#nuclear text site

[nuclearblast]

shes beautiful to me

[fatehbaz]

Seventy-five years after two nuclear bombs were dropped on Japan — killing hundreds of thousands of people in the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki — one small community in the Northwest Territories is still haunted by its connection to the blasts. Across Great Bear Lake from the 533-person hamlet of Délı̨nę sits the historic mining site of Port Radium. [...] [T]he Canadian government quietly called for uranium production as part of the country's involvement in the Manhattan Project. That uranium was sent south to help the United States with the race to build a nuclear bomb. [...] [N]ear Great Bear Lake, workers would eventually wonder about the risks they took delivering sacks of ore on their backs as they sent it south — without being told what they were about to be complicit in. [...] Days after the blasts, the Canadian government announced the country's role in the explosions, citing the Great Bear Lake mine's uranium as a key ingredient for the project, said Geoffrey Bird, a professor at Royal Roads University in Victoria who studies tourism and the history of remembrance. An English-language sign connecting Port Radium to the atomic bomb was photographed in Délı̨nę in December 1945. [...] While the Canadian government hasn't apologized to Délı̨nę, the community has apologized to Japan. [...] Locals in Délı̨nę say many ore workers and their family members developed cancer later in life. [...] In the book If Only We Had Known, which tells the story of Port Radium from the eyes of the Sahtúot'ine, elders remember workers' clothing covered with dust, windy days when ore was caught up in the air and children playing games in mine tailings.

Text by: Katie Toth. “Spectre of atomic bomb still looms over N.W.T. community 75 years after Hiroshima.” CBC News. 5 August 2020.

---

[O]n 6 August 1998, 10 members of the small Sahtugot’ine Dene community of Deline (Fort Franklin) in the ‘Northwest Territories’ apologized in Hiroshima for the atomic destruction of that city – and the death of over 200,000 civilians – exactly 53 years earlier [...]. Eldorado Gold Mines Ltd. [was] placed under state control during World War Two. They [the Dene] were allowed only to help it [uranium] on its long and winding way, 3,000 miles by river, lake, road and air, from Port Radium on Great Bear Lake to Port Hope on Lake Ontario, where, from 1942-45, the suddenly precious ore – the ‘new gold’ of the atomic age – was, together with ‘Belgian’ uranium from the Congo, refined and dispatched to Los Alamos, the desert lab in New Mexico secretly building the new, city-smashing Superweapon. [...] Beginning in the 1970s, and spiking sharply in the 1980s, many of the men who had handled and carried the ore – and the men who had mined it – began to die from cancer [...]. The “Dene,” the CBC ‘revealed,’ “were never told of the health hazards they faced, even though the government knew … as early as 1932 that precautions should be taken in handling radioactive materials”. Instead [...] “workers [were] dressed in casual clothes and uranium dust [...] covered the men like flour.” [...] [A]s detailed in a December 1998 article [...] in First Nations Drum: [...] [T]he mine was kept running at a very high pace [...]. The Dene were employed as ‘coolies’ packing 45-kilogram sacks of radioactive ore for three dollars a day, working 12 hours a day, six days a week. This at a time when the ore was worth over $70,000 a gram. [...] In 1998, the Déline Dene Band Uranium Committee released a 160-page [...] report, “They Never Told Us These Things.” In a 2011 article in Maisonneuve, Salverson recounts a community meeting in Deline to discuss the report, “where [non-Dene] lawyers delivered a year’s worth of uranium-impact research from the archives in Ottawa,” revealing that in “the mountain of papers we dug up … there is not one mention of the Dene, your people.”

Text by: Sean Howard. “Canada’s Uranium Highway: Victims and Perpetrators.” Cape Breton Spectator. 7 August 2019.

[theweeklydiscourse]

Nerfing the Villain: An analysis of the Darkling’s attack on Novokribirsk

I reject the attack on Novokribirsk as a culmination of the Darkling’s supposed master plan and his evil aspirations. So I wanted to talk about why I don’t feel compelled by this moment, despite the fact that it is brought up several times as a point of contention in discussions about the Darkling’s evil deeds.

When you read this chapter of Shadow and Bone or watch it happen in the show, it is communicated to the viewer/reader that the attack on Novokribirsk served as a demonstration of strength. In the show, we see a soldier directing Zoya to steer the ship to a position of visibility, explaining that they will need an audience. This, coupled with the attendance of foreign diplomats, reinforces the idea that the attack is meant to be seen and functions less as a military maneuver and more like a political strategy. Similarly, the book implies this purpose through Alina’s observations of the ship’s passengers

But this plan is flawed on two fronts. Firstly, the fact that the Darkling has been established as an adept strategist and general who has led the Second army for generations and thus, has a great deal of experience and expertise. Secondly, this maneuver is an act of senseless violence that has no pretext and is counterproductive to the Darkling’s goals.

And just like that…the Darkling got lobotomized by the narrative

Aleksander Morozova has been characterized as an intelligent and cunning individual from the moment he first appeared in the text. Alina's narrations frequently ponder over his inner workings and demonstrates a perception that he is both highly strategic and calculated when it comes to his planning. This perception is strengthened by the added fact that Aleksander is roughly four centuries old, having spent his long life involved in the military and politics as a Grisha general. With this in mind, the reader can gather that he is a skilled and competent leader with countless years of experience and so we assume that what he does will follow a logical path (even if it proves to be ruthless).

So how do we make sense of the attack on Novokribirsk? To examine this moment in full, we must start with how the text explains the purpose of it.

"This must be why the Darkling had delayed our trip into the Fold. He’d needed time to assemble the proper audience, witnesses who would attest to his newfound power. But just how far did he intend to go?" (Shadow & Bone, pg. 207)

Here, we see Alina's assessment of his plan. In summary, Aleksander has invited Fjerdan ambassadors, a delegation from Shu Han, Kerch tradesmen, as well as a representatives of the Crown to demonstrate the might of the Fold. He intends to use Novokribirsk as a site for his demonstration and unleash the fold upon the city to make his point to his audience. The ultimate goal of this act is explained as a threat to the nations bordering Ravka, as well as the current leadership of Ravka itself. The Fold becomes a weapon of mass destruction and lends Aleksander leverage over the nation on his terms.

“I think you understand me now. There are no Ravkans, no Fjerdans, no Kerch, no Shu Han. There are no more borders, and there will be no more wars. From now on, there is only the land inside the Fold and outside of it, and there will be peace.” (Shadow & Bone, pg. 213)

However, when you take a closer look, it becomes apparent that Aleksander should be smarter than this. He should be the kind of leader that would have the foresight to see that this plan would massively backfire if he ever did something so senseless. It would be like if the USA dropped a nuclear bomb on Los Angeles or New York to intimidate other countries into submitting to them, completely counterintuitive and lacking awareness of how the public would react. Decimating a city in your own country as a demonstration of might, especially without any pretext or warning, is not an intelligent strategy under any circumstances. Yet, Aleksander makes his speech confidently, as if what he did was a sound strategy.

For one, Novokribirsk is a densely populated trading port and has a population that is mainly composed of Ravkan civilians who are not at war with Ravka. If his goal was to showcase the Fold's overwhelming strength, why not unleash it on a Fjerdan or Shu town/city? You know, the countries that Ravka is actively at war with?

“They’re your own people!” I cried desperately. (Shadow & Bone, pg. 210)

Aleksander committing horrible acts of violence is fine, but only if it aligns with his previous strategies and end goal. Senselessly slaughtering civilians en masse is not a strategy that fits in with that idea, and it is obviously counterintuitive to what he wants to achieve. Also, Aleksander is already feared or despised by a large portion of the population and does not have the majority of Ravka on his side, so how could this possibly help him? Getting onto the throne is one thing, but staying on it is a completely different game. Brute strength can only hold out for so long, and it doesn't help him to commit a random act of violence in this context.

"They ran, and I saw their fear, heard their screams as the black fabric of the Fold crashed over the drydocks and the village like a breaking wave. Darkness enveloped them, and the volcra set upon their new prey. A woman carrying a little boy stumbled, trying to outrun the grasping dark, but it swallowed her, too." (Shadow & Bone, pg. 212)

It’s difficult to believe that a person with as much experience as the Darkling would not be be able to foresee that this act of violence would elicit a visceral negative response from the majority of Ravkans. We could imagine that the nature of this plan was to instill fear into the hearts of the masses, but no ruler can govern on fear alone and it’s pretty important to have people on your side if you want to stay in power. As such, killing civilians with no clear justifications, motives, or pretence becomes an effective strategy at getting everyone to hate your guts.

The incoherence of this moment is the reason why I reject it as a legitimate culmination of his character motivations and arc throughout the book. It feels distinctly disconnected from the goals he was purported to have, so when other characters like Nikolai and Zoya lay into them for it, I don’t feel remotely compelled by their words because it didn’t fit in at all with his character.

[femalethink]

In a key scene in Red Dragon, an FBI agent tells a group of police officers that there is no doubt that the family serial killer will strike again. “Why?” one woman asks him. “Because it makes him God,” intones the agent. Just days after Red Dragon opened, the police found the Death card from a Tarot deck near the scene of one of the shootings. Inscribed on the card was a message from the shooter. It was reported in the media as reading: “Dear Policeman, I am God.”

Such grandiose allusions to divinity have long been a crucial part of the serial killer myth. They proliferate as well in technological, especially nuclear, mystique and metaphor, most famously when the erudite J. Robert Oppenheimer, “father” of the atomic bomb, named the bomb test site “Trinity” and then, while witnessing the first atomic blast, recited the god Krishna’s words from the sacred Hindu text, the Bhagavad-Gita: “I am become Death, the shatterer of worlds.”

More mundane occasions for such utterances occur regularly in popular playtimes. In the media storm that followed the discovery of the inscribed Tarot card in the Beltway case, the public learned that “I am God” is a common declaration by victorious players of violent video games. We were reminded that Eric Harris, one of the two teenaged boys who committed mass murder at Columbine High School in April 1999, was an avid video game player and had scribbled, “I am God” in another student’s yearbook.

The popularity of this phrase in all of these contexts points to a pervasive, if usually unexamined, recognition that violence, control, total power over others, and specifically masculine lethal violence or the power of “unnatural death,” all have a religious character in our culture. Despite much talk of God being “love” and associated with creation, the phrase “I am God” is not uttered in delivery rooms by mothers, or by those getting the news that they have received the Nobel Peace Prize. The dominant notion of god in the Abrahamic patriarchal religions is an all-male being whose defining characteristics seem to be omnipotence, jealousy, righteousness, judgment, and dominance. This notion of god powers all sorts of terrorism: religious, political, criminal, familial, militarist, nuclear, and any combination of these as power-mad men take up that mythic role, “playing god” by waging war, accumulating fortunes, toying with others’ lives, and lording it over everybody else.

—Jane Caputi, "Goddesses and Monsters: Women, Myth, Power, and Popular Culture."

[brilliantfantasticgeronimo]

66.7512 meters episode!!!

i think i broke his heart! oh well!!!! ÑLKÑLK ruby y are u so happy about this all the time skfljdks1 (waiting for the karmic writing where someone breaks *her* heart....). tbh also very doctor-like. they are *so* unhinged

i was looking for some Spin-off foreshadowing in this war between land and sea business but best i've got is that... it will probably be set in wales ksdlfj

nuclear war is hilarious. fiften u are not all right.

That's the most bizarre "circle" ive ever seen. if anything is the orthogonal projection of a geodesic dome.

"A pee around the back"…….. dr pee foreshadowing

AESOP #1: children, when u are doing "off the road tourism", don't disturb sacred sites

susan twist's "thing" is just gonna be: "take revenge from being killed so many times". like she's just red-shirting all over the place (maybe it's gonna be a bit of meta commentary of the high body count of this show? that it's all for our sadistic pleasure but doesn't always have real significance skfldj)

I guess inflation is a recurring theme this season?

liminal spaaaace

"and then there's the blood""w-what blood?" i laughed ngl sksksk

the different color fonts in iplayer are a bit distracting tbh…...

ah yes. welsh racism...

hmmm… runy sitting in the chair... to wait in front of the tardis... "The one who waits?"

Thats' what men do skdksk love me some "Intergalactic fuck boy" subtext being voice and made text

Poor ruby ):

it's about the [metaphor for being stigmatized]!!!

Ohh the doctor was the first to disappear by the curse, maybe?

"even ur real mother didnt want u" Bro this monster is so mean wtf Kate!!!

AGAINST HIM, SOMETIMES!!!!!!!!! Antagonist kate be coming!!!

"well, that's classified"

This timeline might be suspended along ur event???

WE INVENT THE RULES AND MAKE THEM WORK!!! THEMES!! YOU HAVE TO COUNT EVERY GRAIN OF SALT!!! IT'S THE GAME THEME CONNECTING TO THE SUPERSTITION THEME!!!!!!!!

theeeemes

the more unit gets competent the more sinister they become

her going "cheers!" to her personal satan. i love u ruby

FUCK YEAH. ICON. GO KILL THE PRIME.MINISTER

...only guys in ruby's little montage ]: im heartbroken T.T rip the x5 times wlw companions streak dream it seems

"except the bed thing that was u" narrator voice: it wasnt

"Which is what?" KILL THE PM KILL THE PM DO IT ICON

Rtd connected to the universe skskdk oh beautiful synergy

[also literally how Y&Y starts... ]

"No more" feels loaded/intentional here, considering how it's been used before as an Important Phrase is War's arc.

the emo advisor guy intrigues me

Ruby having to solve this whole thing + cold war vibes.... mmm very ace coded

[lol @ soc dem / liberal writers being so scared of "populism" and "the dumbness of crowds". peak soc dem / liberal] [what is a "political allegory story" by a soc dem without the punchline being that "I think The People are really fucking Stupid actually"] [i do enjoy the side point of british politicians being so desperate for relevancy that they fire nuclear missiles for the fun of it. yeah… that tracks]

[lol becoming independent from nato being a bad thing. lol #"fucklybia!!"#signed:thisepisode]

the directing is very fun in this

Ruby get on your feets and make it happen

She's gonna say u forgot to say hi to this lady

ruby's asking to be shot again sksks

Iris u say…........ eyes emoji

[ok but also. lol not to go " ah, peak liberal again!" but lol. this resolution is peak liberal [ie. fundamentally antidemocratic, a few 1% technocrats (obvs, privileged and from the global north) with the answers "know what's best"]. this lad may have been crazy but they voted for him for a reason that "the system" wasnt providing.but in typical soc dem fashion they can't ever fight the fascists on The Real Deal ie. strength of a proposed political project + material gains resulted from those political projects + committing to real system change, so they have to scramble for antidemocratic solutions like [timey wimey prisons] to ""fight facism""" (ie not fighting it at all and by proxy, just making the fucking cockroaches stronger each "election cycle" because they can't fight them in a meaningful, political sense) bc the people are just too stupid!!! and this is why democracy was a mistake!!!!!!! ... sigh rtd. oh well good thing i didn't expect more on this front tbh sdlkjfdsd in that sense the s1-s4 rewatch prepared me well lol]

clara vibes in this ep in a lot of moments (old!ruby, sort of "mausoleum tardis", etc)

"i didnt travel with him long..." "but it felt like a lifetime" became literal…

"Everyone has abandoned me my whole life" T_T

AESOP #2: kids u are never alone <3 u always have ur inner demons :) and the unrelenting spectra of death~

There's always something a bit unsatisfying about self closing paradoxes... kinda like "oh it was all a dream so it didnt matter". but i think in this one it was crunchy enough with other things that i think it was balanced.

Very turn left-y ending! CONCLUSIONS!! people kept saying in the press this episode was gonna be "super scary" tbh i just found it.... profoundly sad sdxkljflkfj ruby's life just *screams* "missing the important bits by focusing on the unimportant" and "obsessing over things that don't matter" and "companion becomes detached from real life to the point they become super unhinged and callous" ("im sorry i couldn't help you marti")

(c+p some stuff i put on a discord): tbh i rolled my eyes at the political stuff but i don't think im even mad about it this time lol (too tired irl to get properly angry at doctor who these days ig)

anyway i dont think the political stuff is what it was really "about". i found this story very moving on what it was (imo) rlly about: ruby's fear and experience of being abandoned and also the general "fear of approaching death"

and obvs a bit of other emotional beats that are more specific to doctor who's long running stories: like the doctor "always does this" ie leaves everyone of his friends behind and there's the lingering tragedy that this will happen, as well, to ruby inevitably, then also both ruby and the doc becoming 'detached' from real life (ruby basically never investing anything in those relationships w/ those guys bc she was 'absorbed' by this mystery /clearly a parallel to her being absorbed by her parental origin) and also how tourists cant watch where they step / the doctor and co arent always respectful to the 'silly traditions' of the places they visit (tbh excellent bc to overcome my "this show has the white man's burden' engraved in its dna" meta... the show is gonna have to keep making story like and like Demons of Punjab for at least 3 more decades lol) (basically tldr i think it fumbled the politics stuff but it was rlly crunchy where it mattered. also, ....... i think this pretty much confirms that ruby isn't her own mother / the person who let herself at the door step in Christmas, right??? like rtd had said was the short story he had concocted years ago, and was the insp for this... but he kinda used up that trick here… so it must be something/someone else, right?) (another thing: ruby going "i used to be able to make it snow" made smth click....... ---> if ruby's whole focus rn seems to be about "the mystery", and this quest seems to be not only something she *needs* but also something that like... means joy and adventure, and traveling with the doctor... when she finds out the Truth,,, that probably means all the whimsy in her life will go away? (so she may come to a point where she Doesn't want to know Actually (which would be very "thirteen regretting throwing away the watch" realness mirror again)

[gothicprep]

Does the “woke” critique ever really go beyond “this has gay people/poc/women in if they’re pushing their agenda” type stuff? Personally I don’t think I’ve heard “Mary sue” get used since Rey Starwars, everything I’ve seen lately is just foaming at the mouth when a story doesn’t exclusively center white men

there’s a version of the critique that’s just that, and there’s another version of it that’s something to the effect of “it seems like some writers use IP to tell a story *they* would like to tell, regardless of how it works in the IP”. the former one is just whiny. the second one, as far as I can tell, is probably a real critique, because i can think of examples of this being brought up where representation isn’t involved in ~the discourse~ around it at all.

this happened in like 2015 back when fallout 4 came out. if you don’t know anything about fallout, here’s the quick TL; DR. nuclear war happens. americans take shelter in vaults built by the vault-tec corporation. some of the vaults turn out to be weird social experiments set up to study human behavior. vault 95 was housed with only drug addicts and there were no drugs in the vault, except 5 years in, a massive stash of drugs would be revealed in a hidden location in the vault. the problem is that one of the logs the player can find is written by a delivery man where he says he’s delivering a shipment of jet, a fictional drug in the game that’s a weird cross between meth and jenkem, made from fumes of radiated cattle dung. but this was invented after the bombs dropped, so there was no way for a pre-war delivery man was bringing a shipment of it.

this is a problem that’s very easy to fix in a video game. just change the text in the next patch. instead, what happened was the guy who wrote that quest doubled down, and did it again when fans were pointing out the clear flaws in his logic. and the writer responded with “not interested in discussing how realistic things are in an alternate universe post-apoc game w/ talking mutants and ghouls.” and a lot of game and tech news sites backed him up on making fun of fans for daring to complain about lore inconsistencies.

and like, on some level, yeah. it’s just a story. maybe you shouldn’t take it too seriously. but part of the flip side of that is that if you stop taking it seriously, you stop consuming it. bethesda didn’t create fallout, they’re just it’s current owners. people working there might care about fallout to some extent, but when push comes to shove, they prioritize their own visions. and stuff like this is ultimately how they view it. if you’re a fan of fallout, it means something to you. that’s why you enjoy it. but to them it’s only a vehicle for their new story. if they can get away with not respecting old lore – not just to save face, but also because the old lore gets in the way of the story they want to tell – and they believe that you’ll continue consuming the product, what incentive do they have to respect the old lore.

and, how many times have you heard a story like this? how many tv shows? how many video games? how many movies has something equivalent has this happened to? people take these things seriously because they love them. when they see inconsistencies, they’re worried that the new stewards don’t actually care. and when those new stewards lash out like this, it just confirms to fans that these creatives only want to wear a skin suit of the thing that they love.

that’s the best steelman I have for that, anyway.

[paranormalbadboyfiles]

Okay so,

We are gen’ing on main! Let’s get into the theories! Let me know yours too :3  ~*Under the Cut*~ (long post incoming!) Non-Circled Items - Visible Text: Words, clockwise - Visible Text: Numbers, clockwise Circled Items - White Numbers(1-18) - Green Numbers (1-5) - Red Numbers (1-4) - Orange Numbers (1-2)

~*Non-Circled Items*~ Visible Text: Words, clockwise Left - Magma - Theory - Theory #4 -  Escaped monkey (there is at least on often reported on YouTube story about this) -  Shockwave Top -  M on the left is the Mystery Files logo. -  Exhaustion. -  Volcanic gas. - The body disintegrated. (Another tale of spontaneous human combustion maybe?) -  A belch, methane(?) Right - Theory #3(?) Bottom - Theory #2 Center - Suspect #1 - Unknown - Rip Van Winkle Visible Text: Numbers, clockwise Left -  2007 (the year, I’m presuming) Top -  $160k Right -  80 million trees Bottom -  $100,000 Center -  2005 (the year, I think)  - 500,000 acres ~*Circled Items*~  White Numbers(1-18) 1. Looks like some kind of machine-type thing? See number 12. 2. Letter J. See number 13. JK = Just kidding? 3. Nuclear explosion icon? 4. Mobile phone. Randonautica? (Ryan did an ad for them awhile back during the same season where he tied himself up for an AYS promo shoot). There's one very uh...dark story that occurred with this app that's been heavily covered on YouTube. 5. Under water nuclear explosion? Underwater volcano? (The words "magma" and "volcanic gas" are also on there). 6. A Tumblr-looking "T." I AM my fear.  7. PBS is provided by support from Internet content viewers like you. Thank you! 8. Chipmunk? Beaver? Groundhog? Or do I have the paredolia? 9. Suspect #1, right under a picture of Ryan. 10. "Public Enemy" written across a picture of Ryan on PH set. 11. A little Professor sticker peeking behind Number 10. 12. A machine looking thing? Inner mechanisms of a watch? Possibly related to number 1? 13. Letter K. See number 2. JK = Just kidding? 14. I looked up the "Evergreen State" and it's Washington. 15. A heart. See number 18. 16. Looks like a generic "person" graphic similar to one used in BFU. Sunglasses on top. Why? Finally the Buzzfeed tea? 17. A rosary? 18. Another heart. See number 15. Green Numbers (1-5) All of these are connected together by green string 1. Insect? 4 legs? Multiple antennae? I fear the buggy cryptids D: 2. Musical notes.   3. M is the Mystery Files logo.  4. $500,000 acres.  5. Mystery Files is the title.  Red Numbers (1-4) All of these are connected together by red string 1. Post-explosion site?  2. Nuclear explosion?  3. Text: Volcanic gas.  4. Football  Orange Numbers (1-2) 1. Thumbtack, right next to the left edge of the board.  2. Thumbtack, right beneath the top edge of the board.

[rushingheadlong]

[cw extreme negativity & fandom wank]

So, I found out the hard way this morning that people you have blocked are still able to add your gifs to their posts through the gif searching function. Tumblr's wonderful blocking system (/s) will only stop you from seeing those notifications and prevent the person from interacting with your OP. It does nothing to help you stop shitty people from adding them to any posts that they make.

And I'm not gonna lie, I am really, REALLY pissed about this and seriously considering no longer posting any gifs on this site going forward.

I am fully aware that there is no way for me to stop people from outright stealing my gifs and I've never been too fussed about trying to prevent that. That's why I don't watermark any of my gifs. They aren't made with photoshop and they are FAR from being perfect, so I made the decision early on to more-or-less wash my hands of what happens with my gifsets once they're posted. I make these for my own enjoyment first and foremost, so whether people hate them or love them I don't really care too much either way.

But it is WILDLY different to now know that my gifs can be accessed through a direct tumblr feature by people that I have specifically decided that I don't want accessing my content. It is VERY different to see my gifs with my URL automatically attached thanks to tumblr being used in text posts to express sentiments that I strongly disagree with. It is, in fact, incredibly distressing to know that no amount of blocking will be able to prevent TERFs, racists, and general assholes from using something I've created to promote viewpoints that run directly contrary to my own and that my URL will be forever attached to those posts via my gifs.

And unless tumblr makes changes to both the block feature and the gif search function, there's absolutely nothing I can do about this except stop posting gifs and remove what I've already posted - assuming that deleting the OPs will even remove my gifs from the search function.

Honestly that uncertainty about how the gif search actually works is the only thing stopping me from mass deleting everything in my #myedit tag today. I know that's a nuclear option and it's one that I genuinely do NOT want to have to take, especially not while my emotions are still running high about this.

But I post new gifsets weekly and there are two month's worth already sitting in my drafts waiting to go. And it's very hard to look at them today without wondering which specific gifs are going to end up being reposted back into the tags or added to inflammatory text posts, now without my knowledge at all because I don't get notifications of this from people I already have blocked.

I genuinely don't know what I'm going to do about this going forward. I schedule my new sets to be posted every Tuesday, so today's already went put before I found out about any of this, but if you don't see anything new from me next week... Well, you'll know what decision I made then, I guess.

[teeth--thief]

Do we have the opinion of anyone in the control room on Dyatlov? Leonid, Akimov, etc.? I watched the interview with Stolyarchuk. Very good. Also, I learned color text on this web site… though I’m unsure as to why there is no yellow or blue? :(

- Rodka

@atomshchik I'm almost caught up with all your asks, that calls for a celebration! (proceeds to disappear for a few days)

I guess there's no yellow because it'd be too low contrast? Who knows... But I think you can make fancy gradient text with any color you want! That's probably just for posts, not asks... I'm blissfully unaware of how, though, as I'm a mobile phone user (I don't have a working PC or a laptop... matter of fact, I need a new phone, too).

Stolyarchuk seems like good vibes overall, doesn't he? He's always so calm and collected. He's just chillin. We love an unproblematic guy.

I've gotta be honest, I have gaps in my memory when it comes to whether or not Stolyarchuk ever explicitly said much about Dyatlov in any interviews. I need to rewatch both the one with KishkiNa and the panel with Steinberg and the rest... By that, I'm assuming he never said anything ground breaking but I might be wrong. Either way: I'm putting a pin in that, I'll come back to this matter.

Not to even mention the SIUT - Igor Kirschenbaum. We know so little about him overall that his thoughts on anyone are... yeah, we just don't know. I'm pretty sure he only ever did one interview, on the phone, at that - with KishkiNa (starts at 15:52) - and I'm not sure if you can even call that an interview...

About Akimov and Toptunov... There are of course their testimonies, as they were interrogated while in the hospital in Moscow, but those never made it out of the prosecutor's office. At this point, no one knows if they ever will get out to the public or even if they're still there at all. They couldn't have been that - if at all - incriminating for Dyatlov, though, as they weren't brought up during the trial in reference to him forcing them to do anything, being verbally abusive etc etc.

And, of course, when mentioning Toptunov, Sasha Korol comes up once again: we know for a fact he was absolutely terrified of Dyatlov. So much so that he had some real... unkind things to say about him in his interview with Kupnyi (translation taken from here from the one and only @/toptunovleonid on Instagram):

(...) And Lenya opened the door, he entered. He rang [the doorbell] first, then opened the door. I was reading a magazine about science and he said "Let's go, in my work time there will be a test. Dyatlov will be in command..." and I... Kupnyi: You didn't get along with him [Dyatlov]... Yeah... he was a petty tyrant. Kupnyi: Did you have to deal with him? Thank God, I didn't have to deal with him! Only once but it doesn't matter. We went to the reactor shop. Lenya arrived earlier - immediately after graduation arrived at the power plant. I went there after a month. By this time Dyatlov was promoted, and the chief of the [reactor] shop became Sitnikov. Sitnikov hired me. That's how we didn't cross paths with Dyatlov, Thank God. If it wasn't Dyatlov, there wouldn't be accidents. The whole story would be different... Before he worked at Chernobyl, he tested nuclear reactors of submarines. And then there was this system, like a party nomenclature. (Dyatlov was) "unsinkable", as they say. They chided him, they chided him and he came [to Chernobyl] to control an even worse reactor. On submarines, reactors are well controlled due to the "enrichment" dynamics of control. And our "enrichment" was small... Well, in short, he covered (himself; probably he was hiding after the accident on the submarine). He was obsessed with proving that RBMK were secure. A program was written if one block stops working and gets disconnected to the others, will water still be pumped. It's different than... where there is a cooling system, natural cooling. In RBMK there are 1648 channels controlled manually? And if the connection is lost, the diesel generator turns on but it takes 3 minutes so it can start working. For this time, cooling is needed. He tried to prove it. He did everything as he should... but he proved the opposite. He proved the opposite. The program was... Kupnyi: Did he initiate the program? Yes. He wanted to be promoted. He wanted to prove this immediately. No one has read the program he wrote. Everyone said so. Everyone knew there would be a test of the generator runout. Nobody had seen (the program). They saw it when he brought it himself, and there was strikethrough text, corrections. That's the whole deal. To get ready for the program, they had to see, to discuss it, to study it. I mean he just brought it and (said) "Here. Do this.". Nobody could understand, that's why he commanded. Kupnyi: Did this experiment have to be performed in the evening but they postponed it to the night shift? Yes. Kupnyi: Logically, the night shift wasn't familiar with the test that had to be performed in the evening. The evening shift got ready for... (the test). Not the evening, nor any other shift read the program (that Dyatlov wrote).

Only once but it didn't matter, you say? Define doesn't matter, please. If I had to guess, someone got scolded real bad for something... Anyhow, he never mentioned what Toptunov thought about Dyatlov - I'm assuming if Lyonya had been that terrified of him, too, then Korol would have mentioned so, you know, to boost his case... But he said nothing so I suppose we may never know...

[nuclearblast]

kitten if daddy is being honest right now he feels fucking miserable and depressed can you stop going "nya" its giving him a migraine

[fatehbaz]

[I]n the period of eerie suspension before the explosion [...], those who registered the [...] uncanny [...] experience[d] a condition that [...] would become familiar to everyone living in a targeted city during the Cold War: the sense that the present survival and flourishing of the city were simultaneously underwritten and radically threatened by its identity as a nuclear target. [...] [I]nhabitants of Cold War cities [...] became accustomed to a more overt and permanent variant of the uncanny frisson [...]. Lobbing incendiaries and explosives through the roofs and windows […], the British gunners gutted portions of the Dublin city center; during the week of the Rising, 500 people died […]. The more frequent and extreme outbreaks of traumatic violence in everyday urban life […], in the early-twentieth-century imaginary, the city had begun to host new forms of sudden mass death and severe physical destruction.

Cities had, of course, been sites of mass death before 1916.

But the Easter Rising differed from nineteenth-century urban barricade fighting in the use, principally by British soldiers, of more precise and destructive weapons; fired from the ground, from rooftops, and from gunships in the Liffey, the new cannons, incendiaries, and machine guns rapidly reduced whole blocks of the city center to ruins. These emerging military technologies and strategies link the Rising to the Great War then raging in England and on the Continent, whose fields and cities had become proving grounds for new weaponry and modes of warfare. In Ireland and the Great War, [...] “Like the Western Front [the Easter Rising] became a war of attrition, and the lessons of the Western Front were taught again in the streets of Dublin.” […]

---

Though the shelling of Dublin in 1916 reminded observers of Ypres, Louvain, and other European cities ruined in the Great War, it might as credibly have called to mind a different list: Canton, Kagoshima, and Alexandria. During the second half of the nineteenth century, British naval bombardments made rubble of these coastal cities […].

The naval bombardment of undefended cities and civilians, particularly those in colonial territories, paved the way for the first airplane bombardments, in which the imperial powers of Europe dropped bombs on nonwhite, non-European adversaries and anticolonial forces.

Italy pioneered airplane bombardment in 1911 by bombing Arab oases outside Tripoli; British planes bombed Pathans in India in 1915, Egyptian revolutionaries and the Sultan of Farfur in 1916, a Mashud uprising on the Indian-Afghanistan border in 1917, and Somaliland and the Afghan cities of Dacca, Jalalabad, and Kabul in 1919.

---

Several years before the inhabitants of European cities experienced it, aerial bombardment had been established as a uniquely colonial nightmare. [...] [T]he initial use of airplane bombs against colonies was foreseen and even fed by a racist fantasy pervading early-twentieth-century European science fiction, a fantasy of bombing subject races either into submission or out of existence. The willingness of several signatory nations to ignore Article 25 when bombing nonwhite soldiers and civilians made colonial towns and cities the first civilian spaces secured by the implied threat of bombardment from above.

In the world war […] the brief tenure of aerial bombardment as an exclusively colonial technique ended when imperial powers launched the first bombing campaigns against the cities of other imperial powers, initiating a change that would later find its apogee in the nuclear condition: the reconfiguration of the major metropolis as target.

---

Text by: Paul K. Saint-Amour. “Bombing and the Symptom: Traumatic Earliness and the Nuclear Uncanny.” Diacritics Volume 30 Number 4. Winter 2000. [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me.]

[redlinmad]

🖤RESULTS 2023🖤

It is unlikely that many people will read this text, but I will write it rather for myself.

In January there was a turning point for my creativity: a graphics tablet. Now, reviewing the works, I notice the work with color. I stopped being afraid of both dull colors and nuclear shades. I learned a little theory about complementarity, triad, etc. The anatomy is still in the dark, but I think this misunderstanding will soon need to be corrected. Backgrounds: my nightmare, which I began to overcome. It's still difficult, but I'm on the right course.

It was this year that a signature appeared on my art. And for a reason! My works began to be published on third-party sites without attribution. I realize that these people did not pretend to be the author, but I felt differently.

🌛Challenges.🌜

Mermay For the first time, I started interacting with other artists not as a follower, but from the perspective of another artist. If you have not participated in challenges, you may not understand this feeling of cohesion when you are supported by complete strangers who are doing the same thing as you. And of course you support me in return. I can call it a cycle of love. I completed only 6 works and was exhausted. I didn’t have enough skill, I painted one work for almost a day or two. Exhausting.

-Inktober. There is a separate post, but here I will say that I am proud of myself. Well done, I was able to complete the entire marathon. The work took an hour or two, which was not very exhausting.

-Huevember. I still haven't completed it. Only 5 arts left. And I start to blame myself. Maybe this will discourage my desire to finish, or maybe on the contrary it will encourage me. Time will show.

🖤Subscribers🖤 Without you, I would not have continued to draw. Only this way, occasionally on the table, without sharing with anyone. Support is very important to me, I am greedy for attention. And as long as I receive it, my desire to draw and develop only intensifies. There have been more of you this year and I am incredibly grateful that you are walking this path with me. I value everyone, especially those who subscribe, write comments and are active. I save every comment as a keepsake.

Thank you.

[at-the-end-of-days]

It all goes back to the Temple Mount.

So I didn’t realize this until today, but everything Hamas is doing, from the initial attack of 5,000 missiles onwards… it was named after the mosque on the Temple Mount.

“Also known as 'Al-Aqsa Flood', Operation 'Al-Aqsa Storm' is a military operation led by was a surprise attack on Israel by Hamas on October 7, 2023. The attack involved firing thousands of rockets at occupied territories, including enemy positions, airports, and military positions.”

They could have named it ANYTHING.

Operation Freedom, Operation Get Our Land Back, Gaza Storm, Hamas Flood. But they didn’t. They named the attack after the mosque on the Temple Mount. Which, while not the holiest site in Islam, is the third.

Now, I made a post a while back that it was my personal opinion that the matters of Revelations couldn’t begin until the Desolation at the Temple. What is that, who knows, even the son of Gd didn’t really specify.

Mark 13:14, King James Version

But when ye shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing where it ought not, (let him that readeth understand,) then let them that be in Judaea flee to the mountains:

And then it goes into the whole bit which has been previously posted about how you shouldn’t grab a thing, you should run. Don’t get a coat, run.

My assumption was that … well, it would be nuclear, if not something else. Something… awful. But nuclear made the most sense, at least to me. You wouldn’t grab a coat in a nuclear blast.

And it was my opinion that this desolation wouldn’t take place until the red heifers were ready for slaughter, solely because then Israel would have a pointed reason to make a move on the Temple Mount.

Not that they have left that mosque alone as it is.

The most recent issue.

And honestly the take away from the article:

“The Al-Aqsa Mosque is under the administration of the Jordan-affiliated Islamic Waqf. While non-Muslims are allowed to visit, they are not permitted to worship under a long-standing status quo agreement.

However, attacks by far-right groups advocating for Jewish control and over Al-Aqsa have been ongoing for years.

In recent months, radical Israeli settlers have increasingly been storming the mosque under the protection of Israeli security forces. Hamas said that its attack on Israel was motivated by the settler provocations.”

And if not storming the mosque, Israel has acted in other ways.

Such as saying that they need to be in the area for archaeological reasons.

https://new.thecradle.co/articles/israeli-excavation-under-al-aqsa-accelerates-with-intensity-report#:~:text=For%20several%20decades%2C%20Israel%20has,to%20the%20land%20of%20Palestine.

“For several decades, Israel has been excavating under the Al-Aqsa Mosque as part of a vague, historically motivated search for 'Solomon's Temple. ' These excavations represent Israel's attempt to justify the occupation through archeology, by which Israelis claim they can trace their heritage to the land of Palestine.”

I mean, look at how this place is divided up.

So what happens now?

If you’ve been watching the news, there’s been a lot of talk about a physical invasion into Gaza. But despite the operation being named for the mosque itself? I haven’t seen - doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened or doesn’t exist - any articles or news stories about Israel using this time to act against the mosque. Or Hamas attacking the mosque.

And frankly? That would be.. idiotic.

Why? Because if Israel does anything to the mosque at this point, it’s inviting Iran and other Muslim nations to fully turn against them (ignoring Iran lighting fireworks, and getting US military plans that went from Trump, to Putin, to Iran, no doubt aiding in attack plans against Israel). And this, when Israel was trying to make peace with Saudi Arabia.

This would be the worst time for them to move.

Now, someone else may see this, and make a move on the Temple Mount, pinning the blame on Israel.

I don’t know. No one knows for certain. Even the son of Gd didn’t know exactly when this would happen, and he wasn’t very descriptive. But then, how does one two thousand years ago, describe any of these things that have come to pass? Or will come?

Mark 13, New International Version:

14 “When you see ‘the abomination that causes desolation’[a] standing where it[b] does not belong—let the reader understand—then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. 15 Let no one on the housetop go down or enter the house to take anything out. 16 Let no one in the field go back to get their cloak. 17 How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! 18 Pray that this will not take place in winter, 19 because those will be days of distress unequaled from the beginning, when God created the world, until now—and never to be equaled again.

Now I have quoted Zechariah and Ezekiel, but as a Christian whose holy book is the Bible… the timeline seems.. uncertain at best. Just that some things have to happen before we get into the worst of it all.

Famines and earthquakes are here. Famines will get worse. War is at the doorstep of every home.

Atrocities, in Ukraine, in Gaza, in Israel.

Whispers, across Europe, America, Australia. Preppers, the paranoid, the children of the Lord see this. And it is ignored by those that can afford to ignore it.

With any luck? The mosque will stay standing. It will not be attacked, it will not be desecrated. Lives will not be lost, and no earthquake will fall over Israel to show that this is the last act before the end of days.

And I don’t mean that sarcastically, given the name of my blog.

But this attack was named FOR the mosque atop the Temple Mount. Why?

[metfell]

im obsessed with checking the nuclear text site tag on his blog. i never remember the shit he posts and then i go look and i end up losing my shit. what is he lacing his posts with im his biggest fan

[beardedmrbean]

Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation” against Ukraine hit a turning point Wednesday—but not the kind the Kremlin wanted.

Instead, the Russian leader may have inadvertently put the final nail in the coffin of his decades-long reign with his bombshell announcement that hundreds of thousands of citizens will be called up to face likely death in the war next door.

While Putin’s most loyal allies rallied around the leader with calls for unity and defense officials stretched over backwards to provide dubious assurances to the general public, ordinary Russians rushed for the exits and took to the streets.

Airline tickets out of the country sold out within a matter of hours. There were myriad reports of men of conscription age being barred from buying bus and airline tickets, and human rights groups reported that draft notices were already being handed out to people at bus stations and train stops in some areas.

Street cleaners and homeowners associations were reportedly tasked with delivering the notices in other areas.

Anton, a manager at a Moscow-based IT company, was nervous while waiting in line for passport control at Vnukovo Airport on Wednesday morning. He was fleeing to Armenia just hours after the mobilization announcement.

“Unfortunately, this is my war, although I never asked for it: victims of this war are my people, I have been helping suffering people; and the bastards who started this war are my enemies,” he told The Daily Beast after passing through border control.

He was constantly checking a “Border Control” group chat on Telegram, made up of about 15,000 Russian middle-class professionals making plans to escape Moscow following the announcement.

Anton’s friend, 35-year-old Alexander Koryakin, another a Russian IT tech, had also left for Armenia earlier on Wednesday. Koryakin said he was now “breathing freely and thinking straight” in Yerevan.

Was initially just here for the headline, but the whole article isn't half bad, which is about as good as the daily beast can do.

“This war, this is definitely not my war, this conflict has been artificially blown up, Russia does not need it,” he said, adding a message for others still stuck in the country: “Run away, there will be nothing good in Russia for a long time. This is not a betrayal, this is your survival.”

Valentina Melnikova, the head of the Union of Committees of Soldiers’ Mothers of Russia, said the mobilization shows Putin only wants to escalate the war.

“Today Putin mobilizes people, tomorrow he will employ nuclear weapons, our job is to help those who do not want to serve,” she told The Daily Beast.

Dozens of demonstrators were detained in Moscow as well as cities as far flung as Ulan Ude, Izhevsk, Irkutsk, Chelyabinsk, and Perm, among others, according to the monitoring site OVD.info. Protests continued to erupt across the country despite prosecutors in the capital warning demonstrators they could face up to 15 years in prison for speaking out against the war.

Outrage only intensified amid reports that some public workers had already begun receiving draft notices en masse. Medical staffers in Moscow have already been called up, according to human rights lawyer Pavel Chikov, who also called BS on the Russian defense ministry’s claims the mobilization would only be “partial.”

The Insider reported that doctors and nurses at one private clinic in Moscow had also received draft notices.

The actual text of the decree declaring mobilization puts no cap on the number of people to be called up and does not limit the draft to reservists, as defense officials claim. The document also contains one “classified” clause that keeps the number of those to be mobilized concealed.

The backlash was swift: “The crazy grandpa is going all in, his bets–are our lives. They promised us to take Kyiv in three days. The Ukrainians took in three hours what we took in three months. Now there is a mobilization for ‘fresh meat’ in order to bomb civilian sites,” hackers wrote in a statement posted on the homepage of St. Petersburg’s Pulkovo Airport.

“Ukraine already won. The question is how badly we’ll lose,” the statement read.

Protests also broke out in unexpected places, with customers of one jewelry store chain reportedly receiving a message that read: “Today Vladimir Putin announced a general mobilization. This means your husbands, children, and fathers can be sent by force to fight in Ukraine at any moment. Into the war that Putin started and he is losing…”

The company, 585 Gold, later blamed the messages on hackers.

Meanwhile, anger seems to be growing over Russian lawmakers who cheer on the war but let ordinary citizens do the dirty work.

Dmitry Vyatkin, a lawmaker in Putin’s United Russia party, raised eyebrows with a speech Wednesday claiming it’s “easy” to decide to head to the frontline in Ukraine–but arguing that he and other lawmakers can’t do it because they’re too busy explaining the “importance” of the war to people.

The family of Putin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, was also put on the spot over their apparently untouchable status during the mobilization.

A reporter for Popular Politics, a news program created by allies of imprisoned Kremlin foe Alexei Navalny, phoned up Peskov’s son, Nikolai, during a Wednesday broadcast and impersonated a military commissar, telling him he was being called up for military service in accordance with the mobilization.

“You must understand, if you know I am Mr. Peskov, how entirely wrong it is for me to be there,” Nikolai responded. “Basically, I will decide this on a different level.”

[morninkim]

Season 2 Arc: Rita & Tommy Breakdown

ANOTHER STORY BREAKDOWN. WOO.

Most of RotMMPR's second season would focus on the Rangers' struggle against a resurfaced Rita Repulsa, now in possession of Tommy. A big motif, like with the rest of the series, would be Control over others vs. Freedom of Expression, especially in regards to Tommy's past and present contrasted with Rita's, as well as how that shapes their attitudes toward Individuality.

Leaving the full under the cut, but if you wanna take a read, please do! (it is... very long.)

Pre-series Background: Rita

Zedd, and by extension Rita, represent exertion of control over others and bending their wills to suit your own needs. Through manipulation, through coercion, through possession.

Rita's backstory involves her beginning life as a construct created from Zedd's seventh shard of the Zeo Crystal. Throughout the old war era with the Original Rangers, she takes several bodies, accumulating their abilities as time goes on and with each new body, growing stronger. During this time, she goes by the name Atir, an archaic word from the Eltarian language meaning "zero" or "empty". Initially this name is given to her by Zordon as a descriptor when she first appears on a battlefield, taking bodies from both armies and discarding them when they get too damaged, she claims it for herself as an act of spite.

Her longest sustained body was Bandora, a witch from an outer world who by far provided her the most abilities of any of her bodies. Bandora was a sweet older woman, who was able to maintain her consciousness within Atir's possession thanks to her own abilities. Over time, Bandora would wear Atir down, showing the shadow kindness despite her use of her body, exploiting and cultivating a need for self expression in it. Bandora would then exploit this need, using it to exorcise Atir from her body and help Zordon and the Power Rangers trap the shadow in an Eltarian urn. However, Bandora's advanced age and weakened form led to her death immediately following the exorcism.

The urn would be jettisoned and left on what would eventually become Earth's moon, with the crippled Power Rangers' spaceship crash landing in what would be the Mojave desert.

Atir would lay dormant in the urn for 10,000 years, until it is uncovered by one of the last Apollo missions in the early 70s and comes under ownership and study of Dr. Sean Finster, a xenobiologist and linguistics enthusiast. He translates the writing on the urn as "Rita Repulsa", unaware that he has translated it backwards, with the the text reading "Atir Asluper" in old Eltarian. A rough translation to English would be "Empty Vessel", the Eltarian equivalent of Earth's "This is not a place of honor" warnings placed near nuclear waste sites.

Atir, having had no life to latch onto or communicate with for 10,000 years, immediately started to feed off of the good doctor's insecurities, projecting thoughts into his head and manipulating him into eventually releasing her again to destroy the newly emerged Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.

She takes possession of Tommy at this point, who had just moved to Angel Grove a few months prior and continued to have trouble fitting in.

Pre-series Background: Tommy

Tommy grew up an orphan, adrift either on the streets or the foster system. She'd not had an easy life and to an extent had grown used to moving around, never staying in one place for too long. When she was eventually adopted by Grace Oliver two years ago, she finally felt like she could stay somewhere and never have to leave again. But that only lasted just over a year before they had to leave Reefside and move to Angel Grove, due to Grace's new job that she could never be super clear or honest about to her daughter.

The dishonesty frustrated Tommy, which made it difficult for her to feel like she could really put down roots, start to make friends and build a life. She became friendly with a few of the other kids at school, like Zack and Curtis Taylor, and Richie Mendoza, even getting a little cozy with Kimberly Hart, but she never felt like she could open up to them, not really.

On the day Rita's shadow takes her body, she'd just been stood up by Kimberly after she finally worked up the courage to ask her out on a date (Kim got called away for Ranger business which would end up resulting in Rita's release, go figure). She feels isolated, bummed out and her anxiety gets to her hard. Which gives the shadow an opening to take hold and enter her mind.

Rita then uses Tommy's body to visit Dr. Finster in secret at his home and coerce him into using his knowledge of xenobiology and study of the Putty Patrollers to create monsters to attack Angel Grove and kill the Power Rangers so she can conquer the Earth unopposed. All this in the name of her Lord, the Dark Specter, Zedd. It's then she takes the name Rita Repulsa, once again claiming a name given to her for herself.

Green with Evil and Tommy's Struggle

Rita doesn't have full control at first, she's been dormant in the urn for 10,000 years and her power isn't at the fullest yet. She soon hears word of the missing Green Power Coin from Dr. Finster, who was present at the Rangers' first meeting with Zordon and Alpha V due to passing out during the devastating Rangers vs. Shadow Rita fight.

Rita decides that the best way to regain her previous strength would be to claim the missing Power Coin and use it to regenerate herself, at the cost of her host over time. Tommy remains unaware of her body being under Rita's control for a time, slowly becoming more and more agitated and unwell, as she gets little sleep while Rita claims her body almost every night. She starts becoming aware of it as Rita slowly takes more of a hold on her, pushing her to sabotage herself and her social life so she'll let go and surrender to Rita's control.

On the flipside, Rita also remains dormant in Tommy's mind as she goes about her day.

She makes up with Kimberly, going on a few dates that are actually successful, despite the Pink Ranger's duties and Tommy's increasing restlessness.

Grace opens up just a little bit, becoming worried for her daughter and not wanting her work to interfere more than it should with being there for her, as Tommy's struggling becomes all the more clear. She starts taking more time off to spend time with Tommy, inspired by Dr. Finster's own increased days off - not aware that he's spending that time creating monsters for the shadow inside her daughter.

Rita sows discord in Tommy's head, but she's able to ignore it for the most part. That is, until Rita claims the Green Power Coin in a battle with the Rangers, and her host's identity is revealed to them.

With Rita at full strength, in bursts, thanks to the Power Coin and her new Dark Green Ranger powers, Tommy now takes a backseat, a prisoner in her own head as Rita goes about her wreaking havoc as much as she is able to, whenever she wants to.

Tommy flip flops between wanting to keep herself afloat and wanting to just give up. She's already so far gone. Rita even attacks her mother, Tommy's face uncovered by her Dark Green helmet, frightening the closest thing she's ever had to family. Grace even manages to discharge a weapon at her assailant, making it hard for Tommy to picture anything else when thinking about her mother for a while.

Dr. Finster, growing weary of the shadow's manipulation and what she's made of him, sees Tommy's disheveled form in Rita's hideout in a rare moment of the shadow's absence and, realising her connection to Grace, appeals to her directly. He tells her of how Grace always wanted to make something of herself, but never truly could until she stopped doing it for other people, for their acceptance, or because they'd told her to. Be and act unapologetically as herself, on her own terms. He urges Tommy not to give up, to keep going for her own sake, anyone telling her different be damned. Including the shadow in her mind.

Rita hears this appeal, taking control for just a moment to push back against his words, but the seed in Tommy's mind had already been planted.

Rita, meanwhile, had found herself thinking about Bandora more and more, how she'd encouraged her individuality, to make decisions on her own terms and not because it was what Zedd had ordered of her. She'd also begun thinking about how she'd been depriving her hosts of that all this time, never considering what they may have wanted to do.

She comes to doubt her place in everything, in the Empire. After all, her master was defeated thousands of years ago, and yet here she is, still carrying out what she thinks would be his will, collecting what remained of him and sending her lackeys to do the same off-planet on the off-chance she could eventually restore his form and his Empire. Still acting on his behalf instead of her own.

The good Doctor's words further stirred these thoughts, perhaps leading to her outburst in opposition. He'd planted a seed in Tommy's head, and that's exactly where Rita lived. Despite these thoughts, she'd think herself too far gone. Nowhere to go now but down. And she'll take everyone and everything she can with her.

Conclusions

Rita launches what she considers her final assault, going all out and drawing all the energy she can from the Green Power Coin to destroy everything, essentially turning herself, and by extension Tommy, into a ticking time bomb. The Dragonzord blasts the city and surrounding areas, only barely fought off by the Rangers' newly formed Megazord, a sight Rita had not seen since her final battle with the previous team.

The Rangers' new Megazord overpowers the Dragonzord, leading to a ground battle where the team wear down the Dark Green Ranger, desperately appealing to their friend, to Tommy, to fight the shadow infecting her. They urge and encourage her self image, tell her to keep going, echoing many of the sentiments Finster had seeded already.

There's a short scene within a liminal space, between Rita and Tommy.

"Your friends seem set on taking you away from me."

"Yeah... They sure do." Tommy stands from her curled up position on the ground.

"Do you truly think you can just stop being mine?" Rita levels her staff at Tommy's throat, preparing to erase her completely.

Tommy shoves the staff away, fire in her eyes. "I've never been yours," she manifests the Dragon Saber in her hands, the weapon taking on a purified, more compact form, the Dragon Dagger. "Now get the hell out of my head!"

With the weapon plunged into Rita's proverbial heart, she is exorcised from Tommy's body, breaking the spell and freeing her.

A weakened, shadowed Rita watches from the rubble as the Rangers comfort their friend and take her back to the Command Center. Rita acts in desperation, mustering what little energy she'd already gathered to take control of Dr. Finster's body and put all the pieces of her Lord back together. She uses her remaining magic to revive what she can of Zedd, hoping for forgiveness for what she perceives as going against his wishes.

The shadow she revives is not whole, but it is enough of the Dark Specter to congratulate her on bringing him back, and in time he'll return to full strength. Now the two of them can continue what they started all those millennia ago-

"The two of us?" The Specter seems puzzled.

"Yes, we'll destroy this world together. Then conquer all that remains in this universe," the shadow responds, an old man's voice obviously unsteady. Whether it's the body she now inhabits, or a sign of her own insecurity, is unclear. "Won't we?"

"My dear, dear shadow. There is no 'we', I will be the one to control all. You will simply listen and follow my command. As you always have."

"No! I deserve to rule! All I've done, I've done for you! I deserve it!"

"Oh? Do you mean to defy me, shadow?"

Rita grits her teeth, glaring into the Specter. "My name is not 'shadow'. My name is Rita Repulsa, and you will listen to me!"

"Ah, so you do," The Specter sighs, "Pity. You were one of my favourites."

Without another word, the newly resurrected Zedd re-consumes the shadow he once created, replenishing his powers with hers and absorbing all the knowledge she'd gathered. Including knowledge of these new Power Rangers and the services Dr. Finster can provide.

While Tommy is rewarded and thrives by striving for her individuality and making her own choices; Rita has never had that and therefore has no clue what to do with it when she has it, which sends her into a panic - only truly coming to terms with it when confronted with having it taken away again, far too late.

That wouldn't be the last of Rita though, she'd make a reappearance in the finale to assist the Rangers by holding Zedd back from the inside, giving them an opening to end him once and for all.

A final act. A final choice that was truly her own, for herself, and for the ultimate good of others. It's not redemption, but she never wanted that.