#im only kind joking

[hockeyandhrsepwr]

this has to be my new favourite fact about Boldy. are you kidding me😂

#Boldy if you see this I also love ice cream & make it for my summer job 👀 just saying #Its pretty fucking good ice cream if I do say so myself #come to BC & ill show you #im only kind joking #matt boldy #minnesota wild #ntdp boys #trevor zegras #cole caufield #alex newhook #hockey shit #NHL

[willbyerssupremacist]

#im only kind of joking #jk i love you mike wheeler #mike wheeler is not straight #mike wheeler i know what you are #stranger things #will byers #mike wheeler #stranger things 4 #byler #will the wise #byler tumblr #byler season 4 #byler endgame #byler canon #byler memes #mike wheeler hate club #max mayfield #jim hopper #jim hopper mike wheeler #jonathan byers #mike wheeler meme #mikeophobia

[stromblessed]

Mizu's spectacles, and the levels of her disguise

In drafting some more Blue Eye Samurai meta posts, I find myself writing out the comparisons between what Mizu can and cannot hide about herself, and how that affects how she moves through the world.

Like, I get the jokes about Mizu's glasses, if only color contacts had existed back then, etc. etc., and I think (hope) that most viewers don't take the glasses jokes seriously, as in "I don't care about the suspension of disbelief because BES is a cartoon." But I wanted to write these thoughts out anyway without burying them in a text post about something else.

I think the points I'm going to lay out here are viewed very differently by different people, so please feel free to add to this post, reply, or put your thoughts in the tags!

Not only do Mizu's glasses not actually help her that much, there's surely more to Mizu's mixed race appearance than just the color of her eyes.

In my view, this was pointed out in episode 1:

I'm willing to bet most of us were expecting young Taigen to say "blue eyes," not "ROUND eyes."

Obviously this is still about Mizu's eyes, but not even spectacles can hide their shape.

I don't think the show is obligated to point out everything about Mizu's face that isn't quite as Japanese as the people around her expect. Though the creators have said that they specifically designed Mizu - and her clothes - to read both as "white" and as "Japanese," as well as both male and female. I think there's more about Mizu's features that read as "white" than just her eyes.

This is where my own headcanons start entering the picture, but it's my impression that people can just tell that Mizu looks different, whether or not they can put a finger on exactly how.

There's the little girl who looks at Mizu and then hides on the way into Kyoto:

When there's more to your face you'd like to cover up than just your eyes, big hats are a big help!

By the way, most of these examples have to come from the first half of the season, since by the second half, either Mizu is too preoccupied with fighting henchmen, or everyone Mizu is facing knows who she is already, and she therefore has no reason to hide her mixed race identity.

It's worth mentioning that the mere fact that Mizu has to hide multiple aspects of her identity - her mixed race and her sex - results in her having to choose clothes that really, really cover her up, which doesn't win her any favors either:

(Zatoichi reference, anyone?)

If it were as easy as, for example, tying her glasses to her head and wa-lah, nobody would ever know she was half-white - then (1) Mizu would've just done that long ago, and (2) Mizu wouldn't be so on guard and on tenterhooks 100% of the time the way she's depicted in the show, even when her glasses are on.

Her spectacles sure don't help her in the brothel, which is full of observant women who are trying to seduce her, meaning they get good long looks at her:

Mizu never takes her glasses off, but they still send a woman to her who has light eyes, thinking that must be what will interest a blue-eyed man:

No wonder Mizu gets mad after this, lol

So Mizu never takes her spectacles off in the brothel, it's dimly lit inside, and the women can still tell that she has blue eyes. I'm getting the sense that Mizu putting on her spectacles isn't a guarantee that people suddenly can't tell that she looks different.

And yet no one spots that she's female.

Mizu can hide her breasts, can wear her hair in the right style, can hide what's between her legs, can walk and talk and behave like a man - and she's been doing it for almost her entire life, to the point that not only is she very good at it, but the threat of being found out as female is deadly, but isn't presented in the show as omnipresent.

Let me explain.

She threatens Ringo for nearly saying the word "girl" out loud, because while she's constantly ostracized for being mixed race, being a woman traveling without a chaperone, carrying a sword, and disguised as a man will get her killed or flogged or arrested or some combination of these things.

But in addition, it's been drilled into her since she was a child that if she is discovered as female, the combination of her being mixed race and female will identify her as someone extremely specific, someone known to some bad people, and she will be killed:

I think of it as Mizu thinking to herself, "Being found out as mixed race means I'm treated badly. Being found out as mixed race and a woman means I'm dead."

Mizu's hair is cut as a child. But she isn't made to wear a big hat, or cover her eyes somehow, or anything like that. Because hiding her sex is a more successful endeavor than hiding her race.

Ringo finds out she's female by accident, but once Mizu accepts the fact that he won't rat her out, she relaxes pretty early on in the season. Because the threat of being found out as female is mitigated pretty much 99.9%, since Mizu has gotten so good at being a man. And also, because most of the time, people see what they want to see. Even if Mizu's face makes her stand out as "not 100% Japanese," no one in the world of BES looks at Mizu's clothes, her bearing, her sword, hears her voice, and will ever in a million years conclude that she is a woman, because expectations around gender roles in the Edo period were so rigid and so widely enforced.

One detail that proved this to me is after the Four Fangs fight:

Ringo takes off Mizu's clothes so he can stitch her up, then leaves her clothes off even after he's done. He doesn't even throw her cloak over her as a blanket or anything. There's a little a straw (pallet?) as a divider there on the left, but anyone could just peek around it and see Mizu and her chest bindings. (I think it's mostly there as a windbreaker.)

And Taigen is right there, but he doesn't give a shit:

Opinions probably vary hugely on this, but my impression is that because the show doesn't make any kind of deal about Taigen being in the room with Mizu here, my guess is that Mizu isn't in any danger of Taigen thinking she's female. Even when I watched the show for the first time, I assumed that Taigen had seen Mizu out of her clothes here, and that he thought nothing of it.

Eat your heart out, Li Shang (Mulan 1998). I actually do think that this scene is a direct and purposeful side-eye to that movie, lol

There's obviously some nuance to how "severe" being mixed race is compared to how "severe" being a woman is for Mizu:

After all, Swordfather can't bear to listen to Mizu confess to being a woman.

So a Japanese man can go wherever he wants, whenever he wants in BES. A Japanese woman has limited options: marriage, religion, or a brothel. A mixed-race man is an eyesore in this story. A mixed-race woman is a death sentence.

May as well eliminate the female aspect, and do what you can about the mixed-race aspect. Because that's just realistic.

Meaning Mizu can avoid the strictures Edo society places on women. But she can't avoid the repercussions that come with being mixed race. And I truly don't think that it's just because "there's no brown contacts yet."

#blue eye samurai #mizu #racism #bes #I am truly disappointed that we didnt get absolute confirmation that Taigen saw Mizus bound chest and just didnt think it was a big deal #but I still think that scene is making a point #again I dont think most people take the glasses jokes seriously #but its been bothering me ever since I first saw them #I really dont think Mizu just looks like a 100 percent Japanese person...... with blue eyes #and I bet that will be made even more obvious when she goes to London where Im sure she will meet plenty of people #who are more than happy to point out their observations to her #also I ran out of room in this post to go into it but this is also what made Mizus marriage an absolutely doomed prospect #Mikio talks about wanting to find the right creature for his lord and well... a mixed race woman is the right creature huh #he just needed a little push imo #getting kind of sad at the thought that Ringo is the only person in Mizus life who knows her whole identity AND accepts it wholly

[tangledinink]

my official campaign promise is that if wanderer wins their poll in the @tmntaucompetition then i'll drive to @vangh17a's house to personally shake their hand and give them a crisp high-five.

#this is only kind of a joke #in the sense that. like. i will not show up at vanes house. against their will. #but also did you guys know that i know vanes sibling irl like... entirely through coincidence #completely separate of ninja turtles #and then we figured it out down the line and i said :0000 #so for this reason im obligated to campaign for them u w u #also as much as i love the besties yall dont need my help anyway <3 #tmnt au competition #propaganda

[sapphorror]

You know, I think there was a real moment of clarity achieved here with the revelation that he's the thing most likely to get in his own way. That's like, the most self-awareness he's shown over the entire course of IZ canon, I'm almost proud. It's too bad about the brain damage, but,

#invader zim #zim #iz posting #natterings #saph reads #im half joking here but also not #there IS something kind of brilliant in zim realizing hes at his most competent when not given a moment to think #sidenote one of my all time favorite zim fics has him broken out of delusion through extended white room torture #and at this point i think its just canon to me that the greatest weapon against zims psychological defenses is sensory deprivation #i mean it makes SENSE #zim is in a near constant state of state of motion and hes smart enough that simply not thinking too hard about things #is his only recourse for handling certain obvious truths #so what happens when you take everything away and leave him alone to drown in himself for weeks and weeks

[hanzajesthanza]

andrzej sapkowski in the witcher presents his reader with many curious and refreshing takes on the fantasy genre, such as "what if dragons were good" and "what if elves were incels"

#i joke it's more like what if the ethereal being had angsty mournful man feelings #that he has feelings but can't work through them because #overemotionality is considered base and human so he's basically been bottling all of this for centuries #the elbow-high diaries #plus that his only purpose was really to be with lara and now she's gone and so what does that make him #i'm not getting all MRA lmaoooo what i'm saying is that there needs to be two to make a baby so he was one-half of that #and destiny didn't work out as planned so ... this is all that's left #reading ch 5 of lotl for the first time: THIS IS SO MESSED UP WHAT THEY ARE DOING TO CIRI!!! #reading ch 5 of lotl again and again: my god EVERYONE here is so messed up and SAD. well except eredin #eredin is like cool im gonna go fight a unicorn #'what are you talking about he wanted to kill auberon?' but not in a very intelligent way he was like to ciri 'so you wanna... kill him?' #imo book eredin is kind of a meathead and it's kind of refreshing with all these 4D chess players around

[kicktwine]

little weirdo beast mode

#ch’ari (oc) #ffxiv #my art #zenos yae galvus #im having illustration ideas again. You know like some kind of artist? #I’m not entirely happy w it but I’m not able 2 work on it anymore… it looks better small I think #WOOH ok looking like sitting down and taking rest days and taking extra special care of my hand Works tho. Which is GOOD #stormblood #did I - not to wimpily explain my symbolism but wolf zenos hare wol #PLEASE say ‘gains’ in your head with the most gravelly serious Zenos voice. Like Egg. #the second image is referenced from a bnha manga cover! And the therapist joke is… somewhere? I tried to find the post again but can only #find a tweet that is not as popular as I swear the post was

[mitskijamie]

They can be poly without roykeeley 💁‍♀️ jamie is their boo thang

My ideal throuple arrangement is Roy and Keeley handing Jamie off in the AFC Richmond parking lot like divorced parents

#ask #roy/jamie/keeley #im only kind of joking lol

[olealoa]

if it makes you freaky morty truthers feel any better, in the poster morty has “blood” on his cut shirt, and we see them in a similar pose in the actual episode (it’s also in the last episode but whatever) with no blood on him. if you need a refresher, evil morty is the one who actual got shot and actually has that shirt and injury, not prime Morty.

#rick and morty #evil morty #rnm #morty smith #rick and morty spoilers #morty prime #morty #morty c137 #rick sanchez #freaky mortys theory #im kind of worried about evil morty #it’s played off as a joke but he gots shot at ALOT #like a worrying amount #like the only way he’s been attacked whether it works or not is by a gun

[definitelynotshouting]

the hashtag about the life series making you anxious while its ongoing is so real btw

OKAY! so my friend and i have been talking about the scarian dynamics in the life series for a while and while a lot of it REALLY hurts me (i have a very weak angst heart) ive discovered some aspects about this current dynamic that im absolutely chewing on.

SO! In limited life there was a family dynamic where Scar was the son of Cleo and Etho, and i can still see that playing out in secret life! Allow me to explain:

In the most recent episode Scar had to do the opposite of what everyone told him to do, so when grian asked him if he wanted to team, his response was very weird and "avoid"ey. Grian brought up MULTIPLE TIME in his video how "scar got really weird about teaming with me" (which to me totally reads as Grian overthinking the situation and thinking Scar doesnt like him anymore)

So anyway, Grian asks to use the enchanter and Scar says that Etho has it and he trusts Etho with it because "Etho is honest". Grian goes to Etho and Cleo and asks to use the enchanter only to find out that its NOT scar's enchanter. Etho says something along the lines of "well I dont know why Scar thinks hes in charge of our enchanter but yes we do have one" which TOTALLY sounded to me like a parent who's adult child feels a sense of entitlement to things they share with their parents (Ex. an adult child calling their parent's car theirs even though they share it).

Etho lets Grian use the enchanter and starts asking him how he's been and if hes been making any friends and the WHOLE interaction between Grian, Cleo, and Etho feels like parents trying to make conversation with their son's ex or something

AND THEN CLEO AND ETHO TELL GRIAN THEY HAVE MORE THAN ENOUGH SPACE IN THEIR HOUSE AND THAT HE CAN STAY WITH THEM IF HE WANTS BECAUSE HES TALKING ABOUT HOW HES ALL ALONE AND HE HATES WHERE HES LIVING AND AND AND AAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Grian also brings up how he asked to be friends with Scar and "he got really strange about it.." and Etho went "yep that sounds about right" and Cleo agreed- WHICH SOUNDS LIKE PARENTS BEING LIKE "oh we know our son still loves his ex and everytime he talks about their interactions its awkward" LIKE THEY KNOW THAT ITS SO AWKWARD BETWEEN GRIAN AND SCAR AND THEYRE AAAAAAAAH

anyway the whole interaction to me seems like Scar's parents trying to welcome Grian back into their lives as part of the family in the hopes of setting the two of them up again because they love them both and can see how silly theyre being with all this miscommunication

do you hear me screaming

-Binge Reader

WOXNWKDNWKDNEKDNKWJDKEK WHEEEEEEEZE oh my gods i heard some stuff abt the scarian interactions this last episode and that grian teamed up with cletho but AKBDWKDNKADKSK THATS SO FUNNY HELP,,,,,,, "that sounds about right" ETHO WHAT ARE YOU TELLINGG USSSSSSSS ‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️ /SILLY

This is hysterical thank u for telling me abt whats going on AKDNQKSNWKSJDBWKS gods,,,,, i cant wait to hear abt what happens next week this is insane

#shouting speaks #asks #scarian #secret life #secret life spoilers #i dont personally subscribe to the family dynamic thing from limlife (if only bc im very familiar with that kind of joke-- #-- like srsly so many of my friends call me ''mom'' or ''dad'' or some variation WHEEEZE) #but this is such a funny interpretation of it im obsessed. cletho voice can u PLEASE get together with our son again #hes too much of a loose canon without you #[scarian gets back together and becomes TWO loose canons] NEVERMIND WE TAKE IT BACK #/SILLY #your honor theyre like a stick of live dynamite #to Me #txt

[pbnmj]

Genuinely curious, what’s up with Noir’s age? And what does it have to do with his 08/09 run? ((You may ignore if you wish :D))

i no longer have to do an extremely long explaination about comics noir because it has already been done here, by foolsocracy!!!!!!! really great breakdown of his very vague age, which is never said outright in the 08-09 run, only implied!! my own personal take on this is that he's 17-turning-18 in the first one, just about graduated high school but not able to afford college (see the panel below LOL)

this also got a little longer than i thought it would, so under the cut for the rest of it! the tl:dr is "itsv!noir is not the same as comics!noir, and people saying that he's 19 isn't strictly true. to me, he's around 30!"

eyes without a face (the 09 run!!) only takes place 8 months after, in september 1933, which makes peter 18-turning-19. this is more of a headcanon though!! (see the noir birthday poll, which made me a noir-is-a-december-baby truther)

(peter being a libra is mentioned once in the first issue of amazing spider-man (2015), mostly as a punchline, and a specific date of october 10th was given in another issue that i have lost. other media, like with the mcu, has his birthday on august 10th. but to me noir is a sagittarius and you cannot pry that from me)

the 2020 run of noir begins establishing the year as 1939, making peter around his mid-20s, and 25 if you believe me on the 'peter was 17 in noir 2008' LOL.... i won't lie though i haven't read this one properly i very quickly skimmed so pinch of salt regarding my takes on the 2020 run

noir being in his teens during the first original runs is why "itsv!noir is 17-19" goes around so often! i've seen that on tumblr, twitter AND on tiktok and i don't mind what people hc, but it has become a pet peeve when people say it like its canon even though it's never been mentioned by the writers or the art book. itsv!noir is similar to his comic counterpart, but his differences in his origin story make me interpret him as a different noir (like how peter b.'s dimension is 616B, making him... 90214B?)

again, we are straying from itsv canon/etc here because i'm deranged, but i personally hc noir as being 32! some of my friends think he's in his mid-20s, others think he's older, but really the only reason is that 32 is the midpoint between the other two peter parkers: ripeter was 26 and peter b is 38. he's also voiced by nic cage, which makes me think older in the first place!

i just like the idea that he's more experienced that ripeter, but hasn't gone through as much as peter b. he spends most of the movie being broody ("moral ambiguity of your actions!", "matches burn down to my fingertips", etc etc), or snarkier than you'd expect ("it's that easy" "who are you again?" "you gonna fight or are you just bumping gums" etc etc). he also very sweetly tells everyone that he loves them before he leaves !!! i feel like it can in fact be in character for a peter parker in his late 20-early 30s, distanced from his tragedies in his own world by time (he doesn't forget them, that's different !) being able to look out for the spiders around him.

okay now we are VERY deep into hc territory, but it makes him able to balance out the rest of the itsv spider-gang as an older-brother figure who's able to guide peni, miles and gwen but also be able to act as a voice of reason for peter b. and ham if the sitauation calls for it. that being said noir is still peter parker and is therefore capable of spider-esque tomfoolery, which can lead to him misjudging the need for a snarky one liner ("this is a pretty hard core origin story"). my characterisation of him is also very inspired by heyitsspiderman, the itsv fic that changed me for the better, and noir isn't even in it that much LOL

veering back into itsv!noir's age and your actual question though: he's always read older in the movies, and not at all 17-19. noir is always going to be around 30 (32 if i have to give a number) to me!! if anything, he did go through the same kind of 'canon events' as comics noir did, but is an older and more experienced version of him, with tweaks to the backstory (like a radioactive spider instead of a spider-god, and webshooters instead of organic webbing). there are reasons ofc to see him being younger (egg creams are non-alcoholic, and that if it's 1933, his comicsverse self would be 18-19 too) . however you must consider that sony didn't expand on this and therefore it's up to fan interpretation and also that

#this kind of turns into meta . sort of . sorry about that #and i know some people take those jokes noir makes as like. just very blunt observations of what is happening #i personally believe they are jokes that aren't landing. or just him being a bit annoying <3 i love him for this #i can talk forever and forever about movie noir. its how i got into him in the first place . picked me up and swept me away #and now i overthink and read too much into his like. 6 mins of screentime #also the rich beautiful itsv noir backstory that exists only in my mind..... which is mostly the same #just with small tweaks and adjustments. its MY SIDE CHARACTER and I GET TO CHOOSE THE HCS #eg. the insane 'peter quits working at the bugle very annoyingly for everyone involved before becoming a PI' like this shit just #swirls in my brain. forever and ever. #noir #answered #edit: sorry im just realising this is boiling down to itsv noir is freshly out of his 20s #therefore experiencing post 20s clarity and is not yet going through a peter b-like midlife crisis #and is not a teenager anymore and doesn't have to battle puberty as well as supervillians #so he's somehow doing a little better than the rest of them and able to pass on funny little tips and lifehacks

[bonefall]

where’s that little horror piece about kits never growing up in Starclan? because I remember it so vividly but I can’t find it.

The one about Bright Stream?

Weird that it's so hard to find! It's probably because it's got such heavy tags lmao.

I really mean it though like, canon's permakitten system and the idea that Bright Stream is up there, forever taking care of fetus children who were filled by sudden knowledge and yet never grow past that point absolutely horrifies me. Jesus Christ. I don't know how anyone reads that final scene in Path of Stars and isn't filled with itching, white-hot existential dread, man.

Sometimes you just gotta write horror about it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

#partner and i were joking the other day about how like #they are the one known as The Horror Blogger and im the funny cat guy #because it's literally the opposite irl. you have NO idea #They are the one who is squeamish and I am the one that is like #only scared if there's 17 different kinds of existential horror #Which tbf is important in my line of work #But let me tell YOU. One thing that gets me every time? Fucked up afterlives #Probably from all the religious trauma but. Still. #''turns out your whole life is actually teetering on the precipice of a steep drop into the jaws of unknowable gods-- #and their concept of omnibenevolent and omnimalevolent are self-defined'' #''in death your life only has meaning to those still living and yet you're conscious to experience it'' #''you will helplessly watch people you thought loved YOU reduce your memory into how you SERVED them'' #''Powerless to stop it you will find that you were only valued as a tool in someone else's life'' #''There is no peace in death just being tired and uncomfortable forever'' #EURGH #It's why my most feared monsters are actually ghosts and vampires and certain zombies #Because it's not really about the monster it's more about what that monster implies for the afterlife #Certain zombies especially. ngl. Night of the livin dead 2 has the scariest ones ever #Intelligent. Violent. Able to FEEL themselves rotting and the only relief is to consume everything you ever loved #BRR #they did eat a bunch of cops tho so... at least they have that going for them #BONES MCRAMBLES IN THE TAGS #bone babble

[floweyyyyyy]

yet another day of wondering about this line. hey k_k. what do you mean. what do you mean by that.

#THEIR VISION SHOULDN’T BE OBSCURED BY A GAME FUNCTION WHY CAN THEY SEE IT #i don’t CARE if it’s probably a joke SHSJS #deltarune k k #scc deltarune #sweet cap'n cakes #deltarune analysis #kind of. I’m just pointing it out bc i think about it a lot. i need to know im not the only one

[sandinmybed]

some of yall are incapable of simply saying you dislike something. you have to dress it up in social justice language and make it into a Moral Issue rather than just owning and acknowledging that it's not your taste even though other people like it. which is fine btw.

#also you can make literally anything into a Moral Argument if you try hard enough that doesnt mean its actually relevant to do so #this is how we end up with those fucking twitter threads that are like #joking op: dni if you like pineapple pizza! #insane ppl; uh what about those of us who can ONLY eat pineapple pizza? i have trauma with other types of pizza. #you get what i mean? #this isnt about anything in particular or any one fandom im just annoyed #althoooo #oomf told me someone was bitching about cowboy byler and im like okay! cool! let other people have fun! #thats kind of a separate thing but its related ig. bc again why do you need to moan about it instead of just muting it or something. #idk who it was btw so if this is an accidental indirect at you Oops but like. its not the end of the world if other people are enjoying an #au that you dont. #text

[standfucker]

Jotaro: In many species of fish, sex is fluid.

Reader: Well, duh. They’re underwater.

Jotaro: (long-suffering sigh while Reader and Kakyoin high five)

#jjba imagines #jojo imagines #jotaro x reader #kakyoin x reader #this is an everyone lives nobody dies au because its the only way I can cope with part 3 asjfdsjgkdf #I thought of this joke by myself im kind of proud of it because its extra fucking stupid

[soracities]

i'm always so amused by how eloquent you are. how do you do that?

i think Too Much™️ and also i have not shut up a day in my life since i was 2 years old <3

#im joking. kind of. but its only in writing bc in person i do not utter a single coherent sentence ever #i can give u a fabulously verbose answer to smth if you give me 3-5 business days to write a response but call me on the phone and i WILL b #floundering for 5 mins straight god bless the patience of my friends <3 #ask #anonymous