Aah I Love How You Draw Izutsumi!!! My Favourite Girl Drawn By My Favourite Artist

aah i love how you draw izutsumi!!! my favourite girl drawn by my favourite artist <3 i love your work!!!

just a girl with her thing..

"Hey brain, can we do like, some actual art?"

Shit post, take it or leave it.

Call Her Ishmael (or: a trans reading of one of my favorite Limbus characters)

Hi, I have been thinking about writing something like this since Canto V first released and today I finally felt inspired to actually make this... A compilation of the parts of Ishmael's story that lead me to reading her as trans <3 and why I think that understanding her character though that lens works so well

We begin with a woman stuck in the mundane. No plans for the future, no dreams of a life beyond the one she is currently living in, and that life is one she has long grown tired of. And she decides she would rather quit living that life, even if it would kill her. Everyone told her not to do this, but she wanted (needed) to do something new with her life.

She finds Ahab here, when she is at this low where she is unsure of where to go from here now that she has cast her old life away. She looks at Ahab and sees a woman with goals, determination, serious plans for the future she is willing to commit to. And she wants to be just like that woman. She wants to be a woman who will choose what her destiny is, choose what life she has.

"I hoped to be like her one day. To be someone who will face the destiny of her own choosing. To have something I could give it my all with conviction and without a moment of hesitation."

And when she gets on that boat and starts this new chapter in her life, well. There she meets Queequeg, and is asked for her name...

Queequeg asking her name, something that surprises Ishmael, and complimenting her hair is a defining moment in Ishmael's life and in their relationship. And not only is it the first conversation they have, it is the also last thing Queequeg asks of her. To hear Ishmael's name one more time is something that will bring not only herself comfort, but she knows will stabilize Ishmael as well in this moment. That it will bring her back to when they had first met, to the fond memories of a good friend who had asked for her name. Ishmael's name, her identity, the one she forged on that boat even through great difficulty is what shaped her into being herself... That is how their relationship begins and ends...

There is also a recurring theme of being reborn, of happiness being found in another life that is kinder to them both. Ishmael dreams of a life where they can break out of their cocoons. She wants to bury her past and had no dreams of the future before joining the Pequod, before meeting Queequeg and finding someone she wants a future with. Through Queequeg, through the woman who thinks her hair is the brilliant color of sunset and asked for her name, Ishmael is capable of imagining a destiny of her own choosing just like she had wanted when she met Ahab. (She isn't able to chase after it, not yet, because of Ahab's influence over the Pequod, but she for the first time can at least dream of a future where she is happy)

When tragedy strikes, she is left as, in her mind, the sole survivor of the crew, she has lost Queequeg, lost Ahab, lost her chance at finding happiness and purpose. It's then that she takes Queequeg's rope (the thing that kept her alive! Queequeg throughout their time knowing each other is always there to save her and help her keep on living) and makes it into a headband, attaches cute bows to it, a bit of femininity that is intrinsically attached to the woman who helped save her. She grows out her hair, her beautiful sunset colored hair, and it is so heart warming. For a long time I assumed that her not cutting her hair was done out of mourning, out of an unwillingness to move on from the life she had on that ship, but instead it was because Queequeg had loved her and she had loved her friend in kind.

In conclusion I love Ishmael very much and I like to rotate her around. Everything from her metaphors of being stuck in a cocoon and wanting to break free, her envy of Ahab's ability to find purpose so easily, her relationship with Queequeg that helped inspire her to dream for more to dream of a future where she is happy,, it is all very good and to me reading her as trans strengthens the themes of her story. I've watched the final part of the Canto V dungeon several times over when my friends arrive at that part of the story, and the Call Me Ishmael line always makes me start tearing up.

Ishmael starts as an unhappy office worker with no future and it is a life she cannot continue living, she meets an older woman who has the drive and passion to chase after her goals and wants to be like her when she is older, she has a life defining moment where another woman asks for her name and wants to be good friends with her, that woman will save her in so many ways and she will love that woman so deeply for how she helped influence her life, she sees herself trapped in a cocoon and wants to break free, she dreams of her and that woman will persevere, how they will live out the rest of their days, countless mirror worlds of happiness spent at each other's side. She starts the game proper with her hair grown long, ribbons attached to a rope that helped save her that represents the woman who had saved her before. She ends her chapter finding a new adventure to go on, one will she get to explore the world she lives in, she has found a compass in Dante who will help her chart her path forward.

Also I know we all make jokes about how inconsistent the art is when it comes to her chest but like... Come on look at the difference here.... I'm correct about this. But I mostly wanted to make this post to point out that her narrative arc is also trans and it goes so much deeper than just art inconsistencies.

Okay that's all I can think of now, thank you for reading, I hope you all also love her <3

sighhhhhh project moon women....... <3

made completely on impulse!!

quick canto 6.1 art dump before the story update