casual anime + webnovel + webcomic + fantasy nerd. i write fanfiction when i remember that writing is a hobby i actually do ao3 (i barely post): CyanCheetah/taxomin
Jabber’s an interesting character & villain to me because he’s like a FOIL to the fear of emasculation.
As a man, Jabber’s supposed to reinforce his social position through constant masculine performance. This is because patriarchy relies on a strange logic wherein masculinity is both superior and always under attack. It’s a contradiction caused by the fact that patriarchy depends on the domination of others to exist, so without a weak, helpless, and inherently inferior underclass to subjugate, masculine dominance becomes obsolete despite claiming to be natural, self-evident, and socially necessary.
What’s important to note is that both violence and sex serve as vehicles for power exchange. They allow a man to reinforce his masculine social position by subjugating another person’s body, through penetration or pain.
So when you apply this to Jabber, it paints a strange picture. The story seems to want us to associate violence and sex together whenever Jabber’s on-screen. His character maximally intensifies the connection between those two things because the association he himself makes between violence and sex is unashamed and gratuitous; every instance where he derives pleasure from pain is loudly telegraphed to the discomfort of everybody around him. He is designed to make a spectacle and draw attention to his perversion.
But what truly makes Jabber so perverse isn’t simply the fact that he uses violence for sexual gratification; it’s the fact that he’s a man engaging with violence—and also sex in his case—for the express purpose of being the one whose body is dominated and subjugated by someone else. And this wouldn’t be so strange because dominatrixes exist; masochistic men are a real thing.
But it’s purposely made strange because it’s not pain happening during sex, an act generally kept private out of shame and modesty - it’s pleasure happening during combat. It intentionally drags this subversion of masculine social expectation into the light by putting it in the middle of the battle field, in a shonen anime with a captive audience. There’s no modesty or shame about it.
Compare it to the insecure masculinity constantly trying to prove itself; the patriarchal man engages in masculine displays of dominance because his greatest fear is emasculation, becoming feminine, being seen by other men as weak and thus deserving of subjugation, being seen by women as unnecessary and thus obsolete.
But then there’s Jabber who perverts violence and sex, these tools of patriarchal domination, into instruments for his own physical domination because the thrill of being dominated by a stronger person, often a stronger man, is arousing to him; he is completely unashamed about that.
So, he’s somewhat immune to the fear-driven need to prove his masculine dominance via violence & sex, but he demands that his opponents prove that they’re “dominant” or “masculine” enough to defeat him, creating a situation where they are the only ones with something to lose. In fact, it turns into a lose-lose situation because, by dominating him, the opponent becomes an accessory to his perversion and an active participant in his sexual gratification; this is doubly threatening to a patriarchal male opponent because it effectively makes the encounter queer. But the alternative is losing or retreating from the fight, which results in exactly the kind of emasculation an insecure man seeks to avoid.
Losing to Jabber is made especially emasculating - because what does it mean to lose to Jabber? His primary weapon is drugs that leave his opponents physically incapacitated, weak, and vulnerable. You don’t even get to go out looking cool and battle-worn after tanking a strong finishing blow; no, you were pricked by his needle claws, and now you’re on the floor hallucinating while he lays there laughing with you like you’re having a moment together.
Really, the only way to truly “win” with Jabber seems to be to match his freak.
(can't draw so here's my trash graphic design skills lmaooo)
okay so what about a Drone Bee Zanka/Black Widow Jabber insect hybrid AU... am i cooking, chat please tell me i'm cooking rn
i even wrote a little snippet for it but i'm probs not gonna finish it. i welcome anyone to use the insect hybrid au idea tho bcuz i would love to read that
The colony had mass expelled its oldest generation of drone bees as fall crept around the corner—everyone knew it would happen. Zanka knew. The workers knew. And, failed by his own genes, Zanka was no better than a drone: useless at foraging, incapable of defending himself without a stinger, and only there to serve as breeding stock for a predestined queen. Each day, worker bees came to and fro, foraging for food and contributing to the hive, cultivating honey and pollinating flowers; but Zanka hadn’t even seen the outside of the hive before, its entrance jealously guarded by workers who hassled him for stepping too close. It didn’t take long to grow resentful toward the dreary fate of the drone—his fate.
But Zanka had time. The purge wouldn’t take him yet. He’d only matured late in the spring, so he hadn’t had the opportunity to fulfill his sole purpose: fertilizing a queen’s eggs. Drones who had lived through multiple cycles and since become impotent, those who had expired their use—that’s who the purge took. He wouldn’t rot in the cold, not now, but the inevitable haunted him. Drones died quickly in the wilderness, from harsh weather and hungry predators to poisonous fruits eaten foolishly. And Zanka, for all that he was a drone, refused to die like one, wrung dry and discarded shortly thereafter.
So he planned. And plotted.
He slipped up once. That was all it took to doom himself. Zanka looked down at his body, at his arms and legs stuck to the massive web of near opaque silk thread; he tugged and kicked, intent on at least trying to get free. But, predictably, his efforts only amounted to sticking even more of himself to the web. Zanka clamped down on the rising heat of frustration and began to deeply regret leaving the hive.
Once, Sakura had dreamed of helping people with a surgeon’s touch, her hands sterile and steady, carving sickness out of the body and stitching patients back together perfect and whole. Now, though, as she hooks a needle through another stitch on her fifth attempt to crochet a scarf, Sakura thinks her hands are too shaky to hold more than her own incompetence, let alone another person’s life. She frogs the entire project.
“You’ve been working on that since last week,” Ino says.
“It’s not right.” Sakura strangles the mass of crinkled yarn in her lap. Her face scrunches like messy laundry, the way it does when she’s one mishap from breaking something; it’s an expression she hasn’t worn since high school because it pulled her eyebrows down just enough to exaggerate the size of her forehead. Lapsing into old habits doesn’t bode well for however much of her self-control is left. “I’d be a bad friend if I gave you amateur garbage on your birthday.”
Ino sighs from the kitchen. She abandons her makeup kit on the counter and crosses into the living room where Sakura stares miserably at a ball of purple yarn; one sweep of Ino’s hand knocks the failed project onto the carpet and startles Sakura out of her brooding. Sputtering in surprised anger, Sakura gears up to spew a string of complaints and protests because damn it, Ino, are you serious right now? I’m working on a gift for you. The least you could do is respect my effort and not toss my stuff on the floor. Maybe I shouldn’t have even bothered. The words expand in Sakura’s throat like a balloon—a balloon that Ino pops as she thrones herself on Sakura’s lap, casual and proprietary, as if the space was hers to conquer.
A September chill seeps through the windows of their shared apartment, but Ino’s warmth claims all the air around them. Heat spills from her thighs and kicks the storm inside Sakura’s chest into a flurry; it burns hot enough to steep bones because Sakura’s shoulders and spine—stiff from correcting her mistakes before she can ever make them—seem to melt, and her posture slumps for the first time since planting herself on the couch two hours ago. Blood warms Sakura’s face and peeks through her skin like fire beneath coals, a fire she scrambles to snuff out as Ino peers down at her from the perch of her legs. Sakura’s breath slips through blonde bangs like a breeze tousling wind chimes as Ino leans close with eyes as blue as an overturned iceberg.
“I can’t wait to get my birthday present by Christmas,” Ino says, bright and teasing. Humor curls around her lips, and her smile shines with red gloss. A beat passes, one second too long, as Sakura thinks nothing but static, and Ino narrows her eyes in faux suspicion. “Or is that the plan? You skimping out on me, billboard brow?”
“I wouldn’t skimp even if I took that long, Ino-Pig! I’d get you a second gift,” Sakura says, voice too high.
A feeling twists in her stomach. It’s the kind she treats like the belongings of a dead relative, a box shoved into a corner of her basement and left to collect dust. The contents carry a weight that speaks, an encumbering silence, because she broke something when she pushed the box away, and now it leaks, it spills, and the stain warps the floor until mold grows, the damage worsening each time she enters the basement and walks past. It’s been there for as long as she remembers; it’s not there as long as she forgets.
When she’s clumsy and has ventured too close, the box brushes her skin with a whisper that rings like a shout, a reprimand, and Sakura jumps back as if a single touch will kill her. The threat is so great that maybe it will, so she’s learned to shed her skin all at once, undo herself and wash the touch away, turning everything inside out as she steps back into her body. Sakura looks at her best friend of twelve years, and the inversion happens in a blink. It’s quick, automatic work when the twist in her stomach is displaced by an urge to nag, like motion-sensors lighting up a room before she ever walks into the darkness. Sakura glances at the clock and becomes the responsible time keeper.
“Ino, it’s almost seven,” she says. Phantom nerves fill her, as if it’s her date she’s about to run late for. “Aren’t you headed out with Sai soon? He’s going to be here in, like, five minutes.”
Ino sucks her teeth. “You don’t know that.”
Then she tucks her face into the side of Sakura’s neck. She’s murmuring indiscernible words, the sticky dampness of her lip gloss clinging to the skin. Pressed even closer now, the air around them grows sweet with honey, bush clover, and Sakura’s cherry blossom body wash, and Ino’s scent is so potent that Sakura tastes it on her tongue. Sakura’s hands twitch where they lay carefully on the couch. Ino smells like her. Ino smells like her. She smells like Sakura.
The borrowed warmth boils in the pit of Sakura’s stomach, and, for a terrifying moment, she feels compelled to seal her mouth shut and stop breathing until the living room starts to spin. Instead, she bites out, “Did you steal my body wash again? Stop doing that. You know it costs a fortune, Ino!”
“Stop doing that! It costs a fortune,” Ino mocks. Delivering swift retribution, Sakura digs her fingers into Ino’s sides and tickles her with the hope that she’ll scramble out of Sakura’s lap. Not so. She just squeals and wiggles in place like a worm before gasping out, “Wait, hold on! I ran out. Don’t be so damn stingy, Sakura. Su casa, mi casa. Su body wash, mi body wash or—or something.” Ino clamps down on her hands and pries them off. “You know I hate tickling.”
“Oh wow,” Sakura says, flat and sarcastic. “That’s so funny because I hate when my stuff is used without permission. Guess we’re both out of luck.”
A bring-bring jingles from Ino’s pocket. She grabs her phone and slips off of Sakura’s lap to sit on the other end of the couch, cold air filling the space where her warmth had been. Ino skims the message and reads, “Sai says, ‘be there in five’…”
An unspoken ‘I told you so’ writes itself across Sakura’s face as she raises her brow. Ino pouts. “Ugh. Okay, fine. I’m going, but when I come back you better not be working on this scarf anymore. Seriously, just buy me one.”
“No. That defeats the purpose,” Sakura says, more petulant than intended. She catches herself rubbing the skin where her thighs have gone cold and frowns. “I did shop around for scarves, but none of them were the right shade of purple. Why would I buy a scarf in the wrong color?”
“Only you would notice that it’s the ‘wrong’ shade of purple, Sakura.”
Sakura clicks her tongue. If anyone should know the exact shade of purple that Ino likes, then it should be Sakura, obviously, as her best friend. “Well, I’m the one gifting the scarf. Of course I’d notice.”
Ino shakes her head with a smile and rises to her feet, fully taking all the warm air with her. She turns to say something to Sakura, but, for some reason, the words never leave her mouth. Silence hangs awkwardly, as if her train of thought had been derailed.
Sakura offers a goodbye. “See you—”
The words die as Ino sways down again, the scent of bush clover and honey and cherry blossoms returning like a caress, and, without thinking, Sakura parts her lips to steal another taste. Goosebumps rise on her skin as Ino reaches out to touch her, tracing soft fingers along her jaw and the slope of her neck. A noise flutters in the back of Sakura’s throat, something Sakura knows would be entirely inappropriate to vocalize, so she clamps down on it with a jolt of cold panic. She’s not quick enough to repress a shiver when Ino’s nails bite deeper than expected and press into a spot slick with lip gloss. An unfocused look crosses Ino’s face as she rubs the gloss away.
“You had something on you,” she hums, soft and lilting, before righting herself.
“That—um. Hm.” Sakura's words comes out too thick, saliva pooling on the back of her tongue. She swallows, then swallows again, and her fingers dig into her thighs to restrain the urge to press them together, altogether far too warm in all the worst places. She asks, accusing, “Whose fault is that?”
“Sorry,” Ino says. She doesn’t look sorry at all.
Minutes later, Ino finally leaves in Sai’s convertible. Sakura waits in the living room until midnight, making and unmaking her shitty little scarf, when her phone flashes with a text.
Ino: staying at sai’s, pls leave leftovers for me in the morning xoxo
Her chest caves in. She wants to ignore the text; she wants to respond with something cruel; she wants to tell the truth; she wants all the wrong things. An ugly feeling chokes her, too big and frightening to name, but the guilt, the fear of being a bad person, a bad friend, being wrong, is bigger, older, and it swallows the ugliness up and leaves a void in its place. Invert. Invert. Invert. Be good.
Sakura: sure. tell Sai I said hi. goodnight & see you tmrw.
In the morning, before Ino comes home in Sai’s clothes, Sakura heads to work an hour early. A container filled with soggy pancakes waits in the fridge, ‘For Ino’ scrawled across the lid.
Warnings: interrupted suicide attempt, explicit violence, mentions of blood, explicit language, slightly suggestive content toward the end
Word Count: 1413
A little dead already, Zero tucked the gun into his mouth. Bloody Rose gnawed at him, cold metal prickling through his teeth and the base of his gums, the taste of it bitter and acrid as smoke. Zero switched the safety off; then he leaned against the foot of a birch tree—old, stout, thick at the roots and trunk, leaves quiet under the marbled moon—and shivered. He was scared, but fear was an old friend beneath the stars. It burrowed into his chest as he poised himself on the edge of nothing and peered into the darkness, familiar but changed, an aged relic of childhood.
His brush with fear brought another feeling into stark relief, known from afar yet never in reach, a stranger that greeted him during hunts. It met Zero in the moments before Bloody Rose reaped another soul, when fallen vampires would lash out like animals that had forgotten how to flee, teeming with a hunger that faced the barrel of his gun and sought to save itself. That same hunger coiled around Zero like a lover as he faced his own gun for once, and he laid there, unmoving, caught between a bloodlust born of terror and his ascetic duty to starve himself. It seemed to Zero that time had bent around him and slowed to a halt, but, in truth, hours had passed in bated silence, the moon patient in its promise to secrete his last breath—until Kaname found him.
If time had grown still, Kaname’s arrival must have hastened its pace. The moonlit tension slipped away and left behind a vacuum the pureblood occupied like a birthright. Pale, gleaming, casting light through the forest, Kaname brought with him the specter of a king as he stood by the edge of the small clearing Zero was sequestered in. The distance between them cooled like the temperature on a mountain hike, its trail speckled with bodies frozen into landmarks; Kaname’s stiff and starched uniform shone as white as snow on the mountain’s peak. He crossed his arms and leaned against a tree, upright and regal in the middle of Cross Academy’s woods without a speck of dirt on his crisp lapels, an inverse reflection of Zero who felt like a mangy, groveling peasant on the grass. Then Kaname raised his brow. It was a mild shift in his mask, a ripple on the surface of still water.
“You’re not out here for a nightly stroll,” he said. An unspoken demand hung on the wind: Explain yourself.
Zero yanked the gun out, spit glistening on the muzzle. He trembled to his feet. It took little to point Bloody Rose at Kaname, grip firm the way Yagari had taught him, because years at the shooting range and in the field had trained him to brave death with a steady aim. His silent threat shoved against Kaname’s demand: I’ll shoot you. Threats had no bearing on a creature like Kaname, but Zero would rather play their futile game of cat and mouse than explain his decisions; the only people he owed explanations to were long gone.
“What I’m doing is none of your concern. Get lost,” he said.
“I’ll ask Yuki or Cross then.”
Zero snarled around his fangs. “Is this all you know how to do? Meddle in other people’s lives? You have no fucking right.”
“But Yuki has a right to know,” Kaname said sharply. Disgust clung to his words like frost creeping along a windowpane. “She deserves at least that much from you.”
Zero didn’t respond. He had nothing to say to Kaname about his choices, nothing that the pureblood needed to know, so he said nothing. And then he let the bullet speak for him.
The quiet of the night shattered. A bang crashed down on the clearing like thunder after a lightning strike. The bullet had missed Kaname’s porcelain skin and instead gouged into the tree because Kaname no longer leaned against it; now, the pureblood was less than a foot from Zero, one hand pinning Zero’s wrist to the birch and the other wrapped around his throat.
“Figured I should do the world a favor and get rid of you before I go,” Zero wheezed.
Kaname squeezed Zero’s throat until he couldn’t breathe, until his windpipe was on the brink of collapse, before the pureblood loosened his hand. Zero had closed his eyes and gone slack in the bruising hold, but he opened them when Kaname eased off, forced to meet the other vampire’s gaze. Zero kept his emotions close to his chest, but the irritation in Kaname’s cold look melted away upon stumbling across some realization.
Softly, in a voice he often used to soothe Yuki, he said, “You truly want to die. You’d even let me kill you. Why?”
All Zero could really do was laugh in Kaname’s face. So he did; he chuckled, thin and raspy, throat sore from Kaname’s chokehold, humored by the notion that the only obstacle between himself and his grave was a pureblood vampire he’d tried to kill upon first meeting. He laughed, and Kaname looked bemused, his brows scrunched and eyes narrowed, gauging how far Zero had fallen from sanity.
It did remind Zero of the night they’d met, when he had only been eight years old. The loss of his family had warped him into an angry, reclusive child who hardly smiled; more than that, his body had been twisted into an alien, unrecognizable form. At night, as Yuki and Cross slept, Zero could count their heartbeats from across the hall, could draw a breath and smell the blood beneath their skin, and he could do so with the certainty that their blood would taste better than any meal he’d ever eaten. When Yuki began to gush about the boy who saved her from a vampire, Zero could only listen with quiet envy because he would’ve given anything for a savior before Shizuka damned him to a living hell.
Once Kaname visited as a guest days later, Zero didn’t have time to feel disappointed. The pureblood had triggered every survival instinct in Zero’s body and sparked his endless rage toward the monsters that ruined his life; it all coalesced around the presence of a threat, around a creature that could flatten the house and kill them in a blink, and his terrified rage had gripped the handle of a kitchen knife and pierced Kaname’s hand before he could muster a hello.
The look Kaname had given him then was the look he gave him now: miffed, like he’d seen a fish climb a tree. Zero’s laughter faded as he tested the grip Kaname had on his shooting hand. He sighed, resigned.
“I’m a danger to every human around me. I’m a danger to Yuki. Isn’t that reason enough?”
“You haven’t fallen yet,” Kaname said. “It’s not inevitable.”
Zero bared his teeth. “Don’t make jokes, Kuran. It doesn’t suit you.”
Kaname’s brow furrowed again, out of annoyance this time; his range of expressions must’ve expanded when Zero wasn’t looking. The pureblood finally dropped his hand from Zero’s throat, only to reach for the collar around his own.
“Oh, fuck off. I don’t need your blood.”
“Might I remind you, Zero,” Kaname began. He undid the buttons of his blazer, his long fingers teasing the soft fabric as it spilled open. Tone smooth as silk, he continued, “…that I found you here about to kill yourself?” Kaname hooked a finger through his tie and tugged it loose until it dangled on his shoulders, followed by the slow unbuttoning of his dress shirt to the middle of his chest. The blazer was placed gently on the grass, and then his brown eyes snapped to Zero with penetrating focus. “It’s my blood or involuntary commitment.”
“Involuntary commitment,” Zero said.
The words were rendered meaningless by the hypnotic pull of an exposed neck. Hunger bubbled in him, and he languished like the frog in a boiling pot, convincing himself that the situation could be salvaged while glaring at Kaname’s chest as if it had offended him. He refused to admit the humiliating fact that his eyes were stuck.
“Is that so?” Kaname asked. Something disturbingly close to smug danced in the shadows of his placid face. He sunk a nail into his skin and cut a thin line across his neck—and his lips twitched into a slight smile, which may as well be a shit-eating grin by Kaname’s standards. “Could I convince you otherwise?”
this poor attempt at dialogue for Jabber was making the rounds & ig I wanted to give my non-expert Black opinion.
imo the issue isn't just the slang but also the awkwardness of the dialogue. Like yeah, I can't really see Jabber using "blick", and he's never called anyone "shorty" canonically--but I think you could get some of the slang to work with better dialogue. The problem is that I can't imagine any Black person saying this out loud and it sounding natural at all, not just Jabber.
People were laughing about the "EJ" here, but, again, it might work in the right context. Jabber's known to give people names, and I could see him running into Enjin after they've met a few times and shouting some shit like "YO, EJJJJ!" at him. But you have to understand why a character like Jabber would use a nickname or epithet to know when & how to write it. Jabber does it to mock, annoy, and provoke people into fighting him.
Here's an example I wrote:
Lost in the sewer system, Enjin and Zanka wade through the underground tunnels with their shirts pulled up to their noses. It's dark and musty in either direction. Enjin's favorite lighter is the only thing illuminating their path as they strategically avoid the mystery liquid (no way that's water) running through the middle of the tunnel like a river.
Another light pops into existence further ahead in the darkness. Enjin grabs Zanka's shoulder and slows to a stop, caution stirring to life in the pit of his stomach. He calls out, "Yo, who's there?"
It's silent. And then a burst of familiar, unhinged laughter.
"Ay, is that my man Big EJ?" Jabber begins to cheer out his name. "Woo, Big Eee-jay, Big Eee-jay! You still packing heat with that long, thick umbrella of yours, big man?"
Zanka starts cussing. "Not this motherfucking dreadhead again, fuck--"
"And you got Mr. Bad Attitude down there with you? That's two bad bitches for the price of one!" Jabber's whoops of excitement echo through the tunnel, the light from his lantern jumping in the dark as he races toward the two Cleaners. "C'mon, c'mon, c'mon. I been hard up for a good fight. Them other folk act scary when the Raiders come around, but I know y'all like to get freaky on the low. Ain't gon' blue ball me this time, right?"
Enjin sighs, utterly dismayed, as he readies Umbreaker. He should've known the moment he got lost with Zanka instead of Rudo.
In this, Jabber calls Enjin "Big EJ" as a form of sexual innuendo & to purposely overstep social boundaries by using a nickname as if he and Enjin are close friends when they’re not. It's different from his canonical "Mr. Bad Attitude", which mocks the idea that Zanka is deserving of respect by attaching a formal honorific to a negative epithet.
han yoojin & his struggle with vanity - brief character analysis
based on the Enneagram
"Leech, bad omen, life-sucking parasite. That's what they say about me, and, well, they're not entirely wrong." - Han Yoojin, My S-Class Hunters, ep.2
NOTE: I use a personality typing system called the Enneagram as a reference for character analysis; here's a general rundown of it for the sake of time and avoiding carpal tunnel. moving on!
okay so... I've revised my take on Yoojin's personality. he's a self-preservation Type Three, and his emotional motivations are rooted in vanity.
awesome! what the heck does that mean?
in the Enneagram, the Type Three archetype (or e3 for short) is kinda like that kid in class who raised their hand first for every question, studied for an hour every day after school, participated in twenty extracurriculars, was a certified Teacher's Pet, and acted like hell would open up and swallow them if they scored less than an A grade. And their parents either didn't give a damn about them to the point of near neglect or had five-year, ten-year, and twenty-year plans for the kid's future laminated and stuck to their fridge, no in-between.
this is definitely an exaggeration and a stereotype, but it gestures at a person whose behavior might be rooted in e3 problems: the person who validates their self-worth by chasing external measures of success, who builds their self-image based on what other people value.
and that's what I mean by vanity - fixating on achievements and appearance to compensate for low self-esteem i.e. "I am worthless if I am not achieving/I need to earn the right to be loved."
isn't this the core of most emotional problems that yoojin experiences? isn't his perceived worthlessness as a "good older brother" and desperation to prove his usefulness where we literally start the story? isn't his overworking and exertion to the point of physical deterioration - literal blindness! - a consequence of prioritizing output and efficiency over his very being and health (an indication of low self-esteem)? isn't his partnership with Sung Hyunjae initially plagued by his fear that he falls short of the image and expectations associated with a high-status figure like Hyunjae?
even the way he constantly comments on the attractiveness of people around him (e.g. how "handsome" Sung Hyunjae is) indicates a fixation on appearance and image not only toward himself but also others!
there are some other things that tie Yoojin to e3 - and self-preservation e3 in particular - but I've written enough for now! thanks ♡
if semiu & jabber meet each other - snippet (gachiakuta)
Semiu’s eyes warily track Jabber as he waves at her - like a surprise appearance on the Cleaners’ doorstep was casual as anything. He tilts his head in curiosity, locs falling in a lopsided curtain, as he asks, “You the secretary lady, right?”
“And you the hussy chasing Zanka’s tail.”
“Oh damn. A hussy?” Jabber wheezes through a laugh, clutching his sides like he’s squeezing the air out of his own lungs. “The fuck that even mean, Miss?”
Semiu looks entirely unamused, borderline disdainful. “You can relax.”
“Nah.” Jabber’s still giggling himself breathless; he even goes so far as to slap his knee, but it’s a mocking gesture if anything. “You too funny.”
Semiu’s gaze burns like viper eyes slithering through the brush. She squares her shoulders, tilting them back until her posture is impeccable and imposing, before pushing her glasses further up her nose bridge. “Keep on, you hear? ‘Cuz if you wanna laugh so bad, chucklehead, then I can get hilarious. We’ll be cracking up while I kick your ass right off the damn property.”
“Yeah alright. Go ahead and try it.” Jabber laughs again, all his disrespect funneled into the noise. “Piece me up, Miss Thing.”
His typical grin - wide, terrible, and full of teeth - crawls onto his face. The prospect of a fight brightens his demeanor until his eyes glow with excitement, like sunlight refracted through a magnifying glass until the concentrated heat sets the nearest ant on fire. Jabber leers, suggestive and provocative as can be, as he says, “A nice lady like you whooping my ass actually don’t sound too bad. I like a bit of sugar with my pain, you get me?”
Semiu sneers, upper lip twitching. “I forget you one of them freaky-deak types that like getting beat on. You can keep that.”
“Aw, c’mon now.” Jabber’s stance shifts, Mankira poised on both hands as he lowers himself into a crouch. “Don’t edge me, Miss. I thought we was gon’ get hilarious.”
snippet where I practice writing AAVE dialogue in a fanfic bcuz everybody seems to be doing really bad at it...I'm Black but I lowkey don't even feel confident about it LMAO
han yoojin & his struggle with vanity - brief character analysis
based on the Enneagram
"Leech, bad omen, life-sucking parasite. That's what they say about me, and, well, they're not entirely wrong." - Han Yoojin, My S-Class Hunters, ep.2
NOTE: I use a personality typing system called the Enneagram as a reference for character analysis; here's a general rundown of it for the sake of time and avoiding carpal tunnel. moving on!
okay so... I've revised my take on Yoojin's personality. he's a self-preservation Type Three, and his emotional motivations are rooted in vanity.
awesome! what the heck does that mean?
in the Enneagram, the Type Three archetype (or e3 for short) is kinda like that kid in class who raised their hand first for every question, studied for an hour every day after school, participated in twenty extracurriculars, was a certified Teacher's Pet, and acted like hell would open up and swallow them if they scored less than an A grade. And their parents either didn't give a damn about them to the point of near neglect or had five-year, ten-year, and twenty-year plans for the kid's future laminated and stuck to their fridge, no in-between.
this is definitely an exaggeration and a stereotype, but it gestures at a person whose behavior might be rooted in e3 problems: the person who validates their self-worth by chasing external measures of success, who builds their self-image based on what other people value.
and that's what I mean by vanity - fixating on achievements and appearance to compensate for low self-esteem i.e. "I am worthless if I am not achieving/I need to earn the right to be loved."
isn't this the core of most emotional problems that yoojin experiences? isn't his perceived worthlessness as a "good older brother" and desperation to prove his usefulness where we literally start the story? isn't his overworking and exertion to the point of physical deterioration - literal blindness! - a consequence of prioritizing output and efficiency over his very being and health (an indication of low self-esteem)? isn't his partnership with Sung Hyunjae initially plagued by his fear that he falls short of the image and expectations associated with a high-status figure like Hyunjae?
even the way he constantly comments on the attractiveness of people around him (e.g. how "handsome" Sung Hyunjae is) indicates a fixation on appearance and image not only toward himself but also others!
there are some other things that tie Yoojin to e3 - and self-preservation e3 in particular - but I've written enough for now! thanks ♡
the complete lack of a straight romance subplot in D&D: Honor Among Thieves is so painfully obvious in an action adventure fantasy story like it.
the protagonist, Edgin, is still grieving his wife and hoping to revive her, but you’d expect there to be a female love interest they dangle as a ‘your wife would want you to move on and be happy’ option to kiss at the end of the movie. he has Holga, a close lady friend who’s recovering from the end of her own relationship and who helped raise his daughter with him, but they GO OUT OF THEIR WAY to clarify that “oh what the fuck, that’s disgusting, we’re like siblings, we would never”
and then they introduce Xenk, the perfect man.
literally the most altruistic, lawful good, paladin stereotype of a man, who Edgin initially dislikes bcuz he’s the same race as the guys who killed his wife, but then they save each other and he realizes “well actually he’s not so bad,” and Xenk clocks him as a good, honorable, and competent person despite how much Edgin no longer thinks he is.
and. hear me out: they made both Edgin’s wife and Xenk lightskin baddies BECAUSE HE HAS A TYPE.
I’m just saying. someone in that writer’s room was like “the subtextual bisexuals are gonna eat this shit up” and they were right because that’s me.
just came from watching a playthrough of eps 1 & 2 of Dispatch. post ep thoughts:
obviously the main plot (Robert wrangling the Z-Team misfits into a reliable group) is eventually going to merge with the Shroud subplot. the final battle will likely be the Z-team after they've learned to trust each other + new and improved Mecha Man against Shroud and his goons. this seems straightforward.
the romance subplot between Robert and Blonde Blazer is likely going to merge into the Shroud plot as well. Phenomaman is clearly positioned as the romance subplot antagonist (since he's The Boyfriend aka the love rival); he's also presented as a FOIL to Robert i.e. the physically mundane hero that relies on gadgets and tech vs. the supernaturally strong "Superman" hero archetype. making him a FOIL & subplot antagonist with a squeaky clean image creates subtextual foreshadowing, the implication that he's an antagonist in other unseen ways. though I have to wonder if they're doing this to set up a subversion later down the road since it feels so obvious.
I liked the pushy news reporter during the press conference scene; he felt like an audience stand-in when he asked Robert "why did Shroud keep you alive?" because that's what I had been wondering since the beginning of the steel mill fight. Toxic had allowed himself to be kidnapped by Robert to lure him there, but he could've melted his restraints and killed Robert while he wasn't in the mech. Then, during the fight, Robert's told that Shroud "just wants" the Astral Pulse - as in, don't worry, he doesn't want your life. But then, they just allow him to leave with the Astral Pulse and then blow it up??? They obviously didn't want it that bad. It could be what Robert says, that Shroud just wanted to disable Mecha Man, but it feels weird.
i can't get the game myself since my computer's shit (and i'm broke) so i'm watching others play it, but i'm enjoying it so far.
Our incredibly handsome, sexy, amazing, gorgeous Casper (he didn't make me say this I swear) is modelling our brand new A Date with Death winter sweater…
…which is available NOW over on Makeship for the next 21 days only❄️
Get cozy with us ⤵️
From Two and a Half Studios' hit romance chat simulator A Date with Death comes a semi-festive winter sweater featuring designs inspired by
"Such Sweet Sorrow"
We made this piece to be a mobile wallpaper, so feel free to use it! We asked our patrons to nominate and vote on a solo/duo/trio for the art, and they picked Lenore and Annabel by a landslide. And well, y'all have had it too good for too long with all the fluff pieces lately.
Welcome back to ANGST. 💀
call Remmick not racist if you want to but we can NOT act like him going up to a 100% Black juke joint and biting all the niggas in there is somehow materially different from the KKK killing everybody the next day. like it’s the same shit. he deadass did the job for them. the fact that he didn’t hard R them while doing it doesn’t mean anything lmao…💀💀💀
“i’m not racist”
“you just brutally hunted and condemned an entire building of Black people to eternal spiritual enslavement”
A fierce spirit of stubbornness armored Han Yoojin’s heart as he draped himself in the silk finery of a blood whore.
Yoo Eunhye, the vampiric maid who arrived to dress him, stood on the other side of the bathroom door, patient despite his aggressive insistence that he could put on his own damn clothes just fine. She battled him on the matter initially, far more than Yoojin had expected her to, but he won that fight and now stood in the mirror mourning the death of his masculine image.
The getup looked flattering on him, and, even as he frowned at himself, Yoojin couldn’t help but smooth his hands down the form-fitting silk dress; the cowl neckline—delicate folds of loose fabric bunching over his chest—presented the illusion of a larger bust than Yoojin had, and, along both of his sides, high slits exposed his thighs and stopped just before they could encroach upon the most emasculating part of the whole outfit. The panties. The beautifully crafted lace panties that made Yoojin’s hands shake with rage and embarrassment when he slipped them over his legs. And, of course, the final cherry on top, a matching garter belt and fishnet stockings. He felt like a very ugly exotic dancer.
When Yoo Myeongwoo, his closest vampire friend, had suggested he disguise himself for this particular mission, Han Yoojin had been excited. Who wouldn’t want to sneak around like a top-secret spy in a crazy awesome disguise before killing their target? But this…this was…
“Sir Han Yoojin,” the maid said with a knock, her tone gentle and professional. “Have you finished dressing?”
“Yes, I have,” he bit out. Yoojin hoped he sounded less bitter than he felt.
Eunhye opened the door and rushed in with a makeup bag in one hand and a small jewelry box in the other. She passed the jewelry box to Yoojin, and he slowly uncovered the lid with wary eyes that quickly grew big and admiring; he reached in and pulled out the prettiest, most sparkly set of diamond earrings he’d ever laid eyes upon, more opulent than anything he remembered seeing in his own mother’s jewelry drawer. A cold flash of discomfort washed over him, and he placed the jewelry back inside the box with the careful precision of a surgeon during open heart surgery, terrified at the prospect of dropping and shattering them to pieces. Even a plebian like himself could tell those earrings must be worth hundreds, if not thousands, and he wasn’t one to break what he couldn’t buy. How the hell does Myeongwoo afford this shit?
“I—I don’t think I can…” Yoojin started, tripping over his words. “Could you put the earrings on me?”
“Certainly, sir,” Eunhye replied. The vampire maid quickly got to work: she dolled him up in black eyeliner and mascara, a glossy red lip stain, and a light dusting of pink blush on both cheeks before replacing his simple studs with the diamond earrings. Yoojin refused to look himself in the mirror at that point, trusting that Eunhye wouldn’t make him look too much worse than he already did.
Eunhye checked his makeup and attire with a critical eye, arms crossed over her chest, before seeming to remember something she had forgotten. She dragged him out of the en suite bathroom and into the guest bedroom, over to the massive queen bed in the center of the room where a black collar sat innocently on top of the blue duvet. A collar.
“Do I have to wear this?” Yoojin asked, voice cracking over the words.
Eunhye nodded with a sympathetic smile on her face. “Yes, Sir Han Yoojin. You must wear a bite collar if you wish to play the part properly. It’s required etiquette for unmarked blood donors at any kind of vampiric social event, otherwise a master runs the risk of losing them to another vampire who wishes to stake a claim. In your case, it serves the purpose of keeping you personally safe from unwanted vampire bites rather than maintaining Master Yoo Myeongwoo’s ownership.”
“Right…” He murmured, a piece of his soul dying as Eunhye helped him fasten the leather bite collar over his neck. It was surprisingly comfortable, hugging his skin close but hardly choking him, at least not in any kind of physical sense, which he hadn’t expected.
Yoojin steeled himself and walked over to the full body mirror in the corner of the bedroom, staring into the eyes of a stranger who wore his face. Extremely indecent clothing that exposed more of his body than any person other than himself had seen in the past five years, makeup that managed to wrangle his plain face into something artful, the expensive diamond earrings and damnable bite collar, and, to piece everything together, he stepped into a pair of boots with—luckily for him—fairly low, blocky heels. He truly looked like a proper blood whore. Itching with the desire to splash water on his face and abandon the whole ordeal, Yoojin breathed in once, twice, three times, before compartmentalizing and turning away from the mirror.
I have a target I need to kill. No time for self-consciousness.
He looked to Eunhye and said, more confident than he really felt, “I’m going to begin my prepwork. I don’t want to accidentally injure you, so please wait for me outside.”
Eunhye bowed politely and sped out of the bedroom, taking his warning to heart.
Almost immediately, Yoojin outstretched both his hands to the ceiling, sparks of witch magic flashing on the tips of his fingers. The sequence of chants for his pre-hunt ritual was long and somewhat tedious, but the words had become second nature to him and flowed from his tongue easily. Today, he spoke his chants with more passion than he typically did, the humiliation and bitterness that had been simmering under his skin bubbling to the surface of his casting.
Running through all of the chants took upwards of an hour, and when he’d finally completed his pre-hunt ritual, the room thickened with the smell of wind before a thunderstorm and grew tense with static, which pulled strands of his hair toward the ceiling that he had to brush back down. Yoojin rolled his shoulders and cracked his back, his sense of comfort and confidence sliding back into place, though his manly pride was still bleeding out on the side of the road.
