Needlessly close reading and long commentary on chapter 57 and how the audience actually has an extremely limited view on what Marcille has been like over the course of her life.
I am once again thinking about how pre-dungeon Marcille is so quiet and stoic that she seems like a completely different person. How jarring chapter 57 is for the audience. Like you have Marcille, who has been just the most blindingly expressive person with resting baby face
And then the chapter drops a title page of Marcille hearing from Falin for the first time in four years and it's like.
Who is that. Genuinely. Would you even realize that's Marcille without the context clues?
And then the chapter just keeps coming in with the sucker punches.
We have SEEN Marcille meet strangers. It was never with this understated of a smile.
literally who the hell is this. the few times the audience gets to see some Signature Marcille Faces that they're used to is when she finally gets to see Falin again
when she's testing out her new spells
(and when Laios and Falin are fantasizing about her being their damsel in distress, funnily enough)
And then finally. Finally you get to a fully recognizable Marcille when she fucking DIES and comes back to life to geek out about necromancy.
We know she loves magic. We know she loves Falin. So it's not so surprising that she wouldn't be able to keep a mask up when thinking or talking about the things she loves. But why the mask in the first place? Where does it come from? It's tempting to think that, maybe, Falin's departure just hurt her so much that it turned her into a quiet person.
But that's only half true. If you go back, the first instance you see of this incredibly mild personality is actually introduced much earlier, in chapter 17.
What if she was always like that. What if her default after her father died was to hold people at arm's length, to never really emote past being polite and friendly. What if Falin was the first person who was able to bring her out of her shell, and when she left, Marcille just went back to how she was.
And when comparing her detached demeanour with someone else...
It's not exact, but wouldn't you say there's a resemblance? Wouldn't you think she might be trying her best to imitate what she saw of her own mother working as an accomplished mage?
It would certainly explain why she's hiding behind her portrait in her nightmare, at least.
We aren't told that Marcille has been distancing herself from everyone around her using a mature and dignified personality she modelled off her mother. But we sure as hell are shown it, I think.
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Prompt 200
Danny has found himself reincarnated, for fun! While waiting for Tucker to reincarnate. He’s uh, found himself as a clone now- thankfully stable! But he was apparently also an accident, and overheard some of the people talking about termination, which no thanks?
So apparently he wasn’t exactly an accident per se, they did mean to make a clone, so thank fuck for that! They had apparently grabbed the wrong blood, which he almost snorts at. Kind of hard to do in a tube full of liquid though.
Oh well, he’ll just be leaving now… after he destroys this lab and steals all these files on himself, thank you~ Now, does he want to go on an adventure or find his unwilling donors first…
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Prompt 198
Now Bruce was not expecting to reincarnate upon his death. At least he thinks he died, he’s pretty sure he did. There wasn’t any other reason for him to be a well, literal baby. Around two he thinks, which fits well with the fact that it’s around that time that babies start forming memory recall, if he, well, remembered correctly.
But while he knew about reincarnation thanks to Shayera and Carter, he’d never exactly given it much thought towards himself. Because seriously, what were the chances of such a thing as him being given another chance?
So he was quite surprised at his situation, experimentally opening and closing pudgy hands that looked well, just a tiny bit off. He’d never been that pale before, he thinks, even back when he never went outside like, ever.
He turned his gaze towards the mobile above him with a sort of idle curiosity- a mixture of bats (ha) and other trinkets he wasn’t familiar with. It also caused him to get his first good look at his parent, asleep on a rocking chair right next to the crib.
Huh. They had the same pale skin he did, albeit in the light it looked like it was slightly tinted blue, and while their hair was white they didn’t exactly look old. They looked surprisingly well rested for raising a toddler too, unless they had a nanny or something similar… He rolled over, managing to very shakily push himself to his feet with the help of the crib.
Why was standing so hard as a toddler? And why did he have his memories of everything except how he had died anyway?
His head whipped up from where they were staring at his feet when he heard a snort, finding his parent awake and standing. Somehow silently enough that he hadn’t noticed- or he was that easily distracted by the unfamiliar giddiness bursting in his chest.
“Morning little bat,” his parent easily picked him up and held him while he inwardly sighed at the nickname. Of course his bat motif would follow him into this life. A low rumbling almost caused him to jump, his body relaxing before he could fully register the sound. The… purring?
Oh.
He wasn’t human this time around.
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