The Way I Immediatly Thought Of Them

some sunset pics i took from my roof

thinking about them again

I wish women were real, that would be nice.

Chip jrwi with women vs men

Something just occured to me. Circling through each beautiful moment in the campaign, I noticed a pattern. Gillion never initiates hugs. Every time, no matter if he is the one consoling or the one being consoled, he never is the first person to offer an embrace. And I think it says something.

When Jay wants to hug Gill, she always asks first. She opens her arms as an invitation and always gives him a clear sign that she wants to be close to him. And any time she offers, anytime Gillion gets permission, any time he feels like he is allowed one, he clings to her desperately and fully, starved for it, finding himself unable to let go too quickly, savoring it like he isn't sure when he is going to be allowed to have another.

Chip's hugs are unprompted and usually done with just as much desperation. They are completely controlled by emotion, and are a form of a language that Chip uses when love and appreciation cannot be expressed by words anymore. Chip never asks for hugs, he takes them. He needs them, so he is scared to ask like Jay does, cause asking means risking to be denied. It is safer to steal it. In contrast Jay is still asking cause she is still afraid of taking love for granted.

But they both, in the end, ask for hugs and comfort in their own ways. Gillion doesn't. He wants it, he needs it so often, but he never dares to ask for it. Cause he still treats love as a reward that he needs to earn, that he is not allowed to ask for, that can't be had, unless he does something that makes him worthy of being loved. Affection and love is a currency and Gill was taught that he needs to fight for it. That it's something he should never dare to request on his own.

How many times on their journey did he need to feel someone else's body close to his, but his lips were sealed, suffering in silence, thinking he Has not done well enough to be given the privalage of being comforted? How many aches and worries did he swallow down and burried deep inside? How many old wounds is he trying to fill with every single hug he receives, when someone else offers it to him? When he dares to take it, when he grips their clothes in an iron grip, trying to make the best out of it before it's gone? Cause who knows when someone allows him to have that again?

The only person Gill ever hugged first was Edyn, the first time in Allport. It was done with the same ferocity of a hurt child, of a little boy who Has been going through hell and his sister is his only remedy. The only person that always lets him have love for free. The only one he knows he can hug for sure. One who for so many years has been the only source of comfort.

The rest of the world is uncertain and even with Chip and Jay, Gill still strives to fulfill the unsaid cryteria of when he is worthy of their affection.

But I know that with enough reassurance and care, he will be able to ask for love himself and start treating his crew as people he can fall back on. And just so you know, the moment in which Gillion is the first one to hug Chip or Jay is going to make me cry like a little baby.

_______

Edit: more thoughts occured

Did you notice that Jay always seems to match Gill and Chip when it comes to hugging? She never asks Chip for hugs and takes them the same way Chip does, no matter if she is the one seeking or offering comfort. And the same goes with Gill. Regardless of whether she is the one in the need of comfort or she is the one comforting, she always verbally communicates a desire to hug first. Like she kinda feels that this is what Gillion needs from her to accept it.

So maybe Jay is actually always trying to search for the most effective way to get a hug, to increase her chances. She believes she has to, cause she cannot take love for granted anymore, not after Ava's death. She took her for granted and now she is gone. So now Jay struggles to freely express her own desires and instead clings to all the ways that she thinks guarantee her the affection she needs, an act of desperation in its own right. A silent plea for acceptance.

Each Captain on this ship treats each embrace as a treasure to savor and protect. It's a result of their past and their fears, but also a proof of unyielding love they have for each other. It's beautiful and one day the same love that they still dread to take, will heal them.

hey. its ok. gill's loud wet real fish slippers. edyn has a matching pair 😌

THEYRE SO

Malevolent themed art requests >:]

Bonus

Sometimes I think about Chip and Jay meeting Gillion for the first time. How was it for them exactly?

Gillion, lying on his back on the surface of the water, staring at the sun. Lost, in the middle of an ocean in a place he doesn't know. He should be afraid, but he just feels empty. The bright light is blinding him but he does not care to see. The events of the past few days play endlessly in his mind. His breaking point, his frenzy, the trial, the verdict. The sinking feeling that he's lost every single small bit of what was him and what was his, what he was desperately clinging to. So he doesn't need to see, and there is nothing inside his eyes, cause there is nothing left of Gill.

Did Chip, I wonder see those empty eyes? Did he notice the pain they hold? Before they were masked by excited greeting and a bright smile of a Triton he's grown to know and love, before they shifted into focus, did he look at them and saw his own eyes staring back at him? Did he see the same emptiness he felt when the water swallowed everything he had known and washed him ashore with no direction, the same eyes that reflected the fire of a burning warehouse as he left his life behind once more? Did Jay see it too? Did she see the same loss and grief she expreienced, staring at her sister's grave? Did she understand the same feeling of being isolated, of not feeling like yourself, like you don't belong amongst those who are supposed to be your own?

Is this why they took his hand that day? Was it simple pity or a connection weaved through compassion and a desire to share suffering with another? To help each other feel whole again?

The empty gazes looked at the lost Triton, and his empty eyes stared back. And then, they were together. And with love, care and understanding they share, they see a little clearer now.