Hello everyone! Welcome back to the second edition of Djevel Stalks Someone's Blog, Sees a Comment and Goes On an Out-loud Tangent So. Hard. He Might As Well Make It a Tumblr Post
I'm your host Djevel, and today I'll talk about my own viewpoint on Colly/RuneStraw: completely unnecessary, definitely not asked for yet still delivered to your fyp like that copy of The Book of Bill delivered to that poor sod who bought a church study book on amazon or somethin', exactly how I want my stupid over-the-top opinions to be baybeyyyyyyy~
Now lemme preface this by saying a couple things:
#1: I don't mind RuneStraw half as much as this over-the-top post will make it look like, they're actually cute af together and have a great dynamic going on! I just like to bitch about stuff, I love yapping and the blog blurb already says that I'll "scream into the void about whatever media I'm consuming" - you read that, clicked on read more, don't come at me over this of all things. As a show of good will, I'm writing this as I listen to Love Again - Dua Lipa (really good also fits these two dweebs really well so there's that)
#2: This is just my opinion and if at any point you feel like I gotta remind you of this fact: put the hands away from the keyboard, open the window and smell outside air - it ain't that deep. You can always just not read it
#3: If you so happen to identify yourself as the blog I was stalking before I started typing this out - this isn't criticising your post or anything, I'm just a sleeper agent on the subject and happened to wake myself up with that post lmaooo (also no you're not. I don't wanna have a confrontation over this ❤)
With that out of the way - let the bloodbath begin (probably mine as well LMAO)
Let's start strong and lemme say it already: I don't think the fact that Cup is into Holly is a counter-argument to the "why can't they just stay friends" bc that's not really answering the question?? At least whenever I ask it it's less about the now and more about the whole relationship - beyond giving Cup a solid, tangible goal to reach through rehabilitation and tHERAPY IF HE EVER GETS IT and giving Holly stability in a world much more dangerous than she thought, both of which can be given to them through different means, what does having them kissing do for them as growing characters, and what does it do for the narrative? After all they're puzzle pieces within a larger story, and while I love preaching about considering your characters like people when you sit down to analyze them, you still have to understand them as the puzzle pieces they are: they all have an individual purpose within the story, and the connections you decide to make between them have to give something to them or at least to the narrative. Something nothing else can give them, so we care about those connections.
Something I'm not sure having these two goobers kissing quite accomplishes. But maybe I'm just a hater, idk
Now getting into more of my own perspective on RuneStraw - would you believe me when I tell you I groaned out loud when I read it? Y'know what I mean - any set-up for the ship between book 11 and 12 is valid if it came up to your head when I said it, I probably groaned at all of them lol and that's because to me it came out of nowhere; sure, Holly had mentioned she had a crush on Cup back when she was dating Finnley I think (remember him? yea,,, I miss him too), but she was:
1) Dating someone at the time.
2) Talking about it in a past tense, implying she didn't feel that way anymore.
3) Building off of 2 - with the way she mentioned it, it genuinely sounded like she's distanced herself from the sentiment; from what I remember she talked about in the same way one does about thoughts and feelings one had years ago. Almost like they're from a different person.
These three things led me to believe she wasn't interested in him nor was she gonna be - her crush was based on an image Cuphead willingly puts up as a shield and that by now she knows is fake; her feelings back then were born out of a dark, mysterious and brooding façade he constantly put up that dissipated the moment she had more than a few words exchanged with him. The mysticism was gone, the alure is as well - she was left with a genuine yet broken man, not the put-together mobster she thought he was. And while it isn't impossible she recovered those feelings but directed towards the actual Cuphead, it feels like an odd choice to backtrack her character like that.
There's also the fact that they were the only duo of different genders that wasn't gonna be a romantic pairing, Until they weren't.
And I'll come out and admit it: maybe this point is most of the reason why RuneStraw bothered me as much as it did when it got introduced more heavily. This is the thing: the question of "why can't they just stay friends?" is a valid one to throw into the conversation - as I said, they were the only friends of opposite genders who didn't wanna get into each other's pants, because AliBends is canon (if currently doomed by the narrative), Minnie and Mickey obviously like each other, Donald and Daisy are dating I'm pretty sure, Jake has active feelings for Alice to the point he distanced himself from her to manage his own emotions and keep them in check when it became obvious she isn't actually interested in him romantically, and even if this next one isn't quite the Inky Mystery Team's fault (after all they're working off whatever scraps Quest for the Ink Machine left in its wake) I'll throw it in the ring just to drive the point across: while Cala Maria is her own character and her own person, often times it feels like the deepening of her character and whatever conflicts she may be going through are there for the benefit of Mugman's own struggles and character arc; we don't see much of her reaction at Mugs' heroic but reckless deal with Marcus or her reaction to having been found, we don't hear much about her ink illness beyond that one chapter where she started showing symptoms. For as much personality as she has and for as lovable as she is, sometimes she feels like Mugman's romantic interest first, herself second - probably due to not being part of the main cast, which is fair to some extent.
Personally I don't see RuneStraw as a romantic connection that had to be done necessarily - what each provides to the other's character development (a tangible goal for Cuppy, a much-needed stability within a dangerous world for Holly) is already being provided by their friends, people they should be able to rely on. I guess I just feel a little sad that we don't have many bonding chapters between all the Questers, regardless of duos or dynamics that pair up the best: imagine (and bear here with me, this is getting into the headcanon territory lol) if angels can sense Demon Deals as these are an extension of a demon's magic (something angels can detect) and once Alice comes back from The Upper she notices - really notices, decides to pay attention - that there's something cold wrapped around Cup; they have a conversation where Cuphead tiptoes around his childhood and all the stardust he's gone through in one of the biggest displays of bravery and trust he's given us this far, and Alice knows he's not telling the whole truth but she listens, she listens and shares how it was growing up with expectations of being a great angel someday. He shows her trust, and she gives the same trust out of her own chest to him.
Imagine Bendy and Cala Maria bonding over a trip to the docks - we could get to know her better, how it was like living as a gorgon, sharing experiences between them on how terrible it is to be hated for something you cannot control, and laughing over the good bits their past can offer them. Finding a weird comfort in having been the monster for a little bit, as they could protect those they love with that infamy and the power it came with (Boris for Bendy and Ebi for Maria, of course) - hell, maybe we could hear of Cala's parents! How they were like, their little quirks and tricks, we could read about Bendy considering her lucky and Maria telling him he's found his family here, that those he's forgotten don't matter because they didn't stick around.
Imagine Alice relaying stories of how her younger siblings are rascals and comparing them to Boris, how much he'd get along with them, singing tunes and dancing for the hell of it - helping him get a better grip at dancing, if marginally, and managing to wring laughs out of him by the tons.
Imagine all of them around a table, sweets and treats laid out, as Felix and Alice do their damn hardest to one-up each other in their wild adventures from before they joined the Questers - the cat talking about his mad dash as he escaped that ferocious beast of a tiger, and he shows the scars like your dad shows you his most prized collections as he talks of the most dangerous bits. The angel taking a swig of her alcohol of choice before going into this maddened ramble about the greatest prank war she's ever been in against Jake, and how they both got banned from several places for a whole dang year. Even Sarah gets wrapped up in the shenanigans and fun once Bendy, Cuphead, Mugman, Holly, Boris and Cala Maria all join in to win the title of Wildest Adventure Story; she's just a child after all, even with incomprehensible magic woven into her soul. Maybe all of the house is there, listening as the Questers finally have a moment to breathe and be as young as they are - the oldest is Felix, and he's in his forties at most, he still has life to him.
This is supposed to be a recovery arc, and mantaining healthy friendships with other people can help a long way with those dark thoughts The Labyrinth left them all.
Romantic love isn't the be-all-end-all, it shouldn't be the ultimate objective of a character that makes them become stagnant and void of themselves, and I guess I just want boys and girls to share stories and rooms without their interactions being a making out or being politely pleasant, pick one situation. I guess I'm just socially blind and petty, maybe I'm taking a fanfiction too seriously - after all, it is made by fans and for the fans; it's no professional production, and sometimes it's just better like that.
TLDR: I go way too hard on fictional characters for wanting to boink, more at 10
Ok but now a real TLDR: I just want the Questers to interact more with each other and I'm not talking about the typical duos always formed like they're in school and they choose their bestie for the group project. I mean all the Questers. Also I went in wayy too hard against fictional characters that just wanna fuck in peace ig
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Both my parents actually suffer from HORRID emotional dysregulation and are prone to snapping and going into rages. My sister is the same way tbh. I am now realizing this is why they are constantly baffled by the question of whether or not I am mad at them.
I don't have external meltdowns.
I could. I don't let it happen.
I keep my rage on the inside and stay pretty quiet about it. It's just as strong as theirs [physically shaking nose bleed from high blood pressure kind of bad], but like as a kid I saw how terrifying it was to be around [dad breaking dishes, mom putting our lawn chairs into walls] and I just internalized that I wasn't going to wear that anger on the outside.
So my mother genuinely cannot tell if I am just being quiet or if I am silently hearing the dial-up noises of pure rage. This has lead her to both making strong and confident statements like "You are a pacifist who would never hurt a fly U.U" but also acting like I am secretly dangerous maybe... It's because she has never seen me snap.
She knows what her temper is like [throwing chairs through walls], she knows what my father's temper is like [pick up child and toss out door], and she can tell I am being tested, but she doesn't know what happens when I snap or where that breaking point is.
Her -perhaps unhinged- solution to this, my whole life, has been to do things that should obviously enrage me or shut me down completely, like ignoring important boundaries, repeatedly, punishing me for expressing emotions or needs at all, etc... And then to constantly ask me if I am angry with her when I get too quiet [right after near directly telling me to shut up].
It has occurred to me now, they have never once seen me lose my temper, so they literally just can't tell if I am angry at them. My sister is easy, my mother fights and screams with my sister constantly, my mother understands this. My mother doesn't have any grasp of feelings or boundaries that are not screamed at her [apparently, and I fear my sister is the same way]. Her and my sister are close despite constant fucking fighting because they understand each other.
They are trying to get me to engage the same way and it is not working. I realize now that this has been hard for them.
I was so successfully taught to suppress my emotions, by being punished for any outburst, that rage quiet looks the same as any other kind of quiet from the outside. To them anyway.
I did tell her. For the record. I used my words. I did tell her very calmly that my response to rage, in order to avoid doing the things that terrified me as a child, was to simply leave [the autistic urge to GTFO]. When a situation or person causes too much of the dial-up rage noise, I simply extract myself from that situation, up to and including never speaking to a person again. I explained this calmly. I explained it calmly 100 times and I explained that I explain myself calmly as my rage response 1-5 [also pretty much every other negative emotion tbh], and I told her that what came next was me simply opting out and fucking off. I told her this. I couldn't understand why she never took me seriously, or why she never fucking understood.
I couldn't understand what made her like this.
But it's the same problem I have with everyone else multiplied by a factor of 10.
If I am explaining myself calmly, they can't understand that it's actually serious or that I am actually upset. ESPECIALLY because they read me as "female" and women "aren't that rational" so if I am not screaming and crying about something, which I never do, people assume I can't be upset and it isn't serious.
And then after having my boundaries ignored too many times despite having calmly explained how and why it's a problem [shaking inside or not]... I leave. I leave and everyone gets upset like this is unexpected behaviour, even though I told them 50 times that is how I would respond if they kept doing *the thing.*
And for neurotypical people especially, they are expecting there to be a disconnect between what someone says they need or feel and what their actually boundaries and feelings are, and they expect the latter to be demonstrated with emotions. Telling them bluntly you do not function that way somehow never helps?
My mother isn't just looking for normal yelling or a few tears to know I am serious, whether or not I do those either [I don't], she's looking for an explosion to know there's a problem at all.
Fucked if I know how she proceeds through life this way in general or if this is just her expectation of her own kids???
And I couldn't get why my mother couldn't read my emotions and didn't seem to think I have any. It's because she's testing for the rage limit to see where my 'actual' limit is instead of taking my word for it. Never the fuck mind that she could simply *not* test at my boundaries instead of letting me have them. Separate issue.
I couldn't figure out what made her *like this*
She's expecting me to throw a giant meltdown violent tantrum at people when I have 'actually' had enough. Maybe she got away with those being like 5'4" in another time, but I am the size of the average man, I do not get to have giant screaming rages, whether or not people perceive me consciously as a woman, and least of all because a lot of people -at least unconsciously- read me as 'masculine' or at least always "they guy" of the situation compared to all other women and some men [bigger stronger and more rational, more able to just absorb the damage and let it go so the less rational screaming/crying one doesn't have to be dealt with]. Even if it was in me to be willing to terrify people [usually never], there are such limited instances where it wouldn't just blow back on me. Potentially very dangerously.
I am going to be the quiet calm one. You are going to have to let me use my words, bitch.
So she kept ignoring my boundaries until I had to cut her out of my life, and she probably doesn't understand and probably thinks it feels sudden -after 36 long years of bullshit- abrupt and unfair.
But I told her hundreds of times.
I probably should have just screamed at her.
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