itch.io

On Bao: My concieve Bao out of the University as being "cool", but not actually cool. She dresses well (and a little edgy), in expensive clothing, has status because of her mother and can act aloof to protect herself from the fact that she's... not that good, socially. She puts up a facade to cover for that, and once she's dropped into a place with uniforms and where almost everyone comes from the same type of social class, all her usual defensive tools are gone. She'd never have many friends, but now she also feels beneath everyone. No wonder then she reaches for the one symbol of status she can find (though I imagine she was a knife freak outside of college). She needs another way to inflict herself onto others that isn't just superiority. Also funny how she finds herself attracted to one of the girls who doesn't inherently come from high society.

Also yeah. She seems like the type of girl who wears her emotions on her sleeve -- everyone knows when she's in a bad mood, after all... but no one REALLY knows how bloodthirsty the beast is.

On Jan: Thinking about pre-university Bao, I think Jan's effortless coolness would obviously seem so attractive to her. She does all things Bao wishes she could do. Out of college she probably gets most of her clothes from thrift stores but still looks cool in whatever she wears. In a school filled with the rich and privledged... it's not like none of them haven't had hardship -- If I write more, we'd see more on the abusive dynamic between Bao and her mother -- but not the type of real 'sleeping in an alley under a newspaper' hardship Jan has endured. The type of hardships that numb you to the indignities of a girl having her bloody hands embedded into your guts. Jan knows she must survive, and while this transgression may be new, she's been here before, at the edge of extreme human experiences.

Also HOLY shit lol that last part sounds like an AWESOME experience, I'm a little jealous!! Thank you so much!