#just go and don't look back

[imsailorpluto]

Call It Love (2023), Kang Min-yeong

This one makes me awfully sad. There are lots of things one can label as "wrong" and "immoral". Life isn't all black and white, no matter how hard we try to make it that way. As a woman, I tend to side with other women any chance I get, no matter if it turns out to be a big mistake.

Dong-jin, even if you're played by Kim Young-kwang, I can't let you off the hook, sorry.

Their break up makes me think it was a bit of everyone's fault. Sure, we could just oversimplify it and say they weren't compatible in the first place. We still have no idea what he did, but she cheated anyways, so this is where we should just shut up all together. Well, maybe they were both too young and inexperienced to deal with their parents' burdens. It's best to learn on other people's mistakes, but this time neither of them could escape their own selves.

Dong-jin's mother is one peculiar women nobody would ever want to meet in any kind of circumstance. Her son avoids her best way possible, but she always finds a way back into his life, destroying everything she touches. Min-yeong comes from a disgustingly wealthy family (I mean the woman drives a Maserati, that car scene alone made me weep), it's only natural her life is full of problems as well; her parents never approved of her relationship in the first place. For a girl who seems to be hurried into getting married, is there anything else that's left to expect besides a tragic ending? Dong-jin tried escaping his mother's influence, more or less, but same thing can't be said for Min-yeong. My guess is both were in great pain which they couldn't get rid off due to coming from such different worlds while neither of the two knew how to patch the void in between. Inexperience.

Dong-jin's biggest mistake was hiding his true face from his partner while insisting on keeping the relationship going. He hid his background, his childhood, his wounds, his identity. Is having a meaningful relationship even possible without taking the mask off at some point? Yet that's something he could never do but still, from his perspective it must have seemed as if he's doing fine as a partner. That's not how it works, relationship is almost like a living being, and putting up a wall is always noticeable, even when the other side turns a blind eye.

Certainly, him not letting her in on his painful past has a great affect on all that lead to their break up. While Min-yeong was looking for support in the one she loved the most, she was not getting any reassurance back and she probably blamed herself for him not opening up to her. That's something women usually do. And what do people do once they can't see a way out of a difficult situation? They become (self-)destructive. She could bend over backwards but she was just not the one he would move his emotional blocks for. From what we can see in the series, he didn't really want to discuss their future together and he kept pushing her away, presenting it as if she might be the one to push him away, some day, when she learns the truth about him (if she ever does).

From that perspective, their whole situation smells like trouble. Big, big trouble. She said herself her goal was getting married and having a family. I can't blame her for wanting those things. Is wanting something she subconsciously knows Dong-jin would never offer so wrong? Is loving a person deeply to the point of being irrational and practically dumb so wrong? Ah, but desperate measures are always wrong. Why don't we all collectively just bury this woman alive, why would we understand anything that she went through? It's not like something like that could ever happen in real life to any of us, right?

Honestly, the show presents Dong-jin as if he were an angel and not a man with severe mother/father issues. He's portrayed as a kind hearted protagonist with a high moral sense, who drowns his sorrow in alcohol while lying on the floor for days after Min-yeong's mom sent him the wedding invitation. I can't deal with kdrama mom thing at all now, they're a different kind of evil, I swear.

The audacity of "I won't let you in and I won't marry you, but I won't let you marry anyone else either" is something known for ages. That's probably why her mom sent the invitation in the first place. And all of that together makes me think he didn't treat her like a decent human being. Not because he chose that, but because he doesn't have the capacity for it. Not having the capacity, being somewhat aware of it and insisting on the relationship, because the other person displays so much affection and love, is as equally bad as cheating. That is actually also cheating. A person doesn't have to get involved with anyone else to be a cheater. It's enough to hide their wounds and not be honest about it. That alone makes me think the reason why he pretended not to notice she was out dating someone else hides behind his feeling of utter guilt. Guilt for not being capable of providing her what she needs, to compensate for building up walls and wasting her time all along.

Dating emotionally unavailable person, heck, living with one, is soul draining. It hurts like hell looking at a person and feeling as if you're staring at a blank wall. The pain of having to go through that daily is worse than your partner actually cheating on you once or falling for someone else and breaking up. At least that's how I see it; the pain it puts you through is not even comparable. The reason behind it might be in the fact that for cheating one doesn't need intelligence at all. To lure someone in your life, make them stay and to calculate how much of which part of yourself you'll give in each and every moment, well... In my eyes that's way worse form of betrayal. It takes a lot of brain. That's manipulation at it's finest. There's something very dark and vile about it; it can play with other person's mental health in the most brutal ways, where outcomes may be even fatal. And we have it right there on the screen. Min-yeong became an alcoholic. She let a man with mommy issues and extremely low self-esteem drag her down to the bottom, while he then carried on with his life as the main victim in everyone else's eyes. That's something men who hate their mothers do very often.

Her side was never shown (at least not yet), how much she must have waited for him to change, to open up at least a tiny bit, how much energy and effort she poured into their relationship. How many times she tried to get thru his walls. Sure, she made a huge mistake by contacting his mother first, but I can't blame her. Imagine how desperate she was in that moment; she went behind his back to check his phone and steal his mom's number. Even thinking of doing that is hitting rock bottom yet she went on and did it without being aware of what desperation looks like on her. As any relationship, theirs must have had a great start. Keeping his character in mind, he was most probably an amazing boyfriend at first. Once the honey moon phase ended, first problems emerged. He probably pushed it all under the rug. Min-yeong's mistake was falling a bit too hard and not breaking up with him sooner, probably thinking she could change him. Could be she wanted to prove her parents wrong as well, but for whatever reason, it hurts to watch her scenes and think about her psychological profile.

It's never one sided, that feeling when relationship reaches the breaking point. People don't want to be the bad one, breaking up first. It is a bit pathetic, not ending a relationship and enjoying the victim role saying "I've been dumped" any chance possible. Meanwhile, those same people treat their partner so poorly it's evidently there is no love left there. I'm not trying to use this drama, nor Min-yeong's character to justify cheating. Of course cheating is wrong. What I'm trying to point out is the following. Dong-jin's move - not ending the relationship and choosing to live off of his partner's energy until she turned into a wreck - is also just as wrong, if not worse than what his partner did. She obviously loved him more. What a textbook example; men with severe self-esteem (and what-not) issues pursue gorgeous smart amazing independent girls, only to ruin their psyche, changing them into something, someone unrecognisable operating on survival mode. Sounds a lot like a parasite causing a disease.

Min-yeong's left miserable in the end. She turned into an alcoholic who, even after all the hell she's been through, still thinks she might have a shot with this guy who never even truly accepted her. Oh the brain fog. Oh the twisted perception. All the excuses she must have made for him until she fell into a hole they both dig up. While he just used her for tending to his wounded inner child. She must have been so confused and so lost, how messed up her head must have been when she couldn't even get rid of him. How do you get rid of a parasite? Without an intervention, you don't.

I'm good at writing apology letters for others, so why not writing one for her? So let's wrap this one up. In all honesty, Dong-jin probably took best years of her life while she waited for him to open up. What, they're probably in their late twenties, early thirties now? Imagine yourself living in a conservative society, where certain norms are expected, are even obligatory. I get that his mom made him miserable but she is still his mother. There is no other woman out there who could fill that role. Being in a relationship for god knows how long without introducing your "future wife" to your only parent, who is clearly still around, for whatever ugly reason he should have been open about, is wrong on so many levels. Min-yeong obviously loved him deeply. All she wanted was to marry a guy she loved and start a family, and not wait for him for 10 years to finally make up his mind. He knew they were not compatible, despite all the love. She was blinded, he didn't want to hurt her so he didn't let her go even though he should have. She tried to move on, but couldn't, because she wanted him. She wanted the person she could never have. She was hooked badly.

No satisfied woman would ever cheat, especially if she wants to commit to a man till the end of her life. At this point her actions look like a desperate cry for help, but her example is just another one in a sea full of such cases, no one will care once you're incapable of getting up on your feet; however, everyone will point a finger and be the first to judge and even cheer on as they watch you drown.

[snarkspawn]

advocatus diaboli

[cutiesigh]

❤️🖤🩷

Wuthering Waves has taken over all of my free time recently, so here's a sketch of Scar!Ren I originally shared in da 14DWY Discord!!

[dkettchen]

she would've told them unlike her canon! version who decided not to be an ally smh

[knifearo]

this year my challenge for everyone is to unlearn the association between love and morality. love is not something that is inherently morally good, and the absence of love is not something that is inherently bad. sex without love isn't morally bankrupt, it's just an action. people without love aren't less kind or less good, they're just people. when we can get past this false (and often unnoticed) dichotomy of good love/evil lovelessness then i think we are going to be able to take leaps and bounds in sex positivity, aro advocacy, certain discussions of mental health...

[inkskinned]

one of the things about being an educator is that you hear what parents want their kids to be able to do a lot. they want their kid to be an astronaut or a ballerina or a politician. they want them to get off that damn phone. be better about socializing. stop spending so much time indoors. learn to control their own temper. to just "fucking listen", which means to be obedient.

one of the things i learned in my pedagogy classes is that it's almost always easier to roleplay how you want someone to act. it's almost always easier to explain why a rule exists, rather than simply setting the rule and demanding adherence.

i want my kids to be kind. i want them to ask me what book they should read next, and i want to read that book with them so we can discuss it. i want my kid to be able to tell me hey that hurt my feelings without worrying i'll punish them. i want my kid to be proud of small things and come running up to me to tell me about them. i want them to say "nah, i get why this rule exists, but i get to hate it" and know that i don't need them to be grateful-for-the-roof-overhead while washing the dishes. i want them to teach me things. i want them to say - this isn't safe. i'm calling my mom and getting out of this. i want them to hear me apologize when i do fuck up; and i want them to want to come home.

the other day a parent was telling me she didn't understand why her kid "just got so angry." this woman had flown off the handle at me.

my dad - traditional catholic that he is - resents my sentiment of "gentle parenting". he says they'll grow up spoiled, horrible, pretentious. granola, he spits.

i am going to be kind to them. i am going to set the example, i think. and whatever they choose become in the meantime - i'm going to love them for it.

[little-pondhead]

DP x DC Prompt

…

There are no more heroes.

Well, okay. Rewind a bit.

Danny has been doing the hero thing for a while now. He’s had a big reveal; everyone has accepted him (including his parents), the GIW disbanded, the Anti-Ecto acts repealed, and generally, everything is going great. Some of the A-Listers are even training as junior ghost hunters to help give him a break from his rogues! (Being Ghost King makes things hectic sometimes, and he just needs the extra help. Sue him!)

The point is, literally nothing is wrong with Danny Phantom’s afterlife.

And then Valerie Gray, the Red Huntress, disappears in front of his eyes.

Danny is baffled! She’s just…gone! Valerie just popped out of existence, like she was never there. But no matter how hard he searches in the Ghost Zone, he can’t find her soul anywhere. His core isn't broken in grief. So she’s not dead. Which is good. So then, where is she?

Some of the others come forward with ideas on how to find her. A few ghosts volunteer to go out into the mortal realm, an area Danny had declared off-limits, to see if she was out there. Danny approves it. He rounds up some of the friendlier (i.e., discreet) ghosts and Amity Parkers and demolishes the outside travel ban.

So everyone spreads out, looking for their dear frenemy and teammate. But it becomes apparent very quickly that something is wrong with the rest of the world.

There are no more heroes.

Every single living superhero on the face of the Earth has just…vanished. Villains are running amok; the countries are in chaos! Some aliens are invading Earth, mythical deities are trying to take over, and society is crumbling to the ground. Everything is on the brink of collapse.

Well, Danny was still there. And so were his people. They were pretty spread out, so could they just…take up the mantles? He also knew where to find the souls of dead heroes in the Zone; surely they wouldn't mind coming out of retirement for a little bit, especially if they couldn't die again. Oh! And that skeleton army leftover from Pariah Dark's reign might be useful in repelling those invading forces.

Honestly, there were more than enough hands to go around! And with the heroes gone, Danny didn't mind letting everyone out for a little break, as long as they followed his rules. They wouldn't stop the search for the other heroes, but hopefully, when they found them, the heroes wouldn't mind Danny's intervention too much. :)

In other words:

Someone fucks up, and all of Earth's living heroes are either wished out of existence or are whisked away to some far-off realm where Danny hasn't checked yet. In the attempt to figure out what's going on, Danny lets the dead run amok over the Earth as they search for clues. The skeleton army repels the invading armies, the souls of dead heroes deal with the world leaders, and his rogues and other Amity Parkers set up shop in place of famous heroes, trying to get the cities under control again.

Basically, they just do their best to keep everything from imploding until the Justice League and others are back.

(And why is it that Danny hasn't disappeared? Well, whatever caused everyone to go poof! only affected living heroes. Anyone heroes that were dead in the first place, or even just half-dead, stayed behind.)

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

putting my prediction on record now that the coming decade is going to see the rise of viral-marketed fancy at-home water filtration systems, driving and driven by a drastic reduction in the quality of U.S. tap water (given that we are in a 'replacement era' where our current infrastructure is reaching the end of its lifespan--but isn't being replaced). also guessing that by the 2030s access to drinkable tap water will be a mainstream class issue, with low-income & unstably housed people increasingly forced to rely on expensive bottled water when they can't afford the up-front cost of at-home filtration--and with this being portrayed in media as a "moral failing" and short-sighted "choice," rather than a basic failure of our political & economic systems. really hope i'm just being alarmist, but plenty of this already happens in other countries, and the U.S. is in a state of decline, so. here's praying this post ages into irrelevance. timestamped April 2023

[wasyago]

we're at it again🕺

[egophiliac]

they're baaaaaack

[turtleinsoup]

more... father son art

for @thedawningofthehour's the dawning of the hour

[fiepige]

Compilation of EVERY single time they changed Hobie's filter in the digital version:

Left: Theatrical release Right: Digital release

You might have to click on some of them to get a better look at Hobie, sadly I don't have a video editor that allows me to make better edits than these :')

[legobiwan]

Apropos of nothing, here's my personal headcanon in regards to Mario and Luigi's surname.

Now, it's been generally announced and accepted that the brothers' last name is "Mario," shackling them with the somewhat awkward full names of "Mario Mario" and "Luigi Mario." My take on this is that the family's original last name was "Marianetti" (likely coming from the more common "Marinetti"). This name was changed to "Marionetti" when the boys' grandmother came over from Italy. (A common occurrence in record keeping at immigration at the time. Someone probably had bad handwriting and smudged a pencil stroke somewhere. It happened in my family for sure).

In Brooklyn, their father went by the last name "Marionetti," which ended up shortened to just "Mario," as oftentimes he would be addressed by his surname only. (Think, "Hey, Mario! Get over here!" as opposed to "Hey, Marionetti! Get over here!")

So, the boys are born and get their names. (Their father's middle name was Mario, and so our Mario, being the oldest, inherits his father's middle name as his first name. Luigi's name maybe comes from the middle name of some uncle who is long out of the picture).

So we have "Mario Marionetti" and "Luigi Marionetti." Which, their surname being a mouthful, gets shortened to "Mario" more often than not, just like their father. And thus we end up with "Mario Mario" and "Luigi Mario," culminating in the "Mario Brothers."

[justanotherignot]

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 89

 The young justice team is in a bit of a pickle. It had been a usual mission, Klarion causing mischief again, before someone had mentioned the date. 

 The literal chaos lord had shrieked, stopping his attack, and asked for clarification. Maybe that wasn’t a good idea because one moment they were in Happy Harbour, and the next they’re somewhere else with green everywhere and floating islands. 

 And Klarion doesn’t explain- not that they were expecting him to- and just bolts into a… wow that is a very big and scary looking castle. Keep? Honestly it’s if someone combined a gothic citadel with a clocktower of some sort. 

 Not important, because they had chased after Klarion who uh… Oh no, that is a Very big entity, that is two Very Big entities that could crush them in their fingers. And they are now stuck in this place seeing as the portal closed behind them. 

 Honestly Klarion is happy he made it home before curfew! Even if he had to bring his sort-of-friends with him to make it in time. It’s not his fault, he’s not used to having a guardian, nevermind two! Not to mention siblings, which he’s now the oldest of too, so he has to be a positive influence. Like teaching them how to properly do chaos without destroying a world. 

 Oh, but this is perfect anyway, one of his dads has been wanting to talk to the speedsters anyway, and his other dad is still under house arrest for the whole, trying to take over the living realm thing. But that’s not important, he has little siblings to introduce! 

[welcometogrouchland]

(ID in alt) I literally said I was gonna post this month's ago and then never had the wherewithal to describe it and so I didn't Lmao (said with pain). But since I'm thinking of opening my commissions I figured I should remind ppl that I. Yknow. Can draw.

Lots of Steph here (I had major art block making all of these and my brain worms for her kept me going) + some sprinkles of stephcass for Cass nation to enjoy!