#its just peaceful

[cherryatombomb]

hear me out bc i love soap drawing but im also obsessed with the idea of ghost drawing?? like i think he'd only do specific art styles.. like probably scruffy charcoal landscape drawings. it's like the one thing he remembers from therapy ever, he refuses to use any other coping skill they taught him but that one helps

soap stumbling onto one of his drawings one and asking about it. ghost gets kind of embarrassed but ends up opening up only bc he knows soap draws too

soap recognizes some of the environments ghost draws; the military base when they first met, the view from the church in las almas, los vaqueros base when taking down graves etc. hes a little charmed to notice that the ones where soap was there are all bundled together, and increasing in frequency, and there's more effort being put into them and... yeah

soap and ghost just quietly drawing together on occasion. it's just a healing little shared task between the two of them, ghost jokes it's the only time soap's quiet around him, but it's just a nice activity for the both of them to do that doesn't require constant interaction. ghost isnt good with needing to interact at all times and this is his way of spending time with soap without overwhelming himself...

something about just sharing intimate tasks like this is just such a nice concept to me. ghost and soap both sharing parts of themselves others dont see, enjoying eachothers company without being bound by work

[qiinamii]

we'll do fine.

[hinamie]

long way home

[feniksido]

Any banite born after 1440 DR can't kiss... all they know is torture gnomes , charge they robots, set traps, be bisexual , eat hot chip & lie

[arimitskevich]

hate this guy

[soapyakships]

these hands are warm.......

[mummer]

rhaenyra outsourcing motherhood to rhaena and assigning her that passive feminine role was REALLY interesting….. rhaenyra as a character is at her most fascinating when she is forced to navigate and ultimately perpetuate the gendered structures she despises and wishes she could transcend— the seeds of her tragedy already sewn here. just great character work

[jewreallythinkthat]

Something I really don't understand is this obsession the anti-Israel crowd (in the West) have with death and martyrdom. All they care about is dying, and often killing for their cause; I see nothing about building a better future that isn't based on the murder of 9 million Israelis.

It's easy to die for a cause. The challenge is living to make a better tomorrow.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Lan Wangji might be an unstoppable force, but Xie Lian has 800+ years of practice of being an immovable object.

(poll results here for context)

[justaz]

arthur is immortal in the same way merlin is immortal, he can die but he bounces back after a while. merlin putting arthurs body on a boat and sending him out onto the lake but not burning him as he did to lancelot and freya. merlin disappearing off the face of the earth, unable to go back to camelot where every stone is carved with arthur's name, every room holds the faintest echo of his laughter, the shadows cast by the flickering flames of torches match each line and curve of arthur's body which merlin had memorized after years of dressing and undressing him, wandering and lingering hands that were just casual enough to pass off as platonic.

arthur crawling out of the lake the night after the morning merlin put him to rest, dazed, confused, and alive. arthur searches for merlin but can't find him. he's disappeared. gwen rules camelot as queen, she lifts the ban on magic, and rules fairly. arthur is content to leave his kingdom with her as he searches the land for merlin. he visits every place he and merlin every visited but he's nowhere to be found. time passes but arthur only grows more desperate. he's sure he's searched every inch of albion twice. no merlin.

enough time passes, everyone he's known has died and he looks exactly as he did when mordred drove his blade into his abdomen. arthur is forced to admit to himself that enough time has passed that merlin was bound to have died, leaving arthur all alone. immortal merlin is literally like chilling in ireland or some shit. but both immortal idiots are living in the same area and end up just missing each other. literally like end up holding the door to a coffee shop for one another but they don't meet each other's gazes bc they're busy mourning each other

[kymsys]

goodbye summer, hello frieren! 🍂✨

( print also available in my ko-fi )

[doroinoue]

[qiinamii]

"Xiao does things" (and friends) twitter log part 2

-- UPDATE: removed some of the arts to make its own individual post since I am bad at organizing, sorry! (but the last one is new lol) xD

[hinamie]

spiraling

[icewindandboringhorror]

On average, what is the total MONTHLY amount that you spend on dining out*?

*(This doesn't only count going out to restaurants, but also stuff like picking up fast food to bring home, getting a coffee on the way to work, getting a premade sandwich from a grocery store deli during lunch, buying a quick snack from a convenience store or food cart whilst walking somewhere, ordering a pizza or any other food to be delivered to your home, etc.)

*(If you often dine out in groups/as a household: calculate and divide the costs so that you get a Per Person average. This is for YOU individually, NOT the total household/group costs)

(I'm sure polls similar to this have been made before (very common topic), I just haven't personally seen one that I can remember, so, I was curious to do my own! I was discussing this with a group of people today and it was very interesting to see how widely the number varied between individuals. :0c )

(Reblog for bigger sample size if you can, and feel free to explain your answer in tags if there's anything extra to add!)

[hauntingofhouses]

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.