apatheticallyromantic

[apatheticallyromantic]

Taigen x Mizu mentioned in the The Making of Netflix’s “Blue Eye Samurai”

Taken from the livestream organised by Gnomon

Jane Wu:

Next slide, Taigen...

Brian Kesinger:

Everyone's favourite samurai, uh, Taigen. Uh, so, he was designed a bit over the top. The, the, peak of male samurai, even down to the quite prodigious hair bun, which he doesn't have on screen for much. Uh, but, um, he is the visual opposite of Mizu, right, so it was fun to kinda let her design dictate what his design should be, and, you know, I think that, you know, especially for all you Taigen x Mizu fans out there, I think that might be one of the reasons why he's attracted to her. Um, or in my brain, he's attracted to her, uh, is because she is who she wants to be, and doesn't have to put on airs. Uh, and that's a lesson that he has to learn and he literally, I mean, it's on the nose but, he lets his hair down. And that's the start of his journey of discovery, um, which he needs to go. He's, he's got a lot of growing still left to do. Um—

Jane Wu:

I also think he has a, has a talent—he has like a... sword crush on her right, he has like a martial arts crush on her, yeah. Talent crush, yeah.

Brian Kesinger:

Right, yeah. Talent crush. Yes. Yes, for sure.

---

For context, Jane Wu is Blue Eye Samurai's supervising director and Producer, while Brian Kesinger is the lead character designer. Others presenting for this livestream were production designer Toby Wilson and art director Emil Mitev.

#im ripping my hair off they are insane for this

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I thought the roughhousing one needed a lil sequel!

😏

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Blood sticks, sweat drips Break the lock if it don't fit A kick in the teeth is good for some A kiss with a fist is better than none

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wait what do you mean a red string of fate ties us together but all we do is strangle each other with it. what do you mean this string can only stretch and tangle but never break and yet we keep biting and gnawing on it to try to free ourselves from it anyway.

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white people are something else, add as many marginalized intersecting identities as you'd like and they'd still find a way to underpin all that with racism.

if you think that a certain behavior, a certain prejudice, a certain violence is inherent to a whole collective of people rather than a symptom of broader systemic issues you are racist. that is that. you're a racist piece of shit

i am genuinely so fed up with white gays and their revolting homonationalism. and the usual response to them also irritates me, because most of the time people aren't even addressing the main issue with their thought process. saying that trans and gay people exist in palestine or that solidarity is not transactional is all well and good, but why aren't you directly shutting down the implication that palestinians, and more generally arabs and muslims are inherently homophobic, transphobic, regressive barbarians? say it like it fucking is. homophobia, transphobia and misogyny are huge issues in the middle east and north africa, just like they are everywhere else. they're not woven into our fucking DNA why are you even entertaining the thought that that is the case? and these issues are only further exacerbated by us intervention destabilizing the whole region for the interest of the us empire and their western allies. last i checked palestinians don't even have the right to freely travel on their own land, visit family members they've been forcibly separated from by apartheid walls and laws, but gay rights is definitely the pressing issue here, not that they can be expelled from their homes by batshit insane settlers at gunpoint with the glee and approval of the IDF.

"ah yes, the homophobic palestinian 16 year old being tortured in israeli prisons is Bad, he should be educating himself about stonewall in the dingy jail cell he's thrown in."

do you fucking hear yourselves.

and, for the record, homosexuality isn't outlawed in the west bank, thanks to endless advocacy by queer palestinians. while racist white gays do fuck all but tut-tut at people of color all day. eat shit and die

#exactly my discomfort with these types of posts #ty for articulating it !!

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I’ve seen a lot of people wonder if Taigen’s gonna pull a Li Shang from Mulan once he finds out about Mizu’s Secret™️ but I mean. This man’s internal logic is already so damn weird, this might as well happen, y’know??

Bonus:

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More Actor/Hollywood BES AU

Thank you for the reception to the first set, I and my fellow conspirators BES nutjobs fans have more for you!

Ringo’s ‘hands’ are actually prosthesis, unbeknownst to his fans. This is what they see when he is actually playing a concert. He takes them off when shooting for the series. His portrayal is true to his disability. (courtesy of @kaladinkholins ) It’s a shocker when they discover he has no hands. Mikio is one of those amazing singer actors. Like he would be hella famous and getting roles in musicals/movies with songs. (Which is like every movie-) Then like a news publisher like tmz releases the fact Mizu and him was married and they released the divorce papers somehow to hurt Mizu’s career (from @doughnutshi )

Mizu’s actress had been a child actor/Disney sitcom type and this is her first like adult role (by @apatheticallyromantic ) Mizu was one of those who started as a ten year old in a sitcom. She disappeared for a few years to 'find herself’ and returned as an ass-kicking hero. The pegging scene with Fowler was one of the longest repetitive takes they did because Ise’s actress kept laughing while ducked behind the counter. She had a hard time seeing through the mask and would accidentally poke Fowler’s actor where she wasn’t supposed to (he was wearing shorts the whole time and was such a good sport about it). Takayoshi’s star used to be the lead singer in the hottest boyband in town. He turned to acting after they disbanded. When he shaved his hair for the role, his army of fans just about died.

Sword Father Eiji is legally blind and this helps with his portrayal. He usually orients himself prior to any shoot. He brings to set his guide dog, a black labrador named Boba. (@lillyblogsmizu)

The actress playing Kinuyo is the lead singer of a punk band. She is almost unrecognizable without her signature smeared mascara, powder white face and black lipstick. She has amazing, screeching, four octave vocals.

On downtime, the actors would hang out and jam. Takayoshi and Kinuyo would take turns singing or have duets, with Ringo providing guitar. Mizu sometimes joins in with her drums. 

Heiji Shindo’s actor is a known method actor and absolute prankster. He likes leaving gag gifts for the actors. His favorite target of shenanigans is Madam Kaji and Daichi Tokonobu as they all used to star in the same sitcom.

MORE BES HOLLYWOOD AU HERE

#omfg boba……. #also takayoshis fan base dying is so funny to me L #LMFAOO #they’re so real for that

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i don't think people really understand what's happening in gaza. with each passing day that sees more and more palestinians dead, it's becoming easier and easier for those in the west to perceive them as nothing more than a statistic. they might engage w the occasional palestine post, sure, but it's just as easy to scroll right past that moments later w no real outrage for the genocide retained.

it's vital to stay reminded that palestinians who are with us today won't be with us tomorrow. it's happening every second of every minute of every hour, and it's relentless. somewhere in gaza a little girl is losing her mother, a little boy is watching his siblings bleed to death, elderly people are infirm with starvation and illness, palestinian women and girls are being sexually assaulted and kept in cages, fathers are leaving tents to find food for their families and not coming back. this is all happening right now, and it's a direct result of the west's complacency. it's a direct result of their not seeing arabs as people worth saving.

it might be hard to compute as a westerner, but this is real. don't let your privilege blind you to your humanity.

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Some painting sketches of mizu!

Also yall my comms are open, starts at like 10$ for painting sketches like these, just dm to book one!

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I LOVE THIS SCENCE SO MUCH😭

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Abortion Clinic Employee Shares How Some Pro-Life Women Act When They Come In As Customers

I am not surprised that anti-choice zealots would hypocritically obtain abortions, but I am thoroughly fucking shocked that they wouldn’t even attempt to hide their anti-choice views when doing so. 

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taizu doodles 👍

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In all this discussion over gender, and gender roles in Blue Eye Samurai I haven't really seen a lot of talk about Seki.

Who is really such a fascinating example. This is a man, a capable man, and warrior (despite what he says), who turned away from that life because he recognized an ability to wield feminine power. As a mother. That's right, mother. He is clearly a parental figure to Akemi, but all characters who acknowledge it acknowledge it as a motherly role, not fatherly. And he wields it expertly. Raising a daughter by his ideals, capable of becoming a ruler by his ideals. All while maintaining a high level of skill as a traditionally masculine warrior.

He really is a balance between the masculine and feminine worlds, much like Mizu. Perhaps even, a hopeful foreshadowing of what Mizu could become one day.

On a meta level for all the stories that play lip service to "feminine power" they're always too happy to let a female character experiment with masculine power, but rarely let a male character experiment with feminine power. It's what makes so called "feminine power" feel second best no matter how much the stories try to SAY it's not. To have a more traditionally masculine male character willingly give up masculine power for feminine power is a very refreshing and uncommon twist.

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The real answer for me is everything— but for this poll I chose repressed sexuality.

I feel like this isn’t a concept that is explored very well in much of the media I consume, and it’s an awkward and uncomfortable topic I resonate with a lot. For Mizu, her repressed sexuality comes up often in the story; it’s not a one-off comment, and though it is not necessarily driving specific plot elements forward, we see that it is set up as something she must eventually face and contend with to develop her character and be able to accept herself, ugly parts and all.

As the audience we infer that her repression goes hand in hand with her trust issue, and to me it seems that these two things feed into one another. Over time, we can also surmise that her gender identity/presentation has affected how her repressed sexuality manifests. In the brothel scene with Madame Kaji, Mizu sees a male samurai engaging in a threesome, and she thinks of Taigen. This is a fascinating scene, not only because it is a clear indication of her repressed desires, but of the fact that she likely desires to engage in sex in a masculine role rather than a feminine one (or perhaps both). (What that means in the context of the show I am not sure, maybe that she wants to take a more dominant or active role, or perhaps be addressed or treated as a man even during sex?)

I am not nearly skilled enough to do a coherent in-depth analysis of this but these are just my two cents <3

I'm curious to understand the fandom's perception of Mizu. I wish I could create a more comprehensive list, but this is what I came up with in a few minutes.

#am i projecting my own experiences and biases with sexual repression into mizu #mayhaps #rambles

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everybody quiet the girls are bonding 💖💕

this one took so many repaints that i had to split it over two days 😭 i need to paint faster

#LORD….. #I’m gnawing at my computer rn #they’re so…. GOD #BARK BSRK BARK

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everybody quiet the girls are bonding 💖💕

this one took so many repaints that i had to split it over two days 😭 i need to paint faster

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Lisa Frankenstein memes, because this is my personality now. What a great, goofy, morally bankrupt time.