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animelovelover123 · 3 months

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Devil May Cry Boys x Pornstar/Webcam Model

Parings: Dante, Reboot Dante, Vergil, Reboot Vergil, Nero, V, & Sparda x Reader

Synopsis: How the DMC boys would react, deal with, and treat you if you were a porn star and/or a webcam model (aka camgirls and camboys). Note that your insert has willingly chosen and enjoys this career path.

Disclaimer: I do mention your insert possibly smacking a guy for a very inappropriate comment as a joke. Do not do this in real life. Your feelings are valid but violence is usually not the answer

Trigger Warnings: Brief references to some of the negative aspects of the entertainment industry like stalking, drugs, STDs, and assault.

Dante

Dante is, by far, the most relaxed and supportive of you when you tell him. To him, it's just another form of work. A bit of a dirty kind of job but as a demon hunter he also does dirty work. As long as you are doing this because you want to and not because you are being pressured or forced in any way then he supports you and your career. Perhaps he supports it a bit too much though because once he finds out he is adamant about helping you.

He wants to fuck you on camera so bad. It would be so hot. Plus, what amazing jerk-off material that would be, not that he doesn't find your videos and jerks off to them anyway once you tell him your stage name. You can put his body and face on camera all you want, he doesn’t mind.

He is quite a versatile co-star, ready and willing to do pretty much anything. It also helps that he is stronger, faster, and heals quicker than most so if you or your audience wants to see you be fucked while suspended by his muscular arms or some BDSM, he is down for it. He says he is up for acting out scenarios, but he is quite hokey with it.

If you team up with other stars or go to events with them also attending, you will find that he knows quite a few of them. And I don’t mean that he simply recognizes them from their work. He has met them, had conversations, been hired to help protect them when being hunted by lust-based demons and obsessed fans, and maybe slept with one or two.

As a sexual entertainment star, having people ask you for sex was common. But having people asking for sex with your boyfriend is definitely a new experience.

This also means that he won't be trying to use you to meet other porn stars that he is a fan of. Although... if you can get Dominique Tereshkova to sign his poster of her, that would be sweet.

If you are required to fuck someone for your job, he is fine with that. He understands it's just work and doesn’t take it personally. Though he will playfully pout and whine a bit.

"Why didn’t you ask me to be your co-star baby?" He asked with a hand dramatically clutching his chest over his heart. His other hand sneaks around your hips and pulls you against his chest so he can whisper into your ear. "You know there's no one that can please you like I can." After that he lets you go, off to do your job with the seed of longing planted for when you reunite.

For anyone who doesn’t know, Dominique Tereshkova is a model in the DMC universe. Her most prominent appearance is in the opening cutscene of the first game. Dante grabs his sword from the wall which is covering the boobs of a model on a poster. Dominique Tereshkova is that model.

Reboot Dante

When you tell Dante he has the bright idea to make the joke “That’s fine, I’ve fucked plenty of sluts before.” He is surprisingly understanding if you choose to smack him for this and/or give him the cold shoulder for a while. Alternatively, he likes you a bit more if you laugh.

In general he does not mind you being a sexual entertainer. Though, because of his lifestyle, he will assume that you are doing this because the world is shit and you don’t have a choice. When you tell him that you chose this career he thinks you’re smart. “Getting paid to fuck? Sounds great, assuming you don’t get a potluck of STDs.”

In general Dante knows a bit more about the sex industry, the positives and negatives. How it can be full of free things, parties, drugs, and assaults.

Despite acting casual, he worries about you and puts up no complaints if you want to visit the doctor every few weeks, use him as a bodyguard, or call him at odd hours to ask if he can pick you up and escort you places.

If you are a camgirl/boy, he is not as well-versed in that subsection of the industry and will ask you about it.

Either way, he will joke about the hundreds of “fat ugly fucks getting their rocks off to you”.

He will definitely ask you to introduce him to top stars which he will casually make perverted jokes at, but no matter what he will be going home with you. Even if he gets to meet the hottest and most desirable actress/actor in the country, he would not go behind your back to sleep with them. Although, if you are interested in a three-way then he is down with it.

He personally isn’t interested in being part of your work. No real reason, just not into it. But if you really beg him, you can convince him.

He will brag to everyone that he is dating a pornstar/camgirl/boy. It’s a boost to masculine pride that his woman/man is drooled over by hundreds of people.

Once he finds out your stage name he does look up one or two of your past works out of curiosity. Then he proceeds to tease you about some of the things you had to do for the camera.

There is one particular thing he notices though that, after some testing to make sure his suspicion is correct, he gets a jolt of pride from.

That face you do and the sounds you make in your videos/livestreams when you cum… that’s fake, acted. It has to be because when he fucks you your orgasms are a lot more intense.

Seeing as the reboot is more realistic with the depiction of the world and how it treats people, I thought this was a good spot to address some of the dangers without going too deep into it because we are just trying to have fun here. Feel free to do your own research if you are curious.

Vergil

Upon finding out that you are working in the sex industry, Vergil questions what the world is trying to tell him as destiny has made his second love another sexual entertainer.

Although he makes a vow to himself that he will not run away this time. He is not the same teenager who acts cold and distant out of fear of making connections because of the trauma he experienced with losing his family and everything he cared about in the past.

After all he has been through, he…doesn’t want to be alone anymore.

You, even after finding out about his past and the catastrophic mistakes he has made from a blind pursuit of power, still wanting to be with him, to give him a chance, that means more to him than you will ever know.

He wants to do right by you, give you all of him, but it is not that easy. He still has a cold outward demeanor, speaking frankly and keeping his feelings to himself for the most part, and can come off as rude or uncaring at times.

For example; if you ask him if he is really okay with your job and what it entails, he gives you a serious expression, which looks like a glare, and tells you “As I have said before, your choice of career is of no concern to me”.

He is doing his best to express himself, give him time.

He, knowing the danger that wo/men of the night go through from his past lover, insists on watching over you during shoots or live streams. He will sit there, out of the way, staring intently at all that interact with you like an overprotective knight.

Vergil, by now, knows what you enjoy in bed and what you don’t. So, when your co-star does something or the director or a fan requests you to do something he knows you do not enjoy, he will intervene. He has gotten into arguments with people for not putting your pleasure first and making you uncomfortable. Vergil does not understand, or like, that when you work for someone else or rely on others gifting you money, you sometimes have to do things you don’t quite like.

This, along with his instinctual desires to control, protect, and dominate, leads him to work towards easing your financial burdens and providing for you. If, through being a demon hunter and procurer of artifacts to sell, he can make enough money to support you both then you will not have to work, correct?

His intent is to make your life easier and have you rely on him like no one has done since he was a child, with a hint of wanting you to only look at him for sexual satisfaction. However, sometimes he can come off as being overbearing and possibly a bit too traditional in his views of “stronger man must be the one providing for the family”. He does not intend to insult or minimize your desire for independence.

He will not stop you from pursuing your career though if that is what you truly want. He honestly respects you for standing up for yourself and taking your life into your own hands, even if when you tell him this you get to see one of his rare pouts.

He has no intention of participating in your work. He is not a trusting or open person so doing something so explicit and being so valuable in front of others is a horrifying idea. However, in his pursuit of protecting you from co-stars, directors, and fans who pressure you to do things that will not bring you pleasure, he has occasionally given little demonstrations on how to treat you right.

He acts calm about you having to be intimate with, and in front of, others as it is what your job entails. On the inside though his possessive demon side burns with frustration whenever he sees you with someone else, especially when he sees you being subject to acts that he knows you do not particularly enjoy.

His answer to this, to settle his own feelings and aid in lifting yours, is to whisk you away after your work so he can give you all the pleasure and satisfaction you were wrongly deprived of.

A good chunk of this is influenced by the fan theory that Vergil did love Nero’s mother and the fact that, in the novel, Nero is picked on by others who claim he is the son of a “prostitute”, though whether she was actually a sex worker is unconfirmed. I thought, with you in this situation being a sexual entertainer, it would be interesting to bring in Vergil’s possible past with sexual entertainers.

Reboot Vergil

Vergil does not have an interest in the sexual entertainment field as he is much too busy with The Order and its goals. And it is this focus on his goal that led to you two meeting.

Porn has always been another way the demons have controlled the human masses, and this new age has widened their reach through sexual webcam modelling. All the top stars are part of big sexual model industries that are run by demons and as such they are a target for The Order. You, though, despite being one of the top people in the industry, are an independent entertainer so not under the control of demons. You are able to get in touch with all the top demon scum but do not have loyalty to them, and it is this unique circumstance that leads to you being conscripted into The Order as a spy.

It starts with a “random fan”, spending the money to get some private time with you. But when you meet them, whether in person or through a video chat, instead of 15 minutes of playing to some person’s fantasy, you are instead met with the masked man from all the news stories telling you the frightening truth of the world.

After becoming a spy for The Order, your relationship with Vergil grew as you spent time together discussing plans and you explaining to him how the industry worked and what you could do for info without being seen as suspicious or, worse, blacklisted.

To be frank, he thought you were lesser than him when first meeting, though that was more because you were human and not Nephilim. But still, he had the assumption that you gave in to the pressures of this demon-run world that claims the only thing gorgeous people like you are good for is doing sexual entertainment.

He is fascinated when you reveal that, despite having other opportunities, you actually chose this career and enjoy it. As you explain to him how you got to this point, the freedom and hard work it takes to be an independent creator, his respect for you grows, along with his affection.

You start dating with him being fully aware of what you do. He understands if you are required to have sex with other people for your job, as he too has had to do some unsavoury things for the sake of his mission. However, he also insists that once his plan is complete you can quit your job, instead living in comfort and luxury with him. He is adamant about this, even if you tell him you would prefer to keep working as an entertainer.

Being that you are both public figures, it is not uncommon for one or both of you to be recognized when out together and within a couple of weeks your relationship has become headline tabloid news. For the most part, people are shocked and question why Vergil, the (as far as the public knows) innocent man orphaned at a young age, adopted by a kind rich family, and so gifted in codding that he had made millions and built his own company before being legally allowed to drink, was hanging around someone like you. Words ‘whore’, ‘prostitute’, ‘slut’, and if you were lucky ‘arm candy’, were the things usually used to describe you.

Vergil, even at the risk of his squeaky clean façade, defended you, and almost all wo/men in the sexual entertainment industry, at every opportunity.

“Singers sell their voice, models sell their face and figure, and scientists sell their minds. What is so wrong about a person selling their body? Besides, straight men are celebrated for their sexuality and praised for their sexual prowess, yet men of any other sexuality and women are vilified for being confident in themselves and doing the same. It is hypocritical and I, for one, will not stand for it.”

This gamble ends up paying off in that it gains respect from much of the younger population and angers much of the older and conservative population enough to start complaining, which leads to fights and mockery. It is the usual perpetual circle that comes with the difference in morals between generations. In short, it gets eyes off of you two for the most part, though you do get a spike in fans because of the fiasco.

You also get people asking if you could convince Vergil to participate in your work with you, which he refuses. He respects your job but personally, he is not comfortable with showing his body off to people he does not fully trust. This is a man who wears a long-sleeved shirt and pants under a full-length coat with gloves in every season. This is just who he is and what he is comfortable with, and he hopes you can respect his feelings as he respects yours.

He does not watch any of your work unless he is there to monitor when you are acting as a spy and trying to get information out of people. Again, this is nothing against you or your work, but things like porn or even live displays like strip shows were never that entertaining to him.

Besides, why long for you from the other side of the screen when he has you at his beck and call?

This might sound odd, but with Vergil working to gather information and destroy the society Mundus created, I could see him shmoozing women in high society for information.

Nero

Nero, due to the conservative hold The Order of the Sword had over Fortuna and the mockery he got for his mother, supposedly, being a sex worker, Nero’s views of sex work and sexual entertainment are not the best. Still, he has always been curious, and craved, things outside of the suffocating religion, and once he got out of Fortuna his world opened up, so he tries to be open-minded when you tell him about your chosen career.

It will take him a bit to get used to the idea and settle his protectiveness and jealousy over you showing your body off to other people.

Honestly, he finds it kind of hot that you are so confident in, and comfortable with, yourself to do that sort of thing.

The first time you have to have sex with someone else after getting together though, he gets legitimately upset. It isn’t that he thinks you are cheating on him or being dirty. It is more so his insecurities and desperation to be number one in your heart that makes him insist you call it off.

He tentatively admits that he wants to be part of some of your work.

This starts with him using his engineering skills to build you various pleasurable devices that you can use in your videos. It is admittedly very satisfying to see you on screen being fucked by some mechanism he created. It was a little secret between just the two of you, almost like he was vicariously fucking you on camera. And yet… that was not satisfying enough.

Honestly, fucking you to an audience is kind of a tantalizing idea. It itches the proud side of him that likes to show off how beautiful and sexy and perfect his lover is.

However he could not bear to have people he knows come across the video or livestream and recognize him, ESPECIALLY not his adoptive or newly rediscovered blood family.

When the idea of doing POV porn or just generally being a faceless man while the camera focuses on you, never showing his face, comes up it sounds like a good compromise. The only problem is his damn arm.

No one has a demon arm or mechanical arm quite like him so it is easily recognizable and would give him away. There is the option, after losing his arm, of just having his stub since there were thousands of amputees in the world. However, the moment he notices negative comments about it he nixes that out of fear of making you lose your audience and livelihood.

In the end he just has to learn to resist the urge to talk or grab you with his right hand when filming together. This is fine with POV shots or when he works the camera as his right arm is occupied. It is a big struggle when he does not have anything else to do with his hands though. It also doesn’t help that he is a talker.

In most videos and/or livestreams he breaks this self-imposed rule. He can’t help it. You make him feel so damn good. And seeing you splayed out, hearing your loud moans and cries, he can’t resist the urge to mark you with his teeth and grab you with both hands so he can slam into you harder.

I will take every chance I get to bring up Nero’s engineering skills because it does not get enough attention for my liking. Also Nero’s lack of self-control but that’s just because I find it hot.

You know that the moment that practically any of the DMC crew finds out that Nero is in pornographic videos, he is never going to hear the end of it. Poor Nero, lol.

V does not bat an eye when you tell him what you do for a living as he is a man of art and little shame.

He has read and seen countless works of art depicting the natural and euphoric act of embracing another in the most intimate way. And, in a way, V sees your work as art in its own right, meant to make viewers feel not just emotions but physical sensations through just observing. It’s impressive the extent to which your fans worship you and your body despite having never met you in person and most not having spoken to you.

He also has no qualms about other people seeing your naked form. First and foremost, it is your body and who and to what extent you show it to others is not his choice to make, even as your love. Again, he has seen and read many works of art depicting people with little to no coverings. He has also experienced being naked in public in the first couple months of his life he was homeless, left to bathe in bodies of water and steal his clothes, so claiming it is wrong for you to show your body would be hypocritical in his eyes.

He will not use you to meet other sexual entertainers both because he does not really watch porn, but also because he is more interested in people’s minds rather than their bodies and he doubts he can get any of them to sit down and have a serious discussion with him.

He does not mind if you have to have do someone else for your art because, as he puts it in his silky smooth deep voice, “they can have sex with you, but only I can make love to you.”

However if you mention how good a co-star was at something or how you found a new sexual interest through having to do it for work, V will suddenly start incorporating that more into your own intimate moments, doing his best to go above and beyond to please you.

Even with this, he is not all that interested in participating in your work, but if you were to ask him to, he would gladly do it to make you happy. He does not mind others seeing you two making love, though he does have trouble resisting his natural urges, like whispering sweet nothings into your ear and drawing out the pleasure by slowly grinding against and into you, to please the audience.

However, all this would be different if your form of sexual entertainment was, instead, audio-based. If you created stories of lust and voice acted them out, which was a form of sexual entertainment growing in popularity lately, then V would be a lot more invested. He would want to learn all about it, help you write scripts, and even voice act and narrative with you.

Together you two would weave epic tails filled with love, drama, and boundless lust. You end up becoming an extremely popular duo and even peek your head into the mainstream.

One side effect of this is that V becomes very good at getting you riled up with just his voice. The amount of times you will get random calls from V who, sometimes as himself and sometimes playing a character, whisks your imagination away to pleasures untold only to stop just before the peak with a suggestion that you finish this “in person”, is unbearable.

I am an enjoyer of the auditory sexual entertainment field. Right now I am listening to YSF Audio, Yagami Yato, Leon Kennedy ASMR (this is their YouTube and Patreon name), and Seikyuu VA but I have listened to many more. I love it and think V’s voice would be perfect for it. If I had the money to hire Brian Hanford, oh lordy loo, I would be drowning in the best auditory experience of my life! ^///^!

Sparda

Sparda is not up to date with human technology and culture so when you tell him you are a porn star or webcam module he does not know what that means. If you tell him you are a sexual entertainer though he responds with “I see, so you work at a brothel then?” You’ll need to educate him.

When he does finally understand he doesn’t bat an eye. He sees nothing wrong, questionable, or even strange about your choice of career. Honestly, he is more fascinated by the technology humans have to capture and transmit video and the economy built around it.

Sparda is a demon. He comes from a world where murder, assault, breeding, kidnapping, and all manner of things seen as horrible by most humans are more common than politely meeting each other. So the idea that you display your body and let yourself be recorded doing sexual acts as a job does not phase him. If anything, he is happy to know that you get compensated for this rather than it being forced upon you like it is often done in the demon world.

He does, however, have a problem with you having sex with other people deep down, especially if you bring that person into your shared home. The animalistic side of his nature flairs up at the scent of other people on you and in the home. At his core, he is still a demon who desires to dominate and protect what he cares for.

He is reformed through, having woken up to justice and chosen to live, learn from, and protect humans. So he tries to stay calm and gentlemanly, doing things like greeting you when you come back from a shoot or finish a livestream as if you have just come home from your job at the local grocery store. “Welcome home dear, how was work? Anything exciting happen?”

You can tell when he is particularly bothered when he becomes more touchy, insisting that he hold you, you sit in his lap, or generally wanting to nuzzle against you so he can replace the scent of a stranger on you with his own.

And, to the surprise of many, one of your icons, one could even call it a type of beauty mark, that starts defining your performance persona is the fanged bite marks that always seem to be present somewhere on your person.

Literally, the starting point for Sparda being in this one is because I wanted to make the brothel joke.

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lotte22324 · 5 months

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Hi, this is my first Oneshot ever and I am kinda nervous for yall to see it. This idea randomly popped into my head, I don’t know why.

Also, English is not my first language, so please ignore the mistakes.

Warnings: mentioning of the case and connected SA (but only in the beginning)

Summary: You are a profiler at the BAU. You specialise in linguistic analysis and also in having a pretty cutsie style. You and Spencer are both working late on a case and his stupid long hair annoys him but you luckily got some hairclips with you :)

(These are the bows that I am talking about btw)

You and the team were on the way to Cleveland, attending to a particularly disturbing case. Multiple mutilated victims were found, all indicated signs of sexual assault, post mortem. All of them were women but none of them looked alike. The only thing that they had in common were the position in which they were found. They all were layed down carefully with their arms crossed above their chest.

"The arms are a sign of remorse right?“

"Yeah, it’s clear that the killer has a conflicted conscience in the connection to the murders.“ said Reid. You turned your head to the right side to see your fellow profiler. His hair was long, longer than ever before, he was wearing a purple dress shirt with s simple tie. His converse were matching to yours, the only thing in common with your wardrobe. You were wearing a skyblue blouse with a dark blue pair of pants. The outfit was professional, the hair not so much. You wore two hairclips in the front of your hair because they would often fall in front of your face which annoyed you. The clips had two pink bows attached to them and they matched your pink earrings and nails.

"If the unsub feels guilty about the murders, we might be able to convince him to give himself up“ remarked JJ. Emily looked at her skeptical and held up the letter that the unsub left at the last crime scene, one of six: She will never stop, only I can fix it! "This says otherwise“

"It is weird that he shows signs of remorse but he also seems extremely certain of his resason to murder, what does he need to fix?“ asked Reid while he knitted his eyebrows together, like he always did when he was thinking. It looked too cute, you couldn’t stop the smile creeping up on your face. "Linguistically, it’s clear that the "she“ that he speaks of is one specific person, probably some sort of authority figure for him, probably a mother“ you remarked. Hotchner nodded his head, a plan already in mind. "Y/l/n you will do a linguistic profile, try to find a pattern or identification marks in all of the letters. Reid, look at the geographical pattern, the locations where the bodies were found might give us a clue where the unsub lives. Morgan and Rossi, you two go to the last crime scene, Emily, you and I will interview the families. Lets catch this guy!“

„I guess your stuck with me at the precinct, pretty boy!“ you said playfully to Reid but all he did was blush and turn his head awkwardly to the side. Morgan shoot him a knowing look but you didn’t think about it too much.

Later that evening, you and Reid were the only ones left in the room designated for your investigation. A hot cup of coffee was standing in front of you, you knew you were in for a long nighty You had been looking at these letters for hours on end, trying to find identifying markers. The only thing that became apparent is that the letters and the murders are definitely about the unsubs mother. They were all about 60, the letters showed clear signs of conflicted hatred and love toward the mother and connected abuse. Maybe she hit him or she was just a very dominant personality who commanded all the men in her life and broke their will if she needed to. Reid was also standing in front of his map for the last few hours, rearranging the pins and drawing new circles and xes on it. Looking over, you did not see a clear pattern at all but maybe his genius brain could make sense of all of the colors on the board. Your eyes shifted from the map to him and the way he kept adjusting his hair. He wanted to tuck it behind his ears but it fell into his face again and again. "Ugh, why? Maybe I need to cut my hair again“ he mumbled annoyed. "Nooo, please don’t! I like your hair like this“ you answered quickly. "But its always in my face and whenever I tuck it back, it falls in front of it again“ Reid remarked, pushing his hair back aggressively. But all it did was fall back infront of his ear and Reid let out an annoyed groan. You stood up and moved towards the man: "here, take one of my clips! My hair is long enough so that I can easily tuck it behind my ear“ you said, quickly taking one of the bows out of your hair. As you kept going, the clip in your hand, he looked at you skeptical: "thank you, y/n but I don’t think that would suit me as much as it suits you“

You blushed involuntarily at that indirect compliment, "oh come on, no one is here anymore, you won’t be less of a man if you wear this pink bow in your hair!“ you rolled your eyes as you halted infront of him with a questioning look. „Okay, fine“ he hesitantly answered and you gave him a reassuring smile. You leaned forward, pushing his hair back as you clip in the pink bow. You felt how soft his hair was. As you let your hand trail down his head, you let it linger a bit too long. Just as Spencer cleared his throat, you realized that and let your hand fall quickly to your side. "All done, you look cute“ you blushed as you took a step back. But your blush didn’t compare to his. The minute he saw himself in the reflection of the glass board where he drew his map on, his face turned as red as a tomato. The pink bow clearly on display, matching to yours. Now not only your shoes were matching but also your hair. "Uh, thank you y/n“ he said after a while. But you didn’t even realize what he said because all you could do was stare at him. He had never looked this cute in his life. Not with his glasses, not with any of his haircuts. You felt a fluttering feeling in your tummy. Here he was, Spencer Reid, wearing your pink bow in his hair. You couldn’t believe the sight you were witnessing. Even though you didn’t have an eidetic memory, you would never forget this. As you kept starring at his face, your brain filling with all the accessories of yours Reid could wear, he kept staring right back. But instead of thinking about all the different hair clips you had, he couldn’t stop thinking about how pretty you looked. The slight blush that spread over your face, the blown pupils as they were looking at him. The way your mouth was slightly opened, the curve of your lips perfectly kissable.

"Yo, I forgot my-" Morgan stepped insight, both of you taking a step back, not realizing in the moment how close you two were standing and looking embarrassed towards Morgan. "Uhm, sorry for…disturbing, I just forgot my wallet here“ he said, moving toward the table. Your eyes shifted, there it was, lying underneath all the letters you had just looked at. "Alright, have a good night you two! Pretty bow, Reid, your lil girlfriend should lend you her things more often“ Morgan winked as he walked out of the room. Both of you stood there in silence, looking down onto the floor. Spencer raised his hand in embarrassment and tried to detangle the bow from his hair. "Noo, you look so pretty with it Spencer, you shouldn’t give a damn about Morgans opinion!“ you reassured him. He gave you a smile as his hand slowly fell down. "You know that is not fair“ Reid remarked. "What isn’t fair?" You looked confused. "Well, I would wear anything as long as you think i‘m pretty even if that would be the most impractical thing on this planet.“

"That can’t be true!“ you laughed.

"Do you remember four months ago when we saw that shampoo ad on some billboard in Texas with a man on it with long, shiny hair?“

Honest to god, you really didn’t. "Uhm, not really…“

"Well, you said that you love men with long hair and it seemed like you looked right at me. I, obviously had short hair at that time. But from that moment on, I decided to let my hair grow longer“ Spencer confessed.

"You grew your hair long because of me? Because I said that I find men with long hair prettier? That makes no sense, why would you care what I think about y-" then it hit you. He wanted you to find him attractive. He wanted you to see him as pretty. You took a step towards him, his gaze avoiding you, he seemed more focused on his shoes than on you. "Reid" you said quietly, him still not looking at you. "Spencer, if you don’t look up now, I’ll leave and you’ll never find out what I’m thinking about right now“ you threaten, his gaze hastily rising. You took another step towards him, this time a bit less sure than before. It seemed like time froze as you slowly raised your hand towards Reids face. "May I touch you?" You asked hesitantly, knowing that he wasn’t the biggest fan of non-consensual physical touch. He nodded his head and finally met your gaze. His eyes shifted up and down, between your eyes and lips. As you cupped his cheek, it seemed like the spell on him was broken. His face inched closer and closer until his lips met yours. The tension that you felt for the last few months finally found an escape and both of you seemed to feel relieved. His hands found your waist, as he pulled you closer to his body, your other hand tangling itself up in his hair. After a few moments both of you had to pull away to gasp for air. Smiles crept up on both of your faces as you realized what had just happened. He didn’t let your waist go, you didn’t want him to do that anyway. "You know what, Reid?" You asked humorously.

"What?" He asked back.

"I wanted to do that even before you let your hair grow out“ you answered him truthfully. Ever since you joined the team, you wanted to kiss him. It didn’t matter what his hair looked like or if he wore his glasses or not.

"You’re joking right? All of this agony for nothing then?“ he asked dumbfounded, pointing at his long hair.

"Oh no, definitely not for nothing! I got to see you wearing my pink bow and that is a sight, that I will never forget!“ you giggled and pulled him into a hug that he happily reciprocated.

P.S.: I hope you guys liked this, it is kinda strange to always read fanfic and now actually writing it. I guess my Spencer Reid obsession made me do it :) yall will probably understand, hahahaha.

#spencer reid #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x you #spencer reid x y/n #criminal minds #fluff #pink bows #y/n #first kiss #crush #spencer reid fluff

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radfemverity · 1 year

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Tucker Carlson's interview with misogynist, human trafficker and rapist Andrew Tate has been endorsed by Elon Musk, the man who brought Tate among many other reactionary and far-right commentators back to Twitter when he purchased the platform.

There is nothing spontaneous about Musk doing this, and if you're surprised then you're a fool. This has never been about upholding free speech - hence why you've never seen any of these men promote interesting left-wing thinkers.

The ‘SJW’/‘woke’/progressive Left, as unbearably annoying as so many of them are, just keep getting proven right.

They said Nick Fuentes and Kanye were Holocaust-denying anti-semites.

They said Jordan Peterson supported rapists, and didn't believe women should have legal equality.

They said Ben Shapiro and Matt Walsh would use the gender critical movement to blame gay people and women for any and all degeneracies.

They said Tucker Carlson and Elon Musk's recent ‘free speech’ moves were about repositioning themselves so that they could more effectively elevate the voices of overt extremists.

Again and again, their accusations are ageing like fine wine. The reactionary right’s mask is well and fully off.

Andrew Tate, Elon Musk, Tucker Carlson, Jordan Peterson, Ben Shapiro, Matt Walsh, Joe Rogan, Konstantin Kissin, Paul Joseph Watson, Ian Miles Cheong, Andy Ngo, Michael Malice, Elijah Schaffer, Zuby, Milo Yionnopoulous, Tommy Robinson, Nick Fuentes, Kanye West, Donald Trump… obviously some of these men could dislike each other, I can't imagine Shapiro and Fuentes at the same house party.

But their ideal societies don't look too different. None of these mens’ do. Because any racial, religious or ethnic prejudices they have against each other will come second to their common-ground.

The organised reaction against this brand of progressivism that has rapidly come to monopolise every sector of public life in the last 10 years, is well and truly underway. Musk, Carlson and Tate have given us the sign. And while I pretty heavily dislike the current ‘woke’ progressive ideology (and have a lot of questions about its top-down cultural spread), I'm scared of these guys way more. And if you're anything but a straight man who doesn’t care about any demographic besides straight men, you should be too.

The reason I say ‘straight men’ and not ‘straight white men’ is because, come on, the reactionary right is more racially diverse than most left-wing groups at this point. 😂😂 White nationalists the world over have bent the knee to a mixed-race man who admitted moving to an Eastern European country because of their more lax laws on sexual assault, and in turn, the ease he would have in exploiting the local women in the country’s already active sex-trafficking trade.

White nationalists (whose role in the reactionary right cannot be discarded any more, after Trump and Kanye had a personal dinner with Nick Fuentes) feel more of an affiliation with a non-white, human trafficking violent rapist, despite evidence of his crimes having been public for a while now, than they do with his WHITE victims.

Jordan Peterson, whose daughter has revolved her entire public image around him, who works with and for him, and whose lingerie photographs were retweeted by him, made a dogwhistle in May about women having their right to vote retracted.

Examples of men devaluing the contributions and rights of the women in their families, communities and wider societies are withstanding the test of time, over and over again, because no matter where in the world they are, and no matter what tensions the different religions, cultures, ethnicities and races of men have with each other, there are traits that unite them all. Misogyny is the most obvious one.

The men of these diverse, far-reaching societies, in many ways feel far more of a kinship to each other, than they do to any woman, girl, gay person, disabled person, mother, child, or any other demographic.

The pendulum always swings back, and now that we know these men have got the owner of the world's biggest social media platform on their side, that is a major sign it could be coming soon. Be on guard and look after each other gyns ❤️

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prescriptionposts · 1 month

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[chapter 31 spoilers] [csa tw]

something interesting to me is that gwen coming out as having experienced csa is that earlier (chapter 16, i believe) she explicitly says that she has no trauma. she says that nothing traumatizing ever happened to her. and theres a few different reasons i can think of that she said that, despite having been assaulted:

ww did not originally intend for csa to be something in gwen's past and this was simply a retcon.

she was downplaying what happened to her, as is of course common when traumatized. she was in denial about what happened to her.

ghost gwen is not the gwen that died, and is instead some sort of artificial construct. adrian picked up on possible signs of sexual trauma in living gwen, and ghost gwen now has that trauma (in a similar way to when she was able to taste the cupcake when adrian thought about it; he was thinking about how inappropriate it was for gwen to be hearing the couple having sex, so he could have been projecting).

the same as 3 but slightly different: ghost gwen is, like, lily somehow. gwen suggests as much when having her identity crisis in chapter 31. we know that lily gets sexually assaulted. perhaps gwen is somehow lily and lilys experiences are being filtered through ghost gwen.

personally i am leaning towards option 2 as the most likely, and 3 and 4 as less likely (though very interesting). option 1 is honestly pretty unlikely in my mind, since gwen shows some pretty intense fixation on/hatred of bad sexual scenarios (being leered at by adults, intrusive thoughts about necrophilia), as well as just a general disdain for being a girl in a world where men exist.

in other words, the characterization is actually quite consistent and doesnt point to a retcon as much as one might think; there are signs that she was assaulted since chapter 1, and the fact that she says she isnt traumatized is a sort of unintentional red herring for those who dont intimately know how trauma can affect people. it is very real in that way, which is a general characteristic that i deeply appreciate about the rx.

i really look forward to the new/final version of the prescription and seeing what will change vs what will stay the same. whether or not csa will continue to be part of gwens past will be interesting to see, as will whether or not ghost gwen is even the same gwen as living gwen.

#the prescription zine #gwendy lamorte #will wood #gwen #csa tw

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unohanabbygirl · 1 year

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That last chapter of FMN was pretty hard to read. I was hoping you could share your thoughts on Luke’s mindset as to why he reacted the way he did in the face of another possible assault during that scene in the bathroom? You wrote how he was going to “accept what was going to happen with grace” so could you expand on this? To be clear, I am in NO WAY victim blaming him right now. Any response to a traumatic act like SA is valid. I’m just asking for you to tell us your reasoning as to why Luke responded the way he did. Is it that he’s been through this before so many times that he doesn’t have the mental capacity to fight back in whichever way possible?

Your reasoning is very on point, so allow me to delve a bit deeper.

As we know sexual assault is something Luke has been through more than a handful of times at various stages in his life. He’s been forced by strangers in a similar way to what we’ve seen in the latest chapter as well as coerced/pressured into sex acts by people he thought he’d be able to trust.

Its terribly hard to accept for us as the readers, but at this point assault is something Luke excepts. When it happens he’s no longer surprised or even willing to fight back. Partially because fear has the ability to make a person freeze up but also because he sees no reason in fighting when it’s never gotten him out of situations prior.

So when Luke says that he’ll “accept what was going to happen with grace” it’s basically a part of his inner self giving up and accepting that the right to say no isn’t one he’ll ever be afforded. (And deep down, one that he feels he isn’t worthy of) Luke feels that if he goes along with what the bartender was about to do rather than fighting back it would be over quickly. That he won’t be beaten or left bleeding so when he makes it back to the others no one will be able to physically see that he’s been hurt.

As i’ve stated before I take the time to search for stories told by survivors of sexual violence and find that a common mindset among those who’ve been assaulted more than once by different people is that they feel as though they’ve done something to attract their attackers, or even that theres sort of a metaphorical sign on their backs inviting people to take advantage of them and it’s very much how Luke feels himself. That he’s simply a magnet for these sorts of things and fighting back is useless because he’s also the problem, not just the attacker. It’s a mindset developed from a lifetime of low self-esteem and non existent self-worth.

This also ties into his conversation with Joffrey.

Though this secret between the two of them is bound to cause problems, Luke seeing that Joffrey was willing to almost kill a guy for touching him is everything Luke would never have expected someone to do for him. So much so that he almost wants to he angry with Joff for it.

Freaking out whilst cleaning his bloody fist as he tries to come up with a cover story. So fed up with the night as a whole that when Joffrey is screaming out that what happened isn’t okay Luke accidentally alludes to having been r*ped before. Almost as if to say “this guy hurting me doesn’t matter because it’s happened so many times in the past. Now I have to fix this mess.”

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mybitchingandmoaningsafespace · 1 year

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28 years ago two humans decided to fuck in an old Ford Ranger. Around 9 months later, yours truely escaped the womb. Those two humans decided they hated eachother and I became a pawn in their game. Through all of my life my paternal grandparents have been a constant. I could almost give them credit for raising me. My grandmother passed when I was 12 or 13, and took my world with her. Now, my bond with my grandfather is the strongest bond I have with anyone in my life.

My parents seperated when I was two, a few years later their divorce was finalized. My mother got remarried to a man she met when he was about to go into a diabetic coma. He had 3 daughters from two different women and my mother took over their parenting. These girls sexually abused me, but I was too young to understand at the time, all I knew was I wanted to be accepted by them. Eventually,my nother divorced this man, as he was cheating on her. She had several boyfriends and was known in the town for her promiscuity. Several years ago she married ny current step father, who has been an absolute blessing. I got a new step sister, who I get along greatly with. My father went on to remarry a wicked witch, who made life a living hell. My father took her side, no matter how emotinally and mentally abusive she became. When I was 10, they had a child together who I raised more than they did. I continue to love that child with all my heart. The relationship between myself and my father and stepmother was always tense and my mother was my rock. At 13, I said I'd rather be dead than go back to my fathers house and was put in a psych ward for attempted suicide. During my stay there, was the first time I found myself attracted to a female. At 15, I found my first love. A boy who was just as damaged as I was. We damaged eachother even more with our on again off again dating and toxic behaviors. At 16, I had my first lesbian experience with my best friend. At 17, I was sexually assaulted by a guy my best friend was pining for. I lost my best friend and a part of myself all in one night At 18, I quit splitting my time between my mother and fathers households and ran away to stay with my mother full time. I was finally able to get enough distance to stop running back to the toxic relationship that had carried me through my teenage years. Life was finally looking up. I did a lot of soul searching and working on deciding the person I wanted to become. This meant coming to grips with parts of my past that werent pretty. Eventually, I started to rebuild my relationship with my father. My mother, who was once my best friend, became my enemy. We didnt have a common enemy anymore, so I became the person she hated. When I moved out to move in with my husband, she turned her anger on my stepfather-who does not deserve the treatment he gets, but refuses to leave her.

At 20, I feel in love with a new man. I was ready to give my heart to him. But he was still stuck on his old relationship. In a series of painful events, we split ways, and I met my now husband. We came up with great plans for our life, until life got in the way. At 24, I started to gain a lot of weight and get very sick. At 25, I was diagnosed with Crohns Disease and Cushings Disease. At 26, they removed a tumor from my pituitary gland in the hopes it would fix the Cushings. During all of this, I was struggling to hold down a job. My husband was trying to be helpful and supportive, but due to his own trauma, really didnt (and doesnt) know how. Although, we signed up for eternity, through sickness and health, neither of us planned on this.

Currently, life is a struggle as I am having issues with my health and my job again. Finances are shit, our home is falling apart around us, and everyday is another balancing.

This page is just going to be my bitchfest page, a diary of sorts. Maybe one day, Ill show it to my therapist and save us both some time.

If you have nothing kind or supportive to say, scroll on.

#diary #cushings #crohns #trauma #bisexual #marriage #mental illness #chronic illness #invisible illness #parental abuse #parental issues

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cuddling-siren · 1 year

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warning, may describe some unsavory situations from nightmares ahead

Ok, so I’m no stranger to lucid/vivid nightmares that I can usually remember, even if with some missing details, but every so often I have bad dreams that aren’t inherently scary but they are extremely uncomfortable and unsettling...

I think, for me, this mostly happens when it involves some kind of sexual assault or even just sexual acts that are vivid and sometimes a little...weird (weird situations, complete strangers, colors, or scenery). The best way I can put this is as if you are a kid watching something happen, and you aren’t completely sure what it is, but there’s something wrong with it. (the atmosphere of these dreams are always skewed).

Back to my point; it ends up leaving me pretty anxious the rest of the day after waking up, for whatever reason it may be. Sometimes it may be related to real-life issues, but more often than not I can’t accurately pinpoint where it comes from. (Including the fact of things like I don’t have sleep apnea or didn’t eat before, didn’t watch anything “scary” etc.)

They rarely follow common patterns of dreams/nightmares (with deeper meanings); you know the ones, things like being chased, falling, drowning, being late, etc. These are always weirdly intricate.

I’m gonna just talk about my dream last night, because the other part of this is that I more than likely remember all my nightmares and they are recurring. So last night is one of those; I know I’ve been there before, but it’s different. I’m in a sort of maze and obstacle course with one other person, who at the beginning attacks me after stealing my name tag and doesn’t give it back. All other contestants are generally kind and there is a pretty happy atmosphere and color palette. But the catch to this dream is that it’s clear that we are going to die some way or another.

At the end of one obstacle, there’s a single bullet, but no gun. My partner and I haven’t come across the gun, which means we either missed it, or someone else has it. Completely normal, we don’t feel offput by this detail.

A little further away is a sign, telling us that if we’ve noticed all the cameras close by watching us, then to point them all towards a specific direction then open up our phone camera to face us (and take a photo apparently). This gives us bonus points at the end of the game (if we survive).

Next up is a fake waterfall and log obstacle; we hear someone driving up behind us, but we don’t know who it is. We get moving. Thing is, remember how this world isn’t scary inherently? The waterfall and logs are like a blow up jump-house. The “waterfall” and logs are cylinder blow ups that we have to walk across as they are rotating, and as someone is following us. (even though it turns out to be a friend...maybe).

In between all this happening, like a little flash here and there interrupting the dream is some sequence with a man m*sturbating (note, he’s in strange colors, like there are lots of lights in the room dousing it in oranges, yellow, and blues). It’s also strange because it almost seems like the editing format for a TikTok video. I know, don’t ask, I don’t want to know either. At the very end (over the course of less than 5 seconds) is a woman doing the same with him? This part is fuzzy, I think because I deliberately wanted to forget it. This is the part that “scares” me the most. It sticks in my head like glue and gives such a distinct unsettling feeling in the pit of my stomach. Not just the feeling of watching something I shouldn’t be, but that something is very wrong with this scene.

The worst part about this all? I’m at least somewhat aware I’m dreaming. I can vividly feel in the dream that I am thinking of how this all looks familiar, and I’ve dreamt something similar before and that this is weird and I don’t like it (but can’t necessary do anything about it, ie not freaking out).

If anyone has crumbs to throw my way about feeling similar or having eccentric dreams that make no fucking sense leave a comment I guess.

#dreams #nightmares #lucid dreaming #vivid dreams #vivid nightmares #recurring nightmare #recurring dreams

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abbaroleplays2 · 2 years

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Velvari Tuneful

Meet Velvari Tuneful, A Tiefling Bard of whispers multiclass with an Inquisitive Rouge. She is very confident and friends with everyone but is also a compulsive liar so take everything she says with a grain of salt.

Velvari Tuneful

Personality Trait -I have a joke for every occasion, especially occasions where humor is inappropriate. -Flattery is my preferred trick for getting what I want.

Ideals -[Fairness] I never target people who can’t afford to lose a few coins.

Bonds -I owe everything to my mentor—a horrible person who’s probably rotting in jail somewhere.

Flaws -I can’t resist a pretty face.

Organization

The Tuneful Family The Tuneful Family is an organization of Charlatans based in Yestin City that provides mutual support for the illegal endeavors of its members and their clients. Based in Yestin City and headquartered in The undergrounds of the Town of Alverton, members of The Tuneful Family are renowned for causing trouble in the city and are held largely responsible for the corruption of the city's markets. Members of the guild specialize in stealing objects of varying value or loaning septims to potential entrepreneurs or to help someone pay off their debts, in hopes of a payback. The Tuneful Family has a strong hold in politics, law enforcement, and even hold some power in the royal Courts due to their ability to bribe, intimidate, and extort the officials and guards of any hold by exploiting their greed or by threatening to reveal embarrassing and potentially damning secrets to the public.

Guild Council -Velvari Tuneful - Head Bard (1est in command) -Valrit Tuneful - Head Mage (2ent in command) -Valrissa Tuneful - Head Thief / Auditor (3ed in command)

Top Charlitans -Jheri Tuneful - Head Tinkerer (Female Dragonborn) -Charles Tuneful - Major Theif (Male Humen) -Anselm Tuneful - Body Guard (Male Half-Elf) -Baz Tuneful - Body Guard (Male Half-Orc) -Pennie - Lead Bounty Hunter (Female Halfling)

Associates -No-fur - Merchant (Male Tabaxi) -Vestele Suncrown - Royal Informant/Wannabe Tuneful (Female High-Elf)

Backstory

⚠️TRIGGER WARNING FOR THE FOLLOWING⚠️ -Mentions and descriptions of Child abuse -Brief mentions of sexual assault -Religious Trauma

Velvari Tuneful was born to the name Belspira Swiftstalker a Tiefling born to two Human parents a rare occurrence but not unheard of but when Vel was born her parents thought their child was Possessed and they prayed to their god for an answer and when they went to their Bishop they were told to lock Vel up and let her starve so her body would weak to “Let the devil leave such a weak host body” But after years went by only give her little food and care to keep her barely alive she was still a Tiefling they went back to the Bishop but this time a Town Gaurd overheard and hurried over to the Swiftstalker’s family home to find a malnourished Velvari aged 8, she barely even knew common and could easily be mistaken for a toddler, the guard wrapped her up a took her to the local doctor and it seemed they had only been feeding her small bits bread and water, the doctor found scaring all over her body, signs of sexual assault, and it even looked like they tried to cut her horns off unsuccessfully, nobody in this town had seen abuse of this like in centuries but when the guard went after her parents they were gone as they seemed to of ran off, but the guards did manage to find and arrest the Bishop. After years of healing physically and mentally she was finally put up for adoption but years went by being the only Tiefling there for ages until she was 12 and another Tiefling entered a boy her age with bright red skin, black hair, and horns of a Highland Cow. Vel soon found out the boy's name was Valrit and they grew a close bond. Soon a half-elf girl still having her child name River would join their little group of misfits, after seeing all the kids come and go the three were always there together after a while they started calling themselves the Tuneful Sibling because they all spent most of their time writing tones and singing songs. After they all turned 18 they were kicked out onto the streets for a while they were petty pickpockets and shoplifters until more and more people started to join their group as it slowly turned into an organization Velvari was in charge of with her two favorite people in the world.

#dndoc #VelvariTuneful

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edoro · 2 years

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Curious if you have any thoughts on what is underlying Belos' fixation on Luz. I feel like he might be projecting some of his experience with his brother and his brother's perceived betrayal onto her - from his perspective she slots neatly into a similar role of human who assimilated to the isles. But I also feel like there's a desire maybe to try to "get through to" the only other human he's interacted with in centuries. Interested to hear your thoughts based on what we know so far!

so i kind of have two answers for you here. one of them is that i'm going to dig into, yeah, what his textually stated or implied motivations seem to be and what things about his own life/feelings/past he might be projecting onto her.

the other is that, frankly, i think the man is a predator and that his obsession with her is at least partially sexual.

(this, also, is something i think i can textually justify as a reading but not necessarily something i think was intended, so, we're drawing a division between "things i think are solidly supported by canon evidence" and "things i believe very strongly based ON canon evidence but are not imo intentional aspects of the story")

so anyway! (this is cut for length, i'm not really getting much into the 'i think he wants to assault her' idea here, but in the interest of honesty i did want to mention it as very much an idea that underpins my understanding of his fixation on her)

first of all, yeah, we do have the part where he says in Hollow Mind that it feels good to finally hear another human say his name. he does seem to feel an intense sense of connection to her based on the fact that they're both human.

it makes sense - he doesn't see witches or demons as being people. they're infernal, evil creatures that need to be purged in order to protect humanity. humans are Good, everything else is Bad, and Luz is a human, so she's Good like him and this is something they have in common. he expects her to share his opinions and is taken aback and disappointed when she doesn't.

the fact that he keeps saying they were destined to meet is interesting, too. he really does clearly feel such a sense of connection to her. she was meant to come into his life. from Philip, that was just manipulation, and when he repeats it in his mindscape while he's taunting her it's also partially just to hurt her, but i think there's a core of truth there as well - after all, she was pretty instrumental in helping him realize his plans, wasn't she?

she taught him the final glyph (which he did just fine on his own without it, but that allowed him to complete his arsenal of glyph magic and fully realize all possible combinations.) she and Lilith helped him get the mirror which allowed him to contact the Collector and set him on this path in the first place.

so i can see him genuinely feeling like she was sent to him by God. her coming to the Isles when she did, her going back in time when she did, all of it had to happen in order for him to get where he is and be able to carry out his plan. it's a sign, to him, that he's on the right track - she is that sign.

i can definitely also see him projecting a lot onto her about his experience with his brother. we don't know much about Wittebro's actual personality, but what we can infer from those memory portraits is a kind, compassionate, caring, fun, creative person who enjoyed playing games, had a keen sense of curiosity and exploration, and who was open-minded to others - someone who approached the Isles with interest and eagerness compared to Philip's nervous skulking, someone who fell in love with them, who grew past the way they'd been raised to view these people and forged strong, loving relationships.

which is very much like Luz! Luz has all of those traits as well, and i can for sure see him perceiving her as a trusting innocent who's been led astray by wicked witches, seduced to the side of evil because she doesn't understand how dire the situation is. so he wants to save her!

and he really does try to bring her over to his side. he's very gentle and even playful with her, even when he's also fucking with her on purpose in order to upset her and clearly taking pleasure in her pain and fear. he seems genuinely surprised and disappointed that she doesn't agree with him! he's so much more patient with her than he is with virtually anyone else, and it comes across like he really wants her to see things from his perspective.

i think he really craves that validation from another human, that what he's doing is right, that someone else sees it. of course, her not giving him that just further strengthens his sense of himself as a martyr, nobly suffering for the good of humanity even if it goes unrecognized. either way, he can spin it into reinforcing his conviction that what he's doing is right and justified.

and with her similarities to Caleb, i can also see like - part of it just being that he wants to try to 'fix' what happened with Caleb. the same urge that leads him to making the grimwalkers. he's trying to find or create a version of Caleb who turns out 'right', and maybe Luz can represent that as well.

also, he just seems very lonely. we see that again with the grimwalkers. he wants a friend, a playmate. this whole Emperor business is just him recreating his childhood games on a grand scale. that's also where his playfulness towards Luz becomes significant, i think - he wants to play with her. he wants her to keep him company.

so yeah, there's a lot of stuff wrapped up in there. she represents a lot of different things to him, i think. ultimately of course, like with Hunter, like with the other grimwalkers, like with Caleb originally, she's just a symbol to him. she's not a person, she's not Luz Noceda, she's a mirror reflecting whatever he wants her to reflect and a toy he wants to play with, and when the toy won't work right, he throws it away.

#tldr he's just a fucked up creepy person who yeah is projecting a lot of weird shit onto her #sorry luz you do not deserve any of this. please stay the fuck away from this nasty man #csa mention #emperor belos #luz noceda #the owl house #asks

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traumatictouch · 4 years

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why tomura reads like a sexual abuse survivor

ive noticed that a lot of survivors - including me - easily read tomura as a csa survivor. ive decided to try to put these impressions into words, mostly for myself, but also for anyone curious as to why he’s so frequently read this way, or why i personally write him as such. i will mostly be elaborating on the reoccurring sexual assault imagery and csa survivor traits tomura exhibits.

triggering themes ahead, including discussed child sexual abuse, incest (sibling and pseudo), trauma and its effects, and sexual assault imagery (from the bnha manga itself). also spoilers for the most recent manga arc.

(disclaimer: i realize symptoms of trauma are pretty much common all across the board, and depression also comes with a lot of these behaviors - but there are some that crop up more commonly in cases of sexual abuse (especially from a young age) than in others. csa survivors also frequently end up with depression, too, so that doesn't necessarily take away from it.)

i’ll start with the cover above. the hands touching him here are much more expressive than the ones he usually wears. it's also framed in a way where you can't see the ends/cap things very well, and they don't appear so symmetrical, making them feel much more like real, living hands grabbing him.

there's also the fact that his face is exposed, which is something we had rarely seen him do willingly at this point in the manga, and even when he had he was still covered up with a hoodie or completely alone. the way he's covering half his face gives off the impression that he's not okay with the way he's exposed.

all of that, plus the obvious distress tomura is in, gives this very glaring assault vibes.

also, the hands on his head are clearly someone's actual, living hands as well. my guess is afo, especially since they seem to be petting him, which is reoccurring imagery between tomura and afo.

tomura's total lack of privacy

there's a clear lack of boundaries between tomura and the adults in his life. most of the spaces that seem to belong to tomura (the bar - he feels safe enough there to take Father off, and his room) are accompanied by cameras and audio transmissions from afo. he has no privacy, and doesn't even seem bothered by this fact.

he also doesn't seem to set boundaries with other people in general. toga can hold a knife to his neck, spinner can grab him and yell in his face, the doctor can shout over his earpiece, dabi (or anyone, really) can say whatever rude or callous things he wants to him… really the only time i can think of that even comes close was when mr. compress made a joke about working with overhaul and tomura said "hey, not funny."

he seems to kinda just let whatever happen to him. earlier in the series, tomura seemed to rely on kurogiri to notice when he needed space and step in for him rather than ask for it himself. that's a pretty telltale sign of someone who's had their needs and boundaries violated (or even punished) for a long time.

Tomuras over-attachment to afo and his praise/affection

obviously afo groomed tomura whether it involved sexual abuse or not, but it is something that could have easily lended itself to that as well. early in the series, tomura clearly highly valued afos opinion of him, and seemed to strive to please and repay him for his kindness. these are feelings afo incited in him on purpose and did, canonically, take advantage of to turn tomura into a villain and pawn - who's to say he didn't use it for other purposes, too?

it's also the kind of thing survivors tend to latch onto to cope with their abuse. it can be easier to think of the event as being affection, returning a favor, and/or special treatment, than to think of it as abuse. tomura looked up to afo so much that it's possible he could have considered (or been convinced) that it was special that someone as great as afo wanted to do something so intimate with him.

also, if this is really tomura realizing his sensei isn't as special and powerful as he'd been led to believe, then his reaction being to cover up while looking angry might, well… be a reaction to feeling used.

Tomura & older men

there's not a lot of people besides afo that tomura seems very quickly, openly… invested in. there are two major ones i can think of, and they are both 1. older men, and 2. mentor figures (even if not to tomura.)

the most obvious of the two is aizawa, who tomura has seemed pretty fond of since his first appearance and, even in the most recent chapters, can't seem to help but think about how cool aizawa is. aizawa isn't a mentor to tomura, obviously, but he is a teacher and tomura knows this. (and seems impressed by the way he tries to protect the students in his care--something afo very specifically does not do for tomura.)

the second, and perhaps less obvious to most, is Stain. i wrote up a whole post trying (trying.) to explain the way tomura seemed interested in him, and you can see a bit more about that and how tomura was hoping he'd be a mentor to him here.

in other words, tomura has shown reoccurring interest in older men, who are mentors, that he does not show for anyone else.

early sexual abuse can influence a person's attractions. survivors tend to be drawn to what is familiar, even if it hurt, and so it's pretty common for them to be attracted to and/or desire a relationship with those who resemble their abuser(s).

and afo is an older man who is a mentor to tomura (and others.)

immaturity (& age regression)

tomura, in early canon, is often described by characters in-universe as being childish, especially in regards to how he processes his emotions. (i don't really like to conflate these things with "age" or "being childish" - but the way the manga itself presents these qualities is clearly intended to give tomura a immature/childish vibe.)

tomura's emotional processing, simple motivations, fixation with video games, toys littering his room, and need for close caregiving (kurogiri) all give off the impression that he's had trouble developing the way he "”should”" have--kind of like he didn't really move on at all.

this sort of stunted development tends to occur in people with childhood trauma, especially csa survivors. ptsd at its core is the brain getting "stuck" in the moment of trauma, so if the trauma occurred as a child, then one's development is somewhat halted there, especially in areas of emotional processing, because the brain and body have to dedicate so much energy to just trying to cope and survive. it's pretty common for csa survivors to have trouble coping with and controlling their emotions.

relatedly: i have no real way to confirm this right now, but i’ve heard that during the mla arc, while tomura was kind of going in and out of flashbacks, he started switching to using “boku” - a self pronoun for young boys - as opposed to his usual “ore”). ive since had to wonder if this is a reoccurring state for tomura - it might partly explain why he keeps his toys around despite never showing interest in them on-screen, and has such close supervision from kurogiri.

again, age regression can go for any kind of childhood trauma, but seems very common in child sexual abuse survivors in particular.

Lack of hygiene (esp oral)

look at how tomura's teeth are drawn compared to even another villains. dabis teeth are straight and clean, whereas tomura's have holes and chips, and tend to be drawn uneven with wobbly lines, like they're covered in plaque.

not caring for one's hygiene is common for people with depression too - but failure to care for teeth also frequently crops up in survivors of sexual abuse, due to an aversion to things touching or being inside their mouth, because it can remind them of the abuse.

in a similar vein, tomura's hair looks unwashed and greasy to me, especially when it gets long. it sort of gathers in clumps and appears heavy. survivors may avoid taking showers because they aren't comfortable removing their clothes for long periods of time, or because the abuse occurred in proximity to bathing. (which is a convenient time for parental figures to groom and abuse their children, since it already involves them being naked and the parent touching them closely.)

in general, there just seems to be something off about tomura's relationship with his body. maybe it's the way he barely bats an eye at major injuries, doesn't care for his hygiene, self-injures, and didn't mind undergoing a surgery that altered its shape and function pretty heavily--but i get the impression that tomura sees his body as just a tool more than anything.

which, if someone grew up having their body regarded as nothing but a means of pleasure, kind of makes sense.

his clothing

im not sure if this has the same “connotations” (for lack of a better word) for flat chested people, but tomura always wearing a lowcut shirt that shows off a fair amount of his chest, but covering the rest of himself head to toe--including his face--feels significant to me. as well as the way he covers up even more (his hoodie) when he’s stressed. the hands, too--being covered up seems to be calming for him.

the placement of the hands afo gave him

you can't tell me little tenko placed these hands where they are by himself. the ones on his chest aren’t even from his family or meant to resemble them - they’re additional hands afo gave him to wear. pretty weird place for “afo”’s hands to go...

I feel like theres a little bit something to tomura frequently having his clothes ripped off during fights

not that it's particularly uncommon for bnha characters to get their clothes a bit shredded during fights, but i can't help but feel like there's something to tomura getting torn down to nothing but his pants twice, with both battles heavily involving tomura's traumas, including the ones related to afo. the vs mla arc with how tomura met afo and how he turned him into what he is today, then the war arc where the methods afo used to control and abuse tomura (the hands) are brought back again--and afo repeatedly takes tomura's bodily autonomy away from him.

AFO's predatory behaviors

tomuras own behavior aside, All For One himself has some behaviors and imagery that gives off very predatory vibes. i’ll start with Ragdoll…

most people theorize that she was going to be turned into a nomu, but there are two important things here. ragdoll was found 1. alive, and 2. naked. all nomu are made from corpses - if afo had time to take her quirk and undress her, he certainly had time to kill her, especially since three days had passed since she was kidnapped. (and, what benefit would there be to making a nomu out of a quirkless hero?)

her dazed state is also curious - we've never been told taking or giving quirks has a side effect like this, and i would think itd at least wear off after three days…

there's also not actually a lot to suggest she was submerged in one of the tanks (that i know of); in the full body image, she doesn't seem to be soaking wet or anything. there's no water dripping off her. there's just a bit of liquid on her face and neck, which could merely be sweat, or… other fluids.

this next part is more debatable due to it being more dubiously canon (although My Hero: One’s Justice has been known to basically spoil villain related lore before it appears in the manga) - but he has some dialogue that makes him sound... pretty fuckin enthusiastic about sexual violence.

and time and time again, afo has been... very creepy and obsessive about his brother. who happens to look an awful lot like tomura, and is vaguely connected to nana as a user of OFA, and we know how far afo would go to spite both of them.

The "wow this is pretty much confirmed now" page

i always thought i was just projecting when i read tomura as a csa survivor - until i saw this page, which was so viscerally uncomfortable that it made me nauseous. it definitely made me decide i wasn't just reading into things that weren't there. that's not exactly to say this panel 100% confirmed it (though it certainly did in my mind, personally) -- but the imagery here can't not be deliberate.

tomura is literally shirtless and bent over before afo, and sure, afos not completely standing behind him, but that's partially because his lower half is inside of tomura. and from our previous example of afo taking over tomura's body…

i wish i could find the translation i first saw - this is the viz translation, which is notoriously horrible - but the one i read felt much more along the lines of "i saved you, so i get to do what i want with your body."

that is a line of logic that could have EASILY applied to their earlier relationship. the way afo saved tenko was very much on the forefront of tomura's mind early in the series, possibly either an idea he clung onto to justify the abuse he experienced from afo, or something afo personally reminded him of frequently.

also… part of afos body is definitely wrapped around tomura's upper thigh, and in certain panels seems to be emanating from between his legs.

speaking of, tomura's stance is also notable to me. compared to the panel where tomura first realized afo was taking control of him, where his knees are pretty straight on or outwards in a powerful balanced brace, in these panels his knees seem to be bending in towards his body, like he wants to squeeze his legs shut. huh.

i touched on this before, but it's interesting to me that what finally let afo fully take control of tomura's body, was having a hand (one afo very specifically used to control and abuse tomura into doing what he wanted) placed upon his body without permission.

so, all in all, afo is "inside" tomura's body, using it for his own means, against tomura's wishes.

what else does that sound like? no wonder deku feels like tomura needs help, despite everything...

again, this isn't to say that csa is definitely the cause of these things, just that tomura does have an abundance of behaviors and imagery that could easily be read that way.

#shigaraki tomura #tomura shigaraki #Tenko Shimura #boku no hero academia #all for one #afo bnha #bnha #long post #ITS FINALLY HERE #i did my best i hope it makes sense #csa tw #child abuse tw #meta #ooc

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queerticulate · 2 years

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I gotta say the whole supposed moral panic about fetishizing gay men through fandom seems like a bit of a trojan horse for homophobia to me. People of a variety of sexes and orientations finding gay sex/romance appealing is not a bad thing. What is a bad thing is when women start harassing gay men to join them in the bedroom, or random people disturb gay "couples" in public with sexualized remarks on their displays of affection or lust for each other. Now I have been very active in my local and national LGBT scene for years now, and you know how often I've heard of this happening? Never.

You know what does happen a lot? This being done to queer women. I myself and pretty much all of my friends have multiple experiences of this happening. Men commenting on you when you're kissing a girl in a bar or nightclub, men whistling when you hold hands in public, men who become obsesses with trying to seduce you when you say you're a lesbian. I even was with a lesbian couple when they got sexually assaulted by a man during freaking Pride. So for one, I think the panic is really overbearing, and very misdirected. If you want to help LGBT people and protect them from harm resulting from being fetishized... direct your efforts at protecting queer women.

Absent of real life consequences, I gotta wonder how many people rage about the potential of people of a variety of sexes and orientations getting off on the idea of (attravtive) guys having sex or a romance say this, because truly they cannot cope with gay sex or romance being considered something attractive at all. A lot of homophobia that queer people experience is centered around this belief that we have to cower and beg to be accepted, that we have to present ourselves as the abberation to the perfect cishet folks. If we act like our lifes and loves are just as normal or in our eyes better than cishet stuff, we are often punished as being too much. Queer men especially face a lot of punishment for existing in public and expressing their sexuality. Any public display of affection regularly gets met with disgust, hate, or even violence. I know so many guys who are scared to kiss or hold hands in public. I also know several recent stories of gay men being beat up within my city. Male on male sexuality is also treated as something dirty. Immediately if you participated in it, no matter if you only ever had a 100% safe sex, in my country you immediately get signed up for more extensive health checks. You get barred from blood donations too, also for being in a gay relationship at all regardless of your sex pratices. Heck, even if I as a woman would have sex with a queer man I get the same treatment. So really, people in fandom creating some online buzz about 'wouldnt it be cool if these guys kissed/fucked/were in love' really feels like it does more against real life homophobia for queer men as i see it existing, by normalizing it, by lifting it up as desirable, than it seems to do harm. Cause the main problem is and has been that queer guys are told they cant exist, or need to be scared, or are dirty. All this talk online that so much attention going out to fantasized queer men's relationships is bad, that you're a dirty freak if you do that, i don't know, it mostly sounds like reinforcing the main form of homophobia queer men face.

Now the world is a big place, and i cannot presume to know about all local variants of homophobia and common queer experiences. Maybe there are places in the world where queer men publicly getting harassed as if they're sex dolls is a huge issue. In which case: your complaints are valid. I am sorry people in your life are going through that. I am sorry this post feels like another horror thrown on top of it. But maybe, when adressing a global audience... do as i do here... presume not the whole world works in alignment with your local point of view. Contextualize your complaints. Let your brothers and sisters in another country know you're fighting against stuff happening in your area, instead of just being another demon coming to reinforce homophobia.

#rant #homophobia #shipping #mlm ships #fandom #lgbt #im just grossed out by in how many fandoms a weird combo of 'no you cant talk about them being gay thats bad' with #'but we can talk about the filthiest straight fantasies with the same guys' has arisen #and a lot of talk about how a popular mlm ship must be fetishization #how it must be that people are judt doing it cause the guys are attractive and that this is somehow wrong #it really feels like people are shaming queer sexuality and romance in itself and disguising it in social justice talk to get away with it

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missyasf · 4 years

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Game Of Hearts

| 1 |

↳ Summary: Your life is in monotonous tones of grey, day in, day out. Nothing matters besides your sister, the only thing you remember is seeing fireworks before waking up to Tokyo abandoned . Soon enough you are properly introduced to the deadly Borderlands where you must fight for your life in Games to survive. When things can’t possibly get worse soon division arises and rivalries are made. No matter what though, you are constantly plagued by a blonde who, no matter how hard you try, just can’t seem to go too far without.

↳ Pairing: Chishiya/Reader

↳ Genre: Angst, smut, thriller

Word Count: 11k

___| Next

Trigger Warning: ⚠️ much like the manga/Netflix adaptation this will be a dark fic which includes mentions of prostitution, attempted murder, child ab*se, sexual harassment, heavy grief and attempted suic*de among other things. Additional warnings will be added for chapters when triggers are brought up. Please read with caution if these are triggers for you or just skip all together!

Side mention: This could be considered a prequel to the current Alice In Borderland. I’m writing based off the Manga bc I was a glutton and couldn’t wait no spoilers will be present as of...

Escapism

noun

the tendency to seek distraction and relief from unpleasant realities, especially by seeking entertainment or engaging in fantasy ♡

You had known all about this during your short lifespan, as a child you’d often play pretend with your sister that you were movie stars living in a five star hotel rather than the shitty busted up apartment on the wrong side of town. Escapism came in, many forms. It was often a way for people to cope psychologically, simply because sometimes, facing the reality of your situation can be too much for one person to handle mentally.

Or at least, that was the topic of your lecture today in class. The human mind always fascinated you. Even at the young tender age when your mom died and you watched your once cozy little family fall apart piece by piece until nothing was left in its wake.

It was your fascination that drove you now for most things, why? Why, why, why? You always wondered what the motive was behind someone’s actions, not only thing but you wanted to understand them better, to try and sympathize. You were already fairly intuitive in nature. It wasn’t difficult to read people. In fact your line of work made it easy, you’d watch a man who would be excited to be with you reach for his left finger as if used to touching something. A wedding band perhaps?

The lowlife cheater was fairly common in a whore house after all. Or the man who had been pissy this morning behind you in line because you had decided to try something new on the menu and you weren’t fast enough, obviously because he was tardy and woke up late, his shirt unbeknownst to him was button the wrong way and his tie loose and even the way his hair fell were all signs of being late to work.

It was the little things you noticed in people’s facial expressions, the way they moved and spoke. You could read people like a book, and sure sometimes it was useful. But you often wished you weren’t so perceptive. It drove you mad knowing when a potential love interest was no longer interested through a simple text or a friend not wanting to talk by their tone. Sometimes you wished you could just blot it all out, still, you lived like this day in and day out, you were used to this kind of thing and honestly. Friends? Love? Your gaze dropped a little to your feet, the pumps you were wearing a jet black and the heel too high for any respectable woman to ever wear.

...It wasn’t like you ever had any of those in your life and you had struggled to come to terms with the fact that you could survive without that kind of support. Still...it made you envious, the couple happily holding hands on the sidewalk. The group of friends all laughing at a table while they studied. Oftentimes these feelings are muted, but when you’re faced with something you’ve always craved, those muted feelings suddenly become hyperactive in your mind.

It’s pathetic, honestly.

“How dare you! You disgusting slut!”

In this moment however, you were brought back to reality at just what was happening, you squeaked loudly as you dodged the shoe the woman had thrown at you. This was all a regular occurrence, you had a lot of regulars who weren’t the most amazing people but hey, money was money. But along with them they also left a trail which their wives and girlfriends always followed. And then they always blamed you instead of their partner for leaving them for a prostitute despite you never having agreed to anything such as that.

It really wasn’t your fault, you were just trying to make a living while juggling with keeping up your own education, paying your fathers debts, rent and still somehow getting food on the table. What part time college job could provide that?

Prostitution wasn’t a job you would’ve gone into willingly but given the past and your trauma that was already laced in it you had been learning that sometimes because of the trauma we experience, sometimes people go back to that same trauma and actively participate in it as a way of feeling like they’re in control.

That whatever happened before, would never happen again if you were in control. You weren’t sure if you qualified under this category, trauma came in many forms but the one most used as an example in your class was that a study showed that women who were assaulted often develop a kink for consensual non consent as a way of coping with what happened, except this time, it’s in a controlled environment where it can end the moment they want it too.

Again, you weren’t sure you fell into this category, but you often wondered if your line of work was intertwined with your earlier memories when you were younger, if anything it brought comfort to you. Much of it, blotted out now simply because your mind couldn’t take it. Trauma expressed through amnesia was also much more common than many thought, and it’s so small, so easy to miss. After all how can you be aware of something if you have no memory of it anymore?

“Security!” Your manager screeched, two of the bodyguards were already between you and the feral woman who was ready to gut you clean as she screamed hysterically, her husband...your regular....at her side trying to get her to calm down only for her to come to her senses and slap him clean across the face. You didn’t condone violence, but he did have it coming...

You weren’t about to justify cheaters, you couldn’t imagine the hurt someone had to feel that not only did their partner cheat on them, but it was with someone...like you...You had been trying not to put down your job occupation, sex workers were just as valid as anyone else...you knew you would’ve thought this way if it was anyone but you in this position.

You sighed as you ran your hands through your hair, watching the couple get dragged out of the tight space of the brothel, “Jesus christ....didn’t you say you stopped using perfume because of this?” Miki, your manager sighed as she crossed her arms. You didn’t want to say your manager was your friend but she was the closest you had as you’d often complain to her about most of your problems. Sex work often attracted broken people, it wasn’t something she wasn’t used to.

“Yeah, but apparently he never got around to washing his clothes…” You wiped your mouth on the back of your hand, “Lipstick stain,” You glanced down at the ruby pink color that stained your skin now, “Fuck...that did hurt.” You rubbed your sore cheek that was still throbbing from where she had first slapped it when she ripped the door open of the room where she got to see with her own eyes you riding her husband.

It had happened so many times now you weren’t even embarrassed about someone walking in let alone a partner. Miki gave you a lopsided smile as she patted your shoulder, “Guess that just pays for being one of the best here. Did you at least get paid.”

You nodded, “Yeah, I always make them pay in advanced but I was hoping to get a tip afterwards...He was a lawyer so you know he had good money.” You sighed, crossing your arms, you were well aware of his partner because a lot of the time he didn’t even come in for sex anymore. It was funny how humans work.

He often felt his wife was overbearing and you had suspected some sort of verbal abuse by the way he talked about her constant screaming. Truthfully, you don’t think he ever intended on cheating with her. He just wanted someone to talk to without being judged, you could relate with sympathy to that, but he unfortunately chose to walk into a brothel instead of a therapy clinic and this truly was the only inevitable outcome. Still, you hope if for anyone’s sake, he gets that divorce for himself.

“Hey I think I’m gonna call it a day. I need to get back to Nanami, she was wanting to talk to me about college applications.” You sighed as you rubbed your neck, ever since she had graduated high school she had been chomping at the bit to start applying for college, maybe to just get out of the house and into a dorm. You couldn’t blame her and if she did that it would lighten your load a little.

Guilt washed over you at the thought as Miki chuckled, “They grow up pretty fast huh? My brother was the same way, except the moment he found out I was a sex worker was the moment he called me a whore and we haven’t talked since. That was probably about five years ago,” She crossed her arms as she sighed, “Crazy how the things we do for the ones we love, never appreciate our effort...I’ll see you tomorrow then?”

“If I’m not bruising.” You offered a weak smile as you nodded at her before going back to your room to get changed. Truthfully, you much like anyone else, often wished you could go to a world where reality wasn’t a concept any longer. Where you could lay out in the sun for the whole day and just soak up it’s rays with no worries or trepidations.

But sooner then later everyone had to face their fears. Even you, you supposed. But no matter how hard you fought your demons, they always came back tenfold. Again, you supposed your story was no different from tens of thousands, and yet you all live on regardless. Maybe it’s you who should be the one seeking therapy. Pulling on your jeans and the cropped top over your head before pulling the jacket over your arms and grabbing your bag.

The walk home was as quiet as ever, your hood over your head and earbuds any unwanted attention, it wasn’t too late at night, only eleven PM and your work had just been getting started but that had ruined the night for you and besides, you had already failed a test today, you could use the sleep tonight.

Occasionally you’d hear the sirens of a cop car passing by or a bystander shout, nothing out of the ordinary in this neighborhood. Walking up to the apartment complex you pulled the key from your bag as you unlocked the door. Quietly stepping insides as you shut the door before locking it once more. Your nose wrinkled at the smell of stale air mixed with rotten...something…

If anything, you were always lacking in something, you had been so busy most of the day that you never had time to clean anything leaving the house in a horrible state. Not that you thought this was much of a house.

Walking down the narrow hallway you opened the rickety door with a missing lock as you gave a brief smile to the small clump of bedsheets. Your sister was curled up and on her phone, eyes darting to the door with a hint of fear before she jumped up, “Y/n! You’re home earlier from night shift already!?”

You offered a smile as you set down your bag and nodded, sitting down on the mattress that laid on the floor as you replied, “Yeah, a coworker needed the extra hours so I let them cover for me tonight. Besides, you wanted to talk about college applications?” Your sister was under the impression your late night job was bartending at some hole in the wall downtown, where in all actuality you just went there to drink a few days and talk to the loud and sometimes obnoxious, but good hearted bartender who loved talking about his nerdy underaged friends that couldn’t do anything beside stay and drink soda.

It wasn’t that you didn’t think your sister would accept you, if she knew what you were actually doing. Fear, most times came in many different forms and this was one of them. You simply didn’t want to be judged, even by her. So nobody in your life truly knew who you were, and therefore, how could you hold the expectation for people to accept you into society if you were already self sabotaging yourself?

All philosophy aside, you were simply a lost soul, looking for your way in the cruel reality called life.

“Yes!” Nanami was chipper as always as she squealed, clapping her hands, “I…! I was thinking about applying to the university you attend! Maybe I'll get a grant and move into the dorms there? I already applied for several jobs, I’m just waiting on a callback!”

You offered a small smile as you hugged your knees to your chest, “I think you’d like it there, there’s lots to do around campus. But what will you go in for? The only advice I can offer is be sure it’s what you want to do.”

Nanami’s face faltered a little as she hummed, “Well...I thought maybe working with animals? I’d love to be an assistant surgeon in veterinarian? I know it’s a pretty...sad job but...I really like the idea of being able to heal such innocent things.” Your smile tugged into a gentle one at your sister. She was too tender for this world.

It had been your goal sense the day your mother died that you took care of your sister, it didn’t matter what happened to you. You could rot for all you cared at the end of the day, all you wanted was to look up and see your sister's smile and her happiness in life blossom. She more than anyone deserved it.

“I think you’ll be great at it.” You encouraged as you rested your chin on your hand, always happy to see her bounce in excitement as you yawned, your body was used to your demanding schedule but it was always more than happy to welcome a few extra hours of sleep.”

Hearing the door loudly slam close caused you both to jump, Nanami hurriedly crawled back in bed, pretending to be asleep as you frowned. Your dad must’ve come back home from wherever he was.

“Y/n! Just stay here! Can’t you talk to him later?” Nanami looked scared, she always did when he was around. But you weren’t about to stand down to the bastard any day of the week, you offered a weak smile as you replied.

“It’s fine Nami, I’ll be just a few minutes.” You replied, you knew that she knew, that was probably a lie. But you’d try your best, for her sake at least. But somebody had to put this guy in his place occasionally and it was always you. It results in a lot of screaming sometimes, other times he’d break down in tears or on a bad occasion you’d get shoved to the ground, a few times hit. Nothing major.

Walking out of the room you leaned against the wall of the entrance of the hallway watching your father stumble around in the living room, “Did you finally talk to the loan company?” You called out as you asked, not in a forgiving mood tonight. He had said he’d do this for two weeks in a row. The company that sank your whole family into the ground. The reason your mother couldn’t take it anymore and put a blade to her wrist.

Your father stood up, looking a little wobbly, obviously drunk, “Now listen here little girl I don’t have shit to own to you or anyone else.” You sighed as you tucked your tongue into your cheek, annoyance flowing inside you as you straightened up. You weren’t going to be bullied into being scared of this guy.

“Actually you do,” Your smile twisted into something more sharp, more bitter and sinister as you walked forward, “See, if you hadn’t of gotten involved in something shady like loan sharks we wouldn’t be drowning in debt and mom wouldn’t have killed herself because of you and both your daughters wouldn’t hate you. I know you drink away all our money in some pathetic attempt to escape from the cold reality that you fucked up your whole life and watched your family slip from your fingers while not even trying to do anything other then put us in further shit,” You closed your eyes as you tilted your head, “But the least you could do, is admit that. You owe us at least that for being a total fuck up.”

You opened your eyes to find pure rage brewing in your fathers eyes as you smiled once more, this time a false sense of sickly sweet tone to it as you shrugged, “Or you could live in denial, at this point, there really isn’t anything you can do to get anyone back ♡ ”

You had turned around, planning to tell Nanami that maybe she should go sleep over at a friends house today but you never got the chance, suddenly being slammed into the wall and flecks of spit hitting your face, “I am your fucking father! I deserve respect from you and your worthless sister! Do you know how much I provide for you both?”

Anger splintered through your veins as you grabbed onto his wrists, his fingers digging into your neck as you squirmed, “Like fucking what!? A shitty broken down apartment that your vacant from because you’re too fucking ashamed of yourself to even look at us sober!?”

Much like years in the past you weren’t surprised to hear Nanami cry as she rushed out of the room at the sound of you both screaming, “Stop!” She cried out, trying to break you both up, “Stop! Don’t fight! Why…! Why can’t we all just get along!” She sobbed only for your dad to shove her down making her curl up in defeat.

Alarm bells were triggered in your head at the sight of Nanami on the ground, she had never actually gotten hurt while in your sight and it was triggering something deep inside you as you watched him stalk up to her. Your hands shaking and rage boiling in your mind as you grabbed the closet thing you could find. An empty beer bottle on the table.

Your vision blurred and you don’t quite remember what happened other than glass shattering over his head and the brute force of you shoving something before blood was stained on your hands.

How did you end up sitting against the wall? Why was there….blood on your hands…? Your fingers trembled at the metallic sticky substance. All you could hear were Nanami’s sobs and cries as she frantically pushed herself away from the body slumped on the ground.

“You…! He…!” Nanami’s eyes brimmed with tears as you heard a loud boom making you jump, your eyes darting to the open window where….fireworks, big and bold crashed and crackled before you felt like you were sucked into a vortex making your whole vision black out.

Your head felt fuzzy and there was ringing in your ears as you groaned, curling up into yourself as the darkness beckoned you closer before you forcibly opened your eyes. You were laying against the hardwood floor. Beams of light streaked through the window and you could see dust particles in the air against the shower of sunshine that streamed in.

...Wait...Light? The thought had perplexed your head enough to make you push up from the ground, memories pulling into your mind as your breath became shallow, suddenly looking to the side where...you slumped against the wall. It must’ve just been a bad dream….your eyes flickered to Nanami’s curled up figure...a really vivid dream…? Something wrenched in your gut as you rubbed your eyes. What happened? “Nami…!” You whispered, forcing your muscles to move despite their protest as she whined.

After another moment she reluctantly opened her eyes, flickering around before she suddenly scrambled up, taking a deep breath as if realizing what had happened before, looking towards where your dad once was she frowned, “...I...What…” She seemed just as perplexed as you and if her face was anything to go by, last night had obviously happened, “Is dad…” She looked at the absent place of the floor.

Leaning against the wall your eyes darted around the room, “I guess so…” You silently felt relief at knowing your dad was still very much alive as you leaned back as you closed your eyes, trying to remember what had happened before everything went dark...oh..! The fireworks...had it been a celebration last night? Your brows pinched together, something felt...off...getting up you opened the door to the apartment walking out.

“Y/n? Y/n! Hey! Where are you going!” Nanami called out, quickly chasing after you as you frowned, cars were parked odd and there was no one out on the street...as in...at all...Something was very wrong and you couldn’t figure out what.

“Wow...it..must be a slow day…” Nanami felt a sense of discomfort at the lack of life as you both walked down the side walk, it didn’t just feel like a slow day it felt, apocalyptic. As if humanity just left on it’s own leaving nothing but an empty city behind. Cars were parked on the curb and a few even left in the street.

“No, it’s like everyone vanished...This is really weird.” You wrapped your arms around yourself as you frowned, looking around as you came closer to where typically it would be a booming part of the downtown but it was empty, just as everything before.

“Well, maybe it’s a national holiday?” Nanami rubbed her head, trying to make sense of the situation just as much as you, surely everyone wasn’t...gone...right? She looked around as she bit her lip, second guessing herself at all the cars that were vacant, “Hey Y/n.”

You paused as you looked at your sister, curving an eyebrow as she offered a weak smile, “What if everyone got raptured away like they talk about in christanity?” Your expression flattened as she giggled, obviously getting a rise out of you as you crossed your arms.

Raptured? Where? To heaven? “Wouldn’t it be fire and brimstone then if that was the case?” Nanami pouted at your words as you shrugged, snickering yourself at her expression, the tables now turned as you sighed, “I don’t think there’s anyone left in Tokyo...I mean, it feels like...we’d have seen someone by now...right?”

“Well…” Nanami frowned once more, a little disturbed at your words as she spoke, “There’s no way everyone could be gone I mean, where would they go? And how could we miss something like that...Maybe the police found us and now we’re under some weird simulation.”

Chills spilled down your spine as you shoved her making her whine, “Don’t say that! That makes me feel all weird…! I didn’t…!” You cut yourself off, you didn’t what? Murder your own dad in cold blood...you looked down at your hands, they were free of any blood but it still felt like something like sin lingered. Like no matter where you went, it would always be stuck to you.

You didn’t like this, not one bit. Briefly you felt the urge to go hunt down your dad, he was a deadbeat but you would never...you’d never kill him....Right?

“Well…” Nanami hummed her eyes scanning ahead before they jumped to the mall that was up ahead, “Hey…! If nobody is here...maybe we could make use of it! Come on! Let's go!” You yelped at her grabbing your arm before dragging you ahead. Cars were all parked and yet not a single person exited through the mall's entrance. Something just felt off! You wrapped your arms around yourself as you warily looked around the empty mall, “Nanami I really don’t like this!” You looked around, concern bubbling inside you as she ran ahead into the store, digging through the section of clothes as she giggled.

“Relax! I doubt any of this is real and even so…! Who’s going to stop us!?” She shrugged as she bounced in excitement, “Oh my god! I had dreamed of something like this happening! Now we can do whatever we want! Go wherever we want! Y/n!” She gasped with a smile, “Now we don’t even have to worry about money!”

“We don’t even know if this is permanent.” You looked around warily, not partaking as she began plucking off the racks, “Regardless of what this is, I don’t like it. I want to go back home, our home. This just doesn’t…” You shook your head, “This just doesn’t feel right.”

“Well you can feel that way!” Nanami clacked her tongue as she gave a childish smile, “But I’m gonna go through this whole store and get a new wardrobe so feel free to sit on the bench and tell me what you think looks good!”

Looking away you sighed, unable to pinch the anxious feeling you had away as you sat down reluctantly as Nanami went into the changing room. Well...at least she was smiling and she was happy...With each outfit Nanami tried out and giggled, you giggled with her and maybe things weren’t so bad after all…

“What a perfect day.” Nanami hugged you close as she sighed, yawning as you looked up at the sky in awe, you had seen a single star while living in Tokyo before, but now it was filled with constellations and millions of stars that stretched for miles. You could stare at it for days and days. The sun had just set a little over half an hour ago and you were ready to retire and find something to eat at the apartment.

You and Nanami had tried going to the food court but much to your dismay everything had been...rotten...soiled and ruined, meaning there was no point in trying to find anything there and you were getting really hungry despite devouring bags of chips you had both got at the convenient store, another thing that stood out to you was that there was no electricity...at all..

Looking back up to the sidewalk something caught your eyes...was that…! Light!? “Hey! Nanami look!” You shook her making her squeak as she looked up ahead, “It’s the hospital! They have electricity there which means there’s other people! Of course! Why didn’t we think to check essential areas!? Come on! Lets go! I wanna figure out what happened.”

“Alright! It sucks that this is already over but at least I can finally charge my phone, the battery is pretty low.” Nanami nodded in agreement as you both made your way up the road.

The walk wasn’t too far and you felt excitement fill you at the sight of the hospital all lit up as you walked into the entrance, a frown slowly setting on your lips once more as you walked past the receptionist desk and…! Oh there’s other people!

You felt relief wash over your as you ran up, there were at least seven other other people here at least! “Hey! Guys oh my god. I thought everyone was gone! What’s going on?” You asked, smiling bright in relief that you and Nanami weren’t the only ones left behind. Was this some kind of evac point or…?

Silence ensued and you slowly began to frown as you felt everyone stare at you as if you were insane, “Um…” You wrapped a hand around your arm, suddenly feeling as if everyone knew something you didn’t, “What’s going on…?” You furrowed your brows as you tilted your head, unsure of why everyone was looking at you like this.

Somebody looked like they were going to talk to you, a guy relatively around your age but a woman stopped him- his girlfriend maybe? “Stop, the less that know the better chance we have.” She said quietly though you still heard just enough. Fear twisted inside you as you took a cautious step back...The...the less you knew?

“Wow, you guys are assholes,” A girl suddenly whistled out, she was sitting in a waiting chair, a cowboy hat on her head paired with distressed jeans and...a bikini top? Strange but you’d roll with it if it meant getting answers. She stood up as she offered a smile, “Akari, nice to meet ya’. You folk must be new to the Borderlands huh?” She jutted her bottom lip a little as you frowned.

“Um I’m Y/n and this is my sister Nanami...?” You introduced yourself despite feeling confused as you raised a brow, “Borderlands…?” You echoed, what was that supposed to be? Other than Tokyo?

Akari gave a nod as she let out a brief chuckle, as if amused by your confusion but you sensed she had no real ill will unlike....your eyes checked to the couple that stood off in the corner on their own, “That’s what they call it here,” She nodded in affirmation as your eyes darted back to her in confusion, “To be frank with ya’, I don’t have a damn clue what's going on. Nobody does. But ever since you crossed the threshold there’s no going back, so I’ll be brief. We’re all considered outsiders here and we participate in games at venues such as this to extend our stay.”

Nanami and you looked at one another confused as Akari waved you over to the table in front of a TV, “Here, you’ll wanna put these on, it’s for the game.” She explained as you carefully picked up the metal bracelet, something about it felt ominous as you reluctantly put it on, jumping at the way it latched together and there was no getting it off now, “Word of advice, just don’t panic and you probably won’t die.”

“What?!” You screeched as Akari smacked your back, panic evident in your voice as you turned around to face her making her laugh again, this girl was insane! She had to be! “You’re…! You’re joking!”

Akari wrinkled her nose as she tilted her head, “Ah shit, I wish I was- Oh…! There’s the last player!” Just on que everyone turned to look at who had arrived, someone heaving breaths with their hands on their knees as if they had sprinted. You were mildly worried at why he seemed so scared but you had a feeling that was the least of your problems right now.

“Y/n what’s going on…?” Nanami frightened grabbed your arm as she hid a little behind you due to all these immensing strangers that looked like they were ready to feed you to the sharks, literally.

The guy walked past you both as he put on his bracelet, your eyes sharp as you watched it latch together automatically, your gaze jumping to everyone's wrists to notice you were all now wearing one. The TV suddenly lit up.

Game

You squinted your eyes a little at the sight of the screen, just what were you about to unwillingly participate in…?

Difficulty: 5♣

“The game you will be participating in is, Monster under the bed.”

A playing card? Monster under the bed? Your brows furrowed as you looked at Nanami who shrugged a little despite her concerned expression, looking just as confused as you. You could’ve made a joke out of this, surely it would’ve been easier. Maybe everyone would bust out laughing and you’d be at the end of a poor joke but...somehow you felt that wasn’t the case. Thus paying very close attention to whatever was on this screen,

“Everyone will be sectioned off into pairs by the number chosen on your bracelet, when the doors to the ward open you will have three rounds ten minutes each to figure out who is the monster under the bed that must be returned to its own, once the ten minutes is up you must hide before you are found. If the selected pair that is the monster is chosen correctly it’s a Game Clear. If the monster is not found by the end of the third round or if the pair fails to hide it’s a Game Over.”

Rules:

Once the doors are open you and your partner must find a hiding spot by the time limit

Both partners must be hidden. If one is exposed to the monster it’s a Game Over for both partners

There will be an X marked on the ground to place the monster of your guess onto.

You will have three rounds of ten minutes each to find the monster.

Any attempt to remove bracelets results in a Game Over

If the monster is not found by the third round a Game Over.

The only Game Clear condition required is for the monster to be returned by the third round.

What…

What!?

“Now the game will commence, you have five minutes to figure out who you have been paired up with before the doors open.”

Your mind was blanking as you watched everyone look down at their bracelet, hurriedly you lifted your arm as your mind blanked 2 looking back at Nanami her lips were already quivering as she sniffled lifting her arm in defeat as your lips dropped open, 5.

“Hey! Guess you’re my partner!” Akari grinned as she wrapped an arm around Nanami who sniffled, “Oh…” She looked between you both, “Oh! Oh don’t worry! We’re not the monster so I’ll make sure your sister lives! You should go find your partner.”

Your hands trembled unsure of what to do before you went to hug Nanami, “Whatever happens just stay calm okay! I need to go find my partner now!” You whispered, kissing her cheek as she sniffled while nodding.

Everybody was shuffling around looking for their partner now, you passed by a few people, 4, 1, 3...did you even have a partner…? You scanned around, your throat tightening a little in panic, there had to be a mistake! There were only 8 people surrounding you- you yelped at the tight grip that suddenly held your arm forcing you to turn around to be met with a white hooded figure, a lollipop handle hanging and earbuds in before sighing, “So it appears I’m stuck with someone useless.” The man concluded as he stood up making you back away a little as your lips parted somewhat indignantly.

How...how rude! You looked up, unable to fully make out his face but you could tell you didn’t like him one bit, “I’ll…! First of all I’m not useless! I’m just trying to understand what's going on! This is insane! We aren’t actually going to die from this, are we!?” Pushing his hood down you were immediately met with a snide gaze and cat eyes that leered at you like you were nothing more then dirt beneath his feet, long blonde hair pushed behind his shoulders and his bangs hanging low, suddenly a viscous side smile appeared on his lips, “Apparently so, otherwise I wouldn’t have watched half my last game get their brains blown out and the other half hung.”

You reeled a little away from the blonde, your face dropped in semi horror, unsure if this was just a sick joke or he was serious. You searched his face a thousand times over, but for the first time in your life, you couldn’t figure out what his goal was. You couldn’t figure out anything about him, except he was exceptionally cold, “Well I don’t suppose I have much choice to doubt you,” He said with an annoying sing song tone as he rattled his wrist that showed the bracelet with a matching 2 on it, “My name is Chishiya, just stay out of my way and we’ll both live.”

How arrogant! You scoffed as he walked past you, not the least bit bothered at your offense as you whipped around, glaring at his back. How come out of everyone you got stuck with the most…! Pompous! Arrogant! Ugh! You crossed your arms as you followed behind him, stilling secretly sending daggers into his back with your eyes as everyone shuffled into the ward.

Hospital beds were scattered around the room, a few closets and one large vent at the bottom right corner of the room ahead.

“Wait, what is this?” The first person to speak was a fair thin older gentleman, he appeared friendly as he observed the room around him, everyone looked around in confusion as you noticed what he meant.

Any possible hiding spot was covered by either sheets of metal or locked tight...How were any of you supposed to hide if…!? The rules mentioned nothing about solving puzzles to gain access to a hiding spot!

“Forget that,” Another man said with a sneer he was broad and a bit older, well into his late twenties at least, perhaps a gym coach? Or maybe a wrestler of some sort? He looked like he could break you and nearly every other person in this room like a twig, “We need to figure out who’s the monster. “ He cracked his knuckles as you leered a little away and nobody spoke for a second.

Of course, who would out themselves as the monster, more importantly, how does one even know they’re the monster? You could immediately feel tension rise as the previous, more patient man spoke, a little more collected, “How about we just check one another's’ watches! If anywhere it would show us on that! One pair should work on solving these puzzles here so everyone has a place to hide”

“Unless the monster is among us and it sabotages us so we all die by the time limit.” The girlfriend crossed her arms as she darted her eyes around. Truthfully you didn’t know what to believe, the wording on the soundbox was rather confusing as to just what were you looking for. Was the monster supposed to be in the group or it’s own entity?

“If that were the case it would’ve showed up on our watches, which it didn’t. So that won’t work.” Chishiya spoke matter of fact, his tone cool as his eyes gazed across the room before he walked away from the group inspecting various hiding spots granted you didn’t think he was about to help anyone but himself, if anything you were at least lucky that him securing a hiding spot meant it was one for you as well.

You looked at everyone in confusion, some arguing while others scattered to look for a hiding spot as the clock ticked down. You breathed in relief at the sight of Nanami and Akari both going for a bed to hide under. Your gaze finally found Chishiya’s form before following him, unsure of what you were supposed to do, if anything outside trying to figure out just what the monster even was.

You glanced up at the digital clock that stood above the entrance you had just come in from, it was already a minute in before you searched the floor where you found a red X in the center of the room, that must’ve been the...what? Offering spot? You cringed a little at the idea. Looking forward you peered behind Chishiya’s shoulder deciding to not think about that, it seemed the metal sheet that had wrapped around the bed and was sealed to the ground was locked by some sort of metal device…? Contraption? Lock?

“Isn’t hiding under a bed a bit obvious…?” You frowned as you crossed your arms, unsure as you looked behind your shoulder once more to where accusations were already being thrown in the group.

“The vent is a decoy to make you waste time, I already checked,” Chishiya replied, his fingers nimble as they rattled the metal, “And even if someone were to accomplish it in the time limit it’s the most obvious spot the monster would first check. Next would be the closet given it’s at eye level and the first thing one is drawn too when they walk into a room.”

Your lips parted a little in surprise at his assessment...obviously he wasn’t just overconfident, “And why this spot?” If he had really thought about all this in less than a minute then...did he have a reason for this spot? You now found yourself, slightly less annoyed and a little more curious as to what was going on in his mind.

“If the monster were to check a bed it would be after his eyes are drawn to the closet. Next in that line of sight would be the vent directly across it, which would be his next place to look if not his first and vice versa. The beds are all staggered throughout the room making them less conspicuous compared to the other hiding places, the bed on the far end of the room would be no good.”

Your brows furrowed in curiosity at his assessment as you watched Chishiya blow a piece of hair from his face, wiggling out one piece of the knotted metal, “It’s too far from the entrance where as the one in the middle is by average the one most people would start with, where as the first? It’s almost too soon in the start to look there thus making it the safest.”

“It’s them! They’re over there conspiring!” You both twisted around to watch the broad man point an accusing finger at you both as your eyes darted from him to the clock on the wall, which read at six minutes. A few other pairs, relievingly so was your sister had started working on a hiding spot while a few others stood around and argued.

Your face coiled a little as you replied, not appreciating the accusation to such a baseless accusation, did they not realize the longer they argued the less time they had to secure a hiding spot? “Someone who’s terrible at playing the minority would often be the first to point fingers. There’s only six minutes left before the first round is over and we need to hide. But if you want to talk about this then sure,”

You stepped closer as you crossed your arms, scanning over him before continuing, “Let’s talk about the chances of you being the monster, ever since you first came in you’ve been all twitchy and acting like something is wrong. Even when we first got paired up, you seemed a little panicked. Anyways,” You turned around as you spoke, “How do we know one pair is a monster and not one single person?”

“Eh,” Akari sat on the bed that her and Nanami chose as Nanami fumbled to work out the puzzle, she had always been good at those! You felt assured as your heart beat frantically at the idea of them not being able to get a hiding spot in time, “Let’s all calm down,” She gave an awkward laugh, “This isn’t a hearts game, we shouldn’t divide our trust. This is a team building after all which means this game should be making us work together, the last thing we need to do is throw that away on our own accord.”

“...Team building?” You frowned as you murmured having not been aware that this was some sort of game category...Hearts? Clubs? The memory of the playing card flashing on the screen appeared in your mind again, right...was that to stand for some kind of game genre? If Clubs stood for team building then...there should be no reason that the monster is any of you. Why would they even suggest that to begin with?

Then...what was the monster?

“One minute remaining.”

The lights suddenly began flickering, “Got it.” Chishiya yanked the last piece of metal undone as he pulled the sheet of metal off, everyone was now scrambling and the few who had not done their puzzle were now panicking. Getting down you crawled under the bed, your back flat to the ground as you inhaled sharply as you noticed the lights beginning to dim, “This is...uncomfortable.” You mumbled, trying to ignore being pressed shoulder to shoulder with a man you didn’t even know besides him having a god complex, “We should’ve went with the vent.”

“By all means, if you want to try and get yourself killed already. Go for it.” You turned to look at him, dark endless cat eyes meeting you as you harshly glared at him, why was he so condescending!?

You were about to snap back something before you realized it was completely dark and the door slammed open causing you to jump. Was your heart always this loud? You could see the heavy boots step against the ground making you unsteadily inhale, swallowing as you closed your eyes. You could only place your trust that Chishiya hadn’t picked a horrible spot.

More importantly your mind was plagued with worry for your sister, you had been so caught up you hadn’t even tried to help her yet...did she even…! You heard a sudden loud scream from two people causing you to stiffen as you looked up at the bed frame lined with wooden planks. You could only cower back down at blood suddenly painting the floor.

Your stomach suddenly churned as you covered your mouth. So he wasn’t lying. Chishiya however looked just as nonpulsed as he did when he first told you himself, his eyes blankly staring up at the bed frame as if this was just a regular game of hide and seek as people screamed as they were torn apart.

Or that’s at least what you assumed it was.

After an agonizing few minutes the doors finally closed and the lights flickered back on making you breath in relief as you waited a moment, could you even bear to face what was waiting on the floor? You winced a little before something caught your eye. What was with all this extra wood stuck in the frame?

Chishiya had already gotten out from under the bed and before you suddenly heard a few girls scream, your sister among them making you puff and breath as you scrambled from beneath the bed.

Standing up your mouth agape at the horrid sight of the female and the broad male that had been too focused on accusing others, they didn’t have...enough time...it looked like they had been completely mutilated, blood pouring on the floor and the smell made you want to gag as you looked away.

“Well, now what do we do.” Akari scratched her head, also not looking phased that two people had just been brutally killed. Your eyes stayed placed on the bodies before they slowly trailed to your hands, the memory of blood staining them still fresh in your mind.

“Well we have to figure out where the monster is?” The girlfriend of the couple spoke up, she looked around somewhat suspiciously, “But I’m not sure where we could find it? Maybe it has to do with the bracelets? Maybe there’s a clue hidden.”

“Oh what about in the cabinets?” The collected man from before offered as he went to search the cabinets, your frown furthered as you glanced around. Everyone was now getting along, still on edge but along at least.

Chishiya only leaned against the wall, his hands in his pocket as he rolled the lollipop in his mouth, his gaze the same steely one it was before as if he had done his job in securing his temporary salvation and was now done.

Or maybe he just didn’t know what to do? It was obvious his strength didn’t lie in teamwork, clearly. But then again, you weren’t sure what was going on, you couldn’t get a read on him. Crossing your arms you stayed beside him, your eyes briefly washing over your sister who was working Akari to dig through a desk together.

“Cabinets and drawers are too obvious.”

Chishiya’s eyes flickered to your figure, his expression just as cold if not...a little smug maybe? He said nothing in return as you continued, “If we’re looking for a monster, it’s obvious it’s a metaphor for something. Inanimate most likely,” Your eyes flickered around the room, inhaling sharply, why did it feel like the answer was right in front of you?

Think…! You glanced at the clock, only six minutes left. The rounds were really short…! “It’d be something small and inconspicuous, something that’s in plain sight….but easy to miss...and the game said it was a pair which means there’s more than likely two.”

“Three,” You glanced at Chishiya as he spoke, pulling the lollipop from his mouth, that permanent smug look on his face as he answered, “Two is what they want you to think and if you spend a round searching for each like they hope it’s game over by three.”

You rubbed your neck as you frowned, “It’s already the second round and we haven’t even found one…” You glanced around before you suddenly perked up, “Wait…!” Getting back down on the floor you laid on your back as you pushed yourself under the bed, “Chishiya! Help me get this thing out!”

Within a moment the blonde appeared as well, his eye sharp and keen as they noticed straight away what you were tugging at, “You think this is the monster?”

You looked at him as you raised a brow, “We have less than four minutes left on our second round, you have a better idea?” Chishiya said no more but helped regardless, successfully with the both of you maneuvering it around from beneath the wooden boards you managed to get it out.

Holding it up you looked at it, “It’s a poppet doll.” You turned to face him as you smiled in accomplishment, “They’re typically used as curses to place upon people in folklore. If anything is a monster, this would be it.”

Excited at your first victory you pulled out from beneath the bed as you waved it up, “Hey guys! We need to start looking for something similar to this! If not a replica.” Everyone huddled around you examining the doll before the microphone sounded, “One minute remaining.”

Everyone had immediately scrambled back to their hiding place as you ran to the red X, placing the poppet on it, that's the reason that had to be there right!? You’d just have to see, hurriedly you ran back to your spot under the bed. Making it just in time as the lights flickered off.

The door slamming open once more as you slowly inhaled, it had to work right? If not...then you were at a loss for what to search for and you were utterly screwed.

The boots stomped against the floor past the bed as you closed your eyes, unable to calm yourself. After a moment you heard a screech and something rip open before screams followed making you jump. Chishiya’s eyes were on the feet that stood by the closet that had been obviously ripped open.

You heard the sound of something wet and a gurgle before a body slumped to the floor and you could hear begging before something got snapped in half causing you to close your eyes once more...Did you make it angry!? Was that not it? Fuck. You had never felt this stressed before as it roamed around, passing in front of your bed as you tensed.

Was this your last moment alive? Truly?

Much to your relief, the door closed once more before the lights followed, flickering on, relaxing a little you sighed as you reluctantly got out from underneath the bed with Chishiya to see what had happened. Much to your horror it was the man who had been so kind this whole game and his partner.

The monster didn’t check anywhere in the first round, yet he did this round? You tried to block out the bodies slumped in the corner as you glanced at the red X, the poppet doll gone.

“Why- why were they killed!” Nanami’s eyes began to water as she grabbed her head, “This makes no sense!”

“If it accepts the doll that means we only need two more. What happened to them is irrelevant.” Chishiya stuffed his hands back into his pocket as you glared at him sideways, not appreciating his careless tone. You could deal with it, but you didn’t want your sister dragged into it.

Grabbing your chin you thought about it for a moment, “Well...the game said to return the monster to its own and…” You glance down at the X, was there some kind of unsaid rule that if you didn’t get all three of them on the first try that it would start hunting down players? “How would a mother feel if they only returned one of its children?”

“This thing doesn’t have feelings,” The girlfriend of the partners replied coldly, her eyes like steel of her own as she clung to her boyfriend, “It’s as he said,” She waved to Chishiya, “It doesn’t matter, we’ll be like them if we don’t figure this out.”

You glanced around the room, “Tell me this, if it doesn’t matter, then why did they give us all these different hiding spots?” Everyone was silent, all eyes on you as if your question didn’t make any sense, your eyes flickered to the clock that was nearing eight minutes, you didn’t have time to monologue, “No think about it. The monster never intended to look for us- that was never stated in the rules. So why did they give us all of these choices if we only needed one per pair? My point being, if we found one poppet in our hiding spot then...You get where I’m going with this? Chishiya.”

He glanced up at you acknowledgement as you curved a brow, your lips threatening to tug into a smile as you tilted your head, “How confident are you in solving that vent?”

He glanced back down and for the first time, you watch a cocky wide smirk twist onto his lips, “You’re lucky to have someone as smart as me here to be able to open it.” You tucked your tongue into your cheek as in annoyance as he sauntered over to the vent already getting to work, “As for everyone else, we need to open up as many of these as possible to find the other two.”

Everyone immediately scrambled to get to work, with only seven minutes on the clock this was...going to be difficult. First Nanami and Akari searched all the opened spots as you worked on another bed. Rubbing your head as muttered, “Shit...I never was good with puzzles.” You awkwardly hung your head in defeat temporarily, briefly letting your eyes shift to Chishiya who was fiddling with several locks, his gaze sharp and you couldn’t even imagine all the calculations going on in his mind. You were somewhat envious of what it would be like to be that perceptive to anything adhering to logic and solution.

“Aha! Found one!” Akari yanked the poppet from the top of the closest as Nanami covered her mouth, looking like she was gonna throw up being so close to so many dead bodies. You ignored the grisly sight at the second victory of the poppet doll. Akari quickly placed it on the X as you began to work on the puzzle once more, looking up at the clock. Oh no...Oh no there was only three minutes left!

“Chishiya! Hows that puzzle coming along.” You called out, trying not to sound alarmed but you could see the clear cut annoyance on his face as he continued working through the locks, “If you’d like to help while struggling on a novice lock feel free.” He replied condescendingly, not appreciating the pressure.

You rolled your eyes with huff as you finally managed to get it undone, feeling triumphant as you searched under the bed but there was no luck, “There’s nothing here!”

“Or here!”

Several people called out as well as you rubbed your head, standing up, “If the only other place that hasn’t been searched is the vent then maybe there’s only two? It did say a pair.” You felt a lump of anxiety well in your chest at the sight of the clock ticking close to a minute and half.

“Should we really take the risk?” The boyfriend asked as he rubbed his neck, concern on his face as he looked around, “If we’re wrong then we’ll all…”

You hadn’t even thought of that…

“...! Hey.” You turned to Chishiya who seemed to be trying to get your attention making you immediately come over, if he was asking for you it’d have to be for something important given there was nearly less then two minute on the clock, “Hold this right here.” He immediately pushed your hand onto the lock right where he wanted it, “This is a two handle mechanism meaning that there needs to be two people unlocking it. Push down and out at the same time.”

“Hide! Everyone needs to hide now!”

The lights were beginning to flicker as everyone scrambled to hide, stress evidently put on your shoulders now more than ever. You could only hope he was right with your life on the line, “Now!” You pushed down on your side, the lock sliding as you pulled out, pulling a piece of metal holding up the lock directly out as Chishiya did the same with his side.

The lock fell off as well as the metal of the gate of the vent, you immediately with no hesitation leaned inside it was dark and hard to make it out anything besides the steep drop off. So he was right, this was a waste of time for a hiding place.

Looking down you caught sight of wood before laughing in relief, “It’s here! Wait shit! Chishiya! It’s too far down in the vent, you’re gonna have to lower me down to reach it. Time?”

“Forty five seconds.” You felt unfamiliar hands on your hips lifting you up as you were lowered down, “We have time.”

You squinted trying to see as you reached down, “Lower me further! I’m not quite in reach,” Your muscles began to ache in your shoulder as you reached harder, growling in frustration, “Time!?” You were lowered a little further, the wooden poppet brushing against your fingers.

“Thirty seconds! Could you go a little faster?”

“Could you lower me a little quicker- Ah! Hey did you almost let go!?” You snarled back, grabbing the poppet doll, giving a good yank as it lodged in between the crevice it was in, “Get me back up! I got it. Time!”

“Twenty seconds.” Chishiya called back, pulling you up as you gasped, pain from the metal jabbing into your stomach evident as you were met with a darkening room. Setting your feet firmly on the floor your eyes flew to the flock fifteen seconds and your spot was all the way across the room….!

“Where are we supposed to hide!? We can’t get all the way there in time!” You hissed out running to the X as you dropped the poppet down. The lights shut off as the final five seconds counted down and before you could do anything you were shoved to the floor as you squeaked. Your body throbbing in pain and your mouth immediately covered as you were met with the coverage of a bed but neither one of you were bold enough to try and scramble beneath it as the doors slammed open.

Fuck.

Your whole body was tense as your eyes squeezed shut, you were just a little ahead of the X here, if this is all the poppet dolls...they’d have no reason to go further into the room...unless...Your hand squeezed tight around the wrist of the hand that covered your mouth as you tried to calm yourself at the loud thudded footsteps.

It was quiet for a moment before you heard more walking before the doors closed.

“Game Cleared”

The lights turned on as you fell limp against the side of the bed, Chishiya’s hand removed from mouth as you pushed your hair from your face, closing your eyes as you breathed in relief, “Holy shit.” Was all you could mutter to yourself, you had never been more grateful to breathe air in your whole life.

“I guess you weren’t that useless after all huh.” Chishiya clacked his tongue as you turned your head to look at him, raising your brows as your face contorted into something between insult and amusement.

You’ve only known this man for a half an hour and yet...something about his words, if you dug down deep past that smug expression of his, was this a compliment? Looking away you pressed your tongue into your cheek, trying to keep from smiling, “Yeah, and you’re still conceited and arrogant but, I guess you have a good reason to be.” You glanced back at him again but you could hardly hold his gaze, something in that brief moment was electrified between you both as you laughed somewhat sheepishly, closing your eyes as you looked away once more.

What the fuck was even wrong with you? If this was back before today you would’ve totally kicked this guy in the balls and went about your day.

“Y/n!” You straightened up at the sound of Nanami’s voice, your expression brightening as you stood up, quickly running to her as you hugged her tight, “I can’t believe that just happened…” She whispered to you as she pressed her face into your neck. You couldn’t either but, you were thankful you had survived this game. Whatever it was.

“Come on, let's get out of this room.” You tugged on her arm, no longer wanting to be in this death room despite knowing it was all over. Pulling her out you paused at the sight of the TV and a...register…? You bracelet unlocked as you took it off, tossing it on the table as you tilted your head.

“Congratulations Game ''Clear ``.''

“...Now issuing visas to those who survived the game…?” You furrowed your brows as you glanced at Nanami who rubbed her head in confusion. You grabbed the receipt as you looked it over with a frown before picking up the 5 of clubs playing card along with it. Odd.

“It’s how many days you’re allowed to stay now! Almost a whole week, that's a good score for a first game!” Akari called out as she patted your back making you jump a little.

Almost a whole week…”Until we have to play again to...continue our stay?” You raised a brow, deciding not to ask what happens if you refused. While you had many questions, you had a feeling you knew the answer to that one.

A part of you couldn’t even believe this had happened, or was it all still a dream.

“Hey…! Sorry for all of that in there,” You turned to see...oh…! It was the boyfriend of the partner, the gifrlfriend stayed behind looking brooding, “I’m Ryu and that’s my girlfriend Hiroko I was...ah…” He faltered a little, rubbing the back of his neck as his gaze flittered to his girlfriend who was glaring him down, “You should stop by the Beach- I...I think you guys would make good additions! Bye!” He hurried not even finishing his original sentence before scurrying off making you furrow your brows at what he even meant.

“The hell?” Akari raised a brow as she watched the guy run off, “Seems to me he wanted to chat more…guess we know who's really pulling balls in that relationship.”

Nanami suddenly snickered, covering her mouth as she giggled, “Hey Akari! Why don’t we stay together! We did really well in the game together!”

“Awh shit, if you guys really want me too!” Akari offered a quirky smile as you laughed, you had no problems with someone staying behind with you. Looking past Akari your smile faded a little at the sight of a white hoodie exiting the entrance.

“Hey- I’ll be right back!” You pushed past the both of them who paid you no mind as you pushed out of the exit and down the stone steps, not sure why your feet were making you chase after such an egotistical man but…!

“Chishiya!” You called out, making the man pause, he turned around, pulling the earbuds out as he glanced up from his hoodie, raising his brows in acknowledgement, “Um…” Why did you even chase after him…? You stepped down the last step as you wrapped your arms around yourself.

It was silent for a moment as you berated yourself internally for why you seemed so speechless all of a sudden. Chishiya however didn’t seem to mind, his eyes absent now as he stared up at the hospital, “I used to do my clinical rotations here.”

You were broken out of your silent thrashing of internal humiliation as you raised your brows, lips parting in curiosity as you asked, “You were a doctor?”

“No,” Chishiya snorted, that amused calico look of his on his face once more as he looked down at you, “I was a medical student. Training to be a doctor but that obviously didn’t happen…” His lips curved into a frown, his eyes cold once more as they looked back up at the building, “I came here tonight to see if anyone I knew would be here.”

“Oh…” You looked away, feeling somewhat awkward and unsure of how to reply to him as silence took over once more beside the occasional rustling of the wind in the tree’s, the urge to speak overtaking you to the point you couldn't resist, “Chishiya...I…” You looked away, feeling somewhat bashful, “We...made a really good team back there.” You forced yourself to look up at him as you offered a bright yet subtly shy smile, “If you want...you could stay with us…?”

Chishiya pulled the lollipop stick from his mouth, letting it drop to the ground as he spoke, “No thanks.” You turned to him in surprise as you frowned a little, you shouldn’t have expected anything less…

“Oh...I understand.” You offered a weak smile as he turned his back on you and began to walk once more, “I just have one more question,” You called out causing him to pause, “...Do you by any chance know about a place called the Beach?”

Note: Whew...! As a lurker in the Alice in borderland fandom I saw a lot of people complaining about the lack of Chishiya fics so I decided to volunteer myself and take on for the team to write a series for this little blonde fucker so PLEASE let me know your thoughts and I hope you enjoy!! Also

#alice in borderland #aib #alice in borderland imagine #alice in borderland x reader #chishiya x reader #chishiya x reader smut #shuntaro chishiya #shuntaro chishiya x reader #aib imagine #aib x reader

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illuminatedquill · 3 years

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Extracurricular, An Analysis

Oh Ji-soo and Bae Gyu-ri

“Love is the ultimate outlaw. It just won’t adhere to any rules. The most any of us can do is sign on as it’s accomplice.” - Tom Robbins

You know the story. You’ve heard it before, right?

Boy meets girl.

Girl finds out that boy is running a side protection business for prostitutes.

Girl decides to blackmail boy into letting her join his business.

Classic high school criminal shenanigans ensue leading them into more dangerous situations where they are forced to make desperate decisions to stay alive.

Oh, and they fall in love along the way.

Oh? You haven’t heard this one before? Then let me introduce you to this delightful kdrama called Extracurricular.

I watched this one while waiting for the newest Hometown Cha Cha Cha episodes to drop and ended up binging the whole series in two days. There are many remarkable parts of this series: it’s a crime drama, first and foremost, that showcases high school teenagers caught in a cycle of violence and crime, abandoned by the society and adults that are supposed to be protecting them. There are no clear good guys and bad guys in this drama; everyone is cast in shades of grey. Our main leads, Oh Ji-soo and Bae Gyu-ri, run the prostitution business, and are both from broken family backgrounds. Their actions are morally questionable at best, but the top tier performances from Kim Dong Hee (you might remember him from Itaewon Class) and Park Ju Hyun make you cheer for them anyway. You want them to have a happy ending, despite the horrible things they do. The audience is always reminded that despite how clever they are in staying ahead, their actions have consequences, and they’re just high school kids. The drama never pulls it punches.

But, weirdly enough, it’s also a love story. And that’s the part the really sticks with me until now. (The chemistry between the main leads is absolute dynamite and I could watch ten episodes of them just verbally sparring with each other. They don’t even kiss. They’re that fantastic when together on screen.)

I’m writing this because this is undoubtedly one of my all time favorite kdramas and I have a lot of feelings about our main pairing, Ji-soo and Gyu-ri. I can’t call them a couple (wait, didn’t I just say they fall in love) because their relationship can’t be labelled simply as that. Think of it as something similar to the main leads in My Ahjussi. Two people who should have become soulmates, yet met at the wrong time.

This kdrama is not particularly happy, and while I do encourage people to watch this, I am warning that the subject matter is extremely dark. If you’re sensitive to scenes depicting sexual assault, graphic violence, or anything in that zip code you’ll want to steer clear.

Also, I’ll be diving into spoiler territory in this analysis. So if you want to go in clean, then stop reading here.

Still here? Awesome. Let’s dive deep into the messy, amazing pairing that is Oh Ji-soo and Bae Gyu-ri. First, let’s do a brief character background on our two main leads, starting with Ji-soo.

Oh Ji-soo is one half of our main pairing and this story starts with him. He lives by himself and has been essentially abandoned by his only parents; his father is a failed businessman who gambles whatever money he acquires on scams and his mother ran away. His apartment is small, sparse, but functional. He owns only a few outfits aside from his school uniform. The only unique item he owns is a pet hermit crab that he takes care of. His life outside of school is non-existent; he has no friends, no one to hang out with and do typical high school teenager activities with. He takes care of himself and lives only for himself and his “dream”: to graduate, attend college, get married, and have kids like a normal person.

But to do that, he needs a large amount of money. He has no other financial means to do so (his father is largely absent, as is his mother), so he decides, at some point, to start up this protection business for prostitutes. The drama doesn’t go into detail about the how and why he came to this conclusion that this was the best way to make a lot of money in a short amount of time, so you’ll have to suspend your disbelief from the get go. Considering the themes of the story (how youths abandoned by society tend to act out in extreme ways to make it in this world), it’s not hard to believe his desperation would drive him to make such a decision.

Ji-soo, despite his shady business, is actually a decent person. There’s a streak of humanity that exists inside him that refuses to go out, despite the increasingly dark and bleak events that start to overtake his life. He’s attached to his hermit crab, cares for his “employees” outside of them being tools to make him money, and doesn’t want to see anyone get hurt. He goes above and beyond what’s required to help out people at the risk of his own life (in particular, Gyu-ri, and we’ll get into that shortly).

What we learn from the first few episodes is that Oh Ji-soo is extremely smart and methodical in how he approaches his life. At school, he is known as a model student - quiet, top of the class in terms of grades, doesn’t draw any attention to himself, always follows along with what the teachers ask of him. Only his homeroom teacher, Mr. Cho, seems to consider his quiet style of existence to be concerning and tries to make him less socially awkward by pairing him up with another student in a new extracurricular club. This leads to the introduction of Bae Gyu-ri, Ji-soo’s longtime crush and future partner-in-crime.

Meet Bae Gyu-ri, the other half of our dynamic duo. Her introduction into the story kickstarts the entire plot, as one of her earliest actions leads to a domino effect that spells increasing doom and tragedy for our main leads. She messes with Ji-soo’s operation at a critical moment and she spends the rest of the drama doing her best to make up for the consequences that follow.

In my personal opinion, she is probably the best main female lead I’ve ever seen in a kdrama. Hands down, no other character exists (currently) that rivals her sheer cunning, wit, and badassery. Gyu-ri is Crazy, capital C, and is the chaos to Ji-soo’s control; the fire to his ice. Despite being the direct cause of half the events that happen to Ji-soo in the drama, he can’t help but need her because of what she offers. They make an incredible team. Her competitiveness, her need to win no matter the odds, helps them survive time and time again.

Gyu-ri is from the opposite end of the spectrum of Ji-soo; he’s dirt poor and she’s insanely rich (always nice to see a reversal of typical kdrama tropes). Her mother and father run a successful entertainment company. Gyu-ri is popular at school, friends with seemingly everybody, pretty, cheerful and gets along well with her teachers. Ji-soo, and the audience, believe from the beginning that she has the perfect life. It’s not hard to believe that she’s just involving herself in Ji-soo’s business because she’s bored and needs an outlet, at first.

We soon learn otherwise. Gyu-ri has more in common with Ji-soo than he initially realizes, in that they’re both trapped in circumstances beyond their control - it’s just that Gyu-ri’s cage is gilded, whereas his is not. Her parents are strict and have her life planned out for her, all without her consent or input, leaving her feeling frustrated and powerless despite her rich lifestyle. A suicide attempt hasn’t done much to change her parents attitude towards her, only serving to further their control over her life.

So, when she learns of Ji-soo’s operation she immediately seeks to angle her way into it. First, she tries to rip him off, believing that he’s an evil “pimp” and thus deserves it. But after spending some time with him, she changes her mind last second and decides to help him out instead.

And, now, let’s get into their relationship, which is one of the best (if not the best) aspect in the entire series.

I need to be upfront about something: the relationship between Ji-soo and Gyu-ri is not exactly healthy. I wouldn’t describe it as toxic - the circumstances surrounding them aren’t exactly the best environment to encourage open and honest communication - but it’s definitely not what should be considered ideal, especially for young adults, and especially for young adults who are dabbling in crime instead of studying.

So, why do I love them so much? If you’ve read some of my previous posts, you know that I loathe toxic relationships in kdramas, so I understand if you think I’m coming off as hypocritical here. Why do I like Oh Ji-soo and Bae Gyu-ri when I didn’t like, for example from recent history, (oh boy, here I go again on my Nevertheless BS) Park Jae-eon and Yu Na-bi?

First, Ji-soo and Gyu-ri are way cooler than Jae-eon and Na-bi ever could be. They run a criminal enterprise that involves having a high amount of intelligence, cunning, and daring to do so. Do Jae-eon and Na-bi run a criminal enterprise as a side business? No, they don’t, because they’re boring art students.

Secondly, Ji-soo and Gyu-ri actually progress in their relationship and change their views as they learn from each other. Now, granted, that progress isn’t towards becoming better versions of each other - quite the opposite. But at least they have progress. Jae-eon and Na-bi stayed in the same stupid cycle for the whole series and then decided that it was better staying that way as opposed to trying for something else.

Last, but certainly not least, Ji-soo and Gyu-ri are actually interesting to watch for me. The chemistry between Park Ju Hyun and Kim Dong Hee is explosive and they way they spar, exchange looks, and just generally exist around each other on screen is something I can watch forever. I’ve said this before but Han So Hee and Song Kang’s on screen chemistry, outside of their intimate scenes, really didn’t impress me.

Okay, back to Extracurricular. This relationship, man. It’s all I can think about (other than HomeCha’s Du-sik and Hye-jin, but that’s another post). Ji-soo and Gyu-ri are so good together.

I’ve noted before that Ji-soo is methodical in how he approaches his life; he plans out everything ahead, and rigs any situation as much as he can in his favor. It’s brilliant, but when a crisis happens, he doesn’t know how to deal with it effectively. He panics and flounders; becomes indecisive at a time when clear, decisive action is required.

Enter Gyu-ri. She quickly becomes the partner he never knew he needed. When there’s a situation, she becomes invaluable in her quick thinking and wit, coming up with solutions on the fly. It’s not perfect, but it keeps them just one small step ahead of whatever is coming their way.

The only thing preventing them from becoming unstoppable is the lack of communication and trust they have with each other. A lot of that has to do with how Gyu-ri entered Ji-soo’s business - she blackmailed him first, and, when that failed, she strong armed her way into getting him to accept her help. It’s implied in the drama that Ji-soo has had a crush on Gyu-ri for a while (since ninth grade, I believe) and in the first episode he actually gets the chance to spend time with her outside of school on a sort of quasi-date.

It goes sideways pretty quickly because of some shenanigans from his business, but not before she gets to know him and says some pretty touching words regarding his situation. Poor guy is head over heels - even after finding out that she’s the one blackmailing him, his feelings are only dampened, not extinguished. When he catches a glimpse of her family’s situation, he gains a deeper understanding of her and why she acts the way she does. Even more importantly, Ji-soo treats her the same after finding out this information which, to someone like Gyu-ri, means more than if he comforted her about it.

If you want to see a physical representation of how he feels, other than paying attention to his actions, you can see it in him keeping mementos from Gyu-ri. She has an interesting habit of folding bags into origami shapes and giving it to him. Even after the blackmail reveal, you can see that he continues to keep these in a container on his desk. It’s really cute that he keeps these, when it probably doesn’t even matter that much to Gyu-ri.

Towards the end of the drama, Ji-soo prepares to turn himself in to prevent Gyu-ri from being implicated in the crimes they committed. And it costs him almost everything to protect her. Ji-soo, the quiet, nerdy kid, puts himself on the line time and time again to protect Gyu-ri, knowing that it puts his life and his dream at risk to do so. And all for what? For some girl that he thinks doesn’t even like him in return?

Well, let’s talk about that. Because I’ve seen some comments that Gyu-ri was only using Ji-soo for her own selfish gain. And I can agree that was how it was at the beginning for her; she definitely was only interested in acquiring money, like Ji-soo was, in order to achieve her own goal of being free from her parents.

But, oh man, that is not what is motivating her at the end.

It’s actually pointed out relatively early by some of her friends that it’s obvious that she likes Ji-soo more than he likes her. Understandably Ji-soo is keeping her at arms length from him given the whole recent blackmailing, so it would make sense that it looks that way.

Further questioning reveals what she likes the most about him:

“It’s not like I’m crazy about him. He’s fun. And amusing. He’s smart. And there’s a certain charm he has. He also has a wolfish side to him. But he thinks he’s a puppy.”

- Bae Gyu-ri

But, as she gets to know Ji-soo better, you can certainly see that she starts to fall hard for him. As a cover story for why they hang out so much together during and after school, Gyu-ri states to everyone that they’re dating. The reactions across the school definitely imply that this is a shocking development, which means that Gyu-ri hasn’t dated anyone before. So why Ji-soo other than the reasons she herself states?

He challenges her, just as she challenges him. Gyu-ri may be the more dynamic, quick thinking of the pair but Ji-soo is every inch her intellectual equal - just in different ways. She doesn’t seem to be the type to be easily impressed, but you can tell that she’s definitely impressed by Ji-soo’s operation and how thoroughly set up it is. When Ji-soo is frustrated at the beginning by his setbacks, he blows up at another student (knocks him out in a crazy punch) and immediately walks over to Gyu-ri afterwards (who saw the whole thing) to inform her that she is now his partner in crime.

The look in her eyes, and the small smirk she has speaks volumes about her attraction to him in that scene. Smoldering.

And, oh yes, she’s prone to jealousy. Another classmate, Min-hee, gives Ji-soo a present out of the blue (it was supposed to be for her boyfriend, Ki-tae, but that’s another sub-plot) - all within view of Gyu-ri. It’s hilarious how she tries to brush it off. Later, for plot reasons, Ji-soo has to spend more time with Min-hee which only furthers Gyu-ri’s annoyance.

And her motivations stop being entirely about the money and more towards helping preserve the dream that she and Ji-soo share about being free. There’s a scene in episode 8 where it’s revealed that, due to a business partnership with a local gang (set up by none other than Gyu-ri herself in a desperate move), Ji-soo would have to drop out of school permanently to work on their behalf. Gyu-ri overhears this and, despite badly needing the gang’s help in sustaining their own business, immediately terminates the partnership.

All because it would interfere with Ji-soo’s dream.

Man, if that isn’t love.

In the following episode, Gyu-ri, and later on Ji-soo, is kidnapped by the same gang in retaliation for terminating their partnership. Ji-soo comes to her rescue but Gyu-ri is already almost free (again, she’s really, really badass) and is demanding that they bring Ji-soo to her instead of running for her life.

Surviving this latest attempt puts the two in a reflective, vulnerable mood and Gyu-ri asks Ji-soo why he keeps saving her. Ji-soo asks later on why she keeps risking her life to be with him. They don’t say the answer in words but in an almost kiss (yeah, you read that right - almost).

And then, if you aren’t already convinced, Ji-soo crosses his one last remaining line in an effort to keep Gyu-ri safe; he accidentally pushes a fellow classmate down some steps and, instead of helping her, leaves her to die after grabbing the evidence she has on him and Gyu-ri.

Extracurricular pulls off quite the magic trick here, hiding this well done love story in the middle of a serious crime drama.

The real tragedy is that Ji-soo thinks that Gyu-ri views this whole business, and by extension his life, as one big game. It’s something that she takes offense at, visibly becoming upset when he says that.

But even if that were true, he should be assured since Gyu-ri doesn’t like to lose.

As they hurtle towards the end and face up to the consequences of their actions, Ji-soo and Gyu-ri undoubtedly lose sight of their original goals and dreams. They do some fairly horrible things to stay alive and ahead of the police who are close on their trail. You can’t really blame them for doing what they did; in the face of a society that has abandoned them, what they’re doing is a logical outcome to gain what they want so desperately and deserve so much: the chance to be free to live like normal, care-free people.

I can’t say for certain that they achieve that. The drama is serious in consequences and, at the end, the net around them is drawing tighter and tighter. I won’t spoil the ending scene for you, because I highly encourage you watch this drama yourself but I will say this: Ji-soo and Gyu-ri seem stuck in an impossible situation with nowhere to go, and no one to help them, with a clock ticking down towards either death or discovery by the police.

But, all the same, I’m always the optimist. They’ve gotten through situations like this before and they can certainly do so again. Maybe not as bad as this one, but not too far out of their league. And, like I mentioned before, Gyu-ri doesn’t like to lose. Especially when it comes to Ji-soo.

Their relationship is truly dangerous, as Ji-soo himself notes. Them being together is the source of their problems; they’re too much alike now, as opposed to the beginning of the drama where he stated that they’re too different. Their love is the kind of love where both of them are willing to burn the whole world down if it means keeping each other safe.

I’m a real sucker for those kind of love stories. No one’s a hero here. They’re just kids in high school, doing the best with what they know.

Who are we to judge what is right and wrong? Especially when the one committing the acts are high school kids who don’t know any better and just want to save each other?

Do we have that right?

Do they really deserve that punishment? Shouldn’t we be pointing fingers at the society that forced them to act this way?

Extracurricular really makes you think about that. Is it really so outlandish and terrible what Ji-soo and Gyu-ri do to survive when the adults who are supposed to be protecting them, teaching them better, have failed in their duty?

Maybe they really did win at the end. Not so much in succeeding in their goals but in gaining something that not even regular people are likely to find - a partner, a soulmate, someone who will stand by you no matter what.

If you do watch the ending, and are not an optimist like I am, then all I can say is this: whatever happened, they were together at the end.

They were together.

#extracurricular netflix #human class #netflix #kdrama #oh jisoo #bae gyuri #park joo hyun #park ju hyun #kim dong hee

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