#lemur thoughts

i'd say clover is deeply insecure about her belonging, which julien can't relate to. because if NOTHING else, he's always been secure and certain of his belonging with maurice. (or maurice's belonging with him.) while clover's always been certain of her identity, personality, and preferences, but julien since he was a kid has been shaping himself to be what he thinks other people will like and think is cool. HOWEVER, clover's also been made to feel like her personality / identity / preferences aren't Good Enough and, if something's important to her, she has to hide it. while julien will shout from the rooftops who he is and celebrate it unrepentantly.

they're both often unblinkingly stalwart in their identity, they just feel insecure and unstable about different things. (clover in feeling like she is nobody's choice and belongs nowhere. julien in feeling like he's worth abandoning. she worries she isn't good enough and has to earn to her keep, julien feels like he's doomed to screw-up and shouldn't try. they both feel like they have to earn love, they've just been told they have to earn it in different ways.)

like it’s inch resting i’m all about royal trio bc of how they challenge each other, but at the same time i’d say julien and maurice ask so little from her. she's good enough the way she is for them to choose her

it's not that she ignores julien ALL the time. she's queen of one word responses and hard periods like "Ok." “Fine.” “No." and has no idea it comes across as so severe. she can't imagine sending someone a sentence in text, let alone a paragraph. meanwhile julien is impervious to being left on read. he won't stop texting even when she hasn't responded in hours.. days..

part of it isn't just clover ignoring him to make a point and julien being annoying on purpose (tho it is partly that) it's also a genuine difference in communication styles. julien will leave her phone alone for days then barrage her with a bunch of inane texts he's not invested in a reply to, and she has no idea how to respond to anyway. when she first got his phone number, she didn’t know what to do when he started casually texting her bc no one had ever actually done that before sljdfs. a reason she leaves him on read so much is her only reply would be "Why did you send me this?" while maurice at least has a braincell when he messages her