this passage from a hazel fic I never finished makes me wish that I had 🥲
Hazel’s old shack by the docks was now nothing more than a pile of old wood. She stood over it, remembering the way the door creaked when it opened, and the dip of the floorboards underneath her feet. It brought her comfort in a way, to see that old shack that for so long felt like her own personal hell, reduced to nothing more than a pile of rotting wood. But still, that sadness from before clung to her. She thought of who she was back then: a scared little girl who wanted nothing more than to be saved; to be loved deeply enough to be saved. For a long time, the shack and the memories it held had a power over Hazel that she could not explain. And now as she stood tall while her foe had fallen, she felt the power lessen.
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Actually no, let’s expand on the theme of memory in Karmaland and how it plays into the series’ overarching story as a whole.
In Karmaland, heroes are reincarnated (or pulled from other dimensions, however you may see it) time and time again. Their memories are wiped, and they’re a complete blank slate with no recollection of any of their previous lives at the beginning of each season.
...Or at least, that’s how it’s supposed to go. But some things outlast lifetimes, and two of the biggest examples of that in this series are love and trauma.
Let’s look at Luzu — betrayed, hurt, and left heartbroken in K4 — who cannot shake his fear of betrayal even in a new lifetime. In this current world, he operates with automatic wariness and distrust of everyone (with the exception of Quackity, to some degree), and although he still retains some of his old kindness and compassion, the grief from his past life is so strong it almost erased that part of him entirely.
In Karmaland, the strong emotions and meaningful experiences you have in your lifetime, whether good or bad, leave behind invisible marks on your soul that cannot be erased. And nobody exhibits that better than Rubius and Vegetta, especially after today’s revelations.
An undeniable truth that almost feels written into the very fabric of Karmaland’s universe itself is that Rubius and Vegetta love each other. The problem is: that love has very different ripple effects on the two of them, and each subsequent life they live.
This season, there’s clearly love between both characters, but a lack of commitment to that love, and a emotional imbalance to their relationship as a whole. When trying to explain it to a third party, Vegetta said, “Rubius doesn’t love me the way I love him,” and jokingly likened it to him making Rubius a hamburger, but Rubius refusing to eat it. Vegetta is, of course, always willing to play along with Rubius and reciprocate the affection he’s given, but he’s not expecting anything more from Rubius. The way I see it, it’s almost as if Vegetta’s default response to Rubius’ lack of commitment is resignation. He expects nothing more than what’s given, as though he’s preemptively saving himself from heartbreak.
Except that heartbreak has already happened.
In Karmaland 4, Vegetta gave Rubius his love, his heart, his everything, and the moment they were married, Rubius revealed it was all a con. Regardless of anything that came afterward, in that life or this one, the effects of that moment left behind deep scars on Vegetta’s heart.
Rubius, on the other hand, never seemed to be troubled by any events in his previous lives until today. All at once, he’s forced to remember the life he once lived, but during that confusing revelation, his gut reaction is to ask an old loved one: “What was my relationship with Vegetta?” Rubius is a powerful man with questionable morals at the best of times, but this seemingly instinctual reaction says a lot about him as a character, and his priorities as a whole.
I think one of the most telling moments from today’s event is that, while Rubius remembers the wedding, he doesn’t remember his betrayal. He associates that memory, and his relationship with Vegetta, with joy, and sees it in a positive light.
The difference is: Vegetta associates that hazy memory, and Rubius, with abandonment. And as we’re rapidly approaching Lolito’s and Vegetta’s wedding day, it seems like history is doomed to repeat itself.
With pressure from Rubius and Alexby, and influenced by his own questionable motives and thirst for power, it’s looking like Lolito won’t marry Vegetta after all (and if he does, the marriage certainly won’t be a happy one). Even as Vegetta tries to distance himself from Rubius, he still winds up getting hurt because of his direct and indirect actions. It’s almost as if in every new lifetime, Rubius is coming closer and closer to fully embracing his love for Vegetta, but at the same time, each new timeline is driving Vegetta further and further away from him because Vegetta is subconsciously starting to associate Rubius with negative things.
Broken promises. Lack of commitment. Betrayal. Abandonment.
Rubius and Vegetta are permanently bound together by fate, but that “red string of fate” is slowly killing one of them. Or, to quote a meme shared by another Spanish fan; “You don’t want me to be with you, and you don’t want me to be with someone else. How miserable do I have to be for you to be happy?”
Karma is defined as the sum of a person’s actions in this, and previous states of existence, determining their fate and future existences. So what did Vegetta do to deserve this kind of suffering?
When does love become torment, and when does fate become a curse?
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