#they all totally have trauma it’s wonderous /j

[xjumbled-up-brainx]

chanting

Ring of Fire, Ring of Fire, Ring of Fire-

The first time we see all the Octonauts slide in one Octo-Shoot together!

Love the RoF, even if the Z-gup is less realistic than the existence of Vegimals and it drives me mad-

Lots of little gems in the movie, we got jokes and trauma it’s ✨ The quality is very good as well, the scenes and animation was great. It felt more child-directed than the Caves of Sac Actun (it could just be me, but it felt that way) but either way top tier

[wannaeatramyeon]

Welcome Back!!!

How about Daniel having a friend who knew about the two bodies the whole time. Someone he could confide and who could cover for him when needed. GN reader is totally fine and I think theyd be better off being platonic but super close to the point that they sleep over at Daniels house and everyone else is always suspicious that they know something theh don't. Only if you have time and energy of course. I love your work❤️

Man, you request the guy I write the least and have arguably the worst grasp on his character. Thank you for requesting anyway anon! Have... this *waves vaguely at this mess*

Daniel Park with Reader: Two bodies

G/N.

In hindsight, how did no one else think he was suspicious?

Sure, Park is a very common Korean surname but two Daniel Parks living together? Never seen with each other. Interchangably attending High School when Big Daniel couldn't?

You give the sleeping Big Daniel a pinch on his cheek and nada. Then a rough shove. No reaction, nothing, and you chuckle.

This never gets old.

"Y/N, please don't do that," Small Daniel moans, carrying over the large pot of ramen and sighing at the reddening mark on his other body's cheek.

Correction: this never gets old. For you.

"Sorry," you say, mulling over what additional casual harm you can inflict on Big Daniel.

"Please don't tickle me neither."

"I wasn't going to!" Oops, guilty as charged. Hand retreating back, you tuck Big Daniel's foot back under the covers.

"Come eat before the food gets cold." Daniel shoots you a small smile, and you wonder how no-one has figured it out. So many mannerisms are identical, including the smile. Gentle and kind, eyes crinkling exactly the same way as he pinpoints your weakness.

There's nothing like food to stop you in your tracks, and you obediently shuffle over to the coffee table.

It's an established routine. Walking back to Big Daniel's home after school. Talking about the going ons at J High. Discussing what crazy scenario seems to be happening that week.

Then in the privacy of his own home, as he gets ready to go bed, theorising about his two bodies. What sort of miracle or curse could cause this.

And when Big Daniel falls asleep, Small Daniel instantly wakes up, picking up the conversation without missing a beat and preparing dinner for the two of you before his graveyard shift.

In between mouthfuls, Daniel tells you that he met with DG and the Idol will tell him about the secret of the two bodies as long as he-

"That guy is full of shit."

"Huh?!" The chopsticks pause half way to his mouth at your dismissal, "B-but It's DG!"

"Don't get starstruck Danny, they're all full of shit and want something from you."

He pauses. You're not exactly wrong. Everyone seems to be going on about the Four Crews something or another and he always seems to be at the center of everything.

How did a bunch of high schoolers get into so much trouble? Where are the adults in all this? Why is it like the lawless Wild West in South Korea?

Thank the heavens he has you to help confide in and trauma bond together. He likely would have lost his sanity a long time ago without your company.

"Unlike me," You grin, gesticulating at yourself with chopsticks.

"You want nothing. Except all my food," Daniel rolls his eyes fondly when you reach for seconds.

[accirax]

Disventure Camp All Stars Power Ranking (Round 19)

The finale begins!

In case you haven't seen my previous power rankings, the Power Ranking Format is essentially a way of ranking how well each player is doing in the game. So, in essence, this is a long form way of predicting who I think will be eliminated from the competition in the next episode. There will be spoilers for last week's episode (obviously) and its power ranking, so make sure to read that first if you don't want to be spoiled on how I ranked our last boot. If you want more clarification on the rules, that first post will help you out as well. Furthermore, I'm going to be spoiling the preview for next episode, so if you want to go in TOTALLY blind, save this for later. Let's go!

Recap - The Motel Episode

Current Score: 76 acquired/113 total

(Points versus @venus-is-thinking: 27 acquired/38 total)

Bench Points: 8/10 (so far)

(Note: Scoring for Fiore, James, and Yul was taken from the Motel episode. Scoring for Tom, Aiden, Lake, Connor, and Miriam are taken from the preview.)

Well, that was... not what I expected! I mean, all of the character dynamics and fun banter I mostly expected-- other than that one last shot at some Yul depth-- but the setup for the three finale helpers being chosen by a first-dibs challenge was not. And, even if I knew that that was going to happen, I probably wouldn't have guessed that Fiore, James, and Yul would be chosen as the helpers to Ally, Jake, and Riya. I look forward to seeing those unexpected pairings gain more focus in the finale.

Yeah, I think that pretty much everything else I had to say, I covered in my initial thoughts. There's less to talk about here when no one was actually eliminated. So, let's look at the trailer!

Trailer Analysis

Looks like Emily will literally have to drag Trevor into being complicit kicking and screaming. Surely Derek and Trevor won't have a misunderstanding this episode that is resolved romantically in the last episode, right?

I'm guessing that Ally and Jake are practicing here? Notably, it appears that Jake wins the practice race. I'm sure that won't get in Ally's head.

Ooh, are they doing the Survivor-style finalists' breakfast this season?

Is this one of their letters from home? Why is Jake smiling while reading it? Out of the two of them, I would guess it's probably Riya's letter, but it could also be a surprise Connor's letter or something.

We're back in the mines from Season 1! Some bonus trauma for Jake, as that challenge occurred in the episode where Ellie berated him before he got eliminated.

I guess maybe they have to mine/dig for clues?

Despite the two seemingly getting along while eating breakfast, Ally will still sabotage Jake's team via giving James a rock to the face. Maybe that'll make James think twice about emotionally supporting Ally. (/j)

So, Emily's act of sabotage (for this episode at least) is releasing the scorpions onto the campers in the midst of an otherwise peaceful challenge. Hooray for murdering people...?

First of all, Jake needs to stop engaging in long jumps where he barely makes it to the other side. Secondly, this is probably the same gap that we see Riya putting a bridge over multiple times in the trailer, which may imply that Jake and James reach this area before Riya and Yul.

Of course, everyone is going to wind up in the same tunnel at the same point in time anyways.

This is interesting because, in the last shot, Riya was in the front of the pack. But now, she's throwing a rock at Ally, who's ahead of her. I wonder which scene happens first.

"C'mon, everyone! Let's do the Jake cheer we've been practicing!" "One, two, three, four! Gooooooo--" "And, that's enough of that! Here come our finalists!"

James looking so dead inside while doing the cheer has me dead. Based on this, I'm guessing that Ally will have Hunter, Tess, Grett, Gabby, and Ellie, as well as picking up Alec, who's there to support Fiore. That would leave Jake and Ally with even benches, and Riya with no one other than a mandatory Yul. I feel really bad for Ally, though, given that Jake picked up both Ashley and Connor. It makes sense why both of them would pick Jake (they befriended him first), but I hope she doesn't take it too hard.

Power Ranking

I don't even think anyone is getting voted out this episode, so I'll keep this formality relatively quick.

#1: Jake

Jake is still my winner pick, as he has been for a while, and nothing other than his elimination is going to change that. Going up against Ally + Fiore and Riya + Yul is a stellar combo for Jake, because no way ONC wants Fiore or Yul to actually get their hands on any money. The only mildly confusing thing is that James would wind up winning money from the show again (despite being the first boot, even), but I have half a mind to believe that he'll just donate that money to Ally anyways.

I think that James is here to be an audience insert. Having barely participated in the game at all, James is still of the belief that Jake is exactly the same as he was at the end of Season 1, no matter what Aiden tries to tell him. By being someone who had no faith in Jake who learns over the course of the finale that Jake truly did become a more thoughtful and responsible guy, ONC will use a character that the audience loves to prove why they too should root for Jake's victory. They want to prove to the nonbelievers that Jake has improved, through him mending his relationship with his first DCAS burn. Or at least, that's how I see it, as a Jake winner truther since the beginning of the merge.

#2: Ally

While an Ally/Riya finale feels basically impossible to me, a Jake/Riya finale is plausible. Offputting, but plausible.

Ally has been in the strange position of being rootable but unlikeable for most of the game. I believe that she could turn it around and win, if ONC is going for a plot twist ending, or that she could be taken out now as the lesser of two evils to let the real baddie shine in the finale. Most likely, though, I believe she'll take second, learning some important life lessons and maybe getting some money from James.

Fiore is probably here to be the devil on Ally's shoulder. She'll suggest something cruel and unusual, and it'll be up to Ally to decide whether she can resist those urges, or whether her fate will fall to villainy. Fiore also may be here as someone who can comment on her relationship with Hunter. She saw the beginning where they were fighting, but she's also been at the Loser's Motel for long enough that she probably knows how Hunter feels about her now. If she's feeling nice, she could use that as motivation.

Let's go team Fiore!!!

#3: Riya

If someone is eliminated in this episode, it'll be confusing in and out of universe if it isn't Riya. She has Yul as a partner and a second disadvantage, and no one should want to work with or root for her. She's also obviously not going to win the season, so if the writers want to keep up suspense for who does, they should eliminate her and leave the finale to Jake and Ally. Really, the only reasons why I don't think she would be eliminated this time are because 1) it's so obvious and 2) I don't think anyone will actually be eliminated this episode.

I think that Yul is mostly here for the comedy of it all, and so that the writers didn't have to choose who he would genuinely choose to root for otherwise. There is also some juicy potential for something I've mentioned before-- for both of them to reflect on their shared tendency to sabotage themselves by always choosing material success over building relationships or choosing to be kind. If we're lucky, we'll get some reflection on that, but I'll be happy with just a Riya/Yul cringe comp.

Alright, I've probably hit my government-mandated word count now that I've yapped about the helper choices a bit. Excited for the finale! Let's end this season on a high note!

[ladydaybreaker]

Thoughts on the ending

So this isn't going to be as in depth as what some others have done...just my own personal thoughts. So, spoilers ahead y'all under the break

I felt the finale should have been longer. I felt that, especially towards the end, things were rushed and just slapped on in a 'well this happened'. Granted, this makes me have a bit more fun time with my 'job' writing out what happened for my stories as I get to play around...but at the same time, I wanted to see more.

I felt there definitely could have been more with J and Tessa (or "Tessa's" relationship, giving a better reason of why she sided with them than "I want to live". I kinda did the "Oh...so she knew the whole time." response when I saw J's reaction to the Solver bringing the ship down. Personally, I kinda hoped that she didn't know, which would have gotten a lot of very interesting interactions ranging from grief to confusion to absolute effing fury that the Solver took another thing from her. Which would have meant J fighting alongside N and V rather than against them...which imo could have been a cool thing. The "I hate you but I hate this thing more."

V I expected to be alive. In one way or another. Either she was going to be fully ok like what we saw in canon (that oil drag away in the ep7 teaser clued me in she survived) or we'd have Eldritch V to deal with before messing with "Tessa".

I do wish that the "Bus Crash Trio" had more of a relevance other than delivering the gun to Uzi and Khan getting to slam the door down on "Tessa" and stop her from eating N's core.

Also literally everyone but Doll and Tessa living was just a "aw come on..." from me (though there might be a chance to get Doll back from what I could see since we see Uzi's HUD flash her purple, Cyn's gold and Doll's red.)

I felt the entire episode could have been at least ten minutes longer.

Now, enough with the complaining and on to the stuff I liked.

The horror and action was wonderful. I adored the final fight against "Tessa" and J. The Hallway scene with "Tessa" stalking Uzi and N while giving Callback Pings to call Uzi back to her was chilling. Not to mention the whole "LetMeInLetMeInLetMeIn" scene. (I wish these scenes were longer, make the Solver horrifyingly threatening as it's toying with them/hunting them down). Also. Uzi's core literally trying to rip itself outta her chest as she's getting pinged was just horror fuel.

V and N's PTSD kicking in when "Tessa" confronted them just MWAH! Yes. All the Trauma for the cute murder bots. V's shrieks of terror and panicked "I need to get away!" moments were absolutely gorgeous and I will gladly enjoy messing with that in my own way.

The callback pings also made me squeal because that was something my awesome friend @banyanas created for their DD headcanons and we all kinda went feral over them. I'm glad to see them there!

Cyn lived. Even if she's not in her own body, I am happy to see the silly little chaos gremlin alive. I am STILL of the opinion that Cyn and the Solver are not the same person. As I kinda got that vibe when Cyn was talking to Uzi at the locker...it was a lot more kind and innocent compared to the earlier battle. Maybe it was her resignation of being stuck like that, I don't know.

Cori, effing Cori. I love the purple spitfire, still my favorite character to traumatize and love on and oh my god yes the Khori content. I am so glad she actually lived. Khan still loves his crazy beautiful wife even if she doesn't have a proper body (yet...I'm not convinced they don't eventually give her her body back). Tsundere Nori was sweet as she saved him and oh I'm totally not gonna weaponize this :3

Nuzi confirmed! My Biscuit Bites lovin' heart is happy. (Picks up Orion and Astra) Look! You two are somewhat canon now!

Uzi kicking god in the screen. CROSSROADS CREW! LOOKING GLASS BEAU AND FLIPSIDE VERA YOUR GIRL KEPT HER PROMISE AND KICKED GOD IN THE SCREEN!!

A detail I haven't shared much but have been thinking on was Uzi's eyes now. How they're a gradient of yellow and purple. I...will admit I did have the thought of when she gets stressed/frightened/angry there are little yellow glitches in them even though the Solver is destroyed in Suns, Moons and Stars.

All in all, still kinda 'ok' on the episode. My favorite is still Episode 4 though 7's up there. I wish some things went different but eh, that's what my job as a fanfic writer is.

As it stands, Thank you Liam, thank you Glitch, thank you Michael, Elsie, Nola, Daisy, Fitzy, everyone. All of you did your hearts' work and it very much shows. If not for you guys, I never would have met people I am honored and blessed to call friends. And I never would have started writing probably the longest story project I've ever done.

May you dance among the stars from adversity.

-Lady Daybreaker

[pillarsalt]

Wikipedia anon here, i feel SO embarrassed for misremembering so much about that article. the concept of the cotton cieling and the reminder of the sheer amount of institutions/resources that have been taken over by tims/tras makes me so upset i didn't want to recheck the article again, even though i should have. (it was some time ago i saw the rb of your comic and did my first check, then saw your comic again and remembered about doing so, to clarify. yes i'm an absolute mess i apologize)

i appreciate you so much for not only getting what i was trying (and failing lmao) to explain but also looking into and linking the talk page because JFC!!! so sharing differing opinions for a topic (with cited sources!!) on wikipedia is a no-no, but it's totally fine when you and your friends retroactively decide pro-topic views make you look bad and so you delete the entire article and rewrite the definition of said topic to be about generically "being left out of spaces :.-(" instead of being honest about it being homophobic, rapist rhetoric (which is the reason you're trying to hide it in the first place) hoooooooly SHIT

if genderism ever blows over (with how long it's stuck around for, and with no one being willing to talk about objective/legal concerns like the WPATH files and Maya Forestater, let alone even have a conversation with a GC person, at this point i'm not hopeful...) everyone who contributed to the widescale abuse and trauma of women (especially lesbians), girls, gay men, gnc people, and tip (medicalized or not) could spend the rest of their lives begging for forgiveness and it wouldn't be anywhere near enough. not that i'm expecting them to do that, of course. it's not even blown over yet and we can see from the cotton ceiling article that they'll absolutely try to just gaslight everyone and pretend it never happened (and if it did, it wasn't that bad, and if it was bad it was your fault for not doing your research, etc etc)

ANYWAY i'd rather end on something positive, so thank you again for sharing your wonderful art on here!! seeing there's a talented, feminist female artist who's into pokemon and mlp but hasn't bought into trans ideology is so healing for me. hope you have a lovely day!!! :) :) :)

I wouldn't be embarrassed, I mean the article's not completely empty but it's obviously been stripped down to next to nothing compared to what it used to contain, and half the cited sources aren't really relevant at all. They briefly mention the MTF porn actor who coined the term but failed to mention the scores of other popular MTFs who were vehement proponents of the rhetoric (Riley J Dennis is the first one that comes to mind). And yeah that dude in the discussion page saying he's going to be watching the page and reverting any edits he doesn't like, isn't that very wikipedia illegal? I don't edit wikipedia but I'm fairly certain that camping on an article to make sure your edits aren't edited is not allowed.

It's definitely been a trend with "progressives" to flip the script on anything they've done and can see was wrong in retrospect, claiming "no actually YOU said this, not me." It's a very good reason to keep things documented, and I have huge respect for people who keep the receipts so we can hold people accountable for the harmful bullshit they've spread around. (Speaking of which, I think now is a good time to remind everyone that Eli Erlick is a rapist, another interesting fact that has been unsuccessfully scrubbed from the internet.)

Thanks for your wonderful words as well :) Have a great day too!

[eksentrismi]

hellooo, i wondered if you wouldnt mind sharing how you interpretted the bodysnatchers? specifically the characters of gray, wolfe and fettes? im trying to develop my own adaptation yet i fear i dont quite understand the characters well enough :(

Well, good to note that my adaptation(s) of that story are probably rather incoherent as I don't exactly have a 100% certain clue of what point that story actually has. Like yeah, I've read the story multiple times and I think I might know what some of the themes are (like I see themes of eg. guilt, peer pressure, excessive pride and overconfidence that bites horribly back etc. in it), but I'm still just a silly clueless guy, lmao.

Anyways, how I see the characters myself: Fettes being a hard-working though also quite naive ambitious student in his youth, who wants to do well in his studies and to be liked by others, especially by Mr. K (who himself is quite a well-liked popular teacher among all the students etc.). However the more story progresses, more selfish and overly confident Fettes becomes... and it really bites him back in the end, ruining his life for good.

Wolfe is a typical selfish snob student guy, but also has lots of influence on Fettes. In fact, they've got kind of a toxic "best friend" relationship going on anyway, like yeah, they get along very well. But also Wolfe's pretty much the one who drags Fettes into deeper troubles and even threatens him to be quiet about the suspicious deaths/murder of Gray, promising him that he would be just as successful as he is and that they would become even more well-liked in Mr. K's eyes. Basically terrifying him into submission and to ignoring that anything bad even happened. But in the end where Fettes's life actually seemed to get totally ruined by the trauma caused from the ending's jumpscare; Wolfe actually stayed successful, possibly still keeping his selfish lifestyle and he succeeded in his career; becoming a well-known popular doctor and all. Like popular to the point of nearly everybody knowing him, meanwhile Fettes is probably only known by like... very few locals in his hometown, lmao. Possibly because whereas Fettes still remembers the awful memory and it possibly haunts him, Wolfe seems to be ignoring it.

Gray then just sucks, lmao. I see him as a villain. He just sucks. He's really described as a short stupid guy with awful manners and he's also quite a crook too. He keeps bossing Wolfe around however he likes (which also is pretty suspicious as it's never explained why exactly that is in the story itself, but hmmmm..... i smell some gayness right here- /j) and has lots of power over him, constantly just bullying him pretty much or teasing him verbally. Shortly said, Gray just sucks. Then he's killed by Wolfe and I mean, tbh he had a good reason for it; as Gray probably caused him to become nearly bankrupt by the end of their trips to multiple bars and restaurants, lmaooooo. I mean, I would be really pissed off too if I had a "friend" like that who would just keep bullying me + would make me pay for everything they drank and ate.

Anyways in short how I see the story and its characters.... they're gay. Every one of them is gay. That's all. /lh

[denimbex1986]

'Before the bomb, the destruction of humanity was strictly the purview of the non-human. Whole civilizations told stories of floods or plagues sent by the gods designed to wipe everyone out. People could imagine mass weather events or catastrophes that might end the human race, but in those stories, our role in our own destruction was indirect, at most. No person could just push a button and end it all for everyone.

That changed when the world realized how nuclear power could be harnessed. Now, we could level whole cities, or more, in the blink of an eye, and scientists knew there was a chance we could accidentally light the atmosphere on fire. For the first time in human history, the power to destroy the planet was in our hands. There was no stuffing the evils back into Pandora’s box. (Following the Trinity test, which proved the capacity of the bomb he’d spearheaded, J. Robert Oppenheimer famously quoted the Bhagavad Gita: “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” He didn’t just mean himself.)

Oppenheimer is an audacious inquiry into power, in all its forms The discovery that any of us, theoretically, can annihilate the whole of humanity — perhaps by accident or on a whim — induces a whole new level of existential angst. There’s the fear of sudden death, of course. But then there’s a deeper dread, the sense that something in the balance of the universe has shifted. With a deity, you can petition and hope for forbearance. But look, we all know what humans are like.

Even if a person can push that threat of total destruction out of mind for a while, it provokes an ambient anxiety, a permanent mental load. The movie industry has always been both a shaper of fears and a reflection of them, a means for dealing with reality at arm’s length, through a big screen. The bomb, and the world that brought it into being, has flooded back into pop culture in recent years, from Manhattan to Asteroid City to Oppenheimer. But that’s just the continuation of a long history: no wonder that in the Cold War years just after the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, filmmakers were obsessed with the events that could turn “mutually assured destruction” into just “destruction.” The movies understood the grave danger and the pitch-black farce of it all.

Which is how we got movies like Fail Safe (1964), a somewhat plodding but haunting Sidney Lumet drama in which a technology failure sets off an international incident that ends in mass destruction. Characters throughout the film espouse varying and somewhat academic views on whether a nuclear war, and the mass deaths that would ensue, would be a necessary evil to exterminate Communism. Yet rubber meets the proverbial road when a computer issues an erroneous order to strike; by the end of the movie, we’re watching ordinary people get exterminated in a nuclear bomb explosion.

There were many movies like Fail Safe during the Cold War, somber dramas that understand the weightiness of the destructive power now in the hands of fallible humans. The 1966 pseudo-documentary The War Game, for instance, portrays the effects of an all-out nuclear war on ordinary citizens — most notably, by the end, children whose futures have been obliterated before their eyes. Nearly a generation later, films like The Day After (1983) and Threads (1984) were still at it. Meanwhile, Japanese filmmakers dealt over and over with the grief and psychological trauma of a country that saw the bomb firsthand, developing everything from the Godzilla films to Barefoot Gen (1983) and Grave of the Fireflies (1988) to process the complexity of the ongoing wound.

While many movies took an appropriately grave stance, there was a bleak comedy to it all, a sense of total absurdity that shone through perhaps the most famous nuclear film of the Cold War: Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 barnburner. In Strangelove, doctrines of mutually assured destruction and the wielding by powerful men of powerful weapons are cast in slyly phallic terms, suggesting that if humanity wipes itself out it will be mostly because of some horny, insecure men. The film once more ends with footage of detonating bombs (for which it uses footage of actual bomb tests, including the Trinity test). A less satirical but still light touch pops up in WarGames (1983), about a teenage hacker who accidentally gains access to a DoD mainframe computer that simulates nuclear war and almost starts World War III. (Ronald Reagan was reportedly obsessed with WarGames.)

During the Cold War, the threat of nuclear war in films was literal, not a metaphor (Strangelove’s phallic fixation notwithstanding). Mutually assured destruction was something you just knew about, as an average person on the street; it was something you could both fear and joke about, fodder for gallows humor and nightmares. A couple of generations of kids had been trained in how to hide under the desk in case of a nuclear blast, just as their children and grandchildren would participate in active shooter drills decades later. The president was on TV proposing policies to shoot weapons out of the sky from space. The ability to wipe out humanity felt concentrated in a couple of words: A-bomb, H-bomb, thermonuclear warfare.

Yet somewhere in the last few decades, “nuclear warfare” has fallen out of most people’s consciousness, at least on a daily basis. I was in the second grade when the Soviet Union was dissolved, and I never learned to hide under my desk. Activists, military strategists, and people whose jobs depend on thinking about nuclear warfare know that the threat is hardly gone, but the ordinary person on the street, when asked what worries them most about the end of humanity, is thinking of different matters.

There are always exceptions to the rule, of course; several guys living off the grid on the fringes of New York City in the new season of How to With John Wilson cite “nuclear war” as one of the things they feel safe from. (Nobody could accuse them of perfect logic.) But even the movies have abandoned nuclear warfare as the scary way to raise the stakes in a blockbuster. Now it’s comic book villains or climate change, or (as in the recent Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One), sentient AIs gone rogue.

Curiously, though, as a culture we’ve started to circle back around to the Manhattan Project — perhaps, you might say, as a way to process the present. We live in the world that Oppenheimer and his team created, a world that seemingly would have eventually been created by someone, whether American or German or Soviet scientists. It’s a new stage in human history, in which we have the power previously reserved for the gods. And plenty of us are thinking about it all the time. The feeling of doomsday lingers thickly today; the real question isn’t whether you feel as though the world is ending but how you think it will end and why, and what you plan to do about it.

In the midst of this, the origin of this power is worth reexamining, both as a moment where the cat permanently escaped the bag and a metaphor for a lot of other “bombs,” some that are slowly detonating. There was, for instance, the excellent TV drama Manhattan, which premiered in 2014 and explored the lives of the scientists and their families at Los Alamos. The Hiroshima bombing was the backdrop for a painful (and controversial) sequence in Eternals (2021); the question of atomic destruction and the survival of man is threaded throughout Alan Moore’s Watchmen comic (1986) and its adaptations as a film (2009) and as a TV series (2019).

Even more recently, Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City presents a story of Cold War-era dread, with bomb tests occurring in the background every so often. The feeling that destruction could be around any corner is what powers the film, which ultimately is a reflection on how we use art to set ourselves apart from existential angst and grief and process it at arm’s length. And then there’s Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan’s R-rated juggernaut that’s less a biopic and more a movie about power and its production, from the atomic level to the geopolitical.

Part of the reason Oppenheimer is so successful, and so brilliant as a document of our time, is that it latches onto exactly this fact about the detonation of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima and then Nagasaki. These were not events that stand in isolation as acts of war. They are events with long, long fallouts, decades of people whose lives and health and families and existence are scarred by having been targeted, and others whose geographic separation from the events allowed them to pretend a psychological separation, too.

Yet the stories we tell about the nuclear age betray us. We are afraid. At best, we learn how to avoid thinking about it too much. Any apocalypse, however, is a moment of unveiling, and since then we have lived through wave after wave of new apocalyptic discoveries, to the point where we’re just waiting to see which one will be the big one. The stories we tell evolve a little, but what they tell us is all the same. We have become gods, and also, the bringer of death.'

[tenderlady]

(Phantom Thread anon again) Yes exactly, that's J&Y! I can see it with the Master too, that same desire or need to hand over the reigns to someone else, something that John has alluded to in pretty much all the major relationships of his life (Mimi, Stu, Paul, Yoko). I think any good Beatles film would have to focus on just a fragment and my top choice would depend on what the angle was, but PTA would be a great choice for anything delving into their psyches not just because he's a top tier director but because so many of his films deal with Fucked Up relationships seemingly without judgement. He doesn't sanitise, but his characters are allowed to come across as charming despite the focus on dysfunctional elements.

Also while there's the obvious mommy issues thread, but a lot more that could be explored and isn't much about John's relationship with power in general, especially in the 70s. How he seemed to want it less the more he had it, especially from about '67 when he appeared to make conscious efforts to be less manipulative and even assertive. His old friends say he had to be the top dog in the early days which certainly isn't the John I saw in the Get Back sessions. That thing Harry Nilsson mentioned him saying about "powerful men" wanting to "swallow the world" and how he related it to his own physical appetite was very revealing imo. And how he often talked about "fat kings" (and Elvis specifically as the "fat king" fate he feared most) - I wonder how much of his disordered eating and preference for looking what most would consider too thin was rooted in those kinds of thoughts. And well, put all that together and the appeal of submitting to Yoko is blindingly obvious to me without the need for some evil witch magic to put him under her command!

Hey, bestie, welcome back! Always a pleasure to talk shop with a fellow Understander.

I totally agree with all of this, and I think you did a better job of picking up what I was attempting to put down with The Master than I did. The Master, while often read as a film about Scientology, is at its base a film about masculinity and control and power, which I think is what PTA is alluding to with the title. There is a real homoeroticism between Philip Seymour Hoffman's character and Joaquin Phoenix's character (I haven't seen the film in a hot minute, apologies for not remembering their characters' names), and a kind of Freudian taming of the id with Phoenix's almost animalistic lust and violence being tempered (and channeled) by Hoffman's superegoistic control. The scene where Hoffman essentially does Auditing on Phoenix reminds me a bit of Janov's primal scream therapy, with the idea that you have to completely break someone down to nothing in order to remake them in a stronger image. I also totally agree that PTA does a great job of portraying characters with complex psychologies in a way that neither demonizes nor exonerates them for their behavior, which are both problems that I think a lot of Beatlemovies (particularly focusing on John) fall into.

The thread of John and power/consumption/fatness is also really fascinating to me. The "fat king" archetype obviously seemed to stick in his craw, and I think Maureen Cleave comparing him specifically to Henry VIII really bothered him. Henry VIII was fat, but he was also violent, lascivious, and myopic in his understanding of the world around him. As with a lot of contemporaneous Beatles commentary, I think that John perhaps thought this hit too close to home and decided to course correct but, being John, overcorrected HARD. Like George, I think John had a real interest in asceticism and transcendence. At a point in time, John was probably the most powerful non-political figure in the world, and I think the trauma of that experience led him to desire a place where he could relinquish some of that control. Janov in particular seemed to place a lot of stock on being controlled by your desires (didn't Yoko pitch PST as a way to stop smoking?), and I think we see that fear of desire manifest in the life John built with Yoko in New York (macrobiotic, highly restricted diet; minimalistic decor; rarely leaving the house). I think the AKOM girls did a great job of looping that fear of desire re: Janov's work back to Paul, and I think you alluded to that as well in your original ask, but I think all of that coalesced into John's disordered eating, or pulled on the thought patterns that started this behavior back in the 60s. John wanted to be cared for, but especially in the 70s, I think we can see a distrust that he felt in his own desires, and a longing to be rid of them. George attempted to do that with Krishna, and John attempted to do that with Yoko/Janov/disordered eating/etc., etc.

This answer kind of got away from me, but I do want to say that you're totally right. Yoko was not practicing evil pussy magic; I think she just correctly spotted what John was looking for and stepped in to provide it, even if it was ultimately not good or healthy for either of them.

I need to go rewatch The Master, apparently.

[lilyrizzy]

First off, I want to say that in that iron ground is an amazing fic I can't believe you're out here writing this for free for all of us to read! Second, I just wanted to talk about the one scene that I keep thinking about which was when Max and Daniel were in the cab after Daniel was a jerk and Max smiles back and holds his hand - Did Daniel truly realize how much of a jerk he was being? What was he thinking? I know Daniel was wondering if "one afternoon is enough to unravel years of hard work" but I just want to know more!! How did Max deal with a mean Daniel? I understand his circumstances are terrible rn but I honestly don't think I would be as emotionally strong and capable as Max while Daniel was being like this! Was Michael like ???? I also loved the scene where Daniel and Max talk about marriage and forever ... everything about this fic was 1000000/10

thank you so much, i am so glad you enjoyed it. it is probably the thing i am most proud of ever writing so asks like this honestly make me giddy! Answers under the cut<3

cw: mentions of max's relationship with his father and the way i percieve that. please don't read if you won't like that.

i think, max's ability to deal with daniel's meaness is due to the way i see max as a character, which is to say he's somebody who is very resilient and capable of incredible compartmentalisation. like not to get too deep into like controversial subjects, but he's well practiced in forgiving or overlooking questionable behaviour from people he loves (j*s).

so i think in this particular situation, where daniel is having the worst day of his life, he would be able to recognise that as the reason for his beahviour and forgive him quickly. Daniel is his man, you know, why wouldn't he be forgiving of him? in a sadder way, i think max is quick to take responsibility (and even blame) for other peoples emotions (see: 'it cost a marriage' about his first championship) so i also don't think its that much of a reach to think that he would like, offer himself up to be a place where daniel can put this irrational anger. but remember, max does call daniel out in the previous scene by telling daniel bluntly 'you are being an asshole,' so hes also not totally self sacrificing. and in the cab, when daniel reaches for him, this is enough in max's eyes, like he takes it as a 'sorry,' because he knows daniel doesn't totally have the capacity for an apology right now, when he feels like hes been so wronged (not by max, but by the the loss of his father) and everything is so unfair. he's just shocked because he was thinking maybe he'd have to deal with daniels anger a little longer, but he's happy he doesn't.

basically, i think in a way his trauma has made him kinda emotionally mature in some ways.

& because i'm a romantic at heart lol, also this fic, they love each other a lot and have been together for a long time too, so max is also thinking 'if daniel is feeling these emotions, id rather him share it with me than go through it alone,' so if he's gotta be the person daniel gets mad at to do it, so be it. if that makes sense (not claiming any of this dynamic is healthy, but then emotional responses after grief rarely are and the whole point of the fic is to explore that lol so pls dont come for me in my ask box lol).

then onto daniel, and "one afternoon is enough to unravel years of hard work". For starters, this phrasing is pretty uncharitable to max, but on purpose bc as discussed, daniel is going through itTM rn. but i think this is fundemental to the thought process daniel has throughout the fic where he is has seen himself as the protector, the person who reshaped a lot of the things his father had taught max about what it was to be a man, to be gay, to be a race car driver, he's tried to get max to a healthy place, where is doesn't feel the blame and guilt and shame that his childhood left him with, but more than anything, he's trying to be a safe place for max. somewhere where he never questions that he's loved, and never experiences the pain he did as a child, that results from anger. but now *he* is the person causing this pain and he's worried that max is going to lose faith/trust in him for that.

while like i said, max rn is just like, "daniel just found out his dad died, of course he is going to be angry, but it is okay because he touched me nicely so i know things are fine now."

michael is just like, eyes forward, nothing is happening, lah lah lah lol, like he is not interested in getting involved in the ins and outs of their relationship.

[awigglycultist]

Random How the Grunch Cribbed Christmas thoughts/fav things/live blog/ect. Look you know the drill probably.

"Jinkles Christ what an embarrassing way to start!"

"shake your asses!"

Also Esther with the lights on them djdjjd

*farts into mic* "L'Chaim"

Why is Gwen flossing oh god

The applause sign nddbbd

Esther showing everyone a qr code for everyone to give them money ndjdn

"I can't believe you trust the internet with your money, I keep mine where its safe, irl in the unlocked glove department of my van parked out front... Theres cameras! Jesus Christ!"

"in your hometown where you would revice no attention or fame :)"

"and we're out!" "glad I don't have to listen that" "oh you know what sorry now we're out"

"I got an appointment out back with Jolly Ol Saint Dick"

The whole bit with Scrags interrogating Rudy nfjdd

"she knows we have a special bond. And I think her husband knows that too"

"Keith Swanson you puckish imp!"

"yeah we all agree she's trying to pig out on that Keith beef in thr sheets right?"

I think I would die if I was Ace

Poor Scrags

"it's also a waste of my stage time"

There he is. There's the grunch.

"I do not want to look like one of those amateur shows where there's a long blackout and people judt stumble around like idiots"

Ah yes non denominational Santa

"how old are you supposed to be in this song?" "six" "six?"

"Santa" "what?" "boner" "fuck"

Buddy they seem like they wanna fuck you bc of the song

"baby J, papa G, and... The third one"

"or join us on the naughty list" "I totally fucking will" "Keith"

"project"

Esther not being able to read the card is so funny

I love how fucking excited Esther is the moment they see Kirk

Rip Scrags

"my absolute. Best. Friend."

The Esther and Kirk handshake is incredible

I immediately absolutely love Kirk also so I get where Esther is coming from

"happy... Christmas everyone!"

Orlando's entrance is absolutely wonderful

"oh hey uhmm" "it's like the reindeer" "reindeer"

"and that's my childhood trauma.. Being privileged."

"do what my family did, celebrate both" "pft okay. You can do that!?"

"aren't you a sight for whore eyes"

I'd love to know if this would take place before or after ep1 of sisbib bc of Rhoda's Ark being one of the sponsorships

The absolute tension between Gwen and Lisa

"move on!"

Scrags has no idea what he's doing

"will the squad ever come to Florida?" "absolutely not"

"as the only Christian in the squad uhm... It me" "okay, holy spirit doesn't equate to holiday spirit dipshit" "oh my god can Christians just come out on top for once?"

Omg Nick Gage could write an awesome rock song about Christmas

The bit where Esther is on the floor seemingly about to fall asleep only to go right back into the song is great

Honestly incredibly rude if the grunch to knock everything over after Scrags just cleaned up, I don't even care about him stealing presents or....pissing into the diffuser

"if Gwen was giving anyone a handjob I would know about it!"

"do we have any fuckable singles in the audience?"

"I'm joking! I'm half joking"

So who's gonna do the math to figure out how many lawsuits he has against him and how many years he was in prison

I love Orlando

Also. I shout this out all the time but absolute shout out to the background acting in this show

Are they allowed to use this song?

Keith absolutely ROCKING OUT

Scrags screaming omh

"oh I don't know maybe a vengeful monster wHO WE JUST BEETLEJUICED INTO EXISTENCE"

"OH YEAH EAT SHIT ACE!"

Ah finally. Brian playing a women

"multi-generational ogies with the neighbours"

No he's right Pirates are super cool

:( Scrags <3 beloved poor guy

Joey saying bye to that person getting up in the middle of a song djdndkdb also that person left for the bathroom at the wrong time. Like they left right around the start of the song and then came back at the very end of it when everyone was absolutely going crazy applauding for the song, they really missed the best song

We definitely need more Joey and Corey duets

"what do you want Scrags?" "DAAADDD"

"Scrags what were you thinking?" hey it's not his fault you went live right as he had an emotional song with Orlando about his daddy issues

Omg didn't know Brian could play violin

Scrags just. Sulking. In the background.

Scrags putting up the applause sign for the show getting cancelled ndkdndnd

Keith having these signs prepared to ask for a threesome. Omg.

Brian quick changes!!

Honestly tho what a fun uplifting song

Their step forwards djdndn

"to get over this whole sad boy routine..."

"a threesome with her and who else?" *gets down on one knee and presents himself*

"this is a really long black out"

Joey nearly knocking over the mic sjdndj

"hide your kids hide your wives hide your presents!"

"maybe finally this year the grunch will finally take me and this nightmare will be over"

"he thinks moses is like the Santa of Hanukkah and I thought it was too funny to correct"

Yeah this really is terrifying

Keith you idiot

Yeah go off Gwen

Scrags and Esther doing hand motions in the background for the notes and make faces while Gwen misses her notes kdnddn

"his stink glands you see... We're.. So... Fucking bad"

Wonderful accent Scrags

The slow no fighting ndjd

Oh boy there's three grunches now!

Scrags finally held the sign up right :)

How dare they not give him a song

"Orlando, you remember!" "absolutely not."

Keith yelling "this is what I do when I'm happy!" when Esther tells him to stop flossing sjdbdn

Rip Rudy

YEAH WOO ESTHER

"some random y2k spy wear I had lying around"

"EFFECT ALTRUISM BITCHES" FUCK YEAH ESTHER

YEAH THEY SURE ARE THE MIRACLE

The fact Keith's first wet dream was too one of Esther's parents....

"yeah I got a lot of guilt" "ah yethe one thing you Catholics and us Jews have in common" "pretty sure the Jews call it 'gelt'" "nah that's chocolate coins" "no it's not"

"how many nights of Hanukkah are there??"

Reprise time!

WOO ACE!!

This show really is great and I Iove the music and really wish more people were watching it and talking about it

[twdmusicboxmystery]

Sometimes I can just never understand the hate that Beth receives from the GA. I’m always reading posts and comments about how Beth was a useless character or a brat or whatever, but they don’t really understand how important her character is. We don’t even have to view this in a Bethyl way—even if she did cause Daryl to burn down his past and become the character we all love and know now. Beth was just the epitome of good and hope and yeah even if she was a tinyyyy bit stubborn with getting a drink, she was able to drag Daryl out of his catatonic state and change him for good. Also hello—she was literally a surrogate mother for Judith and that was an extremely important role she had to play but she NEVER gets credit for it. She saved Carol at the hospital too and we all know just how much the GA cherishes Carol, yet the GA still calls Beth useless. Idk, it’s a bit frustrating and it’s so obvious people hate her mainly because she was paired with Daryl and like, kinda stole his heart..lol.

I have so many responses to this, lol. First of all, obviously I totally agree with you. I loved everything you said here.

The thing is, I don't think most of the GA hated Beth or still does. I think it was mostly the other shippers, especially the Carylers. For exactly the reasons you said: it was obvious they were setting up a Bethyl romance and that really threatened the other ships. Even though many of those shippers are very loud online, they truly are a minority. Most the GA either really liked Beth and Daryl together or at least didn't hate her. A lot of them probably had a meh-whatever-as-long-as-Daryl's-happy mentality about it. But again, they didn't hate her. It just seems like it's a lot of people because the online shippers are so loud about their beliefs.

As to her getting a drink, people's reaction to that has always bothered me. Because we've seen similar storylines with other characters. Maybe not the drink exactly, but what she did here to deal with her grief wasn't terribly different than Rick going to crazy town for a minute after Lori died. People might possibly wonder why Rick was like...frolicking with the butterflies in the yard when his family--including a newborn--needed him. But no one really said anything like that. And then there's Daryl in Find Me, who was so depressed for months and months that he hung out with the woods and didn't go back and see his family at Alexandria or the other communities for the better part of 2 years. Why doesn't anyone criticize him for that?

And don't get me wrong. I'm not being critical of either of our favorite heroes here. It's called trauma, people, and everyone deals with it in their own way. Beth dealing with it by looking for a drink probably sprang from what had already been established about both her character and her family (Hershel was an alcoholic in his youth).

So, all I'm saying is, keep in mind that the people who hate on her for that and think she's useless are being extremely hypocritical and exercising a truly shocking double standard. And the truth is, that kind of hate comes way more from women in the fandom than men. Think about that.

Obviously I also agree with you about Beth's affect on Daryl. That's been well established in our fandom, and I don't think I need to go into too much detail about it here. (Plenty of other metas already written about that.) But even outside of Daryl and their magical dynamic together, Beth's own arc was so much more than the haters make it out to be.

It's funny that you mention her taking care of Judith. My fellow theorists and I have been talking about the storyline, mostly in Fear right now, though I think the Maggie/Negan spinoff will get wrapped up in the same thing, of the children being kidnapped. From the very beginning, we saw children and babies around Beth, and we firmly believe Beth will be a big part of that storyline.

And what that means, is that the writers didn't have Beth taking care of Baby Judith back in S4 just because it was convenient or because they didn't know what to do with her character. They did it, at least in S4 and on after Gimple took over, because they were already setting up an arc for her that is just now playing out.

I get that most of the GA doesn't know or see that. Even so, these two arcs--Beth taking care of children and now children being taken by the CRM, when it's so obvious Grady was connected to the CRM--are so clearly linked over time. Believing that Beth was nothing more than a "babysitter" is severely short-sighted.

I could probably say more, but I'll stop there. Thanks for your thoughts, Nonny! As I said, heartily agree! Xoxo! 🍀💕

[ace-the-fox]

I read the new chapter of Two Little Kitties and gosh I have things to say.

First off, Misao's dad is a jerk. Misao herself doesn't want to confront the Kira family, her dad just want some money of 8000¥? That's 60 US dollars lol

The backstory of Haruka using her stand ability for the first time interest me alot. Poor Haruka, having to stuck in the car while dad kira here is being a hand predator. He really thought it would end smoothly. Kira was probably like

"OK sweetie, daddy is gonna get that girl's hand and we all have dinner together :)"

"🧍‍♀️"

*a few hours later*

"Well sweetie, looks like you know what your stand powers are.. haha... Good job..."

"😧🤮"

Momo's side of the story is my favourite part. She's just like me fr when that scene showed up when you're watching a movie with your parent lol. Out of three dads in the chapter, Kosaku is the most normal one, when he gave that sweet piece of advice to Momo aww. Also love you made Kosaku a closeted man, he sure is, wonder who was Kosaku's old lover was? I bet Momo's reaction is just like that tiktok audio

"I sank to the floor, completely dazed. My dad was... GAY? My dad was GAY."

OMG I love to hear your thoughts on these things. It's very encouraging lol.

Misao's dad is a total jerk. It's £50 here in the UK lol, which is actually how I decided it. I just kinda sat there like "Hmm, what's a large amount of money you could ask for to cover up your child being beaten up by her classmate that isn't too absurd? 🤔" And then I just converted it into yen lol.

Yeah, Haruka's backstory has been in the back of my mind for a while. She always just needs more trauma lol (she really doesn't, god love her-). And that was totally Kira's whole thought process lol. Please sir, that child has ANXIETY now...

And I'm glad you loved Momo's side. Kosaku is totally closeted, but I will note his lover won't be important past this chapter, so I wouldn't worry about it too much. Unless I pulled a real wildcard and made it Dio or someone lmao (/j). That tiktok audio sums it up a lot lol.

[emmythespacecowgirl]

hello! if you do not mind, may i request a band of brothers ship?

i am very introverted and shy. i am a very quiet person and i often do not feel safe around people i do not know because of my past trauma and anxiety. i might look like a cold person to some who do not know me. but once i meet someone who makes me feel safe, i tend to talk a lot.

i am a very emotional and sensitive person and i care a lot, sometimes to a fault.

i get excited and find joy and beauty in the littlest things. i love kids and animals. i am a complete homebody but i love going on adventures and doing different things. i like hiking and spending time in nature. i want to learn horseback riding someday and maybe try skydiving.

i have a lot of hobbies. i like to write stories, ballet, baking, archery and playing a couple of instruments. i am obsessed with space, science and history. i also like to read a lot and i spend too much time researching random things so i have a lot of random knowledge about things.

i want to be an astronaut in my next life.

i am a very loyal person but once you hurt me deeply, i take a step back and i become quiet. or i disappear from your life altogether. i am learning to communicate my feelings more with the people i am really close to and trust. i tend to feel like my feelings don't matter but they do.

i just graduated nursing school and i am very nervous about my first job 😭

i also need to be well dressed when i am around people. cookies are my most favorite food and i absolutely despite bugs.

if you took the time to reply to this, thank you so much!!! 🥰

ok ok ok i had to do a double take bc i thought that i wrote this for a sec haha srsly tho we sound a lot alike!!

I ship you with:

Dick Winters from Band of Brothers!

ship theme song: Warm Foothills by Alt-J

an emotionally intelligent KING right here!

honey, this man is perfect for you!

he will stop at nothing to make sure that you're safe, protected, and full of cookies :)

ugh imagine it: you go horseback riding on your first date!

damn i'm so jealous

i think at first, most of Dick's friends would be like

"ayo she's so quiet"

but Dick would be like "ayo shut your faces respectfully, she's so interesting tho so i gotta know more"

and being the emotionally/interpersonally intelligent guy that he is

he'll find some way to your heart :)

and over time, he'll softly get you to open up to him

Dick adores your caring and sensitive side

also your ability to find beauty in anything

it's what gets him through the war

he's so glad that a person like you exists in the world

eventually he figures out the root cause of why you might be labelled as shy or quiet

Dick has seen firsthand what ptsd and anxiety does to people during wartime

and it breaks his heart that you deal with it as well

but he also thinks that you're the most strong and resilient person he's ever met

this man is super protective of you

he would never dare to shake your loyalty in him

and Dick is very loyal in return

if he's away from you for any length of time he will definitely plan a phone call to hear your sweet voice

or write you the most sappy sweet love letters

srsly i'm gonna cry

Dick also loves kids and animals!

it's why you two definitely own a big farm after the war

lots of horses, cows, goats...

i can assure you that if/when you decide to have kids together, he will be just as protective of them as he is of you <3

while you're stationed together in Austria you definitely go on some breathtaking hikes together

he thinks you're so dang talented, too!

he loves when you're playing your instrument

and you think nobody's listening

but he is

he loves that

he's kept the tiny little stories you wrote him for birthdays or holidays

they're kept in his upper left hand desk drawer ;)

it's on his bucket list to take you to the Smithsonian Air & Space museum one day

he thinks it would be so cute to see you staring up at all the planes in total wonder

when he has a spare minute Dick also loves to read as well :)

Dick totally thinks you could become an astronaut!

he agrees to take care of the kids and feed the dog while you circle the moon a couple times ;)

but seeing you work as a nurse during the war, Dick knows that you are totally competent

and the care that you give to your patients makes him so happy

the first time he sees you out of uniform, he was like

"dang! this girl sure knows how to dress! i like that ;)"

pro tip, Dick's favorite cookie is a chocolate chip cookie so please remember that ;)

[gralunaisland]

I just wanted to ask,

Is it okay for me to be a J///erza Anti?

I have my reasons for not shipping the ship, but at the same time I wonder if I'm just being difficult and trying to be "different".

One part of me is like, "J///Erza shouldn't be canon because the whole Jellal almost killed Erza, and has been the cause of her trauma ever since she was a child." But the other part of me is like, "But the fans ship it, they see that Erza has forgiven him and they have official art, even their potential future son has been drawn."

It's Okay to Be a Jerza Anti (Coming from a Jerza Shipper)

Thank you so much for coming to me with this ask! I'll give you my opinion on the subject to try to help you out.

It's completely okay for you to be Anti Jerza!

Really, everyone has a right to hate whatever ship they want to! That really comes down to personal preference, and it's very subjective, not objective.

But even beyond that, you have very understandable reasons to not like it, don't worry. I totally understand where you're coming from. The trauma Jellal inflicted on Erza at such a young age will probably never completely heal. He enslaved "willing" workers to work for him after manipulating them to think Erza was the one who had cut off their chances at escape. He killed Simon. He brutalized Erza and banished her.

Those aren't easy things to forgive. And it's really completely fine for you to not forgive those things. I'd say it just shows your empathy for what Erza had to endure, which is a good thing!

For me, the reason I ship Jerza is that I attribute all the horrible things he did to Ultear manipulating him into doing them with her magic. He thought he was doing the right thing in a dark and twisted way. I also appreciate the following arcs where Jellal is on a mission to atone for his sins and to better himself in repentance. Honestly, in my opinion, it's one of the best things Mashima has written.

But that doesn't mean you have to take that perspective! Because even though I don't blame him, it doesn't change the fact that he did commit all those harmful acts, so it's easy to see why people wouldn't like him regardless of his redemption arc.

I hope you won't feel pressured to like a ship just because other fans ship it. Fandoms seldom agree on most things, so it's natural to disagree with even a large portion of a fandom. I for one am a part of a smaller subgroup of fans who hates gr///via and all that it is (clearly haha) but there's a reason why gr///via, and Jerza, are a part of the Big Four--most people ship it. Doesn't make them right whatsoever, which is something I try to prove on this blog of mine.

I also would take official art as well as drawings of potential children as inconsequential. We shouldn't care if Mashima likes a ship or imagined their futures together. Manga authors are just as imperfect as the rest of us, so he could (and does) very well promote terrible, toxic ships. ( I talk about this topic in this post actually, I recommend checking it out!)

I hope this reassures you that your opinion matters. Don't be swayed by the masses; stand strong in what you like and dislike! >:D You got this, I believe in ya!

(Thank you for your patience!)

[peakysanakin]

a bit about Elain's trauma and why it correlates with her rejecting her mating bond with Lucien in the future, a thread:

(WARNING: this post isn't about ships, except Elucien because Lucien is a key factor in Elain's trauma. )

Everyone deals with trauma in their own way and that's totally okay. Some are destructive, some shut people up and others want to not feel anything. Elain, just as Nesta, went into the Cauldron and those moments were horrific for her.

She is literally dragged and shoved into the Cauldron while she cries, struggles and kicks to escape the guards' grasps. The guards and the King keep laughing at her during the whole time.

Elain is used as an experiment for the Queens.

She is used as if she was a mere object.

Her body has been changed forever and she is practically naked, completely terrified and in shock from whatever she has gone through inside the Cauldron. (We know how terrifying and horrible it can be because of Nesta's experience.) Everyone is looking at her, some are even laughing.

Do you know how violating this could feel? To be left naked and vulnerable in front of people who have just terrorized you? How would you feel?

We don't know what she goes through inside the Cauldron, but it was probably very painful and terrifying. Then, she is thrown off it and she experiences this horrific scene, and her mating bond with Lucien snaps.

Another thing has been decided for her.

Not only has her body and life been changed forever without her consent, now her romantic relationship has been decided for her as well. And it's with a man who participated in the plan that made this horrific moment happen.

Lucien is an accomplice of that. He isn't a bad person, but he is CLEARLY an accomplice. (GO NESTA!!)

Elain is dealing with her trauma and she doesn't own Lucien anything. She suffered so much, she was broken and traumatized by what happened to her.

And Lucien and their mate bond are a BIG reminder of the day her body and life were changed against her own will.

We don't know much about her, but we have seen enough of her suffering and how traumatized she is in the books. Feyre always admired Elain's strength, because being kind and gentle in a world so dark takes balls, you know? Later on in the books, Elain is still kind and gentle but more reserved and quiet because she is dealing with her own shit.

Strength doesn't equal to physical force. A big example? Queen Elizabeth I of England was strong and she never fought in a battlefield, but she was intelligent, cunning and brought a Golden Age to her country. She made a place for herself in a patriarcal society and that's how strong she was.

Elain's strength differs from Nesta's, Mor's and Feyre's. She isn't an active fighter like them, but yet she had the guts to fight in the war and stabbed the King on the neck to protect Nesta because she loves her sister and would die for her. Look at this.

No one wanted her to fight, but she chose to. SHE CHOSE TO! This is important. She is scared in the battle camp and doesn't know how to fight or wield a sword, yet she trusts her friends and wants to fight alongside them. 

She might die in the battlefield, but at least she will fight fighting and not be a pawn.

She will enact revenge for what the King did to Nesta, to Feyre and to herself.

MOREOVER –– Another big trauma (aside from happened inside the Cauldron and the dramatic changes in her life), it will probably be center around her body. 

Her clothes, body and beauty are mentioned all the time. ALL THE TIME. Elain, who was a very proper and modest lady (and didn't want to talk about periods even with her sisters), was seen naked against her will by everyone and she probably felt violated.

Feyre mentions Elain's reaction when she sees her and Nesta wearing Illyrian fighting leathers. She mentions how Elain was offered something less scandalous and more proper. 

Imagine how someone so proper would feel after being used and seen all vulnerable and naked by so many people? To have been ogled against your will? To be seen as an “object” to see whether the Cauldron worked?

Nesta is a sexual assault survivor and she also suffered because of their youth, Feyre's sacrifice to provide for them and Elain suffering from the Cauldron incident. She dealt with her trauma in her own way, just as Elain deals with it in her own way. And that's okay!

In Elain's book, her choosing who she wants to be with and how she wants to live from now on will be important. She will turn down Lucien, as it is obvious from what I explained above and because of the following:  Feyre and Rhys comment on how being mates doesn't equal to being right for each other.

Sarah J. Maas said this as well.

She also said that a mating bond is something rare but that some people might be lucky and end up having two. But the main thing is: 

Elain will reject Lucien because they aren't right for each other and she will chose whomever she wants to because she loves that person. That's big and it will be key to the plot.

Elain might end up being lucky and while falling for another person, a new mating bond might develop. But at the end of the day, it will be her choice. 

Not the Cauldron's choice, not society's choice or anyone else. 

Hers and hers alone.

You think she is boring? Well, we will learn more about her and we will see her heal from her trauma. Her body and her choices have been violated, but she will heal and grow for that and gain ownership over herself once again. 

Rhys, Amren and Feyre believe there is more to her than just the kindness she shows. 

“Maybe she was never given the chance to be that way.” “You think I stifle her?” “Not you alone. [...] But I wonder if everyone has spent so long assuming Elain is sweet and innocent that she felt she had to be that way or else she’d dissapoint you all. [...] With time and safety, perhaps we’ll see a different side of her emerge”

“You think Elain is boring?” “I think she’s kind, and I’ll take that kindness over nastiness every day. But I also think we haven’t yet seen all she has to offer.”

“Don’t forget that gardening often results in something pretty, but it involves getting one’s hands dirty along the way.”

“You can’t have it both ways. You cannot resent my decision to lead a small, quiet life while also refusing to let me do anything greater.”

“I went into the Cauldron, too, you know. And it captured me. And yet somehow all you think of is what my trauma did to you.”

“Including Elain, who is more than capable of defending herself against the darkness of the Trove, if she chooses to. Don’t underestimate her.”

Being a seer gives you many powers, but it would take me too much time so I recommend you to read this LONG AND AMAZING list of powers a seer might have posted by @miru5llec​ and you will be shocked and hyped.

If you like mythology and fantasy literature, you know seers are feared and respected. Kings have killed for having a seer in their ranks. They can reach levels of divine status and their ability as a seer gives them many more powers than those I have mentioned before.

Elain might not be physically powerful like Nesta or Feyre, but being a seer makes her more powerful than both of them but IN ANOTHER WAY. Look at the list above (linked) if you don't believe me. 

Her being on the Night Court makes Feysand's court the most powerful in Prythian.

That's why Elain is not boring and her trauma is valid. There is much more to her than what little we have seen. SJM has said so. Rhys, Feyre, Amren, everyone has said so in the books. We will learn about her, see her heal and chose who to love in her book.

“Why?” Elain demanded. “Shall I tend to my little garden forever?” When Nesta flinched, Elain said, “You can’t have it both ways. You cannot resent my decision to lead a small, quiet life while also refusing to let me do anything greater.”

“But Elain said, “I went into the Cauldron, too, you know. And it captured me. And yet somehow all you think of is what my trauma did to you.”

We will see her develop her powers and learn how to use them. She is possibly the key to killing Koschei (the big bad villain) because she might have visions of where his heart is hidden in that fucking box and guide the IC to find it.

Furthermore, stop saying “I want Elucien to happen so Lucien can be happy.” or “Azriel deserves better than Elain because she likes to garden and is mated to Lucien.”

Elain doesn’t belong to Lucien.

Elain can garden, bake and walk around on her hands while singing La Macarena and that doesn’t make her any less strong than Feyre, Mor, Nesta or any other female character.

(Also, in this stupid ship war I have seen people pointing out how she wouldn't be able to give Azriel children because her body isn't Illyrian. This is disgusting. You are basically saying that all her worth lies in whether she can give someone children or not.

Do I remind you adoption exists? Rhys, Cassian and Azriel are brothers by choice, not by blood and they are BROTHERS. You can adopt and be a mother. And you can chose to not have children and that would be okay too. A woman's worth isn't in her uterus.

And that’s it. 

(I posted this thread on Twitter as well, so if you liked it you can go there and RT it or hit a like.)

[og post]

[kdramaxoxo]

Hi there! 😃 I was wondering if you could give me a few recommendations of pure good-hearted kdramas.

I made the error of watching Moon Lovers: Scarlet Heart Ryeo, Never Said Goodbye (very sad Chinese movie with Lee Joon Gi and Ethan Ruan), and then Silenced with Gong Yoo, all back-to-back. I'm now in need of the fluffiest, happiest shows ever.

You always seem to give out good recs to others, so I was hoping you (or perhaps your mutuals or followers) could lead me to some good ones. Thanks for all you do! 💓😄

Awww HUGS anon!

I know what it feels like when what you need is the lightest and fluffiest of fare! I have an older light and fluffy list but I'll pair it down so that it won't even include ones with long forced breakups which 99% of kdramas (also, I highly recommend the starred one at the bottom you're open to watching j-dramas).

Light and Fluffy Pure Good-Hearted K-Dramas:

Shopping King Louie: The perfect example of a k-drama. It’s super trope-y and totally ridiculous but really funny! Seo In Guk plays a rich dude who loses his memory and ends up being taken care of by a poor girl from the country. Forced cohabitation, amnesia, chaebols, all of it.

Touch Your Heart: A sweet, silly and very mild rom com about a serious boss and his hallyu star secretary. This show was an obvious response to the chemistry that Lee Dong Wook and Yoo In Na had in Goblin so it was nice to see them together again. Yoo In Na is such a fun person to watch!

Her Private Life: Park Min Young really knows how to pick dramas. I loved this one about a museum curator who is secretly a fangirl obsessed with an idol. It’s fun and fluffy but does have a very mild childhood trauma thing with his mother but I mean, 99% of dramas like this do? If you like this one, Touch Your Heart and Why Secretary Kim are by the same person and have similar vibes.

Light On Me (web drama): I absolutely adored this simple and sweet drama! One of my favorite korean BLs EVER! Because it’s longer than the average Korean BL, it actually has: *cues triumphant music* Character development!

Eulachacha Waikiki / Laughter In Waikiki: I hope you’re ready for a crazy amount of unlikely situations and nutty hijinks because this show is probably one the most silly ones I’ve ever watched. It follows a group of friends who own a hostel so it’s a slice of life drama. At certain points I was like “this is TOO silly” but I’m glad I stuck with it cause it was so hilarious. Plus, the baby is a star!

Have a Nice Dessert (web drama): If you’re looking for low angst and a super soft boy, this is your drama!! It’s a web drama about a girl who loves photographing desserts and the boy who likes her.  Like all web dramas, it’s short, and there’s really no time for angst and breakups :)

Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok Joo: A K-drama fandom favorite! Adorable college romance about a female weightlifter and a super hot swimmer dude. I mean she’s hot too. Anyways, two cuties!

Top Management: Adorable mini drama about a girl who can see the future and becomes the rookie manager for a kpop band. Fun and easy (plus they seem to be setting it up for another season…)

Terius Behind Me: FBI agent goes under disguise as a babysitter! While there are some intense parts of this drama because it’s a crime thriller, the characters are super funny and all work perfectly together to create a comedic element. Honestly this show was almost perfect for me, and I’m very picky.

Light and Fluffy Pure Good-Hearted J-Dramas:

***Cherry Magic! Thirty Years of Virginity Can Make You a Wizard?!:  If you’re used to k-dramas were everything could go wrong at any time, you’re in for a real treat! Cherry Magic is my absolute favorite drama of last year and this year combined (even with a silly name like it has!) - It’s the ONLY show I’ve ever given a 10/10 rating to. An introverted guy finds out a seemingly popular and confident co-worker has a crush on him. This drama is so so soft, so so sweet and it has not one but TWO ace characters and a lot of gay panic! I’ve rewatched it recently and smiled the ENTIRE time. Plus there’s a valentines day special that’s really fun.

Pretty Proofreader: Sweet little j-drama about a fashionista who ends up becoming a proofreader. There’s an adorable boy and she’s legit the prettiest girl eve - seriously you’ll die watching her style all of her outfits! There’s not a great romance, but if you don’t care about that, each episode features a little story where she works on a project and helps the people involved. Very sweet though episodic.

Kieta Hatsukoi (My Love Mix-Up!): A fluffy love story between a bi panicked boy and the guy he has a crush on. It was a bit cartoony but it’s sweet and fun, and how often do you see a Boy’s Love where the guy crushes on a cool female friend and then realizes he ALSO likes a guy in class? I really appreciated the nuance of that experience plus it’s pretty wholesome and fluffy. 

Happy Healing Anon!