#i've been walking around with an essay in my head comparing and contrasting caleb and sylus

[zara-renata]

currently vibrating at a frequency that could shatter glass bc of your new caleb fic. like oh my god i need to be held so bad bc the YEARNING OH MY GOD. you are so so good at writing the tension (sexual and not) between these two characters. reader’s longing is so clearly an aching wound that’s been festering for far too long and caleb is both treating it and also making it worse. i loved the bits where we got to see in his head especially at the end where u told us that the meeting was no random coincidence but instead a test of the reader’s reaction. that’s so good, reader’s feelings felt so visceral and the way that they pretty much only say caleb’s name as the entirety of their dialogue is the perfect touch. i loved the unveiling of caleb’s mechanical augmentation and how tender it was and the mention of caleb’s blush. it shows how reader’s feelings still have the capacity to surprise him or lay bare his own want for her even as he is carefully trying to control every aspect of their reunion. i’ve never read the little prince but the references were so cool and tbh everything u sprinkled it from their childhood was so well placed. the nightmares that reader has had and how caleb comforted them, how they were both longing for more but never crossed the line. it’s so delicious and if im honest every mention of caleb’s body had me wound up bc his design is so attractive but the way that the reader described him was practically body worship it was so good. thank u for mentioning his happy trail and his hairy arms i needed that 😭 this line was probably my favorite bc the (un)subtle dominance and possessiveness of the first half had me gripped by the neck i swear: “resting your clasped hands on his big thigh as he drives one-handed, relaxed.” it’s so domestic but clashes so hard with the actual context of the scene. i love how they settle into these rhythms with each other bc they know each other so intimately even tho they’ve never crossed that romantic/sexual line. and god when the fic switched to caleb’s perspective at the end and he was ignoring how hard he was i literally shoved my fist in my mouth. the restraint!!! the longing!!! the want!!!! i feel insane. and of course the finger in the mouth made my brain short circuit. it’s so lifestyle dom of caleb, and the mention of choking reader lightly just to bruise her for others to see and for them both to enjoy. i need to be locked up in a cage and released only on january 22nd bc idk how im gonna wait patiently for caleb now. (last thing is that the mention of the choking/hand on her throat really crystallized for me what caleb’s favorite position probably is but let me not say right now or i might blow up) but thank u thank u thank u for this fic. every day i wish infold was on here ready to hire u to write out the lore for sylus and now i have u to thank for wonderful and intriguing caleb characterization

Okay so I've read this comment multiple times, especially now as I'm polishing the second part and am having serious doubts about whether it will ever see the light of day because it's A Lot, and I think will be a turn off for a lot of people because it backtracks in time to their growing up together. So thank you for all the kind things you point out about part 1, it's really encouraging because i have been putting in so much thought into this version of the calebmc character dynamics with what we now know about him. he's clearly manipulative, possessive, two-faced, dangerous, suffered from guilt for so long about how much he wanted her, his feelings for her, which caused him emotional turmoil, shame and self-recrimination before he died, but because he's a main LI and this is a romance game, I firmly believe he genuinely loves and cares for mc. like all the LIs, the writers will play up his possessive, protective, 'villain' quirks in the memories but never have him cross the line into truly toxic territory. More under the cut because this became a novel.

So I want to take these characteristics and really want to explore the relationship dynamics and how deeply these two would have affected each other from the moment they met/were brought under the same roof. I love your description of 'reader’s longing is so clearly an aching wound that’s been festering for far too long and caleb is both treating it and also making it worse.," because that's exactly how I imagine it for her throughout her youth and then during his death. and it's clear from the PVs of Caleb that he has felt the same, lamenting how he had to 'endure, day after day, suffocating." with teenage emotions, that house was probably a powder keg of high-key feelings and they never let themselves act on them. that's amazing to me.

Because he knows MC inside and out, I imagine him being much more assertive in interacting with her (kind of what you described as a lifestyle dom, even though I think BDSM terms can sometimes be so limiting when discussing human relationships). but like, for example, to contrast with sylus (who is embodiment of love, he is not lying when he says that no love is purer than his), he always is so careful to make sure he has mc's consent, that mc is with him of their own free will, that he's not coercing mc, mc is choosing to be with him, actively. he made such a shit first impression with mc, and just wants to love them, to be loved in return, and he is so patient and calculating and plotting to ensure that he does it in a way that mc will respond positively to. he's begging for mc to notice him while being terrified of fucking up again imo. But i imagine that with caleb, caleb already knows mc in this life, he knows what she wants, he likely feels like he already has mc's consent and just acts. he's likely stubborn and obnoxious insisting that he knows best. he's not offering quid pro quo, transactional exchanges like sylus; doesn't feel the need to negotiate, because he's already put in the time, he's always been protecting and loving mc and present in a way that sylus has been unable to be until he kidnaps mc like the heartbroken dragon he is. i think caleb probably draws so much self worth from already knowing, anticipating, and providing for mc, trying to 'create a world where it's just the two of us,' definitely likes being the only one (in his mind) that can give mc what she wants/needs. whereas with sylus it's easy to write him as the green flag he has always been, trying to write caleb's brand of possessive, mask-wearing possibly-brought-up-to-kill mc but fell in love with her instead, in a romantic way, without crossing into abusive, toxic territory, presents an interesting challenge for me right now.

in any case, i'm trying to challenge my anxiety here big time, because caleb is already controversial due to the 'childhood friend/adopted brother' schism in the translations and the fandom, and because it's clear that he's two-faced and manipulative, and you have to consider their childhood when thinking about their current relationship, and with the way online culture is these days it kind of feels like a mine field wanting to dig into their story and give it context that infold will likely not give us because, well, they still haven't done that for mc at all and everything she's been through, and still haven't done it for the first few days with sylus. so I appreciate this message, esp. since people follow me for my sylus stuff and i'm shoveling unreleased obsessive caleb fic at them while letting sylus simmer. i also appreciate the comments/tags people have left on the fic itself. it's reassuring that there are people out there who like complicated, nuanced relationships in their fanfic (which I try to write with varying success), especially with caleb and his divisive place in the fandom. So thank you so much, i'm glad you enjoyed this fic.

and finally: he's not even out yet, my take on him currently could be wildly OOC and people should point and laugh at me and maybe throw things at me too once he's out and he's nothing like i'm predicting lmao. if you're caged till the 22nd, i'm right there with you, 8 days uuuuuuugh