#questioing

[chutkiandchotte]

So @jalebi-weds-bluetooth is back with her thoughtful & interesting IPKKND analysis and immediately sparking thoughts and conversations and in this case, long ass speculation posts. This is inspired by this post where she analyzes how Arnav's belief in Khushi's innocence shifted not all at once but in phases, with the dramatic First Shyam Expose marking the completion of the process. It inspired me to re-watch some scenes from Buaji's house terrace scene till Shyam's reveal at Shantivan and I wanted to make a post to try and untangle Arnav's thoughts in this confusing (and painful) period!

There's two parts of the Misunderstanding -

1) the what happened and

2) the what was Khushi thinking/feeling about it.

The former is actually easily proved via investigation and deductive reasoning. Its an outrageous story tbh but thats another conversation. I think when Arnav heard her sequence of events - that Shyam cheated her, lied to her family, that she ended it when she found out the truth, that she hates him - he knew there's a good chance its true because it's too big of a lie to risk telling him. The essential fact of Shyam's fraud is easily provable or disprovable so why would she lie about that.

But.......so what?

Khushi isn't exactly blameless even in the true sequence of events. She chose to hide the truth, a mistake Arnav cannot understand or sympathize with at all. When he asks her if Shyam is the villain and she the victim, then why did she lie, she takes a looong moment to answer because she isn't quite being honest even with herself about her motives for that lie.

The long silence (I think she's honestly thinking about the answer, for the first time) followed by her (not entirely truthful) answer that it was all for his Di...further sets off Arnav's suspicions about her motives through it all.

His essential (and pretty accurate) belief that Khushi isn't averse to lying, frequently lies to herself even, and can delude herself into doing wrong things for the "right" reasons stands against her in this moment. And moreover...it had become kind of irrelevant to Arnav what happened in terms of Shyam's sins. None of it would convince him of what had become much MUCH more critical - and what Khushi cannot manage to convince him of - did Khushi really love Shyam or Arnav? Who was in her heart back then and who was in her heart now? Could he forgive her for betraying him in the past? (Sidebar for the last part: I think there's a huge part of him that fantasized that after he told her the reason for marrying her she would confess, repent and express her desire to be with him and not Shyam and then they could be together somehow although in the unlikely event this happened, they would have been super toxic bc he'd never truly trust her fully even if he wanted her around desperately).

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So now we come to part 2) of the Misunderstanding - the "Fault in My Intentions" aka what was Khushi thinking/feeling part - and thats really not...provable with facts in any way.

That has to be taken on faith because the fact of Khushi hiding Shyam's truth for so long is too damning in his eyes. She says she hates Shyam, she STRONGLY hints she loves Arnav. He's desperate to believe her but he cannot precisely because he is that desperate and his Di's life is at risk here. He is doubling down on the following his head not heart path because he's so terrified of being cheated again, that he'll believe her unlikely story simply because of his strong feelings and the consequences of making an emotional decision that would destroy his and his Di's life. And unfortunately, from his point of view, there is no evidence to prove her love or innocence. Even if she WAS engaged to and then dumped a lying scheming Shyam...it doesn't automatically disprove Shyam's claim (backed by the unshakable memory of the terrace moment) that Khushi loves/loved him.

In this version of events, Khushi DID have feelings for her fiance Shyam, POSSIBLY even knew he was married when they were engaged, broke up with him due to either her belief in marriage + not wanting to be a mistress OR her family finding out and making her break up with him; but crucially, continued to harbour feelings for Shyam, led Arnav on while secretly longing for a married man, and planned/hoped to marry him after he was divorced, as late as Payash's wedding, now was regretting her choices and instead of taking accountability...was trying to cover them up.

All of that is consistent and possible with this new reveal of Shyam being her ex-fiance. All of that is consistent and possible with his knowledge of Khushi's character (check end of post for what I mean by this). The only thing that changes is that Shyam is an even bigger scoundrel than he previously thought but he truly does not care about that. Because it doesn't discount the possibility of Khushi being in love with Shyam all along and even now, lying to cover up. Her culpability could be either manipulative scheming home-wrecker as he initially believed or entrapped young girl fighting her feelings for an immoral married man (and refusing to admit to them due to shame). He isn't clear on that. Either way, Arnav's heart is still broken. Do you see? Its not about the 1) what happened. Its about the 2) what was she thinking/feeling? does Khushi love me like I love her? can i trust her not to hurt me or my family?

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So how can she prove what she was feeling? How can she prove she didn't love Shyam all along? Arnav has no real answers for this and neither does Khushi (expecting Shyam to defend her to Arnav was...dumb as fuck). She is desperate to prove, he is desperate to be convinced with proof, and increasingly angered by her bad attempts at it. It's a losing battle because the matter does not admit of proof.

So in this phase, the seeds of which are laid through the contract marriage, Arnav's Heart of course is 100% tortured by his love and longing for Khushi, by his pain witnessing her pain etc. But his Head is Confused AF, haunted by memories of contradicting moments of truth & lies regarding Khushi. He doesn't really believe she is a gold digger - he only says it to hurt her - if he really believed that, he wouldn't, for example, sign any damn thing she gave him to sign. Worst case scenario - she still loves Shyam, she's still playing games and acting for reasons beyond his comprehension. Best case scenario - she repents now her follies of youth etc; she has some attraction to him (he remembers Holi for the first time EVER at Buaji's house), and that combined with her strong sense of duty towards her married life & husband, and her natural tendency to want to be the Good Girl in her own head (he's pointed that out before about her) - results in her desperation to prove herself innocent in his eyes and explain away Shyam. It is not enough. Per his ASR ego and specific childhood trauma, even in the best case scenario, what she did is unforgivable and the dutiful loyalty and weak explanations she is offering are too pathetic to accept, especially considering his own intensity of feelings. It's his mother's death anniversary , further reinforcing the potency of the terrace memory in his head. This is in contention with the part of him which longs to forgive and move on, accepting whatever she has to offer to him now, lies and all, and live as real husband and wife. His heart is locked in conflict and he needs distance from it all to cope.

But then he turns around at the airport.

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His turning at the airport to come back to Khushi was the shift to his next attitude. He's much more firmly in this phase - "I'm still unclear about what happened in the past, but I don't care. What matters is that Khushi said she finds Shyam disgusting now. What matters is she said farq padta hai cuz its you."

Then being kidnapped and alone with his thoughts and feelings with no scope of running away, forces further honest self reflection, and he accepts that whatever he feels for Khushi is beyond logic and he will never be happy away from her. He admits he actually does not care what happened in the past. The only thing that matters is what they feel for each other now. Basically the pay off for Holi, for his Heer Ranjha speech which he remembers just before turning around. He's ready to love her and (if he miraculously survives being kidnapped) be with her despite still kiiiiiind of believing she WAS his didi ki saut at one point. His love is so powerful the rest doesn't matter to him. Which is twistedly romantic I guess.

Even after this I Love You, Arnav's heartbreak from the terrace moment has still not quite healed. He still believes that at that moment, he was madly deeply in love with Khushi, ready to fight all his demons to be with her, while she on the other hand was having merely tepid feelings for him, and conflicted feelings between two men, one of them being his sister's husband. That he loves her more than she loves him. This heartbreak is soothed a whole lot when Khushi clearly proves that whatever happened in the past, in present time, she DOES love him madly and truly - by risking her own life to save him multiple times. I don't know that anything less would have ever convinced him that the madness is truly mutual.

Arnav is now fully on board Team Never Talk About the Past, Focus on the Future. It doesn't matter she lied and played games, it doesn't matter he hurt and tortured her. What matters is their love. By the way, their stay in Buaji's house was the prelude to this conclusion - he was already contemplating fully accepting Khushi as his wife and treating her with the respect and care that position deserved, though nowhere being close to accept her as his love back then.

However all through Buaji's house, kidnap, even post rescue, he is still thinking of Shyam more as Khushi's ex, not her harasser. He still thinks she DID have feelings for Shyam at one point and maybe acted inappropriately due to that, albeit now she's over it and firmly in love with Arnav.

But then Shyam's utterly believable storytelling (it WAS, Shyam is an excellent liar) about Khushi being this immoral hussy etc - ironically opens his eyes. He realizes that his entire belief about Khushi's past feelings is based on Shyam's powerful storytelling. Till that very moment, he never unbelieved the story Shyam fed him about Khushi passionately loving Shyam at one point in her past. He only changed what he felt about it - from anger to avoidance to acceptance. It had become a core trauma re-inforced belief for the last 6 months, implacable thru all the questioning and doubts. He realizes finally that Shyam is NOT Khushi ka scandalous ex-love, her embarrassing mistake she's trying to hide and forget, her moment of weakness she needs forgiveness for, but rather her harasser and stalker.

They had a missed opportunity here to use flashbacks and show Arnav evaluating past events in light of fresh knowledge. He has an excellent memory especially regarding all things Khushi - as he admitted himself. Arnav should have recalled how Khushi was unhappy every minute of her engagement. How she showed her feelings for Arnav, to Arnav, long long before it was socially or morally acceptable to do so. And every other instance of proof that while he was right in judging her character he was wrong is judging her heart.

Because Khushi Kumari Gupta IS the kind of girl who would stupidly, delusionally, throw away every moral, social and self preservation consideration for the sake of a grand romantic love.

But the only man she has ever done all that for and will ever do that for - is Arnav Singh Raizada.

[thefugitivesaint]

Tirzah Garwood (1908-1951), 'The Cat Wife' (La Fontaine), ''The New Woodcut'', 1930 Source

[givemedamage]

both good reasons to quit ur jobs and join my emo band

[blue-survey]

what if praying mantises were lesbians, would they not kill each other?

[dykedvonte]

i saw that u have ur own hc for curly and jimmy's backstory; do you have one for anya as well?

I do!!! It's actually a lot less depressing than you think!

I imagine that Anya grew up in an average happy family, well average for whatever lower middle class family is in a world we can assume exist in a place where late stage capitalism won. I'll try to keep this in line with how I describe Curly and Jimmy's backstories but she had a family that tried to uplift her when it matter. They paid attention to what she cared about and made sure they knew she cared. I believe they couldn't support her in school due to her path and the modern expenses but they encouraged her and her every choice. She didn't have parties but she got gifts to help her express and explore herself.

Life was something I think Anya handled well. She was not the top student but she was a good student. She managed her job and school as well as she could and took the PE job so she could go back. She had nothing saved up but she planned in accordance, hence her concern about the baby. She had a good circle of people, maybe not someone who ever got her, but people that heard her out and understood enough to where she always got herself. She had partners and thought about futures but always thought about hers specifically first, not selfishly, but truly asking if they were facing the same directions.

She was always in her own head, not in a bad way though. She was always thinking about what she could do. I think she just liked knowing she could. I think she became a nurse because she wanted to give people choice in the same way she understood it. Doctors just fix a problem but nurses walk you through it, I think Anya

I genuinely believe that because she lived thinking of all the choices she had and all the ways she could overcome things, the fact that she was trapped on board with so little escape and choices, while not being heard or understood really just put the pin in her final acts of agency.

[copepods]

ok having exhausted everything in waterworks im assuming game really wants me to go through industrial so im gonna do that now. OUHHHH. IM SCARED. somehow it didnt really occur to me we would be back in the same place

[princemick]

[LEWIS] media day, united states gp 2024

[capta1nstreasure]

Are you smooth under that hat

Black Hook looked up, confusion visible and a slightly offended tone audible to the asker. " WHAT?.. What kind of a question is that, earthling? Of course not. I am not like Blue Cop. "

[qwesty-030]

just wanna let everyone know that i’m literally a tree guys

i’m a tree and u are too!

[greenplumbboblover]

Life is Sunniest in Sunset Valley - Chapter 9

[lieutenantselnia]

I'm currently unsure whether I should be happy or stressed about the fact that there are only like 5 more weeks until the end of the semester - on one hand the summer holidays can't arrive fast enough so I can rest and have free time again but on the other hand there's still so much to finish within that time frame and ugh I'm just tired😵‍💫

At least today (or more like yesterday by the time I post this) I had a fun day, I went to a wildlife park with friends (a trip we've had planned since a couple weeks already), I'm sure I haven't been to the place in like a decade but it was really fun! I didn't think to take a lot of pictures of the animals, but here's a plush trout I got at the souvenir shop🐟

[sciderman]

if anyone except mj calls peter hot he gets confused and thinks they're insane. but when mj does it he simply has to agree because mj is the absoloute authority on what is and is not sexy. whatever is trending right now it not hot unless mj thinks so

i wish i could trust mj but after she pulled this i'm really not sure

[rcedge]

Do uyou giys think im doing horrible rpf crimes by calling him adam and not cope or am i good

[pixiedust-poppers]

probable undiagnosed autism and having such a drive to dig too deeply into this children's preschool show has paid off well for me academically this once, yo ho let's fucking go

[ghostapop]

Favourite ever etymology. Do u say etymology when it's one singular word evolution ? Idk pick one tell me abt it

okay this is a basic ass answer but if i gotta pick one , i am endlessly fond of the transition from bull -> A . its amazing . dare i say its peak

in general im rlly fond of lil guy symbols so thats probably why i love it so much ,,

[punch-love]

2, 13, 16, 18 for the ask game!

2. What fanfic do you wish you got more response on?

I really wish letting time pass would get over 500 hits someday. I'm really proud of it and I think it's one of my better works, but because of the premise I know that it's not an easy sell. I'm always extremely happy whenever I get a comment/interaction on it though because anyone who enjoys that is truly my ideal audience.

13. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

I once had a commenter that was upset that Peter was trans in love-punch and wanted me to explain my reasoning behind it. It devolved into an argument after they said they were also disappointed to find out that he wasn't a bottom and didn't like the direction I had taken the story. I think they're the closest I've ever gotten to a hate comment. Usually I just get people being irritating, not hateful.

16. How long is your longest fic?

Answered.

18. Recommend someone else fic! (And tag them if they have a tumblr!)

I haven't really been reading a lot lately, but I thoroughly enjoyed Try A Little Tenderness by @waterme-stories even though it's a trope that I almost never read for. I haven't read anything for Deadpool and Wolverine since the movie came out, but the summary captivated me when I got the notification. They really captured their dynamic perfectly and their character writing (as always) was so good. I found it very funny and sweet, and also hot.