#and im just sad and disappointed

[enchanted-calamity]

[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."

[spicymoodle]

finished wip 1/2: lucifer

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

DUDE, HOLD UP. IT'S ONLY 12-ISH DAYS UNTIL THE NEXT WELCOME HOME UPDATE.

[aroaceleovaldez]

i would like to say my ideal PJO adaptation (if i was being physically forced against my will to have to pick a live action adaptation over an animated one for some reason) would be a combo like writing of the musical + casting of the show + visuals of the movies

BUT the show actually does have the playwright for the musical as one of the major writers for like three episodes and that did nothing for it. so...

[sukirichi]

i’m gonna sound stupid for saying this but i’m acc very upset that real life is keeping me away from being a loser here 😔

[sillylittleguyinatrenchcoat]

geto meme batch bc i love one man <3 + this week’s episode broke me like a sad flimsy piñata

[loveipromiseimnotinsane]

That ending was lackluster and disappointing. I can't believe this is what I've been defending. I shouldn't have trusted Horikoshi :|

[crescent-cubed]

I have not been this upset about a movie since I watched the Lego Ninjago Movie. I did not wait over 8 fucking years to have the Minecraft movie look like that. God fucking damnit.

[tangledinink]

i dont think i really wanna do anything anymore is the thing.

[faunandfloraas]

well the day started pretty fun, like sure the outfits were boring and the styling was lackluster but it was fun- i was excited for them. Now however hearing how the press was speaking to them I'm officially just pissed and disappointed.

[odysseys-blood]

literally how i feel any time i read this line. absolutely NOT

i think he's a great mirror type character for the mc depending on how much you draw on the default ra-on and their characterization, but more specifically their feeling of inferiority to solomon (which i take for my mc loyal). both the mc and bael are stuck filling in for a role for a king that neither feels they're well equipped for or were even born to hold and the fact that bael's so used to taking the fall that he's automatically ready to do it for you too is just. man. orz

[teknikolor-walters]

Does anyone else feel a debilitating fear of getting better? Is this normal? Does it secretly prove I'm just faking everything for attention? Probably tbh

[iheartmoons]

yk what pisses me the fuck off? people being so obsessed w regulus that they downplay sirius' trauma just to make reg a sadder character that they can relate to. do whatever u want with reg - this is a free fandom, jkr doesn't run it and ur allowed to think whatever, but its actually baffling how ur willing to legit take away sirius' trauma for reg. i've seen people say that 'reg is the second choice child' like... ur kidding me, right? just because... he's younger?? doesn't make him second choice??? i will confidently say that sirius is 100% the less favoured child and i will fight anyone on it - i mean, how is this even a fucking debate?!? what is wrong with people?! sure, reg's story is sad and interesting but i desperately need you to stop depriving him of every little good thing in his life just to improve his story.

i will 100% confidently say that sirius is objectively one of the most, if not the most, traumatised character in the marauders fandom. yes, i know we shouldn't compare people's trauma, and with any other character i wouldn't. but this is sirius. he was physically and mentally abused by his parents, he felt that he had to protect a young child when he was only a year older and developed a martyr complex, had his family try and manipulate him into joining their cult at 16, ran away from home and was disowned at 16, grew up in wartime, he became a child solider at 18, his *adoptive* parents died at 19, his brother died at 19, his relationship w remus was falling apart, he got framed for the murder of his bsfs at 21 and then spent 12 years of his life getting his soul sucked out of him, at 33 he gets let out and his godson thinks he's a murderer and he has to un-learn his dog-like behaviours, at 34 the war begins again, at 35 he dies, and then in the afterlife watches remus have a wife and child. please fight me on this because i could go all day for him.

[cryptile]

Its always so hard to believe that not being in pain is just the casual state of being for most people, and not a rare event they experience every now and again

[russellius]

2024 SAUDI ARABIAN GP Qualifying : P7

GEORGE: Kicking myself a little bit, I think that P4 was on the cards... [...] Really impressed from Ollie, I watched him in F2, I remember watching his laps in Mexico last year in Haas, thought he was driving really well and he definitely exceeded my expectations.