#just when i thought i'd abandon this blog lmao

[ohnoshespostingthis]

soo i need to draw more and @crystallizabethine's april hc post boosted my constant april comfort thoughts to the forefront to my mind..

yess i know the quality is ass shhhhush

[kazz-brekker]

hotd episode 6 thoughts

boy oh boy this episode was so full of many delicious character moments, i feel very well fed

aemond really was in his best goth villain era tonight, honestly good for him!

i have never seen tyland lannister look more uncomfortable than he did with aemond looming over him lmao

i enjoyed the scene where aemond is firing alicent from the council while also simultaneously holding her hand in place so she'll keep touching his face…tasty tasty family issues

loved that song that the dragonkeepers were singing while summoning seasmoke, it was a very cool detail

also, it was really fun seeing seasmoke again, especially since he's grown bigger since we last saw laenor riding him

man, aegon and rhaenyra really need to put out an ad in the paper for new members of the kingsguard and the queensguard, those guys are dropping like flies

ever since daemon's visions at harrenhal started i really hoped that we would get to see viserys since so many of daemon's issues stem from being cast aside as heir by his brother so i'm SO pleased we got those scenes, it was a present Just For Me

daemon bro stop threatening simon strong he's a nice old man who's done literally nothing bad to you

greatly enjoying this dynamic of daemon and his new bestie the weird witch who may or may not be psychologically tormenting him with visions of his past mistakes and issues

genuinely alys is my favorite new character this season, she's so fun and i just adore her scenes

madam sylvi, dyana, and ulf getting together to bitch about the food shortages…the greens better look out the smallfolk are unionizing

i am getting the sense that aemond and madame sylvi had a…less than amicable end to their working relationship

aemond tormenting aegon in his sickbed really made me go c'mon dude haven't you made him suffer enough, leave him ALONE!

from rhaena's scenes in the vale it appears that they've cut the character of nettles and give rhaena her storyline instead. not sure how i feel about this…i'm all for rhaena getting more to do but nettles is also an interesting character in her own right

knowing alyn and addam's parentage going into the show i suspected that alyn shaves his head because he inherited the velaryon white hair and i was pleased to see i was right

baby stormcloud is so cute! but holy shit my the pit of my stomach really dropped when jeyne arryn mentioned the ship the gay abandon. my fellow book readers, i am full of dread!

i really liked the scene between gwayne and alicent, since he wasn't in the first season it's interesting to see how their relationship with each other and otto has been affected by that huge distance

i kind of miss otto, i hope he comes back by the end of the season

daeron mention! facts about daeron! a personality! never thought i'd see the day!

one of my favorite hobbies is being emo about scenes of alicent physically putting herself between her children and physical harm so i liked her and helaena fleeing from the riot together

that scene with larys and aegon was sooooooo interesting, there's definitely some manipulation/attempts to curry favor coming from larys, but i also hadn't considered that he might now feel some genuine solidarity with aegon after his injuries and can speak frankly about his disability and offer advice

i have been waiting since daemon got to harrenhal and began being tormented for him to have a breakdown and start crying so i was quite pleased when that happened :)

knowing that seasmoke is chasing after addam because he wants him to be his rider made that whole sequence really funny to me

i have often blogged about how daemon and rhaenyra each have what the other one wants (freedom and patriarchal status vs. viserys's love and position as his heir) so it was super fun for me to hear rhaenyra actually verbalize that

i have been super into queer readings of this show since the beginning and all season whenever rhaenyra and mysaria interact i've been like "hmm…are they flirting…" but i truly did not expect them to actually kiss. rhaenyra targaryen canonically queer! on my tv screen! never thought i would see the day!

crazy to think that we only have 2 episodes of this season left after this, can't wait to see what unhinged drama still awaits us

[wovenstarlight]

I got an interesting anonymous ask on the SFS Tumblr asking about the reasoning behind a bunch of Yoohyun's decisions that had… less-than-stellar outcomes, let's say? (LMAO.) and I'd like to keep the TL blog clean so I'm answering Anon here. I'm gonna post their ask in full for reference, because the answers to each individual question overlap:

Hi, thank you very much for your time, energy and effort. What you are doing is really amazing and admirable. I know you are busy enough and I shouldn't trouble you, but after reading the manhwa, I had questions about Yoohyun's logic and sentiment, and I became more confused after reading the novel and I don't know who to ask. Please ignore my message if it's to much trouble. 1: Why doesn't Yoohyun spend the last years of his life on earth peacefully with Yoojin, even though he knows that the world will end soon? 2: What did Yoohyun accomplish by leaving and humiliating Yoojin that he was persistent to do it for so many years? 3: Why instead of using his forces and technologies to protect Yoojin, he announces to the world that it is open season on him and he is worthless? (Normaly no one dares to harm the family of an S class but Yoohyun expose Yoojin to danger by abandoning him.) 4: Why does Yoohyun stop protecting Yoojin when the most dangerous part of Yoojin's life as an F class hunter begins? (Using his influence he could easily ban Yoojin from entering dungeons. Or he could have secretly formed a group of the most powerful hunters to go with Yoojin to dungeons. This way he could have provided him with everything he needed and keep him safe. That is, if he had any intention of protecting him.) 5: Why would Yoohyun gain all that resources, power, wealth and connections and he sit around and does nothing so that Yoojin would face death every day and rot in the basement? He gain all that for what, if not for protecting Yoojin? 6: Why doesn't he ever change his procedure or provide new options for Yoojin to stop going to dungeons? (Yoojin has no chance for a peaceful life due to not having a degree and being a notorious person. And he doesn't know about that cult.) Yoojin got to see his 30 years old birthday cause the cult didn't feel like killing him and he took care of himself in dungeons and was lucky that only his legs broke. So why would Yoohyun identify as a doting brother? The more I think about it the less I understand.

(crossposted on AO3, if you'd prefer to read there)

Okay, so, I'm really prone to rambling at length and this is a subject I have strong feelings on, so I'll give you a very short version of my answer in bullet points, and then a longer version with proper chapter-specific references and full explanations of what I think was going on.

Yoohyun wants to repay Yoojin for all the care and love he's given him, but as a 17-year-old, he doesn't have much social power

Yoohyun's Awakening puts himself and anyone he loves (i.e. Yoojin) in a dangerous position, because while he has individual physical power as an S-rank, he still lacks social power and also can't singlehandedly protect Yoojin 24/7

Yoohyun, in all his rash 17-year-old glory, takes the drastic action of cutting off Yoojin, planning to build up enough power to protect Yoojin and then reunite with him. Yoojin, as just your ordinary everyday 22-year-old, faces no risks other than people targeting him in order to hurt Yoohyun (I don't agree that no one would dare to harm the family of an S-rank, for reasons I'll elaborate on later in the long answer), so if Yoohyun's not close to Yoojin, then that cuts it down to "no risks at all", right…? So tell the media, tell the world, that no, Han Yoohyun doesn't give a shit about Han Yoojin. Yoohyun assumes he'll be able to explain it all to Yoojin one day and that he'll understand. (This should answer your Question 2 and Q3.)

But it doesn't work out as expected. Yoohyun thought it'd take much less time to establish his position than it does in reality (the assumed 4-ish years ended up as 6+ years). Also, Yoojin's gone from trying to make up with Yoohyun in a way that'll let them be together again (not going to happen, because Yoohyun's still not ready to bring Yoojin back into the fold) to being in his own terrible situation, so he's started lashing out at Yoohyun. So even if Yoohyun was in a stable enough situation to try reconciling with him, Yoojin might not be open to it by this point

Somewhere along the way, Yoohyun learns from the filial duty addict Diarma the world is going to end. He doesn't drop everything and go to live with Yoojin because even now, there's still the concern that maybe Yoohyun won't be able to protect Yoojin from everything, and maybe Yoojin doesn't want Yoohyun around, anyway. There's no use in going to live with Yoojin if it'll just end up getting Yoojin killed through Yoohyun's inaction (Q1).

So Yoohyun keeps maintaining his guild and his power so he can keep protecting Yoojin from what he thinks are the Real Threats. (Because the worlds of low- and high-rank Hunters are VERY different. Yoohyun probably assumes that because Yoojin's not facing the high-rank Hunter dangers, he's facing no dangers—a stupid but understandable mistake, given that Yoojin also assumed the exact same thing in reverse about Yoohyun! It sucks, it really does, but I really do think Yoohyun just… didn't realize just how bad it was.) (Q5) And the world can end whenever it wants; if there's no challenging it, then at least Yoohyun's kept Yoojin safe in the meantime.

And the one danger they have in common, dungeons—you suggest Yoohyun banning Yoojin from entering any, but Yoohyun's cut himself off from Yoojin entirely, remember. Trying to interfere in his life would be met with (a) STRONG rejection by a deeply hurt Yoojin who doesn't understand why Yoohyun thinks he has any say in Yoojin's life anymore, and (b) interest by Yoohyun's rivals, who'd wonder why he's trying to keep his hyung away from dangers when he says he doesn't care about that hyung's wellbeing, putting Yoojin right back in their crosshairs. (Q4)

Also, the immoral people have been killing Caregivers of S-ranks. Diarma might have told Yoohyun about this. If he did, then Yoohyun's goals would definitely have gone from "stay strong and one day reconcile with hyung" to "NEVER get close to hyung, because there are beings outside this world, much more powerful than anything I can match in a reasonable timespan, who will 100% kill him". At which point, even if Yoohyun had wanted to reconcile with him, or compromise by just adjusting his plan and talking to Yoojin a little more, or literally anything past making a show of total and complete indifference, he couldn't have without knowingly risking Yoojin's life. (Q6)

You and I and all the other S-Ranks readers, removed from this situation as we are, can think of half a dozen ways Yoohyun could probably have gotten around things. But the simple fact is that in that situation, under that much pressure, with that much emotional attachment to his brother and literally everything that mattered to him at stake if he fucked up in the tiniest of ways—forget making perfect decisions, there was absolutely no way Yoohyun was going to do anything other than what seemed least risky. Because to do otherwise would be risking Yoojin’s life and therefore his own. And the choices you’ve already mades, the path you’re already on—no matter how bad it is for you, no matter how bad it is for the people you love, no matter how much it hurts—will always, always be less risky than the unknown path, because at least this way, you know what dangers to expect and brace for. At the core of the matter, it’s just that… the path that was best for Yoojin's happiness wasn't the path that was best for Yoojin's life expectancy, you see? And Yoojin can't be happy if he's dead. Yoohyun can't be alive if Yoojin's dead. That's all it came down to.

……oh my god that was so long actually. And that was supposed to be the TL;DR. The long version is going to be SO long. I hope you like reading 50-page passionate essays. There's a poll at the end, you can look forward to that!!!

(Also, okay, before we jump into the Deep End. Two disclaimers.

Anon, you said you read the manhwa and novel, but I read only the novel, so some of my chapter references might be unfamiliar. I know they shuffled events around a little in the webtoon, too, so I'll try and describe the general events so you can find any webtoon parallels.

Yoojin's a REALLY unreliable narrator and definitely doesn't know a lot of what Yoohyun's gone through. Part of that is because there's things he has no way to pick up on or deduce; part of that is because he wants to not think about Yoohyun going through bad shit; part of that is because Yoohyun doesn't want Yoojin worrying about him and has actively hidden the worse parts of his life from him. So a fair part of what I'm talking about is going to be reading between the lines and extrapolating.

Okay, disclaimers done!) Now on to the long version with references. Let's go point-by-point based on the TL;DR.

#1: Yoohyun wanting to repay Yoojin

I mean, the skill's called Last/Final Repayment! Isn't that enough? Where did you think that came from? There certainly wasn't anything Yoojin wanted to repay Yoohyun for.

Okay, no, more seriously. Yoohyun and Yoojin have grown up with only each other to depend on. Yoohyun has watched Yoojin take care of him alone their whole lives, with no outside support, keeping a roof over their head and their stomachs filled. For Yoohyun's sake, Yoojin has given up:

A complete education, with Yoojin having "dropped out of school to take care of his little brother", as mentioned in chapter 1.

A proper social life. In chapter 25, Yoojin says his friends in his early 20s were "middle-aged factory workers" instead of people his own age.

Hobbies. He says to Yerim and Myeongwoo in chapter 45 that one of his "few hobbies" is taking spam calls, but his character profile from the E-books volume 1 confirms it's his only hobby, and one that's now fading… which leaves him with zero personal interests. (The spam calling thing is almost certainly something that sprouted from loneliness in the years that the brothers were separated, by the way. After all, why would Yoojin waste time listening to some stranger on the phone talk to him about something he doesn’t care about? Most likely because there isn’t—wasn’t—really anyone else who’s willing to talk to him, anymore.)

The sole birthday present of "a 10,000 won bill to buy something tasty to have with his friends" he got from their parents, which "would be used for Han Yoohyun’s birthday. As [it was] every year", as mentioned in chapter 239, during Yoohyun’s flashback to childhood.

And Yoohyun, a helpless child, could only watch as Yoojin gave up all of that, to no real benefit of his own, just to focus all his attention and resources on supporting Yoohyun.

By the time he was in middle school, Yoohyun was already talking about becoming a doctor since it'd be "advantageous in a lot of aspects"; he says he "just wanted to make it so you [Yoojin] could live comfortably" (chapter 258). Yoojin wouldn't have to be the sole earner, and would've been able to pursue his own happiness as well as Yoohyun's. Yoohyun wants very badly for Yoojin to not have to worry about him anymore. It makes sense that that sentiment would remain even after he Awakened.

#2: Yoohyun's Awakening

And boy what an Awakening it was! Straight from a random orphaned kid with zero social life and decent grades to one of the world's most desirable and dangerous individuals, basically overnight. He has none of the social sway that the rich and well-connected Sung Hyunjae or the professional athletes Moon Hyuna and Choi Sukwon do, and he refuses to get the help of big corporations like Choi Sukwon and Bak Mingyu (and Yoon Kyeongsoo? I forget if Soodam was also a corp-backed guild). So he's got no power, but he's also declared his intent to create a guild, and that combined with his nature as a born S-rank makes people perceive him as a threat. Maybe not so much in the early days, when people think he's just an arrogant, stupid kid who's going to crash and burn, but definitely more so as time passed, which Sung Hyunjae confirms in chapter 152:

“Wasn’t [Han Yoohyun] at the age where one faces a lot of problems, starting out living alone?” […] “He wasn’t even alone, strictly speaking. I heard Team Head Seok and the others joined Haeyeon early on.” I heard that Seok Simyeong had visited Yoohyun-ie even before Haeyeon was founded. He was still annoying, but I had to give him his share of the credit for Haeyeon. Sung Hyunjae gave a small nod at my words. “Even so, it isn’t easy for a latecomer to find his place.” “That’s… You’re right.” “For the first year or so, it was easier. Since most of them said Haeyeon wouldn’t be able to properly establish itself.” Sung Hyunjae also said he hadn’t been interested in Haeyeon—in Yoohyun-ie—at the time, either. “The problem arose when it started to become a major guild.”

The second the initial "LOL, this has got to be a joke, right?" blinders come off, he's at risk. And he would've known that this would happen right from the start—Yoohyun's smart enough that he would've understood the lack of attacks was just because they didn't see him as a real threat yet.

So, again: a latecomer on the scene with no power and no experience to his name, and seen as a threat to deal with. No social connections means he has no one to rely on to help him with Yoojin's protection: it's up to him alone. And even S-ranks have to eat and sleep and use the bathroom and do half a dozen other things that would pull him away from Yoojin's side, not to mention the all-important requirement of raiding dungeons, which Yoohyun himself admits in chapter 71 was one of his main concerns:

“Once I start a raid on an S-rank dungeon, I’ll be gone for a week […]. Me… avoiding you… was also largely due to the S-rank dungeon raid time. Since, obviously, I can’t look after you once I go into the dungeon.”

So Yoohyun himself can't just stay by Yoojin's side as his bodyguard 24/7. He'd have to leave him unattended for, at minimum, whole weeks. Which means he doesn't have a reliable, sure way to keep his hyung safe.

#3: Cutting off Yoojin, and the risks to an S-rank's family

And that's not even mentioning his own safety. What happens when Yoohyun's hurt and can't help with guarding Yoojin? And he will be hurt, either by dungeon raids or other people. If you don't think that second one is a concern, as early as chapter 6, when Yoojin and Yoohyun are having their first meal together, Yoojin asks about Yoohyun's ability to cook, and he says he taught himself:

“I’ve got items for detoxification and de-cursing, now, but I didn’t have them before. So making my own food felt safer. Even now, when I enter dungeons, I bring dried rations I made myself. Since it’s most dangerous inside dungeons.” “…Detoxification? De-cursing?” What was I hearing right now? As in, there were bastards who’d poison and curse his food, so he had to make it himself… that sort of thing?

Yoohyun himself, a strong, healthy S-rank with a good constitution and one hell of a temper, was at risk of being poisoned and cursed through something as everyday as food. You said that normally, no one would dare attack the family of an S-rank—but if people are willing to attack the S-rank himself, knowing that he'll kill them for sure if it fails and he learns they're behind it, then what's stopping them from attacking the S-rank's family?

There's two points you could argue:

Yoohyun says in the chapter 6 conversation that "It’s a major crime for an Awakened person to target an Unawakened person, so I made them think it wasn’t worth it to risk going after you." But that'd only last for the 3 years up until Yoojin Awakened, and honestly, there's a real risk that anyone targeting Yoojin before that time would just be rich or socially connected enough that they could make the charges go away.

The other argument that if they attack an S-rank's beloved family and that fails, now the S-rank is coming after them with a vengeance, and he's not even suffering from the aftermath of poisoning or a curse to weaken him in the slightest, so that might scare them off. But, like… people do stupid things when they're desperate. In that kidnapping where Yoojin met the Krecke Blackie (chapters 46–49), sure, Yoojin had his own special skills that made him valuable, but he also had five major guilds and the Association all dedicated to his protection. That's several times the protection a single S-rank could offer, and some idiots who weren't even in a desperate situation still tried to go after him for benefits similar to what you'd get from having leverage over an S-rank. So I really don't think anything would stop people from threatening Yoojin. If anything, the combined facts of Yoohyun starting out from a weak position, Yoohyun obviously caring about Yoojin, and Yoojin being so much weaker than Yoohyun would make that the best option by far, if you wanted to hurt Yoohyun. After all, it’s not like Unawakened F-rank Yoojin can fight back himself, and again, Yoohyun isn’t going to fight you if it would risk Yoojin’s life.

So, Yoohyun goes "if I distance myself from hyung and make people think it WON'T hurt me for him to be hurt, then people have no reason to target him!" and follows through. I do think this was a stupid move on his part, even if he intended to explain it all to Yoojin eventually, because by not letting him in on the secret right from the start, he guaranteed that Yoojin would be hurt and upset by his sole remaining family member seemingly abandoning him for better prospects. Which leads Yoojin to start making his own stupid moves, which snowballs into a series of bad decisions on both their parts, and so on… but we'll get to that in a minute. The problem, I think, is that this plan could've worked, if only Yoohyun had told Yoojin at the start, so that Yoojin knew not to draw attention to himself. Maybe they could've done regular calls on burner phones or something, to stay in touch, and they'd have been happier that way.

Unfortunately that didn't happen. Why? Because, as Yoohyun states in that same conversation in chapter 6, he "didn’t want to burden" Yoojin. Yoohyun's desire to protect Yoojin is not just physical, but also mental/emotional—he doesn't want Yoojin to know that Yoohyun's going through all this trouble of leaving home and dealing with threats to his life and making big decisions, because he doesn't want Yoojin to worry.

[EDIT: And actually, thinking back over this, do you realize—Yoojin always talks about how Yoohyun was a delight of a child to raise, never complaining, never throwing tantrums, wonderfully behaved and always doing as he was told. Enough so that Moon Hyuna has to tell him, explicitly, in Chapter 43, that that’s not normal, in those exact words:

“He was a good younger brother who never needed to be scolded. Ever since he was little, he listened well and didn’t worry me…….” “You said you were the one to raise him, right? After you lost your parents early. That’s not normal.” She clicked her tongue and continued. “A good, obedient little brother from a poor family without parents. That sort of thing doesn’t even appear in children’s fairy tales these days. Because it’s not realistic.” “I mean, to go that far—” “Kids are kids. They get frustrated and angry if there’s something lacking, they make trouble to get attention, they compare themselves with others, and beyond begging their parents to buy them something they want, they might even resent them. Parents might still think their kids are cute, but brothers? To them, they’re just enemy bastards; I also have a younger sibling, so I know. Of course, there are brothers and sisters who get along. In peaceful households where their parents take good care of them. Even then, it’s not like they never fight. Younger brothers in particular are a type that need to be put in their place; older siblings the world across would probably agree.”

This suggests that Yoohyun and Yoojin have never, ever, EVER experienced conflict on major life decisions. Not once have they argued about Yoohyun making choices that Yoojin wouldn’t like. Which means Yoohyun approached cutting off Yoojin with a very particular mindset, and I have some guesses as to what exactly that mindset was. Do you think he hoped Yoojin would understand that his perennially well-behaved brother would have some reason for leaving home? Do you think he just… didn’t know how to approach telling Yoojin about his choice, knowing it’d upset him so much, so he simply didn’t and hoped for the best? Or was it something else entirely?

Either way: Yoohyun absolutely did not know what would come of this choice. He definitely did not expect just how hard it would be on Yoojin. At the time, he was probably just wanting to spare Yoojin the heartache of their first major argument about Yoohyun’s life choices.] And it's that very desire to not bother him with the knowledge of how much Yoohyun's suffering that eventually makes things go wrong and both of them suffer for it.

#4: Yoohyun's strategy failing

What do we know about Yoohyun's plan going wrong? We know that Yoohyun intended to wipe out his enemies before even thinking about allowing Yoojin into danger. In that conversation in chapter 6, he tells Yoojin to wait "just 1 year" and to basically live in confinement, locked up safe inside Haeyeon, until Yoohyun's done. Combined with the 3 years since the dungeons appearing and Yoohyun Awakening, that means he thought it'd take maybe 4 years in total, with hurrying at the end to accommodate Yoojin already being involved with him again. Yoojin says in narration that pre-regression, it took him 3 years instead of the 1 he's proposing, which puts us at a total of 6 years minimum before Yoohyun could even think about reuniting with Yoojin.

But, of course, a lot can and did happen in those 6 years. Within the first 3, the brothers' relationship had deteriorated enough that Yoojin blocked Yoohyun's number, as mentioned in chapter 32 by Yoohyun to Yoojin during novice Hunter training:

“You got angry and told me not to call, remember? You even blocked my number.”

Why was Yoojin angry? See chapter 158, when Yoohyun was temporarily amnesiac due to Jellyfish's fog:

“I’m certain I told you not to come near me.” …I remembered. When I’d heard that, I’d blocked Yoohyun’s number, telling him not to call me back.

Yoohyun's repeated refusal to tell Yoojin about his plans, just telling him they had to stay apart, only worsened their relationship. And while Yoohyun did attempt to reach out and help Yoojin in ways such as sending him money to cover living expenses (probably hoping to repair their rapidly deteriorating relationship), that also made it worse, with Yoojin rejecting all of those attempts. As he explains in chapter 274, during the flashbacks induced by Jellyfish in their fight:

Gritting my teeth, I sent back the money Yoohyun-ie sent me without even laying a finger on it. To the me of that time, it was horrible money that my young brother had as good as traded his life for. Yoohyun-ie wanted me to accept living expenses and stay safe, but I believed my brother was being sent to his own death and could never accept it.

It isn't like Yoohyun didn't try to reach out. He did. The problem was that all of his attempts were undercut by his continued refusal to tell Yoojin why he had distanced himself, such that all those attempts at staying in touch only rubbed salt in the wound of being abandoned. And as early as 3 years in, by his own admission in chapter 6, Yoohyun starts to think that things have gotten so bad that even if he tries to confess everything now, Yoojin might not "be understanding". He might not be willing to let go of his hurt and resentment to reconcile with him.

So should he stop reaching out, then? Surely there's still hope that they can reconcile in the future. Someday, maybe, when Yoohyun's sure he can protect Yoojin, even if Yoojin doesn't want to be with/near him.

#5: Learning about the world ending

Only, there's a deadline imposed by the end of the world, which Yoohyun learns about from filial duty addict Diarma. Part of the contract with the filial duty addicts, as Sung Hyunjae explains in chapter 102, is not interfering with said end of the world. Actually, the contractors have to give "their word that they’ll eliminate obstacles" i.e. other people fighting against the end of the world, so Yoohyun can't do anything about this deadline. This gives him a limited amount of time in which he can "eventually" reconcile with Yoojin.

So, as you ask, Anon, why not spend that limited time with his brother? Well, just because there's an end of the world approaching—which Yoohyun can't even talk about! L-rank contract, remember—doesn't mean that Yoojin is 🌟magically🌟 going to get any less mad about Yoohyun abandoning him for several years than before. Yoohyun still doesn't want to explain, so that argument is absolutely not getting resolved.

Even if he tries to explain vaguely that there's some threat and that he'd like Yoojin to live with him or at least accept his offers of protection and security, what happens if Yoojin refuses? Yoohyun clearly isn't willing to violate Yoojin's desires too far, since the most certain way to keep him safe would be to lock him up in a vault somewhere inside Haeyeon and never let anyone else see him, but that would trample all over his free will and happiness, not to mention it'd ruin Yoohyun's "live normally and happily with hyung" goals. So he'll have to let Yoojin stay out in the world, while all of Yoohyun's rivals and enemies are still out there, watching the Haeyeon Guild Leader reach out to his brother and wondering if they've reconciled. At that point, it doesn't matter if they actually have made up or not. If someone even suspects that Yoojin is close to Yoohyun, then they'll target him on the off-chance that it's true. And if Yoojin did refuse Yoohyun's offers, which he's almost certain to, then he's defenseless against whatever attacks come. And they will come. In chapter 6, Yoohyun admitted that a single visit to Haeyeon Guild by Yoojin, willing or unwilling, would be enough to get attention on him:

“But if I directly give orders for you to be brought in and allowed to live within Haeyeon Guild, my enemies will start to actively target you. Even with you just being here right now, I’m sure they’ll already have started keeping an eye on you.”

Think of it from Yoohyun's enemies' perspective. If Yoohyun cares about Yoojin, attacking Yoojin gives you leverage over Yoohyun. If Yoohyun doesn't care about Yoojin, then he won't care if you're attacking Yoojin, so you'll face no retaliation from him. Yoohyun's enemies have nothing to lose from this, while Yoohyun has everything to lose. So, in this situation, it'd be better to take the least risky path: just don't engage with Yoojin at all.

And, also, even if he'd decided to take that risk, there's a different one when it comes to actually figuring out a system to guard Yoojin. This point is more speculation, but I do think Yoohyun might have struggled with deciding when he'd done enough for Yoojin's protection. Because the reality is that Yoojin was never, ever going to be 100% safe from all dangers ever. Again, the vault method is the only way Yoohyun could achieve that. Yoohyun could've put together any amount of high-rank Hunters as Yoojin's exclusive security detail, and he'd still have to leave him alone with these potentially corruptible strangers for a full week at a time during every S-rank dungeon raid. I suspect there was a real risk of Yoohyun continuously going "I just need to get a bit stronger and a bit more established" indefinitely, without ever reaching a point where he was actually satisfied. (Which, if this was indeed a risk in canon, would be overridden in the post-regression timeline by Yoojin's keyword usage making Yoohyun's desire to live with him again and uncertainty about Yoojin's response win out over the urge to keep obsessing over safeguards.)

#6: What counts as a "real" threat

When it comes to Yoohyun's need to defend Yoojin against threats, there's also an important aspect you need to consider, which is: what threats? You see, the worlds of low-rank and high-rank Hunters are very different, to the point where Yoohyun seems to completely overlook some aspects of what Yoojin's used to dealing with, while Yoojin explicitly notes on multiple occasions that he didn't even realize Yoohyun faced certain dangers. As always, we come back to the poisoning attempts mentioned in chapter 6, the first time Yoojin realizes Yoohyun was suffering his own ordeals. This sort of sneaky threat gets reiterated in chapter 11, after Yoojin's trip to the Hunter Mall, when Yoohyun tells him he can't even take a simple drink from any public vendor because it might be poisoned (not something that'd work on Yoohyun himself, but it certainly would on those lower-ranked people around him who he cares about). No, not even in a government-sponsored location like the Association, because even these locations are filled with other guilds' spies and informants. Yoojin's internal response is essentially "what sort of underhanded bullshit is this", and out loud he questions Yoohyun about it:

“But would they do that sort of thing in none other than the Association? If they get caught, the backlash will be huge.” And if Awakened people couldn’t trust the Association, it’d end up hurting the guilds, too. “Of course they wouldn’t make trouble inside the Association. But it’s possible to have their target sent away in an ambulance or police car.” “…And then that ambulance or police car goes missing?” “You’re getting it.”

And Yoojin literally thinks, not a paragraph later, that this is maybe too much even for him:

Somehow, the further things went, the more I felt like I should stop being involved with this brat Yoohyun-ie and go off to live on my own.

Better the dangers you know than the ones you don't, but in Yoojin's words.

Everyone in the high-rank sphere is, well, high-rank. Strong and resilient even when they don't have defensive skills, to say nothing of when they do. They face threats, yes, Real Threats that pose danger to them and risk their safety and status, including threats from other people—Song Taewon mentions to Yoojin in chapter 83 that he's investigated Yoohyun for murder multiple times a year—but because they're so strong, those threats come in the form of dungeon monsters or social attacks, not actual physical harm. Especially not physical harm from other people; like, chapter 75 mentions there's laws against S-rank Hunters going into dungeons together for fear that they might hurt or kill each other, so unless they encounter each other in a dungeon break region where combat is expected (or pick fights with Chief Song, an S-rank duty-bound to fight other S-ranks), they're never really going to encounter personal threats from other Hunters.

Take all that through the lens of protecting Yoojin: he's just some guy, he's not involved in the social/political Hunter Hunger Games, so he's probably fine on that front, right? And otherwise, Yoohyun just needs to protect him from dungeons (keep Yoojin out of them when possible, prevent breaks in his area), and maybe just some general watching out for Yoojin getting himself into anything risky, since he's so weak as an F-rank. That's all the threats Yoohyun sees on a daily basis, so that's probably it, right?

Wrong. Low-rank Hunters have their own set of threats they face, and while a part of that is dungeons and monsters, a very large part of that is also just… being easy to kill, in a community of people very ready to kill. Low-rank Hunters murder each other a hell of a lot more than high-rank Hunters get to even hurt, let alone kill, each other. Think about how easily the knowledge of dungeons being good body disposal spots comes to Yoojin (chapter 19, when threatening Yerim's uncle). Think about the way Yoojin talks about being pressured into slave contracts and miner guilds, and how common it seems to be for low-rank Hunters to be maimed and disabled and left in the lurch (chapters 21 and 22, saving Yoo Myeongwoo from Hope Resources Guild). Think about chapter 49, where Yoohyun claims there's strong camaraderie among high-rank Hunters, and Yoojin responds with this:

Comradeship, huh. There was no such concept in low-rank Hunter teams. Of course, it wasn’t like there were no good people around. The problem was that they all died before long. There were fixed low-rank teams united through trust and friendship, but it was very rare that they lasted. With how strongly they banded together, if one of them died, they couldn’t endure the shock and would fall apart; and even if that didn’t happen, if they were doing well for themselves, they’d be attacked from the outside by the many Hunters who’d find them unpleasant. But a high-rank dungeon raiding team that suffered few such accidents could form a sense of comradeship and keep staying together.

Low-rank Hunters will get killed by monsters, or survive only to get killed by the loss of their teams, or find good teams only to get killed by other jealous low-ranks, or (in Yoojin's experience) survive multiple team-wide killings only to get ostracized and distrusted for being suspiciously good at surviving (almost like you're the one setting up your teams to fail! really makes you wonder, doesn't it?), or, or, or…

High-rank Hunters just… survive. That's it.

Of course Yoohyun wouldn't know to protect Yoojin from these threats. He's never faced them. To him, fighting other people is a fun, challenging pastime, where no one being allowed to kill each other is an unspoken rule that goes implicitly understood. He wouldn't realize how it was very much not fun for Yoojin; maybe he'd know it intellectually, but I don't think he'd understand, not without getting up close and personal to see Yoojin struggle with it, which he can't do himself. If he tries to send someone to spy on or just generally help out his brother, Yoojin's primed by his experiences to distrust the people around him, so spies won't get anything out of him, and any strong Hunter handpicked by Yoohyun to help his hyung might simply be unable to gain Yoojin's trust. (Picking out a whole team of strong Hunters? Even if Yoojin trusts them, they'd probably end up victimized by jealous Hunters. Rinse and repeat.) You must also take into account that Yoojin's been made enough of a target by society that he's hiding every weakness someone could potentially exploit. Hell, if he's hiding well enough, you might think he's doing just fine.

And in the time period where it would be blatantly obvious that Yoojin was not fine, that early period right when he Awakened and turned into society's scapegoat overnight? That was when Yoohyun and Haeyeon were also being targeted, and wouldn't have been able to spare the kind of attention and help Yoojin would've needed, not with all the scrutiny they were all being subjected to. Actually, when Yoojin's reminiscing about these times in chapter 59, he hypothesizes it might've been Yoohyun's rivals themselves who were behind the scapegoating:

At that time, it would’ve been hard for that guy to look out for me. Public opinion wasn’t good in many ways, and there were too many scrutinizing eyes for him to secretly look after me. Now that I thought about it, I wondered if there wasn’t some sort of operation targeting me. The response was too excessive to have simply been the work of a few trash journalists. It was a matter that could be packaged excitingly, I was an F-rank which made me easy to use, and at that time, it could drag down Haeyeon Guild in the public opinion. Whether it was the government, the Association, or rival guilds, they’d have been fools not to use me.

If it was Yoohyun's rivals behind it, then by fighting on the Haeyeon front, Yoohyun might actually have been keeping Yoojin safe, too. How do we know he didn't actually mitigate the suffering to some degree? We haven't heard from Yoohyun about his side of things during this time, so we don't have a definite answer one way or another.

Certainly, Seok Simyeong didn't help at all by making a public statement denouncing Yoojin, especially not when it was so bad Yoojin admits to almost being suicidal over it (chapter 19)! But, well, it was a busy time. We don't know whether Yoohyun was consulted on that one, or if it was something they rushed in order to get ahead of the situation. It might also be that Yoohyun was consulted and made the choice that they'd publicly denounce Yoojin but privately offer him support, only for Yoojin to reject it as he did before with the money Yoohyun sent. Yoojin's done this before, where he conveniently doesn't mention a detail about a scenario until it becomes immediately relevant!

I cannot emphasize enough that we don't have Yoohyun's perspective on this. We don't know what he was doing or not doing to help. But we know, from his love for Yoojin, from his desperate desire to keep him safe at all costs, that he must've been doing something. Was that something effective? Was it useful to Yoojin's immediate life? Who knows. But he was trying.

#7: Banning Yoojin from dungeons

…Keyword being trying. Because, uh. To be honest, how well do you think any direct attempts at "helping" went over? The very first moment that Yoojin regresses to is when Yoohyun got him out of a meeting with an Awakening broker. And Yoojin himself says that ended so badly that "after listening to Yoohyun-ie��s nagging, I’d become furious and stormed off, shouting that I could take care of myself and to quit bothering me" (chapter 5). So if Yoohyun tries to openly keep Yoojin out of danger, then Yoojin is going to have a screaming fit of anger at his life being controlled by someone who apparently isn't even interested in being in it.

And that's before Yoojin Awakened. Once he had an actual, legal, government-assigned license saying he could go into dungeons? Yoohyun had zero standing. Zero chance he was ever going to be able to stop him from going into dungeons, short of breaking down and crying and begging for him to not do it, which (to successfully convince Yoojin he wasn't just putting on a show or trying to guilt trip him) would also require Yoohyun to admit he still cared about Yoojin and reveal his 3- uh, 4- I mean, 5- 6(!!)-Year Master Plan To Keeping Hyung Safe Forever And Ever.

Yeah. Never gonna happen.

And even that one (1) attempt at keeping Yoojin away from dungeons and Hunters and everything related could've gone really badly, because as Yoohyun himself admits in their chapter 6 conversation, his enemies will "already have started keeping an eye on you [Yoojin]". Just from one single show of apparent concern for Yoojin's wellbeing! Can you imagine what would've happened if Yoohyun kept stopping Yoojin every time he tried to go into a dungeon? Setting Yoojin's own frustration and anger aside, can you picture the kind of attention that would've gotten Yoojin? No, this was one battle Yoohyun had to lose in order to win the overall war.

Anon, you mention providing "new options for Yoojin to stop going to dungeons". Okay, sure, we're starting with Yoojin being society's black sheep and probably rejected out of hand from most positions he applies to, and Yoohyun's only leverage in society being in dungeon- and Hunter-related fields. What options would he have provided for Yoojin? A dungeon- or Hunter-related job, probably at Haeyeon or one of its affiliates? That's precisely what we're trying to avoid, and also visible enough that Yoohyun might as well not have even fucking bothered with the 6-Year Master Plan etc. etc. Okay, so then something at one of Haeyeon's sponsors-? Except Haeyeon famously doesn't have backers, and any connections they have through business deals will be glaringly obvious to Yoohyun's rivals if leveraged. Oh, Han Yoojin, the man who no one wants to hire, got a job at a company whose products Han Yoohyun sponsored just a while ago! Absolutely no one is wondering how this could've happened. Also, funny how Han Yoohyun's helping Han Yoojin find work, it's almost like he cares about him… (And so the end begins.)

Remember, all of Yoohyun's efforts at separating himself from Yoojin require actually being separate from Yoojin and the choices he makes. Yoojin's life is—unfortunately enough for Yoohyun—his own to live… and his own to ruin.

#8: The transcendent threat

And all of that—every single one of these environmental factors that make it so Yoohyun has a billion and one concerns to consider before he can so much as talk to Yoojin—all of that comes before we take into account one more fact:

God Hates Caregivers Personally.

Or, in a non-joking manner, and in the fashion Yoohyun might have learned about it from Diarma, as is strongly suggested in the virtual reality dungeon arc during chapter 246:

There are beings out there, outside your world, stronger than anything you know, and this is acknowledging the fact that you are among the strongest existences humankind will ever produce. These beings rule your entire world, are the children of the very power that created the dungeons terrorizing your planet, are themselves so powerful that they can predict dungeons and manipulate the system in their favor, that they can manipulate the circumstances of individual humans as long as they're inside dungeons. In allying with any one of their number, you make an enemy out of half of the entire population of these transcendental existences. You have already made an enemy of them. And these people, these all-powerful creatures, who you've painted yourself a rival of? These same people have a known track record of killing the loved ones of people like you.

Your brother goes into dungeons every week as part of his job. He's already at immense risk. If you go near him, if you make it seem even slightly like you're interested in him personally, you make him an out-and-out target for these transcendents, and they'll smite him. He dies, and you die, and it's game over.

Option one: You can grow to their level, meet them with equal strength, certainly, but will you get the time to grow that far before they kill your brother? Is his natural lifespan even long enough that he'd survive the time it took for your growth? He dies. You die. Game over.

Option two: Don't pose a threat. It's too late for you to never get on their radar in the first place, but if you can keep from seeming any more dangerous, maybe they won't give him any attention. Secure a favor that will let you help him when he needs it, at most, but otherwise never use your transcendent connections to your own advantage.

Option two, taken to its conclusion: If you die before your brother does—if you die calling in that favor and saving his life—you never have to see him be killed.

(Option two, on the flip side: You will not expect it to be your own ally who set the stage for your loved one to be killed.)

So, basically, every single concern Yoohyun's had about protecting his brother that made him distance himself and not tell him anything so far? All of that is taken and cranked up to difficulty level Maximum. "If I show interest in hyung, one of my rivals or enemies might choose to hurt or kill him!" The transcendents WILL kill him with NO known incentive. Yoohyun might assume it's because he poses a threat to their side, but he can't be absolutely certain that's it. In fact, he doesn't know anything about this opposing transcendent faction, since he was blocked from contacting them by the very fact of having chosen a side in the first place, as Water Droplet explains when discussing the born S-ranks in chapter 106:

“We don’t know for sure either. The filial duty addicts contacted them first, so their information is obscured. We only know that there are five, and about the ones that are in contact with you.”

And while Yoohyun-as-Alpha knows the reasons behind the immoral people killing Caregivers—namely, that they want to remove distractions for S-ranks, so that they focus on combating dungeons and monsters—if Diarma had told Yoohyun about this, and if he'd thought to apply the bare minimum of intelligence to his delivery (a disclaimer that must be made, with this transcendent in particular), I really don't think he would've told him why. No, he would've wanted the immoral people to seem like a dangerous threat, so he would just have said that they might kill Yoohyun's family, without giving him their reasoning.

Which means Yoohyun knew nothing about the immoral people's motives, nothing about their goals, nothing about what they'd see as aggression. Which meant, hypothetically, that any and every action he took could trigger them to smoothly and efficiently eliminate the only person he loved in all the world. It would be so easy, too; Yoojin's entering their turf multiple times a month as part of his daily job, a fact which we've already established Yoohyun couldn't do anything about. The only thing he knew for sure is that they hadn't killed Yoojin so far.

Remember what I said before, about the known path being safer? Because you know the dangers you'll face on it? Yoohyun knows doing what he's doing right now is keeping Yoojin alive. He can't control a single other thing outside of that. And the danger posed by not doing what he's doing just got shifted to a level he is not prepared on any level to respond to. Before, he might've thought Yoojin was safe at least inside dungeons with his chosen teams; from his perspective, "dungeons with only guild members inside are actually safer than the outside world" (chapter 134), while the outside world was more of a risk because of all of Yoohyun's enemies. But now? There is danger all the time and in every location Yoojin goes, even those outside of this world, on an insane, unrivaled level. He is never, never safe, and any single unexpected action Yoohyun takes puts that at risk. If doing anything at all is dangerous, then it's better to do nothing.

So, yeah, that's the crux of it, isn't it. Yoohyun needs to protect Yoojin every day, every single time. Everything else in the whole world only needs to kill Yoojin once. In such a situation, how would Yoohyun ever dare to risk making either of them vulnerable?

…The end! I hope that this explanation, long as it is, has given you at least some additional insight into Why Yoohyun Did All That, and helped serve as a reminder of just how little we actually know about Yoohyun's perspective of the events pre-regression.

By the way, this entire post is pulling only from information we get up to chapter 272; there’s more information revealed up to chapter 350—actually, even just in the next few chapters after that, up to 275—that sheds more light on Yoohyun’s decision-making process in the pre-regression timeline. Maybe I’ll come back and post a part 2 to this analysis someday using the additional information we get as time goes on, but right now, this much will have to be enough.

In any case—thanks for reading this far. And of course, as promised, here's the poll!

[jlan22]

ok look, this has been scratching my brain the past few days and i had to let it out, fair warning though it's not THAT shocking it just fascinates me and i was going insane as the damn linebeck stan i am

midway through this blog i just checked the zelda wiki and hyrule historia again and found out 100 years passed since then, so just a small warning this is all BEFORE i found out about the 100 year gap between the games, and theory's rather going with the more "logical" 70-80 years

This is basically related to Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks, and specifically Linebeck himself. Based on some rambles of mine one random night at 4 am, with no prior research but facts from Hyrule Historia, and autism.

In Spirit Tracks, you come across Linebeck III, who looks very similar to Linebeck himself from Phantom Hourglass. He gives you a letter from his grandpa, which is signed "Linebeck Senior". Initially I thought; "Is his grandpa Linebeck's father? Is Linebeck this guy's dad, then?" But turns out I was wrong.

I was reading Hyrule Historia the other day (i have the french version, hence the french screenshot underneath) and it says that Linebeck III is not only Linebeck's descendant as mentioned in-game but also his grandson. Therefore, Linebeck Senior is in fact the guy we all know (and love) from Phantom Hourglass.

don't worry, i got you covered, put a translation at the top as well

But then I was confused. I asked myself; "Wait, how did Linebeck ALREADY have a grandson???"

Putting Linebeck aside, if we pay close attention to Niko, the silly hehe pirate from Tetra's crew who appeared since Wind Waker, we notice that he's aged up, from possibly a child/teen to a grandpa. I'd like to pretend Niko's around 14-15 during TWW and PH.

So if we think about it, a lot of time has passed since the events of Phantom Hourglass, let's say 70-80 years. we love you grandpa niko

Anyway, going back to Linebeck, let's say he's in his 40s, and so is Linebeck III (maybe younger, he seems like it), and if we still say that the average human life expectancy is 80 years, that means Linebeck III is born when his father's the same age, being 30-40 years old.

If we take this same pattern with Linebeck (Senior) and his child (Linebeck II), that means...

Linebeck's a father during the events of Phantom Hourglass???

i'm honestly shook over this fact idk why. it's just so funny to me to think of linebeck as a dad, seeing his personality and the way he acts and so on. i just always see him as some bitchless pathetic stinky garbage man LMAO

With whom did he even have this child? Jolene? Who knows?

Personally, I just think it's funny to think of Jolene's being after Linebeck's ass because of that child he possibly abandoned. But that's not the canon reason why she's after him, that being just pure revenge.

honestly i'd like to think of it like that it's just hilarious like "LINEBECK FOR FUCKS SAKE WHERES THE CHILD SUPPORT"

However, if we delve into the more canon timeline, being ST happening 100 years after PH, that would mean that Linebeck possibly had his child after finding land, by the end of PH. It's either that, or he could just be much older than I thought (like, maybe 60?) and he's already had his child.

and niko's old as fuck and somehow still thriving

wild

thanks for listening to my rambles baibaiii

[thana-topsy]

Ok I gotta come out and say it. I envy you. Like, to a painful extent. The amount of people you get interested in your characters, how you're incredibly skilled in both visual art AND writing, how readers your fics have. I absolutely adore your work, but seeing it fills me with so much envy it's honestly ridiculous.

Did you deal with similar feelings towards other creators when you started writing fic by any chance? If so, how did you deal with those feelings? I feel genuinely stuck feeling worthless about my fics. I'm not as verbose with my language despite over 10 years of writing under my belt and it seems as though my plots don't interest people as much either. So I feel like there's just nothing of worth about any of my work.

I know that this is a lot to dump on you, but I felt like I would burst keeping this all in. Much love to you and I hope you have a wonderful New Year!

Hey there my friend, I've been sitting with this all day trying to decide how I want to answer you. I genuinely appreciate your honesty, because I know this is a familiar feeling for a lot of people, myself included.

I remember when I first rejoined Tumblr in early 2019, desperately trying to find anyone to talk to about TES, I would look at all these blogs gettings asks about their OCs like they were little celebrities and feel envy and longing. Now, when these feelings start to bubble up, I force myself to take a break from sharing my work, be it art or writing, if only to remind myself why I'm creating it and who I'm creating it for: myself. I know it sounds cheesy, and I probably sound like a broken record, but genuinely I just do this because it's bursting out of my skull. But I won't lie and say the engagement and the support doesn't have a big impact on my motivation. I love sharing with people and getting an enthusiastic response.

I think something people might not realize, or maybe they just forget, is that I used to write a lot of smut. Like...a lot of smut. (I still do). Hahaha and it doesn't get a lot of comments or engagement, but it does draw a lot of eyes. Once my smut stories started taking on heavier plotlines, a comment I'd get a lot was "came for the porn, stayed for the plot." And I wasn't writing smut because I thought it would get me an audience, I was just horny LMAO. But it encouraged me to branch out and experiment with the types of stories I was telling.

Anyways, art is another big part of it, yes. But that also didn't get a lot of engagement in the beginning, and my skills were rusty as hell. I was getting maybe 15 notes on here, 30 likes on instagram. But that didn't really matter to me, I was just insane with inspiration. I'd reach out to people and ask to do art trades, got ghosted a lot, made some good friends, (some people who are still my good friends to this day!). But it took a lot of risks, and I made a lot of accidental enemies and learned a lot of hard lessons. But having visuals to go with the stories I'm writing is like advertisement in its own way. I'm just lucky enough to hyperfixate on this shit like it's my lifeblood. I've always obsessively drawn my favorite characters, ever since I was a wee bab. Long before social media was a factor or the words "content creator" even existed.

And I think that's what it all comes back to. Above all else, do what you do with unbridled joy. If someone else finds joy alongside you, all the better! Even if it's just one person. Take risks, make friends, make enemies, draw that blorbo unapologetically and with wild abandon. Love what you create, even when it's bad. Even when it makes you cringe years later, don't delete it. Even when people try to find every reason to hate what you do and who you are. Don't stop.

Every act of creation is bringing something into the world that didn't exist before you made it. And that alone gives it worth.

Happy New Year!

[strugglingatart]

Jr Year ep4

This is me live blogging bc I need to get thoughts out also would love fandom friends full spoilers bellow the cut just so no one accidentally reads anything they don’t want to this will be long

I have wanted most if not all of Zac's and Murph's shirts this season

I still have issues with the multiclass system but also no school thing has made the most sense in universe

I believe you and that's why I'm not saying anything is SUCH a trouble friend mood

"what's the drinking age?" "you have murdered SO many people"

BRENANS FACE WHEN KALINA SAYS I'M NOT BAD ANYMORE OH LORDS

the whole Kalina/Cassandra/Kristen scene is so nerve wrecking and interesting and once again I can talk so much about this topic and I know I have critized Kristen's approach but that's bc honestly I do have issue w it despite understanding it but it does make for an interesting arc and with this conversation it does seem like she believes in this domain of faith on the unknown. I will at some point talk more about from the point of someone who also left a culty religious thing but was still expected to perform similarly once out of it but my thoughts are still not the most organized

that being said I do not trust kalina and i do love cassandra

when you're in the dark I'm there holding your hand why am i crying

not kvx still being a thing lmao so Brennan

oh I just love how complicated but absolutely Bill Seacaster is the whole trust thing, the money going to the nemesees, there being a whole department, honestly that's a department I'd work for it's basically spy and gossip stuff

but also poor Fabian having to go through all this head ache stuff alone

watch Caperslolly Cattlekrush not be a direct nemesis but someone from her party be yes Fabian get that service!

I too keep thinking it is rat ccrushers no t grinders and will absolutely get it wrong

the gorthlax art is PERFECT

my school nurse did not have sweat pants but ok murph(i also absolutely am not from the us idk why i keep pointing out diferences)

they each will have a foil in my head so why just one owlbear contender? also is riz in the bloodrush team?

grinding for xp is so much weirder and terrible imo in this context also should be less effective bc like lbr experience is important like thinking on your feet etc like yes they are probably equal level and Brenan will play them well but they should absolutely not be as good as the bad kids at actual adventuring

I love how they all are so agro tho bc I get it and love the energy and I would absolutely be that mad

YES SOMEONE CALLED OUT THE HIPOCRISY

xp isn't bad if you at least still DO INTERESTING STUFF TO GET IT

if brenan makes them like grinding i will become as agro as the bad kids so far lol

gorthlax gave great advice, that being said i do hope they get a lil bit petty and end annoying grinders

nooo Gorgug (cries) I really want him to do well

listen I am so emo about gorgu's storyline like it's just no thoughts just feels and all of them

listen i don't do character builds but it does not sound to me like artificer and barbarian are THAT ill fitted, like yes the require different focus levels and types but they are also USED in different moments, nothing is stopping Gorgug from using his down time to come up with gadgets that work WITH his strenght and dex and rage and then use reckless abandon in battles. I think even th solar lasso is very much an example of that because it uses his strenghts, he's realing it in with atheltics checks iirc or how his shoes have jump like yes absolutely a challenge and not the most obvious but people are acting like it's impossible when it absolutely isn't

we love Corsica Jones

Riz helping Kristen <3

Brenan is absolutely having so much fun with Ayada's messages

Listen Fig does not need to go to warlock classes, no one in the school knows she is a warlock just do bard and barbarian and help your friend

also i get that procrastination girl

Please I want Fig and Gorgug to work on a song together and for us to get that scene so bad

Aelwynn is a whole entire mood

well that answers me: riz is not on bloodrush

I KNEW BRENNAN MADE THEM STUPID RATS TOO GOOD I HATE IT BUT I LOVE IT

wouldn't detect magic tell riz what enhancements she has? cause otherwise it's nnot THAT useful for spies (which is reason #1 the gadget exists)

oh brennan REALLY made people we will all hate

Yes Bucky I adore him

someone please go home with Fabian

ohhh Brennan put extra stakes at Fig just quitting/failling auegfort since she technically doesn't need it

oh warlock classes are night classes, kinda love that for Fig and also good for her being good at it

also looove the talk about exchanges and that

FIg could make an album out of pressure and expextations that woul be rad as hell

RAGH we love him

LISTEN Ragh should be like party guy, he was absolutely popular and is older and it takes stuff away from the bad kids to do

oh Fabian goes into it immediately we stan

Listen Ally is MASTER of weird ass energies and I love them for it

they truly are such dorks and somehow cool at the same time

I cannot tell if they don't know milkyriver's name or if they are benedict cumberbunching it and I love that

literally everything kalina says is so threatening

also the bad kids should count as followers of cassandra like they are not clerics sure but they ablsolutely belive in her... do only clerics/paladins count?

LISTEN BRENNAN WE DON'T NEED MORE PROBLEMS

oh the shard and red thing that was in one of the arts

oh I REALLY thought they were gonna split party this

I do hope the party still goes well

[liauditore]

tw dysphoria (i guess?), abandonment issues (it always when we talk about jimmy), just rambling about jimmy not being a toy but being dysphoric about it

(you can just delete it before reading if it could trigger you)

in my head all this "jimmy is a toyyy!!!" arc was not about haha toy story and let's ignore how they could know about it, okay, it's like how scott doesn't remember pearl and jimmy just OMG MY RANCHER, OMG SCAR, OH NO, GRIAN and yeah yeah yeah

you know that thing when everyone bulling person and calling them, for example, "monster" and they are like, well, a lot of people call me that, i should conform (megamind basically). that's something similar, everyone call jimmy a toy (which he's not) and he's starting to doubt if he's a human. everything joel did to him (or its all hallucinations or joel really can control it and make jimmy toy for some time) just making worth. jimmy wasn't a toy, was he? (in my headcanons sheriff jimmy it's cod jimmy that decided to try again but absolute opposite of what he was.)

and because of green also making hallucinations for him (i hope you knows green something like origin, you can find it something in romeos blog, i wrote about it a little), jimmy is really can't really say if he's not a toy. he doesn't want to belive it and we can see it in dialogues with scar, that jimmy refusing to be a toy, an action figure, everything besides who he really is.

i can imagine him, avoiding mirrors and reflective surfaces, so he won't see himself. i'm really inspired to write it all bc of cavetown dysphoric, it's so jimmy for me

it's been over a year now

i thought it was the end

but now i don't remember comfort

because what i am is what i'm not

i don't belong here, it's just hopeless

find me a way out

if you love me at all

don't let me hear what they say

cuz i can't stand it every day

i'm thinking that i should leave now

but i don't i think i'm coming back this time

it's killing my heart.

and scar was the only one who doesn't call jimmy a toy like 90% of their time together. jimmy knows that scar will leave, like his rancher left him, like emp1 scott left him alone with problem with cod father head and yeah yeah yeah....

i don't know, i just woke up and my brain wad like good morning, honey, it's time to make people suffer

- 🔥

angst?? for me??? 🥺🥺👉👈

HKDHKHLADH SCrEAMING,, putting thoughts under the cut cus i already know its gonna get Long but hkhlkfdhjk

OuGH i love this 😭😭😭 although the megamind comparison kinda sent me lmao

side note i am. into very disturbing and messed up themes so you'd have to try very, very hard to upset me. so go wild in my ask box lol (i do have a good chunk of ppl who just have 'minor' in their bios following me tho so i might not respond to smth if i feel like it's 'too far' or hide it under a cut but yeah)

^realising this sounds like a "i am very badass" thing but i swear i just think stuff is cool 😭😭😭

BUT ANYWAY ouhfhkl mind break and objectification my beloved. i love taking the toy bit in an angsty direction cus i'll be honest i never really found the humour in it but it's TASTY recontextualized.

Jimmy's got a lot of fight in him but I'm just thinking maybe one day it all becomes a bit too much and he just.. goes limp in his seat, eyes glazed over, motionless except for his chest rising and falling with each breath. Someone (maybe Scar, since we're doing Scaridarity) finds him and is like "Hey, what's wrong? You okay?" and gets no response.

Scar would probably be somewhat uninitiated on the whole toy thing and be puzzled but I'd think he scoops Jimmy up and takes him somewhere safe til he recovers. and when he finally gets up he has a bit of a panic attack about what is real.

[tsukidrama]

hi!

i came across your blog the other day and i wanted to tell you that you have a really incredible writing gift. your cottagecore has me hooked and i can't wait to find out what comes next.

would you be ok sharing any ideas you might have?

- 🪻

oh? interest in TRNT and a new anon? yes please! 🥺 i would be happy to share some ideas

y'know, i actually have almost the entire fic planned out. i haven't intentionally abandoned the story... about once or twice a month the document gets opened and i'll write a few paragraphs, though i know that's not much. i feel like i've been going through something weird for the past year or so. i don't really know how to explain it properly. i haven't written a damn thing in so long.

between low engagement, me being sick all the time, and life being stressful (mostly this), this fic just hasn't come together the way i hoped it would. The Road Not Taken is still massively important to me and somewhat of a personal magnum opus so, i'll finish it... but i do not know when.

ideas below. i wrote more than i thought, and it's gotten me really excited about the fic again! please let me know if there's anything specific you'd like me to go into detail about

alright firstly:

the next big thing is what i've been calling the intervention arc. obviously we have to address some of the heavier emotional issues that both Annie and the reader have. nothing can move forward until our main characters are communicating again! both with each other and with their support system.

vacation arc! i want to write more about what's left of the world post-Rumbling on a global scale. i also need a reason to get them away from the cottage for a decent chunk of time so i thought i'd have them explore a bit.

there will be a subplot about the cats who live around the cottage, just for funsies. i have a chapter title planned for it and everything lmao

there will be a pretty major division amongst the eldians later on about some of them wanting to go back and live on Paradis. to be completely honest, i haven't decided how i want that to resolve and who, if anyone, is going to leave. but we have definitely not heard the last about Paradis. some assorted thoughts elaborating on that, and how the ending could potentially play out either way:

i don't know i should give EVERYONE a happy ending or not. my initial plan was to write what i think the characters would actually do in this post-Rumbling scenario i've imagined (let's call this Ending 1), but over time i've started to change my mind and be like: i'm not the mangaka and that ain't my job, so i should write my story the way i want. aka FUCK isayama, everybody gets a steven universe-esque happy ending (we'll call this one Ending 2) even though it might not be totally consistent with the way characters are written in aot.

i'd love to hear people's opinions about either ending btw

the largest difference that giving everyone a happy ending would have, is whether or not i decide to include Historia. i really adore her and in theory i want to give her a better ending considering how tragic she is, but where she's left in the end of the manga puts her in direct opposition with the narrative and the "not my monkeys, not my circus" attitude that the narrator feels so strongly about 😖 it would make me too sad to include Hisu at all if she's on the wrong side of things.

I want everyone to move away from all the politicking. they really don't have any business doing all o' that in my opinion... they're all early 20s AND child soldiers so like. please rest guys, you can be done with the whole saving the world thing...

after all, the idea of stepping away from the alliance and NOT continuing to involve themselves in global affairs IS the metaphorical road not taken

i do know how i want the fic to end in terms of Annie and reader, and it will be good. i don't wanna oversell it or hype it too much and then have it be underwhelming... but i'm hoping that their love story plays out in a way that people will call beautiful.

if i decide to go with Ending 1 then it will very much be a bittersweet narrative about how people naturally grow apart over time but everywhere you look there will be new sources of happiness and fulfillment etc.

Ending 2 would be much more idealistic. probably a bit unrealistic but it will give the characters ending that would make them happy and make us happy. true fix it fic style.

i think either would be cathartic for me to write in different ways so i really don't know where i want this to go yet. probably gonna wing it and see what feels right chapter by chapter.

I JUST HAVE TO ACTUALLY FUCKING WRITE IT

anyway like i said above the cut, i wrote a lot more than i thought i would. i got really into it pls send me more asks 🥺 it will light a fire under my ass and i'll finally finish chapter 10

[cha-melodius]

Hiii, congratulations on your milestones! I am not very good at prompts buuuut how about Napollya + some creepy abandoned house? Or a cemetery. Idk, it's not Halloween but I'm feeling spooky loool Feel free to go paranormal with it <3

(Outsmarted tumblr to answer this lmao. You said go paranormal and my brain said 'what about rival paranormal investigators??' Mark this down as another AU concept I never thought I'd write. Hope you enjoy it!)

chamel’s fandom fest info | read all the fics

The Harrowed and the Haunted

(napollya, 2.7k, T; read it below or on AO3)

The tiny blue car is already there when they arrive, tucked off to one side of the gigantic, decrepit mansion, and Napoleon swears under his breath.

“How did he even know we were coming here?” he complains. “No one knows this place.”

“Everyone knows about this place, Solo,” Gaby sighs from the passenger seat. “It’s a local legend. And you weren’t exactly subtle when you teased it as our next location in the podcast.”

Napoleon twists in his seat to look at her. ��You think he listens to the podcast?”

She levels a look at him that he doesn’t know how to interpret. “You two are hopeless,” she says instead of answering him, then unbuckles her seatbelt and gets out of the car.

She’s already elbows deep into the equipment by the time he walks to the back end of the car, so he elects not to push her on what she means. Besides, the one time he’d tried, she ended up on some long tirade about how they’re obsessed with each other and it would be funny if it wasn’t so frustrating and also if she didn’t have to listen to him all the time. To which he had responded that she’s his best friend and morally obligated to listen to him complain about his nemesis.

Also, he’s not obsessed with Illya Kuryakin.

Yes, Napoleon watches all the videos Illya posts and reads all the stories he publishes on his blog. Of course he does, Illya is the competition. Napoleon has to keep up with the locations he’s visiting and the kinds of footage he’s getting so that he knows how best to make his own superior content. Because Napoleon has a secret weapon that means his videos are always in better resolution, with wider shots so you can see that he’s not just using tricks, and his data are more robust. That secret weapon is Gaby and the completely bonkers ghost detecting equipment that she builds.

Napoleon had been a skeptic when he started doing paranormal investigation; his whole schtick was proving that there weren’t ghosts in the places where the other guys had recorded their sightings. Then he’d met Gaby at a convention and she’d bet him fifty bucks that she could show him a site that not only had ghosts, but also that she could prove it with hard science. He’d been intrigued despite himself, and their partnership was born. The friendship came about fifteen minutes into that first trip, when it became obvious that they shared a similarly sarcastic, dark sense of humor and brutally pragmatic outlook on life.

Together, they still spend the majority of their time proving that locations aren’t haunted, but occasionally things happen neither of them can explain. Not that he’s convinced that the explanation is actually ghosts, but it’s certainly something outside the realm of known science. With Gaby’s help, his business really took off: there’s the YouTube channel that he started with, but now they have a wildly successful podcast as well. The Discovery Channel has made overtures about a show. Things are good.

At least they are when Illya Kuryakin isn’t around.

Illya came out of nowhere with his blog Prizraki and a fledgling YouTube channel of his own. He shouldn’t have ever drawn an audience because he has zero camera presence, for all his good looks. He’s not even in his own videos all that much since he’s a one-man operation. But. The man can write. The way he crafts a story, the sheer atmosphere of it—he more than makes up for the shoddy camerawork and rudimentary editing. Napoleon had thought his work would be easy to discredit, but Illya is thorough. Meticulous. Irritating, especially when he anticipates Napoleon’s next move and makes it his job that much harder. Napoleon would swear Illya has it out for him specifically.

So yeah, they don’t get along. Their rivalry is well-known among the paranormal investigation community at this point. And if he spends an inordinate amount of time following Illya’s content, it’s only because he has to, professionally. He certainly doesn’t enjoy it.

They find the man himself on the second floor, apparently scanning one of the rear bedrooms. He’s hunched over his device, which is emitting a random-sounding beeping as he moves slowly across the room. Napoleon and Gaby had been led there by the readouts on their own equipment, although things start going all funny once they get into the room. Napoleon is pretty sure it’s just the interference from Illya’s shitty gear.

“Got tired of coming up with your own ideas, Peril?” Napoleon says as they walk in, the ancient floorboards creaking under their feet.

Illya doesn’t bother to look away from his scan. “Don’t know what you are talking about,” he mutters. He finishes a sweep of the far wall and pauses. “I have plans to investigate this property for months. Check my website if you don’t believe me.”

Napoleon doesn’t, because he’s read every word of that blog and he never mentioned this property. Not that he’s going to tell Illya this.

His nemesis finally straightens and turns toward them, his usual sour expression somehow failing to keep him from being ridiculously, irritatingly gorgeous. Napoleon would wager that at least half of his subscribers are only there for the occasional eye candy. And look, Napoleon knows his own looks bring him hits—leverages it, specifically—but Illya pretends to be above all that, which is annoying. After all, his numbers had shot up rapidly after that one video where he’d somehow ended up shirtless while investigating some kind of haunted bog (and if Napoleon had watched that one any more than the others, it was only because he couldn’t get over the idea of a haunted bog, that’s all).

“I take it you haven’t found anything yet,” Napoleon counters, looking around the room. It’s largely empty at this point, save for a massive wardrobe that’s probably too heavy to move, the florid wallpaper faded and yellowed by time and marked by no small amount of water damage. “Not that I fault you for that, given your equipment.”

“I have found plenty—”

“Solo,” Gaby interrupts. She’s across the room, and when he turns to look she’s tucking her own scanner away and sliding a hand over the seemingly featureless wall. “I think there’s something here.”

Jackpot. Napoleon quickly crosses over to where she stands and starts carefully inspecting the wallpaper, his competitor all but forgotten behind them. Well, almost. The seam is well hidden, but it’s there, and Napoleon feels out the secret panel within minutes. When a door pops open, he turns back toward Illya and smirks with immense satisfaction.

“What was that about finding things?”

Illya just about growls at him.

“Look, while you two have this little pissing contest, I’m gonna go get my auxiliary power block,” Gaby announces before they can get going again. “There are some really wacky readings going on here and I think I’m going to need the boost.”

With that, she disappears out the door, and a moment later they can hear the clunk of her boots on the wooden steps.

“So, you are planning on leaving, right?” Napoleon asks.

“I was here first,” Illya grits out, and then the asshole just storms right past Napoleon and into the secret passageway, like he has any right to it.

Napoleon follows him, because he can’t not. The passage is narrow, barely wider than the span of either of their shoulders, and nearly pitch black save for the illumination provided by their flashlights and the meager light that filters in from the main room. The house is enough of a labyrinth that it could go almost anywhere; it’s promising, for sure.

“Only because you knew we were coming here,” Napoleon calls after him.

Illya stops a short ways down the passage and turns to glare at him. “You cannot prove that.”

“And we found the secret passage,” Napoleon continues. “If we weren’t here you’d still be going around in circles, chasing your own tail.”

“The discovery was inevitable. Maybe you sped it along, but now you are just in the way.”

Jesus Christ, this is going nowhere. Fine, Napoleon can be the magnanimous one, especially if he can use it later to argue that Illya was unreasonable. “Look, you wanna investigate right now, be my guest, but you can’t be here when Gaby gets back. Your equipment causes too much interference.”

Illya hesitates a beat. “She said you were getting strange readings. What kind?”

“Like I’m going to tell you,” Napoleon scoffs.

“Did you have to learn to be this much of an asshole, or were you born this way?”

“Oh, that’s rich coming from the guy who—”

He doesn’t get to finish that thought, because suddenly it sounds like every door in the house slams at once, including the one to the bedroom that they’d left open. They both jump a mile, startled out of their skins, and Napoleon whirls to look behind him, though of course there’s nothing there.

“Wind gust?” he tries weakly.

He doesn’t even blame Illya for the exasperated look he gets in response. They both know there hadn’t been even a light breeze, plus, he can feel it. Illya probably can too. There’s something about the atmosphere that makes his skin crawl and his hair stand up on end, and as a professional ghost hunter, that’s not easy to do. He’s learned to trust his gut, and it’s telling him something is definitely hinky here. He walks back over to the door, but there’s no handle on the inside, which seems like poor design for a secret passageway.

“Not getting out this way,” he tells Illya. “Maybe the other side?”

“We don’t know where it goes,” Illya counters. “Should we not just wait for Gaby to return?”

He’s got a point, but Napoleon really doesn’t like being cooped up in here. He’s not claustrophobic, but there’s a closeness to the air that goes beyond what can be explained by the narrow space. Not that he’s going to let on what’s driving his decision.

“Wait if you like,” he says with a shrug. “I’m going to do what I came here to do.”

Except Illya is standing between him and the rest of the passage, which is really not large enough for the two of them to easily pass by each other. Still, there’s nothing for it; Napoleon starts walking toward him, assuming Illya will get out of the way, only when he’s less than a stride from the other man, he trips.

He’d like to pretend the floorboards were uneven, but it feels like something fucking winds around his ankle, effectively binding his legs and sending him sprawling into Illya. At nearly the same time, there’s a loud pop and the bulbs in both of their flashlights just about explode in a shower of sparks. The end result is that Illya is too surprised or too distracted to stay upright himself, and they tumble to the ground in a heap with none-too-few curses in both English and Russian.

“Get off of me,” Illya protests, trying to shove Napoleon away, and Napoleon would like to, truly, but one of Illya’s elbows caught him in the diaphragm and he can’t exactly breathe at the moment.

“Gimme a fucking minute,” he manages, trying to catch his breath while simultaneously ignoring how he’s managed to land pretty much astride one of Illya’s very muscular thighs. There’s not exactly a lot of room here for him to maneuver, anyway, and in the pitch dark the very last thing he wants to do is put a hand somewhere it shouldn’t go. He manages to fish his phone out of his pocket, hoping for an alternative light source, only to find it won’t turn on. “Damn. Phone’s dead.”

“Think it was an EMP,” Illya groans. “Will knock out—”

“I know what an EMP is,” Napoleon snaps, then he sighs heavily. “I don’t suppose you have a lighter?”

Illya doesn’t answer, but a moment later there’s a faint snick and a small flame flickers to life, washing the two of them and the passageway in a faint orange glow. It also reveals the deep scowl on Illya’s face. “Now will you get off?”

“Aw, but I was just starting to enjoy myself,” Napoleon teases. And then, because he can’t resist an opportunity to fluster the other man in any way possible, he gives his hips a little wiggle. 

Something flashes in Illya’s gaze, though he can’t quite read it in the flickering light. “Do not start something you do not intend to finish, Cowboy,” he growls.

Which is— Napoleon cannot have heard that right. He hit his head on the way down, maybe, except for the fact that he knows he didn’t; he landed on Illya’s ample chest, which he still hasn’t really moved from. Their faces are no more than a handful of inches apart. Illya takes a deep breath in and out under him, and the thigh between Napoleon’s shifts slightly. Napoleon licks his lips, and Illya’s eyes follow the movement.

“Who says I don’t?” Napoleon manages, his voice tighter than he’d like. “And what about you? I thought you hated me.”

“Too pretty,” Illya murmurs. “Annoyingly so. Anyway, you hated me first.”

Napoleon can’t help the soft puff of laughter that escapes him. “Gaby says I’m obsessed with you.”

“Is that so?” Illya asks with a smirk that Napoleon would kind of like to bite.

“I’m not,” Napoleon protests, but he doesn’t get a chance to get any more out because Illya tugs him down into a kiss.

Napoleon shocks himself by kissing him back, tilting his head until their mouths fit perfectly together, letting his arms go out from under him until his body is fully pressed up against Illya’s again. It’s hard and it’s fast and it’s filthy, and Napoleon can’t get enough of it. Illya’s hands go to his waist then slide down to his ass, which he grabs enthusiastically, pulling Napoleon’s hips closer as his rock up against Napoleon’s thigh.

He never thought— never let himself think— Fuck. He wants Illya Kuryakin so badly he can hardly breathe, which is a pretty fucking novel revelation right about now. He doesn’t even notice that Illya has dropped the lighter, plunging them into darkness, until there’s a loud creak outside the passageway and the door rattles in its frame.

They startle apart, or at least try to; Napoleon attempts a roll sideways, but there’s not really any place to go, so he just kind of ends up jammed next to Illya, his heart climbing into his throat because he’d maybe gotten so caught up in the moment that he’d forgotten that they’re in a fucking abandoned house that supposedly haunted, with actual weird phenomena happening around them, and he’d really rather not die—

The door rattles again, then swings open to reveal Gaby holding a lantern in one hand and her bag of equipment in the other. She takes one look at them and her eyebrows climb all the way up to her hair.

“Oh, thank god,” Napoleon exhales heavily. “You didn’t get hit by the EMP?”

Gaby frowns at him. “What EMP?”

“The one that exploded our flashlights and turned our phones into bricks.”

“That’s not how EMPs work,” she says flatly. “Care to explain how that relates to… literally any of this?”

Napoleon winces. “Not really?”

The look she gives him quite clearly says that he’s not getting out of any part of said explanation, even if she’s willing to let it go for the moment. “So. Ghosts?”

“Apparently so,” Napoleon groans as he attempts to extract himself now that he can actually see where he’s going.

“And we’re… collaborating?” she asks, looking pointedly at Illya.

Napoleon glances over to find Illya staring at him uncertainly, which is probably fair considering they’ve discussed precisely nothing about this. Still. He looks back at Gaby.

“Apparently so.”

~~~~~

(The Haunting of McAllister Mansion is their first joint video, published simultaneously on both channels; it breaks all their previous records for views, likes, and comments.

The latter are split between people confused because they were sure Napoleon and Illya hated each other, and those who just comment: called it.)

[lyonface]

It's been a looong time (almost 3 years now!) but I'm curious what were your final thoughts on Ray's AE + Jumin's DLC?

I think Ray's AE really emphasized Another Story Saeran is nothing like CS/DS Saeran. As for Jumin's DLC... it was so forgetable.

Has it only been 3 years? I think it's been more than that nonny, tbr.

I never actually played Jumin's DLC! My friend did, the person who played Saeyoung in the blogs, and at the time when they were going through it they fed me information, and I remember none of that information really compelling me to play it (nor the art really) because it sounded similar to how they did the Rika DLC: pile on as much terrible drama and abuse as possible for the sake of it. Jumin's past was bad enough when I thought his mother had basically abandoned him and he wasn't yet willing to accept that fact and his most present step-mother flirted with him. His real mother being a crazy woman that puts him in a cage? Like, come the fuck on.

I did play Saeran's AE though, and yeah, he's a completely different character than OG Saeran. I found it kind of sweet, the DLC, but honestly Saeran was kind of unrecognizable to me throughout it, even if I thrived off of Jumin and Saeran talking directly for a single scene lmao. iirc Saeran and Saeyoung's relationship doesn't really get repaired either, and that's tragic, because I'd much rather the brothers be happy again than MC get to be with Saeran on a private resort island that Jumin just...gives them.

I don't know, I don't like the extra content so much. Another Story was fascinating so even if it has flaws, I enjoy it and what it brought to the table, especially in reflecting on the original route and the implications. But everything after that is...eh. When I reminisce about Mysme, I don't reminisce about either of those, that's for sure.

[maguneedsalife]

T'zekhwalker - Final Zenos Fight

i spent so much time here it needed its own post. i'd be lying if i said this one scene wasn't a main reason i pushed t'zekh through the main story (the other was i wanted him to get to 90/get the rdm artifact gear so he could wear his canon glam but you know)

so, some background for folks who are new here: t'zekh was the main wol for stormblood. he was the one zenos became obsessed with, and he has spent most of endwalker trying to get zenos to leave him alone. he knows zenos desperately wants t'zekh to kill him--to come at him with fire and rage and bloodlust--but t'zekh refuses to kill anyone no matter how much they deserve it.

i had been waiting so long for t'zekh to be able to do this dialog choice and the answer i had envisioned for him actually changed from the time i did this with aoife. originally i'd thought he'd go with option 2, but by the time i got here, 3 was more his style.

which ended up being a good thing, because zenos's response to that answer was fucking perfect for t'zekh

small aside--it drove me bonkers back when spoiler embargo first lifted and ppl (mostly on twitter) were INSISTING that answer 1 was the only possible canon answer and if you picked any of the others you were clearly playing the game wrong. even despite yoshi p confirming that there was no "correct" answer and the team had tried to write it so that players could respond to zenos the way they felt best reflected their own character's experience. people were STILL out there like "sorry but if you didnt pick option 1 you're just wrong"

so to see the text validate my choice and my hcs so perfectly has me feeling vindicated in this chilis. it is okay for people to have a different experience of the game than you!!! (i'll get off my soapbox now)

option 3 was perfect for t'zekh because he is finally fed up enough with zenos that he's finally willing to cast aside his moral opposition to killing in order to make sure zenos can't hurt anyone else in his name.

and zenos caught on to that and responded in kind.

anyway then i took a fucktillion pictures in the instance (most of which i'll put on my wol blog)

it was so hard to get them in the same frame lmao

and then i did the solo fight! not too bad on red mage, surprisingly enough - was very thankful to have vercure though lmao

this punch is still just as satisfying the second time

On my way to the last credits sequence i learned that you will actually fuck up the music timing if you skip or speed up the credits. it was playing revenge twofold when it was supposed to be playing flow together. that was very jarring. i don't know why they haven't set it to just start playing flow together for that sequence. dont skip the credits folks

and that's a wrap! i uhhh might have abandoned him before finishing out the quest so i could go farm memoria misera with aoife but im very happy to have (technically) beaten Endwalker with him before the year ended, which was one of my goals.

I think I started main story with him in January, so it's taken me about a year to get through... mostly what set me back was i had to make time/build emotional strength to make progress through parts I knew would be difficult emotionally. But I committed to not to skipping any cutscenes and just pressing on through a second read, and I'm glad to have embarked on this journey.

as soon as i finished endwalker the first time i knew it was going to be equally aoife and t'zekh's story. they both ended up having stakes in the plot in different ways, and getting to play through and see things from t'zekh's perspective was so much fun.

i still keep thinking abt the version of the ending in my head, wherein t'zekh is lying at the edge of the universe and all he can think is "i want to live, dammit!!"

and he hears a voice calling out to him.

"there you are!" aoife shouts, "I was looking all over for you!"

T'zekh has spent so much of the story kind of in aoife's shadow, grappling with what it means to be a "hero" in his own way. he spent a lot of stormblood resenting her absence.

but by the end of endwalker… i think they end up really close friends

---

Next, it'll be Banri's turn.... skipping as many cutscenes as possible so i can get him through before Dawntrail!

[simeonisalesbian]

Don't know if you check this blog anymore, but! Nightbringer has been out for a bit and I was wondering on your thoughts about it?

Lmao I barely do check it honestly 😅 the asks I have make me feel a bit guilty that I never finished em

But I did download Nightbringer! (it's actually what made me check this blog lol) I had abandoned the first game after trying to play it a few times and seeing the 99+ thing so many times, so it's nice not to have that in the new game 😄

It's still new and it shows lmao I know the messages in the game are very glitchy for me and it have to fight to get them to show up. I feel like I've definitely missed something considering MC is a demon now??? Did it explain that in the intro? I was sleepy when I started so I can't actually remember 😅

I do really like the game so far though! I feel very weak at the actual game play so I'm not very far still but it has that nice charm to it! Not a fan of the 3D models but those are hard to make so I just kinda let it slid and ignore em for the most part. I do like seeing them move around though it's kinda cute.

I do kinda hope this resparks my interest in this fandom! I'd like to write for it again! (I haven't stopped writing and feel a bit more confident in my skill now :3)

I still have the unfinished headcanons for a few asks somewhere! It would be fun if I could at least try to get those out too!

[woodchipp]

Imagine unblocking someone you've previously blocked just to comb through their blog again and post how Epic your Own™ was on your blog and talk shit about them in the notes instead of just. moving on with your business. I forgot this conversation took place by this point lol

The notes themeselves aren't any less delightful

i had to block this person bc they constantly talk shit in the tags like their opinion is objectively correct like.... ah yes clearly the correct response when dealing with a suicidal person with abandonment issues is to abandon them again like a sociopath and act surprised pikachu face when said person unalives themself lmao

"like their opinion is objectively correct" nah, it's not and it never was. I just try to always make sure the claims I make are properly sourced instead of pulling shit out of my ass. I apologize if that offended you.

I'm not obligated to be perpetually polite if you lot keep deliberately misinterpreting me.

"clearly the correct response when dealing with a suicidal person with abandonment issues is to abandon them again like a sociopath"

I don't even understand the point here. I actually condemned Sunny for abandoning Basil after ruining the photo album and I condemned him for abandoning Basil again during the latter's first breakdown in the bathroom.

The phrasing inadvertently implies that Sunny is a sociopath. Nice! :D

"he was goddamned stressed bc of how much she was working him like a racehorse" Such a shame that wasn't shown in the game itself. At least actually seeing Mari "working him like a racehorse" would've made Sunny's tantrum more justified. But all we get during the main story is a book about how he thought violin practice was a "nuisance" because it prevented him from watching Saturday morning cartoons with his friends for as long as he would've preferred to.

That, by the way, was my original point. That was the entire reason we had that debate in the first place.

sure they didn't have infinite time and resources to make this long game even longer

Or they make comparisons to other franchises that have a higher budget and obviously Omori isn't going to match them

They had six years and $203,000. They also had the money Omocat made from selling their merch to keep the development afloat after exhausting the $203,000. I'd say that's a pretty big amount of time and money.

Also, writing doesn't take a budget. I concede the game was rushed since it visibly affected the story (e.g. the game speedrunning Aubrey's redemption arc on One Day Left), but it was less of a budgetary issue and more due to Omocat's mismanagement.

you can tell how much sunny rly loves his friends just by linking the areas he goes to to places/things he associates w them

So I should be convinced that Sunny loves his friends because... he made up a perfect world for them in his head? While never doing anything substantial for them in the real world beyond just Being There?

What defines you is your actions, not your thoughts. The game can keep telling me Sunny loves his friends all it wants, but his actions seem to imply otherwise.

otherworld = summer camp with kel, sweetheart's castle = a sleepover with friends, especially aubrey and basil, orange oasis = prolly vacations/road trips sunny went on where he was allowed to take the friends with, last resort = his idea of adulthood and hero's role in it, prolly also went to vacation in the city

See, this is exactly what I'm talking about when I talk about "fanon interpretations"

This interpretation is pretty nice. I'm not saying it has no right to exist because that'd be absurd lol. But it's just that - an interpretation. The game itself doesn't supply much evidence to prove this interpretation correct (save for maybe Last Resort because I can see your point re. that location). The "hidden details" you all talk about are largely in the eye of the beholder, and most of them are just you filling in the large amount of blanks this game leaves.

Accusing me of talking like I'm "objectively correct" and then positing your interpretation as more correct than mine makes you a hypocrite, and it's not my fault you all seem to get incensed whenever someone tries to challenge your interpretations either.

Yea that's the point of a twist bud. It's supposed to surprise you and take you offguard.

Not to the point of the twist feeling like it doesn't even fit into the story the game was telling up to that point.

like i immediately figured out something was up w the stairs and a tree was involved bc of the stairs/tree imagery and all the something battles being at the stairs

I said I'm aware of the staircases before the Something fights. My point was that it just wasn't enough.

The tree could be easily written off as Sunny being traumatized by Mari's suicide, not his manslaughter. That was another one of my points - there isn't enough concrete hints to Mari's death being a manslaughter instead of a suicide beyond "hey look at these cool stairs bro"

Oh, and by the way, about Forest of Stumps' background parallax - the pieces of the Truth photos contained therein aren't even visible much because the layout of the map largely obscures the parallax. You can only view the parallax in full if you access the Remina area, which a first-time player is extremely unlikely to do.

silent hill is a completely different genre of horror. It's not going to structure its plot/format it's storytelling the same way as omori because they're different genres

"a completely different genre of horror" Both OMORI and Silent Hill 2 are psychological horror lmfao

I was just bringing up Silent Hill 2 as an example of an actually good psychological horror story with a very similar premise to OMORI, not saying their structure should've been the same.

they don't WANT to enjoy it, they don't WANT to acknowledge anything good about it, so instead of just saying "eh, it's not for me" and leaving everyone else alone they shit on it in the game's tags with weakly construed arguments completely contradicted by the game and act like it's "objectively" bad and that anyone who likes it is stupid

I've previously acknowledged that I like the initial premise of a young boy creating a huge dream world to cope with his sister's suicide and I thought that the concepts of the characters were pretty interesting on paper, though.

If my arguments are "completely contradicted by the game", how did it provide me with so many sources for my critique of it? lmao

"anyone who likes it is stupid" man I love it when my interlocutor just shoves words into my mouth to make me look more malicious than I actually am

"clown shit tbh" Clowns are funny, though. You're just sad.

archiving this cause I blocked and the post got nuked lmao

(1/2)

[izekoi]

In honor of your new blog I am here with a request 👀

I just can't stop thinking about the delinquent x model student dynamic (hs or college AU lol) and I wonder if you have any thoughts on how that would play out w Childe? Maybe reader gets paired w him during bio or chem lab and the reader's like "damn it why him" lmao

If you're feeling inspired I'd love to get a scenario but if you'd rather do hcs then may I ask for Itto and maybe Kaeya to be added to the mix? Feel free to add others if you'd like as well :D thank you in advance!!

I Hate It Here

Feat. Delinquent student! Childe x Model student! Reader (Romantic/Platonic, you choose)

a/n: And childe continues haunting me. I used Ajax since it’s Childe’s real name I hope it isn’t too confusing. I had a biology assignment to create a miniature(?) structure of a virus in 10/11th grade. That was the only biology assignment I remember so I’m using that lol.

Why do we live just to suffer?

You could only watch in horror as the teacher reveals the group for your biology mid term assignments. You felt as if all your will to live suddenly had just flown out of your body.

Childe looks like he’s enjoying himself though. Maybe it’s because he’s getting a guaranteed A or maybe because this gives him the chance to mess with you. Who knows?

Childe, Ajax, Tartaglia whatever his name was. He was your —and every other proper students’— worst nightmare. Hell, it would be better if he’d shut up and do nothing but he has a reputation of messing up group works. And to be paired with him for your midterms, your grades were surely going down the rabbit hole.

He’s quick to move to your side when the teacher instructs for you to sit with your partners. Seemingly way too eager than he usually is for school. It was even a miracle he didn’t skip class that day, as if he knew this was going to happen.

Childe puts his arm on the table, hand supporting his chin as he leans forward, facing your unamused face “So, what are we doing, partner?”. You swear you want to punch that chuckle off his face.

You sighed, attempting to ignore him while taking further notes of the teacher’s instructions. “You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to, just don’t mess things up.” You tried to sound as docile as possible, not wanting to fight on your first day of group assignment.

“Don’t be like that, we’re partners aren’t we?” He has the audacity to pout like an abandoned puppy you’d find on the street. “I really wouldn’t like having to tell the teacher you can’t work with me.” He added, as if to purposely taunt you.

If looks could kill your notebook would be covered in daggers at this point. “Fine. We are meeting at 4.” You wrote your address down in a small piece of paper before handing it to him. Stopping your conversation at that you pick up your own notes after, implying you didn’t want to talk to him any further.

“Are we gonna fight?” He laughed as if that was the most obvious thing to ask and you had to surpass the urge to —once again— punch him.

“Just bring some cardboards and glue.” You sighed, taking a deep breath as to not let your emotions win and brushed off his laughter.

———————————

“(Y/n)~” That was the 5th time Childe —or Ajax— had called your name for the past hour. You were trying to concentrate on creating the structure in front of you, trying not to let him anger you or else you might accidentally smash everything into pieces.

You were surprised when he actually showed up in front of your house on time, with a few lunch boxes he said he cooked himself. You weren’t expecting him to show up at all, and cooking is certainly not something you expect a delinquent like him to be good at. That gave you a tiny hope that maybe he’s willing to help you on the project.

Well, you thought wrong as the only thing he has been doing for the past 2 hours was testing your patience.

“Yes, Ajax.” You finally answer through gritted teeth, spelling his real name slowly as if to threaten him. This man was, like his nickname, a child.

“Take a small break, will you? It’s been 2 hours” he sighed, leaning back on the sofa as he ate the dessert —your favorite— he had brought earlier. He —tried to— looked tired as if he was the one who had been doing the work for the past hour.

“We only have a week to do this, and it’s a one man team.” You roll your eyes as the last sentence escapes your lips. Your hands were busy trying to cut out the cardboards scattered on the floor.

“It’s still a week away. Besides, I didn’t purposely group up with you to watch you do boring work.” Childe chuckled, seemingly to enjoy looking at you struggling to cut the material.

“You didn’t what—“

“Whoops~” He shoves a spoonful of cake into your mouth cutting you mid sentence.

“Ajax..” you glared at him, trying to slip his name out through the mouthful of cake.

He laughed, he couldn’t help it. Your attempt to glare and puffed out cheeks didn’t made you look way harmless than you usually are. Ha was having way too much fun ‘working’ with you, “You look like a chipmunk.”

“Ouch—“ you hit his arm with a piece of cardboard attempting to hold your angry expression. As annoying as he was it was difficult to be angry when he had just fed you your favorite cake.

“Fine, fine! I’ll help.” He’s still laughing as if the cardboard attacks didn’t hurt him at all.

You squinted your eyes, doubting him. “We’ll see about that.” You threw him the pieces you had marked, gesturing for him to cut them, “They better be done in an hour” You mumble, sitting back next to him to work on the next pieces, “or I’ll use them to hit you again.”

“Pfftt— not like they hurt.”

“What did you say?”

“Nothing.”

It was half past seven when you finished your work for the day. Surprisingly, Childe had done his job. The cuts were a little rough around the edges but it’s doable.

“Wow, this is.. surprisingly decent.” You said, examining the pieces he had done.

“What did I tell you?” He replied, seemingly smug to have received a compliment from you.

“Don’t get cocky, it’s still not done …but I guess we can relax for the day. I’ll heat up the stuffs you brought in the microwave.” You got up, attempting to make your way towards the kitchen alone, but of course, as expected, you have a grown man tailing behind you.

“I’ll help.” He grinned, not waiting for your agreement before dashing out to the kitchen.

You sighed for the tenth time that day as you follow him. The corner of your eyes caught the figure excitedly jumping off your stairs, you smile, maybe his antics were a little amusing, and maybe, spending time with him wouldn’t be too bad.

[obsessivelollipoplalala]

thanks for sharing! i sort of had a similar experience in early 2021. i got curious after hearing backlash about the movie, came onto tumblr and it immediately launched me into jimercury blogs hehe. i saw essentially no mary apologists, i DID see one of the hater lady's accounts in someone's replies but it was clear to me after a few scrolls that the blog belonged to someone unhinged and irrational LMAO so i just ignored her. i was in no way a mary stan, but i was indeed very sympathetic with movie!mary. have to admit the movie worked on my smooth brain lmao, but it only really took maybe an hour of scrolling through the jimercury tag to get me hooked. also, i never really understood the appeal of the film over the actual band which i think is much more interesting. the band dynamics in the film was pretty much nonexistent. the thing that stood out was mary and freddie's story, but that turned out to be disappointing after reading up on the actual history sooo idk what there is to like personally 🤷‍♀ can you share some of the inactive blogs you enjoyed? i know some but i think there's a heap of content buried due to them no longer being reblogged. i would love to trudge through some old content no matter what they are!

No problem! Yeah there are very few outright Mary stans on tumblr now, though how much people are willing to correctly criticize her actions varies. The movie did purposefully make people's hearts weep for Poor Saint Mary, so I understand why you initially sympathized with her. I totally agree that the actual band and the real stories behind it are faaaar more interesting than the film. One of my biggest gripes with it is that it reduces an extraordinary band to a generic Hollywood band dynamic. They had such an interesting story with strong personalities, and yet the movie watered everyone down to tell the fake Freddie and Mary story. Ugh. But I digress.

This might sound cynical, but I honestly think some people just thought the actors were hot and that's why they were movie stans, but not band fans. They liked Queen's hit songs well enough to listen to them and see a movie about the band, but ultimately, what attracted them was, well, physical attraction lol. It's why you had fics specifying "Ben Hardy!Roger Taylor x Reader." As the actors moved on from the film, so did their fans. These folks only liked Queen casually, in my view, and that's why their blogs went abandoned or changed a lot in just a year.

Unfortunately, the blogs I saw when I first arrived here are almost all gone--I mean straight up deactivated and inaccessible. his-majesty-king-mercury had some really great posts, though I didn't read them all. Their blog is still there, but they're inactive now. I'd followed a blog called radio-freddie that's completely gone now, in addition to one called bishi or something similar? Someone in instagram had left a comment that bishi was a very knowledgeable blog, and Phoebe's real insta page actually liked the comment, so it was implied he read it! And yet the blog totally disappeared. The user said they were moving to insta, but they deleted that account after a couple posts, too. It's a shame, I have no idea what happened to them, and I wonder if anyone else around here remembers who I'm talking about?

[sanstropfremir]

akwjjs i come to your blog after watching kingdom everytime and i love reading what you have to say because you're smart. as a fan of the boyz, i just want to see them with a garden concept, pretty flowers in their hair and yellow/pink/orange outfits while singing bloom bloom. also i got curious about the gates of hell(? it might be something different but you mentioned it on the skz review) thing taemin did. if you could point me out to whatever that was i'd be very very happy cause i really want to check it out lmao

omg anon!!!!! you flatterer!!!! thank you!!!

i did mention the gates of hell! it’s a sculpture by rodin based off of dante’s inferno. his most famous sculptures, the kiss and the thinker, actually originated from the gates of hell, as he worked on and off on it for almost 40 years. taemin uses it specifically in the music video for want, at 3:02! i’ve actually gone off a little bit about want before here when someone asked me about the purposeful awkwardness of taemin’s choreography, but now i get a chance to talk about the visuals!!

as a sculpture the gates of hell is an incredible piece of art. there’s something like 180 figures and it’s SIX metres tall. it’s a physically impressive work and taemin is correct in (really only mildly) exaggerating its scale when it appears out of the darkness at the end of the video. taemin has spent this whole song singing about how he can tempt you to anything and then the literal gates of hell materialize??? that by itself is enough, but there’s a few more fun facts to consider:

rodin specfically thought about the quote “abandon every hope, who enter here” from the inferno when conceptualizing the experience of looking at his sculpture.

although not true to any one scene in the inferno, the sculpture features references to many of the characters that dante encounters on his journey. one noteable set is that of francesca and paolo, two lovers he meets in the second circle (lust), who are trapped in an eternal whirlwind, chasing after each other but out of control, helpless to the forces of the winds. this is based off a true story of one of dante’s contemporaries, francesca de rimini, who had an affair with her husband’s younger brother for a decade.

taemin’s christian name is francesco.

sure are a lot of wind effects in the mv, eh?

tbh there’s SO much more, i haven’t even touched on the various face coverings and the magnifying glasses and the stages and the SNAKES but i’m gonna leave it here for now. anon please know i love you for sending this in and if you want me to spout more about taemin i happily will!!!