#hiroshima will burn

[tankgotstuckinthecircusgate]

extended ver. but i feel like it sounds not cringy only to me so u can ignore it (the sick flock tho!)

[memecatwings]

everyone talks about The Terror but i only ever see people discussing season 1 where are the posts about how season 2 chews you up and spits you out it shook me to my core and ive thought about it every single day of my life ever since

[hussyknee]

TRIGGER WARNING FOR CHILD AND FATHER BURNING ALIVE + DEATH OF INFANT + DEATH BY BONE MELTING RADIATION SICKNESS

Barefoot Gen introduction by author Keiji Nakazawa, from the 2004 English edition.

[ravcnism]

HEY uhm.. i've been having this idea.. like imagine kenji sato x m!reader athlete as well? help, i just thought the dynamic would be cute. it could be a rival team on the baseball league or another sports. I just thought it would be cool!

STRIKEOUT. — KEN SATO x Male!Athlete READER

Summary: The Hiroshima Toyo Carp may have a new player in town, but his name is nowhere near unheard of. The prized star pitcher of The States takes the country by storm when he spontaneously shows up against the Yomiuri Giants. Ken Sato’s career is given a run for its money.

# # TAGS: Longform, Enemies to Lovers but like Still Enemies as Lovers, A LOT of Tension, Sports Anime-Level of Ridiculous, Star-Athlete!Male Reader, Author Doesn't Actually Know Anything About Baseball, Sort of a Slow Burn? No Beta We Die Like Onda

# # WARNINGS: Mild Violence, Mature Language, Eventual Smut if I’m Brave Enough, English is not My First Language, Around 2000 Words, Part One of ??

Night fell promptly upon the Sato residence. The sun had tucked itself into the sea and left a trail of gold in its warm, glistening wake. From afar, the ever-lively city of New Tokyo lit up street by street.

Beneath the water, in the basement, a newly-bathed Emi waddled towards her corner of the house; smelling of fresh sakura petals, and cuddling a half-crushed Nissan Skyline GT-R. Full from dinner, and satisfied by her shower, she felt the gentle arms of sleep coaxing her to a nap. With a squeaky yawn, and a stretch of her arm, she succumbed to its calls and laid on her spot on the ground. A very amused Hayao Sato came walking after her. “Silly girl. The bath and snack combo never fails to knock you out, huh?”

Kenji Sato, well-dressed for a night out, entered after. He was preoccupied by his sleeves, fingers fumbling to button them shut. “Remember, Dad. No videos after 10 pm. We can’t ruin her sleep schedule again.”

“Of course, Kenji.” His father waved him off with his cane. “You act as if I don’t know her routine like the back of my hand.”

“I’m just making sure.” He was fixing his hair, then, gelling it into place. His eyes narrowed at his own reflection, trying to make sure he wasn’t forgetting anything. “And of course you’ve got Mina to help.”

“Definitely, Ken.” As if on cue, the round hovering bot came floating in. “We have everything under control. You needn’t worry about us here.”

Professor Sato chuckled at his son, leaning on his good foot. “You seem to have a lot of nervous energy in you, Kenji.”

The batter sighed, tugging on his collar one last time. “I’m always nervous when I’m not playing.” Deciding he looked alright, Ken left his reflection alone. “No idea why. Might have something to do with my dislike towards things that I can’t control, but I’m not gonna get into that right now–” He shuffled about, searching frantically for his jacket. “Mina, where did I put my–?” An extended robot arm appeared from the floor and handed it to him. “Oh. Thanks.”

“Try to enjoy yourself anyway, Kenji.” Professor Sato had walked over to Emi, who was fast asleep, snoring slightly. He lifted a hand and rubbed her head. “I think it’s good that you go to these games even when you’re not scheduled. I can tell it lifts your team’s spirits.”

“Yeah, well, honestly I’m still trying to get used to it. The whole sportsmanship thing.” Ken sprayed his cologne on. He made a quick jog towards Emi and kissed her cheek. “Sleep tight, Sweetie.” He looked at his dad. With his motorcycle keys now in hand, he walked backwards to their glass elevator. “If anything happens, call me. You know the drill.”

“Yes, Ken,” replied Mina. “We do. Rest assured, there will not be a repeat of last time.”

“Right, right. Last time.” Kenji forced out a laugh. “Look, if she wakes up and I’m not home yet, try to get her to tire herself out. Load up a park. Throw some balls. But no flying outside, please? You know she gets carried away.”

“Understood.”

With a final glance, and a reluctant sigh, he stepped into the lift. “I’ll be back soon.” Leaving her 20-foot Kaiju-of-a-daughter never got any easier — no matter how many times he had gone and done it. He waved his family a quick goodbye, before disappearing from their line of sight.

His dad was right. It was good that he was going. The Giants had a game to win.

"Good evening sports fans! Ladies and gentlefolk, we welcome you to the highly anticipated matchup between the Hiroshima Toyo Carp and your Yomiuri Giants.”

The stadium was bright and buzzing with excitement. Ken was used to the energy, but he never grew tired of it. There was something almost magical about having this many people in a stadium together. Something electrifying about hearing their collective voices. Whether or not he was set to play, the crowd was what grounded him into focus. He adored their cheers, regardless of who it was directed to.

“We’ve got an intense start to the game so far, the home crowd doesn’t look too happy with Tateoka’s second strikeout.”

“How's it looking?” Ken appeared beside his teammate, Yuki, who was watching the game by the barriers.

“Bad. We're dying out there, Sato. Tateoka's our second batter. We're down one strikeout.”

Ken's brows knitted together, intrigued. He had gotten here a little late and missed a good chunk of the first inning. He had missed most of the commentary, too, so he was pretty much left in the dark. All he knew was that the home crowd didn't look too cheerful. And neither did Coach Shimura. ( Though technically, he couldn't remember a time when Shimura looked anything less than disappointed. ) Ken settled into his spot, nursing a canned soda.

The pitcher’s back was against him, his jersey name too far for him to read. He couldn't see who it was. Ken took notice of their form. Their figure. “Wait, who's throwing again?”

His teammate dropped a name so familiar it sent Ken choking on his drink.

“Fucking, who?” He dropped the name of a famous star-athlete. A name he saw on billboards, news reports, articles. A name so expensive it put his vintage cars to shame. A name with a strikeout rate so disgustingly high it had the best teams falling to their knees. A staggering 1.75 ERA. Almost zero walks. Your name, sent a shiver down Ken Sato’s spine. You, the Mets’ notorious Bullet, now a surprise player of the Toyo Carp.

He watched as you turned around. Your face came into view. You were frighteningly calm. The Giants’ batter was one strike away from an out. Kenji swallowed thickly. “When the hell did he get here?”

“Yeah. Apparently they traded him to Carp a week ago. Didn't get much buzz for some reason.” Yuki scoffed. “Think they covered it up? Element of surprise? It was a pretty big move.”

The fact that Kenji had never been put up against you before was sheer dumb luck. That's what he thought, anyway. Despite the fact that the both of you had been celebrities in The States, the seasons just never aligned well enough to get the both of you to play at the same park. But he hadn't dreamed of it. Who in their right mind would? Like a bullet from a gun, your pitches were unstoppable. You had a mutant-like control over the ball. There were studies on the physics of your technique. Even the best batters would miss your throws. And at that moment, as he watched his teammate strike himself out, Kenji wondered if he'd miss, too.

He wouldn't have to keep wondering. Understanding the weight of your presence, the Yomiuri Giants opted to bring in the calvary.

“Sato.” Ken flinched at Shimura’s voice. He looked over his shoulder, facing him. “Locker room. Get dressed — I'm calling you up.”

He laughed, nervously. “You sure that's legal, coach?” He wasn't scheduled to play today, and spontaneously entering a non-player into the field was only allowed upon certain circumstances. Like an injury, for example.

“Of course it is.” Shimura grumbled. “Tokuda just broke his arm.”

The mentioned Tokuda stood behind him, sipping on some soda, with his obviously not-broken arm. “You heard the man, Ken. I just broke my arm.”

Ken grimaced, heading for the door. “The press is going to love this…” Japan's finest batter, versus The States’ fastest pitcher. Oh, this would make the headlines for sure.

Kenji did as he was told. He walked into the locker room, then walked out in full-attire. The speakers crackled to life. There was a steady rise in the crowd’s demeanor. People were slowly piecing the situation together. The announcers were losing their minds. “And It looks like — oh my goodness, folks. I don't believe this. Ken Sato has been called up into the field!”

The stadium went alight. Ken walked into the park and wondered if the lights were a little brighter than usual. He was doing his stretches, rolling his shoulders. His bat was handed to him and he flipped it in his hand. He allowed the cheers to boost his energy, and perhaps a bit of his ego.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we might be witnessing baseball history tonight! Two of the opposing team’s star players have come face to face for the first time ever. And it's happening right here, right now.”

You met his eyes. Ken’s breath hitched. You were so… intense. He couldn't properly describe it. You watched him move into position like a lion stalking its prey.

“Will Sato stop the Toyo Carp’s brand new Bullet? Or will he walk out of this game bleeding?”

The trick was to look them in the eye. A pitcher was no different from a batter when it came to a game. They shared the same weight of responsibility. The only time a stadium is silent is when they're standing face to face. Like a duel. One of Ken’s techniques was staring them down and reminding them that he was a force to be reckoned with. He was Ken Sato, for crying out loud.

Unfortunately for him, you were unshaken. Which he would’ve been offended by, if he were younger and more immature. No matter, he had other things to look for. Like the cues. Each pitcher had their own cue; a sort of tell that told Ken what kind of throw they’d be going for. He didn’t hit those pitches out of pure luck. Contrary to popular belief, he was actually thinking these games through. There were a plethora of things to look at. A pitcher’s stance, their position, which hand they were using. In an easier game, Ken would be able to read these pitchers like an open book.

But if you were a book, then you would've been written in a different language. He could find no such cues. He didn’t really have anything to calculate. You were as unpredictable as you were quick. None of his usual techniques seemed to be working on you.

The last resort: keep your eye on the damn ball, and freakin’ swing.

You held your hand outward, fingers pointed at him. There was a kind of hunger in your eyes, an expression that made Ken’s heart skip a beat. Your focused glare made him feel as if a red dot had appeared on his forehead. Like you had marked him for prey. It felt… personal. Like it wasn’t a part of the game, and you were only pointing at him. A threat. A dare.

You pulled your pitching arm back. He swore he heard a gun cock. The stadium went quiet. The crowd held its breath. So did Ken. He tightened his grip on his bat. He waited, eagerly, for you to make your move. He was counting the milliseconds, watching you, anticipating your throw, waiting for you to shoot.

And you did.

Ken blinked, and the ball was gone from your hands. He released the breath he was holding through a disbelieved scoff. He turned, and the catcher had stumbled slightly, holding your ball. The crowd grew into disarray, a rising cacophony of cheers and boos. They just couldn’t believe it. Ken Sato not only missed your pitch, but wasn’t able to move at all. He couldn’t even swing. You were too fast. Too abrupt.The ball was a white blur, there a moment, then gone the next. It wasn’t an issue of the curve, nor the direction. It was just too fucking fast.

His teammates couldn’t believe their eyes. And neither did his coach. Ken craned his head to look at you. You stared back at him, stone-faced.

He took a breath to regain his composure, resuming his earlier stance. He would never admit it, but he was rattled. He was trying to understand how that throw was humanly possible. How he had somehow forgotten to move. He could do nothing more but stand haunted as he heard the resounding “strike one!” from the umpire. This wasn’t the first time he’d missed, but it was the first time he froze. It was a spectacle to all, and a moment of horror for his fans. Did the Unstoppable Ken Sato finally meet his match? Even if he did, he was determined not to lose a second time.

“Okay,” he whispered. He took a deep, focused breath, slightly shifting his stance. He kept his feet firm on the ground, bat at the ready. “Okay, Hotshot. Bring it on.”

You kept your eyes on him and him alone. You stared at him as if you were the only two people in the stadium. The crowd went silent once again. The Giants fans were desperate to give Sato the focus he so-terribly needed, but the Carp fans were just curious to see how the second pitch would go. The air was thick and heavy with tension.

Like before, you threw your hand out, fingers pointed at Ken. You drew your pitching arm back, like an archer, and there was that sound in his mind again. The cock of a gun. Ken waited. He counted you down. He was a hunter dressed in camo, waiting for a deer to move.

Then, for the first time since he’d seen you, your expression changed. You grinned at him.

Then you winked.

Shit.

You threw the ball. Ken swung.

But he missed.

The crowd erupted into chaos. There was an indistinguishable pandemonium of disdain and celebration. People screamed and jumped and waved their banners as high as they possibly could. A number of them had already entered a state of acceptance — the Giants would lose to a perfect game. No batter would ever get through the wall that was you. But a lot of them kept their faith in the ever-notorious Sato. He could hit the last shot. He could pull this off. He might have been struggling to match your speed, but he would figure it out. They believed in him like he was a god.

And at that moment, as Kenji heard the echoing “strike two!” he certainly felt the anger of one.

Did you just fucking wink? Did you seriously have the audacity to wink at him? Kenji took it personally. Who did you think you were? Though his lips spoke nothing of the foul words he wished so eagerly to shout, it was clear on his face that he wanted you gone. It was one thing to embarrass him with a fastball, but another to rub it in. He wouldn’t let that slide. He wouldn’t allow you to strike him out.

Yoshimura was gripping the barrier so tightly that his knuckles were turning white.“Eyes up, Sato!”

Kenji breathed. Through his nose, this time. He drew a long breath into his entire body and blew it out through his lips. He wouldn’t miss. He couldn’t miss. While he might have already taught himself the humility that came with losing, he hadn’t taught himself jackshit about losing to you.

“If looks could kill,” whispered Ami Wakita, the reporter who watched the game from the press booth. Typing into her laptop, she wrote: “There seems to be obvious tension on the field. Nothing new for Ken Sato, yet, significantly different. Japan’s star player has finally met his match. This game has been a long time coming.”

This was his last chance, and he wasn’t going to waste it. Kenji raised his bat, and narrowed his eyes. You weren’t blind to his added efforts, and smirked at him again. Oh, how it made his blood boil.

Point.

Pull.

Throw.

Swing.

This time, the ball made contact.

The crowd blew up once more, exhausting their lungs as they watched the ball fly across the field. Kenji had hit it. Kenji had managed to catch your bullet-of-a-pitch. He dropped his bat to the ground and ran for his life. Base to base, corner to corner. Kenji leapt across the field and jumped for home.

“Safe!”

The crowd went wild. He had heard stadiums cheer for him before, but he didn't think he had ever heard anything this loud. With a relieved laugh, Kenji got up from the ground, and finally caught his breath. His teammates ran to greet him, though they had only passed the first inning. With a round as intense as that one, they felt it was only right to celebrate a little early.

And then he looked at you. Your eyes met. You were smiling at him again. He didn't like the lack of concern on your face. He didn't like that you didn't seem challenged. And he especially didn't like the fact that he was out there playing for his life, while you seemed to have played for a weekend game at the park.

Kenji was glaring at you, as if he was burning holes into your head. You lifted a hand and threw him a casual salute, flicking two fingers towards his direction. Dammit, he thought. That wink really threw him off. Which it shouldn't have.

Unfortunately for him, the game was nowhere near the last time you'd interact.

And there'd be the after-party to boot.

[10zitten10]

Do you like to use the Mushroom Cloud as a fun Barbieheimer meme? If you do, it's fine so long as you know what the cloud caused and what it symbolizes. If you don't know the circumstances of the mushroom cloud, please search ''Hiroshima Nagasaki atomic bomb people (with your safe search off)' on Google Images. *The images are very disturbing. Please DO NOT try it if you are sensitive to extremely disturbing images.

I'm Japanese. In Japan, unfortunately, many people have never seen the old pictures of the real effects of the mushroom cloud. We learn about the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (both are cities in Japan) in primary school or junior high, when we are about 10-14 years old. Many adults think it's too risky to show children the pictures because it shows human bodies, which look like human charcoal. Living people got severe burns on their faces, their backs, and their whole bodies looked like melting wax (additionally, most of the people in the pictures are citizens, not soldiers. There are many kids, babies, and old people, of course.) Even though it happened in our land, many people (including me, I'm ashamed to say though) don't feel it was an actual event because it seems very unreal and it happened almost 80 years ago. Fortunately, I had a chance to learn about the atomic bombing and see several pictures of it. Now I know what happened in 1945. I think some people here/outside of Japan realize it as well.

I don't blame people born outside of Japan who have never known/learned about the effects of the atomic bombing. I want to ask you to learn and understand what happened under that iconic mushroom cloud before you make a meme with it. If you think 'So what?' after that, I will have nothing more to say to you.

I've not seen Barbie or Oppenheimer because they are not released here yet. But I feel they are both very interesting. I'm looking forward to watching them. I wish I could have fun watching them without any distractions before going to the theatres.

Don't get me wrong. I know that during World War II the Japanese government did tons of terrible things to people outside and inside of Japan. I just want people to know that atomic bombing is a very serious issue, and using the images of the mushroom cloud as a meme/design is like using a symbol of the Nazi/KKK as a fun meme. It's not fun. Atomic bombing should never happen anywhere in the world.

[storiesfromgaza]

It is very important to read this and share it

Today the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor Observatory stated that Israel dropped over 25,000 tons of explosives on the Gaza Strip as part of its ongoing extensive war since October 7th, equivalent to two nuclear bombs.

The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Observatory, based in Geneva, highlighted the Israeli army's acknowledgment of targeting more than 12,000 objectives in the Gaza Strip, setting a record in the number of bombs dropped, surpassing 10 kilograms of explosives per person.

With the advancements in bomb quantity and effectiveness, while maintaining a consistent amount of explosives, the quantity dropped on Gaza could be equivalent to twice the power of a nuclear bomb.

Additionally, Israel deliberately employs a mixture known as "RDX" (Research Department Explosive) commonly referred to as "the science of complete explosives," with a power equal to 1.34 times that of TNT.

This means that the destructive power of the explosives dropped on Gaza exceeds what was dropped on Hiroshima, taking into account that the city of Hiroshima covers an area of 900 square kilometers, while Gaza's area is no more than 360 square kilometers.

Furthermore, Israel has been documented using internationally banned weapons in its attacks on the Gaza Strip, particularly cluster and white phosphorus bombs. White phosphorus is a highly toxic incendiary substance that rapidly reacts with oxygen, causing severe second and third-degree burns. The Euro-Mediterranean team has documented cases of injuries among the victims of Israeli attacks that resemble the effects of dangerous cluster bombs, as they contain small high-explosive submunitions designed to penetrate the body and cause internal explosions, resulting in severe burns that melt the victims' skin and sometimes lead to death. These submunitions also cause peculiar swelling and toxin exposure in the body, including transparent shrapnel that does not appear in X-ray images.

The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Observatory has emphasized that Israel's destructive, indiscriminate, and disproportionate attacks constitute a clear violation of the laws of war and the rules of international humanitarian law, which stipulate the obligation to protect civilians in all circumstances and under any conditions. Killing civilians is considered a war crime in both international and non-international armed conflicts and can rise to the level of a crime against humanity.

The 1899 and 1907 Hague Conventions, along with the 1949 Geneva Convention in its latest formulation, established fundamental human rights during wartime to limit the deadly health consequences of internationally banned weapons, some of which could lead to the "genocide" of civilians.

Article 25 of the Hague Regulations concerning the Laws and Customs of War on Land prohibits "attacking or bombarding towns, villages, dwellings, or buildings which are not defended."

Article 53 of the Fourth Geneva Convention states that "any destruction by the occupying power of real or personal property belonging individually or collectively to private persons, or to the State, or to other public authorities, or to social or cooperative organizations, is prohibited, except where such destruction is rendered absolutely necessary by military operations."

According to Article 147 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, the destruction of property that is not justified by military necessity and on a large scale is considered a serious violation that requires prosecution. Such practices are also classified as war crimes under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Observatory has called for the formation of an independent international investigative committee to assess the magnitude of explosives and internationally banned weapons used and continue to be used by Israel against civilians in the Gaza Strip.

This committee would hold accountable those responsible, including those who issued orders, made plans, executed actions, and took measures aimed at achieving justice for Palestinian victims.

[eucanthos]

The poems of this collection are grounded in the quotidian—ashtrays, handkerchiefs, the timbre of a village accent “good for reading, singing, and seduction when I drink.” Emanating from these artifacts of dailiness, Zaqtan poses the question that best defines his poetics, captured in the epigraph to The Heroism of Things, which is included in this collection:

“I’m mystified / how do I / rearrange the poem / everything’s been said.”

https://www.worldliteraturetoday.org/2018/january/silence-remains-ghassan-zaqtan

Ghassan Zaqtan (غسان زقطان), (2017), The Silence that Remains. Selected Poems 1982-2003, Translated from the Arabic by Fady Joudah, Smokestack Books, Ripon, 2018

Cover Art: Mona Hatoum, Remains of the Day, (wire mesh and wood; detail), 2017 [installation view at Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art. © Mona Hatoum. Courtesy Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art. Photo: Ken Kusakari]

[thelostdreamsthings]

On this day in 1945, the US dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan.

It was a brutal & inhumane act, but was considered essential by globalists who wanted to establish an American empire.

⬇️This photo was taken after the US dropped the 2nd nuclear bomb on Nagasaki, on August 09, 1945.

Joe O'Donnell, the photographer, describes:

“I saw a boy about ten years old walking by. He was carrying a baby on his back.

He was wearing no shoes. His face was hard.

The boy stood there for five or ten minutes.

The men in white masks walked over to him and quietly began to take off the rope that was holding the baby.

That is when I saw that the baby was already dead.

The men held the body by the hands and feet and placed it on the fire.

The boy stood there straight without moving, watching the flames. He was biting his lower lip so hard that it shone with blood.

The flame burned low like the sun going down. "

[theoutcastrogue]

A handful of people in Pompeii that were killed by the devastating eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 are not who experts thought they were, according to a team of researchers that recently collected DNA from the individuals’ remains. The team’s findings—published today in Current Biology—spotlight previous incorrect conclusions about relationships between the residents of Pompeii and reveals new insights about the demographics of the Ancient Roman port city. “We show that the large genetic diversity with significant influences from the Eastern Mediterranean was not only a phenomenon in the metropolis of Rome during Imperial times but extends to the much smaller city of Pompeii, which underscores the cosmopolitan and multi-ethnic nature of Roman society,” said Alissa Mittnik, an archaeogeneticist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and Harvard University, and co-author of the study [...] Demographically, the team found that five individuals in Pompeii weren’t so genetically associated with modern-day Italians and Imperial-period Etruscans as they were to groups from the eastern Mediterranean, the Levant, and North Africa—specifically North African Jewish populations. Pompeii was an important port in first-century Rome, so it’s not a huge surprise that it had representation from across the Mediterranean—but the genetic stories of the studied individuals verifies it. [...] “This study illustrates how unreliable narratives based on limited evidence can be, often reflecting the worldview of the researchers at the time.” One particularly famous set of remains revisited by the team is that of an adult with a golden bracelet and a child—the child being on the adult’s lap. Long interpreted as a mother and child, the remains actually belong to an unrelated male and a child.

"Unrelated." This gutted me, for some reason. Reminded me of Watchmen and what I think are some of the most memorable panels in the history of comics.

There's a catastrophe, a colossal explosion, a disaster that we know claims the lives of millions. We know it's happening, we know there's a "psychic shockwave" involved. And there's two people we've been casually following from the start of the story, ordinary people in the street, unlike all those costumed heroes running around. They're not very good and they're not very bad. They're just people. One is an old man running a news-stand, the other is a young kid who reads pirate comics. They don't like each other. They're rude to each other, generation gap and all. Two minutes ago they learned they share a name, and managed to share an almost kind word, and they're about to start fighting again. They're just people, right? And then the disaster happens. We don't see it yet. The blood and gore will be witnessed in the next issue. For now, the background fades to white, and we only see them.

They drop what they're holding, they hug, the old man puts his arms protectively around the young kid, and they fade. They fade into the shape of the Watchmen logo, ubiquitous throughout the comic, and then they fade out. White panel. There's nothing left. And off-panel, the Ozymandias quote.

Watchmen primarily aimed to evoke nuclear war, and the "psychic shockwave" clearly stands for the blast of a thermonuclear explosion. What makes the sequence gut-wrenching is the hug (so tender and so futile), the fade-to-white (a negative space so understated and so enormous), and the penultimate panel: an after-image frozen in time, declaring forever "once there were people here". Just like the plaster casts of Pompeii, just like the stones of Hiroshima.

Hiroshima, August 6th, 1945: the shadow of a person who was disintegrated at the moment of the blast. The steps and the wall were burned white, except the portion that was shielded by the person's body. (These steps were cut out and are now inside the Hiroshima Peace Park museum.) Photo by Yoshito Matsushige, whose films were confiscated and didn't get printed until the U.S. occupation ended in Japan in April 1952.

[conflictofthemind]

Hiroshima and ‘Eightfifteengate’

‘The monument in the centre depicts 8:15, the time the A-bomb was dropped toward the hypocenter’

I’m going to be mad for a while that I didn’t get an actual picture of it, but when you leave the Memorial Hall there’s another explanation about its design that mentions the use of flowing water to give back to the victims that died with extreme thirst:

When the bomb dropped it burnt so hot (as hot as the surface of the sun) so that everyone who wasn’t immediately scorched to charcoal was left with severe burns and an unquenchable thirst. When the skin burns the moisture in your body is sucked out; if you have severe and/or full body burns like many of the victims, your body has been sucked dry of much of its water.

The heat also caused any surface water to instantly vaporize and dried out the surrounding air. It was the peak of summer and fires were blazing everywhere. The remaining large bodies of water were instantly poisoned by radioactive material, and eventually decaying bodies as victims jumped in to relieve their pain and quench their thirst - dying soon after. The vaporized water began to rain down hours later, but contained radioactive fallout and soot and was also undrinkable (picture above).

There’s discussion on what the lack of water could mean in the Upside Down. It’s significant because it is not only lampshaded (wrong word but you get the idea) by the characters and the whole Lovers Lake scene, but it’s also important to understanding how Will survived in S1. Because as presented to us so far, it should have been impossible.

And while I can’t explain that, I can offer the already-pointed-out Hiroshima inspirations to be a possible reason why the UD doesn’t have water. Because Hiroshima didn’t either (at least symbolically).

If you want to hear more about the Hiroshima connection I’d suggest searching the eightfifteengate and radiationgage tags. There’s a lot: Little Boy, ‘The Day Time Stopped’, 8:15 itself, El representing signs of radiation sickness, Vecna’s body being fully burnt, etc.

[lizardsfromspace]

MONSTER MONDAYS #8: FRANKENSTEIN CONQUERS THE WORLD (aka FRANKENSTEIN VS BARAGON) and INVASION OF ASTRO-MONSTER

I’m watching every Godzilla and Godzilla-adjacent film, from the original to 2004’s Final Wars. This week, we meet fucking Frankenstein and yes it's Tuesday again

Frankenstein Conquers the World

1965 - directed by Ishirō Honda

Frankenstein is a movie with several titles and two different endings, neither of which make any sense, and anyway we start in World War II, where the Germans are transporting the heart of Frankenstein (this movie correctly calls the monster a Frankenstein) to Japan. Where does the heart go? Hiroshima. When it's bombed (a process we see, I'm told through stock footage from a Toho war movie), the heart is forgotten, and then we're in the 1960s, where we spend some time in a child's cancer ward.

That's one way to begin a movie about a forty foot tall Frankenstein wrestling a dinosaur.

Before we comment on the movie, let's comment on a few Toho regulars who are in both of tonight's films. Kumi Mizuno is more relevant to the next film, but she became a standby of the Showa series, and one who would make a few appearances in the Godzilla films of the 2000s.

Another is Nick Adams, who had a rather odd career. Two years before this film, he was nominated for the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for the film Twilight of Honor. A friend of Elvis Presley and the late James Dean, he was the subject of much tabloid publicity - much of it planted by him - before his breakthrough roles, starring in a western TV show for ABC and, of course, being nominated for an Oscar. Only two years later, he was out of Hollywood entirely, doing roles in several Toho sci-fi films; by 1968, he would be back in Hollywood doing TV guest spots, and then he would be dead.

Kind of a dark note to include in this review, but it's a strange little whirlwind of a career.

A wild man is on the loose, as we see from kids running into a classroom screaming, finding a dead rabbit, and screaming out again. It turns out to be not just any feral boy, but a Frankenstein who grows as he eats protein. The Frankenstein. "This boy is Caucasian," they say, "he is a full blooded white boy."

Meanwhile, an oil rig is destroyed by an unseen underground monster.

The Frankenstein, whose heavy brow and furry rag attire makes him look like a big Neanderthal, is introduced to the world of the 1960s, watching dance parties on TV, at least until someone screams and he throws the TV out the window. Of course, he escapes, and we have a note of King Kongian misunderstoodness and longing, with him watching humans in their houses and villages and not getting why they lash out at him when he eats animals to the bone & throws trees at birds and ends up crushing shacks. He is, at the end of the day, a gentle giant who doesn't intend to harm anyone.

Baragon, on the other hand...

Baragon is finally revealed about an hour into the film as an subterranean burrowing four-legged dinosaur with funny ears who unambiguously eats people. Godzilla movies tend to play coy with this, but it's explicitly said his attacks leave no survivors, because he eats them. This is mainly a plot device: since everyone who saw Baragon - who looks nothing like Frankenstein - gets gobbled up, that leaves room for people to blame the attacks on Franky boy.

We go to a dinosaur museum to learn about how it's impossible that there could be another dinosaur monster out there in the world; we already had an Anguirus, we can't possibly have another Anguirus-adjacent monster out there.

Frankenstein Conquers the World starts in a strange place, and it ends up where you wish all kaiju media would: with a caveman beating up a giant lizard.

They fight amid a burning forest, and Frankenstein is the victor, snapping Baragon's neck. So what happens after this battle of the Geico mascots?

So. Depending on the cut, either:

the ground beneath his feet spontaneously opens up, and he falls in and dies

in the cut I saw, a previously unmentioned and unexplained giant octopus appears, and drags Frankenstein into the ocean

Because no one had any idea how to end this tale of Frankenstein's heart becoming a guy and beating up a mostly irrelevant giant lizard Honda hated having to include. Speaking of things Honda was forced to include...

🧟🧟🧟

Invasion of Astro-Monster

1965 - directed by Ishirō Honda

On average, Godzilla appears for about ten minutes in each Godzilla movie. There are some outliers who go higher, twenty minutes or even more, but that's the norm. It usually feels a lot higher, though. So which movie has the least Godzilla in it?

Invasion of Astro-Monster, according to the multiple fan charts I've read, is in last place. Godzilla is in just five minutes. Six percent of the film. Why?

Well, this is essentially a Mysterians movie that happens to have kaiju in it, and they disappear for large chunks of the film.

Planet X is a newly discovered moon that's visited by a pair of astronauts, led by Nick Adams. Meanwhile on Earth, an inventor named Tetsuo (Akira Kubo) has invented a personal alarm that emits a high-pitched noise called the Ladyguard which is, uh, a rape whistle. A rape whistle is a key plot point in a Godzilla movie. It's bought by a company represented by a woman named Namikawa (Mizuno). Who is she? Well...

(GIF included to marvel at this fancy restaurant set seen in one of the opening scenes)

Back on Planet X, our intrepid astronauts have encountered the native species, the Xiliens, human-aliens-in-ominous-costumes in true Mysterians mode, but they don't want our women. They want our monsters. Because...

King Ghidorah! In space! They want Earth to bring them Rodan and Godzilla to fight Ghidorah. But surprisingly, the fearsome harbinger of doom King Ghidorah has in fact fallen prey to alien mind control. The Xiliens claim that in exchange for the kaiju they'll give up the cure for cancer.

After a council meeting - where we hear from wings medical, military, and housewife - humanity agrees. But the Xiliens are already on Earth, declaring it Friendship Day...

...and they abduct Godzilla and Rodan.

Some notes:

The Xiliens are maybe the best aliens so far, with their stark minimalist base, and we get Godzilla and Rodan! IN SPACE! For a battle against Ghidorah!

Godzilla is victorious, and...

"When they made Godzilla do that shie thing, I knew how pissed my father [Ishiro Honda] was. He didn't say a word, but he was beyond angry. My father found it humiliating. I am sure he was telling himself, 'We did not create Godzilla for that..."

"It is not right."

But all is not well on the moon. For one, all their women are identical to Namikawa. But the astronauts accept the cure for cancer, and head back for Earth, but...they don't take everyone...

Shout out to everyone involved for managing to wring actual emotion out of rubber monster suits.

We won't see any kaiju again for a while. The whole second act, pretty much.

Because the cure is a fake: it's a tape announcing that Earth is now a Xilien colony. We have a montage of the worldwide chaos that results from this. Oh, and Namikawa has fallen in love and is trying to leave the Xiliens, whose lives are all decided by computer. Unfortunately, the Xiliens know about this as well...

"The people of Earth will fight to the death for freedom" (the Indomitable Human Spirit is supposed to be a myth). Also fighting back involves, of all things, a rape whistle.

When the kaiju do re-enter the picture, it's for one of the great monster fights so far, as all three monsters are mind controlled into attacking humanity, and then Godzilla and Rodan must fight King Ghidorah. Reused destruction footage from past movies doesn't really matter; not when you have the Indomitable Human Godzilla Spirit (It Was Supposed to be a Myth).

Our first Godzilla alien invasion hearkens back to The Mysterians trilogy's flying saucers and alien deals-gone-awry, and while at the end of the day it's p. much Ghidorah, The Three Headed Monster 4: In Space, it's still

"It is not right."

Honda's given his a-game just about every time, but it seems Honda was not so much a fan of Godzilla's new, superheroic direction...and next week, for the first time since Raids Again, a new director will helm a Godzilla movie. We'll see how he does...

🦖🦖🦖

The List:

Next Week: War of the Gargantuas & Ebirah, Horror of the Deep

[ohaaasa]

🪂 Untitled NJAK Flash Fic (word count: 1.3k)

prompt: meeting up in a store after not seeing each other for years and Nij tells he bought something in the store that reminds him of Akashi and what does Akashi reply?

(THANK YOU JUUU!!)

paper planes, endless summer breaks, crafted cranes.

hiroshima was never a place he thought he’d go other than for a school trip in the third grade, his own mother as a chaperone herding his classmates around like baby ducks. and like mother, like son, because that’s what nijimura had done throughout middle school until moving abroad. there are a few things he’d learned from a particular underclassman.

his pride was never more important than his duties.

a silver spoon still tastes like shit.

the guilt bestowed upon him by a hundred and fifty eight centimeter tall love-child of demon and angel for drinking a protein shake from the convenience store will stay with him forever.

what can he do?

he gets two vanilla kikkoman soymilks, squeezes them into his shaker with protein powder and makes it himself. he still does this, all these years later. it’s mostly habit, but when his running partners look at him with questioning looks and he has to explain himself, the image of akashi’s judging eyes still burns deep down.

akashi scratched a sort of itch in his daily routine during middle school. he was refreshing and different, unknowingly funny in his seriousness, adorably unaware and removed from normalcy. akashi would stay a little longer to shadow him after practice, cutely claiming it was to learn as much as he could. when he thinks about soulmates, he thinks akashi felt like that. warm, gut-wrenchingly impossible, and floating right up in his jetstream. not that they are soulmates, they haven’t even talked in years, nijimura thinks to himself, walking away from the shrine.

until now.

“nijimura-san?”

/

he sees from his huddle of classmates, standing next to the lockers. they joke about the school dance and homework and whatever, and nijimura watches midorima shuffle by with akashi, looking unusually stern and focused. he raises a hand to wave, but akashi walks by, blank faced.

“this is the one thing i can’t help you with,” midorima whispers in full seriousness. “but i have faith in you—”

“midorima-kun, please don’t.”

he asks akashi about it later, after the poor kid ended the day in the infirmary with blood crusted over his eyebrow, an exam paper sticking out from his bag with a fat red x at the top of it, and an endless supply of complaints pouring from his mouth.

“so i read the wrong book. are we kidding? are you understanding this, nijimura-san. i read the wrong book and i’m being punished for it, as though anyone else at this school reads anything at all. but i read the wrong one and have to take a retest next week… i tripped going up the stairs and nearly fell entirely, my desk happened to be the one a hornet chose for its nest, the cafeteria had to throw out all the tofu for an undisclosed reason—and believe me, i tried to find out—, and higashi-san happened to pick my face to elbow during a pass that hardly even qualified as an assist. are you understanding what kind of day i’m having?”

nijimura nods, pushing down his smile.

it is serious, getting an elbow to the face. nijimura had helped him up as blood split his face in two halves, and everyone stared in disbelief that akashi hadn’t moved in time.

“sounds like a rough day, akashi.”

he sighs, leaning back against the headboard, forehead bandaged. it pushes his hair up in a cute way.

“midorima may be superstitious but he’s usually right. and today was not a good day for me.”

“last in the ranking?”

“dead last,” akashi nods. “normally he brings my lucky item and i indulge his whims on the basis of being a good friend, but perhaps there’s something to it.”

“you didn’t get your lucky item today?”

akashi shakes his head.

nijimura prods, “well, what was it? maybe i can go find it for you.”

akashi stays silent, looking at the ceiling. nijimura takes a look to see if there’s anything interesting up there. just chalking.

“so?”

“it’s nothing you can get, so please don’t concern yourself. besides, midorima doesn’t need anymore gloating power.”

“what is it though?”

akashi blinks at him.

“a kiss.”

a moment of silence.

“does it say what kind?”

“i suppose not. unspecified.”

“alright, well,” nijimura shrugs. he steps further into the room, doing a little jump to hype himself up for the sake of akashi’s hopeful amusement. “it’s no different than shooting a basket, is it?”

akashi shuffles up with surprised eyes, but before his mouth can mutter “what are you doing?” nijimura musters all his strength into blowing a kiss into the palm of his hand and shoots it from the triple threat position to the flustered redhead.

“catch—” nijimura says, hurried.

akashi reaches out one hand and clutches the air, grasping it towards his chest.

nijimura’s body relaxes with a pleased hum.

“thanks for catching it, otherwise i might’ve been mortified.”

akashi’s surprise is broken by a laugh, cutting through the displeasure of his day and right into nijimura’s heart.

/

“hey,” nijimura says, stupidly. 

akashi stands shoulder to shoulder with him on the rocky cliffside, looking over the onoseto straight towards the mainland. he’s taller, a bit, facial features like some ethereal angel come to pick his dropped jaw up off the ground.

“this is quite the surprise,” akashi says with a bit of teased knowing. probably, akashi didn’t know they’d run into each other here, but he’d pretend like he did if it made him seem holier.

“do you know how crazy this is?”

“well,” akashi shrugs. he hugs his jacket tight across his stomach, shielding himself from the ocean winds. “i can’t say i planned this, nijimura-san. this must be an act of fate.”

“fate or whatever, i wasn’t expecting to see you here.”

“i’m on a business trip. mayuzumi-san wanted to see the local attractions since he’s never been,” he gestures to mayuzumi down the road, fending off a rogue deer with a handful of cookies. “don’t mind him.”

they stares at him together.

“he’s in your company?”

akashi nods.

“he’s clingy.”

“are you guys…?”

akashi scoffs. 

“absolutely not. and what are you doing here?”

nijimura points to his siblings at the shrine up ahead.

“family trip. sorry, nothing interesting. but uhm…” nijimura fiddles with something in his pocket. he doesn’t exactly know what he’s doing but the nervous energy in his gut is propelling him forward and when fate strikes, you jump or lose out.

“here,” he holds out an amulet he’d bought at the shrine shop, a rose-gold color with golden embroidery, spelling out first love across the fabric.

akashi stares at it with no expression.

“are you giving me this?”

“i thought of you when i bought it.”

akashi’s face breaks out into a grin of disbelief.

“and you said nothing interesting,” he says coyly and nimbly takes the amulet with a slight bow of his head. their fingers do not touch, akashi is careful of that. “i suppose i can give you something too.”

nijimura watches akashi pull a slick case out of his pants and unfolds it, sliding out a singular business card. nijimura takes it, shying against akashi’s glittering eyes. his name, business, and phone number with operating hours are written across the expensive cardstock.

nijimura nods once, wordless lips pressed together.

“i have to go help him, before he’s eaten by a naturally herbivorous animal. but don’t hesitate to get in touch,” akashi nods at the card, then at the amulet in his hands. “you were my first kiss after all,” he teases, looking at the amulet.

“you remember that?”

his eyes flutter up again.

“i’ve never forgotten. i can’t say you were the last, but…” akashi steps back, apologetically headed to mayuzumi’s rescue. his smile is lax and beautiful and drawls nijimura in like a moth to a flame. “perhaps it’s not too late for that.”

[valkerymillenia]

I watched Thunderbolts*

I was impressed. I'll give it to them, it's a good movie, a pleasant surprise.

You see, I've been burned out on Marvel movies. I still try to watch the ones for characters I love but I haven't truly enjoyed an MCU movie in a few years.

The shows have been surprisingly good, not all of them but I've been impressed with them. They just seem to give the directors/writers more freedom and flexibility for the shows, they take more risks and get more creative and give us more complexity, emotion and representation.

Moon Knight, Daredevil, WandaVision, Agatha All Along, What If. And so on. They've all been been good, they've all tried new things and gotten creative, given us positive POC/LGBT/disability and female rep, and are slowly betting on practical effects again (which really show the passion and effort in the project better than excessive CGI).

But the movies? Disney is so desperate to make money that they sacrifice creativity, representation, artistry and soul. They censor every idea so heavily in a desperate attempt to avoid offending anyone, afraid of alienating any possible market or viewer group, that everything ends up feeling repetitive and bland. Shallow.

It's become a tiresome slog of formulaic movies, trying to milk the same shallow tropes, giving the actors no room to be creative. Not to mention, depending so heavily on CGI for it's cheapness (and exploitation) that they sacrifice real artistry and passion and rather than be visually impressive and impactful, it just feels soulless and exhausting.

So yeah, while I still keep track of story and lore, I haven't been impressed by a Marvel movie in a long time.

And then Thunderbolts happened.

Thunderbolts still keeps to a very classic and familiar MCU formula BUT takes on a much more emotional angle, focuses a lot of exploring trauma and depression as the true villain rather just solving everything with bullets and fists.

It achieves a good balance between giving people what they're used to and working off what made them popular but also trying something deeper and nuanced.

Also, still a whole lot of CGI but not as heavy, more dependant on makeup, practical effects and the human element (acting and emotion).

They also don't try to go overboard with flashiness, allowing some actual character development that doesn't feel overly performative.

Artistically, it's simpler and more serious than most previous MCU projects. Still very much an explosion filled and action packed hero movie, but more nuanced and character driven.

And the "shadows of Hiroshima" reference? Chilling.

Story-wise? Also a breath of fresh air while still nostalgic and building on the existing universe (though, surprisingly not too dependant on the viewer being all caught up with all the previous movies just to keep up, thank god).

Yes, the tone is sad but that was a good thing. Give us a movie that ends with hope rather than cliffhangers.

Using trauma and pain as the true villain of the story was a stroke of genius. Exploring grief, trauma, abuse, depression, and mental illness (and even to some extent addiction and suicidal ideation) as important plot points guiding the story was truly interesting and appealing.

That scene with Yelena and Alexei arguing in the street with Yelena pouring her pain out? Brought a little tear to my eye, it was relatable and hit close to home.

It was interesting to see that the real problem to defeat overall wasn't something to punch or shoot (even though there's plenty of that sort of action as well) but something to accept and overcome and find support for.

It's a movie that prizes empathy and mental health over any cool superpower or "greater good". And while there's still a comically evil power-hungry villain, they aren't really the focus or the priority when it really comes down to it.

Oh, and no, I'm not upset about the changes to Sentry lore at all. He's still wildly overpowered but that's not what matters, he has room to grow as a person, they did something very cool with him and didn't feel the need to spell out the point for the audience, the subtext was strong enough.

So it's a solid 7,5/10, maybe even 8/10 for me.

HOWEVER, I did have some very complaints, personal annoyances really, about the movie.

I'll put those under the cut to avoid spoilers (but I'll try to keep most of them vague anyway).

So here we go. Spoiler warning.

Taskmaster

Very straight spoiler for this one because it just can't be avoided and because it's not important to the movie at all- they kill off Antonia very early on after 30 seconds of screen time.

And I hated it.

I get that maybe it was too many characters to juggle but they could have just left her out, this was so much worse than forgetting her.

Antonia survived so much, so many overwhelming odds that should have killed her but didn't. Hell, one of the main driving point of the Black Widow movie was Natasha's guilt over killing Antonia in an explosion only for the twist to be that she survived.

On top of that, she's a character who's lived brainwashed and enslaved her whole life and didn't really get time to live a real free life until recently.

Plus, Taskmaster is supposed to be a really impressive fighter, incredibly hard to defeat.

And yet, these 5 characters are fighting each other on their first meeting and Antonia just straight up gets shot in the head and dies right away. We see her face for a whole of 3 seconds, one single speaking line.

They just killed off the character and never mentioned her again, proceeded to pretend she was never there to begin with or important at all, never thought of her again even though Yelena (someone with an emotional connection to her) is a main character.

I get that it was probably meant to be a "this shows how serious the situation is" moment but that's not how it felt. It was unnecessary, felt more like just scrubbing the character, it felt cheap to me, insulting even.

2. I feel like the resolution was rushed

I did love the whole Void world thing and the way it was resolved but it felt rushed, even a tad bit too easy. I know for a fact they had more material written to explore "shame rooms" of other characters and it all got cut for time but I feel like that was a loss.

I also liked the manipulation and twists with Valentina but I feel like she got off WAAAAY too easy. I know they're setting up future movies but it lacks justice, it lacks catharsis.

Bob's memory issue at the very end.

Felt too convenient and clean for the ending, it should have been the beginning of recovery, not something to be forgotten and ignored.

Hate how they censored some details in true Disney style to keep it PG-13

It was done in ways that took the sting out of those very emotional and impactful scenes.

For example, Yelena's first RR exam? That man shouldn't have been there, Yelena should have been holding the gun even if the shot was off screen.

Bob's "most pleasant shame room"? The memory of what was happening downstairs didn't need to be so hidden, nor did they need to hide his appearance during scenes where was struggling with addiction.

Yelena and Walker's intrusive flashbacks felt a bit too sanitized.

On that note, they could have explored some of the team's traumas just a little more deeply

(as mentioned above, I know that actually did originally but those scenes got cut from the final movie).

Alexei was obvious comic relief but they didn't need to sacrifice his obvious struggles with depression for it (at least they didn't make them into as much of a fat slob joke like they did with Thor in Ragnarok). They could have given us just a little bit of exploration on his own past guilt, just a flashback or a glimpse of his shame room.

And I know they already deeply explored Bucky's trauma and recovery in other projects but if they were going to include him in this team, they at least that could have made him an emotional touchstone, that could have had him empathize with the struggles of the others a bit more as a mentor figure. It felt a bit like in the really important scenes he was just... There. Could've been important but wasn't really doing much, was just there because he's popular.

Ghost could also have had just a bit more exploration of her trauma beyond one throwaway line.

Look, I get they only had so much time and couldn't really explore every single team member in depth, I get that a lot of them have already been explored in other projects, so they used Yelena and Bob as their focus. But it feels like given the concept of the movie, it would have been very easy to explore the others just a little more impactfully, wouldn't even be that hard.

.

So yeah, maybe I'm being too picky and pedantic but those were the parts that ticked me off.

It didn't even have high expectations but they raised them by giving me a good movie so these small things ended up getting a lot more glaring to me.

Still, despite how much I just rambled about these peeves, I still liked the movie and still think it's very good.

I'm happy the movie is being so well received too. The few times the MCU tried to do something a little different and deeper or with better minority rep (Eternals, Black Widow, etc) it got buried by the shitty side of the fandom and bad marketing, so it's really encouraging to see Thunderbolts* getting popular and well accepted.

[fuckin-pistol-whipped]

drawing by Sagami Ogawa (age 28); Hiroshima survivor

“Three days later, the burned bodies in the fire cistern had turned red, like demons. I instinctively turned away.” — Sagami Ogawa

the drawing depicts victims after the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. desperate to soothe the burns they had sustained, many victims jumped into nearby water, not realizing it was extremely hot from the blast. many boiled themselves alive

[xappetites]

idk why i keep thinking that Frank Woods would have a ranch somewhere? like there’s no animals or anything it’s just land and a comfortable little house dead in the middle of it

so of course he tells himself that it’s logical that afab Bell shows up at his doorstep like a beaten dog two months after the last time he saw her in Solovetsky, with less than ideally healed gunshot wounds from her second assassination attempt. Of course, it’s just that here��s a lot less likely that anyone would find her

And he takes her in, because it might’ve been fake for Adler but she’s fucking tore through hell right at Frank’s side with ample opportunity to either kill him herself or just let him get turned into mincemeat by the reds. She’s ended up under him more than once too, shaking and clumsy and laughing against his mouth in the residual adrenaline rush. More chances to off him, or to try and leverage his attraction to her, that she didn’t take. That Frank’s now convinced she wouldn’t take, not because she isn’t capable of it, she just likes sex too much to use it as a weapon.

She likes Frank too much for it, he realizes in the couple days it takes for her to stop looking over her shoulder with every creaking floorboard. When she asks him to drive her into town to exchange the small fortune in Swiss francs she smuggled into the country all the way from Zurich. He can’t fucking help it, the question that stumbles out of him without more than a second’s thought: ‘Why didn’t you go back to Perseus?’

Bell shifts, looks from Frank to the copy of John Hersey’s Hiroshima he’d given to her after a comment on nuclear armament even he thought was tasteless, the same book he caught her crying over months later and now sits in her bag, half buried in foreign bills.

‘I couldn’t,’ she says, then a minute later, as if it just occurred to her, ‘he’d kill me anyway, after Solovetsky’.

It takes a few more weeks for her to end up in his bed again, and she still smiles as soon as he nudges his dick inside her, still laughs at the burn of his beard on her neck. She still comes clutching onto him like he’ll disappear or leave, discard her as soon as he fills her. Bell mumbles out his name and Frank feels his heart caught between her fingers as much as his hair is at the moment, because for her that’s the most reasonable fear to have.

So he doesn’t. It’s not like he was gonna leave his own fucking house, which in a way feels like the only thing he’s ever really owned, but he won’t kick her out either. And he doesn’t mention her to a single soul who knows her, not even Mason. Especially not when she starts going out, more fearless each time; when she starts to teach a self defense class in town on Fridays or taking drives to the next county over whenever she has a nightmare, just to convince herself that she’s not in a fake town, and she comes back with a cheeseburger for him each time.

Cause then she starts to become his Bell again. The one capable of dead devotion, who chose to do the right thing in the end. The Bell that died twice and came back better every time, that saw an old worn fuck like him and called it home.

Bell, who he accidentally wakes one night when he comes sweating out of his own bad dreams and offers to join him for a cigarette out in the front porch, who convinces him to put on a sweater and settles on his lap in silence, blowing little smoke rings into the gold light of dawn.

The woman who cries against his shoulder when he lets spill that he loves her like horrible word vomit, and tells him she loves him too.

[2and2makes5]

Media Analysis: Barefoot Gen

This little film about the effects of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima back in WWII was much more eye opening and gruesome than I initially anticipated. Told through the eyes of a young boy named Gen, its short running time is enough to clearly demonstrate the issues of war and nuclear weapons, but also a lesson on the indomitable human spirit.

At its basis, this film critiques the atrocities of war and its consequences. However, it creatively draws up the terror and horror of what the innocent civilians of Hiroshima had to witness when the bomb was dropped. Barefoot Gen goes from a sweet story of a family barely making ends meet during wartimes but managing to make the most of it to absolute gutwrenching scenes of mothers, children, the elderly, sons, brothers, and sisters burning up in an atomic flair. The audience has no other choice but to witness how much war does not discriminate, witnessing families being torn apart and thousands dying with the life they lived crumbling around them. It adds a personal touch as Gen has to witness his father, sister, and brother burn up in the remains of their house as his brother cries out to him exclaiming how much it hurts.

This film is a reminder to the rest of the world how war disproportionately affects ordinary people. Barefoot Gen serves as a reminder of the human cost of war that goes beyond political or military strategy. All around the world, even to this day, the threat of nuclear war has not disappeared, and it is films like this one that help spread awareness to anti-nuclear movements, reinforcing the need for peace.

Beyond war and destruction, Barefoot Gen explores the human nature of survival and resilience. Despite going through manmade horrors beyond recognition, Gen pushes through, aiding his mother in giving birth and helping others around him. He is reminded of his father near the end of the film when he says to him he must be like wheat: "The rain pounds it, the wind blows it… it’s crushed beneath people’s feet… but still the wheat spreads its roots and grows."