#happened...

I propose that we also have the following.

You: So, whose your favourite poet?

Other Girl: Uhh, Shakespeare?

You now know she is not interested.

You: So, whose your favorite poet?

Other Girl: Sappho

You now know she is a wlw and may be intrested.

oh, what a q! thank you so much!

i guess i’ll answer this with a verse-specific example first and then go broader:

there’s a sort of alternate timeline that exists wherein chris really gets his shit together. it starts the same - he moves to the u.s. to broaden his criminal horizons! - but something goes wrong (right?) along the way and he falls for his neighbor, jane / @loveruined. most of this has been discussed and explored in private, but you guys get little snippets here and there. it takes him a while to settle into it, but after he’s sufficiently complicated the lives of his found family (all characters by myself and frey), he drops the crime and, uh… opens a bakery. because i am predictable and soft! they have two (maybe eventually three) kids together, they’re married somewhere along the way, and it all takes a sharp turn into my sappy-ass favorite fat and happy trope. so, yes, within that universe, he’s been in love.

this does help a little bit with my answer irt the canon i crafted solo, actually! he has the capacity to give himself to someone and to change, if need be, but it’s no small feat. chris gets caught up on trust, which is arguably the most important part of being in love. there’s also the issue of him being a skosh prickly and unapproachable?

chris has loved a handful of people, but if i’m making a statement about his main verse/timeline, i’d say it’s pretty unlikely he’s been in love. his best-developed relationships are primarily platonic, and the romantic ones tend not to last. which is, like - pretty shitty for him, if you bring physical affection into the mix. i know i’ve had him say somewhere to someone that he’s ‘not an easy lay’ and i’ve stuck to that, which makes sexual encounters about as few and far between as loving ones. i think he fears the forced vulnerability that comes with sleeping with someone and/or spending the night. someone who sleeps with one eye open isn’t exactly keen on tuckering himself out, especially when there’s an extra body to protect.

all of this being said, chris isn’t the ‘feelings are a weakness’ type. it takes some serious working up to, but once he tells someone he loves them, it kinda goes on repeat for a while. and then he’ll convince himself he’s being selfish for inadvertently promising a stable relationship, and then he’ll self-destruct, and then he’s alone again. bully.

here’s a fun thought, though: his perspective on romantic partnerships shifts drastically when they’re pressurized. like, you know those scenes where a character is dying (or thinks they’re dying), and they’re lucky enough to be near to someone they love, but they don’t take advantage of that time by telling that someone how important they are? chris is not that person. when chris thinks things might be fucked, he goes all-in. ‘i’m in love with you, i’ve always been in love with you, i want you to be happy’ caliber revelations. so, i mean - it could be argued that he has felt these things but hasn’t felt desperate or hopeless enough to admit it to himself. it could also be argued that it doesn’t count in the same way under those circumstances.

this was an afterthought, so i’m just squeezing it in between paragraphs: he’s a criminal. he’s a danger to others, to himself, and certainly to those he cares for. with every new relationship, chris risks: 1. getting himself killed and hurting his partner, 2. getting his partner killed and hurting himself, and always 3. accidentally revealing just what it is he does, thus putting them both in danger.

wow. yikes. this is so much. i really hope you weren’t looking for a simple yes or no, because this is, uh… a lot.

It was an unexpected encounter. Perhaps it was but a coincidence, then perhaps not. The woman who had appeared in the @scribesofcalamity Guild Hall, bearing battle wounds and accompanied by the smell of battle,was there. Sparklies regretted it now, the panic she had felt at the woman’s sudden appearance. She had fled, and now she was found.

Her Anxiety kicked in as she began to panic. ‘She messed up. Why Had she jumped on that mushroom? She was in the way now. what if the woman remembered her? Was she mad?’ Sparklies shrank further into her ball and began sobbing. “I’m sorry. I left. I..” ..hic.. “I’m sorry.. I..sorry.. sorry..” her pleading apologies grew smaller and smaller until finally they were gone. 

She sat there in her little ball, tears threatening to fall again at a moments notice, and waited. Waited for the inevitable. The anger, the disgust at her lack of confidence, the pain. All the things she had grown accustomed to before the Commander had freed her from the Nightmare Court’s Strangling grasp.

Yet, it didn’t come. What came next would Change Her Life. Perhaps it was a good thing, that impromptu trip she had taken up the sheer cliff wall in the Maguuma Jungle

"I... no, not really," Atticus answers, looking almost sheepish to admit it. He doesn't mean to boast (and, Merlin, why does it feel like boasting to simply tell someone you're happy), but his is a rare case in which he is sincerely content with his life and everything in it. "It seems foolish to say, but at the moment, I feel like I'm on track to get everything I've ever wanted. I have a loving family, a beautiful fiancée, a fulfilling job... how could I ask for more?"