let me know if you want me to tag my posts with specific things (such as spoilers, or certain show or fandom names, or whatever so you can filter them and not have to see them)
Some thoughts on Baek Saheon, focusing on how he feels about Kim Soleum.
Includes :
BSH in part 1 & 2
BSH in part 3
What BSH wants
Spoilers up to 394.
----
BSH in part 1 & 2
1.
During part 1, BSH is constantly intimidated and terrorized by KSE. At the same time, KSE saves his life multiple times.
BSH himself wonders about this. But he concludes that the psychopath is simply deriving some sort of enjoyment out of keeping him alive.
[ep 53]
But…
“......”
Was Kim Soleum really a lunatic?
To be more precise, why did he… save his life?
In truth, he knew. In the gallery, Kim Soleum could have killed or sacrificed him multiple times, but did not do so.
He did mess with him a few times, but at the end of the day…
‘No!’
It must have been for enjoyment. Because it’s more fun to keep him alive, to keep more variability in the situation!
Baek Saheon quickly made his conclusion. He’d never met such a crazy person like this before in his life…
2.
During part 2, BSH constantly is helpful to the Jisan Agent. This is because he helped him once and experienced the feeling of fulfillment that comes from successfully helping out someone.
I wrote about it here : On BSH and the agent from Jisan.
This is usually something you learn as, like, a pre-schooler. Either BSH didn’t have the experience of realizing that it makes you feel happy to (for example) make breakfast for your family or something, or all his experience of feeling good about helping someone was suppressed by his later experiences of prioritizing himself and himself only for the sake of survival. (More might be revealed if we learn more about his relationship with his sister). I think the latter makes sense since to current BSH’s mind everything other than ‘survival’ is just background noise. Jisan Agent case only affected him this much bc it did involve the matter of his own survival.
In any case, BSH learns (or re-learns) it as an adult.
As a result, he keeps being helpful to the Jisan agent, the one who taught him that it can feel nice to save someone.
During hospital arc, KSE tries to extend this to helping others as well. He tries to generalize his lesson of “survival isn’t always a zero-sum game, you can help others without necessarily risking your own survival” to not just helping him but helping others as well. As a result BSH gets thanked by the guy who they helped, and he does experience a “strange feeling”. So there is a potential of BSH becoming more altruistic (as long as it doesn’t risk himself) in general and not just towards the Jisan Agent.
However, as far as we know, this hasn’t happened since the hospital arc, so at the moment this only exists as a potential. (Maybe he helped some other people during the 3 years but so far we don’t know.)
So far, all we know is that BSH’s list of who should survive went from ‘Me’ to ‘Me and Jisan Agent’.
3.
At the end of part 2, we find out that BSH had been suspecting Jisan Agent to be the same person as KSE for quite some time. (At least since before hospital arc)
Explanation on BSH's suspicion
However, he wasn’t ready to accept it.
[Ep 369]
“Are you… actually…”
The agent who becomes unreachable when a certain person goes missing.
The agent who seems to know him strangely well.
Did that…
……
……
“Well, never mind.”
Baek Saheon took his hand off the tank.
He couldn’t get an answer right now anyway.
No, perhaps he himself wasn't ready yet…
BSH in part 3
1.
In part 3, it seems that during the 3 years, BSH has come to accept that KSE is the Jisan Agent. It probably helped that both these personas went missing for 3 years.
In addition, he seemingly has deduced that KSE’s actual personality must be closer to the Jisan Agent - an altruistic, kind person.
[Ep 392]
“......Hah.”
Baek Saheon pressed his hands on his eyelids.
“I knew it, that you're this kind of person…”
After all, even Roe Deer had kept saving his life. So it all makes sense that way.
2.
BSH also seemingly thought about ‘Then why did he keep up a psychopathic front in front of me?’. He seemingly came to a (pretty accurate) conclusion about it.
[Ep 394]
“And you don't need to be so worried about getting caught. If she was the type of person to not be able to control herself and get caught, no matter how we're cooperating with each other, I wouldn't have been honest towards her.”
“......Ah.”
Baek Saheon’s one eye stares alternately at me and Assistant Manager Jin Nasol.
“Because that's what it was like with a guy like me, huh?”
To me, the above bit read as BSH having his suspicions be confirmed, rather than realzing it for the first time. Because it’s not like KSE was talking directly about BSH, when BSH suddenly brings up the subject of himself. I think he already concluded that that’s why KSE kept up that front towards him, but having it be indirectly confirmed by KSE made him get emotional.
It makes sense that BSH would come to this conclusion. BSH himself knows that he’s a selfish, greedy person.
[ep41]
Baek Sa-heon knew that he was a selfish person, obsessed with practical gains.
In 393, he also seemingly feels a ‘twisted amusement’ when talking about how the guys who beat up KSE ends up calling him a lunatic. Presumably because he now knows that that’s KSE doing his thing.
But also, this must have been another confirmation - on against which type of people KSE pretends to be a lunatic.
3.
To summarize.
For a long time, BSH believed that ‘KSE may act like a kind and caring person in front of others, but he shows his true face to me. He’s a psychopath!’.
[ep49]
Go Yeongeun looked at me with a look of pity on her eyes.
“Hm. Since in corporate life, people look down on you for even being too nice, maybe you might like to consider not speaking too highly of others?”
Huh?
No matter how I look at it, it seems like you’re seeing me in an overly good light because of how I saved your life… but thinking of my silver heart, I just bowed my head.
Let’s be nice!
“……Thank you for the advice.”
Baek Saheon looked back and forth between Go Yeongeun and me with a look of disbelief, but then shut his mouth.
Then he stood up from his seat and left without saying goodbye.
But slowly he realizes the truth :
In fact, KSE’s true personality is closer to the kind, caring persona he shows toward others. It was only towards BSH that KSE was putting up a psychopath front.
In addition, even when having a long-term cooperative relationship with BSH as Jisan Agent, KSE never revealed himself to him. He only added it to the list of roles he played. He was never honest towards him.
Why?
Because BSH was an untrustworthy bastard, that’s why.
He was so untrustworthy to KSE that even after they built up a genuinely cooperative relationship, he never let BSH see his true face.
Everyone else knew that KSE is Jisan Agent but BSH. As a result, everyone else knew that the liquified being at the end of part 2 was KSE but BSH.
That’s how little KSE thought of BSH.
Again - BSH himself knows that he’s a selfish and greedy guy.
But still. To realize that this one person in your life who taught you about altruism, who saved your life multiple times (and not bc he was a psychopath like he originally thought lol), who is the one person in your life that you want to keep helping & saving & caring for, thinks of you that way…
Isn’t it only natural that it hurts your feelings?
BSH probably had some time to deal with this realization, but still, when KSE indirectly confirms it in 394, I think it’s understandable that he lashes out.
What BSH wants
Currently, from the text, BSH seemingly has two conflicting wants when it comes to KSE.
1st, He wants to lord it over KSE (the former Roe Deer) a little that he’s now the higher up and KSE is a lowly worker.
This fails at every turn he tries it bc KSE simply does not care. He just will not be intimidated by their difference in position.
And BSH seemingly doesn’t want to actually enforce anything. Like, in 394 when KSE greets him by saying ‘section chief-nim’ BSH is immediately like ‘speak casually’ while using honorifics himself. BSH doesn’t actually want KSE to be sincerely intimidated by his position.
But still he wants to lord it over him a little, you know? So he’ll say things like (ep 393) “If you're in your right mind, shouldn't you be saying '(in honorifics) Do this please, I beg of you' first?” Only for KSE to take the fun out of it by easily complying without any emotion.
2nd, He wants to help KSE (the former Jisan Agent) who is for some reason stuck in a hellhole receiving terrible treatment.
As KSE himself points out, Section Chief BSH keeps going out of his way to help him when KSE himself only asked for one thing. Canceling his bills, saying he’ll smuggle KSE out of there… This is arguably even going beyond the things he did for the Jisan Agent.
Of course, this is all only possible bc BSH now has the power to do it. He says so himself - when KSE is like, don’t overdo it, BSH is like, it’s not like I’m still a supervisor.
BSH now also has the advantage of actually knowing KSE’s situation fully (...well at least more comprehensibly than he did) so he can actually anticipate KSE’s needs and help him without KSE asking for it.
Based on these two things. I’m going further and saying:
3rd, BSH wants KSE to think of him as trustworthy and dependable.
He himself thinks of KSE as special - the only person whose survival he prioritizes besides himself. But KSE obviously did not think much of him despite all their connections. To KSE, BSH was less trustworthy than a bunch of his other colleagues.
But now, BSH knows about all of KSE’s lies. (well not all of them but yk) Moreover, now BSH is in a position where he can actually make a meaningful difference in KSE’s life.
(When KSE gets worried about him getting noticed, BSH is like, I’m a section chief, okay?! There’s no need to worry about me getting noticed! (Also, you’re worrying about me now?))
So, now, BSH wants to say - trust me, depend on me, ask for my help, you can trust me now, I can do much more for you now…
The thing is, BSH is going about all this in not a very sophisticated way.
For one thing, the fact that he has those two conflicting wants which he keeps showing at the same time is pretty funny. Like, stick to one thing and you might get it.
Also, one way for BSH to gain more of KSE’s trust would have been to show altruism to people beyond KSE. Like at least make a try. But when BSH realizes KSE told JNS about the pills, he gets immediately pissed bc it’s unnecessary risk. (Him helping KSE was necessary risk of course) And the way he expresses that feeling - he’s like. I only shared this (potentially lifesaving) info to help YOU, not anyone else! You should have asked for my permission! <- incredibly immature way to express his displeasure
BSH def knows that KSE would like for him to be more altruistic. too. (again, the hospital arc.) He gets incredibly defensive and ‘even a bit desperate’ in 392 when he talks about how KSE looks disappointed in him about not having helped others. (I can’t even tell if KSE actually looked disappointed or BSH was just reading into his expression of concern for the other guys.)
In short, despite how much BSH has changed, in many ways, he hasn’t changed much at all. He’s still the same BSH who was selfish, temperamental and always on the defensive.
It’s just that he now really really cares for KSE and wants KSE to trust and depend on him.
—--
Anyway, that's my thoughts on BSH.
In conclusion, KSE should maybe consider voicing out loud some of his inner narration about how impressed he is by Section Chief BSH! Wouldn't that make BSH happy!
And also he should give him headpats and chin scritches and maybe hold his hand and have sleepovers and tell him that they can be best of best friends from now on - (gets incinerated by Braun)
“And if you’ll give me 40% of the MOST POPULAR VOTE, I’ll give you my SPECIAL REWARD... A year’s supply of NON-GLOOBY SLIME!!! Never or BARELY used!!!” Tenna concluded his speech with a huge smile, jetting his hands up in double peace signs.
The crowd roared in confused enthusiasm as Tenna gave a gracious flurry of low-FPS bows, pausing only for the occasional stink-nose at his audience plants who weren’t throwing enough 3D roses.
Eventually, the room fell silent. It was Senshi’s turn to speak.
He puffed out his chest, took a long, sweeping look over the audience… and shook his head.
“I can see not all of you are eating properly.”
The crowd murmured with embarrassment.
“I don’t know who needs to hear this, but it’s time to take the turkey out of your icebox. I have seen the ingenious technology with which your people store food... and I have also seen the waste which results from such convenience.
“The food you take had a life. Beasts grew fat on the grass of the field, plants grew from the sun’s rays, and mushrooms grew from minerals in the cracks of caves. And yet, it sits in your iceboxes, collecting moisture until it perishes.
“Eat what is given to you. Because its life will make you stronger, too.”
Without another word, Senshi left his podium and stepped away from the stage. The crowd murmured in confusion. “Is he really like that?” somebody said. “I only remember reblogging the photosets of him tripping and showing ass.”
--
Back in the Green Room, Tenna wrung his antennas nervously.
“Y-y-you think they liked me!? They HAD to!! I mean, I don’t know what Asgore was thinking, getting that weird haircut and running that food waste campaign, but… YOU thought I did good, didn’t you, Kris?”
Laios nodded aggressively, a streak of blue face paint peeling from his forehead.
“You did AMAZING, Tenna! By the way, now that we’ve seen all your insider campaign secrets, do you have any more videos of Susie? Especially her tail... If I could get a look at that, I could finally tell if she’s a dinosaur or --”
THWACK. Fake antlers butted Laios’s head.
“LAIOS?? Weren’t we dressed up to help SENSHI???” Marcille hissed, gesturing awkwardly with her hooves.
Suddenly, Tenna turned to the two adventurers.
“Hey, WAIT a second. SOMETHING’s not right here...”
Laios and Marcille held their breath.
“Where the heck are my POINTS!?”
Just then, the door opened. Chilchuck took one step into the room, whistling and holding a large bag.
Everyone turned to him.
Chilchuck paused, took a step backwards, and closed the door.
“CHILCHUCK!!!” yelled Tenna.
“How come Chilchuck got to stay Chilchuck!?” yelled Marcille at the same time.
--
Meanwhile, in outer space somewhere, some guy was making out with a rock.
to anyone in the areas impacted by the wildfire smoke, my #1 biggest piece of advice as someone whos been dealing with wildfire smoke in the NW united states for years, is build yourself a Corsi-Rosenthal Cube
they perform as well as expensive HEPA air cleaners, and are comparatively VERY inexpensive. all you need is a box fan, 4 air filters, a piece of cardboard, and some duct tape!!!!
i think it took us maybe a half hour to put ours together, if that, and we replace the filters every 3 months. it's really made a HUGE difference, both when the air quality is bad, but also with our allergies
Also just a handy, DIY air filter in general, if a bit bulky. For a less bulky and cheaper (but also less effective) solution, you can simply tape one filter to the fan, cut a shroud if you'd like.
just FYI, this is quite literally what the climate scientists at my work who specialized in wildfire smoke impacts recommend. it works great, it's cheap to make, and it will make a noticeable impact on your air quality.
i have asthma & keep one of these running in my room perpetually. after I set it up the difference in my sleep quality was pretty much night and day. Dont waste your time on proprietary air filters; SIMPLY bust out the duct tape
With a heavy heart, I come to you all with the news announced by close friends of Cat Frazier that she had passed away on Monday, June 29.
She had been running @animatedtext since 2012, with her impact on the internet SHAPING tumblr. If you have a years long history on this site, you’ve seen her art.
She ran a venue in Oakland called Oakland Secret, a punk venue where I’d vend at regularly as an artist. She made a safe space for queer artists, artists of color, and local furs too. I am forever grateful for her work both in the Bay Area creative scene and online, and am forever changed by the totality of her impact.
I’ll be linking some articles from the 2010’s about her impact online: The Fader | Action | Jezebel | ObviouslySocial
I invite you to take a visit through her archive, and if you have a long history with this site like I do, it’s like walking down memory lane. (open link in browser)
My spouse was feeling bad about not doing anything around the house. For context: this person is 100% permanently disabled, and had three surgeries (2 major and one emergency due to complications from one of the others) in the last 30 days.
Putting what I said here because plenty of y'all need to hear it.
THE BEST THING YOU CAN DO IS HEAL
I need all of the calories you are taking in today to go towards HEALING. The muscles they cut thru can't heal when they're not rested. You need carbs for your brain and fat for your nerves and protein for musculature and minerals for EVERYTHING and fat to PROCESS those minerals.
HEALING is WORK.
If you don't take time to SIT and let your body HEAL you will never get better and the current inability to help with anything will last longer than it has to.
HEALING IS WORK
And nobody can heal your body but you. You have to do it. Sometimes hard work looks like standing still.
“Haha remember when murder-hornets were gonna be a thing? What a nothingburger.”
Yes, because the Washington state government activated like a sleeper-cell and ruthlessly, systematically hunted them down and annihilated them.
“Y2K came to nothing amirite?”
Yes because an army of software engineers working around the clock, losing sleep, and busting ass till the last minute prevented it from happening.
“Remember the hole in the ozone layer?”
You mean the one that was fixed through rigorous world wide government action?
One of the root problems of our society is a refusal or inability by media to articulate that all those “it’s gonna be an apocalypse” disasters were not disasters because we collectively did something about them.
The good news is this is actually quite correctable. I maintain my firm belief that we as humans are capable of solving almost all of our problems, when we decide to do so.
And I still think that’s going to happen. I don’t know when or how, but I do know that abandoning hope won’t help bring it about.
And I refuse to let the cynics own a chunk of my heart.
This is an awesome use of what is probably a master's degree if not a doctorate and I am 100% thrilled that she shared it even though it was embarrassing and she squeaked.
Californian (sup, fellow desert-havers) i've been using this since i saw it and it works so fucken good dude (i often have to put like 8 dogs in my car, so it's extra important my car isn't attempting to go super-nova when we get in)
affirmations they will not kill me at work today. it is not in my job description to get killed. if they did kill me at work that would be weird and probably not worth it for them
So this is not a plea for money. This is something that surprised me, and chatting with people on discord, they were unaware of as well.
Discovered last year I couldn’t look at my 2015 MacBook Air without it triggering nausea and migraines, and figured the screen died. Have been getting by on my phone, but concluded I really need a laptop again.
Saved up, realised I could afford a brand new MacBook Neo, and got one.
-And I couldn’t spend more than five minutes looking at the screen without massive eye strain, nausea, vertigo, and if I pushed it, I-need-to-lie-down-in-a-dark-room-for-hours migraines.
Looking up MacBook and Eyestrain explained what is going on. The liquid retina displays that Apple currently has uses Pulse Width Modulation or PWM. In order to give the screens a deeper depth of colour and contrast, PWM flickers between several hundred to thousand times a second.
And there is currently no way to turn it off. There are settings and apps to reduce it, but there is no way to stop the screen from flickering. Checked Apple forums, called Apple Support, and the time I could look at the screen kept shrinking. Got the laptop Tuesday, returned it Friday, today is Sunday and I’m still dealing with a vertigo migraine.
For MacBooks, it seems to vary on the computer model and the software it uses. In retrospect, the issue with my MacBook Air started after a major software update.
And it’s not just an Apple thing. Current Windows and Android screens do the same thing. There’s even a Reddit for people who are sensitive to PWM flickers to help find computers and screens that won’t trigger eyestrain and headaches.
So, yeah. This week has been a learning experience. But for those who are prone to headaches and migraines, this may be something to be aware of, cause I was not.
So a couple days ago, some folks braved my long-dormant social media accounts to make sure I’d seen this tweet:
And after getting over my initial (rather emotional) response, I wanted to reply properly, and explain just why that hit me so hard.
So back around twenty years ago, the internet cosplay and costuming scene was very different from today. The older generation of sci-fi convention costumers was made up of experienced, dedicated individuals who had been honing their craft for years. These were people who took masquerade competitions seriously, and earning your journeyman or master costuming badge was an important thing. They had a lot of knowledge, but – here’s the important bit – a lot of them didn’t share it. It’s not just that they weren’t internet-savvy enough to share it, or didn’t have the time to write up tutorials – no, literally if you asked how they did something or what material they used, they would refuse to tell you. Some of them came from professional backgrounds where this knowledge literally was a trade secret, others just wanted to decrease the chances of their rivals in competitions, but for whatever reason it was like getting a door slammed in your face. Now, that’s a generalization – there were definitely some lovely and kind and helpful old-school costumers – but they tended to advise more one-on-one, and the idea of just putting detailed knowledge out there for random strangers to use wasn’t much of a thing. And then what information did get out there was coming from people with the freedom and budget to do things like invest in all the tools and materials to create authentic leather hauberks, or build a vac-form setup to make stormtrooper armor, etc. NOT beginner friendly, is what I’m saying.
Then, around 2000 or so, two particular things happened: anime and manga began to be widely accessible in resulting in a boom in anime conventions and cosplay culture, and a new wave of costume-filled franchises (notably the Star Wars prequels and the Lord of the Rings movies) hit the theatres. What those brought into the convention and costuming arena was a new wave of enthusiastic fans who wanted to make costumes, and though a lot of the anime fans were much younger, some of them, and a lot of the movie franchise fans, were in their 20s and 30s, young enough to use the internet to its (then) full potential, old enough to have autonomy and a little money, and above all, overwhelmingly female. I think that latter is particularly important because that meant they had a lifetime of dealing with gatekeepers under our belts, and we weren’t inclined to deal with yet another one. They looked at the old dragons carefully hoarding their knowledge, keeping out anyone who might be unworthy, or (even worse) competition, and they said NO. If secrets were going to be kept, they were going to figure things out for ourselves, and then they were going to share it with everyone. Those old-school costumers may have done us a favor in the long run, because not knowing those old secrets meant that we had to find new methods, and we were trying – and succeeding with – materials that “serious” costumers would never have considered. I was one of those costumers, but there were many more – I was more on the movie side of things, so JediElfQueen and PadawansGuide immediately spring to mind, but there were so many others, on YahooGroups and Livejournal and our own hand-coded webpages, analyzing and testing and experimenting and swapping ideas and sharing, sharing, sharing.
I’m not saying that to make it sound like we were the noble knights of cosplay, riding in heroically with tutorials for all. I’m saying that a group of people, individually and as a collective, made the conscious decision that sharing was a Good Things that would improve the community as a whole. That wasn’t necessarily an easy decision to make, either. I know I thought long and hard before I posted that tutorial; the reaction I had gotten when I wore that armor to a con told me that I had hit on something new, something that gave me an edge, and if I didn’t share that info I could probably hang on to that edge for a year, or two, or three. And I thought about it, and I was briefly tempted, but again, there were all of these others around me sharing what they knew, and I had seen for myself what I could do when I borrowed and adapted some of their ideas, and I felt the power of what could happen when a group of people came together and gave their creativity to the world.
And it changed the face of costuming. People who had been intimidated by the sci-fi competition circuit suddenly found the confidence to try it themselves, and brought in their own ideas and discoveries. And then the next wave of younger costumers took those ideas and ran, and built on them, and branched out off of them, and the wave after that had their own innovations, and suddenly here we are, with Youtube videos and Tumblr tutorials and Etsy patterns and step-by-step how-to books, and I am just so, so proud.
So yeah, seeing appreciation for a 17-year-old technique I figured out on my dining-room table (and bless it, doesn’t that page just scream “I learned how to code on Geocities!”), and having it embraced as a springboard for newer and better things warms this fandom-old’s heart. This is our legacy, and a legacy the current group of cosplayers is still creating, and it’s a good one.
(Oh, and for anyone wondering: yes, I’m over 40 now, and yes, I’m still making costumes. And that armor is still in great shape after 17 years in a hot attic!)
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 주연이 되지 못하면 죽습니다 - 단당밀 | If You Don’t Become the Main Character You’ll Die - Molasses
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Isaac (If You Don’t Become the Main Character You’ll Die)/Leonardo Ertinez | Leovald
Characters: Isaac (If You Don’t Become the Main Character You’ll Die), Leonardo Ertinez | Leovald
Summary:
Our first experiment revealed that, despite Leo’s concerns, there were many things agreeable between us. Without fail, the impulses he thought of as unforgivable and uncontrollable would melt into tenderness and affection.
This remained consistent in subsequent experiments.
getting scambot messages from random accounts that clearly used to be normal active blogs is sad enough. you know that there used to be a real person on that blog until they were tricked into handing their password to the digital fae.
but it's an entirely new level of tragic when somebody you've actually spoken to gets turned into a bot account. it's like peeking at a zombie apocalypse through the window and realizing one of the shambling corpses was your friend.
and then the zombie catches sight of you, lurches up to your window, and shouts through the glass that they accidentally reported your account to tumblr and you'll be deactivated unless you click this link.
RIP to the blog that used to DM me to tell me they liked my new chapters. Their last known words spoken before being turned, 17 hours ago: "Ggs!" They were praising someone's deadlift.
the message they tried to get me with is probably the same message that got them, so for anybody who hasn't already been warned about the signs of a zombie account:
if you get something like this ↑ they're gonna follow up by instructing you to contact tumblr support on discord and give you contact info; or they're gonna link a website that looks sort of like tumblr support and say you have to email them; or any variety of "you must now contact tumblr, here is how you contact tumblr."
whatever they send you, it Does Not lead to tumblr. it leads to the master zombie that bit them and inducted them into the ranks of the undead, and will bite you the second they have your email and password. i might be confusing zombies and vampires. anyway,
it's easier to fall for these messages because the blog doesn't LOOK like a bot blog, because it ISN'T a bot blog. it's a normal person's blog that got accessed by a bot, meaning the blog's content CLEARLY looks like a real active user when you click on it. and yes—it might even be a blog you already know. sometimes bots like this go down a blog's DMs or reblogs and message people they've previously interacted with.
they got one of my treasured followers, and they can get you too. don't fall for their tricks. know the signs.
origamiaround
pixelskylines
amandla
izzy806
tangentwithtanner
areudirty
