#she just really needed her husband

[lucan-multiverse]

[maisy/isaac - Arcturus station sometime]

By the time the decontamination unit hums and spreads glowing red fingers over her body, her armour is feeling ten times heavier than usual, a headache throbs at her temples and she’s sure at least one rib is cracked. It’s all she can do to strip down and shower, dictating her report out loud to the AI in an effort to save time. All she wants to do is crawl into bed and into the arms of her husband and sleep for a year.

She makes it as far as the sheets, disappointed to realise their shared quarters are empty when she stumbles in. Isaac won’t finish his rotation for hours yet so she’s forced to sleep alone. She had wanted to talk to him. The mission to Yakawa should have been straightforward but they’d encountered more resistance than the intel had warned them of and her team had barely made it out without casualties and it replays over and over in her mind even as exhaustions grubby hands snatch at her.

“Hi, baby.”

She blinks awake, greeted by a pair of soft dark eyes looking at her. Her husband is stretched out along the sheets beside her, uniform discarded, just a plain white t-shirt and his running shorts. He’s damp, clearly having just showered and she’s pleased to know that he’d gone running while she was asleep so there would be nothing else to steal him away from her for the next twelve hours.

“Hi,” she says back, soft. She opens her arms and he immediately scoops her up, rolling so that she can hear his heartbeat under her ear.

“You okay? I read the report. You had me worried.”

“Better now. Everything is better now. What time is it?”

“1600hrs. You’ve been asleep for a while. I didn’t want to wake you.”

She hums, sliding closer. His strong arms cradle her and she loses herself in his warmth and familiar scent. Home. This was home.

“I’ve been missing you,” she murmurs, dropping a kiss to the bare patch of skin exposed by his shirt at his neck. It’s too much material, she thinks. Annoying. And it’s getting in the way of being closer to him. She tugs on the offending shirt as she kisses his neck and he chuckles, knowing her language by now.

“Something you need, Lieutenant?” he teases.

“Yes. You. Naked. On the double., Sir,” she teases back.

She lets him up only long enough to strip him down. Her long limbs slide over him, her lace against his bare skin as she settles against the length of his strong body. His hands sweep over her, warm and comforting and knowing. Each touch sends a shiver through her and each kiss only makes her need him more.

“Isaac,” she whispers, ever nerve ending on fire. His mouth drags along her skin, the slight roughness of his five o’clock shadow prickling at her. He knows better than to shave too often, knowing how much she loves the feel of that light stubble between her thighs. She feels it now, suddenly manovouered onto her back with only the slightest pang of pain to her side. It’s easy to hide her wince but he catches it anyway.

He pauses, kneeling between her open legs, one hand splayed against her side and concern furrowing his dark brows. “Sore?”

“A little,” she says honestly. She promised herself she won’t ever lie to him. “But I’ll be okay. I’ve had far worse.”

The little frown doesn’t leave his expression but it fades quickly from hers when he leans down to kiss the spot that aches. A bruise is already blossoming there against her olive skin and she threads her hands through his hair and experiences yet another overwhelming rush of emotion for him.

He is her everything.

His kisses eventually leave her bruised side, his lips venturing lower and lower. He kisses her belly, just as he had when their babies had been carried there. He kisses the scar left from their birth and the faint traces of a battle long forgotten. He kisses each pale mole and beauty spot, going slow and tender and only serving to make her juices flow between her folds. She felt beautiful in the way he loved her and when his hand dragged up the inside of her thigh and nudged her legs apart further, she thought she might explode right there.

“Zac,” she sighs, still stroking his hair as he pulls off her scant panties. He’s banked the fire inside her to an inferno and her whole body is impatient for more. He doesn’t respond straight away, still working his way towards her core so she digs her nails into his scalp with a gentle fierceness. “Zac,” she says again, sharper this time.

He stops, hovering over her mound and looking back at her. God, the sight of him there, eyes impossibly dark, his lips already red from the trail of kisses over her body - she wants to wrap her thighs around his head and keep him there – grinding against his face until she’s quivering on his tongue and screaming his name.

The smirk on his lips tells her he wants it too.

[nouverx]

*proceeds to drink the whole bottle*

Yeah Alastor you're gonna be loved and appreciated wether you want it or not :)

[andro-dino]

thinking a lot abt how grumley hardly ever takes his armor off. I just want him to be safe and comfy

[dootznbootz]

I've been seeing some shit on how certain folks apparently think it's like, surprising that Penelope just accepted Odysseus and all the stuff he's done without question and/or disappointment in Would You Fall in Love With Me Again when like... Not only against Odyssey!Penelope but ALSO Epic's. We may have only gotten 2 songs it's still a concept album. THERE'S STILL TIME! of the real Penelope in Epic but like, even then we can see that she's equally as wild

[aq2003]

has anyone gotten the idea that odysseus' storyline in hades 2 is a depiction/exploration of trauma over his SA and how he's blaming himself for things that were out of his control? because that's the impression i'm getting from what i've seen. he talks about "goddesses" as his "greatest weakness" and that "he's not one to say no to them"...

when mel invites him to the bath, he brings up mortals having different standards for intimacy than gods and how it usually has a more romantic/sexual connotation. she then asks if he's uncomfortable and he has a startled reaction and brings up circe and calypso again (but never actually by name)

(this isn't ship/romance bait btw. odysseus knew mel as a kid and they're stated in-game to have a sibling/uncle-niece relationship)

also he grew apart from penelope after his return, but the game makes a point of showing that his love for penelope and telemachus is what drove him on at all so that element of his character isn't brought into question

[backpackingspace]

Hi yes more unhinged penelope pleaseeee.

[sukibenders]

"Rhaenyra isn't the stepmother, she's the mother who stepped up!"

The HOTD writers themselves are hardly doing anything to support that narrative, so I take this rhetoric with a grain of salt. While I think, in some way, Rhaenyra does care for Baela and Rhaena....if I had to point out a motherly figure for them that could pose as someone stepping in Laena's place, Rhaenyra would not be it.

[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)

[rimouskis]

I know there's a lot of talk about how childfree people are more free to discuss their wants and lives and lifestyles but there is also a lot of talk from parents (specifically mothers) who feel abandoned by society and let down and as someone who is uninterested in kids yet feels deeply for and wants to improve the material conditions of parents in this country..................... it still feels stupidly and frustratingly selfish and hard to watch a friendship deteriorate because of someone's journey into parenthood and the only societally-acceptable message I'm allowed to take from and communicate about it is "it's so hard for parents and we need to give them grace"

[bohemian-nights]

Unpopular Opinion: Every time a black female character (especially if this black female character is dark skinned) enters into a relationship with the popular fan-favorite white male character usually one of three things happen a. the black female character is now headcanoned as a lesbian (never bisexual or queer or anything that would leave the character with the possibility of still entering into a relationship with a man) b. white male character is now shipped with other popular fan-favorite white male character/other white female character (the popular fan-favorite white male character is usually headcanoned to be bisexual and when he is, shipped with a woman that woman is always white) or c. black female character (and sometimes their actresses) is now being talked about as if they are the devil himself.

Wanting characters to explore their sexuality is fine but I always find it odd how this always happens when one member of the relationship is a black/blackish woman. *forgot to mention the suddenly polyamorous relationship the three (black female, white male and white male/woman) characters are now without a doubt in*

Anon you spoke nothing, but facts right here 🙌🏽

(The only thing I’d add is that they don’t just do this when the woman in question is with a white man, see Namor and Shuri and the backlash some shippers got for shipping them).

You aren’t the only one who has been noticing this trend.

I say trend loosely because really just a new stereotype to add to the bunch😒

It would be one thing if it was a want for actual representation, but every time now like clockwork. as soon as they see a Black woman who looks like she’s going to have a romantic arc with said popular fandom man, boom she must be gay😑

Hell, it’s getting so bad that these shows/movies are automatically just writing their Black women characters in that way.

If people can’t see how this can be harmful/dangerous, that’s cool, but anytime you want to paint all of a group a certain way and won’t show them in any other setting, that’s how you end up birthing new stereotypes.

This isn’t creating diversity. It’s limiting it(once again).

It’s so all or nothing with our media representation. Black women don’t want to be shown as one thing(which seems to go right over most people’s heads).

We just want the same opportunities as everybody else and not to be put into one or two narrow boxes of acceptable characterization that doesn’t threaten the status quo(aka you can't have Black women looking desirable especially not when there is an available white woman right there next to her).

[pass3ra]

cressida's storyline was genuinely shameful tbhhh it's like they started rewriting it in the first half of the season then completely forgot about the changes they'd made to make it fit the book plot and it just ends up making everyone else look bad😐 every character in the second half got a "penelope did nothing wrong" lobotomy so we ended up with eloise completely ignoring cressida being sold off to an horrible man (when she made every effort to support her in the first half of the season) and for some reason resenting her for pretending to be lady whistledown? Then they somehow frame her ignoring colin's offensively bad pleas as it being her turning away from redemption when all she's trying to do is escape being trapped in the country with her likely abusive aunt... and it ends with her meeting her horrible fate and it still being framed as tragic only to immediately juxtapose it with the bridgerton family winning the idgaf war while gleefully seeing off francesca and her future dead husband. The bridgertons were the villains of the season frfr

[shannonsketches]

He said "Fuck this shit, I'm out" I'm crying. Toriyama's Vegeta was so top shelf 🤌

(From Neko Majin Z Chapter 5!)

[aliengirl]

how is she pretty in every single color 😭😭😭😭 what do i do

[cryptvokeeper]

I dare not speak it in the tag because I value my energy but no one has the correct opinions about nosferatu 2024 except for me

[squorttle-pox]

idk if it means anything really, but i think it's interesting how after all their time together as a couple in a christianity-adjacent world, lucifer and lilith only had one (1) child, and it was only 200 years ago at that

[anxiously-sidequesting]

This blog is my house so I can say basically whatever I want but I know I have some esteemed guests and friends who come over a lot and some lurkers who peer into the windows so all my wildest ass wizard shit stays in the locked basement where it belongs because it's common courtesy 💖