#which is often lately

[tookishcombeferre]

when i made you, i dreamed a different world one full of dance steps, and jump lefts, step rights, and party all nights. i dreamed dreams of victorious toasts to freedom. i dreamed you would be safe. i dreamed dreams of your being and becoming. i did not dream this dream in times gone by. i did not dream of tigers prowling the oval office, i did not dream of them tearing dreams to shame, if i could, i'd let you hold forever the feeling of being alive. the way your eyes light up as you bounce on the balls of your feet, or you twirl in graceful circles around me. this is the dream i'd keep for you in days gone by. i am one part barricade boy, and the other redemption arc. i am one part villian, and the other hero's spark. i am one part rebel, and the other soft at heart. as i hold you close, and see the tales unfold i hold your tiny hands in mine and make promises: princess, i will teach you to shout "no" clearly, teach you to march until your feet blister, teach you that sometimes rebellion is the answer, because not every story starts with benevolent kings. and, if i cast my spell slots right, dream my dreams anew, your tables will be full - and your friends will sing, sing their simple songs ... forevermore.

i dreamed a dream of your being; or a poem for my child in hopes that they might have peace - p.s. shuller

[lasagoofs]

it's that time of the year again (hlvrai rewatch)

[lala-blahblah]

I get why people headcanon that Trucy would call Edgeworth "Uncle Miles" because it represents how close he is to Nick and Trucy and how he's basically part of the family etc. HOWEVER I cannot help but imagine the shock and horror of passersby who hear Trucy call one man "uncle" and one "daddy" as they watch Nick and Miles interact lovingly in public and come to the conclusion that Nick is openly cheating on his spouse with his spouse's brother.

[fisheito]

When all your housepets are biters

[livvy-art]

some morrowind doodles. first one was inspired by a screenshot i took and the second is of my character, Niv.

[ihavesomejays]

face yourself

closeup under keep reading

[ahopefulbromantic]

No please you don't get it you don't get how heart-wrenchingly sad the golden calf thing was

Remember the conversation right before it? in which God tells Moses all about the ark and the offerings and the tent and the rituals and the garments and the Sabbath? The conversation that everybody thought was boring (fight me. FIGHT me this instant)?

The conversation in which God excitedly says, "Okay Moses, my Love, this is gonna be so great! I will live among you, among my people! I'm so happy!!! So here's the plans I've made while I was up here, you will build me a little house! That I will dwell in! Here's how I want it to look, I thought about the exact measurements and ornaments so you could build it for Me and we can live together! I will be your God and you will be My people and I love you all, I love you so much. And here's what I will eat, here's what I like so you can cook it and we can have meals together! And here's how we'll be spending our holidays together and here's how we will all be dressed, I thought about everything! And, and-"

And suddenly His face drops.

"Moses," He says quietly. "I think you should go back down."

"...Why?" asks Moses, his heart already sinking.

"They've made themselves a new god to worship. They... didn't want Me."

Can you imagine? All this holiest excitement doused, all this going out of His way for the Almighty to be family with humans crushed in one moment when God maybe suddenly realizes He isn't loved back? How heartbroken, how utterly crushed must He have been that the Boundless Love could even think about just killing Their people then and there?

Good thing Moses still couldn't see His face. No human would be able to handle so much sorrow.

[aaaaaaafrogs]

the one and only grace

[lunarin64art]

That feeling when he can't stand to see you that way, no matter what you do, no matter what you say😩😭💔

[theusernameiwantisntavailable]

Every variation of Tim gets a cat brings me so much joy

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

I think I have to tell you that you're borderline genius.

I would consider it to be closer to borderline madness to be honest. A healthy person would not do what I have done.

[helyannis]

i'm re-reading the silm (not having read it cover to cover for a long time) and it just struck me how some of the first age battles are ... not very mediaeval. unlike the battles in LotR, these are world war battles!

(i should mention right away that i do not have a problem with that. it's just a fun observation.)

take the dagor bragollach:

it takes only three months but there are these huuuuuge frontlines from the march of maedhros to the ered wethrin! the text even talks about assaulting <the mountains>.

i imagine the fortresses in dorthonion or ered wethrin like e.g. the mediaeval fortifications along the rhine river in alsace: towers and castles on every other hill. (could be a limes-like structure but doesn't sound like it.) apparently, all the fortresses were attacked at once! angrod, aegnor and bregolas somewhere in dorthonion, barahir and finrod in the fen of serech, multiple fortresses in the ered wethrin, the sons of feanor at the pass of aglon, himring, maglor's gap and the land of caranthir.

that's hundreds of miles of frontline!

[courfee]

people insisting that jegulus makes no sense with canon characterisations annoys me so much not least of all because their argument is always "Regulus only betrayed Voldemort for his house-elf". Where. Where in canon, since that's apparently what we focus on for arguments, does it say that Kreacher was his entire motivation?

Regulus died for Kreacher. Because he didn't want Kreacher to suffer on Regulus' behalf. But there is nothing in the books indicating that the betrayal, the Horcrux hunt, had anything to do with the fact that Voldemort hurt Kreacher.

So if you want to argue that Regulus was a Deatheater through and through and only turned on Voldy because he hurt his house-elf you need to stop pretending it is canon that you care about so much

[kr-210-r2700-prime]

assorted whiteboard slop from yestereve

[fumifooms]

"Marchil? I guess I can see it on Chilchuck’s end, but what about Marcille’s? What makes you think she could develop feelings for him?" I’m glad you asked!

The first thing to note is that she does think highly of him

In the page on the right, literally defending his virtues and literally comparing him to Dalclan. And oh…

She does love a brooding mysterious guy who closes himself to love. But surely, Chilchuck isn’t her type at all, right? He’s not princely or knightly at all. In apperances certainly not, both looks wise and demeanor wise, but then that’s why she seeks to know him on a deeper level, to not only look shallowly.

And hmm. Chilchuck really is quite selfless isn’t he? Always looking out for others, and saving specifically her often, always making sure himself and, staying in or even running towards danger for her sometimes. Modesty is often considered heroic…

And can we talk about that drowning one… You can definitely frame the special attention as him knowing she tends to hesitate or be clumsy, and then his insistance on pulling her out of danger that she’s the healer aka the most important to keep alive, but. From the one who says that he just keeps his ass out of fights and won’t help this is a lot of risk to take, and he does die trying to pull her to safety in the dungeon rabbits chapter. And the drowning bit??? That’s when the dungeon collapses. The only reason they DON’T die of drowning here is that the water then gives way to outside. There was NO hope of pulling her to safety here and resurrections would likely not work either, he truly preferred to die with her than try to survive himself.

Sit your ass back DOWN you are in no state, self-sacrifical hero much damn

And Marcille definitely noticed this imo, after all she loves learning all she can about him, remembering things like how he hates waiting on people too. She pays attention to him and what he does and what he says. This to say that it’s notable, whatever reason for it you may think (though we know by this point at least she was already aware he was an adult though it wasn’t internalized), out of everyone it’s Chilchuck’s bed that she wants to sleep in during the Golden Kingdom stay. He’s safe and comforting to her: dependable, the defining trait in her view of him as is shown by the relationship chart in the Adventurer’s Bible.

^ Lending handkerchiefs is a romance trope btw and handkerchiefs have irl history of being used for courting. Especially in old English literature and plays like Shakespeare’s Othello, and personally I do see a lot of Shakespeare in Dalclan (nobility political drama with some romance). There’s how his cowl is a dearly beloved souvenir from his family too, there’s a lot of aesthetic tropes you can apply to him.

All this to say you can 100% romanticize Chilchuck into a princely noble guy if you try and that’s exactly what Marcille does with the wife roleplay. She doesn’t need much in the first place, she latches onto crumbs and makes aesthetic narratives out of details, give her an inch she’ll take a mile.

But what’s interesting about the shift throughout the arc of her and his relationship is that she starts out idealizing him into a little angel of a kid (shapeshifter), and she ends it idealizing him as a virtuous husband and family man instead.

And what’s doubly interesting is that in the former, she’s actively warping who he is personality and demeanor wise to fit the aesthetic, he doesn’t have that bitter pride of not asking for help and the edges have been smoothened. But what she does during the wife roleplay is something else, she acknowledges the flaws and just… Accepts them, rolls with them. She’s aware of his flaws and implements them into the narrative, but the reason why his wife left doesn’t capitalize on them even, rather Chil is chilblivious and his wife loves him very much still, she’s just testing him after having had a night of feeling out of place at his side.

And this is what separates the idealization vs romanticization, she’s not twisting him into someone else she’s just uplifting what he is and focusing on the good sides.

Marcille: "he has a shitty personality sometimes but if he was my husband I’d still cherish him" "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 nice and that’d make me happy, but I’d also be sad because you wouldn’t tell me that you love me enough"

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 and fighting for

And what’s funny too is that you might expect her to cool down on him once she learns more about him but actually she only gets increasingly into his business. You tell her your age and next thing you know you promise to introduce her to your family. Give her an inch she takes a mile. And too the thing is, Senshi is equally mysterious but she doesn’t pester him like at all, asks him ONCE about his succubus and he doesn’t even answer and that’s like… It. With Chilchuck it starts off innocently enough with her wanting to know his age, hometown, the stuff she mentions having asked pre-canon. But it just keeps and keeps going and escalating. Think she’ll be satisfied now knowing you have a wife and kids, maybe she’s disillusioned now? Wrong! She wants to know their names and ages and occupations and hey how did you propose to your wife? Do you think she’ll stop after meeting them? What’s next? What will she want to know next????

She’s… Like it’s not a reach that Marcille is all over him. Like it doesn’t mean it’s romantic but she just is. She is not normal about him idk. Can you not ask him about what tongue technique he used when first kissing his wife, give the man breathing room

Marcille could literally go "if I was Chilchuck’s wife" having deeply pondered and thought out the hypothetical and people would still ask where anyone sees any romantic potential between them. Oh wait

There’s a platonic explanation for everything (almost?) in Dungeon Meshi don’t say I’m saying otherwise, but it’s definitely not like there’s nothing here to read into lol

Going off a bit more under read bc it’s my fave topic

Marcille has a whole theme with the charming prince trope with her idealization and storybook motif and Chil is kinda 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✨" catalyst

Do you see do you see she starts canon thinking the most romantic thing is a prince charming but her arc in the end has her romanticizing an average, flawed, real and realistic family man, who’s on the poorer side and is on the verge of divorce. And that’s what he needed, too, seeing the positive of himself and the situation instead of focusing on the negative is explicitly what inspires him to hope that he might be able to reconcile with his wife, gives him the courage and self-esteem to shoot his shot.

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!!!!

He’s the devoted virtuous man that she wantsss 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 & devoted & loving man. Far from a prince charming, but not fully detached from it either. Something worth fighting for despite the flawed cracks. Like literally, flawed romance being worth fighting for is literally the finale of Chilchuck and Marcille’s arc on the matter, where their separate arcs and issues intersect at the most crucial moment.

Marcille is important to Chil’s arc not only because of her optimism, but also because of her interest and knowledge in romance & matters of the heart, and that’s what he needs to both open his heart up to hope and to try to reconcile with his wife, like idk sounds gay

Their arc together is literally learning to 1) see each other for how they are and not undermining their qualities 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 romantically beautiful like KUI KUI STOOOOP STOP I’M ALREADY HOOKED I’M ALREADY-

 Ok fine that’s me reading into the tropes too much forgive me for being storybook brained but like. Speaking his heart out to a lone woman on a balcony, Romeo and Juliette shit, asking if she, too, doesn’t want to meet his family, madly blushing. And like she’s learned with Chilchuck it’s all in the little things, all the implications he cannot speak aloud. She does reciprocate, does blush madly back, and the first thing she does is shower him in flowers and jewelry and what in her heart is coded as romantic gifts

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 an offer, 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 too…. Crazy

Doesn’t it sound like a proposal. One that’s both so storybook-like and not, contrastedly real and grounded, 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?? This is @ the woman who said "Chilchuck is a shy/bashful man so I know he wouldn’t tell me he loves me, but…" btw

To quote a friend, truly the shiny secret unlockable dating sim capture target : THE DUNGEON LORD BIT WAS SO FUNNY BECAUSE HE KNEW SHE'D TAKE IT HOOK LINE AND SINKER HES THE ONE WHO GOT HER TO TURN AROUND COMPLETELY SHES LIKE. WIDE EYED FLAG RAISED???? FLAG RAISED WITH CHILCHUCK 👀👀👀‼️👀👀‼️👀

And the way that this is the culmination of their arc together… Like people are not ready for the ‘Chil calling out to dunlord Marcille on the balcony has Romeo and Juliette romance novels imagery’ take. Or the ‘their arc is about growing to see beauty even in the non-idealized, in the flawed and in the real’ take which makes it so so perfect if she were to lower her ideal from a charming elven prince to a virtuous halfling man (which she does end up romanticizing)

So there, you got to witness in real time what happens when I think about marchil for longer than 2 minutes, there are so many layers it’s a deranged rabbithole. I saw the necronomicon of subtext and it’s driving me to madness with forbidden knowledge that no one else sees

……. Like what if I told you she implicitly picked Chilchuck over a "unrealistic prince charming who’s actually disingenuous" much earlier in the story already. If she was given the choice to think through going with a guy that seems perfect and chivalrous like her succubus she’d pick Chilchuck over the other actually. If I sound insane rn tune in for my full analysis on them coming this month hopefully thank youu. Interwoven arcs of fantasy vs reality and idealization vs pessimism I love youuu

So now you know the general thesis of my planned analysis about the importance of the prince charming figure in Marcille and Chilchuck’s arc, where she romanticizes things to a sometimes worrying degree or idealize people into something easy and digestible and poetic (like Chil being a kid, and then him being a virtuous ✨✨✨husband), and how she needs to value aesthetics less and actual acts and facts more, be more grounded (like seeing people for what they are flaws and all, and 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 he still is worthy of love and having his cute grand romance story and his happy ending. Ik I keep repeating the same point through this but I need it to be burned into everyone’s brains it has its grip on me I can’t do this. They are so special……

[dunmeshiminimumwage]

back when i worked at [large chain coffee store], i tried to unionize my workplace. my manager sat me down and gave me a very guilt trip-y talk. lots of "but i thought we were a family :(" and "you don't *really* know what unionization does, do you?" i played dumb and managed to avoid being fired, but. chilchuck momence.