On the weekend, Renee took Robbie out to take his mind off things. He felt more comfortable if Jayleen was there, so Renee came along with Vincent! Visiting the Bloom Garden & Cafe was a nice escape from the busy city and they enjoyed the splendid views! But Renee and Vincent started talking about their jobs; something Robbie didn't want to hear. He tried to block out their voices, but all he heard was their success, making him feel like even more of a failure...
Then he heard enough. He made some snide remarks about their careers targeting Vincent's success and left to get some space. Renee should have known better about Robbie's work situation and went to check on him, "I'm sorry Robbie, we should've stopped." She let him vent his frustrations, listening and offering some big sister advice.
"There's one more thing...I'm a bit embarrassed to say this," Robbie admitted and talked about how he was intimidated by Vincent. "Oh, Robbie," Renee finally understood his perspective.
"Sorry, I shouldn't have said all that to you," Robbie apologised to Vincent. "Hey, it's ok. I get what you're going through, I've been there too," he managed a small smile, "You remind me of myself...when I was at the lowest point of my life." Robbie doesn't know much about Vincent or his past: all he thinks about is how he is now and how perfect his life seemed. His train of thought was interrupted by a gentle touch, "If you ever want to talk about it, I'll be here for you."
Lot used: Bloom Garden & Cafe by @rheya28 tysm for this magnificent build ❤️
251 notes
·
View notes
Kairi, Namine, Xion, and using their words
So KH has a lot of characters that are off-shoots of previous ones, and it can be fun to look for the parallels and the difference. While trying to figure out Kairi's "voice", I found it interesting to compare how the three "Kairi variations" used their words when experiencing overwhelming or negative emotions. How they handle these moments are very interesting.
Let's look at three memorable quotes by them, to show what I mean:
"Sora, let's take the raft and go. Just the two of us!"
Everyone talks about this line at some point. Like, what a weird thing for Kairi to say when we're still being introduced to her character! Riku's supposed to be her friend too, right?
Well, let's look at the context - not of everything that's going on around them, but of the conversation. What does she say right before?
"You know, Riku has changed."
Okay, so she's thinking about the ways Riku has been different now - probably in a way that upset or scares her. As other's have noticed, Kairi isn't as interested in leaving the islands (a safe place) as the others - an aversion to uncomfortable things. Riku is her friend, but it's not unbelievable a part of her wants to get away from whatever the change is that scares her.
So she has this mixed feeling about Riku, she tries to bring it up but ends up dancing around it, which Sora does not understand, obviously. Then, instead of explaining what she means, just jumps like, 10 steps ahead.
What this implies to me is that Kairi doesn't want to face this (any?) complex negative emotion head on. Maybe because it's her own fear and resentment? There's an element of avoidance of repression, here.
And then! And then as soon as it's out she immediately backtracks. Immediately laughs it off. "Just kidding!"
That makes it seem to me that her line about the raft was involuntary. She did not think ahead, maybe didn't even mean to say that at all, certainly regretted it as soon as she said it. It is definitely an expression of an honest, maybe a bit ugly, emotion she's experiencing, but is not the full context. It's certainly not the root of the issue. She's still dancing around it.
To summarize: either low levels of understanding of what she's feeling or some kind of repression, and involuntary use of words (meaning just about anything can come out)
"Nobody needs to keep a bunch of memories that aren't real, right?"
Oh, Namine. So we all agree this is a bit passive-aggressive, right? But also, I think, a bit genuine.
She is very aware that she caused this situation, and that she hurt Sora first. She's trying to acknowledge that she understands, but... she just can't help giving it a passive-aggressive edge.
Namine is all about repression (and also self-loathing, but that's not this conversation). She basically spends her entire life in a cage, having to make herself small. If we extrapolate even further, she probably spends a lot of time in her head thinking about her own situation and maybe even her feelings. That awareness could even be seen as a survival skill, in her situation.
She knows she did wrong and she knows she's upset. She tries to prioritize one over the other - but unsuccessfully.
So what we get with Namine is high awareness of her feeling, and an attempt to use her words constructively, but her control slips and some involuntary messaging slips through.
"So, do you hate me for taking your friend away from you?"
Xion uses her works like knives, seriously. There's a hint of this in her "Or what? They'll turn me into a dusk?" line with Axel, but I thought I'd use this quote instead.
I think I maybe mentioned this in another post somewhere, but in conflict Xion has a conversational pattern that goes "soft soft soft GOES FOR YOUR THROAT" that shows up multiple times throughout Days.
So, set-up for this conversation. Xion is suddenly getting a lot of answers and thus processing a lot of information, a lot of which I think confirms her own brand of self-loathing.
But what she turns around and says is not about her feelings (... on the surface, we'll get around to that), it's about provoking the other person.
It would be entirely understandable for Riku to be upset wither her, which would possibly stand as a threat, and she tries to confront that head on to get a reaction out of him.
She has enough awareness to know what she wants, and that she's feeling cornered, but the exact phrasing she used is interesting considering her situation:
Do you hate me for taking your friend away?
Because before she got these answers, what she already knew was that she could end up hurting Roxas. Realistically, this could be a question she'd want to ask Axel:
Will you hate me if I take our friend away.
And I do think she knows that's what she's afraid of, deep down, but she's too scared to actually ask (keeps running away). What I don't think she's aware of is that she's using Riku as a proxy, here. I think she's just trying to control the conversation.
So, with Xion we have: mixed levels of emotional awareness, but high control of her use of words.
Maybe it doesn't mean much, but I find it interesting. They all will say the most insane things under pressure, but it comes out in very different ways, with very different intent.
Kairi, who will avoid till things get too much then blurt things out involuntarily, then try to take it back.
Namine, who will try to control the narrative but can't stop keep the edge of passive-aggressiveness out.
Xion, who would rather go on the attack before you can hurt her first.
76 notes
·
View notes