#aggrieved entitlement

[profeminist]

Cartoon by https://www.instagram.com/vulgadrawings

AGGRIEVED ENTITLEMENT

looks like this:

[The single panel comic has a pink background. A white man with short brown hair wearing a white collared shirt and black pants is sitting on one end of a wide wooden bench. His arms are crossed and he is staring straight ahead, his legs splayed out to either side wider than his hips. To his right stands a woman with dark hair and brown skin wearing a green vest over a lilac long-sleeved shirt and black shirt. She is gesturing with one hand at the bench, smiling as she looks sideways at it.]

Woman: I THINK I DESERVE TO SIT ON THIS BENCH TOO!

[Below the first drawing, the woman is now sitting on the opposite end of the bench, her hands on her closed knees. She is looking sideways apprehensively at the man who has fallen onto the ground. His arms are flung out and he looks horrified.]

White man: OH MY GOD I'VE BEEN PUSHED OFF! THERE'S NO ROOM FOR ME ON [Underlined text.] MY [End underlined text.] BENCH ANYMORE!

See also: human conversation.

"Men perceived the discussion as being equal when women talked only 15% of the time, and the discussion as being dominated by women if they talked only 30% of the time."

[imkeepinit]

Beyond Angry White Men: a progressive sociological imagination as an alternative to aggrieved entitlement

[petewentzisblack1312]

the reason men are getting more conservative is very simply that as a class, as a socioeconomic group, their power is being threatened by womens civil rights. its the same reason for the broad surge in right wing politics. its called a backlash and its also why most civil war monuments are from the era of the black civil rights movement and not actually from the civil war.

[rhaenin-time]

The changes the writers made to Alicent, Aemond, and Aegon have too many modern connotations and it disturbs me that so many people find those connotations "sympathetic."

[iregularlyevadetaxes]

I bring a sort of "aggrieved entitlement is the most overlooked contributing factor" argument to the "what caused the rise of the alt right in the US" that more sympathetic leftists really dislike

[liberalsarecool]

MAGA has an aggrieved entitlement addiction.

[spibbb]

venom is a love born from ugliness, monstrosity in a literal and moral sense. aggrieved entitlement borne from a lifetime of being hated for the crime of existing. their anger is a reclamation of power. their rage is nuclear destruction. they love revenge because it feels so fucking good to finally be the one doing the hurting. aren't you tired of being nice, don't you want to go apeshit.jpg

[musclesandhammering]

All of this. Her stans (and Wanda herself) always try to defend her by bringing up how she was dealt such a shit hand, but like….. bestie, name me one marvel hero who wasn’t dealt a shit hand lmao.

Post contains Multiverse of Madness spoilers

Just to make something clear:

If you love Wanda as a villian, then I understand. I love Black Jack Randall from the Outlander books because of how his twisted mind determines his actions.

What I don't understand are the people saying that Wanda is fundamentally innocent despite what she has done. She has made bad choices, knowing perfectly well those choices will hurt people.

That's not a hero.

Heroes can make bad decisions, but they always do thier best to rectify it. Tony Stark and Natasha Romanoff's entire charcter-arcs were based on that. Peter Parker sacrificed the world's memories of him. Even Loki redeemed himself in the end in his own way.

Wanda on the other hand, tends to need her arm twisted before she makes things better. She only turned against Ultron when she realised she was going to die too. It took Agatha showing her the pain she was putting the poor people of Westview through before Wanda let them go.

It was only when Wanda witnessed her "children" being terrified of her that she stopped her mass murdering tirade.

There's a common theme of her doing the right thing only after the bad actions stop being convenient for her. Yeah, the Darkhold corrupted her, but no one was putting a gun to her head to take the book and read it, were they?

I agree that Wanda had a terrible start to life and sacrificing Vision was a horrible ordeal. However...Thor lost everything too...did he start hurting people to deal with his grief? Many characters have had shit cards dealt for them and yet they don't take it out on others.

Grief does not justify violence. If literally any other character lashed out, they would be condemned. Wanda doesn't get a free pass.

[mariacallous]

The new Trump administration is busy. In a fury of executive orders, the restored president has frozen hiring at the federal government, cut off large amounts of science and research funding, ended or severely curtailed international programs in women’s health and HIV treatment, attempted to unilaterally amend the constitution to deny citizenship to hundreds of thousands, cut off aid to Ukraine, provoked a diplomatic spat with Colombia and renamed the Gulf of Mexico in official documents as “the Gulf of America”.

Many of these moves are stunts and distractions, meant to appease Donald Trump’s base of aggrieved culture warriors. Others are meant to further Trump’s personal power, and to make sure that no obstacles will be presented to his second term agenda of malice, retribution and corrupt self-dealing.

On Monday, Trump made a move that belongs in the latter camp. Disregarding the formal process that is required by law before nonpolitical federal civil servants can be terminated, Trump’s acting attorney general, James McHenry, summarily fired more than a dozen justice department career prosecutors. All of those fired had been assigned to the two federal criminal investigations of Trump pursued by the former special counsel Jack Smith in the classified documents and January 6 cases. In a letter informing the attorneys of their termination, McHenry wrote that their involvement in the cases was the impetus for their firing. “Given your significant role in prosecuting the president,” McHenry wrote, “I do not believe that the leadership of the department can trust you to assist in implementing the president’s agenda faithfully.”

It is the kind of sentence that has been produced by the profound shift in the constitutional order under Trump. In another lifetime – before Trump’s entry into national politics – the notion that the Department of Justice existed to “implement the president’s agenda” was the kind of thing that people could end their careers by merely suggesting.

The Department of Justice’s independence was once so fiercely protected that when Obama’s attorney general, Loretta Lynch, exchanged pleasantries with former president Bill Clinton on a tarmac in Phoenix in 2016, the incident ballooned into a national scandal that contributed to Hillary Clinton’s electoral defeat later that year. When Richard Nixon tried to exert pressure on the justice department to drop its investigations of him in 1973, demanding that the Watergate special counsel Archibald Cox be fired for his political disloyalty in much the same way that Trump has now moved to fire the lawyers who worked for Smith, the justice department officials were so aggrieved by Nixon’s overreach that both the attorney general and deputy attorney general resigned immediately, in an episode so dramatic that it became known as the “Saturday Night Massacre”.

But what was then considered an unacceptable and arrogant presumption of executive power by Nixon barely registers as an offense from Trump, who has issued a blistering series of actions rewarding his friends and followers and punishing his enemies in the week since he returned to power. He pardoned 1,500 people involved in the January 6 attack, including those who had been found guilty of violent offenses, and some have already allegedly reoffended following their release.

But no matter: to Trump, violence committed in his interests is no sin. And he has rescinded the protection details of officials and former officials who have been subjected to threats by his supporters, including Anthony Fauci; to Trump, those who displease him are not entitled to protection from violence. They deserve what they get, and any number of the roving violent January 6 rioters who have now been released may be inclined to give it to them.

We do not like to admit it, but it may be time to state plainly what many of us already know: that Trump has already largely remade our constitutional order. Powers that no one would have imagined that the president had just two weeks ago, when the office was occupied by a Democrat, are noddingly assumed to be within his purview now.

It is hardly a debate, now, whether the president has the power to impose tariffs without the cooperation of Congress, though the legal question is far from settled; it is assumed that his bizarre directives to suspend funding that has already been appropriated by Congress must be obeyed. The firing of the prosecutors is a transparent overreach, but it is not clear that anyone will be able to stop him: if the lawyers sue to try to enforce their own rights as civil servants – or to try to force the president to recognize the limits of his own power – it seems perfectly likely that the large number of Trump-appointed judges on the federal bench will retroactively rewrite the law to say that Trump, if not other presidents, has in fact had this power all along.

Such is the vision of the constitution that Trump seeks to impose: one in which his whim becomes law, one in which the power of his office is constrained only by the limits of his imagination. When Trump suspended birthright citizenship last week, a judicial order suspending the declaration’s effect went into place quickly. But that case will wind its way up, to the highest echelons of our very conservative judiciary, and though the law is clear, the extent of the US supreme court’s willingness to abase itself for the sake of Trump’s whims is not. The Trumpist vision of the constitution, after all, is that it says whatever Trump wants it to say. And there are some in the judiciary who believe that their job is to create post-hoc rationalizations for why everything this president does it legal.

Is the justice department a mere accessory for Trump’s agenda? The Republicans seem to think so. But this is their vision of all government, now: as tools for the exercise of one man’s will. Trump’s vision of governance reminds me of nothing so much as the declaration attributed to Louis XIV: “L’état, c’est moi”: I am the state. There is a word for a government that runs this way, contorting itself merely to one man’s will. But that word is not “democracy”.

[hero-israel]

hi, fellow Jew here

what's antisemitic about the genocide claims? i've heard this a lot, and aside from being Horrific Misinformation, i don't... see why this is antisemitic? like it's bad and wrong but i don't know if it comes from Jew-hate if ykw i mean.

sorry, this could be a stupid question-

When it comes to Jewish institutions, all misinformation, false accusations, and conspiracy theories are inherently antisemitic. Charging Jews with "genocide" in these circumstances - when they are shooting back in a two-sided war, aimed at an armed group, taking steps to encourage and allow civilians to flee - requires a false accusation and a minimization / inversion of terms.

David Schraub:

"For thousands of years, for much of the world, part of the cultural patrimony enjoyed by all non-Jews—spiritual and secular, Church and Mosque, enlightenment and romantic, European and Middle Eastern—was the unquestionable right to stand superior over Jews. It was that right which the Holocaust took away, or at least called into question: the unthinking faith of knowing you were the more enlightened one, the spiritually purer one, the more rational one, the dispenser of morality rather than the object of it. To be sure, some people were better positioned to enjoy this right than others. And some people arrived onto the scene late in the game, only to discover that part of the bounty they were promised may no longer be on the table. Of course they’re aggrieved! The European immigrant who never owned a slave but was at least promised racial superiority is quite resentful when the wages of Whiteness stop being what they once were. Similarly, persons who lived far from the centers of Christian or Muslim power where Jewish subordination was forged are nonetheless well aware of what was supposed to be included in modernity’s gift basket. They recognize what they’ve “lost” as acutely as anyone else.

“The Germans,” the old saying goes, “will never forgive the Jews for Auschwitz.” And not just the Germans. Many people deeply resent the Jews for what Auschwitz took away from them—the easy knowledge that their vantage point was elevated over and superior to that of the Jews, the entitlement to be able to talk about Jews without having to listen to Jews. The desire to neuter the Holocaust is a desire to return to that old state of affairs. And so it shouldn’t surprise anyone that Jews exhibit a special ferocity over the meaning of “genocide.” As noted above, the controversy of this MBL language has in large part played out in terms of whether it is even proper for Jews to register an objection. Are we valid contributors to the conversation? Are we equal players in this struggle? This is no coincidence. When people charge the Jewish state with genocide, part of what they are doing—with varying degrees of explicitness—is telling Jews “this concept which obliged us to listen to you no longer can underwrite that duty.” And in that brave old world, they can return to the baseline that had existed for thousands of years—where it was unthinkable, outrageous, blasphemous, for a Jew to have the temerity to contest a non-Jewish articulation of Jewish experience."

[princeescaluswords]

The sense of aggrieved entitlement some Ste rek Shippers have is just beyond my comprehension. Derek breaks into Stiles's house in Wolf's Bane (1x08), pushes him up against the wall, threatens him with "If you say one word --" and then later on bounces Stiles's head off the Jeep's steering wheel.

Two episodes later, Stiles tries to convince Scott to let the Argents handle Derek with "Are you starting to see a pattern of violent behavior here?"

Derek hit kids. He hit kids a lot. And when he wasn't hitting kids, he had other kids hit kids. It may have all turned out okay in the end, but responding to accusations that he was abusive -- I don't use that term, I use 'bully' -- with the idea that 'Scott stans' are exaggerating is just .... unbelievable.

I've said it before, I'll say it again: I love Derek Hale's redemption arc, but to have a redemption arc, you had to have done something wrong in the first place. Using threats and physical force against Stiles and Scott is something he did wrong, and the show didn't pretend that it wasn't. Stiles didn't like Derek for a long time, and Scott didn't trust him, and Derek's resorting to violence as a first response is part of that.

Pretending that it was otherwise doesn't do your ship any favors.

[hyenagurl]

Hi, your TME post was some time ago but I have the opportunity to talk about how narcissistic they can be. What privilege they are talking about in the first place? It pisses me off and makes me sad for the girls who believes these kind of stuff and ends gaslighted. This is not the first time I have seen someone like them have their account exclusive to shit on biological females. They are literally incels but with extra steps.

honestly, even they dont have an answer. it operates the same as mens rights activism: aggrieved entitlement towards what they think women, or in this case, AFAB nonbinary people and trans men have access to that they dont, or some sort of oppression they experience that is supposed to be something AFABs dont. ive seen these terms thrown around a lot but i never see any real examples, and thats because its a reactionary movement. its not a real school of thought with actual principles, this is just a very angry reaction to womens rights; that is, this is just another, albeit more cleverly disguised reincarnation of antifeminism, once again mutated to adapt to whatever flavour of feminism is popular right now, ie, liberal-feminist gender ideology. ie, just men whining, as they have since the conception of feminism in the late 60s.

[femsolid]

“Women’s conduct vis- à- vis men is taken unduly personally (by them and on their behalf, moreover). So women’s indifference becomes aversion; ignorance becomes ignoring; testimony becomes tattling; and asking becomes extortion.  Misogyny is narcissistic and delusional by its very nature. It transforms impersonal disappointments into embittered resentment— or a sense of “aggrieved entitlement,” to use sociologist Michael Kimmel’s term for it. And misogyny can also transform an agent’s relationships with women entirely unknown to him into intimate ones, imaginatively.

Women are often treated as interchangeable and representative of a certain type of woman. Because of this, women can be singled out and treated as representative targets, then standing in imaginatively for a large swathe of others. In many ways, this seems to be misogyny’s characteristic sentiment. It is punitive, resentful, and personal, but not particular. And the psychological targets of such attitudes may little resemble the actual victims. They are often instead directed toward a crude composite image of a woman pasted over the face of a real one. And since one woman can often serve as a stand-in or representative for a whole host of others in the misogynist imagination, almost any woman will be vulnerable to some form of misogynist hostility from some source or other.

If someone roughly like you will do as a scapegoat or a target, then you join the class of those subject to an atypical kind of crime: an act of retaliation taken against you by a total stranger, yet who hunted you down, specifically. It is not irrational to find this unsettling.”

- Down Girl: The logic of misogyny by Kate Manne

[laniusbignaturals]

I need young Edward and Joshua

“Young” is a loose word and I’m gonna make it everyone’s problem. TW for canon typical weirdness about women.

Since most of the drama in Caesar’s life happened when he was a small child, thinking about him as a youth requires more focus on that stage of his life. He was born in a semi-rural part of the ncr (think upper middle class southern “rednecks”) so he had access to pre-war clothing and homemade mimicry of it for most of his life. His mom, like any godfearing country girl, knew a bunch of weird ways to make money on the side, and one of them was selling her blonde hair to local artisans, of which there were many in the Boneyard. When Edward was a little boy, she would allow his delicate, filmy yellow hair to grow during California’s cold season and shave it all off in the spring so she could sell it. His birthday was also in the spring, so part of these caps usually went to new toys and clothes for him. (This trope is often used to communicate great misery and desperation, but Miss Sallow had been doing this all her life and saw it as more of a game, so. Don’t feel too bad for them.) The hair selling carried on until Edward was in the third grade, when he became just aware enough of gendered aesthetics to get pissy about it.

Uhhh, what else. Edward committed family annihilation on a duck and its nest when he was eight (duck broth and pickled eggs, yum.) His mom got really mad at him when he was fourteen after she found an illustration of the Roman Charity exemplum in one of his books, so he started keeping secrets young. He got great grades in some subjects and horrible ones in others. He was less violent with girls than with boys, but still really cruel and possessive and fuckboy coded. “Girls” meaning “female kids,” cus he also moved out for a while after choking his mama out when he was a teen. That was one of those highly unhealthy, highly inappropriate relationships that crop up among suburban aristocracy, fostered between an entitled & anxious single parent in a new community and their aggrieved, privileged, closeted kid.

When he was little, he had trouble sleeping, but when he got older he liked to see how long he could go without it, like a morbidly masochistic game. He’d only stop when he started seeing things. His subconscious is not kind to him, lol.

Once he reached maturity, Edward became adept at developing fixations on women without ever actually knowing them. The only girls he ever “loved” were the ones he could set up to be reliably dishonest with him, through intimidation, manipulation or stalking. Edward treated dating like hunting. He knew it was an important part of entering manhood, but he didn’t know how to relate to women who weren’t older & sexually neutral to him, a blank spot in his perceived intelligence that made him extremely anxious.

As for Joshua, he grew up with a large extended family who oversaw his social life and education. He was taught to look on Non-Canaanites (including other Mormons from different communities) as duplicitous and dangerous, and the pressure to defer to the authority of local elders led to Joshua being adultified and taken advantage of in all sorts of ways. As a young boy, he was singled out as small and weak until he discovered firearms. He latched onto the technical aspect right away, and was just as happy to benefit from being talented in a masculinity ritual. He’s a homebody, fond of crafting and reading to other people, and he always had an interest in stories of violent religious martyrdom. Ironic, I know.

I used to use Frank O’Hara as a fancast for Edward, but the smoothness of his features and his pointy oval chin bring Joshua to mind.

Joshua also came from a one-man-several-wives family, which both decreased his level of safety at home as a result of all the distant relatives in the house and encouraged him to distrust outsiders due to the social oddity of the family lifestyle. Real rock and hard place situation, yeah? Perhaps because of this, Joshua is prone to protracted periods of anxiety paralysis, wherein he boils with fear and rage but does nothing. He’s very used to having no choices, or at least not good ones. He coughs a lot and he knows a lot of weird herbal remedies for it. He makes good coffee and strong tea. He can sleep basically anywhere, even sitting up. (Growing up attending church will do that to you.)

As he got older, Joshua learned to relate to girls in a way that mimicked his male relatives’ polygamy. Romance, or what he considers romance, is actually one area where Joshua lets go of his xenophobia - in his mind, marrying a woman more or less makes her a part of him, so he doesn’t get hung up on identity. He was never very sexually active due to all his Body Issues, from sickness to gendered discomfort to minor injuries to the eventual skinlessness. Nonetheless, during his Legion days, he’d marry women in private (largely superficial) ceremonies, and store them in houses throughout their territory afterwards, cohabiting with whichever one was the closest as Caesar’s retinue moved around. Some of them helped spread the myth of the Burned Man after his fall from grace.

[colorisbyshe]

seeing a term from michael kimmel is so funny because he writes a lot about toxic masculinity which is a term that made this website raving fucking mad a couple years ago despite it being very, VERY Claer that none of you actually read up what it meant

so you were mad at like Soft Uwu Boys misusing it but applying it to the term itself

when in fact... toxic masculinity and aggrieved entitlement are like... two sides of the coin and both terms are about how men view women (and femininity BECAUSE of its association with women) as a class that has to be subjugated and to be associated with womanhood at all is appalling and needs to be stamped out. and how the primary solution to these attitudes amongst men... is other men... like this is a man made, man-fixed problem. toxic masculinity also takes into account things like white supremacy and homophobia... so it was... a pretty great framework

but instead y'all took the term toxic masculinity and thought it was saying that only some men are oppressive or that if men act soft they arne't oppressors or some shit

and then got mad

[hae-yeon]

344.It's Peaceful For Now, But (2)

일단은 평화로운데 (2)

“I’ve done a bit of homework, you see.”

I couldn’t tear my gaze away from the face looking down at me. He continued on, soft-spoken words a persistent tickling sensation in my ears.

“Back before I met hyung, I thought that Hunters were individuals of such admiration. But the truth is, it’s nothing but a lie, as it turns out. High-rank Hunters wreak havoc as they please, and it’s all covered up so that ordinary folks are none the wiser.”

“That’s…….”

It was true. This was especially worse in the case of S-rank Hunters–because they were individuals of such national importance, a blind eye could be turned to almost anything they did. Were an S-rank Dungeon to go unmaintained, it could result in the casualty of hundreds or thousands of people, maybe more; and so, when their actions were contextualized within such a framework, the comparatively ‘minor’ transgressions they made were clearly considered a price worth paying, if it ensured the retention of an S-rank Hunter.

“Like the time when hyung ended up hospitalized, from getting caught up in those S-rank Hunters’ affairs.”

“I didn’t get ‘caught up in it,’ though. I was the one who initiated things. If anything, it was the S-rank Hunters that ended up ‘getting caught up in’ my own machinations.”

But Bak Hayool didn’t appear to be convinced by my rebuttal. Then again, from an outsider’s view, it would seem as though I were the one getting flung this way and that by a bunch of S-ranks, after all. Who’d believe that it was the F-rank that was actually ordering the S-ranks about, as things stood. And I’d intentionally engineered things so that it would appear to be the case, too.

“And an un-Awakened isn’t even worth the time of day, much less. That’s the stance the Rearing Facility held, too. Even though all I wanted to do was ask after hyung, to see if you were doing okay.”

“I… Sorry, it’s because my stats are so low that, for security purposes…….”

“Why should hyung be sorry, though. Those S-rank Hunters are the ones treating hyung as though you’re not entitled to basic human rights.”

“I told you, that’s not the case.”

“Yet that's how it was, even during the Seseung Guild Leader’s cruise party.”

Bak Hayool replied, pity lacing through his words. Wait, ‘cruise’? But they should’ve made sure that no details had leaked from that incident.

“...how do you know about that.”

“I heard through the grapevine. From this insider I know. That hyung was derided as the S-ranks’ lowly tagalong, and then, as if that wasn’t insult to injury enough, violently dragged off and knocked unconscious by the Seseung Guild Leader.”

He was correct on that count, at least.

“Don’t you feel aggrieved, hyung? Being on the receiving end of that sort of treatment?”

“Well–I do get provided with benefits, too.”

“He’s known for toying with people for a brief while, before unceremoniously throwing them away.”

…so you knew about that too, huh. Though it was apparently leaned more towards a loss of interest continuing relations, rather than outright tossing aside. Clearly troubled, Bak Hayool let out an agitated sigh. Seeing him react in such a way, I felt a reciprocal bitterness crawling up my throat. 

“Him being ‘nice’ to hyung right now is simply a perpetuation of that dynamic, after all. Then again, I suppose it should come as no surprise, considering how ruthless he’s said to be even towards high-rank Hunters–someone with F-rank stats must feel far more insignificant.”

“...he really hasn’t been so terrible.”

“Hyung, if someone were to forcibly drag a dog around by its leash and mistreat it to the point of unconsciousness, they would be reviled and reported for abuse.”

“Y-yeah, but.”

When I imagined a dog undergoing the same treatment I’d been put through, suddenly, Sung Hyunjae felt about fifty times more deplorable. If you took into account the difference in our stats, then yeah, such a comparison would be fairly apt. And he’d gone so far as to drop me into the water, too. I needed to call Section Chief Song-nim and rep… Ah, but Section Chief Song-nim had likewise laid his hands on me before, too. Though I was a person, in any case.

“Why do you say things like ‘he really hasn’t been so terrible,’ when you’ve been treated in such a way. That’s a symptom of Stockholm syndrome, hyung. It’s because the S-ranks are far too powerful for you to even consider fighting back against them, that hyung’s been conditioned to think that way. Since you couldn’t do anything to resist, hyung, no matter what they did to you. Not if you wanted to live.”

What other reprehensible acts have they subjected you to? asked Bak Hayool, his voice a low murmur. Even as I wanted to push him away, my body refused to move.

“‘Subjected’–that’s, not it. That’s all in the past now, they’re not like that anymore.”

“Ah… Hyung. You might always end up being subjected to that sort of violence again. And in particular, the Seseung Guild Leader is especially dangerous. A high-ranked Hunter might be able to protect their own body at least, but hyung couldn’t do the same, right. That person is exceedingly ruthless. And because it’s already been a while since he’s taken an interest in hyung, his regard towards you is likely already waning. He’s famous for his short flings, after all.”

“...I’m already aware. I’ve heard about that as well.”

Telling him his warning was unnecessary when I knew as much, I made to turn my body away, but Bak Hayool reached out to grip my shoulder. He was stronger than he looked, it seemed. I was still an Awakened, though, despite being an F-rank, and I’d even raised my Level a bit too. Had my body actually deteriorated that much.

“It makes you feel anxious, doesn’t it hyung, feeling forced into a position where you have no choice but to depend on those S-ranks.”

If it was about feelings about anxiety, well. It was true that my ongoing interactions with Sung Hyunjae had continually left me feeling uncomfortable and uneasy, in all honesty. I had confidence in my value, of course, but that wasn’t due to any innate ability I possessed… A large portion of the apprehension I felt in revealing that I’d Regressed was owing to that fact, as well. 

Since I hadn’t been anything special, originally. ‘Actually, I don’t have anything of merit’; to confess something like that, it was.

“Don’t you feel scared? Of when you’ll be cast aside.”

“Who’d cast me away, as long as I have my Skill.”

“Perhaps that would be the case with anyone else, but the Seseung Guild Leader is surrounded by an abundance of extraordinary people, isn’t he.”

It’s only natural that you’d feel inescapable dread, Bak Hayool said, patting my shoulder consolingly. I flinched, unconsciously shrinking in on myself.

“Even ordinary people struggle with the fear of ostracization too, don’t they. Because of that, they force themselves to attend after-work dinners, fixate on trends, and take up smoking and drinking they otherwise wouldn’t do. So it must be even more difficult for hyung, who’s being forced to accommodate S-ranks, while only being an F-rank yourself. And to be juxtaposed against the person who’s supposed to be the pinnacle of the S-rank Hunters–anyone would be cowed.”

“...yeah, he’s certainly highly lauded. That person.”

“Then they draw up comparisons that tear you down, all for daring to exist as an ordinary being.”

Bak Hayool sat down next to me. A chill ran up my spine, despite myself.

“A large number of people speak scathingly of you, jeering that you’re ‘a pathetic F-rank hanger-on who clings to S-ranks without knowing your place, just because you happened to get lucky with your Skill.’”

“I don’t, really look at that kind of stuff.”

“That’s for the best. They only go around picking on hyung because they see you as the easier target, since they’re too afraid to speak badly of the S-ranks. Your only worth lies in ‘being a good little ‘Item’ for them,’ they say–that there’s no way they acknowledge you as a fellow Hunter.”

So it wasn’t too different from how things had been pre-Regression, the amount of trash talk being directed my way. Despite the media moderation that had been implemented now. Then again, all you could do was delete the hate comments being circulated online; it wasn’t as though you could go around blocking people’s mouths to keep them from speaking.

“You know that I’m great at keeping mum, right, hyung. If there’s anything that’s bothering you, please feel free to confide in me at any time. Yeah?”

Bak Hayool said, giving me a soft smile. My head nodded without my conscious input. But even if that was the case, there was too much I needed to hide, for me to be able to be completely transparent with him. Some things, I really couldn’t divulge.

“Getting a bit of fresh air might do you some good, and help improve your mood too. And you have that stealth Skill, hyung. Is today really out of the question?”

“Yeah… Not today.”

“Even if it’s just three hours–no, maybe just two–of a quick jaunt outside, before it’s discovered you’re gone?”

Well, if it was just for two hours. What time would Yerimie be returning from school today, again. When I sent her a text, I got an almost instant response.

[ I’m supposed to go check out a new café with my friends afterwards, sir–why do you ask? ]

[ No, it’s nothing. ]

More importantly, wasn’t her class supposed to be in session right now. Was she actually allowed to be texting? Did they not confiscate their phones?

“I should have some free time once I’m done with lunch, I think.”

“Really? Then I’ll head over straight away, after I hear from you!”

Bak Hayool said excitedly, apparently delighted. He cautioned me once more to not let anyone else find out about it as well. It made sense, seeing as how I would probably get off scot-free even if I was found out, but Bak Hayool would likely be banned from accessing the Rearing Facility from then on. …it all felt a bit ridiculously constraining. Even if I knew why it had to be that way, I felt a bit stifled all the same. 

A brief outing should be perfectly fine. I would only be out for a couple of hours, after all.

Bak Hayool left after telling me he’d see me later, and presently, I was contacted by Yoohyunie. Apparently, he’d had to drop by the Association due to matters related to the Japanese Dungeon, and so, suggested that we have lunch near the area. But when I went out to the parking garage to look for the car he’d sent to collect me, I encountered a completely unexpected person instead.

“...don’t tell me that you work at Haeyeon now, sir?”

“A transfer to the Rearing Facility, I could consider, perhaps.”

Sung Hyunjae replied, eyes crinkling in a smile. Casting my gaze around, I searched my surroundings, but the Haeyeon Guild member Yoohyunie was supposed to have sent was nowhere to be seen. The parking garage was completely empty.

“I’m afraid I already have a prior appointment, sir.”

“I recall advising you to exercise additional measures–so why might you be out on your lonesome, I wonder.”

“That’s…….”

Why had I ventured out on my own, now that I realized. Since the personnel Yoohyunie sent wouldn’t have been an S-rank, I should’ve been accompanied by Noah-ssi or Peace, at the very least. That’s what Yoohyunie would have expected, too. Suddenly, Sung Hyunjae strode forward until he was standing before me. Reflexively, my face twisted in a scowl.

“In any case, you mentioned being busy, sir.”

“Not so occupied that I cannot allot time for a lunch, mind.”

“I’ve already made plans to eat with Yoohyunie, as it happens.”

I felt an unsettlingly acute sense of discomfort from being in Sung Hyunjae’s presence, and so, took a few steps backwards. Or attempted to, rather. Before I could even move, my arm was caught in a vice grip. My body was dragged forward, and golden eyes looked down at my face with a surveying air. 

“The young master will be preoccupied for a fair bit longer, I’m afraid. I do wonder if it would not be the best course of action to preemptively dissuade him from leveling the meeting grounds, before he takes drastic measures, lest his cherished hyung be kept waiting.”

Instead of answering, I pulled out my cell phone. After contacting Seok Shimyoung to verify Sung Hyunjae’s comment, I texted Yoohyunie to let him know that I would just be eating at home. As soon as I sent the message, my phone lit up with an incoming call.

[ Hyung, I’ll be done in a minute. The meeting’s almost over. ]

“Don’t lie. I already heard that they’re planning on providing a meal there afterwards, too. Make sure to eat properly, okay.”

[ But……. ]

“I’ll send you a picture of me eating lunch. You send one, too.”

Though clearly reluctant, Yoohyunie obediently replied with an affirmative. Hanging up the call, I tried to pull away the arm held in his grip. Of course, it didn’t budge an inch.

“I’ll be departing to take my lunch at home then, sir.”

“As your engagement has been called off, I shall escort you, in that case.”

“I assure you there’s no need.”

Hearing my words, Sung Hyunjae feigned disappointment. 

“My, such a cold-hearted reception from my ‘Partner’ today. Despite disclosing to me that there’s something you wish to impart, at that.”

“...there’s nothing of the sort, sir. It’s no longer relevant.”

“Han Yoojin, dear boy.”

“Hurry up and unhand me, sir. Or do you plan on dragging me away anyway, perhaps? Since you know very well that I wouldn’t be able to put up a figh…….”

I cut myself off, mouth snapping closed. I felt all twisted up inside. I seemed to be feeling a bit nauseated, too. As my brows furrowed together, a faintly chilling voice cut through my consternation.

“What might be the meaning of this, pray tell.”

“I don’t know what you mean, sir. It’s actually been peaceful for once, lately.”

I’d been reunited with the people I owed a debt of gratitude towards from pre-Regression, gotten to speak candidly with Noah-ssi, and finally confided in Yerimie about my past. Everything was going well. And my body was doing fine, too. I’d gotten into some hot water with Myungwoo, sure, but it had all worked out in the end. Plus, there was a Transcendent I could depend on now, and he’d even agreed to mentor Yoohyunie as well. 

Things were finally looking up.

“Nothing out of sorts has occurred.”

“Yet, in light of–”

“Do mind that you don’t overstep your place, sir. I’m already aware that you’ll cast me aside before long, in any case. Your interest will wane soon enough, so please refrain from wasting our time like this.”

If only because of Crescent Moon, I’d need to come clean to him about everything too. So that should be the end of things, at least. And since he was planning on leaving Korea anyway, it actually worked out for the best. ‘Out of sight, out of mind,’ after all. At my words, Sung Hyunjae’s expression hardened slightly. 

“Was it yesterday? Or today, perhaps?”

“What are you talking about, sir.”

“Has the System come back online.”

“It’s yet to reestablish itself, I’m afraid.”

“Then it must be a person. But who.”

Sung Hyunjae pressed, persistent in his questioning. Just what was he trying to–. Suddenly, my phone rang. When I started to take it out, Sung Hyunjae deftly plucked it from my grasp.

“Give that back!”

“The young master, I see.”

The call connected with the tap of a button, and Yoohyunie’s voice rang out.

[ Hyung, where you’re at right now– ]

“I shall ensure that he takes his lunch properly, so fret not.”

Before Yoohyunie could reply, Sung Hyunjae hung up. And then, he extended the phone out towards me.

“Kindly unlock this for me, lad, would you.”

“...do you actually think I would, sir.”

“Then, seeing as I’ve been left with no choice.”

파지직, with a shower of sparks, my phone became charred to a crisp. Even the SIM card was probably a goner. What remained of my phone crumpled like tinfoil in Sung Hyunjae’s grip, and scorched pieces of debris scattered down to the ground. I was so dumbfounded by what had transpired, it took a beat before my voice burst out of me in a fury.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing!”

“I thought to hold my housewarming party today–and so, what say you to an overnight stay, lad.”

“Well, unfortunately, sir, I don’t think I’ll be able to receive your housewarming invitation on account of my phone being completely obliterated at the moment! Not to mention, I haven’t even prepared any toilet paper.”

“Toilet paper?”

Sung Hyunjae tilted his head in puzzlement. Huh, had it actually flown right over his head(1). In any case, hurry up and release me. Just what did he think he was doing, out of the blue.

“Why are you suddenly acting like this, sir?”

“As a pest has apparently seen fit to attach itself to my treasured ‘Partner,’ clearly I must intervene.”

“‘Pest’–what ‘pest’ are you talking about?”

“Han Yoojin, my dear boy, are you not cognizant of the current deviation you display in your usual behavior.”

‘Deviation,’ what ‘deviation.’ Face twisted in a sneer, I scowled up at Sung Hyunjae. He’d called me out as being ‘cold-hearted,’ earlier. Typically, I would have deigned to at least hear him out if he suggested having lunch together, I supposed. …so what, he was throwing a tantrum right now because I wasn’t being as accommodating to him? And thought it was fine and dandy to destroy someone’s phone just because of that? Fucking hell, I actually might end up cursing him out. 

“Yes, of course. Your royal highness, S-rank-nim. Why don’t you go ahead and beat the defiance out of me like you did before, then, if you’re so displeased. Until I’m forced to produce the answer you want to hear, you asshole.”

“.......”

Sung Hyunjae pressed his lips together. And then, just as it seemed like he was about to say something.

- Krrrnng!

“Peace-yah!”

Body enlarging to full size in a blink of an eye, Peace hurled himself forward. Sung Hyunjae quickly released my arm and retreated backwards, to avoid being caught in the claws that savagely tore through the air. A low growl emanating from his throat, Peace pressed his body tightly against my side.

“How did you know to come find me?”

[ Hyung, are you alright? ]

Peace, talking…! was clearly an impossibility, particularly when it was Yoohyunie’s voice. It was the phone, hanging around Peace’s neck. He must’ve called Peace, once it was evident that my phone had been bricked. But even if the portal was designed to let him freely pass through, how had he opened the front door of the house, I wondered. Had he just smashed through.

“I’m okay. It’s only my phone that got damaged.”

[ I’ll be there soon, too. ]

So he’d taken his leave after forcibly ending the proceedings, after all. Swallowing a sigh, I turned to look at Sung Hyunjae. Our eyes met. His gaze and face were both locked into a frosty expression. Was he angry with me, perhaps. Or maybe he felt he had been disappointed by me, once more. 

“Since you’re due to leave Korea behind in any case, sir, let’s endeavor to end things on a positive note, shall we. We’ll have little reason to see one another going forward, after all. So, instead of leaving a blemish on our final interactions–”

“Truly, how incredibly trying.”

“...what do you mean, sir.”

“As, presently, I presume it best to pry the pertinent information from you, by resorting to force if necessary–and yet.”

I find that I do not wish to do so, he said, prompting a huff of disbelieving laughter from me. Yeah, sure. Just then–a trail of fire suddenly blazed into being from the entrance of the parking garage. Hurtling forward like a speeding lance, the advancing flames enveloped Sung Hyunjae’s car in an instant. With a thunderous explosion of sound, the sleek-looking vehicle was reduced to the same sorry state as my cell phone.

A prime illustration of ‘what you put out comes back tenfold(2),’ I’d say.

- - - - -

(1) TP as housewarming gift:

also see: second footnote in ch332 about not showing up empty-handed / what constitutes ‘appropriate’ gifts for certain contexts, and why such a thing ‘going over sung hyunjae’s head’ is supposed to inform his ‘foreigner/outsider’ position vs yoohyunie’s ‘korean ideal’ position

(2) 되로 주고 말로 받는다 → literally translated, it’s closest to the saying i used in-text, but it also falls somewhere between ‘what goes around comes around’ / ‘you reap what you sow’ in that it’s primarily used in a negative context for things backfiring spectacularly on you when you try to do someone an ill turn

working on this chapter rn was triggering as fuck lmao o7 

thanks for the well wishes )b

+(Q&A)

Q) how did soyoungie and sung hyunjae’s first meeting go? A) kang soyoung ambushed sung hyunjae and demanded to know if he was a dragon, and sung hyunjae found it entertaining. his interest in her was short-lived, but as dragon riders are a rarity to begin with, and the immunity trait that allowed the a-rank to not shrink back in front of a born s-rank garnered his approval, sung hyunjae ended up extending a scouting offer to her.

+(Q&A) 

Q) it’s said that not very many people have had the opportunity to dine with sung hyunjae; in han yoojin’s case, would he just call on sung hyunjae out of the blue when he happened to be passing by seseung to have a meal together? A) in the first place, as they are the dodam rearing facility director and the seseung guild leader, and han yoojin is a high-profile f-rank, it would be difficult to casually call on one other while just passing by, from the standpoint of the novel. when they do end up dining together, it’s always over business, even if only as a formality. as sung hyunjae does not wish to additionally be forced to engage with others when faced with the already tedious business of eating, unless it’s with han yoojin or song taewon, he does not enjoy dining with others. from a post-series standpoint: since he was able to break free from the stifling circumstances, and (one-sidedly) thinks that he meshes well with the young chaos, he’s quite enjoying looking after chaos ^^

+(Q&A)

Q) this is really just… something i’m personally interested in, but… at some point… once enough time has passed… will… peace be able to speak, just like chirpie? A) as he’s become an inhabitant of the world after coming outside of the Dungeons, as long as he continues to mature, it’ll eventually be possible^^