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The Importance of Being Gege (AKA why MC doesn't always stand up to Caleb when she definitely should)
[spoilers ahead for Spotlit Gaze]
Finally got around to watching Spotlit Gaze (Caleb's very excellent new Promise card) and it got me thinkin about MC and Caleb's relationship and why she puts up with it when he lies or avoids telling her the truth, and how that gets under my skin sometimes. (For the record, that doesn't happen in this card, but you'll see why I thought of it if you keep reading... Also the reason may have been painfully obvious to you this whole time, but I only just got it 🫣.)
It's not the fact that Caleb lies or does other problematic things that bothers me. That's part of the story and his character and I ADORE Caleb's crazy like 95% of the time.
What gets to me (or used to get to me) is when he lies to her and she lets it go. When he keeps secrets from her, VERY IMPORTANT ONES, and she lets him off the hook, despite the fact that those behaviors are not signs of a healthy relationship AND the fact that MC is not the type of person to stand for being treated poorly in any way. Caleb's not just her gege anymore, he's her partner too, and while he's not alone in having moral grays (looking at you, literally all the guys except for maybe Zayne), no one does it quite like Caleb.
I don't want him to stop those behaviors necessarily. Conflict makes for good drama and tension is key for desire. I think that's why Caleb hits different than the other LIs, even Sylus. Caleb is the only one who low-key threatens MC's autonomy. Not maliciously, but he can be manipulative and evasive in ways that the other four just aren't. It makes him (you HAVE to forgive me for saying this) juicier.
But even so, I have trouble accepting the way MC responds to Caleb's more red-flaggish behavior and I think it's because I treat the game as roleplay.
Roleplay (to me) is similar to self-insert, but not quite. I don't see myself as MC when I'm playing. I sort of project myself INTO her, take on her thoughts, feelings, abilities, experiences as much as possible. I would never make some of the choices she makes in game, but I feel what it would be like to be someone who would make those choices. But when she makes the choice to give Caleb pass after pass, I balk. I can't understand why MC, who is a straight baddie and headstrong af, would let some of that shit slide.
True, there is a lot of trauma there, and I know a big part of it is not wanting to lose him again, but that never seemed like enough to me. Backing off here or there, sure, but she does it to the point where I couldn't believe it wasn't coming from somewhere else too. MC has flaws, but she's mostly secure in herself and who she is and knows what she wants and how she deserves to be treated. When she finally refused to let Caleb deflect her in Lingering Lust, I said "thank you!" out loud because FINALLY. THAT'S the MC I know. (It's like she pushed back hard that one time in Hidden Waves and then barely ever again until LL.)
Only today after finishing Spotlit Gaze did the thought occur to me that her letting these things go is not just a trauma response or low self-esteem. It's because he's her older brother.
I'm an eldest sibling, so I did not get the full weight of this at first, but something about SG just made it click. For all the teasing MC does to Caleb, all the ways he dotes on and caters to her, there's power in him being older. He says it several times in game, how she used to follow him around and look up to him, how she used to try to compete with him, likely because she wanted to be just like him. In Spotlit Gaze, she has a bunch of recordings of him humming to himself when they were younger, showing she was admiring (and possibly in love with) him on a deep level from the very beginning.
Caleb must have seemed so much wiser than her growing up, so capable, so smart, so caring. He was a golden boy, he could do no wrong. He would never do anything to harm her, even indirectly (or so she believed). He's still kind of like that even today, as we see in the way people are drawn to him in cards like Chasing Summer. So MC still has him on that pedestal in some ways because that is her gege.
From a relatively young age, Caleb practically raised her. I think about how long it took me to stop feeling like a kid around the people who raised me, and how easily I can still slip back into that role without even noticing. I think that's what's happening to MC when Caleb decides to be on his bullshit. She's not dismissing Caleb's behavior out of insecurity or a lack of self-respect. She does it because of that part of her that still recognizes him as her big brother.
In the 4-star art for Spotlit Gaze, Caleb looks like an idol, towering over us but looking down with a beatific smile, lights shining around him like a halo. That's how MC sees him sometimes. She worships him. (And you know what? SAME, GURL. SAME.)
It must be hard when a person you love that much, someone who you've trusted on a core level to look after you, lies to you or hides themselves from you. She can stand up to everyone and anyone else, but Caleb? He's always been the one in charge. If he truly puts his foot down, then that's that. And on top of that, he almost always gives her what she wants anyway, so she doesn't always know how to deal with it when he doesn't do that. She's always seen him a certain way, so when he insists on only showing that side of himself, the path of least resistance for her is to let it lie, another reason why she may have held back being honest about her less-than-familial feelings for him.
And that I get. I really do. Part of what draws me to Caleb is the fact that I've never really felt that kind of security at any point in my life, even now. He scratches that itch, offers a facsimile of what it would be like to have someone look out for you in that way, someone who is everything to you and WANTS to be everything to you. (Only he isn't that secure, because he's always lying and disappearing, but we won't get into that today.)
And not for nothing, but can't no one convince me that Caleb only wants a romantic relationship with MC and wants her to stop seeing him as gege entirely. Ain't no way. He wants both. And if MC's responses have been any indication, she's trying to let him have it. Whether or not that's sustainable remains to be seen.
TL;DR: MC lets Caleb lie to her and keep secrets from her not from a lack of self-respect, but because part of her still sees him as her big brother who can do no wrong, who she trusts as a caregiver and guardian, who has that authority over her. Even if her adult mind knows better, deep down, that's still her gege, and gege knows best.
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