#does this make any sense im just rambling

[velvetvexations]

I’m. So baffled by that one dude saying that trans men being able to pretend to be women is a privilege, because in his tags he says that it’s a thing specific to transmascs. Does he mean pretending to be cis as a means of safety is a transmasc specific thing?? Because uh, I’m… pretty sure that’s something that can be done regardless of a trans person’s gender? There are transfems and nonbinary people who can also pretend to be cis [whatever their agab was], too?

Its also not a privilege. Having to hide what you are out of fear isn’t a fucking privilege lmao

strangely people understand that when it's about trans women

just saw a post on my dash saying "'infighting' is a dogwhistle which frames transfems as aggressors". i really hope the tide is turning like you said, bc this shit is getting exhausting and im still seeing it from random people i follow who otherwise gave no indication that they drank the koolaid.

they make me out to be the aggressor all the time!

Nazi imagery anon here

These are the pics I was referring to.

As you can see it’s posted on the verified border security account and you can see two different nazi symbols on him :(

yeah it looks like standards for what they allow soldiers to adorn themselves with are low and the person taking and posting the pics aren't paying good enough attention because that guy also straight up has a naked anime bitch on his knife sheath

as I said this is an individual thing and they need to start knocking their heads together like the Three Stooges and sending them into trenches first

You know who saying that th**fab is actually a storied term that trans fems have been using to identify transmisogonists is fucking insane like girl that's such obvious lie give us nothing

they aren't even trying

It’s crazy how almost every other day on this site I see a new post with like 50k notes talking about how absolutely NOBODY deserves to be harassed, sent death threats or be put on blast yet once again I’m seeing people trying to justify the harassment of another transmasc teenager. Honestly people should just start openly admitting Tumblr is becoming increasingly hostile towards trans masculine individuals, I don’t see clownery on this level on any other platform-

Tumblr...is really bad.

I think the reason why this whole headcanons discourse bothers me so much is that is really is just fuelled by petty spite. Like all these characters are cisgender in canon. We make headcanons because it’s FUN to expand on characters in ways that reflect our different life experiences in whatever form that may take. Intentionally going after transmascs, especially young transmascs, for doing this with characters like they like and accusing them of all these different things genuinely does just feel like bigotry. Who cares if a head canon may not make the most amount of sense? It’s a cisgender fictional character we’re playing around with! Why does it have to be some grand act of activism to say blorbo number 3 is transmasc? We have much bigger fish to fry here.

exactly it's such dedication to not letting anyone else have anything

So sick of people acting like trans men are the same as cis men under the patriarchy and moreso im really sick of the "you're privileged to not be surrounded by men". Like, for lack of better phrasing, saying that about a group of people that is generally perceived as "failure women" pre transition (and sometimes during and post) is a little tone deaf. All about acknowledging how women and people perceived as women are harmed by misogyny until the ones perceived are men. Gender essentialism is ugly and tasteless and nonsensical. Please feel free to delete this im just rambling without a point

rambling is okay anon <3

„wow ur so privileged to not fear men”

i fear the fucking everyone asshole, i just realized that isnt everyone elses fault so i should still treat them with respect !!!!!

that woman called me a "self-hating doll" and I hate the second part a lot more than the first

[bogor-o]

Please share the rambles about how Lana eventually kills Ovidia? Pretty please?

ORGEHRTGRT i love that pretty please oerghag u got it lemme gather my garbled thoughts,,,

im super wishy-washy on whether i want that to commit to that being the end, but it certain is an end. Because theres a build up that leads into lana being ovidias end that i feel needs to be mentioned first

as i think more on ovidia as a person and their history, a lot of it shapes their perception on a perfect life including a "perfect" family and i think they end up subconsciously projecting a lot of it onto Lana and she does try to mold herself into this image of a perfect child for her Baba

but because ovidia isnt being truthful about even to themself about why they do what they "have to" whether its leading their followers the way they with a lot of manipulation and making them believe in this image of a perfect Mother and family that they've carefully curated, or even how they specifically talk to and treat their children and why there is almost a clear sense of favoritism that is kind of always there

this denial is also the reason their ascension is slow and unpleasant, because a process that would not normally take more than maybe a century or two to even begin is being stretched out because theyre actively fighting the crown against it. it isnt apart of their plan, of ovidias plan. so any changes that come from ascending are painful and slow and its entirely because ovidia is so deep in denial of their true self

they dont want to think theyre playing favorites, and its not obvious to anyone but Narinder at first that they view the kids very differently from each other and while hes tries to talk about it ovidia just has a way of icing him out because they just flat out will not admit it.

and this is the point i realized that there are two diverging paths for them, and if they accept and realize where it comes from and why theyre doing this they have the capacity to at least start to mend the damage theyve made which at that point wouldnt be until Lana is already an older child (like 10-12)

or they never address it and never change, they stagnate in their ability to ascend and unbeknownst to them, the crown had always taken a liking to Lana and her innate interest in death and murder, and naturally has been putting thoughts into that childs head for longer than ovidia would have guessed

(wip of something i might finish eventually but u kno, just 2 emphasize that lana adores the crown)

and it wouldnt be until lana is older, and is acknowledged by her baba to be a grown and capable person that its basically the final nail in the coffin. Lanas mental check list is finished for the developmental part of her own life, now all thats left is to become an usurper, just like their idol!

because shes always wanted to be just like Mother.

the method of murder would involve the years of honing in all the inherited abilities that come with being the kid of a god, but them still being a god it'd be hard wouldnt it? not if the crown is so willing to betray its master, and when its got a guaranteed new head to sit on its not that hard to imagine itd turn coat and reveal the secret to killing a god huh

[darjeelinh]

Jesper “guard against pain” vs Wylan “guard against joy”

Jesper’s jokester and confident façade was to protect himself from feeling pain, but inside he’s insecure and vulnerable. He hid his grisha nature because the only person who ever treasured it was taken away from him, and grew up being told that it was a curse. So instead he acts like he doesn’t need it. He acts like he takes all the losses and all the hurtful things in good stride but deep inside he’s feeling lost and guilty all the time. That boy is always bouncing on his feet with guilt all the time in the duology. Guilt for disappointing everyone: his father, Kaz, Inej, his mother, and himself. When he thought about Wylan at the end of SOC he thought Wylan wouldn’t want to hang out with criminals like him anymore once he got the money and that had stung more than he thought: it’s the boy inside him feeling abandoned again, the boy that does no good to anyone other than in a fight. And he cope with all that pain, that guilt, with his addiction and his gunslinging - which no one really paid any mind until Wylan saw through his façade.

Wylan, whose joy and hope was taken away from him by his father, was always made to feel less than, shared the same constant feeling of guilt for just being who he is. His father made sure of it, that he knows he’s not allowed to feel anything but anxious and guilt, and his joy was to be choked out of him (metaphorically and literally). Wylan in the show couldn’t even believe when Jesper told him he was smart, thinking it was just a trick to coddle him into some false sense of joy before it would be taken away again. Wylan in the books still holding on to the last shred of decency for his father until that moment at Saint Hilde, instead blaming himself for it, maybe because it would give him a false sense of control over his own pain. Until Jesper saw his own guilt mirrored in Wylan, and helped him to his feet.

Both Jesper and Wylan were able to keep some part of goodness in the face of everything that happened in their lives: Jesper with his good spirits, Wylan with his morals - standing up against Kaz again and again despite being threatened every time. In Jesper, Wylan learned to accept joy again, and that this won’t be taken away from him. And in Wylan, Jesper knew that he has a safe space where he can accept his pain and heal from it in a healthy way.

“You can love something despite seeing all of its flaws.”

Anyway, Wesper is each other’s safe haven.

[tls12lessthan3]

thinking about orvs metatextual engagement with its genre and specifically how that interacts with its women again. kim dokja is a self insert for the reader - what he thinks is largely meant to represent what we think, especially in the beginning before sing shong really fleshes out his character. kim dokja sees the world through tropes, directly acknowledging the genre around him and the cliches we expect e.g. the overpowered mc, the scheming villain, the beautiful heroine.

but a major part of his arc is deconstructing this reductionist view of the world in a way that parallels the author's deconstruction of the genre, and that plays really well with the way orv writes women. yoo sangah is perhaps the best exanple - shes introduced as the heroine, a one-dimensional pretty girl who in any other novel would become kim dokja's love interest. but the authors allow her to be her own character, directly challenging the stereotype of the heroine and calling attention to the genre's typical lack of depth for such a character. i think this undercurrent plays in the background often but really comes to the forefront when yoo sangah reminds kim dokja of her putting pepper in their bosses' coffee, a memory kim dokja had supressed because it didn't fit with the pretty girl persona he made for her.

i interpret that moment as yoo sangah pushing her way out of the mold of heroine often found in these stories, demanding a depth be added to her character, asking kim dokja - and thus the reader - to see her in her entirety, to see the heroine archetype for what she could be. orv is at all times in conversation with its genre, and its simultaneous writing of female characters with agency and depth and acknowledgement of the tropes these women are expected to fulfill is undeniably a part of that. and its a part i enjoy. most of the time.

[roguelioness]

Trying to math here:

- if the blight is corrupted Titan memories

- and those infected hear a song (we can assume this is the song of the stone)

- darkspawn are naturally drawn to an old god/archdemon

wtf is making them do that? what is the relationship between the blight and the archdemons??

Furthermore:

- in grey wardens, the tipping point where the song starts to become understandable is their sign to go on the calling

is it called "the calling" because they're being called towards something? what is calling them? why haven't any of the grey wardens attempted to study/understand the song?

In addition:

- the blight is corrupted Titan memories

- they have been driven mad by rage and pain

why do the blight-infected darkspawn seek out archdemons and not the titans?

Finally:

if we can equate the Titan's memories being sundered to rendering mages tranquil, does that mean the fade contains wandering bits of mages' memories that have similarly been driven mad with pain and rage?

[girlmetalsonic]

something that is like the baseline of amys entire character to me is that shes lonely. shes clingy and physically affectionate in a way none of her friends really are, shes always getting pushed aside and left behind. yeah, she helps out people she doesnt know because shes a nice person, but also, she sees part of herself in them. she wont leave someone else behind because she knows the feeling —and more importantly, hates the feeling. if she doesnt have somebody to stand by her and be there for her, then shes going to be that person for everybody else. something something her obsession with sonic is really just like a manifestation of that desire for closeness with someone, and she thinks that romance is the only way to get that. idk... this hedgehog can have so many abandonment issues.

[mousemannation]

serious post time. concerning some thoughts ive had about zverev at LC. nothing too heavy but under the cut in case u just wanna scroll past.

i was talking to my mum about this and i think most of tennisblr share the same sentiment towards him so im not gonna be saying anything too radical. Its also not going to be super concise because im mostly spitballing here.

I was just thinking about how we talk about him and how we as a community navigate his presence on tour. I know that there's a vindictive joy that comes with seeing him lose that's especially potent since he basically got away with domestic violence scot free.

Seeing him lose is a good feeling because he clearly cares a lot and it feels like winning that he's upset, but it also doesn't actually mean anything in the scope of things. Obviously on some level if he lost enough he would no longer be relevant but it's inescapable that he is, unfortunately, very good at tennis. He's number 2 in the world. Call him a choker all you want, he's still vastly more successful that 99.9% of all tennis players.

But it's also just sport- a game. It's not the outcome of the match that amounts to anything outside of a very small community of people; its the celebrity, the money and clout and hero worship. The fact of the matter is it doesn't make a difference to the women he abused if he wins a match because he still abused them and he is still famous. He will always have been famous, even if he retires tomorrow. They will still interview him, laud him in press, put him in ads.

I just sometimes think- what right do I have to feel vindicated by his losses? To weigh his literal actual crimes against the outcome of some silly ball game? In a perfect world he would not be playing, he would be banned by the ITF and shunned publicly by his fellow players. He would not be invited to Laver Cup.

I won't say I don't look at tournament draws and hope for his early loss, but at least at tour events that means an early exit. I can't find it in myself to care if he wins or loses at Laver Cup, not really. Because he will still be there, he is still part of the team, he is still on the bench. It doesn't matter if he wins because he's still an abuser people paid thousands of dollars to watch play a game.

[gretahayes]

half-cooked bart analysis!

i think bart’s thought bubbles are pictures instead of words cause if they were words we wouldn’t understand them and they’d be functionally useless.

i think because bart is a different kind of speedster, than wally or barry or jesse or johnny or max or jenni or the crumbs we get of the tornado twins, his thoughts work different. bart was born with his speed. he didn’t get it later in life like the others did. and his speed made everything in him too-fast, and wally fixed the physical, his aging and his body, but that doesn’t change the fact that his mind is still whizzing at uncontrollable & unfathomable speeds. i think he thinks in words, sure, but fast enough that it looks like leaps from point to point and manifest as just pictures, which is the conclusion/cultimation of the thought that we see. which is why i find his pov particularly hard to write—i can’t convey his thoughts in pictures, so i have to find a way to do it in words, but i can’t, just because of how his thinking works. i can never get it down, and it always seems. off to me.

tldr: we get pictures for bart vs the words other spedsters get because his brain physically cannot give us words that are legible to us. if we were given words, they’d make zero sense. hence pictures, which convey clear thought. it’s for our convenience vs it being bart’s entire thought process. + in early impulse, he definitely was thinking and/or feeling A Lot constantly, because he rarely spoke & bart isn’t at all a stationary character unless something is horribly wrong. if nothing external is happening (and there was, he used his speed and had very expressive and often exaggerated body language, but this is in reference to speaking specifically) something serious internal must be.

or as wally put it, the single synapse theory. but i like to puzzle it out anyway.

[irellia]

Her hands are rough. She always marvels a little over that, when they’re lying together amid the rich silks and linens of her bed. Her hands are rough—calloused where a sword would sit in her palm, scarred from old burns and older fights. She wears it around her eyes too, a short life lived hard, with all its ghosts and old blood. She looks older than she ought to, cut out of stone: cold; hard; stolid; like shards of glass—like a blade, sharpened, the last thing men see before darkness falls— but when she presses her mouth — slick and soft, sweet with lipstick— to her neck, Mizu warms under her touch, becomes liquid; she flows, grasps at her waist softly, delicately, as though afraid she'll somehow break her.

I am not made of glass, Mizu she says, a little abashed, the first time she kisses her, gathers her face into her hands and sinks her teeth into the curve of her lower lip, hungry, desperate for her mouth her hands her smell, her her her — god, she wants her — and Mizu gasps, a sharp, low sound torn from her throat, and draws back, touches her as though she's never touched something this fragile before; unmarred by death. Clean. Pure. Hers.

I shall not break.

She traces the cross mark, the little black dot inked into the inside of her arm,  feels the heat of her body seeping through the silks of her dress, her pulse throbbing beneath her skin.

She does not understand Mizu when she murmurs in that detached, cool voice, like riverwater, flowing darkly through her, I can't - I can't... when her hands rise to caress her neck anyway, despite her protestations, her thumb, rough, made hard from all the blood they've spilled, rubbing against her throat, with such gentleness, it makes her ache.

Hidden away, sheltered from a world brimming with death, Mizu does not crack for her - she cannot let the walls around her be torn down in the name of desire, lust, want want want - this is weakness; she tells herself, fighting against the fire that swells in her blood; this is wrong, but she does not pull away when she looks at her through the thicket of her lashes, long and dark as soot; does not shrug her off when she sits near her, presses her shoulder against hers, hungered for her attentions. She would give anything to be seen, to be known, as she is: violent; furious; hungered and empty and aching- to be wanted, in spite of it all... To be... To be. She is warm under her, around her, and that same humanity, that fragile, small thing that growls its agony inside of her, that thing that makes her, when the hour grows late and she too deep in the darkness, the softness that claws at her heart that she always taught herself to despise in her, is what draws her to this strange creature she does not deserve but has somehow made her way into her life.

She laughs; Mizu, too, does not understand her when she says Come here; let me look at you, when she laughs at her aloof detachment, her cool, stony face, how she looks away when she smirks, how her hand twitches at her side.

(Every time Mizu is gone longer than she said she would be, she panics—what if she does not come back? She is beautiful and strong, brown from the sun and scarred, flaming, why would she come back to her?)

Her hands are rough from touching a world she has never known, and she carries the smell of strange forests in her hair. She presses herself into the warmth of her body (scarred and lithe, slim yet hard with muscle) as they lay amidst the silks of her bed. You’re the only real thing I have, Mizu breathes.

She does not say anything; she does not understand her; only looks at her, as though afraid something will take her from her if she blinks. Her response is to kiss her, over-eager, warm and willing and imprecise, desiring, and, if only for tonight, that suits them both.

[maraskywalkers]

I think about the "all this time everyone thought I was a bad cook"/"you were" a lot because 1) it's hilarious, Christopher's delivery gets me every time & Eddie & Buck's reactions each are great but 2) it's also indicative of the relationship that Chris & Eddie have and how lovely & good it is?? like the fact that Christopher can openly tease him like that & how often they are playful with each other & like even with Buck he can rib him about not having a couch or ofc he knows what a porterhouse is like anyway I just think about the other father son relationships right like Eddie's with Ramon and Buck's with Philip and like it's beautiful that Eddie has made it so Chris can talk to him about his feelings, that it's okay to be sad & angry and helping him learn how to handle those feelings, and he does so in a way that's open & honest & vulnerable because he's still learning too and he's worked really hard at being that for Chris but he's also made it so that they can be silly & playful & teasing because Chris know that he's safe with Eddie and by extension Buck too yeah like it's something I think about a lot as an aunt to young kids you know and just Eddie has made mistakes and he's always gonna be learning & growing right like we all are but he's such a good dad because Christopher can be himself with Eddie like he gets to be a whole actual person and not everyone gets that from their parents or family and you can tell just by their interactions that no matter what Chris is always gonna be loved & safe & respected & cared for with Eddie and Chris knows that and it's just so lovely you know????

[the-mononoke-facade]

Alright, so there's been some talk about whether Shusu is actually a different medicine vendor from Ri Kusu (show Kusu), and at first that was my assumption (or my preference since I found the characterization in the book went all in on the detached, stoic side of things than any of the other things that make Kusu an interesting character). But the more I think about it, the more I'm like "is he though?"

And my wondering about it comes from two places, first being that the theme of disentangling harmful attachments is what the book is named after, and the other is the descriptions of the taima sword both sheathed and released, as well as the descriptions of Hyper/Shingi thoughout the book

(spoilers for Shu, since I've seen more people asking about it lately, as well as including suppositions based on recent lore drops and some minor spoilers for Karakasa based on trailers and the like)

Starting with the descriptions of the sword and Hyper, despite the sword being depicted on the cover being a now seemingly defunct design from older promotional material for Karakasa, the sword is described in the first story, Kama Itachi, as having the kinds of colored stones that are characteristic of the Ri taima sword when sheathed.

When released, it's described in multiple stories with some variation of being "an enormous, glimmering blade," which is also what we've seen throughout the show for the Ri sword. The Shingi of Shu is described with gold, serpentine patterns snaking all along his exposed skin (also tanned but given Shingi also has darker skin, that specific detail might just go with being a spirit of the sword), Kama Itachi mentions gold brocade (it's unclear from what I was ever able to translate of it if it was referring to the robe or the markings, so take that with a grain of salt), Toutetsu mentions the kumadori markings on Kusu's face becoming more elaborate from how they started (compared, again, to Kon Shingi and Kusu where their respective face markings don't seem to have a whole lot in common except maybe the eyebrow area), and then Tamamo no Mae outlines the crimson eyes and silver hair. All of that sounds an awful lot like Hyper and the Ri taima sword (and you know, I kinda figured Fuguruma Youbi would have a better description to pull on as well given how like half a page was Tamenaga just contemplating Kusu's beauty and like, me too man, me too, but ah well)

Could it be a matter of these characteristics being in line with how swords associated with any of the hexagrams with fire as a component seem to show up? It's definitely not impossible, and I certainly don't know enough about how I Ching works to make any certain statements on that, but if I were to speculate on a little bit I noticed poking around a hexagram lookup table, with the hexagrams that are composed of two different elements, it seems to be less about one element being dominant over the other so much as two elements meeting in a certain arrangement to create a new result (and even with two hexagrams composed of the same elements, which of the two elements is on top of the hexagram can drastically change the meaning). So then if each permutation creates a unique end result, wouldn't it also follow that the respective swords would all be pretty unique from each other? How would you even determine that "yes, this is the trigram element this sword is associated with"? By the top of the hexagram? The bottom? The yin/yang alignment of the sword? To my mind, it makes more sense for all the swords (and therefore the spirits attached to them) to be unique to their own hexagram (again, not an expert by any means, I'm open to other takes on how that could work, this is just my working idea of how it works)

So if the swords ARE all meant to be unique, then it's a safe assumption that the sword in Shu is the Ri sword. Does that necessarily mean it's the same medicine vendor wielding the sword? Not necessarily, we don't have any information on what happens to a sword should a medicine vendor fall trying to slay a mononoke; does it disappear? Does the sword spirit die alongside that medicine vendor (especially if it happens after the sword's been released)? And what happens to a medicine vendor if a particular sword doesn't need to be in play at that particular moment, given that it seems from the lore drop that the number of swords in play can go up or down? Does he disappear? Does he get stripped of the qualities that made him a medicine vendor and continue living on as a human? Some kind of unaffiliated ayakashi waiting in reserve for when the sword needs to come back into play? Enter the collective unconscious? Is it possible for this sword to show up the same as it is for a different wielder? All of that is the realm of theories and headcanons for now, but it's not impossible that it's a different hand wielding the same sword (and if it's a different entity, is it a reincarnation of the same soul or is a new one selected?)

With my second sticking point being the theming of letting go of harmful attachments that is the book's namesake, which is a common theme that also runs throughout the arcs of the show (Tamaki and the cat being stuck to haunt the Sakai manor without having gotten any justice for the atrocities commited by the family, the zashiki warashi letting go of being ripped away from the women they chose to be their mothers in this life as well as Shino's letting go of the exercise in futility that would have been using her body and sacrificing the baby she already has to try to right that wrong, Genkei's fixation on his guilt over Oyou's sacrifice, Ochou's futile attempts to meet her mother's selfish expectations, the todaiji feeding the greed and obsession of the suitors and its own obsession with being desired, Ishikawa's drive and tenacity to find the truth persisting even after her death)

From that angle, the various stories in Shu are pretty much in line with that theme as well: Tokuemon's deep-seated grudge against his abusive father, especially when that abuse was suffered in service to an ancient obsession of his family for riches and honors; Hori Mondo's obsession with his late master and the honor that should be able to be assumed with the ruling samurai class which is disproven by his master's successor, who himself is obsessed with proving himself capable of filling his father's massive shoes, Ishiuemon's obsession with increasing his own power at the expense of Zen, who becomes obsessed with becoming Ishiuemon's wife even as she was nothing more to him than a pawn; Kei's attachment to the notion that she's owed something going right for her after a life that's been filled with hardships, Hagino's obsession with her husband's all-but-confirmed infidelity even at the cost of her daughter, Takaharu's not being able to keep it in his pants for the sake of the family he already has, Koharu's obsession with gaining her mother's affection; Shunsui's obsession with being a popular author and narrator and tainting Ofumi with that obsession when he betrays her trust to help get her love letters over to a more accomplished author that Shunsui both reveres and is jealous of; Jinjirou's obsession with getting his family's sacrifice properly honored when everyone around him seems keen to shrug it off; Tadayoshi's obsession with getting his daughter Kaede safe behind the walls of the Ooku and Kaede's drive to meet his expectations even as they bear down on her

I had mused a while ago that the feminist theming, in contrast, seems to be missing, putting more focus on the woes of the men in the story often at the expense of the women around them, but in hindsight I almost wonder if that's actually the point (and I think I'll find a more solid answer to this in Oni, from what I've gleaned so far, so this might be another "put a pin in it" thought as well...but that pin's going to be in for a very long time at the pace I'm going through this book lol). Another common thread with Shu is the letting go of how things used to be with a lot of the expectations chaining these characters coming from the Sengoku era, which just don't work going into the "peaceful" Edo era. While women's rights prior to Edo weren't exactly robust, they were stripped down over the course of the Edo era.

It could be taken, then, that this comparatively larger focus on men at the expense of the women around them is another reflection of moving into and accepting Edo-era paradigms, and also giving a peek into the unintended (or maybe "unintended") consequences of putting safety and control over freedom. From that angle, a medicine vendor meant to embody not just a woman's desire but also what a woman wants to be would also then become gradually less considered over time (and while he never had the kind of involvement in Shu that he does in the show, there is a general trend over the course of the stories of his engagement falling off a little more with each story). Ending the book with Nuppera-hofu, with Kaede losing her face as her father lost sight of why he was fighting so hard to get her into the Ooku ("she'll be safe there and won't disappear like my wife and eldest daughter did"), where it's not even clear which sister is the one being sent to the Ooku by the end of the story but what does that matter when the goal of getting to the Ooku was achieved, then leads in very nicely to Karakasa, where so many women have lost their individuality in service to "the greater good" until it hits a tipping point, the karakasa becomes active and starts upending everything that the Ooku was built on, and possibly even projecting that outward to reflect what's happening in the rest of the country as well

So then to bring it back to whether Shu Kusu is Ri Kusu or not, if being more passive, or more "feminine" starts to fall in line with the increase of systemic oppression women face in this new era, then in order to reclaim some of his own power and agency, Kusu would need to start to be more active, not a spectator but an actor, and then that leads into Ayakashi Bakeneko, where he's at his most emotive, his most active, and pushing the hardest to be in control of the situation, before gradually over the course of the show relinquishing more control to start to shift back into more of a passive spectator role as women start to chafe under the abuses they're suffering in this restrictive period and fighting to get some of their power back, having the second Bakeneko arc happening somewhere in the 1920s (still obviously a lot of problems, both the old deep-rooted ones and the new ones coming from the reactionaries that don't care much for these seeds of more equality between men and women starting to grow, Moriya being the poster boy for that group and their trying to act like they're the victims in all this while they start running out of justifications for "putting women in their place"), but with more power being reclaimed, he then wouldn't need to be quite as active or "masculine" to be able to have the power or influence needed to get the truths from the humans he needs to perform his duty, so then the differences in characterization could be reflective of what is needed for the era in question. It could also be a matter of the Ri sword and the need to cut away attachments becoming less and less necessary over this general period of human emotion, to where the sword is taken out of play by the end of Shu and the wielder of Ri we see in the show is either a new medicine vendor, or the same one but with a mandatory vacation thrown in there to discombobulate him on how human emotion sphere looks by the time he gets back

Anyway, that's a lot of rambling to say there's a case for it being at least the same sword if not also the same medicine vendor as the show, and it's a matter of the framing and themes of Shu not doing any favors to him for highlighting the things that make him a cool character

[bizlybebo]

like think about it. if xavier truly doesn't remember the greyscale arc he's probably going to think that david bell is solely responsible for jade going missing. and if david bell took his best friend from him then xavier can take david's brother, ie william. does this make any sense

[martyrbat]

sorry but im still just thinking about how batman 105 (aka the comic where bruce gets his tits out and asks khoa to stay) begins with them having a sloppy breakup in the rain and khoa offering bruce to travel and save the world together, they'll live lavishly and gather resources. and then MAYBE they can tackle gotham together. hes trying to convince bruce to stay and that hes going to get himself killed because of his stupid bleeding heart and how he blames himself for every loss. that together they can conquer so much more. and bruce responds by calling him broken and telling him he's angry that bruce is always going to care about the people he saves. he's still determined to go, still choosing gotham over his best (and only) friend.

but he tells him this as theyre in the rain and khoa is still trying to convince bruce to change his mind despite the plane being there and knowing that bruce wont. bruce is one of the only people thats seen his face and knows his name, the only person that truly knows him—yet all those years they spent together still isn't as important as that vow bruce took as a mourning 8 year old boy. so he demands for bruce to never say his name again—he doesn't get that right or the one to see his face ever again. and bruce still doesnt change his mind, leaving khoa behind without so much as a glance behind him.

while batman annual 2021 is khoa bragging about his greatest feat—taking down madame midas, the woman who laughed as his mother was killed and as her father strong-armed his father's independent business. he doesn't tell bruce this but it still ends with bruce pointing out there has to be a reason he cared and spent so long on it. khoa denies it, of course, repeating back what he tells himself constantly. he doesnt care about anything (and, by extension, about anyone). but the comic literally just showed us, the reader, between those two pages that this isnt true! he had a personal motive, he recired back the words she told him all those years again! but after khoa says he doesnt care about anything is the first time on panel that bruce calls him khoa again (as far as i remember :p)

but then khoa is suddenly changing the topic!! not allowing bruce to continue, not even acknowledging the name or all the years it nust have been between the last time someone called him that—the last time BRUCE called him that. and its only after the accusation of khoa caring like how he does—of khoa not being ‘broken’ like how he said the last time he attempted to use that name!! AND that this is their last chronical interaction (on panel) before khoa is the one leaving bruce behind to train bao...

im sure bruce used it off panel before this (and it was probably during sloppy old man sex) but this being it on paper has been making me go >:3c!!!!

[pup-pee]

hi this is a post saying i will not b online((or try)) until i get my g.e.d.

i love u all if i uh, yk never return

hugs hugs many sweet dreams & good mornings!

[dizzybizz]

meowzers

[candyunicornsateme]

Is it weird that I kinda wanna see stuff where Kenny's like really quiet. Like not shy, just doesn't say a lot and is a great listener, and a lotta the time he's down for anything and has that happy lil puppy-like smile sometimes you know what I mean??? And he slowly comes out of his shell??? Oh my god?