#i was just looking at your answer to my ask lol

[unknown-cold]

It's fanny how some people call her evil era.

We never saw her kill an innocent person, even when my friend saw the show he is not a fan of Arcane but he saw a lot of comments about it and I also urged him to watch it after all the excitement around it when I asked him about his opinion on the show and especially the character of Caitlyn he told me, he expected after all the posts and comments about her that she would go to Zaun and kill people with her gun he didn't expect that she just wears a costume that looks like a vampire and looks tough and mean, she would get this much hate. He even asked me why people don't talk or blame Ambessa isn't she the main reason behind most of the problems in this season and also Singed or even Silco and his allies?

I couldn't answer him except that people have double standards and are hypocrites because their criticism of Caitlyn's character is not because she did one bad thing but because she is from Piltover and an enforcer. I'm sure if Caitlyn was from Zaun and did worse things they would sympathize with her and love her, so their criticism is so hypocritical and has double standards. In short, their criticism of a character is not because she did bad things, but because of who she is and where she is from.

They forget that silco kills a lot of people, mainly people from the undercity, even kids, LOL have put a mini game on the clien and there you could find out that Silco use kids as lab rat to test the chem tanks.

And I'm sure now someone will come and tell me that Caitlyn used the gas on all of Zaun and killed people with it. Seriously idiot where did you get this? Can you show me a picture from the show that people died because of gray, and if it's true then the characters must are talking about it, that Caitlyn uses gray to kill innocent people. So this claim is not true, we saw at the beginning of episode 3 how Caitlyn used the gas strategically and not randomly and Amanda confirmed that. So she used it to catch gangs there. Because logically, 5 people wouldn't go to catch hundreds of gang members that easily, and also if one of the people got hurt Ekko would have talked about it and we know that Ekko is the most loyal person to his people, so even Ekko himself didn't complain about using gray, yes he and Scar were talking about the gangs that were working with Silco, and they didn't care about gray, why? Because this gas didn't hurt them.

Even if it hurt them and that using it was an evil act, why didn't you say this when Jinx used it on Piltover and injured innocent people, women and children, she didn't target enforcers for example, Jinx use the Grey randomly unlike Caitlyn, but is anyone talking about this? Of course not. And worse when I saw comments saying that Jinx should blow up Piltover again and eliminate the people of Piltover. Like some people have shown their true colors, that they don't care if a character did something bad or good, all they care about is who this character is.

Why maybe because Jinx is from Zaun and they have every right to do bad things, but Piltover doesn't even if they do good things they are still bad, what a shallow and ridiculous thinking. some Arcane fandom are probably the most stupid fandom nowadays, to them everyone from Zaun is a perfect angel who never do nothing wrong, everyone from Piltover is a monster with no feelings

The show is not black and white, that only exists in Disney movies, go and watch it if you are this kind of boring and traditional storytelling, Arcane proves every day that this show is not for everyone and if you want to enjoy it you have to open your mind well and be open-minded, and most importantly put politics and real life issues aside, and enjoy this fantasy world with flawed characters and good writing. (This show is not designed to solve political issues at the end of the day. It is a show based on a video game)

Morally, I do not agree with a Caitlyn's Evil Cop Era. The lesbian in me, however, really likes that dumbass coat.

Like. Really likes it.

[myownwholewildworld]

Love is heartbreak

↪ a the age of adaline inspired fic

pairing: marcus acacius x ageless!f!reader. summary: kissed by the goddess juno on your day of reckoning, you are brought back to life, condemned to wander the earth for a century. until you meet the other half of your soul who offers you the life you yearn for. but will you be strong enough to accept such promise? author's note: yes, i've cheated on my other wips, I'M SORRY. but when the angst and romance call, i can only answer - i am only human afterall. hope you like this little story that was supposed to be a drabble but ended up being this long, oops! comments and reblogs appreciated. enjoy! x warnings: 18+, mdni. soulmates trope. angst, romance, smut. mild breeding kink (soz). infidelity. mention of SA (not by Marcus) and death. dual pov. reader is female and a blank slate. reader is close to 150 years old (stopped ageing in her twenties) and Marcus is in his fifties. not beta'd and very lightly proofread, apologies if you spot any mistakes lol wordcount: ~8.4k. divider by @\saradika-graphics

“I’ll do anything to stay by your side, amica mea (my beloved). I don’t care about what the future holds if it’s not with you,” Marcus’ broad hands held yours, his thumb drawing invisible circles on the back of your hands.

You hated this — how your heart twisted inside you, torn apart by the choice you had to make. Was this never-ending life not enough punishment? No, you also had to go through heartbreak — your own and Marcus’. For love, you had to.

With eyes averted, you looked down at your worn sandals. Tears teetering on the edge of your waterlines as your vision became blurry with sadness, regrets and fears washed over you like the Tiber kissing the shore goodbye.

In your hundred years wandering the ground beneath your feet, you never had to go through this. Always so careful not to feel, not to grow close to anyone, not to really live the life you wanted, and now you were in a position where it almost felt too real.

Within reach — you only had to extend your hands and hug him in a tight, soothing embrace. Only needed to accept the life that Marcus was offering. Though as much as you wanted to—you wanted it, him, so badly—you could never.

And what was worst, you couldn’t explain why. First you would see the horror in his eyes, that frightened look glittering, then incomprehension, and finally disgust. Your heart couldn’t take it.

“But I do care, Marcus. Yours is bright, your military career is about to take off. I would only hinder you, your dreams. I am no one, and—” you tried to reason with him.

But love was blind. Love was deaf. Love didn’t care about impossibilities, because love was defiant.

At least his was.

“Do you think I care about being disowned? Do you truly believe that I would choose such dreadful life over you? Over a wonderful life with the person I love most?” Marcus squeezed your hands before one of his found your chin, tilting up your face to him. “Omnia vincit amor, et nos cedamus amori (love conquers all, let us too yield to love).”

You shook your head in denial, his words ringing in your ears like chants of war. Because Marcus waged war in all aspects of life, even in love — he’d conquered your heart so fully, you’d never asked him to return it. It would forever be his to cherish, to cry over, to destroy, to hate.

Because he would need to hate you to overcome the heartbreak you were about to cause.

“You don’t have a choice here. You are to marry the lady your family has arranged for; her family’s prestige will do you good. You’re just infatuated, Marcus, it isn’t true love,” you forced yourself to let a soft laugh out, wiping your tears as you took a step back. “At least, for me, it isn’t.”

Marcus’ expression folded and your heart with him. You hated yourself for saying such a vile lie, but a necessary one. The passage of time would not affect you, always stagnant in your early twenties after a fateful day when Juno decided to save your life from certain death. The Goddess of love and marriage was also one known for Her eternal youthfulness — one She would only share with those who had been wronged. And you had been so wronged in your mortal life.

And here you were, so close to committing the same mistake all over again. But you knew better this time — not because you didn’t trust Marcus, but because Fate was capricious. It didn’t matter if Juno was watching over you.

“You don’t mean that. I know you don’t. This is true love, lux mihi (my light), one that would live through eternity,” Marcus muttered breathlessly, reaching for you again, looking for that unbreakable connection you both strongly shared.

“Eternity? Don’t speak of things you don’t understand, Marcus,” you retorted, forcing your tone to sound mocking.

Another step back with an unmovable expression and you saw realisation dawning on him. Slowly like a river widening its meanders, steady like the constant flow of water. Relentless you were, steadfast in your resolution.

“Ave atque vale (hail and farewell), Acacius,” were your last words to him.

35 years later...

“Father, may I marry her?”

Marcus gazed down the dining table, eyeing his son with consideration. He knew what it felt like, how true love messed up your head to the point of madness. He had felt that way only once in his life, and it wasn’t for the woman sitting beside him.

As cruel as it sounded, Marcus never loved his wife, because his heart belonged to someone else — the now hazy memory of a woman who always lingered on the edges of his mind. A cruel reminder of how feeble and fleeting love was, how love turned into heartbreak with just a few words.

“At least, for me, it isn’t.”

That sentence alone had broken him, his ability to feel some sort of romantic connection died that very same day. At night it would haunt him, filling his dreams with nightmares. The same scene playing over and over in his mind, his heart cracking even more every time those words would hit him.

He’d waited for weeks, months. A year it took him to realise you truly were not coming back, that you meant it. He’d only been a plaything for you, a toy you discarded once things got too real. And at that point he surrendered to the pressure his family put on him. Marcus had followed through with the arranged marriage in the end, despite the agony and the empty hole in his chest.

And now his son was following in his footsteps. His heir looked so much like him, like a reflection of the past staring back at him. It pained him — he saw himself in Magnus, almost as if the roles had reversed and he was his own father thirty-five years ago. Pleading, asking to marry the love of his life even though his hand had already been promised in holy matrimony to another.

His wife, Prisca, waved one of her hands with disdain, the spoon clattering on the porcelain plate.

“Nonsense, Magnus,” she tutted at their son. “We’ve already been through this. You will marry Verina. You’d put us in a very compromised position with Gellius if you don’t.”

“But—”

“Quit your whining and man up, my son. Gellius is the Emperor’s best counsellor. It will bring our family great reputation,” Prisca reasoned, tone poisoned with greed. “And riches.”

“Father?” Magnus’ eyes shot to his, pleading him to intervene.

Marcus sensed Prisca stiffening besides him, gripping the arms of the chair like a vice. He didn’t look in her direction but knew how her orbs distilled venom. She would never understand what their son was talking about, but he did. Too damn right.

“I would like to meet her before giving you my blessing,” he spoke calmly, lacing his hands together on top of the wooden table.

Magnus’ eyes sparked up, a hopeful smile curling his mouth.

“Of course, of course! She’s waiting right outside,” and then his son hurried out of the room.

Prisca stood up, the screeching noise of the chair’s legs irritating Marcus.

“Like father, like son,” she muttered maliciously before disappearing too.

In this moment of silent respite, Marcus pinched the bridge of his hooked nose. The patience he had to muster was titanic. His life had been nothing but heartache and war, his son being the only reason he stood by his wife’s side in public. He’d tired of the pantomime, but there wasn’t much he could do about it.

He would meet the woman who had stolen Magnus’ heart, just to make sure there was no deception from her part. Marcus wouldn’t wish for his son to go through the same heartbreak as him. If everything was at it should, then he wouldn’t oppose.

“Father,” Magnus called, and Marcus removed the hand from his exhausted, battle-scarred face.

His heart literally stopped.

A warm smile softened your expression when Magnus asked you to join his family in the dining hall. You had been sitting patiently in a small waiting room, wondering if this was right.

The first time you had laid eyes on Magnus a week ago, your heart jolted, and your mind went blank. He reminded you so much of your one and only true love, the one you ditched thirty-five years ago because you were too afraid to embrace the beautiful life he had offered you. The one you still felt in your heart, dormant yet very present in your everyday life.

Perhaps it was wrong of you to encourage this situation, whatever this was. When Magnus had asked you that morning to join his family for supper, he had caught you off guard, so you found yourself agreeing to it.

Deep down you knew why you hadn’t disappeared yet: you wanted to live this moment one more time. Wanted to remember how it felt to be loved so fiercely by Marcus, a yearning you’d been craving for over three decades. Only this man wasn’t Marcus, only someone who was his spitting image.

One dinner, a few hours more of playing pretend, and then you’d vanish again. Leave Rome behind after such brief visit before someone recognised you. You couldn’t afford to give any explanations, so you’d only visit this place once every decade.

You walked behind Magnus, head slightly bowed and hands laced in front of you. Magnus’ broad body blocked your vision, but soon enough he stepped aside to introduce you.

You curtsied, eyes averted, fixed on the marble slabs.

Before you straightened your back and introduced yourself, the man across the room spoke your name — your real birthname.

Inevitably, your heart sank to your belly with panic and your eyes quickly drifted up to meet the darkened ones you once had allowed yourself to swim in.

Marcus. Your Marcus.

Your heart raced in your chest and filled with pure joy. You couldn’t stop the smile that had started curling your lips nor the glassiness of your eyes.

Your one and true love was staring back at you with widened, tired eyes. He had gotten up off his chair and was striding towards you before he suddenly halted a couple of meters away from you with confusion painting his handsome features. Ones that had not remained impassible to the passage of time and war, but ones that you daydreamed about every single day without fail.

So within reach — you would only need to close the distance between you two and hug him, hug him till dawn and never let go. Oh, how much you missed him, how much you still loved him. With your whole heart, the one that ached and wept with regret in your chest right now.

Would he love you back? Did you break the love you shared past the point of mending?

“What? Her name is Aurora, father,” Magnus chuckled nervously, his eyes dancing between the two of you, puzzled. “This is the woman who has stolen my heart. I would like to marry the love of my life with your blessing.”

Your eyes flew from Marcus to Magnus at the revelation, bewildered. Marriage? Was this what it was all about, the purpose of his invitation to meet his family? Marcus’ son wanted to marry you?

You had not seen that coming, as it wasn’t your intention at all. You had only wanted to live this fleeting fantasy of yours for a few days, but there wasn’t love. Not like the one you felt for Marcus, that could never compare.

“Your name is Aurora?” Marcus’ question forced you to look in his direction, your heart twisting maddingly inside you. You nodded with hesitation, “I thought you were…” Marcus pronounced your real name again, the sinking pit of your stomach churning.

“That was my mother,” you quickly came up with a lie. You could never tell him the truth.

“Your mother,” he repeated slowly, shock and pain transforming his beautiful face. “I knew your mother.”

“What? Really?” Magnus intervened with a laugh, palming his father’s shoulder. “That’s such a coincidence!”

You looked at both of them, but your eyes inevitably lingered on Marcus’ darkened ones. Would he believe your lie? Again?

“The resemblance with her is… uncanny. You look so much like her, Aurora,” Marcus rasped, taking a step back and steeling his posture with determination.

He didn’t need to speak for you knew his hurt. Because the same memories that were flooding his mind, had been drowning you for decades.

The atmosphere felt heavy with unspoken truths, your face burning — you loathed yourself for the pain you had caused him. Pain that still contorted his expression every time his eyes flicked to yours.

Would he ever forgive you? Would he know that you lied so many years ago? That you truly and irremediably loved him? That you would always do?

You bowed down your head, mainly to conceal the unspent tears brimming on your waterlines.

“So I have been told, General,” you muttered softly as Magnus’ hand rested easily on the small of your back, his lips brushing your temple gently.

“I know this may seem sudden, father, but I know that Aurora is the one,” Magnus confessed shyly, pulling your body towards him in a warm half-embrace.

Never in your life had you wished yourself to disappear so badly. Marcus’ sight burnt through you and you couldn’t help but reciprocate him. The sadness—no, the heartbreak—in them was like a dagger through your heart, and you wondered if the decision you made so many years ago had been the right one.

By the looks of it, he had done well for himself, just as you had imagined he would. The villa was beautiful, sumptuous even. It spoke of his status in the Empire, how highly rewarded he had been for his enterprise. You assumed that Marcus had married eventually after you left, and you only hoped he’d married for love.

“I see,” Marcus murmured in reply to his son, walking back to his chair. “Let’s eat first. Prisca, my wife, won’t be joining us. She had to excuse herself because she wasn’t feeling well. Please forgive her absence.”

Prisca. So he hadn’t married for love, his family had won and forced him into an arranged marriage after all. Your heart cried for him, for the injustice you had showered upon him with your departure. Perhaps he ended up loving her so his life wouldn’t be as miserable.

That last thought stung, the dagger further twisting in your heart. You wanted his happiness, but selfishly you hoped Marcus still loved you. Undeserving of such love you were, that was clear to you, but you still hoped anyway.

“Of course, Dominus,” you hushed as Magnus guided you to an empty chair.

The food served was delicious, but the silence looming over the table tinged the atmosphere uncomfortable. Magnus did a remarkable effort to keep the conversation going, but Marcus’ succinct replies didn’t leave much room for chatter. And when Magnus pushed again about the marriage proposal—to you dismay—Marcus said that it could discussed tomorrow over breakfast.

Even though the man in front of you had aged, you still saw him as he was thirty-five years ago. He had a scar on his upper cheek and across the bridge of his aquiline nose, crows feet kissing the corners of his brown eyes, his thick curls were greying, and his demeanour was more stoic, but he was still your Marcus.

The only difference though was his lack of… life. His eyes didn’t sparkle anymore, they were tinted with darkness and sorrow. Had war changed him? Had you changed him?

Your throat collapsed on itself, tightening to the point of suffocation. Just in time, you reined in the tears as the last maid removed the plate in front of you.

“I should be going,” you announced, pushing back the chair to stand up.

Marcus sprung to his feet before his son did. And when he realised his promptness, he cleared his throat but didn’t speak.

“It’s late,” Magnus said, standing up to be by your side, throwing a confused glance to his father. “Could she stay the night, father, please?”

Marcus nodded.

“I will ask one of the servants to prepare one of the empty chambers,” Marcus conceded, walking around the table to meet his son.

“Oh,” Magnus sighed, and you knew he’d hoped to share a bed with you tonight.

Your face burnt once more with shame when Marcus’ eyes looked for yours. However, you didn’t meet his gaze, scared of what you would find in it.

“Thank you, General, you are most generous,” you husked in a low voice.

“I will show you around the villa in the meantime, amica mea,” Magnus said, his hand quick to rest on the back of your waist.

You subtly flinched at his endearment. That was what his father always called you. It felt wrong when he said it now, completely out of place — it didn’t at first, when you looked at him and imagined he was Marcus instead. But with the love of your life standing firm in front of you, it sounded so vile.

This fantasy of yours was a dangerous game, one you didn’t want to play. Not if it meant hurting Marcus again, because you could see the way he studied you. How his pupils dilated with anger every time his son would seek your touch. It was killing him, and you in the process. When everyone went to sleep, you would leave in the middle of the night, as the shadow you were condemned to be.

Magnus urged you to turn around and walk beside him, when you heard Marcus gasp.

“Your birthmark,” his words stopped you right in your tracks.

When Juno touched you to bring you back to life over a century ago, Her caress left a mark on the back of your left shoulder. The shape resembled that of a peacock, the loyal animal known to accompany the Goddess.

“What about it?” Magnus intervened, confused by the interruption.

Slowly you looked over your shoulder to glance at Marcus. His eyes were a window to his restless, half soul, desperate and blown — he knew. He searched your face for a crack, a way in, but your expression didn’t tumble.

You wished you could veer around and throw yourself in his arms, kiss him and apologise, ask him to take you back. But you just couldn’t. Love was heartbreak, and it would have to remain that way if you didn’t want to hurt Marcus even more than what you already had.

“Nothing,” he grumbled, jaw tight with a tic on the muscle.

Marcus stirred in bed, unable to get any sleep.

Your face haunted him brighter than ever — every time his eyes shut, your sorry expression would gnaw at the confines of his mind. Seeing you right in front of him after so many years, all curled up to his son’s side, drove him mad.

At first, he thought himself crazy. You looked exactly as you did thirty-five years ago — not even a wrinkle kissed your skin, not a greying hair anywhere to be seen in your plaited hair. So when you explained you were the daughter of the woman who broke his heart, he had believed you.

That was until he saw the birthmark on your shoulder. The unmistakable shape he had joked about in the past, telling you that you had been kissed by Juno Herself at birth. It was impossible that you had inherited such a peculiar mark.

But it was even more impossible that you had remained as youthful as you were, as if not a single day had passed. How was that even possible? Some people were gifted with slow ageing, he had seen some, but to remain exactly the same? No, there was something else lurking, an explanation he could not grasp because it was too surreal, too unfathomable for a mortal.

Marcus needed answers. His mind was a tangled mess, this new discovery shining a different light on the conversation that destroyed him over three decades ago. Did your words have a meaning he had not been able to see before?

“Eternity? Don’t speak of things you don’t understand, Marcus.”

What had you truly meant by that? Did you understand what eternity really was in a level he couldn’t even start to comprehend?

Heart pounding, he quietly removed the covers and sat on the bed. A quick glance over his shoulder confirmed that Prisca was sound asleep. Not that she would miss him anyway.

In darkness, Marcus palmed around until he found his toga and quickly changed to then walk out of his bedchamber with a clear destination in mind.

He trudged along the cold corridors of his villa until he found the door to the room you were sleeping in. For a second, he doubted, thinking he was crazy for the implausible reason taking form in his mind. But if it wasn’t that—that you were, somehow, ageless—he still needed to know why. Why hadn’t you aged? Why leave him? Why not tell him the truth?

As his shaky hand lifted and curled to knock on the wooden plank, the door swung open.

You appeared under the doorframe with a wild expression and widened eyes, obviously in a hurry to leave. Again.

“Marcus,” you gasped, one hand flying to your chest in surprise as your beautiful eyes met his.

He froze in place, all the words he had planned to say stuck to the back of his throat, forming a lump that would not let him speak. Your beauty was dazzling, but it was the buried love he harboured for you what stopped him from talking as it resurfaced.

His memory of you had not faded, able to remember every single feature of your face regardless the passage of time. Everything about you was engraved in his mind, but he had almost forgotten how sweet you smelt. Roses, with an earthy hint of grass.

As your scent numbed his mind, Marcus finally found his dry tongue.

“Don’t leave, please. Don’t leave again,” he begged in a hoarse whisper, his eyes diving in yours.

You looked up at him and he felt himself under a spell. The same one you had him under years ago, when the heart was shattered and the mind bleak. Because even when you waved him goodbye, he still loved you. Never stopped, was never able to hate you for what you did, what you said.

“Can we talk?” he pushed before realising your eyes were glassy with sadness. “I know your name is not Aurora. I know it’s you.”

Your bottom lip trembled as a single tear fell from the cliff of your lashes. Moved by his own ghost of the past, Marcus reached for your cheek with his palm, the thumb brushing away the tears that followed the first one.

You let go of a deep sigh, kissed the palm of his hand and nodded. His heart was beating so loud, so fast, he almost missed your words.

“I owe you an explanation, Marcus,” you finally spoke, a broken sob almost tearing his resolution.

As you stepped aside, Marcus came into the room you were so eager to leave behind. Your heartbeat had spiked the moment you saw him and hadn’t slowed down since then. Perhaps you didn’t die of heartbreak but could die of a heart attack.

For decades you had been running until you found him. Until Marcus made you believe you could have everything he promised. It had been the first time you had actually considered growing roots. But the thought of not being able to grow old, to see the love of your life wither away while you remained sane, was paralysing. You had panicked — too scared to accept the love of a man who would give up everything for you, too frightened to trust someone again.

But was Marcus not worthy of your trust? He demonstrated repeatedly how he would always protect you, always cherish you. Not only with words, but with actions too. He had been so considerate, so loving, for a moment in the past you thought it a ruse. How could someone be so damn perfect and still be real?

Your heart clenched in pain, seeing him latch the door behind him and turn around to face you. The look of confusion, of sorrow, ate at your conscience. Under the candlelight, his torn features stuck out, time unforgiving. He was still gorgeous, would always be in your eyes.

“I’m sorry,” was the first thing that slipped out before the quivering of your bottom lip let out a sob. “I’m so sorry, Marcus. I didn’t know Magnus was your son, otherwise I would have never—” you shook your head, taming your cries. “I should have known. He looks so much like you. When I first saw him, I thought it was you. That somehow you had been able to still time and be with me.”

You sobbed a pitiful laugh, unable to look him in the eye. It was shameful having to admit something like this — that you had chased after a boy because he reminded you of someone you loved. But despite your immortality, you were still capable of human mistakes.

“So you didn’t know he was my son?” Marcus asked quietly. You could see the inner workings of his mind ruminating as you shook your head no. “Do you love him? Were you really going to marry him?”

The questions caught you off guard. Although at some point you were expecting them, you didn’t think it would be this early in conversation. It might be for the better if it got out of the way as soon as possible, so you could explain yourself.

The first cut would be the deepest, although the rest would still hurt.

“I love the idea of him,” you emphasized, ashamed of yourself for giving in to such fantasy. “I thought I could love him the way I did you, that he could be a vessel of my love for you. That I could, for a few days, remember how it felt— how you felt. That I could have you one more time,” you paused and sighed, intertwining your hands together to twist them nervously. “I only met him a week ago, marriage did not cross my mind at all. I was going to leave once—”

“Once it got too serious,” he finished for you.

Marcus went quiet again, his eyes transfixed on you. You wished Juno blessed you with the ability to read minds, to know what he was thinking right this moment. Did he hate you for what you just revealed? Did he think you were sick for trying to live out a fleeting dream? Would he forgive you for such despicable behaviour?

“Do you still love me?” his gravelly voice was so low, for a moment you thought you had imagined it.

But the doubt, the fresh hurt in his wounded gaze, told you otherwise.

You gaped for air, your lungs strained with sorrow. You should fib, stand by your initial lie, tell him you didn’t. But what had that gotten you the first time around except for a life of misery and loneliness? What had that gotten him?

“I do. I do love you, Marcus,” you whispered, out of breath due to the pounding of your heart. “Couldn’t be any other way. You’re the other half of my soul that I’ve been missing for so long.”

Time stilled as you looked Marcus dead in the eyes. You were not expecting anything out of your raw confession, because the time for those had passed. It was what you should have said thirty-five years ago, not now. You were too late to mend the love that had slipped through the cracks of time.

“Then that’s all that matters,” he finally broke the silence, his voice laced with emotion.

The admission shook you. Could this be true, really happening? Did he still love you after all this time?

In a couple of strides, you found yourself in his arms, the way it should have been ages ago. His forearms wrapped around you like a warm blanket as his head bowed down to taste your lips.

You kissed him back, first sweetly, then fiercely. You kissed him with all the unexpressed love you held in your heart, with the passion your true love deserved. His tongue was as sweet as you remembered, as soothing as your memory recalled. A dance ensued, his tongue reading a love letter to yours.

Your hands, which had been resting on his chest, drifted up to cradle his face — his moustache and stubble pickling the skin of your palms. Marcus untied his mouth from yours to kiss your tears goodbye, then pressed a peck on your forehead. His heart was beating as loud as yours, in unison like true soulmates.

“I’ve missed you. I never stopped thinking about you, lux mihi,” he confessed under his breath. “Life was never the same after you left.”

His admission made your heart flutter even further, and you couldn’t help but let your hands roam his back. Your fingers played with the knot holding the toga in place, his seeping warmth beckoning.

“I need you, Marcus. Make love to me,” you pleaded, leaving a love trail of kisses on his neck.

Marcus’ chest rumbled at your plea, his lips hunting down yours in a heartbeat. His hands were quick with your clothing, worshipping the curves of your body as it was revealed to him. You did the same with his toga, until you were both bare, standing in front of each other.

You saw his eyes lingering on every nook and cranny of your skin before they found yours. A thunder of connection ran through you, of yearning. On your tiptoes, you kissed him again, pressing your breasts onto his chest while your fingertips traced the map of his back.

You didn’t expect all the bumps and grooves you found on his skin; battle scars dotted around everywhere. Some thick and protuberant, some thin and soft. Marcus keened at your touch, silently letting you know that some of them were too sensitive to be caressed.

How much hurt his body and heart had endured, a life dedicated to war and duty. Your heart cried for him, for not being able to be by his side when he needed you most. Had you taken up his offer, had he run away from responsibility with you, his skin would tell a different story.

But the past couldn’t be changed, only the present was malleable enough to shape a new future.

Slowly he pushed you towards the bed, his hands resting on either side of your waist while his thumb drew lazy circles on your bristled skin. Raking your fingers through his silver curls, you leaned back on the mattress, his warm body blanketing yours.

His hands found the apex of your breasts, soft fingers rubbing your taut nipples as your head tilted back. Marcus licked the salt of your exposed neck, finding your pulse point. He kissed the spot and lingered, your vein pulsing against his lips as one of his hands discovered the slick your thighs harboured for him.

The feathery caress of his ring finger outlining your seam turned you into a whimpering mess. His pad stroked your nub, a slight flick followed before it slid down your slit and found your weeping hole. He circled it a few times, taunting you effortlessly, before returning to your clit.

You heaved, lips pursed so your moans would stay contained. In the dead of the night, you worried this show of love would seep through the walls. But not even the thought of his marriage, the thought of Magnus lying in bed a few rooms over, could stop you from joining your bodies together the way the Gods intended.

Marcus’ mouth travelled down the column of your neck, kissing the center of your clavicle before he went further down. Your unattended nipple was soon enough smothered by the wetness between his lips, and you fisted his hair in response, gently tugging at it.

“Marcus,” you moaned, eyes shut. Rejoiced.

One nipple drowned in his spit, the other pinched between his fingers, and his ring finger pressing tight circles on your thudding clit had you fighting to remain silent. But the moment the hand between your hands moved down and his digit teased your walls apart as it sank in your slick warmth, you couldn’t stop the muffled yet loud moan.

“Sing for me, meum corculum (my little heart),” Marcus husked. The gentle pumping of his finger in your wet heat had you quietly howling a few seconds later. “That’s it.”

Your felt your walls contract, pulse around his finger, holding onto him for dear life. Feeling your need as his own, Marcus dunked his middle finger in your pussy too, stretching you while his thumb stroked your clit. The combination of it all made you clench around him, almost begging for release.

“Let go for me,” Marcus asked between licks, and you couldn’t resist his prayer.

The coil that had been tightening inside you finally snapped, releasing a wave that coursed through your quaking body like a tumultuous sea. Your back slightly arched as your thighs trembled around his forearm, chest rising with a dire need for oxygen.

Marcus chuckled softly, setting your nipple free as he searched for your mouth again. He devoured you as you came down from your high, his erect cock gently resting on your mound. The weight of it on your sensitive skin felt like it belonged. The anticipation of welcoming him inside you made you gush.

“Let me drink you, kiss you, savour you,” he pressed a kiss on your mouth after each pause.

Your skin flushed; the proposition was somewhat indecent. It was lewd, frowned upon, and you were tethered to the chains of social decency. But there was nothing decent about infidelity, after all.

“Please, mea vita (my life). I can make you reach for the moon and the stars in the ceiling above if you let me, make you touch them,” he promised.

You shyly nodded, and his boyish grin grew wider, his lips tensing. So contagious, you smiled back as he came off you and moved your body until your butt was on the edge of the mattress.

He scooted you over towards him until the back of your knees were resting on his shoulders — leaving you completely exposed to his hungry gaze. His eyes lingered on your leaking dampness, his dilated pupils tracing the outline of your seam. The intensity of it all, the deep connection, made your thighs press together against his neck, wanting to hide your core from him.

You had nothing to be shy of, as Marcus had already seen you bare before. Sex with him had always been ardent, fervent — the heat of passion always got the best of you both, a certain urgency to consummate your love. But now? Now was different. There was no rush in his movements, in how his thumbs pried your pussy lips open, in how his warm lips brushed the sensitive skin on your inner thigh. His calm confidence in taking you as he had promised was new to you, who never had all the time in the world. But right now, you did. For Marcus, you did. Always would.

Your lashes fluttered, kissing the apples of your cheeks the moment the languid strokes of his tongue met your swollen flaps. He kissed one gently, then the other, before the wet muscle lapped from your gushing hole up to your clit. So venerating were his licks, your limbs relaxed at the intimate kiss.

“You taste like ambrosia, lux mihi. The best relish I have ever been graced with,” his hot breath collided with the cold skin on your slit, your body trembling in response.

“Marcus, please,” you begged, although you were not sure why, or what you were asking of him.

He didn’t leave you waiting again. His fingers sank in the flesh of your thighs while his tongue dived inside your slick furrow. So dextrous were his charges, you couldn’t help but mewl like a starved kitten in a back alley asking for leftovers. First, he flicked your excited bundle of nerves, and then he suckled on it, his jaw working you through the climb to another orgasm. The buildup was intense, but it became feverish the moment his finger joined the action — it slid easily inside, curled to caress the precise spongy spot of your arousal.

Unaware of your own actions, one of your hands slithered down your belly until you fisted his curls — pushing him towards the centre of your heat, not away from it. He hadn’t lied — the stars appeared behind your eyes, bright like the future you wished you had with him. A sea of constellations, all imploding at once in an amazing rain of stars that blinded you as you came crashing down from the skies.

You heaved and wailed his name in ecstasy, your entire body quivering with the strength of a thousand suns. Your entrance clenched around his finger as you held your breasts, your thumbs ghosting the taut buttons. You leaked your pleasure on his mouth, and he drank unashamedly, grateful of your offering.

A sweet kiss on your mound before he towered over you, and you could only look at him in awe with raw, true love. When his battered body blanketed yours, you draped your arms around his waist, hands lightly resting on his lower back. The knowing smirk on his lips spoke of a muted “I told you so.”

“I love you,” he whispered instead.

Your heart swooned and healed and cried and exploded. All at once. He hadn’t said those exact words yet, but they were veiled in every sentence, every action he had said or done tonight. Deep inside you were eternally grateful that he hadn’t grown to hate you, that his love for you remained intact despite heartache, circumstances and time.

Unbeknownst to you, tears welled up, ones that Marcus drank too. As he did, your palms stroked his ribs, careful to avoid the scars you had come to learn were too delicate. Eager, one slid off his skin until your fingers wrapped around his throbbing manhood. Eyes down, you saw the pearly bead of pre-cum commending you to butter it on his flushed head. With your thumb you caressed the tip, and Marcus’ lips parted in need — an invitation you quickly accepted, dunking your tongue in his mouth.

A few pumps had him groaning and soon enough you were guiding him to the pocket of heat between your thighs. His cockhead kissed your gushing entrance the same way his lips did — knowing, denuded, possessing. And slowly he made his way in, parting your flesh like a new stream disturbing the earth beneath. The burning sting was most welcomed, blossoming into a fullness you had craved for decades.

“I’m home,” Marcus rasped when he was fully seated in your cunt.

Your throat clamped a little, emotion overtaking your senses the same way his erection did.

“Welcome home, dilectus (beloved),” you muttered with a loving smile and teary eyes.

You melted into a slow kiss as Marcus rocked his hips, rutting into you almost lethargically, wanting the moment to last. You let him set the pace, the drag of his cock in your pussy a delight that had you reaching for the stars again and your inner walls squeezing him tight. The sweet rhythm of his swaying tightened the slick, hot coil that pooled low in your belly, and the moment Marcus gained momentum, you followed.

Needily he started fucking into you with precision, chasing both of your highs. His dick pulsed inside you, your heartbeat instinctually adapting to his in a second. Both so close to the sky above, gasping for air now, you rocked underneath him to amplify such pleasure.

“Marcus,” you whimpered, your hands now cradling his face. You lost yourself in his eyes, blown and loving. “Please, inside,” was everything you murmured.

Even after your petition, the snap of his hips against yours didn’t falter. Instead, the pace increased as his wild orbs studied your blissed out expression.

“Do you mean it?” You nodded effusively. “Do you want your belly round with my child?”

You didn’t even know if it was possible — yes, you looked young but were closer to a hundred and fifty years on this earth than to the day you were born. The fertility of your womb was one you never dared to test in your immortal life, but the thought of having such a memory—someone—to remember him by when the days grew cold and the nights dark was overpowering reality.

“Yes, I do,” you reassured him, pecking his lips softly.

His head fell, his face resting on the crook of your neck, while he made love to you. His moves stuttered, announcing his climax, and your pussy hugged him tight in a natural response. The moment the first ropes hit your cervix, you came undone too. As Marcus filled you with his warm spent, you creamed around his beating girth, your hands holding onto his shoulders as your back arched and your nipples kissed his chest.

It took both of you a few minutes to come down, for the haze of lovemaking to slowly dissolve in the musky air. Marcus hungered for your lips and he hunted them down with eagerness. Your bodies finally untied, his cock leaving you empty yet satisfied.

You hoped—prayed—his seed would take root in your womb. Even if it was impossible, the sliver of a miraculous possibility gave you a resemblance of hope. So you pressed your thighs together, greedy of his gift.

Marcus rolled off you, falling onto his tummy besides you. Quickly you laid on your side, your fingertips tracing the lines of his skin again. A feathery touch to alleviate the harshness of life. He unburied his face from the pillow and turned to look at you.

His smile was instant, and so was yours.

For an hour no words were spoken at all, no sleep was achieved either. You both remained silent, staring at each other, soaking up the love that flooded the chamber.

Replacing your fingers with your lips, you kissed the scars on his back, his shoulders, his arms. And finally his nose and cheek, where you dawdled as if your caress could erase the pain they inflicted.

“What are we going to do, amica mea?” Marcus husked after what felt like an eternity.

Reality set in, leaving a gaping hole in your belly. What could you do? Would you be strong enough to stay by his side for however long the goddess Mors took to claim him? Strong enough to build a life you knew was ephemeral? And once he was gone from this mortal plane, what would be left of you?

The choice was an impossible one. One that you should have made decades ago, when the heart was whole and the mind still strong. Now you knew how arduous life was without him, how—for years—you had looked for him in the small details and every single man who resembled him, how the regret and the grief haunted you at every turn of a decade. Now you knew that life wasn’t worth living if you didn’t have Marcus to share it with.

You traced the profile of his nose with your lips before pressing a soft kiss on his.

“I am not sure, but I am willing to try… if you are,” you whispered, leaning back.

The implications of such life were huge for him. Married, with a son who though himself in love with you, an acclaimed General who served Rome even when Rome didn’t serve him. His responsibilities were greater than yours, Marcus had so much to lose. Had you accepted his proposal when you should have, neither of you would be in such dire situation.

Marcus sighed heavily, rolling onto his side to face you. His calloused hand cradled your cheek, his eyes filled with a determination you wished you had back then, when life was easier.

“There is nothing nor no one that could stop me from spending the rest of my life with you, lux mihi,” he mumbled, hand dropping to your hip. “I said it then, and I will say it again: I do not care for this life if you are not with me. I don’t care about reputation nor retaliation. For over fifty years I have done what was expected of me, and I am done living my life for Rome and her vice. You’re the stars that light up my path in the darkest of nights, the warm sun that guides me home. For however long you’ll have me, I’ll be with you. My heart was always yours, mea vita, since the moment I landed eyes on you. And I don’t want it back, ever, even if you have to leave again.”

The softness of his delivery, the truth his words emanated, brought tears to your eyes. You thought yourself unworthy of his love, his devotion, when you had only caused heartbreak. But this was your second chance, one you were not going to let go.

You moved closer to him as his arm wrapped around you. With your forehead resting on his naked chest, you traced invisible lines on his ribs.

“I won’t leave. That broke me once, can’t handle it a second time. I love you and want to spend the rest of our time together showing you how much I do, making up for lost time. For however long,” you repeated, kissing his chin.

There was a brief pause, and you knew what his next words would be.

“How old are you?” the question you had always avoided, dreaded.

“Close to three times your age,” you confessed, looking up at him through your lashes.

The answer slowly sank in, but instead of horror, incomprehension and disgust, you only found acceptance. As if it was just another fact about you, nothing of major importance.

“You look amazing for being close to one hundred and fifty years of age,” he joked with a grin to lighten the mood. You let out a soft laugh in response. “How? If you want to share.”

The story of how you came to be ageless wasn’t a pleasant one. But your life was full of secrets that had ruined every human link you had to this earth, and you wouldn’t let them spoil the only real connection you had left.

“I… I was promised to a man, one who I thought was worthy of my love. There were things I was blind to at that time, and only time showed them to me. I thought everything was going as expected, he was always so courteous and respectful in public. Until our wedding night, when he…” you paused, the memories too painful even after all this time, “he abused me, and let his friends use me. When they were done, they left me for dead in a ditch.”

Marcus’ arm draped around you tighter, his heart beating so loud you could hear it thumping against his chest. He hugged you close, his warmth calming and reassuring. Marcus was nothing like that man, if your abuser could even be considered a person. You knew he never would be so despicable — you were as sure as the first lights of the sun would wake you up tomorrow.

“It took me hours to finally drift away. And when I did, Juno greeted me. Said the man had wronged me, and that I should have a second chance to understand what marriage and true love actually were about. Then she touched me right here,” you caressed the peacock-shaped birthmark, “and breathed life into me.”

Marcus leaned back a little to inspect your torn features. The heartache he had to endure paled in comparison to yours. How could someone inflict such hurt on another? He couldn’t even fathom such disgusting scenario. That man was the reincarnation of evil, and he wished he suffered the most agonising death.

He had only seen your soul’s purity, your kindness, your benevolence. Anyone who didn’t was blind.

“You did not deserve that ending, amica mea — no one does. He didn’t deserve you,” his heart cried for you, for the weight you had carried for over a century. “You’ve got the purest heart I have ever known. A soul that I will protect until my dying breath.”

“A half soul,” you interrupted him, and Marcus looked at you confused. “Because your other half completes mine.”

His heart jolted, this time because of the sweetness of your confession. That muscle had grown bigger in the last two hours than in his entire lifetime. He sworn himself to stand by your side, come what may. You would never be wronged again, not if he could avoid it.

“We’re leaving tonight,” Marcus declared without skipping a beat.

“What? What about your wife, your son?” your eyes had widened, but his resolution was firm.

“My wife… she’s not been my wife for years. She’s poison. And my son…” he shrugged, conflicted. “He’ll eventually understand, or so I hope. I believe he might already have an inkling that something weird was at play from the moment I said your real name.”

“Marcus, are you sure? You’d be sacrificing so much for me, I wouldn’t want to—”

He didn’t let you finish, his mouth covering yours in a passionate kiss that slowly turned gentle and soothing. Your hands caressing his battle-scarred skin was like a balm; your touch the first and only one to cure all his ailments. Unhurriedly, he sat back up on the bed, dragging you with him.

“Let’s leave now. I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life with you, lux mihi,” Marcus purred against your lips.

Fifteen minutes later, you were both clothed and atop of two horses, blending in with the shadows of the night that concealed your departures, in search of a new life. Together.

taglist: @orcasoul @lilac-boo @picketniffler @almostfoxglove @gothcsz @liciafonseca @namenotimportant1373

[airybcby]

જ⁀♡⊹｡° every move is magic

♡ a/n — this is probably one of the longest things i've written lol. it's only bc it's yuki i swear.

♡ word count — 2.3k

♡ content — yukimiya kenyu x fem! reader, fem! reader, model! reader, childhood best friends, friends to lovers, mutual pining, goes from like kindergarten all the way to the u-20 game, mentions of yuki modeling, decided reader needed to be a model too, reader is shy and reserved as a kid, i made yukimiya one of those gremlin kids

♡ synopsis — Even if the world could never keep up with Yukimiya Kenyu, you’d always be grateful that he’d chosen to stay by your side.

The first time you met Yukimiya Kenyu, you were sitting on the edge of the playground, quietly watching the other kids play. You didn’t join them—not because you didn’t want to, but because you couldn’t figure out how. It was easier to sit by yourself, even if it meant being lonely.

Then he appeared, a blur of energy and determination. While the other kids were too slow to keep up with him, Yukimiya’s restless nature had finally found something that caught his attention: you.

“Why aren’t you playing?” he asked, tilting his head as if the idea was incomprehensible.

You shrugged, unsure what to say other than, “I don’t know how to play the games they’re playing.”

He blinked at you, his head tilting like he was trying to figure you out. “That’s dumb.”

Your eyes widened at his bluntness, and he quickly added, “Not you! The games. They’re boring. Wanna play something else?”

“What?”

“I don’t know. Something fun,” he said with a grin. “We’ll figure it out.”

He didn’t wait for you to answer, instead grabbing your hand and pulling you toward the sandbox. From then on, he never left your side. While he was still a whirlwind of energy, he always made sure to include you, even if it meant slowing down.

“You’re my best friend now, okay?” he declared one afternoon after you’d spent hours building an intricate sandcastle together.

“Okay,” you agreed, a shy smile tugging at your lips.

From that moment on, Yukimiya became your shadow, and you became his anchor. While he zoomed around the playground like a whirlwind, he always circled back to you. And when you sat quietly coloring, he sat next to you, fidgeting but staying put.

He slowed down for you.

Yukimiya’s talent for soccer became apparent early on. By the time you reached the third grade, he was already being called a prodigy. Coaches marveled at his footwork, his speed, his ability to outplay anyone who dared to challenge him.

You watched every game from the sidelines, cheering louder than anyone else. He always made sure to find you in the crowd afterward, his grin wide as he asked, “Did you see that? Did you see how I scored?”

“You were amazing, Yuki,” you’d say every time, and he’d beam like your words mattered more than anyone else’s.

But as his talent grew, your insecurities began to as well. You weren’t particularly athletic, or artistic, or academically gifted. While Yukimiya excelled at everything he tried, you felt like you were just… there.

You were proud of him, of course, but a small part of you always felt like you were standing in his shadow. Everyone noticed him. Everyone praised him. Meanwhile, you were… you.

“You’re thinking too hard again,” Yukimiya said one day, lying flat on the grass beside you after practice. His bangs stuck to his forehead, sweat glistening under the sun. “What is it?”

Your mother had always said that Yukimiya had "great emotional intelligence" for a 3rd grader.

You didn't know what that meant, but you thought so too.

You hesitated before mumbling, “I don’t think I’ll ever be as good at something as you are at soccer.”

He propped himself up on one elbow, frowning. “That’s stupid. You're good at being my best friend." The way he said it, with so much conviction would've made you laugh if his face didn't look so serious.

"You don’t have to be ‘good’ at anything for me to like having you around.” He mumbled, just a quick little add on.

The sincerity in his voice made your chest ache in a way you didn’t understand.

By the time you both entered middle school, Yukimiya’s popularity had skyrocketed. Girls giggled and blushed whenever he walked by, and boys challenged him to soccer matches, hoping to prove themselves.

At first, it didn’t bother you. Yukimiya was still the same boy who ran to your side after every game, who walked you home even when he was exhausted, who always made time for you no matter how busy he was.

But then the love letters started.

“Another one?” you asked one afternoon as he stuffed a folded note into his bag.

“Yeah,” he said nonchalantly, not even bothering to read it.

“Don’t you care what they say?”

“Not really.”

You frowned, not understanding how he could be so unaffected. “What if it’s someone you like?”

“Nah. I don’t feel that way about anyone.” He glanced at you out of the corner of his eye. “Besides, why would I need another girl when I already have you?”

The casual way he said it made your heart skip a beat, but you brushed it off as a joke. He couldn’t possibly mean it… could he?

No. You were best friends, he just didn't need another girl in his life right now. You were only in middle school, dating was the last of your worries.

But what would happen when a girl he did like gave him a letter? What would happen to you?

Your friendship with Yukimiya had always been effortless. He was the first person you turned to for help with anything—homework, outfit choices, or just figuring out life’s little mysteries. And he was the same with you.

You’d spent countless afternoons in his room, sprawled out on his bed while he juggled a soccer ball, the steady rhythm of it hitting the wall almost comforting.

This time was no different. You’d come over for a “study session,” but neither of you had cracked open a textbook. Yukimiya was sitting on the floor, bouncing the ball off the wall with practiced ease, while you lay back on his bed, staring at the ceiling.

“Yuki,” you said suddenly, breaking the comfortable silence.

“Yeah?” he replied, not looking up from his game.

“Do you think we stop each other from learning?”

The ball thudded against the wall again before he caught it, turning to look at you with a confused smile. “What do you mean? You’re here for a study session, silly.”

“No, not that,” you said, sitting up and hugging your knees to your chest. “I mean… learning how to kiss someone. Or how to go on dates. Stuff like that.”

His smile faltered, and he stared at you, the soccer ball forgotten in his hands. “Why would you think that?”

“I don’t know,” you admitted, your voice soft. “It’s just… we’re always together. And I love that, I do. But what if we’re keeping each other from… I don’t know, growing up or something?”

Yukimiya’s brows furrowed as he thought about your words. He stood, tossing the ball onto his desk and sitting beside you on the bed. “So… you want to learn how to kiss someone?”

“I guess,” you said, feeling your face heat up. “Don’t you?”

He hesitated, his gaze dropping to his hands. “I’ve thought about it,” he admitted, his voice barely above a whisper. “But I’ve never… y’know…”

You nodded, the awkward silence stretching between you. And then, to your surprise, Yukimiya looked up at you with a small, nervous smile.

“Maybe… we could help each other,” he suggested, his voice trembling slightly.

Your breath caught in your throat. “You mean…”

“We’re best friends, right?” he said quickly, as if trying to convince himself as much as you. “It’s not weird if it’s just to… learn. Right?”

You hesitated, your heart pounding in your chest. But the way he looked at you—hopeful, nervous, and maybe a little excited—made you nod. “Okay,” you whispered.

His hand reached for yours, his palm warm and slightly clammy, if he was any other guy, you'd have been grossed out. But he was Yuki, your Yuki, nothing about him was gross.

He leaned in slowly, giving you plenty of time to pull away. But you didn’t. When his lips finally pressed against yours, it was soft and tentative, like he was afraid of doing it wrong.

It didn’t take long for the awkwardness to melt away. What started as a simple kiss turned into something deeper, something neither of you had planned.

His hands found your waist, yours tangled in his hair, and before you knew it, the lines between friendship and something more had blurred entirely.

When you finally pulled away, both of you were breathless, your cheeks flushed. Yukimiya looked at you with wide eyes, his glasses slightly fogged, his lips parted as if he wanted to say something but couldn’t find the words.

“Did we just…” you began, trailing off.

“Yeah,” he said, his voice barely audible.

Neither of you knew what to say after that, so you didn’t say anything at all. Instead, you lay back on his bed, your hands still intertwined as the silence settled over you like a blanket.

Both you and Yukimiya were scouted for modeling—him for his sharp, athletic looks, and you for your natural, understated charm. And maybe because Yukimiya dragged you to every meeting because he "couldn't do it alone."

He could, by the way, but he didn't want to be without you longer than neccessary.

But you were always so thankful to him, the industry was intimidating, but having him by your side made it bearable.

“You’ve got crumbs,” Yukimiya teased one morning during a shoot, brushing powdered sugar off your cheek from the donut you’d been eating.

“You’re one to talk,” you shot back, wiping coffee foam from his lip. Lips you'd kissed far too often to be considered 'just friends' anymore...but all you were doing was helping each other release energy.

It was Yuki, your Yuki, nothing was weird whenever you were with him.

The photographer snapped a picture of you two mid-laugh, and it became one of your favorite memories—a candid moment that felt more real than anything else.

When Yukimiya was invited to Blue Lock, you encouraged him to go, even though the thought of being apart made your chest ache.

“Don’t forget about me,” you joked, forcing a smile as you handed him his bus ticket.

“Never,” he promised, his voice low and serious.

You couldn't put a finger on why your heart was screaming at you to make him stay when he leaned down to give you one last kiss while your parents backs were turned.

If this wasn't his dream, maybe you would have.

Leaving for Blue Lock was the hardest decision Yukimiya ever made. He hated the thought of being away from you, but he knew he had to take the chance if he wanted to achieve his dream.

He worked tirelessly, determined to prove himself and earn his way back to the real world—not for glory, but so he could call you.

The day he scored enough goals to get his phone back, the first thing he did was call you.

“Yuki?” Your voice on the other end of the line made his heart ache with relief.

“Hey,” he said softly. “I missed you.”

“I missed you too,” you admitted, your voice thick with emotion.

His teammates teased him mercilessly when they saw his lock screen: a picture of the two of you in matching robes, laughing over coffee and donuts.

“Who’s that?” Karasu asked, leaning over his shoulder.

“My best friend,” Yukimiya replied, his tone too soft for the teasing that followed.

“Just a ‘best friend,’ huh?” Karasu smirked. “Sure doesn’t look that way to me.”

He ignored the crow-like boy the rest of the night, but the truth was, Karasu was right. You weren’t just his best friend. You were his everything.

The roar of the crowd still echoed in the stadium as Yukimiya scanned the field, his gaze darting between his teammates and the celebrating fans. But then he spotted you. Standing at the edge of the field, looking up at him with that same smile he’d seen a thousand times before—on playgrounds, in his room, and through the screen of his phone.

Without a second thought, he ran to you, dodging past reporters and teammates. Before you could say a word, he wrapped his arms around you, lifting you off the ground and spinning you in a circle. The world blurred around you, and all you could focus on was the way his laughter vibrated against your chest and the warmth of his embrace.

When he set you down, you barely had time to catch your breath before he cupped your face in his hands, his forehead resting against yours. “I think…” he began, his voice trembling. “I think I’m in love with you.”

Your breath hitched, and before you could respond, his lips were on yours. The kiss was soft and sure, as if he’d been waiting his entire life to do this. The noise of the stadium faded away, leaving just the two of you in your own little world.

“Oh, is this the best friend?” Otoya's voice cut through the moment, and you pulled away, cheeks burning as you turned to see him smirking, Karasu snickering beside him.

“ ‘Best friend’ my ass,” Karasu added, crossing his arms and shaking his head in mock disappointment.

Yukimiya’s ears turned bright red, but he didn’t let go of you. Instead, he shot Karasu a glare before looking back at you, his gaze softening. “They can say whatever they want,” he murmured, his voice just loud enough for you to hear before he leaned down one more time to kiss you again.

You couldn’t help but think back to when you were kids, when Yukimiya’s speed and energy left everyone else in the dust. You’d always been the shy one, the one who struggled to keep up. But Yukimiya had never minded.

He’d slowed down for you, waited for you, and in doing so, made you feel like you were the only one who could ever truly match him. And now, standing here in his arms, you realized that he’d never stopped waiting.

Even if the world could never keep up with Yukimiya Kenyu, you’d always be grateful that he’d chosen to stay by your side.

yeah i chose yuki for this bc im bias, so what ?

likes, comments, and reblogs are appreciated!

[jjkbambi]

can i rec lulu dating a humanities major, specifically english/professional writing? i saw someone say that he’d love a partner who wasn’t into CS so he could learn more about their viewpoint on things, and i think with how much he likes to read, he’d find them rly special💌

luigi as your college crush ˙✧˖°📷 ༘ ⋆｡˚

<3 meeting you @ book club! he always recommends strange nonfictions (last time he suggested you all read the unabomber’s manifesto?), so it’s not too hard to get your attention.

<3 very small hi hellos at first, you think he’s too smart and he thinks you’re too pretty

<3 notices you always get iced lattes before showing up to meetings, so he starts showing up to the same cafe hoping to run into u even tho he doesn’t like coffee

<3 when you do finally run into each other he acts like it’s some sort of a huge coincidence, smiling ear-to-ear while asking you how your day is.

<3 you’re like what’d you order and he’s like “ i didn’t order anything 🤓 coffee kills! it’s overpriced and addictive and- ”

wait so why are u here???

“the ambiance!!!”🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️

<3 walking you to meetings, insists on walking you home, and now he’s insistent on carrying your books around campus, even when it’s just a small notebook—it’s the gentlemanly thing to do

<3 and once he gets enough yes’s out of you, he’s around you all the time, texting you nonstop

<3 he’s honestly kinda weird

from luigi Are you in the humanities building right now?

to luigi no I didn’t go to class today

3 missed calls from luigi

<3 always looking over your shoulder when you pull out your phone

<3 inviting you on his morning runs so you get to see him shirtless

<3 if you can’t make it to the morning runs, he shows up to ur dorm after shirtless and SWEATY with your morning coffeee!!!

<3 god forbid you mention your ex-boyfriend or situationship. his face drops immediately and he’s immediately made a mental note to look him up later

<3 ur ex liked to cook??? all of a sudden his goodreads is flooded w an unprecedented amount of cookbooks. none of ur exes have facial hair??? he’s shaveddddd down. ur ex is in the most popular frat on campus??? luigi just joined the one across the street and pays for the most expensive djs and catering … ur ex plays for the penn football team??? the coach just found coke in his backpack :3

<3 doesn’t really use instagram but is always active after you post

<3 introducing himself to your parents on friends and family day, particularly smiley when your parents ask you if you’re dating

<3 + 1 million confidence increase once he knows your parents like him. expect a bunch of stuff like “your mom said you didn’t like seafood?!?!” when did you and my mom talk about that?!!!!

<3 obsessed with touching you. your hair your hands your waist

<3 is so scared to ask you out

<3 not too scared to tell everyone he knows that you’re already dating. and he knows a lot of people

you’re always on call with him like pep, everyone thinks we’re dating T-T and he’s just like yeah Lol super weird 🤗

<3 sometimes he can’t make plans bc hes been dealing w a lot of back pain lately so you suggest going to a korean spa downtown together!

<3 trying his best to look away from you in the sauna

<3 so fucking hard underneath his robe he has to “leave” “to take a call”

after a while you call him and ask him where he went but he doesn’t answer

from luigi Come to the showers

[sugawarassoulmate]

i love the idea of terushima hooking up with a girl that turns out to be a homie hopper LOL

the two of you had been hooking up casually for a few weeks until he lets you know that he's not looking for anything serious

"i just don't want to be tied down or anything," he said, expecting to see your smile falter like so many other girls before you

but you shock him

"oh, i totally understand. it's no problem!"

he's confused but thinks you're probably better at hiding your emotions

the two of you see each other in passing on campus and you remain cordial as ever

as if you two never had that conversation

a few days later he's in the locker room changing out of his sweaty clothes after practice when he hears hollering on the other side of the room

his teammates are crowded around futamata, who's sporting bruises on his chest and neck

he looks a little embarrassed as the other guys congratulate him on getting laid

terushima immediately joins in, asking who "the lucky lady is"

but futamata looks nervous to tell him

when everyone goes their separate ways at the end of the night, futamata takes terushima aside and tells him that the two of you hooked up the night before

and it's like the wires got crossed in terushima's brain

you're not together, you're barely even acquaintances

but he's????? annoyed???? frustrated???? that you slept with one of his best friends?????

when terushima sees you the next day, he doesn't waste a second with any pleasantries

"are you messing with me?" he asks with no warning.

"hello to you too, yuji," you say, confused by the agitation in his voice. before you could even finish your sentence, terushima opens his mouth again.

"why did you hook up with futamata?"

you quirk your brow, wondering where this behavior came from. "why is that any of your business?"

"you hook up with me and sleep with my best friend a week later? that's fucked up." he's red in the face now, arms crossed.

"didn't you say that you didn't want to be 'tied down?'" you said, throwing his words back at him.

you explained that you met futamata at a party and immediately hit it off. it wasn't until after the deed was done that he mentioned he was on the volleyball team and you put two and two together.

but terushima still isn't having it, even with all the girls he's had before, never has any one of them hooked up with his friends.

"i wasn't looking for a relationship, but you didn't have to do that," he said, still not getting it.

"did you think you hurt my feelings?" you snort. why terushima was coming at you with such anger suddenly made sense. his poor ego got hurt.

"i'm not looking for for a relationship either, dude. i just like sex," you admist. "and i'm pretty good at it."

the look on terushima's face tells you he wasn't expecting that answer.

"if you just wanna fuck again let me know," you shrug, not willing to entertain this interrogation any longer. you turn on your heel, leaving terushima dumbfounded and also a bit horny.

[kingkaizen]

Hellur, saw your post about bllk and I enjoyed it LOL, I was wondering if you could do a fluff one for Sae about how he'd plan his proposal to his beloved?? You can add the same characters you did on your first post!! Teehee

∘ a/n: im so happy that you enjoyed my writing <3 thank you for this adorable request hun! i only included 3 of the boys so ofc lmk if you'd like me to write these for some of the others too!

∘ ft: sae, barou, + karasu

∘ includes: proposals <3

Sae Itoshi

➳ when it comes to proposals, sae isnt one for huge romantic gestures

➳ he believes that matters like this should be intimate, something for just the two of you to witness

➳ sae would choose a setting that would be deeply meaningful to your relationship, making the entire proposal that much more special

...

The sun was beginning to dip below the horizon, painting the sky in hues of orange, pink, and purple. The beach was quiet, besides the rhythmic crashing of the waves against the shore. Sae had insisted on taking you here, a place that had always been special to the two of you. It was actually the place where you both said ‘I love you’ for the first time, and a place where countless evenings have been spent with just one another. 

Tonight felt different, though. Sae had been quieter than usual—not unusual for him, but there was a nervous energy about him that you couldn’t quite place. As you walked along the shoreline, your feet sinking slightly into the cool, damp sand, Sae suddenly stopped. His hand, warm and steady, gently tugged at yours to make you face him.

“You know,” he began, his voice softer than the breeze, “I don’t say this enough, but you’ve changed my life in ways that I can’t begin to express.” His aquamarine eyes, always so sharp and calculating, were unusually tender as they met yours. He reached into his pocket, and your heart skipped when he pulled out a small velvet box.

“I’m not good with words, and I’ve never been great at showing how I feel. But you…” He paused, taking a deep breath as his mind raced. “You make me want to be better. For you, for us, and our future.” Sae dropped to one knee, the damp sand clinging to his jeans, but he didn’t seem to care. He opened the box, revealing a simple yet elegant ring, the kind of understated beauty that matched his taste—and yours.

“Will you marry me?” he asked, his voice steady but low, as if the weight of his emotions were grounding him. “Be with me, always.” The world seemed to fade away, leaving only the sound of your heartbeat and the sincerity in his eyes. The setting sun cast a warm glow around him, and for a moment, he looked almost ethereal.

Your answer came easily, your voice catching with emotion as you nodded, a bright smile spreading across your face. “Yes, Sae. Always.” He wasn’t one to show too much emotion, despite the years that you’ve known him. So, seeing his walls come completely down for you in this moment was something that tugged at your heart.

Relief washed over his face, and a rare, genuine smile tugged at his lips as he slipped the ring onto your finger. Standing, he pulled you into his arms, holding you tightly as the waves lapped at your feet.

And just like that, Sae Itoshi’s heart, once so guarded, was now entirely yours.

Shoei Barou

➳ barou would definitely want a proposal that is a bit over the top, something that truly matches the vibes of your relationship

➳ nothing he ever does is half-assed, and that’s exactly his mindset going into the planning of it all

➳ he would take you somewhere beautiful and away from home to give you the ultimate experience

...

The evening air was warm, carrying the faint scent of tropical flowers and saltwater. Barou had brought you to an island paradise, a destination that took your breath away the moment you arrived. The resort he chose was as grand as you’d expect from him—luxurious villas, infinity pools, and views that stretched endlessly over turquoise waters. But tonight, Barou had completely outdone himself.

He insisted you dress up for dinner, though he refused to say why. As the sun began to set, a private car picked you up, driving through winding coastal roads until it stopped at a secluded cliffside overlooking the ocean. A pathway lined with lanterns and petals led you to a table for two, illuminated by string lights hanging above. The view was spectacular—stars just beginning to sparkle in the darkening sky, the ocean glowing softly with the last light of the sun.

Barou was already there, waiting for you, dressed sharply in a dark suit that made him look every bit the king he always claimed to be. He didn’t say much, but the way he glanced at you, his usually intense eyes softening, made your heart race. Dinner was amazing, but you could sense he was distracted. He barely touched his food, and his fingers occasionally drummed on the table. It wasn’t like him to look so nervous and out of it.Then, as dessert was served, he stood abruptly, his chair scraping against the wooden platform, startling you a bit.

“Come here,” he said, his voice low and commanding, as he offered you his hand.

You followed him to the edge of the cliff, where the ocean stretched endlessly before you. The sound of waves crashing against the rocks filled the air, a dramatic symphony that mirrored the tension building in your chest. Barou turned to face you, his expression unreadable at first. But then, he reached into his pocket, pulling out a small velvet box.

“You know me,” he began, his voice rough but steady. “I don’t like to share what’s mine. And you… you’re the only one who matters to me.” His crimson eyes locked onto yours, and for a moment, the fierce intensity in them made your knees weak. He dropped to one knee, his large frame somehow looking vulnerable against the vast backdrop of the ocean. Opening the box, he revealed a dazzling ring—a bold design, just like him, but beautiful in a way that made your breath hitch.

“I don’t do things halfway,” he said, his voice softer now but no less firm. “I want you by my side—forever. Be mine, please.”

The words were straightforward, even blunt, but you could hear the raw emotion laced beneath them. This was Barou—unapologetically himself, but giving you all of him at this moment.

Your eyes filled with tears as you nodded, your voice barely above a whisper. “Yes. Of course, yes.”

A rare smile broke across his face, fleeting but genuine. He stood, sliding the ring onto your finger, and pulled you into his arms with a strength that left no doubt you were his world. As the waves roared below and the stars lit up the night sky, Barou kissed you, a promise sealed in the most perfect moment.

Karasu Tabito

➳ karasu’s proposal would be one that is both well thought out yet playful

➳ his proposal would be more on the creative side, almost making it some type of game 

➳ he would set it up to be like a mini treasure hunt where the prize is something that you were not expecting

...

The day started like any other adventure with Karasu – spontaneous, lively, and full of surprises. He handed you a small, hand-drawn map over breakfast, his signature playful grin lighting up his face.

“Today’s mission,” he said dramatically, “is to find the greatest treasure in the world. And no, it’s not me, though I know I’m a close second.” You rolled your eyes at his antics, but your heart fluttered with excitement. The map was detailed yet vague, with landmarks you recognized scattered across the city including the movie theater that has seen many of your dates, the park where you had your first picnic, and many more.

Each stop held a small clue — sometimes a riddle, sometimes a quirky message written in his bold handwriting. At the café, a barista handed you a folded note: "You’ve made it this far, adventurer. But can you find where our journey truly began? Hint: The world’s greatest hot chocolate awaits you."

Your heart raced as you pieced together the clues, each one leading you closer to a final destination that Karasu refused to reveal. His energy was infectious, and you couldn’t help but laugh at his over-the-top commentary every step of the way. Finally, the map led you to the park, where a secluded gazebo sat adorned with fairy lights and flowers. The setting sun bathed everything in a golden glow, and your breath caught at the sight. Karasu was already there, standing in the center with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes.

“Congratulations!” he called, throwing his arms wide. “You’ve solved the mystery and found the treasure!”

You laughed, walking toward him. “So, what is it? Jewelry? Hopefully some food?”

He chuckled, pulling a small, intricately decorated chest from behind his back. “The real treasure is in here,” he said, his voice softer now. When he opened it, your heart stopped. Inside was a ring, a stunning piece that sparkled like the stars starting to appear in the sky.

Karasu dropped to one knee, his usual cocky demeanor giving way to something raw and genuine. “The greatest treasure isn’t in a chest or on a map,” he said, looking up at you. “It’s you. You’re my greatest adventure, my best friend, and the only person I want to annoy for the rest of my life.”

He grinned, but his voice cracked slightly as he asked, “So, will you marry me? Be my partner in crime forever?”

Tears welled in your eyes as you nodded, barely able to get the words out. “Yes! Of course, yes!”

Karasu jumped to his feet, sweeping you into his arms and spinning you around, his laughter ringing out like music. “I knew you’d say yes! Who could resist me?” he teased, though the sheer joy on his face betrayed his bravado.

As the lights twinkled around you and the stars shone overhead, you realized that life with Karasu would always be full of laughter, surprises, and love.

© kingkaizen | do not copy, steal, or duplicate!

[bunni-v1]

Bunni that lighter x virgin reader was so GOOD??? YOUR BRAIN SO BIG?? it got me all embarrassed reading it, I had to take breaks in between cause the image of soft dom lighter is just so abgssngausgahstshh???? (I was also blasting ‘Like You Mean’ It by Steven Rodriguez when I was reading ur fic like oh god this song fits lighter so much 😳)

Aaaanyways I was wondering if you have any hcs for the day after lighter takes readers first time or any after care that he’d do? Also bit of a tangent but do you think lighter is the type to have cheesy nicknames for his partner like idk…sugar? Pumpkin? Or would he go the normal babe and doll type

Sorry it’s a bit long, I’m just happy to see lighter writers you all are a blessing thank you for the food 🤲🏼

🍓Hello lovely! Sorry I took so long to get to this, I'm p sure the hype around that fic is over, but this has been on my mind for so long and I just haven't had the motivation. I got some now, though, so here it is! (this is less headcannons and more a whole fic in bulletpoints lol) I hope you enjoy <3

TW: Day after; Alludes to previous sexual intercourse; Grammar Errors

Info: Lighter x Reader; Fluff; Headcannons

-You wake up to sunlight filtering in through the small crack between Lighters blinds, the warmth on your face a kindness that calls you to stir to life. There's a heavy weight across your middle and on your chest, accompanied by a different type of warmth -- human warmth.

-Your eyelids flutter open and, of course, you see your beloved partner Lighter curled up into your chest. He looked so peaceful resting like this, like all his worries had melted away from his mind and into the sheets until he woke up.

-You bring your hands up to play with his fluffy hair, smiling when he huffs a bit in his sleep, burrowing himself further into your chest if that is possible. Even in sleep he was trying to find ways to get you closer to him...

-Though he'd technically gotten you as close as possible last night if the dull ache inside you was telling enough. You could feel the sting in your hips already, and you would certainly limp a little when you got up, but you wouldn't trade it for the world.

-His green eyes blink up at you after a while of playing with his hair, foggy and glazed from sleep. He still finds it in himself to smile affectionately at you, and you can't help but smile back.

-"G'morning beautiful," He rumbles out, voice rough from his moaning last night, "Sleep well?"

-You nod at him, leaning down to press a kiss to his puffy lips in appreciation. That was answer enough for him and he lifted his weight off you in favor of leaning over you.

-He asks you if you're aching anywhere, and promptly massages your hips with the calloused pads of his fingers. The friction still surprisingly pleasant, and the ache in your hips eases up a little. It warms your heart, the amount of care he treats you with.

-He'll coo at you sweetly as he tries his best to ease the pain, mumbling about how much he enjoyed last night. How pretty you are. How much he loves you. How grateful he is you trusted him. All the sweet nothings.

-He takes the morning uncharacteristically slow, having been excused by Caesar apparently, or so he claims. He lazes around with you, happy just to have you in his arms for a while. You do, however, have to get up at some point which he grumbles about when you move to roll out of the sheets.

-You were right about the ache in your hips, you end up limping your way to the shower, and standing for the duration of it sucks. Lighter offers to help you out, but you insist on doing it by yourself (you wouldn't be able to keep your hands to yourself if you'd let him).

-Instead, you let him pick out some old clothes of his to wear, since yours don't exactly smell the best at this point. A too big t-shirt and a pair of sweats that no longer fit him find their way to your arms

-He waits for you patiently, like a puppy locked away from its owner during work hours. It's very cute. He's dressed now, cleaned up by himself while you were gone it seems. He practically leaps to greet you, pulling you into a sweet kiss. You hadn't expected him to be so clingy, but it was incredibly charming.

-He guides you carefully through Blazewood to get breakfast from Cheesetopia -- or, brunch more like it. You figured after your first time you would be a bit awkward, but Lighter didn't allow you any room for that. All was as usual, assuring you that nothing major had changed. Which, why would it have?

-Well... there was one thing...

-Caesar sat in a booth as you walked in, and the grin on her face said it all. She waved you over, and Lighter begrudgingly helped you over. You do your best to hide the limp, though it's absolutely futile with Caesars next words.

-"Have fun last night you two?" She teases, and humiliation washes over you -- Lighter's cheeks also turning a deep red, "No need to answer. We all heard you last night."

-Obviously, everyone around here knew of your relationship with Lighter... they didn't need to know the details. When you don't answer in your fluster, Caesar scoffs and waves her hands playfully. "Just kiddin', I stopped by to check up when you two disappeared. Congrats though!"

-She leaves you to eat after nearly giving you a heart attack, and you happily enjoy what you ordered. Feeling incredibly hungry after the night you had. Lighter doesn't seem to interested in his food, though. Just watching you with that same intensity from last night.

-You ask what's wrong, and he smiles wide at you, "Nothing, just admiring what's mine."

-You don't respond to that, because there's nothing you could say that's nearly as smooth as that.

Bonus:

You had me thinking about the nicknames a lot. I think that he definitely uses babe and baby the most. It's simple and easy to say, and people won't bat an eye if he calls you something like that. But he has other nicknames he uses you, some for specific situations, others just because he likes to switch it up sometimes.

Sugar is something he uses almost exclusively during sex. It's his way of coercing you into letting him take care of you, especially when you're acting all shy like it's an inconvenience. Or when you're afraid to make noise, "Lemme hear ya, Sugar~ Don't be shy~"

Darling is one that's more common to hear him throw out at random. However, it does have a specific use: scaring off other people. When someone is getting a little too friendly, he'll watch for a while until he can't bear it anymore and he has to intervene. He'll wrap his arms around you from behind, press a kiss to your temple, and ask "How're you feelin' Darlin'?" With a sharp glare at the offender

Doll is one that he likes to use to get you to squirm, almost always accompanied by a handsome grin. He uses it more to placate you when you're upset at him in a playful way. Like when his fangirls get a little too excited and upset you, he'll take your face in his hands and hum out, "Y'know they're not even half of what you're worth to me, doll. Stop your worrying."

Pumpkin I hadn't considered, but I think he uses it in private when it's just the two of you. It's a soft kind of thing he uses when you're really warming his heart. Curled up into his side half asleep, you'll hear him whisper it into the crown of your head, "I love you, Pumpkin."

[thewalrusespublicist]

"Tbh I was starting to feel a bit down about my blog and what I was putting out ( the eternal crisis on how to give full answers and opinions without being stupid, boring and annoying lol)"

OMG no way! Your blog is one of the best here! What i love the most is reading the analysis and meta from the users, there's always more information and good takes, and yours are always quite deep and insightful.

I would love if you share your opinions about Stuart as well. I feel like he is obviously more sanctified that he should be since he died young (like that insane quote from his mom saying that Brian told her that Stuart could have been the Beatles' manager, no way lol) and i feel his memory has been used to attack Paul, sometimes in a very unfair way. Like, i don't deny the teenage drama and jealousy that Paul felt about him but he *was* a shitty bass player and the band was Paul's future, he was allowed to criticized him not only for being John's new bestie. I also think John played with them both but i lack of your eloquence so i will love to read your take about it.

Hi anon! And the other anons!

Thank you again and to all the other messages I got, they were extremely sweet and really made my day. :)

From my inbox, it's clear you guys want to know about Stu and his role in the Beatles legacy. Well you asked for it and a novel you shall have. Be warned this might be the longest post I've done so grab like a drink or something.

A few disclaimers: I wish and had intended for this to be more of a deep dive into Stu as a whole person rather than just his relationship with John and Paul. Unfortunately I just didn't have the space to do it. If you want to know more about Stu I would highly recommend @eppysboys' blog which is the source for all things Stu Sutcliffe and where I got a lot of this info. Please check their stuff out. Also, I'm going to be a bit blunter on this than maybe I usually am because this topic has been irritating me for some time. Oh also I’m trying my best to answer a lot of asks in one post so please forgive if I don’t fully answer your specific ask about this!

Stu in a perfect world should be a fandom darling: an exciting cipher, a handsome artistic talent that died way too soon who had a major influence in the early Beatles style. It's like there’s this secret other James Dean looking mf Beatle hidden away to uncover, that's cool and he is cool! The problem is that he’s sort of becomes radioactive to talk about in a normal way due to how he's been portrayed and utilised in some biographies and fandom spaces, particularly those that have been infected by John Lennon aspirational boy bestie syndrome. As those types of spaces cannot seem to exist without tearing down Paul to prop John up as their special lil guy, Stu as John's other best friend has become the ideal heavy object to hit Paul McCartney over the head with. It's like a corrosive element, the minute Stu hits a Beatles bio, the biographer suddenly loses all training in objectivity and source work and starts waxing lyrical about 100 percent reliable never biased or wrong Saint Stu of Hamburg who died for our condom arson sins and that Paul McCartney should feel bad about every day of his life for not worshipping Stu and not accepting his own ‘place’ in life as John's just-some-guy placeholder best friend. I’ve personally seen so many posts and forums where Stu being mentioned leads to a legion of comments about how Paul could never have been Stu (correct both ways) and how John would never have even glanced at Paul for much longer if Stu had been alive. Sidenote: If you seriously think that the musical savant from down the road whom John went on to produce the most prolific song writing partnership in history with couldnt have kept his attention for long then I'm begging you on hands and knees to get your head out of the arse of your John Lennon body pillow and be serious. But anyway…

This boy bestie battle royale approach has in turn lead to a reflex reaction where Stu gets studiously ignored by other sections of the fandom as a precedent has been set that shining a light on him diminishes Paul and John's relationship with Paul. It's frustrating because if people weren't so keen to cut Paul out of his own story then we would get a much better nuanced view of every single person involved.

So let's put aside all of our defenses, cut the John Lennon loved one ranking system bullshit and lets look at the actual question here which is what was John and Stu's relationship really like and what did he mean to John?

John and Stu met at art college a year or so after Paul and John met. Up to that point John and Paul had their fun little codependant thing going on but Stu quickly became a huge fixture in John's life. Stu had things that Paul couldn't really offer at that point in time. John was at his heart a musician who aspired to be seen as an artist (he would later express surprise that he didn't become an artist). Stu was the passionate artist who knew tons about the art of the period that could teach and inspire John. Their creative leanings meant they could work on projects together and share art notebooks and poetry. (Including yes the one with anti-semitic story which I mention again as I believe it's an important thing to remember when it comes to both John and Stu and the culture of the time.) Stuart by the sounds of it was even writing a novel about John at the time of his death. They were fascinated and inspired by each other.

So, creatively they fired each other up but more importantly perhaps, Stu and John were peers. It's funny to think about when you see the Beatles later but at the time Paul and George were the kids in their school uniform coming to see their cool older friend at art school. That's an important divide. When Paul and George's parents insisted their kids do their homework and go to bed, John and Stu could stay up and talk all hours of the night, which they did. They also could rent a place together and spend long hours chatting (despite John moving out later after realising electricity cost money lol.) There's a different dynamic that the age similarity offered as well. Whilst Paul would later somewhat grow into this role, Stu could act as an authority figure to John as well as open up to John in a way you can really only do with your peers. Stu was the person John opened up to throughout Stu's life:

How long can one go on writing and writing like you. I now don’t really know who I’m writing to or why it’s quiet peculiar. I usually write like this and forget about it but if I put it in a little part of my [almost?] secret self in the hands of someone miles away who will wonder what the hell is going on or just pass it off as toilet paper. Anyway I don’t care really what happens because when I think about it, it’s so bloody unimportant – but what is important who has the right to say that this letter is not important and this is a something any way – anyway – anyway – yeah! I wonder what it would be like to be a cretin or something. I bet it’s gear. & how are you keepin Stuart old chap are you as ok – is life as good – bad shite, great – wonderful as it was or is it just a thousand years of nothing and coolness on and on and on. I think this is it Goodbye Stu don’t write out of – er what is it? well not because you think you ought to write when you feel like So goodbye (from John you know the one with glasses) ANYWAY BYE BYE see you soon I don’t know why I said that I remember a time when everyone I loved hated me because I hated them so what so what so fucking what I remember a time when belly buttons were knee high when only shitting was dirty and everything else clean + beautiful I can’t remember anything without a sadness So deep that it hardly becomes known to me so deep that its tears leave me a spectator of my own STUPIDITY + so I go rambling on with a hey nonny nonny nonny no

Extract from a letter to Stuart Sutcliffe from John Lennon, 1961

By lots of accounts Stu was gentle but firm when it came to telling John he'd gone too far. John references this aspect of Stu to Hunter Davies:

"I looked up to Stu. I depended on him to tell me the truth. Stu would tell me if something was good and I'd believe him."

The Beatles: The Authorised Biography (Hunter Davies)

In this way I kind of see Stu as a proto-Yoko. John was so insecure and uncertain about his grip on the world and reality that he relied on Stu to be his point of reference and guide. Paul did this too later and I think in Hunter Davies John mentions this, but not at this time period and not as much due to their competitiveness. This may be why some people saw Stu as the person that really understood John at this time period:

"During the turbulent adolescence that prefaced a turbulent manhood, hardly anyone knew Lennon as intimately as Stuart Sutcliffe. If they weren't exactly David and Jonathan, June Furlong, one of the life models at Liverpool's Regional College of Art, had "never seen two teenagers as close as those two."

The Gospel According To Lennon by Alan Clayson

Now this person likely never met John and Paul together but this is only one of many similar quotes and even Julia captain of John and Paul's friendship boat seems to agree there was a period where Stu dominated and Paul 'kept his distance' from the John-Cyn-Stu 'menage-a-trois'. But the friendship wasn't perfect and his position as John's ultimate best friend was never iron clad. This is best outlined by the shit they pulled when John convinced him to join on Bass for the Beatles.

Despite being John's best friend, Stu was teased and bullied:

"They argued as usual amongst themselves, but most of all they picked on Stu, the newest member of the group. John, George and Paul had been with each other long enough to know that rows and arguments and criticism didn't mean much. If it did, you just argued back. "We were terrible," says John. "We'd tell Stu he couldn't sit with us, or eat with us. We'd tell him to go away, and he did." At one hotel they stayed at, a variety show had just left. There had been a dwarf in the show and they found out which bed he had slept in and said that would have to be Stu's. They certainly weren't going to sleep in it. So Stu had to. "That was how he learned to be with us," says John. "It was all stupid, but that was what we were like."

The Beatles: The Authorised Biography (Hunter Davies)

Why John encouraged this I have no idea, maybe jealousy over Stu's looks and wanting to play people off each other? Things were tense in both Scotland and Hamburg, especially between Stu and Paul. As I said in my last post, the girls were fighting and it was mutual. Paul was mad for both fair and immature teenage-boy reasons. Stu could not be bothered with the bass most of the time and couldn't really play well and was only there as he was '(John's) best friend' (ouch for Paul). Paul conversely had given up higher education to be there and was sending lots of money back home. He also was dating the girl Paul fancied. Stu was popular with the new group and also did mean things like help John steal Paul's money when money was really tight for him. Paul in turn was a passive aggressive, jealous and mean. It all came to ahead in the punch up onstage which according to Spitz came about from Paul wanting money back and saying that Stu could borrow some from Astrid. Stu goes for him and reports vary from full-on bust up to embarrassing scuffle. Stu then goes to where Astrid and Paul's gf Dot are, demands Dot leaves and goes on a rant about Paul. Now all of this must be framed in the context of Stu receiving increasing brain damage from his condition that seemingly lead to mood swings and anger. Nevertheless, the mutual needling and anger, as well as John's refusal to do/say fuck all about it, especially given how protective John was of Stu, suggests that it wasn’t straightforward and/or John may have been playing some games to make both feel threatened. This would also make sense as to why we hear conflicting accounts of John and Stu being the centre of everything and everyone else in orbit AND John and Paul being the centre and everyone else playing catch-up, as well as John giving Paul the lead to take him round the Reeperbahn when John got dressed in the gorilla costume. (I know Paul may have just been the closest there but that always gave off bestie behaviour to me.)

(I did get an ask about how John and Paul's friendship survived it, I think it was damaged by Hamburg. When Paul got back home he got a job at a construction site and there's just a vibe of everything being a bit on tenterhooks. John also acts a bit weird at the period, not talking to anyone for a few weeks then making a lot of weird demands from Paul. I'm really not sure what to make of it.)

Even when he's back in Liverpool, John still writes long letters to Stu and vice-versa. I can't find it at all but I’ve read a really sad interview with John saying he missed his best mate and it's a shame that he's not with them. He had no idea at that point that Stu had already died of a brain hemorrhage at 21.

John is said to have gone into hysterics when he found out Stu had died. A lot of people who've spoken about this time (Aunt Mimi, his sister Julia, the Exsis) concur that at this point Stu was his best friend and the death shattered him. He even told Astrid he wished he could give his life for Stu’s. This is backed up by the fact that John never forgot Stu and his shadow lingered for the rest of John's life:

Stu was recalled in In My Life

Years later, after John composed the first of his truly poignant and heartfelt Beatles songs, "In My Life"—with its lines about "friends I still can recall/some are dead and some are living"—he revealed to me that the two people he had had uppermost in mind were myself and Stuart Sutcliffe. And then he stunned me with a statement that I'd never heard him address to anyone—least of all to another man. "You know, Pete," he said softly, "I do love you. But," he quickly added, "I loved Stuart as well."

Weird that Paul isn't mentioned surely you think that he would be mentioned if Pete was there too okay, okay my tin hat is going away this isn't the time

Pete Shotton, Nicholas Schaffner, John Lennon: In My Life

In 1965 John drew Stu on a postcard

He apparently said this about Stu prior to sending the postcard, prompted by an article about Stuart.

The card had been sent from Genoa mid-way through the Beatles' Italian tour. [...] But the conversation had become maudlin when I reminded him that he was going to talk to me for an article about Stuart. [...] In that sad telephone conversation before they set off for Milan, I asked him if he was happy: 'I'd be a lot happier if Stuart was still part of us,' he said, 'The Beatles would be complete.' And before he rang off he said 'Ill send you something.'

He also appears on the cover of Sgt Pepper

As mentioned, Stu gets mentioned in Hunter Davies in terms of wistfulness and guilt AND he gets a mention in John's insane 'if I were a homosexual' ramblings in early 70s. According to Yoko, John also wanted Yoko to write letters to him and didn't think it would be strange because Stu wrote letters to him.

I have a pet theory that as with a lot of things for John, his unresolved grief over Stu really came to the fore in the late 60s now that he had actually had a chance to sit down and think about things. I believe it was partially why he wanted Yoko to write letters and why he gets mentioned in the early 70s as a collaborator/best friend and not in 1980 where John only gives that credit to Paul and Yoko. I think with the cracks with Paul, John had started to think back on his old friend and guide and what advice he would give.

Stuarts presence is still felt throughout the seventies:

“He told me everything. He loved to talk about Hamburg. There were no secrets. It was the kind of life I never knew…. It meant total freedom. At his side always was Stuart, sweet Stuart. There wasn’t a time in John’s life when he didn’t think about Stuart. He spoke always of his love and respect for Stuart.”

Yoko discussing Stu in When They Were Boys: The True Story of the Beatles’ Rise to the Top by Larry Kane

Coming to grips with his death is also present in Skywriting

SEAN O’HAIRE: What happened to Stuart Cliff? DR. FISCHY: What happened was a full exchange of energy where it was not needed within the expression of your own self or in the energies involved around and about you. We cannot call it a happening. We’ll say it is an awakening, for in that way it has served an expression from the past to the present and to the future to where there shall be more of that incomplete vibration expressed to you in a more fuller understanding.

Skywriting by Word of Mouth, John Lennon

This isn't exhaustive but I think from all this it's pretty clear that John adored Stu, John grieved Stu and kept grieving Stu. Stu had a specific place in his life as a confidant that he tried to recreate with Yoko. At the time of Stu's death, he was John's best friend, probably slightly over Paul. Stuart had been able to be both a friend and paternal presence, a confidant and an artistic collaborator. His presence and loss was one of the foundational points in John's life.

But as we've been asked to play this stupid game and so many bios like to make a hoopla about it, were they at their closest ever as close as John and Paul were at their height?

No.

How do we know? Because John told us so:

" He [Paul] still is the closest friend I've ever had, except for Yoko, so I'm still close to him whatever goes on."

John Lennon to an interviewer, 1971

But Walrus! John just says shit! How do we know he isn't leaving out Stu because the press don't know Stu. Well true John does just say shit but this is at a time where John isn't the most glowing about Paul and he's had no problem mentioning Stu in this time period ('one of my best friends ever' would have made a similar point).

But Walrus again! If John picked Stu over Paul when they were young why wouldn't he be the boy bestie of all time, and why would John say that he was closer to Paul? Well, because of the environment and timings. Stu's death happened near the beginning of John and Paul's major bonding moments. If you look at their personal timeline, Paris, the Nerk twins, and getting signed happened just before Stu died. That's missing the major years of Beatlemania, Key West, LSD, Paul growing more into being John's peer and a load of other huge moments in their lives. It's like how John writes to Cyn in 1962 about wanting the house to themselves and not have Paul around all the time. Would you say because he feels closer to Cyn then that John in his overall lifetime loved Cyn more than Paul? No, because relationships change over time and theirs were no exception. (One thing to consider as well is that we don't yet have many letters between John and Paul during their Beatles years and earlier, probably because they were spending so much time with each other. We know a couple exist that Paul considers too personal for publication but I'm sure there are others. It's easy to understand what John felt for Stu as we have the letters, I think we would also have an easier time understanding what John felt for Paul if we had the equivalent of those.)

At the end of the day Paul was the man he believed he had a psychic bond with, the man he couldn’t shut up about, the man whom he’d conquered the world with with their endless collaboration, the man with a twin personality to him and according to John spent more time with throughout the 60s than he had with Yoko ever. To be frank if Paul had died in 67' I don't think this would have been a conversation.

As mentioned early, in early 1970s John elevates his partnership with Stu to his collaborations with Paul and Yoko but by 1980 he’s pretty clear that Paul and Yoko are their own category.

"I was saying to somebody the other day, “There’s only two artists I’ve ever worked with for more than a one night stand, as it were. That’s Paul McCartney, and Yoko Ono.” And I think that’s a pretty damned good choice!!"

John Lennon interview with DJ Dave Sholin, 1980

There are of course the what ifs. Would Stu still being alive mean that John was not as close with Paul? Maybe, highly doubtful though as the Beatles experience was so intense. If Stu remained a Beatle would John be as close with Paul? If Stu remained a Beatle he wouldn't be Stu so no. At the same time who knows what it would have been like if Paul and John were peers from the off? I said this to @the62ndbugsfan when it comes to Stu vs Paul (hi girl sorry i've made our chat a whole ass post lol) but to go a bit Wuthering Heights, soulmates are made as much from the earth as they are of the stars. What binds us is our experiences just as much as our personalities. There may be a universe where Stu and John took on the art world together or became inseparable bffs again after the Beatles disbanded, but it is not our universe. In this universe Stu tragically died and John and Paul chose to become Lennon/McCartney and artistically unite themselves forever.

Even going back to Stu's lifetime, I've said it before and I'll say it again I find it interesting that not only did John choose to go to Paris with Paul rather than pay to meet up with Stu somewhere but that they arranged to meet up with Juergen and nobody told Stu until they'd already gone. Stu was shocked and didn't know if it meant the end of the Beatles which is a pretty big thing for him not to know about. Why didn't John tell him if they're apparently still writing long letters? Was it because he really wanted to do this with Paul and didn't want to hurt Stu's feelings? And that's really the point I want to make here. Due to his trauma John was preoccupied with reinforcing ranking of relationships within his life. But the thing is friendship rankings are made up guidelines and the reality is far more complicated. You can have a designated best friend but feel closer to another friend at times, you can want to do one thing specifically with one friend and not the other for various reasons. You can (as I do) have more than one equal best friend. Friendship as with most relationships are in a constant state of flux and each friendship you have will give and mean a different thing, even if they are of similar value to you.

Paul may have ended up closer to John than Stu had been, but that doesen't make John's relationship with Stu any less special. Nor does Stu negate the significance of Paul. Whilst both fit into John's pattern of intense relationships and demands related to that, both had unique positions and meaning to him. Considering what I've gone into about John's closeness to Stu, it actually says something deeply, borderline unnervingly, intense about John and Paul that Paul pipped Stu to the post. Maybe it's time Beatles bios accept the fact that John Lennon just wouldn't be into them like that, stop using a tragically prematurely deceased young man as a prop in their jealous psychological warfare against Paul McCartney, stop perpetuating one of the most damaging games that John did to his loved ones and allow both relationships the space to shine and showcase the amazing talent that was the Beatles and those that surrounded them.

[hex6rcist]

10 Questions to ask a Mutual

Instructions: prev asks ten questions and you answer them, then ask ten new ones and tag ten people to keep the chain going!

New post because I am a YAPPER.

Tagged by: @we-keep-odd-hours 🖤

So stoked to answer your insightful questions about my fav movie. 😭

1. Thoughts on Eric Red's idea for a Near Dark sequel? (Mae and Caleb's adult, human, daughter has a run in with "kin" of the Hookers.)

Oof okay soooo tbh I hate it lmfao. Partially because I don’t think Mae and Caleb would stay together as humans to be so honest. I think if anything after the end of the movie they tried to make it work but ultimately returning to a human life for Mae wouldn’t just be difficult it’d be traumatic. She went from a young human woman, to a creature of the night who had to learn to kill, back to a young human woman who hadn’t physically changed in YEARS. She likely would have eventually split from Caleb because let’s be real he isn’t equipped to help that emotional baggage but I do think they’d keep in touch because I mean, they have this insane shared experience. Also not huge in the idea of a sequel of Near Dark. I’d much rather see a remake believe it or not. Still 80’s, include the juicy missing scrips bits (I’ll go on about this later lol), lean more into the family dynamic.

2. Top five movies with vampires?

In no order (please don’t make me lol)

Near Dark (duh), What we do in the Shadows, Lost Boys, Salem’s Lot, and I really adored Last Voyage of the Demeter. Honorable mention to 30 Days of Night.

3. If YOU were going to pitch a sequel (time machine back to 1987, or else a book/comic/etc) what would you say?

Oof okay so low I said I’m not keen on a sequel. Buuuut if I had to pitch one. I do love the idea of Severen coming back for revenge against Mae and Caleb. Maybe their relationship kind of imploding in on itself as they deal with this (very drama). I could see Mae now with this new context of her and Caleb’s relationship either having to double down on her choice to go with Caleb and picking the human world or doubling back and reuniting with Severen and wishing to go back to the night. In the end I think if she chose to go back, just for the drama. When Sev tries to turn her it ends up not working because surely you can’t just go back and forth on that right? And he accidentally kills her. Very bitter sweet.

Alternatively! Because now the gears are turning now! Mae after leaving Caleb and on her journey of figuring out who or what she is now as a human. Did going back have side effects on her physically? Probably!

4. Favorite scene that isn't the bar scene

Now THIS is a hard question. 😭 I want to say the shoot out because it is so so fucking good or even when they first get to the motel and they’re starting to warm up to and accept Caleb. But my true to the bone answer has got to be when Homer brings Sarah back to the motel. It’s just a priceless situation lol. All of their reactions are so telling. Sev grinning and kinda chuckling like “ah shit, this is gonna be good” and joking around. Jesse’s just absolute “you’ve gotta be kidding me right now” look. Diamondback’s annoyance and just being like “well obviously I’m the one who’s gonna have to deal with this”. It’s pure gold to me. It just cracks me up so hard.

5. We know (canon) that Mae was turned around 1982, Jesse around the Civil War, and (kiiiiiinda canon?) Severen in Tombstone in the late 19th century. When/where do you think Diamondback and Homer were from?

Ooh okay I’ve done this before! My answer that’s stayed the same is I LOVE the idea of Diamondback having been a prohibition era rum runner who met Jesse on a run. Also a clue in on how she got her name. It just simply speaks to me.

As for Homer… I’ve changed my mind. Initially I was under the impression that Diamondback turned him (hence the need she felt to step in with the Sarah situation) but after reflecting on it. I can’t get the way Jesse called him “old man” out of my mind. So I asked myself. Well what if Homer is older than Jesse and wasn’t turned by anyone in the clan? What’s his connection to them?

My current HC is that Homer and Jesse were turned by the same vampire, they’re brothers. In an interview Lance Henriksen shares his idea for how Jesse was turned. Which was by a mysterious creature at sea. Which I sort of love! It gives a more fantastical element to this vampire story that feels very rooted in a gritty reality. I like to think that Jesse was turned by a vampire who was ancient (a la Queen Akasha from Queen of the Damned). A vampire who’s so old they’re barely human and would have no qualms with turning a child.

6. Do you think if Caleb got over his selectively applied human moral code that he would have made an okay vampire, eventually?

Okay is a low bar and I think he’d clear it! Eventually he would have just had to suck it up (lol) and deal with it. That would be his life. I’ve mentioned in other things I’ve written I think he’d be a very picky feeder but I don’t think he’d continue to be a “weak link” so to say. Maybe! Even as the centuries passed he’d come to enjoy it. Maybe…

7. Severen: ace/aro spec, or no?

I can see how this idea came about as he is the only one in the clan not romantically linked or seeking that connection however I don’t think it’s from a lack of sexual or romantic interest on a large scale. I think it just wasn’t important to him at that time. There was a lot going on! He had to deal with this new dude and try to get his dick wet? He’s busy damn it! I could see him being like demiromantic but like dtf. Like he’s gonna bang but you have to earn his love. Def has past lovers who hate him lmfao.

8. Any scenes that were changed from script to film, or otherwise cut that you wish made it into the movie/were done differently?

The fact that we didn’t get to see Severen jump out of the back of the van in the scene following the shootout and lay down some serious high speed carnage on those cops is a crime against me personally. I NEED THAT SCENE. GIVE IT TO ME. PLEASE. LET THE FERAL MAN DO FEEAL ACTS.

9. What would have happened if Loy and Sarah were at literally any other motel that night?

Well I suppose Sarah and Homer wouldn’t have met! Therefore Caleb would have stayed with the clan, Homer would eventually move on from the Mae situation and maybe find a new target later down the line, Loy and Sarah would eventually just lose the trail and have to go home perhaps even accepting Caleb was gone.

This gives me another good idea though! Loy returns home without his son and isn’t quite the same. Eventually a local from town sees him (idk at church or something like that) and explains that he saw Caleb at the sables the night he went missing! And he was with a girl. They explain to Loy about how the horses seemed spooked by her. Come to think of it not long after that night 4 dead bodies showed up, drained of blood.

LOY BECOMES A VAMPIRE HUNTER.

What do we think?

10. Aside from her god-awful taste in boys, what's your opinion on Mae?

I actually love Mae. She’s so weird girl coded. Cryptic, hopeful, adventurous, curious, even a touch stubborn. She’s almost a little awkward but knows how to turn on the charm and use her perceived innocence to her advantage. She oozes this deep sense of knowing and understanding. And yes awful taste in boys lmao.

This was so much fun! Thank you for tagging me!!!! 😭🖤

My questions and tagees will be below the cut for space! Because I rambled!

1. How are you!? I hope your day is going well.

2. What are you currently working on? Any little projects of any kind you’re excited to share?

3. What have you been watching lately? I just finished Righteous Gemstones and I need a new show lol.

4. (A Near Dark one because how can I not) what’s your favorite small detail in the movie that other people might overlook?

5. What blog should I follow right now?

6. Best piece of advice you’ve ever received?

7. If you could add one fantastical element to the real world and have it be a commonly accepted and known about thing what would it be? (Ie make Santa real)

8. What’s the last book you didn’t just read, you DEVOURED?

9. What are you most passionate about?

10. What do you think is your best quality?

I tag: @we-keep-odd-hours (again lmfaoooo, you don’t need to ask more questions) @babieswrld (heyyy!) @turquoisebolotie (I miss you 🥺)

[turrondeluxe]

How old do you think the turtle tots are in the comics/art you've shown? (like, roughly, how it's their development)

will probably be a bit long because of pics so!

^ a few weeks after being mutated (basically still newborns, very small)

^ Around 6-7 months! Can be seen crawling around the house

^ Roughly around 8 months old (already starting to string together syllables)

^ Around 3 years old! (Yi is VERY smart for her age)

^ Around 4 years old!

^ extra silly fun fact! they started purring being only a few days old!

[tj-crochets]

Okay now that the ant is almost done: any other requests for semi-realistic but improbably sized creature plushies? Reference images are, as always, a bonus but not required (even I cannot predict what I will make next, and so far at y'all's suggestion I've made a horseshoe crab and an ant in the last week lol)

[taxinealkaloids]

my take on the agnes/gertrude/elias situationship is that gertrude seems like the most normal one to outsiders (she's less prone to arson/creepy mind reading at inopportune moments), but she is still the archivist and therefore kind of eldritch. everyone in the institute has just sort of accepted that yes, the archivist does sleep with her eyes open/is muttering incantations, and it's the least weird thing she's done this week

ok the funny thing is, technically, if by "most normal" we're going off of who is the most human, Gertrude is the normal one. but I don't believe for a second that that's how she's perceived among the rest of the archive staff lmao. like...all her assistants wind up dead, she actively works to make sure her filing system is the least effective one possible, she takes random mysterious vacations and comes back looking like she's just gone ten rounds with a tornado...I absolutely think that Gertrude has the reputation of being the eccentric on staff. I've prepared this diagram to illustrate my point:

[burningcomputerpersona]

you ever have one of those cases where you know your childhood wasn't exactly normal but then you take a look at one aspect of your life that you thought was just a quirky lil detail and realize maybe that was a bit more not-normal than you previously thought

[compacflt]

I have an anecdote about when I worked for a company and a co-worker left to work in a different state on military aircraft. He had to get a TS clearance and because we had worked for several years together he asked if I would be okay with being interviewed for his clearance. I said sure and an interviewer w the gov, arranged to come to my place of work and conduct the interview there. I was asked questions about him like how well did I know him, and whatever answer I gave led to more specific questions like if I answered a question about knowing his wife, they would ask if I thought his marriage sounded secure etc.

This memory of that experience was on my mind while I read your story and I wondered who Iceman would choose for his TS clearance interviews (and who the gov would choose for him) and what would they say? I feel like their "secret" would be uncovered in even a low level clearance (years later I had to submit names for a low level Public Trust clearance for my job) It was so embarrassing because I did not have many friends I was comfortable submitting for that as I kept my work and home life very separate.

Anyway, that is my "cool story, bro"

Thank you for such a great and well researched story!

this is indeed a cool story bro and touches on what is literally my story’s fatal flaw, which is: Yeah, a shitload of people would’ve known about it. I am going to hijack your question to talk about that, so my apologies, though i will get around to your question by the end. This is gonna be a really long post. I have a lot to say and a lot of ground to cover.

So I wanna start out by talking about the structure of this story and its core conflict, because while I’d like to say this story is rooted in an accurate depiction of the US military, obviously that’s not true; it’s rooted in the dynamic of the story that i wanted to tell, which is the story of a guy coming to realize the truth behind a Big Lie—him passing as straight. And that’s a pretty universal story, but it’s made more specific by the fact that a) the guy canonically wants to be the best in an institution that enforces the Big Lie and b) the guy canonically is so successful because he follows the rules/orders of that institution. So, for character growth, to put it simply, the guy (Ice) has to come to the conclusion that the Big Lie is a lie by himself. He can’t be told/ordered that the Big Lie is a lie, otherwise he hasn’t grown out of “just following orders.” (I’ll get to the Big Lie in a second. I made charts and story structure graphs below.)

The only other story about a Big Lie I can think of off the top of my head right now is Passing (1929) by Nella Larsen, which is about a Black woman in Chicago trying to pass as both white and straight. It’s a great book and I’ll try not to spoil it, you should really read it for yourself, but the terminology I’m going to use in this post comes from an analysis of it, so just to bring you up to speed—Clare, the woman trying to pass as white, is recognized by a friend, another Black-but-passing woman, Irene, who is shocked that Clare has abandoned her heritage (the truth of her, that is) and married a hyper-racist white man who doesn’t even know that she’s Black. So the book sets up a dynamic of the Big Lie that I’ve outlined here (hopefully it makes sense):

I built on this dynamic for my fic. Ice is both a “dupe” and a “passing figure,” in that he believes the lie that he is straight and also passes for straight—but it’s also more complicated than that because he’s not actually straight (getting to that). Mav is an “in-group clairvoyant” and can recognize Ice as passing because he is also straight-passing. The Navy are a bunch of “dupes.” But…what is Slider, for instance, or your question’s hypothetical government official who, yes, will 100% find out because people always find out?

In comes my ginormous-and-overly-wordy WWGATTAI Plot and Character Dynamic Summary Graph. You don’t really have to read it all, the only important bits for this discussion are the leftmost column (“plot”) and the green quadrant (“out-group clairvoyants”).

To summarize—people who know the truth can’t actually act on it, because for Ice’s character growth to make sense, he has to come to the truth himself. This forecloses the possibility of any outwardly homophobic action (by which I mean someone like a govt official or one of my lame OCs actually challenging him on his illegal relationship) in the plot, because for 90% of the story Ice is so fragile that he would probably just cave immediately and double down on the internalized homophobia. So, for plot purposes, everyone—including Mav, as it happens—has to sort of tiptoe around Ice’s obvious not-straightness and give him an unreasonable amount of grace so he can figure it out for himself. 

And therein lies the fatal flaw of this story. It is, like, not conceptually viable. Of course people would find out, of course the government would interrogate him about it, of course he’d have to confront the truth much sooner than TWENTY-FIVE years after he first starts messing around with Mav.  Which literally breaks my heart because I didn’t realize it was a fundamentally busted story until long after I had finished writing the base plot & couldn’t fix the overarching problems 😭 The thing is, it had to be this way, because there is at least a thirty-year gap between TG86 and TGM22, and TGM is obviously the emotional climax of the series and my story had to match that. So—fanfic and its canon constraints, everyone. 

But also… I can explain away these logical inconsistencies with story structure & character dynamic graphs to make the story make sense, sure, but it doesn’t change the truth of the matter, which is that… I hadn’t ever really thought about things like security clearances, and therefore wrote around them because I didn’t even know to consider them. And I know there are a bunch of other details in this story that betray my immaturity (anytime I talk about alcohol, for instance—I still am not legal to drink in this stupid country & have only cheap bad experiences to draw on; THE HOUSE—if i could rewrite this story from the beginning they would not have bought a fucking house together, what was I thinking???) and the lack of thought about the real-life logistics and consequences of secrecy is one of them. 

And it’s exactly what I mean when I say “I look at this story and all I see are its flaws,” which is why I wanted to write this post & get it on record. I have just enough life experience to read my own writing and know that it’s fundamentally unconvincing, and not enough life experience to know how to fix it. :(

But, to answer your original question, you’ve got me brainstorming a scene where Ice is asking Slider to be his character witness & Slider’s like “Look bro do you want me to lie to the federal government under oath for you because I will” and Ice has to be like “Legally I cannot ask that of you but”

[ceemi]

This is just an idea, but is it possible the chaos emeralds would turn Pokémon in your au into their mega evolutions for a while?

I think Mega Ninetails’ Pokédex entry is also gut-wrenchingly close to tails’ backstory imo.

“The vengeful power of the nine spirits that comprise this Pokémon overflows when it Mega Evolves, and it is driven to spread devastating curses to all who encounter it. Even its own Trainer is not safe unless their bond is truly deep.”

Imagine Tails, having constantly cursed the people around him with his existence (quite literally in the case of his species!). However, with Sonic he doesn’t have to worry about harming him because their bond is the strongest in history! So now Tails is able to use his powers without fear and comes to realize that although he CONTROLS curses, it does not mean he is one himself!

(Sorry for rambling, I’m very normal about your au lol)

please don't apologize for rambling!! (i, however, am sorry it takes me so long to answer your asks. tumblr doesn't give me ask notifs for my side blogs for some reason 😭i'll try to check more frequently lol) but that is a good idea for them!! i havent really had a chance to sit down and think about the deeper lore bits for the au yet as ive been extremely busy, but i'll keep this in mind for whenever i get a chance!

[ghostydrawsstuff]

I have an OC that is Offenderman's daughter. She's an adult, with kids of her own. How would Offenderman feel about accidentally having a kid? and how does he feel about grandkids? Ill give you more info on them if you want lol

So honestly in my au they can't reproduce, but like adoprion could be a thing, though that's more of a thing for Splendor.

However if he actually had kids? I don't think he'd really be much of a good dad, but also not really a bad one either. He isn't around kids much and would probably kinda avoid them, especially if he cares about them. He knows he's fucked up and would hurt the ones he's around, so he would try to not be around them often, but when he is he'd make sure they'd have an absolute blast.

So he can't really have children for multiple reasons, slenderbeings are a different species to human and so can't reproduce together and in general slenderbeings don't have children, they're tulpas, they come into existence. We make them real.

But hypothecially speaking, he would be a fucking mess. Just panicking inside like hell, what is he supposed to do? How did the hell did this happen? Should be in their life? Or should he just leave them alone and make sure they have a mostly normal childhood?

But please, do tell me more, I'm very interested! I love hearing about other people's ocs :3