Lack of love

This is quite a heavy topic to start with but I want it off my chest.

I like fantasy stories the best. It's always fun to learn about the common sense of magical worlds especially when the writers think about the consequences of their systems and laws thoroughly. But it's the characters that live in those crazy worlds that truly make me read them. I usually end up imagining what advice or consolation I might give them if we had the chance to sit down in the living room with a cup of tea if I were their friend and I knew what I know.

One such source of a seemingly endless variety of lovable characters for me has been the Magic: The Gathering story. I never actually played with the cards themselves so when I first found out that it even exists and realized that I would have to buy the e-book (Dragon's Maze) to find out more about the story itself, I just went back to watching anime online.

But years later they started putting up the story online and I also came across it when Ixalan was coming out. So the first story bit I read was the chapter called "Jace, alone" which is an amusing place to jump in because the pov character knew as much as I about the world, that is to say, nothing. I really liked the fact that the author would call him "the man" whenever she had to refer to him instead of his name. It absolutely drove home the fact of not knowing anything. Though most readers would undoubtedly recognize him. Ixalan as a set is already centred around the concept of exploration so it was enchanting to step into this magical Pirates of the Caribbean-esque world and have someone who is just as baffled about everything as me.



By the end of the chapter we are introduced to a character who knows him - and is the best version of tsundere ever - so it was clear to me, that I needed to do some research to be able to fully enjoy the shenanigans to come. I really wanted to know what was the history between the two and I wanted to know more about the cool pirate medusa lady. But my research skills proved to be lacking so I basically set out to read any story that is set in a timeframe when they are alive and probably has this Jace character in it. And that is how I got sucked down the rabbit hole that is mtg story.

It turned out that what I was looking for was just an obscure standalone chapter written for some versus decks that I only read once I read everything else up to Ixalan and still had no clue who she was. The funny thing is that the word "gorgon" was in the title but I dismissed it before because the first few paragraphs were boring.

The Jace I got to know from the preceding stories was very different from "the man" I got excited to get to know previously. I found him very much annoying. Mostly because he was supposed to be a super-powerful mage, but everyone was walking all over him. I wanted him to stand up for himself but he rarely ever did which I found infuriating.

During my scavenger hunt, I read the novel called Agents of Artifice and that is where I can finally start to talk about what has been bothering me. I enjoyed this book quite a lot and even went back to it later, but it's also the book that shows how the relationship between Jace and Liliana starts. Liliana is essentially a manipulative, gorgeous, boss-bitch and she just casually pulls him into her bedroom at one point which I was always a bit uncomfortable with. There wasn't anything explicit about the scene, that wasn't my problem. My problem was that we were following from Jace's pov and so I know, that he wasn't expecting it at all. It felt to me like a sort of violation. I know it's not rape or sexual assault, since he was into her and was very much consenting by letting himself be pulled in, but it felt wrong to me. Like he was whoring himself out to impress the sexy lady. I just couldn't respect him after that.

Of course, their relationship turned out to be toxic, and they break up, and Jace runs back to her the first chance he gets, so I was super peeved. Grow some backbone please or something!

I have heard it said that our own mistakes and faults are the ones that we find hardest to forgive when we see in others. When I was little an older boy would molest me when I went to see what everyone was playing. It wasn't anything serious really, but I was uncomfortable with it. I tried to tell him no and pull his hands away from me but he would just shush me like I was a misbehaving child. So at one point, I had to decide between letting him do what he wanted or leaving the room and being completely alone. Most of the time I couldn't stay away. I craved company.

I hated myself since then. I felt like I betrayed myself. I sold myself out and for what? To be in the proximity of the other children. There has been a lot of internal slut-shaming because of this. When I got older at one point he went far enough for me to get really scared and finally run away from him. I've never been alone with him in a room since then and I would always stand far out of his reach. But I still couldn't forgive myself. I had no sense of worth or any self-respect and I had suicidal ideations. The only thing stopping me from an attempt was my mother's open adoration for me. I couldn't feel loved, I didn't see myself as someone worthy of it, but I respected it enough to not end myself.

I hated myself and I also looked down on Jace who made a similar decision.

The one who made it possible for me to forgive was one of my favourite YouTubers The Authentic Observer. She made a video recently about red pill girls and their out-of-touch defence of Andrew Tate. I already knew how vile he was from an earlier video of hers so that wasn't news to me, but Galatea's explanation of why and how people fall for the boyfriend act and get roped into doing things they would never normally do was. The way she scolded Pearl for not putting herself in the shoes of the girls she was degrading; when she said that of course girls who grow up in loving homes surrounded by their families would say no, but the girls he targets being girls who didn't have that growing up who would go out into the world starving for love would, of course, go to great lengths to get even a drop of it. It made me have empathy for them and through them eventually for myself. It still sounds somewhat stupid to me that a person should have empathy for themselves, nonetheless, I found it to be true.

Suddenly what I previously saw as me being a whore I started seeing more as a desperate attempt to try to get the closest thing to love I could find. I didn't realize just how vulnerable the lack of love makes people. I mean, I have a big loving family, but I just had to be sent off for a few weeks during summer to get lonely enough to ruin life for myself for years to come.

Galatea also recommended Louise Perry's interviews at the end of her video so I watched a few of them (like this one for example) and as I was listening and ruminating I realized that actually, Jace is a quite realistically written character in his motives. He is an orphan who can't even remember where he is from and there is a fundamental divide between him and most other people because of his secret world travelling ability so in a sense it's perfectly understandable why he would fall for Liliana who is like him. I no longer blame him for trying to get back with her, no matter how stupid it is from where I am sitting.

So I guess it's about time I really try and forgive myself. And who knows maybe I could achieve something with the sudden free energy I'll have from not hating on myself all the time.