#Entitled little shit

[bet-on-me-13]

Lady Gotham raises Danny as a single mother

Danny gets de-aged and Clockwork sends him to live with his Daughter, Lady Gotham.

You would expect Lady Gotham to look very Gothic. Like a noble lady from the 1600′s or a ghostly woman in a large veil. Maybe even just a mass of writhing shadows?

But no, Lady Gotham looks like your stereotypical Single Mother at all times, cause she always has to keep her Bat-Kids safe like the rambunctious children they are, and it’s a 24/7 job

She basically has the house-mom look, frizzy hair tied up in a ponytail, a stained apron from making dinner, always looks tired but always has time to indulge her kids games, all that

After she takes in Danny, she decides to create herself a Civilain Identity so she can raise him as both a Human and as a Ghost. And raising the future High King has it's side effects, for example he is constantly producing excess Ectoplasm which empowers her enough to maintain a Corporeal form for much longer than she could before.

Now she can just live in her City, and actually Interact with her citizens like she never could before!

She starts helping out more, dispelling some of the more Nasty curses placed on her City and making people feel more safe than before.

She gives packed lunches to homeless kids, every day without fail, and they are always filled with that kids favorite snacks alongskde some healthy foods. None of her children are going to go hungry on her watch!

She donates to the local homeless shelters, and gives them some Good Luck charms so they experience less problems. She needs to teach her kids good morals after all!

She starts a Rooftop Garden on her apartment Building, handing out the produce to anybody who asks to borrow some. Somehow she never runs out no matter how much they ask for. It's good manners to treat your neighbors with respect! A cup of sugar and all that!

She embodies the "Neighboorhood Mom" stereotype perfectly, just across the entire city instead.

And the Batfam don't even notice for a few months! She isn't doing anything big, just being a good Samaritan, and a good mom.

Then, one day, Red Hood shows up and tells everybody that he was kidnapped by a Lady who kept saying stuff like "We need to get that dirty ecto sorted out, we are long overdue for a check up!"

And now he feels perfectly fine. No more green vision, no more violent tendencies, he's just not as angry about that anymore.

Now the Batfam are trying to find thus lady, but it's kind of hard since all Jason could give for a description is "She looked like a Stereotypical Single Mom. That's all I can remember about her appearance."

[a-star-that-burns-brightly]

I'm going to sound like such a smartass but I'm glad I'm seeing more people express that "Huh, maybe this girl who has an entire song repeating to herself over and over again that her murder was not her fault meanwhile she-

portrays herself as a giant grotesque bug in her headspace with her victim, who she clearly still holds a high opinion of, being the only human in said headspace looking at her with visible disgust and fear,

Making this expression upon realizing what she just did

These being the lyrics that follow right after, having a moment of reconsideration

Before jumping back to trying to convince herself that she was in the right, because she put her trust in us to tell her if what she did was right or not, and the answer that came out was yes... That maybe, just maybe. She thinks that what she did...

Might have been her fault."

[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)

[hiveswap]

[swordscleric]

There's an interesting parallel between the people who are clamouring for the redemption of the Rat Grinders and the people who are making Orym out to be the villain in his and Laudna's clash over Ishta in the latest episode. It's something about the way that the Rat Grinders are deeply entitled people, who are so envious and furious with the Bad Kids for being popular and getting leeway from Aguefort while completely overlooking the fact that they have saved the world three times before junior year even started; and Laudna not having any answer for Imogen's asking why Laudna wants the sword and Orym shouldn't have it, and Orym's statement of Ishta being the sword that killed him too. I know that both parties (the Rat Grinders and Laudna) are being manipulated by greater forces (Porter & Delilah), and yet there's a level of entitlement inherent to both of them that I see in their respective fans as well. I wonder is the backlash coming from the Bad Kids refusing to redeem the Rat Grinders because they're murderers and the backlash to Bell's Hells refusing to entertain Laudna's overriding Orym's want to wield the blade that killed his family all stemming from these behaviours serving as a deeply uncomfortable mirror for those fans' entitlement with the narrative; that their demanding the narrative to go exactly how they want and the refusal from the creators to bend to these demands is way too close to the demands of the Rat Grinders & Laudna here.

[dennisboobs]

some of you should not speak on dennis until you've rewatched sunny in full instead of just the macden-centric eps.

[lord-squiggletits]

I was at a "making friends" kind of social event just this past week and ended up having two subsequent conversations with different people that gave me an interesting reflection on my own reasons for writing without me even intending to make the conversation about it.

First conversation: The person talked about the feeling of awe from being at a music concert and how incredible it is that so many complete strangers can be united by a singular love of music. I related to it with regards to my own writing and how many people have read my stuff. Ended up telling this guy about some of the AO3 comments I've gotten from people to the effect of helping motivate them to live/just reflect on life in general. Somehow went into a tangent about a suicidal friend of mine who died when we were in high school, and me saying that maybe the reason I write so much about the things I do is because of the influence his death had on me. And the other person ended up asking me, 'So do you think it's like every time you write, you're doing it in his memory in a way?'

Subsequent conversation was with someone who was a psychologist for a day job, and I ended up telling them that I was kind of thinking of getting a degree in psychology/therapy one day because writing about mental health issues had gotten me so interested in the world of helping people heal themselves. But then I was also like, "Well, I don't know, it could be that I don't need to become a psychologist to help people with mental health. Maybe helping people by being a writer and telling stories is enough."

It was just a surprising, but topical realization for me to have talking to a bunch of strangers. For someone like me who's often preoccupied with doing and having knowledge and expertise, I often fall into the idea that you need to be directly involved in helping people to really be making a difference. I've literally had thoughts in my mind along the lines of "I'm so smart, hardworking, and dedicated when it comes to writing, but wouldn't it have been so much more of a net gain to the world if I'd decided to be this passionate about something like being a doctor or activist that actually helps people?" It's not like I truly regret being a writer (or ever will, because there's nothing else that I love so much), but in my bad moments I truly do sometimes think "Why does it make a difference if I entertain people or make them feel nicer for a while if it doesn't actually change anything in the world?" To quote one of my favorite Transformers fics of all time, "There was nothing that would have been more worthwhile, but that didn't rule out the possibility that the whole damn universe was wasting its time."

I guess the answer is that making someone feel better, even in a small way, is changing the world, even if it's just a few people, and even if it's just as simple as making someone's day better.

[ninjasmudge]

people really will say shit like 'the fic i found hasn't updated in a whole month so i think its been abandoned which is a shame, i wanted to read more' like where do you even get the nerve

[crowshoots]

tumblr rp needs to realize that a) you are not entitled to people's time, writing, and blog and b) the culture of individualism is fucking shit. you gotta reach out to folks

[incorrect-hs-quotes]

Feferi: i love being a little stupid it's so fun 38D

Feferi: it gets dark outside and i'm like ooohhh this happened yesterday too!

[uhohdad]

👉👈 soooo who else are you willing to write for?

i mostly write for Konig, Ghost, and Price - but I am more then willing to try and step out of my comfort zone for y’all

thanks for asking hun y’all know id do anything for you <3 <3 <3

masterlist if ya nasty

[risingsunresistance]

twitter is entering their "rts > likes" phase now that likes are private after they spent years calling us ungrateful for being demotivated by ratios lmao

[altruistic-meme]

sigh.

[send-up-my-heart-to-you]

the biggest struggle with being a burnt out gifted kid is the effort. like. what do you mean i have to try and put in work?? what do you mean thats the only way to accomplish great things??

[oozeandgoo-art]

stupid asshole who lives in my brain

[insectfem]

i hate my bfs brother so much he's so annoying