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kosagum · 21 hours

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i'll stop time for you — gojo satoru · fluff · 2.8k words

summary: with only a couple of months left before graduation, gojo wishes he could stop time, if only to be with you for just a little while longer.

“you know in an alternate universe, i would’ve walked out,” you scoff.

GOJO smiles at this and turns toward you. “but then you would have never gotten to know how cool i can be. and, i’d never get to know you. i’m happy you didn’t.”

it’s the middle of the night and sleep should be the only thing on your minds, but you both find yourselves discussing when the two of you first met.

as a student journalist, you interviewed gojo, a renowned student-athlete, your junior year for your college newspaper. now you both are well into your senior year, beginning to prepare for what comes next.

gojo’s apartment is a break from all the stressful preparation, a rendezvous point for when both of your schedules are packed. tonight you’re lying under the covers, facing each other. your bodies are intertwined, comfortably pressing against each other. the lights are off, but you can still make out his eyes, which are fighting sleep.

it didn’t help that the heat was cranked up high to oppose the snow falling just outside gojo’s window. the blanket you're under is cozy and soft. you’re freshly showered. gojo’s pajamas are fluffy and warm, coming directly out of the drier. you can still smell his floral-scented fabric softener.

the perfect conditions for falling asleep.

you take a moment to think about his words, hiding your smile with the blanket and looking at his nose to quell the butterflies arising within you.

gojo’s hand searches for yours under the blanket. once found, he pulls himself closer to you. now you’re nose to nose. his eyes, which were laced with sleep, are awakening. you can’t tell what he’s thinking, but he seems to be enjoying himself.

“you were so difficult, you know? i was just trying to have a good interview, but you didn’t even cut me some slack.”

gojo squeezes your hand and chuckles, “well i mean could you blame me? you weren’t giving me the reactions i wanted to see.”

“so you try to take over the interview?” you tease. “i was the interviewer.”

“i would never!” gojo insists, feigning shock, “i wanted to know more about you. you made an impression on me. and you’re definitely stretching the truth.”

“i’m not,” you laugh. “whenever i would ask you a question, you would answer me but then ask the same damn question back. don’t think i forgot how you would try to reword it, so i wouldn’t catch on either. i still don’t know how you thought that would work. you must really like the sound of your own voice.”

“it’s not that…while i do have a nice voice,” gojo begins, smiling after you lightly hit his arm and roll your eyes. “i just wanted to talk to you longer. it didn’t help that i didn’t know if we’d see each other again,” he pouts.

you pause at this, looking down at the blanket covering you two. your eyes make their way back to his, but you don’t say anything.

after the interview, you did cross paths again. more frequently than before. whenever you and gojo saw each other, he always made it a point to ask whether or not you finished the article. he’d try to justify himself by saying he wanted to see your hard work and his handsome face. you never failed to scoff at him. but that only seemed to spur him on further.

“why you staring at me?” he snorts. “falling in love?”

“i could ask the same of you,” you retort, pushing a piece of hair from his eyes.

once the article was published, you personally emailed him the link. to your surprise, he actually read it. he responded more quickly than you expected and praised you, saying he enjoyed your writing and appreciated that you wrote about him as a person, not just a student-athlete.

he then, not so smoothly, added his number to the end of the email followed by a winky face. despite being embarrassed for him, you still saved it.

gojo pauses when you fix his hair, flustered. he grins, taking your hand and placing small kisses all over it.

“well, i’m doing it because i think you’re beautiful. and i really like seeing you smile, even in the dark. so yeah, maybe i am.”

“don’t change the subject,” you blush.

“says the one who didn’t continue the conversation.”

“i was thinking!” you roll your eyes and glare at him. “i was so close to walking out and using whatever i already had from the beginning of the interview. it didn’t help that i couldn’t tell if you were trying to trip me up.”

gojo’s smile falters for a moment. “wait, did you really think i was trying to mess you up?”

you nod, looking at the pillow underneath you. sleep is starting to wash over you.

you shift around to find a comfortable position, still facing gojo and holding onto his hand. while settling on a position, gojo draws you close to his chest. he kisses your forehead before resting his head atop yours.

“i didn’t mean to make you feel bad about the interview. i was just trying to get to know the pretty girl in front of me.”

you never thought you would ever actually text him, but one day you went for it. you had just finished up in the campus newsroom and texted gojo to see if he was still on campus. he responded a lot quicker than you anticipated. before you knew it, he was standing outside, gasping for air.

“did you run here?” you questioned, fighting a smile.

“i don’t know what you’re talking about,” he grinned. “come on, let’s go. we’ve both been on campus for too long.”

gojo picking you up from the newsroom at the end of the day slowly became routine. you would take turns showing each other different parts of the city, of campus. slowly learning more about each other, and becoming closer.

“i know satoru, it’s fine. i wasn’t mad, just annoyed,” you kiss his chest, trying to assure him. “but you always annoy me, so what’s new.”

gojo lowers himself so you’re face-to-face again. he’s now fully awake. “don’t fall asleep on me now,” he sulks, poking your cheek.

you swat his hand away. “i’m awake, i’m awake. no need to be childish.”

a small gasp leaves gojo’s lips and he clutches his heart, earning a laugh from you. you sneak up to kiss his nose and try to pull away quickly, but gojo holds you in place and kisses you all over your face, grinning.

you pretend to grimace, but can’t hide the wide grin on your face.

“everything you’ve done is obviously impressive, but what i really wanted to know was who you were as a person. that’s why i wanted to do a feature piece on you. well, also because the sports editor wouldn’t shut up about it.”

“wait so the only reason why you interviewed me is because the sports editor wanted you to? and here i was thinking we had something special,” he laughs.

“it’s not the only reason, idiot. yeah, being a division one swimmer is cool and all. and you won the ncaa championship or something,” you mumble. “learning about you as a person was way more interesting, in my opinion. who would have known that satoru gojo is such a science nerd?”

“that’s not even true—”

“not true? i must have forgotten that someone told me you would sometimes sneak out of swimming practice to go to the physics club?” you giggle. “he said he was your friend, i think his name was geto?”

“i swear to god— of course that idiot said something,” he mutters.

you perk up after hearing this. sighing, gojo admits, “once this swimming stuff is over, i plan on focusing more of my time on physics. swimming is cool and all, but it just doesn’t excite me anymore. at first it was really fun, when geto did it with me. but then he quit to do something else, and it just became boring.”

“you just won a major championship and you find it boring?”

“i always win them, pretty,” he teases. you blush at the pet name and avert your eyes, groaning when gojo nudges your cheek. a defeated smile splays across your face. “but after a while, it gets stale,” he admits.

you and gojo lay there staring at each other. he did start winning more after geto left swimming. he and geto often battled it out for first place during collegiate meets. but once geto left, it became glaringly obvious how ahead gojo was from everyone else. he won the meet that qualified him for the ncaa championship and set a new personal record. he then went on to win the championship.

it seems that geto was the only one who could keep him on his toes.

you give his hand a squeeze. “so there’s more to you than swimming, that can never be a bad thing. not only do you have an ncaa championship under your belt, but i don’t doubt you’ll also win some physics titles too.

gojo’s about to protest when you interject, “if you never won all there was in swimming, then the feature piece would have never happened. i wish you didn’t have to experience so much boredom, but at least we met each other.”

gojo remembers how he would sometimes drop by the newsroom when he skipped swim practice instead of hanging around the physics club. you always pretended to be so annoyed, but could never hide the excitement in your smile. it was to the point where other people in the newsroom would remember him. some even talked to him too, much to your dismay.

one particular day, it was just you in the newsroom when he decided to come. he sat at the desk next to yours and asked you about the article you were writing before just watching you write in silence.

it was peaceful. after a while, gojo put his head on the desk and shifted his focus from your writing to you.

you were early into your relationship, but he already felt his heart ache at the limited amount of time you had with each other. he so desperately wanted to stop time. wishing to be with you as much as possible, feeling very thankful for these moments when he did get them.

he moved his chair closer to yours and put his head on your shoulder. you turned to look at him and tried to hide a smile. you lifted his head off your shoulder. gojo frowned at this, about to protest, but you put your head on his shoulder and then placed his head atop yours. you felt your face heating up and braced yourself for gojo’s teasing, but he simply shifted to kiss your head before settling back down.

without warning, you put your hand on top of his and weaved your fingers together. gojo’s eyes widened at this and his heart began to race. he pulled your entwined hands closer to him, and kissed yours.

stunned by your words, a blush forms across gojo’s face. “yeah, you’re right. i guess it all really was worth it,” he beams, placing a peck on your nose.

“if it helps, i know you’ll be amazing with whatever you choose to do with physics,” you assure. “to think, my boyfriend, a physics geek.”

“no way you just demoted me from a nerd to a geek.”

“it happens to the best of us,” you laugh. “and you’re my geek.”

you look up at him with affection in your eyes. gojo feels the urge to attack you with kisses, but restrains himself.

“enough about that stupid competition, i think you being offered a job at one of the best news publications is way cooler.”

“i guess we’ll have to agree to disagree,” you yawn. you snuggle deeper into gojo’s chest, feeling your consciousness slip.

he gives your hand another squeeze. “i said don’t fall asleep yet.”

“i can’t help it,” you yawn, pressing your forehead against his. “but you know, i am really happy i didn’t leave in the middle of the interview.”

your eyes start to droop, but you force them to remain open, “i found you cute when i first met you, so i felt like i had to work that much harder for the interview to go well. just for you to try to flip the script on me. i didn’t tell you at the time, but i kinda found it kinda funny.”

gojo smirks, “why would it make it harder? am i that irresistible?”

you roll your eyes. “you wish. but no, it’s because… it’s unethical to have a relationship with a source. we technically shouldn’t have happened, but…”

“you couldn’t resist me.”

you force down a laugh and shoot him a dirty look, “shut up! let’s just say, you maybe grew on me and i came to like you. a lot, even. especially when i got to see more of who you were. even though it was a risk, i really wanted to take it.”

you pause for a moment, “so i did. i guess you could say, i’m very happy with that choice too.” you grumble, avoiding his gaze.

gojo beams. you still chose to date him despite everything.

he cups your face with both hands, giving you as many kisses as possible. part of you wants to fight him off, but another is just as happy as he is. when he’s done, you give him a deeper kiss on his lips, feeling your stress and worries fading away.

you’ve both been running around trying to make any final decisions and plans for graduation while tending to your usual responsibilities, so you barely got to see each other. the thought of graduating always makes gojo tense. he rarely brought it up to you, but you knew. you felt the same way, but tried to keep it together in front of gojo.

one night, you showed up at gojo’s apartment unannounced. you threw yourself into his chest and just held him, and he immediately held you back. though no words were spoken, he understood. you stayed like that for a while until he moved you both to the couch.

it was also the first time gojo finally explained his worries about graduation and possibly losing you. though you reassured him countless times, he still vowed to stop time, just for you. you giggled at his words, but promised to do the same for him.

he looks at you slowly falling asleep. he can tell you’re doing your best to stay awake, but don’t have much fight left in you. giving you a peck on the lips, gojo whispers, “thank god you chose to write about me. i fall more and more in love with you by the second.”

delirious with sleep, you mumble something about him back. barely loud enough for gojo to hear.

“i’m going to take that as, ‘thank you, my prince, you’re so sweet’.”

you flick his forehead before nuzzling against his cheek, muttering, “i said, i might be in love with you too.” you giggle, finally succumbing to sleep.

gojo watches you for a bit, listening to your breathing. he starts to feel sleepy himself. he gently squeezes your hand once more. he feels you squeeze his back. he chuckles, wondering if you’re actually still awake or if it’s now become a reflex. he’s happy either way.

he looks at you with such yearning in his eyes, wishing he met you sooner in his life. maybe in another universe, you would be childhood friends. swimming might not have been so boring if you were there cheering him on, and he doesn’t doubt that geto would have loved you there too. he could have been the one to offer himself as the subject for a feature piece. he laughs to himself, thinking about your annoyance at that.

he would have loved to be with you from the start. he still worries about the couple of months you have left together before graduation, but he tries to push that away, thankful that he even met you at all.

he does his best to stay optimistic, knowing you’ll still be together after graduating. gojo will always be there for you, even if life has you in different parts of the world.

gojo smiles at this thought, feeling a blush spread across his face. squeezing your hand one final time, he snuggles even closer to you and slowly drifts off to sleep.

#jujutsu kaisen #jjk #jjk gojo satoru #jjk gojo #jujutsu kaisen x reader #jjk x reader #jujutsu kaisen fluff #jjk fluff #gojo satoru #gojo #gojo satoru x reader #gojo x reader #gojo satoru fluff #gojo fluff #gojo satoru imagine #gojo imagine

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dahliakbs · 23 hours

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Retired Villain

(⁠ ๑Batfam X Reader - Dick Grayson, Damian Wayne and Tim Drakeﾉ⁠♡ ⁠)

Masterlist

╠You'd put your reckless lifestyle behind in favor of living a boring civilian life, knowing that you wouldn't get anywhere in life if you kept getting beaten up and sent to jail over and over like it was the only thing life had to offer.

You thought that putting your past behind you and creating yourself a fresh start would finally put the bats off your trail...

But sadly for you, it had only taken your cities vigilantes about two weeks to find out where you lived.

Even though they'd found out where you lived and how you'd decided to turn your life around they didn't believe it.

And instead of taking the information at face value they'd decided to check up on you in person.

And that they did.

Now you would've thought that they'd leave you alone after just the first few times but no, they'd started popping up everywhere. Using the excuse of your old atrocities to monitor you almost every waking moment of the day.

And when I say every I mean every.

Your at the supermarket, buying food like everyone else and Nightwing just randomly shows up out of nowhere. Bugging you and using the excuse of monitoring you to justify his presence.

"I know times are dire but stealing milk from the supermart?" you could see his outline in your peripheral, propping himself up against the fridge next to you.

He's shaking his head playfully before moving to take your cart away from you. You knew he was aware that you weren't gonna steal anything but apparently teasing you was his new favorite hobby.

"For the last time, I'm not stealing anything from this store" you huffed before dumping the carton of milk into the cart he'd taken from you.

"This store, so how about the next one?"

You could already feel the gray hairs sprouting, it was like he was sucking all the energy out of you and you could do nothing about it.

Well, at least he helped you with the shopping right?

While your on your way making your way to work one of the Robins will just mysteriously appear next to you, specifically the youngest one. Always giving off a clear air of distaste towards your entire being but still accompanying you on your way to work.

"Don't you have school kid?" you ask, it was like nine in the morning and he was casually walking next to you as if he didn't have somewhere to be right now.

"I don't need to go to school, besides I'm stuck monitoring criminals like you" he stated and you could already feel him drilling holes into the side of your head.

This kid really has no chill...

"Well if it makes you feel any better I also don't like having people watch me 24/7" you could feel your shoulders sag at the thought of having to put up with the bat and his tiny army of children.

Even when you were simply relaxing in your humble abode they'd still had the audacity come ruin your little alone time.

You were just relaxing in your pyjamas, munching on some popcorn and enjoying the fact that for once you were finally all by yourself when suddenly a figure hauls themselves over the edge of your window sill and crashes onto the floor of your apartment.

Of course your quick to push yourself off your couch and grab a weapon from the hidden compartment in your chair only to realize that your intruder was just another one of batman's minions.

"Red, you can't be serious" you immediately drop you weapon and walk over to his crumpled form.

He looked like he just went through hell, which was pretty sad since you knew he was just a kid on the inside but batman's sidekicks always seemed a little on the younger side.

"Are you crashing for the night?" He'd already done this before, always denying the fact that he was staying the night but always ends up staying anyway.

"No, I'm not" he muttered to himself, crumpling even more into himself but flinching when one of his wounds comes into contact with his detached gear.

"Right, your monitoring me" you played along, allowing him to believe that he was leaving anytime soon but you could already see his body relaxing it self.

"By the way, your crashing on the couch Tonight" you'd at least allow him to stay somewhere in your house, knowing that the supposed 'Batcave' that they always spoke about was somewhere on the other side of Gotham.

He should be lucky that he's your favorite, because ain't no way were you allowing any of the other bats anywhere near your house. Let alone side of it.╣

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gyuvxx · 2 days

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Ghosting

Sungchan x Reader

ANGSTTTTTT SOWWY, fluff at the end, hurt comfort, self doubt, burnout, mentions of twilight

WC: 3k

pt 3 of my lil sungchan series. pt 1, pt 2

YN assumed that all was well in her relationship- situationship? Flirtationship?- the two had gone on their second official date, and hung out plenty of times beside then. She thought she and sungchan were doing great, until he stopped answering his texts.

They had just seen each other before then- he took her out to dinner and bought them milkshakes. He had spent the night in her apartment, as he had grown used to doing, and they fell asleep playing video games on her couch. He had left the morning after after giving her a kiss on the cheek and saying ‘Talk to ya’ later, cutie’

The first day, YN assumed it must be he’s away from his phone- he doesn’t have to respond right away, and she didn’t need him to.

But when another day passed, and then another, YN became skeptical. She began to criticize herself for texting him the usual good morning/good night texts when she got no response. Whe texted him asking if he was alright, but got no response. She asked him if he was going to a party Yunjin had invited her to, but her message was never read. She kept trying, but kept getting nothing. She felt pathetic.

Eventually the days turned into a week, and still no word from sungchan. It confused her- they had been so close for weeks before, why drop her now? A week turned into two weeks, and YN felt herself lose her will to keep trying. Too many texts left on delivered, too little communication to justify her continuing to text a ghost.

Had she done something wrong? She wracked her brain for anything she could’ve done to offend him, or make him upset, but couldn’t think of anything. She wondered if maybe he was talking to someone else or… maybe he just wasn’t interested anymore.

She thought about their times together, their first date that was so perfect she almost thought she dreamed it. Kissing him when he showed up at her door, or when they’d snuggle up on her couch and watch movies they never really paid attention to. It all left her wondering what happened. Why was sungchan suddenly MIA?

She just felt… useless.

YN decided to go out as a pick-me-up. Yunjin walked at her side, knowing of her struggle with sungchan, and more than willing to help her get her mind off things. Regardless of what was going on in YN’s mind, Yunjin was always a great pick-me-up.

“I mean we could go to a party tonight?” She suggested.

“You know I hate parties,” YN rolled her eyes.

“We wouldn’t stay long, plus, it’s a mostly girls party. It’s kind of exclusive,” Yunjin wriggled her eyebrows.

“I’ll let you know if I want to go,” YN replied, her arms locked with Yunjin.

“Well we gotta do something to get your mind off of sungchan,”

“Pffft, it’s not like it’s that big of a deal. I’m fine, I promise,”

“It certainly hasn’t seemed like it.” Yunjin watched YN tilt her head to the side. “You seriously haven’t realized you’ve been mentioning him non stop for days?”

YN paused for a moment. “I didn’t think it was that bad,” she mumbled.

“Oh, it’s bad bad. You can’t stop talking about it.”

YN looked down, embarrassed. “I’m sorry,” she muttered. She didn’t want to talk about it anymore, now feeling too exposed for how she had been really feeling.

Yunjin paused her steps, looking over to her friend. “Oh, no, don't apologize! It’s okay, I understand why,”

“I just feel bad, I really didn’t realize how much it was on my mind,” YN explained, staring at the pavement below her.

“It’s okay, really,” Yunjin assured her. “It just makes me sad seeing you so sad over a man,” She shrugged, squeezing YN’s arm reassuringly.

“I really liked him though… and I thought…” She trailed off, sighing and shaking her head.

“And that’s normal. It’s okay to be sad about stuff like this.” Yunjin told her. “Now perk up, cutie, We’ve got a weekend to waste, and a man to forget about.”

The Two walked around the market, looking at handmade goods, and fresh pick fruits and veggies. For a while, YN began to let her mind wander from Sungchan. She enjoyed her time with Yunjin, joking around and talking about drama that had been going on in recent weeks. It was easy to forget about things when she was with Yunjin, it was easy to forget all her sorrows.

They heard something from the distance, and perked up once more when they realized there was someone calling their names.

“Is that them? Yunjin? Yunjin!” someone shouted from the distance, weaving through the crowd. “It is them!” He called, tugging someone behind them. “YN, Yunjin!” They recognized shotaro at a distance, smiling and waving at them. YN froze when she saw who was right beside him.

Jung Sungchan. The man who had been ghosting her for two weeks.

YN turned to Yunjin, her anxiety clear on her face. “You’ll be okay,” Yunjin whispered, keeping their arms interlocked.

YN watched as the two of them approached, and almost immediately locked eyes with Sungchan. She stood there staring at him before tearing her gaze away and looking at the ground. WHen she looked up, Sungchan stood at a closer distance, a smile on his handsome face as he looked at her, holding his hand up in a friendly wave. If he hadn’t been ghosting her for weeks, her heart would’ve melted, she probably would have swooned. But alas, she was in no mood to swoon.

“Hey guys!” Shotaro greeted cheerfully. “It’s good to see you, we’ve been meaning to hang out,” He nudged sungchan, whose face dropped a bit when YN avoided his gaze.

“Yeah, it’s good seeing you guys,” His gaze was still fixed on YN, who had her phone pulled out, fingers typing away at something.

It wasn’t long until Yunjin and Shotaro fell into a comfortable conversation, and Sungchan took a step closer to YN.

“Hey,” He smiled, his voice soft.

“Hi.” YN replied shortly. Sungchan took note, shifting his weight a bit.

“Are you okay?” He asked, slightly concerned.

“Yeah why?” She lied, folding her arms.

“You just seem… more closed off.” He thought of their last time together, how close they had been, the stark contrast of this moment compared to then.

“Well sorry, I’m not sure how to talk to someone who’s been ignoring me for two weeks,” YN glanced at him, voice stern.

Sungchan furrowed his brows. “What do you mean?” He asked in confusion.

YN rolled her eyes, not wanting to continue down this path. “Yunjin, I’m gonna head home. I’ll text you about the party,” she said before turning on her heel and walking out of sungchan’s sight.

“So… why is YN mad at you?” Shotaro asked, taking a bite of his food.

Sungchan shrugged. “I really don’t know? It kinda confused me.” The look shotaro gave him told him to continue. “She said I’d been ignoring her,”

“Have you been ignoring her?” Shotaro asked, knowing the answer, but wanting Sungchan to hear the truth from himself.

The hesitancy Sungchan felt made his heart drop a bit, realizing that he had been ignoring her. “I… i didn’t think I was ignoring her,” He pulled out his phone to see the old messages he hadn’t taken the time to look at. “I didn’t really mean to,”

“Yeah, well, you did,” Shotaro sighed. “When did you last see her?”

“I forget, but it wasn’t that long ago,” sungchan answered.

“Okay… and when was the last time you texted her? When was the last time she texted?”

“She texted me a couple days ago…” Sungchan put his phone down, taking a few bites of his food, as if he could avoid talking if he had his mouth full.

“Sunghcan,” Shotaro looked at him with a disbelieving expression.

“This food is really good,” Sungchan didn’t meet his gaze, stuffing his face with more food.

“Seriously, when was the last time you hung out?” Shotaro asked once more.

“I don’t know, it couldn’t have been too far back,” sungchan shrugged. “I think… two weeks?”

“Two weeks????”

Truth be told, Sungchan had no intentions of ghosting YN. Hell, he barely realized he had been.

When Sungchan got focused on something, it was almost like everything in the world stopped existing. That something happened to shift from YN, to his upcoming exam. It was the majority of his quarter grade, and in his efforts to study, he had unintentionally ignored nearly everything around him. Shotaro had begged him to go out for an hour or two that day, which was a struggle in itself.

Needless to say, he had been burnt out, not even realizing it. He barely had been out besides classes, and his social life had taken a pretty big hit. He had been tired, focused so much on passing the quarters exam, that he neglected one of the biggest parts of his life.

He hadn’t realized until he saw YN, how little time he had spent with her. In his time away, he never had the chance to think about just how much he missed her. Sungchan hadn’t thought much about the girl he liked so much- not because he lost interest, but because he was buckling under the pressure of school.

Sungchan rubbed the bridge of his nose, sighing in his own frustration. “I know, I know,” he looked up at shotaro. “So?”

“So what?” Shotaro asked.

“So what should I do? I messed up,” Sungchan shrugged, looking at shotaro hopefully.

“Are you stupid?” Shoptaro asked. Before the younger could question his words, he said, “Apologize to her! You can’t get anywhere if you don’t talk to her,” Shotaro told him. “Make it quick before Yunjin gets involved.”

Sungchan Nodded. “Noted.”

When the two of them parted ways, sungchan walked with his hands in his pockets. He walked to his apartment, making a mental list of ways he could apologize, how he could make things up to her. He was never great at things like that, but he knew that he would change it for her.

When YN got home, her mood was brought down even more seeing there was still nothing from sungchan. It Was partially her fault, leaving before he could get a word in, but logic did nothing to brighten her mood. The worst part of the citation was how much it made her get into her own head.

She began doubting her bond with sungchan, doubting herself. Was she that forgettable that he could go weeks without talking to her and not even realize?

She sat down on her couch and pulled a pillow over her head, groaning into it as she laid back. In her own house, with nothing to distract her from her own doubts and fear, she felt the tears well in her eyes. It wasn’t her first experience with heart break, or with a failed relationship, but nonetheless, it hurt. She had let herself get used to sungchan, gotten her hopes up with him. Was she stupid to think they’d be more than a situationship? Tears streamed down her face before she could bring her hand up to wipe her face.

She thought back to their first date, and questioned how she ended up here. Crying on her couch because of a guy who wasn’t even her boyfriend. Crying over the guy who took her out for lunch and who she convinced to stay a little longer. Did it mean anything? Was this just how Sungchan was?

She wiped her tears and turned on her side, resting her cheek against her pillow as her phone lit up with texts from Yunjin.

Jen: you okay???

Jen: you left rlly fast

Jen: Did he do smth???? I can kill him

Jen: should I come over?

She sighed, not wanting to involve Yunjin even more in her boy problems.

YN: no i’m ok

YN: thanks tho 🙂

YN dropped her phone on the coffee table, closing her eyes and curling into herself. It wasn’t that late, but the tears streaming down her cheeks, and the flashes of her time with sungchan that came up every so often made her tired, made her want to escape.

Within a few minutes, she drifted off to sleep, not wanting to think about sungchan anymore, hoping her tears would dry themselves.

Hours passed, and YN woke up from her spot on her couch. Her back ached from the uncomfortable position, cheeks a bit puffy from crying. She went to shower, dousing herself in water to soothe her skin, and ease the pain that came from her uncomfortable sleeping position. She changed into pajamas, and dried her hair before putting it up. YN knew that since she had woken up when it was late, she wouldn’t be able to sleep well. Given that, she decided to treat herself. She wouldn’t go to another party with Yunjin, she wouldn’t spend her night crying over sungchan, she’d just let herself relax.

She reached for her phone so she could order herself some food, but a notification made her stop for a moment.

Channie <3: hi

Channie <3: can we talk pls?

Channie <3: i miss u

YN scoffed at the messages. Two weeks and her turning him down was what it took for him to take interest again?

She didn’t respond and placed an order for delivery. She had Wine in her cabinet that she saved for special occasions (or nights when she needed a little pick me up) and a pint of her favorite ice cream. She brought out her favorite blanket and sat down on the couch, trying to pick what she should watch, settling on twilight because what could take her mind off of things with sungchan better, than a YA romance movie.

She got up and grabbed the wine from her cabinet, pouring a bit into her glass and talking a few sips before reaching around for the ice cream in her freezer. In the midst of her search, she heard a knock on her door. Not realizing it was too quick to be her food order, she went over, and opened the door.

“Sungchan?”

He stood in the doorway, eyes wide, as if he had ran up the stairs like he had the night of their first date.

YN just sighed. “What are you-”

She was cut off when she felt his arms wrap around her, his head buried in her neck as if he wanted to crawl inside her. She heard him let out a shaky breath and her eyes widened, confused as to what was going on, and why he suddenly showed up.

“I’m sorry,” he said into her skin, arms tightening around her. “I didn’t mean to ignore you, I promise,” His voice was soft, almost fragile sounding.

YN was stunned for a hot minute, standing there and letting him hug her before hesitantly bringing her arms to wrap around him, relaxing into his grasp. They stayed like that for a moment before each pulling away. YN led sungchan further inside, leading him to sit on her couch. She sat next to him, an awkward distance away.

“What’s going on?” she asked hesitantly.

“I wanted to apologize, and like… explain why i ignored you,”

YN looked at him expectantly.

“So, I have a big exam coming up, and it makes up half of my quarter’s grade. And if I failed, my semester exam would also be sunk, so-” He paused. “Not important. When I get into something really intensely, I have a bad habit, that I’m gonna work on, of kinda forgetting everything else. Even Shotaro struggled to get in contact with me. He had to drag me out earlier today.”

He looked at YN and sighed, seeing her hesitant expression.

“I really am sorry that I hurt you. It wasn’t my intention, but I know I did, and I promise, I’ll make it up to you,” He reached for her hand lightly.

YN looked down at their hands. “I thought you lost interest in me,” She said quietly.

“What?” Sungchan asked, confused if he heard her correctly.

“I thought You lost interest. I thought you lost interest and started ignoring me.” She said a bit firmer.

Sungchan’s heart dropped hearing those words. “YN,” he brought his other hand to her cheek, tilting her gaze towards him. “What I did was a mistake. A mistake I promise, I won’t make again,” his thumb brushed her cheek. “And I promise, I swear on everything, I’m still pretty crazy for you,” He gave her a light smile.

His words made YN smile, intertwining her fingers with his as he leaned in to give her a soft kiss. They wrapped their arms around each other once more, not letting go of each other even as they just sat on the couch, covered by the blanket.

YN got up when she heard a knock on her door, much to sungchan’s dismay. She brought back the food she ordered, plus the ice cream and wine. When sungchan reached for some, she swatted his hand away.

“Thats not for you,” she shook her head with a playful smile.

“I thought you weren’t mad?” Sungchan sat up a bit, concerned.

“I’m not, but i ordered these for me,” She poked his stomach.

When Sungchan stuck out his bottom lip in a pout, pleading for some food like he had been starving all day, YN rolled her eyes.

“Fine,” she said, and gave him some food, and poured him a glass of wine.

They found their places back on the couch, snuggled up against each other, sungchan’s arm draped around her waist as she rested on his chest. In the middle of the movie, while the Cullens played baseball, sungchan spoke up.

He asked her, “Do you want to go on a date tomorrow?”

whoopee!!! I finished pt 3, stay tuned for the next parts, I pinky promise they'll come out sooner.

taglist: @oftenjisung , @vhuteryh, @skzhoe4life, @cheederzchez , @so-lychee , @leehanascent

#sungchan x reader #jung sungchan x reader #riize sungchan #jung sungchan #k labels #riize jung sungchan #sungchan oneshot #sungchan angst #sungchan #sungchan fluff #my love {sungchan} ☆.ᐟ #gyuvxx ᯓ★#⋆｡°✩riize #riize #riize oneshots #riize x reader

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genericpuff · 3 hours

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You know what do you think of hanza cancelling her own comic that is the guy upstairs? Like for me,I really really hope she's okay. And I know blacklightjack(he make a video about this) and the line he says about artists need to grow a thicker skin is just. I'm sorry like,look I get what he's saying but hanza have to cancel the comic because of toxic shippers. Sure,you can just ignore them and pretend they don't exist but they will still still still annoy you and h*rass you to the point you can't take it anymore and have to cancel the comic because of the whole goddamn toxic fanbase.

(as a Malaysian myself,I need to say this,I really hope hanza is alright. And in my language saya harap dia dapat bantuan Dan menjaga kesihatan sendiri)

So...

sigh I feel like this isn't the answer or essay you expected but I hope you're open to at least hearing it out all the same.

I do not think Hanza handled the situation in a way that benefitted her as a creator or her audience of people who genuinely love her work.

I DO think she was justified to be pissed off with the people harassing her. Those people suck ass and they're the definition of "this is why we can't have nice things."

But like... the notion of "you need to grow thicker skin" is true in being a creator who puts their work out into the world for an audience. Hear me out, this does NOT mean "creators aren't allowed to have feelings". But it does mean that you have to find peace with the fact that there are gonna be weirdos and assholes who take shit too far within your community. You don't necessarily deserve that. But you can't give those people power over you by going scorched earth in the way that Hanza did, because who does it really benefit? Hanza is now out a job and she's soiled her own reputation with her audience by basically going "FINE, because of these few people who were shit, NO ONE gets to have a good time!" And that's just... not a productive or healthy way to deal with these issues because it's just doing what those trolls and shitheads likely wanted. They wanted a reaction out of her, and she delivered it to them on a silver platter.

Like, I think of the dumbasses complaining about Hanza "taking advantage of the dark romance community" (she didn't, she just made a horror thriller comic that they felt entitled to see romance in) and guess what? Now those dumbasses have power over here because she ended the comic and in their heads, I'm sure they're thinking "good riddance". By choosing to not only end her comic, but spoil it entirely for her fans who were there in good faith, Hanza gave power to the people who weren't even a part of her target audience to begin with.

I do think it's ironic if people assume I'd automatically boo the "grow thicker skin" mantra because like, y'all... many of my complaints here are literally about people like Rachel who behave badly with their audience and desperately needed to grow thicker skin. In a lot of ways she's not even reacting to direct harassers, she's reacting to people simply discussing her comic in their own spaces which aren't mean for her. If she spoiled the ending of LO for her fans and ended the comic prematurely, I would feel awful, but... it still would have been her decision at the end of the day that she'd have to stand by and take responsibility for.

I think, at best, if I were to give her any unsolicited advice, she should have just put the comic on hiatus, taken a break, focused on her mental health and given herself enough distance to ask herself if she wanted to continue TGU. Maybe it still would have ended the same way, but at least she would have given herself the time and space to heal and rationalize her choices.

Instead, by choosing the nuclear option of spoiling the series for her readers and axing the comic - just to backpedal and go back to "no no it's just an indefinite hiatus!" - she gave up her power to the people who were harassing her. She reacted in a way that gave them power over her, not herself over them.

And I say this as someone who's currently on an indefinite hiatus with their main project, which I still have not spoiled for the 5 readers I have, despite the fact that I have zero clue when I'll return or if I'll even be able to. Whether or not Cyra and co. break out of the Reaper Society is now a 2 year old question.

I say this all as someone who has been harassed and is still harassed for doing what I wanna do. My first ever webcomic website when I was like 17 used to get emails and comments from shitty classmates and other local yokels who knew of me and wanted to pick fights over a teenager's dumb lil' gag comics. I kept making those comics anyways for myself and for the people who did like reading them, until I was ready to drop the comic on my own terms and move onto my next project, which would be Reaper. Reaper also got a lot of nonsense complaints and harassment. As did my fanfiction projects, as did my digital art, as did everything that I've ever put out into the world through the Internet, because the Internet just sucks for everyone always and then you die 🤣

And now, 10+ years later, I get the occasional "you're a shitty talentless person who isn't gonna amount to anything and yaddayaddayadda" which, to be fair, is a reaction from the folks who are unhappy with my intentions to make a Lore Olympus rewrite comic!

But I'm not going to give them power over me by stopping. I have a story I want to tell and if I stopped telling that story due to the shitty things they had to say and do, then I would be punishing myself and punishing my audience for the actions of a few bad apples. I do not deserve to have those abusive actions targeted at me (though they surely do and that's on them) and I do not have to put up with it, but I genuinely would not be able to live with myself if I gave them power over me by reacting in such an explosive way that my bloody remains land on everyone around me, including the people who were supportive and loved my work along the way.

There's this sort of mindfulness technique in stress and emotional management where you have to recognize that other people's actions are NOT your responsibility, but your REACTION is, because your reaction is what you can control and have power over.

Rachel Smythe finished LO in spite of what wackjobs like me said (and still say) about her and she has power in that perseverance, power that wackjobs like me cannot and *should* not try to take away from her.

mongie decided Webtoons was not suited for her work and vision and decided to put the comic on hiatus until she could get her distribution rights back and continue Let's Play on another platform. She has power in that decision and integrity, power that Webtoons cannot take away from her.

Whether or not you like my work, whatever opinion you have of it that you're entitled to, I have power in knowing that I started a project that I now love dearly and can take pride in, and has brought closure to people like me who were left disappointed by LO. I have power in that stubbornness and refusal to let other people determine what I'm capable of.

Even if you remove the external influence of the audience from the picture, we all have power as creators that we need to harness and take ownership in.

By going nuclear and spoiling her comic for her audience and ending it entirely, Hanza may have gotten the short term satisfaction of turning the school bus around to go back home, but she still disrespected herself and robbed herself of her own power as a creator which will ultimately stick with her far more than it will the harassers who will inevitably move on to some other target and forget she even existed. And that's a decision that she has to live with.

The harassers got under Hanza's skin and gave her more than enough reason to feel frustrated. But they did not spoil and end the comic. She did. And she is ultimately the only one who will have to live with the consequences of that.

I do hope she's okay and that she's getting the time and space she needs to heal from this. If this truly is the outcome that she feels gives her the most power, I hope she found strength in it, regardless of the opinions of people like myself that ultimately should not matter to her. I hope the people harassing her get what's coming for them whether it be actually getting called out or just the universe delivering karmic retribution on them. I hope Hanza can find joy and peace again either in TGU or whatever project she pursues next. But most importantly, I hope she finds the confidence and power she needs to stick to her guns and create what she wants to create, unapologetically.

"Growing thicker skin" doesn't mean we as creators have to be comfortable with abuse - it just means we need to do ourselves the honor and favor of making decisions that give ourselves power rather than giving it away to the abusers who do not have to live our lives at the end of it all.

And that is my very big bag of cents on that.

#ask me anything #ama #anon ama #anon ask me anything #webtoon critical

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panlight · 2 days

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Do you think that Charlie also undergoes retconning/revision as the series goes on? In Twilight he seems somewhat distant but still buys Bella a truck, worries about her, etc. By Eclipse he can't work a microwave and is (at least through Bella's PoV) an unreasonable brute of a man. Do you think that Meyer needed to make Charlie more distasteful to the readers so that Bella essentially abandoning him (and Renee) wouldn't come off so cruel/harsh? Or did she just evolve the character as she went to mesh better with New Moon and Eclipse, even when those new character traits DON'T mesh well with FD/BD? Charlie was still in Bella's life in FD and presumingly Nessie was also still named Carlie as well.

Charlie is interesting because if you think about the idea that it was originally just Twilight and Forever/Breaking Dawn, Charlie seems to exist mostly so Bella can move to Forks and be largely unsupervised. I mean there's a story there about a girl reconnecting with the father she barely knows, but that's not the story SM is interested in and for the most part is not the story she is telling. I'd argue the movies made a bit more of an effort there, or at least Billy Burke made people care about Charlie. I don't remember people being all that invested in him when it was just the books, but movie!Charlie is largely beloved.

But yeah I think a lot about Bella's homelife is the way it is so that choosing to become a vampire doesn't seem so terrible. If she were close to her parents, if she had siblings, hell if she had any actual human friends she cared about, that decision would be a lot harder to make and there would be consequences, things she had to give up. But she doesn't really have anyone. She likes Angela well enough, but doesn't spare her a second thought after the wedding. Her grandparents are dead, no cousins or aunts or uncles. No friends back in Phoenix. Just Charlie, Renee, and Phil. And she gets to keep Charlie and doesn't seem to care about Phil at all.

I think some of the problem with Charlie is that SM was going for humor. Similar with Renee, I never really believed he didn't actually know how to cook. I assumed it was Bella exaggerating for effect. I didn't actually think Bella was paying the bills and doing the grocery shopping at 10, either. But then we get Charlie not even knowing how to boil pasta or not to but metal in the microwave. Like he hadn't lived on his own for nearly two decades, like he hadn't cared for his parents? It's just "haha look how clueless he is!"

I do think his disdain for Edward is largely justified, though, given what he actually knows. The "break-up" after the baseball game where Bella ran back to Phoenix and ended up in the hospital, and then her depression when he breaks up with her again, then her disappearing for three days because he needed help. Yeah, I'd think this guy wasn't good for my kid, too. But because it's a romance and Bella's the narrator, she paints him as unreasonable and Edward being a saint for putting up with it.

I don't think he was retconned as much as Renee; I think they both started off as well-meaning but comically helpless/clueless and that Renee took a darker turn whereas Charlie may have benefited in later works from how beloved movie!Charlie is.

#asks #charlie swan

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bestworstcase · 2 days

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I can't remember whether you've answered this before, but. You postulate that everything Salem does in 8.9 after learning Yang's identity is a ruse to justify letting Yang and the others go free; that threatening Emerald is a deliberate attempt to provoke Hazel into attacking her so she has an excuse to turn her attention away from the prisoners.

My question is: Why does she need an excuse? Salem doesn't answer to anyone, and I can't see any particular risk in just saying "I've decided you're free to go, goodbye" and leaving the kids baffled. So what does she have to gain from... making herself seem more dangerous and unreasonable than she is? Not that I think she feels any hope she could convince the heroes she's reasonable -- as you've stated, Oz has done a very good job de-personing her for a very long time -- but I'm not sure why she would go to the effort of constructing an artificial scenario solely to make her enemies think she's more monstrous. What's her motivation here?

in the course of answering the question of her motivation i'm actually going to lay out my argumentation for reading the salem vs hazel fight this way, 'cause i don't think i've ever done so comprehensively before. (on tumblr, anyway.)

the foundational theory isn’t "salem did all this as a ruse to let her hostages go" but rather that this duel with hazel is a performative means to an end. and the reason i think that is the way the fight itself, along with the duel in the lost fable and the brief altercation with the kids preceding the fight, are choreographed.

to preface this discussion, rwby's fight choreography is subordinate to characterization. (this is less true in v1, wherein centerpiece fight scenes put a greater emphasis on style and spectacle, but from v2 onward there’s been an increasing focus on using combat to develop character.) team rwby vs ace-ops is a good example of this: ruby struggles in her matchup with harriet not only because she’s a grimm-fighting specialist whose main advantage (agility) is negated by her opponent being able to match her speed, but also because her heart isn’t in it; she pauses to plead with harriet to stop and think about what she’s doing and never really recovers her footing.

so my first presupposition is that salem isn’t an exception to this principle and her fight with hazel is not meant to just be a dramatic spectacle that Looks Cool but has nothing substantive to say about the characters involved. the writing and fight choreography are reliably cogent and i trust that the same amount of thought was put into this scene. i say this because i think "empty spectacle" is the only other way to parse what happens here.

now on to the most salient piece of context: we know that salem can fight well. because, as ruby puts it, we’ve seen what she’s capable of. the lamp showed us.

in the lost fable, we see:

salem and ozma fighting together, back-to-back, as they escaped her father’s fortress together.

salem stopping a nevermore the size of a commercial plane cold, and then crumpling it up like tissue paper.

salem matching ozma, a skilled, highly-experienced warrior who at the time had the combined might of the four maidens put together at his disposal, exactly blow-for-blow in their last duel.

nevermore crunch gives us a sense of not just the force but also the sheer precision of control that salem has over her magical power. the first fight tells us that even with no formal training, salem had the raw talent (and desperation) to keep up with ozma and hold her own against professional soldiers; the second fight tells us that by the time the ozlem kingdom fell, salem and ozma were equally matched in terms of skill.

the fanon idea that salem can't fight but won their duel by virtue of her invulnerability—whittling ozma down one lucky hit at a time—is a) contradicted by the swift and even back-and-forth volleys shown, and b) plainly at odds with the fanon nonsense that ozma spent most of the duel desperately and futilely on the defensive fighting to shield the girls from her onslaught.

from the tableaux in the second fight, it's hard to determine whether salem bothers with self-defense under normal circumstances (she doesn't, in the tableaux, but nor does ozma). but that in itself isn't a reason to presume a lack of skill in combat because salem has no incentive—other than pain avoidance, which given her extreme tolerance for pain isn't much—to fight defensively.

with all this in mind: we begin with her altercation with the kids.

salem enters the scene by exploding her way out of the whale. notice the kids knocked over like bowling pins on the left: oscar was standing approx. fifty-three feet away from the epicenter of the blast, measured based on salem being six feet tall. (<- with perspective taken into account. from wall to edge, the dock is 48ft wide)

emerald keeps her feet, perhaps because she knows better what to brace for; she's about the same distance away. in any case, salem's next move is to launch herself to the edge of the dock (again, a distance of 48ft—measured based on a different screenshot) and stretch to grab emerald in a fraction of a second.

ok. the women's world record 60m sprint is 6.92 seconds; this works out, rounded, to about 28.4ft/s. at that speed, you can cover forty-eight feet in about 1.7s; salem closes the distance in about half a second, which works out to 96ft/s. from a dead stop.

salem is could-probably-keep-up-with-ruby-rose fast.

next point. these two frames:

are a split second apart. the blast is aimed at ren and when jaune leaps in front of him, hits his shield right in the middle:

had jaune not gotten there in time, this would've hit ren squarely in the chest. in any case it hits with enough force to blast both boys off their feet and slams them into the flesh wall (roughly, eyeballing it based on several shots) 20-30 feet behind them hard enough to visibly strain jaune's aura. keep this timing in your mind for later. salem can fire these things off literally faster than you can blink.

the distance between her and ren at this point is approx. forty-five feet, again using the wide shot from earlier to measure. precise accuracy isn't impressive at this range necessarily but it's worth noting in relation to ren, who fires on her from the same distance, kneeling, with his fully automatics. every bullet goes wide:

& then salem whips around and noscopes him.

similarly, she sticky-hands yang in the face (catching her gauntlets only because yang throws up her arms to shield herself) while upside down with her eyes closed and paste for bones. she's a GOOD shot.

another detail to note here is the difference in salem's reaction to ren's attack versus yang's; ren fires on her, misses, she retaliates with her magical equivalent to his guns, but when yang punches bombs into her chest a second later, salem literally just stands there, even lowering her arm to let yang do it...

...and then after being blown up, rather than firing back with magic, snags yang and pulls her over to look intently at her:

we know that the reason salem grabbed emerald is with the intent to question her about what happened to the lamp, because salem concludes from the available facts that em must have stolen it. we also know that when ren shot at her, salem returned fire immediately, within a fraction of a second—this woman is inhumanly fast, and the time between these two frames:

is exactly equal to the time between these two:

what this tells is that salem did have time to blast yang in the gut with magic. through the whole sequence with yang punching her, salem is looking at yang's face, her gaze tracks down to follow her movement. she sees this coming and she's reacting to it, just making a deliberate choice not to retaliate.

and then she grabs yang.

this is the first weird thing salem does in this scene—every move she makes prior unambiguously follows from salem's belief that emerald stole the lamp and her desire to recapture oscar and take the relic back—and i don't think it's a coincidental that the weirdness begins with salem noticing yang...

...whom she saw like, two days ago rushing forward to comfort ruby after salem your mother-ed her to the ground. i've made this point before but prior to her arrival in atlas salem might at most have seen toddler pictures of these kids; ruby takes after her mother enough to be impossible to mistake for anyone but summer's daughter, but yang isn't even biologically related to summer. so salem wouldn't know her on sight. but this interaction a couple days ago would've given her enough circumstantial context to at least guess that this girl is summer's eldest.

so here, when salem sees yang and instantly flips from slinging bolts of magic around with enough force to break or at least visibly strain jaune's aura to sticky-handing yang to drag her over and grab her, the question is okay, why? why does that shift happen? what is it about this moment that alters salem's motivation? and because the situation hasn't changed whatsoever and there's no other reason for yang to have any significance to salem, the simplest and really only cogent explanation is her relation to summer rose.

onwards. salem isn't expecting oscar to zap her. you can tell because every time salem takes a hit on purpose in this scene, she either tracks her opponent's movements or visibly braces herself and neither of those things happens in the split second between oscar starting to fire and his blast hitting her; and also, she grunts in pain both when it hits her and when she doubles over afterward. given that oscar shouts at her first (so he has her attention) and what oscar and ozma say when they discuss the state of the merge in 7.13 and earlier in 8.9, i think it's pretty likely that salem didn't realize oscar could tap into ozma's magic and thus he caught her off guard.

also i'm not sure oscar realized he could do that until he did it. look at this boy. he's so busy going "wait what?" at himself that he doesn't even notice salem yeeting yang at him until a split second before yang hits him ->

that, or oscar's use of magic jostled oz to the front and neither of them were expecting that to happen.

at this point salem stops fucking around and pins everyone to the floor. and again this is something i want to emphasize because it is effortless for her. when she does this to hazel in 6.4 she makes a gesture with her hands, but here she just decides it's going to happen and it does. (which tells us that the gesturing in 6.4 is for show, just like flipping the table and raising her voice. she's exaggerating her irritation into this over-the-top anger for the sake of intimidating everyone else in the room. it's performative.)

anyway, she hangs emerald on the wall, conjures a ball of magic, and:

SALEM: What did you do with the lamp? EMERALD: ...N-nothing! [Salem leans in to hold the magic close to her face.] SALEM: It's missing. Where is it? EMERALD: I didn't do anything with it! SALEM: Where—[she lowers her hand, turning away]–is it?

ok. salem can tell when people lie. she's also grimm—she can probably sense or perceive emotion the way all other grimm do.

emerald isn't lying to her and salem knows she's telling the truth. the pseudo-repetition of the questions obfuscates this a little, because they're almost but not quite the same, but salem believes both of the truthful answers emerald gives her.

her initial assumption is that emerald stole the lamp and must have done something to hide it ("what did you do with it?"). emerald is startled, confused, and answers "nothing." salem explains why she's asking ("it's missing") and then asks if emerald knows where it is or who took it ("where is it?") because her next guess is that emerald conspired with somebody else who stole the lamp while emerald snuck oscar out.

when the lamp went missing, there were eight people on the whale: salem herself, hazel, emerald, neopolitan, oscar, yang, and these other two children whose names salem probably doesn't know. right before the seers sounded the alarm about intruders, salem encountered emerald and someone she thought was hazel in the corridor. at that point in time, salem expected hazel to still be interrogating oscar, as she's mildly surprised to see him: "ah, hazel. have you gotten what we need yet?"—and 'hazel' behaved oddly enough that salem was side-eyeing him before the alarm distracted her. her reaction to emerald a few minutes later ("you really have been honing that semblance of yours") confirms that she's figured out that 'hazel' was really oscar.

hazel assumes there is an alarm that will go off if they move the lamp, but he's wrong: neo swipes it seconds after they leave the chamber, and salem doesn't know anything is wrong until a) the seers alert her to the presence of intruders, several minutes layer, and b) she goes to personally secure the lamp and finds it already missing.

so salem does not know exactly when the lamp was taken, only that it happened before the seers sounded the alarm. that her suspicion falls first on emerald suggests that salem has—for whatever reason—already considered and ruled out the possibility that the intruders are the thieves (most likely, because the seer alarm calls convey more information than just "stranger danger!" and salem knows the intruders didn't get that far into the whale before being caught). plus by the time she's questioning emerald, salem has a) terrified emerald well past being able to maintain her semblance, which requires active focus, and b) visually confirmed that none of the intruders nor oscar are carrying the lamp with them.

ruling out emerald as the thief therefore leaves her with just two suspects: neopolitan, or hazel. now, salem does not have any reason to trust another of cinder's little pet illusionists, so on the face of it neo might seem to be the obvious suspect.

BUT.

salem expected hazel to be in oscar's cell at the time she unwittingly caught emerald in the act of helping oscar escape. and she knows that hazel is attached to emerald—that's why she punishes him for lying to her in 6.4 by forcing emerald to answer the question hazel tried to dodge, she knows hazel lied to protect emerald.

and emerald could not have freed oscar from his cell without hazel knowing about it.

based on the facts of the situation as salem understands them at the point when she turns away from emerald to ask, rhetorically, where the lamp is, there are only two possible explanations:

hazel stole the lamp while emerald helped oscar escape.

neo stole the lamp while emerald tried to sneak oscar out, either with hazel's assistance or while hazel was somewhere other than where salem expected him to be, doing something he shouldn't.

there is no way—no way—that salem does not realize, at this juncture, that hazel has most likely betrayed her. this woman is a clever strategist who has been running circles around ozpin and his inner circle since the show began and, while she lacks the charisma and social dexterity to be a truly masterful manipulator, she understands human nature and her manipulative tactics are always very shrewd. unless you're willing to assume that the writers just idiot balled her for the sake of the plot—which i'm not; rwby is too well-written—salem's assumption now is that hazel stole the lamp.

(which, she's wrong, but the underlying reasoning in how she handles the situation on the docks up to this point is an application of occam's razor; she begins with the simplest explanation and works upward in complexity from there, so she'd land on hazel stealing the lamp before she got to "neo stole the lamp, emerald freed oscar, hazel was doing something else.")

the shift in her tone as she turns away from emerald and the things she then says to oscar evince this also: her second "where is it?" is rhetorical. she knows that either hazel or neo has it, and hazel is the more likely suspect. since neither of them are here at the moment, but neither of them can leave the whale except through the dock, the question is no longer urgent. she has the situation fully under control. all she needs to do is wait.

so her attention shifts to oscar or ozma. (whether oz is fronting or salem thinks he’s fronting because oscar used ozma's magic is somewhat unclear, but given that she correctly identifies them in both 8.4 and 8.6 i'm inclined to think she’s right this time too, and oz got pulled forward by oscar’s use of his magic)

SALEM: Look how you've diminished. How you've lessened yourself—and for what? These children? This ruined world...? Why—do—you—keep—coming—back? YANG: Why do you?! [Salem glances at her, startled.] YANG: All of this endless death, just because something bad happened to you once upon a time? Nobody gets a fairytale ending! Everything I've lost—every person I've lost!—is because of you! SALEM: And who is it I've taken from you, girl? YANG: Summer Rose. My mom. SALEM: Hm. [amused] Her again?

as i said, salem already has reasonable confidence that this girl is summer rose's eldest daughter, but if she had any doubt or uncertainty prior she now knows for sure. "and who is it i've taken from you, girl?" is salem both engaging with what yang said to her and also fishing for a confirmation that she is who salem thinks she is, which yang obligingly gives to her.

so at this juncture salem now has three goals:

don't severely hurt or kill summer's daughter.

determine who stole the lamp and get it back.

recapture oz/oscar.

with the third being a means to the end of finding out how to access the lamp. this makes #3 the lowest priority, because there are at least six people who know the "password" (ozma, oscar, ruby, yang, and their two teammates) and if salem loses oz/oscar now she can still try to capture one of the other children later.

of the first two, which is more important doesn't really matter yet, because right now they aren't in opposition. she can accomplish the first by not doing anything to harm yang and the second by staying put until the thief—either neo or hazel—tries to get past her.

of course, then hazel IMMEDIATELY shows up. he is, remember, salem's primary suspect at this point and she knows that he, at a minimum, wasn't where she thought he was when emerald snuck oscar out of his cell. even if hazel doesn't have the lamp, salem has to consider him a possible traitor until proven otherwise because there is also this unspoken question of how emerald got oscar out. either hazel was incompetent or he was an accomplice.

salem wants to know which it is.

he walks onto the docks, greets her. salem glances over at him and sees that he does not have the lamp, so either he stashed it somewhere on the whale with the intent to sneak it out later or he isn't the thief. the question of how emerald got oscar past him remains. there is a possibility that hazel wasn't involved in the jailbreak or the theft—he's been in and out of that cell all day—and if salem makes this accusation and she's wrong, she risks losing his loyalty. right. like hazel is already terrified of her and she knows ozma has been feeding him bullshit all day about how she's bent on destroying the world, she walked in on that.

if she takes an aggressive posture here on the basis of an incorrect suspicion that's going to play right into ozma's hands by making her look unreasonable, untrustworthy, dangerous. even if he remains loyal in the moment, he'll have all of this in the back of his mind and he might turn against her at a more crucial juncture in the future.

salem is very risk-averse. she's not going to do that. so now she has a fourth goal: test hazel in a way that will strengthen his commitment to her if he remains loyal, or else force him to definitively prove himself a traitor.

when salem meets emerald and 'hazel' in the corridor earlier in this episode she says "ah, hazel. have you gotten what we need yet?" and then, after the seer alarm, "it seems we have guests [...] find them!"

when hazel arrives at the docks, salem says "ah, hazel. i found our guests." the intonation of "ah, hazel" is the same but exaggerated, and salem's taking "we have guests: find them" and flipping it around; "i found our guests." now, she's aware that the 'hazel' she spoke to in the corridor a few minutes ago was really oscar, so hazel doesn't have context for why this is funny. but she's making a sarcastic little joke at his expense about how she doesn't trust him now.

"ah, hazel" is how she greeted the false 'hazel' whom she did trust and told to find their "guests." she suspects that the real hazel was an accomplice to this scheme so she parodies that greeting and then makes a sardonic jab at him as if the false 'hazel' in the corridor were real and just failed so abysmally at finding the intruders that salem had to do it herself. and then she specifically draws his attention to emerald and goes "this one was helping them."

and this is the test, right.

before she asks emerald "what did you do with the lamp?" salem conjures up a ball of magic and holds it up where emerald can see. very unsubtle threat. she does the exact same thing here.

"this one was helping them," she says, magic crackling in her hand where hazel can see it. there is, again, a very unsubtle threat that she'll hurt emerald. and then she pauses for a solid three seconds, which doesn't sound like a lot but it's the similar in length to her other dramatic pauses like "find the girl that did this to cinder... and bring her to me" (~3.5s) and "before you go, inform tyrian... that i wish to have a word with him" (~2s)

in 6.4, salem asks hazel to give her a specific piece of information about cinder, and he tries to evade by saying "i take full responsibility," so she flips the table, pins him to the ground, and intimidates emerald into telling her instead, because she knows hazel is lying to shield emerald from the imaginary threat of salem's wrathful retribution.

in this scene, salem has emerald pinned to the wall and makes an implicit but extremely clear threat to hurt emerald because, she tells hazel pointedly, this one was helping the intruders sneak oscar, the boy hazel was supposed to be interrogating at the time, off the whale: SIGNIFICANT LOOK. DRAMATIC PAUSE.

this is the test. this is the test. the last time salem put hazel into a situation where he anticipated a punishment falling on emerald's head, he lied to try to redirect that punishment onto himself. if he tries to do the same thing now, he's either going to implicate himself as an accomplice, attack her, or exonerate himself by lying (because salem will know that he's lying if he falsely claims to have been in on it a la "i take full responsibility").

she's not making any accusations but she is giving him the chance to come clean. the last time this happened and he lied to her, she bullied emerald to punish him. the implicit promise she's making this time is that if he was also "helping them" and he tells her the truth now, she won't hurt emerald. if he gives her what she wants, she'll reward him with what he wants.

as. usual. she does not communicate this clearly enough for it to be effective (⭐️ SHE TRIED) and hazel doesn't give her anything to work with, just stands there silently, so... she escalates. "take the boy back to his chamber; i have work to do with this one."

if hazel's silence is because he's upset but still remains loyal, he'll obey and she'll know that she has a much firmer hold on him than she thought. if... he was involved, then his silence is because he's trying to figure out a way to salvage this situation. she still does not have absolute certainty. so she provokes him by raising the stakes and turning her back on him.

um, another noteworthy detail that i think supports reading "i have work to do with this one" as a performative threat salem's making to force hazel to make his loyalties clear:

salem touches emerald's face with this very ominous-looking magic crackling around her hands and nothing happens. the specific threat she's been making in this scene of "answer me or i'll burn your face with this nasty dark magic" is quite literally bluffing. it doesn't hurt emerald upon contact with her skin. emerald just experiences the untold horrors of salem grabbing her face.

HOWEVER. escalating in this manner a) takes the risk of hazel choosing to betray her for emerald’s sake right now even if he wasn’t an accomplice before, and b) insures that if hazel is already a traitor, there will be a violent altercation.

the former is a much less dangerous risk than alienating hazel if he's truly loyal by making open accusations (an immediate betrayal that she provoked and is prepared to handle vs a possible betrayal an unknown amount of time in the future which might catch her with her guard down). the latter is a problem, because there are children glued to the floor who will be in the crossfires of any fight, and one of those children is her general's eldest.

and this is where that second goal of "don't severely harm or kill summer's daughter" comes into play and comes into conflict with salem's need to recapture oscar & oz and recover the stolen relic. it's at this point salem has to make a decision about what to prioritize, and her choice is to—if hazel does what she expects him to do and attacks her—let the children go while she "fights" hazel, then pry information out of hazel once they're gone. so she reveals that her priorities are:

summer's daughter.

the lamp.

hazel's loyalty.

the lamp's "password."

also notice that salem does keep her implicit promise not to harm emerald if hazel gives her what she wants—she releases emerald, too, after hazel punches her. she's thinking ahead to what she'll do once the children are gone and she has hazel alone on the docks. by letting emerald and the rest of the children escape, she removes his motivation for betraying her: he no longer has anyone around whom he could possibly sacrifice himself to protect from salem, because all of them have made it to safety. now salem can pin him to the wall and start asking questions.

either hazel took the lamp and stashed it somewhere on the whale once he realized she'd caught the children, or neopolitan stole it and—if she's still aboard—will need to pass the docks sooner or later. so salem stays put, with hazel, until she has the lamp in hand again or knows where hazel hid it. summer's daughter is safe, hazel has no one to sacrifice himself for (and she has some leverage to counter ozma's lies; letting the children go is her proof that she isn't unreasonable), and salem has everything she needs to get the lamp back. she might have to capture someone again in the future to extract the lamp's password, but there's a chance hazel learnt it from oscar before the jailbreak and theft.

worst case scenario, neo stole it and escaped before salem intercepted the jailbreak on the docks, but at least by questioning hazel she'll be able to determine whether that's the case.

a partial victory is preferable to a loss, and knowing what to sacrifice in pursuit of one's priorities is important. this is salem's basic strategic philosophy and it shows through in her actions throughout this scene; she's making choices about what matters to her most and what she can afford to let go, always with the intent to achieve as many of her goals as possible, in descending order of importance.

with salem it's important to keep in mind that she thinks like this. strategic acumen is her greatest strength and being able to evaluate all of one's objectives in terms of priority, feasibility, and tactical means at once is a critical strategic skill. strategy is about the long term, big picture thinking, where salem excels. so she almost never does anything for just one reason; every decision she makes is a balancing act taking into account all of her important short- and long-term goals.

speaking of which, i've so far limited this discussion to her immediate objectives in this scene, but it's worth remembering that salem has long-term plans that she is working toward and her actions and choices in any given scene are mediated by the big picture; her inner conflict regarding cinder aside, salem is never going to do anything that achieves a short-term goal by harming her strategic ends (and her erratic behavior toward cinder arises from a conflict between her strategic ends and her increasing reluctance to treat cinder like a pawn, i.e. her big-picture wants and needs can no longer be easily reconciled.)

it's much harder to discern salem's long-term objectives because we don't really know what her plan is, except in the broadest strokes. but we can hazard a few guesses:

salem is very circumspect about what happened to summer rose; it may be necessary for her plans to preserve the heroically-martyred idea of summer rose—the most obvious reason would be that "summer was the best, and even she failed" is a very exploitable weakness in her opponents' morale.

if salem intends to confront the brothers face-to-face, using the final judgment as bait, and she fails, the only thing she can do that might prevent the gods from annihilating remnant is ensuring that everyone is rallied against her. forcing the truth of her existence into the open while performing to "monstrous evil witch bent on destruction of all things" expectations is the surest way to do that.

likewise, winnowing her own inner circle such that she is truly and completely alone by the time she has all four relics in hand may be part of the plan.

also worth taking into consideration are the ways salem's trauma circumscribes her decision-making. she is:

terrified of rejection.

terrified to care or admit to caring because the divine mandate is a justification and a threat of genocide strictly to punish her, and she knows it.

convinced that no one will ever truly care about her, hear her, or want to help her without getting something in return.

resigned to being seen as a monster no matter what she does, solely on the basis of her inhuman appearance.

all of these things predispose her to retreat behind her emotional walls and just reflect the expectations of others back to them. she's been viciously, brutally punished every single time she's tried to be authentic and vulnerable with others and it hurts less to shut down and be what she's "supposed" to be than to try and be cut down over and over again. this is a defensive learned response and it informs both her strategic planning and her tactical decisions; even in situations where breaking expectations and being emotionally honest might benefit her if people were to give her a chance, she's not going to do it unless she is really, really certain that she won't be punished for trying again.

now, to wrap this up, let's go over the fight with hazel.

i actually debate with myself a lot as to whether salem did or didn't anticipate hazel punching her, because she a) doesn't brace and b) cries out when his fist makes contact with her face, but i am certain that by this juncture salem did expect and was counting on him to do SOMETHING to stop her. the sequence of events is this:

salem approaches emerald while telling hazel, "take the boy back to his chamber; i have work to do with this one." after a brief pause, hazel answers "yes. of course," and begins to walk over to oscar. at this point, salem puts both of her hands on emerald's face and leans in to emphasize the threat, but still doesn't hurt her.

keep in mind that there is a significant distance between salem and oscar. relative to her position when she entered the scene, salem has moved (roughly, eyeballing) about thirty feet to the left and knocked oscar about the same distance from where he fell when she burst through the side of the whale. so they're still about fifty feet apart.

an able-bodied human walks about 4.2ft/s at a normal pace on average; hazel is quite tall—i believe word of god is eight feet, but he is NOT two feet taller than salem, the top of her head is level with his shoulder line, which if salem is six feet tall exactly would make him about 7'2"—which gives him a much longer than average stride, so we'll presume his normal walking pace is about 4.5ft/s.

when salem walks from emerald over to oscar, it takes her about twelve seconds. if we assume that her pace is the average 4.2ft/s, that would make this distance just about exactly fifty feet. 50ft 5in, to be precise. the consistency here between the visible spatial distance and the temporal distance suggests close attention to detail on the part of the creative team.

(salem returns from oscar to emerald, off screen, in about two seconds, but this is not problematic given her super-fast gliding pace—we can assume that salem slingshot herself across most of the distance and then walked the last couple steps.)

so at a normal pace of 4.5ft/s, it should take hazel about eleven seconds to walk from salem's side to where oscar is... and in fact it takes him exactly that: he begins to walk at 14:35 and stops in front of oscar at 14:46. again, the consistency is telling—particularly because there is no dialogue at all in this span, so how long it took wasn't dictated by the length of a spoken line.

hazel picks oscar up, murmurs "no more gretchens, boy," into his ear, pushes the long memory into his hands, and then drops him again. this takes another ten seconds. hazel turns away from oscar and begins to walk back toward salem at 14:56, punching her at 15:04, so his return is faster but within the range of a brisk walking pace (eight seconds, fifty feet, approx. 6.3ft/s).

the reason i'm belaboring this point is that salem says "i have work to do with this one," and then... stands there without doing anything except holding emerald's face menacingly for a genuinely awkward amount of time. thirty-one seconds, counting the beat before hazel began to move. it's not even clear that salem said anything to emerald—when hazel turns away from oscar and the camera cuts back to emerald and salem, em blurts out "i really don't know!" but whether this is in response to another question salem asked off-screen or just responding to what she assumes salem wants from her is ambiguous.

compare the way salem questioned emerald earlier in this scene: she asked two questions, one after the other, confirming that emerald didn't take or hide the lamp and doesn't know where it is. as soon as it became clear to her that she wouldn't get useful information from emerald—because em truly did not know anything—salem dropped it and moved on to Plan B. she doesn't LIKE emerald and she's ANGRY that em tricked her and helped oscar escape, but what salem CARES about is finding out what happened to the lamp. she's not going to waste her time trying to get blood from a stone.

and compare the way salem conducts herself when she interrogates oscar in 8.4. again, her questioning is guided by practicality, but the more salient point of comparison for this discussion is what salem does when she shifts gears to punishment and torture. namely, she just tortures him. no hesitating, no warnings, no threats, no grandstanding, she just turns around and does it. practical, again.

if what salem intended to do at this point in the scene was torture emerald, either to punish her or for information, she would do so.

instead, salem just...clutches emerald's face. evilly.

for thirty-one seconds.

now, i will remind you that salem has excellent spatial awareness; she sticky-hands yang from at least ten or fifteen feet away while upside-down with her eyes closed. hazel's footsteps are clearly audible. when hazel enters, salem hears him speak and answers him across this fifty-foot span. oscar cries out when hazel picks him up and grunts in pain when hazel drops him, which also makes a quite loud thud. hazel's footsteps would also be audible to her when he returned, although they aren't to the audience.

so she'd be able to sense hazel approaching her again, and if she paid attention—which she must have, because salem's just spent half a minute doing the bare minimum to sell that she's toootally going to start torturing emerald, any second now, and the only reason for her to do that is if this is about intimidating or provoking hazel—then she would have at least heard him dropping oscar, so she knows he isn't "taking the boy back to his chamber" as ordered.

ok.

when the focus shifts back to them, salem's got emerald like this:

this shot is at 15:01.167. hazel will punch her at 15:04 exactly, which at his brisk pace of 6.3ft/s means he's about eighteen feet away. around 15:02.750, when hazel is less than eight feet away from her, salem begins to pull back, lifting her arm as if preparing to strike:

she holds this pose without moving for almost a whole second. remember just how fast salem can be. her release when she fires back at ren, from the moment she begins her 180° spin to the moment the opalescent bolt leaves her hand, is sixteen frames. from the appearance of the black/violet magic bubbles to the release of the opalescent bolt is one frame. ONE.

when she reaches this position, hazel is quite literally right next to her. he cannot be more than three or four feet away, and we can see in both the initial shot and the replay from the opposite angle that he comes at salem directly from the side, not from behind her.

the point is that salem can see him. unless you have vision problems impacting your peripheral sight, even if you're looking straight ahead, as salem is here, you can visually detect motion directly to the left or right within a close radius. and indeed:

salem's gaze flicks to the side before his fist makes contact, and the wider shot from behind shows just how close he is to her before throwing the punch.

and the last detail i want to note regarding the punch is that salem lets go of emerald when hazel hits her, which is something that she does NOT do when yang blows her up:

if salem can remain standing and keep her death grip on this girl's arm while her ENTIRE TORSO IS EXPLODED WITH BOMBS, it... does not matter how strong hazel is or to what degree salem may have been caught off-guard. she had at least a split second recognition before his fist hit her face; that alone is enough to reflexively clamp down on emerald's jaw if she didn't want to let go.

so whether or not salem anticipated that hazel would punch her in the face specifically—and it doesn't seem like she did, given that she yelps—she must have had at least a vague awareness of his presence/approach (because he marched right up to her), and she made the choice to just ragdoll with the hit. the simplest explanation is that once she heard him drop oscar and start power-walking back toward her, salem knew he was going to try something to save emerald and committed to the bit.

she also isn't actually ragdolling; she lets the force of hazel's punch throw her off her feet, but then instead of falling she soars away in this high arc, flips herself around in midair, drops down in a perfectly-controlled landing at the far end of the dock, and rises again:

ok? ok. this sequence, from the end of the slo-mo reaction shot to when salem reaches altitude, runs 15:08 to 15:11—three seconds.

and then she just, erm...hangs out there, not doing anything, until hazel finishes cramming dust into his body and turning his back on salem to give his heartfelt last goodbye to emerald and everything, and faces salem again at 15:41. at which point she says "so, you've decided against vengeance for your sister, after all this time?"

thirty. seconds.

during which the ONLY ACTION salem takes is this... this:

<- make a particular note of how jaune reacts. the tactics guy. while the other kids gasp in shock/relief, jaune is like "wait what?" as he pushes himself up to look at salem—he's confused, because he knows intuitively that Something Weird just happened.

why did she do that?

she didn't need to. it wasn't an accident. salem manifested these sigils with a mere thought, and later in this same scene we'll see her do that again right after hazel smashes her head like an egg. summoning these things also clearly doesn't inhibit any of her other powers, so this is effortless for her and costs her nothing to maintain.

either happened by narrative fiat, because the kids had to escape and the writers just couldn't be bothered to figure out how. the... problem with this explanation, aside from the obvious that rwby is a well-written story that doesn't pull this sort of bullshit, is that the prelude to the big fight makes a HUGE POINT of,

this! oscar is already free and has long memory. if the intention is for the kids to escape while hazel keeps salem distracted, you don't need a narrative contrivance like this; you just slip in a shot or two of oscar snapping these grimm hands or disarming the sigils with his own magic to release his friends instead.

orrr... salem let them go on purpose.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

wheeze. ok. we're almost done.

remember how salem can go from empty fist to black magic bubble to releasing an opalescent blast in just three frames?

this first shot is at 15:49. the second is at 15:51. in between, salem just kind of sways side-to-side and then waves her arms around for forty-five frames. even if we count only from her conjuring of the Big Bubble at 15:50, it's twenty-two frames—longer than it took her to snap around and fire off a blast that hit her target dead-on and slammed two teenage boys into a wall some 20-30 feet back.

woman's telegraphing harder than a dark souls boss here.

and speaking of aiming...

these are the three bolts salem fires in the wide shot. top row on the left is her first shot in the instant before hazel begins to run up the slope—i've marked the trajectory and the eventual point of impact in green to make it easier to see that this would not have hit him even if he hadn't moved. top row on the right is the real impact, with hazel now running. on the bottom row are her next two shots. one strikes the edge of the dock nowhere even close to him, the other hits the ground about 8-9 feet in front of him (measuring based on hazel being 7'2" tall). and in the next shot:

it's not that she never hits him. hazel is quite a bit farther away from her than ren was and he's also running at a dead sprint while dodging blasts. tricky target. it wouldn't be strange at all if she missed.

but look at where she is aiming.

top row: both bolts strike the ground 1-2ft directly ahead of him—in the shot on the left, he's veering closer to the wall to avoid stepping on the point of impact. bottom left: this is a second bolt aimed just a little bit forward and 1-2ft out from the wall relative to the top right; these two bolts strike eight frames apart and hazel lunges sideways toward the dock's edge as the second one comes into frame, so when salem fired the second one, hazel was still where he is in the top right. and (the clincher) bottom right: this bolt strikes six frames after the one preceding, 1-2ft directly in front of him, and hazel swerves toward the wall to avoid stepping on the point of impact; notice the correction from #3 to #4 when hazel swerved more toward the ledge than salem anticipated.

not a single one of these bolts is actually aimed at hazel. salem is aiming to hit the ground directly in front of hazel, close enough to convince him that she means to hit him but also low enough that if she misjudges his speed she's going to strike his ankles... and when one blast nearly hits him in the head or chest because he jumped further sideways than salem guessed he would, she instantly corrects her aim to ankle-height again.

she is herding him.

up the docks, closer to her, away from the children, all while taking care NOT to hit him without being obvious about it.

this is the same kind of behavior we see from her in 6.4, where she's at worst a little vexed but flips a table and shouts and throws him to the ground as if she's in a terrible fury—and then a minute later hazel tells her something that genuinely infuriates her and we see her freeze while the windows start to crack, before she sends them all out of the room and struggles to press this rage back down.

because there is a huge difference between the loud, explosive "anger" salem performs to intimidate her associates and her real anger, which she tries very hard to contain.

in a similar vein, we get this fleeting glimpse of salem's actual skill in combat when she spins around and blasts the boys into a wall in the time it takes to blink... and then she sees yang, and the key changes. instantly. for the rest of the scene.

onward. hazel vaults over salem's final bolt and launches three fireballs at her. as these spiral up toward her, salem threads herself between them like they're not even there—it's really fast, the whole sequence from when the fireballs form in front of his fist to when she slings past the third one is forty frames and if you count from when the first fireball enters the frame, her evasive maneuver is over within twelve frames. as she continues past the last fireball, salem swings her arms to finish her movement, as if she's going to lash forward and fire off a riposte:

but then instead, she re-centers, pauses, and does... this:

which i'm sure looks very impressive and terrifying for everyone on the ground, but she is... literally just tossing magic around in random directions. this is not an attack. this is a light show. a firework. her big swarm of magic bubbles spits out of of the opalescent bolts and only one hits anywhere close to hazel. she is just fucking around.

from here, hazel sprints to the edge of the dock and launches himself into the air above her, where he dust-conjures a biiiiig spiky boulder to smash her with... and, uh. three things. first:

this shot occurs in slo-mo to really underscore what happens here. note that salem is looking up at him and has a firing bubble ready to go. hazel is approx. twenty-eight feet directly in front of her (measured in salems); a few minutes ago we've seen her be dead accurate at just a bit more than half again that distance, and we know a blast from her has plenty enough force to knock hazel out of the sky. from the beginning to end of this shot her head moves as she tracks his motion.

she has a clear shot lined up here. she chooses not to take it. then:

hazel conjures The Boulder, and we get this shot of salem's reaction—from waiting indifferently to see what he'll do to wry amusement. and then she physically braces herself to take the hit:

after which point salem just Lies There letting him pummel her for a few seconds before evidently deciding that she's done enough fucking around for those children she let out of gay baby jail about sixty seconds ago to have gotten away so she'll just flick her fingers (while her skull is caved in and her brains are splashed all over the floor, mind you) to pull some more grabby hands out of the air and wrap this one up except—

—NO WHOOPS THEY'RE ALL STILL HERE. lol.

like the fight is over, when the camera cuts back to the kids. salem has hazel completely immobilized. jaune is at the other end of the docks, shouting for everyone to hurry. "she'll just come after us," oscar says, but if salem cared to recapture any of them she would've left hazel restrained and dropped down off the dock to scoop them up as they hit the ground.

she's visibly irritated after regrowing her face, yes. but we have seen over and over—there are multiple examples in this scene alone—that salem can and will set irritation aside to focus on what doing what is necessary to advance her practical goals. she's poisonous with emerald but asks her two questions and then turns away as soon as she's confirmed that emerald doesn't know anything. she takes a deep breath and shelves her fury at ozma to listen calmly while yang yells at her. salem just isn't a character ruled by her anger.

so the fact that she a) continues to focus all of her attention on hazel after restraining him, and b) actually hurls him out of the restraints, in the opposite direction from her escaping prisoners, and turns away from them to just bash hazel's face repeatedly into the floor, suggests to me that her annoyance is perhaps more because these children are STILL FUCKING HERE and she needs them to be gone before she can start to properly wring the truth out of hazel.

she pays zero attention to the children until she hears long memory activate, which seems to startle her; after that she straightens up and stares him down for about four seconds.

they're about ninety feet apart here. salem covers a just over half that distance in two seconds... meaning she is gliding at what is for her a downright leisurely 24.5ft/s. that's a little bit more than a QUARTER of her top speed which is, in case you've forgotten whilst reading this very long post, 96ft/s. or 65mph.

(and here i will remind you that the walking speed distance math earlier checks out perfectly with the measurable spatial distance between emerald and oscar. this scene was choreographed and animated with very close attention to time and distance and i think that's because the speed at which salem does certain things at different points is doing a lot of narrative work. it's seldom necessary to be this precise but in this scene it matters.)

the point is that while salem does slingshot herself at oscar pretty fast here, relative to how much faster she CAN go, salem isn't trying especially hard to Get Him. this is like a brisk jog for her.

now granted, if hazel hadn't scraped up the wherewithal to, i assume, yeet himself after salem with all the dust cooking his body from the inside out, oscar would have been toast whether salem zipped along at a normal human sprinting pace or clotheslined him at car-on-a-highway speeds. but it does speak to the intensity of salem's interest in getting oscar in this moment versus when she went for emerald at the top of the scene.

salem had, by this point, already given up recapturing oz/oscar as a loss, accepted sacrificing the opportunity to do that as a price she was willing to pay for the sake of 1. getting summer's daughter safely off the whale and 2. after clarifying hazel's loyalties, removing the children from the equation so she can squeeze him for information about what happened to the lamp. i think the possibility that oz/oscar might have shared the "password" with hazel when hazel decided to help them escape would've at least crossed her mind as soon as she narrowed her list of suspects down to hazel and neo, too.

there's also the factor that with hazel now compromised, the only person around to interrogate oz/oscar is salem herself, and because that would involve being in the same room with and talking to ozma for an indeterminate amount of time, i don't think salem's all that keen anymore.

thennnn hazel sets her on fire and she screams and thrashes because she's having traumatic flashbacks to the moonfall and then oz blows her and her whale the fuck up.

thank you for coming to my tedtalk.

#TOO LONG DIDN'T READ:#she's balancing between two main goals #(get yang off the whale & determine #who took the lamp and where it is)#both of which can be advanced at once by #manipulating hazel in this specific way #for reasons that i discuss at extravagant length because 8.9 lives rent free in my head

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