#this post isn't necessarily a ship one - it could also be viewed as platonic but I'll tag it anyways | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

cursedvibes · 23 days

Note

Phos for the ask game :) (btw I haven't read the last two chapters yet... so anxious...I don't want it to end)

yay, Phos! I'm really excited for the last chapter actually, can't wait to read it. The last chapters have been so good, that I'm really curious how it will all tie up. Not to mention that I'm sure it will look absolutely beautiful. Reading the last couple of chapters until the end in one go sounds like the best strategy though. Then you see it all come together. :) I'm definitely gonna reread the entire series when all chapters are out.

Sexuality Headcanon:

Well, I would say Phos is ace like most gems seem to be. I think they do experience romantic attraction though, even if they might not be entirely aware of it. Like I think they have several relationships that might dip to a degree into that territory. Gems also have no gender and see other species as essentially genderless as well like the Lunarians for example, so they don't have any preference there either. Essentially panromantic you could say.

Gender Headcanon:

Genderless like most gems, but they go more into a masculine territory I would say in terms of how they prefer to dress and cut their hair. Or more like, to us, from the point of view of our gender norms it looks masculine.

A ship I have with said character:

Mainly with Kongo. Their relationship is what really draws me to this series and what drives the plot for most of it. It's just really tragic how destructive the love is they have for each other and how they deep down only want the best for each other and see how the other suffers, but only ever end up hurting each other. I'd really like to see some form of reunion between them, even though it is unlikely. Now that both have been relieved of their duty and can engage as equals with less baggage between each other. I won't spoil it for you, but even just that little mention in ch 107 really tug at my heartstrings. Also just the entire part of the story where Kongo meticulously gathers Phos' shards and secretly pieces them back together only for them to attack him again and desperately try to get him to pray...ugh and then Phos realizes that Kongo still loves them. I'm getting sick just thinking of it. Their love isn't necessarily romantic, more somewhere between that and platonic and parental and really hard to describe. They just make me insane just how they make each other insane.

A BROTP I have with said character:

Probably Antarc? They seem to be the most genuine friendship Phos had and what first really made them spiral. The mix of understanding, comradery and later Phos all-consuming grief is what makes it so interesting for me. If we come down to it, they only spend a relatively short time together, but they both started to blossom when spending time together because both were along and isolated before. And that short time together had an immense impact on Phos. The first thing that really mentally broke them but through that allowed them to gain respect from the other gems, which in turn put more pressure and responsibility on them. Of course not great for their mental health.

Besides that, also special shout-out to Brother. He works especially well with post-enlightenment Phos and I think if he met young Phos (the way he is now and not trapped in the ice) they would get along really well together and plan all sorts of mischief. Much to the pain of everyone around them.

A NOTP I have with said character:

I don't think I have any? At least I can't think of any ship that I really dislike.

A random headcanon:

Not really a headcanon, but I like to think about how Phos probably watched Kongo and the other gems sleep during the winter (not always in case of Kongo of course, he would be the one to urge them to sleep more often and in turn watch over them). They think it's kind of comforting, but it's also becoming compulsive because they are worried they might otherwise die in their sleep or any time they go out something would attack the base.

General Opinion over said character:

Love them. I think they might genuinely be my favourite main character, definitely for anime and manga.

#asks #houseki no kuni

6 notes · View notes

notmoreflippingelves · 2 years

Note

What kind of people do you think Kristoph is particularly drawn to (both romantically and non-romantically, not counting Phoenix)? Do you also think he can feel some form of sympathy for someone else's suffering/despair and, if able or given the chance, want to help them (perhaps if it hits him on a personal level)? Part of me thinks he's drawn to the more naive/docile/innocent types, though his pride + reputation gets in the way of pursuing such relationships, but I wanna hear your thoughts.

I tend to read Kristoph as the sort of person who has lived his life according to fairly rigid expectations of himself. These may be self-inflicted or may be the result of his upbringing--but more likely is a combination of both.

He is the sort of person who probably decided (or was told to) that he would become a lawyer at a fairly young age. And he has let this sort of logic dictate his life in both large and small matters.

(ex: "I must to do well at school so that I can get into the best law program and then get the best internship post-graduation and then have the most successful lucrative and prestigious career. Therefore, I can't afford to let myself get distracted by anything that will not directly contribute to my ultimate success. Even if said thing might make me happy or help me realize that my end goal isn't necessarily the right path for me.")

As a result, Kristoph has spend most of his life living "for other people"--not in the selfless, compassionate way, but strictly in the sense of "this is the sort of thing that I am supposed to do and supposed to want. it's what everyone says and knows so they must be right and I must strive for it."

He distrusts his emotions and does his best to ignore or counter them (which of course makes him even more volatile and blind of how they impact him anyway).

Because Kristoph has such rigid expectations for himself, I think he would paradoxically be drawn to his "opposite" in those respects. He keeps himself "caged" so he is fascinated by people who are "free" unlike him. People who "know themselves" because they weren't afraid to be spontaneous or emotional or contradictory. People who don't necessarily have to be "comfortable" in their skin all the time--but who aren't uncomfortable either.

This is a key part of his attraction to Phoenix for me. Phoenix "allows" himself to be emotional and impulsive--often to the point of recklessness--which Kristoph can't help but find fascinating even he doesn't quite understand it and would never give himself permission to try living that way.

I occasionally ship Kristoph with Lang ( I ship everyone with Lang tbh. And why wouldn't you? The good wolf boy deserves all the smooches from everyone. ) and I think there's sort of a similar self-possession and"freedom to feel" with him as with Phoenix. I've also been curious about Kristoph with Blackquill, Ray Shields, Godot, and Dhurke. And while I'd say that none of them are quite to the "I know who I am and I accept it and let myself be me" that Phoenix and Lang are, they are still nevertheless much more self-aware, self-resigned, and self-determined than Kristoph himself is--which would make them compelling to Kristoph.

I think this aspect may also have "platonic" appeal to Kristoph in addition to romantic. I would argue that while Klavier is not as "free to be himself" as he could be (and that a lot of his public persona is a facade and defense mechanism), he is still leaps and bounds beyond Kristoph in "allowing" himself to feel emotions and try things--which is simultaneously compelling and terrifying to Kristoph.

I know I probably talk too much about zarla and bardic's Gavin Brothers Frozen AU (but believe me, it deserves it.) But "Dangerous to Dream" (one of Elsa's new solos from the Stage Musical) really captures how I see Kristoph's view of his and Klavier's relationship perfectly. I've shared a few lines below:

"I have to be so cautious, and you're so extreme. We're different, you and I...."

And then later.

"I can't be what you expect of me./And I'm not what I seem./But I would love to know you."

#kristoph gavin #krisnix #krisdot #ace attorney #oh wow; elves took an opportunity to ramble about elsastoph #how absolutely shocking #*sarcasm*#he is so real to me tho #search your feelings you know it to be true #i have a lot of other things i could say about kristoph's 'type' romantically and/or people he is drawn to platonically #but i've already talked way too much on this message so i'll save them for now #also there is a lot of projection in this--can you tell?

22 notes · View notes

roobylavender · 2 years

Note

I know this post was meant romantically and honestly I’m indifferent like see it however you want jaibabs doesn’t offend me as much as other ships tbh but even platonically I feel like this gets the heart of what a friendship would look like specially these parts: Barbara is one of the very few people who can understand a large part of what Jason went through. He really should have at least talked to her in canon. I think they could both off each other something most people couldn't, in that respect. And Barbara wouldn't condemn him for wanting to kill. She wouldn't consider him monstrous or vile. She wouldn't agree with how much he does it, but she would understand why. She would tell him her point of view reasonably - that it's best not to kill unless it's the very best option. And maybe they'd come to a compromise, eventually. Jason needs someone he can compromise with, who won't flinch away from his rage, who can talk him down from recklessness without dismissing his anger. Barbara needs someone who's blunt and candid, who respects her but isn't intimidated by her.

I don’t know I thought it was interesting to read. Maybe not share this ask? I feel like it would make you or others uncomfortable and I don’t want that. I just wanted to share some thoughts or posts I saw that might help when forming your thoughts and etc.

I’m the one who sent the ask with the link that mentioned you might being uncomfortable and about being seeing as romantic or platonic. I’m not sure how make asks you have gotten 😂 but if you want to answer it you can? I just didn’t know if it was something you wanted to answer or etc.

it’s a couple of asks so i wanted to clarify for sure lol! but yeah i don’t mind this one like i don’t ship it personally for a myriad of reasons but obv that doesn’t preclude the discussion of the worth of the dynamic itself, and these are really good points! i really appreciate the stress on compromise and how barbara would potentially present that middle ground wherein she doesn’t entirely condemn jason but she doesn’t necessarily enable him either. she’s just there, in theory, as someone possessive of the same experiences and empathy but also of mental-emotional clarity and arguably solid judgment, so she’s maybe in one of the best positions to reason with him where others wouldn’t be. this is something i’ll address in a subsequent pair of asks but really i find there’s a lot of irony in the fact that prominent women in the bat mythos are some of the people most reasonably set up to be receptive and yet simultaneously cautionary to his goals, only for almost all of them to be erased from his story. it’s very convenient lol

#outbox

5 notes · View notes

nightswithkookmin · 3 years

Text

A quick lesson on ships

Because why not??😌

No but seriously, bare with me, I'm trying to answer your questions. Sit if you have to. Hehe

Uban Dictionary defines shipping as this:

A term used to describe fan fictions that take previously created characters and put them as a pair. It usually refers to romantic relationships, but it can refer platonic [sic] ones as well. (Just think of “shipping” as short for “relationSHIP”.) 9 Apr 2015

Ships can be platonic or romantic or both.

There's fictional ships and non fictional ships too. You ship two people you want to be in a relationship or who already are in a relationship or who you suspect to be in a relationship- perhaps due to queer baiting, ship baiting, romance baiting etc.

In the shipping fandom, there are two sects of people. Those who are Proships those who are Antiships- antis are ironically considered part of the shipping community because for some reason they are always in shippers business💀

Antishippers are those who oppose a particular ship or shipping in general (more on that later.)

Proshippers are well- Pro ships.

Pro-Ship

A term mostly used in fandoms, but can stretch outside of this to include original characters. The core belief is that shipping two fictional characters, no matter if they are family, share ages gaps, considered to be unhealthy, or show blatant signs of being abusive or other generally unsavory behaviours, are valid in a fictional setting.

Pro-Shippers or "anti-antis" are also known as "rainbow meaties" and will use 🌈 + 🍖 emojis together often in their bio on twitter or other social media platforms- usually within fictional settings.

These shippers reinforce the idea fiction is separate from reality and shouldn't be confused with the other.

‘Anti’ is short for ‘anti-shipper’ or ‘anti-[ship]’.

Kindly read through this thread to get the gist of it.

III

Shipping non-fictional individuals is a subset of Proshipping, in my opinion, known also as alternative shipping- as far as my knowledge on it goes.

As with fictional shipping, alt ships have their antis too. People who disagree with shipping real couples in a romantic way for whatever arbitrary moral reasons they have and who feel entitled to go out of their way to correct, stop, police and punish such shippers.

Then there are those who although may be pro real people shipping think they have the right to tell others how they should ship and to what extent they can ship.

Others too prefer to ship real people platonically because they view romantic shipping of real people as problematic.

So to answer your question on Anon's post- there is no such thing as a Proshipper who is also Anti shipping. Thats oxymoronic. Perhaps they might be platonic shippers who are anti romantic ships but not necessarily romantic shippers themselves.

I don't think there's anything wrong with preferring to ship platonically. It is when they assume by virtue of their false sense of moderacy that they are better than others that shit starts to get funny.

Those shippers are delusionally confused beings with a supremacist imperialist complex rooted in ignorance and absurdities.

I usually walk by those quietly. keep it pushing. Gotta mind my business somehow even though most times I just want to pull their hair and bite them and shit😭

I try to keep it classy.

Lord knows I try.

You are either pro ship or anti ship. There's no in between. Those shippers who are shippers but claim they are not are nothing but fraudulent, fake us, simps trying to bamboozle their way through life- pardon my Swahili.

There are a lot of anti shippers moonlighting as shippers in this fandom. It's fascinating.

Personally I think those people are either confused or their desires to appeal to other Anti shippers must have morphed their brains into ass dick hybrids.

Anti shippers in general are notorious gatekeepers, gaslighters, bigots, high key sanctimonious and often have a cis white westernized sense of morality and ethics through which they fliter others and expect everyone and everything to conform to.

They impose their values on others, their ethics on others, resort to manipulation, policing, intimidation and bullying to impose their will etc.

Within shipping, there are those who are Proshipping yet anti certain ships. Most Tuktukkers are anti Jikook. And assume anyone who isn't a tuktukker is equally anti Tae Kook and so go ahead and exhibit anti behaviours towards them.

Think of such groups of shippers as Proshippers with a preference for particular ships if you will.

There are Pro shippers who also feel some kind of way about Shipping real life people or alt shipping.

Here's further resource to help you understand what proshipping is

If you are intolerant with other shippers choice of ships or style of shipping and you traumatize them for it that's Anti shipping. Especially if you feel entitled and justified to traumatize others because you take a higher moral status over them.

You can be proship and not like how certain people, how they go about

Simply walk away, click off, mind your business. You are not the only adult in these streets and leave people to do what interests them.

I think for as long as I can remember, I've always been a proshipper and I ship both platonically and romantically, fictionally and alternatively💀

Some themes in fiction are a hard limit for me such as the R word, pedophilia, incest, child abuse- I just can never find the entertainment in those topics and will struggle through such themes.

But others believe it's just FICTION and those fictional characters aren't really dealing with the imaginary struggles we read about.

Yall do you sis.

I don't really know why people make a big deal of it or try to demonize the concept of shipping as if it were something strange or mysterious- just keep your moral values to yourself. I am not your mother's daughter. we were not raised in the same households.

Then again I think it all depends on the different cultures and social backgrounds we all come from and how entitled, supremacist or imperialist they are.

For Yoonmin, I shipped them romantically but didn't think they were a real couple at all. I just romanticized their interactions and found humor in it. At the back of my head I was expecting them each to one day find husbands or wives and go their merry ways and even harbored the thought they each could very much be in serious romantic relationships with others.

In similar ways, I shipped Minimoni and Vmin.

You can ship a pair romantically and not think at all that they are actually REAL.

A lot of jokers ship Jikook romantically and don't assume they are real. Just as a lot of people shipped say Elena and Stefan romantically even though Paul was married.

Some shipped Elena and Damon too due to their unscreen chemistry and even felt they could be a thing- that was before later it was revealed they had started dating in real life. Even that I was holding on to my Bonnie x Damon fantasies because Bonnie was my bias and I shipped her with everyone romantically- of course I didn't expect any of those ships to manifest into something because it was the character I was shipping not Kat herself. To this day I still love her onscreen chemistry and friendship with Damon and don't see how people could wish for it to be more than that😭

It was beautiful as is. Not everything should climax into sexual intercourse.

But if I felt at some point any of her ships had crossed into alternative ships I would have jumped on those and supported it whole heartedly.

If you assume a pair are a real couple and dating in real life that's alt shipping- a lot of alt shippers suspect a ship is real and that's why they ship them.

There is no such thing as platonic alt shipping.

And for me personally, because I believe Jikook are a real couple and have made that cross over I don't ship any of that pair romantically with other members anymore.

It's bizzare to me to ship someone I know has a partner romantically with anybody else- I make exceptions for Vmin of course💀

I know JK is side eyeing me but I don't care.

I want Tae to be happy too😭😭😭

Tae just wants his bestfriend and soulmate😭

It's too much😭😭😭😭😭😭

He stays shooting his shots🤣

Jimin Harem is real🤭

I must admit, I catch myself slipping on Vmin and Minimoni every now and then- old habits die hard and they don't make it easy 😫

But that don't mean I think Vmin is dating. THAT WOULD BE WILD.

Summary

Proshippers can be Platonic or Romantic shippers and you can ship a pair romantically and not assume they are real at all.

Anti shippers are just assholes trying to beat their values down people's throats.

Alt shippers don't ship their OTP with other players romantically.

I don't know what you mean by Jinkooker...

Do you ship Jinkook romantically or think they are real?? Sis...

Maybe you just ship them platonically or casually.

I ship all the ships platonically.

Especially all Jimin"s Tae's ships. I'd let my self flirt with the idea of romance every now and then.

JK's ships don't make sense to me as ships.

As nonplatonic ships I mean.

I'm fascinated each time I see a hardcore JK x any member ship besides Jikook swearing up and down JK is screwing Namjoon🤣🤣

I hope this helps??

GOLDY

75 notes · View notes

ravenhealer5 · 3 years

Note

Loved your JK post! I was a hardcore EM shipper for years but since 2019 I alr felt the ship was doomed but had a hard time accepting it. I was in denial. It wasn't until DEC 2020 did I begin accepting that EM was sinking & won't be made canon the way i'd want so I gave it up. I agree tht EM was faulty since day1, could u get into details about tht? Curious what you think about its problems. Also the friend you mentioned, did he go thru the same thought process as you about potential jk endgame?

Sending you a hug. I hope you’re not feeling too upset anymore. I can be a pro denier too, but at some point it gets tiring. Denying to others is just the tip of the iceberg, most of all you have to deny to yourself, telling yourself over and over again that what’s happening isn’t really happening and have to come up with twisted theories to suit your agenda. Too much work. I supported EM and was sad when I figured out it’s not happening, accepted and moved on, and later I came to love JK and it reached the point where I realised if I could pick one of the two ships to be endgame, it’d pick JK over EM, which was a pleasant surprise to me.

Regarding EM, since you asked, I'll tell you what I think but if you don't like it, please remember this is just my interpretation and you don't have to agree with it at all. I’m putting a cut here.

First let me address EMA as a whole. Its main problem is it’s based on their childhood selves. They became friends when they were kids and got along great. Then as they grow up, they develop, forming their own views of the world, becoming their own person, and these newer versions of them no longer get along as great as their child selves did. But they don’t even understand that. In their head, they think they’re still the bestest friends and things are still like they always have been. This is why later in the story we have both Armin and Mikasa having these questions about Eren. They both thought they knew Eren, but looking at things, that clearly is not the case. And Eren doesn't understand them either but the difference is he isn't even interested in understanding them, he's too busy doing his own thing. And in the mean time, all of them have formed other significant bonds. For Eren there was a lot but the most significant ones will be perhaps Reiner and Historia (platonic), for Mikasa it’s not shown as explicitly but it has to be Sasha and Jean (keeping aside Jean’s feelings, like I’ve already said I don't think it’s that important a factor in the pre epilogue part of the story except for being a hint) and for Armin perhaps Jean and Annie. And these bonds, unlike EMA, are based on who they are right now. The only arc where we get EMA standing out, working as a trio is Trost arc. The very first arc of the story. As the story progresses, they get integrated into the rest of the cast. And in the final arc we have Eren committing mass murder and Mikasa and Armin having a terrible argument as they fail to figure out how to handle him. Now, it’s still possible to remain friends with someone even after you’ve grown to be very different people. You have to accept them for who they have become and respect them as individuals. Your relationship has to adapt to the changes you’ve gone through. And this is where the problem lies cause none of them even notice they’ve changed. And that’s why their bond doesn’t get updated, hence never growing beyond what it was in their childhood. It’s like trying to use windows XP in 2021. It’s not up to date, it can’t work.

Now even in EMA, Armin’s bond with both Eren and Mikasa are your normal friendship. He met Eren as a kid and became friends and we don’t see his first meeting with Mikasa but we can assume it was an uneventful meeting when Mikasa came to live with the Jaeger family. Eren and Mikasa however, a different story. Their bond started out on childhood trauma and co dependency. That didn't necessarily mean it had to stay that way, but like I said, unfortunately it did. They grew but their bond never did. Hence the flaw in their relationship remained as it was till the end. I think we all have a few childhood friends we’re not friends with anymore. We didn’t have a fight or some dramatic break up, it’s just our adult selves no longer get along like our young selves did so we drifted apart. Had things been normal in Eren and Mikasa’s case, that’d probably be the fate of their relationship. Last month, my sister watched+read AOT and she said had Eren and Mikasa met at fifteen, like normal people, no trauma nothing, they probably won’t even be friends. That’s actually true, they don't really have much in common to build a bond on. What connects them is the shared trauma of the past that neither of them can heal from. A great exhibit will be this scene from before rts.

What Mikasa wants is to go back to the past, to get back what she lost.

Eren also wants to bring back the past but more importantly he wants revenge.

Both their characters are stuck in the past. Because neither of them actually have a healthy coping mechanism and therefore never made peace with their past. Neither of them are looking towards the future. Now compare that to

Armin also lost his family, in the manga it was his parents in the anime it was his grandfather. But whatever, he lost his family too, he’s mad too but that doesn’t stop him from looking towards the future. He’s not being defined by his past. And just to make it clear, Armin is my least favourite character of EMA aka I’m not being biased.

Mikasa’s attachment to Eren is also rooted in her inability to make peace with her past. The moment Eren wrapped her up in that scarf, giving her a home, offering her warmth when her world had turned too cold, in her traumatised state she held on to him, seeing him as a means to get back what she lost. Her family. She took him as a replacement for her family. This is why we never see her mourn her family, this is why her ideal dream in 138 is almost an exact replica of her childhood life with her family, except it’s with Eren (and this is why it was important to show her mourn Eren all her life while her family is right there. it’s to show that she did not make the same mistake again. this time she found a healthy coping mechanism, accepted the pain and still went on with her life. Eren represents her past while Jean and the kids and grandkids her present and future. they all appear together for a reason). She never got over the trauma of losing her family, I mean she did in the long run but the timeline the story covers, she didn’t. She just wants things to go back to how they used to be before everything went wrong and she thinks she can do it with Eren, not even taking into consideration that Eren might not want the same. And the truth is he does not. Eren is all about himself. To a fault almost. This is why there’s a lack of balance in their relationship. Mikasa has tied her entire existence to Eren while has not tied his to her. He has a warped idea of freedom where he denounces all bonds, even those precious to him. This is from the first chapter.

This is before the wall has fallen, when Carla and Grisha are still alive. But you can already see the problem in their relationship here. Eren’s complete disregard for the people who love him and worry about him, and people he loves too. His idea of freedom is absolute. His life is his own to do anything with. And we have Mikasa who is technically not wrong here but reading the whole story we know this is coming from a feeling of entitlement. She thinks she can interfere with his life the way she wants to. This never changes. From the story’s beginning to its finale, we had Mikasa chasing after Eren as he chases after something else. The two of them never met each other halfway.

Eren and Mikasa’s relationship is more about specific moments rather than steady continuous growth. Like I mentioned in my JK post, in a moment Eren goes from being a total stranger to Mikasa’s entire world. Not how normal human relationships work. And this pattern continues. They have nothing nothing nothing, then BAM!!! a cool moment. Not only that, their great moments are always coming after something traumatic/tragic. The scarf wrapping when they first meet, the promise with the scarf in chapter 50, the who am I to you scene in 123, the kiss (I personally don’t have a problem with the kiss, I felt like it suited AOT’s style but I completely understand why people are uncomfortable with it). It’s like for them to have a moment, something tragic must happen first.

It’s not that Eren and Mikasa aren’t growing up, they are. And they’re changing. Eren for the worse, Mikasa for the better. But there’s a part of them that’s still badly stuck in the past and that part is what connects them. That’s why it becomes a problem in a story that constantly talks about moving on. This is also an important factor that their developments are going in the opposite directions. Serumbowl made that clear. Where Mikasa and Eren make the opposite choices regarding Armin. Mikasa accepts that while she’s suffering, there is a bigger picture she should prioritise, something Eren does not. That’s what happened in the finale too. Mikasa putting the greater good before her personal sufferings while Eren till the end could not rise above his self-centred mindset. When two characters have this type of contrasting character developments, it’s not very likely for them to end up together.

Now do I think Eren and Mikasa love each other? Absolutely. Probably more than they love anyone else, they share a deep connection with each other that they don’t with anyone else. But also, do I think it’s a mature, ‘healthy’ love between two mutually independent individuals? I don’t. From their perspective it’s the only way they’re capable of loving each other but from an objective POV, it’s messed up. I personally think if we consider ‘healthy’ love, like no trauma or co dependency, for both Eren and Mikasa, that person will be Armin. (I HATE using the words healthy and unhealthy while discussing fictional relationships because the way fandoms weaponise these words but I’m just trying to explain here)

Mikasa isn’t seeing Eren for who he really is. A proper mature love requires that you see the person for who they are, and accept them for all they are. The good and the bad. Mikasa isn’t anywhere near doing that. She’s projecting, only seeing what she wants to see, turning a blind eye to what doesn’t suit her, she works on assumptions and oversteps boundaries. To an extent that Eren himself finds it annoying. A very common argument in the fandom is that Eren does not respect Mikasa as an individual which of course is true but the thing is Mikasa doesn’t respect Eren as an individual either. She barely sees him as an individual. I personally like to use the comparison of a drowning person. While saving a drowning person, we’re advised to not get close. Because they’ll hold on to you so tightly that it’d restrict your movements, putting both your lives at risk. But they simply aren’t able to process that because of the extreme state of fear they’re in. To them this is their last chance at survival that they can’t let go of, and they hold on to it with every ounce of strength they have. That’s exactly what Mikasa is doing. To her Eren is her last surviving family, her only chance at living on in this cruel world and she’s so afraid of losing him, she’s holding on to him with everything she has, she’s overdoing it. It’s her fear of losing him that’s stopping her from forming a normal functional relationship with him. It’s almost like a paradox. Now, is she okay with losing Armin? Not at all. Was she okay with losing Sasha? Absolutely not. But she hasn’t tied her entire existence to them like she has with Eren. That’s where the difference lies.

Now Eren, I don’t claim to understand his character very well but to me he reads like a self-centred person who at the end of the day will always put himself first. I’ve noticed that certain shipping communities seem to be under the impression that Eren cares about no-one but the character they ship him with. I personally don’t think so. He’s not selectively caring, he’s incapable of caring in a mature way. In a mature love, be it platonic or romantic, you’re supposed to think about the other person’s feelings. Which Eren is not doing. Not for Mikasa, not for Armin, not for anyone. He never understood why the scarf meant so much to Mikasa but he tried more than once to take the scarf away from her based on his assumption of why the scarf was important to her. Eren neither does nor is interested in understanding the other person’s POV, he’s too self-absorbed. And at the end of the day he’ll do what he wants to do. By that I’m not saying he does not care at all and is a monster. I’m saying he doesn’t care enough to make compromises.

Eren’s little tantrum over Mikasa surprised many. All of a sudden he’s crying about how he wants to be with her (and everyone else too but she gets the focus). This is the same girl who has spent all her time just trying to catch up to him, whose only wish was to be with him. He is the one who was busy running after other things. This feels like a contradiction. Just like how he wanted his friends to live long happy lives and then put the same friends’ lives at risk. As a result of which Sasha died and Jean and Connie also turned into titans. What’s with these contradictions? Because once again, Eren has priorities. He wants things to happen but won’t actually compromise his own selfish dreams to make it happen. Now I personally have been convinced since 123 that Eren does have feelings for Mikasa. But those feelings are not his priority and never will be. He was throwing a tantrum over Mikasa just when it’s time for him to die. If he’s given one more year to live right there, do you think he’d spend it with Mikasa? No he won’t. He didn’t in the past, and he won’t this time either. He’d spend his time chasing after something not named Mikasa and once a year has passed and it’s his time to die again, we’ll get tantrum part two. You know those kids who spend the entire vacation playing, neglecting their homework and then cry on the last day? If the vacation gets extended by a week, they won’t use the seven extra days doing homework properly. They’ll waste first six days playing again and cry on the seventh day. Again. Because the homework is not their priority. Just like Mikasa is not Eren’s. If you’ve read Lost Girls, you’ll know this exact pattern also repeats there. Despite the gates getting sealed and SC getting disbanded, Eren still gets himself killed trying to go to the outside world on an airplane. Eren was never going to sit still and live the peaceful life Mikasa wanted.

The thing is Love and compatibility don’t necessarily come together. In general people’s idea of love is very much affected by what we see in media. The type of love our stories, movies, songs glorify aren’t exactly what functional irl love looks like. To have a functional lasting love, there’s a lot of things, many practical factors play a key role. When fictional love stories get a ‘happy ending’, it generally isn’t really the ending. It’s barely the beginning, those stories omit the real challenging part. Falling in love is the easiest part, staying in love however, takes a lot of work. Maybe in a more fairytale like story, Eren and Mikasa could be but that was never AOT.

EreMika was meant to be like this. People in the fandom tend to call EM badly written which I’m not disagreeing it could’ve been written better but my problem is people aren’t meaning they wanted it to be written better, they’re meaning they wanted it to be written as a functional relationship. Like people often call EMA the worst written trio, and while my favourite trio is JSC, once again, EMA is supposed to depict the falling apart of a childhood friendship which is depicted rather well imo. Something faulty isn’t an example of bad writing when it’s intentionally written to be faulty. People are like if he wanted to make EM canon, he shouldn’t have written it like that. Like what is it that he has made canon? Their mutual love. But that’s it. He didn’t make them endgame. Not only do they not get a happy ending together, Romeo and Juliet didn’t either, but them dying together is still very romantic. While Mikasa gets her happy ending with someone else. Said ‘someone else’ being a character foil of Eren. It hurts in the worst ways possible. Something that never had the chance of happening, it not happening is not painful. But something that could have happened but didn’t, now that hurts. That’s EM for you. They were right next to each other, loving each other, it could have been so easy. But it wasn’t. That’s why it’s a tragedy. With EM it’s so weird because it gets misinterpreted by shippers and haters alike. It’s not your tale of peak romance and eternal love, neither is it forcibly thrown there at the last minute to look functional. It’s been there all the time, as a dysfunctional relationship and it remained so till the end.

And regarding the friend, more or less yes. He said that to me in February 2018, when Marley arc was at its climax. But I only asked him about it after I myself was convinced about JK. He explained he was sure Eren wasn’t coming back to Mikasa and Armin anymore, like even if he lived he won’t end up with Mikasa. And since Jean was Mikasa’s only other romantic interest in canon, he thought she’d end up with him. Like he was a bit confused about Eren’s end (remind you, we’re talking about Marley arc here) but he seemed pretty confident about JK.

#my asks

4 notes · View notes