#and ask for what they are entitled to

[lilly-of-the-vale]

Jjk has caused me a great deal of emotional distress, truly i felt like i was being hatecrimed every second of watching the shibuya arc, which is why i won't settle for anything less than suguru with his hair down in nothing but an apron that tightens at the chest area and white frosting all over him in his birthday art tomorrow.

[knifearo]

ultimately when it comes to shipping and fandom space treatment of aspec characters i just don't accept "aro/ace people can still date/have sex" as an answer from nonaspecs. like yeah. mhm. okay. now i think we both know that you're not saying that out of real interest in the diversity of aspec experiences. so you can turn in your seventeen-page essay on why and how you plan to examine this character's aspec identity within the context of a romantic or sexual relationship complete with evidence from canon and peer reviews from multiple aspec people within the next week or i'm putting you in the pit from the edgar allen poe story

[aro-culture-is]

Aro culture is wishing more allo people could handle romantic rejection like Steve Harrington did with Robin Buckley on Stranger Things, as a rule.

He tried asking her out & she comes out to him as lesbian & uninterested in him that way.

But does he stop interacting with her completely? Does he consider furthering his friendship with her a "waste of time"? No.

They're certified besties by the next season.

Hot take, apparently, but I think if you truly care about someone/enjoy their company, you never (or at least rarely) consider time with them as wasted, no matter what form your relationship takes.

I can sympathize with how regularly being around someone who doesn't return your romantic feelings could genuinely be a painful experience a few times in an allo person's life...but I call BS on this literally always being the case, when I've seen enough people drop perfectly fulfilling friendships/potential friendships over romantic/sexual rejection like confetti at a party.

.

[s-insomnia]

"artists deserved to be paid" and "this is a horrible decision" are two statements that should and do coexist

[chronicpaingirlie]

“i have to be like everyone else and ask why you use a cane lol” first of all no u don’t have to . and second of all u may be surprised by this but most people manage to not badger literal strangers about their medical history ❤️ die

[thesoftboiledegg]

[the-owl-tree]

wc fandom is lacking in a lot of ways but i gotta say the lack of acceptance of more fun out there au’s kills me. in other fandoms people will be like what if bert and ernie were a mermaid and a pirate and they traveled the world together and everyone’s like omg what if they were a mermaid and a pirate meanwhile someone makes a slightly more fantastical au here and that confessions blog gets like 10 asks about how people should just make their own original stuff

like

[utilitycaster]

There's an incredibly narrow line I walk in which like, I do not consider my meta to be A Gift To The Fandom and I find it irritating when people act like they are god's gift to a fandom or do a whole Little Red Hen style "I BUST MY ASS LOOKING FOR CREATOR TWEETS" routine; but also obviously I do not begrudge any artist who DOES make a decent amount of income through fandom and so I don't want to say this is ONLY a silly little hobby for everyone because obviously for some people it is an entry point to a larger livelihood through commissions. ANYWAY this preamble is just to set up this, which is that on the one hand I don't think of me writing meta as "labor" per se, but also the second someone throws a fit because I don't write the meta they like my brain immediately kicks in with "labor is entitled to all it creates". Anyway if you've ever sent a meta writer, fan artist, or fic writer hate about how they don't do what you want, consider: providing a fair hourly wage and benefits.

[griem]

ijbol idk man releasing screenshots of very polarizing things said in a private discord server between friends in a public "callout" post is #the most #tumblrific thing ive ever seen LOL.

#opinion 😱 in tags

[possamble]

What are your headcanons about Marcille's mom if you have any? It's interesting that what drew Donato to her was cause she lived the history he studied, or that was said somewhere at least. She must've had an interesting life.

so this was going to be just a normal answer but then I realized I have a Lot of Things To Say. so here goes, a compilation of what we know for a fact from the canon, what I've extrapolated from the visual cues and details, and my theories based on all of that.

Things we know for a fact about Marcille's mother because they were explicitly stated in the manga and supplemental materials:

She was a court mage for a Tall-man kingdom at the southern part of the Northern Continent

Donato, a court historian, fell in love with her because she had lived through the history he was studying, and he courted her for 17 years (age 15 to 32) before getting married

She was a cheerful person who rarely showed extreme emotion and took things as they came

She always cooked a huge meal for Marcille on her birthdays

She remarried a gnome after Donato's death and a short distance away from Marcille's childhood home

Pipi, Marcille's pet bird, was actually older than Marcille and originally belonged to her mother (bird died at 62)

She was extremely heartbroken when Donato died and ultimately ended up instilling a deep fear of mortality in Marcille with her words

the only time she showed extreme emotion in front of her family was when Donato could no longer eat his favourite dish near the end of his life.

She scolded Marcille for being cruel to ants (implying she can have a stern side when needed)

Things that are explicitly shown but mostly through visual cues

She has a very distinctive style of dress always involving a ribbon choker (mirroring Marcille's habit of always wearing a matching choker with any of her outfits that don't cover her neck)

She was almost stereotypically good at housekeeping and traditionally "wifely" things (very frequently depicted wearing an apron or doing some domestic chore when not at work, seems to have been an avid cook).

She knits? (also, note the affectionate smile as she's looking at Donato and Marcille reading a book together in the full panel)

She was as excited for Marcille's milestones as Donato was.

She didn't tell Marcille much about elven food

(there are a couple things that this panel in particular implies:

She lived a good deal of her life (if not being born and raised) in a mainly elven country in the West, implied by her knowing enough of an elven region's cuisine to prefer Tall-man food over it

seems to have a pretty carefree and casual demeanour overall, if this is how she replied to Marcille asking her about it (sounds like she never gave her culinary preferences that much thought to begin with)

slightly related to number 2, it seems like she and Marcille had a fairly casual parent-child dynamic (especially in comparison to the Toudens' memory of their father)

(local elf tastes Italian food once and never goes back))

However, she seems a lot more... serious in most of the other times we see her? Almost like the very stereotypical archetype of a graceful elf.

Subsequent conclusions about her personality:

Usually pretty carefree and cheerful at home, has been a loving and attentive parent throughout Marcille's childhood (while not being so doting that she didn't discipline Marcille).

Slightly more conjectural theories on her personality:

Had a much more graceful and professional personality at work, which would explain the more serious portraits we see of her.

Given that both she and Donato had positions at the royal court, it seems a little odd that she'd go out of her way to do all the housework herself, so maybe she just enjoyed doing it?

Now taping all the evidence together and toeing the line between analysis and fanfiction:

It's clear that she loved Donato very much and was utterly devastated by losing him. But there's one thing that really stuck out to me in what little we see of her:

Doesn't she seem... angry? The way she's gritting her teeth, clutching the tablecloth, and how this is the first and only time we see her eyes opened that wide. In the following panel, you see her being quiet and dejected after her initial outburst. She's still crying very intensely, but her brows are furrowed, and she's not really responding to Donato's affection in her body language.

We're not told the details of how she felt about losing Donato other than that it upset her. But this, to me, implies that she was angry and resented that he was aging, that the end of his life was approaching. An "it's not fair" type of preemptive grief. And if this was the first and last time she cried like this in front of her family, she was either very good at coping in private... or very bad at letting herself feel unpleasant emotions until they become unavoidable and end up overwhelming her.

It's not too remarkable a detail on the surface. It's even reminiscent of what the audience has seen of Marcille. But... when it comes to the big picture, you'd think an elf who voluntarily chose to marry a tall-man and have a half-elf child would have been better prepared for this.

It kind of recontextualizes her cheerfulness to me.

"I'm sure everything's gonna be okay!" (or some variation thereof, depending on what translation you have).

And this is stated to contrast her extreme grief when finally confronting Donato's failing body and eventual death. But I'm wondering if... maybe this optimism was why she was so upset. What if she went into all of it thinking "everything's gonna be okay"? What if she was a little young by elven standards, and just followed her heart thinking that her own resilience would get her through anything?

Of course, only to get completely overwhelmed when she actually loses Donato. She turns into a completely different person. And that's heartbreaking on its own-- but what the audience sees is the effect it had on Marcille. Can you imagine being her, watching your invincible and upbeat mother suddenly lose all the light in her eyes in one go?

I've already made a huge post about how I think Marcille models her "work persona" off her mother, but another thing that stuck with me as I was looking for more details in the manga was this:

copy pasting from the other post i made about it lmao it's like... the second she resigns herself to lifelong pain and terror, there's another portrait of her mother facing her like this. with their heads bowed, in mirrored body language of resignation and despair and sorrow. Except it's posed like Marcille is still looking at her mother but her mother is looking away.

It took me a second to realize, but I think that it's a visual metaphor for the fact that Marcille's mother was the only long-lived role model she had-- and she failed to model healthy grief for her daughter. I don't say this as an accusation or to disparage her as a character, but just as a matter of fact. In her, Marcille was seeing herself older and losing a short-lived spouse or loved one of her own, and all she saw was hopelessness.

But her mother didn't mean to instill hopelessness and terror in her. She wasn't really thinking of how it would truly affect Marcille at all (at least, that's how I'm interpreting her looking down and away from Marcille in the metaphor), she was just sad. And she, in her own way, was trying to protect her daughter and help her prepare for future losses.

What she meant was "loss is inevitable, and you have to learn how to be in pain but live on anyway." What Marcille heard was "loss is inevitable, and you will be scared and hurt for the rest of your life."

Again. Marcille's mother doesn't feature explicitly in the story the way her father does -- but in so many ways, her shadow, her silhouette, her reflection is always hanging over Marcille.

All that to say... headcanon-wise (everything from here on is 100% without evidence lmao), I'd like to think that she matured and realized that she failed Marcille. I imagine her being regretful about it, wanting a chance to fix it but never finding a way to insert herself back into Marcille's life when Marcille is so so so busy becoming the most accomplished mage possible. I imagine her being herself again, now, so many years after her loss and after remarrying -- but with her cheerfulness tempered with a lot more wisdom and the pain of having gone through loss like that. I think the second Marcille actually tells her what happened in the dungeon, she'd want to go running to her daughter again -- if Marcille tells her the full truth instead of just being embarrassed she let things get that far. (oh, the tragedy of her wanting to be more like her mother and an accomplished adult who doesn't need to be babied... being embarrassed to actually tell her mother how much she fucked up...)

There's also the tension of her having remarried -- I know that there's at least a little bit of resentment that Marcille harbours about that, because she's childish like that at heart even if she makes an effort not to externalize it. I think that her mother would be aware of that, potentially adding to her sense of guilt and apprehension at trying to reappear/intrude on Marcille's life. I honestly don't think Marcille has met her stepfather -- or even considers him a stepfather rather than "mama's new husband" and kind of a total stranger. I think she and her mother actively don't talk about it in their correspondence, like an elephant in the room.

but, ultimately, I think her mother is on her side no matter what. Ancient magic? Dark necromancy? Sure, she'll feel guilty and like she was partially responsible for setting Marcille down such a painful path, but she wouldn't care. that's her daughter!! she would've moved back west and been petitioning for her at the court, buying a house right next to the Canaries barracks and visiting her every day that she wasn't on a mission. And if her husband had opinions on Marcille becoming a "dark arts user," he either gets over it or it's divorce with him. Yes, she might have had her optimism completely humbled by losing Donato like that -- but she's still headstrong and self-assured and she doesn't care what people think of her. It's her way or the highway and she's always going to be in Marcille's corner.

(She also needs a name lol. I went with Juno, just to be cute about "Marcille"s closest real life equivalent being Marcella, which is the female version of Marcellus, which in turn is a diminutive of Marcus, which was derived from Mars. Absolutely in love with Marcille potentially being named after Ares/Mars the fucking god of war btw)

[greenlantrns]

You don’t actually have to share the ‘bad’ parts of your regression btw. It’s okay to create a space to appreciate the good parts of your regression without dishing out your trauma to strangers on the internet.

[mxtxfanatic]

Do you think Jiang Cheng even thought about his sister at all when he gave up on living after his core was melted?

Jiang Cheng didn’t even think of his own family when their dead bodies were splayed out in front of him:

With much fervor, Jiang Cheng was still searching with his eyes for the figures of Yu ZiYuan and Jiang FengMian. Wei WuXian, however, felt his eyes tear up at once. Among the people, he saw many familiar silhouettes.

—Chapt. 59: Poisons, exr

…and you think I’d believe he had a sparing thought for his sister in out-of-sight-out-of-mind Meishan? Lol. Lmao even.

But seriously, he doesn't think of her or anyone else for that matter because his concern was getting revenge, and if he couldn't get his vengeance, he had nothing to live for:

[Jiang Cheng] did wake up, but he didn’t move at all. He was so uninterested that he didn’t even turn around or ask ‘where is this’. He didn’t drink any water, he didn’t eat any food. It seemed that all he sought for was death. Wei WuXian, “Do you really want to die?” Jiang Cheng, “I can’t seek revenge even when I’m alive. Why shouldn’t I die? Maybe I’ll be able to turn into a ferocious ghost.” Wei WuXian, “You’ve been undergoing soul-calming ceremonies ever since you were young. You won’t be able to turn into a ferocious ghost even after you die.” Jiang Cheng, “If I can’t seek revenge no matter if I’m dead or alive, then what’s the difference between the two?” After he said this, he wouldn’t speak again no matter what.

—Chapt. 60: Poisons, exr

[otomedomme]

I think the twitter side of any fandom is mostly toxic. I never saw any negative backlash about Caleb return anywhere else except twitter.

It kinda reminded me of that situation months ago when someone on twitter called Sylus a knock off of obey me Lucifer

Lol yeah but I mean like in reality who's surprised that it's the Twitter folk acting up?

Hearing that just proves to me these fans prolly hopped from those games and are hissy because they want to have their cake and eat it too; They want to be thin skinned asswipes who live in their bubbles and want to be entitled to telling LnDS what to do but they also wanna act like they've seen it all or they know better when LnDS has proven it's not Obey Me or What in Hell is Bad or any of the otome games experienced previously.

They want to act like the game is problematic or have a tantrum over new content because they're bored or since LnDS has been straight and good with us they wanna find something to dig their heels in about since they're insecure.

Obey Me and WHB and other otome games gave them shit to rightfully call out but since LnDS is proving to be better than those games they have nothing to bitch about and are so insecure about it they're creating problems to be wary of the game about.

Like literally these other games' fans would KILL for that to be their problem and these parasocial crybabies are bitching about new content. Think about that.

[sergle]

I hope you tell them to kill themselves more

[yourgamemasterthewhiterabbit]

Both my parents actually suffer from HORRID emotional dysregulation and are prone to snapping and going into rages. My sister is the same way tbh. I am now realizing this is why they are constantly baffled by the question of whether or not I am mad at them.

I don't have external meltdowns.

I could. I don't let it happen.

I keep my rage on the inside and stay pretty quiet about it. It's just as strong as theirs [physically shaking nose bleed from high blood pressure kind of bad], but like as a kid I saw how terrifying it was to be around [dad breaking dishes, mom putting our lawn chairs into walls] and I just internalized that I wasn't going to wear that anger on the outside.

So my mother genuinely cannot tell if I am just being quiet or if I am silently hearing the dial-up noises of pure rage. This has lead her to both making strong and confident statements like "You are a pacifist who would never hurt a fly U.U" but also acting like I am secretly dangerous maybe... It's because she has never seen me snap.

She knows what her temper is like [throwing chairs through walls], she knows what my father's temper is like [pick up child and toss out door], and she can tell I am being tested, but she doesn't know what happens when I snap or where that breaking point is.

Her -perhaps unhinged- solution to this, my whole life, has been to do things that should obviously enrage me or shut me down completely, like ignoring important boundaries, repeatedly, punishing me for expressing emotions or needs at all, etc... And then to constantly ask me if I am angry with her when I get too quiet [right after near directly telling me to shut up].

It has occurred to me now, they have never once seen me lose my temper, so they literally just can't tell if I am angry at them. My sister is easy, my mother fights and screams with my sister constantly, my mother understands this. My mother doesn't have any grasp of feelings or boundaries that are not screamed at her [apparently, and I fear my sister is the same way]. Her and my sister are close despite constant fucking fighting because they understand each other.

They are trying to get me to engage the same way and it is not working. I realize now that this has been hard for them.

I was so successfully taught to suppress my emotions, by being punished for any outburst, that rage quiet looks the same as any other kind of quiet from the outside. To them anyway.

I did tell her. For the record. I used my words. I did tell her very calmly that my response to rage, in order to avoid doing the things that terrified me as a child, was to simply leave [the autistic urge to GTFO]. When a situation or person causes too much of the dial-up rage noise, I simply extract myself from that situation, up to and including never speaking to a person again. I explained this calmly. I explained it calmly 100 times and I explained that I explain myself calmly as my rage response 1-5 [also pretty much every other negative emotion tbh], and I told her that what came next was me simply opting out and fucking off. I told her this. I couldn't understand why she never took me seriously, or why she never fucking understood.

I couldn't understand what made her like this.

But it's the same problem I have with everyone else multiplied by a factor of 10.

If I am explaining myself calmly, they can't understand that it's actually serious or that I am actually upset. ESPECIALLY because they read me as "female" and women "aren't that rational" so if I am not screaming and crying about something, which I never do, people assume I can't be upset and it isn't serious.

And then after having my boundaries ignored too many times despite having calmly explained how and why it's a problem [shaking inside or not]... I leave. I leave and everyone gets upset like this is unexpected behaviour, even though I told them 50 times that is how I would respond if they kept doing *the thing.*

And for neurotypical people especially, they are expecting there to be a disconnect between what someone says they need or feel and what their actually boundaries and feelings are, and they expect the latter to be demonstrated with emotions. Telling them bluntly you do not function that way somehow never helps?

My mother isn't just looking for normal yelling or a few tears to know I am serious, whether or not I do those either [I don't], she's looking for an explosion to know there's a problem at all.

Fucked if I know how she proceeds through life this way in general or if this is just her expectation of her own kids???

And I couldn't get why my mother couldn't read my emotions and didn't seem to think I have any. It's because she's testing for the rage limit to see where my 'actual' limit is instead of taking my word for it. Never the fuck mind that she could simply *not* test at my boundaries instead of letting me have them. Separate issue.

I couldn't figure out what made her *like this*

She's expecting me to throw a giant meltdown violent tantrum at people when I have 'actually' had enough. Maybe she got away with those being like 5'4" in another time, but I am the size of the average man, I do not get to have giant screaming rages, whether or not people perceive me consciously as a woman, and least of all because a lot of people -at least unconsciously- read me as 'masculine' or at least always "they guy" of the situation compared to all other women and some men [bigger stronger and more rational, more able to just absorb the damage and let it go so the less rational screaming/crying one doesn't have to be dealt with]. Even if it was in me to be willing to terrify people [usually never], there are such limited instances where it wouldn't just blow back on me. Potentially very dangerously.

I am going to be the quiet calm one. You are going to have to let me use my words, bitch.

So she kept ignoring my boundaries until I had to cut her out of my life, and she probably doesn't understand and probably thinks it feels sudden -after 36 long years of bullshit- abrupt and unfair.

But I told her hundreds of times.

I probably should have just screamed at her.

[sunflowervoltwentyeight]

do you think theyre still together? they spend so mcuh time apart :(

Yeah I do think they're still together. And yeah they do spend a lot of time apart. I think people need to understand that your idea of a relationship is not everyone's idea of a relationship, if that makes sense. Harry and Louis are in a very unique situation where they've gone from working together/being together every single day to having separate careers that demand them to be in a million different places all on top of the fact that they are not publicly together. I think it probably took them quite a while after 1d to figure out what works for them and I think it's completely possible that they did take some time apart after the band. They had a lot to figure out both personally and professionally.

I think over the years they've probably worked to realize what's important to them personally as individuals, as artists, and as partners and they have probably come to terms with the fact that there may be times where the don't see each other for weeks or months at a time. And that's okay. That might not be what many view as a "normal" relationship which is why I think people tend to get worked up. But every relationship is unique and like I said their situation is also unique.

Harry's mentioned reading books such as the Course of Love by Alain de Botton which is essentially about learning and exploring how love can be maintained in long term relationships. I think making their relationship work in whatever capacity they can is extremely important to them and something they've consistently put a lot of thought and effort into.

During a show last year when Harry asked a fan "Are you kind to each other? Do you love each other? Do you look after each other? Do you protect each others solitude? Are you friends to each other? Through thick and thin?" To me, those things all seem like things Harry (and Louis) highly value in their relationship. And the thing that stuck out to me, of course, was "do you protect each other's solitude?" which I assume he gets from the Rilke quote "the highest form of love is to be the protector of another person's solitude." I think this really goes hand in hand with the fact that they do require time apart, time alone etc. for themselves career wise and personally. I also believe they are both incredibly supportive of each other's careers which means understanding and respecting everything (time, travel, publicity etc.) that they have to put into their careers.

So all of this is to say yes, I do think they're still together. And yes, you're correct, they do spend a lot of time apart and that's okay. Their relationship isn't going to look like your "average" relationship.