Doesn't Sound Too Bad To Bet My Life On That.

[rionaleonhart]

The Keiji/Sara ship for Your Turn to Die is serving me so well. All the fanfiction is weird and dark and tense and 'shit, I don't know if I can trust this guy, maybe I should have thought about that before I let him put his fingers in me.' I love it.

I've come across exactly one fic for it that was fluffy to any extent, and it went like this:

Fic: Here's some dark stuff! But there are also flashforwards to Keiji and Sara living a fluffy, domestic life—
Riona: Booooooo.
Fic: —because he forcibly erased her memories.
Riona: Holy shit, this is the best ship.

(I'm not opposed to fluff; it's just not what I tend to be in the mood to read!)

The Keiji/Sara shippers are an extremely lovely, enthusiastic bunch who get a lot of undeserved stick, which makes me want to write more fanfiction for them. Astonishingly, it seems the efforts of the faction going 'YOU CAN'T SHIP THAT, IT'S MORALLY WRONG' may have backfired! (To be honest, it's hard to get morally outraged over the thought of a fictional seventeen-year-old fictionally making out with a fictional twenty-something when I, an actual living human, could legally have banged as many buff policemen as I wanted at the age of seventeen.)

None of my fic ideas are clicking, though, which is a little frustrating. It's difficult to write Keiji when he keeps his past and his motivations so close to his muscular chest. One of my ideas is, inevitably, 'Sara wakes up in her normal life with memories of the Death Game, and it's hard for her to process these traumatic experiences that didn't actually happen', but I'd have no idea how to write Keiji outside the context of the game.

A part of me insists on interpreting Keiji as what happens when Carlos of Zero Escape goes through traumatic experiences and ends up kind of dead inside, but Carlos is remarkably psychologically resilient; given the traumatic experiences he's already been through prior to Zero Time Dilemma, he seems pretty open and well-adjusted. Could he really become this screwed-up, secretive, manipulative, dead-eyed man?

It's possible I just went 'I love both of these ripped blond guys who were abducted and thrown into a murder game; maybe that means they're the same guy?' No, Riona. There's room for more than one ripped blond murder game guy in your heart.

Comments

[rionaleonhart]

That age-of-consent thing makes a lot of sense. I also think there's a difference between someone who's grown up with the expectation that they'll reach the age of consent at sixteen, and someone who's grown up expecting it to be slightly older; I think being of the age of consent in itself makes a seventeen-year-old who grew up in the UK psychologically (as well as legally) more able to consent than a seventeen-year-old who grew up in California, if that makes sense.

For clarity, in case any passers-by are wondering (I know you personally know my stance on this), I'm talking about the real world and not making any sort of statement on what should or shouldn't be written about in fiction.

('dependent on their parents for contraceptives' is slightly mindblowing - over here, contraceptive services are free and confidential, even if you're under sixteen, on the grounds 'teenagers are going to have sex, whatever the law, so it's best to do whatever can be done to prevent teen pregnancy and STDs'.)

Now I’m wondering, how would Carlos and Keiji react if they met?

Hmm! Keiji's extremely shifty and can be frustrating, but Carlos is extremely good at liking people. Carlos is straightforward and open. I think they might actually get along pretty well, despite their differences. They'd work together well to try to uncover exactly what's going on and whether it's possible to get out of their situation. And then they'd make out, I hope. Keiji would initiate it and Carlos would be slightly confused.

[wolfy_writing]

That makes sense about the age of consent being in of itself a factor. Part of what being psychologically prepared to deal with sex with adults involves is having the awareness that you’re going to, at a certain age, have to deal with adults being legally free to have sex with you if you consent, and that if you don’t want to, you’re going to need to learn to say no.

It’s not a law requiring parental consent, and in places where there’s a funded public health program to give out contraception they actually do maintain confidentiality. But with the need to pay for it, and health care costs in the U.S. being what they are, it’s sometimes a de facto barrier. (And some people are pushing to make it a legal requirement.)

Ooh, Carlos and Keiji sound fun together! (And should definitely make out.)