SeVen Uncaged :The Second Chapter

Quick PSA

Hello! This is author #2 (Polaritae) who hates conflict or attention and is in charge of developing Tiger-Tae. Firstly, apologies for the wacky uploads, life makes it really hard to edit and write sometimes. Secondly, as much as I hate this, I felt that I needed to desperately clear some misconceptions. Perhaps it is our fault as writers that these arose, or perhaps there’s just a basic misunderstanding of what kind of story this is, but either way, it does seem to be impacting how people read this story. We appreciate you reading this story and caring enough to analyze it or criticize it but I would like to point out that stating opinions isn’t legitimate criticism so if you do that with the expectation that we will listen and change the genetic makeup of this story, you’re sadly mistaken and should probably read something more your style.

Now then, I’ll start by explaining that this isn’t going to be like many other hybrid fics as I’m sure you can tell, where the MC adopts one or several hybrids of varying breeds (sometimes exotic) with varying backgrounds and they instantly hit it off or there are some minor troubles that arise but everything’s hunky-dory. Nothing wrong with those stories, but my personal take on hybrids that the main author agreed with is to not forget that they are half animal. Therefore, I use the best of my zoology knowledge with the help of my co-author’s takes on animal behavior, to keep them as realistic as possible to the animals they’re assigned. This means our hybrids are animals with human cognitive function in the best of shape. Our characters are not in their best shape. Most of them have been at least minimally traumatized and at most, they have been dehumanized and well.. Made into something other.

I’ll be blunt, the MC of our story ignorantly adopted several exotic breeds of hybrids that have been treated inhumanely for the most part if not outright abused or tortured with varying degrees of trauma, then signed a waiver for two of them that have been deemed unadoptable because they are dangerous, without taking any precautions whatsoever. This story is about the complications that would probably realistically occur if you decided to house such creatures, not the least of which being a feral tiger who was stripped of his humanity from a young age. Anyone who expected that there wouldn’t be some violence involved has clearly never tried to rehabilitate a feral before.

Which brings me to my biggest concern. The complete misunderstanding and misrepresentation of Tae. I’ll admit, I’m biased. He is my pitiful creature that needs a lot of love and understanding in order to become better and that’s a slow process. The overall concern I have is that many readers are having trouble understanding him through his misbehaviors, so I’d just like to say that whatever happens, try to remember he is not only a tiger, but a feral one. None of what he does is considered “okay” or “acceptable” by any stretch of the word. It’s just the reality of what our MC is in for.

Specific examples given that I’d like to address are;

1: He drops Y/n with the intention to hurt her. False. He had no intention there, he was told to drop her, so he simply dropped her. He doesn’t think about things like “gotta be careful and set down the human”
2: Claws her. Partially out of anger, true, but mostly reactionary. He was uncomfortable so the claws pop out. No excuses, just the reality that if you have a feline, they claw.
3: Roams the house with the intention to scare her into submission. False. Tigers are neurotic control freaks that are extremely territorial, especially Bengals. They have to know what’s happening in their territory at all times, so they have a pattern of scouting the parameters of their territory a few times a day. They also have a tendency to anxiously pace when they’re agitated. Tiger-Tae is just following his instincts, but it’s so prominently noticed by the MC after she gets a wakeup call of just how scary it can be to live with an uncontrollable tiger.
4: The slap. This one isn’t meant to be excused, but many readers see through the lens of the black area. Man slaps woman senseless, man is bad. Reality is that the world is made up of a grey area. Tae, in that moment felt that a human (which have only hurt him in the past) betrayed him and deliberately hurt his pet bunny/only friend/packmate? So the tiger in him wanted to kill her, but the human in him had started to care about her on some level, so he held back. A tiger swats as both a punishment and a warning, never with the intention to do real harm, though they do hit like a bag of bricks because they don’t consider the strength of the swat. It’s purely reactionary and based on the fact that Tae is extremely reactionary, Y/n is actually lucky that she was only swatted.

The reader that made this list of points to accuse us of romanticizing violence failed to acknowledge the animal aspect of the characters and argued that trauma is no excuse to act violently, which they are correct about when it comes to humans with full access to their cognitive abilities. They also didn’t take into account the moments of growth or learning such as when he clawed her or slapped her and showed remorse or changes in behavior afterwards. A lot of what Tae does isn’t okay, but he’s not irredeemable either. So please try to remember or acknowledge that for these characters going through the story. They all make mistakes and some of them can be assholes, but “saving them” doesn’t just mean adopting them from death row.

(Please keep in mind, this is a fictional story though. There will be times that a person or animal can’t be saved and you shouldn’t stay in a negative environment too long.)

I also felt it wasn’t fair of that reader to say Y/n was a non-functioning abuse victim. She’s depressed that she put one of her charges into a dangerous, horrifying situation and ruined the fragile trust she had built with her hybrids. She still functions, is able to work and cook and take care of herself and the household despite the pushback from some of them. I felt that this was an understandable reaction but if anyone that disagrees wants to explain why and what course we could’ve taken that would’ve been better, please tell us for future improvement.

(I’d like to thank everyone who defended the fact that Tae is feral. Honestly, I was feeling really bad as a writer, tiger-Tae sympathizer, and animal lover that people were missing how important that aspect is and that it isn’t his whole personality, but those comments got me through those feelings.)

—MissingMin here to add:
Also please remember that this is a slice of life fic. The development of characters is and will be slow. Most if not all of the things we've written were toward growth and maturing, albeit within insane life scenarios, but still.

And Taehyung's cognitive abilities are vastly underdeveloped compared to the other boys. He's slowly learning. He simply does not understand what he's doing wrong when he's acting on emotions and impulse. Still a good boy.. just one that learns slower than the others and hasn't had their opportunities.

To those of you that still want to stick around, next chapter will be posted soon. 💜