#i mean obviously shipping

[justreckin]

Ignoring all the shipping for a moment, but I just realized that Spock, who has served his entire Starfleet career on the Enterprise, spent the early part of said career observing the Captain and First Officer being like that… I no longer have any questions about any of his behavior around Kirk.

[seenthisepisode]

no offence but the reason tumblr is “dying” is, well, yes, of course the cursed like/reblog ratio and the change in user behaviour (because of people being used to how instagram and tiktok work) BUT also the lack of weekly shows. i say it with my whole chest, they don't produce captivating and engaging stupid weekly tv shows anymore because streaming killed that so you have spikes of activity here when Something happens in general fandom or up to three days after a new season of whatever drops and then it's a wasteland. this is obviously an old woman yelling at a cloud missing supernatural and the vampire diaries and pretty little liars and all these other shows type of post but honestly give me back weekly tv shows where i have something to watch for 40 minutes almost every day of the week after work so then i can read and reblog it on tumblr give it back for the sake of my sanity

[kaladinkholins]

Very interesting to me that a certain subset of the BES fandom's favourite iterations of Mizu and Akemi are seemingly rooted in the facades they have projected towards the world, and are not accurate representations of their true selves.

And I see this is especially the case with Mizu, where fanon likes to paint her as this dominant, hyper-masculine, smirking Cool GuyTM who's going to give you her strap. And this idea of Mizu is often based on the image of her wearing her glasses, and optionally, with her cloak and big, wide-brimmed kasa.

And what's interesting about this, to me, is that fanon is seemingly falling for her deliberate disguise. Because the glasses (with the optional combination of cloak and hat) represent Mizu's suppression of her true self. She is playing a role.

Take this scene of Mizu in the brothel in Episode 4 for example. Here, not only is Mizu wearing her glasses to symbolise the mask she is wearing, but she is purposely acting like some suave and cocky gentleman, intimidating, calm, in control. Her voice is even deeper than usual, like what we hear in her first scene while facing off with Hachiman the Flesh-Trader in Episode 1.

This act that Mizu puts on is an embodiment of masculine showboating, which is highly effective against weak and insecure men like Hachi, but also against women like those who tried to seduce her at the Shindo House.

And that brings me to how Mizu's mask is actually a direct parallel to Akemi's mask in this very same scene.

Here, Akemi is also putting up an act, playing up her naivety and demure girlishness, using her high-pitched lilted voice, complimenting Mizu and trying to make small talk, all so she can seduce and lure Mizu in to drink the drugged cup of sake.

So what I find so interesting and funny about this scene, characters within it, and the subsequent fandom interpretations of both, is that everyone seems to literally be falling for the mask that Mizu and Akemi are putting up to conceal their identities, guard themselves from the world, and get what they want.

It's also a little frustrating because the fanon seems to twist what actually makes Mizu and Akemi's dynamic so interesting by flattening it completely. Because both here and throughout the story, Mizu and Akemi's entire relationship and treatment of each other is solely built off of masks, assumptions, and misconceptions.

Akemi believes Mizu is a selfish, cocky male samurai who destroyed her ex-fiance's career and life, and who abandoned her to let her get dragged away by her father's guards and forcibly married off to a man she didn't know. on the other hand, Mizu believes Akemi is bratty, naive princess who constantly needs saving and who can't make her own decisions.

These misconceptions are even evident in the framing of their first impressions of each other, both of which unfold in these slow-motion POV shots.

Mizu's first impression of Akemi is that of a beautiful, untouchable princess in a cage. Swirling string music in the background.

Akemi's first impression of Mizu is of a mysterious, stoic "demon" samurai who stole her fiance's scarf. Tense music and the sound of ocean waves in the background.

And then, going back to that scene of them together in Episode 4, both Mizu and Akemi continue to fool each other and hold these assumptions of each other, and they both feed into it, as both are purposely acting within the suppressive roles society binds them to in order to achieve their goals within the means they are allowed (Akemi playing the part of a subservient woman; Mizu playing the part of a dominant man).

But then, for once in both their lives, neither of their usual tactics work.

Akemi is trying to use flattery and seduction on Mizu, but Mizu sees right through it, knowing that Akemi is just trying to manipulate and harm her. Rather than give in to Akemi's tactics, Mizu plays with Akemi's emotions by alluding to Taigen's death, before pinning her down, and then when she starts crying, Mizu just rolls her eyes and tells her to shut up.

On the opposite end, when Mizu tries to use brute force and intimidation, Akemi also sees right through it, not falling for it, and instead says this:

"Under your mask, you're not the killer you pretend to be."

Nonetheless, despite the fact that they see a little bit through each other's masks, they both still hold their presumptions of each other until the very end of the season, with Akemi seeing Mizu as an obnoxious samurai swooping in to save the day, and Mizu seeing Akemi as a damsel in distress.

And what I find a bit irksome is that the fandom also resorts to flattening them to these tropes as well.

Because Mizu is not some cool, smooth-talking samurai with a big dick sword as Akemi (and the fandom) might believe. All of that is the facade she puts up and nothing more. In reality, Mizu is an angry, confused and lonely child, and a masterful artist, who is struggling against her own self-hatred. Master Eiji, her father figure who knows her best, knows this.

And Akemi, on the other hand, is not some girly, sweet, vain and spoiled princess as Mizu might believe. Instead she has never cared for frivolous things like fashion, love or looks, instead favouring poetry and strategy games instead, and has always only cared about her own independence. Seki, her father figure who knows her best, knows this.

But neither is she some authoritative dominatrix, though this is part of her new persona that she is trying to project to get what she wants. Because while Akemi is willful, outspoken, intelligent and authoritative, she can still be naive! She is still often unsure and needs to have her hand held through things, as she is still learning and growing into her full potential. Her new parental/guardian figure, Madame Kaji, knows this as well.

So with all that being said, now that we know that Mizu and Akemi are essentially wearing masks and putting up fronts throughout the show, what would a representation of Mizu's and Akemi's true selves actually look like? Easy. It's in their hair.

This shot on the left is the only time we see Mizu with her hair completely down. In this scene, she's being berated by Mama, and her guard is completely down, she has no weapon, and is no longer wearing any mask, as this is after she showed Mikio "all of herself" and tried to take off the mask of a subservient housewife. Thus, here, she is sad, vulnerable, and feeling small (emphasised further by the framing of the scene). This is a perfect encapsulation of what Mizu is on the inside, underneath all the layers of revenge-obsession and the walls she's put around herself.

In contrast, the only time we Akemi with her hair fully down, she is completely alone in the bath, and this scene takes place after being scorned by her father and left weeping at his feet. But despite all that, Akemi is headstrong, determined, taking the reigns of her life as she makes the choice to run away, but even that choice is reflective of her youthful naivety. She even gets scolded by Seki shortly after this in the next scene, because though she wants to be independent, she still hasn't completely learned to be. Not yet. Regardless, her decisiveness and moment of self-empowerment is emphasised by the framing of the scene, where her face takes up the majority of the shot, and she stares seriously into the middle distance.

To conclude, I wish popular fanon would stop mischaracterising these two, and flattening them into tropes and stereotypes (ie. masculine badass swordsman Mizu and feminine alluring queen but also girly swooning damsel Akemi), all of which just seems... reductive. It also irks me when Akemi is merely upheld as a love interest and romantic device for Mizu and nothing more, when she is literally Mizu's narrative foil (takes far more narrative precedence over romantic interest) and the deuteragonist of this show. She is her own person. That is literally the theme of her entire character and arc.

[kazswift]

platonic relationships in media are actually so much more important to me than romantic ones. not sorry

[pro-sipper]

"- 'proshippers' or whatever the fuck you people are calling yourselves now -"

It's. It's still just "proshippers". It's you guys (antis) and the fence-straddlers trying to have their cake and eat it too that keep creating random new phrases to "other" and distance themselves from us. We're here, unchanging, same as ever, in our corner with our silly little stories. We aren't the ones interested in coming up with 500 new labels for people who know that fiction isn't reality.

[batcavescolony]

What I ADORE about the Doctor and Donna is that they're platonic. They are bffs. They love each other platonically! They're not secretly dating or hiding feelings from each other it's just a platonic love story and everyone is fine with it.

[meaningless-mayhem]

Being asexual and possibly aromantic but also being a huge shipper and hopeless romantic is such a wild experience ngl. I'm always freaking out about my favorite ships and giggling internally reading ship fics, getting invested in characters finally kissing or reading about their pining and their love and I think "I want what they have!!"

But then sometimes you have a slamming realization that your sweet shipping scenarios you imagine in your head look totally different irl and that you are extremely aspec.

One time I went down a YouTube rabbit hole and stumbled across Vsauce's "Why Do We Kiss?" video and let me tell you. When I saw that stock video footage of two people kissing each other I was a little flabbergasted lmaooo

[singeryuri]

Ykw quick shout-out to selfshippers who for any reason dislike the popular ships in whatever fandom their f/o is from. Shout-out to everyone who has to block a bunch of ship tags or who can't go into their f/o's tag without seeing some kind of ship art they dislike or feel uncomfortable with.

Your discomfort is fully valid and you know your f/os best! They adore you, no matter what the fandom says, even if there's a lot of people who say otherwise or ship them with other characters, I promise.

pro.shippers this doesn't apply to you, get out

[peridots-pixiwolf]

[Start ID. A digital drawing of Gabriel and V1 from Ultrakill in super-saturated, pixellated colors. It seemingly takes place during phase two of his second fight, judging by Gabe's bright yellow-cyan wings and the consequent blush shining through his helmet. Gabriel is pictured on the left, facing the left side of the screen with his head turned to V1, preparing to strike them with the bloodied spear in his right hand. Small but frequent splatters of blood dot his armor and outstretched wings, fabrics torn through in places. V1 is on the right, aiming its piercer revolver at his face. Their arms are stacked in pairs on either side, idle Feedbacker and Knuckleblaster on the left and Whiplash tucked atop their default arm on the right. Both parties are stylized to resemble insects, Gabe with beetle wings and a halo in the shape of antennae, and V1 with the four wings, four arms, short antennae and bristles expected of a dragonfly. End ID]

woah.... happy 1 year anniversary to gay people

also a couple alts (background removed, just gabe, and just v1, respectively) in hopes it'll be a little easier to understand what's going on and all!

additionally once again: special thanks to @magnumopos and @muzzleroars , neither of which I have actually spoken to in my life but both of which are credited with partially inspiring this! (dedicated section under the readmore due to the fact I do not generally tag people at all ever and wasn't sure if I should, but thought it was worth mentioning!) The former for giving me the wonderful idea of dragonfly V1, the latter for drawing V1 like a strange little creature + for the feedbacker plate, I enjoy both your works :]

(retroactively, on march 27th of 2024, assigning them a full bingo with credit to deep-space-lines. ehehehehe)

[sabotourist]

You see there's a crucial difference between Spartans and Freelancers. Between their fucking insanity.

Spartans were indoctrinated as children. They are finely curated artisan crazy.

Freelancers are the results of some people looking around for the most fucked up individuals they could find and cherry picking the most batshit headcases possible.

See, it's artisanal insanity versus fully organic insanity.

Both results in people willing to jump out of airplanes or whatever.

[ectoplasmer]

you guys ever grab your f/o’s face and just *forehead kiss* *forehead kiss* *forehead kiss* *forehea

[mymitochondriaforpresident]

The racism my beloved Simon had to face….my baby. 🥺💔

Although painful to watch, it felt incredibly validating. It was so annoying watching some people say this show was “only about class” while dismissing the BS that Simon had to go through. The abuse was ten fold because he’s POC and S3 finally exposed that.

That being said, and on a more positive note, it was so incredibly sexy when Simon sang happy birthday to Wille in Spanish (he feels safe with him!) and when Wille admitted to fantasizing about stroking those beautiful curlssss (and then actually did it). 🥹❤️‍🩹

Wilmon forever. 🤎🤍

[oceanwithouthermoon]

i may sincerely dislike some headcanons/ships and post about that sometimes but if i catch any of you MAKING FUN of people who have those headcanons/ships for no reason other than that you disagree, its ON SIGHT. suddenly i will be the number one advocate of that headcanon/ship no matter how much i might hate it myself.

its way too normalized to just be a straight up asshole online, why can we not just be normal??? please be normal about things that are totally harmless.

"i dont like or understand it" yeah me neither "people who post it are so annoying, youre ruining this fandom by erm um 🤓 saying things i disagree with haha there should be no other perspectives than mine" im outside ur window

i think we should all just hold hands

[alliseaisfandom]

Look.

I'm not saying I've seen this film before.

BUT

I'VE SEEN

THIS FILM

BEFORE

(and I fucking hated the ending)

[rexscanonwife]

I was in some Wyll feelings earlier and had to draw SOMETHING, and ended up going a little bit ham with it 😳👉👈 but this is the first official art of these two so that's ok 💖🫶

Taglist♡: @crushes-georg @changeling-selfship @mavlotov @me-myself-and-my-fos @tiny-cloud-of-flowers @sunstar-of-the-north @dearly-beeloved @adoredbyalatus @squips-ship @drjohndisco

[magnusthepuppet]

OFMD WEEK DAY #4:

favorite ship

pardon for the late submission again, i was caught up with some work yesterday…have some tealoranges tho!