project moon blog because i got a little bit too insane on my main. main blog is @othermart & my dni is here. spoilers are untagged (i spoiler tag new content until its been a week since it came out)
canto 9 did alot of things to me but i can't stop thinking about rodya after it and the realisation that no, her biggest fear is lowkey right. i love her dearly but she's so ordinary compared to everyone else. why did they put her on that bus? and why/how does limbus have so many powerful people in lcb alone in the first place?
I’m also curious to hear more about how you interpret the interactions between Gregor and Rodya! I’m not super involved in the fandom but I get the vibe that a lot of folks see them as a ship, so I’m curious how your view on how you see em (since you seem to be the best Gregor scholar I’ve seen so far lmao)
anon is trying to get my shot oh my god.
BEFORE I GET INTO THIS I SHOULD CLARIFY THAT I LOVE RODYA SHE'S MY SECOND FAVORITE SINNER I CARE HER SO VERY BAD. I DO NOT HATE RODYA I THINK ABOUT HER VERY OFTEN. THIS IS NOT ME EXPRESSING DISTASTE FOR RODION ROMANOVICH RASKOLNIKOV I SWEAR.
that all being said i think gregor absolutely fucking hates her ass and rodya isn't really capable of taking him seriously as a potential romantic partner lmao. i'm personally in the camp that thinks gregor is just Full On Gay so i wouldn't really be fond of the ship either way but. you know. regardless, i'm Fully aware of how popular this ship is but i just think it's sort of a consequence of both characters putting up fronts as a defense mechanism so Obviously These Two Must Get Along As Well As They Present.
i'll get into more detail for the both of them below the cut, but for a brief summary of my thoughts here's a joke i made in the cogitopedia discord shortly after c7 pt3
for gregor's side of things, i think rodya is 100% one of the sinners that he has the most resentment for on the bus? she's constantly making "lighthearted" digs at the other sinners with gregor being one of her main targets and i think that's the type of thing gregor 100% picks up on and judges her extremely harshly for. ntm that i think gregor probably at least to like, SOME degree compares her to hermann a little bit? we already know that he's not above making connections to other people in his life and basing his opinions on people off of that since that's Literally what he did with yuri and fully admitted to it, and when one of gregor's Biggest Issues is feeling like he lacks free will i just don't think it's going to end well when you pair him up with someone who's particularly prone to steamrolling over other people for the sake of pursuing her own desires.
for rodya's side of things, i just don't think she takes gregor seriously in general? i'm fully aware that she pulls out the babes and gregs constantly but i've always read that more as rodya singling gregor out early on as someone that would both put up with her nonsense and be a particularly easy and entertaining target of said nonsense. gregor is a Grown Ass Man and thus can take a bit of "harmless" negging but he's also got some pretty obvious weak spots that she can poke and prod at.
i should clarify that i don't think that rodya thinks she's doing something wrong here, to me her actions 100% read as her being under the impression that this is just Part Of Their Friendship, which gregor is partially contributing to by his tendency to shut down in uncomfortable situations. back in c1 after she puts the bugs in his face you actually do get rodya seemingly taking a serious moment to ask if she was taking things too far, but instead of outright telling her that Yes, You Are gregor instead just clams up like he usually does, sealing his fate until he inevitably cracks and blows up on everyone.
i feel like it's Also worth pointing out that, when it comes to his IDs, gregor has been shown as capitulating for a more powerful woman pretty often! chef gregor w/ chef ryoushuu, heir gregor w/ cathy, priest gregor w/ literally just All of the other bloodfiend IDs, rosespanner gregor w/ rosespanner rodya. in the two instances where rodya is highlighted as the one in a position of power over him, we see gregor either believing that she's incompetent and that he's the one thanklessly responsible for keeping the place running (rosespanner) or very clearly struggling and, while getting sympathy from rodya, only gets actually meaningfully helped out by sancho while rodya's too busy concerning herself with loftier, far off means of helping her kindreds.
i could get into more, provide some source based examples and all that nonsense, but i'd really rather avoid facing the ire of their shippers if i can help it, so i'll leave it there. tl;dr i think rodya does actually think of her and gregor as genuine friends, albeit ones where one gets to treat the other like a metaphorical punching bag, but gregor's insistence on being a doormat that can just grin and bear any shit that's thrown at him is going to really come back to bite both of them in the ass down the line. rodya and gregor both Suck Major Ass and they quite possibly do so in the literal worst ways for each other.
once again i promise i love rodya i'm one of the few people on this planet that will defend c2 as being not only good but wholly necessary for getting rodion's Whole Deal across i just don't talk about her as much because My Freak Is Right There
OP I hope it's ok to add onto the post not necessarily entirely on topic cause there's some stuff you mention that made some gears turn for me that I wanna yap about. o7
I think Rodya misjudging how close she is with the other Sinners is a really major thing for her character over all, not even just with Gregor. We see her treat Heathcliff in a very similar fashion, often making him the butt of the joke when it comes to distinguishing the rich from the poor, but when Heathcliff is revealed to have been raised in a wealthy household Rodya acts genuinely betrayed by the reveal. It honestly gives the impression that she thought her and Heathcliff were close enough to treat their mutual Backstreets origins as a sort of "in-joke", even when Heathcliff made it clear he felt genuinely insulted by having his background pointed out like that. In a way that also very closely parallels Rodya's treatment of Gregor in that a lot of the bus sees Heathcliff's outbursts as his "default", so to Rodya Heathcliff reacting negatively is essentially the same as Gregor being a doormat and trying to not react at all.
There's also something I find really interesting about just how similar Rodya and Hong Lu are in this department (Yes I'm making this about Hong Lu too, unfortunately I am The Hong Lu Guy). In that it's pretty clear that they choose to primarily "bother" people who they find to be easy and entertaining targets for one reason or another. For Rodya, it's someone who doesn't seem too outwardly affected and so she can believe she's not Actually Bothering him and only being playful. For Hong Lu, it's someone who can be provoked in such a way that makes them react very explosively while also putting all of the blame on themself rather than on Hong Lu. It's an interesting parallel because it also works as a great contrast. I agree that I don't think Rodya is doing so consciously, she just genuinely thinks she's already close enough to Gregor for such behavior to be considered "harmless". The contrast lies in that I fully believe that Hong Lu is in fact aware of what he's doing when he provokes Heathcliff, and that's why he pretty much completely stops this behavior once he's given a reason to relate to Heathcliff during Canto 6.
Also this is completely unrelated to the Gregor-Rodya topic, but the mention of how Gregor tends to project his own experiences and the people he knew onto others made me realize something.
This moment in Canto 7.
It just hit me that this was Gregor projecting himself onto Hong Lu. I'm sure this was more obvious to someone who focuses on Gregor the way I do on Hong Lu, but that's probably exactly why I missed this, since I was primarily focusing on this scene from Hong Lu's perspective. Gregor is projecting how he himself likely felt about his little sister and is completely thrown off balance when Hong Lu's response is so. Like that.
Again, sorry about turning the Gregor-Rodya post into a Gregor-Hong Lu post, but there is something very interesting about the way those two interact, especially considering they both appear to be putting on some sort of amicable front around the other Sinners.
oh no i totally don't mind! i love drawing comparisons between these two and hong lu just because there's SO much there. i'm so desperate for us to get our first shared ego between gregor and hong lu just because i Know it's going to hurt me. and then hong lu and rodya are always fun to put together because they're Also both doing the whole "aw we're such good friends ^^" schtick with each other despite rodya having Every Possible Reason for hating him and i so very badly want to see the moment when they drop their acts and say what they really think about the other lmao. really hoping we get it before c8 just so rodya has even less reason to consider his position on things
simply reposting old stuff for people who missed it. thank you for being so sweet! b&w doodles under the cut... ive deleted other sketches that i dislike, so if you had a specific one you wanted back, im sorry lawl
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