#lilkae

like first of all theres entropy duo. do i even need to explain these 2. theyre so similar they're basically reading each others minds rn. two morally bankrupt mfs going exactlyyyyy at almost everything that comes out of the other's mouth. moving on.

nohow yapped about silva and q's parallels and contrasts far better than me and anything i say would just be echoing it. but i do think there's something to be said about how silva doesn't even try to give puqi a real answer as to what's going on in her head and ultimately decides to be the one to axe the relationship seemingly to avoid lingering on it. while Q has always had this looming knowledge of why they're feeling and acting the way they are, but is paralyzed at the wheel despite the car filling with water. silva has very much accepted that people will hurt him and he'll hurt people and he's not that afraid of it anymore, even if he can't help but feel it. Q hasn't. it's still scary for her, every time.

then theres puqi and alrey which on the surface don't really have that many similarities but when you look at their responses to their teams breaking down i see quite a few? for one, both have this reputation of being kind of unbothered. puqi sees teams in a very logical, almost mechanical way, where each person is a cog working to power a much larger machine. most things slide off alrey like water because, crucially, he doesn't see the point—the function—in wasting energy on drama when he can get what he wants done fine without all that ego in the way. they're both kind of blind to the ways others may feel belittled, or even belittle them, because they're so entrenched in their own world. but they're also the first to try salvaging stuff when it falls apart. puqi has multiple screaming matches with nezo and tries to rally silva into action again, while alrey chases down wyll twice and talks to quakitus multiple times about what just happened.

THEN there's nezo and lilkae, who i have the most thoughts about...

they were both "pity picks." nezo because, according to puqi, the brotherhood saw potential they could both cultivate and use. and kae because the team had a spot open and otherwise she would've been alone. they have unique perspectives and insecurities regarding their place in the team. but i actually think it's more interesting to think about how differently they react to this situation.

in nezo's case, this made him distrustful and sensitive to rejection and judgement by a group of people he perceived as far more powerful—and thus valuable—than himself. he let the opinions and inputs of the rest of the server color the way he saw the people closest to him and didn't even attempt to reach out before making a drastic decision, believing it was already too late and that he'd already lost too much

meanwhile kae seems like she has a very solid view of herself and what she values. she found great pride and appreciation in loyalty, and was confident in her observations and in her many tries at communication. she's fine with hearing frank, even mean, judgements on her character and abilities because she's got both feet on the ground. whereas nezo seeks to gain some form of admiration and validation from mugm and still stumbles over his ideals and struggles with self-awareness, lilkae is focused on the truth more than anything, and part of that truth is proving to others what she knows about herself.

that's not even saying anything of the "a year together and it's like you don't know me at all" quotes from mugm and wyll respectively. there's a whole other post to be made about that which pertains to how they view the other party in those conversations (and just mugm specifically, because all roads lead back to that guy). but for what it's worth, i'd argue that neither fully warrant the "you don't know me" treatment. nezo is basically the only person close to catching onto the deeper reasons behind mugm's frankly impressive cocktail of self-dehumanization and self-aggrandizement. and kae was clocking wyll's shit before he even had a clue, with the only reason why her plan didn't totally ruin the (briefly) secret entropy teamup being that she just didn't get to it in time.