#outset of the project!!!!!

[yusuke-of-valla]

I guess I'll have the XBox game show on in the backgrounf there might be cool turn-based games

[weirdstrangeandawful]

New needlepoint project alert! Not going to give anything away just yet but this one is an experiment that I am super excited about and really hope it turns out.

The problem I have with small projects is I can't use an embroidery hoop and/or I have to use a small hoop and move it around a lot. This one is only 145 x 100 (14 500 stitches total) so it's infuriatingly tiny but it's an experiment so I didn't want to go all out.

1/29 colours done.

[woodsborostabathon]

as much as i love both amber and quinn and think it would be kinda neat for them to get along. i fear i am also entirely too kirschcest-pilled to think that any interaction between them would not just straight up go like this. w amber as pam and quinn as the main chick 😭

like genuinely tho i think quinn is the type to get jealous and feel ‘threatened’ by any girl richie would bring home anyhow but. i think she’d be the WORST of the worst w that when it comes to amber bc if u think abt it. they’re both (relatively in relation to richie) younger chicks. both into stab. both female manipulators but that’s kinda neither here nor there. so quinn would prolly essentially see it as richie dating… her but a little to the left. her but if she cared significantly less abt richie and was not blood related to him. and she WOULD take ts personally! 😭

[bisexual-nightmare]

Well hell.

Lindsay C. Gibson, Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents

[miss0atae]

I'm obsessed about the face change of Willy when Babe finally left the scene. I mean everyone (at least the viewers) knows he is here to mess with Babe. He is deliberately pretending to be interested in Babe, acting like a fan from the outset, trying to get close to him any chance he can get (at the bar, on the race, at the hospital, at the gym... a real stalker behavior). He also knows very well it is going to annoy Charlie and possibly push them to drift apart. However, I feel like Willy is kind of getting annoyed by Babe.

He has to keep pretending to like him and that none of his actions are sketchy. He overuses smiles and flirting to hide what he truly feels or wants. To Babe, he is just an annoying fan turned rival ricer and to Charlie, he is more like a love rival, but ultimately Willy has another agenda and I doubt it is to be with Babe or to win on the race tracks. I really like this character. I mean we have great villains with terrible motivations, but we knew them from season 1. I wonder what Willy is going to get from his actions. I hope he also has a nefarious project and I wish to know how is it linked to whatever Tony's trying to do.

[rozyrne]

HE'S NOT EXACTLY A BOTANIST.⠀✩⠀the thought that there could be anything wrong hadn't even occurred to him. "huh? what do you mean, invasive?" a tale of wheat and her brother comes after——which made him wonder, what kind of place did yuzu come from? it had to be unique, if it was the reason she talked the way she did. . . oh, he's almost missed the moral of the whole story.

"hm. . . i don't know, doesn't nature just kind of——figure it out? all sorts of plants grow together all over elusia, and back in my hometown too. the forests there are filled with all sorts of things.

besides, the whole beauty of the academy is about how people from all over the world come together, right? a melting pot of different places and styles ; shouldn't the greenhouse be the same?" enthusiasm radiates in every word and eager bounce, hands balled in happy little fists as he smiles at yuzu, looking her right in the eye. "c'mon, if we just keep planting the same old things, no one'll ever know what sorts of beautiful things they're missing out on. and that goes for this tree, too."

taking yuzu's wrist, he pulls her back over to the hole in the ground, perfectly-fitted for the bulb in question. where else would he plant it, if not here? if the veilwood from the village didn't belong in the monastery, in fódlan with the rest of them, then where would it go? it's not like he could fly back to elusia right now and drop it off there. it'd just. . . slowly wither away, after all the effort he'd gone through to bring it here so he could leave a little something almost no one'd ever seen before.

"what's the worst that could happen, yuzu?" head turns to fix one more smiling look, encouraging her to do the honors. "i'm sure it'll be fine."

PYRISCENCE

✩ .　mission⠀RESTORATION⠀∶⠀gauntlets.

[libellule-ao3]

Solomon Sallow & his relationship with the Sallow twins

While working on a chapter, I felt the need to organise my thoughts about Solomon Sallow’s role in Sebastian’s downfall, and how his rigid worldview ultimately led them all to tragedy.

⚠️: dysfunctional family, toxic relationships.

Solomon embodies a rigid, disillusioned authority figure, marked by his past. A former Auror, he has been so close to darkness that he became tainted by it, resorting to Dark Arts himself =>"fighting fire with fire". Traumatised and disgusted with what he became, he withdrew to Feldcroft.

After the death of his brother and sister-in-law, Solomon suddenly found himself with two orphans to raise, when he was neither prepared nor emotionally equipped for such a role.

Above all, he lacks the temperament needed to raise a boy like Sebastian: impulsive, curious, and provocative. From the outset, there is a fundamental incompatibility of character, and Solomon shows neither the emotional flexibility nor the maturity to adapt.

In truth, it never even occurs to him to try. Solomon's method of parenting is rooted in prohibition, discipline, and resignation which manifests in:

- A total disregard for Sebastian’s emotions (and Anne’s, too).

- The constant repression of Sebastian’s attempts to heal Anne, which he deems naïve or even dangerous.

- Subtle, yet persistent guilt-tripping, making Sebastian believe his efforts are not only futile but harmful.

There is no physical abuse shown in the game, but we are undeniably looking at a case of psychological violence and emotional neglect.

It’s an oppressive environment, where Sebastian is denied recognition, support, and autonomy, despite being a sensitive boy, driven by emotion, by love and hope, and trapped in an unbearable situation: a twin sister condemned, and drifting away from him.

To this is added a patriarchal model of boyhood, typical of the time: masculinity equated with endurance and blind submission to authority. But Sebastian is suffering and he's not allowed to say so. Nor is he allowed to contradict his uncle, as that would be deemed improper for a well-brought-up young man.

To make matters worse, Solomon projects a deep-rooted resentment onto Sebastian. He recognises in him certain traits inherited from his father —recklessness, stubbornness, and a tendency to drag others along in his passionate pursuits. These are the very traits he holds responsible for the Sallows' tragedy and, by extension, for the fact that he now has two children to raise.

(Note: in the game, Ominis refers to their recklessness, and I’m convinced he’s merely repeating Solomon’s words. Neither Sebastian nor Anne would ever have spoken of their parents in such terms.)

My HC is that Solomon resents his brother all the more because he was secretly in love with his sister-in-law =>a situation not unlike that of Severus Snape, burdened with the duty of protecting the child of the woman he had loved in silence. A woman who died after marrying another.

As a result, Solomon doesn’t see Sebastian as a grieving teenager. He sees him as an extension of the brother he had unfinished business with and he tries to crush him.

This projection renders reconciliation nearly impossible: Sebastian can only fail to be loved by an uncle who, deep down, resents him for being his father’s son.

In contrast, his relationship with Anne appears more peaceful... at least on the surface. Where Sebastian embodies rebellion, Anne embodies submission.

She remains dignified in her suffering, deferential to male authority, quiet and unobtrusive. She endures her curse in silence, never attempting the impossible or challenging her fate. This ‘virtuous’ resignation aligns perfectly with Solomon’s worldview and with societal expectations of women.

But I don’t think he loves her for who she truly is; he loves what she represents: a quiet, obedient, morally irreproachable girl, a flattering reflection of his authority, of the care he believes he provides.

He repeated so often that all he could offer her was the gentlest end possible, that there was no hope of recovery, that she eventually came to accept it as truth. And since the Dark Arts are unthinkable to her, she gradually surrendered to that imposed vision —a vision carefully sustained by the isolation Solomon maintains, all in the name of protecting her. But honestly, it’s just another form of toxic behaviour.

One thing must be acknowledged, however: for all his bitterness and severity, Solomon never abandoned his responsibilities. When the twins’ parents died, he could have sent them to an orphanage, and some might argue that would have been kinder, but he chose to keep them. He gave them a home and an education, despite being wholly unprepared. It even appears he continued to tutor Anne, as her magical skill suggests.

Finally, by destroying the relic, Solomon didn’t just destroy an object. He destroyed Sebastian’s last hope. The fragile thread to which he clung in order to save his sister. For Solomon, it was an act of authority, but for Sebastian, it was above all a denial of his suffering, his efforts, his belief, and his love. That's cruel!

Cornered, consumed by grief and rage, Sebastian lashed out. There were no words left. And so he brought a brutal end to years of tension and misunderstanding. But that act, far from freeing him, sealed his downfall.

🙏Thank you for forgiving any possible grammatical errors. ESL writer.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Judd Legum at Popular Information:

A Texas county has mandated public libraries move a well-regarded children's book documenting the mistreatment of Native Americans in New England — Colonization and the Wampanoag Story — from the "non-fiction" section to "fiction." The decision was made after the government of Montgomery County, under pressure from right-wing activists, removed librarians from the process of reviewing children's books and replaced them with a "Citizens Review Committee." Colonization and the Wampanoag Story was "challenged" by an unknown person on September 10, 2024. The Committee responded by ordering that the book be moved to the fiction section of public libraries in Montgomery County by October 17, 2024, according to public records obtained by the Texas Freedom To Read Project shared with Popular Information.  The author of Colonization and the Wampanoag Story is Linda Coombs, a "historian from the Wampanoag Tribe." Coombs spent three decades working at the Wampanoag Indigenous Program, an initiative to preserve the history of the Wampanoag people. The book is published by Penguin Random House, which describes the book as "[t]he true story of the Indigenous Nations of the American Northeast, including the Wampanoag nation and others, and their history up to present day."

[...] The change to the book review process was driven by a local right-wing group, Two Moms and Some Books. The group is led by Michele Nuckolls, a local mother. Nuckolls believes "children’s books with alternate gender ideology to be moved to the adult section." The group also is demanding more "conservative and Christian’s [sic] books in the public library." The group is especially enthusiastic about titles from Brave Books, which publishes children's books from far-right authors like Congressman Dan Crenshaw (R-TX), Donald Trump's former press secretary Sean Spicer, and Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn. In case there is any confusion about the objectives of the group, its slogan is "Make Libraries Great Again!" 

[...] Under the new policy, once a children's book is challenged, it must immediately be moved to the adult section, with only adults allowed to access it. The book is then considered by the Citizens Review Committee at a meeting that is "closed to the public except for the Resident who made a formal request for review." The decisions of the Citizen's Review Committee are final, and there is no appeals process.  From the outset, critics of the new policy warned that it could be abused. 

Another disturbing instance of the right-wing book-banning crusade against content featuring diverse voices has occurred, this time in Montgomery County, Texas, directly north of Houston. The book in question was Colonization and the Wampanoag Story, which was moved from “non-fiction” to “fiction”

[goopi-e]

...Did anybody really want New Hyrule to be a thing?

The Great Sea isn't shown to be struggling or unsustainable. The ocean is fishless, but there's no famine; the pirates are known as the terror of the seas, but, out of the two known crews, one is defunct and the other is led by a sensible leader with a heart of gold; the settlements are isolated, but no one is lonely and the mail comes on time. The closest thing to a global issue that I can recall is probably Great Deku Tree's reforestation efforts, and even there we don't exactly know his endgoal with that. And, despite Outset Island being one of the main hubs of historical knowledge on the ocean, no one there is nostalgic for the "good old times"; even the fact that everyone but Orca forgot the art of swordfighting isn't painted as an especially big cultural loss - it's just a natural, if not welcome, consequence of a peaceful life. The point is, if The Great Sea was a bad place to live, we'd know that. It's not hard to come up with a hypothetical easy-to-implement, rating-appropriate rewrite that would've made it clear. When Tetra's crew and Link embark on the voyage, the rest of their world stays behind. It's never made clear whether or not anybody follows them - out of Spirit Tracks NPCs, all legacy characters come from either Tetra's pirate crew or from Phantom Hourglass... or it's Beedle, who doesn't really count. No Great Sea peoples. No Rito or Koroks.

And then there's the name of the land. Yes, there are some who remember or at least know of the flooded kingdom: Tetra has a surprising collection of memorabilia and recognises the importance of the Master Sword on sight, and the three guardian deities protecting the Goddess Pearls speak in Hylian, but even the most nostalgic of this group of characters, the Great Deku Tree, is seemingly accepting of the new world he found himself in. As it stands, the only people in-universe who truly want to revert the flood are two irrelevant old coots that forgot to die and made it everybody's problem. But Ganondorf is the antagonist of the story, his purpose is ultimately to be disagreed with, regardless of whether or not there is a kernel of truth in his words, and Daphnes, while also motivated by the desire to uphold the legacy of Hyrule, ends the game with a noble sacrifice of that legacy, letting the children of the future chart their own course.

And it gets worse. Hyrule or no, the idea of "needing" to discover new land never comes up in the game altogether...

...that is, until the final cutscene.

Only then does this project suddenly become a main concern. Out of nowhere, Hyrule becomes something to strife for. And, as it all happens in the final moments of the game, there's no one left to questions why is this failed regime so aspirational - and no one to defend the Great Sea as a place worthy of existence, which is especially sad given how this was the entire unspoken counter-argument to Ganondorf's position we held onto throughout the whole game. Like, you defend your world from one evil, only to immidiately succumb to another?

Finally, what sours me on that scene the most is the fact that it's Tetra who suggests to restore Hyrule elsewhere in honor of King Daphnes - a promise we know she makes good on.

Not Zelda. Tetra. Tetra, who moments ago was urging Link to come "back to their ocean" with a reassuring wink. And it'll be Tetra's likeness preserved on the stained glass and Tetra's name hinted at by Anjean.

And Doylistically, I understand this choice on some level. The writers had to reassure the playerbase that the Legend of Zelda series won't suddenly pivot to maritime adventures only, that the Great Sea is not the new status quo. And I understand that Tetra was the only available mouthpiece to bring up the idea simply on account of her being the only talking character in the scene... but man, this is just sad.

To me, this 180° turn Tetra makes is a worse case of character assassination than her Zeldafication ever was.

As much as I adore Spirit Tracks, New Hyrule shouldn't've existed.

[weirdstrangeandawful]

5/29 colours! It’s still pretty drab but I’m so excited for the next colour (respect to DMC for naming colour 666 after Jesus…)

[hitlikehammers]

AVOIDANCE: the only real solution to all of Eddie’s your falling-in-love problems!

(0 out of 10 participants in this approach have proven its INeffectiveness; talk to your ✨love interest✨today to avoid this heartbreaking waste of your energy!)

It’s not like they were bosom buddies for years and years. A week at the outset, a couple months since, and now they’re all back in their own homes living their own lives and Eddie can avoid the way he’s most definitely, one-hundred-percent certainly in love with Steve Harrington. Very effectively.  By simply avoiding Steve Harrington. 

rating: t ♥️ tags: post-s4, eddie munson and his newfound obsession/unprecedebtedly-close-to-love feelings for steve harrington, answer: avoid steve harrington like the plague, excellent and emotionally-mature ways of dealing with your problems! /s, primary hiccup in existing plan: forgetting steve harrington doesn’t take well to failure, (oops), miscommunication, boys so dumb, confessions, hint of angst (because eddie is a very silly boy with very silly ideas sometimes), self-confident!steve, steve harrington facing the issues head-on, feelings confessions, peak eddie dramatics, happy ending♥️

for @steddielovemonth day fifteen: “If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more.”―Jane Austen, Emma

True fact: Eddie thought he was playing things cool. Thought he was totally copacetic, in, you know, keeping it all subtle. He can do subtle, y’know: being loud and proud, shouting on tabletops and shit, screaming at drunks—that was a choice, not a…a rule. He’s a freak, he’s an outcast, he’s a weird-ass motherfucker: he’d have had far more brushes with his actual-factual demise in this podunk town if he was literally incapable of blending in with the background, and not just kinda sickened by the concept, let alone the effort involved to appease fucking…normies.

So yeah, he’d…he’d thought he was flying under the radar. And anyway; why the fuck would Steve Harrington even notice eddies absence in his day-to-day? They were apocalypse ‘friends’. Hospital buddies at best.

They’re back in the real world now.

Eddie supposed Vecna or whatever the fuck his name is will come crawling back in the foreseeable future, but brighter minds than his are preparing for that shit. The sheepies will let him know if they need his assistance—pending what that assistance may or may not be worth dependent on how far along his PT journey he stands at that point.

But it’s not like they were glued to the hip. It’s not like they were bosom buddies for years and years. A week at the outset, a couple months since, and now they’re all back in their own homes living their own lives and Eddie can avoid the way he’s most definitely, one-hundred-percent certainly in love with Steve Harrington. Very effectively.

By simply avoiding Steve Harrington.

It’s kind of a foolproof plan, really. He starts wrapping Hellfire earlier, tells the little shitheads he’s gotta run, Wayne needs a hand with a revolving door of household projects now that they’ve got their own place with more than one bedroom. Gotta mount that hangers for that ball cap collection just right, you know, yadda yadda.

He thinks they gave up being suspicious without a week or two, now just hit him with annoyed eye rolls. God bless the scourge of self-centred teenage bitchiness playing directly into eddies hand.

What he failed to account for, however, about eleven weeks into his up-to-now flawless scheme, was…well. The leading man himself.

Showing the fuck up at Eddie’s door, which Eddie answered for once like a fool and now can’t back out of cleanly because there’s no truck in the drive—it’s clear he’s here on his own.

Motherfucker.

One thing can be said for the plan, in terms of like, general side quest observations—absence definitely made the heart grow fonder. Or at least didn’t contribute at all to the opposite. Which Eddie hadn’t been entirely sure was possible, because the speed and strength of how he fell with every fucking cell in him had honestly terrified the shit out of him on its own. But after avoiding Steve, nodding at best if he canoed paths and sneaking away when the man called out like he was gonna snake through a crowd at any of the number of the family dinners for interdimensional-trauma-survivors-anonymous that Eddie couldn’t weasel out of: it’d been clear pretty fucking quick.

The almost-indefensibly-absurd affection he’d developed for the King of Hawkins—it wasn’t just reign over the high school if the parents were so charmed, if the fucking hospital has cowed into acting and quick when they tried to hesitate in treating an accused murderer, as Eddie’d been regaled with by everyone but Steve, who shrugged his kinda crucial role in saving Eddie’s ass with a shrug and of course, man, like there was ever even a question—but his indefensibly overwhelming and absurd infatuation that spent every month expanding further to try and crack his fucking ribs, well.

It was chronic, at best. He wasn’t gonna shake it…any time soon.

Any time soon.

So: best to at least keep the catalyst at bay, stop it from causing the condition to worsen.

He’d made the mistake of thinking it couldn’t get worse already. Learn from your mistakes, and all the shit.

So what if it’s been months now and not only has the malady of being ass-over-nipple in-fucking-love persisted, but got so much fucking worse? Deeper? More, when that shit should have even been possible?

No. He just has to be persistent. Keep at the plan. Eventually, it’ll die off. It’ll whither and blow away. It’ll fucking fade—

He does, however, fail to calculate all contingencies.

Namely Steve Harrington’s incapacity to accept defeat.

He’s also too fucking scatterbrained to check the door before opening it when there’s a knock, just after Wayne’s left for his shift. When Eddie has no excuse to slam it back shut on the exceptionally exquisite face waiting when the hinges swing open.

Exquisite, but looking…pinched. Sour.

Pissed the fuck off.

And worst of all of it—because so far the list only server to underscore that unfortunate state of being fucking beautiful, on every possible level—but worst of it all, because it’s worst on its own but also because it twists, distorts all the beauty, and it’s so clearly Eddie’s fault because Steve is standing right here, and not elsewhere, after all this time.

Looking hurt, under everything else.

“I’m done with this, yeah?”

Eddie could run. He’d only make it to his room; Steve would probably be able to break down the door and get to him before he could slither through the window and run, but he’s still not 100%, right, he’s physically at a disadvantage anyway, it’s not even gonna be a question—

Steve’s got him cornered.

So he just stands. Blinks.

Doesn’t…know what Steve’s ‘done with’, but he feels his literally twist, wring like a dishrag, when he figures out the most likely answer is just:

 Eddie.

Even trying to keep the maximum distance, he either knows, and hates it, hates him, or…

He doesn’t know, and doesn’t need to. He just is over Eddie and his bullshit.

It’s in the heart-piercing distraction of either and both possibilities that Steve pushes past him into the front hall.

“What the fuck is your problem, man?”

Steve crosses his arms as the door latches closed, caging them in.

Eddie’s heart starts kicking hard, which is painful. He assumes that’s because it’s been pierced by the hurt still on Steve’s face.

“I thought we were, like, that at least we were friends?”

He says it like he also has maybe had thoughts like there’s something else they were, or could have been. That by association and context would be somewhere more than friends?

Eddie’s pieced-through heart switches to a double-thumping sort of thing that’s really just as confused as the rest of him.

Hurts like a motherfucker, too.

“Did I do something?”

Steve asks, finally sounds more defeated than any of the other things Eddie can pick up in how he holds his body, and honestly that’s what breaks Eddie’s resolve, of everything; after everything. After holding out this long and failing for the entire fucking effort, after hurting Steve, the last thing he could ever want, probably the main underlying reason he’s been running from him the whole goddamn time—to not hurt him.

He’s suck a fuck up. He’s such a fucking fuck up.

“You know how sunflowers grow?”

Steve startles a little, grows the slightest bit.

“They find the sun, and the grow toward it,” and Eddie’s not stupid enough to think the whole disaster that’s unfolding in front of him, from his own chest, his own fucking mouth—he’s aware.

He can’t do nothing, but he also doesn’t think he can sugarcoat this in a way that goes down easier; sand the rough edges to make it make better sense.

He has to wrench it raw and bloody from his ribs, caught on the jagged bone like the messy fuck he is.

“You were the sun,” Eddie finally says it out loud, and his voice is so small and wondering, he can’t hide it. “You were the sun and I woke up broken, I had to grow back so much and I did, because I had the tools,” he swallows, takes a shaky breath:

“I had the sun right next to me, to do all the growing toward. To…rebuild around.”

Eddie’s always been a weirdo, and outcast—he’s spent a lot of time in libraries; often hiding.

But he’s read a lot of random shit. And enough of it’s stuck to make some sense of this fucking mess.

Steve’s face gives nothing away. It’s usually so…so generous with its feeling, even if there are some feelings Eddie knows Steve’s careful to never let show.

But in the now, he just stares.

“Otters,”Eddie blurts out, fingers twitching, wrists shaking; “they hold hands when they sleep,” and he looks up for a second before looking away again, pulse a mullet in his throat.

“I used to hold onto your hand when I fell asleep in the hospital,” and he says it like it’s a secret, a confession, even though of all people, of course Steve already fucking knows. The part he doesn’t, though:

“I still reach, and how fucked that? Like I deserve it as a rule, like it’s mine.”

Like you’re mine.

He can’t say it. But he doesn’t have it. It rings out on its own.

“But then there are the trees that shoot up all tangled,” Eddie can’t remember what they’re called; “where the trunks split off into one another, or they’re so braided up together the share their bark, whole pieces left Bernal’s, naked but the other tree covers it, makes it strong and safe but only so long as they’re literally fused together indefinitely,” and Eddie hopes that one…that one explains itself.

He pauses, waits for any reaction.

No dice.

“Bats sleep in pitcher plants.”

That at least gets the slightest lift of the chin. Probably because it’s weird, and also…bats.

Right. So Eddie’s gonna have to spell it all out.

Which he kinda knew. The examples are fucking weird. But they’re…they’re true. They’re where he is.

“If I get too fucking close, I will destroy you,” Eddie says, because that’s the fear, right—or no.

That’s the fucking truth. Eddie always ends up with the tatters of the things he loves the most.

“I’ll take too much, I’ll take everything,” Eddie confesses, pleads in his tone to be seen, which Steve’s always been weirdly good at, and understood—the bigger gamble.

“There won’t be any stoplights, there won’t be a barrier or a boundary where I’ll know I’ve gone too far because I won’t even think of what that fucking is, what it could be to even watch for, like the barebones idea of ‘too far’, let alone what it looks like, I won’t,” and his breath runs out, so he gasps, and he thinks he sees Steve move to reach, to help, to steady.

He thinks.

It’s probably just wishful thinking.

“I won’t stop holding on just when I’m sleeping, I’ll,” Eddie licks his lips, because now…now he’sstarting to hurt, closer to what it felt like with teeth ripping his flesh than anything has felt, than any loss has threatened. He has to clear his throat, because otherwise the rest will just spill out like a sob:

“I’ll tear your bark so you bleed, and you’re exposed and you die off slow, because I was selfish, so selfish, I held to close, I fucking…” eddies voice cracks; his eyes fucking burn; “because I fucking demanded the whole of you, and damn the cost because I couldn’t process an end, why would I stop doing to even think to be logical and careful when an end to you was, is, well, fuck,” he huffs, and a tear spills out white hot down his cheek;

“It’s incomprehensible, because that would be the end of everything, that was made real fucking clear for me with the bats, both times,” and Eddie means that—he’s had time to think through the origin of his aching and it was early, it was any hint of being in the world without this person in it, too; “and the end of everything, well,” he shakes his head, some of his hair sticking in the single trail of salt on his skin:

“Tied up in you, so tight we couldn’t physically untangle?” His voice drops to a whisper, and he knows his smile has to look sad, but he means this is the deepest places his heart even holds:

“What better way to go?”

He maybes watches Steve’s throat bobbing. Maybe.

Probably not.

So Eddie just sighs. Because…none of that matters. None of that matters in the face of the core truth:

“Those pitcher plants dissolve things inside them, it’s how they eat,” he half-recites, retreating into those deep-heart places, where the feeling is most saturated, but hard to find, somewhere to hide as he whispers, cowers in himself as he flats his own flesh:

“I’ll leech from you for wanting too much just the same. I’ll fucking destroy you, Stevie,” he moans, feels his arms wrap around his chest, protective. Trembling.

“I’ll love you so hard I’ll suffocate you, I’ll tear you to pieces trying to get closer, trying to hold the heart of you closer to mine,” he doesn’t even make a conscious decision to press a palm over his flailing heart where his arm already holds, hugs himself so fucking tight. His lungs are sore. It’s tight, trying to breathe.

“It’s not an overstatement, though, the other plants, the flowers,” Eddie feels overwhelmed, suddenly, with a need to make clear that there’s only one person at fault for this, and it’s him—Steve didn’t deserve to get hurt. Eddie should have found a better way to keep him safe—from Eddie—from the very start. Because—

“You are my sun,” Eddie makes himself look up, look at Steve. “I didn’t realize how little I was growing even before spring break. I didn’t notice, how fucking thriving wasn’t even in my goddamn vocabulary, until there was you.” His breathing shudders again, followed by the rest of him:

“I turn toward you as a rule,” because here’s the thing. All these weeks and months.

Eddie’s been shrivelling. Eddie spends his nights dreaming of sunlight.

It’s inescapable.

He was going to have to find a more sustainable compromise soon, anyway. Might as well…lay it all out now.

He’s already ripped off his bark. He’s already prepared to dissolve in the acid, to burn for what it means to have left the feeling grow so big.

“I hope,” he coughs, starts slow, formal-like: “I hope you can do me the favor of just,” he has to clear his throat again; fuck, it’s hard; “politely ignoring that part. Like, even at a distance, it’s not something I can seem to stop.”

He was aiming for apologetic for that last bit, honest.

He fucking fails spectacularly, so. That’s cool.

“I swear, I won’t bother you,” he tries to convey how he’s sorry, for all of it, save for the core of the loving, because he as granted. A taste, no matter how it’s fallen to ruin; he’s selfish that way anyhow, to have seen some of the sun versus darkness alone for always.

Still:

“I won’t come near, I’ll do what I’ve been doing but better, I’ll be better, I’ll try harder, it will—“

Eddie thinks maybe he’s finally died. Of heartbreak, of whatever the Upside Down did to him. Of living without his sun for a long.

Any. All of the above.

Because the next thing he knows is pressure. Heat.

On his lips.

He barely processes responding before its town away: of course death wouldn’t be a reward. Not for him.

“Are you fucking telling me,” a voice bites out close enough to Eddie’s lips that he can feel how sharp they cut:

“That you have been avoiding me, running awayfrom me,” and Eddie knows that voice—

“Breaking my heart,” and fuck, fuck Eddie knows he knows that voice because when it’s hurting—and those words are irate and disbelieving and they’re hurt—

“Because you’re fucking scared of loving me too hard?”

And Eddie pulls back, opens his eyes: Steve.

Steve’s eyes are fucking vibrant with feeling, so many feelings. He’s…he doesn’t think he’s dead, because a lot of those feelings are ones Eddie’s not familiar with, and how would he know to place them there if he’s never known them at all?

He doesn’t know of it’s better or worse, to not be dead right now.

Because he just apparently got to feel Steve’s lips on his lips.

But then:

“Because that’s what you’re saying, right” Steve raises a brow, demands in posture as much as in tone:

“You’re in love with me.”

And then on the flip side of being alive-or-dead: he has to deal with the consequences of spelling out the answer to…that.

Which he’s apparently broken Steve’s heart over handling…the only way he could figure out. And still fucking it up.

“That sounds less than what it feels like,” Eddie whispers; it’s the only thing he can latch on to.

Steve’s eyes narrow at him, contemplate him.

“And you think me, of all people,” Steve finally asks, slow, his tone wrenchingly deliberate; “that Iwouldn’t meet someone loving that big and that much,” “and he huffs, shakes his head in searing disbelief Eddie almost wishes he could flinch from, but it’s so warm, it’s his sun:

“That that wouldn’t feel like there actually was a heaven, and I’d died and somehow made it there?”

Eddie’s breath catches, then stops entirely. He can’t seem to properly suck in another one because…

“That finding that wouldn’t feel like I’d won the lottery, like I’d figured out what it meant when people talk about a blessing, and all that shit?”

Because what…what it almost sounds like Steve is saying can’t actually be—

“That finding it, with you,” and oh, oh Steve is a lot closer than he was last Eddie processed the world around him, his chest is grazing Eddie’s chest when he seems to have no trouble breathing, just is doing it really deep and reallt fast—

“That it’d be anything less than a gift,” Steve murmurs half against Eddie’s lips; “a dream come to life?”

And Steve’s eyes flick up, and it’s when they land on Eddie’s and see him that his lungs shiver and he chokes out the only word he thinks his every molecule knows by heart:

“Steve?”

And Steve doesn’t move, neither. Loser nor farther away.

Doesn’t look away; doesn’t blink.

Just asks:

“Do you love me?”

And something in Eddie unfreezes, some string holding him up, holding him back snaps free and he just grabs Steve’s hand and presses it to his chest, like he needs to be tethered now that the string in him’s been cut, and the touch, this touch: Steve is really all he’s been wanting to keep him.

To keep him at all.

And maybe this is the one shot he gets.

But Steve, Steve said…

He presses Steve’s hand to his chest a little harder, because he’s bathed in the sun again. Their hands are linked, and they’re not asleep. He’s peeled off all the pretense, he’s as bare and vulnerable as he can possibly get. His heart’s beating into Steve palm. Eddie will happily fucking drown in this, dissolve and be…

He’s already consumed.

How is it any different, save that maybe, just maybe, beyond all odds and against everything he’s feared—

“More than I can hold in here,” Eddie scarcely finds the air to breathe; “more than I can say.”

“Then share it,” Steve says, the assuredness, the rightness in his gravity that’s always been at his core radiating forth and warming Eddie in a way he’s never known to feel before.

“Let me know it, let that feeling not be alone anymore,” and the words hold more than their syllables, by so much; “let it out to see the sun,” and then Steve’s flipping their hands so eddies the one caught agains this chest, but he’s always pulling them close enough that Steve’s knuckles are still catching the drum of Eddie’s pulse. It feels…

Eddie didn’t know what to expect, to let the feeling be felt beyond his own chest.

It’s breathtaking in a new way. It’s…

“Let it meet its match here, in how I feel,” Steve doesn’t suggest, just speaks, instructs, leads with a match to what Eddie feels, has been drowning in, save where it stole his air it’s breathing into him; where it took his light it’s reinventing the sun as Steve murmurs close, so close to his lips:

“Let it see how it was killing me all this time without you,” and Eddie whimpers for the cost of what he’s done, what he felt so sure he had to do—

“Let the feeling inside here,” and he presses his touch back to Eddie’s chest just a little bit firmer; “know how much sharing it’s like stitching my broken heart back to rights.”

Eddie’s exhales shakes so fucking hard; he can’t be this lucky. It can’t…he can’t…

But his heart’s beating so hard, so fast, so free.

So fucking alive.

“You can’t say it, big enough?” Steve pushes, his breath so goddamn warm, his lashes so thick, Eddie wants to feel them on his skin like a blessing, a sacrament:

“You can’t say it? Then show me, instead.”

And Steve looks up at him before he grabs around the back of Eddie’s neck, pulls him close enough that speaking rubs their lips together, more combative than affectionate but still undeniably intimate as Steve growls:

“Fucking months, Eddie, Jesus,” and his grip is firm, but there’s no force, Eddie could pull back, Eddie could try to run, and fail, but how could he, how could he ever—

His hand’s crushed to Steve’s chest. The same wild thrum he feels in his veins is there.

Let it meet its match.

“Make up for it,” Steve’s breath trembles on Eddie’s lips, taunts him, begs him, asks so many questions.

Eddie flips their hands one more time, presses Steve’s hand to his heartbeat with nothing less than desperation until his ribs goddamn creak, and then he leans, makes the pressure bigger—

Meets the feeling in Steve with all the feeling in him with their lips on each other like they mean it this time, ready to dissolve in it. To grow themselves to protect around the soft parts. To keep their hands entwined for always.

To come alive inside this sun.

✨permanent tag list: OPEN (lmk if you want to be added/removed): @ajeff855 @allmyfavoritethingsinoneblog @anthrobrat @askitwithflours @awkwardgravity1 @bookworm0690 @bumblebeecuttlefishes @captain--low @depressed-freak13 @dragoon-ze-great @dreamercec @dreamwatch @dreamy-jeans137 @estrellami-1 @friendlyneighborhoodgaycousin @goodolefashionedloverboi @grtwdsmwhr @gunsknivesandplaid @hiei-harringtonmunson @hbyrde36 @imhereforthelolzdontyellatme @kimsnooks @live-laugh-love-dietrich @madigoround @mensch-anthropos-human @nerdyglassescheeseychick @notaqueenakhaleesi @ollyxar @pearynice @perseus-notjackson @pretend-theres-a-name-here

divider credit here

[renthony]

The most important thing to learn about organizing in your community is that, no matter how easy you make it, no matter how many reminders you send out, no matter how many direct links you give people, no matter how much time and effort you put into making it accessible, no mater how much you beg and plead, no group will never read or fill out paperwork on time, ever. Maybe a few individuals, but never a group.

Factor it into your plans. If you're working on a time-sensitive project, give yourself a buffer before final deadlines in order to accommodate the people who absolutely will not Do The Thing the first or second or tenth time you ask.

Sometimes they've got a really, really good and obvious reason. Sometimes they're flaky for reasons that seem arbitrary and confusing, if not outright infuriating. Doesn't really matter, and trying to berate them for it doesn't really work. You just have to factor "at least half these people are going to miss the first deadline" into your plans from the outset. Embrace the knowledge that organizing is an advanced form of herding cats.

[stevebattle]

Cybot (2001) by the Cybernetics Intelligence Research Group at Reading University, and Eaglemoss Publications. Cybot is an insect-like robot that can be assembled from parts available fornightly on the cover of 'Real Robots' magazine (issues 1-17), 2001-2002. The magazine guides its readers through the stages of building and programming their Cybot. The Cybot is a three-wheeled robot, the front wheel is a castor wheel, with two motorised rear wheels. It has a light sensor, and four ultrasonic obstacle detectors. Cybot is the result of a year-long partnership between The University of Reading and Eaglemoss Publications. Designed by a team of robotics researchers in CIRG (the Cybernetics Intelligence Research Group) at the University, Cybot uses many of the techniques used in the research robots at the University as well as incorporating a range of new features designed especially for the magazine and kit collection. The design of Cybot is based on the University's Seven Dwarf Robots.

"From the outset it looked all rather fun and promising. My experience though with it, was rather more tricky. At first, it was like the above; my Mam got me a subscription to the magazine, and as the issues piled up, I received a binder for the issues, and some VHS tapes revealing the history and information about the project leading up to the Magazine, and some hints at future abilities. … The front body panels, where several of the sensors were fitted, was a struggle to fit in, even for my parents, and some of the screws were lost. … Then it worked, albeit very briefly. We built the docking station (which I still have), and the headset; but then Cybot just stopped working. My Mam suggested that it must be something to do with the internals, but as we didn’t know what, Cybot just gathered dust. Then the issues, and components just piled up, with nothing we could do with them." – Cybot and Real Robots, by genepool10.

[little-one-eyed-monsters]

Hi, I'm very (very!) new to the BL fandoms. I'm still figuring out what is what, so the SmartBoom news is the first major event I see unwind in real time. And I have a question - call me crazy, and maybe I am, but is it AT ALL possible for all of this to be an outlandish PR stunt?

Because 1) it makes literally zero sense, business-wise, for Smart to be doing it, according to the info those statements revealed themselves;

2) it's WAY too much on the nose with the basically verbatim situations we saw in the series to be just a coincidence, and

3) companies won't care if they seem like the Bad Guy here in the end, because they are universally hated anyway; however, if played right, and if the boys are made to seem to be "fighting" with them, and "prevailing", united Jin-Akin style, this might become this giant, transcending the screen "love-that-conquers-all", and turning the CP of SmartBoom into something legendary, iconic, and with potentially cult following. And turning them into a staple that surely will be supported/watched by EVERYONE in whatever they put them in - if for nothing else, then for the "Davids in love sticking it to the corporate Goliath" principle alone. All the while the corp guys preserve their power and control, because however (if at all) successful the stunt, they still stack the deck, and hold all the cards and power.

Obviously all of it sounds like some 3-rd rate series cartoon vilain plot, but didn't all analysis and metas posted lately claim how excessively greedy companies have become for engagement, trending, buzz, and popularity, and how they would do ANYTHING to get it, at the expence of everything and everyone? Would any stupidity, trick or stunt be too low to sink to, if it gets them there?

(That ask would make sense only if we DO observe some "heroic" actions and reconciliation, of course. If the ship sank, it's obviously just a few short-sighted guys in a petty, nano-dick measuring contest, ruining a good thing for literally everyone involved, including themselves. It's just, I always prefer to believe that when it's about big business and money, there's some convoluted, sinister plots at play, rather than plain, old, trivial, ABSOLUTE CORP STUPIDITY.)

NewbieAnon

Hello NewbieAnon and welcome to BL! I promise you we're not always putting fires out here 😅 It can actually be really fun, you just need to find the right ones to stan. And thank you for the ask!

Gosh I hope you can make sense of my very long SmartBoom posts 😅 I know I often write very long and very tangential, so please excuse the excessive blabber.

Anyway, first off, I LOVE your take on this! I really do. In fact, I'm hoping and praying that your hypothesis prevails, because if this PR stunt is a bamboozle to just hype the coming seasons, then I will take back everything I've said about these companies and will support ALL of their projects, even for other pairs, moving forward. Yes, it's greedy and manipulative, but if it means a career for their employees (not just Smart and Boom, but their co-stars, the people behind the scenes, their personal teams, their managers, etc.), then I will let the hustle absolve all sins.

On the outset, this social media bickering DOES look very stupid, right? Especially for industry veterans and definitely in 2025. Everything actually looks pre-planned and very in-series adjacent that someone even said this all feels like a Top Form episode, and I would agree with you my friend, if this was the first time this ever happened.

Sadly, in Thai BL (and so far, only in Thailand. Taiwan, Korea, and Japan producers have not exhibited the same issue, particularly because they don't establish branded pairs), this has happened many times over: companies screwing over their talents and the pairs just because they wanted a larger cut of the profit pie.

Before the pandemic, aside from GMMTV, branded pairs usually belonged to different companies or managements. Thai BL at the time was so new and not well-established, that bigger companies didn't see the benefits of investing in it-- often just loaning their dormant actors to indie BL producers for a quick paycheck. Most often, the prod houses who make BLs cast newbies or independent actors for their shows. Branded pairs aren't as big a deal as it was back then too, and cps weren't expected to do actual couple activities after the airing of a show. In fact, fandoms mostly just named themselves 😅 none of these naming ceremonies and hashtag nonsense. GMMTV really was the only company to commit to the concept, and they were rewarded handsomely for it (but maybe that's a post for another day).

The in-fighting was more common then because of this. PerthSaint was one of the first non-GMMTV pseudo-branded pairs to come out of early Thai BL, and they had a MASSIVE fanbase, but because they belonged to different companies that absolutely hated each other's guts, the pair perished before it ever became properly established (they never even had a joint fandom name. The Trigon fandom was supposed to be Saint's solo fandom name that bled into Perth's, which was then adapted for both of them). The show 2Moons had such a well-documented indie company vs. affiliate producer fiasco that they recast EVERYONE three times just to get the project off the ground. My Engineer the Series was another example, which spent two years in production hell before debuting with a cast of loaned and newbie actors, before promptly dropping said cast and never speaking of a season 2 they announced before airing Season 1. I've mentioned MewGulf and ZaintSee already because they were casualties too, but I have a few other examples (and these ones were actually established). First, OhmFluke: Ohm Thitiwat was a Studio WabiSabi talent, and given the number of continuous projects he had with co-star Fluke, you'd think the latter was a WabiSabi talent too. But he never formally joined the company, and after years of fighting with said company (and the affiliate producer WeTV *sighs*) to give him proper compensation for their project 609 Bedtime Story, Fluke Natouch officially left the branded pair. My most recent casualty is actually KaoUp (the same Up Poompat who is now in an actual branded pair with Poom Phuripan of My Stand-In), because though they only had one project together, they consistently appeared in each others' content and sponsorships. When Kao Noppakao signed a contract with Channel 3, the company entered a deal with Up's independent agency JustUp to loan Kao for BL projects with his brand partner Up, but a year later that deal also fell through, and Up found a new acting partner from Channel 8, who agreed to loan their dormant actor at the time, Poom Phuripan, to IQIYI.

That is to say, that not all BL branded pairs coming from different companies automatically fail, or get in a fight with each other's managements. I mentioned UpPoom up there because Poom's case is very unique, and might be more related to your ask than you think 😅 Poom was loaned by Channel 8 to IQIYI, (similar to what GIR did to Smart), but they had no intention of letting him go or establishing him in a branded pair outside of their company (he had a hetero semi-pair in Channel 8 already). After My Stand-In's runaway success, Poom actually terminated his contract with Channel 8, paid the fine and almost sued them for contract breach, left the company, founded his own studio Phumipatsorn 1997, and launched jointly with JustUp as an official affiliate. They are now in talks to do a second BL project with *sigh* WeTV. They have joint Youtube content and music, which is different from their individual solo work. This UpPoom blueprint is very similar to Billkin and PP Krit, who created individual companies after Nadao Bangkok went under, but continue to work together and do cp activities. They recently aired a bromance movie titled The Red Envelope.

YinWar is actually the best case scenario for a couple like SmartBoom, because Yin Anan and War Wanarat left BOTH of their companies and made their own JOINT company (YWPB Entertainment, what absolute BADASSES), and now they do BLs and cp activities that they chose for themselves.

This is all a very long-winded way of saying that Newbie Anon, though I love your take on these shenanigans, realistically I think GIR and HDL/TaiLai are being DEAD SERIOUS about their spats on social media, and that though these may be good PR, their tiny, money-hungry brains PROBABLY haven't figured that out yet.

But I mention UpPoom, BillkinPP, and YinWar because these three couples used their very public company woes to actually CATAPULT them to bigger fandoms. They know that airing and framing their against-all-odds story (which actually happened to them too, these companies were dead serious when they placed all three in hot water), to the masses would help their careers more, and this PR actually HELPED THEIR CAREERS. They sell out literal stadiums just for fans to hear their successful cp stories. If their companies cannot transform this bad press to loyal fan engagement, then I hope SmartBoom WILL, and use this PR nightmare to come out better and stronger for the sake of their careers.

Sorry this was so long but I hope it helped answer your ask even a little Newbie Anon! Welcome to the kooky world of BL!

[chaehwa-archives]

friendly rivalry deep dive part 19

I’m now at the halfway point in this Friendly Rivalry rewatch project, and what a journey it’s been. To be honest, at the outset, I wasn’t sure how well FR would hold up, or how much this kind of in-depth analysis would pay off. I should have trusted my gut, though. This series is a gem. It’s rare for any piece of media to be made with this level of intention and complexity, and for a GL drama? Depends on how far you stretch the definition, but you can probably count them on one hand...with a missing finger or two.

I’ve been a little worried, though. I remember loving the first half of FR, and I remember loving Episodes 14-16, when the relationship between Jae-yi and Seul-gi takes center stage again. The episodes in between I mostly remember...being confused. Of course that was partly due to pre-Netflix era bad subtitle translation. We all know FR is complicated enough without having to decode every single line of dialogue.

Still I’m curious how I’ll feel about the second half this second time around. Is it as messy as I originally thought, or will the rewatch help things click into place?

So far I’m optimistic. Episode 9 is a gut punch after the whirlwind romance of Episode 8, but it might be one of my favorite episodes yet. In this post I’ll just cover the prologue concerning Je-na, and in Part 20 I’ll cover the rest.

Hopefully everyone reading this has seen the show and knows what you’re getting into with Je-na’s backstory. Just a heads up that we’ll be discussing a sexual relationship between a teacher and student, among other kinds of abuse, so brace yourself.

We’ve seen four prologues so far, one for each main character. All of them were hard to watch in their own way: Seul-gi faces bullying and addiction; Jae-yi loses the will to live under the weight of her father’s curse; Gyeong is cringe and needs to go to horny jail; Ye-ri is starved and neglected by her mother. But I’m calling it: Je-na’s backstory is the most brutal of them all. This poor girl. I am so upset.

Like the other prologues, Je-na’s is a kind of keyhole we can peek through to glimpse her private inner world. But it’s also a key. Je-na’s story illuminates the lives of the other cast members, and reveals a dark truth at the heart of Friendly Rivalry: as fucked up as Seul-gi, Jae-yi, Gyeong, and Ye-ri are, these girls are actually the lucky ones. 

The first scene revisits the violin bow incident we first witnessed in Episode 3, when Tae-joon forced Jae-yi to hit Je-na as punishment for failing to answer a math problem. Later in that episode, he found Jae-yi crying in bed and told his version of the Cain and Abel story, casting Je-na as Cain, the older sibling driven by murderous jealousy.

The very first thing we learn about Je-na in Episode 9 is that she is absolutely nothing like Cain. She doesn’t have a vengeful bone in her body. Je-na cares so little about being surpassed by her sister that she answers a question wrong *on purpose* just to protect her.

Je-na is a refutation of Tae-joon’s parable—her big heart doesn’t fit into his brutal world. But, as we’ll see, that heart isn’t enough to save her. In a loveless family where any sign of vulnerability is exploited, and in a society built by Tae-joons for other Tae-joons, her heart is a liability. 

There’s one interesting detail in this scene that’s easy to overlook. Seul-gi tells us in her narration that Je-na erases the correct answer because she chooses to get hit rather than hit her sister. But...wait. Je-na erases her answer *before* Tae-joon explains that one of the sisters will have to hit the other. How does she know?

The way the scene is shot, we can’t see the violin bow at first, but the whole time the girls are answering math problems, it’s sitting on the kitchen counter in front of Tae-joon. Je-na can see the violin bow and probably guesses that some kind of punishment is coming. And she knows her dad punishes failure. So she acts on a hunch, and her intuition is right.

This tiny scene communicates so much. Je-na is just as clever and observant as her father and sister, but her choices follow a different emotional logic. Tae-joon expects his daughters to act out of fear and self-preservation. Je-na acts out of love and self-sacrifice. Although he’s oblivious to it, Je-na understands her father here better than he understands her. She’s one step ahead of him, subverting the rules of his game before he even has a chance to explain them. In her own way, she’s a genius. But emotional intelligence means nothing to Tae-joon, who only senses weakness.

In the next scene, Tae-joon has already given up on Je-na. She isn’t ruthless enough to be molded into his perfect creation. He argues with his wife (they seem on the brink of a divorce, which is probably why we never see the mom around in the present day) and insists that if they split, he’s keeping Jae-yi. She’s the future of the hospital.

(Of course, if they do end up splitting—I think it’s implied later that they are living separately?—he keeps both kids. He needs both for his divide-and-conquer tactics to work.) Je-na overhears her parents arguing. Then, when Jae-yi wakes up and follows her into the hallway, Je-na covers her ears and hugs her. Jae-yi’s hand tightens on a table cover, and one of Tae-joon’s many awards—a trophy for surgical excellence—falls and strikes Je-na on the foot. She starts bleeding but doesn’t cry. Instead she helps her sister get ready for kindergarten.

My gawd this scene. Absolutely heartbreaking. And there’s just...so much to unpack.

Like the previous scene, Je-na is again doing her best to protect her little sister. And, once again, she gets hurt for it. This time, not only is she physically injured, but she also has to listen to her father tell her mother that he doesn’t want her. Despite the favoritism Tae-joon is showing Jae-yi, though, Je-na refuses to lash out at her sister. She doesn’t seek revenge for the physical or emotional wounds Jae-yi inflicts, either.

Because the award falling on her foot is clearly a metaphor for a different kind of injury. Je-na’s unending sacrifice for Jae-yi’s sake goes unrewarded. Jae-yi never returns her sister’s care or affection. It’s not malicious—she isn’t trying to hurt Je-na’s feelings. She’s a child and doesn’t know any better. But still...it hurts. It hurts when you hug your sister and she won’t even put her arms around you.

(In society, sacrifice like Je-na’s usually goes unacknowledged, too. We have awards for “excellence,” but there’s no trophy for taking care of your sibling in an abusive household, even though Je-na is more of a hero than her father will ever be.)

The trophy is a symbol for the true source of the wound, the wedge that will continue to drive them apart. It’s not one of Jae-yi’s awards that causes the bleeding—it’s one of Tae-joon’s. And it’s his influence that gets to Jae-yi and pulls her away from Je-na’s love. You can see the first signs of that influence on Jae-yi when she coldly observes, “Your foot is bleeding.” This is the same girl who was devastated by hurting her sister not long ago!

Je-na and Tae-joon represent the two conflicting sides of Jae-yi’s personality. On one hand you have the compassionate and selfless Jae-yi, full of affection for and fiercely protective of the people she loves. We can see all of these traits embodied in Je-na. And on the other hand is the cold, distant manipulator embodied in Tae-joon.

As if this scene weren’t already gut-wrenching enough, go back and listen closely to the parents’ argument in the background. When the trophy falls, yeah, that’s their mom screaming. Tae-joon likes his sick little mind games, but he doesn’t hesitate to use physical violence if he thinks he can get away with it. Under his veneer of respectability, he’s just a bully, no more sophisticated than the girls who terrorized Seul-gi in school.

Speaking of Seul-gi, two things. First, there’s the obvious parallel to the closet scene in Episode 3, when Jae-yi covers Seul-gi’s ears to protect her. Now we know where she learned that from, and now we know that Je-na’s caregiving and protection is probably (apart from her relationship with Je-yun) the only form of unconditional love that Jae-yi has ever received. Whether it’s conscious or subconscious, when Jae-yi protects Seul-gi, there’s something genuine there—at the very least, she’s trying to imitate what she thinks real love looks like.

Consider also the scene where Je-na dresses Jae-yi for school, and how often Jae-yi has expressed affection for Seul-gi by dressing her—whether it’s the gift of the new uniform in Episode 3, or the gift of the scarf in Episode 7...or the gift she’ll give at the end of the series.

We’re also starting to see parallels between Je-na and Seul-gi. Like Seul-gi, Je-na fears abandonment, and is desperate to be loved. As a defense mechanism, she tries to be independent, taking on the adult responsibility of caring for her sister without expecting any help. She sacrifices herself day after day, denying her own needs, in an effort to hold her family together, while Seul-gi denies her humanity, setting herself apart from everyone.

The difference is that Seul-gi is forced by her isolation and by her circumstances to grow a thick skin. She stops expecting anything more than neglect and mistreatment from people, and learns to survive on her own.

Je-na’s self-worth is tied up in her family from the beginning. And because her family is controlled by Tae-joon, that means tragically seeking validation from a system that will only demand sacrifice while continuing to abuse and degrade her.

On some level, Tae-joon must know that Je-na’s love for her sister is a threat to his power over them both, which is why he isolates them. Under his influence, Jae-yi distances herself, and Je-na is left utterly alone. Her sacrifice is not only not repaid—it’s punished.

When Jae-yi and Je-na are leaving for school, there’s a shot of Je-na glancing up at Tae-joon, who’s watching them from the balcony. Like the violin bow scene, this shows us that, whatever Tae-joon thinks of their abilities, Je-na is more advanced than her sister in some ways. While Jae-yi remains emotionally stunted by fear, Je-na is carefully attuned to the power dynamics within their family. But she’s also powerless to change them.

Powerlessness makes her desperate, and in the next scene she prays to be stricken with an illness so that her family will pity her.

Wait. She’s so desperate to be noticed...that she prays for a disease that will make her stand out and be recognized? Does this remind you of anyone?

It’s little Seul-gi with the princess dress!

As her family is leaving church, Je-na suddenly collapses, and she’s diagnosed with narcolepsy. It’s never made clear exactly how “real” her narcolepsy is, but unless you accept divine intervention as an explanation, the odds that she would coincidentally develop a very noticeable neurological disorder moments after wishing to develop such a disorder seem…low. At the same time, even if it’s staged, this isn’t the kind of emotional manipulation that Tae-joon and Jae-yi excel at—it’s no galaxy-brain chess maneuver. It’s an impulsive attempt to meet an emotional need. And like Seul-gi’s impulsive choice to wear the princess dress to the beach, Je-na’s desperate attempt to be seen will have fateful consequences.

At this point, Je-na’s story doesn’t just echo Seul-gi’s—she’s also a counterpoint to Gyeong and Ye-ri. Like Ye-ri, Je-na is neglected by her parents, and seeks attention through a fantasy—in this case, the fantasy of her invented health condition. And, like Gyeong, Je-na grows up in Jae-yi’s shadow, constantly overlooked because of her. The difference is that Je-na never grows bitter, never resents her sister for receiving all the attention, or her father for ignoring her.

Je-na clearly wants to repair her relationship with Jae-yi, and when Jae-yi comes to visit her at the hospital, she allows herself to hope. Maybe this is her chance. In spite of all the pain Jae-yi has caused her, she still takes the risk of reaching out.

Jae-yi meanwhile is torn between her father and her sister again, between opening her heart and guarding it. She clearly does care, or she wouldn’t have come in the first place. But she doesn’t dare show her true feelings. That would be a sign of weakness, something Je-na might be able to exploit. Instead Jae-yi sulks, and when Je-na comes on a little too strong, she runs away, taking Je-yun with her.

Jae-yi is a lot like Seul-gi here, prickly and suspicious of affection. Which is probably why, when Seul-gi gives her the same standoffish treatment, it reopens all of these old wounds. Seul-gi reminds her a little bit of herself, and also reminds her of all the ways she’s hurt her sister over the years. Part of what draws her to Seul-gi in the early episodes might be the simple fact that Seul-gi makes her feel things again, when she’s been numb for so long.

It’s also easy to see why Jae-yi is so attached to Je-yun. Je-yun is safe and uncomplicated to love. She can project all her affection for her sister onto the dog and not have to worry about her guilt or her regrets or the ugliness of human relationships.

Jae-yi’s rejection of Je-na in this scene is heartbreaking enough, but what comes next is worse. For a moment, Je-na’s prayer seems to be answered when Tae-joon comes to her and apologizes for his failures as a father. It...worked? Someone in her family is finally giving her the attention she’s wanted for so long?

But just as Seul-gi in her princess dress ends up abandoned on the beach, Je-na’s plea for attention backfires in a cruelly ironic twist. She’s been neglected by her father for so long, she’s forgotten what his “support” means. It doesn’t mean love—it means more pressure, more surveillance, more expectations and conditions.

Interestingly, in the same way that Tae-joon failed to notice Je-na’s self-sacrifice as a child, he seems oblivious here to what’s actually going on in her brain. I don’t think he suspects that her narcolepsy could be fake, and he doesn’t seem to realize what’s motivating her, either. Je-na couldn’t care less about her grades or class rank. What encourages her to try harder in school is his moment of apparent remorse—his acting like a caring father for once in his goddamn life.

But Tae-joon can’t fathom how anyone could be motivated by love. He only understands fear, power, and control. And his use of these tactics against Je-na, who lacks her sister’s emotional armor, nearly destroys her.

Je-na and Jae-yi have essentially opposite reactions to the pressure of their father’s gaze. Jae-yi buries her emotions deeper and deeper to become the ruthless studying machine he apparently wants. Je-na becomes more impulsive, more reckless, less rational. Eager to earn Tae-joon’s approval, she turns to good luck charms, then to drugs, and finally to cheating.

Which brings us to the most uncomfortable part of an already unpleasant tale: the relationship that develops between Je-na and her math teacher, Woo Do-hyeok. The first time I watched Friendly Rivalry, I wasn’t sure how we were meant to read this relationship, and that uncertainty made me anxious. It seemed possible that we were being encouraged to view Do-hyeok as the victim, and I didn’t enjoy that implication. Now that I’ve had more time to sit with it, though, I actually appreciate the nuanced way FR depicts sexual abuse.

Do-hyeok isn’t overtly sinister. He’s not obviously villain-coded the way Tae-joon is. His concern for Je-na seems genuine at first, and it probably is. Putting ourselves in her shoes, it’s easy to see how she would view him as a lifeline. He’s…fatherly. And he’s the only adult in her life who seems to notice or care about the stress she’s under.

Which makes the way he takes advantage of her insecurities and emotional distress extra upsetting. This girl needs help. She needs there to be just *one* decent adult in her life. Do-hyeok is so good at playing the part of that figure, he almost convinces us as viewers that he could be an okay guy. He might have even convinced himself that he has Je-na’s best interests at heart.

But his conversation with Je-na, when he catches her trying to steal exam answers at night, is full of subtle manipulation. Hiding behind his mask of fatherly concern, he uses veiled threats and flattery to poke and prod at her vulnerabilities until she is totally at his mercy. When she throws herself at him, he’s surprised, but he doesn’t stop her. He’s had plenty of opportunity to set boundaries before now. He not only let her cross them all, he’s been nudging her across himself.

It’s also emphasized again and again that Je-na is not in a position of power or control. She’s so terrified that at one point she is literally on her knees begging for her life. She’s not a puppet master, and this is no careful scheme—the video that will be used later on to blackmail Do-hyeok isn’t part of a set-up. It only exists because Je-na sets her phone down on a shelf to light the room, and because Do-hyeok happens to brush her smartwatch by accident.

Honestly...this scene is just so upsetting. There’s nothing nice or neat or easy about it. It’s a sad pathetic man betraying a desperate girl so hungry for validation she immediately places all her trust in the first person to say a kind word to her. It’s the one authority figure in Je-na’s life who might be able to help her, who might even want to help her, choosing to exploit her instead. It’s fucked up, but I’m glad Friendly Rivalry resists the urge to give us a simplified or sanitized version. So much abuse in the real world is messy this way.

I still have questions about this prologue: Why does Do-hyeok show up at the school at night, anyway? Why was he keeping an extra Hankuk University keychain in his drawer? Why is Je-na’s pencil purple? Feel free to drop any questions you might have in the comments. I love trying to solve these mysteries together.

But the next entry will definitely loop back around to this prologue, since Episode 9 is full of references to Je-na’s backstory. So I will save other thoughts and ramblings till then. Sorry for the long wait this time, hopefully the next post will come sooner!

[the-kr8tor]

Thread The Needle

Pairing: Hobie Brown x Fem! Reader/ Spider-Punk x Fem! Reader

Total word count: 48.6k (complete)

Synopsis: You've been pining for your best friend of ten years, unbeknownst to you he's also hopelessly in love with you. Will your final college project bring you closer and finally admit your feelings? Or will it drive a wedge between you?

Tags: Best friend! Hobie, fashion student! reader, fem! Reader. Best friends to lovers, idiots in love, lots of pining, is it still slow burn if they're already in love? Hurt/comfort, FLUFF. Specific warnings are listed per chapter.

Disclaimer: I have no experience in fashion design or went to school for it. I've based my knowledge on my own research and what I've seen in various media.

*I don't consent to having my work translated/ published on other platforms*

All images used are from pinterest

Main Masterlist

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER 1 - Pin my heart

CHAPTER 2- Loose thread

CHAPTER 3- Knee Socks

CHAPTER 4- Threadbare

CHAPTER 5- Woven Wheel

CHAPTER 6- Lace

CHAPTER 7- Crossed Stitch

CHAPTER 8- Out of Style

CHAPTER 9- Threaded Through

CHAPTER 10- Parallel Cut

EPILOGUE

TTN one shots (Spoiler Warning ⚠️)

Classroom inspo

Chapter 8 outfit inspos

TTN secrets (Spoiler Warning ⚠️)

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

Submitted by the readers ❤️

Chapter 8 fanart by @thesevenofstaves

TTN Memes by @hunx147 (Spoiler Warning ⚠️)

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7)

Songs recommended by readers to listen to while reading ❤️

Spotify playlist

From the start by Laufey, Chemtrails over the country club by Lana Del Rey, good old fashioned lover boy by Queen, Just a friend to you by Meghan Trainor, I bet on losing dogs by Mitski, Everything in you by adventure time, What a wonderful world cover by the Brooklyn duo, me and your mama by Childish Gambino, A thousand years by Cristina Perry, Tis the damn season by Taylor Swift, thousand years cover by new found glory, Outset island by Hot freaks, Lacy by Olivia Rodrigo.