#im so sorry @ ppl who are in the aoi shibuya tag for the other aoi shibuya (the one who is not a digimon character)

[fearowkenya]

Winds of Change

Chapter 5: Something in the Air

Shuuji knows something is amiss when he catches Syakomon let out an almost imperceptible sigh of relief. He’s lucky that the viscous surface of Syakomon’s slimy green body betrays her—the quiver of the otherwise silent exhale sends a faint, wobbly shockwave across her skin, and she jiggles ever so slightly in her shell, as though somebody’s just set down a cautious bowl of lime-flavored jello.

Supposedly, the worst is over, but Shuuji can't shake the feeling that there's something the Kemonogami aren't telling him.

ao3 link in source , extended end-of-chapter author's notes under the cut!

oh BOY the editing situation was a doozy. granted, i was also busy with work, but even then this chapter needed a TON of reworking, much much more than chapter 4 did. like i said on ao3, it got to the point where this chapter was so long that i had to split it in two.

i also mentioned that this chapter marks the beginning of the second half of this fic. chapters 1-4 make up part one, which i'd summarize as "how did we get here?", and then from 5-8, the focus will be "what happens next?". it helped a LOT to recontextualize chapters 5-7 (now 5-8) as an answer to chapters 1-4, and i think it'll make editing easier going forward; i have much more direction now and a better idea of what needs to be expanded on and what needs to be cut.

unfortunately, like i said, i had to omit a lot of saki-centric stuff. she is the scariest character for me to write, and i think i need to progress more thru my replay of truthful before i feel confident enough to write from her perspective. it works out anyway, because the part i cut had shuuji taking a very passive role and just observing interactions between saki and floramon, and it felt very drawn-out and unnecessary. this is my favorite cut segment tho

im really hoping to be able to figure out what an aoi-miu-saki dynamic looks like as i get more comfortable writing the three of them. i think it could be really fun. also i think it would be so funny if miu and saki bring out a mischievous side of aoi that would otherwise not exist. much to think about.

anyway. another challenge i had with editing this chapter was the topography of the beach area the group hangs out at before moving on to the shopping district and apartment complex. for some reason i was convinced the rocky beach area was like.. up on a cliffside? but then i looked at the map and got REAL confused. the beach is super super narrow, and that was really inconvenient when i needed shuuji to be somewhere relatively out of the way, where he could have a conversation with agumon that takuma cannot hear, while still being able to see takuma. so thats why i spent an hour and change squinting at the tiniest png of the map and reorganizing where people spend their time

if my handwriting is illegible (from left to right) (oh my god now that ive added the image to the post its a nightmare. idk why im even posting it. lord. im not sure opening it in a new tab will help) factory residential area shopping district woods near shopping district minoru up here group rests here waterway exit from shaft here instead; rest of waterway rock w/ supplies hill down from the waterway shuuji rests here pt 6 argument happens here aoi & ryo here in ch4 (this is where they were keeping watch) miyuki here

i didnt make many changes; mostly i just moved people around. the one thing that i DID change though was the placement of the waterway entrance. i have NO IDEA why the game has it in the middle of the fucking ocean. like i know theres a tunnel there, but surely the entrance to that tunnel isn't underwater right? i then poured another hour and change learning about waterways, trying to figure out where it made the most sense to put the exit before remembering that it doesn't matter because the digital world doesn't play by human world rules. oops! it was still super interesting though! please look up 'tokyo g-cans' if you ever get the chance, its fucking fascinating. if i ever go back to japan id like to go down there, maybe.

obligatory commentary about the map:

oh my god it seems too big for what we actually see but im not a cartographer so i dont know for sure

the shopping district/apartment complex is visible from the beach but i feel like it shouldn't be: on the map it looks like it's on a cliff face while from the beach it looks like it's shore level

i've been reading half the green patches as dense tree cover but now that i think about it, that might just be open grassland. oops. it's all trees now.

i wish we could go to the sandy beach areas to the north and east ends of the island!!! that could've been fun!

i really appreciate that the second island is shaped vaguely like a beluga

in other news, agumon was much easier to write than i was worried he would be, and it was nice to work out how he felt about what happened in the waterway. one thing ive noticed about agumon on a second truthful run is that he and takuma are equally awful about pushing down their own feelings for the sake of the ones of their friends. a lot of the others seem to view agumon as the guy who is always Staying Silly , no thoughts head empty. while i DO think that that's a genuine part of his personality, i think it also happens sometimes that he uses that image to downplay his concerns.

my favorite part to write this chapter was labramon's dialogue at the end. and also baby stats. baby stats was the ONE THING i REFUSED to cut. non-negotiable. it's been in my notes since the beginning and digimon survived all edits of this chapter, and i was DETERMINED to keep it.

all right im getting sleepy and i want to post this chapter and then go to bed. as usual please dont be afraid to leave a comment, i looooove finding out people's favorite parts, and im still curious about your Gamer Theories, especially now that i think what i'm foreshadowing is becoming clearer and clearer >:3c

couldn't tell you for sure when ch6 will be out. ideally it won't involve as much editing as ch5, but it's hard to say. thank you for reading, and i'll be back as soon as i can!

#digimon survive #shuuji kayama #kayama shuuji #ryo tominaga #tominaga ryo #agumon #aoi shibuya #shibuya aoi #im so sorry @ ppl who are in the aoi shibuya tag for the other aoi shibuya (the one who is not a digimon character) #labramon #miu shinonome #shinonome miu #syakomon #floramon #digimon