#i respect my fellow vl99 fan even if we disagree on patrieumi

[juneboat]

hey sorry for being like. omega late to respond to this? i wanna actually respond finally so the wait was worth it so i'm not gonna bore you with excuses but i Will say i have not forgotten about it at all i've just been, as they say, goin thru it. with that said:

i respect the response! i can see you care about this ship and have sunk a lot of thought into and gleaned a lot of enjoyment out of them, and i appreciate that. however, i unfortunately don't think your response has actually wound up swaying me towards enjoying that ship any more than i did before.

what you have convinced me of, at the least, is that real patrick is less boring than the anime and manga have made him out to be. there's an argument to be made that the "kind boy" is an overused archetype in media by today's standards, but i think i'll take your word for it that light novel patrick really is kind and considerate towards eumiella, and genuinely does treat her as a proper person ( not simply because the story says he does, but that he does so through his actions ). i enjoy a character like that when they're done well, so maybe i could be turned around on patrick as a character.

however, this doesn't phase my position on patrieumi as a ship. i think there could be some good content in there if you put the work into it, but what i personally think is that the side of the ship that is most lacking is actually eumiella's. let me explain why -- and do keep in mind that even now i have not read the light novel, so i'm still missing the context there for this subject as well. regardless:

in terms of patrieumi as a ship, i don't think eumiella herself has actually offered very much in the way of romantic feelings. yes, i do believe there has been a lot of story about what she thinks of patrick, and romantic feelings have come up in her mind as an idea -- however, she herself shot down this idea, and clarified to herself that what she feels for patrick isn't a romantic affection, but simply a friendly fondness for him out of the good things he's done for her.

while i know an argument could very well be made for her simply being in denial of her true feelings, i do genuinely agree with her. in the manga at the very least, which is the form of this series that i'm the most well versed in, i do remember a couple instances where eumiella seems to think of patrick far more of a close friend than a love interest, in some cases potentially more of a tutor-student or even sibling-type relationship. in chapter 9.1, for example, eumiella overhears gossip in her class, referring to her and patrick as being like "brother and sister". her response to this isn't to defend her closeness with patrick as being not sibling-like, but rather she believes that they aren't even close enough to be siblings, let alone lovers.

granted, this is a very early example in the manga. i'm still rifling through it as i type this looking for evidence and such. i will mention though, it's very interesting to me that in this same scene she goes from saying she and patrick aren't quite that close directly to thinking a good bit about alicia, and very much sounding concerned for or at least feeling pity for her in terms of her dwindling reputation. i'm not gonna pose this as an argument against patrieumi, since i don't think it's very valid for that, but rather that i do find it a nice point of evidence that eumiella really does care about alicia and has concern for her in even the small details, even as distant as she might seem.

anyway, that aside, as i reread i notice often that whenever someone brings up patrick in romantic or intimate scenarios ( see: the end of the year party, and the consideration of eumiella's dance partner ) eumiella is consistently entirely surprised to even consider him in those situations, which to me indicates that she just doesn't see him that way. in her mind, patrick is her first friend who has taught her lots of useful things and was the first to treat her kindly, but to her he isn't anything more than that and, perhaps more importantly, doesn't need to be. it's interesting too, because it's not like she's not trying to make connections, and it's not like she's completely not considering a romantic partner -- it's just that when she thinks of those things, patrick isn't even in consideration for her. he's her friend, and as far as she's concerned that's all she wants him to be. if anything, patrick having feelings for her would only wind up complicating their relationship, and i think we all know what eumiella thinks of complications being introduced into her life.

what's interesting to me is that eumiella being completely romantically disinterested in patrick doesn't actually conflict with anything you've brought up -- their relationship in the story still works just the same if patrick is in love with eumiella but the same isn't true the other way around, and frankly reading the manga that's how i automatically interpret their relationship. again, the case might be different in the light novel or, frankly, the anime especially, but since the manga is the only version i've actually consumed and is since the one i know the most about, that's the version i'm making my case for.

i still think they work better as siblings, and i would honestly love a version of their relationship where patrick starts out in love with eumiella but loses his feelings as they grow closer and start leaning towards a more found-family kind of bond ( frankly, this is probably how i'm going to write them going forward in my fanfic, personally ), though i know that's not the case in canon. it's just to me that through the majority of the manga's runtime, at least from what i have read outside of chapters i've intentionally skipped ( for now at least ) eumiella has zero intention of considering patrick as anything more than a friend, and as their relationship has progressed through the story, from eumiella's side that idea hasn't changed one bit. even if they're closer together now, eumiella is no closer to wanting to see patrick as more than just a friend, and her trajectory in their relationship largely seems to suggest that, from her point of view, this would and should not change. patrick might be in love with eumiella, but eumiella isn't in love with patrick, and isn't going to be. to me, introducing eumiella actually falling in love with him would be nothing short of a sudden and unnatural development, and i would quickly lose interest in both characters and would much prefer to stick to writing my own spin on them instead -- even though that relationship seems to be the writers' ultimate intentions in every instance of this story.

that's what my take on their relationship is, and that's probably the largest reason why i just can't find myself investing in the ship. i respect that you clearly enjoy this ship a lot more than you do, and i don't want to take that away from you. maybe there really is more to eumiella falling in love in the light novel than the manga, and maybe it really is a natural progression. maybe i could learn to enjoy it if the light novel has a natural curve of eumiella falling in love, but the way i see it, in the manga at least such a plot point wouldn't be built up nearly well enough for me to ever be invested in the ship, so as it stands i can't see myself enjoying this ship, especially not nearly as much as i enjoy eumilicia, euminora, and eumilicianora ( even though the third ship there admittedly started out as a crackship, i've found that i have a lot of ideas for them i love lol ).

still, i'm definitely open to more discussion on this if you have more to say. just uh, don't be surprised if i end up taking a few months to actually respond again. ( sorry about that delay, by the way! )

i genuinely wonder if someone could EVER successfully sell me on patrieumi