As Never Was

Chapter 12

So I stumbled upon some....edits.....on TikTok that gave me some spoilers about the latest editions of the comic which I haven't had the chance to read (and by some, I mean a lot because it's been a while since I entered a bookstore or anything remotely similar) and I just realized that when people call Charles red flag and OP, I didn't realize just how much of a red flag, nor how much of an OP he was. Because the dude like (correct me if I'm wrong) yanked Anubis by the hair or something and I thought, that's some.....very concerning display of power over there and it kinda made me feel uneasy because usually, the main character and main villain would be at least on the same level of power, regardless of form, but Charles has proven to have no problem dealing with anyone, which gives off the impression that there is no real villain in prince series, and only cannon fodders with different strength levels. Of course, vast power imbalance works great if it's your villain who's stronger, unless you're Saitama or something. But point is, it's making me queasy. And that's why I'm here instead of actually reading some prince series. 

That being said, Charles may have ruined the 'innocence' of the whole story, which makes the general plot seem pointless and far from its original educational purposes. Not that I'm complaining (too badly) because obviously if it remained a kid's comic, I wouldn't want to read it either, but where the princes remained friends, therein lies the distinctive power imbalance between the characters. Kinda like Marvel today. 

I would say that this trope is almost similar to Bungou Stray Dogs but then I'd be wrong because each character in Bungou Stray Dogs have their own useful strengths as opposed to the rest of the princes here. I wanted to write a fic where I can include all the characters heavily in the plot but it's getting kinda hard when in cannon these characters didn't contribute much to the....defeat of the villain. They're practically still living in their delulu, being righteous and saving the day (barely could be called that to be honest). I mean, there's nothing wrong with that, but these two types of characters can't fit in the same genre here. 

I wanted to write some adult-like trope and that can be allowed technically because both Shao Long and Charles were 34 by the time of their death, so elements of drugs, alcohols and so on and so forth can be more intricately involved compared to What Was Worth A Heart, but then there's the princes. 

So what I'm gonna do is assign a speciality to every one of the princes (Gion Squad excluded because they're already equipped with their own skills) and ignore some details in cannon so that all of them can flourish and hopefully I can get rid of the too obvious power imbalance. So that, you know, they wouldn't be too excluded. Like, I need Albert, Ciel and Felix to be more aware of the real world and have a specific role in the story instead of just (possibly) hype characters. What those speciality will be is up for debate and maybe some of them wouldn't be too great or maybe even mentioned in depth, but that's fine, this story isn't very much about them anyway. 

I'll try my best to give them more characterization and role here. 

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There was a phase that Shao Long went through, that first started when his father died and every single person out there, be it in his industry or otherwise, had gone for his throat, and ended after the second year Shao Long's business profit reached above 5 billions annually. That is to say, it wasn't a very long phase. Just a couple of years, but throughout it all, Shao Long had kept a flip scoreboard in his office that moved with him no matter where his new working place transferred. Sometimes the number went up by one or two, or did not at all. Other times, it shot up by ten and beyond.