#-the fandom's perception of her character

[mirroredmemoriez]

GABRIELA SAW X THINKS AND FEELS

Got bored so it's time to yap about Saw characters, today on the chopping block is Gabriela! Mainly Gabriela is compared with either Adam or Amanda, for similar and also different reasons. When it comes to the comparisons, with Adam it's usually down to the fact she and him both ''won'' their traps but were both still killed at the end (Also their wet pathetic demeanour said with all the love)- Then with Amanda, it's how both were drug addicts... Amanda basically seeing herself in Gabriela and seeming to root for her to win.

She's likely is most peoples fav new character coming out of Saw X, she has the most content produced out of all of the other introduced characters for example. However, I think one thing I don't always agree with from my own perception is how she's painted to be almost an angel (Within the fandom)? Gabriela is by no means an evil person, it's very easy to be sympathetic to her situation and I don't think that's a bad thing. But also- SHE IS IN HER TRAP FOR A REASON? Just the same as Valentina and or Mateo or someone like Adam/Amanda.... But the reception she gets to me at least seems different. First I'll get it out of the way that this is slightly due to the fact she's shipped with Amanda, which I do believe shipping generally sometimes changes fandoms perceptions of characters or tries to put them more so into labels? With that said, I also am aware of power imbalances between the character (Such as Mateo being the one who supplies Gabriela oxycodone even if he states in the movie he will no longer be doing so going forward).

It's hard for me to exactly pinpoint and or explain why I think this is when I look at peoples portrayals slash discussions of her character... If I had to narrow it down, I believe it's because I feel as though people don't put the same effort into analysing characters and exploring the nuance of them when it isn't a VERY VERY beloved/popular one- And the argument to that is screen time, which does make sense? We get more of a feel for characters such as Amanda, John, Mark, Lawrence and yada yada, due to them being recurring characters... Then with Adam, even though he dies in the first movie? That first movie is solely focused on his and Lawrence's story mainly and not multiple characters, so the audience forms more of an attachment to him and his personality... However! I personally love looking at all characters so here I am. To me and likely everyone, Gabriela is a young and lost woman... She's basically going through what we as the audience would assume as the roughest patch of her life. She seems to be pretty early 20s and is obviously stated to be a drug addict, joining Cecilia's scam to feed her addiction with any money she gets paid with. Outside of this, we have no backstory to any previous occupations and or her education. Nor do we have any insight to friends and or family. This probably comes down to screen time and also the fact exploring any of this wasn't central to the story and the portrayal of her character- But generally, this paints Gabriela to be a quite isolated person outside of the scam. Personality wise, it goes with out saying Gabriela would have a manipulative streak from all the scamming and needing to be able to source drugs. Interacting with John she uses very basic speech to interact and lie to him, but in reality she seems to have no issue speaking fluently in English. It makes perfect sense with the knowledge she is apart of The Pederson Project, Cecilia wouldn't have chosen someone who's terrible at lying or putting on a façade at the end of the day. This doesn't make her an evil person though, as I've said before. Even though Gabriela is choosing to source her money by being a simple pawn in a big scam- She still holds noticeable humanity to a degree, seeing as she encourages those around her in traps and has a more considerable reaction to their deaths than compared to someone like Cecilia. I think when it comes down to the cancer patients before John, Gabriela had the thought process of out of sight out of mind and would probably not dwell too much on the ethics of what she was doing.

I think one thing for her character I'd have wished to see, is more interactions with people outside of a drug transaction and scamming an old man.... Oh and obviously outside of being in a death trap too- It isn't exactly an issue, but I think people spend too much time comparing or labelling Gabriela's character as a version of Adam or Amanda, more so than her being a separate person? Don't get me wrong, she very much so is a good comparison to make between the previously stated characters. However, I think I more so see her as a domino effect and even a symbol than being very alike to Amanda or Adam. Gabriela is one of the reasons Amanda starts losing belief in John's philosophy, which through that results in her murdering Adam.... In these ways? Amanda becomes what Cecilia was in that moment and within Saw X, Cecilia and Gabriela were a minor foil for John and Amanda too.

There are so many what ifs with her character and how that would impact the story moving forwards. What would've happened if Gabriela had just died in her trap? What would've happened if she survived her trap- Or if she had never been tested in the first place. She as a character is one of the biggest stepping stones (whistles at myself) in the franchise when it comes to the outcomes of others, as her death is a catalyst to Amanda's future erratic behaviour and killings.

But enough about Adam and Amanda- I can't likely explain this well either, but Gabriela gives off Laura Hunter vibes so much... And both of these women I just feel so bad for at the end of the day? Them and their fashionable coats... The wettest eyes and demeanour. Anyways! These are all just my opinions, you don't have to agree with them of course but I like yapping and discussing things like this, so feel free to reblog or comment if you've got your own opinion on what I've brought up here. If you've read this far down- Thanks? HAHAHAHHAH

[sunlit-haruka]

I'm so glad to see more people talking about just how disturbing Yuno's situation actually is and how maybe it did fuck up her 18 year old psyche to have middle aged men sleep with her

[fromtheseventhhell]

Arya watched them die and did nothing. What good did it do you to be brave? One of the women picked for questioning had tried to be brave, but she had died screaming like all the rest. There were no brave people on that march, only scared and hungry ones. (Arya VI, ACOK)

--

The night she was caught, the Lannister men had been nameless strangers with faces as alike as their nasal helms, but she'd come to know them all. You had to know who was lazy and who was cruel, who was smart and who was stupid. You had to learn that even though the one they called Shitmouth had the foulest tongue she'd ever heard, he'd give you an extra piece of bread if you asked, while jolly old Chiswyck and soft-spoken Raff would just give you the back of their hand. (Arya VI, ACOK)

Arya: *restrains herself from acting out when captured by the Mountain and his men because she knows fighting back/being brave wouldn't accomplish anything*

Arya: *takes note of the temperments of several Lannister guards so that she can learn how to navigate around their behavior*

Fandom: Arya is a feral idiot with no self-control uwu 🤗

[suddencolds]

Purely Instinctive | Ki//ller Pet//er

Extremely competent assassin who handles every difficult situation inventively and with ease? What if he fell ill... 😭 (4.2k words)

This is a little different from what I usually write, but I've been reading Ki//ller Pe//ter on Webt//oon (link), and... um, this fic practically wrote itself. This might be the most self-indulgent thing I've written this year. Let's not talk about it 😭

For the sake of the fic, all characters are in their early twenties (aside from Peter, who is obviously a lot older). If you haven't read the series, they're all assassins who work for an organization called the Gl//ory Club. That's pretty much all you need to know :)

—

Here's Peter (under his current identity, Sun-Gu Kim) and Yuna:

—

The drive to the warehouse is unusually quiet.

The mission is simple—find an international spy, currently en route to escape via a ship which departs from the harbor at 6am, holding onto highly classified documents which he’s not supposed to have. The moment he steps foot off of Korean land, he will become much more difficult to apprehend—the ship the target is planning to take is a large cargo ship, its whereabouts easily tracked, but the Glory Club bounty has specified that the target will most likely part ways from the cargo ship on a small rowboat. There’s no telling at what point he’ll split off from the cargo ship, or where he’ll be headed next, which means:

They have only two hours to apprehend the subject before he becomes substantially harder to track down.

Yuna reaches up with a hand to rub her eyes. Of course, serving as part of Glory is no 9-5 job—she hadn’t expected volunteer missions to always take place at predictable times. But they’d gotten assigned to this particular mission on short notice, which meant that she’d gotten maybe three hours of sleep, tops, before having to drag herself out of bed for this.

They’d been whisked out on Sun-Gu’s motorcycle—the St. Petrus V4, she recalls. Somehow, Sun-Gu had known exactly where to head. How he’d known, with the entire city laid out in front of him, Yuna isn’t entirely sure. But he’d explained that the target’s trajectory would probably not be a straight line to the harbor—that would be too easy to intercept, and Sun-Gu had assured the target would be aware there would be someone on his trail. He’d probably avoid main roads, then, where there would be a higher chance of getting stopped by the police. Then, out of all the remaining routes from his last tracked location, it would only be feasible to get to the dock on time through six of them.

The rest had been intuition. Sun-Gu’s familiarity with the city is impressive. He barely glances at the street signs as he drives, the night warm and stagnant, his motorcycle dialed to silent, and not for the first time, Yuna wonders how he seems to know all of this.

Speaking of Sun-Gu—

Something is different about him tonight. Yuna probably would not have noticed, had she not spent the entirety of the motorcycle ride sitting behind him. He’s incredibly subtle about it. But it’s there, nonetheless—a slight change to his demeanor. Something nearly imperceptible, something she can’t quite pin down.

Had Yuna not known better, she might have attributed it to tiredness. But in the couple months she’s known Sun-Gu, she’s never seen him tired. He sleeps, like the rest of them, of course—he is only human—but for him, the transition between sleep and wakefulness seems like more of a formality. That is to say, he wakes up immediately alert, and she doesn’t think she’s ever seen him tired.

It makes her wonder, a little, if there’s a reason to it. If there was ever anything in his life which mandated being a light sleeper, that required him to be up at a moment’s notice. Either way, it’s not the reason why he’s—off isn’t the right word. Different is more suitable. Typically, he’s in better spirits. But Yuna has seen him pissed off, and this isn’t it, either.

Sun-Gu parks the motorcycle just outside of the warehouse, unclips his helmet in one swift motion, and—after Yuna gets off—takes her helmet from her and stashes them both under the motorcycle seat, which Glory has designed to be self-locking. Then, without waiting to see if they’ll follow, he makes a lap around the periphery of the warehouse.

The Dokgo brothers have tagged along too—they’re being quiet, now, which perhaps is mercy enough. Probably Sun-Gu had given them a challenge to shut up, and they’ve taken it in good faith. Now, even when they have something to comment, they keep their voices to a whisper.

“What do you think he’s off doing?” Biggie says.

Junior shrugs. “Maybe taking a walk, to relieve some stress.”

“He’s looking for signs of entry,” Yuna tells them. Then, because she can’t help it, and because she’ll be a little pissed off if they’re the ones who end up jeopardizing the mission—“Remember what he said about being quiet?”

“Ah, shit,” Biggie says. “I am quiet. Maybe you should be quiet. Have you considered that?”

She ignores the both of them and heads over to the spot where Sun-Gu stands, now, his eyebrows furrowed. A slat that’s out of place. He pushes it, and it budges.

Underground, the ground rumbles underneath them, and then settles to reveal a trap door. 

Sun-Gu beckons for them to follow him, but he doesn’t wait up for them. Yuna quickens her pace to keep up. The trap door leads them down, down. The air underground is much cooler—Yuna finds herself wishing that she’d brought a thicker jacket.

Ahead of her, Sun-Gu—

Takes in a sharp breath. But no, it’s not just a breath. As she watches him, he lifts a hand, pinches it to the bridge of his nose. His shoulders jerk forward, though only slightly; his back muscles tense. All in all, the entire display is soundless.

Yuna’s feels her eyebrows creep up. 

This is certainly… new for him. But she doesn’t have time to think on it right now.

When they get to the bottom of the steps, the stairway opens out into a deserted hallway: cement walls, cement floors. It’s dark, and cavernous. This whole place feels empty. It’s a little creepy, really. Why Sun-Gu suspects that their target is hiding out here, Yuna isn’t sure. It seems counterproductive to hide out somewhere like this when, according to their intel, the subject has limited time already to make it out to the harbor.

That is, unless Sun-Gu suspects the intel that they were given might be wrong.

Sun-Gu switches on a flashlight he’s carrying and heads deeper in. It’s not until he stops, looking down the hallway to survey his surroundings that he hesitates, only for a moment. He lifts the collar of his shirt over his face, his shoulders tensing.

“Hh’—nKTtt-!”

The sneeze is practically soundless. That makes two times in one night. Something is definitely up, then. Yuna looks around. Perhaps the underground space is dusty, or perhaps it’s not well-ventilated and it’s grown mold, and he’s allergic. Except, the air down here feels remarkably dry—not the sort of environment mold would thrive under—and the floors look suspiciously well-maintained. It wouldn’t make sense for it to be something else, either—some other universal irritant. Sun-Gu is the only one here who’s sneezing. 

Yuna isn’t sure she’s ever heard him sneeze before, out of the months that she’s known him. Could it be some existing condition, then—not a product of their environment, but something from earlier?

“Man,” Junior mouths, from somewhere. “How much longer are we going to have to head down these hallways? They all look the same.”

Yuna turns to glare at him, puts her finger to her lips. “Longer if you aren’t quiet about it.”

“I don’t like this,” Biggie mutters. “When can we get to the fighting? All the lead-up is boring. It feels like we’re in some kind of horror movie.” Yuna squeezes her eyes shut, prays that they’re far enough from Sun-Gu—and, by extension, the target—that they can’t be heard. 

Sun-Gu stops, abruptly. He holds a hand up behind him, as if to say, stay back.

Yuna doesn’t know what he’s noticed, at first. But a moment later, she hears it—the click of a latch being undone, somewhere overhead.

Above them, a small trap door opens, and then pulls shut. A cylinder drops from the ceiling, leeching violet plumes of smoke. On instinct, Yuna pulls her shirt up to cover her nose and mouth.

Tear gas, she realizes—or something chemically similar. It’s some sort of aerosolized compound, meant to render them both less capable of seeing and—partly by extension—less capable of fighting. Her eyes tear up almost immediately, so much that she can barely keep them open. Her lungs burn in protest as she takes in a breath.

They’re in a long corridor. There’s a finite amount of smoke coming from the canister—if they wait it out, it will inevitably thin out. So this was more just a distraction, then. A flashy entry. Just enough time for whoever they’re up against to—

It takes her a few seconds to spot the figure through the smoke. 

She thinks back to the files on the subject. Medium, reddish brown hair, pale blue eyes. 182 cm. Trained in combat. The stranger in the hallway has their face obscured by a gas mask, their hair hidden under a hood, but she can tell by the musculature of their exposed arms that they appear to be well-trained. In their right hand, they are carrying a long, slender weapon. From one end—attached to a metal chain—is a sphere, lined with spikes, each of them carved down to a sharp point.

It must weigh half a ton, from the way it drags the chain down, but the figure wields it easily, as if it weighs absolutely nothing.

“That’s our guy!” Junior yells, at the same time as Biggie shouts, “Stop right there!”

Both of them charge forwards. It all happens in a split second. The figure adjusts their grip on the weapon to turn the wooden handle of it outwards. Then, before either of the brothers have a chance to react, they’re swung outwards by the sheer momentum of the rod. Biggie hits the ceiling with enough force that the concrete above them rumbles, the impact spiderwebbing the ceiling above them. Slabs of concrete rain down from the point of contact. The figure drives Junior straight into one of the walls at an awkward angle which renders him almost immediately unconscious.

Yuna can feel her own heart pounding in her ears. She slinks back into the darkness, pressing herself to the ground so that hopefully, the stranger will forget that she is there—or that she is even a threat to begin with. Seeing what they’re capable of, she isn’t sure she could do much in this situation to begin with.

How long has it been since the last time the path split off into multiple routes? When Yuna turns to look, the hallway before them and after them seems to stretch on and on. An endless concrete tunnel, with the white, sterile lighting of a laboratory space. Nothing to shield themselves with, and nowhere to hide. It’s a strange location to pick a fight in. What exactly was this place built for? 

“I’ve been waiting for you,” the figure says to Sun-Gu, grinning. Half of their teeth have been replaced with gold tooth crowns. When they grin, the gold catches the light, winking. “Thirty seconds, huh? Your teammates couldn’t even hold their own for that long? It’s a damn shame. I didn’t even get to use the weapon as it’s intended to be used.” They tilt their head, staring down at Sun-Gu with a look of contempt. “I guess you could thank me for being merciful. But if I’m honest…”

Their smile darkens into something sharper, something hungry. “I just didn’t want to stain a flail of this quality with anyone’s blood but yours.”

Was this entire mission a setup, to get Sun-Gu into one place? Is the subject really in possession of any classified documents at all?

Sun-Gu twists away—not to evade, or not in preparation to attack. His shoulders hunch forward, his expression twisting. He coughs, roughly, down towards the ground. It’s the kind of cough that suggests that he’s been coughing like this for some time now—harsh and throat-scraping. 

That’s when it registers for Yuna.

He’s ill. It seems painfully obvious, in hindsight, now that she’s realized it. 

During the motorcycle ride here, he’d been careful not to touch her, Yuna realizes. Sun-Gu is always careful with his own space—he has an awareness of it, even outside of combat, that she thinks would be unusual for most. Even with small things—the ways he gestures, the way he holds himself—she gets the feeling that none of it is accidental. 

When she looks at him now, she notices—a slight, near-imperceptible flush to his features. He’s breathing a little more heavily than normal. Instincts he can hide. Instincts he can cover for. But there are some things which no amount of physical awareness can hide.

He has a fever, then. That’s probably why he hadn’t wanted her to touch him. He’d known that if she’d made contact with his skin, she would’ve felt it, and she thinks he probably hadn’t wanted to raise any concern.

Sun-Gu is here, on a mission, fighting a well-trained stranger on his own, equipped with nothing but a pocket knife, with no armor and no with no reinforcements. On any normal occasion, Yuna might trust him to be able to hold his own—she’s seen what he’s done, alone against a crowd of hundreds—but this time, it’s different, because Sun-Gu is unwell.

The figure looks surprised, at this. “Ah,” they say. Yuna can’t help but think they look like a predator, honing in on their prey, only to find that said prey is already bloodied and limping. Like someone surprised—but pleased—to find their job already done for them. “Don’t tell me you’re already not in tip-top shape? That’s a shame.”

Sun-Gu coughs, again, his chest shaking. Yuna feels a pang of worry in her chest. He really does look unwell—and he hasn’t said as much of a word to deny it, which is telling. She looks around for anything to help him with— If she were to call for reinforcements, she thinks it would take too long for them to find them all here, underground, in the elaborate array of tunnels.

The weapon they’re holding is heavy, which affects its maneuverability, and to some degree, its speed. But Sun-Gu’s knife is much more of a close-range weapon, which means that while Sun-Gu will have to get up close to them to even make a mark, the stranger would be theoretically able to fatally wound him while standing a meter away.

The figure presses forward. With the swing of one hand, the metal ball and the chain arc outwards neatly, directly towards Sun-Gu. For such a heavy weapon, Yuna is surprised to find that this person wields it with impressive speed. It’s nearly too fast for her eyes to track. Sun-Gu evades, easily, but the figure swings again, and again, and again. At this speed, it almost looks as though they’re slicing the air into shreds.

If Sun-Gu were to be hit, his body would stop all of the momentum at once, and the spikes would easily puncture skin, drive themselves into tissue and skin and bone. Worse, Yuna realizes, if the weapon makes it to Sun-Gu’s body—even if it’s lodged in a relatively nonfatal area—the figure will easily be able to drive it directly into a vital organ. That means that if Sun-Gu fails to dodge cleanly on just one occasion, this fight will be over.

That’s another thing, too. Sun-Gu’s radius of attack is limited by the length of his own arm. But the figure can stand in one place and swing the weapon anywhere that the length of their arm, the long rod, the chain, all put together, can reach.

“If I had a little more patience, I might even have waited for you to get back to full health, so that this could be a more memorable fight,” the figure says.

Sun-Gu’s breath hitches. His opponent is not kind enough to pretend not to notice. They drive forward, intending to use the moment of temporary weakness to their benefit, just as Sun-Gu jerks forward with a forceful, “hHh’EEZschHH-uH!”

Sun-Gu evades, but only barely. How he is able to predict the trajectory of the metal ball, even distracted, even with his eyes closed, Yuna isn’t sure. But it’s clear that he isn’t done, and by the time his eyes are already falling shut for another. He’s afforded a sharp, desperate breath, before his shoulders jerk forward again. “hH’nGKt-! Hh… hh-IIIH’DZSshH!”

He coughs, after, as if the sneezes have somehow irritated his throat further.  

The stranger grins. “...But I suppose having your head as a prize would be consolation enough.”

They sweep the chain in a wide arc, directly for Sun-Gu’s neck. Sun-Gu crouches for a moment, then takes a running leap up into the air, righting his trajectory with one foot to the wall to land behind them. He’s put his knife away, Yuna realizes. But there is nothing here—no props, no furniture—for him to repurpose into a weapon.

“Sorry,” Sun-Gu says. The expression on his face is not one of remorse. It’s one of clear, bitter irritation. He’s annoyed, she realizes. “You’re right. I’m not feeling my best today.”

It’s an admission, loud and clear, but the way he says it, it doesn’t sound like an admission of weakness. Up until now, he has been observing, Yuna realizes, as he’s done before—passively taking in the stranger’s fighting style, their handling of their weapon, their habits, their tells. 

“So,” Sun-Gu says, flatly. When the stranger swings again, Sun-Gu snags hold of the chain while it’s in mid-air, and—as if it’s weightless—yanks the stranger towards him. He takes hold of the chain with his other hand, testing its weight. The smile on his face is utterly cold. “Let’s get this over with quickly.”

—

Afterwards, when they leave the warehouse, the sun is starting to rise. Yuna finds a text from Glory Club on her phone from an hour ago, presumably from the chairman. It’s curt: Do not proceed. We have reason to doubt the motives of the group which supplied the intel. Ironically, there was not enough reception underground for their warning to reach them in time, but she thinks that Sun-Gu must’ve realized much earlier. 

Biggie and Junior are a little worse for the wear, but other than that, neither of them is concerningly injured. Biggie claims that he doesn’t have a concussion, but he doesn’t put up too much of a fight when Yuna insists that when they get back, their first stop will be to the medical ward to get fixed up. 

Speaking of Sun-Gu: he is quiet, which is not unusual. Sun-Gu has never been the most talkative person, but Yuna suspects that today, there’s more to it. 

“I can take us back,” Yuna says, trying not to make it sound pointed. It’s usually Sun-Gu who steers, but Yuna has enough experience with the St. Petrus V4 to handle a forty minute trip on paved roads, and enough experience too to know how to speed just enough to stay in control of it.

“It’s fine,” Sun-Gu says, flashing her a distracted smile. “It will be faster if I drive, because I won’t have to navigate.” He retrieves his own helmet from the seat compartment. Yuna spends a moment to watch him. He isn’t injured, nor does he look any less alert—he’d gotten out of the battle without so much as a scratch to show for.

But there are little hints, here and there, to exhaustion. The way he clears his throat before speaking, so quietly she can’t tell except for the slight bob of his throat, the slight furrow of his eyebrows. The way he pauses to clip his helmet, shielding his face with one hand from the gleam of the rising sun, as if his head is already hurting. The way he looks relieved to be sitting down, the way his hand lingers, a little shaky, on the motorcycle handles before he steadies it, looking faintly annoyed. 

Of course, for someone like Sun-Gu, where—on the battlefield—any sort of slight miscalculation could be the difference between life and death, where trusting his body to function exactly as he’s used to is crucial for his success, Yuna isn’t surprised that any sort of bodily inefficiency would be an annoyance, even more so for Sun-Gu than for most.

At the same time, as she stares at him, she has to wonder—just how long has he been unwell? Had she not been awake during the battle—had she been unconscious, then, like the other two—would she even have noticed? How many times in his life has he been ill and just proceeded? Yuna doesn’t know what his relationship to Peter is—whether he’s a long lost cousin, or someone who trained under him before, or something else. But she knows, from the way he fights, that he must’ve had years of combat experience even before he joined Glory. No one is born with that amount of expertise, that level of near-inhuman intuition.

In the past, when Sun-Gu found himself in life-or-death situations, had he proceeded like he is now—as though everything were normal? As though any affliction he was suffering through privately was not even worth the attention of his own team? It makes sense, she thinks—that he wouldn’t broadcast any weakness openly, especially for any potential adversaries to listen in on. But if he’d been so careful to hide it from all of them, how would he take it if she acknowledged it out loud?

“Is something wrong?” Sun-Gu asks, watching her now. 

“No, nothing at all!” Yuna says, quickly. Think, she tells herself. She returns his smile, a little sheepishly. “I was just thinking… I’m a little hungry. Do you think we could stop at a convenience store on the way back?”

Sun-Gu blinks, a little surprised. But then he nods. “Of course,” he says. 

She fiddles with her own helmet until it’s securely on. Then she gets onto the motorcycle, behind him, and waits for him to take off.

—

True to his word, Sun-Gu stops at a 24/7 convenience store on the way back. But when Yuna asks him if he wants anything to eat, he waves her off with another smile. “Not enough time has passed after that fight,” he says. “I’m still too worked up to eat something.”

Bullshit, she thinks, but she steps inside the store nonetheless. Inside, it’s heavily air-conditioned, pleasantly cool. She picks out a sandwich from the fridge for herself, and one for Sun-Gu, while Biggie and Dokgo—who have followed them here on their scooters—load up on containers of cup ramen and ready-made hot fried chicken. Yuna snags a bottle of water from the fridge. Then she’s sure no one is looking, she takes a blister pack of aspirin off the shelves, along with a travel pack of tissues, and pays for it through the self-checkout station.

Biggie and Junior are still inside by the time she’s done shopping, so she heads outside, the plastic bag in hand.

She finds him still seated on the motorcycle, his helmet still on. He’s sitting ramrod-straight, his shoulders stiff, his head ducked slightly to avoid the sun. To anyone else, he might look alert—perhaps even nervous—but Yuna knows better. It looks as if he is doing everything in his power not to fall asleep.

His breath hitches. He gasps, his body jerking forward with a loud, “hHHD’TSHhh-Uh!”, which seems ridiculously unrelieving for how loud it is, and sighs, tenderly massaging the bridge of his temples. So the headache from earlier hasn’t gotten any better, then. 

She watches him for a moment longer—watches him duck forward into his arm with another ticklish sneeze, and emerge with a liquid sniffle—and wonders when this had all started to feel like second nature.

Caring about him, that is.

When he hears her coming, he looks up to her. “Done with breakfast already?” 

“Not yet,” she says. “But I got you a sandwich.

“Ah, thanks,” he says. “Though, didn’t I say—”

“You’re not hungry right now, I recall,” Yuna says. “You can save it for later. But I have something else for you too.” 

She hands him the aspirin and the bottle of water. Sun-Gu stares down at them for a moment, his eyebrows furrowing.

“I am not injured,” he says, at last.

“I know,” Yuna says, casually. “The aspirin is for your headache. That’s been bothering you all morning, right? It might help with your fever, too, but I think the best antidote for that would be some proper bedrest.”

For a moment, Sun-Gu just stares at her, his eyes a little wide. Then he laughs. “You really don’t let anything past you, do you, Yuna?”

“That’s right,” she says, crossing her arms. “So you were trying to hide it.”

“Not exactly,” Sun-Gu says. “I just didn’t deem it worth mentioning.”

“Three to five days of bedrest, and lots of warm fluids!” Yuna says, jabbing a finger into his chest, accusingly. “That’s what people recommend for illnesses like this. Not a killer mission first thing in the morning!”

“You are very prudent,” Sun-Gu says, looking mildly amused.

“You don’t think it might’ve helped to mention your illness to someone you trust? The chairman, or even me?”

“I fail to see how that would’ve made any difference. It’s not as though the mission could have waited.”

“Fine, then.” Yuna says. “You might not agree to take it easy. But I’ll keep noticing as long as you keep being irresponsible.” She means it as a threat—that in the future, if he ever dares to be so reckless, she’ll be the first to notice. And if Yuna thinks he should be resting, instead of on a mission, she’s not going to keep her mouth shut about it. 

But when she looks over at Sun-Gu, he is smiling. 

[rocker-socks]

not to be insane but Stephanie Brown is so underrated and i really do hate to say its misogyny but. well. It is.

[suffarustuffaru]

Reading your tags about how people miss the very obvious "there's some fucked up shit boiling underneath" regarding Otto, just gave me a sudden realization. Otto is the only character I know in fiction where they act all innocent and drive up the "clumsy", "just in the side-lines" and "straight-man (heh)" persona. When. Like no one's in the EMT camp is buying it. They know he's way more capable than he let's on. Meanwhile, the tomfoolery is completely brought on by the Western audience.

Like Otto is failing miserably to make other characters believe that he's not up to mischief, Roswaal even thinks it can bring his downfall. But the audience, who even sometimes *sees* his fucked up thought process, is buying it.

*head in hands*

no u bring up so many good points bc ive been really thinking about this for a while T^T its such an interesting phenomenon in the difference in perception otto has between the japanese speaking half of the fandom vs the english speaking half which can be explained by—yeah. media illiteracy mainly. im also putting my head in my hands anon T^T

because—okay sorry wkdndn im gonna get into meta again but hear me out bc this pattern of the fandom underestimating otto is interesting bc i kind of sort of i cracked the code maybe??? o.o i think the nature of otto is a character is that youre SUPPOSED to underestimate him at first, just like what happens sometimes in universe. i mean wayyy back then i definitely wasnt expecting him to get more depth added to him in arc 4–which was a pleasant surprise—which is also the reaction the vast majority of people have to reading/watching arc 4, along with the other vast majority reaction which is being a bit endeared to ottosubas friendship and respecting otto for being a good friend. and then its easy to underestimate otto bc of 1. all the chaos going on in rezero at any given moment and 2. hes almost always overshadowed by other characters doing worse shit or being more insane than he is and 3. otto of course damn well knows hes easy to underestimate and counts on that. thats what he did against roswaal in arc 4. plus—i mean even aesthetics-wise hes 100% DESIGNED to be easy to underestimate. his outfit and physical features make him look either friendly or frazzled or soft. so i think that the point is that we were supposed to be kind of fooled—at first.

because yeah, we’re endeared to otto. we respect him for helping subaru the way he did. we think that hes a nice person and we now support his actions especially after feeling sympathetic towards him after learning his backstory. (or at least the average audience member will think this wjdndn.) but like—you dont even NEED to look at any side content at all for it to dawn on you that theres something Wrong. with him. like all you need is main route arcs 3-8 aka ottos entire screentime thus far, because at arc 4 its so easy to overlook otto unless youre thinking a bit deeper (for example—he gets violent with subaru. like yeah its entertaining, its played for laughs a bit, yeah subaru needed to be snapped out of his own head, but was it 100% necessary??? why did otto have this response??? bc if you just look at the main timeline otto really decided to beat up subaru first. and bc this tendency is now Less Funny in arc 8).

but even if youre just looking at rezero face value, when you get to arc 5 its starting to get even more clear that ottos weird in the head. like we already saw him being very good at scheming and planning in arc 4–in arc 5, we find out about otto hiding the tome for a year. we find out WHY hes been hiding the tome for a year. the tome then leads the witch cult into priestella, so like—in the sense, otto is RESPONSIBLE for arc 5. but theres STILL a tendency sometimes for the audience to continue underestimating him even though by this point we’re getting more clues and many characters around otto, like you said anon, KNOW hes very capable. i keep wondering why this is, but arc 5 is, again, FULL of chaos and different storylines happening at once, so its so easy to almost kind of forget otto there in the background until he occasionally pops up again. plus otto serves an additional role as comedic relief sometimes—he spends all of arc 5 being bitchy and whiny (i say this affectionately HAH) about his camp being full of disasters, for example, so i think the natural response from the audience tends to be “aw otto!! what a silly guy!!” sometimes. you know? so its like. i think at this point some people tend to be like “yeah fair that otto was wary of roswaal and thats why he saved the tome…. anyway ooooh whats going on with these other plot points” wobsbss. its so fascinating bc—ok this might be my own personal experience but anyone reading this pls tell me if you agree or not—i dont think ive seen a lot of people actually even MENTION otto bringing the tome into priestella attracting witch cultists. and the english speaking fandom LOVES to go into certain characters’ wrongdoings so why gloss over otto????

the only explanation i have for this is that from arcs 3-4 underestimating otto is. kind of the point of his character UNTIL you get to arc 5 and the clues in the main story start seeping in even more. and also the western audience DOES have media illiteracy a lot. theres that too. just look at rezero content on youtube or reddit or fanfic sites or other things of that sort T^T but no yeah i think ottos nature as a character exacerbates it. youre supposed to start asking questions about him. youre supposed to start connecting the dots and then SUDDENLY its now EXTREMELY obvious in arc 7-8 and even while theres so much chaos going on its basically shoved in your face. arc 7-8 is just delivering on all the leadup that was arcs 3-5.

and i think that youve gotta be media illiterate for sure to NOT get that otto is not squeaky clean and innocent BY ARC 8. i think that ottos the deconstruction of the loyal best friend trope, and also a mirror into what subaru couldve been like if he decided to be more ruthless instead of jumping right to forgiveness and saving everyone, except sometimes that flies right over the audience’s head wkdndnd. it confuses me bc ive seen some people completely miss the point or completely agree with otto and overlook the Bad Parts of it or, you know, STILL think ottos perfectly sane—like T^T please.

and yeah so back to what you said about otto Not being underestimated In Universe—its such an interesting detail bc hes ALWAYS been simultaneously pathetic and Very Competent wjdndnd. but yeah no all of his friends have seen various hints and clues and evidence of what hes capable of. like even though he hid the tome from them successfully and even though hes hiding info now its INEVITABLE that its gonna blow up in his face one day. like you got characters like garfiel who literally saw otto punch the wall and break his hand in an unhinged fit of rage, julius who got snapped at by otto and while julius is a Bit naive definitely knows somethings off there, anastasia whos smart as hell and definitely knows not to underestimate otto, and roswaal who, like you said anon, literally went out of his way to stop otto from breaking his hand in another unhinged fit of rage and warned otto that he will literally be destroying himself if he keeps going on like this. its this fascinating dichotomy bc otto is NOT fooling anyone around him but at the same time his current schemes are mostly unnoticed—for now—which yeah i havent seen that in a lot of media!!! its an interesting balancing act bc people around him realistically know hes competent after seeing the Proof of that for the past couple arcs, but otto is still finding ways to try and Win…

which—again, the anger and violence is an extension of arc 4 otto!! this is the same guy!! hes always been like this!! ottos kind of stayed the same, deep down, this whole time and as an audience its ONLY shoved in our face with a big gigantic spotlight on it FOUR ARCS LATER, but it was hinted to all this time. and like you said anon—we LITERALLY see ottos fucked up thought processes. literally what sane person thinks any of that shit. its spelled right out for the reader HAH T^T which—yeah. media illiteracy…. and also this whole ask was a longer way of just saying that otto is VERY easy to see at surface level if youre media illiterate. but at the same time it should be very easy to figure out otto is A Bit Fucked Up bc tappei underlines it in bright red print!!! i think people sometimes just hang onto soft awkward silly otto and forget about the rest T^T either that or they dont think he cares about subaru at all. which. that phenomenon of thinking characters that do care about subaru Dont Care is also interesting to me bc why????? we’re at arc 8 and you STILL dont get it??? o.ooooo

but yeah apart from that….. i said this earlier but yeah sometimes some people agree with ottos realism in arc 8 which is. understandable, but the whole point is that he is EXTREME. with it. hes Not in the right here, but the same crowd that wants wanton revenge in rezero is gonna agree with that kind of stuff T^T ottos been lurking in the background so much so that tappei made it meta by doing the whole “walking in darkness” part of his character, so i guess people just. dont see ottos ACTUAL worst traits and instead think he would ditch subaru at the first opportunity or something. but at the point we are now, arc 8 ottos problem isnt that hed ditch subaru. his problem is that he would sacrifice the world for subaru. his problem is that he gets extremely angry at subaru for trying to do good. his problem is that hes trying to micromanage everything around him and is willing to sacrifice anything necessary to get what he wants. but sometimes people dont get that bc otto doesnt look sound or seem like a character thatd do that. the Underestimation part of his character is doing too well on. certain audiences. please T^T the soft and awkward and silly parts ARE part of his character just like all the Darker parts are!!!

additionally im also wondering if western audience perception of otto is also clouded by the fact that otto looks and sounds more feminine / androgynous and he doesnt have the appeal of Overt Power either……. he cant Really be waifu-ified… and he cant be used as a weird self insert like subaru…. and you Have to look at him closer to understand him…. and for some reason people dont tend to hate on him so aggressively, if anything people cant even see his actual canonical flaws half the time wkdndn so if youre not paying attention otto CANT be aggressively hated on bc theres nothing there if ur not looking at it….. and if youre not paying attention otto seems more “boring” compared to the others…… (not that people arent allowed to not have otto as a favorite character bc thats totally fair but im talking about the tendency to think hes Saner than he actually is.) but yeah these are just my guesses. i have no clue the western fandom is a little T^T some people unfortunately cannot read.

anyway. big thank you to the japanese fanbase for understanding ottos character more and making so much wonderful fancontent for him T^T also i think that we as a collective fanbase should stop underestimating otto in general bc its exactly what he wouldnt want and i think itd be really hilarious. <3333 make him explode with rage please

[darlin-djarin]

coruscant more like corusCANT lol haha lmao

-elia kane, probably

[crown-ov-horns]

You know who's probably the most underappreciated character in Warrior Nun fandom? Her.

Warrior Nun (Ephesians 6:11)

[the-cat-at-the-theatre-door]

When it comes to Grizabella, I am extremely anti-vilification of her character, but I am also extremely anti-"uwu baby did nothing wrong"-ification of her character.

[clairelutra]

So question what do you consider accurate Sakura Haruno characterization?? I've seen interpretations of her that I really enjoy, and others I care significantly less for, and as I've never seen Naruto, and I trust your opinion I was wondering what your take on her was?

OKAY SO

at first, she's actually kind of a bitch! but, like, in that super ordinary preteen girl way, where her biggest concerns are impressing/getting close to her crush and showing up her rival and being willing to center her actions around those things. she's not nice or particularly sweet, but she's not cruel or mean or harpy either. she's immature and a lil insecure, as preteens should be allowed to be. god knows her teammates are, they're just a hundred times more traumatized.

the biggest thing is that her problems and desires do make sense, they're just so utterly mundane compared to sasuke's and naruto's, and i think that's a fascinating contrast. they're dealing with the massacre of their family and complete and total social ostracization, respectively, and trying to survive it, whereas sakura is an average girl in a career track for child soldiers, and her standards haven't conformed to the reality of her situation yet.

and then she spends time around a whole bunch of badass people and gets put through some harrowing experiences and gets an apprenticeship with one of the legendary sannin, ad she starts coming into her own, gaining confidence and skills. and then there's the war, and she's under an extreme amount of stress, and dealing with it. she's a healer. she's a lowkey badass. and she's Doing It.

i just really love how ordinary she is, even after all that. when people write her, they take everything in the worst faith possible and pile her with faults she doesn't have. that, or they treat her like this... alien without a soul, somehow. a paper cutout because her problems are so different from those around her, i think, and nobody knows quite what to do with them or how to do them, so they just... leave them out.

i remember this one fic that got it where naruto had been under conditioning as a weapon and as a result had super sensitive ears, and the narrative kept describing sakura as screechy and shallow -- except then someone told her that her voice was hurting naruto's ears, and she went D: and started trying to moderate her volume/tone when she was around him. and i think that's about what she is. she's trying, and about as sensitive and perceptive as the average human with half-decent social skills, and sometimes makes mistakes and gets things wrong and needs to be actually told that other people need things, but she's trying.

[swagging-back-to]

just saw someone id as a mabel apologist and honestly thats the best name for mabel fans

[nebulouscoffee]

Just realised I was possibly vague and confusing in the tags of my last post (the Kai Winn one) - you can reblog it! I was just requesting that people not be mean to/about other fans in the tags (which was only a request, I'm not gonna police you if you do that lol)

[yuridovewing]

very sorry for the person i may or may not become when ivypool starts doing her thing in avos. *is incapable of being unbiased about her and dovewing's relationship*

[whalehouse1]

You don’t realize how much you hate how a character until you walk into a store and audibly groan so loudly over seeing them as the main selling point.

[council-of-beetroot]

Belarus for character bingo?

Thanks for the ask!

Belarus! She is such a strange character who has a lot more depth than it looks at first. Plus her aesthetic! gorgeous! she feels like the type to silently observe and analyze everything. She is one of those characters you feel like you will never truly understand their identity and character.

10/10

I Love hairbows

[zenchii]

Ughhh the way the i love yoo webtoon shies away from doing anything in a remotely interesting, intriguing manner, or make it's characters anything other than "victim" or "perpetrator" (never both at once) is so frustrating for a series with so much potential