the thing is.
raffi isn’t half as strange or off-putting as she could be. given how she processes things and her vices she really should be so much more of an audacious eccentric obsessive schemer (love) and also just the biggest liar to ever do it. meddlesome as hell but it comes back to bite.
she’s got all the connects but also she’s been banned from multiple planets. it’s fine. she didn’t want to go back to any of them anyway. her access was revoked so why does she know so much about seemingly unconnected classified events and titbits. why don’t you. she happened upon that information. as one does. what’s with all the questions. smooth talks her way in and out of stupid situations daily because she can’t leave well enough alone and just has to get answers. she does not get her answers. rabbit holes that spawn labyrinths. whatever the futuristic version of a red string board is. rios breaking into her quarters because it’s been days and she’s replicated an alarming amount of wine but very little food and he hates the EMH but the nosey holo is right this cannot stand. she tries to be present because it was her idea to visit that one spa like planet in the first place but it’s physically impossible for her not to bring up whatever theory it is that’s plaguing her this time around. there’s something just outside her periphery and once she connects the dots she’ll let it go. really. the great pretender. an actual reckoning with her addiction and what’s at the root of it. why constantly numbing herself with various substances didn’t actually work. she can fool everyone but not herself. at least not well. all the fallout with people she loves that now want nothing to do with her (gabe?? hello that thread alone is so much) because of all the times she recklessly dismissed or used them for her own means all the while convincing herself it was about the big picture. being real with herself about the reality of starfleet and why she wants in so badly anyway. greater good huh. her tricked out encrypted tech because why accept bland federation equipment or adhere to legal limits when she can make things that much more fun with a little tweaking. that unassuming little trailer is fortified as fuck. eyescan fingerprint alphasymbolic code physical lock to even get past the front door. and obviously her tech self destructs upon intrusion this isn’t amateur hour. she might be living in a semi utopia but you still not about to catch her slipping. any and all conversations between cybernetist agnes jurati and intelligence officer raffaela musiker. rios needs them to stop making unauthorized changes to la sirena and cut it out with the emergency holo roundtables. everything to do with her and seven but twice the stubborn gay ridiculousness and entwinement. everyone is alive and well and in their rightful timelines.
salivating. she’s barely putting in her weird girl hours and already people can’t take it imagine if they just leaned into making her a possessive obsessive little freak (positive!) and wrote/depicted everything with care? the layers. a hyper-competent-women-with-massive-issues-lover’s dream and the nasty bros and bigots who can’t fathom anyone other than a bland white guy as deserving of complexity or relevance would die on the spot amen. id EAT.
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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:
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not sure why people don't seem to understand that shiv being the victim of misogyny and vitriol from all the men in her life can and does coexist with the fact that she is not a feminist liberal hero fighting to save democracy. why is it that we never afford her any nuance? she's either the only good person on the show and deserves to kill every man in a ten foot radius (twitter) or a uniquely evil cruel sociopath with no heart fueled entirely by spite (reddit). is it not just so much more interesting for her to be a fascism aiding and abetting character like the rest of them who also views herself as more progressive in spite of everything else about her and who undergoes horrific treatment at the hands of the men around her yet has no interest in undoing the system that allows them to do so, only in ruling it herself? shiv is not any better than the others nor is she any worse than them. there's no Evil Olympics here guys, nor should there be. snook said it herself in the after credits sequence -- shiv was just lucky that her interests aligned with her sympathies. who knows what she would've done had mencken been her best personal option? yes she cares infinitely more about politics than roman, yes she is still very much interested in maintaining the capitalist, fascist structure and even strengthening it, so long as it ends with her on top (which either way would be a win for liberal causes bc Woman). fascism isn't one-size-fits-all. it's not just mencken and trump. it's also mattson. it's also logan. it's also roman and shiv and kendall. that's... kind of one of the main points of succession? but even so, that does not negate the fact that as a woman it is so hard to watch some of the scenes with her and tom/roman/kendall -- of course that misogyny will resonate with female viewers, as it should!!! but that resonance needs to coexist with a deeper understanding of her character -- if you want to root for a bad bitch fighting against misogyny go watch, i don't know, captain marvel or whatever. what makes shiv interesting is that she's so so so much more than that -- she is the product, victim, and perpetrator of misogyny and fascism, two concepts so heavily intertwined they're virtually inextricable from each other. tl;dr it's one thing to be like my god someone give shiv a gun and it's another entirely to say, entirely seriously, that shiv is the Good Liberal Feminist One and the rest are all evil. like i absolutely adore shiv but i would honest to god find her so fucking boring if she were actually the person these tweets make her out to be i'm sorry
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