san 🀄

meanwhile, bum is absolutely seeking a more traditional sexual relationship and is unaware of sangwoo's perspective.

i hate how people talk about him calling bum mom during sex because everyone just sees it as a kinky thing and ignores the fact that the whole chapter is like a waking ptsd nightmare. leading up to that, there's so many parallels between bum and eunseo. he's wearing her old apron, he asks to call sangwoo by the same romantic nickname eunseo used to use on him, and other subtle things that would tie the two together.

leading up to this, sangwoo has been going THROUGH IT thinking about his childhood in general and why his life led up to this point. a lot of this centers around his mom. his childhood was full of emotional incest, sexual abuse, witnessing domestic violence, and just general awful treatment from his mother who he cared too much about to refuse.

because sangwoo has been tweaking for days over this, he insists on not making eye contact while he has sex with yoon bum. not only that, but just not seeing his face whatsoever. people normally say that's also because he's dodging the gay allegations, but it's because bum looks like his mom. sangwoo wants to have sex in order to establish some sort of control and feel in power over the idea of his mother. but bum switches to a position where he is on top of sangwoo, the same position he was in when his mom sexually assaulted him.

Now that we have seen Great's experiences in the original timeline and get to see more of Great's "true" character, I feel like people are really misunderstanding him and his behavior. I see a lot in the tags about his actions being that of a spoiled and selfish asshole rich kid--and he probably is--but I think there is more going on here.

Maybe people aren't seeing it because they haven't personally experienced this, or at least not in this particular way, but I have: Great is depressed.

Depression doesn't always present as rotting in bed and being unable to perform basic self-care. Sometimes depression can look like a generally functional person, who underneath the facade is numb, self-destructive, apathetic and overall disregarding of his or her own well-being. Depression can feel like you are anesthetized to reality, like there is a barrier between you and the world around you. You aren't fully present, things don't fully feel real; even your reaction time can be slower (ex. Manee, Dome, Nan).

I believe that Great doesn't appear to care about anything that's happening because he is experiencing all of the above, and is also maybe a little manic (judging from his impulsiveness).

There are clues that he is indeed affected by what is going on: he can't sleep, he needs anti-anxiety meds, he's drinking alone. He doesn't express this more obviously because, as we've seen, no one in his life really gives a shit about him. Not his parents, not his friends. Who is he going to talk about his feelings with? Korn might be the exception, and we do see that they spend time together, but Korn also has a lot going on; he doesn't have a ton of time for Great.

It seems like Great has been emotionally neglected for quite some time. He desires acceptance, love and attention from his parents so badly, but he only ever gets scorned and rejected. A situation like that is the perfect cocktail for depression.

The biggest indicator for me that this is not some cut-and-dry case of rich kid entitlement is that, in the 4 minutes timeline, Great expresses a different personality. He is not just going over his past decisions that led him to this point of near-death and correcting them, he is also adorning these visions with the things his heart yearns for. He gets to be softer, more open, more vulnerable. He reaches out for connection, care and intimacy with another person and finds it returned. He (ironically) starts to come more alive again inside as the clock ticks closer to his death.

I think 4-minutes Great is who Great could be (or thinks he could be) if given the opportunity. Someone who is braver, more upstanding, more gentle, more sensitive. Someone who gets to go on cute dates with cute boys and take home matching cat doll souvenirs. Someone who gets to have tender sex in a glamping tent with soft lighting.

Since we essentially were in Great's head and he was trying to edit his own past, it revealed so much more about him in a way we would've never known with just the original timeline.

He wants his brother to care for him. He wants sweet, playful dates. He wants to see Thyme smile. He wants to innocently hold Thyme's hand and get his potential first kiss with him interrupted by Thyme's grandma. He wants their first time to be sweet and loving. Just for them. He wants Thyme to listen to him, understand him. He wants Thyme's eyes to soften.

Everybody has wondered why their scenes felt so disjointed but this explains it so much.

Great doesn't think, even in the depth of his subconscious, that his dad could change. Or his mom. Or even his brother. He doesn't crave for his family to be different. Or rather: He can't even possibly imagine that happening in any timeline. His circumstances stay the same.

Every bad decision Great makes, he still makes in his fanfic timeline. But he gets a chance to change it. He's forced to look at his own inactions and the consequences. He's not getting away with his passiveness anymore.

Great's achilles' heel is not that he gets off on hurting and using people. That's not who he is. He doesn't crave his father's approval (like Korn does), he doesn't want people to obey him and hurt them (like Title does) and he's not interested in portraying a certain image (compared to his parents).

Great revealed his deepest desires to Thyme in his wishful timeline: He's just lonely. He just wants to be loved. He wants someone to see him.

And yes, he's definitely spoiled and he's a coward. His achilles' heel is his own cowardice, his inability to decide something for himself, to be ACTIVE and not just passively react to things and let other people decide FOR him. He excuses his own actions with his passiveness because that's just the way he was taught. (Korn said it in the last episode: He will do the dirty work and Great can just blissfully live like everything's fine.) He's deeply anxious, reckless and almost numb to things around him before he meets Thyme in his original timeline.

He just accepts things for the way they are. And because he's surrounded by awful people, he became awful himself.

But original!Thyme miscalculated Great. Because Thyme himself is a morally grey person and hurts the people around him for his own gain (regardless of his motivations being right or wrong). He saw Great as a tool, as someone to use. He was too wrapped up in his own mission, his obsession with getting justice that he wasn't able to see Great for who he could potentially be: A person to love.

They could've been each other's salvation but instead become each other's tragedy.

Isn't that so sad? Thyme used Great and preyed on him. In the original timeline they maybe had like...what....one hour of genuine connection?

“ บ่อน้ำ : c'est mon anniversaire... Oh! — 🥞

∗ 🎧 ethereal! 探す ɞ ๋ ̥ ○

My boy. <33