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everythingmp3 · 2 months ago

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being farmer!Van’s younger lover - headcanons 𐙚 🌾

I couldnt get the idea of her as a farmer out of my head, so here are all the thoughts I had while imagining, mostly what she’d be like with a lover! I dont know much about the actual life of a farmer, so I kept her activities rather vague, it’s more about the vibe and the fantasy of it all, you get the idea <3 hope u enjoy

warnings: the second half of this is nsfw! some very brief mentions of substance abuse/addiction

her backstory:

(feel free to skip this intro if you just want the main plot)

she moved to NYC after high school, broke, not in college, unsure what to do but too stubborn to give up on her dream to live in the city she had idealized since she childhood, so she fought and bled for her right to stay, worked many bone-crushing jobs, got into friend groups with people who were also just trying to survive, which worked out in her favor for a while, but. eventually she got into the wrong kind of drugs and fell off, partying instead of working, getting fired from one job after the other, barely scraping by, somehow cheating her way out of ruin again and again, sleeping on friends couches, until she was in her mid-twenties and couldnt take it anymore, physically, spiritually, so she and her girl at the time packed their things and moved the country-side in the south, dreaming of a quiet, normal, mundane life, hoping and praying for some respite

at first, they managed, but the relationship was crumbling due to Vans refusal to address her substance abuse issues and her overall disregard for her health, her hermit lifestyle of only going to work so she could come back home and crash, so eventually they broke up, dramatically so, her ex screaming at her that she had to get her shit together or she’d die before hitting 30, which did wake her up - it hurt like hell but she knew it was true - Van was tired of everything, people, cities, even small towns, she didnt wanna see or talk to anyone, so she looked for jobs that would allow her to shut down and be quiet, which she found: an older couple, in their 50s, was looking for help at their farm nearby, in exchange for a spare room, so it was settled: she packed a few things and showed up at their door ready to leave her entire life behind and just be a pair of helping hands

she got lucky. the man and woman who ran the farm - which would be hers one day - immediately showed her a parental kind of tough love when they realized how desperately Van needed help and guidance, they didnt make her talk about it, but they could tell that she was recovering from some heavy shit, so they gave her a very clear schedule and made her stick to it, even when she was tired or grumpy, they gave her clear instructions and made her work with the animals a lot because they knew the effect that kind of contact can have on a suffering person

sure enough, Van blossomed after an initial period of disciplining her body, eating better, and growing stronger each day, it took a good amount of sweat and tears to settle in, but after a few weeks she adjusted and found out that she was much better at physical labor than she´d assumed, her stubborn streak came in handy, she pushed and pushed herself until the tasks came more easily to her. she also went to AA meetings in the area on and off, whenever she felt like she needed some extra help to stay sober

once the couple both neared their mid 60s, they were so close to Van that leaving the farm in her hands only felt natural, they didnt have any children of their own, so she was the closest thing to a daughter they ever got and trusted her to take care of their beloved spot of land well and to eventually leave it to someone else whod keep that tradition up as well (at first she felt unworthy, incapable, but they convinced her and urged her to do whatever she pleased with her little spot in the world, expressing how grateful they were for the years shed spent with them, having given them a chance to feel like someones parents later in life)

Van decided to work with groups that use animal therapy to help people who are in a tough spot in one way or another, people in rehab or people who deal with either mental or physical pain that might be eased for while by having close contact to horses - she knows first-hand what caring for animals can do for a person who is struggling with self-worth, shame, or chronic pain, so she always makes a point of inviting those groups to her farm, making it a safe haven in a way, she also lets riding instructors teach their classes there

she makes money by letting people keep their horses in the stables, taking care of them, so people can come by whenever they want to ride them, she also sells some of her produce to surrounding farmers markets, its not a ton of money but more than enough to get by and live a comfortable life

how you started dating

your college town is near her farm and you decided to stay there during summer because the season is beautiful out there and its enough for you to back to your hometown for a few weeks during August before the next semester starts

one day you were a bit reckless and walked out further beyond the town limits than you usually did because the weather was so nice and you wanted to see some some pretty fields, but you underestimated the heat and had to take a break somewhere because you were afraid you might pass out and couldnt just turn around and walk all the way back

the tree you decided to take shelter under for a moment was right at the entrance of Vans farm and she come out to check on you because she saw you sitting there in the midday heat and got worried that something was wrong or that someone might have ditched you by the side of the road, since she wasnt used to having strangers wandering around out there

you were a bit embarrassed at first when she she said "hey there, you okay?" but you she was sweet from the get-go, joking around a bit, asking you what on earth made you come out there in that intense weather, gently chastising you for your lack of drinks and snacks, she ended up urging you to come inside and rest and cool down, to eat and drink something so you could regain your strength before going back home

you got along immediately, it took less than a few minutes for you to talk about anything and everything as she prepared some iced coffee, iced tea, and fresh blueberry pancakes for you - you told her again and again that she was being way too nice but Van insisted and told you that she spent more than enough time on her own, so once you werent hungry or thirsty anymore and seemed more lively again, she gave you a tour of and introduced you to her cats which was a sure way to get you to stay for longer (maybe that was calculated on her part)

after a while of you laughing and enjoying your time together, she offered to drive you back to your place and gave you a little pot of homemade jam to try as a parting gift, a raspberry vanilla mix that tasted divine and was your breakfast of choice for the coming days. as you said goodbye that night in the car parked outside your house she said "come by whenever you want, really, you dont even have to ring, just walk around to the porch and I will be around somewhere" which felt like flirting, not just southern hospitality, so you promised that you would take her up on it, your skin tingling where her arms rested when you said goodbye, her voice a bit strained when she told you goodbye, as if she was flustered from embracing someone that way, a sign that it had been a while maybe, a sudden rush of hope on your part that she wasnt seeing anyone, that you werent delusional to think that she might have been less friendly with strangers who didnt intrigue her, who werent as easy on the eyes to her..

she’d confess to you a while later that she didnt give you her number or asked for yours because she knew that shes a horrible texter and enjoyed the idea of being surprised by another visit by you, she also liked the vibe of leaving the ball entirely in your court, the fact that she had no way of reaching out to you and had to trust that you would keep your connection going (this same energy is palpable whenever she waits for you to come and touch her, she loves pushing your patience to make you initiate intimacy, even when its just a hug, thats her preferred way of teasing)

for the next few days you couldnt get her out of your head and kept clinging to the memory of how hot shed looked: dressed in a white tank-top and jeans that were cut off at the knee, working boots and white socks, her bronzed heavily freckles skin glowing in the midday sun, just like her wavy hair that seemed to burn like flames in that light, her cheeks and lips rosy from the heat, her voice raspy and low, her calves toned, just like her shoulders and arms... you remembered how your knees had touched when you sat outside on the steps together for a moment, how your fingers had brushed when shed handed you a glass, how shed looked at you while you ate the food shed made you, attentive, curious, and intense, like she was holding something back, the same way you had been. it was torture. you couldnt stop obsessing over every little look shed given you, everything shed said, reading into all of it until you were certain you werent just imagining the instant chemistry

after a few days of holding back, you couldnt wait any longer and went back to her place, and just as you stepped into her house it started thundering and pouring rain, which immediately made the atmosphere intimate and private as she lit some candles and put on all the warm orange tinted lamps to offer a contrast to the dark storm outside - you played it cool at first, but it was clear that you hadnt just come back for no reason, and the tension made both of you a little nervous at first, thrilled too though, pleased by the sense of "she feels the same way, doesnt she?"

one thing lead to another, some jokes at first, then more earnest words, you confessing "I thought of you a lot the past few days, you were so sweet to me" her brushing it off "basic decency" you caving and coming to sit next to her, a pleading look on your face, a bit of fear on hers, held breaths, beating hearts, soft eyes, you taking the leap, kissing her eagerly until she gently broke it and needed a second to breathe, to calm her burning nerves, so you told her to keep touching you, to just keep her hands on you, so she did, grabbing at you until she was ready to continue, dying to - a switch flipped in her when she felt you going slack in her embrace, sighing from the feel of her palms on your back, your arms, your face, a bruising kiss from her that quickly turned into more and more and until your clothes were scattered next to the couch and the rain kept clashing against the windows as you got lost in each other, kissing and touching and grinding up against each other, making each other come just from a few touches, using your burst of passion and intense sensitivity to each others presence to keep going and going, finally ending up in her bed, making out for ages, taking turns making each other moan and surrender

that night you slept over and the next morning you laughed about how cliché it was for her to invite you to move in for the summer before even having gone on a proper date, but! you couldnt have cared less, you were so overjoyed at the idea, both of you agreeing that it would be unnecessary to make you take the drive over to her place every day (she had no idea what got into her when she just straight up asked you if you wanted her to help you get some of your stuff so you could stay with her as long as you wanted because it had been so long since shed: a) had anything romantic going on b) had sex with someone and c) didnt shudder at the idea of sharing her space with a lover, quite the opposite, that first morning she woke up to the sight of you there in her bed, all peaceful and content and warm to the touch, she wondered how shed gone all those years without it

sfw

Van quickly comes to love the feeling of never knowing when she might turn a corner and see you laying in the sun on a blanket, in your bikini or underwear, tanning, or reading, or napping - she always stops in her tracks and takes a moment to just look at you while youre blissfully unaware, until the urge to touch takes over - unlike others, shed never think its funny to startle you by splashing water on you or taking your headphones off or anything, shes as gentle as possible, always, either lowering herself until she can press a soft kiss to your back, or picking a flower to lightly sweep over your arm <3 you usually pull her down onto the blanket and get all over her to keep her from walking away and continuing her work, which shes helpless against, shes never denied you, not once, always caving

loveees seeing you in her clothes! when you put a flannel of hers over your shoulders if it gets a bit chilly at night, or when you jokingly try on her working boots, she lets you steal whatever you want from her wardrobe and has a particular thing for seeing you in jeans of hers that are a bit too lose on you because theyre worn out, when you kneel down and she can see your underwear peeking out at the top... you wont stay in those jeans for too long, lets put it that way.

shes always been good about sun screen, its the one self-care aspect she never abandoned even during her worst times, but! she usually never splurged on the expensive kind, she used generic cheap sun screen until you started dating and you gave her some fancier kind, selfishly picking a scented one, a mix of vanilla and coconut because you knew it would mix very well with her sweat while working and the tabacco when she smokes - you also help her apply it, its ritual she came to cherish deeply, the way you carefully apply it not just on her face and arms but where she cant reach, always savoring the feeling of your palms massaging the creme into her back because she used to have to bend herself herself into a pretzel to apply it to her shoulder blades and the surrounding area (you dont care that it tastes bitter when you kiss her on her freshly lotioned nose <3)

when Ethel Cain said "he looks like he works with his hands and smells like Marlboro Reds" yeah thats her… the cigs are her little vice that she allows herself to keep, she doesn’t chain smoke, it’s more of a relaxation thing, usually not more than two a day, sometimes she also goes a while without any, and you dont convince her to quit because she looks too hot smoking 💘 you love those warm late nights where you sit on the porch together, your legs on her lap, her free hand massaging you as she stares off into the distance and smokes (you also got her nice lighter at the thrift store, gold with an etching of a pin-up model, it was more of a joke but she loves it)

for obvious reasons she much prefers cats over dogs and when you started dating one of her cats was heavily pregnant, so you ended up staying in the barn with her for an entire night when the cat gave birth to make sure it all went well, to see that the kittens were all healthy, and it made her fall for you even more, the care and adoration with which you handled the little babies and soothed the mother after she gave birth to all three of them, she also let you pick the names <3 you love to joke by saying "she’s stealing my spot" whenever one of the kittens crawls up onto her chest

Van always relies on her lovers to braid her hair! whenever shes single, she just accepts the fact that her hair wont be braided until someone does it for her again, she likes being incompetent that way, she mentioned it off-handedly that she cant braid her hair at her grown age, and you took the bait immediately, offering to style it any way she wants, a smug grin on her face when you first gently parted her hair into three even strands and gave her exactly what she wanted, that soothing feeling of having her love rake her fingers through her hair, her favorite part is when youre done fuss with her front pieces a bit to make it look more effortless and natural, shes pliant as hell, lets you do whatever you want (her mommy issues havent gone away, even in her forties it does make her blush when she sits between your legs and feels you tighten her braid the way a mother might)

speaking of hair: she doesnt trust hair dressers with her hair at all because shes way too scared that theyll take off too much or give her weird layers, so she usually did an okay job cutting her own split-ends, but you decided to buy actual hair-cutting scissors and looked up a few tutorials until you felt prepared enough and gave her a nice trim, taking about half an hour to really make sure all the strands flow nicely together, and she loves it, shes gone so long without getting her hair cut by someone else that it makes the whole thing feel super intimate - also, she loves that you picked up on the fact that her hair is the one and only aspect about her appearance where she embraces a kind of femininity, its her one point of true vanity, and you taking care of it fore her is very pleasing to Van as someone who knows that people usually focus on her more masculine traits when they call her hot, warms her heart that you take care of her hair like its your own :)

youll often cut up some fruit for her or bring her a bottle of cold water when shes been out in the soon for a little too long, its a simple thing but she remembers how it was to never have anyone do those little things for her, its special for her and makes the work feel a little easier on her not-super-young bones <3

she has a medium sized tattoo on her left hipbone that she got in her 20s and for the longest time she hated it because she didnt have enough money back then to get it done by an actually good artist, so the lines are kinda faded over time, but.. once you started dating, she realized how hot you think its looks, so she started using it to tease you, relentlessly, stretching her arms over her head on purpose so her shirt rides up and you can see the top of the tattoo peeking out above her waistband, more times than not youll get handsy with her and pay her back for tempting you (as if that wasnt her goal all along)

for a long time her polaroid camera just collected dust but one day she got the urge to take pictures of you around the farm, which started out innocent at first (you caressing the horses, laying in the sun, leaning against the fence, picking berries) but it quickly turned more and more erotic, you shed your clothes, she took some pics of you in your underwear, you convinced her to caress your face and put her thumb in your mouth while taking a picture of that, which got her good, so eventually you abandoned all shame and told her to get some milk so she could pour it in your open mouth and over your chest and take a picture of that, you in the grass.. kneeling... eyes closed.. mouth open.. milk dripping down your chin... shameless vulgarity, but so incredibly hot to her that she ended up putting the camera down and licking you clean. both of you laughing in the grass afterwards once you realized what you just did (she keeps a few of those pictures on her wallet, old fashioned romance is her thing sometimes)

she taught you how to properly ride a horse and definitely almost had a heart attack the first few times your horse picked up the pace, she always makes sure youre safe - you sometimes take the horses to a nearby forest and leisurely ride through it, slowly, chatting and laughing and holding hands whenever your horses are close enough to do that (you also fore sureee convince her to take you out on her horse sometimes, you love holding onto her waist and resting your head on her back)

her farm is so lush and rich in color during spring and early summer!💐 flowers of all kinds bloom all over the place, and before you were dating she never bothered to pick some of them for inside decor, felt kinda silly to her as the only one living in her house, she was never the type to play homemaker just for the sake of it, but you lovee picking little bouquets for her, you always take note of which flowers she points at and calls pretty, so next time you gather more of that kind, it became a sweet ritual for you to put little vases with all kinds of wildflowers around the house and she for sure dried the first bouquet you ever made for her and keeps it on her dresser or pressed in a book <3

one of your favorite things to do with her is to go out for a big dinner after shes been working hard all day! shell be starving by that time, so nothing feels better to her than sitting down at her favorite sandwich shop or restaurant or fast food chain and devouring a greasy salty comfort meal - I think she fucks with veggie burgers when theyre drenched in good sauce, pizza with a good amount of toppings, spicy too, I think shed dip everything in hot sauce, shed also love mexican food I think like a good burrito with a bunch of fresh ingredients and chips and salsa on the side, anything thats savory and mixes a bunch of textures! you dont do it too often because she does try to eat rather healthy but once or twice a week you both need it and cherish it, you will sit there for a while just eating and chatting and sharing a bunch of side dishes, people watching or gossiping, her giving you inside scoop when she sees a familiar face, making small talk here and there while referring to you as her "friend" even though nobodys naive enough to believe that thats all you are, still, she likes being coy about it

you realize that all the people who own her favorite spots know and love her, so they give her bigger servings and drinks on the house, which you benefit from as well ;)

if you have a difficult relationship with food or simply dont take good enough care of yourself diet wise, thats gonna be taken care of with her, always - Van prides herself on her harvest of fruits and veggies, the time and care she puts in them each season, she collects fresh eggs from her chickens, bakes her own bread, makes a beautiful summer salad that she perfected over the years with some strawberry slices and honey vinegar dressing and a bunch of different greens and cucumber to make it fresh and delicious, among other recipes that she makes you try and approve of - you eat wellll and healthy with her, and you take up baking because you wanna repay her for her cooking and know that she has a sweet tooth! she also keeps fresh home-made iced tea and a bunch of other beverages that you both enjoy in the fridge at all times when its hot and keeps reminding you to drink, you wont be dehydrated on her watch!

when she was younger it was a sign of luxury to her when she was over at a friends house and their family had Ben and Jerrys ice cream instead of the no-name brands, so as an adult she likes buying all those little things that used to seem expensive to her, and you two sometimes share a pot on particularly hot days, trying all the flavors and rating them, you kept a sheet with the scores, and its a thing she looks look forward to, going to the store and picking your flavor for the night <3 (she’s partial to anything with caramel and doesnt really care much for the ones that are heavy on the chocolate, prefers the creamy vanilla bases ones, she also always lets you scoop out the last few bites, whereas you let her have the first few spoonfuls (you also like to fuck with her by kissing her while you still have some ice cream in your mouth and transfer it onto her tongue with a sloppy kiss, she pretends its nasty but shes turned on by it, every time)

she likes to pretend shes a grumpy anti-tech country woman who hates all things pop culture but she does love that youre teaching her things here and there about whats going on, shes been so out of touch with everything that its fun for her to have someone there who gets a kick out of trying to explain a new slang term to her or a trend thats happening on social media or gossip about celebrities (you sometimes jokingly speak in a way that sounds obnoxious and like something a teenager on tiktok would say just to watch her give you a look of utter confusion and disbelief, like telling her that she has "rizz" when she says something smooth, laughing when she says "jesus christ do I even wanna know what that means...")

even though shes worked with animals for years and years it never got easier for her to watch any of them suffer, shes a huge softie! none of them are "just" animals to her, ever, doesnt matter if its a horse or a cow or a chicken or animals that arent "hers" but live around the farm like little mice or birds, she always feels her heart shatter when one of the animals gets sick or needs medicine or a visit from the vet, she keeps it together on the outside but youve consoled her a few times when she was scared that an animal might not make it or be in too much pain - she also still tears up whenever she talks about her cat who passed away five years ago, she still misses her sometimes and youre the first person shes shared that grief with bc she feels safe with you, its nice for her not to shed her tears in the dark by herself when shes scared of a possible loss or feels haunted by yelps that a sick animal made, you always reassure her that shes doing her best and that any animal would be lucky to end up there with her <3

loves to make you do little physical tasks with her so she can watch you struggle with something thats muscle memory for her, its very amusing to her when you get pissed off and start groaning and eventually give up and tell her to do it by herself because youre clearly too slow with it, shell say things like "come on, lets put those young bones to good use" and gesture at you to follow her and you always act like a petulant child even though you clearly love being bosses around by her and watching her be much better at whatever it is that youre doing together, sometimes youll just sit and blatantly stare at her while shes doing strenuous work so you can watch her break a sweat and jokingly cat-call her

she keeps to herself but she built strong connections with a good amount of people in the area over the years, so shes never truly isolated or unable to require help when she needs, people know they can count on her and that shes about as reliable as they come, so she often comes home with a basket of fresh peaches or a few bottles of freshly made syrup or coffee grounds because people like her and treat her like a daughter/sister/friend depending on how old they are (I like to think theres a mutual aid sentiment that she sticks to, shell give money where she can to those who need it because theyve also helped her out before)

on that note, she is usually way too stubborn to ask for support but if you get sick, she calls some people who can help her around the farm, so she has the time to tend to you and doesnt have to leave you alone in bed all day <3

you offer her massages whenever she seems a bit tense or worn out, sometimes youll just come up behind her and start massaging her neck and shell say "baby im okay really" at first, but then audibly gasp as you knead away some tension, melting under your touch and making little "hmm" sounds

she loves ending her day by sitting on the couch with you and watching a show or a film together while snuggling, she used to spend all of her nights alone, so the simple act of eating dinner together and then watching something with you is a luxury to her that she savors every time <3

you convince her to venture out a bit more than she usually did, so you end up taking little trips to more urban cities nearby (ones that are 1-3 hours away) and have fun days there, trying out cafes and restaurants, browsing through stores, getting some clothes (you know she likes brands like Carharrt and splurge on stuff here), getting drinks if you stay until nightfall, watching movies at the cinema, or just walking around and seeing where the day takes you

during the road trips you are in charge of the aux because her music is too depressing for summer days.. she has no idea how to curate a playlist thats lighthearted and fun, so she leaves it to you (I can see her enjoying it when you blast like an Oasis song that she remembers from her youth and make her sing along to it because you know damn well she remembers the lyrics)

also! you love to fuck with her by putting the most vulgar rap you can find on full volume, blasting lyrics that make her look at you in shock while asking “is this what you fucking listen to?? really?" only half-serious about it, you catch her smiling when shes imagining herself in the place of the guy saying out of pocket shit about his girl

you like to do the laundry because you never got to hang it up to dry in a beautiful spot of land like that before - it feels cinematic to you in a way when youre standing there clipping your shirts to the clothesline with the wind blowing in your hair and the horses nearby, but! Van does the laundry that has to be hand-washed, she likes the attentive act of getting out all the little stains in clothes that are too delicate for the washing machine, she has her tricks to get even the most annoying red sauce stains out, and she also has a thing for washing your underwear, something about washing her lovers intimate clothes is very romantic to her, so you let her do it even though you were a bit embarrassed about it at first

regardless of your usual style you started dressing a bit more "country" to fit her vibe and it’s hot to her - she likes when you thrift stuff like white linen dresses or shorts, cowboy boots, belts with bigger brass buckles, you always ask her for her opinion and maybe drag her to the store with you so she can decide what you try out next (she’d make you get a skimpy bikini for lake days, for sure, you’d be like "this is too much...." and she’d just say "not in my eyes" and buy it for you)

loveees to share all of her knowledge with you but in a teasing way, she likes to play teacher and make you memorize the names of plants and flowers, so she can randomly point at one and ask "whats that one called again, hm?" fully aware that you forgot, repeating it to you and asking again the next day, which makes you shove her and roll your eyes but shell press for an answer like "I didnt hear you baby"

you introduce her to the app that can identify all kinds of bird calls and she gets over her skepticism really fast and becomes obsessed with it, whenever youre in the forest by the lake or just out in nature and she hears an unfamiliar call she gets so thrilled when the app shows her a picture of the bird shes hearing, and she definitely makes you remember the names of her favorite birds and gets offended when you forget them, drilling you like a teacher until theyre seared into your brain

she knows from her own experience that the best way to beat a depressive mood is to get outside and find something to do, so whenever she can tell that youre feeling a bit off or blue she makes you follow her somewhere so she can try and cheer you up :) one afternoon when you were kinda sad she took you cherry-picking and lifted you up on her shoulders so you could reach all the cherries further up and your mood switched completely without you even being conscious of it, she’s great at coaxing joy out of you whenever you need it

in general you felt your nervous system recover from any stress you mightve dealt with before during those days where your senses were never overstimulated by too much noise or too many people around or a lack of access to fresh air and pretty nature, she never outright said it but she definitely kept her eye on you and made sure you felt better than you did when shed first met you, even just sitting in the grass and feeling the earth beneath you and hearing the natural noise of the farm for a few minutes often helps you unwind and relax 🕊️

you know from what she told you about her past that she never got to be carefree as a kid/teenager, that she had to grow up way too fast, so you make her do little things with you that girls might do at sleepovers, like putting on face masks or playing online games or buying little arts and crafts kits to make each other keychains and! you convince her to get one of the mystery boxes with little figurines in them like those sylvanian family animals, which you end up keeping on the windows isle, adding to them whenever you indulge in the frivolous joy of ripping open a package without knowing which little creature youll get (shes the type to put on a poker-face or make sarcastic remarks during the whole thing to disguise how much fun shes actually having)

master of home remedies! whether its a rash or a burn or a cut, she knows exactly what salve or creme to apply, she has a bunch of teas for any kind of ailment, stomach pain, period cramps, headaches, she knows how to dress any kind of wound (because shes had to patch herself up, many times) so any kind of pain youre in, shes gonna do her very best to relieve you of it (not just by giving you head, although thats always worth a try, to her)

shes somehow alwaaays chewing on something, either gum, or tooth picks, or even just random pieces of grass (which you make fun of her for, lovingly) its pretty rare that she goes a whole day without reaching for something to mindlessly chew on (one time you offered her your finger and said "if you need to always have something in your mouth... here" and she swatted your hand away and told you off but the blush on her face betrayed her because she does love to have your fingers in her mouth, she cant help it)

loves to kiss you on your hands/knuckles, the chivalrous feel of it, the devotion, its just a go-to move for her and you never ever tire of it or lose those butterflies you felt the first time she did it

her other favorite places to kiss on your body while youre not undressed are your cheeks and your shoulders!

sometimes she worries that youll get bored of spending all your days out there with her so she makes it clear that shed drive you to a friends place and be fine with it if you needed a few a days away (blatant lie, she wouldnt be fine) but you make it clear that youre not interesting in going anywhere, unless its together with her! you love your new routine of having time to yourself in the house or outside until shes done working and you spend the rest of the day together

she might be sober but she’ll gladly make you a nice cocktail or buy you a drink every once in a while because she thinks its very cute when youre tipsy and get even more touchy-feely and affectionate with her than usual

you like to spoil her by giving her hands some love, she uses them so much that she needs to use very moisturizing thick cremes and youll take some of that and massage her hand and and really make sure it seeps into her skin, sometimes shell just lay in bed at night and let you work away at her hands as she almost dozes off from how good it feels <3

nsfw

one might think she has less energy when shes been working hard all day but its actually the opposite, whenever shes breathing heavy and sweating and her blood is rushing from the strain of the heat combined with her physical work, she is so easily turned on by the sight of you, its primal in way, so sometimes when she comes inside all dirty and sweaty and flushed you can tell just from the look she gives you that youre about to be ruined (she will drag you to bed, tear your clothes off and lick and kiss and bite you all over, she gets so into it so fast that all you can do is lay back and make pretty sounds for her as she gets all the pent up energy out of her system, which is a new pleasure for her, the pleasure after-work sex)

shes a very even mix of gentle and aggressive! even though shes much stronger than you, she doesnt get off on the idea of domination, it turns her on way more to think that she is your protector when you when youre having sex, while youre in your most vulnerable state, it turns her on to know that she can hold you in a way that makes you feel weak and eager to sink deeply into that weakness, always gripping you and handling you with a firmness that feels caring and loving no matter how nasty the sex is (she could be in the middle of losing her mind while deep inside you but shed never let that lust and hunger turn her careless or too harsh, you know youll never feel used with her, no matter how hard you fuck, its always tinged with tenderness)

shes strong. very strong….shes been handling animals who weigh much more than the average human for years and when you first started dating you definitely felt a rush when she first grabbed you and you felt the sheer strength of her, it drove you crazyyy to feel how easy it was for her to pull you onto her lap or flip you over or carry you around 😵‍💫

at first, she held back, but when you told her that you trust her and want her to really make you feel how strong she is, she started to get into it during sex, holding you in place or wrapping her arms around you so tight and firm that you mightve just come from that sensation alone... she has stamina that never runs out and prides herself on it, but! when youre giving... its over. doesnt matter how physically strong she is, how firm her muscles are, shes so sensitive to your touch that all of her strength melts away that moment your touch your tongue to her or feel her up or fuck her, shes definitely less composed when youre inside of her than you are when shes in you, she whines and moans so intensely...

shes for sureee big into overstimulation, shes an eager giver when she tops, through and through, so she’ll keep going and going until youre shaking and sweating through the sheets, never in a way that’s punishing, always kissing and caressing you all the way through, whispering sweet things as you come for the fourth or fifth time and eventually tap out, laying on top of her, both of you drenched head to toe but so satisfied, so in love, dozing off until an hour later when you clean up and devour some good food together <3

her sex-drive is prettyyy high but its a consistent thing so she’ more of a "whenever youre down, im down, just tell me" type of person, whereas your bursts of desire are more intense and out of the blue, youre more needy and desperate with it, which works out well because sometimes shell just sit back and wait for you to come onto her, aware that it hardly ever takes long for you to get gripped by a feeling of "i need her now or ill die"

will take risks when it comes to having sex outside, any time, its her property, her land, so she will use it as she sees fit, which includes having you wherever and whenever you two feel like it - it’s rare that youre actually in danger of having someone walk up and see you, but it’s definitely happened once or twice that you lost track of time while messing around in the stables and someone quickly turned back around while coughing loudly to signal to you "wrap it up, people are coming", which always makes her feel kind of smug, the fact that people know damn well how lucky she is, having a girl like you to pull into a stack of hay, savoring the sweet dusty smell of the surroundings mixed with the taste of you while she hikes up your dress or pulls down your shorts and gives you head right there <3

it was a huge fantasy of hers, to have a lover that way, so sometimes you leave the stables with visible prints on your ass and thighs where they hay dug in, picking it off your clothes with her help, shaky legs as you leave her to deal with the people who came to ride their horses, a smile from her when she sees you struggling to walk straight as you go inside to freshen up (or jerk off, to finish what she started, telling her about it afterwards to make her get off to the idea of you in her bed touching yourself while she was outside being all professional..)

she can never ever get enough of seeing you on top of her!!whether it’s you riding her fingers or her strap, grinding down against her thigh, she doesn’t care how, all she wants is to see you lose yourself on her, she’s obsessed... 🫠

also, when shes the one fucking you, you both love using the furniture.. you bent over the kitchen table, one leg propped up on a chair so she has good access, her chest flush against your back, her kissing your neck as she holds you with her arm around your waist and gives to you from the back.. fucking you like that until she turns you back around to have you lay back and relax on the table as she finishes you off, really making use of the steady wooden table when youre squirming and losing it..

early morning sex 💘 she usually wakes up naturally around between 5 and 6 am because as a farmer her days always start pretty early and she loves when you stir and smile at her, still half-asleep and and all cozy and soft, it makes her wanna spoil you, so you often wake up to her gently moving your blanket away, so she can caress you and kiss your body and give you head, nothing too overwhelming, but enough to give you the kind of orgasm that makes you fall right back asleep all satisfied and limp and dazed from the feeling of being half-lucid half-dreaming while she ate you out

youll sleep for two more hours or so while she already gets to work, until you get up and prepare some coffee for her, so she usually takes her first break around 9am and has breakfast with you! you sometimes like to repay her for the way she woke you up by getting on your knees in front of her chair and taste her until she cant take it anymore and gets back up to continue her work, a bit scared she might mishandle a tool with the fresh memory of you looking up at her with a slick chin making her all weak and dizzy..

spit. shes more filthy than she is kinky, give her some intense loving passionate sex with a lot of spit involved and shes over the moon, loves when you spit in her mouth and then kiss her afterwards, when you lick over her chest or neck and leave a glistening trail where your tongue traveled up, when you suck on her fingers to lube them up before she fingers you or jerks you off, when you give her strap sloppy head before taking it all the way in with ease because youre so turned on and it is so wet with your saliva, loves when you let your spit drool onto her cunt before you eat her out 💞

very into sensuality in general, she could spend hours just lazily playing with your pussy and feeling you get wetter and wetter without ever getting bored, she loves to just feel you, having you sit comfortably as she switches between rubbing your clit, your whole outside area, teasing your entrance, and fingering you, shes in love with your cunt and wont ever turn down the chance to just hear you whimper and whine as you relax with your legs spread while she watches your pussy swell and get wet and take her fingers - will coo at you and kiss you wherever she can reach as she tells you how good you feel, will keep it up for as long as you want and you love those moments when you dont feel pressured to orgasm because she loves touching you just for the sake of it, not to get an ego-boost from making you cum (even though she always does, youre too in love with her not to drench her fingers when shes teasing you like that and whispering in your ear)

if you squirt... yeah shes licking it all up and doing exactly what she did before to try and make it happen again, as I said shes filthyyy 😵‍💫 would get so turned on from the sight of you ruining her sheets, would shush you if you apologized and insist that you never ever hold back even if it means she has to do laundry more than usual

her tits are a weak spot, super sensitive </3 her nipples will get hard if the wind blows a little too strong... and before dating you she kinda ignored her chest for the most part but with you she rediscovered the thrill of having her tits sucked while being pleased, sometimes you’ll randomly push her onto the couch and lift up her shirt to kiss her chest just to hear her moan for a few seconds, a little treat for yourself (and her) during the day

vocal. so fucking vocal. she can never ever keep quiet and you only go harder whenever you can tell that shes trying to stifle the sounds, you want them all out in the open, and it usually takes very little time for her to lose her composure which she gets embarrassed by for sure, once the orgasm subsides shes like oh... great. I sounded like ive never had sex in my life. yet again. perfect. but you loveee it, its so hot to you that this woman who is usually perceived as tough and strong and reserved is such a mess in bed

shes spent many years with her beloved truck and for the longest time she had fantasies about fucking in there, which came true once you started dating <3 you love straddling her in her seat when youre parked somewhere secluded, or when you come home from a late night drive, youve definitely fucked in the backseat a few times when she drove you out to a lake or a nice spot where nobody else was around, you both get a thrill out of it, the leather seats, the semi-public feel of it all, the risk factor, the way the car kinda smells like sex when you drive home afterwards (you also love to gawk at her when shes fixing the truck, makes her take her sweet time with it)

loves pillow talk and savoring the post-sex glow, its something she never rushes or skips, shes will move you onto her chest and caress your back or let you lay where you are and kiss your body, eventually resting her head on your stomach so you can stroke her hair, or youll just wrap your arms around each other and stay like that for a while

that post on here thats like "dont shave your bush I will kill myself" thats something she might actually say bc she is for sure soo into bush its one of the most erotic things to her, everything about it, she loves when it tickles her nose, loves the soft feel of it when she puts her hands in your underwear to jerk you off, loves the look of it when you get dressed and your underwear is see-through enough for your bush to peek through, hottt as hell to her

if youre the type to wear lingerie, she’d be very into it, never takes it for granted - one of the hottest things ever to her is when her girl wears clothes that are not what you’d consider fancy or special while wearing the most beautiful, delicate underwear, the contrast kills her every time, the sight of a nice lacy bra peeking out of a tank top that you stole from her... phewww shes on her knees. immediately. same thing with panties, she always interrupts you when youre getting dressed to admire you when youre wearing nothing but a pair of lacy underwear, also loves when you wear regular comfortable cotton underwear, the sight of it wedged between your cheeks somehow makes her wanna take a chunk out of your ass every time.. also loves you in her boxers. everything really, shes a lover of whatever you have going on beneath your clothes <3

face sitting. being the giver in a submissive way is so deeply satisfying for her, so shell often just ask you to ride her face, you might be lying in bed in the afternoon just relaxing kissing a little and shell straight up ask if you want to use her face for a bit, shell happily lay back and use her strength to hold you up by your waist when you get tired and cant really brace yourself against the wall/headboard that well anymore, shell take it all without ever complaining, doesnt matter if you suffocate her, drench her whole face, kinda fuck up her neck, she doesnt care, shell be too drunk on the feel and taste and sight of having you on her like that, staring up at you with glazed over eyes, maybe using one hand to jerk herself off because shes too turned on and cant take it..

maybe one time she was feeling wild and told you to do it while you were wearing a dress outside, her just laying down on the lawn and telling you do it right there bc you could climb off her fast if someone did happen to come around the corner - again, she might be private and reserved but being caught isnt really an issue for her, shed just be like "and what. I will have my girl the way I want when I want, deal with it."

didnt use any toys on her own but can definitely get down with them when its with you! I think she might be too shy to suggest this but she’d absolutely lose her mind if she saw you riding a toy to get off, like you straddling it on her bed to give her the chance to see you from whatever angle she wants, unlike when youre riding her and she cant see you from far away etc. - I also think shes the type of lover who wants to know/see how you masturbate, or how you did it before you met her, its such a private thing and I think she loves the idea of being trusted with that information <3

rediscovered her love of receiving/bottoming with you - with hookups she usually only let them do things that didnt feel too vulnerable, i dont think she let any of them see her in positions that made her feel too exposed, but with you she feels safe enough to admit that she does like being on her hands and knees, that she likes to be finger-fucked until shes near tears, that she sometimes likes to just have her face in the pillows as you eat her out or touch her from the back, its not something that happens too often bc it does require a lot of trust on her part, but when shes really horny and youre being sweet and kissing her all over to get her worked up shell sometimes cave and beg you to just do whatever you want and get rough with her

especially with a younger partner shes turned on by the idea that someone who has less experience can ruin her like that, its a nice secret to have because she knows a lot of people would look at a lesbian who looks like her and assume that shes a top, but shes a switch through and through, would never give up one or the other

she wears a thin gold chain that she hardly ever takes off, so sometimes when youre fucking it dangles over your face, or you pull her in for a kiss by gently tugging at it <3

one time you found a playboy from her exact birth year and month at the antique book/magazine store and brought it home for her, which was more of a silly present but she did find it sweet/hot and left it on the coffee table as decor (you made her flip through it with you and teased her by pointing out which models you assumed she found the hottest, which she shut down by saying "well I would do the same to you right now but theyre all like what.. twenty years too young for you?", so you doubled-down and said "oh dont flatter yourself, I like women my age too", so she did briefly have a fantasy of you getting with a girl your own age as she watches you two, which struck a nerve, but she kept that to herself, at least for the time being..)

youre obsessed with her physique because she has the distinct shape of someone who earned their muscles through hard work, who didnt try to grow them out of a need to become as big as possible but who genuinely needs to be strong to do their daily tasks, so her muscles are not cartoonish or over the top, she just has a firmness to her stomach and thighs and back thats hottt as hell to you, her abs are subtle but theyre there, and your absolute weak spot: her V-line. when shes wearing a shirt thats too short to cover up the spot right above her pants and you can see those lines that lead down into her underwear.. it’s over. youre staring shamelessly, and she pretends she doesnt notice but she loveees it, shell lay back and stretch out her legs and count you gawking at the sight of her exposed stomach 😵‍💫

sometimes when shes tired she’ll just lay flat on her back on the bed, arms and legs spread out and let you crawl all over her, feel her up, do whatever the fuck you want, shes happy to just lay there and take it all, so you usually spoil her and kiss and touch her all over before getting to anything more intense, straddling her, playing with her hair, teasing her, kissing her neck, massaging her, biting her, you know she loves being trapped and helpless while shes exhausted and eager to be showered in affection <3

the first time you were with her when she said "good girl" to her horse you grinned and asked "who, me or her?", so she shot you a smug look and said "what are you doing right now thats praise worthy, hm?" but she definitely took note of it and brought it up later on in bed, which did make her say it less to her horse from that point on (oops..)

one time during your first weeks of dating you couldnt ride your designated horse because you were too sore from the night before and the friction hurt too badly.. she felt a little guilty so she kissed it better after she couldnt help but laugh when you climbed off and said "yeah not today, no fucking way" while pointing between your legs

loves having her hair pulled, sometimes she puts her hair up in a ponytail during sex just so you can easily tug on it to bend her neck and kiss her skin there <3

if you 69 she is always the one whose face is getting smothered, always, she wouldn’t like it if it was the other way around, but every once in a while when youre both in heat and desperate to fuck the other person, she’ll eat you out while you’re trying to hold your hips up over her mouth while you’re jerking her off/struggling to taste her bc of your moaning </3, you both love orgasming at the same time, being together in that state of helplessness, it’s something you crave

if you lost your virginity to her, I think shed offer for you to do something to her that nobody has ever done before to make it kind of even that way, its mostly her way of adding to the sentiment of "I want us to be equals" because she never wants you to feel like shes eager to overpower you or see you as a girl she gets to "corrupt", maybe you laid in bed once and she told you this and she took a moment too long to try and think of something that no lover has ever done to her so you jokingly said "whore." - but youre creative, so you definitely found things that you would be her "first" for

if youre feeling freaky hear me out.. maybe youre the first to ever put your whole hand inside of her. would take a good amount of patience and lubrication but I can see her getting off on it sooo intensely once you manage to slip all of your fingers inside of her... you staring in awe and telling her how hot it feels, and slowly, very slowly, moving your hand a bit.. I think being so full of her lover would ruin her so hard. and she’d be turned on from knowing that none of her longtime girlfriends ever got to do it to her. anway.

her sexual preferences always depends on yours in the sense that she wants to know what you need and then give it to you, if you just want your brains fucked out she’ll gladly give in, if you want to pleasure her without being touched in return shes down as well, if you want both shes never gonna deny you, which means! that when she does allow herself to take charge every now and then by manhandling you and telling you "come here" or "lay back" it ruins you because youre not used to it, she looves the look you get when she decides to be a bit rough for once

to put it plainly: your pleasure is her pleasure, always!

thats all for now! feel free to let your own imagination fill in the rest 💌

#most of these are pretty elaborate bc I had a lot on my mind and had fun with it!#this is Van if she made a drastic change in her 20s and built a peaceful quiet life for herself and didnt eat candy for breakfast #also shes more muscular/fit than in the show so maybe do yourself the favor of picturing that aspect very vividly #I might write a fic for this down the line lets see :) for now heres all of this #yellowjackets #van palmer x reader #yellowjackets x reader #van palmer

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fumifooms · 4 months ago

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Marcille and Chilchuck’s interwoven character arcs: the fantasy of prince charming, idealization vs pessimism and loss

I’ve alluded to Marcille and Chilchuck being central to each other’s arcs so many times but the proper full analysis has been long overdue. I’ve made a post going into their differences and similarities and the many ways they’re foils for each other, but this is going to give more focus to a narrative rather than character angle this time around. We talk a lot about the importance of Marcille in Chilchuck’s arc, it's more obvious overall, but less so about Chilchuck’s importance in her own, so this is going to emphase on the latter. When talking about fantasy vs reality, usually optimism is associated with fantasy and pessimism with reality, but that's not the full picture either. Both situations and relationships can be layered and subtext can imply quite a lot, the reality of things can be more complex than we'd like or hard to reconcile, and that's exactly what we're talking about today and how that is a lesson both Marcille and Chilchuck needed to learn. Give this a shot and look at the manga pages alongside my reading and decide for yourself whether I’ve got a point or I’m going overboard~!

So, Marcille and Chilchuck are character foils in many many ways, and I think a particularly brilliant part of their arc is how they balanced each other out on idealization. On one hand, idealizing things means only seeing what you want to see through rose-colored glasses, on the other, being completely opposed to it usually means denouncing any optimism at all, refusing to hold any good faith or hope. These stances reflect both their backgrounds, as Chilchuck has lived through being discriminated against and taken advantage of consistently, betrayed by employers and eventually the person supposed to be closest to him, his wife, meanwhile Marcille grew up more sheltered and lonely, and books were a big way through which she experienced social situations & the ways of the world in her rural home before going to the magic academy as a researcher and getting more actual life experience herself.

I think it’s especially interesting to analyze the trope of— the idealization of— the perfect chivalrous prince on a white horse who is pure hearted and will make you swoon, in the context of their relationship and their arcs! It’s a recurring motif- you’ll just have to trust me and read further~ Obviously this contains spoilers for the whole manga, so beware! It's very long because I'm trying to cover the topic fully from the ground up, my apologies.

Table of contents:

How they start out

The Daltian Clan and its importance

Prince Charming vs Chilchuck Tims

Ideals vs desires vs wants

Deconstructing realistic romance & compromising between romanticism and reality

Princess imagery in Marcille

Conclusion

Let’s start with the beginning:

How the characters start off:

Their relationship is both familiar and strained (extra reading: analysis of their relationship pre-canon and early canon), they bounce off each other with the ease of coworkers who’ve been working together for two years and who share similar common sense. Because yes they’re both generally grounded and rational, and generally they respect each other’s input and perspective, but, they both have blind spots…

The biggest hurdle is the way Chilchuck refuses to open up. Marcille has made efforts to befriend him, and though he was open to developing a better workplace dynamic and, say, helping her out with shopping for a pouch outside of work, even if it ended up being counterproductive he’d refuse to even just say his age, let alone share anything about his family situation. Knowing he had kids and a wife would have pretty efficiently fully shut down that he was a kid, and yet he valued being closed off more. Chilchuck is often shown being pessimistic, assuming the worst intentions out of people and being wary of anything good happening, being the last person to trust something or someone, etc. (Quick summary analysis of him I made if you want here, beyond the character foil analysis I linked at the beginning.) He prefers assuming that opening up will only bring him problems to assuming that it'd bring about positive things.

Meanwhile Marcille is very… Honestly she’s hard to classify strongly. Because I could say she’s very open to people, but honestly it’s conditional? She emotes intensely but she’s not quite a befriending machine either, especially when we recall the magic academy days as well, she’s not unused to keeping people at some level of distance, herself keeping a lot of secrets too. She was very wary of Laios at first because she had misconceptions, she holds grudges and isn’t personable with everyone like Namari or Toshiro, when she’s introduced to the party she seems serious and doesn’t smile. While I don’t fully agree, there’s a good analysis not by me here showcasing what I’m talking about. Marcille’s more serious academic side often gets undermined and I think it’s an important part of her, but then the difference between her and Chilchuck comes down to theory vs practice: knowledge vs experience. I think something more fitting to say would be that she’s idealistic and easily swayed, for example the way she lights up whenever she can put a story-like twist on things, her mood can go from dread to hype and reverse in one second, like with riding a kelpie or with the conflict between Chilchuck and his wife, or again with Namari, where it becomes a sort of hero vs antagonist dynamic for her where justice and righteous thoughts should override everything else like needing money to live. She's very stubborn, like he is, but it's easier for her to come around in dramatic ways, on things big and small, mentioning for another example thinking better of orcs suddenly because they can cook well.

So sure on first meeting she isn’t exactly eager, but then we do see her enthusiastically trying to befriend everyone! Becoming very friendly once she’s done assessing them. She is social, and fittingly she’s very curious about people. And that said, aesthetics do matter a lot to her, and I mean this beyond just enjoying vibes, for example- and follow along the lingo I'm setting up here- if something ‘breaks’ an aesthetic like Chilchuck or Falin not being a child she’ll willfully dismiss and ignore it, if she can spin something into a story like Chilchuck’s breakup she’ll get carried away, she can get the wrong impression, be gullible for the sake of believing a narrative, such and such. I’d say she’s guarded around people at first, but then with time becomes an open book emotions wise, how she’s always loudly and unapologetically talking about her feelings and emoting. She’s not reckless, rather she’s bold and often has to make decisions quickly, like when the plan unexpectedly changed during the red dragon fight, but things like using dark magic can feel like thoughtless decisions looking from the outside, like to Chilchuck, who as per his pessimism dictates he sees all of this in a negative light, assumes the worst: that she’s just ignorant, naive and reckless. She’s easily worried and discouraged but still always perseveres.

He's biased against mages and elves because of past experiences and he projects that onto Marcille. And it makes sense because good faith is dangerous to Chilchuck- for his feelings in relationships yes, but more concretely and important for his life at work, the way an old party of his was going to sacrifice him to succubi for easy money. Like the way he constantly puts his non-work values down to the group so they don’t have high expectations of him, having high expectations for someone else is vulnerability he doesn’t want to or cannot afford. The result however is that he, too, put people into boxes to avoid having his preconceived notions challenged. He's very judgemental, which we see with Laios as well, and even with Izutsumi in the ice golem chapter, but by then he's learned to self-reflect more and be honest with his feelings due to Leed, meaning his social conflicts get resolved more often and more quickly, again like with Izutsumi in the ice golem chapter.

So in the end, there are things that stand in the way of them having true, equal respect for one another. She sees him as a kid despite everything else (being capable and mature, etc etc), and he sees her as a ticking bomb of a naive elf mage who’s gonna get herself into legal trouble if she doesn’t get them killed first.

And it takes an arc spanning the whole manga for them to get there, to truly see each other on equal footing, culminating with the bicorn chapter.

I'm going to be mentioning them a lot so in my mind, the most important Marcille & Chilchuck arc defining scenes happen in: mandrake chapter, mimic chapter, shapeshifter chapter, hypogriff soup chapter, changelings, bicorn, succubus, and Marcille dungeon lord. We're talking mostly about Marcille's discrimination and their narrative about loss here, but on the end of Chilchuck's discrimination the dark magic plot is very central so honorable mention to the red dragon chapters, the harpies chapter and the cockatrice chapter, the latter where Chilchuck airs out his beef particularly directly.

Interestingly enough, the mandrake chapter which is in VERY early manga, where characters and dynamics are still being set up, Marcille gets Chilchuck to say that she isn't a burden and that he's glad they have her and her skillset with them, so the question of "does he respect her at all" was answered before the audience could even think to ask it, and Marcille also makes statements shortly after showing she respects him in turn- more on that later. This has for a result that we do know there's a foundation of respect here, even when as said it's not complete... yet.

So let’s get into it! Early on we already get a lot instances hinting at their opposed core values of optimism vs pessimism. It’s perfectly summarized in the two panel excerpts opening this post: "Sounds romantic!" "Sounds fishy.", hope vs wariness. "Meeting you was fate!" "… Which means it’s fate for you to eat these monsters, too!", if good things happening to you is fate then you must accept that all the bad things that happen to you are fate as well. It’s "Things will work out!" vs "Things will not work out".

The issue here seems rather evident, it’s a balancing game. Compromising, adapting your judgement to the situation. Yes Marcille romanticizes things too much and it can cause her trouble, and yes Chilchuck being so closed off on himself gets him into trouble as well.

(Not telling there was a mimic nearby being maybe the most straightforward example.)

His refusal to hope for anything good happening to him ever is at the core of him not having even tried reconciling with his wife (more on that later with the bicorn chapter). Through the manga, Chilchuck influences her to be more savvy and to respect boundaries more (with himself and Namari for example), while she influences him to become more open and give things a go. It’s no coincidence that it’s Marcille that pushes him to try reconciling with his wife and gives him hope that it just might work out- that that chance even on its own means it's worth giving it a shot.

The Daltian Clan & its importance

The importance of fiction in some people's lives and their specific psychological relationship to it is a very complex human brain topic with many many studies and an infinite amount of subtleties, I can't possibly do justice to this section at its full potential but I'll go over my major points. But the complex and layered nature of this relationship is why, for example, the interpretation that Marcille is a lesbian despite her likely attraction/love for male fictional characters (if not even just simping or stanning separate from those), has legs to stand on and is a compelling angle!

The Daltian Clan, often shortened as Dalclan, is Marcille's favorite book series and is very very personally important to her. In an extra we learn that part of it is that seeing a half-elf character personally reached out to her and meant a lot. She feels seen through it. Even if it's notable that the half-elf haracter isn't her favorite, general Hagreus, but the one with black hair. It's a Cinderella type of romance & convoluted political intrigue series full with a lot of drama, reminiscent of stuff like Romeo & Juliette or Richard III.

I believe that books were developmentally very important for her, similarly as to how cartoons are important to the education and development of toddlers and kids nowadays, or how oral stories like fairytales have always been important to teach lessons. Fiction engages readers and provides emotional stimulation, which can often be a flawed substitute for actual human contact- but nonetheless a big factor in socialization. For Marcille who lived in a rather rural region surrounded by books and chickens, who couldn't fit in with kids of any age around, books were a major part of teaching her how to socialize, how people and social groups worked. This is also part of why the autistic Marcille angle can be very compelling and plausible, though personally I don't see it that way.

So yes I think that sort of upbringing shaped her a lot, and I think it's part of why Marcille has trouble not putting people into boxes... Why even though Falin assured her it wasn't like that, Marcille had made this whole narrative in her mind painting Laios as a villain that stole Falin away against her will/for nefarious purposes. Why she has trouble not thinking of/treating Falin as a kid, unwilling to process how she has grown up. Why Chilchuck has to be very young in her mind, and it was very very hard for her to reconcile the fact that he wasn't. (It's actually interesting to note that Marcille treats Falin and Chilchuck similarly in a lot of ways, overstepping boundaries, being dimissive and touchy- There's a lot to say about how the party dynamic changed a lot with during canon it becoming just Laios, Marcille and Chilchuck at first and Laios' monster interest reveal, notably that in Falin's absence that she may have latched onto Chilchuck and treats him similarly to Falin may be her finding it omforting to fall into habits or filling a hole.) I think complexity in fictional characters gets her gears turning, but there's always a film of impersonality to it right, where it's not real, there's a safe distance, if you want to form romantic narratives about how things went down and a character's angst, you can, but someone who’s real… Things are often uglier or harder to grapple with. And she doesn’t want Falin to have grown up, for her to so quickly have aged. I think applying this sort of storybook veneer onto her real life connections, pushing people into boxes, is a way for her to make social relationships more digestible. And she's a big gossip enjoyer too! Engaging in shallow retellings of people's interpersonal drama, eating it up with enthusiasm and curiosity. Part of it, like with novels, is vicariously living through others I think, experiencing making connections where she hasn't or couldn't, the way her relationship with the other girls at the academy besides Falin stayed distant and shallow despite being friendly. Gossip, like stories, are safe, distant from your own life, they're easy to judge, not unlike the irl popular interest in following others’ online drama. You’re not involved yourself, so you don’t have as much chance of getting hurt. So yes, easier to digest. Less complex, less unpleasant things and less contradictions that are hard to process. Sort of like a defense mechanism to not have your worldview challenged, dodging having to recognize these things by assigning them tropes. And I think part of it too like I implied is: she can’t experience actual loss through books and gossip. They give her emotional social stimulation she doesn’t fully allow herself to have with actual humans for fear of getting invested in a way that’s very raw and personal. Again, like how she pushes Falin away to ignore the more nuanced facets to their relationship! The intensity of what I’m speculating on here in her character is debatable but I do think it’s present at least in some amount.

In a similar way to dogs being important to Laios’ social life (I made something of an analysis on that if you're interested, but this one's not relevant to what I'm talking about in this post) books are her comfort zone. If she can compare a real situation to a story it brightens everything and, well, it does make her assume things wrongly often but it also makes her able to analyze people deeply, like the roleplay-theory-speculation about Chilchuck's wife and the way she hit bullseye on how Chilchuck felt in the aftermath. But like how Marcille only agreed to wear the frog suit when the party told her it'd look cute on her, or how thinking about riding on kelpies made her excited for what previously she saw as a tedious and dreadful journey. Special interest power blast.

And this is where comes in her coworker, a disillusioned embittered man.

A guy who knows all about how messed up the world & people can be and isn't afraid to say it how it is, who in every sphere of life has field experience rather than fictional one- with romance, work, and having dreams & ambitions. Someone flawed and real, someone who won't let her interpret him however she wants without confronting her about it & challenging her to change her perspective.

It took a looot for Marcille to fully stop seeing him as a kid, and in a way I think it was necessary for the dissonance to be both this hard to reconcile and this impossible to ignore: that he truly is a middle-aged man down to his demeanor and family background but that he looks like a teen at most to her. That she literally has to look beyond aesthetics to be able to first fathom then accept and internalize that he's an adult despite his looks. That it was so ingrained and took so long, so much that even while she recognized and said "He's usually the most mature one of us", so much that even as it's implied that she knew logically he's an adult before the changelings, as pictured earlier she still couldn't conceive it. It's like with her calling Laios and Falin's parents kids in a post-canon extra, it's not that she doesn't know it's that it's hard to wrap her head around. Necessary and important because, if Chilchuck was any less loud about being a man she could have gone on unchallenged in her assumptions. If it was an easier to dismantle misconception, something easier to digest, then her arc of coming to see him as he is would have had less impact on her character, afterwards she could continue to run with her own interpretations of people like Falin and Namari without her confidence in being able to pin down people into simple roles being so fundamentally shaken. And it's notable too, that Namari's choice to leave the party to look out for herself situation was decidedly unheroic, but it was Chilchuck who spoke to Marcille about why her decision was both reasonable and had a lot of thought behind it, making her accept that it doesn't make Namari a bad person or even a bad coworker or friend.

Chilchuck is someone who knows that sometimes, bad things happen for no reason, and it's not meaningful or part of a grand narrative, it just sucks and you have to deal with it.

As the foil to her very emotional black and white interpretations of things, Chilchuck represents nuance, and he's impossible for her to ignore.

Prince Charming vs Chilchuck Tims

Chilchuck is so obviously not a prince charming. He doesn't have the looks, the attitude nor the lifestyle. Does he have the virtues for it? Well, no... But also, yes. More on that in a bit. It's also interesting to think of the status aspect to it, because being from an impoverished oppressed class/community is so central to Chilchuck's character, something usually far removed from prince charmings and white knights, and not only status wise but on the topic of virtues... It’s an interesting thread to explore, the way one may have the means to remain chivalrous rather than becoming distrustful and embittered: sometimes optimism is a sign of privilege, being able to be or remain optimistic through life. I'm sure Marcille would be the first to jump onto the aesthetic and narrative allure of a pauper in love with a princess, of a hero of the people à la Robin Hood, but it's still interesting to think of that as another facet of the contrast Chilchuck makes. Alright, tangent done.

But obviously, despite this all they have a great work dynamic and respect for each other's capabilities. It's not like Marcille is mean to people who don't fit these fairytale high standards, no that’s only when she feels wronged or if there's injustice, rather she becomes dismissive of people’s complexity, wether they become an angel like Falin or Marcille’s shapeshifter of Chilchuck or a villain like Namari and Toshiro or Laios when they met. But my point, my point: she actually thinks very highly of him!

"He’s usually the most mature one of us" "He’s dependable, we’re counting on him" "No, chilchuck is definitely virtuous."

And I think the ways in which that shows are very interesting.

^ Ok so this happens, in the Namari chapter I keep talking about. Look at his expression in this last panel. He's always teasing her, but doesn't this here feels a bit... Suggestive? Like he's implying things, not just talking about it in a work setting but also giving her general life advice. Maybe even making an innuendo for womanizers, gentlemen who flirt without meaning a thing and have some hidden agenda. Warning her about smooth talkers that seem too good to be true. It’s honestly a very easy to overlook but defining interaction for them. It’s a quote that’s on his Adventurer’s Bible plus his anime quote keychain merch!

I love his implication that "I say what I’m about straight up, money, so you can trust me"- and isn’t that just the exact thing… Because that is what this is, he’s pitting himself against these people who help without asking for anything and he's saying he’s more trustworthy and reliable than them, driving a wedge between him and those people to prop himself up by comparison. His words tie a lot here into his general worldview too, of course here he's ✨Imparting His Wisdom✨, but it also ties into his self-image issues I'd say, where he’s hard on himself and calls himself a coward etc: if no one has positive expectations for you on an interpersonal level, then you can’t disappoint them. It only goes up from here if you start at rock bottom, can't have unpleasant surprises.

But the meaningfulness of this moment doesn't start and end there: That moment happened in chapter 20, but then this happens in chapters 36-37...

I was always puzzled by the split second interaction between Marcille and Kabru. Marcille blushing is the point, it’s in the anime too and it’s the focus of the panel. That moment of hesitation before she goes back into business mode where she looks at him back, and blushes. And idk I always felt like it was weird timing, like it was a weird beat Kui chose to put emphasis on, why the story even had them make eye contact in the first place, what point it could be making besides "Kabru is handsome and charismatic" which was already made with Hien and Benichidori below, otherwise it's not even like Marcille and Kabru ever interact. Like, maybe it's for it to be a callback when she glances at him while the canaries interrogate her at Thistle's house? Regardless, she blushes, but her expression is more akin to a "Uuhh he smiled at me why’d he smile at me like that. Oh he’s kinda pretty. Well anyways-" rather than swooning or truly checking him out. She’s frowning, even. And like I said, being very naturally charming was a point already made previously.

But then… This repeated reminder that Kabru is a lady killer IS the point, Marcille reacting to him in that way IS the point. Kabru is the epitome of ‘will say they help you but has hidden motives and might betray your trust if it serves their interest’ (not a diss on him tbf he has understandable goals), he is the epitome of looking noble, welcoming and chivalrous but actually being dishonest and manipulative, and what’s important here is… Marcille turns away and sticks by Chilchuck. Of course this is logical, no one would expect her to go running to Kabru lol, but I implore you to think of the thematics of it all, a princely guy, the closest character of the cast in the flesh embodying the prince charming persona, is giving her some positive attention, and it does affect her a bit but nonetheless she turns away, and strategizes with Chilchuck instead of trusting or giving good faith or getting carried away. She chooses Chilchuck. Unlike so often, she doesn’t let aesthetics sway her here, get in the way of her better judgement, distract her from the point. She chooses not to give good faith, even if he seems charming and friendly and smiles. Marcille is serious when the situation requires it that's now new, but this is in line with the lesson he instilled earlier above. And if nothing else, Marcille has a good memory, exhibit B to come later. Here we see part of why Chilchuck was afraid of Laios or Senshi but not Marcille blurting out the wrong things with Toshiro and is party, when push comes to shove they're often on the same wavelength. Marcille and Chikchuck do strategize with specifically each other regularly, they do tend to pair up a lot after all, so this isn’t especially new, but it’s the first time there’s this sense of us vs them imo. Like how earlier Chilchuck was saying that he’s better than the smooth talker type, here we see Marcille implicitly agree.

She just has a passing glance & thought for Kabru but she knows her true allies and true values, and she wants to strategize with Chilchuck. What I am saying is that if she was given the choice to think through going with a guy that seems perfect and chivalrous like her succubus, if she was logical about it she’d pick Chilchuck over that guy actually, yeah. At the end of the day, no matter the pretty smiles, she knows who her actual friends are. Whiiich on that topic, next section!

Ideals vs desires vs wants

It's succubus analysis time

Her succubus is quite direcly a prince figure, a knight on a white horse who's come to whisk her away. He calls her princess, even! She's taken the role of Daltian Clan's protagonist, essentially. He kisses her hand, nothing short of the most classic courtly romance tropes. He's even drawn in a noticeably more shoujo style, not unlike the characters' faces in the aftermath of getting their energy sucked by succubi.

I made a whole analysis on specifically Laios’ succubus but it covers some stuff that could be interesting for this analysis as well, I’ll repeat the essential stuff tho: Their succubus all show what type of social connection they desire. Izutsumi’s is familial, Marcille wants someone she can emotionally connect with, seemingly romantic, Chilchuck wants something physical and sexual so he doesn’t have to think and worry about anything deeper (betrayal, insecurities, etc, the difficulting that come with a committed romantic relationship- also likely related to his senses & stress), and Laios wants people and friends who’ll accept him and his monster interest- platonic.

But more interesting for this analysis is how succubi work. The goal isn’t to beckon, but to incapacitate. The succubus doesn't work on the basis of rationality, it’s not a factor they go for and it’s not one they need to appeal to either, as we see. (Laios is a special case -gestures to the linked analysis- but the succubus doesn’t appeal to his rationality as much as it soothes his worries, his friends judging him etc etc, and the reason Izutsumi could remain unaffected is that there is always a half of her not enthralled by the succubus because she essentially has two souls.) Neither Marcille, Chilchuck or Izutsumi could realistically expect any of the people they saw to be real and not fake succubis. They KNOW that, they were actively preparing for the succubi to jump on them and fight back, rationally they know they're monsters! But how this monster works is that it targets deep desires within you that when face to face with it'll make you hesitate, make something in you unable to fight or flight and instead do the third instinctive option: freeze. Or especially in Laios’ case, the form gives the victim just enough confliction on the matter for them to want to believe it’s real. All they have to do is just not move, stay passive and accept the attention, so it’s not an issue of wether they reciprocate an action or run away. It's so that it shortcircuits you and leaves you open to pick like a fruit.

If this wasn’t the "reads your heart so deeply that it freezes you to the spot" monster, Chilchuck WOULDN’T be doing anything with these women. He’s been devoted to his wife even 4 years after separation on bad terms, you think he’d ever cheat on her? If this was a decision he were to make, instead of just freezing, he would reject it. In that similar way, Marcille’s succubus might not be what she’d rationally go for. You think if this was what Marcille had to choose, the person she wants most to see and at her side, her most alluring form wouldn't be Falin, alive and well? You think that wouldn't be the thing Laios truly wants most as well? And before people say that canon proved that the latter wasn't with the curse the winged lion put on him, THAT'S THE POINT!!!! You can irrationally desire things, you can desire things to degrees so deep you can’t change it even if you wish you could, but if it was truly a choice up to you, you'd choose otherwise. Laios decided to become king, even if that's a lifestyle so far from what he truly wanted, even if it is duty more than fun for him. Like how Chilchuck would choose faithfulness despite for sure having come into contact with many beauties through his four years of separation.

Ideals vs reality are a big Dunmeshi theme in general, same as wants vs needs, and you can see Marcille’s daydreams and novel themes make it an especially relevant throughline and theme for her. Not unlike how in my opinion General Hareus and Mithrun intentionally look very alike to contrast reality vs fantasy!

Marcille never reacts any particular way to Mithrun’s appearance despite the blatant resemblance, so that makes me think the point/joke is meta rather than character focused. The romanticization of elves and their societal drama in their fiction contrasting heavily with a very real and imperfect product of their military system. The canaries certainly aren’t glamorous next to whatever military Hareus is the general of. There’s even the fun little details like Hagreus’ lips being drawn with extra details because they’re full and pretty while Mithrun’s lips are drawn with extra details because they’re chapped and dehydrated. Hence the fantasy vs reality theme, both in that fantasies can be very disappointing when realized and in that they may not be what you actually want past your mind palace. Marcille doesn't even react to him- which we could almost directly parallel to how pretty young blondes is Chilchuck's type but he never seems to make a big deal of Marcille- he still wants his wife.

So yes, themes of what you actually want vs irrational cravings. Base desires vs actual wants. Needs are also separate, but not relevant for this discussion. To get to the specific definitions I’m using for the words in this section’s header, ideals vs wants vs desires: ideals are your ideal of something, the best degree to which a thing could be tailored to you, and it can be derived from both wants and desires, usually a mix of the two, but for example: I’d say the succubus is a type of ideal (the platonic ideal of allure to the victim) derived solely from desires, because a want is active rather than passive, acted upon rather than suffered, because a want unlike a desire involves thinking things through. So a want: something you want, you take actions towards getting or achieving it, it can be a very strong feeling but it’s something you pursue or wish to pursue. Finding a cure to death is a want, not wanting to be alone is a desire, see, I’m assigning desire this more primal or unchanging subconscious nature to it. On the flipside with Chilchuck, sex without ties, easy pleasure, is a desire, but the want is not having to think about his marriage situation because it’s painful, not wanting an emorional connection because it’s all the easier to be hurt with, just wanting to take his mind off of everything for a while.

Thus the succubus targets Marcille’s wish for a perfect knight who could cherish her forevermore, someone safe and known and fantastical, just hers in a way, free to see and construct however she wants because he’s a character to interpret, and it targets Chilchuck’s wish for pleasure that’ll whisk him away from the stress and pressure and reality of his life, something that’ll make him feel both good and desirable and emotionally uncompromised, not unlike what alcohol does, as he says he likes having his fine senses dulled in the changeling chapter. Idealization is twisting the image of something in your mind to be closer to what you want, but usually mostly desire on a more subconscious level, to be true, almost a wish, sometimes but not always hand in hand with idolization which is to put something on a pedestral. Idealizing things that are easier to reconcile with mostly, in Marcille’s case: it’s easier to believe that Chilchuck is very young and it’s easier to stomach that Falin hasn’t aged much, it's easier to believe Falin is an angel who can do no wrong and if she left with Laios it's not that she chose to leave Marcille, and it's easier to believe Chilchuck is just a moody closed off youngster than an embittered old man. It can be done to people as much as concepts, like the idea/plan to give everyone a 1000 years lifespan, surely that'd do really well and everyone would love it. Wants and desires are both very often about changing reality after all, wether it be your situation or an event in your past or a law of the world like death, but wants are mostly through actions and since desires are more subconscious it can lead to self-delusion easily. Like with succubi, wants engage with your rationality so they target desires instead. The demon's strategy isn't too far off, either, feeding into both and using underlying desires to manipulate its victims. Dungeon Meshi is in part yes about resisting desires, the irrational cravings, mostly through the character of the demon. I mentioned needs earlier, and to ideals vs wants we also add vs needs, both emotional and physical, and needs alongside wants are what Dungeon Meshi wishes to promote for a healthier person, Dungeon Meshi which illustrates very well with the dungeon lords that you can be a slave to your desires.

The parallel between succubi and demons is intentional. The demon is in fact the origin of the succubus myth in-world. No wonder they operate similarly in many ways- the succubi are in a way a more simple straightforward version of the demon, with less convoluted strategies and less intricate manipulation.

Of course the succubus each character sees does say something about their characters, but what I’m saying is we shouldn’t assign choice or morality to it as if it wasn’t an ethereal monster whose whole biology is focused on being able to freeze people through appealing to desires, much like how we can’t fault people for falling for demons’ manipulations. Like that’s their WHOLE thing and they use mind control through enticement shenanigans. I know people sometimes fault Chil for his succubi and if you want here’s my stance.

Point of this whole thing is, people can rationally choose things that are different from their deeper desires, like in truth Falin’s safety being more important to Laios than becoming a monster. Like how Marcille stayed with Chilchuck to strategize instead of wanting to give good faith to Kabru. Yes, this is the main point I'm coming at with this section lol. Marcille idealizes and idolizes the figure of a perfect prince charming, undoubtedly! But when it comes to what she actually wants, not in some ideal fantay world but in reality, she knows Chilchuck and her imperfect friends are some of the best she could ask for. She's content with them as they are. She would choose a flawed reality over a perfect fantasy.

That's a big part of what her dungeon lord arc is about too, all her tendencies to ignore what others want for what she thinks is best for them or thinks is a perfect course of action: accepting that people are complex with different wants, and that something that's a no-brainer to her like wanting to live for a long long time is a solid no for many. And Laios and the party confront her about it, and Marcille, even under the influence of a demon, chooses to accept reality. Chooses to accept that there are some things that, even were she to be able to, she shouldn’t change after all (even for stuff that’s not forcing everyone to live for a millenium, like bringing Falin back from the dead is something that the party and Marcille had to come to terms with maybe not working and the way they went about it was self-centered). She chooses to come back to herself and the party, to accept the world as it is even if flawed and sometimes hurtful.

And hm, I wonder if Chilchuck had any role in the lead up to that particular decision... I wonder if Chilchuck was a major influence in teaching Marcille that the world isn't perfect and her internalizing things that were outside of her bubble!! I wonder if Chilchuck was directly what made Macille turn towards her party and thus start thinking of giving up on being dungeon lord!! Joking, joking, of course it does. To be continued, see you in the princess imagery section at the end of this essay.

Essentially, this section is to show that: 1) despite what her succubus may suggest, she has indeed grown by that point in the manga compared to pre-canon and her overly idealistic simple black and white vision of things, and it doesn't prove the ‘choosing her friends over a prince thing’ wrong, and 2) despite how deeply ingrained romanticism is in her and how it calls out to her, she still has chosen and continues to choose reality and her friends over it. How fantasy is important to her and how much she loves it, and her having the will not to mindlessly succumb to it coexist and it's that resistance against fantastical ideals that speaks of her as a character so much.

And what does that mean, for Chilchuck? For him and Marcille?

Deconstructing realistic romance AKA compromising between romanticism and reality AKA Chilchuck Tims vs Prince Charming part 2

So what we’ve covered so far is that 1: idealization is something that Marcille does a lot, including concerning Chilchuck, 2: the prince/knight figure is meaningful & important to her, 3: Marcille isn’t a lost cause on it, and for instance, much like how she stops harping on Namari after Chilchuck explains to her how professional reputations and networking work, he can change her mind on things.

Let’s get back to their prejudices of each other for a bit. You might have to zoom in for this one.

Her shapeshifters of both Chil and Laios are influenced a lot by looks and impressions. She’s very adamant about Laios and Falin not looking alike at all, for one. Marcille’s view of Chilchuck’s lockpicks are surprisingly accurate. Meanwhile, despite their first big relationship moment during canon being about how he’s glad to have her and her skills for the dungeon dive, he still ridiculizes her magic somewhat with the crude spellbook. She’s still silly and tease-worthy to him, even while he praises her like in the good medicine chapter with Leed he says it himself in the same breath. Silly, or "ridiculous" depending on the translation, is somewhat ambiguous, but I assign it the meaning of 'thoughtlessly reckless', like how again in the good medicine chapter when he's saying this he's referring to Marcille's future job prospects, because law and career are important to conform to for him. Despite this, their shapeshifters’ behaviors are accurate, although Marcille’s Chilchuck is nicer and less bitterly reclusive. Note how it's Marcille's chilchuck that makes it furthest and how why she thinks hers is the true one is that her Chilchuck "looks less mean"- this is what I mean when I say she idealizes him and sees him as a little angel, along with his fluffier hair it gives us the perspective of why she'd find him so hair-ruffable and why she likes sticking to him so much, I suppose.

Marcille's arc of not seeing Chilchuck for what he is has steps, it's not like Senshi who does an 180 seeing his changeling. There are a couple of important moments for it that tell us her progress and changes her perspective: Him telling his age -> the shapeshifters (our best look into an objective assessment of her perspective) -> reveal that he has a wife and kid(s) (fully shattering her denial) -> seeing him as a changeling (true reckoning. Putting the nail in the coffin of what reality is) -> bicorn chapter (acceptance. Internalization)

You might notice that the explanation for Marcille’s Chilchuck is "Even though she’s been told he’s an adult, deep in her heart she still doesn’t get it", and a fantranslation translates it as "Understands he’s supposed to be an adult, but hasn’t quite come to grips with the fact internally". This definitely implies her arc of growing to see him as an adult had already started by then. Especially if we compare it to Senshi’s more intense babyfied Chilchuck. This goes back to what I was saying about Marcille watering down people for the sake of aesthetics, some rational part of her knows he’s an adult, but it’s emotionally that she struggles to reconcile the fact with her perspective. It’s actually pretty ambiguous when she first starts considering he might be an adult. If by this point she was already digesting it, then I think it must’ve been when he told the party his age. It’s not unsimilar to rationally knowing Falin is an adult at 23 even if it doesn’t feel like it to her, or post-canon calling the Touden parents kids even though obviously she’d know they aren’t actually, it’s classic longlived race patronization. He’s older than Falin, by 6 whole years, and even Marcille isn’t that blind to what that'd mean. Wouldn't marcille also have a problem with child labor otherwise? There's also how Marcille pre-canon shortly speculated Chilchuck was in love with Namari in her Adventurer's Bible extra. She for sure has witnessed a lot of half-foots walking around, probably even drinking at taverns. She knows, on some level. Chilchuck even does a whole rant after they react going on "this is why long lived races are condescending assholes". So that’s my bet, "Is he an adult?" "Well yes but actually no" (Chilchuck), "I’m an adult now I’ve grown" "Awww you’ll always be like a kid to me!" (Falin) Depending on the dub and interpretation, I know for example that when I made my family watch the anime they thought Marcille "See? You're just a kid!" after he said he was 29 they saw it as teasing and playful, unserious, or even disappointed, implying she'd have thought he was older than 29. It's actually ironic how someone as developmentally atypical as Marcille, whose physical and mental growth was unpredictable, unsynchronized and messy, would judge others by appearance and age so much. But well imo appearances are important to her so in that way, she especially judges those because she had to live through being judged by those standards as well. She puts elven standards on everyone the same way she does with beauty standards, so age is included in that.

Marcille here is struggling with dissonance, it's why she "hasn't come to grips with the fact internally". And this all makes sense for the arc that sharing things about himself is what opened the gates of being understood better. Point is, her vision is influenced by her own feelings of how things should be like, veiling herself to the reality of things.

And notice the point that the problem her lack of rationale when it comes people- Chilchuck regularly makes her prioritize rationality over feelings, and well that’s somewhat his whole schtick when it comes to debating philosophy. With Namari and how her leaving the party and not returning is reasonable even if it feels wrong, just like the "don’t trust someone just because they seem well-meaning and generous, strategize instead of swooning", and ironically also the "it's important to take in mind how things like touch when healing can affect parties and create love triangles" lol, "don't be emotional, and also remember people being emotional will stirr up shit". Since she’s someone pretty swayed by feelings, it balances her out. Ultimately, if we consider the Dungeon Lord arc her culmination, it’s Chilchuck who ends her arc by meeting her halfway through appealing out to her feelings, but that’s the flipside of the coin of their arc, and it’s her willpower to face reality that saves them so I don’t think that contradicts that Marcille had to do her half of the journey & comprise.

I would argue there are many hints of Marcille knowing on some level he's an adult throughout early canon. Not just seriously calling him the most mature of the group, but her behavior at the Golden Kingdom's too for example. Would you act all shy asking a kid to sleep in his bed, especially one she's always felt so comfortable trampling the boundaries of and touching casually? Idk that's weird. She's asking to sleep in his bed because by her own admition it'd make her feel more comfortable. Chilchuck is safe to her and she feels shy implying it and asking for a favor like that. Shy that he'd find her silly for it, and/or shy that this might be inappropriate according to etiquette and in other contexts. To me this feels much closer to two peers, like how in the mandrake chapter she wanted validation from him too, and yes she still infantilizes him and emasculates him into someone who's harmless in her mind- not just someone who wouldn't hurt or take advantage of her, because she knows that, because Chilchuck does protect her (more on that later!!).

He's not heroic, but he's brave, when it matters. He's mean and rude, but also caring. He's responsible, even when it means going the unpleasant route. The aesthetic doesn’t fit the role, but the actions do.

He keeps claiming he’s a selfish coward who’ll be the first to dip in a fight, and yet he’s always, consistently pulling her out of danger, or specifically calling out to Marcille when danger strikes. And I think it’s because of the nugget of info we get in the adventurer’s bible that her stamina and athletics are bad, in canon he does call her clumsyhead like once but it never felt enough for me to deduce that on its own personally. So then the reason why he’s always targeting her, beyond the reasoning that she’s the healer thus the most important to keep alive (which he brings up in the rabbits chapter), he takes it upon himself to help her, save her and pull her away from danger because she’s clumsy. She’s not defenseless, she’s known to use explosions, and still he feels the need to save her and through the manga he’s even died trying to pull her to safety one and a half times: dungeon rabbits + the drowning- they didn’t die in the latter though it’d have gone that way if it weren’t for the water bursting out just after, and that situation was especially hopeless regarding Chikchuck being able to do anything to save her at all, yet he still tried.

A little knight in shining armor, a little noble hero, a little prince charming innit?

Chilchuck IS all show and no talk- and she knows the value of that!!! It's why despite all his sour demeanor she respects him both professionally and as a smart guy she can trust, why she feels safe with him and wants him by her side when strategizing or even sleeping. The aesthetic doesn’t fit the role, but the actions do. Fantasy vs reality!!! He teaches her how to face reality both with his words and actions, through the contradictions of him, his caring behavior and bitter words, his old manners and young looks!

And actually let's TALK about that drowning scene hello. There, in the collage above, in the bottom left. The context of that is: This is after the demon leaves when the dungeon collapses, the dungeon gets flooded by water and they go under, with no sense of where or how there could be an exit to this. 1: Since the dungeon is collapsing and reviving someone only works in dungeons, there is no guarantee that Marcille or anyone would be able to revive someone during or after this, NONE. 2: He is risking his life for her, he is STRAIGHT UP playing his life on this choice, action hits and shit gets more serious than it ever has, and he yet does it anyways. Perhaps it's the gravity of it that pushes him to make this choice, that this time if someone dies it's for real and he can't accept that, but either way his choice is made in a split second, he prefers dying trying to save her than living without saving her. He is fighting for scraps of hope, seconds more of holding onto life. Which, 3: This situation is HOPELESS. In the end yes they end up being spat out by some exit out the dungeon with the strenght of the flood, but there was no way to know this would happen, and like we see in the third panel Chilchuck and the others actually lose consciousness. That's for "a way out of this", but even moreso, what is he hoping to accomplish? He's small and weak like he always reminded the party in fights, he CANNOT PULL HER UP TO SAFETY, HE CANNOT PULL HER AT ALL, WE SEE HIM STRUGGLE TO AND FAIL. HE CAN'T DO ANYTHING BUT HE STILL TRIES DESPITE THE RISK. You might also say- haha!! You might also say that this is a show of optimism from him!! You could say that after Marcille changed him, pushed him to have more hope in him, he now has the strenght and will to hope that this might do anything, that this might save her! A little similar to the situation with his wife actually, the point is that the chance is worth taking even if it might not turn out like hoped for- the point is that it's always worth trying and keeping hope to fight on, there is risk in being vulnerable and reaching out to his wife yes, there is risk, as with jobs, as with finances, as with anything- It's not that you'll never fail, but you have to not give up when you do- there's a risk but you can't just shut yourself off to the world and to relationships, you can't suddenly care about nothing! That's Chilchuck's arc! And maybe it's because his arc of becoming more hopeful and open yourself to caring centers her that it's her he latches onto here and not Senshi and Izutsumi who are equally in trouble here, maybe it's because he knew her longest or because he still feels this sense he has to look out for her like always, or because he trusts her to breathe underwater least, I don't know, but it's what happens! And listen, by all intent and purposes it was a hopeless situation, they were on the verge of drowning but he still fights to save her, and everything looks lost for a sec, but then the water current miracurously spits them out of the crumbling dungeon. He gets up and he runs to marcille fearing she's hurt but no, they're saved, she's fine, they're all alive and out of danger. It worked out. Having hope was right.

They make me ill I tell you. Like what the HELL, am I supposed to NOT go crazy when this happens??! What if they were the meaning of life what if their arc was about cracking the balance of living and loving healthily and cracking the code of life. Okay. Okay okay okay so anyways so

He can be quite self-sacrificial and noble! Always looking out for others, and giving Marcille particular attention in that regard, likely in part due to her being clumsy in his eyes and her being the healer aka their token of safety.

Sit your ass back DOWN you are in no state sir. Despite her biases Marcille is still observant, she still loves dissecting people like in that pre-canon party relationships chart in her extra, she's still the one to say "Chilchuck is the most mature here". Marcille still notices things! She has an interest in people and Chilchuck is someone she especially likes to "study". She read him like a book in the bicorn chapter, and if she was able to it’s that she looked, she remembered, she saw. The way he doesn’t like waiting on people, that he’s very reserved with feelings, the way he often doesn't pick up on others' and even his own- It all comes through in her quote unquote analysis of him, what married life with him would be like and how he reacted to his wife leaving.

Point is, Chilchuck is very harsh on himself, but there are gems inside of him, there is gold hidden away if you dig at his heart. And point is, Marcille is good at highlighting those. And besides, isn’t humility a mark of heroes?

Okay. Sooo there's not that much to say about the changeling scene actually, for both Senshi and Marcille, the chapter just previous where Chilchuck reveals he has a wife and kid is what fully reckons them with how Chilchuck is a fully fledged adult, and for both of them seeing Chilchuck as a tallman is the final nail in the coffin. With Senshi it's a rather fast 180, and he mourns the sweet kid image he had of him where he poked his cheek and ruffled his hair, but for Marcille it's just an extra "he's really really REALLY really not a kid. Really". It has a bit of a reversal of Marcille and Chilchuck's dynamic, since now he can manhandle her instead of her manhandling him. This is a rather pleasant experience for him from what we can tell, whereas Marcille is struggling to keep the party's walking pace and complains about the heat implying half-foots are more sensitive to temperatures, Chilchuck finds having his senses dulled relaxing, has no problem of the sort Marcille is having AND! And! He can pull her around. The fight with gargoyles happen and he's pulling her arms, picking her up, he even throws her both before it and during the fight, he has the physical power to push her away if he wants to and also to pull her out of danger- the way he later tries to in the rabbit chapters and with drowning, but also when the Faligon reveal happens. He still doesn't look like a knight in shining armor, and he still doesn't have the demeanor of one, but he has the most power to protect her than he ever has. Anyways so yes, further "oh Chilchuck is an adult. And he's kinda knightly and can protect me wow. And also ugly not at all like elven beauty ewwwwww. I won't be able to unsee it now if I try to ruffle his hair after this".

It’s always a question of seeing more facets to someone and slowly digesting them and internalizing them, like Kui puts it herself in the shapeshifter explanation for Marcille's Chilchuck. And this illustrates a bit what I was saying in the section about Dalclan and tropes and people being "digestible" to her. She has to get used to the idea first and it's a slow process.

And during the succubus chapter as well, right after the bicorn chapter where she fully accepted Chilchuck as an adult, Marcille doesn’t falter when she’s confronted with seeing Chilchuck as, for a lack of a better term, a sexual being. She even cracks a (albeit sfw) playful quip about it, about them being all blondes. I suppose with the crass jokes he made like during the frog comic that might have prepped her for it lol.

And on that topic... We're here guys. The holy grail of Marcille and Chilchuck.

🔥The bicorn chapter🔥

The chapter finishes both Marcille and Chilchuck's arcs about harmful idealization vs not being a doomer, so to speak. It's the culmination, the ultimate balance found, the moment where the lesson gets fully internalized on both sides at the same time. It is a MASTERCLASS in how to do relationships arcs and character studies.

Chilchuck starts the chapter being dismissive of Marcille and her interests again, it opens with a narrated bit about his bad experiences with romance in past parties and he admits he has contempt for people who find the topic of love fun. He sees her still a bit as both a fly circling around him and a venus fly trap waiting for the opportunity to pounce on him and not let go until he spills everything. He ends it though, willingly giving up information on him in conversation with her, opening up, and appreciating her perspective on his romantic troubles.

Marcille starts the chapter having mostly processed that he's an adult, asking him about his wife, but she's still Weird about him and his personal life- and okay, that doesn't quite change, but something does change- everything changes for a moment, in fact.

And what's the catalyst? The cataclysm, even? Chilchuck lies and says he cheated on his wife.

[Okay guys I am officially out of pic space, sorry but I'll have to start recurringly linking to images instead: page]

We get to see live Marcille's esteem for Chilchuck plummet and freefall to the ground. And Chilchuck often acts like hassling and teasing between them is onesided, that she's always the one harassing him, but since early manga Chilchuck has always liked to tease her every opportunity he gets, often initiating interaction just for it... During half of this chapter Marcille is giving him the cold shoulder and we get to see that he misses her, we get to see her fully shut down the (racist) joke he throws at her and see him be SHAKEN over it. He wasn't expecting his lie to tank his reputation and relationship with the party members this much, maybe because before whenever he called himself selfish and cowardly no one seemed to think less of him for it, and he's at a loss for what to do like we see here. He misses their friendship. He's always said he didn't care for having a friendship with them all and whatnot, but here we see him grapple of the aftermath, of knowing what it would be like without them as friends, without them at all.

[page 1, page 2.]

And like with his wife, he has a choice to make. Be passive and spiteful and do nothing, or be vulnerable and communicate to win them back over. And this time, after a manga's length of learning little by little to be more open (and literal coercive torture) he chooses to do it, to try and clear up the misunderstanding.

And listen, on Marcille's end this was NEEDED. He DROPS in her eyes to deserving no respect- but even in these times we see her be jealous of Chilchuck opening up to Senshi, implicitly still caring about what he thinks of her, and most importantly that she does still care about him himself when the bicorn breaks his arm and she runs to his side to heal him, worried. Why was this needed? Because Marcille was forced to have her full, complete vision of Chilchuck shattered. Not only is Chilchuck not little in her eyes anymore, but he's also no angel. He can MASSIVELY- borderline unforgivably- mess up. He is an adult who can royally fuck up, even be immoral. She calls him a depraved adult man.

It sounds negative, but what this does is actually strip him from any idealization and infantilization in her eyes. Is there something more adult than adultery? Is there something less honorable, less wholesome? In this chapter Marcille is forced to reconcile the Chilchuck she knows with this man who did something vile to his wife, even the mother of his child.

And then Chilchuck clears things up, he takes the risk of an argument and actual rejection and sacrifices the secrecy around his family situation to make up with her. And it works. Instantly.

And so he goes "Okay so one day she left me and I have no idea why, probably for no reason. The end. What a petty thing to do am I right. We'll probably never talk again." and she's like "Bet? Actually I have several ideas as to what could have happened and you WILL listen."

(For a Chil & Chilwife analysis go over here instead btw.)

She was always perceptive, but she always had a bias that made her vision of others flawed. Her lens of novel worlds and narratives. Remove, or at least shift that bias in a productive direction, and you get a strength rather than an hindrance. The skill of self-inserting (literally. The half-foot depicted as his wife is even literally Marcille a a half-foot, and his child looks just like him, to show just how good her imagination is lmaoo) Marcille is such the "If I wanna hit the ball… I must become the ball" type. As proven by how she controlled her familiars in the hypogriff chapter. "If I were your wife I’d be overjoyed to go out with you and would get myself prettied up while you complain about me taking a long time, your friends would tell me that I’m cute and nice and that’d make me happy, but I’d also be sad because you wouldn’t tell me that you love me enough. Then I'd leave to test your love, and you're failing that test rn but if you came back to me even after a long time I'd take you back for sure." And see these! See Chilchuck frowning there in how she thinks of him, how he gets peeved when she takes time to get ready.

No because, this means everything. Marcille started out the manga thinking he was just a kid with a party pooper attitude and even in the shapeshifter chapter where she’s more coming to terms with her having been wrong about him, her shapeshifter of him is sweet and cute and nicer like "No the REAL Chilchuck is much less nasty! ☺️". But in the bicorn chapter it all comes to a head!! Learning that "Chilchuck cheated on his wife" made her esteem of him tank to rock bottom almost, finally acknowledging that Chilchuck can both make adult mistakes and be significantly flawed. But then! The chapter ends by him opening up which in turn make her esteem of him comes back up, but things have changed, still. What she does with her "virtuous husband" bit might seem like idealization again, and she is being optimistic about the wife'smotives, but she’s not making him into something he’s not! She recognizes his flaws (embraces them even.) Like how as the wife she thinks of an angry/frowning chilchuck, how he complains about waiting on her, which he's also done to Marcille before...

Even the way she says "he wouldn't say that he loves me enough" IS DIRECTLY SOMETHING FROM HER OWN EXPERIENCE FROM THE MANDRAKE CHAPTER. Because then she wanted to hear from his mouth with his words that he does value her, that he does appreciate her, that she's not a burden to them! She knows how it can feel like he doesn't appreciate you even when he does, and how insecure it can make someone! Now when she flavors things, she takes the embellishments from her own experiences instead of from novels! Reality, too, can be romanticized without becoming pure fantasy. Fantasy doesn't have to be dry and bitter, it can be beautiful and fun, too. Her "if I was your wife, life would be something like this and I'd feel like this" is truly based on her own perspective and feelings- her empathy and interest in others is not a weakness like Chilchuck thought, it's borderline a superpower.

She doesn't just keep his flaws in mind, she also hypes up his qualities!! He is virtuous, bicorn approved, devoted even after separation!! And that hyping up, and optimism that things wouldn’t necessarily go bad if he tried to mend things with his wife, really gave him hope, and also finished up his arc about optimism not always being bad, sometimes even being necessary.

She inspires him to think that things can work out, that he can still be pleasantly surprised even with all his bitterness. After all, he opened up to Marcille and they talked just now, and she forgave him and they made up, didn't they?

And he must have never quite let go of all hope, must stil lhave some left in him hidden somewhere, because in all those four years of separation never has he stopped calling her his wife in present tense, because even after all of them he has stayed faithful and never moved on.

And all of this with the chapter ending with Chilchuck eating a sweet and savory sandwich, which he thought would be bad and inspired disgust in him at first, and being like "Huh, the sweetness actually complements the bitterness pretty well."

THE SANDWICH IS THEM. "Syrup in a sandwich? Sweetness has nothing to do in a meal." IT'S OPTIMISM AND PESSIMISM COEXISTING. IT'S SWEETNESS AND BITTERNESS BOTH HAVING THEIR PLACE IN A DISH. IT'S MARCILLE AND CHILCHUCK COMING TOGETHER TO HAVE THE RIGHT BALANCE FOR HIM TO BE ABLE TO SAY "It might not go well like in stories, but I'll still try".

Remember what i said about compromises earlier, balance of optimism and pessimism? He tries it, and it works out despite having no faith that it’ll be good, and he’s pleasantly surprised. SURPRISES CAN BE PLEASANT! They're not just life-shattering, not just dangerous, it is possible to be pleasantly surprised! And this is why Kui is a goddess of telling stories through food.

He’s opening up to her, as he takes that last bite of the sandwich, he willingly and easily gives up an information about his family for the first time <3

And this isn't only chilchuck adopting her perspective either, it's him completing it. Marcille still simplified the conflict between him and his wife, still couldn't have the whole picture, still put a positive and hopeful and romantic twist on it all, but she did have a point. Chilchuck reaches her halfway, is inspired by her, but he also complements her, says okay, but also this, also it might not go as well as that, not going against it but building on top of it, not trying to replace it but instead this optimism and cynicism coexisting, joining together. Marcille brings him back to the reality that he doesn't suck as much as he thinks and things aren't doomed, but he also brings her back to the reality that that may not be enough, and in that uncertainty called life they're learning to be okay with it, to smile about it, to want to be part of it, hearts open.

Notice how she defends his virtues directly taking from Daltian Clan for her reasoning, as well! Comparing chilchuck to her novel characters to explain him, rather than overwrite him.

She’s such a wingwoman. Such a cheerleader. Couple therapist. Emotional support friend. 10/10.

Marcille: "he has a shitty personality sometimes but if he was my husband I’d still cherish him" Chilchuck: "damn I needed that" /hj

So this neatly ties the last bits of Chilchuck's reluctance to care about others and being cared about in turn, yes yes Marcille reads him like a book so well that he's left shaking, and this is it, really, their arc is about the balance in loving too much and loving too little, in stifling others with that love and care and interest the way Marcille does vs showing it so little that others don't even know if he cares at all, à la “if we want the rewards of being loved, we have to submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known.”

Marcille has a whole theme with the prince charming trope, with her idealization and storybook motif and this is sort of the "Well someone perfect like that isn’t very realistic and romance is usually more complex- and that’s ok and good, and flawed people can still be ✨virtuous✨" conclusion. Again, fantasy doesn't have to be perfect to be worth it, to be valuable and lovable and great and precious.

He’s the devoted virtuous man that she wants not the storybook prince that’s unrealistic and could crumble like a script at any time. He’s the perfect example of a flawed realistic but virtuous and devoted and loving family man. Far, far from a prince charming, but not fully detached from it either. Something worth fighting for despite the flawed cracks.

Marcille has this grand fantasy, this ideal of prince charming, a chivalrous gentleman knight, but through canon especially with Chilchuck she learns to not idealize people so much. That acts are more important than aesthetics. The bicorn chapter is all about Chilchuck’s romance being realistic: flawed. And it’s no coincidence that this is what ties their interwoven arc closed, because they learn to compromise, his pessimism and her optimism. Marcille sees and recognizes a romance that is both flawed and beautiful and is able to balance the two decently, meanwhile she convinces Chilchuck that yes it is worth fighting for and having hope for. Repeating myself but it’s easy to think she’s still idealizing Chilchuck during the bicorn chapter, BUT it’s important to notice the differences with the shapeshifter chapter, where her shapeshifter of him was "cute/sweet" "not nasty", an angel who could do no wrong. In the bicorn chapter, not only does he fall from her esteem a lot because she believes he cheated for a good part of it, thus acknowledging that he can be flawed and adult enough to commit adultery, but also! When she roleplays as his wife, she doesn’t erase his flaws!! She knows he has a short fuse and isn’t always pleasant, but believes that he’s worth loving anyways…

And see this is the point!! She romanticizes his life, not idealizes it. The difference may be subtle, but it's there. In romanticization there's how Ghibli depicts mundane scenes of daily life, portrays doing chores like cleaning clothes as something that feels good, something worth doing that doesn't have to be miserable. In Chilchuck's life, in his flawed relationship with his wife, she sees the beauty and light and love to highlight so even if the lifestyle is humble and even if the relationship is tense it seems nice, it seems worth fighting for. She's using aesthetics again, but to inspire instead of stifle, the way she uses them to hype herself up sometimes too.

This is it this is the thing! Her worshipping and idealizing the image of perfect prince charming that will whisk you away on an ethereal romance becomes her romanticizing a realistic flawed middle aged dad with personality issues and a failing marriage, that he still is worthy of love and having his cute grand romance story and his happy ending!!

Marcille has a very hard time conceptualizing a point where love can’t conquer all, right. She’s optimistic and if there’s a will there’s a way etc etc etc. Notably when Marcille speculated about Chil’s wife, she centered around the theory that his wife wanted to "test" him by leaving, that she didn’t feel loved and left to see if he’d chase after her. She believes that his wife would be ecstatic to see him again and reaching out would make them reconcile and happily get back together, no problem. Chilchuck and his wife have been separated for 4 years. When Falin left the academy she and Marcille were separated for 4 years. Marcille has to believe Chil’s wife is waiting for him, that she hasn’t moved on, that she wants to be found. There's a different perspective on time, but there's also... Just parallels. Parallels everywhere. Miss coping, meet coping in an opposite way! And so she teaches Chilchuck to not assume everything is lost before having even tried, and so he teaches Marcille to let go when it's needed.

And please notice how she doesn't even really think his wife may have just wanted to leave him, no the goal was for them to be reunited with their love strenghtened- Combined with her glazing Chilchuck, the underlying energy is that to her someone not wanting to be with Chilchuck, wanting to break off things with him and leave, is unthinkable. For sure she'll be overjoyed to see you, for sure she's just waiting for you to come back to her! Is there a sign of higher faith in him, of higher fondness? There's respect and like and loyalty there. She truly values Chilchuck, always has but it keeps only getting more and more cemented, more and more real the more he opens up and she gets to know him. It's embarrassing for people to know your wife left you? Think again! You've just gained 50 friendship points with your trendiest friend and she has categorized you as a catch!

She specifically loves characters who think they can’t be loved and pessimistic and dramatic… And story-fying him is literally what she does when she engages with the story of his breakup with his wife like it’s a story to decode, reinforcing the whole narrative about tropes and princes and how he comes to shape her view on them.

Even if the context here is explicitly that she relates! Which, she finds being able to relate to them comforting and a positive point so it being a "type" thing isn’t fully off- but this is what I mean when I say she always keeps a film of emotional distance from people, she wants to love and be loved and know people on the deepest level possible so bad but it’s something that scares her too so she prefers to chase after the safe: the unreachable- the fictional. Like Chilchuck. Bit of tangential speculation, but she wants to crack his shell and make him open up- but it’s also easier because he pulls away instead of pulling in/closer so the relationship is fully in her control in that way, if it weren’t for the teasing… Making her into someone silly in his mind is how he keeps himself from putting weight into her words, how he gets himself to automatically dismiss the wise lessons she tries to instill to him, nope sir he doesn't have anything left to learn, he's an old crouton who understands everything there is to know about this cruel cruel life yes sir. Because trying and being rejected hurts! Because if it wasn't fated to turn out wrong, then it means there was luck or choice, and that makes failures almost more painful! But people leave!! People leave and people come back and new meetings happen and choices are good, choices shouldn't be taken away! Not like how Marcille tries to forcefeed immortality to humanity, as a dungeon lord...

The chapter ends with a panel of Marcille and Chilchuck bantering again, with everyone else going about their business seeming nonplussed while the two are being very loud as if to say, ah, classic them. Return to normalcy, return to their usual closeness and shenanigans. All is well.

The Princess imagery

And now we’re falling into the rabbithole. Imagery doesn’t have to be anything more than imagery, but I discuss romantic connotations in this section (amongst the platonic reality of things ofc), you can skip to the conclusion if you’d rather but you will miss important analysis of the dungeon lord balcony scene, a big piece of the puzzle in wrapping it all up. I found the meaning of life & the world in marchil but it’s ok I get it if you wouldn’t... We're all built different ig. The character with princely chilvalrous knight parallels in the manga is moreso Laios, but Laios too breaks the trope a lot. Chilchuck gets prince and knight parallels but by contrast instead, in subtext more than any explicitly drawn. There's a lot to Marcille's princess imagery and though I've never fully covered it I try to somewhat tackle it here.

For as much as the bicorn chapter is what ends their arc about balancing pessimism and optimism and finding healthy compromises, the arc of their RELATIONSHIP is in the dungeon lord chapter where he fully opens up to her, inviting her to meet his family and all. AND MY GOD, the princess imagery!!

Listen I am trying so hard to keep this unromantic, and to be clear subtext is subtext for a reason, it doesn’t have to be concreticized or "acted upon" perse, but… I think it’s there in this scene, at least a bit. I’ve spent a long time trying to pin down what was so charged in it, besides both of them blushing, despite him offering for her to meet his family, despite it calling out to a genuine deep instilled desire in her heart enough for it to work- for it to make her turn towards them, despite the first thing she does after is shower him in romantic gifts, and it eventually struck me… It’s the parallels with other media, with tropes!! This is HIGHKEY Romeo and Juliet type shit!!! The stuff you see in every couple new kinda trashy romance kids movies! A lady, stashed away in a high tower by her lonesome, waiting for someone to call out to her from below… Romeo courting type shit with a heartfelt spiel implicit confession from underneath her balcony, offering him flowers because he succeeded in calling out to her heart…….. And they have to CLIMB to her.

Remember her succubus' words? "Oh, princess... I can't believe you slipped away from the castle yet again... Honestly, what in the world shall we do with you...? Come, let us return." Again like with her succubus, she’s living through a storybook trope but with Chilchuck’s twist, more nuanced and realistic yet just as meaningful, even if it isn’t strictly OR at all romantic and if it’s more complicated and less glamorous. She’d have to peel the layers to get to the vulnerable truth of it, like anything else. I'm just gonna drop this here...

Doesn’t it sound like a proposal. One that’s both so storybook-like, and contrasted with such real yet unromantic and grounded words, all about the implications rather than in your face grand gestures "Don’t you want to meet my family?". They literally have an arc about the topic of romance and this is the climax/pinnacle of it like god?? I’m not saying this was all intentionally crafted to be romantic but it nonetheless exists in the subtext, ripe for analysis. Of course they talk about planning together his reconciliation wit hhis wife, but the same thing happens regardless, he fully lets her into his life.

And again there’s something to be said about how that is what makes her finally turn around! This is extremely meaningful not only to Chil but to Marcille, the enticing thing that finally hooks her, gets her to finally look down at them. An offer to meet a flawed man’s flawed family, to help him mend it and its issues. It isn’t through the filter of a book, or mere gossip to her, she knows this man and she wants to be involved in his life, to know him and his family herself, ready to meet them and form connections. The clumsy, imperfect reality of a friend telling her he’ll let her into the other spheres of his life even if that means she witnesses the embarrassing and the ugly. It’s vulnerability on both their ends, offered and received, a gambit that was worth taking, both in the moment to talk Marcille out of being dunlord and long term of letting her in to see the deeper sides of him, there are take backsies once someone knows something about you after all. SHE STOPS BEING A DUNGEON LORD IN GOOD PART BECAUSE HE TOLD HER HE'D LET HER INTO HIS LIFE. SAY IT WITH ME, A FLAWED REALITY IS WORTH IT MORE THAN STAYING IN FANTASY!!!! In denial of reality, both that Falin hasn't grown older, that everything can turn out perfectly, and that everything is lost and there's nothing Chilchuck can do to make his wife love him again or even make his party listen to him.

Chilchuck says this after he sees her materialize her parents as doppelgangers. And so he goes on to say- hey your family will never go back to how it was when you were young, my family will never be what it once was either, but we can both move on and make the best of what we have anyways, isn’t that what you taught me, there are more out there! I’m opening up myself to new relationships and friendships because of your pushes, and now I want you to do the same! Life goes on and there’s always more joy and connections to be had! Stop isolating yourself, dammit!

And the thing too with Marcille’s arc is that she can’t get what she wants. She can’t. She can’t get everyone to live forever if she doesn’t take others’ free will away, if she doesn’t make the world stop for her as she plays god with the laws of nature and the cycle of life. And everyone’s important to that arc obviously, Falin during the story is the main object of that fear, and it’s moreso her death that pushes her arc along but it’s still extremely influential, Laios is the main one who sees her insecurities and talks her down, Senshi’s always harping on ecosystems and laws of nature and how resurrections aren’t natural and is there to offer comfort and support, Izutsumi’s someone new Marcille gets to take care of and her farewell talk with her reveals a lot about how she’s grown, but seeing this it’s easy to see why Chilchuck is paired off so much with her on their respective arcs, right? The one who tells it harshly how it is even when the reality is unpleasant, who gives up quickly when it's about things turning good for him but who always pushes and fights on when it matters with the party, who challenges a rose tinted glasses perspective head on.

He looks nothing like a knight but he still acts like one. He’s nothing like a prince or a dashing romantic courting lover but still he gives her a novel worthy balcony heart to heart scene. He’s painfully real and raw but she does bring that twinkle of hope and romantization that makes the world feel more wonderful to him, but like she tells him, he’s virtuous and he should give things a shot because people see good in him too and not only the bad he always shittalks himself for, she’s not making it up, he always had that sparkle of knight and prince in him.

Like, giving someone a handkerchief is literally a romance trope associated with nobles and princes. And Chilchuck has offered Marcille his handkerchief at least twice! The second time in the cockatrice chapter as a bandage. He keeps it in his pouch, with his tools, like the most must-have to offer it Marcille at any moment, ha /j. Prince behavior <3 The neckband like a knight’s favour, a token from a loved one he cherishes above all and keeps on himself at all times... Which I'll remind in her Chilwife roleplay she directly theorizes she was the one to knit it for him! Beautiful story tropes shit.

He IS a prince figure instead that now it’s not about idealizing the grand and overt it’s about romanticizing the small things in real life!! About finding joy and beauty in things that seem normal or mundane and uplifting them to make the world feel kinder!!!!

And man this whole angle makes the "Don’t you want to meet my family?" "-gasp- I really do want to! -turns away from eldritch power and living in her demon-made dreamscape that can allow her to live in fantasy to instead go back to flawed reality with her friends-" all that more meaningful and striking. A fitting end to her arc, a fitting hook to get her to turn back towards her and tempt her to give up on being dungeon lord. It’s always been just asking things and anecdotes about him and his family, never talking about meeting them, but by having someone so "fated with doomed love" open up and reach out to her "fated to never love", she opens up too, is willing to take the risk that any relationship entails, the same one that he took by offering it, the same risk they’re both averse to and scared of, loss and rejection. By actually meeting his family she involves herself in the stories she creates. It makes them real. She’s finally involving herself intimately with others, despite the real threat of loss that she will have to experience, wether through time and death or rejection.

Marcille and Chil’s arc, man…….. See, this is why I’ve been tilling the fields of that analysis for months this is why I’m insane about them, not only is there so much to say but her relationship with Chil straight up deconstructs her perspective on the world as idealized and influenced by fiction and fantasy and optimism. Like, he’s at the core of that part of her arc and man!! Man.

And the way that this is the culmination of their arc together… Like the ‘Chil calling out to dunlord Marcille on the balcony has Romeo and Juliette romance novels imagery’ take is one thing but the ‘their arc is about growing to see beauty even in the non-idealized, in the flawed and in the real’... It makes it so so perfect if she were to lower her ideal from a perfect elven prince to a virtuous halfling man (which she does romanticize).

So she doesn’t want a prince, she doesn’t want a general, she just wants this guy she knows, this friend she trusts as reliable, who has good intentions even if wrapped in unpleasant demeanor, that’s all she needs to be content and well and feel safe. By the end, he might even have become something of a prince charming to her, won over with heroic acts and virtues.

After all- Remember when I said she wouldn't be able to be as touchy so lightheartedly as before with him? Well wrong, apparently! This parallel from chapter 23 just before the red dragon fight vs chapter 96 at the final feast confirms that her like of him and behavior with him was unconditional of him being a kid or an adult. Marcille is just Like That and that she just likes him. A good part of what reads as infantilization truly is just how she cares for people in general.

Conclusion

She’s afraid of change, so it's only fair that he would be perfect to teach her a thing or two. She had fantasies but he had experiences, both had bias. Their arc is about how bitterness isn't an efficient solution to hardships, about how assuming the worst from everything is a trap that doesn't reflect reality either, a trap people fall into just as much as rose tinted glasses.

Their arc is about how relationships need work and how it's worth the effort! You can overwater a plant but you can also neglect it, to find a balance between each's needs can be hard but is always important. Friendships just like romances shouldn't be taken for granted, and doing the extra steps of deepening your understanding of others and opening to them is rewarding.

Their arc says that love is a beautiful thing regardless of loss. Something both of them needed to remember. Life isn't like a novel. Sometimes an ending ISN'T satisfying, you don't get closure and it might not even be happy, but that doesn't mean nothing can end well, doesn't mean every farewell is bitter. Peace is worth both fighting for and making for yourself. You can't shut yourself off from the world because things sometimes hurt, there's more of life to live- won't you come meet my family? Won't you meet new people, won't I try to mend relationships that are dear to me? My family is flawed, but it's still worth meeting, still worth loving, still worth fighting for and keeping even with all its flaws, no? Elven storybooks don't feature half-foots, but they're worth spinning grand poetic and romantic tales for all the same. Life is bittersweet, and that's an acquired taste to have, but one good to be able to stomach as a whole.

There’s a lot of reasons why someone would love fictional characters but be afraid of love in reality, not unlike with Laios' and Chilchuck's own experiences love has a layer of danger and fear because it can hurt to love and it can hurt to be loved. People can leave you, and in Marcille that fear's mainly through death but for Chilchuck that’s through just… Leaving. Through giving Chilchuck optimism and hope, drive to keep going despite these realities, she’s also growing to be more comfortable with the thought of relationships ending and moving forward regardless. And I do think that was part of her arc of growing to accept that Falin might be dead dead, I think Chilchuck was a big part in that. Falin is the passive object of the arc but Chilchuck is the active actor pushing it along, in a way.

Because people can always leave, Falin will leave to travel the world, but she might come back- and that's okay. And that’s exactly the thing that the story wants Marcille to make peace with! Falin wants and needs to leave and Marcille needs to be content just taking what she can get, wether it be time with people or the boundaries they set with her. THE BOUNDARIES! THE BALANCING OF OPTIMISM AND PESSIMISM! IT'S CHILCHUCK'S DOING!! "The world isn’t all good, but you should be able to see the bright side of what you do get" is what she and Chilchuck learn. To learn that she can still enjoy when she is there, and still reach out to her and keep in touch through letters- to do what you can and to get what you can and to accept that as enough, for it to bring you the joy and peace it can. Don't push your expectations onto others, wether that's being overly intimate or overly judgemental, don't be too pushy but also don't be too afraid and not do anything at all.

In many ways even before, even on the regular Marcille was his gateway into being more lighthearted, always exchanging playful jabs, laughing at her. Teasing her because she teases him, lowering himself to her level until he looks back and realizes he’s having fun with it instead of just throwing jabs bc he’s the master of sarcasm TM.

Chilchuck smiling casually and softly, genuinely, when saying that things don’t work out sometimes, is just so powerful. From the man who always assumed the worst of everything, who always spoke of life and the world bitterly... By the end, while saying these things he’s smiling openly rather than smirking smugly. Carrying on with his go getter attitude with a touch more optimism in his heart. Now he's made his peace with life and sees the good in it, still.

It's all about... How flawed relationships with flawed people can still be made into somehing good and healthy that make the world brighter… How flawed relationships are still worth remembering and cherishing. Except the winged lion, there to represent abusive relationships you need to fucking DITCH.

Marcille and Chilchuck’s arc is about how in life sometimes books do close and end, but other ones can open and start, and to never give up on that. People’s lives, relationships, these things are temporary and inevitably end, but there’s meaning and joy in having been there for them, and focusing on the end and the pain and being pessimistic in it doesn’t keep anyone safe, not meaningfully. "It’s not all nice like in the stories. Sometimes, a book just ends." "And another opens."

Dungeon meshi promotes the important of balance for both a healthy body and a healthy mind, and optimism vs pessimism is one such case <3

MAYBE IT'S ALL COMPROMISES MAYBE IT'S ALL SWEET INBETWEENS. Maybe we'll take our vision of what we thought we could be and make something new together! DRINK IN MODERATION!!!!!! SEE LIFE LIKE FAIRYTALES IN MODERATION!!!!!!! THE RIGHT ATTITUDE LIES BETWEEN IDEALIZATION AND PESSIMISM

Disclaimer:

This was pretty messy but thank you so much for reading!!

Thank you to @/lyril for making the more complex collages!! Check out her blog!

To be clear! Does this arc exist in the text, the whole tropes and idealism vs pessimism thing, do they have tangible impact on each other as both characters and narrative devices? Yes. Is Marcille and Chilchuck the central piece of the story? No. Is Dungeon Meshi about this and how it all culminated into a cool Romeo and Juliette scene? Lol no. Chilchuck isn't the most important person to Marcille and her story nor is Marcille the one most important to Chilchuck. Just like the other major characters in the story, their dynamic and progressing relationship is a plotline/subplot amongst others, and the level of layers and subtext it possibly has doesn't erase any other part or subtext of the story. Arcs can coexist. Multi-layered relationships can coexist. Just a reminder that this is my own analysis and interpretation of canon.

Dungeon Meshi is about food and how it ties us to a life that’s worth living, about unity and trying to understand that which you do not, to not demonize that which is different or unknown, to connect with others even if it’s hard, even if it’s in unusual or undescribable unlabelable ways, and Marcille and Chilchuck’s relationship is certainly a pawn in these themes like every other relationship.

I’m having fun, but I don’t want anyone getting lost in the sauce. It's unfortunate that to many, acknowledging there's any merit to analyzing this subtext is equal to supporting a ship they dislike, but this isn't ship propaganda, this is analysis of canon text where I happen to see a more niche angle. You can disagree with an interpretation without saying that it's nonsensical.

Like I don’t wanna say I’m a marchil truther but if you define it as believing canon does have genuine and credible basis for it then yeah I guess I am. I feel insane everyone acts like they have no chemistry and no material and??? We exist on different planets I think Like I know I implied some romantic undertone but in canon it totally can start and end at two coworkers bonding and getting to know each other better and see each other’s perspective and it influencing them both for the better. No buts, you can totally do that. Although this plus the crumbs it drives me up a wall when people say they have no chemistry or ‘how come people see anything in this pairing?’ They’re literally a comedic duo? A comedic duo that interacts so so much that gets paired off in scenes, a thematic duo which is even acknowledged and reflected in the anime’s opening. He teases her 24/7 canonically because he finds her reactions fun/cute, the only person he teases on the regular, and she’s obsessed with knowing more about him and loves being touchy on top of it, plus reads him like a book because she files away every little thing about him in her memory, like if that isn’t a strong basis for a ship I think the bar has gone too high. I’m derailing but yeah just. Do you see all of this? They drive me insane, I feel like I’m reading the necronomicon when analyzing them, picking up on subliminal messages, I keep always seeing new threads. And it’s been my otp for like 2 years now, idk when they’ll stop having a grip on me but????? There’s just so much to dig into with them. There will never be another pair like them. Do you hear me there’ll never be another duo that hits all of these like this, do you see this insanity? They are my lifeblood and if i’m eating up anything them-related it’s because they’ve earned it so hard tbh. So yeah if I’m ever dramatic about marchil it’s because I have this 100k words novel narrative in my head and marchil is the meaning of life to me hope this clears it up

Which on that note idk what or when my next Marcille & Chilchuck analysis will be. I might very well make a bite sized, summarized version of this analysis because asking people to read all of this is kind of insane of me... And full disclosure I’m also very likely to edit points in or tweak bits every so often in this analysis because idk if I’ll ever stop thinking about it, and phrasing can improved. This has been in my drafts and outlined more than a year and I’m literally still adding extra points save me. I might also do a different angle on their arc because here yeah I mostly just dug at the prince trope angle, at ONE of many angles... Like one interesting thread in the manga is Marcille emotionally maturing and becoming more like her mother, on top of her regularly being a mom type friend the way she looks after Izutsumi and Falin, which could be interesting to pair with the fatherhood of Chil. Hmm. Anyways

And obviously do whatever you want, but this analysis and all is why I personally can’t stand the fanon that Chilchuck and Marcille have a father-daughter undertone. It goes against their arc together, which is explicitly, literally about her acknowledging him as a man, an adult, about coming to see each other truly as peers and her coming to validate him as an adult, then a father and husband from an outside perspective and a friend, and inversely him coming to not belittle her profession and philosophy. Their whole arc is about learning to see each other as an equal and equally value each other’s perspective and opinion. You could argue it’s also the arc that happens with Izutsumi, but honestly with her it’s a lot about Izutsumi learning to compromise and others instilling lessons to her onesidedly while learning to respect her perspective and boundaries, it’s not nearly as much of a reciprocal thing. Izutsumi needs to be heard, but she also needs people teaching her and guiding her. Imo it cheapens the arc, the whole point is that they’re just two people who grow to see each other as equals, that the Laios party is coworkers turned friends. Marcille doesn't need a new parental figure, she needs friends who'll keep her in check the same way she does them.

I do love the way that the manga avoids romance. For every romantic undertone there’s a platonic explanation that is just as compelling and especially to this degree it’s both rare and wonderful. I think that a lot of people need to learn that sometimes ambiguity is the point instead of something that needs to have a specific objective answer. Sometimes the intent is for something to be able to be read in different ways in itself, or that the complexity of the relationship is canonically something that cannot be put into a neat box. Which! Next analysis I'm very intent on making is gonna be about unlabeled relationships in Dunmeshi and queerness, see you there!

Fast and dirty TLDR

Marcille’s personality is very serious and direct. Due to this, she frequently gets into arguments with the master of sarcasm, Chilchuck. Chilchuck views Marcille as “the friend who cannot shut up”. He is often the practical foil to her more imaginative or idealistic views.

She actually thinks very highly of him! "He’s usually the most mature one of us" "he’s dependable, we’re counting on him" "No chilchuck is definitely virtuous", and at first it’s also through this twisted lense that he’s a kid, like she has to put people into boxes so they’re more digestible, tropes, in line with aesthetic, and at this stage it’s hard for her to see Chilchuck as being even able of wrongdoing really. And gradually that gets challenged when she sees that yeah, he’s an adult, and then BAM bicorn chapter- Because by then ok fine he’s an adult, but it hasn’t quite fully settled yet as we see in the shapeshifter chapter and she still has a warped view of him a bit, she has an accurate grasp on his behavior yet still sees him as a little angel. And then she "learns" he committed adultery. Her esteem for him hits rock bottom and she spends the chapter cold to him, she still cares and comes running when he’s hurt, but she’s set on mean mugging him, until it’s revealed that- He didn’t actually. Oh, actually he just has family angst. And she starts roleplaying and having her novel vision again BUT THIS TIME HER MIND VISION OF CHILCHUCK IS OVERTLY FLAWED. He’s angry and his wife left him, he’s *flawed*, but he’s still worth hyping up, still worth having his own romance story, still has a shot of winning back his beloved. She sees him for what he is, human and real and not a carefully scripted character that fits an aesthetic, and she thinks it’s still worthy of love and admiration, worth fighting for.

The prince charming figure has importance in Marcille and Chilchuck’s arc, where she romanticizes things to a sometimes worrying degree or idealize people into something more poetic, easy and digestible (like Chil being a kid, and then him being a virtuous ✨✨✨husband), and where she needs to learn to value aesthetics less and actual acts and facts more, be more grounded (like seeing people for what they are flaws and all, but seeing their virtues too, like accepting that people need money and not pulling through on principles of honor or unity shouldn’t get Namari shamed) and a part of that is accepting that Chilchuck is BOTH flawed and virtuous, a loving husband that still has shitty moods and fumbled his marriage so bad etc etc. So it’s like, her image of perfect prince charming that will whisk you away on an ethereal romance -> realistic flawed middle aged dad with personality issues and a failing marriage but who still is worthy of love and having his cute grand romance story and his happy ending.

Their arc together is literally learning to 1) see each other for how they are and not undermining their qualities and capacities etc etc while still not leaving flaws unchecked either and 2) opening up to people. Marcille LITERALLY makes Chil open his heart up to hope like idk man. What do you want from me. He’s literally the guy helping her through deconstructing novels and fantasy and rose tinted glasses and like. Deconstructing the prince charming figure into something more real but still a virtuous husband like KUI KUI STOOOOP STOP I’M ALREADY HOOKED I’M ALREADY-

#Dungeon meshi #delicious in dungeon #analysis #character analysis #Meta #Marcille donato #chilchuck tims #dungeon meshi manga spoilers #spoilers #The day has finally come #Initially I just wanted to share the kabru bit but then I realized that you need so many building blocks to see my vision oogh #Marchil #Marchil bc the analysis is about their relationship in canon not bc this is a truthism post to be clear. Pls give this a chance #if i've ever managed to amass good faith with you and the topic interests you even just a bit please read this... Please maybe perhaps...#Y’all know me i analyze every second of chil’s life. Would I stab you in the back. Trust meeee #I’m here for a fun time pls pls no sending me hate just take the hot take or don’t #If you wanna know why i’m most brainrotted about marcille n chil in dunmeshi this is why!!! This!!#'what do marchilers see with their special eyes' GESTURES TO THIS!!! Welcome to the marchil necronomicon #started this analysis in january of 2024 send help #Flexing my literature analysis diploma… Insane overthinking shit layers deep like we did in college.#Dragging the subtext into the light-kicking screaming #this is so long and wordy sorry i'm attempting to communicate why their arc is so magical to me. Also I don't want my post to be misconstru #Fumi going deranged simulator descending into madness. This makes me ILL and TINFOIL HAT whenever I work on it like oh my god #RATTLING THE BARS OF MY CAGEEEE #it's all connected it's all So Much they make me want to BARF so much my mind expands. help #They were literally (narratively) made to complement each other and change each other for the better I'm so okay #fumi rambles #Man Marcille’s “from idealizing him to liking him even for all his flaws bc his personality is often kinda shitty” arc #and Chilchuck’s “prejudice against elves and mages into respect and trust” arc are everything to me #“Come back this instant *princess*!!! Smh smh what are we going to do with you” reenactment of the dunlord scene in spirit <3

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