See, you start reading The Locked Tomb because everyone is like wow, lesbian necromancers in space, fun but watch out it's a little sad! And then Tasmyn Muir says my entire magic system is based on the fact that you cannot know someone without being changed by their existence. You cannot lose someone, grieve for someone without them becoming a part of you forever. Grief is transformative because love is transformative. It's also a consumption, because love is a consumption - souls merge when they spend enough time near each other. You will never be the person you were before you met them.
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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.
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For all of the “Raph raised himself AND his brothers” fans out there I bring this train wreck of a thought (I’m a lil sleepy so sorry if it doesn’t make sense or if I repeat myself a lot-)
We do not in fact have any actual evidence that splinter was neglectful to the boys when they were little. In fact, we have the opposite.
All of these flashbacks indicate that Splinter acc spent a LOT of time with his boys-
With Mikey, he was obviously coached in his art, a smol child can’t paint like that no matter how talented they are so we can see that splinter put in the time/effort to get Mikey the supplies and teach him how to do it well. Which probably means he researched and learned it himself first, idk I just can’t really see Yoshi knowing how to paint/draw that well but that’s just a theory.
With raph and Leo, their lemonade stand is structurally sound: obviously not put together by an 8 year old, and there’s a lotta lemons lyin around that were probably a bit difficult to find, and just LOOK at their faces here they are definitely familiar with this kind of father/son shenaniganizing-also just LOOK at raph. That’s a happy child, one full of excitement and happiness, not a kid who had to grow up too fast. Also his dad is literally right there in the picture
And then with Donnie, I can’t really tell what he’s doing in the background (it’s a bomb) but what i take from that screenshot is that Donnie feels safe/loved enough to come to Splinter when he gets hurt. And Splinters taking care of him!! And, Donnie is wearing clothes, which shows that he went out and got clothes for them but also didn’t force the boys to wear them if they didn’t want to (see other screenshots lol) which also goes to show that he lets his boys choose who they wanna be and what they wanna do. At any point he could’ve forced all of them to train as ninja, at any point he could’ve made clothes mandatory, and at any point he could’ve forced them to drop things that made them happy like skating or science or art but nah. He was supportive every step of the way.
Now am I saying he was perfect? No. Am I saying he couldn’t have done anything better? No. What I’m saying is that Raph acc did not have to raise himself and his brothers. Splinter acc gave them a pretty good childhood, all things considered and it kinda makes me sad when ppl bash Rise Splinter or continue the neglectful parent trope. Again, I’m not saying he did everything right, he def could have spent more time with his kids on an individual basis and he should’ve been more present, but let’s cut him some slack bc he did a really good job at raising the boys. And he got so much better as the show progressed! But that’s another post lol. I’m also not trying to take away Raphs oldest sibling syndrome, he still def has that from being the leader and watching his bros while splinter was away-I’m just saying he didn’t have to do it ALL alone.
Look in the end he’s doing his best and his best was really good for what they had. He’s a good dad, he’s not neglectful.
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When you grow up having the worst possible things happening to you around every corner, you can't just keep living your life without expecting the worst.
This isn't even paranoia, it's learning by experience. You can't just start expecting nice and safe and kind things to be put in your way, if they never were, it would not be backed up by any real-life experience you had. It would feel like you're dreaming if you suddenly expect your life to change completely and contain different events from anything you've experienced before. We don't work like that. We learn from experience. We can only predict what's ahead by looking at what's behind us, our collective experience on earth is the only pointer we have to what else we can expect to happen.
If you often told that your expectations are twisted, or that you're just looking for the worst in people, or assuming everyone has bad intentions, that's not something you should be blamed for. After suffering abuse and mistreatment, you have to be on the lookout for these things to prevent the worst and to save your life. You cannot afford to get trapped in abuse again, you have to look at every person and ask yourself, what is the worst they're capable of. What would they do if they had the complete power over me. And you have to work with that, make sure it doesn't get to it, as much as it's in your power to do so.
Abuse victims have to go above and beyond to keep themselves safe, because we get targeted. It's not something we want to do, or something we do to make our own lives difficult. We don't enjoy it. We want to be safe. We want to let our guard down. We want to relax and believe we're surrounded by people who wouldn't harm us. But, if we're wrong, the consequences can be disastrous. And getting abused by someone we trusted was safe for us, that is not something we can survive endless times in life.
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