#and I feel sick like I want to vomit

[batboopp]

i like ghostmaker and batman as narrative foils not in the “ghostmaker is incapable of forming relationships with or feeling empathy for others, therefore batman is better” way but in the fact that ghostmaker IS better. literally. more stronger mentally, emotionally, physically. stronger in the way he carries himself and how he sees himself and how he treats others (depending on your definition of strong) and yet, he’s still so so miserable. he can lie to himself all he wants, or ignore everything but blatant fact, but it still doesn’t change the fact that even though he follows batman’s “I work alone” rule better than the actual batman ever could, he still loses to bruce in some way. bruce was willing to shoot someone for khoa, willing to follow and stay, and khoa straight up couldn’t handle it. therefore, he is worse in the one thing that makes batman, batman. that nothing will ever tie him down, no matter what. not Bruce or his city or his rouges.

except, that’s not entirely true anymore, is it? because this time, he does stay. he meets Bruce’s kids and indulges bruce in banter and playfighting and even fake ‘dates’. he stays, and leads, batman inc. and he does it considerably better than batman. of course, he still kills people. he can barely stand batmans kids and the feeling is entirely mutual. he still treats others as expendable next to his mission. but, he stays. he stays with bruce, with someone, in some way this time. he’s learning, he’s willing to learn.

[queen0fm0nsterz]

thinking about the Lady again and she actually is the Character Ever.

Starting off with her design. How ridiculously simple it is, right? Her yukata is plain brown and has a single layer, her wig (and yes, I am positive what she wears is not her hair but a wig soley because of how easily it comes undone... that kind of hairstyle is meant to STICK when done with actual hair) has no decorations befitting a woman of her powerful status and her mask is nothing but... empty. You could mistake her for a mannequin and you wouldn't even be wrong. It's by design, after all: she is as insanely important, as a figure, as she is anonymous as a person.

But then, it's with amusement that you note that that boring, unexpressive mask is called the "Rascal's mask" when unlocked. It's such an oddly affectionate nickname stemming from a person so utterly despicable. And then you notice her hair. Her long, black hair that should be hidden under her wig, as the hairstyle goes, but are instead hanging out freely. Not very traditional at all, right? You could almost read it as a small act of defiance of... something. Now, what that thing is, I doubt even she knows. Maybe it's just her way to seek individuality without having to step into zones she does not want to touch.

And then, of course, the lack of shoes. It's not uncommon for people to wear slippers in the house - especially for the Japanese - but she just... doesn't. In that small, small way, she is similar to Six - and every other child in the Maw running around barefoot. Except she's above running, of course. She's got the privilege of floating like a ghost so that she may never touch the ground.

(The only time when this rule is broken is when she fights Six, poetically enough. You can see her visibly step back.)

These strange little things are the first things that push you to wonder about her as a person. Not the title, not the Lady of the Maw: the individual behind the mask. Who is that person? What is she like? Is there a way to answer these questions? I think yes, if you know where to look - but is it worth to ask these questions considering what she does?

That depends on you. Me personally, I think there is narrative worth to be found in what she has to hide. Her foil, Six, finds value in the aspects of herself she does not hide: she is very unapologetic in her selfhood. The Lady isn't, for the most part.

(I wonder if that would make her envious of her younger counterpart in a different context?)

Frankly, looking back on her choice of attire, the fact that her personal bedroom is barely decorated is not surprising. She only has the essentials: a bed, the vase with the key, a few pictures of importance (of people long forgotten, herself included no doubt) and... an ungodly amount of misplaced clothes all over her quarters. All the same yukata, repeated over and over, maniacally folded and arranged in towers, but never where they're supposed to be.

A bedroom is the reflection of yourself. Of your inner world. The fact hers looks so barebones is quite telling about who she is. Or isn't. She herself may have some trouble trying to figure that one out.

I think that, in a vacuum, it's easy to assume that the reason she's so displeased by her reflection is soley out of vanity. That is definitely part of it, but I don't think that's all there is. Because after seeing the mannequins that all look just like her, the four women in the picture who also wear her same exact clothes... and that hidden quote.

This quote, which is from Alice in Wonderland. Specifically from a conversation in which Alice expresses how she doesn't recognise herself anymore because of how many times she grew big and small during the course of the day. She is not the same person she was before entering Wonderland.

I find the way she clings to the dolls and the music box to be much more... sombre when keeping this in mind. In a way, that scene is reminiscent of Monster Six clinging to her music box in the chaos of the Tower; an attempt to attach to something safe. For the Lady, it's even more personal. Those are her toys. Her song. No one can take them from her and claim them as theirs. These materialistic tomes are physical proof of her identity. She likes dolls, and she likes to sing that song from her music box. Surely, that much is something.

But a ceramic toy and an old music box are not really enough to placate the inner turmoil. Hence the broken mirrors, the hidden statues... the hung down portraits with their eyes scratched out - from times of the past. There is a person looking back in the mirror which she does not recognise. That can't be her, right?

It isn't. The reflection is but a faux image of her outward appearence. The inside, however... much like this concept art shows, she is melting away. Rapidly decaying no matter how much she tries to stick to her youth.

Because at the end of the day, that's what she's doing, no? The toys, the music box, her appearence... all of it, just to cling a bit more to the person she used to be. Point being that I doubt even she remembers what she used to be.

You'd think a person like this would be inclined to feel at least some sympathy for all the lost children wandering the Nowhere. A sense of kinship, perhaps, or even just... basic human compassion. She has proved to have very human emotions, after all. This is where she proves you wrong. Whenever you think she's stepped the lowest, she always goes lower.

In her humanity, she is brutal. Relentless, ruthless. She offers no sympathy to anyone and has no empathy to spare either. She is very much aware of what's going on under her roof: she not only allows the Maw to continue being the way it is in spite of having the power to change things, but she actively engages in its despicable practices. She has petrified children in her quarters, as well as their ashes - of which the use is unclear - and then she is responsible for the Nome population and exploitation being so large and so eerily heavy. She's twisted necks, broken bones, murdered innocents.

The Shadow Children are, to me, one her greatest offenses. I don't think they serve any particular purpose other than... being there because she wanted to make them. Children ripped away from their life because of her whims. Not even in death can they rest because she can get her hands on their souls. They're nameless, forgotten shadows with blank masks: they're just like their creator, in that way. Ripped of all individuality and devoid of everything.

Everything she sees, the Lady devours. Not a creature is safe from her shadows and her wrath, especially if they come and actively intrude in her activities. She's twice as aggressive if the Maw is at stake.

The Lady's personal bedroom has another motif piece which I did not previously mention: the Maw wallpaper. While Roger and the Chefs have wallpapers that portray them with her, the Lady... does not. She only has the Maw. She's not part of that picture.

The Lady can't let the Maw change its ways. She is the Maw. The Maw must survive: so must she. To change the Maw would mean challenging herself enough to bring about a change; to her, who does nothing but lament what she lost, that would be too much effort. Too outside of the comfortable zone where she can survive in peace. Miserable, but unbothered.

... For the most part. Until Six comes around.

[foreverxdaydreaming]

x

[yellobb]

Well. I finally looked into the Neil Gaiman allegations and I feel even worse than I thought I would 🙃

[yoohyeon]

Puppy is not feeling well, I’m worried :(

[kkat-astrophic]

I feel like I need to vomit but I physically can't

[funzige-gedachten]

To quote bo burnham: i am not feeing good👍🏻

[waywardsalt]

im thinking about possession aftereffects that linebeck experiences immediately after the events of phantom hourglass, so here are bullet points i have down for my own ideas

he’s out cold for roughly five days after the fight. he’s conscious for a bit after being freed, but it doesn’t take long for him to collapse once he’s transported back to the great sea. link finds him when he reaches his ship to see him again (he takes a lifeboat or w/e from tetras ship its a whole thing and not the point) and ends up having to take care of him for those five-ish days.

while he’s out cold, he develops a bad fever, and has a good few physical injures from being possessed; all of his wounds from being possessed manifest as burns, the worst wounds bring cauterized and mostly closed, while smaller ones are still open wounds. the largest wound is a large burn covering most of his back, which is cauterized by the time he passes out, and then there are smaller, still open burns on his upper arms and legs. (the smaller wounds are manageable by link when he follows some medical instructions, [there are some medical books on the ship] the larger one is also manageable, but takes a lot longer to properly heal).

(link asks tetra and her crew to stick around for a while to keep linebeck stabilized while he’s unconscious. when linebeck wakes up, tetra and her crew are good to leave because then linebeck can better report what’s going on, and knows how to handle injuries).

linebeck’s fever persists after he wakes up, and he experiences… pretty much every fever symptom, with especially bad chills and full-body aches. the aches are really bad for the first few days after he wakes up, he’s extremely physically weak and shaky for a while, too. that weakness and shakiness get better with time, but he doesnt go entirely back to normal without actually moving around and doing things to build that strength back up.

he’s delirious and struggles to stay awake for those first few conscious days, too, which makes that weakness and shakiness worse; he struggles to eat and drink water, and struggles to string together thoughts or words to talk to link, and both of them figure out pretty quickly that they’ll have to wait a bit longer before so much as an attempt to coax him out of bed can be made.

beyond existing problems with food, linebeck struggles to keep anything down while he recovers, and becomes ill pretty much every time after he eats anything, so a bucket is kept near his bed. with water, he obviously needs to drink a lot of it considering that he’s feverish, injured, and vomiting frequently, but while he’s sick he has a bit of an irrational fear of water (along with an irrational fear of air and the wind, which makes him hesitant to go outside while he’s sick).

he’s generally pretty irritable, which isn’t particularly new, but it makes him prone to refusing help with certain things. he’s less irritable when tired and just resting. he’s also especially nervous, and despite the overall fatigue, he struggles to sleep for very long while he’s sick, and as said before, is often delirious and even confused when things are bad.

along with the other difficulties eating, linebeck has a hard time swallowing for a bit, and salivates a lot more than normal while he’s sick. he is soooo fucking dehydrated the whole time and that really doesn’t help.

while the weakness and shakiness stays for the entire time he’s sick and even a bit afterwards, for the first few days after he wakes up he’s stiff and also experiences some muscle spasms and numbness in his limbs, and has a hard time keeping his balance the first few times he gets out of bed.

once the sickness clears up fully, linebeck has to still be careful with the scar on his back; it’s sensitive to touch for a while and hurts when exposed to the sun or air for too long and when he stretches his back too far, but eventually just reaches the point where it’s a bit sensitive but is otherwise just a large scar.

obviously he’s also going through the wringer in an emotional and mental illness sense too but those would require a whole new bullet point list.

[roman-sunshine]

Me: yeah I'm a pretty chill person overall.

Me when a restaurant doesn't list all the stuff they put on a burger and I end up vomiting and nauseous for the next 36 hours:

[aroacee-of-spades]

^ face of someone (me) who just finished the arcane finale

[muskmelon-enjoyer-199x]

Friday night is gonna be lit

I have stir-fry plans and iguana marriage plans and I got a beer and we have cartoons to watch. Sick

[lycanwlf]

is it childish to still want a birthday to be at least slightly enjoyable or am i just experiencing what its like to grow up

[lesbiansanemi]

Bad day. Horrible awful terrible bad day

[ragingtwilight]

BRUH

EVERYTIME I feel like im starting to feel better my body just turns around and flips me off

mf sends me off w a shove down the stairs, nausea, sweating/tremors, headache, confusion, dizziness, it pantsed me, it stole my lunch money, it gave me a swirlie, i cant fuckin win

[rancidarling]

oh for fucks sake i wish i would just throw up at this point

[elijah-loyal]

dying again guys

(tag rant)