#i want my own sides too!

[logan-the-alien]

PLEASE SEND ASKS I'M BOREDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

[pokimoko]

I can't keep being fundamentally changed as a person by animated movies, it's just not sustainable.

[puppyeared]

littlest furth shop

@laikascomet

[tea-cat-arts]

Shen Yuan getting transported into pidw isn't "the system punishing him for being a lazy internet hater," but instead representative of "step 1 of the creative process: getting so mad at something you decide to go write your own fucking book" in this essay I will

[arthursfuckinghat]

"I was gonna say you're like a son to me.. but you're more than that."

"It ain't that complicated!"

How quickly that shoulder pat of comfort turned into a condescending one.

[bananonbinary]

as a certified Diagnosed Autist(TM) i cannot stress enough that i am not only pro- self-diagnosis, but also pretty anti- legal medical diagnosis. it is, at best, a cruel hoop we have to jump through so privileged people will deign to give us what we need. don't fucking do that shit unless you have to, it was disgustingly expensive, fucking humiliating, infantilizing, and dehumanizing, and would probably actively cause problems in my life if i didn't have some really good allistic (-passing) people in my corner and also wasn't so fucking disabled that it mostly doesn't matter.

literally get that diagnosis if you need it for job/school accessibility shit or SSI or whatever, and otherwise dont tell the government SHIT about yourself. there is zero good reason for them to want that information. that's between you and the people you want in your life.

[whathorselegs]

What the anime did to Dazai's Entrance Exam was just awful in general, but the worst part of it for me, was the fact I didn't know it was supposed to be a light novel adaption in my first watch of BSD.

I thought it was setting up a whole arc with Kunikida, I thought the Azure King was gonna come back and play some sort of role going forward. I was excited for this and then got NOTHING!

Dazai, Atsushi, Fukuzawa, Ranpo all get enemies/nemeses to have messy homoerotic energy with.

When will it be Kunikida's turn!!?

[dungeons-and-dragon-age]

Hiii everyone, say, how do your Hawkes go go about sharing their estate? If they do it at all? Is everyone free to come and go or are they more private? Or do they only invite their LI to stay? I'm curious!! :)

[puhpandas]

I love ggy so much how did they accidentally make the most intriguing hypothetical gay romance ever

[possamble]

What are your headcanons about Marcille's mom if you have any? It's interesting that what drew Donato to her was cause she lived the history he studied, or that was said somewhere at least. She must've had an interesting life.

so this was going to be just a normal answer but then I realized I have a Lot of Things To Say. so here goes, a compilation of what we know for a fact from the canon, what I've extrapolated from the visual cues and details, and my theories based on all of that.

Things we know for a fact about Marcille's mother because they were explicitly stated in the manga and supplemental materials:

She was a court mage for a Tall-man kingdom at the southern part of the Northern Continent

Donato, a court historian, fell in love with her because she had lived through the history he was studying, and he courted her for 17 years (age 15 to 32) before getting married

She was a cheerful person who rarely showed extreme emotion and took things as they came

She always cooked a huge meal for Marcille on her birthdays

She remarried a gnome after Donato's death and a short distance away from Marcille's childhood home

Pipi, Marcille's pet bird, was actually older than Marcille and originally belonged to her mother (bird died at 62)

She was extremely heartbroken when Donato died and ultimately ended up instilling a deep fear of mortality in Marcille with her words

the only time she showed extreme emotion in front of her family was when Donato could no longer eat his favourite dish near the end of his life.

She scolded Marcille for being cruel to ants (implying she can have a stern side when needed)

Things that are explicitly shown but mostly through visual cues

She has a very distinctive style of dress always involving a ribbon choker (mirroring Marcille's habit of always wearing a matching choker with any of her outfits that don't cover her neck)

She was almost stereotypically good at housekeeping and traditionally "wifely" things (very frequently depicted wearing an apron or doing some domestic chore when not at work, seems to have been an avid cook).

She knits? (also, note the affectionate smile as she's looking at Donato and Marcille reading a book together in the full panel)

She was as excited for Marcille's milestones as Donato was.

She didn't tell Marcille much about elven food

(there are a couple things that this panel in particular implies:

She lived a good deal of her life (if not being born and raised) in a mainly elven country in the West, implied by her knowing enough of an elven region's cuisine to prefer Tall-man food over it

seems to have a pretty carefree and casual demeanour overall, if this is how she replied to Marcille asking her about it (sounds like she never gave her culinary preferences that much thought to begin with)

slightly related to number 2, it seems like she and Marcille had a fairly casual parent-child dynamic (especially in comparison to the Toudens' memory of their father)

(local elf tastes Italian food once and never goes back))

However, she seems a lot more... serious in most of the other times we see her? Almost like the very stereotypical archetype of a graceful elf.

Subsequent conclusions about her personality:

Usually pretty carefree and cheerful at home, has been a loving and attentive parent throughout Marcille's childhood (while not being so doting that she didn't discipline Marcille).

Slightly more conjectural theories on her personality:

Had a much more graceful and professional personality at work, which would explain the more serious portraits we see of her.

Given that both she and Donato had positions at the royal court, it seems a little odd that she'd go out of her way to do all the housework herself, so maybe she just enjoyed doing it?

Now taping all the evidence together and toeing the line between analysis and fanfiction:

It's clear that she loved Donato very much and was utterly devastated by losing him. But there's one thing that really stuck out to me in what little we see of her:

Doesn't she seem... angry? The way she's gritting her teeth, clutching the tablecloth, and how this is the first and only time we see her eyes opened that wide. In the following panel, you see her being quiet and dejected after her initial outburst. She's still crying very intensely, but her brows are furrowed, and she's not really responding to Donato's affection in her body language.

We're not told the details of how she felt about losing Donato other than that it upset her. But this, to me, implies that she was angry and resented that he was aging, that the end of his life was approaching. An "it's not fair" type of preemptive grief. And if this was the first and last time she cried like this in front of her family, she was either very good at coping in private... or very bad at letting herself feel unpleasant emotions until they become unavoidable and end up overwhelming her.

It's not too remarkable a detail on the surface. It's even reminiscent of what the audience has seen of Marcille. But... when it comes to the big picture, you'd think an elf who voluntarily chose to marry a tall-man and have a half-elf child would have been better prepared for this.

It kind of recontextualizes her cheerfulness to me.

"I'm sure everything's gonna be okay!" (or some variation thereof, depending on what translation you have).

And this is stated to contrast her extreme grief when finally confronting Donato's failing body and eventual death. But I'm wondering if... maybe this optimism was why she was so upset. What if she went into all of it thinking "everything's gonna be okay"? What if she was a little young by elven standards, and just followed her heart thinking that her own resilience would get her through anything?

Of course, only to get completely overwhelmed when she actually loses Donato. She turns into a completely different person. And that's heartbreaking on its own-- but what the audience sees is the effect it had on Marcille. Can you imagine being her, watching your invincible and upbeat mother suddenly lose all the light in her eyes in one go?

I've already made a huge post about how I think Marcille models her "work persona" off her mother, but another thing that stuck with me as I was looking for more details in the manga was this:

copy pasting from the other post i made about it lmao it's like... the second she resigns herself to lifelong pain and terror, there's another portrait of her mother facing her like this. with their heads bowed, in mirrored body language of resignation and despair and sorrow. Except it's posed like Marcille is still looking at her mother but her mother is looking away.

It took me a second to realize, but I think that it's a visual metaphor for the fact that Marcille's mother was the only long-lived role model she had-- and she failed to model healthy grief for her daughter. I don't say this as an accusation or to disparage her as a character, but just as a matter of fact. In her, Marcille was seeing herself older and losing a short-lived spouse or loved one of her own, and all she saw was hopelessness.

But her mother didn't mean to instill hopelessness and terror in her. She wasn't really thinking of how it would truly affect Marcille at all (at least, that's how I'm interpreting her looking down and away from Marcille in the metaphor), she was just sad. And she, in her own way, was trying to protect her daughter and help her prepare for future losses.

What she meant was "loss is inevitable, and you have to learn how to be in pain but live on anyway." What Marcille heard was "loss is inevitable, and you will be scared and hurt for the rest of your life."

Again. Marcille's mother doesn't feature explicitly in the story the way her father does -- but in so many ways, her shadow, her silhouette, her reflection is always hanging over Marcille.

All that to say... headcanon-wise (everything from here on is 100% without evidence lmao), I'd like to think that she matured and realized that she failed Marcille. I imagine her being regretful about it, wanting a chance to fix it but never finding a way to insert herself back into Marcille's life when Marcille is so so so busy becoming the most accomplished mage possible. I imagine her being herself again, now, so many years after her loss and after remarrying -- but with her cheerfulness tempered with a lot more wisdom and the pain of having gone through loss like that. I think the second Marcille actually tells her what happened in the dungeon, she'd want to go running to her daughter again -- if Marcille tells her the full truth instead of just being embarrassed she let things get that far. (oh, the tragedy of her wanting to be more like her mother and an accomplished adult who doesn't need to be babied... being embarrassed to actually tell her mother how much she fucked up...)

There's also the tension of her having remarried -- I know that there's at least a little bit of resentment that Marcille harbours about that, because she's childish like that at heart even if she makes an effort not to externalize it. I think that her mother would be aware of that, potentially adding to her sense of guilt and apprehension at trying to reappear/intrude on Marcille's life. I honestly don't think Marcille has met her stepfather -- or even considers him a stepfather rather than "mama's new husband" and kind of a total stranger. I think she and her mother actively don't talk about it in their correspondence, like an elephant in the room.

but, ultimately, I think her mother is on her side no matter what. Ancient magic? Dark necromancy? Sure, she'll feel guilty and like she was partially responsible for setting Marcille down such a painful path, but she wouldn't care. that's her daughter!! she would've moved back west and been petitioning for her at the court, buying a house right next to the Canaries barracks and visiting her every day that she wasn't on a mission. And if her husband had opinions on Marcille becoming a "dark arts user," he either gets over it or it's divorce with him. Yes, she might have had her optimism completely humbled by losing Donato like that -- but she's still headstrong and self-assured and she doesn't care what people think of her. It's her way or the highway and she's always going to be in Marcille's corner.

(She also needs a name lol. I went with Juno, just to be cute about "Marcille"s closest real life equivalent being Marcella, which is the female version of Marcellus, which in turn is a diminutive of Marcus, which was derived from Mars. Absolutely in love with Marcille potentially being named after Ares/Mars the fucking god of war btw)

[idolomantises]

I think I’m gonna discuss this once and hopefully never have to bring it up again. Originally I wanted to talk about it on Twitter but people are very disrespectful when it comes to mental health so… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Basically, I haven’t been doing so great, mentally. Nothing bad has happened to me, I’m safe and surrounded by people I care about, and it’s been like that for months. I just, I haven’t been feeling good.

For people who do follow me on accounts like Twitter and Instagram, you may have noticed I haven’t posted anything new since January. I was struggling to feel motivated to make something for my main accounts despite having countless ideas I’d love to work on. I feel better now and do plan on getting something done in March, but that sudden lack of motivation is pretty rare for me. Art is not only my job but a big hobby for me, I just love drawing. I did get some nsfw art done at least.

I don’t know what really prompted my mental health decline, I’ve been getting a few worried messages and fanart because someone insulted my art. But that didn’t hurt me at all, it actually boosted my account and patreon.

I guess I just… got sad?

I have a really bad tendency to suppress and even ignore my trauma and feelings of guilt. And I guess one day I really sat with my thoughts and I just, lost it I guess. I have so much traumatic memories and sudden and intense feelings of self loathing, something I’ve never felt in almost a decade, that it got overwhelming. I couldn’t reassure myself, I couldn’t really talk to anyone about it because how do you confront things that happened years ago? You feel almost irrational. It’s just memories that haunt you, it’s nothing physical or tangible and yet it’s a crushing feeling of anxiety, self hatred and resentment.

I was crying almost every day, and crying so much that my eyes kept hurting long after I was done, and I could barely see my own screen. I’ve had paranoid thoughts about myself and others, thoughts I can’t get into because they’re so deeply irrational. I was feeling suicidal urges and thoughts of self harm. I don’t see myself doing it, but it’s so frequent and overwhelming it’s like I’m already planning my suicide note.

I was talking to my therapist about it, that I was starting to hate being alive. That I hated living. That I could spend the next 50 years of my life with no more conflict or trauma and I’d still be in intense misery and turmoil. They’re feelings I couldn’t really bring myself to tell friends about because what could they say? How do you calm yourself down and reassure yourself. I can’t even talk about my trauma verbally without crying. And it’s funny because sometimes minor irks started to affect me negatively. I was feeling anxious about what to draw because I didn’t want to do deal with homophobic backlash.

I went to a therapist, I talked to friends, Ive been working out more and eating better, I did everything I should do to improve my mental health and all of a sudden a single night just sitting in my room destroyed everything I was slowly building up over the past 5 years.

It’s been really difficult for me. I think also, I just felt so much guilt over not being the best person I could be. I decided to lessen my online usage, not just for my mental health but because I really wanted to work on being a better person. I want to stop hating myself and letting my trauma push me down and I want to do just be better and do better as a person. A lot of people have been very forgiving and kind to me but I don’t feel like it’s enough and I want to do more and I want to feel better about myself. I want to give everything I can to people around me. I’ve been going to therapy a lot more lately and things are getting better for me, but it’s been a very slow process.

I just want to repeat that nothing serious has happened to me. Nobody attacked me in a way that negatively affected my health. A lot of people, friends and strangers have been really nice to me these past few months. I just was doing a lot of self reflecting and unintentionally forced myself to confront a lot of my trauma. I’m saying trauma a lot. I don’t want to get into depth about what I endured because it’s my business but people who do know me know how bad things were for me. I don’t want to feel like that again. I want to feel better, and I want to do better.

Sorry for the long read. That’s just how I feel.

[logan-the-alien]

What are y'all's names and what do you each represent?

Also what everyone's favorite type of cookie?

Creativity: "I'm Quinn, and Red Velvet cookies! I just found them out today!"

Logic: "Hello, I'm Logan. I do find Chocolate Chip Oatmeal cookies quite nice."

Anxiety: "I'm Val. No, it's not a nickname. I guess chocolate chip?"

Morality: "Hey there ! I'm Pax! I love sugar cookies with icing!"

Deceit: "I'm totally not Lilith. I definitely can choose my favorite cookie."

Creativity: "I'm Trixie! I just CONSUME THEM ALL."

[alicenpai]

emilico :) super rough + small 5 min style test

been thinking of changing my art style a bit more lately to have more texture + a bit simpler bc all of my previous illustrations were taking too long. the timeline for my most recent drawings was like, nov-jan: 4 zine drawings over the course of 3 months. which burnt me out so bad.. it was too smooth and too anime for my liking.. then nothing until i did that pandora hearts illust in may. which also was exhausting! it's now 2 months later and i gotta attempt at least 1 or 2 new drawings for otakuthon. and i do not wish to have burnout again, so i really need to change up my approach to art :'))))

[kentopedia]

truthfully i want to back away from jjk but i don’t know how

[let-roman-bite-someone]

btw i really really hope that janus's current characterization, with the wine and sass, is just there for the more light-hearted episodes, and that thomas hasn't forgotten the nuance behind his character.

[my-current-obsession]

Something I both love AND hate about FF7 (the original game and everything after, including the Remake trilogy) is that it is just ambiguous and/or player-driven enough that no matter which side of the love triangle you fall on (assuming you do in fact ship Cloud with one of the girls), the majority of fans for that ship are 100% CONVINCED it's the correct/canon option.

Like, certain scenes are definitely up to interpretation, and people are going to thus have varying reads on those scenes and the characters/relationships the scenes are about. It doesn't help that several scenes change depending on the player's choices, which acts as a confirmation bias as you naturally get more time and romantic moments with the girl of your preference. It really seems to me that MOST people who ship Cloud and Aerith have one solid interpretation (with a plethora of supporting evidence) of the series and the romance, while most people who ship Cloud and Tifa have their own solid interpretation with plenty of evidence that is VASTLY DIFFERENT from the Clerith reading of the game.

This is not a case of "one ship is clearly, explicitly canon and fans of the opposition just like their pick better and/or think it made more sense narratively and WISH it was canon" - for an example of that, look to the Avatar the Last Airbender shipping wars. This is a case where both sides literally interpret the story just differently enough that they come to entirely different conclusions about which girl is Cloud's true love. And if either side reaches out to try and explain their viewpoint to the other, they're just met with "uh, no. You're wrong." Try and explain what Cloud might be thinking in a given scene with one of the girls, why he acts a certain way... "That's not it at all, where are you getting this? Are you delusional?"

Like, I am a Clerith shipper. I have played all the games in the compilation and watched Advent Children. I tried to be as completionist as possible, even. And I came out on the other side of really digging into the story of this game loving Cloud and Aerith's dynamic and pretty firmly convinced they were canon. Or as canon as possible in the timeline where she died.

As any Clerith fan who participates in the fandom would know, if you try and explain your interpretation of these characters and the romance to a diehard Cloti supporter... you're met with a lot of "you're misinterpreting! Cloud and Aerith were just friends! She loved Zack to the end and Cloud loved Tifa since childhood and never stopped! Also Aerith is actually BAD for Cloud because she's too pushy/abrasive. She's not helping him open up, she's just forcing him to go along with her and making him uncomfortable!"

All of this is of course infuriating, but I'd like to think I'm self-aware enough to know we are kind of guilty of the same thing. The majority of Tifa fans are SO happy about the kiss in Rebirth, while we're over here dismissing it because, one it's optional, and two Cloud is "obviously" using Tifa as a rebound or settling for her since Aerith is seemingly unavailable. But that's not how Cloti fans see it at all.

We can talk until we're blue in the face about how TIFA deserves better than Cloud because she shouldn't be the second choice - the one he settles for. But I think most people who really love Cloti genuinely don't see it that way. In their eyes, she's NOT second-best. Cloud loved her all along and this kiss is finally confirming that. And nothing we say will dissuade them, just as nothing they say will actually change OUR minds about Clerith.

It is honestly really difficult for me to try and see the story and romance the way Cloti fans do, but I know the reverse is also true. Both groups of fans interpret the characters and relationships differently. The compilation ALLOWS us to interpret them differently. And this is why the ship war for a game from 1997 is still raging on.

Because both camps are certain they're right, they defend their position viciously. Sometimes that means invading the "other side" to tell them how wrong they are. This discussion/rant was prompted by a Cloti fan on a Clerith vid who wanted to debate MY comment about how wonderful the ship was and how good they were for each other. He was "confused" and "concerned" because Clerith fans were reading the story wrong or warping it to suit our ship.

I wanted to tell him, "buddy that's what YOU'RE doing". I wanted to write a goddamn essay explaining why Clerith is canon actually. But considering in my INITIAL comment that he first responded to I'd already brought up why I thought Clerith was great, and he was IGNORING that... I knew it would be pointless. There is nothing I could possibly say that would change his mind. There is nothing he could possibly say that would change my mind.

As long as both sides of this war are fully convinced they're right, this war is going to be endless and brutal. And that's why my absolute biggest fear for part 3 is an open, ambiguous ending regarding the ships. Maybe it will canonize nothing. Maybe it will canonize BOTH by having the actual ending change depending on which girl the player favors.

Either route will offer no relief to this eternal battle. I would honestly prefer for Cloti to explicitly and unambiguously win than an ending where neither girl does. Because I can accept a loss. I can accept being told that actually I WAS interpreting the story wrong, but I'll only accept it from the text itself. If anything, a Cloti ending might encourage me to go through the entire compilation again trying to view it with that canon couple in mind. I'm sure I'd see things differently, even if I'd always have a place in my heart for Clerith. And I sincerely hope that if Clerith were to win that Cloti fans could do the same.

All I know is that I'm sick and tired of this ship war. I personally have never gone after Cloti fans or engaged in Cloti content with the intent to debate or hate on the ship. But I don't speak for all Cleriths. I'm sure at least a few fans of my ship are guilty too. I have seen many obnoxious Cloti fans invading our spaces to disparage us - mostly on YouTube and Twitch, less here on Tumblr - but I KNOW there are plenty of kind Cloti fans who just happily enjoy their ship and leave us to ours as well.

At the end of the day, regardless of how part 3 ends things, I just wish we could live in peace. Please enjoy your ship. Your interpretation of the text and romance is valid. But so is mine. If neither side can agree, then the best thing to do is leave each other alone.