I guess my Roxy x Rudy ship isn't looking very seaworthy now.
Sylphie has really grown on me in the last couple of episodes to the point that I fully approve and endorse her ship with Rudy. As Rudy's childhood friend, while cute together, Sylphie seemed kind of boring because her whole thing then seemed to be her total dependence on Rudy. She didn't really seem to be anything other than that at the time, and like Paul was concerned about is that Sylphie seemed to be too dependent on Rudy and Rudy was sheltering her too much, they were both being detrimental to themselves and each other. However we now see her shared childhood with Rudy played an extremely important part in mending the now broken Rudy, with the cave reveal mirroring their childhood experience, and the reassurance of their bond that goes back to childhood. Aside from immediate family, I don't think anybody else other than Sylphie and Roxy could have been as reassuring as "someone he can be sure to never turn on him".
I wasn't that keen on grown up Sylphie/Fitz either, not until the last few episodes. She still seems rather uncapable despite being supposedly an elite bodyguard, in that she seems kind of disappointingly sub-par. She also seems to lack confidence and is shy and meek too much, again just relative to her station and those around her. Her character has seemed rather boring as Fitz, although she was very good at giving Rudy advice with things like Cliff and Elainalise, and helping with Linia and Pursena. But at times she kind of felt like a tag-along, like at the slave market, and taken advantage of by the princess and Luke (until these last few episodes). I think the important thing though is as Fitz she was a consistent trustworthy and a safe friend to Rudy, a stable and nurturing relationship which Rudy could count on over time (exactly like what the prostitute said Rudy needed). This shows when Rudy went to say hi to Fitz and Luke in the marketplace, and thought he got snubbed by Fitz, the only time Fitz wasn't "safe reliable" friend. Rudy said it really stung, and spent the entire time walking back fixated on it and trying to process what had happened. You could really hear how hurt he was in his voice when he asked Fitz why she did that, Rudy is unaffected by far worse treatment from Linia, and is so greatly affected by something relatively trivial from Fitz.
I think the point when I started to be convinced Sylphie was actually a good match for Rudy is when Sylphie disclosed her fantasy to the princess of how Sylphie knows and accepts Rudy's occasional crudeness, and that she also can be occasionally crude and return it to play along. The cave reveal, and Sylphie being super supportive despite Rudy's "performance issue" (unlike Sara), really raised the bar fast of how great Sylphie is. The only thing I'm kind of disappointed with is that Sylphie wasn't more upset with the princess when she laughed at Rudy's situation. Sylphie should have been at least as offended as Luke was, but Sylphie seems to act like she wasn't when the princess apologized. Anybody notice the bad advice the princess was giving about getting themselves both drunk, then pretending to be hot to peel off some clothes, was very similar to Sara's bad approach of drinking too much with Rudy before she tries to "pay him back"? Also Luke's rebuttal of the princess, when he said Rudy "must have come here out of sheer desperation with nowhere else to turn to for help", seemed kind of exaggerated. I think he may have been slamming the princess by alluding to the princess' same situation of "coming here out of sheer desperation with nowhere else to turn to for help".
Of course Sylphie "knocked it out of the park" when she went to stay the night with Rudy. Every little thing she says and does just shows she's totally there for Rudy, and is selflessly doing whatever she can to help him and be there for him, not matter what. Contrast that with Sara's motivations of despite wanting to genuinely get with Rudy, prefaces the situation as "paying her debt to him" even before the ED disaster, "I'm really grateful to you...if you didn't come looking for me, I would have die...if you want, we can do it". Sara doesn't even initiate nor undresses herself, like she doesn't want to give herself to him, despite the entire situation is controlled and lead by her from the shopping date, to the tavern drinking, to going back to Rudy's place. Sylphie on the other hand tells Rudy her feelings for him in the cave reveal before trying to go all the way, and comes right out and says she's "here to stay the night". Sylphie also immediately starts to undress herself on her own accord when Rudy drinks the aphrodisiac, and even decides to drink some herself despite her nervousness and hesitation. Sara and Sylphie's situations are quite the constrast, Sara is there mostly for herself, and Sylphie is there for Rudy.
Some people have mentioned the light novel had it so Sylphie was still in bed when Rudy woke up, the anime instead having her gone in the morning, and that her being gone wasn't as good. I disagree, as a anime-only watcher (maybe LN later), I found the scene of her gone then returning extremely powerful, and well done. Of course the anime scene is reminiscent of Eris abandoning him, and despite Rudy rationalizing Sylphie has guard duty and will be back, it highlights just how great the trauma he has for abandonment is, as he starts falling apart even when knowing he should be safe. When Sylphie returns, he embraces her crying saying "my Sylphie" and Sylphie reassures him she's right here, that pretty much cements the fact to Rudy that she's "someone who he can be certain to never turn on him". Again this contrasts with what Eris did which caused the whole mess of Rudy losing his confidence and getting ED in the first place. Rudy touches Sylphie's boobs and finds himself cured of his ED, I think this pretty much confirms the ED was caused by the mental trauma of the betrayal and abandonment from Eris, that Rudy couldn't trust anybody "to be certain they would never turn on him". When trying to do it with Sara, she turns her head away from Rudy just beforehand which makes it seem like she doesn't want to do it, and he gets ED shortly after. During the cave reveal when Rudy and Sylphie were about to get intimate, Sylphie looks nervous just beforehand causing Rudy to ask her if it's her first time. And when Rudy then went in to start, Sylphie closed her eyes and started trembling, and suddenly Rudy gets ED. It looks pretty certain that Rudy is getting turned off when he senses the women seeming like they don't want it. The ED happens with the prostitute who does seem to want it, however Rudy can't really trust nor feel comfortably emotionally safe with somebody he hardly knows. Before Rudy was able to do it with Eris, he had to convinced that she really wanted it by Eris saying "I want to have your kittens", when doing it with Sylphie, she said just beforehand "I want you to devour me". It seems the women has to be convincingly wanting it (otherwise it seems like a lie, thus a trust issue), and Rudy need to really believe and trust that woman won't ever turn on him. Rudy has finally found this with Sylphie, and it's reinforced greater by her missing in the morning and coming back, now Rudy can mend his trauma and start trusting people, that they won't betray and abandon him anymore.
Sylphie and Rudy getting married, I'm fully onboard with that given all of the above. Sylphie really has gone far and beyond with her supportiveness, selflessness, unconditional love, and mending Rudy's massive trauma. I did think it was annoying, and perhaps not that selfless of her for pretending to be Fritz for so long before revealing her identity to him sooner, but in the end I think it worked out better that way because they were able to meet each other again anew as adults, and bridge a stronger relationship with each other without the baggage of the gap in-between then and now. Also, Sylphie was able to ditch the stupid futuristic looking sunglasses. I never liked those, it always obnoxiously pulled me out of the setting, the style of the glasses clashed too much. As for Roxy, I still really would like for Rudy do the same with her that happened with Sylphie, but I'm not sure if that's possible with Sylphie now. I'm also pretty worried with the way Rudy's been worshipping Roxy and her panties, and that Roxy was bragging so much about Rudy back in that place he rescued Aisha and Lilia. It seem to have gotten so big on both ends that they no longer see the real person for the caricature they've cultivated of each other. That could be disasters.
Anyways despite S2's slight downgrade from S1 because S2 is more of a slice of life, and S1 was much more tighter, this first part of S2 was pretty amazing still. Everything fits in so well with what came before, and new things like the Sara situation mirrors and setups to compliment the return of Sylphie so well. And all the while all the episodes doing it's own smaller narrative and story from the larger narrative and story so well. I'm looking forward to the second part of S2 to be also amazingly good.
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