#it's... not that bad in theory but the big maze part gets me

[simaenagadayo]

sorry if i'm MIA i finally bought the the witness (game) and i want to throw myself at a wall

[cosmictheo]

𝐌𝐎𝐍𝐄𝐘 𝐏𝐎𝐖𝐄𝐑 & 𝐆𝐋𝐎𝐑𝐘 | hwang in-ho

( gif credits to @lalaray-457-canon )

—summary: between the chaos of the rebellion, in-ho finally reveals who he really is and tests you to see whether you are ready to take him exactly as he is, in all his glory and power. —pairing: hwang in-ho/young-il/player 001 x female!reader —word count: 5k (wow) —warnings: +18, smut !!! (minors dni), most definitely ooc!in-ho, descriptions of the reader having female genitalia, p in v sex, unprotected sex, creampie, some porn with some plot, fingering, power dynamics, dom in-ho!!!, body worship, praise kink, obsessive & possessive behavior, straight up manipulation, in-ho being a slut for the reader as usual, he wants that cookie so bad, use of guns, gunshots, blood, killing, yk usual squid game stuff.

writer’s note: english is not my mother tongue, so please forgive me if there is a grammatical error. hope you like it!

ᯓ✶ part one ── part two

Everything was pure chaos. You could hear gunshots, screams, rushing footsteps, grunts of pain, the sickening sound of the bullet piercing flesh as you walked through the brightly colored corridors of the horrific, bloody place, a place that had turned into a war zone in the last thirty minutes. 

Gi-hun had decided to rebel against the guards, creating an effective plan that had worked, as unbelievable as it seemed. Other players supported him in his idea, having his back through the war zone and basically just shooting everyone who didn't have a player number on their clothing.

In-ho guided you with assured steps, holding your hand tightly, stepping in front of you to shield you at all costs, and that if any of his guards were stupid enough to shoot in your direction, then he might as well take the bullet for you.

You didn't quite understand the reason why In-ho had separated from Gi-hun and the main group, nor did you understand the way his face had somehow suddenly morphed, turning authoritative and somber. Sure, he had said he knew a way to go around the pack of guards that blocked them from getting through to the main control room of the game's higher-ups, but how could he possibly know that? You had been by his side the whole time and never really had the spare moment to study and memorize the maze-like passageways, they all looked pretty much the same.

You had a theory, but you didn't really even want to consider it, it was wild, totally insane. Only someone who worked there would know precisely which way to go and which corner to turn.

There wasn't enough time for you to stop and demand some explanation from him either, so you just followed him around like a lost little puppy, strolling through the endless corridors of the place, stepping up some stairs until you reached an area that seemed absolutely off-limits for someone like you to trespass.

“In-ho?” you tried to call his name, walking up some more stairs, your fingers entwined between his, you gave his hand a gentle squeeze.

But he didn't stop, turning yet another corner, until you reached what looked like an elevator.

“Mhm? I'm here, don't separate from me, yeah?” he replied without paying too much attention to you, he didn't have to actually glance at you to know that you were scared, full of uncertainty and hesitation.

“Where are we?” you tried to ask once you two stopped in front of the elevator, you turn your head to look at him, eyes big and puzzled, “We can't leave the others...”

He finally drags his attention to you and his expression instantly softens, pulling your hand up with his to press soothing tiny kisses on your knuckles, restraining the urge to crack a smirk at the sight of your pretty face all scared and anxious. He could already feel himself harden in his pants from seeing your lips curl into a small pout.

“They'll be fine, nothing will happen to them”

The loud beep of the elevator pierces the tense silence and it almost makes you jolt, pulling your gaze up to the reddish light flashing on in front of you once the doors open. The gunshots can now be heard far off in the distance.

In-ho begins to step into it, but when he feels your hand pull his, he spins to look back at you, finding you still stood in the same spot, your arm straightened, fingers grasping his, and you look up at him with conflicted eyes, pleading for his mercy. 

Quite literally, you stand firm on your spot, but at the same time, you hold his hand tightly and longingly.

“I need you to be safe, angel,” he began to tell you, trying to convince you, to follow him, to stay by his side, just as you had been doing so far, why would you stop now? “You are not safe here, with all those savages on the loose with guns, they are dangerous”

His expression darkens with revulsion, spitting out the words as if they were poison. You assumed he was referring to the guards...

“But my friends...” you mumbled, turning your head to look back, listening to the gunshots in the distance, beyond the long corridors, as if they somehow were somewhere else already, far away from you, an unreachable place.

In-ho placed his other hand on your chin, leaning closer to you and making you face him again, his thumb brushed the outline of your lower lip.

“Friends?” he grumbled the word with irony rolling off his tongue, his warm breath rasped against your mouth, his eyes gazed into yours with genuine hurt, he looked utterly disappointed by your words, “I'm the only one who cares about you here.”

Your lips half-opened as you held eye contact, scarcely whispering, as if someone else could hear you, “I know, but—”

“You can't save someone who doesn't want to be saved,” his voice uttered your name like something familiar, something he longed for, he craved, “Are you really willing to die for them? People who wouldn't give a penny for you? They are killing each other for money, not for friends, not for love. They are here for the money and they don't need you. You know it, come on, you're a smart girl,” he lifted his eyebrows, his other hand dropping yours and climbing up through your body to cup your cheek, forcing you to look at him, not wanting you to avert your gaze from him, “Would you die for them?”

You shook your head lightly, bearing in mind the weight of his words and absolutely locked in the darkness of his eyes, absorbing you in, “No”

He smiled, pleased by your answer and he kissed your lips once to praise you, his tongue lightly skimming the edge of your pouted lips, “Then, would you live for me?”

What he was telling you was crystal clear, it had a special significance, a special complicity, an intimacy there was between you.

To die for someone was not as meaningful as to live for them, to make them the purpose of life, to know what they were, what they had in their heart and beyond, and to love them anyway, to stay by their side, to be loyal to them and choose them above all else.

“Yes,” you breathed out before kissing him so passionately, looping your arms around his neck and just before you could jump his bones, In-ho stopped you, reluctantly detaching himself from you, his hands gripping the curve of your waist and squeezing you against his body, his forehead pressed onto yours for a few seconds, recomposing himself. 

“That's my girl,” he gently kissed the corner of your mouth before tugging your hands and leading you with him into the elevator, at last, “Let's put all this behind us, hm? We have to stop them, otherwise no one else will.”

But you wanted him, somehow, you pushed all the killing and the blood behind and then suddenly, it was all him, the way he was gazing at you, how his hand went wrapped around your waist, hand sliding down to your ass to pat it twice, almost in a reprimanding way as he felt your soft lips attach on his neck when the elevator started to go up. You had to wonder how it was possible that the mechanism could carry the full weight of your craving and lust.

“Baby,” In-ho snapped in a disapproving voice, yet he lifted his chin, giving you more free access to his neck, his eyes closing as he felt your tongue sweep across his throat. He patted your ass once more, a little harder now, fingers clutching your hip tightly, “behave”

His hoarse, authoritative voice took you by surprise, causing you to inch away from him, looking up at him with big eyes darkened with desire, your hand lingering on his shoulder, squeezing it with eagerness.

“There's a slaughter going on out there and all you can think about is my cock slamming inside your little pussy, hm?” his gruff voice pronouncing those nasty words made your pussy twitch, your body aching for him by carnal instinct, “My girl's a filthy little slut...”

Before you could respond, the elevator doors swung open and the digital panel on the side indicated that you had gone up two floors, signaling that the place was much, much bigger than you thought.

In-ho pulled your hand gently, taking you with him through a dark hallway, until you entered a main room of an seemingly apartment, spacious and elegant. The sofas were of velvet, the walls black as midnight, a large screen hung on one of the walls, the lights hung in fancy chandeliers above your head. It resembled a suite of the most luxurious hotel.

He stepped closer to you from behind, predatory-like, sliding his veiny hands around your waist and pushing you softly to pace forward, his wet lips latching onto your shoulder and neck, making you sigh tremblingly.

“Do you like it?” he asked in a whisper, fingers fidgeting with the waistband of your tracksuit pants, "I had it fixed and cleaned for you"

“What is this place?” you asked him back, your eyes narrowed as you took cautious steps, your legs wobbly from all the goosebumps that ran through you from head to toe with every kiss he pressed against the conjunction of your neck and shoulder, unleashing a rush of emotions in the pit of your stomach.

His long, slender fingers caressed your lower tummy with affection and to give you a convincing answer, he kissed your skin one more time, before detaching his mouth from you, just barely,  “Your home, princess. Isn't it what you always wished for?” a dark smile tugged at his lips, his fingertips slipping under your shirt, triggering goosebumps along your skin beneath his touches on your stomach. “A spacious and expensive place, that's what you said when they asked you what you wanted to do with the prize.”

“It's beautiful,” you awed, raising your big, marveling eyes to the gorgeous crystal chandelier just above you.

“A pretty home for a pretty girl,” he rustled against the side of your neck, too intertained in kissing and marking it with possession, “It's all yours— I'm all yours.”

A sheepish smile stretched wide on your lips as you felt In-ho pushing you with his body once more, urging you to walk towards the center of the suite, descending down two stairs until you stood in front of a set of sofas, with a dark glass table in the center, on it laid two glasses and a bottle of Whiskey.

Why would you ever need to care about anything else, anyone else? When you had him, this precious place and his heart, body and soul to offer. All for you.

You turned on your heels to face him, wrapping your arms around his shoulders and pulling him close to you. Before he could even gasp for breath, you kissed him, supplying him with your breath, your oxygen. And what else did he really need to live?

His fingers went up to his neck, sneaking between your bodies so that he could begin to unzip the jacket of his tracksuit, pulling away from you just a little and hissing as he felt your fingers tugging at his hair.

In-ho nibbled on your lower lip as he ended the long, passionate kiss, making you wail against his mouth, “We've got to be quick, baby, I've got to take care of the mess out there. They are waiting for my command.”

He was the leader, of course, how had you even missed that little detail?

And of course he was, it all made sense now.

The thought of him in the dark suit, with a black mask, giving commands and having the entire place running under his authority made your whole body flush, core aching for him, for some friction, anything he might give you.

You kissed him again, momentarily thinking that with every kiss someone was dead, a bullet was shot and blood sprayed. But the blaze inside you, the heat pumping through your veins and the way your pussy was weeping for him didn't let you have more than one single thought in your head that wasn't him. 

Your head was possessed, your body submitted to him and your heart clutched in his hands. And all his undivided attention was on you, no matter that his place was under threat or that his guards were out there fighting, dying for him, no, all he could possibly afford to focus on was you.

So, soon In-ho had ripped your clothes off you, leaving you exposed, on full display for his dark, deep gaze to consume every inch in. Your arched back pressed against the velvety smooth back of the black sofa, his body right in front of you, like a starving predator. He was drinking a sip of Whiskey from his glass, never taking his eyes off you.

You blushed under his hungry gaze and motioned to close your knees, squeeze them together, but he was quick to lean down and rest a hand on one of them, caressing it affectionately and clicking his tongue disapprovingly. 

Tch, tch, tch.

“You should have no shame, you're the most gorgeous thing I've ever seen,” he reassured you, setting the now empty glass back down on the glass table, letting out a shaky breath, “there isn't a moment when I'm not thinking about it, touching it, kissing it, fucking it...”

You threw your head back, panting as you felt In-ho's mouth kiss your ankle, caressing your leg with his fingers as he pulled it gently, forcing you to open them, with him standing right in between them. The gates of heaven unlocking for him.

“So fucking pretty”

He kept whispering over and over again, staring at your body in awe, as if you were the most beautiful work of art ever to be exhibited.

“My pretty baby”

He praised you and praised you and praised you, pressing kisses to your legs, your knees, your thighs, tongue flicking across little scars that cut into your skin, most likely as a consequence of one of the games. 

“There she is... so pretty— shit”

He drunkenly muttered over your cunt, gazing at it throbbing and clenching around nothing. 

Your scent was intoxicating and overpowering. He felt so weak and insignificant in front of the greatness of your body, the warmth it gave him, the beauty of your skin, your curves, welcoming him inside, calling for his name.

“In-ho” you breathed out, looking down at him with half-lidded eyes, feeling the way your wetness trickled down between your legs, dripping to the surface of the couch. 

You were soaked, drenched, so sensitive to his touch and every little friction. And he had barely touched you.  

“Mhm,” he hummed at your call, reaching with his path of sloppy kisses and wet licks all the way up your inner thigh. Your whole body buzzed as you felt his tongue swipe up your slick folds, getting a wet squelchy sound and he laughed huskily, looking up at you, “You're soaking wet,” he marveled, pressing the tip of his finger against your pussy, his thumb teasing just right your aching, swollen clit, instantly getting a whimper out of you.

The finger slid inside so smoothly and shamelessly that it had him choking back a groan.

“Could you take all of me right now?” his voice cracked, words crawling up his throat like groans, so hoarse and deep that it sent vibrations through your center throughout your body, “I don't think we have much time to play”

You were nodding your head the second he finished speaking, your throat making a whining noise that made him crack a smile as he gently placed a kiss once on your cunt, fingertips tenderly caressing the inside of your thigh.

“Yeah? Can you take me?” In-ho asked you once again, in a quiet tone now, your name uttered slowly through his lips, like a longing, a craving, a religion. His eyes softened completely once they met yours again, his fingertips tapped seductively the sensitive, flushed skin of your thigh, “Talk to me, baby”

In-ho was well aware of the hold he had over you, he had the ultimate power and you were shamelessly crawling all over him, profiting from the fact that you would do whatever he asked. Live, lie, kill....

“Y-yes!” you instantly replied between babbles and sniffles, your hands reaching for him, revealing the deep, raw desperation that was making your body tremble, “Please, In-ho, sir, p-please—”

In-ho's pupils dilated so much that all of his orbs looked pitch-black as he lifted and leaned over you to press a kiss on your lips, “You don't need to convince me, princess. If you want it, you got it”

He swiftly removed his whitish shirt, now ruined and stained with someone else's blood, maybe from one of his guards, it didn't matter, what really mattered was the way his skin glowed under the dim golden light and how his chest broadened with every breath he inhaled, your lips parted as you saw how toned and hardened his abdomen was. He looked... exquisite, glorious and majestic standing before you, ready to devour you.

When he pulled down his pants and boxers, your mouth watered with drool and your eyes widened in wonder at the sight of his size. He was big, bigger than you expected, perhaps. His length was impressive and his girth was just perfect, a bulging vein traced from the base to the engorged, leaking head, and you could see it throbbing. 

You felt your mouth watering, starving, but when you reached out your hand to his cock, In-ho backed away from your eager touch, making you look up at him with a pouty face, mumbling words like a spoiled brat.

“I want to—”

“I know, baby, I know,” he cooed in an all too calm tone, leaning over the couch towards you to place a kiss on your sweaty forehead, positioning himself between your legs, one hand holding the length of his cock and the other reassuringly caressing your hip, “you got me right here, can't you feel me?” his hand travelled up your body to delicately stroke a strand of hair off your pretty, blushing face. “Aw, don't be so eager. I think I've spoiled you too much, hm?”

You gulped hard as he lined up his plump tip against your wet entrance, your whole body buzzing as you felt him press against your eager little hole, prepared to take whatever he gave it. But it was unlikely that you could be prepared to take something that big.

In-ho sighed shudderingly as well, just barely easing his head inside you, stretching you so, so good and slowly began to push his way through your warm, spongy walls. You gasped several little whimpers, looking up at the ceiling, as if somehow that would help you stop feeling the stabbing pain that spread inside you with every inch he pushed his length in.

“You have to loosen up for me, angel— hah—” he croaked out between gasps, squeezing his eyes shut for a few long seconds, letting himself be enveloped in the overwhelming hot, tight sensation that was your pussy clenching him, “hm— you have to let me in— fuck, you're so tight—”

In-ho pulled out, hissing between his teeth, lazily gripping his shaft, the tip running up and down your slit, gathering some of your wetness.

At your whining and complaining, he pressed again into your center, staring in awe as your hole struggled to swallow his plump head, stretching out your pussy so much.

He stopped right there, halting his hips, his head hardly inside you, your pussy fluttering and drawing him deeper inside, giving you a few moments to get used to his size. Your hands went to land on his forearms on either side of your hips, squeezing him desperately. 

As he tightened his grip on your hips, impeding you from wiggling away from him, In-ho hovered over you, catching your lips with his to muffle your whimpers with his own throat, thrusting achingly slow his hips and sinking inch by inch inside you.

“In-ho” you moaned his name, your nails digging into his skin on his arms, feeling so full, helplessly overwhelmed under him. Everything was him, everywhere around you, “Please—”

Then he kissed your cheekbones, wiping away the tears that escaped your eyes with his lips, bathing your skin with his drool instead, “Don't think, baby, you don't have to think about anything,” he murmured against your mouth, “just take me, yeah? Let me in”

The response he received was blubbering of unintelligible words and whimpers from you, blending in with the squelching sounds of your pussy stretching out for his cock. And that was music to his ears, the most delightful melody.

“Don't worry your pretty little head about a thing, I'll take care of it all” he promised you in a  gentle whisper and he is so tender, affectionately caressing the flesh on the side of your upper thigh just before giving it a quick spank, feeling the soft flesh jiggle under the palm of his hand, “Just like that”

He was so tender, giving you two minutes to adjust to his size before ramming the entire remaining length of his cock inside you, the bulbous head of his cock digging it's own way within your velvety walls and reaching so deep inside you that all the air was knocked out of your lungs. All too soon, you were a bawling, moaning mess, so loud and whiny for him.

“There you go, so good, so tight— fuck” In-ho dropped his forehead against yours, closing his eyes, drunkenly babbling words, intoxicated by the feeling of you everywhere, “Just fucking made for me, hm?”

“'Tis all—” you hiccupped, back arching impossibly for him, gazing up at him with adulatory, pleasure-darkened eyes, pounding you into heaven with each luscious thrust of his hips against yours, the bumping sound of flesh slapping against flesh echoing against the walls. Slap, slap, slap. “All for you, In-ho— oh!”

You struggled to even use your brain to conjugate proper phrases, occasionally slurring nonsense words.

Your ass and thighs jiggled with each intense thrust, his flesh slamming against yours, the very noise itself sounding pronographic, sloppy and filthy. You could feel your lower body begin to slide down across the velvety surface of the sofa, your skin wet and slippery from all the mixture of body fluids.

So, he scooped you up in his arms, manhandling you back in your position under him on the couch as easily as if he was swinging a feather around, he even made your head bump against the back of the sofa with a particularly harsh thrust, his cock already recognizing it's own shape carved inside you. 

His dark gaze dropped to your stomach, noticing the sway of himself under your soft, sweaty skin, his eyes following the motion of the bulge adoringly. 

In-ho pulled one of his hands up from your waist, beginning to slide it across your skin on your lower stomach and he swoon as he heard your blubbering whimpers at the pressure of his palm on your tummy, both of you sensing the press.

“In-ho, G-god, I can't— ngh—” you whimpered, your eyes rolling back and closing them tight, feeling your insides tightening up. “You're so— hah— deep”

“I'm right here” he awed in a quivering, raw adoring whisper, feeling his own cock twitch inside you under the palm of his hand. “Does it feel good, baby?”

You immediately nodded your head, taking in the way his eyes roamed upward across your bulging stomach, past the way your tits jiggled with the power of his own motions.

“I bet it does”

You promptly reopened your eyes and he grunted when the static noise of the radio perched on the crystal table at the couch's side erupted in the sultry room, snapping him out of the mindspace of worshipping your body, just as his lips had parted to suck on one of your tits.

You both swung your heads towards the radio, but In-ho— so ruthless, did not stop his fierce thrusts against your hips, his veiny hands contouring your waist, marking your skin.

“Young-il?” the voice of Gi-hun burst into the room, calling your name more times than In-ho would liked, “Where are you? You're attacking already?”

In-ho just smirked, stretching out and reaching for the small radio over the table, leaving you a whimpering mess as you felt his cock dragging along between your gummy walls.

“Answer him,” he then commanded in a grunt, delivering you a particularly powerful thrust that made you see stars, on his hand he held the radio, right above your face.

“W-what?” you hiccupped, eyes flooding with hot tears, out of pleasure, embarrassment, by the whirlwind of thrills that was shaking your body into submission to his.

In-ho cupped your chin, forcing you to look up at him, offering no truce with his savage thrusts, the plump head of his cock tapping your cervix, grinding into that special spongy spot that drove you closer to your climax.

“Tell him you're sorry,” he bent toward you, swiping his tongue along your cheekbone, mopping up a big tear that had slipped from your pretty eyes, “tell him the Frontman got you.”

With the very last of your remaining strength and control of your brain, you actually succeeded in formulating the words he wanted you to say, just as he pressed the voice transmitter button on the little radio.

“I'm sorry, Gi-hun” you blubbered out in between whimpers, and In-ho flashed a dark smile, dipping his head down to start kissing your neck sloppily, lips sucking at your skin until they left dark imprints, “he—”

“What happened?” Gi-hun asked worriedly from the other side, his voice came out desperate as he called your name, and you almost felt sorry for him, but In-ho's cock twitching inside you knocked all thoughts of heartache from you, making you bite your lower lip to choke back a hoarse moan.

He just felt so good, how could you think of anything other than his dick inside you?

“He got me” 

“Who? Where are you? Tell me where you are—” he asked frantically, his voice full of desperation and concern.

Your eyes rolled back as you felt In-ho's mouth latch onto your nipple, sucking and flicking it with his tongue, his unoccupied hand landing on your other jiggling tit, squeezing just right.

“This fucking body....” he hummed more to himself than to you against the skin of your breasts, dampening it with his spit, “So pretty, so tight, all for me... I got you, I got you always”

“The Frontman, he got me— sorry, Gi-hun” you managed to utter, voice weepy, at least that part would be believable to player 456.

Then In-ho smiled darkly and brought the radio closer to his mouth, his warm breath brushing against your nipple, still looking at you as he spoke, his voice becoming gruff and almost unrecognizable, “You don't have to worry about her anymore, Gi-hun.”

“You sick bastard—”

In-ho turned off the radio, throwing it away, shattering a thousand pieces against the ground. And now, all his attention turned back to you.

Gi-hun's desperate words and suffering appeared to do the necessary effect on him to get his cock twitching inside you again, having you sniffling under him.

“Shh... baby, you're doing so good. You're my good girl, my favorite girl— mhm— yes you are,” he cooed, raising his hand and stroking your hair delicately, his other hand squeezed your hip, moving across your skin until he reached your lower stomach, applying a little pressure over your tummy to make you both gasp as you felt the push of his hand, “Now cum with me, yeah? I know you can do it, I know you can, you're my good girl— shit”

In-ho whimpered against your mouth, his fingers creeping down to your crotch in between your sticky bodies, stroking your swollen, throbbing clit just right and hardly ten seconds later, feelinf your walls constrict around him and seconds later, you both began cumming, riding your highs to reach climax.

He was pumping you with all he had to give, filling you with hot and heavy spurts of cum, making you feel so stuffed that the fluid begins to leak out your abused pussy, spilling down between the tangled mess of your legs onto the couch.

A minute long lingered in your post-orgasm ecstasy, slumping your head against the couch, struggling to catch your breath, every limb shuddering still by jolts of electricity racing through every vein, bone, and muscle. You felt yourself floating in the sky and didn't even feel how In-ho had been propped up against you, trying to level his breathing tucked tightly against your neck. It wasn't until he had gently kissed your skin and straightened up, suddenly pulling his softening cock out of you, very slowly and carefully, you snapped back to reality and down to the ground.

The "pop!" filthy sound and the sensation of his cum dripping down your thighs made you blush, feeling his eyes gawking at the way your gaping pussy was struggling to keep all his cum inside, so greedily.

He then scooped you up in his strong arms and carried you to a bedroom, whispering praises and soft words against your ear, all the way until he delicately laid you down on the bed.

Your hand sought his, halting his motion to move away from you, and he smiled softly, noting how you fought against the sudden, enormous exhaustion that had come over you like a flooding wave.

“I have to take care of the problem, my love, it won't take long, okay? When you wake up again I'll be by your side” he murmured, leaning down so he could kiss the knuckles of your hand, fingers affectionately caressing your smooth skin.

“Don't kill them,” your request made him look at you with a hint of disappointment, letting him know you still felt sorry for the players, how could you not? You were just so good, “They don't know what they're doing.”

But the sweet smile on In-ho's lips didn't even tremble, at your request, your demand, “You don't have to worry about them anymore. They're nothing,” then he moved closer, and kissed your forehead, ”And you're everything. You don't have to worry about nothing, right?”

“Right,” you replied, so naturally, even in that dozy, half-asleep state, still, your loyalty and trust was with him, a fond smile curved across your lips as you lay your head back against the fluffy pillows, drifting off to sleep as you felt his fingers tenderly caress the side of your face, “Thank you, In-ho.”

“Everything for my favorite girl” he promised against your skin.

[finneyneilperrykisser]

Dead poet society modern au hdcs !

☆Neil

-spotify and trumblr user

-listen to music while studying

- samsung user (condered lowcost yet can be expensive)

- had a BIG emo phase

- know all of hamilton and notre dame de paris songs

- has a small mlm flag pin on his backpack ( his mother brougt it and told his dad it was a havard pin )

- grunge style neil perry send tweet

- his fav book is the picture of dorian gray

- wear contact

- lazy eyes (right eyes)

- green day ,radiohead ,metallica and the offspring fan

- has german origin

- has picture of todd on his phone

- popular on theartre side of tik tok

- editor and stan account

- celebrety crush on pedro pascal

- has poster of various old actress such as marilyn monroe

☆Todd

- has a spotify account

- is popular on trumblr and booktok

- abba ,edith piaf ,dalida and barbara listener

- his fav book is les miserable

- absolutately love rimbaud poetry

- he know how to use a gun

- nancy wheeler kinnie bc i said so

- read poetry while listening to music

-ghotic todd send tweet

- has a samsung phone

- french ,born in france ,in cannes (the famous and rich part )

- has a trans and mlm flag his brother broughy him for his birthday

- wear a lot of rings

☆Pitts

- has a samsung (he prefer bc he think they last long)

- his parents pay for spotify premium

- was and is currently a discord kitten ( refuse to pay for nitro )

- big fan of sci-fi

- hunger games , maze runner ,xmen and marvel fan

- dystopya fan final boss

- play a lot of indie games

- fnaf and sally face fan

- tried to recriate with meeks a animatronic from fnaf

- gorillaz , metallica and hozier listener

- pansexual and pangender

- go by all pronouns

- love neopronouns

-specifically xe/xim

- lowk a nerd in tech

- can littery codde and hack somoene if he wanted to

☆Meeks

- refuse to get a iphone like pitts

- has spotify but listen to vinyl and cd

- masc genderfluid

- pay nitro for pitts

- is a master in powerpoint

- run a radio in school and lowk everyonz listen to it

- used to be OBSSEDDD with dangeriously yours

- gacha kid ,never quit

- has myopa

- read manga (fav genre is horror) ,dystopia and fantasy

- post film theory and analyse

- is actually pretty strong (can pick up pitts)

- academelly smart

- had actually cheated on test once and helped ppl cheat ( multipe times : charlie)

- nerd and geek final boss

- dark academya style ish

☆Charlie

-apple music user

- apple phone

- popular on tik tok

- editor ( animation one)

- use brainrot all the time

- only one of the poet who only have american origin

- either has a extremely colorful style or a scene kid

- bisexual and enby charlie save me

- share his connection with his friends most of the time

- used to have a big fat crush on neil when he was younger

- had been in multipe fights

- punk listener charlie

- anime watcher

- his fav animz are nana ,aot and banana fish

- played fnaf more then one time

- BIG FNAF PHASE

- hightkey old gacha kid as well

- had free internet acess as a kid

- got a belly percieing behind his parents back

☆Cameron

-begged his parent to have a iphone (used to have a flip phone)

- cry when he get a bad grade (pressire from parent)

- demi -boy but his parents don't know shits

- used to have glasse

- supresely stick used to have a big fat crush on him

- academic style (blazrr and all)

- actually love ayesha erotica and rammstein

- not allowed to go out at night

- lowk a gacha kid

- make the best gacha reaction ever

- in a lot of fandoms

- has a ao3 and wattpad account

- deezer user

- had brace at one point

- aroace (demiromantic) and mlm cameron send tweet

- teachers pet

- his fav show are barbie , totally spies and lolirock

- had a creepypasta phase

- has celebrety crush on finn wolfhard

☆Knox

- iphone user

- he lied to his parents so he could have a phone earlier

- has super strict parent

- BISEXUAL KNOX

- lowk a cheerleader fight me

- used to have a crush on chet (chetknox canon /jk)

- everyone had a crush on him at one point

- it girl lowk

- old money style

- his parents think he play football

- they never got time to check up

- can wear heel and makeup up

- laufey ,dalida , mistik ,taylor switf, sabrina carpenter ans olivia rodrigo listener

- use deezee

- asshole

- play indie games with pitts

- love romance book (good one)

[aresknight]

//ch3 spoilers

Here's an insanely long rant about my thoughts on Deltarune chapter 3.

TLDR; not even that good fr

It's kind of preposterous that so much of ch3 is just tennas gameshow which honestly I was over with after round 1 and it kinda shocks me a game developer I've come to trust to make excellently paced games made this. It shouldve been fourty minutes of gameshow at BEST and then the remaining four hours should've been exploring the world's areas like ch2. Only having ONE area is an insane waste of potential and the end of the chapter felt really rushed, the knight's appearance should've been way more of a big deal. Dropping them out of nowhere kinda shocked me so much in a bad way? Also the final boss just being Tenna (because ain't nobody beating the Roaring Knight on their first playthrough without looking it up) was kinda. Really lame. I'm sorry to keep comparing this to ch2 but it's just peak deltarune for me- the first time I played ch2 I was negatively surprised when Queen was presented as the final boss because imo it's kinda lame to have the final boss be the same extremely silly guy you've been with the whole chapter (exactly what ch3 did.) and when it turned out to be giga queen (a really fun fight) I was relieved because it was much better. Even King is in my opinion a better final boss than Tenna because he's played up to be a huge threat, he's serious and he's scary and he means it. He wasn't shown throughout the chapter which in my opinion is a much better way to Final your Boss.

Another thing I really didn't like is how insanely hard to achieve the secrets are- and you are free to call this a skill issue- but in chs 1 and 2 how to find the secret boss was always straightforward and kinda easy, and getting the egg was simple. In ch3, the secret boss is just the Roaring Knight. Which. Like. Lame. I wanted another silly guy driven insane by gaster I don't care about the Knight, and I care even less about the secret boss in the pixel stages because those were overused enough for my tastes. Not only is the secret boss already kinda lame, but the process to get to them is not only unnecessarily hard (Getting an S rank on both turns is a fucking insane thing to ask for a first playthrough), but also badly designed (the only way to get to them is to beat the chapter ONCE and then replay it) and needlessly complicated. Same thing for the egg room. Overall, I wish woody theory was real. The community had a much, much better idea for a secret boss.

Ch3 had its moments. For me the positive highlights were Spamton's cameo, Tenna's introduction and Tenna as a whole, the bonus round and whatever Rouxls Kaard had going on. Playing those parts, I felt like I was playing goddamn Deltarune, but everything else (even just the design of the TV world. It's the only area and it's a fucking maze and clunky to navigate) was so. Was so much worse of what I've come to expect of Toby Fox's games and Deltarune? I guess my expectations were extremely high coming into this chapter because ch2 is one of my favorite gaming experiences EVER and after four years it hits just as hard every time I replay it, but they were not met at all, not even slightly. For the first half an hour or so I was having a lot of fun, although I thought it was a little weird to jump straight into the gameshow without no prior gameplay, but even as soon as I realized there was more than one round i was already kinda over Tenna's shenanigans.

The ost, too? It wasn't the greatest?? Ch1 has a good ost, nothing special. Some of the highlights for me include Field of Hopes and Dreams, Rouxls Kaard, The World Revolving and Chaos King, which I think are really great songs that stand out and I can really feel the Toby Fox touch. Ch2 has some insane hits. A Cyber's world is my favorite overworld theme in the UTDRverse, and Attack of the Killer Queen, Big Shot, Smart Race and It's Pronounced Rules are some absolute bangers of fight themes. Ch3.... Not only did it feel like it didn't have many songs at all, but none of them really stood out to me that much. I liked (sorry, I don't know the official names for the songs) Tenna's boss theme- not anything special, but it's good- and the overworld theme for the TV world, but that's about it. I really think the OST could've done a loooot more, especially since it's Toby Freaking Fox.

Another thing I'm kinda pissy about is the lack of a weird route for this chapter- atleast ch1 had a different pacifist ending. The weird route is one of my favorite parts of Ch2, it gives it a lot of depth and to me is kind of the spiritual success of Undertale's Genocide run. How the normally silly game turns dark and all, although it's a lot better executed than UT's Geno run. I was really sad upon discovering there is no "weird route" for this chapter.

Overall,,,,, eh. Solid Meh. I hope ch4 is better.

[cubitodragon-moved]

I need people to know how much the 6 part image that BadBoyHalo, Baghera, Aypierre and Bagi found last night is messing me up.

Right now? The top-right image especially.

(Farli, is this another one of your crack theories? ...Yes. And I fully expect to be proven 100% wrong. but bear with me, it's fun to overthink a theory, okay!)

So, setting aside the 'face' that looks a lot like the ice by the group 2 freezer maze (aka the Exclusion Zone), what's standing out to me that's making me go "???" then "!!!"?

Let's get specific, shall we? (Apologies for how blurry this gets.. My image software skills are ancient and rusting.)

First, I believe that the central pillar appears to be depicting 2 things - an entity and a shield; possibly the former using the latter, or the latter keeping the former at bay and away from the orb in the middle of the room.

The shield matches an existing item in the game, so much in fact this was why I immediately started slapping things down and noticing other stuff as I went.

The next thing is the weakest of the three main things, but still relevant when one considers: the Federation is Always Watching. They have eyes EVERYWHERE. Observing.

Eyes that have also been thematic to a certain other faction. Opening eyes to see the reality of situations. Thematic to finding out and learning the truth.

"Eyes wide open."

And finally, there's this guy.

A very devilish face, which fits many elements on the island, and QSMP as a whole.

Alter-Cucurucho, Cucurucho, The Angel and The Devil all have very simple faces that could be argued as a fitting match to the entity being kept out - or should that be in?

Bad made a comment that something 'broke out' when the group was theorising about what the images were depicting - and given how often he's been referenced as a demon himself, albeit heavily denied by Bad, and his murmurings about familiarity with the location... Well.

Of course, it also looks a bit like a wolf. And QSMP does have some big wolf fans who have lots of moon references...

Or, my personal favourite...

I'm stopping here (mostly because I'm hungry and there's pizza calling my name), but man, I'm very excited to see where this lore thread goes.

[variousqueerthings]

I have watched the Christmas Special I am allowed back on the tumbls.

thoughts! nd a little feelings!

we're really starting in on the ideas of the season - magic and science as one, belief as a power, things somewhat to the left of conventional reality, tricksters (and eventually gods), and those are simply some of my favourite things!

on that note, the song that the doctor and ruby sing very similar to how donna beat that one part of the toymaker's maze

this may be the most of a musical episode we get, but I think we should still have a full one -- confirmed both ncuti and millie can sing so...

themes of family as not a biological decree, but as choice and luck and what you decide to call family

(how big is the ruby-is-susan's-child fan theory?)

I also note that introducing a companion with a mystery in this is different than back in m*ffat-era, when it was from the doctor's perspective of wanting to solve the companion, rather than be with the companion and have the companion involved in the mystery (companion as plot point rather than as character), whereas this time around it's ruby's mystery, and in fact the doctor stepped back from figuring it out which is... interesting

some things as foreshadowing: ruby's birth-mother as mystery, themes of family as mentioned - created, found, lost perhaps? - that tie ruby's past with the doctor as the timeless child possibly eventually in a very tangible way (susaaan), how easily one can change reality (mavity just came back, which feels like a small example of how easy it is, alongside the toymaker in the last episode, and the goblins going back in time and stealing ruby in this one), how different beings operate under different laws than ours...

ncuti is giving perfect doctor, as we knew, but I think it deserves to be said! also a tried and true doctor deflection moment of "I've got no one" and then Moving On -- because this episode (and I hazard a guess, season) is so family-focused, I assume there'll be a return to all of that. definitely giving benevolent trickster in a universe of malevolent trickster feel (right before he said that maybe he's the bad luck, I was saying that he's the good luck bringer, which was a fun coincidence...)

I like ruby. I think there's a lot of space to gauge still, as this episode did a lot to give us her background (and a bit of her personality, which is obviously very companion-type), but I'm not quite sure how much millie gibson sticks out to me on her own, especially opposite someone as Big as ncuti gatwa. I wasn't initially a fan of casting another young actor (and then I thought, oh she might be playing someone younger, like yasmin finney did, invoking characters like zoe or ace, but then they haven't done that either), so I'm still a bit on the fence in terms of how she's going to set herself apart from a majority of attractive young white women that play companions, apart from the backstory itself, because so far I'd say... kind of a shrug, yeah she's fine, but she's not super memorable. that being said this is early days -- her background is well-built, she's very much Of A New Generation, which I'm guessing is why they went with someone around this age and they've made sure to represent in various scenes, I like that she's Mancunian, I like the scenes between her and her family. so yeah, I like her, I think currently that she's sweet. also millie gibson has quite a bit of background considering how young she is, and specifically won awards for her work on coronation street, which, I always feel like rtd works well with bringing out the best kind of emotions from actors who've been on soaps, makes me hope for Bigger, which I think DW (and rtd) is good at getting from people

spire through the goblin king's stomach. brutal

on the flipside, the christmas-star death seemed a bit intense, so am glad the doctor saved davina mccall

oh yeah, and the neighbour woman... there was that too. mysteries

fun episode. I'm never expecting brilliance from a christmas special, just fun! and I had very good fun! and also mysteries...

[dnalt-d2]

NEW 3/4 BAKED QSMP THEORY, DO WITH IT WHAT YOU WILL

Right, so I tried cooking a theory, and I think I'm getting to the right track, but I'm worried I might've gotten some wires crossed. I'm gonna write what I have below, and if you agree or disagree with certain parts, please let me know. I'm a little limited in who I'm able to watch, so this might mean I just straight-up don't have all the information available. If anyone can fill in some holes, that'd be great. A lot of this is just me getting my thoughts in order in a place where other people can contribute.

(And note: This kinda relates to a Theory I already made not too long ago, so check that out real quick if you want to. TL;DR is that I think that alongside the Federation and the Resistance, that there's possibly some other Third Faction. Something that a lot of people seem to also be thinking at this point)

Now, this is all going to be really complicated, but remember how I said there were Three Factions before? The Federation, the Resistance, and some Third Unidentified Group? I think I might have some more ideas on this Third Group. I mostly have two, really. One is that this guy Cellbit was just talking to is a part of this Group. Not only that, but I think that there are some Codes working for them. (Remember how people have been talking about "Good" and "Bad" Codes?) CodeFlippa is likely one of the Codes working for them. This would explain why some of the Codes seem to be working against the members (Attacking Maximus is the main example I can think of, leading directly to his manipulation at the hands of Cucurucho regarding his new infection) While others seem to be working against the Federation and anyone on their side (The Codes attacking the Eggs multiple times, and Cellbit that one time)

Now the second thing I'm thinking is that they've been working from within the Federation, trying to work against them from the inside. This means that they only have the information that the Federation would have, which is why CodeFlippa doesn't seem to know where the eggs are. The Feds don't know, which means this Inside Group doesn't know either. This new guy that Cellbit was just talking to is almost certainly part of this Group. I don't think Walter Bob is, due to the fact that the new Mystery guy seemed surprised that Cellbit has the password for the Main Channel. However, I do ALSO think that Fred is working with them. Remember how it seemed to be Fred who led them to the maze in the first place? (Though that could've easily been some other blue-hat worker, I'll admit) But he also said in his report on Fit, that he could relate to him working for the Federation despite hating them. That means we have three possible people working for this Third Group, as well as possible some Codes.

But what does this mean for the Eggs? Well, I seem to recall that Etoiles said that the picture with Leo might've looked like the Resistance Base he found once. So here's my theory regarding that.

(This last part is the one with the most holes in it, so if anyone has any thoughts regarding it, please reblog or comment. I feel like I'm getting close, but I might have some things backwards. I'll put more details about that at the end though, so if you don't agree with my thory so far, please check that out)

I think the Resistance are the ones responsible for the Eggs disappearance. We've heard that the Eggs ran away on their own, which could possible be true (Though I don't know how Cucurucho would know that. For all we know he was lying, but possibly not? Idk) I think that maybe the Resistance knows how important these eggs are to keeping the islanders in line, and seeing an opportunity to throw things into chaos, decided to take the eggs, either trying to save them from this Big Evil that they're worried about, or simply wanting to screw over the Feds. Either way, they have the kids. But where are they? Well, I still think that the other dimension theory is true. But I also think that the Resistance are IN this other dimension. This all relies on the rest of my theory being true, and that brings in something that might be a problem for me.

I think I started to get some things backwards, and I'm worried that if I keep going, I'll run into some confirmation bias. I realized as I was writing this that some of the stuff I was thinking didn't make a whole lot of sense. Mainly that if the Codes are working for the Third Group and NOT the Resistance, why would the Code lead Etoiles to a Resistance Base? I could just say that "Oh well the Third Group wants strong people to be against the Federation!" But like I said, that would just feel like confirmation bias, like I'm trying to fit everything into a conclusion I've already come to. So unfortunately, I don't know if much or any of my theory is true, but I'm gonna put it here anyway, mostly because I wanna see if anyone else can make sense of this all based on the information I put together here.

Here are the facts we have

--There are at least two Groups: The Federation and the Resistance, but possible a Third Unidentified Group, working from within the Federation

--Fred and CodeFlippa respectively led people to the maze, then guided them the maze to the dice room, which means they could know something about the maze and tickets/where they lead

--According to Cucurucho, the Eggs left because of some Big Bad Threat we don't know about

--The Eggs are most likely in some other dimension

--CodeFlippa is CLAIMING not to know where the eggs are, or about going through the maze

--Etoiles was led to the Resistance Base by information given to him by the Code

--CUCUREVIL/CUCUROJO IS STILL A THING AND DEFINITELY INVOLVED WITH THE MAZE

--This new guy claims to be the one who started Cellbit on that huge manhunt enigma a while back that led to the sword, but look how that ended up

And the final, most important fact

--My mind is an absolute mess of details and anticipation for tomorrow's event, where this will all likely be proven true or false, but regardless, will probably destroy people emotionally, including and ESPECIALLY me.

GOOD LUCK TO US ALL I GUESS I'M CUTTING MY LOSSES AND POSTING THIS, I WILL PROBABLY FIGURE SOMETHING OUT IMMEDIATELY AFTERWARDS, BECAUSE THAT'S HOW THE UNIVERSE LIKES TO BE. GOOD LUCK EVERYONE ELSE

[timothyjchambers]

The Seven Deadly UX Sins of the Fediverse Web Experience (To Fix)

So, confession time: I was recently helping a new client get set up on the Fediverse—guiding them through their first steps into our glorious decentralized galaxy. And seeing it all again through fresh eyes?

Reader, it was brutal.

So much of what should be table stakes for any social media UX in the year of our Lord 2025 still is missing or deeply broken still. I know progress has been made and a good fight, fought. But those of us who love the Open Social Web can get blinded to the rough edges not yet fixed or not having lived with them, start to consider them not so bad. Beloved, they are that bad. Still.

Let me be crystal clear before we begin: I say all of the below with love for the fediverse.. Deep, stubborn, open-source-loving, billionaire-eschewing love. I want the Open Social Web to win. But wanting it isn’t enough. If we want this thing to thrive we have to face the user experience sins head-on—and maybe even laugh at them a little along the way.

<Caveate>I love native apps like Ivory or Mona or custom web UX like Elk or Phanpy as much or more than any of you but those are all UX bandaids over things we have needed to fix in most cases for years. That time is now.</Caveate>

So I jotted down the seven things that make my clients’ eyes cross. And no, this isn’t me dunking on one app or interface. Pixelfed—you’re not off the hook. No snickering, Friendica. These are Fediverse-wide sins.

And don’t get smug, Bluesky. You’ve got some whoppers in your closet too—and I’m saving those for another article.

So grab a cup of coffee—or maybe the nearest comfort blanket—and let’s soberly and bravely take a cathartic journey through the Deadly Sins that plague the Fediverse’s web UX.

(And any I missed in the comments to this blog post)

1️⃣ The Sin of Overwhelming Complexity: Instance Selection Paralysis

Ah yes, we start the OG sin. This one’s been haunting the Fediverse since before most people even knew the Fediverse existed. Again see this with fresh eyes:

Imagine the moment you decide to join the Fediverse. You’re feeling a tad noble. Brave. Ready to reclaim your digital life from Big Tech’s clutches.

Then… boom. You’re confronted with a cryptic list of servers, each with a name that sounds like a cross between a startup pitch and a medieval tavern.

Wait, what? “social.town or lemmy.world? climatejustice.social or a server with a frog logo? What am I signing up for here?” No warm hand-holding, no curated suggestion. Just a buffet of options that would make even a seasoned sysadmin’s head spin.No wonder so many people bail before they even get started. It’s like trying to join a secret club when no one will tell you the handshake.

And even our terms “Server” Or “Instance” make sense in an engineering flowchart but why in all that is holy would we foist those onto users to pretend to understand? At the very least we should talk about new folks joining a “server community” of fellow users.

And here’s the harsh truth: even offering more than one onboarding “server community” choice is often one too many. Even the fix at JoinMastodon for the mobile app only not the web app - while admirable and going in the right direction. If your onboarding flow requires a glossary, a decision tree, and a four-part documentary on federation theory, something’s gone very wrong. A multi-step wizard isn’t going to save you—it’s just a fancier maze. We’ve seen flows that bleed 50% of users per screen. That’s not onboarding, that’s a prescription for a slow-motion rage quit.

“But what about decentralization?” someone valiantly cries from the back row.

Don’t worry: I’m not selling it out. I adore decentralization as much as you and trust me, we don’t have to throw that out to give users onboard for the first time only one server choice. I hear you audibly confused now but trust me, wait for it.

For now I think we can agree that new users to the Fedi need an onboarding experience that doesn’t feel like a grad school entrance exam. I believe a far better way is possible, and I’ll spill the beans in the next post.

2️⃣ The Sin of Inconsistent Navigation: Timeline Turmoil

Congrats, you survived the Great Instance Selection Gauntlet™. You’ve picked your server, verified your email, maybe even uploaded a profile pic. You’re finally ready to explore your new digital neighborhood.

And then—bam. Three timelines.

Not one. Not two. Three.

Home, Local, Federated—each more enigmatic than the last. The Fediverse’s multiple timelines are a beautiful idea in theory, but in practice?

Home: Hopefully your cozy friends’ chatter.

Local: Pretty much your instance’s collective brain dump.

Federated: the cosmic firehose of everything, everywhere, all at once. Many are sure to be in languages you don’t speak. Basically: digital chaos in reverse-chron order.

New users are expected to intuit the metaphysical difference between timelines, And honestly—why should new users care? What does each one do for them?

What problem is it solving? No really, I’ll wait.

3️⃣ The Sin of Remote Interaction Purgatory: Federation Gymnastics

One of the Fediverse’s great promises is universal interaction—no matter which server someone calls home, you can still follow them, reply, boost, interact. In theory? Utopian.

In practice—for web users—it’s an absolute effing mystery.

Want to boost a post from another instance?

Want to follow someone who lives on a server that’s not your own?

Brace yourself: copy, paste, search, squint at a remote profile view, and whisper a quick prayer to the federation spirits that it might work this time.

Want to reply to a post from a different corner of the Fediverse?

You’d better hope the stars align, the server’s awake, and the fediverse goblins aren’t misbehaving today. Sometimes it’s seamless. Sometimes you end up trapped in a social media escape room, having to try every door twice.

It’s social networking as performance art: awkward, elaborate, and weirdly beautiful—but absolutely not the experience most users signed up for.

And remember the golden UX rule: every extra step you give a user cuts retention in half.

That brutal law applies here too. Every clunky redirect, every extra click, every “wait, what do I do now?” moment sends more would-be users quietly packing.

4️⃣ The Sin of DM Disasters Waiting to Happen

Private messages in the Fediverse: because who doesn’t love social roulette?

And yet here we are - as on most Fediverse platforms, “Direct Messages” live right alongside public posts in the same composer, the same timeline view, sometimes even with mostly the same visual styling. You can toggle visibility to “Direct”… but will you notice you didn’t? Will you check? Will the UI save you?

Spoiler: It will not.

One wrong toggle, and your private thought becomes a public reckoning.

There’s no special UI wrapper. No bold red warning. No modal that says: “Heads up—you’re about to tell your boss what you really think, in public.”

Instead, it’s all too easy to accidentally post a private message as public—or vice versa. This isn’t just a newbie trap. It’s a UX booby trap.

And let’s be real: “Direct Message” in the Fediverse doesn’t even mean what most users think it means. It’s just a post with limited visibility, sent to a tagged user.

Worse? There’s no encryption. So it’s not just accidentally public—it’s intentionally insecure. It’s plaintext dressed up as a secret. There is some fine print warning you, But let’s be real: nobody reads fine print mid-conversation.

The result: drama, confusion, and sometimes real harm. All from a UI that treats one of the most sensitive features of a social platform like just another post flavor.

5️⃣ The Sin of Ghost Conversations and Phantom Follower Counts

Federation is the Fediverse’s secret sauce—and as implemented, its spectral curse. What should be lively, multi-user conversations often arrive with limbs missing.

Replies that clearly should be there are gone. Half the participants never materialize.

You’re reading a thread and suddenly think: Wait… who is this person even talking to?

Follower counts of remote users become carnival mirrors: someone shows “800 followers,” you see 12.

You follow a fascinating account, only to feel like you’ve stepped into a half-lit room where the conversation’s already happened—and half the guests are ghosts. Why does this happen?

Because what you see is only the part of the Fediverse that’s federated to you. Each server decides what to fetch, when to fetch it—and sometimes just… doesn’t.

There’s no guarantee your instance will pull in every reply, every participant, or even the full thread—especially if the original conversation lives on a server it barely talks to.

The result? Phantom threads. Phantom user counts.Hollow outlines of conversations happening elsewhere.

Social interaction becomes confusing swiss-cheese cutouts of themselves.

It’s enough to make you wonder:

Am I lurking… or am I the one being lurked?

6️⃣ The Sin of Invisible Discovery: The Content Mirage

The Fediverse was born to be better than Big Tech’s social media rage-bait casino—that places like X or Facebook designed to mine you for clicks, views, and your soul.

Good call to avoid that. Let’s not do that.

And yes, privacy is precious. Zero arguments here—no one’s asking for surveillance ads or algorithmic doomscrolling.

But the Fediverse takes that privacy ethos and forgets to replace it with… well… anything.

So what you get instead is discovery by divine accident: No algorithmic curation. No fediverse-wide trending topics. No “here’s what’s buzzing.”

Just you and The Void.

So new users end up wandering along, stumbling across interesting people and conversations only by sheer luck. It’s charming - but only in a 19th-century explorer way.

It’s less charming when you’re just trying to find a cat meme.

What about Mastodon Search? On paper, it’s powerful. In reality, it’s opt-in only—tucked behind an Easter egg hunt of privacy settings. Years after launch, Mastodon Search still surfaces a fraction of a fraction of users—basically just those who’ve unlocked the “I read the docs” achievement.

And hey, credit where it’s due: Eugen and team did build something. And erred on the side of caution.

Most other Fediverse platforms haven’t even really tried to tackle search yet in a meaningful way.

7️⃣ The Sin of User Discovery Hell

Search is one thing. But finding people to follow—especially if you’re new—is where the UX - beyond just search - really starts to melt down.

User discovery in the Fediverse is so decentralized, it’s basically unusable. No global directory. No “you might like.” No obvious trails to follow.

Just vibes. And maybe a dusty wiki from 2022.

(Full disclosure: I helped build some of those early directories for journalists and activists. We were literally hand-crafting Excel spreadsheets of accounts worth following. Read that again. No really.)

Want to create your own curated user list of great accounts? Go for it—just don’t expect to share it. Mastodon lists aren’t public. You can’t even make them public. So they live and die with you, like a mixtape you can’t give to anyone.

And other Fediverse platforms do not even have lists.

Some Fediverse servers maintain public list pages of their user profiles that are on that server —but good luck using them. They’re often:

Unsortable except by these vague, frustrating options:

Recently active: OK, fine. Credit where due. Good one.

New arrivals: (New…where? From what? And are they “New” and “Aticve” or just lookie-lous that joined then bounced away?)

From this-server-name.com only: What? Why? (See Sin #1.)

From known Fediverse: I’m begging you. What does that even mean to any newbie?

Unlabeled by any useful tag—even ones users have publicly applied to themselves.

Unfiltered, showing accounts that haven’t posted since Obama’s first term and giving no indication who’s worth following now.

And lastly each server’s public profiles do not flow up to any larger discovery pipeline. So even if you do find cool, active, Jazz fans found by hand from user profile section of the Jazztodon server, no other server benefits but you. Go you. But opportunity firmly lost for fediverse wide discovery.

And let’s say you gave up on all of the above. But a new idea struck you:

“I know: like on every other social media platform, I can find cool folks that my friends follow and follow them.”

Yeah…no.

Thanks to federation fragmentation - Think you Sin #5 - many of their following—although every last one of them being technically public—are totally invisible to you in practice. So much for that idea.

It’s a UX turducken. One Sin nested inside another.

You didn’t just fall through the cracks—you’re living in them.

🙏 The Path to Redemption

Ok that was withering to write, let alone what it must have been to read. Time for a palate cleanser for both of us: ![Adorable golden retriever puppies] (https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrdpDT3eMO7ZBVv39srKhyD9rfVaAHAOW-3mzmx-IiO7qCL8j9439fPDhsKPCFnaiPHx0_fi13eZrFvhwy7YiSAGdTb0tXfqNxum9NAH3Rxy_-Q6s7aW2uZnnu-O9H7nciyNHDI4OIMZbP/s1600/Golden_Retriever_Puppies.jpg)

OK here is another ray of hope:

Remember I’m writing these out of LOVE for the Open Social Web and the fediverse and to improve it.

And let’s be clear: these UX sins aren’t as the preachers say, “sins unto death.” There is a path to redemption, each one of these is eminently fixable.

These fixed don’t require a pilgrimage to the holy land of W3C working groups or a blockchain duct-taped to the side of the server rack. We’re not waiting on divine intervention via Fediverse Enhancement Protocol v99.9b.

The path out of UX hell is paved with thoughtful design, a pinch of frontend finesse, and a few determined devs who are tired of watching newcomers bounce off of this experience back into the waiting arms of Big Tech Silos - often doing so with very good reason, and a sense of loss.

And more good news? Many folks have already started making serious strides. Now is the time to push forward.

Lastly, remember: The early open web had UX problems just as gnarly—and it worked through nearly all of them. The open social web can too.

I’ll dive into the fixes in the next article in this two-part series. Catch you on the other side.

This is Part 1 in a two-article series on the Seven Deadly UX Sins of the Fediverse Web Experience.

Part 2—our roadmap to redemption—will arrive as soon as the author can wrestle their love of the Open Social Web back into prose, ideally before the next major Mastodon fork or the collapse of another Twitter clone.

In the meantime, if you’ve spotted a UX sin I missed, drop it in the comments or send a direct message (just, you know, double-check the visibility setting first).

[archieimagines]

Discontinued Fandoms Masterlist

This is a compilation of all the works we’ve posted for fandoms we no longer write for. The writing itself will always be kept here for you to enjoy!

Check our main masterlist here!

American Horror Story

Imagines:

Cordelia Foxx | Imagine becoming the new Supreme

Big Bang Theory

One Shots:

Sheldon Cooper | Prove the Theory

Headcanons:

Sheldon and Leonard | Sheldon’s little sister sharing the apartment

Black Sails

Imagines:

Charles Vane | Imagine Charles Vane promising you a future by his side

The Breakfast Club

Imagines:

John Bender | Imagine Bender helping you find the library for detention

DC Universe

One Shot:

Hal Jordan | Get Your Own Jello

Deadpool

Preferences:

How they cuddle  |  Part 2 

Divergent

Imagines:

Will | Imagine Will teaching you martial arts

Doctor Who

Imagines:

10th Doctor | Imagine being with the 10th Doctor in Paris

12th Doctor | Imagine being in a band with the 12th Doctor

Downton Abbey

One Shots:

Thomas Barrow | Such A Charmer

The Flash

Headcanons:

Barry Allen | Dating Barry would include

Friends

Imagines:

Joey Tribbiani | Imagine having a crush on Joey

Headcanons:

All | Having a night out with the group would include

Glee

Imagines:

Noah ‘Puck’ Puckerman | Imagine Puck getting jealous over you

Grey’s Anatomy

One Shots:

George O’ Malley | 007

Owen Hunt | Major Owen Hunt | My Choice

Hairspray

Imagines:

Corny Collins | Imagine Corny telling you “Hey baby, looks like you could use a stiff one.”

Hawaii 5-0

One Shots:

Chin Ho Kelly | Mistakes

Danno Williams | Save Me

Hemlock Grove

Imagines:

Roman Godfrey | Imagine Roman missing your hints that he’s an upir

KINGSMAN MASTERLIST

LOST

Imagines:

James ‘Sawyer’ Ford | Imagine Sawyer not wanting to give your bag back James ‘Sawyer’ Ford | Imagine Sawyer not realising he’s stolen your medication James ‘Sawyer’ Ford | Imagine having your first time with Sawyer James ‘Sawyer’ Ford | Imagine Sawyer noticing that Jack is your ex

Kate Austen | Imagine Kate comforting you when you lose a precious necklace

Sayid Jarrah | Imagine falling asleep on Sayid Sayid Jarrah | Imagine being selectively mute and only speaking to Sayid Sayid Jarrah | Imagine Sayid saving you Sayid Jarrah | Imagine Sayid scaring you when he turns ‘bad’ Sayid Jarrah | Imagine finding a pool with Sayid Sayid Jarrah | Imagine finding out Sayid is touch-starved

Shannon Rutherford | Imagine lending Shannon your inhaler

One Shots:

James ‘Sawyer’ Ford | Sandbox  |  Part 2

Preferences:

First Kiss

Night At The Museum

Imagines:

Kahmunrah | Imagine Kahmunrah falling in love with you

The Maze Runner

Imagines:

Gally | Imagine Gally falling in love with you Gally | Imagine trying to come up with a plan to be with Gally

NCIS

Imagines:

Leroy Jethro Gibbs | Imagine Gibbs reluctantly cuddling with you

One Shots:

Leroy Jethro Gibbs | His Closest Friend

Park And Rec

Imagines:

Ben Wyatt | Imagine comforting Ben after the Ice Town incident

One Shots: 

Andy Dwyer | “Holy shit, you know Santa!”

Ben Wyatt | Happy Secrets

Peaky Blinders

One Shots:

Tommy Shelby | Eavesdrop

Preacher

Imagines:

Cassidy | Imagine being in a relationship with Cassidy Cassidy | Imagine getting up to mischief with Cassidy

Pushing Daisies

Imagines:

Emerson Cod | Imagine Emerson knitting you a sweater for Christmas Emerson Cod | Imagine being Emerson’s assistant

Ned the Piemaker | Imagine Ned falling in love with you when you become a regular Ned the Piemaker | “You’re covered in flour.” Ned the Piemaker | Imagine Ned baking you a pie

Reign

One Shots:

Sebastian ‘Bash’ de Poitiers | Real France  |  Part 2

Riverdale

Imagines:

Archie Andrews | Imagine everyone noticing you and Archie like each other Archie Andrews | Imagine being a Serpent that Archie falls for

Jughead Jones | Imagine editing Jughead’s manuscript Jughead Jones | Imagine becoming Jughead’s friend

Reggie Mantle | Imagine Reggie liking you

Sweet Pea | “Open your present!”

Veronica Lodge | I dressed down in this catwoman outfit for you and my party boob keeps escaping

One Shots:

Archie Andrews | Worry

Jughead Jones | Misery Loves Company

Sweet Pea | Blood, Tears, and... Corn?

Shadowhunters

Imagines:

Jace Wayland | Imagine Clary trying to go for Jace when he’s already dating you

Teen Wolf

Imagines:

Lydia Martin | Imagine Lydia helping you figure out which supernatural creature you are

Stiles Stilinski | Imagine helping Stiles through his night terrors Stiles Stilinski | Imagine being Scott’s little sister and having a crush on Stiles | Part 2  Stiles Stilinski | Imagine Stiles reacting to you getting terrible anonymous messages Stiles Stilinski | “Fine, you can put the topper on the tree.” Stiles Stilinski | “My gingerbread house is prettier than yours.”

One Shots:

Brett Talbot | His Angel

Stiles Stilinski | Unsteady Stiles Stilinski | Not Anymore Stiles Stilinski | Jealousy

Theo Raeken | In the Neighbourhood (kinda NSFW)

Headcanons:

Stiles Stilinski | Dating Stiles would include Stiles Stilinski | How Stiles reacts to you breaking up with him Stiles Stilinski | Taking Stiles to meet your parents would include

Theo Raeken | Dating Theo would include

X-MEN

Imagines:

Erik ‘Magneto’ Lehnsherr | Imagine Erik trying to help with dinner by using his powers Erik ‘Magneto’ Lehnsherr | “You’ve never had a New Year’s kiss?”

Charles ‘Professor X’ Xavier | “Why does the house smell like a cinnamon roll threw up?”

Charles and Erik | Imagine being recruited into the X-Men by Charles and Erik

Wolverine / Logan | Imagine stealing Logan’s motorbike to get his attention after having a crush on him for so long

[unavailable-fan]

Some thoughts on the maze runner book series with slight spoilers probably

The maze runner book series and the movies are both interesting, but the best things about them don’t align at all, so people generally hate either books or movies, and sometimes both  I like the books more because of the things some people hate them for (though the second book was really testing my patience, especially in the middle)  and its so easy to hate some of the decisions Thomas makes, that it becomes this distinct feature to like about him as a protagonist since books follow his thoughts almost like his pov it turns this story into a story with unreliable narrator (kinda? at least it can possibly be seen like this?)  his thoughts contradict his actions quite often, and despite being convinced he’s “the smart guy” he clearly does the first thing that comes to his mind, and sometimes it even works surprisingly well i’d say he clearly has the spirit of a scientist, always ready to question something and to run and test his theories(mostly on himself, scaring everyone around) , but Theresa is the one with a mind of a scientist  And the funny thing is that they’re not even scientists - when they’re teenagers who lived in isolation in a postapocalyptic world in a really questionable environment from a very young age just to be a part of a big experiment, but from their perspective it’s more than just an experiment - it’s their whole known life  The books describe an experiment, and every part of the plot adds to this one idea of “the chosen one = the test subject”, and the movies have different perspective on the whole major thing that started this plot in the first place And it’s not a bad thing, on their own these movies can be quite entertaining, some of the point from the books are actually interesting to see in this sort of adaptation (though some of these details don’t work together and break this version’s logic, it can be overlooked, adaptations can be hard to make), but it’s a different story which looks like a story from the books only on the outside Books have completely different vibe and allow readers to be stuck in this situation with the protagonist, to suffer from the lack of important information just like the heroes with small bits of outside information to make it more interesting, and it helps building this sense of something incomprehensible, of knowing something is going wrong but nothing able to understand why, of being watched and controlled by someone, just like an experiment subject - and it’s unsettling,  it’s scary, it’s a psychological and physical torture  - and that defines these books for me But this format hurts the way characters are described - and it’s even addressed a few times how little the protagonist knows about a lot of people surrounding him - and for some readers this results in a lack of connection with the characters - because it takes some thinking and imagination really to get how weird and illogical some Thomas’s decisions look to anyone but him, and a lot of attention to actually get the differences in others’ personalities and their reasoning of their action -but it’s there at least at some degree it’s kinda like “show, don’t tell” but the light are all out - so maybe it was better to tell And, personally, i like it, it’s free “open to interpretation” thing  Also characters do have different way they act and react to different situations and a whole lot of traumatic evets thrown at them, and they change with the story - so they have different endings of their personal stories - and some interactions are painfully beautiful  (or beautifully panful in this case)  And it’s generally easier to explain some of the more stupid decisions in books, because all the events happen during a really short amount of time Some may complain about weird pacing - but it does convey the perception different of time in different situations  And the repetitions of the same ideas, especially in the first book, kinda help  convey how people subconsciously return to some thoughts if something about them seems off - and it also can be explained by some of the experiment’s conditions and the whole amnesia thing  Anyway - the first book is definitely worth reading - and it has all the good things + it feels really comfy for some reason and then hits with a bit of unreality - and that’s an interesting experience  And i just really wanted to share some thoughts on the series

[gamebunny-advance]

Anti-”Tabuu is Society” Theory

I’ve posed the theory that Tabuu can’t possibly be *that* serious when most of his forces are so silly looking, but I’ve never really acknowledged the fact that many of the enemies are actually kind of “toy-like”.

In video games, I think the best way of getting the “vibe” of an enemy’s forces is to look at their lowest/most common ranks, and their bosses. For Subspace (and ignoring "borrowed” forces) this would be the Primids, Duon, and Galleom, all of which could be considered “toys”.

The Primids are obviously very doll-like with their ball joints and open seam on their backs while Duon and Galleom are colorful robots and could therefore be toys too. Even looking at the specialized forces, most of them are colorful and whimsical like toys. Even the R.O.B. squad are based on real life toys. There are some exceptions: the buckot and armanks are very industrial, and it’s hard to say what kind of toy the shadyas and floows would be, but this is still an “imaginary” world, so having an “abstract concept” be an enemy doesn’t necessarily break the theme of the enemies being “tools of play”. 

I think that this probably just ties back to the idea that all the fighters are actually toys come to life, but what does it mean for Tabuu if his forces are also made up of toys? I still don’t believe in “Tabuu is society” theory, and acknowledging that Tabuu also uses toys to fight further debunks this.

If Tabuu is the result of society saying that it’s “taboo” to play with toys at his age, then why is he fighting back with toys? To me, that would mean that Tabuu is acting on a rejection of societal values rather than embracing them like society theory suggests. Society says it’s wrong to play with toys, but Tabuu plays with them anyway, but so does Master Hand, and he’s seen as “ally” of the fighters. So according to the narrative, playing with toys is *not* the problem, but something about the way Tabuu does it is “wrong”.

I think it’s safe to say that Master Hand is probably a fan of Nintendo/video games. I don’t think he’d be collecting toys of these characters if he didn’t like them, and he explicitly gets enjoyment from battling the fighters. Since Tabuu’s primary concern seems to be with “capturing” Master Hand’s world rather than “destroying” it, then he might also be a big fan.

Despite his violent methods, Tabuu is not actually “destructive”. Everything that gets engulfed by the Subspace bombs is still being preserved, and even though he took the fighters out of the world by trophification, this was just to replace them with shadow clones. So he still wants the fighters around, but he doesn’t like that he can’t control them. So Tabuu’s method of “play” is restrictive and focuses on “collection”.

But the game also doesn’t pose “collection” itself to be bad either. A big part of this game is collecting trophies and stickers, but this action is supposed to be fun and allows the player to creatively express themselves. You can make scenes and take pictures with the trophies you collect. The same can be done with stickers, with the bonus that you can buff the fighters by decorating their trophies with those stickers. For a collector who wants to keep things “pristine”, this would be a big “taboo”, but for someone who collects for fun, then this is just an extension of their self-expression.

I’ve once wondered what the point of Tabuu’s staircase to the Great Maze was when there theoretically isn’t anyone to visit him, but if he doesn’t really “enjoy” his collection as a form of self-expression, then the point of the collection may be to show it off, thus the staircase.

For Tabuu, the value of the collection is not in how much joy the collection itself brings him, but the acknowledgement from other people that his collection is “impressive”. So then Tabuu probably represents collecting for prestige rather than collecting for happiness.

Let’s look at what Tabuu literally is: he’s a faceless, featureless humanoid made of digital... stuff: A virtual person, much like a stranger on the internet. We don’t know anything about him and his figure is vague, but we know what he’s doing. We see his collection, but he really doesn’t have an identity outside his stuff, and that’s how he wants things to be.

He spends most of the game using the fighters and his personal army to take over the World of Trophies, despite him being more than capable of fighting himself. The fact that most of the Subspace forces are of his own design shows that he does have the capacity for self-expression, but he would rather represent himself with his collection of things. Even his go-to pose, his arms folded and legs crossed, is meant to hide his already featureless body. He wants to repress the fighters’ ability to express themselves, but he imposes that same restraint on himself, only going all out when he’s finally backed against a wall.

When he does reveal himself, he gains butterfly wings. Butterflies are another common object of collection, but unlike toys which are meant to be played with, butterflies are fragile and can really only be collected as pieces of decor/preservation. If he himself is a butterfly, then this could be seen as reinforcement that what he values most isn’t in an object’s ability to bring joy, but in its worth as part of a collection. It’s these wings, the total embracing of collecting for the sake of collecting, that’s the ultimate weapon against the fighters. It’s by destroying these wings that Tabuu is finally weakened and is forced to express himself through other methods (in this case, by fighting with his own hands).

The kicker is that he’s still very strong despite his reluctance to do so. In a way, it’s ironic that if he had just embraced the joys of self-expression through play (represented by fighting), then he’d probably be happier. But he shut himself in his own little world and instead of trying to become a part of the bigger world, he tried to warp that world around himself and his twisted values.

So Tabuu *isn’t* society. His values are surly impacted by society, but he doesn’t represent the idea that it’s wrong to play with toys. He represents the idea that it’s wrong to collect toys for prestige. Toys are meant to be played with and loved, not locked away in some vault, and trying to tear down other people for enjoying their collection differently from you is also wrong.

[thewollfgang]

S6e7

This episode was good, although it didn't stand out as much to me as some of the others. Still, solid all around and the ending was [chef’s kiss]

I DID NOT EXPECT ADAM. Somehow I dodged that spoiler entirely. I was oddly delighted by him as a character. For a neckbeard dudebro he was strangely appealing in his endeavors to better himself. I find myself reluctantly charmed. (Also the sheer hilarity of Maze making out with Eve and flipping Adam off had me in STITCHES). Although, it does concern me that people are just slipping out of heaven, First Man or not. 

I loved his coaching via Linda and - even though he kept falling short - he was trying. It just goes to show that neither Heaven nor Hell has really helped people get better, but Earth and its influence does. And that it’s NEVER too late to start making amends and bettering oneself. That’s the heart of the show. I loved his offer to walk Eve down the aisle but also loved Eve’s rebuttal. 

I was a little frustrated by Maze’s self sabotage, but it was in character and entertaining in the end, so I’ll give it a pass. Plus, it ended with a balcony entreaty instead of a musical number, so that’s a win in my book. I loved the little moment between Eve and Lucifer and the friendship they’ve settled into. They’re very cute as emotional support pals. My heart broke for Rory when she went to the tailor’s and Lucifer no-showed. 

SIDE NOTE: did anyone else notice Lucifer’s use of they/them pronouns for his tailor? I thought that was very subtle and neat. I dig it. 

Everyone looked stunning for the wedding. I loved the time we get to spend with Maze and Eve in this episode. They feel very real together and I love that for them. The LOOKS they were serving. Stunning. 

Domesticity looks SO good on Lucifer and Chloe. Sitting there looking like metaphorical red velvet cake yes lawd. They’ve slipped so seamlessly into Family family with each other and with Rory. I laughed aloud when Chloe said, “I’m sure your father has a reasonable explanation for this.” It sounds SO familiar and easy. Rory is really going through it, though. All her feelings about her dad are being worsened, her older sister seems to have gotten from Lucifer the things Rory desires and has no idea who she is, even her Mom isn’t acting like her mom. Poor girl. 

The revelation of the Big Thing she went through being Chloe’s death breaks my heart. My theories right now are that, by Rory’s very time traveling, she’s cemented her own experiences. A self fulling prophecy. Whatever it is that causes Lucifer to be an absent parent for all of Chloe’s lifespan is caused/confirmed by Rory traveling back in time to state it. Or something like that. 

I felt so bad for Ella. I really thought she was going to have a freak out, but the part that she found so hurtful was that her friend kept the truth from her. Also...the world ending doesn’t sound good. Someone ought to check on that :O

[mangodelorean]

Bad and Crazy – Episode 10 recap/musings

[As always, skip to the end for bullet points]

Where were we? Ah yes, the dreaded Hallway of the Id, awash in red light, and where a frantic Su Yeol rushes to the only door ahead of him – one marked 1002, a date we know to have 1. just passed and 2. the date on which Young Joo had been waiting to kill herself.

Behind the door, to the strains of a fading Kungtari Shabara, Su Yeol sees his father being stabbed to death by a yellow raincoat-clad boy who turns to face him. It's young Jeong Yun Ho. He's caught in the kid's bloodless stare until K materialises and clasps his shoulder:

K: Su Yeol. Are you going to stay lost in this maze forever?

Su Yeol says he won't... But he's confused as to why he ended up here again. K jogs his memory: He got stabbed. Su Yeol pulls himself together and eureka-s to K that his father was killed by Jun Ho, not him. K confirms that he remembers that too and Su Yeol, pleased at this, says they should get a move on:

Su Yeol: Let's go. Let's go catch Jeong Yun Ho!

[Su Yeol marches away, but K remains still.]

K: But... What about me? Do you not remember my part of the story?

[Su Yeol stops.]

Su Yeol: [puzzled] What? Your part of the story? What do you mean?

[Close-up on K: He suddenly has blood-spatter on his face and looks down at the stained knife he's holding.]

Su Yeol: You...?

K: This is the first memory I have of myself. [tearful] I... killed someone.

[Su Yeol looks at the knife – then K – in horror.]

Su Yeol: But you... Why would you do that? Who did you kill?

Cut to: A memory: On a rooftop, young Yun Ho suggests a patricide exchange with young Su Yeol, who does a double take on what he's just heard. (Both boys bear some pretty horrible cuts and bruises on their faces.) Yun Ho elaborates: they'll just be going back to "the same misery" otherwise:

Yun Ho: Jae Hui. You're stronger than you think. You can do it.

In the present, Su Yeol struggles to maintain his consciousness after being stabbed. He starts to doubt the aforementioned memory but K, standing before him, says that even if that were the case, his feelings remain true, no matter what:

K: How I felt at that moment... I remember it more clearly now. That intense urge...to kill that scumbag standing right in front of me. I made you a murderer.

Su Yeol tells him to shut up, that this can't be true. But K says that, even if he's gone, Su Yeol will still catch Yun Ho, right? Su Yeol tries to dismiss this talk, but K apologises...and leaves as Su Yeol collapses.

In hospital, he wakes up with a start, and Hui Gyeom is there. She says the stab wound wasn't serious, but she didn't call his family because she didn't want Mama Ryu to worry [aww]. She tells him that Jeong Hun is still AWOL, but that Park Song Gwan [shelter volunteer So Yeon's arsehole ex] is being questioned, and that So Yeon is still unconscious after her attack/surgery.

Hui Gyeom asks who "K" is, because he was calling out for them in his sleep.

At Doctor Heart Mender, Doc tells Su Yeol about K's nighttime visit and how rattled he looked. Su Yeol can't believe that K, who talked the big superhero talk, would walk the murderer walk. But Doc has a theory:

Doc: I think I get it. To a certain degree.

Su Yeol: You "get it"? You of all people can't say that.

[A piano crashes through the ceiling onto Su Yeol's balls. Not really, but I wish it did.]

Su Yeol: I know that K is... a bit of a nutcase. But he'd never kill anyone, you know?

Doc: I suppose he wanted to save you. Not the world.

Su Yeol looks like a dusty lightbulb switched on his brain for the first time as Doc suggests that young Su Yeol created K to protect himself, and that K did everything he could to that end. But Su Yeol's face falls as he wonders this extends to murder, and his expression crumples at another thought:

Su Yeol: [wavers] You know, K... He won't suddenly disappear for good, right? You said a while ago that he won't disappear suddenly.

Doc: It's not too sudden, is it? Both you and K have changed a lot.

There's a beat as Su Yeol recalls, in the aftermath of Gye Sik's arrest, when K said he'd been by his side the whole time, and that Su Yeol can handle things on his own now. In hindsight, Su Yeol realises it was like a pre-goodbye.

Doc takes the immediate opportunity to infer that, if K is gone, so is the need for Su Yeol's visits. Ha. Su Yeol, roundly ignoring this, ponders out loud if Yun Ho is using Su Yeol's amnesia to trick him into taking the fall for his father's murder. Doc confirms that making someone doubt their own memories is a "common gaslighting technique". As Su Yeol makes to leave with a plan forming in his head, Doc tries to reiterate the end of their doctor-patient relationship, but Su Yeol dismisses this: "I'll be back, so keep your phone on." Doc looks like he should be turning to the camera and making a face like he's in The Office.

Su Yeol visits Bok Jun [the guy who Yun Ho gaslit into taking the fall for a murder] at his barbershop.

The next day at Baby Prosecutor/Attorney Nam's office, there's some discouraging news: The statute of limitations for Bok Jun's case has passed, so a retrial might not even be approved unless the actual murderer is caught and, even then, it might turn up nowt. Nam's mum pops into the meeting room with leftover fruit from her shaman ritual, and immediately pegs Su Yeol [don't] as mourning the loss of a "spirit". Su Yeol desperately asks if she thinks said spirit is "gone for good", so Mama Nam takes him into her office for a free reading.

Boss Yong sucks on a lollipop while some twatty potential drug runner opposite her tucks into a steak and talks to her patronisingly about her decision to flee Korea. He cites the noise around her and Andrei, including Young Joo's father's murder, as reasons why nobody else will want to work with them anyway, and suggests Yong slash her prices to dump her drug stock. She responds in the most appropriate way: by smashing his head with a bottle. Before his crony can move in, Andrei tackles him.

In the car, Andrei wonders if they should just cut their prices if it means they can leave faster. Yong asks about Young Joo. Andrei doesn't think she was an addict, but can't think of who supplied her The Eye. Yong wonders why her drug was chosen since the cop crackdowns were making it hard to procure, and resolves to find whoever it was in case it's a trick to undercut them.

Next day at the station, Hui Gyeom tells Su Yeol that she suspects that Andrei is selling up and leaving, but says she'll monitor him. Su Yeol balks at her doing this alone, but she points out that he himself got stabbed, to which he makes another muppet face. She tells him not to worry and to focus on finding Jeong Hun. He thanks her for her help.

In jail, Park Song Gwan gets a visit from a friend, who says he has some "cheap" illegal immigrants looking for Jeong Hun.

On the other side of an ICU door, Jae Seon and Gyeong Tae watch over a still-unconscious So Yeon. Jae Seon muses that if anyone ever did to his daughter what Song Gwan did, he'd kill them. Gyeong Tae spots Jeong Hun at distance, but he's gone by the time they rush over.

Elsewhere, Su Yeol meets with one of Jeong Hun's relatives, but it turns out to be a dead end. On his way out, the elevator stalls a bit, and Su Yeol has a rather sweet reminiscence of K scaring the shit out of him in his apartment building's elevator. In the car park, he's despondent, but wait! Here comes K in that red-and-black jacket, on his motorbike! An elated Su Yeol trots over and gleefully hug-wrestles him to the ground...only to see that the long-haired, bearded man is most definitely not K, and that Su Yeol is a fucking banana-shaped moron.

After apologising, he laments at the state of himself in his car:

Su Yeol: Aissh... What is this? Am I lovesick or what?

Fucking duh

At the station, Jae Seon works with a sketch artist to make a facial composite. Gyeong Tae calls Su Yeol to tell him that a young man called the hospital to ask after So Yeon. He's already traced the call to a payphone in Samgyeong-dong – where Jeong Hun lives.

As night falls, Su Yeol approaches Jeong Hun's house – now a murder scene – but notices the police tape has fallen. Inside, he hears multiple voices and happens across two foreign men (the aforementioned cheap illegal immigrants) brandishing their phones as torches. He asks them to speak Korean (first in Korean, then English), then identifies himself as police before tossing his handcuffs over to them because he couldn't figure out what the English word for them. Ha!

He ushers them into a fabric wardrobe and confiscates their phones. He's in the middle of calling to report it as a break-in when a would-be attacker swings at him with a tyre iron – only for said attacker to hit his head on a ceiling beam and knock himself to the floor. Lots of brain cells floating around everyone there.

Su Yeol flips on a light: It's Su Jan, the eloquent foreign worker from Ma's jewellery/smuggling ring! He's had a haircut. Su Yeol compliments his Korean proficiency but says he thought he was deported. Cue a recollection of the convenience store fight, and Su Yeol wails about Su Jan's presence reminding him of "him" (K), and tells him to "go back to your country and live properly" [oof].

Amid the ensuing arrests, Su Jan spits proverbs at Su Yeol, and says they'll meet again "if it's meant to be". [Ha. It probably will.] Su Yeol spots a bowl of takeout food and calls Gyeong Tae to find out which nearby Chinese restaurant Jeong Hun works at.

Once there, he sneaks through the back to find Jeong Hun asleep. A short while later upon waking, the boy spots Su Yeol and rushes to leave, but Su Yeol stops him – and winces at his still-sore stab wound. Jeong Hun hangs his head, but Su Yeol promises he's OK.

Jeong Hun: How did you know I'd be here?

Su Yeol: I am a cop, after all. Let's go, buddy. [laughs; catches himself] Well... I guess I'm a bit too old to be your buddy.

[Jeong Hun tries to run again, but Su Yeol gently holds him back.]

Su Yeol: Jeong Hun... If you stop here, you can completely turn your life around, for the better.

[beat]

Su Yeol: You won't believe me, but I went through something similar in the past.

Jeong Hun's not convinced, and says he can't just abandon So Yeon, but Su Yeol promises to help them both. He asks the kid just to give him their gaslighter's name and that he'll do the rest, but Jeong Hun is wary, since Su Yeol couldn't save Young Joo. Su Yeol says he wants to protect them both. Jeong Hun asks if he can really trust Su Yeol, if he can save her, and Su Yeol nods. He asks the boy who the gaslighter is and he's about to respond, but the phone rings. Su Yeol tells him to stay put and goes to answer it.

It's Yun Ho, using a voice modifier. He tells Su Yeol that Jeong Hun reminds him of Jae Hui, and that Su Yeol looks terrified, "just like you did back then". Realising he must be nearby if he can see him, Su Yeol rushes into the street, but finds no-one. Back inside, he find that Jeong Hun has fled.

Meanwhile, Jae Seon and Gyeong Tae approach Song Gwan on the street to inform him that, because Jeong Hun is a threat, they're there to protect him. Song Gwan laughs at this, invoking his investigation for assault on So Yeon, which makes Jae Seon lose his temper a bit which, in turn, prompts Gyeong Tae to call for calm and try to advise Song Gwan to stay indoors. Song Gwan starts being a smug, entitled shit, threatening Jeong Hun ("I'll break his spine in half") if they don't find him first, and Gyeong Tae just fucking loses it:

Gyeong Tae: [growls] Hey!

Song Gwan: [laughs] Jeez, you startled me...

Gyeong Tae: Someone can't even move after getting beaten up by you. How about I make sure you can't go anywhere after this very moment? Shut your trap and go inside. Just pray that we'll find Jeong Hun soon. If I see you out and about, I will break your spine in half!

Song Gwan, sufficiently dulled, backs off and fucks back off inside his building. Gyeong Tae says "Let's go" to Jae Seon, who absentmindedly replies, "Yes, sir. I mean, yes. OK." Ha.

Quick cut to Jeong Hun, who saw the whole thing.

Next day (?) at the station, Su Yeol questions Song Gwan's friend about who hired Su Jan and the other foreigners to tail Jeong Hun, but the friend is keeping mum. Su Yeol threatens to shut down the dude's recently renovated business, which causes the dude to immediately rat out Song Gwan.

[This definitely the next day as it's daylight] In a car, Jae Seon and Gyeong Tae are fixing to eat some ramyeon, but the latter's already wolfed it down the second Su Yeol informs them they've got a warrant to arrest Song Gwan. But the scumbag already knows and, after a multi-platform chase, escapes through his apartment window and onto the street. But he's soon knocked out by Jeong Hun.

Su Yeol gets a call from Gyeong Tae, who says Jeong Hun is headed with Song Gwan to Munmi-dong – which is where So Yeon's hospital is. But outside, the trio can't find them. They split up to search more ground, but Su Yeol spots Jeong Hun speeding up levels of the nearby car park, and finds Jeong Hun beating Song Gwan on the roof.

Su Yeol tries to talk him down, but a frenetic Jeong Hun cries that Song Gwan has to die for So Yeon to live. A flashback shows Jeong Hun telling X that the cops are after him and Song Gwan, to which X basically threatens to kill So Yeon if Jeong Hun doesn't kill Song Gwan. Jeong Hun tells Su Yeol this and that X is watching them, and it's then that Su Yeol spots a mysterious, masked figure on a nearby rooftop.

While Jae Seon stays behind on the roof, Su Yeol and Gyeong Tae rush to So Yeon's room and confirm she's OK, but Su Yeol sees the masked man from before and gives chase. But the man shoves a surgical cart into Su Yeol and sends him to the floor with a series of punches. Su Yeol asks if he's Yun Ho but is met with more blows that trigger another memory:

Young Yun Ho, post-murder, punches young Su Yeol to the floor. Su Yeol calls out to his father, who's bleeding out, but still alive. A smiling Yun Ho smiles asks why Su Yeol is being like this, if he's forgotten their pact. A tearful Su Yeol doesn't know how to respond, so Yun Ho says he'll "help" him remember. Su Yeol begs Yun Ho to spare his life as Yun Ho repeatedly punches his face and tells him that Su Yeol killed his [Yun Ho]'s father in exchange for Yun Ho killing Su Yeol's father. Yun Ho yells at Su Yeol to open his eyes.

Back in the present, Su Yeol reels from a kick to the face but goes back to the memory of Yun Ho yelling at Su Yeol to remember everything. But, outside in Hallway of the Id, a familiar figure in a biker jacket approaches: It's K, and we're all so terribly glad to see him [as if we're never not]. K throws Yun Ho off of Su Yeol and wink-smiles at Su Yeol. K holds Yun Ho by the neck and accuses him of gaslighting, then punches him over and over [intercut with young Su Yeol doing the same]. Then, K picks up a knife:

K: Does bossing around a kid make you feel powerful?

Young Su Yeol: [continuous] Does killing people make you feel powerful? You're just...

K: [continuous] You're pure evil, you piece of trash!

In the present again, Su Yeol remembers: Not only did K not kill anyone, he saved Su Yeol. The masked man is about to stab Su Yeol when K manifests and stops him. And Su Yeol couldn't be more thrilled at the sight of this. K tells Su Yeol he's his hero, his action star, his K, and Su Yeol practically faints with giddy glee. As would we all.

K turns his attention to the masked man:

K: As I am born again today... I will kill you.

K/Su Yeol [intercut continuously] punches the mask off the attacker's face with successive blows. Su Yeol asks him if he's Yun Ho, but the guy laughs, saying the ringing phone in his pocket is Yun Ho "waiting" for him. Su Yeol answers it: It's Yun Ho via voice modifier again:

Yun Ho: [laughs] I knew it. There was someone else.

[Su Yeol glances back at a worried K.]

Yun Ho: Jae Hui. You're not alone, right?

[Su Yeol looks around the room; the masked attacker escapes; Su Yeol sees the caller, face obscured, outside the hospital, staring at him.]

Yun Ho: You haven't changed a bit. You're still the same. You're the same boy I met those years ago. I'm waiting for you. We will meet soon.

Su Yeol, quietly enraged, says nothing, even after Yun Ho hangs up.

Later, in the station's interrogation room, Gyeong Tae softly prods Jeong Hun to talk. On the other side of the glass, Jae Seon tells Su Yeol that the kid is being sent to a juvenile centre.

In the car, Su Yeol looks at Jeong Hun's cuffed wrists, and suggests they eat first.

And it's at home! With Dong Yeol and Mama Ryu, who gently chides Su Yeol for not calling ahead so she could have made more food. Oh heck, this is so heckin' sweet. Dong Yeol, with signature Ryu Boys Tact, says that Jeong Hun reminds him of a scared, battered young Su Yeol when they first met. Su Yeol actually smiles at this. Mama Ryu shoves some food into Dong Yeol's mouth and leaves the table to grab some wound ointment, and Dong Yeol follows her to help.

At the table, Su Yeol opens up to Jeong Hun:

Su Yeol: My name used to be In Jae Hui until I was 13. My father, whom I lived with until then, was busy beating me up every single day. After my father died, I had no place to go. [looks over at Mama Ryu and Dong Yeol] And those chatty people took me in. Only then, I finally had a real family. Right now, I cherish them more than my life.

[pause]

Su Yeol: I really hate to be one of those old people who give advice, so I rarely talk about this. But, in this world, there are a lot more good people than you think.

He tells Jeong Hun to eat up, since Mama Ryu is a good cook.

Elsewhere, Andrei tells Yong he's found a buyer, but still no trace of whoever bought Young Joo their drug. Andrei thinks maybe she just got lucky, but Yong thinks there's too much of a surrounding narrative to just be a string of coincidences. Andrei worries that they might lose their chance to flee, and then wonders if she even wants to leave at all.

Hui Gyeom visits her informant [the dude who made the necklace linked to Yu Na's murder], who shows her a photo of Yong and that she and Andrei were looking into boat passage to Russia. He also adds that Russians called the Eye drug the Eye of the Dragon, and reminds us that that Yong is Korean for "dragon. Helpfully, the informant's photo was taken outside of the Eyes Candy store, so Hui Gyeom makes the connections immediately.

Meanwhile, a painter – revealed to be the masked hospital attacker – gets a visit from Andrei.

Hui Gyeom follows Boss Yong into the Eyes Candy warehouse. Yong gets a call from Andrei, who tells her their drugs were used as bait to lure "the cop" who caught Gye Sik. Andrei has the painter on the floor, ball-gagged with one of his own masks. Andrei asks him who's behind it, but the guy just laugh-spits blood, so Andrei presses on a wound. Yong reminds him they've a ferry to catch. Andrei threatens the painter again, but he won't budge. Andrei's about to stab him, but is stabbed himself, a syringe in his neck.

From Andrei's drugged POV, both sound and vision are blurred. The attacker mock-praises Andrei's tenacity as an increasingly frantic Yong hears everything over the phone. Andrei asks the attacker who he is and what he wants, but is only told that his attacker doesn't like having his plans disrupted, especially by people who weren't part of them. The painter takes this opportunity to finish Andrei off with several stabs, and he bleeds out on the floor, using his final breaths to tell Yong to go. Oh, Andrei. RIP. The painter addresses the attacker as Yun Ho, who fatally stabs him in the neck.

Hui Gyeom bursts in and demands to know Andrei's whereabouts, but the pair instead fight. Yong asks Hui Gyeom who she's after, but the brawl continues until Yong gets the upper hand and uses Hui Gyeom's own cuffs to chain her to a table.

As night falls again, Su Yeol arrives on the scene. It's a mess: Both Andrei and the painter lie dead. He asks Hui Gyeom if she's OK, and wonders who could have done this. Hui Gyeom says they and Yong are after the same person: Yun Ho.

Next morning, Mama Ryu sends Su Yeol off with some side dishes for Jeong Hun. At the juvenile centre, Su Yeol unpacks the food and tells Jeong Hun that there's no pressure:

Su Yeol: I didn't come here to ask questions today. My eomma packed some side dishes you liked. She wanted you to eat. That's why I'm here. If you don't want to talk, then don't. It'd be nice to hear you talk, though. I'll wait. Talk to me when you are ready. I won't force you.

He looks at the side dishes... and realise that there are only side dishes. Aww. Su Yeol chalks it up to Mama Ryu being "forgetful" (even though Mama Ryu and Dong Yeol did joke about her Alzheimer's in front of them) and the two share a genuine laugh, and they tuck in anyway. It's very sweet.

On the car ride back, K manifests, but their conversation has a tinge of melancholy:

K: Su Yeol, what are you going to do now? About Jeong Yun Ho.

Su Yeol: Isn't it obvious? I must catch him no matter what.

K: But he knows about me.

Su Yeol: So what?

K: He'll try to use that against you.

Su Yeol: So what?

[beat]

K: Isn't it time that you got rid of me for good?

Su Yeol doesn't respond. K looks hurt, and a bit worried.

Over tea, in Ju Hyeok's office, Su Yeol tells the therapist that he thinks Jun Ho is enjoying this. Ju Hyeok says it seems like a game. Su Yeol says he has no choice but to play it and asks Ju Hyeok for his help, who readily agrees.

So it's then that Su Yeol drops the bomb: that he has a split personality, and asks Ju Hyeok's help in treating it.

Outside, the pair confirm Su Yeol's next appointment. But, as Su Yeol walks away, we get The Big Reveal via a flashback: Jeong Hun told Su Yeol that, on the night that he saw Ju Hyeok get attacked, he saw Ju Hyeok ordering a tearful Young Joo to stab him.

Back in the present, Su Yeol turns to stare at Ju Hyeok, who nods from the balcony. Su Yeol recalls a memory: his younger self opening his eyes after recovering from his injuries, and Yun Ho remarking how beautiful his eyes were. He then recalls Ju Hyeok saying the same to him at his first appointment. Then he remembers both of them telling him "you're stronger than you think":

Su Yeol: [v.o.] You haven't change a bit, either. You're still the same. Jeong Yun Ho.

--------------------------------------------------

And that's the episode!

First, let me get something out of the way: I KNEW IT I KNEW IT I FUCKING KNEW IT WAS HIM, I BASTARDING KNEW IT THE SECOND THEY THREW THAT GASLIGHTING SCENE IN THERE WHEN HE ACCUSED HIM AND I SHOULD HAVE TRUSTED MY INSTINCT THEN BUT I LET THE SHOW GASLIGHT ME AND MY SHITE SELF-ESTEEM INTO THINKING OTHERWISE FOR A BRIEF MINUTE BUT NO, I FUCKING KNEW IT WAS HIM I KNEW IT!

That said, I like how this story was written out by Kim Sae Bom. It laid out all its cards early, threw in a couple of red herrings and some mini misdirects, and ended up circling back in a way that made absolute sense. Playing with issues of base trust via unreliable narrators is a hard thing for a show to pull off, but its execution was deceptively simple, and it totally worked. It's gaslighting gone meta.

I've also enjoyed how this show has toyed with the nuances of victimhood: Aside from Ju Hyeok (who we've yet to flesh out via Jun Ho) nobody in this show, not even our trusty bastard Su Jan, is wholly bad. Many of the characters committing violent acts are broken, disadvantaged, or struggling people who have been driven to their actions by a manipulating force. And Andrei and Yong, who would have been straightforward villains in any other show, were posited as Big Bads but, when placed alongside the likes of Do (who himself is also a bit of a wretched loser) and later Gye Sik, were just antagonists at best who were, yes, looking out for their illegal drug trade (which is harmful in other ways) but, largely, insisted on staying in their lane. They weren't out to actively harm anyone unless they got in their way. And then they ended up as victims themselves.

The sadistic ones were the ones in positions of power, abusing it and the inherent trust placed in them by society: a cop, a doctor (and a children's one at that). Which is the reason why it continues to be satisfying on multiple levels that a character like Su Yeol, in that same position, is redeeming himself bit by bit to buck this ugly trend and become a force for good.

I just hope that K remains a positive and long-standing part of that journey.

Stray thoughts:

Parallel: K pulling Su Yeol away from his vision with a hand on his shoulder, then Su Yeol putting his own hand on K's shoulder as he says to go catch Jun Ho.

"You're stronger than you think" I KNEW IT FOR SURE RIGHT THEN.

K looking very lost and unsure of himself as he walked away :(

All that build-up and the stab wound wasn't even that serious? My god, Su Yeol, you'd fucking get stitches for a paper cut, wouldn't you?

I wonder what Hui Gyeom's relationship with Mama Ryu was like when she was dating her feckless son. While Mama Ryu is (refreshingly) more reserved than most kdrama mums, I can't imagine them not getting along.

Doctor Heart Mender is killing it with his insight. Su Yeol is killing continuing being an ungrateful dickhead about it, though.

Su Yeol says he's never had a psychic reading done before. Really? Kdramas and Kvariety shows were making me think that everyone does it. Plus, I once lived in an American town that was arguably the psychic capital of the world, so I guess that experience has skewed my perception of what's typical in that regard. That said, I've never had a psychic reading done, either.

3 million won = around 1,900 GBP or 2,500 USD, is the going rate for hiring illegal immigrants to tail the dude your ex girlfriend has a murder pact with.

Jeong Hun's relative talking about how he inviting the kid over for food out of pity (until his brother showed up and ruined things), and then Su Yeol doing the same for him now.

Of the two foreign men, one is Egyptian irl (according to Twitter). He sounded like he spoke better Korean than the white-looking dude, though.

For once, it's kinda cool to hear a Korean actor (LDW) speaking English in their own (i.e. not an American) accent. Also I kinda go 'teehee' in a 'hey, that's my silly language!' when any English is used in a kdrama.

Park Ji Hong, the actor who plays Su Jan, is actually Korean.

Even if Su Yeol was being a tad gammon-y, at least the unnamed cop felt a little bad for Su Jan.

Su Yeol waiting for Jeong Hun to wake up rather than waking him himself.

The gentle lighting in the Chinese restaurant really sold the tenderness of that scene.

Gyeong Tae and his childhood-honed legendary ramyeon-scoffing skills! I doubt he'd eat a Quiznos that fast.

I'm grateful for all subs, but the timing/inclusion of the 'Convenience Store This Way' sign around the 38-minute mark during the hospital chase just tickled me.

Parallel: young Yun Ho telling young Su Yeol to open his eyes in the flashback; Yun Ho as a gaslighting adult telling his victims that their eyes have been opened (which the victims in turn have told Su Yeol).

It might just be the grogginess from being punched + LDW's face, but his expression upon seeing K again after that long [mere days] absence looked like abject lust.

None of the bad guys have the new Galaxy flip phones, huh? The one the masked figure had didn't even look like an Edge. [I know that's a purposeful prop choice for bad guys in kdramas, though.]

Between Mama Ryu with Jeong Hun and Su Yeol with Hui Gyeom, the Ryus really do take first-aid quite seriously.

Poor Jeong Hun, with all his trauma [especially around his brother and his relative's dinners] not saying a single word at the kitchen table.

That painter's macro bug paintings were interesting. But I didn't need to see those roaches mating in that jar. I hated typing that sentence.

You lot going on about Lee Dong Wook or Wi Ha Jun or Cha Hak Yeon when the REAL cutie of this show was so obviously that cute little pudge-bellied reptile owned by the painter.

What did Yun Ho have on the painter for him to be so loyal? Just money?

Andrei to the painter: "I don't have much time". He weren't wrong.

The normally unflappable Yong losing it over Andrei during her (impressively choreographed) fight with Hui Gyeom broke my heart a little. As if it hadn't already been broken by Andrei's final words, that protective act of his (like Daisy the puppy crawling over to be with John Wick in her final moments, hence those little trails of blood where she crawled over to him).

It very likely isn't (unless it's the kind of showy shit that Su Yeol once bought for her), but Mama Ryu's food bag has a Burberry print.

At the juvenile centre scene, over SideDishGate, I think it's the first time we've ever seen Jeong Hun actually smile.

Park Min Sang, the actor who plays Jeong Hun, really looks like a young Park Bo Gum.

Ju Hyeok's not wearing glasses anymore. Did being revealed to be evil give him 20/20 vision?

The romanisation of Ju Hyeok's surname as Sin is just the right side of being on the nose, no?

I know it's for dramatic effect, and that Ju Hyeok is a fair distance away, but Su Yeol staring so intensely and for so long back at him is just peak Ryu Boys Tact.

[weirdmarioenemies]

Name: The Ghost Gang

Debut: Pac-Man

Fufufu... frighteningly Funky Friday, friends!

This post has been waiting patiently in the drafts since my Pac-Man fixation way back in July, and it has really been about time it gets to be posted. And what better Friday to talk about ghosts than the one before Halloween? I can think of two. One would be Friday the 13th, and the other would be a Friday that Halloween itself falls on. But I’m posting it today! On only the third most ideal of Fridays!

Yes, I’ve already talked at length about some Pac-Man ghosts, but there are so much MORE. And they’re all so wonderful. My Best Ever Characters list includes “Ghosts” in the Namco character section, because they are all so wonderful. And now we’ll talk about some more notable ones!

So, here we have the Ghost Gang of Blinky, Pinky, Inky, and Clyde, in and around their Ghost House, in an image I got from the Annoying Orange Wiki. Though I love them all, I’m not gonna talk in depth about ALL of them, and out of these four, I’ll give the spotlight to my darling Clyde.

Look at him. Do you think he’s darling? Yes, you do. You are probably aware that each ghost has their own behavior, and Clyde will target Pac-Man until he gets close enough to him, then entering “scatter mode”, where he will instead move randomly. Why change it up when you’re so close? Does he even WANT to catch him? Well, I have a theory...

The official Pac-Man Twitter has not one, but TWO posts showing Pac and Clyde as friends, emphasizing the importance of kindness. And it’s just Clyde he seems to be friends with... so this has me thinking, they’re Secret Friends! While Clyde is part of the Ghost Gang, he doesn’t actually WANT to attack Pac, so he targets him to make it LOOK like he’s doing his job. When he gets close, he sort of just lingers around to try and seem like he’s doing something while not actively trying to get him. It’s the perfect strategy, and the others have never found out, and Clyde and Pac get to be friends, and it makes me happy.

Before I talk about some more ghosts, I’d like to analyze the ghosts as a whole! Pretty much every Pac-Man game has its own self-contained “canon”, if you can call it that, and each one brings its own interpretation of what the ghosts truly are. And my favorite of those is that of the very first game!

The first Pac-Man has three intermissions, famous for being where the second-most iconic Pac-Jingle is from, but they deserve to be even more famous for how bizarre they get. The first is pretty standard, with Pac being chased by Blinky, only to turn the tables and chase Blinky instead. The second, however, has Blinky get his sheet caught on something sticking out of the ground and rip, revealing a human-like leg! Are the ghosts just people wearing sheets...? Nope! Because in the third and final intermission, Blinky’s sheet comes ALL the way off, revealing him to be some bizarre flesh blob, wearing a sheet! Awesome! Is this true for all four of the ghosts? Is just Blinky hiding this embarrassing secret? Pick whatever explanation you think is funniest!

My SECOND favorite is from Pac-Man 2: The New Adventures, a wacky point-and-click style adventure game where you manipulate Pac’s emotions in order to make him do funny things. I highly respect whoever thought this should be localized as the direct sequel to the most iconic video game of all time. But in this one, the base of villainous operations is a creepy factory, and if Pac gets caught in the machines, he turns into this familiar shape! Is... is this factory MAKING ghosts? Are they artificial? Wow!

The other iterations don’t have nearly as wacky implications for how the ghosts came to be, but I’ll tell them anyway. In the Pac-Man World series, they seem to be naturally occurring creatures native to the Spectral Realm, who entered Pac-Man’s dimension and began to live on Ghost Island. In Ghostly Adventures, they’re the souls that were forcibly extracted by the Pac-People who were on the losing side of a world war that killed Pac-Man’s parents, and are now forced to spend eternity in the Pac-Man equivalent of Hell. Bo-ring!

And now time to talk about even more ghosts you may not know about!

Clyde is the only member of the Ghost Gang I’m actually going to talk about here, because there are so many ghosts that the world needs to know about! Like Orson from Pac-Man World! He built and piloted a scary robot Pac-Man and kidnapped Pac-Man’s friends and family, but he just wanted to be loved. Pac does not accept this as an excuse. He eats Orson without a shred of remorse. I guess it’s justified from his perspective. They become friends later, though! Canon ghost friend!

Speaking of canon ghost friends, there’s Miru from Pac & Pal (she’s the pal)! I know she doesn’t look like a ghost, but she might be one. It’s kind of unclear. But I love her so here she is. She helps Pac by collecting fruit for him, but this gets fewer points than Pac doing it himself, so some players don’t like it. I, however, think it is worth losing a few potential points in order to let Miru feel like she’s helping.

Yet another friendly ghost is Yum-Yum from Junior Pac-Man! She is the daughter of Blinky, and she and Junior just want to be together, but of course, their parents will not allow it. That, however, is what ultimately allows them to be together, as while their parents are off bickering, the two little lovers are able to escape together! How lovely! Too bad Junior Pac-Man is in some bizarre copyright limbo and Yum-Yum never appeared again. Goodbye.

Here we have Bash, who is a somewhat strange character. He looks like he’d be the big bad boss of all the ghosts, right? Maybe even their ruler? Well, maybe he is, but we don’t know, because he was made exclusively for the Pac-Man crossover event in Sonic Dash! He never appeared again! I think he should, though! He’s funny. Despite his apparent authority, he just talks like a school bully.

One of the newest ghosts at the time of writing is Creepy, who as I’m sure you can tell, debuts in the Pac-Man DLC for Minecraft! This DLC is kind of weird. But good weird, because Miru is playable! Her most major role ever! But this is Creepy’s paragraph. He explodes, and this hurts not only the player, but his fellow ghosts, and even destroys walls, which crumble into glitchy text! Especially neat is that, when eaten, his eyes remain black with white pupils as they retreat to the Ghost House!

The VERY newest ghost at the time of writing is Itchy, from Pac-Man Party Royale! Itchy is not a “dangerous” ghost, but a “mischievous” one, and I think that’s great. As far as I know, they are only capable of inverting a player’s controls, but new effects were said to be included at some point. What a pleasant design, too, with the seafoam coloration and black sclerae! And how magical it was to witness a NEW GHOST revealed in real-time, during the time when Pac-Man was all I could think about! What are the odds? The odds were high. It’s the 40th anniversary year.

Finally, I will leave you with this little fellow. He appears in Pac-Man Arrangement, and is constantly vulnerable, even acting like a Power Pellet when eaten! However...

He can combine with the other ghosts to transform them, giving them new abilities! Blinky gains the ability to charge forward, Pinky can now hop to far-off points in the maze, Inky creates a mirror duplicate of himself that mimics his movements, and Clyde wanders around spitting up extra Pac-Dots in places Pac-Man has already been. That’s so cool! I love this ghost! I love that he has cute little nerd glasses, I love his role in the game, everything! Why haven’t we seen more of him? What’s his name, anyway?

I see.

[littledevil-jpeg]

Okay, so last post I was giving Lucifer 5B some credit for getting me interested and intrigued about a shitty character, so, as all things should be balanced, here comes the other side of the question. I'll say right off the bat that Lucifer was never a show I took seriously, all at once because of the tone, the way they chose to develop and delve into the themes, the monster-of-the-week format (though also done in spn, there it's redeemed by the darker tone and more subtle theme-development. Obviously, this is S1-S5 I'm talking about) and again the overall way this world works. I've been known to accuse Cobra Kai and even Breaking Bad for coincidence-bending, but they don't even come close to the level of Lucifer here. Then, of course, there's how easy everything is, like a bloody sled on ice: drugs - no problem, kill someone - no problem, infiltrate a mafia group - no fooking problem. How? Well, glaze over that, it's not that important. Except it is. Remember how in that same Breaking Bad Walter's team spent considerable chunks of the show planning, hiding evidence, preparing, measuring little details, diligently covering up their tracks. And they were only involved in a measly drug manufacturing business. Imagine the shit Lucifer runs, with crime bosses, drugs, demons and prostitutes piling out of his front door. Obviously it's a show about angels and demons, and the realism isn't the focus of the program, but still, these things matter. There's always a convenience to it. Like, oh, you need to infiltrate the Russian mafia or some shit? Don't worry, I know a guy - and poof, problem gone. That's not even to mention the universe bending out of shape all around Lucifer, everyone (Chloe especially) putting up with his humiliating bullshit, the fact that he would be kicked out the police in anything even remotely resembling real life, that the mc's get away with almost everything, the unrealistic dialogue that no human irl ever speaks, the second-hand embarrassment, the cheesy "morale" speeches, the dull, predictable cases that are all done by the same formula... and more. So okay, there's a lot, a lot, of problems with this show. Which is why no one really takes it that seriously, we all know it's kind of trashy. But "kind of trashy" is one thing. Now, when season 5 introduces a genuine "evil twin" that we're meant to take with even a bit of seriousness, in the footsteps of such chef d'oeuvres as Dispicable Me 3, when that twin is the most caricature-like villain in recent history, when the allmighty is a buffoon with half a brain, forget omniscient, and isn't even in-line with the stuff he's done before, when one of the main cast is offed as though mid-sentense, with no lead-up, no foreshadowing, no preamble, like a toss of a dice, when the main character is on a race to become God himself, and his love interested Mrs God, and when, oh, Jesus fucking Christ, just stop already! I truly wonder if the writer's room a big dart board with all these drunk-ass ideas stuck onto it, and they blind throw to make the next season. It's finally hitting me now, as I'm writing this, what on god's green earth I watched yesterday.

Why does Lucifer need to become God? Why does a war in Heaven even have to be introduced? Why not focus of the more intricate inter-personal conflicts on Earth, on the characters and their mentalities, on those meaningful arcs that hold actual importance, and emotion, and down-to-earth (lol), well, meaning again. Why do we need a heavenly war? Why does Lucifer need the approval of the angels, when the moral seems to be that he makes himself who he is, not his status, not his people, not his past and not the Silver City (an excellent moral, by the way, so credit where it's due. This self-actualisation business is the second best thing in the whole show)? I get that this is why the majority vote doesn't work, but then what does work? Are they ment to self-actualise into becoming God? Now, I'm aware it's left uncertain whether Luci really is God, so I won't go there for now, but then we have the issue of his resurrection. Was it a reward for self-sacrifice? That wouldn't fit so well, considering all the previous sacrifices that were much more impressive than this one. And what's the philosophy behind that - he's acting out of love? But to what end, if by dying he practically fucked all the other people on Earth, including the very same Chloe he just brough back down? Are these really the qualities for a God to have?

Or did he once again self-actualise, but this time he actualised himself to life? That would truly be a stake-killer. I saw a theory that he finally saw himself as worthy of Heaven, which doesn't quite link to coming back to life. Well, these are perhaps, once again, speculations, and maybe this will be cleared up next season. As for Lucifer's God status, it's a shitty move on the writers' part. Not only was the execution rushed, but thematically, again, Lucifer becoming God to feel worthy of Chloe is nonsense. From a plot and theme standpoint, why does this need to happen? This Godly status holds no meaning, no emotional worth, it's not fullfilling, not symbolic of anything fitting other than that same old "bad to good" and I guess the irony of the Devil becoming God, but the irony is an empty one if it has no real meaning. Which is the case. The whole thing is empty of substance, and I don't know why they went there. You know, it's hollow anyway, not least because Lucifer really doesn't deserve it. Even this season, he is nothing but a child - he acts and thinks like a child, he unchangeably does the same "projecting" bs from season to season to season with no actual sign of emotional maturity other than that in the words of other characters. But you can say he's different all you want, it's not gonna work if the subtle signs of his change aren't there. Say, imagine if Endeavor kept running his mouth about atonement, but kept dutifully abusing his kids - this is that. And yeah, Lucifer loves Chloe in his own way, cares about her, and even comes out of his self-absorbed little world for her, which by the way bugged me about their uneven relationship since season 1 (you know, treating her like shit with a flimsy excuse and then "making up" for it with a grand gesture of sacrifice or a round of angsty suffering. Time after time, every time.)

And finally, of course, there's the issue of how inconsiderate it is to Chloe for him to become God. I mean, it's dead obvious no relationship will be possible there, not without becoming even more unhealthy than it already seems. Themathic significance and meaning aside, even then, even in-universe, it's a shitty thing Lucifer does, again, for himself. So that he feels worthy of Chloe. What she feels, once he's made it his goal to do something, essentially doesn't matter anymore. And the plot fascilitates this splendidly, I mean, she always forgives him without fault like a well-oiled machine. Always, whatever he does, and it's gotten old a long time ago. We know Lucifer can do anything, anything at all, and he will be forgiven - by Chloe, by Maze, by Dan, by Linda, by Amenadiel, by anyone that he needs to forgive him. You'll be lucky if they don't do it the same episode, and extraordinarily lucky if it takes them three or four.

There are many other things to discuss this season, like Dan's ridiculously badly written death, Chloe's whole character stagnation, the, khm, the musical episode, the saturaday morning cartoon villain problem, the fact that Michael manages to descieve an omniscient being, and God himself. I might do those separately, might not, we'll see, as those aren't nearly as interesting to dissect as the above.

Aaaand, anyway, if he is now God, I strongly suspect they'll play the angle of "even though he's God, he stills feels shitty, as true self-love/worth comes from elsewhere" and the usual thing.

[mittensmorgul]

A problem I have with supernatural is how absolutely MASSIVE it is. And I don't just mean then number of episodes, but also all the themes, and references, and creators, and how it is both good and bad in equal capacity, and how annoyingly meta it is.... I feel like it's impossible to comprehend it all at once, and when I try to, my brain just vibrates and I lose an entire weekend. And it would all be so much easier if it had ended right, and I could have slapped a big ol' "RESOLVED" sticker on the box labeled Supernatural in my brain. But since it ended Like That™ I have to constantly think about it, and ponder it, and analyze the ways it's good and bad, and how I both love and hate it, and it drives me fucking NUTS. Add to that all the people still calling us delusional and crazy, even though we aren't, and for telling us we like a bad show, even though we DON'T, they just don't get it, and I always get so tired when I think about spn. And I just wish I could peacefully rewatch the show and be normal about it, but I can't. Anyway. I'm sorry to ramble at you, but no one in my life gets my obsession, but you relate, so I hope you don't mind. Hope you're having a nice day.

THERE THERE, anon. I’d offer you a warm beverage as well, but please accept the internet version. :’)

It’s been years since I resigned myself to the fact that I would never be normal about Supernatural. Regardless of how it had ended, even if it was just me and my spn Funko pops, I would’ve been trying my best to comprehend the entirety of the series on every level.

I started during s11 to organize my thoughts on a grand overarching theory of the entire series, backflipping through parts that required a more Mission:Impossible laser maze sort of approach to make them all fit. The result is a sort of sound-of-one-hand-clapping feeling. Some people meditate on their breathing, but I personally meditate on the grand unifying theory of the cosmology of a fictional universe, and find it just as effective now.

I hope someday you can rise above the brain vibration and achieve Supernatural enlightenment, or at least peace with the canon. But in the meantime, I’m always here, and probably always will be, happy to offer you warm biscuits and a sympathetic ear. <3