THE GOD OF AREPO IS NOW AN AWARD-WINNING TUMBLR FOLKLORE!!!!!
WE GOT THE BRICK! WE ARE GETTING ARCHIVED INTO THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS!!! Hell yeah!! Making Tumblr history!!
I have a pretty strong idea now for how I want to smash up the brickand divide between us creators: the TL;DR is that I'm going to use the smallest pieces to build a cairn inside a pseudo-terrarium award stand. (x5)
Follow me if you want to witness the brick smashing and terrarium constructing.
But omg thank you everyone!! I had no idea if this campaign would work. I'm so honoured to be able to contribute this opportunity for everyone. :,)
I came to say that I really enjoy you posts 😁😁 and also to ask about something in my mind for a while..
So like almost all of the fandom I'm big fan of youjin and hyunjae relationship... but as far as I read I noticed that maybe hyunjae treasures song taewon more? Especially if the pre regression... wasn't he going to kill yoogin after taewon died ? That made feel a bit bitter...
hi anon! thank you so much for your appreciation 🫶
sry about the late response but i was going to ponder about your question before answering and then i forgot and only remembered again a little later and then i had to ponder from scratch all over again...
and so on to the question. i struggled a bit on how to answer, specially since i feel so much of this is about things that are eventually revealed late in the novel (and even in side stories etc).
but the non-spoilery short answer is that i definitely don't think hyunjae treasures taewon more. I think, the canon is that he treasures them both differently and as hyunjae himself says at some point - song taewon is his death and yoojin is his life. and life and death are both dear things when you have nothing else.
and while the narrative doesn't shy away from taewon's importance to both hyunjae and yoojin, yoojin and hyunjae's relationship is definitely much more central to the narrative than twhj, as much as we all like director song.
also to be upfront about my own shipping agenda, i do ship jinjae a bit more, but i am not at all averse to taejinjae either, and my honest reading/takeaway from the novel is that jinjae are both into taewon and taewon is into them but the ultimate relationship triangle is a bit more partner-y on the jinjae side. jinjae are partners in all things - including their thing for/desire to take care of taewon, basically; and it will take song taewon a few years to get worn down enough to be anything more than their extremely homoerotic best friend. but if jinjae want it enough, it will surely happen, i believe in them!
but sung hyunjae and han yoojin both have only one Partner and that's each other. even if they have other people they are close to and may even prioritize (and post-novel, shj gains at least a few such other people)
Anyway, on to the pre-regression part of the question. but by the nature of the question this is going to be very spoilery, so putting the meat of it under a cut. Idk how much i actually ended up answering your query - i think i just ended up freeflow rambling about pre-reg events which is one of my favorite things to mentally gnaw at, no lie.
was shj going to kill yoojin after taewon died?
my take is: not really, but i don't think that's the right way to look at it?
because "he was going to kill yoojin" at multiple points post-regression too. but the important thing is that every time, he didn't. and in fact put himself in danger/disadvantage doing so.
like the central struggle for hj imo, is that by his very nature, which has been the central reason why he has survived his circumstances as intact as he has, is a very "strong and unshakeable sense of self" which IMO means he always prioritizes his own self first.
anyway, reminder: this analysis is based on reading the mtl, so possibility of errors is high. but this is what my current understanding of events is:
so both pre-regression and post-regression (this is why gyeol is so anti-hyunjae and even warns yoojin about him)
> if shj was to follow his instincts to prioritize himself,
> the natural thing for him to do would be to monopolize yoojin's power/existence/attention
> because yoojin's caretaker ability is extremely helpful to his continued existence on his own terms
> by way of being able to help him properly "digest" all the power piling up inside without blowing up into crescent moon's groom / the full moon / origin replacement.
but both pre-regression and post-regression, ultimately hyunjae decided in both cases that he actually cared about yoojin too much to be able to "consume"/kill him for his power.
pre-regression shj showed this "care" by erasing the relationship between himself and yj, so that yj's caretaker ability could no longer affect hj, hence completely eliminating the "temptation" of the possibility of consuming yoojin's power to stabilize himself, because a relationship was necessary for the caretaker ability to work. (imo there are other reasons mixed into this decision as well, which happens in the aftermath of song taewon's death)
of course this brand of "care" was super patronizing in nature, and inherent in it was the idea that yoojin was not an equal capable of deciding what he wanted to do, that he was "just an f-rank who couldn't have done anything to solve the problem" so there was no need to worry him with information or potential guilt (as keeps coming up in the convo between pre-reg!shj and yj in the nightmare dungeon)
so even if the reading is that hj cared more about tw pre-reg ( they had known each other 6+ years longer if i have my timeline right; and hjyj had known each other a few months), he did still very clearly care about yj even then.
but also pre-regression is the "bad end" timeline for everyone. everyone failed/died in that timeline - hyunjae, taewon, yoojin and yoohyun. noah. myungwoo. no one was in their ideal state then.
(it occurs to me: the gorls were all doing okay, even thriving though, even when it seemed they might have worse circumstances at first glance. huh.)
Such a strange relationship that's too cold to be considered fatherly/mentorly, but can't simply be discarded as comrades in arms.
This is essentially just a redraw from chapter 26, but it's a really standout moment to me. I don't think I've ever seen a seemingly heartless character be told to stay the way they are, to be told not to change. But unlike Ogura telling Kei that people can't change and them sharing a mutual cynicism, it seemed to me that Hirasawa believed genuinely that Kei shouldn't try to change because they're simply in a situation where it won't do them any tactical good. They're mercenaries on a mission.
But then he goes he does what he does while saying what he says. Such a strange almost fatherly figure. And of course Kei ends up changing anyway because of it.
This is a scene I've always loved involving Tanaka in the manga. It marks a turning point in his character.
Before this, he seems like just a henchman for Satou. It's true he does whatever Satou says but there's more to him than that. I also like how this isn't really a pleasant encounter. The girls find him creepy and I don't think Tanaka likes being perceived that way either. Tanaka isn't really being a hero. He just can't help but warn these girls. It's impulsive. He knows what's coming and he doesn't want them to die.
ajin: demi human is bespoke. "what if the joker was immortal and playing life like it was cod. But then some fucking low empath immortal teenager accidentally made stopping him HIS problem"
