#im talking about the book btw

[ficsempai]

Why did no one told we To Kill a Mocking Bird was that insanely good??? The POV is so interesting, i went half blind into it (i only knew the basic stuff) and I love this. Im halfway through and im pretty sure I haven’t been bored once!

[idlenight]

Behold. Baby Gideon.

So when Harrow has a very bad time while traveling trough the River for the first time in Harrow the Ninth and sees the dead children of the Ninth House, including a baby Gideon with face-paint, the intensity of the moment was kind of dampened by the mental image that popped in my head.

Just the idea of Gideon with face-paint makes me think of her on the cover with the sunglasses. Ergo, baby Gideon with sunglasses.

[francy-sketches]

Hiiiii guess who finished her pmv. finally. um enjoy :3

[jay-wasstuff]

The official synopsis for s2 + the poster of Louis holding the bloody opera mask 😳

[flaskmop]

currently halfway through the senna versus prost book. who was gonna warn me that formula one history is rich with practically iliadic stories of trust and betrayal. and within those stories there are PARALLELS???

like villeneuve and pironi at imola?? and prost's recount of it and acknowledgement of how he (in hindsight) recognised that same "disgust" and "hatred" of villeneuve for pironi from when he and senna fought.

[hauntingsofhouses]

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.

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 masculine—either because you're closeted and forced to, or because you just want to—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 identify—regardless of your biological attributes and fashion or pronouns—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 that— 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 face—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 anyway—

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 men—even naked ones—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 show—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.

so anyway yeah that's my incredibly long rambling post.

TL;DR nonbinary mizu rights 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻 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.

[semothekat]

me when im crazy about two characters that dont even know each other.

Thank you to @oathofkaslana for writing the id for this!!

[sunshades]

grief in the city, or "how many days off will i get when my lover dies of consumption next march"

Expanding from this post (@puffles HI) or mostly just trying to write it out in a readable fashion. (lor spoilers ahead yeehaw 📚)

Just been thinking. Death in the pmverse city. It's not something you're really allowed to get personal with. But some people just can't help it.

In lobocorp we get a look at what it's like from the inside of a corporation, and like yeah the entire story is about it, but to me Yesod's parts more than anyone else's showcase this feeling.

(Yesod core suppression dialogue)

The question of detachment comes up pretty often, and he points out Malkuth's as the ideal behavior to cope with it- forgetting you're dealing with humans as much as you can. Through his arc in lobocorp he struggles with it, this idea that it can all be fine if he stops thinking of the others as having a face, a name, and most importantly (for him) a body. Of course a strategy like that stops working as soon as one remembers, as one gets closer. That is one of the main themes of lor.

We're introduced to Xiao midway through the game, and her story unfolds as we start to learn about Roland's. The way she describes herself is similar to how A talks about Yesod, though Xiao doesn't feel special for it. The softness of her (at the time) coworker Lowell confounds her.

(Xiao's key page)

Then the invitation reaches her, and therefore the news of Lowell's death, and this changes. Her reaction is intense, she describes it vividly. And it feels... kind of natural considering the martial culture of her workplace? Specifically for an Association whose mechanics literally run off emotion levels.

(Liu S1 reception)

But we immediately see that no, to everyone else this seems like an overreaction to losing a partner. We see it from Chun's reaction, then Angela's, who suggests she simply finds a substitute for Lowell, and Roland himself is surprised by it: he muses about the Light influencing the people of the City: this is such a strange thing it gets compared to the goddamn Distortion! When we take a look at Lowell's own book it seems to confirm that out of the two he's always been the one with the more unconventional mindset.

(Lowell's key page)

It's not groundbreaking to say one should care about their partner, but it feels like in the City this isn't really the case? It feels like having someone you cherish becomes something of a nuisance as it can interfere with a Fixer's ability to... well, work. Roland, though affected for obvious reasons, tells Angela about it briefly enough, and it seems it's not particularly noteworthy, having romantic entanglements but also losing them pretty quickly. It's something that happens, that you're supposed to deal with easily enough, and go back to work.

(Liu S2 second reception)

Instead Xiao's feelings lead her to do the direct opposite; it's noteworthy that before her reception she resigns from the Association, and immediately justifies herself to her subordinates by letting them know this shouldn't affect their careers. It's worth noting that Roland's story is marked by a similar situation, once he's exposed in his revenge quest, he loses his Color title as well as his Fixer grade. In both situations we find that the question of how to deal with Survival (being a survivor to the person you love) can't escape from the problem of Survival (how to make a living). The death of another puts you in actual danger if you actually care about them.

In light of this, Lowell's hopes and promises for Xiao read differently. His apparent softness and sensitivity reveals itself as something he can handle very rationally; aware of how deeply their feelings run, he asks her to vow to always watch over herself.

(Liu S1 reception)

Instead Xiao, and we later learn about Roland, embrace the horror of what's happened to them, and show us what it's like to go into the deep end of this grief; it's a deviation from what we might consider normal or #HEALTHY, but it's also a display of feeling that usually people of the City just... don't allow themselves to have. I don't wanna ramble about this too long, but since limbus vaguely uses the Divine Comedy as a source, in Dante terms I would say: while Xiao and Roland commit sins of excess of love, letting their anger over their loved ones take them over, the people of the City in general commit the sin of sloth, "laziness of the heart", it's people who refuse to let any kind of attachment in their heart, because it's simply easier not to deal with them. Roland's arc touches on it quite often.

(Natural Sciences realization)

Though Roland does eventually turn out to be, well. A big deal, a lot of his behavior in the library is supposed to show him as a kind of everyman of the City. In moments where he talks like this, he's expressing what it actually feels like for most people to live in there. This heavily contrasts with Xiao's own beliefs, the ones she develops through her love, and that leads to her EGO manifestation.

(Liu S1 reception)

By the end we also know that the truth is Roland's own mindset isn't quite the one he tries to preach ("that's that and this is this"), but the grief over the loss of Angelica, and more generally the pain for the life he's always had, still weighs so heavy on him he isn't able to just start again- he doesn't want to! As the stories goes on and he faces the horrors of the City together with Angela, even this facade of "sloth" fades away, and his actual feelings start to show, the love and the anger and all of the grief- he starts to resonate with the abnos as Angela did, a similar experience to distorting.

While Roland has a lot of interesting dialogue, it'd take a whole other post to talk about it (I'm sure someone smarter has done it already) so for the purposes of this and to keep on topic I only wanna talk about a little bit that Xiao doesn't touch on, and that feels relevant with the perspective of canto VI.

(Black Silence "soulmates" reception)

In one of the darkest moments, we get a (can I say it now?) ⛈ HEARTBREAKING ⛈ confession straight from the inside of Roland's mind, the fear that in choosing to move on he'll have abandoned Angelica and all they meant for each other. The "pair of linked souls" is tied on a mechanical level, to beat them you need to disrupt their soul link, a buff they give each other that makes them basically unbeatable- they keep each other alive. Roland's fear, after years of Fixer work, after seeing how little value a person's life has in the eyes of the City, is this: that the second he looks away from Angelica's death and his attempt to avenge it, he'll have forsaken her forever, that their love and life together will lose its meaning.

Only with the help of the librarians and particularly Angela he's able to accept that's not the case, and in the final reception he once again wields her name and her gloves, carrying on her legacy and memory for the sake of the future and the new people he wants to protect.

Finally, I wanna show an incredibly interesting piece of dialogue from Leviathan, between Vergilius and Carmen.

(Leviathan chapter 18, translation by @/SnakeskinFS on twitter)

Now, Carmen's take on love is... something. Love as she means it is what we know to bring to Distortion, but it is interesting that the actual implication in the world she draws up is what the people of the City need back is contact with one another, understanding. It's also interesting Vergilius calls it a word he's unaccustomed to. Obviously here it doesn't apply strictly to romantic love, but this does check out with how little we get to see City residents... well, loving each other.

Xiao for Lowell, Roland for Angelica, as well as honestly Carmen for herself, her vision for the future, stand out in crowds of cordial coworkers and friends of circumstances, for the strength of their feelings, love in its danger and beauty. The paths they end up following are messy, some very bloody, and done in remembrance of the people they valued above all else. It's the theme of love that entwines so closely with that of death, the question of what you do when you're the one surviving and left behind.

So here's where I think of canto VI- WH is so heavily defined by grief. This is partially tied to its literary influences, partially to the author's own experience, but the story is scarred by the various funerals, each of which changes someone's life, mostly for the worse.

Is this malicious? A little. A little... not? Like in the City, the feeling is that the dead, the memory of them, follow because they love the living. When we get to Cathy's death, she and Heathcliff curse each other back and forth before making peace again, but in the end more than their harshness, what hits the most is the connection, the yearning to be reunited- "I care nothing of your sufferings" is soon followed by "I'm not wishing you greater torment than I have", which leads into the Heartbreaking speech, that we already know will be very relevant in the canto, in which Heathcliff takes her pain as his.

NOW I see readings/speculation around that this will be portrayed as lcb Cathy trying to tie Heathcliff to his past forever/them needing to Kill Her, and metaphorically his affection for her in order for him to move on and become his own person, to which I say: meh? I think that misses part of the point, makes her out to be a plot device instead of a character that, like him, has grown in an awful abusive household, and laments in her deathbed that she wishes things had been different, and that the person she loves could stay with her longer, after circumstances beyond their control have forced them apart.

By the end of it, though we know that in the book it doesn't really turn out like she'd like, Cathy claims she'd rather him remember her words, and her, as harsh and cruel than nurse anger while he lives on, she hates the thought that he should suffer more when she's gone, because she, too, feels his suffering as hers.

To me this last wish she expresses is most reminiscent of what we see of Lowell's request to Xiao, the way it's not fulfilled until the last minute. Xiao doesn't listen and she goes on, fully aware she's betraying the trust he put in her, and that she might be the next to die. Because of this betrayal, her feelings, this excess of love threatens to have the best of her, to make her forget about Lowell and focus only on herself and her anger- the "love of the self" that is the Distortion. Her final reception has her talking back to Carmen's proposal and worldview, detailing the way her bond with Lowell, but also Miris, Chun and all of her men, have been keeping her strong to this point.

(Xiao reception)

With the awareness her lover is dead and gone, she manages to work through her feelings and gain strength from them, deciding that these bonds, and her memory will keep all of them alive through each other.

SO am I saying this is totally happening to Heathcliff in canto VI. I mean, nah, not necessarily. But considering the similarities he shares with these other stories, and how we've already seen these examples of the theme of grief over a loved one being handled before in the previous games and resulting in these genuinely amazing characters, it's something I think about.

As we're talking about a game adaptation that obviously can't adapt 20 more years of story (and let's be real, shouldn't either. If you want to read WH you can just read WH,) I think that would be a reasonable way for the canto to play out: getting to see one of the sinners genuinely lose it over someone's death in a way none of the others really did, explicitly showing the uniqueness of such intense affection in a place like the City, and then slowly beginning the road to recovery. Much like for Xiao and Roland, this being done not as a result of leaving the past behind, but as a direct result of their love for another, and that of their lover as well as everyone else who cherishes them (Miris, Angela and the librarians- I think we'll soon add the sinners to the list).

(post core suppression dialogue)

To quote another bit from our bestie Yesod, the hope that grows out of the rot, as the death of another, but as your own wounded self as well.

So to conclude. I think in general, in the context of how we've seen major characters work around their grief in previous games it'd make sense for canto VI to reach a similar conclusion, the death being something that weighs heavily, but doesn't obscure the possibility of a future. Still. Love as something dangerous that has extreme power over us, but as something that lives in us and can't be taken away.

[hauntedestablishments]

reading six of crows rn and i cannot get over these fucking ages. what are you talking about

[spearxwind]

writing this apology months before it happens but i am so sorry for the person i am going to become eventually. i am getting into warhammer 40k

[angelscorpses]

i wish we got to see more of the girls in the outsiders, most of them dont even have a role and were just mentioned once or twice, and almost all of them are seen as bad

and theyre ALL mentioned to be someone's girlfriend, can we have a girl outsider who's character ISNT revolved around a man and has a role?? thanks!!!!!

i know cherry exists but my point about them being seen as bad: majority of the fandom hates her (could go on FOREVER defending her but thats for another time)

[pain-is-too-tired]

Pride month is in a couple weeks chat. And I'm begging for Piper art with queer/unlabeled flags instead of bi/lesbian

I'm on my knees, please please please-

[runningatypufullspeed]

I AM BEING FORCED TO ROLEPLAY AS SCYTHE FUCKING GODDARD FOR MY SCHOOLA SISIGNMRNT CAN SOMEONE END ME PLEASE END ME NOW

[ninicaise]

everyone likes to make fun of damen saying his argument at the trial was just “your honor he is innocent bc. i love him” but that’s not true at all!

damen speaks specifically of laurent’s character and behavior with his army, his servants, his people, and his devotion to vere in general. he calls laurent dedicated and honest, all relevant contradictions to the accusations made against him in this stupid ass trial.

he gives a coherent testimony about laurent as a person from his perspective since the first time he met him on the way laurent was outside of the fact that they were lovers and AFTER that the very last thing he adds in for a little flavour is that damen enjoyed laying with him implications of that being basically no guys laurent is not a depraved freak

and in fact the first person who claims damen’s testimony is just a love declaration with no weight is the regent.

which it's not to say that it wasn't a heartful declaration when it was, but it was also a valid testimony for god's sake, literally no worse than guion’s was. it just wasn’t aligned with the regent's intended result of the trial.

[aengelren]

what other animes or media should i talk about

[raptureshots]

Atlas and Atlas..?

(Tag this as Jack and I WILL start screaming) ((They're both Atlas just. two versions of him.please))