#you know the one I mean?

[youre-only-gay-once]

hang on. wheres the gay kissing picture of jensen ankles and his singer friend

[theologicalphysics]

Ok, actually, I have an idea! What if the ghosts are bound to the boundaries of the place where they died WHEN they died. So Robin's territory mostly overlaps with Button House, but is actually bigger than the rest of their territories? And Mary and the Plague ghosts who were from the Village can go all the way to the village? Plague ghosts stay where they are because thats where their pit is, and Mary hasn't gone back to the village since they killed her. The German pilots died in a plane and they stay where that plane was when they died.

I fully support this theory and in that case I'm going to explain the bit in 3x06 where the main cast ghosts are all blocked at the gates as being that all the different generations' boundaries end at the gates on that side of the property.

In Robin's day there was a river there, which formed the natural boundary to his hunting grounds. The river itself dried up as the climate changed, but the river bed cut a straight line through the landscape and got used as the basis of a Roman Road from leading from London to Verulamium. (Since we know from 02x01 that Button House is canonically in Hertfordshire.) The road fell into disrepair after the fall of Rome, but it was still the quickest way to London. In the early Middle Ages it received a royal pavage grant and funds were raised for the road to be restored using taxes gathered by the bailiffs and goodmen of the neighbouring village. The additional taxation wasn't popular, but the road was in decent condition again by the time Mick the plague ghost takes for his ill-fated trip to London in 02x02. Of course post-plague the road started to become worse for wear again. Road repair was typically funded by taxation within nearby parishes, which meant a lack of funds when the pit crew's village disappeared. When populations began to rise again in the centuries following the black death, there was a lot of resentment by those living on the Bone estates (echoing similar resentments throughout England) that local residents were entirely on the hook for the upkeep of roads which were being damaged mostly by intercity travellers who were just passing through.

Good guy Humphrey decides to try and fix this by getting a special permission to levy a toll on usage of the road. If he invites Henry VIII to Bone House, the king will have personal experience of the poorly maintained road outside the house. If everything else about the visit goes well, then the king will be in the mood to grant favours - like an act of parliament allowing the Bone family to administer a special toll relieving the financial burden on the local residents and therefore also on the Bones themselves.

Humphrey spends loads of money on making the visit as lavish as possible, only to be stymied by a particularly indigestible swan which meant there was never a good time to ask about the road, as the king spent most of the visit in the privy as mentioned in 01x04.

In Mary's time, the road had become a full-fledged turnpike and it was a great relief to her and her husband that what had previously been funded by local taxation was now being funded by the travellers themselves. (Although, in later years, the sharp-tongued Annie would point out to Mary how the grift and hypocrisy of the various toll farmers had contrived to make big profits for a few wealthy men, at the expense of locals attempting to take their good to market.) In Kitty and Thomas's day the more wooded areas of the road are used by highwaymen who will rob travellers in secluded areas then make off across open country to avoid being identified or apprehended at the toll gates. There's a certain amount of tension about this between Thomas, who believes the highwaymen to be unscrupulous ruffians and Kitty who has a more romanticised view. They spend quite a lot of time arguing about it, despite neither of them having any personal experience with highwaymen and being forced to rely on the same second-hand accounts to give weight to their arguments.

Meanwhile Robin learned early on that a far corner of the Higham House grounds adjoins the woodland area where the highwaymen operate. He, Mary and Annie spend time watching the highwaymen operate and get to know them quite well. They'll critique the delivery of the line "your money or your life" and sometimes place bets on the success of the various stick-ups. (These two plot threads are woven together when one of the highwaymen tries to avoid detection by taking a shortcut across the Button House grounds. Robin, Mary and Annie chasing after him on foot, while Kitty and Thomas come out of the house to see what all the fuss is about. Subsequently, Thomas begins looking more kindly upon highwaymen after learning that this one had successfully robbed his killer. Meanwhile Kitty sours on them after having one callously ride his horse directly through her.)

In Fanny's lifetime, the laws change so that English roads begin to be funded by a tax on individual vehicles rather than local residents or tolls. We know from 03x07 that she's got a good head for business and despite disapproving of these newfangled motorcars, she can see there's a profit to be made. She urges George to invest in the new motorcar manufacturer, Daimler, but he doesn't act on her advice in time to turn a profit. Fanny's annoyance about this is increased tenfold when she discovers, post-mortem, that the reason that dreadful Chetwynde family from next door had been doing so well financially was that they'd overheard her advice back then and had - unlike her useless lump of a husband - actually listened to her.

Daimler was subsequently sold to the Birmingham Small Arms company and the Captain's work on weapons development introduced him to a variety of their engineers as the company diversified into everything from bicycles to machine guns to aeroplanes. He used to ride a BSA motorcycle along the road outside Button House. (One of those old Roman roads, you know? Straight shot practically to Saint Albans, so you could really open up the throttle and see what the old girl was capable of. Terrific stuff!) Obviously, this simple pleasure is taken from him after his untimely death means that both his beloved BSA Gold Star and his ability to access the road in question are permanently beyond his reach.

Pat died during a time of historically high vehicle ownership, historically low fuel prices and worrying news reports about what the lead in petrol might be doing to the health of the nation. Japan had just passed a law banning its use and there are rumours that Britain might follow suit. Obviously Pat wants Daley to grow up healthy in a world where he can enjoy the outdoors, but bleeding Nora, he's not long bought a new car! Getting a catalytic converter added to the Datsun and then having to pay for fancy petrol... well it's not going to be cheap, is it? He's not sure about the price implications for multiseater vehicles and whether the scouts would be better off buying or renting for future outings if the new laws come in. He had a post-it on the dashboard of the minibus reminding him to look into the costs. It's in his line of vision as he dies. Just one more task he never got done.

The new laws are fully in place by Julian's time, albeit breathtakingly unpopular with his constituents. BSA sold Daimler to Jaguar in 1960 and are now responsible for Julian's most treasured possession. Like the Captain, Julian enjoyed pushing his vehicle to the limits on the old Roman road outside of Button House. It's a shared commonality they might have bonded over, except Julian decides to share that his drive had been enlivened by a line you could have marked the pitch at Wembley with and a mid-journey blowie from a blonde named Antonia.

[butchfalin]

the funniest meltdown ive ever had was in college when i got so overstimulated that i could Not speak, including over text. one of my friends was trying to talk me through it but i was solely using emojis because they were easier than trying to come up with words so he started using primarily emojis as well just to make things feel balanced. this was not the Most effective strategy... until. he tried to ask me "you okay?" but the way he chose to do that was by sending "👉🏼👌🏼❓" and i was so shocked by suddenly being asked if i was dtf that i was like WHAT???? WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY TO ME?????????? and thus was verbal again

[malenjoyer]

WE'RE SO BACK

[krysmcscience]

I have some questions about karaoke night, Alex Hirsch. Very Important Questions. Which I will happily scream at a poor hapless baby triangle who can have no answers for me, and possibly also does not have object permanence yet.

Follow-up that is I guess suggestive, but let's be real here, Bill's a fucking triangle:

Dude slipped right into his birthday suit, lmao

this is so stupid :D

Anyway, I don't care what anyone says, this brilliant individual knows what's up - Bill is absolutely way more of a monsterfucker than Ford could or ever will be, full stop.

[noknowshame]

why is religious Christmas imagery all so joyful and pleasant? where is the inherent horror of the birth of Christ? A mother is handed her newborn child, wailing and innocent. Her hands come away sticky. Red. Simply by giving her son life she has already killed him. He is doomed from the beginning. Her love will not save him from suffering. Because the thing cradled in her arms is not a baby, it is a sacrifice: born amongst the other bleating animals whose blood will one day be spilled in the name of what demands it. the night is silent with anticipation. Mary, did you know? That your womb was also a grave?

[keferon]

Empurata!Prowl tries to actually communicate for the first time

What if he wants to say something but he can’t. What if he has no voice to speak, no face to emote, no hands to write. What if every attempt to communicate a message is essentially a puzzle of wit and creativity and yet, the first thing he goes through all these troubles for. Is to say “I love you”?

Don’t ask me how did they get in this room. I have no idea. They escaped the battlefield somehow haha

Next->

[callisteios]

Hi, feel free to take my new uquiz to discover what kind of vampire you are!

[thatwavephenomenon]

me: i sure hope the crows are not gonna be solely depicted in veilguard as a brave force who 'fight for all' when they are at their core a criminal organization who is known to buy children to indoctrinate them and turn them into assassins, by putting them in overcrowded warehouses and making them fight for scrapes in order not to starve, to later torture those who reach adulthood to finish their initiations and kill them anyways if they dare to try getting out

bioware: i cooka da pizza

[remxedmoon]

yknow i think their cloak should be a little stained actually. just a little.

[akanemnon]

I don't like this place. It's turning everyone edgy and sad.

FIRST - PREVIOUS - NEXT

MASTERPOST (for the full series / FAQ / reference sheets)

[egophiliac]

crossing my fingers and wishing upon every star that chapter 10 finally brings us the tweel cards 🤞🤞

[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:

[mythicalcoolkid]

You don't wish your disability was worse or more visible, you wish your disability was taken seriously. Please stop confusing the two, I guarantee you would not get the support you need JUST by being more severe or more visible. Please listen to visibly disabled people when we tell you it isn't better on our side

[ruporas]

need to exist in your warmth (id in alt)

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Happy one year anniversary to In Stars and Time!