#i think she'd be a lot more anxious and neurotic about having all of this pining about wanting to change the world

[weavingmemories]

(tag stolen from @bibliophileemily​ - hope it’s okay to take this as a springboard to ramble a little 👉👈)

replaying ToS as often as i have, i tend to have fun thinking a lot about new character dynamics every time i come back to it- and yuan/colette struck me a lot when i considered how yuan directly compares her “cloying attitude” to martel when he opens up a little (in the mithos the hero sidequest)- and it kind of all spiralled from there! (colette asking yuan if he was looking for a four-leaf clover in the ring sidequest is so absolutely adorable too LMAO. her just pointing out that maybe he wants to be happy and that was her reasoning... oh, my sweet angel.)

since i’ve been thinking a lot about my chosen swap au, i’ve often considered how colette’s involvement in the renegades would be a lot more active; she’d be a lot more invested in actually HAVING autonomy somewhere and feeling like she can work to change the world for the better on her own merit, after being largely ‘seen and not heard’ as the flourishing world’s chosen for show (and treated generally like glass by the noble class)- so instead of largely gaming all sides of the conflict like zelos does in canon, she’d be more stuck between a rock and a hard place with cruxis, but genuinely believe in the work she does with the renegades.

i’m still fleshing out the smaller details of the swap, but i think that in general colette learning how to wield her elemental magic (via aionis) and training with the renegades would really be the first time she feels like she can do something, and while yuan would probably be standoffish and busy for the most part, she’d really come to respect him, especially knowing how much danger he’s in and the tightrope he also walks behind yggdrasill’s back! i also feel like their closer contact and communications would kind of wear him down over time, since colette has so much genuine faith in him as a leader (and i can see her becoming close to botta too, since they probably do a lot more practical work together since he runs things more front-facingly!)

on the flip side, zelos’ journey (because his mana signature is probably not quite so close to martel’s) is kind of a dummy one just for the sake of turning over the hourglass- i think colette’s life would still be in imminent danger of becoming martel’s vessel if mithos found out just how close her match was, and how much of a clear shot he’d have at bringing his sister back. and so yuan probably is keeping very close tabs on her for that reason too! and of course, he’d probably have a lot of conflicting feelings about her- reflexively wanting to remain stubborn in his belief that she’s just silly, naive, etc. as a defense mechanism to opening his heart again, but really coming to appreciate her both for her familiar kindness but also her own unique personality!

i also think that in post-game, colette would want to keep working with yuan and the renegades as a force for rebuilding the world and helping out (and maybe even become his new right hand man?). and that could lead to something... who knows? :3c

[loving-family-poll]

i fear we are departing from incest but i love to hear myself talk so i shall tell you about my sister's complex about me. first we have to establish some things: my sister is older than me (the oldest of us all, i'm second oldest, just mentioning it bc me not being the youngest feels important here), my sister has an inferiority complex that stems from me being the successful one (probably will come up later but i was a very smart kid and ended up skipping so many grades that i started college at 15), and that my sister has always had bad anxiety and is very very sensitive to rejection

so. let's start from the beginning. our father left us young, didn't pay child support, was generally an asshole, but most importantly he would visit for one reason: me. i was the favorite because, as i mentioned, i was a smart kid and he is very success-oriented so naturally he took to me (and off-topic but this happens so often. like very very success driven people have been weirdly into me since i was a little kid. weird shit but i've used it to my advantage cough cough getting a kid flunked and almost expelled) so anyway our father visits us just for me, even tells me about all the women he was cheating on my mom with before they got divorced. and my sister? my sister has bad anxiety, she's sensitive to being left out. and more than that she has very very strong rejection sensitivity. so how do you think it'd feel to be the oldest child and yet be ignored by our father (this did not affect my other siblings they were too young). so this puts me above her in her mind

she fails a lot in school and this wrecks her confidence, especially since i've always been greatly successful in school. she's pushed aside by her father for me, she's pushed away by her teachers for me (to the point that i would have a teacher for a short time before i'd test out and they'd still call her my name no matter how long she had them). she also has very poor social skills so she was never liked by her peers while i was funny and i was smart and i was such a goody-two-shoes brat but teachers adored me to the point that i could get away with anything i wanted (yes i was pulling shit i think i had a habit of attacking one of my teachers and everyone was cool with it) and she'd be scolded for any little issues because she wasn't as liked + she was more frustrating (she had untreated adhd for a hot minute). keep in mind that most of this was happening while we were both under 10/11

so. you'd think that she would have some deep-seated resentment against me. and you would be correct! now idk what you know about psychology and chances are it's bs anyway (<-psych major that does not trust the field in the slightest) but there's this nifty little concept called reaction formation. it's freudian so. take that as you will. but basically it's just when a strong emotion switches from one to another. for example: hate to love, love to hate… resentment to adoration?

so that's my theory for the basis of this. she has an inferiority complex and a sensitivity to rejection and i was everything she wasn't and for whatever reason her kid brain said hey, why not love my sister instead. and honestly this wasn't that like. prevalent until we teenagers, because i became very neurotic and anxious and developed some disorders you know how it is. and now we see something new in my sister: she likes to take care of people. if i couldn't do something she would do it for me, if someone was pushing my boundaries she would enforce them. i basically spent all of middleschool hiding away in our home (i was homeschooled atp) with only her for company since i'd hide in our room. so she;s taken on the role of being my protector. probably because if she would never be better than me, at least she could be the one protecting me. it made her important. it made her necessary. it made her feel needed. and that is when i catch on. i encouraged her a bit, started praising her, thanking her for any little thing she did, calling for her anytime i needed help because she just loves to feel needed so badly. and yeah maybe that was manipulative and maybe it was wrong but i was also like. 14 or 15 when i started doing this

anyway so she has this whole complex about needing to protect me so that she can feel needed and it's all fueled by her inferiority complex that honestly drives so much of what she does. i find it highly amusing.

so yeah. she's basically a dog to me. tell her she's good and give her a treat and she'll do what you want. and if she does something that makes me upset she folds so fucking quickly it's wild. it's that fear of rejection. she could never stand for me of all people to drop her

and to the person who wanted us in the tournament together sorry but we are just weird about each other in a not-so-incesty way but the vibes are kinda there

The way I was glued to this ask reading SO intently. What you two have going on is so much weirder than if you'd just fucked (complimentary)