Wake Up Babe! @ninyard Posted Another Aftg Universe Tweet Series

thinking about the time I named my cat jean moreau in minecraft and then my friend accidentally hung him.

never getting over the fact that clarke thinks jasper died hating her, and he probably did.

You can’t tell me it wouldn’t happen

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:

this lyric but its edgar allan, usc, penn state, and then the foxes

my roman empire is that if clarke had gone back up to space in season 5 instead of echo, her and bellamy would’ve realised how in love they were and ended up together.

the reveal that mizu is not only the ronin but also the bride is so well executed. the way she walks the line between man and woman, white and japanese, victor and victim... it's good fucking writing.

Whenever I think of Camp Jupiter.. I just get so.. mad. Knowing that even after 11 years of Jason's sheer service, even after the fact that he dedicated his whole life to Rome at the age of 2, a ripe CHILD, a BABY, nobody even cared to look for him even 6 months after his disappearance..??

Nobody went "I miss Jason!" Like everyone did in Camp half blood for Percy, even the hunters of Artemis went out of their way to look for him. Jason's "friends" Dakota or Gwendolyn never spared a glance at his direction, his friendship with Reyna was fractured because of communication issues, etc.

Camp Jupiter was, realistically NOTHING without Jason (and Reyna duh) yet they have the audacity to neglect him.

And then they cheaply "made up" for it by giving him some grand state funeral. What's the point? His body was wrapped in an expensive silk, but his soul left that world feeling useless and unwanted. An expensive fancy funeral isnt going to change that.

His funeral was dark and empty, because not a single one of his Greek friends could make it.

Jason Grace was doomed to be chained to the clutches of the soulless camp of Rome till the very end. Like Michael Varus said "born a roman, die a roman"

Camp Jupiter was more or less a dystopian society covered up with beautiful architecture. Like shiny fake gold that wears off its glow.

Primarily hearing from Neil via the press in tgr really makes the og aftg trilogy make so much more sense because I think sometimes from Neil “unreliable narrator” josten’s pov he leads you to believe he’s like an innocent little lad just doing what must be done but when you see him from an outsider pov you’re like oh. Jean is actually right, this guy is kind of a cunty little gremlin freak who causes chaos wherever he goes