#pattern recognition went brrrrr

[atlantis-just-drowned]

I just finished chapter 15 of 'Love, Death and Rollerskates' and Oh Damn

This post will contain slight spoilers so beware

Guys we already know that Sun also has his memories wiped by Afton but has anyone picked up on the fact that Afton also manipulates both Sun and Moon to hate each other?

I mean listen.

They are both so deeply convinced that the other is a monster. It's not just some manipulative tactic to keep the reader for themselves (as I thought for Sun in the beginning tbh). They really do think it's the truth. But how did they end up thinking this way, and why?

Welp those are very interesting questions but they're not exactly the right ones. What we have to ask here is who does this hatred profit to?

And here we have an answer, and this answer is William Afton.

Why? Because as long as they hate each other, they 1) forget that he's the one controlling them because they both have a scapegoat to blame for their situation and 2) can't team up to beat him, leaving them isolated and powerless.

Which is so damn clever to be honest.

So yes Afton erases their memories, but I also believe he takes this opportunity to fill in the blanks with some made up stories and/or manipulate the truth to nourish their hatred.

The worst part is the fact that he doesn't have to participate that much in it: all he has to do is twist the facts just enough for them to drift apart and stop communicating, and the rest is only a vicious circle of misunderstandings, negative emotions and lack of communication, that will never stop unless they actively seek to break that pattern and communicate.

For now I think Moon is the one who would recognise this pattern the most easily, because he's the most logical one of the two, and he already knows that Sun is being manipulated as well and experiences memory losses, he just doesn't know to what extent this affects his counterpart. Whereas Sun is in complete denial of it all, covering it with some sort of toxic positivity, and the narrative he gives is incredibly self-centred and based on his feelings rather than the facts, making it impossible for him to see the whole picture.

Reader have a crucial role in this dynamic, because both Sun and Moon care about them deeply, making them more keen on listening to y/n and taking their words into account. This is both a disadvantage and a good news: reader can aggravate this circle if they start picking sides and talking negatively about one of them to the other, but on the other hand, they could be able to push through the mutual hatred and get them to talk together again, with a common goal for the two of them: keeping y/n safe, and maybe, break free from Afton's emprise.

Anyway thank you for listening to my rants, I had to type this WHOLE SHIT twice because Tumblr didn't save my first draft lmao