#someone HUMAN no less

[the-woman-upstairs]

It’s just…so painful to watch Armand readily submit in order to obtain the love he so desperately craves. And while it’s most assuredly a manipulative tactic, it’s still one borne out of fear and desperation. He cannot lose this person he’s come to love and so will become whatever they want, do whatever they want just so they’ll stay with him. But it won’t be enough. No matter how much he acquiesces or seeks to control (himself, others, the environment), he won’t be able to make Louis stay with him in the perfect life, perfect self he built in the hopes of finally being loved. It will all crumble with Armand left alone in the rubble of what he created, the author of his own abandonment.

[lilybug-02]

The Well.

Bug Fact: Bumble bees burrow underground and live in colonies that can contain up to 400 bees.

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Masterpost

[kizzer55555]

DP x DC: The Most Dangerous Card Game

Ok so Danny has essentially claimed earth as his. And he is fully aware that there are constant threats to the planet. Now he can’t stop a threat that originates on earth (that’s something he’ll leave to the Justice league) but he can do something about outside threats. Doing some research on ancient spells, rituals, and artifacts, he cast a world wide barrier on the planet to protect it from hostile threats so they cannot enter. This will prevent another Pariah Dark incident. However, barriers like this come at a price. You see, there are two ways to make a barrier. Either make one powered up by your own energy and power (which would be constantly draining) or set up a barrier with rules. The way magic works is that nothing can be absolutely indestructible. It must have a weakness. The most powerful barriers weren’t the ones reinforced with layer after layer of protective charms and buffed up with power. Those could eventually be destroyed either by being overpowered, wearing them down, or by cutting off the original power source. No, the most powerful barriers were the ones with a deliberate weakness. A barrier indestructible except for one spot. A cage that can only be opened from the outside. Or that can only be passed with a key or by solving a riddle. So Danny chooses this type of barrier and does the necessary ritual and pours in enough power to make it. And he adds his condition for anyone to enter. 

Now the Justice league? Find out about the barrier when Trigon attempts to attack, they were preparing after he threatened what he would do once he got to earth. How he would destroy them. The Justice league tried to take the fight to him first but were utterly destroyed, so they retreated home to tend to their injuries, and fortify earth for one. Last. Stand. Only when Trigon makes his big entrance…he’s stopped.

The Justice league watch in awe as this thin see-through barrier with beautiful green swirls and speckled white lights like stars apears blocking Trigon and his army’s advance. The barrier looks so thin and fragile yet no matter how hard the warlord hits, none of his attacks can get through and neither can he damage said barrier. That’s when Constantine and Zatanna recognizes what this barrier is. Something only a powerful entity could create. For a moment, the league is filled with hope that Trigon can’t get through yet Constantine also explains that it’s not impenetrable. And clearly Trigon knows this too for he calls out a challenge. 

And that’s when, in a flash of light, a tiny glowing teenager appears. He looked absolutly minuscule compared to Trigon and yet practically glowed with power (this isn’t a King Danny AU though).

And that is when the conditions for passing the barrier are revealed. And the Justice realize that the only thing stopping Trigon and his army from decimating earth. The only way he can get through….is by beating this glowing teenager in a card game. 

Not just any card game though. The most convoluted game Sam, Danny, and Tucker invented themselves. It’s like the infinite realms version of magic the gathering, combined with Pokémon, and chess. And Danny is the master. So sit down Trigon and let’s play.

(The most intense card game of the Justice league’s life).

After Danny wins, this happens a few more times with outer word beings and possibly even demons attempting to invade earth, yet none have been able to beat the mysterious teenager in a card game. Constantine might even take a crack at it and try to figure out how to play. He’s really bad though. Every time this happens, the Justice league worry that this might be the time the teenager looses. Yet every time, he wins (even if only barely). 

Meanwhile, Danny, Sam, and Tucker have gotten addicted to the game and play it almost daily. Some teachers might seem them playing the game are are like ‘awww how cute’ not realizing this game is literally saving the world. Jazz is just happy they aren’t spending as much time on their screens playing Doomed.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

He was just being a silly little guy!

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[ruporas]

comfort

[ID START: Illustration of Vash and Wolfwood from Trigun: Maximum. Wolfwood is holding Vash’s head to his chest, his right hand resting gently over his ears and his left hand againtst Vash’s nape. Wolfwood looks at him melancholically as he soothes him. Vash’s eyes are shut, small tears at the corner of his eyes, asleep, and his right hand is holding onto Wolfwood’s arm. Feathered and plant wings are growing out of him, enveloping the both of them like a cocoon, leaving enough space for their heads and arms. The feathered plant wings takes up most of the canvas, colored in dark and muted blues. END]

[veerbles]

my self indulgent dream fic is a canon divergence where adam bought an old secondhand nokia phone when he moved into st. agnes at the end of trb and ronan started texting him at random to spite gansey and declan, whose texts he never answers, and to spite adam, who has a limited texts plan and is anxious about it (although literally no one else ever texts him), and also because he's pathetically pining.

anyway. series retelling where adam and ronan grow closer through texts because being honest feels less terrifying through a screen

[ayakashiz]

Reposting this from my twitter thread because it hasn't left my head (and adding a tiny bit more).

Seen so many questionable takes lately about the ivantill kiss, and I know everyone is allowed to have different opinions and interpretations but.

No, Ivan didn’t just pretend to kiss Till for the show. And no, he wasn't trying to make Till hate him either or trying to trigger him over his implied SA to snap him into action.

I think the whole point of the scene (confirmed by the creators) is Ivan finally breaking his mask of perfection and control and giving in to his messy, all consuming feelings, being selfish for once.

Yes, by the end before the strangling starts, he appears more clear headed and now focused on the objective of manipulating the score. But he doesn't really look at it until AFTER he starts strangling Till.

The kiss itself wasn't part of the strategy, or at least not entirely something calculated. Ivan could have skipped the kiss and strangled Till right away and gotten the same result.

The fact that he kissed him AGAIN after he started strangling him, more softly and 'personal', almost like a goodbye or an apology (whether for his selfishness or for their past), tells me he wanted it.

I think a last selfish act doesn't diminish the love he had for Till, it just shows the tragedy of ALNST. Ivan is only human after all. And no matter what kind of mask he built for himself and what illusion of control he had over his life, when faced with the real, imminent possibility of losing Till, he crumbled and did something unexpected.

I have more to say about the Ivan and Sua parallels and how he finally understands her in the Confession comic etc etc but I think I've yapped enough.

I just don't like it when people try to mold the narrative because they're uncomfortable with an unconsensual kiss. It's meant to be painful and heartwrenching, a reflection on Ivan's one sided-feelings and his desperation at the moment —to be seen for the first (and last) time, to not be left behind, to convey his emotions in the only way he could when being seconds away from death.

After all the team confirmed that Ivan is clumsy with emotions and only knows to convey them in 'childish' ways (the nuzzling against his face, the picking fights with Till and teasing him).

I think some people like to think of the kiss as something purely calculated and selfless because it makes it more 'palatable', but in my opinion this take washes out Ivan's character and the flaws that make him just as human, vulnerable and complex as the rest of the cast. He was willing to throw away his life and his perfect image because he wanted something that badly.

[catholic-on-main]

Hot Truths About Personhood, part 2 Personhood is not a sliding spectrum! No human being can be more or less of a person than any other human being! <3

[moeblob]

[pavlov-sdog]

Something that kills me is how Bell in almost every case seems to hesitate when faced with killing Adler despite the fact they should want to. Yes they can and will kill him, but in most endings it’s not something they seem to jump at the chance to do. Of course theres the lighter in the duga ending and how Bell will indulge him. Bell can also simply not call an ambush even if they unlock the back room which could be interpreted as not wanting to kill Adler/hesitation. 

What i barely see anyone mention really is how debatably they do hesitate on solovetsky too. In my opinion, they had to at the very least have been suspicious that Adler would try something. especially towards the end of his speech. Yet they don’t raise their gun until Adler raises his. Secondly, also in my opinion Bell had a shot lined up just barely before Adler did, yet it seems like they didn’t even shoot. 

This contrasted with how Adler is so ready to kill Bell no matter what really just reinforces their relationship. Adler is not attached to Bell. it certainly seems more personal than he wants to admit, but he’s not attached even if he does ‘respect’ Bell enough to give them a decent death in Solovetsky. However Adler knows Bell is attached to him whether they like it or not and uses that to his advantage which is why he does half the things he does. 

[thermodynamic-comedian]

"there was no way for arthur to save yellow and really he didn't want to be saved at all" and "arthur constantly comparing yellow to john, someone yellow does not remember, and telling him that no matter what he does, he'll never be john, and he'll never be good enough, ultimately contributed to yellow's inability to change" are opinions that not only can co-exist, but actually must. inside my mind.

[quadrantadvisor]

Alright new Jason Todd headcanons in a dpxdc setting:

Danny is a "liminal" ghost, rather than a "half" ghost. He's alive and dead at the same time. (He's like Jesus Christ (in the church denomination I grew up in), fully ghost and fully human.) Danny, in human form, can go through a ghost shield, because he IS a living human.

Jason, however, is a reanimated corpse. He isn't a ghost, wouldn't have a ghost core, etc, he has a normal human system that runs ON ectoplasm. Jason CANNOT go through a ghost shield, because he is always an ectoplasmic entity. Danny can go through the Fenton Ghost Catcher and be split into a ghost and a human; if Jason went through the ghost catcher, he would straight up die.

(For my purposes I'm gonna say that Jason became an ectoplasmic entity upon his resurrection, but wasn't very stable. Dunking in the Lazarus pit stabilized his system but also poisoned his ectoplasm.)

I do think that Jason could learn certain ghost abilities if he learned to harness his ectoplasm, especially if they detoxed him off the Lazarus waters. He's probably already enhancing his stealth and strength in ways he hasn't really noticed. I think he's held back by the amount of physical matter he's lugging around, so maybe he couldn't fly, but I'm imagining temporary invisibility, or intagibility of like, a limb at a time. Maybe he can't walk through walls, but in a fight he can dodge by instinctively making the targeted part of his body intangible.

[pinbones]

There's two types of people who use transandrophobia to decribe transmascs' and trans mens' experiences:

- Simply specificity, language used to hone in on a specific way being trans affects people who just happen to be men

- As both the above and as a springboard to discuss how societal misogyny, radical feminism, gender stereotypes, and bioessentalism affect all people who can be pecieved as men or masculine by others, and how bigotries compound in meaningful ways with stereotypes and bigotry surrounding maleness and manhood

Like. Half of you are saying "maleness is a hollow experience which is standard, and exists in opposition to gendered oppression, and transandrophobia is therefore when dudes experience misogyny and transphobia"

and half of you are saying "Being percieved and/or transitioning towards male uniquely affects how I am treated, because, for example, how people perceive my blackness or mental illness or kinkiness or femininity is compounded with my manhood in ways that don't usually happen to gender conforming cisperi women"

Which are two fundamentally different approaches to transandrophobia as a concept. One suggests that maleness is a simple downy layer of privilege that coats a person through their male life, and the other acknowledges that a man (or somebody perceived as masculine/male) can experience oppression in ways that those NOT perceived male may not.

Only one of these interpretations is intersectional. Black individuals who are policed more hashly when interpreted as masc know they are risking dangerous experiences when transitioning to male, as has been discussed before on here (to no avail). Male or percieved male people with personality disorders are treated as more dangerous than women with similar symptoms, and are sometiems diagnosed with different disorders entirely based on percieved gender differences. This affects transmascs too, especially considering the already dire state of queerness in psychiatric institutions. Being a male birthing parent is a whole shitshow of transphobia because men are not supposed to give birth, and transmascs are lucky to access related healthcare at all, let alone access it without being ceaselessly misgendered and treated as a stigmatised 'other' to deleterious affects on parent and baby. These are just a few examples, there are many more ways maleness can screw a person over. And that's not to say that female privilege is a thing instead of male privilege, but rather to emphasise that men are not supposed to be minorities. Men are not supposed to be assaulted, men are not supposed to be outliers, men are absolutely not supposed to be trans.

When a man is autistic, he's not just autistic, he's an autistic male, and that makes him more likely to be killed by cops (especially if black). When someone says "you claim you're not ableist but you're scared of the homeless x on a bus talking to xself", they always say the person is a man, because that sounds more significant (and cops think so too). Consider when a person's rape/abuse is considered to not be all that serious due to the victim being male, or when a man's attraction is considered to be more exploitative than a woman's, or when a fat man is considered more creepy/sexist than a thin man or a fat woman. Consider why so many caricatures of evil and creepiness are men with deformities. Consider the fact that men's bathrooms don't have baby changing tables, and that a man may get less support from others after their child's death than the mother might. Maleness can negatively compound with things like minority status, vulnerability, aggression, sexuality, etc. in ways that screw that person over, both in social spaces (such as queer communities that dislike/distrust maleness and masculinity, or how isolation affects men harder), and in more tangible ways, like their rates of suicide and being murdered.

There are tangible ways in which transitioning to male can negatively affect a person's life even if you remove (hypothetically, not really possible) the transphobia element, and these also constitute as worthwhile topics of discussion. If you think maleness is the lack of gendered oppression, then you're not intersectional in your feminism at all. If your life as a male is genuinely sunshine and rainbows (apart from the transphobia if trans), then good for you, genuinely that's great, but not everyone lives in a radfem fantasy world.

Being unable to tell the difference between men talking about mens issues/liberation, and right wingers talking about oppressing women more, isn't feminist. It's ignorant and antifeminist. (MRAs don't care about actual mens lib, and are actively worsening it because they are sexist and opposed to gender lib. You guys know that, right? That male and female liberation aren't oppositional or binary, but the same gender liberation that is entirely oppositional to patriarchy?)

These men and mascs talking about issues facing men aren't ignorant womanhaters who deny misogyny and want ultraprivileged men to be coddled, they are good faith members of your community with experiences just as varied and valid as yours. Treat them like 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)

[lonelydipshit]

Getting emotional about the inherent transience of human connection and how we are all only fleeting moments in each other’s lives.

[kyouka-supremacy]

(˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶)