/on-um-karr-ah/
Soulmate as Gaeilge
noun. a person with whom one has a unique, deep connection based on mutual understanding, that maybe leads to acceptance
summary:
A part of your soul.
That is what the universe promised each and every single person born into this world. All thanks to the Greeks and their notions - Agape, Eros, Philia, Storge, Ludus, Pragma, Philautia, and Mania.
Some are wholesome, some... Not so much.
And even the bonds that are meant to heal you may rip you apart.
Are you willing to leave your life solely in fate's hands?
status: ongoing
total word count: to be determined
pairings: individual seventeenxreader oneshot fics for each member
category/themes: soulmate au, angst, fluff, crack
content warnings: alternate universe - soulmates, idol!au, this is still set in svtverse, angst, fluff, and crack, swearing, group dynamics, mentions of loneliness, trust and abandonment issues, some jealousy, some possessiveness, canon divergence, COVID mentions, religious trauma, panic/anxiety attacks, anxiety, depression, family trauma, Soulmate Bond Withdrawal, healthy communication, miscommunication, mentions of marriage/proposals, mentions of death, mentions of suicide.
*to be updated as the series goes along*
author's note:
Let's get ready to RRRRUUUMMMBBBLLLEEE!!!
I'm so extremely excited for this series, y'all. You can't even imagine.
I've been telling myself to just write what I want to read for a while, like I used to when I was young, but for some reason (adulting), I'd lost my spark for far too long.
This is me reigniting the fire in my soul.
Massive shoutouts to all the works I've read that inspired this series: From "To You" by the amazing @wooahaeruby, to "My Heart By Your Side Forever" by the awesome @wooahaes, and that one archived fic by the beloved @pomegranate-teardrop. Plus all the other skilled writers in Carat Tumblr, as well as on this app in general. Thank You.
Hope you enjoy reading as much as I enjoyed writing it.
Hope you are all starting this new year in joy, peace, and good health. 🙏🏾
Thank you all for the love you all showed to all my writing last year. 🫶🏾
I'm here to share a few announcements with you all...
Firstly, I will be starting a new fanfic series on @onionhassayyo at the end of this month.
More details to come Jan 26th...
Whoop, whoop.
Secondly, for this page, @thetjtales, I will be posting poems, essays, and short stories, at least once a week.
Yeah, yeah.
Thirdly, you may have noticed that the ANAMCHARA series masterlist status still reads ongoing...
Well. That's because it is.
The series was initially just meant to be a oneshot series. However, I can't seem to move on from the boys. And yes, I just finished the series literally yesterday, but expanding this world has been on my mind for a while.
So the series is being extended.
More info on January 3rd...
Ayyyyyyy.
Anywho...
To my beloved mutuals and writing inspirations, on this beautiful app and beyond, thank you all for your amazing works from 2025. I can't wait to flourish and grow with you all this new year.
"Contemplating a loving God strengthens portions of our brain — particularly the frontal lobes and the anterior cingulate — where empathy and reason reside. Contemplating a wrathful God empowers the limbic system, which is ‘filled with aggression and fear.’ It is a sobering concept: The God we choose to love changes us into his image, whether he exists or not.”
— Michael Gerson, quoted by Brian McLaren in A New Kind of Christianity
(original source: The Washington Post)
Quote for the DayAnamchara • The Website of Unknowing
I hope you find someone who makes you feel completely and utterly seen in the most soul-healing way, someone who instantly vibes with you and makes you feel so loved that you'll wonder how you could have ever settled for less, how you could have ever doubted deserving the best kind of love. Someone who makes you laugh so hard your stomach aches with pure joy, and your heart feels luminous and weightless at the thought of them. I hope you find someone who makes you feel like you are magic, like fire surges through your blood when your fingers touch, like you don't want the hours in a day to end, like eternity seems too short to spend a lifetime with them. Someone whose mere presence brings deep comfort much like breathing again after holding your breath for too long, whose voice makes your heart go "!!" even on the cloudiest days, because it's them, and when you lie in their arms at night you need no other lullabye than the sound of their steady heartbeat because there's no safer place in the whole wide world. I hope you find someone who looks at you like you're the light at the end of a dark tunnel. You deserve that kind of love.
Soulmate headcanon AU for F!Byleth x Claude???? uwu
I got carried away??? I’m sorry??? I love this???
PRE TIME-SKIP- They immediately feel the pull of their connection when they first meet, one thousand questions running through their head at this, as they’re both equally distrustful of others and never cared much for those outside of their family.
- Whenever they enter a room, they know if the other one is there, and they know where. When they look their way, they always do it at the same time, a never before felt flush always taking over Byleth’s face at that.
- Claude is the one who first approaches Byleth, trying to strike up a casual conversation to understand why this total stranger makes him feel so many confused feelings, still completely untrusty of her.
- Despite that, it’s always Claude who has to run away from their encounters, as he fears his heart will burst from his chest whenever he makes Byleth smile, or worse: laugh.
- He forces himself to flirt with other women, but whenever the chase is about to end, he sabotages himself. More than once has he called another woman Byleth, and sometimes on purpose.
- During their missions, Claude finds it that his schemes are now not focused only on winning, but on making sure Byleth is never in any actual danger.
- At the same time, Byleth is shocked to realize her strategies always keep her right next to Claude, never willing to put him at risk, regardless of how it could bring harm upon her.
- They’re perfect fighting together, a synchrony only achieved after years and years of fighting, training and living side by side, they have it on the first try.
- Their sync doesn’t apply only to battle though, but to everyday life as well. Opening doors for Byleth, pulling her chair, pushing back lose hair strands from her face when they’re together, always seeking for an excuse to touch her lightly, to ease the burning urge to be close to her… Claude hardly realizes what he’s doing.
- Same goes for Byleth; unconsciously turning towards him or even just letting her eyes wander his way, a silly smile more often than not caught by the more attentive students.
- Claude wants to share his deepest, darkest secrets with Byleth. He wants to take her to Almyra, introduce her to his parents, his family. He desperately wishes for her to accept him as he is, whenever he has to dodge the subject it pains him.
- It’s clear to any who watches them that there’s something there. Natural, given the small age difference. Forbidden, given the teacher-student status. They all still ship them together, desperate for graduation, for the ball, for the chance to see them finally do something other than share brief touches and longing looks.
- Being together becomes so natural to them they spend almost every free time with each other, and yet, they are none the wiser to the deep bond that links them together, that is… until the fateful day Byleth falls in battle.
- Before the final battle begins, Claude and Byleth are aware they will be separated in the battlefield, and Claude does something rash. As everyone leaves the war room, he pulls Byleth back in the room when they’re alone and kisses her. A desperate, longing kiss. Filled with unspoken promises, unuttered words and unpolished feelings. And when they kiss, their souls burn, filling both of them with bravery and determination, fueled by the pure connection they always shared, fueled by the quiet declarations of love and devotion.
- Byleth is shocked but finds herself kissing him back with just as much desperation.
- Smiling shyly after breaking the kiss, foreheads touching, Claude promises they’ll talk after the battle, begging Byleth to survive.
- This is the first time Claude calls Byleth anamchara. The Almyran word for soulmate.
TIME-SKIP- Claude knows Byleth is gone the moment she falls. The pain that rips through him is worse than any battle wound he ever suffered, but it is nothing compared to the raw despair that overflows his heart.
- Byleth’s only thought as she falls into oblivion is Claude. Claude, I’m sorry.
- Claude is blinded by tears at that. He still feels the tug, the weird connection he felt from the moment they met, so maybe… maybe she’s not dead. Maybe she’s in a different dimension again, maybe she’ll cut through the sky again, maybe she’ll come back if only he survives this day. And the next. And the next.
- During her absence, Claude survives. Not for him and not even, no matter how much it shames him to admit, for the future he always wanted to see. He does it for her, he needs to believe she’ll be back, and so he goes on.
- His mask is still strong, and he carries on as any good leader would, a strong front, scheming his way through the war to keep the Alliance free, to keep building relationships and alliances, forging the path to the future he will one day share with Byleth.
- But when he’s alone at night, his mask cracks. His heart still aches, the connection still as painfully thin and frail as when she fell, but it’s still there. He still holds on to it like a stranded man at sea, prays every night to whichever God or Goddess is willing to listen, begging them to bring her back, begging to see her again, to have at least one last chance to hold her in his arms and tell her all the things he should’ve said before.
POST TIME-SKIP- Five years from that day, they promised to meet again. And something in him forced him to go back to the Monastery, despite all common sense telling him it was pointless… How glad he was to find out his instincts were right.
- Seeing Byleth walk up those steps, alive, breathing, whole… Claude nearly broke down in tears at the sight of Byleth. Struggling with every cell in his body, he manages to keep himself from kissing her. But it wouldn’t be right, what if she didn’t want to? It wasn’t the right time, he believes he should wait.
- Byleth was no different. She never felt an urge as strong as this, but all she wanted was to run up at him and bury herself in his arms, kiss him over and over, make up for all the lost time, tell him all the things she should’ve said before, apologize for having left him for five years.
- Claude can’t, however, stop himself from calling Byleth his anamchara. She always asks what it means, but he just shrugs it off, acting like it’s nothing.
- Their bond sang back to life immediately, hearts bursting with an energy neither of them understand, despite their suspicions.
- Working side by side again, it was as though they never stopped. The same synchrony they had before is still there, better than ever.
- The war is a trial for both of them. Getting closer by the day, Claude would find excuses to be next to her, to talk to her, even to touch her at all times. Byleth would never dare to complain, given how she did much the same, but the weight of their responsibilities kept them from coming clean with their feelings.
- The now grown rest of their classmates is more than tired of the tension in the room when they’re together. They all tried, some more than others *cofHildacof*, to push them together, quite literally at times, but all failed due to the couple’s stubbornness.
- It is only during the final battle that they kiss again at last.
- Dirty, bloodied and bruised. The minute the enemy falls, Claude jumps down from his wyvern and rushes to Byleth, not sparing a single thought to anyone else. His joy is almost unbearable when he sees Byleth running towards him with tears streaming down her face, the stupidest grin splattered on her face.
- Every moment afterwards they spend next to each other. Byleth is still unaware that Claude will leave soon, but he can’t bring himself to tell her now. She looks so happy, holding her in his arms every night is one of the things he’ll miss the most when he goes back to Almyra, second only to waking up to her sleepy eyes blinking lazily as he kisses her good morning.
- Leaving her is the hardest thing he ever had to do, but if nothing it motivated him to get done with his business in Almyra as soon as possible, if only to come back to her.
- It hurts Byleth to let him go, but she knows he’ll be back. She knows they will always end up right back with each other. She knows they’re soulmates.
- After he leaves, Byleth can’t help but feel like there’s a hollowness about her, like some part of her is physically missing, and locks herself in their… her room when no one was looking.
- When she laid on the bed they shared for the past weeks, staring at the ring in her finger, a promise of what’s to come when he comes back, she notices there’s a letter in her pillow. A letter from Claude.
- In the letter, he explains in detail what he’ll do in Almyra, but ends the letter with yet another declaration of love, another promise of a swift return, and an explanation. He tells her what anamchara means, and that he knows they’re meant to be, because they’re soulmates, born for each other and destined to meet again.
BONUS- Decades later, one their attendants walks in their room to wake the now elderly couple, only to find they died peacefully in their sleep, holding each other.
- The people of Fódlan are devastated and mourn dearly for their beloved lost leaders. But their children and grandchildren are in peace. They know, as both Claude and Byleth told them this over and over, and it was clear to any who looked at them, that they were soulmates. Their souls were bound together, in this life and beyond. They will find each other again.
- Months later, a curious and ingenious young boy is born in a small foreign country, soon followed by a quiet and clever young girl born in its neighbor country, a place blinded by prejudice and corruption. Their parents found it odd, but their kids would always sleep turned towards the opposite country. Unbeknownst to them, turned towards each other, the soft thudding of their hearts beating in the same sync as those of the former leaders of Fódlan.
Is "Anamchara" (I.hoped I spelled that right!) Any good? My school library has it, and I'm thinking about checking it out and reading it.
Oh my gosh! Anam Cara by John O’Donohue is an absolutely amazing book. I’m actually re-reading it these past weeks (and thinking of gifting a copy to a dear friend), and there’s no other book I can compare it too.
It’s this gorgeous blend of spirituality, poetry, philosophy, all wrapped in a gentle ribbon that is absent of any toxic, outdated beliefs or preachy narrative. It is actually refreshingly enlightening and new. In fact, when I first read it, it was just an additional reminder as to why I love the Celtic spirit so much. I refound my own writing style and voice and overall atmosphere reflected in the style of the author.
It speaks about friendship, spirituality, identity… To clarify, ‘anam cara’ (or ‘anamchara’, both are correct) means soul-friend and is essentially this spiritual concept of a deep bond between two people who share a soulful connection, whether platonic or otherwise. A refreshing concept, don’t you think? When media is so overrun with romantic love of two halves wanting to be whole together, and friendship is ushered aside as the crumbs many overlook. This book presents a different idea, that friendship is something precious in and of itself. It speaks on how to be whole as an individual, which is also the only way to maintain the magic in a relationship. Or how to protect that sacred space (literal and metaphorical) between the two people.
My copy is dogeared to mark memorable quotes all over, of which there are plenty… It is the sort of book to enjoy in bite sizes and meditate over until its deeper truths resonate with you; not the sort to eat up in a reading marathon (like with Name of the Wind, but I digress). There’s actually so much truth in that book, if only you are open to it. And you can keep going back and reading bits and pieces that resonate again and again.
To sum it up, I highly recommend Anam Cara, and I’m not quick to highly recommend any book in general.
