#it’s danger time

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

hero/villain showdown but one of them has a spontaneous medical emergency and the battle gets put on hold while their archnemesis drives them to Urgent Care

[rookanisstuff]

coming home

[demaparbat-hp]

Hey, Spitfire! Try not to kill your brother ahead of time!

.

Looking for Ursa right after being banished had some...wildly unexpected results. One: Zuko actually found her. Two: she wasn't alone. Three: leaving her children behind in order to protect them was, apparently, just something she did.

Looking at the bright side, Zuko now had a three-year-old younger brother to look after. Looking at the dark side, Zuko now had a three-year-old kid he needed to parent while also keeping him a secret from his father because—may Agni help him—the Fire Lord would have to go through Zuko first if he dared to even look at Lu Ten II.

(AKA an AU in which Zuko is a good big brother and doesn't want another kid to grow up like he did.)

[macaronirats]

Happy danger days birthday

[chalkrub]

new guy alert!! she's a lindwyrm who pilots an old suit of armour and has caused many legends of evil ghost knights staggering down the road at night. in reality she's not a ghost, she's a nasty little man who wants to sell you illicit substances and talk about her insane and sordid past

[zillychu]

I'm normal about act 5. why do u ask

[vonspe]

Apologies sir, i wasnt really familiar with your game

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Beware the Whisker Wizard!

(Based on this post)

[maxgicalgirl]

Being a “Fun Fact !” kind of autistic is all fun and games until you get halfway through sharing an interesting tidbit and realize that it probably wasn’t appropriate to share in polite company and now you have to deal with the consequences :(

[noodles-and-tea]

Little Stan getting manipulated by Bill has excellent angst potential but consider.

Stanley just, keeps tricking Bill. Because Bill would definitely massively underestimate Stanley and how far he’ll go to protect Ford (like in the actual show). We also know Stanley has the street smarts between the twins and could absolutely tell Bill is full of it.

And because Bill would absolutely loose his mind if he kept getting foiled by a snot nosed eight year old that isn’t even supposed to be here

I like to think that he doesn’t even try that hard he just does not even care about bill

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

in desperate need of a superhero who has every conceivable superpower...but isn't "overpowered" bc they're mediocre at everything. flight? i mean yeah they can fly. with all the grace of a drunken butterfly, bumping into multiple surfaces in the process, but yeah technically they're flying. super strength? sure with super butterfingers built-in, but it counts. laser eyes but their aim's for shit. they've saved the world as many times as they've endangered it by making a bad situation worse. the "good guys" and "bad guys" are equally apprehensive of having this person on their team

[tornado1992]

When faced with the imminent fear of death people instinctively call out for their mom. A primal reaction, driven by the need of comfort and sense of protection the figure of our mother gives us. Ideally, a mother should be the safest place for every child, the one who loves them more than anything, who will protect them no matter what. "Mom" means loved, "Mom" means safe.

Happy Mothers day to Sonic The Hedgehog!

[chloesimaginationthings]

I know Vanessa regret saying this in the FNAF movie,,

[gleafer]

SOMETIMES I draw Crowley like this. SOMETIMES I draw Crowley like that.

Both are accurate.

FIGHT ME.

[stromblessed]

Mizu, femininity, and fallen sparrows

In my last post about Mizu and Akemi, I feel like I came across as overly critical of Mizu given that Mizu is a woman who - in her own words - has to live as a man in order to go down the path of revenge.

If she is ever discovered to be female by the wrong person, she will not only be unable to complete her quest, but there's a good chance that she'll be arrested or killed.

So it makes complete sense for Mizu to distance herself as much as possible from any behavior that she feels like would make someone question her sex.

I felt so indignant toward Mizu on my first couple watchthroughs for this moment. Why couldn't Mizu bribe the woman and her child's way into the city too? If Mizu is presenting as a man, couldn't she claim to be the woman's escort?

However, this moment makes things pretty clear. Mizu knows all too well the plight of women in her society. She knows it so well that she cannot risk ever finding herself back in their position again. She helps in what little way she can - without drawing attention to herself.

Mizu is not a hero and she is not one to make of herself a martyr - she will not set herself on fire to keep others warm. There's room to argue that Mizu shouldn't prioritize her quest over people's lives, but given the collateral damage Mizu can live with in almost every episode of season 1, Mizu is simply not operating under that kind of morality at this point. ("You don't know what I've done to reach you," Mizu tells Fowler.)

And while I still feel like Mizu has an obvious and established blind spot when it comes to Akemi because of their differences in station, such that Mizu's judgment of Akemi and actions in episode 5 are the result of prejudice rather than the result of Mizu's caution, I also want to establish that Mizu is just as caged as Akemi is, despite her technically having more freedom while living as a man.

Mizu can hide her mixed race identity some of the time, and she can hide her sex almost all of the time, but being able to operate outside of her society's strict rules for women does not mean she cannot see their plight.

It does not mean she doesn't hurt for them.

Back to Mizu and collateral damage, remember that sparrow?

While Mizu is breaking into Boss Hamata's manse, she gets startled by a bird and kills it on reflex. She then cradles it in her hands - much more tenderly than we've seen Mizu treat almost anything up to this point in the season:

She then puts it in its nest, with its unhatched eggs. Almost like she's trying to make the death look natural. Or like an accident.

You see where I'm going with this.

When Mizu kills Kinuyo, Mizu lingers in the moment, holding the body tenderly:

And btw a lot of stuff about this show hit me hard, but this remains the biggest gut punch of them all for me, Mizu holding that poor girl's body close, GOD

When Mizu arranges the "scene of the crime," Kinuyo's body is delicate, birdlike. And Mizu is so shaken afterward that she gets sloppy. She's horrified at this kill to the point that she can't bring herself to take another innocent life - the boy who rats her out.

MIZU'S ONE MOMENT OF SOFTNESS AND MERCY, COMING ON THE HEELS OF HER NEEDING TO KILL A GIRL TO SPARE HER THE WORST FATE THAT THIS RIGID SOCIETY HAS TO OFFER WOMEN, AND TO SPARE A BROTHEL FULL OF INNOCENT WOMEN WHO ARE THE CASTOFFS OF SOCIETY, NEARLY RESULTS IN ALL OF THEIR DEATHS

No wonder Mizu is as stoic and cold as she is.

And no wonder Mizu has no patience for Akemi whatsoever right before the terrible reveal and the fight breaks out:

Speaking of Akemi - guess who else is compared to a bird!

The plumage is more colorful, a bit flashier. But a bird is a bird.

And, uh

Yeah.

I like to think that Mizu killing the sparrow is not only foreshadowing for what she must do to Kinuyo, but is also a representation of the choice she makes on Akemi's behalf. She decides to cage the bird because she believes the bird is "better off." Better off caged than... dead.

But because Mizu doesn't know Akemi or her situation, she of course doesn't realize that the bird is fated to die if it is caged and sent back home.

Mizu is clearly not happy, or pleased, or satisfied by allowing Akemi to be dragged back to her father:

But softness and mercy haven't gotten Mizu anywhere good, recently.

There is so much tragedy layered into Mizu's character, and it includes the things she has to witness and the choices she makes - or believes she has to make - involving women, when she herself can skirt around a lot of what her society throws at women. Although, I do believe that it comes at the cost of a part of Mizu's soul.

After all, I'm gonna be haunted for the rest of this show by Mizu's very first prayer in episode 1:

"LET" her die. Because as Ringo points out, she doesn't "know how" to die.

Kind of like another bird in this show:

[chipper-smol]

hi

bye