#I honestly imagined the whole thing ending up being a media shitstorm

[hellsingmongrel]

Man, so I'm not normally the biggest fan of Modern AUs, nor am I overly fond of fiction focused on kids, but...last night, my sleeping brain decided to concoct this Trigun (Stampede-flavored) Modern AU that now is living rent free in my damn brain! I want to get it out of my head and into the ether. I don't know if I'm going to do anything long-form with it, and I'm having to translate dream weirdness into more coherent storytelling, but here we go.

So it's modern day Earth, like 2024 or some shit, right? And that's when this version of Earth had just begun fucking around with Plant cloning. It's early enough that the SEEDS project hasn't even left the planet, the scientists haven't yet figured out how to put Plants in bulbs and use them for fuel, none of that! But they've already had Tessla happen, and the boys have already been born. Since they're not in space, even though they had to have found out about their sister, Nai hasn't had a chance to literally nuke humanity from orbit, and I guess Rem has had a chance to try and curtail some of his trauma, so he's...more stable? Ish? Stable enough where he's not actively trying to murder everyone. And the boys are "older," like we see in the flashbacks for the time Vash encountered Nai during the Last Run, so probably around 6 years old but looking 16 or so.

Rem has managed to fudge their paperwork so they've started going to school with human kids, to try and give them a normal childhood. Nai isn't as eager to play ball with the whole "being human" thing as much as Vash is, but Vash has got so many friends, Meryl and Milly and Lina are there and they're like the cutest, most stupidly adorable group of friends, just a bunch of little goofballs, like kids that age are. And the school has a field trip to a theme park (it was Disneyworld in my dream because my school actually did this, but ours was a band trip) and Vash manages to convince Rem to let him go. Vash and Nai and Rem are still paranoid about humans figuring out who they are, so you know, he's told to be extra careful and take care of himself, and Nai gives him one of his blades or something for self defense, just in case something happens. Even though Vash would never, that boy has trauma around knives and trying to defend himself, if you've read Trimax, iykyk. But he takes it anyway, and somehow, he manages to sneak it into the park. Maybe the metal doesn't register on metal detectors or something, who knows.

But he's a kid, and kids are dumb. Especially when they're 16. Especially if those 16 year olds aren't actually 16 and don't have the actual lived experience to know better. So he starts playing with the knife in front of the girls, showing off and just being a silly little guy. And then the knife slips. Bad. We're talking "this is how he probably lost his arm in this AU" bad. Blood everywhere, the girls are panicking and take him to the school chaperones and it's like "HOLY SHIT WTF DUDE, We're taking you to the ER, someone call his mom!"

And he hears that, pictures the doctors finding out he's not human, remembers what happened to Tessla, and panics. Boy does a runner like only Vash can do, and he manages to get away from them, out of the park, and escapes from security. And when parents get involved in trying to find him, the authorities start looking into the incident, and someone in the government overseeing the Plant research is able to recognize the elemental make up of the blade he dropped, and they start having suspicions. So the feds get involved, and it just goes from bad to worse, right?

Meanwhile, loopy from blood loss and panicking and a little sobbing mess because he feels dumb about slipping up and he's afraid he'll never get to go home to his mom and his brother again and is spiraling the way kids do when they panic, he gets lost in the city and ends up stumbling over teenage Wolfwood, who lives on the streets and has a few street kids that he looks after on his own with Livio. They never got to live at the orphanage, but that also means that the Eye (in whatever form it takes in this AU) never got ahold of them, so yeah, shits fucked for them, but it's actually a whole lot better for them than it might have been. And it's Wolfwood without all of the EoM trauma, so you can just imagine what he does when this delirious, bloody, terrified, severely injured kid runs him over in the street, sobbing about being caught by the adults and taken away.

Big Brother Nico do what Big Brother Nico do.

At that point, I ended up waking up, but damn if my brain didn't give me enough details to come up with a dumb AU idea that I kind of love and want to do something with, but I don't know if I have the time or spoons to do so.

Ideas I'd had following this beginning to flesh itself out in my head; Luida and Brad are Plant researchers brought onto the project to help the feds figure out wtf is going on with this whole situation, and when Luida is told to talk to Rem, because she's not giving them anything they can use, the two of them reach a secret accord to bring Vash home safe and sound and cover everything back up nice and squeaky clean the way it should have stayed.

Vash's arm is bad enough that he can't really heal it very well on his own without medical care, Plant healing or no. He's doing better than most kids would, but it still begins to go septic, and it forces Nico and Livio to make the really hard decision to find adults they can trust to bring him to so he can get the care he needs. He still ends up losing his arm, though.

At the end of everything, Melanie ends up taking Nico and Livio and the other kids in, so they still get to have their momma figure, even if she comes in later. Maybe she's the one that they find to help them. Is she maybe someone they've known was mostly safe but was never able to get them to stick around long enough to take care of them? Either way, the boys get Vash to her, and it starts the process of getting him home and the kids finally staying at the orphanage.

Meryl, Milly, and Lina all end up sneaking away when they realize that Vash is in more trouble than the adults are letting on, trying to go find him, since they know him better than anyone other than Rem and Nai. Eventually, they meet up with Nico and Livio while everyone is trying to avoid federal agents.

Obviously it's lovey-dovey Vashwood and Insurance Girlfriends and Polygun-flavored, but in the "these kids are too oblivious to think about sexy things, yet" sort of way, because I really do headcanon that at least Vash is ace, Wolfwood is probably demi, and also I am not writing children getting intimate like that. >8/ But kids having little crushes on each other is adorable and I can't not have Vashwood and Insurance Girlfriends be the eventual outcome, once those idiots all grow up and get their heads screwed on straight.

Also, because Nai hasn't had a chance to murder everyone, Rem's managed to work with him enough that he's very slowly overcoming his trauma and regaining his ability to trust that he's not in permanent danger. He'll probably grow up to be a Plants Rights activist or something, lbh. Or a politician. But he's not going to murder people, so either way, it's a win/win!

Because Nico's been living on the streets with him, Razlo either hasn't had to manifest as strongly for Livio, or hasn't manifested at all. Livio is still the sweet, shy, crybaby teddy bear we see, and maybe Razlo only comes out when the feds start getting closer and almost managing to grab the kids, and because he's been able to bond with Nico and the other kids so well this time, Livio is close enough to them that the thought of them getting hurt or taken away is enough to make him want to protect their little group instead of just Livio.

Wolfwood absolutely grumbles about how alike Vash and Livio are. Both a couple'a crybabies, geez, what the Hell you two??? But he also is very much a teddy bear who gives the best hugs when one of his little band of gremlins is upset, so he probably spends more time in a cuddle pile than anything else, now that there's two of them to lose their shit at the drop of a hat.

Vash was totally the one very sweet boy in a clique of girls that everyone who'd known him realized, when they were adults looking back, that he was very much the sweet gay kid hanging out with the girls because it was safer to be himself around them than it was to be around the other boys. (This isn't meant as a stereotype of gay kids, this is based on actual kids I grew up with. My friend group honest to God adopted them because we were all a bunch of momma bears.)

Vash is also...not trans? Because he's a Plant and Plants don't work the same way humans do, but he's also not what humans would think of as a cis boy. He expresses a masc presentation, but probably the closest equivalent would be an intersexed kid. Nai, too, tbh, though he's probably more of the "I don't give a fuck" opinion when it comes to his own gender identity. He uses he/him because that's what humans think when they see him, but he doesn't care any deeper than that.

[daesungindistress]

You do know artists “retire” all the time and come back whenever? You do know you’re still pushing a false narrative of seungri just because you personally feel so betrayed from believing false media? Can you stop twisting words/purposefully misinterpreting for one sec and see it’s obvious the other 4 still support him?Where do you get off? Honestly you suffer from narcissism(google it please) and should probably get it looked at.

Oh, someone’s feisty! Alright, let’s go. *cracks knuckles*

False narrative? Please tell me what’s false about Seungri publicly announcing his retirement “because the issues I caused a societal disturbance with are too great.” About YG terminating his contract. About BB continuing on and making their comeback as four starting with Coachella next month. About their official promo materials portraying four members for the first time in their history. Not just on the Coachella website, on the YG website too. What part of this is false to you? All of this is real, all of this is true. But you, unable to adapt to changing circumstances, have barricaded yourself inside a world of your own making in which nothing has changed, not really, and everything will soon go back to the way it was. Newsflash: everything has changed and nothing will ever be the same. He did not “retire”, in quotations like he didn’t mean it, he retired. Actually, genuinely retired. Seungri bailed on BB and the industry, that really happened, and BB are going on without him, that’s really happening. To anyone with their head on straight it’s quite clear that he’s gone and the members are moving on. But yours seems to be duct-taped on backwards. No wonder all you can see is what we’re leaving behind.

It’s funny. You act like Seungri isn’t a competent, grown man who can make his own decisions about his career – and has! He made the decision to end it. Choosing not to believe the finality of it, which you are doing, doesn’t make it any less real or any less permanent. What you need to understand is that he did more than say goodbye to BB, he took it a step further – a big step further – and quit the industry. If he had any thoughts or hopes of coming back he would not have announced his retirement from entertainment, he would have pulled a Hanbin and left the group and left it at that – although even then, let me remind you no one in kpop has ever returned to their group after leaving. I think it’s safe to say Hanbin’s heart is still in music and we’ll be seeing him again someday, even if it’s not as a member of iKON. Seungri though… that’s a hard no.

Of course, it’s difficult to make this comparison due to the severity of their scandals being vastly unequal, which directly correlates to their chances of a successful return. I know you OT5/Seungri fans are stuck inside your own asses where I’m sure it’s all very warm and cozy and your precious trash panda isn’t regarded as one of the worst criminals in the history of kpop, but fact is… he’s regarded as one of the worst criminals in the history of kpop. And as if that wasn’t enough, his involvement in that chat, though he isn’t facing charges for it, is enough on its own to put his music career six feet under, which it did. It’s no coincidence that he retired the day that chat log went public. It’s time to face the music: Seungri can’t come back and he knows it.

But you poor thing, you’ve convinced yourself he wasn’t being serious when he made such a serious announcement. You think – oh, I see now. You think he was bullshitting when he broke everyone’s hearts and said he was out. You want that to be the case. How on earth is that any better? Wait, does that mean you’re cool with lies and manipulation? You must be if you’re still a fan of Seungri. Sorry, can’t relate.

Let me explain something to you. If you truly believe Seungri will come crawling back to the group after the immense amount of damage he’s single-handedly responsible for, the shame he’s brought to all of BB, the distrust he’s instilled in fans and non-fans alike re: the remaining members, the complete and utter disregard he’s shown for his hyungs’ well-meaning warnings, and the appalling lack of moral character he demonstrated the moment the mask came off… you haven’t been paying attention. You are not only turning a blind eye to the shitstorm he was at the center of last year (and still hasn’t found his way out of, in case you weren’t aware), you are also disregarding everything the BB members have been making sure we knew about him since late 2015. Which is that they expected him to leave – and they’d come to terms with it. It may even be that they wanted him to. Seungri’s days as a singer have been coming to a close for years as his interest in business gradually eclipsed his waning interest in music and his reasons for staying with BB for as long as he did became a source of tension. He was moving in a new and separate direction, one that was taking him away from them. BB knew this and they weren’t quiet about it. They made sure we knew it too. But you weren’t listening, were you. Now all their warnings to him have come true and you’re still not listening. What to do?

What’s more, please don’t tell me you actually think he’s going to stick his neck out there again and claw his way back up from the very bottom against the raging fires of hatred and disapproval and distrust, not just from the public but from BB’s own fanbase, to fight tooth and nail for a career he’d lost his passion for long before Burning Sun became an issue. He said in an interview that he had no plans to make a solo album, he was essentially pressured into it by fans. And in case you’ve forgotten, though his solo tour went well at first, it began falling apart shortly before he was swept up in Burning Sun. Cracks were forming, he was stressed and venting his frustrations in ways he shouldn’t have been, inciting unrest, turning fans against his boss and sparking inflammatory headlines and just generally making waves in a bad way. He bit off more than he could chew with that tour, and still greedy fans like you pulled on him for more, more, more. Burning Sun followed by the prostitution chats followed by the molka chats collectively became the straw that broke the camel’s back. Everything he touched crumbled and turned to dust. What makes you think he wants to try again? If it was hard then, it would be impossible now.

And it doesn’t end there. After almost a year of investigations (and probably another year of court proceedings to come) you really think he’s going to thrust himself back into the public eye? Live life under the microscope? He’ll be hounded endlessly, his every move scrutinized like never before. He would have to be on his absolute best behavior, never stepping out of line again… which he won’t do. In all his interviews last year it was clear that all he wanted was out. Out of the tight spot he’d found himself in, off the hook. He isn’t interested in changing his ways or the company he keeps off the clock. After seeing how he conducted himself when his and his friends’ crimes came to light (shameless, self-absorbed, too busy shielding himself and his criminal friends to breathe even a word of sympathy to their victims), returning to life as a public figure means he’ll probably end up in trouble again. You think he’s willing to risk that? I don’t. Better for him to live the life he likes out of the public eye where he and his buddies can enjoy that “shit Korean law” they bragged about without the media breathing down their necks.

Let’s talk about BB. By some miracle they made it through 2019 in one piece. Well… four banged up pieces that are working together to make a new whole. You think Seungri is going to subject them to more of his personal hell? After he’s put them and their legacy through the wringer already? He may have a big head and an ego to match, but he has always struck me as someone who is sharply aware of his standing among the other four. Obsessively so. He screwed up big time and he must know the members won’t stand for it, won’t stand for him, not with what everyone knows now. Are you forgetting how harshly they censured him when he had his first sex scandal? That was peanuts compared to this, yet the members took it so seriously that they moved in with him and babysat him. Alive!Seungri might have tolerated that, but the (ex)CEO Lee of 2020 would never endure that kind of micromanaging. Not a second time. He is too proud, too headstrong, in too deep with friends who stroke his ego and call him Boss. He is going his own way now, and so are the members of BB. His time with them is well and truly over. If you still don’t see this then you are only fooling yourself and setting yourself up for years of waiting that will culminate in nothing. Your fave is gone. Do like the rest of us and move on.

As for the members, sorry to burst your bubble but nothing they’ve done suggests that they’re taking him back or that they support him in the way you’re hoping. Any perceived “support” you think you’ve seen is merely a product of your own imagination driven by desperation and a paralyzing inability to cope with loss. It’s led you to make false connections and read coded messages that don’t exist. I suffer from narcissism? That’s a funny way of saying I’m well-adjusted enough to accept what’s happened and embrace what we still have, which is four accomplished artists with tremendous potential for more slowly recovering and resuming their careers in music after being dealt a crippling blow by one of their own. You, however, seem to be suffering from delusions stemming from your extreme and unhealthy emotional ties to a man you’ve never met and can’t bring yourself to let go of at any cost – even to the detriment of the group he left behind.

Seungri said it himself: BIGBANG will be BIGBANG without him. Though he said it years ago, this statement indicates that he felt he wouldn’t be with them forever, and he was confident that in his absence they would carry on as four. You’ll see soon enough that he was right.

PS. I promised I would make another OT4 edit for every OT5 ask I received, and I intend to keep that promise, so here you go, this is for you:

[angelwantstodie-blog]

Figuring myself out

I don't know if many of you have noticed well that being said I only have about six or seven followers, I put in my bio that I have figured out that I'm actually non-binary. I feel like it's more comfortable for me, mainly because I don't feel like either yes, I do have extreme let me emphasize that,

EXTREME

Body dysphoria. And I think the reason why I thought I was trans, FTM, was because I had a lot of friends that were or thought they were, and I wanted to see for myself if I actually was FTM. For a while I was pretty convincing to myself that " hey look you are transgender"

Etc. But the more I thought about it the more I realize that I'm not really transgender, and I'm kind of not a girl either really. Yes physically I was born a girl or a woman however you want to look at it. But Me Myself, I don't really feel like either and she her pronouns kind of trigger me. Which is where is as it sounds, a lot of people probably get my situation. I did talk to my mom about it, about I want to stay like two to three weeks ago since it's been a while since I've posted on here. She seems pretty understanding of it which to me I was shocked. As shocked as I was so I was also relieved. I'm so happy that she was happy with me being me and she's like I'm totally supportive of you and all that nice stuff. Me and her ended up making a list of names since I was going to have to change my name and plus I don't feel like the name that I had suited me and plus I also thought it was a little per say childish. I'm not going to say the name that I'm going by on here because I just don't want anybody that I know personally to find me on here and see all these little things that I posted because a lot of this I haven't really explained to any of the people that I know very close. So for now let's just have me going by Angel on here.

About a week ago I did break up with Max or whatever you want to call her, him, them now. They were just not the best for me I'll admit that. We have been going out for about 5-6 months but as any of you guys still in the past post that I've had with them in it there hasn't been a lot of nice things to say about the relationship and when I confronted him, he took it the completely wrong way. And it started up this whole shitstorm that none of my friends or myself or anybody that I knew really needed. It was just a bunch of drama that could have been easily avoided if he just took it the way that it was meant to be taken instead of mixing up my words and making me say that I was like this or that's if any of that make sense. I haven't talked to him in a while which for me is good because he was saying stuff like I should have put myself in the hospital that night I got the text. And if you're wondering yes I did break up with him over text, mainly because my social anxiety was already bad enough doing that it was either that or leaving a voice message, but I don't think leaving a voice message would have been good either cuz I was very shaken up about doing this I was crying mainly because I knew this was going to hurt him a lot. But to him it didn't see like I was hurting at all but I really was cuz I did care about him but when he went around my back and start saying stuff behind my back really hurt. All of that is done and over with, I have about 7 or 6 different social media platforms and he has about four of each accounts on each platform so I had to block him a lot. It was not fun, on Instagram he was even making another account saying he was going to get such and such back from me which, I blocked him because I didn't want to have to deal with any of the drama. Witched anybody in toxic relationships would understand so.

I'm not really feeling depressed as much anymore which is a good thing for me. I don't know the last time where I had a straight week without any mental breakdowns and I'm just happy that I haven't been sad. But have I been truly happy in the past month? No not really, but it's better than being overwhelmingly depressed and wanting to kill yourself all the time. Am I still somewhat depressed? In a way yeah but, it's not as bad anymore. I don't have the urge to hurt myself I don't have the urge to scream and break everything in sight that I see anymore which is great. Cuz if I didn't start feeling better soon my Tia was going to talk to my mom about getting me in a mental hospital or something like that. But now I don't have to which is great.

I finally started online school sort of. I've been sick the past few days so I've been really able to do much except look at the platform and such. But I'm going to be doing some classes tomorrow so we can catch up on work because for about a month-and-a-half I been a Technical High School Dropout. Which has it been fun? Hell yeah it has but is it affecting me terribly bad? Hell yeah. But I got to do one thing for another so the school is going to help me and once I'm done with freshman year I'll be able to start doing fun stuff again. This weekend before I start getting all sick and stuff I had one of my final girls night out well girls night sleepover whatever you want to call it with three of my friends for the last time for a while until I catch up with school and stuff. But this weekend I might be able to see one of them cuz she is turning 18 and I'm very excited about the same time I'm worried for her because she does have a few mental issues but I know that she strong enough to overcome them. Another thing that I'm going to maybe be doing this weekend hopefully, is finally getting my hair trimmed cuz it's been since December since I've had a trim in my hair looks terrible you get to see the original color of my hair which is like a light honey hazel brown color. And the color that I dyed my hair is a black charcoal color oh, so you can imagine how that looks. But I'm excited I'm going to be getting a new haircut and re-dye which is going to be in pastel colors.

I'm just happy that my life is sort of finally coming together in a way. Not completely which honestly I don't think it ever will be oh, but it's coming together for the most part and that's what matters to me. Hopefully some of my old family that I haven't talked to you in about a year will start coming back into my life I've vaguely talked to my step on and my step cousin but for the most part they seem pretty accepting. Thanks for reading it any of you read all the way through.