposite end, when Mizu tries to use brute force and intimidation, Akemi also sees right through it, not falling for it, and instead says this:

"Under your mask, you're not the killer you pretend to be."

Nonetheless, despite the fact that they see a little bit through each other's masks, they both still hold their presumptions of each other until the very end of the season, with Akemi seeing Mizu as an obnoxious samurai swooping in to save the day, and Mizu seeing Akemi as a damsel in distress.

And what I find a bit irksome is that the fandom also resorts to flattening them to these tropes as well.

Because Mizu is not some cool, smooth-talking samurai with a big dick sword as Akemi (and the fandom) might believe. All of that is the facade she puts up and nothing more. In reality, Mizu is an angry, confused and lonely child, and a masterful artist, who is struggling against her own self-hatred. Master Eiji, her father figure who knows her best, knows this.

And Akemi, on the other hand, is not some girly, sweet, vain and spoiled princess as Mizu might believe. Instead she has never cared for frivolous things like fashion, love or looks, instead favouring poetry and strategy games instead, and has always only cared about her own independence. Seki, her father figure who knows her best, knows this.

But neither is she some authoritative dominatrix, though this is part of her new persona that she is trying to project to get what she wants. Because while Akemi is willful, outspoken, intelligent and authoritative, she can still be naive! She is still often unsure and needs to have her hand held through things, as she is still learning and growing into her full potential. Her new parental/guardian figure, Madame Kaji, knows this as well.

So with all that being said, now that we know that Mizu and Akemi are essentially wearing masks and putting up fronts throughout the show, what would a representation of Mizu's and Akemi's true selves actually look like? Easy. It's in their hair.

This shot on the left is the only time we see Mizu with her hair completely down. In this scene, she's being berated by Mama, and her guard is completely down, she has no weapon, and is no longer wearing any mask, as this is after she showed Mikio "all of herself" and tried to take off the mask of a subservient housewife. Thus, here, she is sad, vulnerable, and feeling small (emphasised further by the framing of the scene). This is a perfect encapsulation of what Mizu is on the inside, underneath all the layers of revenge-obsession and the walls she's put around herself.

In contrast, the only time we Akemi with her hair fully down, she is completely alone in the bath, and this scene takes place after being scorned by her father and left weeping at his feet. But despite all that, Akemi is headstrong, determined, taking the reigns of her life as she makes the choice to run away, but even that choice is reflective of her youthful naivety. She even gets scolded by Seki shortly after this in the next scene, because though she wants to be independent, she still hasn't completely learned to be. Not yet. Regardless, her decisiveness and moment of self-empowerment is emphasised by the framing of the scene, where her face takes up the majority of the shot, and she stares seriously into the middle distance.

To conclude, I wish popular fanon would stop mischaracterising these two, and flattening them into tropes and stereotypes (ie. masculine badass swordsman Mizu and feminine alluring queen but also girly swooning damsel Akemi), all of which just seems... reductive. It also irks me when Akemi is merely upheld as a love interest and romantic device for Mizu and nothing more, when she is literally Mizu's narrative foil (takes far more narrative precedence over romantic interest) and the deuteragonist of this show. She is her own person. That is literally the theme of her entire character and arc.

[dykesevika]

arcane give her to the lesbians pls .

[atwas-gaming]

I've had a scenario in mind for a while now about what it would take for Sonic to finally own up to his feelings about Amy. And I think what it would take is...

Shadow.

Well, just plain jealousy and a fear of losing Amy before he even has her. But Shadow would be the best one to instigate it.

First, some headcanons about how they behave romantically:

Amy's maturing and spreading her wings. She's not moving on from Sonic, not really, but it's possible that she's starting to notice other guys. There's some hints in the Twitter takeovers that she may be developing some small interest in Shadow.

Sonic is clearly interested in Amy, and if you pay attention, he has been for a long time. What he's not interested in is marriage- at least, not yet. And Amy is clearly wifey material- she cooks, she takes care of people, she has a caring nature, she's protective, and she's extremely loyal. She's not someone you can use for a one-night stand, you take all of her or you risk shattering her into pieces. She's Sonic's friend, no matter what else he may feel about her, so he avoids any romantic interaction because he doesn't want to hurt his friend.

Meanwhile, Shadow is... not aro-ace, per se, I don't know what you'd call him. He can see that Amy is attractive, but so is Rouge, and Shadow has no interest in Rouge. He just isn't interested in the physical side of romance.

What I think it would take to get Shadow's attention is something deeper, an emotional or spiritual connection.

So here's the Sonamy/Shadamy love triangle scenario that I came up with:

As Amy ages, she feels her desire for male companionship growing stronger. Sonic takes little notice of it, but it doesn't escape Shadow's attention.

Somehow or other, Shadow and Amy end up alone together, probably on a mission or something. I haven't figured out the exact circumstances, but they're together for quite a while. Amy loves to talk to people and get to know them, and Shadow has a soft spot for her, so she's able to get him to talk to her about things that he's probably never told anyone before. And he knows she won't tell anyone about them, either, so he feels safe telling her.

At some point, Shadow realizes, she's done it. She's broken through his barriers, and at the same time, she's calmed the storm of emotions that he's had swirling inside him for 50-odd years. He hasn't felt such peace since... no, not even then. This is something else. He's never felt this way before, and he doesn't have the words to describe it, but he's fallen head over heels for her.

This is why he never lets his guard down, even around the people he trusts most. Because if he lets them in, even a little bit, he might let them in too far. ("Can you see all of me, walk into my mystery, step inside and hold on for dear life.")

He loses control of himself and kisses Amy.

And when he lets go, he instantly hates himself, he starts throwing his barriers back up, because... she's crying. She's crying because she liked it, and she wants more of it, but she's still so desperately in love with Sonic, and she's starting to think she'll never get it from him, so she'll accept affection from just about any man, and it's not like Shadow's unattractive, and, and, and...

So Shadow's raw and open and hurting, he knew before he said or did anything that he was going down a dangerous path, but talking to Amy felt so good he didn't want to stop. And he wants to erase what just happened like it never did. But now he has to be the one to comfort Amy, because this was his fault, Amy was just being the kind and compassionate person she always was and Shadow was an idiot for letting it get to him and making more of it than what it was and losing control. So he has to keep his barriers down for just a moment longer, just long enough to hold Amy and tell her it's not her fault, until her tears finally stop.

It leaves Shadow burning with rage, and as soon as he can, he forcefully confronts Sonic (I imagine Shadow slamming Sonic against a wall or a tree and shouting in his face 😝) and basically tells him, "Amy needs attention from a man, she wants that man to be you, but if you can't grow up and do what it takes, then I'll be more than glad to take your place."

Which scares Sonic good and proper. It's bad enough to think that he could lose Amy, anyway, but to lose her to that faker??? And it finally makes him go to Amy and (very, very awkwardly) ask her to be his girlfriend. And... I'll let y'all imagine the rest.

As for Shadow... he, quite understandably, becomes somewhat aloof towards both Sonic and Amy for a long time after that.

But Shadow's immortal, right? And there's other Amy's in the world. He doesn't have to be alone forever.

Oh, and as for why Shadow would confront Sonic instead of just taking Amy for himself: because he respects both Amy and, especially, himself far too much to do that. He knows good and well she will never be able to fully commit to anyone else as long as Sonic is still an option. If Shadow was to start dating her, she'd go along with it, but it would become a power play between him and Sonic to try to "win" Amy's affections. Shadow has no issues with fighting Sonic over just about anything, but when it comes to his own feelings, he won't stoop that low, and he's not about to hurt himself by playing such a game. I also don't think he would view Amy as "a prize to be won."

[moonshynecybin]

U can’t just drop a banger like “Marc Marquez cryptic pregnancy” and disappear.. I need to to know more

i was thinking about ways to babytrap him where he doesnt just mabort that thang for career reasons, and i think this could get the job done. i also think if its vale's (WHO ELSEEEE) that theres no way he believes that marc didnt know the entire time AND he is. as many other scholars have discussed borderline insane about marc presumably racing pregnant. i mean lbr the offseason is NOT long so he had to have been, and this is in many ways one of the keenest sharpest daggers you could drive into the soft wound of vale's injury issues wrt to marc's particular brand of psycho recklessness. like what if you had TRAUMA and you were ESTRANGED from the love of your life and he was RACING while PREGNANT with your BABY for MONTHS without TELLING YOU... okay saying that. i do realize that this is somewhat the plot of one those f1 heterosexual romance fiction novels but i stand by it!!!!!!! these guys are that level of insane anyways!!!! IDK! maybe marc gets knocked up like halfway through 2015 and has the baby at testing in february. truly maximum drama maximum soap opera marc has NO idea what is happening. its the first time loitering around the same hotel since sepang 2015, and it IS the trauma track, and marc truly thinks it is indigestion (at no point does begging off bike time happen however lol) until UH OH and the baby is there. and alex walks in on marc like on the bathroom floor with a BABY wrapped in a towel and baby goo truly more freaked out than hes ever been in his life its very soap opera. and honda is very smoke and mirrors about everything until genuinely six months later a pic of the baby leaks and its a tiny valentino rossi clone with brown intelligent eyes lol. and then vale puts the (confusing i think) dots together and the shit hits the fan

[natjennie]

what's weird about the fantasy high drama is that like. it seems to me like people forget d&d is primarily a) a game you play with your friends and also b) luck based.

I mean it's fine to say that "nothing felt like a challenge" and "they just dominated everything and there weren't any stakes" but like. it's not as if they weren't up against huge threats. they lost the mall fight. the last stand was an onslaught of enemies. they fought a dozen dragons from an airship. the fights were hard. they're just really good. they've had very good dice luck in general this season and are all very high level and highly specialized. fig is gonna beat deception and performance checks. adaine's gonna figure out the arcana. riz is gonna succeed investigations. like. for some reason their strategical competence and wisely picked abilities are. a downside? a disappointment?

the thing about d&d that you need to remember is it's first and foremost a game. it's mostly random and it takes you down weird paths and you're playing to have fun with your friends. the dice are literally telling the story that it's their time, it's their year. they've struggled enough. they've trained enough. they're good at what they do. and in my post about the academic/domestic/personal stressors being the focus, d&d doesn't have any other system to work them out than rolling different skills. that's what d&d is. brennan set specific challenge levels for different tasks and the players strategized to prioritize which abilities they were strongest in. the challenges were there. and the players rose to them. they were both smart in their delegation of responsibilities and lucky with their dice rolls. of which, both are foundations of d&d.

don't mistake them being good players and getting lucky with there being no hardship. just because they smashed through the wall, that doesn't mean the wall wasn't strong. they were just stronger.

[twinliches]

I haven't heared the door knobs and fascism thing before, can you elaborate?

gladly! i was referencing one of the aphorisms by Theodor W. Adorno, Do Not Knock, one of my favourite philosophical texts, certainly top 5.

I would summarise it for you, but it's quite a short text and i am not embarrassing myself by trying to summarise Adorno, so I have transcribed it for you under the cut:

60. Do Not Knock

Technology is making gestures precise and brutal, and with them men. It expels from movements all hesitation, deliberation, civility. It subjects them to the implacable, as it were ahistorical demands of objects, Thus the ability is lost, for example, to close a door quietly and discreetly, yet firmly. Those of cars and refrigerators have to be slammed, others have the tendency to snap shut by themselves, imposing on those entering the bad manners of not looking behind them, not shielding the interior of the house which receives them. The new human type cannot be properly understood without awareness of what the is continuously exposed to from the world of things about him, even in his most secret innervations.

What does it mean for the subject that there are no more casements windows to open, but only sliding frames to shove, not gentle latches but turnable handles, no forecourt, no doorstep before the street, no wall around the garden? And which diver is not tempted, merely but the power of his engine, to wipe out the vermin of the street pedestrians, children and cyclists? The movements machines demand of their users already have the violent, hard-hitting, unresting jerkiness of Fascist maltreatment.

Not least to blame for the withering of experience is the fact that things, under the law of pure functionality, assume a form that limits contact with them to mere operation, and tolerates no surplus, either in freedom of conduct or in autonomy of things, which would survive as the core of experience, because it is not consumed by the moment of action.

[shadowmonsterrealms]

I don’t think anyone realizes how much I love Bruce Wayne.

This man loves Children, on such a deep level. He’s saved so many people’s lives, and he cares deeply about each of Gotham citizens. Specially kids. I believe it’s the fact that he can’t ever say no to those faces.

But also the fact he’s been in their shoes when he’s lost something important (mentioned in my last post). So he wants to protect that, so he takes care of them. That’s how he fell for (when I mean fell, not pun intended) Richard/dick. His parents were killed due to an “accident,” so he takes him in. Giving him something/someone that he never had (not really including Alfred, but don’t worry I’ll mention him a different post)

Hes also taken care of other children, including very murderous children. AKA psych child (I can’t remember her name), he thought he could convince her to shut down her plans. And he knew that she wouldn’t want to, dispite her almost being aware of her potentially dying. He wanted her to know and feel comfort her last moments, even if she requested it. It doesn’t negate the fact he was willing to do it by holding her hand, and sitting along side her on the swing set.

There was a comic artist(maybe he was a director I forget) but he’s stated that you’ve never made an official Batman without adding the detail that he loves children or is there for their characters. If you didn’t, you’ve just made a man who dresses up as a bat. Which he does have a SLIGHT issues, he itsn’t wrong. Majority of Bruce’s arks are surrounds with children, and he cares so much about them.

Batman will forever be my favorite DC Hero.

[blitzwhore]

Blitzø is literally so pretty and attractive and hot, I will die on this hill I don't even care

[s2pdoktopus]

I gave him a girlfriend.

(this scene starts with them kissing, actually. I just didn't want to draw people kissing. Jiang Cheng pulls back because he doesn't want to ruin their friendship, nevermind that she initiated. He apologizes for how inappropriate that was. Meihua, undeterred, asks him if it's inappropriate because they aren't exactly courting each other. Jiang Cheng doesn't answer so she took that as a yes and then the comic happens.)

[sorrelpaws]

no offense but i genuinely fear that their potential dynamic will go severely underutilized

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

They would have made Xiao Xingchen pull the car over at least once an hour if they ever did a road trip together.

[lilac-set]

Reminder: even if trump wins, we’ll be ok. The presidency isnt the only political position that matters, he wont be a dictator, the president doesnt have the power to remove every other part of government that keeps the president’s power in check. Also politics isnt the only thing that matters. Even if we lose some rights (which he cant singlehandedly do) we still have community, we still have activism, we’ll always be ok. We survived one trump presidency, we can survive another. We survived before gay marriage or transitioning were legal, if we have to survive that again we will. Please, no matter what happens, promise to stay alive. Youre valuable, youre important, and youre going to be ok. Its better to be overprepared than underprepared. Im not asking you to lose hope (im doing the opposite of that), im asking you to practice coping ahead, get all your coping skills ready, determine now to stay alive, because i dont want any of you to make any rash decisions later in case we get bad news and emotions are high. Make a safety plan if you need to. Make sure you’re gonna be ok

[doccywhomst]

okay so i understand that daleks are one of the main brand icons of doctor who, and that they represent a certain breed of fascist thought that can never be fully stamped out, but. :/

i think im ready for the daleks to die.

daleks have been central to doctor who from the very beginning (the second ever episode, the daleks, and season 2’s the dalek invasion of earth), embodying fear, hate, imperialism, and the darker sides of our own nature - but it seems that, for a while now, their continued existence has been maintained solely by the doctor’s mercy and/or ineptitude ??? which sucks as a theme imo

a great example is remembrance of the daleks, a seventh doctor story from 1988 - yes, the one where the doctor blows up skaro. or, davros fires a device the doctor boobytrapped at skaro’s sun, which goes supernova and destroys every dalek in that region of space. it’s pretty baller. anyway! davros and a few daleks hop in an escape pod and fuck off, and the doctor just lets them. k.

(skaro’s destruction was later ‘corrected’ by widely-detested EDA author john peel in war of the daleks, which is unhyperbolically the worst book i’ve ever read, and thus disregarded! but this heretical text explains that the planet was a decoy named antalin. it’s awful yeah. i tried to warn you)

exhibit b: evolution of the daleks (2007). ten confronts dalek caan, the sole survivor of the cult of skaro, at the top of the empire state building. the daleks have just created and annihilated a slave race of pig people, and it’s horrible to watch. you get the feeling that they’ve done this millions of times all across the universe, because they canonically have. they are inherently imperialist, racist, and genocidal. the doctor knows this.

and the doctor’s response is basically “killing you would mean that I commit genocide, so let’s just hang out and have a conversation.”

dalek caan gets away.

and you’ll never guess where he goes. that’s right! he hops the time lock and grabs davros, who escaped in remembrance of the daleks!!! and they make a bunch of new dalek babies together, out of davros’ gross old flesh. it’s a tentacle fest.

so he was right. killing dalek caan would’ve been a genocide- but because he didn’t, now there are ten thousand genocides. a clear improvement!

exhibit d: victory of the daleks (2010).

after a couple of false starts, the daleks manage to make more daleks after tricking the doctor into confirming their species to open their own device (??? okay sure)- but then they trick him again with a robot scientist bomb that he failed to detect even after talking to the guy, and it’s just like…. fool the doctor once, shame on you, fool them twice? damn, you must be on the merch.

exhibit e: the witch’s familiar (2015).

the iconic ‘only other chair on skaro’ scene where twelve and davros chat on the rebuilt dalek home world - super fun, so fun i forgot how the doctor folded like a house of cards. davros, the genocidal maniac, wants to live another day to see a pretty sunrise, so the doctor *checks notes* gives him some artron energy? that can’t be right, wh- oh- oh, but it’s fine because it affects all daleks, and through some contrived science magic, they all ‘learn the concept of mercy.’ on accident.

and it changed nothing. later stories retcon this. i’m too tired to even think about resolution, revolution, or eve of the daleks right now, but those episodes only further cemented my malaise regarding the doctor’s apparent complacency.

again and again, the daleks depend on the doctor’s mercy, and they get it, and they WIN- and it feels like the moral is that they should be eliminated like an unthinking, unfeeling virus, but the doctor is just too compassionate or inept for the job. certainly not the first doctor to lose to a virus, but perhaps the first to do so willingly.

beyond a loss in revenue, i can’t imagine why the doctor couldn’t destroy the daleks, or why they wouldn’t want to - there was a point when, allegedly, “the time lord’s continuity could not survive without the daleks” (“neverland” audio), but i think the weight and relevance of that harry potter type threat has long since passed.

so… it might be time to put the daleks away, for now. sure, they can come back as a concession to the persistence of fascist ideology, but watching the doctor lose or win to fascism for seemingly arbitrary (always sentimental) reasons isn’t really satisfying. the show addresses that daleks cause untold suffering, but again and again the only obstacle to no suffering is the doctor, who can’t get their shit together! it’s killing me.

[wishchip106]

i’ve grown to love this man despite his many, many flaws

there’s something so wrong with him that its endearing wtf

literally cheering whenever he shows up despite nearly everyone dragging him

STOP! LEAVE THAT MAN ALONE!

i would let him know my secrets he’s my pookiebear 😼