raaaandom thought since I haven't kept up a whole lot with your Vitalis AU and forgive me if you've already talked about this before but uh, how did Sun x Mercury come to be in that?
I know you tend not to talk about shipping a lot on this blog lol but I'm too intrigued. Sun x Mercury has really grown on me as of late and I'm 90% sure it's because of the one art you did of them along with Freezerburn for pride month so I'm curious to know the thought process 👁️👄👁️
i've gone back-n-forth with so many story ideas that at this point i'm honestly not that sure how it came to be lol but it probably was around the time i had sun travel / spend time with mercury and emerald for a while that it just kind of clicked in place?
like mercury is pretty jaded as a person, understandably looking at his childhood, and he doesn't really think there's anything else for him in this world than being an assassin. still, i think he knows, in a way, that his childhood was Fucked Up™, he knows his father hated him, but i think that's something that's like, he still had to prove himself, ya know? and that very easily leads to the kind of thinking that there's something wrong with him, that maybe if he was better, stronger, etc., his father wouldn't have hated him and the fact that he does is his fault.
and while he does occasionally drop these bombs, outright spitting them out sometimes, about his childhood that would make just about anyone to go holy shit are you okay?, he doesn't exactly keep the kind of company who would do that (bc they didn't exactly have great childhoods either).
so while he knows, it's one thing to kind of think it to yourself; it's something different to have someone else affirm that yes, it was fucked up and that he deserved better, even if his initial reaction to that would be poor bc people tend to be defensive of themselves and their life.
and i think sun could be that person to say it out loud? he's very much Friend-shaped™, he's sun "i go where i'm needed" wukong; while he's curious and definitely has plenty of questions, he's respectful enough to not prod, and if he thinks he overstepped he backs up while also making sure that he is there, ya know, whenever the other person is ready. but he's not a pushover, and he can also be very blunt and just blurt things out so him going "dude that's kind of fucked up" to something mercury says is definitely something i can see happening (without the swearing... maybe.)
he also doesn't exactly hold any moral high-ground or grudges on anyone, so mercury being one of the bad guys and an assassin wouldn't really be a problem for him lol
so, somewhere along the way i just thought sun seeing mercury and going "he seems cool" and then doing the completely opposite of reality and starting to orbit around him seemed like a good idea. and thus i sealed my fate in a rarest of rare-pair pits.
