#but also liking when i tell someone the story and they help a lot in coming up with solutions

[userunknowenha]

Cat eyes

Pairings: Park Sunghoon, Lee Heeseung x Reader

Description: You love your boyfriend, Park Wonbin, the two of you have been together for a year now but you know, even if he won’t tell you, that there are two guys that have been picking up on him: Park Sunghoon and Lee Heeseung, you can’t handle it anymore, you need to talk to this two horrible humans that can’t just leave him alone, so you do what, you shouldn’t have done, that is talking to them.

Warnings: this is filthy sorry, smut, bullying, cheating (don’t), dubcon, a lot of fluids, is implied that they are in college but they bully the bf since highschool, also kinda implied that reader is a bit of a bimbo. Hmm imply that the reader has small breasts, oral (female rec), fingering, kind of stalking, unprotected sex (don’t), sir kink (sorry), let me know if I missed anything.

Disclaimer: if you guys are not comfortable with any of the ones mentioned before, don’t read! This is pure fiction, this has no relation to them irl or anything, MDNI.

He would be mad if he ever finds out where you are, your boyfriend hasn’t exactly tell you all the story on how it began and how it came to the point that he is “used” to them picking up on him, he hasn’t either tell you what they do to him but after months of him crying, some weeks he arrives at your place with bruises in his body, he cuts you off for weeks sometimes because he just doesn’t want to deal with anyone and it hurts you to the bone that they can’t just leave him, you know Wonbin, he is a sweetheart, after all he is your lover, so sweet and caring with you, makes you wonder what kind of people are these two to just bully someone like your boyfriend.

Biting down on your lip, you hesitated to knock on their door, Sunghoon’s and Heeseung’s place, your hands grabbed the hem of your skirt feeling like you should have not come here with it, but you can’t help it, you always need to look pretty! More when you know that Wonbin loves it and after talking to them you did have plans with him and didn’t want to go back to change.

With the last courage in your head to yourself you knock on their door, huffing when none of them answer you knock again, this time a bit stronger than before. This time it surprises you that Heeseung does open the door, looking more confused when he sees that the unexpected visitor in his place is you.

“Hmm? Can I help you?” He looks down on you with an uninterested look on his face making you feel more nervous than before. You can hear your own heartbeat in your ears but you can only stutter “Y-yes! I need to talk to you a-and Sunghoon!” Now he looks at you with a little smirk on his lips before just saying “Not interested, sorry”.

What? You are left confused at his response but react when you see him closing the door, even surprising yourself you find yourself grabbing the door before he can close it completely, he looks at you with frowning eyebrows “What the fu-“ “Please! Listen to me!”.

Surprisingly enough he lets go of the door but instead now pulling you inside by your arm, yelping in surprise you stumble forward, hearing the lock of the door you turn to look at him “You said me and Sunghoon right? Let’s go to him then” not letting go of your arm he pulls you until the two of you reach the living room where the other guy can be found, sitting down on the couch just mindlessly scrolling on his phone.

“Hey man, we got company” finally freeing your arm he takes a sit next to Sunghoon, but leaving enough space in between the two of them “Hmm? What is she doing here?” “I don’t know, she just said something about needing to talk to us… go ahead pretty, what is so important that you are bothering us?” Standing like this in front of them is now making you feel embarrassed, they look at you with such an intense stare that it makes you rethink your choices of coming here.

“I… just, I wanted to know something first…” mentally cursing at yourself for speaking like that, you remember your boyfriend, you need to do this for him. Now clenching your fist beside your body you look at them “Why do you guys bully Wonbin so much?? Please leave him alone! He hasn’t done anything to you guys for you to treat him like this!” You didn’t mean to raise your voice but you can’t help but feel anger towards them.

Waiting for any of them to say anything you are ready to call them out again but this time Sunghoon's voice stops you “Wonbin? Park Wonbin?” “Y-yes! Him” Sunghoon just smiles at your response before spitting out “Why would we stop?” You had already told yourself that they were going to be a tough cookie to break but that question was not one that you prepared in your head hours ago while you were preparing yourself before coming here.

“Yeah pretty, he is our entertainment, who is going to entertain us if he is not around?” “You guys shouldn’t be picking on someone to begin with! It’s- it’s just not right!” Heeseung laughs at you, they know you, they do know that you are dating Wonbin, how could they not notice the pretty little thing next to the useless boy that they torment. They obviously notice as well that he does not treat you, such a sweet thing, like he should, but even as bad as they are they would never pick on a woman, much less the perfect one that you are.

“Look…” the older male starts “you came here to tell us to stop tormenting him?” He gives the man beside him a glance as if they are watching a comedy movie in front of them “Yeah, who do you think you are? Acting like you are his mom or something”, scoffing you can’t believe how rude they are.

“I’m his… girlfriend, so I care about him, his mental and physical health and you two are the cause of it deteriorating!” You hesitated a bit saying that you are his girlfriend, after all you don’t know if the two men in front of you know that information, maybe your boyfriend is keeping you in secret so that they don’t pick on you too.

Now it’s turn for both of them to laugh, making your face go red with how insulting they are, “Pretty, you should know better than coming here, by yourself and demanding us to do shit that we don’t want to do” Heeseung says as he stands up from his seat, walking slowly towards you, maintaining eye contact with you, he stops when he is just right in front of you he reaches with his right hand your chin, he grabs it with force, without thinking you grab his wrist with both hands but he pays zero mind to it, “Look at me, I’m going to give you two options, we forget that this even happened, you get the fuck out of here and let us alone with your pathetic boyfriend or… if you really want us to stop bullying him, then you become our plaything princess, what do you say?”

Your heart is racing, the grip that he has on you hurts, but you don’t understand what he is trying to imply “W-what, plaything?…”, getting startled when you feel other pair of hands on your waist behind you, you try to turn your head around but Heeseung strong held on you doesn’t let you, you can only hear Sunghoon explain “Yes baby, if you want us to stop bothering him, we just need you to replace him” “Mhm, just we plan to do different things with you”.

Sunghoon is starting to get impatient when you feel him bury his face on the crook of your neck, inhaling deep before letting a big lick on it, making you shudder and feeling weak on your knees, “N-No! Don’t do that” “Then give us an answer pretty” “We are waiting”

You have no other choice, if you want them to stop and leave him alone, you have to accept, but you can’t help but feel uneasy, knowing that once you accept you would have to do stuff that you don’t want and probably won’t like, closing your eyes with force you say it “I’ll, I’ll be your plaything, just leave him alone please” you stare deep into Heeseung eyes with tears forming on yours.

They both smirk to themselves after hearing your answer and the first one to make a move is the one in front of you, moving his grip from your chin down to your neck and applying pressure on it but enough to let you breathe, also leaning down to capture your lips with his, both gestures making you gasp in between the heated kiss, he takes the opportunity and slips his tongue in your mouth. Now the man behind you groans at the image in front of him, moving one of his hands that was on your waist down to the curve of your ass, squeezing it while the other one just draws little circles around your waist, making you shudder in their hold.

Heeseung gets away from the kiss in need of air, he moves his hold in your neck and grabs both of your hands in it, while the other one drops down to right in between your legs, making its way underneath your skirt and right on top of your panties “By how undecided you were I thought you didn’t wanted this, but fuck you are so wet baby”, before you can even try to say anything back you gasp in surprise when you feel his middle finger rub circles against your clit, arching your back trying to pray away from his touch, you feel the other male behind you, not only you feel his hands all over your body but you feel his crotch press in your butt.

“Yeah, princess, with how you are grinding against me I’m starting to think this was your plan since the beginning, dressing like this, with all your makeup done and this hairstyle you have, it’s like you dress up for us” “I did not!”, you whine but can’t help but feel a bit glad you did dress up.

You hear Sunghoon chuckle at your whining but now he grabs your face, squishing your cheeks in between his hand and turning you around before he kisses you while still grinding against you, his kiss is way more rougher than Heeseung, making you feel dizzy. It seemed that both of them are desperate when your attention isn’t on them so Heeseung pushed his hand inside your panties and let out a soft hiss at how wet you felt against his fingers.

Gathering enough of your wetness while teasing your clit, he pushes his finger inside of you, making you let a loud moan against Sunghoon’s lips, up on seeing your reaction he pushes another finger in, now starting a pace inside of you, going all the way up to his knuckles and the out almost entirely before going inside again, “Are you sure you didn’t wanted this? You are sooo wet and it looks like you enjoy my fingers in your pussy baby”, leaving kisses down your neck, he stops on top of your shirt, letting go of your hands he orders “Hoon take of her sweater”, immediately obeying he takes your sweater off in one swing, leaving you on your polo shirt, Heeseung is quick to pull the shirt up until your tits are in view.

“Look, not even wearing a bra”, if you knew it was going to go like this you would have worn one but you were wearing a sweater on top and just supposed to go out with your boyfriend your past self decided it was better not to wear one.

“Has that stupid boyfriend of yours ever eaten you out? Hmm?”, Heeseung asked you and you can’t help but stare at him with wide eyes but he just smirks, bringing up the hand that moments ago was just inside you and he does something that makes your mouth go open in shock, he licks his fingers clean, humming against them, tasting you “you taste so fucking good, if that fucker hasn’t eaten you out before, I’m going to baby”.

He pushes you against Sunghoon, him taking the hint grabs your arms pulling them behind you, locking them and then pulling your body to sit on top of him in the sofa from the beginning, now with all your weight on top of him you can feel his hard dick against you, making you blush, “look at you, all shy but so eager for this”, Heeseung teases you, while he drops on his knees in front of you pushing your legs apart he licks his lips at the sight. Bringing one of his hands to push your panties to the side he groans seeing how wet you got, “fuckkk, prettiest pussy ever baby”, and with that he dives in, giving your pussy a long lick all over your lips, “N-Noo, sto-“, a hand slaps over your mouth and another to one of your breast, twisting your nipple in between his fingers.

“If you make any sound, it would be you screaming at how good we fucking you, not you complaining, you hear me?”, with the same hand over your mouth he forces you to nod your head as in saying yes, chuckling he says “Good fucking girl, yesss”.

Heeseung is just restless against you, you didn’t answer them but they were right, your boyfriend has never eaten you out like this, saying he didn’t like the taste and only fingering you when you didn’t orgasm when you two slept together, so this feeling is so intense to you, making your legs shake besides his head, you look down at him and you felt yourself clench at the sight, Heeseung is looking at you with hooded eyes but still with so intensity making you whimper against Sunghoon’s hand, “Fuck baby, with how much you react I’m only assuming he doesn’t fuck you good right?”, this time by yourself you nod at his question, whining with how good you are feeling.

The one behind you frees your mouth because he asks, “If you are going to cum you need to ask us permission pretty, only then you are allowed to”, frustrated you let your head fall backwards, into Sunghoon’s neck, with heavy breathing you start to feel that familiar knot in you tummy, never have it felt this intense but you knew better than to not listen to them, “Please! P-Please Hee! Hoon! Please let me cum!”, neither of them stop their work on your body, you even feel Heeseung’s fingers back inside you making you cry out loud. “I’m s-so close! Please please!”

“Go ahead baby, cum on my tongue, let me taste you”

“You heard him pretty, cum”

Your eyes rolled back, your back arches on its own because of the intensity of your orgasm, you let out a moan that sounds pornographic, “Come on now, don’t be ungrateful, say thanks pretty”, you can still feel Heeseung’s fingers and tongue on you making it difficult to find the words that you are supposed to say, “only the beginning and you are already this fucked up, you really are so cute”.

“Thank y-you Hee…”

Heeseung stands up, making you stand up on your shaking legs but his grip doesn’t let you fall, you hear rustling behind you, turning to see, Sunghoon is stripping out of his clothes and after he is done, he looks at you and giving you a smile he grabs you and with in one motion he forces you to be on all fours just in the place that he was seated but not quite content enough he pushes your head down, making you painfully arch your back while presenting all your bottom to them, “Fuck yesss, It’s my turn now beautiful, I’m going to fuck you like this”.

You don’t even have time to protest when you feel the tip of his cock right in the entrance of your hole, gasping your quickly say, “Wait w-wait, I don’t think it is-“ “I told you I don’t want to listen to your complains baby, and don’t worry I’m gonna make sure it fits”, without room to say anything he pushes his dick inside, slowly thanks to how tight you are, you bite down your lip and roll your eyes at how full you are already feeling and he is not even fully inside you yet.

“You are sooo tight baby, fuckkk, are you sure you are not a virgin?” Once he is all inside you, you can’t help but feel all your body tremble at how big he feels inside you, you notice that he just gives you a few minutes to get used to the feeling before he retracts his dick only until the tip and with a hard thrust he bottoms again into your pussy, and that’s how he continues to fuck you, with long, hard and quick thrusts.

“Ho-old on! Too fast!”, with the pace that he is going you can feel the air being push out of your lungs, reaching out behind you as in to stop him, he only grabs both your hands in one grip as in to stop you to only hear him mockingly says, “Stop trying to act as if you’re not enjoying this, your sweet little pussy is sucking me as if you don’t want me to leave you”.

This is so overwhelming for you, your body hurts in the position that he has you on, he is going so fast but you feel so much pleasure with how he is having his way with you, Sunghoon upon seeing your reactions brings down one hand over to circle your clit, making you let out a scream in surprise, you even feel the tears threatening to fall down, “Come on baby, cum all over this cock, cum all over sir’s cock”, not once slowing down on his peace and never stopping the movements on your clit, your mouth on a ‘o’ shape you whine what you can, “Yess, sir! I’m cumming oh my god!”.

Both Heeseung and Sunghoon let out a groan once they heard you use the title that the latter one called himself, and to him it felt like heaven, feeling your cunt clenched and unclenched so fast while you are cumming, arching your back even more surprising both males with how flexible you are. “S-sir, slow down p-please…” but he just couldn’t listen to you, not when he is so close, “shut t-the fuck up baby, I’m almost there” giving you his final thrust, you felt like they were the most intense ones, before you feel him spilling all his cum inside of you, making you feel so full.

“Shit…” finally pulling out of your pussy, you thought he was going to give a little time to rest but once he pulled out, he saw how some of his cum spilled out and couldn’t let that happen so he collect the juices that were spilling with his fingers and plunged them right back inside of you again, tears are now falling out of eyes with how sensitive you are feeling.

“Hope you haven’t forgotten about me princess” after Sunghoon let you alone, Heeseung was quick to come over to you, helping you getting you on your knees while he positioned himself behind you, one of his hands immediately went down to your chin, pulling your face up so that you can look him in the eyes, “You ready for me princess?”, just as his friend did, he with the hold on your face makes you nod your head, smiling to himself, he leans down to kiss you once again but you do notice that this time he kisses you softer than before.

In the middle of the kiss, he lets his hand roam all over your body, neck, breast, waist, hips until he reaches for your thighs, he wraps one arm around each of your thighs and raises you with ease, your arms automatically circle around his neck afraid that he might let you fall but it only makes him let out a hum in satisfaction.

What you didn’t know is that the reason why they only never tormented you and only your boyfriend was because both boys had a soft spot for you, they have observed you since you started to date Wonbin, first thinking to themselves that you guys were just acquaintances or that he was courting you, oh the disappointment they felt once they found out you two were already in a relationship.

They wanted to take you away from him, he didn’t deserve you, they saw how he went out with other girls while still being with you, they saw how preoccupied you were when he arrived home late after meeting some whore; as the guys say; they have seen how you always get yourself so pretty, so dolled up for him when he was trash with you. Five dates that he had canceled on you, six dates that he came in late; some of those even three hours later than the time the two of you had agreed on; and one anniversary that he had forgotten, sure the two of you have only being together for one year and three months but your first year anniversary was something that you were looking forward too, ooh how tempted Sunghoon and Heeseung where to go to you and show you how a real man treats a woman like you.

So when Heeseung saw you, all dolled up, at the door in their place, he thought he was dreaming but he wasn’t going to let this opportunity slip away. They had to have you.

“I’m going to fuck you while standing up Y/N, I’m going to fuck you gooood”, you gasp in shock when says your name, it surprises you more that he made you even wetter with how he said it. Maybe you are some kind of pervert for liking this, but it’s impossible to not feel all hot when you have two men ducking you dumb after more than a year of disappointing sex, despite you finding yourself disappointed after having intimacy with your boyfriend, you couldn’t just leave him for that! It’s too cruel but if this is what you have been missing all this time, you are starting to regret it.

Heeseung lines up on your entrance before slowly pushing you down, the stretch and the position making your eyes go white as they roll back, “it’s- you- too big, no!”, but even with that comment, he continued to push himself inside of you, until you felt his balls against the curve of your bubble butt.

“Damn I fucking love how your pussy feels baby, so wet, so tight”, with how deep he is going inside you it makes you forget everything and the only thing coherent coming out of your lips are cries of his name and the words ‘yes!’ and ‘sir!’. You feel one of his hands coming up from your thighs to your lower tummy, pressing down he growls and tells you, “I can see the outline of my cock inside of you baby, so fucking good”.

You look down once he moves his hands and let out a cry when in one of his thrusts and can actually see his dick bulge in your tummy, being fuck to the point that you can’t even think before you let out with a voice that almost sounds like a purr, “Y-you can see how good you are fucking me s-sir”, looking back at your face he can’t help but moan at the look at your face, drool coming out of your mouth, mascara all over your cheeks with how much you have cry out of pleasure, your lips all swollen as a result of the two of them kissing you with such a intensity.

“Fuckkk, you are so pretty Y/N, letting us ruin you, you are now ours baby, never going to let you go” he mumbles against your neck, letting all types of bites and hickeys on it. “F-Fuck you are going to make sir cum baby, are you close too? Hmm?”

“Yes sir! L-Let me cum, please!”

“Go ahead baby, let’s cum together”

Bringing your lips together once more, he feels how your body shakes with how intense your orgasm was, moaning against his lips as the two of you make out in such a messy manner. He pulls out only after he felt that he already emptied all of his cum inside you, riding both of you out of your orgasms.

He sits down with you on top of him and even without realizing when the other male had left the room, he comes back, now wearing only sweatpants, he smiles at you when he noticed your eyes on him, coming close he grabs your face and lets down a sweet kiss on your lips, pulling apart he lets down a towel on your shoulder before you feel Heeseung’s hands in between your legs, but you turn down to see that he is cleaning you up with some wet wipes.

“You thirsty? Hungry? Need to go to the bathroom?”, your head is in spirals at the sudden change of treatment but can’t help but feel the heat rushing to your cheeks, all the attention they are giving you makes you feel shy, “Hm? Now you are getting shy of us?” “Hah! Look, even her ears are all red”.

“Stop… can I have some water please?” Sunghoon passes you a bottle, already opened up and it feels so refreshing once it goes down your throat, “Good girl, let’s take a bath and then order food, yeah?”.

Once again in Heeseung’s arms but this time bridal style, he takes you to the bathroom where he sits you down in a corner of the bathtub while he prepares it for all of you, you hear Sunghoon’s steps coming closer, you look up at him and he is staring down at you with a phone on his hand.

“Your boyfriend is calling.”

[iridescentmirrorsgenshin]

I have no other place to yap this to so I apologise in advance.

I find it interesting in Alhaitham and Kaveh’s voicelines they tend to talk about each other A LOT in a way of complaining. Such as in Alhaitham’s Good night voiceline where he says that he’d prefer that Kaveh wouldn’t be home at all because all the chaos and noise he makes in the dead of the night. Or in Kaveh’s Good Morning voiceline where he says that he hopes that you don't run into someone who ruins your day first thing in the morning.

I guess it’s what makes other people think that they despise each other’s company. Yet they’re always viewed as a pair and Alhaitham could’ve kicked Kaveh out of the house ages ago. But what’s your opinion on that?

Hiya! there's no need to apologise, this is a safe space for all haikaveh! When I tell you your ask is scratching my brain I mean ITCHING, I have so many thoughts about this part of their dynamic so thank you for enabling me <3 This turned out to be rather long, so I hope it’s helpful to you!

The contention in both Alhaitham and Kaveh’s character stories and voice lines seems to be to create intrigue about the two as individuals, and, in turn, their relationship.

Alhaitham’s ‘good night’ voice line instantly serves as a contradiction to his character. It’s interesting, and telling, that Alhaitham, who is essentially Kaveh’s landlord, and mentions this within his fourth character story, alludes to Kaveh by using ‘roommate’ rather than ‘tenant’. ‘Landlord’ evokes a position of authority over the tenant, whereas ‘roommate’ indicates an equality between two people sharing a house – since it’s Alhaitham who advocates for the term ‘roommate’, it’s telling that, as opposed to what Kaveh believes, Alhaitham wants to establish equality between them.

In terms of what Alhaitham says in this voice line, it explicitly raises a contradiction in the form of a question: if Alhaitham is truly bothered by his roommate’s antics, why doesn’t he simply evict Kaveh?

This is relevant as this question is also posed when we initially meet Kaveh within the Archon Quest, as Kaveh states he dislikes Alhaitham’s personality, to which Alhaitham responds by saying if he bothers Kaveh so much, Kaveh always has the option to move out of the house – to which Kaveh perceives as a threat, only to then dismiss this as Alhaitham ‘changing the subject’, which seems to mean that this ‘threat’ is taken as baseless. As this isn’t called back to, this seems to be the case.

There is no real threat of eviction, and regardless of their disputes, Alhaitham ultimately gives Kaveh no ultimatum to move out. In fact, as discussed here (page 27), as we are meeting Alhaitham and Kaveh for the first time, Alhaitham allowing Kaveh to live with him contradicts his established character of living a life free of inconvenience. This instantly creates intrigue around his and Kaveh’s dynamic – who is Kaveh to Alhaitham for this exception to be made to Alhaitham’s peaceful way of life?

(An additional note of interest is that Alhaitham’s solution to the noise problem seems to be more uncomfortable than calling on Kaveh and telling him to stop his work. Alhaitham says that he’d rather not wear his noise-cancelling earpieces to bed, implying that he does so when noise is a problem at night. However, there’s no mention of Kaveh being stubborn when confronting this issue, which is why he takes to wearing his ear pieces, or any mention of confrontation at all. From this voice-line, it seems that Alhaitham avoids interaction by opting for the least comfortable option, which can be a contradiction to his character. As this is a rather brief voice-line, it’s difficult to ascertain why, but I like the idea that Kaveh is productive at night, and Alhaitham prefers not to impose on Kaveh’s work process – but this is more a headcanon than evidenced interpretation.)

Returning back to the contradiction within this voice-line, at a surface glance, this does appear to be a general complaint about Kaveh, and this can be found in Alhaitham’s lines about Kaveh, and also when discussing Tighnari. Alhaitham refers to Kaveh as ‘overly sensitive’, and ‘constantly making a fuss’.

These can easily read solely as complaints, but when looking to the original CN translation, another interpretation can be found here. Alhaitham describes Kaveh as ‘caring’ or ‘tender’, which is exactly how Kaveh is described within the 3.6 special program (as per minimushiroom on twt), which can allude to how Kaveh is considerate to a fault, in that this serves as a detriment to himself.

This can be seen in Alhaitham’s other Kaveh-centred voice-line, in which he describes Kaveh buying keychains in order to provide meals for sick children, even though healthcare is free in Sumeru. Alhaitham clearly holds the view that this was a redundant action, as Kaveh, being in debt, most likely doesn’t have the money to spend on such investments that are, evidently, dubious.

As Alhaitham provides a rational view here, this contrasts with Kaveh’s act of generosity fuelled by emotion – which highlights the contention Alhaitham has with Kaveh, in that Kaveh places himself in dangerous situations for the sake of others. However, as this can be perceived as a solely derisive line, this essential context is lacking, and can be easily misconstrued. (I think the EN translation here also coincides with this narrative, as minimushiroom notes that the original CN has Alhaitham refer to Kaveh’s sensitivity in a positive way, rather than contemptuously, as the English can be interpreted as.)

Kaveh, similarly, can be seen to complain about Alhaitham in his own voice-lines. This can be seen in the 'Good Morning' voice-line you've mentioned, where Kaveh complains about having to see Alhaitham in the morning, which 'ruins' his day. Additionally, Kaveh's voice-lines discussing Alhaitham refer to Alhaitham as ‘infuriating’ and not wanting to give Alhaitham the satisfaction of thanking him, despite Alhaitham helping him out. However, there is more nuance in these voice-lines than Kaveh simply ‘disliking’ Alhaitham, as this dislike is never stated - rather that he and Alhaitham have a difficult relationship in comparison to the ‘close’ friendship of their past.

Kaveh describes their relationship being a ‘mixed bag’, of both negatives and positives, as well as establishing a thorough understanding of Alhaitham, where other people may misinterpret Alhaitham as they ‘don’t know him well enough’. Additionally, Kaveh notes that he knows that Alhaitham can present himself in a more ‘likeable’ manner, but that Alhaitham refuses to do so, which refers to Kaveh’s contention with Alhaitham discussed within his character stories. This, in turn, generates curiosity, as it appears that Kaveh holds an in-depth knowledge of Alhaitham that the player isn’t privy to.

Referring back to Alhaitham’s ‘Good Night’ voiceline, the question raised is, if Alhaitham has a problem with Kaveh, why doesn’t he just evict Kaveh? And the answer can be found by digging further into Alhaitham’s character stories. Looking to Alhaitham’s fourth character story, it states that he is aware of the dissatisfaction Kaveh may have with their living arrangement but  that ‘it matters not to him’.

This means that he is aware that Kaveh may be unhappy with having to rely on someone else for a stable livelihood, something which his pride doesn’t naturally allow, but that this is also exacerbated due to their previous falling out and the current contentions Kaveh has with him.

At first, this can seem rather abrasive, which does fall in line with Alhaitham’s egoism as this doesn’t directly impact ‘the self’ (discussed further here), however, what immediately follows is Alhaitham’s belief that he and Kaveh are mirrors, in that his own perspective of the world will be enhanced - in the og CN, ‘completed’ -by Kaveh’s own world view.

The implication generated here with the explicit term ‘mirror’, is that, just as Alhaitham benefits from Kaveh, Kaveh, in turn, can benefit from Alhaitham. (As a side note, it is interesting then that the voice-lines in question can be seen to mirror each other – Kaveh mentions Alhaitham in ‘Good Morning’ whereas Alhaitham mentions Kaveh in ‘Good Night’.)

Returning back to Alhaitham’s character story, rather than merely reflecting each other philosophically speaking, I’d say that this also points to their respective progression as people, not just scholars.

To me, this is reminiscent of what Alhaitham says to Kaveh in A Parade of Providence – being ‘correct’, ultimately, doesn’t matter, as there is no ‘correct’ path in life, meaning that there is no ‘correct’ philosophy to shape and guide a person. Rather, Alhaitham asserts that, ultimately, their opposing philosophies are not the issue that exists between them.

The issue that does exist, then, can be surmised from Alhaitham’s actions during the event (discussed further here), in which he researches into Sachin to gauge his influence over Kaveh’s father journeying into the desert, with implicit hopes of providing closure for Kaveh, and potentially assuaging Kaveh’s guilt. This is a personal act with a personal motive; the underlying motive being concern, as opposed to an assertion of ‘correctness’.

In my opinion, I think Alhaitham’s actions during A Parade of Providence are a direct reference, and fulfilment, of Kaveh’s fifth character story. I’ve discussed here that the main reason for the ending of their friendship was them asserting the correctness of a philosophy over the other, and proposing one philosophy as the ‘solution’ to the other’s perceived flaws.

Here Alhaitham can be seen to use Kaveh’s past as the reason for his excessive altruism, implicitly referring to Kaveh’s guilt over being the supposed catalyst for his father’s demise. This final comment of Alhaitham’s appears to be the first time this has been mentioned between them, and it’s enough to be perceived as weaponisation – leading to Kaveh severing their friendship.

In A Parade of Providence, Alhaitham is shown to only have taken the role of commentator to research into Sachin, whose research we are told (by Kaveh), he has no explicit interest in, and it is heavily implied that the only reason he looked further into Sachin, was to prove to link between Sachin and Kaveh’s father. Alhaitham seems to want to absolve Kaveh of this past guilt in hopes that Kaveh will stop placing himself in the cycle of self-sabotage.

For me, when viewing this as a parallel, it highlights that Alhaitham’s motivation in speaking out during their days as students was out of concern for Kaveh, although while holding egoism as ultimately beneficial, and therefore perceivably ‘correct’. The ‘issue’ they’re currently debating is not expressly stated, and although it is unclear if Kaveh understands the implication (as discussed here), as ‘correctness’ has been overturned, there seems to be little left than the personal.

Relating this back to Alhaitham’s fourth character story, for me, Alhaitham referring to Kaveh as a mirror isn’t just referring to Kaveh as a scholar, but a person as a whole. As Alhaitham seeks to improve himself, personally, through Kaveh, it seems that he hopes to be able to benefit Kaveh in turn.

As for Kaveh’s complaints regarding Alhaitham, these can be contextualised within his own character stories. As Kaveh ultimately severed the friendship between him and Alhaitham, Alhaitham offering Kaveh to live with him, despite Kaveh revoking his previous understanding of Alhaitham (as discussed here, page 67), causes Kaveh to be overtly suspicious.

In Kaveh’s Old Sketchbook, it is mentioned that Kaveh believes there to be an ulterior motive for Alhaitham inviting him to share a house, as he believes that Alhaitham wouldn’t do something for someone else without an exchange.

Kaveh, then, openly distrusts Alhaitham due to this unspoken motive, and although he takes on chores to ease his sense of guilt of being a perceived burden, a contention arises here. Due to their previously ended friendship, and with how Alhaitham hurt Kaveh, and how Kaveh may believe he hurt Alhaitham (discussed here), Kaveh sees no reason for Alhaitham to want him around – he treats their relationship as an exchange, asking what Alhaitham could possibly want for him.

Although Alhaitham views Kaveh as a mirror, and therefore, respects Kaveh’s perspectives, Kaveh can potentially view their opposing philosophies as a negative rather than a positive as he had done in the past (as discussed here), as it, perceivably, was what led to the end of their friendship. In this, Kaveh views Alhaitham as disparaging him and his views. As mentioned in his character story, he has no reservations in telling Alhaitham of his debt as Alhaitham has already seen through him in the past, and yet again, upon meeting at the tavern.

Although Alhaitham perceivably views him unfavourably, and his comments and complaints appear to propagate this interpretation, Alhaitham also seems to have no issue with keeping Kaveh around, and interacting with Kaveh, regardless of the problems Kaveh expressly has with him.

To Kaveh, it could be that as Alhaitham has already seen the worst of him, and appears to have no real issue with their stilted rapport, there is no point in donning a front and using niceties. He is open with his issues with Alhaitham, and, in turn, Alhaitham is open with him.

This appears to be a dual negative and positive for Kaveh, as he describes Alhaitham’s constancy as ‘the most unshakable part of one's past is a friend that will never change’. In this sense, his unsteady rapport with Alhaitham is reliable, and therefore, has no reason to change.

Clearly, there is a large disconnect between Alhaitham’s view of Kaveh and how Kaveh perceives Alhaitham’s view of him. As previously mentioned in the discussion of A Parade of Providence, there is an unspoken ‘issue’ between them, and this can be interpreted as dire misconceptions borne from miscommunication.

As discussed, Kaveh and Alhaitham reference each other a lot in their respective voice-lines and their character stories. This alone is enough to connect them, regardless of the cruciality of their mirror motif, as they are key figures of each other’s past, present, and seemingly, future. Despite this, it’s as you say, there’s a common perception to view them as mutually disliking each other, and, to me, this is based upon their first initial interaction, and the way they refer to each other in their own character stories and voice-lines.

It’s notable that Alhaitham refers to Kaveh in his voice-lines when Kaveh is not explicitly relevant, such as in his Good Night voice-line, and, most interestingly, when Alhaitham discusses Tighnari.

This could be because Alhaitham knows of Tighnari through Kaveh, but as this connection isn’t stated, it reads as Alhaitham mentioning Kaveh for no other reason than to complain about his perceived naivety regarding relations with others. But as this is a voice-line designated to discussing Tighnari, it’s interesting, and incredibly noticeable, that Alhaitham then discusses Kaveh instead. It’s similar to what Kaveh can be seen to do, and is observed to do by others, in relation to discussing Alhaitham.

When it comes to Kaveh, however, his complaining of Alhaitham can be seen to link with his process of dealing with troubles in his work. In his Hangout, he states that he takes his work to heart because he cares about it, which is expressed in the same quest in which Kaveh and the Traveller run into Alhaitham in the House of Daena (discussed further here, page 219).

Drawing a parallel here can further contextualise Kaveh’s complaining of Alhaitham – if Kaveh truly disliked Alhaitham, there seems to be no reason for Alhaitham to remain so relevant to him, both in conversation, and in private thought. Additionally, Kaveh is described as an empathetic person, and when dealing with others, he is thusly seen to look for another perspective rather than act on his own subjective perspective.

Looking at his voice-line on Dori, for example, expresses his distaste for Dori pressuring him for Mora due to his debt, however, he also empathises with her, and states that he senses there must be a reason why Dori acts in such a way.

In contrast, this empathy can be perceived as missing in his treatment of Alhaitham, and therefore Kaveh complaining about Alhaitham can be perceived as blatant dislike – which contradicts Kaveh’s benevolence and empathy, which A Parade of Providence particularly stresses.

Kaveh’s treatment of Alhaitham can be seen as deliberately contradictory, as it can cause the player to question why Kaveh reacts in such a singular way to Alhaitham, just as why Alhaitham reacts in a singular way to Kaveh.

In reference to Alhaitham, whilst Alhaitham tends to complain about Kaveh in turn, his actions reveal him. He invites Kaveh to live with him, gives no eviction date, pays for Kaveh’s tabs willingly, (supposedly) buys wine as an apology, and goes out of his way to ensure dialogue with Kaveh – which contradicts his own character stories, in which he appears to favour solitude, and only greets those he considers his friends ‘with a nod or two’.

Moreover, Alhaitham is established as considering Kaveh a necessity to his ‘peaceful life’ he seeks to maintain (as discussed here), and can be seen to implicitly consider Kaveh one of his priorities within his Story Quest.

The idea that Alhaitham dislikes Kaveh seems to stem from Alhaitham being taken literally when voicing an opinion, or an issue, or simply joking, in reference to Kaveh – despite his character stories highlighting that Alhaitham often uses sarcasm in order to subvert expectations.

Alhaitham expressly states that he prefers to be seen as inscrutable, and unknown, by the general public, and uses subversion as a means to do so. In these character stories, Alhaitham openly encourages speculation of his own words.

Without this context, it seems easy to simplify Alhaitham to purely speaking factually when first addressing Kaveh in the Archon Quest – stating that having to explain things to Kaveh is ‘a nuisance’, and yet, it is overlooked that Alhaitham stays in the House of Daena, regardless, knowing Kaveh would find him again.

On the whole, in my opinion, Kaveh’s feelings towards Alhaitham cannot be simplified to ‘dislike’ as this is dually an inherent misunderstanding of his character, and of his and Alhaitham’s relationship, just as Alhaitham’s feelings towards Kaveh cannot be simplified to ‘dislike’ for this same reason.

In the beginning, Alhaitham and Kaveh are not supposed to be perceived as friendly, as Kaveh denies the association of ‘friends’, and Paimon describes them to the Traveller as ‘problematic’.

The reason for this is due to their character arcs being intertwined – the core issue is posed in Kaveh’s fifth character story, in that the question is raised if a compromise can be reached, if both sides of the mirror, can be balanced. At the beginning, they are entirely at odds, but even footing must be found.

I’ve noticed a shift in online discourse after Cyno’s second story quest, as the progression in Alhaitham and Kaveh’s relationship is noticeable – deliberately, due to the flashback scene within their house (which I’ve discussed in detail here, page 122). To me, it’s more common to form the assumption that Alhaitham and Kaveh dislike each other in the Archon Quest, but with recent developments, and, hopefully, future ones, this perception is being overturned in online communities. Perhaps that’s just wishful thinking, but I’m still hopeful!

[bluepandadraws-log]

I wanted to say something, and I'm not trying to be rude in any way.

I have autism, and I've known about it for my entire life. People bullied me in school, but they would mostly wonder why I was so annoying. I was never targeted because of my autism, the kids just didn't know any better.

When I hear about people who don't know from the beginning and think something is wrong with them, it breaks my heart. Hearing names called just because of who someone is, and something they can't help, angers me. I consider myself extremely fortunate that I have a family who knows about that stuff and can help me through anything.

My point is, I'm not sure what your story is, but I appreciate you bringing awareness to this, and I can tell how you care. It means a lot to me, and I can only imagine how it does to people who are going or have been through similar experiences.

And if you are going through stuff like this or have been in the past, I'm very sorry, and as a nobody on the internet, I'm rooting for you. 💙

I'm very glad my silly story about and Anxious Autistic jester is connecting to similar experiences! I write from what I know and have been through in the past and present(and most likely future), and the story is low key based on how I'd get mocked and called... bad things, cuz I was "too passionate" about a topic.

Like Pomni, I also don't want anybody to feel like they're nothing,and everyone deserves understanding. I'm sorry you went through that as well. Hopefully, we both can grow stronger!

[nicosraf]

sort of a Big question, but—do you have any advice for someone trying to write their first book? it's...very very intimidating and it's hard for me to keep everything organized

You have to be more specific! A lot of advice is very dependent on things like genre and also your writing goals. (Whether you want to be a tradpub author, an indie author, or just write books for fun (not publishing)). I can try to be extremely general though:

You'll see a lot of advice for your first book to be "simple" but I've come to kinda disagree with that. My first book (not abm, i mean my first real book) was incredibly ambitious, but it took me a long time to write and it was extremely hard. Still, I learned a lot, and I knew I wasn't going to publish it.

So either 1. write a very difficult book and do not publish it because it will be bad (you can always rewrite it later), or 2. write a simple book.

Simple as in keep the characters minimal, keep the setting undetailed and with little worldbuilding, and don't overcomplicated any arc/plot/theme-ing. You can use the known "plot guides" ("Save the cat", for example. Note: I don't use this, but a lot of friends do. I actually don't really like this plot guide at all, but it's helpful if you're going for a "movie" feeling, I think).

For more general advice, before you outline, you might want to think about what's a reasonable length for your book to be. (Epics are fun to imagine but remember you'd also have to edit that, and if you're an indie you're gonna have to pay an editor by the word count. If you're tradpub, then they're gonna ask you to cut it.) A romance book, for example, might be 80k(?) words. If it's your first book, consider how long you want chapters to be, then divide by total word count goal to have an idea of how many chapters you have to tell the book's story.

I strongly advise you look at genre conventions to understand how long your book should be. You might think you're above genre conventions but consider your readers. Most romance readers aren't going to want to read a 400k epic unless you have an established audience.

As for organization, pretend you're writing an extremely brief wikipedia summary on your book. Hyper focus on this. Make sure the heart of your story is simple. Even big elaborate series are simple at heart: consider ASOIAF, which is just "a dynastic war for control of a continent in a fantasy world." ABM is just "the devil grows up in heaven, falls in love, and falls." When you plot, you wanna build off a simple premise, not try to find the simple story in a massive over-complicated web.

My last piece of advice is that once your start drafting, don't stop. Just keep going even if it sucks. Learn to say "I'll fix it once the draft is done" or else you're never going to finish. And take my advice with a grain of salt, of course. I'm just a guy

[p5x-theories]

Have you gathered any other fun i guess quirks that could be considered characterization for Wonder? Like how many outfits he has meaning he may have an eye for fashion for example

Hmm, good question! It's hard for me to remember anything unprompted, heh, but I will say I personally believe all the Persona series protagonists have quite a bit of characterization present in their games (despite being alleged blank slates), so in general I do try to pay attention to this stuff, because I like putting that picture together in my head.

I try to factor this into my story summaries, too, especially if I mention that the player doesn't really have a choice with something, or if I think it's interesting that the player has a choice at all. For instance, when Riko collapses after awakening her Persona, the player doesn't get to choose whether Wonder offers to help her, just what specifically he says when he offers. This one is particularly interesting to me because Cattle's response treats this as Wonder not properly reading the room here (Closer was offering to help because she (and Cattle) thought a girl should help her, not because all three of them were going to lend Riko a shoulder), but the player is essentially "forced" to read the room wrong because evidently there's no way Wonder wouldn't also offer to help her. In general, Wonder seems very open to helping people; the fact that he has all these side quests is proof of that, especially since a lot of them kind of start as "Wonder sees someone having a problem and tries to help with it, or at least find out what's going on".

Oh, the gachapon machines could be taken as another quirk of his! You can collect the toys from them as Joker as well, but Wonder has a deliberate display case/shelving area for setting up each of the full sets, with layouts that make it obvious which ones he's missing (implying, to me, that he likes to have a full set on display). But on the flip side, so far I've never see Wonder get a souvenir while hanging out with someone, so he doesn't display any of those in his room like Joker does.

Not exactly a quirk, but another thing that stood out as really interesting to me (maybe especially because Wonder's team isn't as well-known as the original Phantom Thieves were, even by this point), is that Wonder can kind of imply that the Metaverse/shadows/etc. exist in a couple text conversations with Kiyoshi during his Confidant, when Kiyoshi brings up something supernatural that he wants to "investigate". I know it happens more than once, but not super often. But then later, in Kiyoshi's rank 15 event, when Kiyoshi kind of admits he has an active imagination, but he really does see things others can't sometimes (his implied ability to see Personas, or at least see two/multiple of someone if they have a Persona), while Wonder seems to realize this is Kiyoshi being able to see Personas or something related to the Metaverse, there's never any option to tell him about it, or even imply it exists here. It kind of makes it retroactively seem like Wonder's willing to "joke" about that stuff in a text message, but not actually tell anyone, even a close friend, even when there don't seem to be any consequences because the police don't believe the Phantom Thieves exist? It is also possible Wonder's just not a very good liar, so he's only willing to "joke" about it in texts, where he doesn't have to be a particularly good liar to play it off, heh. But I keep thinking about it.

Merope's another interesting Confidant interaction, because while many of her rank-up events allow Wonder the option to express doubt/distaste/a general unwillingness to go along with Merope's idol obsession, ultimately in her rank 20 event he seems to be along for the ride. Even a bit before that, the player can't make him turn down her Mementos request, and when interacting with the Shadow of Narumi's producer, none of his response options give the impression that Wonder's only doing this for Merope. While it's the player's choice whether Wonder is relatively on-board with Merope's idol obsession from the get-go, by the later ranks of her Confidant he seems to have been won over (at least to some extent) regardless of what the player wants.

Oh, another tidbit that comes to mind- we know Wonder's been living in his house at least since he was little, probably his whole life, meaning it's most likely that he attended Kokatsu last year (as a first year) as well, but he notes that he's never been to Kokatsu's annual beach event before. We don't know how long this desire-stealing stuff has been going on, but considering Riko says attendance for the beach event was much, much higher in previous years, and in general the desire problem seems to be getting worse over time, Wonder probably still had his desires (or at least, more of them) as a first year. If so, it says something about what he was like prior to the start of the game that he "obviously" (his words) still didn't attend the beach event that's apparently so popular with students.

This is more general, rather than specific instances/quirks, but I've gotten the impression that Wonder's generally a little less confident than Joker, but gets attached to people quickly and likes to help them. Not to say that you can't read Joker as being similar, but like I said with the side quests, Joker doesn't even have those. At the start of the game, when he didn't have desires, Wonder doesn't know what he wants for the future, and doesn't seem particularly bothered that Ms. Katayama's worried about him because of it. But in Chapter 3 (sorry I'm still typing this story update!), he's right there with Riko, Shun, and Motoha blaming himself for causing Katayama more stress, and when they can't steal her Treasure because they're not sure what'll happen to Akashi sharing her Palace, he's so clearly bothered by it that Ruferu gives him a pep talk about how he's a good leader and they still saved Katayama's Shadow today.

Wonder's reaction to his visions also feels like a point of characterization to me. While he clearly is alarmed by the bad ones (jolting awake after the nightmare at the start, most obviously), already by Chapter 2 he doesn't seem to doubt that they might be real in some way, because he uses information from them to help (asking Yamagoshi the right question, designing their Phantom Thieves logo, understanding what they need to do while fighting Shadow Katayama), and starts to wonder if he's lost memories like Ruferu did. A lot of people might've brushed them off for longer, or been more suspicious of where they're coming from or what they mean, but Wonder seems to trust them by this point, and in general seems to trust people quickly. He questions where they're coming from and what he's seeing, but I don't get the impression he doubts that they're in some way real.

Heh, sorry, that might've been a longer and (especially towards the end) more generalized answer than you wanted, but like I said, I like thinking about this stuff! I hope it was at least an interesting read, and maybe covered at least some of the stuff you were hoping to hear.

[puppyeared]

who up seeing their disorder in a fictional character but feel like its not their place to put a name on it

[sskk-manifesto]

Ep 5!!!

[silverwhittlingknife]

hiii! i just wanted to reach out n let you know that i just spent the last few days speed reading all your ao3 work bc i literally couldn't put it down. the way you write dick really just scratches my brain in the best way possible. he's a little (read: very) neurotic and it just. his motivations are so clear in your work, not in the sense that there isn't tension and anxiety but in that his core personality, his drive to help and the anger and trauma that has built him, his need to always be performing and catering to those around him, it comes across sososososos SO well. he was the first character that got me into comics and since then i've kinda stopped reading him bc i have lots of issues w tom taylors run (not the point so i digress) but you have really inspired me to go back and read more of his old stuff so thank you! you have such a clear grasp on his character and its something i admire very much! ur very very talented! and i really appreciate you sharing ur art! hope ur doin well :)

HI THIS IS SUCH A NICE COMPLIMENT???? <3333 This is so nice & sweet & it made my whole day!!! THANK YOU I AM HUGGING YOU ACROSS THE INTERNET AHHHHHH

he's a little (read: very) neurotic and it just. his motivations are so clear in your work, not in the sense that there isn't tension and anxiety but in that his core personality, his drive to help and the anger and trauma that has built him, his need to always be performing and catering to those around him

YEAH IT's HIMMMM i love this description <333

THANK YOU YOU ARE LOVELY & KIND PLS ACCEPT THIS DOG PICTURE AS TOKEN OF MY GRATITUDE

[medicinemane]

Should make a pain killer that actually kills (or even touches) pain

[arklay]

DIANA x ALBERT WESKER / template.

[ereborne]

Song of the Day: December 6

"Your Body Is A Weapon" by the Wombats

[rainingincale]

Why is being a living exisiting human being so very confusing 🙃

[lobotomy-maybe-bestie]

finding a new podcast to listen to is so fucking hard when you have specific ass taste and are scared of things that might disappoint you

[famewolf]

if im being honest and allowing myself to vent a bit about it ... another red flag was when the DM went 'wow i love the detail of your backstory but idk what i can do with it tho ):'

[abyssalpriest]

God I could and should write a whole fucking book by the end of this life here on Lev and his symbols

ill write it then burn it before anyone else gets a copy. or i wont. im supposed to be helping him this incarnation here to get a better anchor in this plane so maybe it would help more than itd be weird - im just getting from him the energy of "yeah no people already effectively have these things, people on my plane already know me inside and out to an extensive degree, may as well have it here too" you know. fair

[orcelito]

that one bookmark is gone and on one hand im glad i dont have to see it anymore but on the other hand im a little embarrassed at the thought of them having seen me have a whole mini spiral about it at like 5 am. like sorry random person ig