#I'm not going to say anything about how realistic any of this is

[fumifooms]

Marcille and Chilchuck’s interwoven character arcs: the fantasy of prince charming, idealization vs pessimism and loss

I’ve alluded to Marcille and Chilchuck being central to each other’s arcs so many times but the proper full analysis has been long overdue. I’ve made a post going into their differences and similarities and the many ways they’re foils for each other, but this is going to give more focus to a narrative rather than character angle this time around. We talk a lot about the importance of Marcille in Chilchuck’s arc, it's more obvious overall, but less so about Chilchuck’s importance in her own, so this is going to emphase on the latter. They have a lot of ridiculously unique conflict specific to their situation and world, and an intriguing dynamic. Relationships can be layered and subtext can imply quite a lot, the reality of things can be more complex than we'd like or hard to reconcile, and that's exactly what we're talking about today and how that is a lesson Marcille needed to learn. Give this a shot and look at the manga pages alongside my reading and decide for yourself wether I’ve got a point or I’m going overboard~!

So, Marcille and Chilchuck are character foils in many many ways, and I think a particularly brilliant part of their arc is how they balanced each other out on idealization. On one hand, idealizing things means only seeing what you want to see through rose-colored glasses, on the other, being completely opposed to it usually means denouncing any optimism at all, refusing to hold any good faith or hope. These stances reflect both their backgrounds, as Chilchuck has lived through being discriminated against and taken advantage of consistently, betrayed by employers and eventually the person supposed to be closest to him, his wife, meanwhile Marcille grew up more sheltered and lonely, and books were a big way through which she experienced social situations & the ways of the world in her rural home before going to the magic academy as a researcher and getting more actual life experience herself.

I think it’s especially interesting to analyze the trope of— the idealization of— the perfect chivalrous prince on a white horse who is pure hearted and will make you swoon, in the context of their relationship and their arcs! It’s a recurring motif- you’ll just have to trust me and read further~ Obviously this contains spoilers for the whole manga, so beware! It's very long because I'm trying to cover the topic fully from the ground up, my apologies.

Table of contents:

How they start out

The Daltian Clan and its importance

Prince Charming vs Chilchuck Tims

Ideals vs desires vs wants

Deconstructing realistic romance & compromising between romanticism and reality

Princess imagery in Marcille

Conclusion

Let’s start with the beginning:

How the characters start off:

Their relationship is both familiar and strained (extra reading: analysis of their relationship pre-canon and early canon), they bounce off each other with the ease of coworkers who’ve been working together for two years and who share similar common sense. Because yes they’re both generally grounded and rational, and generally they respect each other’s input and perspective, but, they both have blind spots…

The biggest hurdle is the way Chilchuck refuses to open up. Marcille has made efforts to befriend him, and though he was open to developing a better workplace dynamic and, say, helping her out with shopping for a pouch outside of work, even if it ended up being counterproductive he’d refuse to even just say his age, let alone share anything about his family situation. Knowing he had kids and a wife would have pretty efficiently fully shut down that he was a kid, and yet he valued being closed off more. Chilchuck is often shown being pessimistic, assuming the worst intentions out of people and being wary of anything good happening, being the last person to trust something or someone, etc. (Quick summary analysis of him I made if you want here, beyond the character foil analysis I linked at the beginning.) He prefers assuming that opening up will only bring him problems to assuming that it'd bring about positive things.

Meanwhile Marcille is very… Honestly she’s hard to classify strongly. Because I could say she’s very open to people, but honestly it’s conditional? She emotes intensely but she’s not quite a befriending machine either, especially when we recall the magic academy days as well, she’s not unused to keeping people at some level of distance, herself keeping a lot of secrets too. She was very wary of Laios at first because she had misconceptions, she holds grudges and isn’t personable with everyone like Namari or Toshiro, when she’s introduced to the party she seems serious and doesn’t smile. While I don’t fully agree, there’s a good analysis not by me here showcasing what I’m talking about. Marcille’s more serious academic side often gets undermined and I think it’s an important part of her, but then the difference between her and Chilchuck comes down to theory vs practice: knowledge vs experience. I think something more fitting to say would be that she’s idealistic and easily swayed, for example the way she lights up whenever she can put a story-like twist on things, her mood can go from dread to hype and reverse in one second, like with riding a kelpie or with the conflict between Chilchuck and his wife, or again with Namari, where it becomes a sort of hero vs antagonist dynamic for her where justice and righteous thoughts should override everything else like needing money to live. She's very stubborn, like he is, but it's easier for her to come around in dramatic ways, on things big and small, mentioning for another example thinking better of orcs suddenly because they can cook well.

So sure on first meeting she isn’t exactly eager, but then we do see her enthusiastically trying to befriend everyone! Becoming very friendly once she’s done assessing them. She is social, and fittingly she’s very curious about people. And that said, aesthetics do matter a lot to her, and I mean this beyond just enjoying vibes, for example- and follow along the lingo I'm setting up here- if something ‘breaks’ an aesthetic like Chilchuck or Falin not being a child she’ll willfully dismiss and ignore it, if she can spin something into a story like Chilchuck’s breakup she’ll get carried away, she can get the wrong impression, be gullible for the sake of believing a narrative, such and such. I’d say she’s guarded around people at first, but then with time becomes an open book emotions wise, how she’s always loudly and unapologetically talking about her feelings and emoting. She’s not reckless, rather she’s bold and often has to make decisions quickly, like when the plan unexpectedly changed during the red dragon fight, but things like using dark magic can feel like thoughtless decisions looking from the outside, like to Chilchuck, who as per his pessimism dictates he sees all of this in a negative light, assumes the worst: that she’s just ignorant, naive and reckless. She’s easily worried and discouraged but still always perseveres.

He's biased against mages and elves because of past experiences and he projects that onto Marcille. And it makes sense because good faith is dangerous to Chilchuck- for his feelings in relationships yes, but more concretely and important for his life at work, the way an old party of his was going to sacrifice him to succubi for easy money. Like the way he constantly puts his non-work values down to the group so they don’t have high expectations of him, having high expectations for someone else is vulnerability he doesn’t want to or cannot afford. The result however is that he, too, put people into boxes to avoid having his preconceived notions challenged. He's very judgemental, which we see with Laios as well, and even with Izutsumi in the ice golem chapter, but by then he's learned to self-reflect more and be honest with his feelings due to Leed, meaning his social conflicts get resolved more often and more quickly, again like with Izutsumi in the ice golem chapter.

So in the end, there are things that stand in the way of them having true, equal respect for one another. She sees him as a kid despite everything else (being capable and mature, etc etc), and he sees her as a ticking bomb of a naive elf mage who’s gonna get herself into legal trouble if she doesn’t get them killed first.

And it takes an arc spanning the whole manga for them to get there, to truly see each other on equal footing, culminating with the bicorn chapter.

I'm going to be mentioning them a lot so in my mind, the most important Marcille & Chilchuck arc defining scenes happen in: mandrake chapter, mimic chapter, shapeshifter chapter, hypogriff soup chapter, changelings, bicorn, succubus, and Marcille dungeon lord. We're talking mostly about Marcille's discrimination and their narrative about loss here, but on the end of Chilchuck's discrimination the dark magic plot is very central so honorable mention to the red dragon chapters, the harpies chapter and the cockatrice chapter, the latter where Chilchuck airs out his beef particularly directly.

Interestingly enough, the mandrake chapter which is in VERY early manga, where characters and dynamics are still being set up, Marcille gets Chilchuck to say that she isn't a burden and that he's glad they have her and her skillset with them, so the question of "does he respect her at all" was answered before the audience could even think to ask it, and Marcille also makes statements shortly after showing she respects him in turn- more on that later. This has for a result that we do know there's a foundation of respect here, even when as said it's not complete... yet.

So let’s get into it! Early on we already get a lot instances hinting at their opposed core values of optimism vs pessimism. It’s perfectly summarized in the two panel excerpts opening this post: "Sounds romantic!" "Sounds fishy.", hope vs wariness. "Meeting you was fate!" "… Which means it’s fate for you to eat these monsters, too!", if good things happening to you is fate then you must accept that all the bad things that happen to you are fate as well. It’s "Things will work out!" vs "Things will not work out".

The issue here seems rather evident, it’s a balancing game. Compromising, adapting your judgement to the situation. Yes Marcille romanticizes things too much and it can cause her trouble, and yes Chilchuck being so closed off on himself gets him into trouble as well.

(Not telling there was a mimic nearby being maybe the most straightforward example.)

His refusal to hope for anything good happening to him ever is at the core of him not having even tried reconciling with his wife (more on that later with the bicorn chapter). Through the manga, Chilchuck influences her to be more savvy and to respect boundaries more (with himself and Namari for example), while she influences him to become more open and give things a go. It’s no coincidence that it’s Marcille that pushes him to try reconciling with his wife and gives him hope that it just might work out- that that chance even on its own means it's worth giving it a shot.

The Daltian Clan & its importance

The importance of fiction in some people's lives and their specific psychological relationship to it is a very complex human brain topic with many many studies and an infinite amount of subtleties, I can't possibly do justice to this section at its full potential but I'll go over my major points. But the complex and layered nature of this relationship is why, for example, the interpretation that Marcille is a lesbian despite her likely attraction/love for male fictional characters (if not even just simping or stanning separate from those), has legs to stand on and is a compelling angle!

The Daltian Clan, often shortened as Dalclan, is Marcille's favorite book series and is very very personally important to her. In an extra we learn that part of it is that seeing a half-elf character personally reached out to her and meant a lot. She feels seen through it. Even if it's notable that the half-elf haracter isn't her favorite, general Hagreus, but the one with black hair. It's a Cinderella type of romance & convoluted political intrigue series full with a lot of drama, reminiscent of stuff like Romeo & Juliette or Richard III.

I believe that books were developmentally very important for her, similarly as to how cartoons are important to the education and development of toddlers and kids nowadays, or how oral stories like fairytales have always been important to teach lessons. Fiction engages readers and provides emotional stimulation, which can often be a flawed substitute for actual human contact- but nonetheless a big factor in socialization. For Marcille who lived in a rather rural region surrounded by books and chickens, who couldn't fit in with kids of any age around, books were a major part of teaching her how to socialize, how people and social groups worked. This is also part of why the autistic Marcille angle can be very compelling and plausible, though personally I don't see it that way.

So yes I think that sort of upbringing shaped her a lot, and I think it's part of why Marcille has trouble not putting people into boxes... Why even though Falin assured her it wasn't like that, Marcille had made this whole narrative in her mind painting Laios as a villain that stole Falin away against her will/for nefarious purposes. Why she has trouble not thinking of/treating Falin as a kid, unwilling to process how she has grown up. Why Chilchuck has to be very young in her mind, and it was very very hard for her to reconcile the fact that he wasn't. (It's actually interesting to note that Marcille treats Falin and Chilchuck similarly in a lot of ways, overstepping boundaries, being dimissive and touchy- There's a lot to say about how the party dynamic changed a lot with during canon it becoming just Laios, Marcille and Chilchuck at first and Laios' monster interest reveal, notably that in Falin's absence that she may have latched onto Chilchuck and treats him similarly to Falin may be her finding it omforting to fall into habits or filling a hole.) I think complexity in fictional characters gets her gears turning, but there's always a film of impersonality to it right, where it's not real, there's a safe distance, if you want to form romantic narratives about how things went down and a character's angst, you can, but someone who’s real… Things are often uglier or harder to grapple with. And she doesn’t want Falin to have grown up, for her to so quickly have aged. I think applying this sort of storybook veneer onto her real life connections, pushing people into boxes, is a way for her to make social relationships more digestible. And she's a big gossip enjoyer too! Engaging in shallow retellings of people's interpersonal drama, eating it up with enthusiasm and curiosity. Part of it, like with novels, is vicariously living through others I think, experiencing making connections where she hasn't or couldn't, the way her relationship with the other girls at the academy besides Falin stayed distant and shallow despite being friendly. Gossip, like stories, are safe, distant from your own life, they're easy to judge, not unlike the irl popular interest in following others’ online drama. You’re not involved yourself, so you don’t have as much chance of getting hurt. So yes, easier to digest. Less complex, less unpleasant things and less contradictions that are hard to process. Sort of like a defense mechanism to not have your worldview challenged, dodging having to recognize these things by assigning them tropes. And I think part of it too like I implied is: she can’t experience actual loss through books and gossip. They give her emotional social stimulation she doesn’t fully allow herself to have with actual humans for fear of getting invested in a way that’s very raw and personal. Again, like how she pushes Falin away to ignore the more nuanced facets to their relationship! The intensity of what I’m speculating on here in her character is debatable but I do think it’s present at least in some amount.

In a similar way to dogs being important to Laios’ social life (I made something of an analysis on that if you're interested, but this one's not relevant to what I'm talking about in this post) books are her comfort zone. If she can compare a real situation to a story it brightens everything and, well, it does make her assume things wrongly often but it also makes her able to analyze people deeply, like the roleplay-theory-speculation about Chilchuck's wife and the way she hit bullseye on how Chilchuck felt in the aftermath. But like how Marcille only agreed to wear the frog suit when the party told her it'd look cute on her, or how thinking about riding on kelpies made her excited for what previously she saw as a tedious and dreadful journey. Special interest power blast.

And this is where comes in her coworker, a disillusioned embittered man.

A guy who knows all about how messed up the world & people can be and isn't afraid to say it how it is, who in every sphere of life has field experience rather than fictional one- with romance, work, and having dreams & ambitions. Someone flawed and real, someone who won't let her interpret him however she wants without confronting her about it & challenging her to change her perspective.

It took a looot for Marcille to fully stop seeing him as a kid, and in a way I think it was necessary for the dissonance to be both this hard to reconcile and this impossible to ignore: that he truly is a middle-aged man down to his demeanor and family background but that he looks like a teen at most to her. That she literally has to look beyond aesthetics to be able to first fathom then accept and internalize that he's an adult despite his looks. That it was so ingrained and took so long, so much that even while she recognized and said "He's usually the most mature one of us", so much that even as it's implied that she knew logically he's an adult before the changelings, as pictured earlier she still couldn't conceive it. It's like with her calling Laios and Falin's parents kids in a post-canon extra, it's not that she doesn't know it's that it's hard to wrap her head around. Necessary and important because, if Chilchuck was any less loud about being a man she could have gone on unchallenged in her assumptions. If it was an easier to dismantle misconception, something easier to digest, then her arc of coming to see him as he is would have had less impact on her character, afterwards she could continue to run with her own interpretations of people like Falin and Namari without her confidence in being able to pin down people into simple roles being so fundamentally shaken. And it's notable too, that Namari's choice to leave the party to look out for herself situation was decidedly unheroic, but it was Chilchuck who spoke to Marcille about why her decision was both reasonable and had a lot of thought behind it, making her accept that it doesn't make Namari a bad person or even a bad coworker or friend.

Chilchuck is someone who knows that sometimes, bad things happen for no reason, and it's not meaningful or part of a grand narrative, it just sucks and you have to deal with it.

As the foil to her very emotional black and white interpretations of things, Chilchuck represents nuance, and he's impossible for her to ignore.

Prince Charming vs Chilchuck Tims

Chilchuck is so obviously not a prince charming. He doesn't have the looks, the attitude nor the lifestyle. Does he have the virtues for it? Well, no... But also, yes. More on that in a bit. It's also interesting to think of the status aspect to it, because being from an impoverished oppressed class/community is so central to Chilchuck's character, something usually far removed from prince charmings and white knights, and not only status wise but on the topic of virtues... It’s an interesting thread to explore, the way one may have the means to remain chivalrous rather than becoming distrustful and embittered: sometimes optimism is a sign of privilege, being able to be or remain optimistic through life. I'm sure Marcille would be the first to jump onto the aesthetic and narrative allure of a pauper in love with a princess, of a hero of the people à la Robin Hood, but it's still interesting to think of that as another facet of the contrast Chilchuck makes. Alright, tangent done.

But obviously, despite this all they have a great work dynamic and respect for each other's capabilities. It's not like Marcille is mean to people who don't fit these fairytale high standards, no that’s only when she feels wronged or if there's injustice, rather she becomes dismissive of people’s complexity, wether they become an angel like Falin or Marcille’s shapeshifter of Chilchuck or a villain like Namari and Toshiro or Laios when they met. But my point, my point: she actually thinks very highly of him!

"He’s usually the most mature one of us" "He’s dependable, we’re counting on him" "No, chilchuck is definitely virtuous."

And I think the ways in which that shows are very interesting.

^ Ok so this happens, in the Namari chapter I keep talking about. Look at his expression in this last panel. He's always teasing her, but doesn't this here feels a bit... Suggestive? Like he's implying things, not just talking about it in a work setting but also giving her general life advice. Maybe even making an innuendo for womanizers, gentlemen who flirt without meaning a thing and have some hidden agenda. Warning her about smooth talkers that seem too good to be true. It’s honestly a very easy to overlook but defining interaction for them. It’s a quote that’s on his Adventurer’s Bible plus his anime quote keychain merch!

I love his implication that "I say what I’m about straight up, money, so you can trust me"- and isn’t that just the exact thing… Because that is what this is, he’s pitting himself against these people who help without asking for anything and he's saying he’s more trustworthy and reliable than them, driving a wedge between him and those people to prop himself up by comparison. His words tie a lot here into his general worldview too, of course here he's ✨Imparting His Wisdom✨, but it also ties into his self-image issues I'd say, where he’s hard on himself and calls himself a coward etc: if no one has positive expectations for you on an interpersonal level, then you can’t disappoint them. It only goes up from here if you start at rock bottom, can't have unpleasant surprises.

But the meaningfulness of this moment doesn't start and end there: That moment happened in chapter 20, but then this happens in chapters 36-37...

I was always puzzled by the split second interaction between Marcille and Kabru. Marcille blushing is the point, it’s in the anime too and it’s the focus of the panel. That moment of hesitation before she goes back into business mode where she looks at him back, and blushes. And idk I always felt like it was weird timing, like it was a weird beat Kui chose to put emphasis on, why the story even had them make eye contact in the first place, what point it could be making besides "Kabru is handsome and charismatic" which was already made with Hien and Benichidori below, otherwise it's not even like Marcille and Kabru ever interact. Like, maybe it's for it to be a callback when she glances at him while the canaries interrogate her at Thistle's house? Regardless, she blushes, but her expression is more akin to a "Uuhh he smiled at me why’d he smile at me like that. Oh he’s kinda pretty. Well anyways-" rather than swooning or truly checking him out. She’s frowning, even. And like I said, being very naturally charming was a point already made previously.

But then… This repeated reminder that Kabru is a lady killer IS the point, Marcille reacting to him in that way IS the point. Kabru is the epitome of ‘will say they help you but has hidden motives and might betray your trust if it serves their interest’ (not a diss on him tbf he has understandable goals), he is the epitome of looking noble, welcoming and chivalrous but actually being dishonest and manipulative, and what’s important here is… Marcille turns away and sticks by Chilchuck. Of course this is logical, no one would expect her to go running to Kabru lol, but I implore you to think of the thematics of it all, a princely guy, the closest character of the cast in the flesh embodying the prince charming persona, is giving her some positive attention, and it does affect her a bit but nonetheless she turns away, and strategizes with Chilchuck instead of trusting or giving good faith or getting carried away. She chooses Chilchuck. Unlike so often, she doesn’t let aesthetics sway her here, get in the way of her better judgement, distract her from the point. She chooses not to give good faith, even if he seems charming and friendly and smiles. Marcille is serious when the situation requires it that's now new, but this is in line with the lesson he instilled earlier above. And if nothing else, Marcille has a good memory, exhibit B to come later. Here we see part of why Chilchuck was afraid of Laios or Senshi but not Marcille blurting out the wrong things with Toshiro and is party, when push comes to shove they're often on the same wavelength. Marcille and Chikchuck do strategize with specifically each other regularly, they do tend to pair up a lot after all, so this isn’t especially new, but it’s the first time there’s this sense of us vs them imo. Like how earlier Chilchuck was saying that he’s better than the smooth talker type, here we see Marcille implicitly agree.

She just has a passing glance & thought for Kabru but she knows her true allies and true values, and she wants to strategize with Chilchuck. What I am saying is that if she was given the choice to think through going with a guy that seems perfect and chivalrous like her succubus, if she was logical about it she’d pick Chilchuck over that guy actually, yeah. At the end of the day, no matter the pretty smiles, she knows who her actual friends are. Whiiich on that topic, next section!

Ideals vs desires vs wants

It's succubus analysis time

Her succubus is quite direcly a prince figure, a knight on a white horse who's come to whisk her away. He calls her princess, even! She's taken the role of Daltian Clan's protagonist, essentially. He kisses her hand, nothing short of the most classic courtly romance tropes. He's even drawn in a noticeably more shoujo style, not unlike the characters' faces in the aftermath of getting their energy sucked by succubi.

I made a whole analysis on specifically Laios’ succubus but it covers some stuff that could be interesting for this analysis as well, I’ll repeat the essential stuff tho: Their succubus all show what type of social connection they desire. Izutsumi’s is familial, Marcille wants someone she can emotionally connect with, seemingly romantic, Chilchuck wants something physical and sexual so he doesn’t have to think and worry about anything deeper (betrayal, insecurities, etc, the difficulting that come with a committed romantic relationship- also likely related to his senses & stress), and Laios wants people and friends who’ll accept him and his monster interest- platonic.

But more interesting for this analysis is how succubi work. The goal isn’t to beckon, but to incapacitate. The succubus doesn't work on the basis of rationality, it’s not a factor they go for and it’s not one they need to appeal to either, as we see. (Laios is a special case -gestures to the linked analysis- but the succubus doesn’t appeal to his rationality as much as it soothes his worries, his friends judging him etc etc, and the reason Izutsumi could remain unaffected is that there is always a half of her not enthralled by the succubus because she essentially has two souls.) Neither Marcille, Chilchuck or Izutsumi could realistically expect any of the people they saw to be real and not fake succubis. They KNOW that, they were actively preparing for the succubi to jump on them and fight back, rationally they know they're monsters! But how this monster works is that it targets deep desires within you that when face to face with it'll make you hesitate, make something in you unable to fight or flight and instead do the third instinctive option: freeze. Or especially in Laios’ case, the form gives the victim just enough confliction on the matter for them to want to believe it’s real. All they have to do is just not move, stay passive and accept the attention, so it’s not an issue of wether they reciprocate an action or run away. It's so that it shortcircuits you and leaves you open to pick like a fruit.

If this wasn’t the "reads your heart so deeply that it freezes you to the spot" monster, Chilchuck WOULDN’T be doing anything with these women. He’s been devoted to his wife even 4 years after separation on bad terms, you think he’d ever cheat on her? If this was a decision he were to make, instead of just freezing, he would reject it. In that similar way, Marcille’s succubus might not be what she’d rationally go for. You think if this was what Marcille had to choose, the person she wants most to see and at her side, her most alluring form wouldn't be Falin, alive and well? You think that wouldn't be the thing Laios truly wants most as well? And before people say that canon proved that the latter wasn't with the curse the winged lion put on him, THAT'S THE POINT!!!! You can irrationally desire things, you can desire things to degrees so deep you can’t change it even if you wish you could, but if it was truly a choice up to you, you'd choose otherwise. Laios decided to become king, even if that's a lifestyle so far from what he truly wanted, even if it is duty more than fun for him. Like how Chilchuck would choose faithfulness despite for sure having come into contact with many beauties through his four years of separation.

Ideals vs reality are a big Dunmeshi theme in general, same as wants vs needs, and you can see Marcille’s daydreams and novel themes make it an especially relevant throughline and theme for her. Not unlike how in my opinion General Hareus and Mithrun intentionally look very alike to contrast reality vs fantasy!

Marcille never reacts any particular way to Mithrun’s appearance despite the blatant resemblance, so that makes me think the point/joke is meta rather than character focused. The romanticization of elves and their societal drama in their fiction contrasting heavily with a very real and imperfect product of their military system. The canaries certainly aren’t glamorous next to whatever military Hareus is the general of. There’s even the fun little details like Hagreus’ lips being drawn with extra details because they’re full and pretty while Mithrun’s lips are drawn with extra details because they’re chapped and dehydrated.

So yes, themes of what you actually want vs irrational cravings. Base desires vs actual wants. Needs are also separate, but not relevant for this discussion. To get to the specific definitions I’m using for the words in this section’s header, ideals vs wants vs desires: ideals are your ideal of something, the best degree to which a thing could be tailored to you, and it can be derived from both wants and desires, usually a mix of the two, but for example: I’d say the succubus is a type of ideal (the platonic ideal of allure to the victim) derived solely from desires, because a want is active rather than passive, acted upon rather than suffered, because a want unlike a desire involves thinking things through. So a want: something you want, you take actions towards getting or achieving it, it can be a very strong feeling but it’s something you pursue or wish to pursue. Finding a cure to death is a want, not wanting to be alone is a desire, see, I’m assigning desire this more primal or unchanging subconscious nature to it. On the flipside with Chilchuck, sex without ties, easy pleasure, is a desire, but the want is not having to think about his marriage situation because it’s painful, not wanting an emorional connection because it’s all the easier to be hurt with, just wanting to take his mind off of everything for a while.

Thus the succubus targets Marcille’s wish for a perfect knight who could cherish her forevermore, someone safe and known and fantastical, just hers in a way, free to see and construct however she wants because he’s a character to interpret, and it targets Chilchuck’s wish for pleasure that’ll whisk him away from the stress and pressure and reality of his life, something that’ll make him feel both good and desirable and emotionally uncompromised, not unlike what alcohol does, as he says he likes having his fine senses dulled in the changeling chapter. Idealization is twisting the image of something in your mind to be closer to what you want, but usually mostly desire on a more subconscious level, to be true, almost a wish, sometimes but not always hand in hand with idolization which is to put something on a pedestral. Idealizing things that are easier to reconcile with mostly, in Marcille’s case: it’s easier to believe that Chilchuck is very young and it’s easier to stomach that Falin hasn’t aged much, it's easier to believe Falin is an angel who can do no wrong and if she left with Laios it's not that she chose to leave Marcille, and it's easier to believe Chilchuck is just a moody closed off youngster than an embittered old man. It can be done to people as much as concepts, like the idea/plan to give everyone a 1000 years lifespan, surely that'd do really well and everyone would love it. Wants and desires are both very often about changing reality after all, wether it be your situation or an event in your past or a law of the world like death, but wants are mostly through actions and since desires are more subconscious it can lead to self-delusion easily. Like with succubi, wants engage with your rationality so they target desires instead. The demon's strategy isn't too ar off, either, feeding into both and using underlying desires to manipulate its victims. Dungeon Meshi is in part yes about resisting desires, the irrational cravings, mostly through the character of the demon. I mentioned needs earlier, and to ideals vs wants we also add vs needs, both emotional and physical, and needs alongside wants are what Dungeon Meshi wishes to promote for a healthier person, Dungeon Meshi which illustrates very well with the dungeon lords that you can be a slave to your desires.

The parallel between succubi and demons is intentional. The demon is in fact the origin of the succubus myth in-world. No wonder they operate similarly in many ways- the succubi are in a way a more simple straightforward version of the demon, with less convoluted strategies and less intricate manipulation.

Of course the succubus each character sees does say something about their characters, but what I’m saying is we shouldn’t assign choice or morality to it as if it wasn’t an ethereal monster whose whole biology is focused on being able to freeze people through appealing to desires, much like how we can’t fault people for falling for demons’ manipulations. Like that’s their WHOLE thing and they use mind control through enticement shenanigans. I know people sometimes fault Chil for his succubi and if you want here’s my stance.

Point of this whole thing is, people can rationally choose things that are different from their deeper desires, like in truth Falin’s safety being more important to Laios than becoming a monster. Like how Marcille stayed with Chilchuck to strategize instead of wanting to give good faith to Kabru. Yes, this is the main point I'm coming at with this section lol. Marcille idealizes and idolizes the figure of a perfect prince charming, undoubtedly! But when it comes to what she actually wants, not in some ideal fantay world but in reality, she knows Chilchuck and her imperfect friends are some of the best she could ask for. She's content with them as they are. She would choose a flawed reality over a perfect fantasy.

That's a big part of what her dungeon lord arc is about too, all her tendencies to ignore what others want for what she thinks is best for them or thinks is a perfect course of action: accepting that people are complex with different wants, and that something that's a no-brainer to her like wanting to live for a long long time is a solid no for many. And Laios and the party confront her about it, and Marcille, even under the influence of a demon, chooses to accept reality. Chooses to accept that there are some things that, even were she to be able to, she shouldn’t change after all (even for stuff that’s not forcing everyone to live for a millenium, like bringing Falin back from the dead is something that the party and Marcille had to come to terms with maybe not working and the way they went about it was self-centered). She chooses to come back to herself and the party, to accept the world as it is even if flawed and sometimes hurtful.

And hm, I wonder if Chilchuck had any role in the lead up to that particular decision... I wonder if Chilchuck was a major influence in teaching Marcille that the world isn't perfect and her internalizing things that were outside of her bubble!! I wonder if Chilchuck was directly what made Macille turn towards her party and thus start thinking of giving up on being dungeon lord!! Joking, joking, of course it does. To be continued, see you in the princess imagery section at the end of this essay.

Essentially, this section is to show that: 1) despite what her succubus may suggest, she has indeed grown by that point in the manga compared to pre-canon and her overly idealistic simple black and white vision of things, and it doesn't prove the ‘choosing her friends over a prince thing’ wrong, and 2) despite how deeply ingrained romanticism is in her and how it calls out to her, she still has chosen and continues to choose reality and her friends over it. How fantasy is important to her and how much she loves it, and her having the will not to mindlessly succumb to it coexist and it's that resistance against fantastical ideals that speaks of her as a character so much.

And what does that mean, for Chilchuck? For him and Marcille?

Deconstructing realistic romance AKA compromising between romanticism and reality AKA Chilchuck Tims vs Prince Charming part 2

So what we’ve covered so far is that 1: idealization is something that Marcille does a lot, including concerning Chilchuck, 2: the prince/knight figure is meaningful & important to her, 3: Marcille isn’t a lost cause on it, and for instance, much like how she stops harping on Namari after Chilchuck explains to her how professional reputations and networking work, he can change her mind on things.

Let’s get back to their prejudices of each other for a bit. You might have to zoom in for this one.

Her shapeshifters of both Chil and Laios are influenced a lot by looks and impressions. She’s very adamant about Laios and Falin not looking alike at all, for one. Marcille’s view of Chilchuck’s lockpicks are surprisingly accurate. Meanwhile, despite their first big relationship moment during canon being about how he’s glad to have her and her skills for the dungeon dive, he still ridiculizes her magic somewhat with the crude spellbook. She’s still silly and tease-worthy to him, even while he praises her like in the good medicine chapter with Leed he says it himself in the same breath. Silly, or "ridiculous" depending on the translation, is somewhat ambiguous, but I assign it the meaning of 'thoughtlessly reckless', like how again in the good medicine chapter when he's saying this he's referring to Marcille's future job prospects, because law and career are important to conform to for him. Despite this, their shapeshifters’ behaviors are accurate, although Marcille’s Chilchuck is nicer and less bitterly reclusive. Note how it's Marcille's chilchuck that makes it furthest and how why she thinks hers is the true one is that her Chilchuck "looks less mean"- this is what I mean when I say she idealizes him and sees him as a little angel, along with his fluffier hair it gives us the perspective of why she'd find him so hair-ruffable and why she likes sticking to him so much, I suppose.

Marcille's arc of not seeing Chilchuck for what he is has steps, it's not like Senshi who does an 180 seeing his changeling. There are a couple of important moments for it that tell us her progress and changes her perspective: Him telling his age -> the shapeshifters (our best look into an objective assessment of her perspective) -> reveal that he has a wife and kid(s) (fully shattering her denial) -> seeing him as a changeling (true reckoning. Putting the nail in the coffin of what reality is) -> bicorn chapter (acceptance. Internalization)

You might notice that the explanation for Marcille’s Chilchuck is "Even though she’s been told he’s an adult, deep in her heart she still doesn’t get it", and a fantranslation translates it as "Understands he’s supposed to be an adult, but hasn’t quite come to grips with the fact internally". This definitely implies her arc of growing to see him as an adult had already started by then. Especially if we compare it to Senshi’s more intense babyfied Chilchuck. This goes back to what I was saying about Marcille watering down people for the sake of aesthetics, some rational part of her knows he’s an adult, but it’s emotionally that she struggles to reconcile the fact with her perspective. It’s actually pretty ambiguous when she first starts considering he might be an adult. If by this point she was already digesting it, then I think it must’ve been when he told the party his age. It’s not unsimilar to rationally knowing Falin is an adult at 23 even if it doesn’t feel like it to her, or post-canon calling the Touden parents kids even though obviously she’d know they aren’t actually, it’s classic longlived race patronization. He’s older than Falin, by 6 whole years, and even Marcille isn’t that blind to what that'd mean. Wouldn't marcille also have a problem with child labor otherwise? There's also how Marcille pre-canon shortly speculated Chilchuck was in love with Namari in her Adventurer's Bible extra. She for sure has witnessed a lot of half-foots walking around, probably even drinking at taverns. She knows, on some level. Chilchuck even does a whole rant after they react going on "this is why long lived races are condescending assholes". So that’s my bet, "Is he an adult?" "Well yes but actually no" (Chilchuck), "I’m an adult now I’ve grown" "Awww you’ll always be like a kid to me!" (Falin) Depending on the dub and interpretation, I know for example that when I made my family watch the anime they thought Marcille "See? You're just a kid!" after he said he was 29 they saw it as teasing and playful, unserious, or even disappointed, implying she'd have thought he was older than 29. It's actually ironic how someone as developmentally atypical as Marcille, whose physical and mental growth was unpredictable, unsynchronized and messy, would judge others by appearance and age so much. But well imo appearances are important to her so in that way, she especially judges those because she had to live through being judged by those standards as well. She puts elven standards on everyone the same way she does with beauty standards, so age is included in that.

Marcille here is struggling with dissonance, it's why she "hasn't come to grips with the fact internally". And this all makes sense for the arc that sharing things about himself is what opened the gates of being understood better. Point is, her vision is influenced by her own feelings of how things should be like, veiling herself to the reality of things.

And notice the point that the problem her lack of rationale when it comes people- Chilchuck regularly makes her prioritize rationality over feelings, and well that’s somewhat his whole schtick when it comes to debating philosophy. With Namari and how her leaving the party and not returning is reasonable even if it feels wrong, just like the "don’t trust someone just because they seem well-meaning and generous, strategize instead of swooning", and ironically also the "it's important to take in mind how things like touch when healing can affect parties and create love triangles" lol, "don't be emotional, and also remember people being emotional will stirr up shit". Since she’s someone pretty swayed by feelings, it balances her out. Ultimately, if we consider the Dungeon Lord arc her culmination, it’s Chilchuck who ends her arc by meeting her halfway through appealing out to her feelings, but that’s the flipside of the coin of their arc, and it’s her willpower to face reality that saves them so I don’t think that contradicts that Marcille had to do her half of the journey & comprise.

I would argue there are many hints of Marcille knowing on some level he's an adult throughout early canon. Not just seriously calling him the most mature of the group, but her behavior at the Golden Kingdom's too for example. Would you act all shy asking a kid to sleep in his bed, especially one she's always felt so comfortable trampling the boundaries of and touching casually? Idk that's weird. She's asking to sleep in his bed because by her own admition it'd make her feel more comfortable. Chilchuck is safe to her and she feels shy implying it and asking for a favor like that. Shy that he'd find her silly for it, and/or shy that this might be inappropriate according to etiquette and in other contexts. To me this feels much closer to two peers, like how in the mandrake chapter she wanted validation from him too, and yes she still infantilizes him and emasculates him into someone who's harmless in her mind- not just someone who wouldn't hurt or take advantage of her, because she knows that, because Chilchuck does protect her (more on that later!!).

He's not heroic, but he's brave, when it matters. He's mean and rude, but also caring. He's responsible, even when it means going the unpleasant route. The aesthetic doesn’t fit the role, but the actions do.

He keeps claiming he’s a selfish coward who’ll be the first to dip in a fight, and yet he’s always, consistently pulling her out of danger, or specifically calling out to Marcille when danger strikes. And I think it’s because of the nugget of info we get in the adventurer’s bible that her stamina and athletics are bad, in canon he does call her clumsyhead like once but it never felt enough for me to deduce that on its own personally. So then the reason why he’s always targeting her, beyond the reasoning that she’s the healer thus the most important to keep alive (which he brings up in the rabbits chapter), he takes it upon himself to help her, save her and pull her away from danger because she’s clumsy. She’s not defenseless, she’s known to use explosions, and still he feels the need to save her and through the manga he’s even died trying to pull her to safety one and a half times: dungeon rabbits + the drowning- they didn’t die in the latter though it’d have gone that way if it weren’t for the water bursting out just after, and that situation was especially hopeless regarding Chikchuck being able to do anything to save her at all, yet he still tried.

A little knight in shining armor, a little noble hero, a little prince charming innit?

Chilchuck IS all show and no talk- and she knows the value of that!!! It's why despite all his sour demeanor she respects him both professionally and as a smart guy she can trust, why she feels safe with him and wants him by her side when strategizing or even sleeping. The aesthetic doesn’t fit the role, but the actions do. Fantasy vs reality!!! He teaches her how to face reality both with his words and actions, through the contradictions of him, his caring behavior and bitter words, his old manners and young looks!

And actually let's TALK about that drowning scene hello. There, in the collage above, in the bottom left. The context of that is: This is after the demon leaves when the dungeon collapses, the dungeon gets flooded by water and they go under, with no sense of where or how there could be an exit to this. 1: Since the dungeon is collapsing and reviving someone only works in dungeons, there is no guarantee that Marcille or anyone would be able to revive someone during or after this, NONE. 2: He is risking his life for her, he is STRAIGHT UP playing his life on this choice, action hits and shit gets more serious than it ever has, and he yet does it anyways. Perhaps it's the gravity of it that pushes him to make this choice, that this time if someone dies it's for real and he can't accept that, but either way his choice is made in a split second, he prefers dying trying to save her than living without saving her. He is fighting for scraps of hope, seconds more of holding onto life. Which, 3: This situation is HOPELESS. In the end yes they end up being spat out by some exit out the dungeon with the strenght of the flood, but there was no way to know this would happen, and like we see in the third panel Chilchuck and the others actually lose consciousness. That's for "a way out of this", but even moreso, what is he hoping to accomplish? He's small and weak like he always reminded the party in fights, he CANNOT PULL HER UP TO SAFETY, HE CANNOT PULL HER AT ALL, WE SEE HIM STRUGGLE TO AND FAIL. HE CAN'T DO ANYTHING BUT HE STILL TRIES DESPITE THE RISK. You might also say- haha!! You might also say that this is a show of optimism from him!! You could say that after Marcille changed him, pushed him to have more hope in him, he now has the strenght and will to hope that this might do anything, that this might save her! A little similar to the situation with his wife actually, the point is that the chance is worth taking even if it might not turn out like hoped for- the point is that it's always worth trying and keeping hope to fight on, there is risk in being vulnerable and reaching out to his wife yes, there is risk, as with jobs, as with finances, as with anything- It's not that you'll never fail, but you have to not give up when you do- there's a risk but you can't just shut yourself off to the world and to relationships, you can't suddenly care about nothing! That's Chilchuck's arc! And maybe it's because his arc of becoming more hopeful and open yourself to caring centers her that it's her he latches onto here and not Senshi and Izutsumi who are equally in trouble here, maybe it's because he knew her longest or because he still feels this sense he has to look out for her like always, or because he trusts her to breathe underwater least, I don't know, but it's what happens! And listen, by all intent and purposes it was a hopeless situation, they were on the verge of drowning but he still fights to save her, and everything looks lost for a sec, but then the water current miracurously spits them out of the crumbling dungeon. He gets up and he runs to marcille fearing she's hurt but no, they're saved, she's fine, they're all alive and out of danger. It worked out. Having hope was right.

They make me ill I tell you. Like what the HELL, am I supposed to NOT go crazy when this happens??! What if they were the meaning of life what if their arc was about cracking the balance of living and loving healthily and cracking the code of life. Okay. Okay okay okay so anyways so

He can be quite self-sacrificial and noble! Always looking out for others, and giving Marcille particular attention in that regard, likely in part due to her being clumsy in his eyes and her being the healer aka their token of safety.

Sit your ass back DOWN you are in no state sir. Despite her biases Marcille is still observant, she still loves dissecting people like in that pre-canon party relationships chart in her extra, she's still the one to say "Chilchuck is the most mature here". Marcille still notices things! She has an interest in people and Chilchuck is someone she especially likes to "study". She read him like a book in the bicorn chapter, and if she was able to it’s that she looked, she remembered, she saw. The way he doesn’t like waiting on people, that he’s very reserved with feelings, the way he often doesn't pick up on others' and even his own- It all comes through in her quote unquote analysis of him, what married life with him would be like and how he reacted to his wife leaving.

Point is, Chilchuck is very harsh on himself, but there are gems inside of him, there is gold hidden away if you dig at his heart. And besides, isn’t humility a mark of heroes?

Okay. Sooo there's not that much to say about the changeling scene actually, for both Senshi and Marcille, the chapter just previous where Chilchuck reveals he has a wife and kid is what fully reckons them with how Chilchuck is a fully fledged adult, and for both of them seeing Chilchuck as a tallman is the final nail in the coffin. With Senshi it's a rather fast 180, and he mourns the sweet kid image he had of him where he poked his cheek and ruffled his hair, but for Marcille it's just an extra "he's really really REALLY really not a kid. Really". It has a bit of a reversal of Marcille and Chilchuck's dynamic, since now he can manhandle her instead of her manhandling him. This is a rather pleasant experience for him from what we can tell, whereas Marcille is struggling to keep the party's walking pace and complains about the heat implying half-foots are more sensitive to temperatures, Chilchuck finds having his senses dulled relaxing, has no problem of the sort Marcille is having AND! And! He can pull her around. The fight with gargoyles happen and he's pulling her arms, picking her up, he even throws her both before it and during the fight, he has the physical power to push her away if he wants to and also to pull her out of danger- the way he later tries to in the rabbit chapters and with drowning, but also when the Faligon reveal happens. He still doesn't look like a knight in shining armor, and he still doesn't have the demeanor of one, but he has the most power to protect her than he ever has. Anyways so yes, further "oh Chilchuck is an adult. And he's kinda knightly and can protect me wow. And also ugly not at all like elven beauty ewwwwww. I won't be able to unsee it now if I try to ruffle his hair after this".

It’s always a question of seeing more facets to someone and slowly digesting them and internalizing them, like Kui puts it herself in the shapeshifter explanation for Marcille's Chilchuck. And this illustrates a bit what I was saying in the section about Dalclan and tropes and people being "digestible" to her. She has to get used to the idea first and it's a slow process.

And during the succubus chapter as well, right after the bicorn chapter where she fully accepted Chilchuck as an adult, Marcille doesn’t falter when she’s confronted with seeing Chilchuck as, for a lack of a better term, a sexual being. She even cracks a (albeit sfw) playful quip about it, about them being all blondes. I suppose with the crass jokes he made like during the frog comic that might have prepped her for it lol.

And on that topic... We're here guys. The holy grail of Marcille and Chilchuck.

🔥The bicorn chapter🔥

The chapter finishes both Marcille and Chilchuck's arcs about harmful idealization vs not being a doomer, so to speak. It's the culmination, the ultimate balance found, the moment where the lesson gets fully internalized on both sides at the same time. It is a MASTERCLASS in how to do relationships arcs and character studies.

Chilchuck starts the chapter being dismissive of Marcille and her interests again, it opens with a narrated bit about his bad experiences with romance in past parties and he admits he has contempt for people who find the topic of love fun. He sees her still a bit as both a fly circling around him and a venus fly trap waiting for the opportunity to pounce on him and not let go until he spills everything. He ends it though, willingly giving up information on him in conversation with her, opening up, and appreciating her perspective on his romantic troubles.

Marcille starts the chapter having mostly processed that he's an adult, asking him about his wife, but she's still Weird about him and his personal life- and okay, that doesn't quite change, but something does change- everything changes for a moment, in fact.

And what's the catalyst? The cataclysm, even? Chilchuck lies and says he cheated on his wife.

[Okay guys I am officially out of pic space, sorry but I'll have to start recurringly linking to images instead: page]

We get to see live Marcille's esteem for Chilchuck plummet and freefall to the ground. And Chilchuck often acts like hassling and teasing between them is onesided, that she's always the one harassing him, but since early manga Chilchuck has always liked to tease her every opportunity he gets, often initiating interaction just for it... During half of this chapter Marcille is giving him the cold shoulder and we get to see that he misses her, we get to see her fully shut down the (racist) joke he throws at her and see him be SHAKEN over it. He wasn't expecting his lie to tank his reputation and relationship with the party members this much, maybe because before whenever he called himself selfish and cowardly no one seemed to think less of him for it, and he's at a loss for what to do like we see here. He misses their friendship. He's always said he didn't care for having a friendship with them all and whatnot, but here we see him grapple of the aftermath, of knowing what it would be like without them as friends, without them at all.

[page 1, page 2.]

And like with his wife, he has a choice to make. Be passive and spiteful and do nothing, or be vulnerable and communicate to win them back over. And this time, after a manga's length of learning little by little to be more open (and literal coercive torture) he chooses to do it, to try and clear up the misunderstanding.

And listen, on Marcille's end this was NEEDED. He DROPS in her eyes to deserving no respect- but even in these times we see her be jealous of Chilchuck opening up to Senshi, implicitly still caring about what he thinks of her, and most importantly that she does still care about him himself when the bicorn breaks his arm and she runs to his side to heal him, worried. Why was this needed? Because Marcille was forced to have her full, complete vision of Chilchuck shattered. Not only is Chilchuck not little in her eyes anymore, but he's also no angel. He can MASSIVELY- borderline unforgivably- mess up. He is an adult who can royally fuck up, even be immoral. She calls him a depraved adult man.

It sounds negative, but what this does is actually strip him from any idealization and infantilization in her eyes. Is there something more adult than adultery? Is there something less honorable, less wholesome? In this chapter Marcille is forced to reconcile the Chilchuck she knows with this man who did something vile to his wife, even the mother of his child.

And then Chilchuck clears things up, he takes the risk of an argument and actual rejection and sacrifices the secrecy around his family situation to make up with her. And it works. Instantly.

And so he goes "Okay so one day she left me and I have no idea why, probably for no reason. The end. What a petty thing to do am I right. We'll probably never talk again." and she's like "Bet? Actually I have several ideas as to what could have happened and you WILL listen."

(For a Chil & Chilwife analysis go over here instead btw.)

She was always perceptive, but she always had a bias that made her vision of others flawed. Her lens of novel worlds and narratives. Remove, or at least shift that bias in a productive direction, and you get a strength rather than an hindrance. The skill of self-inserting (literally. The half-foot depicted as his wife is even literally Marcille a a half-foot, and his child looks just like him, to show just how good her imagination is lmaoo) Marcille is such the "If I wanna hit the ball… I must become the ball" type. As proven by how she controlled her familiars in the hypogriff chapter. "If I were your wife I’d be overjoyed to go out with you and would get myself prettied up while you complain about me taking a long time, your friends would tell me that I’m cute and nice and that’d make me happy, but I’d also be sad because you wouldn’t tell me that you love me enough. Then I'd leave to test your love, and you're failing that test rn but if you came back to me even after a long time I'd take you back for sure." And see these! See Chilchuck frowning there in how she thinks of him, how he gets peeved when she takes time to get ready.

No because, this means everything. Marcille started out the manga thinking he was just a kid with a party pooper attitude and even in the shapeshifter chapter where she’s more coming to terms with her having been wrong about him, her shapeshifter of him is sweet and cute and nicer like "No the REAL Chilchuck is much less nasty! ☺️". But in the bicorn chapter it all comes to a head!! Learning that "Chilchuck cheated on his wife" made her esteem of him tank to rock bottom almost, finally acknowledging that Chilchuck can both make adult mistakes and be significantly flawed. But then! The chapter ends by him opening up which in turn make her esteem of him comes back up, but things have changed, still. What she does with her "virtuous husband" bit might seem like idealization again, and she is being optimistic about the wife'smotives, but she’s not making him into something he’s not! She recognizes his flaws (embraces them even.) Like how as the wife she thinks of an angry/frowning chilchuck, how he complains about waiting on her, which he's also done to Marcille before...

Even the way she says "he wouldn't say that he loves me enough" IS DIRECTLY SOMETHING FROM HER OWN EXPERIENCE FROM THE MANDRAKE CHAPTER. Because then she wanted to hear from his mouth with his words that he does value her, that he does appreciate her, that she's not a burden to them! She knows how it can feel like he doesn't appreciate you even when he does, and how insecure it can make someone! Now when she flavors things, she takes the embellishments from her own experiences instead of from novels! Reality, too, can be romanticized without becoming pure fantasy. Fantasy doesn't have to be dry and bitter, it can be beautiful and fun, too. Her "if I was your wife, life would be something like this and I'd feel like this" is truly based on her own perspective and feelings- her empathy and interest in others is not a weakness like Chilchuck thought, it's borderline a superpower.

She doesn't just keep his flaws in mind, she also hypes up his qualities!! He is virtuous, bicorn approved, devoted even after separation!! And that hyping up, and optimism that things wouldn’t necessarily go bad if he tried to mend things with his wife, really gave him hope, and also finished up his arc about optimism not always being bad, sometimes even being necessary.

She inspires him to think that things can work out, that he can still be pleasantly surprised even with all his bitterness. After all, he opened up to Marcille and they talked just now, and she forgave him and they made up, didn't they?

And he must have never quite let go of all hope, must stil lhave some left in him hidden somewhere, because in all those four years of separation never has he stopped calling her his wife in present tense, because even after all of them he has stayed faithful and never moved on.

And all of this with the chapter ending with Chilchuck eating a sweet and savory sandwich, which he thought would be bad and inspired disgust in him at first, and being like "Huh, the sweetness actually complements the bitterness pretty well."

THE SANDWICH IS THEM. "Syrup in a sandwich? Sweetness has nothing to do in a meal." IT'S OPTIMISM AND PESSIMISM COEXISTING. IT'S SWEETNESS AND BITTERNESS BOTH HAVING THEIR PLACE IN A DISH. IT'S MARCILLE AND CHILCHUCK COMING TOGETHER TO HAVE THE RIGHT BALANCE FOR HIM TO BE ABLE TO SAY "It might not go well like in stories, but I'll still try".

Remember what i said about compromises earlier, balance of optimism and pessimism? He tries it, and it works out despite having no faith that it’ll be good, and he’s pleasantly surprised. SURPRISES CAN BE PLEASANT! They're not just life-shattering, not just dangerous, it is possible to be pleasantly surprised! And this is why Kui is a goddess of telling stories through food.

He’s opening up to her, as he takes that last bite of the sandwich, he willingly and easily gives up an information about his family for the first time <3

Notice how she defends his virtues directly taking from Daltian Clan for her reasoning!

She’s such a wingwoman. Such a cheerleader. Couple therapist. Emotional support friend. 10/10.

Marcille: "he has a shitty personality sometimes but if he was my husband I’d still cherish him" Chilchuck: "damn I needed that" /hj

So this neatly ties the last bits of Chilchuck's reluctance to care about others and being cared about in turn, yes yes Marcille reads him like a book so well that he's left shaking, and this is it, really, their arc is about the balance in loving too much and loving too little, in stifling others with that love and care and interest the way Marcille does vs showing it so little that others don't even know if he cares at all, à la “if we want the rewards of being loved, we have to submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known.”

Marcille has a whole theme with the prince charming trope, with her idealization and storybook motif and this is sort of the "Well someone perfect like that isn’t very realistic and romance is usually more complex- and that’s ok and good, and flawed people can still be ✨virtuous✨" conclusion. Again, fantasy doesn't have to be perfect to be worth it, to be valuable and lovable and great and precious.

He’s the devoted virtuous man that she wants not the storybook prince that’s unrealistic and could crumble like a script at any time. He’s the perfect example of a flawed realistic but virtuous and devoted and loving family man. Far, far from a prince charming, but not fully detached from it either. Something worth fighting for despite the flawed cracks.

Marcille has this grand fantasy, this ideal of prince charming, a chivalrous gentleman knight, but through canon especially with Chilchuck she learns to not idealize people so much. That acts are more important than aesthetics. The bicorn chapter is all about Chilchuck’s romance being realistic: flawed. And it’s no coincidence that this is what ties their interwoven arc closed, because they learn to compromise, his pessimism and her optimism. Marcille sees and recognizes a romance that is both flawed and beautiful and is able to balance the two decently, meanwhile she convinces Chilchuck that yes it is worth fighting for and having hope for. Repeating myself but it’s easy to think she’s still idealizing Chilchuck during the bicorn chapter, BUT it’s important to notice the differences with the shapeshifter chapter, where her shapeshifter of him was "cute/sweet" "not nasty", an angel who could do no wrong. In the bicorn chapter, not only does he fall from her esteem a lot because she believes he cheated for a good part of it, thus acknowledging that he can be flawed and adult enough to commit adultery, but also! When she roleplays as his wife, she doesn’t erase his flaws!! She knows he has a short fuse and isn’t always pleasant, but believes that he’s worth loving anyways… 

And see this is the point!! She romanticizes his life, not idealizes it. The difference may be subtle, but it's there. In romanticization there's how Ghibli depicts mundane scenes of daily life, portrays doing chores like cleaning clothes as something that feels good, something worth doing that doesn't have to be miserable. In Chilchuck's life, in his flawed relationship with his wife, she sees the beauty and light and love to highlight so even if the lifestyle is humble and even if the relationship is tense it seems nice, it seems worth fighting for. She's using aesthetics again, but to inspire instead of stifle, the way she uses them to hype herself up sometimes too.

This is it this is the thing! Her worshipping and idealizing the image of perfect prince charming that will whisk you away on an ethereal romance becomes her romanticizing a realistic flawed middle aged dad with personality issues and a failing marriage, that he still is worthy of love and having his cute grand romance story and his happy ending!!

Marcille has a very hard time conceptualizing a point where love can’t conquer all, right. She’s optimistic and if there’s a will there’s a way etc etc etc. Notably when Marcille speculated about Chil’s wife, she centered around the theory that his wife wanted to "test" him by leaving, that she didn’t feel loved and left to see if he’d chase after her. She believes that his wife would be ecstatic to see him again and reaching out would make them reconcile and happily get back together, no problem. Chilchuck and his wife have been separated for 4 years. When Falin left the academy she and Marcille were separated for 4 years. Marcille has to believe Chil’s wife is waiting for him, that she hasn’t moved on, that she wants to be found. There's a different perspective on time, but there's also... Just parallels. Parallels everywhere. Miss coping, meet coping in an opposite way! And so she teaches Chilchuck to not assume everything is lost before havign even tried, and so he teaches Marcille to let go when it's needed.

She specifically loves characters who think they can’t be loved and pessimistic and dramatic… And story-fying him is literally what she does when she engages with the story of his breakup with his wife like it’s a story to decode, reinforcing the whole narrative about tropes and princes and how he comes to shape her view on them.

Even if the context here is explicitly that she relates! Which, she finds being able to relate to them comforting and a positive point so it being a "type" thing isn’t fully off- but this is what I mean when I say she always keeps a film of emotional distance from people, she wants to love and be loved and know people on the deepest level possible so bad but it’s something that scares her too so she prefers to chase after the safe: the unreachable- the fictional. Like Chilchuck. Bit of tangential speculation, but she wants to crack his shell and make him open up- but it’s also easier because he pulls away instead of pulling in/closer so the relationship is fully in her control in that way, if it weren’t for the teasing… Making her into someone silly in his mind is how he keeps himself from putting weight into her words, how he gets himself to automatically dismiss the wise lessons she tries to instill to him, nope sir he doesn't have anything left to learn, he's an old crouton who understands everything there is to know about this cruel cruel life yes sir. Because trying and being rejected hurts! Because if it wasn't fated to turn out wrong, then it means there was luck or choice, and that makes failures almost more painful! But people leave!! People leave and people come back and new meetings happen and choices are good, choices shouldn't be taken away! Not like how Marcille tries to forcefeed immortality to humanity, as a dungeon lord...

The chapter ends with a panel of Marcille and Chilchuck bantering again, with everyone else going about their business seeming nonplussed while the two are being very loud as if to say, ah, classic them. Return to normalcy, return to their usual closeness and shenanigans. All is well.

The Princess imagery

And now we’re falling into the rabbithole. Imagery doesn’t have to be anything more than imagery, but I discuss romantic connotations in this section (amongst the platonic reality of things ofc), you can skip to the conclusion if you’d rather but you will miss important analysis of the dungeon lord balcony scene, a big piece of the puzzle in wrapping it all up. I found the meaning of life & the world in marchil but it’s ok I get it if you wouldn’t... We're all built different ig. The character with princely chilvalrous knight parallels in the manga is moreso Laios, but Laios too breaks the trope a lot. Chilchuck gets prince and knight parallels but by contrast instead, in subtext more than any explicitly drawn. There's a lot to Marcille's princess imagery and though I've never fully covered it I try to somewhat tackle it here.

For as much as the bicorn chapter is what ends their arc about balancing pessimism and optimism and finding healthy compromises, the arc of their RELATIONSHIP is in the dungeon lord chapter where he fully opens up to her, inviting her to meet his family and all. AND MY GOD, the princess imagery!!

Listen I am trying so hard to keep this unromantic, and to be clear subtext is subtext for a reason, it doesn’t have to be concreticized or "acted upon" perse, but… I think it’s there in this scene, at least a bit. I’ve spent a long time trying to pin down what was so charged in it, besides both of them blushing, despite him offering for her to meet his family, despite it calling out to a genuine deep instilled desire in her heart enough for it to work- for it to make her turn towards them, despite the first thing she does after is shower him in romantic gifts, and it eventually struck me… It’s the parallels with other media, with tropes!! This is HIGHKEY Romeo and Juliet type shit!!! The stuff you see in every couple new kinda trashy romance kids movies! A lady, stashed away in a high tower by her lonesome, waiting for someone to call out to her from below… Romeo courting type shit with a heartfelt spiel implicit confession from underneath her balcony, offering him flowers because he succeeded in calling out to her heart…….. And they have to CLIMB to her.

Remember her succubus' words? "Oh, princess... I can't believe you slipped away from the castle yet again... Honestly, what in the world shall we do with you...? Come, let us return." Again like with her succubus, she’s living through a storybook trope but with Chilchuck’s twist, more nuanced and realistic yet just as meaningful, even if it isn’t strictly OR at all romantic and if it’s more complicated and less glamorous. She’d have to peel the layers to get to the vulnerable truth of it, like anything else. I'm just gonna drop this here...

Doesn’t it sound like a proposal. One that’s both so storybook-like, and contrasted with such real yet unromantic and grounded words, all about the implications rather than in your face grand gestures "Don’t you want to meet my family?". They literally have an arc about the topic of romance and this is the climax/pinnacle of it like god?? I’m not saying this was all intentionally crafted to be romantic but it nonetheless exists in the subtext, ripe for analysis. Of course they talk about planning together his reconciliation wit hhis wife, but the same thing happens regardless, he fully lets her into his life.

And again there’s something to be said about how that is what makes her finally turn around! This is extremely meaningful not only to Chil but to Marcille, the enticing thing that finally hooks her, gets her to finally look down at them. An offer to meet a flawed man’s flawed family, to help him mend it and its issues. It isn’t through the filter of a book, or mere gossip to her, she knows this man and she wants to be involved in his life, to know him and his family herself, ready to meet them and form connections. The clumsy, imperfect reality of a friend telling her he’ll let her into the other spheres of his life even if that means she witnesses the embarrassing and the ugly. It’s vulnerability on both their ends, offered and received, a gambit that was worth taking, both in the moment to talk Marcille out of being dunlord and long term of letting her in to see the deeper sides of him, there are take backsies once someone knows something about you after all. SHE STOPS BEING A DUNGEON LORD IN GOOD PART BECAUSE HE TOLD HER HE'D LET HER INTO HIS LIFE. SAY IT WITH ME, A FLAWED REALITY IS WORTH IT MORE THAN STAYING IN FANTASY!!!! In denial of reality, both that Falin hasn't grown older, that everything can turn out perfectly, and that everything is lost and there's nothing Chilchuck can do to make his wife love him again or even make his party listen to him.

Chilchuck says this after he sees her materialize her parents as doppelgangers. And so he goes on to say- hey your family will never go back to how it was when you were young, my family will never be what it once was either, but we can both move on and make the best of what we have anyways, isn’t that what you taught me, there are more out there! I’m opening up myself to new relationships and friendships because of your pushes, and now I want you to do the same! Life goes on and there’s always more joy and connections to be had! Stop isolating yourself, dammit!

And the thing too with Marcille’s arc is that she can’t get what she wants. She can’t. She can’t get everyone to live forever if she doesn’t take others’ free will away, if she doesn’t make the world stop for her as she plays god with the laws of nature and the cycle of life. And everyone’s important to that arc obviously, Falin during the story is the main object of that fear, and it’s moreso her death that pushes her arc along but it’s still extremely influential, Laios is the main one who sees her insecurities and talks her down, Senshi’s always harping on ecosystems and laws of nature and how resurrections aren’t natural and is there to offer comfort and support, Izutsumi’s someone new Marcille gets to take care of and her farewell talk with her reveals a lot about how she’s grown, but seeing this it’s easy to see why Chilchuck is paired off so much with her on their respective arcs, right? The one who tells it harshly how it is even when the reality is unpleasant, who gives up quickly when it's about things turning good for him but who always pushes and fights on when it matters with the party, who challenges a rose tinted glasses perspective head on.

He looks nothing like a knight but he still acts like one. He’s nothing like a prince or a dashing romantic courting lover but still he gives her a novel worthy balcony heart to heart scene. He’s painfully real and raw but she does bring that twinkle of hope and romantization that makes the world feel more wonderful to him, but like she tells him, he’s virtuous and he should give things a shot because people see good in him too and not only the bad he always shittalks himself for, she’s not making it up, he always had that sparkle of knight and prince in him.

Like, giving someone a handkerchief is literally a romance trope associated with nobles and princes. And Chilchuck has offered Marcille his handkerchief at least twice! The second time in the cockatrice chapter as a bandage. He keeps it in his pouch, with his tools, like the most must-have to offer it Marcille at any moment, ha /j. Prince behavior <3 The cowl like a knight’s favour, a token from a loved one he cherishes above all and keeps on himself at all times. Story tropes shit.

He IS a prince figure instead that now it’s not about idealizing the grand and overt it’s about romanticizing the small things in real life!! About finding joy and beauty in things that seem normal or mundane and uplifting them to make the world feel kinder!!!!

And man this whole angle makes the "Don’t you want to meet my family?" "-gasp- I really do want to! -turns away from eldritch power and living in her demon-made dreamscape that can allow her to live in fantasy to instead go back to flawed reality with her friends-" all that more meaningful and striking. A fitting end to her arc, a fitting hook to get her to turn back towards her and tempt her to give up on being dungeon lord. It’s always been just asking things and anecdotes about him and his family, never talking about meeting them, but by having someone so "fated with doomed love" open up and reach out to her "fated to never love", she opens up too, is willing to take the risk that any relationship entails, the same one that he took by offering it, the same risk they’re both averse to and scared of, loss and rejection. By actually meeting his family she involves herself in the stories she creates. It makes them real. She’s finally involving herself intimately with others, despite the real threat of loss that she will have to experience, wether through time and death or rejection.

Marcille and Chil’s arc, man…….. See, this is why I’ve been tilling the fields of that analysis for months this is why I’m insane about them, not only is there so much to say but her relationship with Chil straight up deconstructs her perspective on the world as idealized and influenced by fiction and fantasy and optimism. Like, he’s at the core of that part of her arc and man!! Man.

And the way that this is the culmination of their arc together… Like the ‘Chil calling out to dunlord Marcille on the balcony has Romeo and Juliette romance novels imagery’ take is one thing but the ‘their arc is about growing to see beauty even in the non-idealized, in the flawed and in the real’... It makes it so so perfect if she were to lower her ideal from a perfect elven prince to a virtuous halfling man (which she does romanticize).

So she doesn’t want a prince, she doesn’t want a general, she just wants this guy she knows, this friend she trusts as reliable, who has good intentions even if wrapped in unpleasant demeanor, that’s all she needs to be content and well and feel safe. By the end, he might even have become something of a prince charming to her, won over with heroic acts and virtues.

After all- Remember when I said she wouldn't be able to be as touchy so lightheartedly as before with him? Well wrong, apparently! This parallel from chapter 23 just before the red dragon fight vs chapter 96 at the final feast confirms that her like of him and behavior with him was unconditional of him being a kid or an adult. Marcille is just Like That and that she just likes him. A good part of what reads as infantilization truly is just how she cares for people in general.

Conclusion

She’s afraid of change, so it's only fair that he would be perfect to teach her a thing or two. She had fantasies but he had experiences, both had bias.

Their arc says that love is a beautiful thing regardless of loss. Something both of them needed to remember. Life isn't like a novel. Sometimes an ending ISN'T satisfying, you don't get closure and it might not even be happy, but that doesn't mean nothing can end well, doesn't mean every farewell is bitter. Peace is worth both fighting for and making for yourself. You can't shut yourself off from the world because things sometimes hurt, there's more of life to live- won't you come meet my family? Won't you meet new people, won't I try to mend relationships that are dear to me? My family is flawed, but it's still worth meeting, still worth loving, still worth fighting for and keeping even with all its flaws, no? Elven storybooks don't feature half-foots, but they're worth spinning grand poetic and romantic tales for all the same. Life is bittersweet, and that's an acquired taste to have, but one good to be able to stomach as a whole.

There’s a lot of reasons why someone would love fictional characters but be afraid of love in reality, not unlike with Laios' and Chilchuck's own experiences love has a layer of danger and fear because it can hurt to love and it can hurt to be loved. People can leave you, and in Marcille that fear's mainly through death but for Chilchuck that’s through just… Leaving. Through giving Chilchuck optimism and hope, drive to keep going despite these realities, she’s also growing to be more comfortable with the thought of relationships ending and moving forward regardless. And I do think that was part of her arc of growing to accept that Falin might be dead dead, I think Chilchuck was a big part in that. Falin is the passive object of the arc but Chilchuck is the active actor pushing it along, in a way.

Because people can always leave, Falin will leave to travel the world, but she might come back- and that's okay. And that’s exactly the thing that the story wants Marcille to make peace with! Falin wants and needs to leave and Marcille needs to be content just taking what she can get, wether it be time with people or the boundaries they set with her. THE BOUNDARIES! THE BALANCING OF OPTIMISM AND PESSIMISM! IT'S CHILCHUCK'S DOING!! "The world isn’t all good, but you should be able to see the bright side of what you do get" is what she and Chilchuck learn. To learn that she can still enjoy when she is there, and still reach out to her and keep in touch through letters- to do what you can and to get what you can and to accept that as enough, for it to bring you the joy and peace it can. Don't push your expectations onto others, wether that's being overly intimate or overly judgemental, don't be too pushy but also don't be too afraid and not do anything at all.

In many ways even before, even on the regular Marcille was his gateway into being more lighthearted, always exchanging playful jabs, laughing at her. Teasing her because she teases him, lowering himself to her level until he looks back and realizes he’s having fun with it instead of just throwing jabs bc he’s the master of sarcasm TM.

Chilchuck smiling casually and softly, genuinely, when saying that things don’t work out sometimes, is just so powerful. From the man who always assumed the worst of everything, who always spoke of life and the world bitterly... By the end, while saying these things he’s smiling openly rather than smirking smugly. Carrying on with his go getter attitude with a touch more optimism in his heart. Now he's made his peace with life and sees the good in it, still.

It's all about... How flawed relationships with flawed people can still be made into somehing good and healthy that make the world brighter… How flawed relationships are still worth remembering and cherishing. Except the winged lion, there to represent abusive relationships you need to fucking DITCH.

Marcille and Chilchuck’s arc is about how in life sometimes books do close and end, but other ones can open and start, and to never give up on that. People’s lives, relationships, these things are temporary and inevitably end, but there’s meaning and joy in having been there for them, and focusing on the end and the pain and being pessimistic in it doesn’t keep anyone safe, not meaningfully. "It’s not all nice like in the stories. Sometimes, a book just ends." "And another opens."

Dungeon meshi promotes the important of balance for both a healthy body and a healthy mind, and optimism vs pessimism is one such case <3

MAYBE IT'S ALL COMPROMISES MAYBE IT'S ALL SWEET INBETWEENS. Maybe we'll take our vision of what we thought we could be and make something new together! DRINK IN MODERATION!!!!!! SEE LIFE LIKE FAIRYTALES IN MODERATION!!!!!!! THE RIGHT ATTITUDE LIES BETWEEN IDEALIZATION AND PESSIMISM

Disclaimer:

This was pretty messy but thank you so much for reading!!

To be clear! Does this arc exist in the text, the whole tropes and idealism vs pessimism thing, do they have tangible impact on each other as both characters and narrative devices? Yes. Is Marcille and Chilchuck the central piece of the story? No. Is Dungeon Meshi about this and how it all culminated into a cool Romeo and Juliette scene? Lol no. Chilchuck isn't the most important person to Marcille and her story nor is Marcille the one most important to Chilchuck. Just like the other major characters in the story, their dynamic and progressing relationship is a plotline/subplot amongst others, and the level of layers and subtext it possibly has doesn't erase any other part or subtext of the story. Arcs can coexist. Multi-layered relationships can coexist. Just a reminder that this is my own analysis and interpretation of canon.

Dungeon Meshi is about food and how it ties us to a life that’s worth living, about unity and trying to understand that which you do not, to not demonize that which is different or unknown, to connect with others even if it’s hard, even if it’s in unusual or undescribable unlabelable ways, and Marcille and Chilchuck’s relationship is certainly a pawn in these themes like every other relationship.

I’m having fun, but I don’t want anyone getting lost in the sauce. It's unfortunate that to many, acknowledging there's any merit to analyzing this subtext is equal to supporting a ship they dislike, but this isn't ship propaganda, this is analysis of canon text where I happen to see a more niche angle. You can disagree with an interpretation without saying that it's nonsensical.

Like I don’t wanna say I’m a marchil truther but if you define it as believing canon does have genuine and credible basis for it then yeah I guess I am. I feel insane everyone acts like they have no chemistry and no material and??? We exist on different planets I think Like I know I implied some romantic undertone but in canon it totally can start and end at two coworkers bonding and getting to know each other better and see each other’s perspective and it influencing them both for the better. No buts, you can totally do that. Although this plus the crumbs it drives me up a wall when people say they have no chemistry or ‘how come people see anything in this pairing?’ They’re literally a comedic duo? A comedic duo that interacts so so much that gets paired off in scenes, a thematic duo which is even acknowledged and reflected in the anime’s opening. He teases her 24/7 canonically because he finds her reactions fun/cute, the only person he teases on the regular, and she’s obsessed with knowing more about him and loves being touchy on top of it, plus reads him like a book because she files away every little thing about him in her memory, like if that isn’t a strong basis for a ship I think the bar has gone too high. I’m derailing but yeah just. Do you see all of this? They drive me insane, I feel like I’m reading the necronomicon when analyzing them, picking up on subliminal messages, I keep always seeing new threads. And it’s been my otp for like 2 years now, idk when they’ll stop having a grip on me but????? There’s just so much to dig into with them. There will never be another pair like them. Do you hear me there’ll never be another duo that hits all of these like this, do you see this insanity? They are my lifeblood and if i’m eating up anything them-related it’s because they’ve earned it so hard tbh. So yeah if I’m ever dramatic about marchil it’s because I have this 100k words novel narrative in my head and marchil is the meaning of life to me hope this clears it up

Which on that note idk what or when my next Marcille & Chilchuck analysis will be. I might very well make a bite sized, summarized version of this analysis because asking people to read all of this is kind of insane of me... And full disclosure I’m also very likely to edit points in or tweak bits every so often in this analysis because idk if I’ll ever stop thinking about it, and phrasing can improved. This has been in my drafts and outlined more than a year and I’m literally still adding extra points save me. I might also do a different angle on their arc because here yeah I mostly just dug at the prince trope angle, at ONE of many angles... Like one interesting thread in the manga is Marcille emotionally maturing and becoming more like her mother, on top of her regularly being a mom type friend the way she looks after Izutsumi and Falin, which could be interesting to pair with the fatherhood of Chil. Hmm. Anyways

And obviously do whatever you want, but this analysis and all is why I personally can’t stand the fanon that Chilchuck and Marcille have a father-daughter undertone. It goes against their arc together, which is explicitly, literally about her acknowledging him as a man, an adult, about coming to see each other truly as peers and her coming to validate him as an adult, then a father and husband from an outside perspective and a friend, and inversely him coming to not belittle her profession and philosophy. Their whole arc is about learning to see each other as an equal and equally value each other’s perspective and opinion. You could argue it’s also the arc that happens with Izutsumi, but honestly with her it’s a lot about Izutsumi learning to compromise and others instilling lessons to her onesidedly while learning to respect her perspective and boundaries, it’s not nearly as much of a reciprocal thing. Izutsumi needs to be heard, but she also needs people teaching her and guiding her. Imo it cheapens the arc, the whole point is that they’re just two people who grow to see each other as equals, that the Laios party is coworkers turned friends. Marcille doesn't need a new parental figure, she needs friends who'll keep her in check the same way she does them.

I do love the way that the manga avoids romance. For every romantic undertone there’s a platonic explanation that is just as compelling and especially to this degree it’s both rare and wonderful. I think that a lot of people need to learn that sometimes ambiguity is the point instead of something that needs to have a specific objective answer. Sometimes the intent is for something to be able to be read in different ways in itself, or that the complexity of the relationship is canonically something that cannot be put into a neat box. Which! Next analysis I'm very intent on making is gonna be about unlabeled relationships in Dunmeshi and queerness, see you there!

Fast and dirty TLDR

Marcille’s personality is very serious and direct. Due to this, she frequently gets into arguments with the master of sarcasm, Chilchuck. Chilchuck views Marcille as “the friend who cannot shut up”. He is often the practical foil to her more imaginative or idealistic views.

She actually thinks very highly of him! "He’s usually the most mature one of us" "he’s dependable, we’re counting on him" "No chilchuck is definitely virtuous", and at first it’s also through this twisted lense that he’s a kid, like she has to put people into boxes so they’re more digestible, tropes, in line with aesthetic, and at this stage it’s hard for her to see Chilchuck as being even able of wrongdoing really. And gradually that gets challenged when she sees that yeah, he’s an adult, and then BAM bicorn chapter- Because by then ok fine he’s an adult, but it hasn’t quite fully settled yet as we see in the shapeshifter chapter and she still has a warped view of him a bit, she has an accurate grasp on his behavior yet still sees him as a little angel. And then she "learns" he committed adultery. Her esteem for him hits rock bottom and she spends the chapter cold to him, she still cares and comes running when he’s hurt, but she’s set on mean mugging him, until it’s revealed that- He didn’t actually. Oh, actually he just has family angst. And she starts roleplaying and having her novel vision again BUT THIS TIME HER MIND VISION OF CHILCHUCK IS OVERTLY FLAWED. He’s angry and his wife left him, he’s *flawed*, but he’s still worth hyping up, still worth having his own romance story, still has a shot of winning back his beloved. She sees him for what he is, human and real and not a carefully scripted character that fits an aesthetic, and she thinks it’s still worthy of love and admiration, worth fighting for.

The prince charming figure has importance in Marcille and Chilchuck’s arc, where she romanticizes things to a sometimes worrying degree or idealize people into something more poetic, easy and digestible (like Chil being a kid, and then him being a virtuous ✨✨✨husband), and where she needs to learn to value aesthetics less and actual acts and facts more, be more grounded (like seeing people for what they are flaws and all, but seeing their virtues too, like accepting that people need money and not pulling through on principles of honor or unity shouldn’t get Namari shamed) and a part of that is accepting that Chilchuck is BOTH flawed and virtuous, a loving husband that still has shitty moods and fumbled his marriage so bad etc etc. So it’s like, her image of perfect prince charming that will whisk you away on an ethereal romance -> realistic flawed middle aged dad with personality issues and a failing marriage but who still is worthy of love and having his cute grand romance story and his happy ending.

Their arc together is literally learning to 1) see each other for how they are and not undermining their qualities and capacities etc etc while still not leaving flaws unchecked either and 2) opening up to people. Marcille LITERALLY makes Chil open his heart up to hope like idk man. What do you want from me. He’s literally the guy helping her through deconstructing novels and fantasy and rose tinted glasses and like. Deconstructing the prince charming figure into something more real but still a virtuous husband like KUI KUI STOOOOP STOP I’M ALREADY HOOKED I’M ALREADY-

[rin-hanarin]

There's something I really appreciate about Cloud Strife, and it's the fact that he's mentally falling apart half the time he's on screen. Like, people sometimes lose the plot because of 20 years of cameos and spin-offs, or love making him out to be this broody tough super soldier, or just straight up make a self insert out of him because they can't relate to him at all, but the fact that he's having all kinds of episodes every other game hour and it's not some cryptic subtext just speaks to me for some reason.

Cloud is this "legendary video game protagonist" and whatnot, but his actual story is so much more complex and choke-full of vulnerability and really down to Earth human weakness, amplified by a cocktail of all sorts of trauma and crazy alien influences. My guy is so not okay and is so messed up in the head he accidentally dooms the planet to a literal fiery death from a meteor strike, and it's just so different from what you might expect from him, considering how famous of a character he is.

I really respect the fact that he was written this way back in 1997, and the way his unstable, fractured sense of self is even more apparent in Remake series makes me really happy and really unsettled in equal measure. The OG game couldn't convey how bad it was within its graphics, but I think I managed to grasp what they were going for the first time I played it, and it is heartbreaking, with or without clear presentation attached to it.

[st4rstudent]

i feel somewhat responsible for this, even if i’m not the one saying these things. I’m genuinely so sorry.

No need to apologize! It's not one singular person doing it and truth be told I don't think it's a large majority that thinks that (albeit the ones that do are quite vocal). I didn't mean to upset anyone or anything when complaining about it, I was just letting off some steam.

Having a yap session under the cut sorry I feel like rambling under your ask anon.

Admittedly, I do think there are reasonings for people thinking this way. A lot of the focus with Clash has been on the cogs, especially after the 1.3 update. Which I can't say I blame them! Managers were something new and exciting and (from what I can tell) really separated them from the other servers. I don't blame them for wanting to put focus on that because that was their thing. Alongside other things, but majorly when you hear Clash the managers are mentioned in someway shape or form. But as we all know, toons ended up taking the short stick from this. This isn't helped by the gameplay itself, being mainly a fetch-quest deal so you often only talk to npcs once or twice unless if they're repeated ones and the taskline wasn't entirely accessible on the wiki for a while (shoutout to the wiki maintainers. The taskline script is a savior). Which I'm quite excited to see if they deal with this issue with the rewrite. I imagine they will, but anyways. Social media posts would often contain more managers than toons, which I also believe they're starting to fix. And ontop of this, I believe most of the team in the early era of the sever is gone, so there's been some stuff lost in the change. So yeah, dialogue/writing has been kind of rocky. AGAIN- I am completely aware of the rewrite going on and I am not judging them harshly based off of their current state. I'm very appreciative of the fact that they took the time to listen and are focusing on trying to fix it up. And then there's also fandom mischaracterization- especially of the cogs. Forgive me for mentioning mischaracterization because normally I wouldn't really care (I've mischaracterized characters before..especially in my younger years. I think it's just a process of learning an having fun and I hate to limit anyone because of it). With that being said, there's a lot of baby-fying and coddling of the managers. Especially with those who have more 'sympathetic' stories (Misty, Chip, Winston specifically). Don't get me wrong, I like these characters and I can appreciate the story they're trying to tell, but I feel like so many people will hear their dialogue and then misplace their anger. People get mad at Bessie for trying to protect HER lighthouse or at the Elders for trying to keep YOTT safe (lets not forget Winston was there to brainwash toons). Yes, yes technically there would've been better ways to do it but consider this: The toons are scared. Their homes, stores, lives are being taken over by a big corporation that has more resources that they do. They don't have the privilege of waiting, seeing, and gathering. And then people forget that the company has such a huge role in both toons and cogs lives. If you're mad over the mistreatment of Misty or the fact that Winston is still in the dungeon, your anger should be directed at the company who doesn't care. I may be completely wrong in saying this, but I feel like the stories with almost all of the managers is a reflection of the company. The toons are only trying to protect themself and their environments and yet this seems to go forgotten when people start bashing them. And of course, I'd consider myself a toon guy so me saying all this and complaining may come off as "I HATE the cogs and everyone who posts only about them!" and for clarification that's not true. You all know how much I like that little brain thing. The cogs are interesting, their designs are fun, I don't blame people for liking them because I do too. I just wish that the thought process behind so many of these discussions wasn't so cog focused because I believe that this anger at the toons for, RIGHTFULLY, defending themselves helps push this mischaracterization of them as a whole. That they're mean, boring, unlikeable while the opposite is true. Yes there are some, what I'd consider, "filler" dialogue from the shopkeepers. This is just because of the gameplay. But there are some funny and cute moments with them if people would just listen and read.

Which also brings me into another point: people skip the dialogue. I've caught myself doing this before (on my first account. I have 4 accounts total, so I reread the dialogue on like 3 of them). But people will complain about lack of toon personalities while doing this. It's like reading through a comic book, only looking at the drawings, and then complaining because there "isn't a storyline". Luckily, there's been efforts to keep track of the dialogue on the wiki but I doubt a lot of people are going through and reading the entire script. It just feels very disingenuous to criticize the dialogue when you haven't even read it. Likewise, people don't seem to read the blogposts either. This is both from a dialogue aspect and from an update aspect (people continuously asking about hammerspace/mix-and-match under unrelated posts).

[selfinflictedgunshotwound]

sorry for only saying this type of shit lately but i kinda wanna drive a car straight into a brick wall at the highest speed possible

[emmavakarian-theirin]

god the amount of art i would pump out if i stopped letting lineart talk me out of it i would be unstoppable

[unproduciblesmackdown]

billions also comedy gold presenting winston as a scapegoat for abuse culture fans when it's like but hey it can't be actual scapegoating if you Enjoy It or consider it Justified or experience Reassurance from Its Opportunity For A Group Cohesion Substitute For A Cohesion Based On An Inherent Equal Degree Of Belonging, The Absence Of Which Allows For, Encourages, Reinforces, & Rewards Scapegoating

it can't be Bullying if someone's Weird or you Just Don't Personally Like Them or Nobody's Actually Stopping You, Maybe At Least If They Don't See Too Much Of It, Maybe Others Are Supporting It

it can't be Abuse if you're just doing things Normally or are Following Rules or Aren't Feeling Malicious And Aren't Getting Divine Revelations Otherwise and probably it's just that a lot of abnormal people are being whiny &/or unfair &/or the Real malicious ones. kinda just like how that scapegoat is the real person ruining everything and really just forcing you to treat them like this

[pepperyduck]

this is love ft. kento nanami

a/n: a few sappy slices of life with my main man :3 enjoy as i dig up motivation to finish kinktober. 18+ mdni!

"honey?" kento's voice is muffled through the door as he calls out to you, "everything okay?" the door rattles as he tries to open it, knob jingling.

"uhm, yeah! everything's fine!" you nervously shout, much too loud, and rush to unplug the iron that had melted your husband's favorite shirt. you panic and yelp when the hot iron scorches the side on your hand, throwing the stupid device to the ground in a clatter.

"why is the door locked—are you okay?" he asks, voice becoming more concerned as he hears the movement inside.

"i'm—i'm fine! promise! just give me a minute!" you're rushing into your shared master bathroom to run cold water over your hand, and kento’s using a screwdriver pulled from thin air to break into your bedroom. tears well in your eyes when you catch the sight of kento seeing his favorite shirt burnt and melted to his own ironing board. "i’m so sorry…"

in reality, he doesn’t care about the shirt—he’s already at your side to inspect your burnt hand. after a few seconds, he speaks.

"did you try to iron my shirt for me?" nanami asks, a small smile on his face, "you didn’t have to do that." he turns off the faucet and takes a small towel to dry your hand off.

"i tried to, i’m sorry—i didn’t know it would do that." you apologize, looking down at the cold tile flooring in defeat.

"oh, honey." he coos, "it’s only a shirt."

"have you seen your father?" you ask your son, yū, who’s sat at the dining table, eating breakfast. he shakes his head no, and when you look at your daughter, mayu, she does the same.

"jeez," you grumble to yourself, bedroom slippers pattering down the hallway as you go to search for your husband. saturday mornings were his time to sleep in, but realistically, he never slept past 9am. and currently, it was nearing 10am.

you check everywhere. he isn’t found in the bedroom, living room, his office, the garage, the patio or in the little garden he kept. upstairs, downstairs, everywhere, he isn’t there. and when you check in your bedroom for the last time, you hear a soft buzzing coming from the bathroom. upon entering, you see your husband bent over the counter, leaning close in the mirror as he shaves his stubble with an electric razor.

"there you are—when did you get that?"

kento had always been a clean shaven kind of man, going to a barber shop once every two weeks for his straight razor shave. it hadn’t even crossed your mind he didn’t go after work yesterday.

but when he looks at you—you burst out laughing. he’d shaven most of his beard off, but a few fuzzy patches remained on his cheeks, along with a mustache grazing his upper lip. peach fuzz and a few knicks litter his chin. this was the first time you’d seen him unable to do anything perfectly. and he looks ridiculous.

"is it really that bad?" he groans, pouting when you wrap your arms around yourself in a giggling fit. you shake your head, although your unforgiving laughs are a testament to the opposite.

"no—no, let me help," you say after calming down.

after gathering a new razor and some shaving cream, you sit atop the counter and your husband stands between your legs. kento is surprised how flawlessly you shave his face, without creating any more marks or cuts. you giggle and kiss him, getting some shaving cream on your face.

"ken?" you shout from the kitchen, where you’re sat, working on your dissertation. it’s been a long road of blood, sweat, and many, many tears; but you’re finally getting towards the end. about to earn a doctorate.

"yes, darling?" kento replies, walking into the kitchen on queue, his timing impeccable.

"can you read over this paragraph, please?" you kindly ask of him, pointing to your most recent written paragraph. he leans over you, planting one firm palm on the table, the other on your back; his eyes read along the sentences and his fingers tap along your spine.

"ah," his finger becomes more focused on a certain word, "wrong 'there', honey."

"no it's not..." you instantly retort, squinting your tired eyes to read over your writing. and you're right, it was the correct one the first time. this was his version of teasing you. but kento couldn't keep up the face much longer before he's giving in with a shit-eating grin you didn't see that often. "you're funny." you groan as kento stands back up.

after reading over the paragraph for about the nineteenth time, you notice kento silently slipping you some tea before turning back around to keep himself busy with cleaning. you absentmindedly take a few sips, then some more...and you find yourself becoming more and more sleepy...

and you're out like a light, forehead pressed directly against the table as a puddle of drool forms on the papers below. kento already has a warm blanket straight from the dryer to drape over you, and you stir just enough to get comfy on your arms.

kento knows that his back will hurt in the morning, but he sits around the corner of the table next to you, settling his head into his arms to drift off to sleep alongside you.

music of your taste plays rather quietly in the kitchen. you stir the pot of soup and inhale the flavorful aroma that wafts through the air.

kento sets two bowls next to the stove, then rummages through your silverware drawer to find two spoons. the kids are at their grandparents for the weekend, it's only you and your husband, converted into the duo you were long ago.

you step away from the stove to go fill up two glasses of wine, the brand kento had as his favorite had slowly turned into your favorite over time, too.

kento fills up the two bowls to the brim of the delicious food, grinning on the inside at the simplicity of it all. just you and him. he lids the pot with the matching glass top and makes his way over to the table.

you set out place mats for the both of you, then place the wine glasses in their prospective areas. kento places the bowls on top of the mats as you grab the spoons from the counter.

in the kitchen, your bodies subconsciously dance around each other. carefully, in perfect tune and pace. delicate steps of a routine formed over so much time together.

in the universe, your souls are tied, striding alongside one another in each lifetime repeated.

and this, is love.

[keferon]

Chapter 2 of Blurr storyline >:D

“Actually” says Swerve ”I'm an alien.”

“Heh” giggles Blurr ”sorry, my head is all cloudy, I thought you said you were an alien.”

Part one

Holy shit I actually managed to finish it…..Oh. My god.

Under the cut⤵️

Is it stupid to miss someone who doesn't even exist?

Probably yes, but hey, Swerve already has several degrees, might as well get another one. A degree in Stupidity or something. Who cares?

For the first few days after waking up from his coma, he feels like he's going crazy. Everybody has realistic dreams, right? The ones where you can scrutinize every angle, memorize every face and smell and sound. The ones that make you lie still for a while after waking up, grasping at every thing you can. Trying to memorize everyone you meet, imprint them in your head.

Because apart from your mind, they don't exist anywhere else. So that's your only way to keep them.

It never works. Obviously. Details slip away. Impressions fade. Just a couple days, and you won't be able to recall anything but the main events from memory.

Wait, hell, not days. Cycles.

His life is a weird, pathetic, fantastical circus. Earth term. Heh. There are no circuses on Cybertron, haha!

But Swerve remembers. And the word circus, and the smell of asphalt, and rains that were made of water not acid. Remembers the English language. Can speak it fluently, even if you wake him up in the middle of the night.

Remembers his work schedule and remembers which company makes the best details. And Tailgate with his bright blue uniform and Wheeljack with his endless experiments and Swindle with his expensive coat and of course...yeah, no, don't think of Blurr, don't think of Blurr, don't. Don't.

He'd heard about it. Read about it, too. Mechs waking up from comas and doing wild things. Some forgot how to speak at all, some gained a new skill, some lived a whole life while they slept.

Articles tell Swerve, don't worry, what you've experienced isn't unique. The doctor tells Swerve that the same thing has happened to others before you, it will be okay, it will pass.

Swerve isn't sure he wants it to pass.

He's been in a coma for who knows how long. The medic said it was caused by an internal trauma that decided to suddenly get worse. One minute he's recharging , the next he's gone. Internal injuries are insidious.

So it turns out. One day he just disappeared from the world because he was busy slowly dying in his room and no one noticed until a thief tried to sneak in. The only one who came to him was a Mech who wanted to steal his stuff. Huh.

That feels revolting. Swerve liked to think he had enough friends. Or at least enough good connections. Enough those who should have noticed his absence, right?

Apparently not. His shifts at work were reassigned, his contacts never texted him first, his...

His small persona wasn't important enough for anyone to notice his disappearance.

Would his human coworkers notice? Would Tailgate have noticed? Or Jazz? Swindle?

Jazz would have noticed, he was always surprisingly attentive when it came to his friends. And he was friends with just about everybody.

Swindle would probably get upset about the money he'd lost.

It's amazing how much his brain-- wait, no, his processor. How much his processor could create to entertain him. It's a more elaborate world than the most complex series Swerve has ever known. And that scrap had forty-six seasons and fifteen encyclopedias!

People, Earth, a bunch of new languages and rules and all for the sake of the end being like, OOPS! ...it was all a dream. Hilarious. Worst plot twist ever. Swerve hates it when stories go in this direction even more than when they kill off their characters.

In his humble opinion, death is better than the revelation that none of the experiences made sense or had any value. In terms of writing scripts obviously. Haha.

He's busy roaming haphazardly through his own memory. He's looking, comparing, trying to find inconsistencies or things that don't make sense. All the stuff that usually gives away the fact that what happened was a dream.

Most of his memories are occupied by--No. Frag.

Don't think about Blurr, don't think about Blurr, don't think..

He's thinking about Blurr. A lot.

Blurr occupies a surprisingly important role in his comatose dreams.

In the time he spent just looking at him, you could hand-build an entire Mech. Maybe even three. Swerve remembers picking up every bit of merch he could reach with his paycheck. Watching hundreds of videos and buying every new themed drink even if it was a flavor he didn't like.

Then spent a surprising amount of time resenting Blurr for not living up to his fantasies.

Blurr's behavior hadn't helped either, of course, but now, looking back at the past himself Swerve thinks that.. Oh wow. You weren't just annoyed at him. You blamed him for ruining your beautiful fantasy. You were having so much fun entertaining yourself with thoughts of this marvelous image, and he came along and corrupted it. Poisoned the well you drank joy from.

But that's not quite true, Swerve thinks.

Blurr was more complicated than that. But exactly how, he'll never know. All he has are his memories, and those memories are cut short at the most interesting point.

Swerve knows this plot twist. The asshole character that no one loves at the last second turns out to not be what everyone thought, but it's too late.

Oh no, he's not an evil jerk, he's actually traumatized. Oh no, he wasn't bad, he was actually secretly helping everyone. You thought he was awful? Well now you're going to feel awful reading fanfics.

Serevus Spayne didn't actually betray the main character's dad, no no, he was in love with him! Bam. Drama.

Swerve isn't a big fan of this stuff. He likes his characters developed properly. But he can't deny the appeal of a character leaving behind a bunch of questions you thought you knew the answer to.

Uggh.

The doctor was wrong. These thoughts don't go away. These memories don't dull.

Swerve just boils in them, constantly getting stuck in his own head. Sometimes he puts English words into his speech and everyone looks at him strangely. Sometimes he reflexively says some inside joke and no one gets it and he's left standing there with an awkward smile. Because. Guys, you don't understand, if my coworkers were here they'd think it's hilarious. I promise, in my fantasy world, it's funny.

When he gets a job on one of the Autobot ships, he accepts it thinking it might be a good distraction from his thoughts.

When he happens to see Prowl with a tiny human on his shoulder in the corridor of that ship, he thinks he's lost his mind.

The whole thing. The whole load-bearing structure on which his picture of the world has been held suddenly gives a lurch. Living your life in a super realistic dream is wild, but meeting a character from your dream in real life??

Freaking cursed.

Jazz looks puzzled by his reaction, but all Swerve can think about are two things.

One, if Jazz is here, does that mean everything else was real, too???

Two - holy shit, Jazz is tiny.

It never occurred to him. But he didn't really know what size humans were. Well, sure, he could measure it in numbers. But he was among humans himself. And about the same size. He was generally even shorter than most of them.

If Jazz is so small, he can't imagine how tiny Tailgate would be. Or--

He can feel his spark freeze. In fact, he can almost hear the sound of a string breaking in his processor. Does that mean Blurr is real too? Real and just as tiny and currently dead? Because Swerve was there but was too convinced it was all just a dream to help?

He's going to get sick.

He needs to talk to Jazz right now.

____________

Swerve taps his fingers nervously on the countertop. Come on. You're good at talking. Talking is your greatest skill. All you have to do is tell someone else about your comatose hallucinations and hope they don't think you're crazy.

They're sitting at a table at the bar. More specifically Swerve and Prowl are sitting at the table, and Jazz is sitting right on the table. (God he's so small).

“So uh. I got injured a while back and...uh...well, it got worse, turned out important systems were affected and I kind of. I was in a coma. For a really long time.”

Jazz frowns

“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.”

He speaks in a mildly wonky Common, Swerve notes to himself. He waves his servo a little too cheerfully in response.

“'Ay it's no big deal really. I saw a whole other world while I was asleep and like. See, I thought it was just my fantasies, but it seemed very real and...”

Swerve mentally crosses his fingers.

“And it was about this planet called Earth and about people who were building their own inanimate huge robots to fight huge aliens and their boss wanted to launch Mechs into space, so he picked the best of the pilots named Jazz and sent him on this test mission and...”

Jazz looks at him with huge eyes before switching to English in surprise.

“Mech, what the hell?”

“...And we lost him...” finishes Swerve with a sad smile.

Before thinking for a bit, and adding.

“I'm going to show you a trick I can do.”

And then projects his holoform onto the table in front of him.

This. It's weird. Not in a way that would tilt it in the direction of unnatural. More like walking around in his comfy indoor pajamas right in the middle of the street. Being human is familiar to him, but being human amongst huge Cybertronians? Strange. And a little creepy.

Prowl looks confused.

Jazz looks absolutely frantic.

“SWERVE????”

Swerve doesn't even manage to respond, only to smile in relief before Jazz rakes him into his arms. In his holoform, Jazz feels right again. He's taller than Swerve and oh boy, he's alive and unharmed. To think everyone thought he was dead, staying up nights trying to find what was left of him, and he was on the other side of the universe the whole time?

Swerve chuckles into Jazz's shoulder. Then picks him up and spins him around a couple times just because he needs something to get his energy out. Man, it's nice to hug people. Warm and soft, eight out of ten.

Jazz pulls away but still stays standing very close. Swerve can literally see the happy stars in his eyes.

“Dude, I'm not complaining but what...how???? You just kinda..."

Swerve laughs and twitches his eyebrows playfully.

“I still speak English, you don't have to torture yourself with Common.”

“Oh thank fuck.” Jazz throws his hands up dramatically “you're my favorite person right now.”

There is a polite click of the vocalizer resetting above their heads.

“I” Prowl says “very glad you two are happy but I'd like some explanation”

Swerve presses his head into his shoulders guiltily. Prowl has the unique ability to always sound like you've done something wrong in front of him.

Although Jazz doesn't seem to feel the same way?

“Short version - I sleepwalked my holoform to another planet.”

He pauses dramatically.

“The long version is...”

Jazz raises his hand

“What's a holoform?”

Swerve sighs.

“It's a holographic avatar that I can project using a holomatter generator. Sort of like a remote controlled game character.”

Jazz whistles impressed. And then immediately turns back to Prowl

“Have you been able to do that all this time too?“

Prowl hums

“I can create an avatar, but it takes a lot of practice to make it at least believable. And to fully perceive the world through it takes even more. It's a whole new technology. What Swerve does is essentially an art form. Sophisticated and impressively detailed may I add.”

Swerve shrugs shyly. He's still using the holoform to stand on the table next to Jazz. Looking up to speak to Prowl isn't exactly comfortable, but Jazz definitely looks like he's been missing the human presence. Swerve isn't human, but he might as well be.

“Thank you. Yes! Uh. Anyway, it seems while I was in a coma my processor projected my avatar onto Earth and I...let's just say I lived there for a while.”

Jazz laughs

“Dude. So you're telling me you were basically sleepwalking the whole time?”

“ I was.”

Prowl frowns.

“But the range limit of the holomatter generator is only four hundred miles...”

“.... I had a lot of practice...”

Jazz claps his hands.

“You learned a whole other language! Got an ID!. You had a job!!!”

“I got carried away,” Swerve admits.

Jazz scratches the back of his head, still looking very amused

“How many degrees did you get? Haha wait no, I have a better question, did you pass your driver's license?”

“Two. And I failed my driver's exam.”

“Dude you are literally a car without a driver's license!” collapses Jazz on the table with laughter.

Swerve blows the hair out of his face

“Says you who retook the physical several times. You couldn't pass the "being human" exam.”

Jazz just wheezes incoherently in response. Prowl looks alarmed.

“Don't worry, that's him getting excited. So...where have I been...”

Swerve nervously shoves his hands into his pockets

“...Do either of you two know where Earth is?”

Prowl twitches his door wings

“No. Since Jazz was teleported we don't have much clues.”

Swerve grimaces. Scrap. Of course nothing's going to be that easy. He's also been, like,....teleported.

He stands there for a couple minutes and just feels fifteen different emotions rise up in his head at once. A crooked, unsteady smile creeps across his face.

He's thinking.

Oh hell, yeah! I knew it wasn't a dream!

Then he remembers the mess he left behind.

Oh, no, it wasn't a dream.

Jazz puts a hand on his shoulder.

“Swer... Swerve? Dude, are you okay?”

“Ah frag..” Swerve says weakly ”it wasn't a dream.”

Jazz looks...puzzled.

“Is that bad?”

Swerve remembers his friends. Remembers the Mecha program. Remembers fire and smoke and screams and rumbling and crackling flames. Ashes flying through the air and the smell of burnt wires. He remembers blood and debris and...

“It's...complicated.”

This wasn't just a stupid plot twist he'd dreamed up because he'd watched too many shows. This wasn't a hallucination or a disembodied fantasy that just happened to linger in his head. This was real. His friends exist out there somewhere. His work and his collections and his little apartment...

And Blurr. Was real. Or still is? Swerve doesn't know. Blurr wasn't a product of his imagination. He was real and what he did was real and Swerve left him there alone, bleeding and trapped in rubble and tiny and...

Hahahahah oh fUCK.

He doesn't like this plot. It's too much. Too much to handle, too complicated, too ambiguous.

It's also probably too late.

But he can't leave it like this, right? Blurr went into the damn burning building just because of the possibility that there might be someone alive in there.

And Swerve doesn't even have to go through the flames. He has to look. He has to try at least.

Jazz glares at him with a worried look on his face

“ That expression you have...”

Swerve puts the smile back on his face.

“I need to get to Earth.”

___________________

Swerve is not an idiot.

Or maybe more accurately an idiot, but with several degrees.

He's well aware that finding Earth in space with only a description of it is impossible. Which leaves him with two options.

Ask the Quintessons. Or look for it himself.

The first sounds like death. The second like coma. Swerve has exquisite enough taste to know which is better.

He just needs to do some preliminary reserch.....

Jazz, now back inside his Mech looks doubtful.

“You're not going to die suddenly and for no reason, are you?”

Swerve laughs.

“Pfffff what, no of course not, would I kill myself hah. No no, look I'll just put myself in stasis for a bit. Send myself to Earth. And try to figure out where it is from there. Get the coordinates. If I'm lucky, I can see what Space Bridge the local Quintessons use. All you'll have to do is wake me up after a while.”

“It's not harmful?”

Swerve makes an uncertain gesture with his hand...servo.

“If I have enough fuel. And an additional connection to an external generator.”

Jazz tilts his head

“ Why are you so eager to get to Earth? Don't get me wrong, I miss it too and want to go back, but.”

Swerve bites his knuckles.

“ I have some unfinished business?”

“Pshhhh you sound like a ghost.”

Swerve only laughs in response.

_______________

Concentration is tricky.

Swerve tries to think about Earth. And not to think about the fact that he doesn't know where it is. If he's already been there once, he might as well go there again yes? In theory? Perhaps?

Except for the possibility that his sleepwalking just takes him to random planets. That would be very inconvenient. It would be a whole new level of lost

Shit. No. Earth. Think Earth.

What's he even gonna do when he gets there? How far away is it? Swerve is very talented with his holomatter generator, but if it's really far away... maybe he should reset some settings.

He mentally starts going through his options. Does he need tangibility? Probably not. Come to think of it, it would only make him more vulnerable and take a lot of energy. Yeah, the tangibility has to go. What else? Touch, too. Sight and hearing should stay, that's not even a question, but colors and textures are not really necessary.

The amount of detail and picture quality can be reduced as well. His holoform will become colorless and grainy and will probably ripple with static, but he'll survive it.

After he finishes making changes to his holoform he thinks about his old stuff left in his house. Then about the posters. Then reminds himself that he needs to focus on the goal or he'll never find Blurr and...oh FUCK his phone! Where was his phone when he disappeared? Was it found?? There were so many personal things on that phone, he's hoping the phone was burned under the rubble. Either that or the arriving investigators will find his browser history and he'll go into another coma from pure embarrassment.

He blinks dazedly when he realizes he has loads of rocks in front of his eyes. Oh..Did he screw up? Did he end up on the wrong planet? Is it a cave or--

Then he notices the odd shape of the “rocks” and. Oh, no. It's not a cave. It's charred concrete debris.

This is the place where he was last.

He hastily looks around. Anxiety creeps up the back of his neck, makes him feel like something slippery and cold is crawling over his skin. There is nothing but ruins all around.

Blurr is not here. The place where his Mech was lying is empty.

Which means he was at least found and dragged out. Dead or alive.

Swerve's bites his knuckles. Okay.

All right.

He's got things to do.

_______________

He's trying to stay out of sight. Which isn't hard, considering he's just a hologram. At first, he just sneaks around in the quiet areas. Then proceeds to do a facepalm and start teleporting. Think, Swerve. Did you read all those comic books for nothing? Superheroes who couldn't really use their superpowers creatively always annoyed him. And he does, in fact, have a superpower. Gotta get creative, right?

He stops and looks at himself again. His holoform is going static and is a dull white color. He thinks for a bit, and then shrinks himself. Thinks some more, and makes himself almost transparent. There's no way he could pass as a normal human right now, so he'd better just do his best to avoid being seen by anyone.

He looks around thoughtfully. Hmm. Even if he's going to be absolutely tiny, he needs to make sure no one sees him, otherwise the whole base will think the Quintessons are now spying on them through holograms or something.

Breaking the rules feels...it's exciting.

All his ..human life here he hadn't thought about it, but if he threw away the rules he was used to about what people could or couldn't do...

He looks up in a sudden rush of sly genius. All people look under their feet when they walk, but how many look up? And how many of them notice the barely visible tiny holoform hiding just behind the blinding lamps?

The answer is probably none.

Swerve projects himself onto the ceiling and mentally pats himself on the shoulder for his impressive intellectual accomplishments. A creativity degree should definitely be a thing.

A degree in spying on the Quintessons' ships wouldn't hurt him either.

Fortunately sneaking onto their ship turns out not to be that difficult. Swerve makes himself absurdly tiny and hides in the darkest corners that no one would ever think to look into. Why hasn't anyone thought of using holoforms for spying before? Could he be the first to think of it? He doesn't know, but he mentally decides to patent the idea.

Finding the Space Bridge is surprisingly easy. The local Quintesson fleet is clearly used to being the dominant force in space. And that's generally logical. Even if humanity collects a mountain of money from somewhere to throw a dozen Mechs into space - there will be thousands of monsters waiting for them. In such a situation, you don't have to hide, the guards are enough.

Well done, well done, don't hide, Swerve thinks, copying the coordinates and address of the space bridge to himself. You have absolutely nothing to fear here, he thinks, so stay where you are and don't move. Please and thank you.

Once the coordinates are obtained, he... has some freedom to explore. And he uses it for probably the most boring-sounding thing in the world. He returns to his usual workplace.

It’s simple. As damning as the Mecha program was, Swerve loved his job in it. He loved his position in the assembly shop. And he missed his friends.

He quickly teleports through several rooms, continuing to hide close to the lamps. Tailgate is here. Alive and unharmed. Wheeljack is too, though his face has some scars added to it. It's great to see them again, even if he can't talk to them right now. No one will probably react well to a grainy unexplainable hologram. He's just glad to know they're okay and honestly, the last thing he needs is paranoid Onslaught installing extra signal jammers.

It takes time to find Blurr. Partly because Swerve is terrified of what he might find if he started looking. So he goes to check the death lists first, and only after flipping through and re-reading them three times does he finally exhale in relief.

Blurr's name isn't there.

So his smug, shiny ass must be around here somewhere.

He checks the hangar. Flips through the Mech launch logs and feels an uncomfortable knot begin to form in his chest. Blurr's Mech has never been repaired or launched even once since the incident. Its plating has been replaced with new, well polished, and put in a prominent place where anyone who wants to can take a picture of it. But all the internal systems are destroyed. This machine hasn't been used for anything other than being a beautiful exhibit.

That's...something's wrong.

He checks offices and schedules as well as eavesdropping on a few conversations and ends up secretly following Swindle, who is arguing loudly with someone on the phone. He says something about deals and how he doesn't need anyone meddling in his business. Then he talks about how he's got everything under control and the person on the phone is “a dumbass who's making drama out of nothing” and that “he doesn't need anyone's handouts". Then he sighs and says, “you know how celebs are. Dumb and dramatic. You can't take their words literally.”

Then drops the call and for a couple seconds looks like he's just had a large bill taken right out of his hand. Curses again, but in a quieter voice. Leafs through his contacts and stops at the one signed 'free ice'.

“Blurr? Where are you? Wha...ah, no wait. No, the advertising agency called. No, liste...Can you shut up for one second?Where are you?

Uh-huh....... Uh-huh.Okay.

Give me half an hour...okay, yeah.”

This is it, Swerve thinks.

He shrinks himself further and teleports under the collar of Swindle's coat.

He wants to take a look. Just. Just a peek. Make sure everything's all right. Then he can go about his original mission in peace. He watches Swindle get in his car and drive off somewhere. Swerve doesn't recognize this part of town. The houses here are much nicer than where he lived. The streets are cleaner.

He tucks himself further under the coat collar. He's not going to be a stalker or anything, but he's worried and he doesn't have time to wait for Blurr himself to show up for work. Just one little look and that's it.

Swindle's car stops outside a beautiful, shiny hospital. Swerve nervously tries to bite his knuckles, but remembers he's disabled touch in his holoform. Shit? Shit.

Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shi

Blurr looks like a mangled corpse.

Okay, not really. His left side that faces the door to the hospital room looks like a mangled corpse and that's the first thing that catches Swerve's eye when he's inside.

Blurr is pale and thin and his hands are covered in bandages. The left side of his face has been turned into an absolute ugly nightmare. A piece of his ear is missing. In the place of the left eye is a creepy empty hole.

Suddenly Swerve realizes why Blurr didn't show up for work. You can't even show him to his coworkers like that, not just to the public.

Blurr turns his head and the spell breaks. His lips stretch into a cocky smile.

“'Got bored without me Swindle?”

Swindle doesn't show the slightest emotion at the gruesome sight. He casually pulls a chair over to the hospital bed and sits down.

“Shockwave is trying to sneak a new project into the program. And he's slowly swaying investors to his side, using you as an excuse. Tells everyone you're a poor martyr he can save if only he's given the green light from above.”

Blurr wrinkles his nose.

“Not that he's wrong. The doctors say I need to pick a new career because with this...” he jerks his head to the left implying his damaged half, ” neither racing nor piloting is an option for me anymore. I'm out of your project.”

Then he stops talking for a few seconds and raises an eyebrow curiously.

“You wouldn't have come here in person just to say that. Why are you really here?”

Swindle adjusts his glasses

“Have I ever told you why I made the contract with you?”

“Because you like money” Blurr says without hesitation.

Swindle lets out a quiet chuckle.

“Fair point. But money wasn't my only priority.”

He pauses for a second. Gets up. Draws the curtains in the room. Checks to make sure no one is outside the door.

Goes back to his seat.

“You didn't see what the Mecha project was like before. Brutality and absolute disregard for human rights multiplied by a thousand. People were desperate and no one cared to maintain any decency.”

He raises his hand when Blurr rushes to say something.

“No no, listen to me. If you think things are bad now, you're right. But it used to be much. Much, much worse.”

Swindle sighs and adjusts his glasses again

“Vortex was taken as a boy. He wasn't even out of high school when they shoved him into the lab. Me and Onslaught were pulled right out of the college exams. The others were no better, although they were usually a little older. My point is that it was allowed. It's what the superiors could do and no one told them no.”

Blurr tilts his head and gets a little all turned around to see Swindle better with his right eye.

“But you... found a way to change that, didn't you?

Swindle rubs the bridge of his nose

“I have no power over my own superiors. But Onslaught and I have come up with a plan. Look. I'll put it in simple terms for you. Above me is my boss, and above him is another boss, and so on but at the very end of that chain are people from the government. The investors. So we figured out a way to cut through the chain of command and influence them directly. Make them worry about us. It's a kind of social shield. Onslaught is a genius.”

Blurr blinks.

“Why are you telling me all this.”

Swindle takes off his hat and just. Crumples it in his hands. The back of his head shows numerous scars and the glint of tiny metal implants barely visible behind his hair.

“You're that shield right now, Blurr. You can't leave.”

Blurr's eye widens

“Is that why you insisted on ‘befriending’ me with all those bullshitters?”

“I needed to make sure that in their minds we weren't just a military unit. To keep them thinking that we're as human as they are. So I gave Project Mecha a face.” He tugs on the hat again, “Your face.”

Blurr runs his fingers through his hair

“Shockwave can't do whatever he wants cause...because of me his efforts would risk going public and people wouldn't like it and it would ruin the reputation of our investors-and-they'd-cut-off-his-funding.”

Swindle puts his hat back on.

“Exactly.’ That's why he's being so persistent right now. He knows you're vulnerable and he wants to capitalize on the opportunity. Make you part of his new project and tell the world about it. Make publicity his weapon, too.”

The lamp above them flickers faintly. Blurr takes a breath. Long and tired and exhausted and. a bit doomed.

Swindle puts a hand on his shoulder.

“Please. Don't leave. At least not now. And don't let Shockwave get to you. That would open the way for him to get to the rest of the pilots you represent.”

They just. Sit in silence for a while. Blurr quickly taps a finger on his knee. A rapid tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap.

Swindle moves his hand away and gets up from his chair.

“There's a press conference coming up. I need you to be there. I've told everyone who needs to know that the problem is exaggerated and you're fine but they need to see you.”

Blurr smiles sourly.

“My lawyer is going to charge you such a handsome sum for that stunt.”

Swindle laughs, but his cardboard advertising smile doesn't reach his eyes.

“We’ll see about that. Seriously though. I need you there.”

Blurr bites his lip.

“I..don’t know...”

Swerve...doesn't know what to think of that.

Blurr shows up for the press conference. Late, but he makes it. Just as Shockwave is presenting his new project in his amazingly well-pitched voice. Blurr swings the door open and waltzes lazily inside, skillfully pretending not to notice the many cameras and eyes instantly directed at him.

Swerve, whose memory is still fresh thinks for a second that no, no this can't be the same person. Past Blurr looked like a wreck. Past Blurr was tense and tired and hunched over. Present Blurr couldn't look more alive. His shoulders are squared proudly, there's that cheerful springiness and grace in his stride. He moves with ease and confidence. Smoothly.

The left side of his face is neatly covered with fresh white bandages. Carefully, without leaving the even the slightest gap through which his injury could be seen. His hands are hidden under a fancy jacket. He smiles wide and bright and squints playfully toward the table.

The very embodiment of nonchalance. The few pilots sitting in the audience roll their eyes.

Swindle breathes out a barely perceptible sigh of relief. Swerve, once again using Swindle's collar as a tactical cover, can't help but let out a silent triumphant laugh. Maybe slightly more nervous than he is supposed to be.

Blurr sends Swindle a sly, sharp smile and even knowing it wasn't meant for him, Swerve feels his cheeks heat up.

Ah, damn it.

Swerve breaks the rules. He tells himself that peeking is fraught with consequences when it comes to military organizations, but he can't stop himself from being curious. And from worry, too.

And now that he knows where to look, he sees things he'd rather not see.

Blurr ... is crumbling.

Swerve doesn't know all the details and consequences, but that incident did leave a mark.

But every time Swindle calls him and says “I need you at some place in two hours” he gets up and assembles himself into a human being. Like a goddamn puzzle. Tapes and covers the burned half of his face. Covers up the bruises and hides the stitches. Fixes his hair and sets off on shaky legs to pretend he's fine.

He smiles so bright and carefree, laughs so sweet and beautiful that no one would ever think that even standing up sometimes hurts.

And continues to act like a jerk of course.

The only difference is that this time Swerve mentally gives him the presumption of innocence before he starts judging.

Blurr does a lot of things that seem rude. He also does a lot of things that are actually rude and figuring them out without resorting to alien superpowers would be nearly impossible.

When the pilots see Blurr sitting right on the table while negotiating with investors, they roll their eyes and make comments about his terrible manners. Or when he stops showing up for even the most basic, rudimentary training.

Or when he develops that stupid habit of leaning his elbows on people standing next to him.

It's the model behavior of a rich, spoiled brat.

It's also an inconspicuous way to stay upright.

Employees say “that dumbass has never heard of personal space.”

Investors say, “I think he likes me.”

Blurr leans on Swindle's shoulder and through a charming smile says “Don't move or I'm gonna fall.”

Swindle also keeping up the smile discreetly holds him back, pretending it's a friendly half hug.

Swerve feels like yelling at both of them, but he's not sure what for exactly. For one thing, Blurr in his condition is very VERY VERY contraindicated to even get out of bed, let alone participate in social activities.

On the other hand, without Blurr, everything is going down the pit.

Without Blurr, all the government sees are dry reports and spreadsheets. Without him, all the high command has is numbers and a sense of impunity. Swerve is sickened by how easily people tend to forget that numbers represent other people.

Most pilots are able to draw a parallel between deteriorating working conditions and Blurr's sudden fondness for staying home instead of working. But they think the rich jerk got scared and ran away. Considering the way Blurr has always behaved at work - Swerve can't even judge them too much for it. They assume Shockwave getting more freedom is the cause of Blurr's absence, not the result.

Blurr's influence only becomes noticeable when it slowly starts to fade away. It's like switching from expensive tea to a cheaper one. The awful flavor only becomes noticeable in contrast.

Blurr doesn't lead the development of new technologies or go out to fight in the field. He doesn't make plans and reports, he doesn't participate in drills, he doesn't cover anyone's back in battle.

But he's the one who puts his hand on the government's shoulders when they're about to sign the next piece of paper. He's the one they have to look in the eye before they have a pen in their hands and a document authorizing Shockwave to stick more needles in people's brains.

It makes a difference. Small one. But still.

It turns a disembodied imaginary “combat units” into a tangible person.

From “do you want to accelerate the combat training of new soldiers” to “are you willing to tell the living, breathing guy standing in front of you that shoving poison under his skin is an idea you approve of.”

More importantly (And Swerve actually admires Swindle for this) Will you be able to explain anything to your families later on, when this same guy is on TV all over the country saying that's what you did to him?

There have been two fronts here all this time, Swerve realizes.

While the pilots were protecting people from monsters wearing teeth and armor, Blurr was protecting the pilots themselves from monsters wearing ties and lab coats.

After another conference, Shockwave stops Blurr in the hallway.

“Good show.”

Blurr laughs. Soundly and proudly.

“Thanks darling~ Sorry I interrupted you. Your speech sounded like something important, but I don't really know much about nerd stuff.”

Swerve, hiding on the ceiling again, snorts.

Shockwave doesn't move. Doesn't give any indication at all if he's offended or upset or whatever.

“It must have been hard getting here with your injuries.”

Blurr shrugs and lazily turns his head around distracted.

“It's just a few bruises here and there. Not the end of the world.”

Shockwave nods slowly. His voice and posture and all, Swerve thinks, looking very uncomfortable.

“Of course it isn't. But hardly good for your career.”

Blurr freezes.

No, Swerve thinks. Shit. No, don't listen to him, don't listen to him, don't listen to him, don't

“Your brilliant achievements have always been a source of admiration to me” continues Shockwave “it would be a pity to lose them.”

Blurr makes an indifferent face and tucks his hands into his pockets.

“Like I said. Not the end of the world.”

Swerve imagines choking Shockwave. Dropping a lamp on his head. Maybe jumping on top of him himself. Shut up, he thinks. Shut up, shut up, stop fucking talking.

Shockwave with a nice, slow gesture pulls out a notebook from somewhere and flips a couple pages.

“Multiple burns, cracked ribs, poisoning from carbon monoxide and combustion products of toxic chemicals...”

Blurr visibly shivers and looks away.

“...loss of vision on one side...” Shockwave continues reading, ”and partial hearing loss. Finally, the impact of neural link malfunctions. And this, if I'm not mistaken, is on top of the already existing memory problems?”

Shockwave takes a step closer. Not fast enough to make it look threatening, but enough to hover.

“It may not be the end of the world, but it is the end of you.”

He writes a set of numbers on the same page, tears it off, and hands it to Blurr.

“You are broken. I can fix you.”

Blurr frowns, but takes the piece of paper.

“That fixing would involve giving you consent to mess around with my head, wouldn't it? It's brave of you to think I'd go for that.”

Shockwave tucks the notepad into his pocket.

“I can assure you, neither I nor anyone else is interested in your brain. I just want to give you back what you're truly valued for.”

Blurr flinches.

“I don't need your help.”

“ If you say so,” Shockwave agrees easily. Nods, slowly and smoothly. Then starts to walk away “But you do need your fame.”

...

“By the way, you might want to wipe the blood off.”

Blurr waits until Shockwave's back disappears around the corner, then quickly pulls a tissue from his pocket and brings it up to his nose.

____________________________

Swerve wakes up looking up at the ceiling of his room. The high, metal ceiling, of a metal room on a metal spaceship.

Holy shit...

Jazz pokes him gently on the forearm

“Are you alive? You've been gone for like quite a while...Did it work?”

“Hey Jazz” frowns Swerve “what do you know about Blurr?”

Jazz laughs

“What are you fanboying over him again? Still??? Dude's smug and arrogant. Good boss though. I was hired to perform at his parties before I became a pilot.”

Swerve sits up and rubs the back of his head.

“Ah...”

“So it worked?”

“Wha...ah! Yes! Yes, it worked! I managed to get the number and codes from the space bridge the Quints used on you. We just need to find another space bridge and we'll have a pretty much direct route to Earth...well. Or rather, to the Quint ship that's located near Earth. You get the idea.”

Jazz rubs his hands together happily.

“I'll take it.”

Swerve jumps to the floor and heads to grab an energon cube. Man, these holoform exercises are burning energy like crazy.

He stares at his metal hands like an idiot for a couple minutes. Just...Contemplates how non-human they are.

He has eight fingers again instead of the human ten. Huh.

Prowl downloads the information he's gotten and immediately runs off to plan a route to the nearest working space bridge and for a while Swerve is just.

Left to himself.

He tries not to think about Blurr. What would he even say to him? Hey, look, I'm sorry I accidentally set you up, see, I'm actually an alien who was sleepwalking and thought you were fictional, surely this won't affect our non-existent strictly professional working relationship? Nah, screw that. If he's going to sound crazy, he needs to at least come up with a good presentation for his insanity.

....

Is it weird to think humans are beautiful if you're not human? If you're kind of human, but only in your soul and only half human?

He looks at Jazz and Prowl.

“You two get along really well.”

Jazz chuckles, sitting on Prowl's shoulder.

“Right now, yes. But we got on each other's nerves quite a bit when we first met.”

Swerve looks up at Jazz's chattering legs from his height and thinks. This is working somehow.

On the other hand, Jazz is the exception rather than the rule. He's friendly with everyone, he's easy to get along with, he's the soul of any company and most importantly, he was a little too much into robots before he discovered they could be alive. If anyone could find common ground with the Cybertronians, it would definitely be Jazz.

_____________________

”Are you a ghost?”

Swerve shrieks in fear and gets covered in static. He hadn't planned on talking. He hadn't planned on being noticed at all. Blurr was supposed to be asleep! And Swerve just wanted to close the curtains and leave, because there's some noisy party going on outside and bright illuminations are very bad for a patient already suffering from neural connection withdrawal.

He freezes in place like that dude from Jurassic Park. Like if he's still enough, he won't be noticed. Oh, or was that from another movie?

“I'm just uh” he awkwardly reaches up and closes the curtains “Lights. Bad for...you...now.”

Blurr chuckles. It sounds suspiciously joyful. His whole posture and facial expression. He looks very relaxed for someone who had a ghost materialize into the room out of thin air.

Swerve traces the line of the IV with his gaze. Oops, that looks like painkillers.

“Yes I am. Uh. A ghost watching the curtains. And now the curtains are fine, so I guess I'd better go?”

Blurr squints amusedly.

“You can walk through walls?”

“Uh, I can teleport into the next room?”

He backs up his words by making himself disappear and reappear in another corner of the room.

“Cool!” says Blurr cheerfully.

Swerve is involuntarily infected by his mood and makes a couple dramatic bows as if he were some kind of magician.

“ Show me more?”

“Hehehe okay eh” Swerve spreads his arms like he's presenting something and then makes himself the size of a soda bottle and teleports to the edge of Blurr's bed “Ta daaaa~”

“Wooooo look at you, you're like an action figure~”

Blurr immediately makes an attempt to touch him, but fails to reach and drops his hand back on the blanket.

Swerve chuckles and steps closer. It's funny to see the usually incredibly agile Blurr struggling with something so simple and ridiculous.

“They really drugged you huh?”

“It's not the drugs” snorts Blurr ”...it's my eye.”

He raises his hand once more and hesitantly pulls it towards Swerve until it bumps into his hair

“... depths Per…percen.. ah, shit. I can't tell how far away things are.”

Swerve just. Lets Blurr fidget at himself, while starting to feel really bad at the same time.

"If you can't tell how far things are, how are you going to drive?

Race???”

He must have a plan right? Something? Let’s-prove-Shockwave-wrong tactic???

Blurr drops his hands back on the blanket

“I won't.”

He freezes when the all too close fireworks rumble outside the window. Then points to his head.

“With this. I can't drive, I can barely walk at all, and I look like horror movie material. Pathetic heeh.”

Swerve sits down quietly cross-legged on the blanket.

“Well...at least you're alive....”

Blurr shakes his head.

“If I had died, it would have been epic. You know? Dharm...dramatic! It would be big news and everyone would be talking about what a hero I was or...or something...”

“...”

“Swindle would be so angry, but he'd figure out a way to make money out of it. He'd make a commercial about how people should be heroes. I'd be remn..remembered for being cool and brave and stuff.”

Fireworks can be heard from the street again. Swerve notices that there is a thin slit between the closed curtains through which a slim, flickering strip of multicolored light streams into the room.

Blurr frowns and leans back against the pillow, looking up at the ceiling.

“I've turned into a boring wreck. My records will be beaten, my career forgotten , and all the guys from work will remember me as a brat. In a--in a--in a way, it's worse than death. Shockwave's right.”

Swerve isn't sure what exactly would be an acceptable gesture of comfort, so he kind of just. Places his hand on the blanket covering Blurr's lap.

“Hey, don't say that. I think what you're doing is great.”

“Liar” smiles Blurr crookedly ”You hated me. I saw your posters collection.”

Oh shit. The ones he ripped off the walls and destroyed in a fit of fan frustration? He didn't even hide them, just shoved them in the back corner. Aw, man...

Swerve folds his arms awkwardly across his chest.

“I can be mad at you and think you're cool at the same time. I'm a multitasker.”

“You're a very specific kind of ghost.” says Blurr. Then, apparently inspired by the painkillers, decides to drop the conversational equivalent of an atomic bomb on Swerve's head “You died because of me?”

Swerve stiffens.

“I...Wwhat?”

“You know.” he makes a gesture with his hand that's ..unclear what it's supposed to mean. “You were working there with everyone else, and then there was that fire and I was sure I saw you down there under the rubble.”

He's silent for a couple seconds before he hesitantly continues

“And then no one could find you so most assumed you either burned or ran away. And now you're here with all your weird ghost stuff, so you must be dead.”

Swerve has.No idea what to think about it. And what to say? He's been so busy blaming himself for Blurr getting hurt that it hasn't occurred to him to think about what it looks like from Blurr's own perspective.

“Actually” says Swerve ”I'm an alien.”

“Heh” giggles Blurr ”sorry, my head’s all cloudy, I thought you said you were an alien.”

Swerve wants to run around and bang his head against the wall.

Instead, he gets up from the hospital bed. Carefully.

“You're high. I'm not going to explain things to you while you're high, you won't understand or remember them. Go back to sleep. It's the middle of the night.”

“You'll tell me later?”

Swerve hums quietly and pulls the curtains all the way closed.

“If future, sober Blurr would want my company.”

---------------

Jazz looks at him. Very intensely.

“Are you going to tell me who this mystery person you keep coming back to Earth for?”

Swerve snorts.

“What makes you think it's anyone in particular?”

“You're right, you're right~” raises his hands in surrender Jazz “So are you going to tell your friend the whole thing?”

Swerve crosses his ..metal arms over his metal chest.

“Is it that big of a deal? He thinks I'm a ghost or something.”

Being a ghost...somehow better, he thinks. If you're a ghost, it kind of automatically implies you're human. Or was a human.

“Sooner or later, he'll put the facts together~” says Jazz in a chant.

Swerve laughs.

“That's unlikely. He's got a pretty bad memory.”

_______________

His plans to stay out of anyone's sight combust with a dramatic pop the next time he projects himself to Earth. He doesn't plan to interfere, he doesn't even plan to linger. He just wants to see what's going on.

He actually just quietly sneaks into the hospital to make sure nothing's happened to Blurr since last time, but when he finally finds him then...oh shit, is that Pharma in the same room with him??? This can't be good.

They don't speak, but Pharma has clearly locked his eyes on Blurr and starts making his way towards him with the relentlessness of a industrial metal press.

Swerve does some rough math in his head. If he briefly gives his holoform back its detail and voice, will that be enough to fry his processor? He's not sure.

Pharma gives a believable impression of a shark getting close. The staff, as if sensing something untoward is about to happen, leaves the room in a hurry.

Blurr looks indifferent, but Swerve's attention is drawn to the way he squints tensely. Man, the lamps are too bright in here.

Pharma smiles sweetly and reaches out for a handshake

“Mind some company?”

Swerve's mental processes fly out the window. Oh no no. Not Pharma. Not in his fucking fanfic. He quickly changes his work clothes into a slightly more business-like looking shirt. Thinks for just a moment and adds a cap to his head to blend in more strongly with the attendants and hide his face to an extent. And then projects himself around the nearest unoccupied corner and runs out of behind it looking as anxious as he feels.

“Blurr!!! Sir, there you are!!! I've been looking everywhere for you!”

Pharma wants to say something, but Swerve doesn't even let him start. He stands in front of Blurr separating him and Farma expressively waves his hands trying to keep his head down.

“The guys you were talking about didn't bring the new hydraulics! It's a disaster, we'll have to use the one on the old models!”

Blurr, to his surprise, backs up his act almost instantly

“Really? But I thought there was nothing to take from the old models?”

“That's exactly the point! I got the paperwork this morning and...oh those assholes are going to screw it up if you don't step in as soon as possible!”

Pharma tilts his head

“Can it wait? We were actually talking here!”

Oh no, thinks Swerve I'll show you who's talking.

“Sir, no offense but this is a matter of extreme urgency. Are you implying that the safety of your patients is not important?”

“What do you mea...”

“Old faulty hydraulics, that's what you want?” raises an eyebrow in horror Blurr.

“No I'm just...”

“I had a better opinion of you, to be honest.”

“I...” opens his mouth Pharma “...WHAT...?”

Swerve shakes his head.

“And I thought his profession was to help people, can you imagine?”

“Wh..”

Blurr rolls his eye.

“Any idiot can get an important position these days.”

“Wait..”

“Tell me about it. Especially doctors.”

Pharma looks like he's about to start pulling the hair out of his head.

“Can at least one of you shut up??”

Swerve adjusts his cap in a businesslike manner

“Sir, I understand you're a bit detached from reality spending so much time in your department, but you need to take better care of your reputation.”

He raises his eyebrows knowingly

“Wouldn't want the rumors about you to turn out to be true. You know what I mean?”

Pharma doesn't even answer anymore. Pharma just looks like a discarded fish.

“…..Wha....there's rumors?”

“Of course” shrugs Swerve ”Ask Norman, he usually knows everything about everyone. And about your interesting tricks with safety, too.”

He leans in conspiratorially, effectively pulling all of Farma's attention to himself

“So if I were you, I'd stay out of any more things you don't understand.”

Pharma wants to say something. Swerve can tell by the look in his eyes. Pharma tries to come up with a witty and context-appropriate response, but this whole conversation has no more context than a typical episode of Teletubbies.

“Where does this Norman guy work?” finally finds the ground beneath his feet Pharma

Swerve shrugs.

“Block C, if he hasn't been transferred yet. He's already been fined several times for spreading harmful information you know? The guy can't keep a secret.”

Pharma throws his hands up angrily and storms away. Probably looking for context. Or revenge.

A quiet cough sounds behind Swerve's back.

“So. Should I be worried about Norman's health?”

Swerve feels the hair on the back of his neck shiver and slowly turns to face Blurr while still looking somewhere on the floor.

“Uh...only if you're concerned about the fate of fictional characters. I made up Norman's wife, she'll be upset if he gets fired for gossiping.”

Blurr chuckles. Then goes silent. Then, after a couple seconds, starts laughing again. That's a good look for him, Swerve thinks. It's not like Blurr's usual velvet-smooth laugh that he uses at social events. It's more like a quick, jerky giggle, and in Swerve's subjective opinion, it's pretty damn cute. He can't help but grin.

Blurr snorts one last time, cutting off the laughter.

Then he reaches out his hand to him.

Swerve reaches back, expecting a handshake, but Blurr ignores his hand and instead goes for his cap and lifts it by the brim.

Swerve, not expecting this, freezes with his hand outstretched.

Blurr freezes as well, still holding the cap in his hand and looking...like he's rethinking his life. A little.

Ugh, and how to explain it all to him....

“Uh...you...uh...probably don't remember me. I...it's...”

Blurr shifts his gaze from Swerve to the cap in his hand. Then back to Swerve.

“You're real???”

Swerve awkwardly waves his hands in front of him

“Ah not.., not really. Do you know why Pharma was looking for you in the first place? He doesn't work with patients anymore, he's been reassigned to the research department, right?”

Blurr shrugs.

“Last time I saw him, he said I might have implant rejection in the third ..uh..what? stage? or something? I think he's trying to get me in for a checkup.”

Swerve twitches.

“Third??? How are you still standing???”

He then quickly reaches up with both hands to Blurr's head and tilts it so he can see his face better. Using one thumb, he pulls his lower eyelid slightly and mentally catalogs. Temperature normal, pupil normal, eyes are steady, no darkening or trace of blood on the eyelid. Implants? He puts both palms up and gently feels the places behind Blurr's ears. No signs of rejection or malfunction.

“No no no” sighs Swerve ”You're fine, it's only stage two. I mean, second sucks too, migraines and all, but you just need to rest and no bright lights and...” he finally notices his hands are still on Blurr's head and pulls them back as fast as if he's been burned ”I MEAN I'm uh...sorry, I didn't mean to, I...”

Blurr laughs quietly.

“I'm glad you're back.”

_____________________

He wakes up in his quarters and can feel his face burning.

When he goes out to get the energon, Jazz throws him a look.

“Is something wrong? You're all kinda...shaky.”

“Hhhhhhuuuuuuuuuuuu” imitates signs of life Swerve “Say, doesn't it bother you that Prowl isn't human?”

Jazz smiles

“ Oh, I went crazy when I found out. But we figured it out.”

“Like...on a scale from ‘bad grade in school’ to ‘an asteroid is coming to Earth’ how crazy was it?”

“Worried about what your human friends will think?”

Swerve swings back and forth on his heels

“Pfffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff. Whatnooooo, no of course not. I'd be worried if I planned on telling them at all.”

Jazz frowns

“No offense, but keeping secrets isn't your strong suit.”

“Haha” Swerve waves his servo “ Watch me.”

[goldsbitch]

Ah...

In a world where people get born with the first sentence their soulmate shares with them tattooed on their wrist, Y/N and Oscar are probably not the ones with the easiest story to tell.

note: first Oscar fic! this is prep for a longer 1k followers celebration...i'm a little too excited for that one

warning: pure fluff

Not everyone got to meet their soulmate, and that was totally fine. Her parents weren't soulmates and they still managed to have an amazing life. Why waste time waiting around and looking for a guy who's first word he'd ever say to her was suppose to be "Ah."

"Ah."...? What was that about anyway? Stupid wrist tattoo, marking her forever with a word so unimpressive.

During her teenage years, it became an inside joke between her and her best friend. A word to overuse so much it could truly mean anything. Ah.

Her boyfriend was definitely not her soulmate. He was blessed with having a full sentence on his wrist - but in French, a language she did not speak. The hot, dark haired boy was too obsessed with studying physics to take the whole concept of soulmates seriously, so when they met in university, it was a no brainer to follow the path set by hormones rather than fate and date together.

Only after they graduated she realized just how soul-crushing it was to spend time with him. When the social circles broke down and they were left alone, it was more than clear they were not a good match. But it's hard to see the tornado when you're standing inside of it.

The vacation was suppose save the relationship. Instead, their fights were laced with her running away and him having his eyes wonder around any girl walking by.

Only two more days, she said as she walked hastily around a garden adjacent to the villa they were staying at, once again. It was like a dance - they'd fight, she'd run away, he'd search for her and they'd go back to their room for a night of silence. On repeat for the whole vacation organized by the devil himself. The plan was to turn her life upside down once she arrived back home. Start fresh. At that moment, she had no idea just how fresh that would be.

She stood in the middle of a pathway leading to dimly lit swimming pool, tired and impatient. By this time her boyfriend would usually be on his way to get her back.

Finally, grass cracking sound that followed any footstep in this garden. She closed her eyes, unable to do this dance anymore.

"I want to break up," she whispered and turned around.

Oscar did not plan on speaking with this woman standing in the middle of the way back to his hotel room. He was just coming back from his late evening swim session.

When she uttered those words, it was like each of the syllable burned on his skin. Hundred questions answered and thousand new on the table.

Absolutely baffled, yet in his typical stoic style of keeping it together on the outside, while exploding internally, he couldn't bring himself to a more than..."Ah."

//

Oscar fully believed in the concept of soulmates and had no doubt that he would meet his, that's why he refrained from dating anyone who did not have the specific, very strange, words on their wrist.

"I want to break up"...? Why would this be the first thing you ever say to someone?

Over the time, he figured it would just be him overhearing the words. Or that he was one of the lucky ones, having a soulmate who has a special catch phrase they use when introducing to anyone new. He imagined his soulmate to be clever and cunning. And like the dreamer he was, he already had several versions of their meet up in his head, usually followed by their whole life together playing out. Oh, what a bliss when the moment would finally come.

But when it came, it took him totally of guard. Somehow, in all the scenarios he thought about his whole life, he missed probably the most realistic one. He was only trying to get back to his room and this girl was standing in the middle of the only clear pathway, as if it was nothing. She spoke with her back turned to him.

"I want to break up."

And when she turned around, after mistaking him for someone else, he saw a beautiful face, all puffy with smudged make up. And obviously in a really bad mood. He was, as they say, too stunned to speak.

"Ah." He said bluntly, too quickly for him to even notice it, processing the fact he just heard that one specific sentence, the one that should define the rest of his life.

She stared at him, as if he just offended her entire family. "What?!"

He felt..nothing. She couldn't be his soulmate. No way. Most likely because he had his response to "I want to break up" rehearsed his whole life. It was supposed to be "Worry not, now I am here." A lovely sentence to walk around with, right? He wanted his soulmate to wear the tattoo proudly, not with - what was it he even said? Did he even say something? He didn't, did he?

"Worry not, now I am here," he tried, feeling like he had nothing to loose. The words came out clumsily, as if they tripped over one another.

He was sure her face was already the most confused one could make, but she proved him wrong, quickly.

"Sorry, I'll leave you to it. This was obviously a misunderstanding," he said, trying to be polite and took few steps ahead to get going. She reacted and stepped right into his way.

This surely couldn't be it. But, emotions were running high, she thought she was addressing her boyfriend and was somehow trying to comprehend the fact she nearly broke up with him. And then she hears an "Ah." "What did you say?" she shot at him, no filter whatsoever, watching him with fascination and some flavor of anger.

Oscar was beginning to regret ever engaging in this conversation. "Worry not, now I am here...There, now, is that tattooed on your wrist? I imagine not, so, apologies and I'll leave you to whatever you're doing," he said, without giving her much space to respond. He felt slightly guilty about leaving an obviously distressed woman alone there, but his social awkwardness won this round and he just wanted this to be over.

"No, you didn't," she said, not intent on moving anywhere. Determined look replaced her sorrow.

"I'm pretty sure I did."

"And I am sure you didn't," she said, raising her wrist all the way to his eyeline. "You said this, didn't you?!"

It was not a tone of playful or even hopeful realization. Her delivery was spiced with unresolved anger that grew inside. He squeezed his eyes, having hard time seeing the small letters in the light of the nearing night. "What's that?"

She put her hand down, having a really hard time believing this was actually happening. It took him by surprise the speed with which she reached for his own hand, but his racer reflexes kicked in and he managed to avoid her.

Annoyed sigh left her mouth. "Will you show me your hand? I've already had a pretty shit day without you making obstructions."

He looked deeply in her eyes. This was a lot of emotion battling each others, little too much for Oscar.

"I'm pretty sure we're not soulmates," he said dryly.

"Tell me what's on your hand and I'll let you fuck off from when you came from."

"I'd actually like to go the other way-"

"Show me your hand!"

Visibly taken back, almost offended by her shouting, he reveled his wrist.

Time stopped for Y/N for few seconds. She was staring at the words she uttered just a minute ago. Decided to take a deep breath before she looked in his eyes once again. "Sorry for...screaming. We're almost definitely soulmates...You said "Ah." It felt good to finally know what kind of tone this sound was spoken with. End to the endless possibilities.

The irony of the fact that Oscar had a hard time remembering if he had actually said something so stupid dwelled on him. Did he? Knowing himself, he probably did.

"Ah," he repeated with a much heavier, slightly bitter, undertone.

"Yeah."

They just stood there, staring at each other. Was this suppose to be it? The moment he longed for and the one she already mourned? Just now she noticed that he was a gorgeous guy. Heavenly actually. Such a kind smile. Innocent look with a hint of spice. But she believed in love, not necessarily soulmates. Even if she did, this was the worst moment to do this. Little, almost invisible, tears started rolling from her eyes.

"Can I take a photo of you?" she asked, with defeated smile, wanting to walk away with a tangible evidence for her lonely evenings in the future.

Oscar was still processing. "Sure," he replied to a sentence he heard thousand times each month. Very automatically his body moved for a classic hug with a fan - which she rejected and just snapped a photo of his face.

"Nice to meet you. But I have my shit to deal with. I'm not good for you anyway," she said and sprinted back to he hotel room, to her current boyfriend and a deadend life. He just stood there, unable to comprehend. When he finally did, she was gone.

//

"Mr. Piastri, you understand that I can't just give you a room number to someone who you don't even know by name," the receptionist said, not backing down to his urgency.

"But she is my soulmate! She just passed by, surely you would know which one of the guests she is," he said, both hand on the counter, towering the poor reception lady.

"I'm going to have to ask you to stop this request or we might be forced to cancel your stay and remove you from the premise."

He rolled his fingers into his first, mad at himself the most out of all the people. "Yeah. Great. Understood."

//

Y/N didn't sleep for a minute that night. When she returned back without a word, her boyfriend didn't even look up. She didn't really care.

"Let's just get through these few days," he said and she just nodded.

Mind racing around new set of eyes she memorized from the photo she had, not having a clue that he in fact was a racer.

//

Breakfast. Oscar's chance to take destiny into his own hands. He was the first one to arrive and planned on being the last one to leave. And should she miss her breakfast, he'd move into the lobby. Determined to talk to her at least one more time. Sat there, drinking his juice and bouncing his leg up to the point it annoyed even him.

//

He'd probably be at the breakfast, she realized as her sleep deprived body walked towards the elevator. A stolen glance at her partner. They hadn't said a word to each other the whole morning. To think she once thought one of them would bury the other after a nice full-filled life. Coffee and croissant was her only hope now. And of course the guy from yesterday was there. Sitting at a table, alone, very obviously finished with his breakfast. Arms crossed and eyeing all the entrances. She couldn't help but smile and light up when she saw him. He sat there. Waiting. Was there even a possibility he'd be waiting for her? Like a soulless ghost, she followed her current partner and sat down to the table he picked.

Oscar was a secret over-thinker. He spent every minute going through every possibility of what could happen. So of course he was ready, in theory, for her entering with another guy or a girl. However, the whole nature of her first sentence to him was about breaking up. And you don't say that in a healthy relationship.

It was now or never for him. He watched the pair grab a seat few tables away from him. God, she was gorgeous. Seeing her walk in, summer dress proving the internet was right once again, made him weak in his knees and unable to look away. She paused upon noticing him, eyes shyly flashing back and forth, absolutely no plan or idea what to do. Awkwardly put her things down the at the table, fumbled around aimlessly and proceeded to walk over the breakfast bar. As she walked, she could almost feel his eyes piercing through her back. For some reason, it felt as if he knew something she didn't. she had to actively convince herself to act normal, as if this was her first time having breakfast at a hotel. Copy others. Oscar did indeed stare at her as if there was no tomorrow. Eyes glued to her back, cosplaying as the worst private detective this planet ever produced. He found himself getting up and approaching the bar she was standing by, the guy she came in long gone from her close proximity.

Oscar gulped before speaking, standing right beside her, pretending to be interested in a stack of apples. Her eyes flashed to her left, but she already knew who was standing next to her. It was as if she could hear his energy, something divine, intoxicating and most importantly - inevitable.

"Morning....I hope you've had better night than when you left yesterday," he opened with, desperately trying to break the ice. He was absolutely hopeless with small talk. His tone created a small smile on her face. This sort strange and unique tonality, which was exceptionally hard to decipher, mixed with his Australian accent. Again, so many questions popping up in her head - her body wanted her to find out everything about this guy.

"I'm not sure that's the case. But thank you for asking I guess," she said and leaned over his hand to reach for a fresh peach. It was not her conscious decision to brush his hand, but it definitely could have been avoided. Neither party mattered. Two shy smiles were created at that moment.

"Would you mind sharing your name with me?" he asked, as she glanced over to his wrist, to look at his tattoo once again.

She answered, slightly hesitantly. "Y/N."

"Uuh,"

"Are interjections the only language you speak?" she whispered, still not over the whole "Ah." thing and finally stopped pretending to be interested in the breakfast bar. She did the best she could to meet his eye while not turning around and becoming too obvious.

Oscar was having trouble processing his body's reaction to this girl being so close now. "No, but I am happy you seem interested to know that."

It was impossible to fight of the smile. "I'm not, you're the reason I'm walking with this my whole life," she said, lifting her wrist once again.

He fiddled with some apples, trying to keep his hands busy. "I'd like to object that in this pair I'm the one who lost"

"Don't say the word pair," she said in a tone so unserious even she couldn't pretend to believe it.

"Why, does that idea make you nervous?" he clicked his tongue, feeling more confident with every second she stayed there with him.

"I have a boyfriend," she stated, lying to herself anyway.

He smirked. "Apologies, must have misread my own hand."

"I can't break up with someone on a holiday," she responded, reaching for straws, not even knowing why. She took two steps to the coffee line and to no surprise, he followed.

"You didnt seem to think as such yesterday," he said in more serious tone. "Look, I don't know you-"

"No, you don't," she jumped in before he continued.

"-But...let me present my hypotheses, so that we can test the whole soulmate thing. Does that not make you at least a bit excited?" he said, trying to hide his own excitement, which was something he did not have to do often, so he was not really good at it.

She found his confidence mixed with clumsiness so intoxicating. "It's overrated," she argued, perhaps trying to see how much he's willing to defend it.

"I'm so much looking forward to proving that theory wrong." There is was. The point of no return.

"Well before you do," she bit her smile, accidentally leaving a pause for him to fill.

"Ah, so you believe that I will," he said sith his signature "I won" smile.

"Again, with the interjections, you gotta unlearn that," she said, happy he couldn't see directly into her face, as she felt the blush spreading.

"Teach me."

"Stop it...." she froze, searching in memory a moment when he'd introduce himself.

"Oscar."

She finally paused and dared to look at him, or more specifically stopped resisting her wondering eyes. Her mind rushed through all the Oscar's she had the pleasure to meet and absolutely none of them did justice to the name. His kind eyes, while somewhat giving shy guy vibes, pierced through her fearlessly. So sure of himself, et somehow humble. An impossible enigma she could see herself deciphering for the rest of her life.

"Nice name," she said, in a completely new tone, one he hadn't heard yet. Calm, kind and intrigued.

"Thank you." They stared at each other for few more moment, utterly inappropriately for two strangers in a coffee line. Taking in the little intricacies about the other, as if memorizing for a test.

"You said you had a hypotheses?" she broke silence, not quite sure they were at the same planet as their surroundings anymore. All around them sort of blended together into an unclear, totally unimportant mush.

"I do. Hope I don't overstep."

"I think that does not matter now," she said, walls crumbling down one by one.

"Good. I think you don't want to break up with your current boyfriend now that you'd met me," he said boldly.

"Astonishingly obnoxious," she teased, unable to believe he caught her.

"Fair. But, yesterday you wanted to. Now, it serves like a perfect excuse why run away from this," he said and stepped just a little bit closer to her.

"I don't want to be a slave of some destiny bullshit," she said, while absolutely agreeing with destiny this time.

There was no way back for Oscar. Looking into her eyes was making him drown in lands never explored before. "Yes, but why reject it before we even get the chance to discover if we like each other."

"I don't even know you."

"Your parents didn't know each other at one point," he said matter-o-factly.

The reality was creeping into her mind. "I hardly know anything about you! Like where you live, what you do..."

He was not letting her go. "All over the globe, I am a racing driver. You?"

How come it seemed so easy and obvious for him? "Oscar, I'm..I'm scared." Intimidated was the word she wanted to use, but it felt a little bit too much.

"Of what?"

"I dunno...? Of this working out?"

"Do you realize that sounds quite ridiculous."

"...Yes".

"Well, I believe this is going to be great fun. Listen, it's not socially acceptable for me to bother you for longer. But I desperately hope this is not the last conversation we share," he lowered his voice, parting ways with her being the last thing he actually wanted to do, but his intuition told him, that he had to give her some space to come forward to his, her decision.

Y/N's head was a mess, truth slipping through, passing all the filters that seemed to have stopped working. "I am afraid it's not."

He smiled. "Good. Now, I'll leave you to your life - do whichever you think is right. But please give me your number."

"No, you give me yours so that I can call you when i want to. You know, boundaries," she ordered, trying to keep some control in her hands.

He trusted his gut. "Fair."

//

"Lady, I can't tell you where's Oscar's room." It was a different receptionist that Oscar had dealt with, but probably with the same training.

"But it's a suprise! Look, I have his number an everything."

"Why don't you call him?"

"You're familiar with the concept of a surprise?"

//

Unlike Oscar, she managed to convince the reception into giving her Oscar's room number. It was all the way up at the last floor. Fancy, she thought. It's impossible to convey the energy and adrenaline cocktail that Y/N was on when she was on the way to knock on his room and announce that she actually went though with the break up and the guy was on his way home, cutting the vacation early. It was unhinged, reckless, addictive. She had to stop herself several times, as the excitement mixed with fear was making her put on faces very strange to anyone who should pass by. If music was on, she'd dance for hours. Hell, she had no idea what was suppose to happen now. And that had never felt so exhilarating before.

With one last breath before her life changed for good, she knocked on the door.

After the longest few seconds ever experienced on this planet, he finally opened the door.

She physically couldn't hold it anymore. "I broke up with him," she blurted out the moment their eyes met.

Oscar tried to take in the image of his soulmate, standing there in front of him, flustered and ready to take the leap with him, once again, having trouble holding his smile in.

"Ah."

[reasonsforhope]

If I can also offer some additional thoughts to strawberryraviegutz, and anyone else who's worried about the same things:

There's zero evidence for the "250 year/10 generations" rule or whatever they call it. It's been a popular theory for quite some time, but every post about it cherrypicks examples of nations in history that lasted around that long and ignores all the ones that lasted longer or survived by adapting over time.

Literally every doomer post about it is based on that same cherrypicking and contemporary trends you see on social media, not long-term realistic projections used in actual academic circles, where they employ real scientific and historical evidence. Evidence that doesn't round off the lifespans of nations to some arbitrary number.

Not that I'm trying to downplay any existing problems, just that what we're dealing with today is hardly anything apocalyptic. It's really important to remember that increased awareness of a problem does not correlate to an increase in scale of said problem.

Also, despite what you may hear, there haven't really been many true collapses of entire civilizations in history. When states in the past have collapsed- Rome, China, India, the Mongol Empire, Alexander the Great's Empire, etc.- the people living there don't just disappear. They survive and go on to build new states that grow, change and evolve from there. That's a form of continuity, not total destruction.

And just as there has never been a true utopia, there has also never been a true dystopia. A dystopia is a literary device, not a state of being. So long as people disagree with and oppose cruelty and tyranny in any form, as is human nature, a true dystopia is impossible.

Especially because a dictator will never outlive the people. No matter how they may want to pretend otherwise, their grip on power is only ever temporary. The power held by the people is eternal.

I've seen more tangible good done in the last ten years than I thought would be possible, and I don't see any reason to stop believing that'll be true.

So don't give up just because of a few social media posts from people who have no idea what they're talking about. Every generation has had people who say these things and they're always proven wrong, so it's not worth your time and energy to worry about it.

Be kind to yourself and to others, and remember the world is a better place with you in it. We have not reached the end of history, not by a long shot.

Thank you for sending this in, and agreed!

[gotta-winwin]

OT13 Reaction -- when you're injured

SCOUPS:

he's speeding you to the hospital no matter how small the injury is. will lowkey make a big deal out of something as tiny as a cut. scolds you for not telling him sooner and for putting yourself in harms way. coddles you once you're home, refusing to let you touch a single piece of housework. he'll mother hen over you for at least a couple days before he accepts you're ready to be independent once again.

JEONGHAN:

laughs. (im so sorry) he will 100% start cackling first before he asks if you're okay. makes fun of you as he takes care of you and reenacts the moment for your viewing pleasure. scolds you for being so clumsy and will baby you as you recover.

JOSHUA:

the type of immediately jump into action. the moment you cry out in pain or he sees you falling, he's by your side as if he's teleported. holds you as he checks your injury, fussing over it and asking if you need to go to the hospital. will take you anyways even if you say no. holds your hand the whole time. tells you to be more careful cause he doesn't like seeing you in any sort of pain.

JUN:

if it's a particularly funny way you injury yourself, he'll eat that shit up. is too busy laughing to check if you're okay until you start crying and he'll be like oh shit it's real okay let me lock in. extra attentive once he realizes its serious.

HOSHI:

the type to let out a loud scream when he sees you go down with an injury - you'd think he was the one in pain. he wants to help, he swears - but he's just as lost as you are. the only thing he knows is to take you to the hospital for professionals to help you since he can't.

WONWOO:

is immediately playing doctor with the random bits of knowledge he's gained on the medical side of tiktok (why he's on the medical side of tiktok idk). he's meticulous and precise with it, taking care of you like it's his profession. will crack a few jokes (albeit quite poor jokes) to try and cheer you up. reads to you as you try to fall asleep, his attempt at distracting you from the pain.

WOOZI:

realistically, woozi hears about your injury over the phone. he's at work in his studio cooking up another massive banger, and isn't fazed when he picks up your call. you tend to call him at least twice to make sure he's eating anyways. worried when you tell him what happened and asks if you need him there with you. either way, he's packing up to leave asap, no longer in the mindset to work knowing you're in pain.

MINGHAO:

if your injury was your own fault, he'll look at you like: (¬_¬") he's sighing at your clumsiness and you can hear the disappointment as he tends to your injury, all the while nagging about how you've got to be more careful. calls his mom to ask which herbal medicine will fix you faster - jokingly comes back with ginseng tea, telling you its to fix your clumsy ass brain.

DK:

screeches when he sees you drop. gags at the sight of blood. he approaches you slowly, hands shaking to check if you're okay. he's inwardly very panicked and lowkey not hiding it well. this wasn't in the boyfriend handbook! he's ready to be there for you though, cheering you up with funny anecdotes about him and the boys, doing his best to make you laugh through the pain. he will do anything you need him to during recovery -- just far from blood and anything icky that might come with it.

MINGYU:

lowkey probably the cause of the injury (sorry gyu stans, yk i'm right tho) he apologizes profusely, stating that he is 'just a clumsy big boy' and cannot help that he just has a rougher hand with things. makes it up to you with snacks, cooking and cuddles. allows you to use this incident against him till the end of time, although he gets sulky every time you bring it up.

SEUNGKWAN:

complains that he's got to take care of you but does it lovingly anyways. "i'm doing this cause i love you. you're lucky i love you or i would've left you suffering ages ago." gives you that signature seungkwan side eye if the injury was your fault. chides you to be more careful.

VERNON:

his first instinct is to ease the pain with bad jokes. will ask you if you'd wanted it to happen 'is this the result you wanted, baby?' and will quickly stfu when you glare at him. follows your orders on how to take care of you cause he's lowkey very lost. puts on a movie once everything is done to help you relax and to take your mind off the pain.

DINO:

ya'll 100% were doing something stupid and got injured together. dino has that 'you say jump, i say how high' energy, and you're definitely both in pain because one of you was doing something for jokes and the other joined for fun. takes care of you while complaining about his own pain. is a big baby when its your turn to take care of him. tells you to never bring this up to his hyungs or else he will never hear the end of it.

[thatdeadaquarius]

About your language brainrot. I see your "Reader's writing can't match tyvat's long and flowery writing" and bring you "Tyvat isn't used to books over 50 pages long so a short story to the Reader is a whole dictionary to tyvat readers".

Seriously, have you seen how thin the books are? They don't wrote novels, they write short chapters formatted in the way really old stories are. As in, summarizing all the events down into one smooth story then adding a few quotes. Fanfiction writers are insane. They will willingly sit down and write hundreds of words at a time. To them, a proper modern day story of maybe, oh 10k words or so, would probably be like the Oddessy itself.

If we were to combine the two headcanons. It would end up as many historians being intimidated by this insanely long written scripture in the language of the forgotten.

I'm going to take this a step further and say that if the creator asked some people to proofread their things, it would establish a hiarchy of who is able to actually finish the book the creator read and who isn't.

NOW THIS, THIS IS MY FUCKING JAMMMM

I'm so sorry this is so old!! u probably all know this by this point that I've really slowed down as the year has gone on, but I graduated university and then got my first job so its been pretty crazy!

Sun: Reader (you/they/them)

Orbit: Headcanons-ish

Stars: dash of all the book/nerds of Genshin, heavy on Sumeru?

Comets & Meteors: Content Warnings: Cussing, 16+ Mature Audiences, Spoliers for Sumeru Archon Quests/Scaramouche, & Trigger Warnings: mention of shipping/characters shipping themselves with you.

Comment if any missed, please.

☆

FULL STOP.

THE AKADEMIYA, FONTAINE RESEARCH INSTITUTE, HAVE BEEN WAITTTINNGGGG ON YOUR ASS LMAO

You fall from the fucking sky like a 5 star, or pop out of the Irminsul or whatever

and immediately are mobbed by scholars. LMAO jkjk (not really, bc that's what it’d feel like)

can you even imagine the dread older stories(”the classics” to them), that was instilled in the poor students around Teyvat??

id like to think ur works are the most preserved over the thousands of years of Teyvat archeologists excavating them, in comparison to other authors (teyvat just likes you more, suck it William Shakespeare)

also, bc I cant resist language differences/world building I'm sorryyyy 😭 😭

the vocab of Genshin lang vs. ours, has significantly less vocabulary like their actual dictionary is 1/3 the size of ours type of energy

(Omfg all ur fanfics being considered like insanely long realistic romantic classics or tragedies like Jane Austen-level, and only the richest and biggest play companies put on plays about ur stories bc the script goes on for hours)

(ur plays only get put on for rlly big events bc of this, like Lantern Rite or like a Summer/Winter festival/your birthday, which is, yes, an international holiday)

dude the sheer power move of anything you’ve written being essentially “Journey of the West” to them, like Damnnn.

endless like adaptations, plays, Teyvat-short stories condensing it, (THEIR OWN FANFICTION ABOUT UR STORIES)

the power is, in fact, going to your head every time another scholar both deflates at how long ur stuff is, but also lights up bc they get to read it

speaking of scholars… you know who snatched you up first. you know. you don’t even need to read the next line.

Alhaitham.

sneaky bastard he is, absolutely manipulated, mansplained (and manwhored bc he knows he’s handsome, cheeky little shit) his way into getting you to sit down with him and interview you about both translating other classics, your own, giving your own analysis of others works and ur own, and picking ur brain apart of how/why you wrote urs, etc. its fucking endless,

Kaveh had to come rescue you bc u were starving to death after getting stuck with the Haravatat scholar in his office for nearly 7 hours of interrogation discussion about literature

and Alhaitham wasn't even nearly done, he’d informed you as you left that he already had another appointment for later conversation scheduled (how?? you don't even know ur own schedule??? you have a schedule???) and was looking forward to more of your “creative and enlightening input” :)))

(you’re never going to escape him, not even Nahida herself can save you from his stubborn ass)

On another note, Xingqiu is quaking when you agree to autograph his copy of your stories (of which he has all hard covers of the first edition translations)

Zhongli/Rex Lapis is known for having a near-lifelong passion for searching for your works specifically, and learning how to translate them better into Teyvatian vernacular

like the same way he can absolutely speak on Rex Lapis facts/rocks/adepti info, is the same confidence he speaks about knowing ur work lol

(yes he did also ask for several autographs and another sit-down talk about the works, tho a lot more sneaky then Alhaitham bc he just casually gets u guys into it during dinner)

Barbatos/Venti has written some of the most famous songs based on your stuff, he has his favorites too,

but he always claims the best songs are any that have been written in the story, like either when a character sings something, or there are like quotes from songs ur fanfics are based on lol

(he also demanded to hear what they actually sound like from you, yes, you have to sing them for him lol)

Venti also can surprisingly drunkenly ramble the entirety of at least one of ur stories, like, word for word lmao

(Diluc gave in and did give him a drink on the house for that one, just once, Venti doesn’t remember it lol)

(I forgot to mention, u guys still speak the same language, just like, different versions of it)

ur works being one of the few things all the Archons can freely talk about with each other, like it’s neutral ground bc they’re all fangirling about it lmao

Furina and Neuvillette have had like,, fierce debates over the decades about character dynamics and the general drama of ur stories, they’ve gotten into it enough they’ve stopped talking to each other for a couple days a few times lol

Albedo, Sucrose, Kokomi, Yae Miko, Ei, Raiden, have read every single work they’re gotten their hands on in Teyvat (it took them like a literal year or longer)

Albedo drew you fanart for every single story, bc he’s hyperfixated on everything related to you ngl,

Kokomi had commissioned smaller pocket versions of ur works (which later got popular thanks to Yae Miko) both the OG and the Teyvat shortened versions

THE HARBINGERS ARE THE MOST DOWN BAD LMAO

Childe has literally tried to recreate battle scenes from ur works lmao

and gets especially riled up about fighting someone who resembles any characters from them (esp villains, what a cutie)

You cannot fathom the amount of research throughout Teyvat that has been secretly or indirectly funded by Pantalone/Tsaritsa

from the experts to analyze them, to funding play companies to act them out, to actually excavating places to get more of ur stuff unearthed

(the Harbingers absolutely are the first group of people that got to read several of ur stories first bc of this, like the world’s most exclusive secret book club lol)

Scaramouche used to clown on Childe all the time about how he was too impatient to even “sit down and read the King’s classics”, and he was downright insufferable when he found out about Tartaglia’s habit of recreating battle scenes/that being what motivated him to fight sometimes lol

that being said, Wanderer surprisingly never forgot ur stories.

Even when his memories were wiped for a bit, he found comfort in these fantastical epics still sticking around, even when his old names did not

(he mayyyy or mayyy nottt have secretly namedhimselfafteroneofthetragicprotagonistsherelatesto- )

oh btw, Nahida also found joy and comfort in ur stories when she was trapped, they also helped her literally grow as a person bc she had ur stories to help her sort of process the world/what life was like outside of her dreaming prison 🥺💔❤️‍🩹

◇

OMFG

ANYWAY FULL TONE SHIFT LMFAO-

the ABSOLUTE SPIRAL-RED-STRING-CONSPIRACY-THEORY-BOARD ENERGY IF THIS WAS A BLUNT LANGUAGE AU LMAOOOO

like specifically how Teyvatians like to give all the context ever thru their words, but older deities/beings like you just do simple phrases that can have deeper meanings (whereas teyvat just explains all the meanings behind their words)

STOP there’s like an official display at the Akademiya and Fontaine Institute of red string theory boards 😭😭 (look what you’ve done to themmm LMAO)

for like every story of urs, INCLUDING THE FANFICS STOP

IMAGINE THE SHIPPING WARS IF U EVER WROTE ONE THAT WASNT EXPLICIT OR LIKE ONE OF THE MAIN ROMANTIC INTERESTS HAD CHEMISTRY WITH OTHER CHARACTERS HAHAHAHAA

that's actually what Akademiya scholars argue about the most viciously, it’s like politics you can’t just bring up ships from ur stories casually in regular convos 💀

(poor Cyno has to deal with a shipping war once a year bc someone always makes the mistake of reading ur work for the first time (without being told to not talk to others abt ships lol) and it starts an all out brawl in the cafeteria every time LMAO)

Also yes.

Cyno is a fanboy.

(he has read Creator x Reader-insert fanfiction.)

(As have most of the characters mentioned, and those not lol)

…

(I'm gonna make a whole Creator x reader fanfic post one day i stg lmao)

☆

an iced coffee? for me?? :0

ok but real talk…

wtf do you guys wanna see for new years!!

i didn't do a inktober/october days thingy bc i felt too unprepared (and bc id wanted to post that 1000+ followers eldritch au for Halloween)

but now i kinda wanna, at least for a few days :o

ill post a poll in a minute, so check it out!! but still, please feel free to comment some ideas here! :)

Safe Travels Deafening Dreamer,

💀♒

If you wanna join a taglist, DM me what for! "Pspspsss, please tag me for [All SAGAU posts, Only SAGAU Language AUs, diff fandom, etc.]!"

(If you ever wanna drop, just DM me! "No more taglists/[specifically this AU/fandom] please!")

♡the beloveds♡

@karmawonders / @0rah-s / @randomnatics / @glxssynarvi / @nexylaza / @genshin-impacts-me / @wholesomey-artist / @thedevioussmirk / @the-dumber-scaramouche / @chocogi / @fallen-starr / @areaderofbooks / @devilangel657 / @esthelily

[darknight3904]

𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘖𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘓𝘪𝘧𝘦

𝘓𝘰𝘨𝘢𝘯 𝘏𝘰𝘸𝘭𝘦𝘵𝘵 𝘹 𝘍𝘦𝘮!𝘙𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳

𝘚𝘶𝘮𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘺: 𝘈 𝘳𝘰𝘰𝘧𝘵𝘰𝘱 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘩𝘢𝘴 𝘓𝘰𝘨𝘢𝘯 𝘴𝘢𝘺𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘣𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘺 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥𝘯'𝘵. 𝘔𝘦𝘢𝘯𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘦, 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘴𝘢𝘺, 𝘩𝘦 𝘬𝘦𝘦𝘱𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘩𝘪𝘮𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘧, 𝘢 𝘴𝘦𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘵 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘩𝘪𝘮.

𝘛𝘢𝘬𝘦𝘴 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘦 𝘢𝘧𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘋𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘱𝘰𝘰𝘭 & 𝘞𝘰𝘭𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘦 (2024). 𝘙𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳 𝘩𝘢𝘴 𝘣𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘥 𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘱𝘶𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘱𝘰𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘢𝘨𝘦𝘴 𝘴𝘭𝘰𝘸𝘭𝘺. 𝘐𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶'𝘷𝘦 𝘴𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘉𝘰𝘺𝘴 𝘰𝘳 𝘎𝘦𝘯 𝘝, 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘬 𝘝𝘪𝘤𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘢 𝘕𝘦𝘶𝘮𝘢𝘯 𝘰𝘳 𝘔𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘦.

𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘴 𝘢 𝘥𝘪𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘵 𝘴𝘱𝘪𝘯𝘰𝘧𝘧 𝘵𝘰 𝘮𝘺 𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘺 𝘗𝘳𝘰𝘮𝘪𝘴𝘦. 𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘥𝘰𝘯'𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘰, 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘐 𝘥𝘰 𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘥 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘵 𝘧𝘪𝘳𝘴𝘵.

𝘞𝘢𝘳𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴: 𝘝𝘪𝘰𝘭𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘶𝘢𝘨𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘦 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘰𝘷𝘪𝘦.

𝘐 𝘸𝘳𝘰𝘵𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘰 𝘣𝘦 𝘮𝘪𝘥/𝘶𝘱𝘱𝘦𝘳 30𝘴 𝘪𝘯 𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦, 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘪𝘮𝘢𝘨𝘪𝘯𝘦 𝘩𝘰𝘸𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘺𝘰𝘶'𝘥 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘶𝘵𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘪𝘴 𝘴𝘭𝘰𝘸 𝘢𝘨𝘪𝘯𝘨.

𝘞𝘰𝘳𝘥 𝘊𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘵: 3.2 𝘬

𝘗𝘳𝘦𝘷𝘪𝘰𝘶𝘴 𝘗𝘢𝘳𝘵 / 𝘚𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝘔𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘵 / 𝘔𝘺 𝘔𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘵

You're stunned as Logan gently pushes you away from him. Did he truly not feel anything?

"Don't give me that look." He sighs, "It's your fault. You screwed up. I said no attachment, you agreed."

You can feel hot tears beginning to blind your vision as you take your finger and point into his chest.

"Tell me you feel nothing," You dare him, "Tell me, Logan."

A deep sigh leaves his lips and he pushes your hand away from his broad chest.

"I don't, okay. Let me spell it out for you," He leans down so he's closer to eye level with you, "I. Don't have any feelings for you. The past three months have been nothing but casual for me. Just like we agreed."

You can't look at him as your tears begin to fall down your face. It was like he was devoid of all emotions, standing there with his arms crossed over his chest.

"Here come the waterworks." He groans, "I can't do this today. Come find me once you've pulled yourself together."

You watch as he turns to leave your room. Your anger begins to boil over when his hand reaches the door knob. How dare he think he could get away with treating you like this?

Satisfaction slithers up your spine like a snake as you focus on Logan's blood, pinning him up against the door.

"Put me down." He growls as you walk up to him

"No," You smile, you were going to make this hurt. After all, he deserved it.

"If you're going to puke, at least stand near the trash can."

"What?" You ask, your daydreams were becoming too realistic.

"You've got this sour look on your face. Like you want to hurl whatever you ate for breakfast." Matt says, pushing you towards the trash can behind the counter.

"I'm not going to puke. Just remembered something." You say

"Is it all the alcohol you drank?" Matt teases

"No." You groan, "Where even were you last night? You said you were coming and then bailed. I got stuck with Logan of all people while Wade and Vanessa ate each other's faces off."

"If you must know, I bailed on you for a hot date." Matt brags, "And for the record Logan is perfect for you. Not my fault you can't see that."

"He is not perfect for me." You say, "Spill the details on the date though."

"He's hotter than the sun." Matt sighs

"Yeah right." You scoff, "As if a man like that even exists."

Matt tells you you're a fool and fishes his phone out of his worn out jeans. Leaning across the counter, he pulls up a photo from this mystery man's Hinge.

Alright. Maybe Matt was right about the hotness level of this mystery man.

Your eyes widened as you took this guy in. Dark brown hair sat atop his head, complimented by just the right amount of scruff on his face and big brown eyes that just pulled you in. You swipe through the photos slowly, this must've been the peak of human evolution. Seriously he even looked good sweaty, after a 5k.

"And what's this guy's name?" You ask

"Johnathan." Matt sighs dreamily, "He's even got an accent."

Your eyebrows shoot up your face, if this was a comic book, you'd look ridiculous right now.

"He's from the U.K." Matt explains

"I love accents." You sigh, "British ones are so amazing."

"If you were to land someone with an accent, I feel like an Australian one would suit you better." Matt says

"The last time I met an Australian, he was performing in some Broadway musical. Music boy...no, Music Man." You hum

"How did you meet a Broadway Star?" Matt asks

"Oh, I almost hit him with that car I share with Wade." You explain

"You mean the shitty Honda he bought?" Matt asks

"Yup." You say, "Anyway after I almost ran him over, I offered to buy him dinner as an apology. He was a good sport about it at least. Didn't sue me."

"You literally could've had a rom-com-level romance with this man, and you let him go." Matt scolds you

"He wasn't into me." You shake your head

"How do you know that?" He points out, "Did you even get his name?"

"Uh yeah, it was like...Howard or something."

Matt's nose scrunches up, "That's on the list of unmoanable names for me."

"No wait, it was Hugh." You say, snapping your fingers in memory

"Alright, that's a bit better," Matt admits

The sound of the front door opening has both of you straightening up.

"Who has an unmoanable name?"

Wade.

"What're you doing here?" You ask as he welcomes himself.

"Can't I come to see my favorite roomie on my lunch break?" Wade asks

"You're lying. Your favorite roommate is Dogpool." You point out as Wade stands in front of you

"And don't you forget it." He chimes, reaching out to flick your forehead, "So how was last night after we left?"

Your eyes narrow in suspicion. You were almost certain Wade was up to something. He never visited on his lunch break unless Peter needed to buy a new book to read. You took in his stance, overly relaxed, leaning over the counter, chatting Matt up, commending him on getting a second date with Johnathan. Yes, Wade Wilson was most certainly plotting something.

"Last night was fine." You say blandly

"Just fine?" Wade asks, his smile dropping, "Give me details, girl."

"Yeah, what was your night like with Logannnnn?" Matt teases

Wade gives Matt a high five and you want to rip your toupee-wearing friend limb from limb. Of course, with Matt here, you'll have to stay on your best behavior.

"We just drank a bit and then headed back to the apartment."

You couldn't admit that you barely remembered past the Taco Bell visit from last night. Seriously, the way your mutation delayed the effects of alcohol was horrible. Anything you drank took way longer than a normal person to affect you.

"I bought him a Crunchwrap." You say

"She is totally bullshitting us." Wade giggles, "Laura heard like, your entire conversation with him. That kid of yours has some crazy good hearing."

"You have a kid?!" Matt shrieks in shock

"What? No!" You groan, "She's a metaphorical one. Adoptive I guess is the best way to put it. But I don't like to talk about that, Wade."

Your glare could've turned him to stone as Wade avoided your gaze, sensing he was in trouble.

"Oh. For a second I thought you were hiding some double life from me." Matt laughs

"Double life? Oh just wait, buddy. Pumpkin here? She's an X-ma-"

You slap your hand over Wade's mouth and hiss at him to shut up. Seriously why was he always running his mouth?

"I was an X-Man for Halloween last year." You smile

"Which one?" Matt asks

"Uh, Storm. Bought a wig and everything." You lie.

The wet feel of Wade's tongue has you recoiling in disgust as you pull your hand back. There was something seriously wrong with this guy.

"Nice right? My spit? It's warm. Like a baby blanket from my mouth."

"That's gross." Matt says, "If you excuse me, I need to restock Historical Fiction. Don't uh...lick her anymore, Wade."

Wade waves goodbye to Matt as he disappears into the shelves of the store.

"Whose gonna tell him he's going out with a Viscount? I mean that guy in his phone was totally Anthony Bridgerton!"

"Are you just here to see if my story matches Laura's?" You ask him

"No! I'm also here to bring you lunch."

Wade tosses a brown paper bag on the counter. You pull it open, unimpressed at the contents.

"This is a half-eaten sandwich I made for you this morning."

"And I saved you some. Call me Mother Teresa the way I'm ministering to the less fortunate. "

You sigh and rub your temples. Wade was wildly annoying today. It was like getting laid had him extra dialed up. You thought Vanessa might've calmed him down, yet here he was, driving you nuts.

The cold breeze of the night felt good around his body as Logan lay on the roof of the building. He had made his artful escape while Wade nearly blew the kitchen up trying to cook Alfredo. You had rushed over with Laura to help him put the fire out as he panicked. Logan took that as his cue to sneak out of the apartment, Jack Daniels in one hand, and a cigar in his other.

It was much more peaceful here, staring up at the light-polluted sky of New York. Cigar dangling between his lips he closed his eyes and listened to the sounds of the city below him. He concluded that you must've gotten the fire under control, after all, the building was still standing.

You were so good at everything you did, it annoyed him.

He thought back to how he promised Laura he'd try to get along with you better. He feels rather victorious, he has definitely held up his promise. The two of you had gone all day today without arguing. Sure, you had been at work most of the day, but he counted that as a victory.

Logan wondered if you remembered anything from last night. What you had shared, what he had shared, it was all so heavy. You had avoided him this morning but after your shift at the bookstore, you had returned home and tossed a donut from some bakery onto his lap.

"Thanks for getting me home last night."

Was that all you remembered?

Even though he had promised himself he'd ignore whatever his heart was saying to his mind about you, last night had made things so much worse. Or better....He couldn't quite decide yet. All he knew was that you had been dancing in his mind all day today.

Fuck, this was driving him mad. He felt like some schoolboy, crushing on the popular girl who didn't know he existed.

Another long sip of Jack Daniels and a drag of his cigar has him shaking his head, at this rate you were going to keep him up at night.

Through the clouds, Logan can see the moon. It's a half moon tonight, it shines down and casts a bit of light on his pity party. Truly he was pathetic. It was like your name was tattooed across his mind, you were once again becoming everything to him. It scared him, the idea of that happening again. The possibility of losing you loomed like an evil shadow in his mind.

He ran a heavy hand across his face, cursing his mind and his anxiety over things that were out of his control.

"You drunk yet, old man?"

Your voice has him scrambling to sit up as he straightens the old afghan he stole from Al to lay on up here.

"I'm not a lightweight, bub." He says as you approach him, "And for the record, aren't you pretty old yourself?"

"Seventy isn't that bad. Besides, aren't you pushing two hundred? What were the dinosaurs like? You've gotta tell me."

He ignores your jibe as the scent of food hits his nose and he tries to get a glimpse of what you have in your hands.

"Presenting, a gourmet feast of pizza." You introduce as you pass him a paper plate with three slices on it, "Wade burned the food so bad he set the fire alarm off."

"Figures." Logan snorts as he motions for you to sit beside him, your own plate piled with pizza.

He eats in silence beside you, unsure of what to say. You had been so vulnerable with him last night, he didn't want to let something slip he wasn't supposed to know.

"Are you stargazing?" You ask

"No." He says, "Came up here to escape Wade's loud mouth and bad food."

You hum in acknowledgment, "Too bad, I like star gazing."

"Really?" Logan asks, this is different. In his universe, you had hated being outside. Just the idea of a bug being near you had you shuddering in fear. He'd never catch you laying in the grass just for stars.

"Yeah, when I first got brought to the school, I used to stay up late with Raven and Stargaze on the lawn until Charles caught us. He'd yell at her and tell her teenagers needed to sleep so their minds could develop." You explain

"Sounds like something he'd say. He tell you your mind is like a muscle?" Logan asks

"Of course he did." You laugh

The cool October breeze blows your hair back from your face and Logan feels his chest tightening. You are truly breathtaking.

"How'd you end up in The Void?" He asks, pivoting the conversation so he's not so distracted by your looks.

"It's a boring story. The TVA showed up one day and told me my universe was on the way out. Two seconds later I'm pruned, standing in front of a giant 20th Century Fox logo." You say

Logan nods, it really wasn't all that interesting. At least not like his, getting picked up by Wade like some cheap date and then getting sent there by that Paradox guy.

"What do you think of Laura?" You ask as you take another bite of your food.

"She could use a better attitude," Logan says truthfully

"Doesn't she just...have your attitude?" You ask

"I'm not that moody. She skulks around the apartment sometimes like some....homeless cat." Logan defends himself, how dare you think he was like a moody teen?

"Oh please," You scoff, "What do you call this then? Hiding from all the commotion, in the dark, alone."

"Not hiding. I'm relaxing. There's a difference." He points out

"Yeah, okay." You laugh

It's music to his ears as he listens to you laugh at him. He'd gladly make a fool of himself every damn day if it meant he'd hear that more often.

"I think she's lonely." You say

"I thought she was friends with that kid from her school. Ellie or something?" Logan said

"Ellie is the name of a video game character from that survival game Wade plays." You say, "Laura's friends with some girl named Brooke."

"Oh," Logan says, he never was good with some names.

"I meant lonely in...in the familial sense." You say hesitantly

"I guess so." Logan sighs

Well, that wrapped up that haunch of his. He'd been thinking that for awhile now. Laura was always hovering whenever he and you were interacting. Like some little shadow who just observed everything.

"What do you know about her version of us?" You ask

"Not much. Just that they were in some relationship. And that they died to get her to Canada." Logan says

You slowly nod next to him, "She mentioned once that I taught her how to floss correctly."

"Oral hygiene. It's important." Logan jokes

"Alright, asshole." You groan, shoving him by the shoulder, "She didn't say anything about that universe's you teaching her any life skills, so it looks like I won."

"Won what?" Logan scoffs, taking a drawl of cigar

"The better parent award." You say it as if it's obvious

"Oh really? She's only here cuz of me." He boasts

"It wasn't even you who created her. That other Logan did. Or well, his genes did."

Logan rolls his eyes and lets himself fall back onto the blanket. The empty night sky stares back at him as you join in, laying down next to him.

"Do you think we can help her? Feel less lonely that is." You ask quietly

"Yeah, I'm sure we can do something about that, bub."

Logan watches curiously as you squint your eyes next to him. What were you trying to spot? A passing plane? A stray bird?

"What're you looking for?" He asks

"Stars. Remember I said I like to star gaze?" You remind him

"You're not gonna see any here. Light pollution." He motions to the buildings around the two of you.

"Thank you, Captain Obvious." You sigh, "The stars remind me of home."

"The school? Thought you didn't like it there. Didn't that asshole ruin it for you?" Logan asks

"No, stars remind me of peace and...What are you...oh my god." You groan next to him, hiding your face in your hands

Logan wonders what you're upset about now. All he said was...oh right, he wasn't supposed to know about all that. He internally cringes, there was no going back now

"Is that why Wade was asking me about last night? You told him about whatever I said about my universe's Logan while drunk?" You angrily sit up, looking down at him.

"No!" Logan defends himself, "It wasn't me. Must've been Laura!"

"You're blaming a teenager?" You judge him

He shakes his head again, as he sits up next to you. You have a thoughtful look on your face like you're replaying your day.

"Alright, you're off the hook. Wade said something about Laura earlier. You're lucky." You say

Logan doesn't entirely like the look in your eye. He can't tell what you're thinking as you pick at the threads in the blanket the two of you sit in.

"So what'd I say?" You ask

"Nothing really." He lies

You deliver a hard punch to his upper arm, "Tell me or I send your ass flying off this building."

"Just my ass?" Logan asks smartly.

You raise your hand to him, ready to use that blood manipulation of yours but Logan speaks before you can.

"Alright, alright, calm down. I'll talk." He laughs, taking your hand in his bigger one

"You talked about how this Logan of yours was a brainless loser. Said you fell in love with him and he didn't reciprocate those feelings."

You nod and then look into his eyes, away from where your hands were joined in his lap.

"How do you know he was brainless? He's another version of you."

A soft chuckle leaves his lips, "You might have the worst personality in this universe but even I'm not that blind."

"Blind to what?" You ask

"You, my dear, are absolutely stunning."

"Oh, please." You scoff, regrettably pulling your hand away from his. His skin feels numb without yours there to keep it warm.

"I mean it, that Logan must've been half blind or stupid. Maybe a bit of both." He declares

He's pushing his luck here, saying all this. In an instant, he could be a red stain on the concrete. But he wants you to know all this. You have to know this.

"Logan, has anyone ever told you you're a hopeless romantic?"

"You're the first." He smiles

"I didn't do anything embarrassing right? I remember forcing you to eat that Crunchwrap in the Uber."

"If you don't take a bite I'll shove it so far up your ass that-"

"I'm eating it, see?!"

Logan thinks back over last night. He decides he won't tell you about your stripper moment in the bathroom, that would probably be mortifyingly embarrassing for both him and you.

The shy kiss you had placed on his cheek just before bed bounced around in his mind. He swore his skin was still tingling there even now. You truly had him wrapped around your finger. Technically the right thing to do was to tell you, and in this situation, he should've done the right thing.

"No, nothing comes to mind."

Chapter Five

The other Logan and Reader's relationship is based on the songs Casual by Chappell Roan and Say Don't Go by Taylor Swift.

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@mariaxman

[nymph-ette111]

What if Jeff, EJ, Toby, Masky, Hoodie, and Ben (separately) found Y/N silently crying? Would they help or try to calm down Y/N?

That's it, sorry if I chose too many creepypastas ❤

I hope you have a great day/night!!

(I love your writing style aaaaah! Luv ya >< )

Sorry if I sounded cringe ;)

WARNINGS; JEFF BEING AN ASSHOLE LIKE USUAL/TOXIC RELATIONSHIPS, MENTIONS OF A DECAPITATED BODY

AUTHOR'S NOTE; NO ONE HERE IS CRINGE!! and I love you too <3 was giggling and kicking my feet writing masky and hoodie's part LOL

TOBY;

-the first thought that comes to his mind is that somebody caused this.

-may be a bit rough when asking what's wrong, because like I mentioned before, he just jumps into the conclusion that it's someone else's fault.

-Toby is a little... impulsive when it comes to solving his problems, always going the aggressive route.

-basically what I'm trying to say is that he is willing to chop up someone's body if they did something bad enough to make you cry.

-he will pry the information out of you, whether you want to or not.

-he doesn't realize that this makes things worse for you :( let's be realistic, imagine crying to your boyfriend because someone bothered you just for him to leave and come back covered in blood holding the head from said person's decapitated body.

-he'll even try to hug you, not caring if he is covered head to toe in blood, not caring if the smell was overwhelming your senses. he'll get upset if you refuse his "affection" and "comfort". sometimes Toby's thinking is... hard to understand.

-99% chance you're going to throw up from the sight alone. what I'm trying to say here is Toby's attempt at making you feel better is nowhere near what it's supposed to be.

-but if that wasn't the case and your crying was because of something else like an insecurity, just the overall stress of your day, basically anything that doesn't involve another person he'd be less aggressive.

-wouldn't really know what to say so he'd just go for physical affection and hope that it works.

-now this part depends on you since not everyone likes physical touch when upset. if you don't mind it then he's going to hold you until you feel better. if you don't he'd respect your wishes but he won't leave, even if you ask him to.

-would kiss away your tears one hundred percent.

-i'd give him about... 7/10 less if he brings back a corpse with him but the physical affection is nice :)

JEFFREY:

-love how your relationship is hanging on by a thread.

-it's surviving off of hopes and prayers bro.

-Jeff believes that he should be the only one who can make you upset in any way shape or form. I'd say he doesn't take the idea of someone else making you feel bad very lightly.

-not even in a "oh, someone made my partner upset! not on my watch!" he's just offended because it feels like someone took his place or something.

-yeah did I mention he's toxic as fuck.

-i honestly don't know how he'd react... contrary to popular belief I don't think he'd go out of his way to kill somebody because they made his partner upset like Toby would. in Toby's case it's out of pure love obsession and the need to please you. in Jeff's case he'd probably kill for his own benefit which I mentioned before, someone taking his place.

-fuck it he'd probably kill the person just to torment you, he enjoys that shit.

-however if it's your own feelings regardless of what it is, he'd pretend to not care.

-i think I somewhat implied it in my "stretch marks" post that he doesn't know how to handle his partner's emotions. insecurities or not, big chance he won't do anything, probably throw an insult or two just to make you feel pathetic.

-damn I don't think any fluff post with Jeff would work.

-how can this motherfucker even be nice.

-and if you're asking, no he would never break up with you. you boost his ego a little too much and he doesn't want to lose that.

-he doesn't want to admit it but he's attached to you to a certain degree.

-i'd give it... why are you even reading this it's an obvious 0/10

EYELESS JACK;

-im torn between making EJ the feral demon he is or making him more... human.

-i think I lean towards the more human side when writing for Jack but that might change in the future. expect all of my headcanons to change since I'm still trying to figure this out. even for his personality.

-i should make a poll for that... ANYWAYS

-regardless of the reason, he'd react pretty much the same way.

-he's so sweet and comforting it's actually insane :(

-he's naturally awkward but the voice, the way he weighs and genuinely considers his words before speaking, trying to find the best way to make you feel better can make anyone instantly fold I'm TELLING YOU.

-bro sounds smart and is smart just the way he talk to you is enough to make you move on from whatever had happened.

-intelligent men are so

-head scratches after he's done giving you his advice and point of view of the situation.

-my husband<3

-tries to get you out of your room after that, or just include you in whatever so you wouldn't think about it again. like offering to invite you to the infirmary, there's always an extra seat for you there :)

-i might be biased but 9/10

BEN;

-i've said this before and I'll say it again, does not know how to comfort people. especially ones he cares about.

-he just... stands at the doorway (or floats, whatever you like)

-if it was another person he laugh at them right away, but considering you're his partner he'd fight the urge for your sake.

-actually he might laugh a bit but if he notices that you're clearly serious about what upset you he'd drop it.

-would download a virus on the other person's devices.

-he thinks it's funny.

-he genuinely tries to make you feel better tho, just doesn't know how :(

-if you're insecure about something then he'd react similarly to my "stretch marks" post and try to convince you that whatever it is about you, it's beautiful.

-might come off as corny tho.

-either way... I'd give him a 5/10 maybe even 6/10 if bullying kids on roblox cheers you up.

MASKY;

-regardless of the reason, he'll ask what's wrong but secretly hopes you don't want to talk about it.

-he is a teen tiny bit awkward.

-kind of like Toby, he goes for physical affection and hopes it's enough to take your mind off of it somehow.

-but the hugs this man gives...

-might as well stay there forever.

-just imagine him holding you tight to his chest, one hand rubbing your back while the other plays with your hair. a cig hanging loosely from between his lips UGH

-can you tell I'm listening to lana del rey while writing this.

-again he might not offer much in terms of... actually saying something to comfort you but his hugs are enough and if they aren't then girl what the fuck is wrong with you.

-i need him.

-i give 8/10

HOODIE;

-another one who relies on the physical affection only because he's a selective mute.

-unless you know sign language.

-unlike masky, instead of a hug you're sitting on this man's lap.

-his mask up to the bridge of his nose, scruff facial hair grown from years of not taking proper care of himself rubbing against your flush cheeks, strong arms holding you tightly against him.

-i genuinely cannot continue writing this so I'm ending it here because another word of describing this man will have me tweaking out 9/10

[grimrester]

i am really so sorry to continue harping on about the watcher entertainment streaming service. but this kind of stuff (internet content as a business & marketing it as such) is truly my obsession, and i think i will implode if i don't talk about some of the takes i'm seeing.

i'd like to emphasize again i don't have strong feelings about watcher either way. i like ghost files, i watch mystery files sometimes, i watched worth it back in the buzzfeed days. i don't watch any of their shows religiously.

anyway, here's the main things i keep seeing crop up and my thoughts on each:

"watcher has 25 employees they have to pay, and employing people in this economy is good, so we should be banding together to pay them."

employing people is good if you currently have the capacity to pay them. i checked watcher's linkedin page, and many of their employees were hired within the last year or two. if they hired people they cannot pay with the business model they had before, something is seriously wrong with their internal bookkeeping/decision making. it means they either didn't know they couldn't pay these people long term, or they did know and were content with risking newly hired employees' livelihoods on a huge content pivot in the next year.

of note is that none of their employees' titles have anything to do with managing the finances of the company. they are the size of a small business but have no one aside from the figureheads of the company in charge of their finances.

this is the kind of company decision making that leads to downsizing and layoffs, which can be devastating. but you know what's worse than laying off a portion of your staff? laying off everyone because your business is going under.

"not everyone can afford the subscription, but those who can should pay it to support the watcher team."

no. $6/month for a couple hours of content (depending on what shows you actively watch and the natural fluctuation of their release schedule) is a fundamentally bad value. i can pay that much for a few movies on amazon. i can pay that much for dropout, if i want to support a smaller business instead.

and to be totally frank, even if people do sign up, i don't think they'd get enough to compete with the amount they get through patreon/sponsorships. and the fact that they didn't know how many of their subscribers would realistically sign up is a bad sign.

a pretty good conversion rate of free to paid subscribers of a service or content is 3% (usually accomplished through a free trial). given the very poor reception of the announcement, let's say about 1% of their 3 mil youtube subs pay for their service. that's 30k people paying for their new platform. that's $180k a month in their pocket.

(they currently only have 12k subs on patreon so we are being generous here.)

a sponsorship deal (based on my googling, i have less direct experience with this) is anywhere from $10-50 per 1000 views. they've gotten about 1 mil views on their last few videos. 3 mil subs is nothing to shake a stick at, but let's say they're on the lower end of the payscale at $25 per 1000 views. that's $25k a video, $100k a month if they release 1 video a week. their lowest patreon tier is 5 bucks, so even if all their subs are at that tier, that's another $60k, so $160k total. it's entirely likely they're bringing in much more than that when you factor in merch, adsence, etc.

did anyone on their team crunch numbers on how many people would need to sub to make the switch worth it? did anyone do market research on how many people they could convert to paid users? because if not, if they really didn't have a game plan for this, the subscription service was always doomed to fail.

"this was their only option to continue making the content they want to make, with the production value they want."

i watched their announcement video. a key point in that video is that they have done sponsored videos and that's what used to pay for their content, but they did not like the amount of creative control the sponsor had over the content.

look, i get that's no fun. we'd all love creatives to be able to make whatever they want. but when you are a small business with a team of employees relying on you, you have to think about making money, sometimes at the cost of creative liberties.

and they had so many other options to make money for the projects they want to make without jumping to a subscription platform.

they could have started actually promoting their patreon, and maybe done some restructuring of the tiers. why not a highly produced, special series just for patreon members? or a special high-budget episode of each series, while the main series is lower budget?

bite the bullet and continue taking sponsorship deals on some less-produced shows, while axing sponsorships from the ones the crew feels more passionate about.

schedule larger, blowout-production shows only when they can be afforded. this is what Notorious Amongus Guy streamer jerma does. he saves up for big productions like his baseball or dollhouse streams, so he can really get creative with them.

they had other options and they've tried very little, especially when you compare them to other content house business at similar scales. try guys and good mythical morning both put out significant content with significant staff, and have had to diversify their income streams with auxiliary products, shows with widely varied levels of production, etc. but it seems to be working for them. watcher has merch and that's about it, and seems to only want to increase the production quality of ALL their shows.

really, all this just boils down to a terrible business decision. it's hard to say if the watcher team is working with a consultant or anyone outside of their team, but they certainly don't have anyone internally who is experienced with running a business like this. to me, it seems very much like they got in a room together and did some extremely optimistic income ballparking with no research behind it.

and that might have been fine for three dudes running a channel alone, but if they're a business, they have to start making decisions like one.

[avelera]

(Arcane Meta) The Staggering Timeline of the Hexgate Construction

The Hexgate timeline is insane, guys, it's actually insane.

So I'm writing a Jayvik fic set in the time skip between 1.03 and 1.04. Most people agree that time skip was about 6-7 years long.

During 1.04 "Progress Day" Jayce says "a few years ago", the Hexgates opened to the world. The year before, we learn from the Enforcer Caitlyn is talking to that Jayce launched a blimp "half way across the continent" which sounds like a demonstration of increased range for the Hexgates.

At some point, I would guess early in Jayce and Viktor's partnership, they also did the Distinguished Innovators competition where they needed to notch their own gears and, presumably, didn't have a lot of assistants or assistance. I only note this to point out that there was at least a year or so at the beginning where they weren't immediately thrust into limelight yet and they didn't have every resource available.

So just because Mel was buying into their vision on Day 1, doesn't mean the whole city had yet. They probably needed to prove an application for Hextech first before that happened and, likely, the Hexgates was what they came up with and that's the one all of Piltover bought in on.

So, mostly likely sometime in the first year or so, Jayce and Viktor had to provide a proof of concept for the Hexgates. Let's say for the sake of argument that by the first Progress Day of their partnership, they have one.

Progress Day / Year of Jayce and Viktor's partnership

(Let's go through the timeline)

Year 1 - Hexgate proof of concept developed and presented. Up to that point, Hextech exists and has Mel's support, but Jayce and Viktor still haven't proven themselves enough to get all the resources they'll need to build something like the Hexgates. The Distinguished Innovators competition takes place somewhere around this time. Maybe they presented the Hexgate proof of concept there (pure speculation on my part but you'll see why I think the first few years had to be laser focused on the Hexgates over anything else for any of this to make sense.)

Year 2 - Hexgates under development.

Year 3 - Hexgates under development.

Year 4 - Hexgates open to the world.

Year 5 - Hexgate distance capacity increased.

Year 6 - Events of Arcane

By the way, I say only one year to develop a prototype, it could have taken longer. But, the Progress Day post-time skip in 1.04 could be 7 years later. So all the approximations up there should be taken as "give or take a year".

Still, that means that within 3-4 years at most, Jayce and Viktor went from this proof of concept that Hextech is viable at all:

To this:

And can I say just as an archaeology nerd obsessed with stone crafting and material cultures, holy shit, do you have any idea how quickly they must have built the Hexgate tower to have it done in 2-3 years? The Empire State Building, which offers us a decent parallel for the technology available in the world of Arcane at this point, took a 1 year, 45 days, it was considered the fastest a skyscraper had ever been constructed at the time.

But the Hexgate tower is more than just a building, this thing goes all the way down into the bedrock, it is lined with Hex crystals. It has that giant globe on the top for pinpointing where to send the ship. It's not just a building, the entire thing is an engineering marvel. And it has to have been done in under 3 years to fit the most generous version of the timeline.

This would, realistically, require incredible buy-in by the entirety of Piltover society. We're talking multiple guilds vying for contracts, red tape being cut by the mile to secure the space, deep excavation beneath it, shipping to bring in materials, endless amounts of masons, metalworkers, and artisans. It's doubtful that Jayce and Viktor slept during those years. The sophistication we see within the Hexgates makes it even more mind-boggling.

Seriously, look at the base of this thing! This is the failsafe, it had to exist before they opened up the Hexgates to the world! It can't be an afterthought or a later addition!

And this Hex crystal-lined channel goes up for miles! (not literally but get my point) It needs sophisticated technicians to operate and switch out the cores!

Now, of course a Doylist explanation, the Hexgates are as sophisticated as they need to be and were built as quickly as they needed to be built in order to serve the plot, and Piltover is as technologically sophisticated as is needed for these to be built in the time required.

But, Watsonian, as someone who can't help but look at building materials and think about just how much time and effort it would take a society that looks vaguely 1880s-1920s (I would say the 1.04 Progress Day is deliberately invoking the Chicago World's Fair of 1893) it is utterly mind-boggling to me how much labor and materials and effort would have to go into building the Hexgates in a 2-3 year period. That's moon launch levels of an entire society mobilizing for one goal.

No wonder Jayce got framed as the Man of Progress, the entire city must have been working on or known someone who was working on making the Hexgates a reality in that time.