#death nothe | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

stromblessed · 5 months

Text

Mizu, femininity, and fallen sparrows

In my last post about Mizu and Akemi, I feel like I came across as overly critical of Mizu given that Mizu is a woman who - in her own words - has to live as a man in order to go down the path of revenge.

If she is ever discovered to be female by the wrong person, she will not only be unable to complete her quest, but there's a good chance that she'll be arrested or killed.

So it makes complete sense for Mizu to distance herself as much as possible from any behavior that she feels like would make someone question her sex.

I felt so indignant toward Mizu on my first couple watchthroughs for this moment. Why couldn't Mizu bribe the woman and her child's way into the city too? If Mizu is presenting as a man, couldn't she claim to be the woman's escort?

However, this moment makes things pretty clear. Mizu knows all too well the plight of women in her society. She knows it so well that she cannot risk ever finding herself back in their position again. She helps in what little way she can - without drawing attention to herself.

Mizu is not a hero and she is not one to make of herself a martyr - she will not set herself on fire to keep others warm. There's room to argue that Mizu shouldn't prioritize her quest over people's lives, but given the collateral damage Mizu can live with in almost every episode of season 1, Mizu is simply not operating under that kind of morality at this point. ("You don't know what I've done to reach you," Mizu tells Fowler.)

And while I still feel like Mizu has an obvious and established blind spot when it comes to Akemi because of their differences in station, such that Mizu's judgment of Akemi and actions in episode 5 are the result of prejudice rather than the result of Mizu's caution, I also want to establish that Mizu is just as caged as Akemi is, despite her technically having more freedom while living as a man.

Mizu can hide her mixed race identity some of the time, and she can hide her sex almost all of the time, but being able to operate outside of her society's strict rules for women does not mean she cannot see their plight.

It does not mean she doesn't hurt for them.

Back to Mizu and collateral damage, remember that sparrow?

While Mizu is breaking into Boss Hamata's manse, she gets startled by a bird and kills it on reflex. She then cradles it in her hands - much more tenderly than we've seen Mizu treat almost anything up to this point in the season:

She then puts it in its nest, with its unhatched eggs. Almost like she's trying to make the death look natural. Or like an accident.

You see where I'm going with this.

When Mizu kills Kinuyo, Mizu lingers in the moment, holding the body tenderly:

And btw a lot of stuff about this show hit me hard, but this remains the biggest gut punch of them all for me, Mizu holding that poor girl's body close, GOD

When Mizu arranges the "scene of the crime," Kinuyo's body is delicate, birdlike. And Mizu is so shaken afterward that she gets sloppy. She's horrified at this kill to the point that she can't bring herself to take another innocent life - the boy who rats her out.

MIZU'S ONE MOMENT OF SOFTNESS AND MERCY, COMING ON THE HEELS OF HER NEEDING TO KILL A GIRL TO SPARE HER THE WORST FATE THAT THIS RIGID SOCIETY HAS TO OFFER WOMEN, AND TO SPARE A BROTHEL FULL OF INNOCENT WOMEN WHO ARE THE CASTOFFS OF SOCIETY, NEARLY RESULTS IN ALL OF THEIR DEATHS

No wonder Mizu is as stoic and cold as she is.

And no wonder Mizu has no patience for Akemi whatsoever right before the terrible reveal and the fight breaks out:

Speaking of Akemi - guess who else is compared to a bird!

The plumage is more colorful, a bit flashier. But a bird is a bird.

And, uh

Yeah.

I like to think that Mizu killing the sparrow is not only foreshadowing for what she must do to Kinuyo, but is also a representation of the choice she makes on Akemi's behalf. She decides to cage the bird because she believes the bird is "better off." Better off caged than... dead.

But because Mizu doesn't know Akemi or her situation, she of course doesn't realize that the bird is fated to die if it is caged and sent back home.

Mizu is clearly not happy, or pleased, or satisfied by allowing Akemi to be dragged back to her father:

But softness and mercy haven't gotten Mizu anywhere good, recently.

There is so much tragedy layered into Mizu's character, and it includes the things she has to witness and the choices she makes - or believes she has to make - involving women, when she herself can skirt around a lot of what her society throws at women. Although, I do believe that it comes at the cost of a part of Mizu's soul.

After all, I'm gonna be haunted for the rest of this show by Mizu's very first prayer in episode 1:

"LET" her die. Because as Ringo points out, she doesn't "know how" to die.

Kind of like another bird in this show:

#blue eye samurai #mizu #akemi #kinuyo #bes #women are birds okay they are BIRDS #the let me die line is so SCARY AND SAD like a part of Mizu wants death but she cant? she doesnt know how?? excuse you show???#when all these other delicate birds are dying all around her #akemis character gets more and more gutwrenching upon subsequent rewatches because whenever she says her life is in danger #NO ONE BELIEVES HER - certainly not other women #because shes rich and pampered and that means shes safe and is worrying about nothing right? right?????#and it turns out that all of akemis instincts were right and she was in danger the ENTIRE TIME #also I need to make a post just for kinuyo because I am sad

10K notes · View notes

indigoire · 7 months

Text

Okay but on a serious note Con O'Neill ate in these first few episodes and left no fucking crumbs. Last season we ended on deranged Izzy; now we have an Izzy realizing how toxic things can really get and WISHING he could go back to the days when he was the only proper pirate among muppets. And he's TRYING so damn hard and it would be so easy to play that in a cheesy or insincere manner, but we have Con O'Neill swinging for the fences, crying, begging for death, disheveled, trying to undo everything he did to get us all in this mess and failing and looking both miserable and delighted in his misery because he's getting what he thinks he deserves.

And YET we also get the subtle tear in the eye when Stede finds out what they really did to Ed. Like. You can feel how utterly heartbroken the man is just from a glimmer in the corner of his eye.

Love Izzy, hate Izzy, it really doesn't matter, not when he's played so magnificently by Con, and I salute him for everything he's doing in this campy gay pirate show.

#ofmd #he really did that and I have nothing but respect #'he's a dick but he's our dick' and I would not have it any other way #ofmd spoilers #ofmd s2 #ofmd s2 spoilers #our flag means death #Izzy Hands #Con O'Neill

11K notes · View notes

raggedy-spaceman · 7 months

Text

Spare a thought for Con O'Neill who, for months, went to comic cons and had to listen to people telling him how important Izzy is to them, how they see themselves in him and how, if something bad happened to Izzy, they would be absolutely devastated. Man deserves an award.

#ofmd #ofmd 2 #ofmd spoilers #our flag means death #our flag means death 2 #our flag means death spoilers #ofmd s2 #our flag means death s2 #izzy hands #con o'neill #poor guy #he could do nothing but nod politely KNOWING #how did he do it #mine

9K notes · View notes

spikeplate · 2 months

Text

pov : sun found the photograph

@spadillelicious hehehe i think ur sun would be a mighty big fan of the Disco Inferno

(song is “more more more” by Andrea True Connection)

#rip moon #yes this is from the rise of gru hshkfje #shut up i had a vision #and nothing brings me more joy than sun in rollerskates #love death and rollerskates #others au #sillies #dca fandom #fnaf daycare attendant #fnaf dca #fnaf sun #fnaf moon

5K notes · View notes

gay-impressionist · 11 months

Text

france is burning.

667 people were arrested last night. they are curfews in place. public transport is partially closed at night.

nahel, a 17-year-old, was shot tuesday by the police during a traffic stop. he wasn't violent or armed, he wasn't a threat. but he broke the law and tried to drive away, so the cops killed him.

and now france is rioting.

there is a video so the government isn't trying to deny the facts for once. but the minister of the interior (in charge of the police) still insist that the police shot less people since the 2017 law on public safety.

but an analysis of police statistics by Le Monde, the most read newspaper in france, says otherwise. when the police shot on average 250 people each year in the five years prior to 2017, that number became 297 after 2017. for shots fired specifically on moving vehicles, the average used to be 119 and it's now 150. before 2017, there was an average of 0.06 deaths per shot. now it's 0.32.

more than ever, the police shoots to kill.

so france is burning.

#i wanted to write something small because there's nothing on tumblr #but it became longer and longer #i didn't add pictures bc it always seems voyeuristic to me. this isn't click bait. i'm not here to exploit the pain and the anger in any way #but a kid died and hundreds people are being arrested and tumblr doesn't say a word #upthebaguette #whatthefrance #acab #tw death #tw police brutality #france things

7K notes · View notes

sems-diarie · 8 months

Text

death is insane. wdym i’ll never see my grandmother again

#she’s in her chair in the den cant nobody tell me nothing ok #death tw #grief #what’s this house without my grandmother in it? (all the people she left behind)#i cried this morning while eating grits she taught my mother how to make. love is so big when i think of it like that #i thought i heard her walker clack in the hallway last night.#she wears glasses & we have to decide where to keep them #grief is so strange #i can’t keep crying by myself (i’ll be crying for the rest of my life)#love is carrying on. i think.

6K notes · View notes

bizarrelittlemew · 7 months

Text

Stede facing the crew after finding out about their (attempted) murder of Ed

#ofmd #ofmd s2 #ofmd s2 spoilers #our flag means death #ofmdedit #ofmdsource #ofmd gifs #ida.stuff #ofmd 2x3 #stede bonnet #izzy hands #rhys how fucking dare you this devastated me #experiencing shrimp emotions about this #it's like he can see how they felt they had no other choice #but he has nothing to say to them #just that fucking look containing a mix of emotions i can't convey via text

4K notes · View notes

izzy-hands · 7 months

Photo

Our Flag Means Death + Text Posts [1/?] feat. Izzy

4K notes · View notes

4ft10tvlandfangirl · 4 months

Text

Had to share this one because brother did God's work answering a question I know many of us had; how many times was KHamas mentioned today? 😅 Interestingly, I thought the number would be higher.

#hamzah saadah #south africa vs israel #international court of justice #gaza #free gaza #palestine #free palestine #endisraelsgenocide #gaza genocide #nothing excuses genocide #current events #social justice #justice for palestine #tw child death #war crimes #crimes against humanity #ethnic cleansing

3K notes · View notes

c-hrona · 1 year

Text

Fear

Super self-indulgent little comic about fears and reassurances.

Lil bonus :3

#vashwood #trigun #trigun maximum #vash the stampede #nicholas d. wolfwood #there's nothing s/exual here #i just hc ww to sleep in the n/ude because he's a drama queen and drama queens sleep without shirts on #vash on the contrary is a good boy and puts his sweat shirt on while sleeping u_u #also fun fact: i showed the first two pages to my friend for a style feedback #i told them that it was a super fluff self-indulgent comic #---> first two pages: death and nightmares #let's just say that they were not impressed #ALSO SORRY FOR THE MESS WITH THE REUPLOADSFJGFJGJDFJGO #chronart

6K notes · View notes

jewreallythinkthat · 2 months

Text

Something I really don't understand is this obsession the anti-Israel crowd (in the West) have with death and martyrdom. All they care about is dying, and often killing for their cause; I see nothing about building a better future that isn't based on the murder of 9 million Israelis.

It's easy to die for a cause. The challenge is living to make a better tomorrow.

#jumblr #antisemitism #i/p #killing yourself and others does nothing to promote peace. frankly killing others is just terrorism in this scenario #if you want peace then you should be workng with jews and israelis #deal with antisemitism islamophobia and the rot in the knesset to move towards a two state solution #anything other than a two state solution is discrimination and death #dying for your cause is not cute or progressive. its lazy because you didnt want to put in the effort to do real work moving forwards #jews are 0.2 of the worlds population. if you refuse to engage with them you are the problem #majority voice doesnt mean correct. it just means loud #if your voice is leading to people killing themselves then you need to take a long hard look in a mirror

1K notes · View notes

cemeterything · 5 months

Text

"how did the guy with no friends win" is fucking me up because. that's the point. that's the truth that lies at the centre of the life series. if you want to win, you can't let yourself get too attached to anyone, because you'll just have to kill them anyway. that's the pact that was made in the very first season in a bloody circle on the sand. you can't bring anyone with you, not unless you want to look in their eyes and see the betrayal - or, perhaps worse, understanding - there when you kill them. nobody wins the life series with friends. nobody wins the life series.

#🐉#YOUR WORST SIN IS THAT YOU HAVE DESTROYED AND BETRAYED YOURSELF FOR NOTHING!!!#god. i havent posted about this in nearly a year but the themes of grief and futility have reignited my passion for minecraft death game #secret life #secret life spoilers

3K notes · View notes

julicity · 1 year

Text