#the meaning of birds

[ronanlyxch]

jan 2025 reads

- the sunshine court 4.5/5

- the grip of it 3.5/5

- the yellow wallpaper and other stories 4/5

- fahrenheit 451 5/5

- the meaning of birds 4.5/5

- before we were strangers 3/5

- if we were villains 4/5

- the seven husbands of evelyn hugo 5/5

- ninth house 4.5/5

- hell bent 4.5/5

- as I lay dying 1/5 DNF

[blubun0309]

Rant ahead cause it's 1 am, I'm sad, and I just got reminded of one of the most beautiful queer stories I've ever read.

'The meaning of birds' is about a girl names Jess coping with the loss of her girlfriend, Vivi, and her struggles with her grief, lashes out and breaks the relationships with the people around her, and throws away all her plans to go to art school, because art is Vivi and Vivi is gone.

The book goes back and forth between the present and the past, showing Jess and Vivi's relationship from start to finish, and showing Jess coping with her loss.

Their relationship, although it's told from the very beginning that Vivi is gone, is still believable, it feels natural instead of forced for the plot, a common trap when it comes to these stories. They share some of the most beautifully sweet and wholesome chemistry I've ever read ever.

Jess's grief is also managed so incredibly it's shocking. The book gets hard to read at times, not because it's bad, but because of how raw and how crude they show grief to be, how much the aftermath of loss affected Jess and everyone around her. It's not afraid to show how ugly, how depressing, how hard life can be after loss.

There are so many queer characters that can appease everyone, so many themes and subjects it manages without skimping out, and such a beautifully tragic story to tell.

The symbolism of birds is divine, the characters are realistic and complicated, the tone is perfect, it's such a bold book and I can't help but love it.

I never got a physical copy for my own unfortunately, I read this book on a library in Canada earlier this year, but if anyone is interested, online shoping or online files exist. It's a very touching book and I want more people to read it because it genuinely changed how I view queer literature and life in general.

[heyyallitssatan]

I like to think that Batman’s suit is really heavy

Like, the thing obviously Kevlar weave, with lots of armour reinforced bits, not to mention all of the gear and gadgets and tools he has on his person, I mean, anything he’s ever thought he may need, anything he’s been mid fight thinking that a particular tool would be useful, he has it somewhere, probably a few of them

And all the kids too, they’re equally equipped even if they don’t necessarily look it

So I like to imagine that some of the heroes decided they should do a costume switch for fun

The bats agreed, and the best part wasn’t them being weirded out like they thought they’d be, unmasked and all that, no, they couldn’t care less, instead everyone else is freaking out about how heavy the bats costumes are

How the hell do they do impossible feats of acrobatics wearing shit like this

Even the supers think it’s excessive, and they have super strength

The bats all take the opportunity to try some of their moves without the weight, given that they work out wearing even more weight

Turns out they can flip and jump and move in even more insane ways than anyone thought possible and everyone is more terrified than they were a few minutes ago

Everyone decides the bats are better with their gadgets

[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:

[hinamie]

corvidae

[illuxtre]

For the timebomb nation I have timebomb birds :)

[bigfatbreak]

Birds of a Feather previous / next

[ghosted-jazz]

I like to think breaking the canary curse via dying in the void had some effects on Lizzie

[frownyalfred]

I know Jason was dead-set on revenge and sticking it to Batman in UTRH but now I’m making myself sad thinking about a Jason who finally sees Bruce as Batman again after so many years, and he sees Nightwing and another Robin but he can’t hear them. For the first time ever, he’s not on their comm frequency. He’s locked out of Bruce’s quiet field orders and status checks. He can see Bruce but he can’t hear him. All he gets is the mask.

[todaysbird]

[linkedin-offficial]

me when i get the opportunity to think about speculative biology and non-existent game mechanics in media i like

⠀

[bruciemilf]

Absolute “can my friends and I have a sleepover” energy

[mymarifae]

i wish this was me so bad

[tinylongwing]

Some days you just need to appreciate the cotton ball with legs that is a baby Killdeer. Today feels like one of those days.

[awkwardbirdsdreaming]

Putting the blog on pause as I carve out a new daily schedule with school starting...

As is tradition: Enjoy a polite pigeon doing some bows. He's trying so hard! Are you impressed?? Do you like him yet??? He thinks you're so cool

[danger-bird]

POV: You just got handled by Ais, and now someone's coming 👀

𓅪

ps: I wasn't there when it happened, ask @sparrowsupportgroup - it was their bday party and they saw everything!