#this post was way longer than i thought it'd be lmao

[thethingything]

you can watch an absolutely wild medical drama while being a fictive heavy system with a low threshold for introjecting characters who's also desperately trying to figure out how to cope with a bunch of medical trauma and phobias, but watch out...

[stellamancer]

obligatory (satoru gojo x reader)

notes: haha. the valentine's fic. it's funny i still have to post halloween fic. maybe i'll finish this week since i'm off work. uh anyway, for those who say my posts, i'm kind of hesitant to post this for two reasons: 1) it's removed from context— like you can still get a feel of what is going on, but there's no explanation as for why and 2) due to reason 1 it's tonally different than usual, at least according to my beta reader. my eternal gratitude goes to @momodita who helped me workshop this fic and continues to demand i write more gojo fics despite denying being a gojo fucker.

contains: implied f!reader (no pronouns), the return of gojo's pov (a little less whacky this time lmao), jealous gojo (because those who know me know i can't get enough), light angst or whatever the hell is going on there. additionally, for those who don't know giri choco is chocolate you give out of obligation to your coworkers and honmei choco is chocolate you give to someone you have romantic feelings for. part of the infinite loop verse.

wc: 1.8k

“Here you go.”

Satoru graciously accepts Shoko’s offering: a thin, delicately wrapped box of Valentine’s Day chocolate. Naturally, it's giri choco; Satoru is well aware that Shoko would be caught dead before even thinking about giving Satoru honmei choco. That said, it looks like she's given more thought to her gift this year— the last few years she's just handed him a gourmet chocolate bar from some high end chocolatier. Actually, the last time she'd given him something wrapped up like this was…

“There better not be any liquor in this,” Satoru says in a petulant tone reminiscent of his high school days.

Shoko merely laughs. “As if I'd waste something like that on you.”

There's no way she’s forgotten how sick Satoru got the one time she did give him liquor filled chocolates. Not only had it made him sick to his stomach, it'd given him the worst headache of his entire life. If it were up to Satoru, liquor filled chocolates wouldn't even exist. “Welllll, thanks for the chocolate. I'll be sure to get you something good next month.”

Shoko gives him a relaxed smile. “Looking forward to it, Gojo.”

Knowing Shoko, she'll want liquor as usual. Maybe the same bottle of shochu that he got last year? She liked that, but then again, the same gift twice would be boring and Satoru is not about that. Whatever it is will be a little pricey, but Satoru doesn't mind it one bit— anything for one of his oldest friends.

Having given Satoru her yearly offering of chocolate, Shoko shoos him away so she can actually get to work. Satoru considers ambling around for another hour or two, but Ijichi will probably have a heart attack if he delays his mission briefing any longer. The sooner he does it the better, he guesses. Satoru starts sauntering toward the assistant managers’ office to find Ijichi, pulling at the ribbon on the box he received from Shoko as he goes. Inside are two rows of perfectly round chocolate truffles and Satoru picks one at random and pops it into his mouth. It's filled with a sweet raspberry cream that practically melts on his tongue. Shoko really went all out this year, but no matter how good these are they'd never match up to anything homemade.

Though, when he thinks about it, Satoru supposes he won't be getting anything like that this year.

When he gets to the assistant managers’ office he easily finds Ijichi, who, for once, is not bent over a mountain of paperwork, and with him is—

You.

Handing Ijichi a box of chocolates.

For some reason, Satoru suddenly feels very, very annoyed.

“Well, well, well,” he says, the volume of his voice louder than intended, but he doesn't care. “What do we have here?”

Ijichi whirls around and lets out a squeak, his face red as can be. He starts to blubber and it almost feels like Satoru's caught him in the middle of something more illicit than receiving chocolates. If Satoru weren't feeling so annoyed, he'd find the whole sight rather funny.

You, on the other hand, are far calmer, indifferent even, as a slight frown mars your features. Something about it makes Satoru's blood burn hot.

“Did I just interrupt a heartfelt love confession?” Satoru asks dryly and Ijichi starts to freak out even more, and while Satoru notices the slightest twitch of your eye, you remain impassive.

“I hope you like the chocolates,” you tell Ijichi, outright ignoring Satoru and somehow that makes Satoru's blood run even hotter. “I kept in mind what you said about last year's so they're not as sweet.”

“Thank you!” Ijichi squeals and you give the man a sympathetic smile before you head toward the door where Satoru's standing. He knows he's blocking the way, but he doesn't move.

Will you say something to him?

You don't.

Instead, you keep your head down and squeeze past him. Or try to. You brush against his side and Satoru doesn't miss the way your body jolts when you make physical contact with him. But it only lasts a second, and when that second ends, Satoru tries to ignore the feeling of bitterness rapidly spreading throughout his chest.

He means to say something, anything to you, but the words get caught in his throat.

By the time they free themselves, you're already gone.

Satoru sighs and saunters over to Ijichi, who's been taking deep breaths to calm down after Satoru's little bout of teasing. He leans against one of the desks and crosses his arms. “So, you had a mission for me?”

“Right! Yes!” Ijichi squeaks again and takes a deep breath before he starts to explain. Satoru only half listens to the briefing, his attention more focused on the little box sitting on Ijichi’s desk. The mere sight of it spurs a complicated set of feelings. He doesn't understand. You've been giving Ijichi chocolates every Valentine's ever since you moved to Tokyo and it's never bothered him before so why now?

“Um, Gojo?”

“What?” Satoru almost snaps.

Ijichi doesn't answer right away, instead he clears his throat and then says. “It's giri choco.”

Satoru scowls. Of course it is. It's not like you'd give Ijichi honmei choco. You don't see him like that. “I know that.”

Ijichi swallows thickly. Nervously. “Just making sure.”

Then he falls silent, the air between them now terribly awkward.

“...do you want some?” Ijichi asks.

“It's your chocolate.”

“I don't mind sharing,” Ijichi says, reaching over and opening the box to reveal your homemade chocolates. They're nowhere near as perfectly round as the ones Shoko bought for Satoru, but he can tell you put effort into making sure they looked presentable. “Help yourself.”

Even Satoru isn't terrible enough to steal an entire box of chocolates meant for another man, but he does grab the nicest looking one and tosses it into his mouth.

It's bitter; a mix of dark chocolate and black coffee that's not only completely unpalatable to Satoru, but disturbingly reminiscent of the bitter feeling that's now threatening to eat him whole. He almost wants to spit it out.

But he doesn't.

Satoru swallows it all.

The mission is uneventful, absurdly easy even, though Satoru took a little longer than he needed to by toying with the curses a little prior to exorcising them. Some would consider it a touch cruel, but Satoru doesn't care. Anything to rid himself of that pesky feeling from earlier.

If it were up to him, he would have headed straight home afterwards, but Yaga had asked him to come back and do some paperwork. Satoru had tried to reason with him, tell him he'd just do it tomorrow but the principal was insistent.

Satoru trudges to his office and throws open the door. Inside, someone lets out a surprised yelp.

It’s you.

Again.

Both you and Satoru stare at each other in surprise. Given that you've been avoiding both him and this entire corridor like the plague for the past two months, you're the last person he’d expect to find in his office, hovering over his desk. And yet…

You look away from Satoru, your expression awkward. This isn't like your encounter in the assistant manager's office earlier; you can't just walk out of his office without an explanation of why you're there.

Well, you can try, but it's not like Satoru will let you.

“Weren’t you supposed to be out on an assignment?” you finally ask. Satoru thinks you mean to sound annoyed, but your tone is watered down.

“I was, but it was so easy I could have done it blindfolded.”

Normally, you'd just roll your eyes or snap back about how he's a show off or his jokes are shit, but you remain quiet. He shouldn't be surprised, but it still makes him feel weird. Almost sad. Almost empty.

“Principal Yaga asked me to leave some paperwork on your desk,” you say, sounding uncharacteristically meek.

Satoru frowns a little. Yaga, huh? He never pegged him as a meddler. Satoru approaches the desk to look at the paperwork in question; he grimaces— it's a whole freaking stack.

You start to shuffle away from Satoru and toward the door as Satoru flips through all the papers. “Anyway, if you'll excuse me—”

“Wait a sec.” Satoru says and you glance back at him in confusion. There's something peeking out from under the stack of papers. Satoru gingerly fishes it out, revealing a familiar looking box. He holds it up and adds, “Did you leave this too?”

A myriad of varying emotions flashes across your face before you settle on an awkward sort of embarrassment. “I… did.”

It's weird. Satoru didn't expect you to be so straightforward given that under normal circumstances you always choose to be as obstinate as possible. Which Satoru doesn't mind in the slightest; it makes things exciting. There are few things more fun than prying the truth out of you with whatever means necessary. Answering him so readily like this… almost feels wrong.

“I accidentally made too much,” you explain.

Satoru stares at you. It’s not an excuse, not a lie. Honestly, adjusting the amounts to account for one less person probably slipped your mind until it was too late. You could have done anything with the extra chocolate, given more to each person, eaten it yourself, but instead…

You still chose to give it to him.

Satoru tries to ignore the strange feeling stirring in his chest.

“Anyway, eat it if you want, toss it if you don’t,” you add, almost hurriedly as you move closer to the door. You give a quick bow to excuse yourself and before Satoru can say anything else, you run off.

His eyes remain glued to the empty doorway where you were just standing for a second before looking back at the box of chocolates you left for him. Carefully, he unties the ribbon and pulls off the lid. Just like Ijichi’s chocolates, the ones in his box aren’t perfect, but something about them looks nicer than the ones Ijichi got. Satoru wonders if you consciously put in a little more effort when you’d realized you had extra. The thought makes him chuckle a little.

He delicately plucks one from the box and pops it into his mouth. It’s sweet, infused with a hint of strawberry and vanilla that makes Satoru crave even more. As soon as he’s done with the first he shoves another into his mouth, and then another. With each chocolate he eats, the painful feeling in his chest grows, but he ignores it.

Before he knows it, the chocolates are all gone. Satoru licks his lips, hoping for one last taste of that strawberry vanilla sweetness only to find nothing. All he has left is the empty box and an aching heart.

if you read this whole thing, thank you and i hope you enjoyed it.

also yes, shoko got chocolates (tomo choco) too. they were similar to ijichi's, but with liquor instead of coffee.

[martyrsex]

Jason Todd x Singer reader (fem)

Author's note: I received such a surprisingly positive reply from this! I haven't posted in months, so this caught me off guard completely. (Yes 15 notes is good for me lmao 🥹) In this version, Jason knows who reader are since the beginning. I thought it'd be more fun.

So, basically this a longer version of the first part + a second part. I intend to write this in chapters. Enjoy and please give me your thoughts ❤️

Part two:

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

Jason Todd knew one thing or two about twitter. Or X, whatever. The thing is: he's at least three times a month in the trending topics. Not him exactly, but Red Hood. Red Hood is always there.

It goes from people hating on him, to young girls (psycho's in his opinion) calling him babygirl or daddy. He doesn't understands and he doesn't want to. He's not much one from social media, so when he is on the trending topics, normally someone from the family teases him about it.

This time is no different. Dick Grayson and Tim Drake are laughing way too hard. Looking from Tim's phone directly towards Jason. He sighs, closing the book he is reading. Currently they are all comfortably sitting on the library, eating Alfred's cookies and tea.

"What is it?" Jason asks, already regretting the question.

"Open twitter." Tim says, a huge smile on his face. Jason feels a chill down his spine because he knows it's going to be bad. Not that he cares. He doesn't give a shit about public's opinion.

But sometimes the comments about him, the mean comments wishing him to die... Those get to him. So he's prepared for that. For people hating, or for his fangirls fighting deciding who'd be his next imaginary girlfriend.

But he never expected to be shipped with someone else. He knows who you are. Everybody knows who you are. A talented young singer, that ascended till the top in less than three years. Doing some works on modeling from time to time for McQueen or Vogue or Versace, because you're that beautiful.

He wouldn't call himself a fan, but he does think you are musically talented. Anyway, everyone is shipping him with you.

And he doesn't know why.

"Why am I being shipped with her?" He asks, out loud. Before Dick or Tim can answer, Steph bursts into the library's door laughing.

"Jason-"

"I know."

She laughs again. He starts to scroll down the comments, until he finds a video of a live interview you did on Kurt's show, that prick. The journalist is famous for doing weird questions.

"So, everybody knows you have a bit of thing for vigilantism. How did that start?" Kurt asks, crossing his arms and giving the public a charming smile.

"Oh, it started with Batman, of course. I was a little kid when I heard the stories about the man that haunted the nights in Gotham. I am a L.A girl, but either way I absolutely felt enchanted. It's just so cool that is there someone out there that takes justice in their own hands."

Yeah, right. She's a fan of the Batass. Jason scoffs while watching the video, but continues anyway.

"And who is your favorite vigilante?" Kurt asked, leaning closer to her. He was a charming man, young and successful, just like her.

"Oh, Red Hood, definitely." She says that without a hint of sarcasm in her voice. Just a plain, simple answer.

"Red Hood? Isn't he a bit... extreme?" Kurt said, tilting his head.

"I think he is doing good in his own ways, and that is so freaking cool, you know? And I think his motorcycle is super... uh, how can I say? Hot." She says, and gives the public a little giggle. She continues:

"Which doesn't mean I agree with everything he does. But I find his persona interesting and refreshing. He's different from the rest, different approaches and all. It makes me curious about who is the man behind the mask."

"If you could say anything to him, what would you say?" Kurt asks, smiling.

"Oh! I'd probably ask him to take me on a ride with his bike. And to get a girlfriend. I think he needs a feminine touch in his life." She answers, with an amused grin.

The video ends and Jason doesn't really know what to think. You just said he needed a girlfriend. A feminine touch.

The truth is, he can't really disagree. When was the last time he felt a woman's body close to his? More time than he wants to admit. Months. Maybe more than a year. In his defense, it's not that he doesn't have the game. He just don't have the energy to play it.

Steph laughs takes him out of his wandering thoughts. He looks up at his siblings, an irritated expression in his face.

"Read the tweets, the tweets are the best part!" She says, chuckling again. Jason goes straight to the shipping hashtag. People saying they want to be Jason, people saying they want to be you, people saying they want to be the bed where you both - forget it.

He sighs and throws his cellphone on the couch, sitting back and beginning to read his book.

"That's it? That's your reaction?" Dick asks, tilting his head like a curious dog.

"It's just a bunch of tweets. People will forget eventually. Nothing I should worry about." Jason replies, not taking his eyes off The Catcher in the Rye.

Little did he know.

__________________________________________________

Okay. Maybe you shouldn't have said that. Maybe you were dumb and reckless. And now your agent and her team are almost killing you.

It's not your fault. You were always told to be honest, because your fun and outgoing (at least on stage) personality were one of your best traits.

"Are you crazy! This could have led to terrible repercussions. What if everyone focused on the fact that you support a murderer?!" Claya, your agent says, almost shouting.

"Well, they didn't. Now they are just shipping him with me." You say, trying to defend yourself. The truth is, behind the cameras and the stage and all the "popstar" persona you have to pull out, you are an introvert. You have two lifes.

"Yeah, and you should be grateful for it. This can even be a good sign. It seems people are interested in your love life. We can use that for our advantage." Claya says.

You adore her, really. And it's her job to figure it out how to make your career ascend. And she does it very well. But sometimes you just wish it wouldn't be about money or status. It would be just about how to do good music.

Anyway, you don't want to be ungrateful. You're living your childhood dream. So you take those thoughts out of your mind.

"Well, what do you have in mind?" You ask, blinking in confusion.

"We're going to Gotham. You're going to do a show there." Claya says, confidently and typing on her computer.

"Are you out of your mind? Shows in Gotham always go wrong. The Chase Atlantic show from last month was attacked by Pyg!" You say, trying to contain your agent's wicked ideas.

"Honey, don't worry. Maybe Red Hood appears in to save the whole ordeal. It couldn't be better." Claya says, standing up and closing her computer.

Claya and the team leave you alone to think. It's not like you have a lot of choice in the matter, anyway. If she says you're doing the show, you gotta do it.

But it's just a show, right? Nothing to worry about.

Little did you know.

[bloodreddemons]

Hazbin Hotel Episode 7-8 (Finale) Hot Takes ~

I personally loved a lot of the Charlastor content in the beginning. So cute.

The deal Alastor purposed to Charlie was also very predictable. We already knew they were going to eventually make a deal but that deal in particular was just very predictable.

I think everyone knows this already but that "one little favor" that Alastor is going to ask of her is going to bite her in the ass. We don't know what he's going to ask but it's definitely gonna come back to haunt her.

She may even make a deal with him again possibly in the future, who knows.

I'm surprised Vaggie didn't know Angel's could be harmed or killed. Its weird that she also didn't know how to fight against one.

Rosie is a real gem and a wayyyyy better friend than Mimzy fucking is.

I love Carmilla & Vaggie's dynamic. I think they both are very much the same personality wise. I definitely can see Carmilla as a mother figure to her or at least a teacher to her, which she pretty much is.

To follow up, I loved Carmilla training Vaggie and helping her get her wings back. Out For Love was also really really good. I liked it a lot.

Never thought I'd hear Alastor call someone an old bitch but it was everything.

I knew Charlie was gonna forgive Vaggie regardless of anything but I love Auntie Rosie.

I didn't really like "Ready For This". I wish I did like it. Especially since it had Charlie, Alastor, & Rosie in it. Idk I liked Out For Love more.

Vox's commentary was funny asf but he's also such a hater. Not even a low-key one lmao.

The post-fight celebration and speech was actually very sweet. Although I wish there was more time and episodes that we could have seen more of the characters bond. I also wish there were more opportunities where we got to know them better.

I really thought Angel & Husk were gonna fuck this episode.

I wasn't expecting for Sir Pentious to say "I love you" to Cherri Bomb so soon and I also didn't need to know he had 2 dicks.

"More Than Anything" Chaggie version was pretty sweet. It'd be cool if there was a longer version idk if there is. They also kissed which was nice.

Adam & Lute are funny asf. Especially Adam. They may be horrible people but I just can't get over how funny they are. Even when they're about to massacre Charlie's people. Lol.

I wasn't expecting the war to be kinda epic. The shield that Alastor put up over the hotel kinda reminded me of the last Harry Potter. When they all put a shield around Hogwart's to protect everyone from the death eaters and voldemort.

Adam might just be the funniest character in this series dead or alive. Heaven or Hell.

It pisses me off how Charlie barely does anything in the fight. Like, this is her people and her fucking hotel as she keeps saying... yet everybody else but her is fighting. Wtf? Girl yo ass should be in Sloth.

I love Alastor & Adam's dynamic, their first impression of eachother is so hilarious. The fight between them was also very entertaining. I was really curious to see who would win.

I was actually kinda surprised that Alastor was defeated so easily. I honestly thought he was stronger than that, but tbh Adam is very powerful he's the fucking first man, extermination commander, and he already single handedly broke Alastor's shield.

People have pointed out Alastor's "normal" voice when his mic/staff breaks, because it's his voice without the radio filter. Imma be honest I wasn't that shocked at all, he just sounds the same to me, the radio filter just adds a cool effect.

Charlie really could have got tf up there and helped Alastor out. Idk if she thought he could handle himself or what but fuck.

SIR PENTIOUS KISSING CHERRI WAS AMAZING. WE WON. But then he "died"...

To follow up that sacrifice was anticlimactic at the same time. Mostly because of the way Adam just effortlessly zapped him out of existence.

I'm so disappointed in the "Charlie finally snaps" bit. I was literally dying to see this part in the series, where Charlie finally loses her shit and stands up for herself or whatevever....but it ended up being extremely disappointing and yet again, anticlimactic.

Charlie's transformation along with Razzle & Dazzle was kindaaa cool, however...her getting her ass kicked within like 0.3 fucking seconds was not. It was embarrassing for a demon of her status. I can understand Alastor, but seriously Charlie? You can't beat him? The clownery.

I loved the Vaggie & Lute fight. Let my girl Vaggie finally get her ones. Lute needs her ass beat disrespectfully for what she did.

Although...Lute was winning that fight, she was still holding her own and getting more hits in. I don't even think Carmilla's teaching's were working. Lmao damn. That bitch is fucking scrappy.

Vaggie should have just ended Lute. I know she's too good for that, but she really should have just killed that bitch. She left you for dead you should have just killed her.

Charlie stabbing Adam and standing her ground was badass, but that was kinda it. She still ends up almost getting choked out. Lame.

Charlie just isn't that powerful. 😒 Or at least as she's supposed to be. Maybe it's still not really shown to us, but so far she just isn't that threatening at all. Very disappointing.

Lucifer coming in kinda pissed me off. I wish Charlie could have actually handled everything herself without her dad having to come in and help her. I just feel like it'd be more impactful for her and her character.

Adam x Lucifer actually does seem kinda hot....just me???

Their fight was very entertaining despite already knowing who would come out on top. Hehe.

"All of Mankind came from these fucking nutts" is pure poetry.

Nifty is a menace and I have been saying it since the very beginning. If anyone should be running shit it should be her. Alastor is so feared but it should be herrrr.

I didn't like "The Show Must Go On" as a song but it was sweet in the sense that it was about Charlie and her found family helping her rebuild her hotel and still have the determination to keep going. Also it helps lead off into Season 2.

I'm fucking itching to know what deal is bothering Alastor and who he made it with. It's becoming more likely that it's with Lilith & that's who owns him.

I think it's obvious the deal possibly involve's Alastor to watch over or protect Charlie. Alastor is becoming bothered by having to do this because he literally almost fucking died.

I'm really worried about what Alastor is going to do when he's finally free and under no restraints from who controls him. I know Viv said Alastor isn't an antagonist but she could've just been keeping it a secret.

Alastor really might be a secret antagonist. He'll just be that surprise villain in the end that kinda comes out of nowhere but you still knew it was coming. I wouldn't trust him especially with what he said. Him pulling the strings can't be good.

I can't believe Sir Pentious got redeemed before Angel Dust, but still good for him! I'm so happy he got redeemed he truly is good and deserves it.

I was pissed asf when I saw Lilith in Heaven. Your daughter has been in HELL fucking struggling, while you've been sitting comfy up in heaven, the same place that is fucking YOUR people up!!! Helloooo??

My theory is that Lilith is Eve in disguise. I wholeheartedly believe that because something just feels off?? Y'all feel that too??? Lilith making a deal with Adam? Chilling up in Heaven? NAH MAN.

I also think it could be Eve who owns Alastor and that he knows of her being disguised as Eve, and is in Heaven. Like he's kinda in on it, but more so by force.

[leighsartworks216]

I Come With Knives Pt3

Astarion x gn!Tav/Reader

Class is over and I am finally back home so I can post this chapter here now lmao

Warnings: trauma, blood, blood drinking, violence, fear, self-destructive coping mechanism, emotional abuse, physical abuse (grabbing, pulling)

I can add more just lemme know what I missed <3

Word Count: 1,050

Main Masterlist

First Baldur's Gate 3 Masterlist - Second Baldur's Gate 3 Masterlist

I Come With Knives Masterlist

AO3

Tag List Form

She haunts you again tonight. You could feel her hands running over your body, tugging your head to one side as she dug her teeth into the mark on your neck. You see her ruby red eyes, dark with desire for your blood, stare at you as she drinks, deeper and deeper until you can’t feel anything. Her smile, lips painted red with gore, as she coos you to unconsciousness.

You refuse another attempt at sleep. Your lids are heavy, your bones feel like jelly, but you can’t bear to go through this song and dance every night. You didn’t have her here to remove all rational thought and send you off into dreamlessness. And while it pleases you endlessly to be away, you wish for just one night where you don’t see her. The only time that’s happened so far was after Astarion came to you, begging for something more substantial to eat. His eyes, the same shade but somehow softer than hers, as he kissed your hand.

The moon and stars offered you no solace tonight. The moon was new - a shadow against the already-dark sky. The stars were covered by clouds. Laying still, on your back, made you restless. You could almost picture Kir Parthene crawling over you, straddling you between her legs.

Astarion finds you after his hunt, tending to the fire. It'd been close to cinders when he left, but now it burnt as though it'd never gone out. You threw dry twigs onto it and stoked it with a longer branch. He sat down next to you.

"If you keep staying up like this, dear, you won't be able to fight." His tone was teasing, but his eyes betrayed his concern. "Is it her again?"

You shudder and tighten yourself into a ball, protecting yourself from the dangers of the world. "I can't stop dreaming about her," you whisper. Your voice shakes; you're terrified of the hold she has over you. "She's always just... there. Lingering. Waiting."

The light flickers against you both. It's pleasantly warm. The shadows it throws only accentuate your exhaustion, deepening the circles forming under your eyes. Even Astarion doesn't look as tired as you.

The tadpole squirms behind your eye, swishing back and forth. You can feel Astarion's reaching out. "You don't want to see it."

"No," he agrees. "But I want to know." You look at him from the corner of your eye. His face is set. Serious. "Show me."

The tadpole doesn't stop wriggling as you think. You dig your fingers into your pants, searching for any way to ground yourself here, now, in this camp, surrounded by allies and friends. And you let him in.

He's immediately thrown into a memory - or perhaps something stitched together from your dreams. He sees through your eyes. He's terrified. His heart is racing against his ribcage, pounding so hard he's breathless.

The door slams open. A woman, tall and beautiful and vicious, marches in. "On the bed," she commands. It's almost a shout. He can't scramble fast enough. She grabs him by the hair and tosses him in the center.

But he doesn't make a sound. He knows, somehow, that screaming would only make it worse. Any sign of pain - she would tear you apart.

There is nothing erotic or sensual in the way she mounts you, grabbing your arm to pull your shoulder down as she rips your head to one side. He's suddenly aware of his nudity. He's on display, showing everyone just who he belongs to.

She digs her teeth into his throat, biting so hard and deep he fears she may rip out his jugular. She drinks deeply, messily. Blood drips steadily onto the bed. He can hear her gasping and sucking and- too much. It's too much.

His head spins, but he can't say anything. He can't feel his fingers, or his body. He can't feel anything. His eyes fight to stay open as he stares at the ceiling - an intricate painting of angels and devils lining the dome-shaped structure. And he's praying. He can feel it - thoughts just at the back of his mind, whispered a million times before, begging for anyone to save him. To spare his life. To live another day. Another hour.

Kir Parthene pulls away, drawing the blood on her chin to her lips with the swipe of a finger. She smiles. Wicked. Pleased. He wants to whimper and back away as she leans down, caressing his cheek and kissing his forehead, but he can't. He can't, because if he does, he'll be punished.

"My good pet," she purrs. "Sleep. Sleep, my precious little thing."

His head hurts as he's shot back to his own mind. He winces around the ache as he turns to you.

You're no longer shuddering. No longer gripping tightly to your pants. You stare into the fire with glazed over eyes. You're numb. Seeing it all again surpassed your fear and hollowed you out. Gutted you until you're nothing but a shell.

Regret and guilt sit uneasy in his chest. He reaches out slowly, delicately touching your arm.

And you gasp. Tears fall from your eyes in an instant, fear and the need to protect yourself turning to upset and sorrow. You shut your eyes tightly, hands rubbing roughly at the scar on your neck, like you'll remember you weren't bitten tonight. But you're going to scratch it open, and he's even more terrified of how you'll react if you do.

He grabs your wrists and hold your hands away. You fight against him, but not because you have to get away. You just need to feel that she's not there. "It's alright, love. You're alright. She's not here. She won't get you." He's not even worried about waking the others up - all he can focus on is you.

Slowly, your strength dies. You sob. It's ugly and broken, and more emotion than you'd ever let show around your master. He hushes you and lets go of your wrists to hold your shoulders. You cover your face. Your whole body shakes, wracked with each heaving breath.

"You're okay," he whispers again. He can hear shuffling as the others are awoken. He can't even begin to explain your pain to them. "You're safe. I promise."

---

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[wovenstarlight]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

#1: Yoohyun wanting to repay Yoojin

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

#2: Yoohyun's Awakening

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There's two points you could argue:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

#4: Yoohyun's strategy failing

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

#5: Learning about the world ending

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

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

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

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

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

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

#6: What counts as a "real" threat

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

#7: Banning Yoojin from dungeons

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

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

Yeah. Never gonna happen.

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

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

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

#8: The transcendent threat

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

God Hates Caregivers Personally.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[artifeast]

Cursed Dungeon Meshi AU, with a vague attempt at the manga's style. They are 17 inches shorter than their canon heights. Maintained the height differences though!

Telesphore is an elf of course, Colette is a half-foot/tallman, and Eisen is a gnome. WAY too many miscellaneous thoughts about this AU under the cut. There miight be worldbuilding spoilers if you haven't read the DunMesh manga and bonus material

Telesphore is an elf because, obviously

Eisen's a gnome because that gave me a decent height difference with Telesphore while still giving him strong magic capabilities. He might have a bit of dwarf in him, though

Colette's mother was a half-foot, and her father is a tall-man with a half-foot grandparent. Colette is still taller than the average considering her heritage (I did MATH about this. and jsyk the numbers worked beautifully). I wanted her to not be particularly innately magical, and also this would give her an appropriate height in comparison to Telesphore and Eisen. Like, the AU is already gonna be cursed with how Telsie has to get shrunken, but it'd be even worse if Colette was a tallman and 8 inches taller than him LMAO

Colette still has the Kingmaker in this AU, though I forgot to draw it. In this, it's an ancient elven magical artifact.

Colette's still 25, while Telesphore and Eisen are the same age (190). I made an age comparison chart for the Dungeon Meshi races a while back, taking into account both age of maturity and life expectancy, and according to it, 190 makes Telesphore the equivalent of about 29 and Eisen the equivalent of about 47.5, which is close enough. This AU loses the dynamic of Telesphore being alive for hundreds of years longer than Eisen, and in fact makes Eisen the older one of the two (aging-wise) from the very start, but eh, I think it still works. There's still lifespan angst since Eisen only has 50 years before he hits the average life expectancy for gnomes, while Telesphore has another 210 years. Also I think them remaining the same age, as opposed to canon, but still aging differently is kinda fun.

The Kingdom of Valor is somewhere in the middle of the Eastern Continent, landlocked like in canon. The population is primarily half-foots, but there are also a good deal of gnomes and dwarves, as expected from the region. More interestingly, there is a community of elves.

Within Valor is the Seltsamwald, a bizarre and massive surface-level dungeon in the form of a dangerous forest that stretches for miles, held in check by incredibly powerful ancient magic forming a barrier around it. The elves are investigating it and maintaining it. There is no immortality spell in the Seltsamwald. The lord of the dungeon has not been found, but doesn't appear to be particularly active; in fact, despite being clearly contained and rather active in terms of monsters, it retains many properties of a natural dungeon. Some have theorized that it actually is a natural dungeon that's spread too far, perhaps cultivated by a mage in ages past, that was then sealed closed when it grew too powerful. However, it's not sealed entirely shut, and is kept alive mostly by the elves investigating it. There is very limited non-elf foot traffic, with it mostly being criminals that sneak into its maze-like forest. The Seltsamwald has been kept stable like this for hundreds of years. More recently, a group of elves have formed a small town within the dungeon as a sort of research post, named Sorbus.

Also within Valor are at least two magic schools, located there due to the plentiful mana from the Seltsamwald. One is for gnomish magic, and one is for elven magic.

The Desrosiers were half-foots. Ariadne is a tallman that's managed to prolong her life using ancient magic. (Though even still, in this AU she probably murdered Eisen's parents when he was the equivalent of like... 37, rather than 18)

I've spent a LOT of time thinking about it and I've decided not to try to translate the revolution and the closed Kehrseite portal situation into this AU. It's much easier to say Telesphore not being able to go home is just… a personal issue, because he's a wanted criminal on the Northern Central Continent, LOL. And the revolution's just a huge mess... I guess it wouldn't be so bad if I excluded the Good Neighbors/elves from the proceedings, though. These fantasy medieval ages are allowed a little populist revolution

[alexgalaxyboo]

It all started with one thought. Hey I rlly wanna draw some sort of femme fatale esque Soap.

So I went to bother @hyperfixationwizard about it, as you do.

The initial idea was obviously that he's seducing Ghost but then I thought hey it'd also be really cool if he was seducing some other dude (which of course ended up being Graves) and Ghost was his like.. bodyguard I guess.

Cue a metric fuckton of pining and jealousy they're in denial about.

So—to set the scene. The 141 and co are some sort of secret spy group blah blah blah, tasked with gaining very important information from none other than the CEO of Shadow Corporations, who is none other than Philip Graves of course.

Soap and Ghost are leading the mission, with Soap intended to seduce Graves, earn his trust and then gain access into .. like the company's super secret database so they can find the info they need to expose them. Or something. The plot is still in progress (he says, meanwhile together with Hype they wrote approximately 6k words or so between the two of them).

The plan is simple, or at least it seems simple enough until Ghost starts finding himself very very jealous that Soap is flirting with Graves. Like how dare that asshole even LOOK in his direction. Not because he's in love with him or anything, absolutely not what are you on about.

Soap of course is no less interested in Ghost—big guy, mysterious and cool, nice voice, what is he missing, really—and maybe he is more friendly chatty and flirty than he claims he is with everyone. Even if he was, Ghost can't really tell because he's busy being down bad so it's fine.

And things go according to plan, y'know? Attend a gala here, go to some fancy meeting there, maybe a date for like.. golf or whatever stupid rich assholes do, I wouldn't know, but they're earning Graves' trust and that's all that matters.

And maybe somewhere in between all that, Soap and Ghost kind of have.. a Moment™ where Soap asks for help to put a necklace on and asks Ghost for help. There's something about the feeling of his bare fingertips (because he'd have to take his gloves off, no?) so faintly brushing against the skin on his back, something about the intimacy of literally baring his neck to Ghost (because he trusts him and it's quickly becoming clear he doesn't just trust Ghost to watch his back he trusts Simon) and somewhere between all of those some things they probably stay frozen there in front of the mirror for longer than they should've and longer than it should've been acceptable.

They do snap out of it though, with Soap meeting Ghost's gaze through the mirror and shooting him a wink before hurrying off pretending his cheeks weren't burning red.

Funnily enough, that same night or maybe a day or two later, when Graves presents Soap with a necklace as a gift and insists on helping him put it on himself, Ghost finds his blood boiling at the way his hands linger around Soap's neck, peering over his back to admire the pretty piece of jewelry and is about seconds away from murdering him on the spot—subtlety and diplomacy of the mission be damned.

Ta-da!

(there's ,, more to it I guess but this post is getting very long so ,, feel free to ask anything and everything as always lmao)

[fandomfluffandfuck]

I have dyslexia as well so I listen to podfics a lot! Can I ask how you write so perfectly with dyslexia? No need to answer if you don't want to, jus curious about your process :-)

Hey, sweets, it's no problem, don't worry!

I'm gonna take this opportunity to do what I do best and... overexplain. (Which--the overexplaining, overwriting that I do--I'm convinced is due to dyslexia. It takes a lot of words, which I don't feel naturally attuned to, to communicate the thoughts I have in my head. I struggle with words and sentence structure, and it all comes out tangled, so I just keep trying until I have monster paragraphs, lmao.)

Yeah, I'm dyslexic! Very dyslexic, lmao. And I do a lot to work around it, trying my best to write (mostly) coherent words, but also, I don't really think about the process I use all the time because... it's just what I have to do, y'know? I've always had to have work arounds. Like, I've obviously been dyslexic my entire life, but I didn't get a diagnosis until late, late middle school, and at that point, the "accommodations" I got at school were entirely useless. Like, oh, wonderful, preferential seating. Sure. Yeah. That will definitely help with my dyslexia. Thanks.

I also remember, just as a side note, that it was during that time when I was refused accommodations like extra time for tests, reading aids, note-taking aids, etc. all which would've been EXTREMELY HELPFUL because I was doing "well enough" in school. So, clearly, I didn't "need" them, if anything, they would be "wasted" on me when they could go to someone else who was actually struggling (which, I get, public school funding is shitty and there aren't unlimited resources, but I'm still slightly salty, lol. Just because I didn't appear to be struggling on the outside didn't mean I wasn't struggling. It's similar to having "high functioning" depression, like, it doesn't matter if I can function if I still feel like fucking shit constantly). I was also so, so close to not being diagnosed in the first place because, according to the doctors I saw, I was smart enough that it wouldn't matter.

That's a reoccurring theme with my dyslexia, actually!

People never believe me!

Which, sure, is a compliment to other people. But it's a backhanded one. I don't want to be complimented by pushing everyone else down.

ANYWAY-

The process.

The process starts--background wise--with practice. The shit answer. I know. But, really, practice. I've been writing stories for a lot longer than I've been posting fics. I've written lots of fiction (short stories and nonshort stories), I used to write poetry, and I'm a life-long journal-er. I used to read a lot, lot of books, too, despite the challenges with my dyslexia. It'd just that now I write so much for fandom and with higher education challenging me, I find it hard to have the time or the energy to read and deal with more words than I already do.

So, I have lots of practice on my side, active and passive, but I also have other things...

I type all my fics, and I use fonts and font sizes extensively. I tend to use bigger font sizes overall, not like wildly huge fonts, but not 11 or 12, either. It depends on the font itself--some fonts have larger letters than others. Something about the letters being more visible and having smaller sentence chunks on each line helps me anchor the letters in place.

I also will plan my fics in one font (probably whatever the program is set to by default), then flesh out the plan more in a different font, after I'll actually go and write out my fic in a new font, and when I'm ready to make edits and add final touches I use a new font, again. I tend to bounce between Arial, Verdana, Open Dyslexic, and Comic Sans. Yes, I write smut I comic sans regularly 💀💀

I've seen research that says, yes, fonts can affect dyslexia and research that says it doesn't do shit so... 🤷🏻‍♂️ Either way, I feel like it helps me find mistakes because it tricks my eyes into thinking the words are new, lol. That, and I find it more comfortable to write in dark mode, I don't know why or if it's doing anything specifically to my dyslexia, but I get less lost in the words when in dark mode.

While I'm doing all that font changing, I'm also, as I mentioned, writing and re-writing, which means reading and re-reading. I go over my fics A FUCK TON. Pure repetition irons out a lot of shit by brute force, lol. I have friends who will write essays for school and look over it once, maybe twice if they're feeling spicy. I can not comprehent that. Not me. If I haven't re-read it, once I'm at the final editing and final touches stage, at least six times then... it's not going to be posted. I'll also change fonts between re-readings. And when I put the fucking thing into AO3, I re-read it again.

(I'm sure a beta reader would be very helpful, but I'm also very protective over my art--writing, drawing, sculpture, or otherwise, and so I haven't played with that, lol. You'd have to ask someone else about their experience there!)

While writing, reading, re-writing, and re-reading, I'm also reading out loud to myself.

Everything.

All 👏🏻of 👏🏻 it 👏🏻

I say all of it.

It helps me with flow and writing style, sure, but really, it forces me to realize mistakes and lessens my mistakes. You mentioned podfics and while I haven't gotten into podfics I am a fucking podcast, music, audio guy. I find audio so much easier to process than written words.

(You might find this poll of interest, I do, lol)

Aaaand, while all of this is going on, I also, of course, use a grammar program. I use Grammarly because it was most accessible (re: free and recommended to me by an English teacher) in high school. I keep in mind that it has batshit insane suggestions sometimes, and I have all their bullshit AI helping tools turned off, but... it does help a ton.

In conclusion, something that I am working on myself is that sometimes when I'm having a bad day with my dyslexia--maybe I'm tired and I can't focus, maybe I have a headache, maybe my eyes are fried from staring at a screen all day, maybe I've done too much reading for college, maybe my threshold for frustration has been exceeded and I just can't deal with the challenge that writing presents that day, or whatever--I can't write and I need to accept that. I'm not gonna be able to produce something good, maybe not even something presentable, every time I sit down to write.

That's fine!

That's how writing works for everyone! That's how writing works for me, someone who struggles with letters and numbers and writing and reading and the whole fucking thing. That's okay. Let it happen. Let it go. Try again tomorrow.

Uhhh, I hope some of that, any of that, was of interest? Helpful? Maybe?

[steve0discusses]

S5 Ep : I don't know the episode numbers anymore I never wrote them down, so from here on out, I'm just going to number up from my previous post. So I guess episode 49

Fun fact I finished this post a week ago and then never pressed send. I can blame this on a lot of things, (work, illness, brain fog, etc) but at this point we just know it's the universe trying to keep me from finishing S5 of my Yugioh reblog, lmao.

So, last we left off, Sad Seto was next to die.

What makes this extra weird is that the other Seto is going to just watch this entire thing happen. He apparently didn't have enough traumatic disassociating while watching his Blue Eyes Wife die, now he will disassociate from watching himself go out in a blaze of glory, too.

Sad Seto's strategy against Zorc is not really what you'd expect out of the #2 of Egypt's court. Although...I guess before everyone biffed it, Seto was more like #5? #6?

He's above Mana I feel. Barely. Mostly because Mana probably isn't the right age to legally work, even in ancient Egypt when the working age is like...if you can walk.

But he was apparently so busy doing Aknadin's taxes that he's decided it's good judgement to throw himself at a 800 ft tall dragon/crotch/man.

for his credit, Sun Tzu's art of war hasn't been written yet.

And Sad Seto realizes his true purpose, which is that he has a smarter, stronger, and more powerful girlfriend (ish.) Which is a running theme on this show, as we all know.

In a bizarre cut that I can't believe they left on US TV...other than I think they couldn't cut this any other way, the penis dragon attached to Zork extended it's neck up to grab Blue eyes by her neck and just fling her into the ground, killing her instantly.

I don't like that the neck can extend longer. I don't like that it's a function of the dragon crotch. They knew. They knew what this looked like. Thanks, I hate it.

Also what an embarrassing way for Seto's past self to die. Truly the hieroglyphs about this event will be wild, and thousands of years later, Grandma Muto probably looked at this event etched into stone and just thought it was weird ancient pervert stuff.

Sorry if you were thinking Sad Seto would recover last minute and realize he's like the most OP person in Yugioh. He instead rotted from his hand and joined the rest of our Egyptian cast in Shadow Hell.

Leaving us with just Mana. And like kudos to her, but how on EARTH did she survive so freakin long!? Like of all of them, I thought Seto would be the last one. Not Mana. Not in a million years did I think it'd be the girl who hid in a pot.

But youknow maybe that's why she survived?

And then Bakura casually walked away from the only Seto who matters. Which is fitting, because if memory serves, that's also what Yami did to Seto for like half of the Battle City tourney.

It's such a weird strange bod on this dragon. It's such a strange bod. He's both got kind of a belly, but also is ripped to shreds. Such a weird bod.

In case you were like "We haven't given Seto enough motivation," we also toss in a few nearly dead brothers just to make sure we have properly traumatized this boy to the point where he'd duel someone who isn't Yugi Muto.

Seto decided magic exists 6 minutes ago, and he's already better at magic than Yugi Muto who's had access to it for YEARS.

Like he learned about magic in a different culture, a different time, a different language, and now he's fighting the final boss.

But it's Seto, so I buy it. He would speedrun his life like this.

That's the dialogue of the show where he says his first words were "neutron blast attack" and youknow...he probably has very few memories of himself as a child since his parents died and his other family put him up for adoption...but he knows his first words?

That, or Seto likes making his brand a reality by making up whatever nonsense it takes to make that brand legit. Which I can also see him doing.

Also please don't look at this foreshortened hand, don't look at it, ignore that this happened.

So thanks to Bakura's weird choice to drag Seto into this universe in the first place, now Bakura has to fight Seto and his 3 blue eyes that would not have existed here otherwise.

++++++ME RANTING ABOUT THE SETO ARC FEEL FREE TO SKIP++++

TBH it kinda makes the whole Sad Seto arc feel kind of like it didn't need to exist. Like this is the Seto fight that matters. This one right here, and although they share a name, it's not with the same guy who fought Zorc at the beginning of this episode.

And like I could add it to a list of problems with this season. But Sad Seto started out so interesting, and then forgot. It was like he only existed to introduce the dragon, and not explain anything at all about the nature of Seto Kaiba we know and love. Like the possession of Aknadin can be a parallel to how Seto was raised following Gozaburo's footsteps, but youknow...that's all old territory.

Like, I wish I had any sort of new growth from the interaction of either of the Seto's together in the same room, much like we've been getting from Yami facing his past self. Yami's been growing a lot, he's been facing his demons, but Seto? Seto's been walking around this desert trying find wifi.

(which like he did find a "wifey" which is almost wifi but wasn't as helpful because she was dead)

The Seto Kaiba who is fighting Bakura right now, is the same exact guy we saw at the end of the last arc against Zeigfried Von Schroeder.

Which means the reason that Seto is now souped up and capable of going up against Bakura isn't because of anything we witnessed here in this arc, but because of the weird horse guy last arc who taught him how to put up a better firewall.

And maybe there was a draft where Seto decides he is a spiritual reincarnation of the Pharaoh of Egypt. Maybe there was a draft where he gained a new ability. Maybe there was a draft where he realized the gravity of what was happening and wanted to save the world.

But it ain't this draft, unfortunately.

Seto is here not because of an internal growth reason, but because he was on a tablet in S2, and we have to know where that plot thread went to have an ending...but the show rewrote what it initially said in S2.

Like in the OG timeline, it was Seto who killed Pharaoh. But here we found out it was actually Aknadin who possessed Seto to kill Pharaoh. (and at some point in that fight, Pharaoh stuck his soul in a box and sealed away Zorc)

Sad Seto was apparently a chill bro the entire time. Just a nice guy who arrested half of Cairo and had a sort-of-girlfriend for about 8 hours before she biffed it.

And I would have been OK with that, if it were more interesting than what we initially thought happened in the past: where we thought it was a kickass Seto launching a coup. But unfortunately, it's not, instead it's a boy who started out powerless, and continued to be powerless despite working in Pharaoh's literal court. He didn't even have the power to not get possessed.

And I am sure there were other drafts, and endings are hard, and the author did get hella hospitalized while he wrote this season, animation is a miracle of many moving parts and budgets, and we were lucky to even get an ending to this show. So I don't want to sound like I'm complaining when there are so many worse directions this show could have gone. I'm just a little surprised it went this direction, mostly.

But say what you will about Yugioh, it doesn't like to be predictable, doesn't it?

+++++++++++++++++++OK I'M DONE++++++++++++++++++++++

Speaking of characters who haven't gained anything from being here, Tristan is no longer possessed!

Tristan begs his apologies and Yugi takes it gracefully. Which means, it's time for the main character of this entire show to finally re-enter the plot.

And they do so, in style.

Y'all I remember being excited about the look and style of extreme sports, but I do not remember this many heelies in the 00's.

Anyway, this is the link to read these in chrono order, you know the drill. See you next time to see yet another girlfriend biff it!

https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/yugioh/chrono

[bish-plz-haha]

Just Pretend (a kagehina fanfic)

Just a little snippit of something I wrote a while ago and posted on AO3. If you wanna, you can read it here. (I also knew next to nothing about the ending so... OC's galore and OOC characters! That's my style. Lmao)

"Hey, Kageyama! What's up?" Hinata answered cheerfully. Kageyama could hear that stupid smile of his through the phone.

"Can I ask you a favour?" Kageyama cautiously asked. A pause on the other end of the phone made his heart pound in his chest. Kageyama wasn't sure why he was so nervous, but he was. And this was his last resort. He nervously waited for the reply that seemed to take forever to come.

"Sure!" Hinata finally said after a moment. Kageyama let out a breath and tried to figure out how to word his question but eventually gave up and just decided to go for it.

"Will you go on a date with me? Not like a real date or anything but like, my teammates invited me to this group date thing and I tried looking for a date but I cant fine someone and it's tomorrow and for some reason I thought it'd be a good idea to ask you. I understand-"

"Kageyama-"

"-if you say no. It's a stupid request anyway. Actually, you're probably going to say no anyway, so please just forget I ask-"

"Kageyama." Hinata tried again, his voice stern. It rattled Kageyama. This time, Kageyama paused and waited. "Don't just assume things for me. If you need a date that badly, I'd be happy to go." Hinata heard Kageyama sigh in what he assumed was relief. Or maybe Kageyama was just catching his breath. Hinata couldn't really be sure, but Kageyama definitely sounded calmer.

"Thanks, Hinata. I owe you one." Hinata couldn't help but giggle.

"Okay, what's the dress code and where and when do you want me to meet you?"

They sorted out the details and chatted a bit longer. Hinata had told Kageyama all about the team he was now playing with.

"You should see this one guy. He plays number 17 on our team. He's a wing spiker like me, but he's an actual giant! Last time we measured, he was one hundred and ninety eight centimetres!" Kageyama listened as Hinata rambled on about his teammates and his fans. He told Kageyama how, when he was in Europe for a vacation, he was recognised by a university student.

"So how have things been? I haven't really talked to you in over a year, Kageyama. You really gotta keep up with us more." Hinata asked as he finished rambling. Kageyama heard a voice in the background. "Oh, by the way, Suga and Daichi say hello."

Kageyama couldn't help but grin at their names. He remembered their days together fondly. Sugawara and Daichi followed them all through their high school career. They were always up in the stands, cheering Kageyama and Hinata on, along with the others, of course. Kageyama owed so much to Sugawara and Daichi as they reshaped him into a team player. They taught him how to fight alongside his teammates instead of with them. After middle school, Kageyama had an intense fear of teamwork. He would've rather done everything himself than rely on others. But Sugawara and Daichi really taught him the value of trusting in your teammates to have your back.

"Tell them I said hello back. I haven't seen them in a long time." Kageyama said sadly as he heard Hinata tell them what he had said. "But yeah. Um, I've been good. A lot of training. I've been running a lot in the mornings before practice. And when we practice, I usually work on my receives and spikes. They say that I should hone my setting skills more than anything but I'd like to be better at things that dont come as naturally - though we also got a lot of practice of that in high school." Kageyama chuckled at the memories of Coach Ukai making them do flying laps. And the training camps with tokyo powerhouse schools were no better.

"That's great, Kageyama! I just usually wait for practice to do my running. My coach, Hiragi Tamojikato, is very strict on everything we do. From our diets to how we train. He watches us and gives us meal guides and everything! It's a pain, but I'm glad for it."

Kageyama loved hearing about Hinata's life as a professional volleyball player. They had a match-up once before after they were recruited to their now-teams. But Kageyama liked to keep up with his best friend. Though, as Hinata had previously stated, Kageyama failed to do that in the past year as he had been super busy with travelling and training and playing matches. But he kept up with Hinata through articles and interviews from Hinata's current team.

"Ya know, maybe we could get the old team back together some time. Asahi works in Sendai. And Yamaguchi and Tsuki are together in Hiroshima - though I'm not sure what they're doing there." Hinata giggled. One thing Kageyama noticed through his conversation with Hinata was that the orange haired boy wasn't using that stupid grammar he used to. The words of 'fwah!' and 'bwam!'. He kinda missed it but knew that as they grew older, Hinata probably grew out of his adolescent speech. Well, Kageyama figured it was that, or he just didn't want to embarrass himself in front of professional players.

"Kageyama? Are you listening?" Hinata questioned from the other end of the phone. Kageyama hummed. "I said that I have to go now but I'll meet you at your apartment around four thirty okay?" Kageyama hummed again and smiled, saying his goodbye to his best friend and hanging up the phone. Kageyama laid back on his bed, the plush mattress combined with the soft duvet allowed his body to sink into it. Kageyama stared up at the ceiling, grinning to himself as he thought of what the next day would bring, completely in the moment and forgetting that Hinata was only coming over to be his pretend date.

[waheelawhisperer]

Slogged through V9E6, thoughts are under the cut

As always, I am worried that Jaune’s arrival means he’s going to start sucking focus away from the other characters again. Here’s hoping the writers remember he’s best used as a supporting character.

Jaune why did you grab the weird thing that looks like a clock what did you think was going to happen

Don't touch weird shit you idiot it's like rule #1

I hate the Ever After so much

So did he just sit there for years until he got DILFed? Lmao.

I'm sure this change will have long-lasting ramifications for both Jaune's characterization and the narrative as a whole.

Well, this was a wonderful, touching moment until it was immediately ruined by Weiss’s daddy kink

Like seriously who the fuck thought it was a good idea to have Jaune admit that he’d gone through a horribly traumatic experience and been incredibly lonely for what’s indicated to be literally decades based on his physical changes and then have Weiss immediately start thirsting for him like we literally see his eyes watering and then not seven seconds later Weiss is looking at him with do-me eyes

These writers genuinely have zero understanding of tone or how to set and maintain it effectively it’s amazing it's like they watched the MCU and the only lesson they took away from it was that every moment that might possibly have any kind of emotional impact needs to be undermined by a snappy quip as quickly as possible because otherwise someone might make the mistake of assuming your show is sincere about anything

Anyway girliepop’s showing her whole ass right now way to keep your fetish under wraps Weiss

Yang’s looking at her like “I know what you are”

Nice try Yang like I didn’t see you eyeing up Jaune too feast on the crumbs my fellow pan Yang truthers

Miles is genuinely never beating the “Jaune is a self-insert” allegations holy shit

Like if you want people to believe that the character you voice, who's received a disproportionate amount of narrative focus throughout the series already and has received repeated criticism for it, who's already been presented as attractive on at least one occasion, isn't a self-insert, maybe don't have one of the mains openly thirsting after him once you've written an excuse for him to be aged up so that he's both closer to your age and significantly older than she is after you've already posed for a picture with a body pillow of an underage girl from the show you write for and your coworker has posted that picture online with the caption "She's still only 16, don't get too comfortable". Like maybe consider the optics for 5 seconds. It'd be 5 seconds longer than you typically think through your writing choices, at any rate.

Wow, finally someone is engaging with the fall of Atlas, Team RWBY’s part in it, and the ramifications of both the previous things. Only took half the fucking Volume.

I actually like the pretty distinct perspectives and the conflict between Weiss and Blow. Weiss is the one who has the most reason to be attached with Atlas and Blow has the most reason to feel negatively about that Kingdom, so having them be the ones arguing here is a good choice.

Yeah, Weiss, you did fail, but it wasn’t just you. Most of the blame rests on the shoulders of Ironwood and these dumbass fucking writers.

That said, you guys didn’t exactly pass your trials with flying colors.

Good point, Ruby.

Yang is the first one to engage with Ruby’s distress again, even if she’s not exactly on the money here either in terms of her actual position on Ironwood or how to help Ruby.

I feel like this is one of the few moments of actual substance we've gotten this Volume and I really wish we'd spent more time digging into it. Unfortunately, He-Jaune, Master of the Universe, cuts it short. Not a fan of that choice unless we pick this up again at a later date.

He-Man’s a little bit of a jerk. Interesting. I kinda want to see where this goes.

He also doesn’t seem to like the Cat. He gets points for that.

He-Man, Master of the Jauniverse, does not want them going to the Tree. Given what apparently happened to the Herbalist, this implies something sinister about the Tree and Ascension.

You read my mind, Weiss.

Jaune has a very different perspective on Ascension than the Cat. On the one hand, the Cat is a denizen of the Ever After and probably knows more about how it works than Jaune does. On the other hand, Jaune is far more inherently trustworthy as a character we’ve known for 8+ Volumes, whereas the Cat is sinister as fuck. They've been creeping me out since their introduction.

Once again, Ascension is equated with death – you lose your memories, lose who you are. Whatever you used to be is gone.

Good pun, Yang.

Who the fuck is Lewis?

Oh, wonderful, Alyx had a brother. An irrelevant character had another irrelevant character to hang out with. Can we please stop expanding the cast?

Go off, Weiss (and Yang)

What the fuck did the Cat just do

I love you Weiss. There really is just no end to the Ever After’s bullshit, is there?

Where the hell are Blow and Yang?

You walked right into that one, Weiss.

Love how He-Man’s just done with everything. I am too, buddy, I am too.

Here it comes, the moment we’ve all been waiting for. Maybe we’ll get something decent out of this Volume after all.

YOU GUYS CAN LITERALLY DOUBLE JUMP WHY DOES EVERY SCENE IN THIS VOLUME THAT DOESN’T INVOLVE COMBAT INSIST ON FORGETTING THAT THE CHARACTERS HAVE MOBILITY TOOLS

I could cross that shit and I don’t even have superpowers

You have perfectly good ropes right there

Yes I get that it’s a metaphor for taking the next step in their relationship blah blah blah but the metaphor is shit

This Volume really likes presenting challenges as insurmountable when Team RWBY has regularly handled far more difficult ones it keeps breaking my willing suspension of disbelief

I'm normally pretty willing to buy into what a show is going for but I just can't do it for this Volume

Was that Summer in the reflection?

Looks like the reflections show everyone’s issues – Summer for Ruby, Penny for Jaune, Atlas for Weiss

Oh, so Alyx was a little shitter, huh? I’m sure there’s nothing negative about the choice to portray a (female) character of color this way, especially in a show known for being racist produced by a company known for being racist.

Okay yeah Jaune you probably fucked up here trying to railroad her into the book’s storyline. Somebody’s never played D&D before and it shows

Poor guy’s really hurting though, can’t blame him for feeling like a failure

I’d like the show to unpack all this but I don’t even trust it to handle Team RWBY’s issues (or even address them in a meaningful way) so we’ll see

I feel like we have to take everything Jaune says about the Cat and the Tree and the Ever After with a grain of salt, but the Cat is genuinely creepy as shit, so I feel like there’s some validity to this, at least.

So Jaune thinks the Cat fed Lewis to the Tree. Is he right? Who the fuck knows?

But it does set up some sinister implications about the Tree, the Cat, and the nature of the Ever After. If the Tree’s not an option, how does the gang get home?

I get the feeling that Jaune is at least partially wrong about how the Tree works, but what he's saying makes sense based on what he knows.

Yang you fucking dork

Anyway if Blow has a really good brain it’d be nice to see more examples of it beyond “she’s the bookworm”, I’m sure setting her own house on fire was a great demonstration of intelligence. I feel like this is another indication that I’m right when I say that RWBY would’ve really benefited from another Beacon Volume to really build the relationships between the core cast that the show tries to convince us exist.

Also, Yang is smart even if Blow makes her brain turn to mush. She seems to have figured out the trick here. She sounds so sweet and sincere when she mentions liking Blow’s ears, though I feel like this is another instance where the show isn’t taking Blow’s status as a minority seriously, what with the potential elements of fetishization here. Still, I’ll try to go with the writing’s intent here.

Honestly it probably wouldn’t even bother me if this Volume hadn’t insisted on continually comparing Blow to a cat

You did, in fact, nail it, Yang. Such a fucking dork I love her

Okay, Blow, maybe you do have a really good brain after all. Again, would’ve been nice to establish this a bit earlier, but oh well.

Yang you fucking dork lmao

Damn, Blake went hard here. Yang went with the surface-level stuff and was probably expecting the same in return and Blake just started pouring her heart out. I love the way Yang’s eyes and face just softened the moment Blake said she was an extraordinary person. Girlie was not expecting that at all.

“I like that you’ve never been intimidated by me” BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA Yang she fucking flinches like a dog expecting to be beaten every time you raise your voice around her she’s the only one in your friend group who’s ever been intimidated by you even Jaune is fine around you and that boy’s afraid of his own shadow

Jk I lied the other abuse victim on your team also has negative reactions when you act aggressive

Anyway I guess we know why we got that line about Yang not being scary (even though she could be if she wants to) back in Episode 1.

Yang how are you missing with every line Blow gave up on Adam and the White Fang and that was a good thing because it let her escape his abuse hello?

Oh and she sure as hell gave up on Qrow and Ironwood when Qrow crawled into a bottle and Ironwood decided to raise Atlas, and she was literally the only person on her team who didn’t believe in Yang’s innocence when Cinder framed Yang during the Vytal Festival (guess who was ride or die for Yang in that moment? I'll give you a hint: her name starts with a W), and she ran away from her entire team when Weiss was racist for two episodes. Finding her was the whole fucking plot of the V1 finale. Like I’m not even arguing that she was wrong or unjustified for any of that but if you want her to be the one who never gives up on anyone then maybe fucking show her never giving up on anyone

Does Blake really know what matters to her, Yang? It sure as hell wasn’t Faunus rights during the Atlas Volumes.

That fucking lighting lmao

Just spit it out you idiots lets get this over with my expectations are dropping with every line

God Yang is such a fucking dork I genuinely love this for her it would’ve been so easy to make her the cocky flirty one all the time and they didn’t

For all my frustrations with this show I do genuinely like that.

I like how Yang hesitated a bit and didn’t quite commit but Blake went full-bore.

Oh my God it’s so sappy and cheesy and romantic

I can understand why people love it even if for me it crosses the line to narm like honestly this scene just feels ridiculous but that's just a personal taste thing, it feels too over-the-top for me but there's some charm to it as well

I feel a little bad for the Cat but honestly they strike me as manipulative more than anything

Every scene just gives me bad vibes

Damn, they were makin out, hands changed positions and everything

Nice little leg pop Blow

You and the fandom both, Jaune.

Kinda wonder when you figured it out though because you were not picking up on it in Volume 8 ("Ruby?" "Yeah... Ruby.")

Good to know the Bees thought confessing their feelings was more important than getting home or stopping Salem. I like both characters less every time they treat the Ever After as a vacation.

The little hand touch is cute though.

Okay, Ruby is not reacting well to the return of Crimson Rose, probably because it represents the burden of being a leader and a Huntress.

She's pushing her insecurities down again. That's gonna burst out sooner or later.

Jaune thinks Alyx traded Lewis to the Tree in order to leave. My guess is that either Jaune or Ruby tries to trade themselves to the Tree so the others can go home.

Damn, Ruby’s rejecting Crescent Rose pretty emphatically there.

Music is still forgettable I don’t think there’s been a single song that I’ve remembered a not of when it’s not actually playing for 6 whole episodes

Miles gave a solid performance here and so did whoever voices the Cat.

Okay, so, here it is: the scene we’ve all been waiting for since Volume 2 at the latest. The Bees are an item now, and it’s really obvious that it meant a lot to CRWBY. They put a lot of love into that scene, and it shows. Visually, it’s gorgeous, the voice actresses clearly put their hearts and souls into it, the music is meant to scream romance...

Unfortunately, I don’t like it. Perhaps this is just a nitpick on my end because I’m a stubborn ornery cantankerous bastard who hates being told what to do, but this confession doesn’t feel organic. It feels like they were forced into it by outside factors (the stupid fucking punderstorm that wouldn’t let them leave until they told each other their feelings. If I'd been in their place, I would've sat my stubborn Texan ass down and told that fucking weather condition that it could let me out right now or move along on its own time, but I'm staying right here until it does. Ain't no fuckin rain clouds gonna tell me what to do).

I don’t like that in and of itself, but it gets worse when you consider that both characters are A) queer and B) were only coded and not explicitly confirmed as queer within the show prior to this scene. It feels like two queer characters are being forced out of the closet, which would be bad enough on its own, but gets infinitely worse when the company behind the show named itself after a homophobic slur and then built a company culture around bullying and bigotry and the lead writer on the show has been openly biphobic and fetishized bi women in the past. Good job, morons, you managed to take a ship I’ve supported since the characters involved met in the Emerald Forest and make it feel gross to me. Between this and Blake’s jokes about Yang’s arm in Episode 2, I’m officially not a Bumbleby shipper anymore. You’ve fumbled the bag that badly. Please never hold a job in any creative industry again.

Overall rating: Horrendously Bad And Specifically Disappointing On Top Of That/10

Amazed that I can't definitively declare this a bottom three episode of the Volume because 3 of the 5 others I've watched so far were also this fucking bad. Truly an accomplishment.

Everything that wasn't Weiss's thirst for DILFs and the Bumbleby confession was okay (not amazing), but the writers fucked up so badly with the parts that sucked that they accomplished something incredible: they executed a scene I've been waiting for for ages so incompetently that I don't ship Bumbleby anymore.

[wisteriagoesvroom]

🏎️💨 THE FORMULA 1 TAG GAME! 🏎️💨:

stealing this from the timeline...

+ zero pressure tags (but i love reading these!) - @lecrep @souvenir116 @fueledbyremembering @thinkingaboutfilm11 @supercollide @fireopaal @callsign-shortstack @thatguywasvaping @linewire @buryawoman and whoever else wants to do it.

1. Who or what got you into F1?

charles edits on tiktok + drive to survive, lmao. i'm one of those bitches. sorry not sorry!

but! i will say! what greg james said about f1 resonated with me because i have never ever really cared about physics or engineering in any deep or substantial way. and now, i am avidly reading people like supermak's incredible posts talking about downforce or apexes or deltas and car configs, looking at the charts and the data, and i just think that is a really fun place to be.

f1blr and f1 fandom so far has been a nice confirmation that multiple things can be true - yes we want to make the vroom vroom boys kiss, but we also care deeply about the ethics of the sport, the growth, about driver + team stories, driver pipelines and equity and race excitement and engineering. i think it's really cool these things can coexist.

the sport never should be one thing to one group of people, you know? (wow that ended up longer than i thought.)

2. Who was the very first F1 driver you supported? Do you support them now? Have your opinions on them differed or stayed the same since then?

charles, and still charles lmao. unfortunately.

i am an oscar piastri enthusiast also. i think there's a bit of recency bias at work here but he's come swimming like a fledgling shark into the shallows with his deadpan personality and i'm just very intrigued by His Whole Thing.

i want good things for yuki! and lewis! my GOAT!! give the man his 8th :( (it probably isn't happening but lets' not manifest that.......)

TL;DR it's been a joy getting to "know" the grid (or at least as much of their public persona will tell us) and getting into the lore. *shaky hands* the LORE!

also nobody asked, but, schumacher was an omnipresent name when i was growing up - which might give away my age - but he always felt like an old school driver. in the sense of his mythos, his mystery, his dominance of the track. that era of f1 is over and the sport only moves on and evolves, but in the same way his presence felt a lot more removed and unrelatable to me, and far away. the speed of technology now and broadcasting and social content makes f1 feel more fun and accessible. it feels a lot nicer to find fandom spaces like f1blr where there are different audiences (female, queer, a variety of ages and backgrounds etc) yelling about the same things.

it's just a different time, not a value judgment. but i am enjoying it.

3. Who’s your current favourite F1 driver?

see above, but i'm 100% here for lestappen having a track battle next year only for oscar to pip them to the podium in one of the races lmao. i think it'd be amazing.

4. Is there a driver pairing or pairings you support? What made you attracted to that pairing in the first place?

*long sigh* once again lestappen baybee... the lore... the parallels... the sun-moonism.... the enemies-to-rivals-to-friends-and-gay-rival-soulmates-something

i like other pairings too like in my about me post - landoscar, galex, blabla. my dark horses are riccussell (george/daniel) and groto (george/toto).

something about that greyhound, very wound-up, very upper-middle-class, highly-strung, born-to-want-but-not-to-always-win english george:

5. Do your parents, siblings or relatives have a favourite team and/or favourite driver(s)?

i got my sister into f1 at around the same time but she's not indicated any preference on drivers yet tbh. she's a casual fan. must be nice being normal.

6. Do you have any favourite races? Are there any that stand out to you the most?

haven't seen enough of them to say, 'cus i only started following like two months ago as the season was winding down. i looooved Vegas '23 though and the legendary charles overtake. he's just so fucking smart and cunning when he's given the conditions and the car to be. watching Abu Dhabi '21 on replay was also a TRIP.

7. Do you have a favourite circuit? Can be from the past or from the current calendar.

i'm still learning them. but i'm mildly curious about the old tracks like nürburgring - it was from a totally different era of the sport and it'd be nice to rebalance the long tracks with the current spectacle of street races even though that doesn't seem to be where the sport's moving towards.

8. Have you ever been to an F1 race in real life? Feel free to tell us your experience going to one if you like.

i actually live in a place with a track... i had a free ticket for general access once many years ago but that was pre-f1 hyperfixation, and at that point i didn't understand the appeal at all. idk.

i feel like f1 is actually a better experience for me to watch on tv as a fan.... probably blasphemy i know.

9. Have you ever met an F1 driver in real life?

no and idk that i would because i've seen celebrities in person in the past and it's usually so quick and transactional because they're surrounded by hordes of handlers and/or they're usually running somewhere even if it's a fan-focused interaction.

THAT SAID! i would love to attend a talk by Lewis or just generally hear what he has to say, because what he's done is so beyond f1 at this point and he always shows up in terms of advocacy and speaking up, in recent years, where it really matters. he's a fascinating figure, sometimes contradictory, sometimes controversial, but i definitely would love to hear what he has to say.

10. Do you have a favourite F1 car? If so, what is it?

i am partial to that black and gold lotus from the 80s, ngl:

and this 7up car (jordan 191?) which with the fujifilm sponsorship is just peak 90s:

11. Do you have a favourite one win wonder?

does charles count as a one win wonder............ fight me in the comments

12. Do you have any favourite quotes from the F1 world? This can either be inspirational or hilarious.

"don't waste it" from seb vettel to charles on seb's last day

[seeingteacupsindragons]

Lmao here, have the most ridiculously broad and all-encompassing writer ask ever to distract you:

How in the hell do you make a plot?

Jk, mostly. 😅 This is more a ramble than an ask I guess. I keep tinkering with the idea of actually writing A Story, but I just. I don't know. I get so bored so fast with the process of moving characters from Point A to Point B. I just want to stick people in a room and make them talk. (Or possibly make out, depending on the scenario.) Or I want to spend thousands of words just going on and on about a character's thoughts and emotions. That all works well for oneshot fanfics, but it's awful for doing longer fics or attempting something original. I just don't know how to make characters Go Places and Do Things and Have Goals. Which like...obviously you're not going to be able to magically solve that problem for me in a single post, but...any tips to get started that don't involve falling into the inescapable dungeon of Outlining?

Plot has always been an issue for me. Many moons ago, an agent told me that my book had a great voice but nothing actually happened in it: it was like one of those narrators you'd say you'd listen to read a phone book. Except, you know. Maybe it'd be nice if it wasn't a phone book.

I've had a tendency in the past to, ah...just have a series of things happen. Which is not actually a plot. It's a katamari ball. You can't just write things happening for several thousand words and then be like "ta-da!"

Well, I mean, you can. But it sure wasn't gettin' me an agent.

I'm getting better at this, I think, and structuring stories in general. Tiadane's book was the first book I got notes back from a CP that didn't basically say "the pacing and structure of this is fucked."

(Of course, I'm changing some of that anyway, but it's more incidental to other things I'm fixing than the major concern)

That said, it usually takes me a zero draft (first draft) to really figure out what the story is about and how to take it there. Every single ending for a story I had in mind before I got there has had to be ripped out. Every. Single. One. For ever novel I've ever edited. I'm so bad at getting to an ending I envisioned, because if I actually let the characters develop and change and the world build around them and the themes come through, where I wanted them to end up and the scenes I envisioned, is never really the culmination of how to do it.

A plot is really how a story develops. For me, this is generally character-based. For some people it's the world, for some people it's the actual events.

For a character story, the plot is basically what events are the catalyst that bring them to where they're going. How do they get there, and what happens to them to push them there? How did they react, and to what?

For a world story, the plot is generally focused on unfolding events around the world. I've seen this done with characters in different areas and or characters traveling, or even just in a kind of Epicenter. The plot will be how the world is changing, or how the world is being revealed to the reader, and what that means.

For a story of events, the plot is generally encircled around how things happen, who caused them and why, and what they do when they do happen, and what else they cause to happen.

I usually have a good strong start for about 10k words, and then the plot fizzles out as the initial concept I was running with has sort of been fulfilled and something needs to happen from it.

The way this happened in Tiadane's book was that he basically jumped into a goal, he completed the steps he set out to do, but it all went very wrong. And while he managed to get out of that disaster and take a breather, he had a couple choices: he could give up, or he could try something else to accomplish the goal (and what), or he could clean up the mess he accidentally made, etc.

Each of those would have been a very different Character, obviously. But what the important part of this character story was, was that he made a choice based on who he is as a character, but that he was the one reacting and doing something. There's characters stories about passive characters who don't do much, but they're not especially common because when a character isn't making choices (or perceived not to be), it gets really hard to reveal a character and the story doesn't go anywhere.

Sure, you could keep throwing things at them. But if those Various Things That Are Happening don't feel tied to something before (the character or other events), you have a string of events, not a nicely rising tide of story.

So it's not a matter of "things happening" but "which things going to happen to them after they did that?" and "what things are they going to do now?" and "what things are going to tell you what you want readers to know about the character?"

Sub character with world or events, as necessary.

Okay NOW I'm done, for now.

[heat--end]

beat the scarlet/violet DLC! i havent done some of the bigger postgame stuff yet, but ive beaten the main story, which is really the important part

ill leave my longer thoughts under the read more to avoid spoilers

honestly, i really like how they handled this DLC. i think part of me likes kitakami as a place more, but this is also a really nice little spot. the terarium is a cool place, the pokemon in it are cool, etc.

what i REALLY liked was the story, as well. ive talked about this with a lot of other people, but SV's main theme seems to be getting yourself too lost in your own desires, so much so that you don't realize what happens, and this continues that. ambition is a great thing, but pushed too far, it can put others at risk. i think kieran's character is fantastic in this regard. it genuinely makes sense, and it's no surprise he ends up the way he does, and his desire to look up to the player becomes warped and corrupted because he wants to be better, he wants to achieve the dreams he's seeing the player reach, etc.

it's really interesting stuff. i really, REALLY like it, honestly, and i love how they handled briar in the way, too. briar literally gets so invested and excited about terastialization research that she's putting *three children* at risk. she actively realizes this and apologizes, and i like that they highlighted this. it's a neat theme, and i think the DLC tackles it really well

like the lore and extra stuff introduced is cool, but i feel like always, the character writing shines really well here. it's nice to see a bit of old kieran peek back out, him falling into old habits, but then we see him lose himself again as SOON as a sliver of a chance for him to be better than the MC arrives. for that, i'm a huge fan, i think they did a really good job there

also, big fan of BBQs. scratches that "i want to do PLA tasks forever" itch just enough to be satisfying

the one thing i wasn't a fan of was the battle difficulty, however. now, keep in mind, after asking my friends for some help i WAS able to adjust my team and have strategies to beat them and all that, but MAN, this is WAY too drastic of a leap in difficulty compared to base game, IMO. it'd be one thing if this was optional, but this is the main story.

now, keep in mind, i don't mind if they want to make pokemon games harder. i think it's a good thing. challenge and all that. but when base SV wasnt... ANYTHING like this, it is VERY jarring for them to like, legitimately start using competitive movesets and strategies and all that, without so much as a means to prepare you for it. i feel like there's gonna be a lot of people who just get hard walled by some of the battles, and idk how i really feel about it.

i AM glad this is here, but, i don't think it shouldve been the DEFAULT. some kind of toggle or even having these be post-game battles wouldve been great. but having it be the main difficulty scaling feels really bizarre in comparison to SV's base difficulty. hell, kitakami wasn't nearly as bad as this. it's a leap that is very, VERY drastic.

(and yeah, i did get fucked up bad early on, but keep in mind this is coming from someone who first tried kieran, who is the hardest battle in the DLC. so it's not like i was just playing poorly all the time)

also stellar as a tera type is kinda just whatever i feel. idk not really as interesting as it seemed to be. it's cool lore wise, but even then it's just like... eh, neat, i guess LOL

all in all, i really liked indigo disk. it wasn't the most mindblowing thing ever, and i feel like i MAYBE liked teal mask more, but honestly, it's not by a huge margin. it was pretty good, i had a good time. i'd say it won't win over anybody who already didnt like base SV, but it's worth if you like the base game because it improves on a lot. honestly, i think i like the DLC more than i do the base game, and i already liked SV, lmao

[taffywabbit]

some people were concerned about my joke in this earlier post regarding "putting tape on the fan", so let me just clarify what happened there lol

(this is kind of another computer storytime post, but it's longer and not really a joke like the other one, so i will put it behind a Read More for those who are curious)

ok so basically my computer started making this HORRIBLE screeching squealing noise intermittently back in October. it scared the hell out of me so badly that i just IMMEDIATELY turned off my computer because i thought that shit was about to catch fire. this happened multiple times and i couldn't figure out what was causing it and i just decided to leave my computer off for the rest of the night and open it up in the morning when i could get a second opinion from one of my techy roommates. but then it was just... fine? for a couple days? and i was like oh phew everything's ok i guess! that was really weird!

of course the noise started again, and i determined that it was coming from back end of my liquid CPU cooler, so for the first time ever, i figured out how to open up the side panel of my case and made sure everything was free of dust (it was fine) and there were no loose wires or components brushing up against the fans (also fine). then i took the top off to see if there were any loose screws where the cooler attached to it, and there weren't, but there WAS an inexplicably bent filament in the heatsink

and i was like oh shit! i wonder if that's causing some kind of air resistance sound or something and that's what i've been hearing! so i very very carefully bent it back into shape with a small screwdriver and then closed everything back up and tested it. it did not help. in hindsight it was kinda dumb of me to assume that would have anything to do with the issue, but oh well, i learned lots of things about computers throughout this process

anyways i looked inside the case with a flashlight WHILE it was running and pretty much immediately realized that the problem was very obviously one of the 3 fans on the CPU cooler that was stalling. it only started screeching when it tried to get up to higher speeds, but it was still slowing down/stopping every few seconds and creating a lot of vibration, which was something i COULD deal with while trying to get my work done, but it was distracting and made me really really anxious.

my phone's mic is always really quiet for some reason but you can still see/hear what was going on in there:

i think this was around the point in the process where i looked into fan control software, because i realized they didn't seem to be dynamically adjusting to my PC's resource usage or temperature and were instead just running full blast all the time. (it got SO much quieter after i did that. i can't believe i just dealt with hurricane winds under my desk for a year without questioning it lmao). it was AFTER i slowed their default running speed down a bit that i was able to see the problem more clearly and took this video.

i installed FanControl in the hopes that it would give me some kind of option to JUST turn off that one fan and leave the other two running, because obviously that fan isn't contributing anything to keeping things cool anyways so i may as well just shut it off and avoid further damage to the motors (and further squealing), right? well unfortunately the whole CPU cooler is treated as a single fan on the software end of things, so whatever i do to one fan, i do to all of them. it was still worthwhile to set up FanControl but it didn't solve my issue.

so THEN i did some digging, and according to some forums online it sounded like these 3 fans might at least be wired separately? or daisy-chained off of one set of wires via metal contacts on their sides? either way, it sounded like it'd be possible to just detach and remove the faulty fan until i could replace it, temporarily solving the issue. i figured out how to open up my PC even MORE than before and accessed the rear side where all the cables are kept. this is where i ran into a wall again re: my lack of expertise and confidence with this stuff.

looking at the back of the motherboard, this is what i was greeted with:

the part that's circled at the top is where the cables from all 3 fans (turned out they DID each have their own separate cables) were bundled together into two groups and fed into the back, behind the motherboard. the ones that run across the top to the left are bundled up back here and then feed back through to the front and connect o the motherboard, and the ones running down the right side go to the power supply in the bottom of the case (which i quickly found to be inaccessible because it was protected on both sides by solid metal plates that i couldn't figure out how to remove without breaking anything). in both cases, regardless of whether i could access the actual ports to disconnect them, it was nearly impossible to figure out which cables corresponded to which fan from this vantage point.

after spending a few minutes quietly coming to terms with the fact that i was WAY over my head and not equipped to carry out this particular solution, i closed the computer back up and went online to look for more possible solutions. i didn't find anything, but a piece of info i DID consistently come across throughout this whole process is that computer fans are typically very low-torque (so that they stop easily if anything obstructs them, to prevent damage to wires or anything like that). talking to a few friends about it, i decided i might have the temporary solution i needed.

this is where the tape finally comes in! i used scotch tape and just kinda... folded it around one of the fan blades and attached it to the outside of the fan casing, like a leash.

then, very very fearfully, i turned the PC back on and watched to see what happened, ready to cut the power if needed. but it worked, more or less! it would pull, meet resistance, immediately stop, and wait a moment before trying again. the important thing is that it couldn't get up to speed and it wasn't making noise. so i turned it off again, redid the tape (i don't have a pic of it but i did a much better job of securing it from multiple angles so it was 100% immobile), and it was good to go!

not a pretty or ideal solution, but my computer doesn't make funny noises anymore and still isn't having any temperature issues. if there was anything to actually attach it to then i might use a zip-tie or something instead, but this has been working fine for 2 months and will continue to work for the foreseeable future, or at least until i move and have computer-savvy friends living nearby who can help me remove and replace the fan/cooler.

anyways yeah after going through all of this chronologically, this is DEFINITELY why my computer sometimes turns red and evil and wants to kill me lmao