#the people that do like what I like are barely active or haven’t actually read the books lmao

[chiscaralight]

gamer!perv!mean!neighbor!scara x fem reader nsfw. table sex(woah), thigh riding, unprotected sex,more story building tbh idk i just like writing for this, part 3 soon?🫣 this wasn’t proofread we die like tingyun

part 1 here!

after that night, you literally couldn’t face scaramouche anymore. it was so weird! you found yourself staying in your own home more, barely responding to his texts or calls now. even locking your door when you knew his was home so he wouldn’t come waltzing in like he always does.

but being away from him after you’d gotten so used to his presence was eating away at you from the inside. which is why you’re contemplating wether to knock on his door or just go in like you usually do. it’s been a very distressful five minutes like this, and another noise of distress leaves your mouth. then your face flushes. he definitely would have liked to hear that.

when you finally open the door, the living room is empty. so is the kitchen. but his bedroom door is wide open and he’s facing his setup, headphones on as he’s saying something harsh to whoever he’s in the voice chat with. his victory is easy, accompanied by a few more insults and a sultry laugh. once you’re sure he’s not actively playing, you call out his name,

he turns you you, expression blank. then turns right back to his screen to cue up for the next game. what the hell? you’re stomping over to him like a child and tell him not to ignore you.

“but haven’t you been ignoring me all this time?”

your mouth presses into a thin line. you look like a puppy that’s just been kicked across the street. so you apologize. its quiet, but he definitely heard it. and you’re not hard to read at all. he knows you didn’t do it to spite him in any way, so he waves it off and pulls his chair back. you slide your way into his lap and his free hand finds your waist.

you’re about to speak but the match is about to start. as much as you like being here, you’re trying to get his attention back on you, not watch him yell at other grown men. but you’ll be the first to admit the way he plays is mesmerizing. his fingers clicking at the keys with ease. your can feel your mouth start to water, the memory of-

“stop staring, whore.”

he doesn’t actually care if you stare. he’s stares at you all the time. he’s even staring at you right now, barely concentrating on the game he’s playing as you squirm in his lap. you’re moving way too much for either of your comfort and he tells you to stop squirming around. the bulge under you says otherwise. you’re biting back the gasp you can feel in your throat as you push down harder on him.

it's so wrong, moving around on him like this when he’s talking to other people. but it feels so good when he grinds up into you in response. he pushes you to the side so both legs are around one of his. bounces his thigh once and you wince at the pressure. it's starting to bother you a little more than it should. you're getting frustrated, and he's paying no mind to you and your problem.

in all reality, it's bothering him just as much. he might seem focused on his game, but he's trying to shift his attention from the strain in his pants! because of how you're sitting, you can't feel how hard he is. it's starting to get worse now bc those little noises of yours are getting louder, and he swears he can feel your slick seeping onto the leg of his pants.

now, scaramouche isn't one to throw a game for any reason. but with the way you're whining out his name like that, he's mumbling a sultry fuck me before just closing the game as a whole. he's sliding the keyboard away and throwing his headphones off in the blink of an eye. before you can even tell him to calm down, he's standing up and pressing you down onto the now-empty space of his desk.

"so needy. couldn't even wait a couple of minutes for me to finish my game. you want my attention that bad?"

you purse your lips. why did you want his attention like that? you've never felt like this before. not to mention doing anything like this before. humping his leg like that, whining his name like that. he didn't make you do any of it. that was all you. but before you can think about it anymore, he's pushing himself against the swell of your ass. he's hissing at the contact. he can feel how soaked you are through the thin fabric of your shorts. he's rolling his hips into you now, nails digging into the soft skin of your waist.

"miss me this much, hm?"

he cant see your face, but the red creeping up the back of your neck tells him exactly what he needs to know. you whine as he moves away but the cool air that hits your behind shuts you right back up. you can hear him moving around behind you, and it’s not long before you can feel him pressing his tip against your entrance. he taps your hip, and you nod, letting him know that he can go on.

when he finally pushed into you fully, your head drops right down to the table. you missed this so much, why were you hiding away from him again? he’s bunching up your hair in a fist to draw your head back before he starts moving.

he’ll never explain to you that he actually did miss your presence. his apartment was so quiet without you and it started to irk him. which is why he’d rather show you with how he fucks you. he’s hitting you so deep and hard, you can barely keep up! you can feel your knees buckling under your weight, so he releases your hair to hold your hips up. he doesn’t need to tell you to look at him this time, because once you manage to push yourself up, you’re already craning your head towards him. his smile is wicked, and he’s purring out an atta girl because you’re doing such a good job like the doll you are. your hand is reaching back to grip his forearm to tell him you can feel your orgasm coming. so he stops, but it’s not for the reason you think of.

in any other situation, he would’ve just held out on your orgasm for as long as he wanted. it was your fault after all, but with how long it’s been (it was an excruciatingly painful couple of days), he just tells you to face him.

he’s guiding you to half sit on the table. raising your legs up, he slides right back in with no warning. the moan you let out is so broken, so full of pleasure that he’s speeding up in you. one of your hands grips his shoulder for support so the other can find his hair and drag his head towards yours. the kiss is sloppy, your whimpers trickling into his mouth as he groans into yours. one specific thrust has you almost crying into his mouth as you come around him. he doesn’t stop pounding into you until he reaches his own climax, body stilling against yours.

part 3 here!

[allur1ngs]

✮ bloody knuckles ✮

TW: angst to fluff!! i know the summary seems like pure angst but i swear its not! semi-graphic violence? , guns, kidnapping, bada and reader get into an argument, reader acts naively and a bit selfishly (but it’s okay, she’s young and makes up for it in the end), bada still having beef w your bodyguard, protective!bada, cold!bada (this time to you too…), violent & frusterated!bada, brief mentions of sexual activity (inc…toys, ass, boobs… sorry), use of the word unnie (about six or so times) brief mentions of drugs, a creepy woman, and a surprise character from the previous installment! 

SUMMARY: breaking bada’s three rules for a night of partying backfires in ways you could’ve never imagined. now, you have to deal with the consequences of your lies

part iv. succumb (to me)

WC: 12.5k… get some popcorn y’all this is a long one

A/N: read this and this for more background on this au. i’m sure there are a ton of mistakes sprinkled throughout this fic so please ignore them, this took me so long to write and i just want to put it out on time… i promise i’ll edit it once i get the chance😭

DISCLAIMER: all characteristics portrayed are purely speculation and fiction, they are not meant to reflect bada or team bebe’s actual character, values, or attitudes. please keep this in mind!!

On an inconspicuous Thursday night, when a heat wave had just hit Seoul, you lounged in your lavish bed—free from sheets—scrolling through social media.

Pictures of cute animals and food fill your feed, making you smile down at your screen. You are about to like a particularly cute picture of a cat when a notification banner stops you midway. Your eyes flicker to the top of the screen, finding a message from your best friend, Jae Hwang.

Clicking on the notification, you're transferred into your messages app, and Jae’s text fills your screen. “Unnie, I haven’t seen you in so long!! Please come to the party I’m throwing tomorrow so we can catch up and have some fun~!"

Your lips fall open in mild surprise as you instinctively sit up. A party? You text Jae back quickly, asking the reason for the party and where it will be held.

“At my house, of course! We’re all gathering to celebrate your engagement!”

Your engagement… so your parents really hadn’t wasted any time spreading the good news. You’d barely been living with Bada for a month, and they’d already informed your friends. You shake your head and sigh rather loudly. Bada would greatly disapprove of your parents' loose lips. She preferred her privacy, not only for protection but also because she liked people staying out of her business. That much you could tell from the little time you’d had to get to know her.

Shifting your focus back to Jae’s unanswered text, you contemplate attending the party or skipping out. Though they were technically throwing it in your honor, they should have let you know beforehand instead of asking you the night before the party. You felt well within your rights to refuse, but a nagging thought holds you back.

What would you do instead? Technically, you had no plans on Friday night—or Friday at all for that matter. Saturday neither… nor Sunday. Really, you never had plans anymore. Since staying with Bada, you mostly remained inside the Lee mansion, either lounging by the large infinity pool, taking a dip in your personal Jacuzzi, or perhaps enjoying a film in the theater room on the second floor.

Or, if you wanted to leave home, you would be escorted by your bodyguard to certain malls, grocery stores, or establishments. All of which were either managed by Bada or by one of her partners. She made it clear to you from the start that going places not protected by one of her subordinates would be dangerous.

"I have connections to half the establishments in Seoul," she had muttered to you. It's incredible that despite the implications of the words falling from her mouth, Bada had a way of saying things so humbly. She didn't sound like she was boasting—though you wouldn't fault her if she was. "I bet some of the markets you entered when you were a child were run by my family, and you'd never have known."

You’d try your best to conceal your amazement at her confession, but the glow in your eyes was as clear as day to Bada. “And what about the rest?”

She let out a quiet breath, saying, "The rest are mostly run by rival gangs. Almost no stores or establishments are free of mafia influence. Not anymore, at least." Seeing the way your eyes shifted from bright to slightly apprehensive, she pushed her chair back and rose, walking around her desk before leaning on it and clutching onto its edges. "There's no need to worry about them. As long as you stay in areas where my people are, you are safe." Her hand came down to rest politely on your thigh, patting it in a comforting manner.

Her words made your stomach flutter with butterflies, and a giddy smile instinctively formed on your lips. For someone who claimed to want to avoid fostering romantic affection between you both, Bada seemed to be doing the exact opposite.

Before you could lose yourself in the tenderness of the memory, you climb out of bed, having made your decision. Because you barely left home as it is, what harm is there in going to a party? A party organized in your honor, no less. It’s a rare occasion, and truthfully, you miss Jae and the rest of your girlfriends. You haven’t seen them in over a month and texted them sparingly during that time. To be fair, it was mostly your fault—you were much too focused on getting to know Bada and adjusting to your new way of life to strike up conversations with them.

You nod your head firmly as if the action will help build your confidence before you grab onto the handle of your bedroom door and slowly open it. Standing to your right, the figure of your bodyguard, Hyo Kim, immediately greets you on the other side. She turns to face you, her black-tinted sunglasses obstructing your view of her eagle eyes.

“What are you doing up so late?” She says lightheartedly.

“Do you know if Bada is still awake?” You ask. “I wanted to ask her something.”

Hyo lifts her arm up, pushing aside the fabric of her suit to reveal a golden watch. She gazes down at it, pretending to think long and hard. “The Boss should be awake for about…” she trails off playfully, “another four hours.”

You chuckle under your breath, “I didn’t even need to ask, did I?”

“Not at all.” Hyo shakes her head while smirking.

“Alright then,” you clasp your hands together tightly, “I’m going to go see Bada.”

Hyo gestures ahead of you with her hand. “I’ll follow your lead.”

You nod quickly before advancing forward, her trailing close behind. You can’t lie; it was strange to have someone following after you almost every second of the day in the beginning. You remember that at the beginning of your stay at Lee mansion, you kept forgetting that Hyo was following you—she has the tendency to be extremely quiet when focused—and were jump-scared by her multiple times. You’d round corners and suddenly hear one of her heavier footsteps behind you, making you jump and your heart practically leap out of your chest.

At some point, you swear she started doing it on purpose, enjoying the look of fear you gave her when you jumped. Eventually, though, you started to grow used to her constantly lingering presence and even grew comfortable around her. Somewhere along the way, you’d both gotten to know each other more, and a slow but harmonious friendship grew.

“So, what are you going to ask the Boss about?” Hyo’s low and blithe voice cuts through the silence.

“Oh,” you begin, “my friend asked me to meet her and some of my other friends tomorrow night.”

“Really?” Hyo comments, her voice dripping with an emotion you can’t quite decipher.

“Yes,” you affirm. “I wanted to ask Bada if it’s okay for me to visit her.”

Hyo hums under her breath in acknowledgment. “She’ll appreciate that.”

“I hope so.” You smile lightly to yourself. “I just thought that since you follow me wherever I go, she’d find out either way, and I might as well get her thoughts on it.”

“Not to crush your hopes and dreams, kid, but I doubt she’ll say yes.” Hyo remarks.

“Really?” You pause and turn around to face her, a frown forming on your lips.

“The Boss values your safety more than anything else,” Hyo shrugs. “Meeting people she isn’t familiar with puts you at risk.”

“But they’re my friends.” You push back lightly.

“I get that, but like I said, the Boss only cares about keeping you safe.” Hyo raises her hands up in defeat.

You deflate at her words, acknowledging that she’s most likely right. After all the events that’d taken place in the span of a single month, you honestly wouldn’t hold it against Bada to be cautious of where you go. But at the same time, you can’t help but feel mild resentment at the fact that you aren’t even allowed to see your friends.

“Hey,” Hyo frowns at you like a scolding sister. “Don’t be discouraged. You haven’t even asked her yet. You never know; she just might say yes.”

You pick your head up at her words, slowly but surely nodding back. “Yeah, you’re right.” And with that, you continue walking down the corridor to Bada’s office until you reach the dark mahogany wood of her door. Lightly rapping on it, there’s a period of silence before you hear the low tenor of her voice speak up.

“Lusher, if you’re coming to ask me if I’ve finished the paperwork for POSCO’s deal, for the millionth time the answer is no, I haven’t.” Bada’s disgruntled voice makes you laugh to yourself, and you immediately bring your hand up to cover your mouth as you grin widely.

“Is now a bad time to see you, then?” You answer back cheekily.

You receive no response for a solid minute before the sound of papers rustling loudly and approaching footsteps reaches your ears. The door to Bada’s office opens, and there she stands in all her glory, looking rather flustered. “Sorry. I thought you were Lusher.”

You smile at Bada while shaking your head. “It’s alright. Can I come in?”

“Of course.” She steps aside, making room for you to walk into her office while she holds the door open for you. You say a quick thank you as pass through the threshold, missing how Bada lets the door swing closed behind her and shuts out Hyo. “So, is there a reason why you’re visiting me? It’s very late into the night; I expected you to be asleep already.”

“Well, I was about to go to sleep, but I got a text from Jae—” you pause upon seeing her frown. “my best friend.”

Bada nods in acknowledgment, moving toward a chair and pushing it back, gesturing for you to sit down. You do so, trying to ignore the nervous tension building in the pit of your stomach.

“Yeah, she invited—” you pause, choosing your next words carefully. Phrasing Jae’s invitation as a party would most likely mean Bada wouldn't let you go. So, if you just tweaked your wording a bit to make the party seem less extreme… it wouldn’t be that big of a deal, right? “she invited me to a get-together between friends.”

“A get-together?” Bada questions, folding her hands across her lap as she leans on the edge of her office table. “For what purpose?”

“Just to catch up and… celebrate our engagement.” You gesture between you both, immediately noticing how Bada’s expression shifts, her lips pressing into a thin line.

“They know of our engagement?” She asks.

“Yes,” you sigh. “I guess my parents couldn’t keep their excitement in check.”

“Your parents.” Bada shakes her head, pinching her nose-bridge tiredly. “I’ll have to have a word with them about that.”

“Please do.” You nod rapidly. “But aside from that, what I wanted to ask you was if I could be escorted to the get-together tomorrow night?”

Bada moves her gaze from the floor to your eyes, removes her hand from her face, and gives you a hesitant expression. “I don’t know… after all the incidents recently…” she trails off, a faraway look finding her eyes. “Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want you to feel like you’re a prisoner in your own home, or that you can’t see your friends, I just want you to be safe.”

“I get that, I really do, Bada, but this is just a small get-together.” You lie between your teeth.

Bada stays quiet, looking to be considering your words. “And you trust your friends, right?”

“I do.”

Bada lets out a light breath, while a small smile finds her lips. “All right then, you can go.”

“Really?” You give her a shocked look before you snap out of it and practically squeal, jumping up from your chair and instinctively wrapping your arms around Bada’s shoulders in a hug. “Thank you so much!”

Bada freezes in her spot, surprised by your affection. Slowly, a warm, sappy feeling builds at the bottom of her stomach, and her hands, which had been propped up in the air stiffly, gently come down to rest against your back, patting it tenderly. “You’re welcome.” She tries not to think about how lovely you feel against her or the allure of your natural scent.

You spend all Friday preparing for the party, choosing your makeup beforehand, your jewelry, shoes, and of course, your dress—a beautiful wine-red ensemble that you’d picked up on your shopping trip with Bada. She’d chosen it for you—claiming, “This dress would look beautiful on you.” The meaning behind her words, that it wasn’t the dress that was beautiful, but instead your figure that would make it look divine, had struck you in that moment.

If Bada wanted you to wear the dress, you’d buy it in a heartbeat.

For the little hours left you have in the day, you try not to get too giddy thinking of the party or how magnificent you’ll look in the dress, instead trying to busy yourself by catching up on one of your favorite TV shows. But when the milky raven sky begins to take over the horizon, you jump off of the couch, rushing to your room, leaving Hyo to scramble after you.

In your bedroom, you sit down at your antique-styled vanity, your makeup laid out in front of you. You begin prepping your skin before beginning your usual routine. It takes you a slightly longer time for you to finish because you’re being incredibly meticulous, but by the end of it, you look amazing. Before you can get distracted, you quickly dress yourself.

As your fingers curl around the clasp of your teardrop diamond earrings and secure them in place, you take a step back to gaze at yourself in your floor-length mirror.

The win-red dress hugs your body, accentuating every favorable feature of it. A similar dark rouge to your dress is blended across your eyelids in a smoky eye, making the color of your eyes pop in contrast. Your lips, fixed into a slight pout, are glossy and soft, tinted with a color of your choice. Taking your look all together, all you can say is that Bada was right—the dress does look beautiful on you.

A knock on your bedroom door startles you, your hand instinctively flying to your chest. "Hello?" You respond, a bit on edge.

"It's me. Can I come in?" Bada's voice, muffled behind the door, reaches you.

"Yes," you reply, hastily adjusting your dress and double-checking your appearance.

Bada enters just as your hands fall to your sides, her gaze immediately scanning your figure. She appraises you, from collarbones to legs, before fixing her eyes on your chest for a lingering moment.

Suppressing a nervous giggle, you greet her, "Hi, Bada."

Her eyes quickly snap up to meet yours, a sheepish cough escaping her mouth. "Hello."

Standing awkwardly by the door, Bada stares at you for a solid minute before you give a lighthearted smile. "Is there something you needed?"

"Uhh, no. Well, actually..." Bada stumbles over her words, closing her eyes in embarrassment. "Sorry, yes. I wanted to see you before you left."

You release a small breath of understanding before a cheeky thought crosses your mind. Walking closer to Bada, you do a little twirl when you reach her. "So, what do you think?"

Bada exhales while chuckling, her nervousness leaving her. "I think you are the most beautiful woman I've ever had the pleasure of laying my eyes upon."

Out of shock, you remain still, surprised by how unabashedly Bada expressed her thoughts. You expected a simple compliment, but she exceeded your expectations. "Really?" You ask quietly, sensing a shift in the room's atmosphere. An air of intimacy and something more sensual makes your skin prickle and breath hitch.

"Of course. There's no one I could think of that could make that dress look so stunning." Bada looks back at you with a serious and genuine expression.

"Bada..." you trail off, immediately thinking of countless other women who could wear the dress better. Supermodels, actresses—

"I think there's just one simple thing that would finish off the look." Bada's voice brings you back, and you give her a questioning stare. She smiles, her hand digging into her pocket before presenting you a sleek black box. Your confusion deepens as she opens it, revealing the most elegant necklace you've ever seen. Matching teardrop diamonds, akin to those on your earrings circle the chain, glittering against the low bedroom light. At the center, a silver locket shaped like a dainty heart ties it all together.

You stare at the necklace in awe, alternating between Bada's eyes and the exquisite piece of jewelry. "Bada, it's beautiful."

She watches you marvel at it, sparkles dancing in your eyes. Giving you a fond look, she nudges the box closer. "Take it."

Hesitating for a brief second, you gently retrieve the necklace. "Wow," you breathe out, fully admiring its beauty now that it’s free from the box.

"You should put it on," Bada encourages you softly.

“Oh, I shouldn’t—” you protest.

“I insist,” she cuts you off, tucking the box back into her pocket. She steps forward, taking the necklace from your hands and moving behind you. “Here, let me.” She places it across your collarbones and brings the clasp together, her long fingers brushing across your skin. 

Her touch ignites a spark, but as quickly as it appeared, her fingers are gone. She steps back, placing her hands on your waist to move you back so that you’re facing your mirror again. But this time, Bada's at your side, admiring how exquisite you look.

 “Absolutely perfect,” she whispers into your ear.

The warmth from her touch lingers as you stare at Bada through the mirror. “Thank you.” You bask in the comfortable silence in the room for a moment before speaking up again. “Can I ask, did you buy this?”

Bada places her hands atop your shoulders, a soft, wistful look finding her irises. “It was my mother’s.”

Immediately, you whip around to face her, your mouth wide open in mortification, and your eyes the size of saucers. “Bada, why didn’t you tell me?” Your hands frantically try to find the clasp of the necklace, wanting to take it off. “Here—”

“No.” Bada’s hands find yours, holding them and stopping you from removing the jewelry. “Don’t take it off.”

“But Bada, this was your mom’s—”

“And I want you to have it,” Bada states firmly.

“I can’t—”

“Are you rejecting my gift?” Although her words sound accusatory, when you look into her eyes, there’s a glint of amusement in them.

You let out a huff of defeat. “Fine.”

Bada smirks proudly, removing her hands from yours. “Good.”

After bidding farewell to Bada, Hyo swiftly whisks you away to a black Jeep, one that, according to her, is "much more secure than a sports car." Seated in the front, she drives and engages in casual conversation while you relax in the back. You take the opportunity to share stories about each of your best friends—Jae, the liveliest, Da-Eun, the second oldest, Min-Ji, the oldest, and Ryung, the youngest and most timid. Hyo listens attentively, interjecting with comments or laughter at your anecdotes.

“You all seem to be very close,” she remarks, steering the wheel to the left.

“Yeah, we are. We’ve known each other since childhood, and our parents are all friends,” you reply.

“Those types of friends… you should hold onto them,” Hyo advises. “In this line of business, it’s hard to find someone you can trust as much as you four trust each other.”

You gaze at your bodygaurd through the rear-view mirror, sensing the weight behind her words. "Hyo?" You inquire.

"Yeah?"

"Does Bada find it hard to trust other people?"

Her lips tighten, an audible exhale leaving her nose. "She hasn't fully placed her trust in anyone since the day Mrs. Lee died."

A somber atmosphere envelops the car, akin to a bucket of ice-cold water. You shift in your seat uncomfortably, your heart aching at the thought of the pain Bada must have endured when her mother was killed. "Bada was still young when she passed, wasn’t she?"

"Fifteen," Hyo nods. "Barely beginning her climb towards adulthood."

A stark silence follows after, and the rest of the car ride is silent, filled only with the quiet hum of the Jeep’s engine and the sounds of passersby. It's not uncomfortable, but rather solemn, as if you and Hyo are silently mourning Mrs. Lee's memory.

Fifteen minutes later, Hyo's driving slows as she turns into a large house—though noticeably smaller than your shared one with Bada, of course. The GPS on the tablet beeps, signaling your arrival at the destination. "We’re here," her voice rings through the background noise.

You turn away from the window you’d been gazing out of, a smile forming on your lips at the sight of Jae’s house. Out of your group, Jae always had the most luxurious home, because though all of you came from affluent families, Jae's parents were the wealthiest. Well, it seemed like now the dynamic had changed. Once you and Bada are officially wed, your combined wealth will likely rival all of theirs combined.

"How long do you think you’ll be staying?" Hyo asks.

"I'd like to say it won't take that long, but knowing my friends, I might be here all night," you admit.

"Alright." Hyo parks the Jeep in the driveway, exits, then moves to open your door. You offer a quiet thank you as she helps you step out, mindful of the relatively short length of your dress.

Leading the way to Jae's house, you pause before knocking. Judging by the time, it seems you arrived slightly early, which in party terms means very early. Fortunately, that likely means no other partygoers are here yet, as evidenced by the absence of parked cars in the driveway.

"Actually, Hyo?" you turn back to face her, a sheepish look on your face. "Could you maybe… wait outside?"

Your bodyguard raises her eyebrows, crossing her arms across her chest. "I'm supposed to be keeping an eye on you."

"I know that, but I think the girls will be thrown off by the fact that you’ll just be standing there… watching us the entire night." Though your reasoning is somewhat woven with lies, it's also partly true.

Hyo remains silent, giving you an unimpressed look. "I have a job to do."

"Technically, you can do it from out here," you weakly argue. "Please, I want to feel like a normal person again. Like my life isn’t constantly at risk, and I always need to be monitored."

Although you can’t see the look Hyo’s giving you behind her sunglasses, you notice her posture deflating, and her shoulders falling. She releases a defeatist breath, "Fine, I’ll keep an eye out from here."

"Thank you, thank you, thank you!" You express with a grateful smile.

"Yeah, yeah, never say I haven’t done anything for you," Hyo grumbles. "Oh, and don’t forget I have your location on my phone, so don’t even think about sneaking out because I’ll know."

"I wouldn’t dare," you joke.

"Right…" your bodyguard trails off. "I’ll be waiting in the car. If you need anything, just call or text me, and I’ll be out in an instant."

"Yup, thanks!" You give Hyo a thumbs up, and with that, she retreats back to the Jeep. You watch her go, a sudden wave of guilt crashing over you.

She'd probably be much more comfortable in Jae’s house, sitting down or enjoying the air conditioning, rather than waiting for countless hours in the Jeep while you gossip and talk to your friends. But you're in too deep now. You can’t tell her the truth or let her in, or she’ll whisk you away back to the mansion, and all your white lies will have been for naught.

Biting your lip, you cast one last look at Hyo before knocking on the front door. Silence greets you for a few minutes before you hear shuffling approach the door, and it opens. Jae’s face greets you on the other side, her eyes immediately sparkling at the sight of you.

"Oh my god!" She squeals, bringing you into a hug and squeezing you tight. "I’m so glad you’re here!" She rocks back and forth in the hug, making you laugh giddily. "I missed you so much!" When she pulls back, she’s wearing a pout across her red-tinted lips. "Don’t ghost me for a month again, okay? Or I’ll steal you away from your wife!"

"I missed you too," you say fondly. "But we’re not married yet—"

"Oh, come on, you’re engaged to Bada Lee! You’re married in every sense except legally." Jae rolls her eyes playfully, though they stray a bit before landing on something—or rather, someone—behind you. "Who’s that?" She points at the Jeep, where Hyo is sitting in the front seat, trying not to look like she's watching you.

"That’s Hyo Kim, my bodyguard."

"Your bodyguard?" Jae awes before pouting. "Why am I even surprised? Of course, Bada Lee would have her fiancée under lock and key." Jae grabs your hand, giving it a light squeeze before her expression shifts, a sly smile curving her lips. "So tell me, have you two done it yet? Is she dominant? Is she more of a boobs girl or an ass girl—"

"Jae!" You shout, eyes wide and voice full of mortification. "Are you serious right now?"

"Come on, tell me! I want to know all the stuff you haven’t told me over the past month. You owe it to me!" She whines.

You let out a long sigh. You suppose this is your karma for unintentionally ignoring your best friend for so long. "At least invite me in first, Jae. Don’t you have any manners?" You lightly scold her.

"Oh, right." She looks behind her, realizing that while she’s inside her home, you’re still outside the threshold, waiting for her to invite you in. She looks like she’s about to take a step back so you can enter before she pauses, a thoughtful expression crossing her features. "Wait, does she use toys—"

"Alright, that’s enough!" You push Jae further into her house and step inside, swinging the door shut rather loudly behind you.

Once inside, you scold her for a solid five minutes straight about manners before the two of you properly greet each other and begin a normal, casual conversation—thankfully with no mention of your and Bada’s sexual activity, or lack thereof. Instead, you're practically interrogated by Jae about every aspect of your life with Bada while you help her finish setting up for the party.

You stack up red solo cups, place beers into multiple coolers, and set out chasers. Thankfully, it doesn’t take much for the two of you to finish, and once you do, you simply lounge around a bit. Jae takes the break as an opportunity to compliment how amazing you look in your dress.

"Is that Chanel?" She asks, motioning for you to do a spin.

"Yes." You nod, doing as she wishes. "Bada picked it out for me."

"I bet she’s regretting her decision right now." Your friend giggles. "No one’s going to be able to resist you tonight!"

"Jae, stop exaggerating." You laugh.

Your lighthearted conversation continues until slowly but surely, party guests begin to arrive. They come in small waves, all dressed much more elegantly than the average partygoer. You assume they must be some of Jae’s rich friends that you’ve heard about only in passing because you don’t recognize some of them. The thought sends a small prickle of worry to the back of your mind, but you choose to ignore it for now. Instead, you greet each guest kindly, albeit rather awkwardly.

As the dark sky deepens in color, the living room starts to get more and more crowded, the rest of your friends arriving along with other guests. Min-Ji gets there first, wearing a classy black cocktail dress. She greets you with the same enthusiasm as Jae, but her demeanor is slightly more controlled, her older age shining through.

Next, Da-Eun arrives, dressed in green, and lastly, Ryung. By the time she settles in, the party is in full swing, music leaking out of speakers, and beers being passed around. You’re fully immersed in the atmosphere, happy to be surrounded by your girls and other somewhat familiar faces. You can’t lie, partying with your friends really puts into perspective the loneliness you hid behind your home’s mansion walls.

But in contrast to your free spirit, Hyo is struggling. Multiple cars have begun to pull into the driveway, groups of people entering the house and giving her a peek inside. The home has many more people than it should for a "small gathering." 

Her first instinct was to exit the Jeep and head toward the door to end your night prematurely, as well as tell you off for not only lying to her but also to Bada. However, through one of the windows, your silhouette peaks through, the light in the living room shining against your features and displaying your expression of pure joy as you dance with your friends and sip beer.

She stops mid-stride, conflict brewing in the confines of her mind. Deep down, she knows you deserve to enjoy yourself. Being stuck in a mansion—while large and full of entertainment—is nothing compared to the comfort of being with friends, partying, and drinking. “Fuck.” Hyo mutters under her breath, passing a hand through her hair in frustration. She takes another look at your smiling figure through the window, then turns back. “The Boss is going to kill me if she finds out about this.”

She stays back in the Jeep for another hour or so, listening to the music coming from inside the house and the loud chatter, keeping an eye out while checking her phone every other minute. Your location never moves, thankfully. It seems that you have the foresight not to take it as far as sneaking away from her for some fun.

But, of course, there’s no need for you to do so because the party is practically buzzing with energy. Couples and friends dance together, grinding and touching each other playfully, while some are playing cup pong or various other party games in corners of the room. You, on the other hand, have moved away from dancing, instead cooling off with another beer as your friends chatter amongst each other.

“You’ll never guess what happens next!” Jae grabs onto Min-Ji, tugging on her hands with poorly concealed excitement.

“What?” Min-Ji indulges her younger friend.

“Bada stops him right before he leaves the store just by saying, ‘And where do you think you're going?’” Jae lowers her voice and puts on a serious expression when imitating your fiancée.

“Really?” Min-Ji's eyes find your figure, a small smile curving her lips upward.

You smile back at her shyly, nodding.

“And then, she makes the asshole pick up her clothes from the ground!” Jae divulges.

“Does he do it?” Da-Eun cuts in, smirking widely.

“Of course he does! Like a little worm, he picks up all the clothes and gives them to her.” Jae points at you, letting go of Min-Ji’s hands.

“Bada must have a very strong presence,” Ryung comments quietly.

“More like everyone in the store was on Bada’s payroll,” Jae snorts. “Right Unnie, didn’t you say Bada has ties to half the population of Seoul?”

“Yes,” you confirm. “I think everyone in that store had guns on them.”

“How do you know?” Min-Ji asks.

“Well, they were all putting their hands in their pockets like they were going to pull out a firearm,” you reminisce. “And they were all staring between the man and Bada like they were waiting for her word to dispose of him.”

“It’s so crazy hearing about it.” Jae whines. “I wish I was there!”

“Don’t say that.” Min-Ji scolds her. “It must have been scary at the time, wasn’t it?” She looks back at you, posing the question.

“I wasn’t really scared for myself.” You shake your head. “I was more scared for the man. You should have seen the way Bada was looking at him.”

“I can imagine it now.” Jae tries to imitate a hardened and scary glare but ends up failing.

“You just look like you’re constipated.” Da-Eun laughs loudly, pointing at a now offended Jae. The younger girl hits Da-Eun, whining about how she was really trying to look serious.

You join in laughing with Da-Eun and Min-Ji at Jae, when you suddenly feel a tug on your right hand. Your laughter dies down as you turn to face Ryung, who’s looking between you and another corner of the room. You give her a confused look, trying to find what she’s gazing at. “Ryung? Is something wrong?”

“A woman's been staring at you since she got here.” Ryung whispers, casting her eyes to the other corner of the room.

You follow her line of sight to an unfamiliar, relatively attractive woman dressed in a loose white dress shirt and slacks. She has fiery red hair and a boyish look. She’s already watching you, her eyes unabashedly trailing up and down your figure, completely unbothered by the fact that you caught her staring. In fact, she smirks back at you.

You turn away from her quickly, a prickle of anxiety running up your spine. Though most would be excited at being ogled by an attractive woman, there’s something about her gaze that unnerves you. It's like she knows something you don’t.

“Do you know her?” Ryung asks, a worried look crossing her features.

“No.” You shake your head, a trembling breath leaving your lips. “I’ve never seen her before in my life.”

Da-Eun, Min-Ji, and Jae stop laughing at the sound of your nervous voice, turning to face you with questioning looks.

“What’s going on?” Min-Ji asks, noticing your rigid posture and Ryung’s grim expression.

Jae mutters your name, her voice becoming uncharacteristically quiet.

“There’s this woman that’s been staring at Unnie the entire night.” Ryung secretly motions towards you, then looks back at the woman with red hair. All of your friends' eyes follow, seeing how the woman gazes at you darkly; even with all their eyes on her, she doesn’t cower. Instead, she continues to watch you.

“Alright.” Da-Eun rubs her hands together, her expression dripping with anger. “Let me go have a word with her—”

“Not so fast.” Min-Ji grabs onto Da-Eun’s arm, pulling her back and keeping her from advancing toward the woman. “Jae, do you know her?”

Jae bites her lip, shaking her head. “I don’t remember inviting anyone that looks like that.”

“Then let me—” Da-Eun tries to wiggle out of Min-Ji’s hold but is unsuccessful.

“Don’t be so rash.” Min-Ji asserts. “Let’s just ignore her. If she decides to bother you directly, we’ll be here, okay?” She looks back at you with a caring expression, placing her hand on your shoulder.

“Okay.” You agree shakily, turning your back toward the woman’s direction.

For the rest of the night, you constantly feel her eyes on you. Though you try to act normal, a spike of fear runs up your body when you see someone approach you or accidentally brush up against you while you dance with your friends. You consider asking Hyo to come get you, but you don’t want to sour the mood of your friends. So you deal with her predatory gaze, and do your best to ignore her overwhelming presence.

Hyo’s eyes scan the neighborhood leisurely when a notification banner pops up at the top of her screen. Her eyes snap toward it, finding a text message from none other than her boss light up the screen. She takes in a deep breath as she presses it, her screen being moved to the message app.

Bada’s text reads, “How’s it going?”

Hyo lets out a sigh of relief, quickly texting back, “Good, she’s having fun.” She watches Bada’s text bubble show up soon after indicating she was writing, but it disappears a few seconds later. Hyo takes the opportunity to add, “Her friends are very lively.”

Bada’s text bubble appears again, but this time she sends a message saying, “Focus on doing your job.” Hyo huffs under her breath, exiting out of the messaging app and switching back to managing your location.

Her brief distraction keeps her from noticing a new group of men heading toward the house. Most slip in, it’s only until the last is about to cross inside that Hyo looks up, her eyes catching a baggy of white powder one of the men is carrying.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” She hisses. Immediately she exits the car, dialing Bada’s personal phone as she races up the driveway and slips into the house behind the man.

Inside, you’re slowly becoming more and more unnerved by the red-haired woman. Your friends try to take you around the living room, using the other partygoer’s bodies as a shield between you two, but she doesn’t allow them to. She moves through the crowd until she has a clear view of you again, then just stands there, her gaze unwavering.

“She really doesn’t give up, huh?” Min-Ji curses under her breath.

“What a creep,” Da-Eun adds.

“Are you okay?” Ryung asks you.

“I don’t know.” You admit, rubbing your arm uncomfortably.

“Hold on,” Jae cuts in. “I think she’s coming this way.”

Four pairs of eyes snap in the direction Jae is looking, finding the woman weaving through the crowd of partygoers in an attempt to reach you.

This time your entire body goes rigid, intense fear running through your veins as your friends rally around you, muttering comforting words. Their voices and the loud bass of the music in the background fade away, all you’re able to focus on is the woman with red hair only a few feet away from you now.

She’s just about to reach you when a firm grip grabs onto your arm, pulling you away from your friends. You jump at the person’s touch, instinctively trying to recoil away before you turn to see a familiar face.

“Hyo.” You breathe out in relief. 

“We’re leaving right now.” She says firmly, pulling you through the crowd of people. 

“Hey!” Da-Eun surges forward at the sight of Hyo taking you away. “Who are you–?”

“No, it’s okay, that’s her bodyguard,” Jae informs your friends.

Your friends share resounding noises of astoundment before Hyo starts to firmly push you toward the exit. You say a hurried goodbye to them, catching out of the corner of your eye the red-haired woman. She’s now wearing a frown as she quickly retreats into the crowd of dancing bodies, hiding away from your gaze, as well as Hyo’s.

The entirety of the drive back home is dead silent, but this time it’s not comfortable. Hyo’s lips are set into thin and firm lines, her expression unchanging as she switches lanes and drives through the jet-black night. You try to will your voice to work and make idle conversation, but the words get stuck in your throat, a deep feeling of regret pooling at the depths of your stomach.

The car ride back unfortunately felt much shorter than the ride to Jae’s house had. One minute you're just barely pulling out of her driveway, and the next you're passing the gates into your mansion's driveway.

Hyo parks the car, exiting quickly and opening the door for you like she always does. You still say thank you, but this time she doesn’t acknowledge it, she simply lets you take the lead as you begin the walk of shame into your home.

Walking through the front door, the first floor is eerily quiet, missing the sounds of Bebe walking around or talking amongst themselves. You hesitate before walking up the right spiral staircase to the second floor, then move to your right toward the direction of your bedroom.

“We’re going this way.” Hyo breaks her silence, motioning with her thumb behind her, toward the corridor that leads to Bada’s office. You gulp but say nothing in response, instead choosing to listen to her and head toward your fiancée. 

The sound of both your and Hyo’s footsteps echoing against the cold marble floor causes even more unease in your mind, the feeling all but tripling when you see a dark mahogany door come into view. You stop right in front of it, your legs starting to feel weak and your hands sweating. You try to build up your courage to knock on the door, but Hyo’s already a step ahead of you.

She doesn’t bother to knock, she simply grabs ahold of the door handle and pushes it open. She gestures for you to head inside which you do timidly, the door closing right behind you.

Inside the office, your eyes immediately find Bada’s figure. She’s sitting in her chair like she always is, looking incredibly tired. And instead of wearing a soft expression at the sight of you, her face is blank, not a single wisp of emotion to be seen. 

“Sit down.” Her voice cuts through the tension in the air.

You do as she says, noting that she doesn’t get up to pull your chair back for you like she normally does. “Bada,” you begin, voice quiet and full of remorse.

“I heard you had fun tonight.” She cuts you off, her tone harsh. “A party, was it?”

You close your eyes in embarrassment. “I’m sorry–”

“Are you?” She interrupts you again. “Truthfully, are you?”

“Yes.” You say frantically, trying to convince her. “I didn’t mean for it to go this far.”

“You had multiple opportunities to tell me the truth.” Bada asserts, her hands coming in front of her to clasp together tightly. “The night before when I asked you about your so-called ‘get-together.’" She lists, "You could have told me anytime today, or Hyo when she was driving you. Instead, you unabashedly lied to my face and deceived me.”

You swear the wind is knocked out of your chest at her words. Her dark brown, almost grey eyes are cutting into yours, wounding your heart as you will something, anything out of your mute vocal cords. “Please believe me.”

“I can’t.” Bada shakes her head. “All I asked of you was three things.” Much like she had when you first arrived at the Lee mansion, she holds up three corresponding fingers. “Tell me the truth, remain loyal, and never put yourself in unnecessary danger.” She places all three fingers down. “Somehow you managed to disobey all of them in the span of a single night.”

Tears prick at the corner of your eyes, and heaving breaths start to build in your windpipe. You can deal with Bada being upset with you, but there’s something about her calm disappointment that hurts you more than you could have ever imagined.

“What would have happened if someone at that party brought a gun, hm? What if they knew who you are to me? What if they wanted to hurt me by hurting you?” Her voice slowly rises in volume but never reaches a full yell. “More than anything, you put yourself in danger. All for the sake of a good time.”

You hang your head in shame, acknowledging that she’s right.

“I can’t trust you anymore.” She states plainly.

Your head snaps up from its hunched position, your eyes widening at the implication of her words. “What? Bada, what does that mean?”

Your fiancée remains quiet for a moment, her blank look doing nothing to soothe your heightening fear. Then, she speaks up. “It’s late, you should go to sleep.”

“Go to sleep?” You cry. “Bada–”

“I’m sorry, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.” She tears her eyes away from yours, staring to her right. “I can’t look at you right now.”

Her words are the final blow to your breaking heart. You stand up from your chair loudly, attempting to hide your devastated expression as tears fall from your eyes in steady streams. You race over to the door, pull it open, and run out of the office, accidentally bumping into Hyo on your way out. You don’t say anything to her, simply wanting to get as far away as possible.

Lusher, who’d been rounding the corner about to head into Bada’s office catches sight of your teary eyes and sighs. She makes eye contact with Hyo, sharing a knowing look with her before entering the office.

“I’m not in the mood, Lusher,” Bada mutters, pinching the bridge of her nose in frustration.

“Don’t you think you were a little too hard on her?” Lusher contends.

“She put her life at risk,” Bada states firmly.

“She went to a party, so what? She’s at the age where she’s supposed to be having fun with her friends, clubbing and drinking.”

“She lied to me,” Bada argues.

“Listen, I know that–” before Lusher can finish her sentence, the door to Bada’s office opens again, this time much more violently. Hyo stands in the doorway, a worried look encompassing her features.

“What now?” Bada snaps at her.

“Boss,” Hyo huffs. “the keys to the Jeep are gone.”

“What?” Bada stands up with urgency, her blank expression morphing into nothing but unrivaled anger. “Where did you put them?”

“I had them in my pocket–” Hyo freezes, a look of realization glinting in her eyes before she stops and runs a hand down her face in frustration. “Your fiancée pickpocketed me.”

“She pickpocketed you?” Lusher says incredulously. “So she just left? But it’s dangerous to be out this late, and in that dress–”

“Lusher, gather all of Bebe.” Bada interrupts her, voice loud and commanding. “You,” she points at Hyo. “find her. Now.”

“Yes, boss.” Lusher and Hyo say in unison, scrambling to do what their superior asked of them. 

Meanwhile, Bada remains standing behind her desk, a mix of fear and unadulterated anger building in her. She feels immediate regret for the way she’d treated and spoken to you. She never should have let you leave in such a vulnerable, and most likely intoxicated state.

She could never forgive herself if something happened to you because of your argument. She slams her hands down on her desk, almost breaking it with the amount of force she uses.

Bada storms out of her office, heading down the corridor toward her bedroom, pushing the door open before heading toward her bedside table. She opens the first drawer, revealing a black pistol. She grabs it, about to exit her bedroom when her eyes catch the portrait of her mother hanging just above her bedside table. She takes a moment to face it, her face morphing into a grim expression. 

“I won’t fail you, mother.”

Lusher, Tatter, Kyma, Minah, Chehe, and Soweon, otherwise known as Bebe are all gathered in the armory room, guns in their hands. Lusher dons a sniper, Tatter a pump shotgun, Kyma a handgun, Minah a rifle, Cheche a break action, and Soweon a pistol.

“She managed to pickpocket Hyo?” Soweon exclaims, loading her pistol with bullets. “How is that possible?”

“She must not be as innocent as we thought.” Cheche comments. “Out of all of us, Hyo is the most alert and aware of her surroundings. She has some skill.”

“Enough talking.” Lusher cuts in, clicking a magazine into her sniper. “We’re wasting time. Boss wants us to find her as soon as possible.”

Bebe falls into line, following their second-in-command to the first level of the Lee mansion where Hyo is, tapping her foot against the marbled floor impatiently.

“Do you know where she is?” Bada’s booming voice causes all her subordinates to freeze. It’s brimming with urgency, and full of poison.

Hyo looks up at where her boss is standing at the top of the spiral staircase, her aura demonstrating absolute authority. “I think she’s lost her phone.”

“What do you mean?” Tatter speaks up.

“The location stopped moving right in front of her friend, Jae’s house. But it’s not inside, it’s farther down the road.”

The room becomes astoundingly quiet, so silent you could most certainly hear a pin drop. Although no one has the heart to say it, they all know the truth. You’ve been taken.

But then, Bada’s heavy footsteps begin descending the stairs, her eyes alit with a fiery passion and her eyes fixed into a firm glare.

“We’re finding my fiancée.” She demands. “And if she’s not home by the end of the night, it’ll be your head on a pike.” She points at Hyo, her pistol held firmly in her other hand.

“Yes, Boss,” Hyo says fearlessly. Truthfully, she felt partially at fault for what had happened. If she had only brought you home the second she realized you were throwing a party, or if she paid more attention when you bumped into her, you would be here, safe. 

Before they can all head out, Bada’s phone buzzes in her pocket. She stops, pulling it out and observing the caller ID. Her eyes widen when she sees it, immediately pressing the answer button and holding the phone up to her ear. She mutters your name into the speaker, causing all of Bebe to freeze and look at her in shock.

“Where are you?” Bada says, voice soft and full of worry.

“Hello?” A voice that is most certainly not yours greets her ears.

Bada’s expression shifts immediately, her eyes narrowing to slits and her voice dropping. “Who the fuck is this?”

“Are you Bada Lee?” The voice says hurriedly.

“Yes. How did you get this phone? Where is my fiancée?” Bada demands.

“This is Jae, Unnie’s best friend.”

“Jae?” Bada says, her tone calming the slightest bit. “Where is she?”

“Bada, you need to come here quick.” She cries. “Unnie called me a few minutes ago saying she wanted to stay the night with me, but right when I saw her pulling into the driveway, another car parked beside her, and I think they took her!”

Bada’s hands form fists as she motions with her head for Bebe to go into the garage full of cars. They do so immediately, piling into a modified and armored SUV with a sunroof. Lusher sits behind the wheel while Hyo takes the passenger’s seat. The rest of the girls sit in the back, guns positioned in their laps, Minah poking out of the sunroof with her rifle propped up in front of her.

Bada follows after them, getting into her personal, fortified sports car as the door to the garage slowly begins to open. She puts Jae on speaker, “Did you see who took her?”

“It was dark, but I recognized one person,” Jae confirms. “It was this woman who was at the party I threw for Unnie. She was staring at her the entire night like a creep.”

“What does she look like?” Bada asks through her teeth.

“She’s wearing a white dress shirt, a pair of black pants… oh, and she has very vibrant, red hair!”

Bada pulls up next to Bebe’s car, her eyes meeting Lusher’s, a new type of rage building in her irises. “Seong.”

When you awake from your slumber there’s a pounding ache at the back of your head, and your eyes are blurry. You blink as you try to gather your bearings and sit up, but your arms are held behind your back by something. You start to panic, your head whipping around as you begin to remember what had happened just before you lost consciousness.

You’d been driving the Jeep toward Jae’s house whilst sobbing uncontrollably, realizing that your selfishness would most likely cost you your engagement to Bada.

When you were a few minutes away from Jae, you called her with trembling hands, breathing heavily into your phone.

Your friend muttered your name into the phone, sounding like she’d just woken up.

“I’m sorry.” Your voice shook with emotions. “Is it okay if I stay with you for the night?”

“Of course,” Jae answered immediately. “But what’s wrong? Have you been crying?”

“Bada and I got into a fight.” You admitted. “I think she’s going to call off the engagement.”

“What?” Jae’s incredulous voice rang out of the phone.

“I’ll tell you everything in a second, I’m right next to your house.” You made a left into Jae’s neighborhood, finding the lights in her house on. You parked a little further down the street, seeing stray liquor bottles and red solo cups littering her lawn, most likely thrown away by her drunk party guests. “Okay, I’m here.”

“Where?” Jae’s figure approached the window that oversaw her driveway, her eyes squinting as she tried to discern your body from the pitch-darkness of the night. “I don’t see you.”

You sniffled into the microphone, switching hands as you climbed out of the Jeep and waved your hands to get Jae’s attention. “To your right.”

Jae’s eyes shifted in your direction, and after searching for a few minutes her eyes shone with recognition. “Oh, I see you!” She waved back at you, the interaction distracting you to the point where you didn’t hear a car pull up next to you until people were clambering out of it, their heavy footfalls approaching you.

You jumped when you felt an arm grab you, gasping and struggling against their grip. “Let me go!”

Jae’s voice came out of your phone, saying your name, but before you could answer her or call out for help, something hard hit you in the back of your head and caused you to fall limp into your kidnapper's arms. But before you fully lost consciousness, you caught a brief glint of red hair from the corner of your eye. 

“No.” You whisper, reality finally settling in. “No, no, no.” You try to move your hands, but your eyes find them secured behind your back with handcuffs. You struggle against them, trying to wiggle your hands out but they’re closed tight against your flesh, making the steel rub your skin raw. You hiss in pain but continue trying until your wrists are red. You try to move toward the wall behind you, leaning on it to help you stand up.

Once on your feet, you stomp on the floor, trying to break the heel of your platform heels. You repeat your action a few times on each foot until part of the heel breaks off, leaving you with shoes that are easier to run in. You huff out in exhaustion, but you’re not done yet. Using the wall once again, you attempt to get your arms in front of you by jumping and pulling your arms under you. Thankfully, you’re successful, and let out a breathy laugh of victory. 

 You slide down the wall, taking a small break when you suddenly hear footsteps coming close to the room you’re trapped in. Your eyes widen in fear as you try to back away further from the door.

“Look who’s awake.” The woman with red hair enters the room, her voice coming out in a sing-song.

“Who are you?” You rasp, sitting up tall. Although you’re terrified out of your mind, you know better than to show it. 

“The name’s Seong, sweetheart.” She smirks, one of her lackeys trailing after her. “And you have something I want.” You stare back at her as she gets closer to you, bending down so you’re at eye level. “Not going to ask me what it is?”

You say nothing, instead just keep eye contact with her, never once wavering under her unnerving gaze.

“Ah, we have a strong one here.” Seong laughs heartily. “I can see why Bada keeps you around.”

Mentally, you curse at yourself. Of course you’d been kidnapped as some sort of leverage piece between this woman and Bada. She’s most likely one of the rival gangs that’d been waiting for the chance to pounce at an opening to get through to Bada. And you’d stupidly given her the perfect opportunity.

“Well…” Seong’s voice drops, chills running down your spine as her eyes lower to your figure. “I’m guessing she doesn’t just appreciate your banter, huh?” She reaches out to touch you, her cold hands dragging across your collarbones. “So pretty…”

“Don’t touch me.” You spit, tone dripping with disgust as you recoil away from her.

“So lively too.” Seong chuckles.

“Bada’s going to come get me.” You cut in, glaring at the woman with fiery hair.

“Oh yes, I’m counting on that.” Seong smiles. “You know, she owes me a lot of money.” She stands up and begins to pace around the room. “My father and her father used to work together back in the day. But once Lee died and your little wife took over his business, she cut ties with him. Apparently, selling drugs is too ‘corrupt’ for her.” She scoffs loudly, the sound full of resentment and anger. “My father lost all his connections. He had to start selling to junkies on the streets, and now he’s running out of money.”

She stops in front of you again, a twisted smile stretching across her face.

“Bring him in,” Seong says to the lackey behind her. He follows her orders, trailing out of the room before he returns minutes later, a man shuffling behind him. When the man steps into the low light of the room, you audibly gasp and your eyes widen. “Remember him?” Seong stands next to the man–the same man from the mall. The man that’d harassed you, and had been humiliated by Bada.

Here he stands, the right side of his face swollen and colored in grotesque combinations of yellow and purple bruises.

“You.” The man rasps, his eyes shining with a crazy glint.

“This man right here was beaten half to death by Bada when I found him lying on the street.” Seong pats his shoulder. “Imagine my surprise when he told me how he’d accidentally hit on the Bada Lee’s fiancée, and almost gotten himself killed because of it.” She circles around the man. “Finding you after that didn’t take much. And look at you now…”

“Lying on the floor like some pathetic bitch.” The man spits. “How does it feel?”

“Go to hell.” You snap at him, eyes set in a glare.

“You should be careful how you speak to me.” The man warns you, walking closer before he bends down in front of you. “You’re the one who’s restrained, and at our mercy.”

“And yet despite that, it’ll be your blood that stains this floor when Bada finds me.” You retaliate.

The man’s face screws up in anger, and in a flash, he grabs onto your necklace, using it to tug you forward painfully. “You bitch–”

Your eyes go wide as you watch your necklace–Bada’s mother’s necklace–stretch in his hold. “No–” you choke out, using what little control you have of your hands to slug them against his face, taking his hands off the necklace. But unfortunately, his strength ends up ripping it off your neck, the broken jewelry falling onto the ground. “No!” You cry, scrambling over to the necklace, trying to grab it with your hands.

The man turns to face you, wearing a look of anger you’d never seen before in your life. He raises his fist, about to punch you when a hand stops him from doing so.

“Now, now, let’s not get too caught up in our anger.” Seong pulls the man away from you and pushes him toward the door. “We’ll have our fun once Bada arrives, believe me. You can do the honors of killing her if you really want to.”

Seong follows the man out of the room, her lackey trailing behind her before she stops to give you one final look, and closes the door to your room, leaving you trembling and in almost complete darkness.

In the raven black of the night, Bada, Tatter, Chehe, Hyo, Kyma, Minah, and Soweon stand at the door to Seong’s hideout, guns held tightly in their hands. Bada turns to look at a building across the street, holding a thumbs up in the air. Atop the building is Lusher, her sniper propped up against the ledge of the roof, her scope focused on Bada’s signal. She traces the red dot coming from her sniper around Bada’s thumb, indicating she’s ready.

“Lusher’s in position.” Bada turns back to face Bebe, nodding at them. “Let’s not waste any more time.”

“Yes, Boss.” They all parrot in response.

Bada turns to face the doorknob, pointing her gun at it before shooting. Tatter steps up first, shouldering the door open with intense force, making it swing open and reveal Seong’s hideout. Some lackeys that had been standing around jump at the sudden intrusion, their hands instinctively reaching for their guns. But all of Bebe’s members are twice as fast and skilled. Tatter shoots down one man with her shotgun while the rest of Bebe pile in, backing her up and mulling down the waves of oncoming men like they’re bugs.

Bada steps in last, shooting a man who was running in as backup, then shooting another who almost managed to get a shot in on Minah. She charges forward without fear, cutting through the mess of flying bullets and punching one of Seong’s men in the gut, then shooting him between the eyes. His blood splatters against the side of her suit as she kicks his body away, continuing her advance until she makes it out of the entrance of the hideout, and into a split hallway.

Bada keeps her pistol trained up and ears keen as she hears Lusher’s sniper bullets break through glass windows and hit some of the men still flocking to the entrance. An emergency alarm begins to blare in the hideout, red lights bathing Bada’s figure as she studies both paths ahead of her.

Suddenly to her right, she hears loud footsteps approaching and whips around to face a man running down the hallway. Thinking quickly, she shoots him in the foot before he has the chance to reach for his gun. He falls to the floor, screaming in pain whilst clutching his wounded foot. Bada walks over to him, kicking his gun away then aiming her pistol at his head.

“Where is she?” She yells over the loud, blaring alarm.

“I don’t know who you’re talking about.” The lackey wails.

“Yes you do. Tell me or I’ll kill you!” Bada places her pistol on the man’s forehead, making his pathetic wailing increase.

“Okay, okay, just please don’t shoot me!” He begs.

Bada grabs the man by his clothes, hoisting him up and pushing him forward, causing him to stumble and almost fall onto the floor again. “Show me the way, now!”

The man cries as he hobbles forward, leading her in your direction.

“Fifty-five, fifty-six, fifty-seven…” your voice mutters amidst the silence, keeping track of the minutes passing by since Seong left. You stare at the steel door separating you from your freedom, hoping with every minute you count, Bada gets closer to finding and rescuing you.

It’s at minute forty-two when bright, red lights flood your room, blinding you and throwing you off your count as loud alarms sound outside. You sit up, your heart beating wildly in your chest.

“Bada…” you sigh in relief. She came for you.

Another five minutes pass before you hear movement coming towards your room, making you scramble towards the door. But when it opens, you’re not greeted by the sight of your fiancée. No, instead, Seong rushes inside, her red hair ruffled and her breaths uneven as she closes the door behind her.

“Fucking–” She mutters, her eyes finding you instantly.

“I told you.” You smirk. “You’re all dead.”

Seong stares back at you silently before charging up to you and slapping you across the face. You shriek and recoil back as she breaks into manic laughter, pulling out a gun from her pocket. “Maybe, but if I die, you’re coming with me, sweetheart.” She clicks the safety off, her finger in position to press against the trigger when three loud bangs come from outside your prison, making you scramble back in shock, and Seong turn to face the door.

A long moment of tense silence follows before the door to your prison slowly creeks open, Seong gulping as the hand holding her gun starts to tremble. Right before the door fully swings open, a shot is fired from the person outside, grazing Seong’s cheek and making her cower away.

She runs over to you, picks you up from the floor and holds onto you by your throat, her gun pressed up against your temple. "Don't get any closer, Bada Lee,” Seong yells, digging her fingers into your throat. “or I’ll kill her!”

Bada side-steps away from the door, revealing one of Seong’s men dead behind her, blood leaking from his foot and his forehead. “Let her go, Seong,” Bada demands. “Your problem is with me, not with her.”

“But that’s just the thing, isn’t it? When you hurt one person, the people you care about suffer!” Seong laughs maniacally. “You had no mercy for my family, so why should I have any for yours?”

“You did all of this because I refused to sell your drugs?” Bada spits, her voice dripping with venom. “You’re pathetic, just like your father.”

Seong’s face reflects sheer anger in response to Bada’s words. She’s about to pull the trigger of her gun when Bada shoots first. She hits Seong in the knee, causing her to collapse and shoot the ceiling instead of you. You scramble away as Bada lunges forward, tackling Seong and knocking the gun out of her hand before she can try to shoot at you again.

Unfortunately, Seong is strong as well and fights back against Bada for her gun, both trading blows with each other until Seong manages to get Bada’s gun from her grasp. She pistol whips Bada in the face, giving her a cut across the nose as Bada falls to the floor, blood falling from her wound.

“Not so tough now, huh, Lee?” Seong screams as she points Bada’s very own gun at her.

“You should know that even if you kill me,” Bada says through heaving breaths, “you’ll still never make it out of this building alive.”

Seong bares her teeth at Bada, pushing her gun closer to her temple. “You’ll still be dead.”

“Don’t!” You scream, emerging from behind Seong, holding her gun. “Put the gun down or I’ll shoot.”

Seong clicks her tongue, laughing condescendingly as she turns to face you. “You don’t have the guts to kill me.”

“But I do.” Bada jabs her fist into Seong’s stomach, knocking the woman off of her and the air out of her lungs. Bada takes her gun back and places it in her pocket as the woman with red hair heaves against the floor, her eyes the size of saucers.

Bada walks over to your trembling figure, her gaze soft as her hands come up to grab yours that are still holding onto Seong’s gun.

“It’s okay, you’re okay.” She whispers tenderly into your ear, bringing you against her chest as she quietly soothes your shaky breaths.

“I thought you were–” You begin, the words falling from your mouth through gasps.

“I know, I know.” She shushes you. “Everything’s all right now. Give me the gun, honey.” You let go of Seong’s gun, allowing Bada to take it into her hands as she faces the red-haired woman who’s writhing on the floor. “You should have known better than to touch the people I care about, Seong.” Bada’s voice is cold, and more charged with rage than you’ve ever heard her carry before. “You’ll always be your father’s waste of a daughter.”

Through Seong’s choking breaths, you hear a sob wrack her voice, tears falling from her eyes and running down the sides of her face.

Before Bada pulls the trigger, her unoccupied hand comes down to shield your eyes. “Don’t look,” She whispers softly, “and cover your ears.” With tears streaming down your face, you plug your ears and shut your eyes, a deafening shot following soon after. A few minutes pass before you feel Bada move you around, hugging you close to her chest as she breathes a sigh of relief. “It’s over.”

It’s like the floodgates open at the sound of Bada’s soothing voice because you start to sob violently into her chest, wishing you could cling onto her, but you can’t your hands still restrained by handcuffs. “Bada.” You cry, burying your face into her warm body heat.

“I know, I’m so sorry.” She whispers. “I came as fast as I could.”

“I thought she was going to shoot you.” You sob. “I was so scared–”

“Shh, it’s all right honey, I promise. I’m okay.” She pats the back of your head before pulling away to gaze into your eyes. They’re wide and filled with tears, but so infinitely beautiful to her. Bada wipes your tears away with her thumb, smiling softly at you. She takes a step back, taking off her suit jacket before placing it onto your shoulders and rubbing up and down your arms. “Let’s go home, okay?”

Bada’s room is warm, the atmosphere a far cry from the prison you’d been held in. You sit on Bada’s fluffy bed, staring into the distance with a faraway expression while waiting for her to return.

Thankfully she does as soon as the thought crosses your mind. She makes her presence known by knocking gently on the wood of her bedroom door. “Can I come in?”

“Yes.” You croak.

Bada enters the room with a mug of piping tea in one hand, and uses her unoccupied one to close the door behind her. She sits next to you on the bed, handing you the mug while muttering a soft warning about how hot it is.

“Thank you.” You say quietly, taking the drink and blowing on it.

Bada places her big hand on your thigh, rubbing it gently as she looks into your downcast eyes. “How are you feeling?”

“Better now that you’re here.” You admit, staring at the ripples in the tea caused by your breath.

“I’m glad.” Bada’s eyes move from yours to your hands, noticing how red and raw your wrists are. She removes her hand from your thigh, gently touching your wrist so she can turn it over to get a better look at it. “Should I get you some pain medicine?”

“No.” You answer quickly, your eyes shooting up from your tea and meeting hers. “Stay with me, please.”

Bada nods silently, rubbing the skin just above your wrist. “I’m sorry.” She whispers grimly. “You got hurt because of me.”

You stare at Bada with an incredulous look, shaking your head rapidly. “It’s all my fault. If I hadn’t lied to you and went to that party, Seong would have never been able to get to me–”

“You went to that party because you missed your friends,” Bada argues back lightly. “I deprived you of a social life in my obsession with keeping you safe, and look at where it got us.”

“Bada Lee, this is not your fault.” You say firmly. “You saved my life.”

Bada looks like she wants to argue more, but holds herself back. The silence between you two allows your still-racing mind to catch up, and you suddenly sit up, eyes wide and full of sorrow.

"What is it?" Bada questions, noticing your expression.

"Bada..." you trail off, turning to the side to grab something you'd hidden. Facing her again, her mother's broken necklace is in the palm of you hand. "I'm so sorry. I tried to keep it safe..."

Bada takes the necklace out of your hand and holds it up in front of you both. "I don't care."

"What?" You breathe incredulously. "But Bada, it was your mother's–"

"And it can be fixed." She says softly. “I’m just glad you’re safe.”

Your look of shock melts into a sappy smile. “Me too.” You agree, placing your mug-free hand on top of Bada’s. She moves her hand around, weaving your fingers together tenderly as her thumb swipes across the skin of your hand.

“Did Seong hurt you anywhere else?” Bada asks, scanning your face for injuries.

You turn your face to your right, showing her your left cheek, which is now slightly bruised. “She slapped me.”

Bada’s eyes take in your injured cheek, a storm of emotions flashing in her irises for nothing more than a split second before she masks it with a caring expression. She brings up your arm so that it’s in front of her, places her lips on your hurt wrist, then she brings it back down and brushes her other hand across your left cheek. She leans in, pressing a soft kiss to each of the growing bruises.

When she’s done she leans back, nothing but pure care in her eyes as she gazes at you.

“Can I ask you something?” You mumble, butterflies dancing in the pit of your stomach.

“You can ask me anything, honey,” Bada whispers, tracing shapes onto your hands. 

“You always kiss my injuries.” You point out, careful to keep your voice sweet so she knows you like her display of affection. “Is there a reason why?”

Bada’s eyes leave yours for a brief moment, finding something above your head and gazing there before her eyes move back to you. “My mother, she used to…” she trails off, “she used to do that when I was younger. It always made me feel better.”

You smile softly at Bada, warmth flooding your veins. “That’s beautiful.”

She smiles back at you, muttering a soft thank you. You both allow a comfortable silence to fill the room until an idea pops into your head.

You quickly place your mug of tea on Bada’s beside table, then turn to face her. She gives you a confused expression when you take both of her hands and lift them up. Bada’s long fingers curl against yours, displaying her bloody and bruised knuckles. You lean down, placing a soft kiss next to each of them, unable to see how Bada’s eyes widen at your actions until you pull away.

When you look back at her, she’s looking at you like you hung the stars in the sky. You smile at her, then lean up, placing one final kiss on her nose, right below the cut Seong made.

Pulling away for the final time, Bada brings you closer to her, missing your warmth as she touches her forehead to yours and closes her eyes.

“Please never leave me again.”

❝ should my hands be stained with blood, let them be so, solely for you. ❞

[snackugaki]

...visdev really is my enrichment activity for i am just a bored tiger in my enclosure, looking to figure out how to get this steak out of this metal ball.

________

my tmnt au (where everyone made it past their 20s, splinter’s alive just old, venus is here, and they deserve some goddamn respite and shenanigans)

tmnt au part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4

tmnt au omake 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

lny visit 1 | 2

also uhhh... i guess still idw, next mutation, and like 1 mirage spoiler? mostly for the kids who haven’t but were planning to read/watch

you’re about to perceive so much

p r e p a r e

so close to getting this AU looking as crunchy as i want it, almosttttt tttthhhhhere...!

just somewhere tasty between Mignola’s use of deep black shadow, what MTV Liquid Television woulda greenlit re: The Maxx, a dash of 2007, 1 part Next Mutation, 2 parts funny proportions

hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh str ugglingggg

Leo’s shortest because haha (family baby gang, get rekt)

this is so much thought for something I’m just doing to give these turtle ninjas some softness and the genx/millenial pop culture references gag comics

Splinter is full of ghosts

(specifically the onryo borne from the murdered Yoshi Hamato and Tang Shen [because oroku saki a bitch])

[ redacted ] and Tang Shen’s ghost gained control and guided Splinter to raise the boys in love and not [ redacted ] to [ redacted ] in [ redacted ]

Splinter was just a regular little rat... who on his 1000th birthday witnessed the death of his friend/unwitting master and his wife, and thus transformed into a wrathful kyūso (minus the kitten eating) and chased Shredder until losing his trail in New York

Shredder’s fuck around and Splinter’s rampaging as the find out caused the tengu to repo some of the mysticism from ninjutsu

now all the (remaining) ninja clans debuffed and mad about it

The tengu bestowed the ninja the ability to summon shit (kuchiyose), enact mystical effects upon people and objects (kuji kiri), going invisible, minor flight (actually just qinggong/light body technique), and manipulation of the 5 elements, and creating doubles (bunshin)

but again, Shredder fucked up so now ninja can like barely control anything bigger than a lit torch or a 16 oz bottle of liquid and that’s if you got in enough hours to do even that

I mentioned elsewhere but for me in any AU I make, Venus is a cultivator and the more I think about it the more I will die on this hill, not only does it fit better than her being a “shaman” or “shinobi” it’s sick as fuck

Jennika’s origin was pretty fkkn metal, she still falls in with the Foot, gets shanked, Leo gives blood-- bam, turtle time

Jennika goes to hang with Venus in China and get a better understanding of her new turtle body

Keno’s here, still tried to infiltrate the Foot (with Jennika) but bugged out when she couldn’t stay without being made (Jennika refused to leave womp)

teaches Leo some arnis techniques for Leo’s dual wielding; Donnie also just in case his bo is shattered... again. :)

Irma has made all the boys blush at least twice

Irma is also soap opera buddies with Splinter

they meet up at least twice a month to gab, gush, and groan over what’s currently going on in their stories, when Venus visits she also joins in, Irma also has a conversational grasp on Japanese and Venus’ regional dialect because of these visits

April has a full out shoujo manga romance with Chu Hsi

and he’s a hot dragon prince uhuhuhuhuhu

Irma is privy to all the steamy details

keeping Leo and Karai as character foils

both received scars from one another

both released each other from sealing wards from [ redacted ]

now they just meet every so often to eat the greasiest fast food and unclench of an hour

Raph still gets his ass worked by Ninjara, folded like an omelette sat on a lawn chair

Vam Mi is also here, she’s fought first (because honestly she should’ve been either brought in earlier in the season or had a few more episodes because that shit coulda resolved better)

Venus is brought to NYC for this antagonist instead of Dragonlord escaping (and murdering her father figure forcing her to seek out his friend Splinter for aid)

Donnie doesn’t take the news of real vampires or real magic well

Donnie and Venus have a knock down drag out fight over it (because they’re 17 at this point and being li’l shits to each other about their respective fields of expertise)

“The nerds are fightingggggg!” cries Mikey, Leo and Raph don’t believe it so imagine their surprise when they get a demo in real time on how scary competent staff fighters are

Leo gets Splinter when one of Donnie’s missed strikes cracks the concrete

Splinter breaks them up like talking a walk in the park and it’d be comical if they both weren’t bleeding from the mouth and peppered with swelling contusions

Venus begins accepting Donnie when his tech prevents her from becoming a thrall of Vam-Mi

Donnie begins accepting Venus when she uses a massive amount of chi to manipulate gravity just before he becomes street pizza when Vam-Mi throws him off a bridge

they also combine skill sets to save Mikey so there’s that

Venus goes from calling Donnie, “Horatio (derogatory)” to “Horatio (affectionate)”

they now have a dumbass long-as-fuck handshake that’s unforgivably nerdy 

April is still a magic drawing-brought-to-life baby, Venus puts her in a painted scroll when she starts phasing in and out of existence (she and Chu Hsi have a great time in the scroll... while everyone is shitting bricks until Venus and her sect stabilize her and get her made real, Pinocchio style)

April’s grandmothers gifted Venus 2 pieces of jade jewelry, and her family’s recipe for sweet potato pudding respectively for saving April

the boss fight against Dragonlord is dope as fuckkkkk, Chu Hsi is being cool as fuck, fiddled with some concepts* that has Leo and Karai being a champion of Genbu, Raph for Byakko, Mikey for Suzaku, Chu Hsi’s retainer (a good dragon, wink wonk) steps in for Seiryu because Donnie and Venus are siphoning and redirecting an enormous amount and variety of mystical power

*i’m just pulling from fushigi yugi honestly

splinter, the boys, and venus (and others) mutating from mutagen laced toxic waste was a pure accident

Splinter was investigating a lead on Shredder’s movements concerning the Foot the same night an animal liberation sleeper cell ‘freed’ some animals from the back of a pet store (that was a front for black market domestic and exotic animal trafficking) that is also the same night a stolen truck driven by some corporate spies filled with a competitor’s chemical waste, which then collides with said liberation sleeper cell’s truck and... ooze happens

Leatherhead, the Mutanimals, Mondo, Mona Lisa, Slash also get mutated from the events of that night, either leading up to or following the aftermath

plus some others etc etc

Venus still washes down the gutter, gets rube goldberg pinballed onto a crate of plums where Chung I finds her and still gets named Mei and taken to live in China and eventually learns to cultivate

Tokka and Rahzar get made, and unmade ala TMNT II; the mutagen made them a little silly tho, April adopts Rahzar and passes him off as a low content wolfdog, Leatherhead takes in Tokka

April went through a couple of major changes so now she’s a journalist with a computer programming background who now does a podcast as an informal neighborhood news reporter with a segment for chatting with people from around the street

Mikey’s the most frequent guest and co-hosts sometimes; Donnie troubleshoots free of charge

Venus brings her province’s regional delicacies when she comes to visit, Splinter and Leo both get pu er tea cakes (she managed to get one the same age as him; Splinter is too old so she got the oldest she could find, Leo has so many tea pets and a nice yixing collection); Raph, Keno, and Casey fight over the pickles, meat jerkies, and chili oil; Mikey has an artillery of cool shirts and a lifetime supply of haw flakes, Donnie has a mountain of doodads with increasingly specific uses, April gets neat accessories and the occasional care package sent with Venus from her grandparents, uncles, and aunties; Irma gets neat frames and coats that never fail to get a “Where did you get that??”

Raph rides a Kawasaki Ninja because it’s funny

A lot of bodegas give Mikey free snacks because the bodega cats love him, and he’s also saved some from being run over or ripped apart by stray dogs or the few large angry raccoons

Donnie’s the only one of his brothers to wear both a top and bottom with shoes because once he figured out how to integrate a motherboard and miscellany wiring onto clothing... he’s been a walking computing menace ever since

Splinter does his best to enjoy his time with his sons (because as a kyūso, he knows the chances of outliving his precious sons is very high (ᴗ‿ᴗ✿)  ...give or take one of the many opponents and obstacles his sons take on takes him out first ( ◕ᴗ◕✿ ) )

god whathefuck, I was just going to make silly comics for them. how did it come to this.

[judysxnd]

Proofs that Pedro Pascal and Y/n Y/l/n are dating, (part 3)

I had this in my drafts since, well April. No! I actually started in march. The dates are actually when I wrote those little moments. I wasn’t confident enough to publish it but now I care less so I’m publishing it anyway (before I chicken out). I’m trying to be more active and change my mind! It’s not easy these days.

Here is part one and two !

———————————————————————————

23.04.23, in the morning, around 11am

It’s actually two different times, but it’s after y/n posted a video that day that the fans made the connection. A week ago approximately, Pedro posted a story of him talking about a new movie coming that one of his close friends was in. He was in bed. We could see the covers, grey with white dots. Nothing much, yet. But it’s on the 23rd, that it changed. Y/n posted a video of new clothes she bought. She put them all on her bed, to try and show everything. And that’s when we saw, again, the same cover, grey with white dots. How strange. Their fans immediately made the connection and went crazy about it. But neither Pedro nor Y/n said anything.

24.03.2023 in the afternoon, around 3pm

In a interview a while ago, as she was asked what was her nighttime routine before bed, y/n said that she was reading short stories, that it was helping her relax and get lost in her imagination, which led her to fall asleep very quickly. “That’s also why I only read before bed, because I will fall asleep if I read, so it’s not so good to do it any other time” she said. It might seem innocent and unrelated to Pedro, but bare with me for a minute.

On the 24rd, y/n was bored, and decided to start an Instagram live. At some point, she saw that Pedro was in the comments and told him to join her. So he did. Fans were asking them lots of question, but at one point, this one popped up “what are you guys currently reading?”. Y/n answered and said that she was reading “Kiss kiss” by Roald Dahl.

“Short stories are my fav” she said. “And there’s this one story that I really liked, about a woman murdering her husband” Pedro laughed as she summed up the story.

“Oh yeah I remember that one! We actually read it together” Pedro added.

It’s then on Twitter later that day after the live ended, that we could see videos from that old interview y/n did, but only the part about reading short stories before bed. Their fans instantly linked those two moments. They are dropping hints!!!

29/30.04.2023: during the night

A few people tweeted about seeing Pedro and y/n in a bar with some friends. Apparently they were sitting next to each other and were seen being pretty close.

“We were two tables away from them and we could see y/n leaning on him, there was some frequent touching , arms and thighs, they seemed really close”

“When they left, they were holding hands”

03.04.2023 in the afternoon

A new interview featuring Pedro Pascal and Y/n Y/l/n just dropped today in the afternoon. A new movie is upcoming, in which they are together. As Pedro is known as the daddy of internet, he obviously got asked at some point if it was bothering him or if he still liked it.

“I love it! It’s funny, I don’t know where it is coming from since I don’t have kids, but I love it. I’ll be their daddy forever” he said, looking straight at the camera

“Forever? At some point you’ll be their grandpa” Y/n said laughing. Pedro faked being shocked.

After a few questions, he was also asked if he had already read fanfictions about himself.

“No I haven’t, as I have already seen some tik toks about me, I never actually read anything and I don’t want to” he laughed

“I did” Y/n added out of nowhere

“I’m sorry what?” Asked Pedro, this time not faking the shocking expression.

“You read fanfictions about Pedro?” The interviewer asked Y/n

“Yeah! I’m curious.”

“What kind did you read?” The woman asked Y/n. She started to blush, which kind of revealed what she had read. “Okay from your expression we sense what you read” they all laughed.

“No no! I mean, maybe one or two pretty heated ones but no, there were like normal. It’s just my curiosity, it’s not like I read hundreds of fanfictions, it was just for fun. And it’s also really surprising to see how accurate they are actually” she laughed

“Wait, what do you mean accurate?” The interviewer asked. Looking at the woman who was interviewing them, you could see she was sensing that something between Pedro and Y/n was happening. And when you looked at Pedro and Y/n it seems like they realized what Y/n had said and what was going on. They seemed surprised and a little nervous.

“Hm- well, I mean, how- well, the way they make him talk, parts of his personality.. I also read a few about Joel and Peña, and well yeah, they’ve never seen Pedro but they write about him, and it’s.. well.. accurate” she laughed awkwardly.

“Oh okay, I thought about something else” the woman laughed. “I’ve read some and it was- heated” they all laughed

“Please I don’t want to know about it” Pedro said. (It was a close one)

10.05.2023 during the afternoon

Pedro and y/n were seen at the mall. Y/n was in line waiting for her drink order at some coffee shop. Pedro was waiting outside, smoking. Some fans came to ask him pictures. One took a video of their interaction with him. We were only seeing Pedro talking to the fans.

“What happened to your neck?” The fan asked. We can see Pedro confused.

“My neck?” He touches his neck to see if he could feel something but nothing. “Do I have something on my neck?” Another fan showed him the picture they took a few minutes before. We can clearly see that he has, in fact something on his neck : a hickey. Which he wasn’t aware of. “Oh” Pedro said, suddenly becoming red. He laughed awkwardly. Before he could add anything we can here a woman’s voice, it was Y/n. The video then showed her, talking and smiling to the fans here. Then the video ended.

This interaction went viral on Twitter (not really surprising). It raised even more suspicions, if they aren’t making it official, people are doing it for them. Proofs are piling up, it’s becoming difficult not to see it now.

12.05.2023, around 1pm

Pedro and Y/n have been spotted in a restaurant with another person. They were sitting next to each other while their friend was sitting in front of them. A fan posted a video of them from another table, and in the video, we can see Pedro kiss Y/n’s shoulder. They are not even hiding anymore! Or.. they are pretending?? Playing with us? We need an official statement!! We can see them going out together more and more, what is going on?

21.05.2023, around 10pm

Pedro and Y/n were seen entering a hotel. It was late, they only had one luggage and a backpack, and apparently a member of the staff of the hotel said that they only took one room. Is it true? They may have separate beds but we will never know. This is suspicious…

24.05.2023, 9:12pm

As we know Pedro was at Lux’s graduation. But, what we didn’t know until the hotel part, was that Y/n was there too. She apparently wasn’t at the graduation, but an interesting Instagram story appeared during the weekend. It was just a simple video, as many as there are, of Pedro dancing, in what seemed to be Lux’s apartment, dancing with her, and there was a third person dancing right behind them : Y/n. In the middle of the video, we see Nicolás, Pedro’s brother, entering the room, laughing at the scene. The story was on Lux’s Instagram and was captioned “this one was almost deleted. I would cherish that day forever 🤍” as she tagged Pedro, Nicolás, Y/n, and another person.

26.05.2023 at 11:47pm

Pedro posted a story of Y/n. They were apparently watching a movie together, but we can see in the video that they were in bed, next to each other. Even more suspicious! In the video, he is trying not to laugh, as he films Y/n, as she was extremely focused in the tv show they were watching. She was frowning, and not taking her eyes off the screen. He captioned “she is so focused in the tv show she apparently didn’t find interesting at first”. The next day Y/n finally saw the story, and reposted it saying “well, you’ve never seen your face! I’ll get my revenge you bastard”. They were in bed together! That’s all we are going to remember.

[yellowocaballero]

What's the bnha fic and why would it get you stoned by teenagers lmaoo

I think Deku and Bakugo should be equal yet opposite levels of completely fucking terrible.

ASJKLDF I was helping @bytebun spitball ways to make the Bakugo and Deku dynamic not badly written, and they were detailing some ideas and I was detailing others, and I eventually I was like 'like this?' and wrote this, and they were like 'yeah like that' and etc.

Look. There is an art and a science to writing shonen rivals. It is a clear and concise thing. Deku and Bakugo are not good shonen rivals. This is because they can live without each other. This is because they do not need each other psychologically. This is because they do not fulfill something that was missing in each other. This is because they are not the same person. This is because they are not two exact opposite people in every way. Go read Hikaru no Go and Naruto and get back to me on what an actual shonen rivalry looks like. This is why teenagers would stone me to death.

Literally only two pages of a fic under the cut but I personally do want people to know that this is MY hero academia.

A piece of paper teleported onto Katsuki’s desk. He stared down at it. He looked to the right, where Deku was grinning anxiously at him and pointing at the paper. Katsuki, staring him directly in the eyes, smeared his hand across the front of the page and set it thoroughly on fire. It burned to a crisp in seconds. Deku’s face fell pathetically, like bow-legged dog. 

“No quirk usage in detention, Bakugo!” 

“Deku was passing notes,” Katsuki said snidely, not taking his eyes off Deku. Deku’s big, wet, pleading eyes promised that snitches get stitches. 

Snipe sighed and went back to his VR game, hands twitching. “Just simmer down, you two.”

“Y - yes, sir, of course, I’m sorry!”

Katsuki did not lower himself to acknowledge a teacher. They waited in bloated silence until they were both certain that Snipe had lost himself thoroughly in the beauty of fictional marksmanship as a distraction from his real life marksmanship before making their next move.

Deku leaned over, whispering so quietly his mouth barely moved. “You punched me because you resent your mother.”

Jesus motherfucking Christ. Not this shit again. “Stop chasing me down with your goddamn psychoanalysis,” Katsuki hissed. “You can’t fix me.”

“Because you don’t need to be fixed! You just need to admit that you’re jealous of my own perfect mother’s nurturing parenting style and that you needed validation of your feelings instead of your achievements. You’re replicating your mother’s stunted emotional expression but you know how it prevents you from genuine connection.” 

“I’m not listening to this.” Katsuki powerfully refrained from listening to Deku or reacting. Deku waited patiently. Katsuki lasted around five seconds. “Rich talk from Mr. Daddy Issues, asshole!”

“Really, Kacchan? Playground insults?” Deku looked down upon him pityingly yet compassionately. He practiced that expression in the mirror. Katsuki had seen it. Deku tried convincing him that he was imagining things, and when his manipulative tactics failed against Katsuki’s iron will he pivoted to convincing the rest of the class of Katsuki’s discomfort with visible emotion. “I processed the trauma of my father’s abandonment and my internalized guilt over why he left. I came to peace with it a long time ago. I’ve realized the power of found family, Kacchan.”

Katsuki narrowed his eyes. “You cried last week because you failed the practical exam and you thought All Might wouldn’t like you anymore.” 

“And I recognize the scars that remain.”

“You are actively wasting my life.” Katsuki picked up his slimy pencil and bent over his assignment, flexing his well-honed ability to repress Deku’s existence. “Go jerk yourself off with your therapy language someplace else, asshole.”

Deku sniffed, turning back to his own assignment. “It sounds to me like you haven’t realized the power of found family.”

For the love of - only somebody with daddy issues nattered on about found families. Katsuki was from a nuclear home and he didn’t need to speedrun emotional intimacy with every other emotionally damaged fame-hungry asshole in their pretentious little prep school. 

Katsuki leaned over, letting the pop and crackle of his sweat echo in Deku’s ears. For once, the sound didn’t make him cringe away. It just made him sit very still, eyes tracking Katsuki’s movements. Like a pathetic little wounded gazelle. As if. Deku was a lion playing at a wounded gazelle for sympathy, and he always had been. He would feed anything into the gaping maw of the perpetually hungry savior complex. Even Katsuki. 

“At least I know my friends like me for me,” Katsuki hissed. He’d never call them his friends to their faces, but - well, Katsuki had more than enough friends who liked him for his accomplishments in his life. He knew how to pick out the real deal. “Your life is a pretense and your personality is a mask. One little thing about you has defined your past, present, and future, and you are nothing but that one little thing. Deku.” 

Deku narrowed his eyes at Katsuki. “One could say the same about you.”

Yes, obviously, don’t remind him. “Yeah, but the people around me know it. So long as the people around you don’t know it, you’ll never really know if they like you or not. A friendship like that can’t be real. They don’t know why you’re Deku. I’m the only one in this class who knows nobody should trust a word you say.” 

But Deku just turned his head and smiled at him, and the smile was identical to every other smile. “By that logic, you’re the only real friend I have.” Katsuki opened his mouth indignantly. “What? Is your logic flawed? Are you wrong? Kacchan?”

Ugh! Fucking rhetorical traps! If he tried, he could probably think of another argument, but it didn’t seem like an important thing to argue. “We’re trapped in this stupid room for three more hours and I am going to actually explosion murder you if you don’t shut the fuck up.” 

Deku smiled, one of his little secret smiles - a little cheeky, a little sly. “Then we should learn to coexist. Tolerance is a beautiful thing.”

“If you’re trying to get me to stop punching you in class you should just say so. Or ask.”

“I have a packed schedule, Kacchan. I’m just trying to maximize the time in my day.” Deku bent over his assignment, pencil flying at light speeds and clearly dismissing him. His eyes flickered to Katsuki one last time. “Maybe I’ll find time to reply to Kirishima’s text requesting help in asking you out -”

Katsuki exploded, and both of their days were lost to another three hours of detention.

[charmingpplincardigans]

How’s everyone doing? I’ll go first, I’m bad!

I have been ~*~struggling~*~ since mid-September and in the last two weeks it has just gotten unbearable. I feel like I’m drowning all the time. I’m having trouble keeping up with and reaching out to people I want to talk to. And that’s like, on top of always having been bad at getting back to people. *stares forlornly at the ask Chaz sent me like, literally two years ago that I think about daily but just. haven’t. RESPONDED TO.*

Things are just. Closing in on all sides unfortunately. I’ve been sick several times. I bounced this month’s rent check. A thing I had NEVER DONE BEFORE IN MY LIFE before this last move. My job is literally never going to pay me what I’m worth. Or anyone what they’re worth, frankly. I broke down in front of my boss the other day and just sobbed for an hour because after I pay my bills every paycheck I have just enough left over to buy groceries for two weeks, if I’m careful, and little else. Which means I’m putting stuff like gas on credit cards, which isn’t helping the debt that makes me feel like drowning in the first place.  I’ve been at this job SEVENTEEN YEARS. A steady, corporate job. And I’ve never once in my entire time there made an actual cost of living raise!! The cost of living just keeps raising without me! (And also everyone else, I know!)

I’m super overdue on getting people the art they commissioned from me, but my brain just hasn’t been in a good enough place to create much of anything, and I keep thinking I have to get this done and then thinking they deserve better than this, around and around on a loop ad finitum. And there are a couple of other things going on personally that just fucking blow that I don’t know how to fix and I’m just gonna choke on it.

I haven’t done any fandom stuff since NYCC. I haven’t written on my WIP. I haven’t read fic. I don’t check in on the madness happening on twitter. I’ve barely popped my head into my favorite pirate group chat over the last five months or so. I miss doing all of that so much and my stupid brain is so broken that even when I try I can’t enjoy it.

Shit. I’m having a hard time getting work work done. I just sit down at my desk every day, answer emails, and then spend five or so hours frozen with anxiety because there’s too much to do and doing nothing is only making it worse every day.

I need to be back in therapy ASAP, but unfortunately you can’t eat therapy so I can’t pay for it!!

And I feel guilty saying any of this to almost everyone I would usually talk to. (Congrats and condolences to the rest of you!) Because they’re having a harder time than me. Or because they’d just want to give me a bit of money about it, which would fuck me up even more. Or because it’s just tedious and boring and no one wants to listen to me talk about this over and over again, even though it’s all my brain does every hour of every day. It’s a wonder I’m ever able to talk about anything else.

My boss is pretty great, in spite of it all. She’s constantly supportive (to the extent she can be), and she just. She tells me all the time how creative and wonderful and smart and cool to know I am. And every time I just like, tear up, because none of it feels true. But I also tear up when my friends and my partner say those things too. Because to me, a full grown adult without a savings or a 401K or the ability to like, go get drinks just because I want to, I feel like a complete and utter failure.  So like. Whatever I guess!!

I need to find a new job that pays me way more. Then I can get a therapist to fix my brain and save money to pay down my debts and have money to have fun with my friends and not feel like a constant financial burden on everyone. Then I can have the brain power back to maybe work on my fic or complete that art or like, I don’t know, talk to the people who actively want to talk to me. You wouldn't think that part would be so hard, but it really, really is.

I’m working on it. I’ll keep working on it. I have LinkedIn open right now. I’m gonna fucking sob through it, but that doesn’t mean none of it will get done.

In the meantime, if anyone knows of a good way to make a quick $30 grand, I’m all ears.

[lefluoritesys]

Deinfluencing DID? Cool

TW: injuries, dissociative seizures, fainting, general health problems, medication, abuse, forced switches, religion, burdning things down, mentions of rape

Our room is a mess, dirty laundry everywhere, clothes are not hanged up and thrown on our bed, we haven’t cleaned our table, and barely ever vacuum or clean anything else. Why? Nobody wants to do it, plus we have ADHD that's interfering eith daily tasks as usual.

Our host forgot to tell our partner system they sprained our wrist. They sprained it January 30th. Told them, by accident, on July 11th.

Speaking of sprained limbs. Our co-host & persecutor-caretaker sprained our foot because they were stupid and weren't looking at where they're going. Resulted in missing a step on the stairs. They got a yelling lecture from our host (very loving lecture), and what did they do? Called the thing we had to wear on our leg "foot prison." Nothing else.

We got sick... I wanna say 2 days ago (memory issues). How did we do that? I don't know. What are we gonna do about it? Idfk, why are you asking me, we have like one medicine we take, but other than that-

Whenever people tell us that we're a minor and shouldn't be researching/reading stuff involving sexual topics, our sexual alters' immediate response to it is "if they wanted us to act like a child, they shouldn't have let us get raped when we were 4."

We suspect we have dissociative seizures. When things around us are overwhelming, we can very well just faint. Still conscious but unable to move or speak. Everything we hear during it will be forgotten. And those of us who are not host and co-host can faint because simply being in the body for too long is overwhelming.

We forget to take our meds that prevent us from fainting fully. Teenage thing, but our blood pressure drops unexpectedly, and we might pass out. Does the threat of literally dropping in the middle of the day, for which we had previously gotten admitted to the hospital, work? No. It's not happening rn, so-

Outer world is being run by 5-6 people (alters) who are not equipped for the outer world shit. Dealing with parents? No. School? So-so. Basic biological needs? Who needs those, am I right? /j

A while ago, we found a spider near our room, and we are all, collectively, terrified of spiders. Who did we push to front to deal with it? Our co-host, who hates/is scared of them more than all of us combined.

We have a factive of our mother in the system who fused with a Ballora fragment. Like, yk, the person who potentially abused us most in our lives is their source. She's currently in inner world therapy and is actively getting better. And we are learning to separate her from her source.

When we first figured out we were a system, our host was so stuck and so determined to find out more about our alters, we had to force switches to happen, and for a while thought we were actually faking. I'm aware that that's exactly what DID/OSDD is supposed to make you feel like, but others literally could not front sometimes without being physically forced out. Moreover, we didn't even know how switches were supposed to feel. Everything felt fake. How did we accept it? Pushed through (quite literally) and focused more on the exciting parts of it, rather than sad.

Speaking of first figuring our about our DID, we filmed many videos of our switches when we felt them coming, and alters introducing themselves via filming. We are now looking at them and both cringing and feeling nostalgic.

We still sometimes want to be a smaller system because it feels like it would have been simpler, and we would love to have all members of the system get along. But we also know our brain created us the way it did for our survival, and our nostalgia about "simpler days when we only knew 4 people" is a romantization. This is the first time we have actually had a semi-stable environment in 2 years.

The only one who celebrates the body's birthday is our host. Everybody else has their own birthdays either from source or made-up. We still celebrate them. Today (September 14th) is, in fact, one of our alters' birthday.

Our host and co-host have a child-parent relationship (respectively). A while ago, they were in co-con, listening to a song. Our co-host was holding our host to their arms in front piggyback style, was hugging them and rocking them back and forth. Why? For comfort. Because they're family.

Are we all collectively doing schoolwork? Nope, lmao. Doesn't work for us like that, we simply don't have memories of most things we studied since like 4th grade, can't get them either. Our host used to do all the schoolwork, but they got so much trauma from school and homework that now our co-host is in charge of it. And only them unless it's Japanese. And even then, it's a big maybe. Nobody wants to, so we created a schedule that works for us and our switches when it comes to studying.

Did I just have to look up where I was going on the metro because I realized I have no memories of it other than autopilot, and I am doubting whether I wanna leave on the right station? Yes. Yes, I did. Am I gonna be fronting when I reach the destination? Nope.

A while ago we burned down an inner world kingdom. Why? Idk, we just didn't like it. Who cares anyway?

One of our prosecutors bought premium on one of the apps we use, and they didn't get in trouble for it only because our host liked it. We're still using it to this day.

We have a system quote book.

Everybody in this system is pagan. I might be the only one not, and even that's a big maybe.

We really wanna watch Elemental but can never get around to it. Also, Nimona, although we have a good reason to postpone watching it.

We haven’t brushed our teeth in 2 weeks. Did yesterday like once. When's gonna be the next time? Who knows? :D Hygiene issues are real.

On Halloween, we're probably gonna watch FNaF Ruin the entire evening-night with our sibling.

Our ex-host is so unhinged that we have to watch them whenever they front like a hawk.

We are not a perfect system. Any blog you see, no matter how real it seems, doesn't reflect day-to-day experiences systems have. Most posts, generally, are made with strong emotions in mind, or for aesthetic purposes, or for venting purposes. I repeat what has been said before a million times: don't trust everything you see on the internet. People are real, but they are not going to let you know anything personal about them.

Honestly? Not sure why I wanted to make this post. Not gonna give you a reason either because I don't know it.

I am currently going to get cocoa and push our co-host to study. Have a good day, y'all. ✌️

-sexual protector

[welldonebeca]

Correspondência (4) - November, 1815

2nd of November, 1815

Dear Husband, Our baby is moving! I’ve been feeling it for some days but didn’t really realise what it actually was until Mrs Selby found the book about pregnancy I’d been looking for. Did you know this is when doctors believe the soul enters a baby’s body? Now they can dance and stretch and prepare for kicking later. Our baby is dancing, Alfred! I don’t think I have ever felt so elated before, so euphoric. The doctor said I’ll be feeling more movements from now on, and the baby might be more active when I’m happy or excited – or scared, as well. We hadn’t really talked about names before, but now that we know there’s someone to be named, it feels more pressing. It would make me quite happy to name our son Alfred, after you. Or perhaps Albert, which is close but distinct. We could call him Freddie or Bertie. I must confess those are the only names in my mind. My family isn’t particularly creative with baby names, after all. Portia, Prudence, Philippa, and Penelope feel like they all came from a single page of a book about the meanings of names. (Offering; wise; lover of horses; and weaver, respectively. Or duck. I don’t like the thought of my name meaning duck, but I do appreciate it being such a classic character from the Odyssey.) Life is good. I miss your company. Take care of yourself and be safe. Don’t become like Odysseus, please. Your Most Humble Servant, Penelope Debling.

10th of November, 1815

Dear Husband, I have just received your letters from New York, I can’t wait to read them. I’ll hold onto this letter until I have more to share, so you don’t receive just a single sentence. Penelope.

11th of August, 1815

Dear Wife, As I write you this letter, I have said goodbye to the shores of England, and I can barely see our home as the Atlantic stretches before me. Our departure from London was smooth, and the sea, for now, is kind. The ship is sturdy, and the crew is experienced, but I cannot deny how I miss the comfort of sharing a soft bed with you instead of the stiff mattress I now occupy. I must confess I miss more than just the bed. I miss our conversations, your wit, your honesty, and the way you smell when I run my nose against your skin. I regret not spending one last night with you before I left. Aside from that, nothing much has happened. Things are calm, and I hope they stay that way. I shall write more soon as we progress further into our voyage. Take care of yourself and of our baby. Your Obedient Servant, Alfred Debling.

20th of August, 1815

Dear Wife, It has been ten days since we set sail, and life aboard the ship has settled into a steady rhythm. We faced a small storm, but the sea is calm once again, and nothing was lost aside from a night of sleep. I have found a small corner where I can write and read some of what you chose for me to bring on this voyage. You were right, Lord Byron is quite entertaining. It’s a good distraction for the long days of nothingness the sea offers. I hope our garden is good company to you and the peach trees haven’t disturbed your peace. I hope you are feeling well and that the nausea has subsided. Your well-being is my constant concern. Please keep me informed of your health and any news from home. Your Obedient Servant, Alfred Debling.

30th of August, 1815

Dear Wife, We are now halfway across the Atlantic, and the journey continues to be mercifully uneventful. I must confess this is the time of day I most miss you and wonder how you are managing in my absence. I trust that Mrs Selby and the staff are taking good care of you. Have you had a chance to visit the fields and the tenants? They are wonderful people, and many were very excited about our union. My heart and thoughts remain with you. Take care of yourself, please. Your Obedient Servant, Alfred Debling.

11th of September, 1815

Dear Wife, The days seem to blur together as we continue our journey across the ocean, but we are near New York now and must arrive in about five to six days. I never thought I’d be so happy at the thought of the mainland before. The ship remains on course, and the weather has been favourable since our storm, which might be a good omen for my next three years. I’ll remain in New York for a few weeks, and I expect that will be when I’ll receive your letters, which I’m quite excited for. I hope to read about your progress in our home and about our baby. Have you told your family yet? How did they react to the news? Please, take care of yourself and send them and Mrs Selby my best regards. I hope she receives my letters as well. Your Obedient Servant, Alfred Debling.

18th of September, 1815

Dear Wife, I hope this letter finds you in good health and spirits. We are almost done with our journey, and as of now, our ship is about to harbour in New York City. The crew is all very excited to finally be out of the sea. The thought of receiving your letters brings me great joy now. I miss you terribly, and the sight of your portrait has been most helpful in these days alone. Take care of yourself and rest plenty. I hope everything is going smoothly and you are happy. Your Obedient Servant, Alfred Debling.

25th of September, 1815

Dear Wife, It brings me great joy to hear from you and to know that you have arrived safely at our estate. I am thrilled to hear that you find it as beautiful as I do, and I’m most pleased Mrs Selby is being a good guide to you. It’s good to know you’re not alone. Your news about the nursery warms my heart. I know it sounds a little amusing, but it is true; I was quite particular as a baby. It’s one of the things that hasn’t changed in the last thirty-something years. I hold the memories of my mother very closely to my heart, as I know our child will do with you. Your plans of a mural sound perfect, but if you allow me a suggestion, you shouldn’t forget to add butterflies to it, like the ones you so beautiful wear in your hair. I am glad to finally have a doctor’s confirmation on our child; even though we were both so sure, having a professional opinion fills me with relief and adds to my joy. New York city is a marvel, bustling with life and activity. I’m sending you a sketch as I promised. It is nothing like our homeland, but it is a sight to Marvel. Please continue to write to me often. Your letters are the sweetest highlights of my days. Take care of yourself and of our little family. Your Obedient Servant, Alfred Debling.

21st of November, 1815

My Dear Husband, Two wonderful things happened this week. Our baby is kicking me now! Fully kicking and punching me, which is a tiny bit shocking and scary. I very much hope these are happy kicks, because we are both stuck in this situation together for more 15 to 17 weeks, and we need to co-exist happily in my body. I’m also showing completely now, enough that even the loosest of clothes won’t hide it and it can’t be hidden by a cloak or a laugh and a white lie about too much desert. I look so round! I wish you were here to see it. Would you be opposed to a sketch from Sir Henry? Perhaps as a Christmas gift. Take care of yourself. I’m loving reading your letters. Your Most Humble Servant, Penelope Debling.

21st of November, 1815

My Dearest Penelope I hope this letter finds you in good health and high spirits. It has been far too long since we last saw each other, and I miss you dearly every day. The house feels empty without your presence, and your sisters often ask after you. I understand you may have a great many responsibilities at the Debling estate, but I often miss a word from you, even if just from writing – it would also deeply please me to hear of your wishes of a visit from me if you are ever missing me as I miss you. With Christmas approaching, I wanted to extend an invitation for you to spend the holiday and New Years with us. It would bring me immense joy to have all my daughters together under one roof again. Your sisters are eager to see you, and I am sure they have much to share with you as well. I truly hope you can make the journey home. We can arrange for everything to be as comfortable as possible for you during your stay. It’ll be just like when you were a child. Please, consider my invitation, dear. I long to see you again and catch up on all the news and joys in your life. Do write back soon and let me know if you can join us. With my love and affection, from your mother who dearly misses you. Portia Featherington.

[awakefor48hours]

Aren't you a fan of Belos yourself? Or is liking him/ enjoying his character different from being a fan? Do you not like how others like him?

You know anon, you bring up a good question and because this is something I actually think about a lot, I’m gonna make this a proper post.

The quick answer to this is no. I’m not a fan of Belos like other people. I don’t call him a cringy old gay he/they man, I call him a fascist colonizer and that makes (certain) Belos fans mad for some reason.

Now onto the longer explanation.

As of late (if I had to guess, I’d say the past 6ish years), I feel like there’s been a HUGE change in how fandoms interact with characters who are just bad. I couldn’t put my finger on it until recently when I started stalking the My Hero fandom (yep, bringing My Hero into this but bare with me).

I’m not as involved in the My Hero fandom anymore, I’m so behind on the show and haven’t been in the fandom in years so I don’t know if things have changed but back when I used to live in the My Hero fandom, there were so many Bakugou fans would say that the real reason why he was angry all the time is that he actually had an anxiety disorder and lived in an abusive household. This caused him to be mean to people, especially mean Deku.

That is not true in the slightest.

Bakugou is just a teenage boy with the powers of destruction at his fingertips, that’s it. I’d say that if given the ability to make explosions like Bakugou, a solid 70% of my old high school classmates would be just as bad, if not worse, than Bakugou because teenage boy are awful.

He doesn’t have an abusive household, his mom isn’t toxic, once again, Bakugou is just a teenage boy and teenage boys are just the worst. (No offense to any teenage boys reading this. It’s not you it’s the fact that you have a very underdeveloped prefrontal cortex, the part of your brain that’s responsible for making decisions, and live in a society that actively encourages boys and men to be violent).

Now, why am I bringing up a completely different character from a completely different show into this? It’s because I feel what’s happening in fandoms is that people don’t want to accept and/or admit that they like morally bad characters. The need to find a way to weave a victim complex into a character’s narrative as a way to find the deeper meaning to their shitty behavior is getting to be pretty popular and I don’t like it.

I’ve seen people defend Belos because “he’s actually just battling internalized homophobia” and I hate this because not only does The Owl House demonize this exact type of behavior (and it’s demonized in the scene that Belos is killed) but it’s not an actual excuse to be a bad person. It just feels like the people who say“I can’t be homophobic, I’m a lesbian” wearing a wig. Additionally, Belos being anything but a cishet, white man defeats the purpose of his character. He’s the Christopher Columbus of the show.

If you like bad characters, just say it. Stop hiding a behind the excuse that they’re actually good but we don’t get to see it because they’re traumatized or battling some internalized homophobia, especially when it’s not even canon. It reflects poorly on your understanding of how the characters are written and how mental health works.

[shihalyfie]

Digimon Survive’s character cast, their roles in the group, and Adventure parallels

This franchise loves to self-reference, so it’s very easy to say that a lot of things are based on Adventure, but in Survive’s case, it has been abundantly clear (to the point of having been officially stated in many interviews) the narrative and setup itself is meant to be a reimagining of Digimon Adventure, as in the 54-episode series that aired from March 1999-2000. As much as the franchise likes to use Adventure symbolism, or rough glosses of its isekai premise, you might be surprised at how few things actually have bothered to take a look at the entire series and structure to the little things, trying to figure out what made it tick, instead of just pulling its names and faces and terminology and calling it a day. Moreover, one of Survive’s core premises of “a Digimon partner is effectively a part of your own soul” is a premise that originates directly from Adventure; it’s just that this time, it’s much more explicit.

Adventure is famous for being a character narrative, to the point you can put a picture with nothing but the characters and people will consider it representative of the entire series. So if you want to go deeply into Adventure, you have to look at its characters, what their relationships were, and what roles they had. And Survive does, but with its own distinct cast of characters who are very similar in some ways...and very different in others.

As you might expect, this post spoils all four routes, so please be aware of this before reading further. (I also will be spoiling Adventure and 02, in case you haven’t seen those yet. Hey, you never know.)

Because I wasn’t able to go back through all four routes to take screenshots, the screenshots used in this post are from Anthony (Wrathful), Owl-Quest (Harmony), and BattleBunny (Moral and Truthful)’s playthroughs. Please go check them out if you want to see the game yourself!

Something very important before we begin

I think making comparisons and drawing parallels is very useful, but I have a personal policy that comparisons should only be drawn “as much as they are useful” and no more than that. There’s a difference between “thoughtfully inspecting comparisons and contrasts to analyze how things work” versus “forcing parallels so hard that you end up trying to smash a square peg into a round hole, completely losing sight of the reason you’re trying to make those comparisons in the first place”. I know it’s tempting to try and make as many parallels as you can, but there’s a point where trying to force it becomes actively detrimental to your analysis.

It is true that Survive was built from the ground up as a reimagining of Adventure of sorts, and even promoted and officially stated to be such. However, Adventure is Adventure, and Survive is Survive. Survive is a game meant to stand on its own even if you've never touched Digimon Adventure in your life; to act as if the narrative and characters are nothing more than variations on Adventure’s is, in my opinion, disrespecting Survive’s efforts to be its own story in the end. It is a game that pays tribute to and reimagines Adventure's concepts, so it can't (and shouldn’t) be disentangled completely from Adventure if you want to bring the most out of an analysis, but it’s also unfair to treat the game as if it’s just some kind of twisted, barely-modified parody of Adventure, because it’s not. It’s a game that draws heavily from its predecessors in bringing up concepts to think about while also firmly doing what it needs to do in order to be its own story.

Therefore, in making character comparisons and analyzing the characters in relevance to Adventure characters, my priority will be on making connections between “their roles and positions in the group” rather than trying to force comparisons for the sake of forcing them, or trying to claim that this character is just the Survive version of this Adventure character. In fact, in some cases, my goal is to convey that a Survive character may start off in the same rough position as their Adventure counterpart but go in a very different direction.

I also would like to reiterate that I very much disapprove of the idea of using Survive to be condescending about Adventure. Survive’s characters and plot do address territory that Adventure isn’t able to, but framing Survive with reductive things like “Adventure but darker/edgier” or “a deconstruction of Adventure” as if the game only exists to dunk on Adventure’s idealism or treat it like it’s implausible is incredibly disrespectful, not only to Adventure but also to Survive, which in fact very obviously holds its predecessor in high esteem. (I mean, it is very fun to refer to Survive as “Adventure except people die” as a joke, but the game really is more than just that.) I’m going to bring back this very well-worded tweet “a deconstruction is when I like something in a genre I disrespect”; I don’t have any patience for this kind of thing, so don’t bring it in here. I reiterate: the comparisons are going to be drawn for the sake of better analyzing what Survive is pulling from and referencing while also doing its own thing for its own story. No more, no less.

Takuma and Agumon

At this point it’s pretty much common knowledge that anyone with a name that starts with “ta-” and a pair of goggles is going to be taking Taichi’s role as protagonist, and Takuma having an Agumon only drives it in further, but if we’re actually going to talk about Taichi himself, things get a little more complicated because Taichi was actually quite unusual in many ways (I honestly would say that Taichi is a character a lot of people “know” but don’t tend to easily “understand”). But right off the bat, Takuma turns out to have a very different temperament from Taichi’s, being significantly more introspective and less impulsive. In fact, he holds the distinction of being a rare Digimon protagonist who uses the polite first-person pronoun boku (most Digimon protagonists use the more assertive ore), and for frame of reference, the other major players who do this are Takato (Tamers), Haru (Appmon), and Keisuke (Hacker’s Memory), all three of whom are associated with some kind of meta element questioning whether they should be in the protagonist position...

(Personally, between Takato, Haru, and Keisuke, I’d say Takuma is probably closest to Haru in that he’s polite but also very thoughtful and introspective. He does happen to have self-doubts much more quickly than Haru would most of the time, but he’s not prone to Keisuke’s self-esteem issues or Takato’s tendency to shrink easily.)

Some of the nuances of Takuma’s personality and how selfish or selfless he is depend on the player’s choices and what route things are in, but for the most part the general core is consistent across all four routes. Takuma doesn’t start off thinking of himself as the group’s leader, and this part is consistent with Taichi as well; Taichi didn’t have particular awareness of himself as the group’s leader until Jou confronted him with the prospect in Adventure episode 28. However, in contrast to Taichi immediately taking initiative and pulling everyone forward even if he didn’t consciously see himself as the leader, Takuma started off still having strong awareness of seniors like Aoi and Shuuji, and it only slowly becomes apparent that he’s taking charge as more and more characters start pointing it out, culminating in multiple characters pretty much unanimously considering Takuma the group’s leader even before he’s considered it; Part 9 on the Truthful route has Shuuji outright admit to Ryo that he’s using Takuma as his model for how a leader should actually be.

So how does Takuma end up becoming unanimously considered the leader in a similar way to Taichi despite having such a different temperament? The characters spell it out in clear words multiple times over the course of the game: he brings the group together by being their emotional center. That part about being their “emotional center” is important because Taichi wasn’t necessarily as good at that part (which incites a lot of conflict between him and the others during the last arc of Adventure), but the reason this is more important for Takuma is that the Survive group is significantly more prone to infighting than the Adventure group was most of the time. When the game’s producer Habu called it the “Lord of the Flies” counterpart to Adventure’s “Two Years’ Vacation”, Adventure’s director Kakudou revealed that Lord of the Flies was an inspiration for the part of the story corresponding to Pinocchimon and Yamato...which resulted in Taichi failing to keep the group together and everyone falling apart. So in other words, Takuma is pulling off the achievement of keeping the group glued together when the equivalent of the Pinocchimon arc is happening all the time. There are no Crests in this narrative, meaning the automatic filtering for “naturally good kids” was absent and the kids were dragged into the Digimon world by sheer virtue of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, leading to a lot more negativity on all fronts and composures lost much more easily -- and thus, Takuma’s ability to keep a cool head and get everyone to calm down becomes his most important asset.

Also of note is Takuma’s own relationship with Agumon. While Agumon in this game is obviously based off Taichi’s Agumon in Adventure, Takuma and Agumon end up having quite a lot of conversations together where Takuma consults with him on how to sort out his emotions and what to do next, far more so than would happen in the original Adventure. Part of this is simply because of the medium shift (being a video game, Survive is able to have much longer conversations that aren’t restricted by timeslot airtime), and it’s also not like Agumon in Adventure wasn’t also emotionally insightful when Taichi needed advice, but Takuma and his Agumon partner end up having several conversations on the vein of Adventure!Agumon’s discussions with BlackWarGreymon in 02 episodes 32 and 46. In the end, the main reason is probably just that Takuma is just that kind of introspective person who actively seeks out Agumon and talks to him honestly, allowing them to get borderline philosophical without any strings attached.

Minoru and Falcomon

The mere suggestion that Minoru is supposed to be Koushirou’s counterpart would probably make someone roll their eyes and go “oh, come on, now you’re really forcing it,” and I wouldn’t blame anyone for thinking so. Temperament-wise, Minoru couldn’t be any more different from Koushirou. Rather than anyone in the Adventure group, he comes off as a kind of mix of Daisuke (in terms of being rough but friendly and having a forward-thinking attitude) and Miyako (in terms of being a “mood maker” who tries to keep everyone’s spirits up but needs to be reined in by a more stoic partner). But trust me, hear me out, I know this sounds weird, but I’ve got more reason for this stance than you might think!

Actually, Koushirou had a pretty complex role in Adventure, to the point he seems to have two counterparts in Survive. The more well-publicized parts of Koushirou’s profile involve his intellectual curiosity (bringing him closest to the secrets behind the Digital World) and his sense of deference and politeness, and those traits correspond more to the Professor (more on that when we get to his section). However, the less well-publicized but no less important part is that Koushirou was, for all intents and purposes, Taichi’s right-hand man, and thus one of the most important figures in helping Taichi pull off what he needed to as leader.

Koushirou was one of the few kids who knew Taichi prior to the events of the series and had already established a certain sense of respect for him (he only went to camp at all because of Taichi). As a result, while Koushirou tended to avoid confrontation with the others in the group, he was open to Taichi in a way he often wasn’t with others, and Taichi likewise was comfortable asking him for assistance (culminating in the famous moment in Adventure episode 28 when Taichi uses his authority as leader to appoint Koushirou as the best person to solve the card puzzle). Later, it’s Koushirou who sticks by Taichi when the group splits up during the Dark Masters arc, Koushirou who witnesses and hears out Taichi during one of his biggest emotional breakdowns in Adventure episode 48, and Koushirou who works directly alongside Taichi in Our War Game! Taichi’s relationships with Yamato or Sora tend to be more well-publicized, so casual fans of Adventure or mainstream media reports tend to completely gloss over this, but it’s conspicuous to anyone who knows Adventure on a particularly deep level. (While this analysis sticks purely to the original Adventure and 02 for the sake of consistent scope, it says something that even stage play writer Tani Kenichi clearly also caught onto this and had the lines "I've watched you at your side all these years! Isn't that right?!" and "But I thought you could at least speak honestly with me!" come out of Koushirou’s mouth.)

So as much as Minoru isn’t really much of a counterpart to Koushirou in terms of personality, he is in terms of Koushirou’s “position in the group”: the leader’s right-hand man who avoids inciting confrontation but is vital in helping keep them together. (In fact, the part about avoiding confrontation is pointed out quite directly in his official profile.) Considering how Takuma pulling off the feat of keeping everyone together required him to have a very different temperament from Taichi, it thus follows that Minoru’s temperament needs to be different from Koushirou’s in order to achieve the same effect with the Survive group. Koushirou’s more polite and level-headed demeanor was important to keeping the rather impulsive Taichi in check, but in this case, Takuma is already plenty level-headed by himself, and Minoru being more actively sociable and trying to keep everyone’s spirits up is a more effective complement. This is helped by the fact that, in the same way Koushirou knew Taichi from the soccer club even prior to Adventure, Minoru happens to have already been Takuma’s friend from school prior to Survive, and thus by the time we get to the final chapters of the game (especially in the Truthful route), it’s made quite clear that Minoru really is Takuma’s right-hand man whom he can rely on for many things. On top of that, Minoru being so agreeable makes him the only character of the group besides Takuma to survive all four routes -- he sticks by Takuma no matter what.

Background-wise, Minoru’s is quite different from Koushirou’s in that he’s mostly used to being rather lonely at home due to a divorced father and a workaholic mother, and he also happens to be a fan of hero manga and tokusatsu to the point a lot of his personal ideal throughout the game is to become a “hero”. (Perhaps fittingly, his temperament is probably the closest to the shounen protagonist archetype among this group.) This puts him in an interesting position in that he’s the most aware of what kind of heroic character would be from a series like Digimon Adventure and personally strives to be one, even though it takes him a while to gather up the courage for it. When you have affinity-affecting choices with him, he tends to prefer the “forward-thinking” kinds of responses that would make Daisuke proud, so he clearly took the kids’ media lessons to heart. In line with that, Minoru is the only character besides Takuma to survive all four routes; while his biggest emotional turmoil happens in all four routes (it takes up the majority of Part 6), he and Falcomon weather through it quite well. But when you think about it, back in the Adventure universe, the kids who admired the Adventure kids most were...well, the 02 kids, so perhaps it’s not actually that surprising Minoru’s temperament is closer to them.

Also, here’s another fun thing to consider: Minoru’s dynamic with Falcomon takes several pages from Miyako and Hawkmon’s book...so, remember who also happened to be Koushirou’s junior who admired him the most?

Aoi and Labramon

If you wrote a rough base outline of Sora and Aoi’s characters, they’d probably be pretty similar or even identical. You’d basically get something like “the Mom Friend who tries to take care of everyone and overwhelms herself in the process, crumbling under the pressure”. But there is one key distinction that makes all the difference: Sora’s desire to help others was something that came naturally to her despite her own lack of self-awareness, whereas Aoi’s woes come from the fact she’s all too aware of the fact everyone is relying on her and bears resentment about it.

One recurring thing with Sora was that her own self-evaluation was often much harsher than she actually deserved. Initially scoffing at the idea of being responsible for someone else (Adventure episode 4), despite being unable to abandon everyone and constantly going out of her way to help everyone behind the scenes (Adventure episodes 22-25), her own self-evaluation was still that she was apparently devoid of love and didn’t care about the others at all (Adventure episode 26). Her constant desire to help everyone was effectively compulsive, and she had poor awareness of whether she was getting in over her head, with others needing to remind her that she shouldn’t see things as an obligation (Adventure episode 51). Sora was barely even aware of how much she was putting out for others because she saw it as an impulsive obligation, and the others were the ones concerned about whether she was taking enough care of herself. Moreover, although Sora bottled up quite a bit of self-imposed pressure, she wasn’t exactly shy about expressing her feelings; it’s just that they often happened to be messy, and she wasn’t sure what to make of them.

(By the way, this is also why I really don’t like the idea that Adventure is somehow more “unrealistic” or even “idealized” than Survive’s just because they’re ostensibly more put-together and selfless people, because Adventure’s characters often toed on the other extreme of being selfless to self-destructive levels; the kids would be prone to severe self-confidence issues or even self-hatred, especially going into 02. While the Survive kids may seem overall self-centered at first and thus be more prone to infighting, any self-worth issues they have or attempts at reckless self-sacrifice don’t tend to be as frequent or extreme as they were with the Adventure and 02 kids.)

In contrast, Aoi is consciously aware of what’s on her plate, what she’s dealing with, and why she’s doing what she does. Sora was the same age as Taichi and Yamato, so she was able to be comfortable in a position as their peer, but Aoi is one year older than Takuma and therefore considered one of the seniors of the group, a fact that’s alluded to multiple times over the course of the game. This means the group ends up treating her with the expectation that she has responsibility for them (especially after Ryo and Shuuji die in the main routes, thus genuinely leaving her as the oldest one there), and on top of her class president duties, she’s surrounded by expectations and responsibilities that are actually imposed on her. On top of that, people actually take advantage of her kindness and exploit her, and she knows this fact very well and hates it. (While it’s possible this might have happened with Sora, it’s unlikely she would have even realized she was being taken advantage of, much less come to resent anyone who did, because the issue was more about her own difficulty with setting boundaries and doing something for herself.)

Aoi does what she does because “she wants to be helpful”, so she suppresses all of her angry feelings and resentment to not burden anyone; for the early parts of the game, Labramon openly voices all of the snark and harsh burns that Aoi clearly wants to say but won’t. This means that meeting Saki inspires a mix of admiration and envy for the fact Saki is able to express her feelings so openly. But in the Wrathful route, when everything goes to hell and Saki (somewhat) sacrifices herself for Aoi, Aoi implodes from the resentment of everyone burdening her with responsibilities, seeing their attempts to give her space as not caring enough about her, and upset that after all of her desire to be “helpful”, everything actually just got worse. The last straw is when Piemon exploits her kindness to attempt to murder her, and the end result is Aoi completely flipping into “the ultimate selfishness” (absorbing Labramon, as in her own ego) to decide that the best solution would be to impose her way -- the way she’d never been getting all of this time -- on others and force them to agree with her.

Thankfully, Aoi fares better in the other routes where she manages to trust and rely on others a little more, and her friends do much more to make sure she knows her efforts are appreciated. Notably, during her affinity choices, Aoi reacts very well to choices that validate her right to have “shallow” interests like cute things (instead of it being considered undignified and immature of her) and choices that have other characters outright call her a Mom Friend. I’m pointing this out because for all Sora is well-known among fans for being a Mom Friend, this wasn’t actually pointed out with this kind of wording in Adventure mainly because Sora wasn’t really seeing herself as one, but here Aoi does prefer to be seen this way, presumably because it affirms the fact her friends appreciate her as a person rather than someone to dump responsibilities on.

As an aside, the Wrathful route involves a subplot about Kaito being one of the first to catch onto what’s going on with Aoi and make the most prominent attempt at reaching out to her, and while I don’t know if this was intentionally meant as a parallel, it does call back to the scene in Adventure episode 26 when Taichi and Yamato are at a loss as to how to help Sora during her emotional meltdown, and Yamato’s response (to let her cry if she needs to) is indicated as the better option until Takeru finally manages to step in with the best response. In Aoi’s case, given that she ends up resenting everyone giving her space (interpreting it as “leaving her alone”), Kaito’s attempt to get through to her by confronting her directly about her feelings was probably the closest to a step in the right direction -- it’s just that unfortunately Kaito doesn’t exactly handle it delicately enough to prevent Aoi from having a complete breakdown.

Fortunately, as if responding directly to this predicament, the Moral route contains a scene of them getting along perfectly well when going out to get food together. This is significant if you played Wrathful and Harmony before then, because both routes had one or the other fall off the deep end; Moral has Shuuji and Ryo’s deaths force them to step up to the plate, but without the exacerbating factors that drove both to to the brink in Wrathful and Harmony, it turns out they’re more than capable of stepping up to the task.

Ryo and Kunemon

While it’s generally easy to figure out at least some obvious parallels for each character in this cast, sometimes even multiple, Ryo is the one character I’ve never seen anyone really be able to get a read on regarding this question. I’ve seen suggestions that it might be Akiyama Ryou (based on the name) or even Ken (based on having a bug-type partner that he initially had a bad relationship with). Personally, my stance is “nobody, and that’s the point” -- because you’ll notice that the one thing all of these theories have in common is that none of them correspond to anyone in the original group from Digimon Adventure.

I’m not sure if this really comes across as well to anyone who hasn’t actually played the game hands-on, but one very striking thing about Ryo over the course of the beginning of Survive is that the game oftentimes feels like it’s tempting you to give up on him. The characters label him as unlikely to be cooperative right off the bat, and while they extend the minimum amount of courtesy to him, it’s also tinted with a sentiment that nobody really expects him to come along because he’s so pessimistic he’ll never cooperate. Getting his affinity level up to a significant amount in the early game actually requires you to go out of your way to seek him out and talk to him at least once (during a period the game interface doesn’t inform you that he’s available to talk like it does the other characters). And Ryo really is an uncooperative stick in the mud who doesn't look like he has any interest in helping himself anyway. They spoiled the fact he was going to be the first death before the game even released!

In other words, Ryo has no clear Adventure counterpart because “he has no place here”. He’s not a character who fits in the framework of Adventure-defined archetypes. He wasn’t made to be on a heroic adventure to begin with, and so he’s the first to be removed from it. And yet, the difference his presence or absence makes results in him being arguably one of the most important characters in this game.

In fact, even in the very, very early stages on the game, there were hints that Ryo’s behavior of being completely uncooperative and pessimistic were largely exacerbated by the stress of being brought to another world with monsters; if you closely watch him at the beginning of the game, he’s the one who enables Miu into taking them to the shrine (which he reminds us about near the end of the Truthful route). His website short story reveals that he’d actively decided to go to the extracurricular camp despite his initial misgivings because he really did want at least a little hope of making friends. But being jaded from isolation does a number on your abrasiveness level (the Frontier kids can testify to that one), and then everything went to hell when all of his stress factors and feelings of isolation were aggravated to their worst.

Depression isn’t an elegant thing, unfortunately, and Ryo’s inner desire to do better being blocked off by his initial difficulty to connect with others is perfectly exemplified by Kunemon trying really hard to take care of Ryo and communicate with others but being held back by his inability to use human language or do much with his limited physique. Note that Ryo’s initial hostile behavior towards Kunemon isn’t necessarily condescension or anything near the level of Shuuji’s initial bad relationship with Lopmon; it’s just that Ryo is afraid of Kunemon and not sure what to make of him, in the same way he’s clearly not sure what to make of himself. (Naturally, the first thing Ryo does when he comes back from the brink is start forming a proper relationship wtih Kunemon, and Ryo himself opening up more in the Truthful route correlates with Kunemon’s higher forms becoming able to speak.)

Ryo’s death in the three main routes is from a mixture of factors that even the cast in-universe isn’t sure what to make of; he doesn’t actively commit suicide per se, but his death wouldn’t have happened if not for his extreme suicidal ideation, and while Takuma regrets not having reached out to him earlier, it’s also not like he can be blamed for not doing enough when it wasn’t for lack of trying (from Takuma’s perspective, it’s not like he had any way of knowing that Ryo would die if he didn’t bond with him intimately in 3 chapters, and Ryo himself wasn’t exactly giving much of an indication that such a feat would actually be possible). Looking at the difference between the routes where he dies and the route where he doesn’t, the difference is that when Ryo dies, his pessimism about anything working out for him and him having a “place” anywhere convinces him he really doesn’t have anything to live for anymore, whereas the route where he lives has Takuma and the others so obviously risking life and limb to drag him back that he’s actually able to see, very clearly, that he did have a “place” and the ability to make friends after all.

(By the way, I should point out that one thing Survive is very good at is that a lot of the “correct” affinity choices are ones where you don’t pry too deeply into their problems and instead respect the other person’s space. In Ryo’s case, getting his affinity up quickly enough to save him requires going out of your way to check on him often, but the actual choices that raise affinity mostly involve validating his feelings and not prodding things too much, basically showing that you care but also respecting that he’ll open up when he’s ready.)

Having realized this, Ryo opens up immediately; again, he was interested in proactively making friends from the get-go, so it’s only natural that as soon as he confirmed that was a possibility for him and his initial shell was broken through, he didn’t hesitate to brighten up and actively engage with the others. Turns out, he's actually one of the most emotionally insighful people in the cast (in no part because, as someone who's seen the bottom, he's well aware of its horrors), but he also has a certain sense of grounded, to-the-point pragmatism while also not being as extremely emotionally charged as Kaito. Completely contrary to the bad first impression he gave everyone (except Saki), it turns out he’s actually a pretty great friend to have. And once Ryo is saved, the route automatically locks onto Truthful, because it creates a chain reaction where he ends up being the best person to save Shuuji, who then paves the way for the truth to be reached and the best possible ending achieved.

Remember how I said that Ryo was the character who had no place in the Adventure framework? If Ryo dies in Part 3, the “best” possible ending you can theoretically get (Moral) is the one that correlates most closely to Digimon Adventure, with the kids being booted out of the Digimon world for the time being and an uncertain future of whether the worlds can truly come together. Reaching an even better one that more closely represents what came after Adventure and allows the story to be passed onto future generations (very unsubtly represented by the Chibimon meeting new kids at the end -- note the significance because none of the 02 quartet’s Digimon are recruitable in the game) requires Ryo, the added factor who helps the story proceed.

But really, the ultimate take-home the game is making here is that you shouldn’t give up on people that easily, because they just might surprise you.

Saki and Floramon

Saki’s creed being to “go with her feelings” makes it immediately obvious off the bat that she’s the Survive counterpart for Mimi, but interestingly, Saki is simultaneously more rude and more kind than Mimi was in Adventure. Mimi had a “princess-like” demeanor based on her somewhat spoiled upbringing, meaning that on one hand she would be quick to complain and gripe about anything that even moderately annoyed her, but she also was constantly deferential and respectful to her elders, had consistent use of honorifics, and was always polite and careful not to step on anyone’s toes as long as she wasn’t emotionally overwhelmed.

On the flip side, Saki handles everyone somewhat bluntly (not even using upward-facing honorifics for most characters despite being one of the youngest in the group) and has less regard for what other people think when she says what she feels -- but she’s quite the opposite of spoiled. In fact, Takuma realizes after a fashion that she comes off as someone who’s been through hardship in the past, and she’s actually one of the most resilient in the cast; eventually, we find out that any “sheltering” she’s been through comes from the fact she wasn’t allowed to do much in light of her illness, and her emphasis on feelings and living to the fullest comes from the fact she’s not sure whether she might die soon. Moreover, the illusory versions of Saki encountered over the course of the game reveal that she’s actually afraid of being hated by others, so there is a certain aspect of her that’s self-conscious about whether she’s going too far.

In the end, Saki respects others’ feelings, but also expects to have her own feelings respected in turn. Throughout her affinity events, Takuma learns that although she initially seems flighty and difficult to predict in terms of how she wants to be treated, she’s a lot more considerate than she seems at first, and at no point does she deny anyone else’s right to feel the way they do as long as they respect her own. In addition, while she doesn’t believe in hiding how she feels, she also does take measures to try not to step on others’ toes (that is to say, she understands that she can’t just selfishly do whatever she wants without regard for others). Out of all of the deaths presented in the three main routes, Saki’s is perhaps the most purely selfless one as she knowingly accepts death in the face of her fear of it, as long as it saves others -- especially since the weight of “failing” her friends hangs so over her head that she loses all sense of self-worth.

The beginning of Part 5 of the Wrathful route reveals that Saki had been delaying a surgery out of fear of its outcome, despite the fact that it would greatly increase her chance of living longer if she takes it. It’s left ambiguous whether she does actually decide to commit to it after the events of the game, but the three endings where she survives (Harmony, Moral, and Truthful) confirm she at least lives for a year after the game’s events. One can only hope that the events of the game and her friends convinced her to have the courage to take it!

Incidentally, Adventure and 02 generally had a pattern that the characters with Digimon partners that were closest to their own personalities were the ones that usually were more straightforward -- so naturally, Saki and Floramon have the closest to identical temperaments from the very beginning.

Shuuji and Lopmon

Considering that Jou tends to be one of the most well-liked Adventure characters by adult fans, depending on how you look at it, it’s either deeply ironic or incredibly fitting (or both) that his Survive counterpart is turning out to probably be the most controversial character in the cast.

In fact, on the surface level, Shuuji’s profile is almost identical to Jou’s from temperament to backstory. He’s the oldest of the group (in this case, the only one in high school) and is therefore considered the “leader” with responsibility for everyone by default, but doesn’t really have the mettle to keep himself together for it at first. His sense of duty has roots in his family life, including a father who has high expectations of him and a shadow of an older brother looming over him. However, one factor makes all the difference here: Shuuji’s doing all of this specifically because he wants to please others and get their approval.

Jou wasn’t really all that worried about what others thought of him (other than the minimum amount of respect necessary to have faith in his ability to keep them together). The concept of “status” didn’t really play any sort of factor, and in fact, he was portrayed as even somewhat dragging his feet when it came to studies or social status. On top of that, poking into a 02 drama CD reveals that Jou’s dad wasn’t actually that controlling, and was perfectly willing to give his blessing to Jou about not becoming a doctor; it’s just that Jou knew that, emotionally speaking, he wouldn’t be very happy about it, so Jou was doing this because he just really cared about his dad’s feelings. Jou only didn't want to "disappoint" others because he happened to have a Good Samaritan nature of wanting to help others, and in fact it almost seemed he thought of himself too little to the point of having a rather recklessly self-sacrificial streak (Adventure episodes 7, 23, 36). When Jou said “because I’m the oldest”, what it meant was “because as the oldest, I take my responsibility to take care of everyone very seriously”.

In contrast, Shuuji’s fixation with being respected as the “leader” is decidedly less altruistic than Jou’s, and in contrast to Jou not really worrying that much about what others think of him, Shuuji believes he’s entitled to everyone’s respect and acts out of fear of abandonment. Of course, the beginning of Part 5 makes it clear why there’s such a huge difference here: instead of a father who was still ultimately supportive despite everything and two older brothers who looked out for him, Shuujii’s father is emotionally abusive, and while his brother doesn’t seem actively condescending per se, he seems to have a sense of resigned apathy and is only driving Shuuji’s inferiority complex in further. (While it wasn’t said in Adventure or 02 that Jou was necessarily concerned about being compared to his older brothers, there was a nuance Jou had a very intimidating “example” set by his university-aged brothers -- but that's also exactly why Shin pulled Jou aside to give him advice in Adventure episode 38.) With the fear of being "abandoned" instilled in him, Shuuji desperately tries to prove to everyone around him that he's capable of being a "leader", but his obsession with trying to force everyone's respect rather than doing anything actually worthy of it only earns him less respect, which he knows...leading to a very bad loop.

Shuuji's behavior of being a well-meaning abuse victim who ends up exhibiting abusive behavior as a maladaptive response to his trauma is unfortunately a very well-known cycle, especially in the way it manifests via his behavior towards Lopmon. In a moment of clarity at the beginning of Part 5, Shuuji does notice that Lopmon's behavior towards him mirrors his own behavior towards his father, but this only results in a slight improvement in their relationship (from “treating him like a disgusting monster” to “overworking him to uncomfortable extents”), with Shuuji treating Lopmon in the exact same way his own father treated him. If you know anything about typical maladaptive trauma behavior, it comes out most prominently when the person in question feels the safest -- when they feel threatened, they shrink under the trauma, and when they feel safe, they try to make use of the control of the situation they’d so desperately been lacking, resulting in them resorting to the only thing they know how to do. So ironically, Shuuji began behaving this way because he actually felt emotionally safer with the kids and with Lopmon than he did at home; in front of his family, he shrank and groveled at his father’s feet, but once he was in a situation he did have an opportunity for respect, he became overly controlling.

In three of the four routes, Shuuji dies a vicious and unfortunate death when his own negativity dark evolves (for lack of a better way to put it) Lopmon and symbolically results in him being destroyed by his own malice, but in the Truthful route, Ryo gives him a good smack in the face to bring him back to his senses. While it's implied that Ryo was in the best position to understand how necessary that was due to having personally experienced trauma himself, at the same time, it's also remarkable just how quickly Shuuji bounces back and completely changes his tune thereafter. In fact, it’s quite unlikely Shuuji himself wanted to be this kind of person, it’s just that this kind of behavior was the only way he knew how to respond. (Note the symbolism of Wendimon himself clearly being in anguish and effectively crying for help even after devouring Shuuji -- he was afraid of his own destructive qualities.) Even if Shuuji wasn’t necessarily dealing with a supernaturally implanted ball of darkness in the back of his neck, it is not entirely off to be making a comparison with Ichijouji Ken.

Shuuji’s role in helping achieve the Truthful outcome happens because he decides to become the Professor’s assistant, meaning that Shuuji is actually incredibly capable and intelligent to the point where his observations help the Professor reach a level of understanding he wouldn’t have been able to otherwise. Shuuji himself says that he decided to start working under the Professor because he wanted an adult’s example to follow, which is important because this is basically Shuuji realizing that the other adults in his life had failed him. For all his father gave him grief for being a bad leader, he wasn’t exactly setting a fantastic example himself about what a good leader should be, and Takuma notes that Shuuji is starting to take on some actual leadership qualities just by being more confident and being more assured of what he wants. Shuuji says that he’ll talk to his father and brother once he gets back, and it’s not entirely clear whether this will go well (personally, I’m willing to put more bets on his brother, whom I imagine is likely to be a victim of their father as much as Shuuji is), but the important part is that this will mean Shuuji asserting himself and what he wants back at his family, pursuing what he wants to do and being a leader figure in his own way, rather than doing things just because his family expects him to.

It took a much longer and much more painful way to get there, but Shuuji was able to come to a forward-thinking conclusion for himself not entirely unlike the one Jou reached at the end of Adventure, which I think is pretty neat.

Kaito and Dracmon, Miu and Syakomon

Kaito and Miu’s character stories are so intertwined that I honestly feel it would be better to combine their sections here (I also know Miu would probably hate this, so I give my deepest apologies to her). Of course, it probably goes without saying that they’re Survive’s parallels to Yamato and Takeru, in the form of an overprotective older brother and a younger sibling who wants to be more independent. However, Yamato and Takeru’s situation was heavily influenced by their family situation, which is very different from Kaito and Miu’s, resulting in some pretty significant differences.

Back in Adventure, Yamato and Takeru’s parents having divorced meant that the brothers only got to see each other once a year (Yamato jokingly compares it to Tanabata in 02 episode 17), and Takeru had gotten his parents to agree to let him join Yamato’s camp despite not even going to his school. Thus, Takeru was openly affectionate with his brother because he was happy to even have the chance to be with him at all, and Yamato was overprotective because he didn’t have very many opportunities to do much for Takeru to begin with. Both of them were still heavily hurt by the divorce and coping with it in ways that were not entirely dissimilar to each other; Yamato started judging his own self-worth by his ability to be independent and via comparisons to other people, and Takeru suppressing everything and pretending he had it together and everything was fine, even when it wasn’t. Yamato derived his self-worth from his overprotectiveness of Takeru because he was afraid of the idea of anyone providing that role better than him (such as Taichi), whereas Takeru’s insistence on independence came from his desire to avoid difficult things and to not hold everyone back.

In Kaito and Miu’s case, the two still live together, but the inciting incident that defined their current relationship was the fallout from Miu being targeted by a stalker and Kaito dealing with him violently, resulting in the family relocating to the countryside and both of them blaming themselves for it; Kaito blames himself for not sufficiently protecting Miu during the incident, whereas Miu blames herself for causing a burden on her family and everyone around her.

While Miu’s desire to be independent and tendency to retreat into escapism reflects Takeru’s, her way of reacting to it is almost the opposite; Takeru responded by trying to present himself as a responsible, mature kid who had everything together, whereas Miu shirks responsibility altogether and sinks herself into occult hobbies and mischief. (It’s for this reason that while Part 4 contains a scenario that greatly calls back to the Princess Mimi subplot from Adventure episode 25, it’s Miu who is the central character instead of Mimi’s actual counterpart Saki, who’s significantly less selfish.) On Kaito’s end, he becomes so obsessed with his role as Miu’s protector that it becomes more about him than it ever becomes about Miu. His description of her as a frail girl at the beginning of the game is horrendously off, and his hot-headedness is to the point where Miu calls him out for defaulting to solving things with violence and using her as a proxy for it. (Yamato did lose his emotional composure enough to start punching Taichi out in Adventure episode 9, but this wasn’t treated as something that would have normally happened if not for the immediate stress of the situation he was in, and his punch on Taichi in 02 episode 10 came from him knowing Taichi would understand what he was intending to do with it, but Kaito going as far as to even slap Miu in Part 9 makes it clear that it’s not really about her as much as it’s Kaito wanting his way in being her “protector”.)

Of course, Kaito’s abrasive nature masks the fact Kaito genuinely does want to be friendly and simply has a hard time expressing it, but when Miu dies in the Harmony route, the despair brings the worst out of him, and his more self-centered stake in the equation ends up taken to its logical conclusion. Having basically centered his entire life around Miu’s existence and his own relation to her, Kaito decides that the entire world can burn for all he cares despite it being very obvious Miu wouldn’t approve of that (and when everyone informs him of this fact, Kaito merely retorts that they don’t have the right to say they know what she would think, as if he would know any better). In the end, Kaito is only barely brought to his senses before being destroyed by what he helped create.

Things end up better for Kaito and Miu on the Moral and Truthful routes, although, interestingly, the problem is not completely solved over the course of the game; Kaito keeps lapsing into overprotective tendencies, but he admits to Takuma that this isn’t good and that he needs to start doing better. Even if Kaito wants to do better, this kind of habit is not going to go away overnight, so it’s important that he keep this in mind going forward, especially since the end of the Moral route has him remind his shadow that he’s not going to be a very good brother to Miu if he ignores the fact she can take care of herself. Miu, on her part, stops shirking responsibility and becomes more aware of her need to not cause more trouble for others; on top of her compassion winning out in Part 4 when she realizes how much her immaturity had been causing others pain, she also starts taking more proactive roles as each route progresses, and the Moral and Truthful routes have her be more willing to admit that she doesn’t want to have a bad relationship with her brother despite everything.

Dracumon has a much more put-together personality than Kaito and is key in getting him to chill and hold back instead of losing his temper, similar to how Kaito is aware that he needs to do better (thus, him completely succumbing to his own despair and selfishness results in him willingly throwing Dracumon out for the sake of more power). Syakomon and Miu are like-minded enough that they have the best relationship among most of the partner pairs in the game, but Syakomon is significantly more down-to-earth and pragmatic, and she serves as a reminder of the responsibility to others Miu knows she’s shirking when she goes off to do things at her own convenience.

Miyuki and Renamon (”Haru”)

Fun fact: Due to Hikari’s natural sensitivity to Digital World-related phenomena and the fact she outright channels “the one who wishes for stability” (novel name: Homeostasis) in Adventure episode 45, quite a few Japanese fans have taken to  calling her a “shrine maiden” (miko), basically comparing her to a Shinto priestess who helps communicate with the gods and convey their will...so, naturally, her Survive counterpart is an actual shrine maiden.

In fact, comparing Hikari and Miyuki is a little difficult, mainly due to the fact their contexts are so different -- the more detailed nuances of Hikari’s characterization didn’t start popping up until 02, and her comparatively short time in Adventure had her with a cold, so she wasn’t exactly in her most optimal condition. Thankfully, if we do retroactively reflect Hikari’s further characterization in 02 back on Adventure (especially since Miyuki seems to be closer to 02!Hikari’s age anyway), Miyuki is actually pretty similar to Hikari’s nature of being bright, assertive, insightful, very put-together, and incredibly selfless. (Also, the scene of her immediately going right to the blackboard and drawing out the relationship between the worlds brings to mind Hikari’s Jogress mockups in 02 episode 28 and her parallel worlds diagram in 02 episode 34.)

As for Miyuki herself, she is at least significantly more willing to be vocal and outspoken about her feelings instead of clamming up to dangerous levels and risking falling into despair about her own welfare like Hikari would (Adventure episode 48, 02 episodes 13 and 31). In addition, the fact she grew up as a “responsible older sister” instead of being in the shadow of an older brother like Taichi means she grew up with the expectation of having responsibility for Akiharu, and her independent streak seems to be in line with that (it’s commented that even despite Akiharu now being much older than her in age, she still seems to have it more together than him). However, being born to the Minase family meant she was trained as a shrine maiden from the very beginning, which ends up causing much more misfortune for her than it does Hikari; Hikari’s sensitivity abilities were more of a “factor” than anything, and her ordeal with Miyako in 02 episode 31 allowed her to assert herself in spite of her special position, but Miyuki understands her role as a shrine maiden to be a duty, which includes considering it her responsibility to sacrifice herself for others and the world if need be. And while Homeostasis ultimately borrowed Hikari’s body after negotiating with her and left after courteously explaining themself, the entity that ends up taking possession of Miyuki for the last few chapters of the game is...decidedly not as benevolent.

Takuma’s initial contact with the “real” Miyuki in Part 8 is very brief (fittingly, it’s during the chapter he has contact with the real world, like with Taichi’s brief visit and meeting with Hikari in Adventure episode 21), but it’s enough to convince him that she should be considered a trusted friend worth saving, which puts him a bit at odds with the others for a short time after his return. Unfortunately, Miyuki remains somewhat of a damsel-in-distress for most of the rest of the game, and in two of the four routes (Wrathful and Harmony) she unceremoniously dies when the route’s main antagonist absorbs her. On the flip side, however, she becomes extremely instrumental in saving everyone in the Moral and Truthful routes, and is also granted a way home and a much happier future with her brother.

Interestingly, the parallel continues with Miyuki’s partner Renamon having a very “complicated” relationship with her partner and with loyalties or morality in a similar way to Hikari’s partner Tailmon-- but in an inverted sense. Other than the obvious partnership reasons, Tailmon’s absolute loyalty to Hikari came from a past lifetime of bitterness gained from blackmail and abuse on Vamdemon’s part, so it’s only natural that she jumped ship at the opportunity and took the chance to be with someone who would treat her with love. (She did initially start off on a bit more of an abrasive note with the other Digimon, most notably setting Gomamon off with her attitude in Adventure episode 45, but she eventually settled in.) Renamon is the opposite; her absolute loyalty to Miyuki and desire to be the one to make her happy (even to the point of taking the form of someone she hates) results in her stooping as low as trickery, betrayal, and submitting herself to an abusive master just for the chance to get Miyuki back (and, more selfishly, to prove that her bond with Miyuki means something, in the sense that she can’t stand the idea of anyone being more important to Miyuki than herself). It's an interesting contrast where, in both cases, the arguably most morally upright person in the group has a partner who ends up most closely associated with questionable morality, but it also goes to show you that even the best of intentions can end up with very bad results when sufficiently pointed in the wrong direction.

Professor (Akiharu)

Every Digimon series needs a designated infodump character to unpack what’s going on with the worldbuilding and all, and back in Adventure Koushirou was the main bearer of this role -- in fact, he was so important that he ended up constantly showing up in 02 despite not technically being a part of the advertised main cast. At first, it seems as if the Professor really is mostly just this, and it’s initially even questionable how helpful of one he’ll be when it seems like he’s died at the end of Part 3. But not only does the Professor return to provide more info behind what’s going on, he also ends up becoming instrumental to determining the difference between the endings, because whether he’s present or not and how much he’s learned become the biggest influencing factors on the outcome. (The Harmony route involves the gate being opened much less aggressively than in the Wrathful route, but it’s implied things still had a worse outcome than they did in the Truthful route because the Professor wasn’t able to be there anymore to give any guidance, and the Moral route has everyone seal off the gate because him never uncovering the truth behind the Master meant they destroyed it and thus the system that gave the boundary between worlds any stability.)

The Truthful route happens thanks to the chain reaction of Ryo saving Shuuji and Shuuji becoming the Professor’s assistant, allowing him to more effectively dig up the truth regarding the Four Holy Beasts, the Master, and Haruchika -- hence why it’s called the “truthful” route, not simply in terms of being a “true ending”, but also in terms of it being the ending where the truth behind it all was revealed. Through flashbacks and eventually some outright statements, we learn that as even as a kid, Akiharu actually had quite a bit in common with Koushirou, in terms of being timid and deferential yet bursting with intellectual curiosity and a desire to know more. Back in Adventure, Koushirou managed to uncover some very important things about the Digital World thanks to the fact he actively pursued anything he was interested in, and while Akiharu spending his life studying the Kemonogami might initially seem to be his way of coping with the traumatic loss of his sister and memories, he tells Garurumon in the Truthful route that it was simply his encounter with him that inspired him to learn more and teach others.

The ending of the Truthful route draws parallels between the siblings Haruchika and Yukiha with their descendants Haru and Miyuki, but their situations are reversed; Haruchika was the one “abandoned” by his sister, whereas Miyuki was “abandoned” back in the Digital World when she sent her brother back, and thus the Master attempts to claim Miyuki as someone who should sympathize with him only to find that she bears absolutely none of the malice he does. And like Yukiha, Akiharu doesn’t give up on finding his sibling again and eventually manages to do so, despite going through trauma and memory loss (and some scorn from the scientific community) to get there. On the flip side, Garurumon ends up bearing the emotional pain of being left behind, but in the Moral and Truthful routes he can’t bring himself to hold the grudge for too long once it becomes clear Akiharu really didn’t mean for that to happen. In the end, despite all the trouble that happened between Akiharu, Miyuki, Garurumon, and Renamon, none of them were able to hold onto their grudges, and that’s what eventually allows them to save Haruchika from his own.

Haruchika

You might be wondering, wait, what, this guy? Well, you see, in the Truthful route we find out that he was a sacrifice for others to have power, and he decided to take out his feelings of betrayal out on the world and bring it down with him. Now how does that correlate to anything in Adventure --

-- oh, okay.

I’m sure a lot of Adventure fans who finished the Truthful route were probably at least able to figure out the parallel overall, but inspecting it closely reveals there’s even more than you might think -- Haruchika is deliberately drawn as a parallel to Akiharu in a sort of Survive equivalent to a “fallen Chosen Child”, and his laments rather parallel Apocalymon’s “we wanted to live and speak of friendship, justice, and love!” And in the Moral route version of things, the Master forces the kids to go through trials of overcoming their darkest feelings and reaffirming how far they’ve come, quite similar to the reaffirmations in Adventure episode 53.

Fortunately for Haruchika, his much deeper contextual relation to Survive’s story and themes (and therefore sympathetic qualities) allow him to be saved and to pass on properly with Yukiha, which certainly beats going out in a failed suicide bombing. Adventure, as a sort of pioneer for Digimon works thereafter, had Apocalymon serve as the “inhibitor of evolution” compared to Adventure’s “story of evolution”, but Survive, which spends more time examining what a Digimon partner even is in the first place, thus has Haruchika represent more of a challenge to what the Survive kids learn to find and what ultimately saves Haruchika himself in the end: as the theme song says, turning hatred into love. Haruchika himself is said to be the first to have realized that bonds between humans and Digimon made each other stronger -- basically being the inventor of Digimon partnerships in this universe -- only for him to end up succmbing to his own hatred and the malice of the world.

Also, when you really think about it, the Master is the closest thing you can say to entities that “chose” the kids as the Survive equivalent of Chosen Children -- at least, in the sense that their distortions dragged the kids into the Digimon world in order to prey on them. Homeostasis and the Agents were still guilty of dragging Adventure’s Chosen Children into the Digital World and not really giving them good explanations, but Homeostasis rather courteously explains in Adventure episode 45 that they were doing it out of desperation for lack of many other options. However, Homeostasis also made it clear that they didn’t have many abilities on their own besides housekeeping, and that the kids would have to be the one to figure the rest out on their own (the novels clarify that it’s really nothing more than a security system), whereas the Master does pose himself in a deity-like position and even has the entire stability of the Digital World depend on him -- it’s just that they’re also quite the opposite of cooperative. So in both cases, regardless of the initial circumstances, the groups involved had to solve the problem on their own will.

[dragynkeep]

Some rewrite ideas that I thought could help keep Salem consistent: She and Ozpin have been in what is essentially a stalemate for the past century. They’re both immortal, and have lifespans upon lifespans to make their moves. Any premature strike on one of their parts could mean they lose. Consequently, they are both highly cautious and slow to act.

Humanity isn’t completely divided, but it’s not unified enough. There’s a constant push and pull between them, yet neither is so satisfied with the current state as to make their final move.

Salem almost has it easier; she doesn’t have to restart every 50-70 years like Ozpin. But she’s a bit more of a glass cannon, what with her weakness to the Silver Eyes. So her bursts of activity are mainly dedicated to culling the SEW, and it’s been largely successful. Silver-eyed children are unlucky, haven’t you heard? Rumored to attract Grimm. Maybe more than one struggling family in a rural village just couldn’t deal with the ostracism from the rest of their neighbors (because eventually they won’t be able to keep going. you can’t hack it on your own in Remnant). That successful doctor from Atlas can give their child a better life. That woman in red from the city, she has silver eyes too (contact lenses); she’ll care for your son because she understands. And in cities, well. People disappear all the time.

That Summer and Maria have lived long enough to become Hunters is impressive, but their careers were both cut short, and Maria was the lucky one of the two.

Ruby coming to Beacon is nothing short of earthshattering. Taiyang and Qrow kept her safe and thriving, but her Hunter aspirations are dangerous. If she ends up unleashing her power by accident, if the wrong people see, then she’s not safe anymore. All it takes is one wrong move. So she goes to Beacon, and Ozpin sees her silver eyes Summer’s eyes Tedrah’s eyes Cobal Indio Laven’s eyes and a dozen others he still remembers by name and her stubborn hope and realizes he can’t be so complacent anymore.

And a year later at the Vytal festival, a student from Haven named Cinder sees her silver eyes and realizes Salem needs to know about this. And then Salem finally stirs, for once and for all.

Of course some of the background information about Salem’s quiet war against the SEW can’t be stated from the beginning, but it doesn’t have to be. Just have some people quietly mention the superstition that silver eyes are a bad omen. Have Ruby mention how she was homeschooled as a kid. How she always wore sunglasses in public; sensitive eyes and all that. Her dad was sooo overprotective, haha!

Honestly I barely need to change anything. All I need to do is actually flat-out state some stuff. I came up with this in like. A half hour. I think I even managed to work in the “simple soul” idea to a good extent. But what do I know? I’m not a writer on RWBY.

honestly this was so good to read & really does show like what you said in that so little is needed to change to actually have some of these storylines make sense. & having some of this background decisions under wraps could very much be crwby's "plan" also but unlike this fantastic ask, we don't even get the bare minimum. people are still scrambling even now to come up with a justification for why salem has done sweet fuck all even at times of high probability that she would've steamrolled the good guys like in the colour war.

i did also love the tidbit of children going missing because it was just so subtly haunting & horrifying, all these silver eyed children have gone missing & there's no accountability to it because that's just the world they're in. love me some horror like that.

[astrababyy]

Do you think Rhysand and Feyre have a genuine relationship? I am not trying to demean their relationship, but I do want to understand it. Everyone seems to love their relationship, but it is so lacking to me. For relationships to be genuine, there needs to be something that caused the attraction. It can be a shared experience or a hobby, as along as there is something that caused a spark. For the two of them, there literally is not one. Rhysand helped Feyre because he knew that she was his mate, while Feyre accepted because she wanted to flee Tamlin. Over the next few months, they spent time together but there is hardly any bonding between the two of them. I would love to hear your thoughts about this.

Hi, @thepinkdove ! Once again, I’ve spent months coming up with a reply to your ask, so sorry about that 😅 I agree that their relationship isn’t that good to me. I think the main appeal of it is how Rhys helped her heal during ACOMAF, something of which is completely overshadowed by his contributions to her current trauma.

Feyre and Rhysand, were it not for the mating bond and the whole mind-reading thing, would not know anything about each other

I think @/worldsnotsaid has elaborated on this in the past, but the basis of Feysand’s relationship relies on one thing and that is the fact that they’re both daemati. Were it not for that, I don’t see how their relationship ever would’ve flourished in the first place nor do I see Feyre (and maybe Rhysand) ever opening up to each other. It is commonly known that Feyre’s not good with communication, and instead of solving this it was basically just Rhysand knowing when she needed help because of the mating bond.

That bond is a permanent crutch for the two of them.

Rhysand’s actions UTM were never truly apologized for; just given excuses

Rhysand told his whole story and reasoning for his actions, and he didn’t apologize once. I’ve elaborated on this recently in another post, but Rhysand NEVER truly redeems himself. He’s just off the hook, right off the bat. I think that, above all most (plus the fact that he’s fucking infuriating and never blamed), is why so many people despise this man.

There is a genuinely concerning power imbalance between Rhysand and Feyre

I cannot express this enough when I say that Feyre and Rhysand are not equals. Feyre’s High Lady title is just a title. No one actually listens to her without the backing of Rhysand at her side. If he had died, she’d have never been able to reign in the Night Court on her own. The Inner Circle most likely would’ve ended up taking over for her, and she’d ““““rule”””” quietly from the sidelines.

Feyre doesn’t even have the High Lord magic of the Night Court in the same way Rhysand does. Her powers are really ambiguous and illogical, so maybe her magic from the seven Courts makes her equal to him in power. I’m kinda of sure (?) that’s how it’s implied in the books, but it’s not something I’m positive about.

Feyre’s honestly so bad at communication, like it’s not even funny

This was a major flaw of Feyre’s from the beginning. I, personally, don’t really think she progressed past it, especially since Rhys being able to read her mind and actively using said ability probably enabled her issues.

Their relationship evolved frighteningly fast

As you brought up, Feysand know each other for, like, a year and a half by the time we end in the third book. In ACOSF, they’re already having a kid, and it’s been like three years –– at most. That’s a generous estimate too since I haven’t looked at those timeline visuals in a hot minute.

In the time it takes them to start a family, many couples are just beginning to discuss marriage. Like, I’m not usually one to judge people (lol that’s not true at all what am i saying), but that’s concerning. Feyre is barely an adult by the time she’s married to Rhysand. She’s never even traveled to the Continent by the time she and Rhysand are settling down. Like, it’s a different story for Rhysand. He’s been waiting for a mate for 500 years.

Feyre, on the other hand, is 22. If it weren’t for weird faerie aging cycles, she’d probably be considered a child by most of their standards. In fact, she probably is considered a child by most of them. I mean ffs she’s literally younger than every single person that is remotely part of the IC –– and that’s including the iffy members that I’m not sure about like Emerie and Gwyn.

For that reason alone, their relationship makes my skin crawl. They’re moving so fast that it’s so uncomfortable. Feyre isn’t even 30 years old yet. I hate it so much.

There’s a lot of other problems that go into the complicated nature of their relationship, but these are some of the big ones for me. I could go really in depth on how much of it bothers me, but this post is already kinda long lol.

[qtubbo]

I adore the qsmp and I’ve literally been watching it since day 1 like I wouldn’t have dedicated so much time to it if I didn’t love it but the pacing has been so off recently. It’s been just question after question with little to no answers and on top of that it’s been wall to wall angst since the eggs went missing like 3 months ago which is just a recipe for viewer burnout. On top of that you had multiple ccs really ramping up their personal lore (Cellbit, Antoine, BBH just to name a small handful and roier and Cellbit and things planned together) then they threw in purgatory which put a stop to all of that but it was like “okay the pay off will be worth it because we’ll FINALLY be getting some answers and maybe even the eggs back!” Which would’ve solved the problems with the lack of answers and too much angst just for the event to end and leave you with 10000 more questions and now the angst of multiple eggs and islanders possibly being dead or trapped in purgatory so was it even worth it to throw off the pacing of peoples lore and stories? Ugh idk it just sucks when something you’ve loved watching for months becomes draining and loses that enjoyment it used to bring you it’s like there only so long I can read “guys trust the admins and the team!!!!!” Before it’s like dude that’s what I’ve been doing for most of this year and nothing seems to be getting resolved? 😭

(that was really long and im dyslexic so sorry if im misunderstanding your point)

Yeah I do understand that, mysteries keep stacking up but most remain unsolved, for example the wheel being used near the end shows the wheels did relate to the eggs. But also left a lot more questions, like what did tubbo rolling it do? Why did Carre and Bagi have to roll it? Why was it at the end of the tunnel? Why was it in the maze? And on and on and on.

One of my more negative feelings on QSMP at the moment is how it seems to be moving away from player driven stories in exchange for more planned out island arcs, which makes a lot of the player arcs seem drawn out or forced. Because this is a tubbo blog I’ll use Frubbo as an example, they barely get to actually interact because fred has to do fed stuff but when the arc actually starts up, fred just gets kidnapped by quackity and suddenly Tubbo’s just stuck he can’t do anything but wait and now he’s in purgatory? So frubbo’s just kinda dropped for awhile.

I wished they’d let us actually solve some of the mysteries instead of just adding more to solve, while I haven’t gotten to the point were it actively draining amounts of questions, I completely understand how you have. QSMP is becoming a lot, and its becoming a lot without any breaks, it comes off feeling a bit hostile I guess?

[distinguished-slacker]

I believe I am not speaking only for myself when I say this, but it gets annoying when people from Twitter take screenshots of the OnS posts here and bring the conversations to Twitter where they know they will get more visibility and shared opinions since most of the fandom is over there.

We are like, the same 20 people over here. We don’t bite. We may have different opinions but we are not irrational and unable to hold a civilised conversation. If you see a post you don’t like, you could try to chat with the one who posted it before jumping to conclusions and add fuel to the fire with your Twitter mutuals. You could at the very least be upfront about it instead of doing it behind our backs. Otherwise, we won’t know unless we happen to run into it on Twitter, which btw happens to me a lot because I follow people who in turn follow the kind of people who make these posts, so I get it recommended on my timeline.

Yes, I could just hit the ‘block’ button, but it doesn’t sit well with me to know we are just 20 people and the people over Twitter may be talking about the posts me or my friends made without knowing about it. What kind of defence we could have, being 20 people? On the other hand, there are lots of people who share the same opinions as you on Twitter. It won’t hurt you to hit the ‘block’ button here because at the end of the day, what we really say here won’t have a big effect on you. But what you and your numbers say about us will affect us. Especially if you already did this more than once, doesn’t it mean you are going into Tumblr and actively looking for posts which to rant about in your platform because you know you will find those kind of posts here?

I don’t want to be told by anyone to stop reading the manga I’ve invested 8 years of my life, basically my entire adolescence, just because I lost interest on Mika, Yuu and MikaYuu. Note that it’s “I lost interest on”, not “I am not interested on”. I am not a hater, what I say comes from a place of disappointment, and the disappointment comes from a place of love that used to be here. I loved Mika and Yuu. I even wrote fanfics of them in Wattpad back during my middle school years like the crazy teen super obsessed with these two boys I was, and I haven’t even taken them down because of the nostalgia despite my embarassing writing skills. I am actually jealous of others who despite the direction the story took, they still ship mikayuu hard as the first day, because they are able to enjoy what they get far more than me. But does it mean I am not enjoying the story at all? Of course that’s not the case. I love it a lot. It’s actually the only series where I actively involved myself this much. I may not have the same interest for the mcs’ love story and their antics, but I want to see the rest of the elements of the story and how it ends. “stop reading it” stop using that sentence when you barely know the person you are telling that to, whether it is someone who has been with OnS for 8 years or 1 year. It’s just harmful.

If you check old posts of the people here, you will see more than what meets the eye. If a post here had a sarcastic tone or something, it is probably not serious and you might actually have a nice, sensible chat with the OP. If you don’t get why we don’t like mikayuu, just ask. If you don’t get how we can still read this manga despite not liking mikayuu, just ignore us. I don’t want to start a fight. Just ignore us, please. I don’t want me or anyone in this small Tumblr OnS fandom be criticised every single time one of us displays discontent about an aspect of the story.

And just in case, I am not talking about the mikayuu fandom in general. Just some people.

[yakultii]

it’s that time of the day agaaaaiinnnn …. when I woke up this morning (or should I say afternoon bc I didn’t go to sleep til like 5am again rip) I thought today was gonna be so rough BUT I went through the motions and made some moves to improve it (I’m getting very good at this now! or maybe I always was and never really recognised it until now, allowing me to now feel good about it) and the afternoon was a lot better than expected! It was so exhausting I felt like I was physically dying but I spent hrs cleaning up so now if someone saw into my apartment it just looks a normal amount of messy rather than time to be institutionalised type vibe (no exaggeration) and then I made heaps more protein icecream and then I was so exhausted I wanted to lie in my bed forever but I also wanted to get some fresh air on a walk but I told myself I could only go for my walk IF I cooked them god damn burritos first(knowing I’d be both mentally and physically exhausted by the time I got back and put it off again….. and I did it!!!!!!! It didn’t take long at all which I knew all along but sometimes my mind can’t comprehend that until I actually do it ugh. Then I FaceTimed my mum while I went for a walk but on the way home I walked past them filming the news live cos some really tragic events occurred on my road which is so sad.. and then I got home and learned I have the heart rate variability of a 75yro at 24 so that’s super duper fun but we all knew my body was cooked and imma try do everything in my power to increase that :,) ALSO before I went on my walk I saw the new sign my neighbour put up (as u will see in a prev post) and it made me so happy :))) I’m so glad I made the card heheh making it and giving it brought me so much joy - I think maybe the reason my life feels so empty is because I haven’t been doing nice things for people(idk?) like how can I expect the universe be kind to me when I haven’t actively been going out of my way to be kind lately (I used to all the time but now I don’t have much human contact so that’s kinda why it’s been limited)… I was running at parkrun on Saturday mornings bit before I started getting too physically exhausted to even do that but this has got me thinking maybe I should just go there and volunteer until I’m feeling physically better?? It really can’t hurt for me to learn how to be around people again just one morning a week (just gotta fix my sleep schedule over the next few days first)… anyways I’ll get back to you on the progress w that one! additionally I am super grateful for my hot shower and even more so for the bomb ass burritos I just ate for dinner! I also achieved most my goals from yesterday of drink water and make burrito but not get sleep rip. My goals for tomorrow are 1. get to SLEEP before 3am (I mean that’s kinda today,kinda tomorrowlol) 2. eat a little more than I did today 3. complete readings/questions for at least 1 of my uni classes for next week(I’ve barely done any readings the entirety of my degree and still managed mostly 90s but I’m doin a lil experiment to see what happens when I do LOOL also now I only do so, no more philos, so that readings are gonna be a lot more manageable/I may as well try :) I hope you’re all having a lovely day today and that your tomorrow is even better!

[shesmellsspoiled]

prom night and the days that follow

he was leaving.

me, this town, us. the thoughts of all the time we’ve spent together fills me with the feeling of sadness. but he has to do this. i know it’s for a good cause because without this bonnie could be exposed for her magic and the rest of the town goes down with her. i know we can’t let that happen but i can’t bare the thought of losing him as he goes to battle with those sirens. those evil souls that rid me of my one true love, but i haven’t told him that just yet.

we’ve been friends for a while and realizing i liked him wasn’t easy. but coming to the realization that i loved him was even more difficult. i’ve never loved anyone before. yeah, i dated matt but he was mostly a teenage fling and for stefan was nice and all but i had to break it off once i started liking his brother. i have the respect to at least do that.

prom is coming up in my high school and it’s important i go because to be completely overly honest i haven’t participated in many of the senior activities at mystic falls high school. but the only person i want to go with is damon and i just need the balls to confess and finally spend time with him before he leaves and risks his life so selflessly.

i sigh and get the random urge of confidence that i need: now the only thing left to do, confess.

i know he’s in his room right now packing his things for his trip. or less of a trip and more of a drive down to hell. mostly my hell. he doesn’t seem very scared, mostly confident which confuses me but it’s damon and he’s most likely hiding how he feels. i know him too well for someone that isn’t even dating him. that and the fact that i dated his brother.

i walk up to the wooden, dark tanned door and prepare myself to knock. but before i could do so the door swings open and surprises me so much i jump. damon laughs and invites me in.

“you know, it’s not very smart to try and sneak up on a vampire. you know they have super hearing abilities”

“okay smart guy.” i take a breath and he notices the look on my face. probably the adrenaline rush of what i’m about to say.

“is everything okay? you seem a bit nervous” he says looking me up and down and making sure i don’t make any sudden movements like faint or

throw up on him. he’s funny like that. i like that he notices things about me before i even notice them myself. maybe it’s because he’s a vampire and have come accustomed to reading people’s emotions or the common human traits, but nevertheless stephen wasn’t like this. and i felt comfortable around damon, i feel like i can tell him anything.

another breath and i sit down on the bed as casually as possible. “i want you to take me to my prom”

“are you asking or demanding?” he jokes and i laugh but i’m embarrassed at the way i said that and almost back out and say it was a joke.

before i can respond, he says, “i would love to take you to prom, but i must ask, why do you want to go with me? i mean stefan would’ve probably been a better candidate, don’t you think?”

i want to confess now but the words seem to almost refuse to leave my mouth. “well.. since you’re leaving for a while, i just thought it would be nice to spend time together, you know? just a friendly little hang out and you can act like a teenager for a day.” before he can respond i add, “and we don’t have to dance or any of that stuff. we could just sit and talk and enjoy the music and punch”

“okay, elena. i will go to prom with you” he says calmly in almost a reassuring way that he actually would enjoy going with me, which almost makes me blush but i can’t do so without blowing my cover.

“thank you. i anticipate we will have a great time”

i turn to leave his room before he says “what’s the theme”

“winter wonderland”. and as corny as it sounds i know caroline put a lot of time and energy into planning it. so either way i know it’s going to be beautiful and turn out amazing, like always.

i finally can breathe normally again once i get outside to the fresh, cool air. i’ve never been so excited and nervous at the same time.

the day finally rolls around and i’m getting ready for the evening of a lifetime. i put on a white gown with blue bows in my hair and draw little snowflakes on my cheeks with eyeliner. i love getting dressed up but i’m most comfortable in my usually jeans and a cami top.

i walk over to the salvatore home and knock three times, per usual. i hear the footsteps as they step toward the door. the creaking of the door following quickly after.

“come on in”

“don’t mind if i do” i respond and walk inside, carefully, as to not to fall with these heels.

“you look beautiful. here, i got you this white corsage to go with your dress. sorry if it’s not what you were expecting”. he looks down at it as if i would hate it.

“i love it, damon. you’re so sweet”. this compliment repeats over and over in my head and i let myself blush this time around.

i think he notices since he grabs my hand and puts the corsage on, so carefully.

he opens the car door for me and i get in. he shuts it and walks over to the driver’s seat as my cheeks get rosier and i internally scream out of excitement.

we buckle in for the short ride to the high school. i can’t believe i’m graduating already, seems too good to be true.

we make it to the prom and just as i thought, the place was so wonderfully decorated. i know caroline and she’s always been amazing at these sort of things. always pays the closest attention to detail.

the palms of my hand get sweaty and i’m nervous he will notice as he grabs my hand and interlocks our fingers.

i giggle as i say “thank you for coming with me”

the parking lot of the school is empty as we came a bit earlier to help set up, although caroline barely needed any. i need to tell him.

“i have to tell you something. it’s embarrassing and stupid but i feel like i need to.”

damon makes eye contact with me and then looks at our hands. “i know. and i feel the same way”

i blush and hug him. so tight that he acts like he’s being suffocated and i roll my eyes as i let go.

“you’re so dramatic”. i continue, “so what does this mean exactly?”

damon takes a step forward, separating the space that was once there. the grand my face so gently and pulls me in my lips to his. i feel his soft touch against me and let out a giggle once we depart.

i giggle but can’t muster any words for a while after.

“i do like you, elena. but i mustn’t forget that i’m leaving and can’t be distracted from the things i must be the upmost focused on.

i feel my face turn into a frown and sadness sets in before i completely shut down and can’t seem to say anything more.

“i know. but it’s the sad truth. i must wait to know if i will survive this and be able to come back to this small town. i want to live the rest of your life with you and devote myself to this eternal happiness but you must understand my motive here.

“i do.” i let out a cry and he holds me in a hug for a while. he lets go and i see tears form in his eyes.

“but that doesn’t mean we can’t spend the night together. we’ll have the best time and we’ll dance and drink punch. we’ll talk and we can put this on hold. but don’t wait for me. if you fall in love with another while i’m gone i will understand.”

“love?”

“yes, love”.

“do you love.. me?”

“yes, my love. of course i do. you’re the only girl i’ve ever loved and will ever love. i’ll live an eternity of you in my thoughts and my heart.”

“i love you”

“i love you too. forever and always”