#like maybe her dark impulses attach themselves to her actual opinions about things

[herearedragons]

lorenzo and xoti (+ what made u get more interested in their dynamic!)

One ship breakdown coming right up!

he's a death godlike who stays loyal to Berath throughout both games (and a chanter with a knack for summoning phantoms), she's a soul reaper, and I'm kind of compelled by a psychopomp x psychopomp ship

the cute mental image of him singing to her and/or the spirits in her lantern to ease off the nightmares

both of them holding on to their faiths even as their gods are proven faulty, and Lorenzo's "my god may be flawed but I'll follow them anyway because they're all I have" vs Xoti's "I believe that my god can do no wrong and eventually will show everyone The Truth". I feel like there would be some interesting conversations

something funny about Lorenzo seeing Xoti flirt with Edér and thinking "of course she likes him, she'd never look at a death godlike like me :(" and Xoti then flipping to having a crush on said death godlike unprompted

Lorenzo's past life romanced Iovara and, since he's more of an Iselmyr situation, it would be pretty funny for him to see Lorenzo fall for a priestess. ah lads not again

I could probably do some fun stuff with Xoti's soul collecting and how it affects her. I could probably also do some fun stuff with rewriting some of the conversations around her personal quest (I have vague thoughts but I think I need to play more Deadfire first)

both of my other Watchers are either uncomfortable or dismissive about Xoti, and I feel like it would be a fun challenge for me to get Not Normal about her to the same degree I did with Edér and Devil and write her from a fully admiring/sympathetic perspective

the Orpheus and Eurydice of it all (singer has to rescue his beloved from a terrible fate of being bound to a death god? anyone? also I could do a myth-accurate bad ending au where she ends up making the Bad Choice at the end of her quest and he loses her)

something very funny to me about Edér, Devil and Xoti being my Watchers' romance lineup (the universe said "dragons you're going to get SO good at writing southern american accents and Eothas/Saint's War-induced trauma")

send me alternate love interests for my OCs and I'll tell you what I think

[ackermanshoe]

March comes in like a lion, it's Portrayal of toxic & healthy relationship and how to compares rivamika + Ereh

Que the longest title everr 😌✨

So before I start on the actual analysis, I recently started watching March comes in like a lion instead of doing my assignments and I half way through season 2. For those of you who haven't watched it, it might be a spoilers so beware of that.

In this analysis I'll be comparing the similarities I found between Rei, Hina and Kyoko.

So watching any anime after being do emotionally attached to rivamika it's only natural that I compare them to the characters with even the tiniest bit similarities in their dynamic but Rei and hina's relationship jump in episode 4 of season 2 really caught me off guard and I was like omg?? Rivamika?? How do I make this about them 😩

Anyway so a little background on Rei's relationship with both girls Kyoko and Hina ( Hinata ). Firstly, i subconsciously placed Rei has Mikasa, kyoko has Eren and Hina as Levi, why? You will know on a minute. Rei is a depressed kid who has known only one way of life and that's through shogi games and after his parents death ( cough cough ) he was taken in by a old friend ( I think ) of his dad's who was also obsessed with shogi. Kyoko is the biological daughter of this man who has "adopted" Rei and later on Rei was came to know Hina and her sisters, they were super supportive of him from the start and having lost family members themselves they related to him on a personal level.

So you see why Eren and mikasa's dynamic matches with Rei and Kyoko and not only as "step siblings" it's also the fact that Rei became somewhat obsessed with her through the time he had spent over at their house, it's toxic and it's been showcased that way ever since kyoko was introduced into the series. Rei thought of her when he heard the word "love" and he even admitted to the fact that having her around is toxic and yet he can't push her away. He said he does not want to stop hearing her voice even tho she , herself is in love with a much older man who is married. Everytime she showed up to his bedroom uninvited and slept next to him my mind went "he is in love with her and their relationship is so toxic why does the author keep bringing her into his life?" Or "girl get the fuck away from him".

Without even thinking too much deep into their physical connection I already knew I would be able to related this dynamic to Eren and Mikasa. Although this series gives us much more depth into the main characters views since it's narrated from his own perspective, and the fact that he metaphorically compared his feelings of being lost and sadness helps me as an audience to understand what's happening much much easier than attack on titan. I personally feel like this kind of series are usually short ( idk how long this is) because it feels like the author knows exactly what he is going for, everything is set in stone.

Going back to Rei's ( mikasa's) relationship with kyoko ( Eren ) it's much much clear how toxic it had become for him in more than just one way. And the show isn't denying Rei of his feelings towards Kyoko and it's not even attempting to distant him from her and yet you just knew there had to be someone better right? That's when they introduced Hina and Kyoko in the same episode, meeting each other and a sense of invisible rivalry gushed over them, especially Hina. She is a happy go lucky girl and extremely sensitive to things to the point it kinda annoys me everytime she bursts out crying ( but hey you can't hate a genuinely good character ).

That's where things get interesting for me maybe because I am on that Levi X Mikasa agenda all the time but just like rivamika their relationship has been portrayed as platonic for the longest time in the seaosns. If I didn't go out of way to search up who Rei falls in love with and it didn't say hina's name I probably wouldn't be making this comparison right now because who wants to have their heart broken for the 2nd time in the same fucking month 🙄.

Anyway so in this one episode Hina comes home crying because of bullying issue at school and as she runs off into the dark streets Rei chases her and eventually catching up to her takes her hand and being able to relate to her problems, comparing his younger self to her present Rei reaches out his hand and God fucking damn it he says "you saved my life..I promise I'll stay with you" ofc I'm making this post now you know the real reason 🤡.

The unseen build up that happen between them reminds me of rivamika, the Portrayal of healthy relationship is rivamika. Hina (in our case Levi ) to Rei is the voice of emotion, she speaks out the feelings that Rei has been surpassing all these years inside of him. Just like how we talked about Levi is the voice of reason, while Mikasa has the impulsive urge to act up. Just like how Levi became the perosn who reasonably always took mikasa's side, he gave her personal reasons to take Erens side everytime have an actual meaning towards the scouts / everyone , he then became someone Mikasa was able to object & voice out her opinion towards because she knew that he would response and guide her the right way and finally he became someone she was able to fully trust.

Much like Hina and Rei, when Hina cried out her heart and Rei couldn't help but go back to his past self and imagine Hina coming to him and giving him a hand, being his saviour. It's much like how Levi saw his past self in Mikasa present ( S1 ), Levi gave Mikasa the hand she needed when she didn't know she needed.

Hina despite being much younger than him, was able to make him realise that he too was shutting out his emotions and was able to let himself be free through Hina when she cried, expressing her frustrations and very human like emotions. In the forest of the giant trees when Mikasa and Levi saved Eren for the first time he told her " we got your precious friend, didn't we?" A slight wake up call he had given her for the very first time, an attack on Mikasa's ego and evoking a different emotions within her. Like telling her it's not only about Eren and getting revenge, risking your life so easily, Levi had lost his entire squad in order to protect Eren so now that he is safe they better leave now.

So the question is did Levi and Mikasa save each other?

What can I say that I haven't said already in here about these two?

"you saved my life" Rei says to Hina as he reached out her hand and the beauty of that scene was the fact that it was delicate and soft despite it not being anything romantic. Remind me of that panel of Mikasa touching Levi's shoulder. How ironic is the fact that I'm comparing Hina, a openly emotional character to Levi who is said to be the most emotional inside?

Levi physically saved Mikasa a lot of the time however emotionally Levi saved Mikasa from being selfish and from herself. What if I said and ignoring 139, that Levi was one of of the biggest reasons Mikasa took the initiative and decapitated Eren that day?

Wait why does it feel like I already said it before lol

Through Levi, Mikasa learnt to trust more, learnt that even though they gave difference not only in height, age and in how they treat Eren ( Levi with force and Mikasa with care ), Mikasa still came in terms with Levi and relied on him, shared her burden with him. I think that's the biggest character twist Mikasa had, the fact that she was ready to draw sword at anyone who treated Eren wrong and everyone was scared of her and then came the grumpy shorty who beat her beloved brother right in front of her but eventually he became the biggest form of support she had in the end. I just can not help but laugh at all the unseen development this ship has had and all the implication of Futher interaction after season 3 between them, it's really obvious they had something going on because imagine you don't talk to someone for like 3 years and suddenly when you engage in battle against , paired up with them suddenly you become the strongest duo known to humanity. +?)!#)# make it make sense.

Sooo now you see the that having toxic relationship with a partner is only natural and inevitable but growing from that, opening your eyes to those who actually care there for you is rather healthy. So moral of the story is guys make sure stick with those who tells you to stay with them, the end.

Omg guys this turned out so much longer than I intended, anyway hopefully y'all liked it. I know it's not the strongest comparison or analysis but I feel like I'm running out of words for what I want to say about rivamika it feels like I'm recycling my sentences from previous analysis over and over again because ✨ lack of content ✨ and my inability to think of something new.

Please ignore all my spelling mistakes I have decided to embrace my mistakes instead of fixing them simply because I'm too lazy 😉

💜💜💜

[jejemonmon]

Analysis + Semi-Theory: Zen's relationships with other people (including the RFA)

Yo, so this has been on my mind for a while and I just had to share my thoughts with you, because you made a post before about Rika that had some similar points and I wanted to add on to that.

You know how Rika made had a “connection” with each RFA member (aside from Jaehee) that made them agree to join the RFA and caused them to be so torn up about her “death” and just generally really affected by her in every way?

Logically speaking, Zen should have been just as impacted by her as Yoosung, Jumin, and Saeyoung and really emotionally distraught and traumatized by her “death” as a result. She sought him out, she was his earliest fan when no one else was, she attempted to made him successful and give him a “family” with the RFA.

But he always kind of avoided her. He sidestepped and rejected her help and friendship most of the time. He even declined to join the RFA at first, as I recall someone saying in one of the chat rooms. He only joined once V saved his life. Even when the game starts and also throughout the game, Zen always keeps the rest of the RFA at an arms distance, save for V, who he allowed to get up to his elbow, so to speak, because he saved Zen’s life and gained some of his trust. He doesn’t seem to act like his true self at all around most of the RFA. No one really knew anything about his past until MC shows up.

It’s just really interesting and weird to me. People always brush Zen off as being “less important” than the other RFA members, and that just makes me roll my eyes. Honestly, him deliberately keeping himself somewhat disconnected from Rika made me like him more. Because while some people really liked the bigger overarching plot, it wasn’t what I signed up for when I decided to play an otome game. (I prefer the universe theories about the game itself and Zen knowing he’s in a game and Seven and V and the wizards and etc.) I wanted to learn and fall in love with the individual characters themselves and not groan and roll my eyes every time the convoluted plot got in the way and took up time and then boom you and the character you’re pursuing magically decide to share deep feelings for each other with little to no buildup or progression of said feelings. At least that’s how it is during the excessively plot-smothered Deep Routes, which just felt like a hot mess tbh.

I got off on a slight tangent there. But I always think of Zen as someone who was able to see through Rika’s bullshit at least somewhat and didn’t become so overly attached and emotionally invested in her. (That’s one reason why the secret ends felt so OOC to me. Zen would have never just settled for being kept in the dark by Jumin, Seven, and Jaehee, and while he’s impulsive, he’s too detached from Rika to want to send her away. Although that might be the “white knight” in him who always feels like he has to speak out and protect the oppressed. Idk.) Zen was always the one who, while emotional and hotheaded, actually reacted like a sane person should in some of the extreme situations - the bomb, Jumin keeping MC in his apartment, V keeping secrets, forcing a stranger to jump into a dead girl’s job without thinking of how she feels, etc. The rest of the RFA is so blinded by Rika that they ignore logic most of the time and do things that don’t make sense because “it’s what Rika would have wanted”. They’re so caught up in this dead girl’s charity organization that has itself basically become super shady and conspiratorial, ignoring a lot of things that are so obviously sketchy and borderline illegal. And yes, I’m including Jumin, Mr. “I’m so logical”, who threatens the MC if she doesn’t agree to join the RFA and also declares she’s useless and obsolete if she doesn’t fulfill Rika’s duties. Like, jeez, mob boss much? He basically is one in every way except for official title.

So back to my main point. I think people tend to overlook how emotionally isolated Zen is from the rest of the RFA, something that he probably did deliberately. He doesn’t really like anyone in the RFA, except for V, and he mentions that a lot. He never believes that any concern or help that the RFA gives him is genuine. He doesn’t believe Jaehee is actually his fan, he doesn’t think Seven was actually trying to help him out (he thinks Seven was just being goofy and his weird trolling self), and the whole debacle with Jumin which everyone knows about so I’m not gonna go into (and tbh I still question Jumin’s sincerity and motive other than personal and financial gain bc Zen would owe him, so I don’t blame Zen for thinking the same way). He doesn’t believe anyone could actually care about him. He only knocks down some of his walls and lets V in a little bit because V fucking saved his life. But other than that, Zen has isolated himself so much emotionally that he hasn’t formed real relationships with any of the RFA members except V, nor does he really trust them, like them, or consider them friends. He doesn’t open up to them, and he keeps on the same mask that he shows to everyone else. He can’t afford to let anyone in, because they’ll just reject and betray him like his family.

Think about it too - Zen doesn’t really have any friends outside of the RFA either, like at all, save for a few people from his biker gang days, who I doubt he was his complete and true self around either. He’s super independent and relies only on himself, because that’s the only person he has. But he’s so desperate for affection and validation, which is why he seems desperate for a girlfriend yet simultaneously rejects so many people who are interested in him under the guise of focusing on work. When in reality, and he’s said this and there’s proof from VN flashbacks and in game events, that no one has actually treated Zen like a real person, or tried to understand him enough to warrant him opening up to them, except for V and the MC. That’s why he falls for the MC so fast, because she treats him unlike anyone else has before, like a person, and actually cares about what he wants. (Remember, V lies and keeps a lot of things from Zen, but Zen’s less torn up about it because while he trusts V more than the rest of the RFA, he hadn’t completely opened up to him, so he saves himself from some amount of emotional hurt.) The RFA may mean well, but they ultimately grossly misunderstand Zen, try to force what they think he should do on him, and treat him either like he’s an object on a pedestal or just too dumb to fully grasp or contribute meaningfully to a situation.

Basically, people don’t give Zen enough credit, and they brush him off as a background character with a shallow personality. There’s so many obvious things Cheritz has given us to showcase more of Zen’s character and personality, but the fans either make fun of him for it or call him annoying because of it. He’s super intuitive and guarded and I can definitely understand why he never completely bonded with the RFA. I love them, but quite frankly, they consistently fail to treat Zen like a person and don’t care about what he ultimately wants, but rather what they want from him. He protects himself from getting hurt by never getting completely emotionally invested in these people and reminding himself that they’ll probably all let him down someday. Which they do. No one actually sees Hyun Ryu, instead of ZEN, save for V and the MC.

This is really good analysis and oh my goodness way more than I could ever do. I never really thought about it this way.

While I mostly agree, I think some points should be open to discussion.

I personally feel like the RFA members treated him like a real friend, family, but the connection wasn’t there because of Zen. They were open to him, but he wasn’t open to them. That contributed to all the misunderstandings they had, so in that sense I don’t feel like I could ever blame them for how they treated him at times.

I also don’t recall Jumin ever threatening MC or saying those things to her, but maybe that’s just my bad memory. There’s many more I can say about that, but I think those who know his character better can explain it more substantially than me. I wouldn’t want to spout inaccurate information about him.

As for the fact that we don’t give Zen enough credit, I must agree. Although, since the April Fools DLC, more and more people have grown fond of him. I’ve been receiving messages from people saying how they’ve grown to appreciate Zen more after they realised this and that from my theories. So it’s definitely getting better, I’d say. I think overall, it’s really up to people’s types. Even before I had realised all this, I already liked Zen because I liked how romantic and caring he was. Others like Yoosung because of how cute and innocent he is. It’s the same for the other characters. And people see Zen as annoying because well, letms admit it he can be at times!

As I have said previously, all of the characters are complex. I chose to closely analyse Zen, and so have you, and that’s why we really love him. On the surface, he seems like just a romantic, narcissistic guy. I can’t blame anyone for not liking him. Same goes for the other characters. If I analysed their character more, I’d probably end up falling for them too, and that’s what others did, and that’s why they like who they like.

Thank you so much for submitting this. You wrote so much and you had a lot of valid points. Though this is as deep as I can go with my opinions because I’m currently rushing through a lot of work, I hope that you guys can also give your two cents on this. Reblog/Reply! Let’s start a discussion :D