#you can be jailed if someone commits or attempts because of you.

[stillness-in-green]

Sorry if this question rubs you the wrong way, but wouldn't going out of their way to try to help villains to the absolute extreme that you propose be a bit suicidal? I feel like trying to talk no jutsu criminals like Moonfish who's a serial killing canibal, or Muscular who doesn't have any actual reason for commiting violence against others other than he enjoys it, would end up getting people hurt or worse.

Idk, maybe my perception is skewed because my country has problems with the justice system being too lenient with criminals, but then striking hard against honest folk.

Like, let's say heroes try to talk to Muscular about his feelings and stuff, and he just beats them to death. So should they arrest him and take him to jail now, or should they respond "understandable, have a nice day" and let him carry on with his rampage and try to talk no jutsu him the next day?

I’ve had enough exchanges with you, rvg, to assume you don’t mean it this way, but I gotta say, this is an incredibly fallacious way to frame the “talk to Villains” discussion.  I wrote two responses to this, first a characteristically long and rambly response which you and anyone else who’s interested are free to read below the cut.  The second response is much shorter and is here above the cut, if only for those readers who think it’s a waste of time to try and give a sincere answer to what reads like deliberate reductiveness—though again, I don’t think that’s your intent.

Here is my model version of how Heroes should engage with Villains:

Step One: Heroes should put in a basic, good faith effort to defuse and de-escalate every Villain encounter they have with the tools and knowledge they have available; the ideal result is that the Villain will choose on their own to stop presenting a danger to the public.      

Step Two: If that is not feasible for some reason, or if it is ineffective, then the Heroes should make all possible efforts to arrest the Villain with the minimal possible harm.      

Step Three: If there is an immediate threat to the lives of bystanders and there is absolutely no way the Heroes can come up with to stop the Villain non-lethally, then there should, afterwards, be an investigation into the death of the Villain and all Heroes who were involved should have to face questions about their role in the situation and their decision to use lethal force.  Measures should then be implemented to help prevent the situation from arising again in the future.  A Hero killing someone should by default be treated as a punishable failure, not a victory.

That’s it!  That’s all there is to it!  Try talking first, then try arresting, and if killing is truly the only way, be ready to explain why.  That step-by-step should be the standard, and if there are going to be deviations from it, they should be exceptionally well-justified by both the characters and the narrative.  If that’s not the standard, then I think it’s a key thing we need to see the protagonists confronting and changing.

Hero Society is obviously in the not-the-standard camp: most of the Heroes spend most of the series jumping straight to Step Two, totally skipping Step One; there are then multiple instances of Step Three being botched completely, with non-lethal tactics being discarded or ignored and lethal force being accepted without question or resistance.  By the end of the series, a tiny handful of Heroes are now hesitantly attempting what should have been their very first go-to, Step One, but their prior reliance on Steps Two and Three make the Villains much more resistant than they might have otherwise been, which reenforces the push towards lethal force in a society that will still not enforce any consequences for it.

This would all be more forgivable if not for the way BNHA positions its Heroes, as lawful defenders of the status quo in a basically modern version of Japan—i.e. they’re cops but the story either doesn’t want to saddle them with the responsibilities real cops would have or else Horikoshi has some alarming views that treat said responsibilities as bothersome administrative red tape.

Therein is my fundamental complaint: BNHA makes the choice to frame its Heroes as being basically specialized police but then disregards or attempts to minimize how that framing colors the Heroes actions’ and decisions, especially with regard to the Villains.  My thoughts on what the Heroes “should” be doing are nothing more than taking that framing (Heroes = cops) to its logical conclusion and asking the story to treat the Heroes accordingly.

Below the jump, find the longer version of this answer, which contains more picking apart of the ask’s premise, more references to the canon and to real life, and an extended discussion about the non-Hero institutions in BNHA that are in some way responsible for Villains and what Heroes’ obligations are re: those institutions.  It is, in other words, the version of this answer that’s 4000 words long instead of 500.  Reminder that it was the version of this answer that was written first, so pardon any recycled phrasing or reiterated rhetoric.

I’ll just start by re-pasting the question…

What I think is that there is a lot of air between “beating up Villains while being more concerned about the news camera catching your good side than you are about talking to the human being you’re pummeling” and “trying to talk to the Villain but just shrugging and letting them carry on if it doesn’t work”.

A perennial response Villain fans get when they talk about this is an exasperated, even outraged, “What, so you’re saying Deku should just let Shigaraki kill him or innocent people?!”  And like, no, that’s not what we’re saying at all, and it’s a really reductive, bad faith characterization of the argument.  So I want to talk first about what Villain fans are saying, and then I’ll circle back to your question about trying to talk no jutsu the really bad news Villains and what Heroes should do if that talk no jutsu fails.

First things first, and to get it out of the way, not all Villains are on the level of Muscular or Moonfish.  For the vast majority of the series, the numeric bulk of Villains are just street criminals.  It would not be a life or death struggle for Kamui Woods and Mount Lady to try and talk down a purse snatcher together.  There is so much room for positive change in how Heroes engage with street-level Villains that just gets glossed over entirely when people want to spin-kick the argument all the way to S-class threats like post-surgery Shigaraki.

Note how handily and briskly Hawks deals with the nudist flasher guy when he’s walking around town with Endeavor—he doesn’t even glance in his direction.  Would it have been so impossibly hard to use his feathers to pin the guy’s coat back together and then cheerfully ask him why he went and did a thing like that?

So just keep that in mind, first of all: for the vast majority of what a Hero does day-to-day, especially the powerful ones who are way up near the top of the rankings, there are options available to them beyond “immediately resort to extreme violence” or “give the Villain a thumbs-up and walk away, whistling to cover the sound of civilian screams.”

But okay, how about with the more dangerous Villains?  Well, the point still stands: multiple heroic characters throughout the manga show themselves to be entirely capable of carrying on a conversation—be it with the Villains or with Hero allies—while fighting.  Mirio is able to temporarily keep ShigAFO talking and distracted by simply asking him a few basic questions; he and Nighteye both are able to get at least some answers out of Overhaul(!) just by asking about his intentions. Ochaco and Toga have coherent conversation every single time they fight.  Hawks and Twice have a whole argument while fighting.  As soon as Shouto can be bothered to talk to Dabi, Dabi’s eager to spill his whole backstory to him.

Shigaraki in particular comes off as desperate to share his grievances practically every time Heroes encounter him, and that only stops being true at the very end—and even there, it might be less true if that green twit fighting him could have been arsed to just fucking ask him, “Hey, last time we fought, when we were in the same headspace, I saw an image of you crying with a dog.  What was up with that?”  Deku doesn’t have to stand there with his hands in the air while asking!  As all the examples cited demonstrate, Heroes are more than able to fight and talk at the same time.  So why don’t they try to make that talk a little more actually useful?

What I’m saying is simply that I would like it if less of that conversation were dedicated to Heroes giving moralizing sermons about how bad and unforgiveable Villains are and a lot more of it were dedicated to Heroes just asking why the Villains are doing what they’re doing, and letting the conversation go from there, fighting defensively and keeping the Villain focused on them as much as they’re capable of doing.  We see the results in the series when Heroes bother trying this—think Deku’s results with Gentle Criminal or Ochaco’s with Toga—so it’s damning that they don’t try it more often.

The likely explanation is that professional heroism as a matter of practice and culture does not tend to bother with de-escalation tactics; after all, while you’re standing there trying to talk to the bank robber, some other Hero could easily be coming in for the take-down, and then they get all the credit and glory and not least the pay.  The whole system is geared towards rewarding fast, uncompromising takedowns, ignoring the possibility of more peaceful, productive resolutions in favor of stopping the Public Disturbance as quickly as possible, because it’s more important to stop random civilians feeling inconvenienced than it is to maybe try addressing a Villain’s issues so they stand down themselves and are less likely to become hardened criminals.

Heck, even Deku really only gets anywhere with Gentle because his first instinct—shutting down the fight right away with a Smash—gets him rebounded off an air trampoline with enough force to knock him back nearly a neighborhood block.  The defensive, evasive nature of Gentle’s power means it’s difficult to hit him directly, and Gentle’s personality was such that he kept talking while Deku was figuring out how to beat him.  That talking was really what gave Deku enough insight to trigger his empathy, so he started returning the conversation in ways that he never did against e.g. Stain, AFO, or in his first fight with Muscular.  He didn’t lead by asking why Gentle was invading his school, though; he just ordered him repeatedly to stop.

Heroes and, in turn, the kids, just don’t default to trying to talk to the Villains.  We see that they can, they’re just not trained to, so it becomes a tactic of last resort, or of distraction, or, finally, as being the result of moments of connection that make them incapable of continuing to ignore the Villains’ humanity.  But when it’s a last resort like that, when they don’t bother asking questions until after the Villains have been pushed past the point of wanting to engage, everything gets so much harder and more dangerous.

Look at Shigaraki and Toga.  When Deku and Ochaco initially encounter them, the kids’ first response is basically just revulsion and terror.  And like, okay, they’re students, newly fledged Hero Course trainees.  They shouldn’t have been facing real life Villains for another two years, at least!  So it’s not surprising that they don’t know what to do and don’t react in the most empathetic manner possible.  I’m not blaming them for that.  But I do want to ask what would have happened if their classes and the Hero culture were more focused on attempting dialogue with Villains.

All Might at USJ writes Shigaraki off as a faker with no real beliefs, and Deku at the mall calls him an incomprehensible cipher, but what if either of them had instead asked Tomura why he was there and what he wanted, then asked follow-up questions from there?  How much earlier might they have found out that Shigaraki had some tragedy in his past that he blamed All Might for not saving him from?  What might finding that out early on have led them to change about how they approached Shigaraki in subsequent encounters?

If Ochaco and Tsuyu had asked Toga why she attacked people, then followed up on whatever answer Toga gave about liking blood with some questions about consent, how much sooner might they have found out that Toga spent her whole life feeling ostracized and repressed because she was convinced by the adults around her that people finding out she craved blood would make her a freak in their eyes?  How might they have engaged with her differently if they realized her parents had been verbally abusing her since she was three years old?

But we also don’t have to stop with U.A. types!  Toga went on the run at only 15—how many times did she have had close scrapes with arrest before the training camp attack?  How many other opportunities were there for someone to talk her down before she made it to the League?  Heck, even all the way to the end, if the green twit hadn’t just insisted on antagonizing Toga one last time for the road—as if he’d learned nothing at all since the mall scene!—how much more easily might Ochaco have been able to engage with her?  Maybe if Toga hadn’t set her mind to embracing Villainy because Deku functionally became yet another person calling her a freak, Ochaco could have gotten to the breakthrough point before Toga stabbed her in the gut?

I’ve been talking about the more sympathetic Villains here so far, but all this goes for the rest of them, too.  Sure, Moonfish is a cannibal serial killer now, but was he always?  Or was there a time when he was just like Toga, a teenager wrestling with quirk-driven hungers who was abused and ostracized for them?  I’ve thought, from time to time, about the idea of a League ageswap AU, where Moonfish is that scared but defiant teenager who’s been pushed over the edge and done something violent, but is not yet past saving.  Conversely, it’s all too easy for me to imagine a Toga who was never captured and never shown any compassion growing into an adult who fully embraced her vampire serial killer reputation and “deviant” hungers to become just as much an alleged monster as Canon Moonfish.

How about Muscular?  Was he always a violent sadist?  Was it impossible that he could have grown up to be anything else?  Could that taste for violence ever have found an outlet other than murder?  Could he have gotten into underground fighting, like Rappa?  Could he have become a Hero like Mirko, always hungry for a better challenge than she’s getting?  Quite frankly, even if Imasuji Gouto was a violent little bully who killed neighborhood pets as a child, he still deserved some kind of intervention—psychological counseling, medication, more acceptable outlets, etc.

How many Villains would HeroAca!Japan be spared if the people in power were more focused on intervention and rehabilitation at every stage of a Villain’s life and career?  Why do Heroes think it’s helpful or necessary to tell everyone in earshot their personal opinion about the unforgivability of their opponents?  Why is it such a problem for some readers when Villain fans point out that a lot of issues could be sidestepped entirely, and the HeroAca world considerably bettered, if the Hero Industry were less focused on showy grandstanding violence, less terrified of the optics of being anything other than maximally harsh on Villains?

That all said, that’s the nuance of what I want when I say I want more talk no jutsu.  But let’s go back to your question—what should Heroes do when they run into Villains who can’t be talked down?

Say that all the interventions and counseling programs have failed, and someone—some mother’s son, some father’s daughter—has grown up to become a Villain.  And not just any Villain, but a really dangerous one.  What do?

Well, I do still want to see Heroes try to talk first, unless they have some reason to believe talking won’t work, like knowledge that knowing that efforts in that direction have already been made and documented in previous encounters between law enforcement and the Villain in question.  There’s also some flex here based on how capable of dragging out an encounter the Heroes on-scene are, and how much danger any bystanders would be in—I would want more effort from someone who can hold their own for long periods like Deku than e.g. Manual.  But like, anyone can yell a few basic questions about motivations to see what sort of response they get.

But say our Hero is up against someone like Muscular, who just laughs off questions like that.  What to do then?

Then arrest him.

Seriously, this is not that complicated.  I’m not asking some run-of-the-mill Hero to get their arms ripped off trying to give battle therapy to Muscular!  But I do want Muscular to get therapy, or at least be offered it, once he’s no longer presenting an immediate threat and those conversations can happen in a safe environment.  And if he doesn’t accept it,[1] I still want him to be treated as humanely as reasonably possible in prison, with the therapy option always on the table if he ever wants to try it.  I also want his prison term (even if it’s for life) to not involve methods of punishment that are considered by the United Nations to constitute torture, like Tartarus’s apparent extended solitary confinement.

1: Perhaps because he would rather rip his own arms off than talk about his feelings or waste any more time getting analyzed by shrinks than he already has; pick your poison based on why and for how long you think he’s been killing people.

I truly do not have any problems, ethically speaking, with Heroes arresting dangerous Villains.  My problem has always been that Hero Society is comprehensively awful in how it treats those who don’t fit neatly into society’s little boxes.  Their social support networks are full of holes, their law enforcement is financially disincentivized from attempting de-escalation, their judicial process is completely invisible, and their prisons are concrete holes that only serve to make people worse, as we can see clearly in the case of people like poor Ending—already unstable when he was first arrested by Endeavor, but so blatantly suicidal when his sentence is up that the literal first thing he does after release is to investigate Endeavor’s personal life so as to find a way to goad Endeavor into killing him.

Now, sure, Heroes are not responsible for prison policies and practices; those are under a completely different part of the criminal justice umbrella.  Nor is it up to them to determine how e.g. financial aid programs or family services work.  But I want Heroes to be better in the ways that they—personally and professionally—can be, and I want them to be cognizant of the flaws in the system they uphold.  I want them to have some basic intellectual curiosity about the Villains they fight—why they turned out like they did, if they can be helped, and what’s going to become of them after the Hero hands them off to the police.

Like, what is All Might’s opinion on Tartarus?  He spent 30+ years fighting for the society that maintains it—does he think or care at all about the fact that some extremely damaged, abused people wind up in there after he gets done beating them up?  And if he doesn’t, what does that say about him?  What would Ochaco have done if Toga had lived and said she’d rather Ochaco kill her than let her go to prison forever?  Does Shouto think now about the family situation of every Villain he fights, or did his ability to care about “some mother’s son” begin and end with his mother’s son?

Obviously, Heroes stop Villains all the time; I’m not asking them to do deep dives into the history and treatment of each and every one.  I just want them to ask the questions they can while the Villain is in front of them, and to care about the state of both the systems that produce Villains and the ones tasked with their care.  I think that when handing people over to state custody, Heroes have a responsibility to be meaningfully confident that the state won’t abuse that custodianship.  If they aren’t—if they truly don’t give a shit about what happens to Villains once the police van door swings closed—then in my view they’re no different than any professional who shirks their duty.

So many people insist that the kids—that Heroes in general—have no duty to care about the Villains, but to me, this view comes off as wildly ignorant about the wide variety of jobs in the real world that do, in fact, confer a duty of care.

If…

…a teacher sees a child with unexplained bruises but doesn’t bother to do their due diligence as a mandatory reporter—

…a prison guard leaves a handcuffed inmate alone in a room with a fellow warden wearing brass knuckles—

…a medic doesn’t speak up when a flight attendant asks if there’s a doctor on the plane—

…a bartender just keeps on serving someone who’s obviously intoxicated and then lets them stumble out the door to the parking lot—

—then they are shirking their duty.  There is no shortage out there of examples of this sort of responsibility, one that you can be held legally responsible for, one that you choose to accept when you sign up for the job.

Heroes are not Samaritans doing the work out of the goodness of their hearts; they’re not vigilantes just trying to keep their own patch safe.  They’re government employees, crucial members of the lawful system they represent.  They have to care—not personally, not individually, but on a professional, structural level, they have to care about the people they fight because the system has to care about those people.  And if the system doesn’t care, the system has to be changed.

I'm segueing here into real life stuff, so let me note as a disclaimer that what follows is based on my cultural familiarity with American policies, as well as periodic research into that of other nations. I don't know what country you live in, rvg, so I can hardly speak to its crime-and-punishment situation. This is all a lefty American's opinion on what reading she has done about American, Japanese, and, in the case of this particular post, Scandinavian criminal justice systems.

That said: in real life, de-escalation works.  One of the things you’ll often see talked about in police reform/abolishment circles is that the police are, quite frankly, doing too much work.  Or, more specifically, they’re doing the wrong kind of work, work for which their training has not prepared them and which other groups would be far better suited to handle.

Here’s an article on offering a campus police force de-escalation training and the resulting 26-36% drop in injuries suffered by both civilians and officers; it also talks about how de-escalation tactics are used by SWAT teams but regarded with suspicion by patrol officers, with this quote being particularly telling: “[Special operations] officers were taught to use time, distance and cover to their advantage.  For patrol officers, time was viewed as 'The more time you give a suspect, the more danger you're in.'”  De-escalation is not the usual training patrol officers get, so it runs against their gut feeling, despite its proven effectiveness—compare this to BNHA’s repeated focus on speed in shutting down altercations.

Here’s an article on the results of a test run of a program in Denver, Colorado, in which police officers were completely removed from response teams to 911 calls about situations considered low risk (drug abuse, trespassing, welfare checks, etc); instead, teams of mental health specialists and paramedics were dispatched.  Reports of nonviolent crime dropped 34% over the course of the time the program ran, and the direct financial cost of the response was four times lower than sending police.

The classic dramatic image of this sort of thing is the hostage situation—and when I looked into it, numerous articles said that containment and negotiation tactics have over a 94% chance of resolving hostage crises without fatalities!

The common element in this sort of thing is refraining from showboating displays of force, loud assertions of power and authority, arguments, moralizing, threats, and so forth.  Far more effective is listening, active attempts to communicate and understand, not throwing one's weight around and not rising to aggression even when provoked.

Meanwhile, on the carceral side of things, restorative justice leads to greater satisfaction from both victims and perpetrators, more feeling that they were listened to and respected, and increased belief that justice was served.  While the evidence on its impact on recidivism is mixed, it certainly doesn’t seem to be less effective than traditional retributive justice, and may well be considerably more effective if combined with programs that focus more specifically on lessening recidivism than restorative justice alone (research is ongoing).

This article on how “cushy” Scandinavian prisons are far more effective at reducing recidivism than their much harsher, bleaker American counterparts argues that a crucial factor in reducing recidivism is minimizing the amount of resentment criminals bear towards the system.  When perpetrators can point at unjust or disproportionate punishments, cruel treatment by wardens, rejection by society, etc, it’s much easier to stew on resentment, to turn nastier themselves, to blame outside factors.  Conversely, when life inside prison is made as much like life outside prison as possible with the key difference being the crucial deprivation of freedom, that resentment is defanged, leading to more more self-reflection and willingness to accept responsibility. And again, it works: Norway is a world leader, with their recidivism rate being a mere 20% compared to the U.S.’s nearly 77%.

The studies and the evidence for this stuff is out there, it’s just fighting this huge, ugly uphill battle against people who care far, far more about inflicting punishment than they do actually improving outcomes.  And so much of that is based on cultural values—what people believe, what values they’re taught. That's where pop culture comes in.

That last article I linked above talks about the efforts made in the U.S. to turn prisons into a for-profit industry, and how demonizing criminals to encourage maximum sentences helps that effort; here’s another on how U.S. police departments rehabilitated the popular image of the police in the early part of the 1900s as bumbling fools or a corrupt gang by consulting on the writing of police procedurals, most crucially starting with Dragnet in 1951, but continuing even today.  Here’s one on a growing concern in Japan about the relationship fostered between TV studios and police when police permission and cooperation is required for filming those popular reality TV police documentary programs.

Mass media and pop culture informs this stuff.  True, Horikoshi is not having to get his work cleared by a police PR department to publish it, but you can see from the above how the police have used and do use mass media to polish up their image; they see it as an effective tool to use because it is.  And the closer to our reality a work of fiction is, the more obviously it resembles the world around us, the more it seems to purport to moral instructiveness, the more true that becomes.  That’s why I criticize BNHA much more harshly than any number of other manga or anime I follow where Good Guys Kill Bad Guys all the time and no one thinks twice about it: because those series aren’t parading the Good Guys out as Japanese citizens working with Japanese police under Japanese law to maintain the rosy image of the Japanese status quo.

I’m long past the point where I’m just rambling, so I’ll wind it down here by pointing out this: Horikoshi also thought that things in his world needed to change.  As much as I loathe BNHA’s endgame and think much of its epilogue is trite shoulder-patting pablum that fails to meaningfully address the setting’s real problems, multiple aspects of Hero Society were at least nominally challenged and subsequently changed: citizen inaction, the dominance of professional heroics as a career path, the diminishment of non-Hero careers, quirk-based discrimination.  As a direct result of the main characters’ efforts to address places where the old system was failing people, the incident rate of Villains is decreasing.

The fact that these changes are made provides in itself the evidence that they needed to be made. I think they need to go further still: my number one greivance with the epilogue is that we've seen all these changes aimed at reducing the numbers of Villains that arise in the first place, and that's nice and all, but we don't see any evidence that the Villains that do arise are treated any differently than they ever were, not even the common purse snatchers, much less the serial killers, the cannibals, and the terrorists.

So, should Heroes have to get themselves nearly killed trying to reform a Villain?  Ideally no, but that assumes a world where Heroes are working in concert with a bunch of other people who are also dedicated to preventing, reforming, or rehabilitating Villains.  If none of that other personnel infrastructure exists, then, well, to paraphrase Nedzu, someone has to take the first step.  Why shouldn’t it be the combat-trained professionals with shounen battle stamina who also happen to be the main characters?

[grifonecoronato]

Hot Take: Oshamir is One-Sided

[Spoilers for The Acolyte]

Star Wars fans know that Osha and Qimir’s relationship is doomed to end tragically. The Sith is a culture that eats itself: the apprentice either kills the master and takes their place, or is killed by the master in the attempt. So even if Qimir kills Darth Plagueis (and we know this won’t happen), he’s just going to have to deal with Osha attempting to kill him one day.

(Side note: I have a sneaking suspicion that Qimir is not actually Sith, since he never calls himself one, he just says "a Jedi like you would call me, Sith." But that's a topic for another day...)

Given what I know about The Acolyte fandom, a doomed romance is hardly something we'll shy away from; we’ll revel in the tragedy of it all, and the sadder it is and the harder we hurt, the more we'll love it!

No, I want to discuss something else; something I don't think many Acolyte fans really want to acknowledge... that the “romance” as shown at the end of series is one-sided: Qimir's side. The last shot of the series implies that Qimir and Osha are ready to face the galaxy together, hand-in-hand, but...

Qimir cares for Osha; Osha does not care for Qimir.

Hey! HEY!

Put your pitchforks down and just hear me out, please!

What Qimir Desires and Fears

Qimir -- his arms muddy, his dark hair slick against his sweaty brow, holding Mae hostage with his lightsaber threatening to ignite through her skull at any moment -- explains his motivation to Sol:

"[I want] freedom: the freedom to wield my power the way I like, without having to answer to Jedi like you. I want a pupil. An acolyte."

Qimir wants acceptance and connection, to be seen and appreciated by someone else. But he mentions several times that he wants a pupil, which by definition would put him in a position of power and authority over someone else, even if it's to help build them up.

This presents an underlying contradiction in what Qimir says he wants, versus what he really wants:

Does he want an equal who sees and cares for him?

Or does he want a pupil that he can teach from a position of power?

The show leaves the answer ambiguous, but nestled in this contradiction lies Qimir's biggest fear.

Qimir fears opening up and being seen. He wears a mask to conceal his identity, but he also hides his character behind his personas: the buffoon, the nervous helper, the murderer, the teacher, the seducer...

From Qimir's point-of-view, he's been betrayed before, and that betrayal left scars...

"I was [a Jedi]. A long time ago... [...] It was a really long time ago."

...so he needs to protect himself from getting so close to someone that they harm him again.

Betrayal and Murder on Khofar

So, on Khofar, when Mae reveals that she was only ever using "The Stranger" for her own revenge, Qimir chooses to kill her.

He could have chosen to run back to his ship and let Mae rot in Jedi jail (or wherever they take murderous Force-users...), rather than risk discovery. Attacking Mae and the Jedi was not a smart move if he feared being seen. But that doesn't matter: he's Sith, and he finds strength in his emotions, including his own fear.

So, he resolved to commit murder against Kelnacca, then slay the whole Jedi posse hunting Mae, and then deal with Mae.

But here's the thing: Qimir likes to frame his actions as self-defence...

"I killed Jedi. I killed those who threaten my existence."

..but this isn't actually true, is it? He didn't need to kill Kelnacca in his home -- Kelnacca, who knew nothing about Qimir, or Indara's death, or Torbin's death, or any recent event really, and who was absolutely no threat to him -- nor didn't need to face off against the entire Jedi posse.

He chose to commit murder and engage in combat because he couldn't stand the fact that Mae used and betrayed him.

Osha Sees Through Qimir

The conversation between Qimir and Osha seems to be him slowly convincing her that the Jedi are terrible, and that she should find her own path to power.

And, of course, that he can be her guide.

After all, he answers nearly every one of her questions with a question of his own, in a kind of socratic method designed to make her question her own judgment.

All the while, Qimir uses a gentle voice and gentle touch to signal that he yearns for her, that he craves her acceptance, that he can help her if she just accept it, that she can trust him.

To make her feel safe, he even lets her hold his lightsaber...! (😏 ...ladies...!)

This seems to work since Osha is engaging him in conversation. But Osha has seen Qimir in action, and knows that there is no possible way for her to defeat him directly.

Osha has the lightsaber, but Qimir holds all the power here.

Despite that, Osha calls him out many times on his choices.

"You killed Jecki."

"You killed Yord."

"I'm not my sister. I'm not so easily corrupted."

Osha never takes her eyes off her objective: to escape Qimir, get back to Sol, and confront her sister for her crimes.

Osha's Fatal Flaw

Mae and Osha are binary opposites in their personalities and motivations. Where Mae is community-minded, Osha is independent. Where Mae values tradition, Osha values freedom. And where Mae tries to repair frayed relationships, Osha does not forgive those who cross her.

It is this last trait that proves to be the fatal flaw that leads her down the Dark Side.

Osha. Does. Not. Forgive.

When Osha first saw Mae as an adult, she shot her!

She didn't try to reason with her. She didn't try to help her escape. She didn't say "how did you survive?" or "I missed you."

She just fired.

But you know what? Maybe emotions were running high, right? The moment was very heated, so spontaneous violence like that could just be a one-off thing, surely?

Except that the second time they meet, Osha tries to arrest Mae without listening to her story.

And the third time they meet, Osha is downright raging and trying to kill Mae...

... which is a little confusing to Mae because she's trying to help Osha!

And it is Osha's inability to forgive which leads her to committing her first murder, when she finally learns that Sol had lied to her for years.

Osha falls to the Dark Side all by herself, of her own volition.

Doomed Romance

After she kills Sol, Qimir continues to use gentle touch with Osha, pursuing his seduction of her.

But when Mae asked Osha "what do you want, Osha?", she didn't reply with "I want to be with Qimir."

She said:

"Let [Mae] go, and I will train with you."

It was a bargain, for which she offered Qimir what he wanted most: a pupil who accepts him.

Osha is signalling that she cares for him. But she doesn't.

Osha cares for her sister. And Osha does not forgive.

She remembers that Jecki and Yord were her friends, and they had nothing to do with Sol's crimes. They were innocent, and he killed them when he went out of his way to engage the Jedi in combat.

Osha is playing Qimir, just as Mae did. She will learn from him to use the Force, and then take those teachings to fulfil her own goal of rescuing Mae and restoring her memories.

Qimir will learn the truth of their relationship one day, and on that day, like all Sith masters and apprentices, he will kill her, or she will kill him.

(because that is not the face of a happy couple)

[matan4il]

Update post:

Today, there was an attempted terrorist attack at the Meggido junction in Israel. The hammer-wielding terrorist was thankfully caught before he managed to carry out his planned crime. He's 17 years old, and you can bet the anti-Israel crowd will use his age as "proof" that Israel arrests and jails kids, without mentioning what these minors are being imprisoned for, instead of condemning those who brainwash children into carrying out terrorist attacks. Just one reminder out of many such attacks, in 2018 a 17 years old Palestinian terrorist killed a 45 years old Israeli man, so please no one pretend like minors are harmless, or ignore that when teenagers commit harmful crimes in other countries, they're arrested there, too.

It was obvious that some people have made up their minds about the incident with the WCK workers even before the investigation started, so I expect its conclusions will get perverted and ignored, too.

That same anti-Israel crowd will also ignore (unless they'll use it as ammunition against the Jewish state, by actually claiming that Israel, a nation still reeling from the genocide of Jews, and the continued killing of its citizens by antisemitic terrorists, is intentionally killing its own, because there's just no cartoon villain crime they don't think they can pin on the Jewish state) the fact that there's another IDF investigation that's been released today, which said Efrat Katz was accidentally killed by a helicopter rocket while trying to stop the Hamas terrorists who were kidnapping her into Gaza. The helicopter pilot didn't realize at the time that there were hostages in the car as well, this was only deduced later, from the testimonies of other people kidnapped by Hamas. In other words, as horrific as this truth is, accidents do happen during war. The worst, most tragic ones, and we can't undo them, no matter how much we want to. But they happen to every army, and are not actual evidence of intentional killings, or intentional war crimes. Just like someone having been killed is in general not enough to prove a murder took place.

This is 68 years old Efrat Katz.

The WCK incident report is now out, and I am linking the source publication, so that no possible bias can be attributed to re-phrasing by journalists from any side.

As was the initial impression (for those who don't simply want to believe in every evil, dehumanizing lie about Israel), it turned out to be a tragic accident, that entailed many factors, first and foremost misidentification, in part due to Hamas. As I've pointed out more than once, Hamas steals humanitarian aid. Due to this, the WCK operation had hired armed guards to protect it from looting. Tragically, one armed guard was identified without question on one of the WCK's trucks, and was mistaken for a Hamas terrorist, while at least one other armed terrorist was also identified and thought to be in the convoy's private cars. The vehicles did have the WCK sticker on their roofs, but at night, that wasn't visible to the IDF soldiers. Since the whole convoy was misidentified, the drone fired more than once at more than one vehicle, but this is linked to the same single mistaken identification. It means that even though this shouldn't have happened, the soldiers who fired at the convoy really did believe they were targeting terrorists, which is their mission.

The IDF has expressed sorrow over this incident more than once, has taken responsibility, has conducted an investigation, and following its results, two high ranking officers have been removed from their posts, and two more were severely reprimanded, which means this will be in their file forever, and will influence any future decisions made about their service.

This is 72 years old Nadjda Astreks.

She lives in the southern town of Ofakim with her husband, Alexnder. In the above photo, she's pointing to the bullet holes in her kitchen, left by the terrorists on Oct 7. The couple don't have a bomb shelter in their own home, so they had to go out to a public one when the rocket attack began at 6:30 in the morning. When they returned, is when the terrorists shooting at the buildings began, and the confused couple didn't know what to think or do at first. They went out, and saw the girl from across the street falling. Alexander approached her, only to see a pool of blood, and realize that she had been shot to death. A soldier who was running in the direction of the terrorists told them to go back to the neighborhood bomb shelter, where they ended up hiding for hours, without food and water, or proper toilettes, without knowing what's going on outside for a big part of that. It was fellow residents from their neighborhood who faced the terrorists and saved the people there, but the first ambulance for the injured was only able to make it there at three in the afternoon. Nadjda said that even much later, she's still having trouble eating, whenever she thinks of everything that happened on the day of the massacre.

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

[bnhaobservation]

BNHA and Japanese law, aka why Enji and Hawks can't go to jail

I think it’s fair to dislike BNHA ending.

However when I see posts saying they don’t like it because neither Hawks nor Endeavor ended up in jail I think it’s important to remember that, in Japan, when BNHA was written:

Law enforcers can murder escaping criminals provided said criminals were judged dangerous enough (just so you know Japan had been asked to revise its domestic legislation on police use of firearms to ensure it complies with international law because currently it still doesn’t).

Although domestic violence is forbidden by 2001, Japanese law does not provide for domestic violence in terms of prosecutorial considerations. At the time BNHA took place the police wasn’t even obliged to investigate when ‘domestic disputes’ were reported, and the most they would do was offer counseling. The law has been changed in 2024 and things are a little better (even though Japanese law STILL does not provide for domestic violence in terms of prosecutorial considerations police is encouraged to investigate and the court may consider to impose penalties for crimes related to domestic violence aka assault and injury), but Japanese women still complain that, despite the improvements, it’s extremely hard to have their abusers punished.

Parents were banned from physically punishing their children solely in 2019 (BNHA started in 2014, Vol 21 was still printed in 2018, meaning the Todoroki saga was established PRIOR to this) following several fatal cases of abuse dealt out in the name of discipline however Japanese law does not provide for this in terms of prosecutorial considerations. The most that will be done is to take the children away if they fear for their life.

Abusive training (which includes beating, name calling, humiliation, overworking…) is not forbidden (although guidelines recommend not to do it) and, of course, as a consequence, Japanese law does not provide for abusive training in terms of prosecutorial considerations. People are protesting about this (notable protests had been done during the Olympic games) as people had also committed suicide over this. By the end of BNHA as far as I know, nothing was done.

Children of third-year elementary school age and below can be left unsupervised. A 2023 attempt at changing it due to unsupervised children dying was met with severe criticism nationwide so that in the end nothing was done.

Arranged marriages (as in parents picking up a candidate for their child to marry) are legal. The children have however the power to refuse a partner presented to them by the parents. Also, when organizing an arranged marriage it’s fair for both parts to investigate the other party and check if the family doesn’t have undesirable genetic traits (mental illness cases, lack of pure Japanese blood, relations with people belonging to group considered impure) so that the children won’t inherit them.

Now, I oversimplified what are in truth a lot of regulations and rules expressed by the laws and compared Hero training to sport training but, long story short, Enji and Hawks don’t escape jail because they’re rich, because they’re high in ranking, because they have connections or bribed someone. It’s just because law doesn’t consider punishing them and law wouldn’t punish them even if they were commoners like, let’s say, Kotarou or Himiko’s parents.

Also, Horikoshi is basically showing the negative consequences of all the above mentioned points, which can be viewed as a subtle way to criticize such things.

So, again, it’s fine if you hate BNHA ending, but please, don’t think Horikoshi is just letting those guys break law without consequences just because. If they don’t end in jail for such things it’s exactly because people normally don’t do it and that’s why we’ve the League criticizing society for how wrong it is, not just their abusive parents. Society enabled the abuse and you might very well see the League as a representation for the Toyoko Kids and the Jōhatsu.

Also, just in case, I'm not Japanese and just saying Japanese law doesn't think they should be punished, doesn't mean I agree. Just that I don't expect the story would follow my country's law.

If you want to know more about Japanese law please, research about them. It'll give you a better perspective on why some things in BNHA go the way they go.

[lady-boketto]

Gaming Headcanons (Call of Duty)

A/n: This is not canon at all and I thought it would be fun to think about what kind of games and gamer the CoD men would be

Price:

Price does not have a lot of gaming experience but he likes to be included in game nights

He's the one who rages the most when he is playing games (but it's mostly when he is playing multiplayer games)

Price prefers board games rather than digital ones (likes the atmosphere that is created when gathering around the table with close friends to sit down and have some fun it)

Don't ever ask him to play poker because he can and will kick your ass (unless you are a poker legend or you manage to cheat without him noticing)

He has his own personal chess board to play with (it's a nice quality wooden one that's not too big so that he can bring it with him to pass time when he doesn't have access to the internet)

Gaz:

A true master of gaming, like there's no game out there that this man won't be good at

Also kind of a sore loser when someone finally manages to beat him, Gaz kind of lets out this big sigh and crosses his arms over his chest while looking off into the corner but he doesn't stay this way for long, it more of a 'in the moment' situation (Gaz is more frustrated that he wasn't good enough to win this round but knows there will be other chances)

Gaz equally enjoys playing digital games as much as he does when he plays a board game (his favorite board game to play is monopoly, since he can get very strategic while he plays and is very easily annoyed when he's sitting in monopoly jail)

Soap:

Johnny is the person who tries to tell stories over the mic only to realize that he's been on mute for the past ten minutes (the rest of the group was wondering why he was so quiet all of the sudden)

He also has a Nintendo switch ( He has a Nintendo lite in the color blue) but he loves playing Mario Kart or any of the Mario Parties and loves it when you get frustrated when he steals first place or star from you (he gives his famous laugh and pecks your cheek while telling you how much he loves you while committing the vile act)

Trolls/griefs a ton. He thinks it's funny when other players scream curse words at him and never misses an opportunity to provoke them even further. (he laughs his ass off when they rage quit or if he has to read their attempt to argue back at him in the game chat)

He actually likes spending multiple hours on a game. Grinding to get the best stuff just so he can brag about it the next day.

Soap also does occasionally broadcast his game play with others (because he likes to look back on the memories when he feeling alone or that he just needs something to cheer his mood up a little)

Ghost:

Ghost is the type of person who would say they only play multiplayer games but likes to secretly play the cozy single player games like animal crossing and Stardew Valley (he rant to you about how unfair Isabella is when rating his island a mere 3 stars or how he often forgets to go back to his house before 2 am because he was too focused on the monsters and loot in the mines.)

Even though he doesn’t mind online multiplayer games to play with the rest of squad 141, he also doesn’t mind to play co-op games with you (his favorites to play are it takes two or playing some version of call of duty zombies on a split screen, he takes pride in protecting you in co-op games or he shyly admits a thank you when you revive him)

He just likes strategic games in general, you will find him often playing chess with Price ( when you watch them play, they always take the longest time possible to make their move, it seems like they both go through every possible move until they find the best position to move forward but the game is always interrupted by something that needs one or the other’s attention)

[the-killer-princess]

Dark Cacao kingdom Incorrect quotes

Affogato : When I was your age- 

Caramel Arrow , mocking Affogato : When I was your height. 

Affogato : 

Affogato : Listen here you little shit-

Caramel Arrow : Affogato  is not a morning person. Or a night person. There’s really only about seven minutes a day you are fun to be around. 

Affogato : The best part is you never know when they’re coming.

Affogato : Maybe the true treasure was friendship all along. But I hope not, because I can’t spend friendship on new clothes

Dark Choco: Kill me nowwwww. 

Crunchy Chip: Sorry, no can do. I need your help with my homework.

Dark Cacao : Hey, are you free? 

Affogato : No, I’m expensive.

Dark Cacao : You’ve got to learn to love yourself. 

Dark Choco: But don't you hate yourself. 

Dark Cacao : Yeah, but this is about you. Stay focused.

Affogato : If you want my advice- 

Crunchy Chip: No offense but you’re the last person I want relationship advice from. You tried to kill your significant other. Multiple times. 

Affogato : First off, that was before we started dating. Secondly, they’ve also tried to kill me. 

Dark Cacao : It’s true. It was mutually attempted murder.

Crunchy Chip, bleeding out on the ground: Blood loss? No, I know exactly where it is.

Crunchy Chip: I’ve been here in jail so long I think I’ve lost my mind. 

Crunchy Chip: The days turn into weeks, weeks turn into months. 

Crunchy Chip: How long have I been in here now? Almost a year? 

Dark Choco: This is Monopoly.

Crunchy Chip: What’s up with you? 

Affogato : What do you mean? 

Crunchy Chip: You’ve been nice and helpful and considerate all day. What’s your game?

Dark Choco: I'm gonna get my pilot's license. I've already got a driver's license and a cosmetology license, that's two of the big five licenses. 

Affogato : The big five licenses? 

Dark Choco: Driver's license, cosmetology license, pilot's license, fishing license, and… license to kill! I can't wait to get that one.

Affogato , trying to comfort Dark Choco: What's the problem? Anxiety? Low self-esteem? Obsessive thoughts of random arson? I've been there.

Crunchy Chip: Jail is no fun. I’ll tell you that much. 

Caramel Arrow : Oh, you’ve been? 

Crunchy Chip: Once. In Monopoly.

Caramel Arrow : *sees someone doing something stupid* 

Caramel Arrow : What an idiot. 

Caramel Arrow : *realizes it's Crunchy Chip* 

Caramel Arrow : Wait, that's MY idiot!

Affogato : Crunchy Chip, no. 

Crunchy Chip: Crunchy Chip, yes.

Crunchy Chip: *coughs blood* 

Affogato : Don't die, Crunchy Chip! 

Crunchy Chip: Don't tell me what to do!

Crunchy Chip: I can’t believe all these people are wearing black. black is supposed to be my thing, they’re all just posers. 

second watcher : Crunchy Chip, for the last time, we’re at a funeral.

second watcher : How long do you reckon it’ll be until Affogato  finally snaps and commits murder? 

Caramel Arrow : I’ve been going through life assuming it’s already happened at some point and it’s just that no one was ever able to trace it back to them.

Affogato : Yeah, I’m a false prophet, but you believed me, so whose fault is it really that we’re in this mess?

[nonclassyparty]

man with the plan (j.wy) - chapter 3

Summary: "Don't forget Pretty, I'm serving life plus one. So if I get busted for attempted escape, I'll throw in a homicide in there as well with no problem, that’s like a parking ticket to me." When your brother ends up in jail for a murder he didn't commit, the only thing left for you to do is to find a way to break him out. But after a perfect plan is set in motion, you don't expect a romantic variable to get added into the equation.

Pairing: jung wooyoung x fem. reader, jeong yunho x reader (but if u squint)

Status: in progress

Word count: 11.2k

Warnings: cursing, mentions of blood, violence, death

Taglist: @tinyjuni @hazysan @atinytinaa @tenebrisirae @doggopepper @dazzlingstarrs @lavishloving @cherrypandora @silentcry329 @jeagerist-20 @myunvillage @manipulatedstars @bitteryu @maru-matt @bubbleteakittyy @joonsthethicc

my main masterlist // playlist // moodboard // ao3

chapter 2 // masterlist // chapter 4

Chapter 3; Where have all the good men gone and where are all the gods?

"I went through all of it five times by now, every appeal is denied, I keep getting brushed to the side every time I just so much as mention it to anyone in the courthouse," Yeosang sighs, rubbing the bridge of his nose in frustration with one hand while he twirls his drink with the other. "I'm telling you, Y/N, someone made sure the lack of evidence was brushed under the rug, they were stressing his previous record, you saw it yourself that day in court!"

You nod silently, eyes falling to the table filled with, by now, empty plates in front of you both as your voices carried over the pleasant jazz music playing in the background of the restaurant.

"Someone wants Jongho to go down for this and made sure that he never sees the light of day again outside a prison cell." He continues and your gaze flies to his face which was filled with anguish.

Jongho and Yeosang loved each other once upon a time. Highschool sweethearts that you imagined would stay together through thick and thin.

When everything between them fell apart, Yeosang claims it was Jongho's fault and Jongho claims it was the opposite (you think it was both of them), you barely saw Yeosang again unless it was at a crowded college bar somewhere, a  smile of familiarity exchanged between the two of you but nothing other than that.

But he was the person Jongho called when he needed an attorney and Yeosang did his best, you can vouch for him, but there is so much a simple attorney can do against people at a much higher security clearance.

And yet, after doing everything that was in his power even still stubbornly investigating the case when all was said and done, his guilt is palpable.

"No murder weapon, no actual motive, nothing except the footage from the security cameras of him walking up the front steps of the house. It doesn't make any sense, it's obvious he was already dead when Jongho walked into his office." Yeosang runs another frustrated hand through his hair before taking a sip of his drink.

"I know." Is all you can quietly say, why? 

Because you've spent a good portion of the last eighteen months trying to drill the same thing into the heads of anyone that was willing to listen. Judges, attorneys, police officers...and it all fell onto deaf ears so now, your brother was stuck in a cell for life for something he didn't do unless you do something about it.

Which you are.

"I mean...it has to be someone from the higher ups orchestrating all of this." He voices out with a frown before scoffing, "The governor went on live television and said if the death penalty was still allowed, Jongho would be the first one sent to the chair. Who says that nowadays?! With so little proof..." He trails off, eyes falling downwards in defeat.

Your hands clench at the mention of the governor, the image of his precious son in his scrubs and white coat coming to mind. You wonder if Jung Wooyoung sees the actions of his father as something admirable or does he detest him for it.

"Do you visit him regularly?" Yeosang breaks you out of your thoughts with his quiet question and you straighten up in your seat, hands wrapping around your own glass of gin.

"Yeah, every Friday." You answer with a faint smile, deciding to retain the information that you see Jongho every morning as you work at the prison, from Yeosang for the time being.

"H-How is he? Does he look okay?" He asks, fingers playing with the napkin laying on his empty plate.

"He's fine." You respond with a solemn sigh before forcing a smile, "He bulked up a lot. I guess when there's not much to do, working out gets fun."

"Ah." He nods, eyes still on the napkin.

"You should visit him sometime." You state lightly, knowing that your brother would love to see him but Yeosang just shakes his head.

"I don't think that's a good idea." Yeosang chuckles humorlessly, scratching his nose, "Besides, Soobin and I got engaged and...well, I don't know how to tell him that. It's just best if I stay away."

You nod in response with a heavy heart, knowing that your brother deep down always hoped he and Yeosang would get back together once Jongho got his head screwed on right and stopped messing around. That train has passed now.

"I get it." You tell him, not wanting Yeosang to think that you resent him for anything regarding your brother. While he may be Jongho's ex-boyfriend that's getting married to someone else pretty soon, Yeosang has been there for you almost your whole life. 

When all you had was your brother to lean on, there was also pretty and quiet Yeosang with his gentle nature and short but meaningful words by your side.

"I'll keep working on his case though, I'm not letting it go that easily." Those words hit a nerve inside your brain and you bite your lip.

"I don't think you should." You express quietly, avoiding his questioning gaze.

"Yeosang, whoever the people that did this to him are, they're dangerous. They have connections and they obviously have the power, snooping around could put you in danger." You disclose, shifting uneasily under his hard stare but it had to be said, "I don't want for something to happen to you. And Jongho wouldn't want that either."

"So, what? We should all just let him rot in jail?" Yeosang questions, cheeks heating up in anger as his eyes shift into a glare towards you.

"I'm not saying that-"

"Then what exactly are you saying, Y/N? Because he's not getting out any other way." He utters before declaring; "Just because you gave up on him, doesn't mean I have to as well."

The harsh words make you flinch, reminding you of the night you found out Jongho was taken to custody and everything you said to him.

The only time you've ever given up on your brother were the ten minutes between speaking to him for the first time in jail and before speaking to Yeosang afterwards and for the last year and then some, you've been trying to repent for the words you've said to him that night.

Yeosang's way of getting Jongho out includes legalities, courthouses, attorneys, re-listening over and over again to people calling your brother a murderer and in the end losing because you're up against bigger fish. You've given up on that.

Jongho is getting out, Yeosang, just not your way but mine.

-

The cold air nipped at the skin of your cheeks as you inconspicuously made your way across the gravel towards the wired fence surrounding the yard.

As the days go by, you're starting to learn the routine of the correction officer's occupying the guards room near the yard so by now, you had the gist of when it was safe to walk closer to the fence without anyone seeing you.

Anyone but the inmates themselves that is but so far, apart from a couple of catcalls and whistles, they didn't seem top pay much attention to you.

Your brother would wait by the same corner every morning, back turned to you until he heard your footsteps, this morning was no different except this time; Jongho wasn't alone.

"Gentlemen." You give them a sarcastic greeting, eyes stuck on the back of his cellmate who you have yet to exchange a single word with.

"Hey." Jongho nods at you with squinted eyes and when he notices your eyes on his new 'friend', this Coin guy, he nudges him with his elbow.

The guy turns around and you gauge his face properly for the first time.

He's taller than Jongho with messy hair hidden under a beanie, sharp eyes and plump lips that were currently twisted in a scowl as he glances back at you. "Hey."

His voice is deeper than you expected.

"I'm Y/N."

"Yeah, I know." He leans on the fence with one shoulder, eyes always on lookout towards the yard. "Coin."

"Your real name." You tell him, skipping formalities and Jongho glances between the two of you, already opening his mouth to reprimand you most likely. You're quicker, not backing down. "I don't deal with stupid nicknames, your real name."

Coin glances back at you, annoyance evident in his eyes before he looks towards Jongho and returns his gaze back to the yard, sighing with an eye roll. "Song Mingi."

You let out a breath of relief, making sure to remember it while Jongho mumbles something about finally knowing his real name.

"How are you doing? With the digging?" You mutter, stuffing your hands in your pockets as you try to inch closer to the two of them without anyone noticing anything out of the ordinary.

"I can't get through the wall leading to the tunnels." Jongho mutters back, foot kicking at the grass below him. You frown, glancing over your shoulder to check if the door to the guards room is still closed shut.

"What do you mean? I told you how to do it-"

"No, I know how to do it but I just don't have the time." Your frown only grows. They're locked up, in your books, all they have is time.

His cellmate, Mingi notices your confusion and he answers your unspoken question; "Count."

Your brows raise at that as you glance at Jongho, who only nods in agreement.

"Constantly coming back up for count won't let me do what I need to do to break through that wall." Your brother voices out.

"You don't understand, I planned this on a schedule." You explain to them as quietly as you can, worry displayed on your features, "You have as much time as I'm here which is a month, two at most if I drag it out but it's less likely because my boss will pull me out of here as fast as she can. If you're not through that wall by the end of the week, we'll be behind on schedule and that means you're not getting out of here."

Both of them stay silent, glancing at each other before their eyes fall down to the grass with no obvious ideas of a solution.

You sigh in frustration, already sensing a bigger problem surging up from all of this. "Is there a way to stop count from happening?"

Mingi looks at you like you've lost your mind. "There are three things certain in life; death, taxes and count." 

You pursue your lips, looking over your shoulder to check the guards room all while working your brain for a possible solution.

"Well, actually..." Mingi starts again after a moment of contemplation and both you and Jongho swiftly turn your heads to him in anticipation, "The only way to stop count is...." 

He trails off, looking over his shoulder. The two of them were huddled by the furthest corner of the fence, the rest of the inmates too busy either playing basketball or working out.

Mingi shakes his head, "Never mind, it's a bad idea."

Jongho cocks an eyebrow, "Worse than the idea of losing Jiyeon to your cousin?"

Mingi gives him a sharp glare which seems rather intimidating but if Jongho says it so freely than you think it's safe to say that Mingi is all talk and no action, he's rather harmless.

He presses his lips, turning to you with a sober expression on his face; "Lockdown. We get Gen Pop locked for a day and he'll have all the time he needs, there's no count, the CO's don't even come around."

Your eyes light up at the genuinely good idea, half thrilled at the solution and the other half at the fact that this Song Mingi guy has half the brain to come up with excellent ideas after all.

Your brother wasn't stuck with someone completely daft at least.

"Okay." You nod, hope filling you up to the brim. You glance between them, "How do you get a lockdown?"

Jongho turns to Mingi again who seems to be deep in thought as he fiddles with the beanie on his head. He straightens out after a moment.

"Can you get to the prison's heating system unit?" He asks you and you take a quick moment to think, trying to picture the blueprints in your head.

"Maybe."

"You want to get a lockdown?" Mingi glances over his shoulder before huddling closer to the two of you, "You'd better get the inmates riled up. And if you wanna piss of the meat in concrete, turn up the heat."

Your eyes sparkle, Song Mingi will most definitely be useful. "Got it."

"Y/N, you better be fucking careful." Jongho murmurs but you're already stepping away from the fence.

"Don't worry." Is all you tell him and with one last rushed smile, you start heading back inside the building where your office is located.

-

You carefully glue a piece of wood to the beautiful model in front of you, the warden is quietly working next to you as well, gently touching it like it's about to crumble under his calloused fingertips.

"You know, my wife and I didn't have kids but if we did, I think I'd wish for them to be something like you." His confession takes you by surprise as your head turns to him sitting on the uncomfortable chair next to you.

Well, he's about fifteen years too late for that, where was he when you and Jongho were getting moved from one foster home to another?

Still, the confession makes you chuckle softly, cheeks warming up although the guilt you feel is already unbearable. You didn't expect to spend any time with this man.

And the warden, you have to admit, was a nice man. A good man.

You can't really say you could imagine him as your father because you still have memories of your real father and none of them are good but...maybe a grandfather.

"That came out of nowhere, forgive me but I just wanted you to know that I really appreciate you helping me with this." He chuckles, holding another piece to the model and keeping his hand there to make sure it stays intact. "And I know it must be awfully hard to know your brother is so close yet you can barely speak to him. I backed into some information about you, how he is your only family left."

You swallow, a hand that was holding the tiny wooden pieces falling into your lap as you turn to him, not awfully fond of speaking about this to anyone in this place. 

It means opening up and opening up meant getting attached.

And you can't get attached to anyone here. Not when you're knowingly using them.

The warden must take your silence for something else because he continues with a deep sigh, "What I'm trying to say is that I've seen you speaking to him through the fence and...in a way, I'm deciding to turn a blind eye to it."

Your lips part at that, blood rushing to your face at the thought of getting caught.

"Partly because Jongho is well behaved in there. He's only had one misconduct and that was when he first was brought it and partly, it's because, as I said, I can't imagine what it must feel like to see your brother in a place like this..."

Your eyes burn, half from the pure gratefulness and half from complete and utter guilt that weighs you down.

The warden is a good man. And all you've done so far is feed him lies with a deceiving smile on your face that leaves him blind to your true selfishness.

"Thank you." You whisper, in complete honesty with a smile, fingers playing with the small pieces of wood in your lap.

"Don't mention it." The warden shakes his head, he hesitates for a moment with his eyes set on the model in front of him before; "I followed his trial closely and my personal opinion is that he was just a man that found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time..."

You almost gasp at that, shocked that he'd actually say it out loud. Many people might share his opinion or not but they're not allowed to discuss it.

"But my jurisdiction doesn't go beyond the walls of this compound, so I'll do my best to make sure he's treated fairly at least in here."

There's the guilt again.

You shove it down, simply murmuring another 'thank you' in the sincerest possible way you can muster up before going back to work.

-

Your eyes follow Doctor Jung as he moves across the room, carrying with himself a tray with the insulin shot and your mouth can't help but perk up when he catches your eyes and looks at you in question, biting back a smile of his own.

This game you play with him is starting to become a bit too fun.

"What?" He asks as his brows furrow as though he wants to whine but refrains himself from doing so, eyes focused on preparing your shot as you roll the sleeve of your shirt up. You chuckle lightly.

You already poured the corrosive down the grate for today, you can relax for at least this once around him.

"You wear glasses." You comment simply, eyeing the thick black frames sitting at the bridge of his nose. He glances at you, lips still pressed together, still trying to hold back a smile, as he takes your arm and runs a damp cotton ball over it.

"My eyes were too irritated for contacts this morning." He shrugs with practiced ease but you notice a little shyness to his expression, as if he's embarrassed of his glasses.

He shouldn't be. They look good on him.

"Long night?" You ask with playful eyes and he hums in question, eyes trained on the needle sinking into your skin, "Irritated eyes. Were you up doing something til the late hours."

The insinuation hangs heavy in the air and he stays quiet, as he pulls the needle out.

"If by long night you mean laying on my couch with a box of Chinese food watching re-runs of Friends, then yeah, I had a blast." He answers with a sheepish smile, glancing up at you as he presses a clean cotton ball to your hand which you hold instead of him, your fingers brushing in the process.

You hum, teasingly cocking an eyebrow, "So, no girlfriend?"

His eyes catch yours again and for the first time, he looks like you're close to driving him over the edge as he pokes the inside of his cheek with his tongue.

Wooyoung shakes his head, lips pulling in a smirk as he almost returns your flirtation, "No, no girlfriend."

You don't expect a guy like him to be single. Even though it goes in your favor, still, it's a bit surprising.

He seemed like the type who got along with women amazingly, you didn't hear much differently from others.

But Jung Wooyoung seems awfully shy in your presence. Always slightly avoiding your eyes before a great moment of braveness and then an immediate retreat back to his shell.

He just doesn't fit the profile of the serial womanizer and party animal you've been told about when you tried to ask around about him to your old college friends.

So, either Jung Wooyoung is one heck of an actor and all of this was a performance to get into your pants (and you'd be a hypocrite to judge him for it) or you made him shy.

And if it was the latter, well, it's fucking adorable.

You only nod in response as you roll the sleeve of your shirt down, glancing at the grate to your right and feeling the empty tubes in the pockets of the coat digging into your back as it hangs over the chair you're sitting on.

Just a little bit more, and you'll be able to break through the water pipe below the grate.

"You?" Wooyoung's voice brings you back to reality and you turn to him in question as you're too caught up in your own agendas to keep up with the conversation. He sighs, albeit a little embarrassed before he jokingly asks; "Do we have any admirers?"

"Me?" You ask, innocently pointing to yourself before nodding, "Oh, yeah. I have six of them. Currently looking for a seventh so I can have one for each day of the week."

"Ah." His brows raise, a smile threatening to appear as he's obviously catching onto the fact that you're bullshitting him, "You have your hands full, then."

"I manage." You shrug keeping up the act for a couple of seconds more before letting out a chuckle which he joins into, "No, I didn't really have time for any of that in the last year or so."

He cocks his head to the side, observing you with a small smirk, "Career woman, huh?"

You chuckle bitterly because he truly has no idea.

"Yeah, I guess you could say that."

Your eye contact lasts longer than necessary and you snap yourself out of it, noticing that you've been just sitting and talking to him for a long moment after the shot was done and sleeve was down.

You clear your throat, breaking the eye contact and standing up from the chair.

"Well, I'll see you tomorrow?"

"Same place, same time." He smiles and it causes these pretty little indents to appear on his cheeks that do something ridiculous to your chest.

"Right." You nod, bidding him another smile and you're out the door.

-

You fix the mirror in front of you to align with the mirror behind you hanging from the door of the old closet in your office, your shirt unbuttoned and hanging off of one shoulder as you adjust the mirror so you can see the tattoos on your back.

When you locate the lines that are supposed to represent where the heating system runs through the compound, you carefully trace them with your eyes down to the one common square where they all connect on your lower back.

With a nod to yourself, you quickly get dressed, close the closet shut and make your way to the staff bathrooms on the first floor, right next to the infirmary.

Getting near the prison's heating system doesn't present itself as much of a problem, all you do is kick open the grate leading to the air vents in the locked bathroom stall and crawl up by climbing onto the toilet seat.

The heating room isn't much further away, you crawl through the vents until you reach where it's supposed to be and after stilling for a moment to check if it was empty, you lift up the grate and carefully slink down until your feet touch the dirty floors.

The room is stuffy and dark but it's empty, not a soul besides the scarily looking furnace in the middle of the room. You approach it with caution and check the thermostat located on the pipes near it.

Before reaching out and cranking the temperature to the highest possible setting.

With hurried movements, you carefully climb back up the air vent using a rusty shelf for extra boost and return the same way you got in.

Once you're back in your office, slightly sweaty from all the exercise, you can't help but smile lightly at the intense rise in temperature already that you have to crank open the window in your office to make a little bit of a breeze.

If it must be this hot already in here, then you can't imagine what it must be like in the cells.

-

"Alright that's it, lockdown! Everyone back to your cells!" Jongho's head picks up at the voice yelling from down below amongst the ruckus and shouts of the agitated inmates. They've been going at it for the last hour, calling out for some AC until one of them snapped and started causing trouble with the correction officers which inevitably made a dozen of them act up as a result, "I said everyone back to your cells! Now convicts! Lockdown!"

Jongho's eyes light up in relief, he was sweating buckets because of your little trick but it just might be worth it.

"Damn, your sister really turned that furnace up." Mingi mutters from the top bunk, sweat gliding down his brow as he jumps down the bed and watches the cell door glide shut as the yelling outside continues. "Well, you got your lockdown bro, do your thing."

Jongho shakes his head, "You're coming with me."

"What?!" Mingi's head whips back from where he was fixing the sheet up to protect their cell from the outer view. "No, no, no. I'm the lookout man, that's it."

"It's a two man job, I need your help to kick down the bricks." He explains to his doubtful cellmate, already kneeling down and using the bolt which you told him to get from the benches in the yard to unscrew the fitting holding the small metal sink attached to the wall. "It'll be quick, then you can come back out."

Jongho moves the metal sink to the side and the hole which he broke through a day ago is revealed and he slinks through it with Mingi cautiously following behind him before pulling the sink back in it's place from the outside, to cover the hole in the wall.

Mingi gasps in wonder at the small tunnel they find themselves in, darkness surrounding them from all sides.

"How do you know which side we're supposed to go?" He whispers to Jongho who is already moving through the darkness with practiced ease.

"Y/N told me." He simply responds, never questioning his sister's directions. "After we break through this wall we'll be connected to the main tunnel and have all the access we need."

"And then what?" Mingi asks, following behind him careful not to trip up on any of the rubble beneath his feet.

"And then...we wait for what Y/N tells us to do next." Jongho says reaching the main wall where he was already picking apart the mort on the bricks.

"You really trust her? That she can pull this off?" Mingi asks after a moment of silence, already joining Jongho's side to pick at the bricks with a nail he found on the ground.

Mingi's obvious distrust in his sister made Jongho angry.

Maybe he didn't think you were competend because you were related to him and to be fair, Jongho was in prison. But you two couldn't be more different.

Where Jongho only excelled in sports and woodshop (when the teachers didn't piss him off), you were amazing at everything. Math and physics being a highlight in your academic records, a structural engineer later on as a career.

That wouldn't mean much to a stranger. Nowadays, anyone could graduate college.

But Jongho knew you. And he knew just how smart and resourceful you could get with just about anything, especially if you put all of yourself in. Which with this project in particular, he could tell you have.

Jongho turns to him with a serious expression. "I trust her with my life."

Mingi gives a doubtful shake of head, muttering while he punches through the wall, "You're trusting her with my life as well."

The bricks slowly start to give out.

-

You stare at the devil's face which you traced from the side of your arm onto a piece of paper, folding it and gliding it in the pocket of your jeans, making sure everything you need is tucked into the back of your jeans before you walk down to the entrance of the building, nodding at the officers standing by the front door and make way to the sick bay located near B-building.

The sick bay is filled to the brim with inmates suffering from heat exhaustion. Wooyoung is working in a rush, tending to each new patient that they bring in with his face pinched in concentration, not even noticing you passing by.

Which is good. Logistically, you have no business being in the sick bay but it was the only building connected by underground tunnels to A-building where your brother's cell was and the chaos of the self-induced heatwave was a perfect opportunity to slink through the building and to the storage room with an air vent unnoticed.

Finding the tunnel that lead to the cells in building A was harder than you thought, the sounds of the riot above didn't exactly help with the tension you were feeling inside. 

It took a lot of wrong turns and roaming in the dark damp tunnels with a flashlight in your hand as your only source of light before you heard a loud thump somewhere to your left followed by what sounded like bricks and gravel falling to the ground.

Cautiously, you stepped around the corner with your heart stuck in your throat, not knowing what you will walk into before you breathe in a sigh of relief when you spot two familiar heads peering through the gap in the wall, surrounded by rubble.

"Thank fuck." You mutter, slightly jogging towards them as Mingi kicks at the lower part of the wall again to make way for them to get through.

They seem bamboozled to see you there.

"How in the hell did you-" Jongho starts but you quickly interrupt him, the chaos from above making you on edge.

"We don't have time, come on!" You tell them, already moving back down the dark tunnel, the dust accompanied by pure stress making you feel choked up.

You can hear their footsteps, quietly following after you as you lead them to a bare wall that you place your palm on.

You start walking backwards, recounting your steps and then stop, rolling up your sleeve and flashing the light over it so you can look at the tattoo and make sure your calculations are correct. 

Placing your arm against the wall, you mark a dot on it.

"This is it." You voice out, remembering the wall from the blueprints, you turn to face Jongho and Mingi who hang onto your every word; "Somewhere on the other side of this wall is a drainage pipe to the prison's old sewer system. If you can get through this wall, you can get into the pipe. If you can get into the pipe you can get into the infirmary. If you can get into the infirmary, you can get out of here."

They look like they have more questions but obviously decide that this isn't the time nor place. They seem slightly impressed, maybe even a little giddy as they smile at each other, Jongho steps closer to the wall as he runs a hand over it. 

"That's one big pile of concrete." He whistles, turning to you, "How do you know where the pipe is?"

You shuffle a couple of steps away from them, propping a light against a couple of leftover bricks sitting by the side of the other wall and place the small paper you've tucked into the pocket of your jeans against the head of the light.

"We've got someone to show us where it is." You answer, pulling out a small piece of duck tape from your pockets and making sure the paper sticks to the flashlight.

"Oh, really?" Mingi asks, albeit a little sarcastically as he crosses his arms over his chest, "Who?"

You turn the light on, immediately facing the wall and smiling in relief as the image on the paper is projected onto the concrete wall.

Jongho and Mingi follow your gaze, the latter jumping a bit once he comes face to face with the devil from your tattoo staring back at him, reflected onto the wall. 

Mingi does a quick sign of the cross across his chest.

"Sweet Jesus, Mary and Joseph!" Mingi exclaims, inching further away from the caricature. You would've found it funny if your mind wasn't preoccupied with the current task at hand.

Just as you open your mouth to tell them the plan and loud screech from above interrupts you and all three of your heads snap up towards the ceiling above you.

The screech isn't what worries you (maybe it should but you digress), it's the fact that it didn't sound dulled enough for it to come from the prison cells. No, this screech was a bit too apparent.

Almost like it came from the place connecting the cells with the tunnel.

You glance at Jongho with worry to find him already looking at you.

"I'll go check what that was." He says quietly and you open your mouth to stop him, scared for him to be leaving you. He doesn't let you get a word out, "Y/N, don't worry. Stay here with Mingi and tell him what to do, I'll come back."

You glance at Mingi who stays quiet by your side giving you a nod before you turn to Jongho with a somber expression. "Be careful."

He nods with a small chuckle, "Always." 

And he turns around and disappears behind the corner.

-

Jongho crouches down to get through the fresh hole in the wall and as quietly as he can before walking down the tunnel and heading over to the hole covered by the metal sink which leads to his cell.

He carefully places his ear against the surface, a frown growing on his face when he hears footsteps up and down the cell.

His heartbeat immediately spikes up, fear of someone finding the hole in the wall turning into anger at the potential problem if someone else were to find out about your plan.

With one quick mustered breath, he shoves the sink away and as fast as he can, crawls through the whole to grab whoever it is on the other side by surprise.

"Relax! It's me!" A familiar voice chokes out as Jongho already managed to have his hands wrapped around the collar of the sweatshirt. He blinks at Kim Hongjoong's face in confusion, eyes falling to the drawn up sheet covering the, now, opened door.

"What the hell is going on?" He releases Hongjoong, walking towards the opened cell door to peak outside, just to see the inmates going positively ballistic on both floors.

"All hell broke loose." Hongjoong explains, standing in front of the sink that was moved to the side, "When they called for lockdown, about twenty cons didn't back down so they locked the cells while they were still out. They scared away the CO's and got ahold of the keys to the station, unlocked the rest of the cells from there."

Jongho sucks in a sharp breath, observing the pure and utter chaos happening outside. Screaming, fighting, maniacal laughter echoing from the walls. Not even the wildest of animals behaved like this.

"I saw your cell empty when I was passing by and put two and two together. Can't really disappear into thin air from a locked cell so I figured, I'd keep watch." Jongho turns to the older man who shrugs when their eyes meet, "I wanna get out of here just as much as you do and apparently, you're my golden ticket out of this shithole and I can't have anyone catching you, Choi."

Jongho stays quiet, the noises overwhelming him along with the fact that he most definitely did not trust Kim Hongjoong. The man was a flight risk, he could put all of you in danger.

"So, this is it, huh?" Hongjoong asks, staring down the hole with his hands tucked deep inside his pockets. Jongho notes that the older man looks like he just discovered a gold mine.

"Yeah." Jongho brushes past him and pushes the sink back the way it was, concealing it from the outside world. He can't risk going back there today, Mingi will have to do the job and Jongho will keep watch. "This is it."

"What is the plan, exactly?" Hongjoong questions, leaning back against Jongho's bunk bed with his arms crossed.

Jongho glances over his shoulders to check if there's anyone loitering around his cell but he's relieved to see everyone is more occupied with either going batshit crazy or sticking to their own cells to not get hurt or killed.

"Coin is down there, drilling a hole into the wall separating us from the pipe leading to the prison's old sewer system." Jongho explains to his best ability, hoping he got the order of the words right. 

You were always the smart one out of the two of you, he was just the muscle.

"Alone?" Hongjoong cocks a brow in curiosity, although Jongho has a feeling that the older man already knows he's not alone.

"No. Not alone." He says through gritted teeth, sending the man a glare.

"Who's with him?" Hongjoong doesn't intend on backing away as he tilts his head at him.

Jongho sighs, giving away the fact that you're down there seems like such a bad idea. Kim Hongjoong was dangerous and Jongho really didn't want you anywhere near him. In fact, he would feel much more at ease if Kim didn't even know you existed.

"The person who planned all of this." He reveals with a shrug, eyes trained on the wall behind Hongjoong's back as he slowly sinks to sit on the floor.

"You mean that girl?" Jongho freezes at that, eyes snapping towards Hongjoong's face that now sports a smug smirk, "The one that visits you in the yard each morning."

Jongho stays quiet, deciding to not comment on anything but just keep staring at the wall with his jaw clenched.

"At first, I thought it was a bit of a reach," The older man continues in faked thoughtfulness "I was like, 'there's no way she'd be brave enough to pull something like this' but then I remembered that it all started from the moment the construction work started back up again and their new pretty supervisor stepped inside these walls."

"Shut up." Jongho interrupts, his temper starting to get tested as he glares at the older man, "We made a deal, you and I, so respect that and don't talk about her. At all."

Hongjoong holds his hand out in faux innocence, not being able to bite back a grin before dropping his hands.

"I'm just saying, whoever she is to you, she cares about you a lot if she's willing to go through all of this just to get you out."

Jongho pretends like he doesn't hear him.

-

It's been awhile since Jongho left you alone with Mingi and your nerves are starting to become visible the more it takes for him to return. What if something happens to him up there? You know it's a lock down but so many things could go wrong in matter of seconds in a place like this.

 Mingi sighs next to you, obviously sensing your concern; "Let Jongho worry about the noise, he can handle himself. You worry about how you are gonna drill through a six inch concrete wall with what used to be an eggbeater."

You glance down to the modified eggbeater you snuck inside your bag this morning and carried through the tunnels tucked at the back of the waistband of your jeans.  "Ever hear of tensile strength? Hooke's law of elasticity?" You ask him, deeming the object in your hand now sharp enough to use as a drill. Mingi gives you a bland look from where he stands, leaning against the wall with the devil caricature splayed over him, "What do you think?" You sigh, turning to him. "If we drill holes in strategic locations, we compromise the load carrying capacity of the wall."

 Mingi turns to you like you just spoke in French, "How about speaking in normal people words?" You roll your eyes. "We'll be able to break through the wall." Mingi eyes you stepping closer to the wall in curiosity, taking a stand right next to you as you point at the image of the devil's face on the wall. "We go in through the tip of each horn, the eyes, the end of the nose, the bottom of the fangs, end of the braids, makes a sort of X." You explain, handing the eggbeater to him. "Let's get to it."

Mingi gives you a reluctant sigh before getting to work, placing the tip of the eggbeater to the concrete wall.

He works in silence for the next ten minutes, you keep glancing towards the direction of the tunnel where Jongho disappeared off to as your foot keeps tapping the floor from the nerves.

After another minute, Mingi speaks again being much more talkative than you expected from when you first meet him. The morning before, that is.

"I got a question for you." You turn to him from where you leaned on the opposite wall and watched him work, "What if you do all this work and the pipe turns out to be 10 feet the other way?" "It won't." You shake your head. The confidence in your voices makes Mingi look over his shoulder at you with a scowl, "What, you got x-ray vision?" You sigh again (it's all you seem to be doing in his presence), glancing to see if there are any signs of Jongho coming back before stepping closer to where Mingi was working, "I calculated the drill point co-ordinates, hid them in my tattoo and projected them onto the wall. Everything's been worked out so the image hits the right point of the wall. It's just math."

"Okay, nerd. What if your math is wrong?" Mingi questions without missing a beat, not even taking his eyes away from where he was drilling. You roll your eyes again, getting annoyed by his questions and you bluntly reply; "You'll drill into one of the dozen gas lines behind the wall. There'll be an explosion and we'll be burnt alive." Mingi's hand slows down until it rests to a full stop as he gives you a careful glance; "But you're good at math right?"

Your mouth perks up in amusement but you refrain from answering and just nod to the wall. "Keep drilling."

With another sigh, Mingi goes back to work and you glance at the watch on your wrist.

"Hey, I need to go back." You tell him, attention on the direction where Jongho disappeared off to. Mingi turns to you in question. "I need to get out of here if it's a lockdown, it means all the staff will be together if the CO's won't come around."

He pursues his lips, attention focused on the wall. "Yeah, okay."

You hesitate, "Do you know what to do?"

"I'm not stupid, Y/N." He scoffs, glancing at you, "Keep drilling at the horns, eyes, tip of the nose and so on. Form an X. Go."

Your eyes stay stuck on the tunnel, hoping Jongho would finally come through just for a second. Just for you to know that everything is okay. You feel your heart clench in anguish.

"Hey," Mingi brings you back to reality and you turn to him, "He's fine. He was here for over a year before you showed up, it's not his first rodeo. Go."

After a moment of contemplation, you nod and glance one last time towards the tunnel before turning around and disappearing down the other end.

-

It's deadly silent on the first floor of the building where the sick bay is when you step out of the storage room whose air vent you just dropped out of.

You quietly close the door shut behind yourself, feeling a chill of unease run up your spine at the deserted floor that was busking with people when you first walked in.

 At first, you think they evacuated all staff but Jongho and Mingi would've mentioned that as a procedure during lockdown. 

You walk down the empty halls of the building's left wing, trying to figure out where everyone is with your defenses so high up that the crunch below your feet makes you jump a step back as your eyes fall to the floor.

It's glass...broken glass.

Well, that can't be good.

Your head turns to the side where the commercial wood door is located, looks like it's glass lite was punched through with something. You feel your heart pound in your chest and without further thinking you pull the sleeve of your shirt to cover your palm before grabbing a large piece of glass that looked sharp enough to be used as a weapon if needed.

Quietly, you continue heading down the hallway, remembering a spare exist located on the first floor of each wing of the building.

Only you don't make it too far.

Shuffling to your right makes your head snap to the direction in surprise and you come face to face with an unknown man standing a couple of feet away from you.

Your heart drops when you notice the dark blue pants and a grey sweatshirt, a trademark for inmate fashion at Chungju's Detention Center but also, the pair of cuffs hanging from his left hand. His face twists in a nasty grin at the sight of you and that's when you knew; you needed to get the fuck out of there.

You don't even think twice about it as you start running up the staircase, having no idea where it leads or who is up there but it's the last thing you think about when you hear footsteps behind you.

"Hey! The pretty bitch is here!" You hear a deep voice yell behind you and your heartrate spikes as your legs carry you as fast as they can up the staircase.

Once you near the top, you glance down both corridors to your left and right before noticing bar doors on the entrance of one of them, feeling a dozen of footsteps enclosing in on you. Swiftly, you run down the corridor and through the bar doors before slamming them shut and locking them with the pair of keys stuffed into the lock on the other side of them.

Just as you're about to pull the keys out, a hand reaches through the bars and grabs you by the hair, slamming your head twice against the bars on the door which makes you cry out in pain.

"There you are." The inmate breathes heavily as he holds you against the bars, hot breath heavy against the skin of your cheek as you struggle against him and you know he's muttering things in your ear that you even refuse to acknowledge, too busy blinking through the pain in your head that leaves you disoriented for a second before you fling the keys out of the lock and sent them gliding down the corridor as you sink in the piece of glass you held in your other hand into the man's shoulder so hard that it pierces through your shirt and into your own hand.

He screams loudly, losing his grip on you and with a pained grunt you rip yourself away from him, eyes growing wide as you see a dozen of inmates surrounding the bar door and rattling them, all yelling at you, mockeries, catcalls accompanied by a bunch of other adjectives you'd rather not repeat.

A noise you're not even aware that you make escapes you of out of the pure fear and panic as you start running down the corridor, checking each room just to see that they're all empty. 

Noticing camera monitors stacked up on a desk in one of the small offices, you immediately run into the room and slam the door shut, locking it with the emergency lock before dragging the bookshelf that was in the room to rest it against the door.

You look around, trying to find something to wrap around your bleeding hand before pulling out a kitchen towel that someone must've left after lunch on the desk and wrapping it tightly around your palm.

You can barely catch your breath, your hair flowing down your shoulders as it must of come lose when the inmate grabbed you by your ponytail, as you come closer to the monitors for the security cameras heart dropping at the sight that greets you.

The left wing, you can recognize the halls where you entered from the storage room, is seemingly empty. But the right wing, where the sick bay is, is in shambles, convicts are running down the halls as they please, breaking stuff and rummaging through the medicine cabinets. There are smashed doors and windows everywhere but what almost knocks the air out of your lungs is the monitor in the left corner.

It's one of the rooms in the sick bay surrounded by glass windows from all sides leaving it completely vulnerable as inmates bang against the bulletproof glass like animals trying to break it and in the middle of it, banging against the window connected to the outside is Wooyoung.

By the looks of it, the glass won't last for much longer. You can already see that they managed to break through a small hole on one of them. You glance through the window from the small office noticing officials armed to the teeth waiting outside...yet no-one was coming in.

He'll be killed if you don't do something. You have to get him out of there.

You glance at the air vent above your head and without further contemplation, drag the desk with the monitors under it before climbing on top and kicking the vent open. With a grunt, you pull yourself up inside the vent and start crawling in the direction where you've memorized the sick bay to be.

It's a maze of small tunnels but when you catch sight of a portion of it turning into a slide, you guess it leads to the lower levels and as gently as you can, you remove the screen and slide down with the help of the pipes running down it, careful to not make too much noise.

You're sure you're above the first level now, the first indicator being that the noise volume is much higher. You can hear the yells and you slow down your breathing as you near one of the grates to peer down.

You can see some of the inmates running around and you crouch lower to see the familiar glass windows that they're all banging against. Bingo.

Carefully, you crawl through the vent in front of you and stop by the grate before peering down. Your breath hitches when the top of Wooyoung's head greets you. He's stomping over a book that was lit on fire and you assume they threw it in through the hole in the window, trying to smoke him out.

As quick as you can, you work on opening the grate, pulling on it as hard as you can until it pops open and you push the lid to the side before lowering your head and a hand down and holding on to a pipe behind you with the other hand for stability.

Once your head is dipped inside is when you realize just how terrified Wooyoung must feel. The inmates screams are loud enough to pierce an eardrum, the banging and smashing against the glass enough to rattle anyone. The room is starting to get filled with smoke, obstructing your vision.

And the new side of you, unusually protective over him, feels like she'll do anything to get him out of there.

"Hey! Hey!" You yell trying to wave to Wooyoung, who fails to hear you as he's more focused on putting out the fire by covering the smoke with an empty garbage can. "Wooyoung!"

His head snaps up at that and his eyes grow wide in recognition when he sees you, immediately running  to stand below the vent.

"Come on!" You hold your hand out but not before pointing to the small table pushed near the window, "Drag that over and climb up on it! Come on!"

Wooyoung hesitates but only for a second before he's jumping on the task and quickly pushing the table towards the vent before climbing on top of it. 

His fingers wrap around the opening of the vent and you pull him up to your best ability until he's able to hang by his elbows and pull himself up the rest of the way through the opening, crawling up to plop himself down  on the pipes next to you, heaving for air as you pull the grate back over the opening of the vent.

You both lean back against the pipes behind your backs, breathing heavily as the yelling from below is heard until he finally breaks the silence.

"What the fuck is going on?" He whispers, still out of breath as his head turns to you. He discarded his white coat and was just in plain scrubs now.

You close your eyes, still leaning your head against the pipes before they flutter open again, "All hell broke loose."

You know there's no time to waste so you get back to crouching on your feet, turning to Wooyoung, "See these pipes? We're going to stay on them. They go through the wall and over the hallway and they're going to get us out of here. All you have to do is follow me. Okay?"

Wooyoung still looks positively shaken but is trying to calm down. He nods. "Yeah."

As quietly as you can, the two of you start crawling on top of the pipes with you taking the lead careful to not make too much noise to alert the inmates roaming below you.

It works for a good couple of minutes before you start hearing Wooyoung getting slightly breathless behind you.

You glance over your shoulder to him.

"Are you alright?" You ask him softly and he picks his head up, dark hair falling into his eyes.

"I'm okay....I'm fine." He breathes out and you hesitate for a moment before deciding it's for the best to keep moving.

So you do. You move a couple of feet down the pipes before you hear Wooyoung again.

"You know what, I need a minute. I'm sorry." Wooyoung says, the words rushing out as he sits on the pipes and runs a hand through his hair, taking a deep breath and probably trying to calm himself down.

"It's not much further." You try to reassure him, thinking that the mention of safety will bring some comfort to him and stop himself from driving into a panic attack.

"Just a second, please." He breaths out, swallowing loudly as he looks around the dark vent.

"Okay, we can stop if you want. Catch our breaths." You nod in understanding, sitting down on the pipes as well and hoping he won't think that you're bothered by the sudden break.

He glances at you, remaining quiet before eventually nodding, "Okay, yeah. I could use a minute."

A long silent moment passes between the two of you. You can hear footsteps accompanied by yells running up and down the halls below the two of you.

"Things should be winding down around now. Pretty soon, the police will break in and it will all be over. It's just a matter of time." You voice out, deep in thought as you stared through the vent right in front of you where you could see the grey tiles of the floor.

"How the hell did this happen?" Wooyoung questions, hand gripping the pipe running at the side of the small airway tunnel.

You pause, knowing exactly how it happened; "I don't know. But...I think if we stay up here we'll be okay."

"I can't believe this shit." He mutters, inching closer to you to peer down through the same grate of the vent.

You both fall into a silence, you can feel that he's still shaken up. Heck, so are you but him being here managed to distract you.

It's only fair if you return the favor.

 "You ever been to Baja? Mexico?" Wooyoung looks at you like a second head just sprouted from your shoulder, you just keep talking in hopes of distracting him; "There's this great place down there. Twenty bucks a night. Hammock on the back deck. Beers are fifty cents. Twenty five cents at happy hour."

He smiles at you lightly and it causes a smile of your own to appear. You sniffle,

"You ever been to Thailand? Thailand's great." You comment with a sigh and he snorts from beside you.

"Y/N, if you're trying to calm me down, you're doing a terrible job." Wooyoung comments but it's with a smile on his face which makes you giggle.

"But I am trying."

The two of you fall into light chuckles that dissipates into the air quickly.

"Why are you here?" He asks quietly, smile fading as he turns to stare at you.

You look through the grate just so you wouldn't have to look at him. "What do you mean?"

"Crawling around in the ceiling, risking your life."

"You needed help, and uh," You sniffle, looking the other way so he couldn't see your face, "I came to find you."

What was that about getting attached, Y/N?

If Wooyoung is surprised by your admission, he doesn't show it instead his brows furrow, "How'd you know where to go?"

You still at that, vision trained on the pipes running across the wall opposite of you. "I, uh, was hiding in a station that the CO's left empty and saw you on one of the monitors." You spare him a glance, hoping he doesn't notice the way your eyes shake when you lie, "I saw the blueprints for the whole compound when I started supervising the new construction site, the ventilation system is ancient, I took a lot of time studying it because you don't see a system like that in buildings nowadays and so I was sort of familiar with the layout."

You flinch when you feel him brush a piece of hair out of your face, thumb gently gliding under your eyebrow. He whispers; "And how did this happen?"

You look at him in confusion but your lips soon part as you notice the blood on his thumb and you reach out with your own hand, only then noticing the blood sliding down your cheek from the gash on your eyebrow.

You gulp, avoiding his eyes, "When everything went off, I, uh, went to the first floor of the left wing and a couple of convicts spotted me." His eyes widen before roaming over the rest of your body and stopping on the badly bandaged hand laying on your lap, you chuckle trying to play it off as nothing. "I ran to the second floor but one of them banged me pretty hard against the bars on the door."

"Oh my God." He mutters, jaw locking as he seems to internally scold himself. For what, you can't know. "Are you okay? They didn't do anything else, did they-?"

"No. No." You quickly shake your head, uncharacteristically touched by the concern. "I'm fine."

Wooyoung stays quiet for a second and you sigh lowly, looking through the grate to see that there was still people running down below.

"Wait." Wooyoung speaks up again and his curious eyes make you face him again, "What were you doing in this building in the first place?"

You freeze at that.

Because truly and honestly, you don't even have a lie for that. You haven't prepared one not for your lack of effort, you just simply could not think of a single one. 

Your trip to this building should've been a breeze. Just sneak your way to the storage room, crawl up the ceilings to where it connected with the A-building, show Jongho and Mingi the wall and return back, unnoticed. You weren't supposed to be met with a fucking riot in here when you returned.

You don't have a lie to tell him.

So the next best thing you can think of is; just act like you never even heard the question.

You turn away from him, crouching on your feet again, "We should keep moving."

After a quiet moment, you feel Wooyoung move after you again.

You crawl through the ceiling for a minute or so in silence before you glance at him again, "The door to the visitation room. Did you ever use it?"

"Not usually, but my access card should work." He replies, seemingly moved on from your avoidant mannerisms.

You nod, forgetting that he can't see you properly before turning around to respond to him. Instead, you freeze when you see someone lifting the vent screen and motion for Wooyoung to be quiet. 

The convicts....they're looking for Wooyoung and now, undoubtedly, you as well.

In confusion, he follows your eyes and sees the back of someone's head poking through the opening. 

Swiftly, Wooyoung moves over and kicks the guy in the head with his foot, making the inmate fall back down with a yell of pain before pulling the screen back on as more ruckus explodes from below, banging against the ceiling intensifies as do the mocking yells and taunts of the convicts that are hunting you down.

"Come on, let's go." You declare in a rush as you both continue to crawl up the space. 

You don't how long you move but you come in front of an opening where you can see the prisoners who have been stubbornly on your tails, looking around for the two of you.

Once the prisoners pass through, you two find yourselves peering down into the room for a short moment, making sure it's empty.

"All right." Wooyoung sighs, getting down first from the vent, carefully standing on top of a bookcase before jumping to the ground. He holds his arms out, to help you get down.

With a shaky breath, you follow after him, standing on top of the bookcase and looking at the distance towards the floor in slight anxiety. "O-Okay."

"Here," Wooyoung nods reassuringly with wide eyes, arms still held out below you, "I got you."

You place your hands on his arms for at least some type of leverage before sucking in a breath and leaping down, your body slowly thudding against his as his arms enclose around you with a low grunt.

His nose brushes your jawline as he lowers you down to the floor, in one piece.

You pull away from him and your gazes meet for one solid moment before you pull yourself away, reminding yourself that now is not the time nor the place to be sharing romantic moments with the man.

Suddenly,

"Hey Doc, you gonna keep her all to yourself?" Your heads snap towards the inmate standing in front of you two, staring at you specifically with a smirk that sends chills down your spine.

The moment he starts advancing towards you, Wooyoung surprises him with a fist to the nose and an arm around his neck to suffocate him and you're shoved into the wall as the two start to wrestle across the room. You can barely breathe.

Your fear only heightens when another inmate runs in to help his pal, trying to pry Wooyoung off of him but he doesn't notice you huddled in the corner.

You, on the other hand, notice his bandaged up leg and without even thinking about it, you run up behind him and wedge your foot as hard as you can into his injury three times as he wails in pain and falls to the floor, clutching onto his injury.

The prisoner in Wooyoung's hold finally gives out, passing out in his arms and falling to the ground.

On instinct, you latch onto Wooyoung's arm and start pulling him after you, "C'mon. This way."

You keep running down the hallways before Wooyoung pulls on your hand, brows stitched together in confusion, "This isn't the way for the visitations room."

"We can't make it through there, there's another exist here." You've seen the blueprints, you know!

He hesitates, "Y/N, if you're wrong...."

"Wooyoung, we don't have time!" You can hear footsteps and yells behind you and you turn to him in desperation, sweat dripping down your back, "Trust me."

Wooyoung stares at you before looking down both ends of the hall and then finally, giving in and following after you.

You run down the halls that are all starting to look a bit too similar but you know that there's an exit located somewhere near from the view outside the windows lining the walls. You pull Wooyoung through a small room that seems to be used a break room that, like the maze it is, leads to a storage room and finally...

"This is it." You say pointing to the door at the end of the room. You can see the grass through the glass on it as well as armed officers with their guns pointed towards it waiting on the other side.

The footsteps behind you appear to be coming nearer and nearer and you and Wooyoung share a look before you're running towards the door and flinging it open.

You immediately raise your hands up in the air, yelling "Don't shoot!"

All you can process is yelling until you realize that you're being pulled behind the line of fire and you and Wooyoung get separated as you get led away by unknown officers. They recognized you as staff members.

The entire outside space of the compound is surrounded by officers and even soldiers, cars and army trucks are pulled up nearby along with ambulance trucks.

"Wooyoung!" You hear a male voice call out as you're being led to one of those ambulance truck and your head turns to the direction it came from to see a familiar figure that Wooyoung runs to.

"Dad!" He yells back, collapsing into the older man's arms and you feel something in your chest ache.

You don't know if it's from seeing a person be comforted by a parent after a traumatic event as you've been abandoned by both. Or is it from seeing the governor, one of the main advocates for the highest possible sentence to be given to your innocent brother. Or maybe, it's simply from seeing Wooyoung be so vulnerable and small in someone's arms.

You don't know.

-

"Thank you." You tell the paramedic that just finished wrapping up your hand with a small smile and get a nod in return as he lets you have a moment to yourself, sitting in the back of the opened ambulance truck with a thin blanket wrapped around you.

Your fingers brush against the bandage on your brow, the wound all cleaned and covered now. It still doesn't make you feel any less sticky and gross.

You quietly watched as the officers advanced towards the buildings, you could hear shots fired inside and it all made you feel sick to your stomach.

"Hey." You hear a voice to your left and you look to see that Wooyoung has snuck in to sit besides you, his scrubs replaced by a pair of jeans, sweatshirt and a thick jacket.

"Hey, you okay?" You ask quietly, not even being sure if you can bring the volume of your voice up at this point.

He nods, "Yeah." before his eyes roam over you once again, just like they did when you were crawling up in the ceiling.

"All bandaged up." He notices jokingly, eyes focusing on the wound on your palm

"Yeah, it wasn't anything too bad." You reply, noticing that his father left awhile ago, "Your dad was here?"

Wooyoung chuckles, face flushing red immediately as his eyes fall to the gravel below your feet. "How embarrassing, my dad coming to check up on me like I'm a child."

You hum, eyes tracing over his side profile and the pretty lines of his jaw, "I don't think it's embarrassing, I think it's nice that he cares so much about you."

Wooyoung looks at you, something unrecognizable swimming in his eyes. "You have anyone to check up on you?"

You chuckle bitterly. The only family you have is stuck in the building across the compound. "No."

"Oh." Wooyoung lets out, face contorted into an expression you hate the most. Pity.

You open your mouth to jokingly scold him about it but all the words get stuck in your throat as you see someone get carried out in a body bag from A-building. Wooyoung notices your attention somewhere else and looks over his shoulder to see what caught your attention.

He presses his lips together, turning to you. "You didn't hear?"

Your eyes immediately snap towards him, feeling your throat close up, "Hear what?"

"Someone killed the new officer that started working here two weeks ago."

It feels like a bucket of cold water washed over you and your eyes follow the black body bag that gets placed into a vehicle. His colleagues carrying him seem downright heartbroken.

You didn't know who the new officer was, neither one of you was here long enough to meet each other but it still didn't stop the guilt to burn through your chest like acid.

Your eyes burn. You did this.

"He had two daughters in middle school." Wooyoung adds, eyes plastered on the same thing as you. The man's dead body. "They found several stab wounds in his abdomen."

A sound so guttural leaves you before you can even reign it in and Wooyoung's head turns to you, his eyes softening immediately once he notices the hot tears streaming down your cheeks.

Such a violent death. An innocent person.

"Oh, Y/N...." He utters softly, placing a gentle hand on your shoulder. "It's okay, you're okay."

"Someone died...?" Is all you can say through your sniffles as you bite down hard on your lip, not even being aware of the words that leave you, "An innocent person?"

An innocent person with a wife and kids waiting for him to come back from work tonight.

The guilt almost doubles you over, hits you like a train going at full speed.

You never thought your plan would affect anyone this much that it would result in a life getting lost.

But you turning up the heat this noon, something that was supposed to be so simple and just cause a lock down in A-building, started a chain of events that ended up taking someone's life prematurely.

This is on you. 

You might not be the one that stabbed him but you were the one that created a path that led to him getting stabbed.

"Hey, Y/N-ie." Wooyoung softly consoles you, hand now brushing the skin of your cheek, "Why are you crying?"

You barely register the nickname he calls you with but his touch is soothing, warm.

You obviously can't tell Wooyoung the truth, you can't tell him you were the cause for all of this. Instead, you have to let it fester inside of you, slowly eat away at your insides until there's nothing left.

But you have to tell him something. So, you go with the second truth;

"I was scared." You whimper, the events of today finally crashing down on you as you softly sob, "I was so scared."

Wooyoung surprises you by pulling your face into the crook of his neck, his arms coming up around you as he pats your back. But you melt into the warmth of his body and the smell of his clothes.

"I was scared too." He confesses softly in your ear, hand still patting your back over the blanket, "It's okay to be scared. I don't think you'd be human if you weren't scared in a place like this."

You stay in his embrace despite hating to be touched most of the time, until your tears cease and turn to soft sniffles against his sweatshirt.

It feels nice, you think, to have someone check up on you.

-

On the drive back home. When he enters his apartment. Sits in his living room and later on in the night, lays in his bed;

Wooyoung can't stop thinking about you.

[destinygoldenstar]

☀️THE SLAY PASS GETS USED☀️ - Total Drama Viewer Reacts to Disventure Camp Season 1 Episode 13 “A Heart's Desire” PART 2

<<Link To Part 1

Let's continue.

"I guess I should congratulate you two... alright moving on."

XD

Come on, I think Miriam deserves a round of applause for that performance.

"But I don't know how to drive!"

...you sure about that?

Oh you asshole.

...wait, how do you know whose kart is supposed to be who's?

You could've sabotaged Fiore!

OH MY GOD TOM YOU'VE REDEEMED YOURSELF

WAIT A MINUTE...

OH MY GOD THAT'S A BRILLIANT CALLBACK.

KARMA'S A BITCH

So Miriam's gotta win now. There's no way.

...wait Tom might've committed child murder with this.

Eh, add that to his body count in VR.

OH NO NOT THE MOOSE

I'M SORRY BUDDY

OH SHIT HERE WE GO

I hope Tom doesn't get arrested for this.

OOOOOHHHH COME ON MIRIAM

YOU GOT THIS

OH GEEZ DON'T RAM HER

...

Actually, yeah, RAM HER. What am I saying?!

COME ON MIRIAM

"NO NO NO! I WILL NOT LOSE HERE!! NOT AFTER EVERYTHING!!! MOVE YOU STUPID-"

OH GEEZ

UM....

IS SHE ALIVE?!

I don't necessarily care about Fiore's well being, I just don't want Tom to go to jail for child murder.

DON'T TELL ME THIS BLOW GETS HER TO PASS MIRIAM AND WIN

IS THIS A VILLAIN WIN?!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-

OH THANK GOD.

...

I MEAN, IT'S BAD THAT SHE CRASHED IN FIRE, BUT THANK GOD SHE DIDN'T CROSS THE FINISH LINE...

God, I'm gonna have the police at my door now.

MIRIAM WON!!🎉

Deserved, honestly. That's a winner I can get behind.

At least she's alive...

I think Tom's going to jail, though.

"Uh, hello? Is someone gonna help me?"

"Help yourself."

DAMN.

THAT'S COLD.

DUDE, SHE JUST GOT IN A CAR CRASH AND YOU'RE GONNA TELL HER TO HELP HERSELF?!

I'm so conflicted right now. Do I pity Fiore? Do I not?? I don't know...

"AAAAAHHHH! I HATE THEM I HATE THEM I HATE THEM!! DAMN JERKS, I HOPE THEY ALL DIE!!"

Demon Child is gonna haunt everyone in their sleep.

*Gets coffee creamer ad*

OMG AGAIN?!

Fiore joins Jake at the coffee shop of depression XD

"Aren't you a little young for coffee?"

"MOVE OVER AND GIVE ME YOUR CREAM!"

"Yes Queen" XD

YES QUEEN!!!

*sirens*

Oh no XD

"TOM, YOU ARE UNDER ARREST FOR ATTEMPTED CHILD MURDER"

"Vladimir Jensen, Trevor Mcgregor, and Derek Johnson. You are al under arrest for wildlife damage, destruction of protected property, and illegal deforestation."

OH.

OH I FORGOT ABOUT THAT.

THE COPS ARE DOING THEIR JOB.

"Well they really took their time, didn't they?"

I bet Tom is the kind of guy to say "COPS SUCK. OMG THEY'RE SO IMPOSSIBLE."

OH SHIT-

OH SHIT HE'S GOT A GUN

WELL THIS ESCALATED QUICKLY

"This is for killing the animals!"

😨

GABBY YOU CAN'T JUST DO THAT-

😂

YES QUEEN!!! SLAY!!!!!!

NOOOO COME ON!!!!

COME ON DON'T PULL A HEATHER TO MIRIAM!

OH TOM'S GOING AFTER THEM HE'S GOT A HOOK IDK WHERE HE GOT THAT FROM THINGS ARE HAPPENING SO FAST RIGHT NOW-

OH GOD HE'S FIGHTING

I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT'S HAPPENING ANYMORE

TOM DON'T DIE

OH NO

WAIT DID THEY DIE?!?!?!?!

OH MY GOD...

PLEASE DON'T TELL ME TOM DIED.

*cuts to black*

OH MY GOD...

What just happened?!?!

DID TOM DIE?!?!?!

'I think they died, what do we do?'

Oh my god no... THAT WAS TOO FAST.

"Where's Tom? Is he okay?!"

OH JAKE NO

This is why Jake's horrible in Season 3.

He doesn't even get to make amends with Tom because Tom DIED.

They ended things on awful terms and then he died...

"Surely he's dead."

FUCK YOU FIORE. GO GET IN ANOTHER CAR CRASH.

OH THANK YOU. HE'S OKAY.

"What happened?"

"I got on the bus. It lost control and I managed to jump just before it went off the cliff."

What about the other dude? DID HE DIE?!

TOM DID YOU KILL A MAN?!

AGAIN?

At least Miriam got her money.

But I think she's gonna have to bail Tom out of prison for killing several people, attempting to kill a child, threatening a child at gunpoint that one time, battery for cutting off Ellie's arm, and being a spy.

"After I gave them info about these crooked TV hosts and Jensen, they decided to hire me."

...wait what?

"I hope to be a better officer than a spy."

WAIT YOU'RE A COP NOW?!?! WHAT?!?!?!

How did that happen!? I'm pretty sure that's not how that works!

Oh my god, Tom is a cop... I don't feel safe now.

I feel like Tom would be the bad cop, as we've established XD

"See, EVERYTHING is legal for me! I can get a kid in a car crash and kill a man A-Okay! BECAUSE I'M A COP!!"

And just flash his badge everywhere.

Aw, they're friends. That's sweet.

Oh Jake...

"I'm glad you're okay, Tom. Sorry, I just thought you didn't want to talk to me."

Oh he actually is talking. Okay?

"It's okay... I think everything happens for a reason."

"What do you mean?"

"We were both fools, Jake. I know I was harsh with you and the truth is... I'm not innocent in this. We both acted impulsively. We made mistakes. But I don't regret it. You helped me learn from those mistakes."

Awwwww don't do this to me 💗

"Will you still talk to me?"

Imagine if he said NO.

"Nah, fuck you. Bye. Gonna go live it up in the cop world now!"

"I think we should take some time and grow as people."

Oh he actually DID say no... oh...

So they're distancing themselves from each other?

Not saying that's a bad idea, but damn.

"We'll see where we are later on."

In Season 3 I guess, if they are keeping distance.

"I agree... no matter what, I'm glad I met you Tom."

💗

OH COME ON DON'T DO THAT TO ME 💗

You know what? GOOD. GOOD FOR YOU FOR CHOOSING THE DISTANCE ROUTE. Y'ALL GO WALLOW IN ISCOLATION. YOU DON'T DESERVE EACH OTHER. I DON'T CARE. I DON'T SHIP THIS. NOPE. NOPE. MM MM. NO I DON'T.

YOU HAVE NO PROOF I SHIP THIS. YOU DON'T.

(Edit: Uh, Golden? Your reactions say otherwise... people are gonna bully you for this)

I have entered my denial stage of grief. Good lord.

If this is followed up by me going through the five stages of grief, good lord, I don't want to be on this ship anymore...

Who are you???

"What happened to Jensen?"

"No one knows. They never found a body."

So he's not dead???

"How'd they let you run another season after this?"

Oh wait cause the old hosts got arrested, this is the new host. GOTCHA.

"What selection?"

"For the next season, duh."

Bring on the Season 2 cast.

"We need to decide the participants for All Stars."

Wait what? What about Season 2?

Does this take place AFTER Season 2??? Huh??? I am confusion.

...

And that's how it ends. Okay.

That was Season 1! We finished it!

That was... a lot. I can't even wrap my head around it.

I really enjoyed reacting to this. I'm glad I did too.

I'm definitely going to make a tier list after this. Thank you guys for supporting my reactions.

Like I said, this really does feel like a new era for my blog, and that's... insane to think about.

You know what?

I wasn't subbed before XD

Now I am.

I like supporting indie productions, what can I say?

I do hope at least some of my followers, you know, take some sort of interest in this too. I can't promise this will work for everyone. Hell, it's got problems. I can't ignore that. But um...

WHOOPS. I'M OBSESSED.

I FEEL MY TOTAL DRAMA PHASE RETURNING GUYS.

So... yeah, I'm gonna react to Season 2 & 3 as well. Yay.

I salute everyone that worked on this show. With Hollywood and major corporations dragging artistic freedom and expression through the mud, you showcase with your efforts that there IS hope for animation. You're inspirations for people to make what they want and not be held back.

Regardless on how you feel about this show, you have to hand it to these producers for pushing boundaries like this. Not a lot of people have the guts to do what they do.

Anyway... that's it from me with this season. You can probably expect some more Disventure Camp posts from me in the future. Bye!

[twsthottakes]

is it wrong to say that there's something mentally wrong with rollo/fellow/henrik (there's probably only two people in the whole fandom that like his bigback ass though) simps/likers/etc?

like it isn't just that i hate the characters (i do) but there's a point at which you have to step back and realize that you're obsessed with a character who attempted ethnic cleansing and is based on a sex offender/a human trafficker/a colonizer who tried to enslave someone.

i'm sorry but there's 22 characters in the main cast plus some for staff, grim, and any normal event characters, can't you just choose one of them to be obsessed over instead of the characters who would be in jail if they were real?

and i get that twst is dark, it's a game that explores themes of being morally gray (since it is about villains), but i really don't think the actions of even the overblotters compare to what rollo, fellow, and henrik did. you can't compare a 17-year-old who was strict and almost tyrannical with his dorm due to family trauma to a 50+ year-old who tried to enslave the prince of a marginalized group just because he didn't like the group. you can't compare a 17-year-old who scammed people because he wanted power to prove the people who traumatized him into thinking he was useless and couldn't do anything right to a probably 27-33-year-old who doesn't have very much magic and was denied a lot of opportunities and decided that fucking HUMAN TRAFFICKING was the best course of action. you can't compare an 18-year-old who wanted to destroy the world that had hurt him and rebuild it so he and the brother he lost could finally have a life that wasn't predetermined and be appreciated for his skills to an 18-year-old who lost his brother and just started absolutely hating magic and everything associated with it, thus attempting ethnic cleansing and generally acting very bigoted. you cannot compare these teens, who have very good EXPLANATIONS (not excuses) for their wrongdoings to these (mostly) adults who commit literal crimes for either no reason or reasons that don't really provide a good explanation.

think of it this way, would you support someone in real life who tried to commit ethnic cleansing and was extremely bigoted because he lost his brother? would you support a king who tried to enslave an unborn baby prince from a kingdom he's at odds with and try to colonize their land and people just because he didn't like them in real life? would you support a human trafficker who did it because he "didn't have anything else to turn to" (he did though, just become an accountant or some shit) in real life?

if you answered no to these questions, yet still like/simp for/etc rollo, fellow, or henrik, you probably have a "fiction doesn't affect reality" mindset. that, if you didn't know, is mostly proshipper logic, which loops back to my main point.

anyway, all of this is not to say that all rollo, fellow, or henrik likers are the absolute scum of the earth. you can get attached to characters for a multitude of reasons, and those people could have gotten attached to those characters due to trauma. if someone is traumatized and latches onto any of these characters, i do not truly blame them. sometimes, latching onto a character is someone's only option for coping (this is not me supporting the proship for coping reasons is good rhetoric, nor is it me saying these people are absolutely innocent victims. i have latched onto characters who are bad people in the past in the worst times of my life, and i am not proud of it. i am understanding people here, not excusing people.).

but, as a rule of thumb, if you like/simp for/support/whatever else any of these characters, and for the fact of the matter, any character like them, please take a step back. look at what you're doing and saying. think about the reasons you're doing this stuff, and how good it really is. then, get help. no matter what the reason is for your enjoyment of that character (besides stuff like "i just think theyre pretty" or not knowing about their actions) you do need help in some form. after, distance yourself from the character. don't allow yourself to fall back into that pattern again. finally, on any social medias you mentioned them on, state you don't enjoy that character anymore, maybe include details on why if you're comfortable doing so, and remove them from your social media.

in conclusion, since this became much, much longer than i imagined, if someone likes rollo, fellow, or henrik, they need to take a step back and seek help. there is obviously something mentally wrong with them.

...

Not gonna lie, the way people demonize the Leech twins like they're Satan Yandereson while woobifying these fuckers always baffled me.

The guy that tried to engulf the entire world in parasitic plants? The human trafficker? Really? The thirty year old human trafficker really isn't the best person to simp for, in my humble opinion. Trust me, Jade and Floyd are way less satanic or irredeemable or whatever than this.

And honestly, let's look at the reasons people like these characters. A. They're hot. B. Their backstory C. Their archetype or whatever like Rollo being Tsundere for Malleus or some shit.

Honestly, in my opinion a lot of the times it's not necessarily that they need help but that they completely overlook the actual personality of the character they're simping for. Like, yeah, it can be fun to simp, but... The twst terrorist hate crimer, the human trafficker, and the guy that wants to enslave a child are quite possibly some of the worst picks.

I see it kind of like simping for Vox from Hazbin vs simping for Valentino. Like, yeah, you could say they're both villains... but do you really like the rapist? Is that really who you want to pick?

[hiramaris]

Dusk til Dawn

Part 13

Summary: Following Episode 9. And spoilers for Episode 10. 

Author’s note: As Episode 10 is just released I just want to say heads up for those who are not yet finished. Completing the game without spoilers really made a difference, and as much as possible I want everyone to experience that. And for those finished, I’ll gladly welcome you to my domain where MC took a different route.

Disclaimer:  I do not own Duskwood or any of the related characters. Duskwood is created by and owned by Everbyte Studio. This fanfiction is intended for entertainment only. I am not making any profit from this story. All rights of the original Duskwood story belong to Everbyte Studio.

Warning: Mentions of blood, suicide, violence, pedophiles, drugs, gun, murder, sex offenders, kidnapping

Shits started to go down the moment those words left your mouth. What did you expect anyway? You had unintentionally hit a raw nerve. Ted had poured his heart and soul reminiscing that night, and yet you have the audacity to laugh at his misery.

You didn’t really mean to laugh, really. Laughter sometimes escapes us in moments of intense emotion, not because we find something funny, but as a release valve for relief.

It was a relief that Hannah and Richy may not go to jail after all these. Because Ted had already admitted that he pushed Jennifer on the road, thus the crime committed wasn’t actually done by them.

You understood Ted's suffering. Under different circumstances, in a life where you weren't bound by the law, you might have reacted similarly if Jill's death had gone unpunished. Your empathy for Ted's situation ran deep. Yet, you were starkly aware of the reality you existed in—one that demanded adherence to the law, no matter how difficult it might be. They may call you a hypocrite all they want, but your top priority right now is to keep everyone safe.

Ted also needs help, psychiatrically speaking.

You’re not entirely sure, but you can see bits of physiological manifestations of his mental illness. His mental instability could be a potentially dangerous weapon against you all. The unpredictability of his actions was a looming threat. That’s why you need to pin him down— fast.

Something in your demeanor must have given Jake a signal because suddenly, his resistance flared to life. With a swift bite and a kick to Ted's shin, he managed to create enough space to scramble away, taking Richy along.

A stifled laugh threatened to escape you— it was a desperate attempt on Jake’s end, and you didn’t quite envision it before that Jake would have the guts to bite someone’s hand.

The small trickle of blood at the corner of Jake's mouth was evidence of the pain he had inflicted. Ted's angry growls confirm that he’s not pleased with what Jake has done.

So, with Jake out of the way, you launched yourself at Ted without hesitation. The revolver in his hand had just gone off, a deafening bang that temporarily left your ears ringing. But your focus was unwavering, and you met Ted's attempt to regain control with a swift move to disarm him. You managed to deflect his aim, causing the bullet to miss its mark. The metallic tang of adrenaline filled your senses as you grappled with him, determined to subdue the threat he posed.

The dimmed surroundings gave you the disadvantage not to mention the addition of fighting a full-grown man. In the midst of grasping for dear life in his hands and the gun, you caught a glimpse of Hannah, Jake, and Richy. Jake had positioned himself protectively in front of Hannah and Richy. It seemed Hannah was too overwhelmed with the current events to notice that her brother was just in front of her.

"Jake, help Y/n!" Richy rasped out behind Jake when he saw how dangerously close the gun was to your abdomen. That made you shoot back to the horrible reality.

Hannah froze at the mention of Jake’s name.

Usually, under normal circumstances, it would be best to outnumber the culprit but given Richy’s relative lack of experience in fighting, he might be shot first before you. He’s also injured. Jake is also injured, and even if he may have experience in fighting, his concussion will only slow him down. As of now, you're the best chance you've got, and you pray to the deities above that you no longer believed in long ago that they'll be able to help with the slimming luck you only have.

“Jake, no!” You shouted as you saw Jake try to move towards you. “You have to go NOW! Don’t come near me!”

“B-but—”

“Just do it!”

Ted's chuckle cut through the tension. “You think I would let anyone leave this mine?” Ted chuckled darkly as he leaned closely on your face, his breath chilling against your skin. His whispered words hung heavy in the air. “I just told you. No one will ever leave this mine alive.”

“As if I'd let that happen,” you snapped back, focusing on prying the gun from his grip.

Your priority right now is to disarm him. You can’t take the risk of having him fire it on anyone.

You suspected Alan had already called for backup at the entrance by the Grimrock. It is a matter of choice now: it’s either you all die, or he’ll be captured. He’s desperate, and that makes him more dangerous than ever.

With a burst of strength, you managed to make Ted stagger backward, pressing him against the wall.  You motioned the three to get out of here and Jake readily nodded in agreement, understanding the severity of the situation.

"We have to help, Y/n!" Richy protested, struggling against Jake's grip. His desperation was palpable, his eyes wide with concern for you and the dangerous situation you were in.

“We have to go.” Jake's voice was urgent as he decisively snatched the laptop from the table, his movements quick and purposeful. He pulled Richy and Hannah away from the escalating conflict, his protective stance shielding them from the potential danger. You could see the fear and determination in his eyes, his focus solely on ensuring their safety. Meanwhile, your battle with Ted continued— a life-and-death struggle that demanded your full attention.

You were acutely aware of the weight of the situation. The gun held by Ted was a deadly threat, and your unwavering goal was to disarm him as swiftly as possible.

“At this point, we’re just going to be a liability to her,” Jake's words cut through the chaos, a stark reminder that your priority was to keep them safe, even if it meant leaving you to face Ted alone.

Amidst the clash, a fierce blow struck your face, sending a jolt of pain through your skull. Your jaw clenched in response, determination overriding the pain as you tightened your grip on Ted, refusing to back down.

“A hard face I see,” Ted grunted, a twisted smirk on his face. “No wonder you seemed unbothered to my threats.”

Despite the blood trickling from your nose, you shot him a wolfish grin. “I think you've underestimated me.”

This fucker has a sick punch you admit. You didn't want to be deterred by that so with a fire in your eyes burning brightly as you pressed forward, your head still throbbing from the earlier blow, you slammed your forehead on him, leaving both of you momentarily stunned.

Before Ted could regain his bearings, your palm crashed down on his wrist, exploiting his momentary weakness. The gun slipped from his grasp, hitting the ground with a loud clatter. The sound was a welcome confirmation of your success in disarming him.

Shaking off the residual dizziness, you moved with swift precision. Your foot struck out, kicking the gun away from his reach. In the same fluid motion, you advanced, your boot connecting with his stomach. The impact sent him hurtling backward, his body colliding with the table. A cacophony of splintering wood accompanied his fall as the table shattered beneath his weight, leaving him sprawled among the debris.

As you stood there, panting slightly, you couldn't ignore the fact that Richy and Jake were both eager to join the fight. This was their battle as much as yours, yet your experience told you that their involvement wouldn't bode well. Jake's injuries left him barely able to stand, and Richy's weakened state from blood loss only added to the danger. As much as you value their willingness to help, you can't allow them to worsen their conditions by joining the fray.

Disregarding the blood that continued to flow from the reopened wound on the side of your head, you closed the distance between you and Ted. But in the midst of your advance, you didn't anticipate his sudden move. A knife materialized in his hand, seemingly from thin air, and he lunged toward your leg. Your reflexes kicked in, and you managed to evade just in time to avoid the full brunt of the strike. Still, the blade grazed against your pants, leaving behind a stinging sensation that served as a harsh reminder that Ted at all fucking costs, should not reach anyone from the three. He’s fully capable to fucking kill someone, and you’ll be damned if you let something happen to them.

"That's it. I'm going in," Richy's voice strained as he struggled against Jake's grasp. While Jake's weakened state made it easier for Richy to wriggle free, the blood loss had left Richy even more vulnerable.

It was a rare sight to see Richy losing his characteristic calm and rational demeanor, and for him to be losing his cool right now means this looks way worse than you imagined. It's a wonder you're still able to keep up with Ted.

Muscle and strength were undoubtedly in Ted's favor, a fact you were acutely aware of. Your typical strategy of using agility to outmaneuver your opponent and turn their strength against them was hindered by the persistent ache in your head from the concussion. Despite this setback, you found yourself pushing through, driven by a potent mixture of adrenaline and determination.

As your breaths came in labored pants, you raised a palm, the blood from your head wound now smeared across your skin. "It's okay, it's okay..."

It was not the best reassuring gesture you could muster but you have to stop Richy. As of now he didn't give much impression that he can give the right call when his judgment is clouded by emotions, it is best to let him stay out of the battlefield.

You let out a harsh breath and tried to get your shit together.

"Richy, listen to me—" your voice caught in a groan, your chest heaving. “You know this mine better than I do. Take everyone to Grimrock. I've got this, hah...”

****

As the tension escalated, Jake was forced to take charge of the situation, guiding both Richy and Hannah forward.

Along the way, as he furiously types against the laptop, he realizes that the stream the culprit had given you was a fake one and was programmed to loop all this time. He also found out that this laptop is also connected to a massive surveillance camera network within the mine. So, to speak the mine is probably riddled with these cameras, lurking in shadows and corners, watching every step they take including the one inside the room you’re currently in under the watchful eye of one such camera.

There’s also an unknown source that had successfully breached their way inside this laptop which essentially had stopped the looped stream minutes ago.

Which means… anyone who has access to the link must have heard and watched what had transpired earlier, and what is currently transpiring in real-time.

"Shit," he muttered under his breath as he shuts down the laptop. He halted, his eyes darting around their surroundings. And then, he spotted it – another camera, the fourth one he'd noticed since they'd left that room.

He had little sense of how far they had come from the exit, but he’s quite sure that they are significantly far enough from you and Ted. He mostly relied on Richy for directions since Ted had destroyed all his gadgets and phone, however, the mechanic seemed lost in his own thoughts, his mumbling refrain of 'It's all my fault' haunting the air like a grim mantra.

Hannah, on the other hand, was a mere shell of herself, overwhelmed both physically and emotionally. Her wide-eyed gaze darted around, barely conscious of her surroundings. He has no idea what happened there before he woke up but the two seemed pretty shaken up more than before.

Though his own memories remained foggy, Jake pushed through the mental haze, focusing on the present moment.

Jake's injuries weighed heavily on him, making every movement a strenuous task. He cursed softly under his breath, knowing that his strength was waning fast. Despite the pain and the nagging worry of potential arrest once they reached Grimrock, he pushed those thoughts aside. The current priority was ensuring the safety of his sister and Richy, especially knowing that you were out there, risking your life for them.

He has to make Hannah and Richy get out of this mine alive. Only after that could he think about returning to you. No matter what.

"Richy," Jake's voice was firm as they reached yet another fork in the tunnel. "Where to?"

“I... I think we should go back.”

That snapped the remaining patience in Jake. “Get yourself together.” He hissed quietly. “We have to get out of here. That is the only way we can help, Y/n.”

“No,” Hannah spoke for the first time in a long while. Her lips trembled as she continued, “this is all my fault… Y/n shouldn’t — Agent Y/l/n shouldn’t risk their life for some murderers!”

Confusion tightened Jake's features. “What are you talking about. Hannah?” he demanded, reaching out to steady her shoulders. “You’re no murderers.”

“No, no, no!” Hannah pulled away; her eyes filled with anguish. She dashed towards the dark tunnel they had come from. Her figure was easily swallowed by the darkness of the mine.

"Hannah!" Richy cries out for her.

No, Hannah...

Jake made a motion to run after her, but a sudden surge of pain pierced his head.

He crumpled to his knees, his hand pressing against his forehead. He tried to sit up, only to be hit by another wave of agony. He groans as he tries to sit up but a sharp beam of light cuts through the darkness, followed by an authoritative voice that echoes off the walls.

“Freeze! This is Duskwood Police!”

****

“I knew there would come a time Richy would betray me,” Ted muttered, his voice dripping with bitterness. His eyes shifted toward the direction they had gone, a hint of anger in his gaze. He started to take a step, his intent clear, but you are not having any of it. He’s going to need to get through with your corpse first before he can leave this room. “Still,” he chuckled darkly. “He did a good job doing the dirty work for me.”

You spat out blood and grinned. “May I remind you he’s never been on your side to begin with?”

“True.” Ted's lips twitched in an almost begrudging acknowledgment. He raised his fist, the knife gleaming menacingly in his other hand while you stood there within a careful distance with an annoyingly sly grin.

Ignoring the ache spiking up with every inch of your body, you settled into your usual fighting stance. One leg was positioned forward, the other slightly back, creating a solid base. Both fists were raised defensively in front of your head, elbows tucked in tightly to protect your sides.

Everything is fucking painful but you didn’t allow yourself to feel anything. Anything but rage. That's all you should feel. Maybe rage would suffice enough to make you stand, to make you walk, to make you fight.

Ted seemed almost amused as he casually tilted his neck, producing an unsettling crack that echoed through the air. His previous grin morphed into a snarl; his eyes filled with a deadly intent. “I’d never want a murderer on my side anyway.”

He decided to move first, the knife swinging fast like a bullet. You just hop back casually, the knife hitting nothing but the air. A wide, almost manic grin spread across his face. Another jab was missed, and then another; one to the right and another to the left.

You quickly realized that Ted is planning to keep this pace up for a while, knowing that if he continued like this given your injuries, you wouldn’t be able to keep up with him before long.

While you're confident in your combat skills, whether up close or at range, your endurance is practically top-notch. You're also aware that Ted has the upper hand in terms of strength and speed at the moment due to your injuries.  Nonetheless, you've noticed that while his strength and speed are commendable– he lacks precise muscle coordination, which allows you to deftly evade his jabs.

As the fight raged on, it became evident that Ted's patience was wearing thin. Time seems to slow down as he notices that he has yet to make contact with you. Despite his best efforts, he's only hitting the air. Even your injuries couldn't suppress your movements from being so agile and fluid that he could barely keep up.

“Come on,” you taunted, a playful grin on your face. “You think you’ll be able to catch your self-proclaimed murderers if you can’t even finish off little ol’ me?”

You’re not sure if it’s quite possible to make a person angrier than this but you must have struck a nerve as Ted’s punches came in quick succession, but you are still able to move with such speed, barely needing to shift your weight to evade his blows. Your hands casually rested at your sides, almost mocking Ted as he grew increasingly frustrated.

Minutes passed like a blur, and you continued to evade Ted’s attacks with your god-speed movements. It’s starting to wear you out but still; you manage to go beyond your limits. Even when he had finally cornered you against the wall, you were able to sidestep just in time, causing his fist to collide against the hard wall leaving a large dent against it.

You were always one step ahead. With each punch, you sidestepped, twisted, and ducked with great precision, using quick footwork and careful movements to evade his attacks. You spun and shifted, your movements were seamless and well-timed, making Ted’s' parries miss their mark time and time again.

A second of distraction was all you needed as you quickly rounded behind him, stomping your foot on his back.

You grinned happily as you hop back on your feet and went back to your original stance; hands tucked securely against your arms, patiently waiting for him to stand up.

Ted collided with the wall with a grunt, his tight grip against the knife loosening as it fell to the ground. He didn't expect you to attack back. Nonetheless, he recovered and backed off. That kick was far stronger than he anticipated.

Ted now knew he had underestimated you, and this was no longer a battle he could take lightly. He took a deep breath and charged towards you, this time with more caution in his movements. You could see the determination in his eyes, and you knew that the real battle was about to begin. You have been relying on your evasive skills alone for far too long, and you decided it was time to change up your strategy.

You stepped to the side, avoiding his attack, and countered with a quick jab to his ribs, followed by a hook to his jaw. The blows were quick and powerful, but you didn't stop there.

You followed up with a low kick, sweeping his feet from under him. As Ted fell to the ground, he stood up just as fast as he fell. You didn't let him recover from that and landed a kick to his back. He grunted in pain, but you didn't stop.

You delivered a series of punches to his sides and stomach, each one more powerful than the last. Ted tried to block and dodge, but your attacks were too quick and too precise.

Finally, you backed off, giving him a moment to catch his breath or more precisely, give yourself a break because ‘Goddammit, I think I’ve pushed myself a little too hard.’ You think. You just hoped they had already gotten out of here.

You tried to hide the grimace on your face as you stood there, waiting for him to get back up.

“Aren’t you going a little overboard protecting those murderers, agent?" Ted questioned; his breaths uneven as he regained his footing.

“The only murderer I see right now is you,” you retorted with a teasing expression, you ran your fingers through your hair, brushing away the dried blood hindering your vision.

“Fool!” This only provokes Ted to charge at you again. This time, his kicks were even more forceful and aggressive than before, and you could see that he was putting all his strength into the attacks. However, you remained unfazed, still smirking as you evaded his blows with ease. Although there were moments when he nearly landed a hit on you, you managed to block them just in time with one arm.

You noted though that if you weren’t a trained agent, even though you managed to block his attacks, they are still strong enough to leave a bruise or worse, break a bone to a normal civilian with no fighting experience or whatever.

After a moment of pure evasion from a parry of attacks from Ted, your smile widened as you noticed a glaring blind spot that everyone could see in broad daylight.

As Ted threw a careless punch, you swiftly ducked and moved to his right, unleashing a series of quick, harsh jabs to his ribs. He grunted in pain and swung wildly at you, but you ducked once more and followed up with a  roundhouse kick to his face. The blow left him dizzy and disoriented, causing his attacks to become more and more inaccurate.

As he threw another punch, you swiftly yanked his arm and tossed him away. You watched as he turned around and surged back towards you, ready to attack once again. But you were ready for him this time, swiftly ducking under his arm and delivering a punch with such incredible speed and force that may seem impossible for someone who is injured. Your fist made contact with his chest, sending him hurtling into the wall with a thud.

“Finally…” you panted as you crouched in front of his unconscious form, checking for signs of consciousness. Confirming his state, you knew that this was the one-in-a-million outcome you had hoped for.

The suspect was alive, Richy and Hannah had escaped, and you were left victorious. Thoughts of Jake's safety lingered, but you held onto the belief that he would find a way to save himself. If not, you were determined to come to his rescue.

With a sense of satisfaction, you stood up and turned to retrieve the ropes you had been tied with to restrain Ted.

Suddenly you heard a bang.

It was so sudden and loud that you weren’t able to react immediately. Only when you felt the sharp stinging pain against your side did you realize that you had been shot. Warm blood began to pool against your palms as you tried to put pressure on them. You look back at the source and to your horror, Ted with a revolver in his hands has begun to rise from his place. A sickening grin plastered all over his face.

"Got you," his raspy voice cut through the air.

The pain was too much. You have only been fighting earlier out of sheer will and adrenaline, and now that they finally wore off plus a gunshot wound, the pain you are feeling is spiking up all over so bad that you can’t even determine which one hurts the most.

You tried standing up, but it only made you fall on your back as you clutched your side in pain.

Ted’s grinning face looms over you menacingly. “You have put up a good fight, Agent. I’ll give you some credit. However, this is where you will say goodbye.”

Ted raised his revolver, and time seemed to slow down. The movies had always depicted this moment — life flashing before your eyes. Faces of loved ones, friends, and memories cascaded through your mind. Each cherished moment, each unfulfilled promise, they all surged to the forefront.

Images of Jake, Richy, Lilly, Dan, Cleo, Thomas, Hannah, and Jessy flooded your thoughts.

All your moments with them— with her came flashing.

All moments of what could have been came spiraling. All the possible dates, the traveling, the camping with the gang. All those you promised to give her.

You won’t be able to keep your promises.

How could something that hasn’t yet begun start to end right in your very eyes? Was it really meant to be this way?

Maybe.

It’s okay. You tried to convince yourself. They’re safe now. You can rest.

You close your eyes, acceptance slowly creeping up to cover up the pain. You waited for the gunshot.

A beat of silence occurred.

But none came. Only to hear a soft hiss of a swing was heard and then a crack.

“Y/n!”

You dared to open your eyes and saw a pair of warm gray eyes meeting your own. “H-han…” you tried to speak but found it difficult to even breathe.

“I've got you… I've got you,” she whispered, offering a shaky hand to help you up. You grunted, your vision going white from the hot pain. Nevertheless, your eyes fought hard to spot Ted.

There he was, sprawled across the floor, blood pooling around his head. Beside him is the bloodied metallic baseball bat that he had swung at you earlier. An understanding came through you.

“I-I hit him…” Hannah tries to explain between sniffs. “He was… he was going to shoot you..! I didn’t— I don’t know what to do. I j-just can’t let him kill you. I’m sorry.” Her tears fell, her grip on you trembling.

You squeeze her other hand that supports you. “I… h-hah it’s okay, Hannah. You— you didn’t kill him.”

As if to prove his point. Ted's laughter broke through his pain, filling the room. He laughed, a haunting sound that soon morphed into sobs. Both of you watched as he crawled on the ground, his movements feeble. Hannah had hit him pretty hard.

“Jen… I’m sorry…” He sobs, eyes staring at no one in particular. “I’m sorry… I’m sorry. I missed you so much…”

You can only watch him break down. You’re sure his ragged sobs will forever be embarked in your mind. You truly felt sorry for him. But there’s no way out of this one.

Abruptly, his sobs ceased, leaving behind an eerie stillness that engulfed the mine. Ted's gaze shifted toward you and Hannah, his eyes vacant, as though grappling with his inner demons.

It was during this unsettling stillness that you noticed Ted conjure a lighter from thin air, its faint glow illuminating his twisted grin. He ignited the lighter's flame and then released it, allowing it to fall to the ground with a soft hiss. Suddenly, the damp soil underfoot ignited, setting off a chain reaction of fire that raced through the room and beyond the tunnels.

Only then do you realize that the damp soils from the ground weren’t because of water, they were gasoline!

Fuck it. You didn’t expect Ted to resort to suicide, and of course, he thought that’s the best way to bring down you two. Even at the expense of his own death.

The roaring fire's fury consumed the surroundings, the air thickening with smoke and chaos. As the flames surged ever closer, Hannah's grip on you tightened, pulling you away from the encroaching inferno. “Come on!” She fights back the tears as you hear Ted’s one last scream of agony before everything goes silent.

“You should go…” You managed to rasp out, the pain evident in your voice.  “Hannah, I’m just going to slow you down…”

“No!” she shook her head vehemently. “I can’t leave you here!”

You managed a weak chuckle, your body straining against the pain. “You’re as h-hah— stubborn as Lilly… but I’m here because I want to s-save you. And that still stands true right n-now…”

Hannah’s grip on your hips tightened. Her pace suddenly goes faster as she helps you navigate through the tunnel with slight ease. Luckily the fire here isn’t as bad as where you came from, but you know it will eventually catch up if you don't hurry.

“This might be hell coming its way up here to come and make me pay for my sins.” Hannah's laugh was tinged with bitterness and tears. “I’m done running away. But I’ll be damned if I let you get caught in this mess again. Let me save you this time, Y/n.”

~~~~~

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A/n: Hi! Good evening (morning or afternoon) to y'all. Sorry, this took so long. As I have said, I find it quite challenging to write a fight scene that would be satisfactory but I tried my best. This is not beta-read just yet because my eyes are so tired from finishing the chapter hahaha but nevertheless, I think it's worth it. Lemme know what you guys think in the comments. I shall rest my eyes now so I'll probably respond to y'all tomorrow. Adios!

[favroitecrime]

As great as the exchange of hostages was, we need to remember a few things:

1. Palestinian prisoners are hostages. A lot of them children. False arrests with pretenses of committing violence backed with such poor evidence it’s a disgrace. Also, most of the ‘confessions’ are through brutal interrogation (cc: torture).

2. They arrested just as quick, if not quicker, than they released. They kidnapped people with no charges so they can force them to be part of the ‘exchange’ so that the hostages who WERE supposed to be part of it stay in jail.

3. The stories coming from freed Palestinians are fucking horrific. No food, no water, stripped, left naked, no blankets or pillows, barely a mattress to sleep on, bloodied, beaten, sexually assaulted, raped, humiliated, and straight up murdered. Some of the kids released are detailing how the IOF killed other hostages in front of them. Yeah.

4. They went around terrorizing the families of the hostages meant to be released threatening them & even beating them as a warning to not celebrate.

5. They shot a teenager for celebrating someone’s freedom. The IOF lady said it like it was a perfectly good reason to end a life.

6. They’ve announced Jenin as part of the war zone now and they’re encroaching on more of the West Bank. Ramallah being one of them. Neither are next to Gaza.

7. They’ve killed several Palestinians during this ‘ceasefire’. November 29, 2023: a teenager and a 9-year-old were killed.

8. They are not honoring the ‘ceasefire’. Dozens of Palestinians in Gaza have either been abducted or killed for attempting to go back North.

Not a single hostage held by Hamas has spoken of any mistreatment. These people are leaving happy, smiling, literally shaking hands, laughing with, & dapping with Hamas soldiers. Zionists are losing their minds trying to push forward the ‘“their loved ones are being held hostage obviously they’re doing it so they won’t get hurt” narrative, but considering the hostages released have been reported to be in good health, that seems extremely doubtful.

Take the time to look up some of those statements. One hostage wrote them a thank you note because her daughter felt like a queen with how well they treated her. They gave the kids candy, they allowed the hostages to see & talk to each other, played with the kids if the kids asked. Compared to the ones being given by Palestinian hostages & then watching more get kidnapped is just… and now merciless bombing across Gaza with threats telling people in Gaza to evacuate even more South. There’s no more South left. Don’t quiet down now, you need to be screaming louder than ever. Free Palestine 🇵🇸

[aquadraco20]

To be clear I am a progressive who voted for Harris. This post is my attempt to understand why people voted for Trump, who I despise and think is a threat to many people.

Obviously the results are a shock for a lot of reasons, namely that so many people are willing to ignore all the negative aspects of Trump to the point of wanting him to have the single most powerful position in America, and to literally put the lives of their friends, family, and neighbors at risk.

I've been thinking about this a lot and talking to people a lot and reading what I can to make sense of it all- why did Kamala lose and how can we prevent this from happening again?

I heard two big reasons,

1. Kamala did talk enough about how she was going to achieve her goals and the scope of her goals was too narrow and

2. America wasn't ready for a woman to be president.

But another thing I've been thinking about is social media and algorithms. We unknowingly created echo chambers for ourselves.

This means we developed the false belief that more people were going to vote for Kamala, and we didn't even get the chance to entertain the priorities of people who thought voting for Trump was a good idea.

So when the polls came in and said it was 50/50, we didnt believe them. When the results came in, people were claiming that Trump cheated (very plausible), ballots weren't being counted and people couldnt vote because of bomb threats. And to be clear, all of these things did happen. But they still dont make up for margin that trump won by. If our perspective was correct, Kamala wouldve won by a landslide and all these things wouldnt have made that much of a difference.

People are upset because everything is so expensive, and trump took advantage of that and made a scapegoat. Things are expensive because immigrants are taking people's jobs, or that we're spending too much on regulation and climate action, or that we're too reliant on importing things from China. And his plan was to deport immigrants, cut regulations, and impose tariffs.

This is a plan. It's a very flawed plan, but his followers dont realize that its corporate greed and monopolies that are keeping prices high, and its easier to listen to a guy who is a charismatic talker and believe what he says, because hey, this guy is rich and he's been in business for years, and it's easy to hate people who you dont feel connected to and blame them for your problems than to research every claim he makes and realize that things are super complicated and difficult to solve, especially when congress keeps getting in the way.

There's a lot of lies but also some half truths, but people are overworked, underpaid, tired and angry. They dont have the time and energy to research all the things he talks about. They just hear that he's going to make things better for you (white, cis, hetero) people and he's going to get rid if the people who make you feel uncomfortable, and he's saying all the hateful things that the uneducated, frustrated, and fearful side of you thinks but cant say outloud without pushback and he gets away with it. He survived a gunshot. People say he committed crimes and sexually assaulted people but he still walks free so he must be innocent because cops are good and the criminal justice system is functional and only bad guys like drug dealers and thieves go to jail.

And purity culture!! The dems are all about pronouns and womens rights and if you don't do something correctly than someone's going to dig up something you did and cancel you and now you cant watch Rosanne on tv anymore. So if you feel like you cant do anything right and the beliefs that you had for years are suddenly wrong and now theirs all these people giving themselves titles that you dont understand, you aren't going to feel a connection or even care about these people. You might even think they're crazy, or being manipulated, or that taking away their rights is actually good for them.

All the moreso when Trump and his cronies and his media paint these people, who you dont understand, don't care about, and never interact with are painted that way, and then backed up with more half truths and lies.

Trump supporters have been brainwashed, and nonvoters and moderate white men were pulled to trump by he least offensive policy ideas.

So how do we fix this? Well, if its safe to do so, we need to start talking to people about reproductive health care, and what being a trans kid actually involves. And we need to learn more about the topics that trump supporters think are important, like the economy and immigration, and we need to talk to our family, friends, and neighbors about them.

I'm not saying that democrats need to sacrifice their beliefs and move to the right. But we do need to leave our echo chambers and talk to people or this will only get worse.

[hotel-japanifornia]

in a post, you said in the tags you have a theory of bikini being the mastermind... CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT IT PLEASE???? /nf

Alright, you asked anon, so therefore I must deliver.

Now, before we get started, this is an old theory of mine back from 2020. During the pandemic, I was really obsessed with Ace Attorney, and as such, a bunch of random and absolutely asinine theories would flow through my head. From a casual AA fan's perspective, this would be one of them; but from my point of view, this one actually holds some water.

To you, my dear anon, I ask one question: were you paying any attention to certain lines Bikini uttered during the beginning of 3-5? Lines such as these:

Now, one could assume that these were just jokes, a ploy of mere black comedy, if you will. As you probably know, these "jokes" had a hand in stirring Pearl's paranoia, causing her to go the Inner Temple side of Dusky Bridge instead of consuming children's entertainment. Essentially, Bikini is the entire reason 3-5's plot even happens, seemingly by accident. Or...was it?

If you recall, throwaway dialogue from Bikini when you present the hanging scroll to her as Phoenix reveals that she's a member of one of the many branch families:

"Bikini:

Well, I myself am part of a branch family of the Fey clan. But even I am not privy to that kind of information when it concerns the main family..."

So, what does this mean? It means that Bikini is one of Morgan and Misty's cousins even if only by distant relations. Because she is about the same age as Misty (Morgan's age is unconfirmed), this places her in a comfortable position to be able to have some sort of relationship with them. Misty abandoning the title of Master out of shame, and subsequently leaving the village, was something that almost certainly led to chaos. We know that Morgan was always bitter towards Misty for usurping her position, a feeling that was certainly enhanced by her own cowardice, but what if Bikini felt similarly? And perhaps, this similar line of thinking caused Morgan and Bikini to grow closer to one another to the point that they would plot against Misty's children.

Now, obviously, Morgan and Bikini couldn't do anything while Mia was alive. This is because Mia and Maya were extremely close, even after Mia left the village. If you require further evidence as to why Morgan never attempted anything on Maya at the time, well just look here:

This line is important for two reasons. One is that this is the only time Maya is ever so much as alluded to during the flashback trials; another is because it indicates just how far Mia would go. If Mia were to shoot someone for trying to kidnap her sister, imagine what she would do to Morgan if she tried anything. Simply put: Morgan Fey would not be alive anymore.

Fortunately for our two evil middle aged women, Mia Fey gets murdered, and thus they can finally put their plans in motion. The first thing they try to do is get Maya framed for murder. Now this one almost works, except for one unexpected conflict: Phoenix Wright's existence. In spite of Maya begging him not to defend her because even she's convinced of her own guilt, Phoenix refuses and manages to pull out another win. This results in Morgan Fey going to jail for being an accomplice/conspiring to commit murder, which would normally put an end to things, but this is Morgan we're talking about here.

So, naturally, Bikini finds out about this and decides to visit her cousin so they can figure out a new plan. Morgan, at this point, is desperate to have Pearl inherit the title, and as such decides to plan for Maya to be assassinated by Dahlia Hawthorne's spirit while possessing Pearl. Despite Pearl being a child, Bikini agrees and even goes so far as to insist that this occurs at Hazakura Temple. This conversation happens sometime after Morgan's arrest but before she talks to Dahlia. Essentially, Godot is still comatose while it takes place, thus explaining why only Morgan and Dahlia were believed to be onboard with the plan.

As the date of Dahlia Hawthorne's execution grew nearer, Bikini decided to put this new plan in motion. She convinces Iris to have Hazakura Temple featured in the January issue of "Oh Cult", which proves to be successful when Pearl sets an appointment for Maya to take the "Special Course". Sure enough, on the seventh of February, Maya and Pearl show up with a third party in the form of Phoenix. At that point, Bikini knew exactly what she needed to do.

Even though Pearl was extremely devoted to her mother, Bikini knew that Morgan couldn't force Pearl to follow the plan. So, she decided to sow seeds of fear and paranoia in Pearl's mind by making jokes about her cousin dying of hypothermia if she wasn't careful. Due to this, Pearl became increasingly worried about Maya; and as such, she went to the Inner Temple while carrying a pot of curry/gravy.

However, things didn't go quite accordingly to Bikini's plan. When she went out to Dusky Bridge after leaving Maya with "Iris", she expected to be able to go back to the Inner Temple side; but, because the bridge was on fire, she was unable to. Worst of all, it was not Maya who was killed, but Misty Fey with her adopted daughter, Iris, being the main suspect. You have to imagine Bikini was internally screaming at this point.

Believing her goose about to be cooked on the grill, Bikini decided to play up the "goofy nun with a bad back" routine. Miraculously, everyone bought it, including Edgeworth. Nobody suspected a thing, which really, makes her the smartest villain in Ace Attorney. I mean, being able to outsmart Edgeworth of all people is a crowning achievement on its own.

The best part about all of this is that it's canon, or it very nearly was anyway. At one point in development, Takumi was thinking about making Bikini the culprit of 3-5. Why did he change it? I can't say exactly; although, if Godot also existed during this period of development, that might partially explain why. Since Godot is little more than a funny jerk during 3-2 and 3-3; it's possible that while writing 3-4 and 3-5, Takumi decided he wanted to expand on the character and give him more to do. Of course, that's only pure speculation and should not be taken as fact.

Now, could those "jokes" be interpreted as remnants of this idea? Possibly. Still, even if I look at it from a casual lens, there's just no real innocuous way to look at those lines. At best, they're creepy and at worst, well, they're malicious.

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed reading this theory.

[absurdist-shitpost]

Seen a lot of arguments about whether or not it was in character for c!Tommy to attempt to reach out to c!Dream in the finale, but not a lot about how OOC it felt for Dream to respond the way he did?

Like. I’m upset about how Tommy’s character was handled for a variety of reasons but judging the stream purely by ‘do the characters act in ways that feel realistic based on how they’ve previously been characterized’ I actually think c!Dream was done far dirtier.

C!Dream is genuinely one of my favorite characters. He makes for a terrifying villain while also feeling deeply human, (and I really don’t think we needed a sympathetic flashback to further humanize him, but that’s a different topic) he’s cruel and controlling and deeply self-centered, but at the same time he craves connection to others while refusing to admit to feeling any sort of attachment out of fear.

C!Dream has always struck me as a character Deeply Afraid of vulnerability. Deeply afraid of Losing Control. I’ve seen posts floating around about how Dream’s planning relies much more heavily on improvisation and luck then he admits, and this is for a reason! Dream doesn’t want to say that he messed up, or that something went wrong, instead he’d much rather say that he was sabotaged (usually by c!tommy) or that This Was Totally the Plan All Along Guys.

It makes perfect sense for Dream to act like this! He was always a competitive and prideful person, even before Shit Got Bad, so when he (and the server more broadly) started taking things farther and farther, committing acts that he likely would have considered Too Far in the past, he responded by by digging his heals in. Because This Was Totally the Plan All Along Guys. If nothing else, c!Dream is a goddamn master of Committing To The Bit.

It’s what gives his character it’s tragedy. Because he would truly be happier just hanging out with his friends. But in the end, /he’s/ the one who cuts them off, not because of anything Tommy or anyone else did, but because he was scared that keeping them around would make him vulnerable. He becomes so blinded by his stubborn attachment (heh) to his own plans and power and this idea of godhood that not only does he ruin the lives of those around him, he ruins his /own/ life too.

And you’re telling me. That Dream, the same Dream that has tortured and abused multiple people, who has gotten /himself/ tortured and jailed, who cut off his friendships, ruined his own reputation on purpose and literally /died/ multiple times all in service of a plan that /he could’ve abandoned himself at multiple points/, That Dream, suddenly decides he gonna call it all off after a 15 minute conversation? Really?

And to be clear, I’m not saying that it feels unrealistic for Dream to regret his actions. In fact, I think it’s likely a part of him has regretted them since he started doing them. But Dream’s reaction to things going wrong has always been to either deflect or dig his heels in. To convince himself that it’s worth it. And above all, to never show Anyone that regret, because that would mean being vulnerable.

C!Tommy ‘understanding his motives’ wouldn’t make c!Dream happy or willing to listen to him, in fact it feels more in line with his character for him to be deeply angered and disturbed by this. There’s no way I can believe that c!Dream would want anyone, much less c!tommy, seeing what he likely considers to be deeply personal memories. C!Dream may want to be understood deep down, but that desire is overwhelmed by his crushing fear of being known. It’s why he cut off c!george and c!Sapnap in the first place, and why he’s dodgy in acknowledging c!Punz as more than just an ally. To c!dream, being understood means being hurt. It means giving someone else control over you.

And maybe c!Dream could overcome this, could realize he was only hurting himself and everyone around him, could realize that /this wasn’t really what he wanted/ but not in 15 goddamn minutes. Not when, from his perspective, his plan had finally come to fruition and he was in a position to obtain Goddamn Immortality. The Only Reason c!Dream was written to have such a quick turn around was because cc!Dream wanted to soften his character at the last second, despite his entire arc before this being built on him essentially sunk-cost-fallacying himself into self destructing and dragging everyone down with him.

Justice for c!Dream. In my heart of hearts you died drunk on your own hubris attempting to become an immortal death god.

[barid-bel-medar]

I still find it hilarious that people think out of the two Izuku is the goody too shoes while Bakugo goes to bed early and didn’t even want to be around his old Aldera followers when they were smoking.

Bakugou is very conscious of the issue of potentially breaking laws. He's someone who puts up a facade of being much more of a loose cannon than he is (which causes its own issues; see the LOV viewing him as a potential recruit). As a result, it's a surprise to think about the fact that no, he's never committed any legal trouble. Theoretically.

Izuku on the other hand really isn't as conscious about it. He's never really had to. A lot of how laws seem to work in context of aspects of heroics used to not effect him. Legally he can't be considered a vigilante (if never given OFA) because he has no Quirk. He can be charged with assault, but he can't be charged with vigilantism, which I suspect may have a high jail time.

It's why I've made it a point in FtE about how Bakugou can't go vigilante; he'd definitely get charged with vigilantism, definitely get assault charges, and may actually get attempted murder charges (it's actually relatively hard to justify screeching 'die' at people). He has the common sense to know he *can't* break a law if he ever wants his dream to come to fruitation.

Izuku on the other hand could probably get away with murder, since would you charge All Might's son with anything if he's killed a villain since they were threatening an abused toddler.

(No seriously, the way the Overhaul fight went could have pretty easily killed Overhaul when it comes down to it)

[22degreehalo]

[Okay so this started as a reblogged addition to this previous post of mine but then it got long enough to stand alone sooooo]

Okay actually to narrow this down a bit, there's something incredibly fascinating about the way that despite Ashley being the driving force behind most of the story, it's almost always Andrew who actually commits the physical act of hurting someone.

Because, yes, despite what I said above, that particular aspect of their dynamic is deeply gendered: 'bad women' are usually the ones who manipulate and connive rather than get their hands dirty directly (with the unintended side effect that we tend to not take it seriously when women DO take physical action, because it just doesn't feel as 'real' or 'bad' as when men do it), while physical aggression is limited to men.

But there's so much more to it. There's the way Andrew feels a need to protect Ashley, which takes from the way he was parentified by his mother into having to take care of her as an authority and guardian rather than just another kid in his own right. The fact that Ashley really did need someone to protect her, because... she was kind of badly lacking in social skills and emotional regulation, to the point of exhibiting sadistic tendencies even from a young age. (Or, I suppose I should say, sadistic tendencies that she never grew out of, due to lacking the normal emotional development that sees young kids develop that kind of conscience?) All of which made her, realistically, pretty darn unpopular!!!

But also... that is a manipulation tactic. It's one of the classic signs of a cult: pressure/coerce a member to engage in some kind of morally reprehensible action, and once that's happened, it becomes far far harder for them to get out. Partially because they've now badly severed any other outside support systems; Renee knew what happened with Nina, and even if she had more hope for Andrew than she ever did Ashley even after that, it clearly framed how she saw those two and their relationship after that point. And, y'know, there's the fact that Andrew is seriously worried that they'll be thrown in jail, which means that he can't tell anyone else what happened, or even let them realise 'how bad' Ashley is, or they might start remembering that missing girl Ashley always used to hang out with...

But also partially because it complicates any internal sense of being a victim of another person's abuse. How can you act like you're some sweet little innocent baby, pushed around by the big old scary abuser, when you yourself have blood on your hands? (Part of why I find it a bit... unsettling? How many people in the TCOAAL fandom sincerely spread that his relenting to Ashley's manipulation makes him 'just as bad'.) It creates an internal sense of guilt and 'need' to be punished, or to be controlled by somebody who can make the 'right decisions'. And it furthers a sense that there's 'no going back' - that there's no point in even trying to escape this relationship, because it's gone too far, and the victim has already given up any hope of having or deserving a life outside of it.

And that's related to something I've had bouncing around in my mind for a lonnnnng time, but still even now don't have the brainspace to fully unpack it. People talk a lot about the inherent trauma of being a woman living under the patriarchy, but I think we don't discuss enough the inherent moral damage of being a man under the same circumstances.

Men are raised to see themselves as aggressive; hostile; killers; predators. They're taught that any sex they get from women is at her expense, a deal that can only be made good by their being Successful Enough to 'earn' it. That success, of course, is zero-sum; men must prove themselves over other men competitively to 'win', whether by earning more money, being more dominant, or (in attemptively progressive spaces) by being 'nicer' or 'better feminists' than other men. Men are expected to sacrifice; to war, to defending the women in their life, to working themselves to the bone under capitalism where women are 'supposed' to rely on men, instead. And that 'protecting' inherently implies violence against other men: men are expected by default to be able to throw themselves into the fray and get beat up and beat up somebody else in turn, and if they can't, they're viewed as lesser; pathetic and selfish. Men aren't given any support system to NOT be capable of inflicting violence. No matter how pacifist or anxious or disabled they are, they are in and of themselves viewed as 'acceptable targets' of violence, due to a perceived inherent ability to enact violence themselves.

Of course Andrew is the one to pull the trigger most of the time. Of course he takes it on as rote, as just his expected part in their messed-up relationship. Of course Ashley gladly lets him, even when she's the one who really wants to see the victim hurting. Of course Ashley encourages him into it, making him part of her decisions, binding him to her in blood over and over again, and of course she then throws it in his face as him 'choosing her', because what can he plausibly say to argue against that? And, then, of course his 'decay' involves turning his violence against both Ashley and himself, because he's too far gone to turn back now and become the monster Ashley was trying to turn him into.

AGAIN, I don't mean this as anti-Ashley; I think this is a super insightful display of both gender and abuser dynamics, and as I've said above, there are a whole heck of a lot of reasons why Ashley is the way she is. Also, fucked up and unjustifiably bad female characters are good sometimes!!

Just. Ashley does, canonically, encourage Andrew to engage in acts that his conscience rails against - actions that fill him with guilt and emotional pain - and then uses all of that to tie him to her ever stronger so he'll never leave. It says a lot that she gets so nervous when Andrew stops acting so guilty in the Burial route; because if she can't throw that moral damage back at him, how is she supposed to make sure he doesn't leave? If he's happy and well-adjusted and believes he deserves a decent life, why would he ever willingly stay with her?! (So she thinks.)(Not that she's entirely wrong, but.) She doesn't trust healthy relationship dynamics; she trusts guilt and trauma bonding.

(And it also means something hella big that Andrew seemingly doesn't get quite so many of those guilt-ridden nightmares as he pretends. Is he trying to pretend to himself he hasn't already slipped so far? Does he crave Ashley's loving reassurance just as much as she wants him to need it? It's like... speaking of intricate rituals, holy hell if this isn't fucking one of them: getting messed up in the head over committing cannibalism and murder, but then continuing to pretend that it's messing you up long after you're sorta getting over it, because that's the safest and easiest way to make your sister happy and nice to you.)