i rlly like liliya x gooseberry but i dont see them being interpreted as anything really taboo which is strange to me, bc its very hard seeing them work out normally since they are total opposites. honestly, that just might be my dick speaking but HEAR ME OUT… LISTEN..
the main issue is liliya’s religious absolutism vs phyllis’s hostile atheism. its literally the core of both their characters, liliya’s faith is literally her STRUCTURE, while phyllis’s atheism is reactive bc jesus to her represents: manipulation, authority, adults telling her WHO she is and WHAT she is. liliya submits to a higher authority while phyllis tries to reject ALL authority.
the core dynamic i see between them is trauma recognizing trauma, but they both handle trauma VERY differently. liliya is disciplined and emotionally armored, she is trauma-conditioned. phyllis is emotionally volatile and attachment starved, she has a fragmented identity where she is stuck repeating trauma loops. i see liliya as a substitute attachment figure.
i of course dont see them clicking immediately though, they would be the most toxic enemies to sorta lovers dynamic ever lmfao. to phyllis, liliyas faith would look like total cowardice and emotional avoidance. while liliya would see phyllis as blasphemous and chaotic. i think liliya would portray phyllis’s as a test from god, AND HEAR ME OUT ON THIS BC I LIKED THIS IDEA:
what if liliya saw puppet futterman as a corruption of her? she sees puppet futterman as a sin, a rot. while phyllis herself is the original soul, a wounded child. i think liliya recognizes phyllis and how trauma shaped her, how she learned cruelty to be intimacy and anger as a tie to what hurt her. they eventually shape a relationship through this “salvation project” (liliya basically: I CAN FIX HER!!!)
oh my god holy rant. sorry. ahem. anyways, i dont think she would argue with futterman but instead completely invalidate him. saying how “he is not real” and “must be removed.” this is very scary for phyllis bc it would basically be existential erasure to her which would trigger a threat response and make her cling to dr futterman harder. puppet futterman would become more violent and intrusive while phyllis would become more defensive.
liliya would act like the parent she never had, but much like how a cult leader becomes a parent. and although she acts like she cares, this isnt actually about phyllis. its about her needing to believe corruption is external, bc if corruption is internal then liliya herself would be corrupt. i dont think she would exactly try to heal her, but replace what shaped her. “your father shaped you wrongly. let God reshape you correctly.”—the same parent who says “i know what you need better than you do.” which mirrors phyllis’s original trauma structure that she is susceptible to, just gentler.
liliya would be very obsessive, protective, and morally supervising, she would provide a structure to phyllis that feels like safety. BUT she would also control and override her identity which feels like suffocation. at first, this feels good to phyllis: someone notices, liliya intervenes when shes distressed, liliya calls her “good,” “chosen,” “clean.” which would soften phyllis and encourage her to behave and try to supress dr. futterman, bc she wants to please liliya at the chance of being “good.” phyllis’s entire thing is that she WANTS to be a “good girl.”
BUT eventually, suppressing dr futterman = suppressing her trauma expression, so the pressure builds and she becomes more dissociative and anxious. every failure becomes moral, “i wasn’t strong enough” which deepens her shame. which strengthens the “rot.”
and as phyllis becomes more distressed, liliya sees it as evidence, that phyllis’s suffering is liliya doing the right thing. the worse phyllis feels, the more convinced liliya becomes that shes helping. bc liliya thinks shes fighting her trauma, and her fathers influence. so when phyllis resists or lashes out, she doesnt see HER doing that, she sees the “rot.”
liliya believes stopping would be abandoning phyllis. if she stops while phyllis is in pain, in her eyes shes letting the corruption win, so stopping feels like neglect. continuing feels like love. she would give phyllis structure, consistency, and correction. things that phyllis desperately lacks. but she would also remove her autonomy, rewrite her identity, and erase her trauma instead of holding it like a wound.
so the relationship doesnt really become mother and daughter. but the shepard and lamb.
thanks for listening to my doomed yuri talk
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