#minkconcept

[strawberryona]

canonical deaths

vesper dies at ~50-60 because of her curse, roan kills himself when vesper dies, seren overdoses at 35ish and no one can tell if it was accidental or suicide.

bryn doesn't have a set-in-stone end because they're not fucked up enough lol. they COULD live to old age and die naturally, they COULD also get themself into a stupid bar fight and die from resulting injuries, they COULD die from lung cancer (which is probably objectively the funniest option. nothing poetic to say just LUNG CANCER).

bryn won't grieve for seren. if anything, they'd grieve for the loss of a convenient person to take out their frustrations on: nobody else will ever measure up to just how much seren enabled bryn. but in the end, they think seren deserved to die painfully and alone. there's no sympathy.

(well... i don't know if i agree with them, but what else could stop seren's pain? they don't want to be saved, and no one wants to save them. it's insanely sad, but what other solution is there, besides death...?)

(this story is not therapist approved. lol)

bryn would at least feel sad when vesper dies. they wouldn't be insanely broken up about it, but they'd at least miss her as a conversation partner - she was pretty fun to talk to about hair/fashion/art. they wouldn't feel much about roan, maybe just a vague sense of absence.

seren doesn't leave behind other friends. roan also doesn't, but there's a large public period of grief from his fans. vesper is pretty sociable, so a few other aristocrats would grieve her, but none of them are real friends. they're just a bit shocked and saddened by her loss.

[strawberryona]

it’s a little unfortunate that both perv quartet couples are dom top butch/femme sub bottom. unfortunately this is because of ME. seren was originally an s/i. so she and vesper both reflect my desires. however it kind of works because of how i’ve mangled the butch/femme subculture lol. in my version of ss/sp, butch/femme is like, hyped up gender roles. it’s not even the dominance thing like there’s definitely dom femmes. thats kinda in like a, guy who lets wife walk all over him way. i mean the gender roles are more like. femmes are petty gossips that get into catfights. butches do a lot of stupid shit in the name of proving their masculinity or else. just being STUPID. and it’s a femme’s job to protect her butch from being a FUCKING IDIOT. also like, butches being expected to pay for dates and such. although i will say i have never really imagined femmes as being homemakers. all these things im saying are very much from a young adult Yeah Time To Party! perspective. femmes playing hard to get and butches chasing them and getting into fights to have them. yfm?

basically butch/femme is like, opt-in recreational gender roles, lol. i’ve talked about roan being a misogynist before but he actually isn’t to straight women or like, i guess bi girls that aren’t part of the subculture. like hes normal about rebecca for example (he dislikes her but not because shes a woman just bc she isnt extremely good at dueling, i think she’s pretty good but. it’s roan armiger we’re talking about. he only respects vesper, who is like JUUUUST slightly worse than him.) he’s ONLY like this to femmes.

[strawberryona]

so regarding recent comic and vesper training roan like a dog. if seren ever found out about the puppy stuff (not sure how, maybe they see some gear in vesper’s house or overhear it?) they would be EXTREMELY smug about it since they're constantly trying to undermine roan's dominance and humiliate him.

they cut the ears off of a real puppy and leave them in a signed envelope on roan’s desk. roan opens it and yells and drops the ears because EWW GROSS. (vesper picks them up off the floor and preserves them for her cabinet of curiosities)

roan goes to give seren a piece of his mind and seren goes "i just thought you'd appreciate some more realistic puppy ears. you know, for your pet play bullshit? :)" roan then threatens to kill seren and genuinely scares them a little bit because they’ve kinda never seen him this mad before? like probably not even when vesper is in danger. not that he’s not mad, he’s just more controlled. at the idea of word of his more submissive side getting out, he like goes berserk.

i actually dont know who would win this fight because while roan obviously has more combat skill, seren is physically larger than him and has Some degree of training. so idk. seren really isnt into the business of blackmail or public exposure anyway. their desire to humiliate roan is more personal than public

[strawberryona]

thinking about perv quartet dueling… roan absolutely kicks bryn’s ass and is trying so hard not to be smug about it afterward (bc taunting would lower him to bryn’s level) but hes So fucking smug. similarly vesper easily defeats seren except she wont stop bragging about it even when she gets slapped and kicked around and told to stop. also of course seren and bryn watch roan and vesper duel. and lowkey theyre like completely silent and engrossed. because despite their tenuous relationship with this other couple, no one can resist the draw of watching two of the best duelists of their generation duke it out.

[strawberryona]

i think bryn lowkey intimidates roan. not dueling wise because roan can def run circles around bryn. he’s confident that he would beat bryn in a duel or even a real fight if it escalated to that—bryn’s got no combat training, and though they beat seren often, seren always submits. so bryn has no experience trying to fight someone who’s not just gonna lie down and take it. and even bdsm wise, roan is the better dominant—yes vesperoan would be classified as abusive in real life, but pretty much only bc theres no safeword. and they dont exactly need one either, because vesper gets off on being raped fr, and roan knows her limits and knows when to stop.

so roan looks down on bryn in many respects, but he’s also slightly scared of bryn because their utter and complete lack of limits. roan has hard limits. he wont do anything too disgusting or fucked up. bryn does not have limits. bryn takes advantage of young girls. bryn sticks their dick into roadkill. bryn has permanently ruined seren’s body in multiple ways. and roan knows that bryn is capable of extremely cruel acts because of this.

[strawberryona]

bryn is morally opposes seren's actions, but they stay with seren because they genuinely want seren to be punished and degraded and seren genuinely wants to be punished and degraded. there's no keyfabe like there should be in bdsm.

if seren weren’t that sort of person, bryn wouldn’t feel the need to hurt them so deeply. i think this is pretty much visible in “how we all are” because while bryn is a sadist and does enjoy cucking roan, they stop it pretty quickly and are chill about it after its over. they don’t want fake sadism. they want to hurt someone for real, borne out of a place of hatred. so it becomes a twisted and begrudging love. “i love you because i hate you so much that you allow me to enact my deepest, darkest desires—that i’d never have access to if i didn’t have such a complete and all-consuming hatred for you.”

bryn doesn't stop seren from committing acts like torturing animals because they want a reason to hate them. if seren became a normal person bryn would lose all interest in them

[strawberryona]

how did the quartet all make their way to high society?

- roan: academics. went to a prestigious private military academy, then a nice university on a scholarship. got into dueling that way, and his prowess led him to fame and success.

- vesper: birthright. she was born into an esteemed family and so had resources and training, attending balls from a young age and gaining notoriety for her frenzied and unforeseen fencing style.

- bryn: connections. their family, while not in the same field (medical professionals, while bryn is an artist), still have enough proximity to various upper-class social circles to get bryn’s career started.

- seren: body. they hid their poor social status behind borrowed silks and seduced a number of aristocrats over the years, then became bryn’s muse and model, admired for their beauty.