#truly really seriously !!

[serpentface]

Faiza performing the Kagnoma Odo (pretty literally 'lion dance'), a weapons dance and one of the more important ritual duties of Odonii priestesses. A relatively new addition to this traditional dance involves the musket as the primary weapon, which is fired mid-twirl into the ground at the climax of the dance. Faiza is experiencing an 'oh fuck' moment because her shot is more than ideally diagonal, but she’s being so cool with it.

This is a wholly ceremonial performance at the onset of the pilgrimage, performed in full regalia and lion skin (of the small, semi-domesticated strain) but no armor. It’s also distinctly a display of political allegiance between the powerful and beloved Odonii priesthood (and its loyal military) with the increasingly reviled and destabilized imperial family, with Faiza prominently wearing a bracelet of the royal serpent, which was gifted (along with the musket) by the usoma Stavis Amanti himself (Usoma is the Wardi word for king, which has been retained in the context of emperors).

The Kagnoma Odo is the ultimate demonstration of the Odonii as an embodiment of the Lion Face of God and living vessel of military might and sovereignty, demonstrating her fitness and proficiency with weapons and as a spiritual unifier for soldiers. It is accompanied by drumming and occurs in stages, running through the three keymost weapons used in war- the spear, the sword, and the musket. The musket is of the most significance, given the weapon has developed a particular esteem as the ultimate embodiment of might and superiority. Assistants (almost always other priestesses, occasionally high ranking soldiers) load and prime the musket to be fired at the climax of the dance, where it is shot into the ground as the priestess leaps out of range of the shot. The firing signals the end of the dance and the rite itself.

While not the utmost exemplar of trigger discipline, only fully inducted and senior (and therefore very thoroughly trained) Odonii are permitted to perform the dance, and injuries during actual performances are quite rare (though are known to occur during training, more than a few Odonii have burns and wounds on their feet).

The most important renditions of this dance are performed upon declarations of war and before battles (in this case, generally done in full armor along with the lion pelt). It is also done during some trainings (while a dance, it is carefully choreographed to include naturalistic maneuvers of the weapons involved and helps soldiers limber up and learn to move their weapons). It is regarded as an impressive and motivating sight and a morale booster, and, seen at a distance, potentially intimidating to enemies.

A special variant of this dance is performed as means of fully incarnating the Odomache, which is done in full nudity with the body covered in the blood of the freshly sacrificed lion and cloaked in its raw pelt (the lion has become the corpse of Odomache in the moment of death, as part of its recreation of God's sacrifice). Her public, full nude appearance once (and only once) in this act is what allows the Lion Face of God to incarnate within her. Those in attendance see the spiritually vulnerable, naked human body obscured with the sanctified and deified blood and cloaked in the sanctified and deified skin. It is a merger of the contradictions of mortality and divinity, the boundaries between the two indistinct in flickering firelight and the flash of musketfire. She is witnessed by her people, dangling in between humanity and divinity and leading them in dance, and and is thus transformed.

[gummi-ships]

Kingdom Hearts - Hollow Bastion

[secretlythatsme]

i feel like Most dpxdc crossover fics have dp and dc in the same universe which like, is still fun don't get me wrong, but there's so many missed opportunities with them being in fully separate universes!

i'm specifically thinking of an au where the dcu is fictional in danny's universe like in ours. so instead of him being dropped in a random city, he's fully isekaid into the dcu and has to deal with the implications of that. danny not being a dc fan could def be interesting, but i personally really like the idea of him being a fan! i think he'd be really into characters like martian manhunter or the superfam since they're more directly related to space, but i think he'd have appreciation for the common dpxdc characters like the batfam too.

but anyway i'm just thinking of dc fan danny who somehow gets dropped into the dcu and is immediately clocked as Different and Knowing by literally every hero/vigilante there. damian screams bloody murder at him and danny just gives him this look like "i know what you've been through and you're just a kid so i won't hold it against you even though that was pretty mean" and damian is sooo pissed cause what the fuck does this guy know?? danny looks at jason like he's seeing robin and not red hood,,, he sees batman one day and gives him the most begrudging respectful and also highly judgemental glare. danny seeing clark on the street and immediately noping and turning around like no not dealing with superman today no thanks. danny randomly happens to be walking next to wally and tries to get him into a walking race. danny who keeps looking up at the sky whenever the watchtower is above him.

i just love the idea of danny walking around knowing way too much, not even necessarily being Powerful at this point, he just knows! too! much! and every hero who meets him feels completely exposed like how does this random kid give everyone the heebie jeebies.. what does he know.. how much does he know... why does he know... etcetc.

idk i love casually creepy danny

[stromblessed]

Mizu's spectacles, and the levels of her disguise

In drafting some more Blue Eye Samurai meta posts, I find myself writing out the comparisons between what Mizu can and cannot hide about herself, and how that affects how she moves through the world.

Like, I get the jokes about Mizu's glasses, if only color contacts had existed back then, etc. etc., and I think (hope) that most viewers don't take the glasses jokes seriously, as in "I don't care about the suspension of disbelief because BES is a cartoon." But I wanted to write these thoughts out anyway without burying them in a text post about something else.

I think the points I'm going to lay out here are viewed very differently by different people, so please feel free to add to this post, reply, or put your thoughts in the tags!

Not only do Mizu's glasses not actually help her that much, there's surely more to Mizu's mixed race appearance than just the color of her eyes.

In my view, this was pointed out in episode 1:

I'm willing to bet most of us were expecting young Taigen to say "blue eyes," not "ROUND eyes."

Obviously this is still about Mizu's eyes, but not even spectacles can hide their shape.

I don't think the show is obligated to point out everything about Mizu's face that isn't quite as Japanese as the people around her expect. Though the creators have said that they specifically designed Mizu - and her clothes - to read both as "white" and as "Japanese," as well as both male and female. I think there's more about Mizu's features that read as "white" than just her eyes.

This is where my own headcanons start entering the picture, but it's my impression that people can just tell that Mizu looks different, whether or not they can put a finger on exactly how.

There's the little girl who looks at Mizu and then hides on the way into Kyoto:

When there's more to your face you'd like to cover up than just your eyes, big hats are a big help!

By the way, most of these examples have to come from the first half of the season, since by the second half, either Mizu is too preoccupied with fighting henchmen, or everyone Mizu is facing knows who she is already, and she therefore has no reason to hide her mixed race identity.

It's worth mentioning that the mere fact that Mizu has to hide multiple aspects of her identity - her mixed race and her sex - results in her having to choose clothes that really, really cover her up, which doesn't win her any favors either:

(Zatoichi reference, anyone?)

If it were as easy as, for example, tying her glasses to her head and wa-lah, nobody would ever know she was half-white - then (1) Mizu would've just done that long ago, and (2) Mizu wouldn't be so on guard and on tenterhooks 100% of the time the way she's depicted in the show, even when her glasses are on.

Her spectacles sure don't help her in the brothel, which is full of observant women who are trying to seduce her, meaning they get good long looks at her:

Mizu never takes her glasses off, but they still send a woman to her who has light eyes, thinking that must be what will interest a blue-eyed man:

No wonder Mizu gets mad after this, lol

So Mizu never takes her spectacles off in the brothel, it's dimly lit inside, and the women can still tell that she has blue eyes. I'm getting the sense that Mizu putting on her spectacles isn't a guarantee that people suddenly can't tell that she looks different.

And yet no one spots that she's female.

Mizu can hide her breasts, can wear her hair in the right style, can hide what's between her legs, can walk and talk and behave like a man - and she's been doing it for almost her entire life, to the point that not only is she very good at it, but the threat of being found out as female is deadly, but isn't presented in the show as omnipresent.

Let me explain.

She threatens Ringo for nearly saying the word "girl" out loud, because while she's constantly ostracized for being mixed race, being a woman traveling without a chaperone, carrying a sword, and disguised as a man will get her killed or flogged or arrested or some combination of these things.

But in addition, it's been drilled into her since she was a child that if she is discovered as female, the combination of her being mixed race and female will identify her as someone extremely specific, someone known to some bad people, and she will be killed:

I think of it as Mizu thinking to herself, "Being found out as mixed race means I'm treated badly. Being found out as mixed race and a woman means I'm dead."

Mizu's hair is cut as a child. But she isn't made to wear a big hat, or cover her eyes somehow, or anything like that. Because hiding her sex is a more successful endeavor than hiding her race.

Ringo finds out she's female by accident, but once Mizu accepts the fact that he won't rat her out, she relaxes pretty early on in the season. Because the threat of being found out as female is mitigated pretty much 99.9%, since Mizu has gotten so good at being a man. And also, because most of the time, people see what they want to see. Even if Mizu's face makes her stand out as "not 100% Japanese," no one in the world of BES looks at Mizu's clothes, her bearing, her sword, hears her voice, and will ever in a million years conclude that she is a woman, because expectations around gender roles in the Edo period were so rigid and so widely enforced.

One detail that proved this to me is after the Four Fangs fight:

Ringo takes off Mizu's clothes so he can stitch her up, then leaves her clothes off even after he's done. He doesn't even throw her cloak over her as a blanket or anything. There's a little a straw (pallet?) as a divider there on the left, but anyone could just peek around it and see Mizu and her chest bindings. (I think it's mostly there as a windbreaker.)

And Taigen is right there, but he doesn't give a shit:

Opinions probably vary hugely on this, but my impression is that because the show doesn't make any kind of deal about Taigen being in the room with Mizu here, my guess is that Mizu isn't in any danger of Taigen thinking she's female. Even when I watched the show for the first time, I assumed that Taigen had seen Mizu out of her clothes here, and that he thought nothing of it.

Eat your heart out, Li Shang (Mulan 1998). I actually do think that this scene is a direct and purposeful side-eye to that movie, lol

There's obviously some nuance to how "severe" being mixed race is compared to how "severe" being a woman is for Mizu:

After all, Swordfather can't bear to listen to Mizu confess to being a woman.

So a Japanese man can go wherever he wants, whenever he wants in BES. A Japanese woman has limited options: marriage, religion, or a brothel. A mixed-race man is an eyesore in this story. A mixed-race woman is a death sentence.

May as well eliminate the female aspect, and do what you can about the mixed-race aspect. Because that's just realistic.

Meaning Mizu can avoid the strictures Edo society places on women. But she can't avoid the repercussions that come with being mixed race. And I truly don't think that it's just because "there's no brown contacts yet."

[iseetheisland]

Earlier I was at the shop to get myself a treat and this super friendly guy was chatterin toward me and another person and I really need to share the last part of this conversation as accurately as I can.

Guy: "we are all here in this place at this time for the same reason, you know?"

Me (squeeky): "yummy treat?"

Guy (serious tone): "my, my, my, yes. And in these times, we all need it. A reliable joy at the end of our troubled days."

Me (even squeekier): "it's treat time!"

Guy: "amen! Amen?"

Third person who seems tired and not into treats: (confused mumbling, clearly trying to not be included in this)

Me: "amen!"

[skitskatdacat63]

Every time I read Fernando cursing in fic, I can only think about this clip and then my brain short-circuits

[rawliverandgoronspice]

In spite of the whole bonkers thing of TP Ganon wielding his own execution sword, I find it fascinating that he is using a weapon of Light to fight you --a weapon originally conceived for purposes of justice, and that light still steeps through him through the wound.

And, to top it all off, Link uses tools more aligned with darkness to fight him back (turning into a wolf, Midna becoming a eldritch horror...)

Symbolically this combo of reverse mirroring AND literal mirroring is very interesting I think

[akiretv]

frisk enjoying their godgiven adult right of enjoying a female cuban cigar (feat. biscia's masterclass design skills) design belongs to @carlyraejepsans WHY OF COURSE

[gio-cosmo]

Cinema peaked during the “pin yourself to the wall” scene in the sonic the hedgehog live action movie

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Happy very belated birthday.. I hope you had much time celebrating by digging for tubers : )

I'M DIGGING FOR TUBERS! AND NO ONE CAN STOP ME!

[kyouka-supremacy]

Yeah having infinite alternative universes where the same two people love each other no matter the world no matter the time is nice but have you considered dedicating your entire existence to find the only universe where your loved one is happy, even if they're going to hate you in that universe, even if you yourself have to die in that universe, because their happiness always came before everything else? Because you never mattered as long as they were happy? Have you considered it??????

[casualavocados]

Why did you do it? I don't know what you're talking about. I was drunk that night, and you told me you would always look at me— You want to get back at me, right?

KISEKI: DEAR TO ME Ep. 09

[ditzyblues]

rottmnt hot take

gun to head ask me to name 5 casey jr personality traits. EVERYBODY DEAD!!

[swagspren]

I cannot wait to hear conversations between Szeth and Kaladin. I just can’t imagine that Szeth has any thoughts. I truly think his inner world is radio silence, only occasionally interrupted by moral existentialism. He is a human pipe screen saver to me, and Dalinar talking to him is the equivalent of moving the mouse

[chloecherrysip]

"I hope you told your brother how much you loved him, because you're probably never gonna see him again."

"..."

"Was that too dark?"

"YES!"

"Sorry."

[whim-prone-pirate]

i'm trying not to get mad about this but i need to say something. you were not queerbaited. you were not taken advantage of. your ship broke up. they were together canonically for six months and they broke up. you do not have to justify your sadness by pretending there is queerphobia at play in the writers room. in case you all fucking forgot, again, there are two married lesbian main characters who have been there since day one, another stable mlm supporting couple, a gay supporting character with a loving and supportive best friend, and buck is still fucking queer without his one-season boyfriend!!! not to mention the trans man and mlm relationship on lone star. please be sad, please be upset, please express your emotions in this time of hurt, do not pretend that you were wronged.