#london bound

[monstersandmaw]

Off to the big city (London) this afternoon to catch up with two guys I went to school with, and it's been a looooooooong time since I've been either on a train, or into the city, so it's gonna be... an experience. I'm not built for the city. Or the Tube. Ugh. People.

I'll take Skrik with me for support though :)

[jentrevellan]

Good morning!

[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."

[esteemed-excellency]

BYEE

[thegreatyin]

how is the scoundrel going currently anything going on in her life

currently? they're having a Delightful time being a side character in their roommate's nemesis-and-hijinks-filled journey through the neath. and also questioning why the hell this guy keeps collecting knives.

[apatheticallyromantic]

taigen definitely cums (and possibly overstimulates himself 🥰) when he eats mizu out-

❤️

I love headcanons where taigen gets off on pleasing his partner……… this man eats pussy like a man STARVED

He’s eager going down on Mizu, for once having the upper hand with her, getting more excited by the happy sounds he gets from her. And when she threads her fingers through his hair, pushes him down on her, holds him in place with her thighs, his hips buck forward looking for something to grind on— the floor, the edge of a raised surface— he feels release from the way Mizu uses him for her pleasure.

[princessanneftw]

Michael Palin appears alongside Princess Anne on a special episode of Aspel and Company dedicated to her in 1990

More here

[ghostbergara]

The hug ™ scribble

[urdeadbestfriend]

undefined

is it serious?

[birdylion]

Absolutely exhausted from the drive, but it's always beyond amazing to see a river go from something like this:

To something like this:

in the span of a day, or vice versa.

It's like "hello old friend, I know baby-you!!" / "keep going little one, you don't know it yet, but I know who you will become!"

[oatbugs]

oh my god ! haha . anyway a bit buzzed perhaps. anyway here's what happened on the date

[pernillecfcw]

Marching into the semi finals 💙💙

[persistentrain]

[gelatinouscute]

This is about the liveshow, but NO spoilers! (I wouldn't dare deprive you of the rush of going in blind).

As I am heading back to the airport I feel like I have to talk about yesterday to make sure it was actually real.

The liveshow was incredible! Of course the entire cast blew it out of the park! It was exciting, emotional, and a little fucked up. The perfect mix.

I haven't had or seen any unkind interaction at all, and at times we were squished like sardines y'all. I met some friend I have only seen a few times fate to face or never! And it was the absolute best.

I am feeling a little blue rn, but I know I'm probably just coming down from the high of yesterday. There have been many times during the past weeks and even days where I considered just not going because of my anxiety, but I am so glad I went. And I'm definitely doing it again if the opportunity presents itself.

[anabsoluteagathokakological]

You swore that you loved me but where were the clues? (you swore if I worked very hard now I'll see my dream results later forever)

I died on the altar waiting for the proof (then why am I burnt out now without them?)

You sacrificed us to the gods of your bluest days (why can't I feel better? Why is this happening?)

And I'm just getting color back into my face (now that i am trying to be normal about life things feel weird and i feel stupid)

I'm just mad as hell cause I loved this place (I loved to work hard. I did. I also loved myself. I did. Now...)

[birt-art]

I really miss the six months of my master's where I was working in the labs under the Natural History Museum that you could enter via secret doors behind the dinosaur exhibits