#nightshift keef

Ash & Pigsy: The adopters. Ash takes the full responsibility for everything his group does and for protecting them in any way possible, Pigsy protects his kids but I could also see him recognizing that he can't protect them from everything. A nice cooking session with a talk over the differences in how they approach their teams running into danger would be interesting, I think.

Talia & Red Son: Okay okay okay, it's the same duo but for less gremlin-y reasons this time. They both had shitty parents, and I see Talia simply not understanding how Red Son is still willing to connect with them. I think she'd be incredibly confused and it could be an interesting discussion in Red Son's approach with his parents vs hers. (That is to say, Red Son's parents making a genuine effort to get better and growing a bond, where Talia's were only interested in getting worse and forced Talia away in such a way they can never recover from.)

Keef & Lady Bone Demon: I'm not sure if you'd count villains under this ask, but okay. So, Keef grew up in an environment where perfection was expected, and she always fell just short. She prefers the chaos of the world and the freedom of creativity, but also understands the appeal of constantly looking put-together and perfect, especially to other people. She still puts pressure on herself to do that, after all, even if she won't admit it. Furthering that, she's one of the few in the Nightshift who doesn't see her life as better after the inciting incident that led to her eventually joining. Maybe the same, but not better. She fully understands the appeal of a perfect world where she wouldn't have had the opportunity to make such a mistake that led her down this road, and feels the pressure to conform to something closer to LBD's version of the world, and I think that would make for a very interesting conversation.

Leo & Wukong: Two very different approaches to the same issue. Leo is worried he can't protect the people he loves, and believes (if unconsciously, to some degree) that he's at fault for his siblings' deaths. He's determined to not let the same fate befall his new family, and so becomes incredibly protective and even overbearing. On the flip side of this, Wukong took to distancing himself so he wouldn't hurt people any more than he has (and before they can leave him first). I think the drastic differences in approaches would be really interesting to pick out, especially since I think Wukong would see a degree of himself in Leo - the determination to protect the people he loves no matter what, but before Wukong lost vision of his previous goal for more power. Maybe he'd try to serve as a kind of warning tale to Leo, before Leo has the chance to make the same mistakes.

Ink & MK: Ink and MK would be really interesting to me to flip sides of a kinda screwed up coin. Someone who trusts and connects with everyone blindly (MK) and someone who picks and chooses who to trust carefully, because everyone's out to get you if push comes to shove hard to enough (Ink). They both love their family deeply, but Ink is more subtle about it so it won't be used/taken advantage of while MK is proudly loving of everyone he cares about. MK is crushed with guilt in how he thinks he hurts the people around him and, to some degree, fails to help people, while Ink genuinely has done irreparable damage to others and failed to save lives it was put in charge of, and learned to live with that reality. I think it'd be interesting because I think Ink would see MK, how MK keeps getting tricked and taken advantage of, how MK thinks he hurts the people he loves and fails to save those he tries to help, and the only way Ink would know how to help is through its own worldview: trust nobody, make connections but stay on your toes, yes you've hurt people and yes you've failed but the reality of life is you can't avoid that to some degree and here's some ways I learned to live with myself. Maybe they'll help you too. I think it would be interesting because Ink also doesn't see another side to this: that MK has never tried to actively hurt someone, that everything he blames himself for isn't necessarily his fault, and that MK's ability to see the good in people has genuinely helped them - not just in the sense of having connections, but believing in others (Macaque) in a way that Ink's more pessimistic worldview does not allow.

Kody & Macaque: I think this would be fun for their similarities leading to severe whiplash between them. Kody's been betrayed, used, tricked and manipulated more times than he can count, and they both follow a very similar "Look out for number one. Because if you don't, no one will." mentality, and while Macaque's "Wukong only values people by how useful they are to him" mentality might be more individual-specific, it's still something Kody can easily apply to everyone that's taken him in then discarded him once his use was up. They handle their respective betrayals extremely differently, with Kody content to just avoid the hell out of anyone that hurt them and Macaque hunting down Wukong and even using his student for revenge (which, would definitely piss Kody off, by the way), but at their roots they can see a lot of themselves in each other, down to Kody's more tricky nature even if he doesn't see it. I definitely don't think a conversation with them would go well, per say, because Kody would not hesitate to question why the hell Macaque went back to fighting for/with Wukong when he could easily be using him again (Kody pushes the world away so they don't get hurt again, and Macaque is willing to run right back to Wukong's side when he's called?), and would get extremely pissed off that Macaque took advantage of MK that way (in a very similar way they were in the past), but I think the similarities in root that bleed out into extremely different responses would be kind of interesting. I rewrote this last one like three times though, I'm not sure, it's harder to draw a connection with Kody than it is the others.

Honorable mention goes to:

Keef & Mei - Pressure to conform to what they should be while ignoring who they are.