#I guess I kinda REALIZED fully and truly what Limbo must be like

[gyeolsim]

📝 👀 for both of my kids cause i dont want to go through this twice

📝 me (sort of):

lucy said that reagan is a staple of wsc and that is SO true, i think reagan was the second? app we ever got and i was so taken by how it is Exactly what we were looking for. we’ve gotten a lot of excellent, creative characters, but at the risk of playing favorites, what were the odds that the second person who ever applied almost felt like they were reading our minds and hearts and aesthetics?  like the unapologetic, fearless, creative weirdness of it. senior members came and went but reagan has become so intrinsically wsc that losing it would be such a blow to the group and lore and storytelling that we’ve weaved together here. not to be gay casper but i think you’re such a strong character writer and it’s very clear that reagan is such a passion project for you and where you’re pouring a lot of your self-indulgences and that is so fun to interact with.

lucy already said it and i know a lot of people will remark on reagan’s shameless badness, and i feel like my interpretation of reagan is somewhat clouded by misha’s, but the first thing that comes to mind looking past it’s nonchalant, whoopty fricken doo attitude, is someone who desperately wants to fully inhabit and make its own that space it occupies between worlds, and someone who is in that transitional almost teenagehood-allegory period where it is neither here nor there and it doesn’t know still how to make a home out of it, just that it wants and maybe even needs to. reagan is so… like i am SO aware that everyone else is gonna disagree with me lmaooo, DISCLAIMER i’m PROBABLY WRONG, but what truly stands out to me is the virtuousness of that pursuit, not only how charming it is that it is so true and so unapologetic about who it is and how it wants to live its life, but in how little actual moral failing there is in that, because if you advertise it then it really isn’t deceit. fair warnings and all of that. maybe it’s just because i haven’t ever seen reagan do anything truly abhorrent beyond being a dick now and then that i can’t quite picture it being so selfish that it would choose to truly cause pain and harm and death, maybe it’s that i write misha lmao, maybe that is its bad ending and i am too inclined towards kinder storytelling paths. 

either way, i think this all comes from just how unbelievably well you flesh out that arcane, mythical archetype of a blue/orange morality seelie court native. when i think of the fairy court i picture these violet-tinged, glittery, almost eldritch in its incomprehensibility people-shaped beings that we only ever see a glimpse of, a slice of, and you’ve managed to have reagan live there and be affected by its utter unfathomability and made something so painfully human and dare i say, relatable out of it.

OK THIS IS VERY LONG U GET A READMORE

👀  the saddest boy in the world:

when i first read reagan’s app –and i’m not sure you left this intact in the rewrite, btw– there was a line about how it is callous but can sometimes be found secretly helping out a distressed freshman, and even though reagan evolved a lot as a character this is the part that stuck in misha’s… i don’t want to say rose-colored, because misha is not one to kid himself, but hopeful, i guess, perception of it. his optimistic, fiery stubborn kinda dumbass i-want-to-believe-that-everyone-has-a-little-bit-of-goodness-within-themselves perception of it. idk if reagan developed into someone who still helps little kids regardless of the whole [vague hand gesture] eating souls thing, but to retroactively explain misha’s almost naive faith in it i have to say misha must’ve seen it helping a kid the first time he ever laid eyes on it (most likely way back when misha was new and wide-eyed and didn’t speak much english) and, like, the rest is history. ever since then misha’s held the current reagan up to that standard, not in a way that sees it being unkind and finds it lacking, but in a way that makes him decidedly, unquestionably certain that there’s capital G goodness inside of reagan, that there’s a reagan within a reagan that is virtuous and gentle and driven by… god okay, not to open another great parenthesis of Tangent but i feel it is necessary to explain how misha defines goodness to explain his fatal attraction to reagan, and it is this quote by terry pratchett: there is no hope but us. there is no mercy but us, there is no justice, there is just us (…) but we must care, for if we do not care we do not exist. 

so i think all of this is to say that misha has seen reagan capital c Care, with little kids once upon a time and with the Union that one time he and moire managed to rope it into their two-person circle, he can feel it caring even when reagan wants to bury that passion deep within itself and show its, like, who cares whatever i do what i want facade to the world.

and like… this is hard to articulate, but like.. misha’s faith is not blind, misha’s patched up from contradictions himself, it’s not like he doesn’t realize that reagan is a bastard and an asshole and sometimes sincerely enjoys messing with people. he just sees reagan’s contradictions and finds kindship in them, like, a recognition. a hey, it’s you. they come from the same place, they’re made of similar stuff. misha sees reagan and knows that neither of them have had the privilege of soft, full childhoods because of that wobbling, in-between limbo space where they were spawned into the world. even if misha doesn’t know if reagan acknowledges its contradictions or not – he never claimed to be a mind reader– he just doesn’t have an issue with the apparent dichotomy of reagan being a dick and also being a person (a being?) that misha legitimately thinks has the potential to do fucking good.

lmao i feel like im rambling and saying the same thing and i could go ON FOREVER waxing poetry about the intricacies of misha’s feelings for reagan BUT… at least that’s what misha thinks lol. take it with a grain of salt given that misha’s tragique type is Massive Assholes so that certainly clouds his judgment lmao. he can’t resist a leather jacket!!!!!!!!

also when it presents masc it sometimes is kinda hot but misha’s like, surprisingly at peace with that because he wholeheartedly believes reagan when it says it finds him gross, so in a way it’s kind of a healthy, fun experience for misha to feel vaguely crushy towards a completely unattainable person lmao. most of the time misha legit just wants to hang out and have a wholesome, happy fun Good Time with it and he does like challenges so he might not realize he feels a little bit triumphant every time reagan is even slightly pleasant towards him. this is misha’s tiny little bitter person like a sentient espresso.  

THESE TAKE MORE TIME THAN ANTICIPATED so actually wtf dude send me one from calli’s blog for organizational purposes!