anyway i'm probably not going to bother with making this rambly part pretty you can deal with it but oh god okay so we've talked about this quite a bit flurry, i think we went into this cr knowing that they'd have similar feelings on stuff but i don't think we ever really, like, thought exactly how they'd click? i wish i knew why this keeps happening in very specific ways, it's very funny.
okay so shenhe! the thing about it is that jonas really kind of wasn't sure what to make of shenhe immediately, mostly humoring her and kind of thinking "haha she's kind of weird" but in an endeared way, and i think the longer he started to talk to her the more he was starting to realize that there were some very overlapping feelings here. it's like. it's like a venn diagram where the two sides are "people think you're a monster" and "people think you're trouble" and they overlap in "trying to learn how to function in normal society and unlearn those thoughts."
Trying is all you can do. If you are trying, that is admirable. Some people don't even pretend.
with shenhe i think really early on he sort of realized that she was a person who really didn't have huge expectations for what sort of person he had to be which, considering his mass amounts of anxiety, was extremely helpful at the time! coming straight from juvie, to edwards' island and the night of ghost bullshit, straight into a game where they were told they were dead and they had to depend on other people to stay alive was kind of a lot of pressure and there were plenty of times jonas felt like he couldn't exactly, like, cope? it was one of those things where he decided he had to put himself on the backburner and focus on other people because people had so much at stake and he had...what, his dad that didn't even wait a whole year to remarry after his mom passed? friends that ditched him as soon as he got out of juvie and moved to camena? alex, who (at the time) he figured would eventually be fine without him? it was whatever, and he spent a lot of the early part of the game in a weird depressive state but with shenhe it was very much the smallest pocket of relief that he could be more like himself as long as he was making an attempt. he figured out early that they both weren't exactly the Best at mitigating their own feelings and were prone to violent outbursts while trying to get better and i think that helped him kind of sort things out a lot. it made him feel less alone knowing there was someone like shenhe who also was going through the same thing while still admiring her.
which is a whole other thing? he kind of always had this admiration of her because she was blunt and straightforward and never, like, lied to him. he knew he could tell her whatever the fuck and she'd just tell it like it was which is something jonas values above so many things (funny, given alex being who she is.) and also that's not even taking into account that shenhe's strong and a fighter and knew how to defend herself and was willing to defend some other people. there were qualities in her that a.) he saw in himself and b.) he wanted to aspire to be.
You and I spoke about how hard it is to control our anger, sometimes. I know that you don't want to hurt people. I know that you've had to. And I want you to know that this does not make you bad, or good. You just are.
I don't tell you this for you to pity me - please don't. I tell you this because it is impossible to be human and feel right, sometimes. You will be okay. I am thinking about you all the time.
i need you to understand that shenhe was the first person he was semi-close to that died and it absolutely fucked him up a little that that was also their first scapegoat! y...ay. he felt like it was extremely unfair that she was starting to learn these lessons and find things she cared about and things she wanted to do to make things better for herself and other people and it was taken away. obviously this was explained to him much later, why she was chosen, but it was still something that sat rather uncomfortably with him. it also meant that as things got worse and worse and he couldn't talk to her, his brain started getting too full and he slowly started losing his mind a little. i think even not quite knowing who was writing to him he ended up sort of dumping his garbage on the floor, but as soon as he got confirmation shenhe was actually okay and able to talk to him he just kind of exploded because he felt like she could be trusted and, again, importantly, not judge him. jonas is a person who is fucking tired of people judging him while also desperately wanting to be liked so it was another case of "i trust shenhe to be straightforward with me and not ridicule me for the way i feel because emotions are complicated."
he didn't really get to say it at the time, but hearing those sentiments in her letter not only helped but also made him kind of happy knowing that she was able to get to a place she was able to say these things and recognize these things and still find things she cared about and could be happy enough. hearing that even with the hard things happening, that she was able to find people to trust and could slowly move forward, was one of the best things he could've gotten from hearing from the dead.
i think overall he really just wanted to see shenhe get a chance to experience a life she crafted for herself rather than live off of other people's expectations and be afraid of living. he saw potential in her for what she could be and he felt like she, likewise, saw his potential. insert [hiccup voice] "when i looked at [her] i saw myself." that's not to say there weren't things he didn't always agree with, but all things considered in the end they weren't things he would bother really saying because opinions are opinions and he's not going to be the one to go "your opinion's wrong" since that's counterintuitive to what he wants.
anyway it's fine they can hang out in teyvat for a few years before the timeline pulls jonas and alex back to camena but the offer was touching and he's, overall, glad he doesn't have to say goodbye just yet.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
SHENHE;
I'm sorry for the person I became.
I'm sorry that it took so long for me to change.
I'm ready to be sure I never become that way again
'cause who I am hates who I've been.
Who I am hates who I've been.
WHY ARE YOU FIRST :TAILS:
anyway i'm probably not going to bother with making this rambly part pretty you can deal with it but oh god okay so we've talked about this quite a bit flurry, i think we went into this cr knowing that they'd have similar feelings on stuff but i don't think we ever really, like, thought exactly how they'd click? i wish i knew why this keeps happening in very specific ways, it's very funny.
okay so shenhe! the thing about it is that jonas really kind of wasn't sure what to make of shenhe immediately, mostly humoring her and kind of thinking "haha she's kind of weird" but in an endeared way, and i think the longer he started to talk to her the more he was starting to realize that there were some very overlapping feelings here. it's like. it's like a venn diagram where the two sides are "people think you're a monster" and "people think you're trouble" and they overlap in "trying to learn how to function in normal society and unlearn those thoughts."
with shenhe i think really early on he sort of realized that she was a person who really didn't have huge expectations for what sort of person he had to be which, considering his mass amounts of anxiety, was extremely helpful at the time! coming straight from juvie, to edwards' island and the night of ghost bullshit, straight into a game where they were told they were dead and they had to depend on other people to stay alive was kind of a lot of pressure and there were plenty of times jonas felt like he couldn't exactly, like, cope? it was one of those things where he decided he had to put himself on the backburner and focus on other people because people had so much at stake and he had...what, his dad that didn't even wait a whole year to remarry after his mom passed? friends that ditched him as soon as he got out of juvie and moved to camena? alex, who (at the time) he figured would eventually be fine without him? it was whatever, and he spent a lot of the early part of the game in a weird depressive state but with shenhe it was very much the smallest pocket of relief that he could be more like himself as long as he was making an attempt. he figured out early that they both weren't exactly the Best at mitigating their own feelings and were prone to violent outbursts while trying to get better and i think that helped him kind of sort things out a lot. it made him feel less alone knowing there was someone like shenhe who also was going through the same thing while still admiring her.
which is a whole other thing? he kind of always had this admiration of her because she was blunt and straightforward and never, like, lied to him. he knew he could tell her whatever the fuck and she'd just tell it like it was which is something jonas values above so many things (funny, given alex being who she is.) and also that's not even taking into account that shenhe's strong and a fighter and knew how to defend herself and was willing to defend some other people. there were qualities in her that a.) he saw in himself and b.) he wanted to aspire to be.
i need you to understand that shenhe was the first person he was semi-close to that died and it absolutely fucked him up a little that that was also their first scapegoat! y...ay. he felt like it was extremely unfair that she was starting to learn these lessons and find things she cared about and things she wanted to do to make things better for herself and other people and it was taken away. obviously this was explained to him much later, why she was chosen, but it was still something that sat rather uncomfortably with him. it also meant that as things got worse and worse and he couldn't talk to her, his brain started getting too full and he slowly started losing his mind a little. i think even not quite knowing who was writing to him he ended up sort of dumping his garbage on the floor, but as soon as he got confirmation shenhe was actually okay and able to talk to him he just kind of exploded because he felt like she could be trusted and, again, importantly, not judge him. jonas is a person who is fucking tired of people judging him while also desperately wanting to be liked so it was another case of "i trust shenhe to be straightforward with me and not ridicule me for the way i feel because emotions are complicated."
he didn't really get to say it at the time, but hearing those sentiments in her letter not only helped but also made him kind of happy knowing that she was able to get to a place she was able to say these things and recognize these things and still find things she cared about and could be happy enough. hearing that even with the hard things happening, that she was able to find people to trust and could slowly move forward, was one of the best things he could've gotten from hearing from the dead.
i think overall he really just wanted to see shenhe get a chance to experience a life she crafted for herself rather than live off of other people's expectations and be afraid of living. he saw potential in her for what she could be and he felt like she, likewise, saw his potential. insert [hiccup voice] "when i looked at [her] i saw myself." that's not to say there weren't things he didn't always agree with, but all things considered in the end they weren't things he would bother really saying because opinions are opinions and he's not going to be the one to go "your opinion's wrong" since that's counterintuitive to what he wants.
anyway it's fine they can hang out in teyvat for a few years before the timeline pulls jonas and alex back to camena but the offer was touching and he's, overall, glad he doesn't have to say goodbye just yet.