#I think that blossom deserves to be a little goofy given all the pressure she puts on herself tbh like as an older sibling I felt that

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Every single Powerpuff Girl is born with autism swag powers (Blossom is no exception).

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Annon-Guy: How do you feel about the official pairings in Symphonia? LloydXColette, EmilXMarta, SheenaXZelos and AliceXDecus. P.S. While these are not official, what do you think of the GenisXPresea and RegalXRaine ships?

I didn’t realize SheenaXZelos was considered an official pairing by most, actually! As a concept, I think they could be cute, but as things are right now with the canon where it is and with the interactions they’ve had, I don’t think they’re a very healthy relationship. Zelos basically sexually harassed her and she had very little recourse other than to punch him. I think if they showed Zelos learned NOT to do that and to flirt in a way she’s actually RECEPTIVE of, then it would be a cute dynamic. Zelos being goofy with her and her being sort of dismissive would be FINE if his goofiness didn’t involve groping and other things she clearly doesn’t like. If she actually liked what Zelos was doing, it’d be a little sleazy but it’d be fine. (The sleazy thing is mostly because, like, as fictional characters they’re MADE to act that way and a fictional girl being receptive to groping sends a broader message that it’s okay to grope girls which it generally isn’t.) But if Zelos could improve a bit beyond what we see in the games (and he improved GREATLY in DotNW. He harasses Sheena less but it’s still there to a degree.) and they fleshed out the relationship a bit more for some tenderness, yeah, they’d be cute. AliceXDecus is a little toxic, just by virtue of them both being written as bad guys. In some alternate universe where Alice’s lust for power is directed more toward a protective impulse and Decus’s devotion to her isn’t fully out of her manipulating his feelings for her until she’s vulnerable and starts giving back (which she basically only seems to do at the very end of the game unless you do her sidequest and learn a bit more) then they’d be pretty cute. A terrifying power couple with the woman in charge and her man behind her 100% would be a rad thing to see.  LloydXColette is really cute, even though I think Lloyd is a terminal dumbass and Colette could do better. XD They really care about each other though and they have a really cute dynamic and the games fully flesh out their interactions so that even if you don’t read them as romantically interested, you can tell they have a very strong bond. ColetteXall the Dogs is a good ship too though. Let her adopt all puppers. EmilXMarta has potential, though I oppose it on the grounds that I prefer Emil and Richter together, but I think even at the end of the game, both ships would have toxic elements. Richter is clearly not fully over Aster’s death and is bad at articulating emotions and Marta is still working toward treating Emil as his own person and not as her knight. In each ship, Richter and Marta would need to work on themselves a lot more in order to actually address how their behavior impacts Emil. Emil has basically already completed his arc and has improved in the ways he needed to in order to be “someone deserving of their love.” Like, clearly Richter and Marta both love late game Emil basically exactly as he is. They both wanted him braver and he did that. He improved to the point that he’s able to tell them when he thinks their wrong which is healthier for him and for potential relationships. But Richter, even at the end of the game, fails at communicating with Emil at almost every turn. Communication breaks down when Emil tries to decipher vague statements Richter makes because Richter is still too afraid of being fully honest (though to be fair, during the late game he has committed to disengaging from attachments with Emil because he plans on one of them killing the other.) Richter’s growth from the sidequests basically disappears late game. During the first two quests, he opens up a lot, but once he realizes Emil is 99.999% probably Ratatosk, he abandons that growth because he can’t afford not to kill Emil if he wants all his effort to pay off. Marta, meanwhile, does make strides toward learning to tell Ratatosk and Emil apart, but it’s also very clear that she’s still not seeing them fully. When Ratatosk pretends to be Emil, she can tell that it’s Ratatosk. But when Emil pretends to be Ratatosk at the end, she’s completely fooled, even though Emil clearly refers to himself as Lord Ratatosk, which we NEVER hear Ratatosk do to refer to himself. Furthermore, she’s fooled by the idea that Ratatosk “can’t be controlled” and that’s why he’s breaking whatever Verius did. Marta sees Ratatosk as inherently violent and dangerous during the endgame which completely undoes all the growth she supposedly did during the middle of the game where she defends his actions to everyone because she “knows Ratatosk is a good person.” That, coupled with the fact that even while she dials things back, she never stops flirting even though it’s clear Emil wants to take it slow, shows that she definitely needs more time learning about Emil/Ratatosk so that she’s CAPABLE of treating Emil/Ratatosk like a PERSON and not as an idealized caricature of her “perfect man.” I think if you gave both Richter and Marta 2 years to just... no pressure date Emil, just hang out and do platonic things like board games and such, I think if they both did that? Just hung out with him in a calm environment and talked like normal people without being forced into battle constantly to cooperate, then I think both relationships could definitely blossom into something really nice. But overall, I think Richter has a better shot because he already treated Emil like a full person. He didn’t want Emil to be braver in order to fit some idea in his head of what Emil should be. He wanted Emil to be braver because he SAW EMIL STRUGGLING and wanted Emil to be able to defend himself. He didn’t demand Emil do anything like Marta had. He told Emil what he thought he should do and then asked Emil to TRY. 90% of Richter’s complaints to Emil were “don’t do this just because you think I want you to.” “Don’t try to like herbs just because you think I want you to. If you want to try to like herbs, do it because it’s something you want to do to broaden your horizons.” (I’m reading between the lines of course, but still.) Marta was definitely LEARNING to do that and that was REALLY nice to see. She eventually did start giving Emil advice because she wanted him to improve for his own sake, not to fit her definition of an ideal man. But Richter was doing that in the beginning. Which is why I think he’s a better match. All of Richters work to deserve Emil has to do with exclusively personal work. He needs to learn to feel his feelings. He already treated Emil right. Marta’s work needs to happen interpersonally. She needs to learn more about who Emil really is and work on treating him the way he wants to be treated. Richter and Marta are foils like that. She already feels her feelings and can communicate her own needs with Emil, but she hasn’t quite met the threshold of treating Emil as his own person. Richter has always seen Emil as his own person, even though he had EVERY REASON to project Aster onto him. What Richter needs to learn is to feel his feelings and communicate his desires. So yeah, long but this is my game of expertise since I played ToS a long time ago and I obsess over Richter and Emil, so... definitely a dearth of knowledge on the ToS part compared to all the hyperfocusing I do on DotNW. AS FOR NON-CANON SHIPS: GenisXPresea is really cute. The “age gap” is the only real issue, but when it comes to fictional characters, the age doesn’t matter as much as their role in the narrative and how they interact with each other. Genis and Presea both behave in similar ways, both have similar levels of power. Presea has been alive longer, sure, but their levels of experience in the world are roughly the same. Also, given how long elves and half-elves live, the age gap becomes less important as limiting the relations to only people in their own age range becomes difficult a gap of 100 years between half-elves is basically a gap of 10 years by our standards. So the number is less important than the dynamic and power level. Neither is inherently more privileged than the other, they have a good camaraderie, they share some interests and take an interest in each others’ hobbies, they seem to enjoy each other’s company, and the only one with any objection to it is Presea, who mostly objects on the principle that she wants to live life for herself for a while because she was trapped in her own body for years without any agency. RegalXRaine is an iffy one. They get along well, but there doesn’t seem to be much chemistry. They respect each other and get along well, but they have very different interests and Regal still loves Alicia very much and seems more committed to helping Presea reintegrate with society than getting back in the dating pool. I think they’d make a cute couple, sure, but a lot needs to happen before that stuff happens.