Happy birthday Suwon. This year again I love you infinitely more than the one before, it's forever at this point, you'll always be part of me there's just no other way. Saying you're my favorite character is really an understatement. You're my pride and joy from beginning to end. I LOVE YOU.
People don't get that non passing trans women are not seen as men, they are seen as non passing trans women and are treated the way they are according to the social script for trans women, which is transmisogyny.
I cannot believe there's absolutely no way to watch free shows and movies anymore, there are too many paid streaming platforms and pirating websites have viruses and ads preventing you from watching it uninterrupted((.)) id rather follow the rules and purchase media moving forward because it is too inconvenient. Seriously, free and no ads or viruses with 1080p streaming is DEAD.
Exactly! It's freaking annoying when I want to watch movies but I would have to subscribe to like 24 different services . Just to watch the shows that I like.
i like using streaming apps but there are waaaay too many and they're all stealing my data .i wish there was a secure and organized way to have millions of shows and movies available one one app. but alas. we've truly gone full circle back to cable + now it spies on you. its a real shame. i dont want to fill my device storage with tons of boring and stupid cash grabs.
Half of those services don't even work well. Oh you paused a little too long so we're exiting to the place where we can show more ads. I've even had some that made me search for the show every time because it wouldn't save it. It's like, that's the only reason you're sometimes more convenient and you're still fucking it up! But yeah the catalogs are way too spread out.
It really fucking sucks though. I just want to watch movies- without paying some shitty company. I really don't want to subscribe to 700 streaming services for them.
Really, i hate subscriptions/shady deals fuck the modern age of media it sucks and i hate it. Nothing is free, nothing is owned forever, its bullshit!! wish i could just say "yes" and own the media damn it
My hope for whoever is reading this is that your life starts making sense and coming together. I hope the good days are right around the corner for you.
One thing this chapter makes me think about a lot is, what does "letting go" really mean? Is it something to absolutely aim for? and where does Hak position himself in relation to it today?
Hak is worried above all about the dragons right now, but we know well that he's also making a reference to his experience with Soo-won here. After all, even if Zeno did talk about forgetting them, he never said anything about "letting go" specifically. To let go is however very much something he said word for word about Soo-won in the past (chapter 153). If it wasn't already obvious enough, Hak in his turn makes the parallel between what happened with Soo-won and what is happening now with Zeno.
The end of chapter 153 hinted that even if Hak hasn't reached the point where he can let go of Soo-won yet, this is something that will eventually happen down the road thanks to Yona. And how can we not wish it for him? He suffers from it, it makes him angry, depressed, frustrated, it makes him grieve. Hak has always struggled from Soo-won's betrayal, he first tried to repress the feelings, then started walking a long road of trying to reconnect with and make sense of them, the present and their past together. He was slowly healing, he started being content with having a role in the sky tribe as long as the Yona and the hhb were with him. It was all for the best, everyone was walking in the same direction.
And then chapter 243 happened.
To be honest, when I read chapter 259 I couldn't help but have mixed feelings about this. After all, chapter 243 happened just one year ago, and this chapter devastated me like no story had ever before. This past year I thought hard about chapter 243, I tried to make sense of it in multiple ways and get over the devastation it made me go through. I also needed time, a lot of discussions with friends and the distance to see that yes, it is a chapter where both Soo-won and Hak are at their worst emotionally, and they both give up (among many other things but this isn't a ch243 post) but it won't be the end, it's them both failing to get out of this maze. But I just couldn't accept it. I felt angry. That Hak simply accepted how Soo-won, in a way, pushes him away again and the fact Soo-won will die, be replaced, and there is no hope for him. That he didn't contradict Soo-won saying the country will be fine without him, that this is their goodbye and it's over for them. That Hak will forget what they shared in chapter 61. That Hak is letting go and moving on.
So technically speaking I should be more than happy with chapter 259 and Hak saying he sucks at forgetting and letting go! But well, I got fond of chapter 243 with time. I spent so much time thinking and discussing about it, to engage with it, to question every line and to give them a meaning that slowly started to make more and more sense to me. It became precious to me. Yes I'm this dramatic over a single manga chapter but you have to understand the degree of emotional turmoil it made me go through, it was that bad! Anyway,
So when I read chapter 259, while I feel validated and relieved, I can't also can't help but think "But then, what was chapter 243 for?" What did it change in Soo-won and Hak's relationship? Does it not matter at all anymore because anyway Hak said sike and he actually just can't forget and let go? I can't accept this either. And I don't think that's the case.
And in a way, Hak did let go. But forgetting his dream of walking side by side with Soowon as his equal, on the same path, is different than forgetting Soowon whatsoever. Hak decides he won't remember it anymore and takes a different path. But what does it entail? What does he keep and embrace and what did he let go?
The vow of 10 years that tied Soo-won to the people following him, and the vow of 10 years that tied Hak to him. The formers cling to it, not taking into consideration Soo-won's true self and his ability to change. It chains him. It forces him to act not as his real self, but as the ideal image they project on him. They don't respect what the real Soowon wants, they try to make him the Soo-won that /they/ want. Soo-won changed from 10 years ago and corresponds to neither their ideal, neither Hak's. That's why it was so violent for Hak in 243. Hak couldn't see Soo-won's own circumstances, experience and current struggles and even less accept them. But in chapter 251, Hak doesn't let this vow chain them anymore, and in a way, that helped him gain confidence in the entirety of their history together instead of clinging into one aspect of it, no matter how precious it is to him. So I believe Hak needed chapter 243 to realize he was again projecting on Soo-won, and he needed to part ways to put things into perspective right now with the Zeno plot, so for that it's a good thing.
Still, when I put chapter 243 and 259 together, when Hak said he would forget his past vow to Soo-won and that there was no need to remember it anymore, I still think it was also him giving up, not having the strength to fight back because yeah, what can Hak or Soo-won even do about the Crimson Illness? Soo-won himself is convinced he will die, that he will be replaced and things will be perfectly fine without him, and so that he has to let go of Yona and Hak because what they want is the dragons, not him. He's not completely wrong, but this is not taking into account that both of them still care for Soo-won and want him to be there. That it's not about being replaceable or not, that they can care for the dragons and still want Soo-won to live for no other reason than because he is Soo-won. This is something Hak and Soo-won have both been struggling with since they said goodbye, and they are still coming to term in their own pace that they actually don't want things to end there.
Hak let go of his vow of walking by his side as his equal, but he still cares, he still can't forget, and he needed Yona to put it simply into words for him. It's okay to still feel conflicted, to carry contradictory feelings. What is undoubtely there is he wants him to live and to be there. That even apart, even when his priority is saving his friends and protecting Yona, Soo-won is still a part of him and he can't just erase him from his life. And it's fine. I don't think he should have to if ultimately putting things with Soo-won behind him, letting him go, hurts him so much. He deals with things differently than Yona and he doesn't have to do the same as her if that's not what is good to him. Yona shows that even after letting go of the hairpin, it still doesn't mean she can't think of Soo-won and wish for him to live. Letting go isn't erasing someone's existence from your life, it can just be taking a different path without tearing the bond apart.
But what this all makes me think about is, maybe letting go, in the sense of completely putting things behind them, is precisely the problem with Soo-won and Zeno. They're too good at it. We know they struggle to do it completely and honestly, but they are much better at killing their feelings than Hak, and they're able to at least act and pretend as if they were really letting go. What is so similar between Soo-won and Zeno besides betraying Yona and Hak to accomplish their respective goal and their tendency to hide their most unpleasant feelings, is that they are driven by the conviction that they have no other choice. Why does Soo-won discard people, his soldiers, prisoners, his friends? Because he doesn't believe in a path where he can keep them that wouldn't compromise the rest of the country. Before the coup, despite how much he longed for it, Soo-won couldn't believe a future with Yona and Hak by his side would ever be possible. So he gave up this dream, he acted with this fact in mind, he didn't try to pursue it. A self fulfilling prophecy. Chapter 243 was the same. And Zeno now is exactly the same as well. He doesn't believe in any other solution he could come up with together with Yona. He does what he does because if he doesn't, he is convinced he won't have another chance to be free and to end the cycle. Soo-won pretended the one they knew never existed, while Zeno pretends he already forgot them and that they should do the same.
They push them away, they tell themselves that Hak will protect Yona anyway and they will be fine without them. They let go, put an end to their bonds themselves in an (probably unconscious) attempt to have some agency on the end rather than to wait to be left behind.
But Yona's grip is strong, and despite everything Hak sucks at letting go. For their friends and for Soo-won and anyone on their path. And maybe it is important too to not let go. To be stubborn and selfish about it. To not leave anyone behind, to not avert your eyes from those in the shadows. Maybe "to let go" isn't something to wish for as an absolute solution to grief. Maybe letting go just brings more pain sometimes and is the killer of trying to fight for a better solution. Maybe there is worth in keeping what is precious to you close to your chest and fighting for it against all odds.
Honestly, as I write this I am not even sure of the answer. Zeno does deserve rest and to be allowed to go. And I can't tell if Hak will let go of Soo-won for good in the end. There is definitely a lot of good out of letting people and things go sometimes, even in Hak's case. It gives him the space to explore his feelings and come to term with them, and I don't expect him to live his life with anyone but the HHB. But all I feel is, surely, there is a better way to say goodbye. A way to say goodbye not out of resignation and despair. A way for them to listen to their hearts and be honest with their feelings. So I can only wait and keep faith for it, as I watch the characters slowly but surely try to change their fate and not submit to it.
The irony of this post I wrote around chapter 260 is that the conclusion about how maybe the final arc is more about finding a better way to say goodbye than ending things in tragedies and cutting ties forever was absolutely right and I'm now convinced that this is everything the final arc was about. But on the other hand, it's just very sweet that this post was about Suwon and Zeno's way of parting with YonaHak and they ended being specifically the two characters that stay in the palace by their side, and that the dragons are the ones they parted ways with instead. It's really beautiful to me, to be honest.
I think that's what I love so much about Yona's discussion with the dragons in the final chapter too. They fought so hard against fate and the gods and everything just for the chance of sitting around a fire and share their plans for the future, just to have a moment where they can say goodbye with a smile and wishing each other the best on their respective path. It's so mundane, but yes, such moment is that important and worth fighting for.
Yeah some things have to end and change, the story of the happy hungry bunch travelling together ended a long time ago really, and Akatsuki no Yona as a series had to end too eventually. But it doesn't have to be miserable and terrible. The bonds are still there, and even if things end, new things continue whether we see them or not.
I agree with a lot of your meta. At this point I'm a Jaeha fan and a su-won fan first and foremost really. I don't think either yona or su-won are in the wrong (yona for being upset and su-won killing king Il) for me after the Xing arc it feels like things really are just, being handed to yona. It's like she isn't really working for anything and it's back to the earlier chapters where if she is naive and sweet things will just work out for her
Hi Anon, thank you so much for reading my meta!! I'm always so glad to meet new Suwon fans :) Jaeha-Suwon is a great pair of characters to be a fan of too!!
I'm not sure what posts you're referring to exactly but I think I'm more peaceful about this now, to be perfectly honest.
(rambling under the cut)
The final arc has started to make me wonder if "thing being handed to Yona" is not defendable and an okay outcome to some extent, in the end. Like, even if I feel like EVERY character kneeling to her and being ready to die to atone or/and thank her is always too much and annoying, akayona is complicated because well, Yona actually is shown working hard and going out of her comfort zone many times to help others. And as a shojo fantasy manga, I'm not against her kindness being rewarded either.
For example if you take the throne matter I'm like, yeah Suwon literally handed it to her, but with Suwon still alive, how else could she have become Queen? Should she have taken the throne by force from him? I think some people do think that but I personally don't in the slightest. (I mean, to me the best outcome would have been her just refusing it lol but that was never Kusanagi's plan so,,,,). I feel that's the point even, because the same could be said about how the dragon gods just hand her like, everything she asked of them in the end, which may seem super anticlimatic after everything.
But it can make sense, because it was precisely about Yona not using Hiryuu's sword to kill them and take dominance over everything and the world despite having the possibility to do so. It was about finding a way to not take things by force the way Suwon did with Il before, imo. (I do think he was right to do so too, though <3 And he should do it again if he could <3) Suwon does use the sword against the gods in the final arc, even if slightly differently because well, Yona and Suwon's position and circumstances are fundamentally different as well.
I don't have a clearcut opinion on if this is a good or bad thing, but it's something that makes me think a lot about what we value and expect in stories like akayona in term of what is cathartic and satisfying. Maybe nothing can ever really beat the scene where Yona killed Kumji, and it feels like there's a stark contrast with the way Yona behaves and resolves conflict in the second half of the story, but at the same time, maybe what I immediatly feel is cooler and more satisfying wouldn't make a good or interesting story, beyond it being badass and cool. So I think I started to value what could only be conveyed this way more with time.
And I'd say things "are handed to Yona" after the Xing arc also because it's the turning point in which Yona's previous efforts start to bear fruits and reach others and change them, simply put. It still doesn't mean I'm a fan of how it was done though, but I guess I can look at it with more distance and interest/curiosity today. I do miss pre-Xing Yona and akayona very much and it's always the dearest part of akayona to me, but I can understand that the story changed the focus as it progressed.
Anyway, all that being said I understand the feeling, and you don't have to ever try to find alternative ways to look at it like I do Anon, but if you're open to it I think it's fun to entertain these thoughts!
the idea that every summer will be as hot if not hotter than this for the rest of my life is unbearable i need to (remembers suicide jokes are bad for my mental health) murder an oil executive
