#♕; in character.

[arkclipse]

anyone's welcome to barge into my inbox for memes or just chatting if you wish. i'm thankfully lessening how much was in there and got most of the stuff in drafts. just tending to a slight migraine and trying to shoo it away. i'm also down to doing that expression drawing meme.

[mvriigold]

thinking just a little about tcm!verse chrissy before i head to bed, because, like - there can be two options, where the stranger things events already happened beforehand, or she's just existing within tcm without her canon events happening to her, and they would definitely head in different directions.

but for the post st!verse where she survives and moves out to texas, there's just something about her getting out of there, maybe shedding cheerleading and trying to do something new, or trying to make cheerleading hers again. maybe picking a sport up for herself, while she figures out what she wants to do with herself now that her life is hers. making friends that are hers, and not people picked out by her mother. and, ultimately, ending up in that house in texas, and being so much more of a fighter than she used to be and biting back. i want her to grow and blossom and start to fight for herself so bad.

[bullyberry]

@canidgrit is in the way: ❛  can’t you watch where you are going ?!  ❜

First Meetings

Stella simply stares down at the boy and the papers she'd scattered from his hands. Admittedly she hadn't intended to do so but she didn't feel bad for making him drop all his work either. Nor did she intend to help him gather said work. She had intended to simply walk on, enjoy her day without a single thought to her own carelessness. But his biting remark made her stop. No dog bit her and went by without a bite back. There was a coldness to her stare that could send a chill through a Cryogonal. Her foot moves stepping on the paper closest to her and grinds the paper into the ground, tearing holes into it while the dirt from her shoe is wiped clean upon it.

"Oops. Sorry. Guess I didn't see you there." There's no sincerity to her voice. If anything it's mocking in it's apathy. "It's hard to notice runts. Even when they're in your way. Guess that's why you should be careful who you walk in front of, huh?"

[kokoronohiroi]

everyday i must live with the knowledge that okuyasu (and avdol) may not get nendoroids for god knows how long

[feylived]

"i know why you're here, and i'll never not be appreciative of you coming back to warn us about wyatt but . . . we haven't really talked about what it means that you're here. i know you said there's not much of a future where you come from -" piper pauses for a second, collecting her thoughts as she gazes at her son with a pained expression. her grown son, who gave up everything to come back and hope to change things for the better, with no guarantee that it would work. "it may not mean much right now, but i hope you know that i'm so proud of you for making this sacrifice. you were so brave to even try."

@castlesfallen liked.

[tsareviich]

in finance

trust fund

6'5

blue eyes

[arcstral]

—  Fire Emblem: Engage, The Emblem Marth Retrospective.  —

Marth in FE: Engage plays a fascinating supporting role.

He has a dynamic presence on the boxart though he’s not a character native to this installment; enlarged and immediately able to be seen on the left where the eyes tend to be first attracted. His title 'Emblem of Beginnings' implicates his role as the first emblem to be summoned on Elyos. He serves as the spokesman for the emblem family in a lot of cases, and provides worldly exposition for the ancient artifacts and plot detail uprisings.

If you acknowledge his role as a witness to every phase of Alear's life from beginning to end- the parts we see in game to the invisible sections we don't see a thousand years before- he suddenly becomes larger than life. The figure that has been with Alear longer than even Lumera. Someone who has seen everything there is to see about our protagonist, to an extent where if an omniscient narrator was ever needed to narrate the events of the game, the only qualified individual by necessity would have to be the ‘Emblem Marth’.

With that that said, I was initially willing to go into Engage thinking of its Marth as an offhand spinoff version. No different from the inconsequential single-beat portrayals of Smash or even Warriors. But this idea is wrong. Engage surprised me by putting a very human, very special Marth into my hands. An echo of the original Hero-King, Emblem Marth recognizes that he is only an emblem from the very first beat of his first appearance, and yet he's unaware of how faithful of a homage he is to the individual he's extracted from.

How much he takes the foundation and honors it elsewhere.

The Emblem Marth as set apart from simply Marth is a purely loyal existence from humble beginnings to bitter end. A millennial being who answers Alear’s call for aid at every cost and asks for nothing in return but to be remembered. His duty to protect this world is equal to his desire to be at Alear’s side. It's that enduring spirit of nobility, loyalty, and devotion to his friends, even forgiveness, that places him on par with his original.

It’s the adversities that best place these traits on show.

Chapter 10 happens and brings the sky crashing down. Suffering on that course, as the last and latest emblem ring to be reclaimed from enemy hands- utterly miserable to be torn apart from Alear and company as Veyle aptly put it- still he serves to provide nothing but love and forgiveness for Alear on their long awaited reunion. The fact that chapter 10's devastation happened at all despite the counsel he’s spared. His even greater forgiveness of Veyle is extended in the aftermath, a compassionate empathy toward her circumstances that reflects the kind he shows for others in his time- his enemies. Hardin and Katarina. Camus and Michalis.

When Veyle returns the ring of the Hero-King to Alear in Chapter 22, she observes that “it was lying by your side, as if it wanted to be with you”, and to me this statement was the most touching. Marth no matter the circumstance will never, ever leave Alear behind if he can help it. But that situation, and that tragic day, arrives. And his reception to the cold fact is graceful.

Accepting his death without complaint, he quells Alear's fears with the reiterated admission of duty, no longer to Altea or to Archanea, but to Elyos. The Emblems exist to protect this world and in that call to existence is a reason worth dying for. His cessation means nothing, Marth nobly says. 'I am of no consequence' he remarks to Velyle tangentially in his paralogue when she laments at the idea of fighting him, with words that resemble humility but in actuality prioritizes the things that he sees as truly important--others.

Duty is the overpowering virtue of Marth’s character. Whereas the original Hero-King cites himself a prince before a son or a brother, this one would call himself an Emblem above all else. That sense of duty to a world not his own even manifests in many different ways. From that unique perspective of both an emblem and a king comes his wisdom, the utmost belief that a world placed in Alear’s hands will know peace and prosperity, that it would be a beautiful place.

This interaction speaks of the telling final thoughts that the Emblem Marth possesses in the last chapter of his life; a dutiful onus to realize a successor to the emblems’ legacy, someone to watch over the lands they have protected for eons. To pick up the torch in their stead. This desire is coupled with his love and peace of mind. He is proud of Alear’s growth, has seen it himself over the course of a thousand years and then some. Of all Marth’s fond observations for the Divine One, such words might be the highest level of his praise.

Such words reflect the caliber of a noble and positive existence who is aware of his bitter end and smells only the flowers. An everbright future with or without the emblems.

When the Pact Ring paralogue finally rolls around, we begin with Marth’s explication about the origins of the ring which even Vander does not know. Detailing Lumera’s mysterious history as its previous owner, and the familiarity of the local surroundings to him, it ends with his sound advice that Alear think carefully on which ally to give it. He is more than aware of the special meaning of this ring and how it will strengthen the bonds between two people.

That knowledge conjoined with his long history as Alear’s partner and a Lythos emblem posits an important side to the conversation:

He is consistently a voice of wisdom yet this example is special; it is in the late Queen Lumera’s place that Marth acts, informing her child about the ring most conducive to their happiness, second only in importance to the emblems and the birthday ring staving off Alear’s corruption. Marth, as always, is watching over the Divine One, nudging them toward their own betterment. Once a long-standing guardian to Alear’s slumber, he watches over them in the innocent and unassuming manner of this guidance as well.

Ultimately, by the game’s ending I thought very deeply about what endeared me so much to this Marth. Why I mourned so much at his loss as a 'phony' version of the original and I think I can finally put it into words. It’s about how much he exemplifies the loyal Hachiko paradigm but ten times magnified. Waiting and watching at the side of his sleeping 'owner' for a thousand years, never failing to sally to Alear's side, and even when corrupted by the fell dragon incantation- even when unable to verbalize or express any component of free will- he's able to muster the scantest smile for Alear in their darkest hour.

Marth is the emblematic mascot who goes through a dozen different redesigns and cameos in the most offshoot games- the most of any existing FE protagonist in both aspects, all differing in appearance from one another in various degrees. In terms of those many portrayals that define Marth, FE17 is nevertheless set apart in this regard by its depth. Showing more than anything that a Marth of a vastly different premise and belonging to an alienated universe is still, well, Marth.

Someone who is dutiful to extremes and deeply appreciative of his bonds, unfailingly kind. Someone who has 'always been kind' as Alear puts it.

Marth's words that Sombron's Emblem will never come back to him again is mirrored for himself. He, too, will never return, and what’s left in the wake of this knowledge is a unique iteration worth mourning. Engage teaches me nothing new about Marth but it does tell me one thing. The hero known as 'Marth' is as much a character as well as the allegoric ideal that puts greater duty and lordly goodness on the table.

Marth is Marth says Engage and that will always be an immutable worldly comfort.

[stormbcrn]

emilia clarke is so real for that one interview where they ask her if she has watched h/otd and she's just "--- no-o-o ??"

[soigniert]

Broke: Aoi’s a mary sue and does nothing

Woke: This is a different era and society, and she is meant to follow the Yamato Nadeshiko ideal in terms of nature, appearance, and etc. She supported her husband and was living in a magus society as someone without any actual magic ability with value only in producing children with strong magic circuits, but despite this fact; Tokiomi loved her deeply and treated her as a person rather than as a means of furthering the Tohsaka lineage.

[arkclipse]

i subjected my muses to this, so now i subject myself to it.

petals has appeared! what to do?

Ravish

Insult

Flirt

Kiss on the cheek

[mvriigold]

we're cooking we're so cooking

[storiescrafted]

STARTER CALL.

specify muse or you won’t get anything! feel free to reach out for plots!!

MUSES.

[bullyberry]

@strawberrycriisiis snapped back: i'm sorry you missed the part where it's a PRETTY girls night

"How kind of you not to invite me then. Wouldn't want to make the other girls feel inadequate after all."

[kokoronohiroi]

finally … peace …

[feylived]

sally are you aware you're a milf

how do you think i caught the attention of a god?

don't let my son hear you though, he still thinks realizing girls don't have cooties is weird, and doesn't love hearing about his mom having a love life.

[tsareviich]