#everything cale does changes everything basically

As those who finished reading TCF Part 1 know (spoiler alert); Cale Henituse got his knowledge about the world he got transmigrated into from a series of books called "The Birth of a Hero", by "Nelan Barrow" – aka. Choi Jung Gun, Choi Han's uncle.

CJG wrote them as a "guide" for Choi Jung Soo, Kim Rok Soo's friend, who was originally supposed to be the one transported into that world to help Choi Han defeat the White Star. Plans changed, however, when he and Lee Soo Hyuk altered fate and saved KRS's life, at the cost of their own. So KRS-turned-Cale took CJS's place and the TBOAH series served as a guide for him, instead.

There are still many questions unanswered about this whole thing. For example: how did CJG know all the things he did? The novel was supposedly from TBOAH!Choi Han's point of view, and yet, it had some inexplicable details… like how to earn the Indestructible Shield (which supposedly was never gotten by anyone), or Harol Kodiang parentage – why mention such a thing at all? Was Harol somehow important in the TBOAH verse later on?

Or another example: why didn't the books mention the White Star at all? Surely, if past-volume-5 Choi Han's knowledge was given to CJG to write about, shouldn't he first and foremost explain to CJS who the Final Boss is and how to defeat him??

Or another: why was it so important for CJG to tell his grand-nephew just how pretty the Whale People are???

So many unanswered questions!!

Today, however, I will be focusing on topic of them in particular:

Was TBOAH's narration actually, 100% correct?

Here's the thing: I was re-reading one of my favorite fanfics recently, "In an Instant" by Messy_haired_bum on AO3. I got to the chapter where a certain part of TBOAH came up – namely, "the Last Survivor of the Wolf Tribe", the Wolf King Lock. The characters in the fic discuss a particular problem with that title: Lock wasn't the last Wolf.

Or, well, he wasn't supposed to be.

Arm's goal in attacking the Wolf Tribes wasn't exterminating them at all – it was abduction of their children. Lock's siblings, by all account, should have gotten kidnapped in TBOAH verse, not assassinated. It is important, because later on the races "abandoned by the gods" – like the Wolf Tribe, Vampires and Dark Elves – were meant to be used as sacrifices to the God of Despair, to summon the 8 Unranked Monsters from the demonic statues in Endable, as well as the Temple of the Sealed God in Puzzle City. Lock was part of the team who managed to rescue some of the abducted Wolves, himself.

The problem is this: did the TBOAH!Lock not know about the abduction somehow, only assuming he was the last one when that wasn't the case… or was the TBOAH's narration wrong, for some reason?

The characters in the fic are torn on the issue – neither argument supported by the omniscient narration (which was a clever move on the author, that's why the writing's so great in this) – and the two Locks despise each other: TBOAH!Lock believes his counterpart to be weak, while TCF!Lock thinks the other him was blind and failed to notice his siblings getting abducted.

However, there is a third option. Which is a theory I've had for a long time.

I do not believe that CJG's writing could actually be 100% correct – especially where it comes to subjective stuff, such as beauty or people's personal beliefs. He clearly has some idea of his character's motivations and personalities, and yet he had no idea about OG Cale throwing his reputation for the sake of his step-brother Basen.

On the other hand… I think CJG got his objective facts right, such as the order of events. Even if the timeline wasn't explained to Cale as clearly as he would have wished – causing him to encounter the Whales in the Ubarr Territory, despite visiting the shore way earlier than the events of TBOAH's volume 5… Still, CJG never wrote any lies. Sure, TBOAH!Lock believed to himself to be the last member of the Wolf Tribe when that clearly wasn't the case. However, I think the attack on his village could have been a complete assassination after all.

How, do you answer? One word: Redika.

Redika was the one who attacked Lock's Wolf Village in both TBOAH and TCF, but his actions could have been different in the two timelines. Why...?

...Because of Raon, of course.

Think about it: Cale's actions caused massive differences from the very beginning. From Choi Han's relationships, to the survival of the nameless village where Raon was being tortured at. However, most people forget that there was an important link between Raon and Redika. Redika was the one who sold the Black Dragon Egg to Marquis Stan – and the thing is? He wasn't supposed to do it!

No, in fact, the Black Dragon going on a rampage and dying at Choi Han's hands? It probably gave Redika a lot of trouble! Because he was never supposed to sell that egg!! It never should have been in his posession at all!!!

The Dragon-Half Blood, which was presumably Redika's teacher in magic, gave him the Black Egg in secret in order to "dispose of it" – aka. protect it. Redika agreed, then double-crossed him by selling it to a random low-ranked Arm member (because let's be honest, the Stans couldn't have been high in that hierarchy) for some BIG CASH. Everything went down well under the table of course, so he was pretty confident there would be no bad consequences for him.

...Except, he Dragon escaping and revealing himself in such a public way?? No way he could have covered it up! Redika was probably sweating bullets when he found out! If someone connected the dots about him being involved… oh boy. If the Dragon Half-Blood heard about it, Redika would be good as dead. If the White Star heard about it… he'd be worse than dead.

And I bet the news reached him juuust around the time he got the mission to abduct some Wolf Tribe children. What would a psychopath do in such a stressful situation?

Why, murder a bunch of children, of course!

It makes 100% sense. Maybe Redika didn't kill all the children in TBOAH – maybe it was just some of them. But it was enough to make Lock and others convinced that Arm's goal was assassination. Redika went on a rampage to let off some steam, and probably killed more of the "seeds" than he should have on this mission. He'd probably get even more in trouble because of that, but hey – YOLO, am I right?? 😂

I mean c'mon, it's not like Redika was a particularly restrained guy.

Of course, there were other factors: such as Choi Han and Rosalyn arriving earlier than in TBOAH, thus saving more lives. But I'm pretty sure that Redika's actions were different in TBOAH, as well. There's no way he would be unaffected when he about the Black Dragon escaping in TBOAH. The butterfly effect in TCF is super strong. If tiny differences like Choi Han not beating up Cale resulted in his actions being different, why wouldn't the same apply to other characters? We all know the moment Cale transmigrated, the whole thing went of the rails.

His whole explanation for his very clear self sacrificial tendencies is the fact that whatever he's sacrificing, he believes he can go without

I'm currently re-reading the god of despair arc and his conversation with jang man soo caught my attention

Krs slept in the corner of the shelter where rain kept leaking in, at first i thought it was because park jin tae absolutely hated him but then jang man soo says "you chose that spot."

And it just kinda clicked that he doesn't consider anything besides the basic things to stay alive as a necessity

He thinks any sort of comfort is a luxury

He wants it, but he doesn't exactly need it

And doesn't mind giving it up if someone else needs it more

I feel like he sleeps in the corner on purpose because jang man soo is already clearly suicidal and krs doesn't want him to actually keel over from getting sick because of the leak, he knows jang man soo wouldn't complain about his illness until it was too late. He's old and his body is weak, idk if he'd survive being sick during the literal apocalypse. krs doesn't joke around with anybodies life

I also think he easily chose the spot with the leak because (this is my headcanon at least) he doesn't really feel temperature. I feel like krs was affected more by the white stars curse than he admits, sure he had some sense of taste and feel but his senses were probably dulled to the point he could easily ignore the discomfort

So whatever doesn't kill him, he can deal with it

He grew up like that anyway

He's used to being deprived of comfort, it's natural for him to be uncomfortable even if he complains and says he doesn't like it

What other people consider suffering is just an inconvenience for him

He's never had anything to take for granted ever since he was a kid

Reality absolutely crushed his standards of living ever since his parents died and we see that through everything he does

He doesn't falter at being overworked and underfed, that has been his natural state for 15-16 years now

In fact, transmigrating as cale henituse is more of a vacation to him than anything

Everyone thinks he's suffering but he just considers it as "working hard", it's was his job to starve while keeping his people fed when he was the team leader, because there was never enough to go around at first.

Once Korea was restored to some extent and scarcity was less of an issue due to ability users who had crop related abilities or something of the sort, he let himself indulge in the luxury of eating more often. It wasn't a big change, but still.

Gotta admit most of what I have is:

• OgCale and Rok Soo's long time online friendship

• OgCale purposefully and carefully choosing scary yet stylish features for his avatar's face an Rok Soo choosing at random and ending up with a more delicate face, only for both of them to have it changed to their own faces with the mirror thingy. OgCale laments his lost scary face. He had enjoyed not being a pretty boy slash outstanding beauty for once since his puberty. Rok Soo doesn't care much, but he does celebrates OgCale's face— both the lose of the scary one and seeing his soul-healing actual one.

• Pink haired OgCale because he had wanted to try other color for a while but had been too wary of ruining his real red hair. That's the color he inherited from his mom.

• Alberu being basically the leader and face of their group because he's pretty strong and no one else wants to.

• OgCale jumpscaring everyone by entering to the Soo's house through the window. Rok Sop had given him the metaphorical keys months earlier and he wanted to see if it was even possible to use the window like that. Also, for some reason, he had really high stealth. The rest of the group (minus the Soo's) hadn't even know him yet, hence the scare.

• Alberu the workaholic getting a headache everytime he thinks on what his oh so dear family could be up to while he's literally trapped there.

• OgCale realizing he's going to miss Lily's competition and Bassen's 16th birthday on the second day of the game. He already had his present ready and the camera to take pictures of both of them safely stored in his backpack.

• Most people's reaction to seeing OgCale's face being "I thought we all got our avatars changed to our real faces. How did you do that?"

• Choi Jung Soo and Choi Han (I had forgotten to write Choi Han here, lol) not knowing the other knows Kim Rok Soo until there's a reunion and they both just point at each other like the spider-man meme.

• OgAlbeCale fluff. They marry in joke for an event and then months later they realize they had been living together and acting like an actual couple for the last half a year.

• Rok Soo's shitty uncle refusing to pay for Rok Soo's hospital bill and trying to get the doctors to disconnect him or take the gear off, only to have Deruth intervene, offering to pay the bill. Rok Soo ends up being moved to Cale's hospital room in request of Deruth and Violan, who later realized their phones (Rok Soo's and OgCale's) had the same mascot keychain.

• The game finally finalizing, only for part of them not to wake up (like in the canon SAO), but is for unethical science experiments that may or may not be related to the oncoming apocalypse (unlike SAO).

• Alberu waking up and being greeted by his aunt Tasha. Then proceeding to go as soon as possible to the hospital where his unofficial brother and his basically husband should be, only to find out OgCale isn't waking up. Rok Soo is already awake and looks like he wants to murder someone.

• Alberu presenting to OgCale's family while OgCale is still unconscious in the same room. He tells them they got married apin the game, in part as a joke and in part for an event. How they thought it would be funny because then they could call each other ex-husband once they were out. How things were easy because they were friends. How much he appreciates him and how much OgCale appreciates them. How OgCale's main motivator to finish the game was his family, how worried he was for them and how much he wanted to know about everything he had missed.

They keep asking about OgCale and Alberu keeps talking about him and trying not to crumble because no one knows what is wrong, why he isn't waking up, when they were supposed to see each other for the first time— and so he talks about his hobbies, how much he likes photography, how he would stop to pet every single animal they met, despite knowing they weren't real, how he would crack up witty comments all the time, or hum and sing around when he was relaxed. He also talks about how frustrated he got when he realized how long would take him to take his body back to his original state, yet still tried to be positive about it. How he said as soon as the medic gave him the O.K., he would start doing sport, something fun he could do alone or with others. How he had told everyone in their group that they could join him, or how he had wanted to invite them to an ice rink once they could.

• All the Henituse family knows Alberu and OgCale are in love.

• Tasha comes back from attending something while Alberu is still talking, and she realizes her nephew has a crush. Then realizes her nephew's first crush, possibly first love, is one of the few who hasn't woken up yet. Hissss.

• Sometime after everyone else wakes up, the "apocalypse" still attempts to happen, but the experiences of the game actually gave fruit to a big advantage: most people who had been SAO players didn't panic when the monsters appeared and adapted faster. As a result and because the incident with the unethical science experiments thingy left some clues that something was going to happen, society didn't collapse and more than apocalypse it was a "I guess we have monsters now" change. Still traumatic for a lot of people, but not end of the world bad.

• Humanity finds out their world was always one of fantasy, but the monsters are dealt with.

• OgAlbeCale still get together and marry.

• At some point before OgCale wakes up, Lily drags Alberu aside to give him advice in conquering her orabeoni. Alberu takes note.

• At some point Rok Soo gets adopted by the Henituse, but I'm not sure when.

krs is not cale henituse au. haven't decided whether original cale still regressed or not, but krs instead of waking up as cale wakes up as a Motif

Motif is the name I'm currently giving to a species (?) I made up; haven't decided whether to consider that a placeholder name or if that's my final decision

anyway. the basic idea is that when someone's soul has been damaged in some way, they can't reincarnate normally. also I'm assuming GoD is mostly responsible for death/reincarnation type stuff because that's...logical. there'd essentially three options for a damaged soul then

option 1) they fucking die. their soul is completely destroyed they completely cease to exist. this is NOT the preferred option generally measures will be taken to avoid this at all costs

option 2) GoD leaves them to just kind of half-doze in an in-between state between incarnations. once enough time has passed that their soul has naturally healed (takes a Very Long Time) they're then reincarnated without memories like usually happens for most people

option 3) speedrun the healing process. instead of a PROPER reincarnation they spend one lifetime as a Motif, which sort of brute-forces the healing process for their soul to be once more undamaged

And now I get to ramble on about what Motifs are. Please bear in mind I made this all up and it's not 100% complete/set in stone yet I may change or expand on little details later

Sorry for the sabbatical and thanks for all the well-wishes! I've been doing interviews for a new job and driving all over has eaten up so much time and energy that I simply haven't had any left over to update the blog. Now I've missed a few weeks so I won't cover everything I've read, but I'll do the Absolute and Superman books since I know that's what you guys want.

Absolute Superman #11 - Probably my favorite issue since the one focused entirely on Brainiac’s backstory. So Brainiac got here in 1938 instead of Superman. I like that twist, very much in line with Joker being the billionaire and Cale working with the government instead of Bruce and Diana respectively. And I guess we have an explanation for why Brainiac works for Ra's: the Father Box/Darkseid is keeping him leashed. Brainiac is such a delightful psycho in this book. Supes rewiring the Brainiac drones with his whispers is such a cool little feat. Even in his weakened/powered down state this version of Superman keeps fighting and inspiring. I loved the detail that the drones are actually people themselves and not just robots, it's a consistent trend of the book to have the elite view their underlings as mere tools while Superman values them as individuals. I did enjoy how Aaron sets up the big cliché of the Kents inspiring Kal, and then pulls the rug out from under you by having them tell him to kill them all, leaving you on a cliffhanger.

Poor Kal and Bruce have a lot to bond over in this universe. They both got captured, cut up, and underwent brainwashing by their villains around the same time ironically enough. Frusterates the hell out of me that Aaron didn't focus solely on Brainiac, his version of Brainiac here is so entertaining while his Ra's is flat and boring.

Absolute Batman #11 - Best Bane since King's, maybe even the best Bane ever?

Absolute Martian Manhunter #6 - So often cosmic dustups between anthropomorphic entities can feel rather basic. But this actually felt clever in terms of how they used ideas and feelings against each other. If any Absolute book is going to influence the approach to their mainline counterparts, it needs to be this one. This is such a clever approach to a hero whose powers are mostly mental that it's honestly baffling Camp is the first one to do this. And of course it wouldn't be possible without Rodriguez on art. I’m intrigued to see where the plot thread of Tyler being possessed in the next arc.

Absolute GL #6 - Alright Jo is finally getting some development but she still doesn't feel like the main character to me.

Absolute Wonder Woman #11 - Diana has herself a hyrdotrident now? Absolute Aquaman is going to have to really change the character up, not much narrative ground left for him.

Absolute Flash #6 - Everyone who speculated there was something up with Absolute Barry was vindicated, I liked how it flipped the table when it came to how we view Barry and Wally’s father now. Barry is clearly morally grey at best and Rudy is a lot more sympathetic than he first came off as. Also a cameo of Jay! And I’m very interested to find out what the deal is with the Thawnes.

Adventures of Superman: Book of El #1 - a good first issue. Definitely reminiscent of the Warworld Rising arc, and I’m excited to see a fully unleashed Kryl empowered by the Aspects of Olgrun. The Summer Men are interesting, perhaps these are Kryl’s followers in the future? I'm thinking they are the Phaelosians warped and twisted by Kryl into serving him. Everything here feels so mythic and epic in scope, and Godlewiski's art is the best I've ever seen from him.

Superman #29 - Prime was delightful in this issue. “That was two reboots ago! Get Silver Age with me. Never used my heat vision on a snow man.” Heh I can’t help enjoying the edgy dweeb. He’s almost certainly just pretending to turn bad to try and facilitate Superman’s escape later on.

Action Comics #1089 - Captain Comet working for General Sam Lane does raise some interesting questions. Maybe the "Justice Alliance" got pressured into taking the same deal as the JSA, and Comet agreed? It's interesting contrasting this incarnation of him with how Morrison revamped Comet for a similar role during the New 52. Morrison made Comet even more of an outsider than their Superman, whereas Waid has Comet serving as a "DKR Superman" style government stooge (seemingly) to contrast with Superboy. Course there's also that shadowy group that Sam answers to and what role they play in all this to consider as well.

Superman: The Kryptonite Spectrum #1 - In spite of my apathy towards Batman guest starring I have to admit this was a good read! Prince had a lot of fun playing around with the chronology caused by the Purple K scrambling Superman's perception. His Lex Luthor is great as expected, Lex's got that All-Star arrogance seeping through. I could totally see this story being set earlier in All-Star Superman's career truth be told. That bit with Lois calling it quits is interesting. Safe money is on one of the kryptonites somehow facilitating a solution to Supes and Lois having a child, but part of me hopes for some kind of unexpected swerve. Would honestly prefer this story not ending with them getting back together and Lois having moved on for good while Supes has to make his peace with that.

Krypto #3 - Was actually scared for a sec that the little girl was going to die, glad that didn't happen.

Hey, @mellowwater.

I’m sorry if this is late and I haven’t replied to this in my original post. In truth, I have tried to go back and actually answer this question. I made a few drafts but I opted for this instead. The most important thing is you pointed out is this- there is a lot of not confirmed details gets floated around and we don't know what's what. People latch on info that they feel is the truth.

Canon tells us that when Jour died, Deruth did distance himself from his son. We both know they are both grieving and Cale (in Ron's memories) was trying to reach out. Deruth in the same memories was painted as someone clinging to Cale at that event.

Personally, Deruth distancing due to his grief and is understandable in an adult's POV. But it is confusing for someone in Cale's age at that time. I am sure not many have heard it but there is a thing called childhood emotional neglect. This is what I interpret as what happened to kid!Og!Cale. I think it also happened when Violan and Basen came into the picture and when Lily was born because they now trying to be a blended family. It would be normal for og!Cale to be feeling left out or replaced in this new dynamic.

Realistically, we‘re trying to find nuance on very little information, much less confirmed/canon information. It doesn’t help that the topic of the said info are side characters who are, for the sake of writing, not the interest of the story/ TCF in whole.

And of course there is the fanfic side, whether everything is basically under the sun. In fanfic, things get more muddled because there is a lot of character/plot interpretation (and even reinterpretation (I’m looking at you, do-over/fix-it fics/characters react to the plot fics). They are also people in the fandom who have some personal experience about a certain experience with our biases and projection. Same goes for fans who don’t have the said experience being projected.

Talking about og!Cale or any side character is like playing any game from FromSoftware. If you are not familiar with the videogame company aka creator of Dark Souls (you died!), there is lore on the game but you will be hard pressed to find a coherent storyline. I think TCF is the same – the author gives a ton of interesting characters and details about them but it feels wanting since you guessed it- they are side characters and practically, they don’t have much details.

Back to the TCF – I think it is okay to not have full details on what is fanon or canon. For me, whether the info is fanon or canon, it generates discussion, conversation, ideas and things that we (as fans) can throw at each other. Realistically, we cannot press for more info – the author gave us a few details and that’s it. They chose not to do more details. And fans discussing things will stick to what they want to believe – whether it is canon or fanon. It’s up to them whether to believe them or not. A fan can have their own cannon (aka headcannon) and it’s up to them to change their minds from other that. Even if somebody does bring forth canon, how many people are actually gonna believe that if it messes up with their headcannon?

In previous posts, I was welcoming anyone to challenge whatever I posted with canon evidence to the contrary since details get muddy. So far, nothing. But there are posts who post information whether it’s canon or fanon. I just opted for reading and reacting to what people post, whether fanon or canon since not a lot of people are posting canon, especially on the relationship dynamics of characters. Maybe there is someone who is more industrious than me out there.

Notes: There were two other requests who wanted jealous Cale hcs but I accidentally deleted them without screenshotting them... well.. here you go anyways :'D you lot really want to see them jealous don't you?

Ft: Cale, Choi Han, Alberu

Cale Henituse

he’s comfortable with his relationships that jealousy is rarely, if ever, a problem

after all if he’s with you it’s because he trusts you

you having a vibrant social life is not going to bother him

but sometimes campaigns would take him into another country for months at times

sometimes for the sake of his future slacker life, he must set off on yet another arduous, annoying quest

and you can’t always accompany him - you have your duties and he has his

it’s a subtle yet gradual thing that builds with time away from each other

not sure if this is because i'm a humanities student or its just i can relate because of what i realized while trying to find out about myself but i have some 2cents about Cale's personality.

everything happened late to Cale and that has a big impact on his beliefs and values

it was too late when he met the Soos and became freinds with them. it was too late when that grandma doted on him.

because from what i learned its hard to undo your mindset specially when it has been built up since you were young

consciously or unconsciously