#he also probably thinks he doesn't need therapy because he had it good compared to his brothers but

[rootspiral]

Agatha All Along deep dive: episode 5 part 2

(Wandavision entries: [1][2][3])

(AAA entries: ep1 [1][2][3][4] ep2 [1][2][3][4] ep3 [1][2][3] ep4 [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][+1] ep5 [1][2][3][4])

I was so looking forward to brighten this particular scene, it's the darkest yet and it's such a beautiful one it's a pity to miss even one detail

oh no lilia stop being so cute????

have you ever seen jen with a bigger smile? and she's quiet as usual, it's almost like more than the ride she's enjoying how much fun her friends are having. especially lilia, those two have been forming a bond that is equal parts bickering and a growing respect

I'm just glad alice had this moment of pure unadulterated joy before it came all crashing down

agatha is very, very quiet. despite never letting herself feel anything freely, she takes a moment to close her eyes and enjoy the beauty of it all

she looks back at rio, so sensual and confident

how can kathryn hahn convey so much with so little time? her breath catches at her sight. and then worry and fear take hold and she gives the tiniest shake of her head, as if she's forbidding herself to entertain any kind of thought about rio. she looks away. the blood moon behind her spells disaster

meanwhile billy is that kid who has the time of his life hanging out with the teachers during a field trip

I want to personally thank aubrey plaza for every acting choice she made as rio, but ESPECIALLY for this witchy laugh

(I just brightened the salem seven witch vomiting bees and it's actually pretty impressive! but I don't want to trigger any insect haters around here) (I love insects though so please talk to me about spiders if you want)

they couldn't get a good look at the cabin before rushing in and I couldn't either until now, do we know if it's something from Agatha's past? did she use to live there?

I'm salty that alice had to die in these stupid clothes

So. I think this trial is the most fucked up and humiliating yet. Billy knew nothing about jen except superficial facts, so he put her in a scenario that matched her work aesthetic, more of a personal insult than a wake up call (compare it with the broom lilia just made for her: roots and flowers, something that speaks about jen's work, beliefs and traditions.)

Alice's trial was entirely based on lorna, we know billy is a big fan so he ran with that concept creating something that really shook alice, and not in a good way. she was forced to sit in her dead mom's house and wear her clothes for god's sake. she took it as the Road wanting to teach her a lesson, when it was just a teenager with the grace and subtlety of a newborn puppy.

Now, agatha. billy doesn't know a thing about her because she's private to the point of paranoia. he has gathered that there's something in her past about a dead child and that's probably what makes her grumpy, so he... tried to make her talk to nicky. with a fuking oujia board. Despite having had his share of shock and trauma billy inevitably has a kid's point of view re: death, and even more so because he's functionally immortal. death is something that happens to other people, or far far away in the future. he thinks he's giving agatha much needed therapy, when he actually put a grown woman in child's clothes and made her relive her traumas for everyone to see.

btw I'm not in any way saying that the trials are bad writing. they are brilliant writing. they're just tragic and fucked up behind the funny exterior, just like agatha herself. sorry for the rant.

I mean I wouldn't be opposed to that. we could put billy back in a closet for a little while and get down and dirty with it. and ooh there's a little leaf on rio's shirt, I hadn't noticed it!

jen's retainer always SENDS me

agatha's face when she realizes it's her trial

agatha is irrevocably, eternally linked with death in all its forms

looks like rio is playing along and setting the scene, but she's also doing something more subtle that only agatha understands: she's provoking her, and it's becoming more personal and hurtful. she's testing and punishing more than she used to. she is growing angrier.

agatha wants to tell rio to fuck off but knows she deserves it. agatha is NOT happy to be in this trial for reasons that go beyond what everyone present (except rio) assumes, but she'll bite the inside of her cheeks until they bleed before she shows any of it

the way he says it with a straight face too (again, NO PUN INTENDED. forgive me joe, I would never)

oh great alice has only thirty minutes to live

everyone looks worried and on their guard, rio has her whole knife out, playing along. agatha is STILL trying to look cool and casual, it's painful to watch. girl is panicking, hard

meanwhile billy is always bringing a whole different energy, he's playing and having fun! think back to the second episode when they met lilia and then jen and alice for the first time. billy had no clue about the tension, the fear and hate between them and agatha. right now he's still more excited than scared. he's about to have a rude awakening.

do not taunt the spirits, AGATHA.

lmaooo. this motherfucker.

another moment when billy sounds chillingly cruel. being jigsaw without realizing it

I'm not pointing it out every time but whenever agatha does this with her arms she's really, really really nervous

what does agatha do when she's scared or overwhelmed? she puts on a show. like clockwork. and rio has already guessed what's about to happen

I really want to continue this so there will be more later today, stay tuned!

go to episode 5 part 3

[varpusvaras]

I feel bad for all the guard on Alderaan. They’re dying trying to get Fox still and out of the way and he’s like leading the charge of his brothers against HIS OWN ASSASSINS. Like bro, that’s OUR job. YOU ARE GOJNG TO DIE- PUT THAT DOWN

They're so stressed. Fox being capable should make them less stressed, because they would know that he knows how to take care of himself, but unfortunately this translates to Fox throwing himself at the problems instead. At points, Fox tries to protect them when there is a threat. It takes a while for him to get out of the Commander mindset, so that he is not at all times leading the people he is with. I mean, he is, but like. he's not supposed to be at the front like that anymore.

(At some point, they just let him have a blaster at all times. it's somehow better that way)

[alexwilltellyouthings]

I think Charles doesn't realize the extent of the abuse he went through.

He's aware it was wrong, he hates his father for it, but it's easy to forget all the ways in which abuse happens when there's a physical aspect to it.

He can tell he didn't deserve to be hit, but when he mentions his dad broke his tape on episode 3 and Crystal reacts, he seemed to not have even considered it to be a big deal. Because compared to the physical violence, it doesn't look like it is.

Devlin's case forced him to confront it a little more, with the girl's diary; I believe it was one of the only moments in which he mentions the controlling bit, the feeling of never being enough, which is related to but not entirely about the physical aspect of the abuse.

My point is: he probably doesn't know how deep his own trauma goes. How not just his father's fists affected him, but also his father's words, the way he had control over Charles' things, and all the "small" ways in which that kind of person holds onto power.

Also, I think it's very interesting how Charles says he "wasn't enough, no matter how good he was at sports". It wasn't how good his grades were, or how quiet he was to no disturb his dad, or anything else. They chose to go with sports specifically. And now, Charles is ok with not being the brains, he's ok with not being quiet, but he's definitely not ok with failing to be the brawn. That's the one thing he has to be.

(this sports bit also makes me believe his father was actively homophobic but that's a whole other post)

In conclusion, Charles needs therapy. Surprise!

[oneatlatime]

The Guru

Happy 2024 everyone and welcome to the first time I managed to type 2024 without first typing 2023! Oh and also a write up of The Guru. That too.

Me too Iroh. Me too.

So Zuko is riding high on that post-crisis 'time to get my life together' buzz that, similar to 3 am life plans, should absolutely not be listened to. Wonder how long before he crashes and burns? There's literally 2 episodes left, so I'm guessing one and a half?

Poor Sokka. My boy's got anxiety.

I don't know if it's a monk thing, an airbender thing, an Avatar thing, or an Aang thing, but I envy his complete lack of nerves.

How is Appa ok with them splitting up for a week after JUST getting them back?

I paused in a funny place. Have bonk-eyed Appa.

I love them comparing heights. What do you want to bet that that guy on the right was one of the youngest allowed to go fight, and Sokka made a big deal about how they're almost the same age and surely that means he can go too, right?

A lot of these Southern Water Tribe people have dreads or braids. That's neat.

Bato's arm is still messed up. That's some good continuity.

I've found the source of Katara's cheek bones. I guess Sokka takes after his mum.

Ok I know this is a really emotional moment (and it is! Sokka's spent two seasons earning this!) but my brain fixated on the furs and briefly thought they were sky bison pelts.

"It's been a difficult week for me." This guy thinks the Kyoshi Warriors are there to provide him therapy. Someone please just crown the bear instead.

He just gave away literally every relevant plot point AND outlined how to make sure all these plot points don't succeed. Crown. The. Bear.

Maybe if these generals spent less time playing with their giant model Earth Kingdom and more time general-ing, the war wouldn't suck so much?

Pretty.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE the designs, the colour palette, the music, the sound design of this air temple. I love everything about it. If I had the chance to live anywhere in the Avatar universe, it would be here. Even in its ruined state it's such a refreshing contrast to the claustrophobia of Ba Sing Se. I can feel the freshness of the breeze through the screen.

"A spiritual brother of your people" an adult perspective on a near extinct culture! What a resource!

"and a personal friend of Monk Gyatso" an old as balls perspective. He's got to be at least 130.

Anthropology cul de sac time: this guy is so valuable as a resource on the Air Nomads. There's probably parts of Air Nomad culture that Aang can't ever accurately talk about, because he was a kid when he left, and there was almost certainly stuff that the adults kept to themselves, or only shared with the older Air Nomads. This Guru doesn't seem to be an Air Nomad himself, but there's a good chance that there is knowledge that he has, that Aang doesn't. Aang should be nerding out more about this. I'll do the nerding out for him.

Aang just breezes right by that Gyatso name drop like it's nothing. Huh.

Oh hey Toph. I'd forgotten she was in a box. Tweedle dum and Tweedle dumber really are quite the pair. What's their plan for keeping her fed and watered? Actually, these guys apparently don't know that maps exist, so it's probably never occurred to them that humans need sustenance. They'll rock up to the Bei Fong estate with corpse Toph and wonder why they aren't getting the reward money.

Mai gets called out in-universe for shopping at Hot Topic.

Ty Lee's buttering up of Azula is getting less and less subtle as the season progresses. It's a testament to Azula's lack of awareness that she's hasn't noticed that, and that Ty Lee can get away with it.

Azula's right that it's an extraordinary opportunity. The King gave them quite literally every piece of info required to overthrow his kingdom in a 25 second conversation. I can't blame her for taking advantage of such an easy win.

That's a very effective unimpressed face. And a very impressive beard.

It's funny to see a spiritual concept from the real world pop up in a show that includes things like bending and giant fish possession. The mention of Chakras kind of sticks out. They couldn't invent a Avatar universe version?

"Once you begin this process, you cannot stop until all seven are open." Well that doesn't feel like foreshadowing at all.

This episode should be called "Aang's self-care Journey." It's about time the kid had a me day that wasn't avoidance-based.

Fear: Losing Katara - makes sense. Losing control of his powers via fish possession - makes sense. The Fire Lord - makes sense. But the Blue Spirit? He helped. Doesn't make sense.

Guilt: Running away - makes sense, although I thought he'd worked through that with Katara in the storm. Nuking that idiot General's base - makes sense, but boy did he quite literally ask for it.

This guru is saying some wonderfully accurate, and realistic, things. I love that he's not taking the Katara route of denying anything is wrong. He's going for the acknowledge, then heal route. And yes, it's unfair of me to compare the emotional maturity of Katara to a century+ old spiritual expert.

I'm going to ruin the immersion here and point out that Sokka's dad's voice actor voiced a bunch of characters in season 1. He's doing an excellent job, but couldn't they get a unique voice for a character that's so important (albeit offscreen) to Sokka?

That's an incredibly roundabout way of avoiding pointing out that the Southern Water Tribe are active participants in a bloody war. Sure, we can show multiple characters with visible scarring from horrific burns, but heaven forbid we imply that the Southern Water Tribe sinks ships. The parameters for what is and isn't appropriate on this show sometimes make no sense.

"Aren't you listening? I said the rest of you men get ready for battle." He hasn't seen his boy in two years, but fifteen minutes in his company and he knows exactly what needs to be said and how. That's some top tier parenting. Dad of the year. Dad of the century. Only decent Dad in this show that isn't technically an uncle.

"Follow your passion Zuko, and life will reward you." Great advice for your eight year old audience. Also a great way to end up unemployed.

Positive Sokka creeped me out a few episodes ago. Now positive Zuko is freaking me out too.

Pretty.

Back to Chakras! Shame: Burning Katara - makes sense. But that's it? To have the inner peace of mind of a twelve year old who's somehow only ever done one thing that he's ashamed of.

Is there anyone in the earth kingdom who isn't stupid? Once again wondering at the network's standards. Visible burn injuries are fine, but Mai can't say 'Shut up." It's got to be Shush up. Although I do seem to recall of brief time in the early 2000s when Shut Up was treated as a curse on par with Shit or Fuck. Maybe that was just at my school.

Chakras again! Even for a show that often has an A, B, and C plot, this narrative is ping ponging around a bit much.

Grief: nothing major, just a whole nation. Makes a horrific amount of sense. but I don't buy that he can get over grieving the whole world as he knew it by thinking about his crush. That's way too high a pedestal for Katara to be placed on.

Lies: Not accepting he's the Avatar. Interesting that not accepting that he's the Avatar and not accepting that he's a firebender are two different problems.

I see you reusing the opening credits footage. Your blue filters can't fool me.

PRETTY

Illusion: So we're relearning what we learned in The Swamp. Aang's probably the person currently alive least likely to believe in the rigid separation of the nations anyway. This doesn't feel like an illusion he's subject to?

The way this episode dances between its narrative threads is so great. It's all woven in so beautifully. And this makes perfect sense! Toph's spent her life secretly doing things excellently that everyone says are completely beyond her capabilities. Life has taught her that the statement "you are not able to" doesn't apply. Of course immutable laws of bending physics are treated with the same respect as an adult telling the champion of the Earth Rumble that she's can't earthbend beyond breathing exercises. If you told her that humans can't fly, she'd figure out how within the week.

Plot collision incoming.

Interesting that Katara initially recognises Zuko by his voice rather than his scar.

I'm pretty sure that Zuko and Iroh don't know about the whole brainwashing thing, but wouldn't it be hilarious if Zuko introduced himself to Katara as Joo Dee, and his uncle Joo Dee, welcome to the Jasmine Dragon, can I take your order? That would throw Katara into one hell of a moral quandary.

Katara being framed as the solution for Chakra number four comes back to bite Aang, as she's the problem in Chakra number seven. I knew that pedestal was too high.

I've changed my mind. This episode should actually be called "Half a dozen reasons why everyone should just learn to keep their goddamn mouths shut already."

So is anyone going to let Zuko and Iroh know that they're now in immediate danger and need to leave, like, yesterday?

I think the Guru is going for the whole 'if you love them, let them go, and they'll come back to you' thing. Don't cling, in other words. But for the sake of the plot he's suddenly lost his ability to explain Chakras in a way that makes them seem like the logical thing to do. The only clunky bit of this episode so far.

May I introduce you to our Lord and Saviour Toph?

"I am the greatest earthbender in the world." Yes. Yep. Yeah. That's now a quantifiable fact, and it's correct. Look on ye mighty and despair. She's even got Bumi beat.

Earth Tongue Running is a bit wonky looking but it covers a crazy amount of distance.

What's the range on Toph's earth sense? Can she sense what direction Ba Sing Se is?

I hope those two idiots' horse bird is ok.

"You don't know how much this means to me dad." He does. Very much so.

Every word out of this guy's mouth is precision engineered to make Sokka feel like a million bucks and I for one think it's about time someone built him up. Also, seeing this makes me realise how few good parents there are in this show. It's a trope of kids' adventure shows that the parents fundamentally can't be there, but I also think it's a commentary on yet another thing that this war has messed up.

Hey look! Being a man is knowing where you're needed the most, and right now that's in Ba Sing Se, protecting your sister! I love narratives that tie their themes up with a pretty bow on top.

This is Azula laying a trap, right? Which means that Katara squealed to someone about the exact location of Iroh and Zuko's tea shop. Don't like the implications of that.

Photos taken seconds before disaster.

Final Thoughts

This episode was a lot! I mean that in a good way! But I felt a bit like the Maxell Blown Away Guy, the way I kept getting assaulted by yet another plot thread. Don't get me wrong, this isn't a criticism. I think the switching between plot threads and the amount of info in this episode worked 99% of the time. But I'm kind of in awe at the balancing act the writers pulled off and I'm sort of sitting here blinking a bit trying to fit all this stuff in my head. I'm probably going to forget half the stuff I wanted to talk about in this write up, so here goes nothing.

Given the Azula reveal in at the end of last episode, I thought that this would be the episode where the shit hits the fan. I was wrong. I'm glad I was wrong. An episode of set up is required and is nice breathing room, even an episode as busy as this. And I got to leave Ba Sing Se! But this does mean that next episode is going to be calamity after calamity.

Aang and his Chakras: I'm fascinated by this guru. I hope he comes back. That brings the total number of people who were alive before the war started up to three: Aang, Bumi, Guru Patik.

I'm impressed that the run through of the Chakras rarely felt like an info dump. The onion and banana juice thing didn't work for me, but I'm sure it worked for people in the target age bracket. Kids love burp jokes.

So many shows sprinkle in tragic backstories for flavour and then never have them influence the character in the present. It was a nice contrast to see a show take a whole episode to tell Aang "yeah all that sucked. It's ok to feel down about it. Here's how you move forward."

Sokka and his dad: Love it. Love it so much. I love seeing Sokka built up, and he definitely deserves it, but I wonder if this is the reward for a character arc well done, or the set up for a character arc that's about to start? Is his dad's praise his prize for crossing the finish line, or is it so he's built up with farther to fall?

I loved seeing more of the Southern Water Tribe. I loved the fashion. There's a lot of variety in accessories and variations on a few basic elements like those knee guard things. I loved their hairstyles. I loved how cozy and communal that command tent felt. I loved their ships. I wonder how often these guys work out, that they can make loading ramps that are presumably deployed and stashed out of the way frequently, out of whole logs rather than planks. I have a bone to pick with the child-friendly sea mine. But it provides a good set up for a dad joke, so I'll let it slide.

Zuko and Iroh: Of course the one time Zuko is allowed to be in a good place, it's so that he and Iroh both have farther to fall when the inevitable happens. Poor guy just can't catch a break. I'd be mad at Azula for the party crashing that I'm assuming she'll do next episode, but it's been established that Zuko has all nice things taken away from him as soon as he gets them, and I can't blame Azula for being a tool of the universe.

Azula & Long Feng: Azula's acting in Long Feng's prison cell was miles ahead of what Long Feng was doing in front of the Earth King, so I'm wondering if Long Feng has bitten off more than he can chew. Also: conspiring with the enemy to bring down your own city just so you can reinstall yourself as the power behind the throne that will presumably cease to exist as soon as the Fire Nation takes control? That is both treasonous beyond description and an incredible case of shooting yourself in the foot. What's Long Feng's plan here?

Toph and the Dunderheads: it says something about the consistency of Toph's characterisation from her introduction onwards that she breaks the universe this episode and my reaction was "that's neat." It's obviously a huge moment, but of course Toph can do that. Toph can do anything. More importantly, Toph knows that Toph can do anything, so Toph routinely does do anything, especially things she shouldn't be able to do. If you had asked me a few episodes back which character would be most likely to fundamentally redefine bending, I would have said Toph, since she's already fundamentally redefined bending with her earth sense sonar vision.

Also Toph just breaks stuff. Things that come into contact with her cease to function as intended and instead function as Toph requires. Look at the two idiots: both successful business owners, one also a successful hoodwinker of the richest family around. But they come into contact with Toph and their brains take an extended vacation.

Katara & the Generals: this plot was more like an extension of Azula's plot than its own standalone thing. You can't blame her for spilling the news about Zuko and Iroh to someone she honestly thought was Suki. Not much else to say about it, although it's cute that she asks for a table for two at the tea shop. Momo gets a chair!

I like that there's a theme this episode of things going wrong despite the best intentions. No one's acting maliciously here apart from the Antagonists. The Earth King is having an honest chat with people he thought were friends. Sokka vouched for people he honestly thought were the Kyoshi Warriors. Katara shares information about a presumed threat with people she honestly thought were her allies. You can quibble with the wisdom of some of these decisions, but there were all done with good intentions. The best laid plans of mice and men oft go awry and all that. It brings to mind that Star Trek quote about how you can do everything right and still lose. And this set up is going to hit harder when whatever goes wrong next episode happens. And something will go wrong. A few months ago I figured that the Season 2 finale would be a triumph, but all signs are pointing towards a tragedy instead.

This episode was visually stunning, the soundtrack in the Air Temple sections especially was very evocative, and I applaud the minds that could juggle that many plot threads at once without dropping any. This one is definitely going on my rewatch list.

[heliomanteia]

Hi! I've stumbled across a couple of your posts about Calypso and I just wanted to say that it was nice to see someone that thinks about her the same way that I do. She is deeply flawed and does things that are wrong, but she's also a whole person being used as a punishment by the gods for some random man they don't like very much. It's just so wonderful for me to see a person that can see her whole character instead of just her poor meow meow Odysseus potential

(like the rape headcanon which has a single (ONE SINGLE LINE) of evidence in the entire saga for. I'm so sick of people taking this character that probably doesn't even know what sex is and deciding that she's a rapist because she was in the original Odyssey. Literally no one else gets this treatment but her)

Hello, Epic!Calypso means a lot to me and every time I see an incessantly mean post about her I grow to like her more in defiance /lh

I feel a lot of ways about Calypso and I'm very biased because I resonate with her on some deep personal level. But also your ask allows me to rant and so I will:

🌊 I like Calypso as a character because she's complex. She has close to no known lore in the Odyssey and I choose to ignore other texts that mention her because, well, Epic is loosely based off the Odyssey. The musical expanded on the little personality she had in the text in a good way, in my opinion. She's more than a foil/functional narrative part she was in the original text.

🌴 I feel like you're making a good point by saying she probably doesn't know what sex is. While she's clearly an adult woman, she was supposedly imprisoned young (if you follow the general myth, then during Titanomachy) and it's never stated she had prior lovers. She probably has an idea of intimacy but no experience of intimacy. She's also not socialized properly. I would compare her experience to someone living in total isolation or solitary confinement. Of course her people skills are limited. She needs therapy, not public scrutiny.

🥥 Whether or not you believe immortal beings age and mature depends on the source but mythology (generally) offers us examples of growing up and becoming of Gods so I believe Calypso grew up on that island. Her saying she was imprisoned "when young" also kinda hints it imo. With that said, this girl might have as well spent her formative years alone. Loneliness has devastating effects on psyche, I'm surprised she's not deathly depressed. That is, if we choose a sympathetic route — which is what I choose to follow because Epic is overall written as a sympathetic narrative. If it wasn't, I'd just call Odysseus a war criminal that deserves all he got.

🐚 This one is controversial but I cannot help but feel sympathy for the way Calypso imagines a happily-ever-after and genuinely believes in that illusion. It reminds me a lot of how someone with a stigmatized mental disorder would view reality in a distorted way — and sometimes even hurt other people without meaning to hurt them. Toxic (this word is so overused), suffocating love? And from both of her songs we know she didn't mean to hurt Odysseus. Her actions were wrong, her reasonings convoluted, but she did not mean harm. She hurt him without an intention to hurt him and she can't see that she hurt him because her world rotates on completely different system of axis. You could say she understands she might have been wrong but she won't apologize for it.

🍹 I will never keep repeating that she's an immortal character that lacks human morality overall + she's never been around others before Odysseus. The way she's scrutinized for the same things other Gods across mythology do (most of whom are constantly around mortals and have a track of seducing them) is such a knee-jerk response it's funny.

Like I said before, I personally choose to interpret Calypso's "ambush" as at least somewhat physical, but at the end of the day it is an assumption/personal preference. You reminded me, though, how, hm, peculiar it is that she's so far the only character whose mythical counterpart overpowers her musical persona in the fandom about the musical. I appreciate that people are aware of the text of the Odyssey enough (I hope) but there has to be a limit to the complaining. Jorge works hard to create fleshed out characters for his own loosely inspired story that he fills in with his own narratives. I think it gets to the point of ridiculous when a fleshed out character is ignored in favor of a barely defined myth counterpart.

Her character didn't get absolved of the blame, she got two banger songs that completely align with her myth persona, literally what is that thing that makes people so mad about her. Because if it's personal distaste then it sure overpowered the ability to enjoy complicated narratives and characters that do not align with what the main character needs.

[stormdragon23]

MMM,I know what if hear me out okay. So,what if all the s-rankers are trapped in this cozy world simulator dungeon and all they need to win is to make every willager happy. Its gonna be tough because they will only used their powers if they want to complete daily tasks from the townspeople and on their way hehe rizzed the villagers. Worst part,they will also be tasked to be a personal therapist to villagers own personal problems that are similar to teenage drama.

Ohhhhh, this is a really interesting idea! When you say all the S-Rankers, I'm not sure if you also mean the ones outside of Korea, but I'll stick with the ones in Korea (feel free to ask about the other ones too though :>)

Sung Jin-Woo: He probably has some experience with this kind of thing between dealing with problems that may arise between his shadows plus knowing what the villagers will need after taking care of Jin-Ah. His powers would make things a lot easier since he would have his shadows, though the villagers will probably be scared of them at first Not sure how much he'll want to interact with the villagers since I get the impression that he's pretty introverted and doesn't want to talk with people much. That probably makes being a therapist even worse since he probably doesn't exactly give the best advice (He would tell them to do what he would do. Which is not something the average person should do)

Cha Hae-In: She would likely help out when people ask her to do so. She would probably get some of the smaller tasks compared to the others because the other S-Ranks don't want to make their youngest work too much. The villagers might be the least intimidated by her, but she probably wouldn't talk to them much (shy girl who's not very good at socializing), which might make the therapy thing difficult (especially since she seems like she mediates to deal with her trauma)

Baek Yoon-Ho: I think he would actually be the best at this. He was a firefighter and is stated in multiple forms of Solo Leveling to be a kind person despite his intimidating appearance. I think the villagers would warm up to him quickly after getting over his appearance, and I think he would also be a very good therapist to them. He's patient with people who don't annoy him Therapy cat

Choi Jong-In: I think he would play more of a leadership role and help the others stay organized. I don't think he would use his powers much unless he's defending the village from enemies. He would definitely help win the villager's trust quickly (and also have a lot of admirers because of his charisma). I think he could be a good therapist and give good advice to others (though he should take some of that advice for himself)

Lim Tae-Gyu: I think he would be good at entertaining kids? I think a younger audience would be interested in him. He seems extroverted, so talking to people is probably his forte and being a therapist would also be something he's good at. (Same thing applies to Ma Dong-Wook, Eun-Seok, Go Gun-Hee, and Sung Il-Hwan. Eun-Seok's power would probably also be used for defending the village while the others would do more heavy lifting tasks)

Min Byung-Gyu: Same as Lim Tae-Gyu, but his healing would be used quite a lot and is more outgoing than the others. He would probably tell anyone who's interested in history about his historical dramas. Not sure if he would be a good therapist? I like to think he would be since he has his own trauma that he's had to deal with, so he could help others by connecting with them in that way

[kiseiakhun]

Smash or Pass: Roy, Garth, Dick, Starfire, Raven, Kyle

Titans Go!

Roy: you know the answer. I know the answer. Everyone knows the answer. Smash. 100% I would smash. I would smash him like a wineglass against a hard marble floor. I would smash him like I accidentally smashed my phone screen two months ago while walking back from the grocery store. I want to ride him until my legs wobble and give out. I want to feel his weird possibly sentient soul patch drag over my thighs and give me beard burn. Idc if it's pathetic n52 garbage rat Roy. Would smash. Want to smash. It hurts me that I can't smash. Roy Harper pls come into this world so I can smash, i have dark hair, I am your type. You can dress me in a skimpy kimono and call me Cheshire if you want, idc.

Garth: SMASH. SMASH SMASH SMASH. I want him to hold me down with his big arms and (a truck barrels past honking loudly)

Dick: okay so this is hard. If he approaches me in full Richard Grayson mode I feel like I wouldn't be interested because he'd feel too much like another subby guy looking for a mommy gf to step on them. Yes, he's pretty, but I wouldn't be INTERESTED, you know? However knowing him in his entirety I know he must be a freak in bed. He would make me feel loved. Idk if that's a good thing though because one or both of us might have a breakdown mid sex because it feels Too Intimate and idk how I feel knowing he's staring down at me mid coitus comparing me to his dad. Like even if he doesn't want to fuck his dad there's some level of psychosexual obsession going on there and I Do Not Want To Get Involved. I don't have red hair though so idk if I even have a chance. Then again, dick HAS hooked up with Asians before, so maybe? I just assume everyone in the dcu has an Asian fetish because some senior editor in the new titans age definitely did. Does. They're probably still alive, it wasn't that long ago. Look at all the Asian baby mamas running around in the dcu. Does marvel has this many Asian baby mamas? Someone who knows marvel comics, tell me.

(I have just had my first coffee of the day, if things devolve into incoherence past this point, blame the ice capp. I forgot how much caffeine these things have.)

Anyway. If I want to insert myself in the psychosexual obsession between father and not-adopted son, I think I would choose Garth and Arthur. They're like. All the subtext between Bruce and Dick but for them it's not even subtext. Like Bruce only tossed dick at deaths door a couple of times, but Arthur ACTUALLY tried to kill Garth, you know? And Garth already has precedence for stealing Arthur's fiance, I think he gets off on it, I think it stokes his ego. And I definitely want to stoke Garth's ego, and also stoke other things. I want to make him happy. I'm much more invested in making Garth happy than in making dick happy because dick experiences one moment of happiness and self sabotages himself just like his dad who he insists he has no similarities to, none at all. I would say he needs therapy but he's gone to therapy and it didn't fix him. Also, Garth is less likely to cheat on me (because he never shows up and has no chance of character development)

"But kis," you say, "this is just about smashing, who cares about a lasting relationship?" This is DICK GRAYSON. You think DICK GRAYSON can do a one night stand? You think he can keep his feelings out of it? Dick of "wow Roy how can you have all these one night stands and casual fuckbuddies, I could never," fame. You think you can have a one night stand with Dick Grayson? Either I'm sleeping with him because I'm a supervillain trying to get to someone through him, looking for evidence that can link Nightwing to his every id so I can use it to blackmail Bruce into becoming my sugar daddy, or I'm the newest complication thrown between him and his current redhead of the week, depending on whether the writer ships dickbabs or dickkori. Like I think the sex WOULD be worth it but I think it would also leave me with an emotional void that I would try to fill with more casual sex, but somehow it never feels like enough. Nothing would ever fulfill me again.

Except Roy. Roy could fix me. Roy is used to fixing Dick's mistakes, what's one more to add to the mix. Fuck. I just accidentally made this Jayroy. moving on.

Starfire: SMASH. Show me how they do it on Tamaran, princess. I would sleep with her for industry connections but then she'd be so good to me I'd end up falling in love.

Raven: normal raven doesn't interest me that much but I would absolutely smash evil sexy raven. The one that got Kori pregnant that one time. The raven of "Gar Logan is here to get down and get funky" fame. I do not have a hypnokink but I WOULD let evil sexy raven mind control me just to lure Kori into her bed and disgard me once I'm no longer useful.

Kyle: unfortunately yes I would smash and yes I am ashamed about it. < Wally, probably. He's so pathetic and annoying and I am into it 😔 I wouldn't even be drawn in by his failgirl qualities. I would get drawn in by his pretentious artist schtick. He'd pull his straight man art kid moves on me and it would WORK. Yes I WILL swoon over his passion for his craft and his amateur understanding of philosophy and yes I will romanticize his messy, scattered nature as his natural artist inclination. And also I would get him some Adderall. Yes I will let him shotgun me after we sneak away from a party thrown by an acquaintance half removed form the both of us and drive him back to his apartment (because he can't drive) and make sweet love to him and hold him as he sobs about his dead girlfriend after he accidentally tells me he loves me. And after all that I still won't block his number. I'll be like 🥺 he's such a sensitive soul... and let him hit me up whenever he's back on earth. I could only do this with Kyle because he's on earth maybe 3 months out of the year so I only have intermittent exposure to his everything. If I had to see him consistently I'd get tired and ghost him within the second week. But I would still do it. I would let him pull fuckboy moves on me and it'll work ):

[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.

[shxxtingstarss]

therapy no. 53

Today's therapy was really liberating in the end.

I had to bring up the topic of the special application for getting the chance to study psychology at a uni nearby. I hate the thought of it, the thought of comparing my problems and my illness to the illness of other people that might apply via this special application process. I also need a letter of my therapist for this application, so that an expert also states why I need to start my studies right now and can't wait another year or more.

We opened up that topic and why I didn't want to apply with this kind of application and by that we also approached other topics like why I always downplay my problems and experiences and why I always hide how bad I actually feel, even though I sometimes don't want to hide it. Later we found out that that kind of problem-pathology-focused application via my illnesses is also hard for me because I don't want to be reduced to my problems, and it is also only a part of the truth, because my problems aren't just problems, they were and are solutions to situations that I wasn't able to solve otherwise, that were overstraining my possibilities or are still overstraining my abilities today. My problems are there for a reason, they are solutions to much bigger problems, solutions that I really needed in the past in order to survive and still need in order to live with my past now. And by applying with a focus on problems, all of that stays hidden, all of my strength and my effort. But maybe we can include that in the letter that is needed for the application. Hm. Might be a possibility. An important point my therapist brought up, that I also had in mind, was that it would be much better for my emotional stability if I started studying psychology, something that I am good at and that I really want to do and where my interests are, right now/in the upcoming winter semester. I already had that one in mind, but then I thought, again, I'm probably exaggerating and that it would be super awkward to bring that up in front of my therapist. Well, he brought it up himself. Kinda funny.

Of course I hide how I really feel because I'm scared - scared that someone might use my vulnerability that I show by being emotional and hurt me. We shortly talked about why I feel that way, first I said it doesn't make sense and it's stupid, because by hiding my struggles I'm always alone with them and can't get any help with them, even if I desperately need it. I mean I even struggle to show my emotions when I'm sitting in therapy in my safe space with my therapist that I deeply trust.

Today though I managed to let my guard down and let some, eventually even a lot or almost all emotions out. It's funny how I used to think my guard is so strong because I want to be perceived as confident etc, but I am pretty sure that's not it, it's more like a deeply rooted anxiety of being hurt when I am the most vulnerable. Because, as my therapist also correctly stated, that's what my mother always did, hurt me when I was the most vulnerable. His wording was accurate in a funny way, he said "because that's when your mother hit you, when you were the most vulnerable" with "hitting" being metaphorical and meaning manipulating and hurting me with words, but she also used to hit me in a literal way when I was emotional, I think I only remember a fraction of it all, but the two situations I do remember were really bad (psychologically) and I'm pretty sure they weren't the only ones. I really should talk about that one very striking situation where I am now almost sure that my mother did stuff like that on purpose to keep me small and obedient, I read about similar stuff in my one trauma-research book "trauma and recovery - the aftermath of violence" and it hit me hard when I read about it in such a explanatory and neutral way whilst getting images in my head about past experiences with violence of the kind that was explained in the book.

The downplaying-problems part was another thing to open though, and it wasn't easy for me to reach my inner processes at that point. I first talked a lot (maybe a bit too much at that point to shadow the fact that I don't really know what the real reason is) but didn't say a lot, I only mentioned that it was easier to downplay my problems so I can distance myself from the heaviness of carrying them around. But another point is that I'm also distancing and kind of neglecting my heavy past/story of my life that way. And I'm also downplaying how much I'm actually carrying around with me and how much I'm fighting to get better and to cope with my past. At that point I kind of realised it myself, it kind of hurt me and made me sad that I also downplay all the effort I put into my daily living and the work I'm putting into myself and my healing. I shouldn't do that to myself. And I kind of said that out loud, too, I was crying a bit and spoke out my thoughts to my therapist, and said that it's kind of stupid of me and not okay, because I really put in a lot of work into my wellbeing and my stabilization process, and that I'm too often being too hard on myself. He then said something that agreed with that thoughts of mine and said that I'm definitely trying really hard and really want to change something about my problems, and I started crying harder. I then thought about how I still manage to make some smaller and some greater achievements, how people perceive me as strong, successful etc even though they don't know anything about my story or not a lot, they definitely can't imagine the weight I'm carrying, and despite all of that I still achieve stuff that many people without these problems don't achieve or can't achieve. I put a bit of this into words and then my voice broke in the middle of a sentence and I just started crying and couldn't stop it, but I was glad I didn't. I cried really hard, I didn't cry this hard in the last few weeks and I needed it. Especially needed it in front of my therapist who kind of quietly carried me along. Just when I thought I calmed down, I started again and it was a really hard and sobbing kind of crying, I felt all the pain of the weight of the story I am carrying all at once. My therapist reminded me that the session was almost over, but he gave me plenty of time to calm down. He just sat there quietly and was there for me without doing anything. I the end he said, very calmly, that he thinks that it's beautiful how I acknowledged all of that. I just nodded my head in agreement and started to breathe very mindfully to be able to walk out of his office. At that point I remembered that I hadn't told him about the date of admission to the clinic that I got two weeks ago, and I told him about it. I also wanted to ask him if we could keep in contact again so he would know when I get out, but he brought that up on his own and said we could just do it like during my first stay there and that I could update him about the uni stuff.. and then he would give me a new date for our sessions. I was really happy about how that went, and I said sth like "yes, that worked more than well last time" and thanked him, and after that we finished the session and I deeply thanked him for today's session (it was pretty much perfect, today nothing annoyed me, not even afterwards, I was super happy with the topics we approached and the way I was able to show and share some of my emotions with him, talk to him freely and explain a lot of my thoughts and my inner processes, I even mentioned the feedback I got from Jeannine that she also didn't notice any of my emotional intensities during our holiday trip...) and he answered with "you're very welcome". I'm really happy about the connection and the therapeutic relationship we established, and the trust I built.

[xtrablak674]

Sex Death & The Future by Irene Elizabeth Stroud

[Originally published in LGNY (Now Gay City News), April 9, 1995, Issue No 1]

Adamo Melaney and Trevor Brown know more about HIV and AIDS then most young gay men in New York. But all they know is not enough to keep them from having unsafe sex. Adamo can list at least half a dozen things it also takes - counseling, friends, a support group, therapy, safer sex coaching from Project Achieve, hope for the future. And even then its not easy. Trevor, for reasons he only partly understands, has been having unsafe sex for months, and he can't seem to stop.

Adamo and Trevor are best friends. They met two years ago at GHMC, in a training for HIV/AIDS peer educators. A friend of Adamo's had just found out he was HIV positive, and he wanted to make sure that the same thing didn't happen to the rest of his friends. Trevor, who had been active in gay groups in college, was ready to take his activism to the next level. Since then they have been inseparable. As peer educators, they're a team: Adamo is the serious, analytical one, while Trevor is the theatrical and funny.

They avoid using fear tactics in their training sessions because they don't think fear results in permanent change. "What you're feeling when you have sex isn't going to link up to those things you're afraid of when your not having sex," Adamo says. But they are afraid.

They try to emphasize the positive aspects of sex, so that people don't feel they're losing something when they use a condom. But Trevor questions the honesty of that message. "It (sex) is wonderful without a condom," he says. "Plain and simple fact. It's not that I advocate going out there and doing that, but I think part of our education needs to say that, 'Fucking without a condom feels very good'."

They talk about the sexual freedom of gay culture in previous generations with a mixture of ridicule and envy. "We're not the generation that grew up in the seventies, " says Trevor. "Where fucking the dogs and other guys and then women and then the sink and the couch. And this is not the eighties where you're like in the bathhouses, and poppers ­he mimics snorts something up his nose­; "and cocaine, and drugs and everything's heavy I mean, we were growing up at that time where it was like, Oh. Sex. AIDS, You die.

But without the experience of actually seeing their friends die, it's still easy for young gay men, like all young people, to persist in feeling immortal. Trevor continues: "If it's not like right up in our face, like Pedro Zamora, Ah, y Pedro!, we don't believe it."

They've done HIV education for everyone from convicted teenage felons to the junior league. But they're frustrated because even their best safer sex education is still scatter-shot damage control.

"There was one child [in one of our groups] who had a child, "Trevor says."And girlfriend didn't even know about her body or how it worked"

"About her menstrual cycle," Adamo interrupts.

"You know what I am saying?" Trevor continues, "Menstrual cycle. Base thing. And we're actually talking about the five transmission body fluids, and girl friend doesn't even know about breast milk."

They wish sex education in school was constant from first grade on, Adamo, being analytical, compares sex to math:

"We're trying to teach people to go from addition to calculus in, like, an hour and a half You have to start at an early age with addition, subtraction, multiplication, geometry, and then you can work up to calculus. And calculus is like sex, when you finally decide to have sex."

They grow solemn when they start talking about what they're actually seeing among their friends. "I'll tell you right now, " Adamo says, [One of my best friends] has become infected. He probably was infected at the age of 22. And he tested positive almost 2 years ago Two other very close friend of mine have recently confided in me that they had unprotected anal sex, like in the last 3 months."

"Last year this time I couldn't even, say, like maybe name five people I know that have HIV," says Trevor. "Now this is like, oh boy, boyfriend got it, and girlfriend got it too, oh and did you just hear that he got it too?. These are all people I know. Some of them are people I even had sex with."

"It freaks me out," Adamo says, "And two of the people I mention that had [unsafe] sex, their very informed. And then, because its so right next to me, I was like, what if I do this? What if I decide to have unsafe sex even with everything I know? And its really upsets me. It's like if they're making this choice, maybe I might."

While Adamo begins to describe some of the things that help him stick with safer sex, Trevor is clowning around, pretending to be dying of thirst to get the waiter's attention. But when Adamo starts speculating about why his friends are slipping up, Trevor suddenly comes back to earth.

"I can speak on that, " he says. "Because I'm one of those that backslid. Educator, Out there doing HIV education I've been having unsafe sex with this 40 year old man for the last four, five, six months"

"But you stopped right?" Adamo want to be reassured.

"No, still haven't. I can't break the chain."

"When's the last time?"

"Something like two weeks ago."

Adamo looks frightened. He puts his arm around Trevor, seemingly as much to get support as to offer it.

"Here I am HIV/AIDS education diva, " Trevor says. "I know how to get infected etc.You know, they said it perfectly in here" He points to Michael Warner's Village Voice article, which talks about the second wave of infection, that Adamo brought along.

"First it was the self-esteem issues, don't like myself very much, don't think I'm very attractive, whatever, looking for affirmation. Then I would get depressed. I get depressed a lot. So its like a pick-me-up. Since I don't drink or anything else, sex is like, Yeah, I feel so much better now. But then it's like a drug that picks you up and you fall even lower.

"First this guy was very resistant to safe sex. And for the first time things started to, when we were having sex, everything was cool, and then I was like forcing him, like, No, you use a condom. Don't do that. But there were certain things that were played around with, like a little penis in the anus, poking outside, playing with it...Oh, stop it, stop teasing. The next time, a little bit more, the next time just a little bit more, then a little lube and next thing you know...Oh, shit. And here you are at home. You've crossed the line once and that makes it so much easier the next time."

"It's not about having it in the sex shops, It's the bedrooms. Its where your more comfortable . If you do it with stranger...I'd be like, condom! But since I'd known him for a while it was just so much easier. And then after the first time, I said, 'You know we put each other at risk for HIV?' He said, 'Why are you scaring me?' I was like, 'I am not scaring you, I'm telling you what we did.' I was hoping he would feel guilty and it would not happen again. It happened again he called me and said can I come over, and I am like. Okay."

"So, like, I don't want to get tested because I don't want to know."

This isn't the first time that Trevor has had unprotected sex, but the last time was in a monogamous relationship with a lover who was also HIV negative. "I know he's out there doing this with other people," he says, "And I'm an educator, knowing if he is doing this with me, that he is doing it with other people. Lord knows how many other partners he may have. But then I sit there and I still do it, and it drives me absolutely out of my mind."

Adamo interrupts him. He wants to talk about why he's not having unsafe sex. After all, he's under the same pressures as Trevor.

"I have certain goals for my future, for my life, for the gay community," he says. "I'm not going to give in to becoming a statistic, like this percentage that's supposed to seroconvert by the time they're 30."

Trevor doesn't think becoming of those statistics would be so bad. "Well, if I do become HIV positive, then since I'm such a big mouth as an activist anyway, I would be a more effective tool." He is half-ironic, half-sincere. "I'd be so out there, 'Look I am HIV positive'. I'm fierce and..."

"Cutting edge gay," Adamo pipes up.

Trevor really believes he'd be a more effective educator if he were HIV positive, "I'm a perfectionist. And what more perfect way to teach about HIV/AIDS then to be someone HIV positive, who went through it."

Adamo seems horrified, but he tries not to look judgmental.

"So you have a self-fulfilling..."

"...Sort of," Trevor says. "But then there's peer pressure that I'm dealing with which is very deep I just found out my sister, she's not my sister but a really good friend, just found out she was HIV positive"

This is another new one for Adamo.

"Did he really?" he asks softly. He knows the friend Trevor is talking about.

"Yes, he did. And [he]'s a total mirror of myself AIDS drains you, it takes the life out of you. And to see a life energy in front of me like that, that's just like a mirror of me, go away, I'd rather be shivering, trembling with it, together, going out together, stars going out together"

This is too much for Adamo. He doesn't' want to be left this way.

"He's been having unprotected sex, and so has another friend of ours, and another friend of ours is positive, and my other best friend is positive, and I'm negative and I am having protected sex. What am I going to do, what's going to be going on when I'm in my thirties? Like, am I going to lose all these people? I can't deal with that."

"I don't really hang out that much with men in there mid and late thirties who went through losing all their friends. But the ones that I have really talked to, it's so sad. That's why I don't like them. Because they come out of this environment and experience of sadness and mourning and loss and I don't want to touch that, you know? And I don't want that to happen to me. I don't want to be one of those people I mean, I'd rather be one of those people then seroconvert. But it's going to very difficult to be living a life where I lose all these people."

Trevor wears a medallion Adamo Gave him, one of those things you get from a coin-operated machine. Stamped around its perimeter is the message BIG MOMMA LOVE AEMAO. It was supposed to say Adamo, but Adamo hit the E by mistake. Big Momma is a reference to a play Trevor was in. He wears it like a good-luck charm. It makes sense that Adamo gave it to him: For his own efforts to stay negative to be worthwhile, Adamo needs Trevor to protect himself.

"For me," Trevor says, "HIV and AIDS is like a very comforting slow suicide. Its not like BOOM, jump, Its not like BOOM, take the gun. Its slow suicide. Its sort of like playing Russian Roulette, nearly, but it's a lot calmer, It's like you shot yourself but you don't know you got shot yet."

Adamo asks softly "Why are you shooting yourself in the first place?"

[Afterwords: Whew, there was a lot going on here! There is Adam and our very codependent relationship, in so many instances we're finishing each others sentences, but I think even then the lines between plutonic and romantic were being blurred. There was an intimacy in our friendship that belie a strictly plutonic categorization, albeit sexual lines were never crossed. It goes without saying this is the subtext that laces this interview, and something I can see clearly as I can see his face in my mind.

I actually forgot how in-sync we used to be. But then you add his friends, my friends, our mutual friends to the canvas and it adds so much more color, depth and texture. The final touches are our peers whom are seroconverting and those struggling to remain safe, it was an excellent snapshot of the mid-nineties, all of this while trying to figure who we were, what we wanted, and trying to make our way in this still very much AIDS-world.

I was only a handful of years out of college where I should have actually been graduating as a senior, but my homelessness lead to me leaving in an attempt to have more stability, and establish a home for myself. The one thing that I know now, that I didn't know then is the role my sexual abuse as a child played into my sense of self-worth, esteem and value.

The writer did an excellent job capturing our humanity, and I sincerely applaud her efforts there, but with time and distance there is another angle that should have been broached, additional factors that may be at play that distinguish Adam and my own struggle. It is noteworthy that Adam was a whyte cisgendered, educated, affluent man and I was a Black gender non-conforming, semi-educated, dark-skinned person from a lower class background. I realize as a cisgendered whyte lesbian woman she may not have wanted to explore our socially economical differences especially since there wasn't a clear visual that accompanied the article. But to me in hindsight its a noticeable omission, and adds another level of nuance to the story.

Let's be clear revisiting this time period and the extremely complex emotional, psychological, and social issues I was dealing with only a year after earning the right to drink, I applaud myself for having the presence of mind and sense of agency to own my behavior and the consequences of those actions. So many young people these days seem to abhor culpability in favor of blaming everyone but themselves for their behavior and misdeeds, I am glad to see that I was never one of them.

Navigating sexual desires, versus common sense is complicated even for the most mature of adults. Add peer pressure, drugs, alcohol and a hot piece of ass, and all good sense will end up on the floor like your discarded underwear. For a young person to understand what is right, but then having to maneuver the landmine of their emotions, insecurities and past traumas to attempt to make the right solution is asking a lot of anyone. I admire myself now and then for having the audacity to vocalize the hard truths of the situation, Adam may have been the analytical one, but I was all heart, speaking truth to power.

Clearly I am not dead, and I didn't seroconvert before thirty, my choices may have been hard for my friend, but ultimately they were my choices, and they should have been respected. Its sad to say that these very issues were the exact ones that ended the friendship fourteen year later. Adam had a hard time distinguishing what he felt and what I wanted and needed, and it lead to him conflating some misdeeds that someone else had done to him, with me perpetrating the same to other. Nothing could have been farther from the truth.

Time hopefully gives you wisdom, and I can now see the toxic nature of the codependency we had developed, and how that tainted what could have been a great friendship. The irony isn't lost on me that he became a therapist and if anyone should have understood the unhealthy signs it should have been him. But seeing his own faults was always a blindspot for Adam, spending his days helping folks find their own truths, he often shied away from and avoided his own, that has never been my faith.

My thoughts on my relationship with Adamo https://www.tumblr.com/xtrablak674/742039691416780800/adamo-melaney

[Photo by Brown Estate]

[thegoldlovingdragon]

HEADCANON

To further add on to this, I'd like to reason that Jason's Robin would be Dick because he is the direct and SECOND predecessor, of course no one can live up to the original, meaning Jason despite having his own sets of strengths and things that make Robin great... He is still compared to his predecessor in ways the others don't get to be compared to, because of how he's literally second to the first. Making him look up to Dick's Robin! I believe there was some hesitance(idk if thats the right word, i hope i get my point across(maybe animosity? Uhh idk) in the comics because of this replacement between Dick and Jason?... I'm not sure, correct me if I'm wrong please! Despite that Dick accepted that Jason is the new Robin, and although Jason felt himself the need to prove himself of the Robin mantle and ofc batman, still respects Dick and looks up to him as the original and first Robin.

NOW FOR DICK'S ROBIN BEING DAMIAN... Okay this one is kinda obvious- We know that Batman got lost in the timestream and that Dick had to take on Batman for a while and while Tim is great as Robin, someone else needed it more, someone like Damian. And Dick taught Damian EVERYTHING he needed to know, to be kind, gentle, to stop the mindset he was raised with, Damian was practically a son to Dick, and that what made Damian Dick's Robin, is that in spite of the darkness of losing Bruce, he had Damian, basically the light to that darkness, an innocent(sorta) reprieve, basically a mini bruce he could shape to be less of bruce and more of what he could of been if he had a proper(eh) support system and maybe therapy(kinda)... Not all that better though, just more... Communicative(LOL) and raised with a more gentle and cheerful hand...

Now for Damian's Robin being tim... Umm similar point to Jason, Tim was his predecessor, one that he could never truly replace, Tim had an actual place in the family, a role that made him vital, he brought bruce out of the darkness, he brought brucs back from the time stream, how could Damian ever beat that? I remember there being an Issue that focused on Damian being Robin and how he felt Inferior over Tim and his time as Robin, how Damian can never live up to what Tim was, A leader, Responsible, This genius and cunning, and a Robin that can lie to batman. how could he actually prove that Robin was his birthright when someone who wasn't even related to his bloodline outdid him in all the ways he could've never thought of? How could he even live up to that? How does he prove himself when all his predecessors that came before him did so much?

Jason being Tim's Robin!! Okay this part is PURELY HEANDCANON IDC I LOVE THEM, okay so Tim's Robin would probably be Dick BUT LIKEEE OMGG THE POTENTIAL OF JASON BEING TIM'S ROBIN!! Your hero trying to kill you? AND IT WASNT EVEN ABOUT YOU!! IT WAS TO PROVE A FUCKING POINT!! It was never about you, and doesn't that hurt? You got hurt for wanting to help, by wanting to be like your hero and doing good, but no hard feelings psshh, he was manipulated into thinking that he wasn't loved even though on nights when you go out with batman, sometimes he won't even say your name but call you another, "jason" is what he'd say. And your brother would look at you and think of regrets and trying hard to look at you for you and not for someone else, a "what could have been".

Anyhow blah blah batboys bonding blah blah I genuinely think, their relationships along with other batfam members should be more thoroughly explored and structured properly, in a way that familial connections can be seen because this typa shit between them can really have more potential rather than just straight up having them be friendly all of the sudden, and yes yes this rant is not totally comic accurate and no I don't care, I just wanted to put my own few cents of thoughts in, while also diverging away from canon.

That's all thanks for listening to this dragon!!

HEADCANON

So this is definitely not canon but this is how I'd like to think the robin mantle was like between predecessors (excluding anyone other than the batbros because I'm unsure of them)

I like to think that probably everyone's robin would be dick grayson, but let's think about it this way.

Jason's Robin was Dick, Dick's Robin was Damian, Damian's Robin was Tim, and Tim's Robin was Jason.

This is purely headcanon and not canon, but this is what I think the batbros should be 😭😭

[keefwho]

November 13 - 2023 Monday

10:52pm

When I woke up I decided I was tired of my forming beard so I shaved it off. It felt good and had been around long enough to look weird with it gone. Before I shaved it completely, I gave myself a caterpillar stache which looked funny and also like something I could rock when I get older. In the shower when I was gonna use my close shaver, it wasn't charged so I had to wait for my second shower after my workout to get baby smooth. Breakfast was corned beef hash, an egg, 2 pieces of toast, and half a serving of cereal. It was a big breakfast to account for my workout later. In stream I only did a couple warmup sketches and committed to refining one picture because I didn't feel like being too imaginative this morning. I finished Blink's commission which turned out okay but he had a lot of (valid) fixes to be made so I had to go back to it a few times. Honestly I'm just annoyed at characters with needlessly complicated designs. Especially when they are generically "tribal". Like what are these even supposed to mean? AND I have to draw them all perfectly? After that was finished I worked more on the next YCH. Today's Mia episode dropped some important lore and today's He Man was amazing. It's the season 1 finale which I've never seen and it went hard. After stream I started my workout. 50 lunges, 40 situps, and a 2 mile power-walk/jog. It doesn't seem like much compared to 45 minutes of wood splitting so maybe I'll up the intensity. The problem is the time it takes because I almost never get the workout and cleaning done before lunch like I plan as it is. I meant to clean before lunch today but I only had time to shower. Lunch also made me late because it took a long time to cook. I made my custom stir fry. I felt confident during today's request but it didn't actually turn out as well as I wanted and it took longer than usual. Today's project was to sketch an art trade for someone but I really had to force myself to do it. At one point I took a small break to close my eyes and listen to a stream until I felt more up to the task. Daisy also wanted to JD which was the break I really needed. We were pretty in sync today for a few of the songs and that was cute. After dancing I got back to sketching and did everything I was supposed to do. Afterwards I tried decompressing with a stream but I didn't want to watch to be honest. I didn't know what I wanted though. I probably should have found something else to do. It didn't take long for Daisy to become free and we watched an episode of She Ra while she filled out a therapy questionnaire and job application. Then I played Mother 3 and beat it for her finally. The ending was nothing like how I expected but it was still good. I have lots of things to think about before I determine what I personally think happened to everyone. In bed I played Star Stable and we talked about what we want to do with our lives and how lost we are. I am confident we will both find our way though. The best thing is we'll do it together.

[todayisafridaynight]

RIGHT YEAH I was also thinking about the scenario of Jo accompanying Masato in relation to this, in the vein of… that'd solidify that the whole lie was always about His Family and not The Family right… because what can Jo even DO for the family while he's away? He's more than a glorified accountant.

Though thinking about it, he probably wouldn't have been away too long, at least compared to a prison sentence for murder. Because Masato only faked his death in 2004 (at the very latest, I guess; it's when the news went public) and Bleach Japan was founded "almost 20 years" prior to 2019, at which point Aoki and Ogasawara had already graduated and returned to Japan.

That and Aoki wasn't in a wheelchair anymore when he met Ogasawara at Harvard, so perhaps Jo would only really /need/ to stay for the procedure and Aoki's physical therapy and all, though of course I can see him staying longer. Still, not too long, all things considered.

So this scenario's kind of the worst of both worlds, because perhaps those first couple of years it's Arakawa's own stubbornness, and then the rest of his family has to go away anyway. And he's so sure in that time what he needs is to be with his family again and he'll at least feel less alone, miss Ichi less.

But then Masato's Aoki now and only really staying in touch to use him and the Arakawa Family's resources for his own gain, and Jo--as you perfectly put it--doesn't know how to emotionally take care of him. So things he should be ecstatic about--seeing his son walk on his own two legs for the first time and having his right hand man back in action--end up bittersweet at best. Aiiieeeeee……

OH YEAH SHINJI I half-remembered there was a visit in 1 but not who actually went to visit Kiryu sorry for doing you like that my boy </3 still counts as part of a pattern to me though… subordinate visiting his aniki…

SPEAKING OF KIRYU. Yeah. Typical Kiryu L. Kazuma Kiryu you have blood on your hands and NOT in the funney Reddit meme way… ABSOLUTELY DERANGED to blame Ichi for anything in the ending whatsoever though like WHAT. He got him immediate medical attention and WE AS THE AUDIENCE don't even have time to react, let alone anyone living the fucking moment good god my blood pressure is spiking

ALSO THE JO POST… YEAH… yeah yeah yeah that's the shit I'm talking about… and like. This is where localization frustrates me so Bear With My Complaints a moment but his very last line is mistranslated in both versions, the sub in terms of what he was actually saying and the dub in terms of giving him this bitchy, flippant tone that doesn't convey his intent. So I'll cut them down the middle and say it's "[The] legit [way]? The word has never crossed my mind, not once."

There's just something to it as a clear thesis for his whole life and his eventual fate. Like of course Adachi means in terms of going through the proper legal processes, but words like proper, legit, decent, these also have clear connotations of adequacy. So for him to literally say NOTHING he's done has been adequate in his eyes perfectly illustrates what you were saying. Like he's always taken it as a matter of fact that nothing he could do would be enough, like that's a truth woven into his existence so tightly he never even thought about it. And now there really is nothing he can do.

i have my own theoretical timeline on masato's stay in america, but even with what we have there's a lot of variables involved with for exactly when certain events happened

under the assumption masato was to enroll at harvard in the fall of 2001 (assuming he was somehow able to be approved for a lung transplant as soon as that year), then jo would- at max- might only have to be abroad for (assuming they leave in january) nine months (to account for the time it took for masato to get approved for surgery and then the surgery itself plus the potential 3-6 month recovery period afterwards)

alternatively, if masato had to wait a year- two max if we're being optimistic so he could graduate on time under an accelerated 2-year academic schedule to get surgery- then jo, similarly, would have to be abroad for a similar amount of time.

the time gone doesn't matter too much i guess: arakawa will still be left alone for a long time, and that really couldnt have been easy either way. the time his family's gone only makes their comeback all the more bittersweet, as you put it (´▽｀;;)

OH BUT YEAH NO THE Y7 BIT THAT SHIT PISSED ME OFF SO MUCH WHEN I READ IT like mates were trying to be smart about it like 'wow ichi way to go showing how much you love aoki and how you'd do anything for him 🙄' like God Forbid a human character acts human and imperfect what the fuck you want him to do he aint got no goddamn spidey sense how the shit was he supposed to know (;´༎ຶД༎ຶ`)(;´༎ຶД༎ຶ`)(;´༎ຶД༎ຶ`)

but yeah.. speaking of Doing The Right Thing jo's never ending feelings of inadequacy are my favorite </3 cause its like.. it's a reason why i love jo so much if i can be weird to say: what he did wasnt something that you can confidently forgive or try to say 'he's done the most to rectify this' or anything like that because putting a baby in a coin locker's like.. a lot of steps are involved to do that.. not really a spur-of-the-moment kind of thing that would have grounds to forgive yourself for.. so the fact jo knows this and just has that intense guilt- it's my bread and butter to say the least 😔

[kimbapisnotsushi]

so people are super invested in who the nonrich kids are for all the rich school teams from this post so like. let’s get it i guess!!

seijoh: y'all already know!!! fucking yahaba shigeru!!! it's why he's got such an attitude about things!! he's a middle child AND he's sick of the rich kids' bullshit!! like idk i feel like on the first day of school a lot of yahaba's classmates think he's like them bc he seems so ~shallow~ and ~preppy~ but then he instigates violence within the first ten minutes of class (WITH A GOOD JUSTIFIABLE REASON) and everyone is like "what the fuck".

(i have my thoughts about kyoutani being a nonrich kid too bc like. i do love them being the nonrich power couple of seijoh who are just so ready to FIGHT anyone who talks shit otherwise but also??? kyoutani coming from a rich stuffy family?? that punk ass?? that'd be HILARIOUS)

shiratorizawa: SHIRABU SHIRABU SHIRABU. unlike yahaba he makes his disgust known loud and proud. every time a rich kid tries to come for him he's like "absolutely the fuck not" and RIPS them apart so bad not even all their money could pay for enough therapy sessions to fix the damage. he knows goshiki means well but goddamn does he want to bop that kid on the head sometimes. (i also like the idea of shirabu and kawanishi bonding over being the nonrich kids but also??? kawanishi being like SUPER weird BC he grew up wealthy and exasperated but fond shirabu??? i LOVE that shit)

fukurodani: tbh. i really really like konoha as the nonrich kid for fukurodani. like "mr. jack-of-all-trades" yeah of fucking course he seems like he can do every single little thing compared to everyone who just. HIRES people to do shit for them or buy whatever they need. konoha knows how to use duct tape in a hundred different ways while his classmates are just like. tossing easily fixable headphones and sunglasses out every time they break and buying new ones every single time. (also. yes this follows the snarky nonrich kid and weird rich kid. konoaka my beloved.)

itachiyama: look i know we only have three of them BUT. the sheer HILARITY and the HONOR of it being the CAPTAIN, iizuna tsukasa??? i think both sakusa and komori are rich and being cousins they get into the weirdest most trivial spats that iizuna has to sort out. like sakusa is yelling at komori bc "YOU SPILLED CAPRISUN ON MY BALENCIAGA" and komori is all "THEY WERE UGLY ANYWAYS JUST BUY A NEW PAIR" and iizuna is like. "wtf. guys. like honestly fuck the both of you we have PRACTICE right now come ON"

inarizaki: SUNA. IT HAS TO BE SUNA. kid who came all the way across the prefecture to an elite school where he doesn't know anyone or anything? a school where presumably most of the rich students have known each for YEARS bc they went to the adjacent middle school together? yeah there's going to be SO much bullshit when suna gets to inarizaki and hjsgbdkhd it makes me hurt just THINKING about it. like okay yeah all of these types of schools are ruthless but suna is such an easy target because he really doesn't have anyone here y'know?? (that's a lie, of course. he has the team. and that's enough.)

kamomedai: i didn't cover them in the og post but like. kamomedai is DEFINITELY rich. like. how the fuck else do you nab someone who coached pro to teach a bunch of high school kids??? and keeping in mind with what we already know of hoshiumi and hirugami . . . i'd really like for it to be hakuba LMAO. like, we know he isn'tas good and just started playing in high school, so there's probably a roadblock somewhere that makes him feel like he isn't catching up to the others as fast as he'd like, but really he just never had the resources they always had bc of their money!! i'd also really like liam to be one of the nonrich kids too, bc then he and hakuba would have some cute senior-junior bonding moments

mujinazaka: usuri. no explanation needed.

[marshmallowprotection]

Not the one who ask what Pokémon the twins have but can you do the rest of the RFA including V, Rika, Ray, Suit, Unknown and SE Saeran? Or is that too much to ask?

That's kind of a lot to ask all at once! However, I will answer for the rest of the Saerans because I feel like that's the easiest. I'll add V and Rika just to round out the Another Story gang. If you want me to do the RFA as well, send in another ask, please. I don't want to make a post super long! :)

Ray's team is probably no surprise as it's a mixture of ghost, grass, and fairy types. Phantump feels like a good representation of being abandoned in the woods. Ray is also a flower that hasn't gotten to bloom so Budew fits. Mimikyu... compared to Pikachu? Yeah, that's easy in for Ray's view of 707. Eevee is probably his closest though as I assume he's had it since he was a child. I gave him Sinistea just cause I like tea parties.

Suit Saeran's team is just a mixture of his emotions. He feels like he was created out of anger and design, so Absol and Porygon-Z make a lot of sense. Banette is angry that it was abandoned by its child in the past and hunts for them now, sound familiar? Mismagius feels like he borrowed a Pokemon from Rika, though, since she doesn't think he's strong enough. These Pokemon aren't bad, they're misunderstood by many... just like him.

Unknown is just a mess. His team to me is a mixture of things that have to do with his anger and animosity but also help him get his job done. I took some themes from Ray and Suit Saeran's teams to apply to Unknown's team like using a Porygon-Z or Mimikyu to better add a representation of the envy and anguish at being turned into a strong but deadly weapon. I wish I could let him have an Eevee as well, but I think his Eevee was given to Saeyoung by V at some point during this timeline just to remove any trace of connection between the two of them.

For SE Saeran, I feel like he would swap out some of the Pokemon that were strictly involved with Mint Eye's operation. They're being taken care of but perhaps not by him. A few of the Pokemon stuck by his side and are healing with him and I feel like that's poetic. Slurpuff is good for him exploring new treats. Audino is a great choice for his therapy work... and Swablu is a homage to his love of the sky and all the clouds in it. I think him having a Sylveon someday from his Eevee might be nice but I had to cut that to fit this scene since we are only allowed 6.

Okay. I don't know why I feel this way but V just seems like he would be a trainer that leans toward ice and water. My exception to this is the Altaria that he would've received from his mother as a Swablu. I will die on that hill and the Maractus that he found during his travel across the world to find his muse. The rest of these are Pokemon who fit his solitary nature but give homage to the Earth. Marill seems like the only oddball choice but they're good at directions! He needs that when his eyes worsen.

What is more Rika than a team of Pokemon that command power and respect? She prides herself on the illusion to control others, so this works for the Savior. Poison is fit for the elixir, so that's where I decided Toxel was a good fit. I feel like Absol is who she relates to the most because they're thought of as a curse... when really, they're just here to warn you about bad things coming. Sunflora just might be the only Pokemon she kept from her original team after her beloved Stoutland Sally died.

[rhythmicpirate]

MILGRAM current theories and personal verdicts

Spoilers under the cut!

Haruka

Judging by the PV it looks like poor Haruka's only crime was murdering a dog that his mother brought for him. It seemed as though the dog appeared to him as a wild animal though, and he only acted out fear. Perhaps that mistake is where his depression came from? He needs to see if there's like a therapy place in Milgram. Personal Verdict:Innocent

Yuno

I...I don't actually know what her crime is? I mean I know she had to have killed someone but I can't figure out who? Probably one her clients as I believe, isn't she like a prostitute or something? Verdict:Unsure? Will have to wait for part 2.

Fuuta

Compared to the other crimes here, Cyber-bulling is kind of tame. It's still wrong, of course, but we've got people here who got multiple deaths. Still his quick to anger personality doesn't give me good vibes. Not to mention playing the role of hero isn't a good excuse for your evil. Verdict:Guilty

Mu

Bullying in real life can do a lot of damage to a person. I believe that at the time she thought her actions were completely justified, especially considering that she felt trapped by them. But now that her personality has done a full 180 saying that "she did nothing wrong" ironically enough I'm starting to have my doubts about her so called "bullies". Not to mention she is in the 1% (rich), and probally a transfer student. Verdict:Innocent, but may lean towards guilty later.

Shidou

I don't think Shidou murdered anyone. Instead I think that all his paitents died on their own due to bad caretaking. The stealing of the Organs was a lie he made up so he could get Es to be innocent. In reality he probally donated them to something. However, the guilt of not being able to save a single paitent made him spiral into depression and maybe the reason he wants to die so badly is because thinks it's the only way to make things right. Verdict:Innocent

Mahiru

Look at the poor girl. It looked like her lover was abusing her either emotionally or psychically (as assumed by her end frame, a look of fear clearly is visible). Yet she was blind to do this and kept on believing that he truly loved her. However her true colors soon shown at the surface and decided to end it herself. It's not good that Kotoko reminded her of her wounds after words. Verdict:Innocent

Kazui

He seem to really care about the other prisoners in the Milgram and dosen't seem to mind getting a guilty verdict. Infact he seems like he dosen't care if he gets guilty or not, maybe he secretly wants one too. His actions are definetly strange at times, but I just can't bring myself to hate the guy either. If I drank beer I'd probably drink it with him. Also I'm not so sure he cheated on his wife, rather he let someone who he had loved dearly go, or they broke up with him. Verdict:Innocent

Amane

She's still so young, only a child, I'd feel guilty if I gave her a guilty. Yet...I'm worried. Is she to far gone in her own delusions that the cult had brainwashed her into believing. Is there still a chance to redeem her or was us letting her down the final straw? I don't think Verdict:Reluctant Innocent.

Mikoto

It's my theory that Mikoto is suffering from Split Personality AKA Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). One personality appears to be ruthless and rude while the other one appears to be polite. However, this evil personality may be less protective then we thought, and maybe selfish as well. Either way, that other personality may be a bit much. Verdict:Guilty

Kotoko

A wise Batman once said "If you kill a killer the number of killers in this world stays the same." I think that really applies to Kotoko. Sure she believes she's fighting for justice, but wolves are often used as symbols of wrath. Not to mention she might be getting more dangerous due to her use of bats on the other prisoers. Even if they do turn out to be "guilty" in the end, does that mean she has the right to do those things to her. Verdict:Guilty