Have I ever talked about how Skepticism and Blind Devotion can’t really coexist together in the same room. Which probably explains why Skeptic and Smitten never really properly met each other eye to eye/had a proper conversation together aside from MOC, unlike the other branches who had properly interacted with one another at least in one route
Cause Skepticism is the existence of doubt. To question something of its truthfulness. While Blind Devotion is the denial of truth, or the denial of that doubt. They are quite literally the bane of each other’s existence, as the other had a completely opposite perspective/view point to the other. Smitten and Cold share a route because they both share this trait of denial. Denial that this relationship had ever happened, and the denial that those emotions are fully gone and the passion still remain. Despite Cold being the denial of emotions with Smitten being the opposite, they have this one particular trait that they both share. But Skeptic and Smitten on the other hand are complete polar opposites. The delusion of blindly devoting yourself to something/someone would be completely gone once you let that doubt sink in and stop denying it.
Which is also why Smitten was nowhere to be seen in Cage, because we had never blindly believed in the Princess in the first place. We had never blindly devoted ourselves to her, as Skeptic(and by extension us/Quiet) had never saw her under rose-tinted glasses. But the opposite is possible with Skeptic appearing in HEA. Since a big part of Blind Devotion is denying the truth and suppressing it, it would make sense for that doubt to resurface again and allowing us to let that sink in, since that doubt was never truly gone. It continues to linger at the back of our minds no matter how much we had tried to cover it up. A good example would probably be ex-cult members and them realising that the situation they’re in is messed up.
If they were to actually interact with each other I feel like they would fight a lot. Even more than with Cold and Smitten. They both have really strong view points regarding their stance on certain things and they would most certainly fight on it. But like. Unlike Cold who intentionally baits Smitten into fighting him, Skeptic would probably treat this as more of a debate. They’re just really different, so I don’t think they’d interact with each other that much outside of the construct. They’d probably just cross roads with one another and greets the other politely and that’s kind of it. I don’t think Skeptic could really wrap his head around acting purely on emotion and instinct as much as Smitten can’t understand why Skeptic thinks all the time and be on guard before his acts. It’s just my two cents though
