#which. ironically. fits their relationship in its entirety haha

[langfield]

do you think vinh was actually in love with safi? i know he starts doubting that he ever was in chapter 5, but if he wasn’t actually in love what do you think his true feelings for her were? emotional attachment maybe? on safi’s side, i think it’s interesting how even after knowing about vinh’s statement about maya she still decides to hook up with him for a time (only to eventually stop sometime prior to the game?? maybe they had another falling out idk). their relationship in general is just very fascinating to me lmao.

god, the safi-vinh dynamic is certainly one filled with intrigue because of all the intense emotions attached to the people within it ; aimed at each other and also at the bystanders whom haunted around their not so defined relationship. there’s just so much baggage attached to them, you know? mostly painful things and a general sense of betrayal or regret, creating a potion of this general wishy washy bullshit that’s hard to parse through … more so in safi’s case than vinh’s, but i’ll touch upon that later! as for your question about vinh and his true feelings, well.

maybe he was in love with safi once upon a time. maybe the fact he believed that he was in love with her is really all that matters. i suppose it depends on what your definition of romantic love and utter devotion is. it’s undeniable he cared fiercely for safi, enough so to become jealous of max ( safi’s object of obsession ), swear off serious relationships in hope she’d want him back, and to engage in a general meddling within her life to make sure she comes out of situations as unscathed as possible. i mean, he schemes to steal a cow skull and then proceeds to throw it through her windshield in an attempt to save yasmin’s and safi’s relationship … it is very extra of him to do, in fact it’s a literal crime, and the game has both max and safi acknowledge the intensity of said action in episode four. we see the memory of the hedgehog he proudly displays on his desk, the carelessness in which safi treats it, her ‘i’ll buy you another one if it breaks’, and how vinh simpers beneath that offer because he doen’t want a new one, he wants this one, the one safi gave him : a gift that was likely unprompted, some sort of surprise maybe, given to him on a whim and cherished better than any other possession he owns. we also see how he breaks it when she dies. then there’s photos upon photos of safi on his phone and it’s implied he takes pictures after they sleep together and -- that isn’t even touching upon how he practically gives up on himself after her death. the mask drops, he starts trying to branch out and find acting gigs elsewhere, wanting to leave caledon forever, and there’s a sense of raw anger and loneliness he feels when she’s gone. he stops hooking up and pushes everyone away besides max, whom he clings to, and it’s a lot, right? there’s love there. obsession, probably. in many ways he’s still the ‘puppy’ following safi around like gwen said, only without maya this time. he waits and stews and he wants, certainly, for her to love him … but was it purely romantic love? who’s to say!

i think vinh wanted safi as his girlfriend before, maybe when things weren’t so tense, and he still believed that fiercely even when he stopped wanting it. i don’t think he knew where his feelings started to dwindle into something less excited and more resigned, or when he started looking for someone else. his priority remained with safi and with yasmin and thus there wasn’t a lot of time to dissect his heart, a rather vulnerable act he already struggles with anyway. he’s a repressive sort of man. he doesn’t do a lot of introspection because he has an act to maintain, a reputation to follow. but i do believe that by the time double exposure takes place, vinh’s love for safi has indeed shifted because his attraction to max veers on something that isn’t purely sexual. there is an undeniable interest, both in dead and living world, that he’s either embracing or squirming away from … i do not think vinh had many crushes at all when he was in love with safi. i don’t think he allowed himself that luxury, because he didn’t want to move on from her, or put himself off the market in case she wanted him again, in bed or in some profound, loving sense. lots of waiting. lots of surrendering, ‘she’ll come around, we’ll make up’, and hoping despite himself. so his romance with max proves to me that vinh is somewhat right in saying ‘or i thought i was’ when talking about safi and being in love with her, because he was before, but he isn’t exactly in love with her now, if that makes sense? i’d say an emotional attachment is a good title for what they have by the time of the games events.

( i do not wish to diminish vinh’s feelings, but i also think there’s a case to be made that he was rather desperate when he thought himself in love with safi ; there was a lot of insecurity within him back when he was a student, weighed down by the fact he was poor and not your standard run-of-the-mill white man … as an adult he scoffs at his acting abilities and wields his power as head of abraxas with a rather tight fist, as though it’s the only control he’s ever had before. it’s rather clear his only two friends were safi and maya and that vinh hasn’t had any since them -- was desperate to stay on their heels despite the fact he was never really apart of whatever they had. it’s not a stretch to speculate that vinh was, perhaps, a cocktail mix of loneliness and desperation rather than strictly in love with safi. maybe confused his all-consuming need to be around her as desire, or maybe just enjoyed feeling wanted by safi enough to mix his wires. after all, why was it safi he was in love with and not maya? vinh also uses sex as a means of coping, as seen by his rather active sex life in game via hookup apps and reggie, so maybe his sex with safi was just that. coping. in it’s own way. regardless, he did love her, or so he thinks so, and to me i think that’s enough, speculation aside )

safiya’s side of things is much more difficult than vinh’s, who is more obvious about his feelings towards her than he thinks he is. there are some brief contradictions, like how it’s stated that safi doesn’t care for vinh ( which is true ) and yet she also acknowledges that when she split apart and lost herself, all that was left of her was moses, lucas, gwen, and vinh. we know that moses and gwen matter to safi, or mattered, and that at one point safi might’ve admired lucas … so where does that leave vinh? if she doesn’t hate him like gwen or lucas now, and if she doesn’t cherish him like moses or max, why is he still apart of her? what does that mean? is it just a metaphor for their times with maya, and how safi will always be connected to that past with vinh because of her love for the caledon’s personal dead girl? was her sleeping with vinh about maya too? or did she actually care for vinh once, albeit weakly and casually, and did that fleeting moment of affection count when she vanished into everyone who’s ever thoroughly affected her life? and, as you said, it’s so fascinating that she hooks up with vinh at all post maya death … it feels strange and odd and unlike her. even in their intimate picture together after fooling around she is nothing but angry, disinterested, her underwear and bra are already back on ( if they were ever off at all? ) and while that’s on account of safi just hating photos, i also think it’s a testament to how irritable she finds vinh’s presence when stuck in it. it’s not a happy photo really, even vinh’s expression is a little red-eyed, forced, like he was likely wasted the night prior. i wouldn’t be surprised if safi was only able to be with vinh if she was … you know … literally out of her mind drunk or high or what have you.

though, that’s just speculation of course. my vague take on things is that safi went to vinh whenever she was partied out or if she was feeling particularly destructive that day ; choked with self loathing over her mom or maya and so sex with vinh was a means for her to feel even worse. some sort of self harm, some sort of outlet where she could be particularly cruel and evil without consequence, because vinh would take it and roll over -- could even be her way of controlling things too, like vinh with abraxas, because we know vinh has no issues with being led around in the bedroom, so that’s some food for thought. i don’t think she thinks about it after or remembers it much … she really doesn’t think about vinh unless it suits her or if she needs to. i always notice how, in episode four, safiya immediately knows what max is talking about when she asks if safi’s ever transformed into amanda, gwen, or lucas. she owns up immediately, confesses, and understands intimately what situation max is referring to. but when max asks about vinh and the phone, there is a brief moment where safi just stares blankly at her -- like she’s thinking about it, like she doesn’t even remember, before it finally clicks after a beat. either she wears vinh’s metaphorical skin a lot ( which, to be fair, she does pretend to be vinh a lot in game ) or she literally thinks of him so little she’ll forget everything about him in minutes. both are likely! she doesn’t even recall what type of alcohol he likes, calling it bougie japanese brandy ‘or whatever’ … and can’t be assed to remember his phone’s pin number exactly, only vague details about a magician scientist that she clearly thought was boring and lame when vinh told her said story, if her hostility and complete forgetfulness is anything to go by. for me, it’s easy to get caught up in a ‘safi did care! she had to!’ angle about vinh, although the game repeatedly shows you over and over again that she does not. she doesn’t even care that max kissed him really, if anything, she’s more jealous of vinh being with max given some of her remarks :

( i know, technically, safi’s ‘come again?’ is more nervous than jealous per se … but there is a certain air to it, especially given the ‘i can be your new boyfriend’ comment as seen above lol. if she loves max and doesn’t care for vinh, i can only imagine how she’d feel about their romance in particular! )

and, of course, there’s that part in episode four where safi can disguise herself as vinh in order to tear lucas a new one. i enjoy that part for many reasons! seeing how safi feels so much more comfortable in someone else’s skin than her own is fascinating and makes for good foreshadowing … but there is also the reveal of her opinions on vinh, unabashed and shameless, when she is finally giving him an ounce of thought :

it’s interesting! she doesn’t care for him, really, doesn’t loathe him like lucas or gwen or her own mother, but there’s a level of vitriol regardless. she thinks him fake. she thinks him a coward. she thinks he’s scared of facing consequences and that he only acts in his own self interest and she hates every bit of that. while safi can confess to doing maya wrong and hating herself for it, she never allows vinh that same courtesy. even says as much to max, claiming that only she had the humanity to regret her choice while vinh apparently didn’t. and yet … she doesn’t hate him? doesn’t feel strongly towards him? he’s still apart of her, a large part, and she can get along with him fine on crosstalk if she so pleases and she can hate his guts but, when the raw truth is revealed, she apparently feels nothing towards him at all? it is fascinating to think about is all. how she doesn’t wish him dead but doesn’t care if he’s alive either despite everything they’ve been through, even though she hates gwen and lucas and her mother more. it’s rather mean, though that’s what makes it so complex and interesting. it shows that safi only ever cares ( and oh, does she care fiercely, obsessively ) for a very slim group of people, and that when push comes to shove, everyone else can fend for themselves for all she cares. she would protect moses and max in a heartbeat, without thought, and the piece of her within them tries valiantly to keep them safe by locking them away from the world ( another thing to dissect, certainly! ), but she doesn’t really extend such empathy towards the innocents caught in her crossfire. she may be tormenting lucas and gwen specifically, but everyone else was going to be collateral damage and safi was fine with that. at least a little bit. vinh falls in that category of inevitable damage, i think, despite their closeness and despite their history, and you can tell that’s what really wounds him at the end of things. safi couldn’t even torment him, didn’t have the want or energy to do so, he was valiantly apart of her and safi didn’t even care about that. very interesting! it’s also heartbreaking in many ways to see two people who should’ve been able to lean on each other, who should’ve loved one another, be nothing but strangers at the end of things. an example of how tragedy doesn’t always bring people closer. sometimes it drives you worlds apart from the one you should be grieving with, which can be seen in other life is strange games, most notably with chloe and joyce, i think.

anyway! tldr : it’s complicated and worth exploring. there are many ways you can interpret their relationship and i highly encourage everyone to find what angle is most interesting to them! and i don’t blame you for finding their dynamic fascinating because it’s easily one of my favorites in double exposure … i don’t think of it often, but it’s always lingering in the back of my mind. regardless, i hope this word vomit is helpful! if i brought up more questions than answers, i do apologize. but thank you so much for such a fun question <3 it was an absolute blast, and tickled my brain enough to pump this out asap.

[lumilasi]

Hiiii I was reading FS series and so far AM LOVING IT!! (That ending doe whyyy imma cri (;—;) and just, wanted to ask how u even came up with it? Do u have favorite parts?? (Or least fave, can't imagine that personally thou (〃´∀｀)) asdgfsssd sorry if this is random or weird I just really wanted to let u know I liked it a lot! Might've skipped sleep couple times ahahaha....(^—^);

Thank U for writing! Hope u have a great day!!!!!

Hi there, sorry for late reply! (got this last night basically lol) and don't worry! It's random but in a good way lmao

(Also, don't worry things get better if you continue reading the series, trust me C; But up to you of course! I know its a long ass story when you put all 3 fics together lmao)

Also pls don't skip sleep, sleep is good! Sleep is important haha

I can't recall exactly where the idea came from, I think I was just toying with the concept of "What if AFO WASN'T absolute horse shit of a parent & Somehow friends with Toshinori WITHOUT making All Might evil?" or something along those lines.

Hmmm....I do very much like that one scene, where Hisashi and Toshinori chat in a car, or more like Toshinori shares his woes with his friend, and Hisashi says something very simple, but it is very profound in the context of the story/their relationship. (I drew this scene and wrote a whole ass essay about why I loved the scene so much for some reason lmao).

Hisashi Kicking Toshinori outta hero form was also pretty fun, namely because you as a reader KNOW who Hisashi is (and Toshinori doesn't, yet), making the whole thing kind of ironic.

Also, Tenko pretending to be a starfish. It was just one of those cute kids train of thoughts moments I really liked writing. (Since I've drawn all these scenes in question, I'll plop the artworks here so this is not just a wall of text answer lol);

As for least fave, it is actually pretty typical (at least in my case lol) that there's always something I feel like I could've written better. Don't get me wrong I very much still love FS, but even my favorite story has some things that in hindsight...if I wrote the fic now, I'd do differently. Call it learning what works/what doesn't/what could work better and all haha!

These things are:

How Hisashi's brother died. I now feel like how it went down doesn't...quite fit with the kind of character Hisashi became. It was meant to be tragic, kind of accidental, but, ehhh...maybe it doesn't feel enough like an accident? Admittedly this detail is something I could easily go and change as it's just couple of lines of dialogue and a scene, but finding those bits would probably take ages. (Will I do this small but kind of significant change? Who knows, maybe someday lol, I did rewrite an entirety of Reanimate at one point, or well one half of it back in 2020)

The whole Todoroki family sub-plot. Now, the way it was written came from the current understanding of Endeavor's character at that time (pre Touya flashbacks) which, kind of...ironically ended up making me write him worse than he actually turned out to be in canon, (Enji's still a terrible, abusive father and a person ofc, don't get me wrong, but he's def. violent sooner in my fic, than he was in canon) and now, I'd probably approach that plotline differently with the new info I have.

Maybe I wouldn't make a full on redemption arc for Enji as, well, I don't really care about his character much outside the impact he's had on his family, but def. wouldn't have written him as violent as he came off, given the timing of things.

Maybe The Midoriyas could've prevented things from going to that point it ends up in canon, and get Touya to see he has more value than just living up to his dad's amibitions, and MAYBE Enji starting to see his son as an individual, rather than his extension.

Or something. IDK.

Like said, Enji's one of the more boring characters in bnha to me, which makes writing him/focusing on him kind of difficult, hence IDK if I'd be able to pull off such an idea easily. I feel like he has very little interesting substance (to me, this is subjective OFC) outside the whole "bad dad" plot, and as a cherry on top, his design just... manages to combine a lot of things I tend to find kind of unappealing to look at in a character lmao. It's not even rescued by his writing, like what happens with All Might for example.

In fact, if I can get away with not showing Enji on-screen in a story (Without just killing him off/putting him in jail, those aren't my favorite solutions to issues like this, and have only used the former, once), while still showcasing the negative effect he's had on Dabi (and/or Shoto) I will do it. Quite obviously, I did not feel like it'd work for FS, not having him be on-screen at all.

....Well this is a long answer, this last part got especially rambly, but kind of fitting given how long my stories tend to be too haha! Hope it satisfied your curiosity :D