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vaguely-concerned · 7 months

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Thinking about the symbolic weight of smoking in the TLT universe that comes to the fore in The Unwanted Guest -- the way it moves through from person to person: Pyrrha smoked, and Augustine wanted to impress her in all her stone cold fox MILF James Bond glory (and tbf who wouldn't) so he started too. and even though as far as he knows she's been gone for a myriad and is never coming back, he keeps the habit. Ianthe sees something in the hollowed-out Faberge eggshell of Augustine that resonates with her, all that gilded eloquent emptiness and disdain through the ages, so she picked it up from him to try to emulate it. She picked it up so hard that Palamedes -- the exact spiritual antithesis of the 'smoking! on a space station! what a powermove' ennui Ianthe so admired -- spontaneously unnerded enough to even known how to, simply from a sort of contact contamination of the soul.

G1deon and Augustine sharing a jittery smoke after their near-Harrow experience during soup night, and it's the closest thing to any real sense of brotherhood that remains between them. Pyrrha going ten thousand years dying both literally and for a smoke (and then Camilla sold her fucking cigarettes (for a third of what they were worth, probably Pyrrha's own good, and also more importantly grocery money). what an entirely haunted time to be alive etc.). Augustine and Mercy trading a cigarette back and forth in the middle of their collusion over the love and murder of god.

An act of small and measured self-destruction in the name of something a little bit like connection when you're stuck somewhere in yourself where love itself dares not or cannot tread (ritualized, transmissible)..........

#the unwanted guest #the unwanted guest spoilers #the locked tomb #ianthe tridentarius #augustine the first #pyrrha dve #palamedes sextus #this series is going to make me lose my mind completely one day (affectionate)#the locked tomb meta #the fact that ianthe seems to have had some genuine admiration for augustine makes my head spin. of course though.#of course she sees the person who looks the most like he's successfully made himself impervious to the world #utterly untouchable and impossible to hurt because he isn't even really there #and she believes it! even after seeing the john mercy augustine mess at the end! because it's such a seductive idea #when you've stuck yourself in an inevitable ocean of pain to think you could make yourself numb enough that it doesn't matter #it's the emotional equivalent of 'oh there's water all around? well I just won't breathe in then. easy lmao get on my level'#she holds on to that thing from him even when it's been proved to be both impossible and ultimately untrue even in him #because uh. oh I'm about to be kind of sad for ianthe what the fuck is going on. he might actually have been the closest thing #to parental and especially paternal affection she's ever known. certainly known enough to try to model herself after #IMAGINE how fucked up the nine houses must be when augustine the first registers for anyone as a model of psychological survival #ianthe do you really want to be yourself completely so much that you're willing to be nothing. I mean yeah probably but. oh my god #gaining nothing at the cost of everything

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kedreeva · 4 months

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Sorry about the color mix up. I appreciate the reply and additional info! I guess bc I know nothing about peafowl (and the fact i dont breed any type of animal), I'm having a hard time understanding how being sterile would be unethical. I do somewhat get the shortened life span. I really would like to understand this, I just sometimes need stuff explained like I'm 5.

Up front, there's no "somewhat get" to a shortened lifespan being caused by a mutation in captive populations. If an animal is capable of living 20+ years (and some live 30+ or even 40+!) and some non-essential mutation is causing them to live 7-9 years, it's flat out absolutely unethical to breed that mutation, full stop, regardless of anything else going on. That's indicative of a MAJOR problem in their genetics. There's NO ethical reason to breed that because humans like how it looks. So, even without the sterility, these birds would 100% be unethical to produce.

The short answer on sterility is this: we don't know WHY they are sterile, but they shouldn't be, and that means something has gone wrong. When something goes wrong with an animal, and it's something genetic that can be passed on, the ONLY responsible and ethical thing for a breeder to do is to stop using that animal for breeding and closely monitor any already-produced offspring for signs of the problem, and likely not breed them, either.

The longer more complicated answer is this: sometimes it's possible to separate the problem from the aesthetic when it comes to morphs, like it was for cameo + blindness, but sometimes it's NOT, like it wasn't for spider + head wobble for ball pythons. In those instances, it's... difficult. Because you're LIKELY going to produce animals that suffer the same problem as their parent(s), in the attempt to separate the problem from the aesthetic, and sometimes that's ALL you're going to produce. As a breeder, it's your absolute responsibility to NOT release the offspring into the general population, where the problem may be replicated without control, and to keep or cull the affected individuals if the problem cannot be separated from the aesthetic, or AT BEST find them guaranteed pet-only homes that will NEVER breed them.

Sometimes the problem IS purely aesthetic or harmless, like it was for pied in peafowl, and sometimes it's not, like it was for vitiligo in peafowl. The problem comes when you ASSUME a mutation is the first, and treat it like the first when it's really the second. This has caused FAR reaching consequences in the peafowl community, and I'm sure in others, where now the autoimmune disease that first bronze had has been passed into genpop by folks who thought they were breeding a harmless new variation of pied. Hybrid animals are often sterile (not in peafowl though, hybrid cristatus-muticus birds are fertile) because of a mismatch in chromosome pairing numbers, and often that's harmless. So, in some cases sterility is not an issue because it's the expected result or is otherwise harmless... but in the case of peafowl, it's NOT an expected result and we don't know if it's caused by something harmless or not.

Some species, like mice and horses and cattle and dogs, genetic testing and DNA mapping done with millions of dollars has proven that while some stuff isn't purely aesthetic, it also doesn't cause harm to the animal in a way that affects quality of life or that can be adapted for in captive care. For example, in chickens, the frizzle gene causes curled feathers in single copy and an absence of feathers in double copy. This gene is considered ethical to produce IF the breeding is done responsibly by putting a single copy bird over a zero copy bird, which produces smooth coats and frizzle coats, but it is unethical to produce double frizzles (called "frazzles") because frazzles cannot thermoregulate, can easily sunburn, and easily suffer skin injury during normal chicken activity.

For peafowl, we have NO genetic testing. We do not have the genome mapped. As far as I know there's a research group working on it (mostly for green peafowl though, in conservation efforts), but that's not remotely finished or available to the public to test anything. We don't know where any of the morph mutations sit, or what is causing them or if they do anything beyond just change the color. Sometimes color mutations are the result of malfunctions in enzymes. For charcoal specifically, we don't know what the mutation does, besides what we can observe on the outside- the birds have half or less the lifespan of normal birds, poor feather quality, and the hens are sterile. Is the sterility harmless like it is in some hybrid animals, or is it actually a major organ failing? Is it the only major organ that fails due to this mutation, or is it just the first sign of their shortened lives? Is it some deficiency in something the birds need to be healthy? Does it hurt the bird? We don't know, but we do know the mutation and the problems (multiple, please do NOT forget that this is one OF MORE THAN ONE problems) can't be separated, and so until we do know why and whether it's harmless or not, the ONLY ethical response to seeing a problem in a major organ's function linked inextricably to a mutation in color is to not propagate that mutation. If someone wanted to fork over the millions it takes to sequence and map genomes and then determine exactly what is going on with peafowl, that would be nice and good, but I don't see that happening. When I win the lottery big, I'll be doing it, but til then we can only follow normal breeding guidelines

Also, to put this into perspective... peafowl mature sexually around 3 years old. They are chicks until the turn of the new year following their hatch. They are yearlings that year, and immature 2yo next year. They aren't actually considered fully grown until 6 years old, and should live another 14+ years. Charcoal birds die a 1-3 years after full maturity. Is it a coincidence that they fail to thrive shortly after full sexual maturity, or is it linked? Again, we don't know. We don't know if the sterility is fine or if it's just a symptom of something worse.

Even without the sterility, though, charcoal has enough issues it would be unethical. If it was JUST sterility, with no other deleterious effects, then maybe it would be different. But it's not.

#peafowl #asks #anon asks #as always please bear in mind that animal breeding is NOT the same as human reproduction ethics #and I ONLY deal in animal ethics #and honestly even if it was just shit feather quality then I would personally consider it bad breeding #I asked the only person I know who still has charcoals what their issues were and lord it is worse than I thought even #she's keeping/breeding only what she can keep herself #and experimenting with feeding regimens in the hopes of correcting a nutritional deficiency #that might account for the sterility #but so far after like 10+ years she's had no luck #so it's not likely #Like there are SO MANY perfectly fine and healthy morphs out there #there's NO reason to keep making this one #it's not essential to the continuance of the species #also to anon: I'm not mad at all this is just how i sound about my special interest #I'm glad you asked questions #I appreciate you seeking info

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muninnhuginn · 7 months

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Keep thinking about how time in Frieren is measured in years since Himmel's death. The fact that at this point in the anime, he's been dead far longer than Frieren travelled with him, and yet, that's still how she relates time to this world.

#I have some thoughts about flamme and himmel and the space they both occupy for frieren but as an anime-only I'm being cautious.#I do think the stuff with the 'ghost' though implies a lot. flamme had been dead for so long and yet she was who frieren saw the first time #it took frieren that long to get attached enough to make a connection strong enough to challenge the one she had with flamme.#but she still speaks of the quest time as being a 'mere' decade. I think both flamme and himmel understood her better than she did herself #anyway yeah for now I'm sticking with the anime. let's see how long I last before swapping to the manga.#frieren #oh also. using the time since his death is so neat from a meta perspective. bc we have these new humans + every time the years appear #you're reminded that they too are subject to the passage of time in a way that frieren isn't.

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lovesickeros · 8 months

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☆ the dove

{☆} characters tsaritsa {☆} notes cult au, imposter au, drabble, gender neutral reader {☆} warnings violence, blood {☆} word count 0.7k

Her hands are weapons, forged in a tragedy as much as a war of ash and blood that seeps into the earth and rots it from within. To them, however, she is salvation. Her hands are a kindness, not a threat. She sees it in their puffy, red eyes just brimming with tears, their fragile body so delicate and weak is still remains marred by wounds new and old – the gold still stains their skin, even long after it had been washed away.

She has seen it all – and she takes the injured dove beneath her wing with the sickly sweet promise that someday she shall mend its broken wings and teach it to fly again.

And in their stupor, they do not see her clip their wings.

It is for the best.

The wolves still salivate below the nest, waiting for her little dove to fall again – no, she shall not send her little bird to fly when it will just fall into their waiting maws once again.

This..this one is hers, she has decided.

Her little bird who dreams of the sky and the woman who clips their wings..what a tragic pair they must make, she thinks.

Not for her, of course. Yet not to them, either, unaware of the way she grounds them and keeps the key to their cage tightly in her fist.

"Tsaritsa?" The soft, meek lilt of the little bird draws her from her reverie, and she smiles – all teeth and little else, wolfish and predatory.

Yet the bird sees nothing but love in the sharp points of her canines.

As it was meant to be.

"Yes, little bird?"

She coos in honeyed tones, brushing her cold, cold hands against their skin, reveling in the way they shiver and shake beneath the ever present chill in her very bones. They do not fear the claws that ghost across their skin, and the smile they offer that illuminates their eyes like stars only proves her right – she wants to devour them whole. To see the stars in their eyes burn out beneath her teeth, their golden blood burn upon her tongue and down her throat.

"You promised to take me to the gardens today, remember?"

Her pearly, sharpened fangs peer out beneath her lips as she grins wider, unnerving to all but the little bird who sees not the wolf but the wool it wears, her hands finding their place upon their shoulders as she whispers into their ear.

She will guide her little bird where they cannot go, where their clipped wings cannot take them.

She will give them that bittersweet taste of freedom and then watch them try to catch the stars..

Just to drag them back down to earth where they belong.

"Of course, Creator – I am a woman of my word, am I not?"

Such sickly sweet lies come to her with ease – she lies and she lies and they do not see past the woolen cloak of the wolf until its jaw has snapped around its throat and its blood has painted the world a shimmering gold.

She will delight in that, too.

"If I may be so bold, Creator, you have been distant lately..have you grown tired of me already?"

Her words were as sharp as a blade, yet as dull as a rock, as sweet as they were dangerous. Like watching a mouse trap luring in its prey, she would snap it shut as soon as the little bird strayed too close.

"No! No, that's not..you've just been busy lately, I didn't want to intrude."

They remind her so much of a rabbit in those moments, and she so badly wants to know what would happen if she just took a small, insignificant bite..yet she restrains herself with a far too wide smile, her jaw clenched so hard she almost thinks they will hear it creak.

"Intrude? You could ever hardly intrude, Creator – what is mine is yours. Though, perhaps I shall have to lock you in my room to ensure you compensate me for depriving me of your presence."

In just a few short words, she snares the rabbit – her little bird, her Creator. They will see nothing but the sickly sweet lure of her smile, letting out a pretty laugh of their own as they press closer, like a bird wandering into the open maw of the beast lying in wait.

"As long as it has a nice view, I suppose I won't mind."

They jest, but she does not. And oh, how easy it is to ensnare an unsuspecting prey.

"Of course, Creator – just for you."

It won't be long until her little bird returns to its gilded cage, now. Permanently.

It is better that way.

#sagau #genshin sagau #self aware genshin #genshin impact sagau #self aware genshin impact #fic tag #tsaritsa #imposter au #another absolutely normal tsaritsa post. this fic is kinda old i just forgor 2 post it um #hope shes so fucked up in game she makes dottore look like a saint its getting a little 2 nice around here #give me morally reprehensible women #also here 2 remind everyone im still tsaritsa ceo /j #carrying her 2 fans on my back fr /j #no one gets her like i do............#the inherit tragedy of loving a woman who has rid herself of the ability to love...........#the tragedy of a woman who had only ever loved rejecting it now. even her people have fallen out of love with her #theres smth 2 be said abt cryo being the element of the archon of love but if i start talking abt her i wont stop #anyway she kisses women. girlkisser (canon)#shes so lesbian #anyway thats it thats the ted talk ill be back next monday /j

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petite-phthora · 8 months

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Nova... after a supernova

[DP x DC fic]

[Love at first... murder? - part 7]

<< Prev | Next >>

Part 1

Ao3

---

In-chat nicknames:

OGnerd = Jason

BatDad = Bruce

Discowing = Dick

BloodSon = Damian

TheHotOne = Steph

TheCuteOne = Cass

Omnipotent = Babs

Flashlight = Duke

---

Clockwork watches as the scenes unfold from the screen in front of him, a fond smile on his face.

He chuckles at the awkward farewell young Danny leaves one of Gotham’s Knights with.

However, as his gaze turns to one of the other screens, his expression switches from amused fondness to one of contemplation.

As he watches the recently deceased manic clown cackle his head off at the revelation of his newly ghostly existence, Clockwork can do no more than let out a weary sigh.

As much as he would like to interfere so young Danny would not have to deal with this endeavor, alas, he is not allowed.

Regardless, he muses, Danny will be able to handle it quite well on his own. Clockwork has complete confidence in him, as he gazes at the many timelines that may yet come to pass.

It will all work out in the end...

---

After taking some deep breaths to calm himself somewhat, Jason puts his glove back on before getting back on his motorcycle and leaving the apartment building behind.

He should probably use the rest of the night to sleep, as it’s already quite late.

However, not too long after he leaves he starts feeling eyes on him. He's being watched, and he has a pretty good guess of just who it could be...

And that guess is confirmed when he sees the shadows moving across the rooftops.

Of course, they followed the tracker to find out what he's up to even after he told them not to follow

He lets out an irritated sigh as he revs the engine and makes his motorcycle pick up more speed. At this point he’s most likely going way over the speed limit but, it’s Gotham, so no one’s gonna care.

At least they only just found him and started following him, rather than when he was still with Danny. Small mercies…

Though, he notes with mild curiosity, interestingly enough Replacement doesn’t seem to be with them.

Jason decides not to jinx his luck by questioning it, for now. Tim’s probably just overworking himself on a case again while doped up on so much of his awful Red Bull, Monster, and coffee mixture monstrosity that he should’ve had a caffeine overdose by now 3 times over.

Either way, Jason’s so not in the mood for their questions

Jason wants to keep his family as far away from Danny as possible, for as long as he can. And not just because of their not date, but he wants to help Danny keep people off his back about the murder of the Joker.

While, as he has mentioned to Danny before, most people will probably celebrate his death more than anything, he wants to spare Danny from B’s disappointment and his 5 hour long morals speech at the very least.

At that point, Jason decides to try to throw his stalkers off by making some unexpected, sharp turns and using a lot of alleys. He avoids the cameras and makes a point to also disable the cam and tracker the Bats ‘sneakily’ left in his helmet, again.

…

After spelling out ‘Fuck off’ with the tracker’s path on the map.

Luckily for him, Jason has just made it to Crime Alley, which is his turf. He knows his way around better than the furry brigade that's still following him does and he’ll gladly use this to his advantage.

With a small grumble that's muffled due to his helmet, he decides to try another more blunt method to try and dissuade them from following him.

Or, at the very least, distract them so that he has an easier time getting away.

---

0 days without the Joker breaking out of Arkham

OGnerd: Stop stalking me.

BatDad: Don’t text and drive.

OGnerd: It's speech to text. Dumbass.

Discowing: Jason!! 😃 What’s up, Little Wing? 🐦 Sooo, why didn’t you patrol tonight?? 👀

OGnerd: That's none of your business dick wad. Fuck off.

OGnerd: What part of don’t follow me did you not understand.

Discowing: I just wanted to catch up with my little brother!! 😁 Is that too much to ask? 🥺

BloodSon: Todd. Who are you courting?

Discowing: Dami!! 😠 I wanted to ease him into it before bombarding him with questions 😩

TheHotOne: no damian id rite

TheHotOne: we ned a more direct aproch >:)

TheHotOne: so jayyyyyyy, whos ur mystery boo ;)

TheHotOne: dont worry u can tell m privtely ^-^

TheHotOne: i wnt tell, scuts honor o7

TheCuteOne: scuts

Omnipotent: scuts

Discowing: Scuts

Flashlight: scuts

Flashlight: Wait, you were a scout??

TheHotOne: no <3

OGnerd: I was just following up on a lead on a case I’ve been working on.

OGnerd: Besides, shouldn’t you all be focusing on finding that clown freak instead of stalking me after I explicitly said not to.

Omnipotent: Do you buy flowers for all of your ‘leads’ or are those just for the cute ones? 🤨

Discowing: Oh!!!! 😲 He got them flowers?? 🌼 That’s so cute! 🥰 I didn’t take you for such a romantic, Jay 😉

BloodSon: Considering Todd’s reading material it should not have come as much of a surprise, Richard.

BatDad: Red Hood, what do you know about the disappearance of the Joker?

BatDad: Is the person you were meeting with involved?

OGnerd: Nothing and no. Now leave me alone.

OGnerd: Middle finger emoji.

~ OGnerd changed the name of BatDad to WhyDoesClarkCallYouBabyGirl ~

~ OGnerd locked the name of WhyDoesClarkCallYouBabyGirl ~

WhyDoesClarkCallYouBabyGirl: Red Hood, this is extremely immature.

WhyDoesClarkCallYouBabyGirl: Change my name back and come to the cave for a meeting, now.

WhyDoesClarkCallYouBabyGirl: That was a misunderstanding and you know it.

---

Jason turns his phone back off and mutes the chat once again. He managed to throw them off of his trail a bit ago and just now reached his apartment.

They know where he lives, yes, but it seems that they had finally noticed how not in the mood he was and decided to make the smart decision to give up and leave him the hell alone. For now at least…

Jason wouldn’t be surprised if they showed up at his apartment tomorrow anyway. But the metal baseball bat by the door and the gun in his holster should help.

After getting inside he changes out of his clothes and takes his time taking a shower. After getting out, drying off, and putting on something comfortable he practically collapses onto the couch.

His eyes fall onto the faded number sequence still scribbled on his hand. With a small smile on his face, while thinking of the person who wrote it, he takes his phone back out again and makes a new contact.

While he’d love to call it some sappy shit like ‘Danny <3’, he knows his family and it has enough hackers in it that he’d rather make the contact name a bit less obviously stand out.

It takes a while, but after thinking back on Danny’s space rambles earlier that evening in the observatory, Jason settles on a contact name.

He names it Nova, after a supernova.

He doesn’t know how right he is.

---

Taglist:

@i-always-say-yea @uraniumwizard @why-must-i-be-like-this @griffinthing

#dp x dc #dp x dc fic #dpxdc #dcxdp #dc x dp #dp x dc crossover #dead on main #dead on main ship #sorry for the awfully long wait #got busy with college #and then i got a bit of a writer's block #but!!! this is not abandoned!!#uploading will just take me a bit long #to make up for the last long wait #im posting like 5-6 chapters in a row #also by now oracle has hacked the cams from before equipment around jason had gone crazy #and so she saw footage of him getting the flowers #steph is the one who gave herself and cass matching nicknames :)

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fromtheseventhhell · 3 months

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It's crazy that people still uphold show!Sansa as a well-written character and pretend that liking her is the pinnacle of feminism when it would be infinitely more impactful to acknowledge her terrible and misogynistic writing. This is the same character who, while written by two men, was thankful for the abuse she suffered because it allowed her to grow. The same character who we had to be told was smart because the writers were too lazy to develop or show her intelligence. The same character who had to rely heavily on the men surrounding her and ended up accomplishing nothing on her own merit ( and no, thinking that she deserved to be Queen doesn't mean that she earned it). She is not well-written, she is not complex, and she is not a feminist character. Which is fine! If you enjoy her then good on you, but please stop pretending that she's something she isn't just because you feel the need to justify liking her character

#anti got #anti d&d #anti show sansa #anti sansa stans #like literally one of the worst written characters on that show because they tried so hard to make her the most important #while being entirely incompetent and their only method of doing so was to steal from other characters which ruined the plot #the only arguable achievement was defeating LF but even then it's written in the script that she had to go to Bran to explain things #/she rallied the Vale army!/ no she didn't 😭 she wrote a letter to LF and he did everything. instead of showing her arc in the Vale and #her learning about politics to rally them herself they took the quickest route to give her a /badass/ savior scene #which only ended up making her look selfish + power-hungry for putting her brothers' lives at risk for not telling anybody about said lette #and idiotic in the aftermath after relying once again on LF even though he was very obviously manipulating her #/pawn to player/ sounds catchy on paper but without seeing that growth/development it doesn't work #Arya was terribly written but at least we /saw/ her training in a way we never did with Sansa #and people try to apply this same logic to the books and think she's gonna suddenly spring forth as a political mastermind #when that's not how George writes...we see characters develop and make mistakes on page and get actual earned growth #feminism isn't defending the writing of two men who gave her a rape plot not in the books because they thought it was /interesting/#when the only aspect of that plot they adapted was a woman suffering abuse :/#and as per usual with stansas their only /evidence/ of her being well-written is accusing you of being misogynistic if you don't like her

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campspawn · 3 months

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yknow i know a lot of people are upset about cassandra dying which i get. BUT. i can’t fucking wait for kristen’s ‘my deity is dead i’m a cleric and i’ve killed TWO gods in rapid fire succession what am i gonna fucking do’ arc because i think it’s gonna be the best kristen arc yet

#like i don’t think kristen actually believes in doubt is the thing. she’s an apathetic teenager struggling with adhd and burnout and so #mystery and doubt SEEMED awesome at the time but like. she says it herself it’s a hard pill to swallow! she tried to make a new god and it #failed because she’s a fucking teenager. she tried to resurrect an ancient dead god and failed because she’s a fucking teenager.#where does she go from here? frankly i can see kristen going chaotic evil/evil neutral VERY easily #OR maybe switching classes. but i think more likely we’re gonna see kristen god hunting again and she’s either not gonna find one and it’ll #be wild or she’s gonna find an evil one who’s willing to gamble on the god killing cleric #but i could see warlock in kristen’s future. archfey sworn warlock?? cassandra brought up that she had offers from the fey and afair the fey #haven’t come up much in fantasy high. it’s been very demon and diety focused devotion and magic #but idk i think we could see it!#fantasy high junior year #fantasy high junior year spoilers #fantasy high #fantasy high spoilers #fhjy #fhjy spoilers

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possamble · 13 days

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What are your headcanons about Marcille's mom if you have any? It's interesting that what drew Donato to her was cause she lived the history he studied, or that was said somewhere at least. She must've had an interesting life.

so this was going to be just a normal answer but then I realized I have a Lot of Things To Say. so here goes, a compilation of what we know for a fact from the canon, what I've extrapolated from the visual cues and details, and my theories based on all of that.

Things we know for a fact about Marcille's mother because they were explicitly stated in the manga and supplemental materials:

She was a court mage for a Tall-man kingdom at the southern part of the Northern Continent

Donato, a court historian, fell in love with her because she had lived through the history he was studying, and he courted her for 17 years (age 15 to 32) before getting married

She was a cheerful person who rarely showed extreme emotion and took things as they came

She always cooked a huge meal for Marcille on her birthdays

She remarried a gnome after Donato's death and a short distance away from Marcille's childhood home

Pipi, Marcille's pet bird, was actually older than Marcille and originally belonged to her mother (bird died at 62)

She was extremely heartbroken when Donato died and ultimately ended up instilling a deep fear of mortality in Marcille with her words

the only time she showed extreme emotion in front of her family was when Donato could no longer eat his favourite dish near the end of his life.

She scolded Marcille for being cruel to ants (implying she can have a stern side when needed)

Things that are explicitly shown but mostly through visual cues

She has a very distinctive style of dress always involving a ribbon choker (mirroring Marcille's habit of always wearing a matching choker with any of her outfits that don't cover her neck)

She was almost stereotypically good at housekeeping and traditionally "wifely" things (very frequently depicted wearing an apron or doing some domestic chore when not at work, seems to have been an avid cook).

She knits? (also, note the affectionate smile as she's looking at Donato and Marcille reading a book together in the full panel)

She was as excited for Marcille's milestones as Donato was.

She didn't tell Marcille much about elven food

(there are a couple things that this panel in particular implies:

She lived a good deal of her life (if not being born and raised) in a mainly elven country in the West, implied by her knowing enough of an elven region's cuisine to prefer Tall-man food over it

seems to have a pretty carefree and casual demeanour overall, if this is how she replied to Marcille asking her about it (sounds like she never gave her culinary preferences that much thought to begin with)

slightly related to number 2, it seems like she and Marcille had a fairly casual parent-child dynamic (especially in comparison to the Toudens' memory of their father)

(local elf tastes Italian food once and never goes back))

However, she seems a lot more... serious in most of the other times we see her? Almost like the very stereotypical archetype of a graceful elf.

Subsequent conclusions about her personality:

Usually pretty carefree and cheerful at home, has been a loving and attentive parent throughout Marcille's childhood (while not being so doting that she didn't discipline Marcille).

Slightly more conjectural theories on her personality:

Had a much more graceful and professional personality at work, which would explain the more serious portraits we see of her.

Given that both she and Donato had positions at the royal court, it seems a little odd that she'd go out of her way to do all the housework herself, so maybe she just enjoyed doing it?

Now taping all the evidence together and toeing the line between analysis and fanfiction:

It's clear that she loved Donato very much and was utterly devastated by losing him. But there's one thing that really stuck out to me in what little we see of her:

Doesn't she seem... angry? The way she's gritting her teeth, clutching the tablecloth, and how this is the first and only time we see her eyes opened that wide. In the following panel, you see her being quiet and dejected after her initial outburst. She's still crying very intensely, but her brows are furrowed, and she's not really responding to Donato's affection in her body language.

We're not told the details of how she felt about losing Donato other than that it upset her. But this, to me, implies that she was angry and resented that he was aging, that the end of his life was approaching. An "it's not fair" type of preemptive grief. And if this was the first and last time she cried like this in front of her family, she was either very good at coping in private... or very bad at letting herself feel unpleasant emotions until they become unavoidable and end up overwhelming her.

It's not too remarkable a detail on the surface. It's even reminiscent of what the audience has seen of Marcille. But... when it comes to the big picture, you'd think an elf who voluntarily chose to marry a tall-man and have a half-elf child would have been better prepared for this.

It kind of recontextualizes her cheerfulness to me.

"I'm sure everything's gonna be okay!" (or some variation thereof, depending on what translation you have).

And this is stated to contrast her extreme grief when finally confronting Donato's failing body and eventual death. But I'm wondering if... maybe this optimism was why she was so upset. What if she went into all of it thinking "everything's gonna be okay"? What if she was a little young by elven standards, and just followed her heart thinking that her own resilience would get her through anything?

Of course, only to get completely overwhelmed when she actually loses Donato. She turns into a completely different person. And that's heartbreaking on its own-- but what the audience sees is the effect it had on Marcille. Can you imagine being her, watching your invincible and upbeat mother suddenly lose all the light in her eyes in one go?

I've already made a huge post about how I think Marcille models her "work persona" off her mother, but another thing that stuck with me as I was looking for more details in the manga was this:

copy pasting from the other post i made about it lmao it's like... the second she resigns herself to lifelong pain and terror, there's another portrait of her mother facing her like this. with their heads bowed, in mirrored body language of resignation and despair and sorrow. Except it's posed like Marcille is still looking at her mother but her mother is looking away.

It took me a second to realize, but I think that it's a visual metaphor for the fact that Marcille's mother was the only long-lived role model she had-- and she failed to model healthy grief for her daughter. I don't say this as an accusation or to disparage her as a character, but just as a matter of fact. In her, Marcille was seeing herself older and losing a short-lived spouse or loved one of her own, and all she saw was hopelessness.

But her mother didn't mean to instill hopelessness and terror in her. She wasn't really thinking of how it would truly affect Marcille at all (at least, that's how I'm interpreting her looking down and away from Marcille in the metaphor), she was just sad. And she, in her own way, was trying to protect her daughter and help her prepare for future losses.

What she meant was "loss is inevitable, and you have to learn how to be in pain but live on anyway." What Marcille heard was "loss is inevitable, and you will be scared and hurt for the rest of your life."

Again. Marcille's mother doesn't feature explicitly in the story the way her father does -- but in so many ways, her shadow, her silhouette, her reflection is always hanging over Marcille.

All that to say... headcanon-wise (everything from here on is 100% without evidence lmao), I'd like to think that she matured and realized that she failed Marcille. I imagine her being regretful about it, wanting a chance to fix it but never finding a way to insert herself back into Marcille's life when Marcille is so so so busy becoming the most accomplished mage possible. I imagine her being herself again, now, so many years after her loss and after remarrying -- but with her cheerfulness tempered with a lot more wisdom and the pain of having gone through loss like that. I think the second Marcille actually tells her what happened in the dungeon, she'd want to go running to her daughter again -- if Marcille tells her the full truth instead of just being embarrassed she let things get that far. (oh, the tragedy of her wanting to be more like her mother and an accomplished adult who doesn't need to be babied... being embarrassed to actually tell her mother how much she fucked up...)

There's also the tension of her having remarried -- I know that there's at least a little bit of resentment that Marcille harbours about that, because she's childish like that at heart even if she makes an effort not to externalize it. I think that her mother would be aware of that, potentially adding to her sense of guilt and apprehension at trying to reappear/intrude on Marcille's life. I honestly don't think Marcille has met her stepfather -- or even considers him a stepfather rather than "mama's new husband" and kind of a total stranger. I think she and her mother actively don't talk about it in their correspondence, like an elephant in the room.

but, ultimately, I think her mother is on her side no matter what. Ancient magic? Dark necromancy? Sure, she'll feel guilty and like she was partially responsible for setting Marcille down such a painful path, but she wouldn't care. that's her daughter!! she would've moved back west and been petitioning for her at the court, buying a house right next to the Canaries barracks and visiting her every day that she wasn't on a mission. And if her husband had opinions on Marcille becoming a "dark arts user," he either gets over it or it's divorce with him. Yes, she might have had her optimism completely humbled by losing Donato like that -- but she's still headstrong and self-assured and she doesn't care what people think of her. It's her way or the highway and she's always going to be in Marcille's corner.

(She also needs a name lol. I went with Juno, just to be cute about "Marcille"s closest real life equivalent being Marcella, which is the female version of Marcellus, which in turn is a diminutive of Marcus, which was derived from Mars. Absolutely in love with Marcille potentially being named after Ares/Mars the fucking god of war btw)

#asks #she could easily be interpreted as distant or neglectful after Donato's death too #with how little involvement she has in Marcille's life/the fact that Marcille doesn't even mention her when talking about her life prospect #and that's fair! I will argue to hell and back that she was a loving parent when Donato was alive #but there's nothing that suggests she remained a loving parent afterwards #I just think that like... parental relationships are so complicated in dungeon meshi #you cannot deny that the toudens' mother loved them dearly but that she failed them both miserably as a parent #and i think it'd be more compelling if Marcille's mother was a little like that too #not a totally and easily dismissable deadbeat #but someone who truly loves her daughter but was only human herself and couldn't be what Marcille needed at a crucial moment #and regrets it deeply #and that the distance between them is mutually self-imposed by complicated feelings of guilt and fear #and a little resentment from Marcille's side that she hasn't really properly processed #I don't know if I'll ever get around to writing it but i had this idea where Marcille does finally spill the beans to her mom and she just #immediately arrives in Melini #and its awkward for a bit but they do finally have a heart to heart and air it all out #and marcille starts freaking out that her marriage is rocky rn bc her new husband wants her to distance herself from marcille #on account of the crimes and all #marcille's like no you can't blow up your marriage for me and her mother just shuts that shit down #'you didn't choose to be born. i was the one who made that choice for you'#'i brought you into this world and i'll be damned if i don't take responsibility for that the entire way'#'you are entitled to *nothing less* than my unconditional love.'#and obviously that's not a sentiment that's exactly healthy as a universal statement about parenthood #but i think its what her mother would believe and what marcille needs to hear #and dungeon meshi does such a fantastic job at just... letting imperfect things just *be* without having to justify it immediately #it expects the audience to do their own critical thinking #and know that its not trying to make sweeping universal statements in every instance #marcilleposting #marcille donato

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