#Thin Thing

[thekingofgear]

‘Read The Room’ Instrumental Notes

Jonny dramatically muting the strings of his late-70s natural finish Les Paul Standard during a performance of Read The Room in Cleveland on July 11, 2023 (Ryan J).

Verse

Read The Room starts with just a guitar through a single-repeat delay. Well, technically two guitars: the same guitar part is recorded twice, with one recording panned hard left and the other panned hard right. Each one has its own delay. Jonny almost certainly used his Boss DD200, given the clarity of the delay sound (a Space Echo would be too warm in the highs). If we count quarters at ~61.5bpm, we can hear that the delay time is set for a single quarter note.

There’s also medium overdrive and a flanging effect added to Jonny's guitar. The overdrive is probably Jonny's Boss SD1, which he's found a new affection for with The Smile (since 2007, he's used a Boss OD3 with Radiohead instead of his older SD1). The flanger is almost certainly from the EarthQuaker Devices Pyramids visible on Jonny’s board in studio photos.

At 0:09, Thom’s bass guitar enters. Based on live usage, he's probably playing his vintage, modified Gibson EB0. You can also see that bass in a photo from the the Wall of Eyes zine, which we included in our last post.

At 0:13, the drums enter, with Tom playing a stuttering pattern on the kick and snare, with occasional cymbals and open hihats for emphasis.

At 1:07, Jonny’s Sequential Prophet 5 REV4 adds a nice descending counter-melody (at least, it's probably the Prophet based on studio photos and similarity to the live tone). When the synth enters, Jonny switches to plucking muted strings on his guitar for a totally percussive sound, which leaves space for the synth to stand out. At live shows, he mutes the strings rather dramatically, sliding his hand up and down the fingerboard to vary the sound of the percussive plucks.

At 1:37-1:41 some slightly open hihats lead us to the next section...

A photo from Jonny's home studio in Oxford, showing his Sequential Prophet 5 REV4 nestled between a 1980s Sequential Prophet 600 and an Elektron Digitone Keys. This photo by Sam Petts-Davies was originally posted on the Smile's twitter on October 31, 2023, but was definitely taken much earlier since the band were on tour at that time.

Chorus

At 1:41, the song switches to a softer “chorus” section, and a center-panned acoustic guitar becomes the main rhythm instrument. However, Jonny’s left and right panned electric guitars keep playing, adding subtle swelled notes. He’s probably using the “freeze swell” trick he first used for the Skirting On The Surface outro solo — more info in this post. However, it’s hard to say for sure, given the amount of woodwinds in this section. Robert Stillman's clarinets and Pete Wareham's flutes enter more clearly at 1:53. They add a rich, undulating texture through to the end of the chorus at 2:08.

For most of the chorus, we only hear a gentle hihat pattern from Tom. But at 2:00, we first hear cymbals, then the kick and stuttering snare from the verse enter to lead us back out of the chorus.

A photo of Pete Wareham playing flute in Abbey Road Studio 2, from the Smile's Wall of Eyes zine. Wareham previously collaborated with Tom Skinner’s past band Sons Of Kemet.

Verse 2 and Chorus 2

At 2:08-2:11, the start of the next verse, we briefly hear the main riff on the single acoustic guitar from the chorus. Then Jonny's two hard-panned electric guitars return at ~2:11. This verse (2:11-2:40) mainly repeats the instrumentation from first verse, but with more cymbals and more intense vocal delay. However, we do get a left-panned clarinet playing the counter-melody at 2:25-2:36, replacing the synth from the first verse. We also hear some fun sliding noises — seemingly from a “delay time” knob being turned — at 2:26-2:30.

The second “chorus” (2:41-3:11) brings back the acoustic guitar, swelling electric guitars, woodwinds, and gentle hihats from the first chorus. The main difference is that the winds play a richer texture, and Jonny’s two electric guitars start to add spacier delayed notes at ~3:00 (possibly with his Boss RE-202 Space Echo pedal).

A photo of Jonny in the live room at Abbey Road Studio 2 from March or April of 2023 (Sam Petts-Davies). We can see his EHX Freeze, Boss SD1, Boss DD-200, and Boss RE-202 in the bottom row. His EQD Pyramids is at the end of the top row. For more info on his pedalboards, check out Jonny's page.

Coda

The coda begins at 3:12 with a right-panned single electric guitar from Jonny and a cymbal crash from Tom. Jonny plays a riff that initially feels pretty simple, until you notice that he keeps skipping eighth notes. There's a few ways to divide it up, but the full pattern is 22 eighth-notes long (two measures of 11/8, though it's easier to count as two measure of 6/4 with the last eighth note or each measure skipped, which also feels closer to the way the band play it).

Unlike the previous sections, this guitar has no delay or other effects. Instead of delay, Jonny’s riff makes use of open strings to give a fuller, multi-voice sound. On the studio recording, his B-string is detuned to an A for this section, allowing him to add an open “A” ringing over his riff. This is pretty notable, because the song’s main riff used an open B-string in standard tuning! At live shows, Jonny doesn’t bother with the high “A”, presumably because he has no time to detune the B-string or to switch guitars. So that's a little extra studio magic!

Jonny most likely played his late-70s natural finish Les Paul Standard for most or all of the studio recording. He's seen with other guitars in a few studio photos, but his tone on this track has a richness that's characteristic of his Les Paul through his Super Reverb — particularly his clean tone in the code.

The cymbal crash from the start of the coda slowly fades from 3:12-3:19. Then at 3:20, a couple of snare hits call in a new pattern of kick, snare, and closed hihat. The pattern is reminiscent of the "motorik" beat found in a lot of Krautrock, with a snare on 3. But the skipped eighths in the riff make the beat much more varied than in a traditional Krautrock track.

Thom adds a distorted bass guitar at 3:23, mirroring Jonny’s riff an octave below. He’s probably using his EarthQuaker Devices Plumes pedal for the added punch. In live footage, we can also see Thom and Jonny grab plectrums at the start of the coda. Thom may have been using the Plumes earlier in Read The Room, but the plectrum really emphasizes the punch.

When Thom’s vocal re-enters at 3:45, there’s a ton of vocal layers and reverb. The layers all seem to match the main vocal, so it might a dual delay setting from Thom’s Strymon DIG pedal, albeit with some heavier reverb added to the delays. At live shows played after the Abbey Road recording sessions, Thom had a drone from his Moog Matriach playing during this section, but it’s not present on the album.

At 4:05, Jonny adds a second electric guitar layer, panned hard-left and playing patterns with a new single-repeat delay. At live shows, he relied on Thom to keep the riff going. But on the studio recording, his right-panned riff guitar keeps playing too.

Tom brings back the cymbals in earnest from 4:13-4:48, bringing the song to its climax. Then, after a choirs of Thom say "everybody thinks so" at 4:48, the cymbals and vocals drop out (with a long vocal delay fade-out). The guitar, bass, and drums continue up until the track ends abruptly with another statement of "everybody thinks so".

In this shot, from the The Smile's show in Cleveland on July 11, 2023 (Ryan J), Jonny's tech can be seen tapping in a dotted-eighth delay during the start of the coda section. Jonny only uses the delay during the second half of the coda, but his delay time is different from the rest of the song, so it needs to be adjusted while he plays the initial coda riff. Thom can be seen with his vintage Gibson EB0.

#The Smile #Read the Room #Wall of Eyes #Tom Skinner #Thom Yorke #Jonny Greenwood #Skirting On The Surface #Staircase #Thin Thing #Present Tense

[frgmnthtr]

Thin Thing (2022)

#music #music video #new music #music videos #the smile #thin thing #thom yorke #jonny greenwood

[orpheusdrinkinga40inadeathbasket]

#the smile #thin thing #music #radiohead

[umblrspectrum]

hi heres art so you pay attention to me now go read the tags

#ive been rewatching episode 7 like its the only thing on youtube and made note of many things #first off. the solver can only have one host. nori mentions skyn wants to kill off all the other solver hosts (with the dds) and disregards #the idea of both uzi and doll being its current host when they get chased #plus the main solver possessions only occur when skyn is out of the picture (the fightt in ep 7 is only after n decapitates “tessa”) #solver uzi is possible too but i dont count her cause she doesn't have the yellow #personal theory is that its more an instinctual response to overheating or something and not full on possession #second off nori calls the solver cyn. how does she know that name #cyn was on earth and only showed up to copper 9 recently and i presume nori's been here her whole life #it probably wasn't the other dds cause none of them made it down and they're all more savage beasts #since cyn specifies n's team retained their personalities and that makes me think the other teams didnt #also also we should've immediately questioned tessa arriving in the same type of pod as the mds when they were revealed to not be sent by j #im running out of characters also the people who dont like when i use tags like this can bite me #murder drones #murder drones nori #artori? that sounds cool #ill probably just stick with nori though #i have so many solver heart refs now #art #episode 7 #murder drones episode 7 #murder drones episode 7 spoilers #using the same black for shadows as my lineart doesn't work when i have to draw thin things over it #murder drones spoilers

[featheredadora]

#art #fat positivity #body positivity #positivity #birblr #canary #doodle #Sorry I'm a bit all over the place at the moment guys #Had to spend time with my partner's fatphobic family #And I know I'm a thin guy so I am not like directly hurt by the things they believe #But it still was just an awful experience and I'm still kinda feeling that #And it infuriates me that me standing up for what's right is always framed as me being a delicate sensitive anorexic #You should treat fat people nice because they are people and deserve basic decency #I am not being overly sensitive by not wanting to hear your fatphobic crap #You're just not nice people #/rant over #Sorry for my little outburst guys! I am usually an easy going guy #I just get really riled up about this stuff #Fat people are wonderful and it is such a blessing to live in a world with such a huge range of different bodies!

[lesbiancassius]

Elektra in Mycenae, Casey J. King

#electra #elektra #casey j king #june original #ough i'm very happy with this one. i still like klytemnestra more but that one just manifested out of thin air #cw child neglect #< i guess? i don't know what the best thing to tag this as is #in mycenae

[hoofpeet]

add. ideas for the centaur anatomy issues

#obv. centaurs don't need to be biologically accurate for a silly story ofc. but :]c #edit-- though w/ the idea of the owl neck thing. it would make sense if the upper body was almost entirely hollow #to reduce how much weight is being placed on a relatively thin structure

[frenchonionsoop]

some hoshikawa BEAST studies!!

#i tried lining that first one but it very much failed after i used a pen with a line weight too thick #my sketchbook will forever be cursed with it but the sketch will live on in photo form #might be getting a fancy super thin tip mechanical pencil for my birthday so hoping that makes things easier for detailing 👀 #bsd #bungou stray dogs #bsd beast #beast dazai #beast atsushi #beast akutagawa #beast odasaku #beast fanart #bsd fanart #traditional sketch #art study #my art

[comatomato]

*Plays the dutch anthem* 🇳🇱

Inspired by this video of the redbull shoot and the crappy screenshots that i took from it:

Anyway, I’m obsessed and will likely do a prince of monaco version for Charles in the near future.

#Did i do this just cuz i thought he would look hot in uniform? yes. #Do i have ten thousand other things i should totally be doing #also yes #but it’s like this #also can i say it’s an eternal battle trying to steer any painting of max away from sid the sloth territory #the line between handsome pookie and sid the sloth is concerningly thin #art #drawing #illustration #procreate #f1 #f1 art #formula 1 #max verstappen #lestappen #mv33 #mv1

[thekingofgear]

Jonny Greenwood’s Gear for The Smile’s NPR Tiny Desk Show

We’ve already posted a quick overview of The Smile’s gear for NPR’s Tiny Desk and a detailed description of Thom’s setup.

We’ll have an analysis of The Smile’s KEXP setup in the near future, but for now here’s the last post in our analysis of their Tiny Desk set:

Robert Stillman and Jonny during Panavision (youtube). Note the extra holes in the pickguard for a “tugbar” finger rest below the G string — that means the bass is from before 1974, since that’s the year Fender moved the finger rest to above the E-string to serve as a thumb rest.

For Tiny Desk, Jonny mostly used the same gear as at live shows this year, but stripped down to the essentials for guitar and bass. He played his his 1970s Fender Precision Bass on Panavision and We Don’t Know What Tomorrow Brings, and played his vintage Gibson Les Paul on The Smoke and  Skirting On The Surface. Jonny only used his Boss RE-202 Space Echo as a reverb on The Smoke. But on Skirting, he used his RE-202 as a delay, his Akai Headrush E2 as a looper, and his Electro-Harmonix Freeze during the solo. He brought several other pedals, but sounds like they weren’t used in the released tracks. Read on for a nice photo of Jonny’s pedal setup and lots more analysis (including an exact delay time for Thin Thing).

It’s a shame they decided not to share We Don’t Know What Tomorrow Brings, as it would be interesting to hear a stripped down version of the track. It looks like Jonny didn’t bring his Studiologic MIDI pedals, so they must’ve played it without his extra synth lines (and without Thom’s intro synth lines).

Jonny’s Instruments:

Gibson Les Paul in Natural finish (late-70s)

Fender Precision Bass in Natural finish (early-70s)

Jonny’s Amplifiers (shared with Thom):

Tiny Desk’s Fender ’68 Reissue Deluxe Reverb combo amplifier

Tiny Desk’s Ampeg RB-110 combo amplifier

Jonny’s Effects Pedals:


Guitar ->

Boss TU-2 tuner

Electro-Harmonix Freeze

Boss SD-1 Super Overdrive

Boss DD-200 delay

Akai Headrush E2 delay/looper


Boss RE-202 Space Echo

-> Amplifier

GigRig Generator and Distributor power supply.

A photo of Jonny’s 1970s Precision bass and the shared amps (joshrogosin). The mic on the Ampeg RB-110 bass amp is an AEA R84 ribbon microphone. The mic on the ‘68 Custom Deluxe Reverb is an AEA N22 ribbon microphone. The amps and mics belong to Tiny Desk, and the same ones can be seen in various performances on their channel.

The blue jewel lamp shows that the Deluxe Reverb is the ’68 Custom reissue, not a vintage silver-panel Deluxe (which had red jewel lamps). Jonny plugged into the Deluxe Reverb’s "vintage" channel, using input 1. On the ’68 reissue, the “vintage" channel is based on the original black-panel Deluxe Reverb (despite the silver design), but without the bright cap on the volume control. In contrast, the “custom” channel is based on a modified Bassman circuit.

A photo of Jonny’s guitar pedals for the Tiny Desk show (joshrogosin).

The Akai Headrush in this setup has a bunch of stickers indicating a multi-head delay setting, but it is set to "Looper" mode. It also has a piece of foam(?) to prevent the mode switch from being hit accidentally. The Headrush on Jonny's pedalboard doesn't have those stickers, so it seems likely that these pedals are the backups for Jonny's main board. Jonny might also use these pedals to play on the band's tour bus or at their hotels. That would explain the extra strikers.

Jonny's DD-200 has some tape listing his presets:

1 - Thin Thing

2 - Opposite

3 - Just Eyes and Mouth

5 - Pillows

Presets 4 and 6 are unreadable, but they are almost certainly for the unreleased songs Read the Room (previously called either “IT” or “Flangers”) and Bending Hectic. Jonny uses his long rhythmic delay technique on both tracks.

For more ambient delays on songs like Skirting On The Surface and Open The Floodgates, Jonny instead uses the Boss RE-202 Space Echo. That’s why the DD-200 has no presets for those tracks

In the image above, the DD-200 is set to preset number 1, and the digital display shows a delay time of 779ms. But if you’ve even tapped along to a live version of that song (on every fifth eighth note), you probably figured that out already.

For power, Jonny just has a GigRig Distributor without any Isolators for his high-draw digital effects. As usual, it seems Jonny isn’t too bothered about that kind of thing, at least for a one-off gig at low volume. GigRig power supplies come with long (1.5 meter) power cables so the user can cut them to size. Instead, it looks like Jonny (or his tech) left them uncut and simply wrapped up the extra length with some black zip ties.

#The Smile #Jonny Greenwood #Radiohead #Thin Thing #The Opposite #Just Eyes and Mouth #Pillows #We Don’t Know What Tomorrow Brings #Panavision #The Smoke #Skirting On The Surface #NPR #Tiny Desk #NPR Tiny Desk

[frgmnthtr]

Thin Thing (2022)

#music #new music #music video #music videos #the smile #thin thing #thom yorke #jonny greenwood

[holyvirgilscriptures]

season 4 mike's arc: "how to send mixed signals to your lifelong homoerotic bestie/love interest"

#byler #stranger things #mike wheeler #will byers #byler memes #will x mike #mike x will #byler brainrot #byler tumblr #the office #by the way he pulls his sunglasses out of thin air #virgil.makes #1k

[imfartooobsessedwithkpop]

*sighs* gets vibrator to pass them time while restricting

#thispo #bed #eating disoder things #why am i like this #i want to scream #tw eating things #i want to disappear #mental illness #mentally unstable #ed meme #binge eating disorder #bulimia #mia #anorexia #ana #i wanna be thin #thin inspo #thinspo #meanspo #sweetspo

[babydollxxblood]

I hate starving myself but I love feeling empty

#tw ana diary #ana trigger #ana meal #ana rant #tw ed diet #tw #girlblogging #girlhood #girlblog #mine #girlblogger #this is a girlblog #coquette #lana del rey #thinspø #thin$po #just girly things

[msgexymunson]

Kitten

Description: Eddie can't believe you're still his nice adorable kitten, even when he's buried inside you.

Warnings: NSFW, porn without plot, fingering, unprotected sex, creampie, kinda mean dom Eddie, sub fem reader, degradation, crying, pet names.

A/n: I dont know what to tell you. This is just filth that was floating around in the cesspool that is my brain. Enjoy my dirty girls. If you like it, please comment and reblog!

1k words

Masterlist

"Please please please-" you moan into the empty air, unfeeling ears refusing to absorb the sounds. Sweating and clenching around thick fingers, you wiggle; a fish caught on a line, helpless, unable to break free. Your legs are draped across Eddie's lap, panties pulled to the side, your juices dripping all over his jeans.

Please what? Are you looking for more? Or are you looking to be set free? Its unclear; your pelvic movements are dragging you closer to his sodden cluch; wet, sticky sound of your release echoing everywhere, dampening the edge of your pleated mini skirt.

Disgusting sounds clog your ears; a soaken squelch pervades every sense, filling the room with a dirty, desolate want. A desire to be desiccated.

"Please, Eddie, please-"

"Please, oh please?" He mocks, thick fingers soaked with your release, a milky ring of your slick circling them.

"Please what? What do you want?" His mocking tone cuts through, humiliating you further, "tell me, or I can't give you what you need."

You know you never said, you want him to absorb knowledge at this point. He should know what you need. He does know what you need.

Your moans pierce the air while Eddie fucks you ceaselessly with thick fingers, pushing you towards sticky, squelching release. Again.

"Come on kitten, what do you need? You never said. Come on baby, you can do it." Thick, dastardly fingers continue to invade your cunt and push you to your breaking point. They know exactly what you need, but they want you to say. Your wanton moans are half the fun.

"Eddie, I need you to- please-"

"Please what? You let me bury my fingers in your pussy but you can't say the word fuck? You're fucking cute as hell kitten."

A blush smothers your cheeks, fuelled by his mocking and the heat between your legs.

"I need you inside me Eddie," you pout as his movements slow, still buried deep but his digits are rocking back and forth; so deep its bordering on painful, making you hiss.

"I am inside you kitten." He smirks when you huff, letting out a mirthless laugh.

Thighs quivering, you pull yourself nearer to his ear, your shaky breath a whisper.

"Please, I want your cock inside me. Please fuck me Eddie."

Eddie groans, eyes rolling back at your words. He pulls his fingers from you with a wet noise that makes you cringe. A smug smile stretches across his handsome features.

"See? I knew you could do it. That's my kitten."

Laying you gently down, he slowly pulls your sodden underwear off you, throwing them somewhere on the floor. His pants and boxers are next to go, leaving him naked, narrow hips slotting between your glistening thighs.

You reach to the side to unzip your skirt but Eddie bats your hands away. Rough hands flip your skirt up, exposing your slick soaked cunt. He pulls your tank top up to reveal your breasts, nipples hardening in the cooler air.

"You look so fucking hot like this. Such a dirty whore for me. Hmmm." Lust filled eyes drink in your form as he slowly fists his cock.

"Eddie, please." You frown up at him, hands balled into little fists.

"Stop being a brat and take what I give you." His voice is quiet, but hard. A threat dancing on his tongue. Looking up at him with wide eyes, your lip quivers.

"Aw, my little kitten gonna cry? I'll give you something to cry about."

He lines up his throbbing dick and rubs it through your glistening folds, gathering wetness, before pushing himself fully into you.

Tears rush to the corners of your eyes, pushed out by the sheer size of him. You gasp and grip his shoulders.

"Oh my God Eddie!"

"What's wrong kitten? Can't take it?" His lips draw into a condescending pout.

"No! I can Eddie, I can." You nod at him trying to convince him.

"Ok kitten if you're so sure..." as he starts slowly thrusting in and out of you, his hard member dragging against your sticky satin walls. The stretch was intense, leaving you groaning and gasping, a pretty mess just for Eddie.

A particularly deep thrust has you closing your eyes, moaning loudly.

"Yeah? That good baby?" You nod but its not enough.

"Hey, I asked you a question." He slows, making you grab his biceps, eyes widening.

"Yes, so good, please, don't stop!"

Eddie laughs and starts thrusting harder, faster. One hand keeps him upright, the other grasps you firmly by the jaw.

"You gotta look at me kitten. I wanna see you cum hard."

You stare into his dark eyes as you feel your world begin to unravel. The burning deep in your belly is threatening to spill out over your whole being.

"Eddie, oh my-" you're about to warn him when the feeling crashes over you, fluttering through your nerves, leaving you clenching around his length, whimpering your devotion to him.

"Fuck, you're so fucking pretty when you cum, holding me so tight, my dirty little girl, holy shit" his thrusts begin to falter, finally letting your jaw go, gripping so tight to your shoulder you think he'll leave finger print bruises.

"I'm gonna cum, where- fuck, where do you want it?"

"Inside me, please Eddie."

He breaks character for a moment. "Shit really? Are you sure?" As you nod emphatically, nails leaving red crescents in his back.

Features hard once again, he pounds into you even faster, "gonna fill this pussy up, just like you want, Jesus Christ!" Holding you close he releases deep inside of you. You can feel his dick throbbing, whining at the feeling.

Eddie collapses to the side of you, body shining in sweat. You allow your legs to slowly unfold, still quivering at the strength of your release.

"Sorry kitten if that was a bit much." He strokes your thigh, eyes seeking yours.

"Well you were a bit of a-"

"What princess? A douchbag? A prick?"

"A- a meanie."

Eddie's laugh echoes through the room. He scoops you in his arms.

"And you are an adorable little kitten."

Just tagging a couple of people who I know will enjoy this lol

@lunatictardis @munson-blurbs @eddiemunsons-missingnipple @billybluboy @zestychili @eddiesprincess86 @cluz1babe @joejoequinnquinn @onehotgreasymechanic @eddiemunsonfuxks

#eddie munson #eddie munson smut #eddie x you #eddie munson x you #eddie x reader #eddie munson x reader #dom!eddie munson #dom!eddie #sub!reader #eddie munson x reader smut #eddie munson au #eddie munson fanfic #eddie x f!reader #eddie munson x y/n #eddie munson x female!reader #stranger things smut #stranger things 4 #stranger thins fan fic #stranger things fan fiction #eddie munson fan fiction #bully!eddie #mean!eddie #mean!eddie munson

[stromblessed]

Mizu was wrong to let Akemi be taken because they both deserve better

First, a confession. When I saw this for the first time:

I was relieved. I knew that was what Mizu was going to say and I felt like it's what I would have said in that situation too.

When Akemi does this:

I cringed, because if we know anything about Mizu, it's that she (1) isn't quick to make friends (though to be fair, even though Akemi did try to kill Mizu, so did Taigen - multiple times! - and look how that turned out lol), and (2) doesn't take orders.

So when Akemi and Ringo and later Taigen get angry at Mizu, are they being unfair?

Sure, Mizu isn't obligated to treat Akemi - or Taigen or Ringo or anybody else - nicely, or to serve them, or to be honorable, or be a hero to them, or whatever. No human being is obligated to any other human being. We all have the choice to do whatever we want to anybody else. But the point of flawed characters in storytelling is the tension between those characters and their potential. Their growth into someone who can choose the higher, harder path, who chooses to be obligated to others, who chooses kindness and compassion.

Because Mizu's problem isn't revenge. Nobody is preaching at Mizu that revenge isn't the answer. Her circumstances do suck, her life has been incredibly unfair, she is marginalized, and as far as we and Mizu know for most of the season, she is a child born of violence and no one is saying that that violence doesn't deserve to be repaid in kind.

Mizu's problem is isolation. And the fact that she thinks she has no responsibility toward her fellow human beings, because her hatred of her own circumstances and her having no life outside of her quest devours everything else. This is a problem because it turns Mizu into the worst version of herself. A version that hurts the people who like Mizu, the people who care about her.

Practically, Mizu has just taken on an entire army almost by herself. She's hurt. She's exhausted. If she were to defend Akemi now, it'd be yet ANOTHER fight, this time against horsed and armored samurai.

But that's not the reason Mizu gives Ringo. Mizu's ability or willingness to fight isn't even on her mind. All she says is, "She's better off."

"She's better off" is Mizu deciding what's best for Akemi. Akemi's entire story is about her being a caged bird longing to fly free.

One after the other, every man and woman in Akemi's life makes her decisions for her. She has to grovel and smile prettily and lie through her teeth just for the chance to be heard. Mizu judges Akemi for being a rich princess who isn't being more grateful for what she has, all without understanding Akemi's situation, and without any curiosity for why Akemi feels the way she does. From Akemi's perspective, Mizu is just one more person (one more man!) in a long lineup who ignores Akemi's wishes and (casually!) makes a decision for her that impacts Akemi's life greatly.

In the end, even Seki concludes that Akemi should get to decide what's best for Akemi. What others think that Akemi SHOULD want does not matter compared to what Akemi wants for her own life. As Madame Kaji said - Madame Kaji, who despite calling out the weirdness of Akemi's situation as well as the childishness of her decision to run away - is the only person Akemi meets who doesn't try to make decisions for Akemi, but instead only challenges Akemi to work for and be worthy of what she wants - she needs to decide what she wants for her own fucking self, and then take it.

Mizu being born female does not make her automatically wiser for letting Akemi be taken, and it does not preclude her from having a hand in giving Akemi back to her jailers. A patriarchy that Mizu knows full well would stop Mizu from achieving her own goals if she didn't present as male.

Mizu is still understandable here. She just had to kill Kinuyo, a disabled girl sold by her father into prostitution, a girl in a situation so far beyond Akemi's worst imaginings that I can practically feel Mizu's world being rocked just by comparing them in her mind the way she most likely is. That still doesn't make it right for Mizu to let Akemi be carried off to be sold into marriage by her father against her wishes. Those "good options" Mizu thinks Akemi has don't exist, no more than they ever existed for Mizu. Akemi and Mizu both have to get creative, make the best of their circumstances, take dangerous risks, and break rules in order to have any control over their own lives.

Even on my first watch, when at first I thought that Mizu had made the right decision and that Akemi was being unreasonable, Akemi screaming Mizu's name while being dragged, LITERALLY DRAGGED, back to her father was haunting as hell.

Mizu had the power to help Akemi, and simply chose not to.

Mizu lets Akemi be taken, Akemi who has just begun to trust Mizu. Mizu calls Ringo weak and quickly - seemingly easily - turns her back on him. Mizu values her quest over Taigen's life, after Taigen has endured days of torture to protect her, and she not only risks his life in the process, but doesn't tell him that Akemi is engaged to someone else, or that she came looking for Taigen, or that she is in danger.

Mizu's sword breaks because it is too brittle. Too pure. Too singleminded. Mizu only melts down the meteorite metal when she mixes the metal with objects from parts of her life that have nothing to do with her quest. Objects from the people she cares about, and who care about her.

All I'm saying is - Mizu doesn't have to be a hero. But she is the better version of herself when she reaches out to help and connect with others. When she's just a decent, kinder human being. And I think that's what this story is telling us that we should want for Mizu.

#blue eye samurai #mizu #akemi #bes #I have so many more thoughts about Mizus tangential relationship to honor and heroism but that is for another post #also reviewing these scenes made me realize that when Mizu calls Ringo weak she LOOKS POINTEDLY AT HIS (LACK OF) HANDS #she legit calls him weak for his disability after EVERYTHING THEY'VE BEEN THROUGH #like Ringo was def disappointed that his master chose not to behave like the (nonexistent) samurai ideal #but what made him ANGRY was the weakness comment and I did not clock that before #also to be explored more in another post #a third thing to explore in another post is how both mizu and taigen have wronged akemi on the basis of Edo period society being A Society #though Mizu starts to correct her own mistake by going back for Akemi - its Taigen whos on thin ice lolol