#Self worth matters

[free-my-mindd]

Self-care is choosing not to argue with people who are committed to misunderstanding you. It’s a complete waste of time.

[crabsnpersimmons]

"Your heart was in the right place. Don't blame your earnestness and efforts for their lack of understanding—the right people will appreciate your heart."

EDIT: i mention this in the tags already, but please don't copy my vent tags in your reblogs. thanks for understanding.

[positivelypositivethoughts]

[captainofthetidesbreath]

Imogen: So, how do you know that Predathos won't hurt the rest of us? Like, where is this information coming from? Is that what Predathos told you? Did you talk to Predathos and that's what it told you?

Ludinus: I did talk to Predathos, and it said that it won't eat us.

Imogen:

[mazzystar24]

[mushroominaforest]

Well, I drew baby Hunter and Arti, so here’s baby Inv and Saint from the au!

Lore dump time!

Like I’ve said, these siblings are total opposites, and they were even more different as kids. You guys seem to like Saint’s silly expressions, but when they were younger they didn’t express anything. They aren’t bored or annoyed with Inv in the picture, they just literally always looked like that. Inv on the other hand, can’t mask to save their life. They’ve always been very expressive, loud and hyper, in sharp contrast with their sibling who almost never spoke back then.

Unfortunately for Inv, the Iterator that created and raised these two definitely preferred Saint. Inv was too much of a handful, but Saint was the perfect kid in their opinion- basically just a statue. Inv isn’t as stupid as they can act sometimes, and they definitely knew that their younger sibling was the favourite. That wasn’t a great feeling for them.

Despite their differences, Saint and Inv are very close. Inv has always been able to tell what Saint is feeling regardless of what expression they have, and Saint has always been patient with Inv and has never really minded their antics.

[thepeacefulgarden]

[positivelypositive]

🌟

you are enough...

...even on the days when you feel like a failure. even when you feel like you could have done more. even when you people tell you otherwise.

you are enough then, just as you are enough now. be proud of who you are ✨

[sunnykeysmash]

Man of words

[dykealloy]

Ranata Suzuki // Brenna Twohy, 'A Coworker Asks Me If I Am Sad, Still' // Braelyn Wilson, 'Counting Stars' // Starpeace // Suzy Kassem, 'Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem'

[nextstopparis]

do u ever think about “…for the kingdom you helped me build” “you could’ve done it without me” “maybe” ? do you ever think about that. do u ever think about how merlin literally could have just been a manservant with no powers at all and that convo wouldve still happened. hello. do you.

[free-my-mindd]

[possamble]

do you have any particular thoughts regarding marcille being a half-elf? its interesting to me considering the fact that she seems self-conscious about being a half-elf, but denies it when its brought up

i remember marcille looking visibly uncomfortable over laios simply asking her how old she is, which i think the only reason she might feel nervous about this is because it might reveal her as a half-elf to him.

she's never corrected anybody whose called her an elf either.

never mind the circumstances of the reveal, in which thistle goes on about how half-elves are inferior and accusing her of wanting to become full blooded elf, she seemed particularly upset like he struck a nerve-

i wish the half-elf thing was built upon more. also, underrated marcille line:

okay so i revisited this sequence just to make sure I could back myself up and it's just... man. there's a lot going on.

the first reaction we get from Marcille is this huge panel that takes up half of the page

she is viscerally affected. flushing to the tips of her ears with the intensity of it. and we see it again, a few pages later

so it might seem like she's embarrassed about it and lying to herself, but... I really think it's just that Thistle is accidentally hitting sore spots. If you really look at what he says to get these reactions

"you'll live out your entire life [...] and die that way too"

"a hundred years from now, nobody will be there"

Hear me out. I think, if he stuck to harping on about her inferiority without bringing up how terrifyingly long-lived she is, she wouldn't have been as bothered. But right now, Thistle is accidentally hitting all the marks on Marcille's deepest fears-- and this is after the Winged Lion promised her that her dreams could come true in an extremely vulnerable moment, so it also hits her slightly guilty conscience as well.

I do truly believe that Marcille isn't bothered about being a half-elf the way that people assume she'd be bothered by it. To her, the biggest problem with being a half-elf is that it's isolating.

On one hand, it's not hard to imagine why she'd distance herself from elves in the west. A lot of them can clock her as a half-elf on sight, unlike other races, and therefore she's always branded with this weird stigma of being Othered -- I would even say that she considers herself lucky for being born outside of elven culture instead of having to grow up in it. I mean, just... look at the way elves talk about her.

Skipping past the uncomfortable implication of what 'not tolerating the existence' of half-elves would actually entail, this is incredibly fucking annoying. You can see why she wouldn't want to be around elves much. You see a lot of Marcille reacting badly here, but honestly, almost all of it can be attributed to her freaking out that her bluff completely failed. She's honestly more paying attention to Izutsumi's footsteps and trying to coordinate an opportunity to escape.

And in the end, you see her built-up frustration at being asked if she wants to be a full-blooded elf like 2-3 times in a row.

Yeah, yeah, "the lady doth protest too much," and all. But we know Marcille. We know that she's a lot more embarrassed and horrendously unconvincing when she's being prodded about something she's actually self-conscious about.

Moving onto the flipside of things, it might seem weird that she "pretends" to be a full elf around other races, but it's not really that strange if you think about it. Again, people are weird about her being infertile or whatever, and a lots of them don't even know much about what sets half-elves apart from everyone else. I mean, look at how uncomfortable Laios is just asking her about it

and look at how exasperated and resigned she looks

And like... she's right. Where would that come up in normal conversation? Why would she go out of her way to tell them? She's functionally a normal elf to other races anyway -- got the ears, the abnormally long "childhood", and the huge mana capacity. Unless it's directly relevant or important for people to know, I don't think it's all that strange or indicative of insecurity that she prefers not to bother with it.

(This combined with her sense of being an "outsider" to elf culture also explains why she thinks elf superiority is embarrassing. She sees the way elves treat short-lived races from the "outsider" perspective nonetheless, and thinks it's obnoxious; especially more so because she usually has to play the elf around short-lived races and deal with the reputation of arrogance that elves have built up.)

The sad thing is, this all means that... she doesn't actually fit in anywhere. She doesn't like going out West much because of how elves treat her. But she's also an outsider in the continents she was born in, treated like this exotic long-lived alien choosing to live among short-lived races for some reason. She is always an outsider, the Other, no matter where she goes. Add in the fact that she'll live longer than literally anyone she knows, and it's honestly kind of heartbreaking.

And I think that's the crux of it. Marcille really doesn't act like she's at all self-conscious about being a half-elf because of any feelings of inferiority or being half-made or whatever. She considers herself a perfectly legitimate being and might even, in some ways, consider herself superior to normal elves because she's not blind with elf supremacy or whatever. (And whatever "elven biases" she displays, all of them are born more out of the fact that she's kind of bad at conceptualizing how other races age and mature compared to herself, not that she actually considers herself better or more mature simply for being an elf.)

I think that whatever self-consciousness Marcille has about being a half-elf is, instead, related to terror and loneliness. The reminder that it ensures she'll never truly belong anywhere for the rest of her very long life. The reminder that, in truth, even she's not actually sure how old she is by other races' standards (hence the discomfort when asked how old she is). She doesn't want to not be a half elf, or be a full elf or full tall-man-- in her ideal world, she's still a half-elf. She just gets to live out her life at the same pace with the people she loves and doesn't have to say goodbye again and again and again until she dies.

and one last very important panel, right after Mithrun tells her that all her desires would be devoured

In her ideal world, she's still a half-elf and reality magically starts marching at her pace. But failing that, the second best thing is that she's still a half-elf-- but one who is able to accept reality and let go of her fear.

(But the rest of the story pans out the way it does because, to Marcille, taking reality apart and reshaping it was less scary than simply and fully reconciling with it.)

[positivelypositivethoughts]

[catradoraism]

hua cheng about xie lian’s “most trusted person”: his highness is too trusting sometimes :( i wish that person was me but i know it couldn’t be :(

xie lian about hua cheng’s “beloved”: that person is such a tasteless freak if /i/ were san lang’s beloved i would never take him for granted he’s so handsome and capable and strong and charming and funny what kind of fucking idiot wouldn’t love him back

[serenityquest]