#plus like a lot of his mean-ness and antagonizing could absolutely be a result of the toxic masculinity and internalized homophobia

[starrysymphonies]

IM NEVER GONNA STOP THINKING ABOUT ZICAH AUAGHHGHJHGH IM ON MY REREAD OF BOOK TWO AND LIKE, ITS VERY OBVIOUS THEYRE WARMING UP TO EACHOTHER

Their entire conversation from pages 156-157 BUT THISBIS MY FAVORITE EXERPT FROM IT

“Zed was out of his depth. He was cold, and lonely, and very afraid.

‘Please’ he rasped. ‘Please just leave me alone.’

Micah’s smirk faltered. He opened his mouth, then closed it and cleared his throat. ‘Listen, you’re going to be all right. I’ve seen that moldy fireball of yours take out worse than a few mummified elves. And that was without Frond babysitting you.’”

Foster WAS right, Micah DOES stop Zed from getting too angsty

And later on page 263 Zed defends him

“‘I’ll say,’ said Jett. ‘When the gods were handing out brains and Micah went for his share, they told him, ‘Sorry that girl who was just here took the last of them.’

They all chuckled at that, except for Zed, who said ‘Aw, he means well.’”

LIKE AUGHHGH

It’s so obvious to me that book 1 was like, Micah subconsciously crushing on Zed and consciously he was like “ok I’m gonna ignore that and push him and those feelings away because thinking about him all the time is ODD” and then in book 2 he’s trying to look out for him in his own Micah-way and actually warming up to him