i strongly believe that in any universe modern or otherwise lwj uses lan xichen as a kind of confessional like a catholic priest. he literally comes into lan xichen's room at four pm precisely because that's the scheduled time that he allows himself to share an Emotion with his brother and sits down and says in a distinctly monotone yet perfectly recognisably anguished tone 'brother i have sinned' and lan xichen sighs very quietly because he doesn't want to hurt his brother's feelings and puts down his pen and says 'is this about wei wuxian' very gently and Lan Wangji is like 'mn' because it has never once Not been about wei wuxian. and then he says something that is Kind Of Weird, But Still Not A Sin like 'he fell asleep when we were studying and i watched his ribcage moving up and down for thirty eight minutes until he choked on nothing and woke himself up; am i evil' and once again lan xichen will kind of not-sigh in a way that makes it very obvious that in all other ways except physical he Is, Indeed, Sighing and has to reassure the most rigidly distraught younger brother in the history of mankind that what he is suffering from is in fact a malady known colloquially as a crush
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[ cw: dismemberment / ]
I think a lot about how Leo’s rescue could have easily ended in him losing a leg as the portal snaps shut on the Krang still clutching the limb, or, alternatively, only having Leo’s right arm make it out, still held dearly in his brother’s hand as the rest of Leo is left behind. (The latter hits even harder, as it directly parallels his future self in the worst of ways.)
I think a lot about how so many things could have gone wrong during the course of the movie with even a little bit of a change, but it really is harrowing how much of a coin-flip the entirety of the Prison Dimension rescue was.
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I think something i don't often see in discussions about Futa's character is how, if you really take a second, he's kind of a people pleaser
He isn't so in a way like what Mikoto got going on, he does want to be around people of the same interests as him, and you wouldn't think he'd care about anything but authenticity if you stayed with the way he behaves on milgram. It is only when you think about him -in- those social circles he manages to get into that you can see him tweaking lol
I think the closest to see this that we have in milgram itself is that one interaction with Kotoko in which she attempts to debate how prisons respect human rights. Any other time he expressed his opinion/stance on things he was aggressive and maybe condescending to the rest because they disagreed with him, but the second someone agreed? Whole demeanor changed. Suddenly he didn't have much to say anymore and he just parroted Kotoko's words back at her. Why. If he has such a strong personality and mindset, why was someone validating his point enough to shut down his otherwise very firm attitude?
Futa doesn't go as far as to manufacture his every word for it to cause a positive reaction on others from the get go, but he does seek validation all the same. He braces himself for rejection by being loud and obnoxious and harsh until he sees a positive reaction and then is when he does a complete 180 to keep the other person in that place of validation. He is simultaneously completely bad at it though, but I never said he was good at people pleasing. Which connects back to what i've said before about his inability to fit in. Even when he thinks he's doing it right and he sees himself getting validation by people he cares about (in the case of his crime, by mimicking his friendgroup's method of "bringing justice" by calling out someone online, that same friendgroup following along and reinforcing the idea that he was doing it right), he ultimately fails anyway and loses it all over again.
In the end, he's just extremely socially awkward and anxious. It isn't in his nature to reach anyone else's expectations even if he genuinely wants to, so he'll either do what he can within his parameters (mold himself for his friendgroup of people he deems similar to him) or he'll avoid trying altogether because he knows he'll fail (what we see in milgram!)
It also shows how his yearn for a support system (t2 qna + mu's birthday timeline convo) isn't particularly new from his current circumstances, or why the only person he could think of when asked who he would want to see right now was his mom (who left so long ago he barely remembers her). He has just never truly had people that genuinely cared for him no matter what he tried to do to make himself likeable.
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and i think what really gets me about it is how grounded in reality this is. he likes a kids show. he’s horribly embarrassed and hates himself for indulging in something so seemingly stupid and childish and he should grow up and be presentable and be an adult and leave that stuff behind and it’s like. he just enjoys a kids show. idk smth smth about this feeling like a very real and honest portrayal of something that seems silly but in reality hurts so bad when it actually happens
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