As in the tvtrope page.
Today I’ll talk about my intentions for one of my most obscure OC lore: arcarie.
When writing canon, I love leaving my works up to reader’s interpretation. Yet inevitably, in every written lore/ story there is always intention that I hope would come across to my readers. One in particular that bugs my mind the most is Arca’s demeanour.
Arca dated Rie when they both studied in the same institute. Their relationship is featured on a short story titled “puppy love” released back in 2021.
(preview below; direct link to the story here)
“puppy love” was intended to be a recollection of Rie’s memories -- a glimpse into his adolescent years, his orientation (gay awakening, basically), and by the end of it, how his relationship with his father affected his relationship with others.
But for some reason “puppy love” evolved to be shipping material. Well, it was partially my fault for always introducing Arca as “Rie’s ex”, admittedly.
“puppy love” is written exclusively from Rie’s point of view, and I must point out Rie is an unreliable narrator. His image of his ex is taken from a rose-tinted lense; what he thought happened isn’t necessarily the truth. For example, Rie was convinced his ex-partner had genuine attraction and love towards him. He was heads over heels for the man. In truth? Arca was a playboy; he didn’t care much about Rie. He only stuck around because he hadn’t grown bored -- though he was eventually forced to leave before he could grow bored of Rie.
This fact may be hard to pick up as it isn’t explicitly written into the story -- and above that -- reader’s interpretation is free. But this is the Word of God corner so everything written here is plain fact.
The only thing that supports this fact in canon is that Arca barely mentions Rie when he talks about his past. This too was purposely made ambigous as one could argue “Obviously Rie isn’t written there because Arca lived through so much shit, why would he even remember someone he was with for a brief moment in life?” and uno reverse card -- that’s the point! If Rie had truly been precious for Arca, he wouldn’t have forgotten him. These were the only hints left to the readers to pick up Arca’s actual feelings for Rie and his demeanour.
So to sum up, Arca’s feelings for Rie wasn’t genuine. Rie was Arca’s plaything; and Rie was gullible enough to fall in love for a bastard like Arca. Fortunately for Rie, Arca got forcibly removed in the end anyway, so he never found out the truth. On top of that, Christoph’s lack of explanation to his son led to another misconception that Christoph removed Arca because he was close to Rie.
(Nods in accomplishment.)
Please, don’t forget that Rie is truly an unreliable narrator. And the fact Arca is a bastard.
May we meet again in another post.