Bailey essay
This hasn't been beta'd or anything and may not be entirely coherent but!
On Sakon and Bailey:
So Sakon met Bailey as a little kid and she’s pushed all of his buttons in just the right way to make him extremely protective towards her in a short period of time. This needs to be explained in detail. Especially as it’s gotten Sakon dangerously close to being OOC. A failure on my part which I should have realized was going to happen but that’s for later. First the explanation of where I was coming from.
First off, Sakon does have some semblance of morality. While it doesn’t match up with common morality in very many ways there are things he just won’t do. Most of those things concern teammates. But there are things he won’t do. That fact stands.
Sakon doesn’t interact with a single child in canon. Most of the Sound-nin are his age or older. It makes determining how he would react to things very difficult. While things did get out of hand with the Bailey situation I do stand by my original determination about his general reactions to young children. While Sakon is not above killing, and actually is quite comfortable with doing so, the killing of small children is something he wouldn’t do unless Orochimaru were to order it. And he wouldn’t like it even then. Little children are not a threat and haven’t done anything to make them worth killing. Especially civilians. Civilians are only to be scoffed at briefly and then ignored unless they have something that Sakon wants. Which is what Sakon started the conversation with Bailey off as. Then she pushed emo/rage buttons and things changed.
One of the bigger buttons for Sakon is mentioning his past before he became one of Orochimaru’s subordinants. Canon has established that Orochimaru preys on young children with great potential and also really bad pasts. And that most of the children he takes in have no family left/to speak of. This can be seen in Sasuke, Kimimaro and Zaku. So whatever past you pick for Sakon it’s pretty much guaranteed to have been bad, and possibly descending into hellish, and that for some reason he didn’t have a family besides Ukon by the time Orochimaru took him in. Because he does have a bad past and knows it’s affected him he’s reluctant to seriously harm small children in mental and emotional ways. As much as he might claim not to care other bad pasts would only serve to remind him of his and he doesn’t like that. And the idea of deliberately causing someone that sort of pain bothers him on a level he isn’t fully aware of and could never articulate.
Back to Bailey, very quickly into the conversation she mentioned that her parents sent her to camp. Camp is not a nice place. Parts of it are very dangerous as far as Sakon is concerned. He has no trouble as a ninja of course but thinks civilians would pretty much be going to messy deaths if they aren’t veeery careful. Bailey is definitely a civilian and five at that. A double whammy of helplessness. The idea of parents sending their kid to camp smacks of bad intentions to Sakon because of this. Without people to look after her it’d be just like sending Bailey to her death. Bad past ping, assuming Bailey would be able to survive it. On hearing that he got annoyed at the parents and was much more inclined to play along with harmless stuff a little bit. It’s not hurting him in any way and it’s keeping her from going and getting killed so it’s ok.
And during the conversation Bailey kept broadcasting innocence and utter trusting. These things are something that Sakon has very little to no experience with. In someone older it’d annoy the hell out of him but in a little kid? It seems right so he was taking care not to go out of his way to destroy that. He softened answers to her questions and dissuaded her from becoming a ninja because of that. (Though the ninja thing is also because she strikes him as not being able to handle that lifestyle.)
Then Bailey went and brought up HIS bad past, which is three times worse. Had she been an adult he would have attacked her for it. But she’s a little kid and he was already in the mindset of not harming her if he could help it. So he didn’t. And then she utterly floored him with her reaction. Sakon is completely unused to virtual strangers showing that kind of sympathy/compassion towards him for anything. Hell, he’s unused to the Four showing any outward compassion towards him. He didn’t know what to do and was quite confused.
The final straw was bringing up the family thing. The only family he has is Ukon. (The Four he doesn’t classify as family though they might as well be.) It’s been long enough that his only classification of family relationships is the one he has with Ukon. If you’re family with someone then the relationship is a lot like that. Very close with watching each other’s backs and stuff like that. He immediately thought of that when she said she’d be his family. The fact that she said that in a completely honest way after already showing that compassion earlier and then stuck to it throughout the conversation made him believe she was serious in a way he’d never believe an adult would be. He had two choices, play along and treat her like a little sister, or freak out and push her away, possibly causing mental anguish. So he chose to play along for several reasons.
One being that she was a child all alone, without other family to depend on and clearly seeking him out as a substitute. The second was that she was already showing care and compassion (and physical contact) Sakon can’t associate with anyone but family. The third was that he was already backed into a corner by having been playing along with her up to that point. And lastly, Sakon sees young kids as being very flighty. On one thing with absolute serious one minute and the next day after something different, the first completely forgotten. He wasn’t expecting to ever see her again after she left their first conversation. While it smacked of a slight betrayal to him (family sticks together) he had no intentions of pursuing her and if she didn’t seek him out again, the declaration of family-ness was null and void thus allowing him to wash his hands of the entire thing.
Except that she did seek him out and reiterated the stuff about being family rather than nullifying it. And she was clingy and physical with him, hiding behind him at one point. To Sakon that screamed, “I need you and depend on you.” and it upped his protectiveness towards her so much that he seriously intended to go after Peter at that point (whereas before he would have let it drop). And the point that she freaked about the idea of him dying just made things worse. By that point he was accepting the familial “duty” towards her (to protect her and beat the shit out of anything that threatened her or upset her) as a long term thing and letting it be hard wired into his “autopilot” so to speak. At least until she re-aged. When he was again expecting her to reject him so he could go on his merry way. Note that he never wants to be the one rejecting things. Betrayal of family is just something Sakon does not do. He would never, ever betray Ukon.
So, in response to his new duties he went after Peter (who he thought was an adult at the time) in order to make sure she wasn’t put in danger again. Because Sakon sees the lake as something dangerous enough that he won’t approach it without a damn good reason. All the things he’s heard about it have made him (probably) overly cautious in that respect.
His first thought on seeing Peter was about 10 was simply to rail at him and bully him into not taking Bailey to the lake again. Because he doesn’t like to hurt children, even if they are old enough to almost be ninja. Then Peter attacked and gave Sakon a reason to hurt him. 10 + fighting skill = (sorta)ninja. And Sakon has no qualms about slaughtering any ninja, no matter the age, that gets in his way. What held him back from doing serious damage was that Bailey clearly (misguidedly as far as Sakon was concerned) trusted Peter and saw him as a friend. He didn’t want to upset her. Buut, he upset her anyway and then everything went to hell.
And theeen, Kimimaro showed up and told Sakon to drop the whole thing with Bailey. Sakon, fueled by his rebelliousness, hate for Kimimaro, and a biig dose of family “duty” actually stood up for himself. For all of one hit. And really, he expected Bailey to eventually reject him anyway and blood is much thicker than spur of the moment proclamations. So his sense of self-preservation kicked in and he backed off and is dropping little Bailey like a hot potato.
But he doesn’t like it, especially since he actually let himself get into a protective mode over her. You never betray a real family bond (in this case Ukon) and even the weak pseudo-bond Bailey started was enough that he wouldn’t have betrayed it without a great deal of coercion.
Ukon, on the other hand, remained quite and passive for the most of this situation. He generally lets Sakon do what he wants and only steps in when his personal wants override that or Sakon does something that really endangers him. It didn’t help that all the pinging Bailey did for Sakon also pinged him and that he is far more used to being in an older brother role than Sakon is. When confronted with Kimimaro though, he was the quicker of the two to back out and that scared Sakon into backing out as well.
Since then, Sakon has gotten chewed out by several people he actually cares enough to listen to and has no intentions of getting involved with another child the way he was with Bailey. Thus solving the problem where I got so close to being OOC.
On that note. I will admit that it is entirely my fault for not thinking ahead when starting that first thread with Child!Bailey. Failing to consider the possible ways the interaction could go, long term, led me to make some less than good decisions as to Sakon’s reactions. Looking back, it probably would have been better for him to have been too weirded out to respond in a manner that would have encouraged her. I will make efforts to be more careful in the future.
On Sakon and Bailey:
So Sakon met Bailey as a little kid and she’s pushed all of his buttons in just the right way to make him extremely protective towards her in a short period of time. This needs to be explained in detail. Especially as it’s gotten Sakon dangerously close to being OOC. A failure on my part which I should have realized was going to happen but that’s for later. First the explanation of where I was coming from.
First off, Sakon does have some semblance of morality. While it doesn’t match up with common morality in very many ways there are things he just won’t do. Most of those things concern teammates. But there are things he won’t do. That fact stands.
Sakon doesn’t interact with a single child in canon. Most of the Sound-nin are his age or older. It makes determining how he would react to things very difficult. While things did get out of hand with the Bailey situation I do stand by my original determination about his general reactions to young children. While Sakon is not above killing, and actually is quite comfortable with doing so, the killing of small children is something he wouldn’t do unless Orochimaru were to order it. And he wouldn’t like it even then. Little children are not a threat and haven’t done anything to make them worth killing. Especially civilians. Civilians are only to be scoffed at briefly and then ignored unless they have something that Sakon wants. Which is what Sakon started the conversation with Bailey off as. Then she pushed emo/rage buttons and things changed.
One of the bigger buttons for Sakon is mentioning his past before he became one of Orochimaru’s subordinants. Canon has established that Orochimaru preys on young children with great potential and also really bad pasts. And that most of the children he takes in have no family left/to speak of. This can be seen in Sasuke, Kimimaro and Zaku. So whatever past you pick for Sakon it’s pretty much guaranteed to have been bad, and possibly descending into hellish, and that for some reason he didn’t have a family besides Ukon by the time Orochimaru took him in. Because he does have a bad past and knows it’s affected him he’s reluctant to seriously harm small children in mental and emotional ways. As much as he might claim not to care other bad pasts would only serve to remind him of his and he doesn’t like that. And the idea of deliberately causing someone that sort of pain bothers him on a level he isn’t fully aware of and could never articulate.
Back to Bailey, very quickly into the conversation she mentioned that her parents sent her to camp. Camp is not a nice place. Parts of it are very dangerous as far as Sakon is concerned. He has no trouble as a ninja of course but thinks civilians would pretty much be going to messy deaths if they aren’t veeery careful. Bailey is definitely a civilian and five at that. A double whammy of helplessness. The idea of parents sending their kid to camp smacks of bad intentions to Sakon because of this. Without people to look after her it’d be just like sending Bailey to her death. Bad past ping, assuming Bailey would be able to survive it. On hearing that he got annoyed at the parents and was much more inclined to play along with harmless stuff a little bit. It’s not hurting him in any way and it’s keeping her from going and getting killed so it’s ok.
And during the conversation Bailey kept broadcasting innocence and utter trusting. These things are something that Sakon has very little to no experience with. In someone older it’d annoy the hell out of him but in a little kid? It seems right so he was taking care not to go out of his way to destroy that. He softened answers to her questions and dissuaded her from becoming a ninja because of that. (Though the ninja thing is also because she strikes him as not being able to handle that lifestyle.)
Then Bailey went and brought up HIS bad past, which is three times worse. Had she been an adult he would have attacked her for it. But she’s a little kid and he was already in the mindset of not harming her if he could help it. So he didn’t. And then she utterly floored him with her reaction. Sakon is completely unused to virtual strangers showing that kind of sympathy/compassion towards him for anything. Hell, he’s unused to the Four showing any outward compassion towards him. He didn’t know what to do and was quite confused.
The final straw was bringing up the family thing. The only family he has is Ukon. (The Four he doesn’t classify as family though they might as well be.) It’s been long enough that his only classification of family relationships is the one he has with Ukon. If you’re family with someone then the relationship is a lot like that. Very close with watching each other’s backs and stuff like that. He immediately thought of that when she said she’d be his family. The fact that she said that in a completely honest way after already showing that compassion earlier and then stuck to it throughout the conversation made him believe she was serious in a way he’d never believe an adult would be. He had two choices, play along and treat her like a little sister, or freak out and push her away, possibly causing mental anguish. So he chose to play along for several reasons.
One being that she was a child all alone, without other family to depend on and clearly seeking him out as a substitute. The second was that she was already showing care and compassion (and physical contact) Sakon can’t associate with anyone but family. The third was that he was already backed into a corner by having been playing along with her up to that point. And lastly, Sakon sees young kids as being very flighty. On one thing with absolute serious one minute and the next day after something different, the first completely forgotten. He wasn’t expecting to ever see her again after she left their first conversation. While it smacked of a slight betrayal to him (family sticks together) he had no intentions of pursuing her and if she didn’t seek him out again, the declaration of family-ness was null and void thus allowing him to wash his hands of the entire thing.
Except that she did seek him out and reiterated the stuff about being family rather than nullifying it. And she was clingy and physical with him, hiding behind him at one point. To Sakon that screamed, “I need you and depend on you.” and it upped his protectiveness towards her so much that he seriously intended to go after Peter at that point (whereas before he would have let it drop). And the point that she freaked about the idea of him dying just made things worse. By that point he was accepting the familial “duty” towards her (to protect her and beat the shit out of anything that threatened her or upset her) as a long term thing and letting it be hard wired into his “autopilot” so to speak. At least until she re-aged. When he was again expecting her to reject him so he could go on his merry way. Note that he never wants to be the one rejecting things. Betrayal of family is just something Sakon does not do. He would never, ever betray Ukon.
So, in response to his new duties he went after Peter (who he thought was an adult at the time) in order to make sure she wasn’t put in danger again. Because Sakon sees the lake as something dangerous enough that he won’t approach it without a damn good reason. All the things he’s heard about it have made him (probably) overly cautious in that respect.
His first thought on seeing Peter was about 10 was simply to rail at him and bully him into not taking Bailey to the lake again. Because he doesn’t like to hurt children, even if they are old enough to almost be ninja. Then Peter attacked and gave Sakon a reason to hurt him. 10 + fighting skill = (sorta)ninja. And Sakon has no qualms about slaughtering any ninja, no matter the age, that gets in his way. What held him back from doing serious damage was that Bailey clearly (misguidedly as far as Sakon was concerned) trusted Peter and saw him as a friend. He didn’t want to upset her. Buut, he upset her anyway and then everything went to hell.
And theeen, Kimimaro showed up and told Sakon to drop the whole thing with Bailey. Sakon, fueled by his rebelliousness, hate for Kimimaro, and a biig dose of family “duty” actually stood up for himself. For all of one hit. And really, he expected Bailey to eventually reject him anyway and blood is much thicker than spur of the moment proclamations. So his sense of self-preservation kicked in and he backed off and is dropping little Bailey like a hot potato.
But he doesn’t like it, especially since he actually let himself get into a protective mode over her. You never betray a real family bond (in this case Ukon) and even the weak pseudo-bond Bailey started was enough that he wouldn’t have betrayed it without a great deal of coercion.
Ukon, on the other hand, remained quite and passive for the most of this situation. He generally lets Sakon do what he wants and only steps in when his personal wants override that or Sakon does something that really endangers him. It didn’t help that all the pinging Bailey did for Sakon also pinged him and that he is far more used to being in an older brother role than Sakon is. When confronted with Kimimaro though, he was the quicker of the two to back out and that scared Sakon into backing out as well.
Since then, Sakon has gotten chewed out by several people he actually cares enough to listen to and has no intentions of getting involved with another child the way he was with Bailey. Thus solving the problem where I got so close to being OOC.
On that note. I will admit that it is entirely my fault for not thinking ahead when starting that first thread with Child!Bailey. Failing to consider the possible ways the interaction could go, long term, led me to make some less than good decisions as to Sakon’s reactions. Looking back, it probably would have been better for him to have been too weirded out to respond in a manner that would have encouraged her. I will make efforts to be more careful in the future.