#its just so hard to keep friends

[sophiesrambling]

i made plans with my friends like almost a year ago to watch barbie (like thats how serious we are about it) and almost everyone is actually gonna make it, and every instinct in me is telling me not to go, to sabotage and to just stay at home feeling miserable and i don't know why I'm feeling like that or if I'm actually gonna make it its just really weird, i should want to go, I'll probably have a good time but everything in me is telling me not to

[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……

[scificrows]

Okay, my brain refuses to think about anything other than Murderbot, so I looked at every use of the word "friend[s]" in TMBD and... created some pie charts. Normal human activities.

Some Thoughts™ I had while putting this together (under the cut):

In All Systems Red, Murderbot notes that the PresAux crew are all close friends (twice! and goes on to explain their internal relationships which I think is very cute). This is pretty much the only use of 'friends' in ASR, except for when Murderbot says that SecUnits can't be friends with each other.

It seems that this may be one of the first times Murderbot has ever really been around a group of friends before? Murderbot notes that this is not the norm for its contracts and admits that the fact that they are all friends and the way they interact with each other make it actually enjoy that contract (before!!!! the hostile attack, so it already enjoys this contract before they start seeing it as a person etc ghghhhh). [Inference: Friendship seems enjoyable.]

The first character that calls Murderbot its friend is ART in Artificial Condition. Murderbot immediately refutes this (and then goes on to call ART its friend to its clients for the rest of the book). [Inference: Maybe ART is Murderbot's friend. And maybe that is... agreeable]

Rogue Protocol has more than twice as many instances of the word 'friend' as any of the other novellas. Why? Miki. Friendship and its implications for non-humans are a central theme because Miki is friends with everyone. Murderbot initially scoffs at the notion that Miki and Miki's humans are friends. At the end of the book, after witnessing how desperately Don Abene tried to stop Miki from trying to save them, and her grief after its death, Murderbot has to admit that she had in fact been Miki's friend. [Inference: Humans can be friends with bots and can sincerely care about them]

In Exit Strategy, Murderbot tentatively uses the word "friends" for its humans for the first time (several times actually). It questions whether it can actually call them its friends or not and later realizes that it had been afraid what admitting that the humans are its friends would do to it. At the end of the book, Mensah tells Murderbot the PresAux crew are its friends, which is the first time a human has directly said that to it (at least on-page). [Inference: Humans can and want to be Murderbot's friends]

In Network Effect, Murderbot seems to be more habituated to the word 'friend', confidently calling ART and Ratthi its friends, like it is no longer just trying the concept on unsure if it fits. There are many instances in which other characters refer to MB as ART's friend or the other way around and Murderbot's humans refer to Murderbot as their friend several times. Generally, there seems to be less hesitancy, because yes, all of them are Murderbot's friends, why wouldn't they be. [Inference: SecUnits can have friends. This SecUnit has friends. They care about it a lot.]

Conclusion: The Murderbot Diaries tell the story of a construct that does not seem to consider the possibility of friendship for itself and is fine with that - until it accidentally starts caring a little too much and suddenly more and more people annex it as a friend (ew) to the point where it can no longer deny that this is happening and has to begrudgingly admit that yes, it has friends now and maybe that is actually not a bad thing.

[screechingfromthevoid]

nothing (besides everyone ignoring Orym's deal) has made me angrier than watching Dorian keep up this facade. Dorian Storm has always been a type of mask he's worn. At first he called himself a liar because of it. The happy go lucky bard was a way of escaping for him. He was escaping Brontë so he created Dorian. He didn't believe he was Dorian. Until the Crown Keepers made Dorian real. And for a while, he really believed he was Dorian. That he has this new family and new life and he could be who he truly wanted to be.

And then his brother came back and made his problems Dorian's problems. Until he had to put Brontë back on. Because even if the Crown Keepers + Cyrus called him Dorian, he was Brontë. He had to be who his brother thought he was.

When Cyrus dies, the thread to Brontë had snapped. He was going to see Orym, back to the Bells Hells, back to Dorian Storm. But the foundation of Dorian had shattered. Dorian was created in order to run from his place in life, family, Cyrus. Now he was gone. The Crown Keepers had fallen apart. His friends fell through his fingers and he couldn't do anything to stop it. He was once ready to side with a betrayer god for these people and now they're in the wind.

So Dorian shows back up to Bells Hella and he's completely broken. The foundation of both of his lives has been thoroughly rocked. No brother. No Crown Keepers. The two things that forged Dorian Storm. He wears that mask so fucking well. Because he still wants to believe in it. He said it live on stage that he should "believe his own backstory". The one he made up. The one where he was a bard.

He wants to be Dorian so bad. He spends all his money on Orym, he spins the bottle so he can kiss his friends, he flirts, he blushes and giggles at compliments. Exactly how Dorian would, should.

But he wears the gold of the heir. He has a festering animosity inside his chest. He doesn't sleep. He's thinner than he was. He doesn't sleep. He sicks abominations after their creators. He talks to God's without an ounce of self preservation, daring them to strike him down. He does not acknowledge them as they taunt him.

The god of beauty and magic calls him beautiful and he does not smile.

[arthursfuckinghat]

The worst part about playing rdr2 again is knowing who's going to die, how they're going to die, when they're going to die, and not be able to do a single thing about it

[glouris]

“they are very annoying and irritating” are you familiar with the concept of fun and being entertained by drama

[sallytwo]

Jennifer nearly jumped into the water / and she was tired like no one's ever been tired

[mintaikk]

Me reading a fic where the person had an identidy realization that they were in he aroace spectrum and now they were figuring themselves out(I finally found something that understood me and a romance I could relate to after all these years)

[nyatbinary-81]

@vulpixisananimal sifstem art jumpscare!! more specifically i got bored and decided to mess around with sif and mal's outfits.

[deoidesign]

Joked about Adam being divorced one too many times that now I'm getting anti-divorce ads

Adam think of the children... Please...

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

What’s up with the ties between Sally & Eddie?

There are quite a few - to the point where I’m starting to suspect that they may be foils, or at least inherently tied together in the story.

First let's bring things back to the clocks. The “day” side has an obvious resemblance to Sally, like how the “night” side resembles Eddie. There’s not really much I can say here since we don’t know much more yet, and who knows if this has changed behind the scenes. But just think about that, the rarity of the color purple, night vs day, and the “monster”. Keep it in your head, I think it may be important. 

Also the fact that Eddie is the only one with a watch, but Sally’s face has an incredibly similar face on her door.

Obviously Sally has some sort of beef with Eddie, despite him being nothing but friendly and (to our knowledge) being undeserving of it. One thought I entertained was “maybe Sally is dismissive of him because he’s a worker,” but that holds zero water when you consider how perfectly friendly Sally was with Howdy (karen Sally debunked <3). The second thought I had was “maybe Sally senses the queer in Eddie and it intimidates her” - which would make sense if Sally is a lesbian like I suspect. Internalized homophobia, anyone? This holds up if Eddie is going to turn out to be - not open about himself, but comfortable in his skin in a way that, say, Frank isn’t. Which I have a feeling that will be the case, which would likely make Sally put on airs even more so than usual. 

Anyone else seeing a continuous trend of (social) masks and performances unfolding in the Neighborhood? I sure am.

But let’s talk about why I think they might be foils. They balance each other out in an interesting way, despite their only solid similarity being that Both will work/perform no matter the weather. They have a lot of closely related differences:

Eddie has been mentioned (and implied within the story so far) to have a deeper well of knowledge than he lets on, but acts humble about it. Sally has been mentioned (and implied) to know less than she portrays, but acts like a bit of a know-it-all - she pretends to know things that she doesn’t. 

Eddie’s role is about helping others at his own expense, while Sally’s is using others to reach fame. 

Eddie strives to connect with his Neighbors and is all about accuracy/precision. Sally is in her own little world and has proved to be more than willing to improvise / not think things through before acting.

Eddie is slow to anger, and Sally is easily irritated. 

Selfless vs Selfish.

Night vs Day. 

And to put them in the Johari Window - i believe that Sally resides in the Blind Spot (known to others, not known to self), and Eddie resides in either the Facade (not known to others, known to self) OR the Unknown (not known to others, not known to self). Personally I’m starting to believe that Eddie may reside in both. 

It’s far too early to draw any real conclusions, and theorizing on all of this is difficult. I feel as though - as usual - we have puzzle pieces but no frame of reference for the way they fit together, what picture they build. And who knows, tomorrow’s update may shred this to ribbons, but I doubt it. 

One thought I had was that they’re in cahoots about something - it doesn’t have to be something malicious or some sort of secret plot, it could simply be something they both know and are trying to keep quiet about. Eddie is trying to connect with Sally since they have this in common, but Sally is actively putting distance between them to preserve their secret / plausible deniability. Do I actually believe this? Meh. I’m just throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks.

So current base thoughts: Sally is dismissive of Eddie either because he intimidates/scares her on an internalized level, or she’s actively trying to put distance between them for a currently unknown reason. There’s probably a secret third option I haven’t even considered!

[lollytea]

Huntlow situationship gives me such intense brain termites you don't get it

[doodoodinklefart]

back for another jjk yap sess, this time abt geto LOL...

im honestly a little surprised i never noticed this before but the way that geto (who thought that his best friend was killed and saw a girl he was essentially willing to uproot his life for get murdered right in front of him) tries SOO hard to stay calm while toji's talking and then the MOMENT he brings satoru up again and trivializes riko's death, suguru loses it. i'm thinking suguru let him talk in the first place despite the risk of letting toji reveal his pact (and wanting to kill him Very Bad) cuz he figured it would be better to understand toji's deal since he beat satoru, something that suguru trusted would not happen

but then he starts referring to satoru strictly as "the six eyes", and i think that suguru, one of the few people that saw satoru as a person beyond his cursed technique or his family name could not help but get super pissed abt toji's dehumanization of satoru (and riko too, who he only refers to as the star plasma vessel). i just thought that it was very interesting....... suguru cared so much and it makes me CRAZY AS FUCK.

like, to begin with i think its sooo so interesting that suguru made it a point to be considerate of all the human parts of satoru despite the fact that im sure most other people assume he doesn't need to be worried about. i'll never stop thinking about suguru asking if he needs a break since he's overusing his technique, telling him he worked hard after getting back to the school, trying to rush to his side after he's been stabbed and being conflicted when satoru tells him to leave with riko and kuroi... he didn't just assume satoru could handle all that shit on his own cuz even if he could have he shouldn't have to.

also related omg im almost done i promise but!! the scene where suguru gets to the star religious group and sees satoru again for the first time...

the way that he can't even believe his eyes, probably in part because he's acting way different but also because he thought he FUCKING DIED. and he had to drag himself out of the tomb of the stars and probably went to look for gojo's body before even going to shoko. and then he had to tell her he couldn't even find his body man WHAT THE FUCK!!! i think maybe saw a twitter post about this part in particular but he might have thought toji took riko's body and satoru's, so the thought that he went all the way there thinking he'd have to see two dead bodies of people he cared about... ugh. suguru geto i love you

[possamble]

I'm not allowed to be on social media for more than two seconds today but I just wanted to say that Laios will absolutely have his own reaction to all this as someone who would die for Falin but has also imprinted on Marcille as his Emotional Support Comphet White Girl Not-Girlfriend along the way

[laviejaguardia]

Thinking about kid Syd and kid Carmy spending an afternoon neither of them remember anymore playing under the tables of The Beef

[puhpandas]

I think the reason beckory works well is that tony has a habit of getting self righteous and in his own head about things but Gregory isnt afraid to tell him off or call him out about things. the point of tony in ggy is that nobody ever told him that how hes treating other people isnt good, so that's why he got so bad. but tony would be close to Gregory and have every rational reason in the world to listen to Gregory so when he would say something like "you're treating ellis badly and that's not what a good friend does, you need to do better" hed actually listen and take it into account and improve himself