Unmei wa Yaku ni Tatanai - Ch. 6

[himi-cat]

I really REALLY disagree with that.
Even if you don't reciprocate someone feeling, you can't just tell them to just STOP feeling things. The only reason her senpai is even going along with it is because she cares about Tsugumi more than her own well-being, but what Tsugumi is doing is pretty abusive. I'm sure she probably didn't intend for it to be this way, but she selfishly wants her relationship with her senpai to go back to what it was, no matter how much it would hurt her senpai to do so.

I'm uncomfortable with characterising Tsumugi's behaviour as abusive, because it's clearly not malicious, and it's clearly not driven by trivial and selfish reasons - she's genuinely extremely uncomfortable with this whole situation and with how Amamiya feels, but she also cares very greatly about her and doesn't want to hurt her despite that discomfort, and she's doing her best to thread that needle.

At the same time, Amamiya seems to have seriously underestimated how strongly Tsumugi feels, and seems in particular to be struggling to grasp what Tsumugi is feeling here. This chapter drives that home hard with the "I like you, I love you" scene - Amamiya seems to feel like she just has to make her love (and the joy she's feeling because of it) clear, and it'll be accepted; she's hit so hard by Tsumugi's response (page 13 really is a massive gut punch) because she's hit by the realisation that Tsumugi knows how she feels already, and that knowledge is only making things worse for her.

They've both found themselves in a place where attempting to protect themselves will do as much damage as attempting to protect the person they care about, and there's no way that either of them are at fault - the worst you can say is that they didn't communicate their feelings as well as they could have, but they really didn't even know how they were feeling until it was too late . . .

I think the key to all of this drama is that Tsumugi herself doesn't understand why the red string (and the whole idea of a "fated love") makes her so terribly uncomfortable. If this was something she could properly articulate, even just to herself, I think she and her senpai could work things out - Amamiya's deep and heartfelt joy at being able to say "I love you" to Tsumugi makes it obvious that her feelings are in no way tarnished by any thoughts of "fated love", and it seems like the only reason Tsumugi hasn't recognised her own feelings for Amamiya (which are at minimum a serious crush) is because whatever makes her so uncomfortable with the idea of "fated love" has left her afraid of the idea of any kind of love.

But as I said, neither of them even realised how they felt until they were in too deep for there to be an easy solution. It's honestly hard for me to see this ending without a tragedy tag (though hopefully on the milder end of things) . . .

 

[louloute0203]

I'm uncomfortable with characterising Tsumugi's behaviour as abusive, because it's clearly not malicious, and it's clearly not driven by trivial and selfish reasons - she's genuinely extremely uncomfortable with this whole situation and with how Amamiya feels, but she also cares very greatly about her and doesn't want to hurt her despite that discomfort, and she's doing her best to thread that needle.

At the same time, Amamiya seems to have seriously underestimated how strongly Tsumugi feels, and seems in particular to be struggling to grasp what Tsumugi is feeling here. This chapter drives that home hard with the "I like you, I love you" scene - Amamiya seems to feel like she just has to make her love (and the joy she's feeling because of it) clear, and it'll be accepted; she's hit so hard by Tsumugi's response (page 13 really is a massive gut punch) because she's hit by the realisation that Tsumugi knows how she feels already, and that knowledge is only making things worse for her.

They've both found themselves in a place where attempting to protect themselves will do as much damage as attempting to protect the person they care about, and there's no way that either of them are at fault - the worst you can say is that they didn't communicate their feelings as well as they could have, but they really didn't even know how they were feeling until it was too late . . .

I think the key to all of this drama is that Tsumugi herself doesn't understand why the red string (and the whole idea of a "fated love") makes her so terribly uncomfortable. If this was something she could properly articulate, even just to herself, I think she and her senpai could work things out - Amamiya's deep and heartfelt joy at being able to say "I love you" to Tsumugi makes it obvious that her feelings are in no way tarnished by any thoughts of "fated love", and it seems like the only reason Tsumugi hasn't recognised her own feelings for Amamiya (which are at minimum a serious crush) is because whatever makes her so uncomfortable with the idea of "fated love" has left her afraid of the idea of any kind of love.

But as I said, neither of them even realised how they felt until they were in too deep for there to be an easy solution. It's honestly hard for me to see this ending without a tragedy tag (though hopefully on the milder end of things) . . .

As I said, I don't think Tsumugi intended for it to be abusive, but abuse isn't necessarily about intent. Even if she doesn't want to hurt her senpai, what exactly does she think it's going to accomplish to tell someone who loves her to just stop feeling that way? The reason I say it's selfish is mostly because Tsugumi could just ask Amamiya for time and distance, or just decrease how much time they spend together to possibly allow Amamiya to move on eventually one day, but it seems like Tsumugi wants to keep her relationship with Amamiya, but only as long as it's on her terms, and the only thing her proposal does is dismiss Amamiya's feelings just to have the outcome that she would prefer.

I do think this chapter shows that she ends up realizing how hurtful what she's doing is, considering how it ends up.

Just to make myself clear again, I'm not saying that Tsumugi is a bad person. Ignorance isn't malice, but you can hurt people by not taking their feelings into consideration just as well.

 

[rinovity]

Pain

 

[Maxim98]

Very gut wrenching. Love the conflict so far. As a lover of drama I’m hoping to see them hurting themselves more. In a way their current conflict is kinda proving the string of fate wrong as their relationship is anything but easy that everyone else in the school is portraying it as.

Little theorising but I feel like their conflict will probably go into the open at some point and may cause other stringed couples to have doubts about their relationships. Leading to more and larger conflicts within the school.