#[“The night that Conny left‚ Emma and Norman both went down to the gate. In most cases‚ even if you had broken the rules‚

[fullscoreshenanigans]

(S1 Episode 6 | S1 Episode 7)

The way she goes to Emma, following her lead, looking to her for guidance and protection. 🥺💚🧡

YEP LESBIANS

[fullscoreshenanigans]

Gildayshe Musings (plus past one-sided Gildemma)

(Chapter 143)

Despite Ayshe only debuting in chapter 135 and not featuring in all of the subsequent 49 chapters of the series, Gildayshe is my favorite ship for both girls. This is for the very important primary reason of I think they look cute together.

Besides this crucial point, below the cut are some musings that act as the foundation for my interpretation of a potential relationship for them. (Somewhat of a complementary piece to this one speculating on what Norman said to Ayshe in chapter 160, doubling as a “this is how my default endgame ships coincide with one another” explanation.)

“I read a book one time; it said the outside world has hundreds of clothing designs and patterns, and I wanna wear them all!” (S1 Episode 1)

I love seeing Gilda’s growth across the series. When we first meet her, she’s not afraid to voice her opinion to most of her siblings, she’s competent enough to be considered a Mom candidate under Isabella’s specific standards that has only her and Emma interacting with the young infants in the plant

(Chapter 12)

in addition to being among the five decreed fit to serve as an offering to The One, and her younger siblings have a deep admiration and respect for her that becomes even stronger post-escape.

(Chapter 95 Bonus Sketch; she’s familiar with child care, cleaning, and laundry from Grace Field, but on top of all that she picks up cooking and gardening with ease.)

They trust her and feel safe in her presence, effectively thinking of her as a surrogate mother at points (we won’t get into how cruel it is she has to take up that role at the tender age of ten).

“The night that Conny left, Emma and Norman both went down to the gate. In most cases‚ even if you had broken the rules, you’d eventually come clean about it and things would go back to normal, but you haven’t done that yet.” (S1 Episode 4)

(Chapter 11)

But in the face of authority or those she views as being more capable than her, she’ll withdraw and become meek when pressed. She was scared about what would cause Emma and Norman to not come clean to Isabella, scared that something might have happened to Conny, and scared that Emma might be upset at her for asking, and she feels so stressed and guilty about it that she cries. Emma doesn’t hesitate to embrace and comfort her, even if at the time she’s not telling Gilda the full truth about their situation.

I mentioned in my post about Don and Ray’s relationship that while Don respects and admires all his older siblings, it’s Ray’s approval that he seeks the most. For Gilda, she wishes to be closest to and connect with Emma.

(S1 Episode 6)

(S1 Episode 7)

We see her cling to Emma, following her lead, looking to her for guidance and protection. Norman was also an option to hide behind here, but despite the respect and love she holds for her older brother, she still opts for Emma.

And it’s from her conversation with Emma in chapter 11/episode 4 that she draws strength from when meeting with Krone later that evening.

(The way her eyes shimmer here. She values their bond so much. ;;)

For Gilda, Emma has always been a safe, grounding presence, and it’s in her presence that she begins to sort out what she likes and admires in girls. She loves Emma’s drive and conviction—pointing out to Don that Emma must be serious about the claims regarding Isabella because “Emma loves Mom and this house just as much as the rest of us”—and, let’s be real, Emma’s adorable; it’s not hard to understand how Gilda could crush on her and be drawn to her magnetic personality.

(Chapter 35)

To watch her take to heart Emma’s core beliefs of prioritizing family and how no one should be sacrificed in order to ensure the survival of others, and then expanding beyond Emma’s original scope to include the children of the four other plants—something that Emma herself adopts and eventually wants to extend to every single cattle child in the demon world—even if she’s terrified about everything that could go wrong with the plan, how her voicing her thoughts could derail said plan, and the uncertainty of the world beyond the walls of Grace Field, is incredibly heartwarming.

We see Gilda’s growing confidence and sense of responsibility toward her family continue to be displayed post-escape.

(Chapter 44)

She’s the first to voice caution about Mujika approaching their group and confronts her about who she is and what her purpose is there (while protectively cradling Emma). After such a harrowing first day out in demon world, it’s no wonder she directly confronts Emma later either.

(S2 Episode 2)

I particularly like how in the anime they show a bit more hesitancy on her part as she walks up to Emma and then how she leans over her when addressing her, not only because she’s frustrated about Emma seemingly unable to conceive that everyone could be worried about her after their conversation in chapter 19/episode 6 of season 1 where she committed to being honest and sharing the burden with them along with Emma underestimating her personal limits, but it’s also the first time Gilda adamantly puts herself in conflict with Emma. While never quite putting her up on pedestal or seeing her as infallible, before she would ultimately defer to Emma and rely on her to make the most sound choice in a dire situation. She didn’t here—not out of malice, but maybe a bit of ego that could come off as her going back on what she said to Gilda back at the house—and the children are so incredibly lucky it was Mujika and Sonju they ran into instead of practically any other demon.

One could easily cite this and further instances of Gilda’s protectiveness over Emma as evidence of later Gildemma (e.g., threatening to blow up the shelter if she and Ray don’t come back from Goldy Pond alive, initially being happy with Norman’s plan to exterminate the demons while specifically citing the reason “this way, you won’t have to carry such a huge burden, Emma” [chapter 121], and pleading with Emma to tell her “why? why does it always have to be you?” when it comes to risking her life for everyone else [chapter 130]), but for the sake of my narrative here I interpret it as her crush beginning to fade alongside the arrival of the Goldy Pond children at the bunker.

For nearly her entire life, her world was the confines of Grace Field. Familiarity breeds content in this case, and being in proximity to Emma, someone she deeply admired who embodied warmth, caring, strength, and safety, Gilda felt safe and comfortable exploring her burgeoning feelings with her in mind, and this is how she sorts out she’s a lesbian fairly early on. When the truth of Grace Field is revealed to Emma and Norman, it hurts her to see Emma grow distant over the course of two weeks. When Emma lets her in on the horrible reality of their situation, Gilda is able to bear it because she finds a tremendous amount of solace facing it together with her. It’s just them and their siblings against a world filled with adults and demons.

But with the arrival of the Goldy Pond children it begins to sink in for her that there really is a world beyond the walls of Grace Field. Emma is still incredibly dear to her and she was absolutely foundational for Gilda being able to sort out some of what she likes in girls, but at the same time, it was a crush born out of proximity and convenience, and with the search for Cuvitidala and then the Seven Walls laid out before them, trying to avoid being eaten by wild demons and pursued by ones from the farms, the romantic bent of it fizzles out for her. (Emma, meanwhile, is oblivious. Despite having an acute emotional awareness of the people around her at such a young age, on matters such as these that concern herself, she falls a bit behind.)

Something that never fizzles out for Gilda, however, is her commitment to her family.

(Chapter 135)

Enter Ayshe, a girl who sometime between February and October 2047 arrived at the paradise hideout after Norman and co. murdered the demon who had raised her as his own daughter.

(Chapter 139)

Other than their dogs, he was the only family she had. The only other being she had extended conversations with in multiple languages for nearly thirteen years of her life. Even with the knowledge of the common language spoken by demons and humans alike, she refused to get close to anyone at paradise hideout, partially due to not wanting to give away that she could understand everything that was being said around her to have the upper hand when she enacted her revenge, and partially due to believing all humans hated all demons. Why would she want to get close to people who couldn’t or wouldn’t want to try and understand the bond she held with her father?

(Chapter 139)

Don and Gilda are the first humans to go against her assumptions. While expressing hesitancy at embracing Emma’s goal uncritically, they don’t want a demon genocide to take place because they don’t view them as a monolith deserving of harsh retribution. Despite the suffering they’ve endured under the farm system, after traveling and seeing how regular demonfolk lived, they know things aren’t as simple as that, plus they’re forever indebted to Sonju and Mujika and regard them fondly. Maybe not to the degree of fondness Ayshe held for her father, but more than she believed other humans were capable of holding for demons.

On top of all this, the duo’s open relief at the news that Ayshe isn’t an assassin is simultaneously an indication how they still value their relationship with Norman and would rather be in the least amount of conflict with him as possible, and this is after Ayshe just told them she was planning on killing him. He’s hurt her so very, very deeply, but she can conceptually understand where the two are coming from because she valued her bond with her father. Even if they’re obviously biased toward their brother, it still causes her to pause and briefly reevaluate the situation before voicing her worries. They didn’t rebuke her or try to argue against her plan to kill Norman and co. because they understand what the group did to Ayshe’s father was wrong, but they also, intentionally or not, showed her there was still something in that relationship that was worth holding onto for them.

(Chapter 144)

Even after Norman confirms their initial worries of being used as bait to lure Mujika and Sonju into a sense of false security.

(Chapter 144)

It’s far from an innately shippy moment, but this scene is what underpins Gildayshe for me. I like to think it serves as a character-defining moment for Gilda to Ayshe.

Gilda, who, even though she considered Norman’s betrayal a possibility before the wolf pack trio set off in search of Mujika, was still devastated about being used by him after she and her family believed he was dead for nearly two years and had only just reunited with him, and hoping for the best possible outcome of being able to stop the genocide after taking Emma’s stance to heart and saving the older brother she loved because she understands he’s suffered at Lambda.

Ayshe, who had a life filled with love from her adoptive father unwittingly stolen by Norman, is taken aback by this sorrowful reaction and heartfelt plea. She doesn’t look angry, though there’s obviously still some inner conflict over this based on her reaction to Norman in Ch160 (see this post and this post for further thoughts on that because I genuinely don’t believe she would have reacted the way she did if Don and Gilda hadn’t acted as a buffer for her vengeance), but this is different from the tears Gilda and Don shed in chapter 139 that are portrayed with a more lighthearted, humorous tone. She’s lived almost entirely isolated her whole life, her father becoming even more of a recluse than he was before in order to protect her from a society that, at large, wouldn’t hesitate to eat her. The only other heartbreaking display she’s witnessed in her life greater than this one was likely her father reaching out to her as he succumbed to his injuries.

But this girl she’s known for roughly four days not only holds compassion for the person who wronged her personally, but the entire demon race whose sentient existence is predicated on eating humans like her. I like to think it serves as a character-defining moment for Gilda to Ayshe that stays with her and provides a foundation for things happening between them in the human world.