20K QUESTION MEME

[rollplayinghouse]

Over 20k comments!! Question meme time!

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[bluescreenwhitedragon]

Intensity cares for Maki. Period. He is definitely not a person to suffer through a relationship if there is not some value in it for him. And since this is a feelings relationship and not a business relationship, the fact that he is still sticking around is a much larger testament to his feelings. He doesn't understand Maki most of the time. Doesn't understand her need to use words for everything (since Intensity finds words usually solve nothing). But he likes her. Wants her to figure her shit out and be confident in herself as a person. Enjoys her company. Thinks she's hot. And wants to be there to support her when she has a tough time.

He'll never admit to love or most of his feelings. But if anything were to happen to Maki - getting transferred, turned into a Damned, etc. - you can bet that Intensity would be coming for her even if it took his entire lifetime. Maki is just part of his life - end fact. And he'd succeed, too! Because he's a stupid overconfident person like that. And that's what Maki likes about him anyway, so...

So yes, the problem is not caring. It is definitely about trusting Maki. The first seed of doubt was actually planted a while back as they were discussing the rift to Heaven. He was adamant on finding a way to rid people of the corruption regardless of how ludicrous the ideas were (and they were all very ludicrous). And though he might say it's for the benefit of others - the truth of the matter is, he just wants his name back. He knows what the word is! Keeps it in his phone! But because of the results of the trial, it is just a word - something that no longer has any meaning to him. And he feels trapped by the fact that if doesn't regain it - that'll be a huge gap in the connection to his company and his brother. Which he can't really say out loud because of how he tells everyone else their past is stupid. (PLAYED YOURSELF THERE, INTENSITY.) And he was going to share that with Maki, but she was too caught up in the ridiculousness of the methods and how she didn't want to be separated from him for 40 days that he never got to say it. And in the end, didn't want to say it. Seems like something else she would have nitpicked him for. And he didn't want to have (and potentially lose) an argument with Maki about why his real name was important. Sounds like a bad time.

Which then leads to the Balloon game and his breakdown and Maki's Live and then--- the belief that feelings are bad. Relationships are bad. Being vulnerable is bad. And maybe he should just keep to himself and just be a standoff-ish asshole when it came to feelings and push everyone away. Something that is very easy for him to do. It's very comfortable! Many people talked him down from falling too far down that cliff, but still - he was keeping a lot of negativity pent up inside because he didn't know how to fix his hurt.

And then the Castle game happened and their huge blow-out fight afterwards, which was really just Intensity finally letting out how betrayed he felt on multiple levels over multiple things in the worst possible way. He felt betrayed by the Live because he specifically asked her not to do it. And he felt betrayed by her getting close to King because it felt like as soon as he wasn't there, as soon as he needed space, she immediately had to find someone else to replace him. And with his rival, no less! Someone similar enough to him that she picked him in the wedding game based on 4 stupid adjectives. So he has a hard time believing phrases like "I don't know what I'd do without you" after PPP when she so casually says the exact same phrase about King a few days later. It felt like they were interchangeable. And he won't stand for that! But actually - the most hurtful part of all that was - King made a poor choice and got killed. And Maki didn't berate him for his choices like she did to Intensity after the Hunger games, didn't hold a Live threatening all of Imeeji like after the Balloon game. She just took him somewhere and was there for him - which was all that Intensity wanted from Maki in the first place. And to see King get that so effortlessly was just frustrating beyond belief. It seems like in Maki's struggles to become a person, Intensity always gets caught in the cross-fire and then all her future relationships get to enjoy the benefits of lessons learned after screwing up with Intensity.

And he's just tired and frustrated about it. Too tired to even fight back. And let's face it, too emotionally incompetent to still even realize what the root cause of the problem and his anger is.

But since then, things have been slowly mending themselves. Because he sees Maki trying - with information gathering and keeping him up to date. With the anniversary gift. By just seeking out his company. He can definitely see that she is trying to make things work.

So, for the moment, Intensity is trying to just dial things back to the way things were before when the relationship had a lot less expectations. Not the feelings so much, just the expectations. Because that seems to be the problem with relationships - is that people expect a certain level of treatment. And he also fell into that trap in regards to Maki. He just had certain unrealistic expectations about things. Maybe he should fuss more over being called a boyfriend again! Who knows! Either way, it seems to have de-stressed the both of them so they seem to be in a better spot.

Their repairing alignment and trust was also shown by Hell adventures where they ended up doing their own thing, except when they needed advice (on who to call) or back-up (what to do when your arm gets skewered) from each other. Even splitting up at the end is a move in a good direction for them because what they really need to work on is trust. Not feelings - they already have too many feelings. Please spare Intensity more feelings. He'll die.

Tell me a cute date idea that Maki and Intensity should go on when things are not exploding. Perhaps framed in a way where Intensity can trick himself into thinking it's not a date.

[rollplayinghouse]

The 40 days holy water conversation is interesting, because Maki almost brought it up in her plot yelling. To her, that was an example of her providing information and trying to help (Intensity didn't actually know holy water burned hell-touched people before Maki mentioned it) and Intensity making his own irrational plans (there is just no physical way you can keep yourself submerged in holy water for 40 days even if it didn't burn like acid), and then refusing her help (she really wasn't trying to nitpick and criticize, she wanted to talk through his plans and find something better). If she had known the holy water was something important to him personally, she would have understood better why he was talking about plans that were completely ridiculous, but as it was she was just like ??? why is this the thing you are focused on?? Surely there are other things to do that you can actually do??

"If you were underwater for 40 days I'd miss you" was also less a real complaint and more an attempt to show him exactly how ridiculous that plan was with a ridiculous complaint about it. The fact that he took it as a genuine statement of what she thought was most important ties into something else she sort of felt in the most recent argument, which is that Intensity thinks she's a lot more focused on strictly emotional things than she actually is. E.g. when she says "I want someone I can work with," she is not (just) being sentimental about wanting a personal connection and feeling like her current ones don't fit the bill, it is a literal, practical statement that she has been attempting to do a lot of things both plot and personal all on her own that it would be really helpful to have someone on her side for, and she has in fact asked people for help explicitly and not gotten it pretty frequently. (As well as obviously offering to team up and having people decline or just go off on their own.) So Intensity talking about how she hadn't ever cared about keeping in the loop on information and cared more about "having a partner" than actually accomplishing things really did sting a lot, and she does have some lingering doubts about if that's how he's been thinking about her the whole time. Does he really think she's that incompetent!! So probably that will come up again at some point.


DATES THOUGH.

Ari was saying that B can loop Maki into his planned fashion show and she can talk Intensity into doing a couple's look with her, and I think that would be super cute. But that's not quite a date. (Though Maki would be into doing further dressup with just the two of them if she could convince Intensity that's not stupid.)

For a Classic Date the first thing that comes to mind is that they should go to the amusement park... she went there with Yugi and rode a couple rides once when she was sad but otherwise amusement parks are completely foreign to her experience. Probably that could come up in a way where he feels the need to prove something to her?


How is Intensity doing at juggling his three big relationships and how does he feel about that?