#i dont know how to shut up lmao

[haikyuuhoo]

kaitlyn!!! am just dropping by to deliver some cookies and milk (non-dairy, if you prefer!!) 🍪🥛 for the weekend !! and i am curious !! what is your love language (both/either giving/receiving) ?? and would you and your fave get along when it comes to it 🥺

sel my love, hello!!! thank you for stopping in, cookies and milk are so perfect rn 🫶🏼

my love languages! giving it’s definitely gift giving—it’s definitely my way of being like “hey btw I always think about you even when we’re not together.” I love a little ‘this made me think of you’ gift idk :)

for receiving I think it would be words of affirmation (or acts of service at specific times). even though I literally can’t take a compliment to save my life lol I literally always think about them.

and okay okay this one is fun—I’m gonna run through a few of my favs. For Osamu I think definitely we would. I feel like he gets flustered receiving little gifts that aren’t necessarily for any special occasion bc he’s like “??? you just want me to have this? bc you like me?” and I’m like yeah I’m literally in love w you you dork. and bc he's quieter i think the words of affirmation from him would just mean sm more. like he wouldn't say it unless he 100% meant it. but i do feel like acts of service is HIS love language—he shows his love through food and i am very happy to receive it lol.

i feel like nanami is very similar in that when he says something you know he means it. also an acts of service guy (the way he treats the first years?? hello?? amazing man im so in love w him). and i feel like he'd lowkey love getting little gifts or whatever, keeps them on his desk or dresser or smth and just loves admiring them. also is a flower giver because he's such a gentleman <3

gojo… sigh. i love him. but he'd be so teasingly annoying about it. i just know i'd have such a hard time getting him gifts for big occasions because like… dude's loaded. i'd be so self-conscious like "he could buy this for himself. what if he doesnt like this one bc it's not nice enough." but he'd love literally anything you got him ofc because he’s ALSO a sucker for ‘I got this cause I thought of you’ gifts. and his words of affirmation would, again, be in a very playful/teasing manner so like some days it's great but other days when I’m tired/upset it just strikes a nerve & lowkey makes things worse 😅 can be mature and serious and very very loving when he needs to be tho <3

[blueskittlesart]

i’m so used to how you draw zelda that whenever i see someone else draw her it’s literally like. skinny person jumpscare.

literally being a fat zelda truther is so hard bc why do people insist on drawing the girl like she's never had a meal in her life. put some meat on her bones please god she is starving

[kaladinkholins]

BRB thinking thoughts about Taigen's character, the TaiMizu ship, and a big chunk of fandom's perceptions regarding both those things.

(Inspired by @farintonorth's post related to this topic that just got my brain going brrrrr)

OK so let me just... start off by saying that I think that reducing stories to their tropes is seriously detrimental to the way some people are interacting with fiction, and while that honestly warrants its own post about the subject, I wanna talk specifically about how this affects the way some people in the fandom talk about Taigen and TaiMizu.

Because yeah, tropes are useful shorthand to refer to certain dynamics or archetypes etc, and they are indeed the building blocks to any story. But in a well-written story, characters and their relationships, actions, and motivations, are much more complex than just tropes. Because in a story that has characters who are more than just cardboard cutouts, their behaviours, backgrounds, motivations and all of that, are inseparable from the context of the overall story they exist in.

So like, sure, you can say Mizu and Taigen have an enemies-to-lovers or rivals-to-lovers dynamic. I also use those terms because it's easier. But I also think this is where things start to get a bit twisted, especially from an intertextual sense. Because "enemies-to-lovers" is also commonly used to refer to other ships in other media, whereby it tends to be rooted in an imbalanced power dynamic, such as oppressor-oppressed and bully-victim.

And while that's a whole can of worms that I won't be getting into because it can quickly derail into a whole separate sort of fandom discourse, I'd just like to make it clear that Mizu and Taigen, in particular, do not have an imbalanced power dynamic. They are not bully-victim or oppressor-oppressed. The only understandable reason why someone might actually think their relationship is imbalanced is if

A) they only watched the first episode, or

B) they cannot grasp the slightest bit of nuance in a character, or

C) they're being obtuse on purpose simply because the Mizu/Taigen relationship, or Taigen's character in general, just doesn't suit their tastes.

While yes, Taigen, along with his whole gang, had bullied Mizu when they were children, that dynamic does not exist between them whatsoever in adulthood. Whatever imbalanced bully-victim power dynamic that had once existed between them was decisively ripped apart the moment Mizu beat him in that duel in the dojo, and then completely obliterated by the end of the season.

Mizu is not a defenseless victim at Taigen's mercy. Mizu can beat Taigen's ass any time she wants (and she DOES, repeatedly in fact), and could even kill him if she felt like it. She taunts him openly and without fear ("I like your hair"; "I can beat you with any weapon you choose") and all he does is bark back, because that's pretty much all Taigen ever does. Time and time again, he yaps about how much he wants to kill her, but time and time again, his actions prove that all of it is just an empty threat. Because though his words say "I hate you", his actions demonstrate the complete opposite. He's shown how protective he is of Mizu, how unhesitatingly he sacrifices himself up for her, how loyal he is in enduring days-long torture to not give up information about her, how even when near-death and in pain, he's still willing to keep standing back up so he can fight by her side and help her win against her enemies.

And Mizu is not an idiot! She sees that too. She does not see him as a threat, an enemy, or even a bully. Especially not by the end of Episode 3, and definitely not by the end of the season. When she finds him in the dungeon in Episode 6, she smiles from relief, and doesn't think twice to take him with her. Mizu finds him, at best, an annoyance, or at worst, an infuriating hindrance on her quest for vengeance. Which is why, when Taigen is about to say, "It's a shame our duel's set for tomorrow; I have to kill you before you get your revenge," Mizu whacks him on the head without a second thought before he can even finish his sentence, and leaves him lying unconscious, face-down, in the snow.

And this further emphasises how he does not hold any power over her. There is no abusive power dynamic between them. She is more powerful than him, he knows this, and all he's ever done after they've met up again in adulthood is get his ass whooped by her, get mad about it and pester her and follow her around, get his ass whooped by her some more, and put his life on the line to protect her.

"OOoooOOoooH b-but he called her a demon at the end of Episode 7 and threatened to kill her again!!!" Oh my god. He called her that because he's calling her out on her selfishness to stay silent about her knowledge of Fowler's plans to attack Edo. Because to him, loyalty and honour as a samurai is more important than anything. So in his own brash-and-immature Taigen way, he felt betrayed that Mizu did not hold the same principles. That's why he got angry. He wasn't even that mad about letting Akemi get dragged off by the Tokunobu guards. It was about saving the Shogun and the Shogunate as a whole. That's why the first thing he does in Edo is not find Akemi, but try to warn the Shogun about Fowler's attack.

Look, I'm not defending his stupid ass, of course. Because calling her a demon especially after their cute little wrestling time was obviously rude and inappropriate, especially since words like "demon", "monster" and "Onryo" have had such a deep effect on Mizu throughout her life, and continue to contribute to her self-hatred. But like? That's the fun of realistic and flawed characters, and realistic and flawed relationships. They're not perfect, and it's why we as an audience root for them, wanting to see them work through their shit and find a way to prevail despite it all.

Also, him saying that was in the heat of the moment. He was angry, he felt like his initial belief of who Mizu was—a strong and loyal samurai, just like him—was shattered, and so he lashed out. Was it rude? Definitely. Was it immature of him? Yes, incredibly. But it's also very much in line with his character, because even though he's grown a lot over the course of the season, the show isn't over yet, so obviously his character arc is just beginning, as that is also the case for the other three main characters: Mizu is beginning to accept herself, Akemi is beginning to grow into her position of power, Ringo beginning to train under Master Eiji, while Taigen is beginning to simply be a better person.

On that note, when speaking of Taigen's immaturity, I think that's also one of the main things that people tend to gloss over when it comes to his character. Because when you boil everything down to its bare essentials, Taigen is, essentially, a boy. I've talked about this before, but to reiterate, Taigen very much behaves like an unhealed child. Even as an adult, he is insecure, prone to throwing tantrums, and is desperate to latch onto some material goal in hopes that it will make him feel better—initially he was chasing status/glory/greatness, and then when Mizu tells him that "Nothing comes from being a samurai but death," he immediately decides he wants to run away with Akemi in hopes that he will be happy.

And it's a big step, acknowledging that he doesn't truly want greatness, but had always just assumed it was his only path to a good life. But it's clear he still hasn't really figured it out. Because if he did run off with Akemi to get married and live in the countryside, he still wouldn't be happy. Because he still doesn't know who he really is, or what it is he really wants. Marriage at this moment is the last thing he needs, and as he is now, he would be a pretty awful husband. A simple life would be good for him, but would he be good at a simple life, when he still has so much he needs to work through?

So anyway, what I'm getting at here, is that he's trying and he is learning and growing. So yeah, he is flawed, but honestly? So is Mizu. And the funny thing is that they're flawed in very similar ways.

Because Mizu is also an unhealed child. That's why she's so angry all the time. That's why she pushes people away. That's why she, just like Taigen, is so happy when given the chance to playfully wrestle in the forge, laughing and rolling around like children without shame or pretense.

Again, this shows there is no imbalance between them. They had grown up together as peers from the same town. And while Taigen had had the upper hand back then, because he'd had a gang of other kids with him, that is definitely not the case anymore. Today, they are equally flawed, equally strong, equally skilled swordsmen, and equally bull-headed.

However, yes, Mizu is definitely leagues more mature than Taigen. But she still holds a lot of childhood wounds that mirror Taigen's own. And we see this especially in relation to her mother. Similar to Taigen who had an abusive and alcoholic father, Mizu's Mama was an opium addict and had hit her, berated her, had shaved her head without her consent as a child, and as an adult, had constantly emotionally manipulated and guilt-tripped her. Mizu's love for her Mama was what had driven her to a path of vengeance in the very beginning. And when she'd found out Mama was still alive, she had wanted nothing more than her Mama's love, and it was this alone that pushed her to agree to the marriage with Mikio in the first place. And now, knowing from Fowler that her birth mother is someone else entirely, is what makes her agree to keep him alive and haul his ass to London to seek answers.

Thus, integral to Mizu's self-hatred is also Mizu's intense longing for love and family. Just like Taigen, whose pompousness comes from his insecurity about being the son of a poor fisherman, Mizu's goals are also shaped by who her parents are. Remember, her vengeance is not against just anyone who's corrupt or evil, but specifically against the men who she believes had assaulted her mother, the men she believes had made her a monster, the men she believes had abandoned her to die and continue to try to kill her. Her vengeance is against a father, on behalf of a mother. In The Tale of the Ronin and the Bride, Mizu is not merely the Ronin, the Bride, or the Onryo, but also the Child.

This is also why Ringo is so good, not only for Mizu, but for Taigen as well. Ringo is wise and caring and considerate, but above all, he is in tune with his inner child in ways that Mizu and Taigen are not. He is always earnest and positive, he sees the world with childlike wonder, but is not naive or blind to its ugliness. His whole life has been a battle. Ringo brings out the best in Mizu, consistently acting as her moral compass and conscience, and Mizu's choice to save Akemi in the final episode is only because she promised Ringo that she would. Because it's the right thing to do. Ringo inspires her to be a better person, and to think outside of her narrow-minded goal of revenge. At the same time, Ringo also brings out the best in Taigen. While at first Taigen had looked down on both Mizu and Ringo ("Half-limb to a half-wit"), by the end of the season, he's proud to have Ringo as a friend and ally, he listens to Ringo's advice ("What would Master do?"), and asserts to the fucking Shogun that Ringo is a worthy warrior to have by his side.

Okay, I've gone on a bit of a tangent here, but my main point is that Mizu and Taigen are incredibly similar. They are equals. They are both flawed, unhealed children who are chasing some impossible outlandish goal in hopes that it will fill the void in their hearts. They also both have a long way to go in terms of character development if they were to ever build a healthy romantic relationship (either with each other, or even with anyone else). So while I believe things will be rocky (because duh, it's a story, we all live for the drama, etc), I think with Ringo's help, they'll get there eventually.

[bacchuschucklefuck]

My Accolades

[authoralexharvey]

Not that I've been active much, anyway, but I'm about to be even less so. posts are on a queue atm and all that cause I had to shut off my internet for a bit ✌️🤪

[pcktknife]

LETS GO LADIES

[todayisafridaynight]

would it be okay if u told me why u like aoki😭/gen😭😭😭😭BEEN TRYNA LIKE HIM FOR SO LONG I JUST CANTT but i love ur art so much so i still consume it otherwise lol

i liked tohru adachi in high school and tbh i think that alone is enough of an explanation for why i ended up liking aoki

[sapphroditewrites]

workin on a little gift for the holidays for y'all bc i'm so damn slow with the affair au (which i've weirdly started writing backwards? it's funny how that helps sometimes, but it's helped a lot)

it's not gonna be super polished and spit-shined like i usually try for, but it's something i was hoping to get around to every year, if that doesn't spoil the surprise lol

[pandoratheprocrasticreator]

idk im glad they didn't give us any actual details about caleb and evelyn beyond belos's memories and like. fifty-sixth-hand information from masha's story so audience members not paying attention would at least know who they are.

whatever nitty gritty details the audience comes up with on their own for what happened to these two would be infinitely more satisfying to them than what the show would have been able to depict in a flashback. especially working within what's appropriate for children's television.

caleb the person isn't important to the story anymore. the MEMORY of caleb, which belos has never let himself get over in 400 years, is the important thing. and you don't need to know much about caleb for that to work. and while i loved the parallels between the wittebanes and hunter and luz, as well as the clawthornes being a descendent of evelyn, i'm glad they never confirmed it, and it remains situational irony purely for the audience.

hunter's only connection with caleb is his DNA, which also ties back to belos's feelings. him befriending luz is something they did of their own volition. it's not because hunter is fated to play out every beat of caleb's life by virtue of being his clone. similarly, while i love a good hunter clawthorne, dell taking hunter as an apprentice and eda showing care towards him in s2 are because eda is kind to children and hunter independently had passion for palisman carving. it's not because they found out they were related, because the whole show is about found family.

having flashbacks to the real caleb and evelyn wouldn't have contributed anything to the story aside from fanservice. what matters is how belos feels about them. belos's ego and the desperation to be acknowledged by his puritan community and God aside, the idea of caleb haunts his every action. not the actual ghost of caleb-i've already discussed here why the idea of caleb's ghost literally haunting belos would be a poor writing decision. belos knew the person his brother actually was, killed him, and imagined a perfect version of him that he chased after for the next 350 years.

the tragedy is that the perfect version of caleb is unattainable, and now belos can never get the real caleb back. he refuses to acknowledge that caleb may have been flawed before the influence of evelyn. to phillip, everything he thinks is wrong about caleb is because he was corrupted by the boiling isles, and that's part of the reason he starts on a quest to kill all the witches. it's also why he makes so many grimwalkers. he desperately misses that ideal version of caleb, so he makes copies of caleb and plays family with them.

and belos loathes the grimwalkers. he kills them because he hates the magic they were made with. because he hates being reminded of his brother and what happened to him. and of course, he hates the grimwalkers for not meeting his expectations of what his "ideal" caleb would have been like. it's a fluid expectation that belos, subconsciously or not, changes as he goes, all in order to take out his anger on innocent children. he seems to recognize his enjoyment of harming the grimwalkers, though it's unknown if he understands the reason-which is that the "perfect" caleb will never exist, and likely never did. phillip's brother is gone forever, and it's all his fault.

and idk maybe in the writers minds caleb was a perfect brother and baby phillip was just a possessive little shit. or maybe it's the opposite and caleb messed up a lot in communicating with phillip on his relationship with evelyn. maybe evelyn was a perfectly nice girl who was perfectly supportive of caleb and phillip's choices or maybe she hated phillip and the other humans and did convince caleb to leave it all behind. it's a fascinating piece of backstory and i love seeing fanworks that talk about it! but anything more about caleb and evelyn that the creators add in canon would give actual context to their situation that we don't need! their story has been over for 350 years and dont affect any of the other characters beyond how it affects phillip!

nothing more about these two can be said that will contribute more to belos's character that isn't already conveyed with the barebones material we got in the show. this story isn't about "forbidden love," this is about how phillip was confronted with the fact that his brother found happiness outside of him, and that someone he's been taught since childhood to hate may not be all bad. it's about how he plugged his fingers in his ears in response to this and went on a 350 year long killing spree to prove to himself that he can never be in the wrong.

basically, i wouldn't go so far as to call caleb and evelyn's backstory "purposefully unexplained," but i definitely think the story is a lot stronger as it is than it would be if they did explain it all. not every detail of a story needs to have a word of god answer as to how it all went down. sometimes adding in unnecessary detail for completionism's sake just distracts from the point you're actually trying to convey. while there are a lot of things that i wished the show could have explored in more detail had it not been shortened, caleb and evelyn's story is not one of them.

[oceanwithouthermoon]

tired of being called boring cuz i hate toxic ships </33 im sorry i get triggered easily by stuff like that brah, the most toxic my ships r allowed to get before i get triggered is a lil possessiveness and a hint of unhealthy codependency 🤭 beyond that, i literally get sick to my stomach lmao..

do what u want but anyone whose never been abused before does NOT get the right to call ME boring for not liking abusive ships..

[aroacedavestrider]

Trans women talking about misogyny doesn’t mean they hate trans men, cry harder to ur terf friends

good job dipshit youve successfully demonstrated to the class what the strawman fallacy is. how is it that youre able to recognize that trans women talking about transmisogyny isnt an attack on trans men but not vice versa

you really gotta be plugging your ears and ignoring the shit out of trans men if you think that anybody with a brain is arguing what youre accusing us of lmao. which lemme check my Transandromisia List, oh shit

talking over us, erasure of our experiences, purposeful misconstruing to make us out as the Bad Guys (thats you!)

calling us terfs and grouping us in with actual dangerous oppressors (also you!)

othering us in some us vs. them type bullshit (you did that!)

dogg i dunno how to tell you this but youre an s-tier example of why trans men are fed up to the point where theres a brand sparkly new movement that pisses you off. maybe youre pressed cause were trying to dismantle the oppression olympics and you think youre winning. too bad sunshine, nobodys a fucking winner when it comes to any flavor of transphobia. pull your head out of your terminally online ass and go interact with somebody. go think about why trans men discussing their struggles is such a fucking issue for you

[the-yearning-astronaut]

.

[kaladinkholins]

mizutaigen is literally like. the first "toxic" m/f ship i've ever cared for. cuz like usually my taste in m/f ships is basically "unhinged baddie" x "badass wifeguy" *

* (see:yen/geralt. trevor/sypha. adolin/shallan. kataang but katara is sane and they're literally so wholesome like theyre traumatised kids in love who are each other's emblem of hope in a war-torn world! so basically they don't count. anyway. i'm rambling.)

and to that end my friend called mizutaigen yaoi-adjacent and im like. yeah you're right actually cuz like hell yeah non-binary mizu and bisexual taigen rights and all the gender fuckery in the show in general

but also like.

theres just SOMETHING else about mizutaigen that just GETS me. like there's a special secret sauce like the pheromones in that one sephora lotion attracting spiders and i am the silly spider!!! there's just something about it!!! it's not even the enemies to lovers trope cuz i personally am not even usually into that (obv it's fine if you are. but yk.)

so as i keep rotating these thoughts around i thiiink it's the fact that, yknow, theyre so similar. like i honestly truly think they could be besties in another universe: a kinder universe where taigen was not taught to hate. a universe where mizu was not born a girl in a deeply misogynistic society or half-white in a xenophobic homogeneous society.

yeah now that i think about it that really just might be THE secret sauce!!! like the fact that they COULD be perfect and happy together, if only things were different, if only they werent themselves.

smth v bittersweet about that's just driving me insane and makes me want to root for them to overcome all those obstacles, to say "fuck all that" (re:the world and all its fucked up shit) and find each other in the end. to eventually become each other's fav person and confidant. who obv still bicker and tease and insult each other all the time but they dont really mean any of it and over time it just becomes a running gag between them and no one else has to get it because it's just between the two of them.

[snekdood]

its so telling how terfs supposed fucks about women just kind devolves into bullying trans people, it’s almost like you use that as a guise for your desire to just be fuckin bullies, prolly bc you were bullied by girls who were better than you growing up :/// unfortunate

[g0nta-g0kuhara]

School looks like its going to be crazy for the next week or so so I think I'm not gonna be online a Lot for the next little bit. if i die let the world know that I loved gonta so so much

[thetrolltolls]

i know we all have fun here on tumblr dot com talking about our favorite sunny ships but...... when you think about it..... genuinely...... these people have worked together, as the only staff of the bar, for over 15 years now. i've worked in a few restaurants and a bar and those tweets/tiktoks aren't lying when they say restaurant staffs are ALWAYS hooking up with each other 😭 like 15 years stuck together..... i just know they're freaky as hell.....