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they are. so fascinating to me.

i think the most interesting part of lia and michael's relationship is how their natural abilities are, to a certain degree, the same. after all, a big part of lying isn't just the words you use, but how you sell them, and controlling your emotions, expressions, posture, is all part of that. lia's expertise in lying and detecting lies implies being able to read people's true emotions to a degree, and michael's expertise in hiding his emotions and reading into others' implies being able to discern if they're trying to lie to a degree. their skills focus on different results but the process is the same. because michael and lia are the same.

and so, rereading the series now, lia's love confession to michael kills me because we're in cassie's perspective, and cassie can't know if lia meant that or not........ but michael very much could, because michael can always tell what lia is actually feeling. that's why it kills meeeeeee how afterwards lia is like "i had you going for a bit 😝" and michael is still staring at her when he answers "maybe you did" like HE SAW SOMETHING. HE SAW SOMETHING THERE. and in general it drives me crazy that we know so much more about lia's feelings for michael than the other way around. we have more evidence of lia being in love with michael than we do of michael being in love with lia. but we still lack soooooooooooooo much information regardless like they got back together at some point during all in and all i can think about is lia being the one to see michael's bruises and michael being the one to follow lia after she got triggered by the whole cult talk and how vulnerable both of them were during that case while constantly trying to pretend otherwise. and it's like that mutual vulnerability is what pulls them back together. because lia and michael truly do understand each other deeply, but it's that same sameness that always ends up driving them apart.

and i feel like part of that is that both of them are afraid of changing. being the way that they are is what's kept them safe in one way or another thus far, and it's become their identity at this point. neither of them knows how to take it off, and neither of them is sure of what would be left of them if they did, of who they are without their armor. their relationship always falls apart because of those armors and how they end up clashing, but they can never bring themselves to ask the other to change, because they are the same and if one of them changes then the other also has to change and that's terrifying. and this is also embodied by their "i love you" debacle. i KNOW. as clearly as if i lived in her brain. that lia loves michael. and i think michael loves lia too. but they can't say it!!!!! because if michael doesn't fully 100% mean it, lia will know, and if lia isn't fully 100% feeling it, michael will know. they can't operate on trust the way everyone else does because they can't help but see everything all the time. and so because they see everything, they can't accept anything less than everything. but they DO want each other, so they deliberately avoid anything that might be real and stay in ambiguity together where it's safe and they don't have to know how they really feel about one another. they especially don't have to risk noticing if and when those feelings may change or shift in time. which is, like.... sad 😭