#about life and death

[from-books-with-love]

Ça a toujours été comme ça. Les êtres humains se rencontrent, ils s'aiment, et ils prennent le risque de se perdre.

Anouk Filippini, 2105 : Mémoire interdite.

#anouk filippini #2105 #literature #french quote #books #people #love #love quote #life #about life #about life and death #life quote #from books with love

[silencervalkyrie]

"what's the most important thing in life?"

Well, life itself. I have the feeling that if we say things like "health, love, money" etc, then... What if a person doesn't have good health? Or doesn't have love in their life? Or doesn't have any money? What message would be delivered to those people who doesn't have "the most important things in life"? Maybe that, if they don't have those, they're doing it wrong. That their life has less value. That your life is only worth it if you have those "most important things in life". And that's cruel and I think that can easily create feelings of shame, guilt and thoughts like "I must accomplish so many things in life to be worthy" and the like.

Life is the most important thing one has. Everybody deserve to live regardless of what things they have or have not. There shouldn't be conditions to live.

#just reflecting at almost midnight #about life and death #this is only my opinion ofc #people deserve to live period #damn I deserve to live regardless of shit #the most important thing is keep going

[stromblessed]

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

[sopuu]

canary’s ascent to death

#HE’S FREE!!!!!!! FREED CANARY!!!!! #something about jimmy being happy with his ending despite being in the first round of deaths again #so proud of him for surviving 20 minutes longer than the past 4 series <3 #and at the same time devastated at mumbo and lizzie’s deaths #mcyt #trafficblr #life series #solidaritygaming #jimmy solidarity #secret life #slsmp #secret life smp #sopuuart #good soup

[bigfatbreak]

Birds of a Feather previous / next

#my art #feralnette au #birds of a feather #long tags #sorry I went apeshit in the tags #LETS SAY IT ALL TOGETHER NOW #I - M - A - G - OOOOOOOOO #its fun drawing marinette's back to Alya and having her appear stout and unstoppable and totally logical #and then you see her face and she's like two seconds from completely snapping and is keeping it together by a thread #as a note just because mari feels very certainly abt smth doesnt mean she's right. feelings can be valid and also irrational #in the throes of grief she decided it was better to be alone than to lose someone again so she started pulling away #and lila made pulling away very very very easy to do #shes also vaguely aware she's being unfair in pinning this on alya which is why she started spinning the drain on cockmoth again #legitimately all the shit that's happened to her wouldn't have been so catastrophic if he was never in the picture and she knows it #but the bitterness of her bestie choosing a fantastic liar over her at the worst of times stiiiiiings #alya's personal timing was bad but lila really took advantage of the fact that marinette had been acting off and weird #she basically clocked marinette as being unstable from SOMETHING and made up a lie about her #knowing she wouldn't have the strength to defend herself #between her social life going tachy bc of lila and losing fu in a way that felt like personhood death marinette was really put on the spot #and alya doing her thing of busting in there and assuming her bias is correct was a terrible combo #essentially marinette is highly unstable and alya is just realizing that #busting in and giving her a lecture when she's slightly hysterical and definitely delirious from exhaustion is NOT the way #to show her she's self sabotaging #cuz thats just gonna make her double down on self sabotaging. bc marinette will not accept that she is also a CHIIIIILD

[kedreeva]

These little fuckers are round gobies. They are a freshwater goby that's invasive in Michigan, and they're in the nearby lake. They're distinct from the four native species due to their fused pelvic fins (middle pic) and a big black dot at the rear of their front dorsal fin. Though some other gobies have spots on their fins, NO Michigan-native species has a fused pelvic fin. These guys are very aggressive feeders and are very good at outcompeting native gobies.

They're also extremely good at stealing bait off big hooks as people on the docks reel in their lines. In particular, the bastard in the bottom photo stole my bait two days ago, so I caught him and filleted him for Bug.

Today, after acquiring smaller hooks, I went back and got 16 more, and educated several other fishers about their invasive nature. I got two turned over to me by others, and caught 14 more myself.

One man wandered over and asked why I was catching them on purpose. It was too much trouble to explain my feelings about invasive species, so I just told him, one of them stole my bait two days ago. He stopped watching my bobber and boggled at me and goes:

"You're doing this for revenge?"

So now there's some guy in town that thinks I am exacting revenge upon fish kind for a single stolen worm.

#personal #stories about ked's life #fish #animal death for ts #Anyway #I'm going to learn how to make fish meal to make peafowl treats #I just killed the ones today and put them out for the crows #Bug stole the smallest one and ran off with it #I don't know if she managed to eat it or not #but I couldn't find it where she was standing “killing” it #so I assume so

[gayvampyr]

this might be a hot take but i actually don’t think humans were meant to know what is going on in everyone’s lives all over the world every second of the day and constantly be available for conversations or collaborations or call-ins for work and texts and phone calls and social media posts without end. i think we were supposed to just help the people around us and spend time with our family and friends and eat yummy bread and berries and relax

#‘did you know x celebrity did this thing and now they’re getting cancelled?’ no. why does that concern me #idgaf about celebrities #and like. mental exhaustion and guilt are not good or sustainable substitutions for real help and activism #sometimes it’s ok to just. unplug and worry about your own life #im not saying you should stop caring but you also shouldn’t guilt yourself to death over something you have zero control over #text post #top posts #5k #20k #30k #40k #50k #60k #70k

[stimmingandstruggling]

soulmates but not in a soft romantic way soulmates in a destined to change each other for better or for worse, cannot be who they are without each other, unstoppable together but they’re also the only ones who can defeat each other, equals, existences undeniably tied to each other way

#this post is about lawlight. #soulmates #fanfic trope #non-traditional soulmates give me Life #like YES they NEED each other one cannot EXIST without the other #but they do not LIKE each other!!!!! #make them better!! make them worse!! just drastically alter #lawlight #light yagami #l lawliet #death note #dn tag

[beanghostprincess]

"Kuina's death is ridiculous" yes! That's the point! You do realize that falling down the stairs is a way of showing Zoro how fragile human lives are, right? You are aware that the point of Kuina's character is the unfairness of the world towards women in comparison to the privileges men have, like living in itself and fulfilling their dreams, right? You know that Kuina's death is "ridiculous and dumb" because it's meant to show that even the strongest person Zoro knew could die from something so little, right? You understand that the value Zoro gives to life is fucking immense, right? Right?? You realize Zoro can't seek revenge because nobody took her away from him and now the only thing he can do is become the world's greatest swordsman to avenge her death, right? You get that Zoro's character is an atheist because he doesn't believe in anyone and he can only rely on himself when it comes to Kuina's sudden death, right? You are aware that sometimes people die in the simplest of ways and that doesn't make them weak because death doesn't discriminate, right? You know that all of these things are what make Zoro's character so interesting and important, right? Right??? You know, right?

Well, of course you fucking don't because if you knew you wouldn't be saying her death is ridiculous <3

#if i see somebody else complaining about this i am going to throw hands i swear to god #sorry i just saw a bad take in here and i couldn't stay quiet #it's the most basic thing about zoro's character why are people complaining #'his backstory is boring' well i think YOU are boring and also don't have good taste #i am a zoro defender for life and his backstory with kuina is amazing shutupshutup #stop trying to find a weird dark theory abt her death. you won't find anything. that's just it. she died. #she fell down the stairs and died and it's a great story let kuina rest in peace #one piece #roronoa zoro #shimotsuki kuina

[olasketches]

two sides of the same coin

#itadori yuuji #ryomen sukuna #jjk #jujutsu kaisen #my art #jujutsu kaisen fanart #brainrot incoming (pls don’t mind me) #one thing sukuna and yuuji have in common is that they’re both absolutely miserable #sukuna is utterly selfish and yet it only made him hollow inside and now he’s just killing time waiting for death to come #yuuji is completely selfless and yet it’s only made him suffer and bc of that he’s been constantly trying to check out of life #and I think the funniest but also the most painful thing about these two is that… #despite that they’re vastly opposite they might be the only people that can understand each other the most #imagine them having a heart to heart lol maybe then they would realise some things about themselves

[from-books-with-love]

Things are not all as graspable and sayable as on the whole we are led to believe; most events are unsayable, occur in a space that no word has ever penetrated, and most unsayable of all are works of art, mysterious existences whose life endures alongside ours, which passes away.

Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet.

#rainer maria rilke #letters to a young poet #literature #quote #life #about life #about life and death #art quote #about art #art #from books with love

[bioluminesced]

Il mare eterno nella mia anima

#They were crazy af making the lyrics of his death scene be like ‘my love will be in your life forever’ or something #caejose #jojo’s bizarre adventure #jjba #my art #battle tendency #joseph joestar #caesar zeppeli #jjba part 2 #anyway its that time of year where i get sad about them again

[cemeterything]

"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

[astrowarr]

grian, etho, and cleo are just....

sometimes love is three damaged people knee deep in lifetimes worth of loss and grief, painting their walls green together. maybe love is those three people thinking over a dinner table, "you wouldn't die for me, and there's no greater solace than that."

love, actually, goes like this. let me look at all the damage you've done, both now and before, and let me raise you this: every wound you have inflicted, i too have exacted. all the havoc you have wreaked sits in a mirror with all the desolation i will soon impose. because if all six of our hands are stained bone-deep with blood, and there are no others to compare, doesn't that make them just hands?

#theyre so fucking crazy #something about looking at each other in the face of death and thinking #“oh. we're all just doing what we can do aren't we?” #secret life spoilers #secret life #grian #ethoslab #zombiecleo #slsmp #trafficblr #watercolor words #life series #roomies #the roomies

[biruesque]

#revolutionary girl utena #rgu #shoujo kakumei utena #sku #tenjou utena #utena tenjou #utena #himemiya anthy #anthy himemiya #anthy #utenanthy #utenthy #biruesque art #doodle #u guys ever notice how utena's life and “death” #are both defined by this desperate need to help someone else #that in the end her story isnt a fairytale about a prince and a princess #it's about a little girl crying and trying to save another girl

[tubbytarchia]

I don't know what this is all I know is that LimL Joel makes me really emotional

#I know he has a tendency to go deranged on his red lives but idk something about him beginning to lose it after Jimmy died and killing Grian #joel smallishbeans #smallishbeans fanart #trafficblr #Again its his red life shenanigans but... If only Jimmy had known how affected someone was by his death. I'm choosing to believe this #and him then going out like a sad pathetic wet cat even with Grian's sacrifice... He really deserves a win one of these days lmao please #Also I cant stop thinking about how Jimmy wouldn't have left him. Grian was sensible to and most players probs would have #Joel really does become a lost cause so its fair and Grian did still care (and went to say goodbye as well as sacrifice his time for him) #But Jimmy would have stuck by even if Joel were in this state (and they'd both get themselves killed pathetically but) #And Joel having shown such genuine care for Jimmy and concern over his limited time... man anything w Jimmy makes me so emotional lol #I love them so #oh Ig about the art itself. I dont like it but hey thats how it tends to go when you try smth new. And no shame in trying #but if one person likes this then yayy I will still feel accomplished and happy #Im looking at this again and hey its not that bad actually yay I love to approve of my own art. self love hell yea #tubby art