We all already know Mizu and Akemi are narrative foils. But you know what? Lemme just say it, here's what I think:
Taigen and Mikio are foils.
Not necessarily to each other as individuals in the way that Mizu and Akemi juxtapose each other, but mostly in the contrast between their relationships with Mizu.
I've covered specific parallels between Taigen and Mikio in other posts I wrote; but as the number of parallels I'm noticing between them keeps piling up, I'm compelled to just compile them all in one post. So! This is, thus, the post in question.
First of all, let's look at their similarities.
1. Their status in society is the same. They are both samurai who lost their honour and have dreams of reclaiming it.
2. They are also both diligent as they strive to achieve this goal, they both care deeply about their work, but here as they begin to contrast, as the work in question and way they go about their goals is different:
For Mikio, his work is in taming and rearing horses; in order to prove himself, he must tame Kai—a willful and strong horse—and present it to his lord.
For Taigen, his work is in sword fighting and martial arts; in order to prove himself, he must kill Mizu—a willful and strong swordsman—and present her dead body to his lord.
In the parallel above, not only are Taigen and Mikio contrasting each other, but Mizu and Kai are placed in comparison as well. And of course, Kai is Mizu's horse, and represents her. Which is why, when later, Mikio sells Kai off, it represents the way he is tossing Mizu (and their relationship) aside.
From there, the rest of the details of their character begin to contrast and juxtapose each other more clearly. So let's look at those differences, shall we?
Their backstory:
Mikio was a great samurai who was banished.
A somebody to a nobody.
Taigen was a fisherman’s son who rose to the top.
A nobody to a somebody.
2. The first time we meet them on-screen:
Mikio is an adult. An older man. Mizu's superior in age. He is Mizu's to-be husband. A love interest.
Taigen is a child. A young boy. Mizu's peer in age. He is Mizu's bully. An antagonist.
3. Their maturity and growth:
Mikio is mature, but stuck in his ways.
Taigen is immature, but capable of changing and learning.
4. Their overall attitude:
Mikio is generally relaxed, easy-going and unfussy.
Taigen is uptight, irritable and severe.
5. How they talk to and conduct themselves around Mizu:
Mikio is aloof, soft-spoken, and serious.
Taigen is obnoxious, brash, and sarcastic.
Mikio is quiet, speaking only when spoken to, even when Mizu turns to smile at him and shows openness to be near him.
Taigen is loud, talking while others are silent, even when Mizu turns from him and shows no interest in conversing with him.
Mikio doesn't show much of who he is to Mizu throughout their marriage, despite their growing affection.
Taigen openly shares his traumas and life story to Mizu during their brief alliance, despite their mutual antagonism.
6. Their external vs internal selves:
Mikio is calm, gentle, and considerate on the outside.
Taigen is hot-headed, rude, and selfish on the outside.
Mikio is cowardly and deceitful on the inside.
Taigen is brave and loyal to a fault on the inside.
Mikio tells Mizu that he wants to know and see all of her.
But he scorns and betrays her, the woman he loves.
Taigen tells Mizu that he wants to duel and kill him.
But he endures torture to not betray him, the man he hates.
9. Their hair, a symbol of their honour:
Mikio's topknot is untied by Mizu during their spar.
This humiliation occurs in private, the two of them alone in a rural location where no one can see them.
Taigen's topknot is cut off by Mizu during their duel.
This humiliation occurs in public, the two of them being watched by many others in the Shindo Dojo.
10. Their power dynamic with Mizu:
Mikio believes he is Mizu's mentor.
He teaches her to throw knives, how to ride and care for horses, and about the tactical benefits of using a naginata.
Taigen believes he is Mizu's equal.
He views Mizu as a samurai like himself who received all the same teachings he did, and who possesses the same values.
11. Their perceptions of Mizu:
Mikio sees Mizu's feminine side first.
He sees her as sweet and gentle, but also clumsy and incompetent.
Taigen sees Mizu's masculine side first.
He sees her as terrifying and deadly, but also strong and skilled.
12. The way they approach sparring with Mizu:
Mikio only spars with Mizu once. As the fight progresses and she is beating him, he tries to put a stop to it. When she teases/provokes him, he starts taking the fight personally and seriously, finding no enjoyment in it.
Taigen spars and brawls with Mizu all the time. No matter how many times Mizu beats him, he doesn't back down. When Mizu challenges him with a chopstick, he is eager to compete with her and gladly rises up to the challenge.
Mikio and Mizu's one and only spar is a friendly match; Mizu is smiling and having fun while he grows increasingly frustrated.
Taigen and Mizu's last-seen spar is a playful wrestling match; both him and Mizu are having fun and laughing.
Mikio cannot deal with Mizu being better than him, so he scorns her and walks off, avoiding her thereafter.
When Taigen cannot deal with Mizu being better than him, he follows her to observe her moves and continues training in hopes to eventually beat her.
After being bested by Mizu once, Mikio leaves her and sells the horse he'd previously gifted to her.
After many times losing to Mizu and fighting alongside her, Taigen commends her and admits she is better than him.
13. When Mizu pins them down in a friendly spar:
Mikio sees Mizu's whole face objectively.
Taigen stares at Mizu's mouth and eyes.
Mikio gets angry when she kisses him, throwing her off of him and snapping at her, calling her a monster.
Taigen gets aroused, apologising, so she pulls herself off of him.
14. Mizu's blue meteorite sword is a reflection of her soul. She believes most are undeserving to face it, let alone hold it. And on that note:
Mikio is the first person (chronologically) that Mizu fights against using her sword.
Taigen is the first person (we see on-screen) that Mizu fights against with her sword.
Mikio is the first person (chronologically) to ever hold her sword, as she passes it to him, letting him wield it.
Taigen is the first person (we see on-screen) to ever hold her sword, as she passes out, and he picks it up and carries it for her.
15. Then, last but not least, in Fowler's fortress, when she is drugged and in pain, she hears Ringo's voice in the dungeon. She then follows it to an open cell:
Mizu first sees Mikio as a hallucination, the sight of him haunting her and causing her to lose her grip on reality. Her eyes glow a surreal blue to represent this.
Her Mama appears then and says Mizu's name accusingly.
Mizu then sees Taigen, but he is real, the sight of him a relief and grounding her back to reality. Her eyes return to their normal blue colour to represent this.
Taigen looks at Mizu weakly and says her name softly.
Then, later, when facing Fowler, her revenge awaiting her, she instead chooses to follow her conscience (represented by Ringo's voice in her mind), putting aside her vengeance for a time, in order to save Taigen.
So that's basically all the ones I've noticed so far, but even then, I feel there's already so much that forms a contrast between these two.
What makes it especially incredible about these juxtapositions is that Mikio was Mizu's husband, the man she had fallen in love with, the one person she had ever been intimate with, the man who made her begin to accept herself, to put down her desire for vengeance and instead live a life of peace and happiness.
So for Taigen to have so many parallels with him... Do you see what I'm saying here!
Not to mention that Mizu clearly already has some burgeoning attraction to him, as indicated by how she thinks of him when asked about her desires. And Taigen clearly has shown interest as well (see: him getting a boner after their spar, him holding her hand and telling her, "We're not done yet.").
And on the topic of speculating future possibilities of this relationship, this post by @stromblessed has pointed out yet another parallel between Taigen and Mikio:
Mizu promises Taigen to meet him for their duel in autumn.
Mizu fell in love with Mikio and duelled him during autumn.
With all that said, I do believe Mizu and Taigen's relationship is definitely hurtling towards something. But whether they will actually end up together in a sustainable relationship and have a happily ever after? Well, that is a whole other story; we'll just have to wait and see.
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Spring is here , the true beginning of the year , the season where my soul reborns and blooms .
I have made some progress in terms of the person I am becoming, truly in all my honesty all that i have done is to stop caring for everything that once used to matter , the less I care about anything in particular the less I am bothered and the happier i stay. And i really hope everyone here is doing well and I appreciate all the love that was sent.
The problem is I care a lot about everything and i don't even get the bare minimum in return and when i do get it it's too late, so much time has passed by then ,when it comes by then i do not want or need it because it's the not care that came out of love it came out of their guilts. And the longer i wait for it to come by -the more I learn why I don't need it anymore .
I am slowly learning to value myself ,trying to put myself in a position where I can agree that i too deserve all the good things and love even on the days when i have nothing to offer .
Idk guys I am just here to rant and to be stupid
Better late than never they say , I guess it's not too late for me either, I will start my life and live up to what I want & how I feel ,i don't have to care about anything else as long as I feel alive in my bones things will eventually flow, I will fall in love with myself little by little day after day.
I will choose myself instead of choosing others and I will fall in love with my solitude instead of bearing it with me , i don't care if I end up alone if I do end up all by myself I will be with someone who i know has a tendency not to give up .
Life is really short i just don't want to sit and watch it pass by , if I am lucky enough I will have 40 more springs to experience , I have clear boundaries and thoughts in my head now, eventually i will find peace through it I hope so.
Ramdan kareem to people who celebrate it here please remember gaza in your prayers and fastings
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More king sabo au :) thinking about the changes to the sabo koala relationship…
So plot-wise, this is after the second reverie that Sabo ever attends, at the age of 22. This is also the reverie where a lot of shit goes down— the five elders kill king cobra, Vivi and Wapol go into hiding with Morgans, and the Revolutionary Army invades and successfully declares war on the Celestial Dragons, and retrieves Kuma.
In this AU, Sabo manages to befriend Vivi by talking about Luffy, and finds a way to hide and watch the confrontation between Cobra and the five elders + Imu, the way that Wapol did. But perhaps not quite as thoroughly, so he’s seen, and forced to hide, and cannot return to Goa. Unfortunately Cobra is not saved, as Sabo isn’t strong enough without his years of training as a Rev to even attempt to save Cobra. But Sabo manages to hitch a ride to Kamabakka with the Revs, most likely as a stowaway, and reveals to them as soon as they land about what he saw. Dragon agrees that it’s unsafe for him to return to Goa, and lets him stay with the Revs for the time being as he figures out what to do next.
Now during this time, Koala, soon to be promoted to Chief of Staff, meets him. But she is also incredibly angry at him, and takes it out through “friendly spars” that Sabo agrees to because he wants to get stronger. It’s through these spars that he eventually returns to being able to wield a pipe with proficiency, but the first few really are just him getting absolutely destroyed by Koala.
This all comes to a head at some point when Sabo asks why Koala always beats him down so thoroughly— so angrily— when they spar, and they end up getting into an argument over ideology during a spar. Koala asks, what reason does she have to not be angry at him? He, who became king to a country under some misguided notion that he could help people, who has been king for 5 years and yet has not been able to make any substantial changes to Goa that would help the people. What has Sabo achieved, beyond becoming one of the people that the Revolution seeks to overthrow? Did he have slaves at the castle? Did he ever try to free them?
The problem is that Sabo could have become a Revolutionary much much sooner. He could have asked, and the Revolutionary Army would have sent a small team or something to extract him—he was a strong child and he is still pretty strong, and his heart’s in the right place. But at some point Sabo fell into so many logical fallacies, that he was weak, that he was trapped, that even if he ran he would never escape his noble upbringing, that eventually he believed that the only way he could be useful was as an informant, and in the meantime, clung to and maybe even enjoyed the luxuries he could have as a young noble in Goa.
This verbal (and physical) beatdown from Koala is what eventually gets him to ask Dragon if he can become a Revolutionary. Dragon says that the Revolution has always had its arms open for him.
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𖤐 sing me a song, my songbird
pairing. robin x gn! reader
warnings. dom! reader, sub! robin, teasing, lap sex, fingering, robin being desperate, nipple play, slight biting but nothing too rough. written by a minor.
notes. first oneshot 😍 may b the last thing for a while, i’m out of ideas…
word count. 1.1k
you had always liked it when robin would sing arias for you when she was under your touch, just like hearing her velvety voice in her songs that everyone in the cosmos heard. but you—and only you—get to hear her voice like this alone.
she’s atop your lap, cold hands on either side of your face as she kisses you. her dress has already been stripped off of her, as well as any of her undergarments, only leaving her in nothing as she felt the tips of your fingers slide along her hips and waist ever so slightly, tongues dancing in both of your mouths.
you couldn’t help that purr you let out while you kiss robin, and she arches so eagerly into your touch, hands moving down from your face to your neck. and when you both pull back, a string of saliva connects between both of your tongue, panting heavily for breath after such a long kiss
her plush thighs straddle the sides of your own thighs, hands resting on your shoulders as you tease the inner of her thighs with the backs of your fingers, nails softly grazing the skin ever so slightly as you watched her whimper and squirm above you, a smirk painting across your face.
“s-stop teasing,” robin whimpers, her fingers clawing into your shoulders. “n-need your fingers inside me…”
“aw, poor girl,” your mock, your middle finger drawing a line along her exposed cunt, just to tease her. and when your finger grazes her puffy clit, she can’t help that whine that escapes from her. “i just wanna keep teasing you…”
when your hand moves in between her folds, the pads of your fingers move between her cunt but they didn’t even make it near the places where she needed you to be the most. robin’s desperation takes over her, and she grinds her hips onto your hand, trying to get something, anything, from you or your hand.
her cunt was just so silky smooth, like her voice, her skin—seeing the idol in such a state only blazed a fire through your body you never knew you could feel. robin’s slick coats your hand, cunt throbbing against you when you continue teasing her, moving your hand down to her entrance, but not sliding in yet.
robin was just too distracted on rutting her cunt against your hand and trying to get your fingers inside of her, she didn’t even notice that your fingers slipped inside her cunt, both of your middle and ring fingers at once, and she can’t help that gasp that escapes from her. you let her adjust to the burning feeling of your fingers inside of her, stroking her walls ever so slightly as she winces above you.
“please, please—“ robin whimpers, grinding down on your hand ever so slightly to try and get you to move.
“patience, princess.” you gently scold her, smirking while you brushed one of her soft white wings behind her ears with the backs of your fingers, enticing a soft whine from the idol above you.
once you believed she had gotten used to the feeling of your two fingers deep inside her, you start to thrust those fingers in and out of her, sinful squelching sounds and her pretty moans filling the room, letting your hand run along her thigh, her nails claw into your shoulders ever so slightly, whimpering when she feels you pepper kisses along her neck.
when the pads of your fingers drag along her sweet spot, she breathily moans out loud while you’re still peppering kisses at her neck, occasionally moving down to her collarbone. you cant help those quiet groans you let out when she lets out all her pretty sounds, shifting in pitch ever so slightly when you curiously ghost your thumb over her clit, rubbing it in small circles.
“more, please—“ robin gasps, but her words are only cut off when she feels you stop kissing her neck and start kissing around the areola of her nipple, not even putting your mouth on her nipple yet. your fingers don’t slow nor stop; rather they only pick up in pace when you tease her nipple.
robin winces when your warm tongue makes contact with her nipple, licking a stripe along the bud swiftly, before you wrap your lips around it, suckling at it, her nipple sky high with sensitivity as her moans and whines become more high pitched.
the way you’d suck at her nipple would only add on to her pleasure—every time you’d suck her nipple would only send sharp white hot jolts of pleasure through her body, holding your head closer and wings covering her face as she grinds down onto your hand, feeling the pleasure she was feeling grow more intense, and you both knew that she was getting close.
“oh!— m’ so close,” robin managed to whimper out, such desperation filling her voice as she feels your teeth graze her nipple slightly, only making her wince and grind more into you, too high in pleasure to properly establish a rhythm.
your movements alone told her that she was allowed to cum, and she didn’t even know she was chanting out your name repeatedly when her orgasm was building up, voice shifting in pitch and getting raspier while you tried to bring her to an orgasm to the best of your ability. her cunt flutters around your fingers, holding your head further toward her as your cheeks heat up under her.
this whole scene felt so intimate to you, the way she was holding your head closer to her bare tit while you suckled on her nipple, the way her wings brushed against your head while your fingers worked their magic inside of her, her orgasm building up sooner than you have ever imagined.
she knows how much you love her music, her sweet singing voice, and she loves it when you take control of her, trying to be as loud as she can so that you can hear her sing for you under your touch. you were more than happy to have her as your partner, and you wouldn’t trade it for the world.
when she cums, she cums so hard that she swore she saw stars. her thighs shake like a leaf when her orgasm takes over her, trying to work her through her orgasm to the best of your ability, aggressively sucking on her nipple while she uses her other hand to fondle herself, fingers pinching her nipple as she releases herself all over your fingers.
robin thought that her orgasm would go on for years, if not forever, but it eventually came to a halt, riding her high off your fingers and wriggling away from the overstimulation. when she finishes, you move your mouth off of her tit, a string of saliva connecting to your tongue and her nipple while you drag your fingers out of her, enticing a final moan from the idol.
this was a concert to remember, and you know her voice will be stuck in your head for many weeks to come.
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