#Other than that they look pretty similar I think

[ailelie]

I'll have to consider a Google break-up. But this reminds me how I did just go through separation with Microsoft 365.

My very first step was listing out all the places where I use Microsoft and thinking through what my requirements were for replacing them. OneDrive, for the longest time, was my sticking point. This program has saved me twice now when I've had computer issues. I needed something that would keep copies of my files in the cloud, connect with multiple folders, sync instantly, and connect with my phone. I also wanted to pay no more than I was already paying for Microsoft 365. Finally, it had to be easy to use.

For the Office Suite, I just needed something that could open and edit my Microsoft files and have similar features. I rarely use Word/Excel/etc outside of work, though that may change if I do breakup with Google (I use Google Sheets for myriad things).

OneDrive

To replace the online drive and sync, I've switched to pCloud. It isn't free, though. It costs $50-60/year for 500GB (and about a $100 for 2T).

Steps for switching:

Make sure you have downloaded everything from OneDrive to your computer. Most of your files actually live in the cloud and you'll lose access to them when you uninstall OneDrive (note: they'll still be online).

Move all of your files into your User directory or somewhere else on your computer that isn't your OneDrive folder. (Learn from my mistakes...)

Uninstall OneDrive.

Go through your files and delete all of your OneDrive folders.

Download and install pCloud and follow their directions.

(Note: pCloud does have a OneDrive import feature, but I did not use that and I do not know how well it supports uninstalling OneDrive afterward.)

I also have pCloud on my phone now. I don't know if I just have rosy glasses on, but it feels nicer than the OneDrive app.

(Note: I do not rec NextCloud. I tried it and was met with nothing but pure frustration. Plus, for basic sync, I learned I had to download another program/extension, but then it was super unclear on how to install that extra bit and etc etc etc.)

ETA: OneDrive will still exist in some pretty critical default filepaths (e.g., your desktop folder). I followed this to fix it in my registry.

Office Suite

I've downloaded LibreOffice (free!)for this. If your Calc is an utter glacier when you open it, look up how to check the "Force Skia software rendering" box. That fixed the issue for me.

If you prefer ribbons over menus, there is a view option for that, too.

I am also currently trialing Typora, which costs $15 and is beautiful. It is a Markdown editor in which your Markdown is instantly rendered.

Other Microsoft Apps

I don't tend to use other Microsoft apps much outside of work. If I used a desktop email client, I'd probably go back to Thunderbird, which I used back in college.

As for OneNote, I'm not sure. Obsidian, which I use for my worldbook for my current story, is fantastic, but I've not tried to have different projects on it at once.

For teams, there's Slack and Discord. For the Sharepoint side of teams, maybe Box, Basecamp, or Confluence? I've not really looked into this because I don't use Teams in my non-work life and there is a 0% chance my workplace transitions away from Teams and Sharepoint anytime soon.

For Notepad, Notepad++ has always been one of the first programs I download to new computers. It is stellar.

For other apps, I'm already using alternatives (e.g., VLC Media Player, Firefox, WonderShare) or they aren't programs I even knew existed (e.g., Journal?, Family?). A few, though, just feel like system tools (e.g., Snipping Tool, Calculator).

Of course, there is the Linux of it all.

I have considered linux before. I have even tried linux (Ubuntu) before.

Most of what I use these days will work with Linux, with one major and rather important-to-me exception: Scrivener.

I am yet to find a single other application I like half as well as Scrivener.

Just in time for Valentine’s Day... 💔 

Ready to break up with Google?

So are we!

We’ve rounded up a bunch of privacy-centric alternatives for everything Google.

Check out the full list over on the blog!

- The Ellipsus Team xo

[thedolmainblog]

hi!! i've been looking at your oc blythe and wreckofwafers yunie, they're so cute together! i wonder what they're like together, if you don't mind me asking?

okay funniest thing is that wreck told me they got a pretty similar question so either its a WILD coincidence or youre the same anon. i must say i admire your curiosity.....

so! what im gonna do is that im gonna explain things from blythe's point of view :3 here we go! under the cut bc it got long lol. as always, yuniekins and the art below belongs to @wreckowafer .

yunie essentially took the Sex route of romancing him, which basically is a series of lewd encounters between the two.....so yes before they even confessed their feelings yunie has given him a blowie, has been fingered multiple times by him and has been throughly thigh fucked.....that last part is what made him snap and finally take yunie for himself

blythe doesnt know this himself but yunie allowing him to take his virginity is a Huge Deal bc she's essentially handing him her highly important bargaining chips to him. but in blythes perspective he sees this as something very precious, something very important (not in the same way yunie sees it, but nevertheless) and seeing her halo crack because of him is. hes so normal about it is what im trying to say.

after the whole bunnyfuck sesh love claim, blythe isnt like. SURE what their relationship is at this point but he was sure of two things : he himself at the very least is very fond of yunie, and he doesn't want this....relationship to end somehow. and so the lewd encounter ensues!

but also he is treating her with small bits of affection. he doesnt want her to think hes a WEIRDO!!!!! even when his heart is bursting with love and affection. small kisses to her forehead, appreciative rub here and there, he protects her from people who bother her and the praises he gives her never ceases. he will get more Insane about it later. hes already happy with what they have going on!!!! and because he eases her into rather than just plunging her in she starts reciprocating the affection too, esp kissing u_u they start kissing on the mouth and both of them are obsessed by it!!!

the event that sealed them as a couple is blythe saving yunie instead of yunie having to save herself!! it was either kidnapping or a group of molester getting to her and blythe Just So Happen in the area, and of course he cant just!! let that slide!! and yall saw how he is when The One is hurt. he nearly beats everyone involved to death with one or two escaping. while hes mentally taking note of the one who escapes, he then turns to yunie to check up on her to see if shes okay (with blood on his hands still!!) and her response is to say i love you. ah.

with i love yous exchanged and yunie feeling safe in his arms 100% (he still thinks that he shouldve been able to prevent the whole thing from happening, but alas) they become rapechesters MOST ANNOYING COUPLE!!!! constantly in honeymoon phase, always near and touching each other. half of the people who know blythe is happy that he isnt grouchy all the time but also oh my god we can hear those two fucking in the back!!!!

like how i always describe blythe when he finally finds The One, everything else becomes a trivial matter compared to yunie. he starts prioritizing her over everything, why spend time doing useless things if he can take care of yunie instead? he has to provide a reason for her to stay with him. he also molds his catastrophic brain damage around HER brain damage and thinks everything she says is right. if they HAVE to be separated for a while, yunie already has a brand new phone blythe gave her to communicate. (somewhere, rhett is pissed off and has put blythe in his shit list for this)

yunie becomes somewhat of his assistant! she has no problem handling paperwork involving shady work and what is essentially money laundering. shes faster at it than he is, so shes always there when he deals with his shady practices. its also a good excuse to keep her near him at all times u_u people know not to touch her anyways

all in all everything she does (only smiling at him, confessing why she feels this way, clinging onto him constantly, wanting to be the goodest girl in the whole world when hes a bit mean to her during sex) only makes blythe fall deeper and deeper to the hole that is I LOVE YUNIE!!!!! he is never going to recover, and he is so, so happy about it. after everything hes been through, he finally found his true love.

[fumifooms]

Marcille and Chilchuck’s interwoven character arcs: the fantasy of prince charming, idealization vs pessimism and loss

I’ve alluded to Marcille and Chilchuck being central to each other’s arcs so many times but the proper full analysis has been long overdue. I’ve made a post going into their differences and similarities and the many ways they’re foils for each other, but this is going to give more focus to a narrative rather than character angle this time around. We talk a lot about the importance of Marcille in Chilchuck’s arc, it's more obvious overall, but less so about Chilchuck’s importance in her own, so this is going to emphase on the latter. They have a lot of ridiculously unique conflict specific to their situation and world, and an intriguing dynamic. Relationships can be layered and subtext can imply quite a lot, the reality of things can be more complex than we'd like or hard to reconcile, and that's exactly what we're talking about today and how that is a lesson Marcille needed to learn. Give this a shot and look at the manga pages alongside my reading and decide for yourself wether I’ve got a point or I’m going overboard~!

So, Marcille and Chilchuck are character foils in many many ways, and I think a particularly brilliant part of their arc is how they balanced each other out on idealization. On one hand, idealizing things means only seeing what you want to see through rose-colored glasses, on the other, being completely opposed to it usually means denouncing any optimism at all, refusing to hold any good faith or hope. These stances reflect both their backgrounds, as Chilchuck has lived through being discriminated against and taken advantage of consistently, betrayed by employers and eventually the person supposed to be closest to him, his wife, meanwhile Marcille grew up more sheltered and lonely, and books were a big way through which she experienced social situations & the ways of the world in her rural home before going to the magic academy as a researcher and getting more actual life experience herself.

I think it’s especially interesting to analyze the trope of— the idealization of— the perfect chivalrous prince on a white horse who is pure hearted and will make you swoon, in the context of their relationship and their arcs! It’s a recurring motif- you’ll just have to trust me and read further~ Obviously this contains spoilers for the whole manga, so beware! It's very long because I'm trying to cover the topic fully from the ground up, my apologies.

Table of contents:

How they start out

The Daltian Clan and its importance

Prince Charming vs Chilchuck Tims

Ideals vs desires vs wants

Deconstructing realistic romance & compromising between romanticism and reality

Princess imagery in Marcille

Conclusion

Let’s start with the beginning:

How the characters start off:

Their relationship is both familiar and strained (extra reading: analysis of their relationship pre-canon and early canon), they bounce off each other with the ease of coworkers who’ve been working together for two years and who share similar common sense. Because yes they’re both generally grounded and rational, and generally they respect each other’s input and perspective, but, they both have blind spots…

The biggest hurdle is the way Chilchuck refuses to open up. Marcille has made efforts to befriend him, and though he was open to developing a better workplace dynamic and, say, helping her out with shopping for a pouch outside of work, even if it ended up being counterproductive he’d refuse to even just say his age, let alone share anything about his family situation. Knowing he had kids and a wife would have pretty efficiently fully shut down that he was a kid, and yet he valued being closed off more. Chilchuck is often shown being pessimistic, assuming the worst intentions out of people and being wary of anything good happening, being the last person to trust something or someone, etc. (Quick summary analysis of him I made if you want here, beyond the character foil analysis I linked at the beginning.) He prefers assuming that opening up will only bring him problems to assuming that it'd bring about positive things.

Meanwhile Marcille is very… Honestly she’s hard to classify strongly. Because I could say she’s very open to people, but honestly it’s conditional? She emotes intensely but she’s not quite a befriending machine either, especially when we recall the magic academy days as well, she’s not unused to keeping people at some level of distance, herself keeping a lot of secrets too. She was very wary of Laios at first because she had misconceptions, she holds grudges and isn’t personable with everyone like Namari or Toshiro, when she’s introduced to the party she seems serious and doesn’t smile. While I don’t fully agree, there’s a good analysis not by me here showcasing what I’m talking about. Marcille’s more serious academic side often gets undermined and I think it’s an important part of her, but then the difference between her and Chilchuck comes down to theory vs practice: knowledge vs experience. I think something more fitting to say would be that she’s idealistic and easily swayed, for example the way she lights up whenever she can put a story-like twist on things, her mood can go from dread to hype and reverse in one second, like with riding a kelpie or with the conflict between Chilchuck and his wife, or again with Namari, where it becomes a sort of hero vs antagonist dynamic for her where justice and righteous thoughts should override everything else like needing money to live. She's very stubborn, like he is, but it's easier for her to come around in dramatic ways, on things big and small, mentioning for another example thinking better of orcs suddenly because they can cook well.

So sure on first meeting she isn’t exactly eager, but then we do see her enthusiastically trying to befriend everyone! Becoming very friendly once she’s done assessing them. She is social, and fittingly she’s very curious about people. And that said, aesthetics do matter a lot to her, and I mean this beyond just enjoying vibes, for example- and follow along the lingo I'm setting up here- if something ‘breaks’ an aesthetic like Chilchuck or Falin not being a child she’ll willfully dismiss and ignore it, if she can spin something into a story like Chilchuck’s breakup she’ll get carried away, she can get the wrong impression, be gullible for the sake of believing a narrative, such and such. I’d say she’s guarded around people at first, but then with time becomes an open book emotions wise, how she’s always loudly and unapologetically talking about her feelings and emoting. She’s not reckless, rather she’s bold and often has to make decisions quickly, like when the plan unexpectedly changed during the red dragon fight, but things like using dark magic can feel like thoughtless decisions looking from the outside, like to Chilchuck, who as per his pessimism dictates he sees all of this in a negative light, assumes the worst: that she’s just ignorant, naive and reckless. She’s easily worried and discouraged but still always perseveres.

He's biased against mages and elves because of past experiences and he projects that onto Marcille. And it makes sense because good faith is dangerous to Chilchuck- for his feelings in relationships yes, but more concretely and important for his life at work, the way an old party of his was going to sacrifice him to succubi for easy money. Like the way he constantly puts his non-work values down to the group so they don’t have high expectations of him, having high expectations for someone else is vulnerability he doesn’t want to or cannot afford. The result however is that he, too, put people into boxes to avoid having his preconceived notions challenged. He's very judgemental, which we see with Laios as well, and even with Izutsumi in the ice golem chapter, but by then he's learned to self-reflect more and be honest with his feelings due to Leed, meaning his social conflicts get resolved more often and more quickly, again like with Izutsumi in the ice golem chapter.

So in the end, there are things that stand in the way of them having true, equal respect for one another. She sees him as a kid despite everything else (being capable and mature, etc etc), and he sees her as a ticking bomb of a naive elf mage who’s gonna get herself into legal trouble if she doesn’t get them killed first.

And it takes an arc spanning the whole manga for them to get there, to truly see each other on equal footing, culminating with the bicorn chapter.

I'm going to be mentioning them a lot so in my mind, the most important Marcille & Chilchuck arc defining scenes happen in: mandrake chapter, mimic chapter, shapeshifter chapter, hypogriff soup chapter, changelings, bicorn, succubus, and Marcille dungeon lord. We're talking mostly about Marcille's discrimination and their narrative about loss here, but on the end of Chilchuck's discrimination the dark magic plot is very central so honorable mention to the red dragon chapters, the harpies chapter and the cockatrice chapter, the latter where Chilchuck airs out his beef particularly directly.

Interestingly enough, the mandrake chapter which is in VERY early manga, where characters and dynamics are still being set up, Marcille gets Chilchuck to say that she isn't a burden and that he's glad they have her and her skillset with them, so the question of "does he respect her at all" was answered before the audience could even think to ask it, and Marcille also makes statements shortly after showing she respects him in turn- more on that later. This has for a result that we do know there's a foundation of respect here, even when as said it's not complete... yet.

So let’s get into it! Early on we already get a lot instances hinting at their opposed core values of optimism vs pessimism. It’s perfectly summarized in the two panel excerpts opening this post: "Sounds romantic!" "Sounds fishy.", hope vs wariness. "Meeting you was fate!" "… Which means it’s fate for you to eat these monsters, too!", if good things happening to you is fate then you must accept that all the bad things that happen to you are fate as well. It’s "Things will work out!" vs "Things will not work out".

The issue here seems rather evident, it’s a balancing game. Compromising, adapting your judgement to the situation. Yes Marcille romanticizes things too much and it can cause her trouble, and yes Chilchuck being so closed off on himself gets him into trouble as well.

(Not telling there was a mimic nearby being maybe the most straightforward example.)

His refusal to hope for anything good happening to him ever is at the core of him not having even tried reconciling with his wife (more on that later with the bicorn chapter). Through the manga, Chilchuck influences her to be more savvy and to respect boundaries more (with himself and Namari for example), while she influences him to become more open and give things a go. It’s no coincidence that it’s Marcille that pushes him to try reconciling with his wife and gives him hope that it just might work out- that that chance even on its own means it's worth giving it a shot.

The Daltian Clan & its importance

The importance of fiction in some people's lives and their specific psychological relationship to it is a very complex human brain topic with many many studies and an infinite amount of subtleties, I can't possibly do justice to this section at its full potential but I'll go over my major points. But the complex and layered nature of this relationship is why, for example, the interpretation that Marcille is a lesbian despite her likely attraction/love for male fictional characters (if not even just simping or stanning separate from those), has legs to stand on and is a compelling angle!

The Daltian Clan, often shortened as Dalclan, is Marcille's favorite book series and is very very personally important to her. In an extra we learn that part of it is that seeing a half-elf character personally reached out to her and meant a lot. She feels seen through it. Even if it's notable that the half-elf haracter isn't her favorite, general Hagreus, but the one with black hair. It's a Cinderella type of romance & convoluted political intrigue series full with a lot of drama, reminiscent of stuff like Romeo & Juliette or Richard III.

I believe that books were developmentally very important for her, similarly as to how cartoons are important to the education and development of toddlers and kids nowadays, or how oral stories like fairytales have always been important to teach lessons. Fiction engages readers and provides emotional stimulation, which can often be a flawed substitute for actual human contact- but nonetheless a big factor in socialization. For Marcille who lived in a rather rural region surrounded by books and chickens, who couldn't fit in with kids of any age around, books were a major part of teaching her how to socialize, how people and social groups worked. This is also part of why the autistic Marcille angle can be very compelling and plausible, though personally I don't see it that way.

So yes I think that sort of upbringing shaped her a lot, and I think it's part of why Marcille has trouble not putting people into boxes... Why even though Falin assured her it wasn't like that, Marcille had made this whole narrative in her mind painting Laios as a villain that stole Falin away against her will/for nefarious purposes. Why she has trouble not thinking of/treating Falin as a kid, unwilling to process how she has grown up. Why Chilchuck has to be very young in her mind, and it was very very hard for her to reconcile the fact that he wasn't. (It's actually interesting to note that Marcille treats Falin and Chilchuck similarly in a lot of ways, overstepping boundaries, being dimissive and touchy- There's a lot to say about how the party dynamic changed a lot with during canon it becoming just Laios, Marcille and Chilchuck at first and Laios' monster interest reveal, notably that in Falin's absence that she may have latched onto Chilchuck and treats him similarly to Falin may be her finding it omforting to fall into habits or filling a hole.) I think complexity in fictional characters gets her gears turning, but there's always a film of impersonality to it right, where it's not real, there's a safe distance, if you want to form romantic narratives about how things went down and a character's angst, you can, but someone who’s real… Things are often uglier or harder to grapple with. And she doesn’t want Falin to have grown up, for her to so quickly have aged. I think applying this sort of storybook veneer onto her real life connections, pushing people into boxes, is a way for her to make social relationships more digestible. And she's a big gossip enjoyer too! Engaging in shallow retellings of people's interpersonal drama, eating it up with enthusiasm and curiosity. Part of it, like with novels, is vicariously living through others I think, experiencing making connections where she hasn't or couldn't, the way her relationship with the other girls at the academy besides Falin stayed distant and shallow despite being friendly. Gossip, like stories, are safe, distant from your own life, they're easy to judge, not unlike the irl popular interest in following others’ online drama. You’re not involved yourself, so you don’t have as much chance of getting hurt. So yes, easier to digest. Less complex, less unpleasant things and less contradictions that are hard to process. Sort of like a defense mechanism to not have your worldview challenged, dodging having to recognize these things by assigning them tropes. And I think part of it too like I implied is: she can’t experience actual loss through books and gossip. They give her emotional social stimulation she doesn’t fully allow herself to have with actual humans for fear of getting invested in a way that’s very raw and personal. Again, like how she pushes Falin away to ignore the more nuanced facets to their relationship! The intensity of what I’m speculating on here in her character is debatable but I do think it’s present at least in some amount.

In a similar way to dogs being important to Laios’ social life (I made something of an analysis on that if you're interested, but this one's not relevant to what I'm talking about in this post) books are her comfort zone. If she can compare a real situation to a story it brightens everything and, well, it does make her assume things wrongly often but it also makes her able to analyze people deeply, like the roleplay-theory-speculation about Chilchuck's wife and the way she hit bullseye on how Chilchuck felt in the aftermath. But like how Marcille only agreed to wear the frog suit when the party told her it'd look cute on her, or how thinking about riding on kelpies made her excited for what previously she saw as a tedious and dreadful journey. Special interest power blast.

And this is where comes in her coworker, a disillusioned embittered man.

A guy who knows all about how messed up the world & people can be and isn't afraid to say it how it is, who in every sphere of life has field experience rather than fictional one- with romance, work, and having dreams & ambitions. Someone flawed and real, someone who won't let her interpret him however she wants without confronting her about it & challenging her to change her perspective.

It took a looot for Marcille to fully stop seeing him as a kid, and in a way I think it was necessary for the dissonance to be both this hard to reconcile and this impossible to ignore: that he truly is a middle-aged man down to his demeanor and family background but that he looks like a teen at most to her. That she literally has to look beyond aesthetics to be able to first fathom then accept and internalize that he's an adult despite his looks. That it was so ingrained and took so long, so much that even while she recognized and said "He's usually the most mature one of us", so much that even as it's implied that she knew logically he's an adult before the changelings, as pictured earlier she still couldn't conceive it. It's like with her calling Laios and Falin's parents kids in a post-canon extra, it's not that she doesn't know it's that it's hard to wrap her head around. Necessary and important because, if Chilchuck was any less loud about being a man she could have gone on unchallenged in her assumptions. If it was an easier to dismantle misconception, something easier to digest, then her arc of coming to see him as he is would have had less impact on her character, afterwards she could continue to run with her own interpretations of people like Falin and Namari without her confidence in being able to pin down people into simple roles being so fundamentally shaken. And it's notable too, that Namari's choice to leave the party to look out for herself situation was decidedly unheroic, but it was Chilchuck who spoke to Marcille about why her decision was both reasonable and had a lot of thought behind it, making her accept that it doesn't make Namari a bad person or even a bad coworker or friend.

Chilchuck is someone who knows that sometimes, bad things happen for no reason, and it's not meaningful or part of a grand narrative, it just sucks and you have to deal with it.

As the foil to her very emotional black and white interpretations of things, Chilchuck represents nuance, and he's impossible for her to ignore.

Prince Charming vs Chilchuck Tims

Chilchuck is so obviously not a prince charming. He doesn't have the looks, the attitude nor the lifestyle. Does he have the virtues for it? Well, no... But also, yes. More on that in a bit. It's also interesting to think of the status aspect to it, because being from an impoverished oppressed class/community is so central to Chilchuck's character, something usually far removed from prince charmings and white knights, and not only status wise but on the topic of virtues... It’s an interesting thread to explore, the way one may have the means to remain chivalrous rather than becoming distrustful and embittered: sometimes optimism is a sign of privilege, being able to be or remain optimistic through life. I'm sure Marcille would be the first to jump onto the aesthetic and narrative allure of a pauper in love with a princess, of a hero of the people à la Robin Hood, but it's still interesting to think of that as another facet of the contrast Chilchuck makes. Alright, tangent done.

But obviously, despite this all they have a great work dynamic and respect for each other's capabilities. It's not like Marcille is mean to people who don't fit these fairytale high standards, no that’s only when she feels wronged or if there's injustice, rather she becomes dismissive of people’s complexity, wether they become an angel like Falin or Marcille’s shapeshifter of Chilchuck or a villain like Namari and Toshiro or Laios when they met. But my point, my point: she actually thinks very highly of him!

"He’s usually the most mature one of us" "He’s dependable, we’re counting on him" "No, chilchuck is definitely virtuous."

And I think the ways in which that shows are very interesting.

^ Ok so this happens, in the Namari chapter I keep talking about. Look at his expression in this last panel. He's always teasing her, but doesn't this here feels a bit... Suggestive? Like he's implying things, not just talking about it in a work setting but also giving her general life advice. Maybe even making an innuendo for womanizers, gentlemen who flirt without meaning a thing and have some hidden agenda. Warning her about smooth talkers that seem too good to be true. It’s honestly a very easy to overlook but defining interaction for them. It’s a quote that’s on his Adventurer’s Bible plus his anime quote keychain merch!

I love his implication that "I say what I’m about straight up, money, so you can trust me"- and isn’t that just the exact thing… Because that is what this is, he’s pitting himself against these people who help without asking for anything and he's saying he’s more trustworthy and reliable than them, driving a wedge between him and those people to prop himself up by comparison. His words tie a lot here into his general worldview too, of course here he's ✨Imparting His Wisdom✨, but it also ties into his self-image issues I'd say, where he’s hard on himself and calls himself a coward etc: if no one has positive expectations for you on an interpersonal level, then you can’t disappoint them. It only goes up from here if you start at rock bottom, can't have unpleasant surprises.

But the meaningfulness of this moment doesn't start and end there: That moment happened in chapter 20, but then this happens in chapters 36-37...

I was always puzzled by the split second interaction between Marcille and Kabru. Marcille blushing is the point, it’s in the anime too and it’s the focus of the panel. That moment of hesitation before she goes back into business mode where she looks at him back, and blushes. And idk I always felt like it was weird timing, like it was a weird beat Kui chose to put emphasis on, why the story even had them make eye contact in the first place, what point it could be making besides "Kabru is handsome and charismatic" which was already made with Hien and Benichidori below, otherwise it's not even like Marcille and Kabru ever interact. Like, maybe it's for it to be a callback when she glances at him while the canaries interrogate her at Thistle's house? Regardless, she blushes, but her expression is more akin to a "Uuhh he smiled at me why’d he smile at me like that. Oh he’s kinda pretty. Well anyways-" rather than swooning or truly checking him out. She’s frowning, even. And like I said, being very naturally charming was a point already made previously.

But then… This repeated reminder that Kabru is a lady killer IS the point, Marcille reacting to him in that way IS the point. Kabru is the epitome of ‘will say they help you but has hidden motives and might betray your trust if it serves their interest’ (not a diss on him tbf he has understandable goals), he is the epitome of looking noble, welcoming and chivalrous but actually being dishonest and manipulative, and what’s important here is… Marcille turns away and sticks by Chilchuck. Of course this is logical, no one would expect her to go running to Kabru lol, but I implore you to think of the thematics of it all, a princely guy, the closest character of the cast in the flesh embodying the prince charming persona, is giving her some positive attention, and it does affect her a bit but nonetheless she turns away, and strategizes with Chilchuck instead of trusting or giving good faith or getting carried away. She chooses Chilchuck. Unlike so often, she doesn’t let aesthetics sway her here, get in the way of her better judgement, distract her from the point. She chooses not to give good faith, even if he seems charming and friendly and smiles. Marcille is serious when the situation requires it that's now new, but this is in line with the lesson he instilled earlier above. And if nothing else, Marcille has a good memory, exhibit B to come later. Here we see part of why Chilchuck was afraid of Laios or Senshi but not Marcille blurting out the wrong things with Toshiro and is party, when push comes to shove they're often on the same wavelength. Marcille and Chikchuck do strategize with specifically each other regularly, they do tend to pair up a lot after all, so this isn’t especially new, but it’s the first time there’s this sense of us vs them imo. Like how earlier Chilchuck was saying that he’s better than the smooth talker type, here we see Marcille implicitly agree.

She just has a passing glance & thought for Kabru but she knows her true allies and true values, and she wants to strategize with Chilchuck. What I am saying is that if she was given the choice to think through going with a guy that seems perfect and chivalrous like her succubus, if she was logical about it she’d pick Chilchuck over that guy actually, yeah. At the end of the day, no matter the pretty smiles, she knows who her actual friends are. Whiiich on that topic, next section!

Ideals vs desires vs wants

It's succubus analysis time

Her succubus is quite direcly a prince figure, a knight on a white horse who's come to whisk her away. He calls her princess, even! She's taken the role of Daltian Clan's protagonist, essentially. He kisses her hand, nothing short of the most classic courtly romance tropes. He's even drawn in a noticeably more shoujo style, not unlike the characters' faces in the aftermath of getting their energy sucked by succubi.

I made a whole analysis on specifically Laios’ succubus but it covers some stuff that could be interesting for this analysis as well, I’ll repeat the essential stuff tho: Their succubus all show what type of social connection they desire. Izutsumi’s is familial, Marcille wants someone she can emotionally connect with, seemingly romantic, Chilchuck wants something physical and sexual so he doesn’t have to think and worry about anything deeper (betrayal, insecurities, etc, the difficulting that come with a committed romantic relationship- also likely related to his senses & stress), and Laios wants people and friends who’ll accept him and his monster interest- platonic.

But more interesting for this analysis is how succubi work. The goal isn’t to beckon, but to incapacitate. The succubus doesn't work on the basis of rationality, it’s not a factor they go for and it’s not one they need to appeal to either, as we see. (Laios is a special case -gestures to the linked analysis- but the succubus doesn’t appeal to his rationality as much as it soothes his worries, his friends judging him etc etc, and the reason Izutsumi could remain unaffected is that there is always a half of her not enthralled by the succubus because she essentially has two souls.) Neither Marcille, Chilchuck or Izutsumi could realistically expect any of the people they saw to be real and not fake succubis. They KNOW that, they were actively preparing for the succubi to jump on them and fight back, rationally they know they're monsters! But how this monster works is that it targets deep desires within you that when face to face with it'll make you hesitate, make something in you unable to fight or flight and instead do the third instinctive option: freeze. Or especially in Laios’ case, the form gives the victim just enough confliction on the matter for them to want to believe it’s real. All they have to do is just not move, stay passive and accept the attention, so it’s not an issue of wether they reciprocate an action or run away. It's so that it shortcircuits you and leaves you open to pick like a fruit.

If this wasn’t the "reads your heart so deeply that it freezes you to the spot" monster, Chilchuck WOULDN’T be doing anything with these women. He’s been devoted to his wife even 4 years after separation on bad terms, you think he’d ever cheat on her? If this was a decision he were to make, instead of just freezing, he would reject it. In that similar way, Marcille’s succubus might not be what she’d rationally go for. You think if this was what Marcille had to choose, the person she wants most to see and at her side, her most alluring form wouldn't be Falin, alive and well? You think that wouldn't be the thing Laios truly wants most as well? And before people say that canon proved that the latter wasn't with the curse the winged lion put on him, THAT'S THE POINT!!!! You can irrationally desire things, you can desire things to degrees so deep you can’t change it even if you wish you could, but if it was truly a choice up to you, you'd choose otherwise. Laios decided to become king, even if that's a lifestyle so far from what he truly wanted, even if it is duty more than fun for him. Like how Chilchuck would choose faithfulness despite for sure having come into contact with many beauties through his four years of separation.

Ideals vs reality are a big Dunmeshi theme in general, same as wants vs needs, and you can see Marcille’s daydreams and novel themes make it an especially relevant throughline and theme for her. Not unlike how in my opinion General Hareus and Mithrun intentionally look very alike to contrast reality vs fantasy!

Marcille never reacts any particular way to Mithrun’s appearance despite the blatant resemblance, so that makes me think the point/joke is meta rather than character focused. The romanticization of elves and their societal drama in their fiction contrasting heavily with a very real and imperfect product of their military system. The canaries certainly aren’t glamorous next to whatever military Hareus is the general of. There’s even the fun little details like Hagreus’ lips being drawn with extra details because they’re full and pretty while Mithrun’s lips are drawn with extra details because they’re chapped and dehydrated.

So yes, themes of what you actually want vs irrational cravings. Base desires vs actual wants. Needs are also separate, but not relevant for this discussion. To get to the specific definitions I’m using for the words in this section’s header, ideals vs wants vs desires: ideals are your ideal of something, the best degree to which a thing could be tailored to you, and it can be derived from both wants and desires, usually a mix of the two, but for example: I’d say the succubus is a type of ideal (the platonic ideal of allure to the victim) derived solely from desires, because a want is active rather than passive, acted upon rather than suffered, because a want unlike a desire involves thinking things through. So a want: something you want, you take actions towards getting or achieving it, it can be a very strong feeling but it’s something you pursue or wish to pursue. Finding a cure to death is a want, not wanting to be alone is a desire, see, I’m assigning desire this more primal or unchanging subconscious nature to it. On the flipside with Chilchuck, sex without ties, easy pleasure, is a desire, but the want is not having to think about his marriage situation because it’s painful, not wanting an emorional connection because it’s all the easier to be hurt with, just wanting to take his mind off of everything for a while.

Thus the succubus targets Marcille’s wish for a perfect knight who could cherish her forevermore, someone safe and known and fantastical, just hers in a way, free to see and construct however she wants because he’s a character to interpret, and it targets Chilchuck’s wish for pleasure that’ll whisk him away from the stress and pressure and reality of his life, something that’ll make him feel both good and desirable and emotionally uncompromised, not unlike what alcohol does, as he says he likes having his fine senses dulled in the changeling chapter. Idealization is twisting the image of something in your mind to be closer to what you want, but usually mostly desire on a more subconscious level, to be true, almost a wish, sometimes but not always hand in hand with idolization which is to put something on a pedestral. Idealizing things that are easier to reconcile with mostly, in Marcille’s case: it’s easier to believe that Chilchuck is very young and it’s easier to stomach that Falin hasn’t aged much, it's easier to believe Falin is an angel who can do no wrong and if she left with Laios it's not that she chose to leave Marcille, and it's easier to believe Chilchuck is just a moody closed off youngster than an embittered old man. It can be done to people as much as concepts, like the idea/plan to give everyone a 1000 years lifespan, surely that'd do really well and everyone would love it. Wants and desires are both very often about changing reality after all, wether it be your situation or an event in your past or a law of the world like death, but wants are mostly through actions and since desires are more subconscious it can lead to self-delusion easily. Like with succubi, wants engage with your rationality so they target desires instead. The demon's strategy isn't too ar off, either, feeding into both and using underlying desires to manipulate its victims. Dungeon Meshi is in part yes about resisting desires, the irrational cravings, mostly through the character of the demon. I mentioned needs earlier, and to ideals vs wants we also add vs needs, both emotional and physical, and needs alongside wants are what Dungeon Meshi wishes to promote for a healthier person, Dungeon Meshi which illustrates very well with the dungeon lords that you can be a slave to your desires.

The parallel between succubi and demons is intentional. The demon is in fact the origin of the succubus myth in-world. No wonder they operate similarly in many ways- the succubi are in a way a more simple straightforward version of the demon, with less convoluted strategies and less intricate manipulation.

Of course the succubus each character sees does say something about their characters, but what I’m saying is we shouldn’t assign choice or morality to it as if it wasn’t an ethereal monster whose whole biology is focused on being able to freeze people through appealing to desires, much like how we can’t fault people for falling for demons’ manipulations. Like that’s their WHOLE thing and they use mind control through enticement shenanigans. I know people sometimes fault Chil for his succubi and if you want here’s my stance.

Point of this whole thing is, people can rationally choose things that are different from their deeper desires, like in truth Falin’s safety being more important to Laios than becoming a monster. Like how Marcille stayed with Chilchuck to strategize instead of wanting to give good faith to Kabru. Yes, this is the main point I'm coming at with this section lol. Marcille idealizes and idolizes the figure of a perfect prince charming, undoubtedly! But when it comes to what she actually wants, not in some ideal fantay world but in reality, she knows Chilchuck and her imperfect friends are some of the best she could ask for. She's content with them as they are. She would choose a flawed reality over a perfect fantasy.

That's a big part of what her dungeon lord arc is about too, all her tendencies to ignore what others want for what she thinks is best for them or thinks is a perfect course of action: accepting that people are complex with different wants, and that something that's a no-brainer to her like wanting to live for a long long time is a solid no for many. And Laios and the party confront her about it, and Marcille, even under the influence of a demon, chooses to accept reality. Chooses to accept that there are some things that, even were she to be able to, she shouldn’t change after all (even for stuff that’s not forcing everyone to live for a millenium, like bringing Falin back from the dead is something that the party and Marcille had to come to terms with maybe not working and the way they went about it was self-centered). She chooses to come back to herself and the party, to accept the world as it is even if flawed and sometimes hurtful.

And hm, I wonder if Chilchuck had any role in the lead up to that particular decision... I wonder if Chilchuck was a major influence in teaching Marcille that the world isn't perfect and her internalizing things that were outside of her bubble!! I wonder if Chilchuck was directly what made Macille turn towards her party and thus start thinking of giving up on being dungeon lord!! Joking, joking, of course it does. To be continued, see you in the princess imagery section at the end of this essay.

Essentially, this section is to show that: 1) despite what her succubus may suggest, she has indeed grown by that point in the manga compared to pre-canon and her overly idealistic simple black and white vision of things, and it doesn't prove the ‘choosing her friends over a prince thing’ wrong, and 2) despite how deeply ingrained romanticism is in her and how it calls out to her, she still has chosen and continues to choose reality and her friends over it. How fantasy is important to her and how much she loves it, and her having the will not to mindlessly succumb to it coexist and it's that resistance against fantastical ideals that speaks of her as a character so much.

And what does that mean, for Chilchuck? For him and Marcille?

Deconstructing realistic romance AKA compromising between romanticism and reality AKA Chilchuck Tims vs Prince Charming part 2

So what we’ve covered so far is that 1: idealization is something that Marcille does a lot, including concerning Chilchuck, 2: the prince/knight figure is meaningful & important to her, 3: Marcille isn’t a lost cause on it, and for instance, much like how she stops harping on Namari after Chilchuck explains to her how professional reputations and networking work, he can change her mind on things.

Let’s get back to their prejudices of each other for a bit. You might have to zoom in for this one.

Her shapeshifters of both Chil and Laios are influenced a lot by looks and impressions. She’s very adamant about Laios and Falin not looking alike at all, for one. Marcille’s view of Chilchuck’s lockpicks are surprisingly accurate. Meanwhile, despite their first big relationship moment during canon being about how he’s glad to have her and her skills for the dungeon dive, he still ridiculizes her magic somewhat with the crude spellbook. She’s still silly and tease-worthy to him, even while he praises her like in the good medicine chapter with Leed he says it himself in the same breath. Silly, or "ridiculous" depending on the translation, is somewhat ambiguous, but I assign it the meaning of 'thoughtlessly reckless', like how again in the good medicine chapter when he's saying this he's referring to Marcille's future job prospects, because law and career are important to conform to for him. Despite this, their shapeshifters’ behaviors are accurate, although Marcille’s Chilchuck is nicer and less bitterly reclusive. Note how it's Marcille's chilchuck that makes it furthest and how why she thinks hers is the true one is that her Chilchuck "looks less mean"- this is what I mean when I say she idealizes him and sees him as a little angel, along with his fluffier hair it gives us the perspective of why she'd find him so hair-ruffable and why she likes sticking to him so much, I suppose.

Marcille's arc of not seeing Chilchuck for what he is has steps, it's not like Senshi who does an 180 seeing his changeling. There are a couple of important moments for it that tell us her progress and changes her perspective: Him telling his age -> the shapeshifters (our best look into an objective assessment of her perspective) -> reveal that he has a wife and kid(s) (fully shattering her denial) -> seeing him as a changeling (true reckoning. Putting the nail in the coffin of what reality is) -> bicorn chapter (acceptance. Internalization)

You might notice that the explanation for Marcille’s Chilchuck is "Even though she’s been told he’s an adult, deep in her heart she still doesn’t get it", and a fantranslation translates it as "Understands he’s supposed to be an adult, but hasn’t quite come to grips with the fact internally". This definitely implies her arc of growing to see him as an adult had already started by then. Especially if we compare it to Senshi’s more intense babyfied Chilchuck. This goes back to what I was saying about Marcille watering down people for the sake of aesthetics, some rational part of her knows he’s an adult, but it’s emotionally that she struggles to reconcile the fact with her perspective. It’s actually pretty ambiguous when she first starts considering he might be an adult. If by this point she was already digesting it, then I think it must’ve been when he told the party his age. It’s not unsimilar to rationally knowing Falin is an adult at 23 even if it doesn’t feel like it to her, or post-canon calling the Touden parents kids even though obviously she’d know they aren’t actually, it’s classic longlived race patronization. He’s older than Falin, by 6 whole years, and even Marcille isn’t that blind to what that'd mean. Wouldn't marcille also have a problem with child labor otherwise? There's also how Marcille pre-canon shortly speculated Chilchuck was in love with Namari in her Adventurer's Bible extra. She for sure has witnessed a lot of half-foots walking around, probably even drinking at taverns. She knows, on some level. Chilchuck even does a whole rant after they react going on "this is why long lived races are condescending assholes". So that’s my bet, "Is he an adult?" "Well yes but actually no" (Chilchuck), "I’m an adult now I’ve grown" "Awww you’ll always be like a kid to me!" (Falin) Depending on the dub and interpretation, I know for example that when I made my family watch the anime they thought Marcille "See? You're just a kid!" after he said he was 29 they saw it as teasing and playful, unserious, or even disappointed, implying she'd have thought he was older than 29. It's actually ironic how someone as developmentally atypical as Marcille, whose physical and mental growth was unpredictable, unsynchronized and messy, would judge others by appearance and age so much. But well imo appearances are important to her so in that way, she especially judges those because she had to live through being judged by those standards as well. She puts elven standards on everyone the same way she does with beauty standards, so age is included in that.

Marcille here is struggling with dissonance, it's why she "hasn't come to grips with the fact internally". And this all makes sense for the arc that sharing things about himself is what opened the gates of being understood better. Point is, her vision is influenced by her own feelings of how things should be like, veiling herself to the reality of things.

And notice the point that the problem her lack of rationale when it comes people- Chilchuck regularly makes her prioritize rationality over feelings, and well that’s somewhat his whole schtick when it comes to debating philosophy. With Namari and how her leaving the party and not returning is reasonable even if it feels wrong, just like the "don’t trust someone just because they seem well-meaning and generous, strategize instead of swooning", and ironically also the "it's important to take in mind how things like touch when healing can affect parties and create love triangles" lol, "don't be emotional, and also remember people being emotional will stirr up shit". Since she’s someone pretty swayed by feelings, it balances her out. Ultimately, if we consider the Dungeon Lord arc her culmination, it’s Chilchuck who ends her arc by meeting her halfway through appealing out to her feelings, but that’s the flipside of the coin of their arc, and it’s her willpower to face reality that saves them so I don’t think that contradicts that Marcille had to do her half of the journey & comprise.

I would argue there are many hints of Marcille knowing on some level he's an adult throughout early canon. Not just seriously calling him the most mature of the group, but her behavior at the Golden Kingdom's too for example. Would you act all shy asking a kid to sleep in his bed, especially one she's always felt so comfortable trampling the boundaries of and touching casually? Idk that's weird. She's asking to sleep in his bed because by her own admition it'd make her feel more comfortable. Chilchuck is safe to her and she feels shy implying it and asking for a favor like that. Shy that he'd find her silly for it, and/or shy that this might be inappropriate according to etiquette and in other contexts. To me this feels much closer to two peers, like how in the mandrake chapter she wanted validation from him too, and yes she still infantilizes him and emasculates him into someone who's harmless in her mind- not just someone who wouldn't hurt or take advantage of her, because she knows that, because Chilchuck does protect her (more on that later!!).

He's not heroic, but he's brave, when it matters. He's mean and rude, but also caring. He's responsible, even when it means going the unpleasant route. The aesthetic doesn’t fit the role, but the actions do.

He keeps claiming he’s a selfish coward who’ll be the first to dip in a fight, and yet he’s always, consistently pulling her out of danger, or specifically calling out to Marcille when danger strikes. And I think it’s because of the nugget of info we get in the adventurer’s bible that her stamina and athletics are bad, in canon he does call her clumsyhead like once but it never felt enough for me to deduce that on its own personally. So then the reason why he’s always targeting her, beyond the reasoning that she’s the healer thus the most important to keep alive (which he brings up in the rabbits chapter), he takes it upon himself to help her, save her and pull her away from danger because she’s clumsy. She’s not defenseless, she’s known to use explosions, and still he feels the need to save her and through the manga he’s even died trying to pull her to safety one and a half times: dungeon rabbits + the drowning- they didn’t die in the latter though it’d have gone that way if it weren’t for the water bursting out just after, and that situation was especially hopeless regarding Chikchuck being able to do anything to save her at all, yet he still tried.

A little knight in shining armor, a little noble hero, a little prince charming innit?

Chilchuck IS all show and no talk- and she knows the value of that!!! It's why despite all his sour demeanor she respects him both professionally and as a smart guy she can trust, why she feels safe with him and wants him by her side when strategizing or even sleeping. The aesthetic doesn’t fit the role, but the actions do. Fantasy vs reality!!! He teaches her how to face reality both with his words and actions, through the contradictions of him, his caring behavior and bitter words, his old manners and young looks!

And actually let's TALK about that drowning scene hello. There, in the collage above, in the bottom left. The context of that is: This is after the demon leaves when the dungeon collapses, the dungeon gets flooded by water and they go under, with no sense of where or how there could be an exit to this. 1: Since the dungeon is collapsing and reviving someone only works in dungeons, there is no guarantee that Marcille or anyone would be able to revive someone during or after this, NONE. 2: He is risking his life for her, he is STRAIGHT UP playing his life on this choice, action hits and shit gets more serious than it ever has, and he yet does it anyways. Perhaps it's the gravity of it that pushes him to make this choice, that this time if someone dies it's for real and he can't accept that, but either way his choice is made in a split second, he prefers dying trying to save her than living without saving her. He is fighting for scraps of hope, seconds more of holding onto life. Which, 3: This situation is HOPELESS. In the end yes they end up being spat out by some exit out the dungeon with the strenght of the flood, but there was no way to know this would happen, and like we see in the third panel Chilchuck and the others actually lose consciousness. That's for "a way out of this", but even moreso, what is he hoping to accomplish? He's small and weak like he always reminded the party in fights, he CANNOT PULL HER UP TO SAFETY, HE CANNOT PULL HER AT ALL, WE SEE HIM STRUGGLE TO AND FAIL. HE CAN'T DO ANYTHING BUT HE STILL TRIES DESPITE THE RISK. You might also say- haha!! You might also say that this is a show of optimism from him!! You could say that after Marcille changed him, pushed him to have more hope in him, he now has the strenght and will to hope that this might do anything, that this might save her! A little similar to the situation with his wife actually, the point is that the chance is worth taking even if it might not turn out like hoped for- the point is that it's always worth trying and keeping hope to fight on, there is risk in being vulnerable and reaching out to his wife yes, there is risk, as with jobs, as with finances, as with anything- It's not that you'll never fail, but you have to not give up when you do- there's a risk but you can't just shut yourself off to the world and to relationships, you can't suddenly care about nothing! That's Chilchuck's arc! And maybe it's because his arc of becoming more hopeful and open yourself to caring centers her that it's her he latches onto here and not Senshi and Izutsumi who are equally in trouble here, maybe it's because he knew her longest or because he still feels this sense he has to look out for her like always, or because he trusts her to breathe underwater least, I don't know, but it's what happens! And listen, by all intent and purposes it was a hopeless situation, they were on the verge of drowning but he still fights to save her, and everything looks lost for a sec, but then the water current miracurously spits them out of the crumbling dungeon. He gets up and he runs to marcille fearing she's hurt but no, they're saved, she's fine, they're all alive and out of danger. It worked out. Having hope was right.

They make me ill I tell you. Like what the HELL, am I supposed to NOT go crazy when this happens??! What if they were the meaning of life what if their arc was about cracking the balance of living and loving healthily and cracking the code of life. Okay. Okay okay okay so anyways so

He can be quite self-sacrificial and noble! Always looking out for others, and giving Marcille particular attention in that regard, likely in part due to her being clumsy in his eyes and her being the healer aka their token of safety.

Sit your ass back DOWN you are in no state sir. Despite her biases Marcille is still observant, she still loves dissecting people like in that pre-canon party relationships chart in her extra, she's still the one to say "Chilchuck is the most mature here". Marcille still notices things! She has an interest in people and Chilchuck is someone she especially likes to "study". She read him like a book in the bicorn chapter, and if she was able to it’s that she looked, she remembered, she saw. The way he doesn’t like waiting on people, that he’s very reserved with feelings, the way he often doesn't pick up on others' and even his own- It all comes through in her quote unquote analysis of him, what married life with him would be like and how he reacted to his wife leaving.

Point is, Chilchuck is very harsh on himself, but there are gems inside of him, there is gold hidden away if you dig at his heart. And besides, isn’t humility a mark of heroes?

Okay. Sooo there's not that much to say about the changeling scene actually, for both Senshi and Marcille, the chapter just previous where Chilchuck reveals he has a wife and kid is what fully reckons them with how Chilchuck is a fully fledged adult, and for both of them seeing Chilchuck as a tallman is the final nail in the coffin. With Senshi it's a rather fast 180, and he mourns the sweet kid image he had of him where he poked his cheek and ruffled his hair, but for Marcille it's just an extra "he's really really REALLY really not a kid. Really". It has a bit of a reversal of Marcille and Chilchuck's dynamic, since now he can manhandle her instead of her manhandling him. This is a rather pleasant experience for him from what we can tell, whereas Marcille is struggling to keep the party's walking pace and complains about the heat implying half-foots are more sensitive to temperatures, Chilchuck finds having his senses dulled relaxing, has no problem of the sort Marcille is having AND! And! He can pull her around. The fight with gargoyles happen and he's pulling her arms, picking her up, he even throws her both before it and during the fight, he has the physical power to push her away if he wants to and also to pull her out of danger- the way he later tries to in the rabbit chapters and with drowning, but also when the Faligon reveal happens. He still doesn't look like a knight in shining armor, and he still doesn't have the demeanor of one, but he has the most power to protect her than he ever has. Anyways so yes, further "oh Chilchuck is an adult. And he's kinda knightly and can protect me wow. And also ugly not at all like elven beauty ewwwwww. I won't be able to unsee it now if I try to ruffle his hair after this".

It’s always a question of seeing more facets to someone and slowly digesting them and internalizing them, like Kui puts it herself in the shapeshifter explanation for Marcille's Chilchuck. And this illustrates a bit what I was saying in the section about Dalclan and tropes and people being "digestible" to her. She has to get used to the idea first and it's a slow process.

And during the succubus chapter as well, right after the bicorn chapter where she fully accepted Chilchuck as an adult, Marcille doesn’t falter when she’s confronted with seeing Chilchuck as, for a lack of a better term, a sexual being. She even cracks a (albeit sfw) playful quip about it, about them being all blondes. I suppose with the crass jokes he made like during the frog comic that might have prepped her for it lol.

And on that topic... We're here guys. The holy grail of Marcille and Chilchuck.

🔥The bicorn chapter🔥

The chapter finishes both Marcille and Chilchuck's arcs about harmful idealization vs not being a doomer, so to speak. It's the culmination, the ultimate balance found, the moment where the lesson gets fully internalized on both sides at the same time. It is a MASTERCLASS in how to do relationships arcs and character studies.

Chilchuck starts the chapter being dismissive of Marcille and her interests again, it opens with a narrated bit about his bad experiences with romance in past parties and he admits he has contempt for people who find the topic of love fun. He sees her still a bit as both a fly circling around him and a venus fly trap waiting for the opportunity to pounce on him and not let go until he spills everything. He ends it though, willingly giving up information on him in conversation with her, opening up, and appreciating her perspective on his romantic troubles.

Marcille starts the chapter having mostly processed that he's an adult, asking him about his wife, but she's still Weird about him and his personal life- and okay, that doesn't quite change, but something does change- everything changes for a moment, in fact.

And what's the catalyst? The cataclysm, even? Chilchuck lies and says he cheated on his wife.

[Okay guys I am officially out of pic space, sorry but I'll have to start recurringly linking to images instead: page]

We get to see live Marcille's esteem for Chilchuck plummet and freefall to the ground. And Chilchuck often acts like hassling and teasing between them is onesided, that she's always the one harassing him, but since early manga Chilchuck has always liked to tease her every opportunity he gets, often initiating interaction just for it... During half of this chapter Marcille is giving him the cold shoulder and we get to see that he misses her, we get to see her fully shut down the (racist) joke he throws at her and see him be SHAKEN over it. He wasn't expecting his lie to tank his reputation and relationship with the party members this much, maybe because before whenever he called himself selfish and cowardly no one seemed to think less of him for it, and he's at a loss for what to do like we see here. He misses their friendship. He's always said he didn't care for having a friendship with them all and whatnot, but here we see him grapple of the aftermath, of knowing what it would be like without them as friends, without them at all.

[page 1, page 2.]

And like with his wife, he has a choice to make. Be passive and spiteful and do nothing, or be vulnerable and communicate to win them back over. And this time, after a manga's length of learning little by little to be more open (and literal coercive torture) he chooses to do it, to try and clear up the misunderstanding.

And listen, on Marcille's end this was NEEDED. He DROPS in her eyes to deserving no respect- but even in these times we see her be jealous of Chilchuck opening up to Senshi, implicitly still caring about what he thinks of her, and most importantly that she does still care about him himself when the bicorn breaks his arm and she runs to his side to heal him, worried. Why was this needed? Because Marcille was forced to have her full, complete vision of Chilchuck shattered. Not only is Chilchuck not little in her eyes anymore, but he's also no angel. He can MASSIVELY- borderline unforgivably- mess up. He is an adult who can royally fuck up, even be immoral. She calls him a depraved adult man.

It sounds negative, but what this does is actually strip him from any idealization and infantilization in her eyes. Is there something more adult than adultery? Is there something less honorable, less wholesome? In this chapter Marcille is forced to reconcile the Chilchuck she knows with this man who did something vile to his wife, even the mother of his child.

And then Chilchuck clears things up, he takes the risk of an argument and actual rejection and sacrifices the secrecy around his family situation to make up with her. And it works. Instantly.

And so he goes "Okay so one day she left me and I have no idea why, probably for no reason. The end. What a petty thing to do am I right. We'll probably never talk again." and she's like "Bet? Actually I have several ideas as to what could have happened and you WILL listen."

(For a Chil & Chilwife analysis go over here instead btw.)

She was always perceptive, but she always had a bias that made her vision of others flawed. Her lens of novel worlds and narratives. Remove, or at least shift that bias in a productive direction, and you get a strength rather than an hindrance. The skill of self-inserting (literally. The half-foot depicted as his wife is even literally Marcille a a half-foot, and his child looks just like him, to show just how good her imagination is lmaoo) Marcille is such the "If I wanna hit the ball… I must become the ball" type. As proven by how she controlled her familiars in the hypogriff chapter. "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 cute and nice and that’d make me happy, but I’d also be sad because you wouldn’t tell me that you love me enough. Then I'd leave to test your love, and you're failing that test rn but if you came back to me even after a long time I'd take you back for sure." And see these! See Chilchuck frowning there in how she thinks of him, how he gets peeved when she takes time to get ready.

No because, this means everything. Marcille started out the manga thinking he was just a kid with a party pooper attitude and even in the shapeshifter chapter where she’s more coming to terms with her having been wrong about him, her shapeshifter of him is sweet and cute and nicer like "No the REAL Chilchuck is much less nasty! ☺️". But in the bicorn chapter it all comes to a head!! Learning that "Chilchuck cheated on his wife" made her esteem of him tank to rock bottom almost, finally acknowledging that Chilchuck can both make adult mistakes and be significantly flawed. But then! The chapter ends by him opening up which in turn make her esteem of him comes back up, but things have changed, still. What she does with her "virtuous husband" bit might seem like idealization again, and she is being optimistic about the wife'smotives, but she’s not making him into something he’s not! She recognizes his flaws (embraces them even.) Like how as the wife she thinks of an angry/frowning chilchuck, how he complains about waiting on her, which he's also done to Marcille before...

Even the way she says "he wouldn't say that he loves me enough" IS DIRECTLY SOMETHING FROM HER OWN EXPERIENCE FROM THE MANDRAKE CHAPTER. Because then she wanted to hear from his mouth with his words that he does value her, that he does appreciate her, that she's not a burden to them! She knows how it can feel like he doesn't appreciate you even when he does, and how insecure it can make someone! Now when she flavors things, she takes the embellishments from her own experiences instead of from novels! Reality, too, can be romanticized without becoming pure fantasy. Fantasy doesn't have to be dry and bitter, it can be beautiful and fun, too. Her "if I was your wife, life would be something like this and I'd feel like this" is truly based on her own perspective and feelings- her empathy and interest in others is not a weakness like Chilchuck thought, it's borderline a superpower.

She doesn't just keep his flaws in mind, she also hypes up his qualities!! He is virtuous, bicorn approved, devoted even after separation!! And that hyping up, and optimism that things wouldn’t necessarily go bad if he tried to mend things with his wife, really gave him hope, and also finished up his arc about optimism not always being bad, sometimes even being necessary.

She inspires him to think that things can work out, that he can still be pleasantly surprised even with all his bitterness. After all, he opened up to Marcille and they talked just now, and she forgave him and they made up, didn't they?

And he must have never quite let go of all hope, must stil lhave some left in him hidden somewhere, because in all those four years of separation never has he stopped calling her his wife in present tense, because even after all of them he has stayed faithful and never moved on.

And all of this with the chapter ending with Chilchuck eating a sweet and savory sandwich, which he thought would be bad and inspired disgust in him at first, and being like "Huh, the sweetness actually complements the bitterness pretty well."

THE SANDWICH IS THEM. "Syrup in a sandwich? Sweetness has nothing to do in a meal." IT'S OPTIMISM AND PESSIMISM COEXISTING. IT'S SWEETNESS AND BITTERNESS BOTH HAVING THEIR PLACE IN A DISH. IT'S MARCILLE AND CHILCHUCK COMING TOGETHER TO HAVE THE RIGHT BALANCE FOR HIM TO BE ABLE TO SAY "It might not go well like in stories, but I'll still try".

Remember what i said about compromises earlier, balance of optimism and pessimism? He tries it, and it works out despite having no faith that it’ll be good, and he’s pleasantly surprised. SURPRISES CAN BE PLEASANT! They're not just life-shattering, not just dangerous, it is possible to be pleasantly surprised! And this is why Kui is a goddess of telling stories through food.

He’s opening up to her, as he takes that last bite of the sandwich, he willingly and easily gives up an information about his family for the first time <3

Notice how she defends his virtues directly taking from Daltian Clan for her reasoning!

She’s such a wingwoman. Such a cheerleader. Couple therapist. Emotional support friend. 10/10.

Marcille: "he has a shitty personality sometimes but if he was my husband I’d still cherish him" Chilchuck: "damn I needed that" /hj

So this neatly ties the last bits of Chilchuck's reluctance to care about others and being cared about in turn, yes yes Marcille reads him like a book so well that he's left shaking, and this is it, really, their arc is about the balance in loving too much and loving too little, in stifling others with that love and care and interest the way Marcille does vs showing it so little that others don't even know if he cares at all, à la “if we want the rewards of being loved, we have to submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known.”

Marcille has a whole theme with the prince charming trope, with her idealization and storybook motif and this is sort of 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✨" conclusion. Again, fantasy doesn't have to be perfect to be worth it, to be valuable and lovable and great and precious.

He’s the devoted virtuous man that she wants 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 and devoted and loving family man. Far, far from a prince charming, but not fully detached from it either. Something worth fighting for despite the flawed cracks.

Marcille has this grand fantasy, this ideal of prince charming, a chivalrous gentleman knight, but through canon especially with Chilchuck she learns to not idealize people so much. That acts are more important than aesthetics. The bicorn chapter is all about Chilchuck’s romance being realistic: flawed. And it’s no coincidence that this is what ties their interwoven arc closed, because they learn to compromise, his pessimism and her optimism. Marcille sees and recognizes a romance that is both flawed and beautiful and is able to balance the two decently, meanwhile she convinces Chilchuck that yes it is worth fighting for and having hope for. Repeating myself but it’s easy to think she’s still idealizing Chilchuck during the bicorn chapter, BUT it’s important to notice the differences with the shapeshifter chapter, where her shapeshifter of him was "cute/sweet" "not nasty", an angel who could do no wrong. In the bicorn chapter, not only does he fall from her esteem a lot because she believes he cheated for a good part of it, thus acknowledging that he can be flawed and adult enough to commit adultery, but also! When she roleplays as his wife, she doesn’t erase his flaws!! She knows he has a short fuse and isn’t always pleasant, but believes that he’s worth loving anyways… 

And see this is the point!! She romanticizes his life, not idealizes it. The difference may be subtle, but it's there. In romanticization there's how Ghibli depicts mundane scenes of daily life, portrays doing chores like cleaning clothes as something that feels good, something worth doing that doesn't have to be miserable. In Chilchuck's life, in his flawed relationship with his wife, she sees the beauty and light and love to highlight so even if the lifestyle is humble and even if the relationship is tense it seems nice, it seems worth fighting for. She's using aesthetics again, but to inspire instead of stifle, the way she uses them to hype herself up sometimes too.

This is it this is the thing! Her worshipping and idealizing the image of perfect prince charming that will whisk you away on an ethereal romance becomes her romanticizing a realistic flawed middle aged dad with personality issues and a failing marriage, that he still is worthy of love and having his cute grand romance story and his happy ending!!

Marcille has a very hard time conceptualizing a point where love can’t conquer all, right. She’s optimistic and if there’s a will there’s a way etc etc etc. Notably when Marcille speculated about Chil’s wife, she centered around the theory that his wife wanted to "test" him by leaving, that she didn’t feel loved and left to see if he’d chase after her. She believes that his wife would be ecstatic to see him again and reaching out would make them reconcile and happily get back together, no problem. Chilchuck and his wife have been separated for 4 years. When Falin left the academy she and Marcille were separated for 4 years. Marcille has to believe Chil’s wife is waiting for him, that she hasn’t moved on, that she wants to be found. There's a different perspective on time, but there's also... Just parallels. Parallels everywhere. Miss coping, meet coping in an opposite way! And so she teaches Chilchuck to not assume everything is lost before havign even tried, and so he teaches Marcille to let go when it's needed.

She specifically loves characters who think they can’t be loved and pessimistic and dramatic… And story-fying him is literally what she does when she engages with the story of his breakup with his wife like it’s a story to decode, reinforcing the whole narrative about tropes and princes and how he comes to shape her view on them.

Even if the context here is explicitly that she relates! Which, she finds being able to relate to them comforting and a positive point so it being a "type" thing isn’t fully off- but this is what I mean when I say she always keeps a film of emotional distance from people, she wants to love and be loved and know people on the deepest level possible so bad but it’s something that scares her too so she prefers to chase after the safe: the unreachable- the fictional. Like Chilchuck. Bit of tangential speculation, but she wants to crack his shell and make him open up- but it’s also easier because he pulls away instead of pulling in/closer so the relationship is fully in her control in that way, if it weren’t for the teasing… Making her into someone silly in his mind is how he keeps himself from putting weight into her words, how he gets himself to automatically dismiss the wise lessons she tries to instill to him, nope sir he doesn't have anything left to learn, he's an old crouton who understands everything there is to know about this cruel cruel life yes sir. Because trying and being rejected hurts! Because if it wasn't fated to turn out wrong, then it means there was luck or choice, and that makes failures almost more painful! But people leave!! People leave and people come back and new meetings happen and choices are good, choices shouldn't be taken away! Not like how Marcille tries to forcefeed immortality to humanity, as a dungeon lord...

The chapter ends with a panel of Marcille and Chilchuck bantering again, with everyone else going about their business seeming nonplussed while the two are being very loud as if to say, ah, classic them. Return to normalcy, return to their usual closeness and shenanigans. All is well.

The Princess imagery

And now we’re falling into the rabbithole. Imagery doesn’t have to be anything more than imagery, but I discuss romantic connotations in this section (amongst the platonic reality of things ofc), you can skip to the conclusion if you’d rather but you will miss important analysis of the dungeon lord balcony scene, a big piece of the puzzle in wrapping it all up. I found the meaning of life & the world in marchil but it’s ok I get it if you wouldn’t... We're all built different ig. The character with princely chilvalrous knight parallels in the manga is moreso Laios, but Laios too breaks the trope a lot. Chilchuck gets prince and knight parallels but by contrast instead, in subtext more than any explicitly drawn. There's a lot to Marcille's princess imagery and though I've never fully covered it I try to somewhat tackle it here.

For as much as the bicorn chapter is what ends their arc about balancing pessimism and optimism and finding healthy compromises, the arc of their RELATIONSHIP is in the dungeon lord chapter where he fully opens up to her, inviting her to meet his family and all. AND MY GOD, the princess imagery!!

Listen I am trying so hard to keep this unromantic, and to be clear subtext is subtext for a reason, it doesn’t have to be concreticized or "acted upon" perse, but… I think it’s there in this scene, at least a bit. I’ve spent a long time trying to pin down what was so charged in it, besides both of them blushing, despite him offering for her to meet his family, despite it calling out to a genuine deep instilled desire in her heart enough for it to work- for it to make her turn towards them, despite the first thing she does after is shower him in romantic gifts, and it eventually struck me… It’s the parallels with other media, with tropes!! This is HIGHKEY Romeo and Juliet type shit!!! The stuff you see in every couple new kinda trashy romance kids movies! 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 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.

Remember her succubus' words? "Oh, princess... I can't believe you slipped away from the castle yet again... Honestly, what in the world shall we do with you...? Come, let us return." Again like with her succubus, she’s living through a storybook trope but with Chilchuck’s twist, more nuanced and realistic yet just as meaningful, even if it isn’t strictly OR at all romantic and if it’s more complicated and less glamorous. She’d have to peel the layers to get to the vulnerable truth of it, like anything else. I'm just gonna drop this here...

Doesn’t it sound like a proposal. One that’s both so storybook-like, and contrasted with such real yet unromantic and grounded words, 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?? I’m not saying this was all intentionally crafted to be romantic but it nonetheless exists in the subtext, ripe for analysis. Of course they talk about planning together his reconciliation wit hhis wife, but the same thing happens regardless, he fully lets her into his life.

And again there’s something to be said about how that is what makes her finally turn around! This is extremely meaningful not only to Chil but to Marcille, the enticing thing that finally hooks her, gets her to finally look down at them. An offer to meet a flawed man’s flawed family, to help him mend it and its issues. It isn’t through the filter of a book, or mere gossip to her, she knows this man and she wants to be involved in his life, to know him and his family herself, ready to meet them and form connections. The clumsy, imperfect reality of a friend telling her he’ll let her into the other spheres of his life even if that means she witnesses the embarrassing and the ugly. It’s vulnerability on both their ends, offered and received, a gambit that was worth taking, both in the moment to talk Marcille out of being dunlord and long term of letting her in to see the deeper sides of him, there are take backsies once someone knows something about you after all. SHE STOPS BEING A DUNGEON LORD IN GOOD PART BECAUSE HE TOLD HER HE'D LET HER INTO HIS LIFE. SAY IT WITH ME, A FLAWED REALITY IS WORTH IT MORE THAN STAYING IN FANTASY!!!! In denial of reality, both that Falin hasn't grown older, that everything can turn out perfectly, and that everything is lost and there's nothing Chilchuck can do to make his wife love him again or even make his party listen to him.

Chilchuck says this after he sees her materialize her parents as doppelgangers. And so he goes on to say- hey your family will never go back to how it was when you were young, my family will never be what it once was either, but we can both move on and make the best of what we have anyways, isn’t that what you taught me, there are more out there! I’m opening up myself to new relationships and friendships because of your pushes, and now I want you to do the same! Life goes on and there’s always more joy and connections to be had! Stop isolating yourself, dammit!

And the thing too with Marcille’s arc is that she can’t get what she wants. She can’t. She can’t get everyone to live forever if she doesn’t take others’ free will away, if she doesn’t make the world stop for her as she plays god with the laws of nature and the cycle of life. And everyone’s important to that arc obviously, Falin during the story is the main object of that fear, and it’s moreso her death that pushes her arc along but it’s still extremely influential, Laios is the main one who sees her insecurities and talks her down, Senshi’s always harping on ecosystems and laws of nature and how resurrections aren’t natural and is there to offer comfort and support, Izutsumi’s someone new Marcille gets to take care of and her farewell talk with her reveals a lot about how she’s grown, but seeing this it’s easy to see why Chilchuck is paired off so much with her on their respective arcs, right? The one who tells it harshly how it is even when the reality is unpleasant, who gives up quickly when it's about things turning good for him but who always pushes and fights on when it matters with the party, who challenges a rose tinted glasses perspective head on.

He looks nothing like a knight but he still acts like one. He’s nothing like a prince or a dashing romantic courting lover but still he gives her a novel worthy balcony heart to heart scene. He’s painfully real and raw but she does bring that twinkle of hope and romantization that makes the world feel more wonderful to him, but like she tells him, he’s virtuous and he should give things a shot because people see good in him too and not only the bad he always shittalks himself for, she’s not making it up, he always had that sparkle of knight and prince in him.

Like, giving someone a handkerchief is literally a romance trope associated with nobles and princes. And Chilchuck has offered Marcille his handkerchief at least twice! The second time in the cockatrice chapter as a bandage. He keeps it in his pouch, with his tools, like the most must-have to offer it Marcille at any moment, ha /j. Prince behavior <3 The cowl like a knight’s favour, a token from a loved one he cherishes above all and keeps on himself at all times. Story tropes shit.

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!!!!

And man this whole angle makes the "Don’t you want to meet my family?" "-gasp- I really do want to! -turns away from eldritch power and living in her demon-made dreamscape that can allow her to live in fantasy to instead go back to flawed reality with her friends-" all that more meaningful and striking. A fitting end to her arc, a fitting hook to get her to turn back towards her and tempt her to give up on being dungeon lord. It’s always been just asking things and anecdotes about him and his family, never talking about meeting them, but by having someone so "fated with doomed love" open up and reach out to her "fated to never love", she opens up too, is willing to take the risk that any relationship entails, the same one that he took by offering it, the same risk they’re both averse to and scared of, loss and rejection. By actually meeting his family she involves herself in the stories she creates. It makes them real. She’s finally involving herself intimately with others, despite the real threat of loss that she will have to experience, wether through time and death or rejection.

Marcille and Chil’s arc, man…….. See, this is why I’ve been tilling the fields of that analysis for months this is why I’m insane about them, not only is there so much to say but her relationship with Chil straight up deconstructs her perspective on the world as idealized and influenced by fiction and fantasy and optimism. Like, he’s at the core of that part of her arc and man!! Man.

And the way that this is the culmination of their arc together… Like the ‘Chil calling out to dunlord Marcille on the balcony has Romeo and Juliette romance novels imagery’ take is one thing but the ‘their arc is about growing to see beauty even in the non-idealized, in the flawed and in the real’... It makes it so so perfect if she were to lower her ideal from a perfect elven prince to a virtuous halfling man (which she does romanticize).

So she doesn’t want a prince, she doesn’t want a general, she just wants this guy she knows, this friend she trusts as reliable, who has good intentions even if wrapped in unpleasant demeanor, that’s all she needs to be content and well and feel safe. By the end, he might even have become something of a prince charming to her, won over with heroic acts and virtues.

After all- Remember when I said she wouldn't be able to be as touchy so lightheartedly as before with him? Well wrong, apparently! This parallel from chapter 23 just before the red dragon fight vs chapter 96 at the final feast confirms that her like of him and behavior with him was unconditional of him being a kid or an adult. Marcille is just Like That and that she just likes him. A good part of what reads as infantilization truly is just how she cares for people in general.

Conclusion

She’s afraid of change, so it's only fair that he would be perfect to teach her a thing or two. She had fantasies but he had experiences, both had bias.

Their arc says that love is a beautiful thing regardless of loss. Something both of them needed to remember. Life isn't like a novel. Sometimes an ending ISN'T satisfying, you don't get closure and it might not even be happy, but that doesn't mean nothing can end well, doesn't mean every farewell is bitter. Peace is worth both fighting for and making for yourself. You can't shut yourself off from the world because things sometimes hurt, there's more of life to live- won't you come meet my family? Won't you meet new people, won't I try to mend relationships that are dear to me? My family is flawed, but it's still worth meeting, still worth loving, still worth fighting for and keeping even with all its flaws, no? Elven storybooks don't feature half-foots, but they're worth spinning grand poetic and romantic tales for all the same. Life is bittersweet, and that's an acquired taste to have, but one good to be able to stomach as a whole.

There’s a lot of reasons why someone would love fictional characters but be afraid of love in reality, not unlike with Laios' and Chilchuck's own experiences love has a layer of danger and fear because it can hurt to love and it can hurt to be loved. People can leave you, and in Marcille that fear's mainly through death but for Chilchuck that’s through just… Leaving. Through giving Chilchuck optimism and hope, drive to keep going despite these realities, she’s also growing to be more comfortable with the thought of relationships ending and moving forward regardless. And I do think that was part of her arc of growing to accept that Falin might be dead dead, I think Chilchuck was a big part in that. Falin is the passive object of the arc but Chilchuck is the active actor pushing it along, in a way.

Because people can always leave, Falin will leave to travel the world, but she might come back- and that's okay. And that’s exactly the thing that the story wants Marcille to make peace with! Falin wants and needs to leave and Marcille needs to be content just taking what she can get, wether it be time with people or the boundaries they set with her. THE BOUNDARIES! THE BALANCING OF OPTIMISM AND PESSIMISM! IT'S CHILCHUCK'S DOING!! "The world isn’t all good, but you should be able to see the bright side of what you do get" is what she and Chilchuck learn. To learn that she can still enjoy when she is there, and still reach out to her and keep in touch through letters- to do what you can and to get what you can and to accept that as enough, for it to bring you the joy and peace it can. Don't push your expectations onto others, wether that's being overly intimate or overly judgemental, don't be too pushy but also don't be too afraid and not do anything at all.

In many ways even before, even on the regular Marcille was his gateway into being more lighthearted, always exchanging playful jabs, laughing at her. Teasing her because she teases him, lowering himself to her level until he looks back and realizes he’s having fun with it instead of just throwing jabs bc he’s the master of sarcasm TM.

Chilchuck smiling casually and softly, genuinely, when saying that things don’t work out sometimes, is just so powerful. From the man who always assumed the worst of everything, who always spoke of life and the world bitterly... By the end, while saying these things he’s smiling openly rather than smirking smugly. Carrying on with his go getter attitude with a touch more optimism in his heart. Now he's made his peace with life and sees the good in it, still.

It's all about... How flawed relationships with flawed people can still be made into somehing good and healthy that make the world brighter… How flawed relationships are still worth remembering and cherishing. Except the winged lion, there to represent abusive relationships you need to fucking DITCH.

Marcille and Chilchuck’s arc is about how in life sometimes books do close and end, but other ones can open and start, and to never give up on that. People’s lives, relationships, these things are temporary and inevitably end, but there’s meaning and joy in having been there for them, and focusing on the end and the pain and being pessimistic in it doesn’t keep anyone safe, not meaningfully. "It’s not all nice like in the stories. Sometimes, a book just ends." "And another opens."

Dungeon meshi promotes the important of balance for both a healthy body and a healthy mind, and optimism vs pessimism is one such case <3

MAYBE IT'S ALL COMPROMISES MAYBE IT'S ALL SWEET INBETWEENS. Maybe we'll take our vision of what we thought we could be and make something new together! DRINK IN MODERATION!!!!!! SEE LIFE LIKE FAIRYTALES IN MODERATION!!!!!!! THE RIGHT ATTITUDE LIES BETWEEN IDEALIZATION AND PESSIMISM

Disclaimer:

This was pretty messy but thank you so much for reading!!

To be clear! Does this arc exist in the text, the whole tropes and idealism vs pessimism thing, do they have tangible impact on each other as both characters and narrative devices? Yes. Is Marcille and Chilchuck the central piece of the story? No. Is Dungeon Meshi about this and how it all culminated into a cool Romeo and Juliette scene? Lol no. Chilchuck isn't the most important person to Marcille and her story nor is Marcille the one most important to Chilchuck. Just like the other major characters in the story, their dynamic and progressing relationship is a plotline/subplot amongst others, and the level of layers and subtext it possibly has doesn't erase any other part or subtext of the story. Arcs can coexist. Multi-layered relationships can coexist. Just a reminder that this is my own analysis and interpretation of canon.

Dungeon Meshi is about food and how it ties us to a life that’s worth living, about unity and trying to understand that which you do not, to not demonize that which is different or unknown, to connect with others even if it’s hard, even if it’s in unusual or undescribable unlabelable ways, and Marcille and Chilchuck’s relationship is certainly a pawn in these themes like every other relationship.

I’m having fun, but I don’t want anyone getting lost in the sauce. It's unfortunate that to many, acknowledging there's any merit to analyzing this subtext is equal to supporting a ship they dislike, but this isn't ship propaganda, this is analysis of canon text where I happen to see a more niche angle. You can disagree with an interpretation without saying that it's nonsensical.

Like I don’t wanna say I’m a marchil truther but if you define it as believing canon does have genuine and credible basis for it then yeah I guess I am. I feel insane everyone acts like they have no chemistry and no material and??? We exist on different planets I think Like I know I implied some romantic undertone but in canon it totally can start and end at two coworkers bonding and getting to know each other better and see each other’s perspective and it influencing them both for the better. No buts, you can totally do that. Although this plus the crumbs it drives me up a wall when people say they have no chemistry or ‘how come people see anything in this pairing?’ They’re literally a comedic duo? A comedic duo that interacts so so much that gets paired off in scenes, a thematic duo which is even acknowledged and reflected in the anime’s opening. He teases her 24/7 canonically because he finds her reactions fun/cute, the only person he teases on the regular, and she’s obsessed with knowing more about him and loves being touchy on top of it, plus reads him like a book because she files away every little thing about him in her memory, like if that isn’t a strong basis for a ship I think the bar has gone too high. I’m derailing but yeah just. Do you see all of this? They drive me insane, I feel like I’m reading the necronomicon when analyzing them, picking up on subliminal messages, I keep always seeing new threads. And it’s been my otp for like 2 years now, idk when they’ll stop having a grip on me but????? There’s just so much to dig into with them. There will never be another pair like them. Do you hear me there’ll never be another duo that hits all of these like this, do you see this insanity? They are my lifeblood and if i’m eating up anything them-related it’s because they’ve earned it so hard tbh. So yeah if I’m ever dramatic about marchil it’s because I have this 100k words novel narrative in my head and marchil is the meaning of life to me hope this clears it up

Which on that note idk what or when my next Marcille & Chilchuck analysis will be. I might very well make a bite sized, summarized version of this analysis because asking people to read all of this is kind of insane of me... And full disclosure I’m also very likely to edit points in or tweak bits every so often in this analysis because idk if I’ll ever stop thinking about it, and phrasing can improved. This has been in my drafts and outlined more than a year and I’m literally still adding extra points save me. I might also do a different angle on their arc because here yeah I mostly just dug at the prince trope angle, at ONE of many angles... Like one interesting thread in the manga is Marcille emotionally maturing and becoming more like her mother, on top of her regularly being a mom type friend the way she looks after Izutsumi and Falin, which could be interesting to pair with the fatherhood of Chil. Hmm. Anyways

And obviously do whatever you want, but this analysis and all is why I personally can’t stand the fanon that Chilchuck and Marcille have a father-daughter undertone. It goes against their arc together, which is explicitly, literally about her acknowledging him as a man, an adult, about coming to see each other truly as peers and her coming to validate him as an adult, then a father and husband from an outside perspective and a friend, and inversely him coming to not belittle her profession and philosophy. Their whole arc is about learning to see each other as an equal and equally value each other’s perspective and opinion. You could argue it’s also the arc that happens with Izutsumi, but honestly with her it’s a lot about Izutsumi learning to compromise and others instilling lessons to her onesidedly while learning to respect her perspective and boundaries, it’s not nearly as much of a reciprocal thing. Izutsumi needs to be heard, but she also needs people teaching her and guiding her. Imo it cheapens the arc, the whole point is that they’re just two people who grow to see each other as equals, that the Laios party is coworkers turned friends. Marcille doesn't need a new parental figure, she needs friends who'll keep her in check the same way she does them.

I do love the way that the manga avoids romance. For every romantic undertone there’s a platonic explanation that is just as compelling and especially to this degree it’s both rare and wonderful. I think that a lot of people need to learn that sometimes ambiguity is the point instead of something that needs to have a specific objective answer. Sometimes the intent is for something to be able to be read in different ways in itself, or that the complexity of the relationship is canonically something that cannot be put into a neat box. Which! Next analysis I'm very intent on making is gonna be about unlabeled relationships in Dunmeshi and queerness, see you there!

Fast and dirty TLDR

Marcille’s personality is very serious and direct. Due to this, she frequently gets into arguments with the master of sarcasm, Chilchuck. Chilchuck views Marcille as “the friend who cannot shut up”. He is often the practical foil to her more imaginative or idealistic views.

She actually thinks very highly of him! "He’s usually the most mature one of us" "he’s dependable, we’re counting on him" "No chilchuck is definitely virtuous", and at first it’s also through this twisted lense that he’s a kid, like she has to put people into boxes so they’re more digestible, tropes, in line with aesthetic, and at this stage it’s hard for her to see Chilchuck as being even able of wrongdoing really. And gradually that gets challenged when she sees that yeah, he’s an adult, and then BAM bicorn chapter- Because by then ok fine he’s an adult, but it hasn’t quite fully settled yet as we see in the shapeshifter chapter and she still has a warped view of him a bit, she has an accurate grasp on his behavior yet still sees him as a little angel. And then she "learns" he committed adultery. Her esteem for him hits rock bottom and she spends the chapter cold to him, she still cares and comes running when he’s hurt, but she’s set on mean mugging him, until it’s revealed that- He didn’t actually. Oh, actually he just has family angst. And she starts roleplaying and having her novel vision again BUT THIS TIME HER MIND VISION OF CHILCHUCK IS OVERTLY FLAWED. 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, worth fighting for.

The prince charming figure has importance in Marcille and Chilchuck’s arc, where she romanticizes things to a sometimes worrying degree or idealize people into something more poetic, easy and digestible (like Chil being a kid, and then him being a virtuous ✨✨✨husband), and where she needs to learn to value aesthetics less and actual acts and facts more, be more grounded (like seeing people for what they are flaws and all, but seeing their virtues too, like 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 who still is worthy of love and having his cute grand romance story and his happy ending.

Their arc together is literally learning to 1) see each other for how they are and not undermining their qualities and 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 a virtuous husband like KUI KUI STOOOOP STOP I’M ALREADY HOOKED I’M ALREADY-

[illubean]

Heyyy, so I’m like reaaaally tall and I wanted to ask if you’d be comfortable with writing headcanons about the Phantome troupe (or just feitan, uvogin and Hisoka) with a tall fem!s/o? Like 6’2 or 6’3 , cuz I really like your other headcanons and I can’t find any of those ANYWHERE… :,)

Phantom Troupe w/ a Tall!Fem!Reader

Characters: Chrollo Lucilfer, Feitan Portor, Uvogin Type: Headcanons, Fem!Reader

Haven’t written hxh for a hot minute… replaced Hisoka w/ Chrollo cus I don’t write for him! also reader is intended to be in the 6’0+ range

Warnings: a tad suggestive?

Chrollo Lucilfer

I personally think Chrollo is a certified tall girl lover

never be afraid to wear heels/platforms around him because he’s literally obsessed with you

his favorite thing ever is when you wear shorts/skirts/anything that shows off your legs

if anyone tried giving him shit for having a gf who’s taller than him he doesn’t care because thats little dick energy and Chrollo is NOT part of that club

tall or not he likes having you in his lap, his palms resting on the outside of your thighs or around your waist

who cares if it looks silly to other people? he adores you

he insists on helping you put on/take off your shoes every time, often pressing a kiss to your ankle and telling you how pretty you are GAHHH

touchy touchy man in private, always laying on your lap, caressing your thighs or offering you specifically leg massages

he may or may not be a teeny bit of a perv

he just can’t help it :(( he wants to spoil his tall baby

we already touched on the shorts and skirts thing but this guy goes NUTS if you wear stockings/fishnets/thigh highs etc. like YESSS THANK THE LAWD

he is not above getting on his knees and quite literally worshipping you, kissing up the length of your leg

ok let me stop before i get freaky

Feitan Portor

oh boy

Feitan is already used to being relatively shorter than people, it wasn’t new to him

but he didn’t expect to get with someone DAMN NEAR A WHOLE FOOT TALLER

you guys are like the big and friendly x small and scary ship dynamic except reversed gender role i guess

as previously mentioned in another headcanon post i did similar to this, Feitan likes being shorter than you for 2 main reasons

1. so he can sneak up on you easier and 2. because he’s practically eye level with your chest..

he likes it when you hug him so he can just faceplant into your rack then blame it on the height difference

he likes to sneak up on you and watch you nearly jump out of your skin because you literally didn’t see him coming

he’s not at all insecure about your height difference but he does get annoyed if you or anyone else teases him

if you tried leaning an arm atop his head or something he would dodge you with a scowl and give you the silent treatment for the next 10 minutes because how dare you!?

he is small but mighty, so if you ever try to pick him up or something he WILL fight back

9 times out of 10 you end up splayed out on the floor while he stomps away, a little salty

but he doesn’t mind so much in private

he actually DEMANDS to be the little spoon

he likes the feeling of having your larger form wrapped around him :3

Uvogin

yeah so no matter how tall you are you’re probably never ever going to be taller than this guy soz

he’s like over 8 feet tall

so needless to say your height doesn’t matter much to him..

but I think he probably has a preference for taller women because it just makes things easier for him

also wtf would it look like if this guy was dating someone under 5’4…it would look suspicious even if they’re an adult……..

so yeah he like’s that you’re tall even though you’re still pretty short compared to him

he likes that he has easier access to kiss you instead of having to lean down ridiculously far (even though around 2 feet is still kind of ridiculous…)

another one who likes it when you show your legs off

to be fair, he likes it when you show skin in general but yeah

cannot keep his hands off you ever

he always has an arm slung over your shoulders or if you’re sitting his insanely large hand is resting on your thigh

he doesn’t shy away from pda ever and it kind of annoys some of the other troupe members..

but yeah you guys are giants in love <3

[chronic-conjuring]

So this only really relates to @tellurfriends-im-the-threat comment but I think it kinda demonstrates how people who “work” with Lilith who aren’t Jewish think about her role in religious practices, her abilities and just how stupid it can be pretty well.

I know the person it’s talking about (I’ll refer to them as R) and they’re probably the most abusive ex-partner I’ve ever had. They’re also incredibly fucking stupid, acknowledges that they’re stupid, and then still thinks they’re the smartest person in the room. Which I think demonstrates the same kind of attitude a lot of people who work with Lilith have around many things but especially around Judaism and their appropriation of it.

See, the thing about R is that they use Lilith as an excuse to manipulate and sexually exploit people for funsies and regularly talks about doing this. Somehow I seem to be one of the very few who picked up on that even though they’ve basically admitted to it point blank. Literally stating that they try to use “Lilith’s influence” to toy with people they encounter at kink parties. They also “work” with Lilith in a very modern, non-Jewish way. Basically the exact same as they do with all the Norse gods they work with which are, or at least used to be, the only other deities they work with. Their reasoning for working with her and how they “use her influence” is that they claim she came to them asking to work with them, R also has said that they use her as a way to connect to their “dark feminine” and “take back sexual power” like a lot of other ill-informed people do.

The big thing I’m getting at here are that R is extremely irresponsible and culturally insensitive. R has made many assertions that they are not Jewish by any means, and says they’re mostly Slavic. They’re white as fuck, okay? And that the way they interact with Lilith as even a concept is extremely white-centered and I’d say they even fetishize her existence as just an excuse to mess with people sexually. They like to try and control people through sex, or at least they liked to try and do that with me. It just feels like a very apt way to look at how goyim interact with Judaism as a whole to me. (Admittedly I am not Jewish myself afaik, there’s evidence to suggest I am, but I am mixed Native American and what I’ve seen feels similar to how people appropriate my cultures. I do have Jewish family and that’s literally my Jewish girlfriend up there so I try to be informed and sensitive)

Anyways they literally used Lilith as an excuse to do what I gathered is a fucking love spell as the solar eclipse happened overhead last year, including writing Liliths sigil on a piece of paper, and burning that AND THEIR OWN BLOOD as an offering to her during said ritual. I cannot emphasize how much I am not joking here in the slightest. Which, again, I think demonstrates just how uninformed, self serving, ignorant, and disrespectful the people who’ve decided that Lilith is theirs to misappropriate, despite being told multiple times that it’s not their fucking lane to be in, are.

To be clear, I’m adding this because I think it compliments the fact that Autism2, and soooo many others, decidedly tried to argue that Lilith is just for anyone’s taking and for anyone to have like she doesn’t have a whole history and location of origin that’s notoriously closed. I find this to be kind of interesting as a large narrative these people have is that she’s a being for female sexual empowerment and sexual agency in the face of misogyny or whatever. And yet, ironically, they still take and use her. They use her image and name and strip it of all original meaning until what’s in front of them is almost completely different than what she began as. Which I find odd as many goyim I’ve seen work with her do it because they experienced SA, and/or had their agency taken from them in some way. And yet, they do the religious equivalent to her themselves.

The fact that R “works” with Lilith on the basis of reclaiming sexual agency when our entire relationship they essentially tried to force me to have sex with them (on their terms and their terms only at that) just felt like an extremely useful as a comparison to how I’ve seen a lot of people use Lilith. It’s disgusting and downright shameful imo, and they all need to do better. It’s really not that hard to stay out of other people’s closed practices. There’s plenty of open ones that have their own version of what you’re looking for that’s not a warped shadow of CLOSED source material.

To all those people: Do better.

Lilith being closed is something that was popularized by zionist aligned bloggers, and is a fringe theory, not a monolithic rule. Lilith is open

I had anon messages turned off for months. I literally turned them back on today, and I immediately get antisemitic bullshit in my inbox. Was this just coincidence, or were you like camping out, reloading and waiting for me to open asks back up?

Because it really looks like the former, and that's incredibly pathetic.

Judaism is a closed ethnoreligion. Judaism and Zionism are not the same thing. Lilith is a figure born exclusively from Jewish folklore. I did a whole fucking podcast on that. When you take from a closed culture you are not a part of, it makes you an asshole.

Go fucking look in a mirror and maybe take stock of shit. It's really easy not to be a shithead, so maybe take five minutes and reassess.

[kmt123whatsthetea]

Official Business

Fred Weasley x reader

Requested by: @mytrinityphelps

Request: “Office sex with coworker Fred Weasley (and him wearing glasses)”

A/N: Thank you for the request! I'm sorry it's taken so long to actually start and upload. But it never slipped my mind. This might just be my longest fic yet, so I hope it's actually enjoyable. I’m not gonna lie, I kinda forgot about the glasses request and I’m so sorry. I reread the request and went “mentioning glasses once might not cover it”. I’m sorry

T/W: Unprotected sex, Office banter, Blowjob, Nearly caught, Belly bulge,

What could you say about working as an Auror?

It was a decent job with decent pay, the hours were your casual 9 to 5 with weekends off.

Oh, and there was your coworker Fred. He wasn't the most serious guy, having left his job at a joke shop for better pay to keep his business up and running.

He was tolerable, unlike some of the other stuffy old workers who were seemingly glued to their desks. He was a little older than you with a ginger mop of hair and glasses that framed his deep brown eyes. He was friendly, always offering to bring you a morning tea and coffee personally instead of relying on the house elves. He even bought you a small owl ornament for your desk to commemorate your first year anniversary of working there.

Maybe you liked the flirty banter more. How during lunch breaks he’d comment about how you looked better than any dessert ever could, and that he looked forward to your smile more than any monthly wage slip. He really knew how to make your day brighter.

When he noticed the blush that spread across your cheeks in response to his teasing, he took a step up. Some of your favorite comments of his all shared a similar trait. They made you want to jump his bones. It was impossible not to when he spoke the stuff of wet dreams in that soft teasing tone.

“Your lipstick looks pretty, I wonder how it would look trailing down my chest”

“Looks like you’ve had a heavy workload today. Here I’d hoped you could take heavy loads, baby”

“You look tired, you’d sleep a lot better in my bed”

Oh, he was really trying to rile you up. And it was working like a charm.

Working overtime wasn’t rare in this line of work. Desk jobs always had their fair share of paperwork pile ups. Most workers left it till the next day or took it home to complete when possible. You only had a bit of work left and decided to stay to avoid the unnecessary task of homework.

One thing that caught you off guard was that Fred hadn’t said goodnight to you like he usually did before leaving. He did it every night. Was he angry at you? Had you said the wrong thing?

The thought stung a little, but you could always ask him about it the next morning.

Half an hour into your work was enough for a tea break. It wasn't procrastination if it counted as hydrating. Heading along the familiar hallway was second nature for you, but stopping dead was new. In the vast rows of desks, was a familiar ginger mop of hair. Was Fred Weasley staying late?

You made your way downstairs, an idea in mind.

Fred hated staying late. He hated this job. He had only taken it for some extra income towards the joke shop. He took the 9 to 5 job due to Georgie and Angelina expecting their first. At least if he was running the shop, he could be more lenient with trips to St Mungos. He still had a whole 3 hours worth of work to get through just to catch up. How people did this full time, he didn't know.

The approach of heels made him keep his head down, thinking it was some higher up reader to scold him for not taking the job seriously. But when a mug of coffee was placed before him, his head soon whipped up. There you were, like an angel in his time of need. You somehow looked perfect, like you weren't working overtime from an 8 hour shift. Instead of reaching for the mug handle, he reached for your hand in a tender grip.

“You’re a lifesaver, you know.

Your thumb trailed over his knuckles softly, a soft yet teasing smile on your face.

“I guess you owe me then”

That brought a smile to his face, giving your hand a tug causing you to fall onto his lap. You laughed softly, your hands finding his shoulders. This was his usual flirting to the max. But what was the harm in a bit of teasing?

“Give it your best shot, Weasley”

Knowing Fred in the capacity that you did, you should have known that he wouldn't take it as harmless teasing. He took it as a challenge.

His other hand found your cheek, pulling you closer to press his lips to yours in a kiss that seemed almost desperate. He let go of your wrist in favour of holding your waist to keep you steady on his lap. His lips pressed harder against yours, like a kiss along could merge your bodies. He wanted to be closer to you. He seemed confused when you got off of his lap, trying to hold onto you tighter, but his confusion turned into shock when you lowered yourself between his spread legs. He couldn't help his excitement as he practically ripped his belt off.

“You’re really gonna suck my dick? Sweetheart, you’re something else. Most girls would complain about ruining their lipstick, but you love being a dirty little office slut, don't you?”

He groaned when you pressed a kiss to his bulge in response before your hand took over, palming him teasingly. Your fingers tugged his zipper and fumbled with his button before his boxers came into view, and they were pulled down even quicker. Fred reached into his boxers, pulling his cock out. It stood tall before your face, his shaft veiny and girthy. The curtains definitely matched the drapes when it came to his pubes.

“Are you always this hard, Fred, or does a bit of kissing turn you on?”

He chuckled, his hand cupping your jaw to pull you closer.

“I'm always hard for you, I just don't show it as blatantly as you do. I knew how wet you got for me. I wonder if you ever played with yourself in the bathrooms thinking of me…or did you just finger yourself under your desk while I told you how pretty you looked every morning?”

That blush that filled your cheeks when he spoke, that's what he loved most about you. How that small tint of pink made you irresistible. How naturally it did.

His thumb caressed your blushing cheek, it was the result of him after all. Little did he know, it was all for him. You’d give all of yourself to him.

Your tongue gave his tip a gentle prod, reveling in his hiss at the touch. He sounded beautiful with every response, but those you drew from him were your favourite. Your lips wrapped around his tip, suckling softly. Fred stifled his moans, bringing his tie to his mouth and biting it to keep himself quiet from any other late workers. You looked up at him through your lashes, the sight making you wetter. Fred was leaning back in his chair with his eyes closed, his face nearly as red as his hair and his tie tucked between his lips while his cock throbbed for attention. He was like fine art.

Your lips returned to his cock, your cheeks hollowed as you tried to take him in your throat. His eyes bugged out when he felt your mouth take him deeper. But it was all cut short at the sound of footsteps coming down the hallway. Fred pulled the tie from his mouth and nudged you gently, his voice merely a hushed whisper.

“Sweetie, stop. Someone, fuck…someones coming”

His hands ushered towards the underside of his desk making sure you were tucked in before pulling his chair up and trapping you between his legs. The footsteps stopped by his desk, one of your colleagues commenting on how he was here late, making some joke about his allergy for work slowly being cured. Fred could only nod along, his mind still in panic mode from nearly being caught getting sucked off by a coworker. You, on the other hand, took delight in how the tables had turned. It was your turn to tease him.

You leaned your face closer to his cock, sliding your tongue along his shaft and tracing his veins. You could hear his groan which he quickly covered up with a coughing fit. You could hear the coworker checking on him and patting his back, but you didn't give him a reprieve. Your lips circled his tip, suckling gently. Your coworker ran off, something about getting some water for Fred. He pulled his chair back and helped you out from under the desk.

“Sweetheart, we don’t have time”

He pulls his shirt over his erection and drags you by the hand, along the hallway and to the small utility cupboard that housed quills and inks. He pushed you in first and followed you inside, muttering a few enchantments under his breath. He had to make sure no one would hear you two and most importantly, that no one would try and open the door.

His hands wrapped around your waist like a python, pulling you into him. You pulled your pencil skirt up, hooking your leg over his hip. You dropped your voice to a sultry whisper.

“Then you better not waste anymore time, Fred”

His hand slithered between your bodies, pulling up your pencil skirt and tugging your panties aside. He practically growled at how wet you were, his fingers soaked from that brief touch. He couldn't wait any longer. He lined his tip with your entrance and pulled your hips, sliding you down his cock. You let out a relieved moan, grateful for Fred’s enchantment. His cock was buried so snug inside of you, every clench around his thickness felt like he could break you.

You risked a glance down and the sight of his cock causing your belly to bulge made you whimper. Just the sight alone caused that band to tighten. Your hands gripped his shoulders, pressing needy kisses to his lips. Fred pulled his hips back and thrust back into you, wanting to be as deep inside of you as he could. He wondered what it would be like to cum inside of you, painting you deep inside, but he didn't want to push his luck. There was plenty of time, and there was no way he’d have that much fun in an office storeroom. If it took, that would be a terrible place to conceive.

He licked along your bottom lip, his pace never slowing.

“I'm close, sweetie. Cum on my cock, make a mess”

His hand moved back between you both, desperate fingers circling your clit in tight, quick circles. He could feel your grip on his shoulders tighten, your eyes rolling back in bliss as you clamped down on his cock. A pornographic moan ripped itself from your throat as your juices coated his shaft. You were so warm and tight, that he contemplated just throwing all care out the window but instead he groaned and pulled out, his hand wrapping around his dick and pumping fervently.

His cum painted your bunched up skirt, leaving a sticky stain on the grey fabric. You didn’t call him out on it in your blissed out state, only noticing when you slowly came down. Even then, it was just a skirt. It was worth it.

“Don’t worry, sweetheart, I’ll buy you a new skirt if I have to. Maybe some pretty lingerie as well”

His signature smirk returned as he whispered in your ear.

“But then again, I’d prefer you naked”

[doberbutts]

is it just me or is like the whole stuff of cishet men dni and (cis perisex) women only spaces conflating vulnerability with safety? like, with a cis man and a cis woman who otherwise have quote unquote equal positions in society otherwise, there's the risk (or put it danger) from him being able to use his male privilege against her. but if it were a trans man or another cis woman instead that doesn't make them safe and unable to weaponize misogyny or commit interpersonal violence against her, they are just vulnerable to her ability to fight back so to speak in ways that the cis man isn't. but it feels like (general) we talk about these things like they're the same.

I firmly believe that every single transgender person is a marginalized gender due to their transgender status- this is something that I have seen discussed within black transfeminism regularly (see also: MaGe) and yet we get onto tumblr and suddenly all of that disappears under "by effect of being a man you inherently have male privilege and your very existence oppresses all women" rather than realize that transgender people as a whole operate within a structure of marginalization themselves.

As I have said repeatedly- it's not that I don't think trans men are capable of having male privilege (we are) or that I don't think trans men can contribute to and even utilize misogyny to our benefit (we can) - it's that the power and effect of this can depend wildly from trans man to trans man, and what one trans man is capable of might be well out of reach for another.

I have a good friend who is, on paper, demographically very similar to me. She is a cis lesbian, black/white/native, occupying the same tax bracket and occupation, disabled and neurodiverse. We've had extensive discussions about black and gender and gay politics, even when we don't agree we can usually see where each other is coming from.

I have absolutely no problem stating that in certain situations, I do absolutely have privilege over her despite my status as trans and hers as cis. I'm fairly cis-passing at this point. We go out to eat together whenever we can- it is demonstratably significantly more likely that she will be hit on and harassed by a cishet man looking to shoot his shot with a pretty girl than I am. It is significantly more likely that any and all pushback she gives this hypothetical man will be, at best, ignored, and at worst, met with physical or sexual violence. It is also significantly more likely that my very presence at the table will prevent him from doing so, as my approximate physical positioning to her acts as a claim to would-be creeps, and any pushback I give in this scenario is more likely to be met with him backing off.

It's also true that should this would-be creep clock me, register either of our gay signaling, or be racist on top of sexist, this situation might also go sideways for the both of us at any given point. It's entirely possible that this guy will spike her drink when I get up to use the bathroom, or that he'll follow us out to the parking lot and stab one of us, or cause a scene to get us both kicked out. We are both black and gay, after all. Intersectionality is key, here.

Three years ago, I had not yet started testosterone. I only passed maybe 50% of the time, and usually assumed to be a teenager despite being just touching 30. Three years ago, this hypothetical situation would have played out much differently.

Twelve years ago, it did. I was in college and had gone to a local McDonalds with one of my friends, another student there, for lunch. A man old enough to be our grandfather began to hit on us, ignoring our pushback and attempts to move away from and ignore him. I was binding at the time, with my hair cut short, going by he/him exclusively with my friends and out within my college sphere. And yet, what made this guy back off was my (white) cishet friend who prickled at him and began to make a scene until he heard that we were college students, at which point he disengaged entirely. Yup- he was looking for high schoolers to creep on, and we both made various noises of disgust once we realized his actual target.

Being a trans man had very little if any effect on this situation- my presence at the table was no help, my refusal to play ball was no help telling him to go away and that we were not interested was no help. The only thing that helped was killing his pedophile boner once he knew we were adults. I shudder to think what would have happened had we actually been kids.

Back to my cis lesbian friend and the present day- the portion of the sport and dog fancy we both occupy is very cis woman dominated. She can and often does flex what power she has in order to help others get their start- we joke often that she's collecting a posse of trans men as she's somehow managed to sell to majority trans men with her most recent litter. She has no problem wading into a situation where a trans man is being ejected from a queer group and arguing for his right to stay. Early on in my transition, she would loudly correct pretty much anyone misgendering me until that person fixed their shit- and would hover making faces behind me if I was present at a show and they were being a shit about it.

She also sometimes goes on woman-only retreats. And, to be clear, it is her opinion that a trans woman by definition of being a woman should be invited to these retreats. She does not want men at these woman-only retreats, and that does include trans men. And, you know what? I don't really blame her- she wants a space where her womanhood is centered and not have to deal with Men And Their Feelings. Fair- men can be exhausting to deal with especially for lesbians. But she also agrees that maybe pushing a freshly-out trans man out of the group is perhaps a bit cruel if he has been there for years. Most likely, he will go on his own once he gets his feet under him. There's no need to shove him out the door prematurely.

And I think that's really the crux of it.

[nicnacsnonsense]

The thing is there really isn't similar imagery in the backgrounds. The only similarity in the backgrounds is that they both have lighthouses in them somewhere and those lighthouses look completely different.

But I do think this is maybe starting to get a little too bogged down in the imagery. A good visual parallel can absolutely cue the audience in to look for more parallels and similarities (or contrasts), but it's not actually necessary to creating a meaningful parallel (nor is it sufficient, but that's a unrelated conversation). So let's set aside the lighthouse and visual parallels for a second and look at the other points of comparison. Taking from above this are two scenes where "ed strangles a mean old white guy who’s hurt the ppl ed loves" so our three points are 1) mean old white guy, 2) hurt the people Ed loves, and 3) strangles (I know that's out of order, but this is going to flow better if I do strangles last).

Starting with mean old white guy, I don't want to leave it unremarked that there are actually a fair number of mean old white guys in this show, but that said that doesn't it can't be a meaningful point of similarity in this instance; we have to consider how being a mean old white guy relates to these two scenes. So with Izzy, Ed attacks him because Izzy is being homophobic (in that way that's also pretty misogynistic) poking at Ed's vulnerability and heartbreak and more broadly trying to police Ed's performance of masculinity. Ed attacks his dad because his dad is an abusive dick who beats his mom, which is suppose does loosely connect to Izzy's thing on the misogyny front, but it's fairly tenuous. (I am aware of the cut line where Teach Sr is mad Ed's mom made him weak but ultimately that line was cut and to my knowledge we don't know why.)

I do actually think this could be a meaningful point of connection, but sort flowing out from the parallel rather than flowing in. That is to say I don't think this is strong enough of a similarity to make a much of a case for there being a parallel here, but I think if we can find other evidence to help establish that there is a parallel between Izzy and Ed's dad, then we can use that parallel to inform us more about these characters. It could help strengthen the case that Izzy's behavior is meant to be abusive for people who won't believe that unless they see man hitting a woman or in the other direction it could help suggest that Ed's dad also policed Ed's masculinity (I absolutely do think he did that), some textual evidence to bring that cut line back into play even.

But we still need to build the case for that parallel. Next is hurt the people Ed loves. Big check on that for Teach Sr; the way it's presented is he hit Ed's mom and then Ed followed him out into the night and strangled him. He did it and it is immediately connected to what's happening in the scene. But with Izzy it's a bit more of a stretch. Not that he did it, Izzy definitely hurt Stede, tried to kill numerous times. The problem is it's not really that connected to what's happening here. Prior to Izzy getting into Ed's face, Ed's totally chill with him; there's no indication that he's bearing a grudge aout Izzy trying to kill Stede. And while Ed lashing out is immediately preceded by the mention of Ed's "boyfriend," but not in a context where Izzy is talking about having hurt Stede in the past or where Izzy is even trash talking Stede in any particular way. Rather, Izzy is putting Ed down for his feelings for Stede; he's insulting Ed for being heartbroken. So yeah, Izzy has hurt the person Ed loves, but that's not relevant to this scene, if the person Ed loves in the scenario is meant to be understood to be Stede (put a big old pin in that; we are going places in this post).

Which brings us now to the strangling. Ed choking Izzy and his dad are hugely important parts of these two scenes, enough to be the basis for argument that there is a parallel here worth further investigation all on its own. If we have the strangling we don't even need the lighthouses. (What a weird fucking sentence, lol.) The problem is the methods of choking not being similar enough actually is really important in this specific case. Because it's not as simple as Ed strangling his dad (he also kills him. And if Ed had killed Izzy, that would definitely be enough for a parallel, and also a special treat for me, but alas. Back on topic.) The most important, impactful thing in that whole sequence where Ed kills his dad is in the opening where he's telling the kraken version of the story, we get a shot of Ed's dad from the front where we can see the kraken's tentacle wrapped around his neck, strangling him, while Teach Sr grabs at it with both hands, trying to pull it away from his neck. Then later when Ed is confessing to Stede, we see the same shot again, but this time the tentacle has been replaced by a rope with Ed behind him, pulling on it. "I'm the kraken." The method Ed uses to strangle his dad is deeply embedded into the metaphor they've built. If you want to build a parallel based on the strangling, Ed's needs his metaphorical tentacle to strangle Izzy with. I don't think it needs to be a rope per se, it could be a rope or a tie or he could turn Izzy's own cravat against him or grab a string from Frenchie's lute, or pull his own sleeve down (picture with me for a moment Ed, with the pink robe falling off his shoulder as he uses his shirt sleeve to strangle Izzy. Beautiful). He just needs something.

So despite all that, and as you might have picked up on, I'm not actually opposed to the idea that maybe there is a parallel between Izzy and Ed's dad here. But to get to that, first we need to jump a head a bit. Lets go a couple scenes later to where Ed is suiting up, and then looks at his reflection and says "I'm the kraken." There is our incontrovertible call back to the scene where Ed kills his dad. That sentence is pretty particular, it's not something he's likely to say in these two different scenes by coincidence. And furthermore it connects thematically across the two scenes. The first time Ed says is he's using it as a way to confess to Stede that he is not a good person, he's a monster. And in the second instance he is declaring the same to himself as he starts to fall into his downward spiral.

Now let's follow the narrative parallel backward. In the flashbacks what caused Ed to "turn into the kraken" was killing his dad. And then after that he never killed anyone directly again, not until right before he redeclared himself the kraken when he killed Lucius (or at least he intended to kill Lucius and thought he had, which is close enough for this parallel). The parallel to Ed killing his dad then is actually when he (almost) killed Lucius. Which is not to say that I think they are trying to imply a similarity between Lucius and Ed's dad; if anything it's a parallel of contrasts where there is meaningful analysis to be done in unpacking what the significance is in the two people he killed being so different, but that is beyond the scope of this meta, which is already too scopeful for its own good.

Now let's move back in time even further. The (attempted) murders were what pushed Ed over the edge into becoming the kraken, but what was it that pushed him to that edge? In the flashback it's the scene where Ed watches his father his father abuse his mother. In the present, its this scene that we started with, where Izzy confrints Ed. Boom, there's your Izzy-Ed's dad parallel. Its not to the scene where Ed is strangling the abusive dick, its to the scene where he's being an abuser. And now you can go back to all those comparisons I said you could draw if we could prove the parallel and plug those in.

And also, let's go back to the pin I put in the idea of Izzy hurting the person Ed loves. If the parallel is to the scene where Ed strangles his dad, then the part where Izzy hurts someone Ed loves has to have happened before this scene. But if this is paralleling the abuse scene, then Izzy should be hurting the person Ed loves in this scene. It's Edward. That soft vulnerable part of himself, that's the person who Ed loves that's paralleling his mother. Bring that cut line back, Ed's dad accused his mother of making Ed weak, and now that "weak" side of him is paralleling his mother.

And if we have Izzy paralleling Ed's dad and Ed is paralleling his own mother, then we're creating a parallel in Ed and Izzy's relationship to a married couple. Which ties perfectly into the fact that this episode also has Ed and Izzy paralleling Stede and Mary. (Another parallel of contrasts in that case. They're perpendicularing them?)

And I know maybe it sounds weird that I was pushing back against the other two scenes not being similar enough, when these scenes aren't seemingly that much more similar. And I can pick out the specific details to argue the case like was done with the other two scenes. The one scene being in Ed's home and the other in Stede's quarters which Ed was trying to make into a home with the abuse violating what should have been a safe space. The thrown plate to the torn and crumpled page and thrown book. The disgust at being presented with "slop" and the disgust at "whatever it is you've become". The storming out at the end of the scene. And there is definitely something very very about comparing the violence of Ed's dad backhanding his mom and the violence of Izzy stroking Ed's cheek. But really the point I want to make here is it's not in the random details you can point to as similar if you look at them right. Its about thematically, narratively what are these scenes doing, and that's where I think these two have the stronger parallel.

So I’m up to episode 10 of my most recent rewatch and I noticed something interesting in the scene where Izzy confronts Ed. At the beginning of the conversation the camera tends to stay with Ed in the left side of the frame and Izzy on the right, with the space between them in center. We do get some shots of just Ed where he’s in center (not included) but any shots that focus on Izzy still keep Ed in the frame with Izzy staying right of center.

So I am not a cinematographer by any stretch, but this seems all pretty straight forward to me? Like, we’ve got these two people having an argument so we’re showing them on literal opposite sides, and our shots are biasing toward whoever is speaking at the moment, but with an overall bias toward Ed, who we’re supposed to sympathize with.

But where it gets interesting is when Izzy makes his namby-pamby comment, and Ed pushes Izzy up against the wall. Izzy is still right of center, but take a closer look at what is now in the center of the frame.

The lighthouse painting. The lighthouse which represents both Stede and Stede & Ed together. In this moment while Ed briefly appears to have control of the conversation, this painting representing many of the things Ed wants and wants to be is prominently in the shot even while we’re supposed to be focused on Izzy. And as an added bonus just as Ed is consistently on the left side of the frame in this argument, the lighthouse is on the left side of the painting.

But then Izzy takes back control over the conversation. He reaches out and strokes Ed’s face, causing Ed to jerk back and let go of Izzy.

Izzy takes advantage of this to step closer to Ed, bringing him to center frame.

And even then he continues to get closer and closer.

And as Izzy whispers his threat to Ed we’re left with this: Izzy filling the center of the frame, with Ed only barely visible at the very edge, and the lighthouse missing from the painting, completely blocked out by Izzy.

[bakawitch]

Inspiration struck, and I decided to draw @gamerknight7310 's entire 2025 Community Box! Then I go sick halfway, and I could only get the portion I wanted done today...

And because I'm me, I decided to make the task even more complicated and imagine a hero for every kwami in the box using my poster child Bellamy as a conduit (I wanted to do weapons too, but I'll finish those later because I was too impatient not to post lol)

Kwami close ups and individual pics below cut:

Since I already had Drayy designed, I decided to start he whole process from them because I wanted all the kwamis to have a similar element that ties them together as kwamis from the same box. And that ended up being a sort of contrasting accent colour, like the blue in Drayy's braids! Jovv got mustard, Currio got brown, Mullch got a pale-ish red, and Ecco got this titanium blue.

Now let's get into each of Bellamy's designs! (For those who know these are all Bellamy Prime.) Faux Fur! The one with the most obvious name! I struggled a bit with how I wanted to do the fox tail on the dress because my original idea was to give her a short fur skirt that looked like a fox tail wrapped around her waist. I threw that idea away pretty quickly since I couldn’t make it look right no matter how hard I tried. I can't remember how I ended up on his open fur trimmed over skirt but I think it works!

Funnily enough, I think Bellamy would hate this miraculous and act like she had some sort of dark horrible power thrust on her. The idea of forced false happiness (how she sees Jovv's power) is something she finds deplorable. She would probably avoid using the power as much as possible and just bash in the villain of the week's head in with the hulla hoop.

Vermoire! Her name comes from ver (worm) + moire (a type of textile). It's probably the weakest design, lol. Gotta be honest, I had no idea what a worm themed hero was supposed to look like other than probably segments. Anyway, I somehow got reminded of those fluffy worms on strings, and I remembered seeing a giant boa scarf version of it somewhere, so I just decided to go with a giant worm scarf XD. Because of the power I also tried to do some kind of raincoat/cape, but I feel like that might have been too much.

We can just say that because of how disgusting Bellamy would find the application of the worm's power, she'd want as much coverage as possible. She would not want that slime anywhere near her, hence the baggy clothes! Assuming it keeps its structure, maybe it minimises how much the clothes stick to her.

Rabbit hole Miku looking mf XD Couturetail is a spin on a cottontail. The thought behind this design was something purposely cutesy but also kind of historic since the bunny's weapon is a pickaxe, and I usually associate that with archaeology. So I decided to go with a sort of commedia dell'arte mask and some vaguely renaissance inspired bodice. I also thought it'd be funny if all users inherited Currio's perpetual blush.

Bellamy would love this miraculous it would probably be one of her favourites from this batch. She gets a useful non gross power and the perfect bludgeoning weapon!

Batillon time! No real meaning to the name other than bat + something cool sounding lol. I wanted to do something sleek and neat looking so when the hyper awareness powers get activated, the user's appearance can go a little feral predator looking. And obviously, vampire influences because duh XD. I wanted to avoid doing a full bat cape, so I just opted for a little capelet. The hair I specifically imagine flaring up into bat wing like shapes whenever hyper awareness gets activated. She's purple because of he vamp influences, plus every box needs a skin colour distorting kwami at least lol.

This miraculous would be a tie with the bunny miraculous when it comes to Bellamy's favourites. She's a bit of a know-it-all, so she would want an advantage like this XD

Last but not least, it's Courbette, named after a dressage movement! Design wise, I really like Dobbin, so I wanted to do something fairly similar and incorporate riding gear for this design, too. I added a harness to the miraculous belt for extra security and to kind of look like some straps you can usually see on horses. The same goes for the shoulder harness. I wanted to keep the sporty look Dobbin had, because I felt like that would make sense for the miraculous that represents strength, so I went with a kind of fancy sleeved leotard to get a gymnast look.

Bellamy would be mostly neutral about this miraculous, I think. She wouldn't hate it, but she wouldn't love it either. It's a bit too brutish for her style. She'd probably be a decent enough user, but I could not see her as it's perma holder XD

Phew, and that's it for now! This was very fun to mess around with, and I'm hoping to get the other part of the box out sooner rather than later but we'll see XD

[blissfulbluee]

457 theory

gi-hun and in-ho have very different views of each other. gi-hun simply sees in-ho as an alliance, and a potential friend, if he isn’t one already.

with in-ho, things are way more complex. i’ll point out the obvious first; he’s obsessed with gi-hun. this obsession is mainly rooted in jealousy, confusion, and hurt. “why does he still have hope for society, and faith in humanity?” is a question he’s ruminated more than once. it’s painful to see someone endure the same trauma and become a better person because of it when you can’t do the same.

in-ho is drawn to gi-hun out of a desire to put an internal conflict to rest. he knows gi-hun’s mere existence represents the fact truly good people exist, and always have, and always will. he’s been aware of this since before gi-hun was a player. in his eyes, however, those people are either weak and taken advantage of, or there aren’t enough of them to make real change. he felt this was confirmed when the strategy he used in the games led him to victory- one i imagine was similar to sang-woo’s.

seeing someone with a different approach win made him wonder if his callousness was in vain. he justified his actions by telling himself gi-hun got lucky, and hoped he’d build a future around that luck. now, years later, he’s back to play the hero? he feels bad that his attempt is in vain, but at least he’ll learn his lesson; the system and those who play by its rules prevail.

a part of him hopes gi-hun will prove him wrong. he sees his past self in him; a man without his current philosophy. anyway, it’s definitely possible that there’s a homoerotic element to this fixation, as many people fall in love with people who remind them of themselves, but it will never be reciprocated after what he’s done. sad because in another universe they’d be a cute couple 😔

Hi! Thanks for the ask. Sorry for the delayed response. I think this is a good way to look at the ship, and is closer to canon than other things I have seen about them.

Yes, I agree that Gi-hun sees in-ho as a friend when he is Young-il.

I like how you bring up the jealousy and everything being the cause of the obsession (which is undeniable to me. he is absolutely obsessed with him in canon just not in the shipping way) I haven't thought a lot about how envious it would be for him to see how different they turned out.

I do also agree that In ho sees Gi-hun as weak for his morals. I think he wants to essentially teach him his ways, to maybe get him to be like him so that all of that envy goes away. he just has some very cruel and very homosexual methods. LMAO

I SO wish we could somehow get a universe where Gi-hun and past In-ho interact. That way we can have old man yaoi without the toxic nature for a change, even though that is what makes them so interesting.

People clown on shippers for shipping such a toxic ship that is essentially one sided as you mention, but thats the beauty of it. We don't necessarily find it pretty if they end up together. Sometimes we enjoy the one sided things because that's different from a typical romance. AND you can still enjoy it without getting as toxic/dark as possible.

You're right about everything anon. I wish I could say more but I am currently being hit with random exhaustion and you're really saying everything I am thinking lol.

[moonmunson]

pas de deux

to the anon that requested this, i know this isn't exactly what you asked for, but inspiration struck. i hope you like it.

cw: wally certified yearner and loverboy, me not knowing how to describe dancing, allusions to reader being murdered in a very traumatic way by her dance partner but no specifics, sfw

wc: 3k

Wally knows that what he’s attempting to do is misguided at best, and probably disastrous at worst. 

The idea came to him a few weeks ago. He’d been sitting with Charley and Rhonda, shooting the shit in the gymnasium before their meeting with Mr. Martin, when he’d asked, “Is it possible to break a ghost out of their loop?” 

To Charley’s credit, he’d attempted to take the question seriously. Rhonda had just rolled her eyes, removing the ever present lollipop from her mouth before interrupting.

“Again with this? Come on, loverboy. Not gonna happen.” 

Charley sighed, tutting at Rhonda before turning back to Wally, a sympathetic look on his face, “There’s always a chance it could work, but if you’re talking about who we think you’re talking about, I’d say they’re pretty slim.” 

“More than slim, I’d say,” Rhonda butts in again, “I’m surprised she hasn’t worn a hole through the floor, with the way she dances. Like a ballerina in a music box.” She spins her lollipop through the air, follows it with her eyes before shoving it back into her mouth. 

“Have I ever told you your attitude is annoying?” Wally asked, sinking back into his chair and crossing his arms over his chest, ignoring the scoff from Rhonda’s direction, “I’m just saying. We’ve never even tried. What if she’s like, aware in there, like in her mind.” He reaches up to run a hand through his hair - a nervous tick he hadn’t lost, even in death. 

“Does it matter? She’s still stuck here like the rest of us. Better to spend eternity dancing than dealing with the banalities of high school.” 

Mr. Martin walked in then, effectively ending the conversation. Through the whole meeting, Wally couldn’t stop thinking about it. He’d seen you in the auditorium before, looping over and over, stuck in an endless dance for two but lacking a partner. It’s a rare thing for a ghost to act the way you do - there haven’t really been any other deaths at the school that were traumatic enough to warrant a loop like yours, and he’d been determined to break you out of it. Screw Rhonda, he’d thought. He could do it, he just needed to figure out how. 

The problem was, Wally knew nothing about dancing. He's not the smartest guy. He knows that, but he’d been brainstorming different ways to break you out of your loop for a while now, with nothing to show for it. It’d been grating heavily on his nerves.

In a moment he’d regrettably look back on, he’d gone so far as to join you on stage to attempt a fake out. When he’d lunged at you, and you hadn’t even blinked in his direction, he started to think Rhonda was right. You couldn’t see him, you couldn’t hear him. You were stuck up there, doomed to spin around the stage for God knows how long and there was nothing he could do about it. 

Then one day, something really fucking weird had happened. 

—

He’d taken to sitting in the audience, to watch you dance. It was weird, more than a little morbid and slightly obsessive, but watching you move was captivating to him. 

He found some similarities between dancing and playing football - the finesse needed to dodge and weave through people trying to tackle him was one thing - but he’d never seen anyone move the way you do. Every move you made had purpose. The lines created by your arms and legs, the softness with which you carried yourself from one end of the stage to the other. 

Preoccupied with the pressures his mom applied to him, the weight of the world on his shoulders, he’d never taken an interest in dancing, other than the awkward slow side to side swaying he’d done with his Junior year girlfriend at the prom. Now, he wishes he could dance with you - wishes you could teach him to move like you do. 

You’re stuck there, like a spinning top that refuses to fall - unable to fall. Except, as he was watching you, something unthinkable happened. 

You were looking at him. Like, looking straight at him. 

It took him more than a few seconds to realize what was happening, and even then he couldn’t believe it. Charley had talked to him about dancers having a spot to look at when they’re spinning - how it keeps them from falling over, keeps them from becoming dizzy and messing up. Was it possible Wally just happened to be in the seat you used as a spot? 

He couldn’t tell if there was recognition in your eyes, if you were really looking at him or seeing right through him, the way a living person would. But your gaze was fixated on him either way. And your face, it… you just looked so sad. If he didn’t know better, Wally would’ve thought your expression was pleading, looking for help. It only lasted a few seconds, before you turned your head in a different direction and your body followed. It sent him reeling. 

He found Charley and Rhonda in the library, and told them what happened. Charley sat up in his chair, struggling to understand what he meant. 

“What do you mean she looked at you?” 

Wally went to explain it to them again, hoping they’d believe this was out of the norm, “I mean she looked at me, dude. She was up there spinning like she always is, and I was just sitting there watching -” 

“You were watching her? Voyeurism doesn’t suit you, loverboy.” Rhonda’s arms were crossed over her chest, legs folded over each other - closed off, like she always is. 

“It’s not like that and you know it,” Wally sighed, exasperated, “It was weird. At first I thought she was using me to spot, while she was twirling, but the way her face looked? I don’t know, dude. It was just weird.” 

“There’s a chance she was looking at you, don’t you think? We don’t really know how looping works, so,” Charley’s endless kindness is a relief to Wally - especially when he says things like, “I think it’s good, what you’re doing. I wish we could help more.” Charley looks over in Rhonda’s direction, nudging her to say something to Wally. 

“Yeah. As much as I give you flack for it, your whole -” Rhonda waves a hand in Wally’s general direction, “boy savior thing, I do wish there was something we could do for her. It sucks. Not having a partner to dance with.” There was a glint of remorse in Rhonda’s eye, more than Wally ever thought he’d see from her. 

A spark lights up in Wally’s head, a hidden spotlight finding its mark onstage  - landing on you, your flawless form.

“Do you think if I dance with her, that it could break the loop?” Wally asks, looking back and forth between his two friends. 

“It’s definitely worth a shot,” Charley shrugs, gaze turning to his left, “Rhonda? What do you think?” 

The beatnik pauses for a second, long enough for them to see the cogs turning in her brain. 

“Look, I’m not saying it’ll work. Probably won’t. But maybe,” Wally starts to smile, “Just maybe, if you try to connect with her on her terms, instead of trying to force some logic onto the situation, something might change.” 

“I don’t know how to dance, though. I don’t even know where to start.” Wally drops his head in his hands, shoulders hunched over. Charley reaches over, splays a hand on Wally’s back and rubs back and forth. 

“Think of it like football maybe? You’ve got your plays, right?” Wally nods, sitting up and urging Charley to continue, “Those are like the steps. Formations could be the positions you take, and in dancing, timing is everything. The same way it is in football, at least from what I’ve gathered of the rants you go on. Rhonda’s right. Maybe if you learn how she moves, you can try communicating with her that way.” 

Wally sits up, throwing his arms around his two friends, ignoring Rhonda attempting to push him away before jumping up from his spot on the couch. He nearly trips over himself to sprint out of the room and down the hall, towards the auditorium, shouting “Thank you!” behind him. 

—

Wally stood in the echoing auditorium, the stage lights illuminating the otherwise dark room. Every day for the past week, he’d come to you - trying to decipher a language he did not speak. He watched you, trapped in your endless pas de deux. Gliding through the same steps, turns, your desperate yearning clear up close. 

At first, he’d just tried to mimic you. Clumsy and tripping over his own feet, he’d stumbled through the basic positions, frustrated with himself. His movements were jerky and awkward, a stark contrast to your effortless grace. He felt silly - like a hulking figure trying to copy something delicate and precise, something that took years and years of training. 

Slowly, things started to shift. He stopped just watching and copying, instead starting to feel the music that wasn’t there. He began to understand the reasoning behind your movements, the emotions they expressed. He started to see the gaps in your performance, the place where someone was supposed to fit, to complete the cycle you’d been stuck in. 

He started to see the places where he could fit. 

He wasn’t just mirroring anymore, he was learning the language. Each day he got a little closer, a little less clumsy, a little more in tune with the phantom rhythm that filled the empty auditorium. He was still a football player, and he always would be, but he was learning to use some of that training to become a dancer, too. For you. 

Wally knew this might not even work. He’d been in his head about it for a week at this point, and not even Charley or Rhonda could break him out of the loop he’d pulled himself into. He stopped going to the life support meetings in the gymnasium, much to Mr. Martin’s dismay - instead going to spend all of his free time right there next to you onstage. 

He put more effort into practicing for this than he ever did for one of his football games, a feeling of true purpose guiding his every movement. 

When the day finally came, Wally felt calm. He felt ready. 

He walked onto the stage, ready to put his rehearsing to the test. Ready to run the play, to score the winning point. You began your routine, perfect and meticulous and haunting as ever. This time, though, Wally didn’t just watch. He joined you. 

He didn’t try to lead, didn’t try to impose himself or change your dance, he simply became your partner. He matched your movements as best as he could, trying to feel his way through the dance. Trying not to be too robotic, but instead trying to move with the same empathy and yearning that he’d watched you dance with over and over. 

As you reached the point in your dance where your partner should have joined, Wally was there. He wasn’t a perfect dancer, not by any metric, but he was present. He was the missing piece. 

As your movements intertwined, a visible shift occurred. You, you who had been trapped in this endless cycle of longing, suddenly seemed to notice him. Your eyes, usually fixated on some distant point, flickered - focusing on Wally for the first time. Genuinely seeing him. Your eyes filled with tears, and as one of them dropped onto your cheek, Wally went to wipe it away. 

The music, which up until this point had only been an idea in Wally’s head, suddenly seemed to fill the auditorium, bouncing off of the walls and echoing around the two of you. Your dance became a true pas de deux, a conversation of movement and emotion. 

As the music started to slow, Wally found himself on unsure footing. He hadn’t stopped to think before about how the dance was supposed to end, but it didn’t matter. Grasping his hands in your own, taking the lead and guiding him through the end, the two of you moved in perfect harmony. Spectral echoes of each other, gazes connected and satisfaction blooming. 

The yearning in your movements softened, replaced by a sense of completion. The music faded, leaving the two of you in silence. For half a second, Wally thought you’d cross over, leaving him onstage by himself. Instead, you turned to him, a small smile gracing your lips. You didn’t fade. You were still there - as solid as he was. 

“Thank you,” you whispered, “You helped me finish.” 

Wally stood stock still, surprise still echoed on his features. He couldn’t believe he’d actually done it. You looked around the empty auditorium, eyes tracking over the seats before landing on him again, “I can’t tell you how long I’ve waited to finish that dance.” 

“I’m glad I could help you,” Wally stutters out, a pink flush on his face, “I know I’m not the best dancer.” You laugh, a sweet, girlish thing. In the five minutes that had passed since the dance finished, Wally swore he could see the weight being lifted from your chest. 

“You were perfect.” A flicker of sadness crossed your face, quickly replaced by gentle acceptance, “I… I don’t think I’m going anywhere, I’m still here, but…” you emphasized, palms open and gesturing to the stage around you, “but, I think it’s different now. I’m not stuck anymore.” 

“That’s good!” Wally’s face lit up, empathetic and gleeful. 

Your own smile brightened, affected by his sheer amount of happiness for you. You took his hand, solid and steady in yours. 

“What do I do now?” you asked, eyebrows turned up and inward, “Do ghosts sleep? I feel like I need to sleep for a month.” 

Wally giggled, leading you down the side stage steps and down the rows of seats, out of the auditorium, “We don’t need to sleep, but you can if you want to. You want me to show you my hiding space?” You nod, following him down the hallway.

When he passes the teacher’s lounge, and Charley and Rhonda see whose hand he has grasped in his, he winks at their shocked expressions before continuing down the stretch of linoleum and lockers. 

—

Life - or, afterlife, you suppose - has been weird since Wally broke you out of your loop. The first couple of days were extremely rough, spent trying to understand just how long you’d been up on that stage. A new member of Mr. Martin’s life support group, everyone has been extremely welcoming to you. 

Because ghosts don’t need to sleep, you haven't experienced any nightmares, something you’re exceedingly grateful for. Even so, you wake up from your naps feeling uneasy. Flashes of the end of your life playing in your mind, reminding you of the circumstances surrounding your death. 

You’re not ready to talk to the group about it, but Wally hasn’t left your side since he’d woken you from your reverie. You tell him about it in bits and pieces - about your dance partner, a shy, kind boy, turned cold blooded killer. The specifics of it don’t matter anyways. He can’t hurt you anymore, and according to the computers in the library, he couldn’t hurt anyone anymore -  following you into that good night soon after the police had taken him away. 

You learn that your family moved out of Wisconsin a decade ago, in an attempt to escape the media following them around and shouting questions at them, about a court case that didn’t happen because there was nobody to put on trial. You hope wherever they were, that they found some semblance of peace. 

Wally has been an incredible influence on you, and after settling into what the rest of your eternity might look like, you’ve had the same effect on him. He didn’t expect you to dance again any time soon, if ever, but he’d catch you by yourself sometimes - stretching your legs, sitting on the floor with your arms poised in that certain way. 

Then, after a year spent together going to meetings and finding hidden corners in the school to make out like true teenagers, he’d found you in Split River High’s newly minted dance room - sock covered feet gliding over the lacquered floor, hope and joy baked into your movements instead of the grief and melancholy he’d become so accustomed to in your previous routine.  

Out of the corner of your eye, when you’d seen him peeking through the window, you’d beckoned him in to join you. You started to truly teach him how to dance - guiding him through Pliés and Relevés and giggling at him when his lanky legs got in his own way. 

“You’d be better at this if you were shorter, I think,” you’d said, a smile unable to hide taking over your face, “but you look pretty good.” 

“Pretty good? These legs saved you, babe,” Wally scoffed, wiggling his toes to get you to laugh.  He always succeeded in that. 

“You’re right, you’re right,” you walked over to stand nearer to him, eyes angled upward to meet his honey brown ones, “the prince to my sleeping beauty, how could I forget?” 

“Damn straight, I’m your prince,” Wally’s warm hands grasped your cheeks, his mouth lowering to meet yours for a few seconds before gently shoving you away, “now show me how to do that thing again? I think I’m finally getting it.” 

—

Rhonda would never admit it, but she’d been especially proud of the effort Wally had put in to drag you from your loop. She knows everyone thinks she’s cold hearted, and she agrees to a certain extent, but she’d known the agony Wally felt when he thought he couldn’t help you. She’d never tell anyone this, either, but she’d snuck into the auditorium the night that he’d broken your loop - woken you up from your neverending nightmare. She’d stood alone, in the back and out of view, a smile etched on her features.

“You go, loverboy.”

a/n: tysm for this request! this was honestly the most fun i've ever had writing something. the inspiration was crazy and even though i know nothing about dancing i hope this is readable and easy to follow because i'm immensely proud of it. anon if you liked it pls lmk! I'm having such a fun time writing for wally so PLS send in any requests you have!!!

also, don't forget to like and reblog!

[cherry-bomb-ships]

Director's Commentary:

First of all, THIS HIT 200 NOTES IN LESS THAN 2 DAYS????? 🥺💝🥺💝🥺💝🥺💝 Thank you SO MUCH EVERYBODY, I have never had any of my self ship art get this many notes this quickly!! I've also screenshotted every tag I've gotten and will continue to do so! Thank you so much everyone 🥺💖🥺💖🥺💖🥺💖

Second, I hope that everyone knows I did this 100% original! I have actually had more than one person call this an edit, which makes me very proud of how convincing this apparently is as an imitation of the PPG style! 🥺 But no, I did all of this by hand myself! The screenshots were just referenced :D

Y'all should also know that I don't have any type of tablet or way to do digital art with a pen, I use Adobe Illustrator and only use my mouse. For the first image I did a sketch of the pose on paper and traced over digitally, but I'm proud to say for the other two I did it entirely originally using just reference images and my own imagination! That's something I'm usually not really able to do so I'm very happy that the final result came out so good

The context of the original scene is that Ms. Keane and Professor Utonium just went on a failed date that was set up by the girls, but ended up sharing a little moment after Ms. Keane accidentally tripped and the Professor ended up catching her. I'd like to think the context here is essentially the same, but I'd consider it an AU scenario because there wouldn't be a time in my ship canon where this setup would happen before Cherry and Mojo are dating.

I came up with Cherry's outfit kind of on the spot, it's basically just a fancy version of their normal outfit, with a low cut white shirt, yellow and orange cardigan, and some nice tan boots. They borrowed the choker with the pendant from their cousin, Ms. Bellum :3

I find it funny to think that Mojo wouldn't really wear an actual outfit out on a date, because in his mind, what fit could possibly be better than the villain outfit he designed for himself? He just put on a bowtie to be slightly more fancy 💖 That's actually a reference to the panel below from a DC PPG comic where he's trying to find a date for Valentine's Day and failing... I would have been there for him 🥺

Also I liked the idea of the moon being bright enough to shine through the back of Mojo's big ears, which is why the shading on them if a bit oddly shaped. No one has mentioned anything about that yet so I'm not sure how obvious that came across 😅

Ngl I struggled a bit on the background of Mojo's panel just because it's a unique perspective that I hadn't tried before, so I went and laid down on the floor in the corner of my room to see how the perspective of that looked 😂

In fact now that I think about it... This is the first time I've ever done a full color background at all, digitally OR traditionally. I'd say for my first time it came out pretty good!

In general I'm very happy with the end results, although there are a few mistakes here and there, like there's a secrion of Cherry's shadow that's not filled in all the way, and I think some of the background colors could be better adjusted so they don't blend together as much (especially the bench, what was I thinking making it so similar to the wall color aaaaaah)

That's all I can think of for now that I'd like to comment on. Once again thank you to everyone who has liked or reblogged and an even bigger thank you if you read this far! 🥺💝💝💝💝💝

There are benefits to being clumsy... sometimes you get to fall into the arms of a handsome chimpanzee 💜🩷💜🩷💜

Screenshot redraw of a cute scene from what's basically PPG's Valentine Day special! This was so fun to do, I feel like I learn more abt using Illustrator every time I go back to it :3 🩷 Reblogs are all seen and appreciated, click for higher quality!! Tag list + Screenshots referenced will be under the cut 💜

Tag List!! Click here to be added or removed.

@absentmoon, @avas-wonderland, @bee-ships, @beetleboyfriend, @berryshipbasket, @bugthecalmchild, @canongf, @cloudyvoid, @derelictdumbass, @dissonantyote, @edencantstopfallininlove, @final-catboy, @chickenout , @flowering-darkness, @gibles-lovely-selfships, @hoppinkiss, @hyperionshipping, @impulse-exe, @iwishihadfangs, @iyamifucker, @kissingarthurclaus, @lex-n-weegie, @lficanthaveloveiwantpower, @little-miss-selfships, @little-shiny-sharpies, @loogi-selfships, @mandrakebrew, @midoridayz, @mintpecks, @mothfinite, @mrs-kelly, @nameless-self-ships, @nerdstreak, @odysseyyaoi, @oleanderspride, @orbitingaroundyourlove, @paper-carnation, @reds-self-ships, @rotten--cotton , @spacestationstorybook, @squips-ship, @theheroand, @toogayforthistoday, @winterworlds, @yuzuibanagi

[urauntiefaye]

&team mtl get jealous easily!

&Team Most to Least Likely Get Jealous Easily🌸

WC:545  

TW: Jealous &Team, nothing really big tbh 

A/N: Sorry for taking so long to reply, I hope you like it <3

Most 

Yuma: Yuma honestly gives off vibes of being pretty ‘territorial’ of the people in his life. Like once he opens up and lets someone in, they're not going anywhere so if he feels a sudden threat to it he will act on it. 

Harua: Harua just seems like the jealous type to him, very much a “what’s his is his” kind of person. Will literally act up and get petty over someone just as much talking to you because he needs your attention on him at all times. 

Taki: Taki is also pretty jealous, I remember in one video he said he got upset seeing Kei squishing the other members cheeks. He won’t necessarily be upfront about it but there are signs because he will pout and look sad the entire time you’re hanging out or talking to someone else. 

Euijoo: Euijoo gives me silent jealousy, like he is also just as jealous as the other three but it’s not as intense, simply because he knows how to hide it very well. It won’t be until afterwards he’s clinging to you and telling you how much he loves you in hopes you don’t leave him. But also will eventually talk to you about it. 

Jo: Jo is similar to Euijoo to me, like practically the same when it comes to this. The only difference is that he’s practically a rock in these moments, not because he knows how to hide it but because he’s worried if he does you’ll be put off. He won’t even bring it up to you, so you’ll eventually have to ask him if you have any suspensions 

Nicholas: Nicholas seems very confident and secure in himself, and it most likely does too in your relationship. So I don’t see him getting that jealous because his thoughts are always about how he knows he can treat you better and shit. However even though he’s not the jealous type he is the protective type and if he sees things escalating he will step in.

Maki: Maki honestly seems way too chill to be the jealous type in my opinion, similar to Nicholas I also think he’s pretty secure with himself and you so he knows nothing will happen. But that doesn’t mean he won’t punch a guy for touching your ass because you’re his <3. Also I feel like he just gets more flabbergasted than anything when it comes to guys trying to flirt with you because he’s literally right there. 

Kei: Kei comes across as pretty mature, not saying mature people can’t get jealous but I feel like he’s just more of a rational thinker ya know?. He’ll be pretty calm and will talk it out with you, but like Nicholas and Maki he will step in if things get too much and you can’t handle it. 

Fuma: I’mma be honest Fuma just doesn’t seem like the jealous type to me at all. He’s secured in himself and you, is a rational thinker, will talk it out with you, and knows you won’t ever leave him because why on earth would you. If you ever go up to him and say you have another guy he’d start laughing because he knows it’s a stupid prank you’re trying to pull 

Least

[fuckwhoeverpickedallthefunnyurls]

Wanted to make a joke about Stede here until I realized that isn't actually Stede.

Anyway I can still make the joke Spanish Jackie got his ass for the nose jar

(THIS PICUTURE BELONGS TO HBO, NOT ME, AND I MAKE NO PROFIT OFF OF IT)

[codgod-moved]

sqiblings

[doodlecat19]

One yellow eyed blue robots and the godlike bitches they pulled by being batshit insane and murderous