#saessenach

[crocordile]

Irene and Sophos enjoying some time off, an illustration inside my gift fic 'Between the mountains and the sea' for @saessenach for the @hamiathesgiftexchange!

[mariusperkins]

HI I saw your tags about George matching Bertha's bedroom WHICH I SOMEHOW HADN't NOTICED! And I wanted to add that I am obsessed with how they're always complementing each other chromatically: Bertha's blue&green gowns vs his red cravats!! Her teal dressing gown vs his orange pink one!!The attention to detail when it comes to EVERYTHING about them just makes me insane.

God I'm just obsessed with it, we see him Hanging Out in Bertha's bedrooms enough that it's clearly their regular routine and he (unlike Bertha) has the one dressing gown he favours and it's the one that's the exact same colouring as his wife's bedroom. Once again, no other 1880s man is doing it like George Russell, absolutely romance novel behaviour, no notes!!

Practically camouflaged!!!

A little visual metaphor for George providing a space for Bertha and then disappearing into the background to let her stand out, and also a good example (one of thousands lol) of why Turner's offer was never going to work: why would he need a sanctuary when he already has one.

Also yes!!! I love that!!! The costuming of this show is so good!!!

[theladyragnell]

Hi!! I heartily recommend The Belles of London series by Mimi Matthews - they're historical romances following 4 friends in Victorian London, with one book per heroine. The first one is the Siren of Sussex, and the story feels very heartwarming - the heroine is dutifully looking for a rich husband to provide for her younger sisters, and commissions gowns from a (very dashing) tailor who's famous for the riding habits he makes for London's courtesans.

For sci-fi romances, I recently read This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone, which follows rival time travellers who leave each other letters throughout time. I hope you have fun with these if you give them a shot, they were highlights for me🙏🙏🙏

I love This Is How You Lose the Time War so much, I am always a sucker for epistolary.

And thank you for the Matthews rec! I think I've seen those around but haven't reached for them, but it's good to have a rec for the next time I run into them.

[singerorpheus]

Hi!! Thank you so much for the Hadestown recordings!! I LOVED Madeline Charlemagne as Eurydice when I saw the show, and I am so happy there are recordings of her role, but the character that drove me absolutely BATSHIT was Hermes?? When my friend and I saw the play, Waylon Jacobs understudied and was PHENOMENAL. SO natural in the role, the charm was insane, and Hermes' was easily the best costume in the entire show!! Overall Hadestown UK was such a transcendental experience I struggle to even put it into words, and whenever I try to, I just end up replaying your recording of If It's True bc that just sums it up ❤️

Hi hi :)! I'm just happy to give back bc of all the people who put up their opening night recordings that made me go to watch it irl HAHA I thought Madeline was brilliant too, she's a such a good Eurydice understudy, I actually wonder if she's gonna take over when Grace goes to bway Sunset Boulevard? And also did Beth go on as Fate for you too? Also yes, witnessing and Feeling the presence of Hermes in real life was so crazy, Melanie had so much of it, she had all the command over the stage and us the audience honestly!! I hope you noticed the new pocket watch bits from Hermes, it adds a whole new layer to the story, it really is so, SO crazy. Waylon was a worker for me, but a little thing that I didn't think to expect is how much my eyes would naturally gravitate towards the workers. I remember him and Lauren looking towards each other when Hermes said Hades would let Orphydice go during Wait For Me II 😭 Honestly I tell everyone I know that watching Hadestown was truly a life changing experience HAHA I could really wax poetic about Donal's If It's True (and his Orpheus!!) all day, I was just comparing all the audios the other day and he really has improved loads in terms of maintaining his stamina to carry the emotion through and god he really shakes the theatre down in that number for me. I couldn't be happier experiencing it live like I almost didn't breathe LMAO :")

[sunny12th]

🎵

1. A House in Nebraska by Ethel Cain

2. Super Rich Kids by Frank Ocean, Earl Sweatshirt

3. Mississippi by Kevin Abstract

4. Skin by Dijon

5. All Caps by Madvillain, Madlib, MF DOOM

[jays-asoiaf-reblogs-and-archive]

Artist part 6

saessenach last updated 02/08/2024

buildoblivion (tagged as buildoblivionthenwewilltalk)  last updated 01/10/2024

arte072  last updated 03/11/2024

artist-ellen last updated 04/05/2024

shieldofmen last updated 01/10/2024

sleazyjanet last updated 03/11/2024

coldraindropsss last updated 01/10/2024

elaena last updated 03/11/2024

wodania last updated 01/10/2024

philiasperanzart last updated 22/07/2023 (2023)

[dil-ibaadat]

Hi! Popping by to let you know I adored the new dowry chapter, and that the confrontation/discussion between Kate and lady Danbury was A HIGHLIGHT ✨✨

I hope your day treats you kindly!!

<3 thank you! what a kind thing to say. i really appreciate it.

[naomimakesart]

For an autumn gift exchange I drew an autumn Sansa picking apples for @saessenach !! I hope you like it 🧡❤️

[hauntingofhouses]

I just keep obsessing over how Mizu is so many things. She truly is water, so deep and unfathomable and complex, ever-changing, ever-adapting, fluid and mysterious, she fits into every shape you pour her into, she is gentle yet vicious, soft-hearted yet callous, stoic and quiet yet still sarcastic and playful.

She is Japanese and white and both and neither, she is woman and man and both and neither, she is human and demon, she is ronin and bride and Onryo and phoenix.

She is also a sword; Mizu and her sword are one.

"The sword is the soul of the samurai."

"I am... made of mixed metal. No amount of hammering can remove my impurity."

"What is a sword? [...] It is a line. On one side of the line is life. The other, death. The edge we forge cuts the line between life and death."

Mizu's soul is thus represented by her blade, but Mizu is also

the metal: beautiful, strong, sharp, and precise, but ultimately neutral, neither good nor evil, as metal can be used to craft both weapons of death, or knives for cooking and nourishment;

the maker: artistic and passionate, the maker creates;

and the one to wield it: deadly and swift, the swordsman destroys.

In the first episode, we don't even see her blade for much of it, only mentions of it, as she doesn't even deign to fight someone like Hachiman the Flesh-Trader in Ringo's noodle shop.

Most people don't even deserve to see her blade. And who is the first person in the show whom the sword is even shown to? Well...

Taigen: "Are you afraid to fight with steel?" Mizu: "Thank you. No one has yet deserved my blade."

And then, more crucially, who does she actually allow to wield her blade? The first person she spars with? It is none other than Mikio, her husband.

She literally passes him her sword, letting him wield it for the rest of their fight, taking his naginata in exchange. Not purely a crossing of blades, but an exchange of it. Mizu is literally baring her soul to him and putting it in his hands.

In the whole show, the only other time we actually see someone besides Mizu holding her sword is after Mizu kills the Four Fangs and passes out from her wounds. Ringo picks the unconscious Mizu up, and in the process, her sword slips from her hand.

And then, resisting his selfish quest to reclaim his honour, Taigen tells Ringo a safe place for Mizu to recover and follows them both there, but not before he takes Mizu's sword, and also Chiaki's broken blade.

It is brief, but he does hold it, and the shot focusing on his hand picking it up places further emphasis on this fact.

Now, about the broken blade, @saessenach told me something very interesting, which is that when Mizu had helped craft this sword, it was made for the man she believed Chiaki was. And who exactly is that again? Let's go over the cover story he related to Master Eiji:

"I am not a swordsman. I bind books. I was taught my trade by... my father. He was killed by a drunk ronin, who cut my father down for splashing him with his cart. This ronin is a drunk, but he is skilled as I am not. He will kill me. I know this. But with a sword from you, Master, I can take his life as he takes mine. And die avenged."

So, as @saessenach so aptly put it, the broken blade "was made for a man who wanted to regain his honour from a stronger swordsman. He doesn't expect to survive the duel, but would just like to die with honour."

And doesn't that sound familiar? Like Taigen, a man who would also like to regain his honour by duelling a swordsman stronger than himself? Taigen, who had also come from nothing, who was raised not to be a samurai, but a humble fisherman, by his father who is now dead?

So of course that's why, when Taigen wields that broken blade, despite not even knowing the story behind it, Ringo unwittingly glimpses it anyway, and says this:

"Master Eiji's broken blade is a good fit for him."

Mizu just shrugs and frowns, refusing to accept it, because the sword isn't just bearing Master Eiji's signature, but also hers. A part of her is in this sword, just as a part of her is in all the blades she makes (though none of them are her soul, which is represented only by her meteorite sword).

But then later, after fighting together and barely making it out from the chasm of arrows alive, after seeing each other's skills, only then does she admit to Taigen:

"The broken blade fits well in your hand."

Which is why she (after knocking Taigen out and leaving him lying in the snow LMAO) leaves him with the broken blade, and again comments on how it "so well fits his hand."

Also, on the topic of the broken blade, why did it break again? Well, Mizu is one of the sword's makers, signing her name on it, thus putting a little of her soul into it as I already mentioned. According to Master Eiji, this process of the soul entering the sword occurs during the yaki-ire:

"The yaki-ire is when metal is reborn, and the soul enters the sword. All must be pure for the sword to be pure. The metal, the maker, the one to wield it."

As this process unfolds, this conversation happens:

Eiji: "Mizu. Is your mind clear?" Mizu: "It is." Eiji: "Mizu. Is your soul at rest?" Mizu: "It is."

However, after Master Eiji presents Mizu with the finished sword, it breaks, much to Mizu's disheartenment.

Chiaki: [About the blade being broken] "How could this happen?" Eiji: [...] "An unexpected element entered the blade." [...] Mizu: "The fault is mine. The element is me."

Mizu is right; she is "the unexpected element" that broke the blade, but not because of her race, nor her gender, but because her mind is not clear, and her soul is not at rest.

Why? Because the yaki-ire takes place right after she binds for the first time; she is in pain both physically and mentally, ashamed of who and what she is, hiding her true self, trying to smother an inherent part of her identity.

Then, about Bloodsoaked Chiaki wielding a sword which is broken, Master Eiji says this,

"A soul like that is drowned in blood. There is no stopping them. They will always find their broken blade."

This parallels Mizu breaking her blade after her rampage through the nine levels of Shindo and Fowler's fortress, after she gets literally soaked in blood.

After storming the fortress, her blade, too, is broken, and she is unable to melt it down and repair it.

Master Eiji: "Your sword broke because the blend was wrong." Mizu: "It was perfect." Master Eiji: "It was too pure. Your metal wants to be blended with new steel."

The sword, as, Mizu's soul, houses all the rage that has festered over the years. The purity of its meteorite steel represents her single-minded, hate-driven goal for vengeance.

On that note, it's interesting to remember that the meteor fell in front of Mizu during her confrontation with Taigen and his gang of bullies. That encounter was the beginning of her rage, the moment she stopped running and hiding, and instead fought back, clawing and throwing herself at the people who mistreated her. The meteorite thus represents her anger, her fighting spirit, her resistance.

Over time, she crafts her sword--her soul--purely out of this anger, and sets off on her revenge quest.

Of course, she then meets her mother, gets married to Mikio, and after their betrayals, Mizu once again resumes her quest.

But after her journey seeking Fowler, after meeting Ringo and Taigen and Akemi, Mizu's soul no longer feels singularly bound to her hate. She's made friends, she's starting to let people in, but she still suppresses those feelings, still insisting that she is just an Onryo, that she has no room for love or friendship or weakness, despite the fact that those are things her soul craves and needs deep down. She needs gentleness and respite, she needs to allow herself to be vulnerable and allow herself to love again, because she's not a demon--or at least not completely.

"There may be a demon in you..."

When Master Eiji says this to Mizu, he's not insulting her; by demon here, what he is referencing is the part of Mizu that is capable of great wrath and violence. Just like a demon is.

"...But there is more."

Mizu is still a human being. And she should let herself be one, should allow herself to feel more than just rage, but also joy, grief, love, and even pain.

"If you do not invite the whole, the demon takes two chairs."

So that's when she finally allows herself to start "allowing the whole"; she stands in front of the fire completely naked, no longer suppressing her true self, and melts the metal of those she collected, which are, in order,

the broken blade that now represents Taigen;

Akemi's knife;

Ringo's bell;

and Master Eiji's tongs.

These are people whom she cares about, who compel her to open herself up and see beyond her hate, who make her feel like she is capable of being more than just a demon.

By blending their steel into her future sword, she is accepting them, and the lessons and values they had taught her along the way, into her soul.

But as it stands now, Mizu does not have that sword. Not yet, for it's yet to be forged, as she gives the blended metal to Master Eiji.

Mizu: "If I succeed [to kill Fowler] and am still alive, I will return. And you can determine if I am worthy of a sword of this metal, made by your hand."

Which is why, in the finale, Mizu only fights with a random assortment of weapons she picks up (a sword, a naginata, a gun--but never shoots it--and the dagger Fowler stabs her with).

And then of course, Fowler drops the big reveals about Skeffington and Routeley; about her birth mother having been killed by one of the white men; about her Mama actually being a maid who was paid to keep her hidden.

With all this, there is so much she's still yet to know about who she is, who her parents are, and her identity is left hanging. So she leaves Japan not only to kill the remaining white men, but also to discover more about herself and her heritage--her white half. And this also mirrors the way she looks at the very end:

her hair grown out, her bangs identical to how she looked as a child; no longer wearing a scarf around her neck, no longer covering a part of herself.

Thus, Mizu will eventually receive her new sword that matches the new state of her soul, made of steel that "could kill a god."

But for now, she needs to understand who she really is, to discover the full breadth and complexities of the metal that made her, and the hidden depths within herself. In doing so, she must also learn to accept her anger as a tool, but cannot let it control her lest she become a demon; thus, she must allow herself to love as much as she hates, and most of all, simply let herself be.

Only then, can she claim her sword--her soul.

[la-pheacienne]

choose 4 of your favourite characters from 4 pieces of media as poll options and let your tumblr pals decide which one most suits your vibe, then tag 4 people. tagged by @faintingheroine

idk who to tag. @saessenach @cliozaur @mircallaruthven @aemontargaryen-bloodraven hope I'm not annoying

propaganda under the cut girl who cares you don't decide

Dany: I guess I'm very upfront and do not shy away from conflict in my daily life if I feel it is needed/I generally have strong opinions (bad comparison i am sadly not like dany in any meaningful way but she is a huge inspiration to me)

Frodo: Ovewhelmed by mental ilness and by an impossible task

Jay: delulu, obsessed with the past, doomed by the narrative

Marius: law student, maladaptive daydreaming, can't do laundry, chaotic political beliefs, easily impressionable, annoying monologues

[missmungoe]

She frowned, ears perked as she listened. It had been late when she’d started. No one in the village would be up at this hour, let alone hankering for a drink.

The doors stopped swinging, the soft whine leaving a quiet so profound, she wondered if she’d only imagined someone coming in, and had almost dismissed the whole thing as a figment of her imagination when she heard the sound of footsteps, walking across her bar. The old floorboards creaked under a calm gait, before she realised with a stuttering breath that they were headed towards the storeroom, but just before panic could seize her, she froze.

She knew that gait

23.02. ♥ This fic remains one of my favourite that I've ever written, so in honour of my girl's birthday, I thought I’d bring it back! Now beautifully illustrated by the incomparable @saessenach<3

[mariusperkins]

Hiiiii - 2, 4, 18 and 30 for the writer asks? 👀

2. a character whose POV you’re currently exploring

Bertha Russell I am obsessed with your mind, also for my fellow friends at the table fans I am zeroing in on Mustard Red who I am crossing my fingers that we see more of

4. a story idea you haven’t written yet

An idea I am still kicking around and haven't even put as sketched out notes in a google doc yet: a gilded age/star trek crossover where the premise is Vulcan!Bertha/human!George (à la Spock's parents) - it's still in the 'is this too goofy to commit to page'/'okay but what would it actually be About' stage of things, since I don't have more than to idea of Bertha saying "of course I married him, it is only logical to marry someone after you fall in love with them" and some part where George kisses her hand (scandalous!!!!). Stay tuned to see how self indulgent and/or insane I get before S3 of the gilded age comes out I guess lol

18. if you keep them, share a deleted sentence or paragraph from a published fic

My terrible secret is that I never do this, either the fic gets longer and longer to accommodate whatever it is or it goes in its own google doc and becomes its own fic. I'm not killing my darlings so much as I am rehoming them

30. share a fic you’re especially proud of

This is such a hard one!! I'm proud of any fic where people said they can hear the character's voices, or that made them like/have sympathy for a character that they didn't before, or that helped them "get" a ship. I guess if I have to pick one thing then I suppose I am especially proud of I'm not an angel but at least I'm a girl, which I believe is currently the only fic of Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night 2 (1987) on ao3 (a shame since a) this movie is freely available to watch on youtube, literally just search for the title and year, and b) this movie rules and is one of my favourite movies of all time, everyone involved should have won an oscar as far as I'm concerned).

Ask away!!!

[ivarthebadbitch]

You are a murderer.

(requested by @saessenach)

[eponymiad]

thanks @fraudulentzodiac for tagging me in this, I didn't even know this playlist existed lol

first 10 songs on your "on repeat" playlist + tag 10 people let's go

Whistle for the Choir by The Fratellis

Calling After Me by Wallows

So Sick of Dreaming by Maggie Rogers

You Need Me Now? by girl in red ft Sabrina Carpenter

Australia by The Shins

Me Before You by Bleachers

Too Sweet by Hozier

Small Town Kind by Sophia Zamani

Slow It Down by Benson Boone

change by chalkbox

I had to listen to most of these to even know what most of them were so I'm dying to know how this algorithm works. I did eventually recognize most of them but they certainly arent on my playlists!

tagging @ships-to-sail @grapehyasynth @brilarsn @cartograffiti @thecrenellations @bbjobo @olgalenski @the-lincyclopedia @myriad--starlings @saessenach

[lorelei-4]

what "arguments" of Robert B's fans defending this questionable person are the funniest for you (The most cringe) ? “big bad dragon” and “kidnapped maiden” for attention

First of all sorry for so late a reply, though not as slow as GRRM I would soon compete with him in time it takes me to gather my thoughts together and write them down.

The cringiest cringe I've read from Robert stans is that his helm was imbalanced due to the antlers on it and covered half of his vision during battle. That's why he was in a weaker position than Rhaegar. The mere fact that asoiaf is a fantasy series was completely ignored. The same person argued that it was more difficult to fight with warhammer than with a sword, which is not true as warhammer can produce a much more powerful impact and even destroy armour, which eventually happened with Rhaegar, while with a sword one has to aim at the uncovered parts of the body.

btw the beautiful art is credited to @saessenach

[dreadwulf]

A @alittleislandoflight" exchange fic for @saessenach

The prompts are: Spicy Arranged marriage and Spicy Happily Ever After. Part One of Two. Hope you enjoy!