#third period is about to start

[nibbyzor]

Watching a FIN - SWE hockey game, home game for Sweden, and we are kicking their ass rn omg

[stromblessed]

Mizu was wrong to let Akemi be taken because they both deserve better

First, a confession. When I saw this for the first time:

I was relieved. I knew that was what Mizu was going to say and I felt like it's what I would have said in that situation too.

When Akemi does this:

I cringed, because if we know anything about Mizu, it's that she (1) isn't quick to make friends (though to be fair, even though Akemi did try to kill Mizu, so did Taigen - multiple times! - and look how that turned out lol), and (2) doesn't take orders.

So when Akemi and Ringo and later Taigen get angry at Mizu, are they being unfair?

Sure, Mizu isn't obligated to treat Akemi - or Taigen or Ringo or anybody else - nicely, or to serve them, or to be honorable, or be a hero to them, or whatever. No human being is obligated to any other human being. We all have the choice to do whatever we want to anybody else. But the point of flawed characters in storytelling is the tension between those characters and their potential. Their growth into someone who can choose the higher, harder path, who chooses to be obligated to others, who chooses kindness and compassion.

Because Mizu's problem isn't revenge. Nobody is preaching at Mizu that revenge isn't the answer. Her circumstances do suck, her life has been incredibly unfair, she is marginalized, and as far as we and Mizu know for most of the season, she is a child born of violence and no one is saying that that violence doesn't deserve to be repaid in kind.

Mizu's problem is isolation. And the fact that she thinks she has no responsibility toward her fellow human beings, because her hatred of her own circumstances and her having no life outside of her quest devours everything else. This is a problem because it turns Mizu into the worst version of herself. A version that hurts the people who like Mizu, the people who care about her.

Practically, Mizu has just taken on an entire army almost by herself. She's hurt. She's exhausted. If she were to defend Akemi now, it'd be yet ANOTHER fight, this time against horsed and armored samurai.

But that's not the reason Mizu gives Ringo. Mizu's ability or willingness to fight isn't even on her mind. All she says is, "She's better off."

"She's better off" is Mizu deciding what's best for Akemi. Akemi's entire story is about her being a caged bird longing to fly free.

One after the other, every man and woman in Akemi's life makes her decisions for her. She has to grovel and smile prettily and lie through her teeth just for the chance to be heard. Mizu judges Akemi for being a rich princess who isn't being more grateful for what she has, all without understanding Akemi's situation, and without any curiosity for why Akemi feels the way she does. From Akemi's perspective, Mizu is just one more person (one more man!) in a long lineup who ignores Akemi's wishes and (casually!) makes a decision for her that impacts Akemi's life greatly.

In the end, even Seki concludes that Akemi should get to decide what's best for Akemi. What others think that Akemi SHOULD want does not matter compared to what Akemi wants for her own life. As Madame Kaji said - Madame Kaji, who despite calling out the weirdness of Akemi's situation as well as the childishness of her decision to run away - is the only person Akemi meets who doesn't try to make decisions for Akemi, but instead only challenges Akemi to work for and be worthy of what she wants - she needs to decide what she wants for her own fucking self, and then take it.

Mizu being born female does not make her automatically wiser for letting Akemi be taken, and it does not preclude her from having a hand in giving Akemi back to her jailers. A patriarchy that Mizu knows full well would stop Mizu from achieving her own goals if she didn't present as male.

Mizu is still understandable here. She just had to kill Kinuyo, a disabled girl sold by her father into prostitution, a girl in a situation so far beyond Akemi's worst imaginings that I can practically feel Mizu's world being rocked just by comparing them in her mind the way she most likely is. That still doesn't make it right for Mizu to let Akemi be carried off to be sold into marriage by her father against her wishes. Those "good options" Mizu thinks Akemi has don't exist, no more than they ever existed for Mizu. Akemi and Mizu both have to get creative, make the best of their circumstances, take dangerous risks, and break rules in order to have any control over their own lives.

Even on my first watch, when at first I thought that Mizu had made the right decision and that Akemi was being unreasonable, Akemi screaming Mizu's name while being dragged, LITERALLY DRAGGED, back to her father was haunting as hell.

Mizu had the power to help Akemi, and simply chose not to.

Mizu lets Akemi be taken, Akemi who has just begun to trust Mizu. Mizu calls Ringo weak and quickly - seemingly easily - turns her back on him. Mizu values her quest over Taigen's life, after Taigen has endured days of torture to protect her, and she not only risks his life in the process, but doesn't tell him that Akemi is engaged to someone else, or that she came looking for Taigen, or that she is in danger.

Mizu's sword breaks because it is too brittle. Too pure. Too singleminded. Mizu only melts down the meteorite metal when she mixes the metal with objects from parts of her life that have nothing to do with her quest. Objects from the people she cares about, and who care about her.

All I'm saying is - Mizu doesn't have to be a hero. But she is the better version of herself when she reaches out to help and connect with others. When she's just a decent, kinder human being. And I think that's what this story is telling us that we should want for Mizu.

[mashmouths]

anyone have a spare lap i can lay my head in

[david-watts]

I love adding my leftover paint into my sketchbook it's so much fun and it adds texture which I find I like considering how differently I feel like I have been approaching art recently. and also it helps if I want to add markers to something because it hides the bleed-through, although I don't use my markers as much because of the aforementioned change in approach. however the problem is if I'm just going to glob paint down I need to do so when I don't intend on using the sketchbook because I just shot myself in the foot and I have to wait for it to dry

[rain-on-wax-feathers]

louise's friends throughout the years

[connormoving]

sry for posting so much im like introspective or something

[mattgoatfield]

me at the end of the first period: hey, we’re only one goal down right now, we can come back from this

me at the end of the second period:

[jarvy24]

my bio is living up to its name!!

[barbieyaga]

ok so MAYBE I need to make a doctor's appointment because my birth control is fucking with me literally whatever

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

good news and bad news.

good: did get in to see the doctor on friday, got some meds, attacking this shit from many angles, feeling much better already!

bad: feeling perhaps a little TOO better, considering it's 1AM and i'm fucken WIRED lmao

[fluffypurpleglitterdemon]

There really is an entire arc of flashback after the "Did Xie Lian stab his shitty cousin's stolen mortal body fatally or not" cliffhanger xD It's very important stuff being flashbacked to, and a lot of it so far is regarding Qi Rong and thus is relevant information for the present-day confrontation, but it's still so funny to me! Don't worry about whether Xie Lian is going to kill a random mortal in front of their kid because Qi Rong pushed him past his breaking point, it's now time to talk about what happened Eight Hundred Years Ago!

[karinyosa]

transtape changed textures again and now i must relearn to bind well with them sigh. if god wants me to be a visibly titted man so be it

[deathsmallcaps]

Archeologists can’t even tell if a skeleton has had a pregnancy if the fetus doesn’t stay past the third trimester. There’s changes happening to a pregnant person’s body, of course, but the zygote/fetus is so small and inconsequential, they won’t find bones. Parent lives matter more than fetuses.

[senatortedcruz]

My secret is that my wife was in an extremely bad period in her life when she entered into a contest for knitting supplies. She loved knitting as a teenager and wanted to get back into it as an adult, but felt like we couldn't afford it. She wouldn't buy anything, and wouldn't let me get anything for her because it would be "a waste of money." So when she got an email from a knitting newsletter she followed talking about the contest, she entered and won third place - a little basic kit that got her excited to start and started pulling her out of her dark place.

This is when you go "aha. You cheeky devil. Did you cheat slmehow? Is that your secret?" But no. My secret is, I faked it all. I created a fake knitting blog, and sent it to her as "something I found." I ran it for a few months talking about made up craft projects with photos off the internet and things. Then I faked the contest, sold some of my possessions to buy the "prize" and let her win. Six months later I stopped posting and she didn't even notice. She still talks about that prize she won as turning her life around, and she'll never know I invented the whole thing.

Now this is some real lover shit!!!

[sarahlancashire]

Absolutely write that fic! That sneak peek alone was so good!!

thank you <3

[hearty-an0n]

trying to sleep but i keep thinking about that one goal i put in my own net today. in a funny way. i angled my stick wrong and the puck went in my net instead of off to the side. i can’t stop giggling