#[ this got super long but fuck it ]

[possamble]

Needlessly close reading and long commentary on chapter 57 and how the audience actually has an extremely limited view on what Marcille has been like over the course of her life.

I am once again thinking about how pre-dungeon Marcille is so quiet and stoic that she seems like a completely different person. How jarring chapter 57 is for the audience. Like you have Marcille, who has been just the most blindingly expressive person with resting baby face

And then the chapter drops a title page of Marcille hearing from Falin for the first time in four years and it's like.

Who is that. Genuinely. Would you even realize that's Marcille without the context clues?

And then the chapter just keeps coming in with the sucker punches.

We have SEEN Marcille meet strangers. It was never with this understated of a smile.

literally who the hell is this. the few times the audience gets to see some Signature Marcille Faces that they're used to is when she finally gets to see Falin again

when she's testing out her new spells

(and when Laios and Falin are fantasizing about her being their damsel in distress, funnily enough)

And then finally. Finally you get to a fully recognizable Marcille when she fucking DIES and comes back to life to geek out about necromancy.

We know she loves magic. We know she loves Falin. So it's not so surprising that she wouldn't be able to keep a mask up when thinking or talking about the things she loves. But why the mask in the first place? Where does it come from? It's tempting to think that, maybe, Falin's departure just hurt her so much that it turned her into a quiet person.

But that's only half true. If you go back, the first instance you see of this incredibly mild personality is actually introduced much earlier, in chapter 17.

What if she was always like that. What if her default after her father died was to hold people at arm's length, to never really emote past being polite and friendly. What if Falin was the first person who was able to bring her out of her shell, and when she left, Marcille just went back to how she was.

And when comparing her detached demeanour with someone else...

It's not exact, but wouldn't you say there's a resemblance? Wouldn't you think she might be trying her best to imitate what she saw of her own mother working as an accomplished mage?

It would certainly explain why she's hiding behind her portrait in her nightmare, at least.

We aren't told that Marcille has been distancing herself from everyone around her using a mature and dignified personality she modelled off her mother. But we sure as hell are shown it, I think.

[biblically-accurate-dca]

super disorganized sketch page because i do what i want

[frobby]

Nothing is stronger than the bond between a girl and a piece of media they brushed off 10 years ago that they now realized is the greatest thing ever made

[charmac]

[sunonwaxyleaves]

After hanging out with Sirius’ little brother for a few months now - sometimes the three of them but more and more just the two of them - James first realizes he’s in love with Regulus on a summer night with cheeks warm from sunburn and sweet red wine. They’re on an old leather couch at a party Sirius is throwing at the Potter’s beach house, and Regulus rests his head on James’ shoulder with a deep, heavy sigh. Absolutely plastered, he mutters in defeat, “I think I’m now ready to admit that I’ve probably missed my chance at becoming a mermaid.” James wants to laugh until his stomach cramps, wants to kiss him on his peeling lips and point out that Regulus turns 21 in just one week, what does he mean he’s willing to admit this now, but instead he shrugs lightly and rests his head on Regulus’. He says in that cocky voice of his that makes far too many people swoon, “You’d be the prettiest mermaid of them all” and Regulus would roll his eyes even though James couldn’t see, he’d bury his head further into James’ neck, and tell him “Yeah, James, obviously”.

And then a week would pass, the morning of Regulus’ 21st birthday, and he’d wake up before anyone else and sneak out of the house for his morning run. Sometimes on the really hot days, like the day of his 21st birthday, he’d cool off in the ocean before walking back to the house, the walk long enough to let the sun dry him a bit.

Except this time was different.

Regulus runs and jumps into the ocean, does a few slow strokes atop the rolling waves, then promptly begins to scream bloody murder in the blink of an eye; his legs have become so heavy it’s as if an overweight adult man is clinging to him. He twists and turns his body, lifts his cement legs up to see what the fuck is going on, freezes, starts drowning, then screams even as his mouth fills with saltwater.

Where his legs are supposed to be - where they used to be - there is now a beautiful emerald mermaid tail with scales that glitter tiny rainbows like the polish on his finger nails.

A mile away, the split second Regulus screams the first time, James wakes from a deep slumber with a gasp so sharp it throws him into a coughing fit. He drinks from the glass of water on his bedside table and grabs his phone before leaning back onto the fluffy pillows, pulling up his messages to text the birthday boy.

(7:02am) Happy birthday Reggie!!!! 21 WOOHOO!!!!!

(7:03am) Are u back from ur run?? Do u want blueberry or chocolate chip pancakes?

(7:04am) Had the craziest dream last night. Need to tell u all about it over some Potter Pancakes(;

(7:26am) Reggie??

(7:38am) Sirius said u never came back from ur run is everything okay???

(7:41am) Ur freaking me out Reg can u pls respond

(7:55am) Wherever u are: STAY THERE

(7:55am) I’m coming to find u. Call me when u see these, pls pls please

(8:06am) Where the fuck are you, Regulus?????

[luck-of-the-drawings]

OH ARTHUR BENNETT.. such a gorgeous and intriguing character. terribly burdened by a GRUESOME set of crimes, his light suffocated by a HEAVY century of GUILT. so tragic, so dark and broody, and yet PAINFULLY awkward in any social setting ever

[trash-gremlin]

could you imagine how good spirit animals would be if it wasn't written as a children's series

[o-wyrmlight]

Hey.

Kim teaching Harry how to skateboard and Harry teaching Kim how to roller skate.

Harry thinks he fucking sucks at first because Kim gets the hang of roller skating pretty quickly. As it turns out, skateboarding is a lot harder than roller skating.

I don’t know where I’m going with this. Um. Kim still prefers skateboarding because of the technical aspect and risk factor but he’s surprised he enjoys how chill roller skating is.

Harry enjoys skateboarding because a) time with Kim as a teacher and b) oh wow a challenge? Your physical instrument loves challenges. You will conquer this with the force of your—what do you mean this is more the centipede’s thing? Holy shit no wonder Kim’s so cool

[thereaderinsertlady]

I love my sweet boys that I made up completely in my head

[fear-no-mort]

thinkign about how alone and unloved morty was for all his life and rick was the first time anyobdy ever put such an amount of intense attention and dependency onto him . and rick had a whole new family and losing them made him stop seeing the value in other people as a whole and morty was the one and first thing that woke him up

[vampistol]

I just got an ad that shows a fully rendered version of the drawing im working on... anyone else w medibang experience that?

Lolol jk anyways here the full piece :P

Heres a version where hes only half dipped in spaghettio sauce

[gray-warden]

Oh my god. There's a mayoral debate going on in São Paulo and one candidate (Datena) hit the other (Marçal) with a chair.

The video is so funny

Just... "alpha male" Marçal accusing Datena of not being man enough to do anything to him, followed by "No, Datena! No! Nooo!!" in the background as Datena comes into frame and hits him with a chair, cutting to a different camera right as he hits, the moderator going "OUR COMMERCIALS, PLEASE", a "son of a bitch!!" yelled out in the background...

Rationally I know it's awful, it's shameful, but right now I just can't stop laughing.

[perilegs]

my sweet little baby man is no longer with us

[aboxthecolourofheartache]

Rem Saverem was a real one. Imagine being like between 28 and 30 and witnessing your crewmates torture a little girl to death, unable to stop them or rescue her. She’s not human but she looks and acts like a suffering child. She dies, horrifically and incompletely (frozen, status: alive). Your crewmates aren’t done with her even when she’s in pieces, and they put her in a jar to save for later. You keep her resting place clean and leave her flowers, knowing she never once got to see the miraculous geo-dome where you grow those flowers. Her siblings(?) or aunts(?) or mothers(?) support that geo-dome, each in a jar of their own, a torture and exploitation even slower than hers. You’re giving her little bits of them, but there’s nothing on the ship that isn’t created or maintained by slavery. There is no viable alternative you can come up with that doesn’t involve an overhaul of everything currently keeping humanity alive in suspended animation without waking up everyone and having a UN-floor-style shitshow of a discussion. You’re not an ethicist or a politician or even a community leader or systems engineer. You’re a navigator with a good head on your shoulders and an unequivocal stance on torturing children: it’s the worst kind of wrong. You don’t really know enough about Plants to understand what the alternatives to their exploitation are, if there are any. You just know it’s wrong, and the complicity eats at your bones and at your sanity via your conscience. How did you ever think that this expedition was the best use of your blank ticket? What would Alex say? (He would hold you and remind you that you are one human woman, and that you protested as much as you could, made your moral stand as best you could, and pushing harder might have resulted in your enforced return to cryo-sleep until the ships reached their destination, and then who would leave the poor child flowers? Who would think of her kindly? Who would be awake instead of you now, continuing to ruin her even after death?)

Then, the universe coughs up two more Independent Plants, and you know exactly why you’re on this expedition and how to make the best possible use of your blank ticket. Never again. You name the children, you treat them like people, you love them - and you’re barely 30 and traumatized as hell and you know you’re fucking things up, but there’s no one else and you cannot allow there to be anyone else, or everything goes back to square one and the twins go to the dissection table. You hide them in plain sight. They love you. You’re happier for their company, less lonely, and you never expected to have children. (You were planning, with Alex. If those plans had worked out, you would not be here to do your flawed best for these twins.) They are so smart, and you cannot bring yourself to tell them anything about the girl who came before them. You can barely put that experience into words for yourself, much less communicate the scope of it to two children. (They are so smart, growing inhumanly fast, and they are still less than a year old. You really should have fucking tried anyway.)

They discover their sister. They’re about one year old, and they fall away from you and from each other and from hope. One-year-olds shouldn’t be actively suicidal. You feel just like you did when you dragged yourself back to your room after screaming at your crewmates decades ago. You still think it was pure cowardice that you volunteered to go back into cryo-sleep so you could wake up years later and avoid spending time with mutilators and murderers. If you checked out, chose to sleep, volunteered for a solo navigation shift, how could you blame Knives for pushing everything down and ignoring it? After your own sick depression, feeling so powerless, how could you blame Vash for wanting to be done with everything?

But they’re barely over a year old. All you really know is that dead people don’t get to make decisions for themselves, death is the end of change for a person. (Alex will always be 27, love you more than anything, and will never meet the children who have become your family.) Things don’t get better for dead people. You want so, so much for things to get better for the twins.

One of them kills you, driving everything into the ground, humanity and Plants alike, because living means change means uncertainty means fear, and he is so afraid and humanity taught him his life was cheap, so why should he value theirs? The other plays the letter but not the spirit of your hopes; he lives for other people and never for himself, internalizes your insistence on the value of life and pays flesh by the pound to preserve it. He won’t follow you into death because your purchased his life (and so many other lives) with yours (he won’t squander that), but in a way he will never forgive you for choosing to die for others, and he’ll take that anger out on himself. You save lives and you doom Plants and you doom humanity trying to save humanity and Plants from their doom. Everyone’s on a rock again, back to where it all started on an inhospitable world, just a new one. But you kept things from ending. It all could have ended.

And you were like 30 and clinging to an imperfect but determined philosophy that kept you from flinging yourself into the grave after Alex, and you weren’t a mother or an educator or a spiritual guide or even particularly suited to raise children, and you fucked these kids up irreparably, but you were all they had and you were better than anyone who would have made them into tissue samples. You tried so hard, and both twins will carry you like a millstone and like a talisman for the rest of their very, very long lives.

And you named one of them Knives. What the fuck, Rem. Knives??

[nyxofdemons]

this was going to be like a mile long essay but i just realized the most concise way to say it is that "it feels like a retcon that blitz has been so resentful and hostile towards fizz all this time since he was supposed to feel guilty" is simply not a good criticism when we have been shown, time and time again, that blitz's number one defense mechanism when he feels guilty or judged or attacked is to lash out, to deflect and ignore all his responsibility, and to shift the blame to someone else. that's like. his defining character flaw