#she knows the danger

[blog-of-reaction]

Luna is honestly such an icon

[chloesimaginationthings]

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

[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:

[hunter-rodrigez]

I love how Discworld introduces Granny Weatherwax.

She is introduced as a witch, but it's not actually clear if she can do any magic for quite some time. At first all she does is herbal medicine and Headology, aka make-believe, mind tricks, placebos and basically tricking people.

Even when it becomes clear that she flies around on a broomstick and can project her mind into other living things, it's still not obvious if she can do any magic beyond that.

And then she and her buddies magically move an entire country 15 years into the future, and it becomes very clear that she's not only very much capable of doing magic, but she's one of the strongest, if not the strongest magic user in the entire world who can do stuff like summon death himself with nothing but a candle, and I am not even sure she really needs the candle.

Compare that to the wizards. The first impression you get of them is that they're powerful magic users, I mean they are wizards in a fantasy world, people fear them for their magic, and they got a whole magic college, so they must be powerful, right? They even look down on witches because they "don't use real magic"... and because they're usually women.

Granted, the very first (and best) wizzard we're introduced to can't even do any magic, but he seems like an outlier. Then you hear more and more about the magic college and other wizards, and it becomes clear that most wizards are arrogant and lazy fucks who can't do much magic beyond basic fireballs, turning people into frogs and maybe teleportation. Even the head-wizard of the college was completely helpless after running out of juice from a single teleportation spell.

Even when all the wizards become incredibly powerful, thanks to circumstances beyond their control, all they use their magic for is building really tall wizard towers and raging wars against each other. Wars which are ripping holes into reality, which threaten to release unspeakable horrors from the unspeakable horrors dimension.

Like... the books used most reader's assumptions and expectations, aka 'Headology', to make them underestimate Granny Weatherwax while overestimating the Wizards.

Just *chef's kiss* world building.

[frownyalfred]

I 100% believe Lois Lane requested the presence of Bruce Wayne in her delivery room.

Nobody, not even the League, understood until it was time to give birth and Clark froze up at her bedside. Bruce was there to coach them both through it, as Clark’s friend and as Lois’ human reinforcements.

(Bruce flew to Metropolis in a helicopter when he got the news. He found Clark ashen and trembling at Lois’ side, eyes clenched shut as she screamed. He slid into place like he’d never been missing, talking Lois AND Clark through it like he delivered babies every day of the week)

[essektheylyss]

when you're hypercompetent and too busy to show up to the war council so you get voluntold into a stealth mission on the moon 😔

[trauma-bot]

patron saint of never growing old

[speench]

nsbu fans listen to me, listen, most of the cast hasn't had an Ify moment yet where they talk directly to their ?? alter egos?? and before we see dynamics unfold with other characters I need everyone to consider: Liv and Kingskin as unwilling father and his newfound ride or die child trope that is all

[chaos-bringer-13]

I've seen a lot of people writing Danny as a space ancient and Dan and Dani as ghosts with moon and sun cores, being sort of parts, versions of Danny and therefore weaker. Now, consider: Dan and Dani are both powerful ghosts with really cool cores and stuff but Danny is just some guy™

Dan, who came from an alternate timeline and is kind of from the future but also not, is Clockwork's apprentice and will eventually become an ancient of time. He probably only agreed to have some lessons with Clockwork to understand better what happened to him, but he enjoys his apprenticeship now.

Dani, with her love of travelling, loves seeing all the different places the world offers to her, and that includes space and different planets and maybe even parallel universes, and she accidentally ends up being an apprentice of the space ancient. For now she's probably a baby ancient of freedom or something like that, but she might become an ancient of space in the future.

We can also have something like Dan having a core of destruction or Dani being the Speed Force if you want it to be dcxdp, or any headcanon of yours about their cool powers.

And then there's Danny. And yeah, everyone knows that he's super powerful, but also he's just some guy.

It can go different routes. Does everyone know that Danny is just Danny? Or do they think that with siblings (well, technically a clone and an alternate version, but whatever) so powerful, he must be even stronger? Is Danny actually something terrifyingly eldritch and ancient and strong, almost a god, but he just doesn't know himself? Or is he just really some guy?

Now, because it's obvious that I have a dcxdp brainrot, have a regular "JL summons/meets a powerful ghost" but its Dan and Dani, and they keep mentioning their original/brother who won a fight against them at some point. The JL is very concerned about Dan and Dani's godlike powers, and they can't imagine what Danny is like. And then they meet him (in his human form), and it's just a young adult in casual clothes, very friendly and helpful, with no evident powers. Imagine the confusion. Imagine Dan and Dani, radiating power, in their eldritch ghost forms, admitting that fighting Danny for real is the dumbest thing to do and not even they would succeed... And then there's Danny is jeans and silly t-shirt, waving shyly.

[beetlejuicier-for-your-pleasure]

A little goof based on something Alex said in an interview.

(Something about he and elizabeth doing the lift from dirty dancing as a bow-gag)

[ineed-to-sleep]

Blacked out in front of my tablet and woke up with sketches of my Touchstarved mc + Kuras my beloved. woops

[chimerical-daydreams]

It Never Happens Au party portraits lets go!!!!

(designs/extra comments under cut)

I have no clue how level progression actually works in Isat so don't mind the numbers too much. Loop's stats are taken directly from their bossfight though.

Portraits made using kongkrog's isat profile customizer.

The sad man, after getting to a town and buying some now clothes and having a shower. He's still generally melancholic, but cheers up quite a bit. Has a bad tendency to poke his nose where he shouldn't. Too shy to ask people's names when he forgets, so calls them by their titles instead. Big fan of poetry.

Nille! She jumped at the chance to go on an advent with Bonnie, but has mixed opinions on Loop. Very boisterous in conversation , but usually sticks to herself. Uncontrollably observant and with good intuition, can read people and situations very accurately. Figured out that "thinking really hard abou what you want" when crafting leads to a higher success rate (and the smell of sugar, for some reason?), so her creations stick together even when they look incredibly unstable.

[littlelightfish]

Marcille telling Chilchuck that healing magic can be used to torture people only to use it as such a few days later...

It's like she's warning him about what she can and will do if he doesn't cooperate. I find it interesting.

We know they're friends, but he doesn't want to talk about it. They all know that. Chilchuck is not a fan of talking about his life and they aren't usually pushy about it. The one problem is when Marcille wants to know. Because she's curious and has her head full of romantic novels and she just finds out her friend has some delicious and controversial love story. She's not going to let herself not know about his life. Even if he doesn't want to talk about it. For better or worse, she takes advantage from his injuries to make him talk about it, to force him to open up about this. She quite literally tortures him (just a little bit but still) to get this info out of him.

I have just realized about all this, but.. yea, Marcille, that's a kinda fucked up thing to do to your friend.

[lyinginthesnow]

thinking abt that line in dundee when logan says shiv makes boogie men out of the clothes she dumps on her bedroom floor. always has.

[aardvaark]

considering nate & maggie are said to have worked together sometimes, collaborating to discover art fraud pre-leverage… i’d like to imagine that maggie has at least heard of the leverage team members in passing. she wouldn’t recognise them in a crowd, but she’s familiar with big names in the art theft & forgery world. she’d have SOME expectations of what they were like. and then in the second david job, she’s meeting them and they’re. them. like-

what she knows about parker: worlds greatest thief, seems more interested in banks but certainly an art thief, too. nate says she has a reputation for being "insane".

what she assumes about parker: probably does some great grifting to get into those museums and vaults, been a world class thief for ages so she’d be in her late 30s at least by season 1. dangerous, formidable, scary, do not approach.

what she very quickly learns about parker: is a duckling who has imprinted on her

[nelkcats]

After Danny adopted Dani as his daughter, she decided to travel a little again, the problem is, she ended in Metropolis.

Now that the Justice League is chasing her cause "she killed her original" , she decided to go with them, just cause she is tired of running

Now they are discussing contingency plans and Dani needs ecto-dejecto, she decided to call her parent.

Enter 100% original Danny Fenton, full human form, screaming about kidnapping his daughter