i need to lie down due to headache and GENUINELY i dont think i have terribly much to say

but she IS experiencing some complicated feelings she's not entirely sure she's a fan of

both in the "needing to care for/about the kids on acidia" way and also feelings about other people getting hurt/etc way

she's overall a little ??? about it and a little frustrated with herself

anyway i'll come back to this

ama is also available

i wanna hear more about her acidia kids feelings

elaborate on the complicated feelings!!

cr me

oh wait cr me too

okay awake. cleansed. headache slowly fading

complicated feelings first

maybe first a little play philosophy for ruan mei au/canon differences. so i do my best to keep within a certain measure of close-to-canon personality-wise at least for her limelight au: she's not quite as isolated/hateful of company as she is in canon, nor is she as rabidly determined to meet her goals in spite of others safety/comfort, etc

she's still pretty callous and i try to play her "has a lot of trouble empathizing for real but can PRETEND to" pretty straight, though it's not as if i believe/feel canon ruan mei is like. entirely emotionless. i think she has an extremely hard time identifying and acknowledging her own feelings even though she somewhat can for others around her

though she self-admittedly doesn't understand "love" (though in one of her bio stories she does admit that like. she grew up VERY loved by her family and clearly had some feelings in that respect so ...??? girl???)

anyway she is not emotionless in LL especially but since i can't play her obsession with Becoming God straight for her LL au she has this like... restlessness that contributes a lot to how she treats people, family, etc and makes feel as if she cannot properly connect with or love people (because she cannot "stay in one place" long enough to)

hence the serial dating/divorcing

one of my desires for her au was to force her to have More Feelings and be deeply uncomfortable with it and so far it's been going great and this game is definitely one of those times

though being so close to acidia/the kids it's kind of a constant flipflop between genuine and pretend feelings bc she doesn't quite know how to handle that............ anyway

this game was great for this because a few things here happened. 1. having to navigate the idea of protecting acidia by potentially killing someone else from a Family they're friendly with (+ the person in question being involved with her ex)
and 2. the decision NOT to do that, in the end

so on 1 she really has no issue sacrificing someone for the safety of acidia as a whole. she is totally fine with this. it's regrettable that it's velveteen but ultimately acidia is Family and while she doesn't really have family loyalty the way others might she's well aware of what her "responsibility" is in this respect

however acidia on the boat is full of kids. these kids have feelings and like people and SOME of them (aster) (hyacinth) CLEARLY need better role models of some sort because what the hell is wrong with them. jesus. she's not a good role model nor does she have any real maternal instincts but she can at least try to set a good example for them about keeping

themselves "safe". in some respects

... or try to. she's not good at this either for herself but do as she says not as she does

2 is where some complicated feelings come into play

i mean the complicated feelings are ever-present but. you know

so she learned a handful of things in the last few days, some of them in this very game, all of which have given her some pause

- brocade is dating lithium
- brocade and lithium are getting married????
- velveteen is dating lithium
- velveteen is sleeping with brocade
- brocade loves velveteen
- brocade is sleeping with aloe? or dating aloe? unsure
- shura said the words "i care about your well being more than anything else" which is weird right? that's weird??

THE BROCADE TANGLE is a weird thing for her because after breaking up with folks her mind just doesn't, like. hold those peoples' lives up anymore as important for her to follow up on. it's not that she doesn't consider Them important as people because she does and tries to maintain some sort of friendly rapport with them she just, like. forgets

that they have lives and relationships outside of her bubble like this. it gets especially weird with someone like brocade specifically who has kind of infrequently alluded to wanting to get back together so she's both not super surprised by this but also kinda surprised. bc she's Experienced Him. this kind of goes similarly for Aloe

unfortunately now she's been forced to become aware of it both due to them intentionally involving her in some of this (via texting and such) and also stuff revealed during the game and. anyway this is more information about her exes' love lives than she ever truly wanted to know because now she has some ??? feelings about it and doesn't really

know how to like. box those up. it's not jealousy, she's not upset, she's not ANGRY... so what??? what is it????????????

re: the shura thing she just fully doesn't believe him because that can't possibly be true. she doesn't get why he'd say that especially since he unlike the simp squad has never openly expressed wanting to get back with her so ???? though she has quite a different relationship with shura than she others due to (lying to the in-laws). but

naiads: going back to the game and acidia kids feelings though. aside from what i mentioned earlier her other things is that the kids overall seem to... really like her? she doesn't really know what to do with that. it does inspire a little bit of wanting to care for them but not to the point of Love (she thinks? maybe??) but she's also just consistently a

little lost when THEY want to help HER or like, seek her out, or anything like that. she's a bit awkward about it and doesn't know how to categorize this feeling either so she just tries to ignore it for the most part

anyway more specifically also. cr... aster. this is a good boy

all of acidia is pretty well behaved but aster is perhaps the MOST well behaved (besides lilylotus) which puts him pretty high on azalea's list of respectable kids. she isn't as frustrated by his self-sacrificial nature as she could be so much as she thinks it's a bit silly for him to try to take so much responsibility in general

he does surprise her every time he is like. genuinely caring/asking after her though. she's a bit confused by it in a "why is it your job to do this? you're a kid so let me handle my own problems" way. it's not a bad think though like many emotional things she is pretty ??? about it

bsod: she likes hyacinth a lot. she does not however consider him one of the Good Boys she thinks he has problems that are above her pay grade and she's not a therapist nor is she going to try to be. her corrections of his video game-ifying of life things is less about helping him specifically and more about jsut being like

well that's just wrong. get well soon BUT NOT IN A PASSAGG WAY... like she does want him to be mmm. Better in some respects but she's not out here trying to change him. he's a little weird and she likes that and also thinks they have kind of similar... views? on things? though she recognizes that it's a bit alarming that they kind of match in that way and

that they Shouldn't because she KNOWS there's something wrong with her

"wrong" rather she doesn't feel it's wrong but knows it's Not Normal Person Things

HELP LMAO HER CALLING OUT ASTER AND CINTH SPECIFICALLY re: rolemodels

like aster though she's pretty consistently surprised that cinth likes her though he's a bit weirder about it which is cute. however she still does not really know how to sort that feeling out either

bsod: they need better adjusted adults in their life and it sucks that azalea is the one here instead. doing her averagest

oh right the other point of "feelings azalea isn't really a fan of" she just had to think about what she would do/feel if shura (and in that respect. other people she ...llllikes...?) dies.

doesn't like THAT feeling whatsoever

i love how there was an entire paragraph re: complicated feelings about brocade's love life

LISTEN

IT'S LESS ABOUT HIS LOVE LIFE AND MORE ABOUT HIM BEING INVOLVED WITH MULTIPLE EXES OF HERS, THUS MAKING IT ALSO ADJACENT TO HER (PREVIOUS) LOVE LIFE

LMAOOOO

also i'm looking at azalea's puppeting power and thinking about cinth alluding in some threads to wanting to make the dame hurt herself by choice, because it's more satisfying than hurting her directly

not alarming at all

bsod: fun fact that power was designed intentionally with npcs in mind (and also because she has no real offensive capabilities otherwise. but.)

but,

sometimes you just gotta puppet someone

that's why shura isn't touching any of that ever

good idea

just like "hm, is that the pattern? must be unafraid of getting TANGLED AN MESSY??? couldn't be me"

also im glad theyre having this thread rn cuz cinth immediately saw azalea's approach and internally puffed up like a kitten

realistically she doesn't view it as messy or even particularly that weird because she knows how charismatic brocade is AND how easily he loves, but it is a little confusing for her from a standpoint of "ah he used to love me like that" and then a follow-up thought of "well I'M the reason he doesn't any longer" which she ABSOLUTELY doesn't want to

consider too deeply because she maintains she's not wrong for leaving people. which she isn't but also acknowledging there's any sort of loneliness or upset in that regard is unacceptable

bsod: he's so cute

fdgdfjk peony

hurts herself in her confusion

literally

paddling around in some more thoughts re: memories... i havent had her take either of her memories yet and frankly i'm still unsure what memories to give her JMSDHJK

IT'S HARD WHEN HOYOVERSE GIVES YOU NOTHING!!!!!!! i can't stick to the themes for the most part so i'll just pick random things maybe... i guess i could have her ask someone about them first. later

handshakes u in memories are hard. baby traumerei has two chapters worth

ROLKSDFJLSKDF HELP

god i love her

kjldlkj yeah

im glad. sorry about this mess of a woman

never apologize

nowhere else to put this so

puffy cat

PUFFY