soo-won

[soo-won]

-

[ID: two sets of panels from chapters 269 and 270 of “yona of the dawn”, showing zeno defending su-won, who’s standing in front of hiryuu’s coffin, piercing his corpse with his sword. in the first set, su-won asks, “can you hold up? zeno.” and zeno replies, “for eternity.” in the second set, they’re both looking much worse for wear; zeno says, “hey, mister. mister king-guy. you still alive? don’t pass out just yet.” and su-won responds, “it’s not a problem.” end ID.]

[soo-won]

I finally have access to a scanner again so I scanned the animate bromide for Hana to Yume issue 13/2025!

(Akatsuki no Yona by Kusanagi Mizuho)

[soo-won]

my beautiful cluster b princess

[soo-won]

[soo-won]

i wish I could know the age of the ppl who sends me ask sometimes like your feelings on akayona (or any story tbh) can change so much depending on if you're in your teens or much older imo... it's hard to tell where people come from

[soo-won]

i can only really speak to my own experience here, but i have been thinking lately about an aspect of transfeminine development that there's not a space in our society to talk about,

which is that i spent years believing that my worth as a sexual and romantic partner was inextricable from my ability to top (a silly word to describe what straight men do to women, we laugh, as if there could be any other arrangement),

but i didn't like it. mentally, emotionally, physically, it hurt. and sure, it also felt good sometimes, and i came from it more often than not, but it was sort of like the psychosexual equivalent of repeatedly breaking the same bone. sure, it hurts less and less, and it makes that part of you stronger in a technical sense, but only because it grows back a little more malformed each time.

and now i am a woman with a clearer view of her own desires, and partners who want to help me fulfil them. but the breaking and re-breaking, the disciplining of my body, has left marks on me that make it hard to realize those needs. i cry, i lock up, i fail to communicate; basically, i don't always do a good job, and even when i do i sometimes feel terrible anyway. bummer!

and the thing that people really hate to hear you say is that those marks – the pain, the reflexes, the terror – are just like many of the marks left on the bodies and minds of those who have experienced things that our society would more readily identify as sexual violence.

but this was also sexual violence! it didn't look like we expect it to because there was no single perpetrator; it just happened, almost naturally, because everyone – including me – believed it was normal.

and so i kept at it, over and over again, until it became too much to bear, and now in the aftermath there are scars that sometimes make sex hard to think about and even harder to do.

and i want to talk about this in the wider world. but you can sort of imagine the look on the faces of the mainstream feminists when a trans woman (ew!) walks up and drops the phrase "self-inflicted corrective sexual violence." i mean, for god's sake, we don't even get to live in the shelters. where the hell would that phrase get me with them?

anyway, i'm doing alright, because the people i fuck are compassionate and understanding, and because i went to a fancy school and learned the phrase "epistemic violence," and i can make maps of discursive power and write florid and pretentious posts on tumblr about it.

but if you or someone you love feels as if she does not deserve to feel so deeply injured by the coercive structures of masculinizing sexual development, just know that you do – yes, it is a wound, and so it hurts, but that also means it can be healed. love ya 💜

[soo-won]

Piece of Asian media: *has a title that's obviously not in English*

Fan Translators: hmm taking into account the intention of the original and the rules of both languages, plus the tone of the story, the best title would probably be something like Adherent of the Blade of Duality, but probably an official translation would want to shorten it to Blade of Duality, or perhaps Double-Edged Sword to borrow a popular turn of phrase that also fits thematically--

Official English Translators: Master of Double-Penetration

[soo-won]

Do you think the relationship between Yona, Hak, and Soo-Won was a real relationship that we can blame Soo-Won for breaking?

They didn’t know about the death of his mother, they didn’t notice that King Il was ignoring him and treating him coldly, and he even stopped him from participating in the village tournaments.

And, Hak kept saying that Soo-Won could have simply married the princess, like don’t you see that you have more luxury than him.

I mean I don't blame Suwon of anything, but of course this relationship was real, it's kinda the point and essence of the entire manga.

They didn't know about Yonhi's death because Suwon didn't tell them and didn't want them to know. You could argue that Il neither, but I mean, Yona didn't even know the truth about her own mother's death, there's even less ways she would know about Yonhi. When she asked Minsu in the castle arc, someone supposed to be on her side, he first lied to her about Yonhi too because it's an important and dangerous state secret. They didn't notice Il was "ignoring" Suwon because in appearance Il didn't ignore him. (I don't even remember such thing being shown at all? even if we can easily imagine such cases, yeah) Il and Suwon held conversations "normally", they both performed. The very first Suwon lines of the whole manga is him saying hello to Yona followed by him asking about Il and Hak. Again, Suwon didn't want anyone to know the possible beef he had against Il, and from what Yona says in chapter 2, she honestly believed Il treated Suwon well and kindly and that Suwon liked Il too. Because, yeah, that's the performance they both kept going for the appearances.

Ogi mentions it in chapter 154, but Suwon is not someone who talks about himself, and it's easy to imagine it became even more true after he lost his parents. He's good at pretending everything is fine and directing the attention to the people he speaks with rather than himself, so that's why they didn't know, he simply never told them. He's just like Zeno for this.

As for the tournament...I really see this as a non-issue I'm sorry. Like among all the ways he was wronged this is really the last one that comes to mind. Maybe Il forbidden him to participate in the tournament because it was traumatizing to see Yuhon's son with a weapon or maybe it was to personally exclude Suwon from the activity, but given it's one Il was very much displeased with to begin with and didn't even want Hak or any kids to participate in, you could almost see it positively, like he got a similar treatment as Yona here lol. Of course we know Il didn't give them the same treatment, but any theory that Il forbid Suwon because of some bad intention to hurt Suwon is complete headcanon in this specific case imo. From the looks of things it seems Suwon wasn't allowed to participate officially most of all because he's part of the royal family on top of not being a "warrior" and fighter, I'd say? Suwon knows how to fight too but he was seen as the scholar type. Geun-tae had not a single idea of Suwon's fighting abilities before seeing them for himself in the tournament of the Earth Tribe for example. We can also imagine that it was very okay for Suwon to not have to show his fighting skills before the coup. Like, I don't think it's supposed to be cruel to Suwon here and I don't understand the harm done at all. I think Suwon was very okay with simply watching the tournament and cool people he admires fight against each other with the possibility to observe and evaluate them lol. The focus of Suwon's "conflicted" face in this extra chapter seems to be far more related to Judo's bitterness towards Il and Hak.

Should Yona and Hak still have pried further and cared enough to notice that Suwon was hiding things? It's up to you to judge anon.

(average Meinyan moment like "is this supposed to mirror Yona or Suwon or the intersection of both?". my beloved. so good by herself too don't get me wrong. come back meinyan please)

I think it's part of their past innocence and flaws that they were in their own happy bubble and fantasized about what they wanted to be true, looking away from the uncomfortable things. But first I think that's a very common thing between teenager friends, and second Suwon participated in this as well. He maintained the happy bubble knowing it was just that because he was happy in it too. He kept being the Suwon they wanted him to be all these years (symbolized by giving Yona the hairpin imo) because this "performance" was always one part of his true self. He wanted to respond to their expectations because he loved them and he wanted them to be by his side, because that was his honest self too. He was happy with them not knowing and being put in a complete different box. It was a precious box with a tightly closed lid discarded deep deep in his heart, that he could never let open and mix in with the rest of his life.

I think it can be super interesting to explore the possible underlying negative feelings/bitterness Suwon might have had towards Yona and Hak in their innocence and naivety, but to phrase things as if Suwon broke their relationship for it is projecting I think. I like to think there was some part of this pent up frustration and anger deep inside, but, that's deep inside you know. He always meant to separate Yona (and Hak) in a different box for a reason. That's not what drove him to do this. He broke their relationship because he had to discard them for his goals and was determined to not prioritize anything but those and his duties. Suwon never did this because "Well, if Yona and Hak never cared enough to know better then there's no hard feelings about discarding them" at all. That was a heartbreak for him too, because it happens that Suwon was also a young man/teenager not perfect in the feelings and relationship department, and that is just as human as it was for Yona and for Hak.

Yona remembering and progressively recontextualizing her and Suwon's past is part of her development. It's because she starts to care and be interested by her country and family's history that she learns and remembers the times Il was cold to Suwon, that she connects the dots about Yonhi and Suwon's illness, and then, by plot convenience sure, finds Yonhi's diary which she opens with "Lady Yon-hi...I don't know anything about you or Su-won. Please, tell me more". Yona not knowing is something she literally tried to make right when she had the chance. She said it in chapter 110 as well, she started wanted to truly know and understand Suwon with different eyes than she did before, which is later symbolized by her letting go of the hairpin. Letting go of that "fantasy" of Suwon as /only/ the kind person he was with her before is part of her emotional journey.

So likee...yes. Yona should have cared and known about all of that sooner, ideally. But well, she didn't. Because she was younger and far more inexperienced and ignorant and sheltered and simply a young teenage girl with very few people her age she could be normal friends with (+ Hak was also her bodyguard + Suwon was her cousin that seems to have stopped coming as much to the castle at one point). Because no one had any intention to tell her either, Suwon included. Yona was protected and sheltered by Il, but also Hak and Suwon. Suwon very much saw Yona as someone innocent who didn't need to know any of the truth, didn't need to get involved in the country's matters at all despite her being crown princess, and was fine just being cheerful and innocent. This too made Suwon overlook some sides of Yona's person because he saw her in relation to the role he had to carry for her. Because it was simpler too, and it was in part harmful and it later explores how that leads him to overlook what she could do if given the means and to underestimate her. But there is no doubt this issue, even tainted with bias and negative feelings and without erasing what makes it harmful, originally came from genuine affection for her.

As for Hak and his Suyona wedding dream, I think it's exactly the same. Hak was a flawed teenager with complexes and issues he coped with in a pure but immature way and that he works on throughout the entire manga too. It's specific in that the wedding thing is the rare thing where Suwon expressed disapprovement about, yet Hak still insisted and idealized Suwon in such a way that he looked away from the real Suwon in front of him. Or it's more like, Hak did nothing but look at Yona and Suwon, but projecting what he wanted to see in Suwon in particular, rejecting his own self and Suwon's in the process. This is again something I find easily relatable when you're a teenager. Was Hak bad and evil for this? Of course not, he did it out of love and admiration too. Did it hurt him and Suwon, was it tainted by bias and made things unfair? Yes. The three of them are guilty of projecting and idealizing each other and looking away and closing themself off in different manners. They hurt each other, but they also felt truly loved by each other. Their flaws and mistakes partly come from loving each other too. That's what makes their relationship real no matter the harm done and no matter how much they knew about Suwon. The love was there...and it still is! Yona and Hak's love for Suwon was the realest thing ever and it was mutual, how could this not be real, even if they didn't know all of Suwon? They still knew him, and they knew a part of him only them knew. Yona and Hak were so hurt because Suwon rejected the truth and love in that.

I'm also not sure what you mean about Hak having more luxury than Suwon, because like, officially Suwon always had a higher rank. If you mean in term of burdens, what Suwon went through for 10 years in relation to what happened with his family on top of the heavy expectations he had to carry since a young age, then that's something Hak didn't know about, no? Because to him Suwon was simply getting an education like is expected of a young man of the royal family. Like Yona he could have tried to know more especially once he became general and Yona's bodyguard, sure, but well, he didn't, because he erased himself to dedicate his whole life to the people he loved more than anyone else, yeah. He was flawed here too. That's the thing he had to work on the entire story.

Hak didn't know about the depth of Il and Suwon's beef and that's also quite literally something he's forced to face when he speaks with Judo in chapter 184. Hak truly couldn't fathom and imagine that the divide ran that deep and that it was something Suwon wouldn't be able to bridge in some way. To accept Suwon's struggles and to stop putting him on a pedestal like he's a god-like person able to achieve everything easily with zero feelings attached in any circumstances is I think one of the main thing Hak had to work on too. So like, no, Hak couldn't see it wasn't that easy for Suwon. It's the crux of their conflict and of Hak's anger that explodes in chapter 243.

An important part of Akatsuki no Yona is Hak's struggle to reconcile his truth of Suwon, which Suwon called an "illusion", with the Suwon that betrayed them and that is Kouka's King that discards everyone on his way. It is exactly about whether that past was real or not. The conflict of whether he should believe, hope in him or not, of idealizing him, of believing in him so much he's blinded to Suwon's own struggles and circumstances and is only left with his feelings of betrayal and broken expectations, of trying to reach him again and whether or not it's a meaningless endeavor. I think the progression of this discourse is one of the most beautiful and well written thing in the manga, so instead of detailing the whole thing with my bad english, I can only invite you to read the manga and the scenes about Suwon and Hak's relationship again. Hak is encouraged by different characters to consider what he shared and saw in Suwon a lie and fake, but it is more nuanced than this. It doesn't stop here. It isn't the story's response to it at all.

Like, it's true for everything I said before too but what you ask rings to me as what the entire manga is about and the answers to all your questions are already in it, I swear. I don't think I can do justice to what the manga crafted for 16 years about it and is I think more than enough explicit about. I hope I still could offer a different view as someone that resents Il and doesn't blame Suwon for anything lol.

[soo-won]

felt so bad i blocked a dear mutual on twitter for two weeks without noticing i had to sketch what's the most important ever to us as an apology.

[soo-won]

Quick Coup Crew for the end of the fanart contest yay

[soo-won]

Ok guys there are 7 hours left to vote Suwon in the character poll please help him not get top9 again I can't accept this. He's the number 3 in the list. Everyone let's go!!!! Vote from every devices you can find!! https://www.hanayume.com/special/yona2025/

[soo-won]

[ID: an image with the words “psychologists hate him!” written at the top, with a panel from chapter 70.1 of “yona of the dawn” below, depicting gija smiling softly and saying, “why should i be depressed about it?” end ID.]

[soo-won]

Chapter 262: "Knowing you, rather than making things complicated by following the same path and receiving punishment for it, I'm sure you'd be able to tweak one thing or two and create the best possible outcome the next time around"

[soo-won]

"Won't you believe that there are people who are made happy simply by the fact you are alive?"

[soo-won]

how it feels rn

[soo-won]

Chapter 258: We have lost too much

[soo-won]

please smile, my precious alice