#their relationship is very important to me

[deepwithintheabyss]

#thisss#what i mean when i say where's the meat. where's the development of the relationship#show me these two having a cute and fun dynamic with each other#and not just because they're hot or thrown together by circumstance#show me the jokes and the flirting and the arguments and the distress#show me that they want to comfort each other even when they don't know how yet#show me that they LIKE each other!! that they think the other person is just. neat!! or cool! or smart!#why would they die for each other? why is it so important that they live and keep on living?#like. for example the raven cycle did it so good lmao#blue and gansey LIKE each other!! 'i can sleep after i talk to her'. Ronan and Adam are FRIENDS. AUGH#i am permanently dissatisfied now with love at first sight. like i always kind of have been? but if it's never examined past that i yawn#love at first sight is fine if and only if you either a) deconstruct the original assumption of that person#or b) you give me more afterward that justifies the instant chemistry#do not separate them until you've given me an adequate reason they should care!!#oh oh. stardust (the movie) did this really well actually#tristan is 'in love' with victoria but it's in that shallow way. His relationship with Yvaine is actually explored. they argue and talk#they find common ground and become friends. it's still very fast (one week!!) but it feels grounded in something *real*#and that's. the point!!! their story is literally about moving beyond a shallow love and finding something true!!#how do you earn the heart of a star? you love it.#okay rant over via @ragnarokhound

I really like fictional couples that actually enjoy spending time with each other. It seems like such a simple, mundane thing. But, often, I see fictional couples who are completely enamored and dramatic and willing to die for each other, which is fine. But like… do they enjoy hanging out? Do they have private jokes and would they be friends even if they weren’t in love? It feels like such a basic thing, but it’s something that I actually don’t see that often. And it feels so refreshing and honest compared to these over-dramatic romeo and juliet-esque romances. Just two people who become good friends and because they enjoy each other’s presence so much it grows into a strong attraction. It feels more real and tangible than two attractive people meeting and “falling in love at first sight” - like, of course, you fell in love at first sight! You’re both supermodels! Sorry, can’t relate.

[woso-dreamzzz]

Javelin

Ona Batlle x Reader

Summary: You and Ona are each other's homes

The first time you met Ona, she kicked you in the face with a football.

In revenge, you threw it straight back at her and she accidentally lost a tooth from the impact.

You'd been best friends ever since then and your parents could barely keep the pair of you separated.

And as with all things like that, a relationship was naturally the next step.

Fumbles in the back rooms of the family home, making out in your room during family reunions, a kiss after Ona scores in an important match.

And all of those soft, teenage fumbles transformed into something much more beautiful.

You'd followed her to Manchester when she left Spain.

It had taken a lot, uprooting your whole life and moving to a different country whose language you hadn't paid much attention to in school.

Ona helped though.

Ona always helped.

That had always been the case.

Ona helped you and you helped her.

Your training never really went as long as hers. You weren't away from home as often as Ona was. Throwing a javelin wasn't quite as physically draining as football was so you were able to cook dinner and clean up and go to almost all of her matches to support her.

"That smells good."

Arms close around your waist gently and a head rests between your shoulder blades.

"Taste," You say, bringing a spoon up to Ona's lips straight from the pot," Good? Too salty? Not salty enough?"

"Perfect," Ona says," Perfect like always. You spoil me."

"You deserve to be spoiled."

Ona giggles a little, a soft kiss being pressed against your neck as she moves away. "I'll grab the plates."

You make a home in Manchester together before Barcelona come knocking and you're more than willing to return to Spain again.

You get another coaching team. You train in the heat.

You and Ona discuss a dog but nothing has come of it just yet. You bask in each other's company. You return to family reunions and seeing Ona's family on the weekend right until the summer.

The run up to the Olympics is brutal.

You're both tired and drained but it's a dream to represent Spain on a stage like that, to show people around the world just what you can do.

People watch events that they don't usually watch and if you can even convert one person into a javelin fan then it'll be an Olympics well spent.

You have your goals for this Olympics and Ona has hers.

And you hate seeing that her goals will be left unfinished.

"Hey..." You say gently as she approaches you at the barrier," I'm sorry."

You can see her putting on a brave face. You know it's fake.

You lean over and gently draw her closer.

Spain hadn't made it to the final. They'd lost the bronze medal.

Ona had lost the bronze medal.

Your own gold medal for javelin feels like a weight in your bag, heavy and you wish you could throw it in the river so Ona wouldn't be able to see it.

But you know that she knows you won it.

She'd sent a very long rambling text before setting up an accompanying phone call where she declared her love for you and told you how proud she was and how she couldn't wait to see your medal.

Now though, you don't want her to see it.

You don't want her to see it because you know she'll be reminded of what she's just lost and you can't do that to her.

You won't do that to her.

You refuse to do that to her.

So you hold Ona against you now as she rests her head in your shoulder and you play with the soft baby hairs that rest on the back of her neck.

"We've got a break now," You whisper to her, voice quiet and soft and everything she needs to hear right now," We'll go somewhere hot. With a beach. We'll relax and have some fun before the season starts again. Relax and reset."

"I wanted to win you a medal," Ona chokes out against your skin," I know you've already got one but-But I wanted to get you another one."

"I don't need another one," You assure her," I've got you. That's enough for me."

[nottswitch]

⋆˙⟡♡ VENUS IN CANCER

venus in cancer wants a long-term relationship where they can safely build a family. they strive for a deep, heartfelt connection; this placement, once their guards are down, makes for a loving and sentimental partner.

chef!theo nott x reader

warnings: 18+ mdni, breeding kink, creampie, unprotected p in v, mentions of pregnancy, praise, cursing

nav // event / more

it had always been difficult for theo, though he’d never admit it out loud. how could not not be? running a family restaurant meant seeing it every day – the happy couples, parents eating as their little ones played in the kid’s area… he was known for being focused and dedicated to his work, yet he just couldn’t help it sometimes – his attention strayed, and certain images filled his mind. the images of you pregnant with his baby, you as a mom, putting your child to sleep, so beautiful, so caring… it didn’t help at all that you’d always been vocal about wanting to start a family someday, which only fueled his fantasies and caused very inappropriate reactions in his neat uniform trousers.

and valentine’s day turned out to be an absolute torture – the amount of couples flooding the restaurant was close to diabolical, and theo ended up spending the entire day frustrated and painfully aware of his desires; you hadn’t left his mind even for a second. so, when he came back home from his shift – totally didn’t excuse himself by ‘important family matters’ – he was all over you.

you didn’t mind, oh, not at all. not when his heated body was covering yours so deliciously, your bare skin slick with sweat from close to an hour of endless lovemaking, his cock splitting your open enough to make you moan his name at the top of your exhausted lungs.

"cazzo, so fucking pretty for me," theo breathlessly murmured as he pounded into you, the movements slow but deep, reaching the spot just at your cervix. "wanna fill you up so bad, amore."

your nails dug more into his back at his words, leaving faint red lines all over, the ones he’d make sure to check out in the mirror later.

"please," you whined, struggling to keep your eyes open, yet determined to do it all the same – you were a bit obsessed with the way theo’s ocean blue was gazing at you, with the heady mixture of tenderness and hunger that you knew was reserved only for you.

"oh yeah? please what, baby?" he teased, though his smile was genuine, small but loving. he absolutely loved seeing you like this, all flushed and needy for him, and it made him feel blissed out enough to let his usual composure crumble, his carefully constructed facade fall, demolished by the overwhelming affection he felt towards you.

"please… god– fill me up, baby!" your voice went high, a signal that you wouldn’t last much longer.

"fuck–" theo felt himself grow closer too, his cock throbbing between the warmth of your walls, squeezing him so tightly, sucking him in in just the perfect way. "gonna give you my babies, amore. you want that?"

"yeah," you could only breathe out, ragged and shallow, as theo’s thrusts grew sloppier inside of you. you could tell he was about to cum, and the thought of him filling you up made you moan louder, his name the only thing left in your fucked-out mind.

"you’re gonna be such a good mom." theo sounded strained, as if he was trying to hold back, but it was clear that he wouldn’t be able to very soon. "can’t wait to get you pregnant, amore. so prettily round with my baby…"

an image of you with a big, swollen stomach carrying his child made theo lose it – warm, thick spurts of sperm spilled deep inside, completely coating your walls and seeping out, onto your inner thighs, as he continued thrusting into you, determined to bring you over the edge as well. it didn’t take long – a few more seconds, and you were coming after him, your nails carving scratches into his back. he straightened out, looking down at where your bodies connected, and slowly pulled out. your hole clenched, squeezing his cum out, but he quickly gathered it all with his fingers and pushed them back into your sensitive entrance, causing the muscles of your lower abdomen to contract.

"have to be sure it’s all in, amore. gotta make sure you’re all nice and pregnant real soon, yeah?"

[booksooks]

i havent even met sylus in game but some of yall seem to have him confused for your own oc because he would Not act Like That

typing using voice to text so I'm sorry if the formatting is weird, but from what my friend who has met sylus has told me: this man would not act the way some of you guys are insisting. like he would not be jealous to the point of being entirely unable to communicate. he would not try to kiss you as a way of making up, or as a way to stop you from being angry with him. that's just not something i see as feasibly anywhere near sylus as a character.

if you want to write a big daddy dom character who completely bulldozes over your feelings in lieu of 'fucking the jealousy out of you', then by all means go for it. but at that point, you are writing for an original character because that is wildly mischaracterizing someone who (again, according to my friend because i havent even come close to meeting sylus in the storyline) specifically makes room for you to be angry, to feel big emotions in a safe space and to be there for you.

the amount of fanfics i've seen that have sylus act in a way that is completely off base is insane. i'm aware that this is fanfiction, that people can write whatever they want and it's not harmful because at the end of the day: it's FAN FICTION and if you can't separate reality from fiction or whatever, you're not mature enough to be reading mature works or you simply don't have the media literacy skills to do so. but i've had a very long and emotionally draining week, and my temper is hanging on by a thread, and i'm allowed to be angry about a completely bullshit take on one of my favorite characters lmfao.

let me be clear, i'm not saying sylus cannot, will not, and has never been domineering, or protective, or that he doesn't have a fucking daddy kink or whatever. what i AM saying, is that the amount of fanfictions of sylus blowing the reader off or ghosting them or just simply not communicating and then expecting the reader to fall back into his arms after a kiss and a few well placed 'kitten's is astounding. even if he made the bad choice of being distant without explanation, he wouldn't expect the reader to instantly forgive him without an ELABORATE apology and an explanation. and honestly, i'm willing to put that bullshit of 'she forgives him because he's hot and he pulled her in close with his strong arms and hes so big daddy alpha dom' into the category of misogyny. because in what world does someone go from angry and hurt to forgiving and pliant just because he's a man and he kissed you. it is blatantly misogynistic to expect that.

i'm aware there is a lot of nuance within relationships, and that not everyone can be expected to be perfect at all times, HOWEVER this is fanfiction, and the authors i'm talking about have either explicitly stated that the reader and sylus have an established romantic relationship, or that they at the very least get along well and enjoy each other's company. so for sylus to then go ghost on the reader and expect them to instantly fall back into his arms at the end of the day then puts me in the position of 'simpering woman with no spine'. again, misogynistic.

at the end of the day, i'm aware this isn't an important issue and i'm aware that the misogyny in fanfiction doesn't necessarily have to transfer over to real life, especially because i do have critical thinking. but i have been ghosted before by an at-the-time boyfriend, and it sucked, so it's more of a personal issue from me.

i'm aware people can write whatever they want, and i have no obligation to read something i don't like. but that then eliminates what seems to be 50% of the fanfiction of sylus. i'm just saying please... consider writing literally anything else for sylus. for a man who has been made to love you specifically... y'all sure don't make him act like it.

if anyone wants me to elaborate or clarify some things, please send me an ask because the comments are not easy to navigate especially with multiple replies.

last but not least: i'm aware these are my personal feelings, and that i can write to make up for it should i so choose. but i hate having to scroll past 5 fics in a row with quite frankly stupid miscommunication issues from a man who is 28 and should damn well know better. thank you.

[ohmygoly]

I dont typically like getting political on tumblr because I know the crowd of people who typically follow the fandoms I'm in. I know the crowd of people who usually pay attention to such fandom cultures in the first place, and I truly don't want to make myself such an enemy in anyone's eyes. But also, I don't want people irrationally scared that the new Hitler is coming to make their lives awful and oppress them in every way imaginable. Because to act like America is about to become Nazi Germany is to prove how out of touch you are with what other countries are doing and also just extra anxiety on your part that doesn't need to exist. I want your life to be less stressful, I really don't want anyone afraid for their life when it's unnecessary. Besides this "checklist" I want to comment on, remember that many changes aren't probably gonna feel very personal to you and while you might notice some slight differences, the day to day will probably be the same as it is through every presidential transition. Some things are cheaper/more expensive maybe, maybe your office or school has some slight alterations, but thats usually about it.

I don't hate anyone. I have met and become friends with more people I disagree with on a lot of important points than I do people I agree with on said issues. The scenarios in which I have met these people have allowed me to see how friendly, creative, and talented they are. It has also allowed me to see just how precarious and overdramatized interactions and relationships with them can be. This does not even include the internet or social media.

"Powerful and Continuing Nationalism" Americans value America first. A healthy country wants to succeed, and to want something to succeed you have to love it first. If you would prefer every other country over the one you live in, then don't live in it. But there is no logic in wanting a country to have influence and do better and actually progress whilst also despising its existence as a country. Plus, most of the "America first" sentiments don't pair with a "hurt other countries" sentiment. More like a "they can and should handle their own problems" one. If you can respect any amount of individual freedom, responsibility, or self pride, then you should be able to respect it on the national scale.

"Disdain For Human Rights" Its not that anyone in power at the moment disdains human rights. In fact, they know that within the government, every human has the right to pretty much everything. Anyone can run for office, vote, start a business, not be discriminated against as a potential employee or customer, and overall do pretty much whatever they like. What they don't want is those rights to be taken away because someone is offended or inconvenienced. Most republicans don't even actually mind trans people, they just dont want children permanently altered or women's safety threatened. If you have the right to sleep with whoever you want, dress however you want, and call yourself whatever you want then why shouldnt others have the right to live, be safe in their own spaces, consent to who gets to see their body, to their speech and opinions (offensive or not)? Those things can live side by side. In fact, the best you can do when it comes to human rights is not over manage speech. They should, however, manage some actions that can have harmful/permanent effects.

"Identification of Enemies as a Unifying Cause" This is clearly about illegal immigrants and trans people. Again, no one thinks trans people are the enemy. More so the ideology since overall it blatantly refuses the truth of sex, any self responsibility (you choose how you present yourself to people and how you manage your own thoughts and feelings), or any concern for others' feelings and safety that isn't a trans person. It would be like saying because someone hates depression they hate all depressed people. No. You as a person can still be good and deserving of all your human rights, but the ideas themselves aren't helpful to any society. Illegal immigrants aren't being threatened with mass genocide or really much violence at all. Rather, if they havent committed other crimes within the country that would deserve actual punishment they are simply facing return back to the country they came from. It is immoral to allow illegal immigrants in the country, not only for the safety of the citizens that the politicians swore to protect but also because it is exploitative. It's also dangerous to make it here, so why would you want to encourage people to risk their lives to come to a place where they can't enjoy all the rights of being a citizen?

"Rampant Sexism" As a woman, I can say with absolute certainty that I do not see one ounce of blatant sexism from the politicians coming into power and I certainly do not feel politically oppressed in any way. There are many other cultures where sexism is even worse, if you can even call anything in America actual sexism, but I'm sure it would be considered racist to make such a claim. Its not as if middle eastern women are fighting for their lives and education and equality or anything. Us Americans have it so bad because sometimes a man says something weird and gross. The most sexist thing I've ever come across on a societal scale within my life is the prioritization of men who say they're women over actual women. But we definitely don't see the new people in office supporting that sentiment.

"Controlled Mass Media" This is the only one I will give even the slightest ounce of credit, simply because I know the government would prefer Meta over other companies and they did ban tiktok/almost ban tiktok? In any case, if you can still get news from pretty much every political ideology, access any other social media website, shop at the "Banned Books" section of a book store, and access literally any other form of media that has existed throughout our history then your media is most likely not very controlled. The thing with social media specifically is that it is still so new so we will obviously need to figure out how to navigate that within our physical world but that isn't a sign of a fascist country, thats simply a sign that we are facing a rapid change in technology and don't know how to handle it yet. Its a great thing we have a constitution and hella rebellious citizens who will make finding the best, least oppressive solutions easier here than probably anywhere else on the planet!

"Obsession with National Security" The only reason there's a surge in national security is because there has also been a surge in threats against the security of this nation. Through many foreign nations and within our own borders. This country cannot be successful and cannot help any other country in the world if we are falling apart while we are doing it.

"Religion and Government Intertwined" There is a difference between politicians being religious and it actually being intertwined with our government. Most government policies made are based on our constitution and how we can best respect the rights given to us through it. The religion of any of the politicians is not going to become mandatory or oppressive to anyone not of that religion, because that is not the goal. Anyone can come up with the sentiment that they need to fix the way the government runs and protect the rights of their citizens. Yes, religion might influence some of their opinions on things and a few of their changes, but if you elect someone you have to accept that they have ideas about things. Thats just how it works. Overall, religion will not become permanently intertwined with the government or forced upon citizens.

"Labor Power Suppressed" Last I checked, you can get any job you want. Literally, you can quit any job you don't like, and just go find a new one. Not to mention they want to improve businesses and they know that the labor class is very vital to that.

"Rampant Cronyism and Corruption" Corruption is a vague word and a lot of the people in the new administration don't even agree on everything. The main thing they agree on is that they want to see America succeed and that they will respect the elected president's right to see that mandate through, as an elected official. How terrible of a president to hire people that don't hate him and won't sabotage the policy goals he was elected to see through.

Looking more like a checklist these days. I want off this ride. 😭

[liltalle]

Shardic Opposite-Pairs – Cosmere Theory

It's been said that some of the Shards have opposite Intents (Preservation and Ruin). The obvious question is how inherent is this to the system? Given the symmetry of the original 16, do all of the Shards fit into 8 opposite-pairs?

As of Wind & Truth, we know the names of all 16, so I'm going to try to pair up each and see how they fit. (Cosmere spoilers below)

(Our pool: Devotion, Dominion, Preservation, Ruin, Odium, Cultivation, Honor, Endowment, Autonomy, Ambition, Invention, Mercy, Valor, Whimsy, Virtuosity, Reason)

Preservation/Ruin - This is our canonical example. I don't know that I need to elaborate on their locked conflict on Scadrial and Harmony's difficulty integrating them.

Devotion/Dominion - Khriss describes these two as having "a polarized relationship [...] Forced together as they are, trapped and bursting to escape". Also, the submission/dominance dichotomy seems obvious here.

Cultivation/Endowment - The Nightwatcher is all about fair if esoteric prices for the good she offers, and Cultivation takes that to a deeper level—her deal with Dalinar is about the loss necessary to relief, and the pain necessary to growth. Whereas, Endowment grants godhood freely as she sees fit.

(These first 3 seem pretty clear to me, and they're some of the Shards we know the most about. Those that follow I'm less sure of.)

Odium/Mercy - Odium represents many emotions, but the strongest emotion is hatred, which... I think could be described as a passionate attachment to a wound, lashing out at its perceived source. (That adding Honor's sense of righteousness yields Retribution supports this interpretation.) Mercy is the opposite of that, of Justice classically, letting go of wounds and forgiving. (The two things we know about Mercy canonically are that Harmony was disturbed by discussing Odium with them, and that they were involved in the clash of Odium and Ambition. The former could be Mercy expressing mercy for Rayse himself, but that's not well determined. What happened around Threnody is known to be disturbing, so that's a more obvious interpretation, and this is complicated by knowing that Vessels and Intents don't always align. So, the name is all canon really gives us.)

Autonomy/Honor - (On with my bolder choices.) Harmony says "Autonomy is driven to divide off from the rest of us, go her own way," while Honor's most famous directive is "Unite them." Autonomy's individualism and distinctiveness contrast with Honor's legalism and uniformity. Autonomy avoids constraint while Honor is all about binding people. (This one surprised me, but I think it holds up quite well. Another option was Honor with Whimsy, constraint vs. spontaneity, but I think this split is better, as I'll elaborate later.)

(We know very little about any of the remaining 6 Shards.)

Ambition/Valor - Ruthless self-preservation and accomplishment (Ambition would be mono-black in Magic: the Gathering, Brandon says) vs. selfless defense of others. (Here's a decent place to note my recurring that the saying "Discretion is the better part of Valor" is relevant to Hoid not being able to find her, though she does talk to others, so I don't know if that fully tracks.)

Invention/Virtuosity - My flaw here is that I've not read Yumi & the Nightmare Painter yet, only skimmed Virtuosity's Coppermind article. Still, there seems like a basic opposition here between the creation of new things vs. the mastery of existing arts (Renaissance art's focus on proper perspective, photographic painting, etc. vs. Modern art's focus on surprise and violation of convention).

Whimsy/Reason - Whimsy could well be defined as not doing things for reasons, but following unanalyzed spontaneous impulses. We're told the Shard is not congruous with intense planning or ambitions (per Coppermind, which is an argument for Whimsy/Ambition, but I'm guessing the planning aspect might be more important.) It's also not dignified. Reason, however, seems to be our most dignified and deliberate Shard. It's the Survival Shard, of which Brandon said "The intent is related but only tangentially. Mostly it just knows what's going on and is smart enough to get out of there." This sounds to me like Reason is relevant in that it channels the knowledge of the Vessel to a coherent conclusion that it follows very consistently. Having the discipline to hide from other gods for millennia does seem antithetical to the fun and spontaneity of Whimsy.

So... that fit better than I expected. There's a few other shufflings I could see, and if anyone wants to reblog with their own arrangements I'd be delighted to read your arguments. But it feels just coherent enough that this might actually be Brandon's intention and not only me projecting and forcing patterns to make it more interesting (as my OCD likes to do).

The obvious next question is whether these pairs are part of a more complex structure, analogous to the 16 mundane metals in the Metallic Arts. Each pair would then be like a Push/Pull duality, the 16 should be divisible into 4 quadrants, and so on. I do not know if Brandon planned that far ahead, but... the question of whether each of the four Dawnshards corresponds to a quartet of Shards was RAFO'd, so maybe (Cultivation and Ruin as under Change makes sense, Preservation then under Exist... maybe I should stop here, we only know 2 of the Commands anyway). Again, any thoughts are welcome 😉

[fumifooms]

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

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

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

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

Table of contents:

How they start out

The Daltian Clan and its importance

Prince Charming vs Chilchuck Tims

Ideals vs desires vs wants

Deconstructing realistic romance & compromising between romanticism and reality

Princess imagery in Marcille

Conclusion

Let’s start with the beginning:

How the characters start off:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Daltian Clan & its importance

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Prince Charming vs Chilchuck Tims

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ideals vs desires vs wants

It's succubus analysis time

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

🔥The bicorn chapter🔥

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

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

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

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

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

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

[page 1, page 2.]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Princess imagery

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Conclusion

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Disclaimer:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fast and dirty TLDR

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

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

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

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

[simplysamiblog]

The weight of a perfect goodbye

Before I even begin sharing my thoughts, I need to make one very important thing clear: I am a firm believer in the theory that Jayce and Viktor survived the ending of Arcane. As far as I’m concerned, they were teleported through time and space and are now slowly, painstakingly rebuilding their lives. Together, of course.

I’ve read dozens of (amazing) fanfics where this is exactly how their story unfolds, and some are so well-written that I honestly consider them canon.

That said.

I’ve seen several discussions online about this very topic:

"The creators confirmed it: they’re dead."

"The creators don’t know anything, they’re alive."

"Accept it, they were disintegrated by the Rune."

And so on.

But here’s what I think (not that it matters to anyone or carries any weight at all):

We can’t completely dismiss or outright reject the idea that, yes, Jayce and Viktor are, unfortunately, dead. At some level, we need to accept it—to believe it.

But let me explain why.

Not out of respect for the creators, the canon, the fandom, or anything like that. But out of love for the story, for the essence of their narrative.

At the risk of sounding cliché, do you really think Arcane would have been just as special if Jayce and Viktor had survived? Can you picture the scene? The protagonists recover, the fog of war and chaos clears, and there they are—Jayce and Viktor—standing atop the Hexgates, smiling. Ah, what a happy ending. What a good ending.

Sure. Nice. Nothing more.

Or imagine if we had gotten something like: "And they remained like brothers forever." Ugh.

It’s cruel, it’s unfair, it’s heartbreaking—

But it’s perfect.

The chain of events (cough) that led to that moment, the sacrifice that sealed their fate—

The relationship between Jayce and Viktor would never have been as impactful otherwise. Personally, I don’t think I fully grasped the depth of their bond until their foreheads rested against each other. In that moment of resignation, of acceptance.

Their story, their magic, was beautiful precisely because it ended right then, in that instant.

Jayce asked Viktor, "Why did you ever give me this?"

He could have let him die in the storm. Or, if he wanted to be more merciful, he could have simply saved him without giving him the Rune—

The world would have been safe. The world would have been saved.

But…

The world wasn’t as important as the moments they shared. Their friendship, their collaboration, their bond.

Viktor couldn’t deny another Viktor those moments. That brief but immense joy. Those years in which he had truly lived.

They were stronger than everything—stronger than everyone—

Even stronger than death.

And that’s why, in a way, their death is precisely what makes them so wonderful.

Call it cliché or a bit of a stretch, but the first comparison that comes to mind is Romeo and Juliet. Would it really be the most famous love story if they hadn’t met their tragic end?

"Happily ever after."

Or—

"Never was a story of more woe than this of Juliet and her Romeo."

Sure, they might have survived, somewhere. And it’s absolutely valid to believe that.

But if not for that ending, for that terrible, heartbreaking moment, how much would we have missed out on? How many incredible fanfictions wouldn’t exist? How many fanarts, how many works of art would we have been unknowingly deprived of?

We’ll never know, and I don’t want to know.

Because what we have is amazing.

So yes, I accept the idea that they’re dead—because it makes the fantasy that they’re alive and in love so much sweeter.

But most of all, it makes their relationship a game of fate, something they built around each other. A perfect circle, an inseparable chain binding them as one.

Pulling them together, pushing them apart—only to bring them back to each other again.

Over and over.

Forever.

[realjaysumlin]

I don't give a damn about what people do with their lives as long as you don't harm me or my beautiful Black Indigenous Children. I educate my kids on sex and reproductive relationships because this is very important for the Black Indigenous People globally to grow and I don't believe in anything else.

Respect me as I respect you and how you live your life.

[wcnderlnds]

last dance | choi seung-hyun (t.o.p)

・❥・ summary: turns out you both want different things but seunghyun has to give you the perfect goodbye ・❥・word count: 2.5k ・❥・warnings: 18+. smut. oral (m receiving), unprotected p in v, swearing, angst. female reader. ・❥・ authors note: this took me all day to write and now i go hide like i always do when i write smut because i will always be forever nervous to write it. but there might be a part two to this. maybe. we'll see. also, didn't add my taglist because idk who wants tagging in smut so <3

As you sat there watching your friends have their very first dance together as a married couple, your heart clenched in your chest. You had to tear your eyes away instead focusing on the glass of wine you had in your hand. Today wasn’t supposed to be like this; it was supposed to be a happy day celebrating your friend’s love but how could you celebrate love when your own love life had just crumbled apart mere hours ago? The conversation with Seunghyun replayed over and over in your head.  

It had been like any other day – the excitement of watching your two friends finally tie the knot hanging in the air. It had spurred you on to wonder about your future with Seunghyun. You had been together for four years now. They hadn’t been the easiest four years but somehow, someway, you always made it through the other end stronger than ever. This was what true love felt like. Every single day with him made you fall even more in love. There was no doubt that you wanted to be with this man for the rest of your life so, you had voiced that to him. The second you had said that you wanted to get married one day, maybe even have children, he had turned pale. His whole body had gone rigid, his hands dropping from the tie he was trying to tighten. As he looked at you and said ‘I don’t think that’s going to ever be in the cards for us. Marriage isn’t something I’ve ever wanted’, your heart had plummeted into your stomach.

Really, it should have been conversation early on in your relationship but you had been so caught up in each other that some of the important conversations like that got lost along the way. His words had cut you deep, so deep that it had resulted in the two of you arguing. It made you think he didn’t love you enough even as he tried to explain why he didn’t want to get married. So, as you left for the wedding, all the hurt and scalding words that had been said between you hanging in the air, you knew this was the beginning of the end. 

Sitting at the table, you swirled around the last remains of your drink in the glass, bringing it up to your lips to swig it off. As you did, you locked eyes with Seunghyun who had been sitting at the table over talking to his bandmates. You didn’t tear yours away as he said something to them then made his way to you. 

“Hey,” he said quietly, holding his hand out to you. “Dance with me?” 

Your eyes glanced at his hand, hesitation coursing through your body but you took it anyway. He led you to the dancefloor, his hands finding your hips, placing yours around his neck. A slow song was playing, Seunghyun gently swaying the two of you to the beat. It was too painful to look at his face right now, focusing on his shoes instead but he didn’t let that last too long, his slender fingers reaching out to lift your chin up to look at him. As you met his eyes once more, you could see the pain in them mirroring your own. He knew as well as you that this was it for the two of you. God, it hurt. Your heart physically felt like it was breaking in two. 

“Seunghyun...” you started but he cut you off. 

“Let’s just... have this moment, yeah?” His voice broke as he spoke, the gentleness combined with his deep tone penetrating right through your broken heart. 

He tugged you closer to him, your body pressed against his with your head laying on his chest. His heart was beating just as rapidly as yours, his hand gently reaching up to your head to stroke your hair. It was soothing but it wasn’t enough. This was just hurting you more. Knowing this would be the last time he’d ever hold you like this, that he’d ever be this close to you? It was enough to bring you to tears. As you let them fall onto his suit jacket, he knew you were crying, squeezing his own eyes shut. Seunghyun wasn’t afraid of crying, he never had been but right now he needed to be strong for you. When he was alone later, he’d let the tears fall but right now making sure you had one last bit of comfort from him was his main priority. 

As the song ended and you pulled back to look at him, he kept his arms around you, his thumb running along your lower lip. “...I’m sorry I can’t give you what you want.” 

“I know,” you whispered. 

He looked at you so intensely, like he was memorising all of your features knowing that he would never be able to look at you this way again. Before he could even control himself, he was leaning in and his lips met yours in a slow, passionate kiss. His arms wrapped around your body; his hands splayed across your back as he poured every ounce of his love into the kiss. Love wasn’t the problem; his own commitment issues were. Your fingers played with the hair at the nape of his neck, Seunghyun letting out a sigh. He didn’t say any words as he pulled away, he didn’t need to. Instead, he simply took your hand in his and lead you outside. If he was going to say goodbye then he was going to make sure it was one you could both remember. 

That was how you ended up in the backseat of the car, Seunghyun’s shirt half open, yours somewhere in the front of the car as you straddled his lap, hands cradling his face as you kissed him hungrily. His hands slid up your back, unhooking your bra. It was quickly discarded somewhere in the car, his eyes instantly falling to your chest. His head dipped down, his tongue swirling around your nipple. Your hand tangled in his hair, a breathy moan passing your lips as he worked his magic. Slowly, you grinded your hips against his feeling his growing length rubbing against your core. Thank the stars you’d decided to wear a skirt, only the barrier of your underwear in the way. It was good but it wasn’t enough. You needed him, you needed him like you needed air. 

His lips trailed wet kisses along your chest and collarbone until he reached your neck, biting down to leave his mark. It might be the last time he’d get to have you like this but he still wanted the world to know you had been his. You tugged at his hair, pulling him back up to meet your lips. “If this is the last time just... give me everything, please.” 

“Whatever you want, baby,” he mumbled, thumb brushing against your cheek as he crashed his lips back onto yours. His hand slid underneath your skirt, dipping beneath your underwear. The second his fingers touched your sensitive core, he bit back a moan at how wet you were. “You're always so ready for me.” 

His fingers slid between your folds, coating his fingers in your slick before he pushed two digits inside you. The intrusion had you gasping, his fingers setting a slow, torturous rhythm. He pumped them in and out, your head falling onto his shoulder as you ground against his hand. “Seunghyun, please.” 

“Please, what?” His voice was a deep, reverberating whisper in your ear only making your arousal worse. “Use your words, baby.” 

“More. I need more. I...” Words seemed to escape you especially when he suddenly sped up his movements, his fingers plunging in and out of your tight heat. You whimpered, hips rocking with him. He was nothing but determined to bring you to the brink of ecstasy, his free hand tangling in your hair, tilting your head back roughly as his lips found your neck. The feeling of his fingers deep inside you and the soft bites along your collarbone were enough to send you spiralling. 

You moaned out his name, biting down on his shoulder as you came all over his fingers. He didn't let up, working you through your orgasm until he felt your body slump against his. Only then did he pull his fingers out of you, bringing them up to his lips. He made a show out of pushing them into his mouth to taste you. His eyes almost rolled to the back of his head, a breathy sigh passing his lips. “You always taste amazing, princess.” 

His swollen lips brushed against yours, the sweet taste of you lingering on his lips. He gently tugged at your bottom lip, grinding his hips up into yours. You could feel how hard he was, how desperate he was and God, did you want him inside you so badly. The feeling was very mutual, his cock aching to be buried deep inside you. He lifted your hips off him momentarily, popping open the button on his slacks as he lifted his own hips to tug off his pants and boxers down his legs enough to free himself. He hissed as the cool air hit his erection.  

Licking your lips, you leaned your head down, his hand instantly coming to push you closer to his length. Your tongue darted out, teasing along his tip, the taste of his precum filling your mouth. He groaned, a deep husky noise; it was almost enough to send you spiralling again. The throbbing between your legs back yet again as he lost all his patience and pushed your head onto him. Your lips wrapped around his cock, taking as much of him into your mouth as possible. What you couldn’t fit, you wrapped your hand around. You began to bob your head up and down, hollowing out your cheeks. With lidded eyes he watched as you took him deep into your throat, holding your head there. He let out a strangled moan, his hips instinctively pushing up into your mouth causing the tip of his length to hit the back of your throat. The choking sound you made was almost enough to make him come there and then. Instead, he pulled you off him, his thumb wiping at the corners of your mouth. You looked picturesque, the way your lips were swollen, tears pricking at the corners of your eyes. This was one of the ways he was always going to remember you on lonely nights when he couldn’t have you anymore.  

“I need you so much,” he whispered, the pain in his voice like a knife to your heart. “Even if it's for the last time, I just... I fuckin’ need you.”  

You didn’t say anything, instead you slid your underwear off down your legs, moving to straddled him yet again. You took him in your hand, positioning him at your entrance before you sank down onto him. You moaned as you took all of him inside you, sitting on his thick length to give yourself time to adjust. His fingers dug into your hips; head tilted back as he looked at you. “You’re so beautiful. I... love you.” 

You rested your forehead against his, eyes squeezing shut as if it was too painful to even look at him after saying that knowing what was going to come after this was over. Regardless, you replied softly. “I love you, too.” 

“Don’t move. Not yet. I...just want to look at you... so I can keep this picture in my head,” his finger trailed along your jaw, his eyes piercing into yours now that you’d opened them. “You were always the best thing that had ever happened to me and nothing will change that.” 

You let the moment linger between you, knowing that you both needed it. Your eyes scanned his face, committing his dark, gorgeous eyes, strong jawline and perfect lips to your memory. Slowly but surely, you began to lift your hips up then back down. His hands on your hips guiding your movements, small breathy groans coming from the beautiful man in front of you. He leaned up, his lips capturing yours in a searing kiss. His tongue slipped between your parted lips, tongue tangling with yours as you picked up your pace. Seunghyun’s own hips bucked up into yours, his lips never leaving yours. One of your hands cupped his cheek, his soft skin flushed beneath your touch. The grunts and groans coming from him were some of your favourite sounds, ones that you’d miss so very much.  

“I’m so close, baby,” you panted, your hips beginning to lose the rhythm. Seunghyun took this as his cue to wrap his arm around your body, laying you back on the plush seat of the car.  

“Shh, let me take care of you,” he rasped, his body covering yours as he lifted your legs to wrap around his waist. He thrust into you hard and fast, your body moving with the force of his movements. Nails raked down his back (your turn to mark him as yours now), the sting of it causing him to moan. He had always loved when you did that. 

He could feel your walls squeezing him, letting him know you were close. So, he brought the pad of his thumb down, rubbing tight, small circles against your clit. His lips whispering “I love you” against yours as he changed to slow, deep thrusts. That was it. You couldn’t take anymore, your walls clamping down around him, your lips singing his name like a prayer as you came undone. He didn’t take his eyes off your face as he watched your orgasm hit you, it was one of the hottest things he’d ever seen. He kept up his rhythm but soon faltered when he heard you whisper you loved him. He stilled, his hips flush against you as he came, emptying himself inside you with a deep groan. 

He collapsed on top of you, your sweat slicked bodies pressing together. You ran your hand through his hair as he nuzzled into your neck. Why couldn’t you stay this way? Just wrapped up in your own little bubble with the man you loved. But, no. Reality wasn’t that kind to either of you. You both wanted different thing and as selfish as Seunghyun wanted to be, he couldn’t do that to you. No matter what, you deserved to find everything you’d ever wanted but he wasn’t the one that could give you that. 

He lifted his head, a sad frown on his beautiful face. “I’m staying at Jiyong’s tonight but... I’ll drive you home and come get my stuff tomorrow.” 

“Okay.” 

That was all you could say otherwise you’d break down. The fact that this was really it was all consuming pain. And, as much as this had been the perfect way to say goodbye to each other, it made it all the much harder. 

How were you supposed to ever let him go? 

[sunseed-fandump]

I saw your tarot analyses, do you have one for the reading in episode 7, the one Fortune Teller Cookie gives the gang in the inn?

*Cracks knuckles*

Alright, first one is a card everyone recognizes, because it's symbolism was used repeatedly throughout both episodes 7 and 8.

XVI - The Tower. Upright, it represents disaster, destruction, upheaval, trauma, sudden change, and chaos.

"The Tower represents change in the most radical and momentous sense. It is for this reason that the card itself visually looks so unnerving. But it doesn't necessarily have to be truly frightening or ominous. Because at the heart of this card, its message is foundational, groundbreaking change.

The kind of event that the Tower card marks does not have to be something terrible, like a disaster or a great loss. Change itself is a normal part of life that one has to embrace. But it can sometimes strike fear, for it means that we must abandon the truths that we have known prior to this event. The old ways are no longer useful, and you must find another set of beliefs, values and processes to take their place."

Next in the lineup seems to be VI - The Lovers. It stands for love, unions, partnerships, relationships, choices, romance, balance, and unity.

"The primary meaning within the Lovers is harmony, attractiveness, and perfection in a relationship. The trust and the unity that the lovers have gives each of them confidence and strength, empowering the other. The bond that they have created is very strong, and it can indicate that the two are joined in marriage, and other close and intimate relationships.

Another meaning behind the lovers card is the concept of choice - a choice between things that are opposing and mutually exclusive. This could be a dilemma that you need to think about carefully and make the best decision for your situation.

A more personal Lovers meaning that can apply to individuals is the development of your own personal belief systems, regardless of what are the societal norms. This is one of the times when you figure out what you are going to stand for, and what your philosophy in life will truly be. You must start making up your mind about what you find important and unimportant in your life. You should be as true to yourself as you can be, so you will be genuine and authentic to the people who are around you."

Now this last one really stumped me, as the symbolism doesn't seem to be too consistent with common depictions I'm familiar with. Then I remembered that these are Shadow Milk-ified Tarots that are supposed to be ominous looking. And then I also remembered that in some depictions of XIX - The Sun, the sun itself is drawn with a single massive eye. And I highly doubt an emo like Truthless Recluse would have a card depicting a happy sunny day in his deck. So we're going to continue assuming this is supposed to be The Sun. If I wind up being wrong, I'll just make an amendment later.

Upright, The Sun represents happiness, success, optimism, vitality, joy, confidence, happiness, and truth.

"The Sun card represents success, abundance, and radiance. Like the sun itself, it gives strength and vitality to all those that are lucky enough to feel its rays. There is much joy and happiness that is coming to you.

Because of your own personal fulfillment, you provide others with inspiration and joy as well. People are drawn to you because they are capable of seeing the warm and beautiful energy which you bring into their lives. You are also in a position in which you are capable of sharing your qualities as well as achievements with other people. You radiate love and affection towards those you care about the most."

All together, this could be seen as one big summary of PV's arc in this story. His emotional spiral, the choice he has to make between embracing despair or fighting through it, followed by his eventual Awakening. But then, what about what TR wrote while giving this reading?

Despite the optimism of the last card, I think TR - and by extension PV... Doubted himself. After all, when presented with a choice, it's always possible to make the wrong decision. And perhaps he was trying to spare himself the need to even make that choice in the first place with this warning. At this point, the Awakening hadn't happened yet, and TR hadn't seen the final outcome of that choice. He hadn't seen his Awakened self.

He's so very happy at the end that he wound up making the right one.

[leovenuslatina]

ENCHANTMENT

˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗

happy valentine’s day 💝

˚₊‧꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚

their seduction style

˚₊‧꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚

₊˚⊹ ᰔ౨ৎ₊this is just a reminder that tarot isn’t permanent or set in stone YOU decide how your life goes no one or nothing else now take a deep breath and choose the pile that calls to you ₊˚⊹ ᰔ౨ৎ₊˚⊹

book w me

───────── ౨ৎ ─────────

───────── ౨ৎ ─────────

PILE ONE

queen of pentacles, justice

˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗

the way your FS tries to seduce you is by hyping you up ! they want you to know that to them you’re the most beautiful person in the world to them ! like not even in a lustful way but in every single way possible you’re so gorgeous. Your FS thinks he’s won the lottery when he’s with you seriously he doesn’t even know someone as beautiful and stunning as you even exists. i don’t think your FS will necessarily buy your love but they definitely will go broke trying to impress you and make you happy they literally don’t care. To seduce you they will show you the finer things in life: fancy restaurants and luxurious hotels and trips. they wanna show you parts of life you’ve never seen before. To seduce you they make you feel like a queen. of course it’s not just about sex ! it’s also about making you theirs and they’ll wanna be the only one to make you feel like a fucking goddess. they wanna make sure that no one makes you feel as good as they do. when it comes to love making they’re every fair. feeling good is important to him but more than any they pride themselves on making you feel especially good about yourself. even in the bedroom he’s focused on you and how you feel about yourself they’re making sure that he’s telling you sweet nothings and that you repeat them back to him making sure there’s no mistake on how he feels about you.

───────── ౨ৎ ─────────

PILE TWO

seven of wands

˚₊‧꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚

your FS is veryyyy long term. their seduction style is very patient. he doesn’t mind waiting for you if you’re not ready to do anything physical. he doesn’t mind waiting for you if you’re in a relationship 😬. because they know at the end of the day you’re worth it to them he makes sure to know everything and anything there is to know about you as to impress you as much as that can just to make you theirs. before you guys get serious he wants to make sure you both are compatible it’s giving friends to lovers vibes ?? and in no time they’re madly in love with you. you’re like his favorite book he can’t stop reading. i feel like they’re the type to have all you favorite things written down just so they can always get you your favorite things. To seduce you Pile 2 your FS will always try to get your attention in anyway they can. doing anything to make sure you’re always paying attention to them. to seduce you your FS is very persistent they don’t care about what fights or challenges you two go through they will ALWAYS be there for you. especially when you two are doing it and if there’s any problems they won’t care or make you feel bad they’ll just keep trying and with any problems outside of that they just wanna hear you out and work with you. they’re overly committed to you like their loyalty is unshakeable.

───────── ౨ৎ ─────────

PILE THREE

wheel of fortune & page of cups

˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗

Your FS seduction style is very spontaneous. wot they you’ll never know what’s next and that’s so exciting to you ! it’s always something go with them so you don’t mind being surprised or whisked away. Your FS doesn’t want you to ever get bored of them so they keep things very interesting and they like to keep things spicy. they’re the type to just text you “be ready at 6” and pick you up for like a spontaneous date in a different state. they just really wanna make sure you’re always guessing. i also think you may have told him that you get bored easily or that your last relationship was boring to you in some way and now they’ll do anything to keep you on your toes. To seduce you pile 3your FS will always be ready to just sweep you off your feet. it’s giving the great Gatsby very grand and extremely extravagant.

───────── ౨ৎ ─────────

[whispsofwind]

I am probably (definitely) kicking the hornet's nest but... I feel like there's a disconnection in how people approach HP because I've seen so many people say "but aren't the books explicitly anti racism? How can the author be all those bad things if her books are explicitly anti racism?".

And the point is... they're not. At least they weren't intended to be: the whole pure blood thing is less about race, and more about the ridiculous "noble blood" classism that still exists in England. And once I got that I completely revaluated my interpretation of those books.

I loved those books as a child, and I am not going to sit here and tell they're all vad, because they're not. They ARE a cultural phenomenon that shaped both pop culture and Internet culture for the last 20 freaking years, though. And they will continue to do so, if nothing else because outside of the English speaking sphere, PEOPLE DON'T KNOW ABOUT JOANNE'S HATE CAMPAIGNS. Like I cannot emphasise enough, not English speaking people often don't know.

And therefore I feel it's important not only to speak up about the author, but also analyse where the books succeeded or failed, and why.

The elves were adapted from the brownies... with disastrous results, especially if you consider Hermione's campaign. The metaphor with licantropism is an absolute disaster. The way in which muggles are presented (either evil, stupid or both) is ... also not a good look, considering the context. The series is genuinely morally confused, I dare say. It professes the importance of Love TM while also refusing to take a critical look at its own dystopian world building.

Death of the author, or separating the art from the author, are also not supposed to be an absolute frame of reference. They are literary analysis tools that allow you to analyse a work without taking the will of the author into consideration (example: CS Lewis was deeply Catholic and intended Susan not going to Narnia in the end as a metaphor for loss of faith. However maybe I want to analyses Susan's arc in light of misogyny, and the correlation between sexuality and loss of innocence, rather than religion. I am literally ignoring authorial intent to do so, but it's a very valid reading).

However I feel like you cannot analyse any work of art in an absolute vacuum, and expurging the author from the art completely feels, to me, rather simplistic.

I am also not entirely comfortable with the idea of Death of the Author being used as a frame of reference for the relationship with the work AND the author, rather than being used as a simple literary tool.

I always felt like the better approach is to evaluate how to cause less damage and bring the most happiness all around. Does buying the work of Lovecraft cause any harm in this world? I would argue not, since the man is well enough dead. Does buying HP products, or Orson Scott Card's works, or Silvana de Mari's books, cause harm? I would argue yes, because these authors use they money and their platforms to attach real, vulnerable people in a systemic way right here right now. Does SPEAKING about those works cause harm? Does engaging with the fandom aspect of them cause harm? That's more complicated. Critical analysis of a work is, imo, always a net positive, and there's the very real fact that some people pour their hearts and souls into a fandom because it genuinely brings happiness to them and to people around them, and because it allows them to enhance the original world in order to ACTUALLY address the issues that were ignored. That cannot be discounted. However, at the same time it cannot be ignored that talking about a work keeps it alive, which keeps it marketable; then again, fandom's impact on ... anything large scale is negligible when compared to, again, thousands upon thousands of people across the world who don't look the author up, don't engage critically with the text, and just think the Hogwarts Lego Model looks super cute. Which is, like, 90% of the population.

I suppose the main conclusion is nuance: morality is complicated, and making the "morally right" choice is nuanced, deeply personal, and I am not going to judge anyone because they want to reread Harry Potter or want to watch Good Omens Season 3 or whatever, because the world and our impact in it is much more complicated than "person bad, therefore damnatio memoriae good".

hey do you think you could expand a bit on separating the art from the artist? clearly you’ve done it with jk rowling but what are your thoughts on it as a general idea?

okay, but you’re not going to like the answer.

here’s the truth: you can’t separate the art from the artist. not entirely. HP Lovecraft was an incredibly talented, but much more incredibly racist man. It would nice to say you don’t agree with his views but you can enjoy his works without that leaking in but…. well, I’m afraid that would be misunderstanding his books entirely.

Consider, for a second, that Lovecraft’s works were horror stories about extradimensional alien monsters having mutant children with humans, they were about invasions from distant monsters, they were about the purity of quaint European towns being tainted. Consider how this may have all been inflicted by the fact that he just simply despised anybody who wasn’t white. Consider how is opinions on “mixing the races” might fight into this; consider why being unable to maintain the “purity” of white Europe was the scariest thing of all to him.

This extends to Rowling too.

I would love to say we can just acknowledge that she is an awful, racist, antisemitic, transphobic person and then say “but at least her books are good,” because, well, they are, aren’t they? I would say so, for sure. But to suggest that one can separate her from them is…. ridiculous.

Consider why an antisemitic woman wrote about a species of goblins who live among us, but who for the most part keep to themselvesand are maybe a little bit oppressed by the institution, but also hold all the cards, all the money, run the banks.

Consider why a racist woman would write about a species of slaves who loved being enslaved, who enjoyed working for no pay, and cleaning up after humans, with the only small caveat of that they didn’t want to be beaten. Imagine that only the most radical of their species wanted to be free, and he still spent the rest of his life working for no pay and helping out a little white boy and his friends wherever he could. Consider why the only person in the story who thought they should be free, that they should have rights, was treated as an overzealous joke, who was acting against the wishes of those slaves who really LOVE being enslaved. Consider that Rowling went on to say that she kind of considers that girl to be black, now.

Consider why JK Rowling, an open and proud transphobe, wrote Rita Skeeter as having a large square jaw, thick “manly” hands, and dressing incredibly gaudily with the most obvious fake nails and fake teeth and fake hair and fake everything. Consider why a woman who tweets about how trans women are “foxes pretending to be hens to get in the hen house” might write this Rita Skeeter to then illegally transform her body in order to spy on children.

Harry Potter is full of Rowling’s bigotry, start to finish. Not even tangentially, like, “oh the goblins are bad, Rita Skeeter is bad, the house elves are bad, but most of it’s good!” because the deeper you dig and the longer you think the more you realise the entire story is based on her prejudices.

Harry Potter pretends to be an aracial story about found family, but if that were true, why are Harry’s distant ancestors important to who he is today even in the seventh book? Why does Harry have to live with his cousin and aunt and uncle? Because magic inherently prefers blood ties. Whilst Rowling was writing a story that seemed to say, “your heritage is not that important and doesn’t make you better than others” she was still writing a story about a boy who got all of his money through his bloodline, who was protected by living with his bloodline, no matter how evil, who was uniquely able to stop Voldemort because his bloodline passed down the invisibility cloak for generations and generations. Any step Harry takes he is compared to his perfect parents who were exactly like him — he looks just like his father, but he has his mother’s eyes, you know! — consider WHY a woman who is racist might’ve written a story like this. A story that on its surface, condemns a blood caste, but still in every step it takes, validates the idea that blood is thicker than water, and your geneological origin is what makes you special.

You can enjoy Harry Pottwr, of course you can. There are fantastic parts. I love a small group of teenagers deciding to become anarchies rebels and train to fight against fascism in secret. I love the murder mystery plots, I love how the series tells kids that it’s a good thing to be brave, and a good thing to fight injustice, and a good thing to challenge the government. But I cannot separate it from its author because it is such a product of its author. All of the structures of the world, the way things work in the universe, and drenched in Rowling’s beliefs, her bigotries. Of course they are: she made them.

Again. This doesn’t mean you cannot enjoy it. But I think we are past the day where we can pretend that disavowing a bigoted author is enough, and that that somehow separates the text from its bigotry. I think we are past the day where we can pretend that Harry Potter isn’t a deeply, inherently bigoted piece of media. Even the bits we love. I think we are beyond the day where we can truthfully pretend to separate it from her, because she is present through all of it. We MUST recognise its flaws. We MUST admit that she is in every part of it.

[nikitallymessy]

what do you need to hear right now? general reading

pile 1 | pile 2 | pile 3

Hi! This is my first reading for the interwebz! Tell me what pile you picked as well!! I wanna know which one resonated with you guys

Remember that this is a general reading made for entertainment reasons so some parts may resonate while others may not.

By the way, I used the RWS tarot and the Herbiary oracle deck ^_^

PILE 1 :

two of wands, two of swords (reversed), and king of cups

For this pile, I'm seeing that you might go through a tough time, one where you'll think that you won't be able to persevere through - something that will make you feel unworthy. With the two of swords reversed, I think it's going to be a moment of important decision-making and stagnation. Honestly, I'm getting something about careers and maybe even college? You should be wise in your decisions, and make a pros and cons list. remember that not all decisions must be made by the brain (logic), the heart (emotion) must also take a role in decision-making ... there must be a balance between them.

tulsi - you are sacred

Remind yourself of your power, your strength, and your spirit. Remember that you are, well, sacred! Don’t be afraid to ask for help as well, asking for help doesn't mean you’re weak, it means you’re self-aware that you need help, and it takes courage to ask for help from others.

⋆⁺₊⋆ ━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━ ⋆⁺₊⋆

PILE 2 :

death, the lovers (reversed), ace of wands

While shuffling for this, I felt immensely overwhelmed and ... messy? It felt as if I was confused with what I was going to do, I was actually thinking to stop the readings. This might be how you feel right now, confused, scared, and overwhelmed. I feel like you’ve lost someone very close to you, as the second card suggests, it could be a lover, but it could also be your love for yourself that you've lost. You shouldn't dwell on the past, although painful, it's time to let go of what has gone and move on to greener pastures. The ace of wands suggests that you should take care of yourself by expressing your emotions and feelings creatively. I'm seeing paintings, drawings, and creative writing. You can't hold everything in, let it out and let it out in a way that is helpful to you, in a way that will help you grow.

raspberry - create space

Remember to nurture yourself and remember that there is always a light at the end of the tunnel. You will get past this.

⊹₊ ˚‧︵‿₊୨୧₊‿︵‧ ˚ ₊⊹

PILE 3 :

king of wands (reversed), two of cups (reversed), temperance

If you feel drawn to pile two I think it may also be for you since this also covers separation, but this one is more on self-separation. Since this is a general reading, this imbalance could manifest in different aspects of life, like in career, relationships, or even within yourself. You feel so uneasy that you’re making rash decisions hoping one will stick. Moreover, I'm seeing online shopping with temperance and two of cups reversed, and I think you should … calm it down babes, and be frugal and wise about your spending habits. Be mindful of your purchases and ask yourself if you truly need it before buying.

burdock - tap your resources

All will be well, build yourself up and break your old habits that do more harm than good. Stability.

[sweetm4ri]

⭑𓂃 𝐆𝗂𝗋ᥣ 𝐒𝗍υ𝖿𝖿 ꩜ .ᐟ

──────────୨ৎ──────────

WARNINGS :: Akutagawa Ryūnosuke / Dazai Osamu / Fyodor Dostoevsky / Ranpo Edogawa / Chūya Nakahara x F!Reader (separately); Already established relationships; Angst (on the Fyodor part); Anxious reader (on the Chūya part); Slightly mentions of dark themes, not much, but can trigger some people that are scared to walk alone at night (on the Ranpo part)

SINOPSE :: Problems that you have to deal with being a girl on different situations with male bsd characters.

──────────୨ৎ──────────

Note :: To all the girls.

⭑𓂃 Akutagawa Ryūnosuke

It was a hot day, not a cozy, warm day or a little bit cold one. It was a hot day. An extremely hot one. It was like the devil had decided to pass his home to here.

You, noticing the good and normal temperature in the morning, decided to only wear a sweater, with nothing underneath, only your intimate clothes.

It would be fine. But in this moment, it was like you were in a toaster, almost creaming or falling apart.

You shacked your hands in front of your neck, going back and forth with the cloth piece, trying to make a ventilation or something like that. Your dear one, only looking at you with those dark eyes that you could easily read through.

"What? Don't judge." You say, not even bodering with explaining everything.

"Why are you doing that? Just take the sweater off." He pointed, making everything sound too simple, very, even extremely simple.

"I can not." You explain, continuing to try to find a bit of air underneath.

"Why, though? You just need to take it off, simple." He continued, gesturing the simplicity of fleaping the cloth off you.

"I do not have anything underneath, okay?" You say in a wishper, explaining how difficult the whole situation was.

With everything set. Your boyfriend only looked at you in disbelief, shaking his head negatively. Oh well, maybe one day he would understand it.

──────────୨ৎ──────────

⭑𓂃 Dazai Osamu

"Why do you have to take so much time?" Your boyfriend whines from the other side of the door of the bathroom, impatient by the time that you have to take to clean yourself.

Even if Dazai was a genius, he did not seem to understand the complexity of choosing the right product for you and taking a good time to each of them.

"Dazai, it is not my fault. I have to be careful and pay attention to each product!" You explain, carefully passing your mascara by your dear hair.

"I would prefer if you paid attention to me instead!" He hissed, sitting on the cold floor, his back to the door as he looked through your shared bedroom.

"Paying attention to you will not make my hair or skin perfect." You proclaimed in a firm tone, walking to the door with a towel in your body, finally opening it.

His eyes shone, thinking that you were finally over. Soon frowing seeing your still weat hair with product.

"You can watch if you want. Maybe you can learn a bit." You said with a kind smile, giving up on making your boyfriend wait for you.

──────────୨ৎ──────────

⭑𓂃 Fyodor Dostoevsky

Today was a very significant day since you were going to an important dinner with Fyodor, your boyfriend. He is a very respected person, which is natural, considering the work he puts so others have full trust in him. You were no diferente however, you trusted him more than anything, and he trusted you too, or so you hoped so.

The night started really well. You had a nice outfit on, a gorgeous makeup, and your dear one was incapable, too. The gathering took place in a very expensive and renowned restaurant, you found all sorts of people there, from rich normal ones to literal presidents. And, of course, being already familiar with how highly and exceptionally Fyodor talks, you put up your best face, prepared to show these people your best, and how you deserved to be there.

Even so, your lover had other plans. Every time you tried to even say something, he would just slide into the conversation, making people hear him instead. Which was utterly weird and ridiculous. Would he not believe in your capacity to handle things?

You pushed him delicately aside from everyone, whispering in a low voice so only he could hear you, an then you asked it.

"What is the problem, Fyodor? Why are you not letting me talk with them?" Your lips moved calmly just like you were telling a secret.

"My dear, you know I fully trust you, but you need to understand. These are not just normal people. They are truly important and significant. If you said something you should not, how would I be?" He responded to you, with his usual attractive and magnetic smile, his voice tone excelling confidence in his words.

"You need to understand." That words got stuck in you like nothing else, making you unable to speak how frustrating his actions were.

"I am quite sure you will understand me. Let me handle things while you speak to the other woman's, I am sure you will have your fun too." He completed his other statement with some more couple of words, those who should not be said.

Understand. Should you really be the one to comprehend it?

"I do not have the words to say how completely stupid you sound right now. Maybe you should learn a bit about how to understand things." You said, trying to keep your tone still calm and relaxed, but still raising it a bit.

"If you do not mind, wich I am sure you do not, I am leaving. There is nothing here for me anyway. I hope you do think a little about what you made and told me. I am not a doll for you to simply control like that, and most of all, I am not like the people you deal with. You should respect me more, Fyodor."

──────────୨ৎ──────────

⭑𓂃 Ranpo Edogawa

You should know better than deciding to go out at night with a big baby, but in any way, you did it. And now you were going until the end of all this.

The Agency had declared that because of the victory against the other - very powerful - organization, all of you would go out to a bar and bath yourselfs in alcohol, as a well deserved reward.

When you arrived with your boyfriend, almost everyone was already there, although there were still people putting some food on the tables. And as expected, Ranpo went almost running for the food, leaving you behind.

You, in a different way, went to say hello to everyone. You could try to stop Ranpo, but you know better than that. Besides, it was a celebration between people from the Agency, so nobody really cared about that.

As timed passed, more people had arrived, and you, of course, greeted all of them, kindly smilling to your friends. There was drinks, lot alcohol, food and jokes.

By the end of the night, it was really dark, no clouds in the sky, only that obscure blue, and some little to no stars. And some people started to leave. You, being a woman who would have to walk your way home, knew better than let everything get even more late.

You made your way to your boyfriend, who was currently talking with your dear friend Yosano. You got close to him and said that you two should go because it was getting already very late.

He simply looked at you in confusion, stopping the conversation and focusing on only you.

"Why now? It is not that late." He says, still confused, eating some candies calmly.

"It is late! And I have to walk back home!" You exclaimed, lightly irritated whit him. You knew he had all that smartness "only" with the glasses, but you did expect for him to get what you meant.

"And? Walk then." He stated, like it was all very simple and easy. Easy for him, a man.

"Are you good, Ranpo? You need to walk her home. It is dark outside, and a woman walking alone would be a very easy prey." Yosano explained, giving herself the free pass to interrup the conversation between you two and also saving you from a bug talk.

"Oh, sorry." Ranpo said, finally getting your point. Maybe his mind didn't work late at night, but anyway, you two had to go.

The walk was actually really calm, for your luck, since Ranpo isn't the tipe to fight. Although you had come with a hole explanation to him about how dangerous it really is for you to walk alone outside, especially at night. Your next lesson would be about how to use a train. He seems like he needs that.

──────────୨ৎ──────────

⭑𓂃 Chūya Nakahara

Chūya awaited patiently against his motorcycle, a gasp of smoke leaving his lips as he put the cigarette back in his lips. In time to time, he looked at the clock in his wrist, checking the hours again and again, wondering how much longer you would take.

On the other side, you were impatient, deciding mentally if really was a good idea going to that date. I mean, you would love to, it's your boyfriend after all. But the clothes were not helping. How could you choose the perfect one? It was like all the good dresses had gone missing all of a sudden.

You cursed mentally all the people that had stepped in this world, trying a bunch of clothes that you were not even aware of that existed. Anything could not do. It had to be perfect. The perfect cloth for your perfect date with your perfect boyfriend.

Your back was against the bed blankets, looking up at the ceiling, again questioning yourself about everything. Why did it have to be so difficult? Now, you were just cursing yourself. Everything is wrong in this moment. Everyone is nothing but a big mistake.

As if some god from afar had listened to your complaints, you suddenly remembered a dress that Chūya had given you not so long ago. Even if it was not your birthday already, he enjoyed giving you a bunch of stuff. And that included the beautiful and magnificent dress that was seated gracefully in your wardrobe.

Even if it was not the "perfect" dress for your perfect date, it was special. And you knew how much your dear one appreciates that kind of thing. Nothing really needs to be perfect sometimes. Maybe you were just overthinking too much. Or maybe you were not. You can not just go out with anything that you see in front of you. It needs to be good, who imagines the people that you will see in the street.

While everything played in your mind like a movie scene, you had finally finished preparing yourself, your clothes hugging your body perfectly, like it was made just for you. Which you did not doubt, giving how your boyfriend was. Always wanting to make you happy and loved for being exactly who you are.

You hurry up to get to the door of your home, batting an eye to Chuuya awaiting patiently for you with his motorcycle.

"Hi my love, sorry for the delay." You excuse yourself to him, hugging him tightly and kissing his cheek.

"It is okay. You are stunning, really. Like a goddess of beauty." He says in a really sweet tone, which was always reserved only for you. You only laughed at his compliment, brushing it off so he wouldn't notice the light red color on your cheeks.

"You think? I was worried that it was not perfect. You know, the clothes and all. I really wanted to be perfect for you... and our date, of course!" You explain slightly embarrassed, trying not to let yourself even more shy with all this.

"You are impeccable in any way, really." He says, kissing your cheek and offering you one of the helmets.

F. Note :: I hope you liked your reading dear, please, do not forget to take care of yourself.

Lots of love,

Mari. ♡

Tags.ᐟ ::

[oatmealwrites]

Catch Kira, NOT Feelings! Ch. 6

Ch. 5 | Ch. 7 -> coming soon!

[series masterlist here]

[regular masterlist here]

Synopsis: Light is a master manipulator as per usual and quickly becomes suspicious of your 'relationship' with Ryuzaki. While a storm prevents him from coming to the task force meeting, the team locks in to the potential identity of Misa Amane being the Second Kira and what that means for all of your safety. Knowing that Light may be attempting to drive a wedge between you both, Ryuzaki asks you about the other things that couples do which might assist in convincing your task force colleagues that 'this' was real. The only issues? You're now convinced it may be becoming real too.

Tags: Light is a manipulator, you feel guilty af for lying to your team members, suggestive, mentions of sex, hair tugging, french kissing, dry humping, male erection, female arousal, mentions of masturbation, it's getting hot n heavy, MDNI, NSFW, 18+

Word Count: 10.7 k (SORRY)

a/n at end! enjoy~

~~~~~~

LIGHT POV

Light sits languidly at his desk, twirling his pen and furrowing his brows at his course materials that sit open before him. It’s late, long past 11pm and Misa has already left to go back home; a steady rain taps against his window as he enjoys the lack of company for the first time in a while. Ryuk’s presence doesn’t count anymore; he hovers in the air enjoying the sight of lightning that flashes with each roar of thunder, unamused as Light doesn’t give him any attention.

“You’re awfully quiet tonight.” Ryuk observes, turning to face the man.

Light sighs slightly, stopping the twirl of his pen and resting his cheek in the fat of his palm. “I’m thinking.”

Ryuk doesn’t say anything, but hovers closer to the desk and observes the way Light’s textbook remains open to the same page it was turned to 30 minutes ago. He’s seen Light calm and quiet with his thoughts before, but there’s an eerie demeanor to the way he sits that leaves Ryuk feeling eager to cure his boredom.

Light sits up a bit straighter when Ryuk reaches past him to grab an apple from the bowl his mother delivered earlier. “They’re faking it.”

Ryuk doesn’t stop his motion, popping the apple into his mouth and crunching loudly. “Hmm? Oh! You mean L and y/n?”

“Yes.” Light’s voice is curt and cold.

The shinigami over his shoulder pays no mind and continues chewing with his mouth open. “Mmm you must’ve been observing them very closely the other day to figure that out. Hehehe.”

Light doesn’t bother to entertain Ryuk’s suggestive teasing and rolls his eyes as the laughter behind his shoulder bellows loudly for only him to hear. Picking up his pen once more, he twirls it on his fingers again.

“Ok, but why does this matter so much? It’s not like it prevents you from killing people–”

“It prevents me from killing her.” Light interrupts.

The tone is harsh and quick, startling Ryuk as thunder roars beyond the glass patio door. Standing up and taking chunks of hair in his fingers, Light pulls slightly in frustration as his Shinigami companion watches in interest. 

“But I thought you wanted her on your side if you were to be caught. Why would you kill her now?”

Light sighs, releasing the grasp on his hair and looks at Ryuk. “I don’t want to, she’s committed no crime– but…” He looks down at his desk, the death note sitting neatly underneath his textbook. “If she’s going to stand in the way of a God… then I have no choice.”

Ryuk hums in better understanding and reaches to grab another apple from the basket, watching the way Light seems to work out a variety of situations in his head. 

“Mmm I see. And because she’s dating L suddenly, it puts her in an important spot at his side.”

Light scowls and runs a frustrated hand through his hair once more. “Yes, and only those in the task force know about it, meaning Ryuzaki has effectively guaranteed her safety! If she dies now, after no field work besides being with me, it’s a nail in my coffin!”

Light takes his textbook and throws it onto his bed, seething in anger as Ryuk enjoys the entertainment before him. 

“Damn him! He thinks he can just do whatever he wants… but I’ll show him– No! I’ll show the whole task force that ‘relationship’ is a fraud.” Light stands in the center of his room, shaking as he speaks and it makes Ryuk question the soundproofing of the walls. “Then, I’ll kill her. Right in front of him…. hehe..hahahaHAHAHA”

Ryuk pops the core of the fruit into his mouth and licks the juice running from the corner of his lips. “Mmm, I bet Misa will like the fact there’s no competition either.”

Light stops laughing and peers at the Shinigami before rolling his eyes. “Not like she matters much anyways– I’ll find a way to have her kill L and then I’ll deal with her and Rem afterwards.”

Walking back to the desk, he sits in the chair and looks at the way the death note now sits unhidden on the surface; he pulls out a regular notepad and grabs a mechanical pencil.

“But first I need to figure out how to prove this ‘relationship’ is fake… and maybe, if y/n kneels before the altar of Kira in submission, I’ll show her mercy. I mean if the task force votes to remove her for the egregious violation of trust, it’ll put her in a vulnerable spot for where to put her faith…” He taps his pencil tip to the paper a few times in idle thought. “But first– I need to figure out why Ryuzaki would go this far just to protect her.”

Ryuk takes the empty fruit bowl and shakes it upside down, grunting at the fact there were no more apples left for him to enjoy. A lightning strike draws his attention back outside before he speaks to the young man again. “Maybe he’s just a good boss.”

Light scoffs and twirls his mechanical pencil in a similar fashion to how he did the pen earlier. “Yea right. The hours he makes everyone work, the secrecy of everything– even Ukita died on the job. So it doesn’t make sense he would do any special treatment for someone... He even sent Matsuda and I to Aoyama with no hesitation so–”

Light cuts himself off and stares down at the notepad in awe as Ryuk watches two drops of rain race down the glass door, silently rooting for the left one to reach the bottom first. When thunder echoes outside he notices the lack of Light’s voice and turns back around. 

“Wait, you stopped talking. What happened?”

Light doesn’t say anything; his head hangs low and his shoulders jerk as a few chuckles escape his lips in an erratic manner. The light giggles turn into a fit of laughter as he throws his neck back and squints his eyes shut in humor. Feeling left out of an inside joke Ryuk ushers forward. 

“What? Whaaat? Tell me.”

A hand on his forehead as the laughter slows down, Light looks down at his notepad. “Ahhh. It’s not fake at all, is it Ryuzaki?!”

Ryuk scrunches his face and looks at the man with irritation growing evident; he wants to be entertained, not left out. He lifts a hand and scratches his face in confusion. “You don’t make sense… just a moment ago you said the relationship was staged.”

Light wipes a tear from his eyes and spins in his chair to sit with better posture as he drafts a variety of notes onto the paper. “The whole thing is fake– just not to him.”

Ryuk doesn’t say anything, not bothering to ask for proof as he knows the human in front of him will run his mouth and explain it anyways. On cue, Light taps his paper with the pencil as he opens his mouth once more. 

“I’ve known y/n longer than he has, a fact that gets under his skin and also puts him at a severe disadvantage.” He taps a list of names on the paper— a list of your most recent exes he can remember. “In all the relationships I’ve seen her in, she’s never acted like this.”

Ryuk peers at the names with slight interest but remains silent. “She’s never done excessive PDA, and now they’re making out in public. She’s always separated her work and personal life, and now she’s dating her boss. She’s also been strapped for cash, and now she’s bringing him cookies. The whole thing reeks of trying to prove a point in an obvious and gaudy fashion.”

Peering at the bullet points of dating habits, Ryuk shrugs again, not quite on the same page. “So this proves it’s fake, right?”

“Fake to her.” Light corrects, spinning back in his chair to continue scribbling. 

“But Ryuzaki would never make such an attempt to protect anyone besides himself. Not letting her go to Aoyama, showing up on campus suddenly, projecting their ‘relationship’ makes so little rational sense.”

“That’s true. That guy is just as methodical and stuck up as you Light!” Ryuk chuckles at his own joke while the man rolls his eyes.

“Sure–” Light concedes with grit teeth. “But it also means that there’s no logical reason for him to do this.”

“Ok…? So why would he…?”

Light scoffs and raises an eyebrow himself. “It’s stupid really; to be honest I don’t know why he would do it for this reason anyways…”

Circling a word at the center of the page, he taps his pencil against the phrase with a confused and lost look in his eyes. ‘Love’ 

[Back at task force – Your POV]

“And based on this sentence,” you raise your finger to trace the highlighted portion of the printed transcript, “we can infer that the whole ‘sharing powers’ thing is greatly exaggerated.”

Matsuda awes next to you as you explain the linguistics behind the most recent piece of evidence from the Second Kira– an audio tape mailed to Sakura TV postmarked two days ago. The audio has been transcribed into a few sentences on the paper in your hands; the message stating the Second Kira will no longer make public statements within the name of ‘Kira’ and will do what they can to earn the approval of the God– offering to punish more criminals and even ‘share the power’ with other devoted followers.

You tap your finger and open the cap of your highlighter to mark another portion of the lines for underlying meanings; the wording seems like a combination of syntax from Kira and the Second. 

“Nice catch there…” Aizawa leans down to point to another line as you begin explaining a separate portion of the script. 

A light rain patters at the hotel windows as the lingering storm from last night refuses to let up; Ryuzaki sits at the coffee table across the room but his gaze remains on you at the kitchen counter. Aizawa and Matsuda flank both your sides as you calmly pick apart the printed transcript on the wooden surface; Light remains absent, still having another hour in his evening lecture before he rejoins the group. 

Matsuda ‘ooos’ once more when you stand up, having completed your interpretation of the message splayed in front of you. “Woa, that’s an impressive deduction… I can't believe I didn’t catch it.”

You shrug and trace the lines once more, pausing to summarize them. “Well, if Kira could pass their powers on to people, why would they have chosen someone they never met? You can’t ensure allegiance or ability– the whole thing would be too risky.”

Despite telling this to Matsuda and Aizawa, Ryuzaki sits across the room listening to every detail. “So the Second Kira wasn’t ‘chosen’ ; it also limits the likelihood they can pass their ‘powers’ down to others. This would mean they came into power naturally rather than through succession. Especially when you consider the ego of the first Kira.”

Matsuda nods in approval and Mr. Yagami signals for the groups to merge once again; he makes space for Ryuzaki to resume the joint meeting. Taking your usual spot on the couch, you watch the way L flicks the TV screen to show the written audio transcript.

“You had already told me your interpretation earlier, y/n– but hearing it again there’s a few points we need to discuss.”

The group hums and gathers their assorted documents, ready to listen to his suggestion. “We have to entertain the possibility that the murder…’weapon’ has the ability to be yielded by more than one person. And that this ‘power’ may be the reference within the message.”

You suck the inside of your cheek between your molars and reflect on the possibility; the fact no one has seen the murder weapon throws an uncomfortable wrench into the plan. A ‘power’ with the ability to kill with only a name and face certainly leans towards the divine and supernatural. You give a slight nod to Ryuzaki, the shared usage of ‘notebooks’ still remains private to only you.

The group remains silent in thought, everyone having no collective idea what the real cause of death could be. With a slight sigh, Ryuzaki scans the faces of the task force and turns to Mogi. “Regardless, it’s something important for everyone to keep in mind. Mogi, you have collected the forensics evidence, please divulge further.”

With an exhale, the man stands up and takes the remote from L before standing beside the TV screen and flipping to the next image.

“There were multiple traces of DNA on the tapes sent which caused some delays. Any postal service workers were filtered out upon looking at their work schedules which eventually left the evidence of two different women.”

He flips to an image of a woman you don’t recognize; her hair is cut short and splays in a variety of directions while her face adorns gothic makeup. “Her evidence showed up the most predominantly on the first few tapes. Saliva, finger prints, everything that would show her being the primary sender.”

Matsuda stands up excitedly. “So we got her! We got the Second Kira!”

“Not so fast.” Mr. Yagami leans back in his seat and motions for Matsuda to sit back down. “Please continue Mogi.”

The man coughs slightly and flips to the next image; a set of other video tapes litter the screen. “Her DNA didn’t match any criminal records, but it did match a series of occult videos sent to a variety of news stations. Most of them are fake or doctored as some sort of prank.”

Matsuda sinks slowly back down with a slight blush on his cheeks in embarrassment. 

Mogi flips to an image of the woman’s schedule. “Given her credit card statement, work schedule, and parental alibi… there’s limited room for her to commit any of the murders given the lack of time to access criminal information.”

Before the group can sigh in slight defeat, he flips to an image of another woman– one you recognize.

“Hey. I know her…” You sit upright and examine the doll-like face of the girl on the screen.

L leans in slightly, his face holds intrigue but the slight tremor in his body language hints a bit of anxiety. “Have you seen her on campus?”

You shake your head and examine her face another moment before turning to the group. “No, nothing like that. She’s a model I’m pretty sure… and she’s been in a few movies.”

Ryuzaki sits back slightly and nods once, taking in your response before nodding for Mogi to continue once again.

“Well, you’re right about that. This is Misa Amane, an upcoming celebrity whose DNA was already in the court system as a victim– her parents were murdered and she went through the trials against the perpetrator...”

You look between Mogi and Ryuzaki with concern at his pause. “Wait… I recognize this case; wasn’t it thrown out?”

Ryuzaki sits up right to secure a small plate of strawberry cake and pops the fruit garnish on top into his mouth; he speaks with his mouth open as he chews. “Exactly. The man was acquitted and shortly after Kira came to power, he died of a heart attack.”

The allegiance to Kira is immediately established and you sit back into your seat. In a strange sense, you kinda feel bad for her; if your family was killed and the murderer walked free from an inefficient judicial system…maybe you would have sympathy for Kira as we–

Ok, what are you thinking? Kira has killed more than just criminals; FBI agents and even members of this task force have been murdered. 

You shake off the thought and give Mogi your full attention once more as Ryuzaki watches your expression with uncomfortable focus.

“The tapes had pollen from flowers local to her hometown, and when we seized a few assets from her agent– without her knowledge– we matched her notebooks to the paper used in the letters. Not only did the ink match, but the handwriting too.” 

Mogi opens a manilla folder that had been tucked under his arm and places it on the coffee table in front of everyone. “Her credit card statements. There’s receipts of train ticket purchases that match the postage locations of the stamps from the Sakura TV demands.”

Aizawa crosses his arms. “Ok, just to push back on this… is it possible that she is also just an occult prankster? Kira could’ve put either one up to sending these tapes– like how they manipulated the acts of the criminals in jail before they died.”

Ryuzaki hums slightly, the fork in his mouth and frosting coating part of his lips and the sight makes you squirm slightly. “Given there have been multiple tapes sent in response to our demands and they haven’t died yet, we can assume they are doing this willingly…” He pauses and runs his tongue over his bottom lip to get the lost sugar. “Though if we detain one… there’s a chance Kira will kill one, or both, to avoid them from speaking out.”

You stare back at the image to examine her appearance again, and to avoid staring at the slutty way Ryuzaki cleans his fork of any remaining cream. 

Ugh. He doesn’t even know how it looks. 

You turn your attention back to the image of Misa and think for a moment. “There’s something else… aha!” You reach in your bag to pull out your laptop while the group of men watch you open the lid and type in your password.

Mr. Yagami sits forward to grab a mug of coffee from Watari’s tray. “Did you find something y/n?”

“Kinda…. Ah! Here it is!” You spin the laptop around and the men all lean in to get a better look.

“That looks delicious…?” Mogi mumbles in confusion from his still standing position.

You roll your eyes at the way Matsuda is nearly drooling. “Ok, but besides the image of the dessert, this is Misa’s social media page.”

Mr. Yagami blinks, completely lost. “Uh, ok?”

L sits forward and expands the image before looking up at you. “This is one of the cafes you and Light were talking about in Aoyama.”

You grin at him, slightly flush from his memory of you mentioning it in a conversation that he wasn’t even part of, before nodding and pointing to the post date and location. “Exactly! While it was posted a few days after Light and Matsuda were walking in Aoyama… it’s awfully convenient to post it on the same day we received the message that the Second Kira had found Kira.”

The group hums with excitement; everyone closer to finding Kira than ever before. Ryuzaki slips the last bite of cake into his mouth and places the saucer back onto the coffee table with a gentle touch. 

“However, this doesn’t inherently look very good for your son, Mr. Yagami.”

The group’s energy falters and you shift uncomfortably in your seats, the tension between the two men immediately rising once again. 

“Excuse me? Even if she was in Aoyama the same day as Light, Matsuda was with him the whole time!”

On cue, Matsuda jumps up to the chief’s defense. “That’s right Ryuzaki! Light never spoke to anyone who matches her photograph.”

Opting to reach for a plate of sugar cubes, he slides a few blocks into a warm mug of tea. “Mogi– please explain.”

Swallowing uncomfortably, you watch the way Mogi nervously loosens the collar on his button up and Mr. Yagami’s glare is intense. 

“What? Mogi... what is he talking about?!”

Examining the way everyone else looks at Mogi with concern, you deduce that L had only told you about his assignment trailing Light. 

“I had him follow your son after a few meetings, this woman has come to your house several times now.”

Mr. Yagami sputters at the way Ryuzaki speaks on Mogi’s behalf, abruptly turning between the men in shock and anger. “You what?”

Matsuda and Aizawa rise to their feet, each immediately standing between the men as Mr. Yagami tries to push forward and reach the collar of L’s shirt. The coffee table slides as the group begins to scuffle; you lift your feet to avoid the scattered mugs that topple onto the floor.

“You had our colleagues spy on my family? What gives you the right– after everything?!” Your mentor booms as Aizawa puts his arm out in front to block his movements.

L stands idly, Matsuda standing in front regardless. “Your son is still the most convincing suspect we have so far. Do you want to catch Kira or not?”

Mr. Yagami scoffs and you stand up now as well, picking up your bag to avoid the coffee puddle that threatens to stain the fabric. Moving slightly, you sling it over the back of the loveseat Ryuzaki stands in front of and watch the way Mr. Yagami scoffs with an exhale of hot breath.

“This threatens to break the very trust of this group! If I’m not a suspect, you should tell me when you act in secret.”

You swallow thickly and shift your weight awkwardly, the images of your very public makeout the other day now flooding your mind. The lack of your own honesty with the group leaves you biting your tongue and remaining silent. 

“Your son may have access to the information you have; this was done to prevent any suspicion and it worked.” L replies cooly, not needing Matsuda to hold him back.

“And if you told me, I could’ve done more to figure out why she visited! Because of that, Light looks even more guilty without having the opportunity to explain anything!”

Ryuzaki sighs slightly. “We will give him ample time to clear his own name with his actions, but for now please calm down– you need to act rationally.”

Mr. Yagami tilts his head down and Aizawa keeps him steady for a moment before the chief exhales slowly and sinks into the sofa. Defeat written on his face, the older man looks down at his hands with a forlorn expression. 

“I’m sorry for my outburst everyone… I didn’t mean to question the trustworthiness of this group… It’s just hard to hear you speak so casually that my son could be–” his words die before he can even say ‘Kira.’

Aizawa moves to sit back down and the lingering tension in the air hangs with less intensity than before. Matsuda takes a deep breath and sits beside the chief as Mogi stands in an awkward and apologetic silence in front of the TV.

You slowly leave your original position from beside Ryuzaki and catch his gaze for a moment before returning to your spot on the couch; the small moment of eye contact isn’t lost on your company either.

“You’ve been acting in secret…but also have been vulnerable with us, Ryuzaki.” Mr. Yagami looks up, a calmer expression on his face. “I’m grateful you’ve been able to be honest about your relationship… and I understand that some acts in finding Kira may require a bit more privacy. Please, forgive my outburst.”

Ah, shit.

Your heart strings tug when your mentor offers you a somber look that you can’t quite discern and Ryuzaki stares at you from his seat. It’s awkward and uncomfortable, but you offer a small smile and shrug your shoulders slightly.

“I completely understand your feelings Mr. Yagami. I will keep them in mind as we continue our mission.” L offers before looking back to the group.

You squirm in your seat, feeling like utter shit as the next steps of the plan are being discussed. 

“I’ll keep my public appearances to an even stricter minimum than before.” Ryuzaki begins, taking a fresh mug of tea since his other one was knocked to the floor a few moments ago. “If Miss Amane has this… ‘power’ to kill with a name and face, I’ll have to only leave the headquarters under extremely coordinated events. You all should consider the same.”

Matsuda looks at the file notes on the woman before raising his gaze to examine you; a lighter tone in his voice as he attempts to dissolve any remaining tension. “Ha! That might make date night awkward huh, y/n!”

You pause, the documents frozen in your hands as a hot blush spreads across your face. “Oh, yea! Haha… definitely will make it a bit harder.”

A forced laugh escapes your lips as the other members roll their eyes at his attempt at humor; you turn your attention to Ryuzaki who sits completely complacent with the task force discussing your ‘relationship’. In a poor attempt at morse code, you blink a few times as signal to help you out. 

He tilts his head for a moment before finally catching on and sitting up straighter to place his mug back on the table. “O-Oh, right! Our love life will take a hit, but lucky for us– y/n and I usually enjoy our time spent here in privacy.”

…

The room is dead silent except for the small clatter of a ceramic dessert plate Ryuzaki picks up from the coffee table. How in the world he managed to make the atmosphere WORSE is beyond you. 

Matsuda coughs slightly and awkwardly looks towards the bedroom door on the other side of the room. “You mean like… when you guys go in there?”

Maybe you should’ve just gone to Aoyama anyway and took your chances with the Second Kira’s wrath and L’s disappointment. Because being dead sounds a lot better than being here right now. 

You raise your hands up in defense, silently wondering what karma you must have to be in this situation. “No! We don’t do anything in there–”

“Yes, please be rest assured that y/n and I do not do anything intimate there…” Ryuzaki interrupts before taking a bite of his pastry. “–while the group is here of course.”

Silence falls on the group once more and Mr. Yagami can’t bring himself to make eye contact with you; Aizawa looks slowly between you and L in horror. “So… you guys do it in there once we leave?”

“Is that why you always leave last, y/n?” Mogi asks quietly. 

Your words choke in your throat and you turn to Ryuzaki who gives you a neutral expression; there’s not an ounce of worry on his face as his large eyes slowly blink at you as if you were describing the weather.

“What? N-No! We just… I uhhh…” You take a deep breath. “Can we get back to catching Kira?”

“Yes, please.” Mr. Yagami immediately sighs and keeps his gaze on the papers in his hands. 

“Of course. We can’t arrest Misa right away anyways– it would be best to give Light some time to prove his innocence and for us to construct a place that could even hold the Second Kira if it is Ms. Amane.” L explains cooly, gazing at the older man. “Mogi will still be asked to trail your son, if that’s alright.”

Mr. Yagami sighs but nods regardless. “I understand, it’s for his own good.”

You nod slowly, your heart still pounding in your chest as a hot blush remains tattooed to your cheeks. 

“So… we keep this a secret from him for a bit? At least until we gain something that could prove a lack of connection to Misa?” Matsuda asks, flipping through her headshots. 

“Precisely. We will tell him about the tapes and our analysis of them, but Misa and the other woman will remain unmentioned for the time being.”

The meeting continues as planned, going through various pieces of evidence against Misa as you draft legal demands from her agent; a ‘drug’s bust’ is the guise the group has decided on using. Gentle rain from earlier picks up into a storm similar to that of last night and thunder roars outside as the group passes around various papers and evidence bags amongst each other.

You finish reviewing a final explanation of the most recent Second Kira tape once more before the power flicks slightly. A few whistles escape the men as the lights come back on and crashes of thunder shake the window panes.

Moving to place your annotated papers back on the table, a shrill ringtone emits from your bag. A sheepish apology at Ryuzaki as you forgot to put it on mute, you move to decline it before raising an eyebrow at the caller ID.

“It’s Light.”

Mr. Yagami looks up at you and then peers at his watch. “He’s running 20 minutes behind…”

Ryuzaki motions for you to answer and you lift the device to your ear and repack your bag. “Light? What’s up?”

“Ah, y/n I’m glad you answered. I’m still on campus.”

You pause and look up at the wall clock, eyes wide in shock as you stand upright. “Still? I thought your classes were done almost an hour ago.”

“Several metro lines are down from the storm, apparently there was an accident at a major transfer station.”

“So, you’re not coming tonight?” You shrug when the group gives you a concerned look.

“I don’t think so.. Agh this is so frustrating. I don’t want to inconvenience Ryuzaki or my father about filling me in either….”

You pause and take the phone from its tucked spot on your shoulder and flip it to rest against your opposite ear. “That’s alright, I can let you know what you missed.”

“Really? You’re a lifesaver y/n.”

“Don’t worry about it, I’m sure you’d do the same for me anyways.”

“I’ll take you to that dessert place not far off campus, my treat.”

The offer makes you pause slightly, blinking slowly as his invitation catches you off guard. It’s not like you’ve never gone to cute cafes or gotten lunch– the both of you used to do it regularly when you worked alongside his father under regular hours– but there’s a weird feeling in your gut that’s not describable.

“Y-You don’t have to do that…” Ryuzaki’s eyes follow your every movement and he listens intently to each phrase that leaves your lips.

“I want to though… take it as a token of appreciation. But if you’re too busy to go through the meeting notes… I can always ask Matsuda, I suppose.”

You shake your head as if he could see your body language and sigh slightly into the receiver, brushing off the strange anxiety that creeps on your shoulders. “It’s fine, that plan works for me. I have a 2 hour break tomorrow anyways.”

The group watches in silence and shrugs amongst themselves as they raise eyebrows at the content of the conversation. When you end the call and slide the phone back into your bag, all eyes are on you.

Mr. Yagami sits forward. “Is Light ok?”

You reach for your coffee mug and down half the contents. “Huh? Oh yea, his train line is closed for the storm so he’s just going to head home.”

You lean back in your seat and Ryuzaki purses his lips slightly, he moves to speak but waits a moment. “Let’s take a short recess. All of you confirm your ways home are not compromised and then we can wrap up this meeting early considering the weather.”

Hums of approval break out and the men separate to call home, check traffic reports, and monitor the transit line closures. Ryuzaki stands and motions to follow him; he pauses at the bedroom door and opts to awkwardly shuffle into the kitchen area when Aizawa shoots him a concerned glance. 

You pivot to stand beside him and shiver when a few of the other men raise a slight eyebrow before returning to their phone calls. “What’s going on? Why can’t we just���”

“What else did Light say?” Ryuzaki interrupts and whispers in a hushed tone.

Blinking, you look behind to ensure you’re out of earshot and shrug slightly. “He asked if I could go over the meeting notes of tonight so he wouldn’t inconvenience you or his dad.”

“Right–” L rolls his eyes slightly and scoffs. “Anything else?”

“Mmm, he offered to take me to a dessert cafe as payment.”

“And you accepted?”

You pause slightly and keep your eye on the distance of the other members to your conversation. “Yea? Why wouldn’t I–” oh.

You suck in your lower lip awkwardly while Ryuzaki narrows his eyes. “Please think these things through thoroughly. It’s obvious he’s onto us, and he’s looking for an opening to wedge himself into.”

It’s not exactly your best moment, but you offer a slight defense. “It’s not something that’s inherently damning. Going with a man who isn’t my uh… ‘boyfriend’ is weird, but it’s Light. We’ve already gone to cafes and such platonically, so if he’s trying to prove something here, it won’t work.”

Ryuzaki’s glare narrows slightly at your mention of previous excursions with the man, but concedes the point. “Regardless, we need to ensure that ‘this’ remains stable; our lives are on the line.”

You nearly roll your eyes at the constant reminder but nod in agreement nonetheless. “I’m aware, but what else is there to prove? The group already knows we're together.”

“We need to make it more believable.”

Pausing slightly, you open your eyes in shock. “More believable? How do we even manage that? It would be… something that would happen privately.” A blush spreads across your face and your voice lowers quietly. 

“That’s fine then, we’ll have one of them walk in on us.”

…what.

“W-wait..and what exactly are they going to be walking in on?”

Ryuzaki blinks once, the implication of his suggestion now warming his cheeks a pale pink. “Well… a couple-thing I suppose. We’ll have to draft a plan about it– If Light is successful in proving that we aren’t actually dating but instead plotting his arrest behind everyone's back… the entire task force dynamic will crumble.”

A heavy weight pushes on your shoulders and you bite your lip in thought. “I know, I know. But having someone… walk in will require a careful plan on our part if we’re actually going to do this.”

L has seemingly no issue with the risk of mortification at your colleagues walking in on the two of you potentially “fucking” and the air escapes your lungs in exhaustion. There’s no way this conversation is real, and thunder roars overhead as you silently attempt to wake yourself up from this dream. Before you can offer another suggestion, a cough rings out awkwardly as Mogi signals that the group is ready to resume. 

You offer a polite smile and pivot next to Ryuzaki as you walk back to your seat. “Just.. give me some time to think about it ok?”

The meeting resumes as it had prior; finalizing a plan for Sakura TV to be wary if any more tapes arrive, requesting Misa’s upcoming schedules from her agent, and drafting a request to the dessert cafe in Aoyama for their interior CCTV access.

The rain picks up and the wind howls beyond the window panes with lightning occasionally painting the interior hotel walls with a pale glow. Watari collects residual coffee cups from the table and offers to prepare another pot before the group sleepily declines.

You flip through the credit card statements of Misa while idly replaying the invitation Light offered over the phone. The more you considered it, the more you tried to convince yourself you were simply overthinking. The fact he had called you and not his father isn’t inherently strange, but it does leave an uneasy feeling in your gut.

Digging your chin into the casual university sweatshirt you adorn, you silently take in your own outfit. Coming straight from class, you forwent changing into your professional clothes and sit at the meeting in a pair of jeans with a ribbed white tee under your crewneck. It would seem out of place if Ryuzaki wasn’t sitting in his usual spot dressed equally as comfortably; on instinct he looks up from his own papers and meets your gaze before you peel your eyes back down.

Another 45 minutes go by until the yawns of the group cannot be suppressed by the thunder and Ryuzaki looks up to adjourn the meeting for the night. Despite it being earlier than your usual evenings, fatigue is evident on the faces of everyone. 

Tired limbs stretch upright and slowly pack their belongings as the men bundle up and check the window to prepare for the inclement weather outside. Sliding a few folders into your bag, you pause when Watari offers you your jacket. “Actually, can I speak with you Ryuzaki?” You turn towards the man as he peers out the window at the rain.

“Of course.”

Aizawa slings his messenger bag over his shoulder and looks between the both of you with a concerned glance before staring at the bedroom door on the other side of the room.

You roll your eyes. “Not for that.” you turn back to L; his attention now fully on you. “I have an assignment and it’s about a case you worked on.”

Aizawa seems content with the explanation and gives Matsuda a slight nudge when the men slowly file out of the hotel suite. L tilts his head slightly, “Which case? BB murder? Or maybe–”

When the door clicks shut you exhale slightly with a light chuckle. “There is no assignment.”

“...Oh.”

Placing your bag back down in front of the couch, you pivot to walk back towards the bedroom at the other end of the room. “I actually have an idea that could work… regarding what we spoke about earlier. If someone hears this, I doubt they’ll question us being together.”

Even saying it outloud is enough to make your ears red. When you initially joined the task force, you assumed it would wrap up with the swift arrest of Kira while each of the men wrote you glowing letters of recommendation– not with you opening the bedroom door of L’s suite and ushering him inside for a private meeting, still miles away from catching the serial killer.

“Watari, can you assist with this actually?”

The older gentleman walks around from his position at the kitchen counter, gently stacking dirty dishes before he arrives in the living room. “Of course, y/n. What can I assist with?”

Saying the request is mortifying, but it’s not like you have many options at this point anyways. A deep breath in, you gesture to the room. “Can you just stay out here? Not super close to the door, but maybe by the couches? I want to see something.”

The man nods once and retreats to the coffee table to organize the glassware there and you motion for Ryuzaki to enter the bedroom. 

It’s awkward, more than you want it to be. L walks inside and looks expectedly at you as your hands click the door shut; shuffling to the side of the bed, you release a long exhale. “Ok, I was thinking about what you said earlier… about the uhh ‘next step’ and I’m ready with a plan.”

Ryuzaki’s eyes widen in surprise, an expression of shock you’re not sure you’ve ever seen. He coughs slightly and looks between you and the bed, taking a moment to digest what was happening. 

“Oh, I see. To be honest I thought you would need more time… and I’m not exactly prepared for this..” He walks over and runs his hands over the fabric of the comforter to ground himself. “I’m not exactly the most experienced, but I’m ready.”

You stand still, frozen as he then slowly leans forward.

Huh.

HUH.

You sputter and lift your hands. “Wait– what?”

“What.” Ryuzaki immediately parrots and leans back to his previous position. 

“What… are you doing?”

“What are you doing?” He repeats once more.

Blinking slightly and raising an eyebrow at his behavior, you tilt your head in suspicion but brush it off. “Uh, let me explain the plan first, yea?”

Ryuzaki nods in the least-casual forced-casual manner possible. “Yes, of course.”

You scoff lightly in amusement but a grin works its way onto your lips regardless. “Alright, you’re going to need some acting skills for this.”

Without waiting for his answer, you kick off your shoes and climb onto the bed. Sitting near the pillows, you place your hand on the wall and knock once or twice before humming in approval; Ryuzaki stands motionless beside you. “I’m having slight difficulty following your lead, y/n.”

“Patience–” you shush him.

He closes his lips and swallows slightly, Adam’s apple bobbing as he remains frozen in place. Rocking your weight forward slightly, you push the headboard of the bed into the adjacent wall and hum in satisfaction when a ‘thud’ rings out from the motion. Taking a moment to test the movement, you sway to a steadier rhythm and nudge the wooden furniture against the wall over and over again.

Swallowing any remaining pride, you look away from the man next to you and open your mouth to release an awkwardly forced moan. “Aaahhhh–”

This is fucking ridiculous. 

A chuckle almost escapes Ryuzaki’s lips, but it passes as a mixture of a cough and gruff exhale; you slow down to a halt and look at him with cheeks bright red in embarrassment and frustration. “

What?” you seethe at him in frustration; actions coming to a halt. 

He glances at the way your hands remain firmly grasped to the headboard and tightens his lips into a tight line. “You need to make it believable.”

His response isn’t one you expect, and in your state of surprise, you peel backwards off the headboard and sit still in the center of the bed. “Huh? What’s that supposed to mean?”

Clearly amused but pretending not to be, he climbs onto the plush comforter and gives you a knowing look. “Seriously? The only people who make noises like that are adult film actors on set– there’s no way it would convince a room of trained detectives that you were…enjoying yourself.”

You open your mouth for a moment before shutting it in defeat. Sure he has a point, but it’s not like you could casually give the performance of a lifetime while being fully clothed and a respectful 5 feet apart.

A huff escapes you as he walks on his knees up to the base of the headboard and does a few sample taps against the wall. “And how else would you like me to sound–”

“Let’s focus on the task at hand.” He interrupts, changing the topic slightly.

Relinquishing the subtle dig at your acting skills, you pivot to stand up and give a few jumps to the mattress. 

God this is so damn childish. The act of being caught doing this would be worse than actually being caught having sex with him. 

Wait. what. 

The joint act of him swinging the bed into the wall while you hop up and down makes you recall a variety of undergraduate memories you wished would stay hidden. Banging against the wall, fake and forced moans, and the very real company only separated by plaster and drywall makes you cringe.

Ryuzaki doesn’t seem to mind any of it, remaining silent as he throws his shoulder into the swing and jerks the furniture forward. You pause and land lightly on your feet; throwing your sweatshirt over your head from the heat, you adjust the white tee underneath and glance at the man underneath you.

“Ok, now you’re not being believable.”

He pauses immediately and looks up at you with a face of frustration. “Hm? What else is there to this…?”

“You’re too quiet. I mean we’re making all this noise but you haven’t made a sound.”

Ryuzaki opens his mouth but promptly shuts it; his mind reeling a million different scenarios as a hot blush spreads across his cheeks. He turns the other way and keeps his lips in a tight line while you raise an eyebrow at his silence.

He gives a few pushes to the bed with half effort, obviously trying to avoid making a sound with his mouth; unconvinced you raise your foot from your standing position above his and kick his side slightly.

“Hey. What are you doing? I thought you said we needed to make this believable.”

He doesn’t answer and continues half-assing his motion; impatient you raise your foot again but slip when he suddenly jerks forward to slide the bed once again.

“Woa– S-SHIT”

You topple forward and crash down onto him in the blink of an eye, silently taking a moment to see if you can feel your limbs still. Regarding yourself unscathed, you look down at the very stunned Ryuzaki who lays directly beneath you. 

“Was this… part of your plan?” He murmurs quietly. 

Stuttering, you sit up straight but he raises his knees behind you to keep you stuck in the base of his lap.

Fuck.

No words can form on your tongue as the position creates a TV static to echo through your mind; surprise turning into intrigue, L looks up at you with a glaze over his eyes and the tug of a smirk on his lips.

“Please use your words, y/n. I might have amazing deductive abilities, but I’m not a mind reader.”

Scoffing you grab the fabric of the comforter in frustration, the fucker was enjoying this. “I didn’t mean to trip.”

“Plans rarely go according to how we expect them to.” He pauses and keeps his gaze on you. “But since you did fall, how would your… plan move forward from here?”

“What?” You mutter incredulously. The whole thing was an accident, but he seems to be interested in watching you squirm more than anything else.

He sits there in a petty silence, expecting you to talk your way out of the situation while your embarrassment turns to frustration. Ok while yes, you would be lying if you said the tension didn’t turn you on at all, the blurred lines of your charade creates a risky situation that should be avoided. 

Kissing at the quad was spontaneous and already pushing the boundaries of what this ‘fake relationship’ currently signified as. Sitting on his lap with no one else in the room was a whole different ball game. 

“You’re overthinking.” His voice cuts through.

You sigh and turn towards the door. “How can I not? It’s not like this situation leaves much up to the imagination if someone were to walk in.”

“Humor me.”

Seriously? 

It feels strange to have the tables turned on you. When you had taken the initiative to kiss him in front of Light, it was Ryuzaki who stood before you completely at your will; sitting above him while his dark eyes bore into yours, trying to push even further made you furrow your brows in contemplation.

The whole thing is fake right? It doesn’t make any sense for him to care so much if Light asks you to a cafe and it makes even less rational sense for him to want to practice getting caught. Catching Kira takes more than playing by the books though, and watching the way his pupils are dilated to the size of saucers makes you begin to want something else. Something more. 

You don’t know what he wants from you at this point, but sitting here, with him, as the storm roars outside and the only thing illuminating the bedroom are the table lamps and moonlight, you decide to act on what you want for once. 

It’s quick, so fast that even Ryuzaki takes a moment to blink before realizing that you were leaning down to kiss his lips. Hands cupping his cheeks, you tilt your head and slide down his thighs bit more to sit in a neat straddle of his lap.

He doesn’t freeze like the time you kissed him on the campus, instead deft hands rest neatly on your waist as he pushes against your mouth with equal force. Your nose tickles his cheek as you move more pressure and you savor the sweet flavor of his lips; his mouth chases yours when you part to tilt your head to the other side. 

It’s hot, and you can feel his cock stiffening in his jeans with every rock of your hips as you both effectively dry hump. Slithering your tongue out slightly, you run a gentle lick across his bottom lip; pulling back when he freezes.

About to end the entire moment in mortification, Ryuzaki slips his index and middle fingers in the belt loops of your jeans to keep you still above him. Panting, he gazes up at you with hazy eyes. “Why do you do that? You did it the other day… on campus. Wh– What does it signify?”

Dark hair tickles his cheeks and his eyes are locked solely on you; the pressure in his jeans rutting against your aching cunt isn’t lost on you either. It feels like you’re suffocating in a tug-of-war between rationality and desire. 

Of course, the urge for more wins.

You wet your bottom lip with your tongue and Ryuzaki shamefully stares at the action while waiting for an explanation. No words leave your mouth; instead you take your thumbs from where they rested on his cheeks and force them between his lips. Taping on his canines once with them, you push his jaw down and lean forward to place your tongue in his mouth.

“Hmpfhh-”

Ryuzaki doesn’t mind being gagged by your tongue; he happily exhales through his nose and tugs you further up on his lap as his erection grinds painfully against the fly of his jeans. You don’t fare much better above him as the saturated mess of your panties leaves a warm and sticky sensation between the plush of your thighs. 

Sugar and black tea is the taste of his tongue as you grind your own against it before exploring his molars and pursuing your lips further to gain more access. Soft groans leave your throat and escape his own lips; no longer sounding like a staged pornoc– but guttural and deep.

Any other person would have their hands on your ass already, but Ryuzaki keeps his hands at a constrained position at your tailbone, as if it was painful for him to keep them still. Remaining a gentleman nonetheless, he doesn’t move them any further. 

It’s bad. The way you grind against him faster and tilt his head back with the force of your mouth. It’s even worse when he pushes you back and a string of saliva connects your lips before snapping.

“Haa.. I see.” He pants, not bothering to discuss his very obvious and raging boner. “So, if I wanted to do that… I would–” Ryuzaki tugs your head back in and sits upright to connect your lips once more. 

He runs his tongue over your lips and in an act of coyness, you don’t bother opening your mouth. Ryuzaki pulls back with an analytical expression before tapping your hip as if he just had a moment of clarity. “Ah, that’s right! You did this…”

Before you can question him, a hand leaves your belt loop and grasps your jaw; his thumb pushes your mouth down to mirror the same motion you did to him. Instantly his lips meet yours as his tongue slithers into your mouth and ruts against yours. 

The temperature of the room is painfully hot, and despite shedding your sweatshirt earlier, you can feel the warmth on your skin. Nipples hard against your bra and back arching in pleasure despite him not even leaving first base. 

Lips against his own and panties completely ruined with each grind against his erection; your puffy clit now aching for more friction as your cunt clenches pathetically from the clothes bulge rutting against it.

You're lost in pleasure until a moment of realization washes over you. You were kissing him.

Yes, you had done this once before–but there was an audience back then, and a point to prove. Right now, there was no one else in the room that this was meant for; each rock of your heads to a matched rhythm was not convincing anyone but yourselves that whatever ‘this’ was, didn’t qualify as casual.

Hands snaking into his hair and tugging slightly, a low reverberation escapes his throat from the sensation and the grip on your waist tightens. Sighing through your nose, you tug harder to pry his head back; the force nearly ripping out his hair from the strength you need to get him off your lips. 

Saliva coats his chin as he looks up at you with hazy eyes; it would be so easy to go even further, but looking at his appearance, you know it’s for the best if it stops here. You sit back slightly but his bent knees keep you close

Has he even been in a relationship? Or done anything for that matter?

It’s wrong. Fake dating, kissing, doing this with someone who obviously has no idea what they’re getting into. Additionally, it probably looks awful on your behalf to have people entertain the idea of you and L being together; you can practically hear the ‘she slept her way to the top’ rumors now. 

“That’s uhh.. What they could walk in on…if we need up the ante..” you offer slowly, with a distant voice. 

Ryuzaki takes the pause to breathe deeply and nods once; his eyes bore into your face with concern and awkwardness. It doesn’t take much effort for him to read the way your face is torn in a mixture of disappointed emotions. 

A million sentences of affirmation for his decision to commit to ‘this’ cross his mind; instead he settles on, “I see.”

You swallow dryly and swing around to tap his knees which he immediately unbends to allow you to swing off his lap and hop off the bed. Ryuzaki remains laying down, his eyes never leaving your figure as you bend down to lace up your sneakers. 

This feels ridiculous. The act of tying your shoes is akin to getting dressed after a one night stand while the guy tries to decide if he should order you an Uber or not. 

“Watari is probably going to be concerned.” You say in a weak attempt to lighten the mood.

L sits up slightly and glances at his crotch with a grimace; you take the hint to turn around while he adjusts himself. 

“Don’t feel bad about it– I’m sure if any one was on your lap like that… it would happen.”

It’s an attempt to make him feel better, but the words leave a bitter taste in your mouth, as if picturing him with another person wasn’t fair. 

“I’m sorry for making you uncomfortable… I didn’t mean to push you earlier for an explanation of your uh… plan.” He apologizes from behind you.

You spin back around and notice his long shirt now covering the erection he’s tucked into the elastic band of his boxers and shrug. “No, it was wrong of me to make such an intense move on you without warning.”

Ryuzaki blinks and shakes his head. “That’s alright. We need ‘this’ to be realistic considering our lives are on the line if Misa really is the Second Kira.”

Pursing your lips, you exhale slowly and nod; your gaze locked on the carpet of the room. 

L stands beside you and opens and closes his hands in an awkward fidget. He’s never been one for honesty, communication, or vulnerability and the tension of the moment makes him falter. “I don’t regret doing this, y/n. But if you have second thoughts or regrets… I won’t hold them against you.”

You continue staring at the corner of the room for a moment before gathering the courage to look back over at the man and drink in his disheveled appearance. Despite your brain telling you to end this stupid charade now, your heart keeps your feet firmly planted next to him. 

“I don’t regret this, Ryuzaki. I don’t regret you.”

He opens his eyes wider, and searches your face for any sign that you were simply saying that to protect his ego. Not finding any, he smiles gently and nods. “That’s good to hear.”

You both stand in silence, neither one of you bringing up the fact that what just happened defied all aspects of what a fake relationship really is; the fear that calling it out would end the entire agreement prevents you from opening your mouth. 

“I guess we’ll just have to do that if Light manages to cast some doubt on us.” Ryuzaki offers while sliding his hands into the front pocket of his jeans. 

You chuckle, enjoying the break in the atmosphere and nudge his shoulder slightly. “Riiight. Maybe it’ll come in handy sometime.”

Ryuzaki’s stance is lighter, enjoying your eased expression, and heads for the bedroom door. “Yes, indeed. Maybe we should… continue practicing sometime? It would be best to not be caught unprepared after all.”

You step out of the room and pause while looking at the man. It’s an unspoken offer; an invitation to keep doing this without actually addressing the underlying implication of everything. You’re convinced he’s never been in a relationship before, but he seems to be an expert at creating a situationship; settling for the ease of not having to do the ‘what are we actually’ conversation, you nod. “That sounds nice.”

Watari fluffs a few pillows and places the TV remote neatly next to a decorative candle on the coffee table before looking up at the both of you. Approaching the living room, you move to sling your bag over your shoulder while the older man looks between you both.

“Ah, you’ve finished. Was I able to be of assistance?”

Your face flushes and you run a hand casually through your hair. “Well that depends… what did you hear?”

Watari places the last fluffed pillow into the loveseat L usually sits at and stands upright. “Some minor commotion from the walls, but nothing else.” He turns to Ryuzaki. “Will we need new furniture? Or to switch suites?”

Mortification creeps back in but L simply shakes his head and peers out the window to the storm still raging outside. “That won’t be necessary. Thank you.”

Shuffling to the door you turn back to L who follows you to the entrance. “So we’re keeping the ‘notebooks’ a secret still too?”

“Yes, until we can get Misa in custody and question her direction. We’ll need her schedule from her manager first though.”

You nod, watching the way Watari retrieves the Mercedes keys and pivots into the hallway to give you and Ryuzaki another moment of space. 

“So… guess I’ll see you later? Not on campus, but here I suppose?”

“Yes, for the time being I can’t risk leaving the headquarters.”

You nod and tighten the straps of your bag, not wanting to leave but also knowing it’s late enough already. “Right, that’s a good idea…”

“Are you alright?” 

Defensively backing up, you blush at being called out so blatantly. “Yea. Sorry, I’ll head out now.”

“That’s not what I said.” He interrupts, shutting the front door when you try to open it. “Tell me what’s wrong. Please.”

You startle backward slightly and peer at him. “Nothing’s wrong. I’ve just got a lot on my mind…”

Ryuzaki releases his pressure keeping the door shut but doesn’t stop staring at your face as you shuffle into the hallway; Watari stands at the elevator at the end, keeping the door open.

He’s unconvinced but lets you take a few steps into the hallway. It’s a dumb move on your part given the complicated nature of this relationship, but you can’t fight the urge to spin around and plant a small kiss on the apple of his cheek.

His face breaks into a bright blush and he brings a few fingers to touch the spot in awe. Despite being significantly tamer than the makeouts you’ve already had, it’s the first kiss you’ve shared outside of fake pretense.

You give a slight wave to Ryuzaki and spin back around to power walk to the elevator to the awaiting older man, eager to go home, shower, and contemplate the meaning of your life. By the time the doors shut, you exhale all the air in your lungs and ignore the gentle laugh Watari releases as he bemusingly watches your expression.

~~~~~

L POV

A grin spreads across his lips as he watches the way you toss your bag over your head to shield yourself from the rain as you run into the passenger seat of the car. He knows Watari probably offered you an umbrella, and that you probably refused it on the assumption the rain wasn’t that bad.

Emotions that have rarely, if ever, stir inside Ryuzaki’s chest as he watches the car purr to life and slowly pull out of the hotel parking lot and disappear down the road. What was he doing again? Ah, right– catching Kira. 

It’s the main priority at the forefront of his mind, but his heart pulls him in another direction. Watari gives him knowing glances everytime your name is mentioned and the way Light has seemingly caught on to the ‘charade’ places him in an uncomfortable situation.

Sighing in exhaustion, he walks back over to the edge of the bed and sits down idly before flopping his back onto the plush mattress. The world famous detective L would break off this silly relationship and move freely– not caring if a member of his group had unfortunately been put at risk. He wasn’t heartless, he didn’t want members of the team to die, but he didn’t have a reason to go out of his way to protect you. L would never act so irrationally. 

But as to the book as L was, Lawliet was still a man. A man with follies, ambitions, hopes, and dreams, and love. He was persuaded by his heart as much as his brain, despite his best attempts to seal off the temptations of emotions as best as he could. The sound of your voice is similar to that of a siren calling a sailor; he knows that this is bad.

Thunder roars again outside, and Ryuzaki sits upright with a tight feeling in his chest. If things were different, if maybe you were work colleagues at a normal job, or if Kira was caught already, he could figure out how to put it into words– how the way he wanted you was real. But he can’t; at least not now. 

The image of you is painting in his mind so vividly, he wants to shut his eyes forever if it meant he could see it for eternity. The movement of your hips, the flick of your tongue, the way you kissed him for the second– no third time now had to mean something. 

Ryuzaki blinks and turns his attention to the window pane once more, taking in the glow of lightning that flashes outside inbetween crashes of thunder. It’s the first time in his life he wants to be completely honest, so he can kiss you and touch you in a way that shows it’s real.

Pursing his lips, he knows the situation is bad, even worse considering his self restraint is wearing thinner and thinner each time your mouth latches onto his. He’s ok with it though, convincing himself that he’s ok with a fake relationship if it means he gets to keep you to himself and call you his even if you weren’t.

L would never act like this, but Lawliet sighs and notices the small bundle of your sweatshirt fabric thrown on the floor from earlier. Taking it in his hands, he can smell the scent of your usual perfume and he clenches his jaw in self disgust.  Tomorrow, L would file the needed documents for constructing a cell with enough precautions to hold Misa in confinement upon her arrest next week; tonight, Lawliet does a mental estimate of the time it takes Watari to drop you off and come back before unzipping the fly of his jeans.

a/n time: also the artwork at the top is mine (i usually post fanart on a separate account but i drew that for this series hehe)

YIPPEE just in time for valentine's day hehe

this is my longest chapter to date omg what is a process to make. I was really unsure if wanted to go forward with the 'lets make fake sex sounds' kinda trope, but decided it would be good considering how I want the next chapter to go -> aka Miss Misa gets to finally appear hehe

also sorry but yall in a situationship now and both men are rude af and master manipulators

anywayssss i love seeing ur comments on these, it literally makes my day (and lmk if you want to join the tag list)

comments/likes/reblogs all appreciated <333

-oatmeal

tags: @lechatparle24 @irissfoot @iheteeaifs @automaticpatroltragedy @greenapplesaucepi @thesimpnovao @leiiilaaaa