#giann von hagen lives in my head rent free

[khickuwa]

we'll watch orca documentaries and eat waffles for dinner until your tears dry up.

loosely based on @actualbird 's fic, "growing pains"

[lukevonhagen]

my take on marius von hagen: part one, his approach to romance

marius has been with me for over a year now and he pretty much occupies my thoughts 24/7, and this was something i have been itching to write for a while. so... strap in, grab your juice box and your cheetos and let's get this show on the road yeah?

Fair Warning, this will not be under a read more, so i apologize in advance if it gets pretty lengthy. (edit: this post is abt 1.8k words long, wow sorry lol.)

this is going to be a character analysis... sort of; it's an analysis of the version of marius that lives in my brain rent free. given that this is an introductory post to what i believe might be a series of my insane marius ramblings, i think i should provide some insight as to what said marius is like in order for the rest of this post to make sense.

first of all, i embrace realism and i reject canon. in marius' sweet wonders card, he finally reveals the significance of the z dog tag he's always wearing. while i think it's really magical that he was able to move on from blaming himself for his mother's death by having an epiphany staring at the ferris wheel... well, i like to make him worse and i just don't think, ultimately, that it's likely or realistic. the marius in my head has a very hard time trying to justify his own existence. i'm not saying he doesn't want to live, or that he'd put himself in any kind of danger, but i believe that he works very hard in order to justify being alive (to himself). not only does he still grapple with the loss of his mother and the role he believes he had to play in that, but there's a part of him that also blames himself for giann's disappearance.

marius believes that he is a vortex that sucks in everything, that destroys everything in its wake. we know for a fact, above all else, that marius doesn't want other people to have to go down with him.

i also believe (especially due to this description) that marius personally manufactured the image he has as a playboy, as opposed to it being a reputation that was given by others which he eventually leaned into.

allow me to elaborate.

marius, in his desire to avoid people being chewed up in his life and spat back out, would want to control the situation as much as possible. there are a few reasons why i believe he'd make this reputation for himself, which are 1) having control of the narrative of himself and making sure people do underestimate him is precisely how he maintains the upper hand in many scenarios (because let's face it, no one expects ditzy, arrogant marius von hagen to be able to outsmart them), and 2) it's much easier to push people away when he makes himself seem incompetent and undesirable. he may be one of the richest men on the planet, but sometimes money isn't enough to redeem an awful composition.

all of that having been said, marius additionally has to have severe trust issues due to the fact that he has a lot of influence and wealth people undoubtably want to use him for, and said influence is the source of a traumatic experience he went through as a child that would forever change the way he'd interact with others in the future. if you remember, marius vaguely alludes to an incident in will of the trees.

he mentions it again in the card in the darkness when he and rosa get trapped in a dark cave and he begins to panic, only this time he's a little more detailed about what happened to him in order to explain his anxiety to her.

then, he actually gives the details of what happened in his personal story.

mc remembers the hints marius had dropped to her a couple of times regarding this incident, so she then asks:

i don't believe marius actually blamed himself for his mother until this was said about him. his mother is the root of all things; he thinks that if he was never born, she would have never died, and perhaps she and giann would still be around and would be happy and healthy. he convinces himself that his existence destroyed his family. the stress of his feelings and anxiety makes him extremely sick as a kid.

all of this was too much for a young marius; now, remember when i said that i reject canon? that's important, because i don't think he ever properly recovered from this episode. i fully believe that marius does need and should go to therapy as an adult, and hasn't done so. my headcanon as to why he didn't, and why he gives off the impression that he's fine now and everything is fine now, is because he wised up and realized that he was being a burden on others and his mother's death would be in vain if he did so.

marius, tired of being a strain on the people he loves, pretends to be mentally sound to avoid his father and brother worrying about him. the way he chooses to cope with this is to disassociate himself with these events that happened to him, to the point where he talks about them like it wasn't him personally that experienced it. (i might touch upon this again in a future post if it becomes relevant.) he can't let others know that things bother him, because it can be weaponized; it would make him look weak, and the last thing he wants is anyone worrying about him but himself, or anyone to take advantage of that weakness. consider this as a strategy he adopted from the "conceal, don't feel" philosophy.

that having been said, a personal acceptance to "get over it" to stop feeling like he needs an emotional babysitter in his relatives =/= a lack of resentment towards others for how that was handled. marius nearly died due to the cruelty of a jealous relative, and his family was right in trying to protect him (as burdensome as he feels he may is), and he learns pretty quickly that he cannot trust others.

he still is one of the most influential people alive, and that means there's going to be a slew of people walking in and out of the revolving door leading into his life that are going to want to take advantage of that fact. it also goes beyond just people wanting to manipulate him, but he doesn't enjoy playing along in this circus of social hierarchy, and doesn't enjoy the people hanging around in these spaces. because they're ingenuine, they have no merit to him, and quite simply put he's looking to fill his life with color and sincerity.

i propose that... in order to consider a romantic relationship with someone, despite how much he longs for one, he would need to deeply get to know the person first and it would take a significant time to do so... and i know what you're thinking, it's just like a regular relationship, right? getting to know someone before deciding if you want to be with them? except, to marius, this is extreme; this social sphere he occupies has effectively chewed him up and spat him back out, because he's at the top of the top. his father is the wealthiest man in the world. marius by virtue of being a von hagen is essentially on the same level as royalty, and his family name is not enough to protect him. he has to be sharp, and he needs to be alert and constantly on guard.

he'd have no idea what someone's intentions may be with him when he meets them and he knows better than to blindly trust a person's seemingly apparent good faith, but also... he's so worried about dragging people down that he'd be almost afraid to consider it. it isn't enough that people want to use and abuse him to their hearts' content, but they'd try to tear up anyone else who went in there with him, and marius would be afraid of that outcome. he's already ruined the lives of his mother and his brother in his failure to protect them from the circumstances that removed them from his life. he would be unwilling to cause someone else he cares about to be put in the same situation, and he wouldn't be able to bear it if they also ended up abandoning him.

all of that leads me to say: i believe he would be more scared and avoidant upon realizing he was falling in love with someone, rather than immediately trying to pursue it with all he's got like he would his other endeavors.

the reason? it's so simple to pursue art. art is an arbitrary passion of his that doesn't impede on anyone else but himself, nor is it influenced by any outside forces; marius has full control over it. the same goes for his company; no one is going to sit there and hold his hand with his newfound ceo duties. he's always been capable of pursuing things on his own. romance is different; romance involves putting his young and fragile heart on the line to go after a whole other independent and outside entity not knowing whether or not he's going to face rejection.

eventually, i believe he'll completely learn to get over the hurdle, but in the interest of transparency... i think he's going to need a nudge from the other person first. a sign it's reciprocated, before he has to put his heart on ice.

i think it's on brand for marius to be a tease when you meet him; it is a genuine facet of his personality, but it's also something that feeds well into his reputation. he's assuming that people are going to know exactly who he is when he runs into them on the street, so he doesn't even bother dropping his pretense. but, i do think that extends... he doesn't drop that mask right away, it takes months and months, and lots of patience and understanding in order to unravel the mystery that is marius von hagen. he's going to want to gauge whether or not it's something he wants to commit to, and if it is, he's going to have to be prepared to unpack all that baggage. he would have to believe that this is going to be a happy ending for him, that his fairytale won't be a tragedy, in order to see a path forward. once marius goes into something, he doesn't step out.

so, he won't put up that much of a fight if he starts to fall in love with you, but that doesn't mean he would be eager make that leap of faith without getting a hint that there will be a safety net ready to catch him when he falls.