#((anyway i love them sm i'm going to end up being crazy abt these two I Know It))

[ladyseidr]

@florietiae asked: ❝ you make me feel like i can accomplish anything. / sam @ jess ♡ ❞ ( meme )

"Yeah, that was kinda my evil plan all along." The joke carried more affection than humor, falling softly from her mouth at Sam's shoulder. She was tucked at his side on the couch, some mostly-forgotten sitcom droning in the background. "You can, by the way. Accomplish anything, I mean. You're a good man, smart. . ." And here she leaned back to gaze up at him, the corners of her eyes crinkling. "Not to mention, very attractive." The ghost of an almost-laugh escaped her, hand sliding up to the nape of his neck, fingers playing with the back of his hair.

"For what it's worth, you do the same for me." Jess had her own insecurities, perfectionism that could strain her own nerves to their limit. Sam was like an anchor, grounding her before she could drift out into a storm. "I can't imagine doing all this without you." She cupped his face, thumb stroking across the skin of his cheek. "It makes us a good team, I think."

[t4tpumpkinduo]

ok let me say smthing rq ☝️ the reason i'm insane and often v focused on cpumpkins on this blog is bcs. well. first off, cschlatt is my favorite most special little princess and i adore spreading love/cute things with her to a fanbase that largely misunderstands and villanizes her. (as well that art of her is also significantly easier fr me to draw than others spoon wise sorry for thinking with my. heart. ♡)

and secondly, being around and int-ing with what i have many times called a word of mouth ass fanbase, a fanbase tht often doesn't int w the source material at all, that purposely ignores or discards or lets their biases make their opinions for them, it makes me want to shine a light even harder on a dynamic that i find v textually rich and compelling!! as a true obnoxious lorehead!! i don't often see very many cpumpkinheads, and i've seen even less that analyze and lay out the scenes, or go to bat for what their relationship is and represents. they're a great great duo and i'd be so happy for more ppl to pick up what i'm putting down and i can only hope i'm making a lil dent in this cruel cruel world :'] for smthing tht means v much to me.

that said, despite this being a deeply important dynamic i'm v passionate abt and smthing i v often focus on, i never want to be confused w smone who reduces characters to like... ship mush. who strips characters of their hopes and dreams and aspirations and wider connections in sm thin veiled attempt t idk. legitimize? is that what it is? and you know exactly what i'm talking abt so 👎 long ass analysis + talk abt their relationships to others under the cut bcs i got carried away

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starting w my princess, cschlatt's connections to other characters is like....the stuff he has with cclingy is CRAZY!! they both admired him so much, they parallel him directly! when he first joined the server, he was taking selfies w them, indulging them and riffing with them, and i've seen ppl argue abt this but the actual reason he built the cuck shed in the dsmp was FOR cclingy, to make them laugh! he talked to them for hours after he was banned off the server in just earnest connection.

and while ofc he made mistakes w tubbo, those mistakes are not uniquely evil as they're ones characters (like cwilbur) KEPT MAKING both DURING the pogtopia-manburg war and then long after it ended. he sees tubbo as smone who was also slighted by cwilbur, and it's not a coincidence everyone is his cabinet was. he wanted to toughen him up so he wouldn't go through the same things he has! that want to make him stronger vs the self hate he feels for himself and how that leaks into the ints he has w smone he sees as similar vs the earnestly seeing him as a pal and feeling deep betrayal at the ctubbo feeding pog information. (cschlatt actually Knew ctubbo was sneaking off, that he was talking to ctommy, and he was fine w that + he actively let him!! 😭 it was only when he found out ctubbo was a traitor did he start crumbling.)

he pawned off hurting him to ctech, the same way cwilbur did to ctommy in the pit, two deeply psychotic dudes being used as playthings, with their backs against the wall, hurting their little guy in the process but not being able to bring themselves to do it so they get smone else in hopes that'll put a stop to it, only for the guy to values HIS OWN SELF above anyone else and do it anyways. and then they both kill themselves with guilt forever about it. cschlatt loses a LIFE during the festival, that's how much this was weighing on him, and then when he revives he's still so delusional he forgets what happened and calls for tubbo. like. ofc, that's not an awesome thing to have happened, but the rest of the factors are unignorable.

and tubbo to him...despite how ctubbo compartmentalizes those who hurt him, (grinning and bearing ctech n cphil for safety but throwing them under the bus to cwilbur for safety), the way he ints w schlatt is noticeably... different. he takes and agrees w his policies, keeps most of them as new lmanberg and admits they were good, he feels guilty about going against him, doesn't think he's all that bad and he gets punished for that! he goes as far to point out and realize cschlatt is being scapegoated for the situation in the first place, same as he was as president! (ofc to a different extent)

with ctommy, he would actively join calls w the kid and hang out DURING MANBURG!! 😭 ctommy would mildly snipe at him At Most and cschlatt would go ehhh you suck too buddy. and then they'd just chill together. he invited ctommy to manburg, for god's sake. ctommy is also one of the characters who continues to bring up cschlatt in a positive light, even up to his final streams saying things like cschlatt was his hero and it's CWILBUR'S FAULT that everything went to shit surrounding that.. they have sm in common, their relationships to others their posturing the way they joke around, the struggles with addiction and having their control and personhood ripped away URWGH

and with wilbur....like v v point blank one of the reasons they spiral so bad (aside frm being sabotaged by bigger forces than themselves + being deeply sick and mentally ill), was THE BETRAYAL OF EACHOTHER!!! look at the stuff i wrote for them above!!! they die on the same day, they directly fling shit at eachother constantly personally spitefully they Know eachother and it's all coming frm a place of hurt. he broke my heart how could he do this to me how could he use me as a prop how could he let me down my loverboy my pretty princess are you SERIOUS? glatt n ghostbur were hanging out together and glatt is seen reminiscing on him with fondness and nostalgia like can we get real. and they have textual sauce in smplive too don't start w me.

ponk being a quack doctor cat murderer but she tried as cschlatt's medic, she even shows remorce abt not being better for him,,,and he likes her right back, he's like extremely nice to her and even offers to make her a floor of emeralds for what he's done for him. THE GUY WHO USES EMRALDS TO MARK THINGS OF VALUE? cnikis letter to him, saying she wishes him well, that she hopes he's resting smwhere smhow....tch. TCH.

starting w cq...like i've gone over this before and iwill again. his relationship with cclingy helps define his entire shit he LOVES those kids he does RIDICULOUS things for them in mind.

the reason cq even joins is bcs of a tommy invite, his first appearance is actually a vc where he and tommy are chattering and stealing...they already know eachother, they're already fond of eachother! and alongside the good times, cq's there for every horrible thing tht ctommy is subjected to, he visits him in exile he's there on the grid when cdrm shows his ass abt what he's doing to him, why he's doing it, he finds out ctommy died the day it happened and goes numb and then CRAZY and when he sees him revived, he's practically crying with joy.

one of the reasons for butcher army even existed was the being able to help ctommy! he wants to kill cdrm and to do that he needs to kill ctech, an active threat and accomplice to cdrm! he failed ofc, but the intent was blatantly there. and later in the custody stream, when ctommy confronts him bcs of it, not knowing why the butcher army didn't just go get him when they couldn't, when the killing of figures putting him in danger was FOR that, he'd RATHER LET CTOMMY BELIEVE HE DIDN'T TRY AT ALL THAN WEAPONIZE EXILE FOR HIM. he wanted to kill cdrm outright for what he did to ctommy, he was a seconds away from it, and then when other forces push him into the torture, he's seen using a potato as a blunt weapon to drive his points home. like what do you think that means. he pulls himself frm ccharlie's death and disappearance and the first thing he does is go tell ctommy he'll protect him, that he can always come to lnv....killing myse. self. and ctommy cares abt cq too, he relies in him, he trusts him, he gave him one of the only slash hugs he's ever given he deduces that cq is a torturer by pure chance and still rocks w him and even like actively encourages it bro does NOT care abt his crimes 😭 that's his buddy i fear

and ctubbo... if anything that relationship parallels cschlatts to ctubbos, the being harsh on a kid so the same things that happened to you don't happen to him, so you can toughen him up b4 the world crushes him in it's teeth. and even when they argue, even when they don't see eye to eye, they care about eachother they matter to eachother,,,post doomsday, saying they wanted to move forward, stay working together the want to run a business together, q apologizing for his harsher actions and making it clear how he cares abt him.

and with the cookie outpost...ctubbo is the kind of person who can't confront ppl he's actually afraid of or angry at often, like the syndicate, and instead he has "safe" targets of ppl he can lash out at and redirect it at bcs he knows they won't hurt him back. AND CQ IS ONE OF THOSE PPL! IF NOT THE MOST CONSISTENT ONE!! he knows he can posture he knows he can go so far as to outright threaten cq and he won't ever lay a hand on him. the fact they can even talk it out so easily, the fact cq hated cdrm fr what he did to ctubbo too! saying so explicitly! getting furious when others threaten or put him in danger to the point of trying to physically beat their asses like brother

cbbh's decent into being egged like fucked up cq so badddd dude....the way cq didn't understand the full extent of being possessed since he was able to pull away frm it (barely and screaming the whole time but yget it.) the being brought to the egg in the first place by smone he cared so much, by smone he considered truly good and trustworthy,,,the fact the first person cbbh truly opened up abt the further reaches of the egg was cq...the fact cq went to bat against it over and over, putting himself in danger multiple times bcs thts all he could think of to get through to bad...them cooing and laughing and having fun together so so often and one of the few times cq indulges in femininity is wearing a cute pink little bride's outfit to go on a date w bad like 😭

sam is his FATHER dont argue w me they say it explicitly. he took care of him over and over, he looked out for him always the REASON cq is able to manipulate him as much as he can is bcs that's his DAD. ossium meant so much to him BCS he got him w csam and cgeorge. i won't go on abt this one too bad bcs scarduoisms like kill me dead w grief but trust that i understand trust trust.

his stuff with foolish i just talked abt so i wont retread but be aware he's always been his buddy and understood where he was coming from as smone who was once IN cq's shoes, and chose to be by his side in shitty moments idc if that was retconned. and i won't linger or touch on ctnt bcs like respectfully you've seen it already, ppl talk abt it all the time unignorably so. yes, a lot of it is straight up misrepresented or lies but DW thts not wht this post is ABT!!! ☝️

but what it IS about is. idk. the thing that makes the dsmp so special in the first place is...connections, it's hope it's love it's choosing eachother. how on days where everything was the bleakest and worst ppl still found a way to care, to show support, that in this terrible server that chews ppl up and spits them out with scars and wounds and sharp edges and terrible mistakes, ppl will STILL love them and want them in their life. bcs thts what it's like to live ♡

so yes. cpumpkins is v v v v v good, of course they are, i'll always be the cpumpkins guy but DO NOT GET IT TWISTED ☝️ they can love eachother while having their wider connections not only enrich themselves but the narrative they inhabit. the dsmp is abt love of every kind don't you forget it

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*also let it be known i use cwilb as my example a lot cuz 1. he's the fanon darling that gets at least half his streams watched so everybody will know wht im talking + 2. if you can have empathy for his actions when they're worse than others you can have empathy for those 😭 thanks

[overthinkingkdrama]

re: Save Me. What did you think about the scene where Sang Mi and her mom look up @ sky and talk about God, crediting Him for looking out for them or w/e? It's not like I'm here to say ALL RELIGION = CULT or anything, but the sudden attempt by the show to underline that distinction felt cowardly, or at the least lazy, since SM didn't seem religious before (except spiritual, cos of her bro's spirit). When the show is abt humans saving each other from human evil, this scene left a weird taste...

So, I do know exactly what you mean by the final piece of narration coming across as a bit strange, even apologetic. I do understand if that rubbed a few people the wrong way. It was rather ham-fisted, I’ll admit.

Personally, I wasn’t terribly bothered by it, and I’ll try to explain why.

As far as I’m concerned there are two possible ways that you can take the ending narration. Either it’s A) a hasty last minute concession to any religious viewers that the show runners don’t think that religion in and of itself is evil or that being religious makes your crazy pleasedon’tsendusnastyemails or B) a hasty attempt to give the ending thematic resonance when there was not enough time for a proper falling action. Most likely what we’re looking at is a little column A, a little column B.

As to the first, I understand the impulse to make the clarification and I don’t particularly blame them for it even if they final narration served to take us out of the story a little bit. The very connotation of the word “cult” should maybe clue us in that this can be a bit of a touchy subject. Nobody wants to be thought of as “part of a cult.” The very classification of what constitutes a cult or “cult mentality” is controversial. Although primarily associated with religious and often para-Christian groups, “cult” isn’t even a specifically religious classification. It’s a sociological delineation, that can be associated with ideas like mob psychology, the bystander effect, and mass hysteria. All things that you can see at work watching Save Me if you care to unpack it that far. These aren’t issues that particularly, or even disproportionately affect the religious. As you said: these are human problems.

In that way, I don’t think it’s bad to step back a moment and say, “Listen, we don’t believe that spirituality, or the belief in a deity is dangerous, in itself. In fact, it can be very beneficial for some. But, as with any strong conviction, it can be manipulated and twisted into something quite damaging.” I don’t think there’s any harm in that. Remember the political milieu that this drama is being released in, back in the home country. Remember there might be more than a few viewers very sensitive about these subjects, or many who are personally affected by something like what this drama presents.

As to the second, while I do feel rushed, I don’t feel that the attempt at thematic closer comes entirely out of left field. As you said, Sang Mi is shown to be at least somewhat spiritually inclined. And the show does not rule out entirely the possibility of some kind of spiritual reality in play with out characters life. Take Cha Joon Goo, our prison barber, who has several religiously charged monologues address at religion generally, or to God specifically. The Im family’s visit to the baksu, or shaman, in the early episodes is left ambiguous regarding Sang Mi’s mother’s condition having some kind of spiritual basis. And even Sang Jin’s frequent spectral appearances are never clearly demonstrated to be wholly in the mother’s head, to the point that later in the show I began to wonder if they would clarify once and for all that Sang Jin’s spirit really was hanging around Guseonwon out of concern for his mother and sister. (Thankfully, they chose to keep the ambiguity.)

Especially in light of her visit to the columbarium with her mother, and Sang Mi’s statement that she believed her brother was finally able to go to the “real” heaven I took the final narration to be in connection with that. I didn’t really read the final narration as “crediting [God] for looking out for them.” I felt it was more generally an affirmation of spirituality generally. Or a sense that the world isn’t essentially a senseless and cruel place. There is some kind of order and goodness extant in the world, and evil people like the Father and the leadership of Guseonwon won’t actually win out in the end.

The worship of New Heaven’s Sovereign that the cult was built around was not a hopeful religion. Despite the cultists constant repetition that the Father was going to give them the chance to board the “ship of salvation” to be with their dead loved ones, each true believer lived in perpetual fear that they would lose their “seat”. They lived in a world where they were constantly in peril, had to practice constant vigilance. Where all opposition in life could be blamed squarely on Satan and his devils, who could possess your body the moment you let your faith waiver. It was a belief system of constant terror and jockeying for position. When you take that perspective, Sang Mi’s affirmation of hope (a hope grounded in a sense of personal autonomy in mind and body) doesn’t seem so entirely out of place.

That’s my two cents anyway.

Jona