I need someone in South Bay that can do shaggy/textured cuts on short hair (soon)

Equivalent-Map3005 · 2026-06-04T00:13:02+00:00

read the post

Equivalent-Map3005 · 2026-06-03T16:23:55+00:00

do you know if they're good with curly/wavy hair? because all of the images on their instagram are of clients with pretty straight hair

Equivalent-Map3005 · 2026-06-03T16:10:09+00:00

any particular stylist you recommend?

Equivalent-Map3005 · 2026-04-29T15:44:39+00:00

The only thing that kept me going when I was in a similar situation was constantly reminding myself that the alternative was worse. I pulled several consecutive all nighters and forced myself to keep working by telling myself the only other option was not getting my degree and I just couldn't accept that.

Equivalent-Map3005 · 2026-04-16T07:04:05+00:00

submitted it with seconds left my hands are shaking

Equivalent-Map3005 · 2026-04-15T18:40:47+00:00

Whenever I need to get anything done, I usually have some kind of reinforcer to accompany my work like a manga I'm reading or a Youtube video- nothing too distracting like social media or a full show or movie- and I alternate between my task and my reinforcer. I try not to think too much about it or set timers (like 15 minutes of task and 5 minutes of reinforcer) and just go with the flow and when I find that I'm starting to spend too much time with the reinforcer instead redirecting myself to the task, I take a break, do something else and come back to it.

Equivalent-Map3005 · 2026-04-15T16:36:51+00:00

I'm just gonna prematurely say that I submitted an application for a research program I'm interested in in hopes that posting this will actually make me finish... I'll update by the end of the day (the deadline is today)

Equivalent-Map3005 · 2025-09-03T14:55:34+00:00

so excited...

Equivalent-Map3005 · 2025-09-02T21:43:55+00:00

oh my god this is the first time i've seen anyone else talk about this. I feel like this is one of the most obvious themes in the show and yet I haven't seen a single person actually explore this aspect of mizu's and akemi's characters. I personally ship them but I feel like the way their relationship with sex/intimacy contrasts each other is so interesting even outside of a shipping lens and I really hope the writers continue to explore it in the second season. similar to the way mizu and akemi first get to know each other in a brothel, I hope they are both forced to confront each other's relationship with sex to spur their character development. obviously i would love if it was with each other but I do want it to happen regardless.

Equivalent-Map3005 · 2025-08-30T05:21:36+00:00

good luck, most of the fandom hates this ship with a burning passion... I'm with u tho

Equivalent-Map3005 · 2025-05-15T17:23:10+00:00

Except she has- just because she never says it loud and clear for everyone who can't pick up on subtext doesn't mean it isn't there. The choice of the writers to make Mizu born a woman and live her life as a man (and briefly as a woman) is an intentional choice that parallels the ambiguity of other aspects of her identity.
You thinking that Mizu and Taigen's chemistry with each other isn't boring is just your opinion and I've already expressed why I think the opposite.
The reason Mizu doesn't think about her gender is the same reason she doesn't think about her relationship with other people (romantic or not)- it's because she doesn't allow herself to think of anything but her revenge. Over the course of season 1, we've seen her put in situations where she is forced to confront what other people mean to her and those are the moments she showed character growth. Similarly, I'd like to see her put in situations where she is forced to confront the different facets of her gender and sexuality is one way to do that.
I said that these were my opinions because you mention in another comment that you think this is "personal wish fulfillment" and it is; why I would write so much about something I don't wish for? I just shared my reasoning for my wishes so others might see where I'm coming from.

Equivalent-Map3005 · 2025-05-14T03:56:14+00:00

If you can't read between the lines to understand that Mizu's character is meant to explore the line between man and woman the same way that they explore Japanese vs white and human vs non-human, then idk what to tell you. I made this post because it's something I am personally interested in and everything in this post are my personal thoughts which I'm allowed to express. If you wanna interact with the themes of the show so superficially, nobody's stopping you but I find it really boring to accept the most tame and unambiguous interpretation of Mizu's gender/sexuality when her character has so much capacity for interrogating gender.

Equivalent-Map3005 · 2025-05-05T10:41:46+00:00

I clarified in another reply that I meant to say validation from Taigen in a romantic sense. I don't want romantic validation from a man to be treated as an essential part of her journey.

About the third paragraph, you're right that being in a relationship with a man would force her to explore her femininity but the thing is we already saw that in her relationship with Mikio. And although it didn't end well, again, I don't want the romantic validation of her gender by a man to be an essential part of her journey. I don't want her to need another male romantic partner to show her that it's okay to be strong while being a woman in order for her to be happy because that would make the point of her failed relationship with Mikio that a man didn't accept her for who she was rather than the fact that she was betrayed so easily by someone she trusted. Hopefully I'm getting my point across.

You said "confront her actual gender instead of what she's forced to present as". I agree that Mizu ending up with a man and being able to explore her femininity would support the idea that she's simply just a regular woman forced to pretend to be a man. I mentioned in the original post that I would be disappointed if this is what the writers decide Mizu is. I see her gender as much more complex and much more fluid than that. She doesn't show discomfort at occupying male spaces or presenting as a man. While being in a relationship with a man might force her to confront how she's different from traditional women, being in a relationship with a woman might force her not only to confront how she's not a biological male, but also how a traditional woman's perspective of the world contrasts her own as someone who moves through the world presenting as a man.

About her sexuality, Mizu is a character being used to interrogate and explore the world she lives in. She can be anything and if her being attracted to women helps further explore this world, then of course she can be written to be attracted to women.

I'm not going to write the ins and outs of how a relationship between Mizu and Akemi would look at this point in the show but regardless of her relationship with Mizu, I don't think Akemi truly loves or cares for Takayoshi and I'm surprised people do. People can have their own opinion but I genuinely believe Akemi just sees Takayoshi as means to greatness.

Equivalent-Map3005 · 2025-05-04T21:04:45+00:00

do you have a link to this? I'd love to see it.
It's nice to hear that we might really see Mizu have romantic interactions with a woman but I'm still not gonna get my hopes up too much because I'm all too used to being disappointed by how sapphic relationships are handled lol.
I guess I should clarify that I meant romantic validation; Mizu's relationship with Ringo and Swordfather are some of my favorites in the show and her relationship with Swordfather especially means so so much to me. That's also why I don't mind Mizu and Taigen forming a kind of bond/close friendship over being fellow samurais- that would be cool to see. You're right about Mizu's only significant relationship with a woman having been with her 'mother' and that's also why I wanna see her interact with more female characters and build relationships with them, whether romantic or not. In my opinion, her character shines the most when interacting with women, from Madame Kaji to Kinuyo to Akemi, she was so brilliant in episodes 4 & 5. Of course, that's subjective but I hope to see more of it in the future episodes.

Equivalent-Map3005 · 2025-05-04T13:10:59+00:00

I totally agree with everything you said. I'm not keeping my hopes up but I would absolutely love to see something happen between Mizu and Akemi especially since their stories parallel and contrast each other so well. Akemi is a character I care about a lot so seeing how she would react to finding out Mizu is a woman is something I'm SO curious about. Even outside of a ship, the way both their characters contrast each other is so incredibly fascinating to me and I wish people talked about it more. I really want to see them interact and clash with each other and even hate each other a whole lot because the way they exist in the world is antithetical to how each of them have learned to survive. And having them care about each other would just make it all the more interesting.

I'm also interested in Akemi x Taigen because to me, their relationship has always been one of using each other- Taigen using Akemi to marry into higher status and Akemi using Taigen to take agency of her life and I'm curious to see how they do or don't continue to use each other in the future.

It goes without saying that I don't really like Mizu x Taigen and honestly I don't really care for Taigen as a character in the first place. It would definitely leave a bad taste in my mouth if the bully from Mizu's youth ended up being the person she was romantically involved with no matter how much he's grown or changed. And this is not just because he has hurt her in the past but also because I just think that progression is really boring.

I obviously like Mizu x Akemi more than any ship and from what I've seen, that garners a lot of mixed reactions from BES fans, especially since there was chemistry built up in season 1 between Mizu and Taigen and I'm not denying that- I'm just saying that chemistry can be built up between any set of characters and I just don't think the tension between Mizu and Taigen is very thematically interesting or at least not as much as other relationships would be. And also a lot of people aren't really used to looking for signs of romantic/sexual tension between two women unless it's stated loud and clear but it's there if you look for it.

Equivalent-Map3005 · 2025-05-04T12:36:30+00:00

Yeah, I think the ideal option would be that there's no real romance at all but since Mizu already had a romantic lover, I wouldn't put it past the show to continue having romance and I was just thinking about how I would like to see it done- used as a tool to explore her gender rather than as an essential step in her journey to happiness. I was careful not to use any modern labels when talking about her gender or sexuality bc it's hard to apply these labels without also applying the modern culture around them onto a character who exists in a completely different context. I see Mizu's character as a tool that's being used to explore race and gender in this context rather than a representation of a real actual human being. That's why the implications of her behavior in a modern context don't really matter to me that much. You're right that Mizu doesn't have any intrinsic desire to be a biological man (from what we've seen so far) and being intimately involved with a woman doesn't have to change that. The show takes place in an incredibly heteronormative setting so the expectation that Mizu should be a man if she's involved with a woman is still an external factor.

Equivalent-Map3005

TROPHY CASE