#rather out of character for me

[she-posts-nerdy-stuff]

Flicked back through my a-level copy of Frankenstein recently - shoutout to 16 year old me for the only annotations in the entire section where Victor made the Creature being ‘plosives’ ‘imago dei’ and ‘ironic, he’s sexist’. I stand by all of those statements.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

You're just not toxic enough.

[mari-lair]

AU where everyone except Siffrin gets stuck in a time loop.

inspired by this lovely art

[teratomatica]

you always land on all fours

[yaolmao]

simp

[sea-webs]

"I don't know who I want to be, anymore."

Oc - Cirque | The Dragon Chosen by the Shadows |

| mary oliver / franz wright / chelsea dingman / mary oliver / sue zhao / can't find :( / can't find :( / i am a dog. i have blood all over my teeth. - sciencedfiction / little weirds - jenny slate / the unabridged journals of sylvia |

[katabay]

fifteen men on a dead man's chest, it's time for: pirates!

there's an idea here, and the idea is slowly turning into a story, and in march I've got some one shot comics about pirates I want to post! ideally, in march. hopefully in march. there's a lot of stuff to figure out, drawing wise. I spent an amount of time I won't mention researching the history of leg prosthetics & vintage leg prosthetic designs for basilica, and I haven't even figured out tall ships. which is. well. it's pirates, what are pirates without tall ships

[zaahvi]

emotionally repressed dalish assassin meets the evil god he's looked up to all his life, folds immediately

[the-mirror-sunflower-owo]

Bunch of Yarnaby drawings I made during lessons-

I'm trying to figure out my own way of drawing him... and The Doctor as well. I will definitely be back with more eventually! >:)

Oh yeah, also some silly stuff as a bonus

[sacchariferouspoet]

back on my bullshit —- why is it the reader that usually has the embarrassing misunderstanding? why not the character??

character misunderstands reader’s relationship status and starts acting kinda catty about it instead of cold and ghosting

character not realizing the reader was the royalty/popstar/ceo that they were badmouthing and getting that ice cold shock once they find out

character who is a hater of their classmate and finds out their sweet online friend is said classmate and starts getting acting nicer around classmate because if their online friend hated the real them they would crash out

can the other guy be a loser please and thank you

[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.

[sergle]

man, you know, nobody asked me, but I have such conflicting opinions on some of the fat falin art, where on one hand: it's always nice to see A Fat Body in fanart anywhere + it's being done in positive ways, for funsies and on the other hand, there is something so familiar about how you are automatically The Fat One if you are a woman simply standing next to a more petite woman, bc I've had a 0% hitrate in seeing people change Marcille's body type and keep Falin's, or change both of them. it's just Falin

[chawliekin]

and if I said that dennis’ insistence on being the breadwinner/provider despite literally being a pampered princess who dgaf about traditional roles of masculinity in every other regard (aside from ego) is because his mom only stayed with/chose frank for his wealth and dennis is highly aware that he’s difficult to love and unable to show his emotions openly so he has to be contributing something to the relationship materially in order to feel like he’s worth staying for… and mac grew up with parents who were extremely ambivalent to him and eachother so he has to overcompensate by proving his worth at every given moment and seeking praise/validation from people (and religious icons) who will never demonstrate the same amount of dedication to him but he has no idea how else to desperately keep himself close to those he loves other than by eroding himself into something they’ll approve of… dear god they’re both exactly what the other needs — someone who can’t and won’t leave them even if they try — and they don’t even see it…

[kelpermoosee]

Don’t stop dancing ‘til the curtain call!

[twig-tea]

Saw the director of Addicted Heroin Thailand had posted this on his Facebook account:

This man looked at the show that was the tipping point of the first big anti-gay censorship wave in China in the 2010s, and decided to remake it and intentionally self-censor, just to see if he could attract the "Chinese BL is superior because it doesn't rely on kisses or NC scenes to show the emotions" audience to Thai BL?

I am so mad about this.

[buildoblivion]

i think the reason why thunderbolts works so well is that the team is like 80% legacy heroes/ knock off avengers but they’re all old enough to remember when princess diana died