AND WE FINALLY GOT TO ONE OF MY FAVORITE PARTS IN THE ENTIRE STORY
god this moment with serazade hit so hard in the webnovel and they did an amazing job adapting it in the webcomic.
serazade who has spent her entire life fighting to be acknowledged by her father, training endlessly to get better, sweating and bleeding over and over again just to get his recognition, just to be good enough to get his approval, sees for the first time what a good family actually looks like and she just,,, breaks.
everything she has done, every blister she has bursted, every cut she has gotten, every bone she has broken, her entire life has revolved around getting her father to see her, to be proud of her, to love her,,, and then she meets the fronteras. with a father who doesn't care if his sons are famous or important or rich as long as they're healthy and kind and happy. with a mother who just cares if they have slept well and eaten enough and will make sure they do if she can. with two sons who aren't afraid of their father and are embarrassed when they gush about how much they care about them.
a family who just loves for love's sake and who's bigger expectation is just "please, for the love of god, stay alive" (and you'd think the bar couldn't be lower but lloyd manages to barely clear it several times a year until he doesn't so really it's for the best. manage expectations and all that)
and the concept is so foreign to her, something so out of a fairytale, that it just breaks her
and the webcomic did such a good job drawing this scene
it's one of the most subtle moments we've gotten to this point and it's perfect. the realization, a beat, and then the fall out.
in the webnovel we get more insight into her train of thought, the way she realizes how,,,, stupid everything she has done has been. how useless.
she has spent her entire life chasing her father's approval and here's arcos just telling his sons he's so proud that they grew up healthy and kind over dinner.
that was how it was supposed to be. that was how a normal family should be. she never shouldn't have struggled so hard. she never should've made such an effort. she never should've tried so hard.
and it's not worth it to keep trying.
