i might have mentioned this sometime before but ive been thinking about it again: the reason why lime doesnt ask mochi out and vice versa for a while
Some time after mochi becomes a witch and lime has been in her guild, also after he becomes PAINFULLY aware of how he feels about her, theres a moment where he has a conversation with her (casual-like) fishing about how she would feel about getting a boyfriend. as long as hes known her, shes never gone on a date with anyone, no ones asked her out, and shes never mentioned having a crush on anyone to him. so during some conversation about something or another, he asks something along the lines of "Well when you get a boyfriend, he's gonna need to be okay with your weird witchiness I guess haha-- (lowkey interest check)"
and his plan here was IF she answers to some extent that she would like a boyfriend, he would ask her out. but instead she kinda smiles a bit and falls quiet, before responding "If I could have one..."
and when he asks what the hell that even means, she tells him the same thing pom and tiramisu told her when she first became a witch: "This isn't just some happy fun times, willy=nilly side hobby you treat carelessly. Your family legacy and more importantly, your life, are both constantly at risk and you need to always be focused on learning and mastering your magic as it grows. To that end, you don't have time to date and be in a relationship-- it'll only be a distraction to you and a weakness that can be exploited. You'll constantly be split between your magic and your partner. Either you won't be fully committed to your studies to spend time with them, or you won't be fully committed to them because of your studies. It's not a luxury you can afford. Until this is complete and you have full mastery of your magic to the point where you're not constantly in a state where you need to fight for your life, having a boyfriend is advised against."
and lime just kinda stays quiet for a bit, before going "...so no boyfriend until the magic shit is all done..."
and in his head hes thinking yeah, fine, that makes sense. I dont want to be a burden to her or distract her, and I dont want to cause more stress for her because pom is like an asian mom that constantly will remind her about what a bad decision it is. and this ALL hinges on the event that she wants to date him and it doesnt ruin their friendship. so he eventually decides fine. ill hold off on it for now, just be there for her however i can and i'll ask her out when this whole thing is done (and in the meantime, maybe i can gauge how much she likes me if at all, and if not i can try to get her to fall for me)
(worth noting he WANTS to ask her out right before the timeskip happens, something like "Hey we should go get ice cream tomorrow-- you know, to celebrate your magic reaching its full power and all." (where he was gonna ask her out for real), and she smiles and says "Sure!", but pom already told her she was leaving that night, and by the next morning shes gone)
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more and more it's feeling like we just...don't have room for people trying anymore. it's all or nothing; get it right the first time, or be crucified by a jury you can never fully see or convince. and this isn't new, isn't born of current events. it's become more and more prevalent over the last ten years thanks to social media putting every little thought on blast, but i'd put money on the idea that it's actually been brewing much longer than that. and, for me, it goes beyond being tiring or upsetting. it feels bleak. it feels downright fucking broken that we're all so busy trying not to condone anything remotely problematic that we don't leave room for good faith learning. watching people trying to suss out their own identity--something literally ONLY they can fully understand or explain--be vilified for trying to fit words around their own experience sucks. watching people misunderstand something and try to apologize for it later, only to be told they should have known all along, sucks. seeing people who once held truly toxic beliefs actually grow and learn and apologize and still be told to fuck themselves as if they're a lost cause--it sucks. just. does that not fill you with despair for the state of things? does that not break something in you, to think that if you one day don't understand something, or misuse a word, or grapple with complicated feelings, it will forever stain you in the eyes of perfect strangers?
dude the world is fucked, and we all see it, but like. it doesn't feel like it helps to be so goddamn reactive. it doesn't feel like it helps anyone to demand perfection out the gate. it's exhausting. there are enough people out there who don't want to learn, who aren't trying, who actively revel in cruelty. looking for malice in every little fuck-up from people who seem to be genuinely striving to live their lives with kindness strikes me as lending strength to an army that already glories in suffering. and makes the world look more fucked than ever. and i really don't know that that energy is what we need when there's already so much to set right.
maybe it's just me. maybe this last decade just shattered something in me. but i really, really hate the idea--reject the idea, frankly--that people can't learn and change and grow. that people can't be better than a bad day or a failure of understanding. i reject the idea that people are something to be thrown out because they fucked up. it just seems...yeah. bleak. really fuckin' bleak.
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I think the thing that's fucking with my brain the most is the separation of fact and fiction because it's like... we spent years being told that Bray was this unkillable character that would always come back no matter what, and now it's just like...I have to remind myself that in reality he was just a normal guy, it's weird.
It's..... yeah.
Okay - I'm gonna get real wordy and wax poetically and I'm so sorry I'm incapable of just talking and crying like a normal person.
It's like a big old layered burrito of denial on all fronts, right?
Because on the surface, we have a guy who was so young, and that seems so hard to get past in itself. We also have the fact that he was prone to injury at points and disappearing for... months at a time. He had been released and came back, what, a year later? In the meantime there were always a billion headlines with his name, speculating the worst, and it never had any accuracy or mattered. We were always *looking forward* to him returning and he always inevitably did because he had half his career ahead of him still and it always seemed like the best was to come.
And we have all these stories of what a beautiful person he was, a side we roughly knew of but never got to really experience ourselves as an audience.
But the person we saw was, as you said, this unkillable character. Literally unkillable. He told us from day one he could never die and would persist 5000 years from now when *we* were all gone. Because he was this personification of all the darkest bits of humanity and American society come to force us to face our sins. We watched him, silly as it was, get burned alive and come back a shambling heap of melting flesh and be completely restored. He was forever, he was a god, you could always find him and you could never, ever kill it.
And like, as fans, we kindle that kid in us that wants to believe in superheros and villains and we grow over the years with them. We go to events, and we sing his songs, and we thrust ourselves into that role ourselves of characters in a way. Like we were always *his*. Even if you didn't love him, you played into that for his entrance at the very least because it was such an undeniable experience. He talked and you, and every babyface, listened - whether you wanted to or not.
I'll never forget that one match on Raw, still early on, when the whole crowd was first singing "He's got the whole world in his hands" and just swaying, and then turning around and chanting "Bray is gonna kill you." Like, I remember Big E was in that match, and I'm pretty sure he was on the receiving end of that chant. He was over. He was beloved. And the whole crowd was singing hymns and calling for his demise for this literal cult leader that would speak in tongues and Exorcist walk across the ring, holding his heart and smiling with some masked sinister joy at it.
It's really really hard to reconcile he's not actually some biblical force of nature looming over everything and everyone even though we know better. And like, that fan in me that's that eternal kid in a way, is just stomping my feet screaming "but he CAN'T die!"
The end of Smackdown did, and still is, really fucking me up because I kept waiting for the lantern to go out. And like, I couldn't decide if I wanted that. Because on one hand, there's a symbolism there, and a kind of sad beauty, in the light going out. He was with us, and he's gone now, and he can rest (ahahaha I'm going to start crying again). The light fades. But ultimately I'm so glad it didn't go out because A.) I don't think I could've fucking handled it and was already bawling, and B.) It shouldn't go out. Or fade. His spirit of everything he brought to that world should stay with us and with every single performer who goes out there every night and throws their hearts into playing these characters.
And like... maybe, even though it's so hard now, maybe eventually there's comfort to be found in the idea that even though the vessel is gone - *He* will, somehow, always be there haunting us. Because "I have a thousand faces and a million names." We might not see him, but we can choose to believe every time a hero is forced to face their fears that he's there behind it - silently whispering into our ears, willing us on to indulge in every second of it.
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