#ILY is sooooooo full of parallels i never get tired of it

[trashlie]

they both tried so hard to put on a mask only for them to call each other out ☠️ by far one of my favorite chapters so far!!! look at those parallels!!! gosh i am hurt but excited!!!

Yeah, honestly, I think this is one of my favorite chapters lmao which feels so funny to say but sometimes you just need to see your characters break before they can get better. Nol was never EVER going to address his mask - and worse, he was planning to disappear without saying goodbye to anyone, and frankly, that was really devastating for me to think about. As sad as it is to watch them like this (someone pointed out that it reads so much like a break up scene lmao) it was necessary to put those things in the open. With the way Nol believes a. No one saw through the Yeonggi mask and b. That no one really cares enough if he WERE to disappear, he was going to just carry on like this forever.

I can't get too deep into this in the moment, but Nol and Shinae both have a habit of squashing things down in effort to be "okay". In fact, Nol's whole "Maybe I should just go with it all" spiel has a lot of connotations of wanting to just lay down and accept things, because fighting is exhausting. Likewise, Shinae tends to just... roll on from things she's endured without really doing anything about them. Kinda like when things were weird with her and Maya and she didn't address it - sometimes you go with things because facing them is hard and it's scary.

I am honestly so, SO obsessed with their parallels, I'll never shut up about it. It's why even though I'm never totally certain what I think will happen in ILY, I AM always certain that Shinae and Nol will always have each others' backs and be partners, whether it's platonic or romantic, because they have been so intricately designed to always mirror each other.

(More below because I started big rambling lmao)

The masks one is especially good because the look on Nol's face when Shinae calls him out for being the same as her. AAAAAAHHHHHHHH.

No one ever calls him out, no one sees through him, no one ever seems aware of his mask and even if Shinae was one of them until now, the point is, now SHE is seeing into the real Nol, she is seeing beyond Yeonggi and I think that is both scary and intimate. Yeonggi was so, SO convincing - and he was a good shield. I think it's not necessarily that Nol wore a mask only to keep people out, but I think more because as Nol he hates himself SO MUCH, Yeonggi was the way he could try to put that behind him. Nol is terrible but Yeonggi? Maybe Yeonggi could be a good guy. Maybe Yeonggi could form friends. Maybe someone would love Yeonggi. (*muffled sobbing*)

Another good parallel is even the opening! They're all the lines Nol has said to Shinae as he earns her friendship, and you see the snowflake melting because it was her melting to him and letting down her guard and becoming true friends with him. He melted the cold shell she uses to protect herself. But notably, those lines are also likely her own thoughts towards him. "I want to help you." "Let's be friends." "It's not good to bottle everything up inside. You can only hold out so long before you break." Nol needs to open up, he needs to let things out, because he is at breaking point already. He is breaking.

(Incidentally, stuff like this is why I'm such an ardent shipper of this pair; they understand each other inside and out because they've both been through this, they both understand what it's like to carry something with you that you can't release yourself from, how hard it is to let someone care, both loathe to feel like a burden. They have such an innate understanding of each other that their emotional intimacy is already formed without them realizing it!)

The one that keeps haunting me lately lol is when Jayce says "You're the only heir" or whatever and it shows Nol, and when Kousuke is told "Congrats you're the new CFO" and it shows Shinae. That.... is really loaded. I'm not sure if it's going to be as face value as it sounds but at any rate, the two of them will remain involved with the Hirahara Corp (as much as I want them to run together). But I believe that whatever involvement they have in the future will be okay as long as they are a team. Shinae and Nol are just soulmates man, okay? They are SOULMATES and I'm in love with them and the way they each bring things out of each other that they need to and I can't wait to see what kind of effect they'll have on each other in the future. (I'm also hoping badly that Nol is the person who shows up on the rooftop at the party at the Parks', because pls I want them to reconcile now rather than 4.5 years in the future lol)

UGH I just love them and I love this episode I'm SO happy to gush about it with people after all these weeks AAAAAHHHHHHHHHH

#I Love Yoo #Yeonggi #Nolan Oliver T. Lochlainn #Shinae Yoo #Stalkyoo #there's def a lot of overt Stalkyoo tones in here #like even within their paralllels #whether or not you interpret it as romance #i view everything so far as foundational - something is developing but neither is in the place to acknowledge it #they each have so much to work on #but the seeds are sown and one day we'll see them sprout #anyway i am v obsessed with Nol and Shinae as parallels #ILY is sooooooo full of parallels i never get tired of it #ILY Brainrot