#i am actually also writing fic in another tab as we speak im literally overflowing constantly thinking about them

[sollucets]

wrote a whole long post that didn't make sense because i'm a fic writer not a meta writer and the point comes down to this: sand and ray are both Such Bad Liars

they have honest faces. nobody, in-universe or in the audience, is ever really fooled when they pretend things are other than they are.

when sand is hurt you can tell, it's in every line of his body. ray is expressive and straightforward but hides his hurt a little better, not because he's better at lying but because the hurt hardly ever goes away.

ray can see sand freezing up and looking upset when he's called a friend or not prioritized, he can see the lie, but it doesn't matter compared to what sand's actually saying and what it'll mean if it's (not) true. he's gotten a lesson recently about pushing. and sand, i think, can see ray caring but he can't imagine it could be enough, that he could matter the most or be a priority. when ray calls sand a whore it's the only lie he told that night and sand knows it

when they hurt each other sand lies and pulls away and ray can tell, and similarly ray lies and pulls away and sand can tell, and theyre stuck in limbo because of it. awful. hate it. 10000 more just like it please

#again as always there are other layers #ray pulls back out of self-loathing (less of me will always be better for the other person) and a sort of clumsy kindness and fear #sand lies out of wounded pride and longing for something he can only get through pretending and out of self-preservation and out of fear #sand is sometimes so honest it hurts (and when he is you can see ray falling in real time) #and ray lies too now and again to try to keep people from seeing just how bad it's got #also to be clear this applies to sand's girlboss gaslight manipulation moment too #like he's better at it than regular lying because he's had time to prepare but ray still sees straight through it #just bc ray ends up telling mew anyway doesn't mean he can't see sand's ulterior motives from a mile off #this is very melodramatic of me i know but like. this is how i have to get my shit out they are rotating in my brain 24/7 #i am actually also writing fic in another tab as we speak im literally overflowing constantly thinking about them #rowan chatter #re: only friends