In The Process: My First Exposure To Judaism Was The Beliefs And Teachings Of Reform Jews Specifically.

in the process: my first exposure to judaism was the beliefs and teachings of reform jews specifically. added to the fact that i’m very queer (incl crossdressing and hopefully one day marrying someone of the same gender) in a very conservative area and the reform synagogue near me is the only one with a formal conversion class, that’s what i picked! i probably walk the line more towards conservative judaism, but i’m still happily converting to reform. in the future i might convert conservative as well.

if you converted to judaism or are in the process of doing so, how did you choose a denomination?

its of utmost importance you have sound on while watching this

mizu is a woman who believes herself to have been conceived through violence and whose ethnicity makes her even more vulnerable than other girls, all while living in a time period of extreme sexism that severely limits her options and freedom, and so she is forced to conceal her identity for both personal safety and to be able to achieve her goals

mizu is a trans man who is wrestling with what it means to be a half-white man when he loathes and fears the white man who created him all while he attempts to find a foothold in the hyper-masculine world of samurai

mizu is a nonbinary biracial person who lives between the lines of society in all possible ways and is at constant war with the conflicting sides of themself and seeks some way to find a sense of being whole

mizu is all of them. mizu is a marginalized person and a fucking badass who a lot of people are going to relate to and see themselves reflected within and while it appears the show is going with the first option I don't think it's wrong for anyone to use the lens of the show to explore their own identity or to feel empowered

and also it's fun to explore how the story would change (or stay the same) when viewing mizu as a gender other than cis woman

I can’t explain what blue eye samurai makes me feel…….its a typical revenge story, a man sets out on his hero’s journey to kill the four men who have wronged him. A lone ronin, wide brimmed hat and sword in hand, roaming Edo Japan on his vendetta. But he’s not a man. He’s a woman. And how has he been wronged? What’s she getting revenge on?

On the fact that she exists. She wants revenge on the four white men that could possibly have conceived her. Who got her Japanese mother pregnant with a blue-eyed child. And not just any blue-eyed child, but a girl child. How is she possibly supposed to live in the world like that? For the wrong of being conceived, for the wrong of being born, for the wrong of being birthed into a world that will never love or accept her, she will kill her father.

I don’t know what level of convoluted self hate that is. Is she a child of rape? Or a child of a whore? Halfway through I realise what she told herself at the start couldn’t possibly be true - it’s not really for her mother. Her mother wasn’t the root of her vendetta, she wasn’t really doing it for her. When she leaves that farm and leaves the chance to live a simple, legitimate life as a woman, she goes right back to hunting down the men. Those men personally wronged her.

And then there’s so much to be discussed surrounding the way she grew up, because as a boy child and a man she can afford so much more than life has dealt her. Her swordfather who took her in out of the love and care in his heart had no shame in teaching a mixed man his art. The face of a ‘demon’ is fine. But not the identity of a woman. Shh. Don’t say it. Don’t confess. He knows and doesn’t want to hear it.

And because she’s lived that way her entire life for safety and security, she’s so completely alienated from being a woman, perhaps she really is he. But not really by choice. Or is it? The thing she does best is the art of killing, the art of men. Gender is a prison and gender is a performance and she has to choose which to perform. The times cannot reconcile hatred and violence with a woman. So she lives as a man.

So she can get revenge on her father, for revenge on herself.

male tortoiseshell chimeras aren't necessarily intersex; they can in fact be perisex males, you're thinking of an XXY male tortoiseshell.

however... a female "tortoiseshell" chimera (ie one with just black and orange patches) MUST be intersex, trans, or both because of how the genetics works!

here's a post i made on the subject where i explain the genetics a bit more!

I got excited for a moment when I read that Moonpaw is chimera because male chimeras are actually intersex, but then I read "she"

thinking about mizu from blue eye samurai. thinking. thinking so much. thinking about how mizu operates outside of gender. like we joke about her gender being revenge but straight up? it literally is. like she grew up as a boy and is most comfortable being a man, but behind that is the feeling of betraying himself because he isn't being honest about who he is and he lives in fear of being discovered. and when he lived as a woman, she found joy there as well. she fell in love, and though she wasn't good at it, she liked being a wife and enjoying a simple life. but in that life too, she isn't being honest about who she is. and when she reveals her true self, it's not a woman, she's a demon, a weapon. she's to masculine to be a woman, and too feminine to be a man. ultimately, mizu is most comfortable when they are being a murder machine. that's when they feel they are being the most true to themself. like a sword, they are neither man nor woman, but a blend of both, which makes them stronger.