“You feel the bulge in his pants” - implies that you are feeling some guy’s penis, may be sexy depending on context
“You feel the bugle in his pants” - implies that this guy has a military horn in his pants, invites confusing questions like why does he have that and how big are his pockets
I wonder how he will react to the bespectacled, frail, covered in wounds but still protecting people agent he knows and saved, who, I guess has been suffering in a hellhole for three years???
I half want for him to swoop in and save Soleum, and then either get pay back for all the years of torment or get treated so nicely by a grown up viper that it gives him anxiety. Either something to make Soleum realize he isnt such a bad guy or something to make the audience go 'oh. Thats why Soleum acted like that in the beginning.'
I don't think Agent Choi can believe that Soleum's home (in the world without ghost stories) exists.
Part 1, Soleum ran away because he wanted to go home. And it seems that he found a way, which Choi heard from the others. Half a year later, he came back worse, turned into an inhuman being named 130666, only to be exploited by THAT CULTISH EVIL CORPORATE AGAIN.
Part 2, Choi couldn't believe Soleum was from an entirely different world. There wasn't any definite proof about Soleum's world, and most importantly, Soleum was acting like he was highly contaminated, even turning into a mindless goop, risking everything.
Everything was against what Choi stands for, but if Choi's precious Hoobae wants to & finds this entire place a disaster, and since his duty is to return civilians home, he must trust them. So Choi did, also risking himself as well.
AAAAAAAND 3 YEARS LATER, SOLEUM'S BACK. DAMN IT, SOLEUM! YOUR HOME ISN'T REAL-
I am obviously paying so much more attention to Jin Nasol in the reread, given Part 3, but reaching Ch 295 today, at the same as the latest Ch 388 has been a delight.
Ch 295, as a quick note, is the chapter with the Director Ho's Project Team Dinner, where KSE attends as 'Cat'. The first half of the chapter is from Jin Nasol's POV, as she accompanies this mysterious new employee to the dinner together with Lee Seonghae.
So many points where I was just pointing at my screen going !!!!
(Spoilers for everything ever under the cut, there are just too many things to point at)
And although he continued speaking in polite formal language... He somehow managed to sound friendly and gentle.
"Assistant Manager, are the other members of Team A coming as well?"
"Why are you curious about that?"
"Ah, I've never seen the Team A members during the project. I suppose I got curious. My apologies."
Even toward her.
a. Is this maybe a little bit of "Good Friend" Soleum effect? (1) (2)
b. Very interesting to see this together with her thoughts and her outburst about 'what is the point of being so nice or smiling at little things in a shit situation' in today's chapter 388. That outburst clearly didn't come from nowhere.
One of the interesting things about KSE in Ch 295 is, that in my opinion, he's a lot more 'himself' in this chapter than he usually is anywhere.
Hyumoo 1, Team D, Ho, BSH, LSH everyone is present there - he can't be doing any of his extreme personalized personas. AND he's just gotten his lizard mood lamp body and is out of 130666 goop body so he's genuinely largely feeling good! So while he is screeching about various things when we finally switch to his POV, he's still pretty relaxed and in this relaxed mode, he's being nice and polite and friendly and attentive to everyone.
Nasol has encountered Roe Deer before and also evaluated him positively! But as an efficient and competent guy, that's all. Since as Roe Deer, he keeps his poker face on. He's not smiley and friendly in that persona, except maybe when he's completely alone with Team D (friendly, yes. Still not sure if smiley)
And Jin Nasol notices. She notices this right while also noticing that this guy is clearly strong and no pushover. She sees how many of the people present react to him (which is also very funny in its own right!)
Several people who saw the man in the cat mask either shot to their feet or visibly flinched. Their joy and surprise were completely unconcealed.
'What?'
Wasn't that practically the sort of reaction one should have when seeing the company chairman?
'What exactly does he do in this project?' Jin Nasol furrowed her brow and raised her evaluation of the cat mask's position even higher.
And keeping Ch 388 in mind, now some of that wondering about his personality really looks like her wondering about his attitude being so friendly and smiley when he's clearly also 'powerful' (so he shouldn't need to, in her worldview). At the end of her pov, she comes to the conclusion that he's just pretending to have a good personality, because he loses control of his lizard strength. But she's probably had a lot of time to think things in the years since, right?
Either way, now this looks to me like a thought that has been brewing in her head for a while. That got brought back when she saw him do that cute little 'yay!' at the food and being happy with the sleeping arrangements, and then almost wrenching his shoulders carrying that liquefied person around instead of just using them. That finally burst out now, in a moment where she felt there might not be an out for her anymore. Why is he so nice?!
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And her painfully sensitive senses picked up something else.
Also screeching again at this given today's chapter and the confirmation about her chronic pain backstory! It also made me go 'wait Jin Nasol is canon Sentinel?!' And @carpediemisnicebuticannot has made a great post about all the other small hints that point to her having heightened senses and how fits with her injury!
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We have another very funny convo between Dolphin, 'Cat' and Ho, where Dolphin is her irreverent self with Ho, but Nasol then notices 'Cat' treating Ho casually in a very natural way as well
Someone on equal footing with Director Ho. Someone recruited specifically for the project.
'...A director from another department?'
So there are in fact other departments and other directors, than just Ho and Cheong and the Development Department. I have been noting this again and again during reread, but Cheong and Ho are very clearly supposed to be Directors from just this one department, and Ho specially has been a director for just 4 years. Baekilmong has existed as a company for 20-30 years. There have got to be not just other directors, but possibly positions higher than that too.
As per this one post of Korean office hierarchies I found way back, Cheong and Ho's designations are the lower levels of senior hierarchy. Ho, especially as "Isa" is the bottom most rung of executives, Cheong as "Sangmoo Isa" is one rank higher, but there are a couple more ranks above them even if Baekilmong isn't a conglomerate (which I don't remember if it is / isn't).
I think that Jaheon wasn’t originally part of “Us”
novel spoilers for part 2 ahead so please tread lightly…
i’m using the edited MTL version from the gdrive so please correct me if there are any mistakes!
First off, how does “Us” reproduce?
In Chapter 292 in the novel, it is is shown that the way that “Us” colonies are created is the same process as how the egg mood lamp soleum acquired works, which is that it
requires genetic samples of a subject (blood and hair) mxed in a saline solution from a living organism which may or may not be from a member of the union itself, but can also be from an different species as soleum was able to become a member of “Us” if he allowed it, even through artificial means
proliferates “ like a fungi or bacteria forming a cluster and growing” which suggests it may act as some sort of ‘infection’ that creates new members throughout the universe
the lizard head acquired by each of the members is hidden by some sort of illusion that masks their appearance as an alien that is shown to deceive humans and even Darknesses (which is most likely a reference to Robert E. Howards “Into the shadow kingdom” but I digress) EXCEPT for Soleum
Which is why it is suspicious since Soleum’s second go around in “into the shadow”, he mentions LJH appearing “Strangely... as a boy in a lizard mask” having “black hair” and “[looking] human”.
Moreover, the fact that no higher ups in daydream have ever questioned his alliance to the coalition aside from his eccentric personality suggests that he was specifically stationed by the coalition for some unknown reason( maybe to see what tools daydream employees use on the job??? scouting for a new earth colony???) because he already had a human identity to use as his backstory as to why he joined daydream inc, and that his current sporty look of white hair and red eyes may have been a side effect of the formation of his alien body through biological means and not with the alien mood lamp
