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yeyinde · 2 years

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okay wait now we need a second version where the reader does leave with ghost and he walks her home and he's all shitty about the drunk flirting and she's like "bruh it was just flirting, if you would make a move i wouldn't need to make you jealous" 😌

ask and you shall (eventually) receive~ 🖤

i hope you enjoy this!!

"What? He's been keekin' you all night." There is a divot between his brow. When he turns his head, the fairy lights behind make his stubble look darker. "Yer aff yer heid!" Soap’s Version

It's all words.

Thin, hollow: they're empty ones bereft of meaning. They roll over you—a gale rocking you from side to side until you're dizzy with that awful little thing that clings to your pericardium, refusing to relent.

Hope.

Yearning (in English this time, if only just for him).

It clots there, taking root until you're a little queasy. A little unwell. The alcohol, perhaps, or—

He sits by Laswell, head angled down to murmur low in her ear about things that shouldn't matter right now when everyone is alive, and safe, and back together. But of course they do. They always do.

You wonder if they ever rest. If they ever take a moment's reprieve from the endless death and carnage that bulldozes your life until it's in shambles. Until the only thing that remains is broken chunks that reek of smoke and petrol.

It feels impossible.

He hasn't looked up once, despite whatever nonsense Soap might be on about. Untouchable. A chasm.

Ghost is a shoreless island in the distance. Rocky and steep.

Sometimes, if you stand on the furthest point of the beach, you can almost see the land peeking out from under the sea. Hazy. Shrouded. It sits amid the crashing waves, out of reach from everyone.

Soap pulls you back in, a few clipped words shared back and forth, and everything else melts away. This is easy.

This, being: drunk on expensive scotch (thank you, Captain Price; and oh no, thank you, I don't don't want a cigar) as you share snapped banter in a small pub. Vacant, of course, save for the six of you, and the barkeep. A man who offers little more than a nod at you when you mutter about the washroom, and swats at Price when he comes for peanuts and pretzels.

It's easy to pretend, you think, that the honeycomb eyes, a bashful grin, and hands that feel like the sun are what you want.

Easy, and yet—

You wonder if he's had anything to drink.

(You wonder if he'd keep his gloves on while he held you—)

You snap something at Soap, something you hope is witty and charming, and maybe if you play your cards right, you won't end up alone in a foreign land tonight. That, maybe, he'll let you close your eyes, and pretend—

It's ground out, raked through coals. "Soldier."

He makes you dizzy. Makes you want, yearn, makes you—

It falls into nothing, until your head is full of him: blood hell, Christ—

Never said I wasn't.

It feels like more of a reprimand than anything else he'd tossed your way thus far. A warning, maybe. Don't get too close. You know what you're in for.

Don't make him into the fairytale he isn't.

"And you, soldier?"

You're drunk. Too drunk. Head gummy and full of sin.

"Should leave," you say, casting a glance toward the mosaic window. A cross hangs in the distance. An augury. "Maybe go to church."

"Aye, lass. Think someone ought to get you home. Lt?"

You pull the last swallows in your cup before Soap has the chance to take it away from you. Liquid courage, you think, wilting under a black stare. A looming, uncharted island in the distance.

"C'mon," he says, words a shade away from being a command. "Haven't got all night."

You don't point out that it's nearly three in the morning—devil's hour in the company of a ghost—and wisely hold your tongue when Soap leans down, whispering: you can spend the night with me, hen.

"We're leaving." A growl, now.

It jars you. His voice is unlike anything else you've ever heard: gravel and ash; gunfire booming in the distance. It sits low, like the words are dragged up from the depths of his chest, and sounds like smouldering embers.

Your hands shake around the glass. It knocks against the wooden counter when you set it down, a hair too hard. You're crumbling. Slipping into waters that have no bottom. Rough, frothing. The white foam clogs your throat, drenches in you until you're weighed down, and sinking fast.

In over your head. No way out. The island is too far away.

His eyes are sharper than you've ever seen them. A yawning abyss. You wonder if something would snap at the tips of your fingers if you got too close.

Soap brows sit arched on his forehead, mouth thinning into a small line. "Alright, bonnie?"

"Gonna go home," you smile, tired. Wobbly. "Gotta get some sleep. Maybe next time, though."

Ghost's stare has never felt so heavy.

You stumble out of the pub behind him, pointedly ignoring the glance Gaz sends in your direction—the phone in your pocket already buzzing with texts that will make you whimper in the morning (saw you with Lt, mate. What the fuck? I mean what the bloody fuck?). This is normal, you think. Everyday. Mundane. Saturated in the ordinary.

Except—

Sometimes, your life doesn't make any sense. How you can go from coldly planning a man's—mens—murder to walking down the wet streets of Glasgow, head full of your Lieutenant.

The church peaks in the distance. The light spills, bathes it in yellow. The tolling bells call you an idiot.

Your head drops, eyes skirting toward the indomitable man beside you. Idiot, indeed. You can't help yourself, though. He's a magnet. A beacon.

A current sweeping you out to sea.

He says nothing. Hands tucked into the pockets of his black jacket, hood pulled down low. Those haunting eyes roam the corners, surveying the alcoves: always ready, always on-guard.

It's a stifling thing, this silence. Oppressive. Crushing.

Your throat itches with the urge to shatter it, to break it down until there is nothing left of it. Where it can't echo inside your chest like the brutal burn of rejection, and doesn't make your mind reel, an endless spiral of why and how and—

What can you do differently to make it a reality?

No man is untouchable. Not really. There had to be others in his life. A man like Ghost—

It's just impossible, isn't it?

Does he go to a brothel when the urge wells? A pub? Does he have dalliances with other agents he'd met in the field? Ones with battle scars, the taste of gunfire on their breath, and firm hands on their rifle? Is there someone already waiting at home for him, tucked inside a place no one else can reach them? The only inhabitant on an island in the middle of the sea.

What is his type?

And how can it be you?

Queries. Questions. They burn through you.

What if you just went for it? Is that what he likes? Someone who looks him in the eye, and says take me, I'm yours.

You open your mouth to ask, but are stopped in your tracks by the stare fixed on you. Breath caught in your throat. Lungs bereft of air. You splinter.

"S—sir…?"

"What?" It's harsh when it's ground out of his teeth. A snap.

"Are you angry?"

His eyes slide down to you, lidded and heavy. "Negative."

You huff. "Lying to me, now?"

"I've been called many things, Rookie, but a liar isn't one of them."

The grit in his voice makes you tremble. Makes a heat spume inside of you, not unlike the scotch from earlier.

Or—

Maybe it is the scotch. Your head is a slurry; a mess. The world around is shrouded in a sheen, a gloss, that makes the lights smear, and the cobblestone below quake under your feet.

"Are you—" jealous feels too strange in conjunction with Ghost. To the man who, as close as he is beside you, has never felt further away. Stupid Soap and his stupid words.

"Am I what?"

You mull it over. Let the word sit between your incisors to gauge the fit of it. It doesn't quite fit when you roll it around. Doesn't belong together.

(Like him, you.)

You stifle it.

He makes a noise, impatience, perhaps, and the word leaks into their terse air between you before you snap your jowls shut.

"Jealous?"

His eyes slide to you again. The whites glow under the street lamps. "Jealous?"

You feel a little silly. A little stupid. You blame it on the scotch. On Soap, and his keekin' you—

But—

You feel the words pool on your tongue, but you can't stop them from trembling out.

"I could have went home with Soap—"

"Why didn't you?"

It stings. The rejection hurts something fierce, but it's swallowed down.

(In for a penny…)

"You pulled me away. I could have been fucking him right now, and instead I'm wandering around Glasgow—"

Tonight feels as good as any to get your heart wrecked. Loose lips sink ships, after all.

"You might be fucking him, pet," his voice is a snarl, a feathered growl. "But you'd be thinking of me."

It punches into you, and makes you gasp, aloud; the sound echoing over the wet brick surrounding you. Your feet stutter when it's ground out, left to rot in the air. You jerk your head up to look at him, eyes wide. Heart-hammering in your chest.

He stops, too, hands now hanging by his sides, curled into loose fists. His chin is tipped down, liquid eyes boring into you.

You—

You've never seen a sight more damning. One more ready-made for ruin.

He makes you feel a low grade fever burning in your veins. Stupid, intoxicated.

You don't know where to go from here. Thinking of me. He's right. Of course, he is. It feels like a fractured mess when it tugs on the corner of your lip, a slowly unease smile. Distance, you think. You're an island far away from hurt.

Rejection. The brutality of his words—they can't reach your shores.

"And you'd be at home, getting thought of but not fucked." It's shakier than you'd wanted it to be, words a slow tremble. Then, a whisper: "You wouldn't even know."

"I would." He takes a step, another. His stare never wavers. "Just like I knew the first time you touched your little cunt to the thought of me. Couldn't look me in the eye for a week, pet."

"That's—"

It's true. You remember the time—all of them—and the realisation that he knows (he knows, he knows, he knows) burns into you. A knot of discomfort pools in your core.

There is embarrassment, of course there is. Shame, too.

But you're too drunk, too blootered, to think straight. Too raw, and cracked. You're a vanishing island. Water lapping at your inlands.

More hollow, thin words: "why did you take me out?"

"I gave you the option," he corrects, his voice is flat. It carries at the end, and leaves no room for any argument or protests.

It's true, after all.

You drop your chin, hands shaking. It's a bludgeon to your gut.

(How can it be you—?)

Stupid.

The false bravado quivers under his stare. A step backward flattens your spine to the wall of some long-closed Tandoori shop. The bricks are still wet from the rainshower that fell earlier. The cold dampness bleeds into your flesh. Goosebumps prickle.

More liquid courage, you think, hands balling into quivering fists by your side.

You lift your head. In for a penny, right?

No island is truly unreachable. No man, either.

All of this— something —with Ghost is drawn together into this single moment. The distance. The uneasy feeling on the nape of your neck when he's behind you. The want. He's been keekin' you all night. You look over and catch his stare. Feel it on your skin like a brand.

(Ready-made, always.)

It all has to mean something. It has to.

"Is that why you stare at me?"

His eyes are embers. The glow from the streetlights make him look like smouldering ash. Demonic. It thrills you.

"No, pet."

He leans in close, his body a shadow over yours. A tower. You can't see anything except the fill of him spreading out around you. Black. Endlessly so. Your perpetual night. The embers spark, blazing, when he bores into you. A wildfire in the distance. Atavistic fear brims.

Stay away from the fire and the being that can hurt.

His hand presses into the concrete beside your head. There is nowhere to run.

"I stare at you because I keep thinkin' about those little fingers trying to fuck yourself silly, and how desperate you must be knowin' it isn't enough."

You shiver—a whole body chill that has your teeth chattering together at the punctured words that drip, tainted with your demise, from his mouth.

The air in your lungs is noxious. It spumes inside until your knees quake, threatening to drop down into that unfathomable abyss that gapes below. The yawning maw of a man who wants nothing more than to sink his teeth into you until nothing remains. Rucked into the currents, it sends you careening out to sea until your fingers cling to the side of that untouchable island, begging for respite. Salvation.

It's a plea, a whimper: "you should have asked to take me home."

He offers none of it. His hand stretches out, and in the cup of his palm, he promises only ruin.

You shouldn't take it. Don't make him out to be the fairytale he isn't.

But the look he levels you with, ravenous hunger tucked inside the tenebrose of those spiralling depths, has you reaching out. A moth to a flame. The roar of the Styx in your head. You can't resist.

(You wouldn't even try.)

"I already am."

—Gaz regrets sending the text when he wakes up the next morning to a detailed commentary on all the ways his Lt absolutely ruined you

— he refuses to look either of you in the eye for weeks after

—this is completely irrelevant and feel free to roast me for it, but! my hc of a jealous!Ghost depends on where he's at in the relationship

—in the beginning: he doesn't trust, he does his job, and he's distant; but if he feels it, he'll close down. total distance. silence. he's mean about it, too. waspish. he'll try to push you away. cold hearted bastard to a T.

—but later?? oh, boy. that's when the Looming™️ starts. the, oh hey lemme go talk to that cutie over there - oh, wait. what the fuck that is that thing behind them and why does it look like it wants to eat me alive?! he's still mean, of course, but now he has a reason to snap. a reason to stand as close you as physically possible so everyone knows just who you belong to. and if he catches you flirting, i mean. rip, b. 🥹

#simon riley x you #simon riley x reader #simon ghost riley x reader #simon riley fanfic #simon ghost riley x you #requests #call of duty modern warfare #call of duty #simon riley cod #cod mw2 #cod fanfic #lord its me again #they caught me simpin

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stromblessed · 10 months

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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."

#blue eye samurai #mizu #racism #bes #I am truly disappointed that we didnt get absolute confirmation that Taigen saw Mizus bound chest and just didnt think it was a big deal #but I still think that scene is making a point #again I dont think most people take the glasses jokes seriously #but its been bothering me ever since I first saw them #I really dont think Mizu just looks like a 100 percent Japanese person...... with blue eyes #and I bet that will be made even more obvious when she goes to London where Im sure she will meet plenty of people #who are more than happy to point out their observations to her #also I ran out of room in this post to go into it but this is also what made Mizus marriage an absolutely doomed prospect #Mikio talks about wanting to find the right creature for his lord and well... a mixed race woman is the right creature huh #he just needed a little push imo #getting kind of sad at the thought that Ringo is the only person in Mizus life who knows her whole identity AND accepts it wholly

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