#plus it's not wrong

[baileylockheart]

Stuck.

Honestly, the more I think about it, the more I feel like I'm in a weird spot. I wish that I wanted to fall in love, but I don’t truly want that. I mean, it's still the fastest way to verbalize it, but what I think I really want is just... Emotional closeness and physical but non-sexual touch. I don't want to be in a romantic relationship with someone. I want deep trust and communication and understanding without guilt or anxiety or fear of being abandoned, and I struggle to picture any of those things in a romantic way. But I've never really been close enough to my friends to see it platonically either, so I'm just stuck.

I feel the want to want someone, and I feel it strongly, but it's more like wanting a piece of a stranger’s soul and hoping they'll take mine, because I know full well I can't imagine anyone in my life that way, and I can't imagine myself being physically near anyone without feeling uncomfortable. It makes me sick to even try to picture myself in love, especially since I realized that I have never once loved a person (in that way). When I think about what I want, I can’t imagine any one person, so all I end up wanting is a stranger who, for all intents and purposes, doesn’t exist. I don’t want a perfect person by any means, that’s not what I mean when I say this. Rather, even if this person does exist, I don’t know them yet, but already knowing them is a vital part of how I picture them.

I call myself aego-demiromantic because it joins a truth and a hope. I mean, if I’m being honest, I’m probably just aego with a dash of cupio, but I'll deny it as long as I can. The truth, aego, is that I can't picture myself in anything romantic, and any attempts to make me uncomfortable, but looking at fiction and using OCs is easy. The hope, demi, is that the reason I don’t feel romantically pulled to anyone is because I haven’t met them yet, but I'll eventually meet someone and make friends with them. Actual, close friends, who are there for each other and aren’t afraid to talk to or even annoy each other. And after that, then maybe, just maybe, I might get a chance at really loving someone in the way that people mean when they say the word “love”. And maybe that's the point. I don't want to fall in love, but I want to love someone. I want someone to mean enough to me that I'm willing to actually let them see me. I want to be able to care about someone enough that I trust them to stay. I want to feel loved and fulfilled because they're in my life - not because they check boxes or because they carry out tasks, but because their presence in my life really means something.

The problem with that is, people who want to date? They want to date. From what I can see, especially in early stages, there is no hanging out at each other's houses and playing video games, there is no sitting in comfortable silence and knowing it's okay not to talk, there is no taking turns rambling about the things you’re passionate about, there is no getting to just exist together and feel good because you add to each other's lives intrinsically. People want outings, active social interaction, maybe something to brag about. And sure. Outings can be nice. But even then, from what I've observed, people aren't looking for a trip to an amusement park where you take turns picking out what to do and enjoy every minute, or going to Dave & Buster's and playing all the games as many times as you can manage, or hanging out at an empty playground while you blast music and pretend to know the names of the stars you're gazing at. No, people want an expensive dinner that you have to dress up for, maybe sex, and then a kiss goodnight as you walk away from each other because the interaction is now complete. A good morning text would be appreciated, but while no one wants to listen to long-winded rambles, everyone will be mad if you don’t text first.

I know that I’m oversimplifying this in a terrible sort of way - I’m framing romantic relationships extremely negatively, and even if I wasn’t, queerplatonic relationships exist. But the problem is that I don’t think that covers it for me. A non-romantic relationship that has a stronger bond than the best of friends? I would do anything for that, don’t get me wrong. I want that. But the non-romantic part doesn't always sit right with me. I think I want to love someone romantically - but I know that the obsessive nature of new romantic love, how quickly romantic relationships crumble, how deeply it seems to tie in with sex, the way people tie their entire identities to their romantic partner, and the way that it’s so easily exploited by everyone from said partner to their families to even the government, that I’d never be able to maintain it. I want to love someone romantically, but I can’t bear the thought of it because of all the strings that are attached to it.

Still, that seems simple enough, yes? “I want to love someone romantically, but I can’t bear the thought of it because of all the strings that are attached to it.” And yet, if you asked me five months ago, I would’ve gagged at the thought.

For as long as I can remember, I have had “crushes” from time to time, and by “crushes”, I mean hyperfixations on how people present themselves, but no deeper interest in any part of them that didn’t fit that image. Once I became aware of this, I realized that I’d never actually been romantically interested in a person before, I just didn’t know how else I could surround myself with my hyperfixation. The more I looked at love and relationships, the more I realized that I would absolutely hate being in one. The more love songs I listened to to try to counteract this, the more I felt like romantic love was damaging because clearly, if people feel this strongly, they must be so reliant on their partner that they can’t imagine existing as an individual. The general sentiment was, “why would I subject myself to this sort of mental anguish on purpose?” I couldn’t figure out why people would want to flood their brains with stress hormones and lose rational thought for someone who wouldn’t even treat them well. In my head, the relationships that worked out with all parties happy were a severe minority. Of course, if those involved were happy, I’d be ecstatic for them - it just wasn’t something I typically imagined happening. As much as I thought it was fun to pair up fictional characters, as much as I had reformed my ability to enjoy love songs, and as much I supported those around me who were happy in their relationships, I was genuinely disgusted by the idea of falling in love for myself.

That is, until about five months ago, when an argument with a parent led to the simple idea that I can’t express my thoughts on something that I haven’t experienced. That led to probably the most emotional week of my life, and the general consensus was that I’ll never be able to understand love or heartache unless I go through them firsthand. I hated that intensely. What do you mean? Are you trying to tell me I can’t empathize with my friend who’s trying to recover from a breakup? Are you saying I can’t get chills when I see someone tear up while singing about wanting to be in love again? How does that work?

Ever since then, I’ve been constantly in this loop of wanting to love someone more than anything but not wanting to touch romance in its current state with a ten foot pole. I wish it was as simple as “I want to love someone romantically, but I can’t bear the thought of it because of all the strings that are attached to it”, but the truth is that I can’t even tell if this yearning for the ability to yearn is really me, or just a fabrication borne out of spite. It hurts enough that I think it’s real, but I have no solid way to check. Do I want to want to fall in love, or am I pretending in an attempt to understand the world? I can’t tell, and that scares me.

If a stranger asked me if I want to fall in love someday and framed it as a yes or no question, I’d probably say yes. It’s the easy answer to cling to because it feels so much better and so right in comparison to just saying no, and it would also be far easier to deflect judgement that way. It seems like the default answer, right? And yet, I don’t think it’s true. I want to care about someone. I want to be close to someone. I want to love someone. Somehow, despite all of that, I feel like it would be disingenuous to claim that it’s because I want to fall in love, and even more so if I say it's because I have a lot of love to give. I have the capacity for it, I have to believe I do, but the amount of love sitting there and waiting for someone to find it is shallow at best because I don’t even know if it’s meant for a person or an idea that I made up to make myself feel better. Still, I think that how I phrased it in an old Threads comment actually explained it far more succinctly than this entire explanation of said comment ever could’ve.

“I wish I wanted to fall in love because as much as it would hurt, everything would make so much more sense that way”.

[rogueshadeaux]

“I hate the script, the vault dwellers sound so cheesy—“ my Brother in Steel you realize that’s the point, right? They were bred to act like the physical embodiment of an HR e-mail. Did you not catch the memo that Vault-Tec put out regarding their experiment facilities?

[lxvvie]

fuck nasty!Ghost who shows you how much he misses you.

You were out running errands, leaving Simon, home from his latest deployment, to his own devices. All was going well—so you thought—until you heard the telltale ping of your phone and saw that he had texted you.

Simon probably needed you to pick something up for him on the way home. Mm. Doable. You opened the text under that innocent assumption.

And you know what they say about making assumptions.

Because right there in front of your very eyes was a picture of underwear. Your underwear. Your favorite pair of underwear. Your favorite pair of underwear you'd been searching for while you were getting dressed this morning.

They were covered in cum. Simon's cum.

You receive another text not even a second later: Miss you, sweetheart.

It was a miracle you didn't drop your phone.

[basslinegrave]

pin-up

b&w originals

[st4r-t3ars]

[princema-k]

arent u tired of being of being nice..... dont u wanna go Apeshitt

(quote in no.3 courtesy of tearay1073's comment on this vid)

[uncharted-constellations]

These two have such a funny vibe, had to take Zelda out of half their games because you know she’d just be telepathically negging him the whole time. Theyre besties, theyre potentially related, she’s mentally whispering ‘Sandwich’ in his ear whenever he’s trying to focus.

Edit: Added funny page in celebration of me not having to rework these designs for the new game

[xxplastic-cubexx]

i LOVE how you draw twink krakoa charles he's so...... twink...... your art is amazing

thank you so much !!!! i have a simple vision in mind whenever i draw krakoa charles next to erik, really:

it's significant he looks like a push pin next to erik it's infinitely better this way..

[sunderwight]

It's actually kind of hilarious to contemplate the prospect that the genre shift in SV means that Luo Binghe's harem go the queer route as well and start largely pairing off into lesbian ships with one another.

Mostly because of the sheer scale of Bingge's harem, and the fact that a lot of it was comprised of the members of politically influential families.

Can you imagine the freak-outs that various lords and kings are probably having over the fact that their daughters keep eloping with one another? The practical ones are probably going to be like, well, a political alliance is an alliance, welcome to the family Random Demon Princess! But a lot of them are probably going to be pissed that their bloodline's liable to die out, and that the perfectly suitable match (read: asshole cannon fodder Bingge did away with in PIDW) they arranged for their daughter got interrupted by some lady cultivator kidnapping her from her wedding instead. Imagining several prominent nobles in various realms furrowing their brows together and just being like, is it something in the water? Did some plant do this? Is it like it a cultural ripple effect, the Demon King is gay so now all the youngsters are too?

[linkemaus]

Not to be that person, but if Kamala Harris were a white man with the exact same ideals, positions, and beliefs, it wouldn’t have even been a competition. Realising that the worst thing you can apparently be is a woman, is truly devastating.

[k1tty5]

pearlie based off a photo i saw on pinterest

the photo + version w/out the red moon. because. i can’t decide if it’s better with or without

[lilithofpenandbook]

One thing I'm never getting over is how James Potter bullied and abused a poor, lonely boy for the mere crime of existing and decided he wasn't worth anything based on who he was

Only for his son to grow up bullied, abused, neglected and lonely just for the mere crime of existing and was decided to be worth nothing based on who he was.

It's a dark sort of irony. It's almost poetic justice, even if it's cruel and unfair because Harry truly did nothing yet he's being punished. But so too did Severus do nothing yet lived his entire life in punishment.

And here's the thing. If James hadn't started it, Sirius wouldn't have either. Severus wouldn't have been bullied that badly. And while he always did have a liking to the dark arts, if he didn't have the trauma of the marauders abuse, he may well have eventually decided on his own that while he liked the dark arts he didn't need to join the death eaters. And here's the thing: James and the marauders essentially did to him what the Slytherins did to muggleborns, just without using the word Mudblood. If the supposed 'good guys' were no better than the 'bad guys' then it almost justifies him wanting to join the death eaters, at least they had a purpose. If James hadn't bullied him, maybe he would have been less able to justify the actions of his classmates because then the bad/good divide would be obvious. And if he hadn't joined the death eaters, he wouldn't have told Voldemort the prophecy. And if he hadn't done that, maybe no one would have, and there wouldn't have been any need to hunt the Potters, because the prophecy was canonically nonsense. It wouldn't have come true at all. None of it was real. But Voldemort heard it and believed it and caused it to happen. If no one told Voldemort about it, he wouldn't have hunted the Potters. James and Lily would have lived. Harry wouldn't have grown up abused by his uncle and aunt for just existing, have grown up being bullied and hated just because he existed.

James Potter ended up creating that fate for his son. Harry literally paid the price for James's sins.

[barbieaiden]

call of the sea

[luxaofhesperides]

Soulmate AU: First Words + End of the World ; requested by @justwannabecat!

Duke has long since accepted that he doesn’t have great luck. Most things in his life tend to go wrong very quickly, or complicate situations he was already struggling in (see: being a meta and getting his powers in the middle of a fight). Having an incomprehensible soulmark is an unpleasant discovery on the morning of his nineteenth birthday, but not entirely unexpected.

He had been hoping for something simple, a common one like hi it’s nice to meet you or sorry, didn’t mean to bump into you.

What Duke gets instead isn’t even words. 

Scrawled across his left hipbone is a string of symbols glowing a faint green. They’re not in a language he recognizes, and the symbols seem to move, shifting ever so slightly so they look different every time he blinks.

“Well,” he says after a solid five minutes of staring into the mirror, unable to rip his eyes off his soulmate’s words, “I hope theirs looks nicer than mine.”

He spends his birthday in a bit of a daze, enjoying time spent with the Waynes and his friends. It’s hard to be fully present when he’s all too aware of the soreness on his hipbone flaring up each time he moves. It’s hard to keep his mind off of it, wanting nothing more than to search for answers, unravel the mystery of his soulmate’s first words.

“Something on your mind?” Jason asks, as the attention shifts off of him for a brief moment as Harper and Cullen get ready to leave and everyone rushes to give their goodbyes,

Duke shrugs, carefully keeping his hands still so they don’t drift to where his soulmark is hidden beneath his clothes. “Yeah. Nothing you need to worry about, though.”

Jason looks him over critically, then nods. 

Duke resigns himself to being investigated by the rest of the Bats. If he’s off enough that Jason had to comment on it, then that means everyone’s noticed and are trying to figure out what’s happened. They’re not going to ask him, because they think he needs space to work through whatever’s got him so distracted, but they’re also not going to just do nothing. 

This won’t be the first time they’ve done this. Duke expects it. Frankly, it would be stranger and much more concerning if they didn’t try to dig up all his secrets the moment they caught wind of him hiding something.

He’ll tell them about getting his soulmark soon. Soulmarks can appear on any birthday between the ages of thirteen to twenty five; they might suspect he got his, but they won’t be able to confirm.

For now, Duke can keep his soulmate’s first words (whatever that gibberish means) to himself.

He makes the decision then and there, as his birthday party winds down, to tell them in a week.

And because his luck is abysmal, a world ending threat hits five days later and suddenly there is no time for soulmarks and first words.

Duke is the last to arrive at the Fortress of Solitude, hitching a ride from Superboy to get there. The biting cold and the harsh winds keep the place far from the reaches of the rest of humanity, surrounded by nothing but deadly white. 

Desolate as the landscape is, it’s still in better shape than the rest of the world.

Things would be better if it was alien invaders. It would be more bearable if some sort of cosmic colossus tried to eat their solar system. At least then there would be something physical that they could fight.

Instead, the world is breaking apart, the sky and earth both fracturing to reveal glowing green faultlines. Timelines are getting mixed up and muddled; just yesterday, Duke had to evacuate a building that had been demolished forty years ago, then stop a gang leader who wouldn’t be born for another eight years from taking over a neighborhood block and holding the residents hostage. Strange creatures are appearing out of nowhere, crawling out of shadows and tide pools and from beneath the roots of trees, all horrible, monstrous things that go after people with teeth and claws. 

The Flashes and the rest of the speedsters are nowhere to be found. The last time anyone get communication from them, it had been Impulse sending Red Robin a glitchy, barely audible video chat saying something along the lines of “trying to fix—unstable—keep us here—never been alive before.” All things that are very concerning to hear, made worse by the fact that no one had been able to contact them at all. 

The quiet loneliness of the Fortress of Solitude is a welcome change from the constant screaming, death, and destruction that’s taken over Gotham as well as the rest of the world. Last he heard, even Justice League China was at the end of their rope. 

“In here,” Superboy instructs, guiding Duke through the halls. There’s no time to look around at Superman’s secret base. All his focus is stuck on staying conscious for another few hours to see if this gathering of heroes is able to find a solution to the world breaking apart.

Batman stands besides Superman. Both nod at Duke when he enters the room. Wonder Woman is watching over John Constantine as he writes something on the floor, muttering under his breath. The rest of the Justice League lean against each other, visibly exhausted as they wait for Constantine to finish up what he’s doing. A few other heroes are here too, and Duke goes to join them where they lean against a wall, fighting to keep their eyes open.

“Hey,” he greets, voice low. “Hanging in there?”

Wonder Girl sighs. “Somehow. I don’t know how much longer we can do this. There’s just too much…”

“We’ll get through this. I mean, even without us out there, plenty of civilians have formed rescue and relief groups to help with keeping things under control,” Speedy says, gently knocking her arm against Wonder Girl’s. “We just gotta keep going. No giving up.”

“What’s this plan, anyways? I just heard that they needed me here to some attempt to fix things.”

“Well, without the speedsters, you’re kind of the only one who can help with time and power related stuff,” Speedy says.

“That’s definitely a stretch. My powers don’t really have anything to do with time. It’s all just light and shadow.”

Speedy shrugs. “Well, you’re here, aren’t you? Too late to complain about it now.”

Duke doesn’t get a chance to say anything else when a loud clap catches his attention. The entire room goes still and silent as Constantine stands up and surveys the circle and symbols he’s written, taking up an entire corner of the large room. 

“Alright,” he says. “Time to get started. Remember, let me do the talking. If you have to speak, it’s only to back me up or when a question is directed to you.”

Batman nods to the other Justice Leaguers, and suddenly everyone is falling into formation behind Constantine. Duke hurries to join them with Wonder Girl and Speedy, taking a place on the edge of the group where he’s a little closer to the circle than the others. 

Constantine begins chanting. His voice is steady though none of the sounds make any sense, refusing to form themselves into recognizable words, and the air the in the room feels heavier. The chalk circle glows a blinding white and Duke can see magic swirling through the air, his power kicking in the let him watch as reality tears and a glowing star in the shape of a boy comes out of it.

Duke blinks, forcing his power down. The hypnotic swirls of magic fade from sight, but the boy still glows, bright and terrible as he floats above the circle and surveys them all. A crown engulfed in blue flame hovers above his head and the fabric of the cosmos is draped over his shoulders as a cape. 

Just from presence alone, Duke can tell that this figure is now the strongest existence in this universe. He hopes this boy king is kind; no one, not even Superman, would be able to beat him in a fight.

The boy king opens his mouth and speaks, but it’s not words than comes out. A strange static like sound emerges, but light and almost melodic. 

His left hipbone burns.

Duke gasps, hand flying down to it, and the boy king’s gaze snaps to meet his.

The world stands still. No one moves. No one dares to breathe.

And then the boy king drops to the floor and walks out of the circle.

“I thought you said that would hold him!” Batman hisses at Constantine, who is looking more and more distressed.

“It was supposed to! I wrote it specifically to hold the King of the Infinite Realms!”

The boy king glances at Constantine. This time, when he speaks, it’s in smooth English. “Did you name the king in your circle?”

“Yeah, I named Pariah Dark… Bloody hell, you ain’t him, are ya?”

“No,” the boy king smiles, “I’m Phantom.”

The cape and crown fade away, and suddenly it’s not an all powerful, terrifying king standing before them, but a young man with white hair and green eyes who looks Duke’s age. Like he could be any other new generation hero in the room. 

“Phantom,” Duke repeats lightly, just under his breath, but it makes Phantom look at him again.

He walks forward, ignoring the other heroes’ aborted attempts to stop him, coupled with Constantine’s frantic back off motion happening behind him. Phantom leaves the circle and the Justice Leaguers behind to stand before Duke, a soft smile on his face.

“Hi,” he says softly, “I dreamed of you.”

“You—what?”

“I dreamed of you. I have for years now. To think that being summoned was what made us meet—” Phantom breaks off into a breathless laugh.

Duke swallows, then drops his had from where it had been pressed against his hip. “So we’re really—? You have my first words too?”

In the corner of his eye, he sees Batman stiffen up. Maybe he should have just told them the day after his birthday, but in Duke’s defense, this is the definition of extenuation circumstances. 

“First words?” Phantom repeats, “Is that… Do we have different soulmate connections?”

“I think so. Here, everyone gets the first words their soulmates say to them appearing somewhere on their body.”

Phantom’s gaze darts down to Duke’s hip, then back up. “Oh. I get dreams. Where I’m from, we dream of our soulmates, and the closer we get to meeting them, the more we remember the dreams.”

“And you dreamed of me.”

“I did.”

“As touching as this is,” Constantine interrupts, and Duke gets to watch as Phantom rolls his eyes, “We summoned you here for a reason. Our world is falling apart at the seams and we need someone powerful, from the Realms, to help us fix it.”

“Okay.”

“...What do you mean ‘okay’?”

“I’ll help,” Phantom says.

“Just like that? No deal to be made, no price to be paid?”

“Just like that. I’m not one for deals anyways. If I can help, then I will. But I do want to see what the problem is with my soulmate by my side, if you don’t mind.”

Batman steps in, fixing Duke with a steady gaze, a barely noticeable tilt of his head. “Signal?”

“Yeah I’ll go with him. Of course I will. The sooner the better, in fact, because everything’s gone to shit.” Duke turns to Phantom, taking hold of one of his hands. “It is really bad out there,” he warns, “If you need help—”

“I’ll ask for help from others in the Realms,” Phantom says. “No offense or anything, but if it’s really that bad, I doubt living mortals will be able to do much to fix things. It’s why I was summoned, right?”

“Right. Let’s get to it, then.”

There’s a flash of mischief in Phantom’s eyes, and cheeky grin stealing across his face for a moment, before he says, “Aye aye, captain!” and picks Duke up like he weighs nothing and flies up through the ceiling.

Duke is able to hear everyone’s surprised, panicked shouts before they’re outside the Fortress of Solitude and Phantom is flying them away. He only needs a few directions from Duke before he finds the first of the large fractures in the sky.

“Yikes,” is all he says, which is not a great thing to hear. “I think I know how to fix it, though. We’ll need to do a little investigating as to who, exactly, started messing around with reality, but once we find the source, it’ll be an easy fix.”

“That’s the best news I’ve heard all week.”

“Even better than meeting your soulmate?”

“I haven’t slept for more than four hours all week. Knowing there’s an end in sight beats everything else.”

Phantom laughs, throwing his head back and Duke can’t help but drink in the sight of him, so ethereal and bright and full of life. “Fair enough! Got any ideas as to where we should start?”

“I’ve got an entire crew of detective vigilantes,” Duke replies. He’s not taking any more chances. No more waiting to talk about important things; he messed up by keeping his soulmark to himself, so he needs to make sure everyone meets his soulmate before shit goes south again. 

“Let’s go find them, then!”

They take off again, soaring through the skies that are barely holding themselves together. 

The world is still ending, and every hero is being stretched thin, but held carefully in Phantom’s arms, racing head first into a solution, Duke can’t help but feel that everything’s going to be alright now. 

He’s had enough bad luck. Now, his soulmate with him, bearing the title of King with grace, things are finally starting to look up.

[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.

[saturdaysky]

a little divine appreciation

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God Gale is endgame for Mayhew, and Mayhew couldn't be more pleased 😌

their mutual wizard disease brought them to some pretty low lows, but hey, ignore the tragedy, they're gods now! first order of business is a little worshiping at the altar 😏

Here's the sketch, which I also like:

Got majorly inspired by these lovely photos, one of which I used as a pose reference.